The monk knelt to her while she bound the green cloth about his forehead. Tristan stood apart from them, his eyes still ablaze, his great chest rising and falling beneath his hauberk. Jealousy, quenched for the moment, rose again in the hot blood that played about his brain. Turning upon his heel with a last glance at the man lying against the tree, he strode away towards the horses, where the woman Isabel stood with a face white as swan’s-down. To her querulous terror he gave no heed, for there was still bitterness gnawing at his heart. If he had been the wounded one, would Rosamunde have rent her gown?
Some minutes passed before she came towards them under the trees. She came alone, pale and distraught, yet cold outwardly as stone. Samson had parted from her in the woods; their words had been brief, significant as silence. She said nothing to the two who waited; pointed them to their saddles, and neither dared to question her, so imperious and clouded was her face. Then they mounted, rode out, and headed homewards over the fields.
CHAPTER VIII
Rosamunde, pale and silent, rode through the thickets that clothed the castle hill. Not a word had she spoken either to Tristan or to Isabel since she had parted with Samson in the wood. Her face seemed frozen into an unnatural calm, as though she strove to mask the passions that worked within. There was a deeper significance in the adventure than either Isabel or Tristan had imagined.
They wound through the gardens where the sunlight slept upon the lawns, and came through a myrtle thicket to the great gate. The place was deserted, steeped in the noon silence. Tristan, clattering in at a word from Rosamunde, woke a groom sleeping on a bench in the stable court, and sent the man out to take the horses. Rosamunde stood under the shadow of the gate. There was an angry calm upon her face, a statuesque scorn that seemed to prophesy of what should follow.
“Come with me—be silent, both.”
These were her only words to them as she turned towards the terrace, white above the green gardens spread below. At the entry of the passage leading to the great hall and the tower she turned on Tristan and Isabel with a rapid stare from her unwavering eyes. There was deep meaning in that glance of hers. Tristan felt it, even as a bolt piercing his hauberk. With it she challenged his faith, his loyalty towards her as a woman. Laying a finger on her lip, she beckoned them to follow.
Following in silence, they passed the gallery, climbed a short stair, found themselves in a dark entry set back in the thickness of the wall. A streak of light showed where a door stood. Rosamunde, lifting the latch, peered in and entered. Tristan and the woman followed her. They could hear nothing else save each other’s breathing.
A long room stretched with lessening shadow towards a tall window opening on the south, and hangings, green and gold, covered the walls. Eight carved pillars ascended towards the dark vault above. At a table near the window sat a man with his back turned towards the door; the table was littered with fragments of glass, colours, brushes, and illumined scrolls. The man by the window was bending over a glass panel, enamelling a red rose thereon with unsteady hand. He seemed oblivious of the three who watched him from the doorway.
Rosamunde, with her torn robe gathered in her hand, moved into the room, with a glance thrown at Tristan over her shoulder. Following, he stood behind her in the shadow, watching her every movement. She gestured to him to strike one of the pillars with the scabbard of his sword. As the clangour sounded through the room, the man by the table twisted on his chair, sprang up and stared at them, dropping his brush on the stone paving at his feet.