“Very well,” she said. “You shall see him, Branwen. Although I swore I wouldn’t let foreign hands touch him again. Especially Cornish hands, her hands.”
“It’s not certain that she will come here from Tintagel,” whispered Branwen, still on her knees.
“Rise, Branwen.” Iseult of the White Hands lifted her head and her eyes glittered with moist diamonds. “It is not certain, you say. Yet… I would run barefoot through the snow, thorns, red-hot embers, if only… if only he called me. But he does not call me, although he knows… He calls only her, on whom he cannot depend. Our lives, Branwen, never cease to surprise us with ironies.”
Branwen rose from her knees. Her eyes, I saw, were also filled with diamonds. Eh, women…
“Go to him, then, good Branwen,” said Iseult bitterly. “Go and take to him that which I see in your eyes. But prepare yourself for the worst. For when you kneel by his bed, he will throw in your face a name which belongs not to you. He will throw it like a curse. Go, Branwen. The servants will show you the way.”
Iseult, wringing the fingers of her white hands, watched me carefully. I was looking for hatred and enmity in her eyes. For she must have known. When one weds a living legend, one gets to know that legend in its tiniest detail. And I, after all, was no trifle, not to look at, anyway.
She was looking at me and there was something strange in her gaze. Then, having gathered her long dress, she sat in a carved chair, her white hands clasping the arm-rests.
“Sit here, Morholt of Ulster,” she said. “By my side.”
I did.
There are many stories, mostly improbable or untrue from beginning to end, circulating about my duel with Tristan of Lionesse. In one of them, I was even turned into a dragon whom Tristan slayed, thereby winning the right to Iseult of the Golden Hair. Not bad, eh? Romantic. And justified, to a point. I did in fact have a black dragon on my shield, perhaps it all started with that. After all, everyone knows that after Cuchulain there are no dragons in Ireland.
Another story has it that the duel took place in Cornwall, before Tristan met Iseult. That’s not true. It’s a minstrels’ tale. King Diarmuid sent me to the court of King Mark, in Tintagel, several times, it’s true, where I haggled over the tribute Cornwall was due to give the King, gods only know on what grounds. I wasn’t interested in politics. But I didn’t meet Tristan then.
Nor did I meet him when he came to Ireland for the first time. I met him during his second visit, when he came to ask for the hand of Iseult of the Golden Hair for the King of Cornwall. Diarmuid’s court, as usual in such situations, divided between those who supported the match and those who were against it. I belonged to the latter faction, though in all honesty I didn’t know what all the fuss was about; as I said, I wasn’t interested politics, or intrigues. But I liked and knew how to fight.
The plan, as far as I could see, was simple. It didn’t even merit the word intrigue. We wanted to break up King Mark’s match and prevent the marriage with Tintagel. Was there a better way than to kill the envoy? The opportunity presented itself easily enough. I offended Tristan and he challenged me. He challenged me, you understand, not the other way round.
We fought in Dun Laoghaire, on the shore of the Bay. I didn’t think I would have much of a problem with him. At first glance, I was twice his weight and had at least as much experience. Or so it seemed to me.
How wrong I was I discovered soon after the first encounter, when we crushed our lances into splinters. I almost broke my back, so hard did he push me against the back of my saddle. A bit harder and he would have pushed me over, together with my horse. When he turned around and - without calling for another lance - drew his sword, I was pleased. The thing about lances is that with a little bit of luck and a good mount even a greenhorn can thrash an experienced knight. The sword, in the long run, is a fairer weapon.
To start with, we felt around each other’s shields for a bit. He was strong as a bull. Stronger than I had thought. He fought in the classical style: dexter, sinister, sky-below, blow after blow, very fast; his speed didn’t allow me to take advantage of my experience, to impose my own, less classical style. He was tiring me out, so at the first opportunity I dodged the rules and slashed him across the thigh, just below the shield adorned by the rearing lion of Lionesse.
