Twilight of Avalon

by Anna Elliott

  “Here—you’d better lie down.” She gestured to the wooden bench that stood against one wall, covering it first with her traveling cloak before Trystan moved to obey, settling himself on his stomach with a tightly suppressed grunt of pain. Isolde, seeing his back fully for the first time, felt her stomach turn. She’d seen wounds far uglier on soldiers wounded in battle—many of them. But Trystan was right. Hurts inflicted deliberately, in cold blood, were worse by far.

  Isolde moved to the cupboard and, after a moment’s search, found a clay cup and a jar of wine. She poured a measure of wine into the cup, glanced at Trystan’s back again, then added a measure more.

  “Here. Drink this. It will help with the pain.”

  Trystan raised himself on one elbow to take the cup she offered, and he tilted his head enough to toss the entire draft back at one gulp. Isolde saw a brief shudder ripple through him before he sank back onto the wooden board. Silently, Isolde turned away, drawing out pots of salve and a jar of cleansing oil. Then she drew up a low stool beside the bench. Her eyes met Trystan’s, and she said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

  Trystan moved one shoulder, his eyes sliding closed against the lamplight. “Not your fault.”

  Isolde gave him a painful twist of a smile. “Who else’s?”

  Trystan’s shoulder moved again. “Mine. Marche’s.”

  Isolde’s eyes moved once more over the flayed marks on his shoulders, the burns and blackened skin. “Marche did this?”

  Trystan’s eyes were still closed, but his head jerked, briefly, in affirmation.

  Isolde sat down on the stool, setting the pot of salve on the floor at her feet and unsealing the jar of oil. “Did he know, then, who you are?”

  She saw Trystan’s whole body stiffen, his head coming up so sharply that he grunted again in pain. His eyes were startlingly blue against the bruised skin.

  Isolde nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve remembered it all.”

  For a long moment, Trystan neither moved nor spoke. Then he said, irrelevantly, “You used to tell stories then, too.” Absently, he flexed the fingers of his left hand, the lamplight picking out the mutilated fingers and ridged white scars. Then he looked up again. “I slipped once or twice—called you Isa. Is that what made you remember?”

  Isolde shook her head. “No. I—”

  And then she broke off and froze, her heart contracting as though squeezed by a giant’s hand. The hinges of the door had squealed again.

  For the space of a heartbeat, Isolde didn’t recognize her. Her heavy braid of hair was pinned tightly back, and she wore men’s clothes. Breeches and a rough tunic, open at the throat. Then she shifted, and the rays of the lamp fell on her face, gilding the square, heavy planes of cheek and brow.

  Hedda stood perfectly still, her tall, heavy form outlined in the door frame. The eyes, pale as winter ice, moved slowly from Isolde to Trystan and back again, and then she took a quick step forward into the room, shutting the door softly behind her.

  It was the step—swift, almost catlike in its grace, and utterly unlike Hedda’s usual deliberate, clumsy slowness—that made memory stir and then jolt with chilling clarity into place in Isolde’s mind. The memory of another figure moving forward in just this way seemed to hang a moment, suspended, beside Hedda’s advancing form. And then, like drifts of smoke pushed together by the wind, the two images merged and became one.

  “It was you.” Isolde’s voice sounded strange, distant, and oddly detached, and her ears rang, as though with the steady drone of bees. “It was you I saw that night,” she said again. “You killed Con.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  HEDDA’S EYES MET ISOLDE’S, AND a slow smile spread over the broad, stolid face. It came to Isolde suddenly that, in all the years she’d known her, she’d never seen Hedda smile. It made her face suddenly a stranger’s, and swept away any lingering doubts Isolde might have had.

  “Yes.” Hedda’s voice was almost a whisper, the accustomed Saxon accent almost entirely gone. “I killed him. I stabbed the king through the heart. And felt nothing more than I would at wringing a chicken’s neck or gutting a hog.”

