She woke up early that morning, just as the sun was rising, and thought amusedly that any other bunch of knights anywhere else around the world would have been up by now. It took the Sarmatians to invent the lazy yet more than competent knight, she thought to herself, maneuvering out from underneath Gawain and pulling her clothes on.
She actually managed to find the strings on the back of her top this morning, and she was just wondering if she could tie it in a fairly vague knot without sliding the strings through the loops and if it would still work when someone appeared behind her and started doing up the fastenings for her.
She could tell it Lancelot by the way she could feel his smirk, even from behind her.
She sighed. "One of these days I'll figure out how to do it,"
He laughed. "Oh, I'm sure."
She glared at him. "Don't you patronise me,"
Arthur came into the clearing and raised an eyebrow at them, then turned away to wake up his squire. "We should probably get everyone up, I suppose,"
"You wake up Gawain, and I'll do everyone else," Lancelot said to her, and she glared at him harder. This only caused him to laugh, however, so she sighed and turned to do as he said.
They actually ate breakfast that morning, which surprised her, because they hadn't yesterday.
"It means we're getting close to where we're going," Lancelot whispered in her ear as he saw her looking confusedly at the meat and eggs Arthur was frying on a flat rock in the coals.
Looking at the scene, she couldn't help thinking about what modern historians would say faced with an image of King Arthur cooking eggs for his knights.
"That means we can ease off the pace a bit on the horses, doesn't it?" she whispered back, looking concernedly at their drooping mob of horses.
Lancelot nodded. "Let's hope so. But we still have to hurry quite a bit, because if the Saxons reach the estate before we do not only will we have to race them back to the wall, we'll never get home."
Arthur even brought out some cheese for them to eat that morning, and they wolfed it down like… well, wolves, and then climbed onto their horses' backs, their eagerness and desperation to reach the estate before the coming Saxon army clearly evident on every knights' face. Jols, however, just looked passive, the same as usual, and Germanius' attendant looked slightly sick, but everyone else was stoically determined.
They rode through the rest of the forest at a trot, trying to conserve their horses' energy, but once outside they broke into a fast canter again. As they rode, Jess noticed how beautiful and ever-changing the scenery was, so different to Australia.
Thankfully, it was mid-morning when they saw the huge estate house on the horizon, and they picked up pace to get there quicker. Every second counted with the Saxons, they knew, and they had to hurry if they were going to get everyone – Alecto most importantly – out and back to the Wall.
As they rode up to the gates, Tristan split off from the main group to ascertain how much time they had. The gates swung closed as they approached, which was fairly pointless, Jess thought, looking around at them all. Not only was Arthur wearing the armour of a Roman officer, they all looked too exhausted to be any threat anyway.
"Who goes there?" the guard at the top of the gate shouted.
"Arthur Castus and the Sarmatian knights," Arthur replied, cricking his neck looking up at them.
The gates swung open almost immediately, and a pudgy little man wearing a toga waddled out through the gates. "Oh, it is a wonder you have come!" he said warmly. "Artor and his knights!"
He tried to reach out a hand to touch Galahad's horse Papaeus on the neck but the horse, obviously being able to smell Romans, backed away. Jess almost admired the dauntlessness of the fat little Roman man as he continued without even letting his offense show, but then she remembered all the stuff he did and that disappeared.
She looked uneasily at the gathering peasants, exchanging a look with Lancelot. She hadn't remembered them being so hungry-looking. There was one woman, near Gawain, who looked as if she was about to start eating Tabiti's chain-mail.
"We are here to supervise the evacuation of your estate," Arthur said, as his horse shifted warily under the hungry-eyed gaze of the peasants.
Honorius shook his head in confusion. "What? That's not possible. These are our lands, given to us by the Pope."
Arthur nodded. "I have orders from Rome to bring you all back to Hadrian's Wall."
"That is not possible," Honorius said, some of his confusion turning to anger.
Arthur looked at him. "Where is Alecto?" he said, addressing the question to everyone in general.
