FIC: "Alecto" (1/1)
AUTHOR: Mistress Marilyn camelotslash-2 at qwest.net
DATE: September 18, 2004
FANDOM: "King Arthur" (2004 movie)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'em. They belong to Touchstone Pictures, to the respective actors of the Jerry Bruckheimer movie, and to the ages. This is a work of a fan, done for no remuneration save the satisfaction of the work.
WARNINGS/RATING: Slashy, nothing graphic
SUMMARY: First-person Alecto, recalling the events of his young life and his relationship with Arthur.
BETA: CharlieMC (thanks, as always!)
AUTHOR NOTES: I've kept with the timeline given in the movie -- that Lancelot was drafted in 452 and the action takes place 15 years later. Please bear in mind, dear readers, that license was taken in the movie itself with historic events. The time of Cerdic and the battle of Mount Badon can be argued, but Pelagius and Bishop Germanus and their respective influence on the Roman church and world events came earlier than the movie timeline. Because of the need to stick with movie canon, I've been forced to take the same license. Other events recounted by Alecto in this story are as historically accurate as the varying records allow. No, there isn't any account of Hilarus being present at the meeting with Attila -- this is my own invention.

I'll never forget the first time I saw him. There he sat, astride a tall, white horse, looking strong and noble and formidable. My father greeted him in his toady way, 'thanking Jesus' for his coming, while my mother and I stood atop the high wall that surrounded our estate and watched the scene below. Observing his stoic bearing and hearing that resonant voice, I felt the sway of events ready to topple me off the wall, and in my serious, rather childish way, I believed what I was feeling to be the momentum of history, of destiny. How right I was.

I was born into a significant time for world events. I now feel certain that someday people will study this time and argue over what happened in the realm I inhabited, recognizing the shifts of power and the preeminence of the men who not only played out their lives on this changing canvas of civilization, but actually shaped that canvas, erasing and adding to the maps of both the eastern and western world.

Below me, on his horse, was one of these.

"Which is Alecto?" he asked.

"I am Alecto," I answered, both proud and grave.

Even looking down on him from the wall, he seemed to tower above me.

His name was Arthur Castus, and he was the commander of the famous Sarmatian knights who guarded the land south of Hadrian's Wall. He had come, evidently, to rescue our family from an approaching Saxon army, but my father had spent too many years and too much of his fortune building this villa in northern Britain to simply abandon it. He began to argue, and my mother squeezed my arm gently and pushed me toward the stairs so we could go below and stand beside him.

My mother did her best to be a good wife to my father, and at this moment she faced her most severe test. Being a woman of noble birth, she knew her place in Roman society, but also being a woman with a strong spine, she had secretly worked for years to soften the harsh, obdurate opinions and actions of my father -- especially in dealing with me. Somehow I had always known that she had higher plans and hopes for my life than to be the lord of a rich estate in a foreign land.

Approaching the striking tableau of Romans vs. Sarmatians on that early winter day, I could see there was no recourse for my father. This small group of knights -- there were just seven of them, along with one squire and a religious -- had not traveled north to listen to my father's arguments. Their very freedom depended on taking us back to Hadrian's Wall, for, as I learned later, Bishop Germanus had come from Rome with their discharge papers, and these discharges were contingent on the knights fulfilling this final deadly mission.

When Arthur got down from his horse and bent toward my father, I was struck by the differences in their height and demeanor. My father, short and rather stout, was dressed in the fashion of a Roman nobleman -- completely unsuited to the damp, chilly British weather, while Arthur wore battle gear of leather and metal. My father's agitation was plain, even as he struggled to retain his dignity; Arthur, on the other hand, exhibited a tired adamance. His head bare, his hair wet from the swirling snow, the knight showed no outward signs of discomfort, except for a shadow of fatigue under his eyes. My father shivered a little, probably from the cold as well as his anger and fear of being removed from his home by these men.

For more than three years my father had held sway in this world, protected by the mercenary soldiers he employed before we left Italy, surrounded by the locals who depended on us for their very lives and the elements of those lives -- food, shelter and refuge from the barbarian Woads. I was only ten years old when we first moved to Britain, and at that time I didn't realize all the reasons a man like my father -- who enjoyed his creature comforts as much as most Roman nobles -- would choose such a seemingly inhospitable place to make his home.

But by the time Arthur and his knights arrived at our estate, I knew my father's reasons for being in Britain were two-fold. My father was of the same family of the Honorius who once ruled western Rome, but events in the decades since that rule had left many Roman nobles in tenuous positions when it came to matters of state and economy. Here, for the first time in years, he had the status he craved, with a peasant population beholden to him for their living and security and men who answered his every command. And here, more importantly, he could guard his fortune from the barbarians who had risen to influence in Italy.

