The Lady of the Sea (25 page)

In the heart of the wood and many leagues deep in love, they did not see the lone figure on the high road, doggedly making his way to Castle Dore. They did not hear the woodman’s description of them as he whiled away his journey rehearsing what he would say. “There’s a knight, my lord, in the forest and a fine lady, too, with a head of red-gold hair and the sound of the Western Isle in the way she speaks . . .”

But there was more, much more, that the woodman himself did not know. So they could not have guessed that his was not the only treachery afoot, and that evil was already brewing at the court of King Mark. They rose every morning in the pearly dew and looked into each other’s eyes and rejoiced to be alive, like the little gilded flies of midsummer that sing and dance and live for only a day.

chapter 34

C
onfitebur tibi, Domine . . .

Is that how the psalm began, Theodora asked herself? “I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord with all my heart: I will sing of Thy marvelous works . . .”

Yes, I will give thanks, the Princess promised herself smugly, I’ll sing out to God with all my heart. She looked around the sunlit guest room of Castle Dore. Could anything in the world be more marvelous than this?

Across the chamber, her sister Divinia was coiled up in a window seat overlooking the castle grounds, basking in the warmth of the sun. Pale as ever but less waif-like now, Divinia returned Theodora’s glance with a languid yawn.

“Are you tired, sister?” she said.

Theodora had to laugh. Back in Dun Haven, they’d have been working like slaves from the moment day broke till they dropped into their beds. With their stepmothers dying in childbirth one by one, there were always babies to be cared for and a troubled household to run. Then, by candlelight, when night came at last, there were clothes to be made and blankets and sheets to be patched. Here they were ladies of leisure, guests of the King, spoiled from dawn till dusk.

There was a knock on the door. Theodora opened it, and dismissed the servant outside with a curt word. Then she turned back in triumph into the sunny room. “Look at this.”

Her eyes glistened as she held aloft a plate of sticky sweetmeats and slices of almond bread dripping with lard. Greedily, she began to stuff them in her mouth.

“I thought they’d never come,” she complained. “I must have sent for them an hour ago.”

Divinia’s stomach turned, and she had to look away. “Father would beat you if he saw you being such a pig.”

Theodora plumped herself down on a cushion and grinned through a mouthful of grease. “Father isn’t here.”

“You’re getting fatter every day,” Divinia pouted at her sister spitefully. “He’s bound to know as soon as we get back.”

There was a pause while Theodora emptied her mouth. “You can do what you like,” she said clearly. “But I’m not going back.”

There. She’d said it, the thing they had both been afraid even to think.

Divinia’s eyes bulged. “Not ever?” she whispered fearfully.

“Never. I don’t care who I have to marry to stay here.”

“Not even the King?”

Theodora set her plump chin. “Especially him.” She gave a disbelieving stare. “Whatever you think of him, he’s still the King. You know what that means.”

Divinia felt sick. “But he’s stupid. And he’s so smelly and horrible and
old.”

Theodora’s eyes lit up. “The older, the better,” she grinned malevolently. “The sooner he’ll die. And then I’ll be Queen, and no one in the world can tell me what to do.”

“What if he won’t marry you?”

Theodora set the empty plate aside and stretched her ample body like a cat. “Someone else will. There’s plenty of men here at court.”

“You mean one of those filthy old lords that stare at us all the time?” Divinia shuddered. “I’d rather die.”

“You don’t mean that.” She looked at Divinia and fixed her with a frown. Surely even her dim-witted sister could see that this was their only chance of escape?

“Listen to me,” she said with all the force of a nature long suppressed. “If I marry the King, I’ll keep you here as my lady in waiting, and you must promise to do the same for me. Unless you want to go back to Dun Haven and live as we did before, with Father and the girls.”

Divinia lost some of her fragile color and shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Father’s wives keep getting younger, don’t forget,” Theodora prodded. “The next one’ll be the same age as you and me, and we’ll have to take orders from her and do what she says. Is that what you want?”

“No.” Divinia’s porcelain skin flushed. “I can’t do that.”

“Well, then.” Theodora surged up to Divinia and pulled her to her feet. “We’ve got to marry the King or someone else. Father Dominian will soon be here to take us into court. Let’s see how good we can make ourselves look by then.”

She set to work on Divinia with a will, pinching her cheeks and fluffing out her hair.

“Bite your lips to make them red,” she commanded, ignoring the flurry of protests and cries. “And here, wear these earrings, they’ll give you more of an air.”

By the time Father Dominian was expected, the younger sister had been subtly transformed. Still pale and ethereal, she now glowed a silvery pink down to her fingers’ ends, wherever Theodora’s vigorous pinching had produced the desired effect.

“Between us, we’ll catch one of these lords” was the brutal calculation of the older girl, “even if it’s not the King himself. And all we need is one to stay in Castle Dore.”

“Are you ready, my daughters?”

Hovering in the doorway, reluctant to come in, Dominian averted his eyes from his two charges and their flowing robes, which clung too closely and revealed too much.

“I have come to take you into court,” he curtly announced. “The King is holding an audience today and is graciously pleased to invite you to attend.”

Theodora paused to arranged her veil to show more of her plump, white shoulders and well-rounded neck. Then she pulled down the front of her dress and brazenly tweaked up her breasts to make a better display.

“We’re ready,” she said to Dominian with a lusty smirk.

“Follow me, then,” Dominian said, shrinking in his soul. And may God in His wisdom have mercy on us all.

