Realizing the imminent threat these newcomers posed, Senator Camillus' guards came at Tarra and the knights with brandished swords. One guard reached his grubby hand out to seize Tarra's arm, but Galahad had a dagger at his throat before he could advance another inch. "Don't touch her," Galahad ordered with a threatening glare. The knights did not seem intimidated in the least by the amateur soldiers who eyed them wearily, hesitant to attack. Lucia saved the guards' having to take action, however, by waving them off until she would call for them again.
"Arthur Castus," she greeted spitefully, holding her head high and aloof in an attempt not to appear shaken.
"Lucia Gaius," Arthur returned, smiling audaciously and showing himself to clearly be the more confident of the two. "Sorry to barge in unannounced," he added with a light insincerity.
"And do I not get a hello?" greeted Lancelot with a feigned salacious grin.
Lucia stifled a smile. "Ah, Lancelot," she said, running her eyes down his body, "My favorite mistake."
Lancelot's grin broadened. "I'm everyone's favorite," he bragged, "Unfortunately I cannot repay the compliment. To be perfectly honest, you're rubbish in bed, dear." Lucia scowled at him, but Lancelot simply dismissed her with a laugh.
"By the gods, Lancelot, is there any woman alive you haven't slept with?" spat Tarra in disgust.
"Well, you, actually," Lancelot replied coyly, though mentally he was kicking himself. He certainly would not win Tarra by waving his past affairs in her face. He then added smoothly, "But I've always been one to save the best for last."
"You try anything perverse and I guarantee it will be your last," warned Tarra, twirling her dagger between her fingers as a kind of hint. She had caught the apologetic look Lancelot had tossed her, but that didn't mean she couldn't have her fun.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" asked Lancelot, not getting the message.
Galahad rolled his eyes at his numskulled friend and said, "She means she's going to cut off your---"
"Ahem!" interrupted Arthur, clearing his throat, "Let's get back to the point, shall we?"
Everyone turned their attention back to Lucia and Arthur except for Lancelot who had to have the last word. "Well she'll need more than that flimsy dagger to cut through my tree trunk of manhood," he countered proudly, adjusting his belt.
"Yeah. Right. Bamboo tree, maybe," Tarra muttered.
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As these antics took place, Senator Camillus leaped at the chance to slink out of the room while the others were distracted. His fatal mistake, however, was that there was one among them who was never actually fully distracted from his surroundings. Tristan's eye caught Senator Camillus' escape, and he quickly trailed after the senator through the winding halls of the estate.
Senator Camillus skulked through the shadows, taking precautions despite his imprudent belief that he had successfully evaded his newly arrived enemies. Nevertheless, his extrication involved bumbling clumsily down the hall as he tried to move his substantial weight lightly across the floor. Tristan glided elusively behind him, keeping his tall figure well hidden. The scout stalked the senator around a final corner at which point Senator Camillus ducked into a room that, by the desks and shelves, appeared to be his study. He staggered over to his desk and began shuffling through his papers. He would evacuate the estate immediately to safety, but not without his effects. The door to the study gave a sudden creak as it turned on its hinges. Camillus spun around at the sound to see Tristan enter, closing the door behind him and turning the latch.
The papers dropped from Camillus' trembling hands as his eyes dilated with fear. Tristan leaned casually against the door, running his hand along the curved blade of his sword as a nonverbal threat for Camillus to see.
"Leaving so soon?" Tristan asked in an emotionless tone as he studied his blade.
"Wh-What are you doing here?" stammered Camillus, "Are you---Are you going to kill me now?"
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," challenged the scout indifferently.
"I-I'm a politician---a senator. I'm very important to Rome," he pleaded, "If it's money you want, I assure you my ransom would be more than generous. Just---keep me alive."
"Do I look like a man who is driven by money?" Tristan asked in a voice that was frighteningly calm when compared to the tormented politician that stood unnerved before him.
