Lord Rigolin paled. “No, of course not! I have no doubt either of the rightness of my position or of my fighting skills. But I would like to know who the false lord of Karke proposes as his champion.”
Tristan smiled broadly. “I thought you would have guessed the answer to that already. I am his champion.”
The duke agreed to the terms of the duel much more readily than Tristan had feared. Whether he did not relish losing more men and having them pinned down in a long siege, or whether he was beginning to have quiet doubts about the man whom he had rewarded for no other good reason than having married his cousin, or even whether his conscience was stirred by the sinfulness of killing Christians, he seemed anxious to end what promised to be a prolonged and ugly fight.
Now all Tristan had to do was to persuade Lord Jovelin actually to agree to what the duke thought he had already agreed to: a judicial duel, with Tristan as his champion.
Kaedin the Bold, as he had feared, was most loudly against it. “No! We must do nothing of the sort! Father, don’t listen to him!”
Lord Jovelin nodded slowly, as though agreeing with his son, but Tristan hoped that he saw a look of interest in his eye. “We have entrusted the leadership of our fight to Lord Tristan,” he said, “so I cannot dismiss his suggestions out of hand, but I would be interested in hearing your objections.”
Kaedin had plenty of objections. “We are winning! That is the only reason the duke is interested in a judicial duel, because he hopes he might still salvage a victory out of this. Suppose our champion loses? We would be forced by honor to open the gates to a man who would never have won his way in by force! And if we are to have a champion, it must be me! We can’t have someone from Cornwall representing us on something this important.”
Almost, Tristan thought, Kaedin had been going to add, “Suppose he plans to sell us out to the duke?” But the young man stopped himself in time.
“Tristan, even your own foster-brother thought it wrong for you to be involved in Breton wars,” said Lord Jovelin. “Suppose you are killed? What will your friends in Cornwall think of us then?”
“If I am killed,” Tristan thought, “then perhaps Isolde will realize at last that I was the only man who ever truly loved her, and she will be sorry for sending me away and staying with Mark.”
Aloud he said, “But I will not be killed. I am the best fighter you have.”
Surprisingly, Isolde Fair Hands agreed with him. “Kaedin, little brother, you are the bravest person I’ve ever met, but you’ve only been knighted for a year. If we agree to a duel, with the castle of Karke as the prize, we have to be certain that our champion will be victorious.”
Behind her words, Tristan thought that he heard a sisterly concern for the life and health of her little brother—a concern that far outweighed any concern she might have for him, someone she had known for barely two weeks.
But then she turned and smiled at him, a dimple coming up in her cheek. “You have no idea, Lord Tristan, what an honor my father and I would feel in having you as our champion.”
V
The duel was arranged for the next morning. All during the afternoon, the castle’s defenders, led by the knights who had come from Parmenie, shouted down accounts of Tristan’s exploits. His slaying of the old duke was repeated at length, with elaborations. Tristan thought to himself that the attacking army surely remembered the events somewhat differently, but on one point there could be no doubt: as a young man newly knighted, he had defied Duke Gilan and killed him for insulting his parents’ memory.
Those from Parmenie added a reasonably accurate account of Tristan’s fight with Morold of Eire, which had also been a judicial duel, though leaving out the wound from which Tristan had almost died. They then added an exciting but improbable story of how he and Kaedin had stalked and killed a monstrous giant who was kidnapping and eating young maidens. He smiled and decided it was not worth denying.
He noticed that the men of Arundel made no effort to shout back tales of their own lord’s exploits.
Tristan did notice the lord practicing charges on his war horse, on the far side of the attackers’ camp. There was no room in the castle for he himself to practice, but he sharpened his sword, tried to speak lightly to Kaedin, who spent the afternoon grumbling, and enjoyed the company of Isolde Fair Hands.
He thought that she was trying especially hard to be friendly to him to make up for her brother’s sense of injured feelings and coldness, but he could still enjoy a lovely young woman smiling at him and telling him he was noble and brave.
