Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (21 page)

That night I supped again with King Mark and the knights of his House. Tris sat again at the high table, only this time pulling his chair next to mine. Mark found no reason to gainsay the arrangement so long as I let his hands roam where they may.

Des sat at the first table before us, looking lost and alone. I frowned my way through the meal to Tris’ consternation, affected by Des’ gloom and Mark’s unwelcome hands. Tris and I had only one moment of privacy when Mark turned his attention to Dinas, his seneschal, to address a piece of business that likely had to with the wedding or the wedding guests.

“Will you meet me?” Tris’ whisper was urgent with the hope of forgiveness.

“The king’s courtyard. At ten,” I agreed, confident this king would not be retired by then.

Relief flooded Tris’ face, the expression so raw I feared Mark would see.

Only then did it occur to me to wonder if Des’ hearing was as keen as his hound’s. I flicked a guilty look his way. Perhaps it was only my imagination but he appeared more crestfallen now than before.

When I arrived at the courtyard, Tris was already there, pacing in nervous excitement. Not waiting for greeting, he swept me into his arms, his mouth greedy against mine.

“Has God put you at peace, then?” he asked when we parted for breath.

“Yes,” I said.

“And you still love me?”

“Yes.”

“Then Mark be damned.” With a flick of his hand he was unlaced. Wrenching high my skirts, he lifted me up to his waist. Wrapping my legs around him, I felt him rising, hard and swift. I leaned over his shoulder as he entered me.

Was it my imagination or did I see emerald eyes blazing in the dark?

~ ~ ~

Late the next morning my father arrived with an Irish envoy for the wedding. A retinue of a dozen nobles, their ladies and their servants had sailed the night on a three-master roundship built for passengers the way our single-masted cog had not been. I looked for my mother and didn’t find her, nor were any of the ladies arrived ones I was particularly close to. Political guests only they seemed, not any who truly cared for my welfare and happiness.

“Your mother sends her love, and says for you to look forward to her gift with joy. Apparently she sent it along with your handmaid,” Father said to me.

“Brangien’s dead,” I told him. “Lost at sea.”

He raised his thick brows. “Who…?”

“My handmaid. Tell mother her gift must have been lost as well.”

“Now that will be a disappointment to you both, won’t it? Ask Mark’s seneschal to help find you a new servant.”

“I don’t want a
new servant
. I want Brangien. She was a dear friend, and I’m desperate for a friend of my own age and sex.”

He patted my hand in that loving but patronizing way of his I knew so well. “I’m sure there are many ladies in Mark’s House who’ll wish to curry favor with their new queen. You’ll find a new friend soon enough.” He lifted my chin when I didn’t return his bright smile. “A gaggle of them more like.”

“Yes, Father.” I gave him a dutiful if wan smile. Pleased, he led his retinue into the Great Hall and though he must have been among the guests at my ceremony, I didn’t see him again before he left.

For the next day I was surrounded by servants preparing me for my wedding. As Tintagel was an efficiently run House, the seneschal had already seen to the complement of handmaids and the lady-in-waiting who attended me. Water warmed and tinged with the oils of lavender and cloves was poured over my hair while I was bathed. Powdered myrtle leaf was dusted on and sweet fragrances applied, even in intimate areas while the handmaids giggled knowingly.

Had I yet been virgin, such acts would have terrified, I’m sure, helping to make the mysteries of the wedding night one of dread rather than anticipation. I felt neither, of course, only resignation and repugnance—thankful that the measures for the night would be Tris and Des, and saddened by how sure I was Mark would only disappoint against competition such as they.

“You will hold vigil in the chapel tonight,” I was told. “Purge your sins there so you go clean of soul and body to Mark tomorrow.”

I hoped instead to find Tris waiting for me in the chapel. But two other knights were there with their surcoats and swords, honorary guards at the door. “To defend your virtue,” the handmaid who’d left me there said with the requisite giggle that had fast become tiresome before she left me in a room filled with lit candles and candlesmoke.

