“Mother, too, knew what it was like to be a reluctant bride. She would have meant the drink for me and Mark.”
“Brangien!” Drustan had finally caught on.
Des, I was certain, already knew what Brangien had done. By the pain deepening in his eyes, he was just coming to realize that, before last night, I had still not chosen between him and Drustan.
Des dropped to his knees before me. “So, it could have been I who took your heart?”
Why was his pain so plain for me to see? I shook my head, a denial as false as Judas. “No. Not you. Not Drustan. Mark. No matter what else, my pledge is to duty and Mark.”
“Then you have doomed me, my Lady.”
“I think we have all doomed each other.”
~ ~ ~
There were carts waiting for us when we landed. One to lade my things on and another to carry me on to Tintagel. Des led his and Drustan’s stallions from the hold and they galloped the spirit out of them while the first cart trundled me off along the coast. As the crow flew, it was only a short distance from port to castle. But Tintagel was built on a high cliff overlooking the sea and it took time to climb the switchbacks to its top.
The country about Tintagel had a wilder look than that about Whitehaven. No meadows of deepest green that gave way gently to thick forests among the hills, but fields of harsh sedge grasses on the rugged hills that ended bluntly at the edge of a thick, ringing wood. Add to that the drizzle that had begun to fall and that the one familiar companion I’d counted on was gone and I was thoroughly homesick already. Only loneliness lay ahead. I prayed to have Mother’s philtre back, or at the least for my heart to be unshackled from Drustan, because when he left—as he must, I knew—he’d take my heart, my soul, my life with him.
As we drew close to the castle, Des fell his steed in step with the cart while Drustan spurred ahead.
“He insisted on announcing you,” Des said.
I was wet and tired; the last thing I wanted was fanfare. Too, while I should have been flattered, I was suspicious. Had Father requested it of him?
The small knot of folk waiting in the courtyard hardly constituted fanfare, however. An older gentleman with softly graying hair—of an age with the king, I suspected—met the cart with hand extended to help me out.
“My Lady, welcome to Tintagel,” he said with a bow. “I am Dinas of Lidan, Seneschal. It is my pleasure to attend you.”
Des to one side and Drustan in front dismounted, and a pair of young pages appeared to take their horses.
“My pleasure to be here, Sir Dinas.” Taking his hand, I stepped from the cart. Two others, knights too, perhaps, stood at the wide doors. Even bedraggled as I was, I expected men’s stares. But Dinas and the guards at the doors had eyes as much for Drustan as for me.
The guards pulled back the doors onto a large audience hall and bowed me through, Des and Drustan following no more than a step behind. Within, a score of nobles and their ladies stood from their benches. At the far end of the hall, King Mark rose from a modest throne, gray hair, gray beard, but a fit-seeming body and a look of surprised joy.
I blushed deeply as Dinas, from behind, announced us. “The Princess, Yseult of Whitehaven, Sir Palomides, and Sir Tristan of Lyonesse.”
My knees went weak. The room suddenly held no air. I spun sharply to face Drustan—no Tristan—who looked at the floor and would not meet my stare. I spun the other way and fixed Des with an accusing eye. “Did you know?” I hissed. But the look of astonishment on his face was enough to tell me he was as taken by surprise as I. Surely he had heard the rumors same as I, but to know them for truth…
What miracle held me to my feet I didn’t know. I was numb, unable to feel my body, barely able to think. I wanted nothing more than to crawl away and hide somewhere safe—away from kings and lies and grief.
But there was no time to do anything save plaster on a smile that burned like shame as the king approached us. He sucked in air at close sight of me, and I saw a familiar glint in the appraising eye he cast over me. He had been a fine man in his youth, I was certain. And he made for a king—wise and confident—one could have faith in. But for a husband… Memory of Drustan—Tristan—washed over me. What body could compare to his in strength and endurance? What face, save Des’, could compare to his beauty? What other man could make my heart and body sing?