As one, all the peasants' eyes flew upward, to where a slender young boy stood against the battlements. "I am Alecto," he said confidently, and Jess noticed, looking at him, that he wouldn't have been much older than eighteen, which was older than her, anyway.
"Alecto is my son," Honorius blustered, trying to get the focus put back on him.
Arthur nodded. "I have been commanded by Rome to bring Alecto back to the Wall."
Honorius shook his head. "Everything we have is here! We will not leave."
"You're about to give your land to the Saxons," Arthur said, glancing around at the peasants, who had just moved closer.
Honorius glared at him for a second. "Then Rome will send an army."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "They have. Us. We'll leave as soon as you're ready."
Honorius shook his head and turned to walk away, evidently expecting that what he had said was an end on the conversation.
"Honorius," Arthur said, dangerously.
He glared at the little man and then moved his horse forward slightly so that they were right in front of the now sweating Honorius. "Until I bring you and your family back to the wall, my knights can't return home. So you're coming with me if I have to tie you to my horse and drag you all the way back to the great Wall myself,"
Jess exchanged an amused glance with Lancelot, who was not bothering to conceal his grin, as Arthur added, completely insincerely, "My lord,"
The fat little man glared at Arthur for a while, and then gave in, and looked at the men-at-arms beside him, motioning at the peasants. The soldiers started gabbing the people and throwing them on the ground to push them back towards their jobs.
"Get back to work," one said roughly to a young boy, throwing him onto the ground, and Jess noticed that he came up with a cut on his face.
She caught Gawain's eye and they shared a horrified glance before she moved Bartatua to stand beside Arthur, thinking to speed up a bit of their movement.
She pointed at the small room on the side of the battlements that held the Christian temple, as the priests walled it up, and directed Arthur's attention towards it.
"What do you think is in there?"
He frowned and then looked around at the rest of the courtyard leading up to the grandiose villa, and noticed the man hanging in chains. He dismounted and drew his sword, going over – followed by the peasants – to see what was going on.
"Oh, Gilioneron," Lancelot groaned, watching him. "He's off on another bloody moral crusade."
She looked at him. "Does he do this often?"
Gawain nodded, snorting derisively. "Every mission we've ever had. Arthur has a preoccupation with saving people."
There was a pause. "That came out wrong," Gawain said, flushing. "I didn't mean-"
"I know what you meant." Jess said, looking down at the saddle. "There's a time and a place, I guess."
They all nodded, and Bors went over to make sure that Arthur didn't get beaten up by the Roman bully-boy legionnaires.
They sat their horses and watched as Arthur showed the first true shreds of leadership Jess had ever seen him show.
"Marius is not of God!" he roared, waving his sword at them in a disturbing manner. "And you, all of you, were free from your first breath!"
Jess raised an eyebrow at Lancelot, and reflected how sad it was that the influence of Rome had corrupted Arthur so much that he could see the rightful freedom of unrelated slaves, but he couldn't stand up for the lives of his knights, his men, his friends through his fifteen years of service here in Britannia.
Arthur strode angrily back over towards them, after shouting at the peasants to mobilise themselves. To her relief, he walked straight towards the Christian temple that was being walled up, grabbed one of the priests by the front of his robe and asked the gibbering man what exactly it was that their master felt he had to wall up, to the detriment of his safety.
The Roman soldiers guarding the priests came over with their swords out, but Gawain and Lancelot drew their own swords and nudged their horses over to collide with the men, at which they stopped helplessly. As they did so, they all heard the distant thudding of Saxon war drums, and their horses shifted uncomfortably.
Marius and Alecto and the poor unfortunate woman who happened to be married into the Honorius family came over, all looking worried, although Marius' fear was mixed with affront and anger.
"Stop what you are doing!" he shouted imperiously, at which Arthur simply looked at Dagonet and nodded at the partly walled-in section of the door.
