by Jay Ruud
“Sorry,” I interrupted. “I’m a little bit confused. Why was it that Sir Tristram had taken you to the convent in the first place? What danger were you in?”
She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. She lowered her eyelids and then raised them again, and continued. “It was for fear of King Mark. You see, he had just discovered the uncomfortable fact that he had been sleeping with me every time he thought he had taken Isolde to bed. He asked for her company perhaps once a week, and it was always the same. I would escort her to the royal bedchamber, and we would both be veiled. The lights were put out, and it was I rather than Isolde who slipped behind the bed curtains and paid her conjugal debt for her, while she waited outside until we were finished, and then escorted me out of the room. In the dark we were difficult to tell apart physically, and since he had never actually slept with her, he had nothing to compare me to, and it was relatively easy to keep him fooled. But rumors around the court raised his suspicions after some time, and one cursed evening two knights came into the chamber with torches, revealing our ruse.”
“That must have been dangerous for both of you. What did you do?” I asked.
“My lady was always quick witted. She told the king that physicians had discovered that she was barren, and that she had arranged for him to sleep with me in the hope of providing him with an heir, which she could pretend was her own babe after it was born. King Mark actually believed that story, though of course it was a bald-faced lie. In fact, the truth is, I am the one that doctors have pronounced barren.” She looked uncomfortable, then closed her eyes and shook her head as if shaking off a pesky insect. “Why else do you suppose I am still unmarried at my age? But although Mark was appeased temporarily, Tristram and Isolde worried that he would eventually see her excuse for the lie it was. They also feared the gossipmongers of the court, who were busy filling Mark’s ears with stories of Isolde’s infidelity with his own nephew. Tristram finally concluded he must leave the court, and he took me away for fear Mark’s wrath would fall upon me. And that, young man, is why I was at Saint Mary Magdalene. And why I left.”
“Forgive me, my lady,” Merlin asked, his lips pursed and a look of curiosity on his face. “But this is a very strange ruse for you to have been involved in, or shall we say for you to have consented to. Can you tell us how it came about?”
Another sigh escaped those lips red as roses as she turned her catlike green eyes back to Merlin and seemed almost to sag in her seat at the thought of what she now must confess. “It began with the first night in Cornwall. Naturally, King Mark was eager to have his new bride in bed with him. The problem, of course, was that she had been advertised as a virgin, and by that time she definitely was not. She and Tristram had coupled like rabbits on the boat over from Ireland. So what were we to do? If he found her to be damaged goods, who knows what the king’s wrath may have urged him toward? It may have been her very life at stake—and for all I knew my own as well, just for being a bad chaperone. In any case, that night we pulled the ruse for the first time, and, once that had worked, we kept it up. Once he thought I was Isolde, I needed to remain Isolde, or he would know that he had been tricked from the beginning.”
“Gossip claims that the entire ruse was your idea, a way to save your mistress from harm. It is why you are so often called ‘the faithful Brangwen’ when people speak of you: to make such a sacrifice for your mistress is something only the most faithful of companions would take on.”
“Yes,” Brangwen said, her mouth tightening. “So it is said. Consider it, my lord Merlin. Is it likely that the first thing that would spring to my mind would be permitting my body to be used in such a way in order to save my lady from the consequences of her adultery? I agreed, after my initial shock, that the plan may in fact be the most prudent course of action, the one that was most likely to get us all out of a very difficult situation and keep us safe. But no, it wasn’t my idea.”
“In some way, though, didn’t you bear some blame for the situation? I mean, as the story goes, it was you who accidentally gave the two of them the love potion that first drew them to one another on the crossing from Ireland.”
The lady looked at me now as if I had grown a second head. “That is how the story goes, is it? Yes, yes, I have heard similar rumors, begun I suppose by Tristram and perhaps my lady herself. Isolde’s mother, the Irish queen—isn’t that how it goes? Like her daughter a great expert in herb lore, concocted a potion for her daughter and her husband King Mark to drink upon their wedding night. A potion that would make them fall instantly and permanently in love with one another. Well let me tell you my young friend, nothing of the kind exists, or ever existed. Oh, surely there are certain herbs and medicines—the mandrake root, for example—that are purported to increase the desire for fornication, but the advantages of such potions are mainly in the mind. Let me tell you, I have been a practitioner of the healing arts for some fifteen years—everything my lady and her mother knew I learned as well, and assisted them in all of their cures. But I have never known an aphrodisiac to last longer than a single bedding, and as for a potion that would actually make two people truly love one another, and do so forever, that is pure fantasy, and has never been anything but.”
“So…there was never a love potion?” I asked for clarification.
“Not unless you count the wine they drank on the Irish Sea on our trip to Cornwall. That I will claim credit for supplying. But it didn’t take much of that to get them going.”
“My lady,” Merlin struggled to maintain control of the interview. “What we are in fact most interested in is the journey from Cornwall here to Saint-Malo. The last journey that you took with your queen. The one that ended with her sudden death in Sir Tristram’s sickroom.”
