Brief Author's Note - Just to save anyone thinking I've made a mistake. I'd just like to make a mention about the length of a soldier's military service. As all of us who love the film 'King Arthur' know, for some bizarre reason, which I still can't fathom, they state the Sarmatian military service term as 15 years. It was in fact 25 years as I'm sure most of you are aware, with the men being recruited at the age of 16.
Anyway, I've stuck with the correct 25 years as it's far more believable in terms of the ages of 'Tristan' et al and serves the story better.
As always, thank you all for reading :D
Chapter 13 - Pain
"Hold still for pity's sake, man...lest ye fancy the snout of a suckling pig!" The old physician scolded impatiently, as he wrestled a secure grip on the bloated, bruising mass that had once been Guyon's attractively falcon-like nose.
Guyon yelled and cursed, spitting venom and blood through his teeth as the man's chubby fingers clamped down on either side of the splintered cartilage and swollen flesh. With a strength and deftness that seemed at odds with such short and bulbous digits, the physician suddenly pinched and straightened in one swift motion and the sickening crunch of twisting gristle reverberated around the infirmary walls, drowned only by that of Guyon's agonising roar. He cursed and lashed out but the physician dodged the blow with practiced ease. He'd known what would happen; the reaction was always the same, no matter how big and tough the injured brute thought himself!
"Fuck. Fuck…FUCK! You damn…. pissin'…. bastard…whore of a shite!" Guyon sobbed and choked as scorching pain seared through his head, a rush of thick clotting blood filling his mouth as he tried to yell some more.
"Ah, hush your mouth, you wet-eared whelp!" Scolded the physician, as he wiped the blood from his fingers. "I've fixed bairns that have done less blubbering than you."
Guyon opened his mouth to curse the man again but instead gagged furiously as the salty, metallic coagulum slid down his throat.
"Not on the bloody floor!" He yelled, running across the room to grab a bucket, and thrusting it firmly into Guyon's hands as he began vomiting profusely.
Long, torturous moments later, the sickness finally subsided leaving Guyon nauseous and moaning languidly into the depths of the rancid smelling bucket. With effort, he lifted his head slowly to escape the foul odour, sweat beading his feverish brow and his long black hair, damp and clinging to a face which was now crimson and tear-streaked from retching. Gradually, the searing agony began to fade to a dull throb that pounded behind his swollen, blackened eyes.
"Humpf…!" Said the physician, casting an eye over his handiwork. "Tis an improvement…you were far prettier than a man has a right to be, if y'ask me!"
"I didn't fuckin' ask you…" Guyon groaned, slumping back in the wooden chair, the previous flush draining from his checks, leaving him pale and gaunt. He shivered as the adrenaline began to seep from his veins. He felt cold and utterly shattered. He needed to lie down, desperately.
"You'll be thanking me in a few days, just see if y'don't…" The old man continued to crow, taking the vomit-filled bucket from Guyon and setting it down on the floor. "I'll have y' know, I study the texts of the great Galen himself! Mark me words, you'll nay find a better physician than I on this isle. Now sup this." he said, reaching for a vial amongst many littered upon a small wooden table beside him. "T'will ease the pain, some"
Pouring a small measure of foul smelling liquor, the physician waved the offending brew beneath Guyon's newly straightened nose.
"Get that away!" Guyon snarled, knocking the older man's chubby hands aside "I want none of yer, poisons!"
Unruffled by the lash-out, the physician merely shrugged and did as he was bid.
"Suit yerself. Tis no concern of mine if y'want to play the martyr to pain. Now, rest up here til the morn. Expect yer bollocks to be as black as pitch for a while, oh and you'll like as not be pissin' blood for a few days. But it'll pass. You can resume coitus when you can bear it, but it's my guess the wenches'll have to do without yer for a few days at least?" He laughed, an acidic grin creasing his lips. "That was some boot you took 'twixt yer legs…floored yer did it, big man?"
Guyon snarled another curse as he heaved himself up out of the chair and staggered over to the proffered cot, easing himself down with a groan, grateful for the respite. Now, if only this old sod would bugger off and leave him in peace.
"So, who'd you rile to provoke such a beating then, Laddie?" The physician persisted, still grinning to himself as he shuffled about, putting his potions in order and clearing up the evening's bloody mess.
"A fuckin' dead man." Guyon growled slowly, his voice half cracked and hoarse, but filled with hate-filled conviction.
The old man raised a cynical eyebrow as he continued his tasks. He'd heard this talk a thousand times from a thousand men just like him; body and pride having been battered and humiliated over what was usually of no more consequence than an embittered game of dice, or a dispute over some loose legged strumpet. He'd like as not hear it a thousand times again. But still he asked the inevitable question.
