Ashes of Heaven

by C. Dale Brittain

  They carried Rivalin’s body into the great hall of his castle and stretched it out before the fire, as though he might still be able to enjoy the warmth. The laughing grey eyes she had loved were closed, the hair thick with black clotted blood, his limbs stiff in death.

  “He fought valiantly, always at the forefront,” she heard someone saying, as if from a great distance, or as if from deep underwater. “Gilan must have learned of our coming, because he was waiting for us in ambush. A more cautious man might have been able to make a successful retreat, but Lord Rivalin would have none of it. ‘This will make a story the minstrels will sing for generations!’ he cried and rode straight at his foe. He fought gloriously, but—”

  He did not need to finish the sentence.

  Blancheflor sank to the floor beside her husband’s body and tried to draw his head into what lap she still had left. She felt wooden, unable to respond, as though this were all happening to someone else, but at the touch of his icy skin it became all too real. There were so many sobs trapped in her chest that she could scarcely breathe.

  “Gilan should not bother Parmenie further, my lady,” she heard the distant voice continuing, “even without Lord Rivalin. Gilan said, ‘With this, the insult is paid for,’ and he turned his men and rode away, even though he had a much larger force and could easily have captured many of us and held us for ransom. Indeed—”

  And then the voice became so distant that she could not hear it at all anymore. She gave a great gasp, the only sound she had made since she had first seen the riderless horse with its burden. Sudden excruciating agony ripped through her, doubling her over so that she and Rivalin lay together a final time, there on the flagstones of Parmenie.

  X

  She died three days later, in bitter pain, but relieved in the final hours by the birth of her child.

  The boy, red and wrinkled, his head all out of shape from his long birthing, squalled loudly. His mother might be dead, but he was alive, with all his father’s eagerness for life.

  Florete put him at once to her own breast. “I have milk for two,” she said, “and it will soon be time for our own baby to be weaned.” She tried to smile as she spoke, even if not successfully, for a woman’s tears would curdle her milk.

  Rual looked at the baby through eyes sunken deep with sorrow and shook his head. “Look at how misshapen he is. He will be dead soon too, poor little orphan. We should have him baptized at once.”

  “He is sucking vigorously,” said Florete. “Do you not remember how ugly our own little boy was when he was first born? His head will soon reshape itself. There is nothing wrong with this little one that will not be cured by milk and time to grow.”

  “Lord Rivalin had spoken of naming a son after his own father,” Rual continued as though he had not heard, “but a better name for him is Tristan, meaning Sadness. I will summon a priest at once, so he may be baptized before sundown.”

  And so the orphan child was named Tristan, plunged into the font and taken out a Christian, with Rual and Florete as his godparents.

  “We will raise him as our own,” said Florete, “in honor of his parents whom we loved so much.” A tiny sob escaped her, but in a moment she was able to go on. “If the story has spread that the princess Blancheflor was with child, perhaps it would be best if you let it be believed that the child died with her.”

  “He will, soon enough,” said Rual gloomily.

  But Florete only held Tristan tighter. He was at her breast again and showed no sign of weakening or dying. “We do not want Duke Gilan to hear of this son,” she continued. “After besieging Parmenie and slaying our Rivalin, there is no telling what he might do to the baby.”

  Rual nodded, his face grey. “I suppose I shall have to swear allegiance to Gilan myself, if he will allow us to stay here, bitter as it will be to do so. Or perhaps he will choose someone else as lord of Parmenie. That might be better than promising to protect and serve the man who killed Rivalin.”

  He slowly reached out a finger to touch the baby’s cheek. Tristan immediately wrapped his own tiny hand around it. For a second Rual almost smiled. “When he is a little bigger,” he said, “shouldn’t he be sent to his uncle in Cornwall?”

