Dear all.
It stands to reason that I wake up one night at 4 o'clock, seven years after I started this, and can't sleep until I have uploaded the rest of the not inconsiderable amount of writing for this story, which has now been in my document folder for all this time. You will get it as-is. Do not expect lineraity - this narrative was always a cycle. With plotholes and missing bits. It seems to me that it is a greater need now, that I tell what I know, than make up what I don't and maybe never shall.
If one day it comes, I will revise and add it in.
You have all been awesome and patient.
~Y.
Tonguewashing.
Branwain relates:
How the death of Marhaus came to pass, I do not know. I wasn't there. I do know, of course, that Tristran killed him, and I am reasonably sure it was self-defence. Ysolde, later, told me that the Irish courts are as dangerous places to be as Londinium, or worse. It seems to me that while she was bedridden, her aunt finally tired of her husband and knew how to pull his strings with jealousy. She counted on the outcome to be what it was, that much is certain, or so my mistress told me. I don't know how it would have gone for us, had not the Saxon chieftain been there, political pressure and all. To this day, I don't know why he elected to help us. He had no reason to. But we would likely never have gotten off the island of Mannanan again without him.
/\/\/
Lady Essailte feels satisfaction now. A cold, dead kind of satisfaction, tempered only slightly by the knowledge that her husband is lying mortally wounded upstairs.
She knows Marhaus will die, and does not really care. By dying in this way he has chosen his successor. And how much easier this successor will be to control. Bereft of any kind of station, a savage enslaved by her mother's people (and she doubts they will really miss him). She will no longer have to rule from the shadows, by whispers and subtle pulling of strings, for when Marhaus is dead, the power will fall to her.
But that doesn't mean she will not need muscle. She will.
She will have muscle who will do the dirty work. Muscle who has proved his efficiency, and who will have to obey her, if he wishes to stay alive.
A slight leer plays around her mouth at that. He is a survivalist. She has seen as much. He will comply. At lenght, she will make him comply in every way.
The man looks at her calmly. They have not managed yet to make him scream. As soon as they began hurting him his gaze seemed to turn inwards. As the hours passed by, he started smiling more and more secretively, and now she has even caught him licking his lips. She is wondering what sort of thought it is that sustains him, making him do that.
His silence annoys her a trifle but she satisfies herself ; at lenght, it will suit her best that he shuts up. In fact... does he really need that tongue?
She asks him this, and he inclines his head, looking up at her through the fringe of his wild hair. She has had them shackle him, and he is at his knees at the moment, breathing out slowly, concentrated, as he deals with the pain she had just had her associates administer on his body. He is emptying himself of air completely, the muscles of his stomach twitching with the effort. No sound.
But still, he looks up. Not scorning me now, are you, my beast?
His eyes are indescribable. Eyes of an animal, not a human being. In spite of herself a gasp escapes her lips. Barely audible, but he hears it. He grins at her, a shameless, crooked grin, and casually bites his lower lip. His teeth are slightly pointed.
It sends a surge through her abdomen, and she knows at that moment that she must be careful with this one, or else he will have more control over her than would be advisable.
Indeed, she finds her eyes drawn to his sinewy body, the perspiration of it only serving to outline its hard precise definitions in the flicker of the torches. He is not a heavily built man, far from it. In fact, she would describe him as almost delicate.
But she has seen those flat muscles work, seen that body in action. And she has had the opportunity, this night, to gauge exactly how much punishment it can take.
She is impressed by it, in more ways than one.
Careful, Essailte, careful. Stay levelheaded. He belongs to you now. You have all the time in the world.
And oh, will she enjoy him. Exposing the innermost crevices of his being, until every last shred of his soul is laid bare for her eyes to feast in.
"You two," she gestures to her two guards. "Out," she orders. "Remain outside. Close the door."
They shuffle out, leaving her alone with her toy.
She repeats her question. She leans in and breathes it in his ear, knowing his shackled state will not allow him to pose a threat to her. Relishing the scent of young predator as she asks him again, in latin.
"Do you even really know what a tongue is for?"
There is a low, hoarse sound in his throat at that. Like laughter. Then he just looks at her, removing the last shred of doubt in her mind that he has resigned to his fate. He is by no means a fool. Oh no, this one is a cunning slave, knowing who is the stronger master, and thus worth giving his allegiance to.
Master... or mistress.
He licks his lip again, his burning eyes still boring into hers. And the pact is sealed. For a moment their breaths meet, millimeters only separating.
Then she takes the bait.
/\/\/
The woman sits on the chair beside the door most of the time, waiting anxiously. There is a small hatch in it, where a board will every now and again be pushed aside, and someone will stare in through it, asking her all sorts of ludicrous questions. All of it seems to be about Marhaus, and about her Sarmatian savage guard.
They have locked her up. 'For your own safety', the one officer of Marhaus who did it said, apologetically, avoiding eyecontact.
The hatch makes sure they can check in on her, more or less wherever she is in the room. They are suspecting her involvement. Inbetween her sitting and her staring she is wandering back and forth, gritting her teeth.
What of Branwain? Where is Hawk? What happened to them? She does not know.
Last night almost broke her. She heard them, heard it remotely, from deep below, as the Lady Essailte were screaming her questions. But his silence was even worse. He wouldn't make a sound, but she could tell. She knew they were hurting him. It was as if it crawled up through the cracks and hollows of the brickwork towards her. She curled up at that, in a corner, crying helplessly, whispering into the darkness over and over for them to stop, to leave him alone.
