The man leant forward, touched her forehead, marked with his finger an invisible cross thereon. He smiled and laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Trust in the Church, my sister,” he said; “it is enough. By God’s grace we shall cure you of the canker of heresy.”
CHAPTER XII
The Bishop’s men had plucked up their tents from about the blackened ruins of Ronan’s town, and marched southwards from La Vallée Joyeuse, burning and plundering as they went. They found few to poise the spear and trim the shield against them in those green wilds. The folk of the Seven Streams were scattered amid their moors and forests, nor had they banded together any great company of men-at-arms. Sometimes a lonely tower stood forth upon the hills, to start into scarlet flower when menaced by the Holy Truncheon of the Church. The peasant folk had fled to the mountains and the deep gloom of the woods, for these crusaders marched to purge the land, and torch and sword claimed an eloquent apostleship in that rough age.
The southern fleet had set its sails, and sailed out by the river towards the sea. The waters of Joyous Vale were left to the grebe and the heron, to the wild duck’s cry and the dull note of the bittern. Ronan’s tower stood a haunt for owls to perch in; bats played under the rafters in the twilight; spiders webbed the walls. Soon there would be grass and shaggy weeds in court and terrace. Briers would ravish the shrubs in the garden, docks and nettles destroy the flowers. The vines would fall from their rotting poles, the olives ripen and receive no care.
Rosamunde, Dame of Joyous Vale, had been set within a horse litter, a litter with painted panels and a canopy of purple cloth. The litter was Bishop Jocelyn’s, but he had surrendered it to her service, and mounted his white mule instead. A guard of twenty men marched about Rosamunde on the road, ten on foot and ten on horse. They were bearing her southwards towards the mountainous marches, over hills and through valleys foreign to her ken. All day she heard the trumpets whimper, saw pennons float and flicker through the woods. At night she would mark a glare in the dark sky, the glare of watchfires, or the flaming crown of a martyred town. At times they would let her walk beside the litter. No one spoke with her save Bishop Jocelyn, for her woman Isabel had turned wanton, and trudged the road with the servants of Christopher, Canon of Agravale.
As for Jocelyn, proud patron of the Faith, his theology had taken the wings of Mercury, and flown fast for temporal favours. He appeared zealous to convince Dame Rosamunde of the infallible nature of his doctrine. For the time being, there was no hinting at faggots and the ordeal of fire. He rode often beside the litter on his white mule, casting his subtleties at the woman lying within. He called her daughter, sister, child, as the unction stirred in him, while sanctity bubbled on his lips like wine out of a leaking cask. It had a more classic odour than Heaven might have desired. Since Bishop Jocelyn could conjure with Peter’s keys, he did not hesitate to tamper with the lock of honour.
As for Tristan le Sauvage, the burning of Ronan’s town had set him full face before his own strong manhood. The mere boisterous days of youth were behind him as a sunny sea, for he had seen death and had met distrust. Sterner, bolder blood played through the red cavities of his heart. To rebel against arrogance and tyranny was to live. To shatter injustice, to overthrow hypocrites, in such effort lay a strong man’s paradise.
Hidden in a thicket, he had seen Rosamunde set forth from Ronan’s tower in Bishop Jocelyn’s litter, the churchman riding beside her on his white mule. They had not burnt the woman yet, the fairest heretic in the land of the Seven Streams. Whether she had recanted or no, he could not tell, but Tristan, remembering the Bishop’s face, prophesied no such fate for her from so sensuous a source.
He had found food the first morning in a deserted cottage, yet his great need was a horse, for the beast he had taken in the valley by the sea had been converted once again to the service of the Church. Following the Papists through the woods on foot, he bided his time till night should fall. The Bishop’s men camped under the shadow of a hill, and Tristan, crawling down in the dark through the grass, found the place where the horses were tethered. His temerity prospered as it deserved. He escaped untouched from the Bishop’s ground, with a horse and food to reward the venture.