Isobel had almost forgotten what it felt like to wear pants.
The breeches she had bought from Augusta Minor's family were nowhere near the level of comfortable her old jeans and pants had afforded her (not to talk about the comfort of gym clothes) but it was still something.
Something wonderful, at that, with the added cover to her legs and no fear of someone seeing under her dress and better insulation from cold and the freeing sensation of being allowed wider movements. Oh she had missed pants so much.
It wasn't that Isobel wasn't comfortable in dresses, because she was. It was just that pants were more practical to a lot of activities and provided her with a freer range of action, especially in regard to physical activities like running or having a work-out.
Though she was wearing her new breeches under her dress (and no one was the wiser about the fact for now) she had no doubt that the story of her purchase had been all over the Fort in a matter of a few hours (Augusta Minor's brother didn't struck her as someone who kept his mouth shut, especially about gossip like that, little drama queen that he was) but no one had yet said a thing to her, not about that.
Ethelind, instead, had said many things to her about everything else. Chattering about the trades of the Fort (working with the horses, sewing clothes and shoes, working leather, working wood, working metal, being a maid in a bar, hunting and selling animal meat and skins, working on animal skins, working the land, and a few smattering of others) and what had happened (which had obviously left Ethelind almost as ecstatic as she would have been if Isobel had spent the night with Lancelot, but mind you almost) and how that was going to impact Isobel's future (in some incredible and unexpected way and wasn't that exciting?).
Isobel couldn't repress the mirth that Ethelind's enthusiasm inspired in her. She knew far too well that what was coming were years of long, hard work that was going to leave bruised, tired and in various degrees of muscle pain. At the same time she couldn't suppress her own budding excitement, that was being stocked by Ethelind's own. She was going to learn horse-riding, a trade and how to defend herself to a degree acceptable for the now!
Between the two of them, Drusus kitchen was filled with smirks and repressed laughter for most of their working hours. Which was good, since Drusus himself wasn't a shining beacon of happiness on any given day and was now to an all-time low. The man did not approved the Commander's decree and he had been quite put off when Isobel hadn't immediately selected cooking as her trade, so he had retaliated by being harsher than ever and loading her with the heaviest chore he could find.
Isobel, who had been expecting the increase in workload, didn't really thought much of it. She knew that Drusus would expect her to choose cooking, since she had been working for him in the kitchens practically since her arrival, but the truth was that she already knew how to cook and she wasn't going to let the opportunity to learn something new slip through her fingers. Chopping down pieces of wood for an hour wasn't a big price to pay, though it wasn't a walk in the park either.
Drusus wasn't the only one who disapproved. Many of the enlisted men that worked in the kitchen had looked at her in a way that clearly revealed that they didn't approve of her not taking the easy way out from the trade learning part of her sentence. Some of them, and a few of the kitchen maids, had offered their sympathy and support for her "plight" of having to learn the kind of things that pertained to men and men alone.
Wary of making enemies or upsetting the community she needed to fit in, Isobel had accepted their offers of sympathy with a smile and claimed that she was filled with such gratitude towards Praetor Castus that she wasn't going to defy his decision. As a man and the Praetor of the Castrum, who was she to question his judgment?
The argument had pacified them enough, though the men were quite obviously still retaining their impression and idea that she was in over her head and should have found a way to get out of those obligations. It was a contrast with a couple of the Briton maids and Cassius Junius, the engineer in charge of the kitchens, who had all taken a moment of her time to express their support towards her decision, in private.
She had accepted their words much more happily, appreciating the way they hadn't made much of a statement out of it. It had spared her the need to fib her answers with them, unlike what she had felt necessary to do with the others.
It was with a general good humor that she stepped out of the barracks building, done with the cleaning chores post-ientaculum. She had been busy adjusting the heavy glove Iseult liked to perch on, while Ethelind chatted on (again on the subject of the various up and downs of the trades and had she told Isobel that her brother was one of the hunters that foraged the Fort with food?), so she didn't immediately took notice of who the people outside were.
Lancelot's "I can't believe I have yet to give you my congratulations for kicking Galahad's ass." jolted her out of the conversation and made her head snap up so fast that she almost felt a crick in her neck.
The stupid charming knight (number two, her mind supplied gleefully) was there, along with Dinadan (who looked as filthy as ever, but that didn't stop her brain from shouting out "stupid charming knight number three", at her), Gaheris (stupid charming knight number four – the attack continues!, her imagination dubbed him) and Lamorak (old badass knight, her mind supplied). In addition to them, two buff looking blonds (filthy but oh my, look at those muscles!, her hormones cheered on) were standing with the knights.
All of them were looking at her.
Oh God, she should have factored in her plans the fact that Lancelot was going to -pounce- on the opportunity of spending time with her.
She was so, so fucked.
(-Oh please, let it be so!- Her traitorous hormone-addled brain pleaded).
-§-break-§-
Cador had to give it to the woman, she had the right attitude.
He and his brother Caractacus had been the ones the Gauls had selected to approach the sui iris woman. It had not come as a surprise, since they had presented good arguments in favor of such a choice. The only two male sons born in a family of fourteen children, both of them had learned how to deal with females and female fighters alike since the early stages of their life. It was impossible not to, when one had six older sisters (eight in Caractacus case since he was younger) and six younger sisters (four, for Caractacus).
