"He was caught outside the encampment. Said he wanted out." Honorius said, shoving Lancelot forward. Lancelot bared his teeth at the commander and dug his heels into the ground, resisting the larger man.
"I never wanted this!" He snarled at the garrison leader, who stared down at him with an unreadable expression. "Your wars have nothing to do with me; enlist some Roman boy and let me go home."
Honorius clamped a hand over his mouth, cutting off the rest of his rant. Before them Caelestis leaned forward, eyes glinting. "Boy, it is most foolish of you to go up against the Roman army. Do you know what the punishment for desertion is? You'll be executed. Or we could simply chose every tenth man from your unit and kill him instead."
Lancelot blanched, eyes dark in his pale face. "You can't punish them." He mumbled, words muffled by Honorius's hand.
Caelestis shrugged. "It teaches all a lesson. Men rarely desert after seeing such punishment." He stood up, cloak swirling around him, and strode forward, armor clinking. "How old are you, boy?" he asked softly.
"Fifteen." Lancelot replied.
"You seem like a fair enough soldier; I've been told you bested some of the better soldiers in your unit." Lancelot smirked a bit at that, the praise overshadowing the commander's too-conciliatory tone.
"You've arrogance, too; I can see it in your eyes." Caelestis said softly, grabbing Lancelot chin to peer into his face. For a few seconds the room was quiet, save for Lancelot's heavy breathing and the clink of soldiers outside.
Finally Caelestis turned away, wiping his hand on his side as he turned. "Flog him." he said quietly to Honorius. "We will break him of this pride."
--
Lancelot jumped when the whip lashed him the first time, slicing his back open across his shoulder blades. The second hit a few inches below, slashing across a newly healed scar from a skirmish in the practice ring. He hissed and bent his head forward, determined to not scream.
"You'll break soon, boy." A soldier called, voice jeering, from the crowd gathered to watch. Lancelot looked up to throw back a retort and blanched as another lash landed on his already bleeding skin.
It seemed to go on for hours; gradually Lancelot's body went numb and unfeeling in the cold, and the bite of the whip only stung. He drifted in his mind, remembering his sister's voice and the feel of the winter sun on his face. He missed his family, his home, more than he thought was possible; it was as though he had lost an arm and not yet realized it was gone.
The feel of the cold grass beneath his hands was what brought him back to reality. Behind him the crowd of soldiers were moving away, back to their regular activities, while the man who had whipped him was cleaning his lash carefully, wiping the blood from the leather.
"C'mon boy. On your feet." A voice said above him. Lancelot looked up blearily, in too much pain to move. The man above him gave him a quick smile and leaned down, carefully lifting him and leaning Lancelot against his side. "We'll have you healed in no time."
Lancelot stumbled forward, body shaking every time he moved a foot, and tried to ignore the feel of blood dripping down his skin. ""Who're you?"
The man smiled. "Artorius. Though most of my men call me Arthur."
--
Arthur, he discovered, was the young commander of the other Sarmatian unit. He was barely out of his teens, unused to the role of command. He was, he told Lancelot, much too lenient for such a role.
Lancelot quickly discovered the truth in that statement; where his own commander left Lancelot to care for himself, Arthur carefully cleaned his wounds and bandaged them, all the while keeping up a stream of (mostly) one sided conversation to keep Lancelot's mind from the pain.
"Done." Arthur said finally, knotting the final bandage across Lancelot's ribcage. "This is a very lenient punishment, you know."
"All I wanted was to go home." Lancelot said quietly. "They can find someone else to fill my spot; I don't want this."
Arthur crouched down in front of him, resting his arms against the side of the cot. "You're a soldier of the Roman army now; it doesn't matter what you want, so long as you obey orders."
"Just as everyone says-- obey your orders, Lancelot, it's only fifteen years… Well, I don't want to obey orders anymore; I don't want to die in some godforsaken isle that I don't know. And all anyone can say is quit complaining!"
Arthur reached a hand up to grasp Lancelot's chin gently. "I tell you this for your own good: things will go much easier for you if you get over this homesickness. I too came from far away to this post; I too could not understand why I was here. I came to accept it as my fate, and so must you."
Lancelot looked away mulishly, refusing to give in so easily.
Arthur laughed and stood up. "I could transfer you to my unit, if you would like. I am not so hard as Honorius; my men are all happy enough. You would fit well I think; they are a most stubborn lot."
Lancelot glanced at him. "I don't see how my lot would be improved."
Arthur shrugged. "Consider it an open offer, then. I'll give you time to think of it."
--
For the next few days Lancelot moved stiffly, back aching as his wounds healed. In the practice ring he would sometimes catch Arthur watching out of the corner of his eye, and move faster, back protesting, to thump the other boy across the chest. At dinner he always managed to find a man from Arthur's unit; first Agravaine, who told him of Arthur's kindness, then Bedivere, who told him off their prowess on the battlefield.
A month later he sought out Arthur in his quarters. "I've thought about your offer." He said when Arthur ushered him into his small room. "And I decided I accept it."
Arthur cocked an eyebrow. "Good. Go find Bors and have him find you a place to set your things. Then head to the stables and find the horse master; he needs another set of hands." He shook a parchment at Lancelot's surprised expression. "Don't stand around. There's work to be done!"
Lancelot scampered.
--
Gradually Lancelot acclimated to life in his new unit. He learned to throw with accuracy, kill a man with one cut, how to string a bow quickly and keep alive in the heat of battle.
One morning he woke and could not remember his mother's voice; the next he could not recall the way his father talked of the sky. He forgot his home and began to think of the encampment as home, and his fellow knights as his brothers. He took his first woman and fathered his first bastard; he rode into battle and killed, and learned to think nothing of it. He watched his brothers fall to a sword, an arrow, a raging fever, and every time Arthur was at his side, calming him when he could not see anything but fear, smiling at him over a half-empty wineskin.
One night he tried to imagine what the stars looked like in the steppes but he could only see Arthur, jade eyes sparkling as he spoke of equality and freedom.
--
Years later, he would not remember why, exactly, he received his first flogging, but only that it brought him to Arthur.
"You never did tell me if you got over your homesickness." Arthur said idly, tracing the path of a scar down his spine with a calloused hand.
Lancelot smiled into the darkness and said nothing, simply cherished the feel of Arthur's hands anchoring him, supporting him, giving him a home in a world of death and darkness and confusion.
"Yes." He said, finally, and flipped over to tug Arthur down beside him. "I did."