“Please, my lord, one question at a time. We brought very little from Wales and all of it’s still on the ship. These furnishings we found here, in this house.”
“In Guvranyl’s house? I don’t believe you. He’d never allow such trappings. He’s a hard man who believes in hard beds, cold baths, and early rising. I know. I was under his tutelage for long enough.”
“Then you did not know he had a wife?” A soft voice spoke behind him. He whirled. Essylte stood in the doorway, holding a wineskin. Tristan’s breath caught in his throat. She wore a white gown, cut low across the breast and belted high. Around her shoulders she wore a russet cloak, dark enough to make the white dazzling and red enough to set off the flame-red highlights in her hair.
“A wife?” he croaked, furious to find he could not speak. “Not Guvranyl.”
Essylte smiled. “Well, a woman, then. Someone’s been living in the south wing in a style more comfortable than Sir Guvranyl’s, and according to Junius, it was his wife. A brief marriage. She died a year ago in childbed and he hasn’t been here much since then, but her rooms are kept just as they were. I had to promise we would put everything back before we left.”
While she spoke, he watched the candlelight play on her lovely features, the thin, firm nose, the rounded cheek, the wide eyes, green in the shadows, blue in the light. The gown set off the perfection of her smooth, glowing skin, the long, graceful curve of neck and shoulder, the quick, quiet pulse at the base of her throat. The ache to touch her grew into a pain. As if she sensed his thought, her eyes met his and held them.
Tristan bent his knee and bowed his head. “My lady Essylte.”
She put out a hand to raise him, and he held it firmly.
“Don’t, my lord,” she said softly, her voice sounding strained. “You are a king. You needn’t kneel to me.”
He rose, still holding her hand. “Let me choose to whom I kneel.” He lifted her hand to his lips, kept it there, and let it go.
“Is that the wine?” Branwen came between them and took the wineskin. “Allow me, my lady. I’ll set it to warm.” She lowered her voice to Essylte. “Is my lord still standing?”
“See what we have found, my lord,” Essylte said shyly. “A Roman couch. Won’t you sit down?”
Tristan eyed it doubtfully. “Is it safe? Last time I saw it, mice were living in it.”
Essylte flashed a smile. “We turned them out and restuffed it with straw. It’s not so bad. I tried it myself.”
Gingerly, Tristan sat. It wasn’t uncomfortable, and Essylte looked so delighted, he pronounced it perfect. But when he offered her the seat beside him, she shied away, taking instead a chair across the table.
“You know,” she said slowly, keeping her eyes lowered, “this is the first time I’ve seen you that you look like a king. It’s—it’s kind of like meeting you all over again.”
“I’ll do my best to make a good impression.”
“I mean—if I had seen you before as you are now, surely I would have guessed who you were. You don’t look like some lost cousin.”
He smiled. “Then lying naked on a sickbed was a good disguise.”
She blushed brightly, but her eyes were laughing. “If you are truly King of Lyonesse, why did you come to Wales at all? You must have known your life would be in danger. How could you risk it so?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. There was no point in telling her his suspicions of Mark. He must tell her only what he knew for certain.
“All my life I have wanted to meet your father. The chance came to go to Wales—I volunteered. It was a risk, but I thought it a small one. Thanks to Segward, everyone thought I was dead. No one who suspected I might live would believe me foolhardy enough to go.”
“And yet,” she said quietly, “you were discovered.”
“By my bright-eyed Branwen,” he said lightly, looking over his shoulder to where Branwen warmed the wine above the fire. “It’s hard to get much past Branwen.”
Branwen colored. “It is my fault, my lord, that the queen discovered you, and you got no chance to speak with Percival. I beg your pardon for it.”
Tristan waved away her apology. “What’s done is done. And after all, I got away with both my life and the princess. I was even cured of Marhalt’s poisoned stroke. And as for Percival, perhaps he will pay us a visit next year in Cornwall.” It was on the tip of his tongue to finish, To see his grandson, but he kept it back. Even so, Essylte looked away.