While other of the men deployed with them had had experience of their own, there was no one that could claim the sheer size of the wealth of knowledge having so many female siblings had imparted on them. No one had been able to top their claim and Burkhard had approved of the choice, instructing them to work with the knights now that their temporary unofficial alliance had been forged (without new stables for the Gauls, but everyone recognized that losing to Lamorak was no stain on Burkhard's honor).
Obviously, he had expected the woman to be … something. To go so boldly against the rules of her own society, she had to have backbone at the very least (and a mean streak, according to Caractacus, who had seen her fight in Vanora's tavern). But he hadn't expected her to have the same attitude that he had seen many times before, in the eyes of many of his sisters and of those who had the strength to fight the hardest fights, whether they be on a battlefield or inside a house.
It wasn't a specific look, or a way of moving, though those tended to come along with that kind of attitude, usually. It was more of the way she reacted to things, no matter how wrong-footed they caught her. She pulled herself together and tried to get through whatever problem she had been presented with. It bode well for her training, as well as for her future. Briton was no place for people unable to deal with the shit life threw them.
She had flushed, eyes wide like that of a doe, while looking at Lancelot and then, after a moment in which they looked between panicked and hopeful, she had straightened up and squared her shoulders, raised her head high and then nodded to Lancelot, face growing serious in a clear attempt to look less like a frightened doe.
"Thank you. How come you are gracing us with your presence?" She had then proceeded to tell Lancelot in a tone that was so carefully neutral that Cador had problems not to laugh at it. Trust a Roman to throw up a shield of politeness.
The girl next to her, who was looking at the bunch of them like they were cuts of meat in the butcher's shop, rolled her eyes and then threw Lancelot a friendly smile, taking care to trod on her friends foot as she moved forward.
"Good day to you all, Knights. How may we be of assistance, please tell us." She had proceeded to chirp, ignoring the intake of breath from the sui iris woman as she smiled widely at all of them.
Lancelot looked as determined as they had ever seen him be. Well, as determined and clean as they had ever seen him be. Dinadan was practically guffawing while Lamorak chuckled and Gaheris snickered, covering pretty much most of spectrum of laughter. Caractacus was shaking with silent laughter and Cador smirked, thinking about starting a betting pool on Lancelot chances to bed the sui iris.
"We have come to talk to Isobel, to offer our expertise in exchange for her knowledge of hand to hand fighting." Cador said, stepping forward and towards the two women.
He towered over the Briton but was more on an equal ground with the sui iris, who slightly inclined her head to the side to fix him with an assessing stare. The man behind him weren't laughing anymore, instead looking interested at what was happening. Lancelot made a step forward too, but the sound of scuffling and his barely restrained yelp told Cador that either Dinadan or Lamorak had yanked him back.
"Oh Isobel, you're so lucky! You already have all this people wanting to teach you! It's wonderful!" The other maid chirped, clasping her hands together with a huge smile. Cador kept her in the corner of his eye but his attention remained on the woman, who had finished her assessing and was starting to smile at him.
She wasn't particularly attracting but seeing her smile, Cador could understand why Lancelot my be attracted to her by something other than her quite generous rack. When she smiled, her face softened and it looked like a much younger woman was looking at him, a homely one. As always, Lancelot proved to have eye for women.
"That it is." The sui iris agreed, with a nod. She was about to continue, when a screech grabbed the attention of all and Cador eyes went up in the sky, easily tracking the form of Tristan's falcon as it descended on them, an animal in his clutches.
Not even waiting a beat, the sui iris stepped back a step and raised her left arm, keeping it stiff and lined. The falcon settled on it and screeched again, more in the Sarmatians direction than in Cador's own. It was true, then, that the animal had taken a shine to the woman. Cador had never seen the beast get even near to anyone but Tristan, except when the falcon wanted to harm someone.
"Back from the hunt, I see. You brought me something, Iseult?" The woman greeted the falcon, taking the dead rabbit in her free hand and turning it over to look at it. The falcon screeched again, but at a less high pitch and with less hostility, and then looked at her, almost with expectancy.
"She wants the best bit, the heart. Tristan always gives it to her, as a reward for a successful hunt." Dinadan interjected, brushing past Cador and slowly taking out his knife, as if not to scare neither woman nor animal. Cador moved nearer to the Briton woman, who was looking fascinated, and from the shuffling at his back he was sure the others had spread out to get a better visual too.
"Well, better not make her wait. How is Tristan faring?" The falcon looked interested at the name of its owner but didn't screeched again, allowing Dinadan to cut open the rabbit.
The sui iris looked like she was holding her breath, but Cador was more inclined to put it down to Dinadan's smell than squeamishness. Romans were obsessed with cleanliness and body odor, the lot of them.
His supposition was proved right when the woman used her bandaged fingers to take out the bleeding heart from the ribcage of the rabbit with her own fingers and offered it to the falcon, who looked mighty pleased at being offered it. A moment later, there was no heart to speak of and Dinadan was sheathing his knife. A glance towards Lancelot showed that the knight was being kept silent by Lamorak under the much amused gaze of Gaheris.
"He is better. Awake and briefed about what went on while he was passed out. It's part of why I am here." The knight told the woman, with one of his careless smiles that she took with far more grace than women usually did. At least she didn't blushed up to the roots of her hair and had to suppress giggling, like her friend (which Dinadan obviously noted, by the way he turned ever so slightly that he could encompass her too with his smile).
