I: How to be free

The wind tasted different in every country they passed on their long journey to their new post, Britain. He had never been to any other country than Sarmatia; yet he knew the difference when he tasted the scent of the air. The Roman legionarii had not told them much about the countries they passed through, but Tristan's eyes had drunk it all in, every detail that told him that it was a foreign country – the scent, the garb of the people, the harsh sounds of their language, incomprehensible to his ears. Some of the cities they passed through were majestic. He had never seen buildings that grand. Some of the infrastructure he admired – they used water pipes to heat their floor in the winter, he had heard. Yes, he couldn't help but admire that, as much as he despised them.

The scent and the sounds of home however he held deep in his heart, treasured, where no one would be able to find them. "They can take everything away from you," his father had warned. "Everything but one thing." Tristan had looked up questioningly. "There is your heart, son. Steady, beating. They can't take the treasures of your mind. Remember the sound of your horse's beating hooves in these plains, son. And remember how the wind smells. They can't take that away from you."

So Tristan remembered and he treasured it: the quiet, melodic sound of his mother's voice, the warm touch of his father's hand and the murmuring of the wind over the plains. He knew he would not forget as long as he lived.

The other boys he travelled with liked to complain and to argue amongst themselves, yet Tristan rarely spoke. He saw no need for it, really. There was not much to be said. He rather liked to observe – there was so much sound in the quiet, could they not hear? He marveled about their apparent inability to be silent in the beginning. There was so much song in the wordless silence – the way, the grass rippled in the breeze, the way, a horse neighed, the way a lark sang, high high in the air. Why was there any need to spoil that quiet? Tristan's tribe had been a quiet people, often not saying a word for hours. They did not like to speak during the day, just going about their chores. In the evenings they had sometimes gathered around a fire and had sung. Their songs had embraced the emptiness of the plains they lived on, had heralded the cold stars and the quiet all around them. It was a song of solitude so profound it seemed endless. He held that song of the quiet in his heart. Like his father said, he knew they could never take that away from him.

"Do you not speak?"

It was the voice of a boy with curls. He liked to aggravate others, mostly the Roman officers. Tristan thought he was a bit too obstreperous and he liked to take his distance of him, Lancelot, as he was called.

"If I see the need I can speak."

Tristan's voice was scratchy due to disuse. They spoke different dialects, Lancelot and him, and it was difficult to communicate, sometimes. However, Tristan's statement was clear enough. Nonetheless the boy went on.

"You rarely do see the need then."

"Yes."

Lancelot fell silent, obviously taken aback at so much bluntness. As he moved his horse away Tristan noticed the other boys all looking at him in wonder. He did not really understand why.

Tristan spent the following weeks in a monotonous manner. He was with himself most of the time yet he did not mind. His eyes followed the outline of the trees, wondering about the difference in trees – he had never seen many in Sarmatia – admiring colourful birds, watching people. There was a part of him wondering why he did not seem to be as depressed as all of the other boys and that part of him wondered whether they did after all have cause to look at him askance. Yes, he did miss home. But he carried it in his heart and they could not take that away from him. He was a curious soul, always had been. A part of him was amazed at all the different things he got to see on this journey. And of course, like the other boys, he did not like the way the Romans treated them and he did not like the way they watched them – as if they were less than they themselves. "Auxiliary troops," they liked to call them. He was just not so vocal about his dislike like, for example, Lancelot.

Tristan had learned that there were many different auxiliary troops, from many different regions. Some of the Roman legionarii, who travelled with them were auxiliary troops. Some others were Roman citizens by birth. In total, they were about 30 men, led by a decurion called Quintus Aelius Priscus. Tristan had surmised, that 30 men were already a big unit, but they had laughed at him, telling him that they were only a part of a legion, which consisted of almost 6000 men. That had come as something of a shock. Tristan marveled at the size of the Roman Empire. No one had ever thought to tell him that it was all so vast – and he had thought Sarmatia was a vast country. The Romans also taught them Latin. Tristan picked up the language easily enough. Some of the other boys sneered at him for that. He ignored them and merely shot them an aloof look whenever they picked on him for being able to speak the language of their slave-drivers so well.

