rabbit hearted boy, part one
Title: Rabbit Hearted Boy
Rating: PG
Fandom: Merlin
Characters: Arthur, Leon, Merlin, Uther, Ygraine, Gwen, Morgana, others and OCs.
Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, Uther/Ygraine
Summary: The life of a young prince is always vastly different to that of his subjects, but the life of a prince with a tendency to float is something else altogether.
Part One
The people of Camelot were restless.
The hum of activity in the marketplace could easily have been mistaken for the hustle and bustle of an ordinary day’s work, but there were constant whispers between friends and strangers alike as they glanced up and waited for confirmation from the castle.
Finally, when the sunlight had started to dim, and the cold night air filtered through the surrounding trees and into the town, it came.
“The Queen has had a son!”
The news filtered from the streets of the town down to the smallest villages quickly, but rather than sending everyone back about their own business, it only increased their enquiries. In Camelot, the arrival of a new baby will always give birth to curiosity, but when the child in question is one of royalty, that interest rises to greater heights. The usual wonderings of which parent he would most resemble and if he would be a peaceful or mischievous child were exchanged, but they were accompanied by much discussion of his future role as king.
Uther Pendragon had only been ruler of Camelot for half a decade, and yet he had already made his mark on the kingdom. His father had been a fair man, but his reign was marked by many hardships, including the war that had cost him his life. It was Uther, the warrior prince, who had led them to victory, and the people had looked to him to usher in a new era in Camelot’s history. As it turned out, they had been both accurate and mistaken in this belief. Uther was a firm believer in tradition, and upheld the same laws those before him had championed, but he had also brought the same unrelenting firmness he took to the battlefield into the court. This was not always detrimental to his judgement, but on the issues he felt strongly about it left little room for his advisors to make him see the other side of the argument and make more unbiased decisions. Camelot had not been under threat since his coronation, but it was this that he most feared and tried - some would say too hard - to prevent, with a number of strict laws and punishments. Some had hoped that his marriage to the lovely Lady Ygraine Du Bois would bring a greater humanity to him, and soften his sternness, but while Ygraine made a compassionate queen and Uther’s genuine affection for her was apparent, their union did not greatly change the way Camelot was run.
Still, the majority of Camelot had little to complain of; they had finally begun to prosper under Uther Pendragon’s reign, and for a simple people that was enough to ask for. They would forgive their king his flaws, as they had his predecessors, and not reflect that while they had once lived in fear of outsiders, they now feared offending their own leader.
That night, the people of Camelot wondered how their future king would one day compare to his forefathers, and all their hopes were for a Pendragon that possessed only their best characteristics. None could have predicted the newborn prince’s most defining quality; one that was all his own.
*
As with all babies, a name had to be chosen. As with all royal babies, many, many people had to be present for the christening.
The decisions relating to the former were made far more easily than those for the latter. Uther wanted his son to have a strong name, befitting a future king, and Ygraine agreed that this was right. He also believed in naming his son after one of his relatives to which Ygraine had no objection to in principle, although she feared the possibilities (in this, she thought particularly of Ambrosius, her husband’s late brother; the man had been a great warrior, but she had always found the name a little feminine). Luckily for both husband and wife, she quite liked the proposed name, so, Arthur it was.
They did not come to an agreement quite so swiftly on the matter of Arthur’s christening. Ygraine was weary of the pomp and circumstance of the court (she had lived a life of wealth since birth, but even her previous standards were far overshadowed by the luxury of being queen) but Uther was adamant. His son would be presented to all the nobility of note that could attend and it would be the grandest affair Camelot had seen since their wedding and her coronation, if not even more so. Ygraine did try to press for a slightly smaller event, with only the members of the court and the important kings and nobles whom it would be discourteous to ignore, rather than every nobleman in Albion, and his family, and their children, and so on, but Uther would not yield. No expense would be spared for the future king of Camelot, even if the infant would in all probability sleep through most of the event, and surely not remember any of it. However, Ygraine had long since grown used to being the one who conceded in her marriage, and as, during their discussion, she happened to be cradling their peacefully sleeping child, she was far too contented to argue seriously with her husband.
And so the christening took place with more people present than the Great Hall of the castle was designed to hold, and certainly more than Ygraine could recognise. But, she accepted good wishes from familiar and unfamiliar faces alike all with the same goodwill, her eyes constantly flitting to her smiling son in his crib, being looked after by his nurse.
The crowd was felt keenly by everyone at the gathering, but the day was so fine, and one of joy for so many, that proceedings continued pleasantly. In fact no one even noticed that as they began to take their places for the ceremony, a beautiful lady who had hitherto been concealed in the corner of the room not speaking to anyone made her way to the front, but she drew no attention to herself until the ceremony had just begun.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, Camelot’s records keeper and the man leading the proceedings, reached to lift the child out of his cot and at this the stranger moved to stand in front of everyone and began to speak. Her words were bellowed in a language unintelligible to the company, but if any were in doubt as to what it signified, that fled when those facing her saw her eyes flash gold. The guards nearest her tried to reach the woman, but with her magic she had created an invisible wall around her that no one could pass through.
Geoffrey quickly placed the baby back into his crib and stood in front of it to keep the prince out of harm’s way, but by this time her short chant was already over. With a flick of her wrist a bright red light flashed in front of her, and in an instant her face changed; moulded itself into the face of another, one recognisable to far too many. A loud gasp emanated from the people gathered just as she began to chant again, continuing her spell in words they could all understand, even if at the time they would not know what they meant:
Light of spirit, by my charms,
Light of body, every part,
Never weary human arms -
Only crush thy parents’ heart!
And with one glance in the direction of the King of Camelot, she was gone; disappearing into a cloud of grey smoke, that engulfed her body before growing to cover the whole of the chapel.
The smoke did not last, but it was enough to cause a panic among all the members of the congregation. As soon as it dissolved enough for everyone to regain their surroundings, Ygraine rushed to Arthur’s side, and found her son still lying in his cot smiling happily. He laughed when he saw her and clapped his hands, as if all the commotion had been an extended form of peek-a-boo, and she allowed herself to breathe again.
However, Uther could not be so easily satisfied. He had started calling his men into action from the moment the woman had revealed herself, and had increased the ferocity of his orders since she disappeared, but underneath his barking exterior he trembled with an alarm that would soon prove itself warranted.
*
Uther had always been wary of magic. As a boy he had been taught about power; the strength of those who possessed it, and the importance of not abusing it. Magic was a kind of power, but one he could not possess or understand. Furthermore, it was a great force that could all too easily influence others, particularly weaker minds, which made it highly dangerous. Still, it had been permitted in the kingdom by his father, and his father before him, so it continued to be allowed under Uther’s reign, but only under regulation, with strict punishment for those who went beyond the confines of the law.
