[fanfic] Why We Fight - Part Four (Merlin/Arthur)
King Uther Pendragon and Queen Ygraine Du Bois arrived in Astolat a day before the ten days of celebrations began. Shortly after the sunrise, the prince met them in the courtyard, where he was also introduced to the most important of the Northumbrian delegates, who’d traveled with the king and queen from Camelot. Merlin did not witness this encounter; he and the rest of the house slaves were scrambling to complete last-minute preparations. When the royal procession had come, Merlin had been in the kitchens, helping to ensure that the King and Queen would have the perfect dinner. But he had heard details from the other servants and slaves. Like how the king was as stern and terrifying and the queen was as beautiful and gracious as the last time they had visited. Like how the prince gave his father just a bow and handshake in greeting, while he had given his mother an unabashed hug. Like how the Northumbrian delegate traveling with them from Camelot was a woman like Morgause was, with dark hair and pale skin and a small, twisted smile that sent chills down a person’s back. Merlin wondered if this particular delegate was a sorceress-maybe a priestess-too. And that wasn’t a pleasant thought because it definitely meant trouble for Arthur. But Merlin pushed his musings aside because it wouldn’t do to be found neglecting his work.
Farran, the chamberlain, didn’t care that Merlin was really Arthur’s personal slave. He seemed to resent the fact actually, and he treated slaves more typically than Tom did-which meant with harsh words and a quick temper when a slave did not move fast enough. So close to the celebrations, it was hardly a surprise that Farran treated the house slaves even harsher, taking out his stress on them and making them work faster. Merlin had thought that with the weeks they’d already spent preparing, everything would have been ready by now, but no, everything wasn’t. The rooms and meals that needed to be prepared seemed to never end, as did the number of guests arriving at the castle for Arthur’s crowning.
Merlin had always been a bit clumsy. Unfortunately, the fatigue from working every waking hour of the day made him more so. While carrying a heap of dirty linens across the courtyards to the laundress, he stumbled over a section of uneven cobblestone. The linens toppled over from his arms, and while some simply fell to the ground, a few flew into the sputtering face of Gamel, the under-chamberlain with just as nasty a temper as Farran. Gamel yanked the offending linens away from his face, throwing them to the ground with a growl.
“You!” he shouted, and with his arms full, Merlin wasn’t quick enough to react to the fist slamming into his face. The punch sent him sprawling, the rest of the linens dropping to the cobblestone. It was fortunate, Merlin thought as he pressed a hand to the right side of his face, that the linens were dirty to begin with. “Watch where you’re going, you bumbling idiot!” the under-chamberlain hissed before stalking away. Merlin spent the rest of the day with a headache and half of his face swelling.
The next day, the first day of celebrations, Merlin, along with a few other slaves, was assigned to clean out the numerous fireplaces circling the dining hall. Considering that he could only see through one eye, the task was a lot more difficult than usual. He couldn’t quite tell what he’d already cleaned and what he hadn’t. He moved too slowly for Farran’s liking when the chamberlain stopped by to check on their progress, and earned a lashing for it. Merlin did not give him the satisfaction by crying out from it.
“Is a slave named Merlin here?” someone called into the hall some time later.
Merlin yelped when he moved to stand and forgot that he was kneeling halfway into a fireplace. He banged his head on the stone above his head, unsettling more soot onto his person. He winced as the twinge of pain in his back reminded him of the recent lashing.
“I’m here,” Merlin said, properly getting to his feet and brushing off as much soot as possible, although it wasn’t a lot at all.
The servant at the door made a beeline across the hall to Merlin and said, “The prince requests your presence in the small dining hall.”
“Right this instance?” Merlin asked. He was in no way presentable to be seen by the prince. Arthur would not be pleased with how filthy Merlin was or with the right half of his face bruised and swelling.
“Of course, this instance,” the servant said, giving him a look that questioned Merlin’s intelligence.
Merlin frowned, but didn’t say anything more to the servant before leaving to answer the prince’s summons.
The private dining hall Merlin had first served Arthur in had been converted into a small audience hall, where Arthur and the courtiers closer to his own age could gather when not attending the king and queen and where all the gifts brought by the guests could be temporarily stored.
When Merlin entered through the servants’ entrance, it didn’t take long for the prince to notice his presence. Merlin supposed it was because as a knight, the prince was to be aware of his surroundings at all times, to notice even the comings and goings of the slaves and servants. Regardless of how, the prince’s gaze turn to where Merlin stood with a bowed head.
“Merlin, come here,” Arthur beckoned him before turning back to the noblemen flocked around him. Resigning himself for the prince’s displeasure, Merlin made his way across the room to him, keeping his head down. With a wave, Arthur dispersed the noblemen, and they headed for the doors with good cheer. Arthur began speaking to him before even looking back at him. “I’ve heard that all these gifts haven’t been recorded yet. Why-” Arthur broke off when Merlin finally reached where he was sitting. “Merlin, look at me.”
Merlin did as he was told, not wishing to be grabbed by the chin again. Looking directly at Arthur, he had expected the anger that flared up in Arthur’s eyes when he saw Merlin’s swollen shut right eye and puffy cheek. What Merlin hadn’t expected was the furrow in the prince’s brow and the frown tugging at his lips; it could have possibly been concern if Merlin didn’t know better.
“What did they do to you?” he growled.
“It’s nothing, sire.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and he prodded lightly at Merlin’s cheek. Unprepared for it, Merlin flinched at the small jab of pain.
“Nothing, my ass,” Arthur scoffed. “You’re filthy and beat-up. You’ve never had a problem running your mouth. Don’t stop now when I’m asking you a direct question, Merlin.”
“I was clumsy. The under-chamberlain thought proper punishment would make me perform my duties better.”
“What duties? I haven’t assigned you any.”
“Anything house slaves are needed to do, sire.”
“My gifts haven’t been properly catalogued, and the chamberlain has my personal scribe doing house chores?” Arthur growled. “You can’t even see through that eye, can you?”
“No, not really.”
“And you obviously haven’t washed up…” Suddenly, Arthur grabbed Merlin’s shoulder and turned him around. Merlin grimaced. He knew the light spots of blood seeping through his shirt would be impossible to miss. “…they gave you lashes too.” Something in the prince’s tone made Merlin want to run and hide until all was safe.
“Just one, sire.”
“I’ll kill them for this,” Arthur hissed, making to stand.
“No, just leave it, sire,” Merlin said, grabbing the prince’s arm without forethought.
“I don’t listen to slaves, Merlin,” the prince retorted, but he didn’t shake Merlin’s hand off.
“Please, sire, just leave it,” Merlin repeated. Farren and Gamel would simply make his life more miserable if the prince interfered.
“Why should I?”
“Because you will only make it worse.”
“Sire, aren’t we going hunting?” one of the noblemen called from the door.
“I’m coming!” Arthur barked to him before turning back to Merlin. The prince studied him, but like the many times before, Merlin couldn’t tell what the prince was thinking. “You are to go to Tom. Get cleaned up and get some rest. Tomorrow morning, you are to start cataloguing all these gifts,” Arthur instructed, gesturing to the mess of chests and crates and boxes around the room.
“Yes, sire,” Merlin answered with a bow.
When Arthur left with the pack of nobleman, Merlin caught sight of Lady Guinevere standing by the door, looking at him with perplexed interest, a small frown and furrowed brow gracing her features.
Merlin spent the next day sorting through Arthur’s piles and piles of gifts and cataloguing them to be stored away in the castle’s treasury. He paused for a moment, and with a sigh, looked at all the boxes and boxes he had left. This would take at least another day, maybe two. The bright side was, he wouldn’t have to be working for Farran during that time.
A little after noon, Merlin heard one of the doors to the hall open, and he looked up to see none other than Lady Guinevere slip into the room. He ducked his head, and tried to be part of the background. He didn’t know why she was here, but she wasn’t possibly looking for him. He was proven wrong when he glanced up to see her walking straight towards him.
“Hello, I’m Guinevere, but just Gwen will do,” she greeted him, perching gracefully on a large chest by his writing table. Merlin was certainly not going to call a noblewoman by her name-her nickname no less.
“Hello, milady. Is there anything I can do for you?” Merlin asked, carefully setting down his quill. He bowed his head to the lady. He hoped that whatever she wanted from him, he couldn’t get in trouble for it.
“First tell me your name.”
“Merlin, milady.”
“Oh, just drop the titles and fanciness. I don’t care about them. And I don’t approve of slavery so you may speak as any normal person to me,” the lady said with a dismissing wave of her hand. “Yes?”
Finding that she was waiting for an answer, Merlin nodded, though he really couldn’t address her the way she wanted. Not unless he want to be punished for disrespect if someone were to walk in on them speaking together.
“Now then, Merlin, what is your relationship with Arthur?” Gwen asked.
“I’m sorry, what?” Merlin choked on air. Was she, the prince’s fiancé, implying what he thought she was implying? “I’m just his writing slave.”
“Oh, I really doubt that, Merlin,” she said. “I saw you yesterday, with Arthur. Arthur never lets anyone but the king and queen tell him what to do. And yet here you are, actually telling him what to do and him actually listening.”
“You’re mistaken, mi--” She gave him a warning look, so he skipped the title. “I have no sway on what the prince chooses to do. I’m just his slave,” Merlin insisted.
“I don’t think you’re just his slave. Tell me, how does he treat you?”
“He is my master. He treats me as a master should treat his slave.”
“Oh, Merlin, surely you can say more than that,” Gwen huffed. “Very well, let me ask about you. Where are you from?”
“…Carmarthen.”
“Are you a sorcerer?” She looked far too interested for Merlin to feel easy about it.
“Not anymore, milady,” he said. “I’ve been through the Rites, just like any sorcerer in slavery.”
“I supposed you couldn’t have used sorcery to fix Arthur then. How long have you been serving him?”
“About three months?” Merlin guessed. The days all seemed to blend into one sometimes.
“Only three months? And already, the prince listens to your words? I’ve known him for nearly twenty and he doesn't listen to me at all.”
The last thing Merlin wanted was for a noblewoman to think he had any sway on the prince, so he said, “Milady, I’m sorry, but I really should get back to work. I wouldn’t want the prince to say I was neglecting my work.”
“Oh, hush, if he asks, I’ll say I had need of your services. Speaking of which, what do you do for Arthur besides working as a scribe?”
“Just housework, mi-like any house slave. Anything I’m ordered to do.”
“How long have you been a slave?”
“Thirteen years.”
