Obstacles
by Soledad
Disclaimer: Arthur, Merlin and the other characters belong to the BBC. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun. No copyright infringement intended, no money made.
Fandom: Merlin (BBC-series)
Genre: Drama
Rating: Adults only.
Characters: Gwen, Agravaine, Gaius, Morgana, some nameless guards
Series/sequel: none, but it's part of a series of independent Season 4 AU one-shots. It's mostly canon-compliant, though.
Warning: dark themes (sexual assault)
Summary: This is a dark and gritty AU story, taking place during the two-part opener of Series Four, while Arthur and his knights are on their way to the Isle of the Blessed. Lord Agravaine finds a different way to remove an obstacle from Morgana's way.
Foreword
Right while watching the season opener, I caught myself asking: What the hell was Gwen thinking, confronting the most powerful man of the realm in front of his peers, and then going to his chambers, at night, alone, without Arthur nearby to protect her? Under any circumstances having more to do with reality than a fairy tale, that would have had dire consequences. Like the ones described in this story.
I was trying to keep as close to canon events as possible, even using some of the original dialogue, but giving the individual scenes a more realistic turn. It's not that I wanted Gwen any harm, even though her increasing Mary Sue-ness annoys the hell out of me, but let's get real, what were the chances that everyone else but Arthur – who's clearly too besotted to think – would tolerate a behaviour like hers from a servant?
Half of the story is written from Agravaine's POV – whom I tried to give a believable motivation for conspiring with Morgana against Uther and Arthur – therefore it isn't very friendly towards the official couple of the show. You have been warned.
My apologies for the extreme shortness of the chapters, but they are based on the respective scenes of the episode and this was the best way to make each one of them stand on its own.
Part One
Lord Agravaine DuBois was an ambitious man, with a keen eye for power and position at court; had always been. A man who believed in the goal justifying the means by which one would reach it and who therefore found all possible methods that would help him gain more power and influence acceptable.
Including the use of dark arts, although he never dabbled in those personally.
However, he was also a cautious man, which was why he had spent the last twenty-odd years in the ancient keep of his family, only visiting Camelot when his presence as one of the greatest landowners was required. He had wanted to keep the chances of a confrontation with Uther limited.
As the eldest son of his father, he had inherited lordship, and it was his duty to tend to the extended lands of the family and to care for the well-being of his tenants properly. This way he had a good excuse to avoid court as much as possible.
He did keep up every appearance of supporting Uther's rule, as it was a stable one, keeping the realm strong and prosperous for a more worthy sovereign to come, while sitting out his time in safe distance, waiting for the opportunity to bring around the doom of the man he hated more than every other soul under the sun.
Therefore, it was unusually careless of him to leave the city in broad daylight and all on his own, instead of under the protective veil of darkness. He could see the wily old court physician and the insolent little serving wench that had so bewitched Uther's young fool of a son giving him queer looks as they were pulling blankets over the people killed by the Dorocha last night. The two were definitely in league; he would have to keep an eye on them.
The girl was just a loud-mouthed little wench, way too sure about her supposed importance; but Gaius… Gaius was knowledgeable and shrewd. The old man, once a passable sorcerer, had managed to survive the last twenty-some years in close proximity to Uther, by pretending to help the King fighting magic. Underestimating him would have been a mistake, and – unlike Uther – Agravaine was not going to make that particular mistake.
Besides, he knew all too well that Gaius was still capable of using magic. That he had, in fact, used magic from time to time during those years. He had, after all, crippled the powerful Morgause so much that she hadn't seen any other way to seek revenge than sacrificing himself in the night of Samhain and thus unleashing the Dorocha upon the world.
Agravaine did not mourn her demise at all. She had been an obsessed, manipulative bitch who had used Morgana and her awesome powers to her own purposes. The Lord of Bois doubted that Morgause had ever truly cared for Morgana as a person rather than just as a means to reach her goals… whatever those truly might have been.
