Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur (26 page)

She whirled away with a joyous laugh. "Then play!"

Drystan pulled his harp over his shoulder and began a dancing tune. Crimthann took the hand of Yseult the Wise and led her out of the rath and into the fallow fields, the residents of Ard Ladrann following. Then the king and queen danced while Drystan played and the crowd watched and clapped in time to the music. Kegs of mead and ale were brought and set up at the side of the fields, and jugs and tankards passed around. One by one, other couples joined the royal couple, grabbing a mug of beer or wine before stepping out with one loved or lusted after, and the air was filled with laughter and the music of harps and drums.

Drystan played until his fingers were sore, and then Laidcenn took over. He helped himself to a tankard of mead and wandered through the dancing, singing crowds, laughing and joking with Domnall and Aidenn and Lithben and the other residents of the rath, heartlight and carefree.

Brangwyn touched his arm, her blue eyes merry. "You are not dancing, bard. Is your leg not yet healed?"

He laughed. "Why, no one has asked me yet." He still favored his injured leg, but that was almost out of force of habit by now; it had not pained him for many days.

"Then we will have to change that. Come." She pulled him into the dancing, laughing mass, and the warmth of all the other sweating bodies surrounded him. Even in the sun, there was a decided nip in the air, but in the middle of the crowd, kicking and twirling and occasionally bumping into another dancer who'd had too much ale, the cold could hardly be felt it at all. Drystan's braid whisked around in time to the music, and strands came out and got in his eyes. He pulled them back from his forehead with one hand, or if he had both his hands in Brangwyn's, he stuck out his lower lip and blew them up out of the way.

Suddenly Yseult was there again, at her cousin's elbow, whispering in her ear, and Brangwyn laughed and ran off. Yseult took his hands and twirled around with him in time to harp and drums and flute, looking into his eyes, a smile of promise playing around her full lips. His stomach knotted, and it was all he could do to refrain from pulling her into his arms right there in the middle of the crowd, to kiss her as he had wanted to the day she offered herself to him near the beach, as he had wanted to every day since.

The dancing continued until the sun neared the edge of the world, and then, as if obeying an unspoken command, Yseult and the other young women slipped away, leaving the men alone on the field where they had been dancing.

"What now?" Drystan asked Ronan beside him.

Ronan gave him a wide grin, his eyes full of anticipation. "Now comes the plough."

At his words, the women returned from behind the smithy, driving a team of oxen in front of a plough brightly decorated with flowers and ribbons. Several of the women held the handles, while the rest urged the oxen forward. The young men in the field stood, waiting and impatient, while the women made a series of circular furrows around them, wider and wider, taking them farther and farther away, while the sun slowly slipped behind the rim of the world. Drystan had no idea what was going on, but the mood was easy enough to catch — it was so blatantly sexual he could smell it. The men beside him were glassy-eyed with lust and rigid with wanting, while the women doing the ploughing laughed excitedly.

Even though Drystan didn't know what to expect, he found himself reacting with the men beside him to the flirtatious laughter and looks thrown their way, found himself watching Yseult's lithe figure in the midst of all the young women, waiting, wanting.

At the moment when the last sliver of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, when the in-between time began, no longer day and not yet night, when the sun was gone but its light still lingered, the women abandoned the plough, dropped the reins of the oxen, and fled in all directions. This apparently was a signal for the men to do the same, and they dashed en masse in pursuit. Although he had noted the direction Yseult had taken, Drystan hung back, wondering what would happen next. He was soon enlightened. A number of women only made a pretense at getting away, and those were caught first. Without ceremony, the lucky man tumbled to the ground with his prize and fell between her legs, ploughing her as the women had ploughed the soil.

And Yseult was in the race too.

Drystan ran. He saw her figure far ahead, a dash of white nearing the edge of the forest. She was not among those only making a pretense of running; her long legs stretched out, taking her swiftly to the trees. Behind her he saw Gamal in single-minded pursuit. Drystan imagined the red-haired, bearded warrior between Yseult's thighs as he had seen Domnall between Aine's, and he pushed himself harder, his former injury forgotten. Yseult disappeared into the trees, followed closely by his rival. His own insides were churning nearly as fast as his legs by the time he too made it to the woods.

He stopped, unsure where to go, and listened for human sounds among the trees. To the west he thought he heard the rustling of underbrush and headed in that direction.

"Tandrys!"

The whispered voice was a call he couldn't resist, and he left the path for the bushes on his left. But Yseult wasn't there. Then the whisper came again and he followed until he reached a clearing. She was waiting for him, her back pressed against the smooth glossy-gray bark of a rowan tree.

"I thought I had lost my power of calling completely," she said with a smile.

Drystan had no memory of striding across the clearing, but there he was, pressing against her, pressing her into the trunk of the tree, taking her mouth with his, swallowing her moans in his own. Her mouth tasted sweeter than the rich mead he'd had far too much of, moist and honeyed, sweeter and more intoxicating, and her deep-throated groans made him wild. His head was spinning with mead and passion, with spontaneous jealousy and collective lust, and he gripped her from behind and pulled her up against him, grinding his hips into hers.

"Yes," she demanded, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

He needed no more encouragement. With both hands, he yanked up bunches of material, hiking her skirts around her hips. Her own hands went to the belt of his breeches, quickly unknotting the tie and pushing down. He felt the cool air of dusk on his hot, rigid penis, and then her searching hand closed tight around him.

