by Jay Ruud
Chapter Thirteen
The Return
Ten days later, Merlin and I stood in the lord Kaherdin’s public chamber again, this time with only Sir Andred at the commander’s side. In addition to hearing the latest word about the questioning of the squire Melias, we were also seeking Kaherdin’s leave to return to Camelot. Our task was done, and Brother Oswald had told us the day before that Sir Dinadan was now well enough to travel without much danger of his wound bursting. The Rosemounde still lay in the harbor, ready to take us on our return journey, bearing the good news of her sister’s innocence to the real Rosemounde and to the queen. As for the other Guinevere, she was spending the day in the kennels with some of her old friends before taking ship with us for her new home in Logres.
“There was no difficulty getting him to confess,” Kaherdin was saying. “Essentially, he already had when you confronted him. He obtained the snake venom with which he poisoned his spear some weeks before the Viking raid, so he had plotted Tristram’s murder well ahead of time. He saw his moment in the skirmish and struck from behind, while all our attention was on the enemy. And if that was not cold-blooded enough, he determined to kill Captain Jacques, even though he had no idea what kind of evidence the captain had, or even if it would implicate him. He simply could not take the chance, he said, and so that morning he followed him from the palace, approached him at the abbey gate, and in the middle of a friendly exchange slit the captain’s throat in one quick movement, once he was certain there was no one around. He did not count on the sharp senses and the loyalty of the dog. After a bit more persuasion from our inquisitor, he seemed to remember the names of every one of that band of brigands who attacked you and the abbey. With Sir Neville’s corroboration, which took much less persuasion, we have lost no time in rounding them up and they are now Melias’s companions in our dungeon—as, I suspect, he will be theirs on the gallows. His only motive, as far as we can determine? Jealousy, and unrequited love.”
“The unrequited love of a catamite,” Sir Andred spat.
“Yes. Yes, there is that,” Kaherdin said absently, his eyes watching the floor in front of us and his lips pursed. “At any rate, the case is closed. Sir Neville admitted to acting as Melias’s accomplice, largely for hire, though it appears that, world-traveler though he was, he had in fact been born in Cornwall, and he may have assumed he was doing a service to the king of his home country by helping Melias with his schemes. Sentence has not yet been passed on him or on his hired ruffians. Unlike Melias, they did not in fact kill anyone. But it was not for lack of trying, and I do not anticipate mercy in their future. Melias has been sentenced to be beheaded at dawn the day after tomorrow, if you care to witness that event.”
“No, no,” Merlin answered quickly. “We have no need or desire to see that. We really do hope to be on our way back to Camelot by this time tomorrow. I am assuming that the good ship Rosemounde is still at our disposal, and that it will be fitted and manned tomorrow in time for us to sail with the tide?”
“Indeed,” the commander answered. “She is ready, and only awaits your pleasure to be on her way. I expect that she will be bringing my father back from Logres on her return, since I am sure that his business with King Arthur is concluded by now. So we will take care of both needs with a single round trip.”
“My lord,” Merlin continued, “We are very grateful for this. And there is one other item that I want you to be aware of: in our interview with the lady Brangwen a few days ago, I made her the promise that we would bring her back to Logres with us, thus facilitating her return to Cornwall, if that was her wish. She was eager to accept the offer, and so I wanted to let you know we would have one more passenger aboard.”
“Excellent!” Kaherdin exclaimed. “That relieves me of an extra burden. I was wondering what we were going to do with her, or whom we should send her to. Without her mistress, this certainly has not seemed to be the place for her. I’m more than happy to have you take her off my hands.”
The mention of the faithful Brangwen gave me the opportunity to bring up a point that had been disturbing me for the entire conversation. “One more question, my lord, if I may,” I began. “What has Melias said about Isolde of Ireland? Has he revealed how he poisoned her on board the ship that brought her and Lady Brangwen here?”
Kaherdin’s eyes looked straight ahead and his face assumed a stony blankness. “No,” he answered simply, then added, “We have not pressed the point. But he was asked, and merely answered that he knew nothing of any poisoning of that woman. He had nothing against her, he said. Only Sir Tristram.”
