Before them lay St. Isidore’s Gate, a colossal rent betwixt two mountains, full of gloom even under the noon sun. Tristan and the Duchess scanned the pass, while the peasant told them how the road ran. At one point it dwindled to a narrow track, on the one hand a precipice plunging down, on the other the bluff shoulder of the mountain rising straight towards the sky. A great rock half closed the narrow track, and the gap was known as St. Isidore’s Gate. It was a point that could be held, the peasant said, by twenty men against a thousand. Nor could they be outflanked save by one wild track that led over the mountains towards the east.
Blanche laid a hand on Tristan’s shoulder.
“Let us give to Bertrand, my best knight, some eight score men to keep this path over the mountains. You and I, Tristan, can hold the pass together.”
The man looked into her fearless eyes, at the face so strong and yet so tender. Once more he besought her to consider her safety, and to remain with Bertrand on the slopes above.
“You are of greater worth,” he argued, “than we rough men, whose business it is to make play with the sword.”
But in Blanche’s soul deeper thoughts were moving towards the coming crisis. She loved Tristan, and in that hour when death was spreading forth his wings she took less pains to dissemble the truth. In the half-wistful sacrifice of herself she lost none of the dignity of her heart. Her rare womanliness seemed to stand the higher, even because her love was a noble thing.
“Tristan,” she said to him, “am I better than my men? Think you they will be the worse for having a woman in their ranks?”
“God knows,” he answered her, looking in her eyes, “we shall fight the better if you are with us in the pass.”
“Therefore,” she said, smiling a little, “you argue against your own plea. Is it not a woman’s joy to stand fast by those whom she has loved?”
“Madame,” he answered her, colouring to the lips, “would we were worthy of so great love.”