It lasted only a moment. Or so it seemed to me. Branwen slowly freed herself and turned around. A gust of wind pulled her hair.
“Something depends on us, Morholt. On you and me. I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of the sea. Of the rudderless boat.”
“I’m with you, Branwen.”
“Please be, Morholt.”
* * *
Tonight’s evening is different. Completely different. I don’t know where Branwen is. Perhaps she is with Iseult, nursing Tristan who is again unconscious, tossing and turning in the fever. Tossing and turning, he whispers: “Iseult…” Iseult of the White Hands knows it’s not her that Tristan calls, but she trembles when she hears her name. And wrings the fingers of her white hands. Branwen, if she is with her, has wet diamonds in her eyes. Branwen… I wish… Eh, the pox on it!
And I… I’m drinking with the chaplain. What is he doing here? Perhaps he’s always been here?
We are drinking, and drinking fast. And a lot. I know it’s not doing me any good. I shouldn’t, my cracked head doesn’t take kindly to this kind of sport. When I overdo it, I have hallucinations, splitting headaches. Sometimes I faint, though rarely.
Well, so what? We are drinking. I have to, plague take it, to drown this dread inside me. I have to forget the trembling hands. The castle of Carhaing. Branwen’s eyes, full of fear of the unknown. I want to drown the howling of the wind, the roaring of the sea, the rocking of the boat under my feet. I want to drown everything I can’t remember. And that scent of apples which keeps following me.
We are drinking, the chaplain and I. We are separated by an oak table, splattered with puddles of wine. It’s not only the table that separates us.
“Drink, shaveling.”
“God bless you, son”
“I’m not your son.”
Since the battle of Mount Badon, I carry the sign of the cross on my armour, like many others, but I’m not moved by it as they are. Religion and all its manifestations leave me cold. The bush in Glastonbury, apparently planted by Joseph of Arymatea, looks to me like any other bush, except it’s more twisted and sickly than most. The Abbey itself, about which some of the Arthur’s boys speak with such reverence, doesn’t stir great emotions in me, though I admit it looks very pretty against the wood, the hills and the lake. And the regular tolling of the bells helps one to find the way in the fog, for it’s always foggy there, the pox on it.
This Roman religion, although it has spread around, doesn’t have a chance here on the islands. Here, and in Ireland, in Cornwall or Wales, at every step you see things whose existence is stubbornly denied by the monks. Any dimwit has seen elves, pukkas, sylphs, the Coranians, leprechauns, sidhe, and even bean sidhe, but no one, as far as I know, has ever seen an angel. Except Bedivere, who claims to have seen Gabriel, but Bedivere is a blockhead and a liar. I wouldn’t believe a word he says.
The monks go on about miracles performed by Christ. Let’s be honest: compared with things done by Vivien of the Lake, the Morrigan, or Morgause, wife of Lot from the Orkneys, not to mention Merlin, Christ doesn’t really have much to boast about. I’m telling you, the monks have come and they’ll go. The Druids will stay. Not that I think the Druids are much better than the monks. But at least the Druids are ours. They always have been. And the monks are stragglers. Just like this one, my table companion. The devil knows what wind has blown him here, to Armorica. He uses odd words and has a strange accent, Aquitan or Gaelic, plague take him.
“Drink, shaveling.”
I bet my head that in Ireland Christianity will be a passing fashion. We Irish, we do not buy this hard, inflexible, Roman fanaticism. We are too sober-headed for that, too simple-hearted. Our Ireland is the fore-post of the West, it’s the Last Shore. Beyond, not far off, are the Old Lands: Hy Brasil, Ys, Mainistir Leitreach, Beag-Arainn. It is them, not the Cross, not the Latin liturgy, that rule people’s minds. It was so ages ago and it is so today. Besides, we Irish are a tolerant people. Everybody believes what he wants. I heard that around the world different factions of Christians are already at each other’s throats. In Ireland it’s impossible. I can imagine everything but not that Ulster, say, might be a scene of religious scuffles.
“Drink, shaveling.”