  “Certainly not before he is weaned,” said Florete decisively. “You will need to get a message to King Mark, to inform him of Rivalin’s and Lady Blancheflor’s deaths, but it would probably be best not even to mention the child. After all,” she added, lifting the baby over her shoulder to burp him, “as you say, he may not live, and we do not wish to sadden further a king already in mourning for a beloved sister.”

  Rual nodded slowly. “And if he heard that Rivalin and Blancheflor had left a son, he might feel compelled to sail here and fight the duke on the baby’s behalf. When his war turned ugly, he would be able to sail away, but we would be left here in the middle of it. I will simply write him to say that Rivalin died in battle and Blancheflor died of grief. King Mark will need to know of the child sometime, if the baby somehow lives beyond infancy.”

  But Florete, holding Tristan close, had already decided to keep him and to raise him as a second son along with her own boy. Full of milk and contented, he drifted off to sleep in her arms. She thought about tutors, about music teachers and fencing masters and men learned in languages, men they would hire to train both of her sons in the ways of courtliness. She knew they could find excellent teachers for the boys as they grew up; after all, not that long ago, Rual had helped find such men to train Rivalin.

  Perhaps this time they could train the boys in courage without hot temper and recklessness.

  PART TWO - Young Tristan

  I

  A merchant ship with a leather sail anchored in Parmenie’s harbor. The two young men, Tristan and Curvenal, hung out the window for a better look. “Father!” Curvenal cried. “I think they have falcons!”

  “I see them too!” said Tristan.

  Rual stepped up beside them and laughed. “You are still young enough to have hawks’ eyes yourselves, sons! All I see is men on a ship. But by all means let us go down and examine their wares.”

  The three went down the stairs, Rual somewhat stiffly, Tristan and Curvenal in great leaps. With an accompaniment of two knights they went out of the gates of the castle and down to the harbor.

  The merchants were a somewhat shaggy group by Parmenie’s courtly standards, with long, roughly-braided hair, and cloaks trimmed with bear skin. But they did indeed have falcons.

  They also had merlins, peregrines, and great goshawks, hooded and jessed. Curvenal immediately began examining them all, pressing the merchants for details on their training. Rual examined some blocks of amber with strange insects embedded in them, and fingered a pile of rich fox skins. Tristan picked up a harp and set to tuning it, singing snatches of song.

  A merchant looked up from showing Rual the fox skins. “You have a beautiful voice, young master.” He had a musical lilt to his own voice, even if accented. “Would you sing us a song?”

  Tristan was more than happy to oblige. As soon as he had the harp tuned he launched into a song he had learned from his mother Florete, a song of doomed lovers. All the merchants turned to listen to him. He sang with his head back, the sunlight bright on his honey-colored curls. The hand that strummed the strings bore a cameo ring on the littlest finger: a tiny thing, more a woman’s ring than a man’s. He was wearing his favorite tunic, grass-green brocaded silk, embroidered and worked with golden threads. His brother and father, in contrast, wore plain wool, and their straight dark hair would never draw a second glance, but Tristan always liked to appear to advantage.

  “Can we buy these birds, Father?” Curvenal asked when the song ended. “This falcon and this merlin? I haven’t had a good hunting bird since my falcon was lost last fall.”

  Tristan began another song as Rual haggled over the price of the birds. Several of the merchants exchanged glances.

  At the end of the song Curvenal was ready to return to the castle with h
is new birds, and Rual was ready to accompany him, but Tristan’s eye was caught by some ivory chessmen. He picked them up with interest, smiling at the fiercely frowning queen and the prancing horses of the knights.

  “Do you play chess, young master?” the merchant captain asked. “Would you like to come on board and test your skill against me?”

  “I would very much enjoy a game!” said Tristan, his face lighting up. “But I need to warn you: I can beat everyone here in Parmenie, and I shall beat you too.”

  So he went onto the ship while his father and brother headed back to the castle. A knight stayed behind on the dock, as guard for Tristan.

  Tristan won the first chess game easily. “Do you care for a rematch?” he asked triumphantly. “I know you missed my gambit, but I cannot believe you are as poor a player as you might seem!”

