"I take it you do not much care for Romans," Cassia interrupted Lancelot's story.

"On the contrary, Madame," Lancelot replied, "but I fear it would little benefit you for me to embellish my tale with veneration for characters that are unworthy of your esteem."

"Characters like my children?" Cassia said raising her eyebrow.

Lancelot nervously cleared his throat, "I mean only to preserve at least a semblance of objectivity. There is no offense meant---"

Cassia laughed, "Lancelot, there is nothing I detest more than blithering imbeciles who fabricate virtue in my spoiled offspring in order to appease my disposition."

Lancelot smiled.


Tristan followed Marcellus through the main gates of the estate and towards the villa that sat in the middle of the property surrounded by modest fields of a variety of crops. Marcellus's estate was the largest Tristan had seen. It was filled with the bustling of workers and Roman soldiers. 'The Gaius family must have significant influence in Rome,' Tristan conjectured. As they headed down the path to the villa, Tristan observed the people working in the fields. Most of them looked sickly and malnourished. They were woads.

Roman guards stood over them monitoring their work, and Tristan noticed that the workers had chains around their ankles. The crack of a whip echoed across the field, and Tristan turned to see a Roman soldier beating an old man who had dropped his bucket of water. Tristan kept his face hard as stone, unwilling to betray his uneasiness to Marcellus. He could not shake the feeling that something was not right. Tristan shook off the feeling. It was probably just Arthur's idealistic nature rubbing off on him.

"You're a scout, are you not?" asked Marcellus, breaking the silence. Tristan nodded. "That will do nicely," Marcellus said, "There is a band of woads amassing at the edge of the forest. We attack at sundown. Ride out at dusk and report back with their numbers." Tristan nodded again. When they reached the villa, Marcellus waved Tristan away and strode off with a few of his higher ranking Roman guards. Tristan watched Marcellus leave and then gazed up at the large villa before him; a symbol of all that money and power could buy. He wondered how he was supposed to occupy himself until dusk.

Tristan suddenly heard a voice from behind, "Come walk with me." Tristan turned to see Lucia standing before him. For the first time he noticed how perfectly her gown and veil matched her eyes and how her dark hair contrasted the sky blue. Her posture and the way she held herself reflected her high birth. Tristan nodded once again and followed Lucia towards the gardens located on the east side of the estate.

Tristan had to adjust the pace of his walk to match her slow saunter. 'How could people walk so purposelessly?' he thought to himself. Tristan and Lucia both stared straight ahead as they walked. Finally, Lucia turned to him, "Do you not speak, knight?"

"I speak," Tristan answered simply.

"May I call you Tristan?" she asked with a sweetness too exaggerated to be sincere.

"Hmm?" Tristan uttered as though he hadn't been paying attention.

"That is your name is it not? Tristan?" Lucia repeated. The sweetness had faded from her voice. Tristan nodded. "You may call me Lucia," she said.

This had to be the most pointless conversation Tristan had ever had. They had already exchanged names, had they not? Tristan's head ached at the superfluousness that inevitably came with formality. "Where do you come from, Tristan?" asked Lucia.

"Sarmatia," Tristan replied.

"And yet you fight for Rome?" Lucia persisted. Was she really this dense or was she baiting him?

"I am obligated to serve Rome for fifteen years," said Tristan.

"Obligated?" Lucia asked, feigning innocence, "Why is that?"

Tristan couldn't take it any longer. He turned and looked her square in the eyes, "Listen, lady---"

"Lucia," she insisted.

Tristan ignored her, "Is there any reason you wished to speak with me?" The tone of his voice revealed his annoyance, and Lucia gave a self-satisfied smile. It had been almost too easy to break through his apathetic, emotionless barricade.

"You ride to battle tonight," Lucia said, once again feigning sweetness, "I wanted only to wish you luck. May God go with you."

Images of the enslaved woads in the fields flashed in Tristan's mind, and he remembered Marcellus's claims of woads raiding his estate. 'Why would woads attack an estate so heavily guarded by Roman soldiers?' Tristan thought to himself. The woads did not have the strength of the Roman legions, to be sure, but they did have a sense of strategy. They chose their targets carefully, and Marcellus' estate seemed an unlikely choice.