"Everyone has a price…" the senator replied, trying to mask his terror with a rueful smile.
"Sit down," Tristan ordered, pointing with his sword to the chair behind the desk. Camillus hesitated at first, but the dangerous face of the knight in front of him persuaded Camillus that he was in no place to make objections. He therefore did as he was told, anxiously placing his trembling body into the chair.
Tristan advanced over towards him, leaning against the edge of the desk. Once Camillus was seated, Tristan said casually, as if in usual conversation, "To answer your question, I am going to kill you, but first---I want to know if you are afraid---and I want to see it." As he spoke these words, Tristan studied the face of senator, taking pleasure in every wrinkle of tension.
"I said I will pay you whatever you want!" protested Camillus in desperation.
The muscles of the scout's face contracted. He slashed the tip of his sword across Camillus' face, drawing a crimson shade of blood that trickled down his cheek. Tristan then leaned over so that barely an inch separated his face from Camillus'. He locked eyes with the senator and repeated in a minacious whisper, "Do I look like a man who is driven by money?"
Camillus' trembling lips parted to release a nervous laugh. Tristan did not look like a man who could be driven by anything except by his own whim, which was all the more terrifying. "I can give you whatever else you want, then," Camillus offered hopelessly, "Anything at all. Just name it."
"You have nothing that I could possibly want. But I will take from you what you value most, instead," said Tristan with a shadow of a grin.
"Yes! And surely you can see that I am a greedy man. I do not pretend to share your apathy for money and I admit I am driven purely by it," he said, "Therefore take my money. It is what I value most."
Tristan swiped his sword again across Camillus' other cheek, this time not only drawing blood from the senator, but tears as well. "As a politician, you should be able to formulate more convincing lies," Tristan said, calmly wiping the blood from his blade. He then added in amusement, "But I see that, as a Christian, you've learned to turn the other cheek."
"It is not a lie! I swear it!" the senator cried.
"Why should I take your money when you have such an ample amount of wealth to lose?" asked Tristan, "But you only have one life and it is that pathetic piece of property that you value most."
"Please! I beg you! Have mercy!" Camillus wailed, his eyes swollen with tears.
With a face as hard as stone, Tristan stared firmly into Senator Camillus' bloodshot eyes. "I will show you the same mercy you would have shown Arthur, my commander," the scout said with finality and in one, graceful swoop of Tristan's sword, the head of Senator Camillus fell to the floor.
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"Now then," said Arthur, turning his attention back to Lucia, "It would appear you want me assassinated."
"I really hope he didn't just figure that out," Tarra mumbled to no one in particular.
"It would also appear that I hired a traitorous assassin," Lucia remarked contemptuously.
"Everyone is a traitor from their enemy's point of view," Tarra contended with a shrug of her shoulders. "As for me, I ally myself with those from whom I can reap the most benefits, and in this case it paid to play both sides. I managed to collect a reward for a duty I did not even perform," she added boastfully, jingling the coins in her pocket.
A sly smile crept up the corner of Lucia's mouth. "As fate would have it, your bringing Arthur here will prove just as effective as your having performed that duty after all," she said, not trying to hide her satisfaction.
"Is that so?" asked Arthur, raising a suspicious eyebrow.
"It is indeed," said Lucia, turning back to Tarra, "You asked me if I had heard of the Sultan of Bostra, now known as the Sultan of Petra, and, in answer to that question, yes. I have heard of him, but more importantly I know how it is that he became the Sultan of Petra."
"Oh sh--" sprang an obsenity from Tarra's mouth, realizing what was to come.
