Isolde: Queen of the Western Isle (20 page)

She bit her knuckles to stop herself from crying out. Outside the window a quiet moon was sailing over a lazy sea, and she should be sleeping, too. Instead she was walking the floor, walking the floor…

Gods, she missed Marhaus! Unconsciously she reached for the silken pouch she wore round her neck and felt inside for the fatal sliver of metal, the last trace of him she had. if you hadn't left me, my love, she mourned, you'd have saved me now. When Palomides failed me, you would have challenged the stranger and beaten him to the ground.

Palomides…

Curses filled her heart and choked her throat. The handsome Saracen should be sitting here with her now, feasting in her chamber as her son-in-law elect, roast boar crackling on the hearth and the ripe juice of peaches running down his chin. Then he and Isolde would have made the feast of the flesh, and Goddess, Mother,
yesss
, what a coupling that would have been!

And then next summer, when the neap tides rose, there would have been a new queen for the Western Isle, another Isolde, a true child of the dream, a baby with huge dark eyes and hair as bright as corn—the Queen paused—if the earth magic she made for them that night was powerful enough, if her Gods were with her when Isolde lay down with Palomides and trod the path of womankind since the dawn of time.

But now—

Now the Saracen was wailing his way back East, and Isolde was dancing off with a light in her eye—to look in on the sick pilgrim—or so she said—

The pilgrim?

The Queen came to a sudden halt and closed her eyes.

Goddess, Mother, no!

Not that wretched invalid, that poor gray-coated thing, a miserable beggar, a man on a pilgrimage? No, no, it was impossible, Isolde couldn't care for him! Every woman knew that a holy man was only half a man, and this one was more than half dead!

But Isolde knew nothing—and something—or someone—had captured her mind and heart.

Frowning, the Queen tried to remember the tall figure she had seen at a distance, riding out with Isolde. If he was young and handsome, with a body most women would bed, any girl could love the first man she saw. And if Isolde liked him, she would be stubborn enough to want her own way—

The pilgrim?

The thought worked through her like poison, body and mind. She bunched her fists and kneaded her heaving gut. "Help me!" she groaned.

"My lady?"

A tall young knight reclined at his ease on the bed. Against the blood-red hangings his eyes were bright with promise, and his long body pulsed with feral grace. He preened himself visibly as she turned, then smiled and held out a hand.

"Will you join me, madam?"

"Sir Tolen!"

She bit back a curse. Mother of all confusions, why had she sent for him to keep her company? True, his clan was the finest in the isle, and many of his forefathers had been chosen ones. The lad himself had shown a careless glory in battle and his tall, rangy body promised much in bed.

But Gods above!

She wanted to tear her hair and lay open her skin. Better a lonely dinner of bread and herbs than flesh and wine with a witless boy! Or worse than witless—a youth with a scheme to advance himself through her, to love her and master her as Marhaus had done.

Marhaus, my love, my love…

"Majesty?"

He was watching her closely, more insistent now. Soon he would be reaching for her hand, thrusting himself on her, pulling her down—

He gave an insolent grin. "I am your knight, let me serve you," he insinuated, staring into her eyes.

"What?" She forced a laugh. "You are too young!" A frenzy seized her. They were all too young, now that Marhaus was gone.

He laughed and pushed back his hair. "Try me," he said.

Her eyes raked him, torn between need and despair. His teeth were very white, and his gaze held hers with all the raw confidence of his twenty years. She imagined her fingers brushing the soft stubble of his chin and cupping his hard young jaw to feed on his mouth. His chest would be smooth, his flanks lean and firm, and, young as he was, he would bear battle scars. Already she could feel the long silvery sword puckers brushing against her skin, and smell his young manhood, hot and raw and strong. Yes, she thought,
yesss!

But first…

She nodded to him abruptly. "Wait here," she said.

She left the chamber and passed through a series of inner rooms, where her gowns hung in splendor from ceilings and walls, and little side tables groaned under combs and mirrors, scents and lotions and countless face colorings in their bowls of jeweled glass. In the last room of all, she picked up a swan lamp and lifted a hanging to reveal a hidden door. The key hung on a silken thread around her neck, and she locked it carefully behind her as she went through.

