AN:This ended up being way longer than I thought it would. It was originally just going to be a drabble based on Arthur's last scene, but then it ran away from me. Anyway, it ended up being a lot harder than I thought (which is always the case) and I've never used so much canon dialogue in a fic before, so hopefully I didn't screw that up too badly. Enjoy. :)
He had been sure of it. Nearly completely positive. It explained everything. It certainly explained how Merlin had managed to stay alive all this time. It actually probably explained how Arthur was able to stay alive
Merlin was probably a sorcerer. No, Merlin probably had magic. There was a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that it was the same thing, but he couldn't think of the word sorcerer or sorcery without thinking of his father with venom in his voice watching the preparations for an execution.
So Arthur had kept quiet. Merlin had enough trouble keeping it a secret as it was. If he knew Arthur knew, well, the worst thing would be Merlin thinking he could be lax around Arthur and someone walking in on them while Merlin was...well doing whatever it was he did while Arthur watched.
And if it turned out that Merlin was in fact, not a sorcerer, well, that would probably be best for all concerned. In the mean time, Arthur tried to take comfort in the fact that he and his father were still alive and Camelot was still standing, which hopefully meant Arthur's instincts were correct in that Merlin was not of the evil sorcerer variety, and that Merlin had somehow survived all this time without being lit on fire and that despite appearances to the contrary, apparently knew what he was doing.
So he made sure Merlin didn't blow it when Gaius was sentenced. He pulled him out of the hall before he could do something stupid like confess or strike the Witchfinder down where he stood. He made sure no one else walked by while Gaius and Merlin were talking (and he knew that Merlin was an idiot, but surely Gaius should have known better than to talk about magic when the Crowned Prince of Camelot was standing outside his cell). Which only proved to Arthur that he was right about not letting Merlin know that he knew. Gaius apparently knew, and look where it got him.
In any case, he and Merlin were getting entirely too friendly to begin with. Merlin never seemed to use the honorific of sire when talking to Arthur unless he was sarcastic. Never kept his proper distance, never thought twice letting Arthur know exactly what he thought of his actions.
And the worst of it was that Arthur was beginning to respond in kind. He had been telling Merlin things he had never told anyone. He let Merlin get away with things that would send anyone else to the stocks ages ago. This secret was one of the last things that kept some distance between them.
So that's the way it had to be. Even if he would like to at least know when Merlin had exactly saved his life so he wouldn't have to be indebted to a clumsy manservant for the foreseeable future.
Obviously, there were things that could prove that Merlin didn't have magic. Like how Merlin had let him fall face first into the pile of horse manure. Granted, this was a very Merlin thing to do, but if Merlin was a sor—magic then it wasn't expecting too much that he would make sure Arthur wouldn't fall. But seeing as it was a very Merlin thing, Arthur didn't think too much of it.
All right, he actually did think a lot of it. But then he had spent quite a bit of time at the river getting bits of road apples out of his hair. It was hard not to.
True, that bandit had mysteriously fallen out of the tree, but he was sitting up in a tree with a long spear. Not exactly prime balancing conditions. But he had caught Merlin's annoyed look when Arthur gave him grief about not helping out in the fight. So chalk this up to a maybe.
Then, there was that conversation. Merlin, as forthcoming as he was about nearly everything else, very rarely talked about his life before coming to live at Camelot. Arthur hadnt noticed until he realized that Merlin seemed to be hiding something. He had never pushed the subject because, well, it wasnt as though Merlin was going to say something like Oh, me? I had a normal childhood. Milked the cows, went fishing with Will, that sort of thing. Oh, and I also learned how to use magic, which your father will burn me alive for. How about you, Arthur? Did you have a play sword growing up or did they let you have the real thing from the start? But he had never really heard Merlin even say in passing to someone Oh, my family or Back home we used to
Granted, there was the tendency even when he was campaigning with the knights for the line between their statuses to become blurred after a day or so. For Merlin, Arthur usually had to forcibly remind him that the line existed, even when they were at court. Though Arthur had the idea that Merlins father wasnt in the picture for whatever reason, it made sense for Merlin to come out and say as much when it was just the two of them riding through the woods.