“Then you’ve been one since…”
“Since Carmarthen fell,” Merlin completed for her, dropping his eyes back down to the parchment as the familiar sense of shame touched him.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Gwen said, and she sounded surprisingly sincere about it too. “I supposed I really shouldn’t pry into your past.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” Merlin answered before his sense of life preservation could catch up with him. “Milady,” he tacked on, to soften the hint of disrespect he’d shown her. The Lady Guinevere sighed and got to her feet.
“Very well. I best be off anyways, before my maids come looking. One day, Merlin, I’m going to have a proper conversation with you. I’m sure there is more to you that meets the eye. Arthur wouldn’t put up with you otherwise.” Merlin shook his head in denial, but she merely smiled at him before leaving him alone with Arthur’s mountains of gifts again.
That evening, Merlin was summoned to the prince’s chambers. Merlin feared that someone had seen him conversing alone with the Lady Guinevere and had informed the prince. But his fear was unfounded as he entered the antechamber to find the prince pacing back and forth before the fireplace.
“No need for you to bow and say nice things and be a nice little slave. I haven’t got the time. Just get everything ready for you to write,” the prince said, still pacing.
“Yes, sire.” Merlin hurried to get the writing kit out from the cupboard and everything laid out for use. “All right, ready.”
Under the prince’s dictation, Merlin wrote:
Savaric,
I request of any news you have of Sir Tristan Du Bois. He has yet to arrive in Astolat, but he was expected two days ago. Send a reply the moment you receive this.
Arthur Pendragon, Prince of Camelot
“Is everything all right, sire?” Merlin hazarded an inquiry as he melted a glob of wax and prepared the letter for the prince’s seal.
“No, everything is not all right, Merlin. I’m sure that’s obvious even to you,” Arthur snapped. He leaned over the table and pressed his seal hard into the red wax. “My uncle is late and that harpy of a woman my parents brought with them, the other Northumbrian delegate, keeps asking why he isn’t here. As if she knows something.” The prince sighed before saying in a less agitated voice, “I want you to take this to the messenger barracks. Get the fastest messenger to deliver this to Camelot. You will stay there until he is back with an answer.”
“What about cataloguing your gifts, sire?”
“Tristan is the more important issue at the moment. You will stay there until the messenger is back. You will not be doing anything for Farren or Gamel or whoever. You will take the reply straight to me the moment it comes, no matter what I’m doing, where I am. Understood?”
“Yes, sire.” Merlin stood to clean up the writing kit.
“Leave it. I’ll have someone else clean it up. Just get going,” Arthur said, picking up the letter and holding it out to him.
“All right.” Merlin took the letter and headed for the door. Then he paused and asked, “The Northumbrian delegate, do you know if she’s planning anything?”
“If you mean, is she planning something like Lady Morgause was, then no. Though like I said earlier, she’s a harpy and definitely trying to influence the king,” the prince said, scowling.
“Then, may the gods watch over you and keep you safe, sire,” Merlin said.
For a moment, Arthur looked surprised, but then his eyes softened and he replied, “Thank you.”
Merlin gave him a bow before leaving for the messenger barracks.
For a moment, Merlin wondered why he’d given the prince that blessing, and had meant not only the new gods people were turning to nowadays, but the gods of the Old Religion as well. But he definitely couldn’t deny the sense of unease he felt when thinking of the Northumbrian delegates. He didn’t know if the “harpy of a woman” meant Nimueh, but from the stories he remember, it certainly could be her. Merlin worried about leaving Arthur alone, but there was nothing he could do when Arthur himself was ordering him away. He hoped that if the prince really was the Once and Future King, which Merlin still doubted, then the gods would keep anything from happening to him-at least, for a few days.
After the messenger had left, Merlin stayed in his room, sleeping on the thin rug before the fireplace. Like the prince had ordered, he didn’t leave the messenger barracks, a hall of small rooms on the side of the castle closest to the main gates, except when he needed to get food. At the slave house, Tom gave him a raised eyebrow when Merlin told him the prince’s orders, but he didn’t make a remark, instead simply handing him his meal.
Back in the barracks, sitting around waiting for a messenger to travel all the way to Camelot and back, Merlin was left with absolutely nothing to do. He turned to tiding up all the rooms in the messenger barracks, which, needless to say, pleased the messengers not on assignment and the servant originally assigned to clean the barracks.
The messenger returned two days later, just minutes before the night’s feast. Merlin hopped to his feet and with a quick thank you, he hurried off to find Arthur.
By great misfortune, Merlin ran into Gabel before reaching the dining hall, though this time at least not literally. The under-chamberlain grabbed him as he hurried past, yanking him back.
“So, you’ve finally crawled out of your hole, slave. What have you got there?” he asked, making to snatch the letter from Merlin’s hand. Merlin stepped back, as much as possible with Gabel’s hand still on his arm, and held the letter away from him.
“A letter for the prince. I am to take it directly to him,” Merlin said, trying to tug away his arm.
“You have duties to perform. Give it here and I’ll get it to him,” Gabel said, tightening his grip on Merlin’s arm.
Merlin stamped down on the flash of annoyance he wanted to show and grit his teeth before saying, “I’m sorry, sir, but my only duty is to deliver this letter to Prince Arthur. He specifically instructed me to deliver the letter, and only me. However, if you wish to explain to him why his orders weren’t followed, you are certainly free to do so. I am but a slave after all.” He bowed his head in submission.
The under-chamberlain growled but roughly released his arm.
“Then get moving, you insolent whelp,” he snapped before stalking away.
With a sigh of relief, Merlin took off for the dining hall once again.
Morgause, he heard, had returned to Astolat. And that piece of knowledge did nothing to ease the nervousness he felt as he approached the servants’ entrance to the dining hall. A strange sort of unease settled into his stomach the closer he got to it.
The prince, he discovered upon stepping inside, was already seated, and trying to pay attention to nothing else, Merlin went straight to him.
“Sire,” he murmured once he’d reached Arthur’s side. He bent down to whisper into the prince’s ear, “The messenger has just returned with a reply.”
Arthur gave him a glance and a nod before getting to his feet.
“Prince Arthur, is there a problem?” a woman’s voice asked as Arthur stepped away from his chair. Merlin looked up towards the speaker and froze. The woman before him, wearing a fine wine-red gown, was beautiful with long brown hair and pale skin, but her blue eyes were cold and her smile sent chills down his spine. And he knew who she was, because he had been shown pictures of her as a child with the warning to avoid her, to never cross her, at all cost.
Nimueh.
Merlin should have expected it-had expected it, but had hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be true. Whatever Morgause was doing, Nimueh was never far off. Merlin remembered clearly the stories told of her, of how she once wielded the power over life and death until it twisted her mind and she thought herself-still thought herself-a god. The prices she charged from those requiring her power were too great, too unjust, and the balance of life had been almost irrevocably damaged until the power was wrested from her. Now the power, and the Cup of Life, was rumoured to be lost for all eternity. That she was here, in Camelot while pretending to be a Northumbrian delegate, plotting something against Arthur alongside Morgause, was bad news, to say the least.
Merlin quickly looked away from her, staring at the floor before she could catch him staring.
“I will have to be excused for a bit, Lady Nimueh. I will only be a few minutes; there’s something I must attend to,” Arthur said before taking Merlin by the arm and steering him out of the hall through the private entrance.
The manhandling seemed rather excessive, but Merlin was glad for it, because he could feel his legs trembling, a stream of “Nimueh. Oh gods. What do I do now? This is horrible. Nimueh. Oh gods” running through his head.
“Well? What does the message say?” the prince questioned, pulling Merlin out of his panic. He had completely forgotten why he’d gone to the prince in the first place.
With a start, Merlin held up the letter, breaking the seal to begin reading.
Your Highness,
Sir Tristan Du Bois left for Astolat four days ago with three other knights as travel companions. We did not expect there to be any trouble. I have sent out a search party and will contact you as soon as I receive any news.
Your loyal subject,
Savaric
“Four days!” Arthur exclaimed. “He should have arrived by now.”
“What would you like to do, sire?” Merlin asked.
“Go find Sir Leon. Tell him to gather some men together and then get a pack ready for me. I’m going to search for Tristan myself.”
“When do you want them ready by?”
“In fifteen minutes. There’s no time to waste. I need to go excuse myself to the King and Queen.” Arthur turned back towards the servant entrance, and Merlin remembered Nimueh and the almost sick unease he felt in the dining hall. He didn’t want the prince to go back in there, not with Nimueh so close in the room.
“Wait! Sire, don’t go back in there!” Merlin exclaimed, grabbing the prince’s arm. The prince turned his head to look at Merlin, irritation narrowing his eyes. Before Arthur could say anything though, Merlin explained, “Nimueh. She’s like Morgause-actually between her and Morgause, Nimueh is definitely the one you need to worry about more. Don’t go back in there.”
“Merlin, I’ll just be in there for a minute. I can’t just leave the feast-a feast held in my honor.
“Please, sire, you can’t go back in there. I have a bad-really bad-feeling about this. Something terrible is going to happen. You mustn’t go back in there. Just send a servant to go make your excuse.” And Merlin was starting to babble, but he would do anything, anything, to get Arthur to just listen for once and not go back into that room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin,” Arthur replied, pulling his arm out of Merlin’s grip. “Like I said, I’ll be only a minute, and then I’ll return to my chambers to prepare. Nothing is going to happen.”
“But sire. Please, you have to listen to me. Nimueh is planning something, and if you step back into that room, I’m afraid something will happen.”
“Yes, something will. I will tell my father that I’m setting out to find Tristan, and then I will leave. That is it. I will be in my rooms before you even get there.”
“But-”
“I’ll hear no more about this, Merlin. Go find Leon and do as I say.”
“Sire-”
“Now, Merlin!” The prince grabbed Merlin by the shoulders and turned him around. “I won’t listen anymore to your girlish worries. Just go.” He gave Merlin a shove before striding away for the dining hall entrance.
With that same almost-nauseous feeling of apprehension, Merlin went to find Sir Leon, having been left with no choice but to hope the prince really would be in the hall for just a minute and would leave unharmed. Sir Leon was in the knights’ barracks, playing dice with the other knights not on duty or out in the town taverns. But upon hearing the prince’s orders, Sir Leon selected four of the knights present and dispersed them to be ready for travel in fifteen minutes. Merlin went to Arthur’s chambers, and with a servant’s help, gathered everything the prince might need for a journey that would last for two or more days. Afterwards, Merlin sat down on the bearskin rug before the fire, hoping the warmth of the flames would ease the twisting tightness in his gut.
But fifteen minutes later, and Arthur had not come walking through the doors of his chambers.
An hour later, and still no prince, Merlin hopped to his feet and began pacing, back and forth across the room. Then the door opened, but it was Sir Leon, who’d checked for the prince only ten minutes before.
