Tristram wondered why her fair hand was so cold. 'Good-bye and God be
with ye always,' La Belle Isoude replied in a faint voice, and then
turned and went from him. Tristram thought she was angered with him for
the slaying of her uncle.

So in a little while he rode forth with Governale down to the seashore
and looked back not once. There he entered by a ship, and with good
wind he arrived at Tintagel in Cornwall, and King Mark and all his
barons were glad that Tristram was whole again.

Then Sir Tristram went to his father King Talloch, and there was made
great cheer for him, and wide lands were given him. Nevertheless, he
could not rest long in one place, but went into Logres and Alban and
Wales, seeking adventures, and his fame for prowess was almost as great
as the fame of Sir Lancelot. Whereever he went he took his harp, and in
hall and bower his favourite songs were those that praised the beauty
of La Belle Isoude, her gentle ways and her soft white hands.

After a year and a day he returned to the court of King Mark and lived
there, and all the knights and ladies admired him, and the praise of
his courtesy was in the mouths of all, noble and simple, high and low.
Then King Mark his uncle began to hate him for the love that all bore
him, and since he had never married and had no son to whom his kingdom
should go after his death, he saw that Sir Tristram would have it, for
he was his next kin, and then, with Lyones and Tintagel, the fame and
power of Tristram would increase abundantly.

So the king began to cast about in his mind for a way whereby he might
do some hurt to Sir Tristram, or even destroy him.

He called the young knight to him one day and said:

'Dear nephew, I have been thinking a long while of taking unto myself a
wife, and I hear much of the beauty and goodness of the king's daughter
of Ireland, whom men call La Belle Isoude. Now I would that you go to
the king and bear my message to him.'

Sir Tristram was troubled in mind at these words. Since he had left La
Belle Isoude he had had no ease of spirit, for now he knew that he
loved her. Though she had been angered with him for his slaying her
uncle, and he knew that the queen and other kinsfolk of Sir Marhaus
would surely slay him if they could, yet had he hoped in a while to
have gone to King Anguish and found some way to win Isoude for his
wife.

'Ye are feared to go, then?' sneered King Mark, noting the silence of
Sir Tristram. 'Then I w