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For a few coins Melord, I'll tell a story of two that met in this place, 
and here you can take your rest, and leave sumpter to graze in the tall grass.

I payed the old man his alms though planning to continue on my course.
For passage I searched my ships could use to fight a great enemy force.
This I kept as secret, my crest well-hidden under a peasant's cloak.     

Just then the old man's words began with vigor:

And what of Tristan and Isolde, and the Daughter of Gibraltar? Do you know this tale?
It was told long ago when I was but a child.


               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tristan fell. He lie wounded and blinded by a giant's poisoned blade,
along the highroad at the foot of Hercules' pillared gate.
 
'Hello' he said as she passed by, daughter of a deposed king, now daughter of Gibraltar. Princess Isolde, left Ireland's hallow'd moors, with a few loyal courtiers.
  
A perfumed pomander at her girdle infused the moonlit night.
One mixed in provincial rose and cloves, and lavender too,
sweet benzoin, and balsam, and oaky sandalwood.

'Hello, good sir., do I know you?' said Isolde somewhat dismayed at a traveler so disheveled. 

'Perhaps' he said in reply. 'I've known a few princesses'. 
This only a slight guess from long remembered perfume of her.  

From the dusty road, he cloaked his wound, and lifted his worn harp. Grown so very heavy now, for one last tune.
With skilled fingers Tristan played a lilting strain..
such that the air was filled with a melody echo'd,  
and sweet sound of the nightingale's refrain.

It was just such a bird that alighted on his foot measured in song,
how strange his gaze didn't turn to it, not even for a moment sway'd.

Isolde puzzled at this, removed her pomander and tied it to a hunting hound.
Tristan's nose and head followed the wagging smell..
and knew in an instant what sight betrayed.

Oh! You are blind! she cried out..in an moment of anger, one of rage.
Her head tilted wildly to the spot where he sat, mouth pursed in a grimace..

Tristan lay the harp down, winced into his arm. 'Yes, it is true'. 

'Yet you daren't seek my council, or least oblige me the knowledge for thy pity?' the young princess in righteousness seethed.

'Pity? I have no need of a such a gift. And your knowledge I care lesser still.' 
for tis true your pity a greater wound I'd endure, than loss of any sense will.'

Tristan continued, 'Does not a newborn Sable find it's mother's breast 
through only a memory?' Tristan coughed, his cheeks grew pallid, even in dark of night.  

The old man spoke aloud, as if returning from a dream:
It was told that Isolde was moved by this, though still angered by his arrogant ruse.. 
that he would try to make her out a fool. She would take council with him still.

Isolde in reproach said, 'Carry on in life, you and your harp, I must go where the path leads me.. 
away to where promises are kept and liars await a different fate.'
She waved her courtiers to continue to the alter where she oft prayed.  

Tristan no longer searched the smell of the scented flask she wore, 
turned two vacant eyes to her sharp tongue instead. 
Some say he coerced Isolde's gaze once more, for reasons still unknown.

If by chance she expected an unkindness in his retort, she would be left wanting.. 
his words poured as a balm on a wound.

'There are many kinds of blindness in the world, are there not?
Ones that no sight is required nor wanting? 

'I hail from Cornwall's shores between Land's End and Bodmin Moor,
where orphans are brought about by famine and war.'

'I write their songs on my heart, and carry their cries in sadness,
for they own a beauty few care to receive, one left bereft of justice.' 

'And what of two who shared a bond, and drank the milk of kindness,
though one of them in pain, not yet emboldened to speak? 
A song from unrequited wounds, I would sing you., a love lost in blindness.'

A moment passed.., then another. The nightingale departed., and the air 
grew silent. Fate recalled a place, a time, a boy. He saved her from the jackal's jaws. Daughter of Gibraltar spoke, with eyes and heart startled anew.. 

'A love lost in blindness, could the eyes belong to me?' 'Your words carry weight of one who has learned so much of this life's meaning,
and through this earned my undying respect and Odon's gift of healing. 
Prithee tell me your name that I might call you friend.'

But there came no reply. An angelic voice in whisper was all he heard,
as if from an echo beckoning him far away...

For a fortnight she would return and pour from a silver vase,
to heal the wound Morholt's poisoned blade had left. 
A concoction pungent and stinging, rolling red tears covering his tunic.,
yet somehow love blossomed in Hercules' cleft. 

There came a day when Isolde looked for her healing patient,
by the tall grass and high road where first they met.

A light tapping on her shoulder sent her mouth open, 
and the smell of lavender and balsam greeted her..
It was Tristan, standing with her pomander in hand, and she knew.

The eyes that returned her gaze, would see them through,    
with strength of arms relearned, and love the senses rarely imbued.

 ~~~Tristan et Isolde - An epic retelling~~~
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