There was no one else who Arthur would have trusted to bring with him to see Morgause and to witness what she could tell him about Igraine. But his mother was too private a matter for Arthur to even think her about without getting that twinge of guilt he got when he knew he was doing something his father wouldnt approve of. It was his fathers pain. Arthur, though he noticed his mothers absence, had never known her. Hearing the words spoken out loud to Merlin, Merlin the manservant, Merlin the peasant. Merlin who was almost definitely magic. All the things that would make Merlin at the very least untrustworthy in his fathers eyes.
It wasnt any of Merlins business anyway. And in any case, he and Merlin shouldnt be talking like this.
His horse plowed into the lake and Merlin joked about his getting wet, and momentarily he was worried that Merlin wouldn't follow him, or at least try and find a way around it, and he had the the thought in the back of his mind that Morgause had made it so there was only one way of getting to where they were going. He had heard stories of that happening, of villages that people had stumbled across and when they tried to find it again, they never could. That had been another thing that had worried him. That learning about his mother had been a one time opportunity, and if he didn't do it exactly as directed, he had lost that chance forever.
"That must have been how she defeated me. She was using magic."
"Mmmm, didn't look like she was."
"And what would you know about using magic, Merlin?" And it was times like this where it felt like a joke between them, even though he spat out "magic" to remind Merlin that sort of talk back home could easily lead to some intense "questioning" if the wrong person heard it. He wondered if Merlin had caught on that Arthur had figured it out and that was why he smirked a bit when he said "Nothing" and then put his "Who, me? I'm just an overly sarcastic manservant" face on.
He sheathed his sword after dismounting. He didn't want to suggest to Morgause that they should sword fight again, especially if she was going to use sorcery again to best him. But the castle was empty inside, save for an axe embedded in a chopping block. The axe was clean and pulled away easily, suggesting that it couldn't have been there that long and the block itself wasn't secured to the ground. The axe didn't have that much heft to it, nowhere near the size that the executioner used on the rare occasion a beheading occurred instead of a burning.
Merlin, for all that he ought to know about the subject, apparently did not know about the intricacies of executions and had gotten skittish when he saw Arthur wielding the axe and was on his way out again when Morgause made her appearance.
Morgause had clearly gotten dressed up for this, especially compared to what she had worn in Camelot. She had gone through a lot of trouble to ensure that he come here. If she was going to kill him, it wasn't going to be a quick and easy beheading for only his servant to witness. She was here to put on a show for him, perhaps to further show that she could have killed him at any time.
Still, an axe was an axe and a chopping block was a chopping block and he could only hope that she would make her point before he lost his breakfast on the suspiciously clean sand in front of him. He was relieved when he heard Merlin shift his weight, presumably to intervene should things go too far, and he couldn't get up fast enough once the bitch finally decided to put her axe down beside him.
"You have shown you are truly a man of your word, Arthur Pendragon." Just as he had known, a show. "And for that I will grant you one wish. Tell me what it is your heart most desires."
And the show just kept getting longer. This favor was just as much a part of the show as the near beheading was and the sudden appearance of the castle. She was showing him what she could do.
Let her have her entertainment if she could tell him about his mother.
"Perhaps you would like to see her." And now she no longer needed an axe of any sort.
"I want that more than anything."
"As you wish." And she walked away, as though that were all there were to it. They followed her to what had seemed to be an old hall used for court, except the roof was gone. Arthur had halfheartedly tried to remember if he had ever heard of a royal court located this close to Camelot, but he couldn't organize his thoughts into any sort of coherency other to wonder if Morgause could do what she claimed. In any case, the castle clearly hadn't been inhabited by anyone other than Morgause for a very long time. Merlin stood beside him and for once was silent, his gaze constantly darting around to watch Morgause work and Arthur wondered if he could follow what Morgause was doing. Could possibly do what Morgause was doing.
Finally, it seemed as though Morgause was nearly finished with what she was doing. Or at least nearly all the candles were lit and the pattern she had spaced them out in was complete. Merlin took a sharp intake of breath beside him, and Arthur wondered if it was something Morgause had done that had alarmed him.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"If you were granted the same opportunity, would you not want to meet your father?" Merlin drew back a little and Arthur wondered if he had already tried this to meet his father and it hadn't worked.
