A/N – finally a chapter to explore Lancelot! I thought he was kind of left hanging in the movie.
Kateheartpeace – some of your questions answered in A/N in footnotes.
It may be a while before I can update. Life demands attention.
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Once more, Tristan went in search of Dani, feeling more than a little irritated at her continued evasion and a deep unease that he most likely shared with every other inhabitant of the fort. At the clinic courtyard a harassed looking Jols squared off with Percy's sour looking manservant Alan, standing arms akimbo. The objects of their altercation lay around them, jars of pottery filled with dormant rosebushes of various shapes and sizes, Percy's inexplicable passion. Tristan shook his head in disbelief hearing Jols patiently explain to Alan one more time that, no, rosebushes were not a priority for the wagons that were being loaded for the knights' departure from Britain.
'Is Dani here?' the scout asked Aili, the petite midwife who was bustling about within. Dagonet lay motionless in the recovery room – a small niche curtained off from the larger room used for seeing patients.
'I haven't seen her,' said the midwife, and hesitated before adding, 'I should check on the refugees. I hear some have frostbites and such. They had a rough journey, but I can't leave him.' She gestured towards Dagonet.
'Gault?' asked the scout, looking around for the other knight who had been injured.
'Sent to his room, Sir Tristan, for we are short of space here,' she replied, gesturing this time toward piles of partially packed clinic supplies. 'He is healing well, just needs rest.'
'I will watch Dagonet,' Tristan offered. He thought the midwife would make an excellent companion for the gentle healer, if he lived. 'How does he?'
'He sleeps,' the woman informed with an expression of deep concern, 'but he hasn't woken long enough for me to feed him, even a little broth. Thank you.' She took a satchel of supplies and left with a last backwards glance towards Dagonet.
Tristan made himself comfortable by Dagonet's bedside while he waited for Dani to return. He was pleased to see the healer had regained some color and was breathing evenly. He wondered how the man would fare on their upcoming arduous trip. His own injured leg throbbed a bit now that he had been up for several hours, and he was glad to rest.
He closed his eyes and started to make a mental inventory of things he had to do. First, check on his faithful Grey. Thinking of the horse brought a flush of happiness. He had a few associates to say goodbye to, chief among them Cunomori's apprentice. He wondered if the boy would like to leave with them. Despite Senna's preparations and drills with the town militia, the fort would surely fall; the enemy numbers made it inevitable.
During those long discussions in Arthur's office, battle tactics were not all that the administrator had talked about. In less enthusiastic tones, Senna had recounted stories of ghost towns and forts he had seen on the Balkans' journey from the Eastern provinces to Britain the summer past as Rome gave ground to increasingly daring Barbarian raids. The Roman army on the continent had been weakening for long, and had been completely wiped off in places, victim to sheer numbers and tenacity of the enemy. Senna's group had camped at abandoned forts and outposts that they had expected to find manned. This was not how Tristan had planned to leave Britain, sneaking away before an expected assault on the fort he had defended for so many years. Nor could he think of the ragged holes in Roman territories that were now lawless or occupied by Eastern Barbarians. His fist clenched with the effort to clear his head of futile, circular thoughts of feeling trapped.
He must have drifted off, for he woke with a start from a nightmare of walking endlessly through the deserted ruins of Badon Fort, looking for Dani, his friends, anyone alive. Footsteps haunted him but he could not see anyone. Once awake, for a long moment of near panic he could not distinguish between dreaming and reality. There were indeed footsteps, familiar ones. Automatically clapping a hand to the dagger at his waist, the knight took deep breaths to steady his pounding heart and dispel the lingering sour aftertaste in his mouth. Lancelot's voice came to him.
'You are staying here?' the First Knight asked, sounding surprised.
