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

by Nestvold, Ruth

  As soon as the Saxon fell, Drystan knelt down and swept Kurvenal up into his arms, carrying to their tent him through hordes of running, shouting men. Blood soaked his tunic and breeches and dripped into his shoes, and he felt tears running down his face. In the tent, he laid Kurvenal on the pallet and tore apart the first piece of clean cloth which came to hand. He pushed up his friend's shirt and saw that the wound was just above his hip, not in the stomach as he had feared, and he cried even harder in relief. Wadding up the linen, he stuffed it into the wound and bound it tight with long strips from the tunic.

  Yseult would have been proud of him.

  There was a gentle pressure on his forearm. "Drys?"

  Drystan looked up, wiping the tears from his face with a bloody hand. "Thank the gods that you're alright!"

  "Thank yourself," Kurvenal said with an attempt at a smile. "Now go win the war for us."

  Drystan nodded and rose. The dizziness and feeling of unreality would soon pass — they had to.

  He returned to the ramparts, his tunic and breeches growing stiff with Kurvenal's drying blood. Cador stared at him, but Drystan shook his head. "Not mine."

  After an hour of fighting, the Saxons apparently decided that they were not strong enough to take Caer Baddon, and they retreated back beyond the range of the archers.

  "They're weakened now," Arthur told the men gathered at the southern tip of the fortifications. "We must find a way to use that."

  "Charge again, only more this time," Cai said simply. "They won't expect it."

  "Charge," Arthur repeated, his expression thoughtful.

  Before noon, half of the forces stationed on Caer Baddon were sitting their mounts behind the gates of the hill-fort.

  "It looks as if the Saxons are eating their midday meal, Dux," one of the guards called down from the ramparts.

  "Good," Arthur said. "Open the gates."

  They poured down the hill, reaching the Saxons before many had a chance to react. They cut them down still chewing their bread, making a swath through the enemy ranks. Those that did not die by the spear were trampled by the horses' hooves.

  After slashing a trail of destruction along the line of besieging troops, they whirled around to face an army that was now ready, ranks closed, shields up, and spears angled for a cavalry charge.

  "Back to the protection of the walls?" Bedwyr said.

  "Look! Coming from the Corinium road!" a voice cried towards their rear.

  "Madoc has sent more troops!" someone else called out when the banner came into view.

  "My father," Owain said beside Drystan. "He's leading them himself."

  Drystan felt a brief pang of envy at the pride in his voice.

  "The Saxons, they're bolting!"

  "Men, forward!" Arthur called out. "Britannia patria!"

  They chased the Saxons down the slopes of Caer Baddon, slaying them as they ran. What had been meant to be another demoralizing distraction became a full-fledged attack, and the remaining cavalry in Caer Baddon thundered out of the gates of the ramparts to join the chase.

  With the reinforcements from Madoc attacking the Saxons from the east, the slaughter was complete before they reached the road to Aquae Sulis. Drystan felt as if he would never get the smell of blood off of him.

  "On to Aquae Sulis!" Arthur cried out.

  They galloped along the Roman road, now at least eight hundred strong. When they came around the bend in the Abona River, the Saxons saw them and began to pull men away from their siege of the city walls.

  Suddenly, the odds were very different than they had been three days before.

  "Britannia patria!" the Dux Bellorum yelled, his sword raised, and the gray mare surged forward. The cry went up from eight hundred throats as they put their heels to their horses' sides and charged the enemy. The Saxons had not been expecting an attack from the north, and their response was too indecisive to deal with a war leader of Arthur's brilliance. The British cavalry mowed down the small contingent that had been sent to fight them back, and with each Saxon Drystan speared, with each scream from a Saxon throat, he thought about Kurvi lying on his pallet in Caer Baddon with a hole in his gut.

  When the Saxons still surrounding the walls of Aquae Sulis saw that there was no longer anyone between them and Arthur's troops, they threw down their arms.

  Arthur pulled up out of range of the arrows. "No surrender until I have Octha and Aesc!"