"And who might this walking corpse be, then?"
"A Sarmatian." Guyon snapped back immediately, the hatred so thick upon his tongue as to make the physician prick up his ears and pause a moment "Fuckin' barbarian filth."
A contemplative silence fell upon the room for a moment before either man spoke again.
"Son," the old man began gravely, the grin gone from his lips. "You're a strapping lad, I can see that, but you're no soldier. Now, 'appen this is nay my business but if you'd take my counsel, I'll wager yer best leavin' well alone…for you'll be the dead man if you try takin' up against a Sarmatian. There's good reason they sit at the right hand of the King, y'should know that. Their ilk was coveted by the old Empire for generations and it wasn't for their darning skills! Heed my advice…take yer pasting like a man and walk away."
He expected another barrage of curses to follow, bruised pride usually demanded it. Men would shout and spit a while and then when their wits returned, they would shuffle off with their tails firmly coiled about their hind legs and keep their eyes well off the antagonist.
But Guyon lay silent, numbed with pain and loathing. The old git was right, as much as it choked him to admit it. True, the bastard had taken him by surprise, but even had he not; Guyon knew the likelihood was that he could never best a veteran Sarmatian warrior like Tristan. Ruthlessly disciplined, everyone last one of them and even if by some miracle he did prevail, there would always be another waiting to extract revenge. That lot always looked after their own.
However he would have his satisfaction one day, one way or another. As he lay here in his agony and shame, he swore it. So fuck him; fuck him and his baker's whore! Maybe he couldn't prevail against Tristan, not directly anyhow and not with brute force.
But Aithne on the other hand, was a different matter altogether.
…
When Tristan woke it was with a start, calmed by a strangely mournful sense of solitude. He lay there, perfectly still for a moment in a room shrouded in darkness, but for a shadowy red gloom emanating from the dying embers of the brazier in the farthest corner. He didn't need to open his eyes to know he was alone, for he felt the loss of her utterly.
He breathed in deeply. He could still smell her.
If it were not for the scent of their love-making hanging wistfully upon the tranquil air and the delicious taste of her sweet feminine musk still lingering on his tongue, he would have feared what had passed between them, had been nothing more than a fanciful dream.
But she had been here; in his bed, in his arms for why else would his body ache so profusely with the effort of such deliciously sated passion.
'Christ's breeches' but he'd forgotten how truly exhausting it was satisfying a woman, he'd not even bothered to try for years, after all it was his pleasure he paid for, not theirs. So why take the trouble?
'Exhausting,' he mused with a yawn, reaching up to lock his fingers more comfortably behind the back of his neck. Exhausting and like no other joy he had known in a long, long time. Throughout the night he had given her everything and she had rewarded him ten-fold. When he kissed, she touched. When he touched, she devoured him; fervent with desire to give, and yet helpless in her own need. He'd had to teach her nothing. She simply responded to him with pure, uninhibited passion.
Shy, blushing Aithne; who'd of ever thought it?
A wicked grin curled upon Tristan's lips as he enjoyed the memories of a night he had never quite expected from one as seemly chaste as she. How wrong a man could be sometimes, thank the Gods!
Every soft cry, every yearning whimper she uttered had been charmed from her lips by him and he remembered every single one. So unlike the moans and yowls of whores dutifully performing their pretence of lust, this night with Aithne had shown him the beauty of true love-making; selfless, giving, satisfying…beautiful.
He had never felt so needed, so wanted…so loved.
With a groan Tristan unlaced his fingers and threw a lazy arm across his tired, heavy-lidded eyes, letting the thought of her intoxicate his soul and to his amazement, he felt actual physical pain. Crushing, sweet, all consuming pain like nothing he had ever known before.
"Ah, fuckin' hell!" he murmured aloud, realising with sudden and absolute clarity that for the first and only time in his thirty four years, he was a lost man.
He'd only gone and fallen in love with the bloody woman!
Fallen in love with a baker's daughter who'd not even had the decency to stay in his bed until morning! Who'd run out on him without as much as a kiss or a fare-thee-well, the little chit!
Just how had she snuck away without him knowing anyway? He'd had her pressed to his chest and entwined in his limbs when they had both drifted off. He knew that, because the feel of her soft, plentiful curves pressed close against him and the memory of never again wishing to let her go, still burned fiercely within him. Yet she had escaped him somehow. He, who even when in his cups would stir at the whisper of a feather on the breeze if he were called to do so!
