Arthur Rex (40 page)

Now knowing that her handmaiden was in place, Isold made shorter work of what remained of her disrobing, and gathering her dress below her ivory navel and at no time revealing her flanks she did pursing her orchid lips and leaning first this way, then that, blow out the candles. And then she slipped quickly behind the screen while Brangwain came slowly out from it and went towards the bed as if it were a gallows.

And no sooner had Brangwain entered the bed than the king did hurl himself upon her brutally, but being old and mean of body his assault was not so puissant as she had feared, and she was a most sturdy Irishwoman, and he but writhed upon her like a child at play. And when he sought to do more, Brangwain in defense of her maidenhead (and without thought) smote him between the eyes with her robust fist, and King Mark swooned.

Then she did fear what she had done, thinking she had killed him, and while that would be an occasion for much joy for Isold and Tristram, they would nevertheless be constrained to burn her for the crime of regicide, for which there was no justification on earth or in Heaven.

So did poor Brangwain lie sleepless with the supposed corse till dawn (for Isold had fled to Tristram), but when the first light came through the windows she saw that the king did but slumber, and happily, for he was smiling.

And shortly thereafter La Belle Isold returned, and she silently motioned for Brangwain to leave, which the loyal handmaiden did with great relief, but also with a marvelous new fear, for now that Mark lived he would soon awaken and remember that his bed-partner had knocked him senseless.

But as it happened, when the king awakened he was ecstatic, and he cried to Isold, who surely stood too far from the bed for him to reach, “My Irish tigress! Never have I known thee more ardent than thou wert last night! Nor may I say, never have I answered thy passion with even more. Indeed, I was quite out of my wits!” And in his horrid vanity he crowed and cackled, and he wished now that he had not killed Frocin, and he determined to get himself another dwarf to boast to, for a royal personage could speak on these intimate matters to none other.

Therefore was all well at the moment: with the king believing that his wife was his alone, and Isold and Tristram able to meet with impunity, and even the loyal Brangwain retained her virginity (the which was precious to her, being all she possessed of her own). And King Mark soon went away from Tintagel, for to hunt wild boars, and he invited Sir Tristram his nephew to accompany him (the boar being the very device which that great knight wore famously upon his shield).

But Sir Tristram wishing to stay near Isold declined, and he pretended that he was ill from the old wounds he had got years before from the Morholt, and therefore the king took along the second knight of Cornwall, he who hated Tristram, and he was named Guenelon.

Now this Guenelon knowing that so soon as King Mark had left Tintagel, Isold and Tristram would come together, did as if by accident separate himself from the king’s party on the chase, and he rode back to the castle as fast as his horse would go. And when he arrived there he stole quietly to the royal bedchambers by a secret passage known to few, and therefore he eluded the watch of the loyal Brangwain, who served as Cerberus at the main door. And from behind a tapestry he saw the adulterous couple compounding their crime.

Then he left as silently as he had come, and he rode swiftly back to find King Mark, and he told him of what he had seen.

And King Mark thereupon returned to Tintagel in great haste, but Brangwain from her window saw the dust of his gallop and when he drew near she identified the rider. Therefore she pounded upon the door of the bedroom and she cried a warning, and Sir Tristram leapt from the bed and seizing his clothes he did leave by means of the balcony and he went down the vines and into the garden, where the gardeners saw him run bare and did marvel at it.

Now when King Mark burst into the chamber La Belle Isold was not there, and furthermore Brangwain had hastily made the bed, but so exercised was the king that he tore away the coverlet and the sheets, and he felt there with his hand, and indeed it was still warm. And he went to the balcony and looking down he saw the torn vines. Therefore he had the gardeners brought to him, and he questioned them closely. But these fellows, not being noblemen, held Sir Tristram in great fondness, for he always had been kind to them, and they would not betray him now, and they showed great courage in this because the king threatened to break them on the wheel.

“Well,” said he in marvelous wrath, “then tell me why these vines are fresh-broken!”

“Well,” said these gardeners, “the mason came there with a ladder, for to inspect the walls for cracks which needed mortaring, and his ladder did slip and tear away some leaves.”

