Where Home Lies

Chapter Five: Unstained Freedom

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah...don't own....don't sue.....blah blah

AUTHOR NOTES!!!! :sniffles: Well, I'm all done, guys. I admit, it's tough to end this story because it was one of my absolute favorites for writing! All my reviewers have been so kind to me, and thank you for all your patience! Personal thanks are definitely in order...[in a sec]. It is a good thing that I just finished this up, because tommorrow I start school[gr. 12, bleh] so I probably wouldn't have time! Oh, and just so you know, I had a liiiittle bit of trouble with tense at the end of the story, so I apologise for it switching between present and past. :blush: For all of you that were wondering about the Woads-in-Sarmatia thingy. Well. Just in case Guinevere does not explain it well enough in this chapter, here is my theory:

according to some historians, it is believed that the Picts[I'm pretending that the Woads were Picts. :cough:] came originally from Scythia. When the Sarmatians invaded, driving the Scythians out, they also drove the future-Picts out. For this reason, some of the Picts aka Woads still linger on the borders of Sarmatia, and therefore, when Tristan is just a lad, the Woads attack his family purely out of hatred, revenge..blah blah. It's not a super strong theory, but hey, it fit my story. And it is maybe true. :looks hopeful: Now for the reviewers....HUGS!!

Blue Eyes At Night - Well, I'm not really into reincarnation, but truly, I left a lot up to the reader. You can take their relationship however you will...hope my weak explaination of the Woads in Sarmatia helped...thanks for being a steady reviewer!!:hug:

Nini - Oh my, you completely read my thoughts there. Though I decided not to take that road in my story, I TOTALLY considered doing that thing with Tristan being a Woad too. Come to think of it, I really didn't broach the whole subject of the tattoos. The problem with this story was, I had SO much to say, but I wanted to keep it short!! There are a lot of things about Tristan that I wanted to cover, but I just ran outta space. :drool: I, too, always go for the dark, longish haired, mysterious guys...Tristan is right up my alley. Galahad, by the way, was just another loose string that I never got to tie. I was considering having him visit his grave, and being a little bit more humble and understanding, but I didn't want to drag it out after Tristan's death. Thank you! You were one of my most involved reviewers, and I appreciate it.:huggle:

guinevere - Nope, Gurievian was just a name I thought up on the spur-of-the-moment...I liked it, and thought it sounded normal among the other names of Arthurian legends. Thanks for reading!:grins:

nora17 - aw...I know, isn't Iseult and Tristan just a beautiful relationship? You are too kind! Sorry I didn't update very soon! :huggles:

Tian Sirki - of COURSE you get huggles! :huge huggles: It is the sexy ones that have it the hardest...it's what makes us love them so. :sniffles: I'm going to miss all you guys so much! Your all so friendly and nice! :bow: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, Tian.

Shibbie - :clings: You always make me laugh and go 'awww' all at the same time! :massive huggle: Thanks so much, Shibbie. I'll miss you!

LivEviL - :grins: Aww..thanks!

Jazzminna - Thanks again for all your help! :hug: I'm glad you've enjoyed it...:laughs wickedly: I like being hard on characters...I like making people sniffle.

spotted.paw - Wow, you really summed[sp?] my story up well! Thanks for being so kind to me! I know it isn't perfect, but I just wanted to put on paper the way I think he might think. Glad you liked it! :beams:

It was well, perhaps, that the knights' hunger for freedom had dimmed over the last few days, for on the night following Dagonet's burial, the full strength of the Saxon army was revealed to the knights of the Round Table. All thoughts of green hills faded into the past like the faces and voices of their families; things of myth and nothing more.

The resigned sigh and stoop of Arthur's shoulders told Tristan all he needed to know, as the men stood on the edge of Hadrian's Wall and watched the Saxon torches blink like hellish stars. And when Arthur turned and walked silently down the stone steps, the other knights understood as well, Lancelot springing after him in a hopeless attempt to keep his anchor. It was a plea of desperation, for even Lancelot knew that Arthur would stay, and the legendary knights of Sarmatia - the men who had lost no battle - would run.

The knights watched in heavy silence as Lancelot put himself between Arthur and honour, willing their leader to by-pass the high road this once. Tristan turned his eyes to the night, rather than watch the whip-thin knight fight a losing battle. Lancelot did not fight to keep their Roman leader among the knights. Rather, his stormy features quivered and shook at the prospect of his leader being gone from his life, at the inevitability of giving into his tempest at last. Lancelot, who's desperation lay naked in his face, the way it never had been. Lancelot, who had no cause. And even for this man, who's wild black eyes begged for this thread of certainty and safety, Arthur could not be turned aside.

