The King Arthur Trilogy

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  There among the rocks and the scorched hillside scrub they came together. Tristan’s shield was charred to cinders in the first onslaught and his ring-mail seared his flesh; but the dragon was weakening as the spear dragged at its throat and breast; and its fire was sinking. And at last, seizing his chance, Tristan sprang in and drove his sword between the breast-scales and found the monster’s heart.

  The dragon reared up with a death-roar that echoed like thunder among the hills, flailing the air with its tail and savage claws, then crashed to the ground, its fire dying out.

  With his last strength, Tristan wrenched open its jaws and hacked off the venomous black tongue. But his own hurts were very sore, and he had scarce dragged himself a spear’s throw from the great carcass when the ground seemed to rise beneath his feet and a roaring blackness engulfed him.

  Now one of the men whom Tristan had seen fleeing from the dragon’s lair was the King’s steward, who had long desired to marry the Princess Iseult though she had no liking for him at all. And when he saw that Tristan rode straight on despite their warning, he slipped away and turned back also, to see what should befall and whether there might be any gain for him in it. And so he was near at hand when he heard the monster’s death-cry; and made bold by that and the silence that came after, he pressed on. And among the rocks he found the dead horse and then the dead dragon, and of the dragon slayer no sign at all. And he thought, The dragon must have eaten him before it died, and there lies my chance. And drawing his sword he fell to hacking at the monster’s carcass until his blade was reddened to the hilt. Then he galloped back to Wexford and gathering his henchmen and a cart, returned again with them to hack off the dragon’s head and fetch it into the town. And when they had brought it in, he made for the King’s Hall to show him the battered head and his blood-stained sword, and claim the Princess in marriage.

  The King was torn between joy that Ireland was delivered from the terror that had laid it waste, and grief that his daughter must marry a man she loathed. But he had given his word, and he sent to the women’s quarters to bid her come down for her betrothal to his steward.

  When she received this word, the Princess thought more quickly and desperately than ever she had thought in her life before. And she sent back word to the King that she was unwell and could not come down to her betrothal that evening or the evening after, but that on the third evening she would come. For she was sure that the steward had not himself slain the dragon but was stealing some other man’s glory; and she must play for time.

  Then she sent for Brangian, chief among her maidens, and bade her have horses ready at the postern gate before dawn, that they might ride out and look at the place where the dragon had been slain. ‘There is some mystery here, and it may be that by seeking we shall find the answer to it,’ she said. ‘We must find the answer to it, for sooner than wed with that man I will die!’

  So in the dark of next morning, the Princess and her maiden slipped out and rode away towards the hills. They found the torn remains of the horse, and then the headless carcass of the dragon; and searching further, they found Tristan lying among the rocks and the blackened thorn-scrub. And at first they thought him dead. But when they had stripped off his mail, they found him clawed and scorched from head to foot, but with seemingly no death-wound upon him. And stowed in the breast of his mail shirt the Princess found what she and Brangian both knew for the forked tip of the dragon’s tongue.

  ‘Dear mistress,’ said Brangian, ‘you will not go to your betrothal to the steward tomorrow.’

  ‘Nor any day,’ said the Princess; and she put back the hair from Tristan’s forehead and looked long into his shut face. Then they set to work to get him across Brangian’s horse, and Brangian mounted behind him; and so they returned in the dawn to the King’s palace.

  When Tristan came back to himself he was lying in a strange chamber with two women bending over him, and one had hair as black as midnight and the other had hair the colour of hot coals. And he knew that whoever she might be, this was the maiden he was seeking, for no other in all the world could have hair quite that colour, the colour of the single hair in the silken packet he wore round his neck. And then as he raised himself on his elbow and looked about him, he saw a silver bowl beside the bed, and lying within it the forked tip of the dragon’s tongue.

  In a voice that seemed not to be his own, he croaked, ‘Well for me that you found and kept that wicked thing, for it is my only proof that it was I who slew the dragon.’

  ‘Well for me also,’ said the red-haired maiden. ‘For my father the King promised me to whoever could rid Ireland of the monster, and his steward claims that it was he.’ And then they both heard what she had said, and there was a startled silence between them.

  Then the Princess, when she had done salving Tristan’s wounds, gave him a healing broth, and when he had drunk it and was asleep, she and Brangian took his mail shirt and his sword into the next room that they might clean them without disturbing him.

  And when the Princess drew his sword, she saw that a small piece was broken out of the blade halfway down.

  She laid the sword on the table without a word, and going to a carved chest, brought from it a small packet wrapped in crimson silk; and from the packet she took the fragment of sword-iron which she had taken from the Morholt’s skull, and held it to the gap in Tristan’s blade. It fitted perfectly.

  Across the table she and Brangian looked at each other. ‘This is the slayer of my kinsman,’ she said in a small cold voice. ‘And he lies in my hands for killing or curing.’

  Brangian cried out, ‘No! Oh no, my mistress! You cannot kill a man lying helpless at your mercy!’

  ‘I can,’ said Iseult, ‘but I have no need to. I have only to show this to my father.’

