Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  He and his companion had survived—to be brought into Isolde’s infirmary for care. And he’d grinned when Isolde, swabbing the deep slashes left in his forearm by the wolf’s teeth and claws, had asked how he’d managed to kill the animal, weakened as he’d been.

  “I’ll tell you, lass,” he’d said, grunting a bit at the sting as she cleansed the wounds. “I passed the time in walking through the snow by thinking on the meal I’d have when we got through the storm. The haunch of pork I’d cut myself…the size of the drinking horn of ale I’d swallow in one draft. And when we finally did reach shelter, I ate till I nearly puked and then slept the best part o’ two days. But when the wolf came at us—jumped me out of nowhere—well…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter if you’re hungry or tired or half dead with cold—you just do what’s got to be done, that’s all.”

  She’d heard countless other stories like that since then. Men who’d run for hours on fractured ankles. Or fought through battles with broken ribs or arms. It was the same, Isolde thought, with Trystan now. Sooner or later, the reserves of strength that kept him going would run out. But for now, a slight stiffness in his gate and the reddened lids of his eyes were the only signs he gave of fatigue.

  He brushed mud from the knees of his breeches and turned to go. “All right, let’s move on. Not much we can do but keep following what tracks we can find—”

  Then he broke off, his attention fixed by something in the distance. Isolde had his gaze to follow as a guide, but even so it was a moment before she saw it. A hut, its walls and roof built of the gray stones of the moor, so that at first glance it seemed only another cairn.

  The hut stood at the foot of a gentle prominence of land on which rose one of the rings of god-stones that the Old Ones had raised for a purpose long since lost and that now, mute and often fallen, dotted the moor. A small brown mule was browsing in a paddock behind the hut. A small, walled-in garden had been dug to one side, the rows of furrowed earth turfed and bedded, now, for the autumn, the leaves of the remaining plants shriveled and beginning to fall. As they approached, Isolde saw that a man was bent over a blackening vine that climbed the far wall. Hearing their approach, he straightened.

  He was, Isolde judged, somewhere between forty-five and fifty years of age, and, despite the dull black habit of a monk or priest he wore, he looked more like a soldier than a holy man. His body was squat and powerfully built; his arms were thick with muscle beneath the rolled sleeves of his robe. Beneath a head of wiry brown hair, his face, too, was blunt and square, with a pugnacious jaw, and a nose that had once been broken, though the effect was tempered by a pair of thoughtful brown eyes.

  His eyes moved over them now in mild appraisal, taking in, Isolde saw, Trystan’s bruised face and bleeding arm—and likely her own bloodstained gown and disheveled hair as well. Then he spoke, his voice slow and deep.

  “Good day to you, friends. You’ve had some trouble, it seems.”

  He paused, as though inviting explanation. But it was an invitation only, Isolde thought, not a demand. There was only the gentlest of curiosity in the thoughtful gaze, nothing of either fear or surprise.

  Trystan nodded. “Yes.”

  “Ah.” The answer seemed sufficient, for the man asked nothing more, only tucked the pruning knife he’d been using into a rough sheath at his belt and asked, “And what can I do for you, then?”

  Again it was Trystan who answered. “We’re seeking a group of men—mounted men, who would have ridden past here either late last night or very early this morning. Have you seen any such?”

  Again the considering brown eyes moved over them, and Isolde had again the sense of being appraised, weighed in some internal balance. Then the man seemed to come to a decision, for he nodded, dusting off his hands on the skirt of his woolen robe.

  “You’d best come in. Columba is my name. Brother Columba. I’ve little here, but I can offer you some refreshment, at least, while we talk.” He gestured toward a low stone bench that stood against the little garden’s southern wall. “Be easy and I’ll bring you a cup of wine.”

  He disappeared into the hut, returning a few moments later with an earthenware beaker and a pair of unglazed pottery cups. He poured out a pale, amber liquid into each cup and handed one to Trystan, the other to Isolde, nodding at Isolde’s thanks.

  “Honey wine. I keep a couple of hives up on the hill and occasionally persuade the bees to part with enough of the fruits of their labor to brew up a jar or two.”