“Methinks ye do not need eyes which see false things,” said King Mark, “and therefore I shall have them torn out.”

And he would have had this done had not La Belle Isold come to him at that moment, and she begged him not to be cruel to these poor fellows.

“Very well,” said King Mark, “but I must force the truth from someone, for I think that it will never be freely given me. Shalt thou then submit to the test of hot iron?”

And La Belle Isold said proudly, “I shall.”

Therefore King Mark ordered that the preparations be made for this ordeal.

Now Isold went to Brangwain and she said, “Good my Brangwain, I would that thou compound for me some ointment the which I might put upon my hands to make them impervious to hot iron, so that I might withstand this test.”

“Lady,” said Brangwain, “I shall try to do this.” And she proceeded to mix divers unguents from various ingredients such as the saliva of dragons (the which surviveth the flames that shoot from the mouths of those beasts) and the blood of the salamander who liveth in the heart of the fire, &tc., but when she rubbed these emollients into the palms of her hands and applied to them a red-hot poker she was burned sorely, for none of her compounds did turn away the heat.

And the loyal Brangwain was in great grief owing to these failures, for she believed her lady would be given the lie in the ordeal of hot iron and that she would then be burned at the stake for adultery.

Now Sir Tristram was in hiding, and he could not come out of it without being attacked by the many knights which King Mark had posted to guard the castle against him, and though he could have overcome them all, to fight would be but an admission of his own guilt and that of the queen, and therefore he determined to wait until the last moment before delivering Isold from the ordeal, should God meanwhile bring some other relief which would not compromise her. (For Sir Tristram was a devout knight, and though he knew that what he and Isold did was never right, he believed they were helpless to desist from doing it so long as they lived, and they must needs answer for it when they died. And so much did he love her that he would face Hell without bitterness.)

And he lay concealed in the hovel of a churl whom he had befriended in the past, and he ate the gruel on which this boor and his family subsisted, the which was prepared by the good wife, who was of the age of Isold but in aspect seemed almost a crone, and he was kind to the many children there, who were at play in the mud.

Then on the day set for the ordeal Sir Tristram hired from this clown his host some of his ragged clothes and he put them on over his armor, and he hung a wooden cross on a thong about his neck. And he whitened his hair with chalk-dust, and when he walked limping and bent over he looked very like an hermit, and in this guise he went towards the place where the test of hot iron was to be held, the which was on a plain across the river.

And reaching the ford he waited there, where it was not long before a great procession came from the castle, with all the knights of Cornwall and all the ladies and the chaplains and the squires, and all the noble people. And then came King Mark, and lastly the bishop of Cornwall with his retainers who carried a bronze brazier in which the coals were already white-hot.

And all of these rode through the ford and onto the far bank before Isold appeared. And when finally she did come she was dressed in flawless white samite and her glistening black hair was caught behind with one gold clasp and it fell to her waist, and she slowly rode a pure-white palfrey. And attending her was the loyal Brangwain, who rode a donkey six paces behind.

Now they were all drawn up upon the meadow, and there they awaited her, but when Isold reached the ford she asked Brangwain to ride into the river to see how high the water reached, and when Brangwain did so she was wetted to the waist, and only the ass’s head was out of the river.

“Well,” said La Belle Isold, “I would not wet my clothes going to my ordeal.”

Now Sir Tristram lingered there in his hermit’s guise, and coming to La Belle Isold he said, “Lady, I shall carry you across the ford if you will.”

And her heart leapt, for she knew him for what he was, and he took her from the palfrey and he carried her across the river, high in his arms so that no drop of water reached her, and then he put her onto the bank.

“Thank you, kind hermit,” said Isold when she had regained her feet, and then stately she walked to where the smoking brazier stood, and near by was a table covered with a cloth of red velvet, the which was fringed in gold, and on this were all the holy relics of the land of Cornwall, and the bishop was there in his miter. And lackeys using bellows made the coals ever hotter until they were white, and into them they put a rod of iron.

Meanwhile the common folk had come out from the town, and they stood on the bank of the river, for they were not suffered to come closer. And they never quite understood the purpose of the ordeal, but they were entertained by it.

