Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur Read online

  She slid her breast and hand down his arm, carelessly, perhaps a caress and perhaps not. He could almost believe she was flirting with him, courting him, despite the intimate touch he had seen, the touch he had been seeing for days now in his mind's eye.

  Yseult sat down beside him, smiling. "You are a bridge between two worlds."

  "You do me too much honor, Lady."

  "My name is Yseult. It is my mother who is the queen." She placed a bundle on his knee. "I brought you a gift. I would have waited until the midwinter celebration, but you are in need of such now."

  He stared down at the neatly folded blue fabric, unable to think what to say. He laid aside his harp and took up the bundle, stood and shook it out. It was a lambswool cloak in a pattern of blue squares in different shades, the colors bright and the wool soft to the touch. Drystan threw it over his shoulders. "Thank you. I cannot think how I deserve this."

  "You give us joy with your harp and voice almost daily. And you have taught me much in the little time you have spent with us."

  "The little time I was awake, you mean."

  Yseult laughed and rose, and her hand went to his shoulder again, stroking the wool smooth. Suddenly her laughter stilled and she raised those light blue eyes to his, so bright it was almost painful to look at them, pale silver in the middle enclosed by a dark blue ring.

  "You have withdrawn. Why?"

  He never would have expected such a direct attack, and he gave her the truth, or part of it at least. "I'm leaving again in the spring."

  "Must you go?"

  Must you go? She asked him to stay. But what of the warrior with whom she exchanged caresses? And what of the life he had left behind? He thought of Kurvenal's tear-stained face and nodded mutely.

  She withdrew her hand. "Gamal is the past," she said and turned and left the house of druids.

  Drystan watched her go, fear curling into his belly and killing his desire. He couldn't even be pleased at what she had told him.

  He had dropped his guard and allowed her to see into his thoughts. He would never be safe with her. What if she someday saw what she would never forgive?

  * * * *

  Yseult sat in the circle around the peat fire; it was smoldering and sweet, banishing the cold from a sudden winter squall. Earlier in the day the sun had been shining, unseasonably warm, but now winter rain kept everyone in their houses, drinking and playing fidchell and listening to the tales of the bards.

  She wanted him. Yseult was unused to not getting what she wanted. And so, like a child, she wanted him all the more. It didn't help that she understood the power of the friendship pulling him back, had felt it herself when his guard was down; the desire was there anyway, insistent, resentful. She knew it made no sense, knew the affection drawing him was sincere — but still her eyes sought him out whenever he was near.

  She had always had a weakness for those of bardic temperament, drawn to the power of their words as well as by their physical charms. She told herself that was all, told herself she would be better when she returned to Dun Ailinne and saw Illann again, saw his tall, fair form and winning smile, told herself Tandrys would then soon be forgotten.

  Told herself and watched the bard's hair glint with reflected firelight as he tuned his harp. His hair was the dark gold of leaves in autumn and his eyes as green as the grass in spring.

  "Tell us a tale of love, a serca tale," Yseult said, linking her arm through Brangwyn's. "It is winter and we yearn for summer."

  Tandrys shook his head. "I know no tales of love. Boinda has been remiss in teaching me." There was a spurt of laughter around the fire, but Yseult saw in his eyes the way he was keeping himself from her with a joke. Saw and wanted to taunt him further, until he could not help but acknowledge her.

  "Let us have another tale from your homeland," Brangwyn put in — saving the bard from her baiting, Yseult knew it. Brangwyn had teased her before, but she teased no more. She disapproved. Yet another reason for resentment. Not that Yseult was proud of the fact, but somehow she couldn't help it.

  Tandrys stroked the strings of his harp. "I can tell you the story of the city of Ys," he said. "But it is a long tale, and sad, more told than sung."

  Several of those sitting around the fire looked disappointed that they would not have more of the joy of the Armorican's fine singing voice, but a tale was almost as good as a song, and most nodded eagerly. No one minded the lateness of the hour.

