The Apex Book of World SF 2 (38 page)

"Something depends
on us, Morholt. On you and me. I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Of the sea. Of the
rudderless boat."

"I'm with you,
Branwen."

"Please be, Morholt."

 

This evening is
different. Completely different. I don't know where Branwen is. Perhaps she is
with Iseult, nursing Tristan who is again unconscious, tossing and turning in
the fever. Tossing and turning, he whispers: "Iseult…" Iseult of the White
Hands knows it's not her that Tristan calls, but she trembles when she hears
this name. And wrings the fingers of her white hands. Branwen, if she is with
her, has wet diamonds in her eyes. Branwen… I wish… Eh, the pox on it!

 

And I…I'm drinking
with the chaplain. What is he doing here? Perhaps he's always been here?

We are drinking, and
drinking fast. And a lot. I know it's not doing me any good. I shouldn't, my
cracked head doesn't take kindly to this kind of sport. When I overdo it, I
have hallucinations, splitting headaches, sometimes I faint, though rarely.

Well, so what? We
are drinking. I have to, plague take it, drown this dread inside me. I have to
forget the trembling hands. The castle of Carhaing. Branwen's eyes, full of
fear of the unknown. I want to drown the howling of the wind, the roaring of
the sea, the rocking of the boat under my feet. I want to drown everything I
can't remember. And that scent of apples which keeps following me.

We are drinking, the
chaplain and I. We are separated by an oak table, splattered with puddles of
wine. It's not only table that separates us.

"Drink, shaveling."

"God bless you, son"

"I'm not your son."

Since the battle of
Mount Badon, I carry the sign of the cross on my armour like many others, but I'm
not moved by it as they are. Religion and all its manifestations leave me cold.
The bush in Glastonbury, professedly planted by Joseph of Arymatea, looks to me
like any other bush, except it's more twisted and sickly than most. The Abbey
itself, about which some of Arthur's boys speak with such reverence, doesn't
stir great emotions in me, though I admit it looks very pretty against the
wood, the hills and the lake. And the regular tolling of the bells helps to
find the way in the fog, for it's always foggy there, the pox on it.

This Roman religion,
although it has spread around, doesn't have a chance here, on the islands.
Here, in Ireland, in Cornwall or Wales, at every step you see things whose
existence is stubbornly denied by the monks. Any dimwit has seen elves, pukkas,
sylphs, the Coranians, leprechauns, sidhe, and even bean sidhe, but no-one, as
far as I know, has ever seen an angel. Except Bedivere who claims to have seen
Gabriel, but Bedivere is a blockhead and a liar. I wouldn't believe a word he
says.

The monks go on
about miracles performed by Christ. Let's be honest: compared with things done
by Vivien of the Lake, the Morrigan, or Morgause, wife of Lot from the Orkneys,
not to mention Merlin, Christ doesn't really have much to boast about. I'm
telling you, the monks have come and they'll go. The Druids will stay. Not that
I think the Druids are much better than the monks. But at least the Druids are
ours. They always have been. And the monks are stragglers. Just like this one,
my table companion. The devil knows what wind's blown him here to Armorica. He
uses odd words and has a strange accent, Aquitan or Gaelic, plague take him.

"Drink, shaveling."

I bet my head that
in Ireland, Christianity will be a passing fashion. We Irish, we do not buy
this hard, inflexible, Roman fanaticism. We are too sober-headed for that, too
simple-hearted. Our Ireland is the fore-post of the West, it's the Last Shore.
Beyond, not far off, are the Old Lands: Hy Brasil, Ys, Mainistir Leitreach,
Beag-Arainn. It is them, not the Cross, not the Latin liturgy, that rule people's
minds. It was so ages ago and it's so today. Besides, we Irish, are a tolerant
people. Everybody believes what he wants. I heard that around the world
different factions of Christians are already at each other's throats. In
Ireland, it's impossible. I can imagine everything but not that Ulster, say,
might be a scene of religious scuffles.

"Drink, shaveling."

