“Branwen.” Essylte stepped forward and took her hand. “Branny, you look lovely. And so richly dressed. Pray, what is the occasion? Are you celebrating something?”
Branwen’s cool eyes met Essylte’s. “The end of deceit, perhaps. As you told me yourself not long ago, the time to tell the truth is at hand.” She looked at Tristan, standing barefoot in his robe, his boots and his hunting clothes in a clutter on the floor. “Have I come at an awkward time?”
“Not at all,” Essylte said quickly, flashing Tristan a look. “Tristan was late getting in from the hunt, that’s all. Come out into the sunshine, Branny. I’ll bring a stool for you.”
“Thank you, but I need no stool.”
They stood on the parapet with the salt breeze in their faces, the silence between them growing awkward the longer it continued.
Tristan cleared his throat. “I’m amazed at your progress, Branwen. Are you feeling well?”
“Not well, my lord, but better, thank you.” Branwen lifted her eyes to him. “I hear your hunt was successful and there will be fresh meat at dinner.”
“Yes, we were lucky.”
“Did you see any sign of Markion?”
“No. I kept lookouts posted. No sign.”
“It is partly about Markion that I wish to speak with you. Are you prepared to kill him, Tristan?”
Tristan frowned. “Not unless he forces me to it.”
“The fortress is alive with rumors that a fight between you is the only permanent solution, that it is what you aim at. That your abduction of the High Queen was the first step toward making yourself High King.”
Tristan passed a hand across his eyes. “I have no ambition beyond Lyonesse. My break with Markion was over his treatment of Essylte and nothing more. I have told my men so.”
“Then tell me, both of you, who know Markion nearly as well as I, if we tell him the truth, will he put Essylte aside and make me his Queen?”
Essylte gasped. “Branny! If only he would!”
Tristan frowned. “It’s barely possible he may put Essylte aside if he thinks her too soiled now for his bed. But the other . . . No. Never.”
Branwen nodded. “I agree. It might be different if I had borne him sons. But your mother cursed me with daughters, Essylte, and as a result, I have no claim on Markion.”
“Is that what her curse was? But why did she curse you, Branny? Whatever did you do?”
“She wanted me to kill Tristan, and she gave me the tools to do it.” Essylte cried out and reached for Tristan, whose arms accepted her without thought. Branwen regarded them without expression. “While he lived, she promised, all my children would be daughters. And so they have been. Now I can have no more.” Her voice shook. “Every time you hold each other in your passion, or share a kiss in tenderness, you have me to thank. You have me to thank for Young Tristan, and for that boy in your belly. Every moment you have spent together since we left Gwynedd is my gift. I have sacrificed my future for your pleasure, because I loved you both.”
Essylte began to weep, her arms around Tristan’s waist. “Oh, Branny! My mother sent you to kill him? Then she would kill me as well!”
“Indeed, Branwen, we owe you everything.” Tristan’s lips moved stiffly. “So great a debt is impossible to repay.”
Branwen’s gray eyes darkened. “Nevertheless, the time has come to repay it. In the crisis that is coming there is only one way out without death, without dishonor. You will have to make the sacrifice this time. Both of you.”
Essylte’s weeping stilled. “What sacrifice?”
“Remember your vow to me, Tristan of Lyonesse.” Branwen looked up at him defiantly. “Remember the vow you swore in Guvranyl’s house as the price of my complicity in your deception. You vowed that when I found the lord I wished to marry, you would approve my choice and help me to my desire. Both of you. Whoever he was.”
Tristan frowned. “I remember.”
“No!” Essylte choked, reddening. “No!”
“Have you found him, then?” Tristan asked. “Who is he? I will do everything I can to arrange it for you.”
Branwen squared her small shoulders and smiled lightly. “I am glad to have your word on it, my lord, for you are the man.”
Essylte slid to the stone floor, sobbing. “Never! Oh, God! I knew it! I knew it all along!”
Tristan looked blankly at her. “Me?” Branwen’s gaze did not falter. “But I am bound to Essylte.”
