Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  Slowly…slowly…Isolde reached out a hand to touch his. As their fingers brushed, his arm jerked and her own heart leapt in response, but then he relaxed once more, and when she slid the knife from his grasp, he didn’t resist. Holding her breath, she moved back, out of his reach, laying the weapon a little distance away on the ground. She’d let out a breath of relief and raised a hand to brush the tangled hair from her face when Trystan gave a ragged, wordless scream and leapt up.

  Instinctively, Isolde sprang back, her hand pressed tight to her mouth to keep back a startled cry of her own. Trystan had gone abruptly still, his eyes still staring sightlessly at something beyond. Isolde stayed rigid. Unless he moved, he wouldn’t be able to reach her. And he wouldn’t notice her unless she somehow attracted his attention.

  Then, his face still that stark, staring mask, Trystan’s lips moved. “Holy God, kill me now.” The words were a bare whisper, spoken as though they were wrenched from his chest. “Kill me now. Or else make me able to bear it.”

  He can’t reach me, Isolde thought again. If I stay here—if I stay still—he won’t even know I’m here. She could only imagine, though, what Trystan must be dreaming of, to bring that stark, empty look to his face. Or to make him pray for death. His head was thrown back, the muscles of his throat standing out like cords, and in the moonlight Isolde saw that his brow glittered with sweat and that his pupils were so dilated his eyes looked almost black.

  She’d seen men in her infirmary trapped by nightmares—many of them. And back at Tintagel, she would never have left a man alone in the depths of such a dream.

  Slowly, step by step, she began to make her way forward, until she could lay a hand lightly on Trystan’s arm. She felt the muscles contract under her touch, and then her wrist was seized in a grip like iron, twisted painfully as Trystan dragged her toward him. Her heart jerked hard against her ribs, but she drew in her breath and spoke the first words that came to her lips.

  “This is the tale of Trevelyan, the only man to escape when Lyonesse sank beneath the sea.”

  Lucky, she thought, that the tale was so familiar she scarcely needed to concentrate on the words. Her heart was still beating quickly, and her attention was fixed on Trystan’s grip on her arm—and on the knife that still lay on the ground only a few paces away. He could, if he tried, break her wrist with one twist of his hand. But as she went on with the tale, Isolde felt Trystan’s muscles gradually relax, and so she kept speaking in a soft, soothing murmur, telling the story of the ancient land that had vanished beneath the waves.

  Isolde paused, tilting her head back so that she could see Trystan’s face. He still held her tightly, his fingers digging painfully into her wrist, but she thought some of the starkness had faded from his eyes. And as she stopped speaking, the rhythm of his breathing changed again. He looked down at her, the blue eyes slowly focusing on her face, then shook his head as though to clear it.

  “What—?”

  Trystan stopped abruptly. He was still holding her, but now he released her, so abruptly Isolde fell back a pace. Then he half turned away to face the stone slope. He stayed there, motionless, still breathing hard, until at last the rise and fall of his chest slowed and steadied.

  “What happened?” His voice was nearly back to normal, but he didn’t turn, and she saw that the muscles of his neck were still rigid.

  “You were dreaming,” Isolde said. “You—” Her hand went involuntarily to her throat, where the blade of his knife had left a thin trail of blood. She didn’t think he’d seen, but when he turned, his gaze flicked from her to the knife, still lying where she’d laid it on the ground.

  “I see.” His voice was expressionless as his eyes, flat as blue stones, traveled slowly from Isolde’s face to the mark on her throat.

  Isolde felt, all at once, the full weight of her own exhaustion. She sat down abruptly on the sheepskin she’d used for a bed. “It’s happened before?”

  Trystan, too, slid down to settle on the ground, started to lean back against the rock, then swore as his scored shoulders touched the granite wall. The angular planes of his face were silvered by the moonlight, slanted brows drawn together in a frown. Isolde hadn’t expected him to be willing to explain, and was surprised when he said wearily, after a moment, “Not in a while.”