I was only two years old when Genseric's Vandals sacked Rome, but I had strong memories of this horrible time. For three days we hid in our cellars, surrounded by our most precious possessions and our barbarian slaves, drinking our best wine and eating the last of our food. Eventually my father turned the slaves out to save on provisions, and I imagine they were as frightened as we to meet this 'liberating' force.

I grew up in a Roman Empire where the strongest, most consistent leadership in the west came from a barbarian -- a man called Ricimer -- who wielded his influence by setting up one emperor after another and deposing them when they were no longer effective. Ricimer was given the title 'patrician' by Emperor Majorian, but making him the first minister didn't change the fact he was the grandson of a Visigoth. By the time this title was bestowed, my father moved us to Ravenna on the coast of Italy, away from the great city he now considered tainted.

My father hated barbarians of all kinds. In Rome he had been faced with the Goths, the Vandals and the Huns, among many, and now in Britain, we were surrounded by Celts and Picts. Thinking himself an important man in the Roman church, my father made it his business to punish the ungodly, and in Britain he found he had the power to do so, where in Rome the infidels were becoming so common they had begun to blend with the rest of the populace.

Now this tiny band of knights was pushing him to abandon his own small empire, and I could only imagine how this prospect disgusted him. For where could we go now, except back to a Rome that would neither welcome nor make comfortable a man like my father?

In fact, we left Rome when I was four years old to move to Ravenna, and though we visited the great city after, my father was always unhappy there, unwilling to even frequent the baths when he might be rubbing shoulders with a Goth or a Sueve as easily as another Roman.

There in Ravenna, where the most distinguished of our line, Flavius Honorius, had ruled as Augustus decades earlier, we hid from the barbarian incursion and allied ourselves even more strongly with the church of Rome. My godfather, Hilarus, an archdeacon and a papal emissary, was a consistent visitor and was probably more influential in my upbringing than my father, encouraging me to read and write both Greek and Latin and to try to understand the shifting sands of the civilization under our feet.

Hilarus was now pope, head of the Roman church. I had heard nothing from him for more than a year, for visitors were so infrequent that it took months and months for a letter to make its way to us. However, I knew he must have me in his thoughts, for he had promised to watch out for me, even from the great distance that separated us.

I was born just a year after Arthur's first knight, Lancelot, was drafted into the service of the Roman Empire, as I later learned. This was also the year after the fearsome general, Attila, invaded Italy with his vast army and was encouraged to turn away from Rome by the intercession of Pope Leo. My godfather Hilarus was with the diplomatic corps that visited Attila's camp near the River Mincio, after the Huns had already razed Pavia and Milan. As a boy my favorite moments were sitting at his feet, listening to his accounts of this momentous meeting, his descriptions of the lavish court of the barbarian, and, most of all, his memories of Attila himself, the feared leader called 'the scourge of god' by so many in Italy.

It was clear to me that Hilarus had been awed by Attila. The barbarian king was evidently a man of great charisma and unbridled strength -- and much of his effectiveness must have depended on his ability to bend and sway others through the force of his personality alone. His actions were seen as horrible as he marched through foreign lands, destroying cities and defeating great armies, but from most accounts he was a fair and respected leader among the Huns.

Hilarus described the Hun as simple in dress, unadorned, a Scythian sword at his side, taking only meat and a small amount of wine, a dignified and temperate man in control of his actions and emotions -- not the slavering barbarian recounted by many.

A year before he set his sights on Rome, Attila was defeated in Gaul by a combined army of Romans and Visigoths, led respectively by the great Roman general Aetius and the Goth, Theodoric. Theodoric was killed in the encounter, but the effort had been a success.

However, the defeat in Gaul only changed the course of the river of Huns, it didn't stop it. Now Attila leveled his gaze on Italy and the capitol of the western empire, Rome.

Pope Leo and his small party of ambassadors somehow dissuaded Attila from his devastating intentions. I've heard others say it was the lack of supplies and an outbreak of pestilence that stayed Attila's attack, but when I listened to my godfather describe the eloquence of the aging Pope Leo, simple in manner but impressive in his gray beard and majestic garb, I believed that it was the respect one great man can feel for another that changed Attila's mind.

