“I thought he had no kin. His father and his son and his nephew are all dead.”
“This man’s name is Tantris. He’s the son of Markion’s cousin, the grandson of Constantine’s younger brother. A descendant of Cador of Cornwall.”
Essylte ran her fingers tentatively through the dark locks that curled over his neck. “I wonder how old he is. He has earned my thanks forever for besting Palomydes.” She shuddered. “May God forgive me for saying it, but I’m glad he’s dead. The beast!”
Branwen came around to the other side of the bed with a cup of thin green liquid. “All right. Open the wound to let me pour this in. . . . There. Now, Nep, Lea, another hot cloth.”
The stranger moaned again when the heat was applied, and drew a gasping breath.
“He’s waking!” Essylte cried.
“Take the spoon,” Branwen directed, “and when he opens his mouth, give him to drink of this. The queen left it. It’s to dull the pain and put him back to sleep.”
“Why can’t he awaken? I want to find out who he is.”
Branwen looked at her a long moment. “You know who he is, my lady. I’ve told you.”
Essylte looked down at her patient, who stirred. Creases formed at the corners of his eyes and mouth. His breathing quickened. “I want to talk to him.” She met Branwen’s eyes defensively. “I—I want to know more about Markion.”
Branwen spoke mildly. “There is time enough for that. Look at his face. He’s beginning to feel his pain. He must sleep again until the wound heals enough that he can lie on his side. At least until tomorrow.”
“Jesu Christ!” the man whispered. The long arm moved to brace against the bed.
Essylte poured the potion into the spoon and touched his cheek with a trembling finger. “Please, my lord, drink this.”
He turned his head on the pillow. One brown eye looked dazedly in her direction. “Who. . . ?” Deftly Essylte spooned the medicine into his mouth. He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Dream,” he sighed, and fell back asleep.
Essylte sat by his side until his breathing slowed to its former pattern and the arm hung limply from the bed. While Branwen tidied up the mixing table, Essylte found, to her own surprise, that she did not want to leave. There was nothing else for them to do. Healing needed time and rest, that she knew. She could do no more to help him than she had already done. But she felt a possessive affection for her patient, a joy in the knowledge that something she had done had helped him, and she did not want to stir from the source of this new satisfaction.
“You may go to dinner, Branwen, and Nep and Lea, too. I will remain here, in case—in case of anything.”
Branwen’s eyebrows lifted. “Alone?”
Essylte rose and made a pretty show of straightening her skirts. “And what possible harm can come of it while he sleeps?”
“There is nothing more to do.”
“Then I will do nothing but watch over him.” She nodded imperiously to the two servants. “You are dismissed.” They rose, bowing low, and hurried out.
Branwen stood as still as stone, her eyes unreadable. “I will bring you your meal on a tray,” she said in a flat voice, then turned on her heel and left without a curtsy.
Essylte frowned as the door closed behind her. Branwen hadn’t wanted to leave, either.
Well past midnight Essylte awoke from her short slumber on the pallet. She knew instantly where she was—not in her own soft bed, but on the hard floor of the sickroom, with Branwen’s vigil coming to an end. They had decided to take turns staying up and watching. Nep and Lea, too, were taking turns tending the fire. She could hear Nep’s throaty breathing from the corner where he slept. They had given the wounded man two more treatments. Each time they applied the heat, he groaned and stirred, but he had not again awakened.
Essylte sat up and rubbed her eyes. The only light in the room came from the low fire glowing in the corner and the single candle burning by the bed. She could see Branwen’s dim shape in the chair—no, not in the chair! Essylte jumped to her feet. Branwen sat on the bed itself.
“Branwen!” Essylte called out in a whisper. “I am ready. It’s your turn to sleep.”
Branwen jerked toward her, then looked quickly away, but not before Essylte caught a glimpse of her expression. Such intense tenderness and longing! In the next moment, Branwen had risen and tucked the linen sheet securely around the sleeping body. She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “There has been no change. He still sleeps. The wound is still seeping, which is a good sign.”
