A/N: This story takes place mid-season four. Uther is dead and Arthur is king, Gwen is still a servant and Morgana is on the run. Updates are once a week, happy reading!

Connotation

~Chapter 1: Black Eyes and Bee Stings~

By Fox

It happens on a Wednesday, as Gwen thinks all bad things are wont to do. She has never particularly liked Wednesdays; they're when she has the most washing to do, and the water pump never cooperates.

So it stands to reason that the one time a competent, sensible enemy chooses to attack Camelot, it is a Wednesday.

Gwen might have been able to do something about it, too, if only she had noticed in time. But she hadn't, as there is no warning, so there's really no use speculating.

Her morning starts in the usual way: wake up at the crack of dawn, fetch water (from a creaky, difficult pump) for various visiting nobles' baths, and fetch breakfast for them all, then take the laundry down to the laundresses.

It is on the steps to the washer's, arms full of a bundle of worn dresses, when she is politely informed that something is amiss.

"Gwen! Guinevere!" Gwen whips around in alarm as someone screams her name from behind. Sir Leon is running full-tilt towards her, covered in blood.

"Leon! What is it?" she cries, dropping the bundle to steady him. He leans on her, favoring his left leg and with a nasty gash on his side. It's a wonder he's still moving. Possible explanations run through her mind. Knights, sorcerers, killer chickens? (That one hadn't been fun).

"Gwen!" he gasps again and grabs her arm, dragging her down and against the wall. "Get down!" She huddles beside him fearfully, already preparing herself for the worst. Not chickens, not chickens…

"What's happening, Leon?"

"An attack. It's…" he takes a deep breath, "It is King Abernard's army from Halesia. There is some sort of sorcerer as well. Their forces have subdued Prince Arthur, and, so far as I can tell, everyone else in the citadel. I don't know where they are now."

Gwen glares at the dropped laundry. Figures it would be a Wednesday.

"What do we do?"

"You need to get out," he urges, moving to a crouch and poking his head back around the corner. "Oh- damn it all, they're coming! Run, Guinevere, I'll hold them off!"

Gwen hears the sound of swords being drawn, and doesn't stick around. Let Leon do his hero thing. She dashes down the rest of the stairs, skidding around the corner and into the servant's quarters. Whoever's attacking Leon won't think to check down here, if they're anything like the knights in Camelot. They'll be too busy paying attention to the more important parts of the castle. Heart beating wildly, Gwen ducks into a pantry and tucks herself between the sacks of flour in the back. She pulls an empty sack over her head and she is just another bag of grain. It'll work, she knows from experience.

I really have had too much practice with sieges, she thinks. It can't be particularly healthy.

Gwen takes a deep breath and stays calm. That's what Arthur's forever telling his knights. No losing your head, or you'll literally lose it. She knows what to do. Make a plan. She can't very well hide in the pantry forever- if what Leon said is true, a king and a sorcerer in cahoots, then Camelot is in for it this time. It's not often they get a smart enemy, but unfortunately it's the kingdom's unlucky day. Leon is probably dead or imprisoned now… but she shouldn't think like that. It isn't the time.

She needs to get out of Camelot and find help.

But… what if Leon was mistaken? She should check the castle, just to be sure that there's no help anywhere. Or imprisoned friends. Don't think dead friends…

She shakes the thought out of her head and smooths her dress nervously. Frowns down at it- that will have to go. A dress is all well and good for court life where it's required, but pants are much more practical for espionage and danger. Not that she much fancies danger, but it seems that's what she'll be getting.

Gwen has always thought of herself as a practical girl, and sees no reason to change that now. After all, Camelot had faced all sorts of sieges before, albeit from more stupid enemies. But she has to do something this time, and there's no use diddling about it. She's seen good people lost to chickens from too much worry.

Pause, check for sounds. None. This would be unusual in the servants' quarters this time of day, but now really isn't usual. Quickly, now, Gwen- she ducks out from the pantry and slinks along the walls, quickly reaching the cots. Rifles through the clothes at the end of the bed- Sorry, Robert, she thinks, but you're closest to my size.

