Tristan and Isolde - 02 - The Maid of the White Hands: The Second of the Tristan and Isolde Novels (2 page)

“I would indeed, when the stakes are as high as that,” he agreed, glimmering. “Just as you would, my dear, if you were playing the same game.”

“Ah, Merlin . . .”

She would try to win him over, he knew, and her powers of seduction were beyond compare. Already he felt his pulse quicken under her dark, lustrous stare.

“You were the best of my lovers,” she said huskily. “But you know that.”

Merlin laughed. “I know no such thing, only that you must have told all of them the same tale. Have no fear for Isolde, I shall not bar her way. My only desire is to keep these islands safe.”

The Queen split the chamber with a raucous laugh. “You’re lying already, old man.” She chuckled, fighting for breath. “Well, what else did I expect?”

Merlin’s eyes flared. “Lying?”

“You love Arthur, not some dream of peace. And Tristan, too, whether you admit it or not. All the world knows you see yourself in them. You’ve never forgotten what it was to be like them, fatherless and disowned. So you cherish them both, and watch over them to save them from suffering as you did. Lost boys, wounded men, all of you, all fatherless and disowned, all born to fight and struggle for your own.”

She lay back exhausted. Merlin’s smile emitted a sulfurous fire. “What of it?”

“Isolde was the greatest blessing of my clouded life. To me, she’s been the living light in an unsteady world and the beautiful daughter I never dared dream I would have. But she’s nothing to you. You’d sacrifice her in a second to save Arthur or Tristan.”

Merlin watched the light fading in her eyes. “Then you must trust to the Great Ones that her fate lies with one of theirs.”

Far off, the slow sad music of humanity began a dying fall. Merlin closed the heavy eyelids with a practiced hand. “And you will have to trust me, too, my dear.”

CHAPTER 2

The Queen of Ireland’s dying?”

“Maybe gone already, sir. She was sinking as I sailed, beyond recall.”

“And no one there saw you come or go?”

There was a quiet laugh. “You know me, sir. You pay me to see and not be seen. Even the King doesn’t know my face.”

The knight tensed. “My uncle sees more than you think.”

“Then Cornwall is blessed in you both, Sir Andred.” The gray figure made an obsequious bow. “King Mark to hold a watch over state affairs, and yourself to be His Majesty’s eyes and ears.”

Had he offended the young knight? The speaker gave an inward shrug. All the world knew that the King lived to hunt, and left everything else in his clever nephew’s hands. But no one would argue with that black-eyed stare.

Andred turned away. “You have done well. And you will be well paid. Stay near at hand, I shall need you again.”

With a flick of his head, he dismissed the shadowy messenger, his mind aflame. The old Queen dying? Then Isolde would be Queen. That meant ruler of the Western Isle in her own right, as well as Queen of Cornwall as wife of King Mark. Queen twice over, then? He gave an angry laugh. That was too much. What would she do now?

He moved into the window and gazed out over the castle walls. Autumn was dying and winter was hard on its heels. The last yellow leaves haunted the woodland like ghosts, and the dark months ahead were massing on the horizon like storm clouds at sea. From its hilltop by the shore, Castle Dore commanded scenes of melancholy beauty all around. But Andred never let such thoughts cloud his mind. Let Druids and dream-weavers worship this rocky land with its wild coasts, deep forests, and sunlit meadows carpeted with flowers. Any fool knew that land was only power, if a man held it right.

But first he had to call the land his own. Mine. When will it be mine? Andred clenched his fists. Would he ever forgive the Gods for making him the King’s nephew, not his son? And the son of a son too, so that Tristan as the son of a daughter stood before him in the Mother-right? Well, the Old Ones liked to joke. But the true man of destiny made sure that the laughter stuck in their throats.

As I shall, never fear.

With Elva.

With her love.

He scanned the sky for a sight of the watery sun. Noon: soon she would be here, and the chamber would be filled with courtiers gathering to welcome the King back from the hunt. Andred glanced around, intent as always on his uncle’s good cheer. At either end of the long, low, whitewashed hall, great fires leaped up the chimneys, scenting the air with apple, holly, and oak. The floors were bright with beeswax, and the blue and white banners of Cornwall hung from the walls. A flicker of comfort warmed Andred’s cold heart. One day all this would be his.

And hers.

He turned his eyes to the door. She was coming, he could feel it, she was here. Attuned as they were to each other after so many years, he was not surprised to see the heavy black oak swing back as a woman surged into the room like a forest fire. Clad from head to foot in hissing silks, she burned with a hot, green flame, and his soul leaped to greet her across the echoing void: Elva, Elva, here I am, come to me . . .

