M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon Read online

  The officer pretended not to hear the treasonous words of complaint, so the seneschal slipped away to dine with the house servants on mugs of ale and newly buttered flat bread in the kitchen of the fortress. The household regularly fed on gossip to quieten the steadily rising anxiety that came with each new day, for the roads remained empty of King Artor’s troops or the warriors led by their neighbour, King Bran, who would soon be forced to call Mark to account for his treason. As Mellyr was fond of saying, every day the kings did not come was one day closer to the hour they would turn the road white with their dust.

  Rather than grow complacent at the lack of immediate action, all sensible men in the fortress realised that the kings would never forget Mark’s treachery. They would come. Their failure to arrive at once spoke only of their contempt for the Deceangli lord and his warriors, men who had cast aside their oaths of fealty and then deserted the field of battle.

  ‘You were there when Lord Trystan and Queen Iseult died, Master Mellyr. Tell us about them,’ one loose-lipped, heavy-bodied house servant asked, his eyes alive with excitement. The kitchens were warm and the ale was fresh and clean, so the servants found comfortable places to sit in anticipation of illicit entertainment, for they knew their king would punish any discussion of his queen and her infidelity. But talk of a local tragedy would divert their minds from what real disasters the morrow might bring. Outside, the winter winds battered at the fortress’s upper walls and whistled through the bolted shutters as they sought to wind their cold tendrils into the empty rooms of Mark’s palace.

  ‘Who could not remember the tale of Queen Iseult and Lord Trystan?’ Mellyr’s voice was warm with affection, for every red-blooded male in the fortress had fallen in love with Iseult’s astonishing beauty, either as an ideal or as a fantasy. The other servants nodded, remembering coal-black hair with the midnight-blue gloss that was seen on the wings of ravens. Iseult’s eyes had been an unusual colour, the irises so pale within their dark blue rims that they could have been grey or green, depending on the light. Her skin had possessed the perfect thick white texture of a statue rather than a living woman, so that she resembled someone carved out of ice or wax. She was so remote and so cold that she seemed almost inhuman in her unnatural calm and stillness, like a goddess out of old legends. Her servants agreed that such loveliness was both a blessing and a curse.

  ‘And then Lord Trystan came to Canovium with his harp, his clever fingers, his glossy hair and his fine words,’ Mellyr said softly. He remembered that first visit distinctly, recalling how Iseult had bloomed in response to Trystan’s compliments. Under his bold, admiring stare, a delicate rose flush had stained the skin over her cheekbones and melted the ice in her blood. Her teeth, like small river pearls, had glowed within her parted red lips and she seemed to breathe faster as Trystan sang of perfect love. Iseult had been beautiful before Trystan’s arrival, but on that night she had been incandescent. ‘I never believed that love could strike so quickly, but I saw the queen open like a bud that has been frozen by a long, cold night and has been suddenly warmed by morning sunshine.’

  ‘You’re an old fool!’ one of the household’s oldest servants sneered. ‘You sound like a bad poet or a fond father. You loved her too, so you should admit that you blame our king for her death, although any man would have been enraged if he had stood in King Mark’s shoes.’

  The sudden silence in the kitchen held the charged tension of an open conflict. The king’s defender, Pedr, jutted out his chin aggressively while he bit into a torn slab of new bread with the intensity of a deeply affronted man. The servants weren’t surprised, for if the king had an unswerving supporter in Canovium, that man was Pedr.

  As the seneschal of Mark’s household, a position of status earned over many years of service, Mellyr stiffened. ‘Thank you, Pedr, but it is not your place to criticise where I place my affections. Aye, the queen did have a magical glamour that forced people to admire her, but she was a good wife to a husband who was thirty years her senior. She was obedient and respectful, like a loyal daughter or a granddaughter, but my position took me close to them and I saw that there was no love between King Mark and his wife. You should refrain from judgement, Pedr, because you insult your betters. Iseult didn’t love her husband, but she served him as her position demanded. Any decent man would feel pity for her, for the poor girl suddenly felt the full force of physical love for a handsome young man when Lord Trystan visited the king’s hall. I watched that storm of passion strike her when Trystan smiled at her and kissed her hand, and my attachment to her memory is born of an old man’s longing to replace the ugly memories of her death with something fairer. Our mistress was doomed from the moment Lord Trystan cast his eyes upon her flower-fresh face.’