“Are you sure, he said tonight? Not tomorrow morning?” the knight asked after another hour.
“I’m sure, sir. He insisted he’d leave the banquet immediately upon telling the King.”
Sir Leon sighed and said, “The King and Queen left an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I know only what he had told me,” Merlin said with a small bow of his head, hiding his own worry.
With another sigh and a shake of his head, Sir Leon left the chambers, saying he’d try looking for the prince.
Merlin was half asleep on the bearskin rug when the doors opened and he heard a groan of pain. In the dim embers, he could only make out a hunched-over figure stagger into the room before crumpling to the ground with another groan. Merlin was awake and on his feet in a flash, rushing over to the man on the floor. It was the prince, as he’d feared. He dropped down to his knees besides Arthur’s trembling, curled up form. His fine clothes were soaked through from the rain, water already puddling around him on the floor.
“Sire, sire, can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Merlin asked, hesitant to touch the prince in case he was injured.
“Who is it?” His voice was strained, hoarse, as if he’d been shouting for too long.
“It’s Merlin. Are you hurt, sire?” Merlin asked again. “Should I get Marius?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
Merlin helped the prince move in front of the fireplace. He fetched an armful of throws and blankets from Arthur’s bedroom, wrapping them around him, and brought the fire back to life, casting the antechamber into dim light. The prince looked wretched, hunched and shivering under blankets with his hair plastered to his head from the rain and his skin deathly pales. There were dark smudges under his eyes, which were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
There was a wine pitcher and goblet on the table, and Merlin went to pour some wine for the prince. It was then, as Arthur took the cup from him, that Merlin noticed that the prince’s hands were smeared with drying blood.
“S-sire, your hands. Shall I help you clean them?” Merlin inquired.
“What are you-”
Then he too noticed his hands. The goblet clattered to the floor, staining the rug with the dark red-purple of wine. Arthur looked down at his shaking hands in horror, and Merlin hurried to retrieve a wash basin and towel. After filling the basin with water, Merlin knelt back down besides the prince and began washing the blood from his hands.
“This can’t be-I didn’t do anything,” Arthur murmured, shaking his head repeatedly. “It was a dream. A nightmare. It didn’t happen.” He looked down at the wash basin filled with red-tinged water and jerked his hands away from Merlin, pulling them back under the blankets.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Merlin questioned softly.
“Nothing happened.” The prince took the bloody towel from Merlin and tossed it into the fire. He then shoved the basin away, spilling some of the dirtied water on the rug as well.
Merlin picked up the basin and went to dump out the water. Arthur was still in front of the fire when he returned, no longer shivering but with his hands tightly clenching the blankets close to him and almost haunted-looking eyes staring into the fire.
“Sire, do you need anything?”
“No. Leave me.”
“Sire, please tell me what happened. I fear that Nimueh might have been responsible.”
“No, nothing happened,” Arthur insisted. “I got drunk and went outside to clear my head.”
“At least let me help you change into clean clothes and get you into bed,” Merlin suggested.
“No. I’m staying by the fire for now. Get out, Merlin.”
Merlin ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Arthur was in danger; that was as clear as day. He needed to know what happened. Merlin sat down next to the prince, too close to be appropriate for a slave, but the prince didn’t say a word.
“At least listen to me while I tell you about Nimueh.” Arthur glared at him but made no move to stop him, so Merlin continued, “She is also a High Priestess of the Old Religion. Actually, she was Morgause’s mentor, and it’s said her powers are great. When she was still in Carmarthen, she was placed in charge of the Cup of Life. And by striking a deal with her, you could get anything you desired-if the price you paid was enough. She could even bring someone from the brink of death. She held the power of life and death.”
“That sounds impossible.”
Merlin ignored the prince’s comment and said, “All that power corrupted her. She desired more and more of it, and she started going back on her deals. Misinterpreting the deals on purpose, taking an unfair price, even killing the wrong person to be sacrificed.” The very thought of such trickery made Merlin’s skin crawl, remembering Nimueh’s cold blue eyes and mirthless smile. “She had a few of the high priestesses assist her too. Like I told you about Morgause, she thinks herself a god, and magic-less folks far inferior. Of course, the Carmarthen royals and council wouldn’t stand for it. The balance of the world was being damaged so they took the Cup from her and exiled the priestesses.”
“So she holds a grudge against Carmarthen. Too bad it’s gone now. How exactly does that impact me, or Camelot?” Arthur remarked, and Merlin gritted his teeth at the callousness of his words.
“Because the last I heard, she wanted to create a world ruled by only magic users. She wanted to eradicate all non-magic users, or at the very least enslave them.”
Arthur snorted and said, “Right. Even if she’s as powerful as you say, I hardly think she could take on all the kingdoms’ armies.”
“She won’t take it by force. At least not at first,” Merlin reasoned. “She’s planning something. I suppose that she’s already in league with King Lot. And now it seems her target is Camelot. You said yourself she’s trying to gain influence on the king. And with Morgause’s attempts to enchantment you, you are definitely one of their targets.”
Arthur didn’t speak, staring into the fireplace with a furrowed brow.
Merlin pressed forward, “I fear whatever they are planning for you, sire. So you have to tell me what happened to you, at least a little about what happened when you went back into the dining hall.”
Arthur sighed and said, “Gods, you won’t ever leave it, will you, Merlin?” He glared at Merlin, but it was with little heat. Merlin saw that his mind was elsewhere. “I went back into the hall and told Father I was going to search for Uncle. Then Nimueh said to at least listen to Lady Helen sing first. Lady Helen is a songstress the Northumbrians brought along with them; apparently she’s popular in Northumbria. Lady Helen sang a song. Then I left the banquet and went outside. And that was it. I lost track of time.”
“In the pouring rain,” Merlin remarked, not bothering to hide his skepticism. He was busy running over in his head what the prince had told him. What would cause the prince to come stumbling in hours after his promised time, hands covered in blood? Arthur didn’t seem to remember some details either. Then, he realized it. Lady Helen. “What happened when Lady Helen sang?”
“What, you think she had something to do with it?” the prince asked, looking at Merlin incredulously.
“You said the Northumbrians brought her. She certainly could. What happened when she was sang?” he repeated.
“Nothing. I-” Arthur frowned. “Hang on, what did happen? I remember her about to sing, but not what she sang. Next thing I remember, I’m leaving the hall.”
“You don’t remember anything about her singing? What about what language? How it sounded?”
“I just said I don’t remember, didn’t I?” Arthur snapped.
“Alright, well, that’s probably it then. Either Nimueh cast some sort of spell on you while you were distracted by Lady Helen’s singing, or Lady Helen was the one to cast the spell on you through her singing with Nimueh’s help. Though the real problem is whatever they enchanted you and how to undo it.” Merlin bit his bottom lip, cursing at himself. Whatever the enchantment, it couldn’t be good. He should have gone with Arthur. He should have insisted on just accompanying him until he knew Arthur would be safe.
“Well I feel perfectly fine. I was drunk, that’s all. It’s ridiculous to think they’d perform sorcery on me in front of the king and the entire court.”
Merlin sighed. Loudly. Just so the prince could hear the displeasure he couldn’t say without severe consequences.
“Then I’ll leave you be then, your highness,” he said. “Is there a message you’d like me to send to Sir Leon?”
“Gods, Sir Leon!” Arthur made as if to stand. “What time is it?”
“The last time I checked, half-past two, sire.”
The prince cursed under his breath before saying, “Let him know I’ve changed my mind. We’ll be leaving shortly after dawn.”
“Yes, sire. Will that be all?”
Arthur waved him away. When Merlin left him, the prince was sullenly stabbing at the fire with an iron poker. It reminded Merlin too much of the hot branding irons. He also hoped that whoever might decide to make a visit to the prince’s chambers this late at night would not end up with a head bashed in by a hot iron.
He found Sir Leon dozing in a chair in the stables, and Leon nodded blearily when Merlin told him the prince’s instructions.
For the first time in a few days, Merlin spent the night in the servants’ room set aside for the house slaves. But even with how late in the night it was, or early in the morning, depending on which point of view to take, Merlin couldn’t sleep. Instead, his worries and vague sense of panic kept him awake. Nimueh in Camelot, clearly plotting something with Morgause and targeting Arthur. What if they succeeded in whatever they were planning? What if, like he suspected, they wished for the sorcerers to take control of Albion? Then what could happen? Would everything turn to-the prophecies. Chaos. A greater evil upon Albion. But it couldn’t be. Surely Nimueh’s plot wouldn’t cause an all-out apocalypse. More importantly, did Nimueh and Morgause know or suspect as he did that Arthur was the Once and Future King? Could that be why they were targeting him? What could he, a slave without magic, do to protect Arthur? To stop Nimueh and Morgause? With a groan, he covered his face with his arms and tried to block out all thoughts for sleep to come.
Arthur was nowhere to be found in the morning. The court was in an uproar with the person of honor missing. Sir Leon and the rest of the knights were ordered to scour the castle and town for the prince, but they found no trace of him.
Farran was furious over Merlin’s three days away from work, even if it had been for the prince. For shirking his work, the chamberlain gave him two lashes before setting him to work scrubbing the dining hall floor. Merlin spent the morning and then the afternoon, after the lunch feast, on his hands and knees, mopping up the spills and picking up scraps. Though a few others worked alongside him, he was mostly left alone to his own thoughts, his concerns for the prince stewing in his gut and growing as minutes passed with no new information on his whereabouts.
As he worked, he listened to the rumors circulating through the castle: the prince was sick again, the prince had disappeared to avoid taking on his new responsibilities, the prince had been kidnapped. News of Sir Tristan’s disappearance had reached not only the court but the townspeople. Unease was spreading, because how could one of the kingdom’s best knights and brother to the Queen simply go missing? And beasts were roaming the lands; a man had been mauled yesterday night, as if by the claws of a giant lizard. People were wondering, were all these misfortunes clumped together mere coincidences or were they linked? Were the gods trying to tell them something?
Two hours past noon, Merlin had finished cleaning the floors and quitted the dining hall when he spotted two men walking down the hall headed his way. As they walked closer, he recognized them as Arthur and Sir Leon. Merlin felt his nervousness fade away at the sight of Arthur, though he was definitely looking worse for the wear. The knight was looking at Arthur with thinly veiled concern. The prince ignored the look, managing to pull off the haughty air of royalty even with his clothes dripping from the rain and his legs caked with mud up to his knees.
“I’m completely all right, Leon,” Arthur was saying.
“But sire, you’ve been gone the whole day.”