As the somehow shrunken form of Arthur disappeared into the shadows of the keep, Tristan kept his gaze on Lancelot. When his fellow knights looked away from their broken comrade, as though that could make him better, Tristan's shadowed eyes caught the long moment that stretched between Lancelot, and the Woad, Guinevere. And when Lancelot stalked from the light of the torches, Tristan saw the woman glide away towards Arthur's quarters, and disappear inside.

The knights stood for a long while atop that wall, Tristan slipping silently and unnoticed down the stairs and into the cool darkness of the keep's far reaches. He had never wished to see their foolish dreams tarnished this way. He had never hoped to watch them from the shadows, to see them blindly walking their separate ways, to spend the night alone, as they would now. That was his burden, a role he had slid into without knowing, over fifteen years ago.

When he had had the chance to speak about his past, he had not, and now, it hardly seemed relevant to the other men. He had hated his silence, but had been comforted, somewhere deep within himself, to see the other men develop such a lively camaraderie. He had felt safe, in a way he couldn't quite understand, being on the outside, holding his dark little story locked inside his mind where they might never find it. And now, to see them fractured and unsure, alone, both physically and mentally, on the last night they might still be considered knights, threw Tristan into a kind of agitation he had never known. What was he now, if not the outsider, the loner?

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Tristan remained in the shadows of the wall, invisible panic swirling beneath his features, until the Romans finally settled into restless quiet. He made his way to the top of the wall, to focus his eyes on the flickering lights of his enemies, alone on the eve of battle.

It was nearing the light hours of morning when the rumpled form of Guinevere made an appearance. Tristan caught the rustle of movement from Arthur's tent, which stood in clear view of his seat on the cold stone. He was up and down the stairs in an instant, his mind ignoring the disgruntled creaking of his chilled joints. She did not see him, her guard was so slack, until he stood but a stride from her, and the whisper of his blade snapped her head around to see her attacker, and was met with the curved sword of Tristan. Knight he might be, comrade of Arthur, but the fear in her eyes did not dim with that knowledge. She had heard enough of this dusky knight, and her Woad instincts prepared her for death. She was surprised by when he spoke instead.

'So. You are done with him. Did you slit his throat, or will you leave the dirty work for your fellows?' The harsh rumble of his voice was reminiscent of the creaking of timbers, of an avalanche in the mountains, or the thunder of falling water. She had not heard him speak, in over two weeks.

Her eyes riveted to the curved blade at her neck, she addressed him as one might a mad man or a child, slowly and in soothing tones, despite her trembling heart.

'I know nothing of what you speak, knight. Arthur is well and sleeping.'

At his contemptuous snort, she raised her gaze to her attackers eyes, but lowered them just as quickly at the steely lack of emotion. His eyes seemed almost black.

'Oh no, you are in love!' his tone turned bitter. 'You will turn on him when he stretches out his hand to help you, to cut him mercilessly at your feet. I have seen it before.'

As much as she did not want it to, her gaze rose once more, to study his eyes and his features, and to remember the words the knights had spoken.

'Why do you hate Woads?' her question caught him entirely off guard, and his sword seemed to shiver, though it did not lower from her neck. 'Why do you hate us?' she repeated. Her eyes did not move from his, and finally the sword was lowered, and he instead played with the tip of it with his fingers. She was not fooled by his pretended indifference. She had struck lava, which had bubbled always just below the surface, had provided that extra bit of strength behind his sword thrusts, had cooled to stone on his exterior.

He did not answer for many minutes.

'I should hardly have to answer that,' he said softly, not looking at her. 'Why does anyone hate the Woads? They are troublesome vermin.' His words sounded weak to his own ears.

'You lie.' The word came out harsher than she had intended, and she hastily changed her tact. 'The others, the knights, they told me a little about you. What they knew of you, that is. And one thing they could all agree on was that you had always been... vigorous in your extermination of my people. I am only a woman,' she said lightly, 'but I believe you have a past.'

'All humans have pasts,' he said sharply. 'But why would I wish to speak of a past that would ostracise me even further?' the look she gave him held question. 'I am a coward,' he said violently, and his eyes seemed to challenge her to agree.

If there was something Guinevere might have described him as, it would not have been 'coward.' A heartless savage, perhaps. But even that was not correct, for was it not emotion that seeped from every crease and smooth plane and scar on this man? The facade fell before her, and fifteen years of silence seemed to break in her quiet. Sometimes silence, rather than question, bring answers.

