Neither had spoken another word to the other, though he had heard the woman talk to her dogs. Despite his distrust of her and their situation, Tristan could not doubt the trusting and loyal connection between woman and wolf. It was because of this observation that Tristan allowed himself to accept food and drink when offered. He'd gone two days without either for fear of poisoning.
On the first day, she'd made soup, and he refused to touch it. The creamy aroma had made his mouth water, but he forced himself to remain as he was while the woman ate it herself and then put away the leftovers she wasn't able to finish. She had offered him water persistently throughout the second day, drinking half the cup first before offering it to him. Parched and in need of it he may have been, Tristan did not find reason to trust. The soup from the previous day had been offered to him as well, and when he refused it once more, the stranger woman glared at him with enough frustration that Tristan thought he might reach out to touch it in the air before him. Instead of eating the soup herself as he'd expected, she placed it on the table and began again in the kitchen.
Tristan dozed as she cooked, knowing that the woman was too focused on her task to take much notice of him. In the haze between wakefulness and oblivion, he was distantly aware of one of the wolves coming to lay by his side. The animal's warmth was pleasant and welcome in this frozen over hell. The knight woke suddenly, catching a gasp before it escaped him. A wet nose was pressed to his palm, brown wolf eyes looking at him calmly.
In the next moment, something was thrown at him, hitting his chest and then falling into his lap. Picking it up, Tristan found that it was a small loaf of bread, warm and smelling of herbs that could not possibly be grown in the snow season.
Black smoldering eyes stared at him, expectant and a touch angry. Without thought, he glanced a look at the beast next to him, who continued to watch him steadily. Tristan ripped a chunk of the bread and held it in front of the wolf's mouth. In an instant it was gone, and the wolf began nosing toward the rest of the bread. From the corner of his eye, the scout saw the woman sigh in exasperation, but gave no concern for the beast. Lightly pushing away the hungry animal, Tristan ate the bread, resisting the urge to consume it as the wolf had. Soft and slightly sweet, he did not taste any poisonous addition. Although he doubted the woman could have been so calm if a poisonous bread had been fed to her wolf.
Satisfied, she brought him the twice-rejected soup as well before returning to the long seat with a book and began to read. From her hair she pulled a smooth waxing stick that reminded Tristan of the styli Arthur often carried for writing on wax tablets around the fort. Tristan at times thought the stylus in his commander's hand was a sword for fighting a different kind of battle within the fort. Looking at the stylus-like object between the woman's fingers, Tristan noted that it was far sleeker than any of Arthur's. He also wondered at what it was made of, as its grey coloring looked nothing like any metal he'd seen.
Her hair fell in a dark waterfall far past her shoulders. Although her appearance still bothered him, and made him stare when she wasn't paying attention to him, he'd become accustomed to it. The strangeness was less shocking and outlandish to his eyes.
Tristan now counted thirteen days and twelve nights since his awakening in the snowy cabin with the stranger woman. In his mind he'd begun to call her Isolde. In his tribe's dialect, it meant "she who was gazed upon". He did not gaze at her, however he did spend a good amount of time watching her. At first it had been to make sure of her trust worthiness, careful that she would not kill him in an unguarded moment. Later it had become about understanding where he was. The immediate surroundings were useless. From the bizarre furnishings to the unrecognizable map on the wall, Tristan could not glean a single hint about what had happened to him. Isolde had shown him around the cabin, which had not helped him either. In fact, it served only to further his confusion. She had attempted to explain some of the things in the cabin through a variety of gestures, and to her credit Tristan sometimes understood a very general idea of what she'd tried to convey.
Isolde cooked, always just enough for the two of them. This process too was unfamiliar, as well as the food itself, however he questioned it less. Likely because he got to eat.
Four days ago, Isolde had returned his own clothing. Cleaned and mended as best as she could, but the shirts and long coat were thoroughly ruined. It hadn't helped that they'd had a few too many patches to begin with. A number of shirts and trousers were brought out for him when the woman had watched him inspecting her handiwork. The trousers were too loose and the shirts too tight, but Tristan was content with whatever layers of warmth were provided him. He doubted he would ever be used to the infernal cold. Even by the fire he could still feel the chill that had crept under his skin and settled there. Often he spent time wrapped in a blanket, to his embarrassment. Though Isolde did not seem to think anything of it, she did not ignore the observation and gave him thicker shirts.
The wounds he'd sustained from the woad fight still ached, and the arrow injuries pained him whenever unnecessarily disturbed; which was any time he did not want to be sitting or lying down. Tristan ignored what he thought to be a cracked rib or two, the twang of pain dull and insignificant compared to everything else that hurt. For the most part, he tended to his own wounds, cleaning and wrapping them as his sister had taught him many years ago. He had nothing for the pastes that he might have made at the fort, desolate as his surroundings were. Time healed the minor wounds well enough, leaving only the heavier hits he'd taken to bother him. With Isolde's help, despite his reservations, he re-bandaged the long chest wound properly, and the wrappings were a comfort to his ribs.