Yet he could not look at her without pain. He knew she was his, this tall, glorious, mad-eyed woman, all sinew, skin, and bone. Forget her fool of a husband, as they had for years. From her lofty headdress with its billowing veils to her long white feet, she had thrown in her lot with his and given him her life and soul to command. He laughed inwardly. Let all the jealous ladies of the court condemn her for her never-varying green gowns. He loved to see her dressed in this scaly viridian, her long, lean body shimmering like a snake.

And with all this in his grasp, he had thrown it away? He bit back a furious groan. Whatever had possessed him, a few years back, to persuade Elva to make love to the King? He had seen himself leading her as she led the King by the nose, and the pair of them ruling Cornwall through Mark. It had never occurred to him that his uncle might turn to Elva and return her show of affection with all the ferocity of a stunted heart. Still less had he dreamed that she might love Mark, too.

And Mark above all men—that idle, selfish apology for a king . . .

Gods above, what a fool I was—what a fool . . .

He felt her long white arms winding around his neck, and turned to her blindly, hungry for her touch. They came together without words, as they always did, and he slaked his thirst on her mulberry mouth.

She pushed him away and tried to read his face. “What is it?”

He gripped her wrist. “Where’s the King?”

“Back from the hunt. I heard the horns, and saw them all ride in.” She stared at him. “What’s happened?”

“Isolde is to be Queen of the Western Isle.”

She caught her breath. “The old Queen’s gone?”

“Dying, or dead. Isolde will succeed. Then she’ll have all the power she wants.”

He could see Elva’s mind casting to and fro. “And the freedom to travel as she pleases—to stay in Ireland and forget Cornwall and Mark—”

“With her knight, of course,” he said venomously. “Sir Tristan must go with her wherever she goes.”

“Darkness and devils!” she swore. “We’ll never catch them now.”

“Never is too long a word to say.”

Elva gave a bark of impatience. “We’ve been after them for years,” she said furiously. “And all this time, they’ve been too much for us.”

He shook his head. “Sooner or later they must betray themselves. With every day that passes, their luck runs out.”

She looked at him askance. “Some would say the same of us.”

He took her in his arms and stroked her cheek. “You are not the unfaithful wife of a king. And you’ve never been expected to provide an heir.”

“Whoever thinks Isolde will do that?” She laughed sarcastically. “All the world knows it’s a marriage only in name. No one believes that Mark will bed her now.”

“No,” Andred said slowly, his dark eyes aglow. “But Mark might be made to believe it—and if he did . . .”

She gave him the cunning look he could not resist. “You mean . . . ?”

“Work on Mark,” he said softly, “feed his vanity. Wake up his jealousy of Isolde, now that she’s Queen in her own right and not merely as she was before.” He gave a cruel laugh. “Remind him how he hates being a vassal king through marriage to him holding Cornwall under Queen Igraine. How he loathes being male in a world where women are born to rule.”

She caught his mood. “Unsettle him? Tell him it’s time the marriage vows were fulfilled? Make him feel that Isolde is insulting him?”

“Whatever she does.” He laughed. “And however hard she tries.”

“Tristan, too.” Elva’s eyes were bright with invention. “Isolde will surely take him with her to Ireland to establish her rule. It shouldn’t be hard to make Mark suspicious of that.”

Andred paused. Yes, the merest suggestion of Tristan as Isolde’s King in Ireland would awaken Mark’s fears. But how would this bring about the rule of the kingdom he craved? They both knew how far he was from this lifelong goal.

No matter. Anything that discredited Isolde or Tristan would take him a step or two further along the road. If they could widen the breach between Mark and Isolde, that could lead to all sorts of interesting things. Better still, if they could drive a wedge between Tristan and Mark, then Tristan would no longer be the favored heir. And there was the added pleasure of paying Tristan back, because Mark made no secret of his preference for Tristan, as his sister’s son. How much of all this was pure malice and the instinct to torment? Andred grinned to himself. He didn’t know. Enough to say that it gave him the purest delight.

He gave a decisive nod. “We make Mark think that the two of them are against him, whether or not we can prove it.”

She showed her sharp white teeth. “And then strike?”

Oh, how he loved her when she followed his very thought. “Now is the hour.”

There was a noise in the corridor. Instinct born of long experience drove them apart.

“It’s the King!” Andred muttered.

