Furibondo- I'll try! Hope you enjoy this chapter. More to come.
SnoDragon- Hm…Galahad-Isolde-Tristan triangle… Interesting, but Isolde's made up her mind.
Shevaun-Don't die on me here! Breathe!
Blue Eyes At Night- Mmmm. Tristan…. All silent and hot.
Dellis- Thank you! I had it pictured so perfectly in my mind and I really wanted to convey it that way!
Kafan- Yay! I've made someone cry in a good way!
Shpadana Zizais- SWEET! You liked this chapter!
Plzthx101- Flawless? Awesome!
I wasn't truly awake for days. The moment I had drifted back into the world of the conscious, I had been given a foul tasting broth and sleep took hold of me again. Years could have passed for all I knew. I became aware that was in a wagon. My hands were cold yet my body felt as if I was on fire. Fever. Sane thoughts and the thoughts brought on by fever mixed together and floated through my mind like autumn leaves. One day I was fully aware enough to look around without moving. Snow…Still not touched by the beginnings of spring. We were heading north. I was aware enough to recognize that my knights were not with me. I tried calling out, but no words would come. I prayed that someone would be merciful and lay me down in the snow. I felt like my own skin was burning me alive. Mordred was suddenly at my side pressing a cold palm against my cheek. Once again I found myself lost in the dead, silver place that my unconscious mind seemed drawn to.
My first instinct was to open my eyes and sit up. I held back the impulse and waited until my breathing steadied. I was in a foreign bed. In a foreign place. I quietly sniffed the air. I smelled herbs and blood. And that dry hot smell that came from a fire that tried vainly to help you forget that it was cold outside. I was underneath far too many blankets for my liking. It all came back to me then. I tried rationally to think of what all I remembered. I remembered wispy fragments of the journey to wherever I was, and I remembered the battle. And…And what the healer said about me. I sat up gingerly and flipped the blankets in half so that they laid on my calves and feet. I was in a shift of plain linen. I pulled the hem of it up to my chest and looked at the light bandage that covered my lower abdomen. I peeled it away and touched a finger to the wound that marred my stomach. It was no longer than my finger, but it was puckered as if the blade had sunk in deeply. I suppose it was a good sign that bandage had only a few drops of blood on it. The stitches in the skin looked good and sturdy.
The room that housed me was old and friendly smelling. There was something in the air that was familiar…Something I had not smelled for some time… I gently set my feet the surprisingly warm floor and stood up. My legs gave out at once. After all, I had not used them for…I didn't know how long. I would need to find out. I stretched my protesting legs out for a few minutes before trying again. This time I did not falter. I walked softly to a window and pushed the shutters open. A blast of cold air hit me, but then it faded to a cool, tickling breeze. I looked outside at the sprawling community at the edge of the forest. I saw huts and stone buildings everywhere. I had no idea where I was, but I knew I was near Hadrian's wall. It was that smell…I was near the wall that had given me some of the best years of my life.
I smiled as a pair of small arms wrapped around my hips. I walked back over to my bed and sat down. Mordred sat next to me and leaned on me gently.
"I thought you were going to die." He said promptly. His voice was quiet and guarded as always. "But then I knew you wouldn't. You would die in battle. Not in a wagon."
I said nothing for a moment. I leaned over and kissed his dark mop of hair and held him to me. It was alright if I never bore a child. I had Mordred, and he was almost my own. The boy wound a hand in my tunic and straightened up. I loved his odd little habit.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"Aballava." He said. The only Aballava I knew was a Roman fort at the western end of Hadrian's wall. This was not a Roman fort.
"Not the fort." I stated in a half question. He shook his head.
"No, the real Aballava." He said seriously. "The old Aballava. North of the wall. It was here long before the Roman's came."
"Ah. And what is this Aballava? Who lives here? Woads?" I asked interestedly.
"Anyone who wishes to. This is a sacred place." Mordred said relaxing as I combed my fingers through his hair. I opened my mouth to ask another question but he cut me off.
"It took over a fortnight to get here with the wagon. You've slept here for almost a week."
"Oh." I said. Strange, thinking that I had been asleep for three weeks.
"You're up." I heard a voice say. I looked up to see a young woman, barely more than a girl standing in the doorway. She set a large bowl of soup and a half a loaf of bread on the bed beside me.
"Don't eat it too fast, but try to get it all down today. We haven't been able to feed you much since you arrived." She explained. Her voice was balmy and her eyes were the color of a cloudy sky. I nodded slightly and kept my eyes on her. I doubted she was more than fifteen.
"Thank you." I said.
"You may call me Nimue." She said drifting around my room. I realized that other than the shift, I had nothing to wear. Her dark hair was kept in thick pieces with small bronze clasps placed in random lengths.
