“Whether he wants to remarry or not, he is doing it, and cutting you off from your inheritance.”
“It’s not an inheritance I want.”
“Even so, it’s your birthright. Not only does he wish to steal it—others resent that, Tris, even if you do not—but to ask you to steal it for him is the height of arrogance—it smacks of contempt and cowardice. How does he dare?”
Tristan smiled at Dinadan’s wrath. “Be easy, Din. It’s a simple matter, really. And the cause is noble. He knows I can do this for him; he knows he cannot do it for himself, and who else is there?”
“You’re not falling for that nonsense about another golden age like Arthur’s. Come on, Tris! That’s so much chaff thrown in your face to hide his real intent.”
“He wouldn’t undertake marriage for a petty cause, or just to cheat me. He hates the very idea of it. He hates the ritual and ceremony, he hates the formality and the fuss. All he wants is to lie with her and get her with child, and stick her in some fortress out of harm’s way. That’s all marriage is to Mark. In fifteen years he’ll come back and claim his son. If you want to be angry, think of the poor girl.” The smile died as a lock of dark hair fell forward to shadow his face. “Think of the young virgin, barely past childhood, raised by her parents for just such a sacrifice. All she will ever know of love is Mark’s hot breath, his unwashed hands, his urgent need. Poor child. Like Esme.” Tristan rose suddenly and strode away from the table. “Sometimes I think it is sinful, the burdens God makes women bear.”
Dinadan shook his head and took another pull from the wineskin. “I’ve never heard such gibberish. Come on, Tristan, give your mind to this, if only for a moment.”
“Never to know the unutterable sweetness of desire . . . I pity her from my heart.”
Dinadan sighed and pushed the scroll aside.
“Why worry about the Welsh princess? We know nothing about her yet. Let’s just hope she has no ambitions to power, or Mark will make her life a misery.”
“He will do that in any event. Shall we pray the poor child is stupid and aims at nothing beyond breeding heirs? It’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone I cared for.”
“Is she worse off than the cook’s daughter or the fisherman’s girl?”
“God is cruel to women.”
In exasperation, Dinadan waved the scroll at him. “Enough about women. Can you give a moment’s thought to this important matter? The High King of Britain wants your advice.”
Tristan shrugged. “I’ve already decided. I will go.”
“No!” Dinadan slammed his fist on the table. “You cannot! Uncle or not, he is a villain to suggest it—”
“He doesn’t suggest it.”
“He asks you for help. For advice. A thinly disguised ploy.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you value your life so lightly?” Dinadan took him by the shoulders and shook him firmly. “What about those of us who love you? What about Lyonesse? If you die, this too will belong to Markion.”
“He is not sending me there to kill me. Mark wouldn’t do that.”
Dinadan’s eyes flashed. “But Segward would. My God, don’t you see? Tristan, open your eyes. This is his revenge. He might not come against you openly—it’s just like him to get someone else to do his dirty work. And how clever to let it be the Welsh! It will look like revenge for Marhalt, a blood feud, pure and simple. No blame will attach to Markion, and certainly none to Segward. What a righteous little swine he is!”
Tristan frowned. “If it were Segward’s plan to destroy me, then Mark would not approve it. So either Mark doesn’t know or it’s not as dangerous as you think.”
“If it’s not dangerous, why doesn’t he go himself?”
Tristan sighed. “I’ve told you that already. It’s anathema to him. Besides, he fancies himself a second Arthur, and that’s the way Arthur did it. By proxy.”
“And look where it got him. His bride fell in love with his proxy.”
Tristan smiled. “That’s the kindest compliment you’ve ever paid me, to compare me to Lancelot.”
