She could see Tristan struggling with himself. “Then you were right,” he said at last, “and I was wrong. I was sure you’d have to fight them to drive them out.”
“I was wrong, too,” she said slowly. “I should have tried harder to explain what I was trying to do. I got angry with you instead. I thought you were trying to spoil my negotiations with Darath because you wanted to do battle with him yourself.”
“I did,” he said awkwardly. “I thought he was taking you away from me.”
“Oh, my love . . .”
“I thought you were only drawing out the discussions so you could be with him. I was afraid you planned to take him as your knight instead of me.”
An ugly flush of unhappiness crept up her neck. “I should never have made you think that. I was only trying to capture his interest and make it harder for him to attack Dubh Lein.”
She hesitated, conscious of Tristan’s eyes closely searching her face. Should she tell him that Darath had wanted to take her to his bed? That she had been attracted to him in return? That she had kissed him on the mouth when he demanded a price for agreeing to go away?
She drew a deep breath. “Tristan,” she began.
“Ah, lady—” He put a finger to her lips. “Let’s talk about this another time.”
But not now. Isolde nodded, and a great tear of weariness rolled down her cheek. The next moment she was weeping in his arms. “Oh, Tristan . . .”
“No tears, my love,” he said tenderly. The kiss he gave her healed her very soul. He stroked the length of her body, and she felt herself reviving at his touch. After a while she was no longer tired and cold but floating on the tender wings of bliss.
“Come to me—”
She reached up and pulled him down to her side. Suddenly, she was starving for his love, longing to possess him, blind to all thoughts but one.
It came to her with a gasp of delight that they were closer to freedom than they had ever been. Both Igraine and Cormac had confirmed that her marriage with Mark was dead. Give it an honest burial, Cormac had said. That is the last duty that you owe to him. Now she could go back to Mark without fear and dissolve the marriage in person, face-to-face. Afterward she could live life on her own terms.
They should go back to Castle Dore soon.
But not tonight.
Tonight she would sleep like a child in Tristan’s arms. Together they would climb softly upstairs by candlelight to the moonlit attic at the top of the house. There they would heal all the sorrows that had kept them apart, and with tears and kisses they would be reconciled. Afterward, she would lie and watch his sleeping face for hours until, overflowing with love and joy beyond words, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
And will tonight be the beginning of new life? Not Tristan’s and mine, but the child of our love?
She smiled dreamily. Who knows? But we shall find out.
From Tristan’s face, she could tell he was thinking the same. She gave him a glimmering smile. An answering smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, and a look of infinite sweetness swept over his face. Never had he looked so dear to her, so fine.
His spirits soaring, he took her by the hand. As long as the world was asleep, they were safe. Then a thought of pure joy burst in his thankful brain. There was no need for secrecy any more. He threw back his head and laughed aloud with delight. By breaking his oath to Mark, he had earned the right to take his beloved in his arms. Their love was open, he could shout it from the hills.
“Lady, lady,” he whispered. He caught his breath. How long had he waited to say these words to her?
“Come, my love. Let me take you to bed.”
THAT WAS THE FIRST NIGHT they spent in the chamber above the trees. The next morning she woke to the first sweet breath of spring. Looking out of the window, she saw fresh green shoots sprouting merrily on all the tops of the trees. Had winter been slipping away unnoticed while they’d been apart? Or had the dark days fled as soon as Tristan appeared?
In the days to come, she had time to puzzle it out.
That, and so much else.
“Why did you leave me like that?” she asked him one day in a low, unhappy voice. “Sailing away without a word of farewell.”
He flinched. “It was time for me to go.”
“Why?”
He lifted his head, and his eyes were full of pain. “I was jealous of Darath, which a knight should never be. I was breaking my oath of chivalry and wronging him, but above all, I was making things worse for you.”
“Yes, you were.” She could not hold back a flash of bitterness. “It was hard to deal with Darath when you came back.”
“I know. He could see how much I hated him, and he was able to use that against you. I knew if I stayed, you’d never get the better of him.”
“But to go without a word—”
“I didn’t trust myself to say good-bye,” he said with painful honesty.
“But why didn’t you leave me word where you meant to go?”
“Because I didn’t know. But I knew if you wanted me, you’d find me in the end.”
“And you were right.” Breathless with joy, she ran her fingers over his forehead, smoothing away the troubled lines on his brow. “Now kiss me, my love?”
But still she had to know what he’d been doing in the time they were apart.
“How have you been living?” she asked the next day as they walked in the forest in the morning sun.
“Like any other forester,” he replied.
She looked round, bewildered. “But there’s nothing here.”
He gave a crooked smile. “There’s all you need in the forest if you know where to look. Don’t forget, Merlin lived wild in the woods for years after Uther died.” His grin grew broader. “And he’s no woodman, lady, as you know.”
The smile that she gave him then lit his soul. “And you are the best in the world.” She laid her hand on his. “Will you teach me?”
