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The people are starving.
Just this morning, Merlin saw the body of a small child, lying in the streets. The parents may have already died, the poor little thing then venturing out, desperate, looking for any sort of food. Maybe not. Maybe she’d just collapsed on her way home, her body giving out despite her parents’ best attempts and frantic prayers… because everyone is praying these days, whether they know it or not.
The eerie tendrils of death’s fingers, curling up in a scent and tickling at his nose, had made Merlin shiver when he passed the body, though he’d been able to do no more than pull his neckerchief up over his face and turn away. He might have liked to bury her, once. It doesn’t matter so much now, though—not when she’s neither the first nor the last that he’ll see today.
He can’t bury all of them.
“What took you so long?” Arthur asks with no real bite when Merlin slips back into his room, quietly latching the door behind him. The click echoes, filling the room so easily that it could almost be empty.
No. Not yet. They’re still here. Precious little time is left, and he can see no reason to rush what they do have.
Arthur may or may not see it that way, but the way he holds himself—stiffly, too afraid of making a mistake—sets the whole feel of the room on edge. Merlin never liked to think he so completely took his cues from Arthur before, but in this case, Merlin can feel the tension—the stifling, suffocating anxiety—right down in his flesh, digging in like a particularly persistent fishhook.
“We can’t hold out much longer,” he says, avoiding Arthur’s gaze—and his question—while he drags himself over to the table and reaches for the pitcher of water. Arthur shoots him a small frown, but he says nothing about the fact that Merlin seats himself across from Arthur at the table and drinks water brought for the crown prince.
Instead, he just crosses his arms and looks away. “You think I don’t know that? It doesn’t make things any simpler.”
The water rushes down Merlin’s throat, slamming hard into his empty stomach; he can feel it settle, eating up the space there, sloshing against air, and as much as he’d like to claim that it helps, he doesn’t feel any better. It’s only tepid, but, somehow, it feels icy against the flesh of his stomach, chilling him straight through. Or perhaps that’s just the cramping in his gut, begging for more than water—begging for food that they just don’t have.
“What are we--?”
“I don’t know.”
Of course he doesn’t know. Everything he could know to do, they’ve tried over the last three months that they’ve been under seige. So many good knights have been lost trying to drive off the sorcerers. So many people have been killed trying to smuggle food into the city. None of it helped. Arthur had, eventually, suggested negotiation when it became clear force wasn’t going to save them, but Uther hadn’t been willing to hear of it. There would be no negotiating with sorcerers.
And now there is nothing left to do.
Nothing that will save them, anyway.
Leaning forward, Arthur rests his elbows on the table, propping himself up until he can press his forehead down to his hand, fingertips reaching up and scratching at his hairline, digging in and winding between the locks until he’s got handfuls of golden hair, pulled taut enough that it must hurt.
“Arthur—“
“You know what will happen if we concede.”
Yes. God help them, yes. “I didn’t say you should give in.”
No. If they give in, if they let the force circling the walls of Camelot have what they want, it will almost certainly be Arthur’s life.
That’s something that Merlin isn’t even willing to suggest they pay.
But Arthur would. He will. There’s nothing else they can do, no one else that can possibly aid them. And they’ve tried – they’ve attempted to call for outside help.
If only it had worked—if it had been different. But everything is blocked. Even Merlin. Messenger after messenger has tried to sneak out of Camelot, and they’ve all been caught, their dead bodies tossed back inside the city walls as the most gruesome answer the invaders could manage. There’s impenetrable magic at the gate, and how did Uther not see this coming? How could he have believed that all those he’d wronged would never join together under the banner of that wrong? The enemy of my enemy….
Morgana joined them almost immediately. The memory of the druids in her mind, undoubtedly, the sting of Uther’s betrayal—Merlin can hardly find it in himself to blame her. Hardly. Somehow, he does still find the motivation. He understands—he does, but how could he possibly accept it? She betrayed them all. She has to know Arthur could be killed, and even if she hates Uther, she can’t hate Arthur, has no reason to….
“Prince Arthur.”
Once, when Merlin had been younger, he’d had a particularly disturbing nightmare. His mother had held him, rocked him, telling him that if he closed his eyes and couldn’t see the bad things, they wouldn’t be able to see him either. It’s a gentle fiction for children, obviously, but what he wouldn’t give right now to have it be true. If he keeps his eyes closed, maybe he won’t see the men walking in through the door, bringing news he doesn’t want to hear. His mother had smelled like fresh soil that night, if he recalls correctly, and the skin of her arm had been soft under his fingers as he’d huddled in her lap. It could be that way again. Him, his mother, and somehow Arthur could work into it too.
Of course, this time, he never closes his eyes.
It’s gratifying to see that Arthur whips around to face the sound, equally as startled—yet, still, somehow whipcord sharp and ready. It’s a skill, one he has that Merlin doesn’t—this ability to be ready in a moment, to command.
“Your father wishes to see you.”
He knows what it means—knows that his father intends to make one final stand, and probably die trying. His face tightens, lips flattening, teeth clenched together so hard that Merlin has to wonder if his jaw will still work when he finally relaxes. He nods, though—there was never any doubt that he would. Hands balled, spine straight, and every single muscle in his face pulled impossibly tight—he still nods.
Merlin feels his eyes finally flutter closed. It doesn’t smell like soil or summer, doesn’t feel like his mother. These demons can’t be chased away—not when he’s the one who’s supposed to do the chasing. He’s failed. Failed badly.
And so starts the beginning of the end…
------------------------
Camelot falls on the first day of the new week. Washday. Gwen would have been cleaning sheets, rather than doing her best to keep the dying alive. Arthur should be training. And it’s the day Merlin would have gone out picking herbs for Gaius… if Gaius had lived.
Don’t think of it. Don’t, don’t, don’t—
There is absolutely nothing remarkable about the day. A bit of a haze hangs in the air, but it’ll probably burn off around midday, scorched out by the sun rising over the detritus of the failed crops and the bodies tossed outside the city walls. It’s warm enough, too. Nothing unusual.
“You should go down into the square,” Arthur tells him tonelessly once the men bringing Uther’s message have left.
“No.”
That earns him a bitter, half-there smile. It doesn’t look right on Arthur’s face—so out of place in how he turns, watching Merlin sadly, but maybe—yes—just the barest bit thankful. “What use is there in having you die with me?”
Use? All the use in the world. Just not the kind that can be explained. Gaius is dead. Morgana has deserted. Gwen, as a nurse to the dying, will probably be taken when the castle falls. Arthur is the last person he cares for that he has any chance of staying with, and if that means that Merlin dies too, then what of it? At least he’ll die with someone rather than being left alone without a purpose. “I’m not leaving.”
A simple nod and a sigh. “I can’t very well make you. But I wish you would.”
He doesn’t, Merlin knows. He just thinks he should. And for that reason—because so many royals wouldn’t have that kind of concern for their servants—Merlin will never leave.
Arthur is all that is left of the life he knows, but even if he weren’t—even if there were others—he still can’t imagine abandoning him.
Instead, he just rises from where he’s standing behind Arthur, watching his prince stand stiffly at the window, looking out at what could be his death. There’s no hope of ignoring the iron line of Arthur’s shoulders—the tension there—but he does manage to cope well enough to move to the wardrobe and get Arthur his doublet.
“When are they opening the gates?”
“They already have.”
God. Already. But it’s silent. So silent. This is their last stand—Camelot’s army rushing out against their attackers, really expecting to lose and barely hoping to win. And, somehow, it’s quiet.
Is everyone dead already?
Arthur shrugs into the jacket when Merlin holds it up for him: there’s comfort there, in the familiar, and for just a fraction of a moment, it feels like someone should apologize.
This shouldn’t be how this goes. This isn’t destiny.
Well, to hell with destiny. And Merlin almost wants to apologize about that too.
“If you’d just go into the square with everyone else, Merlin—“
“They might spare me. I know. They might not. Doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you.”
A sharp movement, and then Arthur is facing him—when did his hands land on Merlin’s shoulders? Such a hard grip, bearing down, as hard as the tension in Arthur’s jaw when he peers up at Merlin seriously, sadly.
“Whatever happens—“
I’m thankful. I hate that you wouldn’t leave. I’m glad you’re here. You’re the worst manservant I’ve ever had, but I wouldn’t want another. You’re a friend, and I thank you for that.
What he means to say—it could be anything, and maybe it doesn’t matter exactly what it is, or that he’ll never know: the door to the room slams open, smashing into the wall, deadening any further words. And Arthur? He hardly even looks shocked. If he feels surprised, he doesn’t play it openly like Merlin, jumping and spinning around. His hand is still on Merlin’s shoulder, holding, even when people start streaming in, grabbing onto him, yanking him forward, away—
“Arthur!”
Smack.
“Arthur—!”
Blinding, blinding pain in his face—he gasps, can’t breathe, white hot—dragging along him, all the way down to his feet. He drags those too, fights against the arms pulling him—hands everywhere—how did this many people get in? Were the knights overrun so quickly? All dead—it doesn’t seem possible. There’s jostling everywhere, though—proof that they have been overrun, before Arthur even got to talk to his father—but he can’t fight all of them, and he’s lost sight of Arthur. Is his name being called? Yes, Arthur, there, ahead of him in the mass of human bodies and sweat—incanted words—as they’re both dragged forward. Well. He’d expected to be killed by now. He’s expendable. He’s not Arthur.
Maybe not. But when they’re tossed down to their knees in the throne room, he’s beside Arthur. Not positioned like a servant should be—behind Arthur or, more likely, dead already—but like an equal, kneeling on the cold floor. He probably ought to feel more panicked about this, actually. He should be thinking about important things—not Gwen’s smile, the smell of Gaius brewing, or the color of the sky on a crisp autumn day. None of that matters. Or it could matter the most. It’s impossible to tell at this point, and his mind is just skipping between it all, and, you know, he really likes that better than where it lands, suddenly fixing all thoughts on how foolish of a display he, Arthur, and Uther must make: Uther first, Arthur in the middle, and then he, Merlin, to Arthur’s right.
Arthur deserves to die in a more dignified circumstance than his father does. Nothing about this is fair.
I tried, Arthur, and I’m sorry.
Impending death or not, there’s nothing but shame in shrinking from it: better to look up into the face of the one who’ll deliver it. Oddly, it’s a rather unremarkable face—who is this man? He’s tall, perhaps middle-aged, with shoulder-length brown hair that’s just beginning to run through with gray. Sorcerer, Uther spits out, and, yes, that’s obviously true, but the make of his body—well built, broad shouldered, and fit—would hint at a physical lifestyle. He doesn’t seem like a druid. He doesn’t seem like a madman. He doesn’t even seem particularly pleased.
Looking down at Uther, he simply sighs, clenching his hand a bit tighter around the jeweled sword in his right hand. “I’m sorry that it had to come to this.” And he sounds sincere. How in the world is that even possible?
Beside Merlin, Arthur shifts uncomfortably.
Someone doesn’t know how to walk on his knees….
“Your kind is sorry for nothing—“
Uther should hold his tongue. Or perhaps not. He’s going to die. Might as well go out spewing venom. That’s vaguely disgusting. Some people—less embittered people—would like their last words to be something useful. Not Uther, though, and what surprise is there in that? His last words are bitter—they are entirely characteristic of the man people say he’s become since Arthur’s mother died. Fitting words. Poisonous words.
And God help him, those are his last words.
Merlin has seen death before. He’s even killed, but there’s something so entirely startling in knowing he can’t stop it now, or that, if he does, it won’t matter moments from now. Once, he could have stopped it—could have outed himself as a sorcerer just to save a man who’d have killed him for it. Not now, though. Now, whatever has been done—whatever curse these people have put on Camelot—he’s as hemmed in and suppressed as anyone else. His magic buzzes inside him, alive and well, but something stifles it. A sword swinging toward Uther’s neck doesn’t change that.
It’s still a struggle, though, sort of like a hiccup—involuntary, how he strains forward when the sword pulls back… but before Merlin can really think—before Uther can finish—it’s over. But God help them, it seems to last forever: the arc of the blade, singing downward, sunlight catching the metal and forcing Merlin to squint, and then the sick thunk as the blade sinks into flesh. Arthur jerks, rather like a fish on a hook, but Uther is slumping forward, body thumping sickly—a heavy sound, bones on wood—to the ground like a broken, discarded doll. Arthur—
Arthur’s eyes are closed, his breathing fast and shallow.
Arthur. Uther’s son. Uther may have been a substandard father, but he was Arthur’s father nevertheless.
Merlin can feel Arthur’s clipped breaths from where he’s kneeling, even if he can’t quite register it over his own nausea. Arthur—his face is covered in blood. His father’s splattered blood. And the blood from the severed head—Uther’s body—it’s leaking out across the floor, seeping under Arthur’s knees.
Nothing can prepare a man for that.
A thousand campaigns could never do it. Handing out death on the end of his sword would never teach it. There is nothing: this is his father, and Arthur’s covered in his blood.
Merlin hardly even notices that he’s tilted his head to the side, away from the man in front of them—always a dangerous thing, taking one’s eyes off the enemy—but how could he possibly look at anything else? Every splattered line of blood draws his gaze, and he’s gawking, staring at Arthur, trying not to see—and why is he staring?—the gore painted across his fair skin and up into his hair.
Is Arthur even seeing at all? He’s breathing his way through it, mouth closed tightly, probably afraid that if he opens it, he’ll taste blood. He probably will. Why is this happening? Why? Arthur—the blood is caked in his hair, up across his face, and a few more moments and it might be his own, rather than Uther’s.
“Arthur,” he murmurs, hating how the word feels slipping out between his cracked lips.
Arthur doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t move. It’s hard to tell if he’s even still breathing. And then… “Damn you, Merlin, for once in your life, be quiet.”
It’s a bit disturbing when insults like that become comforting. It is comforting, though. They aren’t gone yet. Oh, it’s possible that they’re going insane, but it’s better to let Arthur insult him like he’s always done when he’s stretched too thin to bother with manners. That’s Arthur; even if they’re about to die, it’s comforting to know that these people haven’t changed that.
The man before them murmurs something to one of the others at his side, so softly that it’s impossible to hear—if his lips hadn’t moved, he might not have spoken at all. Fascinating, at least in the same kind of way an executioner’s axe is fascinating. It draws the eye, and Merlin feels himself turning to look at him, neck cricking—he hadn’t realized how tense he’d gone while watching Arthur.
The man moves easily, with fluidity, turning to the second man briefly before his gaze slips back to Merlin and Arthur. Oddly, for a man who’s just killed one of the greatest enemies of magic, he seems to be strangely uninterested in Uther’s death. It’s nothing obvious, and Merlin is not always the best at reading the intentions of others, but a man about to kill them shouldn’t be turning deep brown eyes back on them in a look that is about the furthest things from murderous. No, it’s oddly… detached. Almost… respectful.
“It didn’t have to come to this, you know,” he says almost conversationally, lips quirking up to the side, smearing his right cheek up a bit higher. “I offered your father the chance to surrender. It was his choice to refuse. And if I were not certain that anything less than witnessing his execution with your own eyes would give you cause to doubt the reality of it, I would not have made you watch.”
Really? They’re going to have this talk while Arthur is kneeling in his father’s blood? Detached or not, this man deserves to burn if he thinks that’s acceptable. Judging from the hitch in Arthur’s breathing, he agrees.
Of course he agrees. It’s amazing he hasn’t gone insane yet from the stress of the situation alone, and Merlin can’t imagine how it is that he doesn’t move, not even to slump the slightest bit and maybe give his back a bit of relief. His arms were bound behind him at some point—probably about the time Merlin’s were, when they were being dragged out of Arthur’s room—but he holds himself straight up into those bonds, regardless of the way they so obviously are chafing at his wrists, rubbing them red and raw. Might as well make a match, though: his eyes are equally red, bloodshot from lack of sleep and stress. They’ve both been sleeping precious little, and Merlin doesn’t need to make eye contact to see the evidence again. The man before them must see it, though. And damn him, he did this. Does he enjoy seeing his enemy on his knees before him like this, exhausted and worn thin? Or does he want to see Arthur broken further?
“If he had simply allowed us entrance. The leave to negotiate—“
Arthur’s hands clench. “You came under a banner of magic!”
For the first time since they’ve been tossed to the floor before him, the man’s eyes spark in something resembling displeasure.
As quickly as the emotion came, however, it’s reigned back down, and though not gone completely, the man manages to take a deep breath and tuck his hands behind his back, presenting something closer to indifference. If his shoulders seem a bit higher than before, or if his upper lip has stiffened, that’s only to be expected, right? No one can completely hide what he feels.
No one can hide everything about himself either.
Maybe it’s a desire to deny his impending death that does it, but Merlin finds his gaze wandering over the man’s clothing. The man is dressed well. He looks a bit like Arthur does when he goes hunting, actually: he’s donned clothes of good quality, a shirt dyed a dark blue, v-necked and laced up. His trousers are even tailored, and there’s just no way he shines those boots himself, because the amount of work that goes into getting them to look like that—he’d never have the time. And Merlin? He knows exactly how long it does take, because Arthur, prat that he is, wants every tiny nick and scuff gone, and maybe if the idiot would stop getting so many scuffs—
Right. Clearly, he is going insane. He’s about to die. And he’s thinking about how long it takes to shine Arthur’s boots.
“You don’t know how hypocritical you are,” the man says simply after what must be nearly a minute has passed. Beside him, the men also in attendance fidget in what appears like pent-up emotion.
Probably not good emotion.
There’s about twelve of them in total. One, two, three, four… Merlin can’t keep track. His mind bounces back to the man in front of them, and the others just seem to fade into the background, blurring together until they’re a mess of well-tailored clothes and weapons—
Weapons that were never used.
He… should have noticed that.
They came to Arthur’s room, but they never drew their swords. He and Arthur were forced here, but it had been by brute strength and sheer overwhelming numbers. Did Arthur notice? Bit hard to ask at the moment…
Arthur. Right, Arthur. How much longer can he hold out? Already his skin is sinking to a sickening pallor. That’s his father he’s kneeling in. Who could blame him for losing his nerve now?
