Tristan pulled her off the stool and onto his lap. The blanket slipped from her shoulders as he bent his lips to the warm skin of her throat. “I only suspect her of having a double purpose. What she has done for us, she has done also for herself. That’s all. Don’t go making phantoms where none exist. I’m sorry I spoke.”
She shrugged off the blanket and pressed her body against his. “Tristan, Tristan, take me to Lyonesse. I am ready to go. I can’t be parted from you—not again, not ever again. Death is better.”
“First, Tintagel,” Tristan breathed, his mouth against her breast, “to get our son. And then I will shelter you both in Lyonesse. It is time. And if Guvranyl is right, we may have more backing than I thought. We may even live through it.”
“Do you promise, Tristan?”
“Yes, my love. We will make our stand in Lyonesse. I swear it on our lives.”
Their lips met, their arms entwined, their bodies sought each other without thought, joining with the firm familiarity of a handclasp as they began again the slow, sweet, urgent dance of love.
Tristan awoke in the middle of the night. For a moment he did not know where he was. The fire had burned to embers. He could see no walls, but neither could he see stars above him. Then he saw his clothes, and Essylte’s, spread out on the hearth to dry, and he remembered. Wondering what had awakened him, he rose from the bed of bracken and picked up his sword, listening hard. The rain had stopped and a small wind had sprung up, blowing the grass from the cracks around the door. Moving air brushed his cheek as gently as a sigh. The fitful rustle of leaves and the whispering pines were all he heard. The hut still glowed with warmth; he added wood to the embers and teased them into flame. He peered into the cooking pot. There was plenty of stew left for breakfast. They had eaten little, their hunger for one another displacing their desire for food.
His gaze fell on the dirt floor by the stool, which bore telltale signs of recent disturbance, and he smiled. Who would have guessed such passion lurked in Percival’s lovely daughter? Had he suspected, there on his sickbed in Gwynedd, what feverish energy lay within her heart, what buoyant joy drove her loving, he would never have been able to resist her. He would have succumbed to her in her father’s house, and died in Wales.
Laughing silently at himself, he stooped to pick up their discarded dinner bowls, and froze. Someone groaned. He whirled. Essylte lay still under the blanket, fast asleep. There was no one else in the hut. He walked to the bed and knelt down. “Essylte?”
She did not move. He reached out a hand to touch her and gasped aloud. She was burning alive! He snatched the blanket off her. The skin all over her body flushed pink, hot to the touch. Around her brow her hair clung in damp tendrils. As he watched in horror, her head swung toward him listlessly and her eyes fluttered half open. Her dry lips barely moved. “Water.”
He jumped to his feet. “Yes! Yes! Water—the waterskin’s right here. There’s a little left. Here you are. Drink.” But she had not the strength to rise. He propped her up against his shoulder and held the skin to her lips. “Drink, Essylte! Please, drink.”
Some of the water got down her throat; some dribbled from her chin. She was a dead weight in his arms, too weak to support herself. He held her and kissed her and stroked the hair back from her face. “Please, Essylte, tell me what is wrong. Tell me what to do.” But her eyes closed and she did not speak. Tristan looked around wildly. “O ye gods, hear my plea! Come to me in this hour of my need. Heal her! Save her! I will pay any price for her life. Great Mother of men, the land from which we spring—Lord Mithra, the Light, who spilled the blood of the Bull—Yahweh of the burning bush, Jesu Christ of the empty tomb—Llud, Llyr, Eroth, Myrddin, Cerunnos the Horned One—hear my plea! I am your servant. Have mercy upon me and let her live!”
He soaked his tunic in the last of the water and pressed it to her brow, to her glowing body, to her burning cheeks. She sighed once but did not respond to his pleadings or open her eyes. He knelt by her side, praying, racking his brains for something to do. He knew no herb lore, nor any healing arts save those of the battlefield. He could bind a severed limb and slow bleeding from a sword cut, but a fever! He gazed helplessly at Essylte. Women could die from fevers; children often did. Even men, if a wound went bad. What was it Pernam had done for him? Plenty of fresh water, plenty of cool compresses. But he had no more water.
