Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur

by Nestvold, Ruth

  "Danu," the queen began, "we call on the elements of earth, air and water, and the changing magic of fire to aid us in learning what the future holds for us in a time of trouble. The circle is bound, we have built the three, and we kneel at your mercy between two worlds." Nemain sprinkled more herbs on the fire, and they breathed deeply of the scent, silent, listening to the sounds of the forest, the birds and animals, and the wind rustling the leaves above.

  Queen Yseult could not have said how long they knelt, breathing deeply and concentrating on the crackle of the fire and the reflection of the moon in the water. Suddenly, the flames burst up, more than would have seemed possible from such a small pile of twigs — as high as a man, as high as the trees; a tall, white flame. She stared at it, a moan escaping her lips. It was much more than she cared to know, much more than she had ever imagined. The fire blazed with the magnitude of her daughter's destiny, a destiny young Yseult would neither want nor accept.

  Slowly the blaze returned to normal, flickered, and went out. The queen spoke the words of thanks by rote, allowing the powers of the Otherworld to depart in peace, and reopened the magic circle. Her daughter and Nemain gazed at her, waiting, a question in their eyes.

  "I have seen — " She felt a sob rise in her throat and stopped, taking a deep breath. "I have seen you, Yseult, far from the land of Eriu, as Queen of Dumnonia, wife of Marcus Cunomorus."

  Yseult shook her head. "No. No, it can't be. I won't go to a land of the Romans."

  "That is not all," the queen continued quietly. "I saw your name like a standing stone, enduring longer than any of the kings of Eriu."

  Yseult stared at her for a moment, silent. "Perhaps it was your name you saw," she said faintly.

  "No, it was yours. Yseult the Fair, not Yseult the Wise."

  Honor and fame were the greatest goals of the people of Eriu, greater than a wealth of cattle or a hoard of gold. She could feel what her daughter felt, what she herself had felt, the war between wonder and loss.

  Yseult lifted her chin. "It is too high a price to pay."

  "You may have no choice." The queen stared at the spot where the fire had been. "It is a destiny beyond any I have ever seen. Greater than Fionn, greater even than Mebd. You will carry the magic of our ways into the next age. As long as human memory exists, your name will not die."

  Nemain sucked in her breath. "Are you sure?"

  "You saw the flame."

  Yseult sat back on her heels, shaking her head again. "It can't be. You said I wouldn't be a pawn for peace with the Bretain."

  "I may have been wrong," she whispered.

  "No. We have to convince Lóegaire to call off the negotiations."

  Her daughter wanted her to do what Lóegaire was now doing — try to avoid the fulfillment of a prophecy. Queen Yseult had thought the High King's actions so foolish. They looked very different now that she was in a similar situation. The queen did not wish to send Yseult across the sea, did not wish to see her married to a man of the Christian religion who kept Roman ways, a man Murchad said regarded honor only as a tool to further his ambition, to be put on when the situation demanded and put off again when it hindered him.

  What was she to do?

  The queen took her daughter's hand. "A prophecy does not reveal everything, Yseult. And trying to avoid it often leads to its fulfillment. Think of Cumhail. Think of Balor and Ethlinn."

  "None of them were to marry an old man across the sea!" Yseult jerked her hand out of her mother's grasp, scrambled up, and ran out of the grove.

  The queen and Nemain rose more slowly, brushing off their garments.

  "I don't think it has ever been so difficult living up to my name," Yseult the Wise said, gazing at the spot where her daughter had disappeared into the trees.

  * * * *

  Yseult had come to one of her favorite places, the grove where she and Gamal liked to meet. The ground beneath her back was cool, the air above warm, but for once she could find no comfort in the smell of trees and earth. A light breeze rustled the leaves above her, and birds chattered merrily, happy sounds of an early summer day. She hadn't slept well the night before, and there had been no help to be found in her dreams.

  Her mother had not awakened her this morning, had not taken her along when she went to the house of healing. Brangwyn and Nemain could help if there were an accident during weapons practice or a small child fell sick. Yseult needed time to sort her thoughts.