Dinadan scowled. “Will you attend to the point just for a moment? If it’s not dangerous, why the false name? The invented heritage? If those are meant as true disguises, then anyone can wear them; it needn’t be you. These are Segward’s tricks to fool Mark into believing it’s safe, but they don’t fool me. You can’t go into Wales, disguised, renamed, under any pretext, however noble. I know you, Tristan. You’re too open for your own good. Before you’ve been there a week they’ll find you out and kill you. Mark won’t get his bride but he’ll get Lyonesse, and Segward will be revenged.”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Without the bride, Mark doesn’t get the alliance he wants, the union with Wales. I believe that’s more important to him than anything. No, Din, it won’t wash. Mark has only Lyonesse to gain by sending me off to die, and all Britain to lose. Besides, if you can see the danger here, don’t you suppose other Cornishmen can see it? Because of me, he’s High King. If he betrays me, what will his knights do? Follow him loyally? You know they won’t. No, Dinadan, he wouldn’t risk it. Do not be afraid for me. Being High King is everything to Mark. He wouldn’t risk both that and Cornwall, even for Segward.”
“But don’t you see? Segward has convinced Mark these childish ruses will guarantee your safety, even though he himself does not believe it.”
“You think Mark’s most trusted advisor has deceived him?”
“Yes! As he’s done before, Segward is putting his own personal hatred before Cornwall’s good.”
“He’s more intelligent than that.”
“But when does passion overrule intelligence? When a woman is involved. You’ve betrayed his bed—he’ll do anything to kill you. He’d deceive Mark, he’d deceive his own mother. Especially if he could arrange it so he was never blamed.”
Tristan frowned. Dinadan grabbed his arm and held it. “Please, Tris. Please don’t do it. Think of Lyonesse, of her future, of those you’d leave behind you. Mark has left you a way out, he’s left it in your hands. Between us, we’ll think of another way to satisfy his honor and bring home his precious bride.”
Tristan met his anxious gaze. “What about my honor?” he asked softly. “There’s only one reason I could give for refusing, and that’s cowardice.”
“Nonsense. It’s not cowardice to refuse to walk into the wolf’s den. It’s sense. Everyone in Cornwall knows you’re not a coward.” He dropped his hand from Tristan’s arm. “But you’ve never been worried about what people think. Not you. What’s the real reason you want to go? It’s bound to be something that touches your heart, not your kingdom. Something I’d never guess in a hundred years—to hear their bards? To get uncounted leagues between you and Esmerée? To admire the mountains of Gwynedd? To warn the fair Essylte? To satisfy your curiosity about—about anything at all? Or do you want to go because you’ve not been there before? Because it’s something new to do? Tell me. I have to know. What makes a man with everything to lose and nothing to gain take such a risk?”
A puzzled smile crossed Tristan’s face. He shrugged. “I don’t know. But those are interesting guesses.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You must know. If you value our friendship and my service, do me the kindness to give me one good reason why you should risk your life in such a cause.”
Tristan’s eyes looked past him, past the stone walls and the dark night, to something beyond. “I want to meet Percival of Gwynedd.”
Dinadan stared. “Why?”
“I’ve wanted to meet him since I was small. Since the bard Hawath came to Lyonesse to sing for my father. After ‘The Lay of Arthur’ he told ‘The Tale of Parsifal and Galahad.’ Have you never heard it? It stirred me to my soul.”
“Are you serious?”
Tristan seemed not to hear him. His eyes were fixed on something in the distance. “Percival is one of those men blessed with both sense and vision. He fought with
Arthur. Sir Galahad was his friend. They fought together. He has united the Welsh kingdoms under his leadership. He believes in a good larger than himself. Men like that are no longer born. Their time is past. I want to meet him before he, too, goes into the shadows. I have been waiting for the opportunity for years. Now it has come.”
Dinadan passed a hand across his brow. “Fool! It will be your death. And all because of a tale told by a bard!”
Tristan smiled lightly. “And what do bards tell us but of our heroes? What do you want me to say, Din? If I simply wanted adventure, I would lie once more with Esmerée.” He rose. “But there is another reason. I’ve been restless these six months past. I am driven by something I can’t describe. I’m looking for something I must find. I don’t know if I can explain it.”
“Try. I beg you.”
“All right.” He paused. “I need to know what I’m made of. What’s possible. What’s missing. There’s an emptiness in here”—he struck his chest—“that grows with time. I used to look forward to glory in war, to love of a woman. Lately, I just look down. There are moments—as scarce as rubies in the sand—when the truth flashes out at me, like the smile of God, and I see oh so clearly who I am and what the world is made for. I live for those moments. . . . Do you—do you understand at all?”
