9. Harvest

The next morning Zoe was up early enough to get to the fort at dawn. She stayed away from any alleys and flinched when the Roman soldiers guarding the gate looked at her, but she merged into the small line of people entering the fort without any difficulty. Some were carrying food, others weapons (Zoe stayed away from them as much as she could) and others, like her, were carrying nothing.

Zoe made her way to the Sarmatian building, which was quiet this early in the morning. She was grateful for that as she didn't want to run into the knights. Living near their fort as she did she could hardly avoid hearing tales of their deeds. If Zoe listened to the rumors and didn't have personal experience, she would believe that the knights were all gallant and brave and handsome who spent all their time helping kittens out of trees and being heroic. As if, Zoe thought.

Sure, there were some very attractive knights, particularly Lancelot, but not all of them were drop-dead gorgeous. Tristan, for example, wasn't ugly, but then again, he also wasn't blindingly attractive like the stories described him as. And as for heroic…Zoe snorted in amusement. She'd heard far more stories of bar brawls than dragon-slaying, and more girls claiming to have slept with the knights than damsels who were formerly in distress thanking the men for their aid. She had no idea how the knights retained their prestige and glamour. None whatsoever.

Rumors said that there was no other group as good with their weapons, as trusted, as efficient as Arthur's knights. She'd heard nothing but good things of Arthur, and Percival had been almost chivalrous last night, but underneath the admiration for the skills of the Sarmatian knights she'd heard different stories. That they killed for fun and pleasure, that they bathed in blood and ate the flesh of their enemies.

Some of those tales were way out of proportion. She could see where the stories of them bathing in blood came from as she'd ridden with them while they were coming back from a mission and they were literally covered with the stuff. But she didn't think that they'd eat their dead enemies.

No, the reason she didn't want to run into the knights again was that they were bloody scary. She'd seen for herself how being seen with a knight was kind of like being seen with some celebrity-like David Beckham or something. She just didn't want that kind of attention. On top of that, they killed for a living. They had been doing this for years now, and, if you listened to the rumours, they wouldn't be allowed to stop for another ten. So there was this group of well-armed soldiers running around the place, who Zoe would normally try to avoid, however, on top of that, they had a reputation for enthusiastic participation in drunken brawls and even more enthusiastic pursuit of women.

All in all, she didn't really want to work in the Sarmatian building. But she did want to survive the winter, and that was the deciding factor.

'Are you Zoe?' she heard somebody ask. Zoe turned to see a tall, plump girl with a smile that made her ten times prettier beckoning to her. 'Come on, we've got work to do!'

The girl introduced herself as Liliana, and Zoe found out in a remarkably short time that her parents were both Roman; her father a former legionary who had elected to stay in Britain, her mother the daughter of a merchant who'd become impoverished. She babbled on happily, informing Zoe that she not only had two brothers; one a blacksmith, the other in the army somewhere, but also a younger sister married with a child and that her mother was pestering her to get married as soon as possible.

Head spinning from this information, Zoe was led to a large room with a few other girls sitting in it. Liliana immediately took Zoe over to a group of three who were sitting, sewing and chatting.

'Everyone, this is Zoe. She's nice, but a bit quiet. She's working here now.' Liliana introduced her, sitting herself down firmly onto a stool.

A girl with very long dark hair in a plait reached over and pulled another stool up. 'Come, sit down, needles are here, thread is here, and the clothes the knights have ruined are in the middle.' She grinned at Zoe. 'I'm Evelyn.'

A girl with lighter brown hair, left loose over her shoulders looked up and smiled briefly. 'Blanchefleur,' she introduced herself. 'Nice to meet you.'

The last one was very thin, and had dark curly hair that looked very thick. She handed Zoe a needle once she got herself comfortable. She was wearing a dress that looked more expensive than what Zoe, or the other girls were wearing. 'I'm Lucia,' she introduced herself.

Zoe sat and listened to the girls talking, trying to remember names and to get the stitching right on other people's clothes. She learned a lot that day, mostly about the girls she was working with. Evelyn was the youngest of eight and was being courted by a blacksmith and was probably going to marry him if he ever got around to proposing. Blanchefleur was the third child of six, her mother dead after the last birth, her oldest brother ill with pneumonia and unable to work. She had her eye on one of the knights, for which the other girls scolded her.

