The Lady of the Sea (29 page)

chapter 41

T
hey buried Andred where he fell, in the chapel on the rock. On Mark’s orders, he was laid beneath the bloodstained flagstones in the crypt, beside the mortal remains of the hermit who built the cell. The Cardinal Legate performed the funeral rites with all the magnificence of the Mother Church, and Father Dominian gave a solemn sermon heaping praise on Andred as a fallen hero, one worthy to share the last resting place of a saint. The chapel, too, was as fine as it could be that day. Banks of candles, clouds of incense, and a white-gowned choir pouring hymns of loss and grief into the air all combined to send Andred’s soul winging on its way, wherever it was destined to go.

But there was to be no ceremony for Tristan, by the King’s decree. Let the sea take him, and the fish gnaw his bones. Death by water was too good for the deed he had done, the blood-murder of his own kith and kin. He had cheated justice by taking his own life, and now his sin and his punishment both lay with God. But had he lived, Mark threatened in a rage terrible to behold, he would have found out what it was to rob both his King and his country of Cornwall’s rightful heir.

“Rightful heir?” scoffed Sir Nabon angrily when the word went around. “When we could never persuade the King to name an heir at all?”

“And when Andred’s own actions have robbed us of Tristan, too,” put in Sir Quirian heavily.

His fellow councillors nodded. Old Sir Wisbeck could hardly speak for tears. “Goddess, Mother, have mercy on us all.”

“But how can She spare us from the wickedness of our fellow men?” demanded Nabon savagely. He buried his head in his hands. “Oh, my poor country! What else do the Gods have in store?”

T
HERE WERE PLENTY OF WOMEN
he could have, Mark was sure of that. Once he was done with Isolde, his choice was not limited to the fatherless pair of Princesses from Dun Haven, the fat one and the thin. Indeed, he could hardly be bothered to think about them now. Tightening his girdle and thrusting his sword into its sheath, Mark pursed his slack lips and set his face like stone. First he would deal with Isolde, he promised himself. Then he would take time to consider Cornwall’s next Queen.

He sent for the captain of Castle Dore. “You’re sure she’s held fast?” he demanded.

The captain nodded. “Deep underground, my lord, bolted and barred. But every day she demands to be released. She wants a trial, she says, to clear her name.”

“Clear her name?” Mark turned a poisonous hue. “And how does she think she’ll do that?”

Like most of Castle Dore, the captain had heard the wild rumors flying around and did not know what to believe. But he knew that he had never seen the King like this before.

“I couldn’t say, my lord,” he said, backing off. “All I know is, she’s asking to see you.”

“Is she, indeed?” Mark’s eyes widened with a violent gleam. “Then we should do what the lady wants, don’t you agree?”

The captain paused uncertainly. But he had no power to prevent Mark from visiting the cells. Carved out of the heart of the rock, the underground passageways had no natural light, and as they went down, Mark’s eyes shone in the dark with inhuman glee. Indeed, he was rubbing his hands with delight as he climbed down the steep, slimy steps from the outer world with the last of the daylight fading around his head.

At the foot of the steps, the captain’s lantern lit up a dank and dismal tunnel with a row of barred doors on either side. The captain gestured to the nearest cell, keeping a careful watch on Mark’s face.

“We’ve done as you ordered, sir, kept her in the dark,” he offered. “And on short rations too, just enough to keep her alive.”

Mark smiled like a snake. “Is she yielding, then? That should break her spirit pretty soon.”

“Not so’s you’d notice, sire,” the captain said stolidly, avoiding Mark’s eye. “We hear her talking and singing to herself. Sometimes she chuckles and laughs, as if she had a friend in there. Whatever she’s doing, it keeps her spirits up.”

Mark smiled again, baring his teeth. “We’ll see about that.” He pointed toward the door. “Open up.”

With a rattle of keys, the slab of oak swung back. The stale air of the dungeon came to meet them, and with it the dank breath of the heart of the living rock. The captain held up his lamp, and a white face at the back of the cell swam into view. As the two men watched, there was a flurry of soiled green silk, wild eyes, and disheveled hair as Isolde rose to her feet and surged forward into the light.

“So, madam?”

Mark thought he had prepared himself for anything Isolde could say. But her first words still took him by surprise.

“Why am I locked up?”

“What question is that?” he sneered to cover his surprise. “You’re awaiting charges, madam, like any criminal.”

Isolde squinted at him. Her eyes were paining her in the lamplight, and she was struggling to stand upright, but the sight of Mark’s raw hostility restored her strength. “Pray you, release me at once. I am no criminal, and the least of your subjects is entitled to fair treatment at your hands.”

“Fair treatment?” Mark’s cry of outrage echoed around the cell. “Let me remind you that adultery is treason to the King. But you’ll soon know all about treason and adultery, my dear. And the penalty.”

Was he smiling? Half blinded by the lantern, Isolde could not see. But she knew that Mark was deeply enjoying himself.

“Yes, treason,” he gloated on. “And now my faithless nephew is counting the cost of that, too.”

“Prove it!” Isolde cried. “Prove that Tristan was ever a traitor to you or to Cornwall.”