"Oh? Does he want to see Iseult? I can take her to him, once I'm done talking with the other knights." The sui iris offered over the sound of her friend melting down in a puddle on the pavement at the sight of Dinadan smiling at her.
"He wants to meet both of you." The bastard corrected the woman. "You took care of his falcon, he wants to thank you." He explained and, after a moment of clear uncertainty, she pulled herself back together and nodded, voicing her agreement before she turned back towards him as she plucked out another internal organ from the rabbit Dinadan still held and offered it to the falcon, who ate it with gusto.
"What skill do you offer to trade for the knowledge I have of hand to hand combat?" She asked him and, from her eyes, Cador could tell that she was going to drive a hard bargain. He was starting to like this woman, she was too little like the other Romans not to. A shame she hadn't been borne a Gaul.
-§-break-§-
Gaheris had thought important to offer their trade of skills to the woman because he had doubted she was going to come up with interest in more than one or two and, therefore, they needed to take up those before the Romans could sweep the opportunity of actually training a female fighter from under their feet. It had been far too big of a treat to break the monotony, to let it be stolen from them.
This was why he find himself pleasantly surprised when the woman managed to come up with quite the interesting system of trading one skill for one skill, no matter the disproportion between the two skills on the table. She, Isobel (because now she was worthy of being labeled something else than "woman" in Gaheris's mind), asked them to walk with her and her friend to the market.
While walking, Isobel queried them about what they were skilled into, both on and off the battlefield, as she fed bits of the rabbit Dinadan was holding for her to the far too satisfied falcon perched on her left forearm.
Once her question had been satisfied she had offered them a choice between what she could teach and offer them. Her knowledge of hand to hand fighting, her knowledge of stitching and cooking, her knowledge of herbs and the fact that she would be able to get fairer price than them in the market by sheer virtue of being a Roman woman when buying things (only up for the duration of her own training) went all up on the metaphorical table.
Lancelot choose stitching, because off course the man would choose something that would allow him a spot in the little free time Isobel would get away from the training grounds or the kitchens. Lancelot was predictable like that.
Dinadan went for stitching too, claiming that he was not to have her divide her time between too many tasks. No one believed him, not even Isobel's friend, but it's not like Dinadan ever cared about being believed. He was all about needling Lancelot, whose face had soured in a way that was probably far too funny for Dinadan.
Gaheris had gone for the hand to hand combat because it wasn't like he really needed the others and he wanted to see more of what she had been able to do on the tavern. It was a dirty fight, the one she fought, and that made it all the more interesting.
Lamorak wasted no time in taking her up on her offer to buy items or food for them at lower prices. Stingy bastard if there ever was one, Lamorak was. Almost at the end of his service too, a little more than a year left before he was allowed to go back to Sarmatia, so it made sense for him to take up that offer instead of any real trading of skill.
The two Gauls had muttered to one another in their own language for a while, before they decided to go for knowledge of herbs and cooking, one each. Apparently, the older one planned to stick around until his brother was released from service too and then make their way back to Gaul, and their family of women (twelve sisters, really? Gaheris had just three brothers and he wanted to maim them more often then not) together, so they thought it would be more useful to have skills that complimented each other.
For herself, Isobel choose what Galahad believed to be an interesting array of skills and one he would have never expected a woman to be interested into.
Trap-making from the Gaul with the long name, fishing from the other one (they came from a village nearby a big river, who knew?). Sword lessons from Dinadan (Lancelot was as close to pouting like a woman as Gaheris had ever seen him be and that shit was funny as hell), endurance and strength from Lamorak (who was a hulking mountain of a man and looked quite baffled at the thought of a woman wanting to become stronger than what work had already made her). Of what he himself had to offer, Isobel asked from help with her horse-riding and fighting from atop a horse once she was good enough.
It was, really, quite the set even before she came to what she wanted from Lancelot and her own request to the two Gauls. For reasons only she herself knew about, she asked for lessons in the Sarmatian language from Lancelot and for the Gauls to find someone in their group willing to teach her their own language, in exchange for something she had to offer.
Saying that her interest for their own languages took them by surprise would have been a gross understatement. Even her own friend looked bewildered at that choice. Even ignoring the fact that she was a woman, for a Roman to actually be interested in what were considered by her own people as barbaric languages was completely unheard of.
How could such a skill be useful for her to become able to understand our languages when it was clear that she had no particular desire to travel and see their lands? Even if she did want to travel and see for herself what their lands looked like (which, he had to say, he doubted) Latin was still widespread and understood everywhere.
Isobel had the time to make a couple of purchases before they shook themselves out of our surprise enough to start questioning her about it, Lancelot included (though he looked like he didn't mind the idea of giving languages lessons at all, which wasn't really surprising). It was like pulling teeth, getting an answer out of her on that one argument.
She bought time by purchasing apples and feeding Tristan's falcon and tried to talk her way out of it, protesting that an explanation of her choice hadn't been included in the bargaining but the pestering of Lancelot and her best friend, along with the insistence of the Gauls that they wouldn't comply with her request unless she gave them a sound reason got the story out of her.
The man who had taught her hand to hand combat had been an old warrior of a far away land, at least according to the man who had apparently been quite stringy on the details. He had, during the course of their lessons, taught her words and songs in his language, a language that she had never heard spoken again. Possibly insults too, though she wouldn't admit to it. Not even when her friend told us that sometimes she did muttered words that made no sense but sounded scathing.