“What is it,” he asked himself, “about women named Isolde? One queen of that name brought me back from death, and I gave my life to another queen of the same name, and now a third Isolde is grateful that I shall restore hope to her family.”
And, he had to admit to himself, her gratitude had more to it than simple thankfulness that they might be able to avoid a long siege without her brother risking death. She asked him if he had a wife in Cornwall in a manner that seemed rather pointed, and he told her that he had no sweetheart of his own—he did not even bother bringing up Tantris the Minstrel’s wife in Gales and their seven children.
But in the middle of laughing at a story she told him, he suddenly became somber, reminding himself that while he might have two Isoldes whose company he could enjoy, Isolde of Cornwall had but one Tristan, and he was gone, leaving her in solitary sorrow.
Isolde Fair Hands personally helped him into his armor at daybreak the next day. “May the Son of the Maid protect you in your battle, Tristan,” she said. She looked at him soberly as she lowered the helmet over his head, then, just before it was in place, abruptly raised it again and kissed him. “A kiss for luck!” she said, laughter in her upturned eyes, then settled the helmet on his head.
On his way down to the gates, where his horse was already prepared, Tristan paused to look out toward the enemy army. He did not see the lord of Arundel, who he would have expected to be waiting. There had been sounds of movement during the night in the besiegers’ camp, and the men of Karke, fearing a midnight attack, had gone to the walls with torches, but had been able to see nothing.
Could Lord Rigolin of Arundel and his men have withdrawn? Duke Rugier was certainly still there, but the size of the army seemed somewhat diminished. Could it be that the claimant to Karke had decided, having heard all of Tristan’s real and imaginary exploits, that the castle was not worth injury or even death?
But he still had to go through with it. When the gates were opened Tristan rode out, this time not under the white flag of truce but under the black and silver banner of Karke.
The shield he carried also bore the arms of Karke, a black crenellated tower on a silver field. He rode slowly but unhesitatingly, his lance carried loosely, as though not at all afraid that someone might put a crossbow bolt through him. He pulled up twenty yards short of where the duke sat his own steed.
Tristan spoke loudly so that everyone could hear him, both in the army assembled before him and up in the castle. “I am here to prove with my body, before the eyes of God, that Lord Jovelin of Karke is a faithful follower of the duke of Bretagne, and that the lord of Arundel has no rightful claim to the castle of Karke. If the lord of Arundel wishes to prove the opposite, let him meet me here in single combat, that God and the saints may judge who has right on his side.”
There was a long pause. The duke looked at him impassively. There were murmurs up and down the line of besiegers, but no words that Tristan could catch.
But then suddenly a knight rode forward. Not the lord of Arundel, and, with the visor on his helmet lowered, not anyone Tristan recognized. The insignia on his shield, a field of golden stars on a blue background, was one he never remembered seeing before.
“I shall meet your challenge!” the knight shouted. A young man by his voice, Tristan thought. “And when I kill you, the castle of Karke shall be mine!”
Duke Rugier reacted even before Tristan. He kicked his horse forward and
reached out, trying to grab the young knight’s reins. “This is not your quarrel!” he growled. “This is between me and the lord of Karke.”
“But we cannot let this Tristan, this Cornish prince, decide affairs in Bretagne!” the knight protested, jerking his horse’s head away from the duke’s reaching hand. “It would be too shameful to have to yield, just because the lord of Arundel has proven a coward! Let me fight this famed Tristan Giant-slayer, sir, and, when I win, reward me with Karke!”
The duke seemed unmoved by this. But Tristan spoke up. “Let the boy fight me, sire! Even if the lord of Arundel has indicated, by his absence, how little right he recognizes in his own claim, I would not wish you to lack a clear indication of the right in this case. As I have told you, Lord Jovelin is eager to swear his oaths of fidelity to you again, and I will happily kill this lad if necessary to prove it.”