He had only enforced this punishment once so far, on a small band of sorcerers led by the witch Nimueh and her companion the Great Dragon. It had come to the king’s attention soon after his coronation that they had been using the dark arts in an attempt to undermine his authority and take Camelot for themselves. His knights had suffered in the short battle that followed, but they had succeeded in capturing the offenders, and Uther had thrown all the men and women in the dungeon, chaining the Dragon in a deep cavern near to the castle. In sentencing, Uther had been faced with the choice of execution or banishment, but before he could make his decision the sorcerers had disappeared. Camelot had been searched high and low, but no trace had been found of them. The Dragon had remained in his cave, but would not reveal any information no matter how much he was prodded, so Uther finally decided to execute the Dragon publicly. This had not been a very popular idea in his court; the logistics were one thing, and the Dragon had been the toughest of all the prisoners to subdue and capture, but Uther was adamant. He believed that the act would demonstrate Camelot’s strength and superiority to all, including the escaped wizards, but despite his best efforts it never took place.
The morning the execution had been scheduled to take place all the guards and knights entered the cave, bracing themselves for the task of keeping the dragon in control as they led it to its death, and found it empty. His shackles lay on the rough ground, the chains unbroken, but there was no creature in sight. Another search of Camelot was ordered, but it was soon concluded the Dragon too had escaped to whatever place the wizards had gone.
Since then Uther had dreaded the retribution the wizards would seek, but he realised he had never truly known fear until he had seen Nimueh hovering before his son, her eyes burning golden as she spoke words of witchcraft.
For the rest of the day, Ygraine was comforted by the fact that their son lived and clutched him to her bosom, not allowing any of the castle servants or even his nurse to tend to him. She would see to everything, instinctively feeling as if that would make everything right. But Uther was too anxious to look upon Arthur for long, fearing that at any moment he would see the effect of Nimueh’s magic.
For a man of Uther’s short patience, it was both a blessing and a curse that he did not have to wait long for it.
*
On the second morning after the christening, just as most of the castle’s inhabitants had started to believe that perhaps the newborn Prince had not suffered at the hands of the witch, there was an incident.
Ygraine’s handmaiden Marie entered the nursery to see to the child, and was treated to one of baby Arthur’s trademark grins. He was already a favourite with her, as the sight of the happy babe with her mistresses’ hair and eyes always gladdened her heart, even if he did posses his severe father’s jaw. He only had to gurgle once and reach for her finger with his tiny hand to convince Marie to play their favourite game in which she whirled him up and down and around, like a bird in the sky.
That particular morning, however, when Marie began to raise Arthur, he flew out of her hands and drifted further upwards.
Marie clasped her hand to her chest at the sight of the child flying above her, but retained enough of her wits to think to reach for Arthur, and, standing on the tips of her toes, managed to grab hold of his foot. She gently pulled the child back down and into her embrace, warily searching his face for signs of any harm, but Arthur simply kept smiling, looking like he had thoroughly enjoyed his little experience.
Although she had no children of her own, Marie had helped care for many before, both her sisters having two each. She prided herself on being good at it, and being able to handle any situation that might occur when he was in her care, without disturbing his nurse Camilla, or the queen. But this was no ordinary situation. Now that Arthur was safe her wits took flight, and terror set in, and she could see no alternative but to run through the castle calling for her lady.
She discovered, from a passing manservant who observed her agitation with surprise, that Ygraine was in the Great Hall, and she ran to the room without waiting for the rest of his sentence, or stopping to note she was unlikely to be there alone. The realisation hit as soon as she entered, the guards reluctantly allowing her entry only when she exclaimed it was an emergency with regards to the prince’s health, and she saw Ygraine in conversation with three companions, none of whom looked well-pleased by her interruption.
The first was Uther, whose usual look of disapproval settled on his features at the interruption. It was a look that made Marie, and indeed most of the castle staff, think that Uther did not care for them, but he was not quite so mean. In truth, he did not care enough about people like servants to feel anything about them one way or another, other than annoyance when they were incompetent. He stood next to Gorlois Le Fay, a nobleman who could be quite intimidating himself. Gorlois and Uther had been friends since they were just boys, and at one time he had been expected by many to become one of Uther’s knights. However, Gorlois had a wandering spirit that could not be tied down to one place, let alone one ambition. He had left Camelot as soon as he was old enough and only returned to visit Uther, Gorlois’ own family long since dead. On one of these rare visits he had returned, to the surprise of many, with a wife - but this happiness was short-lived when she died barely a year later soon after the birth of their daughter. He had not come to Camelot since then, his continuing travels taking him to many far away places, but an exception had been made for the birth of his best friend’s son. At the moment Marie had entered, Gorlois had just been taking his leave of his friends. It was his daughter who rounded out the company, standing on the other side of her father. Although the young Lady Morgana had not yet reached three years of age, she had already mastered the art of copying her father’s most common expressions.
Ygraine, however, knew her handmaiden well enough to recognise something important must have happened, especially as she saw Arthur in her arms. “Marie, what is wrong? Is Arthur unwell?”
She stuttered when she tried to answer, and Uther spoke up. “Speak up, girl! Is the prince ill?”
“No, not quite ill, my lord.” “Not quite?”
Addressing herself to Ygraine, she tried to explain. “You know how sometimes Arthur likes to be spun about, my lady? We were simply playing that game when he…flew from my hands.” “You dropped the Prince?” Uther cried out, thunderstruck.
“No, my lord! I did not drop him. He flew! Up! Like magic!”
Not fully understanding the repercussions of that statement, Morgana grew bored of staring at the strange woman holding the baby who smiled too much and started playing with her necklace, wondering when they were finally going to go. Her father had made the castle sound exciting, but there had been too many people and she had not been allowed to explore, so she wanted to go somewhere else now and return to their adventures. The three adults next to her, however, all stared at Arthur, concerned.
Uther was the first to snap out of it. “Let me see him,” he ordered, striding over to Marie. She turned the baby around so that Arthur faced his father, and Uther picked him up by the waist and inspected him. To look at him, nothing seemed amiss, but when Uther tentatively tried to move his child up and down, in the same manner he had seen his wife do before, Arthur slid upwards out of his hands.
Arthur began to giggle as he flew higher, while Ygraine gasped, Marie bit her lip, Gorlois’ eyes grew wide and Morgana clapped her hands at the good trick.
“Look,” she whispered in awe, pulling on her father’s trouser leg.
“What sorcery is this?” Uther thundered. His rage soon softened into confusion when his wife suddenly jumped onto one of the chairs of the long table. “Ygraine, what are you doing?”
“My lady!” Marie gaped.
“I am trying to get to Arthur, what do you think?”
“My dear, you mustn’t stand on the table,” Uther said even as she moved to do so, “I will fetch a ladder!” He ran to open the doors of the room and promptly ordered the guards to do just that.
