Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

give us the Queen, to be of our company.’
    A gasp ran through the crowd, but King Marc never moved. ‘
Give you the Queen?
’ he said; and his voice was stony as all else about him.
    ‘If she is to die a shameful death, we can offer her one more shameful than the fire. Slower than the fire, but maybe uglier.’

    And the lepers behind him clamoured, ‘Give her to us! Give! Give!’
    And the King’s stone face broke up into a sudden agony of rage, and he shouted to the executioners, ‘Cut the Queen loose, and give her to these creatures!’
    Then Iseult began to scream and scream, and cling to the stake as though it were her only hope; and when Tristan in his leper’s guise sprang up on to the piled faggots to seize her, she fought him like a wild thing, while the crowd set up a ragged shout of angry protest, though with the King’s eye upon them and his nobles and his bodyguard all about, they dared no more. And then Iseult, thrusting the leper away with both hands, caught a glimpse of crimson silk at his breast and felt the skin clean and healthy under his foul cloak, and heard his whisper close to her ear, ‘Iseult! It is I! Do not betray me!’
    She went on screaming, but many of those standing round saw that she ceased to fight, as though despair had come upon her, and allowed herself to be dragged down from the pyre and into the midst of the little knot of lepers, and away up the track towards the woods. And again the people parted to let them through.

10
The Sword and the Glove
    MEANWHILE, THE WARRIORS waiting before the little clifftop chapel had long since grown impatient. ‘He is over-long at his prayers,’ they said. And at last when they had called and got no answer, they broke the door down – and found the place empty.
    The Captain sprang for the window and peered down, thinking to see Tristan’s broken body on the rocks below. But there were only the waves, and the seabirds wheeling by.
    When word of Tristan’s escape was brought to the King, his wrath was terrible, and he sent his warriors to seek him out and bring him back, living or dead. But no sign of Tristan was to be found. They came up with the lepers, but the Queen was no longer with them, and they had a tale to tell of how a mighty and terrible warrior had sprung out upon them as they passed some bushes, and snatched her away from them. And under a hawthorn tree the searchers foundTristan’s sea-wet cloak lying where it had been tossed aside. But there was nothing that it could tell them.
    And of Tristan and Iseult, they found no sign at all. They and Gorvenal had vanished into the wild as completely as so many rags of morning mist when the sun climbs above the hills.
    Only one living thing out of Tintagel knew the way that they were gone, and that was Bran, Tristan’s favourite hound, who followed them by scent, and came up with them next day. And it was well for them that he did so, for they had need of a hunting dog in time to come.
    They held eastward and eastward, away and away from Tintagel, pushing on all day and lying up in some thicket for a few hours each night. When Iseult grew faint with weariness and could walk no more, Tristan or Gorvenal carried her; and so they came at last to a little lost valley by which a stream threaded down from the high black moors where the stone circles of forgotten people stood against the sky. Hawthorn and alder and hazel shaded it over, and the small dark thickset oak trees of the ancient forest reached up from below as though they held up their arms to receive it. And between the moors and the forest, the stream broadened into a little pool, where the deer came to drink at dawn and sunset.
    ‘Surely here we shall be safe,’ said Tristan. ‘We are full three days from Tintagel and it is many years since the King hunted these hills.’
    ‘The hunting will be good here,’ said Gorvenal, ‘and since we must turn hunter if we are to live . . .’
    And Iseult said in a voice that was soft