Free Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

with you.’
    ‘What I have to say is for God’s ear, not for yours,’ said Tristan. And then, as the man hesitated, he added, half-smiling, ‘Are you afraid that I shall escape you? I know that chapel as well as you do. There is but one narrow door to it, and one small high window above a sheer drop to the sea. I’d as soon be broken on the wheel as on the black rocks down yonder.’
    And they knew that it was true as to the door and the window, and so they let him go into the littlechapel alone and close the door behind him. ‘It is but common charity to allow him – and he about to die,’ they said among themselves.
    But as soon as the door was shut behind him, Tristan shot the bolt, taking care to make no sound that could be heard from outside. Then he crossed to the window that showed a tiny square of blank blue above the altar. He reached up and caught the sill and pulled himself up to it. He got his head and shoulders through, then a knee. Below him, far, far below, a sea as blue as a kingfisher’s mantle creamed upon fanged black rocks; and a gull skimmed the chapel wall, almost brushing his face with its wings. He thrust himself further out, reached for a stone that gave a handhold above the window, and drew the other leg under him. The gulls wove their white curves of flight across the face of the cliffs below him; the jump would have been death to any other man, but Tristan had learned well from his masters in his Lothian boyhood, and had not forgotten how to make the Hero Leap. He filled himself with air until he felt as light as the wheeling seabirds, and drew himself together and sprang out and down.
    He took the sea like a down-flung javelin, and the water closed over his head; but he leapt up again into the light, and the next wave gathered him and flung him shoreward. He clung to a rock, and between wave and wave, pulled himself ashore. And keeping close in under the cliffs, he made his way along to a place where he could regain the cliff top well out of sight from the chapel and the King’s warriors watching at its door. Then he set off back towards Tintagel.
    He had not gone far when rounding a bend in thetrack where it circled a tump of wind-shaped hawthorns, he came face to face with Gorvenal!
    They made no outcry of greeting; but Gorvenal stood stock still and the colour drained from his face till he was white to the lips. And seeing his look, Tristan said ‘Och, no! It is I, not my seadripping ghost – it was to be the wheel, not drowning for me, remember?’
    But even as he spoke, Gorvenal flung his arms round him, and hugged him fiercely close, then held him off at arms’ length to look at him. ‘Swift now, is the hunt behind you?’
    ‘Not yet,’ Tristan said, ‘I will tell you all the story later, there is no time now.’
    ‘There’s not indeed,’ said Gorvenal, ‘for the sooner we are many miles from here, the better. See, here are your sword and your harp. I would not be spending one night more in Tintagel, and I would not be leaving them behind me.’ And from under his cloak he pulled out the embroidered harp-bag that he had slung across his shoulder, and Tristan’s beloved sword with the notched blade.
    Tristan took the sword from him and belted it on. ‘Was there ever a time when I could not count on Gorvenal in my need? I shall have need of this. Let you keep my harp for me, until maybe I have a need for that also.’
    And he set his hand an instant on Gorvenal’s shoulder, and then walked on, the way that he had been going.
    Gorvenal swung round and went after him. ‘Are you mad? This is the way back to Tintagel.’
    ‘I am knowing that well enough. Could I make myescape and leave Iseult to die in the flames? I must save her today, or die with her; there is no other way for me. But the hazard is mine and none of yours. Go your way, brother, with my thanks for bringing me my sword.’
    ‘As to that, I have my own sword also, and two blades are better than one,’