The man with the sword tossed back his hood. He and Rosamunde were alone together; the lamps flung their wavering light down upon his face. Rosamunde, knowing him in a moment, fell back and leant against a pillar. It was Jocelyn of Agravale, who had trapped her in Holy Guard.
CHAPTER XXXI
At Sanguelac the Tower of the Dead was lit with many cressets. Pierced with a hundred ruddy stars, it lifted its grey parapet to the sky, while the bells clashed in the belfry near. The men of the Seven Streams were mourning for Samson their leader; they wore black scarves over their hauberks, and had painted black bands athwart their shields. Tristan had set the bells of the town tolling, in memory of the great heart that beat no more. Samson’s mantle had fallen on Tristan’s shoulders; as for Blanche the Duchess, she was content to follow him.
It was night; and in the abbey in the town, whence such monks had long fled who had not turned heretics under Samson’s preaching, the Duchess Blanche was housed with her knights and nobles. Tristan was with her in the abbot’s parlour, also Lothaire, her chief captain, and the knights of her guard. They had framed their plans for the march on Marvail, where Jocelyn had left Count Reynaud encamped, while he, proud regenerator of the Seven Streams, had ridden towards Holy Guard to obey St. Pelinore. The Bishop had left Count Reynaud at Marvail, both to overawe the heretics and to preserve him in ignorance. So pious a knight might have used his honour to weigh the balance against Jocelyn’s romancing.
With the conference ended, Lothaire and his knights went to their quarters, leaving Tristan and the Duchess alone together, save for two women who had attended her from the north. The night was clear, and through the open window the winter stars were shining; beneath the abbey a hundred roofs gleamed down to the midnight of the woods. Blanche had drawn to the open window, and Tristan stood by her leaning on his sword. The two women were stitching a black cross in the midst of the Duchess’s banner, a cross that commemorated Samson’s death.
Blanche, in the rich autumn of her woman’s heart, had drawn nigh unto Tristan, even so as to renew the springtide of her youth. There was that fierce and uncompromising honour in him that made him doubly strong in a woman’s eyes. Moreover, he went heavily through life that winter season, yet with the grim fatefulness of a man possessed. Blanche’s heart had opened to his, half with a maiden’s love, half with a mother’s.
Tristan was morose that night as he stood beside her staring at the stars. On the morrow they were to march on Marvail, to smite those men who had crucified Samson beyond the river. Storm clouds were massing over the Seven Streams, and many a fierce soldier had sworn dire things to his own heart.
The Duchess Blanche was troubled for Tristan as they gazed at the bare woods dark under the stars. There was that strange tenderness upon the woman’s face that illumines the countenance of one who loves. Her eyes were kind under her silvery hair.
“Tristan,” she said, “must a man live for vanished days alone?”
He turned his eyes from the heavens, leant more heavily upon his sword.