Artemis Rising

by Cheri Lasota

  The roof tiles were in disrepair and the overgrown garden was barely recognizable. In the yard lay a collapsed ox-cart and a burra de milho, though no dried maize covered its broken tiers.

  The house appeared to have been deserted for many years, and Arethusa wondered why even Padre Salvador hadn’t revealed that his parents had once lived on the island, for he was their son as well. From the look of it, the family had been wealthy at one time, but Arethusa knew Pai had acquired the title of conde just seven years before when he joined the Freemasons. How then, Arethusa wondered, did his father earn enough money to afford such a home?

  Tristan said little on the journey, only that which required her to gesture yes or no. She had held tightly against him as they galloped down the cobblestone roads, feeling again his ebb tide flowing away from her. Was it the betrayal of Diogo and Isabel that made him angry? Or was it that the Goddess had chosen Diogo as the Alpheus of her future?

  Tristan guided the horse up the hill leading to the front entrance. Without a word, he hooked his arm for her to let herself down off the horse. She tried to catch his gaze, but his eyes studied the fields beyond the house.

  “I’ll go and fetch water for Tesouro.”

  She took his arm and slid off the horse’s back. As she backed away, Tristan kicked Tesouro into a fair gallop up the hill to the outer fields. She took the key from her pocket and hurried up through the overgrown grasses to the door. Leaves and brush had blown onto the porch and the windows were boarded up. It was a forbidding place in its solitude, but she remembered that the padre and Pai had grown up here, and, at one time, it must have been a beautiful home filled with love and the laughter of children. Arethusa slipped the old key into the rusted lock and entered the hall. She noticed a few pieces of furniture left behind, covered with sheets and years of accumulated dust. The rooms were deathly quiet, and the air was still with decaying disuse.

  Then one of the shadows took shape, and a vision of Alpheus took hold of her. She made out the shadowed form of Diogo, lounging with his usual disdain on one of the couches. He held the chain from her nightmare, but, instead of her mother, Arethusa saw herself there, crouched at his feet, feeling the jerk of the collar and cringing at the sound of his laughter as he shoved her down with the heel of his boot.

  The sound of footsteps made her turn. She glimpsed the outline of Tristan’s body against the darkening dusk through the doorframe, a shovel and lantern in his hands.

  She glanced back but all was as it should be. Alpheus was gone.

  Arethusa shivered and turned to Tristan. She stood still, willing him to see what she felt. Alpheus was not her choice, and she would refuse Diogo no matter the consequence. She was desperate for Tristan to know how much she wanted to be with him, how much she was willing to give for that chance. When he stepped toward her and the lantern’s light lit his face, the same look was reflected in his gaze. But anger still lingered in the clench of his jaw.

  “We can explore the house later. We’d best go down to the river.”

  With a curt nod, she followed him out into the night, the crescent moon affording them little light. As they trudged down into the dense forest on the valley floor, the way was slow. The darkness, the uneven terrain, and the thick underbrush hampered their progress. Tristan was silent much of the time. Arethusa trailed a step behind, studying his familiar form. Tonight, the lantern made his body glow with ethereal light. He seemed an apparition to her, as though he were not himself but the knight of Cornwall walking before her, leading the way to a secret tryst.

  What if I caught him by the arm? Would he let me kiss him?

  “Wait.” Tristan stopped near an acacia tree. “Listen.”

  Arethusa halted her pace, quieted her breathing. The sound of water came to her ears over the sighing winds in the trees.

  He glanced back at her. “The river is near.”

  The burbling rapids grew louder until soon the river was upon them. It was smaller than Arethusa had imagined. She thought it more the size of a rivulet or stream.

  Tristan stopped and held up Fernando’s letter to the lantern light. “We’re to follow the river until we find a large overhanging rock. It’s on the other side. Help me look for an easy place to cross over.”