  ‘And destroy the dragon’s tongue! If this man who slew the Morholt can prove that he also slew the dragon, the King must forgive him. And oh, my lady, remember he is all that stands between you and marriage to your father’s steward!’

  The Princess stood a long while looking down at the sword blade. Then she said, ‘Yes, that is worth remembering.’ And began to laugh. And later that night she went to her father and told him of the knight she and Brangian had found, and of her certainty that the steward’s claim was false.

  ‘As to that,’ said the King when he had heard her out, ‘here are two men, both claiming the same thing. Their claims must be heard before the Assembly.’

  ‘Then let the Assembly be called for three days’ time,’ said the Princess. ‘In three days I can heal his dragon wounds and he will be ready to prove his right to the kill.’

  Meanwhile, word of how the King’s steward had slain the dragon reached Tristan’s men waiting beside their ship but of Tristan himself no word at all; and even when Gorvenal went in secret to the dragon’s lair, he found no clue that he could bring back to them, and they could only think that his venture against the monster had cost him his life. But even as they were debating what they should do next, word spread from the palace that another warrior had claimed the dragon-kill, and that his claim and the steward’s were to be tried on the next day but one. And before they had drawn breath from that, came a letter from Tristan to Gorvenal written with much difficulty, but telling him what had happened, and bidding them all to be present at the trial, clad in their best, and bearing themselves as befitted bold and honest merchants of Less Britain.

  The day came, and the great timbered council hall was made ready for the Assembly, and when the lords and nobles were gathered, and the supposed merchants of Less Britain also, the eyes of all were drawn to the monstrous head that had been dragged in on its cart and set up in the midst of the place. Then the King entered and took his place in the High Seat; and after him came the Princess Iseult walking proud under the royal goldwork that bound her hair.

  Then the Horns of Summoning were sounded; and from the door on the right of the hall the steward strutted in, and from the door on the left, Tristan, still wea
k from his wounds but carrying himself less like a merchant than a king’s son, none the less.

  Then the King raised the silver rod in his hand for silence, and when all the gathering was hushed, he spoke to them of the dragon that had ravaged their land, and his promise of the Princess’s hand to any man who could rid them of this horror, and how many of their best and bravest knights had died in the attempt. ‘Now the evil is ended, and the dragon’s head lies here before you, and two men claim the kill. Therefore, before you all, I call upon both to prove their claims. And since my steward was the first to make it, let him now be the first to speak.’

  The steward stood forward boldly enough, and said, ‘My Lord King, I slew the dragon in long and bitter struggle for the love of the Princess; and here lies the monster’s head to prove my claim as clearly as though it could speak!’

  ‘And yet a man might come upon such a carcass, slain by another, and cut off the head to claim the kill for himself,’ said the King.

  ‘And what man would slay this dragon and walk away?’ demanded the steward.

  ‘Let the second claimant answer that,’ said the King.

  And Tristan stood forward also. ‘My Lord King, merchant as I am, I have some skill with weapons. And hearing of the evil fallen upon this land, I thought that if I could slay your dragon for you, it might be good for trade! By God’s grace I slew the creature; but being myself sorely hurt, a great blackness came upon me; and it must be that while I lay in the blackness, this fellow came and found the dead dragon and thought to gain the reward that another man had done the bleeding for.’

  ‘Lies! All lies!’ shouted the steward.

  ‘One of us lies indeed, but it is not I! My Lord King, has this head been closely guarded so that none might come near it unseen?’

  ‘Night and day,’ said the King.

  ‘Then let some of your men force open its jaws. Maybe it could indeed have spoken to prove your steward’s claim, if it were not lacking the tip of its tongue!’

  And when four strong warriors had forced the jaws open, there for all to see was the black stump of the dragon’s tongue! Then Tristan sprang up on to the cart and held aloft the forked tip of the tongue which he had brought with him in a napkin. ‘My Lord King, nobles of Ireland, is the proof enough?’

  ‘The proof is enough,’ said the King, and the great gathering echoed him.

  And when they looked round for the steward, he had slipped away.

  But there was yet one more matter to be set right. And going to the King, Tristan knelt at his feet, and said, ‘My lord, there is one more thing to be told, and better I should tell it now, than that you should hear it in another way.’

  ‘Tell on,’ said the King.

  ‘It is this: four days since, it was I who slew the dragon; two years since, it was I who slew your kinsman, the Morholt.’

  A great gasp ran through the Hall, and the King’s brows drew almost to meeting. ‘You killed Ireland’s champion? Do you know what you say?’

  ‘It was done in fair fight,’ said Tristan.

  ‘That is true,’ said the King, ‘and true it is also that the Morholt was slain by no merchant but by Tristan of Cornwall.’

  ‘I am Tristan of Cornwall.’

  ‘Then what brings you of all men to our shores?’

  And Tristan told him the whole story of the quest for the Princess of the swallow’s hair.

  ‘Then,’ said the King, when all was told, ‘if I give you my daughter, you will take her not as your own bride, but to be Queen of Cornwall.’

  ‘That is so,’ said Tristan, and looked at the Princess; but though she had been watching him ever since he entered the Hall, she never looked back at him now.

