Tristan and Iseult (2 page)

Our warriors fall out either side of an old Roman road. Many lift skins of mead to their lips to fire courage, suspecting this will be the day to fight, or else they heat their blood to stave off the damp that tickles their joints. Faces are grey and dirty and tired as they look at us expectantly. Servants take our mounts and Rufus and I pick our way through the mass of men without a word to anyone. They know, I am sure, what news we deliver. But they will wait; King Geraint must hear it first.

The Dumnonian
king
stands with his councillors. They listen to another scout and the
k
ing’s head
moves
up and down as the man gives
his
report
, telling him
the invaders do not appear to be in the north lands at present. When the scout has finished, the
k
ing
flicks a hand and the scout is ushered
away
. Geraint beckons
Rufus and me forward.

‘What news, Rufus ap Mark?’

He stares at my cousin in earnest. His eyes are too close together, and his face is gaunt with worry. I am told he no longer eats, for a growth inside his belly leaves little room for food.

My cousin glances to me, but
Geraint
does not address me, and Rufus needs to prove himself.

‘Their army has moved, my
L
ord. They are waiting for us on the edge of the forest, half a mile east.’ Rufus pauses. ‘There is a stream on one side and rocky ground on the other. If we face them there, we cannot flank them.’

He speaks with confidence and I smile
inwardly
at his remembering my words.

King Geraint glances at the ground and then around at the men sharpening their blades, cleaning their armour, cooking breakfast over embers still glowing from the night before.

‘Damn them!
’ the king mutters. ‘
Damn
the pagans
to
a
Christian hell, every last one of them
.
’

I flinch at his use of
pagan
when so many men of Briton still worship the old gods, but I say nothing.

‘We must face them
today
,’ another man growls. A scar carves his beard in two and he has only
three
teeth in a savage mouth. ‘They are too close to our settlements already.
We cannot afford to yield
any
more of Dumnonia.’

I check my blade again. Habit, I know, but I need to be ready. The day wears on. The sun has not yet broken through. The chill of morning still bites.

‘Is there a way around the forest?’ I ask.

‘We should not split ou
r
force,’ the scarred man grunts.

‘Who says to split
it?’ I reply. ‘Sparing a few men to suggest we are located here, I say we move all our warriors to their rear. Cut them off from their own people and make a dent that will see them retreat until summer at least.’

Everyone looks to me.
I shrug and
turn away, as if my words were merely a suggestion of no importance.

‘What is your name?’ the
k
ing
demands
.

‘
Tristan
.’

‘Your father?’

‘I have no father.
’ The words are so familiar I do not think of their meaning as I speak them.

Geraint’s look hardens as he waits.

‘
My uncle
,
King Mark
,
speaks for me.’

‘Are you
trying to
amuse me, Tristan ap Mark?’ the
k
ing says, his tired eyes irritable
, the lines of his forehead deeper
. ‘To move our men and
leave
the Saxon a clear path into the heart of my kingdom?’

‘No, my
L
ord.’

The scarred man’s breath plumes as he stands beside
Geraint
. Sores on his cheeks weep down his face and into his beard.

I glance to Rufus in reassurance, for I know he is nervous. 
‘
Your father would agree,’ I say to him, ‘if he were here.’

‘Mark is not here,’ the
K
ing of Dumnonia replies lightly, flicking
a hand to the warriors surrounding us. ‘He did not think our cause worthy of his personal attention.
He did not come himself.
’

Geraint’s
words might be light, but his fur
-
covered shoulders are huge and the sword at his waist well used. I do not wish to antagonise him.

‘He sent his son,’ I reply, gesturing to Rufus, ‘and me, whilst he faces the Irish threat to our own lands. He can give you no more.’

Geraint pulls a hand through his beard without reply.
 

Ru
f
us was right
:
I wish the Kernish were in command.

That Mark were here
.

Iseult

I lie on the gritty shore. My eyes are closed and my hair is full of sand. The wind drags spray that dries on my lips. I taste it: salty, abrasive, clean. Gulls cry overhead. I am cold and the ground and the air and my skirts are all damp. I shiver. Close my eyes tighter. Stop them watering. Prevent the tears trailing more salt down my cheeks.

In the distance, my mother calls. Her voice carries on the wind, my name distorted. Dawn has come quickly. I have been here since the early hours. She worries about me, or perhaps she feels guilt. 

I do not call back; she will find me in time. I think of celebrations that will commence when our men are home, the food and the drink and the dancing. The music. I will play the harp as I always do. We will toss up in the air the coins our warriors have taken, and listen as they clink and clatter and ring on the floors of our feasting halls. We will sleep when our bellies are full and our eyes tired, and the day after we will be merry once more.

My mother approaches. She has long pale hair like my own, and it whips across her face and her skirts cling to her legs as she strides along the shore towards where I lie. Even from this distance, I can sense her irritation. As she grows nearer, I see her furrowed brow and hard mouth.

‘Everyone has been looking for you. I thought you’d been swept off by the tide. Lost in some foreign land,’ she says, drawing close.

I get to my feet and brush sand and grit from my clothes. Stagger a little. I have been lying on the ground too long and my limbs are drained of life and my head light.

‘Where have you been?’ she demands.

Looking about me, I say: ‘Here. I have been here all the time.’

