Tristan and Isolde - 02 - The Maid of the White Hands: The Second of the Tristan and Isolde Novels (27 page)

CHAPTER 45

Already the memory of his face was beginning to fade. Strangely, the tips of her fingers remembered its planes and hollows, the tender stubble of his jaw, better than she herself could recall how he looked. His voice was fainter too. Every day, Isolde thought of a thousand things he said. But the way he spoke, the rhythm of his tones, slipped like water through the fingers of her mind.

Tristan, Tristan . . .

But the pining, the pain, these did not fade at all. At night she dreamed he was with her, and woke in a cold empty bed, crying to dream again. Yet the dream itself was a dream, since they had so rarely been together in that way, or known what it was to sleep in each other’s arms.

Some nights she had dreams of terrifying violence in which she watched him being waylaid and killed, and saw him lying dead in the heart of a dark wood. Yet even that was hardly as bad as waking each morning in the mists of ignorance that were drowning her now.

Where was he?

Was he injured, was he dead?

Had he married the French princess, or was that just Andred’s desire to hurt, with no truth at all?

Andred . . .

She laughed bitterly to herself. While the man she loved was nowhere to be seen, her hated enemy was everywhere. Dawn and dusk he stalked the court, all smiles, dancing attendance on the King, feeding Mark’s vanity, fulfilling his every whim. Yet Andred was also watching her, and she laughed at that too.

What can you do to me, Andred, more than you’ve done? You took my love
when you sent Tristan away. Now he’s gone, spy on me all you like, there is
nothing to see. I am innocence itself these days.

And I am Queen of Ireland and Cornwall too.

So every morning she held up her head and looked the world in the eye, and every night she dressed herself regally and came down to the Great Hall to dine. In truth, she found eating as hard as sleeping, when one thought filled her mind.
When will Brangwain return?
But as long as she came to the High Table, Elva had no reason to queen it in her place.

And every night she was rewarded with a warm greeting from Sir Nabon and the rest of Mark’s lords and knights. They at least were pleased she had returned to bring some order and decency to Mark’s court. All the ladies too would happily cluster around, admiring her gowns of royal-blue and green, her veils of Irish lace as fine as the foam of the sea, her moonstones and gold. She found a special word for each of them in turn, and even the shyest would repay her with a shining smile.

Mark, however, took no pleasure in Isolde’s return.

“What’s the matter with her?” he grumbled to Andred at his side, watching Isolde’s pale face as she toyed with her food. Soups and salads, whitebait in damson jelly, peacock broth and trenchers of roasted quail failed to interest his wife. Even great mouth-watering slabs of a whole roast boar dripping with fat, garlanded with apples, and piping hot from the spit, could not tempt Isolde’s appetite. Mark was mystified.

“The Queen, sire?” Andred leaned forward attentively. “I fear she has not been herself since she returned.”

Mark paused with his mouth half full. “What d’you mean?”

“They say she misses her knight.”

“Tristan? Why should she miss him?” Mark waved his goblet at the knights’ table farther down the hall. “There are a hundred here at her command.”

Andred drew a careful breath. “But none, it seems, who can do for the Queen . . . all that Sir Tristan did.”

What did Tristan do? Mark stared at Andred, perplexed. “Well, there’s none as big-built as Tristan, I grant you that.”

“And Sir Tristan was so . . . attentive.”

“I suppose he was,” Mark pondered. “Yes, he was always at her side.”

Andred’s black eyes gleamed. “Night and day, sire,” he murmured. “Night and day.”

“Yes, well . . .” Mark shuffled uneasily in his chair. What did Andred mean? He put the thought away.

“Some say Sir Tristan was everything to her,” Andred insinuated.

“What?” Mark glowered. “Not as long as I’m her husband and she’s my wife.”

“As you say, sire.” Andred made a well-judged retreat. “But she’s not happy here in Cornwall, that’s plain.”

Happy? What did that matter? Mark tossed his head. Women should be pleasing to men, that was what they were for. His small eyes roamed the tables for a sight of his mistress, seated down the hall. Whenever he looked at Elva, he was rewarded with a smile. And more, much more. Elva understood that a man should always be pleased.

He grimaced to himself. In truth, Elva was not always submissive and sweet. When she was angry, she was like a wolf in her rage, and he had learned long ago to beware of her claws. But at least he could have the pleasure of taming her then, which only heightened the pleasure she gave him in return. Meanwhile, Isolde gave him nothing at all, only distant looks and coldness every day of the week.

A foolish smirk twisted his mouth. Well, he was King here, and she should know that. He raised his arm for a servant. “Fill the Queen’s goblet!” he cried.

Isolde looked at him like a woman awakening from a dream. “Thank you, sire, no more.”

