December's Thorn

by Phillip DePoy

  When Tristan arrived to that country, three women were already waiting on the salt sea strand: Iseult, her mother, and the handmaid Brangaine, all dressed in black. They had sensed his coming. They transported his near-dead body to a hidden room in their castle, where they labored nine days long without rest or food. On the evening of the ninth day, Tristan opened his eyes and saw the younger Iseult, knew she had saved his life, and instantly fell in love. She had hair as auburn as the autumn sunlight, and skin the color of milk. Iseult saw his ardor, and was, herself, stricken. The mother, too, saw their passion, but wisely prevented the new love from blossoming by sending Tristan back to Cornwall on the next tide.

  Tristan presented himself to King Mark, and regaled his monarch with tales of the beautiful Iseult. The king misunderstood his nephew, thinking that Tristan was proposing a royal match, and a way to consolidate Cornwall and Ireland as allies. Mark commanded Tristan to take an offer of marriage from the King of Cornwall to the beautiful Iseult.

  Heartsick, but dutiful, Tristan returned to Ireland. Once again, he saw, as his little ship approached the land, three women in black standing on the shore. They knew he would return.

  Before he could even speak, Iseult’s mother accepted King Mark’s offer of marriage. Overcome, Iseult protested, as did Tristan, confessing their love for each other. But the mother wisely explained that a king’s offer was inviolate, and instructed the young lovers to foreswear each other. This they vowed to do. And to insure that Iseult would not be unhappy in her marriage, the mother concocted a potion that would seal the bridal bed, a love philtre. Iseult and Mark would drink a toast before consummation, and Iseult would make certain that the powder would be in each cup, so ensuring mutual passion, and a lifelong love that could not be abated by any other love, nor any circumstance, not even death.

  Devastated, Tristan and Iseult set sail for Cornwall, with Brangaine as their only companion. But the sea was stormy and the night was black, and Tristan called for wine against the cold salt wind, and a potion against the sickness of the waves.

  Alas, Brangaine, sick herself, confused the potions and poured all of the love philtre into two cups of wine. Or was it that Brangaine, certain of the lovers’ passion, wanted to see that such a love would never die? Or was it that the handmaid, jealous of such joy, would rather see the couple suffer? No one knows but Brangaine, and she is dead these thousand-and-more years.

  Unaware, Tristan and Iseult drank the potion. As if struck by lightning, as if picked up by the left hand of heaven and shaken, set down again upon a different boat, they were locked in love’s eternal torture from that moment on. Nothing could alter their passion, not even death.

  They arrived in Cornwall filled with wild confusion.

  Iseult proposed a deception. She instructed her handmaid, Brangaine, to play the part of the bride. In the darkness of the bridal chamber, King Mark would never know.

  This was done, and without another thought, Tristan and Iseult repaired to a cave down the slopes from King Mark’s castle. There they entwined in true love’s knot until the bloodred dawn. This manner of deception continued for a quarter of a year.

  Summer came. Mark took his court to Madron, as was his fashion, to the Stone at Mên-an-Tol, there to elicit the secret of the stone from Tristan. Tristan told his uncle that he must meditate nine days in the forest to cleanse his spirit before revealing the hidden meaning of the stone, but that was a lie. Each night in the forest, Tristan sent a small apple bough down the winding stream that led to a secret place where Iseult watched and waited. When she saw the blossoms, she flew upstream to her true love. They slept together in field and in forest and in hidden caves for more than the week, but on the ninth day, they were discovered, sleeping on a crystal bed, by the dwarf Tristan, a cousin of the king. The dwarf Tristan had seen the apple boughs, and wondered at their gathering in a pool so close to the King’s summer court. He cast a spell on the boughs and they whispered Tristan’s name, echoed as if it were in a cave. The dwarf Tristan ran instantly to fetch the king, and brought the unhappy monarch to the cave to see the crystal bed, and the deception of his wife, and his beloved nephew.

