Steven Millhauser - The King in the Tree

I instructed him to keep his master under close watch and to report to me any movements or actions that concerned the Queen. I then returned to the King, who was still seated beside the Queen at the royal board, and with whom I requested a word in private. The King led me up to his bedchamber and barred the door. I was deliberately mysterious, for I knew his immoderate love of hunting. I implored him not to join the hunt tomorrow but to let it go forward without him and to meet me secretly in my chamber. The King, displeased by the prospect of a delayed hunt, but scenting adventure, impatiently agreed. Suddenly he leaned forward, seized me by the shoulder, and said, “You have something to tell me, Thomas.”

“Tomorrow,” I replied, and it was as if I were on the stair again, overhearing Oswin as he said: “Tomorrow.”

I returned to my chamber, where I lay wondering what the next day would bring.

In the early morning, directly after chapel, I climbed the stairs to my chamber to await the King. His hunting party had left at dawn. When he entered I saw at once that his mood was dangerous, wavering between curiosity and irritation. He paced restlessly, went to the window, which looked down upon the courtyard, sat on my bed, continued pacing. “Well, Thomas!” he cried. “And why have you imprisoned me in my own castle?” The image pleased him, distracted him. He pretended that he was the victim of a plot: I was scheming to usurp the crown. He often assumed a playful air of this kind, attributing to me secret designs, but today the tone was a little wrong, there was an edge in his playfulness; he did not like to miss his hunt. I was about to reveal the conversation I had overheard between Oswin and the Queen when the King said from the window, “One of Oswin’s lads is running this way.”

The servant appeared breathless at my doorway, reporting that Oswin had just led the Queen under the deer.

I hurried with the King down the stairway and across the courtyard to the sixth tower. The painted linen hanging pictured a white hind attacked by a greyhound biting into a foreleg. A bright red gash showed in the flank. On the opposite wall a torch burned in an iron ring. Under the hanging I turned the stones. Quickly I lifted the torch from its ring and led the King into a narrow black passage.

The path was strewn with small stones. I walked ahead of the King, holding high the sputtering smoky torch. Sparks scattered in the dark like handfuls of flung sand. The walls were so close that our mantles brushed the rough rock; bits of mortar and chipped stone sifted down. On the path I stepped on something soft that scampered squeaking into the dark.

Behind me I heard a shrill scrape of iron against stone— the King had drawn his sword, and in the narrowness of the passage his blade had dragged against the wall. As I turned with my torch, I saw the gleaming blade held out before me. A rat hung from the sword-tip. Dark blood dripped onto the ground. He shook the creature off — it landed with the sound of a dropped sack.

The King sheathed his sword fiercely, looking up in angry surprise as the blade again scraped against the wall.

As we continued forward I noticed that side paths had begun to appear, some wide enough to enter and some no broader than a sword blade; all at once we came to a branching of the main path. It was impossible to know which passage to follow. “This way,” I whispered, turning in to the broader way. Soon another branch appeared; and after a time I understood not only that I had forgotten the many branchings and forkings of these secret paths, but that I was leading the King deeper and deeper into a maze that might be taking us farther and farther from the steward.

The King, sensing my doubt, had begun to question me in urgent whispers, when a shout or cry sounded in the dark. I turned in the direction of the cry, which seemed to come from behind us; and following the King, who strode boldly forward with drawn sword held upright like a torch, I found myself on a broadening path covered with sweet-smelling rushes. The path led to a stout-looking oak door set in an arch. Muffled sounds came from behind the door; something appeared to have fallen. “Open!” cried the King as he rattled the iron handle. “In the name of the King!” Behind the door I heard an iron bar slide back through iron rings. The King pushed the door open and I stepped behind him into a flickering chamber hung with silks and lit by many candles resting on corbels on the walls.

Tristan stood with drawn sword over the supine body of Oswin, who lay at his feet staring fearfully up at the sword at his throat. Beside Tristan stood the Queen, staring coldly, clinging to Tristan’s arm.

“You must guard the Queen more wisely, Uncle,” Tristan said, leading her to the King.

In one corner of the chamber stood a bed with gilt bedposts hung with crimson curtains. On a small table stood a gold goblet of wine and a basket of glimmering grapes. A second goblet lay on its side. Above the table the ceiling was decorated with intertwisted vines, whose gold and silver leaves glittered in the flamelight.

The King looked at Oswin lying on the ground, at Tristan standing over him, at the motionless Queen. In the candlelight the King’s eyes were dark as stones.

“Tristan!” he cried, sheathing his sword violently and holding out his arms to receive Tristan in a fierce embrace. Tears cut the King’s cheeks like streaks of blood.

Dawn is breaking. I cannot write another word.

I seize these few moments to finish the narrative begun in my last entry.

We returned from Oswin’s Bower to the light of day, where three events took place: the Queen retired to the royal bedchamber, Oswin was led away by a guard to the tower prison, and the King and Tristan and I climbed the stairs of the northwest tower to the King’s private chamber, where Tristan told his tale.

He had received a message from Brangane, warning him of Oswin’s invitation to the Queen. Queen Ysolt, who disdained the steward and therefore did not sense danger, had agreed to accompany Oswin into the depths of the wall, where he proposed to show her his secret bower. Brangane had supplied her with a dagger which she concealed in her robes. Tristan, who had heard tales of Oswin’s Bower, and who in any case distrusted the steward as a companion for the Queen, returned to the castle disguised as a Breton minstrel — the very minstrel in a feathered cap who had played for the assembled company on the evening when I returned to my chamber to find the steward’s servant at my door. That night, Tristan made his way under the white hind and through the labyrinth of passages to the bower, where he concealed himself in Oswin’s bed. In the black chamber buried in the depths of the wall he could hear nothing, not even the crowing of the cocks. The sudden jangle of keys was like the ring of a hammer in the forge. Candle flames leaped up. Oswin spoke to the Queen of his bower, which he called a garden of delights. He described the shaping of the vines and leaves in the shop of a goldsmith, and showed her several precious objects that he explained in detail, such as a silver drinking cup lined with gold, a copper figurine playing a silver trumpet, and a pen case of walrus ivory carved in relief with human-headed beasts. He offered her grapes and wine. The Queen asked to leave. “But I must show you the bed, a work of great cunning,” Oswin said. When the Queen refused, he seized her arm and attempted to lead her toward the bed by force. At that instant the curtains opened and Tristan sprang out, sword in hand. Oswin started back in terror. He struck the table, knocking over the goblet of wine, and fell to the tiled floor. A moment later the King’s voice cried out, “Open!”

There were many things in this narrative to disturb the King — how, for example, had Brangane discovered Tristan’s place of exile, and did the Queen know of it too? — but he listened closely, asked no questions, and at the end thanked Tristan warmly.