Arthur had been surprisingly fervent and voluble about the sinful nature of Tristan's slave. As soon as Gawain had dragged Kation out, Arthur had crossed his arms in that particular way of his which only spoke of disapproval.
"You were my last hope," he sighed, his tone one of utter despair.
The words stunned Tristan, and he threw his commanding officer an incredulous look.
"You were the only one… who wasn't…" and here Arthur blushed.
… Blushed.
Tristan was even more worried. "I wasn't…?"
"You weren't a debaucher!" Arthur said dejectedly. "I know that as pagans, Sarmatians' ideas of such things are different to Christian standards, but you seemed so uninterested in… well, anything! And I thought you were my one chaste knight who would never cause me embarrassment."
Tristan, thoroughly bewildered, felt he ought to defend himself. "Arthur, you know as well as any man here that I have occasionally been with women from the village. I am hardly chaste, although I can see how such an impression might arise when compared to men like Lancelot. I think you have been mistakenly heeding perverse rumours from that man with regards to my slave."
Arthur coloured again, proving the suspicion correct. But he soldiered on in the face of Tristan's calm logic. "But this is unnatural! It's too much! You are corrupting an innocent boy in your heinous pursuit of carnal pleasure!"
Tristan fought the urge to laugh at the absurdity of Arthur's words. "I hardly think a healthy interest…" he began, but Arthur was on a roll and would not stop until he had said all he meant to say.
"There is 'healthy interest', and then there are the rampaging beasts known as Sarmatian knights! You will never get to heaven if you do such sinful things!" he said, and the final words were more of an agonised whimper than an impassioned plea upon Tristan's dubious moral character.
"Arthur!" Tristan said, raising his voice slightly. The half-Roman seemed to be jerked from his slightly frenzied state and looked almost ashamed of himself. "I am not interested in boys!"
"So why did you buy him?" Arthur pleaded.
"I thought that there was more to him than just writing and a pretty face. After the attack he proved to be very resourceful and quick-witted – he saved my life."
"Do you think he will do well here?" Arthur said, the rational part of his mind taking over once more, although Tristan could see it was a tremendous effort.
"I think between helping you, running errands and attending to me, he will be too busy to ever cause us worry." Tristan tried to inject some strength into his voice. It seemed to work on hardening Arthur's resolve to be kind to Kation and his confidence in his knight's judgement. But the scout felt hollow and tired at the thought of chasing after the girl and making sure she kept out of trouble.
"And he sleeps…?"
Tristan sighed; if he answered truthfully, then Arthur would lose all goodwill and probably order Tristan to free the girl at once. So he had to tell just one, very blatant lie. "He sleeps on the floor, like a little animal." He said, with an accusing look.
"Oh, well that's alright then." Arthur said with a satisfied nod.
~oOo~
Kahedin followed the slave because he had nothing better to do, and it meant he didn't have to look at Gaheris – always a good thing. Kation hastily untacked the horse and threw the saddle onto the stall door. It was sheer bad luck that they had both decided to head to the stables at exactly the same time.
"Scraper… sponge…" the slave muttered, clearly a little flustered as he looked about for the items in question.
Kahedin took pity on him. "In the tack room. Shall I get a bucket of water?" he asked.
Kation shot him a grateful look and went to fetch them, the saddle and bridle tucked under one arm.
And another piece of the puzzle fell into place. If the child really had been a slave his whole life, then he would have been confused by the offer of help from a freeborn knight. Instead, he had simply affirmed that Kahedin's assistance would be welcome. Now all that remained was to ascertain the slave's true gender and he would have more than enough to confront Tristan with.
Kahedin looked around for a spare bucket and filled it from the well in the outer courtyard, dumping it as close to Tagiytei's stall as he could get while staying out of biting range. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that Gawain knew something too. The easy, confident way he'd talked with Tristan and Kation, despite his natural trepidation in the face of Tristan's wrath, suggested a degree of knowledge that the rest of them were not privy to.
So he had thought to tell a fool like Gawain the secret? Was it even that important? Kahedin resolved to get the truth from the slave as soon as possible – even if he had to strip Kation naked.
When the youth returned, Kahedin handed him the bucket and watched as the boy washed the horse of sweat and grime. The slave was clearly very fond of horses, because he barely glanced at Kahedin while he worked.
Once he was finished, and Tagiytei had finished trying to knock over his water and eat Kation's hair (he'd got a smack on the nose for his efforts), the slave tiredly shut the horse in his stall and managed to walk straight into Kahedin.
Perfect. He caught Kation by the upper arms and squeezed tightly, eliciting a small intake of breath and a confused glare.
"Come now," he said reasonably. "I wouldn't hurt my friend's slave – I just want to talk to your master."
~oOo~
He knew! Sweet Lord of the Custard he knew! My head was spinning as he dragged me up to Tristan's room and I just knew that my master was going to kill me when Kahedin confronted him! As I was biting back a hysterical sob at the thought of my mutilated remains reviving in a ditch, I collided abruptly with Tristan's door that Kahedin slammed me against. Seeing stars, I was too dazed to do anything as the knight tucked me against his side once more and opened the door.
My master was lying in bed and staring at us in a mixture of surprise and extreme annoyance. Galahad had already left, which spared us an unenlightened audience, at least.
"What are you doing?" Tristan growled, wearing a particularly surly expression as he sat up.
Kahedin shoved me to the floor and loomed over my ticket to survival. I was pleased that I could at least think of him as a sort of boss, even if 'master' was stretching it way too far. He was like some sort of really irritating social reject that I'd been told to work with. But when I saw Kahedin reach down to grab the front of Tristan's tunic, I'll admit that my instincts took over.
I launched myself at the knight's back and knocked him down onto Tristan so we were in a sprawled tangle on the bed. I wrapped my arms around Kahedin's neck and tried to pry him off my only trustworthy ally.
Instead, a pair of hands grabbed the back of my tunic and hair (ouch!) to haul me off Kahedin, who was half-strangled as we were both dragged off Tristan. My tattooed friend was grimacing in pain, not paying attention as my unseen assailant let go of my tunic (but not my head) and gripped my arm, wrenching it off Kahedin's throat.
I went limp, knowing that very bad things were in my immediate future anyway, and to continue throttling a knight would only make said bad things worse.