Drink, for who
knows, you may have a busy day tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow you will have to pay
back for all the goodies you've pushed down your gullet. The one who is to
leave us, must leave us with the full pomp of the ritual. It's easier to leave
when someone is conducting a ritual, doesn't matter if he is mumbling the
Requiem Aeternam, making a stink with incense, or howling and bashing his sword
on the shield. It's simply easier to leave. And what's the difference where
to—Hell, Paradise or Tir Na Nog? One always leaves for the darkness. I know a
thing or two about it. One leads down the black tunnel which has no end.

"Your master is
dying, shaveling."

"Sir Tristan? I'm
praying for him."

"Are you praying for
a miracle?"

"It's all in God's
hands."

"Not all."

"You are
blaspheming, my son."

"I'm not your son. I'm
a son of Flann Uarbeoil whom the Normans hacked to death on the bank of the
river Shannon. That was a death worthy of man. When dying, Flann didn't moan "Iseult,
Iseult". When dying, Flann laughed and called the Norman yarl such names the
poor bastard forgot to close his gob for an hour afterwards, so impressed was
he."

"One should die with
the name of Lord on one's lips. And besides, it's easier to die in a battle,
from the sword, than to linger on in bed, being eaten away by la maladie.
Fighting la maladie is a lonely struggle. It's hard to fight alone, harder
still to die alone."

" La maladie? You're
drivelling, monk. He would lick himself out of this wound, just like he did
from that other one, which… But then, in Ireland, he was full of life, full
of hope. Now the hope's drained out of him, together with his blood. If he
could only stop thinking about her, forget about this accursed love…"

"Love, my son, also
comes from God."

"Oh, it does, does
it? Everybody here goes on about love, racking their brains where it comes
from. Tristan and Iseult… Shall I tell you, shavling, where this love, or
whatever it is, has come from? Shall I tell you what brought them together? It
was me: Morholt. Before Tristan cracked my head, I poked him in the thigh and
thus sent him to bed for several weeks. But he, the moment he felt a bit
better, he dragged the lady of the Golden Hair into it. Any healthy man would
do that, given time and opportunity. Later, the minstrels were singing about
the Moren Wood and the naked sword. Balls, that's what I say. Now you see
yourself, monk, where the love comes from. Not from God, from Morholt. And it's
worth accordingly, this love. This maladie of yours."

"You are
blaspheming. You are talking about things you do not understand. And it would
be better if you stopped talking about them."

I didn't punch him
between the eyes with my tin mug, which I was squeezing in my hand. You wonder
why? I'll tell you why. Because he was right. I didn't understand.

How could I
understand? I was not conceived amidst misfortune, or born into tragedy. Flann
and my mother conceived me on the hay and I'm sure they had plenty of good,
healthy joy doing it. Giving me a name, they didn't put any secret meanings
into it. They gave me a name that it would be easy to call me by. "Morholt!
Supper!" "Morholt! You little brat!" "Fetch some water, Morholt!" La tristesse?
Balls, not la tristesse.

Can one daydream
with a name like this? Play a harp? Devote all one's thoughts to the beloved?
Sacrifice to her all the matters of everyday life and pace the room unable to
sleep? Balls. With a name like mine one can drink beer and wine and then puke
under the table. Smash people's noses. Crack heads with a sword or an axe or,
alternatively, have it done to oneself. Love? Someone with the name Morholt
pulls off a skirt, pokes his fill and falls asleep. Or, if he happens to feel a
wee stirring in his soul, he will say: "Eh, ye're a fine piece of arse, Maire O'Connell,
I could gobble you whole, yer teats first." Dig through it for three days and
three nights, you won't find in it a grain of la tristesse. Not a trace. So
what, that I like looking at Branwen? I like looking at lots of things.

"Drink, monk. Pour
it, don't waste time. What are you mumbling?"

"It's all in God's
hands,
sicut in coelo et in terris
, amen…"

"Maybe in coelo but
not in terris, that's for sure."

"You are
blaspheming, my son. Cave!"

"What are you trying
to scare me with? A bolt from the blue?"

"I'm not trying to
scare you. I fear for you. Rejecting God you reject hope. The hope that you won't
lose what you have won. The hope that when it comes to making a choice, you
will make the right one. And that you won't be left defenceless."

