Ashes of Heaven

by C. Dale Brittain

  Tintagel’s towers seemed to float high above the narrow grassy stretch of land that ran down to the sea. Morold looked up at them thoughtfully: almost, she thought, as though wondering if there was another way to reach the castle than the steep and narrow steps. The approach on the inland side, of course, was much easier than on the seaward side, but she was suddenly pleased that she had not shown him.

  Morold went over to look at the merchant wares with King Mark. “They have been selling their wares all the way up the coast from Ispania,” he said, hefting a shield that Mark had been examining. “If those of Eire do not take the rest, then the captain may stop here again on his way home.”

  Mark looked back toward Blancheflor, jingling the few coins she had given him. His sister and the visiting lady sat on the white cloth, one head black and one blond. Their hair, ruffled by the ocean breeze, was restrained by no more than a few ribbons. Isolde leaned toward Blancheflor to say something in her ear, then sat back with a laugh. “The maidens make a lovely picture,” Mark commented.

  “You are very fond of your sister,” said Morold. It was not a question.

  “She is everything to me,” Mark said confidentially. “Our parents died when I was just a little boy, and she had to be mother as well as sister. I feel blessed to have such a sister, for with her I know the finest of womanhood.”

  “One day, I hope you realize,” said Morold, “she will fall in love and marry, a brave knight or a great lord or even another king, and you will have to share her with another man. Will you still love her and believe in her the same way?”

  Mark smiled. “Some men, I know, have difficulty in trusting women, but with Blancheflor I have learned how to recognize the best in womanhood. I know that nothing will ever change her affection for me. And she has taught me by her example what a woman can be, so that if I myself ever love and marry, I shall be able to trust that woman with my life.”

  “You have only just met my sister, haven’t you,” put in Morold, as though irrelevantly.

  “She is very beautiful,” said Mark, not quite sure what the other was suggesting. When Morold appeared to be waiting expectantly for more, he added, “Her dark hair and complexion make her seem exotic and intriguing to those like me who rarely see women from southern lands.”

  “You truly believe so?” asked Morold. “The women of these northern lands seem rather pale and insipid to those of us from the south, so I must ask myself: do dark women like my sister perhaps seem plain to those of you who like their women light-haired?”

  “I trust you are not calling the princess Blancheflor insipid,” Mark replied, with a sharp edge to his tone that had not been there before.

  Morold smiled widely. “A good reply, your majesty. No, I will not say she is insipid. But do you think that another northerner like yourself would look at my sister with pleasure?”

  “She makes a lovely picture,” said Mark, somewhat tentatively. “As I said.”

  “And I appreciate your kind words. Your sister too is fair, I can affirm. Now, the merchants are wondering if you are going to pay for that knife, and if you are indeed going to buy the matching shield. I myself recommend it.”

  III

  The rain stopped falling in the early morning. The coast of Eire emerged green and wrapped in ribbons of mist. Brangein thought it might be a good place to live, much cooler and richer in growing things than the dry brown hills of Ispania. But Cornwall would have been a good place too, and she had not stopped thinking about the beautiful little castle of Parmenie.

  As the morning advanced, the sun emerged from the clouds that hid the horizon, and the mists began to fade. The ship rounded a rocky promontory, and before them spread a wide harbor. A city rose on the far side, low thatched houses for the most part, but in the middle a minster’s spire and a white-washed castle. The city was luminous in the freshly-washed air. Brangein leaned on the rail, both eager to see the place that had been their goal this whole long voyage, and reluctant to have that voyage come to an end.

  Her cousins spoke together quietly. Isolde was smiling more than she had smiled all voyage. “—rich and a king and unmarried,” Brangein heard her say. “But you’ve never told me how old.”

  “This one is no boy. Not like Mark of Cornwall.”