“Yes. Tell my father I’m sorry for my absence. I should have at least left a note. I’d see him myself, but I’m obviously in need of a bath,” Arthur said. The prince didn’t seem to notice Merlin as he quickened his steps down the hall, leaving Sir Leon behind. Leon gave the prince’s retreating back a concerned but exasperated shake of his head.
“Is there anything you would like me to do, Sir Leon?” Merlin ventured, and Sir Leon’s eyes fell on him without surprise. Of course, the knight had known Merlin was there.
“It seems you’ve also had a rough morning,” Sir Leon remarked, nodding to Merlin’s bloody back.
Merlin shrugged and replied, “Nothing more than expected. The chamberlain doesn’t like me very much.” He then asked, “Has the prince said anything? About his…disappearance.”
Sir Leon shook his head and said, “No, he was not willing to say anything. Though he’s sent another group of men to look for Sir Tristan.”
“Then I hope Sir Tristan is found soon.”
The knight eyed Merlin speculatively before saying, “You wouldn’t have any ideas as to the prince’s strange behavior, would you?”
“No, sir. I am but a slave. I do only as the prince commands.”
Whether or not Merlin’s lies were as obvious as the prince claimed, Sir Leon merely grimaced.
“I best be off to see the king then. He’ll want to know that the prince is safe,” Sir Leon said.
The knight gave Merlin a nod before going back the way he came. Merlin stood there in the hallway for a moment with a frown, trying to decide if he should seek out the prince and see if he truly was all right. Deciding against risking the prince’s or the chamberlain’s temper, he instead headed for the kitchens in hopes of begging off some lunch.
Merlin was nearly in the servants’ wing, ready to finally get some sleep for the night when a hand fell on his shoulder. He jumped, twisting to break away from a potentially threatening grip.
“Shh. It’s Tom, Merlin,” a voice whispered. And Merlin discovered that it was indeed Tom, bundled up in a woolen cloak and looking slightly haggard.
“Master Tom,” Merlin greeted him with a small bow of his head.
“Come with me, Merlin, and keep quiet,” the slave master instructed him.
Curious, Merlin did as he said, following Tom out of the castle and across the courtyard. Outside, the day of continuous rainfall had finally stopped, leaving behind a clear night sky and large puddles of water in the patches of sunken cobblestone. Merlin noticed that they weren’t heading to the slave house and was about to question Tom about it when the man started speaking instead:
“I said before that I used to live near Carmarthen. I don’t fear sorcerers the way some people nowadays do. My parents and their parents before them always felt safe, living so close. Carmarthen sorcerers were good ones; I had no doubt in that.” The slave master gave Merlin a significant look over his shoulder but did not slow his path around the castle’s inner walls. “When the war happened and Carmarthen fell, I knew that bad times were ahead. Lately, I’ve felt as if there was evil abroad. You’ve heard of last night’s attack, haven’t you?”
“By a beast with the claws of a lizard?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Tom said, leading him through the castle’s gardens and towards a small storehouse. “I saw the beast fly into the courtyard and chased it. But when I caught up to it, there was no beast. Instead…”
He opened the door of the storehouse, and the bottom of Merlin’s stomach dropped out at the sight of the human form wrapped up in a cloak and curled up on the floor. Even in the dim moonlight streaming into the storehouse, the blond head was unmistakable. His weariness from before was gone in a flash as he hurried to the prince’s site.
“Sire, can you hear me?” Merlin asked . “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Arthur slightly uncurled and looked up, but Merlin wanted to cringe when he saw no recognition in the prince’s eyes. Arthur looked at him with an animalistic fear; there was nothing human in his eyes.
“Get a blanket and hot tea,” Merlin directed Tom, not taking his eyes off the prince. The sound of the door opening and shutting was the only indication he had of the slave master doing as he’d asked. “Sire? Can you hear me? It’s Merlin.” Merlin reached out a hand, but the prince hissed and swiped at his hand with his own. Arthur curled away from him again, glaring at him as he did so.
The door swung open again, and Tom returned, holding out a wool blanket and a steaming cup. Merlin took the blanket and, slowly this time, reached out to the prince. He wrapped the blanket around him, and fortunately, Arthur only watched him warily.
“Here, drink this.” Merlin took the hot cup of tea from Tom and held it out to Arthur. With a shaking hand, the prince took the cup and brought it to his lips. Merlin watched in silence as Arthur drank the tea. Slowly, he could see the confusion and fear fade from the prince’s eyes. Merlin heaved a sigh in relief. “We have to get him warm,” Merlin said, looking over his shoulder at Tom.
“The workroom near the edge of the gardens. There’s a fireplace, and the gardeners aren’t working for another month,” the slave master said.
“Okay. We’ll take him there,” Merlin said.
Tom nodded and left to get to the workroom ahead of time. Merlin looked back to Arthur, who was staring at Merlin with tired, haunted eyes.
“Are you feeling a little better, sire?”
“I’m going mad, aren’t I?” the prince asked, pulling the blanket tighter around himself.
“No, you’re not. Come on, let’s get you somewhere warm, and I’ll try and find out what spell was cast on you.”
Merlin wrapped an arm around Arthur’s blanketed shoulders and helped him to his feet. Merlin felt even more concerned than ever, because Arthur did not even try to refuse his help and walked with a frailty that was nothing like the strength and confidence Merlin was used to. They made their way slowly to the gardeners’ workroom, where Merlin was relieved to see the small fireplace light and warm. Tom was there, with a whole pot of tea, and after settling Arthur down by the fire, Merlin immediately poured some for the prince. Tom left, saying he’d keep an eye out for anyone who might accidentally walk in on them. Arthur drank the tea in silence, staring into the fire. Merlin sat by his side, waiting for him to speak, but when the prince gave no indication of doing so anytime soon, he asked:
“Can you tell me how it starts?”
“Cold, I suddenly feel cold, as if I’ve been dunked into a lake during winter,” Arthur said, holding the blanket tighter as if remembering the cold made him actually feel it. “Then it just bloody hurts. The worst pain I’ve felt in my life, like my body is being squeezed and stretched into a different form. Everything looked different, smelled different. I could-I could fly.” After a pause, he then said, “That sounds ridiculous. I’m just going completely insane.”
“Sire, Master Tom followed you into the gardens, and it wasn’t you he was seeing, not until he got to the storehouse,” Merlin said, gently as if to a spooked horse. “And yesterday night, a man was mauled by a beast with the claws of a great lizard.”
“Gods, no.” Arthur turned even paler than before, looking at Merlin with horror.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could have stopped this from happening.”
“Well? How do I fix it? What…bauble do I need to destroy to make it all go away?”
Merlin shook his head and said, “It’s not that simple that this time. This…this curse is a transformation spell. There is nothing physical you can destroy to break the spell. The caster must lift the spell, or a sorcerer more powerful than the caster must break it.” He poured more tea for the prince, nudging the cup towards him.
“Then we out the caster and make him-her, whoever it is, lift it,” Arthur said, taking the cup without much thought. “I’ll go to my father and tell him it’s the Northumbrian delegates. You can explain it for me.”
“No!” Merlin exclaimed, heart actually seizing at the thought. Having Nimueh and Morgause as enemies was hard enough. The two priestesses actually knowing about Merlin’s involvement was sure to be the end of him. “If they know you suspect them, they might threaten the king and queen. Or just take what they wanted by force. We have to find out what they want.”
“And what makes you think they don’t want me dead?” Arthur said with narrowed eyes.
“…what will happen if you were mysteriously killed?”
“My father could call it sorcery and stop at nothing to find the culprit. He’d…he’d kill anyone in his way, anyone even suspected of using magic,” Arthur realized, looking queasy at the thought.
“Exactly. We mustn’t let anyone find out.”
“Then what am I possibly supposed to do about this? I can’t just keep…changing into a beast. I’m about to become crown prince!”
Merlin bit his bottom lip, running through possible courses of action to proceed with, but coming up with little.
“I don’t have magic, but I can help you control it…somehow, just enough so you don’t lose yourself completely,” he said. “Have Marius give you a sleeping potion. The strongest one he has. So you won’t change in your sleep. And if you find yourself changing, call for me and get away from any people nearby. Run for the gardens, I suppose.” And in the meantime, they-or Merlin, rather-would have to try to discover what Nimueh and Morgause wanted.
“Fine,” Arthur agreed.
“Could you tell me exactly what happened before today’s change?”
With a huff, the prince recounted everything that had happened since this morning, from when he woke in the morning freezing cold despite the roaring fire in his hearth to coming to with a steaming hot cup of tea in his hands and Merlin kneeling in front of him.
Afterwards, Merlin poured him some more tea, and the two of them sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts. Merlin couldn’t draw anything from Arthur’s recollections, nothing that could have acted as a trigger to cause Arthur’s transformation.
“Merlin.” Arthur suddenly spoke his name so softly, Merlin nearly missed it.
“Yes?”
“If you still had your magic, could you have fixed this?”
“…yes, almost certainly,” Merlin admitted, turning his head to avoid the prince’s probing stare.
“I’m sorry.” Merlin’s gaze immediately snapped from the fire to the prince. He couldn’t have heard correctly. But then the prince said again, “I’m sorry. None of this would have happened if we hadn’t…” He didn’t say the rest, but there was no question what he meant. If Camelot hadn’t attacked Carmarthen. If Carmarthen hadn’t fallen. If Merlin hadn’t been taken.
Merlin moved into the servant’s antechamber in Arthur’s chambers that night. He left the door separating his room from the prince’s bedchambers open, so that he would know right away if Arthur started changing. For the first time in years, in over a decade, Merlin slept on a bed. It was a horrible bed really, with a thin lumpy mattress, but the sheets were clean and he actually had a pillow and blanket. In other words, it was absolute luxury. After Arthur downed the sleeping draught he’d acquired from the physician and Merlin had made sure he was asleep like a log, Merlin promptly flopped down on his own bed and fell asleep.
He was woken up the next day by a pillow smacking his head. His air supply cut off by the soft mass of cloth, he sputtered up to a sitting position, blearily looking around and trying to remember why he was in a bed instead of on the floor. Then he saw the prince leaning against the side of the door, already dressed for the day, with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face.
“You do realize that you’re supposed to be the one waking me up, don’t you?” Arthur said before pushing himself upright. Merlin jumped to his feet, still sleep-muddled and a bit confused as to why the prince wasn’t shouting at him. “Come on, Merlin, you’ve got work to do.” He turned to walk through his bedchamber and into his antechamber, and Merlin hurried after him.
“What work would you like me to do, sire?” he asked.
“Well, apparently you didn’t finish cataloguing all my gifts,” the prince remarked with a pointed look at Merlin.
“You had me wait for the messenger for two days!” Merlin exclaimed before clamping a hand over his mouth and looking at the prince anxiously.
