Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  “For one thing, I’d rather you did me the favor of not getting yourself killed for my sake. And for another…”

  “Well?”

  Trystan’s mouth twitched. “For another, the way our luck is running, leaving the boat is just begging to have it wrecked or stolen. And I’ll be an old man before I can afford another.”

  Kian was silent a long moment, scarred face as grim as before. Then, though, his shoulders relaxed, and he gave a short, harsh bark of laughter. “True enough. All right, I’ll take the boat.”

  Trystan relaxed, as well. He kept his tone steady, casual, even, but Isolde thought that he worked not to show sign of a powerful relief, and she wondered just what he planned that he needed Kian gone.

  “Good. You go back to the boat now. Sail up the coast a ways, then turn and come back here. If all goes well, I’ll join you in four—no, better make it five—days’ time. And with luck, I’ll have Hereric with me.”

  Kian nodded. “You coming back to the beach?”

  “Not just yet. You go on.”

  “In five days, then.”

  Isolde watched them clasp each other’s wrists, briefly, and was aware in the looks of both men how much in that parting was left unsaid. And then Kian turned toward the downward path, wincing as the movement jarred his head, but moving quickly and almost silently over the uneven ground. Isolde held her breath, but he didn’t even glance in her direction and she stayed where she was, unseen.

  Trystan still stood where Kian had left him. His back was half turned on her, and Isolde was wondering whether to keep still or try to slip away, when he spoke, though without turning his head.

  “You may as well come out now.”

  Isolde’s heart stumbled in her chest. But there was no point in delay. He stood only a few paces distant; a few quick strides and he could pull her out of the sheltering shadows himself. She took a step forward.

  “You knew I was here?”

  He did turn, then, lifting one shoulder in a shrug, his face a mask of light and shadow, like the Otherworld men in some of the old tales. “I’d not have stayed alive this long if I couldn’t tell when someone was following close behind me—or waiting somewhere near.”

  “And yet you said nothing until now?”

  Even by moonlight she could see his mouth curve slightly. “Yes, well, I couldn’t have answered for Kian’s reaction if you’d come popping up at him out of the dark just as he was coming round from a blow on the head. There’s a limit to the number of times in a night I can stop him from slitting your throat.”

  Then the smile faded, leaving his face bleak and exhausted again. “There’s something I’d say to you, though.” He gestured toward a nearby rock. “Sit down.”

  Isolde hesitated, eyeing him warily, and he let out an impatient breath. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Look”—he spread out his hands—“even if I meant you harm, I’m unarmed. I gave my knife to Hereric, remember? Here”—he moved back a few steps—“I’ll keep at least three paces away and you can get up and bolt if I come any nearer. Agreed?”

  It was a meaningless gesture, really, Isolde thought. In the dark, across rough, unfamiliar ground, she’d not get far. Still, she moved slowly to take her place on the rock Trystan had indicated. “Yes, well,” she said. “I’d not have stayed alive this long if I trusted strangers—let alone one who had me held hostage barely two hours since.”

  She settled herself, drawing her cloak around her, then turned to look up at him curiously. “How are you planning to get Hereric back—and on your own?”

  Trystan lowered himself gingerly onto a rock opposite hers and a little distance away, grimacing as the effort jarred his injuries. He settled himself, elbows resting on his knees. Then: “That’s what I’d speak to you about. I haven’t a hope of freeing Hereric on my own. I’ll have to have help. Your help.”

  For a moment, Isolde looked at him blankly. Then she drew in her breath. “My help,” she repeated.

  Trystan’s blue eyes were intent on hers. “What I’m offering is a bargain, a fair exchange. You want to find your man—this goldsmith you spoke of—true?”

  Still wary, Isolde nodded.

  “Castle Dore is on the southern coast. And the man you’re looking for left Tintagel on foot not yet a week ago. At most, he’ll have barely started on the return journey—that’s if he’s reached Castle Dore at all.”

  He paused, and Isolde nodded agreement again. “Yes, but what—?”