  She stopped, pale eyes glowing, the smile frozen in place, and took a step toward Isolde. “Do you want to know how I did it? It was easy—so very easy. I knew the girl he’d summoned to his tent that night. Your fine husband the king would bed anything that moved after a battle, did you know that? We serving women used to say he’d take a goat to his tent if he couldn’t get anything else. I only had to tell the girl he’d called for that night that he’d summoned me instead. And then—”

  Hedda broke off. Her eyes had gone distant, but now they fastened on Isolde again. “And now you’ve returned here, to die as well. I’d hoped the guards I told where you’d gone would bring you back. But this will do.”

  Isolde saw that beside her, on the bench, Trystan had sunk back against the wooden boards. His face was hidden from her by shadow, and he didn’t move, so that she couldn’t tell whether he was conscious or no.

  “You set Marche’s men after me.” Isolde was surprised to find that her voice, though still sounding strange, was quite steady. “So that’s how they found me so quickly.”

  Hedda didn’t answer, but her stranger’s smile broadened.

  Isolde thought, This is a dream—a nightmare. In a moment I’ll wake up and realize none of it was true. She struggled to keep her voice steady.

  “Why, Hedda? Why would you help me escape and then send men out to drag me back?”

  Hedda’s smile was gone in an instant. Her ice-pale eyes suddenly blazed, and she spat the next words. “Because I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know how it felt to be free one moment and a captive the next.”

  Isolde swallowed. “You must have hated me very much,” she said.

  “Hated you? Hated you?” Abruptly, Hedda threw back her head and laughed—a high, shrill crowing that echoed in the small room. Then she dropped her voice to a hiss. “Yes, I hated you. I hated you from the time you pleaded for my life and won me the right to be your slave.” She stopped, taking a half step forward, her hands clenched and twisting before her. “Did you never think what it was like for me? I was a noble, once—a thane’s daughter, with servants of my own. Did you never wonder how I felt? Dragged away from my life—my country—to be servant to you?”

  Hedda’s face worked, and her lips writhed, the usually still mask of her face utterly shattered.

  “I’m sorry, Hedda,” Isolde said. “You probably won’t believe me, but yes, I did wonder. Though I never knew.”

  Isolde had set Kian’s knife down beside the bench. She could see it out of the corner of her eye, from where she still sat on the stool; it was lying on the floor just out of reach.

  Hedda was speaking again, her voice lowered again to a soft, implacable hiss. “I watched the king’s soldiers raze my village to the ground. I watched my father, my brothers, spitted on their spears like joints of meat. I saw my sister’s child—a little girl of seven—raped until she bled to death in the street. And I lived at your castle and brushed your hair and went with whatever man took a notion to poke his prick inside me because he’d beat me if I refused.”

  She stopped, her breast heaving, and Isolde forced stiff lips apart. “You should have told me.”

  “Told you?” Hedda laughed harshly again. “Add one more debt to owe you? One thing more I ought to be grateful to you for?”

  Isolde hadn’t taken her eyes from Hedda’s face, but she felt Trystan stir slightly on the bench. “And is that why you killed Con?” she asked. “Because you hated me?”

  Hedda’s breathing slowed and steadied. “No. I killed your husband the king because it would set me free.” She spread her hands over her belly, stretching the fabric of her tunic tight so that the slight bulge of an unborn child, three or maybe four months along, was plain. “Whose child do you think this is?”

  Isolde had thought she was incapable of feeling any more horror, but at that, a
slow chill slid through her stomach. “Not Con’s.”

  Once more that slow, stranger’s smile curved Hedda’s mouth, but then she shook her head. “No. I’d like to make you think so. I’d like you to think I gave your husband the son you never could. But it’s not. It’s Marche’s. And he’s given me his word that he’ll see that I and the child are made free. A trade. The life of the High King for my freedom.”

  Isolde forced the sickness in the pit of her stomach down and drew a steadying breath. “And how much do you think Marche’s word is worth?” she asked. “A man who betrayed his own king so that he could be crowned?”

  Hedda’s face twisted angrily. “Quiet! You’ve returned, that’s all that matters. And now I’m going to see you captured and burned—as you should have been before.”

  Isolde sensed once more a movement from Trystan, but she didn’t take her eyes from Hedda’s face. She shook her head and went on, regardless of the other girl’s furious gaze and powerful, working hands.