Arthur would blame himself, of course.
Of course. Because that’s Arthur’s logic, drilled into him by the same man he’s just seen die.
“I wonder if any man of prophecy would seem to live up to what’s been foretold of him,” the man continues, smoothing his hands thoughtfully down the front of his shirt, knocking away dirt, as he watches Arthur from under dark eyelashes. “I can see a bit of it in you, I suppose. Though, uniting all of Albion—that’s a tall task for a boy.”
“If by ‘boy’, you mean Crown Prince of Camelot,” Arthur grits out, “then I take your meaning.”
The man smiles. “Well, you certainly do have a sharp tongue on you.”
Arthur’s eyes don’t flicker down to the blood beneath him, even with it soaking through his trousers. Just keep holding on… though, Merlin can’t imagine what he’ll hold on to or what either of them can hope for at the end.
“I wish I could say the same of your mind,” Arthur snaps back.
If anything, that only makes the man’s smile widen: shadows leap in his brown eyes, dancing with amusement, and if Merlin wanted, he could count every one of the man’s teeth, which, remarkably, are almost all intact, even given his age. Yes, he must be something beyond just a sorcerer. Or, if he is a sorcerer, he’s one that’s paid well for his talents.
“Ironic,” is all he says before he’s turning to Merlin.
Don’t move. Don’t give him any indication that this is anything more than handleable. Do. Not. Give. Him. The. Satisfaction.
“Emrys.”
Well. He couldn’t feel worse if the floor actually had dropped out from underneath him. It hasn’t, has it? Ye there it is, still right there under his knees. Thank God Uther’s blood hasn’t seeped all the way over yet. It smells though, a little like iron, and he has always hated iron…
“You, I did not expect,” he says, right as he moves forward, stride long and confident. Carefully, he avoids Uther’s blood and body as he moves between Arthur and Merlin, circling around behind Merlin and coming to stand on his right side, half in front of him. “I thought something… more. And, yet, you fit.”
“Do you always keep your audiences kneeling in blood?” he snaps, raising his chin defiantly. To hell with the consequences. At this point, what’s the worst that can happen?
The man at least has the good grace to look a bit abashed: his brow furrows, and he glances over at Uther’s mangled body like he’s seeing it for the first time. For a moment, he only stares, blinking and then, finally, he seems to break free of whatever odd moment had washed over him, and he nods in the general direction of his men.
“Bring them to the courtyard.” Slowly, his gaze slips back to Merlin, hovering only briefly over Arthur. “We’ll talk more soon, Emrys,” he promises, just as his men’s grip materializes on Merlin’s arms, yanking him up alongside Arthur. If it had been that, only that, then maybe they would have had a chance, but never lowering his gaze from Merlin, the man produces something from his pocket—a bracelet, silver and thin, decorated with runes. Merlin’s magic is blocked already, held within himself, but spells like that—they are usually fixed on an object. An object like the castle. It’d hadn’t taken him long to figure that out—to see that’s how they were trapping his magic—but what good could it do? He needed his magic to sneak out of the castle—and he couldn’t access it while in the castle. There had been no getting out. He’d tried. He had. And Gaius—Gaius had tried to help him.
Merlin’s stomach clenches: Gaius had died trying to help him.
And now, when the man snaps the bracelet around his wrist, ignoring how Merlin winces and tries to twist away, Merlin just knows that the location of the spell has been transferred. The vile thing against his skin—it doesn’t burn, exactly, but it sort of itches, and he can feel his magic punch at it from beneath his skin. Nothing, though—it remains locked inside of him as the clasps on the bracelet fuse together in a burst of heat, leaving the metal smooth and unbroken. Irremovable.
Frankly, it’s a miracle that either of them remains standing—more of a miracle that Arthur doesn’t seem to even notice that someone has forced a bracelet onto his servant, though who can blame him after what he’s just seen? And the man must know all of that—really, there’s little doubt that he does, though his expression twists in something very like sympathy. “I truly didn’t want this course of action.”
It’s always possible that he’s telling the truth. But honestly? As Merlin is pulled out of the room, glaring back over his shoulder, he can’t help but admit that he’d very much prefer to believe the man is lying.
---------------------
The devil is in the details.
All his life, Arthur has been trained to notice the details. Tracks in the mud, which direction the wind is blowing, what color the sky was earlier in the morning, because God forbid it’s the wrong color, since that might mean a storm, and then tracks won’t help you much, and the wind will only be something pelting rain against your back. Every day of his life, looking, watching, and listening.
One moment has dulled it all: for all he notices any of that at this point in time, it’s possible that there might already be a gale blowing around him without him taking note of it. Every sense feels numb, at least beyond his ability to feel the drying blood stiffening on his pants.
At first it clung to him, much like water-soaked material would, though far warmer and sicklier smelling, but then it had begun to dry, growing tacky and thicker. Now, if he tried to peel his pants off, they’d be stiff to the touch, and each tug would probably pull at the fine dusting of hair on his legs: by now, no doubt the blood has dried to that as well. It’s attaching to him; he’ll never be clean from this.
Even worse, he can feel some on the skin of his face. When he and Merlin had been shuffled into the courtyard and unceremoniously pushed onto a pair of horses, the men moving them had at least given him a cloth to wipe his face, but he can’t imagine that he got all of it: even if he’d mostly wiped anything visible away, there’s bound to be some left, etched in the pores of his face. It’ll be drying now, just like when he has blood on his hands after he’s killed an animal on a hunting trip, and in a little while, it will surely begin to itch. Scratching will bring flakes of the stuff, up under his fingernails, and then that’ll itch too.
All these years, and he’d thought he’d stopped feeling nauseous at the sight of blood. Maybe he even had. But this… is different. His stomach just keeps on rolling: what a weakness that would be, spilling whatever meal he last had—and it’s hard to remember—out onto the ground in front of his captors.
He’s got to stop thinking of it. He’s better than this. Knows better. He is Arthur Pendragon, and he doesn’t have the luxury of this kind of behavior. Breathe deep, concentrate—it shouldn’t be this hard, should it? But it hurts, and this blood feels different from any he’s ever had on him before. His father. His father….
Don’t think of it.
They’ve got to be miles from the castle by now. If he’d been watching the sun, he’d know, and there is no excuse for that oversight, not even if it is excusable for anyone else. His father… he’d be ashamed. He’s learned better from his father. He has. Uther would never accept his death as a reason for his son not to keep his wits. He’d be ashamed. Ashamed. His father is dead, and damn it all, Arthur is still shaming him.
That’s simply not acceptable. He is better than this.
Right. Think. It’d been morning when they’d opened the gates. How long had it taken to get to the throne room? It couldn’t have been long. None of it had to have taken much time. The mess in the courtyard—that couldn’t have been more than a quarter of an hour, just long enough for them to throw him and Merlin on a pair of horses and tie them there while every single remaining denizen of Camelot had stood by watching. Right. Easier not to think on that either. So much not to think about—God, somebody, help them all… the time—he needs to know the time.
It’s late now. Late enough that, were he in charge, they’d be stopping to make camp, maybe trying to find some small game. No one wants to set camp once the shadows have lengthened to the point where they’re hardly shadows at all anymore but rather just lighter spots of darkness, and if they wait much longer that’s all they’ll get. Funny. He could almost laugh at that: not only are these men despicable in just about every way, but they’re also useless at knowing such simple things as when to break for the night.
Or, perhaps not: the man in the lead, the one who killed—no. Not now. Just the man in the lead—he’s waving his men down, and their little procession appears to be stopping.
In one collective sort of halt, the horses pull to a stop, a few sputtering their relief into their bits. One even shakes its neck, throwing its mane askew like water droplets. Beside him, Merlin’s sigh is audible as well, and it draws the gaze of a few of the closest men. No one says anything, though, probably because they’re equally as relieved: they’ve ridden hard today, and they’re all wearing the dust of the road.
It’s not altogether a bad place to stop. If Arthur had chosen it, he’ll admit that it would be downright good—but there’s absolutely no chance of conceding anything better than a mediocre decision to these men, regardless of how there’s a running stream at the bottom of the hill or an extremely convenient overhang of rock nearby.
Really, it’s not all that bad. They’ll set up the bedrolls under the overhang, and they’ll be blocked from the wind by the ledges that are high enough up the cliff so that Arthur could stand under them comfortably. The overhang stretches out about the same length, and that’ll be enough to keep any rain off them while still letting the smoke from a fire escape. The land under the overhang also just barely slopes downward: the water won’t trickle into their bedrolls if it rains. Thank God for small miracles: on top of everything else, sleeping in a puddle would be too much.
Drawing his horse up to the front of the group, the man in charge gives another wave of his hand, seemingly oblivious to how his horse tosses its head impatiently, probably already set on getting down to that stream for a good long drink. The man—he doesn’t seem to be in any such hurry. He’s efficient, yes, but from what Arthur can tell, he’s not terribly pressed for time. Good—that’s good to know. It might help later on. Any information can help—again, the little observations.
It feels good to see those things, and Arthur swallows down a deep breath, feeling the burn in his lungs when he holds it. This is better, this strange sort of normalcy. If he can just concentrate on this man as an enemy—size him up like he’s been trained to do—then he’s still himself, still Arthur, doing what he’s born to do, leading, fighting, and that’s something, at least, for the time being.
The man is nothing impressive. Not physically. Oh, he’s well enough built, and he’s dressed in good quality clothing, but the only truly remarkable thing is how he commands his men’s respect. Clearly, he’s done something to earn their loyalty. Though, it’s not been done with pretty words: he’s hardly said anything since they began riding, although that’s rather deceiving, as there’s no lack of communication.
Interestingly enough, the same could be said of him and Merlin.
Merlin, who is riding beside him, quiet for once in his life. And, no, there is most certainly no reason to miss that incessant chatter. None at all. It’s not like he’d like to hear it, just to know that Merlin’s all right. Let him hear something, because he’s already lost far too many people today, and let anyone who wants to question about why a servant is worth that much. Perhaps he can challenge them to a duel over the matter—over his sense of judgment. Given the circumstances, that would be rather satisfying.
Maybe the leader. Get that sword under his ribs and just twist—
“Get the bedrolls down. Start a fire.”
And then Merlin’s back down standing beside him—when had they even gotten off their horses?—and just like that, his world halts and jolts back into focus properly.
The road has taken its toll on Merlin: that much is bitterly obvious. He’s wearing a fine sheen of dust in his hair, courtesy of a hard ride, and Arthur can’t imagine that he himself looks much different, other than the blood that’s certainly mixed in. There’s not much disturbing about Merlin’s dirty appearance, really: rather, what shakes him is the distance in Merlin’s eyes, the kind of look he gets when he’s certain the unfolding series of events has a high probability of ending badly. He always somehow withdraws, thinking about things that he can’t—or won’t—share with Arthur.
Morgana had been like that—sometimes withdrawing in a way Arthur never understood. Morgana, though—Morgana left them. Disappeared out of the castle about a week into the siege. She was last seen leaving the lower town with a blonde woman, someone who, by all reports, she seemed familiar with.
Doesn’t matter who she left with, really. Whoever it was, Morgana betrayed Camelot with that person’s help. She left them all to die. Whatever her secrets were—that was what came of them.
Perhaps he should worry that Merlin is the same. But how can he?
Secrets or not, Merlin didn’t leave.
“Are you all right?” Merlin asks, careful and quiet.
All right? No. Not even close. “Fine.” It doesn’t matter—they both know he’s lying. Merlin’s only asking because… well, it’s hard to say why he’s asking, actually. He just is. But there’s no doubt he knows the lie for what it is.
Certainly he does: his face tightens up, and even when two men come forward and steer them toward the overhang, pushing them down onto two bedrolls, his face doesn’t ease. It does shift to accommodate the scowl he shoots at the men, but other than that, his features remain largely untouched. “Arthur—“
No. If he talks about it now—just no. He can’t. “What about you?”
“Arthur—“
“Oh, honestly, Merlin, your vocabulary consists of far more than just my name. I asked you a question.”
That earns him a scowl, but there’s nothing really threatening about it. Even if there were, it’d be hard to take it seriously when Merlin looks so small against the rock outcropping: it eats him up in its shadow, and the way he leans back into it doesn’t suggest that he’s trying to avoid that. There’s something about Merlin—right from the start Arthur’s always said that, and he does pride himself on his ability to read people—but it doesn’t seem possible that half the time Merlin can be a bumbling idiot, and then in times like these he can follow the men around him with his eyes, watching them make camp with scrutiny that rivals what Arthur has seen in his knights.
“I’m all right. But you need to wash.”
“Thank you, Merlin.” As if he needed to be reminded of that.
He glances over at Arthur. “Where do you think we’re going?”
“I’ve hardly had the time to consider that.” A lie, of course, but Merlin doesn’t push it: he simply nods again and looks back toward the men moving through the camp. Gradually, a campfire seems to have sprung up, and bedrolls have been laid out, though with an obvious precision that very clearly surrounds the two of them.
Well, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t known they were to be carefully guarded. In this case, however, it’s a bit disheartening to be right.
Even without the fires, there’s no chill in the air, but Merlin shivers anyway, and Arthur could swear that a moment before, his eyes had been following that formation too. No surprise there: not many men would want to sleep surrounded by their enemies.
Then again, not many men would think it a good idea to call attention to themselves so blatantly as Merlin does: “Hey!”
Damn it all. Just kill them right now. Maybe he’ll do it himself. “Merlin,” he hisses, and is, predictably, ignored. “Merlin!”
Merlin just shrugs. “We need to wash.”
Well, they do. Still, yelling at the man in charge like that’s a right they’re owed—probably not the best idea.
It’s not like Arthur was about to do that himself. No. Certainly not. And he’s not irritated that Merlin got to it first. Not. At. All.
He leans back into the rock: he really ought to just stop pretending.
Foolish or not, Merlin’s shouting does get the attention of one of the men, and so what is there to be sorry for? He doesn’t look particularly murderous, and, at this point, even if he was—what of it? Honestly, it’s not like Arthur doesn’t know he’s lucky that he’s not lying back in the throne room with his father, head separated from his body.
Suddenly, the rock at his back feels just a little colder; beside him, Merlin fidgets. That throne room—that throne room—
“All right,” one of the men says, glancing over his shoulder, likely searching for their leader. Apparently, he must be off seeing to something or another: he’s not in the immediate vicinity, thankfully.
Arthur’s seen quite enough of that man, thank you very much. He’ll probably never stop seeing him, sword in hand, swinging—
“Get up.”
Oddly, there’s no particular malice in the gaze of any of these men, not even when they pull him and Merlin to their feet. It makes so little sense. They’d laid siege on Camelot, surrounded it with magic, starved it out, all to gain entrance: why in the world would they do that if they had no grudge against it—against Uther?
Swallowing hard, Arthur finds himself shaking his head. None of it makes sense. Nothing makes sense, and—Merlin bumps into him, breaking his line of thought. Just like always. Clumsy idiot, stupid idiot, who is here, thank God, and alive. So many people died in that siege. Those days after Gaius died—Merlin’s own death certainly hadn’t been so remote a possibility, Arthur remembers, very decidedly not shuddering (outwardly, at least). Men who grieve like that sometimes don’t survive themselves.
It hadn’t been that Merlin was hysterical—it might have been better that way. He’d just been… so quiet. The castle was going to pieces around them, people were starving, and some sort of enchantment was making it all possible, and through it all, Merlin had just stared, dull-eyed and silent, acting like a proper servant for once—and there are simply no words for how disturbing that was—until this morning, when he’d been told they were opening the gates.
This morning—this morning he’d been downright impossible.
He’d refused to leave. It had been the first act of defiance since Gaius’s death, and it had brought the kind of relief that Arthur can never acknowledge but that curled heavy in his gut, easing through the tension there until his insides didn’t feel so hopelessly knotted. He glances over at Merlin now, and it’s impossible not to remember how he’d looked with his jaw set, refusing any attempt of Arthur’s to send him away.
A push to Arthur’s back pretty effectively pulls him out of his thoughts and into the moment.
“I’m sorry, were you in some kind of hurry?” he snaps over his shoulder, throwing a glare at the man who, presumably, pushed him. It’s possible that he has the wrong one, but at this point, that seems a bit of a trivial worry.
Merlin must agree, because he smirks and glances at Arthur out of the corner of his eye again. As tired and worn out as he looks, this time, now that he’s not trying to hide it, that still manages to be a properly lively gesture.
Guard something-or-another scowls back, though it’s a bit lost under his facial hair. He looks young enough—at least, youthful enough to still be properly clean shaven—but if he’s anything like some of the younger knights, the moment he could—and perhaps, unwisely, a bit before he could do it properly—he was growing a beard. As if a scraggly beard of reddish-brown hair makes a man.
From the looks of him, Arthur could take him down in under a minute in a fair fight.
“You look as though you’ve just eaten something sour.”
Merlin again; Arthur scowls over at him. “And you look as though you haven’t bathed in a month. At least only one of us reflects reality.”
“So you have eaten something sour then?”
“Oh, shut up, Merlin.
Rather than chattering on, Merlin ought to do something useful, like sizing up the men escorting them. Useless. Utterly useless. As terrible at this as he is at shining boots. Anyway, though, there’s little chance of any sort of escape tonight, regardless of Merlin’s current attention to detail—their captors have been too on guard, and he hasn’t had a chance to plan with Merlin yet—but every detail helps, and things learned tonight might come in handy.
Things like the fact that one of the six men escorting them has a slight limp in his left leg. It doesn’t look as though he’s newly injured, so it’s possible that it’s an old wound bothering him, perhaps even one that’s left him crippled. He’ll be weak on that side.
The one that pushed him forward: of the six, he seems to have the most assertive personality. The men look to him; perhaps the trend holds true when the man in charge isn’t available. An interesting dynamic, most certainly. Perhaps if the men can be made to doubt the official leader… divide and conquer. It’s seldom a bad strategy. If it’s possible, create dissension from within.
