The bag is heavy on my shoulder. I've just bought meat from a local passerby. Summer has gone and autumn has come and leaves are starting to fall.
Rosemary's fur is thick and shiny, yet i suppose it's never a bad thing to start early. So I scour the woods from morning til evening to build up my stores. Though Rosemary's fur is thick, i wrap her in an extra cloth and transport her in my basket, and let her eat and hop around while I seek food.
I know she is starting to complete her feeding to go into hibernation, and have made her a small cozy home where she can sleep the winter away, but not out in the cold. I know I'll have to start stitching a new, thicker dress then the one I wear now, because soon enough it will be time to change clothing.
That evening I sit near the heard as I break apart apart wood to keep the fire going, Rosemary on my lap.
As I stroke her fur I close my eyes and let myself drift. Before I know I am asleep and dream of when I understood Tristan and Ysolde were a couple
-" Have you heard? " Meira whispers. She is one of the ladies at the court of Camelot and has become part of Ysolde's posse.
Our days have gotten a routine nowadays.
Ysolde wakes then I make her bed. I help her wash and brush her hair. I pick out a dress and do her hair and then eat breakfast with her. Then she flits around with her fadies, meets with friends and since shortly she has been horse riding. Or rather sitting on her horse while someone holds it and and Tristan is beside her on his horse and they're gone for hours.
I have never owned a horse, though I can ride well enough. I've just never had the luxury. Ysolde's horse, is like her, beautiful. It's a white mare with long white curling manes and tail and she is so elegant when she walks she and Ysolde are a beautiful sight.
I've heard rumors about Tristan and Ysolde always being together and of course I've also seen them together but a couple?
It breaks my heart more then I can admit.
Because I, even if I will never admit it but in the private darkness of my bed, over the months we've spent here, I have fallen in love with Tristan. I have not seen him much, only spoken a few times with him, and often just to inquire about Ysolde, but he is kind, even in his coldness and distance.
And it breaks me to see while I grew head over heels in love with him he and Ysolde grew closer and fell in love.
-" Yseult?' Meira inquires, her eyes searching mine. -" I'm okay." I say but even to me my voice is bitter. It all meant nothing then. His touches when he spoke to me, the stolen glances across the room, the flower he picked and bound in my hair when we all went out to see the first rays of sunlight after a particular long night at Camelot. Everything, the touches, the glances, his short and curt conversations, it was all nothing, meant nothing.
I chide my emotional side. Of course I've read to much into it. after all, our conversations were never more then how are you, how is Ysolde, how is your day going and the glances and touches were always to either help me carry something.
Even the flower he gave me was meant for me to sow back onto Ysolde's headpieces. I hate to admit it, but it's logical. He would never fall for me, who is a cheap imitation of Ysolde. And when they step out of door together, I understand what Meira means.
They stand close, Ysolde's hand possessively on Tristan's arm. He might say nothing, but his stance, the look in his eyes are full of quiet adoration. So when Ysolde turns her laughing face to him, and the lovers' eyes fall onto me, I hold up my cup, nod and take a deep swipe.
It's not my on memory that night, the next I hate even more. I toss and turn, but it seems tonight I cannot escape my past.
-" My my, what is that?" Ysolde's maids and ladies in waiting, flit around me in a flurry of colors and expensive silks.I can hear them muttering but I don't know what to say.
Before me, laying on one of the tables of Ysolde's private quarters is a long light blue dress made of light material. The top of the dress is taken in at the top with a band of embroidery before spreading below the chest out in a long wide skirt.
The wide skirt, which starts to flare out at the op, consists of a thick dark blue layered underskirt and two light blue top layers laying over it.
With each movement I know the beautiful multi layered underskirt will show.
The sleeves, growing wider at the wrist, sport small embroidery at the end as well. It is a beautiful dress indeed.
-" Where did you get that?" one of the ladies in waiting asks. I frown. -" It was given to me at the door by a young man. He said it was for miss Yseult."
-" You?" One of the ladies sputters, eyes drawn in laughter. surely such fine dress does not belong to you.
-"Aerina!" Ysolde's sweet voice is loud . Aerina turns and then mutters an apology.