  As they set the pieces up for the next game, the merchants began reloading their birds and other merchandise. “Good, good,” said Tristan. “You saw that I was setting up that fork.” The knight settled himself on the steps to wait.

  The late afternoon sun was warm. Tristan won the second game, but not as easily. In the third game, the captain showed a skill that had not been evident earlier, and Tristan found he had to concentrate as never before.

  Suddenly he jumped up, knocking over the chess board. He had just realized that the soft splashing was no longer just the waves against the side of the ship. It was the sound of oars.

  He gave a great shout, that awoke the knight who had dozed off while waiting on the dock. But it was too late. The ship was out of the harbor, and the leather sail rattled up the mast.

  Tristan would have plunged over the side, heedless of ruining his green silk tunic, but he found his arms pinned behind him. His last sight of home, as the ship rounded the point, was of the knight racing up the steps toward the castle.

  They tied him up so he could not escape, and all men on board bent to the oars. Between the sail and the oars, they quickly put the miles between themselves and Parmenie. Even after evening came they kept on rowing along the coast. Several times someone scaled the mast to look back, but they had a good head start on any pursuit. Heavy clouds lay along the horizon, and nowhere in those clouds did they see a ship.

  When darkness came the captain untied Tristan and gave him some water and a piece of hard bread. “Why have you abducted me?” he asked, angry and frightened at the same time. “Are you planning to hold me for ransom? If so, I know my father will happily pay, but he will then hunt you down to the ends of the earth!”

  “I do not know exactly how much your father would pay for you, but I do know where we can get much more. Someone like you, a beautiful youth, who can play the harp and sing and play chess so well, and doubtless can ride and dance as gracefully, will be worth as much as my whole ship, down in Ispania.”

  “You’re going to sell me into slavery?” said Tristan in dismay. “No! I demand you turn around at once!”

  “Too late for that, young master,” said the captain. He sounded almost regretful. “Now, I need to see to my ship—I believe a storm is brewing.”

  The wind had indeed been rising steadily, and the waves were capped with white. The captain and his men conferred, seeming to be deciding whether to find a cove in which to anchor or to head out into the channel. Tristan did not know their language, but he recognized when they decided to ride out the storm at sea—whether from fear of being battered against Bretagne’s rocky coast or from fear of being overtaken by a ship from Parmenie, or perhaps both.

  The sail was reefed, so there was just enough surface left that the ship was moving under its own power, not merely being tossed by the waves. The wind grew ever stronger, roaring around them like the voice of a gigantic beast: a beast big enough to overturn their whole ship with its smallest toe. Below decks, the hunting birds began to scream as the ship plunged up and down steep swells.

  The captain hustled Tristan below decks too, to be out of the way, as the men desperately tried to strap down anything that might be washed overboard. A sharp line of lightning cut down the sky, as though slicing the night open and letting in the light, followed immediately by a great roar of thunder and a whoosh of heavy rain.

  Tristan huddled in a corner among the merchants’ wares, cursing himself for a fool. If he had not been so eager to demonstrate his skill at chess, or so focused on the game, they would never have been able to abduct him, and he would be safely home in Parmenie. Now, if he was lucky, he would become a slave at a distant, foreign court, where they were certainly all infidels. If he was unlucky, he would be drowned before the night was over.

  The night seemed endless. He had to brace himself to keep from being thrown around as great waves tossed the ship, and the rain and thunder seemed almost constant. When at last he thought the darkness a little less complete, and the sound of rain over his head lessened, he pushed himself to his feet, flexing stiff muscles, and scrambled up on deck to see if anyone else was still alive.

  The merchants all seemed to be there, tied to the mast or the railing, so cold and thoroughly wet that they scarcely seemed to notice whether it was raining. It had, in fact, let up as the dawn came on. The wind remained very strong, so that Tristan had to lean against it as he made his way, grabbing at handholds, across the deck.