  She caught sight of a good spot several meters away. Touching his shoulder, and not accidentally brushing his neck, she beckoned him to the path she’d found. With a perfunctory smile in her direction, Tristan crossed with nimble feet over the gurgling waters and held out his hand to her. Though she had no need of help, she took in the feel of his hand covering hers and was reluctant to let go when she reached the opposite shore. They tramped on in silence until Tristan took a hesitant step. He lifted the lantern to see farther ahead.

  “I see the rock. There should be a tree a little way off with Pai’s motto carved into it.”

  Arethusa’s mind jolted. Had she forgotten the whole purpose of this expedition? Thoughts of Pai drowned out all else, and the coming discovery began to weigh on her. As Tristan examined the nearby trees, Arethusa took in her surroundings. The black stream rushed into the darkness of the acacia trees towering above them, and ferns, leaves, and tree branches littered the forest floor.

  She drifted up to the large stone jutting out over the water, breathing in the heaven-scents of the riverside flowers. As soon as her toe touched the rough rock, Arethusa felt a presence inside her. She crouched down as powerful emotions swept through her body. In her mind, she saw two lovers in a secret tryst. She sensed it was a separation, as if the two were being ripped apart by a great force.

  “Fernando,” she thought she heard the girl say. “Fernando!”

  “Arethusa.” The mist of the vision began to clear from her eyes at the sound of Tristan’s voice. The images faded until only the lovers’ passion and pain lingered. An eerie foreboding swirled in the air around her, and she grew afraid.

  “I found it.” Tristan’s words broke through her reverie. Arethusa jumped to her feet, following the lantern’s light to where he crouched, shovel in hand, before an enormous acacia tree. Arethusa noticed the words Per Ardua Ad Astra carved into the bark in crude letters. She traced the Latin proverb with her fingers and imagined what Pai was thinking as he carved the words so many years before.

  Tristan broke the silence. “I feel like I’m looking for buried treasure.”

  Arethusa still heard the tension in his voice, but a boyish sparkle lay in his eyes. She smiled. The idea that they were trying to piece together a part of Pai’s history thrilled her too.

  “I’m not sure how deep it would be, but he’d want to make sure that time wouldn’t uncover it.”

  Arethusa knelt beside Tristan as he began to dig. He worked the shovel into the rain-sodden soil again and again. A dull thud finally sounded. He scooped out more dirt with his hands and soon lifted out a large bag made of hemp wrapped over another object. Arethusa exchanged glances with him over the glow of the lantern, and then he handed her the object.

  Unwrapping the hemp bag, she pulled out what looked to be a letterbox with a lock on one side. Though quite weathered by time and moisture, it was still intact. Arethusa brought out the second key her father had given her and unlocked the box.

  The first thing she saw when she opened the lid was a yellowed envelope addressed to Fernando. The moment arrives at last. She opened the envelope with painstaking slowness so as not to damage the enclosed letter. It was not as aged as the envelope, but it felt delicate to the touch. Arethusa held up the letter so that Tristan could read along with her.

  I’ve asked a foreign traveler to transcribe this. I only hope he has not stolen my money and told you falsehoods.

  My dearest Fernando,

  I wonder now if our love of the myths has cursed our own. Are we doomed to their deaths? Will it be true death, or a kind of living beyond death? I think we will know soon.

  In this letter, I promised to tell you my secret. I am carrying your child. The man I am to wed tomorrow w
ill think the baby his and this is best. I will be many years away, but I promise you, I won’t give him my love, despite whatever else he may take from me.

  If your father were a Freemason there might have been a chance for us, but maybe this is the myth’s doing and all will be well in the end. You’ve taken the name Tristan, and, I, Arethusa, so how can we know what will happen to us now?

  I know not what would keep us all together. But no one must ever suspect the truth. I will come back to you someday. Your child must know your face. Long years will pass, but I will not forget you. The potion will keep us strong in our resolve.

  I will treasure your pendant for as long as we are apart. But I will bring it back to you, as Isolde gave the ring to Tristan to remind him of their vow. Wait for me.

  Per ardua ad astra,

  Your Isolde, Your Arethusa, Your Maria

  “He’s your father, Arethusa.” Tristan sat back against the tree, eyes wide. “A blood tie.”

