Chapter Eight: Horses Are Simple
I failed to avenge you, father. Please forgive me. I tried, God knows I tried! Forgive me...Avilon cried inwardly as the knights stood around Gareth's body stared at her in disbelief. Avilon stepped back from Arthur, knowing that there was no chance now. She wrapped herself in a thick shield of protection, and tried to be scornful and calm about the fact that she would be, no doubt, thrown in a cell and possibly tortured. But she had endured pain at the hands of Evin Larsen, the worst kind. Surely the Sarmations' tortures couldn't be worse than his.
'Avilon?' Lancelot gasped, and he stepped forwards.
'Come on,' she said spitefully. 'I'm waiting to be tied up.' Not one person moved. Suddenly Avilon felt a knife at her throat.
'Drop it,' Tristan said venomously, pulling on her hair. Her scalp burned as Tristan pulled harder on the thick black locks. Avilon complied, wincing. She released the knife; it clanged loudly on the floor and came to rest pointing at Gareth's body.
'So kill me,' Avilon muttered hatefully, repeating the words she had said to Arthur. Tristan pulled the knife from her boot and ripped out the ones from her arms through her shirt. He gave her a quick check over for other knives, then threw her to the ground and she sprawled, her hand close to her dropped knife. Seeing this, Tristan kicked it away hard. It flew, spinning, across the floorboards and hit the wall with a muffled thunk.
'What are you doing here?' Lancelot asked curtly.
'Oh, me and Arthur were having a bit of a chat about how children shouldn't run with knives,' Avilon murmured sarcastically from the floor. 'What do you think, Sir Arrogance?'
Lancelot was stunned at her cynicism. She must be very strong to not have lost her nerve yet,he thought. Avilon pushed herself from the ground, using the bed for support. She turned her malicious glare on Tristan, who stared back, an equally malevolent glower on his own face and hatred plain in his golden eyes.
'Kill her...' Gawain choked. His voice turned harder. 'Avenge Gareth! Kill her!' His hands curled into fists at his sides, their knuckles white from the pressure.
Avilon mocked him, looking afraid and saying, 'yes, kill me, Tristan. Don't you care that Gareth is dead? Or are you just as heartless as you –' She was cut off as Tristan swung a punch at her. His fist caught her on the jawbone, splitting her lip open and sending her smashing against the wall. Avilon straightened, wiping the blood from her chin. She looked up and stared defiantly back at him.
'Just do it,' snarled Gawain, angered by Avilon's taunts and Tristan's behaviour. 'Why isn't she dead already?' He lunged forwards, deciding that he would avenge his brother if no-one else would. But at a nod from Arthur, Bors stepped forwards and wrapped his thick arms around Gawain's torso, restricting his movements. Gawain tried to fight back, but Bors was too strong. Gawain slumped, allowing Bors to calm and comfort him. It was terrible, thought the large knight. Only twenty and yet both brothers taken within the space of a few short years.
Avilon laughed scornfully at Gawain, although her insides were being torn apart. To see the man suffer so, and by her doing, was unbearable.
'Tie her up,' Arthur snapped at Tristan, massaging his temples and falling into the chair. Dagonet poked at his arm, and the commander winced as pain shot through his shoulder. Dagonet removed his fingers from the wound and said, 'I'm sure you'll survive.'
Tristan ripped a length of his shirt, and it was Avilon's turn to wince at the horrible screeching sound it made. She offered her wrists to him as though bored, and sighed when the scout tied the cloth round them.
'So, what's next?' Avilon asked excitedly. 'Throw me in a cell? Torture?' Galahad shot her a disgusted look, and she sent one back.
Arthur, however, ignored the girl and instead turned to Lancelot.
'We have to find out who she works for so as to warn the other commanders. Maybe we can foresee and prevent other assassination attempts. If we don't know who is behind this, more commanders could die.' Avilon laughed quietly.
'You have something to say, assassin?' Tristan asked threateningly. Avilon laughed again, but kept her mouth shut. Tristan grew angry and looked to punch her again. She took a step back, wary, then smirked, saying, 'Well, it will be hard, seeing as I came here of my own volition.' She smirked again as Tristran's hands balled into fists; Avilon saw she had pushed him to the brink.
