Tristan and Iseult Read online

  ‘What were you doing in our seas at all?’ said the King.

  ‘We were making for Wales when the storm took us. Yet truly, fate was in that storm, for we were bent upon a certain quest, and we could never have found what we sought, save here in Ireland, after all.’

  ‘You speak in riddles,’ said the King.

  ‘I will make them plain.’ And Tristan told the whole story of the quest for the Princess of the Swallow’s Hair.

  ‘So then,’ said the King, when he had done, ‘if I give you the Princess Iseult, you will take her, not to be your lady, but to be Queen of Cornwall.’

  ‘That is so,’ said Tristan, and he turned his head to look at the Princess, but she never looked at him. ‘It was for that, that I took this quest upon me, little thinking that it would lead me here.’

  ‘There has been little friendship between Ireland and Cornwall these many years past,’ said the King, ‘that I should give the Lady of Ireland to be Cornwall’s Queen.’

  ‘It would bring peace between the two countries, and would that be so bad a thing?’

  Then the King of Ireland thought for a long time, with his chin in his hand. At last he said, ‘After these months since the dragon came upon us, truly we are in no case to be at war. Maybe it is time that friendship came between Ireland and Cornwall; and it was Fate indeed that flung you upon these shores . . . As for King Marc, I have heard no ill of the man. So take her, then, not for yourself as is your right, but for your King. And for the other matter – it comes hard on a man of my race to turn his back on a blood-feud for slain kin, but I must count the dragon’s death as fair and full payment for the slaying of the Morholt. So when you go from this place go in peace, and carry the peace between our two lands with you.’

  So Tristan had ended his quest, and found for King Marc of Cornwall the Princess of the Swallow’s Hair. But in all that morning in the royal hall, Iseult of Ireland never looked at Tristan, nor spoke one word.

  7

  The Hidden Valley and the Morning Tide

  THERE WERE DAYS of merrymaking at the King’s Court, hunting by day and feasting and harping by night, while Tristan’s ship was made ready for sea, and another greater and finer vessel prepared to carry the new Queen of Cornwall to her kingdom. But among the Irish the merrymaking fell away and the harp-songs took on a sadder note as the day for losing their princess drew near.

  And when at last the time came, and the two ships lay ready to sail on the morning tide, not only the King and the Court, but as it seemed half the people of Ireland followed her down to the harbour. Many of them were weeping; but the Princess walked in their midst with her head held high, like a lily under her goldwork crown; and never a tear in her eye.

  So she took her leave of her father, and went on board with Tristan, Brangian and her maidens, and Perenis her cupbearer following after. The sails were broken out from the yards, and the rowers bent to the oars, and they slipped out of Wexford harbour on the morning tide.

  It was fair sailing weather when they started out, but by evening the wind and the seas were rising, and the ships began to pitch and toss. And down in the single cabin that had been made for them in the space below the deck, the Princess’s maidens were sick and afraid. Tristan, going to see how they did, found them holding their heads and groaning; but the Princess sat on cushions with her back against the mast, and stared straight before her into the heaving shadows, as silent as she had been before the Assembly in her father’s hall. Yet it was the Princess he was most troubled for; and he went back to the Shipmaster, and said, ‘If the seas do not run softer by morning, I am thinking that we had best run for shelter somewhere along the Welsh coast.’

  At dawn, the seas were running as high as ever, the rowers were fighting the oars, and the salt spindrift flying back along the deck. And when Tristan went below again, Brangian and the other women cried out to him to know if the ship were sinking, and prayed it might be. But the Princess still sat on her cushions against the mast, staring before her into the shadows.

  ‘How is it with you, lady?’ Tristan asked.

  ‘As well as with any woman torn from her home to wed with a man she has never seen and rule with him over a strange land.’

  ‘You could have stayed in your own land and wed with your father’s steward,’ said Tristan, stung by her tone. ‘The choice was in your hands, lady.’

  And she said, ‘I had rather die,’ and still stared straight before her.

