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Adieu tristesse , bonjour tristesse, tu es inscrite dans les lignes du plafond.
Farewell sadness,good daysadness, you are written in the lines of the ceiling - Paul Eluard
This is a story of cruelty, of depression of war and of death. The story of hate and persecution and how they can tear down a person to their bones, not just a person, a country. Moreover this is the story of hope, subtle affections, and comradery that come with a life well lived. Of friendship and honor, love and indifference, this is the story of each one of us and still, this is the story of a single person on this good earth who lived and died long ago. This is the story of my good and brave Trystan of the Lyonesse.
King Rivalin paced the hall outside the birthing chamber restlessly, the screams from inside had faded away and left only the sounds of the night, and the efforts of his wife’s women, to berate him. It seemed an age before the sound of a babies cries split the night as a dagger, and Rivalin ceased his pacing, ringing his hands distractedly and shifting his feet as he waited for someone to bring him his child.
Eventually the doors were opened and a small, sweet looking woman came to him, holding the small bundle tenderly.
“Your son, my lord.” He was wrapped in a blue wool blanket that Blancheflor had made during her long wait. His tiny face was all that could be seen from the folds of the blanket, the small features red and wrinkled like an old mans. Rivalin felt his heart swell within him, a son! At last, an heir for his people! It was the most beautiful child he had ever seen.
The woman who had brought the babe still waited, shifting uneasily and wringing her hands in a manner adopted from her king.
“What is it?” Rivalin asked distractedly, having eyes only for his child.
“Come with me, my lord.” She moved back into the birthing chamber and Rivalin followed her, a shroud of foreboding falling over his happiness. Blancheflor was in the bed, white sheets a stark contrast to the pale, sick color of her face and the blackness of her hair. The women attending her were also wearing white, blood stark on some of their hands and on the sheets of the bed. Rivalin handed his son to one of the women and moved to the bedside. The Queens eyes were closed but when he took her hand they fluttered open and she smiled weakly.
“I have not failed you, my lord, it is a son.” Rivalin smiled and smoothed the hair from her damp face.
“He is beautiful my love.” She smiled once more, and died. The King dropped the mask of procedure and grandeur, he was no more the King, only a man whose wife was leaving.
“Blancheflor, Blancheflor, love, stay!” He smoothed her hair once more, and cupped her lovely face in his sinewy hands. “Blancheflor, he hasn’t yet a name!” kissing her lightly and for the last time, the man that was Rivalin, wept disgracefully.
For weeks his advisors told him that he must name the child, they begged him to see his son, to acknowledge the soul heir to the throne of the Lyonesse, but Rivalin refused. He would not see the child, could not bear to lay eyes on the only thing that connected him to his beloved and departed Blancheflor.
It was damp, dark and stormy when he came to name his son. At first it had not been certain that the child would live, but as time passed by and the child grew stronger, it became apparent that Rivalin was avoiding the babe for a reason other than its health. The maids argued over what to call him, each having their own pet name for him, they watched him at all hours, the wet nurse, a young woman named Revinna, slept close to his crib. On this night, she was silent in her chair, her hands folded in her lap and her head tilted forward onto her chest. Rivalin took a long, deep breath, reaching for the door handle but recoiling his hand at the last moment as though it had burned him. He breathed again and closed his eyes, grasping the handle, he turned it and entered his sons room.
The babe slept soundly in the crib, the blue blanket he had been swaddled in on the night of his birth was folded across his tiny legs and torso. His delicate wrinkled fingers clutched at the edge of the wool, and one pitiful foot with its stumpy toes wriggling in the night air, was uncovered and bare. A thin layer of dark fuzz covered his scalp, his diminutive chest rising and falling beneath the blanket.
Rivalin could hardly breath, he clenched and unclenched his fists as he moved to the side of the crib. Glancing uncertainly at Revinna in the chair, she did not move and he turned back to his child. It seemed absurd to him now that something so small could possibly cause so much damage to a woman’s body, he remembered the empty shell that they had buried not a week ago and felt the tears begin to build again behind his eyelids. They would not fall, not now when he was so very much a king.
