Sitting alone in Arthur's room was rather dull. Lancelot was still unconscious which meant there was no one to talk to and the only other pursuit available was reading one of the countless tomes Arthur kept in his quarters. Those were in either Latin or Greek and Bors couldn't read either. He would much rather have been down at the tavern eating and drinking, but someone had been needed to get Arthur out of the fortress. He needed to breathe fresh air again and hopefully get his mind off Lancelot's current predicament.
"You're just being stubborn now," Bors grumbled as he shifted about in the chair Arthur had brought up close to the bed. "And you're giving Arthur more gray hairs than he needs. He's blaming himself for this, too, which also isn't helping him any."
Bors didn't expect an answer, but it was still a strange thing to not have Lancelot immediately jump to Arthur's defense. Lancelot may have grumbled about some of Arthur's decisions over the years, but never about the man himself. Lancelot had spent many hours mucking out the stalls and doing other menial jobs because he had talked back to Roman officers who were belittling Arthur's affection for the Sarmatian conscripts. None of those Roman officers, though, had men as loyal as Arthur's because each of the Sarmatians knew that Arthur would willingly put their lives above his own.
"You'd better appreciate this because sitting here watching you sleep is about as interesting as watching the Romans flounce about on patrol... Well, except when they stumble upon a group of Woads and run screamin' as though they were babes afraid of their own shadows." Bors scratched at his chin, leaning back so that the front two legs of the chair rose off the ground. "I'll wager, though, that I can make a decent sum letting in all the women you've scorned in the area."
Yet even that did not produce so much as a twitch of the finger from Lancelot. The very whisper of it would usually have the corner of Lancelot's mouth quivering and his eyes darting about for the speediest escape.
"If he hadn't been so concerned about keeping you alive, I'll wager that he would've gutted that Woad bitch," Bors mused aloud, seeking to fill the continuous silence. "And his eyes when Gawain told him what he'd seen..."
Bors approached at a slower pace, Tristan's body heavy upon his shoulders. He had heard Arthur's scream, his voice sounding as though it had been ripped from his chest. Arriving late though he did, there was still no mistaking what he was seeing. Lancelot was near dead and Gawain had his big axe leveled at the Woad bitch's throat. The defiance in her eyes spoke volumes.
"Stay with me, Lancelot. Please stay with me," Arthur all but moaned against the top of Lancelot's head. "Just stay with me."
Never in the fifteen years that he had known Arthur had Bors ever seen him look so utterly broken. It was as though all the life had been utterly drained from him. A harsh breeze would have been enough to knock him down had Lancelot not leaned into his hand. As long as there was life in Lancelot, there would be life in Arthur.
"What are we doing with her?" Bors asked, carefully shifting Tristan's body so that he could set him carefully upon the ground.
Had Lancelot not continued to draw breath, it was possible that Arthur would have ordered her death.
"She tried to kill Lancelot," Gawain spoke up, one hand moving form the hand of the axe to clutch at his side. "I saw her twisting the arrow about. She was tricking to stick it in his heart."
The Woad witch was utterly silent, but the hardness in her eyes was response enough. She would have killed Lancelot and felt no remorse over it.
Bors still didn't understand why Arthur let Merlin take custody of the girl when by all rights she should have been killed. To kill in battle was one thing, but it wasn't right to try and kill an unarmed man. Especially not when that man had just saved her life. Once Lancelot was well and able to give his account of the affair, Bors was certain that the Woad bitch would be put to death. One of them would put an end to her even if Arthur was unable to order her death. And he was certain that Arthur wouldn't protest it, either. All of Merlin's ramblings about Arthur's need to marry the Woad witch to unite their people were a load of horseshit. The Britons would either follow Arthur or be slaughtered by whatever Saxon hoard came next. It didn't take a sorcerer to figure that out. Marriage or no, the people would follow Arthur because he was their best chance of survival. Badon Hill had proven that.
"Now if you would just wake your ass up, he might not worry himself into a grave."