So the sun climbed, descended, and set in the west, beating on the distant peaks with vapours of crimson and gold. Knight Tristan rode at the head of his men, his eyes fixed on the far mountains, the purple slopes that rose from the plain, the icy glimmer of the snow-white heights. He rode as a man who considered death, to whom the unknown stretched out like an unsailed sea. There was great loneliness upon Tristan’s soul that evening, for all the love seemed to have left his life, and all his battlings to have ended in bitterness. In the hour of trial Rosamunde had failed him, had hid her face from him behind the mask of pride. Nor cared he greatly what might befall from that hour, since death would honour him when hope stood apart.
Night came with a round moon swimming in a sky of dusky azure studded with the faces of many stars. Tristan halted his men to rest them and their horses on the march, for though the hours were precious, he would not deny them the sleep that they needed. They off-saddled at a little shrine by the roadside, a shrine dedicated to St. Geneviève by some good matron dead and gone. Roses clambered about the walls and slim cypresses streaked the misty grass where a little pool caught the light of the moon. A grove of poplars stood near in a broad meadow, the night breeze playing in their mighty tops.
As for Tristan, he had no hope of sleep, for there were thoughts moving in his brain, tramping like restless sentinels to and fro. The night seemed full of ghostly voices, crying to him out of the dark. He heard his mother’s voice, even as he had heard it as a little child when his hands clung to the folds of her gown. Also he listened to Columbe weeping, as she had wept once in Purple Isle long ago. Yet Rosamunde’s clear tones topped them all. He remembered the songs he had heard her sing in distant Joyous Vale to the women and children of Ronan’s town. For him, perhaps, she would sing no more. Tristan found himself wondering in his heart whether she would weep if he died in the mountains. Perhaps her anger would melt away when she learnt that she had lost his love for ever.
Tristan passed the night alone under the stars, pacing to and fro on the white road, with the wind playing in the poplar tops. Often he stood leaning upon his spear, gazing towards the mountains whose snowy peaks gleamed like white marble in the distant south. Yonder in the yawning passes and under the huge and savage crags he would meet Serjabil and his men, rear up his shield against their lances. There was much of the soldier’s joy in the thought that his sword would be measured against the scimitar.
Soon the dawn came, a golden haze rising in the east. The poplars caught the streaming light; in the meadows silvery mists smoked up; the far woods glistened, seemed to tongue forth flame.
From the gloom of the north a faint sound shivered on the wind. Tristan heard it and stood erect, peering along the empty road that ran so straight under the tall trees. The sound seemed to grow with the rising dawn, to swell into the thunder of many hoofs, the clash and clangour of hurrying steel. Vague lightnings came flashing from the gloom, shield and helmet mimicking the east. Huge mist-wrapped figures loomed out of the north, mailed phantoms pressing through the vapoury dawn along the white road betwixt the trees. A trumpet sounded beside the shrine. Tristan’s men came crowding up through the long grass amid the burning cypresses.
A trumpet’s scream answered Tristan’s challenge. Along the road rolled a hundred spears behind Blanche the Duchess on her great white horse, the Banner of the Bleeding Heart blowing above. They came to a halt before the shrine amid an eddying cloud of dust. Tristan and his men ran to meet the Duchess, cheering her mightily with great good will.
Blanche, big-hearted woman that she was, had straightway turned when Percival had ridden in with Tristan’s message concerning the Saracens. She had sent a rider to overtake Lothaire, bidding him march south again with all his men. Not waiting for him to join her, she had used whip and spur in her gallant haste to bring Tristan succour. Only her bodyguard, some hundred spears, had followed her past Agravale towards the mountains.
Blanche climbed down from her jaded horse and met Tristan face to face on the dusty road. The soldiers on either side stood back out of rough respect to these two great ones whose hands were clasped in the cause of the Cross. Though Blanche was weary with hard riding, her splendid spirit seemed unquenched, her courage fresh as the broadening dawn. Her eyes were very bright as they gazed on Tristan’s: she smiled at him dearly, held out her hands.
“Old friend,” she said, “we meet again.”