  ‘We shall all die,’ said one of her maidens, moaning and pulling her cloak over her head, ‘and for me, unless we find harbour soon, drowning cannot come too swiftly.’

  And Tristan went back to the Shipmaster and said, ‘Where is the nearest shelter that we may make for on the Welsh coast?’

  ‘There’s a cove I know of well, that we could make by noon,’ said the Shipmaster.

  So the two ships parted company and while the smaller, with Gorvenal in command, beat on for Cornwall, the other, with Tristan and the Princess on board, came about in a sea-swallow curve and sped away before the wind towards the dim blue hills of Wales.

  At noon they came under the shelter of a long low headland dunes and soft shore grasses and dark, yellow-sparked gorse, and instantly the water gentled. They dropped anchor in the little cove, where a stream came down from the hills through a steep valley where elder trees were in flower, and the songs of larks and the warm scents of the land mingled with the crying of gulls and the cold salt smells of the sea.

  The rowers shipped their oars, and the ship lay rocking gently with furled sail, and the Princess and her maidens came up from below and looked with eager eyes towards the land. Then Tristan and the others of the men sprang overboard into the shallows to carry the women ashore. And Tristan held up his arms to the Princess as she came out over the side, and carried her up through the shallows, so that when he set her down on the white wave-patterned sand, not even the soles of her shoes were wet.

  Now this was the first time that ever they had touched each other, save for the times when the Princess had tended Tristan’s wounds, and that was a different kind of touching; and as he set her down, their hands came together as though they did not want it to be so quickly over. And standing hand in hand, they looked at each other, and for the first time Tristan saw that the Princess’s eyes were deeply blue, the colour of wild wood-columbines; and she saw that his were as grey as the restless water out beyond the headland. And they were so close that each saw their own reflection standing in the other one’s eyes; and in that moment it was as though something of Iseult entered into Tristan and something of Tristan into Iseult, that could never be called back again for as long as they lived.

  But they pulled their hands apart before anyone, except Brangian, had noticed anything at all.

  Before evening Tristan and his companions built a little branch-woven hut for the Princess, of hazel and elder boughs with the blossom still upon them, away up the valley where the little stream came down; and they brought up rugs and cushions from the ship to make it fair and pleasant for her and Brangian. And for the other maidens they built a hut lower down the valley. And the men slept beside the ship, down on the shore.

  When morning came the sun shone and there was shelter in the little cove under the headland; but out beyond, the seas ran swift and grey, and flecked with the white crests that men say are the manes of Manannan the Sea God’s horses. And Tristan said to the Shipmaster, ‘We must wait another day for the seas to gentle.’ But in his heart he was glad, for the gorse was honey-scented in the sun, and he had lain awake all night, watching the glimmer of light from the little cabin up the stream-side.

  But he did not seek out the Princess Iseult; he wandered off by himself and lay in the warm sand on the sheltered side of the headland, with the sea wind blowing over, and let the sand trickle through his fingers, and watched the grass bend and shiver along the dune crests, and the tiny pink creeping flowers of the restharrow. And it was the Princess Iseult who came seeki
ng after him, with a little packet of yellow silk in her hand, and found him there.

  She said, ‘Since you carried me ashore yesterday, you have scarce spoken to me nor looked my way.’

  ‘Lady,’ said Tristan, ‘you were a most gentle physician to me while I lay sick of my wounds; but since then, it has not seemed to me that my company was pleasant to you.’

  Then she was silent, looking at him a while. She had loosed her hair from its braids so that it blew loose about her head and the sun and the sea wind played with it. But Tristan looked beyond her, out to sea. At last she said, as one making up her mind, ‘I have brought something to show you.’

  And she unrolled the little packet of yellow silk, and held out to him on the palm of her hand a splinter of iron, jagged along one edge and sharp as a sword blade along the other. And Tristan looked at it, and then at her, not yet understanding.

  ‘Draw your sword, Lord Tristan,’ she said. ‘Draw your sword that I burnished for you when you lay sick.’