The little priest bowed his head in painful prayer as he led the two Princesses away.
Salvum me fac, Domine.
Help me, help me, Lord.

He had rarely been so unhappy in his life. Is this truly your work that I do now, O Lord? Strengthen and guide me, for I am losing my way.

chapter 35

T
he days were slipping away like pearls on a chain. To see Tristan’s face was a daily delight. When the wood pigeons crooned their hearts out in the topmost tree, Isolde thought they were singing for him alone. And when the great seven-pointed stag called to his mate through the echoing groves, it seemed to Isolde that she heard Tristan’s voice.

Now summer ripened to its peak in the fullness of the earth. From early morning, the air was golden and warm beneath the trees, heavy with the scent of the season and teeming with life. Together they ranged far and wide throughout the wood, learning its hills and hollows, its dark rocks and sunlit ravines.

Each day brought new enchantments, new delights. A triple rainbow one day when it rained. Another day, two proud swans sailing down a stream, one fore, one aft, guarding the dusty brown skein of their offspring paddling in between. And best of all, in the secret heart of the wood, a cloven oak covered with ivy and honeysuckle intertwined.

Isolde reached for Tristan’s hand. “You remember, love?” She could not go on for tears.

“Remember?” Tristan’s laugh caught in his throat. “How could I forget?”

They stood silent then, marveling at this memorial to their love, the sign that the fates had given them so many years ago. In the heart of the darkest forest, so their pledge had run, the ivy and the honeysuckle flourish as one. And so it will be with us, our lives so intertwined that every curve and line of one will follow the outline of the other in deepest love.

They had made another promise at that time and held fast to that, too: This love may never leave us now, neither for weal nor for woe.

And as they held that moment in their minds again, she found the strength to ask him what they should do.

He gripped her hand. “You think we should leave the wood?”

Isolde nodded unhappily. “We can’t live like this forever.”

He took her by the shoulders. “Are you unhappy, lady, here with me?”

She could see the pain in his face. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“I’m happier here with you than I have ever been,” she told him, her voice breaking. “But sooner or later we have to return to the world. We’re like midsummer flowers, Tristan, growing tall in the sun. But winter must come.”

As she spoke, he felt a winter chill invade his heart. Thin fingers as cold as death wound themselves around his hopes, and he knew the fear of summer’s end that haunts all who live in the wood. Already he could feel the wind blowing stronger and see the bracken turning from green to red. Soon at night they would hear the king stag belling from the far hilltop, and wake at dawn to the wild goose’s parting cry.

But still he wanted to stave off the moment if he could.

“If it’s winter you fear, let me take you back to the grange,” he offered. “I can keep you like a queen in Castle Bel Content.”

She could hear her heart crying,
Yes, let’s do that. I want to stay here!

“And I could love you like a king,” she said wanly, stroking his hand. “But we’re only safe as long as we keep on the move. We’d be trapped like rats in Bel Content if Mark and Andred tracked us there.”

“As they will,” he added, almost to himself. “They must.” She had never seen him look so grim.

An endless moment passed.

“Oh, my lady,” he breathed. He tipped up her chin to look her in the eyes. “I’m a hunter, at home in the heart of the wood. But you’re a child of the sea. You want to go back to Ireland so you can have the ocean, the tides, the waves, and the shore.”

Tremulously, she shook her head. “Neither is more to me than the other. It takes the sea and the land together to make a world.”

He folded her into his cloak and softly quoted a fragment of an ancient runic verse, cherished between them whenever they were apart.

Bel ami,

si eczt de nouz

Ne vouz sanz mei,

ne mei sanz vouz.

“‘My dearest love,’ ” she translated back to him, “‘this is our fate, neither you without me, nor me without you.’ ”

They stood together in a silence too deep for tears. Together they had walked the world between the worlds, and now it was slipping away. Isolde could hardly speak for pain.

“We should go back to court,” she said through cold, stiff lips. “Then I can end this hollow marriage with Mark, and you can leave his service with honor, not as a fugitive.”

Tristan stared at her in horror. “Go back to court?” He laughed in disbelief. “Mark tried to kill me, lady!”

Isolde dropped her gaze and looked away. “You don’t know that.”

“I know that Andred and his two villains made an attempt on my life,” he spat out, “and they said that the King himself had ordered my death.”

“But that’s just what Andred would have told them, don’t you see?”

“Lady, lady,” he groaned. “Blame it all on Andred if you like. But surely you understand that Mark himself—”

“No, I don’t,” she interrupted. “Mark is many things, but he wouldn’t do that.”

Tristan nodded bleakly. Isolde refused to believe her husband could be a murderer. What could he say? His tongue lay like lead in his mouth.

Dimly, he heard Isolde speaking again.

“I want to separate from Mark with dignity. Then we’ll go home to Ireland and live in peace.”

He could not contain himself. “And you think Mark will simply let us go?” Dark visions of the future crowded his mind. “It’s true that we’ll have to leave, if we want to be safe. Sooner or later one of the woodland folk will give us away. But let’s be very careful about what we do next.”

A new excitement was written on Isolde’s face. “You think we should make straight for the coast and sail to Ireland?”

He caught her rising spirits. “Anywhere in the world!”

She gave a tremulous laugh. Should they do this? Could such a thing be right? She could hardly breathe. “And I’ll write to Mark from there.”

Goddess, Mother, thanks! Tristan bowed his head. “To Ireland, then,” he cried.

Isolde looked at him through a veil of tears. How she loved this man!

Ireland.

Erin.

Home.