Surely this would work. Morgause was older than Merlin in every way possible. She hefted control over her surroundings like he himself hefted a sword. She wouldn't promise something if she could not bring it to pass.
"Uther won't forgive you if he found out you've collaborated with a sorcerer." Arthur could hear the trace of fear in Merlin's voice. It made sense, after all. Merlin had been able to stay in Camelot without ending up chopping block or tied against a stake. If Arthur was implicated, then Merlin would be as well. But if Merlin could...
That decided it. He would confront Merlin about it after this was done. "What if my father's attitude toward magic is wrong?" He felt nearly breathless as he said it.
As he expected, Merlin sounded hopeful. "You really think that?"
"Perhaps it's not as simple as he would have us believe. Morgause is a sorcerer and she's caused us no harm. Surely not everyone who practices magic can be evil." Merlin broke eye contact at this and Arthur wondered if he was going to confess to it then and there.
"We don't actually know why she's doing this." Merlin said, still not making eye contact.
At this Morgause looked up, and Arthur wondered if she had heard Merlin and was going to refuse out of offense and Arthur began to run through all the things he could have done to Merlin. But all she said was "It is time," and blew out her lighter.
She reached for Arthur's hand and positioned him in front of her altar. "Close your eyes."
He took a deep breath. There was a lot of fire. Suppose she made it all rise up and pushed him into it. One of those who wanted to get revenge on the Pendragons for burning her kind alive. But, he supposed, there was nothing to be done for it. He closed his eyes, and again he heard Merlin shift his weight behind them. Then Morgause whispered words from the Old Language that he could not hope to pronounce but tried to commit to memory all the same in case Merlin wasn't doing so as well.
Morgause dropped his hand and he heard begin to pace around while still saying those strange words. A wind kicked up and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled as her tone changed from a whisper to chiding yet friendly one and he wondered what she was saying. And then things...slowed. There was no other word for it. The air was solid enough that he felt like he was standing underwater and irrationally he wondered if he were still breathing.
"Arthur!" And it seemed for a moment that his eyelids were being made to move slowly as well. "Arthur."
She was there, smiling at him. He knew it even without the resemblance to the portraits he'd seen of her, and even those, he knew, scarcely resembled the real thing, judging by those of his father and himself. "Mother."
"My son!" She was walking toward him, picking up her skirts and then he was in her arms and she felt so solid and undeniably real, if a bit cold with the flimsy dress she had on, which his gloves caught on a bit as she pulled away to look at him, though he couldn't let her go completely.
"When I last held you, you were a tiny baby. I remember your eyes. You were staring up at me." He had always been told she had died before he had opened his eyes, and occasionally he had been irrationally angry at his infant self, not caring to look at his mother. "The few seconds I held you were the most precious of my life."
"I'm so sorry." Sorry that he had been the one to take her away, sorry that he had only been able to give her a few seconds, sorry that the beautiful and frail woman in front of him hadn't had all the joy she deserved.
"You have nothing to be sorry for."
"It was my birth that caused you to die." He had started his life off as a murderer. He took her away from this life, from his father. He had to do something to express the constant guilt.
"No, you are not to blame." Annoyance had crept into her voice and he couldn't even look her in the eye any longer.
"I can't bare the thought that you died because of me."
"Do not think that!" She brought him into her arms again and the side of his face grew wet with her tears. "It is your father who should carry the guilt of what happened."
He felt his mouth drop open and her hair fluttered with his breath. "What do you mean?"
"It is not important. What matters is that you lived."
But he pulled away so he could watch her face. "Why should my father feel guilty?"
"It is better left in the past."
He came here to answer his life's biggest question. She could not answer it with more questions.
"Please."
She looked away and seemed to will her tears to stop. "Your father...he was desperate for an heir. Without a son, the Pendragon dynasty would come to an end. But I could not conceive."
What was she saying. Was he a bastard? "So, how was I born?" She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Tell me." He couldn't imagine not knowing whether or not his entire life was a sham.