  Her mother had said it was her fate to marry a man she had never seen, in a land she had never been. It was her fate that her name endure like a standing stone.

  Yseult looked up at the leaves of hawthorn and apple, at the play of light and shadow, at the fruit ripening on the branches, too small for this time of year. For as long as she could remember, she had dreamed of fame greater than that of her mother, greater even than that of legendary Queen Mebd.

  Be careful what you wished for, the druids said.

  She had wished for her name to endure, but not at the price of leaving everything she knew and everyone she loved. Not at the price of marrying a stranger. Not at the price of going to a land where they no longer followed the old ways, where a woman was not given a choice whom she was to marry, where Danu herself had died and the only religion was the religion of Patraic.

  Yseult turned over and propped her chin on her hands. It wasn't wise to underestimate your enemies, her practical cousin Brangwyn said. Much wiser was to get to know them, to understand their minds and motivations. She thought of the disciple who had carried Eithne up from the river, the young man who had cried without noticing his tears. Ciaran. She wondered what had led him to become Christian. He seemed a healthy, intelligent youth who might have become a warrior or an artisan. Instead, he had chosen to teach the new religion, bring the ways of the Bretain and the Romans to Eriu.

  She sat up, gathering herself, and concentrated on an image of the young disciple, calling him to her. She would ask him about the religion of the Christ. Allowing her awareness of the grove around her to fade away, she closed her eyes and filled her mind with what little she knew of Ciaran, focusing the way the druids and her mother had taught her.

  Soon she heard someone coming along the path leading to the grove. Ciaran appeared, his blond, unshaven hair glinting in the sunlight that filtered through the trees.

  When he saw her sitting in the middle of the grove, he stopped.

  "Oh," he said. "I hope I didn't disturb you." He looked embarrassed at finding her there.

  Rising, Yseult shook her head. "Of course not. I called you to me."

  Ciaran flinched. "Patraic told us to beware the powers of the Feadh Ree, especially the ban drui. I shouldn't be here with you."

  "I am no druidess," she said, suppressing her anger. "And I called you to me to learn about your religion."

  He was silent a moment, considering her request. "What do you want to know?"

  "What led you to follow Patraic and the way of the Christ?"

  A look of bitterness passed over his features. "I am bothach, a client without honor-price. My family has been on the same land for three generations. If I had not left, my children would have become serfs."

  "But you could have done something else, become a craftsman or a warrior. The class you are born to does not have to be the class you remain."

  Ciaran shook his head. "That is easy to say as one who need never ask for anything. My father had no goods left after feeding us and paying his rent to his lord. There was nothing to trade for a harp to learn to play, or for tools to learn the trade of the rath-builder, or for the weapons needed to join the fianna. Patraic asked only that I learn Latin, read the holy book, and teach it to others."

  It had never occurred to Yseult that some of those who followed Patraic might have very practical reasons. If she had thought about it before at all, she had thought they must be misguided. She shook her head at her own foolishness. Anything growing as quickly as the new religion could not be simply misguided.

>   "Is there anything about the teachings themselves that appeals to you?" she asked.

  "In the eyes of Jesus Christ we are all equal," Ciaran said, a smile lighting up his fine eyes again.

  Yseult shook her head. "From what I have heard, that is not true for women."

  Ciaran looked briefly confused. "If women are not equal to men in our religion, why do we have more female converts than male?"

  "Is that so? Then where are they? I have never seen a woman among you."

  Yseult could hear in his mind what he didn't say — that women were a temptation and not to be trusted. No, she did not want to go to a Christian country.

  Ciaran made a dismissive gesture. "It is the nature of women not to put themselves forward, and the religion of Christ respects that. According to our ways, female virtues such as gentleness and humility are more important than bravery and pride."

  In his enthusiasm, he had taken hold of her upper arm. Yseult gazed at him, bemused, her eyes on a level with his. She wondered what her mother would think of the female virtues of gentleness and humility.

  "If women are so important in the religion of the Christ, why are they not among those who travel with Patraic?" she asked quietly.

