Chapter 66

Tristan returned to the fort a little later than planned, burning with a thousand questions and upon entering the barracks he saw Kation, drenched and gamely exchanging obscenities in Sarmatian with Galahad, Cador, Gawain and Kahedin. The water fight was well underway and Tristan was torn between the urge to turn around and leave the scene of purest silliness, or dismounting and joining in so he could drown Kation.

However a sopping wet and dirty sponge sailing through the air and hitting him right in the face decided the matter for him.

As it plopped onto the cobbles, the combatants fell silent, watching him cautiously. Tristan deliberately wiped the water from his face and dismounted slowly, then he picked up the sponge and weighed it in his hands contemplatively. Not a sound was made as Tristan glowered at them all, keeping his expression as blank as possible. Then he marched over to Galahad, gripped the puppy by the collar and stuffed the sponge down the back of his collar.

"Yaaah-yeeee! What the—?! Aauugh!" Galahad wailed, writhing and dancing about as Tristan caught a second sponge sailing at his head and ran at Cador, only for Kation to hurl herself at his side, screaming to her friend to run for his life as they crashed to the cobbles.

"Your noble sacrifice will be sung for a thousand years!" Cador laughed as he and Kahedin began to grapple with Gawain, trying to force him into the water trough. "Farewell, brat!"

"Kitten! No!" Gawain yelled, seeing Tristan sling Kation up onto his shoulder, seconds before Cador pushed his shaggy head under the water.

"Tristan, don't you dare!" Kation yelled, grasping at a post to anchor herself. "I'm not going back in that well!"

"You know," said Tristan, heaving a small bucket of water up one-handed and sloshing it over Galahad, just as he managed to retrieve the sponge with a triumphant 'aha!', "I hadn't considered the well until you mentioned it."

"No! Gawain!" Kation yelled, still clinging to the post. "Gawain! The well! Again with the well!"

Tristan reached back and tickled her ribs, causing her to yelp 'Treachery!' and let go of the post, whereupon Tristan laughed like a demon from hell.

"Grab the sponge, washboard," he said. "And throw it at Kahedin." And then he flipped her off his shoulder, swung her around in his arms and bent to avoid an arc of water sailing past them. As he did this, Kation snatched up the bucket of water which held a sponge and threw the sponge as she was bid before reaching back to tip the bucket onto Tristan's head.

He was forced to drop Kation onto the cobbles to remove the bucket, whereupon she ran to try and extricate Gawain from Cador and Kahedin's dunking. Only Kahedin saw her coming and caught her in a bear hug.

"This is for that sponge, kitten!" he laughed and twirled her around to push her head into the trough as well.

But Kation hung onto Kahedin as he leaned forward, and let herself fall into the trough, but took Kahedin's head and shoulders in with her. When Kahedin heaved them both up again, Kation was spitting out water, but grinning like a loon. Gawain, meanwhile had managed to put Cador in a headlock, and so was unable to prevent Tristan from throwing water over both of them before retrieving Kation from Kahedin's grasp.

"Ruuuss!"

The familiar booming voice made them all freeze and whip round to see Arthur, Dagonet and Bors advancing towards them—expressions of incredulity, amusement and disapproval written over their faces.

"What is going on here?" Dagonet demanded.

"Spontaneous grooming," Kation said, only to be put into a headlock.

"Is this true?" Arthur said, casting a fulminating eye over the bedraggled company.

"… No, no it's not." Galahad finally admitted.

"And with the Fort in tatters, vulnerable to attack from just about anyone, half the Legion imprisoned and about to be decimated, the governor on his way for an inspection any day now and you're playing?!" Arthur yelled.

They all hung their heads, except for Kation who was already bent double, and stayed silent. They had no excuses, but it had been a very necessary way to break the tension.

"Back. To. Your. Duties." Arthur said through gritted teeth.

They all broke apart like a scattering shoal of fish, hurtling to their various tasks and not bothering to wring the water from their hair or clothes. Tristan kept Kation by his side, dragging her up to Arthur and delivering his report of the patrol: "Nothing amiss, I'm not buying it. Expect trouble."

Arthur seemed grim, but appreciated his words and dismissed them for the afternoon. "I want extra early morning patrols from both of you, and written reports if you find any evidence of Woads south of the Wall, am I clear?"

"Yes, Arthur," Tristan said. Kation nodded, squeezed water from the hem of her tunic and they left for Tristan's room. There was no negotiation about this.

"Well that was fun," she remarked. "I'm going to change and I now want a hot drink."

Some latent survival instinct told him to wait until she was wearing warm dry clothes before tackling the thorny situation of her green-skinned friend, so he merely grunted and started to peel off his own wet clothes.

"Get back here afterwards, I want to deal with that Prefect once and for all," he said as he heard the door creak.

"Sure," she said, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder at him. "And whatever else is making you look so dour."

"What makes you think there's something else?" he said cautiously.

She shot him the sort of flat look that he vaguely remembered from his father when being taught to throw knives. As if they knew he knew, and really expected better from him.

"Tristan," she walked back to him and sighed. "You are going to have to get used to the fact that I can read you, and that you can read me. This is called mutual vulnerability, and it comes with loving someone." She stood on tip-toe and pulled him down for a quick kiss. "So no matter how much we fight—and I'm sure we will, endlessly—we do so because we can't help ourselves."

"In much the same way we can't help but love each other," he said, feeling some relief in the implicit acceptance of how difficult they were as individuals, let alone trying to factor in being lovers or Kation's incredible secret.

That wouldn't stop him from interrogating her about it until they were both bloodless husks.