He staggered to his feet and grabbed the waterskin. Outside the night was black, but the storm had cleared. Faint stars shone above the pines. He could see his way about well enough to know, after an hour of searching through the woods, that there was no stream, no spring, no well. The best he could do was to soak his tunic in the wet grasses and cover her with it. But as time passed she grew worse. She tossed fitfully, moaning in misery, her breathing shallow and swift. When he lifted the tunic off her, it was dry and warm. Fighting back tears of panic, he went to the door of the hut and threw it open.
The woods outside gradually took shape out of the dark as night dimmed to the cold gray of dawning. Tristan fell on his knees on the threshold and buried his face in his hands.
“God forgive me for my sins! I care not what becomes of me. But Essylte is more than life to me. Spare her, for my son’s sake if not her own. Show me the way to heal her.” His breath caught on a sob. “Help me! Spirits of the sky, of the rivers and crossroads, of the land and all it blessings, spirits of the souls of men, come to my aid! Whoever hears me—help me! I beseech you!”
“Give me one good reason why I should.” A deep voice, thick with suspicion, echoed from the woods. Tristan leaped up, staring. A small man in a gray cloak, ghostly in the rising mist, stood fifty feet away beside a donkey.
Tristan blinked twice. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” the apparition replied sourly. “Why are you here? Leave at once.”
“Leave! How dare—give me your name, sir!”
“Nonsense. Get out. Who gave you leave to go inside?”
“I cannot leave. Are you a healer? My—wife is ill.”
The gray figure snorted. “Next, I suppose, you’ll be asking me for spells. Off with you, before I lose my temper. Get out. Get out of my house.”
Tristan gaped. “Your house?”
“He has ears,” the stranger muttered to the donkey.
“Sir, I beseech you, for the love of Christ, tell me where I may find water to bathe her brow.”
Through the lifting mists black eyes glowered at him from beneath thick black brows. “I do not serve Christ. Tell me who you are.”
“I am a traveler, sir. If I have trespassed, I most humbly beg your pardon. We took shelter from the storm, but not soon enough. The lady Ess—my wife is ill with fever. I fear—I fear for her life.”
The little man watched him for a moment, then pulled at the donkey’s lead and turned away. “A traveler, is he? From the Blessed Isles, perhaps, where clothes are of no consequence. What does he think a rain barrel’s for, I wonder?”
Tristan looked down at himself in some surprise. He had forgotten he was naked. When he looked up, the man and donkey were gone into the mist as silently as they had come. Tristan rubbed his eyes. A rain barrel stood between the trees and the hut, twenty steps away and brimming with water. Had he missed it in the dark? Had the mist cloaked it? He grabbed his waterskin and raced to the barrel to fill it.
Essylte sighed, senseless, under the fresh compress. Tristan, hastily dressed in damp boots and leggings, built up the fire to warm the stew, and knelt by her side with the waterskin in anxious impatience. He was dimly aware of sounds outside the hut, but he could spare no thought for anything but Essylte’s uneven breathing and the undiminished burning of her skin.
He turned when a shadow fell across the door. The gray-cloaked figure stepped across the threshold, glared at him, then stooped to pick up the unwashed dinner bowls. Tristan colored and opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t bother,” the other said, gathering the bowls and righting the overturned s
tool. “It’s your house, obviously. Pay me no mind.” He looked at the stack of firewood, fingered the edge of the ax, and grunted. “Right at home, indeed.” He leaned over the stew pot and sniffed delicately. “Poisoned her, did you? Fool.” He lifted the pot from its stand, and with the dirty bowls underneath his arm, disappeared outside.
Tristan stared after him. Poison? He turned back to Essylte. After a moment of panic, he steadied himself. He had eaten what she had eaten, and more of it, besides. It might not have been the tastiest meal they’d ever had, nor the most nourishing, but it had served them well enough for six weeks now and this stew had been no worse than the others.
The little man returned with pot and bowls scrubbed clean. He put the bowls on the shelf and set the pot of fresh water over the flame. Gathering firewood under his arm, he nodded angrily to Tristan. “With your permission, of course, master, I’ll take some of this wood my ax has chopped and start a fire in the bake house.”
