The King in the Tree

by Steven Millhauser

  The King, who plays chess well, listened closely to this uninteresting reply. He stared down at the three pawns and looked at me again. “I have never forgotten what you said to me that day in the garden.”

  The King’s fondness for this memory, which in truth I can scarcely summon, always pleases me. He was twelve years old—a Prince in his father’s castle. I was a young man of twenty, knighted and well tutored in my uncle’s manor, brought to instruct the Prince in fencing and dialectic. We often played chess in his mother’s garden, in a bower of lime trees. It was an old story, which he liked to remember over the chessboard.

  “You pointed to the three pawns and said, ‘The last move of the game lies right here, if we could but see it.’ ”

  “We could indeed see it, if two conditions were true: if we could always anticipate our enemy’s moves precisely, and if our own moves were always perfect.”

  The King pushed back his chair and stood up. I rose immediately. The chess game was over. He walked to the chamber window, which looked out upon the orchard and the forest, glanced down without interest, and moved before a wall hanging that showed a bleeding stag surrounded by silver greyhounds.

  “Do you think the Queen is happy?” he said.

  “She appears well content, my lord.”

  “Ah,” he said, in a tone of impatience. “But you know, Thomas, I sometimes think—a young woman brought to a foreign court, a place of strangers. How difficult it must be for her! I should like you to keep an eye out for her. Let me know if she is ever—unhappy.”

  “Very well, my lord.”

  “I know I can rely on you, Thomas.” He swept his arm toward the window. “Look! A fine day for hawking.”

  It is night now, and I haven’t been able to dispel a sense of oppression. The meaning of our interview is all too clear: the King wishes me to spy on his wife. He has not been himself since the steward whispered in his ear.

  I would think nothing of the Queen’s keeping company with Tristan, whom the King has set over her as a protector, were it not for certain looks that sometimes pass between them. Even those looks might easily be explained as entirely familial, since each has been instructed by the King to love the other well. Might they not love each other as brother and sister—she in a strange land, he without father and mother? The reverence she owes her husband requires her to cherish his nephew. Oswin says the Queen gives herself to Tristan in every bed, upon every stairway, behind every tree.

  I fear that something is going to happen.

  There are those at court who would not be unhappy to witness Tristan’s disgrace. Tristan has always attracted an ardent following, especially among the younger knights, but the extreme love of the King for his nephew has bred secret jealousies. Among the barons, some fear his prowess in battle, some are jealous of the King’s favor, some resent the King’s long refusal to marry for the sake of making his nephew heir to the throne. Others, to be sure, remain bound to him in passionate friendship. Yet even they may sometimes feel, at the center of their loyalty, a secret tiredness, such as one feels at the back of the neck after gazing up too long at a splendid tower.

  I do not mean that Tristan is disliked. Even those who are jealous and resentful acknowledge his daring, his fearlessness, his high sense of honor, his love of comradeship. The story is told how Tristan, hunting one day with companions in the royal forest, came to a spring. As the company kneeled to drink, Tristan’s servant presented to the young lord a single bottle of wine, which he had brought along to slake his master’s thirst. Tristan, seizing the bottle and holding it high, cried, “Thus do I drink!” and poured the bottle of wine into the spring, inviting all to partake of it.

  The King’s love for Tristan runs so deep that it is like the love of a man for his own life.

  Oswin the Proud, Oswin the Lascivious, is not the only source of disorder at court. Often he is seen in the despicable company of Modor. Of the three dwarves at court, Modor is the only one of consequence. Modor!—a strutting little ugly man, tyrannical, boastful, obsequious, vengeful, a puffed-up little piece of malevolence. He bullies the other dwarves cruelly, sends them on trivial errands, humiliates them before laughing barons. His harsh face puts me in mind of a clenched fist. His sole passion is intrigue. The barons laugh at him but are uneasy in his presence; he is believed to be skilled in the art of poison. He professes to revere Tristan, while letting it be known that the King favors him unduly; he ingratiates himself with the Queen, while whispering against her; his loyal service to the King does not prevent him from hinting to Tristan’s followers that the King’s marriage to Ysolt of Ireland will deprive his nephew of the promised kingship. He betrays everyone and is universally detested. Why then is his presence tolerated? It is more than tolerated: Modor is sought after eagerly. Is it that an idle court, weary of familiar pleasures, seeks the diversion of the grotesque? Or is there a deeper reason? Modor is the concentrated essence of everything base and ugly in the soul of a courtier. To see him is to experience a thrill of recognition, as when anything hidden is brought to light, followed at once by a pleasing sense of moral superiority.

