“The Lorient,” he said; “then we are but ten leagues from the sea.”
“By nightfall we should come to Holy Guard.”
He sank back again upon the bed with a spasmodic catching of the breath as the barb twinged in his wounded side. Fresh blood stained the linen bands. He coughed and winced as Blanche knelt by him and gave him wine out of an earthen flask.
“Courage, Tristan, courage,” she said; “for by God’s grace we shall bring you to Holy Guard before the night shall come again.”
So the day passed, and the great Gloire coursed on with broadening grandeur towards the sea. The silent thickets clambered down to where the glittering inlets played on sandy banks and amid the sedges. Ever the meadows lay between, streaked with green rushes and with golden flags, while the sky seemed full of thunder clouds, of light and shadow, and of shimmering mists that wreathed the hills with golden smoke. Ever the great trees seemed to sing of death as the barge swept on towards the sea.
CHAPTER XLVII
It was sunset at Holy Guard, and a strong wind blew from over the sea, where the tide was low, and the sands were purpled with the shadows of the clouds. The breakers were white on the distant rocks and about the black islands scattered there upon the bosom of the sea.
Ruin possessed Holy Guard, for Jocelyn’s men had laboured hard to fulfil the commands of the mighty Pelinore. Thus in the old days the Church knew well how to use the saints she herself had created. She could conjure with many a magic name and frighten the froward with the shades of the dead. Such prelates as Jocelyn could cheat their own creed with a cunning that claimed Heaven, though born of the Devil.
The chapel roof of Holy Guard had fallen in on the broken pillars and the grass-grown floor. The frescoes rotted on the walls, and through the empty casement frames shone vistas of sea and sky and wood. The wild voice of the wind played through the abbey, the red fires of the sunset glimmered in, and moonlight pierced the broken roof. Bats and sea-birds haunted the shadows ’mid the creaking and clashing of the doors and the hoarse roar of the waves beneath.
At a ruined window in the Abbess’s room stood Rosamunde of Joyous Vale looking out towards the night. Telamon and his men were quartered below in the bare refectory and the empty cells. On a rough stool in the midst of the room sat the girl Miriam, whom Tristan had saved with Rosamunde from the madhouse in the mere.