AU. The House of Pendragon falls to Cenred's army long before the series began.
Mostly gen, with some awkward crushes because teenagers, but it'll be light. We'll see a few more familiar faces soon. For the record, I am an equal-opportunity whumpist. Merlin will get his :)
Hope you enjoy. Please consider leaving me some constructive crit!
Merlin wasn't usually in court, but everyone in the castle was summoned to the Hall by the clanging of the bells when Cenred returned from war, his knights dragging the king of Camelot and his half-grown stripling of a son behind him.
A great cheer went up from the Great Hall as Cenred strode through the crowd, his boots still muddy and stinking of smoke and blood, teeth bared in a predatory grin. He raised the flag of the kingdom above him as he went past. Gaius went still beside him as the knights pushed two ragged figures after him. A few beats later, the crowd recognized Uther, bloodied and battered, his graying head bent low and hands tied behind his back, and hushed.
"My people!" Cenred roared as he reached the daius. "Fortune smiles upon the kingdom of Cenred. For this day we have doubled our lands and gained the ill-gotten spoils of Camelot!" The crowd cheered.
Morgause strode up beside him, beautiful and deadly in her armor. Cenred extended his arm and held up her hand. "Your Sorceress and I conquered this day the lands ruled over by black-hearted Uther Pendragon, who for so long has waged war upon our people. Never again."
The knights shoved Uther to his knees in front of the dais.
"Before you is Uther, the tyrant," Cenred announced. "What have you to say for your crimes?"
Uther spat sideways and faced Cenred. "I have nothing to say to a man who relies on sorcery as a crutch to win a war unjustly."
Cenred snarled and Gareth, who was Merlin's least favorite knight, knocked a blow against the back of Uther's head. "He shows no remorse," Cenred said to the crowd. "He shall pay for his crimes."
The cheer almost drowned out Uther's boy's outraged shout. "You're wrong!" he yelled, struggling against the knights holding him. "Don't touch him, you filthy piece of rot!"
"Your son has not been taught the Code, I see," Cenred said to Uther. "No matter. I shall do it for you."
Uther's head whipped up. "Do what you want to me, Cenred," he said. "But do not punish Arthur for my actions."
"So that is Arthur," Gaius said beside Merlin.
Merlin had seen King Uther before, once, years ago, when the peace talks failed. He had never seen his golden-haired son, dirty, clad in chain mail too big for him. "He looks about the same age as me," Merlin said.
"Yes," Gaius said, throwing a long sideways look at him.
"What?" Merlin said.
Gaius merely turned back to watch as Cenred gestured to the knight holding Arthur. Gareth pushed the prince headfirst to the floor of the daius. Blood spattered the floor as Arthur's nose met stone. Uther cried out in protest as Gareth knelt heavily on the boy's back, and Cenred laughed.
"Let him go, Cenred!"
Cenred strode forward to squat on his heels in front of the deposed king and reached for him. Uther tried to jerk his head away, but Cenred wrapped an arm around the back of his shoulders and spoke directly into his ear. Merlin only caught the words because he was so close.
"I won't let him go, Uther. You know why? Because you took something precious away from me, something I could never forgive, and I could never kill you before I returned the favor." He leaned back, grabbed the king's chin, and turned it sideways so that both of their gazes fell on the young prince, still pinned against the stone.
Uther's shoulders rose and fell jerkily. Whatever he said, it was in a whisper, and Merlin couldn't catch it.
Smirking, Cenred just nodded at the knights. "Take them to the dungeons," he said. "I'll deal with them later. Today, there is feasting to be done."
They summoned Gaius to the dungeons just before supper the next day. "We'd better take everything," Gaius said, referring to his largest portable collection of herbs and bandages.
Merlin watched Gaius's face as they stepped through the cell doors and saw what remained of the royal family of Camelot. The physician's face was like stone, but he had spent a lot of time with Gaius, and Merlin could tell he was upset by the grim lines of his mouth.
Uther stood in chains at the far end of the cell. Blood was drying at one temple, but naked anguish brimmed in his eyes as he looked at his son. Arthur knelt in front of his father, his hands chained to the floor, his back bare and striped with vivid bloody cuts.
Cenred turned as Gaius and Merlin entered. "Ah, Gaius," he said, returning the whip to his side. "Excellent. Please see to our guests. I'm not finished with either of them, and I don't want either dying on me yet."
He wiped his hands on a cloth and dropped it in Merlin's hands as he strode past them.
Gaius bowed as Cenred left. "Unpack that, Merlin," he said.
As Merlin unrolled Gaius's tools, he heard Gaius step forward to Uther's side.
"Sire," the physician said quietly.