Looking at Isobel, looking like a proper Roman woman, Gaheris had to bit back his laughter. Talk about appearances being deceiving! The woman looked as flustered as a Roman maiden could have been after an ill timed compliment and they were talking about her ability to insult someone in more than a language! Oh, he was going to make sure she had her fill of Sarmatian insults to fall back on, in case of necessity. He had a feeling he wouldn't be the only one either, going by Lamorak and Dinadan's smirks.
She was, indeed, the strangest and less Roman-like Roman woman Gaheris had ever met and there was no bigger compliment he could give to any of them.
"Now, how about hearing one of those songs?" Dinadan asked, showing once again that there were really good reasons for Gaheris to appreciate his compatriot.
"Indeed I agree." He egged on, siding (as always in these kind of matters) with the older man.
-§-break-§-
It was a singing voice that woke Tristan up.
The smell of herbs, paste and old blood told him where he was and the stiffness and pain in his chest and side reminded him of why he was there. The Healing Rooms of the Roman Fort in Briton. He had been injured in a fight against Woads. There was a singing voice coming near the chamber.
Opening his eyes, not moving yet from his supine position, Tristan turned his head enough to see the door and steal a glance at Gawain's bed. The other knight was awake, a knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other, whittling away at it. His eyes weren't on the wood, though, but had rose to look at the door too.
Whoever was singing, a woman by the sound of her voice, was doing it in a language that Tristan couldn't understood. He spoke the language of his people and Latin and the words weren't in either. He had heard the chattering of woads and the language of the local Britons and while there were some similarities between the last one and the one who was being sung, the cadence was different and no word rang familiar.
It was a strange song, neither happy nor sad. It was sung as if it was a strange mix of questioning and encouraging at the same time. Tristan had never heard anything of the kind, in many a sense, and it made him curious enough to slowly props himself up and sitting. Gawain had to had noticed the action but, even though he did, he said nothing instead turning his head as if he was trying to hear better. It was like this, sitting and looking towards the door that the singing found them when she entered the room, the sound of heavier feet betraying the fact that she wasn't alone.
Iseult was perched on his glove, Tristan noticed her before anything else. His Iseult was perched on the woman's forearm and after a few moments in which he tried to piece together the familiar sight of his falcon perched on his glove with the fact that neither were on his arm, Tristan finally took notice of the woman.
She was tall, he realized, as tall as Lancelot and a little shorter than he himself. She had a braid of brown hair and a full figure, pleasurable to see even in the slightly out of measure blue dress (too light for the temperature outside) she was wearing. Her face was slightly flushed and she looked embarrassed but she smiled at both of them as she continued her singing.
She was wearing summer shoes, completely wrong for the weather and season, and he was almost sure that she was wearing breeches under her dress as he had caught a glimpse of leather under it while she walked in. Her left hand and forearm were hide from view by his heavy glove but he could see her right and it was bandaged, bloody on the fingertips of her hand, that held a small sack. Tristan felt a pang of guilt at the sight.
Iseult spread her wings and then flew the little distance that was between the two of them, perching herself on the arm he automatically raised to host her. The talons dig in his arm a little but Tristan had been in far worse pain and barely noticed it, not even wincing. He caressed her, as gentle as he always did, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders now that he was able to see in person that she had healed well.
It had been in his defense that Iseult had been hurt, badly hit on the wing by one of the woads when she had attacked him, though not before she had gouged his left eye out. Tristan had held onto her for the whole ride back, refusing to allow anyone to held her for him until he had been forced to separate from her at the Healing Rooms.
A clapping sound drew his attention from his own falcon to the door, where Dinadan and Lancelot stood smiling, Gaheris's blond head and Lamorak's grey one visible behind the two of them. The girl blushed harder and pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile of her own.
"Now you have to tell us what it does say!" Lancelot declared as Gawain showed him out of the way and let himself in the room, greeting his brother happily. Dinadan voiced his agreement even as he entered the room and nodded at Tristan, who nodded back at him noting the rabbit carcass the other knight was holding on to, for some reason.
"Gaheris, what's going on? Isobel, a pleasure to see you again and less close mouthed even." Gawain questioned as he sent the woman one of his far too bright smiles. The knight had enlightened Tristan about the visit he had received while Tristan was still unconscious, when the woman had come to get her hands looked at by Jols. Tristan's eyes went back to her right hand, to the bloody bandages that were the result of Iseult's fury.
"Gawain." The woman said, nodding at the knight as she backed away from the door a little as Lancelot entered the room. She seemed to be careful to keep distance between the two of them, though it certainly wasn't out of fear. It appeared to be more of a precaution measure, a conscious one, and Tristan pieced it to Dinadan's tale of Lancelot's failed attempts at bedding her. So she was attracted but for some reason she was reluctant to allow herself to become the next conquest of Tristan's fellow knight. Interesting.
"Isobel was delighting us with one of the songs her mentor taught her, brother!" Gaheris smiled, clearly pleased with the tale he was going to recount. Lancelot immediately inserted himself in it while Lamorak shook his head and nodded at both Tristan and the girl before he took off without even entering the room.
Tristan tuned the two of them out, especially because Dinadan had closed the distance between him and the girl and had clasped a hand on her shoulder, leading her towards Tristan's bed.