Now the iron was soon as white-hot as the coals in which it was embedded, and the bishop asked Isold to come before him, and then he said, “My lady, gracious queen of Cornwall, how do you swear?”

And La Belle Isold said, “I swear by God Almighty that the only man who hath held me in his arms, other than the king mine husband, is yon hermit, who lately carried me across the water!”

And so saying she plunged her two fair hands into the burning coals and took from them the iron, and she held it aloft for all the assemblage to look upon, and then slowly she brought it down and returned it to the brazier. And then she slowly opened her hands and she presented them to the bishop, and then to King Mark, and they were without blemish from the fire.

And kissing both of her hands King Mark cried out her vindication, but from the assemblage there rose no answering sound, for Isold and Tristram had no friends at Cornwall but the loyal Brangwain (who had swooned when Isold had lifted the iron), and all the rest of them knew that the queen was guilty but had employed some magic to seem otherwise.

And Sir Tristram let go of the handle of the dagger, the which he had been clutching beneath his clothes, for he had purposed to deliver Isold by means of it if the ordeal had gone against her. And so he went away without revealing his identity.

Now when they had all returned to the castle, where King Mark would hold a feast of celebration, Isold said privily to her loyal handmaiden, chiding her affectionately for her swooning, “My dear Brangwain, thou hadst less faith in thine ointment than I. Never did I doubt it would be efficacious.”

Then Brangwain showed to her her own burns which she had got in her experiments. “Lady,” said she, “your protection was the truth and never my compound!”

And hearing that, La Belle Isold did faint dead away.

Now Sir Tristram took off his rags and he returned to the castle as his own self, and his uncle King Mark embraced him joyfully.

And to him the king said, “My dear nephew, I ask thy pardon for entertaining this suspicion against thee, thou who art a paragon of virtue. Never shall I doubt thee again! Now I would that thou go to thy queen and aunt and escort her to the banquet hall on thine arm, in despite of all those who were wont to calumniate ye.”

Therefore Sir Tristram sought La Belle Isold in her chamber, where she lay in her swoon upon the bed, and when he saw how beautiful she was he bent and he kissed her upon the lips. And thereupon she was awakened.

“Ah, my love,” said she, “’twas a near thing, methinks, for only through the generosity of God did I escape burning.”

“All good cometh only from God,” said Tristram, “and indeed He hath favored us much till now though we are great sinners.”

“’Tis because we love each other truly,” said Isold, “and if we sin, it is only in the formal sense, and never with the spirit, for our hearts are pure. And now I love all the people in the world, so happy am I! And I love Mark as the king, and I love our enemies as well. For this is what love doth to the soul, so saith Our Saviour Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now Tristram was made uneasy by hearing this interpretation, and he did not think that God intended mortals to be happy except through love of Him, whereas it was Isold’s opinion that a particular passion was prefatory to the general love of all creation. Yet he adored his sweet heretic, and but for having to escort her to the banquet he would have joined her to himself in this moment.

And unwisely he did whisper as much into the delicate whorl of her shell-like ear and she embraced him feverishly, urging him to become one with her regardless. And when he protested Isold said, “Well, did the king not say that he would have suspicions of us nevermore? And the meat will not be served immediately. And certes I may rest awhile after my cruel ordeal!”

Therefore she commanded the loyal Brangwain to go to the king and to tell him she would take some repose and then come presently. And so soon as Brangwain had gone Isold did take Sir Tristram into her bed.

Now when King Mark heard the message brought by Brangwain he said, “What an inconsiderate husband I am! I have been distracted by mine own joy. Indeed, ’tis no time for a public feast. Tis rather an occasion for familial intimacy, and therefore I shall join my wife in the bedchamber.”

And in great dread Brangwain saw him send his seneschal to end the preparations for the banquet lately begun and to send away the lords and ladies who had already gathered in the hall. And she was not suffered to leave him, so that she could not warn the lovers who were locked together in the king’s bed. And the king kept her by him so that she might hear his praise of Isold’s stainless virtue and the impeccable honor of Sir Tristram. And King Mark believed that the talk against them had been due but to the envy that such noble persons inevitably inspire in the souls to which they are superior.