Steven Millhauser - The King in the Tree

The rest can be told quickly. The white sail grew larger, the ship made for the harbor, the Queen was ashore. She came rushing into the room, looking fierce and feverish and in disarray — looking, to my eyes, glorious and fiery, as if she were burning at the stake. She threw herself on Tristan — lay on top of him, breast to breast and mouth to mouth, though Ysolt of the White Hands stood nearby. She kissed his dead face, talked to him, tried to coax him back, as if he were teasing her, the naughty boy. No one thought of trying to pull her away. Ysolt of the White Hands said nothing. I said nothing. Brangane stood in a corner watching. I knew the Queen would never rise from that bed. She was throwing herself at death, rolling around in lovely death. There was nothing else left for her to want.

It is night now. Through my window I can hear the waves falling against the shore. The waves fall in irregular lines, in one place and then another, so that there is always the sound of the sea, louder and softer. But now and then, if one listens very carefully, one can hear something else, hidden between or within the waves, and revealed suddenly, as behind a swiftly drawn curtain: the nothing — the nothing — the nothing at all.

Three weeks have passed since my return to Cornwall. The King grieves, the court is hushed and respectful, but everyone feels the lifting of a burden. Even the King, whose grief runs deep, is not as he was before my voyage. Then, he was like a man beaten with fists, day after day, and left for dead, only to stumble to his feet and be beaten senseless again. Now he grieves with dignity, a King carrying his burden in court and chapel, a lord bearing himself well before his vassals, a public man shaping his sorrow to the gaze of crowds. His grief is deep but measured; it flows readily into the ancient forms forged by generations of mourners. It is too early to imagine the King’s happiness. But it is not too early to imagine the diminution of his unhappiness.

The death of Tristan and the Queen is easier for everyone to bear than their life.

There have been changes at court. Modor has been made guardian of the King’s tower, a post he holds proudly. He stands with a sharp-tipped ash spear before the chamber door, his missing hand disguised by a gauntlet of ring mail filled with strips of wool. Oswin has a new eye — a splendid eye of marble fashioned by Odo of Chester and fitted cleverly to his eye-hole. It is painted with a brilliant blue iris. Brangane has returned to Ireland; I shall miss her. Tristan’s favorite falcon has been given to the chief forester.

Already there is talk at court of the daughter of the Duke of Parmenia. She is said to be very beautiful and gifted in playing the harp. Oswin is much in favor of the match. In truth, an alliance between Cornwall and Parmenia would benefit us immeasurably.

Since my return I have not been much with the King. Perhaps he has been avoiding me.

For my part, by concealing that I saw the Queen and Tristan walking in the orchard, by speaking clandestinely with the Queen’s handmaid, by serving the Queen and Tristan and guarding their secret, I betrayed my King, my country, and my God. By hesitating at the window, I betrayed Tristan and the Queen. The Queen was certainly mistaken: I am not a good man. Whether I am a wiser one is not for me to judge.

If I had it all to do over again, I cannot imagine acting otherwise.

This evening I took a walk in the orchard. The harvest is done, the smell of crushed fruit stings the nostrils like firesmoke. I walked along the familiar wagon paths, struck into the trees, brushed past branches to which a few leaves still clung, crossed a stream. Soon those branches will be bare, the streams frozen, the paths covered with snow. But now, in late autumn, there is something bracing in the sharp night air; twigs crack underfoot, birds whistle above my head, cold stream-water trickles over stones. I like trying to become lost in the orchard, though I know it well and can rarely succeed. I had come to a stretch not immediately familiar when I became aware of a movement in the shadows not far from where I stood. Then I saw them before me on the path, the Queen and Tristan. They were leaning together, walking so slowly that they were scarcely moving. Her mantle trailed on the ground. And though I knew it was a deceiving image cast up by memory and the imps of night, though I give scant credence to ghosts, and laugh at monkish visions, though the figures were already dissolving into clumps of night shadow, I felt again, rising within me, the mystery, the tender exaltation, the fierce bliss, the serenity like fury, the sheer power of it, before which you can do nothing but bow your head. In the dark I stood there and bowed my head. When I looked up I was alone in the orchard. I turned back toward the castle.

When I entered my chamber it was dark, lit only by the light of stars through the open shutters. Immediately I became aware of a shape on the edge of the bed, beside the half-drawn curtain. A night of visions, Thomas! It struck me that little was known about the dead. Perhaps they did not vanish entirely but left behind a number of very fine skins, which stuck to things.

“Good evening, Thomas. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Good evening, my lord. I was taking a walk in the orchard.”

“I too was out walking, in the garden. Does it help you sleep?”

“Sometimes, my lord.”

“Perhaps if we were to walk together, Thomas? Perhaps we might both find sleep, wherever he’s hiding.”

“I should like that very much.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

He stood up, a massive darkness in the dark: my sad King. At the doorway he turned.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you, Thomas.”

“I don’t understand, my lord.”

“For going down there. For seeing things through.”

“My lord, I—” In the dark I bowed my head. I listened to his footsteps retreating toward his chamber.

Alone in the dark I felt suddenly restless. Had I not walked enough? I began to pace in the darkness, from the window to the bed and back to the window. The night air was sharp with cold. Tomorrow I would have logs placed in the hearth. Tomorrow I would walk with the King. We would walk in the garden, we would walk in the courtyard, we would tramp along every wagon path in the orchard. Two old warriors, hunting down sleep. In the meantime I was wide awake and fiercely alert. My encounter in the orchard, my words with the King, all this had unfitted me for sleep. I could think of nothing to do but pace up and down in the dark, like a man accursed, like a fool.

All at once I remembered my writing table.

I lit my candle and sat down. The feather of my quill leaped forth in the flamelight like a sword blade. My scraping knife and my lump of pumice cast two sharp shadows. My fingers tingled. No, I wasn’t ready for sleep — I was ready for words. I dipped my quill in the ink of the oxhorn, shook off a drop with a single sharp dip of the wrist. I pulled the candle closer and bent over the page, my head bowed as if in prayer. I, Thomas of Cornwall, prince of parchment, lord of black ink, king of all space, summoner of souls, guardian of ghosts, friend of the pear tree and the silence of waves, companion to all those who watch in the night.