They passed down from the tower, for the wind was keen and the night was gathering in the east. Samson had news upon his tongue, and as they paced the court together, he told Tristan of all that had passed since he had wandered in the south. A champion had risen up to preserve the province of the Seven Streams and to fling a broad shield over the broken land.
Blanche, Duchess of the Northern Wilds, had fallen in the past under the spell of Samson’s preaching, and with her nobles she had received the heresy. That same summer the noise of the dark deeds done in the province of the Seven Streams had come to her over the southern borders. Being a woman of heroic temper, she had risen in wrath over the burning of Ronan’s town and the slaughter Jocelyn’s men had made in the land. She had summoned her liegemen to her in her city by the northern sea, and had put before them the wrongs of the Seven Streams.
“For,” quoth she to her knights and freemen, “Pope or no Pope, let us end this butchery. Since our lord the King cannot keep peace in his provinces, by our Lord Christ in heaven, I, Blanche the Duchess, will stay the strong from murdering the weak.”
Now the King who ruled those lands was but the creature of a lawless court, the tool of fair women, the puppet of the priests. His great vassals flouted him when they would, and made war on each other like petty kings, filling the land with war and turmoil. Hence Blanche that autumntide had crossed her borders, and daring her suzerain to hinder her, had marched with her men for the Seven Streams. Of all this Samson told Tristan as they paced the court under the darkening sky.
Thus early that winter, at Samson’s desire, Tristan rode out with a hundred spears to bring the Duchess Blanche to Tor’s Tower by the sea. It was gusty weather, with the grey sky smitten through with stormy light and the woods scattering their last largesse of gold to the wind. Tristan rode over the moors with his hundred men, and about noon on the second day saw the lances of the Duchess’s men pricking along a sandy track that wound amid knolls of heather towards the sea.
Tristan, having sent forward a herald, watched their oncoming from the crest of a low hill. A woman rode in the near van, mounted on a great white horse, its harness of scarlet leather bossed with gold. She was clad in green, and carried a light spear with a silver pennon tongueing from its throat. Tristan doubted not that she was the Duchess, the most splendid woman of her age, who had saved her duchy by her own good courage from the greedy onslaughts of many neighbouring lords. She had built up a strong power in the north, and her people worshipped her almost as a saint.
Tristan rode down and met the Duchess at the head of her men. She was a big woman, whose jet black hair was thickly streaked with silvery strands. Her face was as fresh as a young girl’s, with but few wrinkles about the eyes that beamed and flashed over the world. From her stately throat to her large white hands, she was full of rich and vigorous life. No longer young, she had kept her beauty, even as good fruit mellows under the autumn sun.
Tristan bent the knee to her without constraint, for from the first glance he had taken her measure, and marked the queenliness that all true men honoured. She sat on her white horse and looked him over as he stood in the road with his drawn sword set point downwards in the sand. As for Tristan, he felt that the woman’s eyes searched and considered his whole heart, and that honour stood for fame before her face.
“So, sir, you are from Tor’s Tower?” she said to him, smiling down. “My war-wolves follow me to give Samson succour. Think you we can make the place by night?”
“It is some ten leagues to Tor’s Tower,” Tristan answered her, “and too much marching will tire your men.”