Tristan and Iseult (13 page)

Tristan froze as the hounds passed by, his heart beating thick and heavy in his throat. But he and Karherdin had chosen their positions with care, on the down-wind side of the track; and no breath of air carried their scent to the hounds.

After the huntsmen came the King himself, riding among his nobles. And Tristan, watching between the tangled thorn branches, saw how his hair had greyed beneath the leather cap he wore, and how his face had aged and grown hard and heavy. But he passed on with all the rest; and behind him followed the Queen’s maidens with her pages and cupbearers, riding in pairs. And last of all, riding with only Brangian and Perenis beside her, and the hound Bran running at her horse’s heels, came Iseult the Queen; and instantly to Tristan it was as though another sun had risen and dawn was in the sky as well as sunset.

Beside him he heard Karherdin’s whisper, ‘That is she?’

And he nodded, and drew back his hand with the green reed he held, and sent it skimming like a dart into her horse’s mane as she passed.

Iseult looked down and saw it clinging there; she glanced aside at Brangian; but never towards the thorn-brake from which it had come. She plucked the reed out and flicked it away as though it was a thing
that had come there by chance. She brought her horse to a halt, and said to Perenis, ‘Ride ahead and beg the King to make camp here in this pleasant place for the night, for we have ridden far, and suddenly I am very weary.’

And as her maidens began to turn back and gather round her, she dismounted, and sat herself down on a mossy tree-trunk beside the way, taking care to keep the hound Bran close at her side.

Presently Perenis returned. ‘My Lord the King bids me tell you that this is not a fit place to camp, for the bushes grow so close that they would give cover to wolf or enemy right into our midst. But a short way further on there is open land and sweet water.’

‘What enemy does the King fear in his own hunting runs?’ said Iseult. ‘No wolf will come in among the camp fires; and if there is sweet water so close, let the servants fetch it. Go tell the King that I am too weary to ride even a short way further, and beg him to make camp here.’

So Perenis rode off again; and in a short while, watching from his thorn thicket, Tristan saw the whole hunting party coming back. He touched Karherdin on the shoulder, and they slipped away further up the hillside; and there they lay watching the camp servants setting up the striped tents and building the cooking fires as best they could in the wooded and bush-grown valley. Presently the smoke of the cooking fires rose from among the thorn trees, and torches began to flare in the deepening dusk; and Tristan heard the voices of the hunting party at their evening meal, and the struck notes of a harp.

When they had done feasting under the trees, the
Queen rose and withdrew with her maidens to the crimson tent which had been set up for her near the thorn-brake from which the green reed had come. She sent her maidens away, all save Brangian, and when they were alone she said to her friend, ‘Set the torch over yonder, and high, where it will cast only a little shadow if anyone should happen to come into the tent. Now go after the rest, and if the King should come this way, tell him that I am already asleep and would not be wakened.’

And still, among the thorn trees further up the hillside, Tristan waited, watching the camp below him until it was quiet, watching the glimmer of light from the Queen’s tent, like a dim red rose in the shadows of the autumn night.

At last he rose, and went down towards it, silent as another shadow, while Karherdin lay among the thorn bushes and watched him go.

The cloak that hung over the entrance to the tent had been drawn aside, and he went in.

The old hound crouching at Iseult’s side sprang up at his coming, and came whining to rub its great shaggy head against his knees. And beyond, Iseult sat among the piled cushions, combing her hair that was red as hot copper in the smoky torchlight.

She said, ‘Put out the torch. It has served to guide you to me, and the moon is better for keeping secrets.’ And she laid aside her silver comb and held out her arms to him.

NEXT MORNING VERY
early, with the autumn mist still hanging between the trees, Tristan and Iseult took their leave of each other. ‘Let me see that you still have my ring,’ Iseult said in the last instant; and
Tristan showed it to her, hanging on a leather thong round his neck. She touched it. ‘Does your wife, this other Iseult that you told me of in the night, ever wonder why you wear a woman’s ring about your neck?’

‘She has had wisdom enough not to ask.’

‘She has more wisdom that I would have had in her place,’ Iseult said. ‘There, put it back inside your tunic; and remember always, that it will call me to you. And remember also, the
Geis
that I set on you the last time we parted.’

‘I shall not forget. Anything that I am asked to do in your name, I will do, because I love you.’

Then she took his face between her hands and kissed him; and he left her in the doorway of the tent and slipped out through the still sleeping camp and away up the hill to where Karherdin waited for him.

They said nothing as to the night, but set out towards the Steward’s hall. But they did not go all the way; Tristan had no wish to run any further risk of bringing trouble upon Dynas, his friend; and he had ordered Gorvenal and Karherdin’s armour-bearer to meet them at a certain place with the horses, that they might all ride straight for the south coast of Cornwall.

Now by ill chance, one of King Marc’s nobles, Beri by name, coming late to join the hunt with several companions, chanced to see them on their way to the meeting-place. Karherdin’s armour-bearer was dark, and of the same slight build as Tristan, and the man caught only a glimpse of him in passing, but recognised Gorvenal with him, and so thought that he was Tristan indeed, and called after him to halt, meaning to find out what he did in Cornwall and tell him of the
hunt, for Beri was a friend to the Queen, though a somewhat foolish one.

When Gorvenal heard Tristan’s name called after them, he said quickly to the young armour-bearer, ‘Ride! If they come up with us there may be sore trouble for us all!’ And they struck spurs to their horses’ flanks and broke into a gallop, the lead horses with them.

At their backs they heard the drum of hooves as Beri gave chase, and his voice, shouting above the hooves, ‘Tristan! Tristan, would you be flying like a thief? Turn for your honour!’

‘Ride!’ said Gorvenal.