“My Lady,” King Mark was saying, “all of Tintagel welcomes their queen-to-be.” Clasping my hand in his he lifted it eagerly to his dry lips. “Though none welcomes her more than I.”
“The pleasure is mine,” I responded, mustering what formality I could.
Mark, however, was already turning his attention to Tristan. “I thought you dead, my boy.”
“I very nearly was. It was Yseult who saved me.”
“A generous heart to save an enemy,” Mark said.
“Only because I knew him not for the man who slew my uncle.” And now that I did, why did I not revile Tristan in my heart the same as I tried to castigate him with my words? Granted, I had not known Sir Marhaus well and they had fought as champions, out of duty, each bearing the sword of their respective king. They had fought not as Tristan and Marhaus then, but as Cornwall and Ireland.
But then to betray me every day as we sat in my courtyard, to carry my favor, to bed me, to urge me in every way to fall in love with his lie…
When I could move again, I stepped away from Tristan and Mark who, reunited, were embracing now. Uncle and nephew, they were as close as father and son. And now I would be Tristan’s aunt.
My mind skittered away, too overwhelmed to think too closely about what had been and what would come. I stumbled back another step—right into Des’ arms. Hand on my waist he steadied me.
Left his hands there even when Mark returned his attention to me and announced to the hall in general, “Yseult and I will wed ten days hence. Tonight we feast the return of Tristan!” Leaning close, for my ears alone, he added, “You are far fairer, my Lady, than the songs would tell. You and I will have much joy come the wedding night.” His face split into a sloppy grin. “More mead all around!” he shouted, and I couldn’t help but observe it wasn’t yet mid-day.
~ ~ ~
From somewhere Dinas found me a handmaid to help me change into dry clothes and to unpack my things when the second cart arrived.
I was exhausted—heart, mind, body and soul. Claiming fatigue from the journey I slept till suppertime. When I woke, the handmaid had already laid out a gown for the feast: the same emerald overdress I had last lent Brangien. “Choose me another,” I commanded, offering no other explanation, not caring that I likely would be labeled imperious by the court’s servants. Knowing I didn’t yet have the strength to talk about Brangien.
At the feast, Mark sat me at his right-hand side and fed me sweetmeats from his own trencher. Tristan sat to his left, resplendent in a deep blue surcoat trimmed in silver. At a near table, fidgeting in his borrowed finery of ruby and gold, Des watched us, the normal dazzle in his eyes dulled by his sullen stare.
Mead flowed generously, and as the night wore on Mark pressed closer and closer to me, taking freer and freer liberties with his hands. When he winked at me and laid his hand between my thighs, over the gown though it was, I’d had enough. Curbing my instinct to slap away the disdainful thing, I said, “Your Grace sets a lovely and lavish table, but the sea trip and the feast have tired me greatly. With your permission, I think it’s best I retire.”
Without actually waiting for that permission to be granted, I stood, twisting my hips and brushing away the offending hand as I did. For the benefit of propriety, I dropped him a sweet smile and a curtsy before striding off.
As I passed Des he caught my hand. “May I come to you tomorrow?” he asked, low enough that only I could hear.
He looked so wounded and distraught—and I desperately needed the comfort of a friend. “At noon,” I nodded. “In the main courtyard where we first arrived.”
He brought the hand
he held to his lips and kissed the back of it with a tender caress. Then he trembled as he released it.
I hoped I hadn’t made yet another mistake.
CHAPTER THIRTY
PALOMIDES
Yseult had loved me. Since the time she had told me, I could focus on little else. Spells didn’t always last forever. I was proof of that. Or would be once I’d fulfilled the provisions of my curse. Brinn, too, had broken free of hers.
That Fate had delivered Yseult Tristan rather than the innocent bard she thought she’d succored or the humble knight who’d seduced her gave me a last hope to win back the heart I’d lost to him.
She and I met in the courtyard at noon and walked on the cliffs above the sea. Every step was agony watching her in her grief and sadness. Every muscle of me longed to wrap her in my arms and kiss her pain away.