Dinadan shook his head. Tristan cocked his head toward the shutters, where the wind screamed for entrance and frozen rain beat like a shower of pebbles against the door. “Do you hear that? Can you feel that power? That menace? Wantonness, Esme called it once. How can you not marvel at it? The unthinking savagery, so total, so all-encompassing! Face it, defy it, it will take hold of you in a moment of surrender so complete, you are utterly lost within it. And when you are lost, you are found.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Tristan sighed. “Maybe I’d better put it another way. Whether you like it or not, Dinadan, you know I’m not cut out for kingship. I know it, so you must, if you’re honest with yourself.” He waved away Dinadan’s protest. “I don’t mean I’m abdicating. I’m the rightful King of Lyonesse. This is my place. I’m competent to administer the running of this little storm-bound land. And I’ll continue to do it.” Seeing Dinadan’s relief, he paused, half smiling. “But I’m dying here; part of me is dying, squeezed away by the everlasting pettiness and routine. I can’t bear the daily squabbles among courtiers and petitioners, I’ve had a bellyful of other people’s troubles and complaints. All day long I listen to the droning of sycophants, the honeyed lies invented to win my favor or sway my decision. Is this power, to have men grasping at my cloak to wring from me just a little more gold, a little more time, a little more of whatever it is they want? Is this kingship?”
Dinadan frowned. “Of course.”
“Well. How Arthur bore it for twenty-six years I’ll never know. I’d rather be fighting Saxons.”
“From time to time fighting Saxons is part of it, too.”
“I want, I long for the broad stroke, the great deed, the hard fight for glory and honor—not this daily diminution, this death by wearing down, like the sea that eats, year by year, at the roots of Lyon’s Head. Give me something bold, something great to do!”
Dinadan frowned uncertainly. “You’re bored?”
“I am like this winter gale outside!” Tristan cried, gripping his sides with both hands, “that rages and howls, seeking something beyond itself! Listen to it! Oh, to be one with such a driving force! To be vast and unmeasured. Limitless. Free from fetters. I tell you, Din, no one has less freedom than a king. I am hemmed about with ritual and regulation; I cannot speak without my words being written down as law. Sometimes I would trade my right arm to be a fisherman instead and spend my days in argument with the sea.”
But Dinadan’s anxiety was only increasing. “What is it you seek, Tristan? How is it to be found in Wales, if it isn’t here?”
Tristan winced, gasping at the pain in his side. “It is found anywhere, everywhere, where it’s least expected. There’s that moment on the knife’s edge, when anything could happen—when the great unknown swoops down, when the next breath could be your last, or first. In that moment you know things you never knew before. When you risk all, you find your center.”
Dinadan frowned. “Is it excitement you want, then?”
Tristan cried out in pain and exasperation. “No, no! Look! I will show you what I mean.”
He stepped to the outer door, unbolted the heavy shutters, and threw his shoulder against the studded oak. The storm’s blast knocked him back into the room. With a defiant cry, he strode out to the battlement and was flung against the streaming outer wall, hugging the stone, gasping as the wind tore his breath from his body.
This, this was magnificence itself. Below him the sea thundered against the rocks. He could feel the vibration of the shock through the very walls, the foundation of the castle. Frozen spray whipped by the wind stung his face, blinded his eyes. Yet he pushed himself away from the wall and smiled into the wind’s teeth. This was strength! This was power! Why could Dinadan not understand it? This was complete possession, to be overmastered by power he could not command. This was ultimate sensation, to stand, so small and weak at the edge of disaster, to yield to the fates, to laugh into the face of sudden death, to know that his soul was not his alone, but part of something wild and great and unknowable. The burning in his chest stopped his breath and he fell to his knees, gripping the parapet as a blast of wind flung him sideways. Damn the storm! Bless the storm! This was joy, this moment of complete surrender, this losing himself in the onslaught, a moment so brief, so intense, so prized! Felt only in the face of a great storm, in the heat of a deadly battle, at the striking of a pure note that sang of itself, and on entering a woman’s body. To fight, to sing, to love, to truly live—for this, he would go anywhere, give up anything. For this, and not for Markion, he would go to Wales and face what awaited him there.