“We assume he is lying,” Sir Andred added—loquaciously, for him.
“But why?” I pressed the point. “Why would he lie? He’s already guilty of two murders, plus the attempted murder of Sir Dinadan and the sacrilege of attacking a church. Why deny this last crime?”
Kaherdin shrugged. “It is always possible he’s not lying. Maybe she really did die of a broken heart.”
I glanced at Merlin, and he shook his head imperceptibly, so I dropped the subject. But it continued to eat at me. I felt we had not yet concluded our business here.
“We will be off, then,” Merlin told the commander, and gave a slight bow. “We want to visit the lady Brangwen and Sir Dinadan at the abbey to make sure they are quite ready to sail tomorrow. We thank you again for your hospitality and your help, and will convey your loyal greetings to our liege, King Arthur.”
“Do that,” Kaherdin pronounced rotely as we turned for the door, adding “Godspeed, gentlemen.” But after a moment called after us, “Gildas!”
I was taken aback, since he had never before used my name. I turned and said, “My lord?”
Kaherdin’s eyes would not meet mine, but glanced furtively to the side as he said quietly, “Greet my sister for me as well, will you? The lady Rosemounde?”
I smiled and bowed to him. “With pleasure, my lord. Farewell.”
***
Merlin and I walked in silence for some time. It was difficult to speak anyway in the town square while walking down the market street with the fruit and vegetable peddlers and other hawkers calling out their wares.
“Wine here! From the best vineyards in the neighborhood!”
“Chestnuts! Chestnuts here!”
“I have apples! Juicy red apples! Finest in Brittany!”
“Gloves made to order right here! From real goatskin! Get them while they last!”
I was thinking back over the two weeks we had been in Saint-Malo. We had found a murderer. I had acquired a dog. We had made a new friend and lost him in Captain Jacques. I thought back to the captain’s funeral, conducted by Abbot Urban himself in the Cathedral of Saint Vincent three days earlier. It was a solemn occasion for which the lord Kaherdin, the lady Isolde, and all the court had turned up, but also Claude and Nancy from the Cock and Bull, holding a grieving Meg between them. It was a sad farewell, but one that I was glad we had been able to attend, to give me some closure in the matter of the captain.
I was still seeking for closure in other areas, and when it was finally quiet enough, I chose the moment to pester Merlin with my thoughts.
“So,” I began. “The wolf with horns?”
“Cuckoldry, my lad, as you so astutely pointed out earlier. You just had the wrong notion of who was being cuckolded. As it happened, Melias took on the role of the jealous husband, and Tristram provided the horns.”
“I suppose,” I agreed. “So Captain Jacques was right all along—it’s like his story of the nightingale. It was all about love and jealousy.”
“It’s always about love and jealousy,” Merlin replied.
“All the stories are the same story,” we said in unison, and I laughed at the coincidence. “And the dog turning on its master? I suppose it must have referred to the borzoi, though I’m not sure how she could be said to have ‘turned.’ Unless, as you said, it�
�s metaphorical. Melias certainly turned on his master. Maybe he was like a dog.”
Merlin shrugged. “It’s possible,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. And I wasn’t either.
“And I suppose you’re going to tell me you knew it was Melias all along, right? You just didn’t tell me because…”
“I wanted you to figure it out for yourself. I can’t do all the thinking around here, boy!” Merlin chided good naturedly. “No, I admit that in the beginning I did not suspect him at all. And even later, I couldn’t be sure. His relationship with Kaherdin was suspicious to me as our investigation progressed, however, I will say that. And all the subsequent evidence kept pointing toward him. I knew, for instance, that as Kaherdin’s acting clerk, he had to be the one to relay his orders to the city guard, and so would have the easiest time manipulating those orders to make sure that the guard would not appear anywhere near the place he had sent his band of thugs to attack us or harass the abbey. Yes, it was always Melias.”
