NOTES: The saga continues!
Legends Of Camelot
Book 2
The Dragon's Son
chapter ii
"So she's still alive." Morgana's voice quivers, and she quickly turns and walks to the window and stands there, looking out, her knuckles pressed against her mouth.
Arthur glances over at Merlin, who's sitting at the table, staring at the flickering candle. In the dark blue of his eyes, the flame gleams gold, and, once again, Arthur is hit with the conviction that he doesn't really know this manservant who became one of his most trusted friends somewhere in the last few years.
"She healed father enough so Gaius and the others could get him home."
Morgana turns from the window. "Maybe she'd have done better to let him die."
There's a hard note to her voice, and Arthur's again confronted with the difficulties of his foster-sister's relationship with his father these last few years. Given the magic he now knows she has, he thinks he might understand her bitterness better.
Merlin shifts. "She bears Uthyr no resentment for her father's death. She never did."
"No. It was never in Gwen's nature to hold a grudge." Morgana exhales and turns fully around. "So what do you plan to do, Arthur?"
"About Guinevere?"
"About her and everything else."
The casement frames her, dark dress, dark lips, dark hair, white skin; stark beauty and stark bitterness etched into her every line. In contrast, Merlin is sober and still, almost subdued, like someone held in a dream, but the gaze that meets Arthur's is patient and easy with a measuring clarity. Merlin's no longer hiding; he's just waiting.
Looking at them, Arthur wonders if it's the yawning awareness of his father's mortality that's changed his perspectives of them, or just the awareness of their magic.
He wonders how he managed to miss or ignore it for so long.
"Keep running the kingdom." It's an easy answer for a not-so-easy situation. "Determine how long before Father's back on his feet..."
"The dolorous wound will never heal," Merlin rests his chin in his hands, and now the candle casts shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. "We tried closing the wound, but the edges fester. Gaius thinks the wound will eventually poison him." There's an apology in his eyes when he looks at Arthur. "The King won't be getting better."
That's what Arthur fears and doesn't dare say. He always knew the kingdom would come to him when his father died; he never thought it would be so soon. "Then there's still the dragon to deal with."
"The sword and he who had it made will be necessary to kill he who made it." It's Morgana's turn to look speculatively at Merlin. "Who had it made, Merlin? And why?"
Merlin sighs and puts his face down in his hands. "Shouldn't you be glad that the sword was made at all - especially if it's the only way to kill the dragon?"
Arthur leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. "How about we start with the question, 'What sword?'"
They tease it out of him by turns; the sword forged by Tom the blacksmith that was intended for Arthur's hand, given strength and power by the dragon's fire at Merlin's request, and cast into the lake after Uthyr defeated the Black Knight to prevent the sword from being used against magic.
"But it will be," Arthur says when Merlin finishes. "Used against magic. Because the dragon has to die."
A rustle of fabric heralds Morgana's approach to the table. "The dragon had a reason to resent Uthyr. Captured and held for twenty-five years..."
"Morgana, a reason is not the same as 'just cause'."
"I don't think you'll find anyone to argue that twenty-five years of prison for simply being who they are isn't 'just cause'. Merlin and I would be dead had Uthyr known about us - and not for treasonous acts; simply for using magic."
"Magic is dangerous. I agree with my father on that." Arthur sits back in his chair, frowning as both Merlin and Morgana stare at him. "Don't be stupid. I'm not going to order either of you killed - I'm not my father. But there have to be rules for magic-users, as much as for ordinary people - if not more. And they have to be willing to abide by them or face the consequences."
"And that includes the dragon." Merlin understands at least. "It serves its own interests; it always did. We just happened to be part of it."
"We?"
"Us. The dragon said that our destinies were linked - that you needed me to become the king you could be " A mischievous blue gleams in his gaze. "You don't think I'd have put up with the arse you used to be otherwise, do you?"
Momentarily stunned into silence, Arthur opens his mouth to say something cutting, and is forestalled as someone clatters up the outside stairs at a dead run.
"Sire?" The servant seems startled to find Morgana and Merlin here, but he rallies after a moment. "The King is awake and asking for you."
--
If his father's wound is mortal, no-one could prove it by his demeanour. He lies propped up in the great bed, pillows behind him, the coverlet heaped with blankets. Yet Uthyr spares little time for small talk.
"I promised to tell you about the dragon."
Accustomed to his father's brusqueness, Arthur holds back his concern. "It's not necessary."
"I think it is. You should know why...why I imprisoned it."
Because it was magical - like Merlin, like Morgana. Because it couldn't help being what it was, any more than Arthur can help being blond, or a good swordsman, or the son of Uthyr Pendragon. Maybe he could put mud through his hair, never take up a sword again, or renounce his birthright, but would he still be who he is?
His father's eyes drift away across the room, now emptied of everyone - even Gaius and Morgana and Merlin. "It was because of your mother."
Of all the answers Arthur expected, this was not one of them, and it steals his breath. "My mother? What does she have to do with the dragon?"
"For many years after our marriage, we hoped for children, but Igraine never quickened. A queen is allowed many failings, but only one is unforgivable: the failure to produce an heir." The pain in his father's voice resonates in Arthur's gut. Whatever else can be said of his father, there's little doubt in his mind that he loved Arthur's mother, and that Igraine's 'failure' meant little to the love her husband held for her.
Arthur wonders what it would have been like to grow up in that love.
"You had me."
"Yes. But before that... We tried everything. Herbal remedies, common superstitions, anything Gaius could suggest... In the end, we tried magic."
"You tried..."
"Igraine consulted a sorceress by the name of Nimueh. She made us a bargain. She would magically grant us the ability to have a child - a son of ours in exchange for the right to practise magic openly. She said there was no great danger; that there was a price in these things, but that it was taken care of. And so we consented. Your mother wanted a child so much..."
His father's eyes drift from Arthur's face to stare into the darkness.
"What happened?"
But he already knows this story. "Nimueh tricked us. She never told us the price for one life would be another to take its place."
"And my mother died in childbirth."
An exchange of lives by the Counter at the Scroll - Arthur Pendragon for Igraine de Bois.
When he speaks, his voice is rough. "Given that I cost my mother her life, I'm surprised you didn't hate me."
A shadow crosses his father's face. "You're my son. I couldn't hate you. And the fault wasn't yours." The lines about Uthyr's mouth deepen. "It was the witch's deception - her lie that caused Igraine's death. I set out to destroy her and her followers; to wipe magic from the face of Camelot."
Instead, he'd only sent magic into hiding. "And the dragon was part of it?"
"The dragon was an uncertain ally. I convinced Nimueh it would be safest to hold it in the caves beneath the castle with magic, until we could bring it around to our thinking."
"Then you betrayed her."
He's careful not to sound condemning, but his father reacts all the same. "I regret nothing of what I've done, Arthur! Sorcery is dangerous - unlimited power, unfettered ambition - and Nimueh was all of that and more. And the dragon... The dragon is the same. Camelot will never prosper until it's dead."
A fine sweat covers his father's face, the candlelight casting clear shadows along the browbone and cheekbones, making hollows of his eyes and beneath his cheeks. Arthur is suddenly minded of Merlin's eyes earlier tonight, gleaming by the light of the candle, unearthly. "Father..."
"Promise me you'll kill the dragon."
The request has undertones of finality that steals Arthur's breath from his chest. He hesitates, and his hand is covered by a grip no less powerful for being that of a dying man.
"I promise," he says.
--
It's not as simple as riding out to fight the dragon.
Nothing's simple anymore.
Arthur stays with his father through dinner that night, although he leaves for a while to consult with Gaius, Sir Leon, and the captain of the palace guard to arrange for a messenger trail to be set up out to where the dragon was last seen. When he returns, Merlin's waiting outside his father's door.
"Morgana's within," he says. "Have you made the arrangements?"
"A dozen men are gearing up to ride out. They're under orders not to engage with the dragon, just to avoid loss of life - theirs or the villagers. Leon left a handful of men to watch over the area once they realised they could make better time with father riding..." Arthur presses his back to the wall beside Merlin and glances at the slim, slight man who's never been far from him these last four years. "The dragon's going to be a problem."
"It always was."
"I meant, for the villagers in the area. It has to be dealt with." Arthur doesn't have the time to see to it personally right now. Is that why his father put a sword in his hand and set him at the head of the knights of Camelot? To be his strong right hand, able to do the things that the king couldn't physically do?
