Thoughts on Bathing, a king arthur fanfic

Updated 12/3/05: Nothing major to update, I just fixed some spelling and punctuation that was driving me completely nuts and added the disclaimer that I had forgotten the first time around.

Disclaimer: I don't own them…

Without further adieu – Enjoy…

It was that time again. The snow was melting. The grass was becoming lush and green. Small flowers were springing up all along the rolling hills. Baby animals were frolicking in the pastures. Birds sang happily.

Springtime. Tristan scowled at the thought. Of all the seasons, spring was the scout's least favorite time of the year, a feeling that was shared by the rest of the Sarmatian knights stationed at Hadrian's Wall. This great dislike of spring came from one facet of Roman military life that they all hated and to which they were forced to adhere:

"Bath day!" exclaimed Bors as he pummeled a straw-filled dummy hanging from the rafter of the stable. "Who needs a bath?"

At that moment, Gawain walked past behind him. Covering his nose and mouth, he made a strangled gagging noise and collapsed to the ground, choking. The other knights laughed raucously as his choking turned into laughter, and he had to roll quickly to avoid Bors' boot.

"You don't exactly smell like a bed of roses yourself," retorted Bors as Galahad helped Gawain to his feet.

Lancelot snorted. "That's because roses wilt when he walks by."

"It's taken a year of hard work to build up this layer of dirt!" said Bors proudly, "and now they want to take it all away."

"They might need a chisel," suggested Tristan who was lurking nearby.

"Speak for yourself, bird-boy," was Bors's riposte, "at least I didn't take a swim in that frozen river."

Gawain laughed. "No, but you did let Vanora dump that bucket of rainwater on your head."

"How'd you like to go for a dip in the cistern?" Bors asked, getting to his feet.

Galahad looked indignant. "We've got to drink out of that thing, you know!" He smirked. "And what about all those poor little bugs you'd be drowning?"

All the banter stopped as Jols arrived in the stable with unusual timidity. "Arthur told me to inform you," said the squire, "that hot water has been sent to each of your rooms, along with plenty of soap." He ducked as someone's knife came soaring towards his head – thankfully, whoever had thrown it hadn't been aiming for him.

Quite sullenly, the six men slunk away to their rooms, discussing various methods for avoiding the torture they knew was awaiting them.

Arthur didn't understand why his men hated their yearly baths. It wasn't as if they never got wet. They swam enough in the many lakes of Britain and spent most of the rest of the year wandering about in the rain. To Arthur, it seemed that they should have been happy to have hot water for a change. It was a time for them to forget about their duty to Rome and to relax a bit. He chuckled to himself – his knights' ideas of relaxation involved drinking a tavern dry and a good bit of wenching, not sitting in a tub of sweet-smelling water.

He sighed contentedly as he slid into the warm, soapy water. This was the one place he had to himself. One place where there weren't people criticizing his lax attitude towards the men in his charge; one place where he didn't have to worry about being caught off his guard. No matter what he thought about the smell, he had to admit it was soothing. Everything about his bath allowed him to clear his head. All the problems of the last year were washed away, and he was allowed to start over.

Lancelot had to admit that bathing day wasn't so horribly bad – although for him it could have been made much better with the addition of a lady to share the tub. Instead, it was a tedious affair – just something that had to be done – and yet another reason to hate the Roman Empire. Although he wished it could have been done sans the smell of flowers that would pervade his room for the next week. What good was it to smell like flowers when you spent most of your life in the wilderness?

This could be much more fun with a cute, little girl to do all this for me, thought Lancelot as he scrubbed the filth from his curly brown hair. On the way to Hadrian's Wall, they had passed through Londinivm and he had seen the great Roman baths there. He scoffed at the thought. The only reason any of those pompous fools had so much leisure time was because of men like himself who spent their lives in obscurity defending the empire against the rest of the world.

Bors banged his way into his room with his usual muttering and much colorful cursing. There was the tub half-filled with steaming water, along with another pitcher of clean, warm water and the much hated soap. The water he didn't mind so much, but the soap was another matter entirely. For a moment he considered letting all his little bastards in to deal with it in their own way – but he knew that Arthur would have the other knights hold him in the tub if he had to.

Morosely, Bors watched as the water around him turned a sick greenish-brown. He could feel large chunks of dirt slide off and settle at the bottom of the tub. For him, a bath was something that needed to be done and over with quickly. It wouldn't do for him, a person so secure in his masculinity, as evidenced by his dozen children, to go around smelling of flowers – the less time spent in the water, the better. At times like this, he was sorely tempted to introduce some unfortunate Roman to his knuckle-blades.

Dagonet wasn't quite sure what to think of bathing. He always trusted Arthur explicitly, but the other knights seemed to hate bathing more than anything else in their god-forsaken lives. He had to admit that he didn't care for the idea of smelling like fresh flowers for days until the fragrance finally wore off, but most often he took the view that it was just something that needed to be done – like sharpening weapons or mending clothing.