"Gaius," Uther said hoarsely. "Arthur - Gaius, please, see to him first."
"As you wish," Gaius nodded.
Merlin brought the kit to his side as Gaius knelt on the stone cobbles and the boy turned his head. The left side of Arthur's face was badly bruised, dried blood still smeared across his nose. Arthur flinched as Gaius ran a wet cloth across his bleeding shoulders.
"Please, Gaius," Uther said. Merlin looked up sharply. He had never heard Cenred use the word please. He thought that simply wasn't something that a king said. "Please," Uther said again. "You have to get Arthur out of here."
"I'm afraid I cannot, my lord," Gaius said sadly. "Cenred keeps you under night and day watch. I could never expect to escape with my life, nor guarantee anyone's who tried to free the boy."
Uther's head bent low against his chest.
"Don't worry, Father," Arthur said. "I won't let you down. The Knight's Code - "
"Shut up, Arthur," his father snapped harshly. "This isn't a matter of honor. And you're not a knight."
"But Father, I'm almost -"
Uther snarled at his son. "You don't understand," he said. "I would rather die a thousand deaths than see you like this."
Gaius reached one of the particularly deep cuts in Arthur's side and Arthur winced, his teeth coming together. Uther made a noise in the back of his throat. The prince lost his father's gaze and dropped his eyes to the floor.
"I shall give him a potion to keep these cuts from getting infected," Gaius said in the sudden, heavy silence.
"Thank you, Gaius," Uther said, as the old physician got to his feet. "I - I am sorry."
Gaius held the king's gaze for a long moment with that peculiar searching look he sometimes gave Merlin. Then he nodded, curtly, and turned away.
"Why do you care for the royal family of Camelot?" Merlin asked as they made their way back. "From what I hear, Uther would've had you killed. Me, too."
"Uther...was not always the way he is today," Gaius said. "I served him, long ago, in Camelot."
"You did?"
"Yes. He was a fine king in his day. But he allowed his heart to override his judgment."
"What does that mean?"
Gaius looked around. No one lingered in the south corridor this time of day; it was always too hot. "You, boy," he said, poking a finger in Merlin's sternum, "have lived under a mediocre king your whole life."
"What d'you mean? We just won a war against Camelot."
"Cenred's strong. So was Uther. But he is not a great king. Neither is Cenred."
"What more to being a great king is there than being strong?"
Gaius sighed. "See? That's how I know you've never lived under a great king. Now pick up the pace, Merlin, we've got to make up the rest of our rounds in half the time."
Merlin hurried after him. "You never answer my questions."
"That's one question that can't be answered, Merlin, it has got to be shown."
"UGH," Merlin said, loudly, and Gaius's laughter followed him down the hall.
Gaius was quiet the rest of the day. Merlin could sense his unease, and it made Merlin a little nervous, but mostly curious.
"Are you worried about Uther?"
Gaius paused in his mortar and pestling to look up sharply at Merlin. "He is no longer my king," he said. "There's no reason why I should be worried."
"But you are," Merlin persisted. "Your eyebrows get all beetle-y like that when you're worried."
"My what?" Startled, Gaius reached up to feel his white eyebrows, then hastily dropped his hand. "Don't be ridiculous, Merlin."
"Why's he so important to you?"
Gaius paused for a moment before answering, and Merlin got the feeling he was choosing his words carefully (of course, Gaius did that a lot, but at least he wasn't saying You'll understand when you're older, which Gaius also did a lot, and which Merlin absolutely hated).
"There's destiny at play here, I think, and it always pays to be careful when destiny is involved."
"Destiny? Whose destiny?"
"A lot of people's," Gaius said vaguely, and then he snapped, "Like yours, if you don't get that purslane gathered before the King needs his nightly draught. Go on, out with you."
The lash fell again, and Uther's hoarse cry broke the taut silence at last.
"Stop it, Cenred! Stop it! Please. Punish me!"
Cenred turned on his heel, leaving Arthur panting on the floor, his sides striped with blood.
"I am punishing you, Uther. You can't imagine the delight my soul finds in your anguish. Because we hadn't understood each other before, right?" He tucked the bloody lash up under the king's graying stubble, turning Uther's face up toward him. "Now that you watch me torture your loved ones, as you tortured mine, we can understand one another. As men. You won't understand it fully, though, until that moment," Cenred spat at his feet, "the moment when you are held helpless while I reach in my hand and pluck out your son's still-beating heart."
Uther's red-rimmed hazel eyes widened, the pupils shrunken down to slips in the center. "No," he whispered, and his eyes slid beyond Cenred to land on his son. "You must punish me for my own actions. It is only justice."
