Tristan and Iseult (20 page)

‘Come to me,’ I say, ‘when you are your own woman and may go where you wish. There will always be a home for you with me if you want it.’

‘You will be married, Tristan.’ Her face is wet with tears and the light in her eyes dies as I sit there. I pull her toward me and brush the tears away and feel such sorrow.

‘I am sorrier than you can know. For everything. Come to me, when you can. You will always have a place and I will always think of you, I promise.’ I feel her nod against my chest. ‘I will watch the sea every day for your boat. You do not have to come yourself. Raise a white flag and I will come for you. Raise a black flag and I will know that we are not to be.’

She pulls away from me.

‘I will come. I promise.’

When my lips touch hers there is no restraint.

Then I leave to start afresh. To wait for her.

20 Years Later

Tristan

The summer sun warms my face and neck. Flies buzz. A nearby stream plays a tune, trickling, brushing, splashing over stones. A serene sound, of a day I should be working to a solitary rhythm and pace on my lands. How I crave the peace of my own company. Instead I stand with my back to a line of Ceredigion warriors waiting for the Saxon.

Behind the Ceredigion are men of Gwent. To our right and left stand Powys and Luitcoyt spears. Beside them men of Demetia and Elmet and Buellt. Almost all the tribes of northern Briton. United. Determined that this summer the Saxon will be pushed back and the heart of our lands reclaimed.

We stand high up, knowing they approach. Waiting for the sound of drums and the hum of marching warriors. I am not nervous. I do not feel the same fear the younger warriors know. My years have been spent living on one frontier or another. This will be my last battle, I think. A man’s body can only take so many blows on the front line, and mine has taken many. I feel the deep cuts to my arms and legs in the winter. The cold biting. I am stiff in the morning and exhausted in the evening. And these Saxon are becoming accustomed to our terrain, pushing harder, familiar with our lands, calling them
home
.

I breathe deep the scent of grass, almost smell the sea. We are many miles inland. I miss the coast, the estate I bid Cunedda grant me there, the breeze, the salt, the horizon; they have become my escape.

A haze forms in the distance. The Saxon will travel this road through Luitcoyt, I am sure. Beside me, Eurig grows restless. He shuffles from one foot to the other. Flexing his sword. Adjusting his shield.

‘They will come, Eurig.’

‘They had better. I was sent for news of your talks with the Irish, not to stand in a shield wall again.’

‘You relish it; otherwise you would not be here.’

‘I am here because I did not wish to wait in Cunedda’s stinking hall for your return.’

His relaxed face and slight smile tell me he is enjoying the frontier. I know he feels alive when he is in the north, with his sword and his shield and a mind free to face the enemy.

‘Do not worry, Eurig, I will send you home soon enough. Then you can fall back into retirement.’

His smile fades.

‘There are things you should know of home, Tristan.’

‘Stop!’

Eurig knows better than to speak of the life I left behind, to utter the names of the people, or deliver news of them.

‘Do not speak, Eurig. I will not hear it.’

He falls silent. Just as I think he is about to ignore my word and speak of Kernow, scouts appear on the road, riding hard.

‘They are on the road,’ the first to reach me says, breathless, as he reins in his horse.

I nod and dismiss him.

I hear them now, in the distance. The gathering warriors fall quiet. The ground feels unsteady. Cunedda would spit on my uniting the kingdoms of Briton if he were here. But he is not, bound to his halls by sickness and old age with no son of his own. He would curse more if he knew of my peace talks with the Irish when he believes I ride the waves warding them off.

Mark crosses my mind. I know I do this for him and all that I owe him. I am tired, but he must be more so. He craved a united Briton and Ireland, the creation of a force powerful and strong enough to repel the invaders who try to take our lands. Here we are. I look about me and see tides of men swarming the hill and wonder what Mark would think if he could see this: so many kingdoms together as one. That is why I asked Eurig to come. To see what I have achieved in the north, to take the news back to Kernow and know that we all are brothers in common cause. 

Murmurs ripple through the ranks. Word reaches me. The keener eyes now see the enemy. Flags wave overhead. Voices shout to stand firm, not to move, not to run raging at the enemy and lose our advantage.

Barking.

The Saxon bring dogs. How I hate their mutts.

They lead the way, yelping, snapping, pulling. Behind them the Saxon spread out along the road. They scream and shout and curse in their language I have never understood.

‘See to the dogs,’ Eurig says.

‘You giving orders now, old man?’

Eurig grunts. I do as he says, wave an arm overhead and a heartbeat later shards of death whistle through the bright sky. The dogs yelp and cry as the arrows strike home. A handful of the enemy fall too.

‘Come and die!’ One of our men shouts. Another takes down his pants and waves his cock at them.

‘Your northerners know how to torment the Saxon,’ Eurig says, laughing.

‘Oh, they do,’ I reply. ‘Just wait.’

Sorcerers push to the fore of the enemy lines. Their robes held above their knees, feet hobbling as if dancing on hot coals. Screeching, crying, wailing.

My heart beats faster.

I am not afraid of the sorcerers. Their magic and curses do not trouble me. I am anxious for this battle to begin, and if I do not want to lose the higher ground, the enemy must come to us.

At last, as the sun peaks and begins to dip, the Saxon find courage and charge.

Their war-howls sound distant. Their movement slow. They reach the hidden trenches we dug two days ago, halfway up the slope, and the first lines of Saxon fall. Men behind stumble, and the men behind them are disorientated and trip over their brothers.

We charge.