  Isolde turned to look up at the hill behind the hut, her eyes moving from the round hives he’d indicated to the ring of standing god-stones, their square, jutting forms stark against the sky. Brother Columba must have seen the look, for he said, as though reading her thoughts, “You’ll be thinking it’s a strange place for a Christian brother to set up hermitage. But we’ve reached an understanding, the stones and I.” He looked at the stone circle with something like affection. “They’ve been here far longer than I. Long enough not to begrudge an upstart like myself the space to live and to grow what’s needed for food.” He nodded, eyes still on the stones, his gaze distant, his head cocked, as though listening. “We bide each other company—and there’s small enough of companionship out here on the moor to make it of value, however it comes. Now—”

  He stopped and turned back to them, abruptly prosaic once more. “You wished to ask whether I’d seen a party of mounted men.”

  Trystan had let out his breath as he’d sunk down on the hard stone bench beside Isolde, and was now sitting slumped back, eyes closed. At Brother Columba’s words, though, he roused himself with a visible effort.

  “You’ve seen them, then?”

  Brother Columba eyed him thoughtfully once again, and when he spoke it was not an answer to the question. “Your pardon, friend, but you look as though you’d be better in bed than seeking mounted men out here.”

  Trystan glanced up at the other man, a wry smile touching his mouth. “You’ll get no argument from me.” Then the smile faded, and he set down his cup of wine. “Unfortunately, though, we can’t afford any delay.”

  Isolde wondered, briefly, whether Brother Columba would ask for further explanation, but he only nodded, as though Trystan’s answer had given him all he needed to know.

  “Then I’d best tell you what I know so that you can be on your way.” He paused, then asked, “Will you let me tend to that wound on your shoulder while we talk? It’s plainly causing you some grief, and I’ve some small knowledge of the herb-craft. It won’t take long.”

  Trystan started to shake his head, then changed his mind and gave the monk another wry smile. “All right,” he said, “I won’t argue with that, either. If you’ve anything like a cure to offer, I’ll take it with thanks.”

  Brother Columba smiled, too. “Well, not a cure, no. Christ may have healed the lepers, but I’m afraid my powers stop far short of His. As, of course, they should, humble sinner that I am. But I believe I can make you a bit easier before you go.”

  The sword cut in Trystan’s shoulder was angry and red in the morning light, the flesh around it swollen. The bandage Brother Columba had cut away was stiff with blood, and had left raw, angry chafe marks where it had rubbed against the skin. Brother Columba shook his head over the injury and uncorked the bottle he’d brought out from the hut, pouring a little of the greenish fluid within over a linen pad and then pressing it to the wound.

  “I’m afraid this may sting a bit.”

  Trystan sucked in his breath. “Jesus bloody Christ on a three-legged mule!” He gritted his jaw, then added, “Your pardon, Brother.”

  Lines of amusement had gathered about the corners of Brother Columba’s eyes, but he said only, his voice mild, “Granted.”

  He went on with cleaning the wound, and Isolde, watching, felt a stab of guilt, sharp as a blade. Hereric had brought her to Trystan, had asked her aid as a healer. And how long has it been, she thought, since I turned away from treating anyone—man or woman, Brit
on or Saxon-born—with an illness or wound? And yet this time I didn’t even make the offer of aid. As though—

  “YOU’RE HURT, AREN’T YOU?”

  He shook his head and tried to jerk away from the small hands that clung to his arm. He pressed his eyes closed. “I’m fine.”

  She said a word that made his eyes snap open: “Don’t lie, Trys. Not to me.”

  He let out his breath. “I don’t know why I bother.”

  “I don’t know, either. You know I can always tell.”

  That made him smile a little, and he let her push him onto the wooden stool. The wide gray eyes filled with tears at the sight of the angry purpling bruises on his back, but then she threw her arms around him in one of her quick, impulsive gestures, hugging him fiercely.

  “Never mind. When I’m Lady of Camelerd, I’ll make you…I’ll make you master of the royal stables.”

  In spite of himself, he laughed, and tugged the black braid of hair. “So that you can pester me to take you riding every day?”