The pants and tunic fall a little loose at the waist and shoulders, but feel infinitely better than the dress. Gwen grew up working with her father in the smithy and playing knights with her brother. There is something reassuring about the familiarity of the clothes.

She folds the dress neatly at the end of Robert's cot and slips back to the entrance of the stairs. This is going to be the tricky part: navigating the castle without alerting anyone. She just has to be extra careful.

If careful means slamming headfirst into a knight dressed in black armor, then she's doing splendidly. The soldier gives an indignant shout, but Gwen is already shoving past him and up the stairs.

She runs hard while trying and failing to stay calm. Behind her the man shouts an alarm, but she doesn't let her stride doesn't falter. Legs working madly, Gwen barrels up the steps and around corners. Okay, so maybe this isn't the best plan she could have come up with.

She needs somewhere to hide, somewhere she can escape from. Where? Apparently Arthur's room is going to be the only option, as she hears men running behind her and the king's is the closest door. She skids to a halt and yanks it open, diving inside and shutting the door as softly and quickly as possible.

What now? The room is deserted, under the bed is hardly an option- who knows what lives there. Behind the curtains? Stupid. That leaves the cabinet, full of royal underwear. Gwen squirms into it, presses as close to the back as she can among all the hanging tunics. Arthur will never hear of this.

She hears the men outside- feet stampede past the door, but none come in. She silently congratulates herself for hiding here. After all, why would a servant hide in a king's room?

Gwen stays, breathing stiffly, in the cabinet for what seems like years, but is in fact only half an hour, too afraid to peek out the door to see if the coast is clear. She still hears the occasional stomp of booted feet outside the door, so all she can do is stand and wait.

Then, thirty three minutes and twenty seconds later, the enemy comes to her.

Gwen has just released a steadying breath and is in the process of pushing the cabinet door open. When the door to Arthur's room opens too, she gives a startled jump and slams her door closed again. Part of her is saying it might like to curl up and have a bit of a cry right now, but she gathers her wits, tells the voice to get a hold of itself, and shuffles to look out of a gap in the paneling.

What she sees makes little sense.

A man in black armor heaves a familiar gangly manservant onto Arthur's bed while another watches.

"You are certain the drug will last?" the watching man asks. He has a trim black beard of the kind that makes Gwen think of cockroaches, and pointy eyebrows. The other, who has no bug-like features, nods firmly.

"Emrys won't wake for a week, and when he does we can subdue him again easily. Here, if it sets your mind at ease," and the black-armored man points splayed fingers at Merlin's body, mutters some words, and Merlin is tied by the hands and feet to the bed.

"He won't be doing anything now," says the sorcerer, "And he will be undisturbed here. Until we want him to be, that is."

Gwen, in the cabinet, feels her stomach turn to ice.

"Who would look for a servant in the king's bedroom?" the cockroach man chuckles, and holds open the door. Gwen, had she not been physically holding her mouth closed, would have laughed from sheer nerves. "Now let us go, a guard reported a stray servant by running around. He could be a problem."

"They lie," the sorcerer promises. "We have Emrys, the prince, the knights, and every other breathing person in Camelot. No one could have escaped."

"Do not overestimate us," the man warns. "To dismiss any threat, no matter how small, would be foolish." Then he tilts his head towards the door and exits.

The sorcerer hesitates, turning once around the room, eyes landing on the cabinet Gwen is hidden in.

Time slows down.

The sorcerer's eyes meet hers, and Gwen freezes, petrified. That gaze goes straight to her soul, pokes and prods at it with jagged knives and hot coals. Her breath catches and she has to steady herself against the wall and turn her face away: the sorcerer's eyes are a deep, unnerving pitch black, the sort of shade that peers at you from under the bed at night, that stalks dreams and waits around corners.

The moment is broken as the sorcerer finishes glancing around and obligingly follows the man out. The door thumps firmly shut. Gwen's knees go weak.

