Chapter Twenty-One: What Are You Hiding?

'Knights,' Arthur began, looking at the men seated around the table. 'And ladies,' he added, smiling at Cavan and Irri who were sat together beside Galahad. 'We have been called south to Coccium to deal with an uprising of natives.'

'Hai! Let the Romans deal with their own problems,' Bors grumbled. 'We are here to defend the wall, not be personal guards to some pampered Roman daiyuos.'

The other knights laughed. Cavan and Irri looked at each other, completely ignorant to the meaning of the swearword.

'Bors,' reprimanded Arthur. 'We all are in service to Rome. We have to do their bidding.'

'Arthur, I don't understand why we are here,' Irri said, a little worried. 'We aren't coming, are we?'

'Of course not. I wouldn't risk your safety like that. This mission is very poorly timed, but we will not leave until tomorrow. This will give us time to find a way of protecting you here in the fort.'

'Why do we need protecting?' Cavan asked heatedly, glaring at Arthur. 'In case you'd forgotten, I can actually use a sword.'

'The Roman soldiers have been asking questions about where you come from and who you are. I have spread the story that you and I are distant relatives,' Arthur replied. 'But if anyone was to see your slave's brand, then they could be driven to do something foolish. The Roman soldiers are a patriotic and very loyal bunch, and they would recognise a Roman brand anywhere.'

'I'm not afraid of them,' she claimed.

'We care for your safety too, Cavan,' Tristan interjected quickly.

'Oh really?' she spat angrily. 'You care, do you?'

'Please, Cavan,' Arthur placated her. 'We have all agreed that it would be better for you both to have trained guards protecting you. We're not taking any chances with your safety. I'm sure that you don't object, Irri?' At a shake of the head from the blonde girl, he continued. 'Tristan, you can take them to the training squares. The guards will be waiting for you there.'

The two girls and Tristan stood up and he ushered them from the room. As they walked down the corridor, Cavan heard Arthur start to speak again.

'There is another reason I have brought you here,' he started. But the rest of his words faded away as the small group continued down the corridor.

Outside, the storm had passed, but rain still drizzled from the dark clouds above them. It was only enough to cause a wet haze in the air, that stuck to the skin and face like spiders' webs. They walked through the gates and out into the expanse of green behind the knights' quarters, Irri and Cavan huddling together to avoid the cold.

At the training squares, there were two men bare-fist fighting. They had a strange style to the way they moved – it was not strength they relied on, but using their opponent's own actions against them. They both had very tanned skin and short black hair, cut crudely to rest just above the ears. Neither of them were wearing more than loose breeches tied around the waist and rolled up to the knees. Their chests were covered with a light film of rain and sweat.

As Cavan watched, the two men – both very similar-looking – circled each other slowly. Suddenly, the taller of the two lunged forwards and landed a kick on the other's tensed stomach, only to be rewarded by his opponent grabbing the leg and twisting it, simultaneously punching his hip, causing the taller man to be spun sideways from the force of both the punch and the twist. The man landed on the floor, coughing. The shorter man gave him a hand and pulled him upright. They clapped each other on the back, grinning.

'Jadat jinne,' Tristan shouted, in a language neither of the girls recognised. The men's heads flicked up and they bowed. Jumping over the ropes of the square, they strode towards the knight, their eyes reverent.

'Chiori ko lajat. Vichomerat ma khas,' the Sarmatian continued, gesturing at Irri and Cavan.

'Where are they from?' Irri asked, unable to keep her eyes of the sculpted, chiselled chests of the men before her.

'Kisha Tuniqa thirat, ha heske-titha,' the shorter man said.

'They are from Tuniqa, somewhere in the south-east,' Tristan interpreted. 'They know basic Latin – it will be easy to communicate.'

'What is your name?' Cavan asked the shorter man.

'Osolet,' he replied, pointing to himself. Then he pointed to the other man. 'Halasir. My brother.' Halasir bowed to them and fixed his gaze on Cavan, bowing again – just to her.

'I will protect you until I die,' he said, looking Cavan straight in the eye. 'I vow to you.'

'You told Arthur, didn't you?' Cavan asked Tristan as they stood back-to-back in the stables, brushing their horses. Halasir was stood just inside the door, watching over the street outside, his stance tense.

'He gave me a direct order. I couldn't lie to him,' Tristan replied, his voice as expressionless as his face.

