Sadness and the sighing of the aspen-trees! Black water, mist-drenched grass, towering woodlands desolate under the blue! A melancholy that might have seemed beautiful had not the place been cursed with something more than sorrow! Such silence, such emptiness! The Black Death had supped in the Aspen Tower. That was why the place seemed terrible.
Many years had passed since the tournament at Rennes, and as for Tiphaïne of the May-bough—well, Bertrand would hardly have remembered her as she bent over the fire in the lord’s solar and stirred some concoction of herbs and wine that was steaming in a brazen pot. Tall, slim, yet broad across the bosom, her body seemed to take the wine-red tunic that she wore and mould it into curves that were rich in their simplicity. As for her face, it was not beautiful in the easy meaning, save for the blush of rose through the olive skin and the earnestness of the liquid eyes. The mouth was too large, the chin too prominent, the bones too massive. In repose, there was a sternness about it, a maturity of strength strange in one so young. It was as though the spirit had triumphed over matter, and that mere sensuousness could not flood forth the glow of the soul within.
A restless spirit possessed her as she bent over the wood fire, with no living thing save a wolf-hound to keep her company. With a deep intake of her breath she thrust her hands above her head and leaned against the stone hood that projected over the hearth. It was not the hysterical weakness of a girl that spoke in that one gesture, but the restrained anguish of a woman, a woman who felt the terror of the unseen strong about her in that lonely tower.
The dog whimpered and thrust his nose against Tiphaïne’s knee. She bent suddenly, with a melting of her whole figure into tenderness, the hard, staring misery gone from her face.
“Ah, ah, Brunet, how will it end? how will it end?”
The beast licked her hands and put up a huge paw.
“How you would bark, Brunet, if your master came! Yes. I would give my all to see his banner at the gate. They do not know how the Black Death serves us.”
She leaned again against the hood, staring into the fire, her hand still fondling the dog’s ears. It seemed to comfort her to touch something that was warm and real, something in which the blood flowed. She had seen man after man sicken and surrender to the pestilence. She still heard their delirious cries, the chattering terror of the women who had crowded round her clamoring to be let loose to starve in the woods. Was it all a dream? Were the graves in the garden real, the smell of death in the place nothing but a grim illusion? She remembered the swollen and disfigured faces, the cries for water, the sordid horror of each hour of the day. Yet it was all true, so true that she wondered why the pest had spared her.
Rousing herself at last, as though casting cowardice fiercely out of her heart, she set her teeth and took up a cup that stood on a stool before the fire.
“There are Jehanot and Guy,” she said, talking to the dog as though he understood her; “they are at work; we must remember them, Brunet; and poor Enid, who used to give you sops.”