  Nothing happened for a moment, both sides staring at each other in mutual hatred. Arthur repeated his demand in Latin with the same result.

  "Is there anyone here who can speak the Saxon tongue?" Arthur said, glancing back at his men.

  Before a warrior who fulfilled the requirement could be found, a tall man wearing much finer armor than that of the rest of the Saxons came forward through the front ranks, men peeling away from him. He removed his visored helmet and shook out long, graying blond hair. "I am Aesc," he called out in heavily accented British.

  "Come forward," Arthur yelled back.

  Arthur waited on Llamrei until the prince of Ceint came even with them. "Where is your brother Octha?"

  Aesc looked steadily up at Arthur astride his gray warhorse. "Octha leads the others."

  "Led," Arthur corrected him. "They are all dead now."

  Save for a flickering behind his eyes, Drystan would have thought the Saxon giant hadn't understood.

  "You will command your men to shed their armor and step away from their weapons if they want to leave this battlefield alive," Arthur said. "Today you will not bring Britain down into the dark!"

  His words rang among their ranks, and all around Drystan, men put up a huge cheer which echoed against the hills surrounding Aquae Sulis.

  Drystan was tired and aching from three days of fighting and very little sleep, but he too was yelling his throat raw, his sword raised in the air, celebrating the defeat of those who would take their home and destroy their way of life. A wild joy filled him and the men nearby, Cador, Aircol, Owain, Bedwyr, Cai.

  He only wished Kurvenal were here with them.

  * * * *

  In order to get his surviving son and heir back, Hengist withdrew from Londinium and returned it to the British. This was a treaty Arthur was inclined to trust — he knew how few fighting men were left to the Saxons now.

  Kurvenal spent the following weeks in a house of healing in Aquae Sulis, too sorely wounded to participate in the battles still being fought to the south against Cerdic.

  "You must send to Dyn Tagell," Kurvenal said. He was being removed from Caer Baddon to more comfortable lodgings in town, and Drystan rode alongside the wagon carrying the wounded. "Tell them we are well."

  Drystan glanced over at his friend, his pale face and the heavy rings under his eyes. "Well? You nearly had your liver sliced out, and you call this well?"

  Kurvenal smiled weakly. "That we are alive, then. Write them and tell them we survived. I promised."

  Drystan nodded shortly. With the break in the fighting, the thought of Yseult — and everything he could not tell her — had returned as a constant ache. But this at least he could tell her.

  The rest of the summer they spent driving Cerdic and his followers back into the sea. By August, Kurvenal was fighting at his side again and Venta and Portus Adurni were back in the hands of troops loyal to Ambrosius and Arthur. The former Count of the Saxon Shore had joined his father-in-law Aelle on the Island of Vectis.

  And Drystan could join his stepmother on the near-island of Dyn Tagell.

  Chapter 27

  mit der verkouften si vil,

  mit der ertrugen s'ir minnenspil.

  mit der verspilte Minne

  vil maneges herzen sinne,

  der sich nie keinez kunde enstân,

  wie ez umbe ir liebe was getân.

  (With this, they foisted off much on those they knew; with this, they masked their love play. With love acted out, they fooled the senses of many, and none could discern the true nature of their love.)


  Gottfried von Straßburg, Tristan

  "Can you see who it is?" Yseult asked, Kustennin propped on her hip. He was over two-and-a-half now and large for his age, but sometimes it was easier to carry him than to go chasing after him every time he saw something that caught his interest.

  They stood on the southern slope of the promontory where the view of the mainland was best, not far from Yseult's herb garden. Two different parties were expected at Dyn Tagell, that of Arthur and that of Marcus; this time, Yseult had not made the mistake of neglecting to inform Marcus that the Dux Bellorum intended to visit.

  Brangwyn squinted and shaded her eyes. "It's the Pendragon banner. Arthur."

  Yseult drew in a deep breath. Drystan. Two years since she had seen him. Her chest hurt.

  Kustennin began to squirm violently and she put him down. She must have tightened her hold unintentionally.