  He was still breathing deeply, and he tipped his head back, looking up at the night sky. “Scared living hell out of Kian a while back by trying to slit his throat while we were both on guard duty late one night. Though Kian can hold his own.” He rubbed a hand the length of his jaw and gave a short laugh. “Damn near broke my wrist getting the knife away.”

  Isolde was silent. And then, for the third time since she’d first seen him, that strange, unnerving feeling of sameness swept over her. As though she’d lived—or dreamed—this all once before. Not a return of the Sight. And yet it left her feeling again slightly queasy, with a thrumming pain in her temples as though she’d indeed tried to call the Sight back.

  “If I ask you a question,” she said, “will you give me a true answer?”

  She saw Trystan’s brows draw together once again. “Another favor?”

  “If I’d not thrown Bran’s knife at the guard back on the beach you might have been killed.”

  “True.”

  Isolde waited, but Trystan said nothing more. “And…there’s this.” She touched the mark Trystan’s own knife had left on her throat.

  Trystan didn’t move. His face was unreadable, his eyes flat and hard. But suddenly Isolde was chillingly aware as she’d been once before of how entirely alone they were, and of the strength of the hands that had just a moment ago held that knife. Then Trystan let out his breath, and the moment passed. He rubbed the space between his eyes. “All right. Ask.”

  “Who are you?”

  Trystan let his hand fall and looked up. “That’s no kind of question. What would you say if I asked you the same thing?”

  “What would I say?” A feeling like broken shards seemed to scrape, briefly, inside Isolde’s chest, and she shivered. “Then will you tell me what you were dreaming about?”

  Trystan lifted one shoulder and half turned once more, his eyes on the darkened moor spread out beyond her. “What about? The past, I suppose.”

  “And that’s no kind of answer.”

  Trystan sat motionless a moment. His eyes flicked to her, then away, and Isolde thought that this time he was going to refuse to reply. But then he said, in an expressionless voice, “I was sent to a flint mine. A slave camp. It was probably that I was dreaming of—it usually is. Crawling through some filthy tunnel in the dark and waiting for the air to give out or the rocks above me to cave in. That, or—”

  He glanced as though involuntarily down at the mutilated left hand and stopped, abruptly, mouth tightening as though to keep back anything more.

  After a moment Isolde asked, “How did you break free?”

  “From the mining camp?” Trystan was still looking out into the night. “Killed one of the guards and made off.” He gave another short laugh, mirthless, this time. “It was the dead of winter, too. Snow drifts as high as my head. Thought it was going to be the last truly stupid stunt I ever tried.” He paused, and was silent, looking past Isolde at something beyond. Then: “That’s when I met Hereric, though. Half dead and frozen, as well.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  Trystan frowned. “Four years, maybe? No, five.” He lifted his shoulder. “Anyway, he’s been with me ever since.”

  “But he wasn’t with you when you were captured?”

  “Hereric? God, no.” He spoke more easily now. He reached into his pack and drew out a horn flask of ale, working the stopper free with his teeth. “Lucky, too. He’d have stood as much chance as a worm in a hen yard with Marche’s guard.”

  Trystan offered the flask first to Isolde, but she shook her head. She waited for him to swallow before asking, “And just what was your mission?”

  Trystan lowered the flask and g
ave her a sharp glance from under drawn brows.

  “You’ve a lot of questions, all at once.”

  Isolde didn’t answer that, and Trystan was silent a moment, as though debating with himself. Then he seemed to make up his mind. “No reason you shouldn’t know, I suppose. It’s over now. Cewlin—he’s one of Cerdic of Wessex’s men—offered me pay to bring him whatever I could find out about the British army’s defenses. I’d done jobs like that for him before.”

  “And Cyn?”

  A shadow passed across Trystan’s brow. “Cyn was Cewlin’s man. Sent with me to be sure I didn’t—” His mouth curved wryly. “Didn’t lose my way on the return journey.”

  Isolde nodded. So he’d spoken the truth, then, back in Tintagel’s cell when he’d said there was nothing but payment for service binding him to the Saxon side.

