Tristan and Iseult (22 page)

Words fail me. I do not want to know the answer to the question burning my throat.

‘The flag is black,’ he says, before I have chance to enquire.

She does not come. The world falls away and there is nothing beneath my feet. I stand there, an empty man, twenty years of hope and longing crushed by a breath of news.

‘All right, Eanfrid. Leave me.’

He hurries back into the house and I am alone with my horse. She is old, but she is of the same temperament as her mother, with whom I rode to the priory so many years ago.

‘It is all right.’ I stroke her flank and she whinnies. ‘Shhh.’

I had been captivated once more by the girl with playful humour. I was captured by a wish that would never be realised. For a long time all I had thought on was her caring expression, her smile, her hand in mine. It is strange; to know a ship sent by the Iseult I had cared for all those years ago and for all the years since crested our coast with answer for me. With promise.

I stumble across the yard and out of the gate. I think to go to the shore, but I do not want to see the black flag upon the horizon. Instead I walk across the fields and to the forest. Foliage casts shadow on the mossy ground and tree roots trip me. The dagger I pull from my boot is a gift from Iseult of the White Hands. It slips easily from its sheath, used every day. I look at the blade and see the reflection of an old man with greying hair and a weathered face, whose life has gone by in a flurry of hope and regret.

She remembered. She thought to send word either way.

Iseult

Birds sing the song of the waves as I step out of the boat. Water laps at my ankles and soaks my dress. The place is strangely quiet as the boat is pushed back into the water, leaving me alone on the shore. There is no one to greet me, even though I sent word ahead that Mark sat in the feasting hall of kings. I tremble.
Come on, lass
, I say to myself, and realise it is Tristan’s voice in my head.

I walk up the slope to the grassy ground and from there I see his estate in the distance, deep in a valley. Are all shores so similar, I wonder; heavy salt on your lips and crunching shingle?

Almost forty years the daughter of a king or married to one, and now I walk like a peasant, alone and muddy with a bag on my shoulder. A traveller. I do not mind, I am filled with hope and excitement and longing.

I reach the estate and I know my Tristan has made good account for himself. He has worked these lands and fought for King Cunedda, and been rewarded with this place of beauty in a land of poor.

A man called Eanfrid introduces himself. He has an honest face, but nervous, and is rounded and red and exerted.

‘Tristan ap Mark?’ I say, ‘He is expecting me.’

Eanfrid looks at me curiously. ‘You are Iseult of Kernow?’

‘I am,’ I say, pleased that Tristan has told him of me. Relieved that he has sent this man to welcome me.

‘You have no place here.’

The words are those of a woman standing some distance away. She approaches and I see her face is the same shape as mine and her eyes the same colour but they are cold.

‘I seek Tristan ap Mark. Can you tell him Iseult has come?’

‘Tristan of Caerleon is dead.’

The world turns to ash, fire gone, light dead. I am angry that he has done this to us. That he cared for his uncle so much he would not hurt him, and instead hurt me.

‘Tristan?’ I manage to say. ‘Tristan, nephew of King Mark of Kernow?’

Her face is as hard as the flint that pierces my heart and drags through my innards.

‘The very one.’

I am shaking, my legs weak and heart racing and hurting and tight. I sit beside my Tristan, his body lain on a table in his house. Light from the window shines on his face and I almost believe he is sleeping beneath the thin veil of linen. His face is the same as the last time I saw him, lines and creases of age faded in death. I wonder does he wave from the ferryboat, bidding me join him.

‘He left Kernow because of you.’

Iseult of the White Hands stands in the doorway. She does not enter the room. She is afraid, I think, of the man lying upon this table, of his death that cannot be undone.

‘He did.’ It is my first admission of what passed between us, and now I make it to his widow.

‘He would have left me had you come.’

I stroke Tristan’s face, my hands whiter than the linen.

‘How could you know …?’

‘I knew. He was always distant and forlorn. His heart did not belong in Ceredigion; it was claimed long before he met me.’

My eyes weigh heavy and I imagine myself lying beside Tristan as he sleeps.

‘I claimed only a piece of his heart.’ I say. ‘The rest belonged to Mark.’

I sit in silence. After a long while I say: ‘How did he die?’

‘He took his own life.’ Her voice is bitter.

‘How?’

‘He told me you would send a ship with a white flag to tell him that you would come, or a black flag to say you were not. He waited on the shore day and night for you. Two days ago I could take it no longer. I had Eanfrid tell him he had sighted a ship bearing a black flag.’

My rage rushes and threatens to drown me. Tears stream down my cheeks as they must hers.

‘I am sorry,’ she says, ‘I did not foresee this.’

The soft pad of her footsteps tells me she has gone. I think to follow, but I do not think my legs would carry me. I stay beside Tristan for hours, recounting the days, despair crashing into me, not knowing what to do or where to turn.

‘I came,’ I whisper. ‘You said there would be a home with you if I wanted it.’

I watch his still form, willing him to move, to answer, for this not to be. How close I came to seeing him again. How near. He was my hope, the person for whom I lived each day.

‘I am sorry, for everything.’

I kiss him one last time and leave.

I walk in the woods amidst the hazel and the honeysuckle and sense my Tristan all about. He has walked these paths. This is the closest I have been to him in twenty years. Sun peeps through the leaves of the trees and strokes my cheeks and neck with a warmth that feels like his hands holding my face.

I have no food upon my person or provision on my back. I am at the end of my journey and I will rest. My eyes close and I see them: Tristan and Mark, my mother and Isabel, little Rufus, the boy I never met, sat in the feasting hall of the gods, laughing and merry. The ferryman stands in his boat, a welcome lantern drawing me onward. I open my palm and find coins and he takes them from me. He offers me his hand and guides me into the boat. I take a last glimpse of the lands I have known and know that I do not want my place in Kernow, and I have none in Caerleon. I will take one last voyage and find my place with Tristan.

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