  Morold sounded dismissive, but Brangein had rather liked King Mark of Cornwall. She had not thought him a boy, either. As the ship prepared to leave Tintagel, he had given her a red velvet ribbon. It came out of the ship’s wares, as she knew because she had seen the ribbons unpacked in a dozen ports already, and she knew she could have had one any time had she asked the captain. But Mark said, “This will be lovely in your hair.” The captain had never said that anything would be lovely in her hair—he had scarcely seemed to notice she was on his ship at all.

  Morold beckoned her to him. “They are unlikely to ask you, little cousin,” he said, “but if you are, remember, we were sent here by the king of Ispania.”

  Brangein nodded. She was always happy to do whatever Morold said, though she did not always understand why he asked certain things of her. Back in Ispania, he had often been gone for months, off fighting, and from what she overheard she knew others considered him a ferocious warrior, but he had never been ferocious to her. When he had come back home, exhausted and battered and laden with booty, he would gravely take the glass of wine she would bring him on a tray, then scoop her up into his lap. While he drank she sat close against his chest, surrounded by his scent, sweat and horse and dust. Those were the best times. Then she would heat the water for his bath, and after he slid into the tub, he would let her scrub his back with black soap and a sea sponge and pour rinse water over his head.

  The last time he had come home to their flower-grown white house, however, there had been little time for bringing him wine or for scrubbing his back. The first morning after his return, a strange man had come by the house, stepping in only for a minute, waving Brangein away when she offered to bring him a drink, then slipping away out the back.

  This man looked like her idea of a ferocious fighter, scarred and filthy and sunburned and unsmiling, but she had had little time to think about him. Just two minutes later, telling their landlady they were going out for a brief stroll, Morold and Isolde and Brangein walked out the front door and straight down to the harbor, and were sailing away to Eire half an hour later.

  Brangein had never met the king of Ispania, but she thought maybe the stranger warrior had been the king’s representative. She had for that matter never seen any king besides Mark of Cornwall and wondered if the king of Eire would also offer her a ribbon. Somehow she doubted it.

  There were no other merchant ships in the harbor; most of the boats were little fishing vessels. “Will the king of Eire come down to look at the wares?” Brangein asked.

  “He will likely send representatives to examine the goods from Ispania,” said Morold, “but he will be too haughty to come down himself among the fisherfolk and shopkeepers. Cornwall is just a little kingdom, with most of its wealth derived from salvaging shipwrecks, I would guess, in spite of all their talk of tin mines. But this king, I have heard, is called the High King, with all the other kings of Eire his liege men.”

  “A High King, unmarried,” commented Isolde. “Is he a deformed idiot, that no woman will have him? Or does he prefer men’s company to that of women? Or have such fastidious taste that no woman can please him?”

  “I am sure your skills, dear sister, would overcome any man’s objections,” said Morold. “And even if you found his person unpleasing, would not your skills work on yourself as well?

  She gave him a quick, angry glance. “I would never use my potions on myself. I will make my choice, and if I am reluctant then I shall not overcome my own reluctance with herbcraft. I know that you hope we may find a new place to live and to live well, but even for you, I would never do that! And I would also never use potions on a man who might be my husband—he must love me for myself, not against his will.” Th
en she smiled, dark eyes flashing. “If I like a man, I doubt not my ability to win him—without what you call skills!”

  The three of them walked up from the harbor toward the castle, attracting stares from the people in the muddy streets. The tall man and woman, black haired and olive skinned, stood out among the blond and red-headed men and women of Eire, and the two-handed broadsword on the man’s back made many step briskly aside. Brangein, walking between them, went unnoticed.

  She looked around as they went. If they were to live here and live well, as Morold said, then she wondered if one of these thatched cottages might soon be theirs. Though none were covered with exuberant magenta blooms like the house they had left in Ispania, some had rose bushes by the door.

  The castle was small, no larger than the castle of Parmenie and not as new. “Petty lordlings in Ispania have richer castles than this,” Isolde muttered. It rose from a steep hill, surrounded by a wooden stockade. A white banner, emblazoned with a green harp, snapped from over the stockade gates. The gates were open, but several men, spears in their hands, leaned against the jambs, eyeing their approach.

