The Exile, Part II, Chapter VII: The Air in Camelot
Title: The Exile
Chapter: The Air in Camelot
Author: AGDoren
Rating: Teen
Genre: Romance-Fantasy, cannon until 4x9, AU on all events after 4x9
Spoilers: up to season 4x9, Lancelot du' Lac
Characters/Pairings: Sir Elyan, Sir Gwaine, King Arthur, Sir Leon, Sir Percival, OC as needed, pairing Arthur and Gwen
Summary: Chapter 7 brings us back to Camelot. Elyan, Gwaine, Bedivere and Gareth are dispatched to deal with a bear that has been harassing villagers near Waymeet. Elyan makes a discovery that will lead him to question his loyalties and confront the king himself.
Author's notes: This chapter is actually a wee bit longer than Chapter 6. So I had to split it in half.
Betaed: by myself and my roommate
Artwork: None this week.
When Guinevere fled Camelot she encountered hatred and hostility, bears and bandits but also a new friend in Tilda of Bayberry. Now Elyan unknowingly retraces his sister's steps.
___________________________________________________________________
The Exile
Part II, Chapter VII
The Air in Camelot
Rain fell in cold fat drops on the morning they rode into Bayberry. Never-the-less someone had been watching for them. Only minutes after their arrival, a couple came out of one the houses on the edge of village. The man was tall and balding with a horseshoe of black and gray hair and a slight paunch. The woman was equally tall but lean with gleaming dark hair and a chiseled look about her that served as opposite to her husband's softish appearance. Sir Bedivere rode to the head of the group and dismounted. Elyan and the rest of the knights did the same.
"I'm headman Carle and this is my wife Tilda. Welcome good sirs."
"I am Sir Bedivere; this is Sir Gareth, Sir Gwaine and Sir Elyan."
Each shook hands with the Headman in turn and Elyan wondered if he only imagined Carle and Tilda's eyes lingering on him.
"Tell me Headman Carle," Bedivere spoke his deep voice rumbling, "Have there been anymore incidents?"
"Yes sir."
"Deaths or injuries?"
"Not people, but some chickens and eggs were taken as well as fish. And this bear is clever we've set traps as well as blocks, it's avoided all the traps and blocks to get at whatever it wants. And if you're out in the woods alone or in a small party it'll harass you. Creature showed up 'bout two weeks after the adulteress passed through here."
Elyan felt his jaw clench. For some reason he'd imagined he was getting away from politics.
"Here we are Sirs." Carle opened the door to his cottage. "Tilda see to their horses."
"Actually I'll take care of my own and Bedivere's." Gwaine volunteered.
"And I'll take care of the rest." He did not want to sit down at the headman's table before he had too, besides horses were always a man's job. The headman's wife lingered a moment in the doorway before following her husband and the other knights inside.
They stripped the horses of their tack, and began grooming them.
"The adulteress," Gwaine said.
"Yeah," Elyan pursed his lips. He was never going to get away from what Gwen had done.
As the worked the morning clouds disappeared and the two knights chose to remain outside and enjoy the warmth of the sun.
"Sir Elyan, Sir Gwaine," Bedivere joined them after about half-an-hour.
"The bear seems drawn to small groups of people. It frequents some areas more than others. We'll head out without the horses and see about this bear. The Headman's wife has packed us a lunch. If we're not able to deal with it today we'll overnight here go out again in the morning."
They spent the first afternoon in the woods. Clouds had scudded across the sun again bringing a late spring rain that soaked their hair and dulled their armor. For all that the bear had been reported as harassing anyone entering the woods in small groups the knights of Camelot found themselves bored and trying to pass the time with stories and jokes. The rain stopped by suppertime. As the day drew to a close the headman's wife, accompanied by her youngest son and daughter, brought the evening meal.
The food was simple and filling. Tilda sat knitting while the knights ate. The two children began playing, some game involving a ball. Elyan found his eyes drawn to the youngster as they ran back and forth laughing and shrieking. Eventually they started some game that involved jumping over one and other and Elyan couldn't help but think they were having a very good time.
They finished supper. Tilda and her children collected the wooden dishes and utensils and headed back to the village. Sir Bedivere estimated that they had a few hours of daylight left so they might as well give it a bit longer. Sadly the evening finished without the bear putting in an appearance.
The next three days passed much the same way. Some days they carried a packed lunch or supper. Tilda, always accompanied by her two youngest, brought them at least one meal. From time-to-time Elyan noticed Tilda watching him, her expression thoughtful. Other times he caught her looking at her boy, her expression a bit sad.