The light of the lamp shone upward into the dark. The worn stone steps wound upward through the thickness of the castle wall and she felt her way forward to another door at the top. As she opened it a dark cloud of birds rose in screeching flurries and swirled around her head. Unperturbed, she moved forward into the clamor of wings and flying claws, put down the swan lamp, and settled herself in a chair beside the hearth.

Slowly the room returned to its previous calm. When all was still, a hundred or so jackdaws filled the abandoned chamber, perched on tables and the backs of broken chairs, roosting in the ragged hangings of the bed and perched along the beams. The walls and floor were covered with birdlime and the rotting remains of their prey littered the floor, but the Queen bore the slime and the stench without concern. Here in her divination chamber she would know the truth.

High on a beam in the center of the room stood the grandfather of all jackdaws, huge, ancient, and decayed. His molting feathers were patched with white and gray, and his bulging eyes had lost their coal-black gleam. But time had not taken the edge off his piercing, pitiless stare and she knew he could see beyond mortal sight.

So?
The great bird emitted a raucous cry, hunched his skinny shoulders in question, and stood still.

She laughed. "No, Old Father, I have nothing for you today."

She laughed again as she thought of the times she had offered him raw meat in her mouth and his wings had kissed her cheek as he took the food. Next time she must bring him a plump mouse, or better still, a rat. But tonight—

"Tonight I must know the truth."

The jackdaw stared intently.
The truth,
he echoed, shifting from claw to claw.

"The pilgrim Isolde healed," she asked urgently, "does she love him?"

The mangy head nodded.
Love him, love him
.

"I knew it!" She clutched at her temples. "Will he bring us good, or harm?"

The harsh cry came at once.
Harm, harm
.

"If I gave him money, would he go away?" she persisted. "Or would he come back?"

The great bird clacked and shuffled his bulk around.
Come back, come back, come back.

The Queen groaned. "For Isolde, yes?"

Isolde, yes.

Cold apprehension clawed at the Queen's gut. "And she'd have him?"

She'd have him, she'd have him, she'd have him.

"Goddess, Mother, no!" she bit the back of her hand. "She'd mate with him, instead of Palomides?" Her mind darted madly back to the tournament. "And the stranger knight, Old Father, what d'you know about him? Is he a famous knight? The son of a king?"
A famous knight. The son of a king
.

"A worthy partner then! But my daughter cared nothing for him." She gave a sardonic laugh. "Isolde prefers a pilgrim to a knight, and a beggar to a king?"

The great creature cocked his head and fixed her with an Otherworldly look.
Pilgrim, knight
, he rasped,
beggar, king
.

The Queen froze. The bird clacked importantly and strutted up and down.
Pilgrimknight,
he crowed louder now on one breath,
beggarking.

"What are you telling me?" She gasped for breath. "That the pilgrim and the knight were one? The beggar beat the king?"

The bird began a triumphant jig, cawing with every step,
Pilgrim-knightbeggarking
—

"No!"

The Queen snatched up the lamp and flew down the staircase, careless of her life. In her chamber Sir Tolen still sprawled at his ease on the bed till her commands brought him leaping to his feet.

"Assemble a band of knights! Bring them with swords drawn to the Guest House and meet me there!"

He was already racing through the door. "Lady, it is done!"

Muttering and crying, she swooped through the palace to the Guest House, traversing courtyards and cloisters like a spirit of the night. In the pilgrim's chamber, a maid was stripping the bed. The dirty linen lay bundled on the floor, the bed was empty, and the room was bare.

The Queen hovered on the threshold like a thundercloud. "Where is the pilgrim?" she cried. "Speak, simpleton, or I'll have you whipped!"

The little maid's face flooded with panic. "The—the infirmary," the girl stammered. "The Princess took him there—"

The Queen dismissed her with a toss of her head. "Leave me!"