  "Once there was, and once there was not," Tandrys began. "In a place I can take you where I have never been, far across the sea, a beautiful princess by the name of Dahut lived in a city that no merchant now visits and no map contains. Dahut was the daughter of good king Gradlon of Armorica. Before Gradlon founded the city of Kemper, he ruled in the famed city of Ys and lived by the old ways. Ys was at the end of the world, and it had escaped the attention of the Romans. But it was not beyond the reach of the new religion and the ways it brought."

  Yseult watched him as he told the tale, watched the way his fingers played upon the strings, fingers long and fine on hands strong and broad. His lower arms where the tunic fell away from his wrists were well-muscled. She listened as his fine voice flowed over her, his speaking voice nearly as musical as his singing voice. The rhythm of his foreign accent seduced her, tricking her into abandoning her resentment. He wasn't telling a serca tale, and yet he was telling a tale for her, a tale of the conflict between the old ways and the new, in a city with a name very like her own. He might not be a druid, but in his own way he was a magician and she allowed him to work his magic on her, surrendered her resentment for the space of a story.

  "The princess Dahut did not like the new ways. The wise men of the Christian religion tried to tell her how to lead her life, forbidding her the joys of the flesh, calling it a sin. But Dahut's mother had left King Gradlon many years before and returned to the sea, and the king found comfort in the teachings of the Christians and welcomed them to his city. Dahut went to her father the king and begged him to build her a home somewhere away from the influence of the Christian wise men where she could enjoy the pleasures of life undisturbed. King Gradlon loved his daughter dearly, and he granted her wish. A great house was built on the sea, beyond the reach of the wise men of Christ, a splendid building of white stone which caught the rays of the setting sun before it disappeared beyond the edge of the world.

  "Dahut's people lived by fishing. In the years after her castle was built, the storms of the bay grew more fierce, threatening the people's safety and livelihood. Dahut went again to her father the king and asked him to build a sea-wall for her and her people to protect them from the worst of the storms. But King Gradlon had only recently given his daughter the splendid building on the sea, and now the filid of the Christ were demanding that a place of worship be built in the city. The Christian wise men had very powerful spells, and they threatened the good king with eternal fire after death if he did not do as they asked. The pressure was great, and Gradlon built the house of worship in the middle of the city of Ys.

  "When Dahut found out about the building where the Christian god was to be worshiped under a roof rather than in the open air, she turned her back on her father. She rowed all night and all day through the dangerous waters of the ocean to the sacred isle of Sizun, where the holy women lived who continued to honor the old ways and practice the arts of magic. The holy women welcomed her, but when she told them about the house of worship for the Christian god in the middle of Ys, they were more angry even than Dahut herself.

  "The wise women sent Dahut home, promising her that she would always be able to follow the old ways. Then they called upon the korrigans, the spirits of the sea. Upon hearing of King Gradlon's heresy, the korrigans rose up against him. There was a great storm, and the water spirits came and engulfed the city of Ys. Dahut was on her way back when the storm hit, and the king of the waters saw her and saw how beautiful she was and took her for his own to live with him in the world beneath the sea where they still fol
low the old ways.

  "The wise men of the Christ had been warned by their god of what would come, and the fili Guenol escaped with King Gradlon. The king and the monk fled before the waves, all the way to the crossing of the waters, a night and a day they fled, before the flood receded. There Gradlon founded the city of Kemper, and it has been the capital of the kings of Gradlon's line ever since."

  The crowd in the round-house clapped and congratulated Tandrys on a story well told.

  Yseult sat, still watching, coming out only gradually from the world the bard had created for them. No longer caught in the spell of words, she was suddenly aware that the night outside was not as quiet as it should be. A number of warriors were already standing when the warning bell rang out. At almost the same time, the door of the round-house crashed open and a young warrior stumbled in, bringing a burst of damp and cold air with him.

  "Attack!" he gasped, falling to his knees on the rushes of the floor.

