10. Samhain and Snow
Two or so weeks after Zoe had run into Lancelot by accident, there was a celebration by the villagers to commemorate the end of the harvest. It was loud, rowdy and involved a lot of fire. Braewyn had called it Samhain and had asked Zoe to help her get there as it was outside the village and away from the fort. Zoe, under Braewyn's directions, had put out their fire, rugged up and had carried a large stick dipped in beeswax. Apparently she would light it later in the evening from a communal fire. Braewyn herself was carrying a small bag that seemed rather heavy, but Braewyn had refused both Zoe's help and her demand to know what was inside it.
Zoe and Braewyn had followed the crowd at dusk to a ring of stones just out of sight of the village. It was beautiful in the dark, lit by two large bonfires, and strangely haunting. This was the first time Zoe had been so far out of the village since she had arrived and the freedom she felt was exhilarating. She had watched as the villagers and farmers took stock of the animals and decided which would be the ones to die before driving them between the two fires, which Braewyn said would purify them. Thankfully, they weren't killed right there and Braewyn explained that only some of them would be killed right away, the others would be slaughtered later in the winter when the meat was needed. More still would go back to the farms to stay alive to reproduce in spring. Many people left after that, and Braewyn explained that they were the Christian farmers who would not want to participate in a pagan festival.
'Oh. So why am I here?' Zoe fingered the crucifix around her neck, afraid that somebody would see it and demand she leave.
'Because I think you'd enjoy it,' Braewyn replied. 'Don't worry, everyone is welcome here.'
There had been dancing, but Braewyn was too old and stiff for it, and Zoe a little hesitant to join in the revelry with strangers, so they had sat near one of the stone pillars until the moon was high in the sky, watching the spinning, whirling figures and listening to the music played on pipes for the most part, with drums creating a rapid rhythm. Zoe thought she saw Byron and Blanchefleur among the dancers, and she talked briefly to Lucia, who was rather drunk, but for the most part Braewyn and Zoe talked together. When Zoe had asked what this was to celebrate, Braewyn had told Zoe that this was the night where the dead would come out and walk the earth.
'It's Halloween!' Zoe exclaimed with delight. She had always loved Halloween; she and Suze had a tradition of hiding in trees and scaring their other friends when they had come around for the equally traditional Halloween party held by Suze's parents back at home. Over a thousand years into the future. Suddenly this pagan festival felt like a rock in her stomach. She wished she could have been at home to celebrate this, rather than stuck here.
Braewyn seemed to detect her changing mood and grabbed her hand. When Zoe started a little, Braewyn squeezed it and smiled gently. Zoe threw herself at Braewyn in a hug, trying not to cry. She sniffled a little and took a few deep breaths before being sure she wouldn't burst into tears and went back to watching the dancing.
During the course of the festival, people kept coming up and throwing things into the fire. Sometimes it was bones, sometimes it was a rock, other times it seemed to be other things. Zoe had seen somebody throw a doll in the fire, a spoon had been burned, a comb went in as well.
'Why are they doing this?' Zoe asked Braewyn.
'Come, help me,' Braewyn asked. 'They are remembering their dead; the spirits who will be here tonight.'
Zoe helped Braewyn up from the ground, the older woman taking her sack with her. She threw four pebbles into the fire and watched as they cracked apart.
Zoe waited in silence as the old woman stared for a little longer into the fire before turning around and walking back to where they had been sitting. She seemed older and more tired than ever now.
'The fires are to keep the dead away, their light will connect us to life and to each other,' Braewyn explained quietly as the dancing died down and people began to walk between the fires and light torches from it. This was what Zoe's stick was for, Braewyn said, and as Braewyn led her between the fires Zoe lit it.
They followed the trail of torches back to the village surrounding the Roman fort and lit their hearth fire from the torch Zoe had been carrying. The house was very cold when they had first entered it and Zoe for the first time appreciated exactly how much the fire did for their house.
'Braewyn, do you remember anyone special on Samhain?' Zoe asked suddenly as she got into her nightclothes. 'Were the pebbles for anyone special?'
Braewyn was combing her long, white hair in preparation for sleeping, but at Zoe's question the old woman stopped her motions. 'I remember my husband, Ronan, and our children. They pebbles cracked because they're all dead now; they all died years ago, my boys from fever, Ronan from cough and my girl died trying to give birth to her first child.'