'Of course you did,' Arthur said cynically. 'No assassin works alone.'
'No, they don't.' Avilon agreed. Arthur looked momentarily confused.
'Ah, so you're saying that you aren't an assassin?' In response, Avilon leant her head back and revealed the creamy white skin of her throat. There was no assassins' collar, and no marks to show there ever had been. 'So why try to assassinate me? I have done no wrongs to you, or any of the Irish people. What could have made you come here?' Avilon's anger flared at his calm exterior.
'No wrongs? You have murdered children, destroyed families, left innocents to suffer life's cruelties alone. No wrongs?' Avilon spat on the floor. 'You're all the same, you Romans. You think only your own lives matter and that everyone else should just bow at your feet. We'll I'm done bowing.' She had tried to inject as much spite as she could into her voice, and the hurt on Arthur's face gave proof to the fact that she had succeeded.
'Take her away,' he whispered. 'Get her out of here!' Tristan shoved Avilon towards Galahad, who grasped her arm in a vice-like grip and led her away down the corridor. As the light from Arthur's room faded, Galahad grabbed a torch from the wall and held it in front of him. Avilon walked beside him with tears rolling silently from her cheeks. The bastard,she thought. No wrongs...? BASTARD.
Galahad threw her into holding cell and locked the barred door. As he made to leave, Avilon – who had spent the last handful of minutes working her hands from their bindings – shot one hand through the bars and grabbed his arm.
'Please,' she whispered, 'leave the light.' Galahad, hearing the terrified tone in her voice, looked pitying for a few seconds, then his face hardened as he realised it was probably just a manipulative game. He spat on the floor and walked out of the holding cells. 'No...' Avilon cried as the light receded. 'No, please! Leave the light...?' her voice faded to nothing as the orange flickers diminished and then were gone.
Pitch-black darkness pressed in from all sides, a thick black fog that pushed tendrils of despair intro her mind. Avilon clutched at her head, moaning as the memories overflowed and spilled out onto the floor.
'No... no...' she whimpered, backing into the corner. She curled up in the corner, her body cold against the floor and wall, shuddering with terror at the visions in front of her eyes.
'Get in, whore,' Evin Larsen spat at me. He threw me to the floor and kicked my stomach.
'No, I'm not going back in! Don't put me in there! Please...' He shoved his face so close to mine we were almost touching.
'Get IN,' Evin hissed threateningly, grabbing my arm and twisting the flesh in a vicious pinch. He snarled down at me, and said in a ferocious whisper,
'You belong to me, bitch. You belong to me, so do what I say!' Evin pulled on my arm, and I climbed to my feet, cowering away from his punches. 'You deserve this after that little stunt you pulled,' he said, shoving me through the door and into the tiny room beyond. It had no windows, and the only light came from the rapidly closing door.
'No!' I wailed, scrabbling up and clawing at the door. It snapped shut and I heard the bolt being drawn across.
'Let me out, you bastard!' I couldn't see anything, not the hands in front of my face nor the walls inches away. The room was so dark that when I closed my eyes it made no difference. I curled up on the ground, silence descending over me like a thick blanket that did nothing to keep out the cold.
It wont be long, I told myself. It wont be long. Night slipped into day and made no difference to the amount of light in the room. Time passed slowly, or quickly. I had no way of telling.
I would just sleep, and wait for the door to open. Not long now, I told myself.
No–one in the building slept much that night. Arthur sat in his room, elbows on knees, head in hands.
Gawain mourned his brother, kneeling in a corner, praying to his Gods.
Bors, unusually incapable to sleep without his children next to him, polished his broad sword with a flat stone. His mind was unable to understand the events that had passed in the last few hours.
Avilon had nightmares, dipping in and out of sleep at irregular intervals, immersed in her memories.
Lancelot, like Arthur, sat in his room alone until the early morning, thinking of the girl who was downstairs in the holding cells. She was so different to the child he had watch cry in the tavern yesterday.
Galahad, like all the other knights, thought upon the girl downstairs. His mind lingered on her terrified voice, echoing in the darkness. Please, leave the light. Had it been a game? Was she truly that afraid?