'Never love a knight. They can't marry and, no matter how good a lay they are, they never stay after it.' Lucia said, to which the other girls shrieked with laughter. Zoe didn't understand the joke, but smiled politely as she worked on a torn sleeve. The faint reddish stain around it suggested that a weapon had torn it, and she felt vaguely queasy as she stitched it up.

'You would know, Lucia,' Blanchefleur snapped, spearing the fabric in front of her with her needle more viciously than was needed.

Evelyn, seeing Zoe's confused look explained. 'Lucia went to bed with the man Blanchefleur loves. And Blanchefleur's very upset because he's been heard talking about another woman.'

'Which knight?' Zoe asked. 'If you do not mind saying,' she hastily corrected herself, looking to Blanchefleur.

'No secret. Sir Percival.' Blanchefleur informed her, a dreamy smile on her face, which stayed there even as she continued working.

'Like I said, they can't marry and they don't stay, it's pointless.' Lucia sounded rather bitter about that.

'You loved him, too.' Zoe realized.

'Yeah, lot of good that did me. I had to visit the witch on the edge of town, Braewyn, to get some herbs to get rid of his baby. My mother was furious and I was married off to a cloth merchant. But Percival did put in a good word for me with Jols, so I have this job.'

'I live with 'that witch', and she's been nothing but good to me.' Zoe said, angrier than she'd been in a long time, frowning at Lucia. 'Don't say another word about her.'

Lucia paled and then flushed while Blanchefleur and Liliana snickered. They all continued working, but avoided talking about Braewyn after that.

Zoe settled into her job, getting her pay at the end of each week and giving it to Braewyn. The three weeks wages that she'd gotten so far had come in handy in terms of buying things for the winter. During her work at the fort, she made quite good friends with the four girls she'd been introduced to, particularly Liliana, whose babbling reminded her a little of Suze back home. Liliana was direct, to the point and she had an enthusiasm for living that exasperated and amused Zoe at the same time. She even seemed to enjoy the hours they spent cleaning and mending the clothes the knights ruined.

Unlike Liliana, Lucia was much more cynical. She had contempt for men that only lasted until they wanted her in their beds, and resurfaced after they threw her out again. She didn't believe that people were inherently good and her stubborn pessimism really annoyed Zoe sometimes, because it made Zoe think of everything she'd lost. Nevertheless, Lucia had a wickedly funny tongue on her, and nobody was spared. Zoe grew to be remarkably thick-skinned to Lucia in her first week, but any insult directed towards Braewyn from the Roman girl made Zoe snap back.

In these situations, it was usually Evelyn who calmed everyone down and sent the conversation onto a less confrontational detour. She was a really sweet, good girl, kind and gentle and she talked a lot about the blacksmith she wanted to marry. His name was Edan, and Zoe met him once when he came to walk her home one day when they got out later than usual. He was mild-mannered and shy, but with huge shoulders like any blacksmith.

Blanchefleur was a bouncy, bubbly, romantic twit. But Zoe still enjoyed her company. She was the youngest of them, both in age and in maturity, and had a tendency to see the world through rose-coloured glasses that annoyed both Zoe and Lucia. The world was not a nice, happy place. If it were such a wonderful place, Zoe would not have ended up here. Blanchefleur needed to learn that, before she made an idiot of herself in front of Percival and had all her dreams crushed. She was also insatiably curious, and kept asking Zoe about her home, about how she'd come to be at Hadrian's Wall, and particularly her interaction with the knights.

The others were also interested, and they eventually pried her story out of her. That she'd been lost in the woods and the knights took her back to Hadrian's wall, she'd been treated by the doctor at the fort and then taken to Braewyn's house to live. Naturally, they all thought it was terribly romantic and demanded the details.

'It wasn't romantic, it was terrifying. Big, scary, stinky men with weapons and covered in blood picked me up and locked me in a room overnight,' Zoe protested, but they, particularly Blanchefleur, persisted in believing that Zoe had been swept off her feet by clean, handsome, chivalrous men. Apparently the general rumours and the ones that these girls listened to were a little different.