Her care was hesitant, and Tristan assumed that she did not know whether to quite trust him yet either. Rightfully so, he thought. He did nothing to gain her trust, but he noticed now that he'd also done nothing to create any misgivings. They'd fallen quickly into ease with one another.
Today she greeted him a with smile that was neither shy nor meek nor fearful. It did not reach out reluctantly, but was offered simply with a slice of bread and cheese. They ate in silence, as was usual. And as per the routine they'd formed, Isolde read through breakfast, wholly absorbed in whatever she'd taken off the shelf. Tristan observed her and thought about what in his life might have brought him to this point. Injured, separated from his brothers, and completely without plan to return to them. What had happened after the woads?
After eating, the woman left with one of the hounds. Tristan could not fathom why she would desire to go outside in such frigid weather, but he supposed that if she never went out he would be dead, frozen solid.
In that moment, Tristan realized that he did in fact trust this woman. Trusted her with more than not killing him when his back was turned. This woman who had rescued him and was keeping him under her care. He did not enjoy the thought of being kept by a person, nor the idea that he was indebted to that same person. But his life went on, and at the very least she was not Roman. He was still suspicious, wary of the number of unknown elements in his predicament. Isolde was an unknown as well, just not one that he concerned himself with too much. Mostly he was curious about her, her people, why she was so foreign. No immediate danger threatened him though, and so the knight allowed himself time to rest and recover.
At the fort he had not been one for the study of written works, none of the knights were fond of roman teachings. They had learned only what was needed; simple reading and writing to get by as Arthur's subordinates, but no one pushed for them to attain high education as Arthur or the officials of Rome had been taught. And so Tristan could read, rather easily though he had never challenged himself with anything more than a short message or report.
Arthur often spoke of Rome and her grand libraries, the edifices made beautiful by bounded knowledge held within. The volumes that lined the wall of the cabin was how Tristan imagined Arthur's Roman library. Ordered rows of books, varying in size and color, neat and likely organized in some specific way. Selecting two at random, Tristan sat down at the heavy wooden table where he and Isolde ate their meals. Briefly he wondered if she would mind his taking of her books, but upon opening them he could not make out any of its information, though the characters on the page were somewhat familiar. The images too gave no hint about the book's content. Lines and letters alongside symbols that held no value in Tristan's knowledge.
Sarmatian was a spoken language, rarely written, and constantly changing with the tribes. Her language was not purely oral, clearly. Never before had Tristan desired so much to be able to speak- to communicate with another. A learned woman who would surely have plenty of answers to satisfy his questions and curiosity and yet he had no way to ask.
The second book was a tome bound in leather, soft and wrinkled over the binding, from frequent use he supposed. Inside was different from the other book, its written lines much less uniform and messier than the previous. This, Tristan thought, was similar to the journals the knights' Latin instructor had kept. Their instructor, an old graying Roman, had explained that he needed to keep his mind sharp by detailing the world around him on the pages of his journal. Gawain, only just coming into his dropped voice at the time, joked that it was so that the old bastard could remember what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning.
Tristan was startled from his study by an unpleasant chill falling over him. He saw Isolde enter the cabin dragging behind her a tarp piled with wood. Standing and easily ignoring any pain felt in the face of a task in which he could be useful.
Isolde looked up as he approached, surprised and mildly disapproving. She said nothing though, and handed him the edge of the tarp she held and pointed to the box where she kept the wood by the fireplace. As Tristan set about moving the wood, the woman returned outside and shut the door, though not before the grey and black wolf rushed in. This one was named Argen, or so he thought. Isolde called the wolf-dogs with specific words, which which he'd taken to be names. Argen immediately went to the large bowl that was always filled with water for the two animals. The notion of giving water to the wolves indoors was odd to the scout. However it quickly became understandable when he remembered the weather outside and reasoned that any water would have been frozen.
The log box by the fire was the length of the long seat and only slightly lower. Cushions were placed on the box, for guests to sit Tristan assumed, though he did not know what guests might come to this cold isolated cabin. Putting the cushions aside as well as the thought, he lifted the box's lid and was surprised at the amount of empty space within. Isolde had minded the fire since his arrival, keeping it warm and well fed, so he had not noticed the impoverished wood stock. Of the remaining logs, Tristan's eye caught on one that was too perfectly chopped to have been split with the swing of an ax. He removed the unique log, tossing it gently onto the pile of blankets that was his bed, and quickly stacked the new firewood into the box.