“They tell me that you need a name.” He spoke softly, barely audible with the noise of the storm threatening to drown his words. “What would she call you?” he was not speaking to the child but to himself, and in his mind he had no answer. He had not discussed names with Blancheflor much, she had mentioned it, but at the time he had felt it silly to speak of those trivial details before the child was even born, he did not remember what she had suggested.
“My . . . my lord?” the sound of a woman’s voice made Rivalin jump near out of his skin, he whirled around to find that Revinna had woken and was getting quickly to her feet to stand in his presence.
“It is fine girl, sleep.” She sat back down just as quickly as she had gotten to her feet, but she did not sleep and the moment was broken.
“Have . . . have you named him., my lord?” it was an innocent question, the curiosity, he realized, must have been stifling for her.
“Yes.” He looked down once more at his child, the mixture of him, and of her. “Call him Trystan, and it will not be far from the truth.” He could see the mixture of shock and of horror on the woman’s face, but she said nothing, only hung her head.
“Revinna girl,” his voice was soft and curious as an idea dawned on him slowly, “I want you to take him.” Her head snapped up.
“My lord?”
“Take him back to your home, or to the home of another whom you trust, he will not be raised in the court, or by me. I will pay you until he is grown, for expenses that may arise. I will arrange for a tutor who will teach him all he needs to know, but he will not be told of his origins, is that clear?” tears spilled down Ravenna’s cheeks as she answered him, knowing her duty to her king.
“I can not raise him myself, but my lord, I know a man who has long wanted a child, he lives outside the city, raises horses, and he would take your son and raise him tenderly.”
Rivalin looked down at the sleeping babe once more, gently pulling the blanket down to cover the exposed extremity. He did not stir.
“I will inform the clerks, Trystan, first son of the king of the Lyonesse, will be raised out of the country, no one will know where he has gone.” He turned to the maid, “Your king thanks you lady” and with that he left, turning his back on his son, and no tears were shed that night.
The banging on the door late in the night brought Daveth to his door in a huff. The storm had kept him awake with a dark sense of foreboding, and he was fully dressed as he answered his door. At first he did not see her, but a flash of lightning illuminated the sopping girl standing on his stoop, clutching a small bundle to her breast.
“Ravenna?”
“Please , may I come inside?” she barely looked up at him, her face almost entirely hidden beneath the hood of her cloak.
“Yes, yes of course.” He stepped out of her way and she hurried through the door and out of the weather, Daveth locked his door and busied over to the hearth to light a fire. “Get out of your wetter clothes girl, and I’ll put them by the fire to dry.” But Ravenna shook her head vigorously.
“There’s no time, I must be back to the castle before anyone misses would do anything for me wouldn’t you?”
The old man nodded, “You’re as close to a daughter I ever had,” he placed a wethered hand to her cheek. “What is it you need?”
Ravenna began to unravel the bundle she carried, it was a minute before Daveth realized exactly what her burden was, inside the blankets, a child.
“This is . . . my son. Please, I . . .” she stuttered forlornly, the emotions battling for control over her delicate features. Ravenna’s husband had died just in the last month, she had been very pregnant, and the news of his death had been exceptionally hard on her. Daveth had not seen her since. At first he could do little but gape at the young woman, there was nothing he could find in himself to say.
“Of course I would have to come often, to feed him and such, until he is old enough to go with out me, but you have always wanted a child Daveth, you were the only one I could trust.” She looked at him, her eyes pleading, holding out the child. Daveth had indeed, long wanted a child, ever since his beloved wife had died in childbirth some ten years ago. Reaching out, he took the silently sleeping babe in his arms.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
Ravenna sighed her thankfulness, embracing Daveth awkwardly.
“Trystan, Oh Daveth! I know he will be safe in your care!”
Long after Ravenna had left, Daveth still stared down at the child in his arms. His mind was going over all the things he would need to purchase or build, a crib, clothes, and toys, all the things that a child needs. He thought about his wife, the stillborn child he had held in his arms only once, was this his second chance? Rocking softly by the fire he thought over the child’s name. Trystan. Sorrow. What a label for a man to break.
6
A/N- wet nurses,which iswhatRavenna is, have to be . . .lactating, so they would have had to have had a child recently, thier own child usually has died or will starve to death while thier mother cares for some one elses baby.