“It shall be on your head, Tristan,” the duke snapped. “But since you both are so eager for death, then by all means you should start killing each other at once.”
“This is not merely a fight,” said Tristan, as the young knight triumphantly rode toward him. Someone handed him a long lance. “This is a duel, to prove where right lies. And I am happy to offer my body as proof, but not happy to kill another Christian. I ask your forgiveness, as I shall ask forgiveness of God.” When the other did not answer, he settled his lance and spurred his horse forward.
The two horses were at full gallop when they met, and both lances shattered against the other’s shield. Tristan and the other knight swayed in their saddles but kept their stirrups, reined in their horses, wheeled around, and came at each other with upraised swords.
This was, Tristan thought, disturbingly reminiscent of his fight with Morold: two men, one experienced, one young and foolhardy, fighting with an enormous amount at stake. There was even the shouting from both sides—he thought he could detect the voice of Isolde Fair Hands among the voices from the castle.
But when he had fought Morold, he himself had been the young and foolhardy knight. He now had no trouble feeling himself the old warrior, who knew his death must come sooner rather than later and hoped it came in battle. How could he have aged so much in just a few years?
Then the two men came together, and Tristan could consider little more, giving all his attention to the fighting. The other knight was quick and strong, but was careless in getting his shield into position. This was doubtless his first fight outside a tourney, where all blades were dull.
Tristan watched for his chance and, when the other was a fraction of a second too slow shielding himself, he struck: full upon the thigh, the sword cutting through mail and jamb.
Then he wheeled his horse away and waited, while the knight, dropping his sword, tried desperately to stay in the saddle.
“Do you yield, sir?” Tristan shouted. “I would hate to have to kill you, and I hope it is clear that you are no longer in a position to defeat me!” But he did not remove his helmet or even lower his sword. He remembered all too well that he had defeated Morold just when it had seemed that he had surely lost.
Much of what he had done in the last few years had been based on tricks and deception, but there was no deceiving in a fight. If one lost concentration, no matter how clever, he was dead.
“I do not yield!” the other knight got out, so high it was almost a scream. “Someone, give me back my sword!”
But when several of the duke’s men rushed forward, they did not give him back his sword. Instead they seized his horse by the head and led it away. The knight protested, but feebly. He had dropped his starry shield now as well, and someone caught him as he slid from the saddle.
The duke’s voice boomed out. “He yields!”
Tristan lowered his sword and pulled off his helmet. It was good, he thought, that he and Morold had fought on an island. Otherwise, Mark’s men would have come to lead him away, before he had defeated the Irish champion.
But Morold had offered to take him to Eire for healing. Tristan would have arrived in Eire as a defeated champion, not as the minstrel Tantris, but he would still have met Isolde.
In life and in death, he thought, their fates were bound together.
Duke Rugier rode forward. He nodded toward Tristan, an odd expression on his face, more relief than a recognition of defeat. Loudly enough to be heard from the castle, he said, “If Lord Jovelin wants to offer me his oaths, he had better do it soon.”
The duke’s army rode away that afternoon, after Jovelin had renewed his oaths. Isolde could not stop smiling and dancing around Tristan. “You were magnificent!” she said. “Do you know who that young knight was you defeated, the one with the starry shield?”
“No,” said Tristan, both enjoying her smiles and feeling embarrassed at being considered a great hero for having done so little.
“The duke’s son! He’s the heir to Bretagne, but he knows he could wait for years for his inheritance. He thought Karke would make an excellent home in the meantime, somewhere to go away from the ducal capital. The duke, of course, was furious, both that he should offer to fight you without asking his father if he might, and that he should be so reckless as to attempt to defeat such a great warrior as you.”
She added a bit pensively, “Two Christmases ago, at the duke’s court, the lad tried to persuade me to give him my love—unsuccessfully, I should add! I wonder: did he want me because he hoped thus to acquire Karke, or did he try to win Karke today in order to win me?”