“Please—” Tristan began, but the stranger was already gone. Bake house? Had he missed that, too, in his search for a spring? And where had the donkey gone? He stared miserably at Essylte. Without her he had lost his bearings and gone adrift in a maelstrom of confusion. “I swear by the blood of Christ,” he said slowly, “that when she is recovered I will take her out of Morois to safety, whether or not she is with child.”
When the stranger returned, Tristan rose and bowed to him.
“Sir,” he said, “please excuse my hasty—”
“Traveler.” The black eyes looked up at him from a brown, wizened face. “I want none of your excuses, and I want none of you.” He knelt by the chest, unlocked it, and withdrew a roughly woven bag. “Until you go and leave me and mine in peace, you may call me hermit.” He reached into the bag and sprinkled an aromatic herb into the cooking pot. “Which I was, until you came, and which I will be again.” He gathered up their clothes from the floor, shook them forcefully, and carried them outside. When he returned he carried a grain sack stuffed with straw. “By your leave.” He walked past Tristan and slipped the rough pillow under Essylte’s head.
“Thank you,” Tristan whispered. “Do you know aught of healing, hermit?”
“Traveler,” the deep voice growled, “you presume too much.”
“I beg your pardon.”
The black eyes regarded him gravely. “You owe me service for all your presumptions.”
Tristan nodded. “I acknowledge it. As soon as my wife is—”
“Now.” The fierce black brows met in a frown. He pointed to the ax. “Three trees you will fell and chop for me. Arm-length logs. Before the sun sets.”
“But I—” Tristan glanced wildly at Essylte. “I cannot leave her.”
“You can,” said the hermit. “And you will.” He lifted his cloaked arm and pointed out the door.
Tristan found himself standing in the forest with the ax in his hand. He blinked twice. He had no recollection of walking there, nor of taking the ax. He looked about frantically, but the hut was gone. In its place stood a rough-hewn lean-to where a donkey gazed at him quizzically, munching hay. For an hour he searched everywhere for a path back to the hut, but he found nothing, not even an animal trail. Finally he shouldered the ax.
“Your master is either a madman or a magician,” he said levelly to the donkey, “and he will join his ancestors tonight if he has harmed Essylte. But I will obey him.”
The moon had risen silver in the frosted night by the time he finished. He loaded the wood onto a rude donkey cart he found stowed in the lean-to, and hitched up the donkey. Although he was still dressed only in leggings and boots, and his breath hung frozen in the frigid air, he was warm enough as he strode through the forest at the donkey’s side. The animal seemed to know where he was going and, as Tristan did not, he let the beast have his head. Eventually he saw the domed hut huddling black against the moonlit forest. A thin stream of smoke issued from the roof. Tristan unloaded the cart and stacked the wood as fast as he could, unhitched the donkey, and slapped him on the rump to send him on his way. Then he put his shoulder to the door and pushed it open.
Warmth, fragrance, light assailed his senses. His eyes flew to the pallet. Essylte lay motionless and pale, as cold and still now as she had been burning and restless before. He fell to his knees and reached for her hand. It lay in his, lifeless and unresponsive. “Oh, dear Christ! Essylte!”
“Hush. The Queen sleeps. Don’t wake her.”
The hermit sat on his haunches by the fire, sipping from a wooden cup. The black eyes met his, man to man and unafraid.
“What have you done?” Tristan breathed. “If this is your doing, I swear I will—”
“She sleeps, fool. She lives. The fever broke.”
Tristan knelt at her side and put his ear to her breast. There, faint but discernible, he heard the rhythmic sounds of life. He exhaled, whispering a prayer of thanksgiving. The hermit pushed a cup into his hand.
“Drink this.”
The hot liquid slid down his throat, fragrant and sweet. He looked up and met the black eyes. “Thank you. Thank you, hermit. Is this your doing?” He nodded toward the pallet.
The hermit scowled. “No doing of mine, traveler. I gave her a mustard poultice and a strong tisane, not a whit more. I can’t spare the stores.” Tristan began to smile as the hermit turned away, still grumbling. “Let it not be said I steal credit from the Divine. I’m no thief, unlike some I could name.”