  “Will Cewlin send someone else after you? Now that you’ve failed to return?”

  Trystan took another swallow of the ale and shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so. He’d only paid me half the agreed-on fee—the other half was for when I returned. Wasting any of his fighting men trying to find me would only be throwing good money after bad. Besides—” he broke off, a line appearing between his brows.

  “Well?”

  Trystan smiled without humor. “If what you told me is true, Cewlin won’t have much need of what information I can offer now.” He frowned again. “He must not have known of the alliance between Octa, Cerdic, and Marche when he made his bargain with me.”

  “Or the alliance hadn’t yet been made.”

  “Could be, I suppose.” Trystan was silent, brows still drawn, then went on, speaking half to himself. “I don’t see, though, how what you said of a united Saxon invasion force can be true. I know what Octa and Cerdic think of each other. And I’d have said they’d as soon make alliance as walk onto a battlefield blindfolded, with a darning needle for a sword. Still—” He broke off and shook his head. “Never mind. Doesn’t much matter what I think of it all.”

  He paused to take another draft from the flask, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Lucky for me Bran was able to escape and get to Hereric and Kian when the guard got me and Cyn.”

  Isolde looked up, surprised. “You had Bran with you then?”

  Trystan’s eyes were distant, and he answered without looking at Isolde, speaking almost more to himself than to her. “Bran always came along on jobs like that. He could pass unnoticed almost anywhere—slip into and out of an army camp without a hitch. And a fine hand at thieving food, if the hunting was poor. Could lift a hen or two or a wheel of cheese or what have you from a cotter’s farm and be away before they even knew anything was gone.”

  Trystan paused, then laughed suddenly. “Once it was an entire ham. God, I’ll never forget the sight of Bran dragging it into camp. It must have weighed as much as he did. He waited until we’d hacked it into pieces and started eating before he told us where he’d got it. Dragged it away from a den of wild dogs that had gotten it God knows how. Cyn and I were sitting there with the meat still in our mouths—and there’s Bran telling us it hadn’t got much dog shit on it and what there was he’d managed to wipe mostly away.” He shook his head and laughed again. “I thought Cyn would heave his portion up onto his boots, but he finished the whole. He liked Bran.”

  Trystan broke off, the smile fading abruptly, his eyes focused still on something far off. Isolde imagined him picturing the two smoking funeral pyres, one for Bran and one for Cyn, and she wondered how much more he would answer.

  “And what about Marche? I thought, from what you said to Kian last night, that you must have met Marche before—or at least known something of him.”

  But at that Trystan looked up sharply, and Isolde felt, all at once, that the distance between them was suddenly far greater than it had been a moment ago. He said, though, with no change in tone, “Not a wineskin deep enough to last me through the whole of what I know—and think—of Marche.”

  He stopped again, and studied her a moment, the look of half-curious speculation back in his gaze. “You’ve had your answers now. Do I get a question in return?”

  Isolde frowned. “Do you want a question of me?”

  Still watching Isolde, Trystan rubbed at the bandage on his shoulder as if the wound were troubling him. Then: “What did you mean when you said two nights ago that you thought you’d learned to throw a knife when you were young? Don’t you know?”

  Isolde’s brows lifted in surprise. “That’s your question?”

  Trystan shrugged. “Don’t say, if you’d rather not. You didn’t give me a promise to answer.”

  Isolde frowned again but the frightening press of memory she’d felt a moment ago had gone. Enough that it was safe to speak? She searched her mind, but found nothing. There was herself before and herself after Camlann, the two separated by the comforting, familiar wall.

  “No,” she said slowly. “It’s all right. I suppose I don’t mind.”

  It might have been simple fatigue that loosened her tongue. Or it might have been the feeling of isolation, the surrounding darkness, the lateness of the hour. Or perhaps her own fear of what lay ahead, making her understand why soldiers so often stayed awake, talking, the night before battle.

