Chapter One: Cold
The woman wakes with a start, stiff and cold. She's sitting in their tree. The fact that the sun is not yet risen above the horizon line makes her colder still, but she realizes that the cold compliments her frozen heart. With a grim nod, she accepts this truth. If he can never be here again, she will remain frozen, untouched by everything.
He is gone. Gone. And there is nothing that can be done by her or anyone else to change this fact.
Yet… Just as this thought crosses her mind, so does another. She can do nothing. That much is true, but there is one... Perhaps… Perhaps he can.
A man known for his magic and skill. Yes. She will go to him. She shall go to him and beg for his help. He must help her. He must, for if he does not… If he cannot, she shall surely lose her will to live. With these thoughts circling through her mind, she packs her saddlebags and prepares her horse.
The sun is barely breaking through the gloom when she dons her armor and loads her weapons onto her horse.
She is ready. Following one last inventory, she climbs onto the fine horse.
Without so much as a last glance at her home of one and thirty years, she urges her horse forward. After all, there is nothing here for her. All lies in her destination.
Briton. That is where she must go. Her quest?
To find the Merlin.
O
It has been months, but now she is only minutes from the end of her long journey.
She looks down at her normally strong wrists now abnormally thin. They look like a child's wrists, yet they are her own, gaunt from scarcity of food. She had run out nearly three months ago and had been scrounging ever since then.
Soon, though, it will not matter. Soon she will be there. She will speak to the Merlin, spoken of only in whispers by the former Sarmatian knights that had already completed their service to Rome and returned. If what they had told was truth, Merlin could set things right.
She spurs her horse to go just a little faster, anxious to arrive, but upon reaching the top of a hill, she cannot help but stare in awe.
Hadrian's Wall. Its enormity nearly frightens her, but she cannot afford to falter now. Not when she is so close.
Within a mile of the wall, she hears shouts, then the gates open, and two riders come out to meet her. Seeing them, she slows her horse to a halt and the two horsemen do the same once within spear-throwing distance.
"Be you friend or foe?" shouts one, his long blond hair falling over his shoulders, his armor glistening in the sunlight.
"Pray for your sake the answer is friend or you'll taste cold steel!" shouts the other, his whole frame bulky and intimidating. She has no doubt that these men will make good on this threat, but she quickly realizes that she has no reason to fear, for they are her own kind.
Suddenly glad that Galvin had taught her the language of Rome, for these men have not spoken in the language of her ancestors, she cries out to them in a loud voice,
"I am Sarmatian. I am a friend. I mean no harm."
The blond man turns to his fellow rider. "Bors, I believe you have threatened a woman. A beautiful Sarmatian woman at that, if my eyes do not deceive me. I told you they exist."
"Aye. I suppose you did," his companion replies, clearly not used to admitting that he is wrong.
The blond spurs his horse forward and turns to align himself and his horse beside her, the bulkier man following suite.
"Hello, milady," the blond greets with a smile. "I am sorry if we frightened you."
"You didn't," she says, and the men see cross her face a sneer similar to that belonging to one of their old friends. Quite obviously, she is disgusted at the notion that they had frightened her.
"Woah! What have we here?" questions the other man, Bors. She turns to see what has caught his attention. Instantaneously, she realizes he has spotted the sword on her back and the quiver full of arrows that is strapped to her horse's saddle, resting at her knee, with the bow hung on the quiver.
The bulky man looks at her with a new, strange look, something between disbelief and confusion. "Why are you carrying all these, woman?"
She straightens pridefully in the saddle, her dark curls being slightly lifted by a gentle breeze wafting by them.
"My name is not 'woman'. It is Iseult, and I carry these weapons because I am a Sarmatian warrior."
The blond raises his eyebrows at his companion as if to suggest that he should ask another stupid question and get killed before looking to the woman and warmly smiling.
"My name is Gawain, and as you may have gathered, my friend here is Bors. I am certain that he meant you no insult. We are simply not accustomed to female warriors."
"Speak for yourself, Gawain. My Vanora is a fighter," Bors grins wolfishly.
Rolling his eyes, Gawain then looks once more to Iseult.
"Please excuse my friend. He can be crude at times. He obviously doesn't know the difference between what is acceptable to speak of in the company of men, and what is polite in the company of women."
She laughs loudly, the sound short and harsh. She has not laughed in some time she realizes with a slight frown.
"He does not bother me. I have heard worse in my village."
They look at her, clearly bemused but say nothing more of it instead moving to official business.
"What is your business here?" Gawain questions, bright blue eyes curious.
"To visit the place of my friend."
"Who is your friend? Maybe Gawain knows her?" asks Bors with a wink and a guttural chuckle.
"Him, not her. My friend is Tristan. Tristan Drust."
Their faces fall instantly as a horrible memory returns to them. Blood. Blood and death. There was nothing they could do. Nothing.
"I hate to tell you this, Iseult, but Tristan—"
"Is gone. I know."
She cannot bring herself to say dead, but they realize what she means.