Although now on the table, the light breeze wafting in through the open windows had already carried Arthur higher than Ygraine could reach. He continued to float higher, and as he approached the high ceiling in the Great Hall Ygraine grew frightened. “His head! He will hurt it!”
“It is possible that there may be nothing in there left to hurt,” Gorlois joked, but checked himself a moment later, and was glad that Uther had not been within earshot.
It turned out Ygraine’s fear was unwarranted, as the resistance of the air brought Arthur’s journey to a stop before his head touched the ceiling. Instead, he remained hovering there, kicking his limbs about, and giggling. Ygraine, Marie and Gorlois all held their breath, waiting for what seemed like the inevitable falling down of the child. The only other sound in the room was a slight but regular thud, as Morgana constantly tried to follow Arthur, but every time she tried to jump up, she only came back down again.
“I want to!”
“Not now, Morgana,” Gorlois tried to quiet her, but she would not be denied. She brought out her pout which she had begun to realise could make her father do anything she wanted, but she did not understand that this particular desire was quite out of his power. He settled for lifting Morgana up, twirling her around him and then back down again, which she found pleasing, but only momentarily and she began to pout once more.
“Finally!” Uther yelled from across the doorway, when the guards returned with a ladder. The men did a remarkable job of acting as if the queen stood on a table while the young the prince floated above them every day, but they soon faced their king’s wrath when it was discovered the ladder did not extend high enough. “You fools! Why did you not get a taller ladder?” “This is the tallest ladder in the castle, my lord,” one of them pointed out.
“So go down into the town and fetch a taller one!” Uther growled. The pair nodded in unison and swiftly ran out the room. “And Ygraine, get down from there,” he added, in the same sharp tone of voice, albeit at a lower volume.
Being the closest to the table Marie immediately positioned herself to help her mistress, but Ygraine would not move until her son did.
Observing his friend’s seething mood, Gorlois tried to lighten the atmosphere. “Perhaps if we put the ladder onto the table, Ygraine will be able to reach him.” “And have both my wife and son break their necks in the process?” Uther glared.
Gorlois opened his mouth to explain it had only been in jest, but stopped himself, aware Uther was not paying attention anyway, and returned his gaze to the happily floating Arthur just as Morgana jumped up once more and whined.
“I want to!”
*
From that day forth, Prince Arthur’s life was never the same.
The life of a young prince is always vastly different to that of his subjects, but the life of a prince with a tendency to float is something else altogether.
The first thing that was done - after the prince was brought back down from the ceiling and into his mother's arms, of course - was to call in all the physicians of Camelot. Ygraine did not see why they needed so many; Gaius had been the court physician for some time, and she thought his knowledge of magic in addition to science made him the most qualified to tend to their son. But Gaius had been searching through his magic books since the christening without finding anything, and Uther would not take the chance that he might miss something important. Thus, all the physicians poured into the castle and heard the tale of the incident, and one by one expressed their shock and concern, but, just as Gaius had been unable to when he heard about little Arthur's adventure, none could think of a medical solution. When one physician, spurred on by the lack of explanations from his colleagues, suggested subjecting the prince to a sort of surgery so they could examine his insides, both mother and father had had enough. As they were escorted out by Uther's knights and Gorlois, who had prolonged his visit slightly owing to this new development, the physicians suddenly found their vocal chords and shouted out multitudes of possible cures, such as "What about leeches, my lord?" and "There is always bleeding!" and "Have you tried holding the boy upside down?", but they were not given any more of the king's time.
Once she could hear the physicians out in the courtyard, Ygraine picked up Arthur to go to his nursery. Uther followed them out of the hall, and in the corridors king and queen did their best to maintain their normal appearances for the staff, but the moment they were alone in the nursery, the cracks re-appeared.
"Gaius said -" Ygraine began as she laid Arthur down in his crib, but Uther did not need to be told again.
"I know. But it has been over two days since he started looking and he still has not found anything in those infernal magic books of his!"
"Gaius has many duties -" she started again, but this was the wrong thing to say.
"And those are all more important than making sure our son does not..." Uther gesticulated with his hands as he forced himself to say the words, "fly away?!"
"No," she replied, remaining calm as she rocked Arthur's crib gently, relieved that his father's attitude had not spoiled her son’s pleasant demeanour. "But there are many spells and it was you who told me once that Gaius had only ever dabbled in magic - magic, of the good kind, no less. It will take him some time if he is to find the spell that could have done this to Arthur."
Uther nodded impatiently, and paced the length of the nursery repeatedly. Suddenly, he stopped and looked directly at his wife. "Perhaps we should just try holding him upside down?"
"Uther!"
"What is the harm in trying?" "Other than your son injuring himself?"
"No great harm would come to him if we supervised,” Uther reasoned, resuming his sharp movements across the nursery floor. “At most, he may fall a short distance and knock his head, but I have fallen many times. A Pendragon man is strong enough to withstand such a thing."
Ygraine did her best to keep her tongue in check, as she always did when Uther spoke of the merits of the Pendragon clan, but she did exclaim, "A man might be, perhaps, but Arthur is only a baby!"
"If Arthur does fall when he is upside down it will tell us the spell only affects him when he is upright!"
"And then what? Shall we teach him to walk on his head?"
Measures quite so drastic were never taken, but when Arthur began to crawl it was noticed he did not do so in the same manner as other babies. In fact, if his feet moved too far off the ground they would not go down again and he would remain, palms and stomach flat on the ground, with both feet hovering in the air, until someone noticed and put them back down.
Learning to walk was no mean feat for young Arthur either. Some children struggled to stay upright, while lifting one foot in front of another. This came easily to Arthur. It was then putting that foot down on the ground that was the difficulty.
Throughout Arthur’s infancy, Gaius struggled to find a cure for the problem. It was many weeks before he located the spell and it did not tell them anything they hadn’t already learnt by then. The most informative discovery occurred eight months into Arthur’s life, on an ordinary afternoon spent in his nursery with only his mother for company, as his father oversaw the knights’ training in the courtyard.
Tired from demanding days of watching her child and sleepless nights of worrying about his enchantment, Ygraine made the mistake of falling asleep when no one else was in the room to watch Arthur. She had been asleep but five minutes when Camilla woke her up with a loud shriek.
“The baby!”
That alone was enough to start Ygraine into action. “What? Where is he?”
“I don’t know, my lady. I only just came in and -” she stopped herself suddenly. “The window!”
Just as Ygraine got off the bed the pair heard someone shout from outside. “Ygraine!”
Ygraine and Camilla shared a horrified look before rushing to the open window, and stuck their heads out to witness the scene. Down in the courtyard, the knights stood in formation, but instead of practising they were staring up at the sky. Uther stood upon the castle steps, his gaze trained in the same direction as theirs, although he spared a glance to his wife when she popped her head out.
“Our son has flown out of the castle!” he yelled.
“I can see that, my lord!”