Pope Leo said, "Thou hast subdued, oh Attila, the whole circle of the lands which it was granted to the Romans, victors over all peoples, to conquer. Now we pray that thou, who hast conquered others, shouldst conquer thyself. The people have felt thy scourge; now as suppliants they would feel thy mercy."

And supposedly the great Attila looked at this servant of God and was moved, deciding to take his armies and return east to his land.

A Rome that had already been taken in the days of Honorius by Alaric and the Goths was spared another sacking -- at least until three years later when the Vandals came.

This was the Rome of my childhood.

Now I found myself comparing this Arthur to the descriptions my godfather had told me of the great Attila, finding it hard to imagine that the barbarian general with his vast horde of Huns could have been any more impressive than this unbending man with his half-dozen knights.

The day Arthur came was one that changed my life in many ways. It completely opened my eyes to the man my father had become, allowing me to see along with Arthur how Roman rule had taken advantage of the land and the people -- and Roman religion had become the excuse for brutality.

"I tell you now. Marius is not of God. And you -- all of you -- were free from your first breath!" This Arthur said as he unbound with a swing of his sword the suffering village elder my father had ordered chained up as an example to the other peasants.

And then we heard the sound of the Saxon drums, and for a moment I was a small child again, cowering in the cellar of our great Roman townhouse as the Vandals surrounded our neighborhood, calling out in foreign tongues for the slaves to rise up and join them. But then I realized I was not now alone in a basement with my family, incapable of doing anything but wait and pray. I was with him -- Arthur -- and I wasn't afraid.

Afraid? No. But I was ashamed of my father, and so I was ashamed of myself. My ridiculous Roman garb seemed not only out of place, it seemed an insult to these knights and the man who led them. As we fled our villa, taking with us the peasants and the victims of my father's religious fervor, I looked back on the walls and gardens for the last time. And I wished at that moment to be someone else, to be dressed in mean trousers, leading the goats -- not to be seated in the wagon next to my parents, listening to my father grumble about this Briton who pretended to be Roman and clearly had no respect for Roman law or the Roman church.

We camped among the trees in the mountains that first night. My mother and I stayed in the wagon, but my father kept with his men, talking and scheming through the long hours. I worried about the outcome of his machinations, knowing he would not give up so easily after having been thrown in the dirt by Arthur and threatened with the long blade of his sword. My father had spent too long suffering the implied insults of the barbarians who were overrunning his beloved Rome; he now looked for some sort of justice in the treacherous mountains of the land of his self-induced exile.

I stuck my head out of the wagon that morning in time to see my father holding an injured boy in his arms, a knife to the boy's throat. I knew my mother had tried to nurse this boy, to undo in her womanly way the evil my father had done by torturing the pagan boy and murdering his family. Now my mother rushed forward to intervene, evidently forgetting to keep her proper place as wife and helpmate when her husband had clearly revealed himself to be a cowardly dog.

I had time to once again regret my parentage before my father was suddenly cut down with an arrow. The arrow was fired by another of my father's victims, a Woad woman who had also been held and tortured in a forbidden chamber outside the walls of our villa.

It seemed a fitting end for a man like Marius Honorius. I felt no horror, no regret, and I wondered at my own lack of emotion at seeing my father die in this ignominious fashion, felled not by the warriors of Alaric or Genseric or Attila, but by the bow of a barbarian woman.

Later, once again on the road that would hopefully take us to safety, Arthur steered his horse close to our wagon and spoke to me for the first time.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said kindly.

"My father lost his way. He used to say, the church is there to help us stay on our path. It didn't help those he made suffer."

"The path he chose was beyond the reach of the church, Alecto."

"Of the church, perhaps, but not of Rome. As he believed, so Rome believes." Years of silently questioning the warped will of my father suddenly overwhelmed me, and I felt myself desperate to make this man understand.

He looked at me strangely. "That some men are born to be slaves? No, that isn't true."

"It is! He told me so."

He shook his head, moving even closer to our wagon. "Pelagius, a man as close to me as anyone alive is there now teaching that all men are free. Equal. And that each of us has the right to choose his own destiny."

I looked at him sadly, wishing to freeze this moment in time when at least one of us was still unblemished by disillusionment. But he was so wrong, and I owed him the truth!
 
"Teach? How? Pelagius is not alive. They killed him a year past, according to my father. Pelagius preached heresy, denying original sin and Christian grace. He was excommunicated long ago. The Rome you talk of doesn't exist." I felt my eyes fill with tears, wondering if such a place had ever existed. "Except in your dreams," I finished.

I'll never forget the pain on his face or forgive myself for causing it.