Had I struck from the ground it would have felled him. But it was from the mount. He didn’t even blink, as if he hadn’t noticed that he was bleeding like a pig, squirting dark crimson all over the saddle, the housing, the sand. The onlookers were shouting their heads off. I was sure the loss of blood was taking its toll and, because I was nearing my limits too, I launched myself into attack, impatiently, recklessly. I went for the kill. And that was my mistake. Unwittingly, thinking perhaps that he would repay me with a similar, unfair cut from the side, I lowered my shield. Suddenly, I saw the stars burst with light and… I don’t know what happened next.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened next,” I thought looking at the white hands of Iseult. Was it possible? Was it only that flash of light in Dun Laoghaire, the black tunnel and then the grey-white coast and the castle of Carhaing?
Was it possible?
And immediately, like a ready-made answer, like hard proof and an irrefutable argument, there came images, faces, names, words, colours, scents. It was all there, every single day. The short, dusky winter days seeping through the fish-bladders in the windows. Those warm, fragrant-with-the-rain days near Pentecost, and those long, hot summer days yellow with sunshine and sunflowers. It was all there: the marches, the fights, the processions, the hunts, the feasts, the women, and more fights, more feasts, more women. Everything. All that had happened since that moment in Dun Laoghaire till this drizzly day on the Armorican coast.
It all took place. It all happened. It passed. Only I couldn’t understand why it all seemed to me so…
Never mind.
It didn’t matter.
I sighed. This reminiscing wore me out. I felt almost as tired as I had then, during the fight. Just like then, my neck hurt and my arms felt like slabs of stone. The scar on my head throbbed furiously.
Iseult of the White Hands, who for some time had been looking out of the window, watching the overcast horizon, slowly turned her face towards me.
“Why have you come here, Morholt of Ulster?”
What was I to tell her? About the black holes in my memory? Telling her about my black, unending tunnel wouldn’t make sense. All I had at my disposal was, as usual, the knights’ custom, the universally respected and accepted norm. I got up.
“I am here to serve you, Lady Iseult,” I said, bowing stiffly.
I saw Kai bowing like that in Camelot. It struck me as a dignified, noble bow; worth copying.
“I have come here to carry out your orders, whatever they may be. My life belongs to you, Lady Iseult.”
“Sir Morholt,” she said softly, wringing her fingers, “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
I saw a tear, a narrow, glistening trickle making its way from the corner of her eye till it slowed down and stopped on the wing of her nostril. I could smell the scent of apples.
“The legend is about to end, Morholt.”
* * *
Iseult didn’t dine with us. We were alone at the table, Branwen and I, except for a chaplain with a shiny tonsure. But we didn’t bother with him. He muttered a short prayer and having blessed the table he devoted himself to stuffing his face. I soon forgot about his presence. As if he’d always been there.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt.”
“How did you know?”
“I remember you from Ireland, from the court. I remember you well. No, I doubt you remember me. You didn’t pay any attention to me then, although, I can tell you this now, Morholt, I did want you to notice me. It’s understandable: when Iseult was around one didn’t notice others.”
“No, Branwen. I remember you. I didn’t recognise you today because…”
r /> “Yes, Morholt?”
“Because then, in Atha Cliath… you always smiled.”
Silence.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“How is Tristan?”
“Bad. The wound is festering, doesn’t want to heal. The rot’s set in. It looks horrible.”
“Is he…?”
“As long as he believes, he will live. And he believes.”
“In what?”
“In her.”
Silence.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“Is Iseult of the Golden Hair… is the Queen… really going to sail here from Tintagel?”
“I don’t know, Morholt. But he believes she will.”
Silence.
“Morholt?”
“Yes, Branwen?”
“I told Tristan you were here. He wants to see you. Tomorrow.”
“Very well.”
Silence.
“Morholt?”
“Yes, Branwen?”
“There, on the dunes…”
“It didn’t matter, Branwen.”
