Free Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

others about the Court who would carry a message for a gold piece slipped into the hand; and so later still, one of the castle servants came to the King with word that the Queen begged him to go to her instantly in her bower.
    And when he came striding into the bower, brushing aside Brangian who tried to hold him back, he found Tristan there, with the Queen in his arms.
    Then the King’s wrath was terrible, all the more terrible because of the love he had for his queen and his kinsman, and he waited to hear no more excuses, but shouted up the guard. They came bursting in as Tristan snatched up his sword. He fought like a wild boar at bay, but he was one blade against many, and he was beaten back to the wall, and made captive and dragged away. And all the while Iseult crouched beside the hearth as still as though she had been turned to stone. And the King never once looked her way. Only when all was over, and she rushed to the door, she found her way barred by crossed spears.
    Next day, Tristan and Iseult were brought before a council of the chiefs and the churchmen and the lawmakers of Cornwall, to be tried for their betrayal of the King. They made no defence, for they would nolonger make their love for each other seem smaller and less worthy by denying it. And they were found guilty and condemned to die; Iseult by fire, which by the law of the land was the proper punishment for a queen who had betrayed her lord; Tristan by being broken over a great wheel.
    In the time before the day appointed for their deaths, only one of the King’s lords dared to speak to Marc at all, let alone plead for mercy for them; and that one was Dynas the High Steward.
    ‘This is surely a cruel thing that you do,’ said Dynas, and knew that he took his own life in his hands by saying it. ‘And the cruelty is against yourself as well as the Queen and the Lord Tristan; for in slaying them, I know well enough that you slay the two who are dearest to you on earth.’
    ‘You were never a man to care much for danger,’ said the King, ‘but you were never in greater danger than you are now.’ And he spoke between shut teeth, like a man speaking through the pain of a spear wound.
    ‘I do not think so,’ said Dynas. ‘For you are a just man, and to slay me for speaking the truth would be unjust – even more unjust than to slay those two. My Lord King, neither man nor woman can choose who their love goes out to; and death is too great a price to demand, and cannot bring love back to you. Banish Tristan from Cornwall – I will take it upon my own honour to see that he does not return – and take the Queen once more into your life; use her gently, and it may be that she will turn to you yet.’
    ‘No,’ said the King, ‘
I will make an end
.’
    By dawn on the appointed day, all the preparationshad been made. People had been summoned from far and wide to witness the deaths of Tristan and the Queen. And great was the grief, and loud the wailing of the women; for Tristan was dear to all the ordinary folk of Cornwall, their champion and their hope; and Iseult had made herself beloved in her husband’s kingdom as she had been in her father’s.
    Tristan was to die in the morning, and Iseult after noon; and so he was led out first by the men of the King’s bodyguard. Now the chosen place of execution was some distance from the castle; and on the way to it they passed a little chapel, set high on the very lip of the cliffs above the sea; and when they came close to it, Tristan said to the Captain of the Guard, ‘The sun is scarce yet clear of the hills, and we have time to spare on this walk that we are taking. And indeed you thrust me forth this morning so early that I have had no time to make my peace with God, as I have sore need to be making it. Therefore give me leave to go in yonder and pray.’
    The Captain of the Guard considered a moment, and then he shrugged. ‘There’s no harm, that I can see. But I and another of us will come in