Author's Note: We get to learn a little more about Lindara in this chapter; I think she's a fairly interesting character, and she'll make an interesting partner for a certain knight. ;)

Still a bit fluffy, but it gets better here, and I hope that you agree! Yay!

Enjoy, I hope!

--------------------------------------------------

IX: A Vitualamen Animus

Lindara was true to her word and she joined Eracura for dinner again that night. Eracura was in a foul mood before Lindara arrived, and she was glad for her company. They spoke of nothing and no one in particular, for two hours, and Eracura was truly beginning to consider Lindara a friend.

"I don't have many friends," Lindara admitted, when Eracura told her of what she felt was friendship, "so you are truly unique."

Eracura gave a short laugh, "so I've been told." As an afterthought she asked, "why don't you have many friends?"

Lindara looked at her, repositioning her arm around Syhier, whom she was feeding in her lap. "My Grandmother was a slave, from Egypt." Eracura had never before heard of Egypt, and she said so, "It's in northern Africa," Lindara clarified, "a country far to the south." Lindara continued her story, and Eracura discovered that her Grandmother had been a full-blooded Egyptian dancer, slave to a Roman Legate in Egypt, and they had fallen in love, and married in secrecy. Her Grandmother had gotten pregnant with her Mother, and the Legate's armies had been ordered to join another Legion. With the Legate having been discharged for the time being, they had decided to travel to his home in Constantinople. They had naively believed that none had discovered their secret.

Upon their arrival in Constantinople, they were not permitted access to his home, for another occupied it now. The Legate had been disgraced and stripped of his titles and possessions. They traveled now to Britain, and arrived shortly after Lindara's Mother had been born, staying with the Legate's brother – a draft dodger and therefore dishonored. The Legate's brother took his dishonor seriously, and was a sinister man, who was madly in lust with his brother's wife.

When Lindara's Mother was just thirteen, the Legate's brother killed her Mother in a lustful rage after she had refused him, and the Legate deemed his brother's home unsafe for his beloved daughter and sent her here, to Varo's estate, before it had been inherited by Flavius Varo from his Uncle.

Lindara's Mother earned her keep by entertaining the soldiers of the fort with her beautiful, exotic dancing, and when she was just fifteen, she was impregnated, and the Father never took responsibility.

"My Mother did tell me who he was, while she lay on her deathbed three years ago," Lindara said, her voice sad and bitter. "I am the bastard child of an accused slave-witch and a Roman priest."

Eracura stared at her, dumbfounded. "But I thought …"

"You thought right," Lindara replied, "Roman priests aren't supposed to have sexual relations. When my Mother informed him that I was his child the year before she died, he beat her and accused her of witchcraft, saying that if I was indeed his child, she had cast a spell upon him so that she could have his body."

"Oh …" said Eracura thoughtfully, "then what happened?"

"She was not a witch. She was beautiful and desirable and could ensnare a man's senses in the way she moved. The priest … he was enraptured by her, and raped her, and spawned me, to my everlasting shame."

Eracura hugged Lindara then, knowing that no words could comfort the girl at this point, and Lindara was grateful to her, and said so.

"You are my friend," Eracura told her.

Lindara smiled and looked out the window, her eyes distant, and said, "it is growing late; I should be going. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Eracura nodded, and walked her to the door. She transferred Syhier from her arms to Eracura's, and bade her goodnight. Eracura looked around her empty, painfully dull room and decided to go to the stables instead. Grooming the horses would be a far better use of her time than lying around here. She strapped one of her daggers onto the inside of her thighs, just to be safe, and left.

The rain had subsided, but the ground was soaked and messy and the footing precarious as she made her way to the barn. Astolat and the other horses were restless; they weren't accustomed to being dormant for long periods of time. If the knights weren't on a mission, they always made time to ride.

Eracura was finishing grooming a gleaming white Hocequin when someone arrived. Eracura was mostly concealed for the shadow of the stall, but felt a little uneasy when she saw the Roman officer who had flirted with her earlier enter the barn.

Syhier growled, and the man turned, and Eracura cursed the wolf for the first and last time in that moment. The man's smile told Eracura that he had seen her, and he approached.

"I was looking for solitude when I came here," said he, leaning on the stall door.

