Public-domain ebook
The Seven Streams
Language: en354 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Historical Novels·Adventure
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #59096.
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For a night and a day Tristan le Sauvage had watched his arms before the high altar of the chapel of Purple Isle. For a night and a day he had seen the long tapers glimmering towards their silver sockets, under the painted roof. Dawn light and evening glow had shone through the latticed casements east and west, dusting the stones with colour, carving deep shadows from sculptured pillar and from moulded arch. Not a sound had broken the silence of the tombs. Alone before the Great Cross, Tristan had kept vigil, chastening his manhood for quest beyond the sea. Two months had passed since a great ship with gleaming sails had swooped like a falcon upon Purple Isle, and carried thence that white dove, Columbe the Fair.
The sun had descended in a whorl of crimson flame when Tristan rose up from before the altar, and passed out to his kinsfolk who had gathered at sunset in the chapel court. The moon had climbed the starry port of heaven. In the court lamps flickered, and white faces peered at him like pale flowers out of the gloom. The delicate finials of many cypresses were smitten with the moonlight; a thin perfume of spring quivered in the air.
Before the chapel gate stood Father Madan of the Isle, clad in his Mass robes, his white beard silvered by the light of the moon. Four acolytes stood round him with bell and aspergil, ewer and book. Maidens in white bore garlands of primrose and of violet on crosses of white wood. There was a deep silence through all the court, as Tristan came out from the inmost shadow, his head bowed over his broad chest.
Tristan le Sauvage was no lover of priests. Frocks and stoles were women’s gear. It was with no great grace that he went on his knees on the bare stones at Madan’s feet, while the old man stretched out his thin white hands over him like a snowy Druid uttering incantations under the stars.
“Son Tristan,” quoth the priest, with that innocent unction beloved of women, “hath the good God chastened thee for this thy quest?”
Tristan hated parade with the great sinews of his heart. He was a surly soul, a bad courtier at the crook of the knee.
“Son Tristan,” said the priest again, “the buckler of Faith awaits your arm.”
“I have sharpened my sword, O Father,” said the man on the stones.
Madan knew well this unpolished rock, the granite that loved the billow’s blow better than the honeyed voice of a lute. He forgave the untamed temper of youth, and blessed him as he knelt at his feet.
His kinsfolk gathered under the long shadows of the cypresses. Dame Joan, his mother, drew near, and kissed his lips. Her hands lay heavy upon his shoulders; her face shone white under her pure grey hair.
“Tristan,” said she, “the good saints strengthen you. Thrice blessed am I in the manhood of my son.”
“Mother,” he answered her simply enough, overshadowing her with his great strength, “God by your love has given me a good schooling. Therefore be comforted. Columbe, my sister, shall return to you again.”
When she had hung upon his bosom, Dame Joan kissed him, as did his sire and Lavaine, his brother. They were brave folk, simple of heart, open-souled towards Heaven. Love with them was as an eternal prayer winging at dawn and eve to the throne of God. Girded from the great world by the waste of waters, they lived their lives in the strong purity of virgin faith.
The full moon gazed on them as they passed down from the chapel towards the sea. A thousand pines thrust up their midnight spears towards the stars. Deep to the confines of the dusky sky the far sea glimmered, washing the island with a sheet of foam. Madan the monk led on the company, acolytes, maidens, and young men chanting together under the moon. Tristan walked at his mother’s side. With solemn song and the faint pulsing of the chapel bell, they brought him slowly towards the strand.
In a black inlet, bulwarked from the broad vigour of the sea, a galley lay moored beside a rude stone quay. The water was scolloped all with silver round the sable rocks. A great glistening highway stretched over the ocean towards the east.
By the galley’s bulwarks Tristan took leave of his mother and his sire. He sprang down behind the thwarts and took the tiller in his hand. The black sail climbed the mast; the long sweeps smote silver from the swirling pool. Madan stood forward and blessed him as the prow rose to the waves. Thus Tristan le Sauvage put out from Purple Isle, and followed the moon’s highway over the sea.
The tall hills of a strange land rose athwart the deepening azure of the second dawn. Spears of light fell streaming towards the sea, glittering upon the ever-tumbling waves that hurried onwards towards the west. The stars sped back behind the veil. The faint moon grew frail as a great silver net burdened with transient dew.
Tristan le Sauvage, steering the boat, sat with his eyes fixed upon the misty heights touched with the golden glories of the dawn. Before him the multitudinous waves leapt and tumbled, washing the bulwarks, plashing against the prow with a moist unrest. A light breeze bellied the black sail, set the cordage creaking and humming about the mast. The world seemed full of the awakening day and the sinuous and solemn splendour of the sea. The waves were troughed with opalescent light as they swept and heaved about the boat. There was a salt zest in the ocean’s breathing, a deep intake of strength into its panting heart.
