OH MY GOD! Thank's SO MUCH for all the reviews.
Author's Note: Does anyone know the name of Tristan's horse? I used Morrigan, but I'd appreciate knowing if there's one that I'm missing.
SOOOO . . . . without further ado ('cause I know how much everyone hates ado) . . . my new chapter.
Chapter Two: Memories
Cerelinde awoke the next morning with a pounding headache. She also woke up placed firmly in her furs in the wagon, nestled between Guinevere and Lucan. The boy had burrowed into his blankets against her back, so she had obviously been there for some time.
Fulcina was bustling around the jolting wagon. She was humming something softly under her breath, and for perhaps the first time in a long time, she seemed happy. Cerelinde wasn't incredibly surprised. The woman had been locked up by her sadistic husband for as long as twenty years.
And a certain soft-spoken knight most likely contributed to herjoyous mood as well.
The aforementioned Dagonet was sitting on the edge of the wooden wagon, his legs dangling, occasionally brushing the frozen ground in the tip of his boot. He was watching the three patients with an air of watchful laziness.
Cerelinde rose carefully, making sure to move the two woads together, and slipped past theRoman womanto sit next to the knight. The sat in silence for a while, and Cerelinde's feet swung slow circles in the air. She was short compared to her companion.
"Do you really not remember who you are?" asked Dag quietly. Cerelinde looked up, and gooseflesh rose up her bare arms. She wasn't cold – more startled. In fact, Dag noted, she seemed impervious to the harsh winds that were whistling though the wagon. Behind him he heard rustling as Guinevere and Lucan buried deeper into the covers, searching for warmth.
"No," said Cerelinde softly. She looked up, and her eyes caught Dag's notice. Cerelinde wasn't particularly beautiful, not like Guinevere (or Fulcina) seemed to be. She was more bewitching; her curling black hair and strange liquid eyes enticed intrigue rather than lust.
Dag nodded, and the two continued their silent companionship. Eventually, without warning, Dag jumped off the still moving vehicle and wandered over to some of the knights. Fulcina appeared behind Cerelinde, clutching furs to her chest. She shivered at the open air.
"Here," she said, slinging them over her shoulders, "you shouldn't be out in the cold like this, in your condition." Cerelinde shrugged nonchalantly, and dutifully pulled the furs around her shoulders and arms. Fulcina fussed over placing one in her lap to cover the flimsy fabric of her shift, before moving off to check on her other charges.
She hadn't noticed that the right hand which secured the furs was whole and scarless. Sometime over the night, Cerelinde's fingers had set and healed themselves. Fulcina didn't know, and Cerelinde wasn't about to bring it up herself.
For a while, perhaps an hour or so, Cerelinde stared at the trees whistling by. In her mind, she ran through the few memories she still possessed.
Six men. A horse. Thirteen hounds. The bow.
They were all fragments, but they were all she had.
In her dreams in Marius' prison, Cerelinde had been approached by six different men. They were each glowed, and seemed to have rivers of gold flowing through their veins instead of blood. They called her little sister and little owl.
But she couldn't remember having brothers.
Then there was a proud black stallion, with a silver mane and eyes like sapphires. It had snorted a pale fog, and it's hooves echoed like they were made of sterling. Once it had raised it's upper body, hooves striking at air, mane and tail fluttering as if a wind whistled through them. It looked like sculpture come to life.
There were hounds too. Thirteen of them, she counted once. They too were black, with silver eyes and each stood to her waist, the size of a small pony. She hadn't felt scared around them; if anything, she had felt more secure, safer with these mysterious dogs guarding her sleep.
And then there was the bow. It had appeared many different times, sitting at the edge of her cell where the moonlight struck. It had shifted colors, and it was always strung with a blue feather-tipped arrow.
Who am I? she asked herself for the thousandth time. What kind of woman was she? She was not woad, but knew herself to be British. She was tied to this island as only someone of it's people could be.
And there were the facts . . . little things, like names, that popped into her head when she would look at someone. They almost drove her crazy, but she knew how to block them off, as if she'd had years of practice.
"Who am I?" she whispered, hoping in a subconscious level that maybe the wind would answer. It didn't.
"Well, if you're talking to yourself, you're probably crazy," said Tristan dryly, his horse moving soundlessly past her.
"Perish the thought," replied Cerelinde, smiling. He seemed discomforted by the smile, and moved away before she react. As he melted back into the forest, Cerelinde watched him silently. The feeling of familiarity had resurfaced, and as she lunged for the reason, it swam away.
"Bugger," she muttered.
Dag appeared soon after, moving to help Fulcina with Lucan. Cerelinde turned to Guinevere, but she seemed to be still asleep.
Arthur was next, and he stooped next to Cerelinde, looking her in the eye as one would to calm a frightened animal.
"How are your fingers?" he asked quietly.
"Fine," replied Cerelinde, hugging the appendages closer to her body. Arthur saw it as defensive, but she was really trying to keep them out of sight of Fulcina.
He reached forward. "I need to reset them or they won't heal properly." Cerelinde took out her hands and waggled her fingers at him
"All fine. No broken bones." Arthur caught her waving hands and carefully inspected her joints and knuckles. He finally let go and looked at her with a strange look.
"You know Lancelot?" he asked, and she nodded. "He told me that you had two broken fingers." Cerelinde froze for a moment (I hope some of Vanora's bastards are his because he's going to lose his ability to make them soon) but then smiled blindingly.
"Fancy that," she said. "Hmm . . . I have no idea why he would think that." They stared at each other for a while. Arthur broke first, and sweeping his cloak out of his way, went to attend Guinevere.
"Arthur," murmured Dag, looking up. They were probably whispering, but Cerelinde could hear them as if they shouted.