"Isolde." I said in return. I was so hungry. I couldn't wait for her to leave, so I began spooning large amounts of soup into my mouth. I wanted to wolf it down all at once, but I also wanted to keep it down once I had eaten it. Instead I made myself eat slowly.
"Uriens and mother brought you here." Mordred said looking up at me with his stormy green-blue eyes. I raised an eyebrow at that. He saw this and opened his mouth to explain.
"Mother and Uriens married while you were gone. Uriens wanted to marry her before he sent men to help Arthur." He said guardedly. Uriens was kind to Mordred, so he had no reason to hate him, but I wondered if it bothered him somehow. The boy was smart. Almost too smart for a six year old. It seemed a very probable that he had put together the pieces of his birth. Perhaps he knew that Arthur was his father…
I shook myself and petted his head.
"Uriens' home is only a couple days northwest." Mordred said yawning. "Mother let me stay here with you."
I leaned down and hugged the boy.
"I'm going hunting." Nimue said and excused herself.
"She's a priestess." Mordred said once she was gone.
"Of what god?" I asked as I finished the last of my bread. The Britons had many gods, but the did not build many temples to them oddly enough. Their Druids had their temples and schools, and their mother goddess had temples scattered across the isle, but other shrines and holy places were usually reserved for local deities.
"Aballava is holy. There are many gods worshipped here." Mordred said as if reading my mind. "Nimue serves them all."
"She can hunt?" I asked curiously. I thought she would have been limited to sacrifices. Mordred nodded. I yawned and laid back on my bed, pulling Mordred down beside me.
"Do you ever wish you knew the future?" I asked the fey like boy moments later. He tilted his head in thought.
"No." He said.
"Me neither." I said sighing.
"Yes you do."
"Oh really?" I asked shuffling his shoulders playfully. He nodded his head somberly.
"You want to know about Tristan." He said assuredly. True. Oh so true… "He'll come for you."
In the back of my mind, I knew he would. Eventually, Tristan would come for me if he loved me. Even if he didn't love me, he would probably come for me. All I had to do was wait.
Aballava was heaven on earth for the gentle soul. It was the perfect place for the scholar or student. There was something in the air…I think it was the way the sky was so silent and enveloping. Like you could leave everything sordid or painful behind and start over. Mordred, who had apparently spent most of his winters at Aballava, gave me the tour of the place for the first week. Most of the families lived in cozy stone huts, molded over with age. Animals roamed freely over the area. Cows, ponies, goats, chickens… It was the most glorious chaos I had ever seen. There was an expansive stone circle at the bottom of a hill composed of small boulders. A large alter was in the middle, stained with age and blood. I was in an ancient place. Priests and priestesses roamed everywhere. Small, circular stone huts served as shrines while there were larger edifices to serve as outright temples.
"That is the temple to the goddess." Mordred said pointing to a sort of temple compound. It was by far the largest of the temples. It was composed of a large building with several smaller outcroppings. It was worn and grayed with age.
"Goddess?" I asked rubbing my stomach. It was sore beyond belief. Instead of sighing at having to explain such knowledge to a foreigner, the boy simply grabbed a piece of my tunic and explained.
"There are different goddess, but most of them are all the same goddess." He said sitting down at the edge of a small lake. More of a pond really…Magnificent though. "Epona is a goddess of horses, but she is still the goddess. The Morrigan is part of the goddess. Andraste. Rhiannon. Arianrhod. Branwen. They are…aspects. The maidens live in the temple."
I took it all in slowly. I would never be pious enough to serve a god my whole life. I suppose if I had a patron god, it was Kolaksay.
"Why the maidens?" I asked looking as several young girls ran outside with gay laughter.
"Mother says they must be pure to serve as maidens." He said stiffly. I nearly laughed at his childish avoidance of the subject.
"Virgins." I said simply. That made me think of Tristan. Damn it all.
"They cannot have shed blood either." He said. I had killed my first man before I even reached womanhood. I would not have made a very good maiden.
"And what do they do? What purpose do they serve?" I asked. Seemed rather pointless to me.
"I don't know. I do not even know why the goddess would care. But mother says they are innocent and that's important." Mordred said. Any other boy would have thrown rocks into the lake. Mordred seemed to be staring at it with some sort of reverence. "This is a very holy place."
"What sort of holy place?" I asked interestedly.
"Very sacred. The Lady lives here." He said as if that should explain it all.
"And do you believe all this? Do you worship these gods?" I asked.
"Yes." He answered without hesitation. "What do you believe in?"
"I believe in the gods. I even believe in Arthur's God. But I don't think they are as dependent on us as we pretend they are."
"You believe in Kolaksay." He said and I knew he was hoping for a story of who Kolaksay was.