Her methods had definitely not brought Morgana any lasting luck. The thought that Vivienne's daughter had been forced to dwell in a pathetic cottage in the woods like some lowly peasant's wife burned him like fire as he was riding through said woods. Granted, he had seen that she would have maids and servants around her – as long as she was willing to tolerate them – but she should have been living in Camelot as its rightful Queen. She had both the power and the beauty for it, if, sadly, not the legal claim or the wisdom.
Not yet anyway. But with all obstacles removed from her way and the right man of experience behind her throne, she might become a great Queen yet, now that Morgause was no longer there to whisper nonsense into her ear all the time. Nonsense about returning magic to all five kingdoms and things like that.
In his opinion, while magic could be a useful tool, that was all what it was supposed to be: a tool. Not a purpose in itself, or it could easily get out of control. As much as he hated Uther, in one thing he agreed with the King. Uncontrolled magic, free for every hedge witch or village conjurer to use, was a dangerous thing.
His thoughts were interrupted when he finally reached Morgana's cottage. He dismounted and bound his horse to one of the beams holding the roof.
"My lady!" he called out.
It was better to announce his arrival in time; she could react violently if surprised. Her powers had grown at an alarming rate during the last, lonely year she had spent in hiding.
Entering the cottage, he found her sitting in her heavy chair, next to the stone ring in which the fire was burning, her dark shawl wrapped tightly around her painfully thin body. Her oval face was pale and hollow in the dark frame of her long tresses, her lips almost ghostly white without the bright red paint she had used earlier; her dark eyes huge and burning.
She looked up to him with that intense, obsessed look that always made him shiver… and not in a good way. She might have had her mother's ethereal beauty, but she completely lacked Vivienne's joy in life. She was like a cold shadow of the woman he had loved more than life itself.
He would still do everything for her, though. She was Vivienne's daughter; and unlike Morgause, who had come after Gorlois, she was the spitting image of their mother. Sometimes so much that he had an uncomfortable confusion of his feelings when in her company.
Not right now, though. Not when she was like this: like a ghost, hell-bent on vengeance.
"What news of the mighty Camelot?" she asked tonelessly, with just a hint of cold sneer in her voice.
Agravaine tore off his gloves to warm his hands over the fire. Temperatures had dropped drastically since the appearance of the Dorocha, and his fingers were numb with cold.
"It is as we planned," he answered; although to tell the truth, the whole unleashing-the-evil-dead-upon-the-living insanity had been Morgause's harebrained idea. He would have preferred to rule over a realm that still had some actual subjects alive. Otherwise what good was it to be the ruler? "The city is falling into wrack and ruin."
And would have to be rebuilt – again! – after the dead spirits were done with their work of slaughter and distraction. He truly wondered how Morgana, who had once honestly cared for the people of Camelot, could have bought into that plan of indiscriminate murders. It did not fit with her personality – the one he had known practically since her birth.
Was he truly that mad at the people for supporting the rightful King against a bastard daughter with no justified claim to the throne?
Apparently so, because she just nodded with cold, terrible satisfaction, her mind on the next issue already.
"And Arthur?" she asked. Is he dead already? – was the unvoiced message behind that question.
Agravaine spread his hands over the fire. The warmth felt good in his chilly bones. He was definitely getting too old for this conspiracy business.
"The last we heard, he had made it past Daelbeth," he replied.
Morgana, apparently feeling the chill of disappointment, pulled her shawl tighter around herself.
"Will we never be rid of him?" she complained in a low, harsh voice.
Agravaine rubbed his hands together to stimulate the blood flow in his still way too stiff fingers. Definitely too old for this, he noted mentally.
"Patience, my lady," he tried to soothe her. "Even if he makes it to the Isle, the outcome will be the same."
The romantic young fool would heroically sacrifice himself and through his selfless act – hopefully – repair the veil between the two words before the whole of Camelot would turn into one giant, quiet tomb. Even so, the price for getting rid of the Prince Regent was too high, Agravaine found. There should have been another way; a way without having the people of the realm massacred.
