Isolde: Queen of the Western Isle (17 page)

"Yes, he doesn't seem like a poor pilgrim," she enthused. "He looks like the son of a king."

"He's a fine young man." Brangwain took a deep breath, willing Isolde to understand. "But he's still a poor pilgrim, my lady, a sick man, and not used to royalty. So it wouldn't be surprising if he was overwhelmed."

An unpleasant sensation caught Isolde unawares. "Not by me!"

"As you say, lady." Brangwain dropped her head and busied herself with the fragrant foliage passing through her hands. "Now let's see, savory, all-heal—"

"It's just that he won't speak."

"—vervain, thyme—"

Isolde paused. Whatever Brangwain said, there was always a lurking truth.

She shuddered.
I will not be too much for any man
.

All her life she had seen that in her mother, and vowed to be different. She must be cooler with the patient, more reserved. He was only a pilgrim passing through, after all.

So she watched him recover and grow strong, but at a distance, holding back her smiles. Yet there was so much about him that interested her, from the deep-set, thoughtful eyes to the long, clever fingers of his strong brown hands. One day after dressing his wound, she laid her hand on the harp beside the bed. "Are you a bard, sir?"

He laughed. "No, lady, I harp for my own pleasure."

Would you play for mine?
came strangely into her mind. But it was one of many things she did not say.

Then came the day when he left his bed. She saw the sweat break out on his forehead as he set his hurt leg to the floor, but he made no sound. With his arms around the shoulders of two burly serving men, he dragged himself around the chamber till she was forced to order him back to his couch. Even then he was on his feet again within hours. Every day after that he practiced till he could move without pain.

Soon it was time, she decided, to walk on the beach. They left the castle on a bright, raw morning with the melancholy tang of autumn in the air. The gathering birds were twittering in the skies and the first yellow leaves were mourning the summer's end. Four sturdy attendants followed with a carrying chair. But she could tell from the set of his chin that he would walk or die.

There was no wind as they approached the shore and the sea lay before them like a sheet of glass. Isolde saw a handful of boats clustered in the harbor and felt a shadow fall across the dawn. Soon the stranger would sail away and be gone, no more to her than one of the clouds floating on the glossy surface of the sea. She shook her head. What was it to her?

His voice behind her sounded a somber note. "When the sea is calm like this, who could believe the fury hidden in its depths?"

She turned. He was staring out over the bay, its green waters cradled in the arms of the land. Great flocks of waders huddled on one leg in the shallows, their dark brown bodies as motionless as stones. A silver sun shone over the slumbering mountains and its light fingers caressed his face. With a rush of pride she saw that his pain-ravaged features were returning to health.

"You are a pilgrim, sir?" she observed conversationally. "Where lies your pilgrimage?"

She saw a shadow pass across his face.

"Here and there," he replied with difficulty. "I have not set a goal."

"What do you seek?"

The voice of her old master Gwydion came into her head.
Every man seeks the woman of the dream
.

She flushed at the thought, and struggled to sound natural again. "Wherever your path lies, you are welcome in Ireland, sir."

And once more the guarded look shadowed his face. "Thank you," he said.

"My mother the Queen will receive you as soon as she can. She is not well. She has suffered a great loss. Her champion was killed—"

"I am sorry to hear it," he broke in. "More than I can say."

His face was glistening, and she feared he was in pain. "Are you well, sir?"

"Never better!" he cried hoarsely.

She did not believe him. "I am afraid we have overtaxed your strength."

Overruling his protests, she insisted they turn back. As they left, she cast one last glance behind her over the bay. Far out at sea a little boat rode at anchor and it came to her,
We could sail away together, I could leave with him now
.

Sail away

She frowned.

Leave with him?

What is this?

She hardly knew the man.

Later she took him out riding, to try his strength on a horse. She chose a stately old stallion for him, well past his wicked days, and she rode her own white mare with the cornflower blue eyes, as the Queens of the Western Isle had done since time began. Leaving the castle they turned inland, away from the sea, and took a sheltered path into the forest where they could be at peace.