-" Don't be mean. Yseult can't help it that she is plain." Though probably meant well, her remark makes the others fall into another salve of laughter. Red flutters on my cheeks and I sigh..
Ysolde worries her lip and then her eyes fall on the dress -"Oh, there it is!" she grins. I turn to her, stunned. -" Huh?"
- " That's the dress Tristan bought for me. He said I had to wear it for the next feast tonight."
I frown. -" But the boy said it was for Miss Yseult." Ysolde shakes her head. - " A mistake. He always calls me Yseult, that delivery boy, but it is the dress that Tristan made for me."
I nod, bitterness filing my throat. " Of course, if it's from Tristan it's for you. Te deliver boy made a mistake. Shall i help you get it on?" Ysodle nods and I smile, tamping down my bitterness.
That evening, I hear agreeing murmurs when Ysolde descends in her beautiful shimmering silk dress. Though maybe less ornate then some of her other dresses, it really brings out her eyes. It would bring mine out even better I can't help but think.
-" You know what." Meira mutters. -" I think it would have been more beautiful on you." I smile, thankful for her words and then look down at my plain green dress. It's the same sturdy material as my other dresses, but with a small brown thread at the top and undersides. It is a long dress, stiff and thick. Even the earrings I wear are much duller then Ysolde's sparkling silver and gold, but i don't mind.
Beauty does not give a woman work or help her survive.
With that thought I nod, heft my glass and turn to Meira, ever trying to hide the fact even I realize that my dress is dull and ugly. I catch Tristan's gaze, cold and angry across the room when Ysolde flits to him, says something in his ear and then he nods and leads her away.
I wake, heart pounding ,sitting up in my chair as the wind pound outside. I stand slowly and put the sleeping Rosemary in her bed and then take of my dress and step into my small bed. When in am lying in it, I put a fist to my mouth to stifle my crying.
It doesn't help crying overt things that have been done and gone. it will not bring back what I want. The next morning the sky announces itself bleak and cold, but the sun is peaking through. And i have enough.
I decide I have enough of trying to hide my feelings. So I let the memories come, relive them one more time and then be done with it.
-"I have come to claim my bride." The noble's name is Marc and it seems Ysolde has been promised to him at her birth. King Arthur and queen Guinevere try to placate the man but he cannot be deterred.
Ysolde is his betrothed and shall be his wife. My heart goes out to my cousin, because I know that she will not want to marry him. So I hurry along the halls while the noble argues with king Arthur.
-"Ysolde!" I call. -" Ysolde!. Ysolde opens her door but her eyes are red. -" Oh Ysolde ,why did you not tell me?" I whisper. She hiccups and then runs into my arms. -" I didn't want it to be true."
- " Come." I hush her. - " You need some air." We walk outside, Ysolde still whimpering as I stroke her arms.
We walk outside of Camelot into the fields and though rain is starting to fall, we both don't mind as I lead her beneath a tree. She explains how she was betrothed to him when she was young but how she had always considered it something to be changed. But when she refused his gifts and his question when she would marry him, she always refused him or flat out ignored him. His pride hurt, he came to Camelot to demand the hand of his promised bride.
- " And now i have to marry him because his pride has been humiliated, unless an enormous compensation is provided." She whimpers. For a moment all is silent when she looks up at me.
-" But why is he so angry? Even with his pride hurt I've never hurt Marc to be so angry or furious for you refusing him. I heard the choice for his very first wife refused him also and then he married another noble girl. It can't be that a maiden has refused him before." I say, wondering. Ysolde's eyes flit form left to right and I know she's hiding something.
-" Ysolde?" I ask, voice firm. -" I..I sent him a letter I did not wish to marry him but that my house provided a back up, you." Her words don't ring through but then I realize what she's saying.
" You..you sold my hand to a noble without my knowledge? You gave my hand, your cousin, to Marc without asking him if he agreed with it? To his eyes you have spat on his honor, Ysolde! You have ordered him a solution that is negated for months between two noble families. This is as low a blow you can give to his honor and his name as possible Ysolde! You know the proceedings between noble houses, you have learned them! What made you think he or I would accept your plan?! This is not a game, you silly child!" My whisper ends in a shriek as I cower away from her.
