e more the bark ran free for Tintagel. But it seemed to Tristan
as though an ardent briar, sharp-thorned but with flower most sweet
smelling, drave roots into his blood and laced the lovely body of
Iseult all round about it and bound it to his own and to his every
thought and desire. And he thought, "Felons, that charged me with
coveting King Mark's land, I have come lower by far, for it is not his
land I covet. Fair uncle, who loved me orphaned ere ever you knew in
me the blood of your sister Blanchefleur, you that wept as you bore me
to that boat alone, why did you not drive out the boy that was to
betray you? Ah! What thought was that! Iseult is yours and I am but
your vassal; Iseult is yours and I am your son; Iseult is yours and
may not love me."

But Iseult loved him, though she would have hated. She could not hate,
for a tenderness more sharp than hatred tore her.

And Brangien watched them in anguish, suffering more cruelly because
she alone knew the depth of evil done.

Two days she watched them, seeing them refuse all food or comfort and
seeking each other as blind men seek, wretched apart and together more
wretched still, for then they trembled each for the first avowal.

On the third day, as Tristan neared the tent on deck where Iseult sat,
she saw him coming and she said to him, very humbly, "Come in, my
lord."

"Queen," said Tristan, "why do you call me lord? Am I not your liege
and vassal, to revere and serve and cherish you as my lady and Queen?"

But Iseult answered, "No, you know that you are my lord and my master,
and I your slave. Ah, why did I not sharpen those wounds of the
wounded singer, or let die that dragon-slayer in the grasses of the
marsh? But then I did not know what now I know!"

"And what is it that you know, Iseult?"

She laid her arm upon Tristan's shoulder, the light of her eyes was
drowned and her lips trembled.

"The love of you," she said. Whereat he put his lips to hers.

But as they thus tasted their first joy, Brangien, that watched them,
stretched her arms and cried at their feet in tears:

"Stay and return if still you can ... But oh! that path has no
returning. For already Love and his strength drag you on and now
henceforth forever never shall you know joy without pain again. The
wine possesses you, the draught your mother gave me, the draught the
King alone should have drunk with you: but that old Enemy has tricked
us, all us three; friend Tristan, Iseult my fr