Arthur stopped for a moment and looked at Lucan. "How is he?"
"He burns. Brave boy."
Cerelinde continued to face forward, but strained her ears towards the commotion between Arthur and Guinevere. There was a slithering sound of cloth sliding against cloth, and then Arthur's voice.
"If I don't do this, there's a chance you might never use them again." Guinevere must have given her consent, because seconds later sickening cracking noises arose from the back of wagon. Guinevere bit back the pain at first, then began small screams.
There was silence, and then some more cloth being grabbed. "He tortured us. With machines. He made us tell his things that we didn't know in the first place. We tried to protect Lucan." A pause. "And then, I heard your voice in the dark. I'm Guinevere. You're Arthur, from the knights of the great wall."
"I am."
"Famous Briton who kills his own people," whispered Guinevere. There was a small thump as she collapsed against something, Cerelinde's bet was going for Arthur's chest. Small dry sobs rose.
Cerelinde's mind screamed victory, but she didn't know why.
It was a simple interaction, between a victim and her savior. So why did her heart beat happily? Why was she so excited?
"Ye brothers," she muttered weakly.
Marius' villa was aflame. The lights washed over the bare stone. Empty huts whirled smoke above like bonfires. No bodies lay spitted on the ground. Not yet, anyway.
The Saxon leader, Cerdic, was furious.
He paced across the burning land and though his walk was nonchalant and his gait slow, his eyes burned a black fire harder and more dangerous than the one he had begun. Cerdic liked killing things. He didn't like losing his prey.
"I found tracks coming from the south, but none going back. Horsemen, traveling light and fast. Could be Roman cavalry. Could be knights." The spy's voice was weak with fear and exhaustion. He knew Cerdic could, and would, turn on him at a moment's notice. He had no desire to join the flaming huts and villa.
His name was Gregory. He was British scout who had turned on his people. Gregory knew that the Romans were pulling out, and that the Saxons were more likely to win the coming war. He had never been a gambling man, so he stuck to winning teams.
"They know we're after them," murmured Cerdic, almost to himself. His men wisely stayed silent, but Gregory stumbled on with his information.
"They'll head east now. Through the mountains." Cerdic turned his hawk-like eye upon the spy.
"Hmmm . . ." he said, and as his hand started towards his sword, two blonde Saxon soldiers dragged forward the monks.
"God's holy work! They defiled- I am a servant of God!" shouted the monk, his eyes darting around, looking for escape between the soldiers.
A soldier moved towards his leader, his voice an octave lower in reverence. "He says they walled him up in a building and took the family. Someone who goes by the name of Artulius."
"It's him. It's Arthur," murmured the scout. Cynric, Cerdic's son, was the recipient of his father's gaze.
"Take your men east. Hunt them down. I'll take the main army to the Wall. Bring the family there."
Gregory turned nervously towards the mad monks, who were shouting and waving their arms. "And the monks?"
Cynric smiled an eerie replica of his father's. The strange braided beard wobbled. "Put them back where you found them." The monks began to struggle.
"I am a servant of God! I am a servant of God! I am-" he was cut off. Cerdic's men turned to their leader. He sighed at the loss.
"Burn it all."
Gregory made to go, but Cerdic was there in seconds, his eyes glittering.
"Leaving?" he asked quietly. Gregory shook his head as quickly as he could in the headlock. He tried to reply, but only gurgling noises rose from his throat. "Yes?" said Cerdic, loosening slightly.
"No, no," gasped Gregory, and was released.
"Good."
Tristan watched from the woods warily. His eyes were where they shouldn't be – namely on the hospice wagon. The woads and the strange women were inside. He had seen knights filter in and out of it the entire trip – first Dag, who had taken a liking to the Roman's wife, and then Arthur.
Tristan had noticed how Arthur and Lancelot watched the woad woman, Guinevere, and filed it away for future reference.
Cerelinde sat in the front of the wagon, her eyes glazed and out of focus.
They brought back unpleasant memories of his mother. When he was five she had succumbed to the wasting fever. For a month she had headaches and stomach cramps, and then she had been confined to her bed by the old healing woman. For the last week of her life she writhed on her bed, skin flushed with fever, eyes wild, muttering crazy talk.
She had grabbed Tristan the day before she died, her bony hand clutching his upper arm with strange strength. "They will come for you. Don't resist. She'll be there at the end. The end of the world." She'd cackled madly and rolled away. Her eyes had swirled into the back of her head, and he had run for the healer.
The next morning, when he came back from his play with the other children, she was dead.
Seven years later, they had come. He hadn't resisted. But the girl at the end hadn't appeared. Part of his mind whispered that maybe she had been talking about Cerelinde. But the rational part – the part that had kept him alive and away from madness, told him to shut up and do his job.
A job he currently wasn't doing very well. If it weren't for his horse, he'd probably be smashed on a tree somewhere, Tristan-marmalade. Morrigan, however, did her job of keeping her rider alive.
Tristan distractedly patted Morrigan on the neck, and looked back to Cerelinde.
Their interaction had been brief, for the most part because Tristan had been unnerved by her smile. It was attractive, but predatory. When she smiled, Cerelinde flashed teeth and her eyes gleamed like someone on the hunt.
Damn it, he thought to himself, and whirled his horse into the woods. He looked back one final time, however, and Cerelinde's strange eyes were on his back. She didn't smile, but her expression changed for a moment.
Then he turned away, and dodged into the forest.
Who is she?
Why, why can't I remember?
Hmmm . . . next chapter: the eagerly awaited scene in which SOMETHING ACTUALLY HAPPENS! Oh my god! suspenseful music plays.
So review if you want to see my chappie!