  She had to maintain her distance from Drystan. She had sworn she would no longer carry on their affair; she had made the choice to remain in her marriage to Marcus, after all, for Kustennin's sake. She couldn't allow her joy at his return to make her break that promise to herself.

  "Do you really think you will be able to do that?" Brangwyn asked quietly.

  Yseult gazed at her son, who was now crawling on a tumble of rocks beside the row of stone huts which served as quarters for the soldiers.

  "For his sake, I must try, Brangwyn."

  "Mama, look!" He stood up, balancing precariously on the highest rock, a big smile on his sunny face, his blond curls dancing in the wind.

  Yseult resisted the urge to grab him to keep him from falling and smiled back instead. "Very good, sweetheart."

  "I'm the biggest!"

  Brangwyn chuckled, shaking her head.

  Yseult moved next to him and pointed in the direction of the band of riders approaching the narrow land bridge to Dyn Tagell. "Are you big enough to see Arthur and his warriors?"

  He gazed where she indicated, intense concentration on his face. "I see them! Did they all kill Saxons?"

  "I'm sure they did."

  Kustennin stretched his arms out to his mother and then launched himself at her, nearly knocking her breath out. "I will kill Saxons someday too."

  Yseult met Brangwyn's eyes over his blond head. "But you will not have to, young man. Unless the peace doesn't hold."

  "What does the peace hold, Mama?"

  "Let us hope it is good things, little one."

  "I'm not little, I'm big!" He began squirming again, and Yseult set him down. Together they followed as he went running off in the direction of the land bridge.

  By the time they reached the stables on the mainland, Arthur and his companions were dismounting. Brangwyn hurried off when she caught sight of Kurvenal, and Yseult gazed after her, resisting the impulse to search for Drystan in the crowd.

  "Yseult!"

  As she turned towards the voice, she felt as if each moment had become its own lifetime.

  Drystan.

  She repressed the sob that rose in her throat, repressed the need to run to where he stood beside a bay gelding and fling herself into his arms. Instead she stood, staring, as Drystan gave the reins of his mount to a stable boy and slowly made his way through the crowd to her. It was a bright fall day, and the sun glinted off the hair of his braid, the wind pulling at long, bronze strands and whipping them around his face. He pulled the loose strands back with one hand, his expression serious.

  Kustennin tugged on her hand, and she blinked.

  "Is that Arthur?" he asked, pointing at his father.

  She shook her head. "No, dear, that's Drystan."

  "My brother?"

  Her hesitation was only slight. "Yes."

  Drystan stopped in front of them and crouched down on his heels in front of Kustennin. "Hello, young man."

  "Hello. You're my brother."

  "So they say."

  "Will you teach me to ride?"

  Drystan smiled up at her and her heart turned over. "If your mother will let me."

  Yseult gazed at him, knowing she would let him do anything, now. He was here, whole. He had survived years of war and bloodshed, and the sight of him sent such a wrenching joy through her, she was only glad no one seemed to be paying them any mind; she was sure her heart was in her face. There was no resistance left in her, only need. Her love for Drystan was an ache in her soul, a biting hunger that had her clenching her hands in the folds of her skirt. His eyes widened, and without looking into his mind, she knew he had seen what she felt.

  "Where is the little prince?"

  Yseult and Drystan tore their gazes away from each other as Cador joined them. Yseult hardly recognized him. The still boyishly soft muscles of his arms of two years ago had turned into hard planes, and a neatly trimmed, red-gold beard graced his cheeks and chin.

  She probed his mind carefully — and felt his determination to keep what he thought he had seen to himself. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Cador swept Kustennin up into his arms and Drystan rose, smiling. Kustennin squealed happily and grasped Cador around the neck. "Are you Arthur?"

  "I'm afraid not. Only your cousin Cador." He propped Kustennin on his hip and turned with him in the direction of the other warriors. "That is Arthur," he said, pointing to the Dux Bellorum. Gray now laced the temples of the famous general's golden-brown hair, and fine worry lines were etched into his brow. "Shall I introduce you?"

