Chapter Seventeen: Dagonet's Blade

The town looked like a carcass; it's burnt, blackened bones stood erect under the sun. There was nothing left – just the skeleton of the huts, ripped cloth and burnt bodies. Arthur and Cavan rode silently into the wreckage, gazing around with horror at the remains of what once was a village. They passed a water trough, its surface black with ash. The burnt remains of two chickens were half-submerged in the water.

Tristan appeared, signalling to Cavan from a little way off – just outside the village's parameter. She slid off Fagan and went to her brother's side. There was a boy lying on the ground in front of him, a sword wound splitting open his chest. It was a wonder he was still alive.

'I just found him,' Tristan said. He pulled a linen bandage from the saddlebags at his feet and tied it round the boy's torso, attempting to hold the wound together. Blood seeped through the linen.

'They… came from the mists…' the boy coughed.

'Hush,' Cavan soothed him. 'Just lay back.'

He shook his head. 'Men… swords and anger.' Breath hitched in his throat.

'Woads?'

'Not the… blue… devils,' he gasped, '…or Romans.' The boy's hand twitched, and his eyes widened, then they closed and his arms went limp. He had died.

'If it was not the Woads and it was not the Romans, then who…?' Cavan asked. Tristan shook his head in reply. He did not know.

'There is another alive!' a voice shouted from behind the smoke. Arthur appeared, his hair messy and his hands covered in soot. He led Tristan and Cavan past the blackened, crumbling buildings, to where Dagonet was bent over another body. The clothes had been partially burnt off and what could be seen of the flesh – arms and hands – were red with burns.

'We need to get her back to the fort,' Dagonet said hurriedly. Cavan looked again at the body and saw that it was a woman, with blonde hair and pale skin. Looking down at the scorched flesh, she felt a surge of pity for her. Cavan herself had once been in that position, when she was younger, caught in the fire that destroyed her village and killed her family. She still had the burns over her abdomen to remind her every day of the horror she had faced – as the woman being lifted up onto Dagonet's horse would have. Cavan mumbled a quick prayer to God that this woman would not suffer as she had.

Tristan was stood by Maura, a frown adorning his features. Cavan saw this and was worried.

'Is it something I can help with?' she asked him gently. He shook his head curtly in reply. She turned away but stopped when Tristan spoke.

'She reminds me of you.' He paused, but then the next words came out in a rush. 'Why have you forgiven me so quickly?' Cavan moved to his side and put her arm against his, their wrists together. The veins stood out against their cold skin, mirror copies.

'Our blood is the same. All that I have bled, I know that you have the same wounds. The pain you have caused me – I can see it in your eyes. You feel that pain too,' she whispered. 'God shows mercy to those who are merciful – to be forgiven by him for my sin, I must too forgive those who have sinned against me.'

'Does this element of your faith apply to the man who enslaved you?' Tristan said scornfully. Cavan did not answer. Her jaw tightened and she turned away, mounting Falada. Tristan watched in an ashamed silence as his sister rode away, her back straight and the knuckles of her hands white. He had regretted the words the second they had come out of his mouth. He had no conviction in the idiotic Roman religion, but he knew he had no right to question his sister's beliefs. Shaking his hair from his eyes, Tristan mounted Maura and spurred her forward. He had not washed for days and the smell of sweat – once so sweet – was now bitter and unpleasant. Pointing his horse towards the forest where he bathed, Tristan emptied his head of the painful thoughts and turned his mind instead to the cool water and green leaves of his hidden lake.

Somewhere outside, the sun was rising slowly. The seasons were turning, summer fast fading away into colourless grey skies and cold winds, and the days were getting shorter. Trees were beginning to lose their leaves; everything reeked of loss. The colour seemed to be slowly draining from the world as the cold season approached. However, the air still felt full, as if humidity was not yet willing to let go. All around was the sharp scent of rain, but none fell from the pale clouds above. Everything had slowed down; the bustling heat of summer had finally gone.

Cavan surveyed the misty sky with apprehension. Weather like this seemed to be undecided – not storming, but still with a hint that it was possible – and it instilled a sense of discomfort in her. She was leaning on the window sill in her room, feeling the slight breeze ripple through her hair. It was still quite early, and yet Cavan was finding sleep difficult. The last words her brother had said to her were echoing round her head. 'Does this element of your faith apply to the man who enslaved you?' He had been disdainful – but why? Why was he so offended that she had chosen a different faith to him? And why did he have to bring Evin's name into it? Did he not understand that what Evin had done to her was unforgivable?

'God, damn that man!' she cried, pushing herself from the window sill. How dare he question her faith? How dare he bring Evin's name into their conversation?

'Tristan?' a voice asked, breaking Cavan's angry contemplation. She spun round to find Gawain leant against the doorpost, a cup in his hand. 'Are you talking about Tristan?' he repeated.

'I can't fathom how that is possibly anyof your business,' she replied angrily. Gawain looked a bit stunned to see her so irate.

'I'm sorry,' he backtracked. Then he frowned. 'May I ask you something?'

'You can ask.'

'Why have you forgiven Tristan for what he did to you?' he asked quietly.

'Why did you forgive me for murdering your brother?' she replied.

'That's completely different –' Gawain started, but Cavan cut him off.