To his surprise, Arthur simply rolled his eyes and said, “I’ve given up on you, Merlin. I obviously can’t expect for you to keep your mouth shut. Nonetheless, you’ll be cataloguing my gifts today. Go to Tom and get washed up and then get to work.”
“Yes, sire,” Merlin said, bowing quickly to the prince and heading for the door.
“I’ll send for you if I need anything,” Arthur said. It was the only indication that Arthur was choosing to remember last night’s incident as something more than just fit of madness. Merlin paused to give him another bow before leaving the prince’s chambers.
On to Part Five | Masterpost
Farran, the chamberlain, didn’t care that Merlin was really Arthur’s personal slave. He seemed to resent the fact actually, and he treated slaves more typically than Tom did-which meant with harsh words and a quick temper when a slave did not move fast enough. So close to the celebrations, it was hardly a surprise that Farran treated the house slaves even harsher, taking out his stress on them and making them work faster. Merlin had thought that with the weeks they’d already spent preparing, everything would have been ready by now, but no, everything wasn’t. The rooms and meals that needed to be prepared seemed to never end, as did the number of guests arriving at the castle for Arthur’s crowning.
Merlin had always been a bit clumsy. Unfortunately, the fatigue from working every waking hour of the day made him more so. While carrying a heap of dirty linens across the courtyards to the laundress, he stumbled over a section of uneven cobblestone. The linens toppled over from his arms, and while some simply fell to the ground, a few flew into the sputtering face of Gamel, the under-chamberlain with just as nasty a temper as Farran. Gamel yanked the offending linens away from his face, throwing them to the ground with a growl.
“You!” he shouted, and with his arms full, Merlin wasn’t quick enough to react to the fist slamming into his face. The punch sent him sprawling, the rest of the linens dropping to the cobblestone. It was fortunate, Merlin thought as he pressed a hand to the right side of his face, that the linens were dirty to begin with. “Watch where you’re going, you bumbling idiot!” the under-chamberlain hissed before stalking away. Merlin spent the rest of the day with a headache and half of his face swelling.
The next day, the first day of celebrations, Merlin, along with a few other slaves, was assigned to clean out the numerous fireplaces circling the dining hall. Considering that he could only see through one eye, the task was a lot more difficult than usual. He couldn’t quite tell what he’d already cleaned and what he hadn’t. He moved too slowly for Farran’s liking when the chamberlain stopped by to check on their progress, and earned a lashing for it. Merlin did not give him the satisfaction by crying out from it.
“Is a slave named Merlin here?” someone called into the hall some time later.
Merlin yelped when he moved to stand and forgot that he was kneeling halfway into a fireplace. He banged his head on the stone above his head, unsettling more soot onto his person. He winced as the twinge of pain in his back reminded him of the recent lashing.
“I’m here,” Merlin said, properly getting to his feet and brushing off as much soot as possible, although it wasn’t a lot at all.
The servant at the door made a beeline across the hall to Merlin and said, “The prince requests your presence in the small dining hall.”
“Right this instance?” Merlin asked. He was in no way presentable to be seen by the prince. Arthur would not be pleased with how filthy Merlin was or with the right half of his face bruised and swelling.
“Of course, this instance,” the servant said, giving him a look that questioned Merlin’s intelligence.
Merlin frowned, but didn’t say anything more to the servant before leaving to answer the prince’s summons.
The private dining hall Merlin had first served Arthur in had been converted into a small audience hall, where Arthur and the courtiers closer to his own age could gather when not attending the king and queen and where all the gifts brought by the guests could be temporarily stored.
When Merlin entered through the servants’ entrance, it didn’t take long for the prince to notice his presence. Merlin supposed it was because as a knight, the prince was to be aware of his surroundings at all times, to notice even the comings and goings of the slaves and servants. Regardless of how, the prince’s gaze turn to where Merlin stood with a bowed head.
“Merlin, come here,” Arthur beckoned him before turning back to the noblemen flocked around him. Resigning himself for the prince’s displeasure, Merlin made his way across the room to him, keeping his head down. With a wave, Arthur dispersed the noblemen, and they headed for the doors with good cheer. Arthur began speaking to him before even looking back at him. “I’ve heard that all these gifts haven’t been recorded yet. Why-” Arthur broke off when Merlin finally reached where he was sitting. “Merlin, look at me.”
Merlin did as he was told, not wishing to be grabbed by the chin again. Looking directly at Arthur, he had expected the anger that flared up in Arthur’s eyes when he saw Merlin’s swollen shut right eye and puffy cheek. What Merlin hadn’t expected was the furrow in the prince’s brow and the frown tugging at his lips; it could have possibly been concern if Merlin didn’t know better.
“What did they do to you?” he growled.
“It’s nothing, sire.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed, and he prodded lightly at Merlin’s cheek. Unprepared for it, Merlin flinched at the small jab of pain.
“Nothing, my ass,” Arthur scoffed. “You’re filthy and beat-up. You’ve never had a problem running your mouth. Don’t stop now when I’m asking you a direct question, Merlin.”
“I was clumsy. The under-chamberlain thought proper punishment would make me perform my duties better.”
“What duties? I haven’t assigned you any.”
“Anything house slaves are needed to do, sire.”
“My gifts haven’t been properly catalogued, and the chamberlain has my personal scribe doing house chores?” Arthur growled. “You can’t even see through that eye, can you?”
“No, not really.”
“And you obviously haven’t washed up…” Suddenly, Arthur grabbed Merlin’s shoulder and turned him around. Merlin grimaced. He knew the light spots of blood seeping through his shirt would be impossible to miss. “…they gave you lashes too.” Something in the prince’s tone made Merlin want to run and hide until all was safe.
“Just one, sire.”
“I’ll kill them for this,” Arthur hissed, making to stand.
“No, just leave it, sire,” Merlin said, grabbing the prince’s arm without forethought.
“I don’t listen to slaves, Merlin,” the prince retorted, but he didn’t shake Merlin’s hand off.
“Please, sire, just leave it,” Merlin repeated. Farren and Gamel would simply make his life more miserable if the prince interfered.
“Why should I?”
“Because you will only make it worse.”
“Sire, aren’t we going hunting?” one of the noblemen called from the door.
“I’m coming!” Arthur barked to him before turning back to Merlin. The prince studied him, but like the many times before, Merlin couldn’t tell what the prince was thinking. “You are to go to Tom. Get cleaned up and get some rest. Tomorrow morning, you are to start cataloguing all these gifts,” Arthur instructed, gesturing to the mess of chests and crates and boxes around the room.
“Yes, sire,” Merlin answered with a bow.
When Arthur left with the pack of nobleman, Merlin caught sight of Lady Guinevere standing by the door, looking at him with perplexed interest, a small frown and furrowed brow gracing her features.
Merlin spent the next day sorting through Arthur’s piles and piles of gifts and cataloguing them to be stored away in the castle’s treasury. He paused for a moment, and with a sigh, looked at all the boxes and boxes he had left. This would take at least another day, maybe two. The bright side was, he wouldn’t have to be working for Farran during that time.
A little after noon, Merlin heard one of the doors to the hall open, and he looked up to see none other than Lady Guinevere slip into the room. He ducked his head, and tried to be part of the background. He didn’t know why she was here, but she wasn’t possibly looking for him. He was proven wrong when he glanced up to see her walking straight towards him.
“Hello, I’m Guinevere, but just Gwen will do,” she greeted him, perching gracefully on a large chest by his writing table. Merlin was certainly not going to call a noblewoman by her name-her nickname no less.
“Hello, milady. Is there anything I can do for you?” Merlin asked, carefully setting down his quill. He bowed his head to the lady. He hoped that whatever she wanted from him, he couldn’t get in trouble for it.
“First tell me your name.”
“Merlin, milady.”
“Oh, just drop the titles and fanciness. I don’t care about them. And I don’t approve of slavery so you may speak as any normal person to me,” the lady said with a dismissing wave of her hand. “Yes?”
Finding that she was waiting for an answer, Merlin nodded, though he really couldn’t address her the way she wanted. Not unless he want to be punished for disrespect if someone were to walk in on them speaking together.
“Now then, Merlin, what is your relationship with Arthur?” Gwen asked.
“I’m sorry, what?” Merlin choked on air. Was she, the prince’s fiancé, implying what he thought she was implying? “I’m just his writing slave.”
“Oh, I really doubt that, Merlin,” she said. “I saw you yesterday, with Arthur. Arthur never lets anyone but the king and queen tell him what to do. And yet here you are, actually telling him what to do and him actually listening.”
“You’re mistaken, mi--” She gave him a warning look, so he skipped the title. “I have no sway on what the prince chooses to do. I’m just his slave,” Merlin insisted.
“I don’t think you’re just his slave. Tell me, how does he treat you?”
“He is my master. He treats me as a master should treat his slave.”
“Oh, Merlin, surely you can say more than that,” Gwen huffed. “Very well, let me ask about you. Where are you from?”
“…Carmarthen.”
“Are you a sorcerer?” She looked far too interested for Merlin to feel easy about it.
“Not anymore, milady,” he said. “I’ve been through the Rites, just like any sorcerer in slavery.”
“I supposed you couldn’t have used sorcery to fix Arthur then. How long have you been serving him?”
“About three months?” Merlin guessed. The days all seemed to blend into one sometimes.
“Only three months? And already, the prince listens to your words? I’ve known him for nearly twenty and he doesn't listen to me at all.”
The last thing Merlin wanted was for a noblewoman to think he had any sway on the prince, so he said, “Milady, I’m sorry, but I really should get back to work. I wouldn’t want the prince to say I was neglecting my work.”
“Oh, hush, if he asks, I’ll say I had need of your services. Speaking of which, what do you do for Arthur besides working as a scribe?”
“Just housework, mi-like any house slave. Anything I’m ordered to do.”
“How long have you been a slave?”
“Thirteen years.”
“Then you’ve been one since…”
“Since Carmarthen fell,” Merlin completed for her, dropping his eyes back down to the parchment as the familiar sense of shame touched him.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Gwen said, and she sounded surprisingly sincere about it too. “I supposed I really shouldn’t pry into your past.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” Merlin answered before his sense of life preservation could catch up with him. “Milady,” he tacked on, to soften the hint of disrespect he’d shown her. The Lady Guinevere sighed and got to her feet.
“Very well. I best be off anyways, before my maids come looking. One day, Merlin, I’m going to have a proper conversation with you. I’m sure there is more to you that meets the eye. Arthur wouldn’t put up with you otherwise.” Merlin shook his head in denial, but she merely smiled at him before leaving him alone with Arthur’s mountains of gifts again.
