Granted a permission to take a stroll around the city, Diarmuid swept the streets in wasted efforts looking for his younger friend, his search leading to nowhere. At one curve, he stopped at the sight of a familiar face though not the one he was hoping for, but it was the face of a friend and a former leader nonetheless.
"Caratacus!"
The Celtic called and did not know whether to feel sad or happy when the man turned at the name.
"I don't believe it…"
Diarmuid quietly murmured as the man eyed him. The brutal warrior Caratacus whom he once fought with was no longer there and Diarmuid realized that the same situation now applied to him as well. Their minds were circling the same thought; a proud warrior would take his life rather than accept defeat, and that's the kind of warrior the deadly lancer with the mole beneath his eye was, and so was the fierce leader.
But for Diarmuid, he had not accepted defeat yet, even until now. He was simply abiding it for Oscar's rescue.
But what about Caratacus? The most famous Celtic leader who kept fighting the Roman for years, and whom Diarmuid had the honor to fight beside at one battle when various tribes united while he was still at Fionn's service?
Caratacus was more than a figure, he was the people's hope.
"Have you too…"
Diarmuid asked without feeling shame for admitting his current situation, after all he was still fighting against it.
"I was imprisoned indeed and taken to the emperor himself."
Caratacus retold untroubled by the humiliating consequences that had occurred after his defeat and capture, the burned villages, the destroyed
fields, the massacred tribes…
"But the emperor admitted my courage and sat me free."
"Then…"
" But, what about you…"
"Why are you still here?"
Diarmuid demanded, his fury unhidden. Expecting this outcome, the leader closed his eyes and explained:
"I decided to stay in Rome. Currently, I am on a trip for my trade."
"And Briton? And the people who relied on you?!"
Diarmuid exclaimed gritting his teeth, the despair of all the people their leader had left behind augmenting in his tone and flaring in his glare.
"Who would leave this great land to go back to our miserable cold islands?"
Caratacus answered nonchalantly, yet a little nervous from the unlovely position he found himself in, cornered by a pair of golden eyes sharpened by loathing.
"When I first arrived I was fascinated by the Romans' wealth, so I stayed. Life here is
far better than in Briton!"
Diarmuid shook his head unable to believe what he was hearing. A leader whom an entire island once looked up at and admired, simply abandoned it, making nothing of the cheers meant to hail his name, the blades raised to elevate his honor, the lives taken to earn his glory, and the lives given to maintain his own.
For all these, the Roman emperor had recognized the man's valor and released him, refusing to erase the Romans' triumph by killing or humiliating the man that granted them the glory of victory by fighting and persisting against them.
"If the Romans had kept their glory by releasing you, you have wiped all of yours."
Diarmuid never saw the Celtic's leader expression upon hearing these words, nor did he want to see it.
He did not, or could not, face the fear of the indifference it might hold, or the despair it would hide.
Their battle against the Roman may have been lost, but his own battle can never end. So he will keep struggling, it was a promise he made to himself, to the woman waiting him overseas, and to the friend waiting him now, long time ago.
He will keep struggling no matter how low this struggle might bring him and this proved itself right just the next day.
***
The next day, Sabina sent a messenger to Sextus demanding the Celtic's presence who could only obey.
That woman did not have the slightest right to point at him with that unshakable
authority. Heading her fettering eyes was so repugnant yet still, Diarmuid had no choice.
"I need your strong arms and silent lips once again."
"Woman, I told you I am not your personal assassin."
"Was this determined when you became the governor's knight or long before it?"
Sabina asked waiting for no answer. Her words indicated that she was somehow involved in the governor's latest dispute but she was not afraid of admitting this, she knew enough to compare Germanous' request to her own. Although Diarmuid was not keen on discussing the secret demand the blonde's had entrusted him with, there was no point in accusing her unfaltering eyes of lies, but the Celtic was more than happy to correct her.
"What Germanous asked me to do was nothing similar to your underhanded requests."
"How can a man be admired and pitied at the same time?"
The woman pondered with an arrogant smile, and the lancer could not tell the meaning behind her words.
"If this is all, then I will leave."
Diarmuid said as he turned his back to go, without replying to the woman's attempts at provoking him.
"At least let me offer you a drink, today is a hot day indeed."
She clapped her hands and a short servant stood at the room's door holding two cups without entering. Diarmuid's eyes fell on the boy and froze there. She was not provoking him, she was manipulating him.
It did not take him more than a quick stare to recognize the young man, he knew him immediately; those blond locks, that humble stance and shy steps… they were too familiar and too real.
"Not a word."
She demanded before the Celtic could open his mouth or rush his feet.
"You want to see him? There is nothing else you can do to him."
The woman calmly stated, and although her intentions were not those of degradation, Diarmuid just could not tolerate a word she uttered, especially since they were true.
Diarmuid remained silent, refusing to admit to his powerlessness as the woman went on:
"I should not be surprised, that boy is from your homeland if I recall correctly."
Diarmuid turned again to face the woman. She clapped once more and the boy went away.
"I do not promise you his freedom, but I know it would be nice to know he is doing well."
"Have you run out of tricks so you turned into this cheap extortion?"
"You are in the same house, yet you cannot hope to see him. Life is cruel indeed."
Looking the lancer in the eye, Sabina's expression toughened and her tone deepened; this time she meant to implant her authority, she wanted to show the man in front of her how he was unable to do anything to his friend. Yet again, these words were not for degradation, they were, like all her other words, "facts" she loved to confirm while dealing with people and these facts did not fail to reach the lancer.