A heavy silence followed, broken only when servants entered with the meal. They set a veritable feast on the little table: fish stew, steaming hot; crusty bread fresh from the ovens; a fowl roasted in its juices and stuffed with dried spiced meat; grilled sausages; currants set in jelly; honey cakes studded with raisins; dried apples baked in the oven and swimming in cream; and combs of honey, warmed to dripping point. Tristan was amazed at such a spread, and said so.
Essylte and Branwen both looked pleased.
“Most of it was standing ready in the pantry or the storerooms,” Essylte explained. “The fowl was killed in the storm when the henhouse collapsed. The fish were caught by local boys, who know the ways of the sea. The sausages are the gift of a neighbor who heard you were here. So you see, my lord, you have the storm to thank for this feast. Not us.”
“There is more here than we could eat in a week.”
“When you are done, Junius and the staff will have the rest,” Branwen said. “It is a feast for everyone.”
“And you, too, Branwen,” Tristan said quickly, rising to place a chair firmly between him and Essylte. “We three will eat together.”
“Three,” Branwen murmured, “is a crowd.”
Essylte looked up with beseeching eyes. Tristan pointed to the chair. “We wish to be crowded,” he said. “Come, sit down.”
Obediently, Branwen sat. While they ate, Essylte plied Tristan with questions about Lyonesse, and he regaled them with stories of his homeland, of Dinadan and his uncle Pernam, of sea adventures and wild rides over the midnight moors. In turn, Essylte responded with tales of evenings spent in her mother’s workroom bent over the witch’s cauldron, hating the stink of brewing herbs, secretly terrified of her mother’s pale oval face, so beautiful in the moonlight, an unearthly spectral visage whose watchful eyes always found fault.
Branwen watched them feint and parry, using words to keep their defenses up, all the while dancing slowly around the central truth neither wanted to acknowledge. When they stumbled and let a silence hang, their eyes met with an intensity that frightened them both. Then they turned to her, helpless and beseeching, and she found a new topic for them. On it went, and on it would go, until the parting came and they sent him away. Essylte would weep all night, that was sure. And the night after, and the night after. What would Tristan do? Pace all night and drive himself half mad, as he had on shipboard, or take his frustrations out in a fierce gallop over the hills? Or worse, in swordplay? She thought of the small linen bags tucked in her pouch. There was more than one way out of their dilemma, but she had to think carefully. There was her own future to consider as well as theirs.
Servants returned to clear the meal away. At Essylte’s bidding Tristan reclined upon the couch. She sat beside him on a cushion on the floor. Branwen brought them each a goblet of warmed wine.
“My lady, why don’t you sing for us?”
“Yes, do,” Tristan seconded.
“If you will not think it presumptuous of me,” Essylte responded shyly, looking up at him. “I will give you the song of Enide, who pined for her lost love when she could not find him.”
“A good tale,” Tristan whispered, “if it ends happily.”
Essylte shrugged. “Bards don’t tell tales that end happily. I learned this one from Rhydderch the Elder.”
“He is a master. Go on, then.”
He reclined in unaccustomed comfort and let the sweet notes fill his ears. Her voice was clear and true, the voice of his dreaming. He could not take his eyes from he
r, but reveled silently in the sheer beauty of her nearness, the wild red-gold hair spilling over her shoulders, the soft swell of her young breasts rising with each indrawn breath. He closed his eyes. She was so young. So unworldly. Not like Esmerée, who understood the power of beauty and knew how to use it to suit her ends. Essylte had no more idea of her effect on him than a swallow did of the wind under its wings. She simply sailed on, innocent and unknowing, while he lay rigid beside her, sweat springing on his brow, trying to slow the racing of his heart.
When the last note ended he raised his cup to her and drained it.
“Sweeter than honey, fair Essylte. Give us another, I pray you. Don’t stop now.”
“It’s your turn, my lord,” she responded, flushing at his praise. “You’re the one with the bard’s gift. We have no harp, but surely you can give us a tale without it.”
So near, her eyes, now blue, now green, made his head swim. “I will pay you back in coin, pretty princess. I’ll give you the tale of the ill-fated love of Lancelot for Guinevere.”