  At the single word, everyone in the round-house with a weapon to hand was on their feet and storming into the wet winter night. Yseult raced to the wall where the weapons hung, Brangwyn at her side, pulled down a sword, and followed the armed warriors out the door. A numbing rain slanted out of a sky the color of charred wood as the alarmed warriors scrambled to the gates of the rath. On the other side, the intruders had attempted to set the closest buildings on fire, the smokehouse and the blacksmith's forge, but the pelting rain was on the side of the residents of Ard Ladrann, and the fires did little more than sputter and smoke.

  "Ui Cheinnselaig!" the warriors of Ard Ladrann bellowed as they fell on their attackers.

  "Ui Neill!" the call came back.

  Yseult nearly stumbled on the skirt of her tunic, and she sliced off the bottom with her dagger and flung it aside. Her clothes were already wet almost all the way through.

  Tandrys was at the front of the defenders, between Crimthann and Aidenn, fighting as if he had never had a life-threatening wound.

  When Crimthann saw her, he waved her back. "Stay back!" he yelled. "It's you they want!"

  While his attention was on her, one of the Ui Neill charged him, but Tandrys swung his own sword down and took off the man's forearm with a sickening crunch of breaking bone. The Ui Neill warrior's scream of pain temporarily drowned out the clash of metal and the squish of feet in the mud. This morning the area outside the rath had been grass; now it was a quagmire.

  Yseult tried to make her way back to the gates of the rath as Crimthann had ordered, but then two of the attackers were in her way. Before they could overpower her, Lithben was at her side, slashing at the enemy like Morrigu herself. Strands of iron-gray hair were plastered to her forehead and temples, and her tunic and breeches were already splattered with blood. Yseult was no longer aware of where anyone else was besides herself and Lithben and their opponents; the world around them was wet shades of gray, and the smell of blood and sweat and dirt filled her nostrils as she fought off the Ui Neill. Crimthann was right. The warrior facing her wasn't trying to kill her, he was trying to weaken her. If it hadn't been for Lithben, he and his companion probably would have taken her.

  She heard the wet thud of metal piercing flesh and saw out of the corner of her eye as Lithben yanked her sword out of the other man's chest. When he crumpled to the ground, she turned her attention to Yseult's opponent. As soon as the second attacker saw he no longer had a chance of taking the princess, he turned tail.

  "You have more bravery than brains," Lithben panted, wiping the sweat and rain out of her eyes. "Now get back to the gate. If they fight through to the ramparts, we're lost and so are you."

  The battle was soon over. Either the attackers had underestimated the force at Ard Ladrann, or they had expected to gain more from the surprise attack. The change in weather had certainly been to the advantage of the defenders — if the buildings outside the rath had caught fire, it could have spread to the gate and from there into the rath itself.

  Yseult watched from a protected spot in the shelter of the corner between the earthworks and the gate, hugging her arms to her sides to keep warm. The battle fever was leaving her, and all she felt now was sick, cold, wet, and chagrined. But how could she have known the attackers would try to take her? It was her mother Lóegaire wanted.

  When she saw she would no longer be needed to defend the rath, she hurried back inside to the house of healing to help her mother tend the injured. There would be no sleep for her this night.

  * * * *

  The man whose arm Drystan had severed bled to death in the mud outside the rath. When the last attacker had fled or was captured, Drystan collapsed. His wounds were minor, but the pain in his leg had come back in a rush, and nausea at the smell of blood and mud and murder made him nearly ill.

  "Aidenn! Domnall!" Crimthann called out to the warriors closest to them. "Bring this man to the house of healing and be sure that the queen or her daughter look to him." Grateful, Drystan allowed the other men to take him up. He didn't know if he would have been able to walk.

  When he next awoke, he found himself in the round-house of the prince. Daylight streamed through the skylight in the roof. He pushed himself to his elbows, wondering why he wasn't in the house of healing or the house of druids as was his wont, and at the movement, a slave scurried out of the door. Soon Crimthann was striding through the double doors to Drystan's pallet.

  "Yseult told me you had no serious wounds," the prince said. Drystan was awake enough to realize he probably meant the queen rather than her daughter. "I'm glad to see she was right."

  "What am I doing here?"

  "There was no more room in the house of healing. And here there is someone to care for you."