That evening, Merlin was summoned to the prince’s chambers. Merlin feared that someone had seen him conversing alone with the Lady Guinevere and had informed the prince. But his fear was unfounded as he entered the antechamber to find the prince pacing back and forth before the fireplace.
“No need for you to bow and say nice things and be a nice little slave. I haven’t got the time. Just get everything ready for you to write,” the prince said, still pacing.
“Yes, sire.” Merlin hurried to get the writing kit out from the cupboard and everything laid out for use. “All right, ready.”
Under the prince’s dictation, Merlin wrote:
Savaric,
I request of any news you have of Sir Tristan Du Bois. He has yet to arrive in Astolat, but he was expected two days ago. Send a reply the moment you receive this.
Arthur Pendragon, Prince of Camelot
“Is everything all right, sire?” Merlin hazarded an inquiry as he melted a glob of wax and prepared the letter for the prince’s seal.
“No, everything is not all right, Merlin. I’m sure that’s obvious even to you,” Arthur snapped. He leaned over the table and pressed his seal hard into the red wax. “My uncle is late and that harpy of a woman my parents brought with them, the other Northumbrian delegate, keeps asking why he isn’t here. As if she knows something.” The prince sighed before saying in a less agitated voice, “I want you to take this to the messenger barracks. Get the fastest messenger to deliver this to Camelot. You will stay there until he is back with an answer.”
“What about cataloguing your gifts, sire?”
“Tristan is the more important issue at the moment. You will stay there until the messenger is back. You will not be doing anything for Farren or Gamel or whoever. You will take the reply straight to me the moment it comes, no matter what I’m doing, where I am. Understood?”
“Yes, sire.” Merlin stood to clean up the writing kit.
“Leave it. I’ll have someone else clean it up. Just get going,” Arthur said, picking up the letter and holding it out to him.
“All right.” Merlin took the letter and headed for the door. Then he paused and asked, “The Northumbrian delegate, do you know if she’s planning anything?”
“If you mean, is she planning something like Lady Morgause was, then no. Though like I said earlier, she’s a harpy and definitely trying to influence the king,” the prince said, scowling.
“Then, may the gods watch over you and keep you safe, sire,” Merlin said.
For a moment, Arthur looked surprised, but then his eyes softened and he replied, “Thank you.”
Merlin gave him a bow before leaving for the messenger barracks.
For a moment, Merlin wondered why he’d given the prince that blessing, and had meant not only the new gods people were turning to nowadays, but the gods of the Old Religion as well. But he definitely couldn’t deny the sense of unease he felt when thinking of the Northumbrian delegates. He didn’t know if the “harpy of a woman” meant Nimueh, but from the stories he remember, it certainly could be her. Merlin worried about leaving Arthur alone, but there was nothing he could do when Arthur himself was ordering him away. He hoped that if the prince really was the Once and Future King, which Merlin still doubted, then the gods would keep anything from happening to him-at least, for a few days.
After the messenger had left, Merlin stayed in his room, sleeping on the thin rug before the fireplace. Like the prince had ordered, he didn’t leave the messenger barracks, a hall of small rooms on the side of the castle closest to the main gates, except when he needed to get food. At the slave house, Tom gave him a raised eyebrow when Merlin told him the prince’s orders, but he didn’t make a remark, instead simply handing him his meal.
Back in the barracks, sitting around waiting for a messenger to travel all the way to Camelot and back, Merlin was left with absolutely nothing to do. He turned to tiding up all the rooms in the messenger barracks, which, needless to say, pleased the messengers not on assignment and the servant originally assigned to clean the barracks.
The messenger returned two days later, just minutes before the night’s feast. Merlin hopped to his feet and with a quick thank you, he hurried off to find Arthur.
By great misfortune, Merlin ran into Gabel before reaching the dining hall, though this time at least not literally. The under-chamberlain grabbed him as he hurried past, yanking him back.
“So, you’ve finally crawled out of your hole, slave. What have you got there?” he asked, making to snatch the letter from Merlin’s hand. Merlin stepped back, as much as possible with Gabel’s hand still on his arm, and held the letter away from him.
“A letter for the prince. I am to take it directly to him,” Merlin said, trying to tug away his arm.
“You have duties to perform. Give it here and I’ll get it to him,” Gabel said, tightening his grip on Merlin’s arm.
Merlin stamped down on the flash of annoyance he wanted to show and grit his teeth before saying, “I’m sorry, sir, but my only duty is to deliver this letter to Prince Arthur. He specifically instructed me to deliver the letter, and only me. However, if you wish to explain to him why his orders weren’t followed, you are certainly free to do so. I am but a slave after all.” He bowed his head in submission.
The under-chamberlain growled but roughly released his arm.
“Then get moving, you insolent whelp,” he snapped before stalking away.
With a sigh of relief, Merlin took off for the dining hall once again.
Morgause, he heard, had returned to Astolat. And that piece of knowledge did nothing to ease the nervousness he felt as he approached the servants’ entrance to the dining hall. A strange sort of unease settled into his stomach the closer he got to it.
The prince, he discovered upon stepping inside, was already seated, and trying to pay attention to nothing else, Merlin went straight to him.
“Sire,” he murmured once he’d reached Arthur’s side. He bent down to whisper into the prince’s ear, “The messenger has just returned with a reply.”
Arthur gave him a glance and a nod before getting to his feet.
“Prince Arthur, is there a problem?” a woman’s voice asked as Arthur stepped away from his chair. Merlin looked up towards the speaker and froze. The woman before him, wearing a fine wine-red gown, was beautiful with long brown hair and pale skin, but her blue eyes were cold and her smile sent chills down his spine. And he knew who she was, because he had been shown pictures of her as a child with the warning to avoid her, to never cross her, at all cost.
Nimueh.
Merlin should have expected it-had expected it, but had hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be true. Whatever Morgause was doing, Nimueh was never far off. Merlin remembered clearly the stories told of her, of how she once wielded the power over life and death until it twisted her mind and she thought herself-still thought herself-a god. The prices she charged from those requiring her power were too great, too unjust, and the balance of life had been almost irrevocably damaged until the power was wrested from her. Now the power, and the Cup of Life, was rumoured to be lost for all eternity. That she was here, in Camelot while pretending to be a Northumbrian delegate, plotting something against Arthur alongside Morgause, was bad news, to say the least.
Merlin quickly looked away from her, staring at the floor before she could catch him staring.
“I will have to be excused for a bit, Lady Nimueh. I will only be a few minutes; there’s something I must attend to,” Arthur said before taking Merlin by the arm and steering him out of the hall through the private entrance.
The manhandling seemed rather excessive, but Merlin was glad for it, because he could feel his legs trembling, a stream of “Nimueh. Oh gods. What do I do now? This is horrible. Nimueh. Oh gods” running through his head.
“Well? What does the message say?” the prince questioned, pulling Merlin out of his panic. He had completely forgotten why he’d gone to the prince in the first place.
With a start, Merlin held up the letter, breaking the seal to begin reading.
Your Highness,
Sir Tristan Du Bois left for Astolat four days ago with three other knights as travel companions. We did not expect there to be any trouble. I have sent out a search party and will contact you as soon as I receive any news.
Your loyal subject,
Savaric
“Four days!” Arthur exclaimed. “He should have arrived by now.”
“What would you like to do, sire?” Merlin asked.
“Go find Sir Leon. Tell him to gather some men together and then get a pack ready for me. I’m going to search for Tristan myself.”
“When do you want them ready by?”
“In fifteen minutes. There’s no time to waste. I need to go excuse myself to the King and Queen.” Arthur turned back towards the servant entrance, and Merlin remembered Nimueh and the almost sick unease he felt in the dining hall. He didn’t want the prince to go back in there, not with Nimueh so close in the room.
“Wait! Sire, don’t go back in there!” Merlin exclaimed, grabbing the prince’s arm. The prince turned his head to look at Merlin, irritation narrowing his eyes. Before Arthur could say anything though, Merlin explained, “Nimueh. She’s like Morgause-actually between her and Morgause, Nimueh is definitely the one you need to worry about more. Don’t go back in there.”
“Merlin, I’ll just be in there for a minute. I can’t just leave the feast-a feast held in my honor.
“Please, sire, you can’t go back in there. I have a bad-really bad-feeling about this. Something terrible is going to happen. You mustn’t go back in there. Just send a servant to go make your excuse.” And Merlin was starting to babble, but he would do anything, anything, to get Arthur to just listen for once and not go back into that room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Merlin,” Arthur replied, pulling his arm out of Merlin’s grip. “Like I said, I’ll be only a minute, and then I’ll return to my chambers to prepare. Nothing is going to happen.”
“But sire. Please, you have to listen to me. Nimueh is planning something, and if you step back into that room, I’m afraid something will happen.”
“Yes, something will. I will tell my father that I’m setting out to find Tristan, and then I will leave. That is it. I will be in my rooms before you even get there.”
“But-”
“I’ll hear no more about this, Merlin. Go find Leon and do as I say.”
“Sire-”
“Now, Merlin!” The prince grabbed Merlin by the shoulders and turned him around. “I won’t listen anymore to your girlish worries. Just go.” He gave Merlin a shove before striding away for the dining hall entrance.
With that same almost-nauseous feeling of apprehension, Merlin went to find Sir Leon, having been left with no choice but to hope the prince really would be in the hall for just a minute and would leave unharmed. Sir Leon was in the knights’ barracks, playing dice with the other knights not on duty or out in the town taverns. But upon hearing the prince’s orders, Sir Leon selected four of the knights present and dispersed them to be ready for travel in fifteen minutes. Merlin went to Arthur’s chambers, and with a servant’s help, gathered everything the prince might need for a journey that would last for two or more days. Afterwards, Merlin sat down on the bearskin rug before the fire, hoping the warmth of the flames would ease the twisting tightness in his gut.
But fifteen minutes later, and Arthur had not come walking through the doors of his chambers.
An hour later, and still no prince, Merlin hopped to his feet and began pacing, back and forth across the room. Then the door opened, but it was Sir Leon, who’d checked for the prince only ten minutes before.
“Are you sure, he said tonight? Not tomorrow morning?” the knight asked after another hour.
“I’m sure, sir. He insisted he’d leave the banquet immediately upon telling the King.”
Sir Leon sighed and said, “The King and Queen left an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I know only what he had told me,” Merlin said with a small bow of his head, hiding his own worry.
With another sigh and a shake of his head, Sir Leon left the chambers, saying he’d try looking for the prince.