Elise pinned her younger brother to the ground.
"Do you give? Do you give?"
The boy tapped out and Elyan couldn't resist a smile. Gwen had always beaten him at games when they were little. By the time he was old enough to beat her she'd lost interest in children's games, it had seemed so unfair at the time.
"You have children?" Tilda's voice brought him out of his reverie.
"What makes you ask?"
"The way you watch them as if you're remembering something."
Elyan nodded. "No, but I do have a sister. Like Elise, she's just a bit older than me."
"They're very close. He has little boys that he plays with and she has her little girlfriends, but they always come back to one and other."
"Yeah."
"I'd like to thank you."
Elyan turned his full attention to Tilda now.
"All of you really for coming out here, for helping us, protecting Camelot, but especially you and Sir Gwaine ." she finished.
"Sir Gwaine and I?"
"Yes the commoner-knights."
Elyan studied her, wondering what had prompted the last.
"Moommmm!" The boy called her voice indignant.
"Excuse me," Tilda hurried off in the direction of her children.
______________________________________________________________________
On the evening of their fourth day in Bayberry the people gathered in the village square drinking beer and mead round a bonfire. They sat in groups of three and four sometimes larger sometimes smaller old and young alike exchanging stories, jokes and gossip. Someone produced a drum and pipes and the people began to dance. Elyan and Gwaine were sitting playing with a pair of dice. It was during the midst of this gathering that Tilda approached them an earthen mug in hand.
"You're Guinevere's brother aren't you?" Her expression was unreadable.
"What makes you say that?" He knew his tone was defensive, but these people here…
Tilda cocked her head to one side. "Everyone knows that Sir Elyan is the sister of Guinevere."
Elyan shot a glance at Gwaine and sighed before turning his attention back to Tilda.
"What of it?"
"I'm a friend," she smiled then and there was an edge of bitterness to it. "We have something in common you and me. My sister was also an adulteress. That’s part of the reason why I helped your sister. You see I didn't help mine."
She raised her eyes and he saw such sadness in them that Elyan was struck dumb.
"My sister's name was-is Tacita. She was still fairly young when her husband divorced her and she came to me because we have very little family. I was angry with her of course and I felt the shame, the same shame you feel and I worried over the reputation of my daughters." Tilda took a sip from earthen mug. "My husband would not let me take her in. Still sometimes she slept out back and I gave her food; let her warm herself at our hearth. She would disappear for two or three days at a time and I would worry of course. I felt that I should do something more, but I was angry and how could she be so stupid? What was worth losing everything? What was worth shaming all of us? One autumn evening she disappeared as usual, but after three days Tacita didn't come back." She paused and shifted position.
"Three days turned into a week, a week turned into a month, one month turned into two, three...Snow fell, winter choked the world and still no sign of her. Spring came at last; in the thaw we found the body of a woman. At first we thought it was her, but it wasn't."
She paused then and Elyan hoped she wouldn't cry.
"She turned up in late spring, she was very pregnant and she looked-" Tilda pressed her hands to her lips and inhaled and exhaled. Elyan thought perhaps she was drawing up her strength.
"She looked- she had so many bruises old and new. I was no longer confused. I insisted that she live with us, my husband looked unhappy, but didn't argue. My change of heart came much too late though. 'Cita was so changed. She cried all the time, had nightmares and by god she was afraid everything. Eventually she confided to me that bandits had taken her sometime during the fall and kept her for the course of the winter. I also found out," she paused a strange and bitter smile on her face "I found out that when she would disappear for those two or three days at a time she was lying with some of the men from this very village, married ones. They gave her food and shelter in exchange for sex, the hypocrites! "
"Some men have no sense of honor about them," Gwaine muttered.
She sighed again and Elyan could see that she was trembling in every line of her body.
"You don't have to-"
"I want to." She made a fist and her voice cracked "I've never actually told the story. Everyone knows it, but..."
He nodded and took her hand.
"So she lived with us until the baby was born. Some women even unhappy ones cheer up with a new baby and I know she missed her son so. But her sadness only grew with the birth and she seemed so tired all the time." There was a plaintive bewilderment in her voice. "My husband grew frustrated with her, said she was a useless mouth. They were just little comments at first and I kept my peace because she was an adulteress and what husband wouldn't be angry at having his wife's adulteress sister living with them. But it hurt her more than I understood perhaps even more than she understood and he just got meaner. Finally one day -I wasn't there I don't know how it started- they had a horrible row, it turned violent and she left. She didn't take her boy, she didn't take anything. She was just gone. That was four years ago. I've not seen her since, I've not heard from her- I don't even know if she's alive."
