Tristan and Isolde - 02 - The Maid of the White Hands: The Second of the Tristan and Isolde Novels (24 page)

CHAPTER 40

It was the finest day of that long, hot summer, a day of golden glory, made for joy. The sun shone, the birds sang, the flowers bloomed, the people rejoiced, and Tristan walked out like a dead man to marry the Princess of France.

To the cheering crowds, he looked as fine as the day itself, shining like the sun. Blanche had commanded a wedding tunic for him in silver and white, made of pearly leather patterned with silver studs. Over it swung a cloak of white lined with silver, and chains of silver from King Hoel’s treasury. From the same source had come the heavy gold crown he wore, in token of his kingship of Lyonesse. With a savage amusement, it came to him that out of every stitch covering his nakedness, only his boots and his breeches were his own. Those, and the torque of knighthood around his neck, the fatal sign and symbol of what had brought him here today.

On my oath as a knight, he had said, I will marry you. He had kissed her white hand and told her to name the day. But no sooner had she left the room than a voice like Isolde’s had started inside his head.

Traitor . . .

Coward . . .

Faithless wretch . . .

You have failed your knighthood oath, and now you have failed me.

A shaft of white light ran like a skewer through his brain. He struck at his head for relief, and the pain increased.

“Failed? Failed again?” he cried, beside himself. “I shall make amends!”

Bursting from his chamber, he ran through the palace to the royal apartments and hammered on Blanche’s door, kneeling at her feet. “Lady, forgive me,” he gasped, “I cannot marry you. But I shall challenge Saint Roc to single combat and set you free.”

Blanche froze. “You will not marry me?”

“Making false vows endangers your honor and mine. You want me to prevent your marriage to Saint Roc. And I can beat him on horseback at the joust, on the ground, anywhere!”

“Oh, sir—”

There was no measuring the depth of Blanche’s contempt. “You’ll fight for me, when you can’t sit a horse? When you can’t raise a lance, or even hold a sword?”

Tears started to his eyes. In a frenzy, he leapt to his feet. “Madam, I—”

“And now you mean to shame me before all the world?”

“Shame you?” His head was splitting. “How?”

Blanche reached for the lie with a lifetime’s ease. “I’ve told my father that you’ve proposed to me. He’s gone to announce our marriage to all the court.”

Devils and darkness . . . Tristan held his head. “Is it so?”

Remorselessly Blanche pressed her advantage home. “It will be proclaimed far and wide.”

A monstrous abyss was gaping at Tristan’s feet. “But lady—I can’t marry you without love.”

“Many couples marry without love.” She gave a seductive smile. “Love comes afterward.”

Tristan’s stomach heaved. “I can never love you, maiden, you must know that. I have taken a vow to the Queen of the Western Isle.”

Blanche paused. Isolde again? Well, sooner or later he’d forget her, it would only take time. And they would have time, as soon as the knot was tied. As long as she could make Tristan stick to his vow.

She thought of her little lost dog, and the tears flowed. “Sir, if you’ll only keep your oath, I’ll be safe from Saint Roc. After that I swear I’ll make no further demands on you. I’ll get the marriage annulled as soon as I can. Till then we’ll be like brother and sister, friends in chastity. A white marriage, we call it in France.”

Could he trust her? He did not know. “On your oath, lady?”

She widened her eyes and brought both her hands to her heart. “On my mother’s soul.”

Still he was wavering. She leaned toward him, wringing her perfect hands. “You gave me your word. On your honor as a knight.” Gently she eased her tears into helpless sobs. “Will you break your oath? Will you fail me now?”

Tristan gazed into the tearful blue eyes, and his senses drowned.

On my honor as a knight, I fail and I fail . . .

Fail Blanche, fail Isolde, fail, fail, fail . . .

His gorge rose, and sickness swept him from head to foot. And now he was walking to the church, still dreaming mad thoughts of escape and flight. Fool! You can’t draw back now, hammered through his brain. There’s no way out. He gave a hurtful laugh. What, leave her at the altar, all dressed up in silver and white?