'Of course not,' she mumbled with distaste. 'Of course you wouldn't lie to him.'

'What?' he said quickly, turning around.

'What happened with the spy you caught?' She changed the subject skilfully.

'Nothing of interest. We let her go.'

'What are you hiding from me, Tristan?' Cavan demanded, throwing down her brush.

'I would not hide anything from you, sister.'

'Tristan, I am not a fool! I know when I am being lied to!' she shouted at him. Her voice turned miserable. 'What is happening?'

Tristan reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingers.

'Nothing, sister, I promise,' he whispered.

Suddenly he retracted his hand as though burned. Cavan turned round and saw what had made Tristan remove his hand. Gawain sauntered into the stables, a cup of wine in his hand. He narrowed his eyes at the black-haired guard by the door and made his way to Arican's stall. Noticing Cavan and Tristan, he muttered a word of greeting and stroked Arican's mane.

Cavan led Falada back into his stall and tied the gate shut.

'Gawain, will you join me at Vanora's? I'll buy you breakfast,' she coaxed, taking his arm and pulling him towards the door. He shook her hands off and turned back to his horse.

'No,' he muttered. 'I have other things to do.'

Cavan stared at his back with a mixture of horror and disappointment in her eyes. Then her jaw tightened and she turned her back on him and strode from the stable, followed by Halasir.

'God damn you, Tristan! I want to put her on my horse and take far from here. That is surely the only way!' Gawain shouted at Tristan as soon as Cavan had left.

'There is nothing you or I can do. He will not stop here,' Tristan replied quietly.

'So you will let them come and not even try?'

'We have a week, at least. Arthur will think of something,' the scout said. But his voice was trembling.

'If he doesn't, I'm blaming you,' Gawain threatened. 'I can't even look at her without feeling this guilt exploding inside of me. You need to fix this, Tristan.'

Tristan nodded brusquely and turned his back on Gawain. He would go and see Arthur and try to convince him to send her away somewhere. He knew already that it was a failed attempt at saving her. Arthur had no power to stop it – he has just as little power as I do, he thought dejectedly.

The days that the knights were away passed slowly for Cavan. She spent them in the company of Irri, Hani, and Vanora – and of course Halasir and his brother – trying to distract herself from the constant worrying about what it was the knights were hiding from her. She had the feeling that all of the knights knew – Gawain's reaction to her in the stables had been enough to invoke that fear in her. And the way that Lancelot had looked at her the day they left – his eyes apologetic, the unspoken words hanging heavy in the air between them.

The weather was no less miserable than it had been – the storm had returned, causing Irri and Cavan to share a bed again, as they both were getting less and less sleep as the days wore on. However, the comfort of a warm body beside her still could not dispel Cavan's bad dreams. She was kept up every night with recurring nightmares. In these nightmares, Cavan was alone in the middle of a room, the bodies of the Sarmatian knights littered around her. Suddenly, they would climb to their feet and whisper that they blamed her for everything. Not even Irri's soothing lullabies could help her drift off to sleep again after she woke in the middle of the night, shivering and covered in a cold sweat.

The knights had been gone for three days when Cavan could bear it no longer. The pent-up rage she felt for Arthur, her brother and all the knights was on the brink of overflowing, and mixed with the fatigue in her bones – she was going mad. She found she had boundless energies that could not be dispelled. She had tried racing Falada through the fields, going for long runs around the fort – she had even tried to offer her services to both Fabius, the head cook in the kitchens, and Vanora. Both had turned her down, despite her saying that she desired no money, only something to keep her mind off her damned brother and his gang of tuíllí.

In the end, it was Halasir who saved Cavan from the brink of madness. He saw her lash out at the wall, trying to release some of her anger, and took her arm, folding her fingers into a fist and saying, 'Clench like this, and it will hurt less.' Their eyes met and she had grinned at him. Her lessons had begun immediately.

They spent almost every minute together in the training squares, slowly progressing from simple punches and blocks – executed with weights in the hands to improve speed – to more advanced moves like the maegis lojat, a strike involving the forearm and the opponent's head, and a kick in which the defendant crouches down and kicks the opponent's legs from under him.

Cavan was no-where near as competent as Halasir, but after six days of practising with him, they could fight for a good five minutes before he overpowered her and brought her down.