  The ship was racing across the waves, battered but still upright. Off in the distance lay a low coast, but it was impossible to say whether it was Bretagne or somewhere else. More storm clouds lowered, hiding the rising sun, and flashing ominous bursts of lightning.

  “Go back below,” said the captain curtly. “More storms are coming.”

  Tristan considered. “Have you thought,” he said carefully, “that there may be a reason for the storms?” He spoke loudly, to make sure that the other men could hear him too. “Have you thought that this may be God’s punishment for abducting an innocent person to sell into slavery, a great evil?”

  “It’s just a storm,” said the captain gruffly. “Get back below. There is always rough weather on the channel.”

  “Not this rough,” said one of the other men. “Not at this time of year.”

  The storm clouds were closing in again. Thunder began to rumble closer, and the waves became even steeper. A man at the bow shouted, and the helmsman shifted course just in time to avoid an islet thrusting up above the surface of the sea.

  Tristan dove back below decks as the rain abruptly began again. With no company but the extremely angry birds, he again braced himself and tried to pray.

  He had gone beyond fear to a kind of sick acceptance, so worried and weary that he even dozed a little. It could have been an hour or three hours later when suddenly the captain was before him.

  “Get up, young master,” he said, slightly more politely than before. “We’re putting you ashore.”

  Hardly believing his luck, Tristan followed him up on deck. They were close now to the shore that he had seen earlier. The rain had let up again, but more dark clouds hovered near. “Is this Bretagne?” he asked eagerly.

  “We have no idea where it is. You will have to find your own way.”

  “So you do fear God’s judgment on you?” Tristan asked.

  The captain shot him a sour look. “We know a shipboard curse when we see it. The winds dropped as soon as we determined to put you ashore.”

  The shore was heavily wooded, but the captain soon found a little bay into which his men rowed the ship. The gangplank was balanced from ship to rock, and Tristan trotted across, his knees weak at his escape. As he reached land, the sun emerged from the clouds.

  He was scarcely ashore when the men bent again to their oars, and the ship moved out into a calm sea. Tristan watched until they were out of sight. He was safe from being sold to Ispania, but he had no idea where he was, and the only people who might know the way back to Parmenie had left him.

  Completely alone for the first time in his life, he leaned his forehead against a tree and felt extremely sorry for himself for
half an hour. How would he survive, here on some strange shore? And what might have happened to his father, who had, he was certain, put to sea in pursuit of the merchants, just in time to be overcome by the storm?

  But then his growling stomach reminded him that he had not eaten for twenty-four hours, and unless he planned to start eating leaves he would have to find human habitation. He took off his sodden cloak, rolled it into a bundle he put over his shoulder, and plunged into the woods.

  II

  For a long time he saw nothing but dripping wet trees and underbrush, through which he had to scramble, finishing the destruction of his green brocade tunic. He wondered uneasily if there might be wolves in these woods and if they might find him a tasty treat. He tried to go steadily uphill, away from the sea, but it kept feeling as though he was walking in circles. He crossed several small streams, so that he was able to assuage his thirst, but he grew steadily hungrier and hungrier. Then at last, after following half a dozen tracks that petered out into dead ends, he came suddenly to a broad road, marked with hooves, footprints, and wagon tracks.

  “People!” he said, although none were then in sight. “There must be a town or castle somewhere nearby.”

  But then he paused, wondering. How far had the storm blown them? He had never been out of Bretagne and was unsure of distances. Was he even still in Christian lands, or might those be the footprints of infidels? If they saw a youth alone, friendless and weaponless, might they not take him into slavery themselves?

  For that matter, if by some chance the storm had blown the ship back onto the Breton shore, he might even now not be safe. His parents had often warned him about Duke Gilan, who had besieged the castle of Parmenie shortly before he was born, and had killed his father’s dearest friend—someone named Rivalin. If this was Gilan’s land, he might be captured just because of that lord’s enmity toward Rual.