'I didn't know you had a family,' Zoe blurted out. She had never thought Braewyn had been more than an old healer on the edge of town, alone except for Zoe. For a moment she regretted not asking the woman about her life earlier.
'No, you never asked,' Braewyn said.
'Would you tell me about them?' Zoe asked as she snuggled beneath their furs.
'Not tonight, Zoe. I am tired and the dead are close. Leave the dead in peace to rest.'
Zoe had fallen asleep that night and she had dreamed of her home, but everyone was dead in it, and they had come back as ghosts asking why Zoe had left.
When Zoe had woken up, the world was white. It had snowed. The first snows had come roaring in, and Zoe was incredibly grateful for her new boots, which protected her feet from the worst of it. Even if she would have preferred actual snow boots that were waterproof. Walking to and from the fort was difficult and Zoe dedicated herself to making more stockings in the candlelight at night. She wanted to keep all her toes, not lose them to frostbite and anyway, she hated having cold feet.
The thick woollen dresses Braewyn had made for her may as well have been nothing in the bitingly cold wind. At night Zoe huddled next to the fire, shivering and clutching a blanket around her shoulders dressed in her warmest clothes. Braewyn, despite being very old, barely acknowledged the change in temperature and warned Zoe instead that there was worse to come.
'It's so much warmer where I come from,' Zoe had complained to Braewyn, sticking her stockinged feet close to the fire in a vain attempt to warm them up. Braewyn had laughed at her and informed Zoe that the heart of winter was much colder than this.
At work the other girls laughed at her lack of tolerance for the cold as she huddled close to the braziers Jols had put in the laundry room for their comfort, mentioning that the knights frequently rode out with bare arms and, in Galahad's case, with bare legs.
'Well he'll have trouble when he freezes and his little Galahad drops off, then,' Zoe informed Evelyn and Blanchefleur as she warmed her fingers after mending a tear in the seat of a pair of trousers that, judging by the wolf sign in them, belonged to Tristan. Evelyn's cheeks had looked so warm from her blush Zoe thought she could have defrosted her fingers there instead of the brazier.
Zoe was incredibly jealous of the quarters the knights had. The thick stone and large fireplaces would keep out the cold much better than her gusty, leaky hut with no proper heating system in place. That was one thing Zoe was eternally grateful to the Romans for-their technology. They managed to design even their barracks for the soldiers so that they stayed warm during the winter. Also, the sophisticated Roman heating system for the baths allowed Zoe to feel genuinely clean during the winter, despite having to pay for the privilege of using the public bathhouse. And if she was willing to bathe with others present. In the end, hygiene outweighed modesty and she took the plunge...as it were. Thankfully, there was a women-only section, so she could get clean without the embarrassment of stripping off in front of the soldiers.
All in all, Zoe hated being cold. Winter was her least favourite season at the best of times, but now it seemed a million times worse. Zoe spent her nights cuddled close to Braewyn, sharing body heat. Yes, they had blankets and furs, but it was so much warmer when they slept close together. And, after living with the old woman for several months, Zoe didn't mind. Braewyn tended to snore a little, but apparently Zoe sometimes talked in her sleep and had a tendency to drool, so it evened out in the end.
But Zoe missed heaters. The fire was pretty, yes, but completely ineffective at warming the house unless you were practically sitting in it. And Zoe missed electric blankets. And houses that didn't leak. And even global warming. Winters back in her time had never been this cold, which Zoe attributed to the greenhouse effect. She didn't care if it was illogical; she just hated the cold that much.
She missed being able to lie on the couch with a novel and a cup of hot chocolate. Damn she missed hot chocolate. Braewyn's teas were nothing compared to it.
Zoe couldn't help but compare this winter so far to her last one. This one was spent largely huddled over whatever fire was closest, doing repetitive and dull work that made her fingers ache, trudging through snow and eating even less than she'd become accustomed to. It wasn't because there wasn't enough food; it was because Braewyn wanted to make sure it lasted until well into spring. Last winter she'd been at home, with a heater, the fake fire going in her family's fireplace and she'd had the whole house to herself as her family had gone on a skiing holiday. And she'd had her boyfriend, Zack, over and they'd cuddled together not for warmth or because they needed to, but because they wanted to.
