Motherless.
Sisterless.
I am both.
But I have brothers,
       dozens
       nay, hundreds
of brothers.
Only two real ones:
brash Lavain
and my biggest brother, thoughtful Tirry.
       The others are not brothers by blood.
There are so many of them;
I call a few my friends:
       Lancelot, Arthur's second,
              but handsomer, still.
       Arthur himself, who is a captain in
              his uncle Ambrosius Aurelius's army.
              The men here follow Arthur, but ultimate
              fealty is to Aurelius, dux bellorum.
       There is Gawain, a sweet bear of a man,
       and Tristan, who is all mystery
              and mischief and glee.
We live here, in this army encampment,
where drums beat and beat
in my dreams and over breakfast,
at sunrise and sundown.
The here and home I speak of
is no more than the collection of dirty,
foul-smelling tents.
I live here, in this army encampment,
among men,
because my mother is dead,
delivered into the earth
nine years ago now,
and there is no one else.
My father brought me here
when I was eight years old.
Once I heard Lavain whisper
to Tirry that it was a good
thing our mother lived to
see me through eight years
of life.
Till I was old enough to learn
to use a thread and needle
and old enough to grow
good at mending clothes.
At least there is
someone
left to mend their clothes,
Lavain said.
But I am just one girl,
without nearly enough hands
to sew the tears
in every man's clothing.
There are too many of them.
For, in these days,
dark battles rage on.
From all sides Britain's enemies
press in on us,
the painted Picts from the north,
maurading Scots from the west,
and the barbarian Saxons from the south
and east.
Britain bleeds
and bleeds
as men like my father and
brothers
       even Lavain
bleed and bleed.
We move as the fighting moves,
as the wind moves.
So there might be peace.