Ashes of Heaven Read online

  Rual shot him a suspicious glance. “Duke Gilan is liege lord of Parmenie, but he has paid scarce attention to the castle since Rivalin’s death. My own oath to him still holds, so no oath of yours is even necessary. The duke is growing old, and if he should die or retire to the cloister, then you can think of offering allegiance to whoever succeeds him. It is no use reopening a long-ago quarrel.”

  “I have no intention of reopening a quarrel,” said Tristan, his grey eyes wide in innocence. “I simply feel I should regularize my position here, and the best way is to seek him out and offer my oaths. And I am certain there are other lands, besides Parmenie itself, that were Rivalin’s fiefs and which Duke Gilan has retained far too long.”

  Rual could not talk him out of it. Tristan continued to insist that he was not seeking vengeance, but when he left to find the duke he was accompanied by a hundred knights, some from the castle but mostly young men from the surrounding region, who had been delighted to discover that their boyhood friend Tristan was their new lord, and that he promised to be as bold as the stories told of Rivalin.

  They rode for several days until they reached Duke Gilan’s capital, where they learned that the duke and his court were off hunting. “I do not trust him,” Tristan told his men, “so we should divide our company, to guard against treachery and ambush.” He and a dozen of his knights rode down the main road toward where they had learned the duke was hunting, but the rest of the knights stayed in the woods on either side, keeping back from the road so that no one would realize how big was their company. They also arranged their robes and their cloaks so that no one would see the armor underneath.

  In mid-afternoon Tristan and his men came on the duke’s encampment, dozens of tents and pavilions where knights sat at their ease, but Gilan was not there. Tristan inquired politely where they might find him and was directed further down the road. In a short time they spotted some hounds and hunters, the men only lightly armed. Among them, sitting a magnificent stallion, was a heavy-set man with white hair.

  “Hail, Duke Gilan!” Tristan called. “How goes the hunting?”

  It was indeed Gilan. He turned around in surprise but greeted Tristan’s company civilly enough. “There are few enough harts in these woods nowadays,” he said, “but we may do better with the hawks. Are you also hunting? I fear I do not know you.”

  “I have come,” said Tristan boldly, “to ask you to invest me with my fiefs, as is my right!”

  Gilan frowned and shook the reins of his stallion. “This is nonsense. If you wish to join our hunt, you are welcome, but let us hear no more of fiefs.”

  Tristan pulled his own horse in front of Gilan, so that he had to rein in sharply. “Do you not recognize me? They say that I look very like my father. I am Tristan of Parmenie, son of Rivalin, whom you killed. Award me my father’s fiefs, and I shall not pursue my rightful vengeance against you.”

  Gilan jerked his stallion’s head around. “Do not bother me, boy. Rivalin had no sons.”

  Tristan would not let him get away, but kept his horse right up to the duke’s. “You only think that because Rual, my excellent foster-father, feared your wrath and let everyone believe I was his, until I was old enough to defend myself. I am Rivalin’s son and the son of the princess Blancheflor of Cornwall.”

  At that Gilan gave a harsh, barking laugh. “The princess, huh? I remember Blancheflor, the little tart. She ran away from Cornwall to be with Rivalin, but I never realized he planted a bastard in her belly.”

  Tristan went dead white. “I am no bastard! All these men have sworn fidelity to me, and they never would have done so if there was any flaw in my claim to the inheritance. My parents were honorably married in the great hall of Parmenie.”

  “Oh, so you think they tried to patch something up at the last minute?” said Gilan with a sneer. “Was that before or after the midwife was called? I’m sure Rivalin had had his way with her numerous times before anyone even thought of marriage.”

  Tristan whipped out his sword, as quick as thought. “Defend yourself! I shall prove upon your body that you cannot dishonor my parents!”

  The duke laughed again and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Put away your sword, boy. No bastard can challenge a duke. You have no right to castle or lordship or to anything that belonged to your traitor father.”

