Tristan and Iseult Read online

  Then King Marc sent for Tristan and told him this, half-grieving in his heart that Cornwall had lost her champion, half-glad that the young warrior whom he had grown to love would not now be able to throw his life away.

  But when he had done, Tristan said, ‘The Morholt is husband to the King of Ireland’s sister, and indeed that sets him high; but would not the son of the King of Lothian and the Princess of Cornwall rank higher still?’

  And then as Marc started up, staring at him, and scarce yet fully understanding what he had said, he added, ‘When I came with my companions to your Court, I told you we were all merchants’ sons, because if I was to make my fame in this land I wished to make it for myself, and gain your favour by earning it, not for the love that you bore to your sister, my mother; not because my father was your friend.’

  King Marc was silent a long while, and then he said, ‘This that you tell me makes it the more bitter hard for me to let you go to your death. But you have the right to stand forth as Cornwall’s champion, and I cannot deny it to you.’

  So he sent the word back to the Morholt that a champion of the royal house of Cornwall would meet him in three days’ time, on a certain island just off the Cornish coast. But his heart was like a stone within him, for he was sure of Tristan’s death.

  At dusk before the appointed day, the King with Tristan and his foremost warriors and councillors came to the coast over against the island, and made camp there for the night. And far out to sea they could make out distant fire-petals that they knew were the stern braziers of the Irish ships. And at dawn they rose and broke bread all together; and King Marc served Tristan himself as though he was his armour-bearer, and put on him his own war tunic of fine grey ringmail and plates of polished bronze, and gave him a new sword that had never been blooded before, and a shield painted with a great black boar, and a red-roan horse whose saddle was of the finest gilded leather.

  Then Tristan led the horse on board the flat-bottomed boat that was waiting for him, and poled himself across the narrow strip of shallows to the island.

  The Morholt was already there, and had moored his boat where the dark rocks and the hazel scrub came down to the water’s edge. But when Tristan had landed and led his horse ashore, he pushed off his boat and let the water take it.

  The Morholt stood holding his black horse by the bridle, and said when he drew near, ‘That was surely a strange thing to do, to push off your boat again, when you landed.’

  ‘Two of us are come to this island,’ Tristan said, ‘but only one will be needing a boat to carry him away.’ And they looked at each other long and straightly, each standing by his horse. And the Irish champion saw how young the Cornish champion was, and the clear battle-light behind his eyes. And something in his fierce heart said, It would be a poor day’s work to slay this valiant stripling.

  So he said, ‘Surely this is a sorry thing, that we two who might well have been friends should seek to be each other’s death. Is there no other way?’

  ‘One,’ said Tristan. ‘That Ireland should forgo this unjust tribute.’

  ‘Not that way. When I go from here the tribute goes with me. But between you and me – here is my hand in friendship, and the half of all I own – land and gold, horses and weapons, if you will choose to turn away from this combat, for I have no wish to be your death.’

  ‘Are you so sure you will be?’ Tristan said. ‘Mount, and kill me if you may, and if I may I will kill you. That is all the peace that there can be between us.’

  So they went up to the level space at the heart of the island; and they mounted and drew apart to the furthest ends of their battleground, then wheeled to face each other.

  Then Tristan struck spurs to his horse, and on the instant the Morholt did the same, and crouching low behind their shields, they thundered towards each other with levelled spears.

  They came together with a crash as of old bull and young bull when they battle together for the lordship of the herd. Each took the other’s spear-point on his shield, and both spears were shattered into jagged shards. They cast the pieces from them and drew their swords, and fell to, hand to hand from the saddle. Tristan was the swifter swordsman, but in the Morholt was the strength of four men, and his blows fell so sure and fierce that the Cornish champion was driven back, and for a while there was little he could do but cover himself with his shield and defend himself as best he might. At last, in trying to guard his head, Tristan raised his shield too high, and the Morholt’s sword came driving in under his guard and took him in the thigh, and laid it bare to the bone so that the blood flowed out staining his horse’s shoulder crimson.