  And Tristan drew his sword, and she fitted the splinter of metal into the gap in the blade.

  They looked at each other, with the sword lying naked on the sand between them. ‘So you knew,’ Tristan said at last, ‘before ever I told your father that it was I who slew the Morholt; all the while that I lay sick, you knew?’

  ‘I knew,’ said Iseult.

  ‘Why did you not avenge your kinsman? You who know so much of healing herbs must know much also of those that kill. Or you had only to tell the King your father, before I had the chance to prove to him that if I had slain the Morholt I had also slain the dragon. It would have been easy to kill me, Iseult.’

  ‘It would have been easy,’ said Iseult. ‘But I would have had to marry my father’s steward. And remember, I thought then that the choice was between him and you, not between him and a stranger king.’

  ‘I am glad at all events.’ said Tristan, ‘that for that little while, I pleased you better than your father’s steward.’ And it was as though they were fencing, with words for weapons, neither saying the thing that was real in their hearts.

  ‘You pleased me well enough,’ said the Princess. ‘And then I found that it was not you at all, but only the King of Cornwall who must please me.’ And she tossed the splinter far away into the dune sand, as a thing that was now of no account. ‘And what difference does it make, after all?’

  And Tristan looked up from sheathing his sword, and found her still looking at him, and said, ‘What is it that you want of me, Iseult?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘nothing in this world or the next.’ And she turned and walked away.

  That evening the light glimmered again from the little branch-woven bothie up the stream-side; and Tristan looked often towards it as he wandered restlessly to and fro on the edge of the camp. At moonrise the Shipmaster came to him and said, ‘The wind has gone round and already the seas are gentling; it will be fine sailing weather tomorrow.’

  ‘Then have all ready to sail on the morning tide,’ said Tristan, and he sent young Perenis to warn the maidens in the lower hut, but he went himself up the stream-side towards the light of the Princess’s bothie, to tell Iseult himself. And at every step something within him shouted to him to turn back and send Perenis to the Princess also, but still he went on.

  They had hung a cloak over the doorway, but it was flung back, for the night was warm as milk; and the Princess and Brangian were sitting on cushions combing their hair, the red and the black together, by the light of a honeywax candle. And as he came to the doorway, Iseult looked up and bade him enter, and Brangian got to her feet and slipped out.

  ‘I hoped that you would come,’ said the Princess Iseult, ‘for there were things that I would have said to you today out on the headland, that I did not say.’

  ‘I came only to warn you that the seas are gentling and tomorrow we must sail with the morning tide. In two days, lady, if all goes well, you shall be in Cornwall.’

  The Princess stopped combing her hair. ‘I would that the seas might never gentle, and I might never come to Cornwall,’ she said. And she made room for Tristan on the cushions where Brangian had been, and he came closer and sat down at her side.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘the same thought is in my mind; but it is best forgotten. You will be happy when you come to Cornwall, and King Marc my kinsman will be a kind and loving lord to you.’

  ‘Kind he may be, and loving he may be, but that is not what will make me happy, for I do not think that ever I shall be happy again,’ said Iseult. ‘This is the last day that I may be happy, and already the moon is up.’

  And when he made no reply, she said, ‘Shall I tell you the true reason that I did not kill you when I found the splinter lacking from your sword blade?’

  ‘I am thinking,’ said Tristan, ‘that it is best you do not tell me.’

  ‘It was because I loved you,’ said the Princess. ‘I was not knowing it then. I was not knowing why it was like a sword turning in my heart when you stood before my father and claimed me for the King of Cornwall when I had thought to hear you claim me for yourself. I was not knowing until you lifted me in your arms to carry me ashore in this place. Tristan, whoever takes me for his wife, whether you will or no, and God help me, whether I will or no, you are my lord as long as I live.’

  And Tristan bent his head into his hands and groaned.

  ‘Do you love me?’ said Iseult.

  And Tristan felt as though his heart were tearing in two within him. ‘Iseult, I am King Marc’s man!’