Dagonet sat outside his room, staring at the bloodstains on the floor. How can one girl create such havoc? And kill an innocent boy of seventeen? He asked himself. For the girl could only be seventeen too – how could she be so cold hearted at so young an age? And she had been so angry with Arthur. What could have caused her such agony that she had to murder an infantile boy just to have a chance at killing the commander? What hate had led her to this?
Outside, watching the sunrise, Tristan stood with his hawk, his eyes flickering as they yearned for sleep. I knew it,he told himself. There was something about her. I could have stopped this. I should have warned Arthur, should have made him use a guard.He reprimanded himself, balling up his guilt and shoving it from his body. He had to turn his mind to the fact that the girl was now in a cell, and waiting to be dealt with.
Tristan stroked his hawks' feathers softly, crooning to the bird in dulcet tones. 'What shall we do, eh?' He asked her. 'What shall we do?'
He wasn't heartless as many of the girls in the town and fort thought. He just had different ways of dealing with pain, guilt... loss. In Tristan's mind, Gareth was just gone. Like so many others, the boy had simply vanished from Tristan's life, like his mother, father, sister… his fellow knights, men who he held in high esteem. Vengeance was a dangerous emotion, just like anger. Too much and you started to get reckless. Tristan had never even thought about avenging his family. He barely even remembered his sister's name. Who was he to avenge a family that he had forgotten?
Thinking on this, Tristan's mind skipped back to the day he left. His sister, crying out to him, her shrill voice piercing the cold silence.
'Tris… Tris!' She had given him the necklace he was now rubbing between two fingers. A hawk, made of silver. They had found the pair of them in a river just away from their village, floating side-by-side in the icy waters.
'I'll wear it forever, Tris,' she had promised. 'Until you come back. Then we can be together again.' Tristan remembered the fear, cold and heavy in his stomach. I may never see you again. How can I tell you, dear sister?He saw her face in front of him even now, eyes burning fiercely behind her dark hair.
Tristan shook his head, braids whipping his cheeks, trying to rid himself of the memories. Just remembering her will not bring her back. She is dead, and there is nothing you can do.The hawk on Tristan's arm nipped at his fingers impatiently.
'So fly,' he murmured to her, and she launched herself from his arm. Tristan watched as the circling black dot of his bird became fainter and fainter against the reddening sky. Sunrise. Tendrils of cloud thickened as he watched and blurred the sky. The colours turned from burning red to purple, and then to pure blue. It was going to be a very warm day.
Tristan turned and trained his eyes on the building where his fellow knights slept peacefully. A twist of jealousy stirred in his stomach. The Hyrci knight couldn't remember the last time he had slept. This girl had come here, and within the space of two short days, had thoroughly picked apart Tristan's life. God's truth, her appearance had caused him to think of his family! Tristan hadn't thought of them for years… so why her, and why now?
Shaking his head again, Tristan pulled an apple from his tunic pocket. Taking a large bite, he headed towards the stables. Jols had never understood Tristan's mare, Maura, and she knew it; Maura didn't let the stable master anywhere near her, and Jols had got some very nasty bruises from trying. It was down to Tristan to look after his horse, but he would have been in the stables every day even if this task hadn't fallen onto his welcoming shoulders. Tristan conversed with his horse as if she were human, and they understood each other perfectly. On the battlefield, Tristan need only whisper a word and Maura would panic, creating a diversion; lay down, creating cover; or run, clearing the way for Tristan's well-aimed arrows.
Behind him, the sun fully separated from the horizon; Tristan's shadow was carved into the wood of the stable wall. Sparing only a glance at the clear outline of his body, the scout shoved through the double doors and into the large, square-shaped stables. Maura whinnied at the sight of him, calming as soon as his thin-fingered, calloused hands touched her dappled grey coat.
'Shhh, girl. Hush…' Tristan soothed her with incomprehensible sounds, leaning into Maura's mane and breathing in her scent. The musty smell of her coat instilled a peace in Tristan's mind. Maura snorted and bent her head towards the feed-bag that was nailed to the stall's wall. Tristan stepped back from his horse and stared at her, taking bites from his apple.
Why couldn't humans be horses? Simple, relaxed, straightforward. Understandable. Why did humans have to lie on their beds of deceit and greed, polluting the world with their arrogance?
Why is my life like this?