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!

Chapter 8: Delivered

Morning came slow and grey. It floated through the room, a ghost through the narrow window. Cariad could barely open her eyes, hazy and misted with sleep. She did not know where she was, but the sensation was not unusual. It had been more than a week since she'd slept in the bed that had been hers for more than twenty years. In that week she'd lost her head under the water and, try as she might, she could not find the surface. There was no up, only the near-to-bursting sensation that was at once first blush and last breath.

Tristan's skin was warm summer earth beneath her fingertips. She had no sooner brushed her hand against his cheek than he rose up, a predator summoned from sleep by an imminent sense of danger. His fingers were bruising around her wrists. Her throat closed treacherously around his name. His eyes were open but unseeing for a dreadful time, though it could not have been long before he really saw her.

The eternity ended in her name from his lips. "Cariad." He let her loose and sat back, clearly unperturbed by his behavior.

Cariad forced herself into a sitting position, ignoring the sharp pain in her hands and the ache in her wrists. She pulled her knees to her chest. She tugged her shift down to her crossed ankles and stared. Terror pulsed in her chest, resisting her attempts to soothe it with what she knew about Tristan, clinging to what she did not know. She knew too little to be where she was, and too much to be anywhere else.

She flinched when he moved closer, then froze, the skin of her wrist cold in his grasp. He leaned against the wall and pulled her back against his chest, his arms looped around her shoulders, hands clasped in front of her knees. She shivered when he pressed his face to her neck. He did not render her speechless so much as take away her will to speak.

Sliding her hands carefully down his forearms, Cariad breathed out evenly. She twined her fingers with his and turned towards him slightly, curling her legs beneath her as she pressed face into the hollow of his neck. "Tristan?"

"Hm." He pressed his lips to her temple. He squeezed her hands gently, the burn of her palm fresh against his own. Something was to be said, but Tristan could not determine what it was. To offer her thanks would be tawdry and selfish. To bid her good morning would be to assume her acceptance, when there had been no invitation. To ask her what she knew about love would be painful and useless. There was nothing to love.

Cariad loosed one of her hands and reached up to press her fingertips against the scarred ridge of his collar bone. "Tristan," she said finally, as if in greeting.

"Cariad." He gathered her closer and felt the warm, traitorous feeling of affection well up in his chest.

-

In their twelve years together, they'd learned to live with the dead. They had been more than thirty when they'd arrived. By the end of the fifth year, they were nineteen, nearly half of them gone too young and too young to properly wield a sword. Stones and weapons and breastplates were all that was left of the men Gawain had called brothers. Death was reserved for all of them in this place, narrow beds of cold grass and soil in the spaces between those that had gone before.

Gawain had woken young, curled beside the ghost and memory of another boy from his village. The journey from the east had been long and shelter scarce. Roman soldiers stole whatever proper accommodations they'd happened across. Gawain had been thirteen, four years older than the other, whose name he could no longer remember. There had been nothing for any of them without their brothers except nights whose chill winds threatened hope and life. He'd fallen asleep each night, imagining the other boy was his own younger brother, whose life of service to Rome had been negated by their birth order. The warmth and comfort of the other boy's friendship had ended abruptly at the wall and, not two years later, he was gone for good.

Tristan stood with his back to the grave, silent and dark. Galahad poured libations over the freshly disturbed earth. Tristan closed his hands into tight fists when Galahad began to speak, his miserable voice an affront to the stillness of the burial site. Gawain took Galahad's arm and led him easily away, following the remaining knights to the fort. Galahad shook himself loose.

Percival had been delivered.

-

"Sit."

"I prefer to stand."

Arthur put his hand on the chair. His expression did not tolerate an argument. She sat. "Did you know the man?"

Cariad kept her face blank and her tone even. "I had met him, yes."

"You injured him badly. He is in the infirmary." Arthur looked down on her with undisguised displeasure.

"No more than he deserved," she said defiantly.

"Show me," he said.

Cariad held out her hands for Arthur to see, her palms red and raw from the stones in the alleyway. He unwound the linen from her left hand, his eyes betraying his true sorrow. She was his ward, not his knight. There was no room on her skin for these wounds and scars. Cariad hesitated. She looked away as she raised the hem of her skirt to her knees, exposing the bloody scrapes covering the bone.

Arthur touched her hand gently, and she let her skirts fall to a more modest position. He lifted her chin with two fingers, turning her head from one side to the other as he examined her swollen lip and the bruise that bloomed from her right temple to her cheekbone.

Cariad shook off his hand and his worry. "I should have been more careful." She stood, slightly nauseous from the experience of being on display.

Arthur caught her elbow. "Did he take advantage of you?"

"No," she said quickly. She disengaged, taking her arm from Arthur. She owed him the truth, and the reassurance that repetition would bring. "He did not take advantage of me." Arthur's haunted green eyes stuck her to the spot. "I swear to you."

Arthur nodded finally. "I will speak with Nevius. The man who accosted you will spend the rest of the winter patrolling the length of Hadrian's Wall looking for fissures. Cariad, no Roman soldier will trouble you again."

She met his earnest promise with a smile that she did not mean.

-

Vanora's eldest, a red-headed girl of eleven, removed a loaf of slightly burned bread from the scullery oven. She frowned unhappily. "I've done it better this time, Ma."

Vanora turned the hot bread over in her bare hand, checking the bottom. "It'll do," she said, kissing her daughter lightly on the forehead. "Check the potatoes." Vanora turned her attention back to the rabbit meat on the chopping board.

The girl wrapped the bread in clean cheesecloth and set it aside. She stirred the boiling potatoes absently. "Will Pa come tonight?" she asked.