"That boy is mine, whom he sees is my decision."
"What do you want from me?"
Diarmuid was not the only changeable in that woman's fact, it involved Oscar now too so he could do nothing but be the constant Sabina wanted him to be.
Sabina left her chair and approached the man. The difference in the two's heights was obvious and incredible still, it was Diarmuid's upper stare that held humbleness while looking down at the woman and Sabina's stare that maintained power while looking up at the man.
A cold shaft pressed against the man's arm as a dagger was presented to him.
"Ovidius, a senator."
The lancer took the blade without hesitation, he did not even think of what he was about to do.
The hands of an honorable knight cannot reach his friend, but the hands of a hired assassin can.
***
Why him of all people, he could not tell. The governor cousin surely wasn't short on men, but apparently she could not trust any of them neither to do the job properly nor to keep their mouths shut.
She needed a skillful person, and her eyes did not misjudge.
She needed loyalty, and smartly guaranteed it without paying anything.
She needed secrecy, and without doubt, silenced him.
Oscar was hers. Seemingly a card of no importance to her, fortune chose her to possess it, and guided her need to the perfect man to play it against him.
That night, the targeted senator left his house accompanied by one man, taking a short cut just as Sabina told him. Though it sounded a little too convenient for a murder plot, Diarmuid was now certain that woman had the devil's luck and the gods' accuracy.
A short dagger she gave him. Apparently she needed no open confrontation, it would be risky. The best thing was to pretended to be a passer - by then stab the senator when close enough.
"I am in your debt, my knight."
Just when he finally heard these words again.
The senator walked alongside his companion, chatting and paying no attention to the strange looking traveler whom he recognized to be a slave running an errand. If only he knew that errand was his life.
His hand tightened around the hidden dagger. These hands could not extract Oscar's freedom, or buy it. they could not even reach him unless they became tainted…
The passer - by suddenly stopped catching the senator's attention this time.
He will save Oscar, but he won't fail him either.
The Senator looked at the stranger, anticipating the outcome.
"Ovidius, I challenge you!"
The latter did not cower to draw his sword, and charged forward taken by the surprise of facing a mere dagger.
"Someday, I will be just like you, Diarmuid!"
He refused to ask the governor for his pupil's freedom, unwilling to bow to the sway of the red eyes, and now he wasn't willing to accept the green eyes' absoluteness either.
The dagger not only blocked the long blade, but even quibbled it. Seeing this, the senator's friend rushed to his help.
"You are…"
Turning the second man's weapon against him, and slicing the senator's heart with the dagger, the two men fell down.
My knight!"
Could he with this "fair challenge" keep his promise to Grainne?
***
Throwing the blooded dagger between her legs, Sabina smiled contended.
"You will come to know that I am a woman who keeps her promise, unlike the governor who tempts people with delusions."
Sabina walked out of the door, telling her maid to bring Oscar and leave the two men alone. The few moments of waiting equaled the entire year of searching and looking for the boy and at last, Oscar, well dressed and fed, clearly tasting nothing of his mentor's sufferings and going through nothing of his turmoil, entered casting his eyes between his legs, as if ashamed. Diarmuid smiled bitterly, what did Oscar have to be ashamed of? He was still pure as they day they were captured but he on the other hand…
His blades were tainted, his honor was drugged through the mud even deeper and further, his hands became too powerless to grasp anything and call it their own but they still reached to the boy in a warm tight embrace.
"Oscar…"
"Dia!"
The two separated companions were finally reunited. Oscar's hands hesitated before they held to the lancer's garment.
"I knew you would survive… you have even built for yourself a name here, ever the elite warrior!"
Diarmuid closed eyes flew open. So Oscar had learned of what happened to him, he had known he was alive and where he was but never tried to reach to him.
The lancer's heart suddenly sank heavily in his chest, warmed a few moments ago by the joy of this reunion, it immediately grew cold by this knowledge.
"Did that woman prohibit you from…"
He tried to pull his heart with a weary rope of hope that was instantly cut.
"No, Lady Sabina is a generous kind woman! She did not hurt me or mistreat me…"
Oscar went on rambling thinking his friend was asking about his wellbeing. Did he
not listen or did he ignore the question?
The rope Diarmuid was trying to save his heart with was wrapping around it tighter and tighter.
"I am so glad you finally settled in and shone the way you should!"
Oscar kept talking as if out of the two it was the knight who needed saving and looking for. The reunion the lancer was praying for suddenly seemed meaningless, bare of joy or comfort.
Have they become estranged?
"I would really like to keep chatting with you, but I have many things to do. I am sure we will meet again!"
Oscar squeezed his older friend in a second short embrace before he left the room, hurrying in the corridor Sabina had left through.
The sought reunion, the missed friend, the young pupil, nothing of them was left, only the terrible crimes committed for their sake.
In a brief time he was lucky enough to meet two old friends on a foreign land, like a prayer coming true, yet both meetings were still and fruitless, like a tree planted with care and love, her branches awaited and looked after with a dire patience and exhausting hope only to be plucked by a vengeful wind before it could fruit the bliss and joy it promised, and along it uprooted trunk, the time spent on its care and love became a wasted memory that its recollection flowed like a mirage, easily drifting without a weight or meaning but it still could not be erased despite the feelings it was ought to flame and stir were not as passionate and luch as they were imagined to be.
The long road did not match the anticipated end.
The long journey did not result in the wished conclusion.
The tiredness of the route did not fit the outcome of its many twists and dangers.
Emptiness befell the lancer's heart.