Thanks to Heavenstar3 and ModestySparrow9 for their reviews! Thanks so much guys! I greatly appreciate that and here's chapter two in response. Hope you guys like this too. Please read and review. Tell me what you think.
Blaze
Chapter 2: Start To The Wall.
"Let her go!" She said once more, her voice steady as the blade that was unwavering at the commander's neck. But even as she spoke them swords were drawn and spears poised at the ready to be let loose on her.
"I am Arthur Castus of Rome, I will not hurt the girl." Arthur said as she watched the girl in his arms blink open eyes and look at her in relief and shock. "I give you my word Woad."
"Marius Honorius is of Rome and look what he has done to her, why should I trust the word of a Roman, much less a Roman who kills my people?" Arienh snapped. "Now let her go before I decide to open that nice throat of yours."
"You kill me and you will be killed and your friend also." Arthur answered.
"Better that fate then the fate that you have for her, walling her back up with those blood sucking monks that do not follow the gods of our people and leaving her to die slowly in their so called 'care'." She glared at him. "You Roman's are all the same. You disgust me!"
"If you will not trust the word of a Roman perhaps you would trust the word of a Sarmatian." A dark haired, tattooed man, with a hawk on his arm and dark brooding eyes half covered by his partially braided hair moved slightly forward. "We have no time for a stand off such as this Lady, the Saxon drums can be heard getting loader by the minute, they are not far behind us."
"Do you not think I know that Knight? The very air vibrates with it. There will be a great battle, of this I am sure, the crows and the raven's are making ready for the time. So I suggest that you let her go and we will be quickly on our way without getting further in your way." She said, never taking her eyes off Arthur who she viewed with a deep mistrust.
"You think that we are just going to give you the girl when you have a sword pointed at the throat of our Captain?" A curly haired man looked at her with disgust.
"Do you think that I'm just going to let you wall her back up?"
"It was not your friend whom we were going to seal back in that room. The monks will die in that room for that is what they were willing to do before we arrived. You're friend and the child will be taken with us back to the Wall."
"So they can be held captive by Rome and killed there for being Woads?" She shook her head. "I think not."
"They will not be hurt. The Wall will protect them from the Saxons." Arthur said again.
"It's sad that you truly believe that." Arienh answered him.
"Keelin." It was a croaked whisper from Guinevere, barely audible save for the fact that the girls were as close as they were.
"Now is not the time for this." She answered.
"Put down your weapons. They are Sarmatians; they will do us no harm. Call Saoi, I travel with them."
"I am not leaving you with these men." Arienh said slightly harshly.
"Then don't leave me." The words were quite and from the twisted look on her friend's face, painful to speak. The Woad warrior looked around her, all watching her with anger as she kept the weapon level at Arthur's throat. "Don't make me order you."
"If you don't trust us then don't leave her. Join the train but make your choice soon, I'm growing weary of this." Arthur said suddenly. She glared at him before slowly lowering her weapon and looking at the knights that had encircled her, her grip still tight on her sword.
"Get this girl some water and put her with the boy in the wagon. Dagonet, see that they are not disturbed by anyone who should not see them while we travel. The rest of you load your things, we move to immediately." Arthur said passing her friend to the knight with the curly black hair as he strode forward only to stop at her side. "When I give my word that is enough!" He said curtly.
"To another Roman maybe." Arienh's lip curled as she closely watched the man who now held her friend and was striding away from them toward a wagon as the monks were pushed back into their room and the bricks started to be replaced.
"Tristan watch her!" Arthur said marching off. Arienh rolled her eyes as a large man with a girth to match, mumbled his condolences to the man with the hawk whom had spoken before.
The Woad just stood where she was for a couple of moment, her sward still at the ready as she watched Guinevere and the young child being loaded onto a wagon before turning and hastily walking back the way she had come, ignoring the knight who was now acting as her warden as she slipped through the village to find Saoi where she had left him.
"May Edian attach wings to your hooves my friend for we may need them soon." She whispered to her stallion in her own tongue as she gently caressed his neck before mounting up and swinging him away from the unmounted knight.
"It is the horse goddess you pray to Lady?"
"And to the goddess Morrgian. They both hold their mark on me." Arienh answered as she squeezed her calves against Saoi's sides and he broke into a smooth trot that would take her away from the knight and to the wagon where her friend was being held.
Marius Honorius was standing outside of the wagon next to a Roman legionary having a heated argument with the giant who had been identified as Dagonet and his slight rounder companion who was looking at that moment in time, quite fierce, his hand laying on the pommel of his sword and his knuckles turning white with the force he was gripping it with.
"I demand that that Woad women and child are sacrificed as was intended." The angry master of the estate snapped. "They are pagans and deserve no better. God demands their deaths."
