A/N: Damn, I think I finally finished this chapter. I don't know what it's become so difficult to write this story. I'm grappling for the words, for the images, for everything. Maybe it's just laziness or distraction or something.
I listened to part of Light of Life (Ibelin's Reprise) from the Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack while writing this. I want the CD SO BADLY. Damn it.
Please Read and Review, even though I suck at writing and at updating in a timely fashion. Meh.
Chapter 14: Meeting
Lancelot flew out the window, and time slowed. His arms opened up like a bird's wings, embracing the light that broke through to him. Instead of jerking back and breaking his neck, the rope let him rise. It unraveled from its iron hold and flapped behind Lancelot, who shut his eyes as he floated in midair. The choirs had returned, drowning out the tide.
"Lancelot!"
He heard Arthur's scream somewhere in the back of his mind, but did not recognize the voice. The Roman rushed to the window with horror gripping his heart. Lancelot was only a momentary glimpse that fell below too soon. Arthur flung himself into the window, arm flailing, hand grabbing for his friend.
"Lancelot!" he screamed.
He jumped after him.
Tristan waited. His eyes, ever narrow, shifted over his quiet surroundings. He had parted from the others, as he often did, to assess their upcoming situation. He found nothing. But it was quiet – and that was never something to relax over. It was not his style, nor was it intelligent, to seek out hidden danger directly. And he wasn't stupid enough to believe that all was well either. He did what was best – waited.
He had never given much thought to his position. Arthur had made him a scout long ago, and he had grown into the role quickly and naturally. It was a part of him now. But every once and a while, he would observe his own job – one that required more solitude than any of the other knights had to take. It asked that he be the first to venture into any and every potential danger, for the good of the others – and to do it alone. It had made it necessary from the start that he be one of the best warriors – as close to perfect as possible. Anything less would condemn him to death. He must be precise with his weapons, fast and accurate and skilled. He did not know exactly how he had managed to become the scout Arthur needed him to be, but he'd done it. He could not deny that, despite his silence or any sense of modesty he might have.
He twitched his head to one side. Something had snapped – a twig or a blade of grass. He waited. The silence was heavy around him, like a blanket of smoke that pressed on his lungs. The skies were clear only because the clouds were absolute, covering all the space they were given. It would rain. He could smell it. He glanced down and caught sight of a rabbit sitting in some grass, nose moving. It wouldn't make a bad meal.
Zip! An hour landed in the ground a few feet from him, startling his horse for a second, before he calmed it instinctively. The trees rustled. He looked up. Blue faces began to poke out from the wilderness.
Gawain heaved. His face was wet in the same way it had been for so many days before, gleaming – looking more like sweat than tears. He was deep in the wood now, but he knew that on either side of him lay open land, beyond the trees. Ahead was only more forest. It buzzed with life, creatures that never quite revealed themselves to men – though they were always there. The Woads learned their ways from these animals, he realized. He didn't know what to do now. He had exhausted himself for the time being, as far as grief went. He might cry more later, but he had to go somewhere. He couldn't stay here.
He looked up when he heard a screech. Familiar sound. A hawk's cry. He didn't know how many of them wandered these skies, but it couldn't possibly be Tristan's. Could it? He supposed it didn't matter anyway. His eyes wandered aimlessly, lost as his soul was. They stopped upon meeting a lavender thistle. It was no stranger to him. He nudged his horse along, closer to it. He sat still for a moment and looked at it, before dismounting and snatching it from the ground. It was delicate, light in his hand, with a strange sense of untouched beauty that he hadn't known in years. Perhaps not since he had left Sarmatia. He froze again. Maybe that's why he had taken to Galahad instead of the others. Maybe he had seen something – that innocence – in Galahad that he did not see in anything else. After all, his friend had been one of the youngest, one of the knights who did not particularly enjoy killing, who wanted to go home with a passion. Gawain had never been like that. He had never had a strong desire to go anywhere. He had at least had momentary fun in battle. He was one of the older knights. And in the early days, he had chosen Galahad with no real deliberation, to be his most important companion of the Round Table, the one he would watch over and protect and fight for.
Every knight needed something to fight for – just one thing. Trying to be the champion of the entire world or of a whole people was too overwhelming. It could only lead to disappointment and discouragement and, ultimately, death. But if each man only had one thing, it was something they could see and something that could motivate them the whole way through, without giving them a constant sense of failure or impossibility.
Arthur had chosen Rome. Lancelot had chosen Arthur. And Gawain had chosen Galahad. He had never quite known what Galahad had chosen. Probably home. Or his own freedom.
Anyway – what did this have to with the thistle? Another memory.
"Look," said Galahad softly, twirling the thistle in between his fingers. Gawain glanced over at him.
"So?" He kept cleaning his ax.
"It's pretty, isn't it?"