She started crying then and proper or improper Elyan put an arm around her shoulders. For one moment she leaned against him.
"No. I'm not finished. There is more I have to say." She pulled away from him then and she looked him directly in the eye. "My sister was wrong, she was foolish and she shamed our family. I did what so many others do under the exact same circumstances. But knowing a little of what she suffered, knowing what she might yet be suffering…I think of her everyday and I worry about her every day. And I dream- oh the most difficult things- I dream. You see I may have been cold enough to let it all happen, but I'm not cold enough to live with it and somehow I don't think you are either."
"Tilda I don't-"
"Wife!" Carle's voice cut shrilly through their conversation.
Tilda sighed and drew in a breath. "My husband is missing me." She rose and stalked in his direction expression one of annoyance.
"Damn." Gwaine said it.
"I stayed in Camelot because of Gwen."
"Really?"
"When I was a kid the air in Camelot used to stink with the smell of burnt flesh. It lingers in the air for days. There was this one year when attending executions was mandatory. When I left it was my plan to never come back," Elyan looked into the distance for a moment. "When Gwen, Arthur, Morgana and Merlin came to the castle of Freyian, I started to think that maybe Camelot had changed. Uther was certainly not the type of king to risk anything for someone as unimportant as a blacksmith's son. Gwen spoke so highly of Arthur- There was hope in her voice… "Elyan sighed and shrugged. "When we rode back into the city the air didn't stink. I had missed my sister and not everything about Camelot was bad. There is nothing like a fresh loaf from the Goodes or light pouring into the valley at sunrise." He smiled a bit "I decided to remain in Camelot. Gwen had to struggle a lot after dad died maybe that’s why she fell so hard being alone and all. I don't know. She had changed, in good ways. We spent time together skipping rocks, fishing, playing cards with Dafyd and Enid. We were actually kind of happy. But Uther- his shadow looms large. She started nursing him. How could she?"
"Uther was a not a king to inspire love or good feelings." Gwaine took a sip from his flask.
"I was so angry with her and then this scandal. I thought I was supposed to stick to my sworn oath, but…"
"Now you want to go and find her?"
"I'm not sure I can do anything-"
The sudden harsh clanging sound of a warning bell echoed through the village then and Gwaine and Elyan ran for the headsmen's lodge.
_____________________________________________________________________
The girl was scratched and dirty, brown hair lank and greasy about her head.
"Tell the knights what you told me?" Headman Carle prodded the girl.
She looked at them in the firelight, dark eyes wide, face pale.
"Bandits they came out of the woods, we had no warning, no sign just one day from the direction of the sun, bandits."
"How long ago?"
The girl licked her lips, and held up four fingers.
"We're going of course." Elyan declared thinking of Tilda's story.
"Of course we are." Sir Bedivere said.
Elyan got to his feet.
"But not tonight," Sir Bedivere said "With no moon your horse could stumble and go lame, you could break your neck."
"First light then."
"First light."
Elyan opened his eyes to darkness, his bedding clammy with sweat. He tried to sit up, but his body -still caught in the grip of sleep- would not obey. He concentrated on wiggling the fingers of his right hand and that broke the spell of sleep. He couldn't face those dreams again, Gwen begging for his help, blood, and the condemnation in the eyes of his parents... Elyan got quietly out bed and began to dress he'd start for Waymet on his own; he could carry a torch and lead his horse.
Gwaine was not surprised to wake in the morning and find Elyan gone. If he had feared for Adras as Elyan now feared for Gwen no doubt he'd do the same. Elyan had recalled his affection for his sister late, but he had recalled it. When Bedivere woke Gwaine pulled the one-armed knight aside and told him a little of what Tilda had shared with them last night as an explanation for Elyan's absence.
"It's a terrible thing." The larger man said when Gwaine finished. "Still Elyan's not stupid he won't challenge the bandits without the rest of us, not unless he has to."
Trusting Elyan not to do anything foolish the knights had a quick breakfast and got on the road.
They found Elyan in the headsman's cottage of Waymet, sharpening his sword. He looked up with a fearsome smile as they entered.
"Good you're here. I've already scouted their position no sign of any captives. They're in a good location for defense, but they are just bandits and a motley lot at that."
"Very well Sir Elyan lead the way."