Lancelot sighed. "Arthur, we don't have the time,"
"Do you not hear the drums?" Galahad asked desperately.
Dagonet looked at them and then dismounted reluctantly, unsheathing his battleaxe. He then walked up to the door and slammed at the rocks with all of his considerable power, breaking down the wall that the priests had so carefully spent so much time constructing.
Dagonet kicked at the door once and then turned to Arthur. "It's locked."
Arthur looked at the Roman soldiers. "Key,"
One of them glared stonily at Arthur, but the other one felt the blade of Bors sword on his back and gulped hard. "It is locked… from the inside."
Arthur nodded at Dagonet again, and the big man kicked at the door a few times until it came open, busted off its hinges.
------------------
The knights sighed and gradually dismounted, following Arthur into the gathering dark. The smell was horrific, and Jess had to actually tear a piece of cloth off the bottom of her cloak and cover her face with it to even be able to get inside. Lancelot looked at her strangely but she ignored him; there was no way she was going to let herself catch some terrible disease in this place.
Gawain grabbed some torches and then pushed the two outraged priests into the catacomb with the majority of the knights, although Bors and a newly arrived Tristan stayed outside to stop Honorius from following them into the temple of death. It was dark and gloomy, even with the torches, and they walked towards the voice that was praying in what sounded like Latin.
Jess, however, was distracted by a door at one end of a corridor that she didn't remember from the movie. It was a big, thick wooden door, but she could hear some faint cries from behind it. She moved towards it cautiously, holding her torch high, trying to hear what or who was crying from behind there. There was a lot of shouting and some clanging of swords on chains from where Arthur and the knights were discovering both Guinevere and the little boy, Lucan, but she put her ear to the door and heard several female voices crying and moaning in a different language.
Dagonet came past her carrying Lucan and she grabbed Lancelot and Galahad as they went past, motioning at the door. "There's someone behind there."
Lancelot exchanged a look with Arthur, who was carrying Guinevere behind them.
"I'll look after these, you deal with that," Arthur said, moving past them. They nodded and Jess handed the torch to Lancelot, twisting the door handle experimentally. It was locked.
Lancelot handed her the torch back and kicked at the door, but it didn't budge. They exchanged a couple of looks and then the three of them tried it at the same time, and after about four goes it came open, revealing a horrifying sight.
Young girls chained to raised stone slabs littered the reeking room, and a few were hung up by chains from their wrists on the walls. She exchanged a horrified glance with Galahad and they moved into the room to where they could hear one of the girls moaning.
She was chained to a higher stone pillar, and she was pregnant. By the looks of it, she wouldn't be pregnant for very much longer, or even alive, seeing as she was actually in labour. Galahad took one look at her and then nearly ran away, but Jess grabbed his arm. "Start unchaining people,"
She turned to the young girl on the closest slab to the pregnant girl. "How long has she been in labour?"
The dark-haired young girl – a Scythian, Jess noticed, judging by the tattoos on her cheeks – shook her head, and Jess nodded, thinking that they probably wouldn't exactly have had a system for telling the time in those dank catacombs.
Lancelot was letting girls down from the walls, and a shocking amount of them were dead. He found one that was still breathing, however, and motioned to Jess that he would come back after he had taken her up to the others. Galahad unchained the pregnant girl and she immediately put her hands on her awkwardly distended stomach. Jess unchained the Scythian girl and turned to Galahad.
"I'll take her up to the others and send for some water for this one. We won't be able to move her. You check to see if any of the others are alive."
Galahad nodded grimly and put his gauntleted fist next to the mouth of one of the closest girls, checking for the mist of her breath.
She swung the young Scythian girl – who would actually have been about her age – into her arms and was horrified by how light she was. She carried the girl out into the sunlight, wincing as her eyes got accustomed to the bright light of day. Lancelot took the girl from her and placed her gently on the ground, waving Gawain – who was holding the water – over to them.
"How's the other girl?" he asked.
She shook her head and turned to Honorius' wife. "There's a young girl in labour down there. Bring some hot water."