"Life, with God or
without God, with hope or without it, is a road without an end or beginning, a
road that leads along the slippery side of a huge tin funnel. Most people don't
realise they are going round and round passing the same point on the narrow
slippery slope of the circle. There are some who are unfortunate and slip. They
fall. And that's the end of them; they'll never climb up, back to the edge;
they won't resume the march. They are sliding down, till they reach the bottom
of the funnel, at the narrow point of the outlet where all meet. They meet,
though only for a short while because further down, under the funnel, there
awaits an abyss. This castle pounded by the waves is just such a place. The
funnel's outlet. Do you understand it, shavling?"

"No. But then I do
not think you understand the cause behind my failure in understanding."

"To hell with causes
and effects, sicut in coelo et in terris. Drink, monk."

We drank late into
the night. The chaplain survived it admirably well. I didn't do so well. I got
pissed, I can tell you. I managed to drown…everything.

Or so it seemed to
me.

 

Today the sea has
the colour of lead. Today the sea is angry. I feel its anger and I respect it.
I understand Branwen; I understand her fear. I don't understand the cause. Or
her words.

 

Today the castle is
empty and terribly silent. Tristan is fighting the fever. Iseult and Branwen
are at his side. I, Morholt of Ulster, stand on the battlements and look out
into the sea.

Not a sign of a
sail.

 

I was not asleep when
she came in. And I was not surprised. It was as if I had expected it. That
strange meeting on the beach, the journey through the dunes and salty meadows,
the silly incident with Bec de Corbin and his friends, the evening by
candlelight, the warmth of her body when I embraced her on the battlement, and
above all that aura of love and death filling Carhaing—all this had brought us
close to each other, bound us together. I even caught myself thinking that I
would find it difficult to say goodbye…

 

To Branwen.

She didn't say a
word. She undid the brooch on her shoulder and let the heavy cloak drop onto
the floor, and then quickly took off her shirt, a simple coarse garment,
exactly like the ones worn everyday by Irish girls. She turned around, reddened
by the flames flickering on the logs in the fire that was spying on her with
its glowing eyes.

Also without saying
a word, I moved to the side and made room for her next to me. She lay down,
slowly, turning her face to me. I covered her with furs. We were both silent,
lying still, watching the fleeting shadows on the ceiling.

"I couldn't sleep,"
she said. "The sea…"

"I know. I hear it,
too."

"I'm scared,
Morholt."

"I'm with you."

"Please be."

I embraced her as
tenderly and delicately as I could. She slipped her arms round my neck and
pressed her face to my cheek, overpowering me with her hot breath. I touched
her gently, fighting the joyous urge to embrace her fully, the need for
violent, lusty caress, just as if I were stroking a falcon's feathers or the
nostrils of a nervous horse. I stroked her hair, her neck and shoulders, her
full, wonderfully rounded breasts with their small nipples. I stroked her hips
which, not so long ago, seemed to me too round and that in fact were
wonderfully round. I stroked her smooth thighs, her womanhood, that place I
didn't have a name for, for even in my thoughts I wouldn't dare to name it as I
used to, with any of the Irish, Welsh or Saxon words I knew. It would be like
calling Stonehenge a pile of rubble, or Glastonbury Tor a hillock.

She trembled, giving
herself forth to meet my hands, guiding them with the movements of her body.
She asked, she demanded with groans, with rapid uneven gasps of breath. She
pleaded with momentary submissions, warm and tender, only to harden the next
moment into a quivering diamond.

"Love me, Morholt,"
she whispered. "Love me."

She was brave,
greedy, impatient. But helpless and defenceless in my arms. She had to give in
to my quiet, careful, restrained love. My love. The one I wanted. The one I
wanted for her. For in the one she was trying to impose on me, I sensed fear,
sacrifice, resignation, and I didn't want her to be afraid, to sacrifice
anything for me, to give up anything for me. I had my way.

Or so it seemed to
me.

I felt the castle
shudder in the slow rhythm of the pounding waves.

"Branwen…"

She pressed her hot
body to mine; her sweat had the scent of wet feathers.

"Morholt… It's
good…"

"What's good
Branwen?"

"It's good to live…"

We were silent for a
long while. And then I asked a question. The question I shouldn't have asked.

"Branwen… Will she…
Will Iseult come here from Tintagel?"