“Not I. The old cur was scourging a woman with a whip. That is not my fashion. I pitched him over into yonder corner.”
Ogier bent over Nicholas, raised his shoulders from the floor. The old man groaned a little, bled at the mouth, still held the whip clutched in his right hand. Ogier called for wine. Tristan, very grim, brought him the flask, but would not minister to Nicholas with his own hands.
“By Peter, my son,” said Ogier, from the floor, “you have come nigh breaking our grandfather’s neck. Hold up, gaffer; swallow some of this strong stuff. Take his heels, you dolt; we’ll lay him on the settle by the fire.”
Between them they carried Nicholas to the settle, dribbled wine between his teeth, saw his lids quiver as he began to recover from the throw. Tristan had taken the old man’s whip. He broke it like a reed, and threw the fragments into the fire. Ogier, rising from his knees beside the settle, scowled at him with his small flesh-hidden eyes.
“Go and cool your blood in the court, my son,” he said; “you are too ready with those hands of yours. Discipline is my creed. Mad folk must be kept in order.”
“With the whip?”
“How else, you soft pate? Old Nicholas must drive the devil out of them with whipcord, or they would tear him limb from limb. The man cannot tongue-tag with idiots. You will have to tan your heart leather better, friend Tristan, if you are to serve Jocelyn of Agravale.”
Tristan turned away with a great effort, and began to pace up and down the room. He could not trust himself to look at Ogier for the moment. The giant’s arrogance of bulk made Tristan’s arms tingle to come to a grip with him. Presently he passed out into the court, felt the cool breath of the night playing upon his face. The stars were shining overhead; only an occasional whimper came from the barred windows in the wall.
The whole sky rocked above his head, and he was as a man struggling in a whirlpool of opposing impulses. He was half moved to charge in, slay Ogier and Nicholas, put Jocelyn and Benedict to the sword. Yet even if he purged the place, what then? Would he be nearer Rosamunde or Columbe, his lost sister? As for these mad folk, they would be as ready to rend him in all likelihood as old Nicholas who handled the whip. Reasonless miserables that they were, they would but starve and turn upon each other like wolves loosed suddenly from a cage. And the women, these flowers of passion? They were Jocelyn’s creatures, content to work his will, and what was barren liberty to them? They would have mocked him as men mocked Noah.
Tristan’s brain cooled in the night air. There were the constant stars above him, the dim clouds sweeping pure athwart the sky. He would gain yet more by silence than by some outburst of physical protestation. What if he slew Ogier and Jocelyn also, would he be the wiser as to Rosamunde’s fate? The time of his patient apprenticeship had not yet elapsed, and the surest fortitude still lay in silence.