Under the rather bored eyes of the knights, I settled to my knees in the white shift I’d been dressed in and prepared myself for a very long night in this stuffy room, wishing instead it could be the lovely cave in the grotto that Des had named my private chapel by the sea.

The only thing I cleansed from my soul that night was joy.

In the morning when I was released at last began the tedious hours of hair brushing and arranging and fitting me to the gown a half dozen ladies had meticulously seamed and beaded.

The gown was art unto itself, made of soft damask and dyed the color of the inside of an abalone shell, and drenched in heavy stitchery and beadwork.

“It’s breathtaking,” I told the women sewing me into it, knowing how many long hours must have gone into the making of it.

At the end of all the pampering, they led me to a length of silvered mirror. The vision that stared back was stunning. How it could be me I didn’t know, but she moved as I did, putting lie to my doubt.

I only wished the vision in the mirror were wedding her way into happiness not despair.

One of the ladies stepped up behind me and clasped an exquisite chain of gold about my neck, arranging a brilliant sapphire pendant against the bodice of the gown. “A gift from the king,” she said.

“One you can thank him for tonight,” another of the ladies snickered and a bevy of giggles filled the room. I blushed dutifully.

“It’s time, my Lady.” The thought flitted briefly that tomorrow she’d be calling me
Your Grace
as I was led to the canopy set up on the green field where jousts were no doubt held. The late afternoon sun on the heavy gown made me better appreciate what the knights endured in their scaled leather hauberks when they fought.

Today, though, knights and nobles were dressed in bold, bright surcoats with their ladies in dazzling gowns beside them. Five hundred guests must have gathered on the green to see Mark wed. Des and Tris would surely be among them, but I was hurried into place and had no time to look.

“When the harper begins to play, walk slow to the canopy where the bishop waits,” the lady-in-waiting at my side instructed. “The king will follow after.” I nodded, wondering what the woman’s name was. She seemed kind. Motherly almost. A comfort to have around.

Then the music struck up and I had no thought but to put one foot before the other without stumbling.

Murmurs of appreciation nearby drowned the music as I walked the lonely aisle between the standing guests. I too had sighed seeing myself in such finery, but flattering though it was, it was also a reminder how much a stranger I was here. No doubt the exclamations today would turn to jealousy and disdain over my beauty tomorrow. And so I kept my eyes straight forward, glancing neither right nor left as I walked, not wishing to see the masks of faces put on for today. Tomorrow would be time enough to meet Cornwall for what it truly was.

When I reached the officiating bishop who stood in the canopy’s shade, I turned to watch the king approach. His dress was that of a military commander with his blue cloak flowing from his shoulders and the sword sheathed at his side. In his prime, he had no doubt been a striking man as his still-confident swagger attested. But time had thickened his jowls and gut, had grayed his hair and beard, and had deepened the wrinkles of command. He had aged as gracefully as any man, but aged he had. And I could not force attraction where no spark of it flamed. If at his finest my heart could feel nothing, it never would.

His eyes, however, lit with pride and lust as he closed in on me. “You are an angel of the Divine,” he whispered as he took my hand for all to see, before turning me to face the bishop. Together we kneeled before the Instrument of God as he chanted away in Latin, sounding serious and profound. When he at last switched to words I understood my knees on their cushion were cramping after last night’s vigil, and my mind felt numb from the effort to keep it from wandering.

As it was, I paid little deference to his words. Love, honor, obedience—it was all rote and formality anyway. I conveniently didn’t even have to respond so implicit it was I was chattel only in this relationship being sanctioned by God.

At the end, attendants helped us rise and we turned to face our guests as the bishop proclaimed, “I give you now your new queen, Yseult of Tintagel.”

The cheers and applause fell on ears numbed by Latin litany. I felt nothing, though I did manage a half-smile in response.

The king squeezed the hand he held as a company of nobles surrounded us. “Tonight,” he said, whether in promise or command, as he was whisked away for drink and celebration.

The ladies were more reserved, offering their polite congratulations before disappearing to engage in festivities of their own. When most everyone had dispersed to celebrate, the motherly lady-in-waiting and the handmaids she commanded swarmed about me, leading me back to my chamber where they promptly began plucking out the seams that held the elaborate gown to my body.