"Then why are you—"
"To visit his grave." And possibly fix things are the words she leaves unspoken.
"Well, then," Bors begins, tone suddenly heavy, as one who has lost much.
He sends his horse into a canter, leaving Gawain and Iseult there without another glance. Gawain looks to her sadly before jerking his head in the direction of the wall.
"Follow me. I'll take you to him."
Without another word, he nudges the horse with his foot, signaling for the beautiful creature to start forward; Iseult does the same, riding alongside his horse.
"You were his friend?" she asks, but it's not really a question. Just a statement left open-ended to continue the conversation.
"Yes. He was my friend and he was my brother," he answers and on his face is a grim smile that is quickly replaced by curiosity. "But if you don't mind me asking, how do… did you know him?"
"I am of the same village as he."
"And that has brought you to look for him?" he questions, raising an eyebrow doubtfully at her.
She shakes her head, her hair falling into her face. With a sigh, she tucks the unruly strands behind her ears before answering the man.
"No. Tristan was my friend. My only friend."
Again, he appears saddened. "I see. I'm sorry… You must miss him."
"I have missed him every day for fifteen years, and now… Now I shall miss him for longer.
'But maybe not much longer,' she cannot help but think to herself.
"As I said. He was our brother. Almost always silent, but every one of us knew that if we needed help or someone to listen to us talk, he was always there to help. Though more often than not, he would offer witty one-liners that made you wonder why you came to talk to him to begin with," he laughs, obviously remembering one such experience. His face soon darkens again, however. "I cannot count how many times he helped us, saved one of us from some Woad or other danger, yet… When he needed our help… Well… All we could do was bury him."
"I'm sure he wouldn't blame you."
He releases a harsh, humorless laugh, sounding much as her laugh had earlier.
"No. You're probably right there. Tristan never did let anyone but himself take the blame for his decisions. I remember once, he was up in a tree with two of us below, there to catch him if he fell. And right as he was on the last two branches he did fall, but for some reason, we were unable to catch him. We never did find out if he was hurt, but he told us to stop apologizing because it was his own fault that he lost his 'damn footing'."
She cannot help but smile at the story Gawain had shared with her.
"He's been like that for as long as I can remember," she says, a small smile playing upon her lips. She pauses as they pass through the gates, and then continues. "One day, he was teaching me archery, or was trying to anyway, and somehow, when I loosed an arrow, it grazed his arm. I immediately began apologizing, but he just shook his head, cursed once, and said he shouldn't have been standing where he was."
She glances over to see the man smile. Just sharing these memories makes it seem as though Tristan is here with them. She can almost imagine him rolling his eyes and saying that they are chattering like two old women.
"He was definitely different than most people," Gawain chuckles.
Nodding, Iseult looks ahead to see Bors stopped and dismounting. She examines the area quickly, scanning. There are so many burial mounds. Some with swords marking them and some without.
In the midst of them, she sees for what she is looking, and immediately dismounts, not even bothering to tether her horse anywhere.
She walks to the burial mound, almost timidly and upon reaching it, stops.
A curved blade sprouts from the ground, and she knows, with neither Bors nor Gawain telling her, that she is standing in front of his grave.
The sword had been his father's and his grandfather's and his great-grandfather's, passed down for generations to every Sarmatian warrior in his family line. Every one of them had safely returned and produced a male heir, but here it ends.
Here in the cold ground lies the last of the Drust family. Tristan had no older or younger brothers. He didn't even have any sisters. He, like Iseult, had been orphaned at a young age. He was the last of his family.
And here he is, buried in the snowy ground.
Once more, she sinks to her knees, overwhelmed by the pain, the sadness.
'What if Merlin can't fix it? What if… What if… this is it? What if…'
Kneeling there in front of his grave, she realizes that more than a single tear has fallen.
Gawain and Bors exchange weary looks before returning their gazes to the silently crying woman. The cold wind that warns of nightfall's approach is beginning to pick up, lifting her hair around her. With her armor on and her hair moving around her shoulders in the wind, she looks surreal, like some warrior goddess of the hills, mourning a great warrior.
'It is a sad scene indeed,' Gawain thinks miserably as he and Bors watch her. As much as they wish to give her privacy, it would not be right to leave her here unprotected.
In thinking upon it, neither he nor Bors can help but draw some parallels between their fallen brother and this woman, who had been his friend long before either of them knew him.
From what they had seen, she was not quite as reserved as the scout had been, but she certainly was not what either of them would call 'chatty'.
Then there was the sneer of disgust she had presented them with when Gawain apologized for 'frightening' her. They had indeed seen that expression before, several times in fact, on the face of the silent scout. One such time had been when he had said those words that they found so prophetic in retrospect.
'Yeh, yeh. We're all going to die some day. If it is a death by Saxon hands that frightens you,' he had sneered at no one in particular, simply at the general idea of fear, 'stay home.'
She also seems just as opposed to showing weakness to others because, even now, she sits with her back to them. The only indication she is crying is a sob that would wrack her frame from time to time.
