Notes: just a tribute to another my beloved knight, Tristan. He was created amazingly as a movie character: cold as ice and cruel as sword's blade, yet very mysterious and calm. Mads Mikkelsen rocks in other words. Each time he looked into the camera, my heart turned into ice. And since Isolde was absent, I needed a lady who could match such an original man. This is some kind of love story in movie-Tristan fashion. Maid of pain is an original character, please ask before using her elsewhere. Asia Argento was a model for her, I hope to finish much bigger and better version so you could see my vision clearlier very soon.
Arthur had learned them to count. He didn't assume it was somehow possible to predict the result of the battle by knowing the exact number of enemies, he also doubted one can name the exact number of them. "You eyes have to seek, your mind has to know" he said leaving them to wonder. His Roman-strict retorts were pagan-shady like arrows in the clouds – you could never see them fly until they suddenly stopped your heartbeat seconds before death, with sharp realization. After their first battle was over, realization came to all: count your people, brothers in armor to know whether you won or lose. Victory is not fallen enemies, it is your friends who stand of their feet. If at least one of them is down, your victory flies away from you quicker than winter wind.
Lancelot was counting. Through the bloody mist and cries he could barely differ moving figures as if he stayed in the dinning hall long after midnight. Seven of them were brighter in contours. He held back a sign of relief, emotion image which was better matching to a woman; he was ashamed of it, but each time just could not help its building. Just like when he was walking around their table, touching empty sits, remembering their names, feats and looses. Their eyes and final words, hopes and memories.
One figure was unreal like a midnight vision, aside the mist, aside the battlefield, aside the fallen ones. Scared horses run dangerously close to it, but never close enough to touch even briefly. Figure was motionless, even wind didn't dare to touch strands of dark hair, soaked with blood. Lancelot thought about strange blind statues he saw in Roman shrines or whatever they called it. They made dead statues to kneel before them and give their lives into their cold hands. And they called him wild pagan after all that. What can be more cold and lifeless than stone? He approached and put his hand on the shoulder of the only alive statue he knew.
No movement came to answer. No single muscle movement, no breath, no strand touching his exposed arm covered with blood of such volume and so many brave ones it could be a glove.
"Arthur's order was not to delay" He said heavily, nodding back to leader's figure. "They may catch their breath".
"Then I will give them another fight", figure answered calmly. "I don't feel I had enough. I don't feel they had enough".
"Come, Tristan", Lancelot repeated.
Although he knew too well it was the same thing as if he tried to yell to a dead man. This knight had much longer battle ritual then others. He had to observe, hear screams of agony, watching eyes rolling back, hearing the heavy step and then thuds of dying bodies falling. If there existed exquisite wine named "Death", Tristan was the only man on this earth who knew the taste of it, got deadly drunk with its bittersweet essence and raised his bowl for future celebrations. His eyes stared without blinking at one point where deadly wounded warrior was laying. His trembling hand tried to grab a sword to feel the power to be gone away from the path or war, path of life as a real warrior. The weapon was out of reach, resting maliciously in the end of deep print in the snow. Left by the heavy boot. Lancelot knew for sure who kicked the sword away from the dying arm and sent it out of its reach.
"No fear now" he read in the cloud of steam coming from Tristan's mouth. Again, neither sound nor movement accompanied his retort. Just a breath out he learned to understand after years and years shoulder to shoulder with this man. "She pointed at him".
Lancelot watched as dying fingers twitched once again and then froze forever. Tristan looked briefly at his face turning around, then whistled. His hawk turned his head tearing itself from a deadly table of someone's eye and spread it's wings to reach its master's hand. Tristan said nothing, just met bird's eyes for a flash of moment, empty eye-sockets met their reflection. Bird's wings trembled. Tristan ate from the same plate with his hawk, but he never allowed it to taste the rotten flesh of the enemy. Nothing changed in his figure, carved into stone, but the air around became heavier for a moment, filling with his faceless and nameless emotion, too expressive to be called "anger", the only emotion Tristan could really possess.
Horses speeded up to gallop. Lancelot could not even shut his tired eyes with cracks of blood inside for a moment to ease the stress – his eyelashes soaked with viscous red-brown fetid liquid, they stuck one to another and he found it difficult to open his eyes again each time. He watched Tristan riding first, surrounded by savage roundelay of snowflakes. If their "guiding star" was there, he could follow blind with no fear in his heart. Arthur was near, but also silent. Speaking to his God, probably. His God was a bad tutor: he taught to love friends and love foes. Lancelot never tried to look closely to that deep draw-well of the leader's beliefs. He thought to himself, anyone has a right to have some as long as they don't sound as complete nonsense. Kill them, but ache for them. After each retort of this kind from Arthur's mouth, Lancelot's mind, the fastest and sharpest mind of all knights, turned into the stone, just like Roman statues. He couldn't even choice a side to come closer to the point when leader's beliefs could be understandable…
"Do you think I should share my concerns with Arthurios?" The low voice sounded near tearing Lancelot back to the winter field from the darkness of his pained thoughts.
"What?" He turned his head to the left to see Bors catching up with his horse's step. There were two arrows sticking from the back of his knee, pain probably bothered him, but he couldn't give it enough attention and figure out its location. Shooting Bors with arrows was like throwing sticks at the bear. Many efforts, no results, only more raged beast in return.
Bors silently nodded his head in direction of Tristan.
"You are even worse gossipmonger than Vanora and her fellow whores", he muttered. "No wonder you two understand each other so well… Borsus."
"If you value your life, you should never call me this way again… Lancelotus. Romans have such a stupid names, you can brake your bloody tongue trying to enunciate them."
Lancelot chuckled. "I do not value my life, but Roman sound of my name is indeed disgusting. So I apologize."
"Arhurios told us sharing concerns is not gossiping or betraying. Staying silent is worse".
Lancelot nodded. You come into the manufactory and make a special order of, say, a bow. Arthur's knights could freely speak out their high demands as for weapons, armor, horses, women, food, wine… After so many years inside the black heart of war they all knew how to choose the best for only thing they could do. You can even make a draft or notes to get the perfect bow, a flawless bow with clinking bowstring and arrows cutting cruel skies in two, making them cry with the tears of rain. But battles are never planned, so it can happen you will have no time to check the bow out, although knowing weapons as yourself you will feel if there is something wrong done with it. If bowstring is a little bit looser than it needs to be, then you can't count on your hands and your eyes anymore, you are under the power of a bow. And right before the grinning enemy's eyes, your arrow directed in the center of his chest falls and sticks into the ground, loosing your trajectory. The final of the story Arthur had told them so many times is well-known – another empty seat at the round table, another name, burned inside Arthur's heart. Same thing happens is with your friends you trust as sincerely as you trust the bow in your hand. If something makes one of the knights turn aside from the trajectory, it can cause the defeat. Real merciful defeat.
Lancelot remembered distant times when he had faith in his heart, when he saw Tristan for the first time, sitting in the corner and staring through the moving people like watching the fireplace behind their backs. He was like a cornered wolf-cud – just stretch your arm to pet him and you will get it bitten off right to the collarbone. He started to talk after two years with Arthur and others; before that Roman soldiers could beat him to half-death not even causing a moan to slip from his lips. His first word was satisfied: "Good", when the first enemy fell down under his sword. Since then they didn't hear much anyway. He was a deadly-constructed bow, his words were arrows, exact, sharp and short like their flight to the heart of the enemy. And they indeed reached the hearts, they stroked them and although he never raised his voice from his usual half-whisper tone, everyone could hear, everyone could feel them echoing inside their veins for a long time. Nobody ever heard him laughing even being drunk, when he was satisfied the corners of his mouth jerked forward and if one blinked, this change in a stone mask could be easily missed. Then there was this hawk who he chose over best falcons. Many questions were asked: Do his eyes, staring into darkness, ever close? How can he know the exact location, armor and number of enemies? Why does he take pieces of coal from the fireplace and draws faces of fallen ones from his sword? How can he exactly remember each face and the number of them? Why does he need to stand in the middle of the battlefield like frozen and watch the haze for minutes? No one knew answers. It didn't make Tristan a bad friend or a warrior after all.
Like each dark horse Tristan had many legends, surrounding him like a bloody-thirsty army. People didn't know anything about him, they had to make their own stories. They said his mother was a dark magician, one of those who hides between branches and bushes in the woods and can make you loose your path and be lost there forever. His father didn't return home and when Romans came for her son, she damned them… Then the logic of the stories got very complicated, but the fact which was known for sure was that one morning ten Roman horses appeared before the gates, followed be the exhausted boy in the saddle. Animals were so terrified, that no one, even the best riders, couldn't calm them down. Eventually they all were killed, and their owners or any trail, any thing belonging to them were never found. As the oldest of the knights, Bors remembered it, saw with his own eyes as young Arthur with unwrinkled brow and alive light yet inside his eyes over-persuaded the furious soldiers from getting revenge and burning Tristan's village down. "This is unsuitable for God's men to believe in dark magic and it's unsuitable for good soldiers to believe that scared and weakened population of one single village, consisting mainly from old men, women and children, could kill best ones of Roman army". Retelling this story over and over again, Bors was burning red, making emotional gestures with his hands and spitting his saliva all over the listeners. It was the moment when he found out his leader he was forced to lower his head to can and should be respected. They also said he could understand his hawk. It is not a big feat to learn to handle hunting bird: it becomes excited when it sees large army, it attacks primary face at the command, but reading everything about the army by bird's behavior…
"What did make you concerned?" Lancelot asked finally.
