That evening before the walls of Agravale Blanche rode down alone on her great white horse to greet Tristan and Rosamunde the Lady of Joyous Vale. The Duchess had tuned her heart to a noble strain. Setting pride and passion behind her back, she rode down like the splendid woman that she was, to rejoice with those whose hearts were glad.
Tristan and Rosamunde dismounted before her, went to her like children, hand in hand, two pilgrims who had knelt at a common shrine. Blanche descended from off her horse, Tristan holding the stirrup, giving her his hand. He did not guess how heavy was her heart.
“Old friend,” she said, smiling half sadly in his face, “is not your joy mine, though my hair is grey?”
She went to Rosamunde, held her hands, kissed her upon the forehead, as though she had been her daughter.
“Child,” she said, “God has blessed thee in this. A good man’s love is worth much travail. Has he not come through much peril towards your face? For when the heart is noble the truth comes first.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
The Duchess Lilias, white sinner that she was, had fled from Agravale and taken horse for the East Lands with all her men. Great fear had seized upon those in the city when the northern sky had gleamed with the fringes of the fire. Under cover of night they had fled in a panic out of Agravale, men, women, and children, the monk and the merchant, the great lady and the hag. Unreasoning fear had seized on every heart, for they remembered the sacking of Ronan’s town, and the foul deeds done by their soldiery in the province of the Seven Streams. Rumour had mouthed the report in Agravale that the heretics and the men of the north would sack the city in revenge for the harrying of the Seven Streams. When news was brought of Benedict’s overthrow, there was much wailing through all the city. In their panic the whole population fled out of Agravale, after gathering such valuables as they could carry—gold cups, precious stones, money bags, bales of silk. Many of the aged and the sick were left within the walls, abandoned in the fierce terror of the moment. As for the priests, they were the first to be gone, having a jealous reverence for the ecclesiastical sanctity.
Thus when Blanche’s trumpets rang out before the walls there came no shrill counterblast, no bristling up of spears. They seemed to challenge a city of the dead, white and voiceless, sunk in the mystery of the solemn woods. The gates were open, the streets silent, the towers and battlements devoid of life. There was no brave clamour to tell of courage, no clangour of bells, no blowing of trumpets.
Lothaire and his captains had suspected treachery at first, some subtle trap or priestly ambush.
“Tread warily, madame,” he said to his lady. “Who knows what devilry lurks in such silence?”