She turned to Gawain. "Bring some of that water, too, or she'll die before the child is even born."
"The son of God is born!" one of the priests said wonderingly, hurrying down into the dim tombs.
She grabbed him by the front of his robes and snarled at him. "That is not the son of God, you lying, thieving, bastard! For all that poor girl knows, it's probably your bloody child!"
She pushed him away and waved Gawain down into the catacombs with the water, followed closely by Tristan and Lancelot.
She led them to the room with all the girls, where Galahad was standing helplessly in the centre. "They're all dead," he said, dropping his arm from one of their mouths.
The pregnant girl was now moaning wordlessly, and Jess suspected that she would have been screaming if her mouth hadn't been so dry.
Gawain poured some of the water into her mouth and she coughed weakly and then screamed, the piercing sound breaking the still air of the catacombs, and Galahad and Jess had to take one of her arms each to keep her from rolling off the stone slab in her pain, and she could see that Galahad's face was pale in shock and horror.
He looked at her. "Is it always like this?"
She glared at him, affronted. "Do I look like I've ever had children to you?"
He floundered. "Well… I mean… I suppose I just…"
"She's a Hellene1," Tristan said, rescuing Galahad.
They looked at her closely and wondered how Tristan was able to tell such a thing from just looking at her, but shook their heads and returned to the job at hand.
Wait on, Jess thought slowly. Ancient Greeks. They had a goddess of childbirth, didn't they?
She thought back to her ancient history lessons, and then remembered Artemis, the Greek goddess of freedom, nature, the moon and, thankfully, childbirth also.
She turned to the writhing Greek girl. "Artemis watches over you. You're going to be all right."
As she said this, Honorius' wife came down with the warm water and took the young Greek girl's hand. The girl moaned and then closed her eyes, and, miraculously, her breathing lengthened and her pain seemed to disappear.
"What did you do?" Lancelot whispered to her, in awe.
She shrugged helplessly. "I just told her that their goddess of childbirth was watching over her,"
Lancelot looked at her. "Is she?"
They all looked at each other, and then around the room. They looked at Honorius' wife.
She turned to them. "You'll be able to move her now. We should probably get her out into the air."
They all watched her for a few seconds before she turned and went out of the room, and then motioned impatiently at them. "Come on,"
Galahad picked the young girl up carefully and they all walked up and out into the air.
They emerged into the light and the girl began to cry, trying to shield her eyes from the light. Arthur looked at them all, horrified, and they realised then that they were mostly covered in blood. Galahad was soaked in it.
"You'd think the second coming would have had the grace to not kill his mother," Jess said to Lancelot, and then laughed at his puzzled expression. "It's a Christian thing."
A few other ladies from amongst the peasants came over, at Honorius' wife's orders – or Artemis, whatever was going on there – and the knights were grateful for the opportunity to back off. Jess took one look at it all and then followed Lancelot over to where Arthur was standing. Only Galahad, who was left supporting the Greek girl, stayed.
Tristan was talking to the young Scythian girl, and Arthur was rather foolishly trying to assure Guinevere of her safety by telling her that he was an officer of Rome. She and Lancelot exchanged a look. If it had been her, the first thing she would have done upon hearing that Arthur was Roman would be to get up and run. Dagonet and Germanius' assistant were worrying over Lucan and Gawain was with the only other live young girl, trying to get her to drink some water.
He pointed at the tattoos on her legs and the carved scars on her face. "She's a Saxon,"
They all looked at each other. "If we're caught with her…" Lancelot said worriedly, looking at Jess and then Arthur.
"Yeah, and keep her away from weapons or she'll finish us off herself," Bors put in, and they all moved their sword and dagger hilts out of her reach.
"Am I needed here?" Tristan asked, standing up and handing the Scythian girl to Jols. "I'll go and see what our options are."