We weren't to be together all that long. The Saxons were too close, and the knights had to make a stand to protect us. Before recounting the rest of my time with them, I must describe them as best I can, because when I'm too old to remember with clarity the colors and sounds of those intense hours, I will look for a record of these men that risked their lives, however reluctantly, to save mine. I will want to remember them as they were then, still Sarmatian knights in the service of the Roman Empire.

Arthur, of course, is always first in my thoughts. He was gravely handsome, a man of quiet power, clearly used to the weight of command. His eyes were large and rather greenish, his teeth whiter than any I had seen. His dark hair tended to curl tightly in the damp weather. Of all things about him, I found his voice to be the most compelling. Later, when I returned to Rome, I would walk through the velabrum, the general market, and imagine I had heard that voice, and I would stop to look around me for the source.

His first knight, Lancelot, was the flashy one. He wore two swords on his back and he rode his horse like a showman, moving up and down the column of refugees, his dark eyes watching for trouble. There seemed to be a tension between Arthur and Lancelot, and as an observer I didn't understand it then. But now I believe I do, and I find a poignancy in even the tiniest memory I have of seeing the two side by side.

Bors, loud and brash, seemed to fear nothing and mock everything. He scraped his head and wore markings on his flesh like a barbarian, but his quick laugh and expressive face belied the ferocity of his battle roar. I liked him, as little as I knew him. Even fiercer looking, with a long scar through one side of his face, the tall knight Dagonet had a gentle mien that kept him at the side of the injured boy Lucan much of the time, even through the night.    

Gawain and Galahad appeared to be close comrades. The long-haired Gawain struck me as a fearless and level-headed protector, while the often-smiling Galahad had a boyish quality that even the mean life of a knight couldn't totally squelch. I wondered at how long their friendship had lasted and how long it would last into the future, and I remember deciding to believe that they would always be paired in some way, even if it be in death.

Finally, the man who interested me the most of any knight excepting Arthur was the one who acted as scout, often sent ahead of our group to find the best route for us to follow. He was called Tristan, but to me he was a vision of what I imagined to be the look and demeanor of the great king of the Huns, Attila. His face was marked with black accents, his keen eyes shadowed by tendrils of braided hair, his mouth a taut line. He carried a curved Scythian sword. He had a quiet sort of power and concentration, as Attila must have had. I wanted to speak to him, but despite being well schooled in the art of rhetoric, I could think of nothing to say.

When the knights were forced to take their stand, we were crossing a frozen mountain lake, the drums very loud behind us. The ominous sound of snapping ice under the feet of the horses and the wheels of the wagons had everyone nervously looking to the knights. I saw when they stopped and faced one another, suddenly resigned to their duty. I got out of the wagon and went to them.

Ganis, the man from our village who had asked to serve Arthur, was arguing that he should be allowed to stay behind.

"I need you to lead the people," Arthur told him.

"You're seven against two hundred!" Ganis protested. The Woad woman then offered her bow; having easily felled my father, I had no doubt she would be of use.

Arthur instructed Ganis on the route to take and charged my father's mercenary soldiers to follow the peasant's command. The men agreed, and in the strangeness of the situation, I believed their assent to be honest.

"I am able. I can fight," I said to Arthur. I had never really seen a battle, but I had seen men suffer and die, and I knew the odds against the knights were impossible, just as Ganis had said. I knew how to ride and how to handle a bow, and in my mind I was one with these knights.

But Arthur shook his head. "No. You must bear witness to what you have seen." He laid his left hand on the side of my neck, his long fingers touching my face. "There's one thing you must do, and that's get back to Rome."

This moment seemed to last forever, and I remember wishing it could. I felt his touch on my skin long after he removed it, and even much later, when I returned to Rome, I could close my eyes and conjure the memory of Arthur's eyes on my face and his hand on my flesh, the warmth of that contact spreading throughout my frozen limbs.

When I left with the others, I never expected to see the knights again. But somehow most of them survived their encounter with the Saxons on the ice. Only the gentle giant, Dagonet, succumbed, and the sight of young Lucan's face as he beheld the body of his rescuer and friend tied to the back of his horse is one I'll always remember.

Bishop Germanus was overjoyed to see me arrive safely at the Roman fortress. He seemed less than interested to know what had become of my father, and I was surprised that the mercenaries didn't immediately begin to tell tales of our flight. We had come safely through the mountains together, this unlikely group of fellows, and it was enough that we were alive. I did not desire Germanus' company; in fact, the sight of him disgusted me, reminding me too much of my father and his endless lectures about the church.