“It did. Please, try to understand. I didn’t want, I couldn’t let you die. I could not allow an arrow butt, a stupid piece of wood and metal, to spoil… I couldn’t let that happen. At any price, even the price of your contempt. And there… on the dunes, the price they asked didn’t seem so high. You see, Morholt…”
“Branwen… it’s enough, please.”
“I have paid with my body before.”
“Branwen. Not a word more.”
She touched my hand, and her touch, believe me or not, was the red ball of the sun rising after a long, cold night. It was the scent of apples, the leap of a horse spurred to attack. I looked into her eyes and her gaze was like the fluttering of pennons in the wind, like music, like a stroke of fur on the cheek. Branwen, the laughing Branwen of Baile Atha Cliath. Serious, quiet, sad Branwen of Cornwall, of the Knowing Eyes. Was there anything in that wine we drank? Like the wine Tristan and Iseult drank on the sea?
“Branwen…”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“Nothing. I only wanted to hear the sound of your name.”
Silence.
The roaring of the sea, monotonous, hollow, carrying persistent, intrusive, stubborn whispers…
Silence.
* * *
“Morholt.”
“Tristan.”
He had changed. Then, in Baile Atha Cliath, he was a child, a cheerful boy with dreamy eyes, always with that engaging little smile which sent hot waves up the maids’ thighs. Always that smile, even when we bashed each other with swords in Dun Laoghaire. And now… Now his face was grey, thin, withered, cut with glistening lines of sweat, his lips chafed and frozen in a grimace of pain, black rings of suffering around his eyes.
And he stank. He stank of illness. Of death. Of fear.
“You are alive, Irishman.”
“I am, Tristan.”
“When they carried you off the field they said you were dead. Your head…”
“My head was cracked open and the brain spilt out,” I said, trying to make it sound casual.
“A miracle. Someone must have been praying for you, Morholt.”
“I doubt that.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Inscrutable is Fate.” His brow furrowed. “You and Branwen… both alive. While I… in a silly scuffle… I had a lance thrust in my groin, it came right through me, and it snapped. A splinter must have got stuck inside, that’s why the wound is festering. God has punished me. It’s the punishment for all my sins. For you, for Branwen. And above all… for Iseult…”
His brow furrowed again, his mouth twisted. I knew which Iseult he meant. My heart ached. Her black-ringed eyes, her hand-wringing, the fingers cracked out of her white hands. The bitterness in her voice. How often she must have seen it: that involuntary twist of the mouth when he spoke the name of “Iseult” and could not add “of the Golden Hair”. I felt sorry for her – her, married to a legend. Why did she agree to it? Why did she agree to serve merely as a name, an empty sound? Hadn’t she heard the story about him and the Cornish woman? Maybe she thought it unimportant? Perhaps she thought Tristan was just like any other man? Like the men from Arthur’s retinue, like Gawaine, Gaheris, Bors or Bedivere, who started this idiotic fashion to adore one woman, sleep with another and marry the third, without anyone complaining?
“Morholt…”
“I’m here, Tristan.”
“I have sent Caherdin to Tintagel. The ship…”
“Still no news, Tristan.”
“Only she…” he whispered. “Only she can save me. I’m on the brink. Her eyes, her hands, just the sight of her, the sound of her voice… There is no other cure for me. That’s why… if she is on that ship, Caherdin will pull out on the mast…”
“I know, Tristan…”
He fell silent, staring at the ceiling, breathing heavily.
“Morholt… Will she… come? Does she remember?”
“I don’t know, Tristan,” I said and immediately regretted it. Damn it, what would it cost me to confirm with ardour and conviction? Did I have to reveal my ignorance to him as well?
Tristan turned his face to the wall.
“I wasted this love,” he groaned. “I destroyed it. And through it, I brought a curse on our heads. I am dying because of it, unsure that she will answer my plea and come, that she would, even if it were too late.”
“Don’t say that, Tristan.”