The morning sun was pale now in the sky, and the dew hung trembling on the turning leaves. The mournful chill of autumn enveloped them and again the fleeting thought shot through her head,
Winter is coming and he will soon be gone
. She shook her head, annoyed with herself. Of course he would. His well-shaped face was bright with renewed hope, and his flesh glowed with life and health. Why should he stay?

The air in the forest was crisp and the horses trod eagerly forward under the trees. His hands on the reins were loving, quiet, and firm, and she could see years of horse mastery in his gentle touch.

"You may like to go down to the tiltyard," she ventured. "One of our knights would be happy to try a pass with you."

"Thank you, no," he said with deep reserve. "I do not fight. I am a man of peace."

Isolde felt him drawing back and looked away.
Tread carefully. You do not know this man
.

At the edge of the path, great ferns were uncoiling their fronds, and trailing woodbine mantled the trees with gold. In the soft sunlit gloom, the grass glowed with a vivid green and she saw his eyes feeding hungrily on the emerald growth.

"Does it rain much here?" he inquired.

"Only as much as we need," she replied merrily. "And the sun shines, too."

"So you must have rainbows?"

"Like the morning of the world." Her face lit up. "The Mother is always shining through her tears."

"You keep the Old Faith here?"

She looked at him sternly. "We keep the only faith." Her face softened. "But we also give home to the Christians and all who come. The Mother teaches us that all faith is love. And love is life itself, that's why we should never kill."

"Never kill?"

An impulse of distress passed over his face, and again she had an awkward feeling of trespassing where she should not. "Where do you come from, sir?" she asked, turning the conversation into an easier path.

But still the odd constraint hung over him, and an impenetrable glance darkened his eyes. "From—from Terre Foraine," he said awkwardly.

"The land of King Pelles?" she asked eagerly. "They say he's had a prophecy that the most peerless knight in the world will come to claim his daughter as a virgin bride. Then the son she will bear will find the Holy Grail, so for all Christians, the Princess is the vessel who will redeem their sin."

He shifted in the saddle. "I have no knowledge of this," he said dismissively, turning his head away.

Isolde stared. "But surely, if you come from Terre Foraine—"

He closed his eyes. "I do not know the girl."

"But your father must—"

"My father is dead. And my mother, too."

He was sweating again. She must not press him like this. Perhaps his parents had died suddenly, leaving him alone, and that was the sorrowful cause of his pilgrimage. She set her mouth in a slender line and resolved to be quiet.

But her questions had unlocked something deep in him.

"I was a child of sorrow," he said. "My mother died in the forest as I was born."

She frowned. "In the forest? What was she doing there?"

"Her pains came on before her time." He gestured to the ring on his little finger, where a fireburst of emeralds flashed and sang in the sun. "This is the only remembrance I have of her. My father gave it to her when they were betrothed."

Isolde felt a pain beyond words. "So you never knew her at all?"

"Oh, yes, I did." His face was blooming with a mystic light. "My nurse told me that my mother held me from the moment I was born, and would not be parted from me till she died. So I knew her for many hours before her soul slipped its shell."

He was speaking to her, but she could see from his eyes that he was far away. "Then she passed into the Beyond," he went on in a low voice, "and I never saw her again. But sometimes I think that she comes back to me at sunrise or sunset, or when I cannot sleep. Then through the veils of night I see her face, as I saw it before."

She had so much pain around her heart that she could hardly speak. "It is a sorrowful tale."

His smile was luminous. "I do not find it so. My mother loved me. Not all men can say that."

"It's true." She thought of her own mother with a peculiar pang. "A mother's love can be like a chain."

"You're a forest doe," he said with an insight as sharp as pain, "and for you, capture is death."

Her mood lifted, and she laughed merrily. "You're the woodland creature; I'm a child of the sea. I lived in the water from the time I was born."

He could not help catching her newfound sense of fun. "With waves for playfellows." He grinned. "And the dolphins to guard you when you swam far out."

