Disclaimer: Oops! I've been forgetting to put this on - anyway, I don't own much of anything at all, and certainly not the characters/places in this story!
Chapter Four: Wild Treachery
AUTHOR NOTES: Heh, this section is steadily getting longer. Ah well. I FINALLY got this chapter finished! Thank you to Jazzminna for help with the dialogue, which I did change a bit. In this chapter I will finally [somewhat] explain to you all what the heck happened to poor Tristan's family! Sort of. Kind of unclear, but ya. The next chapter will be over a week away from now, because I'm going to BC on holidays. But please REVIEW!! Huggles, as always, to all.
Nini - Oh my, I looked back and you are very right, the scene changes were so harsh and sudden! Well, I'll try harder to make them a bit smoother from now on, thanks for pointing that out!:)
koalared - I hope so! I'm going to try and make the ending as sad as possible. :laughs wickedly:
slightly-psychotic - I agree about the elf thing. Tristan just has that easy grace that is so beautiful to watch.
Jazzminna - once again, thanks for the dialogue. Also, I've been trying to make Tristan a bit more compassionate...most people are just misunderstanding his silent, restrained nature for coldness, though. You will see. [I hope]
Blue Eyes At Night - Yep, that scene is definitely included! Hope you like it...
guinevere - Wow...I'm very flattered! The thing about distrust...a bit of both. Mainly it is because she is a Woad, and therefore in his mind, a treacherous woman who might betray at any moment. He is not celibate, though I did consider that. But he has not loved any woman he has slept with, so that is pretty dang sad. And he is 27 years old. I know that might seem kind of young but...er...:thinks:...:runs off: Thank you!
Shibbie - awww...you are too sweet!!!!! :big grins: :big huggles: I think we should all cling to Tristan together :clings:
The Woods Witch, saleni, nora17 - thank you, thank you. Hopefully it will get even more sad. I will try!! Muahahahahaha
Tian Sirki - Thanks! At last you will know what he hates to remember. And Tristan is sexy...so very, very sexy...:drooooooollll: Oh, and I know I didn't update that fast...:huggles anyway:...sorry!
EDIT!!! Blue Eyes
At Night - though I was planning on later explaining [in a conversation
with Guinevere]how the 'blue people' were not, in fact [as Tristan had
believed] Woads, but rather a wild, nomadic tribe completely separate,
your review made me think that maybe I should hint at this knowledge earlier,
so that reviewers would not get confused. Thanks for noting that!!!
The ride to Hadrian's Wall was long and silent. It was not the silence which hums with tension or determination, but the silence that betrays the anguish of regret. Tristan rode at the back, as rear-guard, with Bors ponying Dagonet's black stallion in front of him. The large, blue-tinged hand of his dead knight hung accusingly below the blanket thrown over the body, and Tristan forced his eyes to the sky, searching vainly for the familiar shape of Iseult. He needed to see her, to look into her glacial eyes and reassure his tumultuous mind.
He had watched many knights fall bravely in battle, over his fifteen years of service. But they had been fighting for their lives, their lungs hopelessly straining for the last selfish whisp of breath as the light drained from their eyes. Dagonet had been fighting for something Tristan had thought the knights incapable of in these last days before their long awaited freedom was finally claimed. Surely Dagonet had something to live for - something above and beyond Tristan - the boy, at least. Surely he was entitled to protect himself, to survive, so that he might terminate the duty he had never wanted; a duty that had taken the silent knight away from all the things he had never spoken of. And yet he had offered up that freedom, had voluntarily relinquished his grip on the dream of distant hillsides.
Tristan told himself that Dagonet had been foolish, that he had been no more than a dumb brute, throwing himself in over his head. And yet he knew it was not so. He recognised the determination of a man who charged to his death, had seen it's sweet release halo Dagonet. And to his surprise, Tristan felt a twinge deep within himself, a personal rebuttal, and a grave solemnity for the dead man that might have been respect.
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The walls of the courtyard seemed smaller, and darker, then the ones the knights had stood within only weeks ago. A heavy sorrow hung darkly in the air, further irritated by the false cheerfulness of the Bishop, who stood with a smile plastered on his face as the grim knights surrounded him. His voice echoed dimly in Tristan's ears, who's eyes were riveted on Lucan, the boy whom Dagonet had become so taken with.
He was nine, perhaps. It seemed to Tristan that he moved in slow motion, as his tiny hand reached forward to grasp the cold one of Dagonet's, to draw the massive ring from his finger. Tristan found himself entranced by this scene, by the years that had suddenly fallen on the young boy's already old shoulders. The abandoned expression on his open face, a face that in only brief seconds, had closed and armed itself, a brave veil shielding the tears from the world. Tristan gazed at the boy, and saw himself, on a day he wished he could forget.