  ‘But do you love me?’

  ‘And I owe him all my loyalty.’

  ‘This man-talk of loyalty means little to me,’ she said. ‘Love matters more. Do you love me?’

  And Tristan said, ‘I love you. Though it is like to be the death of both of us, I love you, Iseult.’

  And he sprang up and turned to the doorway; but she was before him. ‘Then stay here, and be with me a little while, before we lose each other.’

  So Tristan put his arms round her and held her fiercely close, and she clung to him so they were together as a honeysuckle clinging to a hazel tree.

  But when the night was over, they sailed with the morning tide.

  8

  The Branch in the Stream

  WHEN THEY CAME to the landing beach below Tintagel, Iseult of Ireland stood in the bows of the ship, wearing her most brilliant gown, and the royal goldwork in her hair; and Tristan stood beside her, ready to lead her ashore. Their ship had been sighted from afar by the lookouts on the high castle headland, and King Marc, who had known of their coming since Gorvenal reached him with the whole story two days before, had come down to the landing beach to greet his bride, the Princess of the Swallow’s Hair.

  And when the ship came to rest beside the timber jetty, and Tristan took Iseult’s hand to aid her over the side and lead her to where the King stood waiting, it was as cold as ice.

  King Marc looked down at her, and said, ‘Until now, I thought this marriage would be for the binding together of an old rift between Cornwall and Ireland, but now I know that it is also for making music in my heart.’ And he took both her hands between his own. ‘Your hair is as red as flame, but your hands are so cold. Yet mine are big enough to warm them.’ And he stood looking down at her a moment, before he drew her to him and stooped his head and kissed her.

  And Tristan, turning aside to greet old friends and old enemies, thought, He loves her, too! Dear God in Heaven, the King loves her, too!

  Eighteen days later, King Marc and the Princess were married. Iseult was no more Iseult of Ireland but Iseult of Cornwall; and her place was beside the King, and the gold circlet of a queen was on her head. And for a long time, or it seemed a long time to them, Tristan never looked her way nor she his; and the old bond between Tristan and the King his uncle was as it had been before.

  So all the autumn and the winter went by, and the year turned back to spring, and then one day when the gorse was in flower along the headlan
ds, Tristan came upon the Queen in the little garden that clung to the rocks below the castle; and she was looking towards Ireland and weeping. And all his love for her that he had pushed far down into his dark and deepmost place, came rushing up to the light again; and he put his arms round her and held her close and kissed her as he had done in the little hut among the elder trees. And after that there was no going back for either of them to where they had been before.

  As ill-fortune would have it, they were seen by another nephew of the King’s, Andret by name, who was jealous of Tristan. And from then on, Andret spied upon them until he was sure; and then he went to the King and told him that there was love between Tristan and the Queen.

  The King would not believe him. ‘You have always been jealous of Tristan since first he came from Lothian,’ he said.

  ‘I do but tell you the truth, for I cannot bear to see you so wronged.’

  ‘You could bear very well to see me wronged,’ said the King. ‘You do but tell me what you think will harm Tristan in my eyes. Tristan has proved his faith to me in a score of ways, he is the champion of Cornwall, and it was he who brought my Queen to me in the first place –’

  ‘How do you know what they were to each other before ever he gave her into your hands?’

  ‘– and I will not believe ill of him unless I see the thing with my own eyes.’

  ‘But if you do see the thing with your own eyes?’ said Andret eagerly.

  ‘Then I will believe, and not till then.’

  And the King set his mind against what Andret had told him, and swore in his heart that he would not watch his wife nor Tristan, the two people he loved best in the world. But despite himself, it was as though Andret’s words had pulled some kindly mist from before his eyes, and he began to notice the glances that passed between them across the Hall, and the way Iseult grew still at the sound of Tristan’s voice. And then one day, coming quickly into the women’s apartments he found them with their arms round each other, and Iseult’s red hair falling all about them both. And they sprang apart as he came in.