For the time being, though, he might just have to content himself with washing. They’ve reached the edge of the embankment, and as they start down the hill to the stream, one of the other two men takes the lead, going down first while the other three bracket him and Merlin in. Leaves crunch underfoot, and while they’re slippery enough that he might be able to feign a fall, that kind of bid for freedom won’t do much good if Merlin doesn’t know about it.
No, there won’t be an attempt at the moment, but tonight, he and Merlin will talk.
This won’t last much longer. Soon, he’ll be back in Camelot, giving his father a proper funeral, and he’ll be—
He’s king.
Oh dear God, he’s king.
“Arthur?”
Merlin’s looking at him. Is he being that obvious? Has he gone white? He should have known, but it’s just—he hadn’t thought.
King.
No. He isn’t ready for this. His father—it wasn’t supposed to be this soon.
Then, another shove to his back. “Well, you wanted to wash up that maiden fair skin of yours,” the man with the limp snaps, nodding toward the stream with a heavy glower and an imperious wave of his hand. “Go on then.”
If he thinks crossing his arms like he’s doing makes him look any more intimidating, he’s sorely mistaken. Arthur’s new recruits could beat him.
Fearsome or not, though, there’s some pleasure to be had in returning the man’s look: tipping his chin back, Arthur glares down his nose at the man as they come to settle at the edge of the stream.
He really wants nothing more than to dive straight in. With any luck, that’ll clean his clothes up, wash away the blood. Something like that, though—there’s nothing royal about it, and he learned at a young age that people will perceive him as he presents himself: and he is Arthur Pendragon, damn it, worthy of respect, and they’ll give it to him, prisoner or not.
Carefully, he pulls off his shirt. Don’t look at the bloodstains. Don’t.
But Merlin is.
“What?” he snarls at Merlin, throwing the shirt at him harder than he probably needs to. Merlin hardly moves, and it hits him half in the face, half on the shoulder, but neither of them says anything. Even the other men don’t say anything. Instead, Merlin just collects the shirt, bunches it up and shoves it under his arm, staring at Arthur with a sort of understanding that’s downright unnerving.
“Good Lord, Merlin, are you really that incompetent?”
The only answer he gets is a not-so-accidental splash. Merlin is clumsy, but he’s not that clumsy: he couldn’t have possibly meant to jerk his leg just like that, and, yes, it did look like a particularly failed attempt at walking into the water, but the too innocent glint in Merlin’s eyes indicates that under no circumstances was that what it actually was.
“Merlin!”
More of that guileless, wide-eyed innocence. If Merlin had that look as a child, God knows how many scrapes he was able to just stare his way out of. It would have been a useful skill for a prince as a child. Unfortunately, Arthur hadn’t possessed it, and certainly he’s justified in tripping Merlin on that basis alone, yes?
Probably not. Well, then simply on the basis of he is the crown prince and he can.
Merlin goes down sputtering like an old woman who sees the goat in the garden, and if this were another time, another place, Arthur is fairly certain that he’d split himself in two from laughing. As it is, though, he only manages a thin smile, more satisfaction than humor. It’s not that he feels particularly satisfied—only that satisfaction is the next closest thing after humor, which, at the moment, he seems to have forgotten how to feel.
Scrub, rinse, repeat: that’s his father’s blood washing down the stream. He doesn’t—he can’t—that’s it. However twisted a notion, maybe he was better off with the blood still on him. That’s the last bit of his father he’ll ever have, and he’s washing it away. It stains the water red, even once he stops scrubbing—his clothing is that drenched with it—but no matter how violently his stomach is twisting, he can’t help himself from skimming his fingers over the surface of the tainted water as it flows away from him.
Get it off… but let it stay.
God, Lord, someone, please—he aches. Just aches. And this can’t be fixed.
Then there’s Merlin, still half under the water: is time even still passing? It has to be. Things don’t stop just because he needs more time to understand how to live in a world where he feels like this. The water just keeps flowing and, strangely, when Merlin thrusts his head back above the surface, slicking the sopping hair out of his face and blinking away the rivulets of liquid running down his face, there’s a half smile on his face, full of a more genuine kind of satisfaction—the sort that’s not substituted for anything else.
Right. He should have seen that coming: Merlin, useless though he may be at so many other things, will recognize his moods, will see his snappiness about a shirt for what it is. And, damn him, but he is particularly gifted at emotional distraction. He may have to let himself be tossed into a stream to achieve it, but for just those few moments when Merlin popped back out of the water, sputtering and choking, Arthur will admit that he felt better.
Of course it can’t last. There are men on either side of them in the water, waiting impatiently—more so by the moment. They’re probably cold—Arthur’s cold too—and eager to get back to the campfire, maybe eat some dinner, get a decent night’s sleep. Well, bully for them. They won’t have to see blood in their dreams; there’s no reason to make things even more comfortable for them.
Merlin clearly notices their audience as well, but rather than acknowledging them, he just gives Arthur a quick nod. “Turn around, will you? I’ll get your back.”
It’s nice, this closeness. Merlin has served him long enough to have done this more than once, usually after a hunt that had been particularly muddy. However it happened, this is familiar, and he knows Merlin’s habits—the way he pushes more with his knuckles when he reaches a difficult spot, or the slight sound of consternation he makes when he can’t easily get a smear of dirt or sweat off.
There’s something very comforting about simply standing there, ignoring the other sets of eyes on them as he lets Merlin try to scrub him clean: it’s familiar, enough that he knows every move Merlin makes, just like Merlin probably knows every dip in his back. Very familiar. Very close. Would this have been what it was like to have a brother? That is, this kind of knowing that goes beyond words, straight into the instinctual. It’s certainly not something typical of a manservant: some would say that means he’s let Merlin too close. Perhaps it’s even true. He has never, however, felt the price of that to be too high.
Once Merlin gets the grime out as best he can, he keeps on scrubbing anyway. Merlin. He just… thank God for Merlin, though he will never say that out loud. I’m not ready to move, and it’s like Merlin hears that, because he just keeps scrubbing until one of the men, apparently reaching his capacity for withstanding frustration, reaches out and yanks Merlin away from him.
There’s nothing particularly unexpected about that: the man is heavy-set, sporting a bit of a belly, and with beady dark eyes and reddened cheeks—the sort that only get redder the longer he has to wait. Arthur has seen his kind before, usually in tavern brawls, but watching him close his meaty fingers around Merlin’s arm and yank—it’s almost like witnessing that sort of thing for the first time. One wrong move, and Merlin could be gone too. Camelot, his father, his friends, and now Merlin… .
Deadly or not, the pull is too hard: with a startled yelp, Merlin tips over and straight back into the water.
At first, the man recoils, apparently not having expected that. Then, seconds later, his piggish bloat of a face splits into a grin; a laugh rolls its way out of him, hard and inexcusably cruel. Already, Arthur can feel himself tensing, and, yes, he has laughed at Merlin’s clumsiness—his mishaps. He has. He will. But it’s him—not these men. He never—he never—he wouldn’t really ever hurt Merlin, would never laugh if he were truly hurt.
He’s grabbing at Merlin before he even realizes he’s moved. The stream isn’t swift, and the water isn’t deep, but the bottom is rocky, and if Merlin had fallen just right—
He plunges down after Merlin so hard that his knuckles scrape the rocks, splitting open skin roughly enough that he can feel the water gush into the cuts.
But Merlin’s breathing, and he’s fine.
Just fine.
“All right?” he hears himself say gruffly, letting Merlin cling to his arm until he can get himself back upright. Once he’s there, as steady as he’ll ever be on his own two feet, he manages to unclench his fingers from Merlin’s arm, turning instead to the man who pushed Merlin.
The bastard is still watching Merlin, only now he’s laughing harder—so hard that the little dip of fat under his chin wiggles in time with his exhales. Bastard. Evil, evil bastard, thinking it’s funny—thinking Merlin dying is funny—and no, no, no.
Arthur punches him square in the face.
It’s not really much of a shock how everything descends into chaos after that. Hands materialize on his arms, yanking him back and out of the stream, but all he can really concentrate on—and all he really cares to concentrate on—is the way the man is clutching at his very obviously broken nose, howling in pain. Ha. He’d never make it in Camelot’s army. Any tendency to show hurt so blatantly is pretty well non-existent with Camelot’s knights. His men—they’d put this pathetic excuse for a human being to shame.
Ideally, he’d like to watch the scene for a bit longer, but, like Merlin, he’s being yanked out of the stream and half-dragged back up the bank. Merlin—this is one of those times when his ridiculously open expressions couldn’t be any better: the sheer shock—and, yes, satisfaction—in his face is almost better than watching the man with the actual injury.
It’s more assessable too, as when Arthur is tossed down back under the overhang where their bedrolls are, he finds Merlin thrown next to him moments later, equally as sopping wet and still clutching Arthur’s shirt.
What an interesting sight they must make: Arthur with only his trousers, Merlin holding Arthur’s shirt and still fully clothed himself. Both soaking wet.
At least they’re clean. Thank God for that.
Merlin, jaw slightly slack and brow furrowed, glances down at the fabric in his hands. “I—uh—here…”
Merlin may erroneously disagree—he always seems to—but Arthur is very gracious as he accepts it back with only a small smirk. And, yes, there it is: Merlin’s answering glower doesn’t seem to indicate that he views the action the same way. He really ought to try being a bit more thankful: not every crown prince—probably no other crown prince, actually—would break someone’s nose on behalf of his servant. Of course, not every servant would so willingly give themselves up to die with their prince. Not every prince is Arthur; not every servant is Merlin.
Well, best to let it go then: Merlin’s all right and that’s what matters at the moment.
Anyway, he’s apparently going to have more to consider in the next few moments: seconds after they’ve sat down, a bundle of clothes is tossed at their feet.
“I’m told you had a bit of a disagreement with my men.”
It’s not all that surprising to look up to find himself faced with the man from the throne room—the man who beheaded his father. Expected or not, though, there’s little that could be less pleasant.
Showing emotion is certainly out of the question, and, anyway, he’s good at hiding that, when he needs to be. Show nothing—and he doesn’t, he’s sure, though his face feels stiff: the smirk carving its way out on it may very well be stuck there forever. He can feel that—at the moment, can’t imagine not feeling it years from now too. “Consider any disagreement I have with your men as personal towards you as well.”
The man’s right brow arches. He’s surprised? Honestly? He ought to have seen that coming, and Arthur’s certainly not above showing that with a well-placed sneer. There’s no way the man can miss it, and, yet, his face remains relatively impassive; he simply sighs and then, apparently resigning himself to the fact that there will be no quick resolution, squats down, resting on the balls of his feet as he regards them with a small smile. “You will truly make a terrible diplomat if this is how you negotiate with your enemies.”
“I’m not negotiating with you.”
The man nods. “You’re right,” he says. Is it Arthur’s imagination, or is he almost exasperated? Dropping his head, shaking it slowly—it’s not the actions of collectedness. Still, though, the confidence there, steady in his eyes when he raises his gaze back up—it’s not comforting. “Negotiation would mean you have something to offer. You don’t. We have everything we need from you.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
Gesturing toward Arthur and Merlin, the man just shrugs. “The pair of you.”
He thinks so, does he? “Flattered. But if you want a ransom, you shouldn’t have killed my father.”
“No ransom. Only you.”
“What for?”
“It’s rather complicated, I’m afraid.”
Complicated? Complicated? That’s not even—it’s—it’s— “Then uncomplicate it!” One more word, and he’ll be lunging at the man, he’s sure. Already, his fingers are itching for a sword. See how this man likes having his blood spilt, and he won’t even die a king, like the man he killed. No honor in this, for him, and, really, a sword is too good. Bare hands maybe…
“Arthur.” Merlin’s hand seems to have materialized on his arm at some point. “You’re unarmed.”
What? It… oh.
Somehow his fingers have gone to his waist, reaching for a sword he doesn’t have. That… does explain Merlin’s look of confusion, the way his brows have closed together, worried. Why is he worried? So, Arthur’s unarmed. Yes, for a moment he’d forgotten, but… surely he doesn’t look that insane?
“Let go, Arthur.”
His fingers are still curled in the fabric of his shirt, right where the sword should be.
Slowly, he unclenches his hands.
“I’m fine, Merlin.”
Whether or not Merlin believes him is another issue. There doesn’t seem to be much relief there, certainly not in the way Merlin’s eyes follow him and his hand seems to hover, almost reaching out but drawing back at the last second. Merlin is, at least in things like this, not a fool: he has to know his touch wouldn’t be appreciated and would only seem to indicate weakness.
“Here,” Arthur says, leaning forward and grabbing the bundle of clothes at their feet. Carelessly, he shoves it at Merlin. “Change into something dry. I can’t have you getting sick right now.”
For once in his life, Merlin listens, reaching down and pulling a shirt out of the bundle: his eyes flicker towards the man watching them as he slips the shirt over his head, the neck of it catching a few strands of wet hair and plastering them down to his forehead. The man simply continues watching as Merlin straightens out the fabric, tugging it into its proper place. Only once he’s also found a pair of trousers in the pile and pulled those on also does the man finally give any indication that he intends to offer an explanation.
“Best if you’d dress as well,” he says simply, nodding toward Arthur. “We’ve a good deal of ground to cover, and taking ill will only make the journey more unpleasant.”
He’s right. Damn it all, though, knowing that and doing anything about it are two different things: Arthur is still clutching his shirt—wet from the stream—in his hands. It won’t do him any good, wet as it is. The fact is, though, he needs clothes, and refusing just because of who’s offering—it’s foolish. Survival—that’s always the primary objective. Take the clothes and stay warm: survive.
That doesn’t make it any easier to pull the garments over his head.
“Better,” the man says approvingly once Arthur is also dressed. He glances at Merlin again too, nodding once, and then leans back a bit, seeming to sink into his minute success. “Now, then, you’d both best know: there’s no reason for this to be any more unpleasant than it has to be. We need the both of you, and that’s all.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Arthur finds himself snapping back. “Me, maybe, but Merlin? He’s nothing to you. You’d do well to let him go. Less nuisance that way.”
There’s a flash of something that seems dangerously like fascination in the man’s dark eyes, but it’s gone too quick to be certain. “You think so?” he asks, half-smiling. “A nuisance you were willing to assault my guard over?”
“He pushed him in the stream!” Arthur snarls, trying to ignore the way Merlin fidgets uncomfortably next to him.
“Arthur—“
“No. Shut up, Merlin.”
The man’s smile grows, not so much that’s it’s particularly full-blown, but enough that his face at least seems balanced again. “And you don’t care at all for him?” he asks rather scornfully.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“And that, Prince Arthur, is where you’re very wrong. I know all about you. More, in some ways, than even you do.”
Seeing that smile on this man’s face is a little like losing a tournament… and Arthur was never much good at losing. Here, though, it’s not quite an option, and, yes, it’s true that he’s lunging forward before he thinks better of it, but he’s not armed, and even as he lashes out, he doesn’t expect to succeed.
Well, no expectations, no disappointment.
He does get a good punch in. Just one, though, before there’s a knife not at his throat, but at Merlin’s, and that’s just not acceptable. Immediately, he stills, eyes darting to the man lying sprawled on his backside, one hand to his cheek, and that infuriating smile still a shadow on his face.
“Let him go,” Arthur says. His breath is coming in pants, and it’s hard to decide whether he’d rather look at Merlin—held down by a guard, his neck enclosed threateningly by one beefy hand—or the man in front of him. It’ll have to be the man: he’s the one who controls this situation, clearly.
“Prince Arthur,” the man says slowly, drawling it out as he pushes himself back to his feet. He stands this time, though when Arthur tires to follow suit, a rough hand shoves him back down on his bedroll. “So very used to getting what you want. The firstborn—the only born—a golden child. You had everything you wanted, but never quite what you needed most. Never good enough, were you? A father who never entirely saw what he wanted--”
“Don’t you dare talk about my father!”
“—and even when he did, couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Does anyone know about that time when you went into your father’s rooms, Arthur? And you asked him if you looked like your mother. And he just stared. Didn’t even seem to know you. And you--you fled. Turned and ran.”
No. No. He’s seeing the man’s lips move, but they can’t possibly be saying that. Just can’t be.
Because Arthur--he had done that. He’d asked, and Uther had fixed him with this blank stare. It had been like his father was seeing straight through him—seeing a memory. His jaw had gone slack, and he’d leaned back at his desk, hardly even breathing. But what really cut straight to Arthur’s insides—cold, just like ice—was the pure, unadulterated anguish he’d seen in his father’s eyes. And then—then there had been the resentment. The kind that screamed I hate that you’re alive when she’s not. And maybe that wasn’t what his father meant at all. He might have just hated that Arthur looked like her—was a living memory. Maybe it was something else. But the way Uther had looked at him—all that resentment—had sent him running. Nearly immediately he’d heard his father’s voice calling for him, ordering him back, but for all Arthur had heeded that call, Uther might as well have been calling into the wind.
Best as he can remember, Arthur knocked over a chambermaid as he careened down the hall, sending the fresh linen in her arms scattering. He hadn’t gone back… and Uther had never said anything about the incident at any later date. It was like it hadn’t even happened, and, in all honesty, sometimes, when he’s been alone too long with his own thoughts, it’s easy to wonder if his father has convinced himself that it never did.
“You can’t know that,” he finds himself breathing out, lungs aching. There shouldn’t even be air enough for words.
Strangely, that seems to settle the man: the tension in his face fades, and he stands up a bit straighter, raking one hand through his hair. The strands catch on his fingers, holding on, though finally slipping off in a fall of gray-brown. “You found one person who has never turned you away, Arthur,” he says quietly. “Of course you care.”
Maybe, yes, and so what? Damn it all, he could care, he could, but it’s none of this man’s business. He has no right to stare at Arthur like this, like he knows everything, when he cannot possibly begin to know any of what really matters. No man who understood what it’s like to see his father killed would have killed Uther like he did. And even if he did, he cannot begin to fathom what seeing Merlin slip under that water felt like.
“What I care about right now is seeing a sword up under your ribs,” Arthur snarls, only managing by sheer force of will to hold back another lunge for the man’s throat.