My only solace was that Tristan had not been with her to comfort her himself since we’d come ashore. Favored of the king, he had a rare chamber here to call his own and whatever more he felt for me, I was his guest and his responsibility. Well-drunk by the time we retired from the feasting, he bade me the hospitality of his room. When I sought a pallet on the floor, he waved me to the bed.
We’d been naked with each other before. What men lodged in close quarters had not? As fae, immune to all but the most extreme of temperatures, and in need of the freedom to shift at will from fae to hound and back again, I seldom wore so much as a jewel.
As a man, the necessity of clothes in the late spring was predicated, not by the body’s needs, but by the needs of their culture. What God would create a being in His own image, then demand shame in the displaying of it? Or were men so weak they must devise laws to curb their natural desires?
As man, I took my cues of culture from what I had seen of them as fae and from what my fellow men did around me.
So when Tris stripped without thought in front of me, I did the same. Had he not been so drunk on Yseult’s snubbing and mead to the point he was snoring almost before he collapsed on the bed, perhaps what had remained of the night would have gone much differently.
Tristan or Drustan, Yseult’s lover or no, he commanded desire from me, pure and physical. Not the soul-deep desire that drove me to madness with Yseult, but something more basic, more carnal. Something as fae we would have indulged in long before now. Something as men that was only acknowledged in the deepest shadows of night. A taboo broken more often than not.
Drunk as he was, I could have slaked my desire and taken pleasure from him and he would have remembered nothing of it in the morning. Respect for him stayed me, stayed my half-risen staff, and I contented myself with the salty scent of him and a hand across his shoulder, as much to know if he woke and left the bed as it was to comfort me.
He had not gone to Yseult, that much was certain. That much I knew as I walked with her.
“I look at Mark,” she confided to me, “and all I see is a man thrice my age, worn and grayed.”
“Are you afraid he cannot be a husband to you in all ways?”
She blushed, a trait of blood that washed easily and endearingly over her. “Even Brangien would not have been so bold to ask,” she reprimanded. Though we both knew it wasn’t true. And Yseult, alone in a new world, needed most a close friend and confessor.
I could be that for her now, if there was promise that later I could be so much more.
“No,” she sighed. “I fear otherwise, if truth be told. The way he looks at me. The way he touches me.”
“He’s… touched you… my Lady?”
“He’s tried in not so discreet ways. I’ve rebuffed him so far. But once he’s my husband,” the word fell like venom from her lips, “I’ll have no recourse but to submit.”
“An heir will be expected,” I reminded her gently while I considered what it might mean to Ireland should King Mark wind up dead by the jaws of a Gabriel Hound. The taste of his bitter blood would be most satisfying, I presumed.
“I’ve tried to be attracted to him, but I can’t even bring myself to have fond thoughts for him. And when I imagine us… together…” She shuddered, and when I draped an arm about her shoulders to comfort her, instead of pulling away as I was afraid she might do in her state, she melted into my half-embrace, desperate for a caring touch.
Desperate myself, I clung to the moment. Wanting nothing more than to crush her to me—to feel her chest tight to mine, the willowed length of her pressed against me, to inhale the essence of her—I forced my arms to simply hold her, and they trembled with the effort.
A minute passed, then two. With a sniffle, she gently pulled away. Against all desire I let her go.
She knew the reluctance on my part and smiled, a fragile expression threatened by tears. “Mark would not be so courteous as you.”
“Yet he could never want you as much as I.”
The tears did come at that. “You, Tristan, Mark—what am I to do?”
“You feel for Tristan—still?”
She shook her head, but not in answer to my question. “He did what duty commanded. For that same duty, my father requires me wed the man who ordered him. How can I condemn him without condemning myself? I loved Drustan. And much as I would wish to find an ember of love for Mark, and to stop loving Tristan, I can do neither. Mother knew it would come to this. Happily would I drink her philtre now, as she had meant it to be.”
I closed my eyes as the pain of her confession filled me. What hope I’d had that Tristan revealing himself to her might be enough to turn her away from him had been thoroughly trampled. The way to another outcome would not be easy.