One good thing that happened was that Evelyn's blacksmith suitor had finally proposed to her. Evelyn had come in late, cheeks redder than usual and didn't seem to feel the cold.
'He did it! Adan finally asked permission to marry me!' The usually soft-spoken girl was unusually loud with her exclamation and soon congratulations were pouring in on all sides.
'I'm happy for you. You love him a lot.' Lucia had unbent enough to give her sincere congratulations to Evelyn, who was trapped under Blanchefluer. 'Let the woman breathe!' Lucia snapped at the exuberant girl.
'I'm just so happy! It's going to be a spring wedding, yes? Spring weddings are the best,' Braewyn hugged Evelyn tighter.
'When Adan can match the dowry and pay the priest, we'll be married in the Christian church,' Evelyn said. 'But yes, it should be in spring.'
'Am I invited?' Blanchefleur batted her eyelashes playfully at Evelyn. 'Please?'
'Of course you, but please, let me go so we can do our work. Sir Percival and his friends are all waiting for their clothes,' Evelyn replied.
'Adan didn't ask you to marry him?' Zoe asked, after congratulating Evelyn on her good fortune.
'He asked my father. Why? Is that not normal where you come from?' Evelyn asked. Zoe had only told them that she came from 'far away', and after Zoe had consistently refused to describe her home for them they'd stopped bothering her for the details. Blanchefleur still tried occasionally, though.
'No. It isn't,' Zoe said.
'But what if your father won't go through with the dowry?' Liliana asked curiously, looking up from the shirt she was repairing.
'No dowries where I come from. Men and women get married because they love each other, not because of money or anything like that,' Zoe explained.
'I doubt that. They probably just hide it better where you come from,' Lucia said, snapping the thread of a finished seam and examined the trousers for any other tears.
Zoe picked up a sock to get to work again herself, and tried to explain herself better. 'Where I come from, marriage is supposed to be about love. I know that there are people who marry for money, but when most people choose to marry, how much money their partner brings to the relationship isn't really important. And your parents can't force you to get married, either. You choose who you get married to and your parents just have to deal with it if they don't like it.'
'Sounds wonderful,' Blanchefleur sighed.
'It's normal for me,' Zoe said.
'I'm lucky that I love Adan. I know not everyone's that fortunate,' Evelyn couldn't help but glance over at Lucia.
The other woman shrugged. 'I've gotten used to it. He's well-off, stupid and drunk most of the time, so I can do whatever I wish. Including finding men.'
'That's not very nice, Lucia. You promised to be faithful to your husband!' Blanchefleur protested.
'I also promised to love and cherish him,' Lucia added. 'What's another broken vow in my life? Much less one I swore before a God I don't believe in.'
'You're not Christian?' Zoe asked.
'I believe in the old ways,' Lucia replied.
'As much as you believe in anything,' Blanchefleur snapped.
'Blanchefleur and Lucia are both pagans. Liliana and I are Christian,' Evelyn explained.
'And you are much more devout than I am,' Liliana added. 'I know you're Christian, Zoe, I've seen you go to the Church a few times.'
'So you'll be coming to Christ's birthday mass?' Evelyn asked eagerly.
'I suppose I will,' Zoe had almost forgotten that winter meant Christmas was coming. She'd been a little distracted with other things.
'It's not such a huge celebration, Evelyn. I don't even know if I'm going. My parents are both insisting I go to our family's Saturnalia celebrations instead.'
'But it's Our Lord's birthday!'
'It's not like His Passion,' Liliana replied.
'So Christmas isn't a big deal for you?' Zoe asked.
'Christmas?' Evelyn looked a little puzzled.
'It's just mass. We celebrate Jesus Christ's birth, but when it comes down to it, it's just mass,' Liliana explained.
'Where I come from it was really important,' Zoe murmured. No Christmas. That was a depressing thought.
'But I saw you at Samhain!' Blanchefleur protested.
'Was I not supposed to?' Zoe asked, pulling her mind away from depressing thoughts like Christmas without presents and chocolate and cheesy Christmas carols and Santa Claus.
'I thought you were like us!'
'Have you not seen her crucifix?' Lucia asked. 'She's a Christian. At least in name.'