When the bishop relayed the greetings of my godfather, I could barely nod politely. I craved the company of only one person on earth, and I knew I would be the last one he would have time for now.

When we left Badon Hill, we were an even larger caravan of peasants, serfs, Roman soldiers and assorted other refugees. Ganis, Lucan and some of the other men, including two of my father's mercenaries, had stayed behind. With us went the Sarmatian knights, all but Arthur. That morning we saw him, he and his horse both adorned in full armor, on the top of the hill that crested above the great wall. It was a sad but glorious sight, this one brave man committed to a cause beyond all understanding. The Saxons waited on the other side of the wall, a horde of thousands. Arthur was bound to die.

As we passed by, Bors fell out of step and rode toward the hill, his sword raised. He gave a strange battle cry, and after a moment, Arthur answered it. I couldn't make out the word or the language, but the emotion was clear. The sound of that cry resonated in me for days after, as though it had given voice to feelings that had grown in me since the first time I saw Arthur standing below the wall of our estate.

When the knights finally decided to leave our company and return to stand with their commander, we waited and watched as they donned their battle gear. I'll never forget the sight of the five of them and how they looked adorned in their armor and helmets, their horses as well-outfitted as they, each knight holding a different fluttering standard.

After they rode away, I turned my face to the corner of the wagon and let the tears fall. I had never seen anything so brave or so beautiful. I wished to hold the moment as long as I could, not allowing myself to imagine the annihilation awaiting the tiny, courageous force.

It was some time before I was to learn what became of Arthur and his Sarmatian knights. But as we faced the long journey back to Rome, I could only believe they were now dead heroes, their bodies littering a plain in Britain.

Two of the remaining mercenary soldiers accompanied us when we went home, as well as Bishop Germanus and his servants. There were those in Rome who still esteemed the name of Honorius, so we knew we would have a place there. My mother still had her own fortune and what was left of my father's estate to return to, and I knew that Hilarus awaited me. I now doubted I would find a life serving the church, although I believed this was still in my mother's plans.  
  
It had been many years since I had seen the great city, and it struck me both how familiar and how strange it seemed. I myself was the most changed, and I walked around the streets of Rome like a stranger, my clothing more at home than my heart.

My godfather was delighted to see me and quick to arrange for my further education and advancement in the church. Bishop Germanus was given credit for my safe return, and I saw he clearly benefited politically by it. I found him so distasteful at this point, I could barely stand sitting in the same room. My attitude was not lost on the pope, but he asked me nothing about it, allowing me time to re-acclimate myself to Roman life. I suppose he thought I missed my father, even though he knew we had never been all that affectionate.

He took great pleasure in showing me the beautiful churches and chapels he had erected in Rome, one magnificent oratory in honor of St. John the Apostle, his patron saint. He had even had two new public baths erected, along with libraries and a convent. As pope, Hilarus had done what he could to restore the glory of Rome.

I, myself, did everything I could think of to readjust to the city, finding its glory as hollow as its ancient aqueducts.  

I walked down the Via Sacra, through the Forum of Caesar, into the basilicas and past the courthouses, listening to the baying of the spectators and the orations of the lawyers.

I climbed Palatine Hill and gazed over the vastness of architecture, still intact despite the sackings of two generations of barbarians.

I even wandered through the narrow alleys of the subura, unafraid of the robbers and prostitutes who did business there, passing the barber shops and merchants, rubbing shoulders with the slaves who did their shopping there.

This was where I had been born. This was one of the greatest centers of civilization on earth. This was a city teeming with life and activity.

For me, it was an empty place.

Several nights after we had re-opened our townhouse, I found myself unable to sleep and wandered through the halls, pausing at the door to the cellar. I lit a lamp and climbed down the stone steps, attempting all the while to ignite my memories from twelve years earlier when the streets of Rome were full of Vandals and the people hid inside their homes, cowering under beds or closeted in large trunks. I studied the spot where I had sat for so many hours in my mother's lap, her arms cradling me, my father's agitation unnerving me.

The memories were like stories told by a stranger now. They seemed so far away, so unreal compared with the immediacy of the sound of Saxon drums and the sad war cry of the Sarmatian knights. I could not care any longer about the loss of Rome's treasures or the influence of barbarian cultures on Roman life.

My body might be located in Rome, but my heart and mind were still held by that cold island to the north.

I had been home only a few weeks when I was suddenly called to an audience with my godfather. I went to see him with anticipation, ready at last to talk to him of Arthur and the knights, wanting to make my comparisons with his experience of meeting Attila, King of the Huns.