"Tristan, this is Isobel. She has a Roman name but Isobel is a far better one. She is the maid I told you about, the one to whom Iseult took a shine to." Dinadan told him and Tristan covered his instinctive laughter with a nod and an intake of breath. Laughing was bad for his stitches and he doubted Dinadan had picked on the fact that his smell was bothering the girl, though it was clear to Tristan what with the way she was subtly trying to breath with her mouth and keep her head away from Dinadan's body.
"Isobel, this sour bastard is Tristan. He's the only other person Iseult wouldn't claw to death if she was to live with them." Dinadan went on, as Isobel smiled and nodded at him, her eyes going at his bandages for a moment before they focused on his fingers on Isobel's feathers, as she lowered the little sack she had been holding down on the pavement. He nodded back at her, though he wasn't sure if she noticed it.
She was beautiful, in Tristan's eyes.
Not beautiful in a way a woman was when men couldn't take their eyes off her but beautiful in the way normal women were able to be. She was paler than she would have been had she worked all day outside, but not as pale as someone who had died in the snow from the cold (like the Roman women that never put foot out of their houses were). She was the kind of woman a man could wake next to without having to think about how much he had payed for such a beauty or how he had managed to get her in his bed. Not that Tristan had ever had such a woman in his bed, but that was how he supposed one would have felt in those cases.
Her figure was full in the right points but there was no fat (who would have betrayed a richer upbringing or living) and he had no doubt that, in the right dress, the wiry muscles she was bound to have would have been at least a little noticeable instead of completely hidden by view. She was proportioned for her height and had nice hands, with strong fingers that weren't too long.
"I want to see what Iseult did to you." He told her, blunt and to the point. Her eyes jumped from his hand on Isobel's feathers to his face and she gulped, before she nodded a little too quickly for his taste. She didn't seemed scared of him, which was good because Tristan didn't want her to be, but she did seem wary of him, which he supposed couldn't be helped what with the way he had just talked to her with.
"Relax. He's being nice, for him." Dinadan told her, his hand on her shoulder squeezing it a little as he remained at her side. He was clearly amused and beamed down at her when she raised her eyes to him, as if searching for confirmation.
It irked Tristan a little, that Dinadan had already managed to make himself into someone she could trust. While Dinadan was his friend, the best he had, it always grated on Tristan's nerves how easily the man was able to gather the trust of those around him while Tristan had to work hard and for weeks (if not more) to get the same result that Dinadan had with a chat and a smile.
"I'm sorry, it's just …" She hesitated for a moment, her teeth gnawing a little at her bottom lip in a way that made Tristan cock stir a little, before she went on.
"I was really afraid of how you would react if Iseult didn't healed right and I built all those thoughts in my mind about what was going to happen once we met if what I did wasn't enough for your expectations. I wanted to be ready for it, because I wasn't going to allow you to do anything to her even if she hadn't healed well." She took a breath and went on, before her word could sunk in and well before he and Dinadan could react to them.
"I would have taken care of her myself for as long as she lived, in case, because it would have been my fault and she is a pain in the ass but I wasn't going to allow anyone to harm her but then she healed and a thousand things happened and I had no time to think about what I wanted to tell you now. So now I'm a little nervous, that's all. It's nothing personal, I'm really sorry." Her voice rushed out, low in volume as if she didn't want anyone but him and Dinadan hearing it, slightly panting by the end of it.
For a moment, Tristan could just look at her, completely speechless. It wasn't often that he found himself being so, for all that he wasn't a talker. He just preferred to think about things and give his opinion only when it was necessary, reserving his talking for either jokes or important things. Actually being left without words to use was a quite new experience for him, one that left him feeling as if someone had managed to sneak a counter-attack through his defense.
She had been worried Iseult, willing to take care of her.
She being worried about his reaction wasn't all that surprising. Tristan had a deep bond with his falcon and was aware of both the reputation of the Sarmatians and his own (neither positive, especially between the Romans). He would have indeed reacted nastily (to put it as lightly as it could be put) if a Roman maid had botched up Iseult wing and crippled her.
But... being worried for Iseult, after his falcon had been the one to scratch her hands up so bad that apparently she was going to be left with at least one scar from it? Preparing herself to weather his wrath and defend Iseult's right to live even when crippled, going as far as taking the burden of caring for her on her own shoulders? Apologizing for both her nervousness and for having been so overwhelmed by events that would have floored men far stronger and more experienced than her, less of all a common Roman woman?
That was completely unexpected, even ridiculous, as Dinadan booming laugh underlined. It made her flush, clearly embarrassed, and her teeth started again on the gnawing, pushing Tristan to keep his eyes off her lips and instead look at her eyes. Not into them, because she was looking down towards Iseult, who had reacted to Dinadan's laughter with a combative screech, clearly unsettled by it.
"It's all right. Nothing to worry about." Isobel soothed towards the falcon, hesitating just for an instant before her hand came up to ever so gently caress the animal's wings, not touching Tristan's ones but coming close enough that he was able to feel the heat coming from them. It woke up the want in him.
It made Tristan's mood sour that Lancelot had seen her first, met her while he was lying here, completely useless. He was the one indebted to her, for more than one debt, in more than one way and for more than one reason. He was the one whose falcon had chosen this girl as a female worthy of her own attention. He should have been the one with the right to tell the others she was his to take and none of them should interfere in it. Him, not Lancelot.