She finally looked up at him. "Your father betrayed me. He went to the sorceress Nimueh and asked for her help in conceiving a child. You were born... of magic."
It wasn't possible. His father having dealings with sorcerers. You might as well suggest that wolves have dealings with calves. "It's not true" he said desperately.
"I'm sorry, Arthur. Your father has deceived you as he deceived me. To create a life, a life must be taken. Your father knew that."
It can't..."No." He was shaking his head almost without realizing it.
"He sacrificed my life so the Pendragon dynasty could continue. It makes you no less my son nor me any less proud of you. Now I see you I would have given my life willingly."
He could no longer look her in the eye. He couldn't think of anything to say.
She pulled his wrists together, like he would a bandit, and he couldn't help but think that he would have deserved it. He couldn't look up from her hands, but he could see a strand of her hair sway into his vision as she leaned forward. "Do not let this knowledge change you."
The wind came in full force then, and the pressure behind his ears that he hadn't realized was there lifted. "No! Bring her back!" And whether he was commanding Morgause or Merlin, he didn't know.
"I cannot," Morgause answered. "Once the doorway is closed, it is closed forever." He stared at where his mother had been, trying to see anything that could be a sign of where she had gone. "I am truly sorry you learned of your mother's fate in this way. I can only imagine how it must feel to discover your father is responsible for her death...It is an unforgivable betrayal."
For a moment, there was only roaring wall of rage and it was all he could do to not scream himself hoarse, try and push the walls of this forsaken place down, to take a torch and light the forest outside to the ground and burn the land all the way back to Camelot.
He could hear Merlin ask him if he was all right, and it was this stupid question, more than anything, that brought him back to himself.
"Fetch the horses" he heard his voice say. "We're returning to Camelot."
They didn't speak all the way back to Camelot. Merlin was looking over at him constantly but otherwise seemed to be in deep thought and so far hadn't offered any opinion.
As far as Arthur was concerned, that was fine. If there had been anything off about what his mother said about what had to be done so that he was born, Merlin would have said something. He hadn't and so Arthur could challenge his father to the death with a clear conscious.
The minute he had killed his father, he was going to tell, no, he was going to order Merlin to learn that spell Morgause had done, find a way to bring his mother back to tell her so that she may rest in peace. Merlin would try to gape like an idiot and act astonished that Arthur knew but if he knew what was good for him, he wouldn't waste any time.
He pictured Uther bleeding all over his face and arms and legs from his sword and then Arthur would take the dagger he kept in his boot and drive it into Uther's chest. Of Uther being backed into a column with his jacket torn up begging for mercy and Arthur bashing his head and cracking his skill against the stone. Uther with the point of Arthur's sword at his neck, with drops of blood escaping. At the end of each fantasy, he pictured his mother, after Merlin had done the spell, presenting his father's broken corpse to his mother. She would be disappointed with him, but he could live with that if he could finally do right by her.
The rage seemed to grow with each heartbeat and at the end of each fantasy he could only kick his horse into going faster, and he mused at one point that this was probably the fastest Merlin had ever ridden on horseback. But mostly the rhythm of the hoofbeats allowed him to stay in an almost trance of thoughts of how his father had been able to exert so much control, how he hadn't once let anyone have control over anything, even whether they wanted to someone else to die so that they could live.
They finally arrived at Camelot, and Arthur didn't even pause at Merlin's stupid question. If he didn't know what he was going to do, then he didn't know Arthur.
And there he was, with his fucking arms out, as if he cared about another person beyond what use they could serve him and his stupid fucking dynasty.
"I know what you did to my mother." Uther's voice didn't change like he hoped it would. It didn't crumple with fear and he didn't avert his eyes in guilt. It didn't change at all. The only thing he did that showed he thought this was even remotely serious was send Leon out of the room.
"What are you talking about?" The voice had changed, but just to mild disapproval, as though Arthur had just spent the night at the tavern.
But Arthur couldn't keep his voice from shaking. "You were so desperate for an heir...you were prepared to use magic."
