Has this come up before? It must have, for all the brooding and stalking and melancholy - and yet it must not have, for her to ask him this now, for her to have only be releasing herself of this burden now. He takes Constance's hand and squeezes it reassuringly. 

"Constance, I was with her much of the night, and you did not fail, you [i]were[/i] failed. It was Sandsfern who boiled her blood, and Sandsfern who pushed her to the last, and Sandsfern who would not tolerate a moment's hesitation or thought. When they compelled me to fight with them, her words [i]felt [/i]reasoned and true, and felt right until she spoke in triumph over the deed. You were only there to see the axe as it fell - yours was not the hand that lifted it, and you were not the one to place the axe in hand to begin with." 

Louder, he asks of Sauvage: "Will the Lady Sandsfern be here as well, to shoulder her share of the responsibility? For how she goaded a friend to act against themselves?"

The execution of Pellinore is something that Tristan is more ambivalent about. What stirs him [i]now[/i] is the realization that this has been a crime against [i]loyalty[/i], the sin of being a bad friend. [i]That[/i] causes him to tremble with indignation. 

It's also now that Tristan realizes just how deep it would have cut him had he allowed the pair to goad him into attacking the hunting party as they had intended. He had stood his ground to the last to only shoot out horses and shout warnings. He had felt overwhelming pressure to act otherwise, and in the moment, he [i]had [/i]wondered if he was simply an ignorant child for his resistance to the two world-weary and war-wizened veterans. How close he was to actions [i]he[/i] would have come to be ashamed of, too, a shame he would have carried for the rest of his life.