Tristan and Isolde - 02 - The Maid of the White Hands: The Second of the Tristan and Isolde Novels (9 page)

Dominian’s eyes flared. “Why should you be subject to the old Queen? A man should rule his kingdom—and his wife.”

Mark clenched his fists and turned an ugly red. “Are you saying I don’t?” He called the nearest servant. “Tell the Captain of the Guard to get a galloper here.” He nodded to Dominian and Elva. “I’ll send to the port to see if they’ve taken ship. I’ll show them who is King!”

“Your Majesty is wise.” Elva preened herself like a snake in the sun, writhing her long hard body under Mark’s gaze.

Mark eyed her sharp, high breasts, lean waist, and boyish flanks. He had done his work for the day and could take his reward. “Come, lady,” he said thickly. “Let’s go to bed.”

CHAPTER 13

Castle Pleure?

Now I know why they call this the Place of Tears.

Isolde raised her weary head from her arms and rubbed her eyes. Truly Sir Greuze’s retreat was well named. How many tears had she shed in the short time here? How many nights had she watched by Tristan’s bed, with only the bats and screech owls for company?

Brangwain, loyal to a fault, had to be ordered to her own bed at night, for her strength would be needed when Isolde could go no more. Tristan lay before them like a carving on a tomb, and his ragged breath rustled like dead leaves through the darkness of the night. And still Isolde was haunted by the fearful thought,
Goddess, Mother, tell me how bad he is.

Wait and see
was the bleak answer, from the moment the knights carried Tristan’s unconscious body into the hall.

Isolde closed her eyes. Would she ever forget how hard it had been to get Tristan’s poor tortured body into a bed? Built into the face of the hillside, its chambers burrowing back into the rock, the castle had no open, airy apartments where the sun poured in. Ivy mantled all the windows and every room was bathed in greenish light. Still, the rooms were warm and dry, and a sweet forest fragrance hung in the air. So the place was wholesome enough—but if only they had been in Dubh Lein . . .

At first she wanted to put Tristan in the best room in the house.

“Where did your master sleep?” she questioned Sir Yder as they climbed the stairs.

Sir Yder threw open a handsome pair of doors. “Here, lady.”

Isolde moved forward. The rooms themselves were wide and gracious enough, floored in mellow oak and looking out through green curtains of ivy into the heart of the wood. But as she entered, Greuze’s blood-stained armor hung on every wall, his double-edged swords crossed with his daggers and killing spears. On the floor lay the hideous trophies of his evil ways, long hanks of women’s hair in chestnut, fair, and dark with even a few pitiful, tangled tufts of gray. One side of the bed was stained with tears and blood, and the terrible smell of madness filled the air.

Tears filled her eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

She turned sharply on her heel and hurried away. Tomorrow she would have the whole apartment scoured from ceiling to floor. Then these rooms could be habitable again. But put Tristan here to recover? Never! She fought down her rising stomach. “On, sir, on!”

At the top of the castle was a disused attic chamber empty of all but the old wooden frame of a bed. Rambling away under the eaves, it caught all the sun that reached the ancient grange. Its round windows gazed out through the drifting tops of the trees, and the gentle movement of the branches might help Tristan sleep.

She turned to Sir Yder. “A mattress and clean linen, and a full set of hangings, sir—and I may beg you, on Tristan’s life, your very best?”

The night was long, watching over Tristan’s body as his fever rose. A dark-faced Brangwain kept the vigil beside her, her lean frame coiled like a cat ready to spring.

At length the loyal maid could bear no more. “We need healing-stuffs, lady. If there’s anything here, I’ll find it tonight!”

She was gone for a long time. But when she returned, Isolde was reminded again why they called Brangwain “Merlin’s kin.”

“Here, madam!” cried the maid, erupting into the chamber with a pot of salve. “Sir Greuze forbade all such potions, but I knew one of the knights must have his own remedy for cuts and hurts.” She grinned in triumph. “They all swore they had no such thing, but I found it in the end.”

Isolde opened the lid. The salve was rich and glossy, brownish-black, and stiff enough to hold a knife upright. It smelled of poppy and all-heal, lavender and thyme, with a strange seductive hint of something unknown. She peered at it suspiciously. “Did they say what it was?”

“From the East, was all they knew. But they swore it had saved more lives among them than one.”

