A Mother's Love
Title: A Mother's Love
Author:tudor_rose445
Rating: Pg-13
Characters/Pairings:Arthur, Guinevere, Llacheu, Gwydre, Amhar, Duran, background Arthur/Guinevere
Spoilers: Seasons 1-3
Disclaimer: I own nothing. BBC owns "Merlin". And T.H. White owns the small nod toward "The Sword in the Stone".
Summary: Her second child, often accompanied with flowers, always brought a smile to her face.
The gentle spring wind drifted in through the open window, bringing with it the sounds and smells of the season. Bird chatter reached the ladies from the courtyard below, while the distant smell of cookfires from the lower town was just discernible in the breeze. The young noblewomen, gathered on either side of the queen, knelt over their embroidery quietly as their needles flew in and out of the fabric. A musician was positioned in the corner before the window, his nimble fingers plucking at a lute for the entertainment of the ladies.
The peaceful tableau was unceremoniously interrupted by incessant knocking. The ladies looked up from their work as the musician paused mid composition before quickly picking up his song once more. Guinevere nodded to the noblewoman closest to the door to see to the visitor. The young woman set down her embroidery before crossing the queen's suite to the receiving room door. A small head popped through a moment later, followed by the rest of the queen's youngest son.
Instantly, a smile broke out onto the lips of the monarch.
“Gwydre,” she greeted him, putting down her cloth to open her arms. The boy seemingly flew past the gathered ladies-in-waiting to jump into his mother's arms. He rested his head upon her shoulder, leaning his head upward to meet her eyes. He kept one of his small hands in a fist at his side, not revealing what was hidden within it.
“I've been questing,” he announced, much to the amusement of the gathered women. More than one had had to stifle their giggles of amusement behind their hands in order to not embarrass the young prince. Gwen brushed back the boy's dirty blond locks as she looked at him with a mother's pride.
“Really? And what did you find, milord?” she humored him, although the boy didn't pick up on his mother's tone.
“You know the cat? That lives in the stables? Remember how she got so fat that Father told me she must have eaten one of the horses?”
The queen nodded her head, finding it rather hard to remain serious.
“Well, yesterday she turned up on the training grounds looking skinnier. I thought that she might have threw the horse back up, so I decided to go find him.”
A frown knitted his little eyebrows.
“But when I followed her I didn't find a horse; I found kittens. Why would she eat kittens?”
Gwen chuckled into the boy's hair, kissing his forehead.
“She didn't eat them love,” she corrected him. “Nor did she eat a horse.”
Gwydre seemed to visibly relax.
“Good. But my quest wasn't finished, Mother; I need to rescue a damsel.”
He inclined his head once more to her, a hesitant smile on his face.
“You're a damsel, aren't you Mother? May I rescue you?”
He unfolded his fist, revealing a rather crumpled wildflower within it.
“See; I've even brought you a gift. Just in case you didn't want to be my damsel.”
The queen gently took the bloom into the palm of her hand.
“I would most certainly love to be rescued by such a brave knight,” she said, setting the boy down on his feet as she stood.
She swept him a curtsey, prompting him to bow before her.
“Milady,” he took up her hand, tugging her from the group of tittering noblewomen.
She squeezed the small hand in hers gently while grasping onto the tiny flower as he led her from her 'captivity'.
0o0o0
This birth had been by far the hardest. Llacheu, as her first, had been a hardship. She had known what to expect when Gwydre had been born, making the labor a bit more predictable. Amhar had caught her by surprise, and had been delivered nearly within five hours of her first labor pains. Yet Duran had wrestled with her for nearly a day and a half. Even now, four days after the birth, she felt that she didn't even wish to take her daily walk around the gardens. She had been glad that mothers were not to be present during their child's baptism; she wasn't sure if she would be able to stand.
Reclining against her bed she chattered aimlessly with the gathered waiting women. Occasionally the wet nurse would bring in a tightly bundled Duran much to her joy, but such entertaining moments were rare. She had only seen the rest of her children a handful of times since the birth as they were advised to allow her to rest. It pained her heart that she could not see them, yet she was often too tired to even think upon the restriction for too long.
It was that afternoon when one of the maids had been exiting her chambers with soiled clothing that the young prince darted in. The woman turned sharply at the intruder as the waiting women stood up from their stools. Guinevere quickly waved off their alarm as she beamed at the sight of the boy.
“Come here,” she requested, patting the mattress beside her.
The boy grinned before climbing up beside her. At eight he could no longer sit in her lap (nor did he want to, he insisted), but he comfortably rested beside her. She brushed aside his bangs, looking at him wearily.
“Tutor hasn't been working you too hard, has he?” she asked, taking her son's exasperated sigh as confirmation.
“He keeps going on and on about numbers; he's a bore. Really, I would rather spend the afternoon with Merlin.” His mood instantly perked up. “Why, it was only last week that he changed me and Llacheu into fish. We had quite the afternoon swimming around the moat.”
He quieted, noticing that his mother's face had paled.
“But we're perfectly alright!” he said, quickly trying to smooth over the situation.