Vanora wrinkled her nose. "Perhaps. He'll come in his own time." She turned to assess her daughter's thin frame. "It is good enough that he's alive."

"Yes," the girl said quickly, flashing her mother a brief smile. "Of course."

Vanora smiled warmly in return. She glanced up at the sound of the door, and her smile fell. "Oh my goodness!" She rushed across the room with the fervor of a friend and a mother. She was only five years older than Cariad, but twelve years of caring for the men and her own children had made her acutely aware of the sort of suffering that was bestowed specially on those too naïve to defend themselves. "What has happened to you?"

"Nothing that cannot be repaired," Cariad said simply. She smiled at Vanora's eldest. "Hello."

"Hello," the girl answered, confused and undeniably sad.

"What can I do?" Cariad asked Vanora.

Vanora took the other woman's hand with the intent of seating her at the table. She took pause at the sight of the bandage. "Sit," she said softly.

Cariad pulled her hand away. "I will not. I am not an invalid."

Vanora ran her thumb over Cariad's slightly swollen lip, then patted her lightly on the cheek. "Fair enough. Take over the potatoes. I expect the men will be hungry soon."

-

"Tristan!"

Gawain climbed the stairs to the watch wall. The other man ignored him. Gawain grabbed Tristan's shoulder and spun him around, too angry to be disturbed by his friend's inanimation. "Damn it, Tristan."

The Tristan he knew flashed in his dark eyes, then faded again. He raised an eyebrow with the barest interest.

"She's in Percival's room," Gawain barked.

"She liked him."

Gawain shook his friend. "She's going through his belongings. She's making such a racket, she's driving us all mad!"

"Put her out the window," Tristan said simply.

Gawain held out his hand, small flecks of blood scratched into his fingers. "I have tried," he growled. "Go take care of your damn bird!"

Tristan glanced nonchalantly over his shoulder into the darkening night sky. "She will have forgotten him soon."

"And tell me, how are the rest of us supposed to sleep until then?"

Tristan faced Gawain. "I do not care," he said evenly.

"You want to die with him?" Gawain seethed, pushing the other man back against the wall. "Go ahead. You will be disappointing more than just Arthur. You will punish us all, you coward!"

Tristan stared at him, blank-eyed.

Gawain lowered his voice. "You are not the only one in pain, Tristan."

-

Cariad brought Gawain a plate when he came down, nearly an hour after his fellows had left. Kay had removed himself to the corner with a pretty woman whose acquaintance he'd made more than once, and was lost to the rest of them.

"Thank you." Gawain took her elbow, fingers caressing the welcome texture of her sleeve. "Sit with me."

She sat, a tentative smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Have you eaten?" he asked, an afterthought.

Cariad nodded. "I have."

She was warm next to him, a breathing, silent comfort. "How is your hand?" he asked around a mouthful of potatoes.

"Better than your arm, I am quite sure," she said with an infectious grin.

"There's my sharp-tongued girl," Gawain said, tapping her chin affectionately with one finger. He returned to his meal.

The tavern was near to full, but none other dared to take a seat at their table. "Galahad…"

"Drank too much, I am sure," Gawain interrupted.

Cariad tipped her head. "Yes. Do you not worry about him?"

"Not inside these walls. He is not such an easy target as you," he said.

"Don't," she said sharply. "Arthur has taken care of it, and I am beyond it. I will hear no more of it."

Gawain finished his ale and pushed his plate away. She reached over and stole the bite of leftover bread. "Perhaps I should have asked if you were still hungry," Gawain chuckled.

Cariad smirked. "Perhaps."

"Your father was Iazyges," Gawain said, pressing the answer to his unspoken question into the sour air. She looked away and nodded. "Does Tristan know?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "He does."

Gawain rose and took her arm in his. "Come. I want to see my horse. Then I will take you to your room."

Cariad sought out Vanora across the tavern. At her friend's nod, Cariad left the plate and tankard on the table and allowed the blond knight to lead her away. Gawain held her companionable silence against him as they made their way to the stables.

He let her go to duck into his stallion's stall. The beast met him affectionately, not least because he'd hidden a handful of carrot scrapings from the scullery in his pocket. Cariad turned her attention to her own horse, touching the black's nose with delicate fingers. Velvet, hay, and a little dirt. "Hello," she sang in a whisper.

"Have you spoken with our friend today?" Gawain's voice startled her, as she had been sure he would pay her no attention until he was satisfied with the health of his equine companion.

Cariad looked over. She could not see Gawain, but she could hear the scratch of a hard brush against the horse's side. "He does not want to be spoken to," she said after a while. She heard Gawain sigh. She itched to confront him, her tongue battling behind closed lips. But for every question she dared ask Gawain, he would have one for her to answer, and she had none.

Gawain leaned over the stall door and dropped the brush into an open trunk. He laid his arms across the top of the divide and watched her keenly in her studied ignorance. "You are different when you are with him."

Cariad turned her head slowly. The horse butted its head against her shoulder. She stumbled and smiled and forgot to be careful. "How so?" she asked, the playful tone of her voice inviting a conversation she did not particularly want to have, at least not with Gawain.

"You do not seem so happy," Gawain answered. "Nor so sharp."

"How dreadful," she said theatrically.

"You're a better sight this way."

Cariad raised an eyebrow. "What way?"

Gawain chuckled and exited the stall. "When you are teasing."

Cariad laughed. "Oh, yes. I had forgotten that it is much more attractive for a woman to be rude and amusing than to be soft and sad." She cocked her head slightly. A man so keen as Gawain was not likely to be fooled by the facade of her words, but she gave them anyway, knowing that they were true enough. "I know you do not believe yourself to be above shaping your character for the benefit of a friend in need."

"No," Gawain mused. "Certainly not."