  She got no answer from Ciaran; perhaps he had none, but he was not given a chance to consider it. Patraic's disciple was ripped away from her and flung to the ground, and Gamal stood above him, his fists balled at his sides. "How dare you molest the daughter of the queen!" the warrior bellowed.

  Yseult grabbed Gamal's elbow before he could do the other man any harm. "Leave him be! We were only discussing questions of religion."

  She could feel the tension in his muscled arm. He was wound up like a horse before a race. "Don't. Touch. Him," she said, pressing the three words out. She knew she didn't stand a chance against a warrior of Gamal's stature, but she wasn't about to let him attack an unarmed man for her sake. Because it was for her sake, in a way she didn't care for at all. He was jealous.

  "Get up," she ordered Ciaran. The young man scrambled up, shaking. "Now leave us." He dashed out of the grove without looking back.

  Gamal took a deep breath and slowly turned to face her. "He was gripping your arm. I thought he meant you harm."

  "Do you really think a youth like Ciaran a threat to me?"

  "I didn't know."

  But he did know. He had felt threatened because another man had been touching her. She was not willing to give him that. She thought of Mebd's requirements in a man, "without fear, without jealousy, and without niggardliness." She thought of Gamal's booming laugh, his store of fine tales, almost as many as a bard, the touch of his hand on her bare skin. Then she thought of the murder in his eyes when he looked down at innocent, helpless Ciaran.

  She released his arm. "You can leave now, too."

  "But —"

  "I want to be alone."

  Gamal stared at her a moment, then nodded. Yseult watched him go, her chin high.

  * * * *

  In the days that followed, it did not become any easier for Yseult the Wise to live up to her name. The opposition to Lóegaire's peace with the Bretain was strong, and the temptation to use that for her own purposes even stronger. And now she was on her way to meet a man she had never liked.

  The house of the druids was empty when she passed. Normally at this time, she would have been in the groves with Lucet and Lochru and the other filid of Tara, teaching the youngest ones the ways of logic and the wisdom of the trees. Recently, however, she'd been too busy with the preparations for the festival of Lugnasad.

  Queen Yseult had made her decision, unwise as it was: she would not be responsible for her daughter's misery. She'd found an unlikely ally in Lóegaire's brother Coirpre. Coirpre cared nothing for what happened to young Yseult, but neither did he care for the peace his brother was trying to make with the kingdoms of the Bretain or the growing influence of the Christian wise man Patraic. He didn't care much for Yseult the Wise either, but common enemies made for strange allies.

  As the queen hurried past the Lia Fail, she wondered what the Stone of Destiny would have to say to Lóegaire's kingship now, with the regional kings disgruntled and his consort and his brother plotting against him. She gave a wry smile. It was foolish of him to put all his efforts into reversing a prophecy — and just as foolish of her.

  After leaving the ramparts of Rath na Riogh, she headed for the sacred sidhe hills near the entrance avenue to Tara. Coirpre was waiting for her in a stand of birch trees past the training grounds. He looked much like Lóegaire but with less gray in his hair and beard and a cast of discontent about his hard, unsmiling eyes. When he did smile, it was not as sincere as his younger brother.

  "You were right," he said with satisfaction when she joined him, his gaze sliding up to hers but not quite meeting her eyes. "There is considerable grumbling among the local kings and their warriors about this peace."

  She nodded, doing her best to suppress her dislike of the gloating tone in his voice. Coirpre was so transparent, it would take no magic at all to read him. "The raids along the Bretain coast have made many warriors rich. I have heard it is not uncommon for them to achieve a higher honor-price than a chieftain of the Fortuatha Laigin." The Fortuatha Laigin were the unfree tribes living in the wild, infertile hills to the south.

  "That should not be hard." Coirpre chuckled, a sound that carried amusement but no humor. The heat of his hatred for the Laigin, the time-honored enemies of the sons of Niall but now their allies, was so palpable it made her vision blur. With him, it was more than hereditary hatred; when Lóegaire had promised never again to levy the Boruma, the traditional tribute the tribes of the Laigin paid to Midhe and Brega, they had supported him for the kingship, bypassing Coirpre.

  "If peace is made with the Bretain, it will no longer be possible to grow rich from raiding," she said.