  When I see Oswin and Modor standing together in the angle of a shady wall, or walking side by side on a path at the edge of the forest, then I confess that I am overcome by a feeling of gratitude to the Creator for the wisdom and goodness of His divine plan, whereby the end of life is the beginning of punishment, and death is inevitable.

  Something has happened—something disturbing and unexpected—something I cannot understand. I am seated at my writing table late at night, gripping my quill tightly, with trembling fingers. I must make an effort to calm myself. Calm yourself, Thomas! Writing will calm me.

  It is my custom, before I retire for the night, to leave the castle by the postern and take a walk in the orchard. The rows of fruit trees—quince and pear, cherry and plum, apple and peach—stretch for acres beyond the castle wall. Here and there cleared paths, broad enough for wagons to pass at harvest-time, run all the way to the palisade of pointed stakes that encloses the orchard and makes of it another garden. Beyond the palisade flows the river, which at this point is no wider than a brook, and on the other side of the brook rises a second palisade, which marks the boundary of the royal forest. It is pleasing, on a warm summer night when the moon is nearly full, to leave the orchard paths and walk among the fruit trees themselves. Here, away from the voices of the castle, in a world of black leaves and white moonlight, a world of silence broken only by the cry of an owl, the rustle of a mouse among the grass, and the distant bark of a greyhound in the courtyard, one can possess one’s soul in peace.

  Tonight I walked a little farther than usual, making my way along the wagon paths, striking suddenly into the trees, crossing a stream, entering open places not yet under cultivation, plunging again under the branches—for I was restless and wished to tire myself for sleep. Overhead, like a piece of glass stained deep blue in a cathedral window through which the sun is shining, the night sky was blue and radiant. I had come to a stretch of orchard not far from the palisade when I saw a movement in the shadows and heard a footfall. I halted, placed my hand on my sword hilt, and was about to call out when I saw two figures walking among the trees.

  I knew at once it was Tristan and the Queen. They were walking so slowly that they were scarcely moving, and they seemed to lean against each other lightly. Their hands were clasped at their sides and their faces were turned toward each other, his more sharply than hers. Shadows of branches rippled across their faces and backs. The Queen’s mantle, which trailed on the ground, was decorated with small crescent moons made of silver. Over her hair she wore a simple head covering, fastened around her temples by a fillet of gold. Now and then they stepped from the rippling shadow-branches into the sudden light of the moon, before the shadows reclaimed them. As I watched their slow, dreamlike walk, under the silence of the moon, I seemed to forget that I was witnessing an act of treason punishable by death, and I felt—but it is difficult
to say precisely what I felt. But I felt I was witnessing something that was of the night—an emanation of the night, as surely as the moonlight dropping softly on the leaves and branches. It was something old, older than marriage, older than kingship, something that belonged to night itself. Then I seemed to feel, rising from those scarcely breathing shadows, an exalted tenderness, a night ecstasy, an expansion of their very being, as if at any moment the night sky would crack open and reveal a dazzling light; and I turned my face away, there in my spying place, as if I had been rebuked.

  When the lovers had advanced beyond earshot, I turned quietly and made my way back to the castle.

  One detail I neglected to mention. Upon first seeing the pair, I had gripped my sword hilt, with the instinct of an old warrior. When I finally turned to go, I discovered that my hand was still on my sword, the fingers tense, the tendons thrust up, the muscles of my arm sore, as though I had just returned my sword to the scabbard after a battle.

  Up at cockcrow, after little sleep. It is good, when the mind is troubled, to walk in the courtyard in the early morning. In the half-light of dawn, the grooms were sweeping out the stables. Peacocks and peahens strutted about. A servant was emptying a chamber pot into the cesspit. A second servant, carrying an armful of rushes for the floor of the great hall, climbed the outer stairway at the base of the keep and disappeared into the arch above. At a great wooden trough, the big-armed laundress was soaking tablecloths and sheets, which she would later pound and hang up to dry in the morning sun. Through the door of the forge I saw the smith examining a broken cart-axle. I stopped for a moment before the mews, to look through the small window at the falcons on their perches, the long-winged peregrines and gyrfalcons, the short-winged goshawks and sparrow hawks. I continued past the well, with its windlass and bucket; a hen fluttered up to the stone rim. The greyhounds were feeding in the kennels, barrels of live chickens stood piled by the kitchen gate, bales of sweet-smelling hay stood before the door of the granary, and on the high walls, against the graying sky, men-at-arms with crossbows were replacing the night watch.