Arthur nodded briefly and then Lancelot looked at the milling crowd of peasants. "I'll go and get them organised, Arthur,"
He grabbed Jess's arm as he walked and pulled her with him. As they passed the small crowd around the young Greek girl they noticed Galahad holding her hand and shared a knowing look. As they approached, the peasants looked at them in horror and they looked down and realised that they were still covered in blood.
"How are things going?" Lancelot asked the scrawny man who seemed to be doing the most yelling at people, and therefore was probably in charge.
He shrugged. "They aren't moving quickly enough,"
Jess nodded. "We can see that,"
Lancelot looked at her. "I reckon we could frighten them into getting a move on. What do you think?"
Slightly flattered that he valued her opinion, she nodded. "Will you do the honours?"
He nodded and then whistled for Api, and when he came over he swung into the saddle, hoping to catch everyone's attention by trotting up and down the rough coloumn. It worked, and after a while they all looked rather nonchalantly at him, as if wondering what was going on now.
"People," he said, trotting past her. "You don't seem to actually be quite aware of the immense danger that you're all in. Arthur mentioned a vast and terrible army, yes, but did he mention that it was the Saxons?"
There was a stir among the people. Ah, Jess thought to herself. Obviously not.
"The Saxons?" the man in charge asked in a horrified voice.
"When they come," Lancelot continued, "they will kill every man, woman and child, burn every village, steal everything they see and lay waste every field. They are no more than half a day's march from here. If you do not move faster, they will reach here before you have a chance to leave."
"That got their attention," Jess said idly, looking at the madly hurrying scramble piling everything they could find onto their carts.
Lancelot nodded. "Let's hope it does the same thing to that crowd over there,"
They looked over and saw that Arthur seemed to have gotten into some kind of fight with Honorius. They turned to walk back over, Lancelot dismounting to stand beside her, but then they heard a small voice begin to wail, the shrill sound filling the still, snowy air and breaking the silence around the clearing.
"Good healthy lungs," Lancelot said, wincing as the baby's crying hit a particularly shrill note.
She shook her head. "We have to get ready to move or everyone's going to die here on this bloody estate."
He nodded. "It wasn't the peasants I was worried about when I made that speech."
-----------------------
About an hour later they were finally on the road, but Jess sat sulking in the cart with the three young girls, while Dagonet watched over Lucan, Galahad fussed over the Greek girl and her baby and Honorius' wife sat in the corner. Bloody Arthur had suggested that she ride with the girls, and she had literally been about to slap him when the Saxon war drums started up again and she clenched her jaw and hopped into the cart. Bartatua trotted nearby, led by Lancelot, who would turn and grin at her at regular intervals.
"How's the boy?" she asked Dagonet quietly.
He looked at her, and then back at his young charge. "He burns. Brave boy,"
"His name is Lucan," Guinevere said softly, looking at the sleeping boy.
Jess looked at her. "Do you know his family?"
Guinevere nodded. "They're all dead,"
Jess nodded and then sighed and leaned back against the back of the cart. Then she caught sight of Guinevere's bandaged hands and grimaced, remembering the horrific torture she had undergone. She leaned over and reached for Guinevere's hand, and she closed her eyes briefly and then let Jess unwrap the bandage.
She looked in horror at all of the out-of-place joints and then looked up at Guinevere. "This will hurt,"
She wasn't as good at it as Arthur had been in the movie, because she actually had to look at each one individually and then snap it back into place, and by the end Guinevere was crying and biting her lip so hard it was bleeding. She let go of Guinevere's hand and then sat back with the girl against the side wall of the cart, catching Lancelot's eyes as he looked back over his shoulder at her. He looked down for a second, and then back up, until, embarrassed, they both looked away.
She turned to the Scythian girl. "Are you injured?"
She shrugged, but Jess noticed her stiffly clutching her arm in close to her side.
She sighed and reached out to turn it over. "What's your name?"
"Cimmeria," the young girl said softly, as Jess looked in horror at the long, infected scar that ran up the length of her right forearm.