Arthur was floating in mid-air over the courtyard, at the same level as his mother and his nurse, but too far away for them to reach, and high above everyone else’s heads. Although there had been a few incidents since that first one, through which the castle’s inhabitants had developed techniques of dealing with the prince’s unusual problem, he was usually so closely watched he had never had the opportunity to fly so high outside the castle before. The crowd was temporarily stunned out of motion, before panic set in when another burst of wind, the same strength as that which had first taken him out of his nursery, blew around Arthur and whirled him further away from the castle.
“Get the ladder!” Uther shouted to no one in particular, and three knights ran to fetch the special tall ladder he had commissioned immediately following Arthur’s first flight, while the rest kept their eyes trained on the baby, following him as he flew into the marketplace, unsure of how to proceed.
The matter was sorted out faster than could have been hoped, when the wind deposited the child atop a tall chimney. Recognising the building as the town blacksmith’s forge, one of the knights rushed in to stop him from work in case the prince got burned, while the rest argued over who would be the one to scale the roof and fetch him down. When the prince was finally rescued, they found he had suffered nothing more than the disgrace of a little soot darkening his face.
Uther put on a brave face for curious eyes, most already aware of the Prince’s predicament but none having witnessed it first hand before, and while in the marketplace he spoke only words of gratitude to the knights for their efforts and the blacksmith for the clever placing of his chimney.
When he returned to the castle though, he immediately began planning out what was to be done, to prevent such a thing from happening again. His initial ideas were not met with enthusiasm from any in his court. His Queen impressed upon him the impracticality of boarding all the windows, while his own love of the castle his forefathers had built soon swayed him against the decision to build over all the balconies. However, many further steps were taken to ensure the Prince was always watched and was never in danger of being blown so far away he became lost.
*
It was around this time when, in part thanks to the extreme pressure Uther put on him to find a solution, Gaius acquired some knowledge that he thought of use to the situation.
“I thought you said you could find no cure!” Uther accused, when Gaius came to him. “And I have not found one yet. But lately I have been reading on the origins of magic and there is something that may have a bearing on Arthur’s enchantment.” “What is it?” Ygraine wondered.
“All magic is rooted in four elements; earth, fire, water and wind. As the spell affecting Arthur relates to the wind, I thought perhaps one of the others might cancel out its effects.” “Are you suggesting I bake my son in a fire?” “I think Gaius is suggesting,” Ygraine said gently to her husband, “that we try bathing Arthur; in earth and water.” Gaius nodded. “Fire should perhaps be a last resort.” At Ygraine’s lifted brow he added, “A very last resort, my lady.”
Uther pondered this. “Surely you have bathed him since his birth, haven’t you?” “But of course! But we have paid more attention to cleaning him than curing him, my lord.”
So, the servants were summoned and two large basins were brought to the hall; one full of mud, the other water. Ygraine, Uther, Gaius and Geoffrey, whose wisdom the king trusted, stood back and watched as Camilla gently lowered Arthur into the basin full of mud. Everyone watched, not really sure what they were looking for yet, as he began to kick and play with the mud, his consistently happy demeanour unchanged by the presence of the sticky brown substance. On the other side of the room, Marie very slightly opened one of the closed windows to allow a draft to enter. The light breeze filled the room and soon, slowly but surely, Arthur began to rise out of the basin, bits of earth still clinging to his legs and arms.
The breath they had all been holding was released in unison, as Camilla caught him before he flew over her head. Marie closed the window, and Camilla repositioned Arthur over the second basin, as his disappointed parents looked on. However, this time a change came over the Prince, one that had missed the gaze of those who had bathed him before. It was so slight a change, it was hardly surprising they had not seen it when they had not been looking, but it was obvious now that Arthur’s mood was different in the water. He clearly enjoyed it, but he was extremely subdued as he played around in it and watched the water turn dark, washing off the dirt, in a striking contrast to his usual effervescent manner.
This time when Marie opened the window, a large gust of wind blew in. The ladies’ hair and the company’s clothing all blew up around them. But the prince stayed exactly where he was.
This was the breakthrough Uther had been looking for; the problem now was what to do with it. They soon realised that although while in water, Arthur could not be blown away, the moment he came out of it, his condition was just the same. Barring keeping Arthur continuously in a basin of water, which everyone agreed would cut just as ridiculous an image as him floating, no solution had yet been found.
That evening Uther called for both Gaius and Geoffrey to join him and some of his court advisors as they tried to discover a solution between them, now that they at least had something to go upon. It was not of much help at first, the only suggestion being a meagre one of seeing what happened when the prince was completely submerged in a bath of water for an extended period of time, which was immediately dismissed by the king as too threatening to his life. However, before the session was out, Geoffrey hit upon a revelation.
“Sire! I have observed that the prince has a very…happy spirit.” “Yes.” “In fact, he is never in a bad mood at all, is he?”
“The spell enchanted Prince Arthur with complete levity of person, in both spirit and body,” Gaius supplied.
“So he has never cried?” Geoffrey said knowingly.
“He cried soon after birth,” Uther recalled, “but I have never seen him cry since.” The queen and the prince’s nurse were summoned shortly, and confirmed between them that after the spell the prince had indeed never cried.
“Then perhaps it is tears that will break the spell!” Geoffrey stated.
Gaius soon caught on, but most of the rest of the company were still in the dark. “How so?” Uther demanded.
“The prince cannot be serious or upset, but perhaps if something were to make him upset, so upset that he cried, it would break the enchantment.”
“Are you sure?” “We have no way of knowing for certain, sire,” Gaius pointed out, “But it is our best option at this moment. If water from the outside can temporarily subdue the spell, water from the inside could overcome it.”
It seemed reasonable enough, and lacking any other ideas, the castle inhabitants soon set to work on doing their best to make the young prince cry. He was scolded, yelled at, told the most horrifying stories, shown the scariest faces everyone could muster; the queen even allowed her husband to dangle him upside down, over their bed of course, just in case he did fall and then cry, but it was all to no avail.
To each and every one of these efforts the prince replied with a laugh.
One night Uther briefly considered whether injury would be the way to produce tears from the child, and while he and his son were alone, he held up little Arthur against the side of the wall, but could not bring himself to purposely damage his child’s head, even for the sake of breaking the enchantment. The next day he was shown the effort would have proved fruitless anyway, as he watched one of his wife’s handmaidens clumsily bump into another servant balancing a pile of helmets while she was carrying Arthur. The child knocked his head against the hard armour, but did not seem to feel a thing, his mood completely unchanged by the encounter. Henceforth, Uther spent his time alone with his son by showing the child his most stern expressions, the scariest of which had previously made the bravest of grown men quake in their boots, but Arthur simply laughed at them all, and greeted the most amusing with applause.