I run almost too fast for my legs. Gaining speed. Holding tight my sword, a shield strapped to my arm. The Saxon are scrambling over their own, the trenches packed with their men. They bare their teeth and so do I. A snarling growl, lips curled, spittle flying and then we crash together.

The gods roar as a tide of iron strikes iron. Two thousand Saxon are crushed by the momentum of five thousand Britons charging down the slopes of their homeland.

Hot breath hits my face. My own, gasping and hard. We are man against man now. One sword against another. Battle-din raging. Screaming and shouting. Curses. Rage. A mixture of noise that must be heard in every kingdom.

I take an axe-blow to my shield, push it away, bring up my sword and rip through the first man. Another strike, low down. I jump, punch down with the edge of my shield and up with my sword tip. Red rivers pour from the man’s mouth, down my arm. And again, I slice. Blood, warm and wet, sprays across my face and chest.

‘Tristan, damn it, watch your back!’ Eurig shouts.

I turn. Sunlight bouncing off a blade blinds. I am deep in the Saxon line, the enemy flanking me, closing in behind.

I scream my war-cry, a sound loud enough to shake the heavens and bring thunder on this hot day. I punch forward with my shield. And again. Feel it crunching into a Saxon face. I push the man back into the one behind and bring my sword in low. He has no furs to protect him. He growls back as if I have not cut him in two. Then the rage vanishes from his mad eyes and he drops.

I cut down two more with ease. The aches I know fade for a moment.

The enemy is thinning.

Eurig kneels on a man and parts him from this life. Stands. He drips with Saxon blood, sinew, scraps of flesh.

‘I am too old for this.’ His breathing is laboured but he recovers quickly.

‘I need to see what is happening.’

We scramble back up the slope. The first twenty paces slicked dark green, slippery and wet. When we are high enough I look across at the swathes of men, my men, the united men of Briton, and the Saxon buckling beneath the press of their spirit.

I knew the Saxon were outnumbered, yet seeing the armies spread before me I understand suddenly Mark’s hopes for peace and cooperation between our countrymen. He knew. He understood this would be the only way to save Briton. Peace with the Irish meant we could concentrate our force on a common enemy.

My sword hangs limp in my bloodied hand. Sweat stings my eyes, but it is stained red. Will this be our last stand? Will we now see a peace of sorts? I think of Mark sitting in his council chambers and the news Eurig will bring him as I watch the remaining Saxon retreat back along the Roman road. See our men slaughter the rest, cutting, slicing, ripping iron through flesh and bone. What will Mark think? Will he be proud?

This was his dream. Not this blood, but the hope blood brings.

Is it my dream now?

As much as I try to convince myself, I know it is not.

Iseult

I sit in the darkness of the king’s chamber. It is the last day Mark will inhabit this world. Lying in our bed his eyes roll beneath their lids, his lips ride up and show his gums and his face is waxen and yellow. Though he is older than me, with the Otherworld pulling him away he looks older still. Flesh drapes the bones of his face, fluttering with every breath.

I think of Mark reaching for his sister and his son in the Otherworld. Isabel died in the Priory two months after Tristan left for Caerleon. In twenty years I have written to him only once, to tell him of his mother’s death. I told him she died of fever, but that was not true. She died of a broken heart and I could not bear to think of Tristan’s guilt.

Acha fumbles wood on the fire, creating a noise that would wake my husband were he sleeping. Instead he groans as though the end of the world is upon us.

‘Pass me his sword,’ I say.

Oswyn puts a hand on my shoulder. His touch is as tender as the farmers aiding the lambing in February, and yet I know how many innocent lives that hand has taken; how much blood has run down his blade in a bid to prove himself.

‘The sword will pass to me when he is gone, Iseult.’

‘He has not gone yet,’ I say.

I lay the sword on Mark’s chest and place his hands upon it. All warriors should die with a sword in their hand. And my good and caring king needs his sword if he is to claim his rightful place in the feasting hall of the gods.

My reflection looks tattered in the bright iron. I am old now — almost thirty-six — and because of my infertile womb Oswyn will inherit. The gods punish me. Tristan has never left my thoughts and the gods know this and they would see me barren and unable to provide for Mark. And yet Mark never banished me, never left my bed nor questioned my sadness. Never once have I walked with him on the shore, for that is the place I save to think of Tristan, but he has been kind to me and I have grown fonder of him each passing year.

I kiss Mark’s lips and my tears spill onto his cheek.

‘Iseult?’ My name is a hoarse rumble from deep inside him.

‘Save breath to greet friends in the feasting hall.’

I take his hand in mine and look into his face. I see the scar gifted by Morholt’s blade, and think of the day I pressed cloth to the wound, more grateful than he could ever know.

‘Thank you,’ I whisper, ‘for everything.’

The blade rises on Mark’s chest seven times and then rises no more.

I already know what I will do next. I have known for a long time.

Tristan

I part with Eurig on the outskirts of Ceredigion. Head onward for the coast and home. Cunedda can discover the outcome of the battle from another, as I have no desire to visit his halls and face his disgust at my alliance with neighbouring kingdoms.

My lands lie in a valley on the west coast, facing the Irish. I feel the sea air as I approach. For the first time in two months I can rest.

I reach the edge of my estate and my horse urges onward, the sloping fields, low walls and narrow road familiar to us both. My house sits as idyllic as ever, accompanied by a scattering of outbuildings and tenant dwellings further afield. Eanfrid, my estate manager, in the yard with our horses. He waves.

‘Good to see you, friend,’ I say.

‘And you, Tristan.’

I enter the house, sit in a chair at the kitchen table. I am dirty and tired, scratched and bruised. I have a broken rib, a cut on my leg and two more on my arm. All I wish to do it sit.