Sorry for another kind of depressing chapter. Also, I sort of changed my mind about how involved I wanted Tarra to be with the events surrounding Jillian. I hope that everything in this chapter makes sense and I haven't completely butchered the continuity. Thanks so much to all the readers and reviewers!
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"Tarra, are you sure we are headed in the right direction?" Arthur asked after several hours on the forest trail.
"Yes," replied Tarra confidently, "Now, if we take a sharp left here---"
"Alright, that's it," spoke an exasperated Gawain, "We've been turning left for the past three hours! Am I the only even slightly intelligent person here who realizes what that means?"
"We're going in circles," answered Galahad with a sigh.
"Exactly!" Tarra affirmed, "Good work Gawain! Now, come on. Let's be on our way then."
"Tarra, please, this really is not a matter to be taken lightly---" said a hesitant Arthur, reluctant to follow her wayward directions.
"Who's taking it lightly?" she asked in protest to his insinuation.
"Look," interjected Lancelot, "You said you saw which direction Jillian ran into the forest, but what makes you think you know which direction she took after that?"
"I don't," Tarra replied simply.
Gawain threw his hands up in exasperation, "Then what are we following you for?"
Tarra let out a sigh, "Gawain have you ever been fishing? Don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question. But when you go fishing, do you row your boat frantically after the fish? Of course not."
"I see what you're driving at," said Lancelot, "but you're forgetting the most important part of fishing: bait."
"As intriguing of a metaphor as this is, do I really need to point out how completely irrelevant it is to the situation at hand?" asked Arthur impatiently.
"On the contrary!" objected Tarra, "It is completely relevant! Lancelot brings up an important point, however, that without bait, a fish that does not want to be caught will, in effect, not be caught."
"I am so incredibly confused," Galahad interjected with a sigh.
"Allow me to speak plainly," said Tarra, "Now, I've been thinking long and hard about this, and I think to myself, 'Why would Jillian take off and not tell you where she was going?' Now I may be a simpleton and a common fool, but I suspect the answer to that question is this: because she doesn't want you know!"
"So what then?" asked Gawain, "This is nothing but sabotage? Leading us in the wrong direction on purpose?"
"Who said anything about the wrong direction? This is where I saw Jillian enter the forest and beyond that, you're just going to have to trust me."
"Tarra," said Arthur, his voice grave and severe, "Jillian is a dear friend to us all and she is pregnant. These woods are a dangerous place, so you must understand that it is of the utmost urgency that we find her."
Tarra looked Arthur straight in the eyes with a fierce kind of confidence and said in an unwavering voice, "Trust me."
Arthur sighed in compliance, for what else could he do? The forest was vast, extensive, and filled with woad villages both friendly and unfriendly. To find one woman in its continuum without the slightest hint or trace of her would be impossible at best. Tristan, however, was having his own thoughts quite to the contrary. He urged his horse forward and broke from the rest of the group.
Arthur turned to him in concern, "Where are you going?"
"I'm riding ahead," Tristan muttered over his shoulder, "I'll find her myself."
Arthur sighed as he watched Tristan vanish into the trees. The knight's decision came as no surprise to his commander. Tristan had never been connected to another human being the way he was connected with Jillian. Tristan was one of those rare people who are so complete in their person and unchanging in their mind that it is as if every essence of their being found its place inside them at birth. They are not born as soft clay like so many us who are molded into what we become, but they are born as sculptures already shaped and formed into their final pose, completely unalterable by anyone or anything.
Tristan had never needed the company of anyone in his life, which was the highest compliment he could have paid to Jillian. He wanted her in his life because he loved her, and the compliment she paid him in return was that she did not try to change him. She loved him and she accepted him. Perhaps there had been something Tristan needed after all.
"Stubborn fool," muttered Tarra as she watched Tristan ride off into the forest.
"Why don't we stop here and regroup, eh?" suggested Bors, "Just for a couple minutes."
"I think that's a wise idea," Arthur replied, dismounting from his horse. The others followed suit and climbed down from their horses, stretching their legs. Lancelot followed quickly behind Tarra who had left her horse and was now stomping off into the trees. He could hear her mumbling to herself, "Fine! Don't listen to me! See if I care. Why should I know what I'm talking about? But just you wait and see…" She picked up a rock and threw it violently against a tree trunk. She paused for a moment with the realization of the pleasure the act had brought her, so she picked up another rock and threw it against the same tree. She repeated the action multiple times before Lancelot interrupted from behind, "Be careful or it might decide to fight back."
Tarra turned sharply to him, still holding a rock tightly in her grasp, "He thinks I'm useless."
"Who? Tristan? He thinks lots of things are useless."
"I mean, it's not that I care or anything. I don't care what he thinks of me or that he hates me. I don't care."
"Of course not."
"I just don't like it when people think I don't know what I'm doing. You all think I'm crazy."
"Do you know what you're doing?"
"Of course I do. I always do."
"Alright then. Put the rock down and let's go back with the others."
It was not but a few minutes after Lancelot and Tarra returned to the rest of the group that a mysterious but familiar figure emerged from the forest. Tarra glanced smugly in Lancelot's direction and Lancelot gave her a quizzical glance in return.
"Merlin!" gasped Arthur at the approaching man with the large staff and blue-painted face.
"Arthur," greeted Merlin with a solemn expression.
"I'm surprised to see you," stammered Arthur, not particularly sure what to say at this strange meeting.
"There's no time for talk," answered Merlin, "Come, follow quickly. There is something you must see."
Arthur nodded and he and the rest of the convoy followed Merlin through the forest until they reached a small village in the middle of a clearing. Straw huts sat scattered about in a kind of circle and the native people who resided in the village looked up from their everyday activities to take notice of the intruders. An older woman emerged from one of the huts. She scuttled over to Merlin and whispered something in his ear.