Isolde hesitated. Could she risk using this? Yet what else was there if she rejected it? She cast a stricken eye over the figure slumbering like death at her side, and dug into the paste. They never knew if it helped Tristan or not. But he did not die that night.

THE NEXT DAY they buried the Lady La Pauvre and Sir Greuze. The poor lady was laid to rest in the little chapel adjoining the castle, and Isolde herself led the funeral rites. As the candles bloomed like white roses on the walls, she called on the Mother to bring the lost soul to peace. As she did so, her sight shivered and she saw two souls walking in starlight on the astral plain, wrapped in each other’s arms, each comforting the other with tears of joy. Then Tristan’s words came back to her with new pain:
she has what she wanted. Her spirit is with her love.

But they could not lay Greuze in the earth, for the Mother would never take him to Herself. Nor was it right that he should rest forever beside the lady he had wronged. When the bodies were brought up from the forest, Isolde decreed that Greuze should not be admitted to Castle Pleure, but was to pass the night outside, guarded by four of his knights.

More than one of his knights, Isolde knew, slipped out in the long hours of darkness to bid their lord farewell. She guessed others would weep privately for the knight he once had been. But none challenged her decision with a word or a look. Greuze had banished himself from the company of decent souls and must be buried as the outcast he had made himself in his life.

At dawn Isolde had him carried deep into the wood, with all his knights marching in front and behind. Greuze was laid to rest in a sheltered hollow underneath the trees, wrapped in his banner, with his sword at his side. With none to praise his life or mourn his death, the ceremonies were brief. Then the knights covered him with a cairn of stones. Very soon the woodland would take the unmarked grave to itself and Greuze would sleep undisturbed in his stony bed.

They turned to go. Standing at the side of the cairn, Isolde saw an older knight leaning heavily on his sword, his head bowed in grief.

“He knighted me,” he said simply. “I was a green lad, and he saw what I could do. He taught me chivalry, everything I know. But in the Holy Land, a bolt from a crossbow caught him in the head. After that—” he struggled to master himself. “We all prayed he would recover his mind one day. He was a true knight once.”

Isolde felt tears burning the back of her throat. “May that be his epitaph. And may his soul make its way to the arms of the Mother in the end.”

The knight stared out into the rising sun. “Let us hope, lady. Let us hope.”

CHAPTER 14

How is he now, Brangwain?”

“Much better, lady, I believe.”

Coming slowly back to consciousness, Tristan recognized the voice of the maid. But Brangwain would probably say that, no matter how he was.

How bad was he, rambling through these endless regions of pain? He laughed to himself, and back the answer came: you cannot know. But Isolde would know, and so would Brangwain. That was all he had to care about now. He drifted away on a cloud of content.

Isolde my lady—Isolde my only love . . .

He wanted to tell the world, shout it aloud. But he knew he must protect her name with his life. Not a word, then, he told himself owlishly, not a word . . . Yet his mind played on.

My lady . . . oh, my love . . .

Tristan heard his own voice singing in his head, and came to himself bathed in greenish light. I have drowned was the sweet thought filling his brain. The Lady of the Sea has come to take me home. He floated in warm abandon, loose as a child. His lifelong prayer drifted gently through his mind, I pray you, lay me with my mother, she died for me.

Then he felt a hand he knew on the back of his neck, and the edge of a cup nudged briskly at his lips.

“Drink this,” said the voice he would have obeyed through all three worlds, and he drank and slipped back into the arms of the sea.

But one day he heard a robin scolding as she scoured the wintry forest, then he caught the pattering of a mouse in the wainscot, followed by the furious scratching of a cat. When the night was at its lowest, he listened to the slow ticking of the deathwatch beetle at its mournful work. Then at dawn came the blessed crowing of a cock, and he knew he was not dead but alive and on earth.

But which earth? Cornwall, Ireland, or a foreign land? Wherever he was, she was with him too. Every day he felt the hard little hands at work, feeding him sops, dressing his wounds, or cooling his forehead to drive the demons away.

Then came the moment when he opened his eyes and knew where he was. Smiling, he drew a great breath of air and tried to speak.

Isolde swallowed her rising tears of joy. “You have kept us very busy, sir,” she said huskily, “Brangwain and I. You ran a fever from your injuries, and we lost you for a while.”

He found his voice. “What are my wounds?”