When I arrived at his residence I found him abed with a fever, surrounded by bishops and other religious, too tired from the medicines he had been given to do much more than squeeze my hand and remind me of his affection.

Within the week, he died.

I had not been back in Rome for more than a few weeks, and the man who had sent for me was dead.

It's difficult to remember how I felt then, how I carried myself through the next few days and the weeks that followed with no one but my mother to comfort me, unwilling to let her know just how much I needed that comfort. The days that stretched ahead of me appeared empty of meaning, and the city that had seemed so strange when we first returned was now more unfriendly than ever. A new pope was announced just three days after Hilarus' death.

My future as a religious was now officially over. I had no intention of continuing my studies in the church or of toadying to men like Germanus or Simplicius, the new pope.

I wondered briefly if Arthur would have been ashamed of me. I had not done as he asked, reporting on the injustices performed in Britain in the name of the church. I had not even taken the chance to speak to my godfather of the Sarmatian knights and their ultimate sacrifice, or to tell him of their unfair treatment at the hands of Germanus. Perhaps it had occurred to me that he might not have cared, that the man I had once known and learned from would have turned out to be as big a disappointment as my own father.

I was lonely and unhappy.

It went on this way for some time -- days, weeks and then, finally, a full year. I lost myself in my studies, learning more about the philosophy of the man who had captured Arthur's imagination, Pelagius. While much of his work had been purposely destroyed, the written teachings of his companion Caelestius could still be found. I didn't find references to the freedom and equality of men that Arthur had alluded to, but I could see the pagan and Stoic influences that gave credit to a man's moral strength of will.

Pelagius had been a monk but not a cleric, and he had supposedly lived a life of asceticism and austerity, despite being fond of food and somewhat portly. He was known to have traveled to Britain as well as to the Eastern Empire, and he wrote and spoke both Latin and Greek fluently. His relationship with the eunuch Caelestius was what had led my father to refer to him as a sodomite, among many derogatory terms he used. I wondered at this relationship, finding it somehow comforting that a man of such high morality could still seek companionship in another man, even a eunuch.

How many times did I wish I could have the chance to sit with Arthur and discuss Pelagius and his philosophies? I could imagine us talking together while steaming in the laconicum -- the dry sweating room at the baths -- before getting a long massage. I wondered if Arthur had ever had much of an opportunity to indulge himself in these typically Roman pleasures, assuming most of his life had been spent in service and at war.

By now I was 15 years of age, getting close to the time of life most Romans took a spouse. To my relief, my mother didn't mention this to me, and she was content for us to keep mostly to ourselves. Her health had failed since returning to Rome, and she spent most of her time in the atrium or the peristylium, either reading or tending her plants. The rest of the time she prayed in our small chapel. Since the death of Hilarus, our importance in Roman society had shrunk. This suited me, because I had little care to attend the myriad parties and social events of the city.

One day I was walking in the forum and overheard a conversation regarding Britain and conditions there. Two praetors were discussing the end of Roman rule in the north with a soldier just recently returned.

"He seeks to unite all of Britain under his rule. He reaches out to the native cultures as well as possible invaders, and he has supposedly started some sort of military training that rivals that of the Sarmatian knights."

I moved closer, immediately intrigued. I didn't dare to hope they could be speaking of Arthur, but despite my rationality, my heart had begun to pound.

"He's Roman. He used to live here," one praetor said. "How could he become king of Britain?"

The soldier shrugged. "I think his mother was a Briton. His father is buried there. It's hard to separate fact from legend, to tell the truth. The people are so damned superstitious. They say he defeated Cerdic the Saxon single-handedly." He gave a derisive laugh.

I knew now without a doubt that they spoke of Arthur. He had, indeed, somehow survived the Saxon battle. He was the only man who could possibly hope to unite the disparate tribes and peoples of Britain.

Arthur still lived!

On my return home, I found my mother praying in the chapel and interrupted her to recount the good news. She was at least a little aware of my preoccupation with Arthur and the Sarmatian knights, so she now smiled and stroked my face and told me how happy she was. But I could still sense the distance in her, and I knew she really had no idea what this discovery meant to me.

If Arthur were alive in Britain, I knew I would return there. Somehow. Someday.

For the first time in our many months in Rome, I had found a glimmer of my future. So I now set about spending the next two years giving my dying mother the companionship and peace she had earned by her unfailing kindness to me, even in the face of my father's stern disapproval. As time past, I valued her more and more, appreciating the strength she had shown in following my father from Rome to Ravenna to the wilds of Britain. There she had tried to counteract his villainy by finding surreptitious ways to care for his victims. Sometimes these efforts had been met with success, certainly in the case of Lucan, the boy my father had tried to kill twice.