Zoe decided, overall, that she liked working at the fort. She got to talk with different people and didn't have to go near anything more dangerous than her needle. Sure, the work wasn't exactly stimulating, and her hands got red and chapped from the sewing and laundry that she did, but Braewyn helped by rubbing some plant goo made from hyssop on her finger joints. Zoe didn't know if it was the oil that helped, or Braewyn's concern over her wellbeing that did the trick. The routine she'd managed to establish over the three weeks she'd been working at the fort gave her a sense of stability she didn't realize she'd missed.

Zoe also enjoyed the walk back to Braewyn's house. She saw the men and women who farmed the land behind the Roman fort work frenetically to get their harvest in on time. Evelyn and Blanchefleur had to go home quickly and help their families harvest their crops, but Lucia, Liliana and Zoe were town girls, and apparently that had some status. According to Lucia you were more sophisticated if you walked through shit rather than through mud, but Liliana explained that town people were the ones who could afford to buy their food rather than rely on their farms.

Another good thing about working at the fort, apart from the weekly wage, her new friends and her walk home, was that her Latin was improving dramatically. She felt much more comfortable about speaking now, and her new friends and Braewyn noticed that.

'I'm glad you are speaking now. Maybe soon you will tell me about your home, I love to hear stories.' Braewyn smiled one evening when Zoe brought back her second week's pay. 'Tomorrow we will buy you some winter boots.'

'Do you have the money for that?' Zoe asked anxiously. Her current footwear, exactly nothing, would not be sufficient in winter. She had had a hard enough time adjusting to wearing nothing on her feet, but after her sneakers had broken two months after she'd arrived in this strange place she'd had no alternative. But winter meant snow and snow was cold. And she would like to have all her toes at the end of winter. But, then again, she also wanted to have enough food to eat during winter and the food was probably more important overall.

But she'd eventually gotten her boots, much to her delight. The cobbler, a man with iron-grey hair and a large nose had measured her feet carefully and cut out the leather soles to her size exactly. Once she'd gotten the boots, a week after they'd been ordered, they fit better than any shoe in her own time had. These were made exactly for her and even if the technology was more primitive, they were special. The girls at the fort seemed to agree as well, and looked on her new boots with envy when Zoe wore them to her work for the first time.

'I wish mine were as good as those. Must have cost at least a month's pay!' Evelyn poked at the leather.

'I hate being one of four.' Liliana pouted. 'I'd kill you for those boots if you weren't my friend.'

'Imagine being one of eight!' Evelyn laughed good-naturedly.

Zoe, when she wasn't working at the fort, helped Braewyn dig up their vegetables and store them. She hated the backbreaking work and the dirt under her nails, but she gritted her teeth and remembered that it was so she and Braewyn would survive the winter. She honestly had no idea how people lived without a supermarket during the winter. They bought flour at the market (for prices Zoe's jaw dropped at) and Braewyn explained that they would mostly be living off hot vegetables and bread, maybe with a little meat to supplement their diet, but they would, by no means, go hungry and Zoe should stop worrying herself.

Zoe ignored Braewyn, and instead began checking their house over. She got Byron to go over what she couldn't and she paid him in mending for the firewood he stockpiled for the winter. There was a pile almost as high as Zoe next to Braewyn's house and she was told she'd use most if it by the time the snows were gone. Zoe also kept an even more careful watch over the hellebore in the cupboard-she did not want rats getting her food for the winter. Braewyn thought she was too anxious about it, but Zoe protested that it was just a matter of hygiene. That, and she didn't want the rats getting fat on vegetables she'd worked hard to grow and harvest.

At night, by candlelight, she and Braewyn worked on making winter clothing for Zoe, as she had none. Braewyn worked on making dresses of very thick wool. These were even more shapeless than the ones she'd worn during summer, but they were warm. Zoe was learning how to knit stockings for herself. She'd offered to make some for Braewyn, but after seeing her relatively disastrous attempts the old woman declined.