“You let me think it was Andred…”
“Only to see whether you could convince me he was a strong candidate. I admit his connection with Cornwall was an issue, but it does not seem to have been a factor in the murder. He was never Melias’s accomplice.”
We continued to walk until we had nearly reached the doors of the cathedral. We were expecting Brother Aaron to meet us there and usher us to the lady Brangwen’s makeshift closet, since we had sent word the previous day that we wished to visit the faithful lady shortly after terce the next morning, and that hour had now passed.
But we still hadn’t talked about what was really bothering me. “But what about La Belle Isolde?” I demanded. “Did Melias kill her or not? Will we ever know? And don’t tell me you buy Kaherdin’s story of her dying of a broken heart. You already told me that never happens.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Well then how did Isolde die?” I asked as we entered the cathedral doors, and the fussy Brother Aaron came toward us wringing his hands.
“Something tells me we’re about to find out,” Merlin said.
***
“God be praised that you are here,” the youth began. “I wasn’t sure what to do. She wanted me to bring her the herbs from the infirmary. I thought no harm. But now I cannot vouch for her safety. I have left her but I think I need to go back. Or you do. I don’t know what she will do.”
Merlin looked into Brother Aaron’s round, cherub-like face and saw the same thing I saw—his visage wan, his brown eyes pooling with tears, his brown curls sagging. “You have given her herbs? What herbs?”
“Well, aconiste for one…”
“Wolf’s bane?” Merlin answered quickly. He looked up toward the lady’s room. “Go now. Find Brother Oswald and tell him what has happened. There may still be time.”
Hesitating, Brother Aaron raised his face as if to speak again, but Merlin turned his body physically and gave him a gentle shove. “Go now!” He said. “There is no time to lose.”
Then, “Come on, Gildas! With me!” And we vaulted the steps that led to the clerestory level, and ran along the floor until we had reached the faithful Brangwen’s closet. Merlin burst through the door without ceremony.
The lady Brangwen sat comfortably. She wore a simple yet elegant long dress of royal blue, with sleeves that hung down fashionably nearly to the floor. Her wealth of red hair flowed unhampered over her shoulders, and she held a silver wine cup in her hand. In his haste and fear, Merlin forgot all courtesy and shouted at her, “God’s eyelids, woman, do not drink that!”
She looked at him with all the calm of a sage, and in that sultry voice intoned quite simply, “Silly wizard. I already have.” And with a languid gesture she turned he cup over, revealing that it was empty.
“Oh, my lady,” Merlin sagged with the weight of defeat. “Why? This was not necessary.”
“So you say,” she answered. “Tell me: when did you first suspect me, old man?”
Merlin’s face became stoic. It seemed there was nothing that could be done now to save her. “I knew it had to be you as soon as I realized you were the only one on that ship with enough knowledge of herbs to have mixed the poison that killed your mistress. Her illness made it easy for you to slip something into her seasick potion. You had the means, motive, and opportunity.”
“Motive?” She raised the dark brows over her fiery green eyes. “What do you know of a motive?”
“Our earlier conversation made it more than clear that you resented your lady enough to cause a great bitterness in your heart. I could not be sure at first whether that bitterness was deep enough to incite you to commit murder. But no one else could have done it.”
“Deep enough? You have no way of knowing what it is like to be a barren woman in a noble family. To have no hope of marriage and so to have but one option: to serve. To serve a woman of nobler birth. To hear her beauty praised. To have her marriage anticipated and planned and negotiated as if it’s the most important thing in the world. To devote yourself completely to her and her interests, only to have her ask you—order you, the effect is the same—to give your virginity to a man you have never met for the sole purpose of concealing her own adultery? Is that enough motive, do you think? Could that bitterness be deep enough?”
Merlin closed his eyes. “Resentment, yes. Bitterness, yes. It is not difficult to understand, even to sympathize. Now please my lady, it may not be too late.” At that moment, Brother Aaron appeared at the door with Master Oswald in tow. The young monk was glowing with perspiration on his forehead and his tonsured scalp. His lower lip was quivering uncontrollably and his eyes sparkled with tears. Master Oswald pushed through the door and tried to rush toward the lady, but she quickly produced a dagger she had concealed in her free hand, and held it to her throat.
