Tristan and Isolde - 02 - The Maid of the White Hands: The Second of the Tristan and Isolde Novels Read Free Page B

jealousy of Isolde, now that she’s Queen in her own right and not merely as she was before.” He gave a cruel laugh. “Remind him how he hates being a vassal king through marriage to him holding Cornwall under Queen Igraine. How he loathes being male in a world where women are born to rule.”
    She caught his mood. “Unsettle him? Tell him it’s time the marriage vows were fulfilled? Make him feel that Isolde is insulting him?”
    “Whatever she does.” He laughed. “And however hard she tries.”
    “Tristan, too.” Elva’s eyes were bright with invention. “Isolde will surely take him with her to Ireland to establish her rule. It shouldn’t be hard to make Mark suspicious of that.”
    Andred paused. Yes, the merest suggestion of Tristan as Isolde’s King in Ireland would awaken Mark’s fears. But how would this bring about the rule of the kingdom he craved? They both knew how far he was from this lifelong goal.
    No matter. Anything that discredited Isolde or Tristan would take him a step or two further along the road. If they could widen the breach between Mark and Isolde, that could lead to all sorts of interesting things. Better still, if they could drive a wedge between Tristan and Mark, then Tristan would no longer be the favored heir. And there was the added pleasure of paying Tristan back, because Mark made no secret of his preference for Tristan, as his sister’s son. How much of all this was pure malice and the instinct to torment? Andred grinned to himself. He didn’t know. Enough to say that it gave him the purest delight.
    He gave a decisive nod. “We make Mark think that the two of them are against him, whether or not we can prove it.”
    She showed her sharp white teeth. “And then strike?”
    Oh, how he loved her when she followed his very thought. “Now is the hour.”
    There was a noise in the corridor. Instinct born of long experience drove them apart.
    “It’s the King!” Andred muttered.
    The door opened and an ungainly figure strode in, slapping his riding whip against his boot. The smell of horses and dogs came in with him, the foam of his stallion’s sweat staining his thighs and a pack of wolfhounds slavering round his heels. His well-cut leather riding habit and fine breeches covered a long, badly made body, and his undersized head poked with an awkwardness that his feathered cap did nothing to conceal. Beneath it his thin, straggling locks of sandy hair were streaked with gray, and his small, stone-colored eyes looked irritably about.
    “Andred!” he cried.
    “At your service, sire!”
    Andred hastened forward with a fulsome bow. Behind Mark, he noted with contempt, swirled the familiar crowd of toadies and parasites, all hoping for the King’s favor and largesse. In the midst of the colorful throng was the squat black shape of the King’s Father confessor, the priest Dominian. Andred knew that the holy father would never see himself as one of Mark’s hangers-on, but he shadowed the King just as devoutly in the name of his God.
    So be it: Andred paused. He did not disdain the fervent little priest, and a wise man made an ally where he could. But no, he must never allow himself to think that he and Dominian were playing the same game.
    Andred bowed again. “News from Ireland, sire. The old Queen is passing into the Beyond.”
    “What?” Mark’s mouth fell open in alarm. “But she’s only—” About my age was written on his face.
    Andred bit back a cruel grin. Locked in his stunted boyhood, Mark would never come to terms with middle age. “So our Lady Isolde will be Ireland’s new Queen,” he said in solemn tones.
    “Of course!” New vistas were dawning in Mark’s fragile brain. When Isolde was Queen of Ireland, he would be King. Cornwall’s power would extend over all the Western Isle. He rubbed his hands excitedly. “Well, she must go there at once.”
    Andred looked doubtful. “But surely she’ll have to come back to Cornwall first?”
    “Will she?”