Lucia laughed. "Yes, it's a story I've always admired," she said triumphantly, "The Sultan Arif of Bostra acquired Petra after baiting the Sultan of Petra out from behind his walls, didn't he? And while the Sultan of Petra attacked the deserted Bostra, the Sultan of Bostra easily took control of the before unconquerable city of Petra. It's never safe for a king to be away from home, is it? You see, Arthur, at this very moment an army of Saxons and two revolutionary woad tribes are attacking the main fort at Hadrian's Wall. I suspect it will not be long before they have gained control of the fort and from there they will continue their invasion of the entire country. Of course, they could not accomplish such an endeavor without the backing of myself and other equally ambitious politicians. We shall live to see Briton returned to Roman hands yet, I think."
Arthur's face turned red with rage. "And I say you will not live to see tomorrow's sun rise!" he threatened, his eyes flaring up with fury.
Lucia did not wait to see if he intended to make good on his word. She dashed over to an oil lamp that sat on a nearby table and smashed it against the wall where a large tapestry hung, depicting the Great Flood and Noah's ark. "Guards!" she screamed as the fabric went up in flames. The guards, who had been waiting in anticipation for these orders, charged at the knights as Lucia and the other four politicians fled the room.
The fire spread quickly through the main hall as Gawain, Galahad, and Tarra fought off the charging guards. Arthur, anticipating the fire's spreading further throughout the estate, called over to them, "Get as many of the servants and other innocent people out as you can!" After giving these orders, he and Lancelot bounded off in pursuit of Lucia and her fellow conspirators.
Gawain and Galahad easily hacked their way through the gang of novice warriors. "Hey! Stop hogging all the kills!" Tarra called, throwing her dagger into the back of one of the guards, "Share the fun, will you?" A few more swings and stabs left the entire group of guards lying lifelessly on the floor. "Well that was anti-climatic," commented Tarra in disappointment at the ease of their victory.
"Come on, let's get out of here," said Galahad. The fire was quickly sweeping throughout the main hall and into the corridors. The three of them quickly exited the main hall where they met with Tristan who they had not even realized had disappeared until that moment.
"Where the hell have you been?" asked a puzzled Gawain.
"Taking care of some business," Tristan answered simply.
"The fire's spreading quickly," observed Galahad, "Arthur told us to get as many people out as possible."
"This way," said Tristan, who the others always trusted for his sense of direction. He pointed down the corridor and began to lead the way with Galahad and Gawain following closely at his heels.
"You guys just go ahead with all that heroic nonsense!" Tarra called after them, shooing them away, "I'm going to go find Arthur and Lancelot. No way am I letting them have the pleasure of killing these Roman scumbags all to themselves!"
With that, Tarra headed off down the corridor in the opposite direction. The hallway was quickly filling up with smoke so that Tarra had to cover her mouth with her hand in order to breathe. She squinted to see through the cloud in front of her and coughed painfully as the smoke filled her lungs. She turned back warily in the direction from which she had come, but the knights were long gone.
Tarra could feel the floor boards flex and the wood creak beneath her feet as she made her way through the corridor. Her hearing was the first of her senses to become aware of what happened next. She took a step forward and heard an ear-splitting CRASH! The next of her senses to awaken was her sense of touch as her body slammed to the ground beneath the collapsed floor boards. She rolled over dazedly, still not sure of what had happened. When she had ascertained that none of her bones were broken, she gingerly rose to her feet.
Looking up through the hole in the floor through which she had plunged, Tarra realized that she had fallen far enough down to the point that the fractured floor boards above her were just out of her reach. She could see the smoke thickening above her and could feel the heat of the fire growing closer. 'So this is how I die,' she found herself thinking as she evaluated the situation. "Like hell!" she cried aloud in protest to her own thoughts.
Tarra quickly began scanning her surroundings for any way out, but there was only the dirt ground, the dirt walls, and the floor boards above her that lay out of her reach. When she was finally convinced that no other means of escape would present themselves, she resigned herself to the only course of action she had left. "HEEEEELP!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, projecting her voice as far as it would carry, "Is anyone out there? Hello? Please! Somebody help!" She shouted louder and louder, but the only answer she received was the crackling roar of the fire above.