Her voice sounded normal, but Essylte thought she trembled. In the wavering light she could not be sure. Essylte sat down in the chair and waited until Branwen lay down on the pallet. Then she unbraided her hair, combed it out, and moved silently from the chair to the bed. After checking for herself the condition of the wound, she folded her hands in her lap and composed herself to wait.
The night grew black as the candle burned low, but it was warm enough with the constant fire. Both Lea and Nep slept heavily. No sound at all came from Branwen’s pallet. As Essylte stared down at the sleeping man a strange excitement took possession of her. She felt the way she imagined a newly hatched chick must feel: disoriented, unfettered, full of wonder at a world so completely new. Why she should feel so, she could not imagine.
Soundlessly, she drew the sheet down to his waist and, anointing her hands with oil, began to rub his back. His cool flesh was already smooth and supple—Branwen had thought of this before her! For a moment she paused, breathless with a pain so intense it paralyzed her. Fury, indignation, and wild, unreasoning hatred flashed through her and then passed away, leaving her scathed. She exhaled slowly. Her hands kneaded the yielding flesh with care, conforming to the shape of bone and muscle, sliding over the smooth skin with an unconscious caress. She smiled to herself. There was one thing that she could do that Branwen couldn’t: sing.
Very softly, she began to hum an old Welsh lullaby. The words had long been lost, but the melody had the power to comfort. All over Wales it was sung by healers, wet nurses, and stablemasters alike. She hummed, and then softly sang, letting the notes fall singly, sweetly into the quiet dark. Slowly, it seemed, the living flesh grew warm and sentient beneath her fingers. He moved. She drew back hesitantly. His face was in shadow; all she could see was one dark eye, gleaming in candlelight, watching her steadily.
Essylte looked on in dread fascination as his naked arm extended and his fingers touched her hair. His hand lifted a long tress and pushed it away from her face. She sat very still, breathing fast, as his fingers slid up her arm to her shoulder, her neck, her throat, with a touch so gentle she could barely feel it, but with an effect so swift and so powerful she nearly gasped aloud. Ripples of excitement coursed along her skin, producing gooseflesh even where he had not touched her, until her whole body prickled with anticipation. She did not know what was happening to her. She seemed all at once so oversensitive that every breath of air sent a thrill of delight shivering through her. His dark eye regarded her. His hand lifted, paused, and fell away. She caught it between her own, gazed at it dumbly as if expecting to read in the palm the secret to its power, then brought it to her lips and kissed it.
“My lord.” It came out a whisper.
The dark eye briefly closed. When it opened, its gaze was direct. A voice she had never heard before spoke clearly. “My love.”
She rose unsteadily. Around her the room began to tilt and sway. She gestured once, futilely, in his direction, a gesture of supplication and denial, and fled from the chamber.
“Sweet love,” he whispered to the empty night. “Don’t go.”
In the darkness, awake on her pallet, Branwen’s eyes filled with silent tears.
For three days Essylte avoided the sickroom, yet the image of the darkened room, the bed, and the man in it swam before her eyes even in her dreams. This was a torture to her, but easier to bear than Branwen’s hourly reports on his progress. Left alone to nurse the stranger, Branwen attended t
o his needs, fetched him water to drink, food to eat, blankets when he was cold. She opened the window for him every morning, dressed his wound, combed his hair, washed his face. Such service suited her, Essylte noted bitterly. Mild Branwen had suddenly bloomed. Against her will, Essylte listened to a wealth of intimate detail that tumbled from Branwen’s lips, all told in such a tender voice that Essylte would weep in rage the moment she found herself alone.
The stranger had refused, Branwen told her one morning, to take any more of the painkilling drug, even if it meant he slept more lightly and less often. And while he usually ate very little of the soup and bread she brought him, that morning he had been ravenous. He had eaten three helpings of everything. He had asked to be shaved, and she had shaved him. He had asked for a bath—Essylte froze—but he had requested a bath slave. She had sent him two. Essylte exhaled.