  Drystan swung his legs over the side of the pallet. "I am well enough."

  "Last night you fainted from pain."

  And disgust, Drystan thought. "What is the toll?" he asked.

  "We lost two, they lost twelve. Seven of our men lie in the house of healing. Three of their warriors are captured."

  He nodded, his brain still fogged with exhaustion and the aftermath of pain.

  "I owe you my life," the prince said quietly.

  Drystan's head shot up, and his gaze locked with that of the chieftain of the rath. "And I would not have survived without the treatment of Yseult the Wise."

  Crimthann was silent for a moment. "Tandrys, you are not only a gifted bard, you are more than just handy with a sword. I know you intend to return to Armorica in the spring, but perhaps what I can offer you is more than what awaits you across the sea. If you stay, I will bestow on you the honor price of a fili of the fifth rank, the highest for a bard of song among my people."

  Drystan stared at the prince. There were a total of seven ranks of fili in Eriu, but young bards with no training in law or magic generally joined the court of a king or prince at the lowest rank.

  "I have spoken with Boinda on this," Crimthann continued. "And he thinks you could still do the training necessary to raise your honor price even higher. If you so wish, I would sponsor you at one of the schools. But even if you do not, you would be aes dana, with right of passage throughout Eriu, regardless of king or kingdom."

  "I — but I still do not know the required number of songs."

  "You have saved the life of a prince." Then Crimthann grinned. "Besides, I'm quite sure you will increase my fame even without the required songs. In a few short months, you have already made a name for yourself with your memorable voice and your talent on the harp."

  Drystan didn't feel awake enough to understand what was happening, and he rubbed his eyes. "I am honored. But I hadn't thought to stay here in Eriu."

  The prince nodded as if he had expected the objection. "You need not decide now. Think on it. You would not have to remain a bard at Ard Ladrann. I am a member of the kinship group which could be chosen king of the Laigin and am counted one of the most likely candidates. And remember, a fili of a king's son might look as high as a daughter of a queen for a wife.
"

  There it was, the true temptation, the final bribe. Crimthann had not said as much, but he had surely seen the way Drystan looked at Yseult. It did not take the power of knowing to read a look. The prince was putting a notion in Drystan's head which he had been fighting for months, putting a possibility into words, giving them shape and power.

  "I need time to think," he said quietly.

  "Of course. Can you walk now?"

  Drystan stood, hoping last night's skirmish had not set him back too much. His old wound ached dully, but he could stand well enough.

  "Come, I will take you to the house of healing, and someone there can look at your wound again." Drystan pulled the blue cloak Yseult had given him over his shoulders, and Crimthann put his arm around him and helped him to the small house near the gates of the rath. Drystan was grateful for the prince's help; standing was one thing, but walking another entirely.

  The rain had stopped in the night, and the sky was a bright gray, the ground beneath their feet still wet. The house of healing was full, as Crimthann had said, the pallets taken by the seven injured Laigin warriors as well as two of the Ui Neill. After helping Drystan to a chair, Crimthann joined the elder Yseult, who was changing a poultice on the shoulder of one of the Ui Neill warriors.

  "Now that you are awake, I demand to know your name and tribe and who will ransom you," Crimthann said to the injured man.

  "I am Setnae of the Ui Macc. The High King of all of Eriu, Lóegaire, will pay my ransom — if you dare send to him."

  "What, will he not treat our messenger with honor?"

  "He will. But any ransom you have from him, he will win back. Lóegaire will take the boruma by force to punish the Laigin for their treachery. And he will retake his queen. This I swear by all the gods of my tribe."

  Yseult the Wise stood, and Crimthann slipped an arm around her waist. "Are you aware who has been treating your wounds?" he asked quietly. Setnae said nothing. "It is none other than the Queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann herself. If you are ransomed and returned to Lóegaire, perhaps you will tell him of what you saw." The prince turned her face to his and placed a deliberate kiss on her lips, his hands wandering from her face to her shoulders to her waist. The queen returned the kiss and then gently pushed Crimthann back.