Pax Romana – 5

Disclaimer: See previous chapters; I don't like being redundant.

Notes: All right. Now we're moving on officially to bigger, better, and definitely more mature subject matter. I just hope that I can write it out as well as satisfactorily as I did the rest…anyway, thanks again to all reviewers for their kind words. Also, in regards to possibly writing flashback or something of its ilk whenever memories are intertwined – I would sooner kill myself than write something so juvenile and heavy-handed. If I can't write a memory sequence without a heading, then I might as well just give up the grudge right now. Yeah.


I had a little more than an inkling of a suspicion that Tristan was angry with me. I suspected that he had been angry or frustrated or short with me for almost the entire duration of our acquaintance. However, at the point in time when he and I were dismissed from the presence of the king and queen, I suspected that the silent sir was more than a tad furious with me. Of course, none of those suspicions of mine mattered in those moments, as I was the stereotypical woman and was therefore much more vociferous in my fury for him.

Perhaps it was the small modicum of respect and genteel, princess-like countenance that I had left in me that kept me from railing at him, still standing like a block of iron under his mop of hair and braids. I was silenced, mostly because I did not understand why he had vouched for my safety and protection upon Arthur's request. Tristan, I thought to myself, was a peon of Rome.

O! how little I knew of him and of his history then!

I considered his wording: she is my ward. A possessive statement, I concluded, and this was not as heartening of a conclusion as you might suspect it to be. With any other man, one might consider such a declaration in public to be a declaration of care and deep feelings, but I knew better. If anything, I knew that Tristan did not waste words – when he had to use them, he chose them with the same careful deliberation over which he chose weapons. If anything, what he had said of me was intimidating and foreboding; I knew he would swear any other men –knights! - away from me, and that suggested that I would only ever have him to rely upon.

A frightening prospect.

He didn't know it, but I knew very well myself that I had lived more than half of my life relying solely on my own wits. I swore silently and with no audience as witness that I would continue to the same, despite my new proximity to him; my independence had served me well thus far, and I refused out of feminine dignity to submit to the newfound authority of a man. It had been my wits that had brought me here to Britain, so I could only assume that there was some value in whatever happened on this strange isle.

Something else he did not know was how and for how long I had been so near to him: it had been at least three or four months, all filled with good and sobering work – ironically, most of it at a tavern. Yes, I had seen him countless times, imbibed with ale and strong brew from the isle of Skye, just like his brothers of the sword – only quietly so. He did not know how much care I had taken in avoiding him, in avoiding the knights, so that he might never lay eyes upon me and recognize my face. I was too cautious and too accustomed to the life of a fugitive to believe that he would not recognize my face fifteen years later…

Of course, now it is amusing to think that Tristan did not, in fact, recognize me from my face. He laid eyes on the skin of my forearm, outstretched to dole out more wine, and there it was – the mark of my overthrown house of Macedon, Antigonid, and he knew me for who I was, and brought me to Arthur because his obligation to the king obviously weighed more on him than his ended obligations to me.

The silence between us grew awkward quite immediately as my analytical thoughts ceased. He walked with a slow, measured walk of a panther, all dark and smooth movements, and I merely followed – as he probably would not let me any place else. Tristan only stopped to confer with a passing guard in hushed tones that left it unquestionable that I was to be shut out of all affairs, whether they concerned me or not, and then he continued on his way with me following.

A door.

A door, which he opened with a heavy iron key from his pocket. He pushed the heavy slab of wood open with a single hand and, without chivalry I noted, entered the room first and disappeared into the dark. I was to understand that I was to follow.

I did follow, into a twilit kind of semi-blackness, until he struck a flint and a stone to light a glass lantern, bathing the room in a lowly glow. This was a bedchamber, spacious enough, and unoccupied. I understood what was going on. Tristan turned and took a single look at me, and then did something very odd: he lay down the key, flint and stone, and then moved from his place by the lantern to stand between my body and the doorway, for no reason at all, effectively blocking my escape. I fidgeted.

He stared at me without shame or reservation; a trait from his youth that he had not last to time. Finally, he said simply, "You're different."

Finding my frustration and anger with him a bit difficult to smother, I allayed my inner vengeful spirit with: "Well, you're just as astute as you ever were."

