Tristan, with his broad back resting against the pillar, stood thinking of the woman’s face tinted by the light reflected from the crimson lining of her hood. Her eyes had challenged him even as they had done in that narrow passage when Percival lay senseless in the dust. They puzzled Tristan—these same eyes; for they had no depth to harbour pity, and their shallow glances spoke of no high mood. Different was Rosamunde from this pale, sensuous dame whose scented garments perfumed the very church.
Tristan was roused out of his reverie by a small hand plucking at his sleeve. By the pillar stood a dark-eyed girl, half child, half woman, thin, and a little sad. There was a timid smirk on her childish face as she looked at Tristan and gave her message.
“Follow my mistress,” were her words.
Tristan stared down at her, his ugly face bathed in the sunlight that streamed from above.
“Whom do you serve, child?” he said slowly.
“Lilias the Duchess,” came the answer.
“What would your lady ask of me?”
The girl tittered and coloured before him, shamed, as it were, by the man’s straight stare.
“You are Tristan of the Bishop’s guard?”
“I am Tristan,” he answered her simply.