Tristran let the thick silence between them settle, as they gazed at him, questioning.
What was he supposed to say? Some crazy wench from his past showed up and managed to delude him, take him on a run through the woods, then double back and steal his horse?
A likely story...
No, so instead, he looked back placidly at each of them in turn. Galahad in particular held his gaze the longest. He was practically fresh from training, and a scar by his temple was still pink and new. But even he couldn't stare Tristran down...he shook his head and looked away.
Tristran felt his mouth twitch, and he quickly snatched the braid off of the table, enclosing it in a fist. He shoved his chair back and began to stand. But his silence hadn't been good enough for Arthur...
"Tristran, wait. We have a problem here, and it won't do any good if you just leave and go stomping about till you find something to take your anger out on..." He said calmly, his green eyes level.
"I'm not angry." Tristran said simply, and turned to go. That idea of Arthur's sounded particularly inviting at the moment...
"Yes...you are. And I have a sinking feeling you know the person who stole your horse. Now tell us. Who is it?" Arthur continued, and the other knights looked up expectantly.
"What makes you think I knew them?" Asked Tristran slowly, licking his lips, and trying not to clench his jaw.
"They left their mark, Tristran." Arthur's gaze pinpointed on the braid in Tristran's fist... "Either they knew you, or the want to know you. They identified themselves as the thief. You can't just ignore that..."
"Well then, Arthur, if you're so clever, you can tell ME who it was..." Tristran snapped angrily, and without another word, turned and stalked away.
"He knows something." Said Lancelot darkly, when Tristran was well out of earshot. He wasn't used to having information kept from him, and he didn't like it.
"Yeah well, even if he does...you'll never pry it outta that stubborn head a his." Bors said complacently. Dagonet nodded, and Gawain shook his head. Tristran wasn't the biggest talker among them by far...
"If he needs help, he'll ask for it. Until then, we'd best keep our noses out of his business." Added Galahad and the rest of them turned to look down at the 16-year-old youth.
"Such wisdom from someone so young," Said Lancelot with a smirk, and Gawain clouted him lightly on the shoulder. "Leave the boy alone, he's got a point." Gawain said mock-sternly.
Lancelot raised his hands in defeat and shook his head. The rest of them stood, and headed towards the door...all notions of breakfast long forgotten...
OOO
...Ina paused, and strained her ears for any sound...there was nothing, just the sounds of her own breathing, and the huffing breaths from Tristran's stallion. She patted him lovingly, and continued on.
She was still picking her way carefully, with her soft leather boots so as not to leave heedless tracks. She regretted stringing Tristran along...but it had to be done. And even though she would have rather shared his bed first...she had had to keep her mind centered on what she was doing. She couldn't afford to be distracted.
Distraction was what cost Tristran his horse, after all. She chuckled softly, and pulled her cloak more tightly about her.
Her mind drifted to the blue ink tattoo on her ankle. She knew it was there. It still throbbed with pain every once in a while. She itched to take her boots off and gaze at it...a small circle of thorns.
She thought of it as her life...never ending, with some smooth bits, before she hit another thorn. And this bit with Tristran...was one of the stickiest thorns yet.
She wondered what he would say if he knew she was counted as a rebel woad. Oh, she would never be one of THEM wholly, but honorary was quite enough for her.
Her eyes lit up as the pictured the inking that Merlin had promised her. She thought of something beautiful...a sun on her back...or an eagle feather across her shoulder...and shuddered with delight.
It had been almost simple. The woads had told her where the knights would be, and all she had had to do, was slip in and take their scout's horse. Ina was positive they knew Tristran was not just a scout...but she didn't say so.
If she did, she'd have to explain how she knew...and drudging up her past with the most tight-lipped of the knights wasn't high on her list.
So she did as they told her, keeping her tongue, and not voicing her thoughts...
"You must take the white stallion. The one who is ridden by the knights', silent, dark-haired scout...This horse is most valuable to us, and must be retrieved." Merlin had said hauntingly. His graying hair a wild looking halo around his head.
She had nodded, and wondered why they wanted the horse so badly. But she knew if it was necessary for her to know, they would have told her.