“Stay away!” She warned. “Or I will make my death much swifter!”
The older monk stopped, but pleaded, “My lady! Please, allow me to purge the poison from you. Odds are you may live yet!”
“Live? For what? To be brought back to Cornwall and put to death by law for murdering the queen?” Brangwen laughed mirthlessly. “You still don’t understand, any of you. King Mark was my first lover. He was my only lover. I hated the thought of him at first, but he treated me with tenderness and respect when he believed that I was his wife. When it was revealed to him that it was me and not Isolde he had been making love with, he changed. Changed for the better, if you want to know. He never truly loved Isolde. He told me so. He loved only me. But he needed to keep up the façade of Isolde as queen. His honor demanded it, his alliance with Ireland demanded it, his status with King Arthur demanded it. But it was me he loved. Me, not her, do you understand? And I grew to love him. When that idiot Tristram took me away and stashed me in that convent, it was all I could do not to despair. Thank God he finally came here, to be with his bosom chum Kaherdin and that other, foolish Isolde. I could return to Cornwall, be with my Mark, and all was well. Until the gallant Kaherdin arrived with that wretched summons.”
Without warning, Lady Brangwen doubled over when a sudden spasm of pain surged through her, as the poison began its inevitable consequence. “My lady, please…” Master Oswald begged.
“No!” Brangwen cried. “Let the poison work! That summons came, and my perfect lady sprang immediately into action. She must leave at once. She must go to rescue her beloved. Never mind that this was in the middle of court where her husband the king must of necessity maintain his honor. Never mind that they were both married to someone else. She must needs fly to the arms of her dying Tristram. Well that was more than I could bear. I could accept her using me, her humiliation and abuse of me, but not the deliberate dishonoring of her husband before his own court. I vowed that was the last time she would ever hurt him. And it was.” Brangwen doubled over again, her face contorted with agony. She coughed into her hand, and when she took the hand away
it was covered with blood. I looked over at Master Oswald, and he had relaxed into a defeated crouch. He knew it was too late to do anything for her now.
“But why the poison?” I cried out, unable to hold back any longer. “Surely King Mark would have protected you…”
“Surely he would not!” She growled through gritted teeth, all the allure of her voice now gone. “He would have to bow to the law, to the pressure of the court. The murderer of the queen of Cornwall could not be allowed to escape unpunished. It would undermine the whole social structure. I must be condemned, and he must preside over my execution. I would not put him through that torment. Not while I had the means to prevent it.”
“But why return to Cornwall at all?” I pleaded, apparently the only one in the room not now resigned to her death. “Why not stay here? Or come to Camelot?”
“Anywhere in Arthur’s empire would return me to Cornwall under arms, to stand trial. No, this was the only way…the only way…” And that was all the strength she had. She collapsed onto the floor. Master Oswald was upon her quickly, feeling for a pulse, but finding none, he looked up and shook his head.
Brother Aaron pushed by me and fell to his knees as Master Oswald backed away. Cradling Brangwen’s head in his lap, the young monk howled as the tears rolled down his chin and onto her frozen face. As his shoulders shook with uncontrolled sobs, he reminded me of nothing more than Captain Jacques’ dog the morning we found his body. The faithful Brangwen may have had only one lover in her life, but he was not the only one who had loved her.
***
Two days later, Merlin and I stood on the deck of the Rosemounde leaning over the rail and looking into the sea’s spray misting around our bow as we cut through it, occasionally glancing to the right as we passed by Mont Saint Michel. Sir Dinadan, barely able to walk, had been carried aboard and laid in a cot in the ship’s castle. Guinevere had at first been very curious about the ship and all that it carried, but once we left port and the deck began rocking under her, she began to wail with fear and astonishment. She had already been sick once on the deck, a fact that did not endear her to the ship’s crew, and so she was avoiding them and was now curled up at my feet, giving the occasional moan, and I stroked her occasionally to reassure her that this too would pass.