"You are the pagan in this land Christian and if you value your genitals I would suggest that you stay away from this wagon and it's inhabitance unless you want me to sacrifice your genitals to the goddess Morrgian." Arienh snapped, her spear top pointed directly at the before mentioned genitalia. The Roman paled and left muttering about pagans, women in particular.
"Interesting." Dagonet's companion laughed, but the laughter didn't reach his eyes as he looked on her with suspicion.
"I meant it." Arienh dismounted, tying Saoi to the guardrail of the wagon before entering it despite the looks she was being given by the two knights.
It was dark inside, the floor had been covered in furs and heavy sheets of leather covered the sides and top of the wagon creating a room. The young child she had see was curled up in a fatal position, covered by the cloak of the man who had rescued him, his eyes closed in a fitful sleep. Guinevere however was wide-awake and watching her as she watched the rise and fall of the boy's chest, signalling the fact that he was still alive.
"They say he won't make it though the night." Guinevere said softly.
"The gods will watch over him. They know what is best."
"They did things to him, I thought that men of this Christian god were not even meant to do to their animals." Her voice was rough and scratchy as she spoke.
"We are nothing but animals to these people Gwen, man, women or child, we're all animals." Arienh moved to sit next to her friend, tucking the furs covering her tighter around her battered body.
"My father sent you?" Guinevere voice was full of hope.
"You know he did not." Arienh shook her head slowly.
"My father sent no one for me did he?" There was a pain that went beyond that which speech was causing her.
"It doesn't matter. I came." Arienh frowned.
"Maybe my father sent no one because he knew you would come."
"Maybe but I came against orders so I would not hold your breath on that. Your father may be a great druid, he may serve the gods but that does not mean that he knows everything." Arienh said slowly. "There is much he doesn't know."
"But he knows us Keelin."
"Keelin isn't my name any longer Gwen, stop calling me that."
"Maybe there are more important things happening out there then what was happening to me. Our people are my father and mine biggest concern, their freedom and survival more important then either of us." Guinevere said slowly. "Maybe his people needed numbers more then they needed me."
"I can't fault your thinking there Gwen." Arienh shook her head. "Saxons are invading our home just as Rome plans to leave us finally. Your father masses an army to try to fight this new enemy while our people flee south for their lives. My father has already died for the cause, my brother helps your father and the king of the isles has with drawn his help permanently, in hopes that the Saxon's like the Roman's will over look his land."
"Ireland has withdrawn its help? What of your family's pact with them?"
"My sister is dead, the pact is over with unless I hand my niece over to them and I can't do that. Merlin wouldn't even ask that of me."
"It seems that our people is destined never to be free again." There was despair creeping into Guinevere's voice.
"If not today, then tomorrow sister." The tracker whispered.
"Too long have our people lived by that saying."
"Sleep now Gwen, regain your strength of I have heard the cries of the crows and the ravens as I have travelled to find you. Morrigan is massing her minions and I fear that your strength will be needed for the battle she is preparing for us." Arienh shook her head.
"She is always preparing battles for us to fight and you just accept it." Guinevere snapped and then let out a bought of painful coughing, her hand gripping the furs she was covered in tightly until it was finished.
"Morrigan as has always had a hand over us, there's no point in becoming bitter of trying to fight it. Battle will come either way and you and I shall be in the thick of it. Accept it? I never accepted it, I just never thumbed my nose at a goddess." She shook her head. "Battle will come Gwen, prepare for it?"
"I have heard the whispering on the winds also Lady. Your friend is right, rest now while you can and regain your strength." Tristan said softly and suddenly both women were very aware that they were not alone.
"And who are you to read the wind?"
"The best Scout the world has ever known is Tristan." Dagonet answered.
"You only say so because you have not been witness to Keelin's skills." Guinevere said.
"Hush Gwen. I would not be indentured for my skills like these knights." Arienh gave her friend a somewhat annoyed look. "Anyway, as of yet we do not know the skills that Tristan possesses. Enough talk sister, sleep."
---
"Why did you let that Woad woman live? She is a warrior in full garb who threatened to take your life and yet she lives and is still armed." Lancelot looked at his commander in disbelief.
"She lives under the watchful eye of our scout. She was only defending her friend Lancelot as you or I would do for one of our own, she knew the risks in her actions. I don't believe, now that her friend is safe, that she will do us any harm. Anyway, as long as her friend is with the wagon train then we have one more warrior to protect our people with." Arthur answered him.
"And what if she starts slaughtering the men in their sleep, what then?"
"I hardly think that girl will hurt anyone unless they hurt her friend or have the misfortune to be named Marius Honorius." Bors walked over leading all three of the men's horses. "She's already threatened to geld him."
"Interesting." Arthur shook his head.
"Indeed." Lancelot looked at Bors. "She tried to kill Arthur and yet you aren't that worried about your own neck being opened?"