After a few moments, Bors must turn away and walks to the grave of another fallen brother, but Gawain cannot take his eyes off from her. He realizes that he can no longer simply stand there and watch her cry like this; he must do something.
So wrapped up in her own grief and fears is Iseult that she jumps and spins, dagger in hand when his hand comes to rest on her shoulder. Her reddened eyes take in the sight of Gawain, hand having been withdrawn and held with the other out at his sides, showing he meant her no harm.
'Quick with a dagger, just like him. I can tell he taught her,' he thinks sadly.
Immediately, she forces herself to relax and reverts to how she had been before he had arrived, returning the dagger to its sheath.
"I'm sorry," she mutters, the sound barely loud enough for him to hear.
Assured that he is now in no danger, he joins her on the frozen ground, sitting with one leg outstretched before him, the other bent so that he can rest an arm on it.
"It's alright. No harm done."
For several moments, neither speaks, but then her voice, as if originating from some distant place, breaks the silence.
"How did he fall?"
Gawain nervously shifts. How much should he tell her? Warrior or no, she is still a woman.
"Do not try to spare me images. I want to know how he fell," she states adamantly, answering his unspoken question with not so much as a glance at him, her voice as cold as the ground beneath them. In her speaking, her voice never once broke or gave any indication of what she must be feeling.
'So much like him,' he reflects, before trying to choose his words tactfully.
"I only saw very little of it, but Arthur saw much more and told us afterwards… Between the two stories, I can tell you what happened, but are you sure you wish to know?"
His reply is a nod and thus he continues.
"He fell to Cerdic, the Saxon leader and king. The filthy creature had run Tristan's sword arm through with a dagger. When he fell the Saxon pulled him up. Tristan didn't go quietly, though. He fought bravely, even at the end when he must have known that..." he pauses and shakes his head, restarting. "He yanked the Saxon knife from his arm and thrust it into Cerdic's leg with what must have been the last of his strength, and then… Cerdic used Tristan's own sword to kill him."
"How?" she asks, her voice still sounding as though she is far, far away.
Once more, he shifts nervously before remembering her words. Don't try to spare me images. I want to know how he fell.
"Cerdic used Tristan's sword to cut his arm and then stab him through his side as he held him up. I saw Tristan arch back, looking at the sky and I think he had started to breathe his last breaths right then… Arthur turned to see Cerdic holding Tristan up, our brother's head bowed to the ground. When Cerdic saw that Arthur was watching, he spun and used his momentum to pull Tristan into a standing position, then delivered the finishing blow, right where the neck and shoulder meet, and it went straight down to his collarbone. When Arthur reached them, Tristan was…" he pauses, trying to gather his composure and starts again, "Arthur fought and killed Cerdic, but it was too late to save Tristan."
She watches it play out in her mind, never seeing the face of either Tristan or Cerdic, just the movements. She frowns realizing that she doesn't even know what he looked like at the time. All she knows is the quiet boy with the watchful brown eyes who had befriended her, protected her, trained her. She knows nothing of this scout, this man, whom Gawain said had fought Death itself but lost the battle.
"What did he look like?" she questions, eyes closed.
The blond knight is puzzled a moment before he realizes that the last she would have seen their friend was when he was not yet a man, only sixteen at the oldest. He feels the guilt begin to rise up again, and he attempts, for her sake, to find the words to describe his brother.
"He was tall, easily six foot with broad shoulders and tanned, weathered skin from his stay in this godforsaken land. He was strong, but not as heavy built as Bors. Closer to my build. He had a beard… He… He let his hair grow to his shoulders and he would have three or four warrior's braid throughout, to keep the most unruly strands in check, I suppose… He always looked watchful, like his hawk, always watching out for us, protecting us from things that none of the rest of us could see until they showed themselves… And then, there were a few times, I would see him sitting by himself in the tavern or in our meeting room, seeming as though he weren't really there at all, but was somewhere else... That's all I can think of really…"
She sits for a moment longer, eyes closed, trying in vain to picture the man Gawain had described before the knight's hand is on her shoulder again.
"It grows late. We should get you to the villa. I am certain we can find somewhere you might stay," he states gently, hating to pull her from whatever thoughts she had been having but knowing that if she catches cold, surely Tristan would be displeased.
She nods and opens her weary brown eyes—tired from her travels and from her loss—and she stands, Gawain doing the same. Without a word, for he knows no words can comfort her or ease the pain she feels, Gawain offers her his arm.
She almost argues, almost pridefully straightens once more and tells him that she is not some grandmother or fragile little girl who needs his arm, but she sees the compassion on his face and stops herself. She knows it would hurt him greatly were she to do such a thing, and she cannot bring herself to do it after he and his friend had been so kind to her. After he had brought her to him. Thus, swallowing back her pride, her warrior's independence, she links her arm in his.
She allows him to lead her back to her horse, and even to help her up without a word of protest from her, while Bors climbs onto his own horse. Once satisfied that she is safely seated on her horse, Gawain mounts his own steed and the world-weary group begins toward the villa, all with their own private thoughts occupying their minds.