  But it seemed as though the fire of his wound and the red blood flowing, that should have weakened Tristan, kindled a desperate valour in him that he had not found before, and with a yell he wrenched his horse round and crashed it into the Morholt’s charger, breast to breast, bringing horse and rider down together. The Morholt was up again on the instant, and drove his blade deep into the breast of Tristan’s horse, which reared up screaming and then crashed to the ground. Tristan sprang clear in time to see the Morholt’s horse scrambling to its feet; the Morholt, lacking his helmet, had already a hand on the saddle and his foot back in the stirrup to remount. Then strength and speed such as he had never known before came upon Tristan, and he leapt forward across the distance between, and struck the Morholt on the wrist, such a blow that his right hand with the sword still in it dropped upon the trampled turf. His next blow took the Morholt on the head, and bit so deep that when he jerked out his sword a fragment of the blade was left behind in the Irish champion’s skull.

  With a great cry the Morholt turned and fled, leaving a crimson trail down over the salty grass and black rocks to where his boat was tied, and other boats from the Irish ships were already putting in for him.

  Tristan walked down to the landward shore of the island, trailing crimson also through the furze bushes and over the grey shingle, to meet the boat that was putting off from the shore. Far off he could hear the sounds of the Cornish warriors rejoicing, but it was all hollow in his head, like the sea in a shell; and his blood soaked and soaked away into the shingle.

  3

  The Voyage of Healing

  AS SOON AS the ship that carried the Morholt reached Ireland, messengers were sent for the King’s daughter, the Princess Iseult, for in all the land there was none that had her skill in the healing craft. She had all knowledge of physic herbs and their uses, the secrets of spells to cool fevers and staunch bleeding, and the ancient magic of the healer priests that men would have called witchcraft if she had not been a princess. If she reached the Morholt while he lived, she could save him; but even she could not bring a dead man back to life, and by the time she had returned with the messenger, the Morholt was dead of his wounds. Then seeing the piece of sword blade still in his skull, she pulled it out, and laid it by, wrapped in a piece of silk, in case she should ever meet a sword blade lacking a piece that shape . . .

  Then all Ireland mourned for the loss of their champion, and through all the length and breadth of the land the summer birdsong was drowned by the keening of women. And the King had the Morholt buried with great splendour, and gave orders that from that day forward, anyone landing in Ireland from a Cornish ship should be put to death.

  Nevertheless, by the terms of the single combat, from that day Cornwall was freed of the tribute.

  Meanwhile Tristan had been carried back to Tintagel, and lay there with Gorvenal never leaving his side, while King Marc summoned physicians and learned men from far and near to tend him. But though they came, and looked at the terrible wound in his thigh, and applied this remedy and that, in the end they all shook their heads and went away again.

  ‘The wound was dealt by a poisoned sword,’ said they, ‘and we are powerless against the venom of such a blade.’

  So Tristan lay, growing weaker day by day, and the poisoned wound blackened and festered and the smell of it grew so sickening that only the
King himself and Dynas the High Steward and the faithful Gorvenal could bear to come near him. Then Tristan, loathing his own body and fearing even that he might spread some dreadful sickness through the Court, begged King Marc to have a little hut built for him on the seashore, where he could be alone with the waves and the seabirds, and be saved at least from knowing that his wound was making him a horror to other people.

  So the little hut was built, down in the cove below the stronghold, where the black rocks cushioned with sea-pinks sheltered a little crescent of white sand; and there they carried Tristan on a hurdle, all the people following down the steep path from the headland, and mourning him as one already dead. And there he lay through the long days and nights, tended by Gorvenal and often visited by Dynas and the King. And as the days passed and the nights passed, so he grew weaker and nearer to death.

