The vesper bells drew Arthur toward the monastery. The solemn tone rang out across the darkening moors, beckoning weary travelers toward the gates whether they were peasants or kings. As he and the knights entered the little courtyard, the sound of the monks' eventide hymns drifted through the oaken doors, blending with the patter of the rain to make an aural balm that barely scratched the surface of Arthur's grief.
Deus, in adiutorium meum intende.
Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina.
The words were Latin. Arthur understood maybe half of them. He had always been terrible at Latin, no matter how often or how hard Gaius had drilled him in it. The words would never align themselves in his head to fit together properly, and once Merlin had arrived, it had been a moot point. The servant had learned the language so quickly, he seemed to have been born to it. He would have been able to translate the entire chant without thinking hard about it. Merlin had always been so bright and clever.
Had been…
Arthur clenched his jaw, suddenly glad for the rain and the darkness. They hid his tears.
He climbed out of the saddle, his boots squelching in the mud. "Leon, Gwaine, take the horses to the barn over there. Make sure they're warm and dry. We'll pay the good brothers whatever they feel is fair. When they've finished their prayers, I'll speak with the abbot and see if they'll be willing to house us for the night. We'll return home in the morning."
The knights sagged where they stood, and Arthur doubted it had anything to do with the rain. They were weighed down by that final statement. They were giving up the search. Merlin was gone, swept away by a flooded river, never to be found. Merlin was dead.
Arthur took a deep breath, summoning up every ounce of his will to keep himself from collapsing in the mud at the admission. But a king was meant to be brave and endure every hardship with a calm demeanor. Even here, in the lonely moors far from the city of Camelot, Arthur had to be strong. He shoved his grief aside, squared his shoulders, and strode toward the monastery's doors.
Candles burned in the windows and a handful of them were gathered on the steps under the archway. The rain had put a few of them out. Arthur stooped to move them out of the wet, holding the damp wicks in their neighbors' flames until they dried and caught fire. The gesture was unnecessary, but it would not hurt to do it. Not on All Souls Night, when the candles were meant to guide the spirits home, and the prayers to bring them comfort in whatever lay beyond.
When all the candles were burning again, Arthur pushed the doors open. They were heavy, but swung easily on well-oiled hinges, hardly making a sound as they moved. The sanctuary was brightly lit with even more candles. The monks' song swelled as they neared the end of their chant, then as one they fell silent, the echo of their voices ringing against the stones. A lone voice lifted up in prayer, drowning out the sound of rain spattering against the windows.
Arthur waited a few steps from the door with Elyan and Percival flanking him. It would not do to interrupt the final part of their ceremony, even if he was the king. Even Arthur of Camelot had to ask the abbot's permission to stay in the monastery. He especially wanted the monks' goodwill tonight. It would not hurt to have a few dozen monks praying for Merlin's soul.
The monks gave them a few curious glances as they filed out, but only one walked up to meet them, a bent old man with a wispy fringe of white hair. He looked Arthur up and down, noticing the fine, albeit wet, armor and clothing. His eyes widened at the sight of the signet ring on Arthur's hand. "Your Majesty! This is an unexpected blessing! Forgive me. Had I known you were coming I would have better prepared-"
Arthur cut him off with a tired wave. "There's no need to apologize, Father. We heard the vesper bells ringing and hoped we might obtain your permission to stay here tonight. It is a long few miles in the dark to the next village. We'll be returning to Camelot in the morning."
The abbot's face split in a wide grin. "Of course, Sire! We may not have much here, but what we do have is yours. Is this the entirety of your company?"
"No," Arthur said. "There are two others seeing to the horses. I hope you don't mind that we took the liberty of stabling them. I didn't want to leave the poor creatures out in the wet. I'll pay for whatever feed or hay we use."
"That would be greatly appreciated, Sire," the abbot clapped his hands together as though receiving payment for goods was the greatest thing he had ever heard of. "But there is no need for your men to see to your horses. You have obviously traveled a long way, and you're weary." He stepped back a pace. "Brother Matthew!"
A boy of perhaps twelve appeared out of a hallway. "Yes, Father?"
"Fetch Brother James and go see to the king's horses. He and his men are tired and need warmth and rest. Go on now." The abbot turned back to Arthur. "I'll show you to the refectory. It's a tad drafty on these autumn nights, but now that Samhain has passed, we don't let the fire go out. It is warm and dry, at least. I'll have some food brought to you. It is simple fare, but filling."
The walk to the refectory was quiet, the silence broken only by the whispered conversations of the few monks they passed. But even the bright fire in the great hearth couldn't lighten their spirits. Arthur had decided that they were going home in the morning. Their search was at an end.
Merlin was dead, and there was nothing they could do about it.
"Sire," the abbot hesitated as he turned to go. "I can see that you are weary, and that your heart is heavy. If you wish to unburden yourself, I will be in the chapel most of the night."
"Thank you, Father. I-" Arthur started to say, 'I don't think that will be necessary,' but he changed his mind. "I may take you up on that."