  Trystan stopped her. “Right, then. There’s a track, of sorts, across the moor. It would see you to Castle Dore in half the time of the main road. Help me get Hereric free. And in exchange I’ll show you the shorter way. See you find your man—see you safely the whole way to Castle Dore, if need be.”

  “And can you tell me why I should want you as an escort? Or need your protection?”

  Trystan’s slanted brows lifted. “You want to risk running into a band of Marche’s guardsmen on your own? After what you did to the one that killed Bran—the one that got away?”

  “What I did…” Isolde frowned. “You mean throwing the knife?”

  Trystan shifted position on the rock and laughed shortly. “Knife? By the time he gets back to his companions it will be an invisible elf-dart. Or a bolt of blue witch-fire shot straight from your hand.” He stopped. “Jesus, Isa, if they catch you the only question will be whether they’ll risk having their privates withered by a curse and rape you before they drag you back to Marche.”

  Isolde felt a wave of dizziness sweep through her, and a cold, throbbing mist seemed to rise before her eyes. From somewhere out of the chill haze, she heard Trystan say, “A good throw, too. Where did you learn—?”

  And then he stopped.

  Isolde rubbed her cheek. “Where did I learn to throw a knife? I don’t know. Somewhere when I was young, I suppose.”

  She was forcing herself to breathe, in and out, but she felt Trystan’s eyes on her, speculative and keen. He said only, though, “At any rate, I can’t hope to tackle Marche’s guard alone. So it will have to be by a bargain. You in exchange for Hereric.”

  Isolde’s head came up and she stared at him. “What did you—?”

  Trystan held up a hand. “Not actually. That’s only how it’s got to look to Marche’s men. That they’ll be getting you as a prisoner instead of Hereric. We’ll just have to take the chance that they’ll think you worth more to Marche than a stray Saxon. But I imagine they will.”

  Isolde had her breath back now, and she nodded, brows slightly raised. “Yes, I imagine they will.”

  Trystan seemed not to hear. Body still bent slightly forward, he was frowning down at his clasped hands. “The men who took Hereric don’t know me—otherwise they wouldn’t have taken Hereric in my place. So I’ll be able to bargain with them without their realizing I’m the prisoner they were sent out to find. They’ll know only that I’m part of a gang of masterless men who happened to capture the Witch Queen and are offering her as fair exchange for one of their own.”

  He paused, brows still drawn. “I’ll give you my word that you’ll not be actually taken by Marche’s guard—and that I’ll see you find your goldsmith.” His head lifted, and his eyes met hers once more. “If in exchange you’ll make a pretense of standing prisoner to be exchanged for Hereric.”

  Isolde’s hands still felt slightly clammy, but the dizziness was gone. Slowly, she shook her head. “If Hereric has ‘Saxon’ stamped on his forehead, you must think I’ve got the word ‘fool’ stamped on mine. Barely two hours ago you were telling me you meant to use me as a bargaining piece if Marche’s guard happened on us here. And now you expect me to accept your word that you’ll not do exactly that as a means to get Hereric free? I might as well walk straight back to Tintagel and into Marche’s prison on my own.”

  Trystan’s jaw hardened, his eyes narrowing. “You think I’d—?” He stopped. “You don’t trust me to keep a bargain? All right—here.”

  In a single violent burst of mo
vement, he had risen to his feet and jerked a knife from the top of his boot. Another knife, Isolde noted automatically, for all he’d claimed to be unarmed.

  He crossed the distance between them in two short strides and thrust the weapon, hilt first, into Isolde’s hand. “Here—take it,” he said. “If I break our agreement and let you come within reach of Marche’s guard—or even leave you on your own before you’ve found your man—you can cut my throat. Or do it now, if you’d rather. Here—I’ll make it easy for you.”

  With a quick, savage jerk, he tore open the neck of his tunic and raised his head, baring his throat. “Go ahead. If you think I’d betray you, here’s your opportunity to see I never get the chance.”

  Isolde could see the thrumming pulse of blood at the base of his neck, the quick rise and fall of his chest as he drew breath, and she pulled back involuntarily, frightened by the force of his anger. Her fingers had closed automatically around the dagger; its hilt of carved bone was cool and smooth against her palm.

