Warning: Adult content.
Chapter EightEven as Lancelot found peace sleeping in Tristan's arms, others were wide-awake and oppressed by the melancholic atmosphere that lingered throughout the half-abandoned fortress.
Galahad drained the last of his ale messily, so that drops fell into his beard and glimmered like jewels in the candlelight. He slammed the tankard down onto the table but the sudden noise did little to startle any of his companions. Curled up in the crook of his right arm lay Edolie, the blonde-haired girl he had rescued from the advancing Saxons. She slept soundly with a look of sweet contentment on her young face.
Against Galahad's left side there was a much heavier weight: that of his closest friend Gawain. The older knight was not asleep -after sharing a room for so many years Galahad could tell this much from the rhythm of his breathing- but he seemed little disposed for conversation. Even Bors, on his ninth pint and still going strong, was silent.
"What on this earth's up with you lot?" demanded Vanora, as she re-appeared with yet another jug of ale. "From your faces you'd think the world was about to end!"
"It is," said Gawain, speaking up unexpectedly. He shifted his weight against Galahad's side. "In a few weeks all of this," he waved a lazy hand to indicate the fortress, "will be turned to dust."
Vanora shook her head at him. "Surely the Saxons will occupy it." She said this as though it was some consolation. "This building, this Wall, these stones… They'll live into the future; tell our story when we're all naught but memories."
Silence reigned supreme for a few more minutes, giving Bors time to gulp down his tenth pint.
"Saxons," Gawain said eventually, "Burn and destroy. I can see it in my mind's eye: charred walls and blackened rubble." He reached for his tankard and drank deeply. "Arthur's little chapel smote to the ground…"
"We'll have to abandon the wine store!" Galahad suddenly exclaimed. Edolie stirred and mumbled something in her sleep, but did not awake.
"I weren't ever going to leave this wretched isle," said Bors. His words were slurred but the meaning shone through, as clear as winter sunlight. "This land is mine. There's so much of me blood in the soil that it must be. Can't not be."
"Practically home," said Gawain.
"No it isn't!" Galahad was shouting suddenly and he didn't know why. Edolie sat up and rubbed her tired eyes. Gawain edged away from his friend; he knew when Galahad needed space. "Home isn't a place!"
"What about Sarmatia?"
Galahad shook his head. "All these years I've been yearning for home and I never realised…" he trailed off.
"Realise what?"
"Home isn't a place, it's the people in it. This isn't about Sarmatia; it's about the people we left behind there all those years ago. Families, clan… They're the reason for going home. I don't care about leaving Britain – in fact, the sooner the better – just as long as we're all leaving together. No more deaths…"
Galahad could say no more. He sighed and stroked a hand through Edolie's long hair until the girl fell back asleep. After a time, Gawain settled back against him and seemed on the verge of speaking for some time. Across the table, Vanora had settled on Bor's lap: his face was buried in her bosom, kissing the pale skin, even as she whispered something in his ear.
After a time Gawain said what was on his mind. "I'm proud of you," he said softly, in a voice that only Galahad caught.
"I'm proud of you too."
"It'll be good to go home again with you and…" Gawain turned and ventured a glance at the girl sleeping against his friend's other side. "…Edolie I guess."
Galahad grinned. "I can't help it if women find me irresistible!"
"Brat!"
There was a sudden commotion as Bors unceremoniously dumped Vanora off his knee and rose unsteadily to his feet. His eyes blazed. "You're mad, woman!"
Vanora shook her head. She looked fiercely beautiful as she faced her lover. "I'm right, you know. Women are never wrong about these things."
"Another baby, hey Bors?" said Galahad, grinning stupidly. He liked children.
"It's about Lancelot," snapped Vanora.
"It's bloody craziness, is what it is!"
Vanora ignored Bors and turned to Gawain, evidently seeing him as the voice of reason. "I myself thought that I was wrong. That it couldn't happen to Lancelot- womaniser that he is. But that doesn't matter! It can happen to anybody…"
"Not him," Bors interrupted.
"…Even him. It's there written on his face. The fear, shyness… "
"He's been beaten. Tortured. What do you expect?!"
"…Isolation, need, despair. It's all there and none of you blind idiots can see it!"
"What is it, Vanora?" asked Gawain, with a feeling of dread settling in his stomach.
"He's been raped."
The silence was louder than any noise. Galahad moved away from Gawain, and then stood up suddenly. Edolie awoke and fell to the floor with a cry. Gawain also stood up. He stared at Vanora: there was sincerity evident in her voice and yet what she said could surely not be possible. He glanced at Bors. The big knight was gulping down ale straight from the jug. Turning to Galahad, he saw a mixture of anger and confusion. Finally, he looked back at Vanora. She gave him an apologetic nod.
And still nobody spoke.
Galahad reached out a hand, and settled it on Gawain's bicep.He squeezed tightly. "No…" murmured the younger knight.
Edolie, her sleepiness replaced with a look of wide-eyed fear, climbed to her feet. "The Saxons raped a field boy," she said in her soft voice. She hadn't said a lot since being rescued and everyone listened to her words. "They caught him but he escaped after. He ran back to our village, naked and bloody."
Vanora nodded. "It has been known before. They do it as a form of torture."
The sound of pottery breaking drew the company's attention to Bors. He was glaring at his wife as he stood amidst the fragments of the ale jug. "Things like that don't happen to real people: to Lancelot," he said thickly. "Not our Lancey; he's one of us."
"None of you are invincible." Vanora's gentle voice had turned to iron. Cold, firm,everyoneknew she was telling the truth.