As he sang, he watched her face. She would not meet his eyes but kept her gaze in her lap, her face still. Only the faintest quiver at the corner of her mouth gave lie to her emotion. As the last note died, she looked up swiftly at him. She was trembling. Surely he did not misread it.
“My lord,” she whispered, and raised her winecup to him.
“Now it’s your turn again.”
Branwen rose and took up their empty cups. While Essylte began another song, she refilled them. She looked back once at Tristan. He was watching Essylte, transfixed, hardly breathing, every fiber of his body attuned to her every movement, and the silly girl did not even know it. Or did she? Did she tremble, or was it the flickering candlelight? Branwen shut her eyes, bowing her head. You can’t have him; he loves Essylte. Don’t grieve over it. It’s a waste of your time. Slowly, from under clenched eyelids, two large tears squeezed out and slid down her cheeks. She held her breath, fists bunched tight against her sides, and steadied herself. From her pouch she pulled a linen bag, loosed the cord around its neck, and dropped a pinch of powder into each goblet. Wiping her cheeks, she watched the grains dissolve in a sparkling shimmer and sink invisibly into the wine. She tucked the bag away and picked up the goblets.
“My lady. My lord.”
With an effort, Tristan glanced away from Essylte. “Thank you, Branwen. Why don’t you join us?” He offered her his cup.
“Thank you, my lord. But I don’t sing. If my lord will forgive me, I beg to retire. I’m suddenly very tired.”
“Surely not. The night is young yet.”
“Yes, my lord. Give me leave to rest for an hour or two, and I shall be ready when my lady wishes to retire.”
“Very well, then, if you must.”
She met his eyes directly. “Shall I send a servant in to attend you?”
A shadow of a smile touched his face. “No need. We will attend ourselves.”
The door closed behind her. Tristan turned to Essylte and raised his winecup. She touched her cup to his. They looked at each other a long time.
“Fair Essylte, long life and great happiness.”
“Tristan of Lyonesse,” she whispered. “My happiness is in your hands.”
She lifted her cup and drank deeply. He did the same, letting the warm, fragrant liquid slide down his throat.
“Sweet Essylte.”
“I think,” she said firmly, “you had better tell me about Markion.”
He nodded reluctantly. “What do you want to know?”
“What does he look like?”
He smiled. He hadn’t expected it, but of course it would be the first question a girl would ask. “He’s taller than most men, brown eyes, brown hair graying at the temples. He wears a beard but keeps it trimmed. He has good teeth. He’s lean for a man his age, fit, strong, healthy. He likes drink, but he’s not the brooding type. He’s a soldier, all in all. There’s nothing about him that’s not explained by that.”
He stopped. A tingling sensation rose from his toes to the top of his head. Something inside him seemed to swell and rise, pushing against his throat, against the back of his eyes, against the flesh of his chest and groin. His sight grew sharper. He could see the soft blond down along the base of Essylte’s ear. He could see in great detail each one of her dark lashes. He could hear her silent breaths, quickening ever so slightly. He could smell the scented wash she had used on her hair; the thin, acrid burning of coals in the brazier; the glorious, God-given fragrance of her young body underlying it all, bringing to mind wildflowers on a sun-bright hill. Something magnificent was happening to him. Every sense had sharpened to dagger point, and the desire to touch her had grown into a need. He burned for it.
“My lord!” She looked up at him, wide-eyed. “My lord, I am ill, I think.” He saw the light film of perspiration along her upper lip and, reaching out a hand, slipped the cloak off her shoulders. His hand rested on the warm flesh of her upper arm.
“It’s grown warm in here, that’s all.”
She rose to her knees, her face on a level with his. “Tell me,” she said fiercely. “Tell me about my husband. Is he a kind man?”
Tristan almost smiled. She was a brave girl, and he admired her attempt to fend him off by thrusting Mark between them. But he had no energy for the game. Every ounce of strength and concentration he could command was focused on fighting down an overwhelming urge to hold her in his arms. The room had grown unbearably stuffy. He would die if he did not get some air. He fumbled with the clasp of his robe and shrugged it off.
