Free Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff

branches. And she understood.
    So she said, cool and clear, ‘My Lord Tristan, why did you send for me?’
    ‘I must speak with you alone,’ said Tristan, ‘for I sorely need your help.’
    ‘My help? In what way would that be?
    ‘To soften the King’s unjust anger towards me, that I may return to Court, for it is an ill thing to be ordered from his presence like a disobedient hound; and all men talk against me.’

    ‘They talk against both of us,’ said Iseult, ‘and the fault is yours, for you should have remembered that we are not indeed brother and sister, and that therefore we cannot be together freely as brother and sister would be, without setting dark suspicions in people’s minds.’
    ‘If I should have remembered, should not you?’ demanded Tristan.
    ‘I should indeed, but you are a man and wiser than I, and so you must bear the chief blame.’
    ‘I will bear it gladly, if you help me, Iseult; would you not help your brother?’
    ‘Not if he had brought the anger of my lord upon me,’ said Iseult; and all the while, she was aware to her fingertips of the listeners overhead in the pear tree, and she made a sob come into her voice – which indeed was not hard. ‘I have been sick at heart through your fault, for I cannot be happy while my lord looks at me coldly and with doubt in his eyes. Now, if you ever felt a brother’s fondness for me, go away, and leave me to win back my lord’s love as best I may.’
    And Tristan bent his head as though in defeat. ‘If you will not help me, then you will not, and I will never be asking you anything again. Go home now, and a good night to you, Iseult.’
    And Iseult turned and walked away down the stream-side; while Tristan stood and watched her go, and heard again the faint rustling in the tree above him, that was not the wind. And then he turned and walked away also, with his head on his breast. There was a sickness in his belly and a foul taste in his mouth, and he hated Iseult in that moment, almost as much as he hated himself.
    Then among the branches of the pear tree King Marc drew his dagger and turned upon the dwarf beside him. But the dwarf saw the silver flash of the blade in the moonlight, and dropped from the branch and ran, doubling and twisting like a hare, and wasaway into the woods before the King could catch him.
    And the stream ran on, quietly under the moon.
    Next morning, King Marc went to the Queen in her bower, and told her how he had been hiding in the tree, and had heard all that passed between her and Tristan the night before, and begged her to forgive him, and make peace again between him and Tristan.
    But Iseult knew that she must not seem too eager. ‘Truly I am thankful that the shadow between us is past,’ she said. ‘But it was through Tristan that your anger first fell upon me, and if you bring him back to Court, can I be sure that the thing will not happen again?’
    ‘Sweet,’ said the King, ‘I have begged your forgiveness for doubting you; be generous to both of us, and I will never doubt you or him again.’
    So Tristan returned to Court. And for a while, all was as it had been in the early days between himself and King Marc and Iseult the Queen.

9
The Leper’s Cloak
    AGAIN THE SUMMER turned to autumn, and the winter passed, and the gorse flamed along the headlands. And the love between Tristan and Iseult would not let them be, dragging at them as the moon draws the tides to follow after it, until at last, whether they would or no, they came together again.
    And all the while Andret watched.
    One night on the edge of summer the Queen went early to her bower, saying that her head ached for there was thunder in the air, and she would be alone. And soon after, Andret saw that Tristan’s place in the King’s Hall was empty, and he, too, rose and slipped out, following the champion of Cornwall.
    He knew that it would be useless to go himself to the King, for Marc would not believe any word he said, but there were