56 Chapter 56

To say that Tristan was angry would be… a fair description. Because he was very angry indeed. Especially with Kation. First she had walked in on him last night with Rosula—she'd had the sense to leave immediately—and it had rather ruined the rhythm of things. Then, despite his efforts to keep her out, she had broken into the room. And Kation made people nervous anyway without blasting through windows while holding a knife between her teeth like some kind of assassin. Needless to say Rosula was far from impressed and decided she wanted to tell him so, but considering his potent reputation she kept it down to one or two sentences about his 'horrid slave' as she dressed and marched out of the barracks with her nose in the air.

To make matters worse, the other knights had looked at him askance for sleeping with Rosula. Even Lancelot seemed unsure—it was as if they had all assumed he had been enjoying Kation's company, when frankly the only time he had truly enjoyed her company was when they were out riding or sparring. Anywhere else, in any other capacity, and she was causing mischief and mayhem.

So he'd quickly dressed and shaved before stomping down for some breakfast. The knights had left him alone as he ate his porridge, until Kahedin sat down opposite him. "You know," he said without so much as a 'good morning', "Gawain warned me about you sexually harassing her and I had thought it was just one of his more delusions about a certain 'fair maiden', but I guess I was wrong after all," he was grinning in a way that could only mean trouble, because his eyes were glinting with hidden anger.

"What are you talking about?"

"Kat of course, who else?"

Tristan chewed his mouthful of food to buy himself time. Why were they sticking up for her? Why were they even arguing about this? It wasn't as if he'd done anything wrong. And the thought of Gawain's involvement in the matter only made him more annoyed. Kat had abandoned him for two whole weeks with only Gawain's paranoid—and frankly insulting—rants to keep him company. He was about to point this out when Vanora joined them, sitting down next to Tristan and penning him in the corner.

"So, why did I see Rosula walking back to the village just now?" she asked sharply, not even pretending to be nice.

"Because she stayed the night," Kahedin answered, not letting Tristan speak.

"Oh. I see," Vanora said, all deceptive calm with dangerous hazel eyes. "That explains why Kation ended up sleeping in the stables."

Tristan felt his muscles tense. "The stables?" he repeated.

"Yes, she knew you'd lose your temper if she bunked with me or Gawain, so she opted for the stables to avoid any unpleasantness if you went looking for her. We all know how sensitive you are about her," Kahedin explained, ignoring the way Tristan's eyes flashed dangerously.

"She's free to go where she pleases," he retorted. "And she knew it, so why were you both so upset?"

"Well you see we could have sworn that if you were going to proposition anybody, it would have been Kat." Vanora said.

Decent, respectable women like her really shouldn't be having this sort of conversation, Tristan thought sourly. "What on earth gave you that idea?"

"Oh… only the past five months or so," Kahedin said harshly and then both he and Vanora proceeded to point out a few bizarre observations:

1: He had behaved very badly by not warning Kat about Rosula's visit.

2: He shouldn't have slept with Rosula in the first place because…

3: … He and Kat secretly loved each other and yet…

4: … Had done nothing about it, because…

5: … They were both stoic idiots who wouldn't allow themselves be happy.

"What demon possessed you to sleep with Rosula?" Vanora asked.

He glared, but said nothing. Clearly Gawain's madness was infectious.

"Well?" Kahedin urged. "I'm sure if you'd made a move on Kat, she'd have—"

"… Gutted me like a fish," Tristan interrupted. "She has reacted to even the slightest demonstration of affection with confusion and hostility."

"And whose fault is that, Mr Icicle?" Vanora said. "She cannot read your thoughts—you would have to actually talk to her."

"Communications failure…" Kahedin added with a sigh. "Seriously, how did you convince Rosula with that kind of approach to women? Or did you get her drunk?"

Tristan's glare abruptly ended that line of inquiry. Moreover he did not have to sit here and listen to this, why had he even stayed this long?

Oh yes. Breakfast.

"I'm going for a ride," he said, standing abruptly and saw Kahedin's face turn into a pasty mask of fear. "What now?"

"That… might be a problem."

~oOo~

I turned west, following the road that lay in the shadow of the Wall. The Batavian cohort would be using it and hopefully we'd meet somewhere in the middle. Doubtless, Tristan would either lay an elaborate booby-trap for my return that would culminate in my violent slaughter, or he'd jump on Sarakos and come after me at top speed and fury. I'd done it this time.

