every right to kill me. I turned my throat to you, Adam’s apple twitching slightly, but before I closed my eyes, I smiled.
When I opened them again, you had put down the dagger and you were holding my hand. I felt like a little child, not a hero, not a warrior, not a lover, only a boy in a big bed, the day turning round him, dreamy and slow.
The room was high and blue. Cobalt blue. There was an orange fire. Your eyes were green. Lost in the colours of our love I never forgot them, and now, lying here, where the sheets are brown with my blood, it isblue and orange and green I remember. A little boy in a big bed.
Where are you?
We said nothing. You sat beside me. You were the strong one. I couldn’t stand up. Holding my hand, and stroking it gently with your finger and thumb, you touched in me another world. Until then, through wounds and wreck, I had been sure of myself. I was Tristan. Now, my name gone backwards, I went backwards myself, unravelling into strands of feeling. This stranded man.
When it was time for me to sail back to Cornwall, you came out and stood on a narrow rock, and we watched each other so far that only we two knew what was rock or boat or human.
The sea was empty. The sky was shut.
Then King Marke sent me to fetch you to be his wife. You said you wanted to kill me.
Again I opened my body to you. Again you dropped the blade.
When your servant brought the drink I knew you intended to poison me. Under the cliffs of Cornwall, the King in his boat ready to meet us, I drank the water, because that’s what it was. Your servant had given me water. You drank too, and fell to the floor, and I went to catch you and hold you as the men dropped anchor and the ship lurched. You were in my arms for the first time, and you said my name, ‘Tristan.’
I answered you: ‘Isolde.’
Isolde. The world became a word.
We lived for the night. The torch in your window was my signal. When it was lit, I stayed away. When you extinguished it, I came to you – secret doors, dark corridors, forbidden stairs, brushing aside fear and propriety like cobwebs. I was inside you. You contained me. Together, in bed, we could sleep, we could dream, and if we heard your servant’s mournful cry, we called it a bird or a dog. I never wanted to wake. I had no use for the day. The light was a lie. Only here, the sun killed, and time’s hands bound, were we free. Imprisoned in each other, we were free.
When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love withmy whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.
In the fight when Marke found us, I fought at the door until you escaped. Then I faced Melot at last, my friend, my trusted friend, and I held my sword at him, red with blood. As he lifted his sword against me, I threw mine down and ran his through my body, at the bottom of my ribs. The skin, still shy of healing, opened at once.
When I woke, I was here, in my own castle, across the sea, carried and guarded by my servant. He told me he had sent for you, yes surely there was a sail? I could see it swift as love. He climbed into the watchtower, but there was no sail.
I put my hand into the bloody gap at the bottom of my ribs. Her name drips through my fingers: Isolde. Where are you?
Tristan, I didn’t drink it either. There was no love-potion, only love. It was you I drank.
Tristan, wake up. Don’t die of the wound. Divide the night with me, and die together in the morning.
His eye is pale, his breathing is still. When I first saw him, he was still and pale, and I
When I opened them again, you had put down the dagger and you were holding my hand. I felt like a little child, not a hero, not a warrior, not a lover, only a boy in a big bed, the day turning round him, dreamy and slow.
The room was high and blue. Cobalt blue. There was an orange fire. Your eyes were green. Lost in the colours of our love I never forgot them, and now, lying here, where the sheets are brown with my blood, it isblue and orange and green I remember. A little boy in a big bed.
Where are you?
We said nothing. You sat beside me. You were the strong one. I couldn’t stand up. Holding my hand, and stroking it gently with your finger and thumb, you touched in me another world. Until then, through wounds and wreck, I had been sure of myself. I was Tristan. Now, my name gone backwards, I went backwards myself, unravelling into strands of feeling. This stranded man.
When it was time for me to sail back to Cornwall, you came out and stood on a narrow rock, and we watched each other so far that only we two knew what was rock or boat or human.
The sea was empty. The sky was shut.
Then King Marke sent me to fetch you to be his wife. You said you wanted to kill me.
Again I opened my body to you. Again you dropped the blade.
When your servant brought the drink I knew you intended to poison me. Under the cliffs of Cornwall, the King in his boat ready to meet us, I drank the water, because that’s what it was. Your servant had given me water. You drank too, and fell to the floor, and I went to catch you and hold you as the men dropped anchor and the ship lurched. You were in my arms for the first time, and you said my name, ‘Tristan.’
I answered you: ‘Isolde.’
Isolde. The world became a word.
We lived for the night. The torch in your window was my signal. When it was lit, I stayed away. When you extinguished it, I came to you – secret doors, dark corridors, forbidden stairs, brushing aside fear and propriety like cobwebs. I was inside you. You contained me. Together, in bed, we could sleep, we could dream, and if we heard your servant’s mournful cry, we called it a bird or a dog. I never wanted to wake. I had no use for the day. The light was a lie. Only here, the sun killed, and time’s hands bound, were we free. Imprisoned in each other, we were free.
When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love withmy whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.
In the fight when Marke found us, I fought at the door until you escaped. Then I faced Melot at last, my friend, my trusted friend, and I held my sword at him, red with blood. As he lifted his sword against me, I threw mine down and ran his through my body, at the bottom of my ribs. The skin, still shy of healing, opened at once.
When I woke, I was here, in my own castle, across the sea, carried and guarded by my servant. He told me he had sent for you, yes surely there was a sail? I could see it swift as love. He climbed into the watchtower, but there was no sail.
I put my hand into the bloody gap at the bottom of my ribs. Her name drips through my fingers: Isolde. Where are you?
Tristan, I didn’t drink it either. There was no love-potion, only love. It was you I drank.
Tristan, wake up. Don’t die of the wound. Divide the night with me, and die together in the morning.
His eye is pale, his breathing is still. When I first saw him, he was still and pale, and I
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