It was a ring that had been given by his mother to his father as a sign of true love, and now it was on the hand of a woman he should not love.
Tristan went through the rest of the afternoon in something of a daze. The priest blessed their union in words he scarcely heard. When the bohort assembled, he did not join in. He barely noticed the shouting and laughing of the riders and spectators. His new wife sat next to him, her arm through his as they watched the brightly-clad knights riding about in the meadow where, just a month earlier, an army had been assembled.
How could he have married this Isolde? He had somehow imagined, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, that in marrying her he would regain some of the honor he had lost in his long love affair with the queen of Cornwall. But now he must betray one of the Isoldes, either the queen by taking another woman into his bed, or his wife, by refusing to lie with her.
“Whenever you decide it is time to return to Cornwall,” Isolde Fair Hands said, “I shall be ready to accompany you. My place shall always be beside you, dearest love.” He realized when she spoke that they had both been silent for a long time, but he could think of nothing to say return. She smiled, bringing up a dimple. “Or if you prefer Karke, I am happy to remain with my father and brother. Or if you prefer Parmenie, I know I shall learn to love your foster-mother and your little niece and nephew. Just don’t tell me you’re planning on going on pilgrimage! Or at least not yet.”
His life, he thought, had become nothing but a series of deceptions and betrayals. Even before it came time to bed Isolde Fair Hands, he had already proven false to the queen by exchanging oaths with another, and was already false to his new wife by loving another.
And how could he have imagined that Isolde of Karke would ease the pain he felt every time he thought of Isolde the Blonde? He allowed his wife to squeeze his arm and felt desperately unhappy.
When evening came, Kaedin and one of Isolde’s serving maids took them to the wedding chamber, drew back the bed curtains, helped them undress, then blew out the candles and went out. How long, Tristan wondered, would they wait outside the door, ready to bring wine when he called, before they decided he was never going to call for them and went away?
In the darkness inside the curtains, his new wife pushed a naked shoulder softly against him. He put his arms carefully around her, drew her to him, and kissed her face.
He had to do this, but all he could think of was Isolde the Blonde, begging him not to let another woman into his affections. He felt wretched and shameful and ill.
Isolde Fair Hands pressed herself against him while he gently stroked her back and her hair. Her skin was smooth, but it was not the skin of the woman he loved. Her thick curly hair felt nothing like the silken tresses of Isolde the Blonde.
Her maidenhead, he was quite sure, was intact, but he had already initiated one virgin in the ways of love. He forced himself to murmur endearments, but words that he had used to his own dear Isolde died on his tongue. Rather than feeling desire for the woman in his arms, he felt a wave of nausea.
He rolled away from her, and she, misinterpreting the motion, immediately climbed on top of him, kissing and stroking him. Isolde the Blonde had climbed on top of him during their first afternoon together on the ship.
“Tristan,” he told himself firmly, “be a man! You cannot disappoint this sweet maiden.” He fondled her softly rounded breasts while she kissed him even more passionately, and he tried to recall all the excitement he had felt when standing next to King Mark’s marriage bed with Isolde in his arms, but it was no use. The desire that had fired his love for his own dear Isolde, the desire from which he had once feared he might die, had utterly fled away.
After a quarter hour his wife whispered to him, “Tristan, dearest, are you unwell?”
Unwell. Yes, he was unwell, miserable, and going to hell.
“It is my old wound, dear wife,” he whispered back. That was a term he had never used with Isolde the Blonde. “It dates from my great fight with Morold of Eire.” He took her hand and traced the scar on his thigh, with the extra lump from his wound in the tourney, the wound that had bled so much when he leaped into Isolde’s bed. “Sometimes it gives me no trouble, and other times it pains me so severely in the groin that I am scarcely able to walk, much less think of any other exertion.”
She drew his head to her breast, stroked his hair, and kissed him again. “Then,” she said softly, “we must postpone our full bedding until such time as it gives you no trouble. But let us not tell anyone. We are pledged together for eternity, and we love each other. The rest will come soon enough.”
She settled herself beside him, her curly head on his shoulder and one arm across his chest. In a few minutes she was breathing softly, though Tristan could not tell if she truly slept or only wanted to suggest sleep. He, however, lay awake for most of the night.
In early autumn Tristan, Isolde, and Kaedin set off to visit the other lords of Bretagne. Many had heard of the short siege of Karke and of Tristan’s victorious duel with the duke’s son. He tried constantly to suggest that he had had little if anything to do with the castle’s defense, giving Kaedin the credit instead, but there was no concealing that his willingness to champion Karke had led to the retreat of the lord of Arundel and Lord Jovelin’s reconciliation with the duke.
Kaedin tried throughout their journey to be friendly and cordial, but there was always an undertone of resentment to everything he said. Isolde lay down next to her husband every night, and several times had tried to ascertain if his old wound might be bothering him less, but he had yet to take her maidenhead. She was unfailingly polite and gentle to him, but a certain coolness crept into her attitude.
So when they reached a castle on the coast, and the brother and sister announced they wanted to ride along the beach, Tristan was happy to send them off by themselves, while he sat with the castellan by his fire, telling for the hundredth time the story of his judicial duel and feeling immeasurably old.
