Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (8 page)

Whether she would admit it or no, Yseult cared deeply for Drustan, who as well cared deeply for her. Yet here I was allying myself to the same man who vied for her heart. Because if I couldn’t win the privilege of being her escort and spending a last time alone with her to convince her to flee her duty and follow her heart, then I wanted that man to be Drustan.

Because above all, I wished true happiness for Yseult, and not the shackles of politics.

And because even so, I knew in this Yseult had no choice at all. How could duty and sacrifice and generosity of soul for the lives of thousands even be a choice compared to anything else?

We followed Fate’s script to its inevitable end.

And at that end, Drustan would either be a friend or no.

I could say the fae in me had forgotten the import men lay in the state of one’s dress or undress. That because fae rarely clothed themselves I forgot myself, shifting from hound to man with the nearest tunic a furlong away. But that would not be truth. A part of me understood exactly how I would be perceived when I stepped naked into the moonlit clearing. One man naked standing before another either held the greater advantage over the two or offered himself as vulnerable and submissive.

I gave Drustan the choice to decide our roles, and he surprised me once again, surrendering the power of that choice back to me.

Temptation shook me to my core. I could abuse the power he’d relinquished to appease my own desire or I could return it in kind as a sign of friendship and good faith.

Desire rode hard that night—how could I deny the combined attraction of a handsome face, sculpted body, impeccable skill and willingness?

But it wasn’t about tonight. It was about him and I and Yseult and tomorrow.

It was the hardest word I’d ever uttered when I told him, “Tomorrow.”

A promise.

Not for the next day only.

But forever.

The belling of a hound on my third night out seemed more than circumstance. But it was a minor mystery only and one likely to go unresolved. I took the time while waiting for Palomides to warm up both Fallax and my injured shoulder. On our first night sparring I wanted, a little pridefully perhaps, to perform at my best.

Gah
, I was acting like an unbearded youth before his first conquest. Even the nervous anticipation I’d felt all day seemed to indicate something this was not.

When he trotted into the clearing on that magnificent white courser shining like a wraith in moonlight, I had to put aside any pretense at denial. Palomides wore breeches and a long split tunic color-sapped by the dark, but I could still see every hard muscle ridge and firm plane of him as clearly in my mind as they had been in my eye last night.

I tensed, and Fallax threw a worried buck, unsure what to make of the command. “Steady,” I told him—with a pat to the neck that was both assurance and thanks for the momentary distraction while I collected myself.

“He’s a young horse,” Palomides noted.

“With a good head. I have faith in him.” I nodded toward Palomides’ scabbard. “I brought an extra wooden sword if you need one.” Live steel was for the quintain and tourney only. Not for practice between knights. Although I did note the tip of his lance had been blunted. He must have gotten it from Anguish’s armory just I had gotten mine.

He nodded and I dismounted to retrieve the spare. I would have thrown it up to him, but he dismounted and came to take it, his hand a fingerbreadth above mine on the hewn hilt. His green eyes glinted like cut emeralds—some trick of the moonlight, I thought, until I realized the moon was behind him. Who was he?

“Des,” he said as he pulled the sword from me. “Call me Des.”

We fought long into the night, both on foot and mounted, mainly practicing blocking and precision to give my shoulder a final day to heal. Sweat slicked us both in the end, and I learned Palomides—Des—fought as well as any knight I’d met. He was bound to make the tourney interesting.

It occurred to me a knight without honor could have pressed the advantage during any of the repeated opportunities offered during practice. An exchange of steel for wood. Unblunting a lance. Even encouraging his mount to trample an unhorsed opponent. But Des performed with valor and integrity. It could have been confidence that he could best me come the tourney that kept him true, but my gut said otherwise.

For that, I owed him the respect of truth in turn.

“I owe you my name,” I told him once we’d laid down our swords and sat catching our breaths while the horses munched grass already collecting dew and the moon slipped low to the west. “You must not breathe it to any man or woman in Whitehaven, though, least of all to Yseult. Do you swear me that?”

Only an arched brow expressed his surprise. “I swear.” He didn’t make the vow in haste but pronounced it with solemnity and the unspoken understanding this was a matter of importance, a soul-deep baring of self and identity that of itself could do me harm.

Taking a deep breath, mainly to brace myself when I saw the fealty to my honor so naked in his eyes, I plunged ahead. “I am Tristan of Lyonesse, most recently of Tintagel Castle. King Mark is my uncle.”

I’m not sure what I expected. Rage. Denial. Simple surprise at the least. Instead, he merely sat there, waiting, watching, his expression of fealty and understanding never wavering.

Under that bone-honesty scrutiny that went on and on, I began to wonder if Des truly comprehended what I was telling him. To my bewilderment, I realized I didn’t just
want
him to intimately understand my predicament, I
needed
him to. He didn’t force me to continue, I forced myself, the words blunt even to my own ears. “I killed The Morholt, Yseult’s uncle, brother to the queen.”

Des’ unflinching emerald gaze never faltered. Little in this world could make me as uncomfortable as that never-ending stare. The longer it went on the more desperate I became for Des to acknowledge my words, me,
something
.