“I have to. It is all my fault. Or perhaps my fate is at fault? Maybe that’s how it was to be from the beginning? The beginning born of love and tragedy? For you know that Blanchefleur gave birth to me amidst despair? The labour began the moment she received the news of Rivalin’s death. She didn’t survive my birth. I don’t know whether it was her, in her last breath, or Foyenant, later, who gave me this name, the name which is like doom, like a curse? Like a judgement. La tristesse. The cause and effect. La tristesse, surrounding me like a mist… Exactly like the mist swathing the mouth of the river Liffey when for the first time…”
He fell silent again, his hands instinctively stroking the furs with which he was covered.
“Everything, everything I did turned against me. Put yourself in my position, Morholt. Imagine yourself arriving at Baile Atha Cliath, you meet a girl… From the first sight, from the very moment your eyes meet, you feel your heart wants to burst out of your breast, your hands tremble. You wander to and fro the whole night, unable to sleep, boiling with anxiety, shaking, thinking about one thing only: to see her again in the morning. And what? Instead of joy – la tristesse…”
I was silent. I didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“And then,” he carried on, “the first conversation. The first touching of the hands, powerful as a lance’s thrust in a tournament. The first smile, her smile, which makes you… Eh, Morholt. What would you have done in my place?”
I was silent. I didn’t know what I would have done. I had never been in his position. By Lugh and Lir, I had never experienced anything like it. Ever.
“I know what you would not have done, Morholt,” said Tristan, closing his eyes. “You would not have sold her to King Mark, you would not have awakened his interest, babbling all the time about her. You would not have sailed to Ireland for her in his name. You would not have wasted love, the love that began then, then, not on the ship. Branwen doesn’t have to torture herself with that story about magic potion. The elixir had nothing to do with it. By the time Iseult boarded the ship she was already mine. Morholt… If it were you, boarding that ship with her, would you have sailed to Tintagel? Would you have given her to Mark? I’m sure you would not. You would have rather sailed to the edge of the world, to Brittany, Arabia, Hyperborea, the Ultima Thule. Morholt? Am I right?”
I couldn’t answer that question. And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.
“You are exhausted, Tristan. You need sl
eep. Rest.”
“Look out… for the ship…”
“We will, Tristan. Do you need anything? Shall I send for… for the lady of the White Hands?”
A twist of his mouth:
“No.”
* * *
We are standing on the battlement, Branwen and I. A drizzle. We are in Brittany, after all. The wind is growing stronger, tugging at her hair, wrapping her dress tightly around her hips. It thwarts our words, squeezes tears out of our eyes, which are fixed on the horizon.
No sign of a sail.
After a while I find I’m looking at Branwen. By Lugh, what a joy it is, watching her. I could look at her till the end of time. Just to think that when she stood next to Iseult, she didn’t seem pretty. I must have been blind.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“Were you waiting for me then, on the beach? Did you know…?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No. I don’t… I can’t remember… Branwen, enough of these mysteries. My head is not up to it. Not my poor cracked head.”
“The legend cannot end without us. Without our participation. Yours and mine. I don’t know why, but we are important, indispensable to this story. The story of great love, which is like a whirlpool, sucking in everything and everyone. Don’t you know that, Morholt of Ulster? Don’t you understand what an almighty power love can be? A power capable of turning the natural order of things? Can’t you feel that?
“Branwen… I do not understand. Here, in the castle of Carhaing…”
“Something will happen. Something that depends only on us. That’s the reason we are here. We have to be here, whether we want it or not. That is how I knew you would turn up on that beach. That is why I couldn’t allow you to die on the dunes…”
I don’t know what made me do it. Perhaps her words, perhaps the sudden recollection of the eyes of the golden-haired lady. Maybe it was something I had forgotten journeying down the long, unending black tunnel. I don’t know, but I did it without thinking, without any deliberation: I took her in my arms.
She clung to me, willingly, trustfully, and I thought that indeed, love can be an almighty power. But equally strong is its prolonged, overwhelming, gnawing absence.