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: Forgive Tristan's sudden verbosity. I find that people have much more to say when something desperately needs to be said. Besides which, this chapter and, I daresay, the rest of this story would have been utterly boring if things could only be decided by sudden impulses and the inevitable misunderstandings. Do let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Chapter 9: Sacrifice

For the better part of two days, Tristan rid himself of the claustrophobia of the fortress. Winter had come to Badon Hill to stay. He reclined against a tree not far from the forest's edge, the stones of Hadrian's Wall in plain view. He whistled, sharp and low. After several moments, his hawk appeared in the pale grey sky. She circled indifferently. She finally came to rest on a low branch over Tristan's head, shaking her feathers. He raised a hand, a piece of dried meat held between his index and middle fingers. The bird snatched it up greedily, cocked her head at him as if seeing him for the first time, and took flight.

Tristan had not avoided his kind companion, but neither had he sought her out. Unusually ashamed, both of his strange behavior and her own fear of him, he had not engaged her in conversation. Passive, he'd watched her dance easily into close camaraderie with Gawain and, by extension, Galahad, who had taken to the blond knight like a younger brother in Percival's absence.

He considered his hands, worn from twelve years of cutting down woads, the blue ghosts from Britain brought back by those few Sarmatian men fortunate enough to survive their slavery. Had she felt those years in the boldness of his touch? Tristan knew she had felt his anger, for he had felt her fear. What was there to him that she could possibly esteem?

It had been so long since he'd searched his own face in the glass, but he knew its flaws. He hid, a fearsome thing, behind the tattoos of his tribe and the tangles of his uncut hair. And hers, distressingly open, plain and pretty. There was nothing she thought or felt that did not make its way to her lips or her eyes. It was the fierce determination there that had first captivated him, then the darkness that so mirrored his own. He'd taken what he wanted without thinking. And she had given.

He rose gracefully to his feet. He untied his horse and turned him in the direction of the fort. The cold wind pushed his hair back from his cheeks and stung his eyes.

-

Gawain looked up to where Cariad sat on the table in front of him, obnoxiously kicking her feet against the bench on which he sat. "Stop."

She took an unladylike bite of the hard apple she'd taken from the kitchens. "What do you do all winter?" she asked.

"Cards, dice, drink." Lancelot slid onto the table next to Cariad and wrapped his arm nonchalantly around her waist. He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Women."

Cariad elbowed him hard in the chest. "I am going for a ride," she announced. She did not look back as she left the tavern, skirts swinging carelessly in the frozen mud. Dagonet rose silently from the end of the table and followed her. He thought his horse could use the fresh air, especially considering that Arthur would never have liked the girl riding out on her own in the first place.

Kay smacked Lancelot on the back of the head and sat heavily beside Gawain. "Are you learning your letters?" he asked incredulously.

"I can read," Gawain said sharply, glaring up at the fiery-haired knight. "I'd like to be able to write."

"For what possible purpose?" Lancelot laughed.

"So that I may compile a list of all the ladies whose beds you have spoiled without payment in the last twelve years," Gawain barked. "And see that they are given their fair wages."

Lancelot smirked, kicking at the bench as the girl had done before him. "I think perhaps you would be better off writing a love letter."

Gawain nearly stabbed Lancelot with his stylus. "Go find some Roman ass to play dice with, Lancelot."

Lancelot jumped down from the table and wandered off in the direction of the kitchens, swaggering deliberately as he passed a pair of young women loitering near the open door.

Galahad entered the tavern a moment later with the air of a confused pup. A look of keen interest wiped away the put-upon weariness that had dressed his face before. "Have I missed something good?"

Kay roared with laughter.

-

She was like a ghost, thin and grey and half-hidden in the flickering lanterns of the stable. She laid her hand flat against her horse's face and bent her head close to his ear, lips moving in seeming silence. She spun around when she heard him, a bright smile plastered on her face. "Tristan!"

Tristan nodded a greeting. He put up his horse, acutely aware of her quiet movements around the barn. She came to a stop outside his horse's stall, her hands curled over the door. He felt her eyes on him, attentive without being overly curious. "Is there something you want?" he asked, tiring of her attention.

"We have barely spoken in three days, Tristan," Cariad said.

"You have had other company," he said. He turned to face her, not unhappily.

She broke into a slow, bemused smile. "Tristan, really."

Tristan opened the stall door, gently pushing her out of the way. He stowed his equipment. Sighing, he resigned himself to her presence and his desire for it. He took her face in his hands. "You care for me." She nodded, seeming suddenly small. "Why?"