'You're free. Come, bring me their papers.' As Tristan tore his eyes from the heartbroken boy, the Bishop's voice became suddenly sharper in his ears, and he turned his attention to the matter at hand. 'Come, come, you're free men.' The words did not hold the same charm for his men that they might have a few weeks ago, and instead held a kind of mocking, a faint laughter that rubbed salt in fresh wounds. The face of Arthur, deeply lined with burden, was twisted bitterly as he stepped forward to intercept the Bishop.
'Bishop Germanius, friend of my father.' And he was gone, his hunched shoulders stooped by some invisible weight that Tristan knew all too well. He left a broken troop of warriors.
Of all the knights, Galahad was perhaps the most changed in those last days. The boyish naiveté was gone, or hidden, and even the mention of his papers, his precious freedom, brought barely a flicker of recognition to his downcast eyes. No one stirred when Lancelot stalked forward to grab all six of the release papers. One by one, he thrust them into the knight's hands, sarcasm lacing his words and walling away his pain.
'You are free now,' he said darkly, viciously shoving Tristan his roll of paper. Tristan looked at it, this tiny piece of parchment dictating that he was a free man, that he had ever been imprisoned. It took a great show of will that his hand did not crush that paper, that he raised his eyes calmly from his white knuckles to pretend indifference at Bors' stricken face. Bors used no such restraint, but shook with anger as Dagonet's and his own discharges were handed gently to him. His eyes shone a little too brightly, his heart too raw with the grief that was wracking it.
'Free man?' he choked raggedly. 'He's already a free man. He's dead!' The papers were hurled at the feet of the Bishop, who's beady eyes feigned sympathy for the fallen knight. How Tristan longed to pluck them out.
Like dead men, the knights drifted from the courtyard, some going to regain their composure before Dagonet's burial, others leaving to stand forlornly on the edge of a world that was not their own, in realisation of a freedom that could never be what it once was.
Gawain, however, stepped forward from beside Tristan, and stooped to delicately pick Bors and Dagonet's papers from the ground. Tristan was close behind him, though instead he drew near to the Bishop, and revelled in the fear that dripped rank from the man before him. His hands examining the finely crafted box that had held the release papers, his mind focused on keeping his fingers from his sword hilt, he at last judged the box worthy, sprung it from the baffled Bishop's grasp, and sauntered from the cursed mans presence.
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It was not a lonely grave. Too many knights had fallen before him, too many brave young men rotting in their green graves, with only their gently waving swords to mark them. Grass grew lush over the mounds, rust and moss sneaking up the blades of the men's swords, rendering each grave exactly as the one before it, until no one could tell one dead man from the other. Dagonet's stood out starkly among the others, the fresh black dirt wet and the unrusted sword thrusting proudly out of it.
Tristan lay the little carved box atop the mound, at the foot of the sword. Inside was Dagonet's slightly rumpled release papers. It twisted Tristan's heart to see the folly of these useless pieces of parchment, but Dagonet deserved to have his discharge anyway. Not that he needed it now; he had been allowed the most honourable discharge a man could long for.
Tristan heard footsteps behind him, but he did not stand, nor did he look up from where he was kneeling by the soft, overturned dirt of Dagonet's grave. The other knights had long since wandered away: Bors mounting his black steed and spurring him into a mad, reckless gallop towards the dark forest, Arthur squinting through his tears after the heavy man before stalking from the graveyard, Lancelot on his heels, Gawain blindly steering a zombie-like Galahad before him. Though once the men might have struck out excitedly for home, memories of fallen friends and knights had crept stealthily up to blacken those images of green hillsides, and had replaced them with visions of only death and shadow.
'Did he die well enough, Tristan?' came Galahad's softly mocking voice. Tristan knew that it was sorrow that coloured Galahad's voice now, and so he did not raise his voice, or tinge his voice with contempt.
'There is honour in death,' he said finally, more to himself than the knight behind him.
'Honour? What honour is there in dying? What glory is there when you are dead and buried, and leave nothing but emptiness and pain behind you?' Galahad's voice grew in volume, and Tristan was not certain of whether the younger man lashed out at his apparent coldness, or at the frustration of the way things had turned.
Tristan rose, and forced himself to slowly face Galahad, to reluctantly raise his eyes to meet the other knights defiant ones, which dared him to say something worth arguing. Galahad was perhaps disappointed when the dark knight only dipped his head and shook it, in a way that almost recalled defeat. But surely not, not from Tristan. Galahad's resolve flickered, just a little, when he saw how Tristan's hands clenched and unclenched, and how the emotionless face twitched as though struggling to retain it's uncaring mask.