“Even so,” Branwen murmured, “I helped with most of the preparations. He has a horrid scar right across his middle. He wouldn’t say how he got it.”
“And how is his wound? Or have you been too busy gazing at his face to look at his back?”
The hint of a smile touched Branwen’s lips. “Progressing well, my lady. No festering as yet.”
“How soon will he be up and about?”
“At week’s end, as the queen directs. Three days. But it will be another week before he can bear a tunic.”
A week and three days. And then he would be back among his countrymen, feasting with Percival and beyond her reach.
That evening Essylte waited in a corner of the hall until Branwen went down to dinner with her patient’s empty tray. Then, gathering her courage, Essylte entered the room again. The man was asleep. Lea, tending the coals, ducked her head in greeting. Essylte went to the small window, facing west, and looked out at the sea. It had been a cool day, and the salt breeze eddied against her cheek, damp and chill. The last rays of light shot gold across the glittering sea. Overhead, the first faint stars appeared. She reached out to close the shutter against the coming cold of night.
“Don’t,” a male voice said behind her. “Please.”
She whirled. He had only been dozing. He pushed himself up on his elbows and regarded her. Now that she could see his face, she understood all too well Branwen’s bloom. Here was nourishment for the daydreams of any lonely girl! Youth, strength, charm, virility, all were there in that serious face with its fine bones and clear, dark eyes. She hadn’t known there were men like that in Cornwall. She had never seen such a man in Wales.
“I beg your pardon, my lord, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
How direct, those eyes! He held out a hand to her, palm upward. Without willing it, she moved to his bedside and placed her hand in his. His face lit.
“You are the one!” he breathed, and brought her hand to rest against his freshly shaved cheek. “I’ve been waiting for you. Where did you go?”
He swung to a sitting position and gently took her arm, drawing her down to sit beside him. Essylte tried to look away. Heat rose to her face, but she could not take her eyes from his.
“You are the one who sang to me?”
“Yes, my lord.” The words came out a whisper.
“You are the answer to a prayer.” He touched her face. “I thought you were an angel. You disappeared. I waited days, weeks, years. I have been waiting my whole life for you, I think. Who are you?”
But speech was beyond her. She thrilled to his touch just as she had the last time, but now he was no longer weak and near sleep. Her pulse raced as his arm slipped around her waist and held her firmly. She closed her eyes as he bent his head and kissed her. His lips were soft, sweet, demanding, moving on her mouth as her budding passion rose in a sudden swell of unexpected force. She was in his arms, holding him, surrendering to his caresses without a thought beyond the wild joy of the next kiss. Flushed, they gazed shyly at one another. The light had gone from the room. The servant had slipped out.
“You are a sorceress!” he breathed. “I never meant to—but I—” He looked at her helplessly, his brown eyes huge and defenseless. “I love you from my soul,” he whispered, “and I don’t even know your name.”
She slid to the floor, grasping his hand, clutching it to her breast as her tears spilled down.
“Sweet angel, what is it?” He pushed back the hair from her face and lifted her chin. “Have I frightened you? I’m not so bad when you get to know me. I’m rarely so impulsive. But I’ve been dreaming of you—it seems like forever I’ve been dreaming. Could you square it with your mistress and come to Cornwall with me? Would you? I will marry you tonight if you’re willing, I swear by all that’s holy. Say you’re not promised to anyone. I’m a—a prince of sorts. I can give you a fine castle. Oh, sweet, say you are not wed to another! For as God is my witness, you were meant for me.” He bent down to her and kissed her again. She slid her arms about his neck and wept against his shoulder.
The door opened and light came into the room.
“My lady!” Branwen advanced with a candle, followed by Nep and Lea. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
Essylte rose, wiping away her tears and struggling to compose her features, not daring to look at the Cornishman’s face. “Go away, Branwen. What is it you want?”
Branwen stared first at one of them and then at the other. “You can’t,” she breathed, fastening on Essylte. “You can’t. You will dishonor your father. Your mother will kill us all. For God’s sake, Essylte, let him be!”
