Tristan and Iseult Read online

  Tristan and Iseult

  By JD Smith

  Copyright © 2013 JD Smith

  Kindle Edition

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

  Cover design and formatting www.jdsmith-design.com

  Published by Quinn Publications

  All enquiries to [email protected]

  First published, 2013

  ISBN: 978-0-9576164-2-4

  For Marcus, a great reader, who may one day read this.

  Rest assured that, although it is a story of love, it also has swords.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  Promises are a show of faith when doubt shadows men,

  a reflection of the person we desire to be,

  and a bind to a path we wish to take.

  It is the latter likely kept.

  Chapter 1

  Tristan

  Rustling emanates from the dense forest, even though the wind has dropped. White mist shrouds us. I tense to stop cold shivers taking hold. The rain is fine, yet a hand through my hair proves it is wetter than the streams in springtime and my footing slides on the muddy grass as we pick our way through undergrowth.

  Beside me, Rufus glances at our scouts dotting the countryside. His expression unconcerned as he tries to appear calm.

  ‘I cannot believe the Saxon scum have moved this far west. Who would have thought it, eh, when we were boys?’

  Just sixteen. Still a boy, I think. And I am only three years older.

  ‘I wish we were back in Kernow, instead of here in this forsaken place,’ he continues. ‘I miss the coast and the sea breeze and decent meals.’

  I look around. I have little knowledge of how far these lands extend. We are further east than I have ever been, called upon by our neighbour, the King of Dumnonia, to provide a defence, and with luck push the Saxons back. I am told beyond here lies Atrebatia and Lundein, but no Briton has trodden either ground since the invaders claimed them.

  ‘I think this winter is harder than the last,’ Rufus says. ‘I cannot feel my feet. The bastards better arrive today before we freeze!’

  I nod absently. I hear a noise in the distance. Horns, I think, but I cannot be sure. Some say your mind begins to play tricks on you after a while. The cold and the quiet and the waiting; they let thoughts run too free.

  Ground mist and fogging breath look the same. Rufus is right: I can no longer feel my toes, despite the layers binding them. Then I know I hear it. The horns … and drum beats.

  ‘Your silence makes me uneasy,’ Rufus says.

  ‘Not so loud. The enemy is close.’

  Rufus’ face is white and his eyes wide in the dawn.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Listen. Can you hear the drums?’

  I snap my head from one side to the other, trying to determine their location. Rufus falls silent and listens, too. I see other scouts smelling the air, sensing the Saxons drawing close.

  ‘I hear it,’ he says.

  ‘They are cowards,’ I whisper. ‘They come from the woods so they can hit and retreat. A stream to our left. Uneven ground to the right. We cannot flank them here.’

  As I speak, the forest shimmers and dark figures emerge.

  ‘Gods, you are right. Why are you not giving the orders, eh? Under the Dumnonian’s command, we might as well be led by a woman.’

  I know how he feels. Each man is as safe as the skill of the warriors beside him and that of the men leading him. Here we are brothers and must trust one another. But trust the Dumnonians? They let the invaders cross their borders and now they need our help. What trust does that deserve?

  ‘Stop worrying,’ I say. ‘This is Dumnonian territory. We will be home again soon enough.’

  ‘I wish I had your belief,’ he says.

  The men lining the edge of the forest grow clearer in the still air.

  Rufus tugs on my arm.

  ‘We must go back and report their progress.’

  The enemy’s chanting grows louder. They want our army to hear them. They want to put fear in our hearts and make the hands that hold our swords tremble.

  I put my own hands beneath my arms to warm them ready for the moment when I’ll need to grip my sword. I have unsheathed it many times this day already to ensure it does not stick in its scabbard. It is a Roman blade; better forged than all the iron in Briton.

  ‘Let’s move before they see us,’ I say, as signals relay back and forth between the distant scouts, barely visible in the mist.

  We slide our way back to our mounts.

  ‘We have been lucky,’ Rufus says. ‘We encountered the Saxon three times this winter. Three times we have walked away with our lives. Do you think we can do it again?’

  He is grinning like a confident fool. I know that look. Hesitation and a question linger behind the smile.

  ‘How long will the gods’ favour last? With luck a few more battles at least.’

  His expression falters.

  ‘Listen to me, Rufus. Listen carefully.’ He slips and I grip his arm to steady him. ‘Are we not better fighters than the Dumnonians?’

  He nods.

  I say: ‘Then if we fall, we fall last and we fall hard. That is all you need to know. In the meantime, enjoy yourself.’

