“Would you love a man,” he answered her, “who played the coward and fled from fighting for Christ and the Cross?”
“You are no coward,” she retorted hotly. “I, Rosamunde of Joyous Vale, can swear to that. But as for this madness, I will not praise it; you can play the hero without being a fool.”
“It is not folly,” he said very patiently.
“But why tempt death,” she cried again, “because your hot courage spurs you on? Wait till the King and the Duchess come, till the Southern Marches teem with steel and a thousand banners blow to the wind.”
“By then,” he said, shaking his head, “Serjabil and his men will have crossed the mountains and given the countryside over to rapine.”
“What of the countryside?” she retorted, growing less generous as her impatience increased. “Who set the torch to the great forests, and burnt homes and hamlets in the cause of God?”
Tristan started and caught his breath, as though she had turned a sword against his heart.
“Why taunt me,” he said, “because I fought for you and Samson and the Seven Streams? It was against the ruffians of the Church that I fired the forest. God judge me if I did ill. The greater be my duty now to guard the weak against the strong.”
“Not so,” she said, with a flood of bitterness; “the sword is more to you than a woman’s heart. It is your glory that you love, your strength and your great fame. I, a mere woman, must give way to honour. For you are afraid, Tristan, lest men should jeer.”
Tristan clung by patience even though her taunts were the more bitter by reason of their ingratitude. Though he had imagined that Rosamunde would have sped him with brave words, even to death if God so willed it, he took her anger more as the anger of a child than the strong purpose of a grown woman. Therefore he stood out before her, convinced of honour, and sure in his own heart that she would turn to him when the impetuous mood had passed.