Tristan and Iseult (12 page)

Then Duke Jovelin called out certain of his men and gave them their orders; and by the last light of the sunset and then by the flare of torches, the bags of flour and the barrels of salt meat were brought, and received by the warriors at the castle gates, while Duke Jovelin stood by as Tristan’s prisoner to see it
done. And when the last sack and barrel had been carried inside Carhaix, the two champions parted, and the Duke went to where his sword still stood upright in the ground, and plucked it out and walked back to his own camp fires, while Tristan, with the sleeve of his tunic oozing red under his mail, went back into Carhaix.

Again the first to greet him was Karherdin. ‘I should hate you,’ said Karherdin.

‘But you do not,’ said Tristan.

‘I do not,’ said the Prince; and he put his arm round Tristan’s shoulders. ‘We shall sup tonight. But before we do, you must have that wound seen to. Come to the women’s quarters, and my sister will tend it for you.’

So Tristan went with Karherdin to the women’s quarters, behind the Great Hall of the stronghold. A maiden stood beside the fire, drawing a silver bell on a green thread along the floor for a kitten to play with. She had brown hair that fell forward on either side of her face, so that he could not see at first what like she was. But he saw her hands against the crimson stuff of her gown, and they were white and almost transparent as the point-petalled windflowers of the woods.

Karherdin said, ‘Here is our champion, who has won us another week of eating. He has not come scatheless out of the fight, and I have brought him to you to tend his wound.’ And as she looked up and smiled, he said to Tristan, ‘This is my sister the Princess Iseult.’

And that was how Tristan first saw Iseult of the White Hands.

The day after, a messenger got into the castle in secret, bringing word for King Hoel that two of his nephews were hurrying to his aid, with two hundred fighting men, and food to supply the castle for many weeks. Then the old King sent for Tristan and Karherdin and told them the good news. ‘They can scarcely be here before noon tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But from early morning we shall keep a watch; and when they appear, we must sally out to cover them from Jovelin’s warhost and bring them safe into the castle. I shall remain here with twenty men to hold the gate; the command of the rest I give to the both of you together.’

Next day a short while after noon, King Hoel’s kinsmen were sighted, and the gates were opened and the sally party marched out, Tristan and Karherdin at their head, shoulder to shoulder under the blue and emerald standard of Carhaix.

They had meant only to cover the two hundred safe into the castle; but Duke Jovelin’s men, on their lower ground, could not see the dust-cloud of the relief force; and seeing only the band that came out through the castle gate, they set up a great shout and sped roaring to the attack. Then King Hoel’s nephews heard the sounds of fighting from afar, and came charging over the hill to take the rebel warhost in the rear. And all at once there was full battle raging across the level ground before the walls of Carhaix.

Long and savagely they fought, the fortunes of the battle swinging now this way and now that; and at one time Karherdin, cut off from his companions, was surrounded by Duke Jovelin’s men, and in sore danger of being cut down or taken captive. But
Tristan, seeing his desperate peril, charged to his rescue with a band of his own men beside him, and broke through the enemy’s ranks to the Prince’s side.

Then they turned together upon the enemy, and made a new charge; and this new charge, fiercer and stronger than any that had gone before, broke the battle-mass of Duke Jovelin’s fighting men and swept them from the field.

Before sunset forty of the rebel chiefs and their men with them were captives, and many more were dead. And Duke Jovelin himself, forced to submit, had sworn on the hilt of his sword to be King Hoel’s loyal man from that day forth, and to restore to him all that he had torn from him by war.

That night as they sat at meat in the Great Hall of Carhaix, and the Princess and her maidens went among the warriors keeping the wine cup filled, the old King turned to Tristan sitting beside him, and said, ‘Today it was as though I had two sons in battle below our walls. Two nephews, and two sons. And now it is in my mind, if you will have it so, to take you for another son indeed.’ And for a moment Tristan was not sure of his meaning. ‘The land has been laid waste because I would not give my daughter to a husband I deemed unworthy. Now the land will grow green again and fires will burn on the hearthstones, and for your part in this, I give her to you, for you are worthy of her.’