“You stay out of it! It’s none of your concern.”
“How not, when I serve King Percival, who arranged the match? His honor is at stake here. Do you care nothing for your father’s honor?”
Essylte bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. Branwen turned to the bed. The Cornish prince stared at them both.
“Essylte?” It was a whisper, incredulous.
Branwen looked down at him. “And who else did you imagine she might be?” Her voice was bitter. “This is Essylte, King Percival’s daughter. King Markion’s bride. If the queen knew you had touched her, she would have your life, treaty or no. And so would the king.”
The life drained out of his face. “Princess Essylte, I beg you will forgive me.”
Essylte looked up amid fresh tears. “No!” she cried. “I won’t. I can’t.” And she ran from the room.
Branwen set the candle down. “See what you have done, my lord. You’ve complicated everything. I told you this morning not to let anyone tend you but me.”
“There must be—some mistake.”
“No mistake. I have served her since I was five years old, and she four.”
He shut his eyes tightly. “Oh, Branwen, I wish I were dead. Hell itself has no more pain than this.”
Tears sprang to Branwen’s eyes as she turned away. “Hell, my lord, has many gates.”
11 PERCIVAL’S DAUGHTER
Essylte went back to him simply because she could not stay away. She would look at him, so near and so unreachable, and he would return her gaze with equal longing. The moment always came when she could not bear it a moment longer, and ran away. And then, alone with her thoughts, she would rant aloud and argue in circles, and weep and pray until she thought she would lose her wits. At such a moment, the torture of his presence was preferable to the torture of his absence, and she would go back to him. In such fits and starts they gradually became acquainted.
“Have you a harp?” he asked one day, when they ran out of small talk and could do little but gaze at one another. “Bring it to me that I may sing to you.”
Branwen shot him a curious look, but Essylte thought nothing of it. Plenty of Welshmen plucked a harp at the end of a feast or on holy days, and sang to it, too—why shouldn’t a Cornishman? She sent for a lap harp and both girls settled down to listen, hoping he had more skill than his youth promised. When he had tuned it, he turned to them and gravely inclined his head.
“This is for both of you,” he said so
lemnly. “ ‘The Rose and the Wanderer.’ ” From the first touch of his fingers upon the strings they were enchanted, amazed at the glorious music that flowed from the instrument, enraptured by the ancient tale and the clear, melodic voice that sang as sweetly as the harp itself. He moved them first to laughter and then to tears, all the while watching their upturned faces, enchanted in his turn.
They left the harp by his bedside. Every time Essylte came to see him he played for her, or she sang to him, for while music filled the space between them, they could gaze at one another with better ease. His skill increased with practice. Essylte rejoiced, but Branwen grew thoughtful.
Tristan seldom spoke directly to Essylte but chattered constantly to Branwen, calling her by little endearments that sometimes brought a blush to her cheek. “My pretty Branwen,” he would say, “my little gray-eyed nymph, my morning rosebud.” He could always cajole her out of silence with his easy, graceful ways.
Essylte, hearing his flattery and seeing the blush on Branwen’s cheek, found she did not mind at all. She saw Branwen for the first time as a man might see her: slender, pretty in a pale, faded sort of way, neat in her movements, with a quick grace and ready tongue. For the first time it occurred to her that Branwen might not always serve her, that one day soon she might find a husband of her own. Essylte frowned. It astonished her that she shrank from the idea. It astonished her that she had never thought of it before.
Although she could bear his compliments to Branwen with passable ease, Essylte trembled from head to foot and turned alternately hot and cold whenever Tristan looked her way. She knew he often observed her when he thought she wasn’t looking, just as she stole glances at him when Branwen held his eye. Where, she wondered helplessly, would it all end?
One day she overheard her mother coldly inform the king that the Cornish prince was nearly healed. He could return to his countrymen the next morning and go back to Cornwall when he willed, the sooner the better, in her opinion. He would live.
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