"How many woad attacks would you say this estate has sustained?" Tristan asked suddenly turning back to Lucia. The unprecedented length of his question caught her off guard. "There have been far too many to keep an accurate count," she answered as she dropped her eyes to the ground, unwilling to look at him directly.

Tristan nodded and turned to walk away. He was sure now more than ever of Marcellus's deceit. Tristan speculated that Marcellus and his Roman guards had been raiding the forests and capturing woads to work his land under the guise of protecting his estate from attack. The presence of one of Arthur's great Sarmatian knights would only make this task easier.

"Where are you going?" Lucia called after him. Her face had turned hard and aloof. "I did not dismiss you," she said coldly.

"I am not yours to dismiss," Tristan said simply and walked away.

"Yes you are," Lucia whispered to herself as she watched Tristan go.

One of Marcellus's servants showed Tristan to his quarters. Tristan found his room more than suitable. He set his weapons down on the table in the center of the room and sat down at the edge of the bed. His thoughts drifted to that night's mission. Compassion was not one of Tristan's stronger virtues, but he did have a sense of justice. Under Arthur's command, he had only killed woads who had made the first attack. He found pleasure in killing, yes, but he had never sought it unprovoked. Still, he had a duty to Rome, a duty that's unpleasantness had never stopped him from performing before and would not stop him now.

Tristan heard the door open and turned his head to see Lucia Gaius striding across the room to where he sat. She stood before him and let the sleeve of her dress fall, revealing her bare shoulder. She began to lean toward him, but he quickly stood and walked over to the table where he had set his weapons. Lucia, affronted, sat down on his bed trying to hide her rage. She watched him as he armed himself with his weapons. She leaned back, propping herself up with her elbows and asked suggestively, "Is it not customary for a lady to send a knight off into battle with certain amicable gestures?"

"This won't be a battle," Tristan answered, knowing the difference between carnage and combat. He finished arming himself and exited the room, leaving Lucia sitting on his bed livid.

The sun was setting when Tristan rode out to the edge of the forest. He looked up into the sky and saw his hawk soaring down to him. He held out his arm and the hawk flew down and perched itself on it. Tristan trotted his horse warily through the trees, staying constantly alert to his surroundings. Marcellus was right. There was a group of woads amassing not too far into the forest, but they were few in numbers and would be no match for the Roman cavalry Marcellus employed at his estate. This would be a massacre.

Tristan rode back to the estate to report to Marcellus. He found Marcellus already decked out in full armor, inspecting the Roman soldiers that stood at attention ready for orders. Marcellus was tall, but slender and could not quite fill out his armor. He stood and walked with his body slightly hunched over, as any man does who lacks honor. Tristan approached Marcellus and reported, "There is a group of woads not too deep into the forest. Their numbers are few, so there shouldn't be any trouble."

"Excellent," Marcellus sneered, "We shall be on our way then."


Tristan sat on his horse expressionless and watched as the Roman soldiers raided the woads' settlement. He heard screams from all directions, and noticed a gang of soldiers hoarding a group of woads into a wagon. 'More hands to tend the fields,' Tristan supposed. Occasionally, a woad would charge towards Tristan and his horse, but he would simply dispatch an arrow and watch his attacker fall to the ground. 'Death was perhaps a better alternative to enslavement,' he reasoned.

Marcellus rode up on his horse next to Tristan and laughed, "A beautiful sight isn't it?" Tristan frowned. He was not generally one for attachment, but at that moment he wished to be back with his fellow knights under Arthur's command. He respected Arthur. He could never respect Marcellus.

Despite being vastly outnumbered, the woads managed to kill quote a few Roman soldiers. Tristan couldn't help but feel slightly satisfied. On the other hand, he also watched as the Roman soldiers collected captive after captive from the woad settlement. His eyes raced across the scene until they stopped at the sight of a familiar figure standing in the midst of the skirmish. It was her intensity that he recognized. She stood amidst the chaos of combating Romans and woads, staring directly into his eyes. It was the girl from the attack on the caravan. The booming sound of battle faded from his ears and everything around him dulled into the darkness of the night, except for her. She stood blazing with vibrancy as though she had been set on fire.

A sharp pain in his side shook Tristan back into reality. He spun his head around to see a long spear lunged into his side. On the other end of the spear was a growling man painted all in blue, a woad. Tristan felt himself lose his balance on the horse. He slipped off his saddle, falling to the ground, and was consumed by the darkness of unconsciousness.