Review
"Anna Elliott takes the aerie-fairy out of the fabled Arthurian tale of Trystan and Isolde, and gives us a very plausible version. Our heroine has the spunk of a woman of our era, and this Isolde is one we can all admire and aspire to." -- Anne Easter Smith, author of The King's Grace and Daughter of York
"Elliott's reworking of a timeworn medieval tale reinvigorates the celebrated romance between Trystan and Isolde...Fans of the many Arthurian cycles will relish this appropriately fantastical offshoot of the Arthurian legend." -- Booklist
"Unique and delightful...a most promising first novel filled with passion, courage, and timeless magic." -- Library Journal
Product Description
Ancient grudges, old wounds, and the quest for power rule in the newly widowed Queen Isolde's court. Hardly a generation after the downfall of Camelot, Isolde grieves for her slain husband, King Constantine, a man she secretly knows to have been murdered by the scheming Lord Marche -- the man who has just assumed his title as High King. Though her skills as a healer are renowned throughout the kingdom, in the wake of Con's death, accusations of witchcraft and sorcery threaten her freedom and her ability to bring Marche to justice. Burdened by their suspicion and her own grief, Isolde must conquer the court's distrust and superstition to protect her throne and the future of Britain.
One of her few allies is Trystan, a prisoner with a lonely and troubled past. Neither Saxon nor Briton, he is unmoved by the political scheming, rumors, and accusations swirling around the fair queen. Together they escape, and as their companionship turns from friendship to love, they must find a way to prove what they know to be true -- that Marche's deceptions threaten not only their lives but the sovereignty of the British kingdom.
In Twilight of Avalon, Anna Elliott returns to the roots of the legend of Trystan and Isolde to shape a very different story -- one based in the earliest written versions of the Arthurian tales -- a captivating epic brimming with historic authenticity, sweeping romance, and the powerful magic of legend.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
The dead man's eyes were weighted with gold. From the chapel doorway, Isolde saw the coins wink and gleam in the light of the candles that burned on the altar above. Payment for the holy women who would ferry him across the waters to the Isle of Glass. Or perhaps only a means to keep the sightless eyes closed; this was a church, consecrated to the Christ-God, after all. The old ways would have no place here.
Isolde stood still, her eyes adjusting to the dimness of the place. Even the chapel at Tintagel smelled of the sea; the stones even here thrummed like a bard's harp with the echo of all the fortress's walls had seen. Of Uther the Pendragon defeating Duke Gorlois and winning the duke's wife Ygraine for his queen. Of the birth of Arthur, Lord of Battles. Arthur, who had ridden out from these walls to drive the Saxons back with blow after crushing blow, and so won peace in Britain, for a time.
And all of that, Isolde thought, ended here, now, with the death of this king. Constantine, Arthur's heir.
She had seen fighting men with spear or sword wounds turned putrid, so far gone that the arm or leg had to be taken off if the soldier's life was to be saved. She'd made the cuts herself, had held the hot knives to cauterize the severed limbs and stop the bleeding. And seen how, for a brief, blessed moment after the glowing metal touched their skin, the men were numb, immune from pain, before they fainted or started to scream.
It was the same with her now.
The autumn dusk was drawing in, carrying with it the salt-laden mist that drifted up jagged cliffs from the ocean below, and the chapel felt dank and chill. And maybe, Isolde thought, the peace was ended long ago, when Arthur himself fell. And all these last seven years have only been part of that same long, crumbling fall.
A shield, likewise bearing the bloodred badge of the Pendragon, rested on the dead man's chest, and on the floor all about the coffin lay the great battle-axes, the knives, the helmet with its royal circlet of gold, and the jeweled and gilded sword that he had once carried into battle. Isolde drew her cloak more closely about her. Then she stepped out of the shadow of the arched lintel above.
Instantly, the armed and helmeted guard to the left of the altar stiffened to attention, his hand moving reflexively to the hilt of his sword. His fellow, the broader, taller man of the two, had been standing at the side of the coffin, his back to Isolde, but at the sound of Isolde's footsteps he whirled to face her, as well. Isolde looked from one man to the other. Neither guard was known to her, but she recognized the emblem of the wild boar blazoned on their shields.
Marche's men.
She let the hood of her cloak slip to her shoulders, and saw them relax slightly, as they caught sight of her face. She could remember one of the older serving women telling her, with venomous sweetness, that she was the very image of what her grandmother had been when young.
The harpers' tales spoke of Morgan's fairness. Of raven-black hair and milk-white skin and a beauty to entrap and ruin a man's soul. But it was not for beauty's sake that Isolde was thankful, at times like this, if she was like Morgan, the daughter of Avalon. The grandmother who, for seven years now, had been to her nothing but a name in those same tales.
The guards had dropped their heads in greeting, but now the man who had stood by the coffin straightened and spoke.
"You are alone, lady?"
He was the elder of the two, forty or forty-five, his face hard, scarred with the marks of battle, his hands large and powerful. "You should not have come out without a guard."
A thin prickle rose on the back of Isolde's neck, but she said only, "I wish to keep vigil a time. I require no guard here."
She saw the two men exchange a quick sidelong glance, and then the first man said flatly, "You have a moment to say what prayers you will -- and then we will see you return safely to the women's hall. There is danger everywhere in such times as these."