She regarded him gravely. “Almost too many to count.”

“And the worst?”

“This.” Delicately, she traced a long raised scar on his thigh. “The blade pierced you to the bone.”

And struck into the groin; he could tell it from her face. He flexed his leg and knew at once how long it would be before he walked again or was able to ride.

Or before he . . .

A primal fear of manhood shook him from head to foot, and he forced himself to put the thought away. Time enough for that, he schooled himself with gritted teeth. He forced a lopsided grin. “Your knight gave a poor account of himself, it seems.”

She leapt to his defense. “Greuze was fully armed, and you were only equipped for the road! He had—”

“I know.” He tried to sit up and was defeated by the trembling in his limbs. “How long have we been here?”

“Long enough to enjoy the peace of this castle of yours. But I’ve sent ahead to the port, to command a ship for when we’re ready to put to sea.”

He looked at her quizzically. “This castle of mine, lady?”

“Yours, sir,” she said firmly. “Won by the rules of war.”

He laughed with delight. “Then if it’s mine, I shall call it—” He paused, while a thousand little winged joys fluttered round his head. “—Bel Content. I don’t want to own a place of weeping and tears.”

“Castle Bel Content.” Isolde rolled the name around her mind, relishing the sound. “Your knights will say their new lord has chosen well.”

“And what does my doctor say?”

“That the patient has talked enough for one day.” She stooped down with a smile and stopped his mouth with a kiss.

But he would not be silenced for long, Isolde knew, and soon he insisted on trying out his strength. White and sweating, he forced himself around the chamber, leaning on Yder’s shoulder all the way. That night he moaned in torment in his sleep, and Isolde sat watchful and wakeful, suffering through it all.

But each day became easier, till the great shuffling figure, huddled over like a sick old man, returned step-by-step to his former self. Before long he had made his way to the stables to visit the great gray who had carried him down the years, and both horse and rider wept on each other’s necks. At last he had the strength to join Yder and the knights at the hunt, and joyfully stayed in the saddle from dawn to dusk. Isolde watched the color come back to his dear face and felt the blood returning to her heart. The old year was dying now from day to day, but like the green man of the woods, Tristan waxed and grew strong.

At length they came to the moment that Tristan had feared. But Isolde knew what he dreaded, and in her arms he found the comfort that drives away fear. Alone at the top of the castle, with the faithful Brangwain keeping the world at bay, slowly and tenderly they renewed their love. In the sweet greenish light of the trees, lulled by the wind in the branches singing them to sleep, they lay together all night, drowsing in bliss and waking in each other’s arms.

Even then they knew it was a special interlude. Love’s time is not like other hours and weeks, and they lived a lifetime of joy in the days they had. At Mark’s court or in the castle of Dubh Lein, a thousand eyes saw everything they did, and the dread of discovery ran through their lives. Here they could be together without fear, to walk in the woodland by day and whisper by candlelight at night. Every morning brought new pleasure, and each twilight a warm glow of content. Yet always the thought hung between them like a shadow from the Otherworld:
one day
soon, love, we must be on our way . . .

And still the days wore away to the death of the year. Now the snows came down, and the earth lay bound in frost. The forest was roofed with white, casting an Otherworldly light on the ground below, and snow crystals glittered like diamonds on every tree. Indoors, too, the frost left its traces on the windowpanes. As she went from room to room, Isolde found written in the ice mantling the green glass,
Isolde my lady
or
My
lady and my Queen.
Then she knew that Tristan was himself again.

One day when they were quite alone he said, “Lady, we should celebrate the midwinter feast. I want to see you revel and dance like a queen.”

Then she knew why she loved him, and him alone. “The midwinter feast?”

He looked at her and saw her dancing eyes. “To mourn the death of the year,” he affirmed, “and bring on the birth of the new. The midwinter revels drive the darkness away.”

He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. The touch of her melted his heart, and he heard music and laughter and the singing of her soul. He saw her radiant in jewels and velvet, fragrant as midsummer, dancing in her winter court. None of this came to him in words he could say. “A feast,” he repeated stubbornly, “a feast.”

“A feast?” Brangwain did not hesitate, her dark eyes dancing with glee. “You have your harp, sir, and there’ll be some here, I swear, who can raise a tune.” She laughed with delight. “And not only my countryman from the land of song.”