  She’d never spoken of it before. But all the same, she found herself saying, almost before she realized, “You’re at least as old as I am. Old enough to remember the plague year. Just around the time of Camlann. The sickness struck my father’s fortress. It was…” She stopped. “There was no time, even to mourn them all. Every day there was another death—another one gone. The servants. The waiting woman. The other children. And…and my grandmother, as well.”

  She stopped, her eyes on a shadow of creeping vine on the granite wall at Trystan’s back, the stem silvery in the light of the stars. “And then there was Camlann. And my father was killed, as well. I was thirteen then. And it was decided I should be married to Constantine.” She moved her shoulders. “A good solution, I suppose. Modred’s daughter and Arthur’s heir. It brought the two factions together.”

  Isolde stopped again. Something had shivered and stirred beyond the black wall in her mind. After a moment she went on. “Dying of the plague is…a hard death. Not the worst. I’ve seen many others just as bad. But hard enough.”

  The night stillness seemed, all at once, almost a living thing, the darkened moor beyond a tangible presence, waiting. “I would dream of them—of my grandmother…my father…and all the others. Every night, I’d dream of them being alive. And then I’d wake—and remember—and cry for them all over again. Con was a year younger than I was, just past twelve when he was crowned. He was terrified of it all, really, but he tried so desperately to hide it. To live up to the position of High King. The great Arthur’s chosen heir. And he had no one. No one but me.”

  She blinked as the image of that twelve-year-old Con rose before her. Set on the king’s throne, dressed in ermine robes, and given Arthur’s famous sword. She swallowed. Then: “There’s an old tale. The story of Oisin and Tír na nÓg—the Land of Youth. Of how Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of the king of Tír na nÓg, fell in love with Oisin, son of the warrior Finn. And how she carried him off to the Land of Youth.”

  Isolde paused, remembering, then recited the words of the old tale.

  “Delightful is the land beyond all dreams,

  Fairer than anything your eyes have ever seen.

  There all the year the fruit is on the tree,

  And all the year the bloom is on the flower.

  Nor pain nor sickness knows the dweller there,

  Death and decay come near him never more.”

  She stopped and shook her head slightly. “The story goes that Oisin was happy in the Land of Youth, as husband to Niamh of the Golden Hair. But only so long as he didn’t remember the life he’d left behind. One day he did remember—and he couldn’t bear the longing for his father, his kinsmen, and his home. And so he begged Niamh to let him return
, only for a short time. She agreed—and he went back.”

  Isolde looked out at the night sky. “Mounted on a white steed that moved over sea and land and sky as though they were all the same. But when he came again to the land of his home, he found that a hundred years had gone by. All those he loved were dead. And he himself was a bent, withered old man.”

  Isolde stopped. The wind outside their niche was rising, she thought, and there was a chill dampness creeping into the air. There would likely be rain by morning.

  “After Con and I were crowned there was so much to be done. Rebuilding the army, restoring the patrols on the Saxon borders, negotiating alliances between the dukes and petty kings. Con wasn’t old enough to understand it all. And I couldn’t help him—or Britain—if I was still mourning everyone who had died. So I decided to forget—as Oisin should have forgotten, if he’d wanted to stay happy with Niamh. Forget all the time that had gone before.”

  She broke off, eyes still on the icy-pale stars. “It was hard, at first. But now…I’m not sure I could remember if I tried.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and while it lasted her words seemed to hang suspended in the air.

  Trystan shifted position. “Have you thought that even if you find your goldsmith and he does have proof of Marche’s treason, you may still fail in what you’ve set out to do? That you may not be able to convince anyone of what Marche plans—or at least not in time to stop him from handing Britain over to the Saxons?”

  “Of course I have. But it makes no difference.”

  “Though you’re called the Witch Queen?”

  The night air was cold, and Isolde folded her hands together under her cloak. “That’s no fault of Britain’s. If Marche and his Saxon allies succeed, thousands will die. Thousands of farmers and shepherds and hill-folk who likely have scarcely even heard of Marche or Octa—or of Isolde, daughter of Modred.”