  Her mother’s name swam before her eyes, and all the pieces suddenly merged into one answer beyond all her reason or hope: I am the daughter of Conde Fernando Estrela and Maria Maré. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it before. The Alpheus her mother spoke of aboard the Sea Nymph—it had been the conde. And the Isolde he had lost was her very own mother.

  “Pai knew who you were all along.” He brought out the moonstone and held it up to the lantern light. “I wondered that he was so curious about your pendant at the festa all those years ago.”

  Then it hit her. The moonstone was the true link between her mother and father. It was the conde’s pendant. He recognized it at the festa and again in the carriage on the way to the bullfight. He had given it to her mother when they parted as a token of his love. It must have been a terrible shock for him to see his own pendant around the neck of an orphan girl, only to realize in the same instant that he was looking into the eyes of the daughter he had never seen and that the woman he loved was lost to him forever.

  Why did he keep this hidden from me for so long? she wondered. Perhaps the condessa was the main reason why he kept her identity secret. A child out of wedlock. The condessa would be outraged and Pai would be condemned before all.

  “I thought it remarkable that your mother believed as strongly in mythology as Pai. But, of course, they read the stories together. Pai was educated. He must have taught her to read.”

  “Let’s see what else is in the box.” Tristan motioned for her to come closer.

  She rested her back against the tree next to him. He opened the box again and retrieved a wooden rosary and a rough drawing of a girl on what looked like homemade paper. Even though the drawing was the crude sketch of a face, she saw her mother’s eyes peering out through the coarse strokes of the charcoal pencil.

  “Mãe,” Arethusa mouthed.

  He studied the picture. “She looks like you—muito linda.”

  Arethusa covered her smile with her hand and looked down to the worn, wooden beads in Tristan’s hand. She pictured her father as a young man praying the rosary. Did he not believe in the Goddess? Why did he choose Tristan’s story and not Alpheus’s? If he had, would he and her mother still be together?

  In his heart, her father must have hoped his faith would be enough to bring Mãe back to him. He must have known the myths were stacked against him, that fate would eventually part him from her mother, if only for a time.

  Did I? Arethusa thought. Did I ever stop loving Tristan because the myths foretold a tragic end for us?

  Arethusa took the rosary from Tristan’s outstretched hand and fingered the cool, smooth beads. She thought about all the moments that she would have missed had she not loved Tristan.

  No, even knowing that such an end is in the stars for us, I would still choose the same path.

  She rummaged further and withdrew a small silver pillbox while Tristan pulled out a glass vial half-filled with dark liquid. Inside the silver box, she found a lock of black hair tied with a blue ribbon. She brought out the lock and touched the soft strands. She imagined herself brushing Mãe’s long hair, shining black as onyx, while her mother smiled at her reflection in a glass.

  Tristan held the opened vial up to his nose. “It smells of spiced wine.”

  He held it out to her and its fragrance was still fresh. The scent of lavender and sweet red wine wafted up like a day in the depths of spring. Tristan’s face grew serious as he stared at the vial, but his lips broke into a slight smile and a warm light ignited along the surface of his eyes.

  “This is the potion that your mother talked of in her letter. The love potion from the legend of Tristan and Isolde. Don’t you see? Your father meant for us to find this and drink of it. That’s why he wanted me to come with you.”

  Arethusa thought for a moment. On the beach that morning, Tristan had wanted to say something, but he was unable to finish.

  On the shore when you walked away from me, she wrote to him, awaiting his next words with apprehension, what did you mean to say?

  Dismay washed over his face at the memory. “I was going to say, if Artemis chose Diogo for you, if fate was working against us from the beginning, then how could we ever have a chance?”

  His words dropped like stones into her heart, and she knew now why it had been so difficult to say.

  “Don’t you see? If you are fated for Diogo, then despite all my striving, he will take you from me in the end. No matter what I do, you cannot be mine.”

  She had never told him this before, but she had to let him know. That night, aboard the Sea Nymph, at the same moment my mother had a vision of Diogo, I had a vision of my own. She handed him the note and wrote on. It was you. I saw your eyes in my vision as clearly as I see them now. I saw you.