The maid scrambled for the door, her round pale eyes like cartwheels in the dark. Hissing, the Queen pounced on the pile of linen and threw it about. Great bloodstains marked the whiteness of the sheets. Whoever lay in this bed had been wounded, and where but at the tournament? She nodded madly to herself and heard the jackdaw's words anew.
The pilgrim is the knight. The beggar is the king.

King of where? Gasping, she tried to trace her way through, if the pilgrim were in truth a great knight and the son of a king—if Isolde truly loved him—and if this pilgrimage was not his life's vocation but merely a fleeting vow he had to fulfill—

A precious dawn of hope sprang in her heart. Then Isolde could love him and take him to her bed. She would go the way of all women and have a child. A new queen would be born, and a clutch of young princes, too… Her mind blossomed with a garland of tender thoughts and dreams. She smiled, and her face shed ten years. Sturdy boys and rosy, blooming girls. New life—new love—

She prowled the spare white chamber, thrilling with joy. Who was the pilgrim? Now she had to know. She threw open the chest that held his effects and laughed for joy. Inside lay the pearl-white armor of the stranger knight, bloodstained and battered, but unmistakable.

"So, sir!" The blood coursed through her veins. "Who are you?" she breathed. "Tell me your name?"

Beneath the bed was a battered saddlebag of ox hide. It held a shirt or two and a spare pair of shoes, a thick woollen cloak and a cap for the rain. His pilgrim's apparel—nothing more. She tossed it aside.

In the last corner stood a stout cupboard, locked now and the key gone. The Queen laughed. In her own palace, the key she carried opened every door. She was still laughing when the door swung back and she saw inside.

A great sword stood upright on the point of its scabbard, crying out softly in a high, urgent whine. Hearing the sound, the Queen began to shake. For the metal in the pouch around her neck was calling out too.

In a trance she opened the pouch and the silver sliver within quivered like raw flesh at her touch. The truth was here, she knew it, she could smell Marhaus's blood. With both hands she reached for the scabbard and drew out the sword. Halfway down, there was a jagged gap in the blade.

The truth, the truth
—

Trembling violently, she pulled the shard of metal from its pouch and fitted it to the gap. With a sigh, the great sword shivered and took back its own. As the Queen watched transfixed, the blade embraced the broken piece and the jagged edges came together as if they had never been apart.

"No!"

The Queen whirled the sword around her head and hurled it from the room. Then she fell to her knees, babbling Marhaus's name.

"This is the sword of Tristan of Lyonesse. He killed my love, and I will have revenge!"

 Overhead the owls called from the bell tower and a harvest moon proclaimed a cloudless night. In the quiet of the infirmary, Isolde and Brangwain had finished binding up the pilgrim's wounds. The lamp light shone on many new gashes on his shoulders and arms, and he was gray from loss of blood. But pale, weak, and shivering, he was alive.

Goddess, Mother, thanks.
Isolde reached for a vial of cordial and tried to smile.

When she found him near death in his chamber, she had one thought only, to try to stanch his wounds. But as she tore back the sheet, the glory of his long pale body dazzled her eyes, and a dancing, singing bliss pervaded her heart.
Trust to your knight,
Cormac had said.
He will come.
She wanted the music within her to play through the world.
I trusted to him, and he came
.

At the time, Brangwain had made short work of calling up the servants and getting him to the infirmary, leaving a maid to tidy up his room. Now Brangwain was tactfully occupying herself elsewhere in the room and they might have been alone in the universe.

I will know my knight when he comes
—

He lay before her in the moonlight and the beauty of him made her soul ache. She saw his strong, well-featured face, full of haunting angles and shadowed planes, and wanted to run her finger around his long, full mouth. In repose his eyelids were as pale as harebells, and she could count every one of the veins beneath the delicate skin. His thick hair fell around his shoulders, and he smelled of willow and heartsease, all the herbs she had used to cleanse and heal his hurts.

I could
…
. I c
ould ... I c
ould ...

Watching him, she slipped into a gentle dream.
Goddess, Mother, tell me
—
is this love!

He opened his eyes. She saw him swiftly review his surroundings, then struggle to sit up. She came forward with the cordial to revive his heart.

"Drink this, sir," she said. She did not say,
Who are you? I know you are my knight
.