And during this time, I also found ways to ingratiate myself to the emperor, Anthemius.

Anthemius had become the western emperor the same year I left Britain. A Greek, he had originally had the support of both the eastern emperor and of Ricimer, the barbarian who had held power in the west since the Vandals sacked Rome. Anthemius had married his daughter to Ricimer to further cement their relationship, but recent events had created a rift between the two. Ricimer, the emperor's 'Master of Soldiers,' had removed himself to Milan, and the western empire seemed to now be splitting between the two men.

I sensed the end for one of them was coming, and history would seem to point to the emperor being the most vulnerable. Nonetheless, my adventures in Britain and my tales of the last pope and his encounter with Attila the Hun made for distracting conversation for a man beset by issues at home and abroad. Anthemius seemed to think this young Roman of noble birth had been smiled on by both the church and state, so he enjoyed having me around, especially after the death of his own son, Anthemiolus, in Gaul.

At the end of my 17th year, my mother took to her bed and never left it. She died in her sleep one late winter night, her hand grasping a small wooden cross she had brought with her from Britain. I wept when I found her. I made sure she was awarded lavish funeral rites, and she was buried in the churchyard of St. Laurence Outside the Walls where Pope Hilarus was interred.

I was suddenly completely alone in the world, despite my friendship with the emperor and my longing for a king across the sea.

After my 18th birthday, I saw a solicitor about consolidating what was left of my family fortune, and I went about outfitting myself for travel and finding a safe route to Britain. Now that my mother was dead, there was nothing holding me to Rome. It took months and the intervention of the emperor for me to finally get out of Italy and on a ship north. But after a relatively uneventful voyage, I found myself once more on the shores of the island I had left four years earlier, ready to set out seeking whatever destiny this land had in store for me.

After my time in Rome, I had come home.

It was summer now, and the sometimes frigid land was ripe and blooming; there was a strange spirit in the air, and I questioned the first people I found, asking about recent events in their country. Although my accent certainly gave me away, the clothing I wore was no longer Roman. I was dressed in shirt, trousers and a leather jerkin, and I looked as Briton as anyone. I was armed with a short sword and a knife hidden in one boot, so that if I were beset by brigands, I would to be able to defend myself. In the first town I visited, I found a horse for purchase. Its seller was happy to regale me with tales of King Arthur and his 'round table,' asking if I planned to ride north and apply for knighthood.

I nodded. "I suppose so," I said. I wondered if I would qualify.

"Where is it?" I asked. "Where should I go?"

"Head northeast to Cadbury," he told me. "King Arthur's built a hill-fort there."

King Arthur! How the sound of that name lifted my spirits.

If the Romans had left nothing else in Britain, their excellent roads still served the people well. So I found the best road leading in the direction I had been told, and I gave my somewhat sad little horse a kick. My heart was the lightest it had been in my life.

It took me two days to get to Cadbury. I stopped at several villages along the way, learning more about King Arthur and his court. For four years Arthur had seemingly been battling his opposers, trying to unite the land while enlisting the locals to become knights. There were many references to the round table and these knights, as well as to the Woad magician, Merlin.

I asked specifically about the Sarmatians, but it was rare that anyone seemed to have heard of Lancelot or Tristan or Bors.

"Oh, I've heard of Lancelot," one young man finally said. "He could fight with two swords."

I nodded, remembering the swords on Lancelot's back.

"Arthur had to kill him," the man reported, "because he tried to lay with the queen."

This news shocked me, and, thinking back on the strained friendship between the two men, I nearly believed it. But the memory of Arthur's kind, tired eyes belied any capacity to kill a friend as close as Lancelot, regardless of the offense. It was just another legend.

I decided not to ask any more questions until I reached the fortress at Cadbury.

It was dusk when the large fortress loomed ahead. On the top of the hill stood a thick stone wall marked by several wooden watch towers. The wall seemed to incorporate fragments of Roman masonry probably salvaged from derelict buildings; the gatehouse definitely showed touches of Roman architecture.

This, then, was Arthur's headquarters.

I was stopped outside the gate by a sentry who asked my name and my business.

"I am Alecto," I said proudly and gravely, remembering the first day I had seen Arthur. "I come to speak to the king."

"Lay down your arms," he instructed me, "and you may enter these walls."

I did as I was told, entering the fort with awe. Inside were several timber structures, one in the center larger and taller than the others. All around these structures, tents and huts had been erected. The place was teeming with men of all descriptions, and I caught several dialects being spoken.