After an eternity he broke the silence but not the stare. “You didn’t kill The Morholt. Cornwall did. Mark did. As well to blame the sword or horse that helped fell him. You were the king’s tool. Could you have disobeyed your kin and king when he spoke the command to challenge?”

“If these knights knew, they would have my head. If Yseult knew…”

“You would never have her.”

“I don’t want her,” I protested.

“And I thought this was our night for speaking truth.”

I think it was the gentleness in that rebuke that angered me most. “She is Mark’s.”

“Not yet.”

No, I couldn’t think that. Thinking that meant there was a spark of hope to fend off Fate. Thinking that—

I shoved away from Des, forcing him to break that preternatural stare. “You! You mean to—what? Steal her away between here and Cornwall? Destroy the only chance for peace we have? What are you to be so cavalier about the future? English? Welsh?”

“Neither.” He shrugged. “All.”

“From the man who lectured me on truth not two minutes ago.” I spat my disgust. “I can’t—won’t—let you have her.”

“Believe what you will, but I’ll tell you this: it is only willing I would ever take her. I just want the chance for her to make the choice on her own.”

My anger fled, unable to face Des’ sincerity. Realizing he was held hostage to circumstance and heart the same as me. Knowing the despair soon to be visited upon us both. The only difference between he and I was that I had turned away hope. Just as he must too.

“She is her father’s daughter and a child of Ireland. Nothing you nor I can offer could even equal that in her heart. Loyalty over love is every queen’s lot.”

“Not every queen’s.”

He was right, of course. More than one queen’s neck had met the executioner’s axe, more than one queen had burned at the stake for forsaking duty for passion. “Could you still love a woman who would be so selfish?”

He struggled with that, too proud to concede defeat though the edges of it as it crept over him were clear in the slump of his shoulders and the shadowed look in his eyes.

Like me, he knew unimaginable pain waited for us in Cornwall upon a spoken vow of ‘I do’.

“Tintagel is my home,” I pointed out. “The least I can do is see that Yseult is not alone there in her sorrow.”

I didn’t offer him to come with me, just as he didn’t propose to. Our friendship was too new, our rivalry too strong. Yet we both knew, soul-deep, where destiny must lead us—and with whom.

Des gathered the reins and swung lightly to his horse’s broad back.

“Des.” A simple thing a name. Even one given in trust. Yet it gave me power to stop him and turn him back to me. “Call me Tris.”

In all, the week before tourney was like a small gift handed to us from God, an appeasement, perhaps, for the trials to come. Just after nightfall, Des and I would meet in the clearing to joust and swing our swords at one another.

Despite my having bared my secrets to him, Des seemed determined to keep his private however much I wore away at his armor with endless questions on the subject.

Only once did he expose a little piece of himself as we sat together between bouts sipping watered wine from our skins, a soft breeze cooling the sweat from our brows. Not for the first time I tried for an answer. “You have strength, cunning and that divine face of yours—all unforgettable. A hundred knights I might cross swords with in a tourney and not remember ninety-nine of them after. But you… How is it we’ve never met before? How is it we meet now, here in Whitehaven? A chance wind guided my boat here; what chance brought you?”

The uncanny way his eyes shone in the dark didn’t hide the sudden weariness that appeared in them. For a moment he looked far older than his years. It struck me that whatever pain he was running from might at last be catching up.

“My father conspired with a great Lady to set me a task. A quest as it were. One they described as a curse. From that moment my destiny lay here in Whitehaven, though then I knew it not. Before Whitehaven I thought the deed they asked impossible…”

“And now?” I prompted.

The heaviness of his sigh surprised me. “How can a deed seem both possible and impossible at once? No matter. I’ll see it through to its consequences because I must.”

“What penalty if you don’t?” I didn’t expect an answer. Already I could see Des reshoring his defenses.

But answer he did before the last scale of armor fell back into place. “I lose myself.”

Which told me everything and nothing at all.

~ ~ ~

By day, Yseult gave in to our pleas to see her, meeting us in a small, wisteria-draped courtyard, her handmaid beside her, desperate for a distraction.

Des and I sat at her feet, he telling great stories of legend and I singing love ballads. Brangien hovered nearby, pretending to sew but all the while making eyes at Des and trying to catch his attention with a witty word or anecdote. For the main, Des ignored her, which only made her work harder for his notice.

“Have you heard that a Gabriel Hound has taken up residence in the wood?” she asked, amid her ramblings.

“And what would you be knowing of Gabriels?” Des scoffed. It could have just been Des teasing with her, but the way he froze when she said
Gabriel Hound
made me think the air of nonchalance he assumed immediately after was cover for something more.

“Only that the scullery cook saw it for himself. A beautiful white dog he said it was with ears the color of the sunset. Right at dusk he saw it on the edge of the wood. Then it just melted away, like a wight would. And he would have thought it a wight too, save for the lonesome belling that followed it.”

“Sounds like an old man in his cups.”

“Mayhap.” Brangien latched onto Des’ show of interest like a leech. “But others have seen it too. And even more have heard it. At dusk and only then.”

Yseult’s interest had now been piqued as well. “What a miracle it would be to discover such a beast from legend.” Her eyes, dulled by days of mourning, brightened. “Distract me from my misfortunes. Capture it,” she pleaded.