  As he started to turn away Tristan lunged. The fine steel sword that King Mark had given him sliced into Duke Gilan’s skull. He jerked it free and struck again, straight into the heart.

  The duke’s bloody body toppled from the saddle, and the stallion reared, screaming and striking out with his hooves. Tristan pulled his own horse back and snatched his horn. The duke’s men had barely realized what had happened when the horn’s note rang out, and the knights from Parmenie who had been concealed in the woods came boiling out.

  Surprised and only lightly armed, Gilan’s men had no chance. The battle was bloody and brief. In only a few minutes everyone who had been hunting with the duke had either fled or lay dead upon the ground.

  Several of the men of Parmenie were wounded but none had been killed, and even the wounded were still strong enough to ride. “Victory!” Tristan shouted, waving his bloody sword. “Victory!”

  But it did not feel like glorious victory. Neither he nor any of the young knights with him had ever fought before, except in a tourney. He looked at the duke’s crumpled body, unrecognizable now, and thought he would be sick.

  One of the older knights, one who had long served Rual, took him by the elbow. “We have to get out of here, sir,” he said, low and urgent. “Those who fled will have gone straight back to the duke’s encampment. There were far more knights there than we have. Our only chance is to get past the encampment before they have their armor on and their horses saddled.”

  Tristan swallowed hard and nodded. He blew his horn again, gestured with a great wave of his arm, and galloped away from the battlefield, straight down the road toward the ducal encampment. His men thundered after him. If they were quick enough, they would be past the tents and pavilions before the duke’s men even realized they were coming.

  They came around a bend in the road and saw, drawn up in ranks before them, a great company of knights with the banners of Bretagne flying over them.

  Tristan did not hesitate. He had not yet sheathed the sword with which he had killed Gilan. “Chevalerie de Parmenie!” he shouted and spurred his horse forward. “Chevalerie de Parmenie!” the men behind him took up the cry. And so the battle was joined.

  Back and forth the fighting surged, the horses getting tangled in the tent ropes of the ducal encampment, the servants who had accompanied the duke screaming and running. Even though Tristan’s men were outnumbered they were younger and stronger than the knights of Gilan’s court. Tristan kept them together, defending themselves with shield and sword, using all the skills they had learned in the tourney just to stay ahorse.

  As evening came on, dimness rising from the ground and sliding down from the trees, Tristan pulled his men back to a steep hill, where they could look down at Gilan’s men in some security.

  Both sides were exhausted. Tristan counted his men; he had lost a score, and several of the wounded looked as though they too might not live. The duke’s knights lit fires in the ruins of their encampment, but upon the hill the men of Parmenie did not dare relax their guard. The smell of supper cooking was a torment in their nostrils. They ate a little cold food from their saddle bags and took turns resting on the ground, still wearing their armor.

  They were all up at dawn, preparing themselves anew for battle. Tristan could see, lying scattered across the trampled battlefield, the bodies of young men he had known all his life, left behind when the duke’s party gathered up their own dead. He took a deep breath, vowing vengeance inwardly. “They will attack shortly,” he said, “so let us be ready. But we will not charge. Let the enemy waste their energy throwing themselves against our hill. We hold the stronger position.”

  But
he was thinking that the duke’s men need do no more than wait. In a day or two, after the water in their skins was exhausted, he and the knights of Parmenie would be forced to surrender.

  The ducal knights seemed to have thought the same thing. They surrounded the hill but made no effort to attack. Tristan looked for a gap in their lines, through which he and his men might be able to break in a wild ride down from the hilltop, but he saw no weak spot.

  In mid-morning he heard the distant sound of horns, and staring off into the distance he saw a great cloud of dust rapidly approaching along the road. Reinforcements.

  “They will rush us in a minute,” he told his men, walking between them and giving them slaps on the shoulder. “Prepare to defend yourselves honorably, to the death, like the bold knights you are. May the Son of the Maid receive us into Paradise.”