"And YOU must not ride him. You will walk beside the beast, and bring him safely into our lands. It is vital, that you are not on his back..." Merlin had finished. And with his final warning delivered, she had been ushered out into the night, coins pressed into her palms, and a map in her bags...
She sighed now, and cursed him. Time spent with the woads was always interesting...but they tended to speak in their native tongue, and poke fun at her, behind her back or to her face, using complex phrases she couldn't comprehend.
Even their toddler's surpassed her in the knowledge of the language, and she knew it was no accident. She longed to return to her home, but that was a feat that only the dead could manage...
The village she had known all her life had burned to the ground three years after Tristran had been taken. All of their men slaughtered...their women, raped and left for dead...and the children stolen to be trained as servants, or sold as slaves. She had been one of the lucky ones.
There were two others, a little boy around seven and Tristran's three-year-old sister as well.
...A meager troop of survivors from their large and prosperous village.
She had been coming back from the mountains when the attack was launched...and she could see the flaming houses when she topped the hill...
The noise was horrendous, and still haunted her nightmares. Women screaming... ...babies wailing, and underneath it all, the sound of crackling flames, and the beating of human-skin-drums.
The Saxon band had been small...Only seventy, at most. But they left destruction in their wake that was devastating beyond the strongest storm.
Inara Chimaea had turned her horse and fled like a coward at the sight.
Her tears streaming down her cheeks in her helplessness. And hours later, when she had dared return...only bodies and charred remains had welcomed her.
She had searched futilely for any signs of life, or something useful. And her stumbling feet somehow lead her to the remains of Tristran's family's house. It was collapsed, and smoking. Though not as badly torched as some, and she had begun to rake throughout the mess with a vengeance.
It was not long after that, that she found his mothers body. The woman was burned black, and bloody, and if it weren't for the long dark singed plait of thick brown hair down her back, Ina almost wouldn't have recognized her at all.
She had reached out with trembling hands, and rolled the woman over...and underneath had been a sobbing, blood and soot covered Bajarni.
The little girl had clung to her mother's stiff body, screaming relentlessly, and lashing out with her feet. Ina had cried too, pulling at her roughly, and eventually, the little girl had let go and turned to bury her face in Ina's shoulder and her crying quieted to silent tears.
She had cradled Bajarni like a baby, and shushed her, then with jerky movements, she had fled the place.
In the woods, she had found the little boy. Huddled under the underbrush, tear streaked as well, and hollow eyed. She knew him as the smith's son, and recalled his name as Henri. And when she had reached out a hand to him...he had shied away like a skittish colt, but followed after her, hiding behind trees and out of her sight.
Days later, at dusk, the woads had found them. She had built a small fire, and was trying to quiet the tiny three-year-old girl, and convince her to eat the mushrooms she had gathered.
But the child was obstinate. She missed her mother, and was wrung dry from crying for three days, and would rather die, than eat the cold fungus that Ina had dug up from the dirt with her fingers.
The men had melted into the firelight silently, and plucked Bajarni from her...Henri as well. They had looked at her with contempt, and obviously would have left her, if not for the protesting of the children in their grasps. Ina was not what they wanted. She was too old to make a suitable member of their people. She was almost a grown woman, tattooed, rebellious...afraid, and a fighter.
At sixteen, she was viewed as more of a nuisance, then a help. But squawking at her, in as best of the common tongue as they could muster, they returned Bajarni, and told her she was now a woad.
Though, servant to the woads would have better suited her.
And so she did what they told her. And watched without protest as Tristran's little sister was raised as a rebel warrior. Strong and fast, and sharp faced like her brother, her striking white blonde hair and black eyes a prize among the rest.
And Inara (or Ina, as she called herself) if only to be allowed to stay, and watch her grow into the beautiful woman Ina knew she would become...did what they told her too.
Which recently was...to steal Tristran's horse.
And she had done it. The animal was safely at her side. And looking around and noting the small bits of blue dyed leather attached to trees and bushes...she knew she was home, in woad territory now.
"Merlin! I am here...I have the horse!" She shouted uncertainly in their tongue. But instead of the many words of praise she had thought would be spoken to her upon her arrival, from the shadows of the trees...
...Only a silent rain of arrows answered her call...
She screamed.
OOO