Drink, for who knows, you may have a busy day tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow you will have to pay recompense for all the goodies you’ve pushed down your gullet. The one who is to leave us must leave us with the full pomp of the ritual. It’s easier to leave when someone is conducting a ritual, doesn’t matter if he is mumbling the Requiem Aeternam, making a stink with incense, or howling and bashing his sword on his shield. It’s simply easier to leave. And what’s the difference where to – Hell, Paradise or Tir Na Nog? One always leaves for the darkness. I know a thing or two about it. One leaves down the black tunnel which has no end.
“Your master is dying, shaveling.”
“Sir Tristan? I’m praying for him.”
“Are you praying for a miracle?”
“It is all in God’s hands.”
“Not all.”
“You are blaspheming, my son.”
“I’m not your son. I’m a son of Flann Uarbeoil whom the Normans hacked to death on the bank of the river Shannon. That was a death worthy of man. When dying, Flann didn’t moan “Iseult, Iseult.” When dying, Flann laughed and called the Norman yarl such names the poor bastard forgot to close his gob for an hour afterwards, so impressed was he.”
“One should die with the name of the Lord on one’s lips. And besides, it’s easier to die in a battle, from the sword, than to linger on in bed, being eaten away by la maladie. Fighting la maladie is a lonely struggle. It’s hard to fight alone, harder still to die alone.”
“La maladie? You’re drivelling, monk. He would lick himself out of this wound, just like that other one, which… But then, in Ireland, he was full of life, full of hope. Now the hope’s drained out of him, together with his blood. If he could only stop thinking about her, forget about this accursed love…”
“Love, my son, also comes from God.”
“Oh, it does, does it? Everybody here goes on about love, racking their brains where it comes from. Tristan and Iseult… Shall I tell you, shaveling, where this love, or whatever it is, has come from? Shall I tell you what brought them together? It was me: Morholt. Before Tristan cracked my head, I poked him in the thigh and thus sent him to bed for several weeks. But he, the moment he felt a bit better, he dragged the lady of the Golden Hair into it. Any healthy man would do that, given time and opportunity. Later, the minstrels were singing about Moren Wood and the naked sword. Balls, that’s what I say. Now you see yourself, monk, where the love comes from. Not from God, from Morholt. And it’s worth accordingly, this love. This maladie of yours.”
“You are blaspheming. You are talking about things you do not understand. And it would be better if you stopped talking about them.”
I didn’t punch him between the eyes with the tin mug I was squeezing in my hand. You wonder why? I’ll tell you why. Because he was right. I didn’t understand.
How could I understand? I was not conceived amidst misfortune, or born into tragedy. Flann and my mother conceived me on the hay and I’m sure they had plenty of good, healthy joy doing it. Giving me a name, they didn’t put any secret meanings into it. They gave me a name which it would be easy to call me by. “Morholt! Supper!” “Morholt! You little brat!” “Fetch some water, Morholt!” La tristesse? Balls, not la tristesse.
Can one daydream with a name like mine? Play a harp? Devote all one’s thoughts to a beloved? Sacrifice to her all the matters of everyday life and pace the room unable to sleep? Balls. With a name like mine one can drink beer and wine and then puke under the table. Smash people’s noses. Crack heads with a sword or an axe, or alternatively, have it done to oneself. Love? Someone with the name Morholt pulls off a skirt, pokes his fill and falls asleep. Or, if he happens to feel a wee stirring in his soul, he will say: ?
??Eh, ye’re a fine piece of arse, Maire O’Connell, I could gobble you whole, yer teats first.” Dig through it for three days and three nights, you won’t find in it a grain of la tristesse. Not a trace. So what that I like looking at Branwen? I like looking at lots of things.
“Drink, monk. Pour it, don’t waste time. What are you mumbling?”
“It is all in God’s hands, sicut in coelo et in terris, amen…”
“Maybe in coelo but not in terris, that’s for sure.”
“You are blaspheming, my son. Cave!”
“What are you trying to scare me with? A bolt from the blue?”