His wife spent most her time with their child by partaking in that activity which Arthur could not. If only any tears were required to break the spell, and not specifically his tears, she reasoned, she would have lifted the enchantment many times over already.
part two
Rating: PG
Fandom: Merlin
Characters: Arthur, Leon, Merlin, Uther, Ygraine, Gwen, Morgana, others and OCs.
Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, Uther/Ygraine
Summary: The life of a young prince is always vastly different to that of his subjects, but the life of a prince with a tendency to float is something else altogether.
Part One
The people of Camelot were restless.
The hum of activity in the marketplace could easily have been mistaken for the hustle and bustle of an ordinary day’s work, but there were constant whispers between friends and strangers alike as they glanced up and waited for confirmation from the castle.
Finally, when the sunlight had started to dim, and the cold night air filtered through the surrounding trees and into the town, it came.
“The Queen has had a son!”
The news filtered from the streets of the town down to the smallest villages quickly, but rather than sending everyone back about their own business, it only increased their enquiries. In Camelot, the arrival of a new baby will always give birth to curiosity, but when the child in question is one of royalty, that interest rises to greater heights. The usual wonderings of which parent he would most resemble and if he would be a peaceful or mischievous child were exchanged, but they were accompanied by much discussion of his future role as king.
Uther Pendragon had only been ruler of Camelot for half a decade, and yet he had already made his mark on the kingdom. His father had been a fair man, but his reign was marked by many hardships, including the war that had cost him his life. It was Uther, the warrior prince, who had led them to victory, and the people had looked to him to usher in a new era in Camelot’s history. As it turned out, they had been both accurate and mistaken in this belief. Uther was a firm believer in tradition, and upheld the same laws those before him had championed, but he had also brought the same unrelenting firmness he took to the battlefield into the court. This was not always detrimental to his judgement, but on the issues he felt strongly about it left little room for his advisors to make him see the other side of the argument and make more unbiased decisions. Camelot had not been under threat since his coronation, but it was this that he most feared and tried - some would say too hard - to prevent, with a number of strict laws and punishments. Some had hoped that his marriage to the lovely Lady Ygraine Du Bois would bring a greater humanity to him, and soften his sternness, but while Ygraine made a compassionate queen and Uther’s genuine affection for her was apparent, their union did not greatly change the way Camelot was run.
Still, the majority of Camelot had little to complain of; they had finally begun to prosper under Uther Pendragon’s reign, and for a simple people that was enough to ask for. They would forgive their king his flaws, as they had his predecessors, and not reflect that while they had once lived in fear of outsiders, they now feared offending their own leader.
That night, the people of Camelot wondered how their future king would one day compare to his forefathers, and all their hopes were for a Pendragon that possessed only their best characteristics. None could have predicted the newborn prince’s most defining quality; one that was all his own.
*
As with all babies, a name had to be chosen. As with all royal babies, many, many people had to be present for the christening.
The decisions relating to the former were made far more easily than those for the latter. Uther wanted his son to have a strong name, befitting a future king, and Ygraine agreed that this was right. He also believed in naming his son after one of his relatives to which Ygraine had no objection to in principle, although she feared the possibilities (in this, she thought particularly of Ambrosius, her husband’s late brother; the man had been a great warrior, but she had always found the name a little feminine). Luckily for both husband and wife, she quite liked the proposed name, so, Arthur it was.
They did not come to an agreement quite so swiftly on the matter of Arthur’s christening. Ygraine was weary of the pomp and circumstance of the court (she had lived a life of wealth since birth, but even her previous standards were far overshadowed by the luxury of being queen) but Uther was adamant. His son would be presented to all the nobility of note that could attend and it would be the grandest affair Camelot had seen since their wedding and her coronation, if not even more so. Ygraine did try to press for a slightly smaller event, with only the members of the court and the important kings and nobles whom it would be discourteous to ignore, rather than every nobleman in Albion, and his family, and their children, and so on, but Uther would not yield. No expense would be spared for the future king of Camelot, even if the infant would in all probability sleep through most of the event, and surely not remember any of it. However, Ygraine had long since grown used to being the one who conceded in her marriage, and as, during their discussion, she happened to be cradling their peacefully sleeping child, she was far too contented to argue seriously with her husband.
And so the christening took place with more people present than the Great Hall of the castle was designed to hold, and certainly more than Ygraine could recognise. But, she accepted good wishes from familiar and unfamiliar faces alike all with the same goodwill, her eyes constantly flitting to her smiling son in his crib, being looked after by his nurse.
The crowd was felt keenly by everyone at the gathering, but the day was so fine, and one of joy for so many, that proceedings continued pleasantly. In fact no one even noticed that as they began to take their places for the ceremony, a beautiful lady who had hitherto been concealed in the corner of the room not speaking to anyone made her way to the front, but she drew no attention to herself until the ceremony had just begun.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, Camelot’s records keeper and the man leading the proceedings, reached to lift the child out of his cot and at this the stranger moved to stand in front of everyone and began to speak. Her words were bellowed in a language unintelligible to the company, but if any were in doubt as to what it signified, that fled when those facing her saw her eyes flash gold. The guards nearest her tried to reach the woman, but with her magic she had created an invisible wall around her that no one could pass through.
Geoffrey quickly placed the baby back into his crib and stood in front of it to keep the prince out of harm’s way, but by this time her short chant was already over. With a flick of her wrist a bright red light flashed in front of her, and in an instant her face changed; moulded itself into the face of another, one recognisable to far too many. A loud gasp emanated from the people gathered just as she began to chant again, continuing her spell in words they could all understand, even if at the time they would not know what they meant:
Light of spirit, by my charms,
Light of body, every part,
Never weary human arms -
Only crush thy parents’ heart!
And with one glance in the direction of the King of Camelot, she was gone; disappearing into a cloud of grey smoke, that engulfed her body before growing to cover the whole of the chapel.
The smoke did not last, but it was enough to cause a panic among all the members of the congregation. As soon as it dissolved enough for everyone to regain their surroundings, Ygraine rushed to Arthur’s side, and found her son still lying in his cot smiling happily. He laughed when he saw her and clapped his hands, as if all the commotion had been an extended form of peek-a-boo, and she allowed herself to breathe again.
However, Uther could not be so easily satisfied. He had started calling his men into action from the moment the woman had revealed herself, and had increased the ferocity of his orders since she disappeared, but underneath his barking exterior he trembled with an alarm that would soon prove itself warranted.
*
Uther had always been wary of magic. As a boy he had been taught about power; the strength of those who possessed it, and the importance of not abusing it. Magic was a kind of power, but one he could not possess or understand. Furthermore, it was a great force that could all too easily influence others, particularly weaker minds, which made it highly dangerous. Still, it had been permitted in the kingdom by his father, and his father before him, so it continued to be allowed under Uther’s reign, but only under regulation, with strict punishment for those who went beyond the confines of the law.