He wasn't the King's scout for nothing!
Tristan scowled; feeling churlish and irritable all of a sudden - annoyed that she should even have wanted to leave his bed. How dare the little wagtail simply sneak away and run out on him like that? Well, she would be answerable for it when he caught up with her. He wanted her back in his bed and he was damn well going to fetch her.
He sat up, squinting at the darkness and kicked about the floor with his foot to find his shirt and breeches.
….
Tristan had fancied it must be the middle of the night before he had stepped out of his door in search of Aithne, but one look over at the Eastern hills and the shimmer of sunlight that glowed upon their peaks proved him wrong by several hours. Not that that troubled him any, in fact it suited him much better. If it were dawn, then she would without doubt be up and about somewhere.
As was usual where Aithne was concerned, he'd not given any thought past that of wanting to see her again. So what exactly had he proposed he would do if it had still been the middle of the night and she'd been safely tucked up beside her own hearth? Camp outside her threshold all night like some pathetic, lovesick puppy, until she came out? Or woken the whole fort by hammering on her door, demanding she open up? Now that would have put him firmly in her good stead, wouldn't it? Idiot! Just as well the sun was rising then wasn't it?
He considered taking his usual morning swill at the horse trough before heading off to find Aithne, but somehow the thought of washing away the delicious smell of her so soon didn't appeal to him, so he didn't bother. The ache in his bladder on the other hand, couldn't wait so he stopped to relieve himself against the guard-house wall, before carrying on in the direction of the bakery.
….
Tristan strode through the bakery the door without knock or announcement, sweeping his eyes around the small abode, before he spoke to the man sat facing him at the large wooden table. The warm air inside, smelt of tasty baked bread and cinnamon...it smelt of Aithne, and he felt his heart twist at the recognition, making him frown. He simply wasn't used to all this strange emotion she invoked in him.
"Where's the girl?" he snapped more harshly than he'd intended.
Aithne's father looked up from his porridge bowl, surprised to see the Sarmatian stood before him.
"Good morrow to you, sir." He said amiably enough, hiding the rankle that rose from the arrogant tone of enquiry. "Can I offer you a sup? Tis a might early, 'appen you haven't broke yer fast yet?"
"Aithne, were is she?" Tristan asked again, ignoring the offer.
"Tis my daughter yer seekin', is it?" He replied, laying down his spoon slowly, taking time to study the Sarmatian through dark, suspicious eyes. "She were away from her bed late last night...very late.?" The thinly veiled accusation which twinkled in the older man's eyes was not lost on Tristan, but he said nothing. He just held his steady gaze, expressionless.
A knowing silence lingered a while.
"She's a good lass, my Aithne…" The man continued quietly, still eyeing the knight with a shrewd intensity, "good-hearted, honest… hard workin' too…There's them that's wanting to make a good offer fer a decent woman such as she."
Tristan's eyes narrowed, wondering where the man was going with this. He knew well enough there were those who would sell their daughter's backside for a coin. Was this man eyeing him up for a levy? Sniffing out Tristan's interest in her and so plumping up the woman's worth for a penny more than the going rate? If he was, Tristan imagined he would throttle him with his bare hands for such an insult toward Aithne.
But Aithne was loved. Any fool would know that. There could be nothing more sinister in the man's words than a father's concern for his daughter, Tristan reasoned. He remained quiet, willing to wait and see whatever censure he had coming his way.
"I don't know where my lass were last night, but I know where she weren't - She weren't with the man she set out with..! That'un spent the night in the infirmary, did he not?" Aithne's father raised a dark questioning brow and scowled across at Tristan, but still he made no comment.
"My daughter's no child. She's a grown woman, a widow in fact and old enough to know 'er own mind, but if she'd come home this morn with anything less than the silly girl's grin she wore...I'd be out to kill the bastard that saw fit to steal her away last night."
Tristan gave a brief but respectful nod of his head. This was a canny man sat before him and they understood one another perfectly.
"D'ya want my girl whispered about, named for a whore behind her back?" He said suddenly, making Tristan's indecipherable face finally falter.
"She is no whore!" He growled, he eyes flashing molten amber.
"I know that! You dare say I don't know me own daughter?" Her father growled back, but he liked the angry fire he saw in the knight's eyes, evidence enough for him that he cared.
"Forgive me." Tristan replied instantly. He heard his own words but couldn't fathom quite how he'd made the sounds without choking…. 'Forgive me!' Had he honestly said that? What was that woman doing to him! Despite himself he added a dutiful "I meant no disrespect"
"Then you deny tis yerself who kept 'er away from 'er own hearth last night?"