Again the door of the cabin opened, bringing with it a cold draft of air. Soon Isolde was on the long seat, legs crossed and spreading a knit blanket over herself. Tristan came to sit beside her and felt her curious eyes on him as he examined the rectangular log. The cut was not perfect, neither entirely flat nor smooth. Turning it, he studied each face of the block, all alike and equally unassuming. Running his fingers against the grain of the wood, he felt a slight disturbance in its flow, different from the rest. A quick investigation revealed a slim, narrow valley down the length of the wood.
From his periphery, Tristan saw the stranger woman motion for the wood, and he handed it to her. Wedging her nails into the valley, she tentatively and cautiously pried the block apart. She said something in that unknown language of hers, an exclamation of astonishment. Inside the block of wood were four carved stones, each similar to the other with slight differences. A flash of recognition lit in Tristan's mind and he went to his ripped and ruined trousers that he'd folded and discarded by the window. He produced another black piece from one of his pockets, an heirloom of sorts. Isolde stared at him with confusion, and he could see the question she desperately wanted to ask in her eyes.
As the situation was, he had no way of explaining, and merely returned to her side and handed her the carved stone.
Isolde flinched, blood dripping from the cut made by the stone's sharp edge. Tristan went to the kitchen for a cloth, handing it to her once he sat down again in exchange for the bloody piece. She nodded, a thanks, and then went to take care of the injury. In his own hand the black fragment sliced across his fingertips, not deep enough to cause much pain, but it would itch by tomorrow as it healed.
Slick with the blood of two, the piece shone in the afternoon light. His grandmother had not known the origins of their dark stone, not even knowing that it was a part of a set. She had been a seer and the High Elder of their tribe, knowledgeable about everything. Or so it had been to Tristan, who frequently came to her with questions. On her deathbed, she had bestowed upon him the stone, stressing heavily that it would be the most important thing in his life, that he would have no life without it. Tristan had promised to always have it on his person no matter what and posed an endless number of questions about the stone. That night, when the stars had shone their brightest, his grandmother had passed. In the morning the Romans came for him and two of his younger cousins. Tristan had not doubted his grandmother's words, but he did wonder what life the stone could bring him if its first act was to make him a slave.
Tristan stood, unwilling to continue the path his thoughts were taking.
Suddenly the world spun, a searing pain blazing up from his fingers that traveled furiously up his arm and spread like a forest fire through the rest of him. He groaned, falling to his knees and struggled to breathe through the violent assault. There was ringing and screaming and roaring loud in his ears. Through the flames he felt something tearing through every strand of his being. Nothing was untouched; his skin, his bones, his thoughts, his memories... How he yearned for the cold now, for ice to freeze this invasive fire.
Eternity could have passed by the time Tristan realized he was on the ground, flat on the ground and limbs spread out around him. Perhaps he had fallen into unconsciousness, but he thought that unlikely. Black fire that could only be described as evil had brought anguish, torturing him in a way that the knight never imagined possible, persisting until it stopped without warning. Its departure stranded Tristan in a foggy aftershock that robbed him of any real thought.
Carefully rising, Tristan took stock of his surroundings. Save for the in the hearth, the room was dark. The sun has set, so two hours at least, Tristan deduced. Nothing was broken and nothing indicated at any sort of attack or intrusion. His hand, once examined, was healed. Five thin pink lines where the puzzle had cut him were all that remained.
The brown and white wolf was by him, watching over with what Tristan may have taken as concern. The wolf dog rubbed its ear against the knight's thigh, then bounded hastily toward the bedroom. Tristan followed, wondering where the stranger woman was. He did not think that she would have left him lying on the ground as he had fallen for hours without taking some sort of action. If he'd learned anything about her in the fortnight they'd spent in common company, it was that being hospitable was instinctive to her. At the very least she would have thrown a blanket over her, familiar with his distaste for the cold.
The number of steps to Isolde's bedchamber were few, and it took even less time to find the woman herself. On the floor, much like he must have been, Isolde lay in a crumpled unconscious heap. You felt it too.
Tristan knelt by her, watching the shallow but steady breaths that escaped her. The skin of her hands were cold, and he noted that any wound caused by the puzzle was only indicated by a number of thin pink lines where damage had been done.
Argen and the brown wolf-dog waited at Isolde's head, patiently expecting him to act. He sighed, realizing that it was probably too often that he relied on the presumed advice of animals. Sarmatians respected and cherished their horses as they might their own children, and the scout had recently found a hawk that had taken a liking to him, but perhaps Lancelot was right and he needed more human interaction in his life. Nevertheless, he moved as prompted by the beasts and lifted Isolde into his arms. He strained against the pain of his injuries, though they merely throbbed compared to the fiery torment that he'd endured some short minutes ago.
Gently he placed her on the bed, draping the thick blanket over her once he'd straightened out her body. Satisfied that she was comfortable and warm, Tristan was left to ponder what the hell was happening to his life.