(no subject)

[lord-alexander.livejournal.com]

Title: The Wanderer - Part V/?
Author: Serpentis lord_alexander
Pairing: Impossibly AU and historical Arthurian!Monaboyd with a few other pairings thrown in for some good measure, aye?
Rating: At the moment, it's a PG13 for the swearing. As usual
Summary: Dominic hates Saxons, but then who doesn't? Driven out of his home by the invaders, he is a lowly and rather bored young knight at the court of Arthur. William is of the Kingdom of Dal Riada, and comes to the court of Arthur to filfil his personal destiny. But then what does this matter when death is just a swordblade away?
Disclaimer: Not mine. Even in AU.
Feedback: Almost as precious as my history.
Author's Notes: Ah, I am back. The next few weeks are going to be insane, so I'll try my best with chapters. Wedding (not mine *snicker*) and Holiday (round Scotland on a Boat. Sounds like a Bill Bryson book) but I will endeavour! I will surive *dances* Oh no. Aretha Franklin moment. And the Olympics eats my brain, people. Such a sports whore at the moment.

Previous parts - [I][II][III][IV]


They always walked, like this, into the darkness, into the unforgiving nothingness.

Tonight, there was moonlight, the moon waxing full, everything silvered. The broad sluggish Wye trickled like molten pewter past trees twisted in burnished steel, everything was silver, or shadow, and hard and brittle in the strangeness of the light. Moonlight, or starlight, gave that strange unease to this most gentle of lands, gave the hills sheer precipices, and the blackness teeth.

Two figures, together yet oddly solitary though their shoulders brushed occasionally, never talking until they reached the river.

Why they never talked both Sean and Viggo understood. The act of walking, the symbolism of being away from the palisades and watchfulness of Camelot, meant that hidden by the deciduous forest and the mile of impenetrable nothing between them and others, they were free at last to speak of what they thought. Not to be judged.

*****

He was of that tribe that called themselves in their Iranian tongue the 'Rus' or the Shining Ones. In centuries to come the peoples of beyond the Caspian Sea would give their name to Mother Russia, the broad and flat expanse of desert and tundra and fertility that would be fought over for two thousand years.

The fair Alan, blond and blue eyed, Samartians from the distant steppe above India - and the third of the waves of invasion that bore down upon the Slavic farmers of the heartland of this massive plain, between the Dneipir and the Volga. The ancient Cimmerians advanced first, followed by the dark Asiatic-European Scythians. But these were nothing compared to the Alan. Bold horsemen, fierce warriors, passionate men for who death in battle was the greatest prize of all. To die young, to die a noble death; that was the pride of the radiant ones, those who had conquered the Scythians. They battled for Rome and Constantinople, in strange and distant lands across cold seas, or scorching wastelands. For while the Alan and their Indo-European brothers were pagan, they fought with such grace, they rode with such skill, that it was to be expected that they were heavily prized as mercenaries. Indeed, was it not the Sarmartians who worshipped the Emperor Trajan as a minor deity?

There were those who settled in the warmth of the Ukraine and Crimea, up towards where one day St Petersburg and Novgorod would flourish. There were those who took beautiful Slavic wives, or those of the great Ugro-Finnish tribe the Mordvinians, or the daughters of a thousand village elders, and they stayed.

Then, from the East, came the hordes.

They were not unlike the Alan themselves, though they were of a differing ethnic group, these Hun, under the one they called Attila. And with each wave of invasion; the Hun, the Avar, the Turks, the radiant ones, settled and unwarlike now, grown fat on the coin of the fallen and shattered Empire, were forced to migrate west, further and further. And as they did so, the Alan and Slavs in turn drove their fellows away to the west, and onwards it went. The kingdoms of the Franks were founded, the Gascons.

The Saxons driven from their homelands below modern Denmark, the Jutes, the Angles, and all battling their way towards the promised land of the islands of Britain. Defensible Britain, for it was known that while the hordes rode their horses as if possessed by Frigga herself, those who had never seen the sea could never cross...

Viggo, proud Slavic Viggo with the ruddy hair that streaked pure Alan blond in the sunlight, and the pale eyes of his illustrious forefathers, was the descendant of those driven north and west by the invaders, up into the Baltic, to Denmark, and Finland, and the Swedish/Norwegian peninsula. The great irony of this was that it was from here the new hordes emerged, blue-eyed and fair-skinned men, known to the world as Varangians.

The Vikings.

It was they who drove back into their motherland, who look the rich heartland back, who created the mighty princedoms of the great cities of Rus.

But now, three centuries before the rise of the Northmen, Viggo was in Britain, the stronghold where he would be a true Alan warrior. A Shining One. It was why he fought so bravely, so carelessly, the detachment proving formidable to all who dared oppose him. For he was not afraid to die; his ancestors had been great, and what greater mission was there unless it was to join them. To die young, to die a warrior's death, and to be remembered by the tribe by the deeds achieved in life.

*****

Almost silent contemplation, into the dusk, two men staring over a molten metal river, flecked with silver.

"Why do you always follow me?"