At the same time, he was relieved that Lancelot had met her first and set his aim on her as the one he wanted to bed next. Lancelot, despite what his reputation said, was not one to take a lover and then discard her in the morning (prostitutes excepted but with those it was a given). He had had far less lovers than he was credited with and Tristan had never seen any of them leaving his room unsatisfied or bearing painful marks on their skins. Lancelot was a man who knew how to treat women.
Tristan didn't. Where Lancelot was capable of gentleness and affection, Tristan was a hard man whose only gentleness was reserved for Iseult. No woman, except for those he paid, wanted to share his bed because he was as violent as a lover as he was on a battlefield. Even between the prostitutes, only a couple actually enjoyed fucking with him and they were into pain as much as he was, wild things with dark looks and sneering smiles.
While he wanted her, felt the want starting to gnaw at his insides even as he reached with his hand toward hers and took it between his fingers, he was also relieved that she was not to be his. She was not the kind of woman to lie with a man like him.
Ignoring her surprised gasp, Tristan turned her hand in his own and looked at the bloodied points of her fingertips in silence. In the corner of his eye, Dinadan stopped laughing and put the rabbit carcass down on his bed, starting to talk to her. Tristan paid his words no heed, watching instead how Dinadan helped her by pushing up her sleeve, just enough that he could undo the knot Jols had tied on her bandages.
It was time to assess exactly how much damage Iseult had done to the girl she had now clearly adopted as her own.
-§-break-§-
Dinadan knew the look in Tristan's eyes and it gave him pause, though he didn't show it.
Coming from the same tribe, he had known Tristan before his own departure for Briton and had been saddened and overjoyed in equal parts when his friend had turned up one year later with the next group of Sarmatians kids.
To most, outside or their tightly knit group, Tristan came off as a ruthless killer, a bloodthirsty barbarian with a dark sense of humor. Inexpressive, too sour to bother give attention to him or too scary to keep their eyes on. They had neither the interest nor the will to get to know the other man and they were fast to label and then forget him until they were obliged to acknowledge his existence.
To most, inside their tightly knit group, Tristan came off as a good brother in arms, a little taciturn but with a dry sense of humor and an uncanny ability for hunting and scouting. Hard to read, understandably sour and to be respected for how he was. They didn't had the connection Dinadan, Tristan and Lucan (the other boy from their tribe and their closest friend) shared and they didn't search for it, because they had their own between themselves.
To Dinadan and Lucan, Tristan was as close as a brother by blood, thoughtful but not as silent as he may have actually been had he wanted to and with a dark, dry sense of humor that was as much of a killer as Tristan's sword. An open book, not as sour as much as understanding and resigned to their fate and to be as respected as looked out for.
Tristan was a hard man, made harder by their life, and sorely lacking the ability to interact with people in a normal way. Tristan was wild, in the inside. An untamed stallion, in Lucan words. A feral wolf, in Dinadan's own. It was just under the surface of him, kept in check by the chains he had chosen and learned to impose on himself to keep his darker part as much at bay as he was able to.
Tristan was a son of the nature, as strong as a natural event could be. Neither benign nor malign. He was perfectly able to feel and express, in his own way, positive emotions. There was no doubt in Dinadan that Tristan was much more man than beast (in complete opposite to Tristan's father who was more of a bloodthirsty beast than anything else).
The concepts of honor, duty, respect, responsibility were what formed the chains that Tristan used to bind himself down, along with many others. It was why the look in the man eyes while he looked at Isobel first and then at her hand gave him pause instead of actually worrying him.
Tristan wanted Isobel. This was not the kind of want that a normal man would have felt. This was a much more primitive and deep thing, Tristan's instinct rearing it's head up and telling the man that this woman should have been his. It was a proprietary thing, a deep and savage feeling that wasn't going to ever leave Tristan, not even if he were to take her as his own.
Never to be satisfied or placated, it was the same kind of wanting that made Tristan the ruthlessly efficient warrior that he was, the cold-blooded killer who enjoyed to kill for his own pleasure and not only for duty. It wasn't a negative emotion, on its own, but it was one that was linked with the possessive strike the width of Briton that the man possessed. It was the one that was linked with the fierce protectiveness that Tristan had always displayed for both Iseult, his horse, Lucan and Dinadan himself.
Tristan respected all of them, trusted them to fight their own battles on their own, but that didn't stop the man from taking care of them in his own way. Dinadan knew it because, in that, they were made from the same mold. What was theirs was precious and irreplaceable, to be respected and took care of.
But no matter how much he may have wanted her, Lancelot had seen her first and Tristan would sooner cut off his arm than move on a woman one of his brothers wanted and had dibs on (because, in the end, that was what it was). Tristan held his brothers in too much esteem, had too much respect for them and too much honor as a man to ever try anything with Isobel and that was why Dinadan wasn't worried.
Had she been free and unattached, he would have worried. Should she show signs of actually not wanting Lancelot, instead of just being wary of the idea, he would have worried. Were her time as Lancelot's lover come to an end, sooner or later, Dinadan was going to worry. Right now? To acknowledge it just gave him pause for a couple of seconds, before he refocused his attention.
While Dinadan made up the bandages he had undid, he looked at the healing cuts (his eyes immediately found the one that was going to scar and it didn't look pretty at all) on Isobel hands, wrists and forearms. Tristan had gently dislodged Iseult, who had hopped down on the bed and settled on the man knee, and was not intently studying those same cuts.