  In a rage, Mark drew his sword and would have killed the lovers as they slept, but for the fact that Iseult whispered Tristan’s name in her sleep, and he, in turn, kissed her hand. Heartbroken, Mark brought his sword down on the crystal bed and cleft it in half, but could not murder the lovers. He banished Tristan from Cornwall forever, and instructed Iseult never to speak a word again, not for the rest of her life.

  Chastened, the lovers obeyed, and the story might have ended there.

  But Tristan was sick with grief, and wandered Ireland for years vainly seeking out the places where Iseult had been: a chair where she’d once rested, a cup from which she had sipped, or a stone she might have touched on her walk along a certain road. On one of his melancholy pilgrimages, he chanced to meet another woman, whose hair was the color of wheat and whose eyes were filled with sorrow. Her name, too, was Iseult, and though she neither looked nor behaved as his beloved, Tristan sought to marry her simply because her name was Iseult.

  But the marriage was not a happy one, and childless. Tristan pined for a year and a day, and then fell into his bed, like to die. Frantic with grief, the false Iseult, as she had come to be known, sent word of Tristan’s illness. Within the week a letter came, telling the unhappy wife that the true Iseult would come, and would heal Tristan, as was her ability. When the false Iseult took this news to her husband, Tristan opened his eyes, and they seemed to shine. He took food, the first in days. He sat up. His cheeks flushed and his pulse quickened.

  This response from her husband filled the false Iseult with jealousy, and she paced and sobbed all night. In the morning she cast her weary eyes out the window of Tristan’s bedchamber, and saw a ship approaching. In that ship were three women, all dressed in black. As it neared the shore, the false Iseult panicked and ran to Tristan.

  “I am sorry, my beloved,” she said with a voice as cold as ice. “News has come from Iseult, King Mark’s bride. She is not coming. She will not come to you. She has refused to help.”

  With that Tristan’s eyes darkened, his heart unwound, and his skin grew gray as the mist. He turned his face to the wall and spent his last breath whispering the name of his true love.

  At that very instant, the true Iseult’s foot touched the top of the stairs and she bounded into Tristan’s bedchamber. The false Iseult fled the room in inconsolable despair, and the true Iseult could see that Tristan was dead.

  With her mother and Brangaine standing in the doorway, the true Iseult went to the bed of her only love. She laid herself down beside Tristan and wrapped him in her arms. She broke her vow to King Mark and whispered Tristan’s name into his ear. Though he was dead, his body sighed, and his cold, clay lips kissed her hand.

  And when his lips touched her milk-white skin, Iseult was content, and breathed out her life, into the damp gray mist.

  Tristan was buried in ancient ground, with the true Iseult on his right. The false Iseult wept on their graves for nine months and a day, and then she took her own life. She was buried on Tristan’s left.

  Out of the true Iseult’s grave grew a white rose, out of Tristan’s a red, and out of the grave of the false Iseult grew a black, thick briar. These three entwined around and covered up the graves, until no living soul could tell one from the other. But the red rose grew in a true love’s knot around the snow white rose. And the briar, black and bent as night, never drew a drop of blood, not in the thousand-and-more years from that day to this.

  BY PHILLIP DEPOY

  THE FEVER DEVILIN SERIES

  The Devil’s Hearth

  The Witch’s Grave

  A Minister’s Ghost

  A Widow’s Curse

  The Drifter’s Wheel

  A Corpse’s Nightmare

  THE FLAP TUCKER SERIES

  Easy

  Too Easy

  Easy as One-Two-Th
ree

  Dancing Made Easy

  Dead Easy

  ALSO BY PHILLIP DEPOY

  The King James Conspiracy

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Phillip DePoy is the award-winning author of many novels and plays, as well as a former artistic director of several theatre companies. He once made his living as a jazz musician; he now lives in Decatur, Georgia.

  Visit the autho’s Web site at www.phillipdepoy.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  DECEMBER’S THORN. Copyright © 2013 by Phillip DePoy. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Pete Garceau

  Cover photograph of winter wood © Castka/Dreamstime.com

  ISBN 978-1-250-01198-5 (hardcover)

  e-ISBN 9781250026002 (e-book)

  First Edition: January 2013