Gawain shrugged. Galahad smiled at the rolling purple. It was raining outside. They could see it through the open doorway, as they sat in the stables. All around them, knights were tending to their horses or waiting for each other to finish, chatting and laughing and maybe even drinking. Galahad sat with Gawain because they always did for each other- unless, of course, they were in the middle of a fight. But since each would miss the other sitting with them, the disagreements never lasted long.
"I thought you hated it here," said Gawain.
"I do," said Galahad, nonchalantly.
"Then why find that plant pretty? It grows here and here alone."
"I don't know," said Galahad. "Try to find the good in everything, right?"
Gawain almost chuckled. "You're not usually the one to be optimistic, Galahad." He tossed the rag aside. Galahad did not answer him, and his smile had faded. Gawain looked at him for a moment, before taking the thistle from his friend and tucking it into Galahad's tunic, over his breast. Galahad smiled at him, and the lavender fuzz bristled in the wind from the rain.
As Arthur flew down after Lancelot, a million memories rushed through him, like the air around his face. A million questions and a million ghosts shot through his veins with the adrenaline. His cloak was a red shudder in the sky, the last banner of love plummeting earthward with all of his dreams. He wanted to fly, wanted to rise, but he was falling for his friend, arms outstretched toward death when he should've only had hope. All he could see was Lancelot's curls whipping heavenward, squinting, eyes tearing, heart beating to stop.
"Lancelot," he yelled, as if he might still live were Lancelot to fall up into his fingers.
"Lancelot."
"Lancelot, why so happy this night?"
That laughing smile gleamed at Percival, who passed by Lancelot as the fires danced with the women in the night.
"These women remind me of home," he murmured in Percival's ear. The elder knight gave him a knowing look, and Lancelot laughed. Arthur sat back and watched them all – his Round Table reveling in the slaves brought to the Wall. A new band of Romans had migrated up to live here, and with them came slaves from northern Africa and Palestine. Women with dark eyes and dark skin and dark souls, wild and exotic with their dances and their looks and their singing. They made music now with their strange instruments and sang in a language none of them knew. Arthur looked to Lancelot and smiled, for his friend was truly happy for the first time a long while. He wished he could make Lancelot smile like that more often. Alas, not even he held that power. He smiled sadly to himself. If only to restore home unto Lancelot's longing soul.
But maybe it was not Sarmatia that these knights truly longed for. Perhaps it was the home in themselves, the home in their dreams, their roots and their blood – the truth. And he could understand that. All men sought truth. The restless were the ones who found home but not peace nor themselves. As for Arthur, he found peace in God. The only thing that made him restless was the way of the world and his own longing for the glorious Rome he had dreamt of since childhood.
The flames and women's bracelets flicker in his gray eyes. They watched wistfully. One day, he would return to Rome. And on that day, God willing, these men would see the home they had convinced themselves was the keeper of their happiness. They would part ways, however many more years were still left until then. But even now, Arthur felt a stirring in his heart at the loss of his knights, though there were yet many more years to wait.
Perhaps he would never find peace or true contentment.
And that was his one fear. Perhaps the one fear of every man who ever lived.
The pursuit of happiness. They strove all the days of their lives in that pursuit, pushing and pushing toward goal after goal, filling their days with bodily pleasures. But who really ever found the satisfaction? Who ever found it one man, one woman, one victory? Even in God, Arthur did not stop wanting. It was an uncomfortable nudge in his chest, a little seed of guilt and doubt. Did this dissatisfaction render him an untrue Christian? Selfish or spoiled? Ungrateful?
No, he thought, as he watched Lancelot laugh. He was grateful for this – for this love and for this night and for the earth and passion and wildness he felt in his heart, even as he sat still amidst the dancing. Spoiled? He did not know about that. He had never had an easy life, and yet it had been oceans easier than the lives of others. It made him guilty sometimes – the things he had in life, the ease of it all. He had food and water and clothing. He had a horse and a room and a God. He had his Round Table and he had this island to roam and live. He had Rome to belong to. It all seemed like too much, and he felt the urge to leave everything and hide away in a monastery somewhere, devoting himself to God with poverty and humility.
But for some reason, he couldn't. He felt himself tied down to this land, even whilst he longed for Rome. He felt himself tied down to Lancelot's pretty smiles and eastern eyes. He felt himself bound to this life of blood and what some people would call heroism. Chivalry. Nobility. Words that slid off his conscious like eels over stone. All it was, was duty. And yet it was more than that. He didn't know what else, but he felt it – something more, something that kept him from leaving it or regretting.
"Arthur!"
He blinked into Lancelot's distant eyes.
"Come on! Dance with us!"
He gave a weak smile and raised his hand in pacification. Lancelot did not turn away, waiting impatiently, stubbornly. Arthur wanted to laugh. One of the women was draped around his best friend, but Lancelot waited for Arthur.
"Come on, can't you dance?" he goaded.