Isobel was explaining that Iseult had been furious at being separated from Tristan and she had had no idea on how to handle there, so she had done her best and washed her before she had bound her wing with one of her undershirts. It was far more than what Dinadan would have done for any beast trying to carve him up. Had it been him, with an unknown falcon, he would have snapped the beast's had and be done with it, fuck the owner's rage. Possibly he would have asked in the kitchen if someone was up to roast it for him.
The way the girl kept talking, explaining as if she felt the need to apologize for her inexperience, was clearly getting to Tristan. The man had already felt indebted with her for taking care of Iseult, guilty for the state her hands and forearms were in and guiltier still for the fact that she was going to be scarred.
To discover that the woman who had received them wasn't the kind to either rub it in his face or fidget in silence until she was free to escape his presence... well it wouldn't have surprised Dinadan if Tristan had wanted her.
The fact was that she was much more than simply that. She was not an obnoxious typical Roman, nor a snotty little shit. She wasn't frail as one may have thought and she was no delicate flower that was going to be ripped apart by the first storm to come upon it. Isobel was a survivor, a strong woman who had the potential to become as much of a warrior as some of the girls in Dinadan's tribe had been, without losing the traits that made her feminine.
Many warrior women fought and acted as if they had to be considered on pair with the man around them. They demanded respect for their deeds, respect that Dinadan thought had to be given to them but should have been given freely instead of being expected by them. They grew up hard and arrogant because they thought it was what was needed from them. Not all of them were that way, but many had those characteristics which didn't endeared them to Dinadan at all.
Isobel, instead, didn't acted as if she was due any respect. She took what was given to her, expected not to be treated like a whore or something that one would find in a muddy ditch (like Galahad had hilariously discovered at his own expenses) and worked for the rest, never asking anyone for anything.
Many woman, especially the Roman ones, took many things for granted. A certain level of respect for the part they did for their families or people, an acknowledgment of their work and a given excuse for most of their actions. Dinadan almost snorted at the thought. As if he would ever look at a woman and think "defenseless, innocent, little thing I should give her a free pass" just because she had breasts and lacked a cock.
It had been one of the reasons why Isobel decision of taking advantage of her status as sui iris to learn more than she would have been otherwise allowed but, at the same time, not to take advantage of her nature as a woman to excuse herself from the consequences of the brawl in Vanora's tavern had impressed him. Here was a woman who asked to be seen as a man and took her punishment as one without breaking a sweat.
While Dinadan himself wasn't attracted to her (too plain for him and he liked blondes like her Briton friend more anyway) he had respect for her and that was more than almost all women in the Fort could claim, from his part. On top of this, Iseult had clearly taken a liking to the woman, which was as impossible as getting a whole month of summer without rain in this blasted land.
To be honest, he wasn't surprised at all that Tristan wanted her as his.
As a friend of the man, though, and aware as he was of how rough and still inexperienced Tristan actually was with both his feelings and women, it reassured him to know that, thanks to Lancelot's cock and its interest in getting between Isobel's legs and then inside her, Tristan wasn't going to try and take her for himself.
Still, that meant that Isobel had gained a fierce protector and, Dinadan would have bet his sword on it and hatchet on it, a new shadow that was going to keep an eye on her for years to come, either openly or from the other shadows. The how depended on whether she liked it or not, since the decision wasn't nor had ever been in Isobel's hands.
And that was before she got a hold of her little sack and opened it, taking out an apple as she explained to Tristan that she had heard about him liking them in the kitchen and had though he would have liked some.
By the gods, was the girl trying to get jumped by his friend or what?
-§-break-§-
Author Note
I'M BACK!
Hello to everyone and oh God, I've missed you all and this story SO much, you have no idea! I'm sorry for the fucking huge delay in posting but I had an accident and I injured the muscles in the back of my left shoulder. It had to be immobilized and I was ordered complete rest and no moving it, which precluded me from typing too. Almost all of this chapter has been typed one handed, which was a pain the ass, let me tell you.
Now I'm back though and I'm going to update far sooner this time around! God, the reactions to the previous chapter and all the reviews have been absolutely wonderful! I hope the new one is as well received an that you all like what I'm doing with the story!
You get two new characters (the Gauls) and two new POVs (Tristan and Dinadan) this time around! You may have noticed that this is less of a dialogue story and more of an action / thought story. This is a deliberate choice on my part, one I hope you won't mind. There will be dialogue, there has been in past chapters and there was in this one, but the dialogue won't be the focus of the story as you may have gathered by now XD
About the songs and the language Isobel referred to... she was talking about modern english. I didn't put it down in the text because it came out during other people POV. I had been sitting on this one little twist since the first chapter, I admit, and I hope you liked how I handled the issue.
The song that Isobel was singing was "If Today Was Your Last Day" by Nickelback, you can find it on YouTube. While she knows quite a lot of naughty songs (including a nice selection of Irish Pub songs) she had expected the knights to ask her for a translation and so she went with one she thought they could like (even if for now she managed to avoid having to translate it in Latin XD).
I know that we have 'lost' some characters between Gaheris and Tristan's POV but there's a reason if they aren't there anymore, I didn't just forget them!