  Pedr grunted over his cup of ale. ‘I’m not saying you’re right, Mellyr, and I’m not saying you’re wrong. But a man must be able to believe that his wife will remain faithful.’

  ‘Aye, Pedr. But our master bought her from her father, so there was a price on her body. Who can buy the heart, Pedr? Who can place a value on the soul?’

  Disgruntled, Pedr nodded his head and the awkward moment passed. The puzzled servants, who had watched the altercation with avid interest, settled back on their stools, ready for more entertainment.

  ‘Whatever Queen Iseult’s motives might have been, I watched her husband’s face as I served him during the feast. You were the cup bearer that evening, Pedr, so you must have seen the way King Mark watched his wife whenever Trystan spoke to her. And you must have seen the way Artor’s spymaster toyed with him! The young man flaunted his virility so bluntly that the king was forced to compare his old age with Trystan’s youth. Trystan humiliated King Mark for his own amusement. He niggled at him, while joking openly that our king couldn’t compete with him in physical contests. His whole attitude was fucking obvious . . . excuse me, ladies.’ Mellor nodded in the direction of two kitchen maids who were pretending not to eavesdrop. ‘In the foolishness of youth, Trystan flaunted his talents at every opportunity. I watched, and suspected from the start that the queen’s new passion would eventually end in tears.

  ‘Within a few weeks, I was forced to acknowledge that Trystan came to visit the queen in her apartments whenever Mark stirred out of his hall. And if the queen went riding, her retinue would gamble coin on whether Lord Trystan would appear, uninvited and charming, telling jokes that displayed a dangerous gaiety and effrontery. They were rarely disappointed. I also remember the times Lady Iseult stole away in the dead of night without even a maid to accompany her.’

  Several kitchen hands made rude gestures with their hips, miming intercourse. They laughed crudely, but Mellyr silenced them with a single black glance.

  ‘The poor girl was in love for the first time. Trystan was also smitten, although, if rumours are to be trusted, the young man had won more maidens than I’ve had hot dinners. The lovers weren’t careful in their trysts, either. Inevitably, word reached King Mark, for the queen’s beauty bred jealousy in the ladies of Canovium. I was with our king at Cadbury when he dared to order the High King to place a leash on his servant. I was certain that we would all be punished after such presumption, but the Dragon King made a wise response. He left our master in no doubt that it was his task to discipline his wife. He refused to intervene in what he felt was a family matter, but in doing so he forced Mark to face up to his own impotence so that, ultimately, he was easily tempted to join the cause of the Matricide, when Modred offered inducements of gold and power. I believe he felt there was a score to settle.’

  An old man called Elystan, who had been dozing on the stool closest to the fire, raised his head like an ancient tortoise searching for the sun. Inside their web of sagging skin and wrinkles, the man’s eyes were very sad.

  ‘Weak men resent the voice that speaks their shame out loud. When the High King told King Mark to bring his wife to heel, our master knew he couldn’t do it. And that made him feel even weaker. He needed strength, so he took steps to
be strong in any way he could. Better to sit by a warm fire alone than suffer with a beautiful young wife who’s been purchased with red gold. All men are fools in matters of love – even kings.’

  ‘Aye. You have the right of it, Elystan, and we have to live with the consequences,’ Mellyr agreed.

  ‘And we’re like to die of them as well,’ Elystan answered, leaning towards the fire as if he felt a sudden cold. ‘Don’t be so foolish as to believe our master hadn’t already met King Modred and become part of the conspiracy long before it became common knowledge. Mark travelled regularly into the south at that time, and only lacked an excuse to openly adopt Modred’s cause. The High King gave him that excuse.’

