Mounting Ogier’s stallion, Tristan took his own horse by the bridle, and followed the ride beside the stream. His heart was great in him that day, for the slaying of Ogier had warmed his blood and the lust of battle still stirred within him. His thoughts fled towards Columbe his sister, and he prayed that her golden head might gleam out before him from the greenwood shade. If she lived, what great joy for a brother’s heart. To feel her warm arms round his neck, to see her child’s eyes flash to his. Columbe, the maid with the smiling eyes, who had been his heart’s ease in the days of old.
Of Rosamunde he thought but little for the moment, for he had not slain Ogier for her sake. It was as though she had stepped aside out of his heart when he remembered Columbe and his mother’s blessing. Yet like some fair queen she should crown his honour and share with Columbe the blessings of the sword.
Tristan came to a narrow valley, its grassland golden with asphodel dipping down towards the stream. Around, above, towered the ancient trees. In the midst of the stream stood a goodly island, bosomed in foam, hid by the woods.
Tristan, halting under an oak, scanned the valley under his hand. Gazing over the grassland, his eyes discovered a grey wall linking the scattered rocks, girding the island under the shadows of its trees. He saw the glint of a red roof under the green. Though there was no bridge to span the water Tristan doubted not that this was the Bishop’s hermitage, “Jocelyn’s dovecot,” as dead Ogier had said. He tethered his two horses under the trees where they would not be seen by folk on the island.
Leaving the shade, he went full length and crawled through the tall rank grass like a leopard stalking its prey. Soon he heard the gush and thunder of the stream, as it raced and foamed over rock and boulder. Lifting his head slowly from the grass, he scanned the island under his hand. So snugly was the house hid amid the rocks and trees that Tristan had to delve for it even as a hawk searches the long grass for crouching prey. The stone wall was so cunningly ranged above the rocks that it seemed part and parcel of the isle itself.
Tristan scrambled down the bank and plunged into the torrent. It was shallow yet treacherous. The water foamed about his knees; pebbles and boulders rolled under his feet. Reaching the farther bank, he found the rocky wall rising fifteen feet above his head. He swung himself up by the roots of a stunted fir that clung to the bank by gnarled and contorted talons, and swarmed up the trunk till he reached the boughs. Below, the torrent foamed in the sun, burdening the air with a hoarse swirl of sound. Tristan’s head came level with the summit of the wall. Craning his neck and keeping well within the bosom of the tree, he peered over into the space beyond.
Without lay the wild woods, the torrent, and the unknown; within all the sumptuous colour of the south seemed engirdled by that circle of grey stone. Smooth lawns, emerald bright, gleamed betwixt massed banks of flowers. Fragrant herbs perfumed the air. Pomegranates grew there hung thick with fruit, oleanders with red coronets burned beside the slim and dusky cypresses. Apricots gleamed from lush eaves of green, and vines with their purple clusters were growing about the house.
Even as Tristan watched he saw colour moving within a tunnel of close-clipped box, the gleam of a blue kirtle, the glimmer of golden hair. He hung in the tree and waited, for there was no sound in his ears save the roaring of the stream. Anon, the figure came out from the box thicket into the sun, where a bed of balsams coloured the grass. Tristan well-nigh lost his hold of the tree, for it was Rosamunde herself who walked in the garden.
Tristan coloured like a great boy at the very sight of her face. It was months since he had looked on it, and his stout heart hurried. How fair she was, how tall and slender! The very flowers seemed graceless at her feet! Tristan felt the old strange awe of her rise up within his heart. With the stars and the moon she was throned above the world, and as she walked the lawns with her stately air he had more fear of her than of twenty Ogiers.
Tristan watched her, wondered what thoughts were in her heart. There was a slight drooping of the queenly head, a limpness of the hands as they shone white against her blue kirtle. Would she be glad of the liberty he brought to her, to lay with his sword and shield before her feet? Cared she for Jocelyn, with his sleek, shaven face? God, no; such fawning apes were fit but for Lilias and Agravale, that city of sin.