The flat northern British voice was pitched low, slightly rough, Sean never turning his head to look at the dreamy-faced man next to him. It both frustrated and disconcerted him, the iron-strength of will that he could not bend in his companion. When he brooded, was as dark and saturnine as he who Viggo called, with a rather too knowing smile, Thor, the Northman was there, soundless, never leaving. It made him explode, of course, into that flaming knot of tense and twisted anger, which became physical. But then this strange poet of a man was strong enough to withstand the force of fist and abuse, could grip Sean by the wrists and force into panting, hate-filled submission. Hate for himself, of course, never for Viggo.

Sometimes he descended into appalling bouts of physical rage. He'd be white-faced, nails tearing into the wood, his body grating with the muscular spasms that wracked him. No one knew why, of course, and Sean would never tell them, never divulge the secretive nature of what created such violence of passion. Viggo sometimes seemed to know, could say the correct words that were smoothly soothing, like honey comfits. He'd slide long fingers into the tangled fairness of Sean's hair, draw his head back against his breast, and hold him there. Soothing. He was soothing, with the poetry on his tongue of Slavic beauty, of the tales of his forefathers, and with those long pale fingers trailing like gossamer over the back of Sean's neck.

He'd submit to that, the gentle low caressing, he would bury his face against Viggo's belly, as they both lay on their straw pallet, or on this gravel meander, the Dane on his back, the Briton on a hip yet half-laying upon his companion, and they would talk.

"I follow you, my dearest brother, for the moon and I sense your weariness with the world."

"When I am gone, in my grave, will you grieve for me?"

Their gazes met, Viggo's steady and faintly concerned, before his hand ran over the delicate ridge of bone at the base of the other's skull.

"I have no one to grieve for me. They are all dead, every last fucking one of them, and there is no one apart from you, my Mordvinian. No one to bury me, because they've all left before me, so selfish of them. Even..." He paused, far away, eyes black as the depths of Hell with remembering.

"Come and recite your fucking rhymes at me if you have to. Will you come?"

There was a plaintive nature, a fear to Sean's words that touched the Dane, and he sighed, mouth brushing over his brother warrior's forehead.

"When you are passed on, my brother, into the next life, you will be honoured. To be buried as the warriors of my country were, in a barrow, the bridles of their mounts with them for the Afterlife, their sword thrust into the mound - we will lie in the sweet brown earth, mouldering til our flesh becomes dust. And we will be honoured, by those who are after us."

"What if there are none after us?"

"There will be."

Sean's face was unreadable as he pressed his cheek to the strong flatness of Viggo's stomach.

*****

"Elijah's cold, mate. We're scarperin' inside."

Dominic, startled, looked up from the wine that he had been slowly consuming, his eyes wide and cheeks flushed with the fruit of Gascony. He'd been drifting away, on the breeze, thoughts meaning nothing much apart from that ever-present need for that sweet revenge. The ache that it created was dulled by the liquid, but it was there, a gnawing beast, only partially quenched by the sweet redness.

"Aye, I'll come too."

The boy was looking a little chilled as they slid into the gratefully received heat of the hall, the smoke and brazier darkening the wooden chamber, making it seem both smaller and more comfortable. There was Bors who, seeing the slight blueness of his favourite little squire, chided Andrew for not taking better care of their precious charge from the Holy Land. At least he beckoned them all over, his florid and expansive face rather the pinker for alcohol. A favourite with those lesser in the eyes of the king, Bors was popular, and a decent warrior, and a fair man. He also was a devil for betting, and was soon wagering with others of the Forty Eight on the result of a hunting expedition that was to commence the following day, Andrew cheerfully acting as bookmaker, Elijah hanging about him, helping, receiving those warm glances and little touches that made Dominic know that his friend wanted the boy.

Looking about, leaving Andrew to do his work, he caught a glimpse of something, and, whispering he'd be back, Dominic slid into the dark shadows and smoke, wraith-like when he needed to be.

*****

A touch to the back of the Scotti's neck, black gloves of kid leather, and Dominic watched from the shadows as Mordred greeted William like a brother; a kiss to both cheeks, hands on his shoulders, eye contact lavishly bestowed. A contrast so striking that it burned, almost, to watch both men talking, animatedly, an attraction there as obvious as the way Lancelot gazed at the Queen and she back. They were darkness and light, granite and alabaster. Mordred, olive-skinned with his quarter Roman blood, hair black, eyes as dark as sloes, dressed in the finest of midnight blue tunics. William was pale, and fair, and in pale green that made his eyes as bright as the emerald the statue of the Lady had at her throat.

In an instant Dominic could imagine them upon thee bed together; Mordred stretched out, long and lean and dark against the white linen, as William came to him and ran a small and neat hand over the rich warmth of the prince's inner thigh.

He shivered, cold for a moment, before moving closer.

"While the Greeks considered Pelagius to be incorrect, he was still British, he was one of us," Mordred was saying, eyes glowing in the dim light.

"But, " countered William, hand touching his friend's arm, "we are subject to the rule from Rome, and what is said there must be the rule for all. Imagine the chaos that would arise if this was not the case?" Dominic was oddly surprised how young the man looked when talking, using his hands that were too fine to be holding anything more than a quill in an Irish monastery.

"It is what is best for the people, what is right for them that is important, rather than keeping to a strictly given Status Quo."

For some reason, Dominic felt his gut twist.