“See?” He held up his arms, as if for inspection. “I'm fine!”
The queen muttered something about magician-friends and the stocks but Gywdre had stopped listening to her.
“Anyway, I've brought you a present.”
He fished around in the pocket of his trousers, taking out a pale pink flower.
“I thought you would like something pretty to look at; I've seen Duran, and he clearly isn't. He looks like a troll.”
The boy wrinkled his face, despite his mother's laugh.
“You didn't look much better,” she teased, taking the flower gently.
“And thank you for the gift,” she said, twirling it slowly by the stem.
“Will you fetch me the book over there? The one above my armoire,” she pointed to the piece of furniture as the boy scurried off to retrieve it. He returned a moment later, placing the tome into his mother's lap.
The book's leather covering was starting to fray, and some of the page edges were yellowed with age. Yet for some reason this particular book brought a gleeful look to his mother's eye.
“Before Gaius died,” she began, speaking of the deceased physician, “he bequeathed me this book. It is a catalog of all flowers known to these parts. What better place than to preserve your gift?”
She flipped through the pages, pausing at one where a handful of petals were currently pressed. “I've kept all of your 'gifts'. They are quite beautiful, even if they are squished most of the time,” she teased, wrapping an arm around her son.
She turned to another page with her free hand before placing the bloom amongst the pages.
“There.”
Gently she shut the cover before embracing him.
“Now tell me of your day, love. Have you been behaving? Amhar hasn't been causing trouble again has he?”
She gently brushed back his hair as she listened to his chatter intently, glad to have this moment alone with one of her most precious gifts.
0o0o0
“I knight thee, Sir Gwydre. Rise, Knight of Camelot.”
Her husband's voice seemed to boom over the crowd gathered in the throne room that clear summer's day. Applause rose up as the teenager stood from the velvet cushion where he had been kneeling at his father's feet. He turned to face the gathered nobles, a bright smile on his face despite the solemn occasion.
Her heart swelled in pride for her second child as he began to sift through the crowd of knights, being congratulated and patted on the back. He bowed as he reached her, and she dipped a curtsey in response.
“Mother,” he began, kneeling before her.
With tears in her eyes she reached down to lift him up, wrapping her arms around him once he stood.
“I'm so proud of you,” she whispered, holding onto him tightly despite the uncomfortable feeling of his chain mail pressed against her. The child that had once been able to recline in her lap now made her stand nearly on the tips of her toes to embrace him properly.
He responded in kind, reveling in his mother's joy.
It wasn't until she was rejoined Arthur to exit the hall that she noticed the flower her son had managed to slide into the mass of curls at the nape of her neck. She fingered it gently,a smile on her lips as she reminded herself to place it beside the rest of the blooms the boy had given her through the years.
0o0o0
The drone of the prayers seemed to fade to her ears as her attention locked onto the tomb before her. The stone effigy was placed to one side, revealing its occupant to the mourners assembled. The young man was dressed in his chain mail, his tunic bearing the crest of Camelot freshly pressed. His hair was combed, his boots polished; he looked as if about to embark upon a quest.
Yet his next adventure would not take place upon this earth.
Guinevere felt her heart constrict at the sight of her second son, seemingly asleep before her. Yet hidden underneath his tunic and armor was the mortal wound that had ended his young life. Her eyes watered at the very thought of it, remembering quite well seeing her husband carrying the young man across the courtyard to her. His tunic, bright and clean when he had set off that morning, had been stained with blood from where a boar had gored him.
Her son. Her Gywdre.
She inhaled shakily, nearly jumping as Arthur's hand grasped hers. Their eyes locked for a moment, sharing in their grief. She could possibly count on one hand the times she had seen her husband shed tears; it was still a shock to see the brave king break down.
A hunting accident.
It hadn't been a slip up in the arena, or the blow of an enemy.
It had been a boar, upset by the troop of hunters sent after it.
Her foolish, wonderful boy had thought he could take it alone.
Her boy.
Two knights moved forward to place the stone tablet with her son's effigy over his body, cloaking him from the world of the living.
“Wait.”
Although faint, the knights had heard her plea.
They bowed their heads as she stepped before the tomb, dropping her husband's hand before taking a velvet pouch from her girdle.
With shaking hands she undid the cord holding the pouch closed before taking a handful of its contents. She gently scattered the dried petals from within the pouch across her son's body, finding her vision growing steadily blurrier as she continued. Every petal, down to the one he had first given her that cheerful spring afternoon, had been taken from her book to be returned to their giver.
A sob escaped her as her hand came up empty from the pouch.
That was it....she would never see her son in this life again.
She turned wordlessly to Arthur's embrace, her chest wracking with her tears as he held her closely
She wouldn't remember him as the pale body laying beneath a layer of petals. She wouldn't recall him as the newly knighted young man. Nor would she think back on him as the indignant boy that had stolen into her chambers after her latest childbirth.
Whenever she would think of him, she would picture the smiling little boy that had first given her that crumpled wildflower. The little boy who cared for nothing more in the world than to see his mother smile.