  I am unsure I believe my own words. I have caused my cousin injuries with a wooden sword more times than I have picked him from the ground after a fall or consoled all the girls whose hearts he has broken. I do not wish to lie to him. I could never twist truths as other men do. But he needs me, does little Rufus. He needs me to be strong for him. How long can a man stand in battle before the odds turn against him? Luck will see us right for a while. Then it will fade, just as everything in this accursed world.

  We reach the horses. Mine snorts in irritation at having to postpone grazing as I heave myself up into the saddle and drag on the reins to pull the beast round.

  ‘Hurry, Rufus.’

  I do not like being so close to the enemy. Their ways are strange. They rub their skin with stinking fat and howl like dogs. I
hear their wails and chants echoing across the muddy scrub-land. They will send their own scouts ahead and I do not want them to close the distance between us.

  Rufus fumbles his foot into a stirrup. Impatience grips me until he finally hauls himself up and we are away, the horses’ footing careful on the sodden ground.

  Our warriors fall out either side of an old Roman road. Many lift skins of mead to their lips to fire courage, suspecting this will be the day to fight, or else they heat their blood to stave off the damp that tickles their joints. Faces are grey and dirty and tired as they look at us expectantly. Servants take our mounts and Rufus and I pick our way through the mass of men without a word to anyone. They know, I am sure, what news we deliver. But they will wait; King Geraint must hear it first.

  The Dumnonian king stands with his councillors. They listen to another scout and the king’s head moves up and down as the man gives his report, telling him the invaders do not appear to be in the north lands at present. When the scout has finished, the king flicks a hand and the scout is ushered away. Geraint beckons Rufus and me forward.

  ‘What news, Rufus ap Mark?’

  He stares at my cousin in earnest. His eyes are too close together, and his face is gaunt with worry. I am told he no longer eats, for a growth inside his belly leaves little room for food.

  My cousin glances to me, but Geraint does not address me, and Rufus needs to prove himself.

  ‘Their army has moved, my Lord. They are waiting for us on the edge of the forest, half a mile east.’ Rufus pauses. ‘There is a stream on one side and rocky ground on the other. If we face them there, we cannot flank them.’

  He speaks with confidence and I smile inwardly at his remembering my words.

  King Geraint glances at the ground and then around at the men sharpening their blades, cleaning their armour, cooking breakfast over embers still glowing from the night before.

  ‘Damn them!’ the king mutters. ‘Damn the pagans to a Christian hell, every last one of them.’

  I flinch at his use of pagan when so many men of Briton still worship the old gods, but I say nothing.

  ‘We must face them today,’ another man growls. A scar carves his beard in two and he has only three teeth in a savage mouth. ‘They are too close to our settlements already. We cannot afford to yield any more of Dumnonia.’

  I check my blade again. Habit, I know, but I need to be ready. The day wears on. The sun has not yet broken through. The chill of morning still bites.

  ‘Is there a way around the forest?’ I ask.

  ‘We should not split our force,’ the scarred man grunts.

  ‘Who says to split it?’ I reply. ‘Sparing a few men to suggest we are located here, I say we move all our warriors to their rear. Cut them off from their own people and make a dent that will see them retreat until summer at least.’

  Everyone looks to me. I shrug and turn away, as if my words were merely a suggestion of no importance.

  ‘What is your name?’ the king demands.

  ‘Tristan.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘I have no father.’ The words are so familiar I do not think of their meaning as I speak them.

  Geraint’s look hardens as he waits.

  ‘My uncle, King Mark, speaks for me.’

  ‘Are you trying to amuse me, Tristan ap Mark?’ the king says, his tired eyes irritable, the lines of his forehead deeper. ‘To move our men and leave the Saxon a clear path into the heart of my kingdom?’

  ‘No, my Lord.’

  The scarred man’s breath plumes as he stands beside Geraint. Sores on his cheeks weep down his face and into his beard.

  I glance to Rufus in reassurance, for I know he is nervous. ‘Your father would agree,’ I say to him, ‘if he were here.’

  ‘Mark is not here,’ the King of Dumnonia replies lightly, flicking a hand to the warriors surrounding us. ‘He did not think our cause worthy of his personal attention. He did not come himself.’

  Geraint’s words might be light, but his fur-covered shoulders are huge and the sword at his waist well used. I do not wish to antagonise him.

  ‘He sent his son,’ I reply, gesturing to Rufus, ‘and me, whilst he faces the Irish threat to our own lands. He can give you no more.’

  Geraint pulls a hand through his beard without reply.

  Rufus was right: I wish the Kernish were in command.

  That Mark were here.