'Dagonet will not be forgotten. If nothing else, the boy, Lucan, will carry his name within himself.' Tristan's eyes rose briefly to the sky, seeking some phantom comfort. 'He died with an honour few of us will ever know, and rides now with an army of heroes.' He turned his back on Galahad then, his shoulders stiff and unyielding, sending the clear signal to the other man that the conversation was ended. The younger knight, confused by the self-loathing in Tristan's usually dead-pan voice, stared at the back of the knight for a long moment, as though debating speech, before turning finally from the grave of his comrade.
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When Galahad's footsteps had faded to silence, Tristan turned his dark eyes to the grave once again, but this time his thoughts did not dwell on the knight who lay beneath the dark soil.
Memories welled uncontrollably in the dark places of Tristan's mind, his stony will failing him at last. Was there truly no honour in death? He had always clung to the belief that there was, that he might earn his honour, for if there was not, what was the point in fighting? Where was the glory in war? And what of vengeance? spoke his mind. He had only to remember the screams of his family, the roar of his father, to reassure himself that he was justified, that he had to be. The image of his brave knight, Dagonet, racing forward across the ice, came too close to a memory of Tristan's from long ago. Only he had not raced forward.
It had been Woads, Tristan had decided on that day long ago; an ancient Celt people whose name was whispered even among the distant Sarmatians, the people who were rumored to venture out on long journeys hundreds of miles beyond their territory. Most Sarmatian's believed it to be nothing but ghost stories, that the blue-skinned people of the woodlands were a tribe apart, and one not given to the brutal fighting of Woads. But all these long years Tristan had been sure, had depended upon the belief, that only the legendary Woad people could be capable of such savagery. The treacherous people whose name more than any other lit a fire deep in his heart.
His brother had not seen their treachery. Gurievian. His name alone brought memories Tristan had hoped long forgotten to his eyes. He remembered how he had seen him kissing one of them, in the forest, on many occasions. She had been beautiful, and nearly naked, her arms snaking around his brothers neck, bright blue tattoos standing out on her white flesh. Back then, Tristan had thought it only unwise. But he remembered also, the day when he had come home from hunting, five hares hanging from the pole draped over his skinny young shoulders, to see, from the edge of the forest, his home in flames.
And he had just stood there. He had not run forward to help fight, even when he had seen the spear cut off his father's roar of rage, even when he had seen that it was the same woman whom his brother had loved that had thrown it. He had stood frozen, safe among the trees, as his family had been butchered, as the flames from his families humble little bunch of huts had glowed on the skins of their attackers, had made their blue skin glint like some devilish creatures'. At the time he had not understood it. He could not comprehend why the warriors had attacked his family, a family that had never found fault among the wild people, had never caused any problems. Or how his brother's lover could scream and kill with the rest of her people, while Gurievian was shot down by a feathered arrow.
He had not understood even when the blue warriors had disappeared into the forest like ghosts, leaving the family strewn across the little meadow, their bodies twisted grotesquely in death. He had wept then, and it had not been the last time, whatever the other knights might think. He had set to work burying his family, but had grown weak and tired after his mother and father, and had fallen asleep, curled on his side, between the graves.
And when the Romans had come for him, they had taken in the smouldering huts and the two fresh mounds in once glance, and had offered him a shaggy horse in the next. He had not been able to explain that his brother and sisters bodies still lay crumpled in his parents home, their previously stiff limbs going soft and flimsy and too flexible, and if he had, they would not have let him bury them. They had lifted him and, ponying his horse so he did not have to direct him in where to go, they were off, his little home disappearing behind him like some burning nightmare. He had been the first boy among the future Sarmatian knights to be rounded up, and so no one had witnessed the death that had blanketed Tristan's life from so young an age.
Many days later, in the deep of the night, when he had lain down as far from the other boys as the guard would allow, he had decided that the blue savages, the Woads, were a barbaric, honour-less people, that Gurievian's lover had betrayed him and used his trust to discover the location of his home. Poor, naive Gurievian. Tristan swore on that day to never make a mistake such as that.
He tried to forget that he had stood in the trees like a coward and had done nothing. But he could not, and so he fought each day with a vigour and ease that disgusted the knights who were ignorant of Tristan's past, in an attempt to redeem events that he had done nothing about, that had taken any dream of freedom from his mind, leaving only the harshness of the present and no thoughts of the future.
Tristan remembered, and for the final time, he wept over the unresponsive grave of Dagonet for the family he had once known, barely noticing when the one he had sought settled herself gently on his shaking shoulder.
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