"What needs doing?" Dagonet asked, looking at her face.
Jess shook her head. "It will have to wait until we stop for the night. The cut needs to be opened, have all the infection cleaned out of it and then disinfected. We can't do it on this cart; with all the jolting we might accidentally open one of her arteries."
"I will live," Cimmeria said, waving it off.
Jess looked at her. "If we don't treat that soon, the infection will get into your blood, and then you won't live."
Cimmeria shrugged again and Jess shook her head disgustedly. "Scythians,"
Dagonet grinned at her. "Get Tristan to do it when we stop tonight. At least that way she'll have someone to agree with her who will also do what he's told."
Jess shook her head again and then stood up as much as was possible in the cart, moving to squat down beside the Saxon girl, who sat looking at the scenery as they passed. "What about you? Are you injured?"
The blonde girl looked at her briefly, raised an eyebrow and then turned back to her contemplation of the English countryside.
Jess sighed and sat down next to her against the wall of the cart. "What's your name?"
The girl ignored her again and Jess laughed. "You're not a prisoner here, you know,"
"You are Romans," the frail young girl said, still looking out at the scenery.
Jess shook her head. "Arthur is a Roman. We're Sarmatians. We're foreigners here, too. We didn't save you from those priests to harm you."
The girl began to cry, her tears making tracks down her stained cheeks. "I shouldn't have needed saving," she whispered. "I dishonoured my family. My whole tribe. I can never go home again."
Jess sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day and then put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "We all need saving some times."
The girl shook her head and bit her lip. "If I go back, my husband will kill me for bringing shame on our people. You should have left me to die with what little honour I had left to save."
"What's your name?" Jess asked again, handing the girl the wineskin full of water Dagonet had just passed her.
"Ytria," the girl said, draining the water from the skin.
"Don't worry, Ytria," Jess said, thinking about boarding. "Sometimes you spend so much time longing for home that you don't realise that where you are is where you're really meant to be."
The Saxon girl sobbed and then began to cry harder, and buried her head in Jess's shoulder. When Jess looked up, Dagonet, Galahad and Lancelot were all looking at her thoughtfully.
---------------------
They stood silently around the campfire that night, companionable but edgy. Arthur's eyes kept flicking towards the cart where all the girls were still sitting, wrapped up in some bear skin rugs they had stolen off Honorius. Eunyphore, the Greek girl, sat nursing her new son, Maechises, near the fire, and Lucan was lying near Dagonet's feet.
After a while they told Tristan about the doctoring that the Scythian girl needed and he went to procure a clean knife and some warm water to wash the cut out with. Jess, on the prompting of Galahad, talked to Eunyphore and Maechises to check that they were all right, but after that they went back to standing silently around the fire.
"We should probably get some sleep," Gawain said finally, draining the rest of their wine, which they had also stolen off Honorius.
Arthur nodded. "We'll leave the three girls in the cart with those rugs. Jessamine, you stay with them and make sure they don't do anything stupid. You'll have to keep a close eye on all of them. Dagonet, will you continue to look after the boy, please? And Galahad, the mother trusts you; stay with her tonight. The rest of us will take turns being on watch."
They all nodded and Jess moved away towards the cart.
"She'll probably need to spend the night alone, Lancelot," Arthur said, and she turned to see Lancelot giving his commander the dirtiest look she had ever seen.
She smiled at him and he looked away, embarrassed, and as she turned to keep walking back to the cart she felt her cheeks burning.
Keira Knightley, eat your heart out, she thought, as she climbed into the dark carriage and stepped over Ytria's sleeping form.
----------------------
Honorius' wife was still sitting in the corner. "Have you eaten?" Jess asked her, and she nodded.
"We all have,"
Jess looked at their bloodstained and filthy dresses. "Do you think you'd be able to find some other things for them to wear? The filth on their dresses probably isn't helping their overall health."
She nodded and pointed at a pile of clean, neat, folded dresses on the floor near Guinevere's head.