  In the afternoon I was alone with the King and did not speak. He waited for me to speak, but I spoke of other things. My silence I condemn as an act of treason against the crown. What bound my tongue was not doubt about whether I ought to speak, but the knowledge that, if I spoke, I would be guilty of an act of disloyalty to the Queen, whom I dislike, and to Tristan, whom I do not love as I love the King.

  My duty is clear. Is my duty clear? I have no proof of adultery. Tristan is the Queen’s protector and is often alone with her. The King from the beginning has encouraged their intimacy, has repeatedly praised Tristan for attending to the Queen. What is it that I know? I know that the Queen and Tristan were walking together in the orchard late at night. Is this a fact to be lightly reported to a jealous and suspicious King, in an atmosphere of gossip and slander? A word from me, the King’s trusted counselor and companion, carries more weight than the malice of fools. It is also possible, however unlikely, that there are reasons for their nocturnal walk which, once understood, will set everything in a new light. I did not witness a kiss or a single embrace—merely the holding of hands, as if they were children. Perhaps the unusual hour, my mental agitation, the enchantment of moonlight, an overzealous imagination, a pardonable but highly questionable sense of foreboding, united to produce in my mind the troubling sensations of that night. I must observe them carefully, and accumulate more telling evidence before reporting to the King.

  A madness of preparation has seized the court, diverting its attention from the Queen. The Count of Toulouse and some two hundred attendants will be arriving on these shores within the week and will lodge with us for some days before making their way to London. Oswin complains bitterly that there is no room in the stables, that the visitors will devour our pigs and sheep and capons, kill our deer, seduce our women, steal our treasure; he speaks as if he were anticipating a plague of locusts. The King laughs and orders him to spare no expense. Already, in the southwest field outside the castle walls, new stables are being erected. Bedchambers are being cleaned, tents set up, horses curried, walls hung with silks. Wagonloads of hay and grain roll in from the outlying farms. There is talk of feasting, games, entertainments of all kinds. The King hunts all day; Tristan visits in the women’s quarters, or is seen passing with the Queen and her handmaid into the Queen’s garden.

  From high windows, ladies look out expectantly, searching for the first sign of movement on the horizon.

  Is it possible I was mistaken? They walk together like the best of friends. No one speaks of them, in the tumult of preparation. Only now and again, as I step round a corner of the stables, or emerge from the shady arch of a doorway, I see the steward staring after them as they pass into the tower that opens into the Queen’s garden.

  These men of Toulouse do nothing but sing, dance, and play from daybreak to midnight. Laughter rings out from every tent and stairway. Are they a race of children, these knights and nobles of Toulouse? No, in truth they care nothing for childhood: they are of a race who celebrate the joys of full-blooded youth. One can see it in their fashions, in their games and amusements. Their minstrels sing of love—only of love. Never do they sing of battles, of fallen heroes, of ruin and misery. Their songs know nothing of our stern world, with its bitter burdens and sorrows; for them all is youth, zephyrs, the green buds of a perpetual May. The Count is a man of fifty, who wears his unnaturally blond hair to his shoulders. He is said to be a musician and a scholar, a poet, a skilled chess player, a bold swordsman, a lover of the chase who never travels without his hawks. He presented to the King a silver ewer in the shape of a knight on a horse; when the ewer is filled with water and tipped, the water pours from the horse’s mouth. The Count and the King spend hours bent over the chessboard or walking in the King’s garden. Today they hunted in the forest, with a large company. The Count is good for the King, he distracts him from jealousy.

