Isolde: Queen of the Western Isle (26 page)

"As you say, Majesty, for the good of the land."

Sir Gilhan inclined his head. Privately he suspected that the Queen's newfound magnanimity had more to do with the afterglow left by Sir Tolen, whose nocturnal movements he made it his business to know, but that was her affair.

"You will receive Sir Tristan then?" he queried.

"But not alone!" The Queen whirled around again and joyfully clapped her hands. "Send for Princess Isolde," she cried as the servant appeared. "Say the Queen begs her dear daughter's presence in the Great Hall at once!"

My knight has come.

My love has come to me.

But he lied, he deceived! Can he he truthful now?

Joy and misgivings alike thronged Isolde's mind. Then a flash of emerald fire came to her from a dark altar in an ancient place.

His ring.

I left his mother's ring with the Lady, I gave it away.

Gods above, will he ever forgive me?

"
A
little color, lady, for your cheeks—and a touch of carmine on your lips."

Isolde opened her eyes as the maid's cool fingertips danced over her skin. "What are you doing, Brangwain?"

The maid dipped into a pot of rosy madder and returned to the attack. "Just making you ready for the audience, madam. You're so pale."

Isolde stared at the unfamiliar image in the mirror as the maid fussed at her face. She hardly knew what she saw—a spirit, a woodland goddess?—in the gorgeous stranger all in green and gold. Rising to the occasion, Brangwain had picked out a gown of bright green velvet the color of hawthorn buds in March. Gold filigree gleamed on the bodice, and cloth of gold lined the long sleeves of the green silk overgown. A froth of gold lace like starlight fell from the circlet of emeralds on her head, and great ropes of emeralds shimmered at her waist and neck. Brangwain gave a last loving touch to the carefully looped and braided hair. "So beautiful, lady," she said softly. "So fine."

Isolde looked into the mirror and their eyes met. Fine enough, Brangwain did not say, for a marriage, but the whole castle knew what was in the air. No one quite knew how, for Sir Gilhan was the soul of discretion and he had spoken to the Queen alone. But from the lords of the council to the kitchen lad who turned the spit, every soul in the palace knew that the knight of Cornwall had come to offer for the Princess's hand.

Some who saw the young man himself pacing feverishly around the deck had seen him before, and hastened to tell that, too.

"It's the pilgrim!" panted one stout fishwife to her husband, bustling up from the quay.

"Go on!" The blacksmith paused in the act of pumping up his bellows, then resumed his work. "Not that beggar the Princess healed?"

"It's him, I tell you!"

He grunted, unimpressed. "What, come back as a knight?"

"And a great prince, and the nephew of Cornwall's king!" A lusty smile spread over the woman's face. "A good looker, too, and a fine body of a man. I don't think our Princess'll kick him out of bed."

The blacksmith raised his hammer and seized hold of a horseshoe to beat. "You'll be telling me he's the King of the Fair Ones next." He pounded resentfully. "What's wrong with you, woman? You've lost your mind!"

"Better than some as have no mind at all!" the aggrieved wife shot back. "Go and see for yourself, you great lubbock—don't believe me!"

Flouncing out, she rejoined the crowd already gathering to watch the knight and his followers march up from the quay. Young and old lined the route to the castle and many voices sought to unravel the exciting tale.

"It's the pilgrim come back!"

"No, it's not him, it's the King of Cornwall himself."

"It's his nephew, I swear—come for our Princess's hand."

Snatches of the hubbub greeted Isolde as she made her way to the Great Hall. Eager clusters of servants and courtiers thronged the passages as she went, bowing or curtseying and wishing her well.

"Bless you, lady!"

"May the Mother speed you to the place you deserve!"

"Thank you—thank you—"

She greeted them all in a dream of fear and joy. She did not know that she was now La Belle Isolde as they would always remember her, luminous with hope and radiant with desire. Beneath her smiles lay doubts she could not dispel. But she knew she had been released from the prison of despair and gave thanks for her delivery every step of the way.

I will not look back-I will take his coming as a gift of the Gods, begin again, forgive and forget
.