"Justice?" Cenred snarled. "This is justice, Uther, there has never been anything I have done in my life more just than this!"
"This is vengeance!" Uther snapped back. "Not justice. Even a cowardly king like yourself must recognize that!"
Cenred's face whitened by degrees, then color rushed into his cheeks.
"Vengeance," he said, finally, the words deadly calm. "Uther Pendragon, you have not begun to see vengeance!"
He strode back to Arthur. Arthur's eyes were half-lidded, glazed with pain, but they shot open when Cenred grabbed a handful of tangled hair and yanked his head up. "Your father cares so little for you," Cenred said, "that he'd rather score a point against his enemy, even in defeat, chained to a wall, than hold his tongue for your sake."
Arthur glared back, curled a lip dark with blood. If he hadn't been so transcendently angry with the entire Pendragon line, Cenred might have felt a thin thread of respect. But he was angry.
"The price for your father's arrogance," Cenred said, releasing Arthur's hair, and bringing his boot up, "is a scream from you." He brought his heavy, iron-soled boot down on Arthur's right hand, chained to the floor, and Arthur jerked, stifling a yell behind his teeth.
"No? Again?" Cenred said, stomping on Arthur's wrist a second time.
"Stop!" Uther cried. "Cenred, stop! I - "
"You what?" Cenred held his boot just above Arthur's wrist. The boy trembled all over, tears leaking down his face with the effort of keeping silent. "You will apologize? You will take back your words and the ugliest of deeds?"
"I..." Uther hesitated just a beat too long.
"You gutless whoreson." Cenred slammed his heel down on Arthur's wrist a third time and heard bone snap underneath it. Hot, angry pleasure flooded his chest when the prince screamed in pain.
"Arthur!" Uther cried.
"Apologize!" Cenred roared, keeping his boot down, feeling the grind of bone and tendons.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"For what?"
"For speaking against you!" Uther's hands twisted in his own chains. "Please, release him!"
"No, you puling spawn! For Alwena!"
Cenred ground down on the boy's wrist with his boot again. Arthur sobbed miserably and Uther's whole body flinched. "I - I am sorry!" he said, his voice breaking. "I am sorry - for killing her! I should have sent her back to you! I am sorry for the suffering I caused you - now please, release my son!"
Cenred lifted his boot off Arthur's mangled wrist and the prince curled forward over it, tears dripping off his face.
"Do you understand now?" he roared at Uther. "Do you understand what it is like to feel the pain of watching those you love tortured for no fault of their own?"
He had drawn his sword before he thought, striding forward to bring it up underneath the king's chin. Uther's own eyes glistened with tears. "You're not sorry. You will never understand," Cenred hissed. "You care only for your own suffering. I can see it in your eyes. You will die choking on your own blood and knowing you have failed your kingdom and your kin."
Cenred had not intended to kill the king so early. He had plans, ideas to bring out the torture longer, watch Uther fall apart. But as he stood an inch from the king's repulsive, blubbering face, his arm moved of its own accord and slit Uther's throat.
"NO!" came Arthur's anguished scream. "NO! FATHER!"
"Arthur," the king's lips formed the word in blood. Then he choked. Cenred ran him through, just for good measure.
"Die, Uther Pendragon," he said. "Die alone on the end of my sword in a dungeon. Die thinking that you could have lived on had you not chosen to burn my daughter at the stake, for no reason, for no harm she had done to you. Die knowing I will rule over your kingdom, and my heirs after me.
"And your son - " he looked back at Arthur, the boy's good hand reaching out as far as the chains allowed toward his father. "I think," he said slowly, as Uther's blood bubbled out his throat and down his chest, "I'll keep him. Won't he make a pretty slave in the house of Cenred?"
Uther's eyes turned on him, soundless, fathomless. Cenred pulled his sword out. Uther fell to his knees.
"Goodbye, Uther Pendragon," he said, turning his back on the dying king.
"Unchain me!" Arthur screamed as Cenred stepped past him. "Please!"
Cenred stopped, thought. Then he pulled the ring of keys from his waist and bent down to unlock Arthur's chains. Arthur yanked his mangled wrist free from the manacles without a sound and flew to his father's side.
Cenred watched him cradle Uther's face, golden head bent over the graying, bloody one. Uther's lips moved again, once, shaped a word he didn't have the breath to speak aloud.
They both heard the rasping, scraping breath rattle in and out of Uther's chest, once, twice, and then the life fled from his eyes as surely Alwena's had done while the fire licked at her from all sides.
Arthur buried his head in his father's bloody chest, wracking sobs heaving his frame.
This death was too good for Uther Pendragon.
Cenred locked the cell and left, wiping the blood from his sword on his tunic as he went.