He had only enforced this punishment once so far, on a small band of sorcerers led by the witch Nimueh and her companion the Great Dragon. It had come to the king’s attention soon after his coronation that they had been using the dark arts in an attempt to undermine his authority and take Camelot for themselves. His knights had suffered in the short battle that followed, but they had succeeded in capturing the offenders, and Uther had thrown all the men and women in the dungeon, chaining the Dragon in a deep cavern near to the castle. In sentencing, Uther had been faced with the choice of execution or banishment, but before he could make his decision the sorcerers had disappeared. Camelot had been searched high and low, but no trace had been found of them. The Dragon had remained in his cave, but would not reveal any information no matter how much he was prodded, so Uther finally decided to execute the Dragon publicly. This had not been a very popular idea in his court; the logistics were one thing, and the Dragon had been the toughest of all the prisoners to subdue and capture, but Uther was adamant. He believed that the act would demonstrate Camelot’s strength and superiority to all, including the escaped wizards, but despite his best efforts it never took place.
The morning the execution had been scheduled to take place all the guards and knights entered the cave, bracing themselves for the task of keeping the dragon in control as they led it to its death, and found it empty. His shackles lay on the rough ground, the chains unbroken, but there was no creature in sight. Another search of Camelot was ordered, but it was soon concluded the Dragon too had escaped to whatever place the wizards had gone.
Since then Uther had dreaded the retribution the wizards would seek, but he realised he had never truly known fear until he had seen Nimueh hovering before his son, her eyes burning golden as she spoke words of witchcraft.
For the rest of the day, Ygraine was comforted by the fact that their son lived and clutched him to her bosom, not allowing any of the castle servants or even his nurse to tend to him. She would see to everything, instinctively feeling as if that would make everything right. But Uther was too anxious to look upon Arthur for long, fearing that at any moment he would see the effect of Nimueh’s magic.
For a man of Uther’s short patience, it was both a blessing and a curse that he did not have to wait long for it.
*
On the second morning after the christening, just as most of the castle’s inhabitants had started to believe that perhaps the newborn Prince had not suffered at the hands of the witch, there was an incident.
Ygraine’s handmaiden Marie entered the nursery to see to the child, and was treated to one of baby Arthur’s trademark grins. He was already a favourite with her, as the sight of the happy babe with her mistresses’ hair and eyes always gladdened her heart, even if he did posses his severe father’s jaw. He only had to gurgle once and reach for her finger with his tiny hand to convince Marie to play their favourite game in which she whirled him up and down and around, like a bird in the sky.
That particular morning, however, when Marie began to raise Arthur, he flew out of her hands and drifted further upwards.
Marie clasped her hand to her chest at the sight of the child flying above her, but retained enough of her wits to think to reach for Arthur, and, standing on the tips of her toes, managed to grab hold of his foot. She gently pulled the child back down and into her embrace, warily searching his face for signs of any harm, but Arthur simply kept smiling, looking like he had thoroughly enjoyed his little experience.
Although she had no children of her own, Marie had helped care for many before, both her sisters having two each. She prided herself on being good at it, and being able to handle any situation that might occur when he was in her care, without disturbing his nurse Camilla, or the queen. But this was no ordinary situation. Now that Arthur was safe her wits took flight, and terror set in, and she could see no alternative but to run through the castle calling for her lady.
She discovered, from a passing manservant who observed her agitation with surprise, that Ygraine was in the Great Hall, and she ran to the room without waiting for the rest of his sentence, or stopping to note she was unlikely to be there alone. The realisation hit as soon as she entered, the guards reluctantly allowing her entry only when she exclaimed it was an emergency with regards to the prince’s health, and she saw Ygraine in conversation with three companions, none of whom looked well-pleased by her interruption.
The first was Uther, whose usual look of disapproval settled on his features at the interruption. It was a look that made Marie, and indeed most of the castle staff, think that Uther did not care for them, but he was not quite so mean. In truth, he did not care enough about people like servants to feel anything about them one way or another, other than annoyance when they were incompetent. He stood next to Gorlois Le Fay, a nobleman who could be quite intimidating himself. Gorlois and Uther had been friends since they were just boys, and at one time he had been expected by many to become one of Uther’s knights. However, Gorlois had a wandering spirit that could not be tied down to one place, let alone one ambition. He had left Camelot as soon as he was old enough and only returned to visit Uther, Gorlois’ own family long since dead. On one of these rare visits he had returned, to the surprise of many, with a wife - but this happiness was short-lived when she died barely a year later soon after the birth of their daughter. He had not come to Camelot since then, his continuing travels taking him to many far away places, but an exception had been made for the birth of his best friend’s son. At the moment Marie had entered, Gorlois had just been taking his leave of his friends. It was his daughter who rounded out the company, standing on the other side of her father. Although the young Lady Morgana had not yet reached three years of age, she had already mastered the art of copying her father’s most common expressions.
Ygraine, however, knew her handmaiden well enough to recognise something important must have happened, especially as she saw Arthur in her arms. “Marie, what is wrong? Is Arthur unwell?”
She stuttered when she tried to answer, and Uther spoke up. “Speak up, girl! Is the prince ill?”
“No, not quite ill, my lord.” “Not quite?”
Addressing herself to Ygraine, she tried to explain. “You know how sometimes Arthur likes to be spun about, my lady? We were simply playing that game when he…flew from my hands.” “You dropped the Prince?” Uther cried out, thunderstruck.
“No, my lord! I did not drop him. He flew! Up! Like magic!”
Not fully understanding the repercussions of that statement, Morgana grew bored of staring at the strange woman holding the baby who smiled too much and started playing with her necklace, wondering when they were finally going to go. Her father had made the castle sound exciting, but there had been too many people and she had not been allowed to explore, so she wanted to go somewhere else now and return to their adventures. The three adults next to her, however, all stared at Arthur, concerned.
Uther was the first to snap out of it. “Let me see him,” he ordered, striding over to Marie. She turned the baby around so that Arthur faced his father, and Uther picked him up by the waist and inspected him. To look at him, nothing seemed amiss, but when Uther tentatively tried to move his child up and down, in the same manner he had seen his wife do before, Arthur slid upwards out of his hands.
Arthur began to giggle as he flew higher, while Ygraine gasped, Marie bit her lip, Gorlois’ eyes grew wide and Morgana clapped her hands at the good trick.
“Look,” she whispered in awe, pulling on her father’s trouser leg.
“What sorcery is this?” Uther thundered. His rage soon softened into confusion when his wife suddenly jumped onto one of the chairs of the long table. “Ygraine, what are you doing?”
“My lady!” Marie gaped.
“I am trying to get to Arthur, what do you think?”
“My dear, you mustn’t stand on the table,” Uther said even as she moved to do so, “I will fetch a ladder!” He ran to open the doors of the room and promptly ordered the guards to do just that.
Although now on the table, the light breeze wafting in through the open windows had already carried Arthur higher than Ygraine could reach. He continued to float higher, and as he approached the high ceiling in the Great Hall Ygraine grew frightened. “His head! He will hurt it!”