Merlin was half asleep on the bearskin rug when the doors opened and he heard a groan of pain. In the dim embers, he could only make out a hunched-over figure stagger into the room before crumpling to the ground with another groan. Merlin was awake and on his feet in a flash, rushing over to the man on the floor. It was the prince, as he’d feared. He dropped down to his knees besides Arthur’s trembling, curled up form. His fine clothes were soaked through from the rain, water already puddling around him on the floor.
“Sire, sire, can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Merlin asked, hesitant to touch the prince in case he was injured.
“Who is it?” His voice was strained, hoarse, as if he’d been shouting for too long.
“It’s Merlin. Are you hurt, sire?” Merlin asked again. “Should I get Marius?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
Merlin helped the prince move in front of the fireplace. He fetched an armful of throws and blankets from Arthur’s bedroom, wrapping them around him, and brought the fire back to life, casting the antechamber into dim light. The prince looked wretched, hunched and shivering under blankets with his hair plastered to his head from the rain and his skin deathly pales. There were dark smudges under his eyes, which were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
There was a wine pitcher and goblet on the table, and Merlin went to pour some wine for the prince. It was then, as Arthur took the cup from him, that Merlin noticed that the prince’s hands were smeared with drying blood.
“S-sire, your hands. Shall I help you clean them?” Merlin inquired.
“What are you-”
Then he too noticed his hands. The goblet clattered to the floor, staining the rug with the dark red-purple of wine. Arthur looked down at his shaking hands in horror, and Merlin hurried to retrieve a wash basin and towel. After filling the basin with water, Merlin knelt back down besides the prince and began washing the blood from his hands.
“This can’t be-I didn’t do anything,” Arthur murmured, shaking his head repeatedly. “It was a dream. A nightmare. It didn’t happen.” He looked down at the wash basin filled with red-tinged water and jerked his hands away from Merlin, pulling them back under the blankets.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Merlin questioned softly.
“Nothing happened.” The prince took the bloody towel from Merlin and tossed it into the fire. He then shoved the basin away, spilling some of the dirtied water on the rug as well.
Merlin picked up the basin and went to dump out the water. Arthur was still in front of the fire when he returned, no longer shivering but with his hands tightly clenching the blankets close to him and almost haunted-looking eyes staring into the fire.
“Sire, do you need anything?”
“No. Leave me.”
“Sire, please tell me what happened. I fear that Nimueh might have been responsible.”
“No, nothing happened,” Arthur insisted. “I got drunk and went outside to clear my head.”
“At least let me help you change into clean clothes and get you into bed,” Merlin suggested.
“No. I’m staying by the fire for now. Get out, Merlin.”
Merlin ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Arthur was in danger; that was as clear as day. He needed to know what happened. Merlin sat down next to the prince, too close to be appropriate for a slave, but the prince didn’t say a word.
“At least listen to me while I tell you about Nimueh.” Arthur glared at him but made no move to stop him, so Merlin continued, “She is also a High Priestess of the Old Religion. Actually, she was Morgause’s mentor, and it’s said her powers are great. When she was still in Carmarthen, she was placed in charge of the Cup of Life. And by striking a deal with her, you could get anything you desired-if the price you paid was enough. She could even bring someone from the brink of death. She held the power of life and death.”
“That sounds impossible.”
Merlin ignored the prince’s comment and said, “All that power corrupted her. She desired more and more of it, and she started going back on her deals. Misinterpreting the deals on purpose, taking an unfair price, even killing the wrong person to be sacrificed.” The very thought of such trickery made Merlin’s skin crawl, remembering Nimueh’s cold blue eyes and mirthless smile. “She had a few of the high priestesses assist her too. Like I told you about Morgause, she thinks herself a god, and magic-less folks far inferior. Of course, the Carmarthen royals and council wouldn’t stand for it. The balance of the world was being damaged so they took the Cup from her and exiled the priestesses.”
“So she holds a grudge against Carmarthen. Too bad it’s gone now. How exactly does that impact me, or Camelot?” Arthur remarked, and Merlin gritted his teeth at the callousness of his words.
“Because the last I heard, she wanted to create a world ruled by only magic users. She wanted to eradicate all non-magic users, or at the very least enslave them.”
Arthur snorted and said, “Right. Even if she’s as powerful as you say, I hardly think she could take on all the kingdoms’ armies.”
“She won’t take it by force. At least not at first,” Merlin reasoned. “She’s planning something. I suppose that she’s already in league with King Lot. And now it seems her target is Camelot. You said yourself she’s trying to gain influence on the king. And with Morgause’s attempts to enchantment you, you are definitely one of their targets.”
Arthur didn’t speak, staring into the fireplace with a furrowed brow.
Merlin pressed forward, “I fear whatever they are planning for you, sire. So you have to tell me what happened to you, at least a little about what happened when you went back into the dining hall.”
Arthur sighed and said, “Gods, you won’t ever leave it, will you, Merlin?” He glared at Merlin, but it was with little heat. Merlin saw that his mind was elsewhere. “I went back into the hall and told Father I was going to search for Uncle. Then Nimueh said to at least listen to Lady Helen sing first. Lady Helen is a songstress the Northumbrians brought along with them; apparently she’s popular in Northumbria. Lady Helen sang a song. Then I left the banquet and went outside. And that was it. I lost track of time.”
“In the pouring rain,” Merlin remarked, not bothering to hide his skepticism. He was busy running over in his head what the prince had told him. What would cause the prince to come stumbling in hours after his promised time, hands covered in blood? Arthur didn’t seem to remember some details either. Then, he realized it. Lady Helen. “What happened when Lady Helen sang?”
“What, you think she had something to do with it?” the prince asked, looking at Merlin incredulously.
“You said the Northumbrians brought her. She certainly could. What happened when she was sang?” he repeated.
“Nothing. I-” Arthur frowned. “Hang on, what did happen? I remember her about to sing, but not what she sang. Next thing I remember, I’m leaving the hall.”
“You don’t remember anything about her singing? What about what language? How it sounded?”
“I just said I don’t remember, didn’t I?” Arthur snapped.
“Alright, well, that’s probably it then. Either Nimueh cast some sort of spell on you while you were distracted by Lady Helen’s singing, or Lady Helen was the one to cast the spell on you through her singing with Nimueh’s help. Though the real problem is whatever they enchanted you and how to undo it.” Merlin bit his bottom lip, cursing at himself. Whatever the enchantment, it couldn’t be good. He should have gone with Arthur. He should have insisted on just accompanying him until he knew Arthur would be safe.
“Well I feel perfectly fine. I was drunk, that’s all. It’s ridiculous to think they’d perform sorcery on me in front of the king and the entire court.”
Merlin sighed. Loudly. Just so the prince could hear the displeasure he couldn’t say without severe consequences.
“Then I’ll leave you be then, your highness,” he said. “Is there a message you’d like me to send to Sir Leon?”
“Gods, Sir Leon!” Arthur made as if to stand. “What time is it?”
“The last time I checked, half-past two, sire.”
The prince cursed under his breath before saying, “Let him know I’ve changed my mind. We’ll be leaving shortly after dawn.”
“Yes, sire. Will that be all?”
Arthur waved him away. When Merlin left him, the prince was sullenly stabbing at the fire with an iron poker. It reminded Merlin too much of the hot branding irons. He also hoped that whoever might decide to make a visit to the prince’s chambers this late at night would not end up with a head bashed in by a hot iron.
He found Sir Leon dozing in a chair in the stables, and Leon nodded blearily when Merlin told him the prince’s instructions.
For the first time in a few days, Merlin spent the night in the servants’ room set aside for the house slaves. But even with how late in the night it was, or early in the morning, depending on which point of view to take, Merlin couldn’t sleep. Instead, his worries and vague sense of panic kept him awake. Nimueh in Camelot, clearly plotting something with Morgause and targeting Arthur. What if they succeeded in whatever they were planning? What if, like he suspected, they wished for the sorcerers to take control of Albion? Then what could happen? Would everything turn to-the prophecies. Chaos. A greater evil upon Albion. But it couldn’t be. Surely Nimueh’s plot wouldn’t cause an all-out apocalypse. More importantly, did Nimueh and Morgause know or suspect as he did that Arthur was the Once and Future King? Could that be why they were targeting him? What could he, a slave without magic, do to protect Arthur? To stop Nimueh and Morgause? With a groan, he covered his face with his arms and tried to block out all thoughts for sleep to come.
Arthur was nowhere to be found in the morning. The court was in an uproar with the person of honor missing. Sir Leon and the rest of the knights were ordered to scour the castle and town for the prince, but they found no trace of him.
Farran was furious over Merlin’s three days away from work, even if it had been for the prince. For shirking his work, the chamberlain gave him two lashes before setting him to work scrubbing the dining hall floor. Merlin spent the morning and then the afternoon, after the lunch feast, on his hands and knees, mopping up the spills and picking up scraps. Though a few others worked alongside him, he was mostly left alone to his own thoughts, his concerns for the prince stewing in his gut and growing as minutes passed with no new information on his whereabouts.
As he worked, he listened to the rumors circulating through the castle: the prince was sick again, the prince had disappeared to avoid taking on his new responsibilities, the prince had been kidnapped. News of Sir Tristan’s disappearance had reached not only the court but the townspeople. Unease was spreading, because how could one of the kingdom’s best knights and brother to the Queen simply go missing? And beasts were roaming the lands; a man had been mauled yesterday night, as if by the claws of a giant lizard. People were wondering, were all these misfortunes clumped together mere coincidences or were they linked? Were the gods trying to tell them something?
Two hours past noon, Merlin had finished cleaning the floors and quitted the dining hall when he spotted two men walking down the hall headed his way. As they walked closer, he recognized them as Arthur and Sir Leon. Merlin felt his nervousness fade away at the sight of Arthur, though he was definitely looking worse for the wear. The knight was looking at Arthur with thinly veiled concern. The prince ignored the look, managing to pull off the haughty air of royalty even with his clothes dripping from the rain and his legs caked with mud up to his knees.
“I’m completely all right, Leon,” Arthur was saying.
“But sire, you’ve been gone the whole day.”
“Yes. Tell my father I’m sorry for my absence. I should have at least left a note. I’d see him myself, but I’m obviously in need of a bath,” Arthur said. The prince didn’t seem to notice Merlin as he quickened his steps down the hall, leaving Sir Leon behind. Leon gave the prince’s retreating back a concerned but exasperated shake of his head.
“Is there anything you would like me to do, Sir Leon?” Merlin ventured, and Sir Leon’s eyes fell on him without surprise. Of course, the knight had known Merlin was there.
“It seems you’ve also had a rough morning,” Sir Leon remarked, nodding to Merlin’s bloody back.
Merlin shrugged and replied, “Nothing more than expected. The chamberlain doesn’t like me very much.” He then asked, “Has the prince said anything? About his…disappearance.”