  Chapter 2

  Iseult

  I lie on the gritty shore. My eyes are closed and my hair is full of sand. The wind drags spray that dries on my lips. I taste it: salty, abrasive, clean. Gulls cry overhead. I am cold and the ground and the air and my skirts are all damp. I shiver. Close my eyes tighter. Stop them watering. Prevent the tears trailing more salt down my cheeks.

  In the distance, my mother calls. Her voice carries on the wind, my name distorted. Dawn has come quickly. I have been here since the early hours. She worries about me, or perhaps she feels guilt.

  I do not call back; she will find me in time. I think of celebrations that will commence when our men are home, the food and the drink and the dancing. The music. I will play the harp as I always do. We will toss up in the air the coins our warriors have taken, and listen as they clink and clatter and ring on the floors of our feasting halls. We will sleep when our bellies are full and our eyes tired, and the day after we will be merry once more.

  My mother approaches. She has long pale hair like my own, and it whips across her face and her skirts cling to her legs as she strides along the shore towards where I lie. Even from this distance, I can sense her irritation. As she grows nearer, I see her furrowed brow and hard mouth.

  ‘Everyone has been looking for you. I thought you’d been swept off by the tide. Lost in some foreign land,’ she says, drawing close.

  I get to my feet and brush sand and grit from my clothes. Stagger a little. I have been lying on the ground too long and my limbs are drained of life and my head light.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she demands.

  Looking about me, I say: ‘Here. I have been here all the time.’

  ‘The whole night?’

  I do not answer. There is no point. She does not want excuses; she wants to be angry. So I let her.

  ‘Speak to me …’

  ‘I watched the sun break the night.’

  ‘You go nowhere alone,’ she says. ‘You take your maid and one of our warriors with you everywhere. I cannot have you wandering the shores alone in the dark, or at any other time.’

  ‘Of course, Mother.’

  ‘Our lord will not stand for your independent ways, your selfishness and your disobedience,’ she says.

  I knew that was the reason for her impatience. She is concerned for our lord’s temperament above all else.

  I must look weary at her words, for she continues: ‘Our position is not secure. Not until he is king and you have his heir in your belly. Only then will we maintain our position within the tribe.’

  I flinch at her words. When our lord returns home this time, I am to be his wife. I will do what I am requested to do. Submit to the man who leads our people. Be honoured I am chosen above all others to sit beside our strongest warrior.

  Morholt.

  ‘Our uncles ensure our safety,’ I reply.

  ‘Do not be stupid, child.’ Her voice pierces the wind as shrill as the gulls. ‘They rule in the north. Morholt has an understanding with them only because they do not have enough men to command these southern lands, and neither are they interested. Be assured, Morholt’s power in these parts increases with each passage to Briton. He has them squirming on what is left of their pitiful island.’

  We walk in silence a while. I think of Morholt. How he takes the girls of our tribes to his bed. I hear them, sometimes, screaming and crying and whimpering. I cannot imagine what he does to them; I dare not imagine. But in the mornings their faces are bruised and swollen, skin broken, bodies bloodied. They will not talk of it. They are
afraid, just as I am afraid.

  My safety was assured when my father ruled over these lands. My mother is still Queen in name, but no longer possesses any power; not until the union she seeks is complete. I am a queen’s daughter. So he has been savouring the moment when he can take me — a woman of the blood — for his own, and secure not only his strength over men, but a rightful heir.

  ‘Father always said we could call upon our uncles if we needed to.’

  ‘Your father is dead.’

  I want to cry for the unfeeling manner in which she refers to him. She cared for him, but the anxiety caused by his passing has taken its toll and she is no longer the woman she once was. I hear whispers Morholt killed my father, and she has heard them too. They may be true, for he is a man to be feared above all other men; a man who raids foreign countries to swell our lands with gold; who covers his warriors’ shields in the blood of those who stand against him.

  As a girl I sat with my father’s men, cross-legged in wheat fields, and painted our shields red with sheep-blood. My father said it was to frighten our enemies, but Morholt says they know it is not human. So he hangs those he captures in raids; hangs them in the barn and drives blades into their necks and lets their blood drain into buckets. He lines the bodies on our shore to face the kingdoms beyond the sea. Then he uses the blood to paint our men’s shields, drying dark and brown.

  Our lord is a man without mercy, whose purpose is simply to amuse himself. He does not acknowledge any god, nor does he fear them as others do. Wary, yes, but never frightened of the wrath that might bring down upon us. He laughs in the face of the higher rulers, the ones even kings fear. And he no longer allows us to pray.

  But I do. I pray each morning and each night. I pray on my knees before an altar in a cave on the shore where my father once used to give sacrifice. I pray because I am frightened of what is to come …

  We walk homewards along the shore in silence. I think of praying again, hoping that Morholt will not return to us.