"Did Morgause tell you this?" He almost lunged for him right there, for the underlying suggestion that it could be easily dismissed because a goddamned sorcerer told him. "She's lying." Uther finished calmly.
It was all he could do not to scream and he felt like he was taking so many breaths he would feel light headed if it were any other time. "My mother is dead because of your selfishness and arrogance. Her blood is on your hands."
"No. That's not true." He didn't show any fear. No guilt. Not even surprise at Arthur's accusations. As though he had prepared for this. Maybe he recited it in his mind as he looked down on those he had burned alive. "Morgause would have you believe that."
"This is what fuels your hatred for those who practice magic. Rather than blame yourself for what you did, you blamed them." As he said it, Arthur imagined the countless burnings he had watched with his father. He had been an accomplice to the murder of all those innocents, because of what Uther had told him, had lead him to believe. He made Arthur responsible for his mother's death and untold amounts of innocents for Uther's own guilty conscious. He had killed so many innocents when Arthur wouldn't even be standing there without magic.
"You would believe a sorcerer's lies over the word of your own father. I can only think that Morgause has enchanted you." It was going to be like that, then. If it weren't Morgause, what would have been Uther's excuse if Arthur had found out some other way? Had Uther been counting on Arthur not finding out on his own, that a sorcerer would have been involved in bringing the truth to light?
"You have hunted her kind like animals. How many hundreds have you condemned to death to ease your guilt?"
"Those who practice magic will stop at nothing to destroy us. I have only done what is necessary to protect this kingdom."
"You speak of honor and nobility. You're nothing but a hypocrite and a liar!" He couldn't not scream now. He hadn't thought it possible, but the sight of his father had made the roaring in his head louder and impossible to ignore.
Finally, as though Arthur losing control had forced him to lose his own temper, Uther showed his anger. "I am your king and your father and you will show me some respect!"
Respect? Fine. He never broke eye contact as he pulled his glove off and was a bit gratified to see that fear had finally squirmed its way onto the king's face and when he spoke it was only a whisper. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Pick it up."
"Arthur, I implore you, think about what you are doing."
He would love nothing more than to show the man how much he had been thinking about it. "Pick...it up," he ground out.
"I will not fight you."
Oh no, he wasn't going to take the high ground now. He unsheathed his sword and noticed with a small bit of pleasure that Uther was shocked. "If you chose not to defend yourself, I will strike you down where you stand."
"You are my son. You will not strike an unarmed man."
"I no longer think of myself as your son."
"Then strike me down."
Arthur hesitated. He couldn't conceive of turning away and he had never known Uther not to wear a sword. So, as Igraine's son, he lifted his sword to strike at the alleged unarmed man.
Uther met his blow but pulled his sword away as though ashamed. "I don't want to fight you."
That didn't matter. He matched Arthur, blow for blow, though never going into the offensive, and Arthur had to resist going into the instinctive stances that Uther had taught him as a boy. He was better than that man's swordsmanship.
Finally, Uther swung back, looking almost surprised as he did so, and Arthur dodged it easily. They faced off for a moment, which Arthur was secretly grateful for, it allowed him to plan for moves that weren't instinctual and that Uther wouldn't expect from watching Arthur practice against his knights. Then he swung at Uther again, who barely caught it and then dodged another strike that landed on the column Arthur had imagined Uther cracking his skull on.
He struck blow after blow, the noise of the swords almost painfully loud indoors, and finally he knocked Uther's blade out of his hand and had pinned him against his chair. It wasn't as good as the column, but it would do. His vision blurred and he tightened his grasp on Uther's jacket.
Merlin was yelling at him, telling him stupid things again. "I know you don't want to do this!"
"My mother is dead because of him!" He jerked Uther's jacket toward him and noticed that he gasped in pain.
"Killing your father won't bring her back. You've lost one parent, do you really want to lose another?"
"Listen to him, Arthur," Uther said, gasping as Arthur pushed his sword even more.
"Arthur, please. Put the sword down." The strain on his voice made him wonder if Merlin would make him, even in front of Sir Leon and his father, if he didn't. He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't leave this room not having finished what he came in to do.