A knowing glint showed in his eyes, despite the many strands of hair. A smirk, so familiar. "Perhaps not so different." I caught a glimpse of the markings upon his high cheekbones; markings which had not been there fifteen years ago.

I attempted to regain my footing, finding my rhetorical sparring skills not quite up to par. "And you still enjoy talking in vague generalities?" It was a rather sorry remark.

Without a change in expression, he retorted in monotone: "I don't enjoy talking at all, lest it be with those whom I respect. Even they can grow tiresome." A pause, and then he grew tired of trading barbs with me. He turned business-like, efficient: "You'll stay here now. You work at the tavern?" Tristan's eyes dared me to quietly to lie to him, to reap the consequences of his forever holding all the information. I did not dare, and I nodded. He said, "Then I shall next see you tomorrow-night."

When I said nothing, he left without another word, save for instructing me to lock the door from the inside. He was gone, like a wisp of blue, exotic smoke, and I stood there in a foreign room wondering if it had all been a dream, a mirage, a strange opium.


Vanora demanded explanations of my disappearance the night before, as my shift had not ended and I had probably caused her more grief than I was worth. But her wont for explanations did not stem form her indignation at being saddled with more work; no, she had seen Tristan drag me off and out of the tavern, and now she had to know it all.

"Tristan, I understand, is the most reclusive of them all…and it is their reclusive nature that makes the knights so tempting…" She said to me with glittering eyes, casting glances over the wooden tables before the bar at which we stood, conversing in whispers. Most of the regular patrons, knights included, had not yet arrived for the night, and so we were free to talk all we wished, our duties reduced.

I attempted to draw her attention away, unto herself. "You know, Bors will never trust your fidelity if you continue to talk of the rest of the knights that way. It is no surprise that he thinks your newest is Lancelot's child…"

She slapped my hand. "Don't think I'll be so easily distracted, Isolde. And anyway, it doesn't matter what Bors thinks; it's what I know. Now, what happened?" An impish smile alighted on her face. "Did he take you to his rooms? Or someplace else? Whenever Tristan does bed a woman, he always chooses one whom I can never get a good answer out of, and I swear that I will get them out of you…"

A call went up from among the few patrons at the table, all of them looking over to us and shouting for more drink. I pulled away from our place standing at the bar, but she grasped my arm firmly, laughing, "Don't you dare!"

I smiled back at her, and said, "Vanora, I didn't lie with Tristan! I'm sorry, but my standards for seduction are higher than a man simply dragging me away from work without a word to his chambers!"

"I don't know," She said to me with a devilish gleam in her eye, "He's so mysterious that his allure does all the seduction for him!" But she sobered a little, and then asked, "Well then, why did he drag you away after all?"

Sighing, I reached over the wood of the bar to grasp a large carafe of ale, answering, "Let us just say, he and I have a history fifteen years old, and a journey together of two countries before he betrayed me for Rome." Even to me, this was a quieting statement, and I walked over to the hailing men with raised tankards in silence, with no saucy remarks crossing my lips, as was habit.

Vanora was still waiting for me when I came back with a much lighter carafe. "What do you mean, 'he betrayed you for Rome'? Tristan despises the Roman Empire, as does every knight of Sarmatia who was stationed here."

Through grim and tightened lips, I said, "He aided me with a party of mercenaries to flee from my home, having been attacked by the Romans, but when we arrived at our destination, he joined with a party of Romans anyway." It was a bitter memory.

Exclaiming loudly, Vanora grasped my fingers in a strong clasp. "Isolde, you don't understand!"

I retorted strongly, unwilling to continue the topic, "What is there to understand? He betrayed me, even after witnessing the horrors Rome dealt my family, and I have despised his name from that day to this." There was finality to my words that I hoped she would catch, but Vanora was stubborn, true to her nature.

Rather patronizingly, she said, "Bors explained to me the system by which Sarmatian knights found themselves in an outpost such as this: they were brought here under duress, forced to fulfill a fifteen-year tenure as was agreed by their forefathers. It was part of an old agreement of the Sarmatian horsemen from when Rome conquered their territory. They had no freedom for fifteen years, Isolde." She suddenly looked past me, and a smile broke out golden across her face, "There he is, number 11!" Pushing past me with all thoughts of our conversation forgotten, she took the bundle of cloth that held her newest child into her arms from the nursemaid who often cared for the infant while she worked. Spinning slowly, she sang a soft lullaby to the child, adoration plain in her eyes.