It was close to midnight when Arthur finally went in search of the chapel. The knights were all asleep. None of them, not even Gwaine, had had the energy to say or do much once they were warm and dry, with full bellies and grief weighing them down. Arthur wanted to follow them into sleep, but his heart wouldn't let him.
He stole out of the room, gently closing the door behind himself and went walking. It didn't take long to find the chapel. The door was open and the little room was alight with candles. A few, faint shafts of moonlight broke through the parting clouds to shine through the narrow windows.
The old abbot knelt in prayer. Arthur scuffed his shoe against the floor to alert him to his presence, then waited until he crossed himself and stood up.
"Forgive the late hour." Arthur half-smiled and all but collapsed in the seat the abbot gestured for him to take.
"There is no hour too late to ease an aching heart, Sire." The abbot sat down beside him. "What is troubling you, my son?"
Arthur looked up, past the altar and out the window toward the half-hidden moon. Merlin would have loved the sight of it. There were nights when they were camping during a long hunt or while traveling that he would find Merlin wide awake and staring up at the stars. It was times like that that he looked positively fey, as though he was some sort of spirit of the Old Religion born out of time and place. Merlin had been superstitious enough for it, though that had never truly bothered Arthur. The priests would say otherwise, he knew. They would say that such beliefs would send a man straight to hell.
Arthur shuddered. "Do… Do all good men go to heaven, Father?"
The abbot let out a half-laugh. "That is the question that everyone asks, isn't it? I doubt any of us will ever know until we pass from this world and go to meet our maker. But," he trailed off and licked his lips. Wisdom shone in his eyes, just like it always had in Merlin's. "You are asking me, and not everyone else, so I will tell you what I believe.
"I believe in a loving god, not a spiteful one," the abbot said. "A forgiving god, not a vengeful one. I believe that the god who created this world and all the heavens around it is far greater and wiser than we small men give him credit for. Hell is a punishment for evil men, not for those who stray so slightly from the very straight and narrow path that some would declare to be the one, true way." The abbot spread his hands wide over his knees and smiled. "But those are only my beliefs, and I am an old man. Perhaps I am a bit addled these days."
"I won't tell anyone if you don't," Arthur said.
The abbot's grin widened, then faded. "Someone close to you has died, then, and you worry for the state of his soul?"
Arthur couldn't find his voice. He just nodded.
"Was he a good man?"
Arthur gasped. It sounded like a sob in his ears. He bit his lip to center himself before he tried to speak. "He was the best of men. Far better than I am." Tears pricked at his eyes, and he dashed them away before they could fall. "I would… I would trade places with him, if I could."
"He was a great knight, then? A warrior for Camelot?"
"No," Arthur looked down at the floor. "He was a servant. He was…" He swallowed hard and cursed the tears that escaped down his face. "He was the truest friend I ever had."
"Do not despise the tears you shed for the good and the just, my son, for they have earned your sorrow," the abbot said.
"But it's my fault." Arthur's shoulders heaved. "It's my fault that Merlin's dead. If I hadn't-". His voice broke.
The abbot was quiet as Arthur collected himself, offering neither criticism nor comfort until the king was ready. "Tell me what happened."
Arthur sighed. "There was so much rain this year. I'm sure you know that." The abbot inclined his head, but said nothing. "We had gone out to survey the damage in the outlying villages to find out what resources we needed to send them so they could make it through the winter. It was growing late, and we were getting ready to leave. I told Merlin to refill the waterskins. It was such a simple task…" He wiped his eyes again.
"The village's well wasn't even a quarter of a mile away, but I was in a hurry and Merlin could see that. So he went to the river instead. It was running high, but it didn't seem to be flowing very quickly. It looked so calm," Arthur said.
He closed his eyes and saw the incident in memory. He had turned away to talk to Leon when he heard Merlin cry out, looking up just in time to see the riverbank crumble under Merlin's weight and watch him tumble into the water. "The current was fast, though. By the time we made it to the water's edge, he was gone."
Arthur could still feel Percival's arms wrap around him to stop him from leaping into the river after Merlin. Elyan had done the same to Gwaine, the clear-headed keeping the foolish from jumping to their deaths. Merlin thrashed to the surface moments later, already the better part of a hundred yards downstream. He kept his head above water long enough to cry out Arthur's name before he was dragged under again.
He never re-surfaced.
"We searched until it was too dark to see, but there was no sign of him. We looked the next day, and the day after, but…" Arthur shook his head. They had been searching for two weeks now. If Arthur wasn't out there, then the knights were. No one had found so much as a thread from Merlin's shirt nor heard a word as to his whereabouts. Their hopes of finding him alive faded as each day passed, and as the weeks stretched out, they dreaded finding a body. They all knew what water did to corpses.
"If I hadn't been in such a hurry that day, Merlin would have taken his time. He would have gone to the well instead of the river, and none of this would have happened. He's dead because I was selfish and wanted to sleep in my own bed that night," Arthur said. Confession was supposed to cleanse a man's conscience, but it was just making him feel worse.