9 GWYNEDD
The prow of the Cornish ship nosed its way into the quiet harbor. All along the shore Welsh troops thronged under gently lifting banners, the Gray Wolf of Gwynedd stretching and hunching on his field of blue. At the end of the long quay Percival stood in a scarlet cloak, surrounded by his knights. Behind him foothills rose, awash with a thousand shades of young green on the lower slopes where the forest had awakened, and fading imperceptibly upward to the bare gray-brown of branches still asleep, shot here and there with dark pines and bare outcrops of rock. In a fold of hills above the harbor the gray stone towers of a castle hung between the trees. Atop the mountains the sun broke free of trailing clouds and flooded the hills with the pale yellow light of early spring.
Tristan stood on the deck beside the captain, the escort ranged behind him, and adjusted the fall of his cloak. On his shoulder he wore the Black Boar of Cornwall, not the Eagle of Lyonesse. He was quietly dressed, but his boots were of the finest doeskin and the hammered golden torque around his neck was Gerontius’s own. His sword, his father’s gift, he had refused to part with, but he wore it sheathed in a plain leather scabbard, so ancient and darkened with time it well hid the splendor of the weapon. He stood easily, his eyes traveling over the budding hills, the castle, the muddy harbor road, the roughly dressed soldiers, the formally clothed king.
Wales was not a rich land. Her shores were always open to attack by Irish raiders; her hills were steep and her soil thin and stony. Her great strength lay in her men and women, a fierce and independent people who prided themselves on their craftiness, their bold fighting spirit, and, beyond all else, their wonderful gift for music. Their greatest fault, Tristan mused, watching the land pull nearer, was one they shared with most other Britons: They valued independence above the strength of union. Only Arthur had been able to unite them all, not Maximus, not Ambrosius, not Uther, not Constantine. Only Arthur. And while he lived Britain had been a power to be respected, a light in the darkness, a bulwark against every foe from barbarian enemy to imperial Rome. Percival was a rare king,
a Welshman with a vision, a man who looked beyond his own borders to a union such as Arthur had once achieved.
Tristan strained his eyes to see him better as the ship approached the quay. Percival was not a prepossessing man. He stood no taller than his companions, and shorter than some. He appeared to be slight of build, dark-bearded and dark-haired, a man more or less like any other. But it was clear from the way his companions stood and the way they bent forward as he turned his head to speak, he was held in high esteem among them. Tristan’s heart beat faster. This was the man, if all the tales were true, who was the boyhood companion of that legend among men, Sir Galahad, in the days when Arthur reigned. What he would not give for an hour alone with Percival of Gwynedd! And now, as Markion’s proxy, he would get it.
The ship sidled up to the quay, the hawsers were secured, the gangplank lowered. Percival led his companions forward as Tristan and his escort descended. They met halfway down the quay. Half a head taller, Tristan bent his knee and said in Welsh, “My lord King Percival. Greetings from my kinsman Markion, King of Cornwall, High King of Britain.”
Percival’s eyes traveled from the shoulder badge to the ancient scabbard to the torque and wristbands. Tristan glanced at the expressionless faces of the gathered Welshmen, wondering who among them was his foe. Finally, Percival nodded.
“Rise, prince. May I have the honor of your name and family?” He spoke flawless Latin in a musical, unhurried voice, a voice of authority and culture.
“My lord king, my name is Tantris of Caer Budeca. I am the son of Rivalen, son of Gerfeint, brother to Constantine and cousin to the High King,” Tristan replied in Latin, keeping his eyes down. At Percival’s silence, he looked up. The dark brown eyes were watching him warily. “I am the last living of Markion’s relations,” he said truthfully, “excepting only his brother Pernam, who is a healer and not a warrior. I wish I were higher born, my lord, to do you the honor you deserve.”
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