“Kind? That depends on whom you ask. Guvranyl would say yes. Elisane no.”
“Who’s Elisane?”
“His first wife.”
She clasped his hand. “What do you say?”
His fingers closed around hers and tightened. “I—I—I’ve always thought so. But sometimes I am not sure.”
“Do you trust him?” she cried, holding hard to his hand with both of hers and drawing it to her breast.
Tristan could not breathe. She filled his vision. He was going up in flames and he could not breathe.
“Not anymore,” he whispered. Her silken skin rose against his fingers. He bit back a groan, his entire being, mind and body, straining for release. She loosed one of her hands and laid it gently against his cheek.
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“Then don’t.”
“I can’t when you look at me like that.” She collapsed against him and kissed him roughly, releasing in an eye blink the pent anguish of an hour’s desperate struggle for control. He drew her up onto the couch, his fingers moving deftly on the laces of her gown, working with a will of their own, finding her sweet flesh, feeling the wild racing of her heart beneath his hands.
They clung together, moved together, speaking with hands and lips and bodies, alive, alight in a world aflame. And in the wild heat of their conflagration, something new was forged; their separate selves dissolved and melded into one, stronger together than each had been before, unbreakable in union.
Outside the shuttered window the wind rose, sighed, and passed by.
The liquid song of the nightingale stirred his dreams. He lay listening, wrapped in inexplicable euphoria, wondering through the fog of sleep if this was heaven, this sweet-scented bliss. He heard a sigh and felt the warmth of a living body against his own. His eyes opened. The room was dark and still. He lay in Guvranyl’s bed, and this woman who lay softly breathing in the crook of his arm, this was the beautiful Essylte. How had it happened? He remembered every moment, but it seemed, somehow, to belong to another life. He turned his head to look at her, hardly daring to believe she could be real. He touched her hair and her cheek, running his fingers lightly down the white curve of her neck to her throat, to her breast. Her breathing quickened. He ran his hand along the curving contours of her body, enjoying the smooth slide of her skin, the generous response his touch evoked.
“Tristan . . .”
r /> “Essylte, my love?”
Her eyes opened and her lips parted in a smile. “I wanted to hear you say it.”
“I will say it a thousand times. I love you more than life. I always will.”
“Oh, sweet, you say it well.” She kissed his lips, her shyness gone, all her hesitance behind her. “And I love you beyond life, beyond death. Tristan, what will happen to us?”
He drew her closer, his lips in her hair, needing to feel the touch of her body’s curves, needing every yielding inch of her again. “You will be beside me, forever. I will never let you go.”
She moved in his arms, willing, ready. “I am yours, always, always. But tell me that again in the morning.”
He laughed lightly, but she kissed him wildly, in desperation, and he lost his laughter in her heat.
13 THE BARGAIN
It was dark when Branwen slipped inside the room. She leaned her back against the door until the latch slid softly home, shielding the sound with her body. She could see nothing. She waited, listening intently, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The silence seemed as thick and as impenetrable as the night. Beyond the shutters even the birds were still.
Gradually dim objects began to appear out of the dark and take on vague, insubstantial shapes. Against the far wall she made out the columns of bedposts. With the return of sight came the return of sound. From the bed she heard the light, slow, steady sigh of breathing. Moving with a noiseless tread, one arm outstretched for the unseen obstacle, she inched toward the bed. Her foot slipped on a white mass on the floor—she drew a quick breath and then relaxed, weak with relief. Essylte’s gown! Carefully, she stepped around it. Two paces from the bed, she stopped
They lay entwined in each other’s arms, still, after so many hours. Tristan’s long body dwarfed the girl’s. Even in sleep he held her with care, one arm bent, cradling her head, one arm draped across her, his face buried in her hair. Her head nestled in the hollow of his throat; her breasts, half hidden by the blanket, pressed against his body. Branwen’s lips slowly twisted. They could not let go, even in sleep.