Queen's Heart: An Arthurian Paranormal Romance (Arthurian Hearts Book 2) (24 page)

Why did it take such grief to draw men together so? I wondered. Fae celebrated the joys of love in all its forms. I didn’t love Tris in the way I adulated and adored Yseult or in the way I still held Brinn full in my heart. Nor was it simple lust for a body as magnificent as his, though I could deny neither its magnificence nor my lust, because lust for Tris was an integral part of my love for him, just as lust for Yseult and Brinn was part of my love for them.

There was no shame in lust, as men were taught, nor did it lessen love; instead, it added a joyful dimension to love that separated it from the spiritual or familial. In truth, true lust was a gift more rare than love. And to both lust for and love the same being was the gift most rare of all.

In trust, Tris let me lead him in our first days in the grotto. There was no hurry. Our days were all of hours needing to be filled. Mine was a slow dance of seduction, introducing him to pleasures he could know no other way.

I worshiped him with breath and tongue, with the gentle rain of my fingertips over him and as much of the hard length of me as he could stand.

In those first days, his moans alone were my reward.

On the third day, student became master. When he swallowed me without hesitation or revulsion and his eyes glazed with pleasure as I shuddered against him, he wrapped his arms about my hips to draw me even closer, and I cried my joy to the sea.

Later, as we lay spent, collecting our breaths for another assault, Tris asked, not for the first or even the third time, “I trust you above all men, Palomides. Tell me today for certain that what plan you have for Yseult will save her from the fire.”

I laid my palm along his bearding cheek. “If truth could give your heart ease, I would tell it to you loud and strong. There is no certainty. Only hope in a foolish idea and trust that Fate is not yet with the three of us. But I will repeat what you already know. Should my ‘miracle’ fail, I will die at your side to free her.”

“What has Fate to do with us?”

“Nothing. Everything.”

He shoved my hand away. “Why do you still guard secrets from me? Tell me straight what ‘miracle’ may come. A host of angels from heaven? Wee folk and pixies to charm her away? A deluge from the sea to quench the fire? You ask me to trust and trust. Why, then, can you not trust me with the truth?”

He was right, of course. It was fear that stayed my tongue. He loved Yseult far too much. In all else I trusted him with heart and life. I even trusted that if he knew who I was—what I was—he would not turn me away. Not now. But if he could find a way to use it to keep a wedge between Yseult and me…

Of course, it was also possible Tristan wouldn’t believe the truth, even when confronted with it.

“Very well then,” I told him. “What do you know of magic?”

“What,” he scoffed, “a petty spell like Isolde’s to go awry as hers did? If you won’t tell me truth at least feed me a believable lie.”

He still only half-believed Isolde’s philtre had anything to do with his rabid desire for Yseult. If he couldn’t believe in the power of simple earth-magics held in bone and leaf and blossom, how could he believe in the Old Magics that had shaped the world? What was wine but earth-magic made popular? Or steel that gave edge to rock but magic forged in fire?

No, Tris was not yet ready for the truth.

For my part, I prayed what Old Magics were left in the world for me to command had carried my simple plea to my father:
Tintagel on Monday dawn
.

I laid my other palm on a point far from Tris’ bearding cheek. “You have trusted me in
this
.” I gave him a tender squeeze and he responded by filling the circle of my hand. “Trust that when the time is right, I will satisfy you in every way.”

His exasperation only tempered for now, still he nodded. Because not only did he
want
to trust in me, he
needed
to trust something in this world beyond himself. Mark may well have been that touchstone for him once, but no longer. Yseult could not be counted, for there was nothing of risk there—they who were a single soul. That left me to be his risk, his faith, his humanity. A responsibility I swore to bear with honor.

He swore his own oath to me. “Today, I will satisfy
you
in every way.”

He turned me over then, and later we both cried
Yseult
to the sea.

We slept the day Sunday to be ready for whatever the next morning would bring. Des woke, anxious, just before sundown. Pushing open my arms, he slipped from my embrace. I caught him just before he fled.

“Running after your miracle?” God help me, I tried to keep the sneer from my voice.

He trembled in my grip. But that unnatural stare of his held steady on my own. His jaw worked as it tried to find the answer, whether truth or lie, to say.

“Yes.” He gave the word up like a sacrifice. A promise. Or perhaps a confession. “You know I am forsworn to you. To Yseult. Please, let me go.”

It was his ‘please’ that undid me, shamed me for the doubt I harbored. He spoke it earnestly, not beggingly. Still, that he felt need to utter it at all here in this cave with me…

“Is it still possible to doubt where I trust implicitly?” I asked in way of apology.

Even Des’ half-smile had power to light the shadows. “I think that’s fair to ask of life in general.” His arm slid half-way through my grip till we were clasping forearms like brothers or warriors, in friendship and respect.

“I’ll return,” he promised. “Soon.”

Perhaps he went to meet the Gabriel Hound I heard baying by the sea. To tell it the secrets he kept yet from me. Or to absolve himself on the eve of the day we might both be marching to our deaths.

Mark would have a retinue of knights at the ready in case of our return. Knights in leather and scales, which Des and I had not. Two swords and two horses between us and I without even a pair of leggings, and with only a stolen tunic at that.