One day they stopped in a garrison situated in the middle of a grassy clearing. They were greeted by a centurio on watch, who shouted out a greeting. Quintus greeted him back respectfully. They had passed through a dense forest with barely any light before arriving there and since it had been a long way they were all exhausted.

The centurio stood conversing with Quintus, then he abruptly turned to the Sarmatian boys. He did not introduce himself. He merely stood in front of them and looked them up and down. Cheerless grey eyes searched them. He seemed to be a stern man without much humour, yet Tristan sensed that he was a very capable officer.

"You are now part of the auxiliary troops of this Empire, boys," he said curtly. "See this as an honour. If you do well, you have the chance to rise through the ranks."

The boys were silent, defiant. They all thought that none of them had asked to be here, yet none of them dared to open their mouth. Tristan however, looked steadily at him. He saw no reason to look away. He would never look away from another's challenge, he thought grimly.

The Roman centurio did come over then, seeing Tristan's look. "You seem like you wish to defy me," he said in his clear Latin.

"I do not," Tristan struggled with the words, "wish to defy you. I merely don't wish to look away."

"Why?" the centurio asked, looking genuinely intrigued.

"Because I wish it," he paused, trying to put forth the difficult Latin syllables," I do as I wish."

The centurio paused, his cold eyes glittering. "Do you think you are a free man, boy?"

"I have always been free," Tristan said matter-of-factly.

There was cold anger now in the voice of the other as he replied: "You are to serve this Empire now, boy. You mustn't do as you wish. Never disobey a command. Now I command you to look down."

Tristan stared at him. "I will not."

The centurio's cold look changed to something near respect. He nodded shortly. "Very well." He turned to Quintus, who nodded shortly. "Have him flogged."

There was a lot of pain after that and Tristan's recollection of it got quite hazy. He came to, really, when he was lying on a soft cloth on his stomach and a gentle hand put herbs on his back. He hissed.

"That was not an intelligent thing to say," a voice commented and Tristan recognised the voice quickly. It belonged to Dagonet, an older boy travelling with their group. He was a rather quiet one also and Tristan saw in him a bit of a kindred spirit.

"Yet it was the honest thing to do," he said quietly and twitched in pain when Dagonet touched the wounds on his back once more. "But is it always the intelligent way to be honest?" Tristan shrugged, not wanting the other boy to see how conflicted he was. Dagonet smiled. "You impressed him, that Roman."

Tristan said nothing to that. "Where did you learn how to be a healer?" Dagonet wrapped some linen around Tristan's torso. "My father taught me," he said slowly. "And the Romans gave me some of their healing supplies. There is one of them, Antonius, whom I am learning from also. They are not all bad people, you know."

"I don't know," Tristan whispered thickly and that was the only admission of weakness he would show. Dagonet knew as much, he could sense that. He felt a warm hand squeezing his shoulder. "You are allowed to stay here in the healing room for today, Tristan. Tomorrow we journey on," he said in his rough Alani dialect. "Get some sleep." With that he got up and left.

There is no comfort here, Tristan thought and the thought suddenly hurt more than it normally would have. There was no way to calm the raging beast inside of him, that now clawed its way through: how could he preserve the song of the quiet in his heart? How was he to keep that part of himself when they wanted to strip him bare? They would try to break him again and again, he knew that. There was no way he could fit in. That realisation choked him up. The officer had implied that he was somehow now on a lower rung of existence, he was the one who had to obey. He was suddenly reminded of the slaves the royal family of their clan owned, who had been taken from farmers' villages in the woods next to the wide Sarmatian plains. Did they feel like this? Sure, they did not have a bad life – they were treated decently enough and given enough to eat, but they could not go away. Was he like them now? Was he now a slave, not a free man?

And finally it was this thought that made his throat go tight, not the thought that they were now separated from their families. He had known it would be like that.

But no one had thought to tell him that he would now be a slave for the next fifteen years.

Hello to you! I haven't written anything in ages, but Tristan wouldn't let this go - so I would really love to know what you think of this so far!

A decurion led a cavalry unit consisting of 30 men. In a legion of almost 6000 men, there were only four cavalry units, so about 120 men. The other units were all infantry units.