The door opened and an ungainly figure strode in, slapping his riding whip against his boot. The smell of horses and dogs came in with him, the foam of his stallion’s sweat staining his thighs and a pack of wolfhounds slavering round his heels. His well-cut leather riding habit and fine breeches covered a long, badly made body, and his undersized head poked with an awkwardness that his feathered cap did nothing to conceal. Beneath it his thin, straggling locks of sandy hair were streaked with gray, and his small, stone-colored eyes looked irritably about.

“Andred!” he cried.

“At your service, sire!”

Andred hastened forward with a fulsome bow. Behind Mark, he noted with contempt, swirled the familiar crowd of toadies and parasites, all hoping for the King’s favor and largesse. In the midst of the colorful throng was the squat black shape of the King’s Father confessor, the priest Dominian. Andred knew that the holy father would never see himself as one of Mark’s hangers-on, but he shadowed the King just as devoutly in the name of his God.

So be it: Andred paused. He did not disdain the fervent little priest, and a wise man made an ally where he could. But no, he must never allow himself to think that he and Dominian were playing the same game.

Andred bowed again. “News from Ireland, sire. The old Queen is passing into the Beyond.”

“What?” Mark’s mouth fell open in alarm. “But she’s only—” About my age was written on his face.

Andred bit back a cruel grin. Locked in his stunted boyhood, Mark would never come to terms with middle age. “So our Lady Isolde will be Ireland’s new Queen,” he said in solemn tones.

“Of course!” New vistas were dawning in Mark’s fragile brain. When Isolde was Queen of Ireland, he would be King. Cornwall’s power would extend over all the Western Isle. He rubbed his hands excitedly. “Well, she must go there at once.”

Andred looked doubtful. “But surely she’ll have to come back to Cornwall first?”

“Will she?” The words fell out of Mark’s mouth before he was aware of it. Gods above, he’d only just gotten rid of her! Did she have to come back? With Isolde away, he could hunt every day and, when darkness drove him indoors, eat and drink his fill. With his Queen at his side, all such joys were curtailed. But that was not the worst he had to fear. There were too many other sour reminders when Isolde was there.

Women, his shrunken soul bleated, what were they for? Isolde now, why had he married her? Dimly he knew that others, men and women too, felt the sense of a rare, flower-like creature at the sound of her name. They saw a beguiling wisp of a woman in springtime green and gold, mantled in a cloud of shining hair. He watched her smallest smile gladden their hearts, and had no idea why. He only knew that everything she did belittled him. And because she did not know she was doing it, that made it worse.

“—if Queen Isolde doesn’t come straight back here, some will say that she stayed away too long from Castle Dore.”

Not too long for me, Mark wanted to say. Gods above, was Andred still droning on? “Why should they say that?”

“The people miss her, sire, and her healing skills. When she’s away, they complain that old men die and women miscarry for the lack of the touch of her hand.”

“Old men die anyway, and babes are cast!” Mark burst out. “It’s lies, all lies. There’s nothing magic in Isolde’s hands. She knows a few herbs, that’s all.”

Elva swung around to support him, her long train swishing behind her like a tail. “Hovel-dwellers such as those the Queen cherishes will always complain. A king should take no heed of wretches like them.”

“And you can tell her all this, my lord, when she returns.” Andred paused for emphasis. “If she sees fit to come back . . .”

Mark glared at him, baffled. “You just said she must!”

“She must indeed, sire, if she wishes to pay you due respect. But if she decides that she needs not . . .” Andred arranged his features in a troubled stare.

Elva hastened to second him. “And perhaps her knight will insist that they make straight for the Western Isle—”

“Tristan?” Mark glanced wildly around. “Why would he do that? He should respect me too, shouldn’t he?”

“You are his lord, his king, his kin,” Dominian chimed in. “He owes you everything. Of course he must.”

“Oh, Sir Tristan does respect you, sire, I’m sure,” Andred insisted. “But you know how much his advice weighs with the Queen.”

Mark’s pebble eyes hardened. “More than mine?”

“I would hate to believe so, my lord.”

“Well, now we’ll find out, eh?” snarled Mark. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

“Sire, you may easily set your soul at rest,” said Andred earnestly. “Why not send them a summons that they must return?”

“I’ll do it!” Mark cried. “Then if she comes here first, she’ll prove she cares for me. And if she doesn’t—” He paused and gnawed his underlip. “—then I’ll know what to think.”

If she does, if she doesn’t, she will pay for it, Andred’s heart sang. We have sown the seed of doubt and distrust, and it must grow. He did not need to look at Elva as she took the King’s arm and led him away, murmuring into his ear. She knew what had to be done, and she’d do it too.