  The King thought a long while with his chin in his hand. At last he said, ‘Maybe it is time that old scars were healed, and there was friendship once more between Ireland and Cornwall …’

  And so the thing was settled; and beside Tristan’s ship, another was made ready, and furnished with all rich things, to take the new Queen of Cornwall to her kingdom. And after three days of feasting and merry-making, they set sail.

  At first they had fair weather, but within a day they ran into rough seas, and the Princess and Brangian and all her maidens were direly ill; so at last Tristan bade the shipmaster to put in to the nearest shelter he could find along the Welsh coast, while Gorvenal in the Cornish ship held on to carry word of their coming to King Marc.

  At noon, the Irish ship came under the shelter of a long headland, and dropped anchor in a little cove where a stream came down from the steep woods inland; and Tristan and the other men sprang overboard to carry the women ashore. And Tristan held up his arms to the Princess as she came over the side, and carried her up through the shallows and set her down on the white wave-rippled sand. Now this was the first time that ever they had touched each other since she had tended his wounds, and that was a different kind of touching; and as he set her down, their hands came together, and their eyes also, and in that moment it was as though something of Iseult entered into Tristan and something of Tristan into Iseult that could never be called back again as long as they lived.

  Before evening Tristan and his companions built a little cabin of green branches up the streamside for the Princess and Brangian, and another for her maidens. And when morning came, the storm was over and the sun shone in a clear sky; but the seas were still running high. They would have to wait another night for the seas to gentle. And Tristan, though he was careful not to be with the Princess again, was glad. He wandered off by himself, and sat among the sand dunes of the headland.

  And there the Princess found him after all, and she carrying a little packet of crimson silk in her hand. ‘I have something to show you,’ she said, and undid the packet and held out the splinter of metal in her palm. ‘Draw your sword that I burnished for you while you lay sick.’

  And when he did as she bade him, she fitted the sharp fragment into the gap in the blade; and they looked at each other with the sword lying between them. ‘So you knew,’ said Tristan. ‘Even before I told your father, you knew.’

  ‘I knew,’ she said.

  ‘Why did you not kill me, Iseult?’

  ‘And marry my father’s steward?’ But they both knew that was not all the truth. And she tossed the fragment away into the sand as something that no longer mattered, and walked away.

  That evening at moonrise, with taper-light glimmering softly from the little branch-woven cabins up the streamside, the shipmaster came to Tristan where he was walking to and fro on the edge of the men’s camp, and said, ‘The wind has gone round and already the seas are gentling; it will be fine sailing weather tomorrow.’

  ‘Then make ready to sail on the morning tide,’ said Tristan.

  And he went to tell the Princess.

  She was alone in the bothie, and combing her hair by the light of a honey-wax candle. ‘I hoped that you would come,’ she said.

  ‘I came only to tell you that the seas are gentling, and tomorrow we sail with the morning tide.’

  Iseult stopped combing her hair. ‘I would that the seas might never gentle,’ she said, and made room for him on the cushions beside her; and he sat down.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘that thought is best forgotten. You will be happy in Cornwall, and King Marc will be a kind and loving lord to you.’

  ‘Kind and loving he may be,’ said Iseult, ‘but this is the last day that ever I shall be happy, and already the moon is up.’

  ‘You will forget today.’

  ‘Never,’ said the Princess. ‘Whoever takes me to wife, you are my lord as long as I live; and you know it.’

  And Tristan bent his head into his hands and groaned.

  ‘Do you love me?’ said the Princess.

  ‘Iseult, I am the King’s man.’

  ‘But do you love me?’

  And Tristan said, ‘Though it is like to be the death of both of us, I love you, Iseult.’ And he put his arms round her and they clung toget
her as the honeysuckle clings to the hazel tree.

  But they sailed for Cornwall with the morning tide.

  And so they came at last to the landing-place below Tintagel; and the King himself with all his court came down to greet the Princess of the Swallow’s Hair.

  ‘Until now,’ said King Marc, with Iseult’s hands in his, ‘I thought that this marriage would be for the binding together of the rift between Cornwall and Ireland. But now I know that it is for making music in my heart … Your hair is as red as fire, but your hands are so cold; yet mine are big enough to warm them.’

  And Tristan, turning aside to greet old friends and old enemies, thought, Dear God! He loves her too!

  The wedding day came and went, and Iseult of Ireland was now Queen of Cornwall; and for a long time – or it seemed a long time to them – Tristan never looked her way nor she his.

  Autumn and winter went by, and the year turned to spring; and one day Tristan came upon the Queen in the little garden that clung to the rocks below the castle; and she was looking towards Ireland and weeping; and all his love for her that he had pushed down into his dark and inmost places came rushing up to the light again, and he put his arms round her and held her close and kissed her. And after that, there was no going back for either of them to where they had been before.

  And as ill luck would have it, they were seen by another nephew of King Marc’s, Andret by name, who was jealous of Tristan. And from that day forward he spied upon them, waiting his time.

  Again the summer turned to autumn, and the winter passed and the golden gorse flamed along the headlands. And the love between Tristan and Iseult would not let them be, dragging at them as the moon draws the tides to follow after it, until at last, whether they would or no, they came together again.