  “MISTRESS?”

  Isolde came back to herself to find that Brother Columba had turned away from Trystan and was watching her, eyes anxious, a worried frown on the broad, heavy-boned brow.

  “Mistress, are you all right? Perhaps I ought to have offered to let you rest inside. I know some ladies…the sight of blood…” His words trailed off.

  The voice had been once more different from those that had come in the past. Closer. Seeming again to call like a selkie’s song to the darkened space in her mind. And she could feel memories pressing back in response. Struggling, fighting to return, like floodwaters behind a rotting dike.

  Isolde shook her head. “No, I’m all right. I’m used to wounds.”

  One foot in front of the other. Look forward, not back.

  She picked up the bottle Brother Columba had set down on the bench and sniffed at the contents, the sharp, astringent odor clearing the last of haze from her sight, and she said, still trying to hold back the insistent press of the forgotten time, “Vinegar. And rosemary. And vervain?”

  Brother Columba nodded. “I’ve found it keeps infection away.” He gave her a keen glance from under his brows. “You know something of herb-cures yourself, then?”

  Isolde caught herself up with a prickle of sudden unease along her spine. They were, she judged, about a half-day’s ride from Tintagel, somewhere in the heart of Cornwall’s central moor. She’d no idea whether stories of the Witch Queen would have spread to this remote spot. But recognition could only bring danger—both to Brother Columba and to her. She recorked the bottle and said, turning away, “A bit.”

  She could feel Brother Columba’s gaze rest on her a moment more, but he nodded and turned back to Trystan, and began dabbing a yellow, greasy-looking salve over the wound.

  “Well, as I was saying,” he went on, and Isolde realized that she must have missed a part of what had gone before. “As I was saying, I didn’t see the riders, so I can’t say for sure even whether it was the group you seek. All I can tell you is that sometime before dawn I heard horses coming this way.”

  Trystan looked up sharply. “They didn’t stop, though?”

  Brother Columba shook his head. “That, also, I’m afraid I can’t tell you.” He drew out a strip of clean linen and began to wind it about Trystan’s shoulder and upper arm. “Raiders or masterless men could hardly expect to find much worth stealing in a hermit’s cell. But”—again the lines of humor gathered about his eyes—“I’m afraid I’ve a sad lack of faith in such men’s willingness to listen to reason. So when riders come this way, I’ve gotten into the habit of…ah…removing temptation, so to speak, and slipping out and up onto the moor.” The smile deepened a little. “As I say, it shows a sad lack of faith in my fellow man. But it saves robbers the sin of inflicting bodily harm on a man of God—and myself the sin of fighting back. So I’ve hopes the scales are more or less balanced.”

  Isolde looked from Brother Columba’s broad, powerful shoulders and thickly muscled arms to the strong, pugnacious jaw and inexpertly set nose. And a man of God he may be now, she thought. But once he was a man of something else entirely. Something that taught him of sword cuts and the treatment of wounds.

  Brother Columba had finished wrapping the bandage around Trystan’s shoulder and now began to carefully refold the extra strips of linen before tucking them away in one of his sleeves.

  “So you see,” he said, “I have little to offer you in the way of help. But I do know that the riders, whoever they were, came from the same direction you yourselves have done.” He gestured.

  Trystan moved his shoulder, testing the strappings, then slipped his arm back into his tunic and retied the laces at his neck. “Anything we can learn is a help.” He got to his feet. “Thank you, Brother.” He touched the bandaged shoulder. “And for this, as well.”

  Brother Columba waved the thanks away, then rose to his feet, looking from Trystan to Isolde. “If there’s anything more I can do for you, remember that you can find me here.”

  As they moved away, Isolde glanced back and saw that the monk had returned to kneel in the earth at the foot of the climbing vine. The last sight she had of him, he had drawn out the pruning knife from its sheath and was carefully cutting away the dead branches and leaves once more.

  “Is what he told us of any help?” Isolde asked, when they’d climbed the prominence behind Brother Columba’s hut and now stood at its summit in the massive, brooding presence of the god-stones.