"You heard what my mother said." Arthur kept his eyes on Uther, noting his expression as he said this, but Uther merely looking extraordinarily confused. "After everything he has done, you believe he deserves to live?" He almost looked back at Merlin at this point, willing him to know that Arthur knew. "He executes those who use magic and he has used it himself." He turned his full attention back to his father. "You have caused so much suffering and pain. I will put an end to that."
But Merlin stopped him dead. "Morgause...is lying. She's an enchantress" and Merlin sounded like he was talking to an addled child with a knife. "She tricked you. That was not your mother you saw. That was an illusion."
Merlin took a deep breath and sounded like Arthur felt. "Everything...everything your mother said to you...those were Morgause's words."
"You don't know that!"
"This has been her plan all along. To turn you against your father and if you kill him the kingdom will be destroyed. This is what she wants."
"Listen to him, he's speaking the truth." Uther cut in, and Arthur wanted to kill him even more for agreeing to the easy way again. "Swear to me it isn't true! You are not responsible for my mother's death! GIVE ME YOUR WORD!"
"I swear on my life, I loved your mother. There isn't a day that passes that I don't wish that she was still alive. I could never have done anything to hurt her." Uther's voice began to break, which finally broke the wall of rage.
What had he done? He finally felt the air in his lungs again, the weight of his mail and armor, and the cold stones beneath his knees as he slumped against his father's chair. He could hear his father say soothing words, and though he couldn't comprehend them, he felt his father touching his back and holding his shoulders as his nurse had done when he was sick as a child.
"I'm sorry."
"You are not to blame," and he shuddered as he heard the echo of his mother's voice.
He had been leaning against the wall for a while now, feeling the warmth on his face from the sun contrast of coolness of the stone wall behind him. Within a day, his life had changed so much, and then, just as suddenly, had reset itself to almost exactly how it was before. His father had forgiven him, which was much more than he deserved, and other than insisting that Gaius check him over for any lasting enchantments, his relationship with his father had returned to normal. Gaius, Sir Leon, and Merlin had been the only ones to witness his breakdown, and they could be counted on for their discretion.
He had been foolish to think that Merlin could have been a good sorcerer, and even more foolish to think that Merlin could have kept it a secret. Keeping a secret about Arthur was one thing. He spent most of his day with Arthur anyway, and the rest of it he spent with Gaius. Who would he tell? But keeping a secret from Arthur? The idiot could barely keep his mouth shut.
In any case, there was no such thing as a good sorcerer. It made sense, after all. Anyone who would seek that much power and yield that much control could not be doing so out of a wish to help people. Anyone who could conjure likenesses of the dead wasn't going to go about healing people and making crops grow.
It was just as well that Merlin wasn't a sorcerer. He spent less than a day with a sorcerer and he had been driven mad and nearly ended up killing his father. If Merlin had been a sorcerer and Arthur had been spending all this time with him, who knows what Merlin could have done to him? And if Merlin could have brought back a likeness of his mother? That would have been...nice, but all it would have been is a likeness, and look what happened the second she disappeared. It left him wanting more. He'd be forever chasing an apparition, like one of those people in stories, always chasing after the disappearing village. He remembered those fantasies he had, even before his mother had appeared, about having her brought back again and again so he could seek her advice and approval. Living one's life according to the values of a conjured ghost was no way to live, or rule a kingdom, for that matter. Even so, he knew, given the chance, that he would bring that likeness back. He had stared at the portrait of his father and mother on their wedding day and had asked Morgana what she had remembered of his mother, though she had only been a few years old herself when she died and hadn't yet been living at court. For what he could tell, the apparition's image, at least, had been faithful. If he could gaze upon it again, listen to the voice but ignore the falsehoods it spouted...if it had been Merlin, who he could trust, who had been the sorcerer, he wouldn't have to worry about being led on.
But Merlin wasn't a sorcerer. A sorcerer who feared for his life would have lied and would have come up with another explanation for the apparition other than another sorcerer's treachery. It's what he would have done in Merlin's position, if Merlin was a sorcerer.
But now he knew for certain that that those who used magic could only use it for evil and to try and destroy people's lives. He could never let them even get close enough to Camelot to even ask for trust.