Gawain spoke up. "Somebody should tell Arthur. He has a right to know."
"You," Galahad insisted. "I wouldn't know what to say. Bors neither."
"When do I tell him?"
"Tell him now," Bors growled. Vanora had found her way back into his arms and Galahad was once again clutching the blonde girl, Edolie.
Gawain looked backwards and forwards between the two couples. "Okay," he said at last.
He found a flaming torch in a bracket, which he took. He padded along the fortresses' corridors as silently as he could but somehow every one of his footfalls sounded like the thud of a war drum or the impact of a mace against armour plate. He had none of Tristan's flair for moving unheard and unseen.
After what seemed like an age, Gawain turned to the right and set off down a long stone passageway with crude oak doors evenly spaced along the right-hand side. He passed the door to his and Galahad's chambers (shared despite the many free rooms available). Two doors along was Bors' room, deserted in favour of a big chamber downstairs where noisy kids were more welcome.
Then what had been Dagonet's room. And Percival and Kay's. Bedivere's, Lucan's… All of them empty now.
Gawain froze as he came to Lancelot's chamber. The door had been broken off its hinges; it rested on the ground half in the passageway and half in the room. Gawain's heart started to beat faster. He slowly withdrew his dagger from his belt and held both it and his torch before him as he advanced. He peered through the doorway.
The sight that greeted his eyes left him both relieved and startled. On the bed, leaning against the far wall was Tristan with his obsidian eyes sparkling in the torchlight. Lancelot lay half-upright in Tristan's lap, his back to Tristan's chest. His chest rose and fell evenly as he slept. Tristan stroked his hair softly with one hand; the other was entwined with Lancelot's own.
Tristan stared at Gawain. Gawain bowed his head and continued down the corridor. Tristan's gaze had unsettled him.
At last, he reached Arthur's room and froze once again.
"Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
Let Thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication."
The door was shut but the heady aroma of incense hung in the air of the passage nonetheless and Arthur's words were more than testament to what he was doing. Gawain turned away, knowing that if it was possible to disturb a sleeper, it was infinitely better to leave someone praying to himself. There was always tomorrow to tell Arthur what had happened. At dawn, Gawain promised himself. At dawn I'll tell him.
If Gawain had entered Arthur's quarters, or found himself able to see through four inches of oak, he would have viewed his Commander prostrated on the ground with his arms spread open beseechingly. One hand clutched a crucifix on an iron chain and the other a small figure of a mouse; the trinket dropped by Lancelot when the Saxons captured him.
"Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."
Arthur sat up and touched the hand holding the crucifix to his head, his chest and then to either shoulder to form the shape of the cross. The thick smoke of incense that coiled around his body asit rose to the ceiling devoured the movement.
Tears streamed down Arthur's cheeks.
"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen." He finished with the Latin that he had heard so often as a boy: finding it as a warm blanket in the depths of winter; an object from home in a foreign country; the language of Christianity in a Pagan world. The Latin was comforting but the voice that spoke shook with suppressed emotion.
Tents were scarce in the Saxon camp. The largest belonged to King Cerdic. A half-dozen of the fiercest fighters –the men who had distinguished themselves in past battles by killing until the dead formed impassable walls on every side; until the whites of their eyes were shot through with red veins and their swords dropped from nerveless hands- also had tents. Smaller, dirtier, but tents all the same.
Cynric had a tent too, which he shared with a small man with features too dark to be entirely Saxon. This tent was pitched on the very edges of the camp, far away from anyone of importance. This was just one way in which Cynric, the failure, had found himself ostracized.
At the moment, Cynric was fucking a large woman of perhaps thirty years, while his darker-featured companion looked on.
"She's a beast!" laughed the companion.
"Beauty was never a requirement…" Cynric growled.
His companion shrugged. "Still, I can't help but long for that knight, the dead pretty one. Now what was his name?"
"Lancelot." This last word was a breathless gasp. Cynric gave a shuddering groan and then withdrew. He knocked the woman to the floor where she lay moaning. "You want her?" Cynric asked his lieutenant as he sprawled back on his bed of furs.
"I'd rather fuck-" Cynric's companion grinned. "-The boy I've got tied up outside."
"Then kill her and bring him in."
The woman was despatched with an eager cut to the neck that left her moaning in a pool of blood but not quite dead. Regardless, Cynric's man hauled her out into the night. He re-appeared dragging a tall thin boy of perhaps seventeen years. The skin of his face was pale and marred only by the wispy traces of a first beard. His hair, however, was a mass of dark curls.
"See the resemblance, do you?"
"Aye." Cynric grinned. "I think I'll call him Lancelot." Both men cackled. "Strip," Cynric ordered.
They watched with anticipation as the boy stripped off his clothing with trembling fingers.
"We could use him for practice," suggested Cynric's lieutenant. "Practice for when we track down Arthur's little whore again." Malice sparkled in his black eyes but his expression soon turned to horror as Cynric shook his head.
"You always were stupid," Cynric said. "No subtlety."
"Well, what the fuck are we going to do?"
Cynric bared his teeth in anticipation. "We're not going to touch a hair on Lancelot's head. Oh no, he's going to suffer something far worse."
"What?"
Cynric was gleeful as he related his plan. He'd thought about it carefully; thought about why Lancelot had let himself be captured in the first place. "He's going to watch us kill the one he loves."
"Right. So who do we kill?"
"Arthur."
Cynric's eyes settled on the boy. "After all, everyone all know that revenge is a dish best served cold…"
Miles away at the Wall, Lancelot slept and Arthur prayed and Tristan watched.
Tbc...