And Tristan saw the Princess Iseult standing before him with a great wine cup in her hands; and this time her face was not hidden by her hair for the thick brown braids were bound back under goldwork for a festival; and he saw the colour flood into her cheeks, deep as the foxgloves of the Cornish woods, and her eyes bright and soft; and he knew that her heart was towards him.

And he thought, Surely this is a thing that Fate has written on my forehead. My own Iseult is lost to me, and I shall never see her again. Now, here is another Iseult. If I refuse her, she will be shamed, and if I take
her, there may be something of happiness for us both, even though it be a happiness with its wings clipped so that it cannot fly. So he said, ‘If the Princess will have it so, then I will have it so, and gladly.’

And he set his hands over hers on the great wine cup, and bent his head, and drank.

SO TRISTAN AND
Iseult White-hands were married, and for a whole year they lived their lives together. But Tristan never grew to feel for her as a man should feel for his woman; as he would have felt if it had been the other Iseult beside him. He was always kind to her, but there was no fire nor joy nor laughter in the kindness, for all the fire and joy and laughter that had once been in him he had left in Cornwall. Iseult White-hands never complained, never told anyone if she was unhappy, for she was always good at keeping secrets, much better than Iseult of Cornwall had ever been. But Karherdin her brother, who loved her dearly, saw how things were between her and Tristan, and determined to speak with him.

He watched his chance; and one day, riding on the seashore, he saw how Tristan let the reins fall slack on his horse’s neck, and how he rode half-turned in the saddle and looking out to sea, quite forgetful of his companion. And he said, ‘What is it you see out there?’

Tristan started, and came back into himself. ‘Only the waves and the seabirds.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Karherdin.

‘What else should I see?’

‘Cornwall lies that way.’ (For Tristan had long since told him he was from Cornwall after Lothian.)

‘And why should I be looking towards Cornwall?’

‘I was wondering if you were looking for the thing, whatever –
whoever
– it may be, that holds you from loving my sister as a man should love his wife.’

Tristan started, and his hand on the rein set his horse dancing; and when he had quietened it, he turned to Karherdin and asked, ‘What makes you think that I do not?’

‘I have watched you together often enough. And always – more and more of late – you are like a man whose heart is somewhere else, and his breast empty within him.’

Tristan rode in silence a while, along the line between the wet sand and the dry; and then he said, ‘It is true as you say. I have no power to love your sister Iseult, for all the love that I have I left behind me long ago in Cornwall, with another Iseult.’

‘I have heard that the Queen of Cornwall bears that name,’ said Karherdin.

And again they rode in silence between the wet sand and the dry. Then Karherdin said, ‘Men say that she is very fair.’

‘Men speak true,’ said Tristan. ‘She is more beautiful than any other woman that I have ever seen. But if she were bent and ugly as old Ginna who begs at the castle gate, still I must love her . . . Day and night the longing for her drags at me. Day by day and night by night it grows worse and not easier . . .’ And again he set his horse dancing in protest. ‘Karherdin, my brother, it is come to this – that I must go back and see her once more, or I think that I shall die or run mad!’

‘And when you have seen her?

‘I do not know,’ Tristan said, and his voice was
hoarse and weary as the voice of one who had lain too long wakeful and in pain. ‘It may be that by seeing her I shall ease my heart and come back to Iseult White-hands. I know only that as I am I am no good to any woman, nor any man. But how should you understand?’

‘Better, maybe, than you would think,’ said Karherdin, looking straight between his horse’s ears. ‘For I too see a woman’s face always between me and the sun.’

And after a while, Tristan said, ‘Tell me, then?’