"Then I will grant it to you," she said hastily, and she ducked under the railing of the stall, trying to escape to the doorway. He caught her arm, and pulled her rather roughly back to him.

They were so close that when he spoke next, Eracura could smell the alcohol on his breath, not that she would have needed to be very near to him to do so. "Your company is better than solace, fair lady." She turned her head away, stomach rolling at the scent.

The hand that was not grasping her arm grabbed her side, then roved down over her hip and towards her buttocks. She squirmed, disgusted and frightened, and pushed him away with all of her might. He stumbled away, and she backed away from him, watching him cautiously.

He smiled maliciously and approached her, grabbing her shoulders so hard that she winced in pain, as her flesh was ground into the hollows of her bones, and attempted to kiss her. She bit his bottom lip when it came close to her mouth, and he yanked away, bleeding, and slapped her.

She fell sideways into the post of Cotovatre's stall, and the mare whinnied shrilly, startling Ceday, who had been sleeping in the rafters. The hawk squawked crossly, and swooped out of the door.

Eracura steadied herself, wiped her mouth quickly, and hiked up her skirts to get a hand on her dagger.

"That's more like it!" cried the man, storming up to her and wrenching her head back by her hair.

She growled in her throat like an animal, and drew her dagger, pressing it firmly into his abdomen, just above his crotch. He stopped, and looked, stunned, into her murderous face.

"If you ever even look at me again," she said, her voice strangled, "I will, I promise you, ensure that the company of a woman will be the last thing on your mind!"

He gritted his teeth, grinding them hard together, and Eracura wondered briefly if he would not heed her warning and advance on her again. But he backed away, and with one last glance at her, strode out of the barn.

Eracura's knees were shaking beneath her, and she sat down hard upon the ground. She brought her knees up to her forehead and sat there, drawing deep, unsteady breaths. Syhier slipped himself in the tiny crevasse between her heels and hips, slinking almost apologetically, and she stroked his head.

When she had calmed herself, she stood. It was cold here, and she was shivering, and no good luck would come to her when she was alone. With every intention of returning to her room, to sit gratefully before the fire whether Tristan was there or not, she wandered out of the barn. It was raining softly again, and she slowed her pace to drink in the peace of the night.

Just as she rounded the corner of the barn that would lead her to the guest quarters, she was seized from behind. A large, rough hand covered her mouth, and a thick arm squeezed around her torso.

Instinctively, Eracura elbowed the man in the liver, and hastened away, only to collide with the armored chests of two more men. Fear twisted in her gut as she looked into the face of the bastard from the barn; she would not be able to defend herself against all three of them! She brandished her dagger before her, even though the situation was hopeless, and Syhier growled at them, as menacingly as he could.

The man from the barn laughed mockingly at them. "What a pair you two make," he said, "a witch and her puppy. Helpless." He looked down at Syhier, then to one of the other soldiers. "Shut him up!" He ordered. The soldier bent over to grab him, but he darted away and out of sight, for which Eracura was relieved. They would kill him, if they caught him. The man shrugged and signaled to the other soldiers to seize Eracura.

Her arm whipped out, slicing one of the soldiers' bicep, then spun, cutting the other along his cheekbone. They fell back, eyeing her with sudden caution, and then another contemptuous laugh sounded from behind her.

Eracura turned, and let her dagger arm fall to her side when she saw Aurelia standing there, her pretty face masked by hatred and accompanied by an old, stringy-haired priest.

"All alone, witch?" Aurelia spat, "Not so great without your knights, are you?" Eracura narrowed her eyes at her, but did not rise to her bait. "Did you really think," she mused, "that you would leave here unscathed? We know how to deal with witches, even when the great Arthur Castus does not." Eracura swallowed hard, but did not reveal her dread.

"It is for your own good," said the priest, taking a step forward. His voice was gentle, as though he thought he could make her understand how offending she was to them. "You must be sacrificed, to save your soul and the souls of the knights you have contaminated. Your life is a burden on this earth; your coming here misfortune for us all."

"Seize her!" Aurelia ordered, and Eracura was detained, shackled and beaten. Though it must have only been several seconds, they were long and grueling and felt like years.

Eracura was dragged through the mud, bleeding and drifting in and out of consciousness, and thrown into a cold stone cell, and left there. She was informed, that if she had not frozen to death by morning, Flavius Varo would oversee her beheading at dawn.