Meanwhile, this was the moment of my first revelation.

As if some deity had changed the velocity of time, all the movement surrounding me slowed to a grinding halt as I processed what Vanora had just told me. That Tristan was as much a victim of the Romans as I. That he had borne his fate infinitely much more gracefully than I had mine, with my weeping and snivelling and compulsive blaming. That I had yet again made a fool of myself in front of him, in so many a way. I saw before my eyes the times I had called him traitor, and rewitnessed his response of silence that held so much more than it originally had.

"Am I to understand that you abandoned your family, Tristan?"

"'Abandoned' would be the wrong word."

"Then what would be the right word?"

"There is none. I was driven away by necessity."

Where I had been an ignorant fool at thirteen, I understood now at eight-and-twenty: He had left Sarmatia and sought his fortune in hopes of avoiding the call of Rome for his fifteen year tenure. And just when it seemed as though he had successfully avoided their officers, he signed on to deliver a little princess of Macedonia by name of Isolde of Antigonid, and was caught by Roman officials.

I felt ill. My hands, still tightly grasping the hardened clay of the carafe, were cold with sweat.

I dared to wonder for a few moments, what must he think of me? And then promptly disbanded with that thought.

The knights, evidently, chose that exact moment to come to our tavern, full of jovial laughter and playful deadliness. Within seconds, my eyes met Tristan's despite the ropes of his hair, and with dead certainty I put down my carafe to stride towards him. He allowed me to grip his arm, though I'm sure it could have done nothing, his eyes following my every movement, not giving greeting, only watching, observing. I wondered to myself if he had this same calm and cold glint to his eyes when in battle, cutting down his enemies. I spoke, "I must speak with you, Tristan," and he inclined his head in response. He motioned slightly with his free arm and I released his other, walking out of the bar-space with nothing but the feather-light, expert touch of his hand at the small of my back to tell me he was following.

I turned back to him after a short distance, my words forming a large bundle in my throat. He kept watching me silently with the same look, one hand falling naturally and lightly to the hilt of the dagger at his belt.

"Tristan, I…" My cheeks burned with a shameful flush; I was in such disbelief at my incredible folly. "I…"

He cocked an eyebrow visibly, completely at ease, and with a practised spontaneity, a large hawk flew in a graceful arc from a point in the sky to land on his shoulder. He acknowledged the hawk with a glance and a slow smile like he would a friend, and I treated this all as normal, having seen this hawk upon his shoulder several times before.

"I would offer you an apology." I said finally, and he still bore the same countenance. His lack of response frustrated me, and he could probably tell from my own expression. And so, he prompted, "For?"

"For calling you a traitor." And again, even softer, "For every time I have called you a traitor." When he said nothing, but did regard me with a slightly different glint to his eyes and a shifted stance, I added, "I have come to understand the nature of your allegiance to Rome. I'm sorry for judging you. I was a fool."

I waited for his answer, swearing to myself not to speak again until he responded.

He did, after a few moments, shrugging very slightly, "Again, you have not changed, Princess. Still you treat even an apology as some kind of ceremony."

My cheeks burned, and I was further annoyed by his lack of address to the actual issue at hand. I eventually only said, "Don't call me by that title, please."

Tristan shifted his weight again, turning his head to regard the bird that had moved from his shoulder to his forearm. He finally spoke firmly, but softly. "Understand this, Isolde," and he caught my eyes with a sure and steady glance. "I hold no allegiance to any land or person save that which I grant my respect to. Before, I fought for Arthur. Now, I fight for Britain. It is a worthy enough cause, for now."

He whispered something to the hawk, some words of finality, because the bird took again to the skies with the glorious spread of her wings and a push of his arm. He stood straight again, nodded to me and then motioned with his arm back to the tavern: we were finished with our discussion. So again there was silence between us, and there was nothing but empty space and the light and confident touch of his hand on my lower back as he led me back to work.


Well?