FIC: "The Hairshirt" (1/1)
AUTHOR: Mistress Marilyn camelotslash-2 at qwest.net
DATE: November 13, 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: Angst, death, some implied slash. This is a dark one.
SUMMARY: Arthur's two best knights are dead. While the bodies are prepared for burial, Arthur learns something surprising about one of them.
BETA: CharlieMC (thanks, as always!)
AUTHOR NOTES: "Cilice" -- on November 3 it was featured on A.Word.A.Day. Plot bunnies often visit me from sources like this one.

"Shall we prepare the bodies in some way?" asked the peasant Ganis, looking down at the bloody remains of the two fallen knights laid out on the long wooden table. Nearby lay their swords, three in all, one with a curved blade.

Arthur Castus stood aside, silent, his eyes far away. He could not allow himself to look at the bodies or to speak.

"Wrap them in cloth. We'll attend to the burial tomorrow," said Bors.

"You don't want them bathed and combed?"

Bors shrugged. "As you wish. Whatever's customary." Then he turned to Arthur. "Come," he said. "You need rest."

Arthur shook his head. "I'll wait with them," he said. He had walked away far too many times while the bodies of his knights were readied for burial. This time he would remain.

Galahad appeared, a grim smile on his face. "Gawain is lying down, at last. He's lost some blood, but if the wound doesn't fester, he should be all right."

Bors reached out a hand and grasped Galahad's shoulder. "He'll be fine," he said. "Gawain has to prove he's the strongest of us all."

Galahad nodded, glancing down at the bodies. "Now I suppose he is."

Arthur stepped forward and waved his two knights away. "Get cleaned up and find food. We have long days ahead." Then he went down on his knees near the table and folded his hands.

Bors and Galahad stood for a moment watching him. Then Bors looked at Galahad, shaking his head. The two knights walked quietly away.

While Arthur appeared to pray, Ganis and another peasant began to tend to the fallen knights. As they had no oils or unguents, they used water warmed at a nearby fire to wash away the blood from the dead faces. A young woman came forward with a rough comb to groom the knights' hair.

Ganis pointed to the rents in one of the knight's clothing. "We will sew this up. Let us undress him."

He and another of the young men carefully began to remove the clothing from the bodies so they could be bathed. All the while they worked, Arthur kept his head bowed, using all of his will power to govern his thoughts. On the table lay the two men he valued above all others on earth, and they were both lost to him. While he knew he had to go on, he could not conceive at the moment just how he would do so.

"What is this?" Ganis said. "How strange!"

Arthur looked up and saw the young peasant holding out a tan garment, stained with blood. One of the women took it from him, rubbing her hands across it and making a low sound in her throat. All work stopped while this piece of clothing was examined, and Arthur now stood up, curious.

"What is it? Give it to me."

Ganis handed him the garment, a sleeveless shift with a short tie. It was unremarkable in all ways, except in its rough texture.

"A cilice," Arthur said under his breath. He looked up. "Who was wearing this?"

"He was, sir. The scout," Ganis said, gesturing toward one of the bodies.

Arthur approached the table and looked down at the fallen knights. On the right lay Lancelot, skin white and unblemished except for the arrow wound in his chest. He looked as though he were sleeping, his features devoid of his usual expressiveness, the dancing dark eyes closed, the full lips still livid and slightly parted. Despite the dark beard, his curl-framed face was as pretty as a girl's. Chest aching, it was all Arthur could do to tear his eyes away.

On the left was Tristan. Long tangled hair strewn about his face, Tristan's eyes still stared at something only he could see. His body was much more damaged than Lancelot's, his mid-section and throat both lacerated by a Saxon sword. Arthur ignored the wounds and looked closely at Tristan's bare chest. There he saw the reddened signs of the shirt he had worn, his skin irritated and in some spots inflamed.

Arthur reached out and ran his own bloodied fingers over the knight's flesh, as if he would find some tactile answer there.

"Why, Tristan?" he said aloud. Why had the knight purposely suffered? What was there about Tristan that he had never known or never guessed? What had driven his stoic scout to wear a hairshirt?

* * * * *

He watched them from afar, as always, waiting for them to catch up, to learn what he had already learned. They were taking their time, pausing to talk and to laugh, and he could imagine their caustic jokes and ribaldry. He could see without really seeing the patience on Arthur's world-weary features, as he allowed the men time for social intercourse. These were the best of his fighting men, and there were few of them left now.

He was the scout, and it was his duty to ride ahead. Sometimes he would take the first strike, if it were allowed, but usually he would just watch and then report. He chose the best routes for the knights, and he tried to anticipate the tactics of others.

He was skilled at the most undervalued arts of war -- listening and waiting.

He was patient without being passive.

When the time came for engagement, he was ruthless and obdurate. His skills with the sword and especially the bow were near to mystical. He killed without pretext or remorse -- and his body count was usually second only to Lancelot's; he cared little that some of the other knights found his attitude inhuman. The knights were forced to kill or be killed more often than not, so why should the killing not come easy to them? Tristan was efficient at everything he did for Arthur's Table, and he knew he was highly valued. It was enough.

Tristan slept most nights without dreams. He had trained himself not to look back, and he had nothing in his life he looked forward to. While most of the knights longed for their freedom, Tristan thought little about returning to the land of his birth. He was not sentimental about the nomadic life of the Sarmatian tribes, and he doubted he would enjoy wandering the earth in his homeland any better than his forays with the knights.