‘It was before ever Duke Jovelin came seeking my sister’s hand. One day when I was riding, I came upon a band of maidens gathering hawthorn branches, for it was the first day of May. One of them – she seemed to me the fairest of them all – told me her name was Gargeolain, and we met again and again and made secret promises to marry when she had seen another summer go by, for she was very young. But I was called away to trouble on my father’s borders, and when I returned, they had forced her into marriage with a vassal chief called Bedenis. He was among those who besieged Carhaix last year.’

‘But if she was unwilling, why did she not tell them she was yours – call on your father for aid?’

‘She knew only that I was a man called Karherdin – and that’s no uncommon name in Brittany. I never told her I was my father’s son, for it was sweet to me to be loved as a man and not a prince. Oh, I had meant to tell her later, but when I was sent away there was no time; and so when Bedenis came seeking her, she could say only, “I am promised to a man called Karherdin” – and he was not to be found.’

‘And you have never seen her since?’

‘Yes, twice. Her lord rides hunting almost every day and never takes her with him, but keeps her close shut in his stronghold, behind high walls, for he is a most jealous man. And twice, passing by along the track that leads below the castle mound, I have looked up and seen her standing on the ramparts. A long way off, but I could not be mistaken.’

Then again they rode in silence between the dry sand and the wet, until at last Tristan burst out, ‘Karherdin my brother, for the sake of all that you feel for Gargeolain, help me to leave Brittany for Cornwall once more. I swear that I will come back.’

And Karherdin said, ‘Now that the realm is at peace and we can be spared, let us go on a journey together. I hear that King Marc breeds fine horses, and I am minded to add to my stables – it will serve as excuse at my father’s Court.’

So with only Gorvenal and a trusted armour-bearer of Karherdin’s for company, they took ship and sailed for Cornwall, and made their way to the hall of Tristan’s old friend Dynas of Liden, the High Steward. And Tristan begged him, ‘Go to the Queen for me, show her this ring and bid her to arrange two days’ hunting in the White Lands. Bid her to see that they take the valley track, and at a certain point, I will be lying hidden among the bushes, and I will flick a green reed into her horse’s mane, for a sign to her that I am there – it is an old, idle trick of mine she will remember. And where she receives the sign, there let her persuade the King to halt and make his hunting camp for the night.’

‘Once,’ said Dynas, ‘I begged the King for your
banishment in place of your death, and offered to pledge my own honour you should not return to Cornwall. The King would not listen to me, and therefore I hold myself free in this matter.’

And he went to Tintagel, and contriving to get word with the Queen alone, showed her the ring and gave her Tristan’s message.

She turned from white to red and back to white again; but she made no sound and gave no sign, for though they had drawn aside into an inner doorway, they were in the same room in which the King and one of his lords were playing chess beside the hearth. Only she turned to the chess-players. ‘My Lord, your High Steward brings word of a fine twelve-point stag that has been seen in the White Lands. Shall we go hunting tomorrow? For truly I grow weary of Tintagel walls, this fine blue autumn weather.’

The High Steward returned with his message. And when the shadows lengthened on the next evening, Tristan and Karherdin were lying up in the heart of a hawthorn thicket where the valley track led into the White Lands – it was from the thorns that fleeced all the country round about with a snow of blossom in the spring, that those hunting-runs got their name. They had sent Gorvenal and Karherdin’s armour-bearer back with the horses to the High Steward’s hall, and they were alone in the woods touched with the first fires of autumn.

The shadows lengthened and lengthened and the sunlight grew thick like floating gold-dust in the air. And then at last they heard the sound of hooves and feet far off down the track. Nearer and nearer came the sounds, until the foremost of the hunting party
came into view; the servants, leading mules laden with rolled up tents and awnings, with pots and pans and great baskets of provisions and all the wherewithal to make the hunting camp. After they had gone by, came the steward and cupbearers; and then the falconers with the hooded falcons on their fists and the huntsmen with the King’s great hounds in leash.