  He swung up onto his horse and looked again toward the approaching cloud. Knights, certainly, but they were flying pennants he recognized. These were knights of Parmenie.

  A hundred knights, he estimated. Enough to turn the battle. A murmur of excitement ran through his men as they realized the reinforcements were here for them.

  The duke’s men scrambled into the saddle and swung around to face this new threat. “Chevalerie de Parmenie!” came the cry from the newly arrived knights. Tristan shouted, blew his horn, and led his men in a rush, down the hill and into the rear of the ducal army.

  The fighting was over in an hour. The knights who had led the duke’s men were captured, and Tristan and Rual met at the center of the battlefield.

  “Will you ever cease coming after me, to save me?” Tristan asked joyously, throwing his arms around his foster-father. In spite of his laughing words, his face was haggard. He had won his first battle, and he himself was unwounded, but the careless boy who had let himself be abducted was long gone. “When I saw a new army approaching, I thought it must be more of the duke’s men! How did you know that I was in trouble?”

  Rual looked at him soberly. “I know that you are always in trouble, son. Remember who saved you when you climbed too high in an apple tree and could not get down! Remember who saved you when you challenged all the kitchen boys at once to a fistfight! In spite of your insistence that you bore Duke Gilan no ill-will, my heart mistrusted you, so I followed less than a day behind.”

  “Well, I am grateful you did,” said Tristan, but he did not sound joyous anymore. He turned to the prisoners. “What shall we do with these?”

  “They surrendered honorably,” said Rual, a tiny note of warning in his voice, “so we must treat them honorably.”

  “And so we shall!” said Tristan in sudden decision. “Even Duke Gilan, after he killed my father, freed the prisoners he had taken in battle, and did not attack Parmenie. I have now killed Gilan myself, so that debt is paid.”

  He strode over to the prisoners, whose swords had been taken from them and hands tied behind their backs. He sliced their bonds with his knife and gave them a sharp nod. “I shall war no more against you or the late duke’s men. But tell whoever next becomes duke of Bretagne that I am no longer his man. With this battle I have renounced any oath of allegiance I may ever have owed, and from now on I hold Parmenie only from God.”

  VI

  They bound up the wounded, buried their dead, and headed home by slow stages. Back in Parmenie, Tristan did little for a week but sleep and wander around the castle, sometimes with an expression of proud triumph, sometimes staring far away as though unaware of his surroundings. At the end of the week he found his foster-father in the solar, looking out across the countryside where the trees were dark green under the summer sun, and sat down beside him.

  No one was there beside they two, but for several minutes Tristan did not speak. He sat with his legs stretched out long before him, and Rual thought that he seemed far older than he had at the beginning of the summer, much more than could be accounted for by the passage of a few months.

  At last Tristan said, “King Mark told me that he needed to be at home in late summer, but he did not say why. Did my father Rivalin ever say anything to you that could indicate what might happen then?”

  Rual too had been thinking about this, ever since they left Cornwall. “King Mark may fear the return of Morold, the champion of Eire. As both your father and mother told me, Rivalin fought Morold when he demanded tribute of Cornwall, and was nearly killed by him. Morold took three chests of copper in tribute, but he threatened to come again, after a certain passage of years. It may be that his visits have become regular.”

  “Mark never told me about this,” said Tristan. “Perhaps he did not wish to worry me—perhaps he feared I would decide to take my own vengeance on Morold.”

  Rual looked straight at him. “I fear it too. You have too much of Rivalin in you, son. You took your vengeance on Duke Gilan for killing your father, but there is no need for you to fight the champion of Eire. He has killed no one close to you.”

  “But if he is demanding tribute from Cornwall, from my mother’s beloved brother, then it is my concern.”

  “King Mark would have told you all about it if there was anything to worry about,” said Rual, trying to sound reasonable. “I would guess that King Mark only had to pay tribute to Eire once—that is not something Christian kings should demand of each other. Mark must have been thinking of something quite different. Whenever you are back in Cornwall again—next year or whenever it may be—I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it.”