"Whereas you," she teased, "were born in a deep dark wood, and grew like an oak tree, rooted in the land." She paused, suddenly serious. "You're the land, I'm the sea. Land and sea together—" she broke off.

"—make the whole earth," he finished quietly.

The haunting fragrance of honeysuckle filled the air. Confused, she tore a leaf of ivy from a nearby tree and its sharp, dark scent mingled with the honeyed sweetness and drowned out her senses. She tried to speak, but did not know what to say. The deep silence hung heavily between them all the way back.

Yet after that they rode out every day, sometimes late into the night. Often they found themselves returning after dusk, as the evenings were darkening down earlier now. Sometimes they heard the sound of the fairy hunt, and she could see that the horns of the Fair Ones spoke to him in tunes that she could not hear. Other times they caught fleeting laughter and flickering lights, and saw slender, shadowy shapes dancing beneath the trees. But as soon as they heard the high, tinkling revelry, they changed their direction to leave the Fair Ones in peace.

All this time he made no move to leave and she forgot her own warnings,
Soon he will be gone
. Autumn blazed through the woods in flaming red and gold, and she drifted through timeless, sunlit hours, long days of dreaming and nights sweeter than any before. One day he took up his harp and sang for her, melodies that lingered long after their sound had gone. They talked of everything and nothing under Brangwain's loving eye, and found a new world in each other's thoughts.

It seemed that the glory of those golden days would never end. And so they continued till the day when Brangwain came running to tell her that the Queen had called a tournament, and Isolde was the prize.

"
A tournament, madam?
"

"Isolde!"
The Queen uncoiled her lean frame and sprang up from the couch. As she came forward, her mourning silks frothed sadly around her feet. She was calmer than she had been, Isolde saw. But the marks of her suffering had not left her face.

"Yes, a tournament, Isolde!" she cried. "You know it's time."

Outside the Queen's House a livid sun was sinking into the sea. A strange red and yellow light danced off the waves, filling the cavernous room with glints of pus and blood. With rising alarm, Isolde caught an unpleasant odor seeping through the air, and saw a foul, shapeless mass among the ashes on the hearth. Her stomach turned. The Queen had been raising her old gods of blood and bone. There would be no way now to turn her back from her desires.

Isolde groaned. "Mother, what have you done?"

The Queen clapped her hands, and her dark face danced. "The heralds have been sent out far and wide. The tournament will take place at the full moon."

Isolde felt tears of despair biting the back of her throat. "But why?" she cried. "Mother, tell me why!"

"You know why!" The Queen's eyes flashed with fire. "I am the Queen of a great Mother-right and my only daughter refuses to go the way of the Mother, the way of all womankind!"

No, M
other, that's not true
—
you don't know
—

Isolde bit her lip. "But why now?" she demanded desperately.

The Queen tossed her head and whirled away. "Now is as good a time as any," she cried airily. "There are many knights here to choose from, great fighters and fine men, too—kings, champions, you may take your pick."

Kings, champions?

Palomides!

Isolde struck her head. She could have torn her hair.
Fool, fool!
she berated herself,
Three times fool!
How could she have forgotten him all this time, when she knew in her heart that he would not forget her?

How often in these last weeks had she seen him crossing the courtyard to the Queen's House, surrounded by his knights, and been only too glad to believe that the noble Saracen was unselfishly consoling her mother in her loss? Why had she never thought that he might be furthering a scheme of his own?

And her mother—lonely and still mourning her lover's death—-she could hardly have been more vulnerable to a handsome young man. Generous, too, she thought bitterly, looking at her mother with mounting rage. That girdle of gold, that chain of tiger's eyes, the black pearl earrings so sweetly kissing the long neck—all these glittering baubles must have come from Palomides.

"Isolde, my dear." Her mother was at her side, taking her hand, touching her cheek with a tremulous smile. "You know the tournament is announced," she said beseechingly. "We can't stop it now. Let those who answer the challenge fight over you, and see who wins. Then you can take all the time you want to choose your knight."