SO BEGAN THE HAPPIEST TIME they had known, living together in the depths of the wood. Earth had slipped the chains of winter, and spring was under way. Day after day, the sun knocked on their window to wake them, and the great forest opened its hidden ways and took them to its heart. Hand in hand, they roamed far and wide, greeting their woodland neighbors like their kin. The lively hares were their children, the roe deer their sisters and brothers, and the many-antlered stags their great cousins in all their pride.
As they went, Tristan taught her all his forest lore: never to eat where they had gathered their food, never to sleep where they had eaten, and never to lay their heads in the same place twice. At night, they made their beds in warm, safe hollows guarded by thickets of quickthorn and knotty furze.
Afterward, Isolde thought she never slept better than in those woodland retreats, roofed by mighty evergreens and guarded by thick walls of bramble and fern. Night after night, she lay with Tristan at her side and the Goddess moon riding the sky overhead. As sleep descended, she lay snug inside her cloak, counting each shining star and hearing them sing.
In those long, dewy nights, she saw the world with new eyes. Sometimes she thought that the Fair Ones shadowed all in green came out of the hills and hollows to bring them sweet dreams, and every tree leaned down its tender, new-budding head to kiss them good night. And with such thoughts, sleep was not far behind.
When morning came, they fed on sweet roots and springwater and strong-flavored, chewy leaves. Then they set off for the day’s adventures, slipping as light-footed as deer between the greeny-black holly and bloodred-berried yew. Tristan’s face and body grew browner, and each lengthening day seemed to lend him new strength. She saw him newborn in springtime beauty, as if the sun itself were coursing through his limbs. Here in the forest he was utterly at home, moving with ease through its dark, fertile depths. Here he taught her how to lose herself in the life of the wood, till her spirit left her body for the astral plain. And here they trod the world between the worlds, searching, ever searching,
with each new foray. Within days, they had transcended their mortal clay and wandered the realms where the Great Ones lived.
“Oh, my love, let us embrace this time of peace,” Tristan said somberly, “and then, my Queen, we’ll decide what to do.”
She looked at his dear face, aching with love. Once again she saw the wonder of his broad, high forehead and frank open gaze, his strong cheekbones and well-shaped mouth. Beltain was coming, the feast of fires and flowers, the mystic time when spring ripened into summer and the doors of the Otherworld opened wide for love. What better time to renew the ties that bound them, heart and soul? And where better than the heart of the greenwood?
In the heart of the wood and many leagues deep in love, they did not see the lone figure on the high road, doggedly making his way to Castle Dore. They did not hear the woodman’s description of them as he whiled away his journey rehearsing what he would say. “There’s a knight, my lord, in the forest and a fine lady, too, with a head of red-gold hair and the sound of the Western Isle in the way she speaks . . .”
But there was more, much more, that the woodman himself did not know. So they could not have guessed that his was not the only treachery afoot, and that evil was already brewing at the court of King Mark. They rose every morning in the pearly dew and looked into each other’s eyes and rejoiced to be alive, like the little gilded flies of midsummer that sing and dance and live for only a day.
chapter 34
Confitebur tibi, Domine . . .
Is that how the psalm began, Theodora asked herself? “I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord with all my heart: I will sing of Thy marvelous works . . .”
Yes, I will give thanks, the Princess promised herself smugly, I’ll sing out to God with all my heart. She looked around the sunlit guest room of Castle Dore. Could anything in the world be more marvelous than this?
Across the chamber, her sister Divinia was coiled up in a window seat overlooking the castle grounds, basking in the warmth of the sun. Pale as ever but less waif-like now, Divinia returned Theodora’s glance with a languid yawn.
“Are you tired, sister?” she said.
Theodora had to laugh. Back in Dun Haven, they’d have been working like slaves from the moment day broke till they dropped into their beds. With their stepmothers dying in childbirth one by one, there were always babies to be cared for and a troubled household to run. Then, by candlelight, when night came at last, there were clothes to be made and blankets and sheets to be patched. Here they were ladies of leisure, guests of the King, spoiled from dawn till dusk.
There was a knock on the door. Theodora opened it, and dismissed the servant outside with a curt word. Then she turned back in triumph into the sunny room. “Look at this.”
Her eyes glistened as she held aloft a plate of sticky sweetmeats and slices of almond bread dripping with lard. Greedily, she began to stuff them in her mouth.
“I thought they’d never come,” she complained. “I must have sent for them an hour ago.”
Divinia’s stomach turned, and she had to look away. “Father would beat you if he saw you being such a pig.”
Theodora plumped herself down on a cushion and grinned through a mouthful of grease. “Father isn’t here.”
“You’re getting fatter every day,” Divinia pouted at her sister spitefully. “He’s bound to know as soon as we get back.”
There was a pause while Theodora emptied her mouth. “You can do what you like,” she said clearly. “But I’m not going back.”
There. She’d said it, the thing they had both been afraid even to think.
Divinia’s eyes bulged. “Not ever?” she whispered fearfully.
“Never. I don’t care who I have to marry to stay here.”
“Not even the King?”
Theodora set her plump chin. “Especially him.” She gave a disbelieving stare. “Whatever you think of him, he’s still the King. You know what that means.”
Divinia felt sick. “But he’s stupid. And he’s so smelly and horrible and old.”
