Consequences

Author's Note: Ok this has been bugging me for a while. Not everyone would be so happy with Arthur hiring a new court sorcerer, and rewriting the laws on magic. Yes there will still be laws, if you kill someone with magic you will be treated as a murderer. If you harm another person with magic the equivalent punishment will be the same as if you harmed them with physical means est. Est.… Because they need to be there. Anyway… Those who haven't read Aftershocks don't know that I use silver instead of iron to suppress magic, cause there's too much iron around Merlin on a regular basis for it to work that way. This is set a few weeks after Returning. I own nothing.

1. Royal Wrath

Arthur's heart seemed to drop out of his chest as a scream tore through his castle. He had spent a good half an hour searching said castle for his newly appointed Court Sorcerer and ex-manservant. He had only been back for a few weeks and most had adjusted well to the truth about him. But there had been whispered threats against the skinny boy from some of the older knights. Arthur had tried to keep a close eye on him since he had heard these but the boy was difficult to find when he didn't want to be found.

But as the scream tore through his home, freezing him to the spot, Arthur entertained the idea that it may not have been his fault this time. But the thought was gone in seconds as his feet flew through the halls of his domain. He ran faster than he thought possible, following the echo of the scream. He banged off a locked door and swore loudly.

"Go away!" He knew that voice, Sir Robert a knight who had started out under his father. There was a sound Arthur didn't recognize followed by another, more muffled, scream.

"As your king I command you to open this door!" There was silence, well almost. The sounds of muffled sobbing reached Arthur's ears. His heart seemed to have returned because he practically heard it break. He did not wait for him to unlock the door. He took a step back and kicked the door, his strength fueled by anger desperation and fear. The door fell to his onslaught after two blows and the sight that met his eyes had bile rising in his throat and rage burning it away.

Merlin was lying chained to the four-poster bed, silver cuffs encircling his wrists. Sir Robert had used two sets of manacles, locking the other end of each to the bedpost opposite the arm, right wrist chained to the left post and left to the right. This resulted in his arms pulled up over his head, wrists crossed and chains pulled tight.

Merlin was blindfolded and gagged. Tears were actively making their way down his cheeks as he struggled against the bonds that held his magic, his one true defense, hostage. He was not wearing a shirt. Arthur's eyes flickered over the scars that littered his skin like cracks in dropped porcelain. Some he knew, some he suspected he knew only half truths about. Others were new, obtained most likely during the young warlocks seven years of self exile.

But one mark stood out, for it was fresh and charred. Arthur drew Excalibur and pointed it at Sir Robert who stood next to the bed with the still glowing poker in his hand.

"Step away from him Sir Robert." Arthur's voice was ice cold and deathly calm. Robert hesitated, a serious mistake in the face of an angry king and the quickly approaching footsteps in the hall. Had Arthur not been solely aware of the blood pounding in his ears he would have noticed that someone had sounded the warning bell. But Arthur was only aware of another treachery that had taken place within the walls of his kingdom. But this time it was his friend who had paid the price, felt the pain.

Arthur lunged forward, placing the tip of Excalibur on the knight's chest. He did not hear his knights, the one's he trusted those who sat as equals, enter the room and react to the warlock still struggling on the bed, desperate to escape the pain that no doubt filled his slim frame.

He did not hear Gwaine yell obscenities or see Lancelot having to physically restrain Percival from ripping the man at the point of Arthur's sword limb from limb. He did not notice Leon, Elyan and Kay's attempts to make Gwaine wait for Arthur to act, nor Bedavier's cry of rage and attempt to get around the older knights to defend his friend.

Arthur did see the letters TR burned into his friend's right side. He saw the man who had burned Merlin, carving letters into his skin with a gleam in his eyes while Merlin struggled and fought, his only means of defending himself taken from him by the metal that burned his wrists.

"I said step away from him." Arthur hissed it, much like a viper hisses at a mouse. Sir Robert dropped the poker to the floor and stepped back. He held no regret, no guilt in his eyes only hate and a glimmer of fear.

"He is a traitor. He betrayed you and Camelot when he chose magic. You refuse to see it, so I was simply marking him for what he is." There was a sinister smile crawling onto his face. Arthur snarled and forced the knight to his knees non too gently.

"Robert of East Evedale, you are hereby stripped of your knighthood and of your citizenship of Camelot. You are banished on pain of death from these lands. If I or any of my knights ever see you again I will give no quarter. If I were the only one involved in this I would fell you where you stand. The only reason you are still alive is because the man you tormented and tortured is a better man than you or I. The only reason I am not sentencing you to death and carrying out the sentence myself is because he would ask me not to."

"He would never let me hurt someone in his name. Despite your torture and lies he would plead your case, despite what you have done to him. He is better than you are, he would ask for banishment or imprisonment. He is better than you will ever be! Now get out of my sight!" He had been yelling throughout the last few lines of his speech and as Robert scrambled to his feet and dashed for the door Merlin whimpered and cringed. Rage overrode Arthur's better judgment and concern for Merlin's wishes.

"Gwaine." Said knight glared flaming daggers at his king.

"Deck him." Gwaine happily obliged, stepping into Robert's path and swinging his fist into the disgraced ex-knights face with a satisfying crunch and a cry of pain. Blood blossomed through the fleeing mans fingers from his nose. He stumbled past the other knights who held tight to the hilts of their swords and glared. Bedavier and Leon had enough sense to escort the traitor from the castle with many 'accidental' trips and stumbles. Arthur ignored them all and turned instead to his injured friend.