Please note: Arthur knows of the nature of the relationship between Lancelot and Tristan. If you remember, he witnessed one of their 'moments' in Chapter Nine.
Chapter ThirteenThe still, silent, grey moments before sunrise are a dangerous time for conversations…
"We've never had freedom. We haven't have we?" Lancelot demanded.
"You should ask Arthur. He's the one with the gilded tongue." Tristan sounded bitter in a way he never had before.
"I'm asking you," said Lancelot, suddenly petulant and angry too.
Tristan leaned forward and tried to kiss him. His lips caught on Lancelot's jaw. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "We've had freedom: the freedom to die."
"But what about the freedom to live?"
"I think we have it now."
Lancelot moved closer to Tristan. "Oddly enough, I used to think you wanted to die." His voice took on a whimsical tone. "That soldiering was just the means to the end."
Barely two hours had passed since Tristan had said the fateful words:
"Come away with me."
Lancelot's bed felt suddenly cold.
Lancelot shivered and groped for the rough blanket. "Tristan… Bastard… Blanket thief…" he muttered. His hands, however, soon grasped the blanket but they failed to settle on the warm body that should have been beneath it. "Are you there, Tristan? Tristan?" Lancelot tried not to panic as his heart began to beat faster and faster."Tristan!" he cried.
Tristan didn't answer.
Lancelot's hands searched Tristan out for a minute more and yet he knew what had happened.
Tristan had gone.
Life is by nature sad.
In the cold light of the dawn, Tristan left the fortress. He cantered his horse swiftly across the land to the South of the Wall, heading for the nearest patch of woodland. Dismounting, he whistled up into the air and was greeted by a harsh shriek. A moment later his hawk plummeted from the sky and settled on his arm. Its orange eyes looked at him reprovingly, almost accusingly. You abandoned me, it seemed to say.
"I'm sorry," Tristan said. "But if you only knew what had happened…"
'If' was Tristan's least favourite word. It spoke of what might have been; what should have been if only the world was a perfect place.
For Tristan, the perfect place would be a place without people; a place without that stupid humiliating emotion known as 'love'.
Tristan sank down to the ground. It was soft from the recent rains and the grass was wet with dew. The water soaked through the knees of his breeches and yet he paid it little heed. He stroked a loving finger across the hawk's back and fought with a strange urge to pray. It was ridiculous: he had no god, save possibly Mother Nature.
Against his will, he found himself remembering the conversation with Lancelot in the dreamy hours before the sun had risen.
"Come away with me."
What a crazy, idiotic, bloody ridiculous thing to say.
With a quick fluid movement, Tristan cast off his hawk. He leant forward until his head touched the damp earth and gave a quiet moan of pain. His hawk landed a few feet away and watched him warily.
Tristan didn't expect it. Suddenly he was crying for the first time in fifteen years.
"Come away with me."
Tristan's words had seemed to echo in the silence that followed: almost as if they were magnified by the near-darkness.
"Where would we go?" Lancelot had asked, as if that was actually important.
"It doesn't matter where," Tristan had said. "Wherever you want…"
Lancelot, who had been snuggled close with an arm resting across Tristan's belly, moved away. Tristan could feel the heat radiating from him and yet he longed for the actual contact of that hot flesh. "Just you and me?" Lancelot had asked.
"Yes."
Lancelot had given a whimsical sigh. "I'm sorry," he had whispered. "I just can't."
Just can't.
Tristan knew, somewhere deep down, that Lancelot loved Arthur- probably had done for the last fifteen years.
Just can't.
Tristan swiped at his tears with his hands. Crying wouldn't achieve anything. He needed to make a plan; needed to work out what to do next.
Just can't.
His hawk hopped towards him. It hesitated a moment, and then gave his wrist a sharp nip.
"Ow!" Tristan glared at the bird. "What was that for?"
The hawk hopped up and down, once, twice, three times.