  “That was before you even knew me,” Tristan said, incredulous. “Before I—but how can you both be right?”

  I don’t think we can, she wrote. If I renounce my name—

  He stayed her hand with his own. “That cannot be the way.” He frowned. “You loved your mother. Would it not dishonor her to renounce your name?”

  Would I not also be dishonoring my father by renouncing the part of me that is Isolde?

  “I don’t know. I don’t know the right path. I only know...” he blew out a breath in frustration, “that I don’t deserve you, no matter our fates.” He raked his hands through his hair. “These past three years, I have tried to pay my penance for what I did. Even now, I know it is not enough. I may not have thrown the stone at you that day in the courtyard, but I didn’t stop anyone else, and that makes me as guilty as the rest.”

  Arethusa touched his arm. “You didn’t throw the stone?” she mouthed, and he understood.

  “No. How could I? Even then I was in love with you. I threw it to the ground. But my compassion came far too late.”

  She laid her hand on his, and a shiver ran through her body.

  “Can you forgive me?”

  I said once that I would never forgive him. But I do. I do. She nodded.

  In the space of a moment, the sorrow of the years ebbed away from Tristan’s eyes, and he regained some of the light that had first drawn her to him when they were younger. Now he seemed to glow with an otherworldly light. “You have absolved me at last.”

  Arethusa gazed down at his hands fidgeting with the vial. He nearly spilled the precious wine-potion to the ground. She took the vial from him and raised it up. The lamplight shone through the wine’s ruby glow. She felt her body moving closer to desire, and she could not mistake the same fire in Tristan’s eyes.

  What was it that happened in the myth? She imagined Tristan escorting Isolde over the sea to the king: Tristan notices Isolde is despondent and has caught a chill from the cold night air whipping over the bow. He offers to find her some warm wine. Isolde accepts his kind offer. He finds a sweet-smelling brew. They drink, not knowing the powerful wine would bind them together in love until death.

  I don’t have to be afraid anymore. If I drink this potion with
Tristan, I will secure his love beyond all doubt. He will be mine—always.

  This potion will break the curse of my name.

  As Isolde, I will be free of Alpheus’s curse.

  Free of Diogo.

  Free.

  Without another thought, without another doubt, Arethusa drank from the half-empty vial. It was a sweet wine, and, in its wake, she felt a burning and heady pleasure moving from her throat down to her belly. She watched Tristan, no longer fearful of the directness of her gaze.

  Drink. Drink, and let nothing more stand between us.

  He reached out, his hand hovering near her hair, as if she were an apparition he feared to touch. “I see you now as Isolde. Even your hair seems fairer.” He took the vial and lifted it to his own lips, and then the potion was spent and all was done.

  The wine soothed away her old fear, and she felt again the aching desire she had felt once before—at the touradas à corda, with Diogo. It was the ache deep inside, in the place she could not name. It was absolute need.

  “Arethusa,” Tristan whispered. She heard an incredulous twinge in his voice, a disbelief. A yearning to laugh washed over her, but she held up her hand to him.

  “Isolde,” she mouthed.

  “Isolde,” Tristan said. And he spoke no more. The need for words had passed.

  At last, they could be Tristan and Isolde as the legend foretold. Could it be so simple? All the soft sounds of the forest faded from her mind. She saw only Tristan. His hair fell in folds to his shoulders, and, in the eerie lamplight, he seemed an illusion. His eyes aged beyond time for her. She no longer saw a young man but rather a man in his prime: strong, fearless, beautiful. He was a knight, the greatest knight of Cornwall, and the King of Lyonesse.

  He raised his hand and made to touch her hair, as if he were reaching for a precious jewel or a wild bird. At the acceptance in her eyes, he gained courage and clutched her hair in an ever-widening grasp. He leaned tentatively toward her, as though afraid she would disappear. But she held fast to her yearning and his gaze, raising her fingers to her own temple and to his. He clutched her hand as she touched him and in the darkness his mouth brushed hers.