Nothing in him longed to be settled. He was content to go on as he had for fifteen years, fighting alongside Arthur and the knights, down to the last man.

In his adult life, Tristan had loved two people. One of them, another of the knights, had died some years earlier, when Tristan was first perfecting the skills that made him an excellent scout. This young knight had been the gentlest and kindest of the lot, a man of light and air, unsuited to the bloody work of the Table and as different in temperament from Tristan as any man could be. Tristan had constantly been watching out for him, fighting at his side or his back, trying to intercept the death that was always waiting.

But when he was away on one of his tasks for Arthur, a small group of knights had been surrounded by Woads and cut down. Tristan had been the one to find them, on his way back to the fort to make his report. He had seen the restless war-horses waiting alongside the road, and as he approached he had guessed already what he would find.

Four knights dead, and among them the one fair face he had waited every day to see, now still and bloodied.

He had lifted the bodies up and tied them on two of the horses, then led them back to the fort. He had never shed a tear or uttered a moan or pulled at his hair. But from that day he had learned to take pleasure in each skirmish involving the barbarian Picts, and to look forward to the next.

The evening after the four knights were buried, Tristan had lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing. Then he had gotten up, found a knife and shred his mattress. From that night on, he slept on a mat on the hard floor.

The other person Tristan loved was Arthur. He never hoped to know another man as noble or deserving of loyalty as the commander of the knights. Tristan didn't understand many of the aspects of Arthur's complex personality, but he had learned to follow him with barely a question. He didn't care about Arthur's religion or his education, as important as those things seemed to be to the man. He found Arthur's fascination with the written word as mystifying as the other knights did. But he knew one of the driving forces in Arthur's life was loss -- terrible personal loss suffered at a young age.

In this, at least, they were alike.

And Tristan knew Arthur trusted and valued him, perhaps even loved him in some way. Despite the sometimes mysterious traits that kept the other knights at a distance, Arthur saw something in Tristan he respected and even admired. And though they never spoke of it, both knew it.

Tristan considered himself lucky to live, to fight and to someday die beside Arthur Castus.

A trader from Gaul showed up one day in a nearby village with wares from the East, including some fine fabrics and spices. The rural Britons were unused to such finery, but the knights had enjoyed looking through the crowded trunks. On the bottom of one of these, Tristan had found a roll of coarse cloth, somehow familiar.

"Ah, that is from Cilicia, obtained from pirates who wrapped their enemies' genitals in that cloth," said the trader. "Very popular with the Christian priests and monks who use it to fashion under-shirts. It is made from the skin of Cilician goats."

Galahad's grin turned into a grimace. "These Cilician goats must be fearsome creatures. That damn stuff would tear a man's flesh! Why would a priest want to wear it?"

"Suffering brings them closer to their god," the trader answered, shrugging.

After the other knights walked away, Tristan bought the fabric. Later, he used his knife to cut the cloth into the shape he desired. Then he sewed the shirt with his own hands and started wearing it beneath his own clothes, careful to keep the other knights from seeing it.

Tristan believed strongly in two things -- pain and death. As long as he could feel pain, he was still alive. When pain ended, he would be dead. And death, for Tristan, held no image of heaven as Arthur's god promised or even of reincarnation, as some of the knights believed. For Tristan, death meant rest and the cessation of pain. So, while he clung to the very things that brought about his physical suffering, he looked forward to the end of that suffering. Once earned, it would be welcome. Concepts like happiness and contentment were more foreign to him than the rains of the north or the blue paint worn by the Woads. It never occurred to him that his self-inflicted suffering had become a sort of pleasure. Physical discomfort made life more bearable and understandable. It kept him alert and alive, for now. Later, it wouldn't matter anymore.

The only other person on earth Tristan believed could understand this was Arthur. Arthur was destined to suffer, both physically and emotionally, Tristan knew. But through his suffering, he would inspire the men and women whose lives he touched. It was thus with great men -- and Arthur Castus was a great man.

* * * * *

Now Arthur stood looking at the dead body of his scout, trying to fathom what had driven him to wear such a hellish garment. Tristan, always implacable and always reliable, had never sought to share his inner thoughts with his commander. He had kept to himself in most ways, his sharp eyes always looking out, never allowing others to look within.

"You never shared your pain with me," Arthur said to the dead knight. "Now you're free of it."

He handed the hairshirt to Ganis and told him to burn it. "Don't speak of this to anyone else. Do you understand?"

Their eyes met. Ganis nodded.

Arthur reached down and gently closed Tristan's eyes. "Sleep well, my friend. When the time comes, I will trust you to show me the way." Studying the distinctive face with the dark accents on both cheeks, Arthur paused. He wondered if Tristan might already be doing just that . . .

After a few moments, Arthur turned to the other beloved form on the table. Starting to weep, he bent over the body of Lancelot and kissed the curved, smooth lips, his tears falling on the knight's peaceful face. "Goodbye, my First Knight," he whispered. "I will burn you as you asked, and I will look for you in the wind." He allowed himself a moment of grief, then he straightened and glanced over at the waiting Ganis.

"I thought better of it," he said, reaching out his hand. "Give the shirt to me."

The peasant-turned-warrior nodded and handed his commander the garment. Arthur managed to reward him with a small smile as he folded the hairshirt under his arm, then turned and walked away.

The End