Free Tristan and Iseult by JD Smith Page A

Kernow will be on the island himself. Massacre them after they pay tribute and there is no guarantee the next ruler of this forsaken sliver of Briton will be any more amenable than this one. This is the better way. At least this king seems to honour his word. We will win, and he will not break his honour. Our greatest warrior will face the greatest of the Kernish men if they continue to resist us. If they offer tribute, we take it.’
    The other man looks as if he would argue with our lord, but he turns away and watches the island.
    ‘You are about to meet a king of Briton,’ Morholt says to me. He sneers and I see his teeth, stained with age, and in my mind relive the moment in his chambers when his breath rolled across my face.
    The sea is bobbing our boat up and down and up and down and I feel my stomach turn with each movement. I sit silent, attempting to steady myself and stop my head from whirling. Once I know I won’t spill my stomach over the side of the boat I look up at Morholt. He is amused by me. To him I am both his future queen and his plaything.
    ‘Which king, my Lord?’ I ask, wanting only to break the look he gives me.
    Morholt makes a guttural sound and rests his foot on the side of the boat. ‘The King of Kernow. Your father should have pressed him harder, as I do now. The tribute he negotiated was barely enough to make the journey between our land and theirs worthwhile.’ He leans toward me. ‘Your father does not have the chance to press anyone harder now.’
    I want to spit at Morholt for his slight against my father, spoken with purposeful cruelty and intention to torment. My father’s choices were for our benefit; for the prosperity of us all. Our new lord is not the same man. I am looking into the eyes of my father’s killer. A man who murdered his king not only for his lands and position, his wealth and power, but because he enjoys disturbing the balance. He longs to create chaos.
    So I say nothing, my lips tight against retort. My words would only prove something worthy of ridicule to him or earn me a blow.
    ‘Kernow’s neighbours yield easily to my rule,’ he says, watching me as if seeking my feelings. ‘They are more sensible men than those of Kernow. This king, though ... this king does not like to play our game. He refuses to give up what he knows he eventually must.’
    He is no longer speaking to me, but to himself. The men in our boat growl their agreement.
    ‘I am sure they will kneel to you before we leave this island,’ I reply. There is a small satisfaction in my words, answering him as a servant, with restraint, when he and I both know I wish I had a sword like a man to rid the world of his evil soul.
    Our small boat grinds on the sea bed as the first sun breaks through the grey sky and pools of light form on the ground. Morholt and his men slip into the murky water and drag the boat onto the land. 
    ‘They will do more than kneel,’ Morholt says as I clamber from the vessel. ‘Kernow will learn to fear us as the other tribes of Briton fear us, when it is their greatest warrior’s blood I paint on my shields.’
    I glance to his shield and the thick, dark crust upon its surface.
    Morholt.
    A man who likes watching others suffer. A warlord enjoying the sport of gods.
    The warriors of my beloved Ireland fasten their sword belts and pull on their helmets. How any man can be more fearsome or more skilled in slicing away the lives of others, I cannot imagine. They are my kin, and yet I do not feel a part of this group of people standing on the shore of a country I find so unfamiliar. 
    Green swirls of water catch at my feet. My sea. The same nature that clings to my own shoreline and beckons me home. And yet the wind and waves sound hollow and detached. The sun shines, but it is a stark and unkind light that filters between clouds. Untrodden grass grows coarse between stones and rocks. A lonely and cruel nature resides here. My people were right; only savages could live