  At last one day when the King came as usual, Tristan said, ‘I have been dreaming long dreams, lying here and listening to the waves and the seabirds; and it seems to me that any hope I have is out there on the waters. Lying here, I do but wait for death, without hope at all. It is time to cast myself on God, to bring me to the help I need, if there is help for me in this world. Therefore, will you do one last thing for me, my kinsman and my lord?’

  ‘I would cut off my sword hand for you, you know that,’ said Marc.

  ‘I ask only that you will have a boat made ready, without oars or rudder, and set me adrift in it, with food for a few days. If God intends that I should find help and healing in this world, He will surely guide me to it. If not, then I had sooner die alone, out on the water, with the search still leading me, than here without hope.’

  ‘Not alone,’ said Gorvenal. ‘The boat must carry two.’

  Tristan shook his head. ‘Only a little boat. A boat for one. If I have not returned within a year, you must go to my father and tell him of my death and comfort him, and bid him from me to take you as his son in my place.’ And to the King he said, ‘Let you do as I ask. It is a small thing – a little boat, a little food, and my harp to carry with me; nothing more.’

  And King Marc bent his head into his hands and the salt tears trickled through his fingers. ‘I will do as you ask,’ he said. ‘But if you do not come back, I too shall have lost a son. Who shall comfort me?’

  The boat was made ready and cushions spread in the bottom of it; and on the cushions they laid Tristan with his harp beside him, and food and drink for a few days. And again, folk gathered on the shore, mourning; and at the turn of the tide they pushed the boat out into the surf. For a long while it swung to and fro, and then the scour of the ebb tide caught it and swept it out round the headland into the open sea.

  Soon Tristan was out of sight of land, alone with the waves and the sky. By day the seabirds swept between him and the sun, and at night the stars wheeled over his head; and he never knew how often the day turned to night or night to day again. But a dawn came when he caught the warm smell of land in the wind; and when, putting out all the strength he had, he lifted himself high enough to see over the edge of the boat, he saw that the tide was carrying him into the mouth of a great river. The sunrise shone golden through tall reeds, and wild swans beat up from the water with the light of it under their wings. And far off he thought he saw other boats, and farther still the smoke-haze of hearth fires. There was scarcely any strength left in him, and he knew that whether or no this was the place where he would find healing, his journey must end here. He had no strength to call, but he had his harp, and the old magic still in his fingers. He drew it to him and tuned the strings, and partly for a cry of help to any who might hear, and partly for the sunrise under the swans’ wings, he began to play.

  The skiff drifted nearer and nearer to land, and the men in the other boats saw it; a boat that seemed empty; yet as it drew nearer they heard wonderful harp music coming from it; for a while they hung back, thinking it might be some kind of enchantment. But at last one or two fishermen, bolder than the rest, brought their hide and wicker boats alongside; and when they looked down into the skiff, they saw a man lying there, all bones, with nothing of him as it seemed alive but his great fever-stricken eyes and his hands on the strings of a harp; and the stink of his wound all about him, and the music that he drew from the leaping harpstrings as sweet as the music of the Land of Youth.

  And as they looked, one of the fishermen said to another, ‘Now was ever sweeter music heard in all Ireland since the Dagda himself would be putting men to sleep with the sweetness of his harp?’

  And when Tristan heard them, his heart knotted up cold within him, for he knew well enough the orders of the King of Ireland. It is a strange fate that has brought me to this place of all others, he thought. And if these people find it is from Cornwall that I come, then indeed I shall find my death here. But his fingers never faltered on the harpstrings, and the fisherfolk did not dare to interrupt his playing with their questions, for the awe that was on them. But they put a line aboard the skiff and towed it in to shore, with Tristan still playing on his harp.

  Now the King of Ireland was riding with some companions along the shore, and when they had brought the boat to land, one of the men ran and told him of the stranger they had found, for the King was one who was interested in all strange and wonderful things. And he came down to see this wounded stranger for himself.

  And when Tristan saw him coming, he knew that it must be the King by the gold circlet on his head, and ceased his playing. And the King asked him who he was, and what had brought him to this evil plight.