Mark leaned over and patted her hand. “Drink up, my dear,” he said in mock-jovial tones. “Let’s get some color back into those pale cheeks of yours. I can see I’ve left you far too much to yourself.”

Isolde searched his face, taking in his muddy complexion, mean eyes, and quarrelsome air.

Oh, Tristan, Tristan . . .

The air all around her grew dim, and she saw his face as she first knew it, golden in the springtime of their love.
You’re the sea, I’m the land,
he had said then.
Land and sea together make the whole earth.
Nothing could match the sweetness of his smile. Nothing could compare with the touch of his hard huntsman’s hand.

“Isolde?” came Mark’s harsh, cawing voice in her ear.

She came to herself with a shudder, hardly knowing where she was. “As you wish, sire,” she said tonelessly.

Mark’s weak mouth hardened. She thinks because she’s a queen in her own right and I’m only a vassal king, she can brush me aside. Well, she must learn that she can’t, and the sooner the better, it seems. “Oh, I do,” he insisted with an unpleasant smile. “I mean to make the most of your company while you’re here.”

Isolde felt a wisp of fear brush her heart.

“You’re my wife, after all,” Mark went on recklessly. A mad impulse seized him, and he ran with it like a hare. So Isolde insisted on clinging to the Mother-right? Nothing like a sharp reminder that the most basic power of all lay with men. And men had used the weapon between their legs to tame unruly women since time began.

“My wife,” he resumed with growing force. “Father Dominian was talking to me about that.”

Isolde stirred. What was Mark trying to say in such dark tones?

“A husband has rights, Isolde, that he can enforce. A willful woman is an abomination to God. Women were born for motherhood, and so were you. It’s not too late to fulfill your marriage vows.”

Fulfill what?

Isolde did not move. A stunned awareness made its way through her brain.
Mark is threatening me. If I don’t behave, he’s saying I can be raped. Oh,
he’d never admit to it. But that’s what he means.

Would he do it? No, he’s too much of a coward, he knows I’d fight. But a
coward can be cruel when he drinks. Or if he’s driven on by other men.

Fear clamped itself like a fist around her heart. She moistened her dry lips. “Sire,” she began.

But Mark was in full cry. The flicker of terror in Isolde’s eyes acted on him like the moment of kill at the hunt, gone in a second, but he had tasted blood. He laughed foolishly to himself. Of course he’d never take Isolde by force, he felt nothing toward her that way. Dominian was dreaming if he thought there’d be a prince of Mark’s loins from Isolde’s thighs. But no harm in keeping her wide-eyed and white-faced. It was good to see her so unnerved.

Smirking, Mark moved back again onto the kill. “And Andred tells me that you’re pining for your knight. Well, we can’t have that. I’ll take you out hunting in the morning myself. And see there . . .”

He pointed to the knights carousing in the hall. “Tomorrow at dawn I’ll have ’em all in the tiltyard, jousting for your favor, every man. Forget Tristan. You shall have a new champion, my Queen. And after that, I’ll see he never leaves your side.”

Isolde could hardly breathe.

Drink up.

I mean to make the most of your company . . .

You’re my wife, Isolde. And a husband can enforce his rights.

You’ll have a new champion, and he’ll never leave your side . . .

Whichever way she turned, there was danger here. Dominian had been preying on Mark’s fears, feeding his sense of entitlement, awakening his inadequacy. And her enemy, Andred, always had the King’s ear. Had he persuaded Mark to keep a closer eye on her and give her a champion to watch her day and night, making her a prisoner in Castle Dore?

Yes. That’s what he means to do.

Don’t argue, don’t protest.

Agree and delay.

She forced a sunny smile, and gave Mark a courteous bow. “Thank you, sire, for your kind care of me. Yes indeed, let us spend a day in the tiltyard with the flower of Cornwall’s knights. I shall be honored to choose a knight from such a fine array.”

And all the time, her desolate soul was crying to the moon,
Help me,
Mother. Help me to get away!

CHAPTER 46

Hold on, sir. Hold on.”

Brangwain dug steadily into the earth, throwing aside handfuls of the leaf-mold covering the motionless form. Tristan was lying on his side, curled up like a child, one arm thrown over his face. His clothes were soaked with dew and stiff with earth. His face, when she touched it, felt as cold as death. Again she felt for a pulse in his neck. Nothing. In the dusk of the nighttime forest, his skin had the pallor of the newly dead.

Brangwain could see now that he had dug out his resting place beneath the oak to make himself something like a shallow grave. Anger and desperation sharpened her tongue.

“You wanted to bury yourself, did you, sir? And what in the name of the Gods would my lady do then?”

If he was not dead, she wanted to kill him herself. She fell on him in a fury, shaking him with a strength she did not know she had. Then she rubbed his wrists to create some warmth and massaged his temples as fiercely as she dared.