She did not feel the flagstones beneath her feet as she hastened into the Great Hall and made her way through the vaulted space. A surge of confidence seized her.
Goddess, Mother, bring me to my love
—

Shafts of pale sunlight as glorious as her hopes poured through the windows and lay in golden pools on the floor. Ahead of her loomed the dais, with the Queen on her throne and Isolde's smaller throne standing at its side.

Any fears she had had of her mother vanished at once. The Queen's dark, handsome face was glinting with secret delight. She was robed as if for an audience of High Kings, resplendent in dusky silks like a night-flying moth, carmine and crimson, damson and mulberry black. The great diadem of the Queens of the Island shone on her head, and her wrists were laden with garnets like pigeon's eggs.

She reached out to embrace Isolde with arms of love.

"Welcome, little one," she whispered tremulously, patting Isolde's hand. She gestured toward her lords standing around the dais and the bright bevy of knights and ladies in the hall. "You know why we are all here?"

Isolde tried to speak, but could not find her voice. She felt like a goblet brimming over, her whole being pregnant with untapped bliss.

The Queen smiled into the large earnest eyes. "You have heard about the offer we are to receive?"

Isolde nodded. Her smiling eyes left no doubt about her reply.

"Good! Good!"

Sighing with satisfaction, the Queen waved Isolde to her place and settled herself on her throne.

"Send for the knight from Cornwall." She signaled to the chamberlain. "We will admit him now."

"Your Majesty." The chamberlain bowed and obeyed.

Afterward it seemed to Isolde that this was the last time she was ever truly happy or free from fear. The courtiers stood silent and still in the wintry sun, and even the tiniest motes of dust hung suspended in the shining air. In the deep silence, Isolde heard her heart singing like the birds on Avalon where winter never comes. She was feeding on bliss, gorging her poor, starved heart, till her soul left her body for the astral void.

And there he came to her, in the world beyond the worlds. Glimmering, she saw his tall body clad in starlight, his immortal face, the light of kindness blooming in his eyes. He took her in his spirit arms, and softly laid her down. She felt his kiss on her face like moondust, his warm hand on her breast, and she gave him in return her heart in his hand.

You are mine now
, he said,
my lady and my love. From now on, we shall never he apart
.

She lay in his long, strong arms and marveled at his touch, his love, the miracle of him. She reached up and brushed his lips in a phantom kiss.

You are mine now
, she promised him.
You are my knight and my love. From now on, we shall never he apart
.

Through the window she could see a glossy green ivy clinging to the wall. Entwined in its leafy branches, winding tightly around every stem, was a sturdy honeysuckle, dormant now for winter, but part of the evergreen's life.

So shall we be, Tristan, you and I
, she told him on the starlit plane.
Now our lives are one, our spirits are entwined. Like the ivy and the honeysuckle, we shall never be apart
.

She hardly heard the trumpets calling as the doors opened and the embassy appeared. Down the hall marched a forest of banners and proud flags, silver, white, and blue. Behind them came a troop of bearers heaving great chests and boxes to lay before the throne. They were followed by a band of knights in blue and silver, a moving wall of bright lances held erect.
But where is he?
With every passing moment, her yearning grew.

At last the figure she longed for stood framed in the door. Her eyes burned for him, her famished heart was hungry for his sight. With a shock she saw she was looking at a different man. In place of the simple pilgrim's habit, he was arrayed in glittering silver mail and cloth of gold. A rich red velvet cloak swung from his shoulders and a broad coronet of gold held back his hair. She did not recognize her gentle friend in gray in the gorgeous stranger advancing down the hall.

Fear came to her then, and a scalding shame. Why had she parted with his mother's ring? What would he think when he saw it was gone? In a panic, she covered her left hand with her right. But the next moment she saw that he would not miss the ring because in truth, he would not look at her at all.

His eyes were everywhere but on her. With a deeper dread, she saw he was deathly pale.
Have you been ill, my love? I can heal you as I did before
. But nothing could allay the sudden sickness at her heart.
Something is wrong. Look at me, look at me now!

