That night the Lady of Joyous Vale lay long awake, thinking of Tristan and his great love. Her heart cried out for a strong man’s chivalry, for the passionate tenderness of such a homage. Holy Guard and Jocelyn had broken her pride; she was as a child once more lifting her face to the lips of love. To be saved from shame, this was her prayer.
Lying awake in the moonless gloom, tossing under the coverlet with her hair spread around, she listened to Miriam’s quiet breathing. The casements showed grey in the wall before her. Feverish, she rose up from her bed, drew a cloak round her, knelt by one of the open windows. The night air played upon her face. Overhead a thousand stars were shining, while the silent lake glimmered beneath.
Rosamunde bowed herself over the sill, leant her head upon her arms, and wept from sheer pain and weariness of heart. Life seemed sealed against all hope. Violence and infamy hemmed her in; she was mewed in this island amid mad folk and worse, the idle sport of a worthless priest. She had become again as a little child, hungry for love, afraid of the dark. Her heart cried out for Tristan there, that rough face lit by its honest eyes, that strength that no single arm could stay. He was the one man who could win her soul, guard her from all terror and the world’s evil leer.
As she wept that night under the stars, she made a passionate prayer to Heaven.
“O God,” cried her heart, “send Tristan hither. Grant that he may love me as he loved of old. Hear this my prayer, O Father of heaven. For lo, I have broken the pride in my heart, and lo, I love Tristan, and would be his wife. Hear me, God, and save me from shame.”
She knelt a long while gazing up at the stars. The tears came no more to dim her eyes; a sudden wind stirred the trees in the garden. The sound seemed as a still voice answering her prayer, a voice that whispered—
“Peace, God has heard thee.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
While Rosamunde was held a prisoner in the madhouse in the mere, Tristan and the Duchess had turned back from the west and marched again on Marvail and the fords of the Lorient. Having dealt with Jocelyn and dispersed his people, they were ready to revenge them for Samson’s death, and for the ruin wrought in the Seven Streams. They had sworn together, they and their nobles, to humble Agravale and to end the crusades that the priests had preached in that same city.
At Marvail Tristan had set craftsmen at work upon two coffins of seasoned wood. The larger was framed for Jocelyn the Bishop; Tristan had him laid alive therein, and the lid fastened over him with thongs of leather. Two holes were left in the lid over Jocelyn’s face, so that he might breathe and take his food. Imprisoned thus, he was carried on a litter pole on the march, while beside him was borne the empty coffin covered with the Sacred Banner blessed by the Pope.