Somewhere in London, a carriage makes its bumbling way through the mess and traffic, following a path. They have blinded their horses so that blind humans may instead lead them through the fog. Four loose horses carry mounted, armed men on their backs, walking quietly behind the carriage like oversized lap animals, but they and their riders are tense and grit their teeth around bits and words as they glance nervously to the distance.
Inside the breezy vehicle, they carry a treasure, worth immensely more than the savage pawns that guarded it. Inside their carriage the Queen Victoria, newly married and now newly pregnant, waits for the trip to be over. She is going to see her mother, and cordially she speaks to her nation over the side of the carriage as they move, as if he is not the man she had known since she was small - when men came over to their pristine estate to paint portraits so that they may remember how small she used to be, always. "Now you must look forward to hiring an artist to paint your own little ones, your majesty," He said with a gracious bow. "Your father would be so proud."
"There is more than enough pride to go around as it is, from all over England," She responds coyly. Her new husband, always painfully serious (just like her mother), frowns out over the countryside as the two of them laugh together. It is a position Arthur is not only used to, but loves. He has been the childhood friend of every king, queen, prince and princess that has ruled his kingdom since the year 1000, after all.
He takes pride in recalling the memories of seeing his little Victoria taking her first steps. Her mother was an overbearing, neurotic bear when it came to her daughter's childhood, but when the nation of England stood at your door and your little girl stood on her tiptoes to say hello, how could you refuse? "You know it was under the rule of another lovely queen that my empire first breathed life," He noted. "I firmly believe it was she that birthed me as I am today. And now another proud queen has taken the throne, and I await the future with baited breath."
"Ah, but she never took a husband, did she?" Victoria raised her finger in protest. "How could she have birthed you if she was a virgin at death?"
"Jesus Christ also had a virgin mother," Arthur explained, getting a laugh, "We are part of a select group of men ordered by the Almighty to use our lives to change the world."
"And after expanding your empire to its current position, do you believe you've done your duty?"
Arthur goes to open his mouth when the sound of a shot rings out. The world around him slows down for him to observe, but inside his head, it is a whirlwind of instinctive panic, like a homeless fool muttering to himself for all the value it gives its input. The horses at the head of the carriage startle, his own stallion roars in fury as the Queen screams and huddles down under the protective sides of the carriage. Another shot rings out. Birds flee the trees. Arthur remembers the morning before, walking before red-coated troops in front of the palace, knowing that every young man with any promise at all had gathered there in service and love for their Queen.
He would not let that all be for nothing.
His horse burst forward like he was out of a starting gate. At his hip, a pistol ached with weight and he took it, watching the one man who was fleeing the scene disappear over the hill. Every other guard there found their target and took after it like hounds to a fox, but Arthur had more practice. In all his years under his beautiful reigning virgin queen he was always the one allowed to deal with those who tried to claim her life.
And it was then that he really did become known as the wolfhound of the palace. There was no hide, no blood, no semblance of anything human in the men allowed to him to punish by the time he was actually satisfied with their punishment. And when he was finished and the man who had been praying for death for days received God's great mercy, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her nation and praised him. For all the great power she wielded, it was Arthur's wrath that kept those around them from jeopardizing it.
Arthur and his horse frothed at the mouth as he overtook the man and threw his pistol onto the ground and himself onto the would-be assassin. His hands found a cold throat and squeezed it like it was a lifeless human-shaped thing. Like it was the fox he'd finally caught.
When the dirtied edge of a floor-length petticoat reaches his vision after eons of squeezing that adam's apple, hoping to make it burst, only then does he look up. Up into the sun and the face of two very confused royal guards and the queen, staring at a man with a bloody bitten lip and dirt on his trousers choke a man who is quite thoroughly unconscious (and starting to turn blue). "Let him stand trial now," One of them bellows, giving his nation a nudge. "We are not barbarians."
Arthur stares with his mouth agape, glancing back to the empty carriage and up at her majesty with her hand over her heart, terrified and a little ashamed. Things, most definitely, have changed.