CHAPTER XXXVIII
A strange yet beautiful timidity had fallen upon Rosamunde when Tristan next darkened the doorway of the room. He had left her to Miriam’s care, and, after sending in wine and food from his sumpter mules, had contented himself with giving the hapless dead fit burial. With Telamon, his man, at his heels, he had passed through all the vaults, chambers, and galleries of the place, that he might rest assured that no starving wretches were left therein. In one damp cell he found an old man dead. Between them they carried him out into the sun, buried him apart from the grim gatherings of the court.
When the west grew red over the hills, Tristan passed alone into the garden and climbed the stairway to Rosamunde’s room. The Lady of Joyous Vale was seated on a carved oak settle, her hair uncoifed, falling in rich folds upon her neck. The strange timidity upon her face was the more eloquent by reason of her old-time pride. Miriam crept out and left the two together; in the garden she found Telamon, and since the youth coloured when she spoke to him, she was not afraid of letting her eyes grow bright.
Tristan le Sauvage stood before Rosamunde, a great tenderness lighting his gaunt face so that it seemed transfigured in the woman’s eyes. It was not the Tristan she had known of old, the sullen and over-strenuous boy, who blushed and stammered with his tongue. The man who stood before her was in his mighty prime, terrible in wrath, tender to weak things, fearless as a god. This Tristan had passed through deep waters, had faced death and defeated despair. The soul in him was greater than of yore, even because he had known sorrow and climbed to the summit of a more tragic strength.
Rosamunde, pale, penitent, discovered the great parable of life eloquent against herself. It was she who had ruled Tristan in the days that had passed away. Love and the deep passion-throes of life had changed the charm, strengthening the man, mellowing the woman. She conceived strange awe of Tristan as she gazed on his face that night, and saw the deep lines sorrow and pain had marked thereon.
Half timidly she beckoned him to the carved bench, even with the shyness of one who was half ashamed.
“Tristan,” she said, “we are more silent than of old.”
The man seemed sunk in thought for the moment as he gazed upon her face.
“We learn to be silent,” he answered her, “by reason of the rough realities of life. Am I the rude boy, Rosamunde, whom you pitied and helped of yore?”
She coloured, and her eyes grew deep with shadows. There was some bitterness in Tristan’s voice, even as though the memory of her own mere pity still weighed upon his soul. She grew meek before him with a simplicity that surprised even her own heart. In the old days her pride would have tinged her lips with scorn. Yet now that love had come and opened her whole heart, the petty prides of life had shrivelled and decayed.
“Tristan,” she said, “God knows, you are much changed to me. Sit here beside me. Must I then ask you twice?”
Tristan obeyed her in silence, resting one great arm on the carved back of the settle. The two were half turned towards each other, casting questioning glances into each other’s eyes; for as yet neither had fathomed the depths of the other’s heart.
It was Rosamunde who first set pride aside with much of the innocence of a little child.
“Tristan,” she said, with the look of one whose heart beat hurriedly, “am I to be forgiven?”
“Forgiven!” he echoed her.
“For the ingratitude I gave to you of old. I was a proud fool in those dead days. Tristan, I am wiser now.”
He caught a deep breath, bent slightly towards her, gazing in her face.
“I remember no ingratitude,” he said.
“You cannot cheat me into loving my old self.”
He still looked into her eyes, doubtingly, like a man half disbelieving a dawning truth.
“Rosamunde,” he said, “in those days I was but a rough and impetuous boy. God knows, I served you, even as a rude soldier would have served one throned above him in the hearts of many. What then was Tristan, that he should lift his eyes to yours?”
She coloured and bowed down her head. Her hands were folded upon her bosom; she swayed slightly, even as a woman needing the strength of a strong man’s arm.
“Nay, Tristan,” she said, stammering over the words, “the fault was mine, and I, proud fool, have learnt my lesson. All the horror and heaviness of life have made me wise. What was Rosamunde that she should refuse a heart of gold?”
Tristan stretched out a hand, stooped, and looked into her face.
“Rosamunde,” he said.
“Have I not seen misery enough?”
“The truth, the truth!”
“Before God, Tristan, take and guard me from the world.”
His hands held hers; she crept close to him, and hid her face upon his shoulder. Her bright hair bathed his face; his great arms compassed her, drew fast about her body. Presently she lifted up her face to his, a dim glory thereon, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.
“Kiss me, Tristan,” she said to him.
He touched her lips with his.
“At last—peace,” she said, with a great sigh.
“Peace,” he answered her, as though his whole manhood stooped over her in prayer.
Thus did Tristan of Purple Isle win Rosamunde for his lady, after much pain and peril, travail and grim endeavour. A good sword and a stout heart had won him knighthood in strange lands, honour of all men, and the gold crown of love. To Tristan and Rosamunde their joy was full, tinged with the strangeness that breathes in all beauty, either in faith or desire, or in the mysterious deeps of Nature. Perhaps the woman was happier than the man, in that sorrow burdened him, and in the lightening of such sorrow lay a woman’s gladness. That night in the madhouse they talked much of Columbe and of Samson the Heretic. The dear dead were with them in the full life of love.
On the morrow, a golden morrow, they took horse for Agravale, Rosamunde riding on a white mule that Tristan had taken at Marvail. Young Telamon bore Miriam behind him on his horse; the flaxen poll and the black curls were well accorded. Tristan and Rosamunde watched the by-play, riding close together and smiling into each other’s eyes.
It was past noon before they saw the far towers of Agravale smite athwart the tranquil blue. Once more the woods were green and generous, for the fire had been stayed by the broad valleys that clove deep into the dusky woods. At a roadside cross Tristan fell in with a company of the Duchess’s men who were on the watch for him at the edge of the forest. They had staunch news for Tristan, the last triumph-cry of the heretics’ war, for but yesterday Lothaire had surprised Benedict of the Mountains in the open land to the west of Agravale.
Black Benedict and the southern barons, flying before the forest fire, had retreated on Agravale to throw themselves therein. Lothaire, coming up by forced marches from the west, had thrust himself between the southrons and the city. There had been a fierce battle of horse on the outskirts of the forest. In the midst of the tussle Blanche and her columns had plunged upon the scene and turned the battle into a rout. Benedict and the great part of his ruffians had been hemmed in and slain fighting to a finish amid the glooms of the forest.
That evening Tristan and his company came from the woods, and saw before the walls of Agravale all the chivalry of the north and of the Seven Streams ranged under arms in the meadows about the banner of the Duchess. In the centre, raised upon a mound of earth, stood Columbe’s coffin, covered with purple cloth. Beyond the thousand spears the towers and battlements of Agravale gleamed white above the woods. Far to the south the great mountains stood, purple and gold, coroneted with snow, crimsoned by the setting sun.
That evening before the walls of Agravale Blanche rode down alone on her great white horse to greet Tristan and Rosamunde the Lady of Joyous Vale. The Duchess had tuned her heart to a noble strain. Setting pride and passion behind her back, she rode down like the splendid woman that she was, to rejoice with those whose hearts were glad.
Tristan and Rosamunde dismounted before her, went to her like children, hand in hand, two pilgrims who had knelt at a common shrine. Blanche descended from off her horse, Tristan holding the stirrup, giving her his hand. He did not guess how heavy was her heart.
“Old friend,” she said, smiling half sadly in his face, “is not your joy mine, though my hair is grey?”
She went to Rosamunde, held her hands, kissed her upon the forehead, as though she had been her daughter.
“Child,” she said, “God has blessed thee in this. A good man’s love is worth much travail. Has he not come through much peril towards your face? For when the heart is noble the truth comes first.”