Isolde stiffened, her brows lifting, and said, before she could stop herself, "Do you tell me so, indeed?" Then her gaze fell once more on the motionless figure beneath the dragon shield, and she drew a slow breath, willing herself to keep the flare of anger from her tone.
"May I know the names of those who keep such careful guard on my life?"
Again she saw the eyes of the two men slide sideways, the candlelight gleaming in the whites of their eyes. Then the elder said, "I am Hunno, lady, and this" -- his head jerked toward his companion -- "is Erbin."
"Very well, then, Hunno...Erbin." She looked from one man to the other. "I thank you -- both of you -- for your concern. But my lord husband and king has been dead but three days. And I would be alone with my sorrow. You are released from your duties here for the evening. You may go."
"Thank you, lady." Hunno's jaw was set, his voice still harsh. "But we have our orders from my lord Marche. We stay."
A chill ran through Isolde at the memory of what it had cost her to get away on her own, even for this brief time. And all for nothing, she thought, if I cannot force them to go.
"Orders?" she repeated. "My lord Marche may be king of Cornwall, but Tintagel is still the domain of the High King, as it has been since the Pendragon took the throne. It is not Marche who gives orders here."
"Is that so, lady?" A sly, ugly light appeared in Hunno's eyes. "Who is it who gives orders, then? As you say" -- he jerked his head backwards toward the coffin and the gleaming weapons of war -- "your husband King Constantine lies dead. Even a king's widow has small power on her own."
The second guard, a slight, dark youth with a thin, nervous face, stirred uneasily at Hunno's words and made to lay a restraining hand on his companion's arm, but Hunno shook him off with an impatient twist and took a step toward Isolde.
"Well, my lady?"
Isolde forced herself to stand without moving. "Have you forgotten, Hunno," she asked softly, "who I am?"
Hunno had started to take another step forward, but now he checked, and she saw a flicker of something that might have been fear stir at the back of his gaze.
Isolde's own eyes moved again to the still figure in the coffin, the hands lying limp against the folds of the crimson lining. Then she drew in her breath, looked up, and said, "Leave me. But before you go, return the ring you took from my husband's right hand."
She heard the younger man, Erbin, catch his breath in a sharp gasp, but Hunno didn't move. Fear pulled tight inside her, and she thought, as she always thought at such times, If, after all, I have guessed wrong...
There was time for her to count seven beats of her own heart while she forced herself to wait, hand extended, keeping her eyes on Hunno's.
And at last, with an angry mutter and a half-sullen, halffearful look from under his brows, Hunno drew something out of his belt and dropped it into Isolde's outstretched hand.
For a moment, his gaze locked with Isolde's, and then he turned to Erbin. "Come on, then." His voice was angry, his tone gruff. "There'll be ale yet a while in the fire hall."
Hunno swung round on his heel, but before following, Erbin took a step toward Isolde and said, in a stammering rush, "Forgive us, lady. We did not mean -- "
Isolde cut him off curtly, her hand tightening about the ring in her palm. "It's not for me to forgive. Make your peace with the king and go." She paused, looking again from one man to the other. Then she added, very quietly, "I will know if you disobey."
Isolde waited until the sound of their booted footsteps died away, then she pressed her eyes briefly closed, feeling a prickle of perspiration on her back, despite the cold. Then, slowly, she turned once more to the open casket. Seven years now, she thought. Seven years that I have fought this battle. But now I am left to fight it entirely alone.
She let out a shaking breath. The stars will still shine tomorrow, whatever happens to me here.
She'd repeated the words so often over the years that they held the same familiar echo as one of the old tales. And now, as always when she thought or spoke them, a vague memory stirred in the shadows of her mind, of someone speaking them to give her courage as she'd done countless times since.
But that was part of a lifetime -- and a world -- that had died on the battlefield when Arthur fought her father, his traitor heir. Seven years ago. When she'd lost both Sight and memory of all that had gone before.
Isolde hadn't intended to move, but somehow she found herself at the edge of the coffin, looking down at the man who lay within and hearing the words she'd spoken seem to echo in the chapel's stillness. Alone with my sorrow, she thought. Alone with my sorrow, when I haven't even been able to cry for Con yet.
She had prepared the body for burial herself. Washed the blood and muck of the battlefield from his skin, anointed it with sweet oils. And seen in his side the blue-lipped, knife-thin wound where the dark heart's-blood had seeped out. But now, surrounded by the gleaming weapons, his head covered by the leather war helm, he seemed all at once frighteningly unreal. A figure from legend or song, remote as the great Arthur himself.
And yet, even now, Con's face looked scarcely older than that of the twelve-year-old boy he had been on the day of their crowning, his brow unlined beneath the wisps of straight, nut-brown hair, his skin smooth, with only a faint stubble of beard shadowing the rounded chin. Almost, she thought, he might be asleep.
Save for the folds of loosening flesh about the gold coins that covered his eyes.
A shudder twisted through her, and Isolde closed her own eyes, trying to summon up a memory of the living Constantine. The memory that came, though, was an older one. Not of the husband -- or even of the man.
They had met only once before they were wedded and crowned. Only once -- in the yard behind the stables ...