After taking a needless moment to assess Tristan's likely reaction, I wondered how long Kahedin could restrain him.

I might only have minutes before a hail of arrows would come whistling past my ears (if I was lucky, he might just shoot me dead), so I would have to move off the road and let Tagiytei put some distance between me and Tristan.

"You provide the power, I'll steer," I told Tagiytei, pulling my gloves on as I grinned with glee. The fiery horse tossed his head impatiently and after I had checked that all my things were securely attached to either me or the saddle, we were off like a rocket. Powerful muscles bunched and I hastily wound my fingers into the horse's mane as Tagiytei sprang forward. Blood and air roared in my ears and tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes as we raced along. I trusted the horse to make his own decisions, only reining him into a more sedate canter (which he fought all the way) when we were passing or over-taking someone else on the road. And then, as soon as the horizon opened up again we'd be off again.

As we blazed along, I pondered the horse that would be chasing us down: Sarakos had better speed, but I was fairly sure that Tagiytei had greater stamina, despite his slightly heavier build. I pondered how I would deal with Tristan's ire when I finally faced it… perhaps saying nothing would be best. After all, I had taken Tagiytei on a whim and how on earth does one explain a devilish quirk of the mind?

When Tagiytei began to tire, I let him pick the pace and he slowed to a gentle trot and finally a walk. Part of me wanted to push on, but figured a rest in the wood might calm my nerves too.

Yeah, right.

I rode on until it started to get dark and then pitched camp on the edge of the wood. Tagiytei was happy to rest and I briefly considered a fire before deciding against it. The light and smoke would give me away, so I wrapped myself up in my blanket and cloak and made myself part of the cold night…

I awoke at my usual pre-dawn time and figured that I could afford to make a tiny fire this early, since Tristan wasn't nearly as much of a morning person as me. It managed to restore some heat into my fingers and toes, before I was forced to kick dirt over it and break camp. I had to keep moving.

And so that day was pretty much like the last one. When I stopped for the night I figured I'd travelled at least three-quarters' of the Wall and still not run into the Batavians. Man, those guys were taking their sweet time… what were they doing, sight-seeing?

Or perhaps it was just because I was riding the Dappled Wonder-Pony™, a Ferrari in the pre-industrial age. So on the third morning I decided to trot, figuring it would make a far more galling impression on the Batavians if I looked nonchalant and slightly exasperated with their pace. There was a very thick fog that morning and I was grateful for it. Still no sign of Tristan, but if he had indeed picked Sarakos, then he wouldn't be far behind. But after two whole days, I was better. My indigestion had gone (despite trail rations' best efforts) and I had taken the time to think it through properly with the help of expert consultation: my own brain and Tagiytei.

As I paused to have a drink, I heard the faint sound of hooves on the road. Several horses, with at least two carts as well. I pulled my hood up to hide my features and manoeuvred Tagiytei into the middle of the road to wait for the Batavians to reach me. I only lamented the fact I had been robbed of the perfect cliché: looking at a timepiece incredulously while shaking my head in stern disapprobation.

Finally the first two horses appeared from the mists. As soon as they caught sight of me they told me to halt. Idiots. Then they trotted up to me and I was extremely grateful to Tagiytei's sense of drama in that he remained perfectly still, proudly arching his neck and looking great.

"Who are you?" one of them asked, sneering down at me as they circled us.

"I'm here on behalf of Artorius Castus, to escort you back to the fort." I replied promptly with a hauteur so sincere that the two horsemen started to look nervous. After all, I could have been anyone.

But their circling annoyed Tagiytei and his tail swished dangerously as his ears slowly and turned back and pinned themselves to his neck. It was his version of a declaration of war. Then, without warning, he stamped his back leg in a jerky fly-kick that gave him the space he wanted.

By now the rest of the cohort had joined us and I was staring at the commanding officer. Not hard to miss with his extra-fancy armour and plumed helmet. I had also gathered some pertinent information about him from Kahedin's contacts.

"Who are you, boy?" he asked sternly.

"I'm Kation."

"Never heard of you, now move aside." He growled, circling past me even as Tagiytei stamped again.

"You're Darius Aquinas," I said, recapturing his attention. "Tristan mentioned you. He's a shocking judge of character," okay, now I was lying—but it never paid to show all your cards at once. Although the second part was definitely my opinion: this man was far cleverer than the knights wanted to believe, although by no means genius material.