“What of it, then? We spent a week in a boat, on a trip that should have taken a day and a half. It was cramped and unpleasant. The food was bad and the company was worse.”
“The company?” Merlin followed up. “Who exactly was on board the ship? Aside from the lord Kaherdin himself, I mean.”
“Well, he had three of his men with him—that Sir William of Caen fellow, his cousin Sir Andred, and his squire Melias. And then there were the crew and their skipper, and Captain Jacques of the guard. I think that was everyone.”
“Captain Jacques was on that ship?” I blurted out, surprised. “Why wouldn’t he have told us that?”
Merlin seemed less moved by this information. “Perhaps he didn’t feel it was important,” he said, glaring at me with eyes that said, “Not now, dolt of a Cornishman, we’ll discuss it after the interview.”
“We have reason to believe that La Belle Isolde’s death was connected to something that happened aboard that ship,” Merlin continued. “Can you tell us whether you noticed anything unusual while you were at sea—anything that might have affected your lady’s health...”
Brangwen scoffed through her nose and mentioned, “Well, she was sick with the mal de mere for nearly the entire voyage, if that’s any help to you. The wind was blowing for days, keeping us from leaving the shelter of the shoreline, but the ship was tossing about like an untamed horse the whole time. I was kept busy fixing potions for her of anise, and then chervil, trying to settle her stomach down. I tried feeding her quinces and pomegranates. Nothing helped.”
“Excuse me,” Merlin interrupted. “You say that you gave her potions every day. Did anyone else on the ship attempt to give her anything?”
“No, no,” Brangwen shook her head. “My lady stayed in our quarters in the ship’s castle the entire time. I don’t know that anybody else on the ship even saw her during all that voyage. Or if they did, it was not without me at her side. I was with her even up until her entry into Sir Tristram’s sickroom. And there, if she seemed weak and dizzy when she got off the ship, I would imagine it was because of the seasickness, wouldn’t you?”
“So you attribute her fainting to her sickness?�
� Merlin pressed.
“Of course. That and her shock at seeing Sir Tristram in that state, so close to death.”
“But seasickness isn’t a mortal condition,” I put in.
“Of course it isn’t,” the faithful Brangwen agreed. “Her weakness was caused by the sickness. But she died of a broken heart. Anyone there could have seen that.”
“My lady,” Merlin began again. “You are yourself an expert in the mixing of potions and the use of herbs and medicines. You have been a healer for many years. You are seriously telling us that you believe Isolde died of a broken heart?”
“Of course,” Brangwen shrugged. “It is what everybody thinks. It certainly seems more likely to me than poison, don’t you think?” And with that she lowered her eyes.
“Just one more question, my lady,” Merlin said. “In your opinion, who would have reason to desire the deaths of Tristram and Isolde?”
I did not expect the response that this question elicited from the faithful Brangwen. She laughed aloud for several seconds. Finally she responded, “Ask me rather who didn’t want them dead. I could give you a shorter list.”
“Perhaps you could be a little more specific,” Merlin calmly prodded.
“Well, the entire royal family of Ireland, and anyone who supports them, to begin with,” Brangwen enumerated. “Tristram killed their son Marholt, forced them to pay tribute to Cornwall, and then stole their daughter away from her rightful husband, in their view. Why wouldn’t they want him dead? And Isolde as well, for that matter, whom they could only see as having betrayed them. So that’s one nation that wanted them dead. What about Cornwall? King Mark saw them as traitors, and anyone who adhered to Mark had to see them as criminals as well. And some of the court would have been jealous, especially of Tristram, the king’s nephew, who received all kinds of benefits that they didn’t get, and then betrayed his uncle anyway. So you can add anybody Cornish to your list of suspects.”
“Well, not anybody,” I inserted, but she was just getting started and didn’t hear me.
“Then you have the folks right here in Brittany,” she continued. “Isolde of the White Hands, the loving wife that Tristram wouldn’t love? Lord Kaherdin, the loving friend whose sister Tristram spurned? How many knights, how many ladies-in-waiting, owe their allegiance to those two, who rule Saint-Malo? Anyone in this town had a motive. Even Duke Hoel himself—it was his daughter, after all, that Tristram insulted. How many allies does he have? Of course, we’re forgetting anyone in King Arthur’s court, but should we? What about Sir Palomides? He was the most ardent suitor for Isolde’s hand, until he was defeated by Sir Tristram on the jousting field. But that doesn’t mean he ever gave up his love for my lady. Or that he ever gave up his hatred of Tristram. Why wouldn’t he want Tristram dead? Is that enough suspects for you, or should I go on?”
“Can you?” Merlin challenged her.
She gave him a wan half-smile. “Perhaps if I think about it for a while,” she answered. “But I am pretty sure I am finished with this interview now. Good luck with your quest. I assume that the sooner you make your determination, the sooner you will be leaving Brittany and will take me with you back to Logres. I hold you to your word.”