For a moment, he could swear the man is going to hit him. There’s no accounting why, really: he just crouchs down, elbows lazily resting on his knees as he watches Arthur, no indication of violence really present. Still, that gaze—it’s too intense, and the only reason for it is the sort of look Arthur has seen all too often in predators. No one looks like that if his observation means no harm.
The moment breaks, though, when the man gives a nod to Arthur’s right, and suddenly Merlin is being pushed forward, smacking into Arthur’s back. Right, well, still boney as ever—was that his elbow that just drove into Arthur’s spine?
“Merlin,” he mutters, not turning away from the man before him. He hates him—hates the way he smiles knowingly when Arthur, not breaking eye contact, reaches behind himself to grab for Merlin. It doesn’t take long to get hold of a wrist, and, no, this certainly doesn’t make it look like he doesn’t care, but at this point, holding onto Merlin matters more than what this man thinks about it. “Are you all right?”
He gets a soft, hesitant, “’M fine” in reply. It’s not the most assertive of answers, but for once, it doesn’t seem to be out of some character flaw of Merlin’s: if Arthur looked, he’s willing to bet that Merlin has his eyes fixed on his attackers, expecting the worst and waiting for it as best he can.
Somehow, the worst never comes: whatever the reason, the man chooses that moment to push himself to his feet, eyes finally flickering away from Arthur and alighting on Merlin. “You really don’t look like much,” he says quietly. Oddly, the tone is almost lilting, completely devoid of the venom necessary for an insult.
One more nod to his men apparently concludes the man’s business; the next step has him turning away, picking his way through the dirt and fallen leaves without even a backwards glance. It’s too anti-climatic, and, oh, just how wonderful would an arrow look right up under his shoulder blade—
“Arthur.”
Arthur breathes out hard. “Yes—“ But damn it all to hell, he’s grabbed again, yanked back this time by strong hands and tossed down onto the bedding. Come to think of it, Merlin was probably trying to warn him. Little late now, but he can still appreciate the sentiment.
If he had hostages, he’d be doing the same as these men: binding up their hands and feet, insuring that they won’t be making any sudden movements. In all honesty, he might be a bit less kind: it’s hard to fathom why he and Merlin are being allowed to keep their hands in front of them.
And then it’s not. The guards aren’t leaving. Finished binding up their captives, they retreat back just a bit, but they don’t sheathe their weapons, and does anyone actually think he and Merlin are going to sleep like this, surrounded by armed men? But, no, that’s not—Merlin needs to sleep. He needs to eat too, and that doesn’t seem all that far out of the question, as a few moments later, another man approaches, bearing what looks like a plate of something at least edible. Yes, jerky, some bread, a little cheese, water—fine. Just perfect.
When it’s set in front of him, Arthur reaches out with his bound hands and pushes it toward Merlin. “Go on.”
Merlin looks askance at him. “We’ll split it.”
“Do as I say, Merlin. Eat it.”
“You need some too.”
That’s true. Honestly, though, does Merlin really think that matters? He’s just seen his father die, his kingdom fall. And Merlin wants him to eat? He can’t even—the suggestion alone seems entirely impossible. Just the idea of any food passing his lips is enough to make his stomach roll unpleasantly, and if it’s feeling like this now, exactly how is it going to feel if he did put something in it?
“I’m not eating unless you do,” Merlin insists.
Stubborn idiot. He’ll tell him that too, only when he turns to face Merlin, he doesn’t quite expect the plea in the stare. Merlin never begs him—teases, pushes, demands, but begging—it’s so uncommon that—that—
It just means something is wrong.
That look on Merlin’s face—that, more than anything, slams the reality of everything into his brain.
There are at least five men in the immediate vicinity. All of them can hear him. None of them care the least bit for his dignity. Confessing anything to Merlin at this point should be out of the question, but somehow he can’t help leaning back, sinking down into his bedroll and staring up at the overhanging crag of rock as words grow heavy in his mouth. “Merlin,” he murmurs, absolutely refusing to look at anything other than the rock above him. “What I need right now, more than food, is for you to eat. Do you understand?”
Silence. One of the guards shifts his weight from foot to foot. Another snickers under his breath—or maybe that’s a cough. Merlin—doesn’t he understand? Can’t he? This isn’t about being the hero, but Merlin—he simply must survive this. Anything else is unthinkable. He needs Merlin to understand that, to just do as he says for once in his life….
Then, a touch to his side. He jerks like he’s burned, but it’s only Merlin, sitting beside him, bread in hand. There’s no curve to his lips, little color in his cheeks, but he’s looking very carefully at Arthur with something that seems very close to understanding. Not pity, never pity, but the sense that I’ll help you and If this is what you need, I’ll do it.
Merlin bites into the bread.
Arthur closes his eyes and breathes.
----------------
They rise early the next morning.
It’s not a pleasant awakening: at some point during the night, he and Arthur have curled against each other, sacrificing pride for the sake of necessity—for warmth. Merlin hadn’t realized it until a rough hand materializes on his bound wrists, yanking him up and away from the warm—and eliciting from Arthur what sounds too much like a snarl to be actual words. Arthur… wasn’t sleeping. Has he slept at all? He hasn’t eaten. He really should have, but there had been a sense to him, written in the sort of spring-loaded tension in his face, that it wasn’t food he needed. Merlin can’t claim to understand it, and it wasn’t like he wanted to eat all the food himself, but that—it was what Arthur had needed, or needed to see happen… or something. That much—it had just been there in his face, in the way he hardly blinked when he ordered Merlin, preferring instead to fix him with a calm gaze that was, under the circumstances, too even for the reason behind it to be entirely logical. It was just need. And so Merlin had done what he wanted.
But now Arthur hasn’t slept either.
It doesn’t take long before they’re dragged in front of the man from the throne room, who, irritatingly enough, looks well rested. Or… maybe not. Energy seems to hover in his step and in his manner, but his face—there are smudges of dark under his eyes, and the whites around his pupils are run through with red. Well-dressed and well-groomed, yes, but none of that quite carries over into his face.
Regrettably, lack of decent rest doesn’t seem to deter him: his eyes are still quick and sharp when Arthur and Merlin are tossed to the ground in front of him. He tucks his hands behind his back, pulling himself up a bit straighter and giving them a nod. Right, and did he actually think either of them was going to return it? Arthur bites out something particularly nasty under his breath, but it’s certainly not a “good morning” of any kind—it actually sounds like he’s suggesting the man go do lewd things with barnyard animals, if Merlin isn’t mistaken. Strangely, all that earns Arthur is a raised eyebrow. Isn’t it customary to say something to one’s captive when he insults you? But no—the man only nods over toward where the horses are waiting before striding off, his gait brisk and efficient.
Again, he and Arthur are hauled to their feet. Arthur has finally fallen silent, though the hard set of his jaw makes his feelings far too clear—when are his feelings ever not clear?—and if that didn’t, the way he’s twisting against the hands holding him certainly does. Honestly, though, he admires Arthur for that—for that fight that never quite dies. It’s useless now, and, damn, Merlin can’t quite stand to watch him keep at it, but how can he not be proud? It’s Arthur, and that’s worth being proud of.
Merlin isn’t looking at Arthur when the man glances back from where he’s now standing by the horses. Maybe he should have been, because the man’s lips dip into a frown, and his forehead crinkles. He saw something, but a quick look back at Arthur yields nothing—whatever it was that was there has passed in favor of pure hatred, but still, whatever the man saw in Arthur, it’s left him looking far too much like he understands something Arthur would never want him to.
He purses his lips together, tongue darting out to wet them; carefully, he opens and closes his mouth twice, almost abortively, before he finally speaks: “Let them ride together,” he says finally. “I daresay it will make Pendragon more agreeable.”
For what is probably the first time since they’ve been captured, Arthur doesn’t protest. Even when, hands still bound, he’s heaved up onto the horse and tied there, he says nothing, only regarding his captors with a steely sort of resolve that sets the line of his back as hard as Merlin has ever seen it.
“Up you go then,” one of the bandits tells Merlin, sounding, oddly, not unkind, but more… indifferent. If only the smell of him were as neutral as his tone. The man fairly reeks of sweat and horses, but not in the sort of comforting way that Merlin associates with the stables. No, this is the sort of smell that’s wasted away, turned sour, and maybe been rolled in some manure just to add to it. Apparently, this was not the man Arthur tackled in the stream yesterday. Though, given their past history, Merlin does have to admit that he’d rather that man not be in charge of putting him on a horse. Frankly, he’d really rather no one were in charge of putting him on a horse.
Of course, he’d also rather that he weren’t facing the prospect of being smushed against Arthur for the day, either: he’s settled in front of Arthur in the saddle, which is awkward enough in itself, but being bound there just adds an entirely new level of uncomfortability. But, then… this might be better than being apart. Is that a foolish thought? It could be—Arthur would probably accuse him of being a girl—but Arthur—he’s not acting quite like himself, and there’s something vaguely reassuring about being able to feel the rise and fall of his chest. Alive, it says. And maybe Arthur feels the same about him, because he doesn’t protest, doesn’t try to shove Merlin for a little more room like he might ordinarily, but just settles and rests his bound hands against Merlin’s back.
And then they’re moving.
Traveling double on horseback isn’t exactly comfortable, and the pace isn’t what Merlin would call a slow one. It’s not backbreaking, certainly, but they aren’t trudging along. Clearly, they’re intending to get somewhere, probably under some sort of time constraint.
Occasionally, one the men riding around them will glance at them, but for the most part, it’s easier just to ignore their captors. Arthur seems to have grasped a similar goal, even to the point where, thank God, he’s dozing. Sad that he apparently thinks he’s safer doing that on horseback than at night, but it’s not entirely without basis: if anything happens, he’ll be jerked awake by the sudden movement, either Merlin’s or the horse’s. Either way, for the time being, he’s apparently deemed it acceptable to prop his head against Merlin’s shoulder and sleep, though very fitfully, often with troubled murmurs, and certainly not without the occasional instance of jolting awake, startled by nothing more than whatever he is seeing in his dreams.
Not that what he’s seeing is nothing. Merlin can just imagine.
Uther is dead, and there’s a good chance that Arthur is caught in that, seeing his father’s last moments over and over in his dreams. Merlin is certainly seeing Gaius’—feeling those last few breaths, gasped out against him as he held the man who had been the only father he’d ever known. Gaius had been blasted back trying to cause a distraction—something long enough so that Merlin could slip past. It’d cost Gaius dearly—he’d paid with is life—and that last death rattle in his mentor’s chest—the sound of is always going to shake Merlin down to the bone. He’ll never stop feeling it, and if Arthur is at all the same, he’ll probably never stop seeing his father’s blood.
Merlin swallows hard. So much blood. And the body….
Gaius got a proper burial, but Uther—will he have any such rite? Merlin would like to care for the sake of it being right, but as he feels Arthur’s forehead resting against his shoulder in sleep, he has to admit, he wants it more for Arthur. Uther—he has no love for Uther. But Uther is Arthur’s father. And Arthur needs him to have a proper burial.
Maybe Gwen will do it.
If she lived.
Closing his eyes, Merlin forces himself to stop thinking. Thinking only leads to counting deaths. And that—if he does that, he’ll start counting his own before it’s happened.
Noon comes and goes, and they still don’t stop. They are given a bit of food, and this time, Arthur, most likely seeing no efficient way to smuggle the food into Merlin’s possession given their positions bound on the horse, deigns to eat some of it. Well, thanks for small miracles is still thanks, at least, and Merlin does have to admit that he breathes a bit easier at the sound of Arthur chewing behind him.
It’s not until the sun is high in the sky—probably about three o’clock—that Arthur tries to talk to him.
“Their chain of command is well established. No weak links.”
In any other circumstance, the way Merlin jolts—completely startled by Arthur’s words, mumbled, obviously purposely, into the neck of his shirt—would have Arthur laughing, mocking, probably punching playfully, because It works with the knights, Merlin! For once, it’d even be nice to have those things. They’d be Arthur, normal, and if anything about this situation could be a little more ordinary, that’d be good, right?
As it is, he just barely has the presence of mind not to say anything back: Arthur may have the luxury of a shirt to hide the movements of his mouth, but Merlin, facing straight ahead, doesn’t have that. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like a very good idea to chat openly about this sort of thing.
“Their roles are all well-defined. We won’t be able to pit them against each other.”
Is Arthur saying this for Merlin’s benefit? Or is he just working things through in his own head? Either way, Merlin shifts in the saddle, leaning his shoulders back so that his shirt wrinkles and gives Arthur, who, he realizes, is actually playing at still napping against his shoulders, more cover.
“Our best chance will be once we stop for the night. They’ll certainly be on guard again, but even the best men get complacent after standing all through a night shift.”
Merlin stretches his neck, popping out a crick in it. It’s the closest he can get to a nod without attracting attention.
Whether Arthur understands or not doesn’t really seem to have much bearing on the situation: he goes on regardless. “They have the sense about them that they’ve been working together for awhile. They’ll react immediately. We can’t count on any extra time due to sloppy teamwork.”
No, of course not, because that might actually be helpful, and God forbid that anything in this situation would be.
“And, Merlin? If you get a chance to run, you do it. Leave me behind.”
So, so stupid to snort in disbelief at that. Obviously, it draws the attention of the guards riding beside him. Against his back, Merlin can feel Arthur grind his jaw in irritation, but apparently he does have self-control enough not to tear into Merlin—who would have known, given how he carried on back in Camelot?—because he remains absolutely still, nodding off against Merlin’s back, and after a cursory glance, the guards look away.
But Arthur is still silent for the rest of the ride.
And Merlin most decidedly does not spend the remainder of it hoping to hear anything more.
Except maybe he does, and he can’t quite make himself feel sorry for it.
------------------
They stop for the night in a small village, someplace that Merlin has never seen. It’s nothing much to look at; bigger than Ealdor, at least, but that’s not saying much. The road, which is filled with ruts and holes, is lined by a number of small buildings. Animals wander; children play in the dying light, stalwartly ignoring the calls of their mothers to come inside. Off to the side, a man is gathering up the goods he’d apparently been selling earlier in the day. All in all, it’s not a remarkable village. Still, something in Merlin relaxes when they ride into it. There are other people here, and that’s a small comfort at least.
Things even look up a little more when they stop in front of the inn. That’s… a bit unexpected. Frankly, Merlin really expected to be tossed in a pile of hay somewhere in a barn and told to sleep, so it’s rather a shock when the leader of the group—Lead Prat, Merlin had started calling him in his head at some point during the day—returns from inside the inn, waves a hand, resulting in him and Arthur being pulled down from their horses and steered inside. Inside and upstairs. Two flights of stairs. Well, damn.
Right, and how does Arthur plan to sneak away now?
“I’m surprised that you notice civilization when you stumble across it,” Arthur announces loftily as they’re pushed toward the room after having their hands unbound.
Unbound. Interesting. That… might be helpful.
Still, Arthur just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Never can. Not in situations like this, and Merlin knows he’s scowling, but so long as Arthur doesn’t see, that’s probably all right. Shut up, Arthur.
Lead Prat—and won’t Arthur just be thrilled to know there’s someone who is, in Merlin’s mind, a bigger prat than he is?—who is standing to the right of the door, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, just smiles. His clothes are dusty from the road, and his hair hangs lankly, in need of a bath, but he matches Arthur with an equal amount of vigor. “We’ll reach our destination tomorrow, princeling, and you can see just how ‘civilized’ we actually are.”
Arthur, who’s halfway through the door, a man’s hand on his back, grinds his heels in and levels a glare at the man. The movement closes the distance between them until their faces are mere feet apart. “And where would that be?”
The smile dies down a bit, but a hint of it remains, smoldering more in his eyes than on his lips. “Gwynedd.”
Merlin takes a step back toward the man, retracing his footfalls, having already been pushed into the room. No doubt the man or one of the guards will shove him back… or not. Instead, Arthur snaps his arm out and grabs his shirt, holding Merlin behind him. One push is all it takes to determine: Arthur has locked his elbow. No intent to let him pass, then. And then a quick shove to his chest has him stumbling backwards. Arthur never even turns to look. “Specifically?” he presses on.
The man leans more heavily into the doorway, crossing one of his ankles over the other. When he receives a querying look from the guard holding Arthur, he only shakes his head. Let him talk, it seems to say. “Why should I tell you?”
Arthur’s eyes narrow. The only sign he’s even aware of anything other than the man before him is how he rolls his shoulder, trying to throw off the guard’s touch. “Why shouldn’t you?”
“Fair enough,” the man agrees, shrugging. “The mountains of Eryri.”
Oh? Something about that—Arthur doesn’t like it. He’s been with Arthur long enough to read the changes in his moods when they’re subtle—but this, it’s nothing like subtle. His jaw clenches and his eyes darken, followed by a series of too rapid blinks. Slowly, he takes another step forward, and though it draws no movement from the man in front of him, it does from Merlin: he takes a step forward as well. This time Arthur doesn’t seem to notice… or maybe he just hasn’t moved far enough yet.
“Vortigern?” he asks. Arthur’s tone has dropped, and, goodness, that scrapes over the nerves too much like gravel for it to be anything even approaching comfortable.
“Good boy. Seems you aren’t entirely unaware of the state of things around you.”
The first warning that there’s something very wrong is that Arthur doesn’t bite back at that. Rather, he just swallows, dipping his chin down and saying very slowly, “Vortigern is mad.”
The man doesn’t move. “Is he?”
“Word has it that he’s consumed with fortifying his tower.”
“And why is that? Do you know?”
“Protection against the Saxons.”
“You think so?”
“You know otherwise?” Again, Arthur swallows, and, oddly enough, some of the hostility bleeds out of him. He’s still very tense, but the need for information seems to win in the face of his desire to rip this man apart in every way he can, including verbally and with a glare.
As if in recognition of that, the man gives him a small smile. “It started that way. But the tower he wants—it’s far more than that. The place where he’s built it—there are legends told concerning it. And legends told of a great sorcerer connected to it.”
That time Arthur tossed him in the watering trough? This feels about like that. A unpleasant rush of cold water. Because somehow? It’s clear that he’s not talking about an unknown person. He’s giving an explanation—one that Arthur can’t possibly understand, not when he doesn’t know that the sorcerer the man is clearly talking about is a few feet behind him, having been just shoved there by Arthur’s own hand.