Before each training match, Halasir would insist on a two-mile run 'for preparation,' and by the end of a session, both Cavan and her guard were breathless. They took breaks for lunch, but apart from that, they were training solidly for hours at a time. Cavan was glad for this – after three days, she had almost forgotten what Tristan even looked like, and her nightmares of the knights had lessened, but only to be replaced by her old dreams of Evin's tortures.

It was the seventh day of the knights' absence, and the weather was beginning to turn again. All the heat had disappeared, replaced instead by a shiver-inducing wind. The sun shone brightly, but gifted no warmth to the people below. The days grew shorter and shorter, darkness encompassing the world in the early evening.

The townsfolk – all holding true to their pagan forefathers – were in preparation for the feast of Samhain, the festival that marked the end of the cooling season, building two large bonfires in the centre of the field that ran along Hadrian's Wall to the east of the fort. Strips of red cloth were hung from windows and a large red flag was erected in the centre of the market place. Cavan took to tying up her hair with red cloth – even though, as a Christian, she did not agree with the festival.

Watching the red flag in the market place flapping in the wind from her seat outside Vanora's, Cavan couldn't help her mind straying to the day she and Gawain had visited Gareth's grave. She realised that she missed Gawain terribly. She missed Dagonet too – and, she had to admit it – Lancelot's dry laughter, his shameless flirting. Cavan realised with a jolt that she thought of the knights as her family. They were all protective older brothers – but then, she thought bitterly, I already have one of those.

Halasir brought her from her reverie by setting a clay bowl down before her filled with Vanora's meat stew and handing her a chunk of bread. She looked around the courtyard. Suddenly there were Romans everywhere – taking advantage of their mess break to drink wine and flirt with Vanora's tap girls.

'Hoyali,' she thanked Halasir in his own tongue.

'See? You learn fast of my language,' he grinned back at her.

Irri, Osolet and Sansa joined them, each with their own bowl of stew. Sansa pushed her pale orange hair out of her eyes and tied it in a messy knot at the back of her head, sighing loudly.

'I'm so bored without the knights,' she moaned. 'There's nothing fun around this place when they're gone. And Vanora gets all irritable because she's scared her lover won't come back to her. I just wish they would come back now!'

'Vanora has a right to worry over Bors,' Cavan replied, frowning. 'You shouldn't judge her for missing him.'

'They are in love,' Irri pointed out. 'Wouldn't you be worried?'

Sansa licked her spoon, contemplating the question.

'I would definitely desire for him to come home,' she admitted.

'In our country,' Halasir said quietly, 'Women fight alongside men.'

'Whatever do they do that for?' Sansa cried.

'It is woman's right as well as man's to protect homes and lands against people who wish to steal them.'

Sansa frowned disdainfully; she clearly thought that women who fought had no trace of decency or respectability. Cavan saw the look and smirked. And she thinks she has so much modesty, in a different man's bed every night.

Suddenly the ginger girl squealed happily and jumped up and down in her seat, pointing wordlessly at the gates to the fort.

'They're back!' Irri laughed.

The sound of horses cantering down the dirt streets came to Cavan's ears. She turned in her seat and watched as the knights rode past her and into the stables. Cavan watched as Jols shut the stable doors behind the knights and thanked God that her quick head-count had revealed that everyone was alive and safely home.

Blinking tears of relief from her eyes, she turned back to the others. Irri was smiling ecstatically, her lips stretched wide.

'I'm going to go see them,' Cavan informed the group. She picked up her bowl and took it to the tap room. Vanora was stood behind the counter, filling a pitcher with wine.

'They're back,' she told Vanora. The woman rubbed her eyes with her fingers, sighing with relief. 'In the stables,' Cavan continued. 'Coming?'

'I'll just finish up here,' Vanora replied, smiling at her. 'Go see your Gawain.'

'He's not my Gawain,' Cavan muttered. Vanora sent her a knowing smile and pointed towards the stables.

Cavan turned around and went back through the courtyard. Halasir followed her as she crossed the street and took the side alley next to the stable. The door there was unlocked – Cavan pushed it open and stepped through.

Inside, the knights were busying themselves with their horses, unloading the weapons and wine-skins, blankets and bed-rolls, and piling them outside the stalls. Cavan saw Gawain with Arican and ran to him. He turned around, saw her, and grinned from ear to ear. He picked her up and hugged her close. She wrapped her arms round his neck and held on to him as if her life depended on it.