____________________________________________________________________
This was the easiest part of his job, no politics here. In a battle you studied your opponent, people played their games but there was so much less to consider, so much less to anticipate. Your opponents could only hide so much and in a fight the hardest working, most skilled opponent always won. The bandits were easy meat and he never felt bad about slaying them. They robbed and killed honest hard working people, abused women and children and sold free people as slaves. The battle -if you could call that- was over in minutes.
The more laborious task of making certain they were dead and disposing of their bodies could begin. Camelot claimed all the armor and weapons were collected and would be sold or given to the black smiths. Personal items such as jewelry, clothing, or tools would sit with the crown for a year if it could identified, it would be returned to the owners. If not it became the property of Camelot.
It was the stripping of the third body that set dread surging through Elyan. The man had been lying, green eyes staring and sightless, mouth parted in shock…A blade through the gut had felled him, but it was clear to Elyan that he was in a bad way before the battle. He was sallow skinned, eyes puffy with dark circles. Long red claw marks, swollen and oozing marked his shoulder. Had the man been attacked by the bear?
What had set the nearly painful surge of dread through Elyan though was the blade at the bandit's waist. EET, Elyan knew his mark anywhere. This was the first good knife that he'd made, the knife he'd given to Gwen. He wore its sister GJ on his waist right now. His eyes swept the bandit's corpse again and felt the beginnings of a sob in his throat. About the man's neck on a leather cord there was a ring. His sister was a sentimental woman. She would never willingly give up the wedding ring Arthur had given her. Seeing it on a thong around the dead man's neck could only mean one thing.
Bile surged into the back of his throat and he bit it back. Gwen could not be- She'd made it as far south as Waymet. She passed Bayberry. She could have crossed paths with these bandits anywhere. She could have been taken like Tilda's sister or robbed and slain. His throat and chest grew tight.
"Gwen." He whispered her name and the trees of the forest seemed to dance and spin.
"Elyan?" He snatched the thong from round the bandit's neck and quickly stowed it in his belt pouch.
"Yes." He replied without looking up. With shaking fingers he got the belt knife off the bandit.
"When you have finished with that come give us a hand with these corpses?"
"Of course," his voiced sounded strange and husky to his own ears and he tried to breath. Guinevere was dead at the hand of bandits. In his mind's eye he saw this man -now dead at his feet- laying rough hands on his sister. His sister, so like his mother- Elyan pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and choked back a sob. He got to his feet and surveyed the corpses of the bandits. He counted them, twenty. Had they- He'd met women that had been made to slave to bandits or invading armies. They were not- They were blighted beyond all vitality, all beauty, wrecked women, truly ruined. Was Gwen now so destroyed, living somewhere like Tilda's sister, growing an unwanted bastard in her womb?
"Sir Elyan you look unwell." He hadn't heard Sir Bedivere approach.
"I am injured." He clutched at his side. "It is not so bad, but I should probably have it checked."
The senior knight nodded. "Yes of course. Can you mount and ride?"
"I believe so."
"Good go back to the village and get yourself taken care of. We will see to this."
"Yes." Elyan turned and headed toward the horses moving slowly so as not to give away his lie. Gwaine ran up alongside him.
"You sure you are well?"
"I-I'm fine." He said it somehow.
"No you're not." Gwaine accused his voice low. "Is it just an injury?"
The two men kept walking the taller keeping up with the shorter easily.
Elyan passed a quivering hand before his eyes. "I will tell you, but you must promise not to share this with the others."
"I promise, but why?"
He had promised too quickly. "Swear it on your oath as a knight."
"Elyan?"
"I will tell them, but not yet."
"Very well Elyan I swear on my oath as a knight that I will not reveal to anyone what you are about to tell me before you do."
The younger knight produced the ring.
Gwaine swallowed before speaking. "It’s the ring Arthur gave to Gwen."
"I found it on that corpse back there along with the knife I gave her."
The two men started up the slope to where they had picketed the horses.
"You think she is dead?"
"I pray she is not…" Elyan lapsed into silence.
"So what are you going to do?"
"I need to try and find her, maybe…"
"I'll come with you."
"Not yet my friend," Elyan almost smiled. "I'm just going back to the village to talk Tilda now. Can you stay here and search for any signs of captives or-" His eyes strayed to the pile of bodies.
"I understand." Gwaine surprised him with a quick rough hug before hurrying back to the others.
________________________________________________________________________________________
LJ forced me to split this chapter in two. Read the second half here. Author's notes at the end of the second half.