'Woads attacked my family when I was only a boy,' he said, his eyes focused in a distance only he could see. 'Everyone was killed but me. Even my brother, who had been a Woad's lover. But that isn't true, is it? She had never wanted him for his love, or his body, even.' His conversation hardly seemed directed at Guinevere, but rather at himself, and he pressed his thumb into the blade of his sword until it bled. He looked at it. 'I saw it happen, too, but I didn't help.' He stopped again, and a twisted smile darkened his face, as though he couldn't quite believe he was speaking this aloud, to a female Woad no less.

'I was a coward, and I stood safe among the trees to watch my family die. But I still remember that woman's face when she killed my father. Those sounds...' His eyes snapped suddenly into focus, and he lapsed into silence, his eyes wracking the Woads face, gauging her reaction.

She shrugged, and the blade went up again, to her throat. She didn't flinch. 'It is possible. Many of my people still harbour hate towards the Sarmatians. Your ancestors drove the Woads out of Sarmatia long ago, and many other people with us. Perhaps a border clan attacked your family out of ancient revenge.'

Tristan could only gape at her dismissive attitude. 'You are traitors,' he said in a low voice.

'What - for hating our conquerors? So you have a great love for Romans, then?' He did not answer. 'How can you hate a people who want nothing more than the freedom that you yourself hold preci-'

'I hold nothing precious, Guinevere. I hold no hope for freedom. You know nothing of me.'

'And you know nothing of me.' she said stoutly, pushing the blade carefully down from her chin. 'I am not going to betray Arthur, or the other knights, or you. Merlin and his clan are all Arthur has got against the Saxons. We will stand behind him, since you and yours, will not.'

'Only to shoot him when his back is turned!' he cried in disbelief. She was already shaking her head, and they stubbornly glared at each other over crossed arms. The curved sword of Tristan lay planted in the earth by his feet.

'My people were only fighting for what they saw as they're own, Tristan,' she tried again. 'We are not so different from yourself.' Her eyes lingered on the tattoos which graced the knights high cheekbones.

She was gone when he looked up, and he was surprised he had not heard her leave. Exhaustion took him, as he looked down at his finely wrought sword, the exhaustion that follows the baring of ones soul. He retreated to the one place that he hoped might take him back to where had been only a few weeks ago. To a place where his foolish words might never have been spoken. Propping his saddle at the forelegs of Tarquin, who stood dozing apart from the other horses, he crumpled to the ground, his dreams remembering that day from which all his life had sprung. But the war cries of the Woads were no longer the shrieks of demons.

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A few short hours later, the keep was awake as the sun rose over the hills beyond the wall, and so was Tristan. He watched thoughtfully as Arthur left his tent, looking strangely rested in comparison to the other men, a look of peace relaxing the lines of his face. How Tristan dreaded to leave this camp, to leave his leader behind to fight a battle he could not possibly win. Yet his hands mechanically packed and repacked his saddle bags, and his legs lifted him into the saddle of Tarquin, and still he did not speak out against leaving.

Iseult had come to him. She sat, perched gracefully atop his arm as they trotted out the huge gates of Hadrian's Wall and headed east, at the rear of a long wagon train. The men were silent, and Tristan knew their conscience's warred with broken memories of freedom. When Bors rode his black steed out of formation, to salute to the lone figure of Arthur as he always had, his voice echoing over the hills and drawing the gazes of many a Roman soldier, Tristan knew what was to happen. And he welcomed it.

Scanning the faces of his knights, Tristan knew they did as well, that their honour and friendship ruled their hearts, not a distant home where families lay buried and lost. Iseult, sensing the change in the knights, ruffled her wings and let out a piercing cry to the hills. Something spurred Tristan on to raise his arm, to whisper softly to his closest companion.

'Hey...you are free.' The words sounded empty in his ears, for when had she ever been his? How did he, who put no faith in freedom, have the authority to grant it to another? But she lifted her wings on the wind and soared up above the train, to circle slowly once, before disappearing into the clouds. All the men watched her. All the men believed they rode to their deaths as they caught each others eyes, and turned to meet their fates.

Tristan most of all.

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For all their great size, the Saxon army seemed to lack in wit. With quick sweeps from the backs of their horses, the knights managed to strike down enemy after enemy, turning them on each other in smoky confusion, until faced with the true bulk of the army at last. Despite Tristan's reservations, and doubts, the Woads proved true to Guinevere's word. They were there, and for once, their lethal skills were turned on someone besides the knights.

