Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the film King Arthur, nor do I own the myth, or anything else, just the girl character who I realize doesn't have a name yet.
Prologue: Heartache sans Hope
They used to describe me as lively. Spirited. Fiesty. Now they walk by me, I am unseen, unnoticed, insignificant. I am dead. I walk, I breath, I eat, I serve. But I don't speak. I don't live.
My earliest memories, I think, are truly what keeps my mind alive, locked inside itself. I think back to my family, I try to picture their faces, the sounds of their voices, the comfort of their touch. It gets harder as I get older, the memories fade, and most of them memories I still cling to I am sure have more basis in fantasy than reality. My mother, who always smelled of honey and lavender, my father who laughed too loud. A little sister, so small, so fragile. And a brother. He was older, much older, and didn't live with us. He fought, I think, but I was so young, I did not understand. He was my hero, I spent years imagining…..But that was so long ago, none of that matters now. No, the past matters not, only the present, this hour, this second, this task.
That life is no longer. Now I serve, nothing more and nothing less, I am no more and no less than a slave, no name, no past, no feeling. Or so I try to convince myself. It seldom works. When I was small, perhaps four or five winters old, the sickness swept through our village like a plague, it took so many. My china doll of a sister. My friends. Grandparents. So many, but the faces are just a blur. The village was decimated, we needed food, labor, resources, we had none. My uncle came to our hut, with his own daughter, who was a little older than I. I had never liked Yaria, she would always call me names, and once she pushed me into the mud. But this day she was quite, and as still as death. We took my uncle black steed, traveling for many days. I was so excited to be allowed to ride the horse, I don't even remember saying goodbye. But perhaps they had all died by then. I was to understand that we were in Rome now, though I am unsure as to where I originally came from. We came to a market; it was the most amazing thing! Egyptian glass, beads from Persia, copper pots, dresses, veils, plants, strange animals and food, and so many different people!
My uncle spoke to a hairy man, and we all went inside a pub. He spoke to his daughter, and left, and waited by the hairy man. And waited. And waited. We waited for so long. I think my cousin knew. The hairy man looked at us with pity, but knew that business had to continue. He walked us to a nearby seller, where we were stayed in a pen for a couple days. I was bought, lead off into that maze of a city tagging along behind a fat man with pretty hair and purple clothes, watching as my cousin stay behind, bund to the post. I saw her grow smaller and smaller, I screamed her name but was promptly cut off be the fat man's hand against my head. And I never saw my cousin again.
I was not the best of servants, slaves really. This was not for lack of trying, for indeed I so desired to please at first. I was just not very good at being good. I might be told to pick herbs from the edge of the woods, and returns hours later with a bouquet of flowers for my mistress, or would talk out of turn, or laugh, or smile, or spill something. None of this was appreciated, of course, but I was small even for my age, with tumbling locks, rosy cheeks and a tiny voice, so I was tolerated, spoiled even, by other servants and the nobles alike. But things started to change as I grew. I was no longer candid, I was lazy or stupid or clumsy or whorish. I was too obtrusive as a child, and this cost me later in life. They all knew stories of me, they all knew me. But the looks I got changed, no longer a child, the women grew jealous of my appearance, and the men grew lustful, they would seek me out, which made the women hate me even more. The young mistress, Secunda, whom I served most often, saw the change in my demeanor. She allowed me to sleep in her room, on a pallet on the floor, asked her father to give me to her personally. He did, he loved her dearly, but that didn't change much. I would come back, bruised and beaten, barely speaking. What could I say, I, a slave?
One night I came back with blood dripping from my brow, and dirt matted in my hair and clothes. She looked so mad; I thought she was going to hit me too, though she never had. Instead, she gave me a cloth and then packed a small pouch with food, a flask. I watched as she sewed some coins into the hem of a raggedy tunic, but still did not understand. The next day she told her father that she was tired off me. I complained too much, I was lazy, an insulting little whore! My reaction was real as I stood in disbelief; my only friend was saying these things about me! The others all said them and I didn't care, but how could Secunda believe them? She told her father that she wanted to sell me, and she wanted to do it herself. This was unheard of, of course, and he refused, but she so pushed the matter, and eventually convinced him that as a fifteen year old, she should have been married years ago, and would soon be the mistress of her own household, and would have to know how to deal with disobedient slaves. He agreed to allow her to take me to the market, as long as Gallus, another servant, went with her. On the way, we stopped and bought prunes from a stand, and laughed and talked. But I still did not understand until Secunda made us stop at an inn. She pulled me into a room and opened her bag. Inside was the small satchel she had prepared, and boys clothing, and a knife. She ordered me to let down my hair – she cut it all off. Such shame and humiliation, she made me put on the boys clothing. I looked in the mirror. I looked like a young boy, maybe 9 years old instead of the fourteen I estimated that I was. Then she handed me her necklace, a simple black cord with a pendant in the shape of the symbol of a trident, symbol of the sea god, Poseidon. Secunda's family had originally lived by the sea, before moving inland. Once I got to go with them to visit it, it was so huge. "You must never forget what you are," she said, and smiled. I understood now. This was an act of compassion, not hate. She was giving me another chance.
Gallus noticed that I went into the room as a girl, and came out as a very distraught looking boy. He wouldn't tell though, he loved Secunda with all his thought, and would do anything for her. The rest of the trip he taught me how to walk, talk, and act as a man, and to forget "the wiles of women," with a devilish grin towards Secunda. Once at the market, I was sold as a boy: young, nimble, quick to learn. I was sold to a prominent Roman, a man named Marius Honorius. He was buying a surplus of slaves, I was later told, because he did not expect all of his own to make the trek to Britannia, to a province that had recently been granted to him by the Pope.
For two years I have served Marius. He is a disgusting creature. He tortures to make himself feel powerful, and excuses his behavior with religious justification. He is soulless. I soon found out that trying to remain intelligent and aware would set you apart from the others, would make you more prone to punishment, and eventual death. It didn't take much else to beat me down. I had lost all those who I ever loved. I had been hurt. I was in a strange and hostile land, with no hope of escape because of the native people who surrounded us, and no chance of making friends. The servants feared me for my foreignness, my strangeness, my oddities. Besides, now that I was supposed to be a boy, it was presumed I would associate with men, and I did not feel comfortable around them, So slowly I became what I am today, tired, worn, beaten, a featureless, genderless, emotionless being who survives, but does not live. A being with dreams for the future, but no hope. Never hope.