"Maid of pain". Bors rolled his eyes meaningfully.
Lancelot chuckled again. Sometimes Tristan became a great story-taller. His stories were consisting of couple of phrases, shirt like orders, but complete as long legends. One of them, nothing more.
"There is nothing amusing. Once I asked who points not at me so I my heart can be calm yet. He says it after each battle. I heard twice. I'm sure you heard today."
A brief memory of the twitching hand crossed Lancelot's mind.
"So? Did he give you an answer?"
"Yes. He turned to me…" was it just snow, or mighty bear Bors really shuddered slightly? "His eyes empty as a night without moon. He said he saw a maid in a dress… made of blood. Leaking blood. She comes at every battlefield and brings pain."
"I told you death was a whore, didn't I?"
"No, she can bring death even if you are badly wounded. Otherwise she brings pain. And she points her finger…"
"To what?"
"To one who will fall next. You know, my friend, I'm sick of those tales Vanora tells to my bastards… About beautiful and evil maids from the darkest forests. And if it wasn't him who told me, I would laugh until choke. But then he showed me how she points her finger." Bors stretched his arm forward, opened his palm and straightened his index finger.
Tristan, hundreds of steps away, turned back. It wasn't clear if he was looking at Lancelot or Bors or both of them, but Bors' arm dropped immediately down.
"It doesn't make him a bad warrior after all", Lancelot muttered. "And soon lady of freedom is waiting for us. I bet you would love to give her one of your passionate kisses".
Bors laughed hoarsely, the sound coming from his lunges reminded of old dog's barking. It was too easy to ease his stress, because inside Bors always stayed a giant child. When he was left behind, Lancelot speeded his horse until he caught up with Tristan. Being closed inside for any kind of gods, he wouldn't pay attention, but if even Bors did… Something dark had moved inside his heart.
Tristan continued to look forward like he didn't hear him approaching.
"Who did she pointed to?" Lancelot whispered, strangely excited and ashamed of his question.
Tristan turned to him. The skull on the empty battlefield with the snake crawling out from the empty eye-socket, that's what his face was. With the eyes so dark you could never know where was he looked at. But you could feel when he looked at you.
"Dagonet". He said calmly, speeding his horse and leaving Lancelot in the whirlpool of snowflakes.
He didn't know the name of the tall old Saxon, but his heart started to boil with feverish excitement as their eyes met. Deep inside he felt he found the enemy of all his life, worth fighting with, not one of those young kids he destroyed tens by tens. Another one addicted to "Death" wine, observing calmly his people falling down.
Tristan knew a lot about observing. He moved to the Saxon, his path was surprisingly clean, only doubling his confidence in a fight, prepared to him by destiny. Their blades crossed and flashed inside the gray clouds of smoke. Man was almost twice lager, but this obstacle never stopped Tristan before. His mind went blank. As always at such moments, he became only a cold and sharp weapon, without any extra move, with all his strikes getting the goal. His body felt the first explosion of pain which only doubled his actions. His black eyes became red and glimmering, everything around lost its sense.
Nothing else ever had sense for him. Except this. Except sticking the sword inside the dark ugly heart of enemy and hear two-three last beats, vibrating on the blade. Then enjoy the silence for couple of moments before letting the body down.
His arm which never knew mishit already aimed itself for the last furious burst, when his eye caught someone else moving behind enemy's broad shoulders. Wind could do nothing with maid's hair, it was soaked with blood, blood streamed down her face as she stood up from the fallen warrior before touching his forehead with her finger. Tristan's eyes followed her approaching another warrior, then red and brown grass became impossibly close to his eyes. He fell under the hit he even didn't feel and saw his sword out of reach. Saxon was a man of honesty, Tristan made a right choice of an enemy. He waited for him to grab the handle again, but when he shakily raised on his feet, he saw her again, right behind Saxon's shoulder. She stepped aside, blood trail followed her step, then she stretched her hand forward…
Tristan was grabbed by the throat, but he didn't see the shining blade above him. He had to show the honor to the lady… Who brought him pain, the only thing that reminded him he was alive and winning. The only force that kept him moving. The essence of his life, because he didn't know anything else. The meaning of his life. Like her most devoted servant, he took all she had to offer and brought it to others, may others… But at the present moment all the pain was his as Saxon's sword fell down, cutting the air and cutting Tristan's armor and flesh.
He met her empty black eyes, just like his own, and pointed back at her with his rapidly weakened arm. Then he took barely noticeable bow, and his head never raised again.
"This is the destiny of all who know my secret" He suddenly heard.
She pressed her forehead to his and embraced his body.
Was it just black smoke, or Arthur really saw something dark surrounding his devoted scout, Tristan?
Was it?
THE END.