  Morold tossed back his hair and tucked his thumbs into his belt. “I come as a messenger from the king of Ispania to the royal court of Eire! Tell your master that Morold is here.”

  The guards looked dubious. “And tell them that Morold’s sister Isolde is here as well,” she said, fixing them with her great dark eyes. The eyes seemed more compelling even than the broadsword, for the guards glanced at each other and nodded, and one hurried away. Isolde smiled, as if shyly, at the other guards while they were waiting. In only a few moments the guard returned to escort them through the gates.

  Inside the stockade were stables, kitchens, and a half dozen chickens. At the center rose the white-washed castle on its hill. A knight in a byrnie and helmet stood at the bottom of the wooden stairs that led up to the castle’s entrance, a dozen feet above the ground. “You will need to leave your sword here, sir,” he said, slapping his own blade against a gloved hand. “King Gurmun’s orders.”

  Isolde gave her brother a sharp look, but he only smiled and reached around to loosen the straps. “Your master is wise not to trust a stranger,” he said, as though instructing the knight on a perhaps obscure point. “King Gurmun shall learn to trust me soon enough.”

  As they climbed up toward the castle entrance, Morold murmured, “Gurmun. Good. I had not remembered the name.”

  The arched doorway led into a great stone hall, dimly lit by high windows and a few flickering torches. Two bagpipers played, a merry tune over the steady note of the drone. Brangein looked at them curiously as they passed, then turned her attention to the hall itself, eager to see what other wonders the castle might offer.

  She had never before been in any building this big. There were larger structures in Ispania, and this castle was smaller than that of Tintagel, but she had not been inside any of them. Isolde might have been dismissive, but Brangein hoped to see piles of glorious treasure such as were always found in castles, at least according to the stories she had heard back home. But the hall was rather plain, its only furniture trestle tables pushed against the wall, and an oak chair, massive and black with age, on a dais at the far end.

  A man, red-haired and freckled, sat on the chair, hurriedly settling a thin golden circlet on his hair as they came in. He was older than King Mark of Cornwall but still a young man—Isolde’s age. Neither deformed nor an idiot, Brangein thought. He looked toward them curiously, seeming intrigued by Isolde, but Morold gave him no time for contemplation.

  He strode the length of the hall, ignoring everyone else there, and went into a deep bow, down on both knees with his arms extended. “Hail Gurmun, king of Eire!” he cried. “I bring you greetings from the king of Ispania. Tales have reached us in the south of the beauty of your kingdom and the glories of your court, and I see that those tales have not lied. I come to propose friendship between our lands.”

  Isolde walked the length of the hall just a few paces behind her brother, not with her usual long strides but sinuously, walking from the hips, glancing from side to side from under half-lowered lids. She had, on their last day at sea, begged some fresh water from the captain to wash her hair, and it lay loose in soft midnight waves across her shoulders.

  Brangein trotted along beside her, but, as usual, no one paid her the slightest attention.

  “Morold, is it then?” said King Gurmun. “I fear I know much less of Ispania that you know of Eire.”

  “Good,” said Isolde, just under her breath, and Brangein doubted that any heard it but she.

  “Approach then,” Gurmun said, “and tell me what message my royal brother sends.”

  Morold reached for the pouch at his belt and undid the leather ties. He held it high for a second, then upended it on the dais at the king’s feet. Heavy gold coins, silver bezants, and small coppers cascaded out. The ringing sound seemed to go on and on, even after the coins stopped rolling.

  A gasp went through the hall, but Morold appeared not to notice. “This is his message,” he said in a great voice. “The king of Ispania seeks your assistance against the enemies of Christendom. If you will join us, he wishes you to know that you can find rewards like this, as well as rewards for your soul.”

  King Gurmun started to reach down for the coins, then caught himself and slowly withdrew his hand. “The saints be praised,” he said in a low voice, but Brangein did not think his mind was on the saints.