As you are too. He looked at his ludicrous outfit and laughed again.

What was this?

What was Tristan laughing at?

Walking at Tristan’s side, Kedrin eyed him with deep concern. A bridegroom was expected to be happy, not emitting odd, mad little chuckles like this. But the wedding was ill-starred, Tristan must know that.

Did Tristan also know, Kedrin wondered, that he had challenged Blanche as soon as the wedding was announced?

“He does not love you, sister,” he had said.

She had laughed then, a long, low disturbing sound. “Oh, he will. He is mine now. And he will marry me. You and my father were wrong.”

There was no resisting Blanche’s triumph and her joy. King Hoel’s protests had been likewise brushed aside and the wedding went forward at a furious pace. Kedrin had been elected as Tristan’s groomsman, since the knight had no other friend in the whole of France. Within a week they were walking to the small chapel below the castle where Blanche would arrive with her father at her side.

Kedrin groaned inwardly. He’d agreed to stand up beside Tristan in church, but he’d rather be throwing his friend to the wolves. Why was he so sure that this marriage was destined to fail?

Fail, fail, you failed.

Failed then, failing now.

Trying to do right, doing so much wrong.

Traitor . . .

Coward . . .

Faithless wretch . . .

You have failed your knighthood oath and now you have failed me.

Where was he? Lights flared behind Tristan’s eyes. Walking out of the castle, yes, and into the sun, down the hill and into the tree-sheltered grove. Little church beside water, and therefore once a holy lake, sacred to the Goddess before the Christians came. A Christian church, then? Another wild chuckle rose to Tristan’s lips. Another betrayal of Isolde, another disgrace.

He stumbled over the threshold, straining to see. Who were all these people, all these foolish, festive faces, grinning away? Strange that a man would not know a single soul among those who had gathered on his wedding day. He could feel the mad laughter rising again in his chest and willed himself to hold it back. At least the wretched Saint Roc was not here. The villain who had been the cause of all this grief had at least had the grace to make himself scarce today.

Was that the altar ahead? Tristan pondered. So then, what now?

What now indeed, bride-man?

Saint Roc stood unseen at the back of the church and laughed silently at the folly of the world. So Blanche was trying to make him jealous by taking Tristan? Foolish girl. The task of deflowering a virgin was little but a chore, and he was happy to leave it to the King of Lyonesse. The only man who desired a virgin bride was one who feared comparison with other men. A man of the world looked for women who understood pleasure, and Blanche would know more about that when Tristan was through. Saint Roc gave a sigh of content. Blanche would be his, he knew it. This so-called marriage would not, could not last. All he had to do was wait.

Cantate Domino: O, sing unto the Lord a new song . . .

The church was cool and dim after the sunshine outside. A choir of boys sang like angels in the shadows, and the soft gloom helped the pain in Tristan’s head. But the sickly smell of incense choked his throat, and for a moment he could not breathe.

A white shape came toward him veiled from head to foot, and he felt another flare of fear. This ghostly creature is your bride, Tristan. Did you think she would fade away, like a bad dream?

And this was the priest, gowned and mumbling, smelling like his church of the incense from the East. What was he saying? Take this woman? No escaping now. Only one answer. Yes.

Her hand was cold. Perhaps his was too. But the wedding ring sat like a hoop of fire on his hand. Why was it thick and solid like a glittering shackle, not looking like an object of love and joy? Why was it so different from the ring on his other hand, the love token Isolde had given him years ago?

Isolde,
sang the cracked voices in his head.

Traitor.

Wretched failure.

Recreant knight.

What had he done, he wondered, mad with despair, that the Gods had resolved to torture him like this? The thought obsessed him, weaving in and out of the sounds only he could hear. Sometimes he heard a low, sad echo, sometimes a cacophony of sobbing, whistling, and catcalls. It came to him; you are losing your mind.

