A Simple Twisted Fate
The crunch of leather soles on the gravel road milled through Merlin's head. Arthur, his knights and Merlin had walked for two days. Their traveling clothes covered in dust, tattered from forging through brambles, their Camelot crested tabbards turned inside out and brown cloaks covered their backs.
The country-side was flat and dotted with clumps of trees and in the far distance they could see a village with small white trails of smoke coiling up to the sky from what Merlin thought must be cooking fires. The thought of people preparing breakfast made Merlin's stomach growl.
It would be another fifteen miles before they reached the edge of Arthur's kingdom where they could get horses, lodging and food on royal credit. Until then the absence of horse and purse meant that they would have to continue to hike through the contemptuous kingdom of Braunwater, on foot and hopefully without too much notice. If the inimical Braunwater learned that Arthur and his small company were traversing his land without notice he would be outraged, possibly take Arthur and his band for ransom, or worse.
"Why exactly did you tell us to all jump through that portal, again?" Arthur asked Merlin sarcastically.
Without missing a beat Merlin replied, "because Geldred was escaping through it and we needed to catch him."
"Perhaps when other people see a magical portal they first think things like 'Where does this go? What's on the other side? Maybe I should figure this out before I plunge myself into the irresdecent light of the unknown'. But no, not you Merlin, you're completely comfortable with diving right into the eldritch magics of who-knows-what." Arthur paused his monologue for a moment, looked around at the other knights and then added, "why is that?"
"He needed to be stopped," Merlin said uncomfortably.
"True," Arthur said relishing the discomfort he saw in Merlin, "you shout 'get him' and immediately jump in after him and we have no choice but to jump in after you to, of course, save you; next thing we know Geldred has a knife to your throat and Gwaine shoots him square in the forehead with a crossbow bolt. By the way that was an amazing shot Gwaine, I've never seen anything like it."
"Nor I sire," Gwaine said, "it just sort of went off in my hand."
"All that practice paid off I guess, though I personally have never seen you practice with the crossbow," Arthur continued to ramble as they approached the babbling shores of a deep and murky river. "Anyways, the result is that Geldred died, the portal closed and we were stuck two hundred miles from home. In the big picture I don't know that we won."
"Well at least Geldred won't bother us anymore," Merlin forced a smile.
"Yes, one less bother," Arthur frowned and looked at Merlin as if to say that there was one more bother he wanted to be rid of.
The road they traveled curved around a cluster of trees that obscured the river, coming around it they caught sight of a large device standing on the river bank. It was a wooden armature that extended from the bank out to a wooden armchair that was suspended out over the water. The armature was hinged with a weight on the back that allowed the chair to be dunked into the icy water below. Seated in the chair was the still figure of a woman bound to the chair by an iron band. Her long raven black hair hung flatly down her face, a simple undergarment frock was all she wore. She swayed in the chair with the chilled breeze that rocked the armature.
Merlin stopped, "What is that?"
"It's a cucking stool," Gwaine said as he continued to walk.
"We have to help her," Merlin insisted.
Gwaine stopped, "Why? It's her punishment for being a scold. She probably back talked to her husband one too many times in front of the village. She's branded a scold now and she'll be seeing a lot of that chair if she doesn't mend her ways."
"But that's horribly humiliating and cruel," Merlin said. "How can they treat their women like that?"
"Just their unruly women," Gwain added. "It's an old custom, traditional to teach a woman her place."
"And one outlawed in Camelot since my Father took the throne," Arthur said.
Arthur walked over to Merlin and put his hand on his should and then spoke quietly, "Merlin, I know this looks bad. But it is the tradition and custom of their laws here. We are not even supposed to be here. If we interfere with the execution of their laws then it could be seen as Camelot exercising its own authority in this territory, a clear act of invasion and war. We can do nothing for her."
"But you know it's wrong," Merlin said. "How can you go back and look at any of the free woman of Camelot and not feel guilty that you could have done something?"
Arthur's face scrunched up in frustration. He raised his hands above his head, exasperated with the dilemma that Merlin had pushed on him.
"Why do you do this to me?" Arthur said. Not waiting for an answer he said to his men, "okay, we're getting her out. If she wants she can come with us and have asylum in Camelot. If not, she can go where she pleases but first let's get her out of that wretched contraption."
The armature was quickly rotated to bring the chair around to the shore. And with a few well-placed swings of a hammer the metal band released its captive. The woman, damp, pale, and clammy, was difficult to rouse. Arthur put his cloak around her to try to warm her. Her eyes half opened, she looked around but seemed not to care. She made no struggle against them.
"Let's get out of here," Arthur said looking around nervously, "we'll make a fire when we find some shelter, some place out of sight; and we'll try to bring some life back to her."