"You're tired of me, are you? Well you can go." Tristan shooed it away."I'm nobody's burden!"
The hawk flew up into the air with several violent flaps of its wings. It disappeared into the tree canopy with a final piercing shriek.
Tristan stared after it, feeling very alone all of a sudden."I didn't mean-" he began.
Oh God.
He fell silent immediately. His entire body tensed and his hand settled on the hilt of his sword.
But it was too late.
There were blue figures all around him, swarming through the trees, their arrows pointing at him, their bared teeth far too white in their blue faces.
Woads.
One of them stepped forward. She was a very slender young woman, wearing a green cloak over the leather battle armour of her kind. Her long black-brown hair was scraped back into a knot behind her head. Her hazel eyes were bright.
"Hello, Tristan," she said.
Tristan gave her a nod. "Hello, Guinevere," he replied.
Arthur climbed out of bed and groaned at the blast of cold air. He quickly abandoned the breeches he was wearing and groped around for a pair of thicker ones and a padded tunic. Shivering, he spared a brief thought for Lancelot whose recent wounds must be aching terribly in the bitter cold. His concern, however, was short lived; all too quickly replaced with a stab of jealousy as he thought of Lancelot with Tristan...
Kissing Tristan, in bed with Tristan…
God, it hurt.
You're only jealous… whispered a persistent voice in Arthur's head. You wish it were you, don't you?
"Yes," Arthur answered aloud.
"Yes what?" Lancelot asked. Arthur hadn't heard the door open and yet there was Lancelot, standing before him, larger than life and with his eyes boring into Arthur's soul.
Arthur shook his head. "Oh, nothing." He finally managed to find his pair of thickest breeches and he pulled them on, relieved to be no longer naked beneath Lancelot's gaze. "Can I help you?" Arthur asked him.
Lancelot shrugged. He looked a little lost."He's gone," he said.
"Who?"
"Tristan."
"Ahhhh. That doesn't really surprise me." Arthur took a hesitant step towards his friend. "There's to be no secrets from now on," he said. "I knew Tristan was leaving. He told me so a couple of days ago; he wants to keep fighting." Arthur paused. "I think he lives off war."
Lancelot shook his head. He wasn't crying yet: his eyes were cold and hard. "That's not true. It can't be." He looked intently at Arthur. "He asked me to come away with him."
"And what did you say?" Arthur tried to sound nonchalant.
"I said… I said that I 'just can't'."
"Why?"
"I didn't love him- I couldn't let him think so."
"I'm sorry," said Arthur. "For you and for Tris-"
His words were cut off and the breath knocked from him as Lancelot darted across the room and threw his arms round Arthur's neck. Arthur pulled him closer and let Lancelot bury his face in his neck and sob.
Lancelot whispered in Arthur's ear. His hot breath tickled."Your God would have me burn in Hell for what I've done."
"No," Arthur said. He squeezed Lancelot even tighter and Lancelot squeezed back. They were holding each other so tightly now that they were leaving bruises; they clung to one another like dying men to driftwood. Lancelot's tears were warm on Arthur's bare shoulder.
Suddenly, moved by the trembling of the other man, Arthur said the one thing he had never thought to hear himself say. "If that is your fate then I can only hope to share it with you. May I too burn in Hell!"
After all, he had Lancelot in his arms- wasn't this everything he'd ever wanted?
How could Heaven compare to this?
Tristan slowly rose from the ground. He drew himself to his full height until he stood a head taller than Guinevere.
"How may I help you, my lady?"
"These are dangerous times to be caught unawares." She smiled at him; the same smile that might have dazzled Arthur before he remembered he was in love with another; had always been, in fact.
Tristan gave her an intense look. The tears had vanished from his eyes, leaving them black as night and yet slightly red-rimmed. "The Saxons are both our enemies," he said carefully. Calculatingly.
"Indeed," Guinevere said. She grinned suddenly. "And that's why I need your help…"
Tbc…