It had been more than a month since Diarmuid was taken to that general's place yet he had never seen a trace from the master of the house; he was still probably leading his phalanxes across the Celtic villages, killing and plundering.
"Just, what happened to her?"
"What happened to everyone?"
He received no answers regardless of how many times he asked, as the one to answer possessed no more knowledge than the one wondering in pain, himself. After being tied and locked in what seemed to be a warehouse for fodder, a servant came every day to check he was still alive and to offer him enough food to assure he will keep on breathing. His wounds were left the way they last were in the slaves' convoy carriage, and they began to heal slowly on their own, not as if such wounds can kill a strong man like him anyhow.
While left alone in that warehouse, a rather unprecedented thought occupied his mind; the image of the young soldier who pleaded for his life through his frightened eyes and whom he then killed never left his presence. As if the walls carried that soldier's scent, the Celtic felt they cornered him tightly in a condemning gesture demanding an explanation for the merciless act. He was hunted by his cry of death, the stones breathing it again and again like the rivers of blood he had always trailed with his two spears throughout his battles.
Gloomily, he thought that the young soldier was in so many ways not different from Oscar. Both very young, witnessing their first fight probably, hands not tainted with blood yet, and eyes clear of the hues of gore and horror of the battlefields. But since the first was an enemy and the second a trainee and a friend, the latter received protection while the other was robbed of coming years.
The lancer had killed many men before, men more important and even dearer to himself than an unknown enemy soldier yet his image alone was what disturbed the warriors' thoughts.
"Why?"
He wondered; has he become this weak already?
A few other days passed in revile.
The once bright bronze eyes, now deprived from the shine of the golden beams of the horizon splitting the endless azure sky and the wild emerald earth, gradually lost their glamour having nothing to stare at but the stale ground furnished by straws and gravel, the closed walls and locked wooden door, all molding together to remind him of his new statues. Perhaps they have captured his body, but they will never manage to capture his soul, it was still vivid within that chained body.
Chains, how much he hated them.
They were in everything, not only warping his body. They also existed within every law and decree "the higher people" issued. He had once repelled against them, he had broken them yet when he did it, qualms never parted with his heart, even when he was gifted a new chance to start a new life. However, while in his current situation, all his previous regrets vanished. He did not question his past actions anymore, he bitterly thought that if time were to repeat itself, he would commit the same crime and perhaps even go further.
A sardonic sigh escaped his lips.
Such low thinking, tarnishing a knight's honor with spiteful feelings; this was also the chains fault, they temper with one's mind driving him wild with degradation. At these moments, he is left with nothing but his honor as a warrior, he has to hold on to this, he has to defend it so he can defend his soul against these chains.
That annoying high ceiling; why was a warehouse ceiling built that high? It seemed to be soaring upon him. Untouchable with tied hands, it kept forcing him to remember what he had become; being that high and the vain effort to chase it tired his eyes from staring, therefore; they could only be more relaxed by staring at the near ground. Wasting his strength with the struggle to reach it, his chained arms would be more rested in their chains. Standing would be futile too, so kneeling was the most comfortable pose.
Damn that high ceiling, he had to fight it.
Another few days passed, and the master of the house finally returned laurelled with victory and glory. Diarmuid could tell from the unusual hurried movements outside where he was kept, and the voice of a woman ordering the servants for perfect preparations with an annoying shrilling tune, answered by the frightened replies of compliance of the house servants.
Still locked, the lancer continued his battle. He would spend hours staring at the ceiling, determined not to break beneath it. But was that act in itself a proof for the contrast? He laughed at himself, thinking he was driven gradually insane. Dizzied from the long focusing, the lancer's eyes slowly closed as his head bent.
The whispers of two men, standing at the door, reached his hearing but he did not care
to listen.
"I heard you kept for yourself a Celtic slave from your first battle, is this where you put him?"
"Yes, but soon he will find himself in a worse place"
The stridor of the wooden door being slightly opened accompanied the words. Then two heads peeked in.
"Oh, he seems quite tough!"
The first man remarked in a feminal shriek while scrutinizing every inch of the warrior's body. The other man replied hatefully:
"He will not be for long."
"It would be a loss, he can be used for so many things!"
Came the reply with a guffaw as the footsteps entered the warehouse and stopped at the chained man who remained in his previous pose, indifferent to the two comers.