“It is ten days to your wedding. Let me spirit you away for a week. To an abbey perhaps. A place of peace where you can pray about your future. Will you trust me? Will you come with me, away from Mark and Tristan, where you can listen to your own heart’s pleading and decide the path that you will walk?”
Her tears dried as she bit her lower lip, considering my offer. “To have heart and mind agree would be balm to my soul,” she agreed at last. “Perhaps a few days peace is what I need. But could Tristan bear to see me go?”
“Why tell him? Would he not follow, regardless? Mark must grant your vigil, but Tris has no such duty to uphold. Let Mark alone know that you’ll be gone so he doesn’t send knights out in search of you. Tris will discover your absence soon enough.”
“Seven days?” she asked. “Seven is a holy number, or did you know? Four for the body, three for the soul.”
“Seven for eternity,” I whispered, so soft she didn’t hear.
~ ~ ~
There had been so many lies already, what was one more? I had no intent of carrying Yseult to an abbey. I had run the cliffs for miles the dusk before and found the perfect spot for Yseult’s vigil.
I arranged for a palfrey to be ready for her at dawn while she informed Mark by missive of her leave. That evening the joyous belling of my hound resounded in the woods about Tintagel.
When I returned, I looked for Tris to sup with and found him with Yseult in the private garden by the king’s chambers. They sat on a bench in close embrace, their passion palpable in the starlight.
I watched—how could I not?—as their questing arms and gentle kisses turned more frantic. Tris’ hands roamed her gowned body. He covered her mouth, and it took no imagination to know how his tongue plunged in and out, invading her.
They paused long enough for Yseult to untie the knot at the waist of Tris’ breeches. Standing, he and she together, she tugged only far enough for him to spring free. With a long, sweet moan, she caught him in both hands. My own staff leaped against its confines. Jealousy and desire tore through me.
She would have bent her head to him, but Tris pushed her back the three steps to the garden wall. He lifted her skirts to her waist and she guided him in, her face rapt with the pleasure of his filling her. He moved slowly at first, his hands to hers, lifting her arms above her head. She writhed against him, her head rocking to and fro against the wall, both of t
hem moaning softly to the rhythm.
Dropping my hand to my own lacings, I let free my staff, long and slender and now doing worship to the moon.
Soon Tris’ beat increased, I keeping time with them.
Yseult, head thrown back against the stones, throat and back arched in ecstasy, cried out first. A moment later Tris groaned into Yseult, and my own staff quivered as it fountained in silent communion.
~ ~ ~
I met Yseult at her chamber door just before dawn carrying a pack of provisions raided from the kitchens and a spare tunic. Her own pack was respectably small. “Two gowns and their undershifts,” she said when I eyed it. I noted the silver cross hung from her neck and guilt twinged through me.
We rode for no more than three hours along the wild Cornish coast, high on the cliffs above the rough waters below. When I pulled rein in a quiet grotto, Yseult gladly dismounted.
“How enchanting!”
Tiny mosses grew along the faces of the rounded rocks that cradled this hollow while wispy willow branches waved above.
“There’s another delight, as well.” I led her to the far end of the grotto where it narrowed into a smooth-walled sea cave floored with the finest sand and over-arched by a crystal-studded ceiling. The crash of the waves, muffled by the rocks between, was both urgent and soothing.
“So perfect and peaceful,” Yseult said, running her fingers along the cool walls.
“Somewhere you could spend hours in private meditation and communion with God?” I prompted>.
“If it were a close walk to Tintagel, I’d come here every day. How could I tire of its beauty and serenity?”
“Then my Lady, consider it your private chapel for the next week.”
“The next—? But you said—” Confusion quickly gave way to anger. “What happened to the abbey?”
“Won’t God hear you just as well here?”
“Of course, but that isn’t the point.”
“Then what is, my Lady?”
I watched her anger dissolve into exasperation. “Why else did you bring me here?”
Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) Page 13
