Title: I Remember Everything
Author: Blood Trillium
Genre: Drama/POV
Pairing: Tristan/Isolde
Rating: PG13 for sex and violence (no detail, really)
Disclaimer: I don't own King Arthur.
Feedback: Welcomed!
Author's note: I'm pretty sure this story can stand alone, but it is a continuation of A Free Woman, With Choices (though written in a very different style).
I remember her every day of my life. I remember her softly shining copper hair, how she twisted it hastily up away from her face for work as though it annoyed her, and then how she let it down at night to fall over my face and fill my nose with the scent of it. I remember her hands, shapely and capable, as they picked the ingredients for her medicines, root and flower and bark, as they brewed and infused and prepared the healing substances, and as they caressed rippling tunes from her harp strings. I remember how they felt touching me.
I remember it all- the quiet dignity of her voice, her sudden, sparkling laughter, the way her dresses outlined her slim hips, the weight of her head on my shoulder, her confidence as she ordered things to her satisfaction in the kitchen or the sickroom, her cautious hesitation when I showed her how to use a bow, as if she, who had so often been a giver of life, feared now to become an instrument of death, like me. I remember it all, but I seldom speak of it. There is no reason to, for Isolde is gone.
I told her once she had the freedom to choose, and she did. She made a choice for my sake.
When the summons came for her to visit another fort where there was a sickness, there was no thought in her mind but to go, for such was the nature of her kindness. But when she did not return for several days I went after her, and discovered that there was no sickness, only a plan by the Governor's lackeys to return her to their master, who had wished to marry her. I followed the track of the abductors, turning all my skill to the task, and I rode with a terrible fury in my heart, for if I could not myself be free of the Roman pigs that had enslaved me, than my beloved at least ought to be.
When I caught up with the ones who had taken her I slew them to a man, and never did I have such fierce joy in killing as I did in those moments. Two I took with arrows, and the others with my sword, and I smiled at them as I laid their bellies and necks bare to the sky. Perhaps it is wrong to take such happiness in death, and indeed when I pulled Isolde from the wagon bed where she was tied her she first shrank back from me in fear, for I was covered with my enemies' blood and the rage still filled me, but I rejoiced because I had accomplished my purpose, freedom for my copper-haired woman, at least for a time.
We made a camp in the woods at a safe distance away, and while I stood in a stream, washing the battle from my weapons and body and mind she made the fire and gathered leaves and ferns for a bed as comfortable as any in the fort where we lived. When I returned she welcomed me smilingly, and thanked me, and apologized for her foolishness in answering the summons alone. But she was also saddened, because she well knew that I would face severe punishment for my actions. I wanted to speak to her, then. I wanted to tell her that she had not been foolish, that she was never foolish, that I loved her more than my life itself, that I would kill for her every day, be punished for it every day, if it would make her happy. I wanted to tell her that I loved her.
But I did not. Words have never been quick or glib on my tongue. Instead I laid her down on the softness of the bed-place she had prepared and pleasured her with my hands and my mouth and my manhood, and afterwards I held her long in my arms, and I knew, somehow, that she understood.
Indeed, I was the foolish one, for in my happiness I was careless that night. In the morning the Romans had found us again, and now we were at the disadvantage. The fight was short, and they disarmed me and tied me and promised to have me taken to the Governor and killed, but Isolde would not permit it. Her voice cracked like a whip as she challenged their Centurion, her authority, practiced on servants and apprentices, cowing even this hardened soldier, and she made a bargain with him.
I was to be returned unharmed to the fort at Hadrian's Wall, and there given back all my possessions and allowed to go in. My commander was to be informed of the situation and given responsibility for my discipline. Isolde, in return, would give her consent to the marriage with the Governor, and go quietly to London with her escort. But if the soldiers harmed me, then she would never give consent, and indeed she would kill herself before she married Severus, and then these soldiers would return empty-handed, and the great man would not have the bride he desired so much.
The bargain was accepted, and all was done as she said. She did this for me, I know; she did it to save my life. But it should have been necessary, had I been more careful. When I think of that day that I had to watch her ride away to London, never to return, my mind shrinks from the memory in shame and sadness. She looked at me over her shoulder, and tears were in her eyes and on her cheeks, but she also smiled, because she wanted to cheer me, and because she was glad that I was alive. The wind lifted her shining hair, hiding her face from me, and then her horse turned the corner of the track and I saw her no more. My beautiful copper-haired woman, riding away to London to marry of her own free will, her choice made for my sake and to my everlasting sorrow. Who was I to deserve such sacrifice from her?
Yes, I remember her every day, the joy and the pain mingling together until they are as one in my heart. But I speak of it to no one, for she is gone.