"Do you know who Kolaksay was?" I asked playing along. He shook his head in a no. "He was the son of Targitay, who was the descendent of a god. When it came time for the rule to be passed on to Targitay's sons, gold fell from the sky. There was a yoke, a sword and a chalice."
At this point the boy was not looking at me in typical boyish awe. He was nodding his head, waiting for significance of it all. Strange boy.
"When Kolaksay's older brothers tried to touch the gold, the treasures caught on fire. But when Kolaksay neared them, the remained cool to the touch. It was decided that Kolaksay would be the king."
I finished without a grand flair. Mordred eyes became sad, thoughtful.
"So, the father and the brothers accepted the son who was the most worthy?" He asked and I knew at that moment that Mordred knew who his father was. He must have known that a child from Guinevere, Arthur's recognized wife, would have a more supported claim to the throne than himself. I nodded, trying to gauge his reaction. I took the moment to study his face. There was something there that left me little doubt of his father's identity, but yet he did not look like Arthur. I suppose the similarity was in the eyes. Perhaps the nose. Everything else belonged to his mother. He was going to be handsome no doubt, but it would be a different sort of handsome.
"What if the other son was…" He trailed off and pursed his lips together. I sensed that he did not wish to speak of it anymore. Thoughts of the future weighed heavily on my mind.
Six more days came and went, and it was time for my stitches to be removed. I laid on the stone bench feeling the granular surface dig into my back. A woman who looked to be nearing sixty was digging out the stitches while Nimue watched on. Part of her training no doubt. I was in the sort of infirmary. It was a small wing off the side of the home of the druids. Everything smelled of herbs. Life and death. A fierce, aching pain swept through me. I had to know.
"Will I be able to bear children?" I asked. I forced the words to come out clearly and unaffectedly. The building was warm and muggy. Sky blue marking's winded up and down the woman's bare arms. She looked at me with earthy eyes, bright for one her age.
"I see no reason why not." She answered and went back to her work. My skin tingled.
"The healer in the south…" I said confusedly. "He said the blade was very close to my womb."
"And so it was." She said pulling what I prayed to be the last stitch out. "But you seem to be unaffected. Have you bled this month?"
I shook my head no.
"Probably from the infection. Nimue, give the girl some ragwort." She said plastering a thin layer of a yellow ointment on the fresh, violet scar. "It will bring on your courses."
Wonderful. Oh fantastic. Absolutely must remember to slip some in Yseult's drink every now and again. With that, the woman, I was unsure of whether to think of her as a goddess of good news or an evil old hag, handed me a oiled satchel of the paste. I nodded in thanks and arranged my clothing properly. Nimue was smiling pitiably. She gave me small, unwelcome bundle of plant stems bound together by a thick string.
"Soak it in water and drink it." She said wickedly. "All of it."
I muttered something foul and left. No matter how loathe I was to invite my courses upon myself, I wanted to be sure that her words had not been mistaken. After that, I would just have to leave it to faith.
Nimue decided to take me hunting the next morning. She gave me a cheery smile that I did not return.
"Good morning!" She said knowing it would aggravate me. "Sleep well?"
"No I did not thank you." I said forcing myself to be calm. I would not act like a child. A dull pain in my belly had kept me up for half the night. Damn the herbs. But I felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders. My heart felt ready to explode. It looked as though I could still have a child.
We spent the entire day hunting the game that only recently stirred from winter's sleep. Nimue's large and fleecy hound bayed every time a rabbit was near. Between the ample meals, hunting, and frequent bathing, my health and appearance was much improved. The watery sun of early spring even managed to stain my skin to a healthy glow. Soon my figure was what it had always been. I wasn't sure how Nimue managed to stay so thin with all the wonderful, hearty food around. If she spent any time in Sarmatia, she would have treated bread with more love and devotion. And apples and fish. Mm… I was disappointed that I would not be in Aballava for the apple harvest in the fall. Of course there would be apples in the south, but Nimue had described the apples that grew nearby with such vibrancy that I had soon begun to long for the sweet, juicy fruit.
"Perhaps you should stay here and serve the gods. Or learn from the Druids…" Nimue suggested one night as we feasted on a thick stew of rabbit meat and vegetables. I spilled a few drops on the woad blue frock I was wearing. I had taken to wearing the loose, wispy frocks of the priestesses. Nimue had even outfitted me with several copper hair rings. I was a strange woman I realized. Briton. Woad. Roman. Sarmatian… I was more convinced that Tristan was the man for me. He was a wandered like myself. I probably would have been to much of a foreigner for any other man.
"I like battle too much. Plus I find it hard to stay in one place for longer than a few months. Not good qualities for a priestess." I said to the girl. I was in my early twenties and she only fifteen, but I liked her none the less. I could not stay were with her however.