  Tristan looked at him, then away, and slowly nodded. “I’m sure you’re right, sir,” he said, but not as though he believed it. “But I do not think I shall wait a year before returning to Cornwall.”

  Tristan announced a knighting ceremony for Curvenal. The lords of Parmenie, or at least all who were not wounded, gathered at the castle for a great feast. Tristan repeated all the ceremonies as King Mark had done them for him, and when he had presented his brother with his sword, spurs, and shield, he said, “I have a momentous announcement!”

  Rual and Florete had guessed, but Curvenal, just happy to be made a knight, looked up in surprise.

  “I have two fathers and two homes,” said Tristan, “but only one person! The philosophers tell us that a man is more than his body, that his property and possessions are also part of him. I therefore plan to divide myself, to separate my wealth and my body. My body shall go to Cornwall, to live with my uncle, for King Mark has declared me his royal heir. But my wealth I leave here, and bestow in fief all of Parmenie and its possessions on my brother Curvenal!”

  At this there was great shouting and rejoicing, for Curvenal was as well loved among the knights of Parmenie as Tristan himself.

  Rual and Florete, however, remained sober. Curvenal sought out his parents to ask why they sat so quietly. “We need no longer fear Duke Gilan, and all the wealth of Parmenie is ours. Why are you not laughing and singing with the rest of the company?”

  “Tristan is going away,” said Florete, her head drooping. “It may be many years before we see him again. And if he gets into trouble, as he has always been so apt to do, how will we be able to help him?”

  “King Mark will keep him out of trouble,” said Curvenal, a slight edge to his voice. “What are uncles for? And you have never worried so much about me.”

  Rual smiled a bit wanly and squeezed his son’s arm. “You were born with my good sense, not Rivalin’s recklessness. You will be an excellent lord of Parmenie.”

  Tristan came over at this point, a glass in his hand and a smile on his lips. “Of course my brother will be an excellent lord of Parmenie. I shall miss you as well, my dearest godparents. But this parting should not give you such long faces!”

  “My real concern,” said Rual, “is this. This division of yourself, leaving your wealth here in Bretagne while taking your body to Cornwall, can lead only to sorrow. We shall miss you sorely, even though we have the castle and its lordship, so the wealth without your dear self will not suffice. And I fear that the royal court of
Cornwall will not be satisfied to have you without your inheritance. Will there not be men at court who become angry, resenting the sudden arrival of a nephew whom Mark never realized he had before this year? Especially a nephew who now will have first claim to the royal treasury but brings no treasure of his own? Will there not be many a father of a lovely daughter whose hopes for making her queen of Cornwall will be dashed?”

  But Tristan only laughed. “Mark’s is a joyful court—the only ‘sorrow’ or resentment there will be the name by which you baptized me! And perhaps the lovely daughters will be better matches for me.”

  VII

  Tristan sailed for Cornwall just two weeks later, taking with him a half dozen young knights from around Parmenie, horses and harness, and great chests of clothes and weapons. He might be arriving as a landless young man, but he was arriving in splendid style.

  But when his ship came into Tintagel’s harbor, and he told the guards at the jetty to tell the king he had returned, they did not greet him as joyfully as he expected. No one came down to meet them while they unloaded the cargo. The castle was quiet as he and the men from Parmenie crossed the greensward and climbed the narrow steps toward the gate, and he felt a prickle of unease. Had he renounced his inheritance in Bretagne just to discover that his uncle no longer ruled in Cornwall?

  But he found Mark in the great hall, talking soberly to the men of his court. Some of them appeared on the verge of tears.

  Mark looked up as Tristan crossed the room and nodded to him and even managed to smile, but his smile immediately faded, and he turned back to the discussion.

  “Hail, King Mark!” said Tristan, trying to sound cheerful, though he felt irritated that all seemed more interested in whatever they were discussing than in the arrival of Cornwall’s young heir. “What evil news has reached Tintagel that you all wear such dark expressions?”