“He was your lover, madam!” Mark raged. “What more proof d’you need? When you gave yourself to him, you cheated me of what was rightfully mine.”

Isolde thrust out her chin. “I was never yours, and you were never mine. We never pledged ourselves to each other, you and I. Tristan is my chosen one, by the laws of the Mother-right.”

“‘Is,’ lady?” Mark widened his eyes and began to enjoy himself. “Oh, of course, you don’t know.”

Know what?
She could not help herself. “What is there to know?”

Mark laughed for joy. With a sharp shaft of pleasure, he thought of Tristan’s broken body, mangled by its fall onto the rocks and rolling helplessly with the uncaring tide. “Tristan is dead.”

Dead?
Her heart set like a stone. “You’ve killed him.”

“No, not I,” chortled Mark.

“Andred, then.”

Mark’s face convulsed. “Nor Andred, neither. Andred’s a dead man, too. Your paramour killed him.”

“What?”

“Tristan killed Andred, then killed himself.”

“Never!” A wild laugh of derision burst from her.

“Oh, it’s true. Your noble knight killed his own cousin, then dashed himself to death.” Mark was rubbing his hands with a kind of glee, she saw with disbelief. “He jumped onto the rocks from the chapel on the cliff.”

It’s a trick. He’s trying to break my spirit.
“I don’t believe you. It’s all a lie.”

“You’ll have the proof soon enough. The sea always gives up its dead.”

“Spare me your empty threats,” Isolde spat out. “And spare yourself. I’m not afraid of anything you can do.”

“Oh, you will be, Isolde, you will. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be begging my forgiveness on your knees and groveling to me for the chance to live. You’ll beg for the chance to submit to my rightful desires and bear my child.”

Isolde heard herself laughing, a harsh, hateful sound. “And then you’ll kill me. You only want me to see me brought down and destroyed. You don’t want me as a wife.”

“But you’re still a desirable woman, as Tristan well knew.”

Mark came toward her till she could smell his sweat. He thrust her into a corner and laughed in her face. Now his hand was moving over her body, groping for her breast.

“You say I don’t want you,” he breathed into her neck. “My dear wife, how would you know?”

T
HE SUN WAS SETTING
on a sea as smooth as glass. But no matter what face the Lady wore, he loved her just the same. Sighing from his heart, the young sailor gave thanks that he had found his path. Not a dull highway on the land such as dusty, earthbound folk trod, but the whale-way, the waterway where the great beasts swam.

And he had seen them himself, with his own dazzled eyes. What a voyage, eh? Dreaming, the boy recalled distant islands where the hot, spice-laden air greeted seamen as they sailed in, and the skin of the people had a tawny-amber bloom. Where they sold pearls in the market as big as pigeons’ eggs, and moonstones lay by the wayside on mountain paths.

But there was danger in this glory, too. He shuddered to remember other young lives like his suddenly lost: one shipmate stabbed in a brawl before he could draw his knife, and three dead of a strange shaking fever in the same day. Still, he was alive, he’d lived to tell the tale. And soon, very soon, they’d be landing at Castle Dore, and he’d be sitting by his mother’s fire, doing just that.

“All well, sailor? Keeping a good lookout there?”

He had not heard the captain’s easy tread.

“Oh, sir,” he blurted out eagerly. “How far to land?”

The captain gave an understanding grin. Even the hardiest sailor longed for home.

“Not far at all now, lad.” He eyed the boy keenly. “Just you keep your wits about you. The nearer to port, the sharper the watch has to be.”

“Aye, sir.”

Heartened, the boy fixed his gaze on the horizon, determined not to miss the first sight of land. But lost in thought again and aching for home, he did not see the darker black shadow on the gray-black face of the sea. Like a cloud in springtime, it came and went, rising and falling with the swell of the waves. But then it rolled over, and he saw a human face. Bloated and disfigured, gray-black like the water and with blind, sightless eyes, but a face just the same.

“Man at sea!” he croaked, almost speechless with dread. Gods and Great Ones, what an evil omen to welcome them home like this!

Within seconds, every deckhand was swarming to his side.

“Who is it, lad?” one of them cried.

“Not one of ours,” he stuttered in reply.

“No matter for that,” bellowed the captain, arriving to take charge. He jerked a thumb at the nearest mariners. “Get a boat down there, quickly, over the side. Two more of you follow with grappling hooks. Let’s save the poor devil if we can.” But already he could hear the sea calling,
too late
.

From the deck, the young sailor could hear the cries below.

“Get a rope around him.”

“Gods, he’s heavy!”

“Is he still alive?” called the captain.

“Dead as a doornail, sir.”

“All the same, steady now, haul him aboard.”

Alas, poor soul, the young sailor mourned in his heart. He knew that the heaving billows hid many secrets of the deep. Beneath the face of the ocean that mere mortals saw, lost sailors and voyagers went down to a better place. A world of glittering palaces lay below the waves, with vast hills and valleys and forests and shady groves. There the drowned sailors lived like Great Ones and took their ease, feasting on emerald tables out of sapphire bowls.