Arthur shook his head. This wasn't his night. He didn't belong with these women – these foreign women. That's what it all was – foreign.
The woman kissed his knight. Lancelot turned away from Arthur's gaze. He stumbled away into the darkness with her, as Arthur watched. The choirs returned to his head. He knew as he watched their shadows moving that he was separate from Lancelot – no matter their love. He was apart. He was alone. The difference of country, of God, of ambitions, could not be breached. It made Arthur sad. He wished for a human being that could love him closely, that could love him internally. But it seemed that in his duty, in his Christianity, he could only know fleshless love that would only be confirmed in his death.
"Lancelot," he uttered.
"Lancelot."
Tristan did not take up his bow nor draw his sword. He watched the Woads appear, reveal themselves. He felt the wind touch his hair as if he were a great oak, and he felt the sky stretch up far above him and all around him, a gray expanse of twilight and emptiness. He wanted to know what it felt like to fly. He wanted to become his hawk and get lost in the emptiness. Merlin looked at him with the same tired eyes he always held. Tristan's horse complained nervously.
"What do you want?" the knight called out. His horse whinnied, snorted.
The blue people were silent, standing out of the leaves in the wind's combing fingers. They looked and looked at this man who was so unlike them, their enemy who had never done them a personal wrong. Just another foreigner who didn't belong here, in their land, their home. He was too much like them, Merlin decided. All of them – Arthur's Round Table. A band of warriors who longed for home. That is all they killed for. That is all any of them killed for.
And Arthur for his Rome.
"Tristan," Merlin called out in his unsteady voice. The sound fell down to earth from the treetops like snow.
The knight's face became the face of a saint, the face of a lost and ancient beauty – upturned to heaven, a place that he didn't believe in. Without weapons but with vulnerability, he was divine in his parched lips and his scarred cheekbone and his gaunt face painted with cold and sweat and dirt and confessional tears that even God had forgotten. Tendrils of his dark hair floated in the wind. He waited. And his heart became an echo, a slow throb that moved his fingertips and his thoughts and the soul he persisted in denying existed. Murderers couldn't afford to have a soul. Or could they?
"We do not want a fight," Merlin said in his native tongue. It was sacred rain falling on Tristan's ears. He was the only one who understood it amongst the knights. It was choppy and rough-edged and nothing like Arthur's pretty Latin, which was no match for Sarmatian. If any language of men sounded like heaven, it was his own. The only exceptions were the Christian choirs. When Arthur had found them shelter in a monastery once, he had listened to those voices for hours, refusing sleep. He had never heard anything akin to that.
"What do you want?" he asked the Woad, his accent flying up into the sky like a thistle.
Merlin paused for a moment, staring hard at the knight. "We know – what the Saxons have done."
Tristan held his gaze, while his horse shuddered.
"You have come here for vengeance," Merlin said. His voice seemed to stretch out in the twilight expanse, reverberating.
"I have come for justice," Tristan answered.
Arthur wept, as they raped Lancelot, and Gawain wailed for Galahad.
He shut his eyes for a moment. He tried to darken the feelings, put them out. He wasn't supposed to feel this. He wasn't supposed to remember. He opened them again. Merlin hadn't moved.
"Let us help," the Woad said, steady, while his people were silent.
"You would help your enemy?" Tristan said. "The men who have killed your people?"
"The Saxons are our enemies also," said Merlin. "And as you have killed us, so we have killed you."
Tristan swallowed hard, the inside of his chest quivering with the bitter herbs spent on dead men.
"What the Saxons have done," Merlin started, "is a great evil – even in our eyes. We offer our bows, our blades, to Arthur."
Tristan's dark eyes shone like light in water. "Arthur – isn't here."
Merlin did not question this, regardless of his curiosity. "Then we offer ourselves to you."
Gawain snapped his head up from the thistle when a twig cracked. Cedric approached, staring at him with those inhuman eyes.
"So," he grunted. "Did he die, man? Your boy?"
The thistle swayed in Gawain's hand. The Saxons moved forward behind Cedric, as if they were the trees, waiting for the right moment to change.
"No," said Gawain, holding the thistle. "He lives."
"One day, Arthur, I'll show you the earth."
Lancelot's voice rose from his heart and Arthur watched him star gaze with silent admiration.
"Have I not already seen it, Lancelot?"
"Nay," said Lancelot. "Not here. You must walk the hills and soil of Sarmatia. If nothing else, my country is real. It is the earth no more closer than a man could be." He turned his head to look at Arthur. "Have you ever been joined with the earth, Arthur?"
"I am joined with God," said the Roman. "That is enough completion for me."
"I do not speak of completion, Arthur. I speak of ecstasy. I speak of feeling alive."
He rose up and leaned on his elbow, looking down into Arthur's eyes the way no one else could.
"I feel alive with you," said Arthur. Lancelot only smirked.