'I missed you so much,' he murmured in her ear. In response, she loosened her arms and kissed him squarely on the mouth. Gawain kissed her back tenderly, taking her face in his hands. His soft lips lingered on hers, smooth and gentle. They broke apart and embraced again, Cavan burying her face in his leather jerkin.

'I'd keep those kinds of greetings to the bed chamber, if I were you,' Lancelot warned, winking at Cavan. 'You never know who is watching.' He pointed to Tristan, who was glaring at the pair.

'Tristan will get over himself,' Cavan assured him, sending an angry look towards her brother. She let go of Gawain's hand and took a seat on the beam that the saddles were normally draped over. Halasir sat beside her. She smiled at him and he raised an eyebrow.

'Stop it!' she laughed at him. 'I shall kiss who I want!'

Suddenly Vanora rushed in through the side door and jumped on Bors, her red hair flying wildly behind her. The large knight grinned and kissed her passionately.

Then Irri came through the door, Osolet just behind her. She looked around tentatively before heading straight for Dagonet, who gently touched her face and held her. The moment between them was so personal and tender that Cavan felt intrusive just watching it.

'Anyone glad to be home?' asked Galahad loudly, gazing round at his brothers. They all sounded their approval.

Galahad and Lancelot made their exit through the door, heading towards the tavern. Bors and Vanora disappeared too. There are no doubts as to where they are going, Cavan thought, smiling to herself.

Unexpectedly, a boy slipped in through the stable doors, wearing a red toga. Cavan recognised him – she had seen him around the fort a few times. He had messy blond hair and was carrying a wooden, tubular container. It was about a foot long and an inch in diameter, clearly meant to hold some sort of scroll or message.

The boy bowed in front of Arthur and gave him the wooden canister. Arthur flicked the cap off and pulled out the scroll inside. He unrolled it, his eyes raking the page. As he read further down, the Roman general frowned.

'Dammit,' he hissed quietly as he finished it.

'Something wrong, Arthur?' Cavan enquired, standing up and looking worriedly at him.

'Not at all,' he lied smoothly. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. 'Tristan, can I talk to you for a moment?'

The scout met his commander's glance and nodded curtly. The pair of them left the stables, walking in the direction of the meeting hall.

'Your idea worked. There have been delays caused by an invitation by Titus Salvius in Luguvallium,' Arthur told him. 'But only for a short time. Three days, at most.'

'And there is nothing you can do?'

'I'm sorry, Tristan. The law is the law and I cannot dispute it. At this point, there is nothing anyone can do.'

'Thank you, Arthur. I know you have done all you can. I appreciate it.' They stopped walking and Arthur put his hand on Tristan's shoulder.

'I would do it for anyone, you know that.' He looked down at the floor. 'This is not something she deserves. I wonder if we should tell her, though. It may give her time to prepare.'

'No. I won't do that to her,' the scout replied tersely, his voice void of emotion.

'Just make sure you're doing it for the right reasons, Tristan,' Arthur advised, his voice stern. 'I wouldn't want this to be worse on her because you were a coward.' He turned and walked away, towards his room and his bed, rubbing his eyes. He was suddenly very tired.

Tristan's eyes burned with concealed anger. Anger at himself; he knew that his commander was right. He was a spineless coward. But recognising it didn't mean he could overcome it. And Tristan knew that if he tried to conquer his cowardice, he would fail.

So many updates in these past few days. You had better be enjoying them! Thanks for reading, everyone! By the way, if any of you are interested, I have photos of what I think my OCs look like. If you ask I'll send you the links or something.

Coccium and Luguvallium are both Roman cities. Coccium is Ribchester (just north of Manchester) and Luguvallium is Carlisle.

The language that Halasir and his brother speak is sort of Dothraki. Basically, it's a made-up language. Jadat jinne is 'come here.' Then the rest of what Tristan says is 'These are the girls you will be guarding. Be respectful.' Sorry if it was hard to understand. But it doesn't really matter what they says - doesn't affect the storyline.

The swearword Bors uses at the beginning - daiyuos - comes from the Persian word for 'one whose wife is loose.' He's just insulting the Romans by saying that their wives are whores.

Cavan says 'damned brother and his gang of tuíllí.' Tuilli is the Irish word for bastards.