  The servants nodded their heads glumly and Pedr slammed his horn mug down on the table top so hard that the ale splashed on his neighbour. In retrospect, the romance between Queen Iseult and Lord Trystan was anything but a source of humour, for the lovers were damned as traitors when their liaison became common knowledge. Ostensibly, Mark made his decision to betray his oaths to the Celtic tribes because of the lovers’ shameful behaviour and his own impotence, frustration and greed. But, inevitably, he would have betrayed the High King anyway, for he had been one of the first of the kings to voice his disapproval of Artor before the coronation at Venta Belgarum. Even Pedr, faithful as he was, could find no valid excuse for his master’s actions.

  ‘We can talk forever about why our master decided to act as he did on that fatal night, but all our wisdom can’t change the past,’ Mellyr continued. ‘Such an adulterous passion couldn’t be allowed to continue, and King Mark believed the queen had decided to cast away her status, her reputation and her crown to flee Canovium with her lover. Our King pretended to leave for the south. Queen Iseult . . .’ The seneschal’s voice faltered, and he crossed himself with Christian piety as he considered the events of that night.

  ‘The queen arranged to meet Lord Trystan on the beach to make good their escape. I became aware that she intended to flee because she asked me to pack her saddle bags for a long journey. I swear that I said nothing to King Mark – nothing. I cannot tell how Mark became aware of her plans, but someone must have informed him of their intention to beg King Artor for sanctuary at Cadbury. Such public humiliation! They only reached the old ruined cottage at the headland to the north, where they planned to hide for the following day. On the night they eloped, a small troop of warriors was ordered to pursue them and surround their refuge, and our master and I went with them.’

  Mellyr permitted the silence to stretch as his audience tried to imagine how the queen had felt. Excitement, a giddy sense of freedom and an overwhelming faith in the power of love must have made her feel invincible, even if only fleetingly. Every man and woman present could recall a time when their future seemed full of promise, only to have it dashed away as if by a pail of cold water thrown in the face.

  ‘Mark managed to enter the hut on his own without alerting the lovers. It was late in the night, the witching hour before dawn when our blood moves slowly in our veins, and every man understands that evil things prowl at that time. Wickedness went into that hut with him, I swear, although Mark will tear out my tongue if he hears what I’ve said.’

  ‘You’d do well to keep your mouth closed then, Mellyr,’ Pedr threatened from alongside the guttering fire in the kitchens. ‘No man should have to tolerate the betrayal of his wife with another man. By the goddess, I’d have killed them both if I’d been in our king’s shoes.’

  ‘Perhaps you have the right of it, Pedr.’ Mellyr’s mouth twisted as he spat into the red embers of the fire. ‘But where’s the honour in killing Lord Trystan from behind? You’d own that it’s an unmanly thing to do. Although our master had the right to kill them both, I’d have preferred that he faced his betrayer man to man.’

  ‘And how do you know he didn’t face him, Mellyr? You’re all hot air, for who can know the truth of what happened in that hut? I’ve heard more rumours about that night than I’ve had silver coins in my hands. You presume the master played false. Shame on you, Mellyr, for that man is our king!’ Pedr’s voice was harsh, and the seneschal remembered that the hulking tribesman had served the kings of the Deceangli tribe since boyhood, as had his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, back to the happy days when the Deceangli had been free of even King Vortigern’s poisoned interference in their affairs. Pedr was a king’s man to the horny soles of his feet, but Mellyr chose to reveal the truth as he knew it, and damn the consequences.

  He raised his face to confront Pedr, his black eyes hard and unforgiving. ‘I was the only man of the whole retinue who entered that hut – the only one who dared to see what really happened. Do you understand what I’m saying, Pedr? Were I not the Keeper of the King’s Keys, and had the wars of Modred not intervened almost at once, Mark would have had me killed because of the things I witnessed. As it stands, I stay out of King Mark’s way so he’s not reminded of his deeds. I was there, and I know what I saw.’

  Pedr was silenced. Mellyr had seen something that had destroyed his faith in his king so irrevocably that he was openly speaking treason. The tribesman’s curiosity was sharpened.

  ‘So? Out with it. What did you see?’

