Tristan, strong man that he was, blundered out from the hall much as Peter fled from before the face of Christ. The thrust was perhaps the more bitter seeing that he was innocent, nay, brimming with ardent faith. The night breeze played upon his face as he reached the terrace; the stars were bright in the heavens, the moon streaming up through mountainous clouds. Pools of gloom lay between the fields of silvery vapour. Houses were burning in the town below, a red haze of smoke and light pouring from the place as from a pit.
Tristan, stung with shame, hurried out through the bloodstained court to the gardens fathoms deep in gloom. A sudden frost seemed to have fallen upon his heart, though his face still burnt with the blaze of Rosamunde’s scorn. The last look from her eyes seemed colder to him than the glances of the stars. Great passionate boy that he was, the wrong stung him like the hatred of a lost friend. Had not Rosamunde kissed him on the forehead that very day? He threw himself down on a grass bank and wept, and the damp grass licked his face as he rolled restlessly from side to side.
The newly inspired chivalry sank before the spear of rebellious pride. As for Rosamunde, had he not served her well? Martyrs and saints! was he deserving of such infidelity at her hands? The woman was a fool, had no wit in her to read the true cunning of a man’s endeavours. She was fickle as moonlight, quick to mistrust at the first mutterings of doubt. Moreover, he had wept over the injustice, he, Tristan the iron-faced, who had never puled since he left the cradle. Ha! if this was gratitude and faith, he would think no more of Joyous Vale, and this proud-lipped dame who conceived all men to have been born her lackeys.
Full of such callow spite as this, Tristan floundered up, tightened his sword belt, brushed the moisture from his face, passed on towards the town. Soldiers were returning from the castle, cursing and shouting under the trees. Rough horseplay ruled the road. Men were riding on each other’s shoulders, singing, scuffling, quarrelling as they went. Tristan, shy of such company for the moment, kept to the dark and the paths through the thickets. He strode on morosely, eating his own heart, letting his temper rage with the uncontrolled sincerity of youth.
Entering the town by a narrow by-lane, he bore for the market-place, where the waves of riot ran high. The Papal troops were as wild beasts let loose in an arena, and mere human flesh seemed an insignificant sacrifice for their savage zeal. Men were even hewing down the houses with axe and hammer, as though to leave no stone or beam unbroken in the place. Children were tossed from the attic windows on the bristling spears beneath. The wild pirates from the old pagan north had never worked more savagely than these children of the Cross.
Tristan’s anger began to cool apace before he had gone far through the streets of the town. No such tortures had been known in Purple Isle as were perpetrated here under the benediction of the Church. Men put indiscriminately to the sword, women dishonoured, children thrown from the flaming houses. The streets were full of death and despair; the very town was a great slaughter-house. Horror descended like a cloud on Tristan’s brain. He was weak as a frightened child for the moment amid the devastation of the night. The anger oozed from him like wine from a cracked jar. Only a great and empty pity remained in its stead.
Coming to the market square, he stood as one dazed by the terrific action of a dream. The place was packed with drunken men, wearing indeed the livery of the Church, yet appearing with their flaming torches more as the acolytes of hell. Great stakes had been set in the midst of the square, faggots and the timbering of ravaged houses piled around. Even as Tristan watched from under the low eaves of a house, a knot of soldiers passed him, bearing on their shoulders the figure of a man. He was so swathed in cordage as to look like an encased mummy. Setting the victim against a stake, they chained him there, buffeting and spitting in his face, as he had been the Christ. Torches licked at the faggots, and deep ululations ran through the square with the strident psalming of the monks for an underchant. The flames writhed like golden snakes; smoke blackened out the faces of the stars. Tristan saw the figure chained to the post jerk and strain from the rising flames. The man’s hands came free. He clutched the beam above his head, strove with great throes of agony to climb above the fire. Soon the smoke throttled him; the flames played the part of a shroud.
Tristan, sick with the sight, turned back down the street with his brain a-swimming. Would they set Dame Rosamunde in the market square and burn her there as they had burnt the smith? A great faintness gathered round; the reek of charred wood was in his nostrils. The flare of the flames died over the houses and the din and clamour grew less and less. Stumbling on, he reached the outskirts of the town, where the meadows ran white under the moon. The clean breath of the night beat on his face, and the scent of the pine woods rolled down from the hills.
A limb of the lake gleamed in the meadows. Tristan went down to the water’s brim, knelt in the weeds, and drank from his palms. He dashed up water in his face, let it run down his chest, cold and clean, rose up again with his heart more steady. The town still flickered and yelped under the stars. He turned his back on it and made towards the woods.
The scenes in Ronan’s town still played on his thoughts. Had he been zealous in the pay of the Church, his faith would have quailed before the deeds done that night. Moloch could have hungered for no bloodier work than this. Tristan remembered Ronan’s town as he had first seen it from the hills, glimmering peacefully in silver and green. He remembered the children playing in its streets, the red, comely women drawing water at its wells, the sturdy peasants labouring in the fields. If such a brutal doom as this had fallen upon Purple Isle? His sire slain, his mother—God forbid the thought. He grew grim and savage as his courage kindled; the petulant weakness of an hour had passed.