Kaedin and Isolde trotted along the black sand, the salt wind in their hair. The waves rolled in from their left, dark green and flecked with foam below a line of grey clouds. The beach was deserted; not even the clammers were out on this chilly afternoon. “I’ll race you!” Isolde shouted and put her heels to her horse’s flanks, urging him into a gallop. Kaedin kicked his own horse, trying to catch up.
The two shot along the beach, Isolde in the lead. Her skirt was caught up so that most of her leg was exposed as she rode. She glanced back over her shoulder, mocking her brother, then looked forward again just in time. A rock loomed in front of her. She jerked her horse’s head to the left, and he dodged around the rock, splashing into the water as he did so. A wave broke just as his hoofs touched the water, and Isolde’s leg was drenched all the way up. She gave a cry at the shock of cold water, then started to laugh, a low laugh that held a hint of sorrow.
Kaedin, meanwhile, turned his own horse to the right. He doubled around the rock and, when he came out the far side, he was in the lead.
“Victory!” he shouted and pulled up his horse. That was when he noticed that Isolde was laughing.
She pulled up too, and the two turned their steeds to start back toward the castle. Isolde was still laughing softly.
Kaedin frowned. “What is it?” he asked. Her expression was distant, so he hoped she was not laughing at him.
She shook her head. “That bold wave,” she said after a moment. “It touched me on the thigh where even my husband has not touched me.”
PART SEVEN - Red Sails
I
For two weeks after King Mark found his wife and nephew together, he would not speak to Isolde, touch her, or even acknowledge her presence. The royal bedchamber was still hers, but he never joined her there. He wandered around the castle seemingly surrounded by a black cloud of melancholy. The lines on his face suggested he had aged twenty years in those two weeks.
The court, equally miserable, kept out of his way. No one went hunting, no
one proposed visits to the castles and manors of Cornwall, and no one even planned for the summer festival. The petitioners who arrived seeking royal justice were told that they had to come back much later.
There had long been widespread rumors of the queen’s adultery, but since Mark had been unable to produce her in bed with Tristan where he claimed to have found them, many in court began to doubt the rumors and feel new sympathy for Isolde. Especially with Tristan gone without a trace, it was hard for the court to accuse him of wrong-doing.
Isolde too was in anguish. She scarcely ate and seemed scarcely to sleep, appearing in the morning with deep circles around her eyes. Her golden hair hung lank around her shoulders, and her cheeks became thin and wan.
Then a message came from East Anglia: a castellan lord accused the queen of trying to kill his sons when they had visited Cornwall a few years earlier, and he demanded proper retribution. Everyone at court was outraged at the accusation, except for the king. Mark sent the messenger back with a small packet of money, scarcely seeming to ask himself what could be behind such wild charges.
Members of the court, however, grumbled quietly, saying that if Tristan had been there he would have refused to pay, led a party of knights to attack anyone who thus dared to slander the queen, and in short have not acted so indecisive and weak. The comment was widely repeated, that if the king of Eire wanted tribute now, he would not even have to send his war fleet, all he would have to do was ask.
A week after the money had been sent off, Brangein found Mark walking along the cliffs above the sea and fell into step beside him. He acknowledged her with a glance and a brief nod. She looked up to follow the flight of the gulls and waited for him to speak.
When he was still silent after several minutes, she said, “When I was a little girl in Ispania, I imagined that life in a castle must be glorious. When my cousins and I first settled at the royal court of Eire, I kept expecting to find the huge piles of magical treasure I knew must be around the next corner, and was constantly surprised to see that the lords and ladies of the court could be tired, angry, or irritated, just like the men and women who lived on our street at home. But as I grew older I realized that even great wealth could not create heaven on earth.”
Mark nodded again. “We were both deceived,” he said at last. “You told me to trust them, but the whole time they were in love with each other, fooling both of us.”
“I must apologize, sire,” Brangein answered in a small voice. Mark was always direct with her—she might want to talk in broad terms, but he brought the discussion at once to his immediate concerns, and she had to answer in kind. “I always knew that Isolde loved you—that she loves you still. I always told you to trust in that love, and you were happy as long as you did so. I never thought that love could turn to such misery! You are a good man, and all I have ever wanted is your happiness. I should have anticipated and warned you that this could happen.”
Mark stopped and turned toward her. “Dear Brangein, best of friends,” he said. “You have always tried to help me. Do not blame yourself. I have created my own sorrow.”
He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Am I losing my mind? Sometimes I think I must have imagined seeing them together, something no one else has seen. But Tristan is gone without a word, and the memory is too vivid to have been a phantasm. It is merely the final blow to my happiness. For I have long been wretched in doubting Isolde, in driving her from me by my doubts, and in still loving her! In spite of everything, she is still the queen of my heart, and I long to take her in my arms once again.”
At that the tears that Brangein was trying to restrain burst out. She started to turn away from Mark, but he took her by the shoulders, turned her toward him, and embraced her in a brotherly embrace. “You are a good friend to both the queen and me,” he murmured into her hair. Below them, at the base of the cliff, waves boomed against the rocks.