“Wake up, sir!” she panted madly. “Wake up and live!”

She leaned on his chest with both hands, then did it again. The breath went out of his body with a dying sigh.

“Don’t die!” she cried. She pounded her fists in a frenzy on the broad chest. “Don’t you dare die!”

The waiting forest seemed to hold its breath. Nothing moved in the gloaming all around.

Through the silence came a sound like a falling leaf. Frantically, Brangwain strained to hear what it was.

“Br . . .”

And there it was again. A faint rustle, like the sighing of the forest as the winter storms draw near. Leaning over Tristan, she caught the ghost of a groan and the sound of her own name.

“Brangwain . . .”

“Goddess, Mother, thanks!” Tears poured from her eyes. “Praise the Gods, sir, that you’re still alive.”

Again came the sound like dead leaves. “Leave me.”

“What?”

“Go back.”

Brangwain’s eyes bulged. “And leave you here? What would my lady say?”

Another groan that turned into a bitter laugh. “Nothing.”

Brangwain shook her head. “What d’you mean?”

“The Queen has put an end to our love.”

“She’s—? Never!” Brangwain was outraged. “Oh, sir, you’re not well. When you fell from that tower, I fear you damaged your mind.”

Tristan came to life with a shudder. “I did not fall,” he rasped. “I leapt out of the window and into the nearest tree.”

Brangwain nodded. So that was how he flew out of the window like the Fair Ones and never touched the ground. Not that it mattered now. She seized Tristan by the shoulders. “See if you can stand, sir,” she panted, “then we’ll get you on my horse. I’ll take you to the place where I stayed last night. We’ll rest there till you’re stronger, then take ship back to Cornwall as soon as we can.”

Tristan groaned in despair. “Brangwain, the Queen won’t see me. She wrote me a letter. You don’t understand—”

“Oh, I think I do, sir.” Brangwain smiled grimly to herself. Enough to smell a very big rat indeed, and I can guess his name. But plenty of time for that.

Tristan heaved himself up, shaking uncontrollably

“She told me, Brangwain—” he mumbled.

“Not now, sir.”

The horse was still grazing peacefully in a patch of moonlight silvering the grass. “Be good, old friend,” Brangwain implored.

Good as gold, lady, the mild beast nodded. I can see the knight is hurt.

Thankfully, Brangwain drew his hairy bulk alongside Tristan. “Mount up, sir.”

Whatever effort it cost him, he did it without a sound. Swinging up in front, she flourished the reins and touched her spurs to the horse. “Hold on, sir. And get on, boy, get on.”

The horse set off down the track at a stately pace. Brangwain sighed with relief. Soon have him back at the alehouse and in a warm bed. “D’you hear me, sir?” she began. “You said you had a letter, sir, here at the court in France?”

“From the Queen,” he said in a voice rough with distress. “Ending our love.”

“And did you believe it?” Brangwain clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

“It was in her hand.”

“But why should she do such a thing?”

She could feel him start to tremble behind her back. “Because I failed her, Brangwain. I thought she could not forgive.”

“I swear to you, she never wrote such a thing.”

Tristan gasped in horror. “She didn’t write it . . . ?”

Sorrowfully, Brangwain shook her head. “Quite the opposite, sir. She sent me to find you and bring you safely back. She’s never wavered in her love for you.”

Cold as he was, she could tell he was sweating too. His scent, sharp and feral, filled the air, and a low moan of torment reached her ear.

“Recreant again! I have betrayed my lady and my love.”

Brangwain frowned. “My lady will forgive you, sir, never fear, when I get you back.”

The trees were thinning now at the forest’s edge. The high road rolled out to the horizon ahead, scarring the midnight landscape like a slash of chalk. Brangwain peered through the shadowy foliage with thoughts full of hope, the alehouse, food and drink, helping hands, rest and sanctuary . . .

“Halt there, lady.”

Half a dozen men stepped out of the shadow of the trees and the leader seized the reins. An iron band of fear clamped around Brangwain’s throat.

“On your way, man,” she ordered hoarsely. “You have no business waylaying innocent travelers through your land.”

The moonlight shone down on the leader’s drawn sword. And now Brangwain saw his tunic with its royal badge.

“Oh lady,” he laughed. “You’re our business now.”

She made one last effort, driven by despair. “I have a sick man here I’m taking to the coast. For pity’s sake, don’t detain us now.”

“That’s Sir Tristan, isn’t it?” The leader pointed to the silent shape behind her back. “We’re under orders to bring him back to court.”

Tristan twitched and came to life.

“To King Hoel?” he said hoarsely.

The captain sniggered. “To the new Queen, sir. To your wife, the Princess Blanche.”