“Only by love, and love does not come into this matter.” Branwen smiled bitterly. “Oh, it is true enough that I have loved you, Tristan, since I first tended you in the sickroom in Gwynedd. And all these years I have watched Essylte touch you and kiss you and claim you for her own. I have hidden in the background, stifled my despair, and waited upon events. I have spared your life, and because of me you have known the love of this woman you cherish; you even have children by her. What more can a man ask than that, except perhaps for a glorious death?” At the dawning anguish in Tristan’s eyes, her voice hardened. “You know perfectly well, both of you, that Markion will never let you marry. He would sooner kill you both than live with the name of cuckold whispered everywhere behind his back. He comes to kill you, because he knows you have betrayed him. Marry me, and you can yet allay his fears. Marry me, and let Essylte go back to him. All the children will be safe. Your son will live to be High King of Britain. The alliance with Wales will stand. It is easily accomplished. Mark will ask no questions because he won’t want to know the answers. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose, except sole possession of Essylte’s body. And you have had that long enough.”
Essylte clung to Branwen’s gown. “Don’t, Branny! How could you ask it? Ask the sun for his light, ask the earth for her stone, before you ask such a thing of us.”
Branwen looked down at her. “You are selfish, Essylte, to want more from this man than you’ve already had. Think of your children, whom Markion will kill when I tell him whose they are. Think of Tristan, who will die for your unbecoming greed. And if it is the thought of Markion’s bed that stirs such terror in your soul, it is not something you can avoid in any case. I can bear no more children. There can be no more pretense. You will live through it. As I did.”
“Devil! Demon! Witch! How can you be so cruel? You ask for more than I can give!”
“Nonsense. It’s a lot less than I have already given. It is my turn now. And you have sworn it. Before God. Would you break your vow?”
Tristan stood as still as stone. On her knees, Essylte clasped her hands together and raised them to Branwen. “But he and I—we have sworn faith with one another. On our very lives. I cannot break that oath either.”
“But you must. All our lives depend upon it.”
Essylte leaped to her feet. “I will not! Who are you to demand this of me? I will keep my oath to Tristan and break my vow to you. I would rather leap into the sea than let you lie one night in Tristan’s arms. Death is preferable to infidelity.”
“Then die,” Branwen snapped. “But that is the choice before you.”
Essylte stamped her foot furiously. “You are not worthy of him!”
“No? For years everyone in Cornwall has thought him my lover.”
“Worthy enough to warm his bed, perhaps, but not marriage. You—a serving maid, and a bastard one at that—you have no right to wed a prince.”
“Hush, Essylte.” Tristan reached for her hand.
Branwen’s voice softened dangerously. “I wondered when we would come to that. You have always taken great pleasure in your superior birth, haven’t you, Essylte? What a comfortable feeling it must be to have a lowborn companion as your friend. How confident of your elevation it makes you feel! But I am not as lowborn as you like to think. Like my half brother Ceredig, I am one of Percival’s bastards. I am the first of them. Your father is my father, Essylte of Gwynedd.”
Essylte stared at her. For a long moment she could not breathe; then her breath exploded in a shriek. “You lie!”
br />
Branwen reached into her pouch and drew forth a golden ring etched with the Gray Wolf of Gwynedd.
“That’s my father’s ring!” Essylte cried. “Where did you get it?”
“He gave it to me the night before we left. When he bid me farewell.”
“He never did! You stole it!”
Branwen reached into her pouch again and withdrew a small folded paper. She handed it to Tristan. “Read this to her.”
Tristan glanced at the writing and the seal. “Essylte,” he whispered. “Percival himself verifies it. Branwen is your sister.”
“No,” Essylte cried, clinging to him. “It cannot be!”
“My sweet, it explains the likeness between you. It explains her fidelity, her willingness to link her future with yours, her ability to fool Mark. It explains everything. It must be true.”
“Even so,” Essylte wept, “she is not trueborn! She is not worthy to be your wife! Oh, Tristan, is there no way out? I will surely die if you marry anyone but me.”