“I’m not trying to scare you. I fear for you. Rejecting God, you reject hope. The hope that you won’t lose what you have won. The hope that when it comes to making a choice, you will make the right one. And that you won’t be left defenceless.”
“Life, with God or without God, with hope or without it, is a road without an end or beginning, a road which leads along the slippery side of a huge funnel. Most people don’t realise they are going round and round, passing the same point on the narrow slippery slope of the circle again and again. There are some who are unfortunate and slip. They fall. And that’s the end of them, they’ll never climb up back to the edge, they won’t resume the march. They are sliding down, till they reach the bottom of the funnel, at the narrow point of the outlet, where all meet. They meet, though only for a short while - because further down, under the funnel, there awaits an abyss. This castle, pounded by waves, is just such a place. The funnel’s outlet. Do you understand, shaveling?”
“No. But then I do not think you understand the cause behind my failure in understanding.”
“To hell with causes and effects, sicut in coelo et in terris. Drink, monk.”
We drank late into the night. The chaplain survived it admirably well. I didn’t do so well. I got pissed, I can tell you. I managed to drown… everything.
Or so it seemed to me.
* * *
Today the sea has the colour of lead. Today the sea is angry. I feel its anger and I respect it. I understand Branwen, I understand her fear. I don’t understand the cause. Or her words.
Today the castle is empty and terribly silent. Tristan is fighting the fever. Iseult and Branwen are at his side. I, Morholt of Ulster, stand on the battlements and look out into the sea.
Not a sign of a sail.
* * *
I was not asleep when she came in. And I was not surprised. It was as if I expected it. That strange meeting on the beach, the journey through the dunes and salty meadows, the silly incident with Bec de Corbin and his friends, the evening by the candlelight, the warmth of her body when I embraced her on the battlement, and above all that aura of love and death filling Carhaing – all this had brought us close to each other, bound us together. I even caught myself thinking that I would find it difficult to say goodbye…
To Branwen.
She didn’t say a word. She undid the brooch on her shoulder and let the heavy cloak drop onto the floor, and then quickly took off her shirt, a simple coarse garment, exactly like the ones worn everymday by Irish girls. She turned around, reddened by the flames flickering on the logs in the fire, which was spying on her with its glowing eyes.
Also without saying a word, I moved to the side and made room for her next to me. She lay down, slowly, turning her face to me. I covered her with furs. We were both silent, lying still, watching the fleeting shadows on the ceiling.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “The sea…”
“I know. I hear it too.”
“I’m scared, Morholt.”
“I’m with you.”
“Please be.”
I embraced her, as tenderly and delicately as I could. She slipped her arms round my neck and pressed her face to my cheek, overpowering me with her hot breath. I touched her gently, fighting the joyous urge to embrace her fully, the need for violent, lusty caress, just as if I were stroking a falcon’s feathers or the nostrils of a nervous horse. I stroked her hair, her neck and shoulders, her full, wonderfully rounded breasts with their small nipples. I stroked her hips which, not so long ago, seemed to me too round and which in fact were wonderfully round. I stroked her smooth thighs, her womanhood, that place I didn’t have a name for, for even in my thoughts I wouldn’t dare to name it as I used to, with any of the Irish, Welsh or Saxon words I knew. It would be like calling Stonehenge a pile of rubble, or Glastonbury Tor a hillock.
She trembled, giving herself forth to meet my hands, guiding them with the movements of her body. She asked, she demanded with groans, with rapid uneven gasps of breath. She pleaded with momentary submissions, warm and tender, only to harden the next moment into a quivering diamond.
“Love me, Morholt,” she whispered. “Love me.”
She was brave, greedy, impatient. But helpless and defenceless in my arms. She had to give in to my quiet, careful, restrained love. My love. The one I wanted. The one I wanted for her. For in the one she was trying to impose on me I sensed fear, sacrifice, resignation, and I didn’t want her to be afraid, to sacrifice anything for me, to give up anything for me. I had my way.
Or so it seemed to me.
I felt the castle shudder in the slow rhythm of the pounding waves.