  Kustennin bounced in Cador's arms. "Yes!"

  Cador smiled at Yseult. "May I carry off your boy?"

  "Certainly."

  Together they watched as Cador moved away through the crowd, both nervous, both too aware of each other to speak. Yseult's gaze shifted from Kustennin running from one fearsome warrior to the next, pulling on their tunics, demanding to be lifted up, and soon squirming again to get down, to where Brangwyn stood next to Kurvenal. Kurvenal smiled widely at her cousin, his wavy, shoulder-length hair blowing in the wind, while Brangwyn laid a hand on his arm, her expression serious. For a woman who was not in love, Brangwyn had been extremely distressed when they learned of the wound Kurvenal had taken at Baddon. Yseult did not intrude on their thoughts.

  "When will I see you?" Drystan murmured next to her.

  Yseult shivered and pulled her summer cloak tighter around her shoulders. She should say no. She should tell him they would not see each other, not the way he meant it, tell him that was over between them, as she had told him two years ago.

  "There is a cave to the south," she said. "Down the hill from the church on the mainland. Do you know it?"

  He nodded.

  "I often go to the church to visit Illtud and exchange herbs and remedies, and sometimes visit the villagers after. No one will remark it."

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow morning after we break our fast?"

  "Good. I will be there."

  * * * *

  "We should never have come to this land," Brangwyn said, pounding the pestle into the mortar with added vehemence. "We should have hidden in the hills of the Feadh Ree."

  They were in the small stone building between the upper hall and the herb garden which Yseult used as house of healing for the warriors of Dyn Tagell and any others who cared to consult her rather than the priests. The room was full of the smell of the drying herbs hanging on the walls and from the rafters.

  Yseult put a stoppered ceramic jar with an ointment of bog onion, comfrey and agrimony into her basket. "But you disagreed with your mother for retreating to the hills."

  "Or maybe I will put on my breeches and fight the Saxons."

  Yseult laughed. "Do that. Since they are already defeated, I will not stop you. But before you go in search of them, will you watch for me today?"

  "Yes."

  Yseult caught Brangwyn around the waist, whirled her in a circle, and planted a kiss on her cheek. "I love you so much, Cousin."

  "It would be better if you loved less."

  "You are getting old before
your time."

  "It is hardly surprising when I have to watch over you." Brangwyn poured the ground herbs into a small flask and added the heavy wine they used for their medicines.

  Yseult could feel her cousin's worry and anger, but her own anticipation was too strong for her to care — or at least to pay it any mind.

  She threw her cloak around her shoulders and hurried across the land bridge to the church on the mainland. After she gave Illtud the ointment for bruises that he'd requested, he would have been happy to sit on a bench in the gentle September sun with her for a spell, but she made excuses about the rounds she had to make in the village. To give the truth to her lie, she made brief visits to two families where there had recently been an injury and an illness, but her anticipation was growing so sharply, she could hardly concentrate on the words they exchanged, the complaints of joints that still ached and repeated dizzy spells.

  By the time she was on the path that led down to the beach, her face was hot and her stomach hurt with a strange kind of joy, barely distinguishable from pain.

  Soon she would touch him again.

  She felt a sob catch in her throat, and she hurried down the narrow, zig-zagging trail.

  Drystan was waiting in the cave when she arrived, and she went into his arms with a laugh that was also a gasp and a cry. He enfolded her in an embrace she had never thought to feel again, and she breathed in the smell of his sweat and his own anticipation, a biting scent that she could not for the life of her have described, but which she knew she could have distinguished from that of any other man.

  They stood that way for a while in the dark safety of the cave, not kissing, not speaking, only embracing hard, feeling each other's presence again. The planes of his muscles were harder than when she had last held him, honed by years of marching and riding and fighting, the feel of him familiar and yet different. The joy that filled her hurt so much, it was an ache at the back of her throat. The smell of Drystan beneath her cheek mixed with the smell of the sea and the dank cave, a wet, dark smell, cloying and cold and salty.