Sir Leon shook his head and said, “No, he was not willing to say anything. Though he’s sent another group of men to look for Sir Tristan.”
“Then I hope Sir Tristan is found soon.”
The knight eyed Merlin speculatively before saying, “You wouldn’t have any ideas as to the prince’s strange behavior, would you?”
“No, sir. I am but a slave. I do only as the prince commands.”
Whether or not Merlin’s lies were as obvious as the prince claimed, Sir Leon merely grimaced.
“I best be off to see the king then. He’ll want to know that the prince is safe,” Sir Leon said.
The knight gave Merlin a nod before going back the way he came. Merlin stood there in the hallway for a moment with a frown, trying to decide if he should seek out the prince and see if he truly was all right. Deciding against risking the prince’s or the chamberlain’s temper, he instead headed for the kitchens in hopes of begging off some lunch.
Merlin was nearly in the servants’ wing, ready to finally get some sleep for the night when a hand fell on his shoulder. He jumped, twisting to break away from a potentially threatening grip.
“Shh. It’s Tom, Merlin,” a voice whispered. And Merlin discovered that it was indeed Tom, bundled up in a woolen cloak and looking slightly haggard.
“Master Tom,” Merlin greeted him with a small bow of his head.
“Come with me, Merlin, and keep quiet,” the slave master instructed him.
Curious, Merlin did as he said, following Tom out of the castle and across the courtyard. Outside, the day of continuous rainfall had finally stopped, leaving behind a clear night sky and large puddles of water in the patches of sunken cobblestone. Merlin noticed that they weren’t heading to the slave house and was about to question Tom about it when the man started speaking instead:
“I said before that I used to live near Carmarthen. I don’t fear sorcerers the way some people nowadays do. My parents and their parents before them always felt safe, living so close. Carmarthen sorcerers were good ones; I had no doubt in that.” The slave master gave Merlin a significant look over his shoulder but did not slow his path around the castle’s inner walls. “When the war happened and Carmarthen fell, I knew that bad times were ahead. Lately, I’ve felt as if there was evil abroad. You’ve heard of last night’s attack, haven’t you?”
“By a beast with the claws of a lizard?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Tom said, leading him through the castle’s gardens and towards a small storehouse. “I saw the beast fly into the courtyard and chased it. But when I caught up to it, there was no beast. Instead…”
He opened the door of the storehouse, and the bottom of Merlin’s stomach dropped out at the sight of the human form wrapped up in a cloak and curled up on the floor. Even in the dim moonlight streaming into the storehouse, the blond head was unmistakable. His weariness from before was gone in a flash as he hurried to the prince’s site.
“Sire, can you hear me?” Merlin asked . “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Arthur slightly uncurled and looked up, but Merlin wanted to cringe when he saw no recognition in the prince’s eyes. Arthur looked at him with an animalistic fear; there was nothing human in his eyes.
“Get a blanket and hot tea,” Merlin directed Tom, not taking his eyes off the prince. The sound of the door opening and shutting was the only indication he had of the slave master doing as he’d asked. “Sire? Can you hear me? It’s Merlin.” Merlin reached out a hand, but the prince hissed and swiped at his hand with his own. Arthur curled away from him again, glaring at him as he did so.
The door swung open again, and Tom returned, holding out a wool blanket and a steaming cup. Merlin took the blanket and, slowly this time, reached out to the prince. He wrapped the blanket around him, and fortunately, Arthur only watched him warily.
“Here, drink this.” Merlin took the hot cup of tea from Tom and held it out to Arthur. With a shaking hand, the prince took the cup and brought it to his lips. Merlin watched in silence as Arthur drank the tea. Slowly, he could see the confusion and fear fade from the prince’s eyes. Merlin heaved a sigh in relief. “We have to get him warm,” Merlin said, looking over his shoulder at Tom.
“The workroom near the edge of the gardens. There’s a fireplace, and the gardeners aren’t working for another month,” the slave master said.
“Okay. We’ll take him there,” Merlin said.
Tom nodded and left to get to the workroom ahead of time. Merlin looked back to Arthur, who was staring at Merlin with tired, haunted eyes.
“Are you feeling a little better, sire?”
“I’m going mad, aren’t I?” the prince asked, pulling the blanket tighter around himself.
“No, you’re not. Come on, let’s get you somewhere warm, and I’ll try and find out what spell was cast on you.”
Merlin wrapped an arm around Arthur’s blanketed shoulders and helped him to his feet. Merlin felt even more concerned than ever, because Arthur did not even try to refuse his help and walked with a frailty that was nothing like the strength and confidence Merlin was used to. They made their way slowly to the gardeners’ workroom, where Merlin was relieved to see the small fireplace light and warm. Tom was there, with a whole pot of tea, and after settling Arthur down by the fire, Merlin immediately poured some for the prince. Tom left, saying he’d keep an eye out for anyone who might accidentally walk in on them. Arthur drank the tea in silence, staring into the fire. Merlin sat by his side, waiting for him to speak, but when the prince gave no indication of doing so anytime soon, he asked:
“Can you tell me how it starts?”
“Cold, I suddenly feel cold, as if I’ve been dunked into a lake during winter,” Arthur said, holding the blanket tighter as if remembering the cold made him actually feel it. “Then it just bloody hurts. The worst pain I’ve felt in my life, like my body is being squeezed and stretched into a different form. Everything looked different, smelled different. I could-I could fly.” After a pause, he then said, “That sounds ridiculous. I’m just going completely insane.”
“Sire, Master Tom followed you into the gardens, and it wasn’t you he was seeing, not until he got to the storehouse,” Merlin said, gently as if to a spooked horse. “And yesterday night, a man was mauled by a beast with the claws of a great lizard.”
“Gods, no.” Arthur turned even paler than before, looking at Merlin with horror.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could have stopped this from happening.”
“Well? How do I fix it? What…bauble do I need to destroy to make it all go away?”
Merlin shook his head and said, “It’s not that simple that this time. This…this curse is a transformation spell. There is nothing physical you can destroy to break the spell. The caster must lift the spell, or a sorcerer more powerful than the caster must break it.” He poured more tea for the prince, nudging the cup towards him.
“Then we out the caster and make him-her, whoever it is, lift it,” Arthur said, taking the cup without much thought. “I’ll go to my father and tell him it’s the Northumbrian delegates. You can explain it for me.”
“No!” Merlin exclaimed, heart actually seizing at the thought. Having Nimueh and Morgause as enemies was hard enough. The two priestesses actually knowing about Merlin’s involvement was sure to be the end of him. “If they know you suspect them, they might threaten the king and queen. Or just take what they wanted by force. We have to find out what they want.”
“And what makes you think they don’t want me dead?” Arthur said with narrowed eyes.
“…what will happen if you were mysteriously killed?”
“My father could call it sorcery and stop at nothing to find the culprit. He’d…he’d kill anyone in his way, anyone even suspected of using magic,” Arthur realized, looking queasy at the thought.
“Exactly. We mustn’t let anyone find out.”
“Then what am I possibly supposed to do about this? I can’t just keep…changing into a beast. I’m about to become crown prince!”
Merlin bit his bottom lip, running through possible courses of action to proceed with, but coming up with little.
“I don’t have magic, but I can help you control it…somehow, just enough so you don’t lose yourself completely,” he said. “Have Marius give you a sleeping potion. The strongest one he has. So you won’t change in your sleep. And if you find yourself changing, call for me and get away from any people nearby. Run for the gardens, I suppose.” And in the meantime, they-or Merlin, rather-would have to try to discover what Nimueh and Morgause wanted.
“Fine,” Arthur agreed.
“Could you tell me exactly what happened before today’s change?”
With a huff, the prince recounted everything that had happened since this morning, from when he woke in the morning freezing cold despite the roaring fire in his hearth to coming to with a steaming hot cup of tea in his hands and Merlin kneeling in front of him.
Afterwards, Merlin poured him some more tea, and the two of them sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts. Merlin couldn’t draw anything from Arthur’s recollections, nothing that could have acted as a trigger to cause Arthur’s transformation.
“Merlin.” Arthur suddenly spoke his name so softly, Merlin nearly missed it.
“Yes?”
“If you still had your magic, could you have fixed this?”
“…yes, almost certainly,” Merlin admitted, turning his head to avoid the prince’s probing stare.
“I’m sorry.” Merlin’s gaze immediately snapped from the fire to the prince. He couldn’t have heard correctly. But then the prince said again, “I’m sorry. None of this would have happened if we hadn’t…” He didn’t say the rest, but there was no question what he meant. If Camelot hadn’t attacked Carmarthen. If Carmarthen hadn’t fallen. If Merlin hadn’t been taken.
Merlin moved into the servant’s antechamber in Arthur’s chambers that night. He left the door separating his room from the prince’s bedchambers open, so that he would know right away if Arthur started changing. For the first time in years, in over a decade, Merlin slept on a bed. It was a horrible bed really, with a thin lumpy mattress, but the sheets were clean and he actually had a pillow and blanket. In other words, it was absolute luxury. After Arthur downed the sleeping draught he’d acquired from the physician and Merlin had made sure he was asleep like a log, Merlin promptly flopped down on his own bed and fell asleep.
He was woken up the next day by a pillow smacking his head. His air supply cut off by the soft mass of cloth, he sputtered up to a sitting position, blearily looking around and trying to remember why he was in a bed instead of on the floor. Then he saw the prince leaning against the side of the door, already dressed for the day, with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face.
“You do realize that you’re supposed to be the one waking me up, don’t you?” Arthur said before pushing himself upright. Merlin jumped to his feet, still sleep-muddled and a bit confused as to why the prince wasn’t shouting at him. “Come on, Merlin, you’ve got work to do.” He turned to walk through his bedchamber and into his antechamber, and Merlin hurried after him.
“What work would you like me to do, sire?” he asked.
“Well, apparently you didn’t finish cataloguing all my gifts,” the prince remarked with a pointed look at Merlin.
“You had me wait for the messenger for two days!” Merlin exclaimed before clamping a hand over his mouth and looking at the prince anxiously.
To his surprise, Arthur simply rolled his eyes and said, “I’ve given up on you, Merlin. I obviously can’t expect for you to keep your mouth shut. Nonetheless, you’ll be cataloguing my gifts today. Go to Tom and get washed up and then get to work.”
“Yes, sire,” Merlin said, bowing quickly to the prince and heading for the door.
“I’ll send for you if I need anything,” Arthur said. It was the only indication that Arthur was choosing to remember last night’s incident as something more than just fit of madness. Merlin paused to give him another bow before leaving the prince’s chambers.
On to Part Five | Masterpost