For the first time, he began to have severe doubts if Morgana would truly make a good Queen of Camelot – even if the rules of the other kingdoms would acknowledge her claim, which was more than doubtful. By the hereditary laws of Albion, in which all ruling Houses agreed, a bastard could only have claim for the throne if his or her sire had publicly acknowledged them.
Uther had never done that for Morgana. Therefore she had no legal claim on the throne. Even if Arthur died while Uther still lived – if you could call his bleak existence a life – she would be considered a usurper. That didn't mean Agravaine would not support her claim, of course. She was, after all, Vivienne's daughter – the only thing he still had to give his hollow life a meaning.
She seemed disturbed by his long silence, for she looked up to him again, her eyes cold, unmoving and intense like those of a snake, trying to paralyze its prey.
"What brings you here so early?" she asked. "Something is wrong."
The second part was not a question. She had an eerie feeling for wrongness, in everything, save for her own doing.
"A minor irritant," he spread his hands above the fire just a moment longer before walking over to her to stand behind his chair.
"Guinevere," he explained to the questioning look she threw over her shoulder, grabbing the high back of the chair with both hands to bring his annoyance under control. "She takes it upon herself to speak out against me; and that in the presence of the entire Council. I am not used to peasants storming into the Council chamber and berating me – me, who have been empowered by the Prince Regent himself to rule the realm in his absence as I see fit."
"Tell me," Morgana ordered, and Agravaine gave her a brief summary of Gwen's grand scene in the Council chamber. Morgana listened to him wordlessly, her face becoming colder and darker by the moment.
"She is dangerous," she finally commented in a low, menacing voice, leaving no doubt about how she intended to deal with that particular danger.
Agravaine laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, she's a servant. A spirited one, perhaps, but a servant nonetheless. I shall see that self-righteous spirit of hers is broken, sooner or later, so that she learns where her proper place is. Even if the Prince Regent has the hots for her."
Morgana stood abruptly. "No, you're wrong. I've dreamt of the future, and in it that… servant," she spat the word with the deepest possible dismay, "sits upon my throne."
She whirled around to him in such cold fury that he had to consciously stop himself from backing away.
"I would rather drown in my own blood than see that day!" she hissed.
With that sentiment Agravaine completely agreed. Serving wenches were to… entertain princes in their womanly manner, to serve their masters' needs – not to be married by them and to start behaving as if they were the equals of the lords of the realm. He had already a plan forming how to teach the little upstart that all-important lesson, but he needed time to work out the details.
"Then we must make sure such a day never comes," he said with a dark smile.
Morgana smiled back at him icily. "I couldn't agree more. We must make sure that she never sees another dawn."
"Leave the insolent little slattern to me, my lady," he said. "She will be removed from your way, I promise. But I want to teach her a lesson first."
"A painful one, I should hope," she said coldly.
He nodded. "One that ensures that even if she and Arthur both lived, he would never entertain the mad thought of wedding her, ever again."
"I want her dead," Morgana declared forcefully.
"And she will be, soon enough," Agravaine promised. "But we must break her before we kill her, so that she would not become a martyr of Arthur's case. Martyrs are dangerous. Slatterns who die in shame are not."
An awful glee began to glitter in Morgana's eyes. "You can arrange that?"
"I believe so," Agravaine smiled in dark satisfaction by the thought. "In fact, I have already made some… arrangements."
"All right," Morgana said after a moment, "but I want to see it with my own eyes."
Agravaine smiled even darker. "That can be arranged; more so as I shall need your help with a certain potion."
"What kind of potion?" she asked, eager to use her powers again.
"One that wipes memories and helps with planting false ones," he answered. "Do you know such brews?"
"Of course," she said with a cold sneer. "Those are easy tasks. I shall have it ready before nightfall. But how will you get it?"
"I assume you are still familiar with the siege tunnel that leads from the women's wing of the Citadel directly into these woods?" he asked.
Morgana nodded; she had once played in that tunnel as a child.
"I shall wait for you with a torch on top of the stairs, right after nightfall," Agravaine promised, "and see that the guards will be occupied elsewhere."
~TBC~