  The pulse of his hatred grew. He was so full of it: hatred of the Laigin, hatred of the Bretain, hatred of the Christians. She wished he possessed at least a little of the ability to shield his thoughts that his brother had learned. It was difficult to keep up the conversation, overrun by the intensity of his feelings.

  "That will never happen," Coirpre swore.

  Queen Yseult began to slowly pace the perimeters of the clearing, as much to get away from the force of Coirpre's emotions as to work off her own. "Your brother counts himself strong enough to do as he pleases, regardless of what the Oenach might demand."

  "I have spoken with Dunlaing. While there is no support for peace with the Bretain, neither do the tribes of the Laigin want to turn against the consort of the queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann."

  A contradictory mixture of deference and disdain washed over her, and she realized it was his attitude towards her. She stopped and faced him, surprised. On the one hand, Coirpre saw her as soft because she was a wise woman and not a warrior, but at the same time, he felt an ingrained respect for the Feadh Ree and her own magic. Coirpre was a warrior to the core, and he would always reserve his greatest respect for fighters and fighting ability. Druids, women and Christians were inferior in his scheme of things.

  It was interesting to find herself equated with her enemy in this way.

  "I do not intend to stay with Lóegaire if he insists on marrying my daughter to Marcus Cunomorus," she said.

  "Would you be willing to repudiate your marriage at Lugnasad?"

  "I had already considered it."

  "Good."

  "We will need to find out how the kings of the other provinces feel."

  Coirpre nodded. "Although Ailill Molt did not approve when his foster daughter was to be married to Cunomorus, I fear he may yet support Lóegaire. Connachta has less to lose if peace is made with the Bretain. For Ulaid and Mumu I will need spies. I do not have many friends there."

  Yseult doubted if Coirpre had many friends anywhere. But if he would help her ruin Lóegaire's plans to send her daughter to a foreign king, she would be his "friend" for as long as was necessary.<
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  Chapter 4

  The year after he became king, Eochu ordered the people of Eriu to hold the feis of Tara, so that taxes and assessments might be reckoned. The people of Eriu replied that they would not hold the feis of Tara for a king with no queen.

  "The Wooing of Etain"

  The morning before the festival of Tara dawned clear and warm, and soon the five roads to the Hill of Kings were full of horses and carts and people on foot, all hoping to arrive before the heat of the day. It was one of the biggest events in Eriu and took place only once every three years; a celebration lasting six days, ending on Lugnasad, the summer festival dedicated to the god Lugh, greatest of the gods of the Gaels. The final event was the Oenach, an assembly of all the kings of Eriu. Everyone who had some leisure and their health came, from the bo aireg, simple peasants and freemen; to goldsmiths and blacksmiths and traders, who did excellent business at the fair; to warriors and nobility and filid. The druid in charge of record-keeping kept track of the arrivals of the most important guests to compose a poem about the event when all had departed again.

  Yseult and her cousin Brangwyn sought out the stalls of the merchants in the early afternoon, a modest assortment of ring money and Roman and Bretain coins in the purses at their belts. If they wanted anything of greater value, they could barter for a cow or a slave. The festival would not officially start until sunset signaled the dark half of the new day, but the merchants were happy to begin business early.

  The artisans and merchants had set up their stands and tents below the Hill of Tara to the east of the ceremonial entrance, opposite the training grounds where the horse races were to take place. The cousins strolled between the stalls, eagerly examining the offerings spread out before them. Tara had craftsmen for everything they needed, from fine goldsmiths to stone workers to enamel workers famous throughout the five fifths of Eriu, but it was only at fairs like this that such a wide variety of specialty wares from other regions were available — musical instruments from the master at Emain Macha, intricate bronzework from Rath Bile, decorative bridles from Uisnech. Not to mention the exotic goods from across the sea, jars for cosmetics and goblets of glass from the lands of the Mediterranean, flagons of fine wine from Galicia, and Bretain-Roman fibulae. Young Yseult did not care for the Roman style of decoration, but she was drawn to the stands anyway. It was a symbol of something so foreign and distant, it attracted and repelled her at the same time.