SEMPER LIBER

Summary: A dying man's final request sends a young woman to a new life at Badon Hill. TristanOC.

Disclaimer & Author's Note: I like to think that Malory would have his legends of King Arthur belong to the ages, but I cannot lay claim to them nor to those responsible for the 2004 film by the same name. Thank you for reading, and enjoy!

A/N#2: The eulogy in this chapter comes as a geographical proxy, for lack of a cultural one.

Chapter 7: Bound

"Put it down, child. You'll ruin it."

"It's already ruined," Cariad murmured, head bent over Tristan's vest. She spoke quietly, deliberately hiding behind the freshly cleaned veil of her hair. Jols had not woken her, and she'd slept late. The length of her slumber had rested her body, still aching from the moment she'd realized that her father would not survive one more night. She'd taken the time to scrub her skin clean of the past days' troubles and wash her hair, dragging her comb through the tangles with vicious force. And when she'd finished, she felt almost clean.

"You're not helping it," Jols said, watching her from the loft. She sat on a low bench in the arena below, feigning ignorance. He tossed down a forkful of hay.

"It's fine."

Jols frowned, annoyed. "You need to be careful."

Cariad glared up at him. "I'm here, aren't I?" she barked. She'd been holed up in the barn with Jols all afternoon, obedient and bored and increasingly disgruntled.

"If you need something to do, you can take the mare around again," Jols said firmly.

Cariad pressed the heel of her injured left hand to the thick leather, holding it in place awkwardly as she forced the new binding through its surface. She succeeded, but at a cost. The leather slipped off her lap and she nearly stabbed herself with the thick needle. "Damn!" she yelped.

Jols descended from the loft. He grabbed the vest from her lap and handed her a lead rope. "Walk the horse," he ordered.

Cariad took the rope angrily. "As you wish." She led the mare out of the stall and took her on a turn around the arena.

Hoof beats clattered in the courtyard outside the stables as she began a second turn. The mare reacted with a huff, but her general disinterest went unnoticed by Cariad. She broke into a smile.

"Walk the horse," Jols repeated. He disappeared into the courtyard to welcome Arthur and his knights home. Cariad kept her pace slow, watching the door and trying to suppress the relief and excitement she felt at their return.

-

The look of hope on her face was too much. Not one of them could bear to look at her, and only Gawain and Arthur tried. Arthur said a word to Jols. Gawain handed the squire his horse's reins and disappeared to the infirmary, his left hand vice-like around his right bicep. Galahad's face was ashen; Tristan's was hard, expressionless.

Cariad stayed out of the way, the mare fidgeting behind her. The knights put up their horses and gear with a sort of musical efficiency. Leather straps slid from buckles. Bits sang. Saddles thudded against stall doors and wooden chests. Horses whickered, weary and grateful, as the harnesses were lifted from their backs. Hard brushes clattered into boxes. Boots scraped across the ground.

Two men came down from the infirmary, and they took Percival away.

-

Galahad drank. He nearly pulled Cariad off her feet when she laid a plate in front of him. "More drink," he grumbled.

Cariad turned on her heel, lips pursed tightly. She returned moments later with a full pitcher of ale and two more plates balanced on her arm. She offered one to Lancelot and the other to Arthur. Bors fasted. Dagonet sat at the end of the table, eating slowly as if pondering each morsel of meat. Kay seemed to be doing his best to match Galahad's heroic efforts.

Arthur laid his hand over Cariad's and pushed his plate away. "See if Gawain will take food," he ordered quietly. He blinked once. "I'll speak to Nevius tomorrow about the rest." He turned back to his knights, dismissing her.

Cariad took the plate and an empty mug up to Gawain's room, barely registering Arthur's promise. A low fire burned in the hearth, dwindling. Gawain's eyes were closed. She did not think he slept. She laid the plate and mug on the small table near the bed and bent to the grate, feeding the dying flame with stripped tinder. She heated a small bowl of water and poured its contents into the mug.

"Little one?"

Cariad raised her head and smiled softly for him. "How is your arm?"

"I was lucky today," he said.

Cariad looked away. "Are you hungry?"

Groaning, Gawain tried to sit up. She turned quickly at his murmur of pain, supporting him as best she could. "Thank you," he said, his voice gruff with sleep. "I am."

Cariad pulled the table close. "Compliments of Arthur," she said, trying to smile. She swallowed. "What happened today?"

Gawain paused, a hunk of bread raised half-way to his mouth. "Woads," he said finally, and Cariad knew he would say nothing more on the subject. He studied her for a few moments. If he noticed the shadow at her temple or the linen wrap hidden beneath her sleeve, he said did not speak of it.

The fire crackled, throwing off dry heat. Cariad reached into a pocket hidden at her waist and produced a small packet of herbs. She mixed them into the tankard of hot water and pressed the tea into Gawain's hand. "This will help you sleep," she said, tentatively meeting his eye.

Gawain accepted the tea, but did not drink. He stared out the window at the blessedly black sky. "Where I am from…" he started. Cariad looked up. "The Iazyges hold the shoreline between the plains and the Black Sea. Sometimes in the summer, when the wind is high and the sky is dark, it sounds like the sea." He turned his injured arm carefully, forearm up. The broad, black strokes of the tattoo seemed to dance in the firelight. "It's only me and Tristan now." He returned his gaze to the dark night sky. "We're all going to die here."