They carried her away from the river, down the gravel road until they reached a grove of trees, thick trunks and overgrown enough with vines and foliage to allow the knights to conceal themselves within. A fire was made and they sat her on a rock near the flames. And there she sat for a hour just looking into the dancing amber blaze.
Arthur, Gwaine and Merlin stepped away from the fire.
"What do we do now?" Arthur whispered.
"What do you mean?" Merlin ask, "we give her some time so that she can recover."
"And what if her husband comes looking for her?" Gwaine asked. "Assuming she has a husband. Or what if one of the villagers saw us getting her out and reports that to King? We can't stay around here. We have to leave her and go."
"No," Merlin insisted, "we can't leave her here. Look what they did to her. What are they going to do to her if they see she got free? We have to take her with us."
"Merlin," Arthur said, "she has a fire here, we'll leave some food with her and then she'll have to take care of herself."
Arthur looked over his shoulder at the woman, she looked so destitute with her damp clinging frock and stringy black hair covering her face.
"We need to find someone to take care of her at least," Merlin said, "We'll leave her at another village, one closer to Camelot."
"We need to not let anyone know we're even here," Arthur said. "How are we going to convince someone to take her in without letting them know we're here?"
"I can hear you," a voice said.
It was a woman's voice but seemed to come from all around them. Arthur, Merlin and Gwaine looked back to see that the woman was now standing, walking slowly toward them her pale white arms stretched out. Arthur couldn't see any of his other knights around.
"What are the men going to do to help the poor helpless woman?" the voice said. Though hard to see Merlin noticed the woman's lips did not move. "Your kind are all pathetic, impotent toads. Yes, frogs, small and slimy as you can see."
That's when they noticed the brown and green frogs hopping all around the camp fire. The woman raised an arm and a wisp of smoke travelled from her hand to Gwaine whose body suddenly seemed to wrap into itself until he was brown and reduced to the size and shape of a frog. Arthur raised his sword and another wisp of smoke struck him before Merlin could do anything. Arthur's body convulsed and folded impossibly back onto itself until he was a shiny green frog and Merlin was all alone in front of this now malevolent woman.
"I don't know what you want or why you're doing this," Merlin started saying until he saw a smoky tendril come for him. Immediately he whispered a spell that sent a gust of wind that blew the smoke off course. Merlin grabbed the frog that was formerly Arthur shaped and ran.
He ran toward the village as fast as he could. His heart pounded in his chest and the surge of fresh adrenaline erased all soreness that he'd felt just an hour before. The trails of cooking fire smoke from the village marked where others could be found and so Merlin ran with every bit of strength he had. He fueled his strides with tremendous lung fills of air.
"Maybe someone there will know what is happening?" he thought.
He stopped at the first village hut, white puffs of smoke emanated from the center hole in the roof. He peeked in and saw no one and no sign of life except a large pot brewing on dying embers. Merlin ran to the next home and saw the same empty unattended scene, no life and an unattended pot over an expiring fire. Village hut after hut he saw the same thing.
Stopping at the last home Merlin tried to catch his breath. He bent over, one hand on his knee, the other still clutching the amphibian that was his friend; he looked into the pot. To his horror he saw that it was filled with frogs, their lifelessly cooked bodies all stewed together. Merlin turn around to see the pale woman right behind him.
She grabbed his arm. Her flesh was as cold as the grave. It sent a paralyzing shiver up his arm and throughout his body. With her other hand she grabbed the frog out of Merlin's hand and held it up to her face.
"Why are you doing this? We tried to help you," Merlin said struggling against the magical immobility.
"Poor, helpless, pathetic," the voice said.
The woman's hair seemed to part on its own revealing a hauntingly tranquil face. Her eyes were closed, skin smooth, slightly puffed without being bloated. She opened her mouth and swallowed Arthur in one motion.
While Merlin's body was frozen his mind exploded. Thoughts of panic, outrage, injustice and revenge shot through him. He tried to cast spells, one after another at the woman. Nothing happened. Her frigid grim kept him motionless. The woman turned her toward him, a rictus grin on her face.
She opened her eyes and looked straight into Merlin's eyes. He saw them, felt them, glowing, burning with all the same feelings of humiliation, abuse, violation, and terror. Then he felt the release of her icy grip and with it he sensed the last remaining strength in his body leave. He was sinking into the dark oblivion of unconsciousness.
The next thing Merlin knew he was laying on the ground on the bank of the river, next to the cucking stool surrounded by Arthur, Gwaine and the other knights.
"Merlin, are you okay?" said Arthur.
"What happened?" Merlin asked.
"You just fell over all of a sudden." Arthur replied.
"What about the woman?" Merlin asked "Did you release her?"
"Merlin, she's dead, been dead for ages from what we can tell." Arthur said, "she's been sitting up there for who knows how long. Do you think we should get her out of it?"
"Burn it, Arthur, just burn the whole thing down," Merlin said and walked away.