"We are friends, Tristan." Cariad reached up to wrap her fingers around his wrists. "Beyond that… I don't know." Her lips twitched in a nervous smile. "We are alike, you and I."

Tristan slid his hand to the nape of her neck and pulled her close, kissing her fiercely. She took a short step backwards, caught off-balance by the hard slant of his lips over hers. Cariad clutched desperately at his collar. His free hand went to her waist, his fingers pressing bruises into her skin as he pulled her closer.

"Tristan," she mumbled, her half-hearted protest smothered by his kiss.

The burning heat of her beneath his hands took Tristan away from his better senses. Here was another moment whose life was thrown away by his impulses. Tristan could not deny that he wanted her completely, with a ferocity reserved for the only arena he'd known for the past twelve years. She gasped, a sound of half-pleasure, half-pain that came at him as if from underwater. It echoed, and it sounded familiar.

"Wait," she stuttered, tearing her mouth away.

Tristan barely had the presence of mind to comply. He pressed his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. "Cariad, I…" Her breath fluttered against his cheek.

"You're hurting me," she whispered, eyes closed tightly. Her fingers loosened slightly on his wrist.

Tristan pulled away. He stared at her swollen lips, the mark of his fingers on her neck, mesmerized by the violence of his attentions. He pushed her away roughly, betrayed by his own behavior.

"Ah," she gasped, stumbling backwards. She caught herself unsteadily against the wall that lay some five feet behind her. "Tristan! What is wrong with you?"

"You," he muttered before he could stop himself. He looked up quickly. The pain in her dark eyes was unmistakable, a hasty reaction to his hasty words. She turned on her heel and stalked towards the courtyard. "Do not leave!" he shouted angrily.

Cariad stilled, her fists clenched tightly at her sides. She turned slowly, reproach darkening the generally pleasant features of her face. "Have you no affection for me at all?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly.

"You know I have," Tristan said evenly. Carefully, he added, "I may love you."

She shook her head. "I will not have a man who can love me only as he would an unfortunate token of a life lost." She took a deep breath and added, sadly resigned, "I am your friend, but I will not let you hurt me. Whether you intend it or not."

Tristan felt something in him break a little. "You are a great comfort to me," he said. "There has never been such kindness bestowed upon me as yours." He reached out to her, and she moved away.

"If your love can only be so impersonal, I am sure I will never have it," Cariad said, her defiance melting under the quiver of her chin.

Tristan growled, the affront to his tortured feelings too much for him to bear. "If I am so reprehensible, perhaps you should take your affections to Gawain. He can be quite compassionate when it comes to his favorites, of which you certainly are one." He would begrudge her her friendship with the other knight if only to see his pain reflected on her face.

Cariad's eyes went wide. "What do you play at, Tristan?" she asked breathlessly.

Tristan shrugged. "He will not give up his doomed desire to take a Sarmatian wife to give him love and children." She looked vaguely ill and he smirked, oddly pleased by her cowed reaction. "You might be so kind as to do this favor for him now that he might enjoy his foolish dream before his inevitable death," he spat.

Cariad swallowed back her tears. "What are your motives in treating me so unfaithfully?" Her hands shook under the folds of her cloak.

"My attentions are too impersonal to have been refined by thought," he muttered. He brushed past her roughly, headed for the courtyard.

Cariad reached out, grabbing his arm with both hands. She tugged with all her strength and pulled him around. She leaned in to speak directly into the face of his anger. "Is it jealousy that compels you to speak to me so, or anger at my impertinence? Or perhaps it is love after all, hidden behind such a mask that I fear I shall never see it."

"Would knowing my motives change your perception of my behavior, or do you only wish to satisfy your injury through curiosity?" he said sharply. Tristan watched, distressed, as the ferocity faded out of her eyes and she bit her lip.

She touched his cheek tenderly. "You do me no favors by sparing me now from that pain that will set upon me should you find your death here. You are a good man, Tristan," she whispered, tears shining in her eyes.

Tristan turned his head away. "Arthur is a good man."

Cariad forced him to look at her. "Even your great Arthur could not make a man such as you from a wretch," she vehemently. She kissed him softly. "I know your anger," she added quietly. "But I would have you find happiness in my company, if you can." She looked up at him, imploring.

After a moment, Tristan matched her hesitant kiss. He put his arms around her and buried his face in the warm smooth curve of her neck. "I do love you," he murmured.

Love freely.

Cariad felt tears sting at the back of her eyes and smiled into his hair. She cradled his head in one hand. She felt the weight of him, laid so sincerely at her feet, and she did not leave him there.