He stalked toward her like a man facing death. As he reached the dais, he fixed his gaze on the Queen, and his bow declared he meant to deal with her mother, not with her. Now the clamor of her thwarted hopes could not be stilled.
He will betray me. He lied and deceived before
.

The Queen rose to her feet. "Welcome, Sir Tristan, to the Western Isle."

"Your Majesty, I am sent by the King of Cornwall to propose a union of our two kingdoms, the joining of our lands."
A union
—

Isolde closed her eyes. Relief flooded her, sweetening her spirit, loosening every joint.

Yes,
a union, my love
, she promised him.
A true marriage of souls and minds
. For an endless moment she passed to the sweet place where souls wandered hand in hand, where kisses meant more than words and there were no more tears. Then she listened again and knew that something was truly wrong, everything was wrong.

His mouth was still making fine noises, but the words were hollow, as empty as the air.
Peace, gracious Queen
, she heard, and
free passage between our kingdoms, and mutual goodwill
, and much more of the same.

His white face glistened with strain as he strove ever harder to put his speech across. And still his words slipped through her mind and burst like the bubbles on the sea. What was he talking about? And all this time, he never looked her way.

She knew then that whatever he had come for, it was not for her. She was seized by a fury of grief.
You don't love me! Did you ever love me at all?
Then came the return to the darkness she thought she had escaped.

He is false.

All my hopes were false.

He is as false now as he was before.

Anguish ripped through her and the world diminished again before her eyes. She saw his drawn face, his lips still moving, but she could not hear what he said. She was lost in a dark place, far away and alone.

Lost
—

I have lost my knight
.

Lost my love, my joy, my life, my only hope.

So she looked on in deadness as he threw open boxes and chests of gifts and offered up silks soft as twilight, satin shiny as a summer's day, blue tourmalines like owl-light, yellow agates, tigereyes. And she sat by, calm and raging at the same time, in belief and black disbelief, as he stepped forward and opened his pale, traitorous mouth.

"These gifts I bring from Cornwall, by command of King Mark. I am here to lay his heart at Princess Isolde's feet. He begs the hand of the Princess as his bride, and I am ordered to escort her to Cornwall to be wed."

"
I am ordered
, he had told her, that ought to have been clear enough.

By command of the King
, he'd repeated that, too.

And
I am sent
, and
the King bids me say
, and much more. But still he knew that she had not understood. She thought he had betrayed her of his own free will.

Trembling as he had never trembled in his life, Tristan finished his speech with a deep, formal bow. On the dais, the Queen was regarding him with something dark and hostile in her deep-set eyes. But all he could feel was Isolde's pain. He knew without looking at her that she was suffering a thousand piercing sorrows, fury, grief, and betrayal, all at once.

At last he forced himself to turn his eyes on her. Glittering in vivid greens, crowned and veiled in gold, she sat as remote as an idol on a painted throne. She even wore a different, painted face and her lovely hair was tortured into strange shapes. He did not recognize his dear friend of so many woodland rides in the gorgeous stranger seated on the throne.

And the ring!

White-hot rage gripped him, piercing flesh and bone, as he saw through her tightly clasped hands to the naked finger beneath.

I gave you the best thing I had and you threw it away. What have you done with it? he gasped inwardly, speechless with pain.

He wanted to leap onto the dais, shake the answer from the garish rouged lips, take her by the throat. Did you throw it in the sea? Did you give it to a beggar or a Gypsy queen? He could not breathe.

But now their griefs were equal—now she, too, had dealt him a wound that would never heal. There was nothing but to leave as soon as he could. So he took his dismissal with thanks when the Queen rose to her feet. Every moment was torture till he could turn back to Cornwall and be free.

In the Queen's privy chamber, the bread and mulled wine had come and gone, along with the cold meats and sweetmeats, the best of winter's fare. Three times now the fires had been stoked up, and still the Queen's councillors would not be dislodged. The Queen had taken to yawning loudly and prowling about. These old fools have not had such excitement in years, she thought with scorn. She was sick of their earnest faces and prating mouths.