Brangwain was right. Fighting man though he was, Sir Yder bore the music of his race deep in his veins. Most of the knights could also carry a tune, and a few were proficient on flute and tabor too.

But the knights were reluctant to enter into the spirit of mirth.

“The heart has gone out of them, lady,” Tristan said sorrowfully. “They lost the joy of merrymaking years ago.”

Isolde shook her head. “Every man hopes for delight in his soul,” she said firmly. “We’ll send them into the greenwood for holly and ivy, and whoever does best, we’ll make him the king of the feast.”

The next morning a laughing, jostling procession made its way into the wood. That night the hall was decked like a forest bower, redolent with the sharp green scent of the woodland and hung about with great globes of mistletoe glowing like the moon.

They began the music as soon as the food was done. As Tristan led, Yder followed and the little band of musicians struck up a lilting tune. One refrain led into another as they recalled songs of their boyhood, their adventures as young knights, and sweet serenades of their courtship days. Note after note filled the candlelit hall till the scene faded and Isolde saw wide sunlit meadows, bustling tournaments, and highways teeming with life. At the foot of a tower stood a knight harping of love, to a lady who leaned down from her window and threw him a rose.

The ballad came to an end. Tristan passed his harp to Yder and rose to his feet. Immediately the Welshman plucked out a lively air, and the rest of the musicians took up the beat of the dance. Tristan crossed to Isolde, bowed, and held out his hand. “Honor me, Your Majesty?” he inquired softly.

“Oh, sir . . .” Isolde smiled into his eyes. “The honor is mine.”

For the rest of her life the first notes of that tune would always take her back to that candlelit hall, that time of joy. Tristan danced as he fought, deft and sure and strong. His hard hand in hers was all that she desired, his brief touch on her shoulder or waist a promise of more. Borne up by the music, they leapt and swooped and soared, rising like birds above the everyday world. Moving as one, their spirits left the world, bound for the regions high above the stars. For a moment they touched the place where souls go hand in hand and lovers never part. And that night they returned there again in each other’s arms, heart-to-heart and naked soul to soul.

The next morning dawned gray and the sun hid its head. Shrouded within the great bed, Isolde closed her eyes.
The sun cannot bear to watch
what we have to do.
By her side Tristan slept lightly like a hunter, his face shadowed by the early morning light. Lovingly, she eyed the smooth lines of his strong-featured face and resisted the urge to stroke his powerful jaw. The warm, familiar smell of him rose to greet her as she carefully snuggled her body closer to his.
How can I live without this?
stabbed her to the quick. She reached out to him for comfort, then pulled back, her heart darkening like the day.
I must learn to live without you. Tomorrow,
love, we will wake alone.

As they left, all the knights turned out to bid them farewell. Yder had agreed to take command of the castle, and there was no reason to delay. On the edge of the forest, Isolde thought she heard a voice calling from the depths of the old grange,
return when you will, you will find me here.
But she dared not let herself look back.

Now every hour brought them to the port. Step by step the air overhead grew sharp with the tang of salt, and the mournful cries of the gulls beckoned them on. Isolde read Tristan’s bleak face and threw him a glance.
Soon, love, we’ll be in Ireland, where no man can say me nay. And there
we’ll be happy again as we were at Bel Content.

They came to the top of a hill. As they climbed the ridge, it began to snow. On the crest, a great flock of magpies rose squawking from the ground, a flash of blue-black and white, and glittering, staring eyes.
One
for sorrow . . . seven for a secret that must never be told . . .

Isolde shivered. Gods above, magpies were ill-omened birds. She looked around in alarm. Below them lay a sheltered inlet with two or three ships at anchor, surrounded by the armored guards of the king. A lean, sharp-faced captain stood at their head, and Mark’s royal standard was flying over them all.

Isolde felt her heart choking her throat.
Goddess, Mother, is Mark here?
Will he know that Tristan has just left my bed?

The reins of her horse lay idle in her hands. She took them up in a dream of dread and forced herself down the slope. The captain began to speak as they drew near.

“King Mark greets the Queen of Ireland, his loyal wife,” he proclaimed. “He wishes her a good voyage to Ireland and all speed in her state affairs. And he orders his royal nephew and liege knight, Tristan of Lyonesse, to turn back to Castle Dore. Matters of state demand his presence there, and the King will take it as the act of a traitor to refuse.”