“I’m not surprised,” Arthur mutters disdainfully.
The man’s smile widens. “You hate all magic, Prince Arthur?”
“I’ve seen nothing good come of it.”
The room has gotten colder. It has to have; otherwise, Merlin’s just imagining. And he is, isn’t he? Anyway, the man doesn’t seem to feel it: he uncrosses his arms and stands up straight, leaning in toward Arthur. No, it really is just Merlin who feels like he’s been placed out on ice. “Interesting. I suppose you ought to know then, the legends speak of this sorcerer in conjunction with a prince. The Once and Future King.”
One breath. Two. Another. Arthur doesn’t move, but Merlin can’t quite stop moving. His hands open convulsively, and he swallows and swallows and swallows until his throat is too dry to keep at it. Not like this—Arthur can’t find out like this.
He never wanted this. Not this way. “Arthur—“ he tries to say, only it never actually makes it past his lips, dying as a sort of loud breath that no one seems to notice.
They wouldn’t notice, or at least Arthur wouldn’t. When he’s too lost in his own thoughts like this—he’ll never see anything else when he’s too consumed with finally being smacked in the face with things he didn’t want to notice. God help them, though, he can’t not see it now.
Merlin’s almost tempted to jerk back, retreat a little further into the room. Nothing good can come of the way Arthur has tensed further, blinking a little too rapidly like he does when he faces down his father—hears something he doesn’t like and doesn’t want to accept. “Then you don’t need Merlin.”
Oh, Arthur, no. Blind, and willingly too. Merlin closes his eyes, waiting. Arthur isn’t letting himself see it yet, but it will come. It will.
The man’s laugh whips down Merlin’s spine; he could swear it leaves a welt. “Perhaps, Arthur, in light of the information I’ve given you, you ought to consider why it is that we need both you and your servant.”
“Get out.”
Two minutes ago? Yes. He would have agreed wholeheartedly, but now Arthur isn’t looking at him, and a quick glance confirms that, yeah, Arthur’s hands are shaking. He hides it of course, propping his hands on the doorframe. Whatever his face looks like, Merlin can’t see it, but the tough lines of his back are enough.
Lead Prat gives him a nod. He’s just wrecked a life with no thought to the contrary, and he’s only going to nod and walk away.
Involuntarily, Merlin takes a step backwards.
And it is Arthur, not any of the guards, who slams the door.
“Arthur—“
Arthur remains at the door, hands resting on the wood frame. He used to do this sometimes at his fireplace—just prop his hands on it and lean forward, letting his head hang between his arms. All the times Merlin saw, though, his shoulders never seemed so still. It’s just not Arthur, who is motion, a fight, a sword, but never so still that it doesn’t look as though he’s even breathing. When he’s hunting, maybe, but never when there’s a problem to be faced. Arthur acts, and the fact that he isn’t now….
“Go to bed, Merlin.”
Merlin feels his breath catch, strangled to a stop by surprise. “What?” This isn’t how Arthur deals with things. He yells and storms about, dragging the problem out by the throat. Never, never, does he sit back and consider, temper in check. He might consider, but he’ll damn well be spouting off while he does. But here… he’s just quiet. He won’t even turn around.
“You heard me.”
“Arthur.”
A deep breath has Arthur’s shoulders rising and falling, though it looks more like the chop of an axe when they rush back down as he exhales than it does any sort of release of stress. “You heard me.”
“You can’t—“
“Now, Merlin.”
And what can he do but go? He’s locked alone in a room with Arthur. It’s not like he can leave—it’s not like Arthur can leave. He could keep on after Arthur, yes, but, he can’t help thinking as he kicks off his boots, eyes still lingering on Arthur’s back, if he pushes, it’s a bit like poking a sleeping dragon. Getting incinerated isn’t really all that appealing. And what if this is what Arthur needs? His father is dead, his kingdom conquered, and now his servant outed as a sorcerer. But still, Merlin has to try—
“Let me explain—”
Arthur’s head leans back just a fraction of an inch, jostling his hair so that a few strands fall further back.
When he speaks, it’s not an Arthur Merlin recognizes. Oh, it is, at least to some extent, but it’s not the Arthur he knows. This is the Arthur that sends men to die, who has to watch it happen. This is the man that makes hard decisions, life and death. This isn’t his friend—this is his king.
“Get the candle, Merlin, and go to bed.”
That’s all… but when said like that, it’s quite enough.
Merlin goes.
Every step toward the bed, he holds out waiting for Arthur to just say something. Then, when he draws back the covers, he’s sure it’ll come then… but nothing. His boots drop to the floor, he slides into bed—and nothing at all. He turns over, turns over again, but Arthur is silent, and the only voice Merlin hears is the scratching of the sheets against his clothes.
And, still, Arthur says nothing.
Sleep isn’t quick to come. Too many thoughts chase it off. His eyes follow Arthur, who has finally moved away from the door and gone to stand by the window. He’s silhouetted there, standing, arms crossed in the dark, face lit just well enough that Merlin can see the unforgiving curve of his mouth. If he’d only just say something. He’d always thought the way Arthur flew off in a fit of temper was irritating, but at least then he’d known what he was thinking. When Arthur is like this, Merlin can only guess, and as he shoves his head further into the pillow, he has to admit that the things his mind makes up for him are probably worse than anything Arthur could suggest.
And his mind—it simply won’t shut down. There’s only one bed, and is Arthur going to stay up all night just because he can’t stand what he’s realized? He needs to sleep. They never got dinner either. And what if Arthur hates him? What if, what if, what if….
When Merlin finally falls asleep, Arthur is still at the window.
---------------------------
A faithful sorcerer.
Is there such a thing? Magic has done so many evils, destroyed so much. And, yet, does that mean it’s intrinsically bad? Or only used too often in bad ways?
But, no, that’s not the crux of it.
It doesn’t matter what it’s done in others. This is Merlin. He lied—oh, how he lies, and that just sets Arthur biting down on his hand to stifle the noise rising up in him. It could be a shout of rage, but it could just as well be a sob, and the problem is, he wouldn’t know until it came out. Merlin. Merlin, damn him.
His father, the king, is dead. Leaning in toward the window, Arthur props his forehead against the cool glass, seeing the flash of his blade as he closes his eyes. At least the glass isn’t warm like the blood was. His father dead, Camelot fallen—who knows where anyone else he cares for is? Gwen, left in Camelot. Morgana, a betrayer. She could be anywhere. And now this with Merlin.
The thing is, he had to have known, at least on some level.
Why in the world was Merlin even in Camelot? He could have been killed. No, that’s just—Arthur feels bile rush up in his throat. Merlin is—no, never dead. It’s not right.
Looks like he isn’t planning on executing him. Oh, and he will not laugh at the absurdity of that—of the sheer foolishness of never considering that as an option, simply because he can’t stand to see Merlin die.
Gwen might still be alive. But she might not. And, if she’s not, Arthur has lost everyone. Merlin—it can’t be Merlin too. Even if Gwen were still alive, it’s not the same—he loves her, but it’s different. Merlin is his friend. Merlin he can rail at and laugh with in ways he can’t with Gwen. Just like Gwen can give him things that Merlin can’t. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need Merlin just as much.
Spreading his fingers out on the pane of glass, he… he just gives in, laughing silently—not funny, not funny. He’s got to laugh anyway, though, right? Merlin, stupid Merlin, who drank poison for him and then wanted to do it again after that incident with the unicorn. Merlin, who rides out everywhere with him, no matter how dangerous. Merlin, who brings him his dinner and makes sure he gets a little extra when Arthur has had a particularly bad day or when there is something he’s especially fond of to eat.
Merlin, who is unbearably foolish, it seems.
How long has he been at this window now? He pushes away, sparing only a cursory glance at the ghostly prints the warmth of his hands leaves on the glass. He’s been at the window too long.
Merlin should have left Camelot the second he entered it and saw just what happened to sorcerers. He never should have even entered it to begin with. And he certainly shouldn’t have gone to bed like he was told when the only other man in the room with him has been raised since birth to abhor something that is apparently an inextricable part of Merlin.
But here he is, lying on the bed in front of Arthur, sleeping fitfully. For once, he did what he was told, and, honestly, Arthur really doesn’t want to consider why that is. It’s not because it’s Merlin—that’s for certain. He didn’t just decide to listen to orders all of a sudden, and that really only leaves himself—the idea that something in his tone or manner or… anything told Merlin enough to make him heed, just this once.
Arthur inhales slowly, holding it until it burns, and then some. He watched his father die yesterday. Merlin didn’t magic them out of the situation. Why? Why? And, now—he doesn’t do it now, either. But there’s always a reason, and when has Merlin ever betrayed him?
Leaning down, he puts a hand on the bed. Lie down, the softness seems to murmur. It’s only Merlin. Only Merlin, yes, and so he sits. If Merlin is guilty, then not only is Arthur’s father dead and his friends gone, but he will have lost the last person who he cares about in a way that’s more than duty. Tell him he’s guilty, he can’t stop thinking, but in the end, you’ll just forgive him, and all that yelling will have been because he’s angry with Merlin for lying, not for being a sorcerer. And if he knows that, why fight? Merlin—he needs to be safe in a way that is a necessity and not hopeful planning. Arthur won’t have him getting killed too. And if that’s the case, why attack at something that will only push Merlin away. He needs Merlin close now—distance means danger, and Merlin. Will. Not. Die. His father—he’s already had his father’s blood on his clothes, in his hair, on his face, and looking down at Merlin, he can’t help but think how pale he looks. Like he’s drained of blood already.
No.
Arthur slips into bed. He doesn’t yank the covers away. He doesn’t jostle Merlin. He doesn’t even make a noise. Yet, somehow, when he settles down on the pillow, Merlin’s eyes flutter open.
Merlin doesn’t move. He just lays there in the dark, staring at Arthur with a half-lidded gaze. If he had any instinct at all, he’d be afraid—would expect a knife to his neck, and would certainly never wake so easily upon finding someone who could be his killer slipping into bed with him. But Merlin—he just blinks awake: the sleep fades in the first few seconds, chased away by the rapid expansion and contraction of his pupils, focusing in on Arthur. He’s very awake, but he doesn’t move.
“How long?” Arthur finds himself murmuring.
Merlin blinks. “Since I was born.”
Made of magic then. Merlin would be, just to make things difficult. “All right,” he says, because there’s nothing else to say. And then again, “All right.” They’ll have to talk about it later, but… not now. Maybe not even soon. Not until they can just talk about it, without whatever they’ve got to say being overshadowed and colored by the mess they’re currently in.
“You ought to get some sleep, Arthur.”
Yes. Goodness, yes. How long has it been? “Yeah. I should. So should you.”
“We all right?” Carefully, Merlin tugs the blanket a little further up over his shoulder. Once he has it where he wants it, he curls his fist into it, watching quietly as Arthur arranges his part of the covers to his own liking.
“Yes.”
No answer. There’s answer enough, though, in how Merlin’s face relaxes, jaw slackening as his eyelashes flutter down, ushering in a soft smile. “I only ever used it to protect you,” he murmurs, eyes still closed.
“I know.” And he does know. He might not have realized that until now, but he does—he does know.
“Please don’t forget that.”
Arthur closes his eyes. “As if I ever could.”
----------------------------
They’re back in the saddle almost before the sun has managed to rise fully. There’s a hint of it on the horizon, casting everything in a sort of soft morning light that Arthur suspects Merlin is accustomed to more than he himself is. At the crack of dawn, isn’t that when Merlin gets up? Turns out, Arthur’s never really asked—he just expects Merlin to have done the things that need to be done by their proper time.
Anyway, if Merlin feels the strain of the early morning, he doesn’t say anything, remaining subdued when his hands are retied and he’s hoisted up on the horse in front of Arthur. There’s more than a little relief in that—in having Merlin in front of him again. In some ways, it’s even more comfortable now than it was yesterday. Sure, words unsaid but still understood don’t actually provide more cushion to the saddle, but they do soften the stress in Merlin’s face, and for the first time since his father died, Arthur feels like he can actually breathe again.
They ride for hours. They’d been given a bit of food before they left the inn, but by the time noon has rolled around, Merlin’s stomach is grumbling, and Arthur isn’t doing much better. Finally, they are given some bread, but there’s not much of it; it barely takes the edge of hunger off. Better than nothing, though, and so Arthur settles back in for the ride, scanning unceasingly for weaknesses in the men around him.
Magic won’t help them. When they’d woken this morning, he and Merlin had passed a few quick words about it, about the suppressed magic. Not much more than that, because talking about it—at least now—didn’t seem right, still doesn’t, and Arthur—right now he just wants to keep Merlin close and safe. It’s his responsibility. Merlin is only here because he stayed in Camelot to help Arthur—these men never would have found him otherwise. So, Arthur’s doing, his responsibility.
And the idea of seeing Merlin die is enough that, responsibility or not, he’ll do everything in his power to prevent it.
A few hours after noon, the ground starts to rise. They’re in a wooded area, thus concealing the terrain ahead, but if Arthur had to bet, he’d guess they’re somewhere near the mountains of Eryri… which means this journey is nearly at an end. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, it’s hard to tell. At least it won’t mean any more days or riding like this, double in the saddle, grabbing naps where he can and for the most part just trying to find any weakness. On the other hand, it means the time when escape is still possible is rapidly closing. It’s always easier to escape when traveling, rather than when they’re stationary. Although Arthur isn’t particularly looking forward to spending time in a cell, said cells are, he has to admit, extremely effective in keeping people where they don’t want to be.
He’d hoped for last night. Honestly, though, two stories up—and all that time he’d spent staring out the window was certainly enough for him to get very familiar with the two guards that had been stationed below it. No doubt there were guards outside the door as well. There had been no escape that way.
No one is this good, though—sometime, they’ve got to make a mistake.
Little by little the trees begin getting shorter, and by the time the sun has begun making long shadows, they’ve disappeared altogether, leaving the group to ascend the slope via a rather rocky mountain path. A few times pebbles go flying out from under the horse’s hooves, and even though Arthur has ridden horses all his life, his heart still beats a little faster when his mount stumbles under him. Being tied to the horse changes things. There will be no easy roll out of harm’s way—if the horse goes down, he’s going with it, as is Merlin.
And then, finally, when he’s beginning to wonder if they really will make it by dark, the trail levels out and they’re left on even ground, staring out onto the surface of a small lake. As high up as they are, there should be wind, but it’s eerily still instead—a lake topped with a pane of liquid glass.
“It used to be underground, you know,” the man says absently, reigning in his mount and signaling the other men to do the same. Once they have, he turns toward the lake, staring out across it with a small frown that, if Arthur had to guess, he’d say looks almost like longing. “Vortigern had it uncovered.”
Arthur bites the inside of his cheek, because he will not snap, will not lash out at this man. He needs a clear head. Their chances for escape are slipping away, and the angrier he is, the harder it’ll be to capitalize on any of those few chances left.
“Good use of his time,” Merlin mutters from in front of him.
Arthur most decidedly does not smile. Much.
Surprisingly, the man smiles as well, and even if it’s rather hard to see under the layers of weariness in his face, it’s there at least. “And then he built that,” he adds, nodding to a castle about halfway around the lake.
It’s not all that impressive. About the only really characterizing feature is the giant tower attached to it. Still, about five of it could fit inside Camelot’s citadel. And, frankly, the idea of building a castle all the way out here, where the land is sparse and the nearest town is in the foothills—it’s more than somewhat strange. This would be a difficult place to attack, certainly, and if what he’s heard is true, and Vortigern really did cut a deal with the Saxons that they went back on, then he’ll need that advantage. But this—it’s a little like ruling over only the land itself. Oh, he might control the surrounding towns in the foothills and nearby, but for all intents and purposes, it looks very much like he’s hiding away up here.
“Legend has it,” the man begins again, gently nudging his horse forward as the party begins its last leg toward the castle, “that the blood of a sorcerer—a boy with no known father, will make that tower stand against any enemy. But my Lord has heard other stories—there are Druids in this area, did you know? Driven out by your…” he pauses then, raising his eyebrows and looking at Arthur before muttering, “father. They came to hide here.”
Keep your head about you. Emotions can be good—can fuel you, but they can just as easily blind you. A rush of anger will smother your tactics, and he can’t afford that—not now. God help him, though, the way the man looks almost regretful when he glances at Arthur—it’s worse than any sort of gloating possibly could be. He’d said he hadn’t wanted to have things come to this—had wanted to negotiate. But he had still killed Uther in cold blood, and what, then, can he possibly have to be sorry about?
“The Druids,” the man continues on, “told him legends of a king… and of a sorcerer who served him. This king—he was to conquer all of Albion. I’m sure you’ll understand why my Lord found that idea unfavorable.”
In front of Arthur, Merlin shifts, clearly uncomfortable. What? Does he think Arthur is going to object to being told he’ll unite all of Albion? Just for good measure—to make sure Merlin gets the point and realizes how stupid that is—he gives him a light shove with his bound hands. For his part, Merlin just twists a little more, leaning back to bump into Arthur. Beneath them, the horse tosses its head slightly in protest at the movement.
The man, switching his reigns to his other hand, gives them a rather disapproving look, but says nothing about it. Neither do any of the guards—in fact, from what Arthur can tell, they’re doing their best to appear to not even be listening. Strange.
“He assumed that, if the blood of the sorcerer would make him invincible, what would the blood of both the sorcerer and his king do? And, as Vortigern’s court sorcerer, I can’t say that I disagree. Blood magic is a powerful thing, and a destiny like the legends say this sorcerer and king have—it could only strengthen it.”
“Two sides of the same coin,” Merlin murmurs.
Arthur jerks his head up. “Excuse me?”
Merlin just shrugs, maybe because, at this point, he feels like he’s got nothing to hide. Whatever the reason, he apparently has no compunctions about explaining in front of Vortigern’s court sorcerer. “It’s what the dragon told me.”
“The dragon? The one under the castle?”
“Yeah. Apparently we’ve got a destiny.”