Zoe would be grateful for that as the weather got colder and colder. Her first stockings were full of holes and not at all warm. She didn't want little old Braewyn suffering for her incompetence. Zoe's friends started huddling closer and closer to the braziers that were kept burning in the room where they worked and it got harder and harder to warm their fingers.

'Thank God that the knights don't go on as many missions in winter,' Evelyn murmured one particularly cold day, blowing on her finger. 'If we had to repair this many shirts and tunics and trousers and socks in winter my fingers would drop off.'

'It's like they tear their clothes on purpose to make trouble for us,' Blanchefleur sulked, sullenly repairing the seam of a pair of breeches.

'Because it's all they think about, Blanchefleur. I just know Sir Percival wakes up in the morning and the first thing he says is 'how to I irritate the laundry girls today'?' Lucia murmured blandly, concentrating on her work.

Zoe had laughed when Blanchefleur had nodded emphatically before protesting immediately afterwards and gone to give the tunics she'd just finished to the girls who usually carried them up to the knights' rooms. But there was only one girl there, a rather young one. She looked about fifteen, pale-faced and flustered, her frizzy hair coming out of the plait she'd put it in.

'Oh, damn!' The girl nearly dropped a pile of neatly folded shirts and Zoe moved quickly to steady them. 'Thank you. The other two ran off somewhere warm, so I'm the only one left. As you can see, I'm a bit…overwhelmed.' The girl looked nearly ready to burst into tears.

'Here, give me some and I'll help. Do you know what goes to who?' Zoe asked, eager for the chance to stretch her legs. She knew that at this time of day the knights were usually out in the yard training with each other unless they were out on a mission. Since the knights and their weapons were unlikely to be in the rooms, she felt relatively comfortable putting their clothes where they were supposed to be and getting the hell out.

The girl nodded and babbled her thanks, dividing the shirts into piles.

'How do you tell which shirt belongs to which knight?' Zoe asked, watching this frantic activity amusedly.

'They've all got a little symbol somewhere. The girls put it on for them. See the wolf is Sir Tristan, the bear is Sir Dagonet, the cat with the ruff is Sir Lancelot, and the hound is Sir Kay. The hawk is Sir Percival.' The girl babbled, continuing to make piles while she talked. Zoe wasn't really paying attention until she heard a familiar name.

'And Vanora does most of Sir Bors' things now, has been since they became lovers four years back. I hear she's expecting her third little one sometime this winter,' the girl said, still sorting the clothes. 'There, that's all of them. If you still wish to help, could you pick up those two piles, please?'

Zoe, somewhat shocked that Vanora was the lover of a knight and berating herself for not realizing it, picked up a few piles of shirts and followed the girl through the fort, careful not to trip or drop the clothes. The Sarmatians were indeed at training; she could hear the laughter and the ringing of sword against sword from here.

'This way,' the girl said again, gesturing with her head down a long corridor with doors to either side. All of the doors had names written on them, and underneath a symbol. So that was how the girls knew where to deliver the clothes.

She looked at a prancing stag and the name written above it. She had a few shirts for 'Sir Bedivere' in her pile. She knocked awkwardly on the door and waited a moment. As there was no response, Zoe opened the door. Inside was larger than she'd expected, and this room had windows. The light shone in, but Zoe shivered a little. This late in the year, the sun brought no warmth.

She set the shirts down on top of a chest that was probably used for such a purpose. The room smelled like dirty man, the bed was rumpled, there was a stand of armour over in a corner that gave her a fright when she turned around. She also saw books on a table. She looked around a little guiltily and opened one up. It was in Latin, and Zoe hadn't ever had to read or write in Latin before. She had no time for this, she had a job to do, and so Zoe reluctantly closed the book and walked out of the room.

She repeated the process with Sir Dagonet's clothing, and with Sir Kay's. She moved on to Sir Lancelot's clothing, the last she had to deliver, remembering the impossibly handsome man from her first night in Roman Britain. She knocked, paused, and opened the door as she had with all the other rooms. She set the clothes down on a chest and turned to leave, only to run into a sweaty chest.

'Hello there, what are you doing in my room?'