“It is possible that there may be nothing in there left to hurt,” Gorlois joked, but checked himself a moment later, and was glad that Uther had not been within earshot.
It turned out Ygraine’s fear was unwarranted, as the resistance of the air brought Arthur’s journey to a stop before his head touched the ceiling. Instead, he remained hovering there, kicking his limbs about, and giggling. Ygraine, Marie and Gorlois all held their breath, waiting for what seemed like the inevitable falling down of the child. The only other sound in the room was a slight but regular thud, as Morgana constantly tried to follow Arthur, but every time she tried to jump up, she only came back down again.
“I want to!”
“Not now, Morgana,” Gorlois tried to quiet her, but she would not be denied. She brought out her pout which she had begun to realise could make her father do anything she wanted, but she did not understand that this particular desire was quite out of his power. He settled for lifting Morgana up, twirling her around him and then back down again, which she found pleasing, but only momentarily and she began to pout once more.
“Finally!” Uther yelled from across the doorway, when the guards returned with a ladder. The men did a remarkable job of acting as if the queen stood on a table while the young the prince floated above them every day, but they soon faced their king’s wrath when it was discovered the ladder did not extend high enough. “You fools! Why did you not get a taller ladder?” “This is the tallest ladder in the castle, my lord,” one of them pointed out.
“So go down into the town and fetch a taller one!” Uther growled. The pair nodded in unison and swiftly ran out the room. “And Ygraine, get down from there,” he added, in the same sharp tone of voice, albeit at a lower volume.
Being the closest to the table Marie immediately positioned herself to help her mistress, but Ygraine would not move until her son did.
Observing his friend’s seething mood, Gorlois tried to lighten the atmosphere. “Perhaps if we put the ladder onto the table, Ygraine will be able to reach him.” “And have both my wife and son break their necks in the process?” Uther glared.
Gorlois opened his mouth to explain it had only been in jest, but stopped himself, aware Uther was not paying attention anyway, and returned his gaze to the happily floating Arthur just as Morgana jumped up once more and whined.
“I want to!”
*
From that day forth, Prince Arthur’s life was never the same.
The life of a young prince is always vastly different to that of his subjects, but the life of a prince with a tendency to float is something else altogether.
The first thing that was done - after the prince was brought back down from the ceiling and into his mother's arms, of course - was to call in all the physicians of Camelot. Ygraine did not see why they needed so many; Gaius had been the court physician for some time, and she thought his knowledge of magic in addition to science made him the most qualified to tend to their son. But Gaius had been searching through his magic books since the christening without finding anything, and Uther would not take the chance that he might miss something important. Thus, all the physicians poured into the castle and heard the tale of the incident, and one by one expressed their shock and concern, but, just as Gaius had been unable to when he heard about little Arthur's adventure, none could think of a medical solution. When one physician, spurred on by the lack of explanations from his colleagues, suggested subjecting the prince to a sort of surgery so they could examine his insides, both mother and father had had enough. As they were escorted out by Uther's knights and Gorlois, who had prolonged his visit slightly owing to this new development, the physicians suddenly found their vocal chords and shouted out multitudes of possible cures, such as "What about leeches, my lord?" and "There is always bleeding!" and "Have you tried holding the boy upside down?", but they were not given any more of the king's time.
Once she could hear the physicians out in the courtyard, Ygraine picked up Arthur to go to his nursery. Uther followed them out of the hall, and in the corridors king and queen did their best to maintain their normal appearances for the staff, but the moment they were alone in the nursery, the cracks re-appeared.
"Gaius said -" Ygraine began as she laid Arthur down in his crib, but Uther did not need to be told again.
"I know. But it has been over two days since he started looking and he still has not found anything in those infernal magic books of his!"
"Gaius has many duties -" she started again, but this was the wrong thing to say.
"And those are all more important than making sure our son does not..." Uther gesticulated with his hands as he forced himself to say the words, "fly away?!"
"No," she replied, remaining calm as she rocked Arthur's crib gently, relieved that his father's attitude had not spoiled her son’s pleasant demeanour. "But there are many spells and it was you who told me once that Gaius had only ever dabbled in magic - magic, of the good kind, no less. It will take him some time if he is to find the spell that could have done this to Arthur."
Uther nodded impatiently, and paced the length of the nursery repeatedly. Suddenly, he stopped and looked directly at his wife. "Perhaps we should just try holding him upside down?"
"Uther!"
"What is the harm in trying?" "Other than your son injuring himself?"
"No great harm would come to him if we supervised,” Uther reasoned, resuming his sharp movements across the nursery floor. “At most, he may fall a short distance and knock his head, but I have fallen many times. A Pendragon man is strong enough to withstand such a thing."
Ygraine did her best to keep her tongue in check, as she always did when Uther spoke of the merits of the Pendragon clan, but she did exclaim, "A man might be, perhaps, but Arthur is only a baby!"
"If Arthur does fall when he is upside down it will tell us the spell only affects him when he is upright!"
"And then what? Shall we teach him to walk on his head?"
Measures quite so drastic were never taken, but when Arthur began to crawl it was noticed he did not do so in the same manner as other babies. In fact, if his feet moved too far off the ground they would not go down again and he would remain, palms and stomach flat on the ground, with both feet hovering in the air, until someone noticed and put them back down.
Learning to walk was no mean feat for young Arthur either. Some children struggled to stay upright, while lifting one foot in front of another. This came easily to Arthur. It was then putting that foot down on the ground that was the difficulty.
Throughout Arthur’s infancy, Gaius struggled to find a cure for the problem. It was many weeks before he located the spell and it did not tell them anything they hadn’t already learnt by then. The most informative discovery occurred eight months into Arthur’s life, on an ordinary afternoon spent in his nursery with only his mother for company, as his father oversaw the knights’ training in the courtyard.
Tired from demanding days of watching her child and sleepless nights of worrying about his enchantment, Ygraine made the mistake of falling asleep when no one else was in the room to watch Arthur. She had been asleep but five minutes when Camilla woke her up with a loud shriek.
“The baby!”
That alone was enough to start Ygraine into action. “What? Where is he?”
“I don’t know, my lady. I only just came in and -” she stopped herself suddenly. “The window!”
Just as Ygraine got off the bed the pair heard someone shout from outside. “Ygraine!”
Ygraine and Camilla shared a horrified look before rushing to the open window, and stuck their heads out to witness the scene. Down in the courtyard, the knights stood in formation, but instead of practising they were staring up at the sky. Uther stood upon the castle steps, his gaze trained in the same direction as theirs, although he spared a glance to his wife when she popped her head out.
“Our son has flown out of the castle!” he yelled.
“I can see that, my lord!”