  She said, with sudden certainty, “This is why you sent Kian away. So you could ask me for aid.”

  Trystan’s jaw was still set, but he gave a short nod. “I wouldn’t be answerable, either, for what he’d have said if I told him we’d got to ask your help in getting Hereric free.” Then his mouth relaxed, slightly, in a brief twitch of a smile. “Especially not if you refused. As I said, there’s a limit to the number of times I can stop him slitting your throat.”

  “And if I do refuse now?”

  Trystan let his hand fall away from the neck of his tunic. “If you refuse then you can go—here and now, if that’s what you choose,” he said tiredly.

  He must have seen the disbelief in her face, for he let out another exasperated breath. “In the last two days, I’ve been horse-whipped, beaten, stabbed, and slashed with a sword. You think I feel like chasing you on foot across open country if you try to run?” He shook his head. “I mean it. If you refuse, you’re free to go on your way. Forget you ever saw any of us.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “Me?” Trystan shrugged again, the blue eyes suddenly flat and hard. “I’ll see what I can do for Hereric on my own. What else?”

  Isolde, watching his face, found she believed him. He might lie about being unarmed, but he spoke true now. She wondered briefly whether it was usual to find honor of this kind among a band of mercenaries and masterless men. It might be rare—or it might be common, for all she knew, and she realized abruptly how little she did know of this country, for all she’d been High Queen these seven years.

  But Trystan would go after Hereric without so much as a thought of turning aside. Admirable, she supposed. Though it almost certainly meant throwing his own life away along with Hereric’s. Alone against Marche’s guard, he’d not stand a chance. As he himself had said.

  She looked out toward the curve of moonlit ocean visible past the edge of the cliffs to her right, then asked, “Who is Hereric, exactly?”

  “What was he, you mean, before I knew him?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. An escaped slave would be my guess. He’s never said.”

  He stopped, and Isolde remembered Hereric’s face, his broad, spreading smile as she agreed to accompany him here. Hereric, eyes wide with panic, clutching his pierced-tooth amulet to his chest. It must have been his scream they’d heard from the beach. She was scarcely aware that a decision had been made, but she heard herself say, “All right. I agree.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  ISOLDE SAT ON A LICHEN-COVERED rock, listening to the soft trills of birdsong from the brush all around and watching a rose-colored ribbon grow along the eastern horizon as the day broke over the moor. They had followed the running stream up from the beach and made camp for the night near the water’s edge. Now Trystan was sitting on the fern-lined bank, shaving with the edge of his knife.

  Isolde rubbed her eyes, feeling dull and slow-witted with fatigue. She’d dozed off once or twice, lying on the sheepskin Trystan had given her, but she’d not dared let herself fall fully asleep. She might have agreed for Hereric’s sake to what Trystan proposed. And maybe, she thought, for my own sake, as well.

  The thought of meeting Marche’s guard on her own still made a cold, hollow feeling settle in the pit of her stomach. But she still didn’t entirely trust the man who now sat a short distance away, his face turned to look out toward the sea. There was nothing, after all, to stop him taking what coin and jewelry she still had and abandoning her here. Or simply tying her up and handing her over to Marche or his men.

  Trystan had taken his tunic off to wash, and Isolde saw that he had a heavy, darkened bruise over his ribs and another one, fading to yellow about the edges, running almost the length of his right arm. He’d tied a makeshift bandage of torn cloth about the sword cut he’d gotten the night before. In the harsh morning light, the marks of the whip were still visible on the broad planes of his back, some still angry and red, others crusting with black. His every moment must be painful, though his face showed hardly any sign. He must, she thought, have cultivated iron self-control. Though perhaps slavery did that inevitably to a man.

  Isolde thought of offering to see to his wounds. But there was almost nothing that she might do for him here, beyond what he himself had already done. The morning air was chill, and Isolde saw a ripple of gooseflesh along his arms before he picked up the tunic and quickly pulled it over his head. She waited until he’d returned and was rummaging in the travel bags before she asked instead, “How are you planning to find Hereric and Marche’s men?”

