Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur (42 page)

"Brangwyn!"

She turned slowly to the voice and watched as Kurvenal neared her. As opposed to his friend Drystan, he wore his hair short, a mass of dark brown curls across his forehead and barely touching the collar of his tunic. It suited him; it almost made her smile.

"Brangwyn," he said again when he stopped in front of her.

She looked at him, brows raised in a question.

"How are you doing?" He touched the back of her hand, a touch that barely made contact, and drew his fingers away again quickly.

"Well enough."

At her answer, he raised his eyes to her face, searching her expression for the meaning behind the words. It suddenly seemed a mean impulse to leave him dangling when she was well aware of what he wanted to know.

"Come," he said with a smile. "May I buy you a glass of wine? There is quite a good tavern just around the corner."

Why not? It was a much better excuse to be without Yseult than loitering around the shops. She nodded.

He led her south in the direction of the Londinium Gate. Brangwyn could hear the tavern even before they turned the corner; in the mild early summer weather, people were spilling out of the doors, dragging chairs into the sun or leaning against a column or a wall with a mug of wine or ale in hand, filling the street with talk and laughter. Kurvenal ordered wine for both of them at the counter near the door and then, ceramic mugs in hand, found them an empty table at the back of the tavern.

In the privacy of all the noise, Kurvenal finally asked the question she knew he had been wanting to ask all along. He leaned across the table so she could hear him, his hands gripping the mug of dark wine.

"Why did you do it?"

Brangwyn gazed at him for a moment without answering. "Almost I could be offended."

He leaned back again, blinking. She had obviously surprised him, and she smiled.

She took a sip of her wine. It was somehow both drier and sweeter than she was used to. "You think Yseult is not worth what I did for her, and by thinking that, you insult my judgment."

"I don't —"

She put up a hand and he fell silent. "Yseult agreed to this marriage for my sake. For the sake of her mother too, but also to get me away from Tara. If she is enduring Marcus's embrace for me, what kind of a person would I be to not do the same for her?"

"I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know. You see only what this destructive love is doing to your friend, and you don't see what it is doing to my cousin."

"Brangwyn, I'm sorry."

She looked past his shoulder, staring at the fresco of a plate of food and a bunch of onions on the opposite wall. "There's no need. It is the two of them we must be sorry for, the two of them we must help. I did little. One man is much the same as the next." Now she was lying, but she
was
irritated with him, and she wanted to annoy him.

He gazed down into his wine, silent for a moment, and then back up again. "Your experience has not been of the best, I take it."

She shook her head, her gaze returning to his face. "Oh, there was one man, in another life, who was not like the rest. But as that is gone, it is not worth being picky."

Kurvenal leaned forward and touched her hand again lightly. "I would show you otherwise," he said, his voice much more intense than his touch.

Brangwyn drew in a breath, surprised at how much his words affected her. "I have no affection left to give a man," she said brusquely. "All I care for now is saving Yseult from herself. If you will do the same for Drystan, then perhaps we can be friends of a sort."

He sat up straight and nodded. "Of course."

But Brangwyn could feel that he did not intend to leave it at that.

* * * *

The fourth day of the fair, Ambrosius set out for the forest to the north with a large hunting party. Marcus went along, but Drystan complained that his old wound from the battle of Venta was bothering him. The party was quite large enough without him and should easily be able to bring back enough game, even for the whole city of Verulamium.

"Don't you think it will look suspicious, Drys?" Kurvenal had asked when he told him of his plan.

Drystan shook his head. "My father doesn't have any idea what's going on."

"Are you sure?"

"As far as I can tell. He hasn't refused to let Yseult go out and he doesn't have us watched."

"Maybe you just don't see it. When Yseult is near, you don't notice anything else."

Drystan laughed merrily, but to judge by Kurvenal's expression, he didn't think it was funny.

His friend crossed his arms in front of his chest. "A lot of the men who fought with us knew you were suffering for love of an Erainn princess. It only takes one person to tell the tale and another to connect that to Yseult, an Erainn princess before she became a Dumnonian queen, and the rumors will be flying. Once they're out there, all anyone has to do is look at the two of you together."

"Have you heard any rumors, Kurvi?"

"No, but I am one of the last people who will hear them if there are."

That evening, after the hunting party left, he was making his way to the abandoned pagan temple, his summer cape whipping around his thighs and Kurvenal's words far from his mind. The moon was almost full and his spirits high; tonight they could spend the whole night together, or almost the whole night. As long as they were in their beds by morning, before the servants rose to light the fires and bring in the water and go out to buy fresh bread and fruit for breakfast.

Smiling, he stepped through the entrance in the wall around the temple. The moon was so bright, the wall and the trees cast shadows on the flagstones.

And in the shadow of one of the trees was a shape that should not have been there. The outline of a head, just above the sloping shape of the pine.

Drystan's steps slowed, and he began to pace the flagstones. He hoped Yseult was not already in the temple to come barging out, demanding an explanation for his strange behavior, hoped he could come up with a plan that would work, hoped he had not betrayed himself already with a start or an expression of shock. The bright moonlight which had saved him would help the spy too.