“And I have given it,” Merlin answered. “With your permission, my lady, we will take our leave now, and we thank you for your help in this matter.”
Brangwen waved us away and turned her face. “Begone, if you please. Leave me alone with my thoughts.” And with that, we backed out of the room, and found Brother Aaron waiting for us on the other side of the door.
***
The presence of the young monk made it difficult for Merlin and me to share our thoughts about that remarkable encounter with the one person who could tell us the most about the private affairs of Tristram and Isolde. As Brother Aaron led us back out of the cathedral and, as Merlin requested of him, back toward the sickroom in the abbey, where we could check on the progress of Sir Dinadan, I only gave Merlin the very noncommittal comment, “Well, quite an interesting woman, the faithful Brangwen, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh yes,” Brother Aaron began, waxing eloquent upon his favorite subject and precluding any answer from Merlin, whose face told me he had not been likely to give me one anyway. “She is like an angel come to earth, isn’t she? Those green eyes against her fair skin—like emeralds set in a silver reliquary, didn’t you think?”
“Brother Aaron,” I began, a little taken aback by his attitude. “You are committed to your monastic vows, are you not?”
The little brother flushed crimson, even to the bald spot of his tonsure, which I could look straight down upon. “Of course,” he whispered hoarsely. “I am only admiring her because she seems to me an image of the angels of heaven. She puts me in mind of paradise.”
Yes, I thought to myself, I’ve been to that kind of paradise too: with the lady Rosemounde, in my dreams.
By now we were coming to the corner where we would turn toward the small gate into the abbey, and I suddenly became aware of a wailing that sounded from that direction. At first I thought it was the completely unrestrained mourning of a woman who had lost that which she’d loved most ardently. But as we walked further I realized it was not a human voice at all. It was a howl of raw animal pain that could not be consoled by any human comfort. As we walked toward the gate, I saw clearly what it was: Captain Jacques’s borzoi, lying upon a bundle of rags near the convent gate, her head flung back as in wild grief, her throat heaving great shrieks of sorrow, her eyes closed against the harsh reality she must be dealing with. About a dozen people had come out of their shops and houses in the neighborhood, and stood in the street, surrounding the dog but at a safe distance. As we drew closer, the bundle of rags on which the dog lay resolved itself into the shape of a man whose garments had been rumpled in some sort of struggle. A sticky red pool under the man’s face was still spreading out, suggesting that the throat had been slit quite recently. Merlin quickly knelt next to the body and felt for a pulse, then looked on me grimly and shook his head when he found none. Even if he had still been alive, there would have been no way to save him, with his throat slit that way and with so much blood lost. Captain Jacques was quite dead.
Shaken to the core and feeling helpless, I sat gingerly on the cobblestones next to the dog and stroked her deerlike head. Once I was able to get my breath again, I told her in low tones, “That’s all right, girl. I know you’re sad. Let it all out now, and later we will find the villain who did this, you and I.”
The dog, grateful for my presence, my attention, and my gentle strokes, stopped her wailing. She laid her head in my lap whimpering quietly, and panting in the exhaustion of her grief.
Chapter Ten
On The Scent
“The captain was on his way to see us, because he had some sort of information he wanted to pass on. Someone followed him here, waylaid him, and killed him to prevent our receiving that information. That means it was important. Whoever killed him must have been behind the attack on us last night, and so behind the near slaughter of you, Dinadan. And he is almost certainly also the one who killed Sir Tristram. And that means that unless we find the killer, Captain Jacques will have died in vain. God’s cheekbones, Gildas, I will not let that happen!”
We sat in the abbey’s infirmary, on a bed across from Sir Dinadan, who was conscious and seemed well on the way to recovery, though far from able to get out of bed yet. The dog lay on the bed next to me (Master Oswald hadn’t been in to catch her in the sickroom this time), her head resting on her paws and her intelligent eyes looking up at me with what looked like concern.
“What could he have known?” Dinadan wanted to know. “And why on earth didn’t he give us the bloody evidence last night?”
“He wanted to,” I recalled. “Your wounding last night postponed it, but he wanted to come to us right away this morning.”
“By thunder, h
e did at that,” Merlin remembered. “And do you recall when he told us about this evidence—when he said he wanted to talk with us?”
“It was after he came out and helped us fight off those brigands,” I recollected. “After he had talked in private with that tavern wench—what was her name?”
“Meg,” Sir Dinadan answered confidently. When both Merlin and I turned to look at him, he added, “What? I’m wounded, not dead. Meg was not someone I’d easily forget.”
Merlin nodded and continued, “Meg it is. Whatever Jacques planned to tell us, Meg must be the key. It was only after speaking with her that he decided to confide in us.”
“So that means…that something took place in the inn that Meg witnessed…” I proposed.
“Or that she was the captain’s confidante and whatever he knew, he wanted to discuss with her before deciding to tell us,” Dinadan countered.
“And if that’s the case, then my guess is that the captain witnessed something on the ship that brought La Belle Isolde and the faithful Brangwen here,” I guessed.