“Branwen…”
She pressed her hot body to mine; her sweat had the scent of wet feathers.
“Morholt… It’s good…”
“What’s good, Branwen?”
“It’s good to live…”
We were silent for a long while. And then I asked a question. The question I shouldn’t have asked.
“Branwen… Will she… Will Iseult come here from Tintagel?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You? Her confidant, who…”
I shut up. By Lugh, what an idiot I am, I thought. What a bloody idiot.
“Don’t torture yourself, Morholt,” she said. “Ask me.”
“About what?”
“About Iseult and King Mark’s wedding night.”
“Ah, this. Believe me or not, Branwen, I’m not interested.”
“I think you’re lying.”
I didn’t answer. She was right.
“It was just like people say,” she said quietly. “We swapped in Mark’s bed, soon after the candles were put out. I’m not sure if it was necessary. Mark was so charmed with Iseult of the Golden Hair that he would accept her lack of virginity without reproach. He was not that fussy. But that’s what we did. I did it because of my bad conscience after what had happened on the ship. I thought it was all my doing, mine and that of the magic potions I had given them. I assumed the guilt and wanted to pay for it. Only later it turned out that Tristan and Iseult slept with each other even in Baile Atha Cliath. And that I was not guilty of anything.”
“It’s all right, Branwen. Spare me the details. Leave it alone.”
“No. Listen to the end. Listen to what the minstrels will never sing about. Iseult ordered that as soon as I had given proof of my virginity I should sneak out of bed and swap with her again. Perhaps she was afraid the king would find out, or maybe she didn’t want me to get used to him, who knows? She was with Tristan in the room next door, both busy with each other. She freed herself from his arms and went to the Cornishman as she stood, naked, without even combing her tangled hair. I stayed, naked, with Tristan. Till dawn. I don’t know how or why.”
I was silent.
“That’s not the end,” said Branwen turning her face towards the fire. “After that there was the honeymoon during which the Cornishman wouldn’t leave Iseult even for a minute. Thus, Tristan could not get close to her. But to me he could. To spare you the details, after these few months I was in love with him. For life and death. I know you are surprised. It’s true, the only thing we had in common was the bed where, it was obvious to me even then, Tristan was trying to forget his love for Iseult, his jealousy of Mark, his guilt. He treated me as a substitute. I knew that and it didn??
?t help.”
“Branwen…”
“Be patient, Morholt. It’s still not the end. The honeymoon passed, Mark resumed his normal royal duties, and Iseult began to have plenty of free time. And Tristan… Tristan ceased to notice me. Worse, he began to avoid me. While I was going crazy with love.”
She fell silent, found among the furs my hand and squeezed it tight.
“I made several attempts to forget him,” she carried on, staring at the ceiling. “Tintagel was full of young, uncomplicated knights. But it didn’t work. One morning I took a boat to the sea. When I was far enough from the shore, I jumped.”
“Branwen,” I said pulling her close, trying to smother with my embrace the shudders convulsing her body. “It’s all past now. Forget about it. Like many others, you were sucked into the whirl of their love, love which proved unhappy to them, and fatal to others. Even I… I caught it on the head, though I merely brushed against this love, knowing nothing about it. In Dun Laoghaire, Tristan defeated me, although I was stronger and more experienced. That’s because he fought for Iseult, for his love. I didn’t know about it, got a good bash on the head and, like you, I owe my life to those who happened to be near me and who thought it right to help me. To save me. To pull me out of that unfathomable depth. And so we were saved, you and me. We are alive and to hell with everything else.”
She slipped her arm under my head and stroked my hair. She touched the swelling that ran from the temple right down to my ear. I winced. The hair on the scar grows in all directions and a touch can sometimes cause an unbearable pain.
“The whirl of their love,” she whispered. “Their love pulled us in. You and me. But were we really saved? What if we are still falling into that depth, together with them? What fate awaits us? The sea? The rudderless boat?”
“Branwen…”
“Love me, Morholt. The sea is asking for us, can you hear? But as long as we are here, as long as the legend isn’t over…”