“You were talking to a dragon,” Arthur replies tonelessly. Not only a dragon, but the dragon—the one under the castle that Arthur has been warned about since before he could walk. Even when he’d gotten old enough to conceivably go see what all the fuss was about, something had just… held him back. No need to quite literally wander into the dragon’s lair, right? But Merlin—apparently he’d just waltzed on down to see the creature and had initiated a nice little chat with it. “Merlin…“
He gets a murmur of assent. Beside them, the man just keeps watching like they’re a particularly fascinating act at the local fair. For once, Arthur can’t quite blame him. This is ridiculous.
“Right. And it told you we’re like two sides of the same coin?”
Merlin shrugs again. “Obviously I’m the brighter side.”
“Oh, shut up.”
The horse jerking forward under them, tugged back into movement by Vortigern’s sorcerer, is enough to shut both of them up. Instinctively, Arthur leans back in the saddle, letting Merlin bump into him for support. After the last few days, it seems likely that riding double will never again feel strange. That’s… not exactly a comforting thought.
“We’re expected,” the man says simply, pushing his hair roughly back out of his face so he can better see the castle that’s drawing closer every moment. “And my Lord does not like to be kept waiting.”
-------------------------
For most of the journey, Merlin has been able to keep his mind off the cuff around his wrist. It’s chafed occasionally, certainly, and the restriction on his magic is like having a chunk of him cut off… but it’s not as though he’s had an opportunity to stop and really try to get it off. Oh, he’s fiddled with it, pulled at it, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not going to be easily removed. Plus, at first, looking at it too much would have drawn Arthur’s attention, though Merlin does privately have to admit that it wasn’t so much about that as it was about being concerned over Arthur. The first day they’d been riding… Arthur hadn’t seemed quite present. Grabbing for swords that weren’t there—it’s not something a man entirely well in the head does. Who could possibly blame him, though? Given what he’d just seen, anything else would have been remarkable.
Now, though—now that Arthur knows about his magic, and now that they’re walking into a situation where some king apparently wants to use that part of him, his magic has started screaming. It’s like when the cuff was first put on—the magic is pushing against his skin, rising up against the metal, trying to expel it. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s always there, and as his magic starts to panic, he can feel himself start to as well.
Every step they take into the castle pushes him a little further. His magic itches, and he turns his head, looking over to see—and, yes, Arthur does look just as strained, at least to someone who knows what to look for. There’s no leisurely grace in his movements—every twitch of a muscle is deliberate, controlled. Everything he passes, he takes it in, studying, calculating.
Once, Merlin had thought Arthur was bragging when he said he was trained to kill from birth. After a few times of seeing him like this, however, he’d gotten the truth of it: Arthur, when he needs to be, is so finely tuned to war that it sinks into him and becomes part of him. Goodness, though, Merlin fears any day when it becomes all of him.
Merlin will never understand it. For him, war is never natural, and any situation like this—it’s something he could never grow used to. He could never be at home on a battlefield—not the way Arthur is.
He is at least able to take in details, though. Arthur may accuse him of being oblivious, but even he has enough sense to notice things like the tapestries and the woodwork. Vortigern, it seems, while he may live almost at the end of the world, does not lack for comforts.
A sharp jab to his shoulder by the palm of a guard is accompanied by a sharp, “Move, boy.” He hadn’t realized he’d slowed down, but apparently he had, and that earns him a sharp look from Arthur, though merely an amused one from the court sorcerer.
Turns out, maybe he wasn’t slowing down, but rather that the party had sped up. Because apparently they’ve reached the throne room. At any rate, they’ve stopped in front of a large set of doors, and the court sorcerer is sorting out his clothes, brushing off the dust and grime of travel as best he can. Pat, pat, pat, and Merlin is willing to bet that stain his hand is hovering over isn’t coming out ever. If Arthur got something like that on his clothes, it’s the sort of thing Merlin wouldn’t even bother trying to remove without magic.
Arthur, on the other hand, tips his head to one side, working the cricks out of his neck. But that’s what he does when… oh, and, yes, there he goes, working his shoulders, loosening them up. Merlin has seen him do it dozens of times… right before a fight.
God only knows what Arthur is expecting.
“Thought your king didn’t like to be kept waiting?” Arthur mocks, lining his words with a sneer and a look that very much says you are beneath me. Under normal circumstances, Merlin might bother to be a little worried at how comforting he finds it that Arthur’s raw, blind anger has been replaced by his usually haughty snarkiness. It’s not like the latter option is a good one… but it is more like the Arthur he’s used to.
Arthur, when ruled by blind anger—he does things like try to kill his father on the hearsay of Morgause. Arthur immersed in his own snark—well, he tends to throw things, give a lot of orders, and mock Merlin far more than anyone’s self-esteem should be able to take. Still, Merlin supposes as he watches Arthur clench his hands, that of the two options, he’ll just have to be longsuffering and bear that bite of Arthur’s rage.
For his part, the court sorcerer merely reaches out, resting his hand on the heavy wooden doors. Oddly, his hands don’t seem hard worked—not a sorcerer doubling as a manservant, then. Absently, Merlin rubs his forefinger against a callus on his thumb. Must be nice to have soft, unworked hands.
“You don’t know what you ask, princeling.”
“I know that if I’m going to face an enemy, there’s no sense in waiting on it.”
A soft snort escapes the man’s nose, and his hands press down harder on the door, arching his knuckles up until his palms nearly cup at the wood. “Vortigern is not your enemy. He could be your ally if you’d let him.”
Right. Because men who kill kings of neighboring kingdoms and kidnap the heirs to the throne are generally looking to make an alliance with said kidnapped heir. They let Arthur sit in his father’s blood—what the hell kind of alliance do they think they can hope for after that?
Arthur seems to be thinking similarly: “The only thing I’ll willingly assist him in is his own death.”
Charming, Arthur. Very charming. And, yet, Merlin feels a shade smug on Arthur’s behalf. Never let it be said that Arthur cowers in the face of adversity.
Unfortunately, the man seems nowhere near as impressed. In fact, he lets out a long sigh, stretching his chest enough to disturb the fabric of his shirt. Even once he exhales, he looks no more settled: if anything, the downturn of his mouth and the whiteness in his knuckles indicate stress. And, though Merlin can’t be sure, something in his manner seems an awful lot like disappointment.
“So be it then. I did offer you an alternative.”
And then he shoves the doors to the throne room open.
----------------
That’s it?
Of all the things Arthur would like to do at the moment, sneering is near the top of the list, coming in closely behind lopping Vorigern’s head off and getting the hell out of here. The first two, unfortunately, are pretty much out of the question for the moment… but third choice isn’t bad, and he really makes no effort to check the general acrobatics of his mouth. He’ll sneer all he wants at someone so unimpressive.
Even better, he looks over at Merlin and sees the kind of slack-jawed disbelief that he does so dearly enjoy teasing Merlin about. Do shut your mouth, Merlin—we wouldn’t want a small bird to fly in there. This time, though, he never considers telling Merlin off. Part of him would actually like to gape himself—although the self-satisfied curl of his lips is working pretty well for him at the moment.
Vortigern is nothing impressive. A short, stout man, he’s beginning to bald, and his lips have the over-shined look of a man who can’t quite control his own saliva. There’s even a smudge of dried crust at the edge of his mouth, cracked and flaking. His eyes, too, seem aged, sunken in yellowed sockets and with bloodshot whites engulfing his irises until Arthur can hardly make out any color ringing the pupil. At least he seems to have avoided putting on excessive weight, though his physique is by no means impressive. With looks like that, it has to have been, what, at least five years since Vortigern has even thought of bothering to ride into battle himself? Probably more.
That does explain why he’s hiding up in the mountains in a castle.
Years out of battle or not, though, surprise of all surprise, it does seem that he has the strength to rise from his throne upon their entrance. Yes, and that’s not odd at all, that he was sitting alone—completely unattended in his own throne room—staring at nothing more than the door as far as Arthur can tell. There’s not much else he could be staring at, really, because, unlike Camelot, the room is sparsely furnished, devoid of any royal tapestries, and sporting only the plainest windows. It’s clean, at least, suggesting that there are servants about somewhere, but wherever they are, it’s certainly not in Vortigern’s sight.
He’s got soldiers, guards, and powerful sorcerers at his hand, and this—this is what he chooses?
The thing is, though, even if this man is old and feeble, locked away in his insanity, a sword through his heart would be the best thing. And the hope of that—it’s what draws Arthur forward, even to his knees when the court sorcerer shoves him there. Just like he knelt a few days ago by his father, and considering how that ended, he doesn’t even try to reprimand himself for hoping this circumstance proceeds differently.
“Prince Arthur,” the old man croaks out, smiling, just enough that a set of yellowed teeth peek out from spit-slicked lips. “And Emrys.”
Merlin? He’s talking about Merlin? Seems he’s got his names mixed up… though Merlin doesn’t correct him. So, maybe Vortigern isn’t entirely wrong? For now, though, there’s too much else to consider: Merlin fidgets at his side, scraping his knees against the hard floor, but he seems unharmed, and that’s more important than whatever strange name he’s apparently got.
“I’m going to kill you,” Arthur hears himself say, not altogether unpleasantly. And why should he be unpleasant? He’s making a promise—not a threat.
Goodness, though, as he stares up at Vortigern, he feels something approaching pride expand in his chest at the man’s reaction: Vortigern startles, creaking to a stop with more speed than one would have guessed his old bones could take. A few moments pass, and then he blinks, deepening the lines of his face into valleys. “I see this does not promise to be an amicable partnership. Truly, Prince Arthur, you’d do better to assent.”
Merlin’s breathing sounds too loud; too clear that he’s hanging on Arthur’s answer, even if there’s no way he can’t know what it’ll be. “Like hell.”
Merlin breathes out slowly.
Arthur hadn’t quite expected his answer to be some sort of trigger, but the seconds do tick by, slowly, giving him nothing to go on, and that is a bit disappointing. Vortigern only stares, aging eyes peering out at Arthur through wizened lids, and even when he reaches out his liver-spotted hand, curling a finger up—jerking it—nothing quite seems to connect. An order. Yes, but what? There’s some answer to be had in the way his men close in, circling, cutting off any escape. It doesn’t take much to see that—there is the man who shoved Merlin the stream, another man who put them up on their horses this morning—but it still doesn’t quite seem to mean anything.
And then the hand of Vortigern’s court settles on Arthur’s right shoulder. Moments later, his other comes to rest on Merlin’s left shoulder as well. Now that—that means something.
Bloody hell, his touch is cold.
“Now then,” the man says calmly, clenching his fingers. Merlin twists under that, but the man doesn’t let go, and Arthur himself doesn’t bother to move. Wait, just wait… “The spell in question could be performed even with Emrys’ magic suppressed. And it would be powerful… but not as powerful as it could be if his magic were freed.”
Some sort of muffled snarl shoots out of Merlin’s mouth, falling like a challenge. When they get out of here, perhaps they should substitute that for gauntlets in the future. The pure rawness of it seems… more appropriate.
“But I would advise against any attempt to use your magic for purposes… not conducive to those I have laid before you.”
Of course he’s not looking for an answer; he doesn’t get one. Instead, he just issues another command, this time pulling on their shoulders, turning them until their knees shuffle across the floor, leaving them facing each other. And like this—it’s not so easy to look at Merlin, head on, no buffer. There’s not enough color in his face, and he’s dusty all over from the road. Everything about him looks tired. If Arthur is honest with himself, he’s seen Merlin similar to this after a particularly long hunt, but it is not the same. Not at all.
Clenching his jaw, Arthur forces himself to meet Merlin’s eyes. It’ll be all right. But does Merlin hear what he can’t say just now? His eyes looked so cracked, so tired, and they don’t spark back to life at one look from Arthur, no matter how surely Arthur should have that ability to make them do that, damn it.
“If you attempt to cast while the spell is taking effect,” the man begins again, this time entirely addressing Merlin, “there is a very distinct possibility that you could harm your prince.”
“Then it’s a chance I damn well hope he takes!” Arthur snaps. Hit out his mind screams, but there is Merlin, a few feet in front of him, and what good will that do for him? Merlin will try to help, and he’ll get hurt, and nothing will have been helped.
Arthur’s hand twitches… but he doesn’t lash out.
“And it is a chance I’m certain he will not take,” the man says simply, staring for a moment longer. It’s hard to imagine when he and Merlin became so very fascinating, but the tension in the man’s face, the pure concentration—well, it’s very clear that there’s something to them that’s hooked the sorcerer’s attention.
Finally, he does look over to his king, away from them, and nods. Only for a moment, though: his eyes, along with Vortigern’s, snap back to hover eerily on Merlin. Merlin, though he does give a tiny shiver, says nothing—doesn’t even look to them. No. His eyes are on Arthur.
When a man stalks up behind Arthur, it’s not exactly hard to detect, even if it weren’t mirrored by a man in back of Merlin. What a challenge, though, not to whip around and knock him off his feet, onto his back, and—and—Arthur has been trained for this. To protect himself. To protect others. This is his whole life, and his body screams for him to be what he is.
But the other man is just behind Merlin, and what if, what if… Visions of Merlin on the floor, bloody and taken apart, just like his father. That simply can’t happen.
Can’t happen, can’t happen, can’t happen his mind chants as he lets the man grab his wrist, though his fists clench seemingly of their own accord as his limb is jerked up, held between himself and Merlin. It’s not quite out straight: his elbow is bent slightly, his hand held out by the guard, who is heavy against his back, hot, stifling, even, when his breath drifts inadvertently over Arthur’s neck. Just like battle, really, during that killing blow when you sometimes draw a man close to you in a terrible embrace—an entirely grotesque one that ends with your sword up his chest and his life draining away at your feet. Arthur has felt it—has had a man’s dying breath whisper out over his skin before Arthur forces his own battle-tensed muscles to unlock, to let the other man drop. And drop they always do: the dead men inevitably crumble to their knees, then all the way down, just dust, dust, dust, while Arthur stands over them and watches.
Today, unfortunately, the man’s breath doesn’t stop coming, and instead he carefully grabs Arthur’s wrist with his own callused hands and forces Arthur’s palm upright, while the other guard, holding Merlin, does the same. He and Merlin’s palms rest side by side, upturned, the pinky fingers just brushing. Steady now, steady—he looks up at Merlin, sees the spark of panic explode in his pupils when the sorcerer steps forward with a knife.
But not yet. First, this man—who should have a sword in his gut, damn it—has to weave together whatever strange litany of words release that bracelet from Merlin’s wrist. Surprisingly, it’s not a long spell. Perhaps just one that had to be cast by the person who had attached the cuff in the first place. It’s not as though Arthur knows, and the only reason he would care is to get Merlin out of it. It seems that’s been done, though, as the thing clatters to the ground with a seriousness that Arthur could swear he feels in his very blood.
Blood.
Do not laugh. Oh, he wants to, because of course he’s feeling it in his blood. This is a blood ritual. That’s clear enough in the knife, held steady in the man’s hand, the blade of which comes quickly to kiss against Arthur’s palm. Interesting. The man’s hand is not entirely steady, and of all the things he’d fear, it’s Merlin. No doubt that is the cause, though—his eyes dart to Merlin every few seconds, flickering like an animal in a snare, even if he’s the one with the knife: his breath catches when Merlin breathes. He’s expecting something, which just means he doesn’t know Merlin—doesn’t know him at all if he believes he’ll try something when there’s a knife so very close to Arthur’s wrist—to a major line of blood flow.
And then the man presses down. Merlin jerks as though he were the one cut.
“No.” Was that his own voice? It was. It certainly was, just like those are his own eyes, glancing up at Merlin, even as sticky warmth spreads out on his palm. “Stay put.”
Stay put, because as quick as he cut Arthur, the sorcerer slipped the knife over to Merlin, resting it on the palm of his hand. One little slip and he could slice too much. Arthur has seen men bleed out—he doesn’t want it for Merlin. It’s a slow death—a terrifying one, where you can watch life seep away. Condemned to watch yourself die. No, he won’t have that for Merlin.
You don’t want any sort of death for Merlin, his mind chides him.
True. But especially not that one.
Swallowing, Arthur watches the knife draw nearer to Merlin. He thought he knew what trust was before? It’s nothing to now. Merlin is kneeling in front of him, a man pressing a hard knife down into flesh, and Merlin is doing nothing, all on Arthur’s word.
Do you really think I’m so sure of what I’m doing, Merlin?
Merlin never flinches. He’s sure. Arthur doesn’t need to hear words to know it.
Moments later, the sorcerer pushes their hands together, and, despite himself, Arthur winces. It’s not that the cut hurts overly much—it’s deep, but not threatening. He’s had worse; and anyway, the horrible rush he’s getting from the circumstances has his senses too terribly alert to notice it. Battle rush or not, though, he will never be able to ignore the way Merlin’s pulse pushes against his hand, pumping out blood between them.
Their blood mingles, trickling down their skin, and then, so slowly, dropping, splashing to the floor.
Like rain almost. No. Gray, red, shapes and colors—no. No. He could vomit—would like to. His father’s blood, Merlin’s blood, gray stone floors, so cold—it can’t happen again—
He’s saying that too, isn’t he? Damn straight—let him be heard. He is Prince Arthur of Camelot, and people listen to him. But not this man. Stop! No reaction at all—the man is chanting, his voice dipping and rising, rolling over Arthur’s skin until it prickles and he has to grit his teeth against it, clutching tighter at Merlin’s hand. Merlin holds too; they anchor each other. Even if they were forced to do this, they can still choose to do it together and not at some crazed sorcerer’s will. That’s got to mean something in magic, right? Intent? Doesn’t that mean something? Or is it all in those strange, eerie words that—shit, are becoming real.
They are. They really are.
Words of gold, then silver, hang in the air, twisting out of the man’s hands—the sound of the spell is coming from his hands. His mouth is moving, yes, but it’s only a motion, a facsimile of true speech, the same as when Arthur goes through sword drills with a blunted weapon. It means nothing.