"She was trying to save her friend. She stopped when she was told to." Gawain said as he and Galahad joined them.
"Interesting wasn't that? We seem to have her commanding officer in that wagon. Maybe that is an advantage in itself if she was willing to die for her." Galahad offered.
"So now you all trust her? She is a Woad! How many times have we fought her people and killed them? How many of our number have they cut down?" Lancelot's face was like stone as he looked on his friends and fellow knights.
"They aren't our enemies Lancelot, they are Rome's." Bors said. "And who said we trust her?"
"Tristan is watching her, she's hardly going to go anywhere without us knowing about it. Tristan has eyes like that hawk of his." Galahad said.
"I for one wouldn't want her to be left without guard but it's always nice to have an extra sword around, even if it is just protecting that wagon, it's one less thing for us to worry about." Gawain shrugged.
"You all are impossible!" Lancelot said.
"Just don't want to see anyone get kill is all." Bors looked at his fellow knight. "She didn't actually kill Arthur after all."
"She would have."
"It didn't come to that Lancelot, stop brooding over it." Arthur shook his head. "Enough knights. It's settled, she will stay with the wagon train under the watchful eye of Tristan unless he needs to disappear, at which point Lancelot can watch her." Lancelot turned and glared at Arthur but the look on his commander's face said that he would have no arguments on the matter.
"You protested too much brother." Gawain shook his head.
"Mount up friends, its time to move before it's too late." Their commander said as he took the reins of his stallion. "What Marius Honorius doesn't have ready by now he does not need."
Arthur turned his back on his knights and headed toward the wagon where Tristan and the Woad warrior were exiting, a frown on his face as she untied her stallion that pivoted suddenly on his hind feet and reared up, pulling the reins from her hands.
"Saoi!" The girl yelled as the horse turned and charged him, only to slide to a halt in front of him, he eyes rolling back in his sockets and his head flew high but Arthur reached up and grabbed the beat's reins before he could run off once more.
"Saoi?" Arthur rolled the name off his tongue as he kept the beast on all fours and the girl rushed over, a frown deeply etched into her face as she chided the animal in her own tongue. "What does it mean?"
"Champion or Warrior. Take your pick." She answered curtly and took her animal's reins back as she looked at him.
"And what may I ask is your name?" He asked as she swung up onto her horse's back and he proceeded to mount up too.
"Why should I tell you Roman? You can track a name down and you already have that of my horse. That would be all my newly acquired shadow would need if he is as good as his friend said he is."
"We shall not harm you or your friend lady."
"Her friend called her Keelin." Tristan said as he arrived at her side, also mounted on a black steed.
"That's not my name!" Arienh snapped harshly. "Guinevere has never accepted the name that her father gave to me."
"So what is your name if it isn't Keelin? And who did you say gave you your name?" Arthur asked as Saoi realised that he was boxed between the two knight's horses and laid his ears back against his skull snorting unhappily, his white teeth gnashing against the bit in his mouth as he arched his neck and snorted again, his hind leg lashing out as she kept him still.
"Merlin gave me my name after I swore my allegiance to him and his cause. I was fourteen then." She answered.
"You're avoiding giving me your name."
"Do you blame me if I don't trust you? Guinevere says that you are to be trusted, that you're different then the Rome that you serve and yet all I can see is a Roman commander who is taking us behind the Wall. How can I be sure that you will not hurt us?"
"You have my word."
"Like I said before, your word may be good to another Roman but I am not a Roman."
"You have my word that I will not use your name against you lady." Tristan spoke softly. "No tracking you by it." Arienh looked at the Scout long and hard before frowning.
"My name is Arienh." She said suddenly before moving her horse between the two knights and taking up a position at the side of the wagon that was starting to move off.
"We have few hours of daylight left." Tristan told his commander.
"Then we had better use them wisely." Arthur replied.
---
By the time the caravan stopped for the night, the people around her were exhausted and as fiery as her own stallion may still have been acting, after two and a half days of hard riding he would be tired too, a fact that had her walking for most of their journey time that day that had been the butt of many of the portly knight's jokes. She had just glared at him in return and asked how much more of his great weight his horse would carry without ending up with a bowed back.
Dagonet she had an instant respect and even a liking for because of the way he not only didn't leave the boy, Lucian out of his sight but also because of the tender way he treated both of his Woad charges. Arthur too had travelled for a time with the wagon; he had reset Guinevere's fingers before leaving her to rest more and yet Arienh still didn't trust him.
The knights had subtly stayed clustered around her as much as they could during the travelling. Bors, Dagonet and Tristan never leaving the wagon and the other three of Arthur's knights made a point of stopping by every once and a while just to check that she wasn't getting up to any trouble and when they came they either had things to say to her or she to them.