Theodora’s eyes lit up. “The older, the better,” she grinned malevolently. “The sooner he’ll die. And then I’ll be Queen, and no one in the world can tell me what to do.”
“What if he won’t marry you?”
Theodora set the empty plate aside and stretched her ample body like a cat. “Someone else will. There’s plenty of men here at court.”
“You mean one of those filthy old lords that stare at us all the time?” Divinia shuddered. “I’d rather die.”
“You don’t mean that.” She looked at Divinia and fixed her with a frown. Surely even her dim-witted sister could see that this was their only chance of escape?
“Listen to me,” she said with all the force of a nature long suppressed. “If I marry the King, I’ll keep you here as my lady in waiting, and you must promise to do the same for me. Unless you want to go back to Dun Haven and live as we did before, with Father and the girls.”
Divinia lost some of her fragile color and shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
“Father’s wives keep getting younger, don’t forget,” Theodora prodded. “The next one’ll be the same age as you and me, and we’ll have to take orders from her and do what she says. Is that what you want?”
“No.” Divinia’s porcelain skin flushed. “I can’t do that.”
“Well, then.” Theodora surged up to Divinia and pulled her to her feet. “We’ve got to marry the King or someone else. Father Dominian will soon be here to take us into court. Let’s see how good we can make ourselves look by then.”
She set to work on Divinia with a will, pinching her cheeks and fluffing out her hair.
“Bite your lips to make them red,” she commanded, ignoring the flurry of protests and cries. “And here, wear these earrings, they’ll give you more of an air.”
By the time Father Dominian was expected, the younger sister had been subtly transformed. Still pale and ethereal, she now glowed a silvery pink down to her fingers’ ends, wherever Theodora’s vigorous pinching had produced the desired effect.
“Between us, we’ll catch one of these lords” was the brutal calculation of the older girl, “even if it’s not the King himself. And all we need is one to stay in Castle Dore.”
“Are you ready, my daughters?”
Hovering in the doorway, reluctant to come in, Dominian averted his eyes from his two charges and their flowing robes, which clung too closely and revealed too much.
“I have come to take you into court,” he curtly announced. “The King is holding an audience today and is graciously pleased to invite you to attend.”
Theodora paused to arranged her veil to show more of her plump, white shoulders and well-rounded neck. Then she pulled down the front of her dress and brazenly tweaked up her breasts to make a better display.
“We’re ready,” she said to Dominian with a lusty smirk.
“Follow me, then,” Dominian said, shrinking in his soul. And may God in His wisdom have mercy on us all.
The little priest bowed his head in painful prayer as he led the two Princesses away. Salvum me fac, Domine. Help me, help me, Lord.
He had rarely been so unhappy in his life. Is this truly your work that I do now, O Lord? Strengthen and guide me, for I am losing my way.
chapter 35
The days were slipping away like pearls on a chain. To see Tristan’s face was a daily delight. When the wood pigeons crooned their hearts out in the topmost tree, Isolde thought they were singing for him alone. And when the great seven-pointed stag called to his mate through the echoing groves, it seemed to Isolde that she heard Tristan’s voice.
Now summer ripened to its peak in the fullness of the earth. From early morning, the air was golden and warm beneath the trees, heavy with the scent of the season and teeming with life. Together they ranged far and wide throughout the wood, learning its hills and hollows, its dark rocks and sunlit ravines.
Each day brought new enchantments, new delights. A tri
ple rainbow one day when it rained. Another day, two proud swans sailing down a stream, one fore, one aft, guarding the dusty brown skein of their offspring paddling in between. And best of all, in the secret heart of the wood, a cloven oak covered with ivy and honeysuckle intertwined.
Isolde reached for Tristan’s hand. “You remember, love?” She could not go on for tears.
“Remember?” Tristan’s laugh caught in his throat. “How could I forget?”
They stood silent then, marveling at this memorial to their love, the sign that the fates had given them so many years ago. In the heart of the darkest forest, so their pledge had run, the ivy and the honeysuckle flourish as one. And so it will be with us, our lives so intertwined that every curve and line of one will follow the outline of the other in deepest love.
They had made another promise at that time and held fast to that, too: This love may never leave us now, neither for weal nor for woe.
And as they held that moment in their minds again, she found the strength to ask him what they should do.
He gripped her hand. “You think we should leave the wood?”
Isolde nodded unhappily. “We can’t live like this forever.”
He took her by the shoulders. “Are you unhappy, lady, here with me?”
She could see the pain in his face. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“I’m happier here with you than I have ever been,” she told him, her voice breaking. “But sooner or later we have to return to the world. We’re like midsummer flowers, Tristan, growing tall in the sun. But winter must come.”
As she spoke, he felt a winter chill invade his heart. Thin fingers as cold as death wound themselves around his hopes, and he knew the fear of summer’s end that haunts all who live in the wood. Already he could feel the wind blowing stronger and see the bracken turning from green to red. Soon at night they would hear the king stag belling from the far hilltop, and wake at dawn to the wild goose’s parting cry.
Tristan and Isolde - 03 - The Lady of the Sea Page 23