'In any case, I will see you at the mass, won't I?' Evelyn asked and smiled brilliantly when Zoe nodded.
'And you'll have to come to the solstice celebration! Yule is so much more fun than the mass! You can come after whatever the Christians do is finished,' Blanchefleur added.
'Isn't Yule a Christian celebration?' Zoe asked, a little confused. Yuletide has always meant Christmas to her.
'No, silly! It's the time of year when the sun is reborn. We celebrate the new life it will bring by keeping fires burning through the longest night of the year.' Blanchefleur gushed.
'In other words we get very drunk and dance around bonfires,' Lucia explained with a straight face, ignoring Blanchefleur's protests.
'I've been trying to convince Evelyn to come for years, but she always stays at home.' Blanchefleur stuck her tongue out at Evelyn.
Liliana laughed at the exasperated expression on Evelyn's face. 'She's got her faith, you have yours so let her be. It's bad enough you managed to get me to go last year. Now let's stop chatting and start working, perhaps?'
Everyone started a little and Blanchefleur and Liliana headed off to scrub the rest of the clothes as Lucia and Evelyn got to work on the pile of tunics that needed mending.
As for Zoe, her work now somehow included the job of giving the knights back their clothes. She'd never had to do this before, and the reason the other girls got her to do it now was probably due to rumours that she was carrying on a torrid romance with Lancelot thanks to the bouncy, frizzy-haired girl. Blanchefleur and Liliana always giggled more than usual whenever she was given that job, so it was probably their doing.
She got to know when it was a bad idea to return the clothes to the knights' chambers in only a few short weeks. For instance, right after training was a bad time as they were generally waving weapons around and fighting on the way back from the sparring arena. And while Zoe was a little more comfortable around weapons (meaning she no longer squeaked and flinched from their mere presence) she was incredibly scared of them when they were being brandished like that.
Additionally, right after training the knights always stripped and changed clothes. Apparently this was why they got more laundry in the middle of the day. So she waited until the knights were in the chamber where the Round Table was before she went to collect their clothes.
Sometimes she misjudged her timing though, and she did get to see many half naked or completely naked men. Gawain did have a gorgeous body, as did Sir Dinadan and Sir Bedivere and especially Lancelot. Gawain seemed to find it funny when she knocked and entered on his call and squeaked to find him without a shirt. She knew that she blushed and stuttered every time that happened, and Gawain's amused grin told her that it would keep happening. At some stage he'd found out the name of the little laundry girl who had been returning his clothes recently and he seemed to find Zoe's peculiar quirks amusing. Like how she could sometimes be persuaded to joke around, but at the first sign of him touching a weapon Zoe would make her excuses and leave. And particularly how she blushed every time she saw his naked chest. His laughter and the consistency with which he found excuses to take off his shirt when Zoe entered the room certainly suggested that he thought it funny.
Another unspoken rule was that any time before the Church bells rung was a very bad time. Zoe thought that the bells rung around what would be ten o'clock, and, generally speaking, only Tristan, Sir Kay and Arthur were even awake before that time. Actually, Zoe had run into Tristan a few times on her way to work at dawn. He had a bow and his quiver of arrows with him and looked quite intimidating. He never said hello like the other knights did, just nodded coolly at her when he even acknowledged her. The other knights were probably sleeping off hangovers at that time of the morning, and it wasn't a good thing to wake up any of them by knocking and exacerbating their hangovers. Dinadan in particular didn't take well to this and had actually thrown something large and heavy at her, possibly a bowl, making Zoe drop all the clothes. She had always waited until she was sure Dinadan was out of his rooms before returning his clothes after that.
Another thing about delivering clothes in the morning was the additional risk of running into their…companions. Most of the knights seemed to have a few special friends who apparently took turns in sharing their beds. Lancelot, in particular, had lots of these. After running into three in one week exiting Lancelot's room, Zoe decided that even if the man was the hottest guy she'd ever seen in her life, she would not get involved with him even if, by some incredible chance, he did ask her to his bed. He was incredibly attractive, his personality was almost magnetic and his voice was undeniably sexy, but running into his past conquests on a nearly daily basis was enough to turn anyone off the idea of sleeping with him. What the hell was he trying to prove by sleeping with all these women anyway?
