“Did you know, Isolde?” Curvenal asked.
Isolde Fair Hands nodded, holding her brother’s arm even tighter to her. “I learned it. But I cannot turn against my husband. After all, I am carrying his child.”
Kaedin looked back and forth between his sister and Queen Isolde, then said to Brangein, “You told me the queen is also with child. Is she—”
He could not finish, but Brangein shook her head. “Her child is King Mark’s. They were reconciled, at least somewhat, but Mark could never fully take her back into his affections. She made the decision to bear him an heir, to reestablish herself in his heart.” She paused, then continued, her expression hard. “He has been attentive to her, but her efforts to win back his regard have not been entirely successful. And her decision to rush away to Bretagne—without even warning him—will be hard for him to bear.”
Curvenal was about to say something, but he stopped when his mother Florete suddenly appeared. He put his arm around her shoulders. “The queen of Cornwall came as Tristan requested,” he whispered, “but I fear it is too late to save him.” Florete lowered her head and clung to her son in misery.
Tristan turned his head to look toward the group by the door. He forced himself to speak to the queen, though he knew it took his final strength to do so. “Your dear cousin, the foster-mother who nursed me, my foster-brother, my wife and her brother—we have destroyed all their happiness as well as our own. We knew it was evil, sweet Isolde, but I could not resist your love any more than I could resist breathing.”
“But we were happy, Tristan!” the queen sobbed. “You were always my delight and my joy. Please, do not die! Your life is my life. Let me try this potion—”
While she hunted in the bag she had brought for the jar she wanted, Tristan lay back, going limp. Isolde Fair Hands let go of her brother and crossed the room quickly to take Tristan’s hand.
Without opening his eyes, he murmured, “Dearest Isolde, remember that I love you.” He grew still then and did not move again.
The others came slowly to stand by the bed. Queen Isolde broke into wild weeping. She threw her bag of potions from her and flung herself across his inert form. Isolde Fair Hands remained standing, eyes dry, as though asking herself which Isolde her husband had addressed with his final words.
“Tristan, Tristan!” cried the queen. “How can I go on, how can I live without your love?”
Her words were cut short, and her eyes grew wide and round, as a sudden spasm of agony coursed through her.
VI
The ship came into Tintagel’s harbor, out of the waves breaking and foaming in the sunlight, into the calmer water by the jetty. King Mark looked out, feeling a vast reluctance to go down and learn the worst.
At last, as he saw small, distant figures descending the gangplank, he bestirred himself, summoned his knights, and went down the steep, slippery stairs from the castle. He had been up and down these stairs thousands of times, but for some reason he remembered descending them one day when he was little more than a boy, when his sister was beside him, and a merchant ship from Ispania had carried Morold.
Mark tried to keep his mind blank, not thinking about whether the ship would bring him news that his nephew was dead, or news that he was recovered but that the queen had decided to stay in Bretagne with him. In the days after he discovered Isolde gone he had been first furious, then extremely worried, but now he felt himself almost emotionless, ready to accept whatever had happened.
But he had already looked at everyone at the jetty before he reached them, seeing neither Tristan nor Isolde, not even when he looked them over a second and third time.
Brangein came to meet him, pushing back her hood. “I am so sorry, Sire,” she said, and, guessing what she was about to say, he thought that he had been unhappy for so long that he might be able to bear even this.
She took both his hands in hers. “I wish to God that I could bring you better news, but both Tristan and Isolde are dead.”
And then he realized he had not been calm but only numb. A cry of anguish burst from him, and he turned his head away.
But Brangein retained her grip on his hands. “There was no saving the child,” she said quietly, “not so early. The three of them are buried in Bretagne, your nephew, your queen, and your son.”
Mark kept his head turned away. There were other people on the jetty, but he did not want to look at them.
But Brangein, still holding his hands, turned him gently toward them. “Sire, I would like to introduce you to the lady of Karke. I have asked her to come live with us.”
