Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur (72 page)

Then, in the dog days of August, Drystan and Riwallon were walking the fields of the local farmers together, inspecting the crops which would soon be harvested, when Riwallon suddenly lost consciousness.

"Send for the healer!" Drystan called out to a girl weeding nearby. He knelt down in the dusty path between fields of garlic and wheat and chafed Riwallon's hands and cheeks, wishing Yseult were there.

Wishing Yseult were there
.

No. He wouldn't allow himself that, wouldn't punish himself with that.

There was little the healer could do, little anyone could do. Riwallon was dying from the inside, the local priest told him. He recommended infusions of sage and thyme against infection, and henbane and elder flowers against the pain. Despite his promises to himself, Drystan couldn't help wondering how Yseult would have treated his foster father.

As the summer grew hotter and more relentless, Riwallon's condition grew progressively worse. He took to his bed and rose only for grand occasions such as the harvest celebration or Michaelmas.

But even after the heat of summer was over and the days finally began to grow cooler, the health of the king of Bro Leon did not improve. Instead, Riwallon seemed weaker from day to day, fading before their eyes, and Blodewedd became more helpless and lost. Drystan found himself taking over more of the duties at Leonis all the time. Girec and Morvan often came to him before they went to Blodewedd; going to Riwallon was out of the question. Before summer's end, Drystan was effectively ruling the little kingdom of Bro Leon: negotiating disputes between landowners and church, coordinating laborers for the harvest, consulting with the master of the port on fees for merchant ships, taking the king's due for the catch of oysters. For years, he had done little more than fight and ride and practice and prepare to fight. He still spent at least an hour a day in the practice yard with Morvan and the troops of Bro Leon, too much a warrior now to give that up, but the rest of each day was taken up with mostly administrative duties.

And no one mentioned the scandal that had forced him to leave Dumnonia.

When the leaves began to change color and September gave way to October, Drystan told Girec to send to Labiane again. "Tell her it's serious now."

Two weeks later, his cousin arrived, her daughter Cwylli and her son Gildas in tow. Drystan wasn't much looking forward to seeing her again, but he was afraid Riwallon would not survive to the new year, and soon crossing the Channel would be much more dangerous as fall storms gave way to the gales of winter.

Labiane handed her cloak to a servant as Drystan hurried into the entrance hall of the villa to greet her. "So there you are, Drystan," she said. "Here to welcome me to my own home. Not dead after all."

Drystan ignored the words and gave her a cousin's kiss. "Well met, Labiane. Did you have a good journey?"

"The crossing was a little rough, and Cwylli was sick the whole time. She will never make a sailor. But Gildas seemed to love it."

The girl still looked sick and pale, and Drystan bent over and took her up in his arms. "Come, Cwylli, shall we find you a bed?"

Cwylli put her arms around his neck and nodded. Green, green eyes in a face surrounded by a mass of golden-brown curls stared at him trustingly. With a start, Drystan realized he was holding his little sister. Then Blodewedd entered the hall, and the two women embraced, crying. Drystan took Cwylli away, feeling strangely protective.

Shortly after Labiane's arrival, Riwallon's health took a turn for the worse, and Drystan found himself grateful for her presence after all. Not only did she spend time nursing her father, she had a soothing influence on Blodewedd. After Drystan had made it clear he was not going to respond to her barbs, they even developed a kind of truce, although they would probably never find their way back to the sibling camaraderie they had once had as children.

But Cwylli became his favorite.

He was surprised at how charmed he was to have a little sister. He would often take her up in front of him when he rode down the hill to the town of Leonis to meet with the magistrate or church officials, and the two of them became a frequent sight on the roads between the fields and along the bay. She was talkative and curious and winsome, and she became a great favorite with the local tenants and farmers. Despite Riwallon's illness, Drystan's days were infused with a quiet happiness that surprised him even more than the strength of his spontaneous affection for Cwylli.

His love for Yseult truly must have died from all the years of hiding and pretending. How else could he be so content separated from her?

Riwallon passed away shortly after All Saints when the first snow covered the ground. Drystan couldn't help thinking that in Eriu it was Samhain, the time when the border between the worlds was thinnest.

* * * *

Winter was just starting to take its hold on Armorica, but luckily the ground was not frozen and the burial could take place. Riwallon's body was washed with water from the sacred well, wrapped in the death shirt, and laid out in state in the entrance hall. He had been well-loved among the people of Bro Leon, and in the days leading up to the funeral, there was a constant stream of visitors wishing to bid him farewell.

Drystan relieved his aunt of as much of the organization as possible, although it still fell to her welcome funeral guests and organize their lodgings. She went about those duties quiet and sad, the rings beneath her eyes dark and her grief obvious. Labiane watched him suspiciously but did little to help, except to assist and care for her mother. She had just lost her father, and Drystan tried to be charitable, but it was obvious she resented the easy authority he now had in her home — without attempting to do the work necessary herself to ensure that the people of Leonis would begin to look to her rather than him. In her combined selfishness and injured vanity, she often reminded him of his own father.

And he had to wonder yet again how Cador, who had fostered with Drystan's parents for nearly as long as Labiane, had maintained his own personal integrity under the influence of Marcus Cunomorus.