I stepped from it and out of the fine underdress before I was led to yet another bath laced through with fragrant oils. More hands toweled me, powdered me, and touched fragrance to my breasts and inner thighs. By then I was so tired of the giggles and knowing glances I would have ordered them all out, save that I understood the rituals were all these women had. They played their roles earnestly, enjoying them even, because this wedding ceremony meant a welcome change to the daily drudgery of their lives. For their sake, I endured.

They dressed me then in a simple white shift, barely modest enough for a stroll about the courtyard. It was expected, though, that I feast in it. “Custom, Your Grace,” I was told, though I did manage to delay my arrival in the hall by a good two hours.

By that time Mark had celebrated aplenty. Many of the court and guests with family had already left, leaving behind a dedicated knot of men and the occasional woman to see the new couple off to their marriage bed in the most appropriate way possible: filled with wine and mead.

I sat at the far end of the table from Mark, picking a bite or two of bread and meats from the scattered platters. I really wasn’t hungry but when the cup bearer came around I was determined to drink myself insensible if possible, and that meant indulging in a few bites now if I wasn’t to wind up ill in the morning.

Couraged after my first cup, quickly downed, I noted the king taking interest in me, his eyes more and more turned my way, though he laughed and drank still with the men about him. Frantically, I searched the half-empty hall and to my great relief found Des and Tris sitting together, both staring as intently at me as I at them.

I motioned them to the high table and they came at once, Tris teetering rather unsteadily while Des, presumably just as filled with mead, moving as gracefully as ever.

Mark frowned when the men collapsed into chairs beside me, though Tris had a place at the high table by right. I wondered if by sitting with Des he’d snub his uncle and king already this evening.

Drink would make the king jealous soon enough, but if I had to be at table with him until he was ready to… retire… by God, the queen would drink with her friends.

Tris leaned in close, breathing the scent of sweet mead over me. “My condolences on you wedding day, Your Grace,” he toasted, not so drunk his voice wasn’t private for our three ears alone.

I tipped back my cup and held it out for the boy who stood by the wall with a great urn to refill. “It is not the
day
which concerns me,” I confided to the men, “but the
night
.”

“We all glared over our rims at Mark.

“I should wish him much
speed
then,” Des said.

“He’s old,” Tris noted. “Perhaps he won’t even be able to rise to the occasion.”

“No,” Des sullenly disagreed. “Even the dead would rise for our fair Yseult.”

What should have been a sharp look from Tris was markedly dulled as he slurred, “What would you be knowing of that? Of
her
?”

That caught me by surprise. I had assumed Des would have told Tris where we’d gone. What we’d done. That they were comparing notes before I showed up.

“I have eyes, a heart and a lonely cod. What more do I need to know the truth?”

Tris nodded, easily appeased apparently when he was in his cups. Then he gave Des a long, appraising look and his demeanor changed. “’Lonely,’ did you say?”

Des went very still and careful, as though a small bird had landed on his finger and the slightest wrong move would frighten it away. “Lonelier still when Yseult goes to Mark tonight.”

Tris shifted his gaze from Des to me then back again. “Yseult and Mark…” He said my name in sorrow, the king’s in disdain, and I was sure that shameful image invaded all our thoughts the same.

With a gentleness so well remembered, Des placed a hand on Tris’. It could have been in comfort, but I—and Tris—knew it was an invitation.

Breath rushed out of me and my thoughts swirled. With effort I forced myself past the jealous snake that wrapped itself about me. I had lain with them both, and bedding one had not changed the love in my heart for the other. Should I expect their hearts to be less loyal? I would go to my marriage bed tonight. Did I expect them to remain celibate when I myself was pledged?

Of course not. That they might seek comfort together neither surprised me nor threatened me. What panged my heart so bitterly was how well I knew their endowments and their skills. If they were to lay together, they would share the ultimate divine joy that was Tris and Des combined, while I would have… Mark.

Always now and forever, I would have… Mark.