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.