Aquinas glared at me. "How do you know Tristan of the Sarmatian cohort, boy?"

A thrill of jealous rose in me. So Tristan got to be all notorious and I didn't? We'd see about that. "I work for him."

"And what do you do?"

The way he sneered it made me want to demonstrate my skills on his face, but I managed to hold it in. "I make him look clever." I replied honestly. Tristan was clever, but he lacked the expert training university imparted onto its students in back-handed bastardry.

There was a moment's pause as Aquinas mulled this over. But in that moment, I finally heard the hoof-beats that had haunted my dreams for the past two nights. Not bothering to turn around, I marvelled at Tristan's sense of dramatic timing… when the Batavians heard it, they all swung round to look and I finally looked back over my shoulder to see a hurricane of rage and self-importance bearing down on us at a dead gallop—he is way too intense.

Whoa, incoming… "… I don't always succeed." I added to Aquinas, who was staring at Tristan with a mixture of awe and trepidation.

As for me, watching him charge out of the mist, dressed to kill (literally) and looking positively evil in his fury, I felt a swell of emotion.

Or indigestion.

On second thought, I'd take the latter.

I turned and trotted out to meet him as he screeched to a halt at the last possible moment. I noticed that Sarakos looked exhausted. "You!" he barked at me, not bothering to introduce himself to any of the Batavians.

"Sir?" I asked, fighting the urge to bare my teeth at him. I'll admit, I failed.

He was controlling his spleen with visible effort. "You…" he growled again, lower this time, but no less deadly. In heaven the angel of self-control gave up the struggle to keep Tristan's temper in check and with an animal howl, he launched himself from Sarakos' saddle and tackled me to the ground. Hands twisting into the front of my tunic, he straddled my waist and shook me so hard my teeth rattled in my head. I gripped his wrists to try and alleviate the pressure, but his rage was so great that I ended up bracing my neck as best I could and chuckling between clenched teeth. Once I sensed he was feeling a little better, I reached up and grabbed his elbow and the back of his neck. I hauled at him, yanking him down towards me. Then I slid my foot around his until it was on the outside, whereupon I braced with both feet and heaved upwards with my hips, effectively rolling us round so that I was on top. Still holding him down by the back of his hair (because let's be honest, he would have cheerfully tried to head-butt me), I stared at him hard, letting him know he had lost his cool.

"Get off!" He yelled in Sarmatian, only a few inches from my face. Not feeling merciful, I sat back and quickly got to my feet, even going to far as to offer him a hand up. Ignoring my courtesy, he sprang up and glared down at me, looking ready to attack me again, but I was prepared to kick his arse from here to the fort if I needed to. I'd been pushed around way too much recently and was making a stand.

Our clueless Germanic audience watched nervously as Tristan swallowed loudly, muttered something heinous in Sarmatian and then turned to Aquinas. "I know I'm late, but that is only because my assistant here rode on ahead and I did not anticipate he would travel so fast."

Aha… saving face is it? Fine, I'd play along—not that anyone asked me for a comment. I made a show of straightening my tunic and smoothing my hair back with the air of an aggrieved dandy.

"No problem," Aquinas was saying cheerfully, though his eyes were still wary. "Will you accompany us too? Or must you return to Artorius?"

"No, we will travel with you," Tristan replied curtly and shot one of his potent looks at me. I knew he wanted me to ride beside him and couldn't see a way of saying no. Annoyed, but confident he wouldn't try to murder me again in front of so many witnesses, I nodded and with every sign of insouciance we remounted our horses and took up positions beside Aquinas, who seemed keen to question Tristan about what sort of cavalry manoeuvres would be expected. Once this topic had been exhausted, Aquinas settled for talking with his men, since neither Tristan nor I were exactly the chatty type.

And that was how the entire day panned out until we stopped for the night on Aquinas' orders. As the Batavians pitched camp for the night, Tristan waved a hand at me. "A word," he bit out through clenched teeth. I got to my feet and followed him to the very edge of camp. Once out of earshot, he turned to me with the look of a man pushed beyond his limits.

"What the fucking hell were you thinking?" he whispered at me in Sarmatian, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Secretly I was delighted by this. For several weeks now I had been hoping to push Tristan so far that he gave up on Latin altogether and just swore at me in Sarmatian. "If you want to hit me, you're welcome to try," I replied evenly in the same language, ready and willing to go a few rounds with him. We clearly still had some issues to work through.