  Trystan shrugged, shading his eyes with one hand as he scanned the rolling gray landscape spread out below.

  “We know at least that if the men Brother Columba heard are the right ones, they were going at a gallop near dawn—which means they’d been riding hard all night. They’d need to rest the horses before they went much farther. We may find them yet.”

  He stopped, his face half turned away, so that Isolde could see again the oval scar on the side of his neck.

  They’d likely all known slavery, then, at one time or another. Trystan, Hereric, and Bran. All except Kian, she thought, they’ve been slaves. And had come together, somehow, to scrape whatever living they could find fighting for the highest pay.

  Isolde watched Trystan stoop, lift a crushed leaf to smell it, and then let it fall, and she wondered again where he himself had come from. His voice, now that he spoke to her in the British tongue, had a faint touch of an accent. Though that, she thought, might only be from years of living among Saxons.

  She’d not forgotten, though, the way he’d fought the guardsman on the beach the night before. She’d seen enough sword practice and sparring between Con and his men to know that anyone weakened and injured as Trystan had been, but less skilled with a sword than he, would have been killed outright. Trained as a fighting man, she thought. And then somehow captured and branded a slave.

  “Come on.” Trystan eyed the sun, which was beginning to sink in the west. “We’ll keep going till sunset, then camp for the night if we’ve not found them by then.”

  Chapter Twenty

  ISOLDE CAME AWAKE WITH A jolt, her heart pounding, though she could not remember why. She pressed her hands against her eyes. But then, before she could clear away the last of whatever the dream had been, she was caught in a grip like iron. Something cold and sharp bit painfully into her throat and a harsh voice whispered low in her ear.

  It was so much the same as when she’d been woken by Hereric that, for a moment, Isolde thought she must still be in the midst of a dream. But the voice this time was Trystan’s, and the language was one she didn’t recognize, the words guttural and strange. Then the blade of the knife dug once more into her skin and she knew it was no dream. He had her pinned—any attempt she made to struggle would plunge the knife into her throat.

  Then, abruptly, he let her go and sprang back a pace, so that she was able to scramble to her feet and face him. The clouds had blown away, and the moonlight was bright and clear. She could see Trystan, crouched aga
inst the wall of rock at his back, knife at the ready. His face was streaked with sweat, frozen in a look of desperate horror or pain. But he didn’t look at her. The blue eyes stared sightlessly ahead, unblinking and unfocused. He’s not awake, Isolde thought with a sudden chill. He’s dreaming.

  She struggled to push away the last clinging remnants of sleep, struggled to remember what had happened before she’d fallen asleep. They’d walked for what seemed like hours before coming to this spot, where wind and weather had hollowed out a small place of shelter at the base of a granite-studded hill. She’d tried to stay awake. But she must have fallen asleep at last. And so must Trystan have done. He’d walked as far as she had that day, and fought Marche’s guard besides. And the past two nights for him had been all but sleepless.

  And now, Trystan still had the knife. But if she tried to wake him—if he was brought out of the dream suddenly—there was no way of telling what he would do. She’d seen men in the infirmary like this often enough when they were taken by a nightmare of battle—had seen them lash out, suddenly and violently, before they could be fully roused.

  Isolde moistened her lips.

  “Trystan.”

  Her voice was a murmur, barely audible above the sound of the wind as it whistled past the sheltering overhang of rock above their heads. Trystan didn’t move—didn’t even look in her direction. Isolde’s throat felt dry, but she swallowed and tried again.

  “Trystan.”

  This time his head turned slightly, the blank, bright eyes looking past her. Isolde willed herself to speak in a low, gentle murmur, as she had so often before when soothing a wounded man out of his dreams.

  “It’s all right. Put the knife down. It’s all right.”

  Trystan’s expression didn’t change, but she thought the muscles of his shoulders relaxed slightly. Slowly, and with infinite caution, she began to creep toward him, still speaking softly. At last she was within an arm’s length of Trystan. He hadn’t moved. Still in a crouched, fighting stance against the rock wall, he held the knife at the ready, but he hadn’t spoken or cried out again.