The girl tethered her horse to a tree near to the wagon and unsaddled him as the serfs and the knights set up camp for the night. She unpacked her bedroll and unhooked her waterproof medicine bag from her horse's saddle, before pulling a small bag from it that was made from a sheep's stomach, in which was an oily salve that she proceeded to rub into her stallion's legs before brushing him down and wrapping his legs up to the knee in strips of linen cloth that had obviously been used for that purpose in the past.
"Gone lame?" Tristan appeared at her side as she finished wrapping the last leg.
"No. Legs of solid steel has Saoi. This just stops anything from happening to his legs in the first place. After three days of hard riding and two weeks of light travel before that, I'm just waiting for him to say he's had enough though he's lasted months of constant travel before without going lame on me. I just can't afford for anything to happen to his legs." She wiped her hands on a cloth and stood up one more, stretching out her back, which was sore from having been bent for so long. "Did you happen to bring any ale or a strong wine with you?"
"Bors may have found mead at some point."
"Which one is he and how easy would it be to get some of that hot meat for Guinevere?" Arienh asked taking two small metal cups from her pack and a small leather bag.
"Won't mead be a little strong for the girl's stomach? She hasn't eaten or drank properly in days, maybe longer."
"I know that but she also needs to start eating and drinking properly again. The mead won't be to strong when it's been boiled, it's really just to mask the flavour of the things I'm going to be putting into it." Arienh held up two pouches. "Three pinches of this one just about does the trick and then you add a little bit of powdered willow tree bark to the mix to help the pain. It'll help her regain her strength, partly why I like to use mead, ale or a strong wine, helps a bit."
"Versed in herbal medicine."
"When you are on your own for weeks or even months at a time, you can only depend on yourself."
"I'll speak to the men, build yourself the fire you will need. I would however stay clear of the rest of my fellow knights, they do not like it when their commander is threatened and may not be kind."
"They have not been kind anyway." She snapped. "And are you setting yourself above the rest? Did you like me threatening your commander?"
"No lady but I have to watch you." Tristan answered.
"I'm not going to leave Gwen to your mercy knight." She snapped. "As long as she is with the caravan so will I be, do you understand?"
"I do. I will be back soon Lady."
"Stop calling me that, you know my name, use it!" Arienh growled in frustration as he walked away. The concoction that she was preparing had better give Guinevere enough strength to sit a horse because they would need to leave the wagon train as soon as they could. Their people needed them and they would be held captive if they were to go through the gates of the Wall.
Saoi walked up behind her as she built her fire, pulling her tinder and flints from her medicine bag. The stallion nudged her shoulder, his muzzle passing over her head, his breath ruffling her hair. She paused what she was doing and sighed as she reached up and rubbed the horse's lowered neck.
What a gift the gangly black colt had been! Given to her when she was fifteen and she had had to watch her older sister travel to marry one of the king of the isles sons. She had been fighting already for a year by then and training to become a tracker all of her life before that. Merlin said that she needed a horse that would be fitting for her in the battles that he had seen in her future. Saoi had been that horse.
A great druid was Merlin indeed!
The year younger Guinevere had been jealous of that one gift until her father had told her that she too would have a hand in bringing peace to her people. The girls had grown up together; Arienh's father had been one of Merlin's closest advisors and would have been sickened by the condition that she had seen Guinevere in. Guinevere should never have been made to suffer the way that she had! Arienh snapped her flint and watched it spark angrily. Merlin should have sent a man or a score of men to get his daughter back before she ever got to his battered stage!
"The knight said you were looking for wine or ale. I was only able to take one jug…" Marius Honorius' wife touched Arienh's shoulder, making the Woad jump in surprise, a small dagger appearing in the women's hand.
"You helped them?" She looked at the Roman woman.
"As much as I could. My husband is a powerful man."
"Then thank you and one jug will be more then enough." Arienh re-sheathed her dagger and offered the woman a smile.
"Why were you wanting wine?"
"To mix Guinevere a brew that will help her regain her strength."
"A potion? Using witchcraft?"
"Indeed not. Herbal medicine, though, it was taught to me by the greatest of the druids." Arienh poured a cupful of the wine into one of her metal cups and placed that at the edge of the fire she had built, adding to the wine the willow tree bark powder and the premixed herbs. Tristan was back by the time it had boiled with a small plate of steaming hot meet. Arienh transferred the brew from the hot cup to the cold cup before taking the plate of food from the knight with a thank you and making her way to the wagon.
---
Glossary
Edian- Goddess of Horses and Horseback Riding
Morrigan - goddess of battle, war, death, strife and fertility.She can take the form of a crow or raven. If seen by a warrior before battle that warrior will die.
Areinh - meaning Oath
Teague - Poet
Saoi - warrior or champion
Guinevere - White Lady
A Score - 20 men
Keelin - slender and fair