She stands shuddering for a moment, then shakes off the chills from the sorcerer's stare and eases out of the cabinet and over to Merlin, placing a hand on his forehead. It's clammy with sweat.

"Oh, Merlin," she sighs, "Why is it always you?" And did they call him "Emrys"? she thinks. Strange. This may even beat "mysteriously quickly completed chores" and "random yet perfectly-timed appearances" on her list of Suspicious Things about Merlin.

Well, it's clear she won't be getting any help from him. And if what the sorcerer said is true, and she has an ugly feeling it is, she won't be getting help from anywhere else, either.

She needs to leave, then. It's too dangerous in the castle anyway. She must get help from outside Camelot. The thought has her a bit terrified, honestly, but this isn't the first time she's been outside the kingdom looking for help.

It is, however, the first time she'll be doing it alone.

Gwen shrugs the nerves off for the moment and paces in a quick circle. She needs some sort of weapon.

Arthur probably has weapons, she realizes, and searches the room. An ornamental dagger lies in the first desk drawer she opens, surrounded by crumpled papers and a few colorful coins and rocks. Arthur the packrat, she thinks. The dagger, when lifted, reveals a note written in a scratchy, familiar script.

Arthur, Happy Christmas. The dagger has some unique properties that you might find useful. Don't lose it. Merlin

Gwen shakes her head; Merlin and Arthur are keeping secrets. Nothing new there. But whatever Merlin did to the dagger hopefully won't make it any less effective.

She goes to tuck the blade into her belt and remembers that Robert hadn't stored one with his clothes. Irresponsible, really. Pants could fall down at any moment. Not that it matters right this second.

That's easily, though hesitantly, remedied. It's an emergency, and Arthur wouldn't have minded so much in the first place, right? She seizes the first one she finds, which, upon finding it covered in the Pendragon crest and an assortment of rubies, is quickly swapped for the second one she finds: a much more muted brown with odd golden buttons sewed on for no apparent purpose.

The dagger slides quite nicely into a useful strap made for just such an occasion. One more guilty rummage in Arthur's wardrobe and a black cloak is heavy on her shoulders. The enemies think she's a boy; it might do to keep it that way.

Gwen wanders back to Merlin's side, frowning in thought. Usually it's him who's always running off to save Camelot. She isn't really prepared for this sort of thing. If he could only talk! He probably knows where she could get help.

"What do I do, Merlin?" she asks helplessly, stroking his hair back. "And what on earth did they give you?"

A good reason to get going quickly, she tells herself. Who knows what effect the drug is having? He'll need help as soon as possible, and Gaius isn't exactly available.

"O-okay, Gwen," she breathes, placing a hand on the dagger reassuringly. "Time to go. You can do this." Get out of the citadel. That's her first priority.

Gwen pulls the hood of Arthur's cloak up over her face, making sure her hair is covered.

Push the door open- slowly, Gwen, gently- she pokes her head out the available space and peers around. Deserted.

Now go! Down to the kitchen, out the delivery door! Don't stop! Getoutgetoutgetout!

Heart pounding and nerves sloshing, she dashes down the hall, keeping her footsteps soft. She reaches the end of the corridor, whipping around the corner without hesitation.

Mistake.

Three soldiers in black with long spears stop mid-march, and level the sticks at the oncoming servant.

Perhaps Gwen should have stopped, but really she couldn't. Her swing round the corner combined with nerves have by this point filled her with so much panic that she barrels straight through the guards, dodging all three spears by jumping and ducking with adrenaline-fueled agility that she hadn't known she possesses.

"Halt!" one yells as she flees the scene (funnily enough, not complying with his shouted command). "Stop!"

She couldn't if she wanted to. Her feet fly on terrified wings, swinging her wildly around corners as her upper body attempts with all it's might to keep balance. Her mind, on panic-clarity mode, directs her pin-wheeling legs through the shortest cuts to the kitchen.