Arthur was floating in mid-air over the courtyard, at the same level as his mother and his nurse, but too far away for them to reach, and high above everyone else’s heads. Although there had been a few incidents since that first one, through which the castle’s inhabitants had developed techniques of dealing with the prince’s unusual problem, he was usually so closely watched he had never had the opportunity to fly so high outside the castle before. The crowd was temporarily stunned out of motion, before panic set in when another burst of wind, the same strength as that which had first taken him out of his nursery, blew around Arthur and whirled him further away from the castle.
“Get the ladder!” Uther shouted to no one in particular, and three knights ran to fetch the special tall ladder he had commissioned immediately following Arthur’s first flight, while the rest kept their eyes trained on the baby, following him as he flew into the marketplace, unsure of how to proceed.
The matter was sorted out faster than could have been hoped, when the wind deposited the child atop a tall chimney. Recognising the building as the town blacksmith’s forge, one of the knights rushed in to stop him from work in case the prince got burned, while the rest argued over who would be the one to scale the roof and fetch him down. When the prince was finally rescued, they found he had suffered nothing more than the disgrace of a little soot darkening his face.
Uther put on a brave face for curious eyes, most already aware of the Prince’s predicament but none having witnessed it first hand before, and while in the marketplace he spoke only words of gratitude to the knights for their efforts and the blacksmith for the clever placing of his chimney.
When he returned to the castle though, he immediately began planning out what was to be done, to prevent such a thing from happening again. His initial ideas were not met with enthusiasm from any in his court. His Queen impressed upon him the impracticality of boarding all the windows, while his own love of the castle his forefathers had built soon swayed him against the decision to build over all the balconies. However, many further steps were taken to ensure the Prince was always watched and was never in danger of being blown so far away he became lost.
*
It was around this time when, in part thanks to the extreme pressure Uther put on him to find a solution, Gaius acquired some knowledge that he thought of use to the situation.
“I thought you said you could find no cure!” Uther accused, when Gaius came to him. “And I have not found one yet. But lately I have been reading on the origins of magic and there is something that may have a bearing on Arthur’s enchantment.” “What is it?” Ygraine wondered.
“All magic is rooted in four elements; earth, fire, water and wind. As the spell affecting Arthur relates to the wind, I thought perhaps one of the others might cancel out its effects.” “Are you suggesting I bake my son in a fire?” “I think Gaius is suggesting,” Ygraine said gently to her husband, “that we try bathing Arthur; in earth and water.” Gaius nodded. “Fire should perhaps be a last resort.” At Ygraine’s lifted brow he added, “A very last resort, my lady.”
Uther pondered this. “Surely you have bathed him since his birth, haven’t you?” “But of course! But we have paid more attention to cleaning him than curing him, my lord.”
So, the servants were summoned and two large basins were brought to the hall; one full of mud, the other water. Ygraine, Uther, Gaius and Geoffrey, whose wisdom the king trusted, stood back and watched as Camilla gently lowered Arthur into the basin full of mud. Everyone watched, not really sure what they were looking for yet, as he began to kick and play with the mud, his consistently happy demeanour unchanged by the presence of the sticky brown substance. On the other side of the room, Marie very slightly opened one of the closed windows to allow a draft to enter. The light breeze filled the room and soon, slowly but surely, Arthur began to rise out of the basin, bits of earth still clinging to his legs and arms.
The breath they had all been holding was released in unison, as Camilla caught him before he flew over her head. Marie closed the window, and Camilla repositioned Arthur over the second basin, as his disappointed parents looked on. However, this time a change came over the Prince, one that had missed the gaze of those who had bathed him before. It was so slight a change, it was hardly surprising they had not seen it when they had not been looking, but it was obvious now that Arthur’s mood was different in the water. He clearly enjoyed it, but he was extremely subdued as he played around in it and watched the water turn dark, washing off the dirt, in a striking contrast to his usual effervescent manner.
This time when Marie opened the window, a large gust of wind blew in. The ladies’ hair and the company’s clothing all blew up around them. But the prince stayed exactly where he was.
This was the breakthrough Uther had been looking for; the problem now was what to do with it. They soon realised that although while in water, Arthur could not be blown away, the moment he came out of it, his condition was just the same. Barring keeping Arthur continuously in a basin of water, which everyone agreed would cut just as ridiculous an image as him floating, no solution had yet been found.
That evening Uther called for both Gaius and Geoffrey to join him and some of his court advisors as they tried to discover a solution between them, now that they at least had something to go upon. It was not of much help at first, the only suggestion being a meagre one of seeing what happened when the prince was completely submerged in a bath of water for an extended period of time, which was immediately dismissed by the king as too threatening to his life. However, before the session was out, Geoffrey hit upon a revelation.
“Sire! I have observed that the prince has a very…happy spirit.” “Yes.” “In fact, he is never in a bad mood at all, is he?”
“The spell enchanted Prince Arthur with complete levity of person, in both spirit and body,” Gaius supplied.
“So he has never cried?” Geoffrey said knowingly.
“He cried soon after birth,” Uther recalled, “but I have never seen him cry since.” The queen and the prince’s nurse were summoned shortly, and confirmed between them that after the spell the prince had indeed never cried.
“Then perhaps it is tears that will break the spell!” Geoffrey stated.
Gaius soon caught on, but most of the rest of the company were still in the dark. “How so?” Uther demanded.
“The prince cannot be serious or upset, but perhaps if something were to make him upset, so upset that he cried, it would break the enchantment.”
“Are you sure?” “We have no way of knowing for certain, sire,” Gaius pointed out, “But it is our best option at this moment. If water from the outside can temporarily subdue the spell, water from the inside could overcome it.”
It seemed reasonable enough, and lacking any other ideas, the castle inhabitants soon set to work on doing their best to make the young prince cry. He was scolded, yelled at, told the most horrifying stories, shown the scariest faces everyone could muster; the queen even allowed her husband to dangle him upside down, over their bed of course, just in case he did fall and then cry, but it was all to no avail.
To each and every one of these efforts the prince replied with a laugh.
One night Uther briefly considered whether injury would be the way to produce tears from the child, and while he and his son were alone, he held up little Arthur against the side of the wall, but could not bring himself to purposely damage his child’s head, even for the sake of breaking the enchantment. The next day he was shown the effort would have proved fruitless anyway, as he watched one of his wife’s handmaidens clumsily bump into another servant balancing a pile of helmets while she was carrying Arthur. The child knocked his head against the hard armour, but did not seem to feel a thing, his mood completely unchanged by the encounter. Henceforth, Uther spent his time alone with his son by showing the child his most stern expressions, the scariest of which had previously made the bravest of grown men quake in their boots, but Arthur simply laughed at them all, and greeted the most amusing with applause.
His wife spent most her time with their child by partaking in that activity which Arthur could not. If only any tears were required to break the spell, and not specifically his tears, she reasoned, she would have lifted the enchantment many times over already.
part two