His father?

Soon, he heard footsteps beyond the wall. Yseult entered the courtyard and stopped at seeing him waiting there rather than in the temple. He didn't even dare make a gesture to warn her; the watcher behind the tree would see it too.

"Thank you for coming, Yseult."

She nodded. "But I don't understand. What could possibly be so urgent that you would send for me to a place like this, Drystan? People could easily construe it wrong."

Relief flooded him, and he almost sagged with it.
She understood
; she was playing along with him, giving him leads even. He repressed a sigh and tried to act businesslike. "That is why I sent for you. Just now in the tavern, I heard our names together, being bandied about, implying we were creeping around behind Marcus's back."

Yseult gave a very convincing snort of disgust. "And you thought the best thing to do would be to send for me to meet you in an abandoned courtyard? You're more intelligent than that, Drystan! What were you thinking?"

Drystan repressed a smile, despite the danger of the situation. But she had hit upon the strategy most likely to get them out of this unscathed: treating him like a callow youth and taking the role of what she was — his stepmother.

"I'm sorry. It seemed important at the time."

"How much wine had you consumed before you made this decision?"

"Nothing to speak of."

"And how much is that, pray?"

"But I had to let you know."

"You could have told me at home." She raised a hand, as if to stop him. "Tomorrow would have been early enough. What am I to do about evil rumors? And now you may even have given those who are spreading them fodder!"

"You're right, I didn't think."

"No, you didn't. I wish you good night, Drystan. Perhaps you should be more careful with the amount of wine you drink."

With that, she turned on her heel and left the courtyard.

Shaking his head, Drystan followed her slowly. His whole body tingled from the rush of danger, like the combined apprehension and anticipation before a battle.

But he would not see her tonight. And he didn't know when he would see her alone again.

He needed that wine she'd accused him of drinking.

* * * *

The hunting party of Ambrosius returned the next day, Marcus among them. Although he said nothing and did not act as if he had learned anything, Drystan was sure his father was watching him more carefully now.

And it was as they had pretended in the temple courtyard: people were beginning to talk. Kurvenal was involved in a tavern brawl when someone made some comments about his master's willingness to warm his mother's bed and returned home with a black eye and a broken finger.

"But the bastard went home with a broken jaw," Kurvenal said with satisfaction.

Brangwyn treated his injuries, simultaneously scolding and supportive. With surprise, Drystan detected the way his serious friend's eyes lit up when he put himself into Brangwyn's care, exaggerating his injuries like a very bard. The situation forced a reluctant smile from him.

Otherwise, there was little to smile about. Knowing they were watched was playing havoc with Drystan's emotional state.

As if to prove him right, he received a summons from Arthur the day before the Whitsunday feast.

Arthur had taken residence in a modest townhouse on the west side of Verulamium near the Calleva Gate and the wooden barracks. The mosaics of the floor were in need of repair, the frescoes on the walls were fading, and it had no atrium, only a narrow entranceway leading to a small courtyard, but it was near the general's fighting men and the stables for their mounts in case of emergency. Drystan would have expected nothing else of the Dux Bellorum.

Arthur was sitting in the courtyard with Cai and Bedwyr when the slave showed Drystan in. Arthur rose, followed by his guests. "Welcome, Cousin. Should I be offended that you couldn't find your way to visit me without a summons?"

Drystan laughed and the other three men glanced at each other. Too late, he realized that Bedwyr and Cai were more likely to expect brooding than laughter from him.

"Wine?" Arthur asked, and Drystan nodded. While the slave went to fetch a jug and another glass, Arthur turned to Cai and Bedwyr. "I will see you both later at the practice grounds."

Bedwyr nodded. "Goodbye, Arthur, Drystan."

"Box his ears soundly for me, will you, Arthur?" Cai said.

Drystan glanced up at the blond giant. "As long as it's not you, Cai."

Cai snorted.

"I take it you too have heard the rumors," Drystan said after the other two had left.

They sat down on a stone bench in the sun. Arthur nodded. "Everyone has, Drys. Are they true?"

Drystan leaned over and poured himself a glass of wine. There wasn't any way out with his cousin; he had to be honest. "Yes."

"Damn. If that was how things stood, how could you have let them go through with the marriage?"

"No choice. Lóegaire holds her mother and threatened to harm her if she didn't marry my father. It seems Lóegaire desperately wanted this peace because of some prophecy." He gulped down his wine. "I tried to persuade her to run away with me."

"I thought her mother was married to Lóegaire?"

"
Was
. From what I was able to gather while I was there, dissolution of marriage is fairly common in Hibernia."

Arthur refilled their glasses, silent for a moment. Then he put down the jug of wine and leaned his forearms on his knees, clasping his hands together. "I'd like you to come along when we return to Caer Leon, Cousin. I will need to recruit more troops for my mobile forces and need experienced men to train them. My uncle is taking more than a thousand men with him to Gaul to aid Emperor Anthemius."