She pays little attention to the two soldiers who follow her as she runs (she has no idea what happened to the third one). Arthur's cloak flaps dramatically behind her, marking her path- right, left, long corridor, down the stairs three at a time-

She fumbles the last leap down the steps and trips, barely catching herself from a painful headache. Her palms and knees sting from slamming into the stone floor. The two soldiers are at the top of the stairs. Too close!

One throws a spear.

Gwen springs to her feet.

A bee stings Gwen's leg.

She slaps at it irritably, bees didn't usually get into here. She's in the kitchen now. As she runs through she seizes a sack of flour resting on the ground and heaves it behind her with all her might. White dust flies in a cloud through the air and the pursuers choke and cough and she hopes vindictively that it stings their eyes.

There! The delivery door, most often used for the kitchen boys to cart ingredients in and out. Now it serves a different purpose- an escape. Gwen streaks through it and doesn't look back.

And thank heavens she chose that route. The side door doesn't empty in to the main courtyard but the back streets, where there are no enemy knights. But the ones behind are still pursuing, she hears them.

She runs faster, stretching her legs as far as possible, but, for some reason, she keeps tripping.

But she's almost out of the fire, now. If she makes it to the lower town, she'll be free. She knows at least six different ways out of the city, eight if she really stretches it, and she pictures the map in her mind as she leads them on a breathless, winding chase of turns and ducks around corners and stalls.

Only when she breaks through the invisible barrier that separates the peasant houses from the market and upper town does she know she's safe (but she doesn't slow down).

Gwen thinks it might be a good idea to hide in a house for the day, then get away from Camelot under the cover of darkness. It seems like something Arthur would do.

She knocks on a door close to the edge of the town. Waits. Knocks again.

Pushes the door open cautiously.

Screams.

A man and woman are slumped eerily over at the table in the room, silent and still. Gwen claps a hand over her own mouth to stifle the noise and hurries over to check for a pulse. Hand trembling, she braces herself for the worst… the woman sighs gently. Gwen takes a startled step back, then finds two pulses. They're just asleep.

Forget hiding here, Gwen thinks when she checks another house with the same results, it's a bit too creepy. What has happened? Is this what the sorcerer did?

She starts to jog to the tree line, still, aggravatingly, tripping over nothing. Abruptly, something in her leg goes "no thanks, if it's all the same to you," and promptly ceases to work.

On the ground Gwen shakily tugs the hem of the pants down until she can see the surprising gash that's bleeding all over her thigh.

"T-that's just bloody b-brilliant," Gwen mumbles to herself, and whimpers slightly. Her fingers flutter uselessly over the wound, turning red. Her breath is coming shorter, like there isn't enough air.

Calm down. You need help. She glances around her and forces herself to focus. A few clotheslines and then trees, no really close houses.

That guard must have hit me with the spear, Gwen hypothesizes as she drags herself over to the drying clothes amidst an unprecedented amount of pain. She needs stop, but if she does she'll never get there. It takes her quite a while, because she is also attempting to escape the black spots that keep appearing at the edge of her vision.

As it happens, Gwen has hypothesized correctly. A guard- his name was Derek, if you're interested- had heaved his spear down the stairs at her in a desperate attempt to get his brother, the second guard, to believe he wasn't as useless as everyone thought. It was sheer luck that it hit Gwen at all. Sadly for Derek, no one actually saw it hit Gwen, so his efforts were wasted.

None of that matters to Guinevere, who is struggling not to pass out from pain as she wraps a stolen cloth around her leg, tying it tightly.

That done, she sits for a few moments, calming down and doing some deep breathing exercises. Then she heaves herself upright on the pole of the clothesline and grabs a nearby broom to use as an awkward crutch.

She hobbles into the woods battered, exhausted, in excruciating pain, and with no idea what to do.

~xXx~

Far away, Kilgharrah breathes a long tail of flame as magic screams. The stench of dark magic, strong dark magic, reaches him from even this distance away.

Almost at the same time his Dragonlord cries out in his mind, through the bond that ties them. The call echoes and fades, and the Great Dragon takes to the air. Camelot is calling.

~xXx~