To Merlin, that may not be the case: his eyes fix on the words, and his mouth is moving too, forming syllables. Nothing comes out, but the wonder of it reads in the frenzied movement of his lips, in the way he forms the sounds, almost caressing, trying to draw it into himself, just for the sake of what it seems. Merlin is magic—born with it, born to it, and born to be it. A spell like this—it’s wrapping him up in it, and from the look on his face, Arthur can guess just how much it’s pulling at him.
The words, as though sensing Merlin, shimmer, blinking out of existence and then bursting back into sight moments later. They sear the air, abandoning it, burned, in their wake, twisting in trails of smoke while they dive and spin, corkscrewing in loops down to Merlin and Arthur’s joined hands.
For the love of—that burns. He feels the cry at his mouth, feels it tumble past his teeth, hears Merlin’s own, but neither of them even try to let go, not when the words melt, melding like liquid gold with the blood… and dripping.
Dripping down to the floor.
And then the air splits.
There is no burst of light. Funny, Arthur had always sort of thought there needed to be. None of that, though—just the sense that the fabric of the space surrounding them folds, wrapping him and Merlin into it, pulling, and planting them somewhere. Grounding them. It’s not painful. Just strange. Sort of like throwing himself in harm’s way to spare another. Or maybe being pushed. But the movement itself—it doesn’t hurt. Only the anticipation—the fear—hurts.
It’s over as quickly as it started. But then it’s not.
Beside him, Merlin is yelling, throwing out words in a language Arthur doesn’t understand.
When Merlin had first come to Camelot, he’d told Arthur that he could take him down with less than one blow. Arthur had taken one look at that cheeky face, all messy dark hair, worn clothes, and appalling neckerchief, and he’d just known he needed to see how far he could push this uppity commoner. Honestly, when he and Merlin had it out in the market, and Arthur had known he was going to win—not like there was ever any doubt about that—he’d expected to feel disappointed when he actually did. Sad, almost, that Merlin had turned out to be as ordinary as anyone else. Just another person Arthur could best. But that—it had never happened. Even when he’d lost, Merlin hadn’t managed to do it properly, and there was just something about that—about Merlin. Just like Arthur had told him, he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it.
Truth is, it’s still true—just as true as the fact that Merlin could take him down with less than one blow.
Bloody Hell, though—looking at Vortigern’s broken body, splayed out like a hunting kill on the throne’s steps—it makes him more than a little thankful that Merlin has apparently decided never to do that.
And he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t kill like this. Because it looks so entirely wrong. Merlin, hand outstretched and gold seeping back into blue—it isn’t Merlin. It’s something he has to do to protect them, but it isn’t him.
Chest heaving violently, Arthur keeps staring, not quite believing. Merlin’s hand—the bloodied one—is stretched out, fingers curling and flexing like he can’t believe what he’s just done either. One good push—a shouted word. Merlin killed a man with only that.
“Merlin….”
When Arthur reaches out, Merlin lets him pull his arm down. Just as easily, he gives in when Arthur pressures with his hand, spinning Merlin away. Merlin has killed before. He’s probably killed with magic before. But this—it’s different. This is pre-meditated. No doubt, he had it in his mind to do it the moment the sorcerer started chanting.
If you attempt to cast while the spell is taking effect, there is a distinct possibility that you may harm your prince.
Which is why Merlin didn’t risk it. The reality of that tingles in every place Arthur’s got a hold on Merlin—that horrible, life-saving knowledge that Merlin would, if he had to, let the ritual take effect if it meant saving Arthur. He… did let it take effect. No, not let—that implies Merlin is at fault, and he is not.
“Look at me, Merlin,” Arthur murmurs, grabbing his friend by the shoulders and shaking him until Merlin’s gaze fixes on his face. He’s breathing hard, but his eyes are sane, and that’s a small comfort at least. “Look at—“
“No. Look at me.”
The sorcerer remains at their side—he never moved, not even when his king was killed in front of him.
The man has no right to order them—none beyond the right of a captor. He is nothing, and Arthur will kill him—his hand itches for a sword to do so, though even his bare hands would work, were they not holding Merlin. Something in his voice, though—he and Merlin can’t stop themselves from looking. And when they do, turning together, he’s only standing there, arms hanging languidly at his sides. He exudes no pleasure; he gives no indication that he mourns the loss of his king. Even the men around them stand silently. Not a one of them moves toward Vortigern.
“Listen closely to me, boy,” he tells Merlin, leaning forward slightly. Strange, how his lips pinch and he clasps his hands together, wringing them. Arthur would never guess that’s how one should look when his king has just died. Shouldn’t there be a bit more care? Acknowledgement of the body? Of the fact that their leader has just fallen? Something other than just a few gestures indicative of nothing more than mild stress?
Is that how people looked when Uther died? Arthur hadn’t seen the aftermath, hadn’t—
“You killed the wrong man.”
Under Arthur’s touch, Merlin goes almost impossibly still. “What?”
The man tilts his chin back and sighs.
“I am Vortigern.”
-----------------------------
If the man before him—apparently Vortigern—had stuck him with a sword, Merlin wouldn’t have felt nearly so surprised. Random violence is somewhat par for the course in these things, but most kings—they don’t pretend to be lowlier than they are. If he had to guess, he’d wager that has something to do with pride, but, then, he’s basing that on Arthur, who has only ever pretended to be someone else in order to stoke his ego by soundly winning a tournament on his own merit rather than on his name.
Vortigern… is not Arthur. In so many ways he is different, and it seems that the gnawing paranoia he’s apparently feeling is greater than any sort of pride he has.
No time to consider, though, because Arthur is already lunging forward. Merlin has just long enough to shout out a denial, grabbing at Arthur’s clothing as he does, before something hard smacks into him.
Bones grinding, shifting, and all he can feel is that he’s rolling over, someone’s weight on him. A guard. Yes, that’s it, and not entirely it—it’s Arthur too, who was pulled off course. Makes sense—there’s a patch of red cloth in Merlin’s fist, and when he grinds his fingers down into it, the quality is so fine that there’s no chance of it being anyone’s but Arthur’s. Seems he had a rather good grip when Arthur tried to lunge at Vortigern. That’s something to be proud of, at least.
“What the hell, Mer—“
A fist to Arthur’s face sends him sprawling. Another guard. One look at the way he flops out on the floor, blood pooling at the corner of his lip—suddenly the guard holding Merlin isn’t all that important. He’s just in the way, because Merlin is going to kill the one that hit Arthur like that, and then Arthur will probably end up killing the one that tackled Merlin, and, well, at least in some manner or another the job will get done.
But it never does get done.
Arthur recovers quickly, swearing so violently that his whole body shakes with the movement. Short and sharp—mouth slamming open and closed as he yells and yells and yells, but even that doesn’t last. Why is his face changing? Slackening, eyes growing larger, more rounded, lips forming into a silent—or no, now just plain loud—cry of—
“Merli—“
The world shatters, shards of it pushing down and centering on his palm. Pain, raw and grating like he’s never had occasion to know. Arthur is shouting, straining to get to him. Merlin can see that from where he’s lying on the ground, pinned there by a guard. Arthur shouldn’t do that—shouldn’t fight like that. They’ll hurt him. He’s a great warrior, but the odds—he needs to consider the odds—o-odds—“Oood-d-d-dss.” It hurts so much. He hadn’t meant for that to slip out in a moan, one slurred word and just a lot of pain. Hadn’t meant…
“Merlin!”
His hand. Look at his hand. It looks—looks—
“Turn your head away from it, Merlin. Damn it, do as I say!”
He does too, because Arthur sounds panicked. And Vortigern—even he looks regretful, watching with pursed lips. His hand stretches out, hovering, as though he intends to reach out to help. But it drops at the last moment. No, he does better—a nod to the guards, and Arthur is free, scrambling forward, and—blood does not look good on his hands. Merlin’s blood. He’s bleeding. That’s… bad. Blood is bad, right? Should be, but he feels too shocked to do much more than fix his eyes on Arthur’s face—and Arthur is still yelling—and wait for Arthur to calm.
“What did you do to him?!” Arthur practically screams over his shoulder. His hands run frantically down Merlin’s arm, touching the wound, fingers bracing Merlin’s wrist as gently as he can. Even that hurts. He’s doing it because he has to, of course, but it still hurts—
“Iron,” Vortigern murmurs, eyes downcast, staring at the spike driven through Merlin’s palm. Coward won’t even look Arthur in the eye. “Checks a sorcerer’s powers.”
“And the bracelet didn’t?!”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
No. Arthur wouldn’t. He needs to know, though—needs to hear the idea that is beginning to form in Merlin’s head, swimming under the layer of fog. The spell—he’d known the spell, and now if he’s trying to bleed Merlin’s entire life into the stones—It’s old magic. Blood magic. And Merlin knows. Arthur doesn’t understand, but if Merlin could tell him… Got to, but it hurts, and his throat just won’t work.
“Art—“ His throat is so dry. Why can’t he get words out? He’s got to. “Ar—“
The room tips, and it is terribly difficult to see Vortigern’s face, but if he could—if by some miracle he could make anything out through the graying color of the room—he might see pity. It sounds like pity anyway when he speaks, telling the guards to let Arthur go, to let him…
“Let him go,” Vortigern murmurs. “Just because Emrys must die does not mean he must die without comfort.”
If Arthur could get the iron out—
“Ar—“
“No, Merlin, hush. It’s fine, don’t talk, you’ll be fine.”
Stubborn prat, who doesn’t underst—a wave of pain melts the thought. But, no, push, push, keep thinking, seeing Arthur, hovering above him, hands still bracing the wound. He won’t take it out. It’d be dangerous to if things were normal. Bleeding out—something about that— But Arthur doesn’t understand.
“I am truly sorry,” he hears Vortigern say over the buzzing in his ears. So loud, so loud… “I always knew he would have to die, but if your father had bargained, Emrys’ last days didn’t have to be like this.”
Arthur isn’t listening. His hand is resting on Merlin’s chest, rubbing frantically, like he thinks he can keep the stuttering breath alive from that touch alone. He should know better. If breathing hurts this much, no amount of rubbing is going to help.
“B-Blocked—“ he stutters out between chattering teeth. Why is he growing so cold?
“Merlin, stop it—“
“B-B-Block—“
And then Arthur’s hand stills on his chest. Merlin can’t see him—everything is too cloudy, shrouded like someone has dropped a sheet over his face already, hiding his dead body from the world. He doesn’t need to see, though. He knows Arthur, knows the way he tenses when he sees something, fingers clenching, digging—not usually into Merlin’s ribs, but if it means understanding it’s a small price. An absolute prat, yes, but a smart man—something that Merlin never doubted.
“Ma—Ma… gic—“
“I know.”
He’s so still. Too still. Has he not really understood? Everything is so cloudy, maybe he’s not seeing Arthur right—
Arthur explodes into motion.
Going against every field skill he probably ever learned, Arthur throws the weight of his upper body down on Merlin’s arm, pinning it there—doesn’t even hurt so much now—and wrapping his hands around the stake of iron that’s been driven through Merlin’s palm. Somewhere in the background, Vortigern is crying out, and there’s the frantic scrambling of guards, but Arthur is quick. He always has been, but never more than now, in how he jerks the iron back out of Merlin’s hand and hurls it hard away from him, moments before he’s grabbed and yanked back away from Merlin.
It’s enough, though. Plenty.
Oh, not enough to heal. Merlin’s hand screams in pain—the sort of agony he’s never quite experienced before, and also the kind that he won’t entirely remember once it’s passed. That can be dealt with, though. The iron is gone, and Merlin’s magic is instinctual—so much so that he can feel it building, welling up within in and spurting free so violently that the walls shake with it.
And then everything goes dark.
------------------
Merlin is a lot of things: bumbling, good-natured, a little naïve, loyal… but apparently he’s also powerful. The kind of power that shakes the walls of a stone castle, it seems, bringing dust down from the roof and sending the guards scattering. That scattering doesn’t help them much—those closest are caught in the net of whatever Merlin is sending out, held, for the most part, immobile. God knows why it isn’t touching Arthur too, but he’s not about to ask questions: those men are sitting ducks, and all he has to do is grab one of their swords, and it’s easy. Killing should never really be easy, but this—it’s just one after another until the blade is gory and dripping.
They can’t move away, but there’s enough give to whatever Merlin’s casting that a few manage to at least get their swords up. One, fumbling for a knife on his hip, hurls it at Arthur, and quick dip to the side is about all that stops him from taking it to the shoulder. Mortality is fast like that, but just as quickly forgotten, and he’s moving again, near miss forgotten--his sword through the man’s chest before he can do anything else.
Arthur does his best not to see their faces. That death thrall—the widened eyes and gasping mouths, sometimes dripping with curses; hands clenching, reaching out towards him, some slashing with their swords as best they can.
And then it’s just him and Vortigern.
Time doesn’t slow. It’s nothing so dramatic as that. Arthur has seen war before, has had men sprawled before him like Vortigern is now. He’s perfectly aware of where he is, of who’s before him—of every tiny tick of muscle in Vortigern’s face, and, oh, how his flesh almost seems to crawl with the motion of his jaw when he begins working it frantically. He probably doesn’t realize he’s doing it—probably doesn’t notice much beyond Arthur, standing over him. The dark fear in his eyes would suggest that.
If he’s not careful, he’ll cut himself on the tip of the sword that Arthur presses to his throat. Can’t have that, though—he won’t die that easily.
“Why did you do it?”
“It” could be anything—frankly, Arthur himself isn’t even sure what it means. But he needs answers. Someone needs to explain why Merlin is lying on the ground, unconscious. He won’t die—the wound is already clotting, no doubt his magic working to save him. But how can that change things? The look of him, lying there on the stones, pale and about two steps away from being dead like Uther—it races down Arthur’s veins, steadying his hand, as though it’s shooting out his fingers and wrapping them more closely to his sword. A marriage of skin and metal, and if he looked down to find the two irrevocably fused together, he wouldn’t be entirely surprised.
Vortigern inhales sharply through his nose, catching the air so that it comes back out as more of a panicked snort than a breath.
“I’m going to kill you,” Arthur says slowly. “Give me the answers I want, and I’ll make it quick.” He shouldn’t be like this, threatening torture, but after all that’s happened, his mind won’t level with that. He doesn’t even want it to. “Now, I don’t want this to be more unpleasant than it has to be,” he spits out, echoing Vortigern’s own words. How often on their journey did they hear that particular bit of tripe? “Do you tell that to all the men you plan to kill?”
“I never planned to kill you,” Vortigern chokes out, lashes fluttering almost compulsively. Nerves, Arthur will concede, are perfectly understandable in a man who is about to die, though it is hard to reconcile this crumpled figure with the man who stood so confidently before him that day when his father died. Somehow, the difference is disappointing—underwhelming. “I only needed your blood for the ritual. I would have let you leave when it was done.”
“Suppose I believe you.” And that’s a big supposition. “Why would you do that?”
“You, like Emrys, would be bound to the castle in which the spell was cast. But unlike him, you had no power to give. Truly, you do not know the power your sorcerer has, and I—I could have claimed it for my own. Using it, I could have made these walls—myself—invincible. And you, tied by blood to them, could never have overthrown me or this place. I would have held your sorcerer’s powers, and you would have been incapable of fulfilling the legends—of conquering Albion. Of conquering me.”
“And why even spare me?”
Vortigern closes his eyes. Even in the creases of his eyelids, beads of perspiration have condensed. It’s the same all over his face, leaving his skin looking wan, almost feverish. “Why send Camelot spiraling down into madness? I have no wish to clean up the chaos that killing both you and your father would have caused. I have no interest in the everyday affairs of your kingdom—that, I would have left to you. But you would have answered to me when it was called for.”
“No. I would have answered to Merlin’s magic. Never to you.” He’d have sooner died. He would have died if that had been the choice. “And you couldn’t draw from Merlin unless you drained his life out into some sort of tangible object, could you? You could use the both of us to make your castle invincible, but in order to use his magic, you had to put all of him into these walls. Am I right?”
That at least explains why he was going to let Merlin bleed out on the floor… and it explains why Arthur isn’t dying beside him. Grimacing, Arthur has to admit that if he’d had any power like Merlin’s, he wouldn’t have escaped the same fate.
A slow nod is his answer. Looking down at Vortigern, though, he can see in the strain of his face that he won’t get many more answers. All men reach their breaking point. Hard to say what Vortigern would do—Arthur’s seen men purposely kill themselves before their enemies can do it for them, just as surely as he’s seen men’s minds fracture—but it’s clear that Vortigern is fast approaching the point where giving answers will no longer be something he’s willing to do.
One more question, then: “Why tell me all this?”
Vortigern’s eyes squeeze more tightly shut, sending lines wrinkling out over his temples. He looks older like this, on his back, held in place by whatever magic Merlin is still maintaining, even unconscious. How odd that seems: Vortigern had presented himself as self-assured, even regretful when he’d first entered Camelot. Now, he just looks like one more man dead on a battlefield. Matters of whether or not he ever truly did feel sorry for what he had to do—they seem irrelevant in the face of what’s so obviously impending.
Though, perhaps not as irrelevant as Arthur would like.
“Because, Arthur Pendragon, I have watched you, both by carefully planted men and by magic, since the time I realized you were the one the prophecies spoke of… and you are a man of your word. I know when I am beaten, and if I have to die, I would prefer it to be quick. And you have promised that it will be, should I give you answers.”
He did promise. So much of him wants to laugh in the man’s face, tell him that was all a lie. How can he not want that? So much wrong has been done to him by this mess of a man in front of him. But that’s just it—this man is a mess, consumed by his own paranoia and apparent obsession with the legend of a king and a sorcerer. Maybe he was a good man once, before he got it in his head that inaction—a failure to counter that legend—would lead to his downfall. It takes so very little to tear down a good man.
It can start with nothing more than withholding the mercy promised to one who doesn’t deserve it.
And Arthur will not become like this man.
His hands itch on the sword, over every groove, skin on metal, but he doesn’t swing. The moment he does, the dead man will reflect him—the certainty of it settles down in the pit of his stomach. If he doesn’t want to be like Vortigern, he has to choose not to be.