With one arm around Essylte’s shaking shoulders, Tristan looked gravely at Branwen. “What you ask is difficult to accept. But I do not deny you have the right to ask it. Can you give us time, Branwen, to talk it over and thrash it out?”
Expressionless, Branwen nodded. “You have until Markion arrives. If you refuse me, Tristan, then you must kill him. There is no other way.”
“Either way I am dishonored,” Tristan whispered.
Branwen shrugged. “It is too late to think of honor. It was already too late that morning in Sir Guvranyl’s house.” Taking back her paper and her ring, she tucked them into her pouch, turned silently on her heel, and left.
“Tristan!” Essylte cried against his breast. “Don’t ever leave me. I cannot be parted from you.”
“My sweet Essylte.” His lips came down on hers as his fingers pulled the pins from her hair. He held her as tight as he dared and pressed his cheek hard against hers. “I will never leave you. We are one. That cannot change.”
“Swear,” Essylte quavered. “Swear you will never wed any woman but me. Swear it now.”
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. “We are fated, Essylte. We are two sides of a single coin. If ever I marry, it will be to no one but you. This I swear.”
28 STORM WINDS
Three hundred horsemen thundered down from the hills in the cold, gray dawn. They heard nothing over the steady drumming of hooves as they raced toward land’s end, for fog lay thick upon the sea, stifling even the thud and hiss of breakers. Mist skulked along the valley bottoms, snaked into crevices and gullies, writhed in pale, twisted fingers across the road to cloak their way. At the last moment they saw the ragged cliff edge. The dark gates of Lyon’s Head sprang out at them. The horses screamed, rearing, as blasts sounded from the lookouts’ horns.
“Beware! Beware! Horses!”
“Ho, there! Grayell! It’s me, Regis of Caer Conan! Open the gates, for God’s sake!”
Sir Grayell fought to recover his wits. The horsemen had come out of the mist between one breath and the next, like nightmare apparitions, and it was moments before he recognized the voice. “Dornal, Geoff, Hargas, to the gates! Quick, lads! Ho, Regis! How many are you?”
“Three hundred. Filas and Dynas have brought their men with mine, and we’ve fifty archers with us.”
“Oh, good man!” Grayell slapped the neck of Regis’s sweated horse as the gates opened. “Best dismount and lead him across. The road’s only wide enough for one at a time, and if he spooks at the mist, you’re lost.”
Regis grinned as he slid to the ground. “Oh, aye, I remember the first time I crossed it. So precarious a stretch of rock—I wonder the sea hasn’t beaten it down.”
“God is holding it up for Tristan,” Grayell replied solemnly. “God loves that man. There’s no other explanation for the fact that he’s still alive.”
Regis grunted. “He’d better love him well, or we’re all dead men.”
“Trouble?” Grayell frowned. “Were you followed?”
“No, no. We sneaked out in the wee hours, but Markion knows well enough where we’ve gone.”
Halfway across the rock bridge, Grayell turned and looked swiftly behind him. “So the High King’s in Lyonesse at last?”
“Camped just beyond the hills. Be here tonight.”
“So,” Grayell breathed, “the confrontation has finally come. Tristan wants no bloodshed, but me—I think a hard, cleansing battle is what we need.”
“Well, you’re likely to get your wish.”
“You’ve got to help us convince him, Regis, to take Markion’s crown. It’s his by right. You’ve got to make him see that.”
“Why else am I here?” Regis cried. “You don’t mean that Tristan doesn’t want the Kingship?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Hold up, man! Are you jesting? Why else did he take the Queen and all her household to Lyonesse, if not to force Cornwall to that choice?”
“He loves her,” Grayell replied levelly. “That’s what this war is all about, to Tristan. The Queen. Nothing more.”
Regis snorted. “Isn’t that just like him? It’s a mood. It will pass.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Well, put it to him thus: Markion’s her husband. If he wants her, he’ll have to kill the old bastard and take his place.”
“How many of Markion’s men are loyal? I mean, truly loyal? Would fight for him to their death?”
“A handful. The rest will fight for the High King. Whoever he is.”