"I deny nothing, but I say again, I meant no disrespect towards you or your daughter. Especially not your daughter and I certainly mean her no ill."
"So, she was with you?" The older man studied Tristan with a puzzled look, wondering just when this knight had raised his eye in Aithne's direction, for he had seen no sign of it. This one, the knight everyone knew as Tristan, was always acknowledged as somewhat singular. A quiet, curious sort of man; not usually given to mingle with any other than his immediate brothers-in-arms. He wondered just how on earth he and his bashful daughter had even managed to form any sort of acquaintance in the first place!
"You mean 'er no ill, though you keep 'er out all night…" He continued, baiting him a little. "So you intend to wed her then? Tis why you've called on me at this ungodly hour, is it not, to claim 'er hand?"
Tristan bristled, he quickly determined this man was no fool, and therefore he knew this question was meant only to rile him. But he would not be seen to rise to it.
"You know very well I cannot wed until I am free of my military bonds, old man." He answered steadily.
"Ah yes, yer military bonds…twenty five years is it not?" The baker quipped back. Tristan said nothing. "And just how many years have you served, cavalryman?"
"Eighteen."
Aithne's father simply smiled; a sardonic curl of his lips, and heaved a sigh, standing up to step around and in front of the table. He sat back upon it, folding his arms across his chest and regarded Tristan with a more serious air.
"I'm guessing that I've nay need to be tellin' you there's another who wishes to make a decent woman of her. And I'm guessing from the scuffle last night at the tavern that this other man has just discovered he's not t'only one with a mind for my Aithne…. Tis her choice, but Guyon has a good trade, he's strong… young." He stressed with a cynical sweep from head to foot at Tristan, who he guessed couldn't be that much younger than himself, then added. "He'll protect her well and he cares for her."
Tristan gave derisive snort at that. This man was a fool after all if he believed that.
"That bastard is nowt but deceit!" Tristan hissed. "He's nay what you think he is. I'd not touch any man that did not ask for it."
"Is that so?" Aithne's father frowned thoughtfully, was he to believe the beating this knight gave Guyon was not just down to simple male jealousy. "You offer her better, do you?"
"I will take care of her. I will protect her. And no one would dare name a woman of mine for a whore." Tristan's voice was low and steady but his eyes still flashed with a determined passion. Aithne's father found himself liking this Sarmatian more and more. He never recalled seeing such a look in Guyon's eyes when he spoke of Aithne. But still, he pressed the knight.
"Aye, maybe not while you live! But yer demobbing is what… seven years away? What 'appens to Aithne should you die before yer release? And if, by the mercy of the Old Gods you do live that long, what then…? Will you not be crossin' the sea for yer homeland, Sarmatian?"
"Is that what yer afraid of, that I will take her east, far away from you?"
"No, blast you!" He shouted angrily. "That you'll leave her destitute, with nowt but the filthy name of 'whore' and a passel of fatherless brats!"
The two men scowled at each other for a long while until Tristan broke the uneasy silence, his voice firm and filled with such frank certainty that what remained of her father's fears simply faded away.
"I do not intend to die. I will not leave her. And this place we live… is my home."
Aithne's father smiled slowly and his angry scowl slipped away. This knight truly did care for his daughter and if she felt for him as much in return, then what more could he as her father, wish for? He wanted her safe and cared for. If Aithne thought this the right man for her then he'd not interfere. She was old enough to know her own mind and if he were honest, she never had wanted Guyon's attentions and had always protested as much. He was just too stubborn to heed it. And there must be motive more than mere jealousy that impelled this man to give Guyon a good hiding. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know what that was, so he chose not to ask. It didn't really matter now anyhow.
"She's out takin' the bread. 'Appen she'll be at the tavern...or maybe the kitchens. She'll not be far aways anyhow."
Tristan hesitated and then nodded his thanks. Perhaps, he was right in the first place and the old man wasn't a fool after all. He turned on his heel about to leave and then asked.
"Does she know about that smithy?"
"I've not told her, if that's what yer askin'." Her father replied. "She flew in like a spring gale this morning. Didn't give me a breath's chance of mentioning it before she was off out again with her bread cart…..I guess I'll leave that t'you, now! I'll not lie, I don't fancy being in your boots when she hears of it. Whatever he did to upset you, it had better be deserving of yer fists or she'll like-as-not ne'er forgive y' for it."
Tristan made no reply, just nodded again.
"You play fair for my Aithne, Sarmatian…she chooses you of 'er own free will and not because you beat y'rival half to death."
"