Mark turned slowly. The name of Karke meant nothing to him. He wondered through his pain why Brangein would have invited anyone to come live with them, but it could not be very important.
He lifted his eyes to look at the woman before him—the woman he had already looked at three times but dismissed from his mind because she was not the queen.
She had dark, curly hair, a little like Brangein’s, and although her face was now pale and sad, something about her mouth suggested its normal shape was a smile. She curtsied deeply. “I wish that we could meet under happier circumstances, King Mark,” she said. “My husband Tristan always spoke very well of you.”
He remembered now. Tristan had married the lord of Karke’s daughter. When he had heard the news he persuaded himself that his nephew had fully repented of his relations with the queen. It was then, in his eagerness to become reconciled anew with his own wife, that he had gotten her with child—the child who had never had a chance to live. He had managed to keep his old doubts at bay until word came from Bretagne that Tristan was dying. He had instantly known that Isolde would go to him, even while she was still sitting beside him in the great hall, echoing his sorrow and concern at the news. He was the only person not surprised when, the next morning, she was gone.
“Tristan wrote me that his wife was beautiful and noble,” Mark managed to get out. “I see that he was not mistaken. He always had an excellent eye for beauty.” He stumbled over his own words, blinked hard, and continued, trying unsuccessfully for a tone of good humor. “So you are now my niece! I do not wish to cause you further pain, but you must know that Tristan was my heir. So I have to ask you. Are you— That is, did you and he perhaps—”
When his voice trailed away she peeled off her gloves and reached out to take his hand. “It is the one joy that remains to me, and it is the reason I have come to Cornwall. I will make no claims without your full support, but yes. I am carrying Tristan’s child.”
Mark dropped his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he looked up again he was almost smiling. “If it is a boy, I hope you will consent to name him Tristan. He will be born in sadness, but his future will be bright, as future king of Cornwall.” He squeezed her hand. “This is the only news that could give me any pleasure in this time of sorrow. But, my dear niece, I realize that I do not even know your name!”
She managed to smile. “My name is Isolde, sire. They call me Isolde Fair Hands.”
She would have gone on to explain the origins of the nickname, but she never had a chance. Brangein and the knights from the castle reached for the king just in time to keep him toppling from the jetty as Mark went pale, swayed, and fainted.
A year passed. The royal court of Cornwall had remained in mourning until the birth of Baby Tristan banished all sorrow. But then the ladies once again put on their bright gowns, minstrels were again welcomed to the hall, and Mark was seen to smile, not just once but frequently.
Isolde Fair Hands nursed her baby herself. She carried him with her everywhere, and although he could cry as lustily as any peasant woman’s child when he was wet or hungry, for the most part he was a cheerful baby, looking at the world around him with every sign of lively interest.
Visitors came from Bretagne during the summer, Isolde’s father and brother from Karke, and Curvenal from Parmenie. “He’s got all his father’s energy,” Curvenal said, tickling the baby until he crowed with laug
hter. “Now you’ll just have to make sure you can teach him better sense than his father ever had.”
One day in early autumn Mark and Brangein went walking in the meadow beyond the castle. Asters bloomed in the tall grass, and the first tinge of yellow had touched the leaves at the meadow’s edge.
Mark was singing under his breath, and Brangein smiled to hear him. “I love this season,” he said, spreading his arms and taking deep breaths of the fresh air. “We still have the warmth of summer, but the harvest is coming in, and nature itself seems to be ready to settle into slow and happy dreams.”
“And you, sire?” said Brangein lightly. “Do slow and happy dreams await you as well?”
He took her hand and swung it back and forth as they walked on. “You know all the sorrow I have experienced, dear friend. A year ago I would have said that my dreams would always be anxious and dark. But lately I have found happiness surprising me. Tristan and Isolde have been gone for a year, and I now find I can think of them with little pain. I loved them both, and that love has not weakened, even if they always loved each other more than me. And my many memories of them, which once were nothing but a source of misery, have become softened, so that little but joy remains.”
Brangein shook her head in wonder. “You are truly a good man, to be willing to forgive them.”