“I’ve paid for what I’ve taken,” Tristan replied. “You’ve seen to that. And I would bless your name, if I knew it, for your ministrations. When will she awaken?”
“She will wake when she’s strong enough to wake.” The hermit dipped his ladle into the cooking pot and handed Tristan a bowl full of mushrooms, wild onions, and bits of dried meat all swimming in a thick, hot porridge. Then he brought over a plate of meal cakes, newly baked, studded with nuts and raisins.
“This is wonderful,” Tristan managed between mouthfuls. “Don’t tell me you made all this yourself.”
“Certainly not. What could a poor lowborn hermit do that couldn’t be done better by a king’s son?”
Tristan’s head flew up. “What makes you think I am a king’s son?”
The bright black eyes met his. “Your size, of course. Only in a king’s house could you eat enough to grow that big.”
Tristan laughed. “And I’ve lost flesh this month past. But I’m no giant. There are plenty of men my size in any village: woodcutters, peat diggers, plowmen.”
“But none with your sword arm.” Nothing moved in the hermit’s stony face, but intelligence gleamed in his quick eyes. “You’ve a fighter’s build. And your right arm’s larger than your left.”
“And my sword lies here beside the pallet. So much for your deductions,” Tristan scoffed. “But men may wield a sword and not be kings’ sons, just as men may eat well in a lord’s house and not be kings’ sons.”
The black eyes flashed. The hermit pointed to Tristan’s boots. “Such fine doeskin is not the common garb of warriors.”
Tristan smiled. “I’m not a common warrior. I confess it. I’m particular in my tastes.”
The hermit’s eyes slid to the pallet and back. “Indeed.”
Tristan flushed lightly. “How do you dare?”
The hermit rose suddenly and pointed a finger at him. “Arrogant prince! I’m no subject of yours. Your power is no more to me than smoke in the wind. You are a guest in my house. Before you will speak to me so, you will take the woman and go.”
Staring at the dark, ferocious little face, seen in light for the first time, Tristan slid to his knees and made the ancient sign of propitiation. “You’re one of the Old Ones, aren’t you?” he asked softly as the hermit stiffened. “You’re descended straight from the ancient Britons, without a drop of Roman blood. I’ve heard about your people, of course. Bards sing of your heroes and your gods, and tell the tales your ancestors wove. But I’ve never met one of your kind before.” He
paused. “Is that why you live here all alone? To avoid my race of men?”
“To avoid men altogether!” the hermit spat.
“Let me beg your pardon. You saved her life. I owe you for that.”
The hermit acknowledged his submission with a slight nod of the head. “I will name a service you can do me.” Reaching into Tristan’s pack, he drew out his lap harp. “Listen to bards’ songs, do you? Let me hear one, then, Tristan of Lyonesse.”
Tristan stared at him and paled. “How—”
“By the rings on her fingers,” the hermit snapped. “If you have wits, use them.”
Tristan groaned. On her right hand Essylte wore Cornwall’s wedding band, and on her left, the ring he had given her with the Eagle of Lyonesse. If even this hermit knew that they had disappeared together . . . “So that’s why you called her Queen.”
“King Markion has men all over Cornwall searching for her,” the hermit said gruffly, watching his face. “And looking to kill you.”
Tristan bowed his head. “I thought as much.”
“You must count her worth the price.”
“She is beyond any price.” He looked up at the hermit with drowned eyes. The little man had pushed back his hood and squatted by the fire. His weathered skin was stained the color of walnut by age, hard use, and sun. His hair, roughly cropped close against his head, was black threaded with silver, like his beard. The hands and wrists that poked out of his sleeves were wiry and strong, ageless hands that worked to live from season to season with nothing to spare. But his fearsome eyes, black as night pools, were pits of infinite sadness.
“You loved a woman once,” Tristan whispered, wondering at his own temerity, but emboldened by those eyes. “You will understand. She is the breath of life in my body, the beat of blood in my veins, the sweet summation of all that is good in me. I cannot part from her.”
The hermit pointed to the harp. “A man with a bard’s soul draws beauty out of pain. Let me hear your music and I will judge for myself what is in you.”