He gasped. "Ah, sweet Danu."

"Roman, are you?" Yseult murmured with a breathless laugh.

She stroked him, her touch firm and gentle, and he leaned his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. "For you, I will be anything."

"Tongue of silver, and rod of ivory," she whispered against his ear. "I think I shall keep you."

Her words, her touch, her body pressed so close to his; it was all too much for him. With a muffled groan, he lifted her up and drove into her, pinning her between himself and the tree. Yseult let out a sound like a long, drawn-out hiss and locked her ankles behind his ass. Drystan threw his head back and gritted his teeth, aching with the bliss of it. She panted and held on to him tightly, otherwise still. Then she moved against him and he could wait no longer. He plunged into her half-a-dozen times, moaned like a woman in labor, and emptied his seed into her while she clung to him, crying out his name, his other name.

Sexual satiation stole upon him, and with it, an awareness of the physical discomfort of their rash act. The day had not been warm, although the sun could trick you into believing it at times. But now in the growing dark, he could feel the evidence on his bare ass that winter had not yet loosened its grip entirely. He kissed Yseult's lips and pulled out of her with a sigh which she answered. They had no other words, strangely shy of each other, still embracing, not sure what to say. Her face was so close, he could almost count the light brown hairs of her eyebrows. She lowered her feet to the ground and slid her arms away from him to straighten her tunic while he pulled up his breeches and retied the belt. Drystan knew now that he would stay with her as her bard if she wanted it, would forget the life he had known and be forgotten by it.

"I do want it," Yseult whispered.

Drystan caught her up in his arms and kissed her again, repressing a jolt of fear.

Yes, he could stay with her, but only as long as he could close his mind to her.

Chapter 12

ir herze unde ir ougen

diu schachten vil tougen

und lieplichen an den man.

der man der sach si wider an

suoze und inneclichen.

er begunde ouch entwichen

do's in diu minne niht erlie.

(Like a thief, stolen, loving, her heart and eyes were after the man. The man returned her looks, full of tender intimacy. He too began to give in, since love would not set him free.)

Gottfried von Straßburg,
Tristan

Yseult saw the way people smiled at her, a knowing smile, slight and heavy to one side. She didn't care — she was going to meet her lover.

Since Imbolc, the passage of time had changed, had become like an illusion cast by Brangwyn, no longer connected to the movement of the sun through the sky, suddenly at the mercy of one man's presence or absence. She had not been this way with Gamal; this avid, this insatiable.

This happy.

The weather had been with them these last few days and weeks, pleasant and more, enough for regular trysts in a protected grove outside of the rath. When Yseult arrived, Tandrys looked up from his pacing, and a huge smile broke out over his face. He caught her in his arms and kissed her long and deep.

"I remembered to bring blankets this time," he said when he released her again.

Yseult laughed. "And I have the afternoon free."

Tandrys kissed her again and pulled her down with him to the cozy nest he had made between the trees. "I will miss you so much when you leave tomorrow."

Yseult pulled his tunic over his head and kissed the hollow of his throat. "We will only be gone a few days."

"A few days too many."

Truth to tell, part of the reason she was going was to prove to herself that she could — that she hadn't become totally dependent on the Armorican bard.

Especially since he still made no mention of the future, never spoke of staying in Eriu past spring. And his mind remained closed to her.

Tandrys took the cloth of her tunic in one fist and began to drag it up her body. She could hardly believe how sensuous the feel of the fine wool against her skin was accompanied by that gesture and the desperation in his eyes and his rapid breathing.

A stray laugh bubbled up out of her at their mutual need —when they had been at it like rabbits ever since Imbolc.

He shared the laugh with her, then used it to tease her nipples before going over to tooth and tongue. The laugh caught in Yseult's throat and turned to a groan. She struggled the rest of the way out of her tunic — what she wanted now was skin against skin.

Tandrys obliged, slipping up her body a little to nip at her neck. During the time he had been paying such exquisite attention to her nipples, he had rid himself of his trousers, and she could feel his cock, warm and hard, slide up her thigh, welcome, so welcome. She loved the smell of him, the clean salty sweat, the tang of his arousal.

They kissed and touched and played, teasing each other as long as they could, until Yseult couldn't wait anymore. "Please."

"Turn over," he murmured while he pushed her hip gently in the direction he wanted. She was happy to. His heavy cock slid across her hip to nestle between the cheeks of her ass, while he turned the attention of his tongue and lips and teeth to her shoulders and the back of her neck.

She was a puddle, a glorious puddle of sensation.

His movements became more demanding, his teeth at her neck less gentle, and she pressed her ass into his crotch, wanting, demanding more.

"Ah, Yseult."

"Yes."

He leaned over to kiss her lips again at that, long, sweet, hot. Being with him was sensation she never wanted to end, and an end she panted for at the same time.

He pulled her hips up, and she came with him. She felt the pressure at her cunt, and then he was in, and she gasped, throwing her head back.

Sweet, so sweet.

Slowly he began to move, back and forth, his hands firmly on her hips. Pleasure flooded through her so that it was hard to keep her arms upright. She allowed herself to sink to her elbows on the nest of blankets as his grip on her hips became more demanding and his strokes harder.