'Dani offered me a spare room,' Guinivere replied, setting down a bundle. 'Don't worry. I won't stay long. Neither will you, I hear.' Both she and the scout waited for Lancelot's reply, the latter with a certain amount of amusement despite the faint nausea and breathlessness he was still feeling. He had not missed the Lancelot's interest in their captive/guest. Guinivere herself was obviously out to enlist powerful men for her cause.
'Tomorrow morning I leave for Sarmatia,' replied the knight, 'with some of the others. Arthur goes to Rome.' If Lancelot hoped to provoke the woman into saying something about Arthur, she disappointed him.
'Oceans of grass, sky bigger than you can imagine,' she said in the faintly mocking tones the scout now associated with her. 'Isn't that what you told me?'
'You could come with us,' Lancelot offered after some hesitation. 'The Saxons will be here soon. They won't be merciful.'
'So I should cast my lot with the mercenaries of Rome?' Guinivere's voice dripped scorn.
'The world is bigger than this cold little island,' Lancelot snapped back, equally angry. 'I plan to live in it.'
'The world you remember has moved on without you for so long, you may not recognize it,' Guinivere's voice became cajoling now. 'This place, here and now, is real. Listen to it, Lancelot.' They all listened, the amused scout in his secluded corner, to the sounds of a busy fort – carts rolling, horses snorting, peddlers hawking, people laughing, a bird calling, a hammer falling on anvil. Listening to the familiar and reassuring everyday sounds, Tristan's pounding heart steadied at last.
'Look,' said Lancelot in a softer voice, 'my sister gave me this amulet, so I would return to her safely.' It was the amulet Tristan had seen Lancelot hold many times, most recently during the eulogy Arthur gave for fallen friends.
'Perhaps she gave it to you because you might not return, but she wanted you to be safe anyway.'
'And you? There is no safety for you here.'
'Why do you care?' she asked bluntly.
'You made me think, and question myself.' Lancelot replied slowly, reluctantly, but sounding more sincere than the scout remembered him ever being. 'I never dreamed of the future before, but I do now. You asked me if I plan to marry, have sons. You and I can have that life.' The last came out in a rush. Guin remained silent, possibly shocked by Lancelot's offer. Tristan was. Only Lancelot could be in love with three women within the span of a few months, he decided. Or maybe he's really worried about being bored in retirement.
'You said you would have left me,' she said finally, 'in that dungeon.'
'I was wrong,' Lancelot admitted. Tristan raised his eyebrows and waited to hear more; Lancelot had been making all manner of confessions lately. 'I was so caught up – following the amulet, wanting to return to one who loves me – it sometimes made me blind to other things.'
'When you love something, you fight for it,' Guinivere said. Their conversation reminded the scout of the arguments between Arthur and Lancelot, each earnestly trying to convince the other but neither succeeding.
'I have fought, fifteen years, for the right to return home,' Lancelot told her. She seemed to be considering.
'Staying here now is suicide,' the knight added, completely ruining any chance he had with Guinivere.
'Don't let me keep you, Sir Knight. You must have much packing to do, before you start running from the Saxons.' Guinivere flared. Lancelot muttered a curse and stormed out. The curtain dividing them was pushed aside and Tristan found himself staring back into the shocked eyes of their guest.
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Author's note:
I thought there was too little of the Lancelot-Guinivere romance angle. He's such an intense character so I decided to expand. I thought Lancelot potentially does have a soft side – but it's not explored much. Plus he did sacrifice himself for Guinivere. I hope you like him.
KHP – here are some of your answers:
About the discharge papers, the story is set at a rather late date – 452 AD + 15 years. I have disregarded the 15 years to keep things simple.
The Western Empire officially ended in 476 AD when the last Western Emperor in Rome was deposed. Long before then the Emperor had lost control of most parts of Europe due to the fall of various cities, loss of troops, infighting among various generals etc. It was chaos, so naturally it makes one wonder what good is a piece of parchment and how the Bishop's party arrived unmolested in Britain.
Bill McKibben is the founder of organization called
No I have not read the book you mentioned but the theme is recurring.