"You could stay here part of the year as Andraste's servant. Then leave for battle on her behalf…" She said hopefully, but not intently. Her suggestions were lightly made. She knew I could not stay.
"I will return here when I can." I said assuredly. Perhaps if I lived long enough, I would spend my fading years in Aballava when my body was no longer fit for the battlefield. Maybe. In the mean time I was almost ready to return to my knights. I wanted to see Guinevere's baby. I had heard no news of anything. For all I knew, Arthur could be in Gaul fighting the Franks or the Goths.
"What will you do Isolde? What will you do when your scout comes for you?" Nimue asked and for once, I did not know how to answer a question asked of me.
"Here Isolde." Mordred said handing me a long bundle of straw. Another week had passed. It was spring and houses were being thatched. I had offered to help and had immediately been designated to thatching the house of a young couple and their infant. The husband helped Nimue and I while Mordred and the pregnant wife handed us the materials. Thatching was not a fun pastime. Something in the straw was making me sneeze, and I had almost fallen through the thin timber rafters and beams twice.
I swore loudly and the young mother covered the ears of her child while glaring at me.
"Atleast," Nimue panted, "the straw blends in with your dress."
I gave her a bored, caustic look and continued on with the thatching. I winced and pulled several pieces of straw out of my pale yellow frock. Nimue was right, though not in the complementary way she had meant. The gods be damned straw was blending in with my knee length frock. Even my legs were beginning to itch in the dark brown leggings, no doubt from bits of straw.
"There's a rider!" I heard someone call out from the wooden watch tower. I looked up and over the roofs and hills into the distance. Indeed there was rider coming from the south. A rider who must have passed through Hadrian's wall. A rider leading another horse behind it. I felt a strange contentedness fill my stomach like warm wine. I watched for a moment longer before climbing down the crude ladder. Tristan was here. I would have recognized him from a mile away. I took a moment to brush the remaining evidence of my work off myself and out of my hair. Tristan. Tristan and those stupid braids and his eyes and…Tristan. I felt anxiety begin to rise up in me and spread to my limbs like a disease. No. I pushed it down. Whatever happened, happened. Worrying would not affect anything. I took a deep breath and tried to make myself aware of everything around me. The dirt smelled wet from melted snow. It was cold outside, but the sunlight pierced the clouds suddenly and warmed me. I hear a flock of birds in the distance. I could hear the oncoming sound of hooves. I could hear my heartbeat.
I opened my eyes and began to walk to the edge of the village. I had brought nothing with me. I could leave right then if I wanted to. Tristan slowed down as he neared me and peered at me through ratty hair. He needed a bath. I stood there in all my unrefined glory and simply looked at him. A hawk's cry sounded in the distance. He was wearing the ring I had given to him.
"Stables." He said simply. A young man stepped forward and took the horses after Tristan had taken everything he needed off them. I took one of the saddle bags and hefted it over my shoulder.
"Your room." He said patiently. I nodded and led the way. I shut the door behind us and set the bag down while Tristan did the same. I wasn't sure how to handle his behavior. I had not expected, nor wanted some dramatic exclamation of love, but the way he was acting seemed to indicate that my feelings were unrequited. Oddly at a loss for words, I peeked inside one of the bags to busy myself. I wasn't even sure if he planned on staying in my room. I wasn't surprised to find a couple of my tunics and trousers in the bag. He had even brought my weapons. Dear sweet man. Before I could pull out my sword and kiss it fondly, Tristan pulled me away firmly and sat down on my bed. He continued with the pulling until was in his lap. I liked the way this was going… He didn't say a word. He kissed me. Soft, but urgent. His patience was gone. Mine was too. It had been a whole damn year since I had kissed him or laid in his arms, and I was bloody tired of waiting. Clothing began piling on the floor. The way he seemed to run his eyes over every bit of me as if checking to make sure I was still the same made me feel warm. I could tell he liked the tattoo that sprawled across my back. He traced it as he kissed me, and I pulled him roughly towards me and kissed him harder. He paused for a moment and looked at the scar by my hip bone. I actually smiled at this and kissed both the tattoos on his high cheek bones. He leaned his head against my neck for a moment and I actually heard him let out a relieved sigh. His breath tickled my neck, so I started to kiss him again. This time he paused to shift us so that he could lay me down. He pulled the copper hair rings out and tossed the on the floor. I was too happy to care. I didn't care what he had told Yseult. I didn't what anyone thought. All I cared about was the fact that Tristan loved me.
Happy? I hope so. I am… THIS IS NOT THE END! NOT NOT NOT! Wow…I really hope this lived up to yall's expectations. I'm a youngin' so I couldn't write anything more descriptive than this. I was blushing while writing this hahaha. Well I really, really hope you like it! Hope yall like Tristan's way of doing things. Review if you please.