"Where is the scout?" Merlin asked, referring to Tristan, "Is he among you?"
"No, he's not," replied Arthur in his commanding voice, "What is the meaning of this?"
"It's Jillian," Merlin explained, "She is here."
"What?" gasped Galahad.
"Where?" asked Gawain.
"Please, show us where she is," said Arthur.
"She will see no one," Merlin replied, "She calls out in her sleep, but only for the scout. I'm afraid the presence of anyone else only upsets her."
Arthur shook his head in distress; then, looking around, he noticed something amiss. "Where's Tarra?" he asked.
Lancelot spun his head around, "She was here just a second ago…"
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Tarra entered the hut soundlessly where Jillian lay sleeping on a bed of straw. One hand rested on her stomach and the other on her forehead. She stirred in her sleep, her breath hardly more than a wheeze. Tarra slid silently next to Jillian and sat watching over her. Jillian's eyes fluttered open and stared dazedly at Tarra.
"It's you," she whispered.
"I didn't know that you'd remember me," Tarra answered.
"You look very much like your brother," said Jillian.
"Half-brother," Tarra corrected. Jillian gave her a faint, sad smile. "Jillian…" said Tarra, "What happened? When I found you in the forest last night, you had fainted. Are you---alright?"
Jillian's eyes darted around the room, suddenly filling with tears. She shook her head as though shaking a thought out of her mind and turned back to Tarra, "He told me, you know---what happened between you two."
"Oh…" was all that Tarra could think to say.
"Yes," whispered Jillian, "Yes, you should have heard him. He'd never opened up like that before, ever---especially not about---his family. And then do you know what he said?"
"What?"
"He said he was glad---glad because---because soon---soon we'll have…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes once again flooded with tears.
"Soon you'll have what, Jillian?"
"Nothing," she whispered.
"Jillian," said Tarra, her voice strong and still, "What happened?"
Jillian looked at Tarra with searching eyes and whispered only, "It's gone." Tarra understood. She paused a moment and was about to stand to leave when Jillian suddenly drew in a sharp, deep breath, sitting up suddenly in her bed. Her eyes opened wide in terror at Tarra and she cried, "I felt it die!"
"You…what…?"
"Tarra, you understand it, don't you?"
"What?"
"Death."
"Yes, Jillian. I understand it."
"I felt it," Jillian said softly, "Before there was even blood. I felt cold---and alone---and I knew it was gone."
"I'm sorry."
"Is Tristan here?"
"No," Tarra answered, "But he'll be here soon."
"That's good."
"Yes."
"I thought I could save it. Ha---wasn't that silly?"
"No. It wasn't silly. Is that why left the wall?"
"Merlin---he can do many things---impossible things. When I felt it---I knew, you see---so I left, and I headed into the forest. I reached the trees and I felt the blood run down my leg, so I hurried. But there was so much pain, so soon I was crawling. When I could crawl no longer, I fell. I heard your voice…and then…I woke up, and I was here. I suppose I have you to thank for that."
"It was nothing," Tarra replied humbly, "It's just lucky I found Merlin, that's all. He's the one who brought you here. I didn't even know where he took you. The knights---they think I spent the night at the wall. I thought it was better they didn't know and that they shouldn't come until you were ready. But Merlin said to bring them into the forest and that he'd come and find us. So anyways, here we are."
Jillian looked at Tarra with eyes that swelled with gratitude, but soon clouded over with anxiety. "Tarra, what am I going to do? I don't know what to do. How do I tell him---Tristan? How---how do I---how---"
"Jillian, you're---you're going to be ok. And maybe next time---"
"No. Merlin made me well, but to do that, he had to make it so that---so that I can't…"
Tarra shifted uncomfortably where she sat. She did not know what to do either. She could not take Jillian's pain away. She could not bring Jillian's baby back. She felt helpless. Suddenly, however, she found her lips moving through the motions of a story. "You know," she began, "When I was in Arabia I lived in the palace of the Sultan Arif. Now, as you might know, it is customary for a sultan to have many, many wives. At the time that I knew him, he had progressed much in age, so as you can imagine, he could no longer satisfy his wives as he might have liked. Because the sultan did not take his throne until late in his life and because he had no wives before his reign, he had no offspring whom he could call his heirs. He so desperately wanted a son, though. Despite his age-induced celibacy, it came to be that one of his wives swelled with a child inside her stomach. The sultan, turning a deaf ear to those who spoke of secret trysts in the garden and the wife's betrayal, rejoiced at the news that he was finally to have a son and heir to his throne. He exclaimed, 'What a magnificent and talented wife I have who can grow life from a seed without the sprinkling of water!' After she gave birth to a healthy boy, he called her the miracle-worker and bestowed on her all the greatest gifts of the palace. I never saw him happier than when he held that little boy in his arms."
Jillian raised a skeptical eyebrow at Tarra. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she asked. Tarra laughed. Her story had perhaps been completely inappropriate, but it was such a relief to see Jillian in an expression other than grief and despair.
"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm not very good at consoling people," Tarra admitted, "But just between you and me, I don't think the sultan was as senile as he'd have people believe."
"What do you mean?"
"Well he wanted a child so very badly and---despite the impossibility---he found a way. I just don't know if that was an act of senility."
"Tarra, if you're suggesting that I should---"
"Oh, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just babbling. Don't pay me any mind."
The door to the hut suddenly tore open and Tristan stood at the entrance, his face completely drained of all color. His eyes locked with Jillian's as he stood motionless, not even daring to breathe. Tarra got up slowly from where she sat and crept silently outside to give them their privacy, closing the door behind her.