The local rulers and their families came from up to two days' journey away to Riwallon's funeral to pay their respects. Among them were a number of friends and relatives Drystan had not seen in years, some not since he was a boy. Arthur's mother Ygerna came with her husband Hoel from his seat to the east at Caer Brioc, and Arthur's half-sister Anna and her husband Budic had braved the snowy roads all the way from Armorican Domnonia. There were a number of other smaller kings and counts as well whom he had never met or couldn't remember.

For the funeral procession, he hired the best musicians Leonis had to offer, and they led the way to the church outside the walls of the city. Morvan and Girec and others of Riwallon's household carried the body through the streets of the town, with Blodewedd, Drystan and Labiane following. Cwylli had no real relationship to the grandfather she barely knew, but she was suitably serious during the proceedings, walking between her mother and Drystan, holding their hands. Gildas's nurse followed with the baby, and the rest of the mourners trailed behind them. The weather was cold and clear, the snow on the ground giving the graveyard beside the church a look of purity. It would be a peaceful place for Riwallon to rest.

Afterwards, at the funeral banquet in Riwallon's villa, Drystan accompanied his Aunt Blodewedd from group to group, supporting her with a strong hand at her elbow while she accepted condolences and tried to be brave.

"I need to sit down for a moment," Blodewedd said finally, her voice quivering.

"Certainly." He drew her arm through his and led her to a chair next to the wall.

Blodewedd sank down with a grateful sigh, and Drystan gave her a kiss on her cheek. The skin still felt young against his lips, not yet old and dry, but the corners of her eyes and her forehead were creased with the lines of worry that Riwallon's long illness had put there, and her once-dark hair was now well-laced with gray.

"Should I get you a glass of wine?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you, Drystan."

He moved away through the crowd to where the refreshments were laid out.

"Yseult!"

It was as if all movement in Riwallon's entrance hall had ceased, as if the whole world had narrowed down to one moment —now. Without thinking, Drystan turned towards the voice, feeling caught in time, every second an hour, a slow crawl to a single event, when he would see a woman again with hair like snow in the sun and eyes like the reflection of the moon in a lake. His throat closed with anticipation and his chest felt as if a giant had taken hold of it and squeezed.

He blinked. She wasn't there.

"Yseult!" came Anna's voice a second time. "It's good to see you again!"

Arthur's sister embraced a woman Drystan had never seen before, a woman who wasn't Yseult, but of course she was Yseult, just not the Yseult everything in him had wanted to see, the reason his soul had left his body and he was now standing here empty, as if this could be the moment to heal a lifetime.

Which it wasn't.

And if he could react this way to the mere sound of a name... he had obviously been fooling himself all these months.

The two women noticed him staring and turned to him arm-in-arm, twin secretive smiles stealing over their faces. As if he wouldn't notice what they were thinking.

And still he couldn't move.

Anna stepped forward, pulling the other woman with her gently. "Drystan, I don't believe you've met Yseult yet? She was in fosterage with my parents when her own mother and father both died in a shipwreck two years ago, and she has been with them since."

Anna's foster sister nodded. "Ygerna and Hoel offered to let me stay as long as my brother Kaedin was still fighting with Cynan against the Visigoths. But he has recently returned to our family seat at Karke and taken over the running of it again. I hope to be joining him there soon."

Drystan continued to stare, somehow incapable of reacting normally. This Yseult had a superficial resemblance to his Yseult, with her long pale hair and blue eyes, but everything about her was smaller, less: her stature, her eyes, her coloring, her presence. There was pleasantness here but no drama, regular features but no sharp intelligence behind the eyes.

"We call her Yseult of the White Hands," Anna was saying now, since he still hadn't managed to find his tongue. She lifted one of her foster sister's hands, extending it in his direction. "They are so fine and delicate, you see?"

Drystan shook himself mentally and took the proffered hand, raising it to his cold lips. "My pleasure," he got out.

The touch of her warm, white hand against his lips sent a thrill through him, and his heart was pounding again. He could feel the blood rush to his cheeks, and Yseult of the White Hands smiled that smile of a woman who knew she had a man at her mercy.

Only it wasn't this girl he was reacting to, not really; it was an absent Yseult.

"How long will you be staying in Leonis?" young Yseult asked, taking her hand back into her own possession.

Slowly the focus of the world began widening again, and the unnecessary nervousness which had paralyzed him slipped away. "As long as Blodewedd needs me and Arthur does not call me back."

"It is good of you to be so loyal to your foster parents," she said.

Drystan found a laugh that was almost natural. "Loyal perhaps, but forgetful — I left Blodewedd waiting for a glass of wine. You will excuse me, ladies?"

Yseult excused him willingly, her expression telling him she was confident he had not left her for good.

Drystan smiled to himself as he fetched the wine for Blodewedd. Anna's foster sister was pretty enough, but his stunned behavior had given her quite the wrong impression. He had reacted to her, yes, but he had reacted to her because she shared a name with the one he couldn't have. He shook his head, chasing away the fog of confusion and misplaced infatuation.

Ah, when would he be over her — really, truly over her?

When he returned to Blodewedd, Cwylli was leaning against her grandmother's knee, asking about all the people who were at the party. Blodewedd looked more animated than she had in weeks, and Drystan found himself wishing Labiane could remain longer with the child: not only would he miss Cwylli when she went back to Caer Custoeint, she brought new life to Leonis.

"Drystan!" Cwylli cried as he approached, and he grinned.

"Take me up?" she said, raising her arms straight up on either side of her head. Drystan chuckled, handed the glass of wine to Blodewedd, and lifted Cwylli onto his shoulders.