“Forgive?” said Mark, as though turning the word over on his tongue. “Yes, I think I may have forgiven them, although I never thought I would. Even their names no longer bring me pain—when I hear those names I think first of my dear niece and of her baby.” He smiled at her. “Christ counsels us to forgive, Brangein, and I have always thought He was telling us not to seek to harm others in revenge. But perhaps He was telling us to forgive to reduce the pain in our own souls.”
They both were silent for a moment, their hands still joined, then tilted their heads back to watch a flock of geese flying high overhead, their calls mournful. Then Brangein said, very quietly, “Do you think, sire, that you might ever marry again?”
He shrugged, still watching the geese. “How can I? Baby Tristan is my heir. A son of my own body would have to take precedence over him, and that I could not bear. I loved my nephew even before I met the queen, and I cannot do anything to the detriment of his son.”
Brangein took two quick breaths before speaking. “Suppose your queen bore only daughters?”
Mark frowned, not looking at her. “A king could not exclude his son from the inheritance, at least not in these days, but he should be able to designate his nephew to take precedence over his daughters.” He gave a small smile. “It would appear unfair to the daughters.”
“Women are not always as eager for authority as men,” answered Brangein. “If the girls had never expected to inherit a kingdom, they would consider it no hardship not to do so. Kings should be able to choose their heirs freely, if there is no reason to expect plots and jealousy.” She paused briefly. “After all, or so I have heard, in Eire King Gurmun has designated one of his nephews as his heir, now that he has no living children.”
“Well,” Mark answered slowly, “you make a case that daughters of mine might be satisfied without a crown, but if I had a queen, how could I be sure she would not bear sons?”
“Queen Isolde of Eire always knew how to arrange such things. She is my cousin.”
Mark turned to look at her fully. He ran a hand through his hair. “When my own queen came from Cornwall, and you came with her, I gained a friend as well as a wife. She is gone, but my friend is still with me.”
“And I gained a friend as well,” Brangein answered. “With you I never felt that I was lost in the queen’s shadow, or that my opinions were rejected even before they were heard. Rather I was able to speak freely with someone intelligent and great-hearted. All my life, when either of my female cousins were present, Isolde the mother or Isolde the daughter, I was accustomed to being overlooked as a plain little person not worth noticing. Only two people ever saw me differently: my cousin Morold and you. With you I was not someone grey and insignificant, but someone wise and even beautiful.”
“Grey and insignificant? A plain little person? Brangein, you have never been that to me! You should have told me at once if anyone ever implied such a thing. I would make sure that the whole court, indeed all of Cornwall, should recognize your wisdom and beauty. If they cannot already see your spirit and soul as they are, perhaps they will when I dress you in jewels and lace.”
“Jewels and lace? Sire, do not mock me!”
“I am not mocking.”
Brangein stayed very quiet, not daring to move, waiting to see what he would say next. The wind rustled in the leaves. Mark’s eyes looked her over as though he had never seen her before, and his expression was tender.
“I will never hear anything against either my late queen or my nephew,” he said after a moment as though changing the subject, although she knew he was not.
Brangein found her voice. “I would never say anything to you to their dishonor.”
“It is a lucky man who has a true friend,” said Mark. “Even a king would be lucky.”
His fingers were still interlaced with hers. Brangein spoke through dry lips, her heart beating fast. “When I was in Bretagne last year, Lord Curvenal and his wife invited me to remain with them in Parmenie, saying that I might find it a more cheerful place than Cornwall. When I was a little girl, I once saw Parmenie from aboard a ship, and at one time I thought settling there would make me happy. But I knew I could not accept their offer, kind as it was. I am not a little girl, and my heart is in Tintagel, not Parmenie. Mark, dear king, dear friend, I have always loved you.”
She waited, not even breathing, for his answer. The sun had dipped behind the trees, and the air was growing cooler. Mark kept on looking at her, his gaze still tender, but he did not speak. She went first white, then red. Even more humiliating than not being noticed was not being wanted.