Just like he did everything else, Dagonet was careful when taking his bath. Unlike his best friend, Bors, he saw the logical side in requiring the soldiers to bathe every so often. If anything, it helped reduce the number of crawly things that had taken residence on a person over the course of a year. The scented water was something he didn't understand, but he passed it off as some Roman thing. It was the one thing Arthur required of them, so he didn't see the point of complaining.

Galahad couldn't see the point in bathing. He was still young and full of the belief that to be dirty and grimy meant you were a man. Soaking in a tub full of flower-scented bubbles was something for rich men who had nothing better to do – they were knights, they had no use for such things. He didn't know about anyone else, but he had every intention of getting this bathing thing over with quickly so he could get back to becoming dirty.

Upon entering his room, the first thing Galahad did was open the windows – he didn't care if someone saw him in the nude, it was better than the horrible smell of flowers. Next came the task of ridding the water of as many of the bubbles as possible – to him, bubblebaths were as unmanly a thing as could be. Then he scrubbed at top speed, hoping that none of the other knights or legionnaires saw him. When he was finished, he was only half-clean, but half was as good as they'd get from him.

Gawain took the position that it could be worse – they could make him shave and cut his hair like regular Roman legionnaires. He shuddered at the image that came to mind – it looked rather like Bors, shaved and completely hairless – and quickly forced it out of his thoughts. He was happy his room faced the stables, it was easier to mask the floral-scent with the smell of horses instead of choking on it until it slowly dissipated like most of the other knights.

If anything, bath day allowed him to disentangle his hair, which became rather untamable over the year he let it grow. He spent most of the time struggling to disentangle the damp mass of knots, wincing as he yanked out a whole clump. It always surprised him that, as much hair as he would pull out, there would always be plenty more just waiting to become knotted as soon as it dried. He scowled and wondered how many legionnaires actually participated in bathing day.

Tristan skulked into his room, making a quick check that everything was where it should have been and that no one was lurking in some dark corner. The room was already permeated by the fragrance of flowers – even his hawk, which usually kept him company, had been driven away by the smell. Satisfied there was no danger, he surveyed the tub with a grimace and made a mental note that he would be sleeping in the stable with his horse tonight.

With his hair unbraided, the scout remembered why he'd braided it in the first place – the whole mass fell maddeningly into his eyes and obscured his vision. As he undressed, Tristan looked himself over – that scar on his shoulder hadn't been there last year, neither had those claw marks on his arm, or that long slash down his back. Every year there were more scars, more reminders. He smiled grimly to himself – in another few years he'd be nothing but a mass of scar tissue. For the scout and archer, bath day was a time to wash away all the blood.

Their baths finished and the hated water – now much more filthy and unhealthy looking – disposed of by a handful of servants, the knights converged on the Great Hall to commiserate with one another.

Bors, as usual, was the most opinionated of the bunch. "I smell like a fairy!" he complained over a large goblet of wine.

"You're not the only one," added Galahad sullenly, the dirt on him was streaked and not completely removed. "It'll take ages to get that stench out of my room."

"Quit complaining," suggested Lancelot, "we've all got that problem – except for maybe Bors."

Bors glowered at him. "Not likely – even Vanora can't stand the smell."

"Well, she does like you, doesn't she?" countered Lancelot.

Galahad snorted. "I can't even find a decent wench. Smelling like flowers isn't manly."

"What are you talking about, pup?" asked Lancelot. "You're too young for girls – leave it to the professionals."

"And I suppose you mean yourself?" countered Gawain.

"Nope!" interrupted Bors, "He means me!"

The rest of the knights broke into hopeless gales of laughter.

"Hey!" Bors continued, "I don't see the rest of you with eleven healthy little bastards running around."

Tristan, who was, as usual, loitering in the shadows nearby, spoke up, "He's got a point, you know."

Galahad rolled his eyes. "And what do you know of women, bird-boy?"

With a maddening half-smirk, Tristan faded back into the shadows without answering the question.

"Anyway!" said Bors, "I say we work quick to get rid of this smell."

Within an hour, the knights had drunken themselves into such a stupor that no one really cared what they smelled like – although it was a decidedly disgusting combination of flowers, alcohol, and various bodily odors.

When he arrived in his room that night, Arthur could still smell the faint scent of flowers around him. It gave him hope that there was more to life than blood and killing and death and destruction. He may never be able to see it, but at least he knew there was something left worth fighting for. As he stood in his doorway, he remembered something his old friend Pelagius had once said: "It has always fallen to a few to sacrifice for the good of many." Maybe it was up to his knights to sacrifice their freewill for the noses of many.

FIN

Comments are always appreciated…