The Lady of the Sea Read Free

to Ireland and take refuge in Dubh Lein? Indeed it is her fortress, her castle, her ancestral home. But what makes you think she will find safety there?”
    Merlin started. “Why not?”
    “Ah, Merlin—” The Queen glimmered at him. “I thought a Druid’s ears could catch the song of a babe in its mother’s womb and the turn of the tide of every faraway sea. Did you not hear of this, Lord Emrys the Bard?”
    Was she playing with him? Merlin hid his rage behind an iron grin. “Hear of what, I beg you?”
    “There is trouble in Cornwall, you say. But the wolves are gathering around Dubh Lein, too. Ireland’s green hills and valleys are in danger now.”
    “From what?” Merlin cried, ready to tear his hair. “From whom?”
    Isolde gave him her thousand-year-old stare. “From a race of invaders who were old when these islands were young. From the men of an ancient tribe who fell back to the northernmost mountains when the Romans came, but lived to drink from the skulls of the stragglers when the legions withdrew.”
    Merlin’s eyes were alight with a yellow fire. “The Picts? The tribe the Romans called the Painted Ones for their hideous tattoos?”
    “Yes, indeed.”
    “But what have they to do with Isolde?”
    “They are the ancient enemies of her race. Her mother fought many hard battles to turn them from Ireland’s shores.”
    “And they are stirring again?” Merlin let out his breath in a satisfied sigh. “All the more reason, then, for Isolde to go back to Ireland to repel their attack.” He smiled broadly. “So Isolde will be fully occupied in Ireland, that’s plain. And when Mark’s reign ends in Cornwall, you and I are agreed that Tristan will rule?”
    “Why not Isolde?”
    “Isolde?” Merlin tensed. “But Mark has two heirs already, his blood kin. Against them, Isolde has no claim.”
    “None at all?” The Queen smiled her ancient, secret smile.
    “She’s Mark’s wife, yes, of twenty years,” Merlin snapped. “But marriage to the King is no claim to the throne.”
    “Nor is being nephew to the King, if the King’s claim is not secure.”
    “What?” Merlin felt the ground slipping from beneath his feet.
    “King Mark is my vassal. He only holds the throne through my goodwill. As his overlord, I can appoint another in his place.”
    Darkness and damnation, that it would come to this . . .
    Merlin struggled to hide his dismay. “You would make Isolde the Queen of Cornwall in her husband’s place?”
    “Why not?” Igraine laughed, a mellow, warming sound. “She would do better than Mark. And the people would be happy if I did.”
    Merlin’s eyes bulged. “Mark would never accept it.”
    “He has no power to refuse.” She leveled her eyes on his. “But what do you care about Mark? Or about Isolde herself?”
    Merlin puffed up his green velvet chest. “Madam, I assure you—”
    “Oh, Merlin—”
    Igraine broke away and strode around the room, her silks hissing like the ebbing sea. “The spirit that made you take Arthur away from me is with you still. You claimed Tristan, too, when he was a boy, and you’ve watched over him ever since. These are the only sons that you’ll ever have, and you’re determined they’ll never suffer as you did, outcast and alone.”
    Alas the Gods . . .
    Grief upon grief rose before Merlin’s eyes. He saw himself again as a fatherless boy when his mother, a princess of the Pendragons, was cast out for bearing a bastard son. His own newborn son came back into his mind, in the arms of his dear young wife, who had followed her child to the grave. Once again he felt himself hunted through the forest as he was after Uther Pendragon died, and his tears for his great kinsman flowed anew. “Madam, I beg you—”
    But the bell-like voice chimed on. “You care nothing for Isolde. You only want Tristan to succeed, like all your lost boys. You turned Arthur toward the Christians and promoted their faith because they invest power in men. Now you