It was Lancelot, and he was still as handsome as she remembered. And how could she have forgotten that voice? Lancelot walked over to the suit of armour that was standing in the corner and carefully set two swords next to it. He stripped his sweaty shirt off, completely unconcerned with Zoe's presence in the room. Not that he had anything to be ashamed of, Zoe noticed a little giddily.

'I came to return your clothes, sir,' Zoe stammered, avoiding looking at the man. She did not need to make an idiot of herself in front of every knight in the place. She'd already looked stupid in front of Gawain, Arthur and Percival, and probably Tristan as well. She really didn't want to add this incredibly handsome man to the list of 'People Who Have Seen Zoe Do Incredibly Stupid Things'.

'She speaks! Last time I saw you, my lady, you could say nothing I understood.' Lancelot's lips curved into a smile so heart-stopping it should be illegal. Or that's what Zoe thought.

'You remembered me?' Zoe could feel herself blushing. She knew he didn't mean anything to him, but to have a stunningly attractive man like him remember her was so flattering that she couldn't help herself.

Lancelot stepped closer, so close that she could feel his warmth. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. 'I don't forget pretty ladies, Zoe,' he murmured, kissing Zoe's hand lightly.

She felt her cheeks burn and she was sure that when his lips made contact with her skin her heart had stopped for an instant. 'Thank you,' Zoe stammered, pulling her hand away from his calloused ones and scurrying out of the door. Inwardly she cursed herself and her inability to say anything witty in the presence of handsome men. Even if he was, by all reports, a womanizer who would flirt with anything that moved. And a man who killed as part of his everyday routine. The hand that had been holding hers just then had probably been used to kill so many people. That wasn't a pleasant thought at all. Zoe shook her head hard to get rid of the unwanted fact.

She nearly ran into the girl with the frizzy hair as she left the room. She was gaping at Zoe, and when she closed her mouth she looked somewhat jealously at her.

'You know Sir Lancelot?' She demanded.

'No. No, I don't,' Zoe said, shaking her head again and walking down the corridor.

So intent was she on getting away from Lancelot, the weapons he was collecting and his wickedly seductive smile that she missed the conversation going on behind her between the man she was running from and another of his comrades. She really shouldn't have left the laundry - it was safe there. She just felt uneasy around men with weapons, even if they were under Arthur's command.

'Sir Lancelot kissed your hand and knew your name! I can't believe it!' The girl was still gushing about a supposed romance between the darkly handsome knight and Zoe. Zoe for her part, merely rolled her eyes and resigned herself to her friends' questions as soon as the news got around.

After all, it wasn't like she'd been caught in bed with him. Anyway, there were bigger things to worry about than unpleasant gossip. Like what else she had to do before winter arrived.

xxx

A/N: Here's Lancelot! I managed to stick to my plan (for once). I'm also quite proud that I got this out in under a week. RL is being nice to me right now and letting me write in peace. Thanks to my lovely beta, homeric, for her work. I know I say it every chapter, but she's a huge part of why this fic is apparently so popular. On that note-over 3, 000 hits! Yay! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read, put this story on alerts or favourites, and many, MANY thanks to those who review!

Just a couple of quick notes here-the other OCs I introduced are not going to be huge parts in the story, and if it seems they're heading down Mary-Sue lines, please tell me. They're going to be consistently appearing, but the focus will mostly stay on Zoe and the knights. Liliana is of Latin origin, it means lily, Evelyn is Celtic and it means light, Blanchefleur is French for 'white flower' (she's a figure from Arthurian legend who I wanted to put in), Lucia is Latin and means 'graceful light'. Adan means 'fire' and is Celtic origin.

Also, I just want to make a point about Zoe-at the moment, she isn't strong. She's scared easily, has no confidence in herself and I can see how some people would find it irritating. She's a growing, changing character though. This is shaping up to be a really long fic, so I want people to be able to see the changes in Zoe as she grows. So if right now her fear of sharp and pointy objects irritates you, please stick with this!

Disclaimer: King Arthur and the lovely men are not mine. I just play with them. I promise to give them back exactly how I found them.