Cariad knew better than to argue. She didn't believe his assertion, and felt that, maybe in the daylight, he wouldn't either. She motioned to the tea. "It will help." She stood, eyes tearing. She lifted her chin. "The night hides the world, but reveals a universe." Her voice trembled. The expression on Gawain's face told her that he understood, and she left before he had a chance to answer her eulogy with a question.

-

Tristan did not look to the night sky. He did not wish for the wind that would bring the sound of the sea. He did not search the blackness around him for colors. He started no fire. He did not undress or clean his weapons. He did not move.

In the hall, Gawain's stubborn footsteps echoed Arthur's firm and even ones. A door opened, Arthur spoke, and then there was his retreat and its blessed silence. Cariad came later, the light but soft scrape of leather boots, listing ever so slightly to the right. The door did its dance – Gawain's, Tristan thought – and she left some unmeasured time later, her feet quicker and less careful.

His hands shook, the knife point hovering an inch from Galahad's throat. Percival pale, and so quickly. Tristan turned over his hands, and there was his cousin's life, staining his fingers and painting the creases of his palms. In the dark, there was no seeing the difference between his own hands and Percival's.

His heart slowed, his lungs drawing breath only at the point of drowning. He said no eulogy.

There, Galahad's drunken stumbling and Kay's red, flushed laugh, tripping across the tragedy as clumsily as a man into a ditch. Bors, abandoning Vanora, the crash of his door far down the hall. Dagonet, at once heavy and silent. Cariad again, pausing to shadow his door. Lancelot's shallow, husky breath, her startled yelp. Tristan could almost see the force with which the dark knight grabbed the girl's wrist. "Leave him be, girl." Her shuddering breath, followed by Arthur, calm and dead and cursed, half-asleep with no hope of finding peace. Three doors: one angry, one resigned, one sadly soft.

And Percival's, silent. Time passed.

Tristan did not have the presence of mind to be glad that she did not say his name. She set the lantern on the floor by his feet. He found his sight in the dark waves at her crown, her head bent as she removed his muddy boots with uneasy hands. Her fingers stumbled over the laces.

There was the dark sea. He laid his hands on her head, the clean strands swimming under the caked blood on his fingers. She looked up, eyes dark, unreadable but for the message he'd given her the night she'd arrived. Grief is for the living. It came not in Arthur's language or his own, but in a language he had never allowed himself to understand. Had its unique inflection ever been offered to him before?

She gently removed his hands from her hair. She retrieved the bucket of icy water kept in the corner of the dim room. She knelt before him and took his hands in hers. She washed his hands, the fingers of her left hand curled delicately around his wrist. She winced when he took her injured hand, pulling the water-soaked bandage away from the stinging flesh. Shaking her head, she laid her fingers lightly on his cheek.

Tristan barely breathed when she stood and lifted his shirt over his head. She ran the cloth tenderly over his face and neck. The fresh, clean cold traveled across his shoulders and down his arms. He stole the linen away when her hands touched his chest. He did not know how his arms went around her.

He turned his face into her temple, breathing in the half-frozen stream behind Vanora's home and the lilac scent that accompanied the clean shirts she left on his chair. His hands slid beneath her wool cloak to her waist. He pulled her closer and listened to her breathe. Her lips moved near his ear, but she did not offend the silence with her voice.

It was not until he stood, pushing her away that she spoke. "Tristan."

He turned and stripped off his pants. He heard her spin away from him and could almost feel her panic flood the room. He pulled a clean shirt over his head, ridding himself of his less honorable desires. When he turned to face her, her back was towards him, shoulders shaking and spine rigid. He removed her cloak, and tried not to react angrily when she shuddered. He would not let her be afraid of him.

"Tristan, no."

Slowly, with more tenderness than he felt in the caged burning behind his ribs, he slid her shift off her left shoulder, guided by his memory. Her hand flew to her shoulder as it had the first night. Her fingers brushed his as he touched the dark marks on her shoulder, a life she'd never lived burned into her skin.

"Please, don't."

He knew she would not run from him, knew that she would fight but would do anything he asked of her. He could not hate himself for offering her nothing. She lived. His cousin was dead. Tristan's heart was in the direst need.

He turned her towards him. Her eyes were pressed closed, her lips parted in a shuddering breath. "I mean you no harm," he said, and his words closed her mouth and opened her eyes. He led her to his bed. She lay stiffly against him.

"Tristan."

"Stay," he said. His plea brushed across her cheek.

She nodded and pressed her lips to his forehead. The lantern burned out. She shivered as his fingers trailed over the shadows at her temple and probed the scrapes on her hands. Tears spilled down her cheeks when he pressed her injured left palm to his mouth.

"Don't," he ordered.

She swallowed her tears as best she could. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and he pressed his lips to hers to secure her silence. She gasped under his mouth.

He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her closer roughly. His lungs screamed for air. He released her mouth at last, panting, and caught his breath, his face buried in her sweet-smelling neck. When he could breathe again, he begged. "Just stay."

She touched his hair tentatively, her body suddenly and serenely still. "I am."