But then a smile spread all across his face, brighter than the setting sun. “Brangein, you are my friend. You know what I most want even before I know myself!” And he threw his arms around her, crushing her to him.
“I think I have admired you ever since I first saw that serious-eyed little girl with the curly hair,” he murmured into her hair. “My heart is at last recovered from the loss of the queen, and is ready to be given again. I do not know why I was so slow to recognize my love for you, but now the whole court shall know it!”
“You shall not be ashamed to admit your love for the late queen’s poor little cousin?”
“Ashamed? Brangein, I shall be proud to have you at my side! Your wisdom and beauty put all other ladies of Tintagel into the shade. Your love is now all that I want. My adored one, my angel!”
She struggled against his embrace, not very hard. “Not an angel, Sire—dearest Mark! We are both mortal beings, our salvation still unsure. If you love me, love me as your dear friend Brangein, not as a celestial being.”
“We shall be married at once!” he cried joyously, swinging her around in a wide arc, so that her toes brushed the asters. “That is,” he added somewhat more soberly, “if you are willing to settle for a somewhat weary and older man, one who has already been married. I do not wish you to feel there are ghosts in your wedding bed.”
Brangein caught her breath and freed an arm to push back her hair, which had tumbled across her face. “I have always most admired older men,” she gasped. “And all that I will see in my wedding bed is you.”
THE END
Afterword
The story of Tristan and Isolde is a difficult one. It is a story of betrayal and adultery, with roots in Celtic legend. But it took the form we now consider classic in the hands of Gottfried von Strassburg, who wrote in Middle High German around the year 1200. The story is much less well known now than that of Lancelot and Guinevere, also a story of adultery with a queen, which was invented (in this case by a French writer) in the twelfth century, in direct imitation of the Tristan and Isolde story.
Those who have heard at all of Gottfried’s lovers tend to assume that theirs is a romantic story of true love, but in his hands it was a story where the adulterous couple, having destroyed everyone’s happiness, including their own, are headed straight toward hell.
It is hard to find a happy ending for a story like that. Modern retellings tend to gloss over the themes that were central to the medieval version. A recent film adaptation strayed so far from the original that one might say, “Only the names were not changed.” But then Gottfried himself, apparently unsure what to do with his story, ended up leaving it unfinished. Other versions, contemporary to or slightly later than Gottfried’s, took the story to its inevitable conclusion. I have sought to strike a balance, telling a story accessible to the modern reader while remaining true to Gottfried’s haunting tale.
Gottfried himself had never been to the Celtic homeland of the story, to Cornwall, Brittany, Wales, and Ireland. He used the names of real places but might as well have called them Fantasyland for all his efforts at realistic geography. For that matter, he set the story in an imaginary fifth century, but without the slightest effort at historical accuracy; everything in his version is an extrapolation from his contemporary twelfth-century world. I know a little more about the places whose names he used, but in retelling Gottfried’s story I have quite deliberately kept his rather dreamy sense of time and place. The story is set in twelfth-century Europe, but a twelfth-century Europe that never was.
Although I could say that I have “retold” Gottfried’s story, in fact I have done exactly what he did—adopted an old plot line and then reworked it thoroughly for my own purposes. As a medievalist myself, I have heard Gottfried’s voice constantly while writing, and have tried to reflect his sensibility. But modern narrative techniques are so different from those of eight centuries ago—especially since Gottfried wrote in poetry, I in prose—that my version is more a parallel version of the story than a retelling. For example, the character of Morold, although crucial to the plot, was something of a cipher to Gottfried, whereas once I started writing I discovered that he was a much more interesting person than I had realized. Isolde Fair Hands, who appears in a lot of versions of the story but only as a cardboard figure, clearly deserved much more. The opening and the ending of the story are also completely mine. Still, I would urge anyone who enjoyed reading this book to read Gottfried’s version as well—good English translations are readily available, most notably the Penguin edition with a translation by A.T. Hatto. And, for the adventurous, there is always Middle High German.
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