Next day he followed the army through the wild, waiting his chance for a swoop from the woods. What though twenty men marched round Rosamunde’s litter? With her eyes to watch him, he would break the steel wall, pluck the white rose out of the midst. That would be man’s work, worthy of a sword. He would set her behind him on the saddle, ride for the woods, escape. What then? First he would say to her with a noble air, “Madame, declare, am I a traitor or no?” Perhaps she would kiss him, even as she had kissed him in Ronan’s tower.
The chance came to Tristan one still evening when the mists were rising in the valleys and the sky was veiled with gold. The mounted men of Rosamunde’s guard had lagged behind to water their horses at a spring. They had loitered there, jesting and swearing as a stone bottle passed from hand to hand. Benedict’s men-at-arms were a good five furlongs to the south, while the rear guard marched by a track that ran westwards on the far flank of a low hill.
Tristan closed in, keeping cover behind the trees. The horses bearing the litter were plodding slowly, with heads hanging, ears adroop. The purple curtains were open towards the east, and Tristan could catch the white glimmer of a face within. All around them were tall hills deluged with green woods. A stream glittered through the flats under elms and drooping willows.
Tristan, with nostrils wide and every sinew taut as steel, trotted on through a grove of birches whose filmy foliage arabesqued the heavens. A glade opened to the road below, the purple litter shining like an amethyst set in green grass. The guards were slouching in twos and threes about the horses, their pikes and axes at the trail. Even as Tristan watched, a white hand drew the curtain, a mimic night drowning the day.
Tristan, twisting tight the strapping of his shield, whipped out his sword, pushed his horse to a gathering gallop down the glade. He shot like a hurled spear out of the gloom. Hurtling fast from the trees, he was on the men before they knew him for a foe. “Holy Cross, Holy Cross!” was his cry, as they scattered from him like pence from an almoner’s palm. Swerving right and left, his sword played grimly on their pates. Pike, staff, helmet, buckler, he hewed through all, as a woodman lops hazels with his bill. Five out of the half score were down in the dust; the rest scurried like winged partridges over the grass.
He was out of the saddle and beside the litter, bridle in hand. Rosamunde had jerked the curtains open at the first sound of the scuffle. It was no moment for vapourings. Tristan, hot with his sword work, played the master for once with a rough chivalry that suited his fibre.
“Come, madame, out with you. I keep faith to you, though you doubted me in Ronan’s hall. Fast! We must make for the woods.”
“Tristan!” was all she said.
He seized her suddenly in his eagerness, set her upon the horse, climbed up before her. Her arms girdled his body. She was silent and half ashamed, as though shaken out of the injustice of her hate.
“The casket?” she asked him, as they made towards the woods.