  Last night the Count’s minstrel sang for us in the great hall, seated on a low stool and accompanying himself on a harp. The songs were all love songs, written by the Count himself. Afterward the King’s minstrel, seated on a cushion and accompanying himself on the vielle, sang an adventure of Reynard the Fox and Ysengrim the Wolf, which was well applauded. It was after this, as the singer rose to give way to a juggler of knives, that a curious incident took place. A stranger entered the hall, dressed like a pilgrim in a broad-brimmed hat and a hooded cloak, bearing in one hand an ashwood staff and carrying a harp on his back. Seashells were sewn onto his cloak, as a sign that he had traveled in distant lands; his feet were bare. He approached the Count and asked if he might play a song before the court. To the consternation of the King, the Count laughed and urged the pilgrim to entertain the company if he could. Thereupon the stranger took the harp from his back and played his melancholy song with such surpassing skill that the company listened in hushed wonder. When he had finished playing, there was great applause; the Count, visibly moved, said he had never before heard playing of that kind, and asked where he learned to play so well. “In Lyonesse,” replied the pilgrim, who at once tossed off his humble cloak, beneath which was a purple surcoat with silver sleeve-borders decorated with gold lions, and removed his pilgrim’s hat, revealing himself to be—Tristan. Then there was great laughter and rejoicing in the hall, for these men of Toulouse like nothing better than a bold and playful spirit.

  It is only two days since my last entry, but everything has changed. Disaster has struck. The Count and his followers departed at daybreak. The spirit of revelry has been broken, the fraternal warmth between the Count and the King has suffered a chill. The Queen refuses to leave her chamber, the King paces alone in his garden, Modor sits in the tower prison. I am partly to blame, for I sensed trouble but was unable to foresee the direction from which it erupted.

  The idea for a mime appears to have come from the Count, although I cannot believe that Modor did not guide him from the very begin
ning. It is unimportant. The Count’s love of pleasure, his need for diversion, his childlike delight in surprise, his openness to suggestion of every kind—all this was bound to present itself as a temptation to Modor’s sharp sense of opportunity, his habit of machination, his single-minded devotion to furthering his own ends. The Count’s two dwarves proved to be his way in. These are the clownish dwarves one often sees in the entourage of a great nobleman, dwarves without pride or dignity—dwarves who accept without protest their repellent destiny as the playthings of the strong. Their grotesque names were Roland and Bathsheba. They were man and wife, both skilled in small entertainments such as juggling, tumbling, and mime. A small harp had been specially constructed for him, a little set of bells for her. Modor has always detested dwarves of this kind; he quickly befriended them. The mime was to take place in the evening, after supper, when the King and the Count had returned from the hunt.

  A stage was erected on the dais, surrounded by seats for the King, the Queen, the Count, and the highest nobles of both courts; all others sat on benches in the lower part of the hall. Tallow candles in iron candelabra lit the stage, bare except for a single stool on which sat an emerald-green silk cushion. When Modor appeared, gasps and murmurs sounded. His brash impudence astonished me. He wore a brilliant crimson mantle, edged with ermine—the unmistakable robe of the King. On his head sat a gilt paper crown. With ridiculous majesty he strode to the cushioned stool and sat down on that throne with his arms folded across his chest. Enter Roland and Bathsheba. He wore the jeweled mantle of Tristan; from Bathsheba’s shoulders hung the crescent-covered mantle of the Queen. Her hair, only partly concealed by a head covering, had been dyed a gaudy, brilliant yellow—the yellow of bitter laughter. Tristan le Petit led his little Ysolt to King Modor, who took her hand and gawked at her with oafish adoration. As Tristan walked away, she turned to watch him and stretched out one arm in a gesture of yearning. Now Dwarf King and Dwarf Queen leave the stage and Dwarf Tristan is seen groping his way among invisible trees. He stops, cups his ear. Ysolt appears. They embrace passionately. Beside me, the King drew in a sharp breath. On stage, King Modor appears, wearing his crown. He sees the lovers and throws off his mantle; he is wearing a white-and-gold surcoat over a shirt of ring mail. He draws his sword. Two dwarf attendants appear and swiftly arm him: they pull on the mail gauntlets, fasten his leg mail, lace his helmet, present him with a shield. Ysolt-Bathsheba gives a silent cry, presses both hands to her cheeks, and flees. Dwarf Tristan throws off his mantle: he wears an azure surcoat over a glittering hauberk. In the flamelight one can see the small interlocking rings of iron on his arms. The dwarf attendants complete his armor.