  “Has Marche kept his part of the bargain? Has he made any move to free you? It was all for nothing, Hedda. Can’t you see that?”

  “No!” The word was almost a scream. “Not for nothing! Do you hear me? Not for—”

  Before Isolde could move, Hedda had sprung forward, her hands fastening like talons around Isolde’s throat. Hedda’s face was only inches from Isolde’s own, and almost unrecognizable, distorted with hate.

  “Not for nothing!”

  Isolde jerked back, trying to break free, but Hedda was by far the stronger, and rage made her still stronger. Her fingers tightened. Isolde’s vision darkened, but still she could hear the stream of curses and denials that poured from Hedda’s lips, as though an infected wound had been lanced, allowing the poison to spew out.

  As Hedda’s hands tightened further, the blood roared in Isolde’s ears. Her lungs felt as though they would burst. She shut her eyes, felt her lips move. Felt a flare of pain. And then—

  All at once, the pressure on her throat was released. Air rushed back into Isolde’s lungs and her vision swam, then cleared. Hedda stood like a statue before her. She had taken a step back and her hands were flung up as though in self-defense. Her face, side-lit by the lamplight, had gone livid, her expression a frozen mask of horror, her pale eyes wide. She was staring, not at Isolde, but at something beyond. Her lips parted and a harsh rattle of air escaped, then changed to a high, terrified scream.

  “No! You’re dead! I killed you—you’re dead!”

  And then she moved—so quickly that Isolde had no time to react. She snatched up the knife from where Isolde had laid it on the floor and lunged forward, past Isolde, toward whatever she had seen. And at the same time, Trystan pulled himself half upright on the bench and caught hold of her as she came within reach. With a wordless cry, Hedda wrenched herself away, staggered, overbalanced, and fell, hard, against the stone floor. Isolde waited for her to move—to rise—but she lay utterly still, one hand curled beneath her, the other outflung.

  Isolde’s throat ached with the pressure of Hedda’s hands, and she felt dizzy, still. But she rose slowly and went to kneel beside Hedda, taking hold of the Saxon girl’s shoulder and rolling her onto her back. Hedda’s tunic was wet with a dark, crimson stain that was spreading across her breast. She’d fallen on the knife, the force of her fall driving the blade cleanly into her heart.

  For what seemed a long time, Isolde stood staring down at Hedda’s lifeless body. At the slightly curled fingers, the splayed legs, the small bulge of the child. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of Hedda’s mouth, but her face looked strangely peaceful. Peaceful, and younger, as well, the stolid control relaxed, the anger beneath it gone. And maybe, Isolde thought, her eyes on the still, softened face, Hedda is glad, too, that it ended this way.

  Behind her, Trystan said, “I—”

  And then he broke off, so abruptly that Isolde looked round and saw that he had frozen in place, his whole body suddenly rigid, his head cocked, listening. And then she heard it, too. With the feeling of being plunged into nightmare once again, she heard voices from beyond the closed door, and the thud of booted feet in the corridor. Isolde looked from Trystan’s taut face and scored, bloody shoulders to Hedda’s motionless form. Then, in an instant, she had grasped the hilt of the knife and pulled it, with a grating feeling of metal against bone, from Hedda’s breast. She was shuddering, but she pushed the knife into Trystan’s hand.

  “Here,” she said. “I’ve kept my word. Give me yours that you’ll use it only if you’ve no other choice left.”

  There was no time to wait for Trystan’s reply. Isolde rose, willing her shaky hands to steady, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks. She swallowed several times, then straightened her back and faced the opening door.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  MADOC OF GWYNEDD STOOD MOTIONLESS in the doorway, backed by a handful of fighting men, and, Isolde saw, by Huel, son of Coel. For the space of several breaths, no one moved. And then, abruptly, Huel wheeled, as though to go in pursuit of help.

  “No.” Madoc’s voice, still harsh and creaking as it had been at her trial, broke the silence, and he put out a hand, holding Huel in place. “No,” he said again. “Wait.”