The other men spared no time scanning the army, but lept into the battle to topple as many enemies as possible. But that was not for Tristan. From his vantage point on Tarquin, Tristan's eyes narrowed on the figure of a large Saxon, who's stride and skill and arrogance marked him as important. Him. Sliding from the back of his horse, he approached this man, who watched him as an equal worth fighting, and prowled in a fighters crouch.

The sounds of the battle, and the sounds of agony, faded into the background as the two warriors began the slow dance of death, Tristan raising his slender sword to easily parry the Saxon's heavier broad sword. It was almost monotonous, lulling, the steady clash of steel on steel, the cool breeze blowing smoke to sting his eyes, to trick them. Every warrior makes a mistake, and Tristan knew the instant he made his. The cold steel slid easily past Tristan's light leather armour to bite the flesh of his sword arm.

It was another of those moments when time around them seemed to freeze, and there was really no army or battle, just the Saxon and himself. His sword lay abandoned on the bloody grass, unstained, and with hopeless determination, he reached instead for the small daggers which lay hidden in his thin breastplate. An outsider might recognise this as the moment when the duel was decided; when the wounded knight made a decision that secured the outcome. The Saxon paused a moment, watching his floundering enemy, before kicking the curved sword toward the knight. It was not an act of mercy. Rather, it was an act of respect, and one that Tristan recognised. His hand wavered before his daggers. The Saxon would come to a swift end, should he employ them.

Instead, with his eyes remaining on the Saxon, he bent stiffly to retrieve his sword, to grasp it weakly in his hand. He commanded it to be strong, but his will alone could not stopper the flow of blood, and strength drained from his hand like water from a broken bowl. He straightened, faced his enemy, to look for a moment into the eyes of the man across from him. The expression he found on it was surely what many of Tristan's victims had seen as their lifeblood stained the ground. The face of a man who believed his skill to be an art. A man who appeared heartless. Tristan struck suddenly forward, knowing the weak attempt would be conquered, pounced upon. He felt again, the sharp thrust of the Saxon's sword as it tore through his abdomen, set him on fire and freezing him numb all at once, staining his chest red.

He didn't feel the sword drop from his bloody hands as he crumpled to the ground. But he saw it's glint and he struggled toward it in his futile struggle, amazed by his own will to live, horrified by the pathetic efforts of his weakening body. He did not think about what he would do when he reached the sword, only dragged himself towards it, towards his saviour. He did not reach it. He had thought his body numb, but the pain that shook his body was real, as his head was ripped back by the hair, to pull himself upright when it had he strength to do so.

He looked at the sky. Had he been able to, he might have laughed at the way the sun smiled down at his death. For the sun was shining, in a way it never did, through the clouds and the smoke. And he knew suddenly that he did not want to die. For it was true; there was no honour in death, only cold, hateful violence. He wondered if his brother saw him now, and shook his head at his effort. He wondered if his brother forgave him for failing. For no amount of death had brought them back.

And he wished for a moment that he might have seen Arthur's new world, that he might have died as an old man, many years from now, the peace of freedom easing the creases from his brow.

Instead he saw his one companion, his free hawk, his Iseult, soaring high above him. It seemed strange that she would return to him when he had so clearly released her, if she had ever been his to have. It seemed strange that she would come now, when always before she had avoided the stench and sound of battle. Were he soaring beside her, he might have seen Lancelot being struck down, finding his cause at last, or perhaps the arrow that pierced Gawain's side. He might have seen Arthur turn to see him, kneeling before his killer, might have seen the agony and regret and pain light his eyes when he realised he could not stop the final blow. He might know that he was not so hated after all. But he is already somewhere else.

The dusk had begun to fall, though somehow the sun still burnt his stinging eyes. He strained forward, to see Iseult through the darkness, to focus his swimming eyes on her graceful, arcing wings. He could not feel the hand tearing his hair now. And he understood, as he kneeled before his enemy, why his friend was there. She was waiting for him. She had always been free, and she was waiting for him. This thought satisfied him, even as he caught the glare of a sword being swung towards him. Freedom. Freedom to go where he thought he could never be welcome again.

The sky was the same, the same as the one where he was from. He looked up at it, and was home again. Peace's mantle was upon him.

Night fell.

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The grave was like all the rest. Green and lush, a delicate vine wraping it's tendril around the hilt of the uniquely curved sword. It has not been visited for many years, and yet never was it forgotten. Tears fertilised the soil. But the dead were not present to hear them shed.

The sun is shining now, and a hawk circles, above the hills not far from the little graveyard, it's haunting cry almost lost in the wind. The grass in that place, is unstained.

One last review, pretty please with huggles on top! I'll miss you guys!! :sniff: