“What of my poor Percival?” she said, stooping and looking in the fallen man’s face. “Pah, how a red nose spoils a man!”
“He would have split my poor carcass,” said Ogier, standing at her side, “had not my new Hercules pitched him like a sack of flour over his head.”
Lilias turned, stood at her full height, and looked Tristan over. She was a woman who loved muscle and strength in a man, and that flippant insolence that makes for pleasure. Tristan’s ugly face had a peculiar charm, a virile fascination in its uncomely vigour. Lilias smiled at him with her glassy eyes, gathered her gown close about her hips. She expected homage, but found not a flash of it. Tristan met her look for look, a frown on his face, his arms folded firmly over his chest.
CHAPTER XVI
It was but two days after his breaking of Sir Percival, that Tristan, idling through Agravale, saw before him the open door of the great church St. Pelinore. From the gloom within came the scent of incense and the sound of the chanting of the Mass. Tristan could see tapers shining on the high altar in the choir. Women were passing in and out, and two blind beggars sat at the gate.
Tristan, moved more by curiosity than by the desire for worship, entered in and uncovered his head. The rounded vault was painted vermilion and gold; the huge pillars of white stone were banded with silver and inlaid with stones. The basins for holy water were of black marble, their dark pools gleaming with the colours of the roof. Many chapels opened on either hand, dim sanctuaries steeped in vapour of gold and of rose.
Tristan, rugged islander, had never looked upon the like before. The place was full of that subtle beauty conceived and wrought by the mind of man. A strange idealism had sanctified the saints and dowered each relic with a magic mystery. The splendour of the place touched Tristan’s soul. Nothing in Joyous Vale had equalled this in pomp and magnificence, in form and colour. And yet the afterthought dethroned the spell. Was not Rosamunde’s gracious body fairer far than this great church?
Tristan took his stand by one of the great pillars, and setting his back to it, looked round the place. In the nave there was a stone pattern wrought in the floor, known in Agravale as the Penitent’s Rosary. There were some ten women moving round and round, halting over each great bead to breathe a prayer through silent lips. Tristan watched them as they circled round with bowed heads and folded hands, moving where the sunlight streamed from the tall windows overhead.
He was conscious suddenly that one of these dames was not wholly absorbed in prayer under her hood. A round white chin was tilted significantly under a pouting mouth, and two watchful eyes considered him with a suggestiveness that no man could mistake. As the woman circled over the stones, walking slowly in her grey mantle that but half hid the richer stuffs beneath, Tristan felt that her eyes held his, and that her thoughts were very far from heaven. The truth came to him as he watched her glide over the stones of the great rosary. It was Lilias herself who did penance there, penance with her feet, but not with her heart.
In due season the Duchess had ended her pilgrimage, and stood with her hood turned back, looking at Tristan across the church. Her women had gathered about her, and outside the gates Tristan saw the spear points of her guard. Turning, with a glance cast at him over her shoulder, she swept in state out of St. Pelinore’s, her women following her, save one young girl who loitered at the door.