A short time later though, she heard a scream of agony. But it was a female voice. And moments later they were at her door, demanding answers as to if her savage was a cannibal.
The screaming went on for a good while. Then it decreased to whimpering and at last, finally, silence.
He had bit out the tongue of his torturer. He had spat it beside her bleeding and screaming form on the floor. Both of the men that was with her were found dead outside his prison, necks broken.
How he managed the shackles is anyones guess.
They can't find him now.
The woman had feigned horror. Then she had chastised them for their laxness.
When they had closed the hatch again, she had smiled wryly.
Now, she is sitting at the door again, her face contorted with a hard, frozen anger.
The soft shifting in the shadows at the far corner at first seems like a dream. But then he steps out of them.
She has no idea as to how he has found his way to her. But Manannan's fort is full of compartments. He must have sniffed out one of them.
At first she just flies to him, enveloping him, choking a sob of relief. Then she pushes him away and looks at him. And feel like screaming again, in anger.
He looks horrible. He is stripped to the waist, and there are cuts, small and malicious cuts on his sides and the inside of his lower arms. Big blue blotches and burning marks on his torso, and one of his eyes is almost closed. The other, however, is glittering at her, reflecting, she suddenly knows, her own grim satisfaction that he is here.
Still, she has nothing, none of her healing tools to make it better for him. It makes her feel angry and powerless but he reaches out and caresses her chin, the touch calming her down immediately.
The area around his mouth is still smeared with blood. She grabs a piece of cloth, dipping it in the basin of water they have left for her and dries it off him, until his face, at least, is cleaned. He stands still, closing his eyes, seeming to savour her attention.
Then she freezes. She hears it now, steps on the stairs below. They are coming!
Signalling franticly at him, she is immediately at the chair by the low door again, her face as close as possible to the hatch, so as to block out as much as possible of the view of the room.
Looking at her quizzically, he shuffles along, stoicly settling cross-legged just in front of her legs, so that he will be invisible from the hatch.
The guard clears his throat when he meets her eye. He clearly is not sure of his own feelings about the situation. He has known the woman in there from when she was a girl.
"Lady Ysolde." He is fidgeting nervously. "Um... may I enter?"
She looks at him coldly, through the hatch. "How rich! First they lock me up as some thief and then they send commoners to enter my prison cell as they please! You most certainly may not!"
He fidgets some more, clearly uncomfortable. "It is just that... I have been told to check that... that the savage has not found his way to this part of the castle... for your own safety, you understand..."
And he looks to the chiseled features of the lady, apologetically.
An astonished look comes over her face. Then she seems to be blushing. "I am sorry, I really cannot let you in right now. I am not decent." She looks pleadingly at him. "I am sure you understand. Tell the associates of the Lady Essailte, to come back later." And she looks worried. "I do hope that she is well..."
The face of the guard falls. This is what he has feared the most.
"I am... I am afraid that she cannot show herself at the moment."
The Lady Ysolde is gritting her teeth, he sees. There is a strained look to her face. She is clearly distraught.
It does not bode well for the next part of news he has to deliver.
"And I am afraid also," he mumbles feebly, "That Lord Marhaus died from his wounds this night."
A halfchoked outcry leaves the lips of the Lady at that. "Tristran, you traitor I am going to kill you myself!" she hisses vengefully. She is trembling.
"Go tell whoever is in charge by now that I will kill the savage myself!"
The Irishman bows, overcome with the mourning he sees in her eyes. I am wondering, he thinks to himself, why they have ever suspected her. Perhaps I should go and tell them what I have perceived...
And with a last apologetic gesture, he closes the hatch, promising to bring her words to those in charge.
The woman waits until he is gone. Then she breathes out, a heavy sigh, and momentarily rests her head against the wall, knuckles white as she clutches a handfull of her skirt.
Her long, white thighs are naked. One of them pushed slightly to the side by the hand of the man in front of her, as he is gently, slowly, kissing the tender divide between them.
Her laboured breath is a chaos of pleasure and fear. But he seems merciless, intent on devouring her utterly.
As if it is all he has been thinking of, for all the hours since last they saw each other.
Husband, they would kill you if they found you!
Then let them.
/\/\/
The Irishman is halfway down the stairs when he hears the shrill mourning cry of Lady Ysolde.
He stops, shame and compassion for a moment filling his heart, being replaced then with resolve. Indeed, she has been wronged ! She is as pained by Lord Marhaus' death as anyone. And Cerdic the Saxon, who is leaving anyway, has repeatedly offered to give her passage off the island.
The man gathers his courage at that. He knows now, that he will go to his superiors. And he will tell them of her threats against the Sarmatian as he heard them from her own mouth. And of her mournful wail when he had left.
They must understand. They really must have gotten it all wrong.
Author's note : it has come to my attention that apparently there is a certain Titus Pollo, in the series of 'Rome', giving someone a similar treatment as that given Essailte by Tristran. So, since I know a lot of my readers probably follow that series, I'd just underline that I have yet to see that series, and didn't get the idea from there. I wrote this, because that's how the story entered my mind. It seemed a very natural thing for Tristran to do, to someone he just couldn't stand. As Perrault put it in his retelling of Little Red Riding Hood : 'sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth'!