  He didn’t go on, though, and neither did he move. Instead he remained in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Isolde’s, scrutinizing her with an almost palpable intensity. It was Isolde who spoke at last.

  “Well?” she said. “Are you going to summon the rest of the king’s council? Lock me again in a prison cell?”

  Slowly, Madoc shook his head. In the flickering lamplight, the burns on his face looked as angry and red as they had before, his features still twisted, dragged askew by the healing scars.

  “No,” he said. “At least, not yet.” He stopped. Then he said, in the same painful, rasping tone, “I’ll not act until you’ve had a chance to explain your words to me at the trial.”

  Isolde studied his distorted face, the eyes hard, the mouth set in a flat, angry line. She’d not looked in Trystan’s direction since the entrance of the men, but she could feel his stillness behind her, feel him holding himself poised, ready—though for what, she couldn’t be sure.

  “Another trail, do you mean?” she said at last. “A private one, between us two?”

  Madoc’s shoulders jerked. “If you want to put it that way. I believe in justice, Lady Isolde, whatever I think of you myself. Therefore—”

  He stopped.

  “Therefore you’ll grant me a chance to speak freely before you condemn me once more to be tied to a stake and burned for a witch?”

  Madoc gave a short nod, though he didn’t speak again. Isolde might have simply given up there and then. For I can’t imagine, she thought, that I’ve any real chance of success. Still, somehow, in that moment on the headland when she’d heard Morgan’s voice she’d put behind her all thought of surrendering or turning back. And so instead she drew in a slow breath, summoning up every last bit of courage—willing every scrap of strength into her tone. Then she looked up again at Madoc.

  “Very well,” she said. “A trial it shall be. Who will speak first, you or I?”

  Huel had been silent up until now, but at that he stiffened. His narrow face, so like Coel’s and yet so unlike, as well, still showed the ravages of grief, and his eyes were bloodshot, the lids swollen.

  “Another trial? Madoc, are you mad? When you heard her confess with your own ears to her crimes?”

  Isolde was about to answer, but before she could speak Madoc had shaken his head. “In fairness,” he said with careful deliberation, “she might have done that to save the life of that woman—the whore…what was her name?”

  “Dera,” Isolde said, through gritted teeth.

  Madoc nodded. “Yes, that was it,” he continued, still speaking to Huel. “She might have confessed to save the woman Dera from Marche’s threat.”

  He paused, his dark gaze narrowing as he studied Isolde’s face. “But you also said at the
trial that maybe one day I’d recognize the difference between witchery and drugs. What did you mean?”

  A man, Isolde thought, of strange contradictions. Who could beat a child in anger, but refuse to allow a witch to be burned without what he considered fair trail. Who could, when roused, use language as foul as that of any foot soldier. And yet still go daily to kneel in the chapel and hear the Mass sung.

  Beside him, Huel was shifting impatiently, and Isolde saw that the men-at-arms behind them were stirring, as well. She kept her attention fixed on Madoc, though, willing all anger or fear aside.

  “I meant,” she said, “that Marche isn’t the man to leave the outcome of a fight to chance—or to God, either. He drugged your wine the night you fought. Surely you must remember the way you felt after you’d drunk?”

  Eyes still intent on her face, Madoc nodded slowly. “All right,” he said. “Perhaps. How do I know, though, that it wasn’t you that drugged the wine?”

  “Me?” With an effort, Isolde kept the impatience from her tone. “You can’t have it both ways. Either I’m a witch and could have no need to resort to drugs when sorcery would serve as well, or I’m innocent of the charge. And what possible reason could I have for wishing to see Marche crowned High King?”

  “He made you High Queen as soon as he was crowned.”

  Isolde felt a twist of the now-familiar sickness rise. “Yes, and I ran from Tintagel before we’d been wedded even a single day.”

  “Enough of this!” Huel had been standing with one hand clenched on the hilt of his sword, and now he broke in angrily, his face contorting. “Do you deny you killed my father?”

  “I do deny it, yes. Coel’s murder, too, was carried out by Marche’s hand.”

  “Marche?” Anger and disbelief warred on Huel’s face. “Why should Marche have killed my father?”