‘The whole night?’

I do not answer. There is no point. She does not want excuses; she wants to be angry. So I let her.

‘Speak to me …’

‘I watched the sun break the night.’

‘You go nowhere alone,’ she says. ‘You take your maid and one of our warriors with you everywhere. I cannot have you wandering the shores alone in the dark, or at any other time.’

‘Of course, Mother.’

‘Our lord will not stand for your independent ways, your selfishness and your disobedience,’ she says.

I knew that was the reason for her impatience. She is concerned for our lord’s temperament above all else.

I must look weary at her words, for she continues: ‘Our position is not secure. Not until he is king and you have his heir in your belly. Only then will we maintain our position within the tribe.’

I flinch at her words. When our lord returns home this time, I am to be his wife. I will do what I am requested to do. Submit to the man who leads our people. Be honoured I am chosen above all others to sit beside our strongest warrior.

Morholt
.

‘Our uncles ensure our safety,’ I reply.

‘Do not be stupid, child.’ Her voice pierces the wind as shrill as the gulls. ‘They rule in the north. Morholt has an understanding with them only because they do not have enough men to command these southern lands, and neither are they interested. Be assured, Morholt’s power in these parts increases with each passage to Briton. He has them squirming on what is left of their pitiful island.’

We walk in silence a while. I think of Morholt. How he takes the girls of our tribes to his bed. I hear them, sometimes, screaming and crying and whimpering. I cannot imagine what he does to them; I dare not imagine. But in the mornings their faces are bruised and swollen, skin broken, bodies bloodied. They will not talk of it. They are afraid, just as I am afraid.

My safety was assured when my father ruled over these lands. My mother is still Queen in name, but no longer possesses any power; not until the union she seeks is complete. I am a queen’s daughter. So he has been savouring the moment when he can take me — a woman of the blood — for his own, and secure not only his strength over men, but a rightful heir.

‘Father always said we could call upon our uncles if we needed to.’

‘Your father is dead.’

I want to cry for the unfeeling manner in which she refers to him. She cared for him, but the anxiety caused by his passing has taken its toll and she is no longer the woman she once was. I hear whispers Morholt killed my father, and she has heard them too. They may be true, for he is a man to be feared above all other men; a man who raids foreign countries to swell our lands with gold; who covers his warriors’ shields in the blood of those who stand against him.

As a girl I sat with my father’s men, cross-legged in wheat fields, and painted our shields red with sheep-blood. My father said it was to frighten our enemies, but Morholt says they know it is not human. So he hangs those he captures in raids; hangs them in the barn and drives blades into their necks and lets their blood drain into buckets. He lines the bodies on our shore to face the kingdoms beyond the sea. Then he uses the blood to paint our men’s shields, drying dark and brown.

Our lord is a man without mercy, whose purpose is simply to amuse himself. He does not acknowledge any god, nor does he fear them as others do. Wary, yes, but never frightened of the wrath that might bring down upon us. He laughs in the face of the higher rulers, the ones even kings fear. And he no longer allows us to pray.

But I do. I pray each morning and each night. I pray on my knees before an altar in a cave on the shore where my father once used to give sacrifice. I pray because I am frightened of what is to come …

We walk homewards along the shore in silence. I think of praying again, hoping that Morholt will not return to us.

He will take me as his wife, terrify our people, gain in power until none can stand against him. And I will watch and do nothing, for there is nothing to be done.

My name and my blood will make him a king of Ireland.

Tristan

The Saxon wait, just as we Kernish and Dumnonians wait. I shift from one foot to the other, trying to restore the flow of blood. My shield feels too tight on my arm. The mist of early morning has begun to clear and the watery sun casts a yellow glow. Four hundred yards ahead, arrayed in a deep line, the enemy howl a war cry and scream in their foreign tongue.

Our own line stands calm. We could match their shouts, indeed some murmur restlessly. I prefer our quiet. It puts a greater fear in a man. I feel that fear, but steel in my hand gives me a comfort I cannot describe, its weight heavy and hard edge reliable.

To my left, Rufus scratches his chest. 

‘Will you desist,’ I say.

‘Being in Dumnonia makes me itch.’

‘You cannot hold a sword and a shield whilst you are seeing to itches, you whelp!’

He stops and picks up his sword from the muddy grass. Dries the hilt on his tunic.

‘That will be the last time I scratch your back,’ he says.

‘I have a sword. I will scratch it with that.’

‘Ha! Only if you wish to shave the hairs from it.’

Our banter tails as King Geraint approaches. More furs bulk his figure and I feel lean beside him. A slight limp hinders his stride and uncertainty weighs down rounded shoulders. The man with the scar does not accompany him, instead he stands at the fore of the group waiting for the slaughter to commence.

The king ushers us to him with a gloved hand.

‘Rufus, Tristan, come,’ he says, our names emphasised with firmness.

We follow. Back beyond the line barely two men deep that stretches the narrow pass; the only force between the Saxon and Dumnonia. Dumnonia and Kernow.

Five hundred paces and we sink into a larger group of warriors. Geraint drops the furs from his shoulders. Armour stretches across a rounded belly and warrior bands grip thick arms. They must be old bands, for he has won little of late. A sword is passed to him. He fastens the belt tight and accepts his shield.