Drawing near, he put his cowl back from his face, kissed the hand she stretched to him, held her stirrup while she dismounted. She cast her bridle over Tristan’s wrist, threw a rapid glance at him as he sat hunched and sullen upon his horse.
“Wait,” she said with an imperious tone tinging her voice, “watch, keep guard.”
Tristan, turning with a word, took the white palfrey and his own black horse, tethered them to a tree on the eastern side of the ride. Isabel had joined him on her mule, a smile on her broad mouth as she noted the man’s sour face. Samson and Rosamunde were pacing the grass together, looking in each other’s eyes as they talked. There was much on either tongue, question and counter-question, words as to the war and the gathering in the south.
The woman Isabel had slipped lightly from her mule. She was a plump, yellow-skinned wench, with roguish eyes and a red patch of colour over either cheek-bone. Her tongue was equal to her temper. Tristan, leaning against the trunk of a tree, paid no heed to her as he stared at Samson and the lady. The man’s stride spoke of his power; he gesticulated as he talked, and his words flowed fast. Rosamunde’s green gown swept the grass in stately fashion. She walked with arched neck and supple waist, her hair glimmering under its golden net, her red-slippered feet gliding glibly over the turf. Tristan gazed at her and marvelled. For the moment he half hated her for her loveliness and for the calm pride that kept him chained.
He awoke to find the woman Isabel at his elbow, peering with parted lips into his face. She smiled in her eyes as they met his, touched her mouth with a fat white hand, moved nearer to him with a little rustle of a sigh like a summer breeze through orange bloom.
“Coz, we are well sorted,” she said with a titter. “A silver cross for your thoughts, boy. Why so sour of face?”
Tristan scowled at her betwixt the brows, and unbent nothing to her coquetry.
“Ha, cousin,” he said, “men find the moon dull when the sun is away.”
“Sun!” she retorted, “you ugly stump! Keep your eyes wide. I am too bright for such as you.”
“Shine hard,” he said to her with a smile. “I shall have no need of a shield.”