Thanks for the reviews! Hopefully this chapter will have less 'filler' and more substance. But I had to show that people don't usually just confront situations to find the truth, just like Melosine said in her review, (glad you caught that). Now, here you go…
Sarah plastered on her smile and went about her duties mechanically for the rest of the evening. She kept looking to the knight's table, hoping for and dreading the time when Gawain would finally leave for his room. Except for him, she was oblivious to the people around her. She went from table to table, filling cups as men shouted for more. But she didn't see any of them. Not really. Everything she did was automatic, requiring no thought. That was a good thing since her thoughts were occupied and so jumbled that even she didn't understand most of them.
She stepped into the kitchen and leaned against the wash tub. With both hands she massaged her cheeks. They had become stiff from all the smiling. With a sigh, she reached into the tub and began to wash the mugs and pitchers that had piled up over the night. If only she could go somewhere to think for a while. Somewhere away from all the noise. Somewhere away from him. Then maybe, she could get through the jumble of her thoughts and make some sense of how her life was turning out. Maybe she could reconcile herself to the life she was facing. The life where no matter who she met, or who she married someday, if she married, her heart would be with the man on the other side of the wall. The man who called himself her friend. She sighed, maybe.
She was so engrossed in her thoughts and self-pity, she didn't hear him walk up. With her back turned toward the doorway, she didn't see him either. He leaned against the wall and watched her as she worked. Finally, with a frown, he turned and headed back toward the table. He had only stood there a moment and in that time he had heard her sigh numerous times. He wanted to ask her what was bothering her, but he was afraid she would tell him what he feared most was the truth. She missed her husband to be. Why else would she sigh with such a forlorn way about her? Why had he let Lancelot talk him into being hopeful? She had told him from the beginning that she wasn't interested but when Lancelot had told him he needed to win her away from the memory of that other man, he had jumped at the chance to try. Now, he doubted the decision.
'What about this morning?' he asked himself. 'If I hadn't stopped when I did, she would have lain with me. Would she have done that if she didn't have feelings for me or doubts about him?' The internal argument raged as he reached the table. Not wanting to engage in the useless banter with the others, he quickly turned and headed out of the tavern and toward his room. Halfway there, he decided to go to the wall and sit for awhile and just think. He had to figure out why, after the discussion they had earlier, her melancholy sighs had made him feel so afraid that she was having second thoughts. Why he was so jealous of a man that was more than likely dead at the hands of the Saxons.
When he reached the top of the wall, he sat down and stretched his legs in front of him as he leaned back on the cold stones. Did she respond to him because all of them had been telling her what they thought she would find when she reached home? Was she just trying to prepare for the pain she knew she'd face when she found the village destroyed and everyone dead? Could she be looking at him as a replacement for her lost love? He thought about it for a while, then shook his head to clear the thought, 'No, that's not the woman I've come to love.' When he thought the word 'love', he stopped shaking his head and marveled at the fact that love was exactly what he felt for her. He loved a woman he'd known less than a week and unless he could figure out exactly what she felt for him before they rode north, he might lose her if the man she planned to marry, by some twist of fate, had survived the attack and was waiting for her to return.
The more Sarah thought about the way things had gone since Gawain had entered the picture, the worse she felt. She turned when she heard someone stumble through the doorway and saw Lancelot leaning against the wall. "Sarah, is Gawain not here with you?" he asked in his slurred speech. The sight of the man made all her sadness turn to anger. Before she thought, she snapped back at him, "No. Is there a reason you'd think he was back here helping a wench wash dishes?" The look of surprise on his face at her sudden outburst made her question why she was angry with him. When she realized she was more angry with herself for the predicament she found herself in, she quickly apologized, "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just tired." She lied easily. For someone who valued truth as much as she thought she had, she had grown quite good at lying. This thought saddened her almost as much as the thought of living the rest of her life without her blonde knight. She was no longer the person she had believed she was before. Maybe she had never been that person to begin with. Maybe she had been fooling herself about that as well.
Lancelot watched the emotions play across the woman's face as he tried to figure out what she was angry about. When she finally got control of her face and the fake smile replaced all the emotion, he knew something more was going on with her. "Sarah, has something happened? You seem upset." He saw her begin to shake her head before he even finished speaking. "No, nothing has happened. It's like I said, I'm just extremely tired and thinking or speaking is just too much of an effort right now." She hesitated for only a moment, "As for Gawain, I haven't seen him except across the crowded tavern, since I brought him his soup early this evening. Is he not at the table?"
"No, he got up to come check on you and never came back to the table. I just assumed he was still back here. I guess he just decided to go to his room and lie down. He's still healing after all." He told her in answer to her question. Lancelot had been watching her eyes as she spoke. So that was it! She was one of those needy women who needed to be made aware of her man every moment and since Gawain hadn't gone to her during the evening and let her know he was still close by, she was angry. Well, maybe not angry exactly, but she was definitely pissed. Or, maybe she was just disappointed. Either way, Gawain was in for one hell of a time if she was going to be so demanding with his time. He had a feeling that going on missions would be eventful with her pouting and begging the man to stay with her.
Maybe his first impression of her had been correct. She was a spoiled brat who thought only of herself. He began to feel sorry for his friend. He shook his head, maybe all this messing around with romance wasn't a good thing. He decided that from now on he would let things work out on their own, without any interference from him. That way Gawain couldn't blame him for the unhappiness of her constant nagging and complaining. He quickly made the excuse of going to check on Gawain and left her standing by the wash tub.
Sarah thought about what Lancelot had said. Gawain had not come back to see her. So, where had he gone? Maybe he had found another woman and taken her back to finish what she had tried to start that morning. The thought made her feel physically ill and she put the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle the whimper that had risen in her throat. What would she do when she saw him leave the tavern with his arm around the waist of another woman, the way she had seen him leave so many times before? Quickly blinking back the tears that had sprung to her eyes, she hung her head. She doubted she would make it through such a scene without letting the world know that her heart was breaking. "He'd better hurry and get well enough to travel. I want to go home." She spoke aloud, then finished with a thought, 'or my broken heart might kill me.' She didn't realize that Tristan had silently stepped around the wall and heard her words.