  Trystan took out a loaf of coarse brown bread from the pack. Isolde doubted he’d slept any more than she had. His eyes were reddened beneath a heavy bruise over one brow, and every time she’d glanced toward him the night before, she’d found him sitting slouched against a rock, arms folded across his chest, eyes on the glowing embers of their campfire.

  Now he broke the loaf of bread in half, handed Isolde one part, and took a few quick, efficient bites of his own portion before he answered. “Not that many places they’ll have headed with him. They’d either go to Tintagel or Castle Dore. And since Kian said they were headed east when they rode off, my guess would be Castle Dore. I doubt they rode far last night. With luck, they’ll have made camp not far from here and we can catch them up before they’ve gone.”

  He swallowed the last of the bread. “You eat. I’ll scout around a bit and see if I can pick up their trail. That will tell us for certain which way they’ve gone.”

  Isolde nodded and took a bite of her own portion of bread. The sleeve of her gown had fallen back from her wrist, and Trystan frowned, his eyes fastening on the exposed skin of her arm and the cut left by the guardsman’s sword.

  “You’d better tie that up. Here—” He took out another torn strip of cloth from his scrip and reached across, as though to take her arm.

  “No!” Involuntarily, Isolde flinched away, pulling back before he could touch her. “No,” she said again, though more steadily this time. “I’ll see to it myself. It’s not deep.”

  Before Trystan could answer, she had risen and crossed to kneel by the bubbling stream. She drew up a cupped handful of water and poured it over the cut, then used both hands to splash water on her face, as well. The water was icy and left her gasping and shivering, but it steadied her enough that she could tear a length of linen from the hem of her undershift and bind it around her arm.

  And I wonder, she thought, whether I’ll ever be able to so much as touch a man again and not feel instead Marche’s hands. Smell his sweat on my skin.

  She raised a hand and realized that there were tears on her cheeks. Furiously, she wiped them away. She closed her eyes, then slowly, deliberately, she finished washing, scrubbing the dirt and blood away from her hands and her face. She combed out her hair with her fingers, then replaited it into a single heavy braid, and when she turned back to the campsite, Trystan had gone.

  “SOMEONE ON HORSEBACK CAME THIS WAY, at any rate.” Trystan h
ad dropped to his knees to examine a low scrub bush, fingering a broken branch and a patch of crushed leaves on one side. “You see?” He pointed to the mark of a horse’s hoof, a little blurred around the edges, but still clear. “Nothing to show if it was the men who took Hereric. But a good mount—well bred. Nice curve to the hoof, and a good size.”

  He had returned to camp with the word that he’d picked up tracks still heading east, and they’d set out almost at once, crossing from the coast into the great, rolling stretch of wasteland that made up Cornwall’s central moor. This stretch of country was all but barren, home to only a scattering of sheep farmers and goatherds, and so far they had met no one as they made their way past high cairns of tumbled stone and bramble-covered tors.

  Now it was midafternoon, the sun high overhead as Trystan paused, whistling tunelessly under his breath. “All right, my beauty.” His eyes swept the ground ahead for more marks of the horse’s hooves. “Which way were you headed, eh?”

  There was a patch of red, dark and wet, on the shoulder of his tunic, but if the reopened sword cut was paining him, he gave no sign. Four years ago, when Isolde had first started caring for the soldiers wounded in battle, an infantryman had come into the infirmary suffering from frostbite on his hands and feet, the flesh turned putrid, so that he lost a finger and two toes.

  The man—Gavin, his name had been—had liked Isolde and had talked to her a good deal during the time he spent in her care. His troop had been caught, he said, in a blizzard that struck while they were returning from battle. He’d hung back to help a companion—a man with a sword cut to the leg—and in the blinding snow they’d somehow been separated from the rest of the troop and lost their way. And Gavin had walked for three days and three nights through the drifting snow—waist deep, in some places, he said—carrying his companion on his back.

  Before they reached the shelter of a crofter’s hut where they could beg for aid, they’d been attacked by a wolf. A lone hunter, separated from his pack by the storm as they themselves had been. And Gavin, with no chance to draw his sword, had broken the beast’s neck with his bare hands.