"Thank you," Jess said, and then looked at her. "What's your name?"
"Aemilia," she said softly.
"Well, Aemilia," Jess said, "sorry to trouble you, but, on the subject of health, we'll probably need to either splash some water over them at some stage or get them to bathe."
Aemilia nodded. "There's warm water ready in that bucket. I thought I should let the girls sleep, though."
"I think this might be a tad more important than sleeping. If they stay in that state they'll contract more infections than a whole horde of English tourists in the jungle."
The Roman woman looked at her.
"It's a Sarmatian thing," Jess said, somewhat unconvincingly, and then bent down and gently shook Guinevere awake. "Do you think you could deal with this by yourself?"
Aemilia nodded. "Where are you going?"
Jess snorted. "Hopefully to beat up your husband,"
-------------------
She was, in fact, also going to bathe, but she was going to do it in one of the shockingly cold mountain streams she knew was close by, so as to avoid attracting the attention of the Roman officers in the vicinity. The stream she was heading towards was about three minutes walk from their campsite, and she knew that all the Roman soldiers were far too lazy to end up that far from their food this late at night.
She walked through the dense undergrowth and reflected thoughtfully that leather boots did nothing towards keeping your feet warm. Neither did electrum keep you warm at all, she concluded regretfully, shifting her freezing metal shoulder plates and vowing to ask for a bearskin rug of her own when she got back to the camp.
There was the sound of trotting hoofs from behind her and Bartatua emerged from the trees, whickering a quiet greeting. She glared at him and made "back to camp" motions at him, but he just ignored her. She did have to admit, burying her cold hands in the cloth under the saddle, that he made a good windbreak. He nudged her with his cold nose and lipped at her fingers, and she laughed, concluding that she would take animal friends over human almost any day.
They reached the stream eventually, and she dipped a hand into it, thankfully discovering that it was about the same temperature as the air, and not much colder. She cast a wary look around, making sure there were no Saxon spies in the undergrowth, and then undressed hurriedly before diving into the freezing water, in order to get it over and done with. Teeth chattering, she splashed the icy water over her body for about five seconds before concluding numbly that the lack of feeling in her extremities must indicate that she was clean.
She scrambled out of the stream and stripped the water off her body in sheets before it could freeze onto her in the cold air. She pulled the leather pants and boots back on, and put her bra on, but when she reached the top she glared at it briefly and then decided it wasn't worth it; not only would she spend ages trying to get it done up and then fail, the electrum only made her colder, not a good thing.
Grabbing the top and her artillery, she swung into Bartatua's saddle and used her weapons and cloak to shield herself from the bitter wind. She nudged Bartatua into a canter and they loped back to the camp, ice cracking on the grass as they rode over the top. Thankfully, everyone was busy when she got back, and no one was even there to notice, so she rode back up to the cart where she was meant to spend the night and dumped her weapons on the ground in front of it.
-------------------
Lancelot, on the other side of the clearing, didn't hear what Jessamine asked Honorius' wife as she sat inside the cart doing something that he couldn't see with Guinevere. He did notice that she was practically topless, but after watching her back for a while, he sighed and returned to his guard duty.
His eyes were drawn back to her as she turned away from the cart holding a dress and a pair of long, soft calfskin boots and then stripped off both her long leather boots and her leather pants. His eyes widened and he looked away firmly to give her some privacy, before having his eyes drawn back to her yet again.
She climbed into the slightly-too-small dress and then bent down to pick up her cloak and wrap it around her shoulders, and as she stood up, she looked straight at him. Their eyes met for a long moment before he clenched the talisman his sister had given him firmly into his palm and then stood up and walked off.
He turned and looked back over his shoulder after a few steps, watching as she bent down to put the calfskin boots on, and wished he hadn't, because it made the knowledge that he had to spend the night without her hurt even more.
He sighed and walked on through the camp.
1 What the Ancient Greeks called themselves. Their land was called Hellas, so they called themselves the Hellenes.
