Alennia walked into the clearing where Merlin waited, just before dawn began to streak the sky the next morning. She wore her customary alert expression, but the dark rings beneath her eyes and pale face betrayed her lack of sleep the night before.
"Ready?" Merlin asked her as she approached on silent feet.
"Twenty archers hidden in the trees: arrows aimed at Arthur and his companion, ten men on foot ready if I call, or if there is any sign of danger, five mounted men in case they try to escape with anything, or anyone, on horseback," Alennia recited, pulling her blade from it's sheath at her waist, and absently inspecting it.
"I knew you wouldn't fail me," Merlin said, more to himself than to Alennia.
"The day hasn't ended yet," she replied evenly. "Judge me when the sun has set."
Merlin laughed, a coarse, rasping laugh that set Alennia's teeth on edge. "Then let us go."
Alennia was exhausted. She had ridden hard for the whole of the previous day to make it to the gathering that Merlin had called, then had spent all night doing a reconnaissance on the following day's meeting ground, she had organised men to cover the whole area, from every possible angle, had wracked her brains for hours, trying to think of the best way to kill Merlin from Arthur's point of view, and had then made it back to the clearing for dawn to meet Merlin.
She wanted nothing better than to curl up into a ball and sleep for several weeks, but she could not. She needed all her senses on maximum alert this morning, and could not afford to let the needs of her body stand in her way.
It was, of course, not the first time Alennia had had to fight pain and exhaustion. There was a time, she remembered, when she went for a week, fleeing inland from the Saxons, with an arrow in her leg, and less than two hours sleep each night. But this was different. If things went wrong this time it was not her life at stake, it was Merlin's.
She and Merlin walked out of the forest and forwards about two hundred yards onto the plains. Alennia could make out the wall a mile and a half away, and two riders on the plain before the wall, riding at a leisurely canter towards them.
Alennia glanced nervously around at her preparations, her mind buzzing with worries and concerns, but Arthur was almost upon them, and it was too late to be making adjustments now. All she could do was prey that it indeed was nothing but a friendly meeting, and not a cover for an ambush or attack.
When the two mounted men had drawn closed, Alennia had a chance to study them. The one on the left was obviously Arthur: his Roman armour and whole bearing betrayed him. But the knight by his side! Alennia's heart leapt into her mouth as she saw a hawk circling above him, and for one crazy moment, she wanted to scream to the Woads hidden in the trees on no account to fire at him. For it was Tristan.
When the two men were a hundred yards from Merlin and Alennia, they dismounted, and both Merlin and Arthur advanced towards each other on foot, with Tristan and Alennia a pace behind their commanders.
"Well met, Artorius," Merlin said in his strange Roman accent, nodding his head to Arthur. Arthur returned the salute, and Alennia let her eyes wander to Tristan as the two leaders began to speak.
She was gratified to see his astounded gaze directed at her, and for a fraction of a second their eyes met. He remembered her! And finding her gaze captured by his, the brief moment when her eyes met Tristan's seemed to last for eternity, and a multitude of memories swept back to Alennia: the mocking, amused voice on the windswept hillside, the captivating, reckless smile, the dark, stormy eyes that now held her, trapped, like one drowning, who did not want to be saved.
Alennia turned her attention back to Merlin and Arthur. They were discussing the release of a Woad the Romans had captured, but Alennia wasn't really listening.
Recollections of two years previously were washing through her, and she felt a strange desire to talk once again, to the knight who had saved her. Her hand crept to hold the edge of her cloak. His cloak. That he remembered her was all she could think. The words echoed around her head, and it took enormous willpower to pull her mind from the dark knight opposite her, to Arthur, and the risks he presented.
The two men talked for several hours, and the sun was high in the sky before the negotiations had finished. Tristan, whilst listening to the conversation of his commander, had not taken his eyes from Alennia's face.
An amused smile played around the corners of his mouth as he watched her studiously avoid him, and yet every now and then her eyes would flick towards him: eyes filled with curiosity, and Tristan inwardly smiled to see her jerk her eyes away when she realised he was watching her, her face colouring slightly.
She had changed, Tristan thought. In two years she had gone from being a terrified girl, running from her fear, to a proud woman, who faced her enemies and spat at their feet. Tristan was aware of archers hidden in the forests, he had been a scout for long enough to know when an arrow was aimed at him, and he rightly guessed that it was her who had organised the archers.
Two years ago, she had been thin, and pale from exhaustion. She still looked exhausted, Tristan thought, but she had learnt that things such as fatigue and pain were simply obstacles to overcome. There was a scar on her cheek, and she wore her weapons: a sword slung casually around her waist, and a bow on her shoulder, with such ease and negligence that Tristan gathered she had seen a lot of fighting since he had seen her last.
And yet she had never fought the Romans. He was sure of that, for he had unconsciously looked for her on every battlefield. It was from the memory of the hatred and fear in her voice when she had spoken of the Saxons that he guessed that she fought them now. So what was she doing here? And why did he care so much?
Alennia was painfully aware of Tristan's gaze on her. She could feel herself colour up with embarrassment when she caught him watching her, and yet he just continued to watch her with that same casual, amused expression.
Why was his attention so fixed on her? she wondered to herself. And why did she care so much? She was close to being a very beautiful woman, and was not ignorant of the stares she attracted from men. But there was something different about Tristan. He wasn't just looking at her body; it was if he saw through that. And that scared Alennia. He held a strange kind of power over her: a power that both scared and captivated her.
A/N – What d'you think? Good meeting or not? Random point – I know Tristan isn't much like he is in the film, but there is a reason for that! He changes from being more like Lancelot (in my version) to more like Dagonet but with a wish to exterminate everything he can lay his hands on (in the film) because of what happens in this story. It is not just my terrible portrayal of him! Well, that's probably got something to do with it. What I'm trying to get at is that this story is the reason that he is a very different man in the film. Oh dear, I'm not phrasing this very well am I? C'est la vie! (Meaning 'that's life,' for all you non-French speaking people out there. I've just finished learning 50+ French words, which is why my brain is still in French mode, and I'm having trouble gathering my thoughts in English.) I reckon I've garbled on for long enough now, and am probably scaring all you nice reviewers out there, so I'm gonna shut up and hope you'll return when I'm not in such a random mood! I blame the French vocab!
P.S – Long enough chapter?