“Then our course is clear,” Grayell said slowly. “We must persuade Tristan to kill Markion.”
“My God,” Regis breathed. “I can’t believe it will take persuasion. You’d think he’d jump at the chance.”
The fair-haired guard unlocked the dungeon gate and let Branwen in. She shivered as she entered and pulled her cloak tighter. All about her, stone walls sweated moisture. She could feel the damp chill in her bones.
“Where is he?” she demanded, using anger to keep fear at bay.
The guard gestured. “Over here, my lady. He’s the only one we’ve got.”
He unlocked a low door and pushed it open. Light from a high window fell on the cracked stone floor, throwing half of the small cell into shadow. Something scurried in the corner. Branwen jumped. A squat figure rose from a bench and came toward her.
“Well, well. Good morning, Branwen. How good of you to visit me.”
Branwen shuddered as Segward stepped into the light. He had dropped flesh in his imprisonment, and his mottled, livid skin hung in folds from his jaw. His small eyes had lost their greedy glitter and stared at her devoid of all amusement, hard and mean.
“You know why I came,” she answered coldly.
His lips drew back from his teeth in a mirthless smile. “Pretty Branwen.” He lifted a pudgy finger to her cheek, and she jerked away. “Not so lovely anymore, my dear. Too thin. Too pale. Too hard a life, is it, for such a delicate flower? Too stifling for you, pet, to serve such witless beauty day in, day out?” He chuckled wickedly. “You’re worth three of her any day. We both know that.”
Branwen kept her eyes on the shadowed corner. “You threatened Esmerée. You told her you would kill her daughter if I did not come.”
“Not any daughter. Just the youngest. Tristan’s brat.” A shadow of amusement flicked across his face and was gone. “And what is it to you if the child dies? One bastard more or less can make no difference.”
“You’re a bastard yourself, Segward.”
He laughed. “You’re worth ten of them, you are. You’ve been studying me, haven’t you? And you’ve had me watched since first you came to Cornwall. I knew that. I admired it. We’re two of a kind, you and I.”
Branwen shuddered. “Never.”
“Ah, but we are.” He settled himself on the bench again, and Branwen breathed more easily. “You’ve been my only opposition worth the name. And I may say you’ve
been a masterful foe at times. We are alike. I, too, have wasted years in serving a brainless prince who listens with half an ear to my advice. I did it for power. I admit it. Why did you do it, Branwen?”
“Is this why you brought me down here? To ask me questions? Make me your proposition, Segward, and have it over. I’m cold and the stink of this place is making me sick.”
He stiffened. “I’m not fond of the climate, either. But you’ve borne worse.” His voice sank, and the hairs stood up on the nape of Branwen’s neck. “You’ve held that scarred old ox in your pretty white arms, when he came to you straight from the drinking hall, stinking of dogs and mead. You’ve seen him so drunk he could only stagger, you’ve seen him with vomit in his beard. He’s not your husband and he never will be, but you let him put his hands on you, you let him use your body, you let him pound you like one of his ewes in heat. And you’ve never uttered even a single word of complaint.”
Branwen stared at him. Her throat went dry. She put out a trembling hand and felt for the wall behind her.
Segward nodded. “I know you’ve been in Mark’s bed. You’ve been there from the beginning and she has not.”
“Who told you?” Branwen croaked.
“No one. No one else suspects. I worked it out myself.”
“How?”
He showed his teeth in a smile. “Close, steadfast observation.”
Branwen leaned against the cold stone wall as beads of sweat formed along her brow. Her voice came out in a whisper. “You’re very clever. For a bastard.”
“Yes. I am. But then, bastards have to be. Don’t we?”
Branwen clutched at her cloak. “What do you want of me?”
“First, I want to know why you’ve put up with serving that royal bitch all these years. Then I’ll tell you what I want of you.”
“There’s no need to malign her. I don’t hate her. It’s not her fault her mother was married to Percival while mine was not. She may be unthinking, but she’s not mean.”
Segward whistled. “So that’s who you are. I ought to have guessed. That’s how you were able to fool Mark.”
Branwen nodded. “But no longer.”