The men at the benches watched Tristan le Sauvage as they dipped their sweeps. The dawn light shone upon his rugged face and the links of his hauberk. There was no uglier man in Purple Isle than Tristan le Sauvage. Nature had juggled with him from his earliest years. Of no great stature, he was like a tough oak, cumbrous, huge of trunk, and gnarled of limb. The long arms showed their great muscles even under the sleeves of his hauberk. His chest was as the front of some great rock; his heavy head seemed sunk betwixt his shoulders; his legs bowed as by the massive strength above. A pair of dusky eyes peered out with honest faith from a craggy, hairless countenance. The broad mouth was pursed up half morosely over the strong white teeth.
Such was the pilgrim who plied the tiller, helming the boat towards the broadening day. Tristan spoke seldom, crying now and again to Rolf the pilot, as the boat heaved and rolled over the waves. His eyes were fixed on the hills that rose above the waste of waters. Black cliffs, craggy and solemn, began to frown upon the sea. The far heights bristled with woodland, shimmering with magic mystery under the rising sun. The moist surge of the sea cheered on the galley towards the shore.
Tristan stood to the tiller, and scanned the strange coast under his hand. The wind freshened, the sail bellied from the mast, the toilers drew in their oars, and watched the coast-line rising from the foam. Like battlements of black marble, the cliffs towered above the blue shallows, with rocky pinnacle and forest spire smitten from the east with a glamour of gold. Precipice and wooded height were solitary as the sea itself. No tower crowned the headlands, no town lurked in the green shadows of the placid bays.
Rolf, old senator of the seas, stood forward in the prow, gazing at the line of heights. Straight to the east a narrow valley thrust upwards from the sea, walled on either hand with cliff and forest slope. Rolf hailed Tristan to the prow, and pointed with knotted finger to the shore.
“The Land of the Seven Streams, sir,” he said to him. “I know these cliffs of old. See yonder valley; the Silver Snake runs therein, a great river and a strong. The stars have steered us well. Hold for the opening in the cliffs; we can ride in over the bar.”
Running fast on the backs of the billows, they came to where a counter current beat upon the prow, fretting the sea into contending streams. It was where the river charged the tide. The galley swerved and faltered; the sail flapped against the mast.
“Out sweeps,” came Rolf’s hail from the prow. “Pull, lads; ware rocks to the north. The passage lies ahead.”
With the sail lowered and much straining of oars, they swung in past the rocky barriers where the waves chafed and broke in foam. The great cliffs towered upon either hand, solemn and stupendous, tufted with dwarf oaks, topped with pines. Once within the inlet, the galley ran smoothly on the broad bosom of the river, whose curves smote landwards into forest gloom.
The men rested on their oars while Tristan climbed into the prow and stood beside Rolf the seaman, looking forth over crag and forest. No plume of smoke ascended to the sky, no roofs shone out amid the green. The place was steeped in the grandeur of solitude, and there was no sound to break the silence save the perpetual plaining of the sea.
Tristan questioned the old man at his side; he had grown grey under many winter skies over stormy seas; his beard was as the foam below the bluff beak of a ship.
“Whence comes this river?” he asked him.
“Sir,” he answered, “this great river feeds upon the Seven Streams, and like a vast snake, takes them all into its belly. We have entered in at the sea gate of the land.”
“Who are its rulers?”
“Sir, there are many lords in the land, holding their fiefs direct from the King. Southwards lies the duchy of La Marche Montagne, northwards the duchy of Blanche the Bold.”
Tristan pondered his words, as the river sped past them to the sea.
“Hold on,” he said, “and bear me higher into the heart of the land. What better path for us than this broad stream?”
As they passed on that day the heights descended, spreading eastwards into wooded hills. The land grew milder and more green of face. Ancient trees sentinelled the river; broad valleys swept from it under the sapphire sky. Hills grey with olives, dusky with cypresses and firs, rose from green meadows, sleek and brilliant under the sun.
About noon, they rounded a rocky point, where myrtles clambered up the bluff brow of the hill. In the northern shallows they saw a boat moored and a peasant fishing. As the galley drew near with a steady pulse of oars, Tristan stood in the prow and hailed the man over the water. The fisherman fingered his line, and sat staring none too trustfully at the galley sliding towards him with ripples prattling at its prow. Strange ships sailed seldom into those quiet waters; the bloody deeds of Norse pirates still lived in the heart of the peasantry.
Tristan, seeing the man’s distrust, tossed him a piece of silver from the leather purse at his girdle. The fisher groped for it amid the cordage at the bottom of the boat. Questioned, he told them of the knights and barons of those parts, of the castles and hamlets therein, of the roads and forest ways. His lord was a certain Sir Parsival, who held a tower perched upon a neighbouring hill. Lastly, he described the region known as La Vallée Joyeuse, a rich and pleasant pasture land, where vineyards purpled the hills, and Sir Ronan the Peaceful had his home.
Tristan, leaning on his sword, bade his men pole in towards the northern bank, where a stretch of meadowland swept to the myrtle thickets that hid the rocks. The water lay still as glass in the shallows. The woods cast purple shadows athwart the stream, and the meads stood thick with many flowers. The galley ran aground in a little inlet where reeds and rushes bearded the bank. Tristan leapt from the prow, found sure footing, and turned with a smile to face his men.
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