‘Then in the name of the Queen Iseult, if you still love her!’

‘Ride!’ said Gorvenal.

The man’s shouts grew fainter behind them, and at last they knew that they had shaken off both him and his company. Then they fetched a wide circle over the moors, and came back at last to the place where Tristan and Karherdin were waiting for them.

‘You have been slow on the road, then,’ said Tristan.

‘We were forced to be taking a long way round to shake off some men who rode on our trail,’ said Gorvenal. ‘They must have taken Bryn for you, for one of them – it was Beri, if I am not mistaken – called after him to turn, first for his honour’s sake, and then in the name of the Queen if he still loved her.’

And when he heard this, Tristan could have thrown up his head and howled like a dog, remembering his promise to Iseult, and knowing the harm that had been done all unwitting.

Meanwhile Beri, having lost the man whom he supposed to be Tristan, rode on to join the hunt deeply troubled, and contriving to get word with the Queen alone, told her how he had seen Tristan and called him to stop, and how he had struck spurs to his horse and galloped off, refusing to turn even when called upon in the name of the Queen herself.

As she listened, the anger rose hot and most bitter within Iseult, and she remembered the promise that Tristan had made again to her only that morning. He has broken faith with me, she thought. And never could he have done that while he still loved me. All his promises are false, and it is Iseult of the White Hands who holds his heart now.

Then she called Perenis to her, and bade him ride after Tristan and tell him that since he could forget his promises so easily, he had best forget all that had ever been between them.

Away rode Perenis, with a heavy heart. He knew where Tristan and Karherdin were to meet the others with the horses, and the road that they would take from thereon towards the south; and at the ford of a stream he came up with them and delivered to Tristan his message.

When he had heard it, Tristan said, ‘That is what I feared. Perenis, have you ever known me false to the Queen?’

Perenis shook his head.

‘Then go back to her, and tell her this: that it was not I whom the Lord Beri saw, but an amour-bearer – see, there he stands, dark as I am and built much as I am – coming up with Gorvenal to meet me with the horses. He knew nothing of the promise between my
lady and me. Say to her that if it
had
been me, I would have turned, for her sake, though there rode an enemy warhost on my trail.’

‘I will tell her,’ said Perenis. ‘But I am not sure if she will believe, for she is angry past clear listening and past thought.’

‘Do the best that you can,’ said Tristan, ‘and bring me back her word. We will be waiting for you here.’

So back again went Perenis, over the weary way, and found the Queen already gone to her tent, for by this time it was night. He told her faithfully all that Tristan had said; but she listened with a cold face turned aside. And when he had finished, she said only, ‘What did Tristan give you to tell me this story.’

‘My lady,’ said Perenis, ‘you are unjust, both to my Lord Tristan and to me!’

She looked long into his face, and laughed. ‘No bribe? Why, you simple soul, you believe him! Then go back and tell him that I do not believe so easily as you!’

‘Lady, will you not send a kinder message?’

‘Why should I? I do not care for faith-breakers,’ said she.

So back yet again went Perenis, on a fresh horse, but himself wearied to the bone; and came in the dark end of the night to the place where Tristan and his companions waited, wrapped in their cloaks and with their horses tethered nearby.

Tristan listened, sitting where he had sat all night beside the low fire that they had kept burning against wolves. And he bent his head on to his crossed arms and groaned.

‘There is nothing more to be done,’ said Karherdin.
‘As soon as it is light, we will ride. If we can find a ship, we can be back in Brittany within five days. My sister is not so fair as the Queen of Cornwall, but she is kinder.’

But Tristan was not hearing him at all. ‘I will go to her myself,’ he said. ‘I cannot leave her holding this against me.’

Gorvenal said, ‘To go back is madness! It is to throw your life away!’

‘No, for I shall not go in my own seeming. But if it
were
to throw my life away, still I could not leave her like this.’

Gorvenal sighed. ‘Then we come with you.’

‘This is between myself and Iseult the Queen. There is no place in it for any other. Let Perenis go back now, and let the rest of you wait for me here; and if I come again, I come, and if I do not – then I wish you calm seas and safe roads back without me.’

‘And what of my sister?’ said Karherdin.

‘Comfort her as best you may. She will have need of it, but there is no comfort in me.’

Then Tristan set about making his preparations. He took the old grey-hooded cloak that he had worn because it would blend into the country and not catch at any man’s eye to be remembered afterwards; and he whipped it with thorn branches and beat it between stones until it hung in rags; he rubbed into it wood-ash from the fire, and the staining lichen from the north sides of trees. And then he set to work with his dagger and some bits of old dry wood, to carve himself a clapper.

Gorvenal watched him like an anxious hound, and at last asked what he did.

‘I make myself a leper’s clapper.’

‘A leper’s clapper?’

‘It is a good disguise; few men care to tear a leper’s hood from his face! Once before, remember, I went to her in this guise; now I go to her as a leper once again, and it may be that she will remember that other time.’

And he set out, while the rest waited for him with anxious hearts.

He had far to go, for the hunting party were on their homeward way; and he must cover the distance cross-country and on foot. And it was long past noon when he heard the hunting horns gathering in the hounds far ahead of him, and came out on to the track in front of the hunting party. He stood beside the way, waking the dismal sound of his clapper as the head of the party passed by. Many of them threw him pitying or fearful glances, some swerved their horses aside, some tossed him a small coin; but he paid no heed to any, only stood there with his face hidden in his hood while they passed, until at last the Queen and her women came; and then he thrust forward. People barred his way, to guard the Queen, cursed him and shouted to him to go back. But he cried out to them that it had been promised him in a dream that if the Queen Iseult would but look into his face, he would be healed of his sickness.