While the second man's, the landlord, eyes looked down on the prisoner in spite and resentment, his fists ready at any moment to rip the man with their bare fingers, the other man's eyes were taken by what they deemed an enchanting sight to admire. The new slave, hands chained to the wall, turned his head refusing to cast his eyes upon the two intruders, in a strange way of showing disdain to them. His unkempt ebony locks shaded the semi - closed eyes like a veil raveling out the night, and the slightly kissed by the sun skin enfolding the glossed body, though scratched and torn, still gave the guise of a barrier warning the mud of earth from sullying it.
"You should keep him in good shape, he is pretty marvelous. He could be more
beneficial to you alive than dead!"
The first man, whose eyes did not part from the lancer, spoke akin to pleading but a sound of mockery was the answer, merciless mockery.
After that the two men left the warehouse, the last thing Diarmuid heard was the loud voice of the visitor saying merrily:
"Remember, when you get bored with him, I will always be glad to help you get rid of him!"
"I will not be."
Curse these two, just what do they think he is? A piece of meat or some kind of furniture? The lancer twisted and turned inside his chains incensed before a thought spiraled his anger more. Oscar was probably being estimated and treated in the same way, but where and by whom? He yet again had no answer.
He took a deep breath and released it slowly. Now he knows why he was brought here, it was so that general can get his revenge from him. Diarmuid raised his head proudly, did he terrify that general and his armies that much with his two spears? A victorious smile drew his lips up.
But then, his head sank again.
Meaningless pride, manacled within these chains.
***
After two hours, the door was opened again and only one man entered. Obviously that annoying guest had taken his leave, and now the humiliated general was finally alone, face to face with his enemy.
"The soldiers told me you can speak Latin, this will ease things between us. I feared you would not understand my objective."
The lancer did not answer; he raised his head and looked at the general; fearless eyes to incensed ones.
"You will pay for what you did back there!"
Diarmuid smiled proud by the menace he managed to leave in the army's troop leader much to the general's anger. His hand landed a cruel slap on the cheek with the mole.
"You fiend, you take pride in killing my young son?!"
"It was a battlefield. Had you held him truly dear, you should have never taken him there in the first place."
Opposite to the mourning father's ire, the murderer's reply came calm and quite despite the contradiction his words held deep inside of him, did he not bear the same fault with Oscar? Nevertheless, while answering the mourning father, his brown eyes had no affection in them, for he was speaking the truth.
"You animal…"
The general repeated, words handicapped by rage and sorrow.
"You will regret these words, slave!"
He went on gritting his teeth almost shattering them under the heavy hatred the phrase was spoken by.
"I was only defending my land, I regret nothing."
The chained man stated, unshaken by the promised wrath. If the killing of his son
broke the man's heart, the loftiness and coldness the murderer spoke with sat it on fire. Now he loathed the man another folds more, he despised him to the bottom of his core. If revenge was what he sought, breaking that false pride was the first step.
The enraged man lift the prisoner's head violently by the hair, he approached the marble face staring directly at the prisoner. Sneering, he revealed:
"Your lands have been all taken over, your people have been massacred, your women raped, children enslaved, houses burnt! You little villages have become one of our territories! Yet you still dare look at me with these haughty eyes?!"
Strangely, Diarmuid maintained his composure; eyes unbroken by tears, lips shivering with anger but not shame or sorrow. This was a war; anything should be expected. At least he is certain his friends died honorably. The general released the lancer's head to bounce against the wall behind him. Searching for a fresh wound through the tattered teal outfit, he mercilessly reopened it with his knife. Diarmuid bit his lips muffling the whimpers of pain descending upon him in continuous waves.
"I will now teach you what does it mean to accept defeat!"
The grieving father, called for a slave who hurried in bringing him a whip.
Through the furious lashes, the sceneries the general described clearly materialized in front of the lancer's mind; burning plains, farms rampaged by the hordes of conquerors, the shouts of dying men, the cries of frightened children, and the wails of helpless women… Yet he refused to give up in front of that man, he would never bow to him.
The general finally stopped after making sure his hand muscles were too exhausted to move anymore. He dropped the whip and left the warehouse panting.
The lancer collapsed on the wall to which he was tied, dying him with his blood. His breaths barely freed themselves from his chest, as his eyes closed.