With our fists.

He settled for slowly raising his hands and settling them on my shoulders in a tight grip then giving me a little shake. "Never do this again. Ever."

Time to reassert the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, which had become appallingly lax recently. "There will always be consequences! Deny me a bed and I'll deny you your horse." I shot back angrily, shrugging out of his grip. My indigestion was getting worse. It was almost nauseating. I had to get away from him.

But he beat me to it. Throwing his hands up in the air, he turned away slightly and growled low in his throat. "Now isn't the time for this," he finally exclaimed in an undertone. "We have to return as quickly as possible and…"

"And what? If you try to exercise power over me, I will make you regret it." I promised before turning away. "Now I'm going to go and sleep, unless there's anything else you'd like to say?" I barely waited for half a second before turning away, finding a sturdy oak on the very edge of the Batavian camp. Wrapped up in my blanket and cloak, I was bitterly cold again, but preferred that to losing my night vision.

After some time I heard footsteps coming closer to my tree. Only one person had a good reason to come near me.

Approaching me recklessly again…? I sat up and prepared to give him a blast of 21st Century-inspired invective when I saw that it was one of the Batavians.

This was unexpected and I was paranoid enough to let one of my hands lock on the hilt of a throwing knife.

"Can I help you?" I asked, trying to sound as discouraging as possible.

"We were just wondering if you wanted some dinner," he said carefully.

I was stunned. No one had offered me dinner before. I was expected to go find food in Vanora's tavern or starve, since my social rank was just below zero.

Clearly my silence had been mistaken for hostile wariness because the soldier continued hastily, "Of course it's nothing fancy, but your boss has already accepted some and—"

"No, thank you." I said as politely as I could. I didn't want to be near Tristan and I wasn't hungry. The man tried to peer at me more closely in the darkness, failed, and then walked back to the others with a shrug. The rest of the night passed peacefully and I woke up at my usual pre-dawn time with a yawn and a stretch. I was glad that it was getting warmer, but even so I was frozen and stiff from the previous night as I quickly packed away my blanket and cloak.

"Aren't you cold, boy?" a Batavian asked as I approached the men. He looked entirely too interested in me.

Ye gods and little duckies… why me? Why now? "Only as much as the next person," I replied, my tone as cold as I felt, even as I desperately wondered how to get out of this situation without killing anyone.

"I can help you with that."

Well, that was about as subtle as a brick to the head.

"Unless you're offering me a hot drink, I think I'll manage to cope."

"A skinny little thing like you? No, you need a man to keep away the chill." The edge in his voice was getting worse and I was seriously tempted to kick seven kinds of shit out of him—but I was surrounded by his comrades and the only person who might have sided with me was in a justifiable strop. I had to diffuse this situation with diplomacy and tact—both of which were in short supply these days.

"Trust me, hatred is all the fuel I need." I growled, wishing for the millionth time that I was back in my own world. Not very subtle, but certainly unfriendly. To hell with it all. I had half a mind to ride back to the fort today and let the others catch up. I then stuck my nose in the air and was about to march off into the undergrowth when—

"Oh who's upset you, sweetling?" said another voice. I turned sharply, hearing footsteps behind me and saw another Batavian reaching for me.

Wrong. Fucking. Move.

Stepping to the right, I snatched his wrist with my left hand, turned it over anti-clockwise, locking it in place. Then, bracing his wrist with my right hand, I pushed down to turn his arm around as I stepped round, using the man's body weight and momentum to flip him. He hit the ground with a thud and a yell, but I was way too paranoid these days to release the wrist-lock. Instead, I looked over my shoulder to glare at the cat-caller and his companions.

My would-be captor was wriggling and yelling, so I put a fraction more pressure on the joint to make him shut up. He moaned and I knew I was close to breaking his wrist.

"Anyone else got any smart comments?" I asked, my voice laced with irritation. The silence hung for a moment longer and then Tristan decided to make his entrance.

"Let him go," he said, looking as intense as ever as he stepped from the undergrowth.

Perfect dramatic timing, I thought as I released my hold and stepped smartly away. Knowing I'd probably made at least two enemies, my hands were already hovering over the hilts of my knives and I geared up to deal out a serious object lesson to anymore presumptuous men.

"What else can you do?" the cat-caller asked, now suitably wary as he eyed up Tristan and I standing shoulder to shoulder.

I almost smiled. "You'll pay to find out."