  Like many poorly educated men who climb high in the world through their natural abilities, Mellyr had the natural gifts of a storyteller and the power to hold an audience by the seduction in his voice. Now that persuasive tone softened, and his fellow servants leaned forward to hear every word.

  ‘I entered the hut because I heard the queen shrieking like a mad woman. King Mark was standing behind the corpse of Lord Trystan, who had fallen from his stool onto the floor. Clearly, Trystan had been sitting at a table with his back to the door, and his hands were empty of weapons. He had been killed from behind, unaware of Mark’s presence. Iseult’s warning came too late.’

  ‘How did he die then?’ one of the kitchen servants interrupted. His slack mouth was open and his eyes were gleaming as he enjoyed the vicarious violence. ‘I heard he was beheaded!’

  Mellyr felt a little disgusted. ‘The king’s blade had struck Lord Trystan at the base of the skull so that the point of the weapon was forced upwards under the bone. Trystan’s bowels and bladder had voided but there was very little bleeding, yet our king had become spattered with blood. He must have twisted the knife with some force to be so soiled.’

  The servants shivered deliciously as they imagined the gruesome tableau. Like all men who serve and have no power themselves, they were rapt, captured by the frailty and fallibility of their master.

  ‘The queen knelt beside her lover and cradled his twitching body in her arms, careless of the blood and shit that soiled her skirts. No matter how I try, I can’t forget her face. Her expression was so blank that she seemed unaware of what was happening. She had become a woman of ice again, so that her face registered nothing, not even grief. She knew what her fate must be, although I’ve often wondered whether Mark would not have killed her but instead brought her back to Canovium, bound and helpless, as proof that he was the better man. He is still besotted with her, even after her death, so who can tell? He might have spared her to slake his lusts and to answer any lingering doubts about his manhood. We’ll never know, for Queen Iseult took her life into her own hands.’

  His audience leaned towards him, even Pedr, who prided himself on not being easily convinced by honeyed words.

  ‘She didn’t speak; she didn’t weep. When our master ordered her to leave the corpse, she obeyed, although she made a little cry of protest when King Mark sheathed his knife and drew his sword. I think I protested as well. It seemed an unworthy and unnecessary act to desecrate a corpse, but in the throes of his anger and spite our master felt no such qualms. He cut off Trystan’s head, although he lacked the muscle to sever it with a single blow. He struck Trystan’s throat twice with his blade before the head rolled free.’

  Mellyr paused and someone pushed a horn cup of ale into his hands to oil his throat.
r />   ‘“Where’s your famed beauty now, Trystan, spymaster and whoremaster?” our master demanded. “Where’s all your courage now?” But our queen said nothing. She flinched when Mark kicked the corpse, but her face seemed frozen, as if she were already dead.’

  Mellyr could feel the eyes of the servants fixed on his face, so he gulped down half the ale in his cup. ‘Then our queen drew a pretty little knife from under her travelling cloak. I can see it still in my mind’s eye. It was heavily decorated with gold embossing and cabochon jewels, and didn’t seem strong enough to do any damage. The blade was so very slender.

  ‘“Would you kill me then, wife?” King Mark asked, and I confess I moved forward, ready to stand between them. But there was no need for me to intervene.’ Mellyr paused for so long that his audience became restive.

  ‘Well, finish your tale, man,’ Pedr demanded, captured by the vividness of the story despite his determination to remain untouched by the queen’s punishment.

  Mellyr sighed deeply. ‘Our queen was so beautiful that she could make even my old body stand to attention, and never more so than when she stared at her husband with her knife, a gift from her lover, held firmly in her hands. She was magnificent. “I’ll not sully this blade with your accursed blood, Mark,” she whispered. “I’m sorry that I’ll not see you humbled, or live to watch your accursed, miserly soul dragged to judgement for your crimes – but death is far better than another moment of life as your possession.” That’s all she said, but the king’s face became so pale that I believe he’d have killed her then for her insults, had he been given the chance. But Queen Iseult died the way she had wanted to live – on her own terms. She reversed the knife and used both hands to drive it into her breast, right here.’