The abbot was silent, though it did not feel to Arthur like the old man was passing judgment. It was the silence of a man gathering his thoughts and making sure he had all the words in the right order. "My son," he said, "we cannot know what consequences our actions will have. None of us can see into the future as though we were looking through a window, to know exactly what will happen if we do this or that. Perhaps Merlin would have gone to the river, even if you hadn't been in a hurry. We will never know. But while I never met him, I cannot believe that he would blame you for this tragedy. I think he would want you to forgive yourself, to go and live your life, and to remember him fondly."
"He probably would." Arthur almost smiled. He could just imagine Merlin saying that same sort of thing, with that wise look on his face and the sparkle in his eyes. "Still," Arthur said, "It's been so hard these past two weeks, trying to keep everyone's hopes up while knowing that our chances of finding him were so slim. I can't even begin to imagine what I'm going to tell his mother."
The abbot sat upright. There was an odd look on his face. "Sire, how long have you been looking for Merlin?"
"Strangely, today- All Souls Day- marks a full two weeks. He'll be declared dead when we return to Camelot."
There was a fervent light in the abbot's eyes. "Can you describe him for me?"
Arthur frowned. "He was as tall as I am, but slender. Dark of hair, with pale skin and blue eyes."
The abbot hopped to his feet and grabbed a pair of lit candles, handing one to Arthur. "Come with me, Sire. There's something you should see."
So Arthur followed him, barely keeping up with the old monk as he hurried through the old hallways and down a flight of narrow stone stairs. "This is where most of us sleep," the abbot said softly. "It's quiet and is neither too hot nor too cold. But anyway. Not quite two weeks ago, Brother James was collecting the season's last herbs by the river. He was about to come back when he stumbled- quite literally- over the body of a young man. Brother James thought the poor thing was dead, but when he lifted him up the man started coughing. He brought the lad straight here, and we have tended him ever since."
The abbot paused in front of a door with his hand on the latch. "He developed a lung infection and a high fever straightaway, and we have tended him as best we could. We feared for his life for days, but he held on. The fever broke just this morning. We had hoped he would be able to tell us his name and who we could send for, but he's terribly weak and his throat is so raw he can hardly speak. He has been asleep for most of the day."
Arthur tried to temper the hope rising in his chest, but it was no use. "Let me see him. Please."
The abbot opened the door and stepped aside so Arthur could enter first. In the dim light, he could just make out the sleeping figure. He sat down on the edge of the bed, carefully, so he would not disturb the man, then reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Merlin?"
The sleeper made a noise and stirred. He rolled onto his back and even in the scant light, Arthur could make out his features. He could barely contain his cry of joy, for there in front of him was Merlin, bleary-eyed, gaunt from his illness, and blinking up at him in tired confusion. Alive, if not particularly well. His lips formed Arthur's name, but he had no voice to back it up.
Arthur could have wept with joy, but he bit his lip and kept the emotion at bay. "Merlin, you idiot," his voice trembled. He disguised it as a laugh. "We've been looking for you for two weeks. We thought you were dead. And now I find out that you were lazing about here this whole time."
Merlin grinned weakly, mouthing a silent 'sorry' as he struggled to sit up. Arthur gently pushed him back against the pillows. "Don't get up on my account. The knights have been pulling your weight lately, even Gwaine, though he's been sulking about it." He brushed a hand over Merlin's forehead. It was a bit warmer than it should have been, but not awful. Not a killing fever by any means. "And you're never going to hear the end of it from Guinevere and Gaius. Not after you disappeared like that."
'Sorry,' Merlin mouthed again. He blinked owlishly.
"Don't be. It wasn't your fault," Arthur said. He looked away, his gaze landing on the blank white wall and the candlelight dancing against it. "This all happened because of me. If I hadn't been in such a hurry, none of this would have happened. My carelessness almost got you killed. I never would have forgiven myself if you'd died."
He dared to look up to see Merlin's reaction, but the servant had fallen asleep. "Of course you would. I'm being honest, and you decide to sleep through it all. I see how I rate." Arthur pulled the blankets back up to Merlin's shoulders. He stepped away quietly so he would not wake the younger man, but it didn't seem like anything short of the monastery's sudden collapse could do that.
The abbot had left at some point, and with Merlin soundly asleep, there was no one there to see Arthur's tears. Tears of gratitude this time, not of grief, as he thanked God and fate for saving Merlin and putting him on the doorstep of those who would take care of him. It could have gone the other way so easily.
Arthur didn't bother to resist the urge to step back to Merlin's bedside and brush an unruly bit of hair from his friend's face. He wanted to reassure himself that this was real, that he was not imagining things, and that two weeks of despair had indeed ended in a miracle. "Sleep well, my friend, and get better soon," he whispered. "When we get home, I promise to do better by you. I've been given a second chance. I don't intend to waste it."