She'd complained of this to her friends once she'd returned to the comparative safety of the laundry room. 'I bet he's just trying to prove that even though he's got a tiny penis he's still the biggest man out there,' Zoe snapped, sitting down rather huffily after yet another encounter with one of Lancelot's lady friends.
Liliana and Blanchefleur burst out laughing, but Evelyn was scandalized by Zoe's blatant disrespect for Lancelot and casual nature towards sex.
'Zoe! You shouldn't say things like that!' Evelyn was blushing, which only made Liliana and Blanchefleur laugh harder.
'Well I just ran into another of his lady friends today. And it's just past noon!' Zoe complained, picking up a tunic from the pile of clothes on the floor and accepting the needles and thread.
'The man's not at all modest about who he sleeps with,' Liliana said disapprovingly.
'Not about the number, anyway. I doubt he knows half of their names,' Zoe agreed.
'You're wrong there - he always asks for the name and marital status of any of his women before taking them to bed,' Lucia said.
'You know this how?' Liliana asked, stopping her mending to look at Lucia suspiciously.
'What are you saying, Liliana? That Lucia slept with Lancelot? She said Percival was her first and she was married soon after,' Evelyn protested.
'You're so naive. Of course I slept with him. And, you're actually wrong about his size. He's not small at all, he's…sharing his gifts with the female population rather than trying to prove a point,' Lucia retorted without looking up from her work.
Blanchefleur's mouth was wide open and Evelyn was blushing again. Liliana was staring at Lucia with something close to disbelief and Lucia was calmly sewing. Zoe took it all in and started laughing. The tableau was just too funny.
'That settles it. Even if he asks me, I'm not going to bed with him,' Zoe declared.
'Well if he asks, send him my way. I'll be more than happy to oblige him again,' Lucia said.
Zoe had shaken her head wryly, and Evelyn and Blanchefleur had started to lecture her about how you should save yourself for your husband or your true love while everyone finished their work.
'It does bring up the question, though,' Liliana said as she walked a little way towards Braewyn's house with Zoe, both shivering a little in the harsh wind. 'Which knight would you give yourself to?' Her eyes were shining with mischief and her smile was carefree and easy and Zoe realized she was a little jealous of Liliana's untroubled life. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'
'Goodbye!' Zoe called, waving to her Liliana. Who would she 'give herself to'? There were more important things for her to be thinking about now! Like, perhaps, the fact that her feet were really cold and the bottom of her dress was soaked because of the mud and snow and that there was, as far as Zoe knew, no meat in their house. Oh, and the storm that was currently threatening to break over her head. Things like that were more important than which of Arthur's knights she would hypothetically sleep with.
But it was good to think about it, nonetheless.
Zoe had returned home, only to be greeted with an empty wicker basket and a handful of coins.
'We need meat, Zoe, preferably a lot of it while we can afford it. Could you please get it? As much as you can carry, please and we can dry and salt it for the winter. I have to help this person now,' Braewyn had asked, gesturing vaguely behind her to indicate the customer inside.
Zoe was used to these demands; people seemed to come quite regularly to Braewyn's house to get headache cures, potions for colds and flu, and, more frequently than Zoe would have thought, herbs that caused abortion. The customers inevitably liked their privacy and she tried to be discrete; after all it wasn't as though she didn't have secrets of her own.
'How long should I be out for?'
'By the time you get back from the market, they'll be gone. You just came home at an inconvenient time, now shoo and come back quickly, there's going to be a storm.'
Zoe nodded and started to walk quickly toward the village market. Her objections to meat had faded as the temperature dropped. Now it was cold enough that it ensured that any meat stored in their house would stay free of rot and since her campaign against the mice and rats was apparently very successful, nothing would get nibbled before it was stored properly. Now she just had to go get the meat from the regular butcher, Daman, and go home.
Hopefully before the weather got too much more threatening. Zoe glanced up at the rapidly darkening clouds and sped up, dodging through the normal crowd at the market. Apparently there were many people trying to buy food before the market closed; and it was closing rapidly. Already Zoe could see that several stalls had shut down. Beginning to jog and avoiding the patrol she could see shivering in their uniforms, she was careful to stay away from the spears and the possibility of running into Gaius Ledipus again.