Kaedin burst in, “Neither! I’m sure he’s long forgotten a dalliance from two years ago.”
He was frowning all out of proportion to Isolde’s light-hearted question. Tristan thought that he was doing a fairly good job of hiding his jealousy, of Tristan being declared the hero when Kaedin the Bold might have defeated the duke’s son just as easily, but it must still rankle.
But then all thoughts of Kaedin were thrust from his head.
“Tristan,” said Lord Jovelin, “you have served Karke unusually well. How would you like to marry my daughter?”
VI
A half dozen contradictory thoughts flashed through Tristan’s head. He could not marry anyone, because his heart, his body, and his soul all belonged to Isolde the Blonde. Yet Isolde had chosen the man to whom she was married over him, so it was only appropriate that he should marry someone else himself. If he married the lady of Karke, he could live here, rather than moping around Parmenie or wandering aimlessly from one court to another. Being married to Isolde Fair Hands might give him some solace from the terrible pain he felt from being separated from the other Isolde. And while he felt nothing but wretched anguish in thinking of the queen of Cornwall, she, he was quite sure, was happy, having become reconciled to Mark and having him as her partner in pleasure whenever she wished—a pleasure now lost to him.
And one thought stood out from the rest: he could not disappoint Lord Jovelin, this man who had trusted him to preserve his castle and lordship, and he could not seem scornful of the lovely young woman who was looking at him with lips slightly open in anxious anticipation of what he would say.
These thoughts all passed through his mind in under two seconds, and his mouth was already pulled into a smile when he spoke. “Isolde Fair Hands would be a treasure for any knight who could win her!”
“We are not of royal blood, you know,” Jovelin said somewhat diffidently. Tristan realized that his answer, meant to be positive but somewhat ambiguous, could be interpreted as negative though somewhat ambiguous. Isolde was still looking at him fixedly. “But,” Jovelin added, “I believe my daughter’s grace and beauty would make her an excellent adornment to the royal court of Tintagel.”
“Well, you must realize,” said Tristan, feeling that he now had to suggest what he had avoided telling anyone since arriving in Bretagne, “that I may never ascend to the throne of Cornwall.” When Jovelin frowned at him, he hurried on, “I am indeed the heir if the king were to die without a son, but the queen is with child, and I thought it best
to absent myself for a few years, to make it clear that I would not challenge the baby’s right to inherit.”
More trickery and deception. But Isolde the Blonde was the only one to whom he had promised never to be false. And she had proven false to him when she sent him away into exile.
They were all still looking at him, Jovelin, Kaedin, and Isolde, she trembling slightly and with a tear at the edge of her eye. He was still being too ambiguous.
Tristan took a deep breath and once more smiled the broad and guileless smile of a trickster. “I would be honored and delighted to win your daughter’s love and claim her as my bride.”
They were married a month later, standing on the steps of the little village church outside the castle of Karke. Tristan’s foster family was there, his brother Curvenal and mother Florete, both delighted to see him marrying such a lovely and delightful young woman. Duke Rugier, now reconciled with Lord Jovelin, came with a number of the members of his court, though not his son, whose wounds prevented him from travel. Kaedin had wanted to invite the lord of Arundel, but Tristan talked him out of it.
When Tristan and Isolde had sworn their oaths to be true to each other forever, Lord Jovelin said, “And now it is time for the exchange of rings.”
Rings. Tristan had not thought about rings. He and Isolde the Blonde had never dared exchange love-tokens.
But Isolde Fair Hands had brought one, a man’s ring set with a sapphire, which she slipped onto his hand. Seeing the small cameo ring on his littlest finger, she naturally assumed it was for her, worked it off, and put it on her own white hand.
That was Blancheflor’s ring, the ring she had given Rivalin when they were married, which Tristan had worn since a boy, although he did not learn until he came to Cornwall whose ring it had been. His hand felt empty without it.
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