I stood in the center of the courtyard, suddenly unsure of myself.

And then, I saw him. He had obviously been told of my arrival, because his expressive eyes were sweeping the crowd in front of him. Before I could step forward, he saw me, and for the first time I beheld that comely face transformed by a smile.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I think I was grinning and laughing as he ran toward me. There we stood, two of the most serious and sober of men, brimming with happiness at the sight of one another.

He embraced me like a brother or a friend.

"Alecto! I never thought to see you in Britain again."

"I never thought to see you," I said. "I believed you were surely dead."

Now his smile turned grim. "It's through some miracle that I still live. It was God's will that my life be spared."

I looked around, searching for the faces of the Sarmatian knights. "And the others? Are they with you?"

He didn't answer me right away. He took hold of my arm and led me forward, away from the curious eyes surrounding us. "Come into the citadel. We can talk in peace."

We entered the large structure in the center of the fort, and he led me into a room lit by lamps and a large brazier. Around this room were couches covered with fur throws and tables holding maps and scrolls.

"My war room," he said. "I spend many of my nights here, catching a bit of sleep on one of these couches."

"And Lancelot? Does he stay here with you?"

He turned and reached for a clay pitcher and poured what looked like wine into two small goblets. He handed me one, his eyes avoiding mine. I took a drink, poising myself for whatever news he had.

"Arthur! Two riders have come from the north to join us! They've brought several extra horses!"

We both looked to the doorway where Galahad stood, grinning. At the sight of the Sarmatian knight, my heart lifted.

"Look who else has rejoined us," Arthur announced. "Alecto has returned from Rome!"

Galahad rushed into the room and embraced me, also treating me like an old friend. "How are you, boy?" he asked. "And how is your lady mother?"

"My mother died a few months ago," I said.

"I'm sorry to hear it. She was a very great lady." For one short moment the smile left Galahad's face. Then he grinned again. "I thought you were supposed to become the next pope or something! What are you doing here?"

I tried to smile back at him. "My godfather, Pope Hilarus, died just a few short weeks after I left Britain. The church will go on without me."

Arthur cleared his throat and we looked over at him. "Galahad, tell Bors and Gawain of Alecto's return. I'd like for us all to dine together tomorrow."

Galahad nodded. "I'll tell them." Then he gave me a wink and left the room.

I turned to Arthur. "Lancelot and Tristan? What became of them?" I asked.

"They died at Badon Hill," he said.

I sighed and sat down on one of the couches. In a moment, he joined me. "Lancelot knew he would die there," he said. "He as much as prophecied it before we ever left Hadrian's Wall to go north and retrieve your family."

"What was between you on that trip?" I asked. "I never felt he wanted to be there."

Arthur's eyes looked far away as he thought back. "He didn't. He was angry with me for taking the charge from Germanus. He had done with Rome and with Rome's business. As deep as our friendship was, he could not forgive me for taking the knights north."

I took another drink of the rich wine, wondering for a moment where it had come from. "But he loved you," I said quietly. "I could see that."

He nodded at me, his searching eyes suddenly making me uncomfortable. "Yes. We loved one another. And so he stayed behind and died in a cause not his own. For me."

At the sight of his pain, I reached out and brushed the back of his hand with my fingers. He looked surprised at my touch.

"Tristan was felled by Cerdic's sword," he said. "I saw it with my own eyes." He paused for a moment. "I didn't see Lancelot struck down. I didn't find him until he was already dead." His voice was bitter and close to tears.

"A man I spoke to said you had killed him yourself for lying with the queen. I knew this couldn't be true."

He was quiet for a moment, studying his goblet. "Guinevere, the Woad woman your mother tended, is now my wife," he said. "Marrying her helped me unite the Britons."

I nodded, thinking back. The warrior woman was a fitting mate for Arthur. But I doubted she had taken the place in his heart of his handsome first knight, Lancelot.

He stood up now and gestured for me to do the same, telling me he would find me a fit place to wash and sleep. We set down our goblets and I followed him quietly, wishing we could have sat for longer on the large couch just enjoying one another's company. For so many years I had yearned to be beside him, studying his face and listening to his voice. I would have been willing to simply sit and observe his work, saying nothing at all.

I loved him. I had known it from that first sight of him astride his tall, white horse.

It was enough to be back in Britain, back in his land, back within the reach of his warm hand and long fingers.

He might not reach for me right away. But the time would come. I had always known it.

It was destiny.

The End