  ‘As to my name, I am called Pro of Demester,’ said Tristan, gathering all his strength to answer, and speaking the first name that came into his head, ‘and I am a minstrel, wandering the world. I was on my way from Spain back to my home in Brittany, when our ship was attacked by pirates – and in the fighting I got this wound, from which I think that I shall die. The pirates made me harp for them, and it seems that my harping pleased them, for they put me in this little boat, with food for a few days, and set me adrift to live or die as might be.

  And the days and nights that have passed since then, I do not know; but truly I think that they have killed me as surely as they killed the rest of those on board our ship.’

  ‘You shall not die,’ said the King, ‘for the world would be the poorer if your harp were stilled; and here in Wexford we have one who can heal any man who is not already dead.’ And he ordered his people to bring a hurdle and carry the stranger up to his Chief Falconer’s house, for that was the nearest of the royal houses in the town; and he sent word to his daughter, the Princess Iseult, that there was a wounded man sorely in need of her healing art.

  Now if the Princess had come herself all that happened after might have been very different. But she did not come. She questioned the messenger closely as to Tristan’s wound, and when she had heard all that he had to say, she thought, Clearly this is a wound given by a poisoned weapon, and all such wounds will yield to the green salve or the red salve or the black salve. So she made up the salves, and a soothing drink of herbs that break fevers and give quiet sleep; and she gave them to the messenger, saying, ‘Take these to the Chief Falconer’s house, and bid the ladies of the house to bathe this wounded man in cool water and give him the herb drink. And bid them spread the green salve on clean linen and bind it over his wound, and if within a day and a night it is no better, bid them do the same with the red salve; and if within a day and a night it is no better, bid them use the black salve and send to me; and I will come.’

  So the women of the house bathed Tristan in cool water and gave him the herb drink, and spread the green salve on his wound, and he fell into a long dark sleep; the first quiet sleep that he had known in many nights and days. And when he woke, the fever had left him, and the stink was gone from his wound as the green salve drew out the poisons and made the sick flesh clean and wholesome again. And when word was taken to the Princess that the green salve had drawn out the poison with no need of the red or the black, she
sent healing herbs for the women of the house to use, and thought no more of the matter, for her healing skill was often called into use.

  And so Tristan lay in the Chief Falconer’s house, tended by his wife and daughters, while the edges of the wound drew cleanly together, until the day came when he was well enough to go his way. Then he took his leave of the Chief Falconer’s household without ever having seen the Princess Iseult or she him at all. But the women of the Chief Falconer’s household were sad to see him go.

  He took his harp, and saying that one place was as good as another for a wandering minstrel, got himself taken aboard a ship bound for Wales; and from Wales he got another, and so came back to Cornwall long before his year was up, but long after Marc and Gorvenal and all who cared about him had given him up for dead.

  4

  The Quest and the Dragon

  KING MARC WAS so overjoyed at Tristan’s return that he determined to make him his heir. But his lords did not agree. ‘You are not yet old,’ they said, ’marry and have sons of your own!’

  ‘No son of my own could ever be as dear to me as Tristan,’ said Marc, ‘and none could ever be a stronger or a gentler King of Cornwall after I am gone. I have no wish to marry, for I am well enough as I am; and I have all the son I need.’

  At this the lords began to talk among themselves and some of them, who were jealous of Tristan, said that it was his doing, and began to look at him sideways under their brows. And Tristan, who had no wish to be King of Cornwall, heard their mutterings and saw their looks, and was hurt and angry in his heart, so that the next time they urged the King to marry, he joined himself to them, and spoke out more strongly than all the rest.

  ‘My lord and my kinsman, your nobles are right in wishing you to marry and beget a son of your own to rule Cornwall after you. And as for me, do you think I find any pleasure in knowing that the men I feast with and ride hunting with say behind my back that I am greedy for your throne?’