Thank you very much for listening to my rambling. The Historical Notes will be brief this time and, as always, under my answers to all of your fabulous reviews and my thanks to those who decided to follow me and my story. Thank you all so very much!
forestreject: Thank you very much for adding my story to your favorites! Ahahahah, yes the brawl was fun to write! I kept picturing the mayhem in my head and how no one was actually sure of what was going on most of the time as I was sketching it out. Iseult is back and I'm actually having much fun with Jols, we will see him again soon. His role in the movie wasn't really defined but my idea of him makes him fit quite well with the Roman medical units, especially since they went on the field and we do see him go with the knights in the movie, when they depart to go get the Pope's nephew.
Naranja SanDiego: Thank you too for making my story one of your favorites and thanks a lot for the compliment :)
Spooks94: Welcome back from your holidays! I hope you liked the three new chapters and that they helped tide you over until this one popped up!
Soaring Hawk: I'm really happy that you like both the story and the Historical Notes! Isobel and Iseult interaction actually became one of the things I like more in the story! I am also quite satisfied that you like the faces I choose for my OCs. I'm sorry for leaving you hanging so long without an update but I couldn't help it. Writing one-handed had been really hard and my shoulder made me see stars most of the time so I was confined at bed rest and I'm not writing from a laptop, sadly!
Kristall: In this story I'm often choosing to skip on dialogue or scenes to instead recount them through the eyes of those who where here. The brawl, the meeting with Arthur, Isobel handling of the skill exchange in this chapter. While a well written scene has his reasons, I find that the flow of this story works better if I deal and concentrate on how people perceive what happens instead. I'm really satisfied that it's working for you and the other readers :D! And Iseult has some … pretty extreme opinions about the people in the Fort XD (I'll give you a hint: most of them have an "Useless" in their description). The dislike is from both sides of the equation ;)
DGfleetfox: Always a pleasure to hear from you! Hee, Gawain wants to see the action dammit! Especially if Galahad is on the receiving end of it! I could almost hear him grumble about people being inconsiderate of his need to be entertained in my head XD. It was a pleasure to give you the OCs. The two Gauls should pop up a few minutes after I've posted the story on my profile if everything goes right, so you'll have their faces too! I've looked Sally Hawkins up, as you suggested, and I actually find her to be a good fit for Isobel so I will probably change the photos on the profile from Michelle Ryan to her, thank you very much for the very appreciated help! Hee, I'm happy you like the knights! I actually searched for men that had been in medieval / fantasy flicks so that I could put out people that looked the part (though I had to settle with a photo of Karl Urban where he's smiling because when he was Eomer he didn't smiled at all, damn him). Sean Bean was also in the pretty good Black Death, who is pretty recent (one or two years old) and I highly recommend it to you. The photo on the profile should be from that film, if I'm not wrong. I did consider Thomas Jane for one of the knights, but I decided to keep it in my 'for future characters' list (so you may find him popping up in the future) and went instead with James Franco because in his last Spiderman movie he had half of his face covered by burn scars and that's the kind of scars I had imagined on Lucan's face (there's a story for them but it will come out in the story at some point so you will have to wait to discover what happened to him). I want one of them to be heavily scarred, because it happened at the time.
Criya Astleon: Thank you very much for adding my story to your alerts!
The Mouse's Rose: Thanks to you too for adding my story to your list of alerts!
Sama-Bama: I am really happy that you decided to put my story in your favorites, thanks!
TwistedInferno: It put a huge smile on my face to be added to both your favorites and alerts, thank you ever so much for it!
DokoDoko: Thank you for adding me to your Alert list :D
Victoria: Happy Birthday, dolcezza (dolcezza = sweetness, italian term of endearment)! I'm really happy to have been able to finish this chapter in time to get it posted on your birthday! I hope you'll like it and will be able to consider it a worthy b-day present ;) How old are you? (It's just curiosity, I'm 26 as of the last 26th of December). I'm happy that you appreciate the work I've been putting in the story (which, yes, is load of it as you aptly noted XD). If you ever have any suggestion or correction to make please let me know. I haven't studied much of Roman and Latin history except for the things I researched by myself, which are more about culture than anything else, though I do know that I will be tweaking history itself here and there (especially since most historians agree on the fact that Arthur didn't actually exist and disagree on practically anything else XD).
ReinetteNarbonne: I saw the notification just in the nick of time before I posted, wow! Thank you so very much for adding my story to your favorites!
Just one Historical Note this time folks!
Historical Notes
Music at the time of the Roman Empire
While we know some things about the Greek music, little to nothing have survived in this contest from any of the periods of the Ancient Rome. It is believed that Roman music was mostly composed of single melodies so many instruments following the exact same track instead of an harmony of instruments (to put it simply, no modern concept of orchestra but instead all the instruments following the same series of notes at the same time).
They had no known method to note down music and there are no reports of musicians working off any kind of partition. Nonetheless they had, from what is known, blown instruments, plucked strings instruments and percussion instruments.
Music was important for them, with instruments used to announce gatherings or big events and even, depending on the place and occasion, huge numbers of instruments forming a sort of orchestra and working at the same time (like the trumpets we can hear in the Gladiator movie in the Coliseum). It was also a big part of religious rites and feasts.
That said, singing existed even at the time, though it was usually done a cappella (like Vanora's song in the movie). Military cadences A little tidbit from one of the texts on Roman Military I read: it's believed military cadences may have existed too, if only because it helped coordinating the soldiers as they marched and kept them distracted from the weight they were loaded with (which was a lot).