I feel hurt, betrayed by this...this selfish girl that is supposed to be my cousin. Family is supposed to look out for each other, but here she is, throwing my name and my standing around like it's worth nothing. A second rate to nothing. She's not only besmirched the honor of her fiancee but also mine. Worth nothing, lower than the lowest, this is what she has made of me. And I can't understand her actions. I can't help but feel disgusted, betrayed and furious at this selfish idiot of a noble lady.
" No.." I whisper in disgust. -" Yseult." Ysolde whimpers.
-"No! How could you? You tried to sell me into marriage to a noble to which you were supposed to wed because you don't want to? You cannot play with people's life like that!" Disgust is starting to fill me and as she cries a dark feeling makes itself master of me.
Gone is the adoration, gone is the love, only remains utter disgust for this pathetic spoiled child. I shake my head and step out form beneath the tree, my furious steps leading me away.
-"Yseult wait!" Isolde, for once, does not care for her pretty clothes and hair, but follows me into the rain pouring down from the sky. - " Yseult, please.." She whispers, panicked. I'm so tired. So tired of her schemes and her plays. So tired of her foolish and naive thinking.
" NO!" I scream and turn, my cloths and hair sticking to my body, rivulets of water rolling across my body. Ysolde stops, wt as well. -" Not this time, Ysolde. Enough is enough."
-"But please understand.." I hiss at her. -" I don't want to understand." The sneer comes deadly and low from my mouth.
-" I want to be with Tristan, not with Marc!" Ysodle creams above the sound of battering rain. -" How can you be so selfish to not give me that chance, Yseult? where is the practical cousin know, who always took care of me? Why are you being so mean? Why.."
White hot fury makes itself master of me. "Because i'm sick and tired of your naivity and your foolishness! I'm tired of having to run behind you, cleaning up behind and taking care of you while you only think of yourself and your dreams! Because I don't want you to bring any harm to Tristan! I roar.
Ysolde is silent. - " Why do you care about Tristan? Tristan is.."
- " Because I love him! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH it 's made me bitter. You don't know how it makes me feel, how much I hate myself for feeling this when I know you are in love with each other!"
Ysolde's petulant worry comes back. -" You have no right to love him! He is mine!"
-" I will be the judge of that." His voice is soft, but serious. My heart stutters in my chest. And I realize by looking into Tristan's eyes he's heard it.. He's heard what I said.
-" Tristan.." Ysolde whimpers. " Come." Tristan says, wrapping an arm around her. -" Let's get you dry. He quickly looks at me and then turns, as Ysolde starts crying in his chest, grasping him like a lifeline.
It's like a slap in my face. Here I am, screaming my feelings out and still he does not see me. The rain is still pouring down but i don't care. I can feel my heart breaking further and further and I physically feel it hurting.
So I do what I do best, turn and then start running as fast as I can.
A few days later, Ysodle and Tristan left Camelot, their horses walking through the gates, as did Marc with the weight of Ysolde in gold.
I never spoke nor saw my cousin and her lover again.
When I come back to myself I realize I am crying so hard, a strange eerie sound coming from my mouth. I cry and I keep crying until I quiet down.
Time has allowed me to admit what went wrong and what not. Years of of being on my own has me finally allowed to leave it behind.
So when the sun disappears again and clouds roll over, I don't mutter to myself but smile, then grab hold of my basket and sing a soft song. If there is one thing I regret about this memory is that I never talked it out with Ysolde.
Sure, what she did was wrong, but I was so hurt that I did not give her a chance to explain. And well, I miss her. I still love Tristan, I doubt I will ever not learn to love him, but I have made peace with what happened.
After all, Ysolde could not have known I loved him, nor could he have. Their happiness should not depend on my feelings for him.
All I hope is that they are happy now.
A wind rustles outside and some leaves are going by. I think that today I will just go for a walk. No working, just some thinking. I smile as I wrap a shawl around my neck and step out, face turn towards the sun, the wind caressing my grinning face.