And perhaps he had lost it already, for he hardly knew where he was. The world had shrunk to two black pinpoints of pain through which he peered about as blind as a mole. Blink, and he was in the Great Hall, at a great feast. Blink, and an hour had passed, then many more. Hands guided him about, sat him down, pushed a brimming goblet into his hand, carved and set before him the choicest cuts of peacock, beef, and swan. One pair of white hands seemed to be everywhere, and he had no difficulty in knowing whose they were.

“Bring the bride to bed!”

He knew what that meant too. Fool, Tristan, worse than fool! Every wedding ended in this coarse revelry, when the ladies prepared the bride for her husband’s embrace, and the groom was led to her chamber with a thousand ribald jests. Why had he never thought that this would come and made sure to avoid it somehow, anyhow?

Blanche vanished from the table and from the hall, surrounded by giggling ladies with armfuls of flowers. The young men of the court swarmed around Tristan like flies, each armed with some crude comment or suggestive joke. Jab, jab, jab they came, stinging like rapier points. More wine somehow found its way down his throat. The knights’ belches and belly laughter filled the air with stale, stinking breath.

Goddess, Mother, save me . . .

A dull monotonous throbbing ran through his veins.

“This way, sir!”

Rough hands fastened on him like crabs and hoisted him aloft. One face seemed to leap out from the throng. Gods above! Saint Roc? Reeling, he felt himself hoisted onto drunken, unsteady shoulders and fell backward, dropping like a tree.

“He’s drunk!” yodeled a thick voice in his ear. “Let’s hope he can still do his duty by the bride!”

Caught and carried forward like a sack, he was bundled through a door and set upright on his feet. As his swimming senses returned, he saw a large, square chamber bright with candles, and a row of long windows giving out on the warm night.

The knights pounced on the ladies and chased them squealing from the room. Alone in the candlelit silence, he could hear nothing but the roaring in his skull. Then he lifted his head and knew what he had to fear.

At the end of the chamber, marooned in a bed of state, Blanche sat arrayed in a nightgown as white as her soft flesh. Her long pale hair spilled down over her shoulders, and her eyes were very bright. The flimsy gown scarcely covered her breasts, and she was panting lightly, her pink mouth ajar. One hand played with the flowers covering the bed. The other was raised in command, beckoning him.

“Come, sir.”

He could not look at her. He saw again the ring Isolde gave him when they pledged their love, and the monstrous wedding hoop of greenish gold. You’ve betrayed her, Tristan. Failed and failed again . . .

“Tristan? Can’t you hear me?”

The white figure slipped determinedly from the bed. Terror and pain nailed Tristan to the floor.

“What’s the matter?” She was at his side.

He rallied his forces and bowed. “Madam, let me bid you goodnight.”

“Goodnight?” She laughed in his face. “You’re my husband now. You know what that means.”

He could feel a film of sweat gathering on the back of his neck. “Lady, we had an understanding. You agreed—”

She moved into him with a seductive shrug, rippling the flimsy gauze covering her breasts. “It’s every woman’s right to change her mind.”

Terror gripped his vitals. “A white marriage!” he said hoarsely. “You made a vow—”

Blanche gave a lascivious laugh. “The more fool you for trusting to a woman’s vow.”

“I have an old wound,” he cried desperately, striking the top of his leg, “here in the groin.”

“Then I shall make it better,” she returned implacably. She reached out a hand.

Outside the window, the moon floated in the sky. A shimmering silvery light poured through the great mullioned casements standing open to the night. Tristan scented the cool air rising from the forest below, and a desperate resolve formed in his ruined brain. Get away. Must get away.

“Madam—” he began with the last of his strength.

But she was not listening. “Come here, sir.”

The grin she wore seemed to stretch from wall to wall, and he trembled at the hot glint in her eye. Her breasts, all too visible, struck him like evil things, and her nipples seemed to stare at him like eyes, great animal lights from another, crueler world. Hissing like a swan, she spread her long white arms, and he felt her enfold him in her scaly wings. The next moment her mouth fastened wetly upon his, sucking, pulling, dragging out his soul. He thought of Isolde and lost his last shred of hope.