“I hope this was worth it,” Arthur finds himself saying quietly.
“It wasn’t,” Vortigern murmurs, sighing. “But you know that.”
He nods. “I suppose I did.”
“Just do it.”
That might as well be permission. Besides, he has every right to. After his father, his kingdom—everything this man has done, why shouldn’t he?
But still his hand falters.
This is not a battle. This is killing a man in cold blood. The guards fallen around him—they fought back. If Merlin’s spell had failed, if they’d gotten up, he would have been surrounded and inevitably defeated. That, he can justify: but Vortigern lays before him, palms up, reaching for no weapon. No twitch of muscle is even visible. To kill him—it would be an execution.
“No.”
Vortigern’s eyes snap open. “What?”
“You’ll be taken back to Camelot. There will be a trial. But I will not be both the hand that judges and the hand that kills. Not like this.”
“We both know I’ll be sentenced to death.”
“Yes.” But it will be a fair sentencing.
Briefly letting his eyes flutter closed, Arthur gives a short, abrupt nod.
And then feels something run up his sword.
If he’d thought it out a bit more carefully, he might have it coming. Every shift in expression, every hard stare, their abduction in general—Vortigern has driven himself, as near as Arthur can tell, more than a little mad on the idea that a prophesied sorcerer and king will conquer him and his lands. He has spent all his resources insuring that won’t happen. No man does that but one who cannot accept living and dying on anything but his own terms. And, unknowingly, he gave Vortigern one last opportunity to do exactly that.
There’s never any good way to expect a man to skewer himself on your sword. And there is truly never any good way to understand it after.
And Vortigern has done exactly that. There he is, sword through his chest, blood oozing, bubbling up out of his mouth. Move back, move back--with a hand that aches from gripping the hilt for so long, Arthur draws away, easing the sword out of Vortigern’s chest, pulling gore with it. He’s not sorry to see the life fade from the man’s eyes—to watch him slump over, plummeting face first to the ground. There’s no reason to be sorry. Truthfully, there’s every reason for satisfaction.
Even that, though, doesn’t come. Whatever these last few seconds were, they were inevitable… but he can’t rejoice in them—can’t quite let himself do it, lest he glory in seeing this man slain much like his own father was. And that—it’s not right. He is not a man that revels in bloodshed—will not let himself be one—no matter how deserved it is.
A harsh ache radiates up his fingers as he loosens them from the sword. One quick toss, and it’s left lying perpendicular to Vortigern’s body. Even after the clatter of it hitting stone has stopped ringing off the walls, Arthur remains where he is, standing over Vortigern’s body.
“Do you think whatever destiny Merlin and I represented would have been this harsh?” he asks, tipping his head back and letting his lungs do their work. The air burns his throat going down, lighting every nerve in his chest aflame. Everything about this place is miasmic. It will, of course, only worsen: in a few hours, the stench of death will hang here more startlingly than any banner ever could.
But Arthur will not be here to encounter it.
He will never be here again.
--------------------
“Why here?”
Merlin jerks his head up, tearing his stare away from where he’d settled it on the water of the lake, watching two birds fighting—dipping and diving in a sort of deadly dance—just above the surface. “What?”
Arthur peers over at him with a kind of vexed affection, even if the stress of recent events is relayed in the tension he carries with him. By now he really ought to know that Merlin enjoys watching the wildlife, yet, somehow, it never fails to amuse him. “Why did Vortigern choose to build his castle here?” Arthur elaborates, thinning his lips against the smile that seems to be threatening to sneak its way onto his face.
Merlin doesn’t answer right away, and Arthur, apparently not willing to accept that, pulls his horse up short. One tug has Merlin’s horse stopping as well—not much of a surprise, as Arthur has Merlin’s reigns tied to his saddle. Merlin had complained, of course, but you can’t do it properly with only one good hand, Merlin, and that had been the end of the argument: Arthur had taken the reigns and tied them to his saddle, ignoring any vaguely protesting noises that Merlin was apt to make. He’d have made a few more, except he’d caught a good look at Arthur’s face, and what he’d seen there—it hadn’t been Arthur’s usual penchant for enjoying ordering around everything in creation. Whatever it was that had been buried there just beneath the surface of his skin, it had radiated a strange kind of need, and Merlin—he hadn’t been able to close his eyes against it. Arthur had needed to make sure he was okay, and there’s no explanation for it, but when hasn’t he done his best to help Arthur?
“Merlin?”
“Same reason he did anything else,” Merlin replies finally. “Prophecy.”
Arthur’s nose wrinkles as he frowns. “Prophecy?”
“You’ve never heard the significance of this place?”
“Should I have?”
Well, no, maybe not, because he’s Arthur. Sighing, Merlin just shrugs. Teasing aside—and taking into account how Arthur always mocks his lack of knowledge, Merlin will certainly be doing some of that later—Arthur would have no reason to. It’s not exactly a place Uther would tell his son about during a bedtime story—if he ever even bothered to give Arthur that sort of attention. Funny, though, because that’s exactly how Merlin learned of it.
“It’s a common story for small children.”
Shifting uncomfortably to the point where the leather of his saddle creaks, Arthur just nods. “All right.”
Which really might as well be him asking not to be made to admit that he never had any of that. And while there are some things that Merlin might be prepared to mock Arthur incessantly for, his childhood isn’t one of them. Topics like that are just off limits, and in light of recent circumstances, any jibes about what Arthur’s father may or may not have done for him would be in terrible taste.
Doesn’t change that someone has to make up for that, though. And, Arthur, though he will never ask for, continues to watch him expectantly, like he can’t figure out why Merlin hasn’t already started.
Times like these, it’s impossible not to find Arthur at least a little bit endearing.
“There were two dragons, one red and one white,” Merlin begins, gripping onto the saddle with his good hand: Arthur will probably begin moving forward again soon. Seconds pass, though, and he doesn’t. He simply remains where he is, eyes fixed expectantly on Merlin. “These dragons were, for many years, concealed beneath a lake—“
“This lake, I presume,” Arthur interrupts, casting a glance out over the water.
He will not reprimand Arthur for interrupting. He. Will. Not. “Yes. But the legends told that, one day, they’d be released.”
“And Vortigern took that seriously?”
Right, and who couldn’t chuckle at that? Anyway, Merlin enjoys the warm vibration of the noise shaking down his spine. If someone had told Arthur these stories as a child, no doubt Arthur would have had the same, skeptical, I-can’t-believe-that face. Or it’s also possible that he may have devised a childish plan by which to investigate the matter for himself, which would have been understandably startling to any nurse he might have had… but, somehow, Merlin can’t quite imagine Arthur at any age not wanting to conquer things.
“Seems he did take it seriously,” Merlin admits, looking over at the castle that’s still only a minute or so ride behind them. “He wouldn’t have built that castle otherwise.”
Arthur just furrows his brow, and though he opens his mouth, he apparently thinks better of whatever he was going to say. After pausing for a moment, he tries again, this time a bit more agreeably, though the small frown smearing his mouth out of place suggests that he still thinks Vortigern more than a little mad. “All right. Go on.”
“When freed, the dragons began to struggle with each other. The fight stretched on and on, and on three different occasions it looked as though the white dragon would be the victor. But then, despite seeming the weaker of the two, the red dragon recovered its strength and drove the white one off.”
“That’s it?” The way Arthur tilts his head, confused and clearly unsatisfied—it’s not so hard for Merlin to imagine that he is telling this story to a young child—one that is engrossed enough in the tale to be displeased when it doesn’t end how he wants. Interesting. He’ll have to remember this for future reference. Maybe tell Arthur a bedtime story the next time he’s acting particularly like a prat—and then he’ll have to duck before Arthur can take aim with any hard objects.
“Not quite. This story was usually told to children who feared they’d be killed by invaders.” Thinking of his own mother, he can’t quite help grinning. She’d always interspersed throughout the narrative noises of the dragons, descriptions of the expressions on the witnesses’ faces, the way the earth shook when a blow was landed. And, somehow, Merlin himself always managed to get worked into the plot at some point or another. When his mother had told it, he’d always been able to fancy that he really might have been there. “And usually it’s longer, but I don’t think you’d appreciate me embellishing it for you quite like my mother did.”
Arthur probably wouldn’t appreciate dragon noises. Who knows, though….
And, no, he’s not grinning at the thought. Really, he’s not.
“So there’s a moral?” Arthur asks, eyeing him warily. It’s probably the grin. Merlin can’t quite blame him.
Honestly, though, it’s hard to resist the urge to slap his forehead. Perhaps it wasn’t that no one had attempted to tell Arthur any stories—it was just that they got fed up while trying. Because Arthur as a toddler? Was probably incorrigible. Worse than now, even. “The red dragon represents Britain, and the white dragon the Saxons. It shows that we will drive them from our lands—and that our lands will no longer be fractured.”
“So, Vortigern uncovered an underground lake because of a children’s story?”
“Seems so.”
“And actually found what the legends said he would?”
Again, Merlin finds himself just shrugging. Beneath him, his horse shifts impatiently, but try as Merlin does—and he’s not trying all that hard, really—he can’t find it in himself to want to move just yet. “He’s not the only one who believed it, Arthur.”
Unsurprisingly, Arthur seems to find that odd, and he lays his reigns across the front of the saddle, crossing his arms rather disagreeably. “Kind of like he believed stories about a king and a sorcerer?”
“Yeah. Kind of like that.” Exactly like that, and considering those stories have sort of smacked Arthur in the face with their veracity, he ought to be a little less skeptical. “And he wasn’t the only one who believed those either.”
“Well,” Arthur mutters, tipping his chin back and looking down his nose at Merlin. So haughty—always so haughty, only this time Merlin is tempted to laugh, because Arthur—he’s missing what’s right in front of him. “They certainly didn’t believe them in Camelot.”
“Oh? You can’t think of anything in Camelot that might have been influenced by either of those legends?”
This time, Merlin gets a scowl. “We haven’t time for this, Merlin. Your hand needs tending, and we need to get back to Camelot. My father—“ No surprise that he falls silent. The pallor that sinks into his skin, though—it might as well be a spark lighting a fire: sympathy burns up through Merlin until he can feel it aching all over him.
The recent past is not so forgotten. In the castle behind them there are scattered a baker’s dozen bodies. Uther is dead. Glancing down at his own hand, Merlin has to admit that he didn’t make out too well either. But Vortigern, mad as he might have been, wrong as he certainly was, had scraps of truth… and Arthur needs to see them, even if the memory of this entire situation is tantamount to gravel between the teeth.
In a case like this, though, it may be far easier to simply show Arthur rather than try to talk him through it. Prat that he is—and, all right, also the legendary king he’ll become—his listening skills leave a lot to be desired.
“Merlin—“
No better way to tell him to shut up than to just turn his back on Arthur. Predictably, that earns him a low noise of displeasure and then a more irritated drawling of his name—even that turns sharper and increasingly more annoyed the longer Merlin ignores it, but it’s not like this is the first time he’s failed to heed Arthur. And what he has to show--this needs to be seen.
Raising his hands, Merlin focuses in on the front wall of the castle they have just left. The stone there is heavily set, very solid, with no signs of deterioration. No better place than that. In all the ways that matter, it’s entirely fitting.
His horse sidesteps under him nervously when he whispers out the words, but Arthur, in a quick moment of sudden understanding, steadies it. Good thing he does too, because when Merlin finishes speaking and the front of the castle catches flame, the horse fidgets even more, tossing its head nervously.
“Merlin—“
“Just look, Arthur.”
Silence. How glorious that sounds. Arthur Pendragon, speechless. Merlin can feel himself grinning—he could feel it even if he were paralyzed. Arthur can’t find words. Clearly, this is what satisfaction feels like.
And, in addition, it feels pretty darn good to know that Arthur is finally seeing what he needs to see.
“Just because Uther didn’t believe the legend,” Merlin says finally, chancing a glance over toward Arthur. And, yes, he’s sitting there, mouth half open, staring fixedly at the castle. “Doesn’t mean your ancestors didn’t.”
Because, obviously, they did.
There, burned into the front of the castle, is the Pendragon emblem. That is, a red dragon, placed there for Pendragon. Shows how much pride Uther had that he kept the emblem and the name, even after he’d eradicated any trace of magic—including dragons—from the kingdom. Not that Merlin would ever say that to Arthur. Nothing would be gained from it—let Arthur have his good memories of his father to outweigh the end.
“You… burned my symbol onto the castle,” Arthur says finally, a little stupidly.
Merlin’s grin widens. “Yup.” He did a pretty good job too. He got just the right shade of red, kind of like fire on the gray of the stone, and even though the emblem has no telling texture, there’s an almost lifelike quality to it. Anyone who comes across this castle will probably take a few moments to seriously consider whether or not they want to enter.
“That story? That’s where my emblem came from?”
“I think you’re missing the point, Arthur.”
And to think he was worried about Arthur—if he can still scowl so imperiously, clearly some of what the last few days has wrought is settling. Not healing quite yet—it’s too fresh for that, and no doubt it will scar even when it does heal. There will be nightmares, bouts of guilt—Arthur, for someone so prideful, is oddly given to those—and it really couldn’t be any other way when Arthur saw his father killed in front of him. He was covered by Uther’s blood, abducted by Uther’s killer, and Merlin, swallowing down the guilt that is his own—because he should never have been something Arthur had to worry for—has to admit that it couldn’t have helped Arthur to see him nearly die. No, those things are inextricably a part of Arthur now. But… that doesn’t mean he has been altered for the worse. He’ll be all right.
And he’ll be king.
The kind of king that deserves to have an emblem like that.
“Oh? I’m missing the point? Enlighten me then,” Arthur snaps in a tone that very much indicates that, while he does want to know, he hates having to ask.
And Merlin very decidedly does not wait even a few seconds longer than necessary, just to irritate him further. Not at all. “The red dragon. It drives out the white one. It unites the land.”
“That—“ He stops, frowning. “Vortigern--he wasn’t entirely wrong. It’s a child’s tale. But it’s… true?”
“I think, Arthur, that you’ll make it true.”
Arthur doesn’t show vulnerability very often. But when he does, it’s worth seeing, not because Merlin wants him open to hurt, but because it makes Arthur seem so startlingly human. And human, for Arthur, is a man who cares. “I’m not ready to be king,” he admits slowly, turning his head away from Merlin.
“I think you are.”
“And what would you know about it?” he mutters, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably.
“I don’t know about it. But I know about you. And I know you’ll meet whatever faces you… and Arthur—losing isn’t something you do often or well.” Even with his head mostly turned away, Arthur’s smug little smile is detectable. “You do what needs to be done, for yourself and for others. Haven’t the past few days proved that much to you at least?”
At first, Arthur gives no answer. The moments slide by—perhaps he won’t give one at all. The wind is picking up, though, and Merlin pulls his jacket up a little more firmly around his ears. He’ll wait for whatever Arthur has to say… or he’ll wait until Arthur is ready to go.
As it turns out, he’s met with the former.
“You have that much faith in a legend?” Arthur asks, breaking the silence. His face is still turned away, but, slowly, by minute inches, he looks back, eyeing Merlin, first out of the corner of his eye, but then, because he’s Arthur and he just can’t stand not to properly face anything down—even his own insecurities—he looks Merlin straight in the face.
Merlin makes no move to turn away. “When I can see it playing out in front of me? Yeah, I guess I do.”
And Arthur just smiles. There’s still an ache to it—probably will be for a while, but for Merlin—and he can’t quite turn away—there’s strength to it. Just a lopsided, easy grin, almost mocking, like Merlin, you fool, you believe in bedtime stories. But from the way Arthur looks at him, it’s obvious he’s pleased about it, and no matter what he says, there’s something in that smile that says he might just believe it too.
“I don’t care what destiny says, you know,” he says eventually. “You’re still going to polish my armor. More often now than ever, actually—I don’t appreciate being lied to.” He shoots Merlin a last pointed look—the kind that promises more discussion, and it’s not as though Merlin didn’t know Arthur was going to press for details about his magic—about all the lies surrounding it—but it’s not exactly a pleasant knowledge.
Merlin wets his lips. Not nervous. Not much. Just… all right, maybe a bit. “I—“
“Not now, Merlin,” Arthur snips, rolling his eyes.
Right. Seems that closes the issue for the moment—and Merlin can respect that, can be thankful for it, for Arthur letting the issue sit until things have smoothed back into something where the shocks and lingering emotions of the last few days won’t influence the discussion they’ll inevitably need to have.
For now, it’s just time to go home. They’ll fix the rest later.
Raising his chin—prat’s just pleased he got what he wanted while still getting his point across—Arthur settles back deep into the saddle; he takes up his reigns as though he can’t conceive of why he dropped them to begin with, and kicks his horse forward. Merlin’s horse, attached, goes with him, and if Merlin looks back over his shoulder, gazing at the emblem burned into the building, even as the building grows smaller and small in the distance, well, that’s his affair.
Even when they start down the mountain and the picture disappears behind the skyline, the image remains burned into Merlin’s vision. Funny, though, how when he pictures the dragon, it’s not up on a castle, but rather moving on a shield in battle, glinting against the sunlight as Arthur blocks a blow. It’s in that stupid servant’s livery he sometimes has to wear. It’s the stitching on every cloak of the knights of Camelot.
It might as well be Arthur himself.
Watching the man in question, Merlin settles further back into his saddle. It’s not worn to fit him like the one he usually uses, but, then, a lot about this situation is new, untried, just like the leather. Maybe he could say this is a new beginning… but, really, this is something that started ages ago. There’s nothing new about it. And prophecy, legend—it’s all the same, all just a concept that seems like nothing at all when he glances up at Arthur’s back. So what if what they’ll end up doing is written and foretold? Even if it weren’t, this is Arthur, and this is him, and that’s enough to make it real, written or not.
Anyway, what’s been said about them before doesn’t matter: it’s what will be said about them in the future. Prophecy will become history, and already, Merlin can see a little of the Once and Future… in both of them.
Squeezing his legs against his horse’s sides, he urges it forward a little faster, up next to Arthur.
Arthur doesn’t look at him. But he smiles.
And Merlin grins back.