“The legend is about to end, Morholt.”
Iseult didn’t dine with us. We were alone at the table, Branwen and I, except for a chaplain with a shiny tonsure. But we didn’t bother with him. He muttered a short prayer and having blessed the table he devoted himself to stuffing his face. I soon forgot about his presence. As if he’d always been there.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt.”
“How did you know?”
“I remember you from Ireland, from the court. I remember you well. No, I doubt you remember me. You didn’t pay any attention to me then; although, I can tell you this now, Morholt, I did want you to notice me. It’s understandable; when Iseult was around one didn’t notice others.”
“No, Branwen. I remember you. I didn’t recognise you today because…”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“Because then, in Atha Cliath… you always smiled.”
Silence.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“How is Tristan?”
“Bad. The wound is festering, doesn’t want to heal. The rot’s set in. It looks horrible.”
“Is he…?”
“As long as he believes, he will live. And he believes.”
“In what?”
“In her.”
Silence.
“Branwen?”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“Is Iseult of the Golden Hair…is the Queen…really going to sail here from Tintagel?”
“I don’t know, Morholt. But he believes she will.”
Silence.
“Morholt?”
“Yes, Branwen?”
“I told Tristan you were here. He wants to see you. Tomorrow.”
“Very well.”
Silence.
“Morholt?”
“Yes, Branwen?”
“There, on the dunes…”
“It doesn’t matter, Branwen.”
“It does. Please, try to understand. I didn’t want, I couldn’t let you die. I could not allow an arrow butt, a stupid piece of wood and metal, to spoil… I couldn’t let that happen. At any price, even the price of your contempt. And there…on the dunes, the price they asked didn’t seem so high. You see, Morholt…”
“Branwen…it’s enough, please.”
“I have paid with my body before.”
“Branwen. Not a word more.”
She touched my hand and her touch, believe me or not, was the red ball of the sun rising after a long, cold night. It was the scent of apples, the leap of a horse spurred to attack. I looked into her eyes and her gaze was like the fluttering of pennons in the wind, like music, like a stroke of fur on the cheek. Branwen, the laughing Branwen of Baile Atha Cliath. Serious, quiet, sad Branwen of Cornwall, of the Knowing Eyes. Was there anything in that wine we drank? Like the wine Tristan and Iseult drank on the sea?
“Branwen…”
“Yes, Morholt?”
“Nothing, I only wanted to hear the sound of your name.”
Silence.
The roaring of the sea, monotonous, hollow, carrying persistent, intrusive, stubborn whispers…
Silence.
“Morholt.”
“Tristan.”
He had changed. Then, in Baile Atha Cliath, he was a child, a cheerful boy with dreamy eyes, always with that engaging little smile that sent hot waves up the maids’ thighs. Always that smile, even when we had bashed each other with swords in Dun Laoghaire. And now… Now his face was grey, thin, withered, cut with glistening lines of sweat, his lips chaffed and frozen in a grimace of pain, black rings of suffering around his eyes.
And he stank. He stank of illness. Of death. Of fear.
“You are alive, Irishman.”
“I am, Tristan.”
“When they carried you off the field they said you were dead. Your head…”
“My head was cracked open and the brain out,” I said, trying to make it sound casual.
“A miracle. Someone must have been praying for you, Morholt.”
“I doubt that,” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Inscrutable is Fate.” His brow furrowed. “You and Branwen…both alive. While I…in a silly scuffle…I had a lance thrust into my groin; it went right through me, and it snapped. A splinter must have got stuck inside; that’s why the wound is festering. God’s punished me. It’s the punishment for all my sins. For you, for Branwen. And above all…for Iseult…”
His brow furrowed again; his mouth twisted. I knew which Iseult he meant. My heart ached. Her black-ringed eyes, her hand-wringing, the fingers cracked out of her white hands. The bitterness in her voice. How often she must have seen it: that involuntary twist of the mouth when he spoke the name of “Iseult” and could not add “of the Golden Hair”. I felt sorry for her—her, married to a legend. Why had she agreed to it? Why had she agreed to serve merely as a name, an empty sound? Hadn’t she heard the story about him and the Cornish woman? Maybe she thought it unimportant? Perhaps she thought Tristan was just like any other man? Like the men from Arthur’s retinue, like Gawaine, Gaheris, Bors or Bedivere, who started this idiotic fashion to adore one woman, sleep with another and marry the third without anyone complaining?
“Morholt…”
“I’m here, Tristan.”
“I have sent Caherdin to Tintagel. The ship…”
“Still no news, Tristan.”
“Only she…” he whispered. “Only she can save me. I’m on the brink. Her eyes, her hands, just the sight of her, the sound of her voice… There is no other cure for me. That’s why…if she is on that ship, Caherdin will pull out on the mast…”
“I know, Tristan…”
He fell silent, staring at the ceiling, breathing heavily.
“Morholt… Will she… come? Does she remember?”
“I don’t know, Tristan,” I said and immediately regretted it. Damn it, what would it cost me to confirm with ardour and conviction? Did I have to reveal my ignorance to him as well?
Tristan turned his face to the wall.
“I wasted this love,” he groaned. “I destroyed it. And through it, I brought a curse on our heads. I am dying because of it, unsure that she will answer my plea and come, that she would, even if it were too late.”
“Don’t say that, Tristan.”
“I have to. It’s all my fault. Or perhaps my fate is at fault? Maybe that’s how it was to be from the beginning? The beginning born of love and tragedy? For you know that Blanchefleur gave birth to me amidst despair? The labour began the moment she received the news of Rivalin’s death. She didn’t survive my birth. I don’t know whether it was her, in her last breath, or Foyenant, later… who gave me this name, the name which is like doom, like a curse? Like a judgement. La tristesse. The cause and effect. La tristesse, surrounding me like a mist… Exactly like the mist swathing the mouth of the river Liffey when for the first time…”
He fell silent again, his hands instinctively stroking the furs with which he was covered.
“Everything, everything I did turned against me. Put yourself in my position, Morholt. Imagine yourself arriving at Baile Atha Cliath, you meet a girl… From the first sight, from the very moment your eyes meet, you feel your heart wants to burst out of your breast, your hands tremble. You wander to and fro the whole night, unable to sleep, boiling with anxiety, shaking, thinking about one thing only: to see her again in the morning. And what? Instead of joy—la tristesse…”
I was silent. I didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“And then,” he carried on, “the first conversation. The first touching of the hands, as powerful as a lance’s thrust in a tournament. The first smile, her smile, which makes you… Eh, Morholt. What would you do in my place?”
I was silent. I didn’t know what I would have done in his place. I had never been in his position. By Lugh and Lir, I had never experienced anything like it. Ever.