Thankfully by the time she reached the spot where Daman usually was, his stall was still open. 'Daman!' Zoe called out, arriving slightly of breath at his stall. The man was packing up his remaining meat to sell again tomorrow. Yuck. Good thing she caught him today.
'Hello there. You need meat?' Daman was incredibly friendly, but that was just for business. People didn't haggle as hard if they liked you. But the same worked both ways and Zoe was one of Daman's favourite customers and usually got a better deal than most.
'Yes, Braewyn sent me over to buy some for us,' Zoe smiled winningly at him. 'What do you have?'
'For you, I have anything.' Yes, Daman was friendly. Sometimes he crossed the line into too friendly, though. He offered a few inferior cuts of meat, which Zoe had learned to recognize and reject, before showing Zoe the good stuff. After a few precious minutes of haggling, Zoe got a price that was closer to what she wanted than what Daman had initially demanded and was happy enough with it. Daman handed the nearly frozen meat to her and bid her goodbye as he returned to packing up his stall.
Not all of the meat fit into her basket and she was forced to balance it rather precariously, but her experience with carrying large piles of clothes ready to topple made carrying the purchase much easier.
Zoe smiled and waved to him goodbye, but shortly afterwards the snow started coming down. The people in the marketplace moved faster, everyone hurrying towards their home.
'Hello Zoe, do you need any help home?' A loud, familiar voice rang out. It was Gawain, striding up like a man on a mission, ignoring the snow crunching around his boots and falling around him. 'Seems to be rather a lot of meat for such a little person, do you really eat that much?'
Zoe blushed at the attention the knight attracted to himself. He was the only man with hair as fair as his at the Wall, let alone its startling length. And on top of all that, he was a knight, one of Arthur's knights. There were stories about him flying all over the Wall and through the village. And here he was talking quite casually to Zoe about the amount of meat she was capable of consuming.
'In all fairness, it is for Braewyn also,' Zoe answered with a little smile, looking up hesitantly.
'I notice you do not dispute your smallness,' Gawain grinned again. He must be in a good mood for some reason. Unlike everyone else he didn't seem disturbed in the slightest by the snow falling all around them, getting harder and more like ice now than the pleasant soft fall it had been moments ago.
'I cannot say I am not short-I do not even reach your shoulder.'
'Here, give me some of that. I'm heading that way myself, the least I can do is help.' Gawain snatched some of the meat before Zoe could protest.
'I highly doubt you are going this way, you do not have to do this, Sir,' Zoe protested.
'The tavern's this way.' Gawain would not listen to any of Zoe's objections that Braewyn's house was out of his way and instead laughed it off.
The pair of them reached Braewyn's house, having passed the walk in more or less companionable silence through the growing storm. As they'd passed the tavern Zoe had looked up and raised her eyebrows and Gawain had winked, but kept a straight face. Zoe was happy that Gawain was walking her home as the wind grew more violent, the snow flew down harder and Zoe became prone to stumbling. Gawain's footsteps gave her an easier path and he was a good windbreak.
Braewyn seemed rather startled to see one of Arthur's famous knights holding her meat when Zoe knocked on the door, and had immediately checked that he didn't need any medical attention.
'No, I'm fine. I expect to see you sometime later with my clothes, Zoe.' The man winked again, handed the little old woman the meat and turned to leave.
'Thank you. I know you went out of your way,' Zoe said.
'What are friends for, huh?' Gawain waved goodbye and walked away into the storm.
Now, what was it Zoe had been thinking about before Braewyn had sent her out? Which knight would she hypothetically speak with? Zoe shook her head, both amused and annoyed at herself for answering that question in her mind. There were more important, if less pleasant, things to think about. Anyway, it would never happen.
xxx
A/N: Not quite as fast with this chapter as I was with the last one. I officially hate school and am so glad that I finish forever at the end of November. Anyway, here's Zoe and an abundance of knights. Yes, there are non-movie knights in here, but I've set this piece about ten years before the movie, so there's going to be more of them than there are in the movie. So, basically, brace yourself for future character death.
As always, thanks to my beta for being awesome (not to mention her mad wiki skillz). Homeric is an absolute star!
And again, reviews are appreciated, if Zoe's become Sue-ish please tell me. If the knights are OOC, same again. To all my reviewers (particularly the regular ones) thanks a million. I love you guys!
Disclaimer: Don't own, not mine etc.