Isolde: Queen of the Western Isle Read Online Free PDF Page A

bore the slubbered traces of his morning ride. Ye Gods!
    Merlin fought down a surge of anger and contempt. Mark's four-footed attendants must be the only creatures in Cornwall who did not look down on their King.
    For could that long, slack thing on the throne be a leader of men, a man of kingly height but without royal grace? True, the King's scarlet tunic and dark breeches were woven of fine wool, and the ancient crown of his fathers encircled his head. The sword at his side and the crossed lances above the throne were likewise both good and rare, their gleaming gold and bronze shaped with Otherworldly skill. But the lank forelock of pale sandy hair, the short-sighted gaze, and the oddly forlorn air betrayed the lost boy inside the would-be king. Gods above, Merlin thought with disbelief, how old is he? Thirty-five, forty at least. His heart sank. Too old to grow up now.
    "Lord Merlin, welcome, after all these years!"
    The ungainly figure rose to its feet, beckoning Merlin to approach the throne. To Mark's right stood a knight, to his left a short, misshapen older man in the garb of a monk. As Merlin drew near, the knight claimed his attention with a graceful bow. From his sleek black curls to the cut of his leather boots, the young man was formed to make women love him, while his strong fighting frame would endear him to men. But Merlin read the hidden pride in the poise of the handsome head and saw that it had only increased in the time he had been away. He saw something else, too, so slight it was visible only to a Druid's eye. Handsome as he was, from the faint, unmistakable marking on his upper lip, Merlin knew the young man had been elf-shotten in the womb.
    But any hint of the harelip vanished with the young knight's flashing smile. "Lord Merlin, I am Sir Andred, at your service, as you may recall."
    Merlin glimmered at him. "Sir, who could forget the King's nephew and chosen heir?"
    The crowd round the dais was pressing forward to hear. Prominent in their midst were three or four watchful figures, the King's barons, Merlin guessed, who had served Mark's father and now tried with far less success to keep the son on course. In the front Merlin saw a well-dressed couple, the man elderly, plump, and complacent in rich velvets and furs, the woman dark and lean, with an angry, burning gaze. Her long face with its thin, sensual mouth was too strong to be beautiful, but her studied poise would draw any eyes her way. Her long white neck was offset by her livid green gown, and her glittering cloak coiled round her feet like a snake.
    "And the Lady Elva," cried Mark eagerly, beckoning the woman forward while her husband grinned in the rear.
    "Lord Merlin."
    The woman dropped a curtsy, and Merlin glimmered again as he greeted her in return. All Cornwall had been amazed when the slow Mark had taken himself a mistress, and even more taken aback that Elva was the woman of choice. With eyes as hard and black as chips of jet, she flashed with Otherworldly fire, and the gossips joked that she had seduced the young Mark, not the other way round. The boy in him could not think what else to do, and the man in him could not make a better choice. But years later, here she was, still close to the throne, with her dull husband, who was too vain to wonder why King Mark showered him with gifts. Well, it was the way of the world. Merlin grinned to himself.
    "Father Dominian is new to you, I think," came Mark's voice. "But we have many holy men in Cornwall now." There was an undisguised self-satisfaction in his tone. "The father has been revealing God's word to me."
    Merlin turned toward the monk at Mark's left hand, standing with a young novice at his side. With growing revulsion he took in the harsh black woollen habit with its girdle of rope, the raw, sandaled feet, the savagely tonsured head. Merlin's gaze flickered on over the pitiful body with its twisted spine, the priest's hunched back emphasized by his monkish hood. Dominian's skin was