'It's exactly the same!' she exclaimed, her Irish accent growing more pronounced as she grew more irate. 'Worse, even! I killed your brother – Tristan only hurt me. And he knew nothing of our relationship then.'

'You and Tristan have a relationship?' Gawain asked incredulously. Cavan shook her head, looking at the floor.

'That's not what I meant. It's just… I can understand what he did. He did what he had to do, and I cannot question that. But what I don't understand is why you forgave me so quickly!'

'You regret it,' he mumbled.

'Of course I do! I regret every wound I have caused, every drop of blood I have spilt. And Gareth is no different. He should be alive right now, and happy, and revelling in the life that lay before him – but I have ended that. It is as though I hate myself for losing the life that I should have had, and when I see other people enjoying that life, I hate them, too,' she said, confused. A tear rolled down her cheek.

Gawain took two steps towards her, pushing his blond hair from his worried blue eyes.

'It is not your fault. That life was ripped from you when you were seven. I understand, I do,' he replied, softly.

'How do you understand?' Cavan sat down on the bed, running her fingers through her hair.

'I was taken from my family when I was ten. My father had kept it from me. The day the Romans came to our village, I didn't know why there were there. Then they asked for me by name, and I was so scared. This life,' he motioned around the room, 'is all I know now. Home is just a distant memory now; I have forgotten most of it.'

Cavan looked up at him, and he smiled tenderly.

'I suppose we are more alike than I first thought, Sir Gawain,' Cavan said. 'We are both scarred by our pasts, both so far from home.'

Gawain sat down beside her. She could hear his breath flowing in and out of his lungs. They sat in silence for a few minutes, as the sun painted the wall behind them a pale yellow. Then, slowly, Gawain reached out and took Cavan's hand in his. She felt his rough skin, the calloused palms, felt his warm fingers curl around hers.

'Tristan means more to me than you can ever understand,' Cavan mumbled softly. Gawain let go of her hand and stood up.

'Of course he does,' Gawain said scathingly. 'Nemain, give me strength!' he begged of his Pagan goddess, turning and stalking from the room.

'Gawain, wait!' she cried. Cavan ran out into the corridor, but the blond-headed Sarmatian had already disappeared from sight. 'Damn you, Cavan, keep your mouth shut next time, you stupid girl!' she hissed to herself, shaking her head and going back into her room. She slammed the door shut behind her.

She didn't understand why she was suddenly so angry at Gawain. And why had he taken her hand? His touch had made her shiver – but why was this happening, now of all times? Cavan had finally become free of her life with Evin, and now a new man threatened to destroy everything. She knew she couldn't be happy – with Evin, it had started with pain and ended with pain, with nothing of joy in between except those rare nights when he was gentle. No man was different. All they wanted was satiation of their passions by a woman – willing or no.

Cavan ran her fingers over her throat, where the pale, crescent-moon-shaped scars had been bitten into her skin by her former owner. Who was she to believe she deserved better than all that pain? All she knew was misery and darkness. And as the tears dripped from her chin, she knew that it was all she deserved. Evin was the man who had marked her, who had made her his own. He had beaten her into the woman she was and she found that being away from him was affecting her in a way she did not understand.

Cavan had thought that when she sliced open his chest with her blade, that she would finally be rid of him. But Evin's death had simply revealed to her the magnitude of the impact he had had on her life. Her body was covered in scars, from the bite marks on her neck to the slave's brand on her arm – the one that pronounced her servitude to Evin – and they were all his. It was not her body anymore. It was Evin's. Dead or no, he was still part of her life – a part that she would never be rid of.

As Cavan realised this, a sense of hopelessness and emptiness washed over her. She lay back onto the bed and closed her eyes. Suddenly, there was no reason to live anymore. There was no reason to be happy. Neither of those things would erase the marks that Evin had made on her.

Grasped with an unexpected purpose, Cavan threw herself across the room to the chest where Dagonet's clothes were stored. At the bottom, there was a knife – small, but sharp. She ripped off her tunic and shirt until she sat on the floor wearing a breast band and breeches. The skin of her upper left arm was free from the burns that covered her torso but it had its own mark – the slave brand of Evin Larsen's estate. A large X with the two upper lines connected in a circle, with the letter E within the circle. Running her fingers over the ridged skin, she remembered with cold fear the day that the red-hot iron had been put on her skin. She could smell the odour of her burning flesh even know, ten years after it had happened. And the pain, the degradation, the feeling of being owned, of thinking, 'I am his.' She remembered the way that Evin had watched them all – a teenager, already with the power of life and death over hundreds of people. But they were no longer people. They no longer mattered. They were slaves. And no-one cared about them.

Anger boiled in her stomach – she encouraged it. Cavan let it consume her and slice her insides with razor-sharp needles. Gripping Dagonet's knife tightly in her right hand, she stuck it into her arm where Evin's brand was. Tugging the blade across her skin, she released a line of blood through the brand that bubbled over and spilled down her arm. She watched the red rivulets run over her pale flesh like tears, and felt the anger dissipate. The knife slipped from her fingers and clanged onto the floor, drops of blood flicking in a pattern over the wood. The helplessness returned. Cavan was numb, her hands shook. Her life was pooling out of the slit in her arm. She could smell the metal and bitterness of it, could taste it on her tongue. She lay back on the floor and smiled. Her last act of defiance against Evin. Her last act on the Earth. Her last act.