  Morold and Isolde exchanged quick glances. Morold did not actually wink, but he came close.

  The king took a deep breath, then straightened and smiled. “Dine with me, ambassador from Ispania, and we can discuss further the proposal from your lord. And your sister—Isolde, is it not? I would be honored to have you dine with us, my lady.”

  She dipped her head and smiled slowly and radiantly. “And may we bring our little cousin?” The king started, noticing the girl for the first time. “Her name is Brangein.”

  IV

  The knights who came down to greet the ship at Tintagel’s jetty all wore flower garlands over their byrnies. “You are just in time!” they called. “The pavilions are already set up in the meadow.”

  A dozen men leaned over the railing. One called back, “Then tell your master that Rivalin of Parmenie is here to join the festivities!”

  The men, laughing and congratulating themselves on their timely arrival, hurried to bring their horses and chests down from the ship. A knight rushed off to announce them to the king, going by the short way to the meadow beyond the castle: up the stairs, past the castle gate, and by a narrow path close below the walls. As soon as the men of Parmenie were all ashore, another knight led them and their horses the long way, by a tree-shadowed track, a half mile around the hill and up to the top.

  There a meadow, a mile wide, was scattered with tents and leafy pavilions, under a sun of high summer. Women in white dresses and men dressed in bright colors strolled around in groups and couples, laughing and singing. Rivalin said to his men, “We have arrived at the best possible time!” He strode confidently toward the largest pavilion. King Mark sat crowned with flowers, sipping a glass of wine, while a lute player entertained him.

  “Your majesty!” Rivalin cried, going down on one knee and sweeping off his hat. “Accept the friendship and service of the men of Parmenie! We come from the land of Bretagne, for we have heard of the chivalry and courtliness of Cornwall, and we would see it for ourselves! Rivalin of Parmenie salutes you!”

  Mark rose and clasped Rivalin’s hand in both of his. “Then, in the name of God, you are welcome to Cornwall! Fortune smiles only on festivities that welcome the stranger. Refresh yourself, and in just a little while the bohort shall begin.”

  Rivalin and his men accepted glasses of wine and cheese pastries, served from a leafy pavilion. They had brought two tents in their chests, silk striped in shades of green and rose, small but elegant. They erected them quickly and changed out of the clot
hes they had worn at sea, into their finest. When the horn blew to announce the start of the bohort, Rivalin was ready.

  One of his men held his stirrup as he mounted. “What will you tell King Mark if he asks why you are really here?”

  “I already told him!” said Rivalin with a laugh. “We are here to see for ourselves the chivalry and courtliness of this land!” He took the shield and blunted spear the other handed him and shook his head. “And, if he should ask directly, I shall tell him true. I have never done anything to bring me shame.”

  The knights were assembling down at the end of the meadow. All were dressed in bright colors, bareheaded, armed only with blunt spears. Rivalin wore scarlet, the brightest of all. He tucked his spear under one arm, gave a great shout, and aimed for the nearest knight.

  For the next hour, the knights rode back and forth, striking each other on the shields, shouting in challenge, in triumph, and in laughing recognition of being bested. For the most part they made no effort to unhorse each other, just trying to knock the other knights back in the saddle. When the horn had blown to announce the start of the sport, they had started to line up in two teams, but Rivalin began the bohort with his first challenge, without being part of either group, and any sign of teams immediately disintegrated.

  A group of ladies sat watching as the bohort surged back and forth before them, applauding, calling encouragement, and throwing flowers. King Mark sat with them, and his eye was caught again and again by Rivalin of Parmenie.

  The young lord from Bretagne had by far the best seat on his horse, the quickest spear, and the strongest shield arm. He was everywhere in the bohort, always getting the better of whoever rode against him. His chestnut curls became matted with sweat, but his energy never flagged, and his scarlet surcoat was the only surcoat on the field that had not suffered at least one rip.