For a few seconds Brangein stood silently within his arms, almost daring to imagine a different life for both of them, one in which his embrace would be more than brotherly. But she knew he was thinking only of Isolde. After a moment she lifted her tear-streaked face. “Tristan is the source of all our sorrow,” she said. “Perhaps, in some months or years, now that he is gone, you may begin to feel comfortable again.”
But Mark put a finger on her lips. “Never say anything against Tristan. He is my nephew, and though he has betrayed me utterly, I cannot hate him. My dear Blancheflor would never have behaved so dishonorably, but he is his father’s son as well as hers, and his father was always untrustworthy. Still, I do not blame him. I have been thinking—there is little else to do at night, since I cannot sleep. I believe that the two first lay in each other’s arms when I sent them into exile together. Although they struggled against temptation, even sleeping with a sword between them, they must have given in several times. After all, Isolde’s beauty would move the most dedicated monk to desire her if they were long alone together. So it was my own unworthy doubts that brought about what I most feared.”
Brangein’s face was against the king’s chest, his arms still around her, and she shook her head wordlessly.
He did not seem to notice. “I need your counsel, Brangein. Should I receive the queen back into my affections? It is what I most desire. Tristan is gone, and no one at court believes that I saw them together—do not deny it, I know what is said behind my back. Tell me what to do. I am worried about her as well as myself, and I know that I shall die if this misery continues much longer.”
“Sire, if I am your friend, listen to my advice. Make peace with the queen.” Her voice broke, but she pushed on. “It is what you most wish and what may still give you happiness. I know that she too is very unhappy. Tristan is gone and will probably never be seen in Cornwall again. This is an opportunity for you and Isolde to build your love anew.”
At this Mark actually smiled. “You never despair, do you, sweet Brangein, or see anything but the best in those around you. The man who wins you will be lucky indeed.”
She lowered her eyes. “I appreciate your kind words, Sire, but the person who should receive kind words from you is the queen. Go to her, take her in your arms. I know she is eager to ask your forgiveness and give her love to you again.”
“Or should I be asking her forgiveness?”
“According to the songs,” said Brangein, looking away, “lovers constantly anger each other and beg each other’s forgiveness. Some of the songs make reconciliation the sweetest aspect of love.”
“Then,” said Mark with sudden resolution, “we shall see if this is true!”
He took his arms from around her, spun on his heel, and strode energetically toward the castle. The years that had been added to him seemed to fall away as he went.
But Brangein stayed behind on the cliff path. Her vision was too blurred to see the sea.
Life quickly was restored to the court of Tintagel. The color returned to Isolde’s cheeks. For a week she and Mark were constantly together, eating from the same plate, whispering together and laughing, singing duets as she began to try to teach him the harp. Preparations for the summer festival, in spite of their delayed start, quickly came together. No one mentioned Tristan.
At some point, however, those at the court seemed to notice that the reconciliation they believed had taken place had somehow gone sour. Mark became sober again, and although he now went about the normal business of the kingdom, he often seemed distracted.
Brangein tried to avoid Isolde, but the queen surprised her in the meadow, where she was supervising the erection of the pavilions for the festival. “I need your assistance, sweet cousin,” she said with a smile that seemed entirely false to Brangein. Her hand closed around her arm. “Come, let these men finish—they know what to do.”
They walked together across the grass, the blond head and the dark curly head close together, the wind tugging at their skirts. “You are my closest friend,” Isolde said, “the only one I can count on here in Cornwa
ll, and yet you seem to have been avoiding me of late!”
Brangein shot her a sideways glance but did not answer.
“You cannot know, sweet cousin, how unhappy I am! Mark has asked that we try to revive our affection for each other, such as husbands and wives should feel, but he does not seem to trust me. For a week or two he was loving and attentive, but I fear he is beginning to doubt and suspect again! When we retire in the evening, he often sits gloomily in the chair rather than coming to bed, and if he comes to bed at all it is not until close to morning. So I am forced to put up with his moods, which makes me miss Tristan even more! You must help me get a message to him.”
Brangein spoke then, stopping and turning angrily on her cousin. “A message to Tristan! It is your wicked love for him that is the cause of all your misery! You have brought this on yourselves, and you will receive no sympathy from me!”
“Wicked love!” said Isolde, as though in wonder. “What do you know of love, of its joy and its pain, that you can chide me like this?”
“I know wickedness when I see it,” Brangein replied stubbornly. “I told you last summer that I would no longer help you with your falseness and deception, and I shall not!”
“But I miss Tristan so much!” Isolde protested. “I must get a message to him, to urge him to return secretly so that I might see him. You know very well, sweet cousin, that our love for each other is not our fault, that it is all due to you that we drank the love potion.”
At that Brangein straightened and looked her cousin in the eye. “Isolde, you have created this misery for yourself and for Mark, and I shall no longer take the blame for it. Mark loves you and would like to trust you, but he cannot because you are not worthy of his trust! Do you not think he guesses you are yearning for Tristan? Everyone knows he discovered the two of you together. He wishes that you would repent and love him as a woman should love her husband, but he knows you well enough to recognize that you do not.”
Ashes of Heaven Page 31