We could call challenge, by law. And by law, I could not defend myself as champion. Des would have to fight for me. If Mark agreed to a settlement by arms, that would give me great confidence as there was not a Cornish man alive, save myself, likely to best Palomides in his wrath.

The king, of course, was above the law and not bound to it the same as we. Even if we called challenge there was no guarantee Mark would heed our plea. But if challenge was what Des planned, why be secretive?

He returned just after nightfall, changed in both demeanor and voice when he greeted me.

“Meditation becomes you,” I said. Anxiety had fallen away and his face was set in grim purpose.

“We ride at midnight,” he said quietly.

I nodded. If we arrived too soon there was greater chance of discovery, greater opportunity for all to go wrong.

The hours before midnight, though, were three of the longest I’d ever known.

The only ones to rival them were the three we endured outside of Tintagel waiting for the dawn.

Locked in my chamber, knees bruised from kneeling, days beyond the tears that had earlier flowed so free, I waited for the dawn. Not for death but for salvation. Five days alone in Tintagel with the castle turned against me and not even the comfort of my dead handmaid or my absent lovers to sustain me had convinced me I didn’t want to suffer a sixth. Whatever the dawn held, I welcomed.

I offered one last prayer for the sake of Ireland and the well-being of Tris and Des before the chamber door opened and a young servant girl was rudely pushed inside.

“M-my Lady, they bid me give you this. I-I’m instructed to help you dress.” The garment she held out was an ugly thing. Gray sack cloth, rude and coarse against my skin as she fitted it to me with a belt of knotted rope.

I handed her a brush and she gave my hair twenty strokes, leaving it unbound for the fire. I reached for my slippers, but she stopped my hand.

“Leave her feet b-bare, I was told.”

Of course.

I drew myself up in dignity, took the frightened child by the hand and went to meet the men who’d condemned me. Six knights waited to escort me to the stake. They surround me, on high alert, as we walked the league to where Mark, a bishop to preside, and two more knights stood before a mound of faggots and tinder from which a strong young yew trunk upthrust.

Glancing back over my shoulder I saw this dell had been chosen with care, hidden by a trick of the land from any sight of the castle. Mark and Church meant to keep this a private affair.

I approved.

Like nervous geese eight knights ringed the waiting stake, sweating vigilance and fear. They expected unwelcome guests, and I prayed Tris and Des would not be so foolish to oblige them. The days had passed when I prayed rescue from them. That hope was buried. Their safety now was my only care.

“Yseult,” the bishop said, attaching no title to my name, “do you understand the charge of adultery that has been levied against you?

I shook my head and my hair tumbled across my shoulders. “Perhaps Your Excellence would be so kind as to explain.”

“Explain!” Mark’s eyes riveted on me, on the cascade of hair that flowed down my back. “You were caught with Tristan’s cod up your arse. What more is there to explain?”

“My
husband
”—I stressed the word—“did you see such a crude display for yourself?”

“I saw you and Tristan naked in the courtyard. That is proof enough.”

“I am often naked with others. When I swim. When I bathe. Do you also accuse me of betraying you with the handmaids you’ve sent me?”

“Don’t be foolish.” Mark’s face reddened in growing anger and exasperation.

The bishop stepped smoothly in. “Confess, child. Let heaven absolve you.”

“I have nothing to confess that God has not already been witness to. He has seen fit to not strike me dead. Why do you insist on being the one to do it?”

“You mistake, child. Church and king are the hands of God’s justice. It is His will we see done. Confess.”

The word hung stark in the brightening sky.

Then a thunder of hooves was upon us as two great stallions crashed into the dell. The slur of swords escaping scabbards sounded around me.

“Hold!” Tris cried, a god upon his steed, the sudden power here, above that of even Church or king. “I demand trial by arms. Or do Cornwall’s own laws not apply?”

“
I
am Cornwall and the law here,” Mark replied as his knights closed around.” Judgment and sentence have been passed. Where was your champion to defend then? She will burn for her crime. As will you. Take him!”

My heart beat wildly as Mark’s knights swarmed. The horses screamed challenge and reared, striking at the men around. No panic this but battle training. Mark’s men, though, were also battle trained, and showed no fear as they grabbed for the bridles to drag the horses down.

“Flee!” I begged, but my cry was sudden drowned in the blast of a great horn.

From the woods, snarling and savage, a score of wraiths attacked. Demons out of nightmare. Hell hounds to slay us all.

God, after all,
had
seen fit to strike us down.
The thought raced through my mind. Every instinct bade me run, bade me cower. I did neither. Mark’s judgment I would fight, but not God’s.

Shutting my eyes, trembling, I stood, praying it would be quicker than the fire.

They hit my shoulder first, shaking it hard.

“Yseult!”

My eyes flew open at the familiar, urgent cry.

Tristan.

Horsed still and urging me up. I grabbed his arm and he swung me back behind the high cantle. It was a precarious seat and I threw my arms about Tris’ waist, trusting him to keep me safe.

Fallax sprang away, Calannog beside him. One of Mark’s knights screamed, then the horn blew again.

Run
, I urged Fallax. I felt his easy strides lengthen but there was no mad gallop. How would we outrace the hounds?

We wouldn’t. They ran beside us, easily pacing the big stallions who were built for strength not speed. White-coated hounds with flaming ears, baying with joy as we ran.

And keeping stride just on the other side of Des…