There are things he's never had to think about before - not just the things that his father did, but other things. Things like the need to have someone to move where Arthur can't, to fight the battles the king can't fight. A champion he can trust to do his bidding and to treat the people who make up Arthur's kingdom with honour.
And it occurs to Arthur that he's already thinking of the throne as his. His father's not even halfway dead yet, and he's thinking of Camelot as his.
His mouth is suddenly bitter with disgust.
"You're looking ahead." Merlin's watching him. "You have to do that now."
Anger is a relief in which Arthur can take familiar refuge. "And you know so much about kingship? About ruling?"
The expressive face shadows, even as the blue gaze looks through Arthur. "I know the king you're supposed to be."
"And if I decide I don't want to be that king?" Once, Arthur wished for a great destiny. Now, facing the death of his father, the prospect of ruling the kingdom within his sight, he's not sure he wants it anymore.
"Water doesn't get to decide where it's going to flow, Arthur. You're already that king in ways you can't imagine."
That's a little too deep for him, a little too confusing. Arthur lets his anger go, frustrated but not willing to take it out on Merlin. Well, not entirely. "I wasn't that much of an arse," he mutters.
"Try looking at it from my point of view."
"If I recall, you weren't a very good servant back then, either."
"I learned." Merlin grins, sidewise and almost confidential. "We both did."
The grin is both infuriating and reassuring. Smiling, Merlin doesn't look like a sorcerer, let alone the powerful warlock the dragon allegedly prophesied he was - not that Arthur's really known that many sorcerers before they were executed or slain. He does looks like he's about to say more when the door opens to show Morgana.
"My father?"
"Sleeping. But if you want to go in, I doubt anyone will gainsay you."
He grimaces at her before he goes in. She's spoken the truth; his father's eyes are closed and he seems to be sleeping peacefully.
"Arthur?" Or maybe not.
He looks down on the familiar face in the curtained shadows. "Father? You should be resting."
"And I will." One hand reaches out; Arthur hurries to take it before he has to watch it shake. It seems whatever strength his father had earlier has since waned, leaving him weary and drawn. "I... I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you. No father could have asked for a better son; no king could have asked for a more loyal servant."
"Father--"
"No. Listen to me. You have been everything that your mother and I dreamed of seeing in our son. I'm sorry for not handing you a kingdom without the stain of magic on it. That was always my hope - that you wouldn't have to face the troubles I've seen because of magic."
"You've done so much," Arthur says, and it's not a lie. His father has done much in his cause against magic; even if it wasn't well done. His father's choices weren't his; won't be his when the time comes. "And the kingdom's not mine yet."
"No." A faint smile touches Uthyr's face, and his lids droop. "Not yet."
Still, as Arthur bids his father goodnight, he wonders how long before that 'not yet' becomes 'now'.
--
The guard strides into the hall where Arthur is poring over maps of the dragon-infested area.
"Sire! One of our riders is glimpsed along the northern road!"
Arthur's up from the table in an instant, ignoring the fate of the maps that slip and slide out from beneath this fingers to flutter to the floor. "One of the men you left near the dragon village?"
"Seems to be young Pendryn, sire. But he's got another rider with him - not one of ours. They were riding hard when we saw them, they should reach the castle very soon."
There's a shout from the walls outside. "Riders spotted!"
With barely a nod of dismissal for the panting guard - the man must have run from the town gates - Arthur is out of the hall and heading for the courtyard. News from the northern road - sorely needed news, at that since there's been nothing for days. Which seems impossible given that not only are there villages, farms, foresters, and travellers who should have encountered it, but that Arthur has knights and guards roaming that part of the realm, keeping an eye out for trouble.
Until today, there's been nothing.
"Who's the spare rider?" Merlin wonders out aloud. Barely a step behind Arthur, he's been a near-constant companion, only going out to fetch things for Gaius as the old physician tries to ease the king's pain. "What news could need two messengers?"
"Doubling."
"Huh?"
Arthur strides out the great doors and down the stairs into the courtyard where two horses have just skidded to a stop. "Double the riders if the message is important - something they don't want lost. If one man's attacked or taken, the other might still get the message through. Doubling."
"Oh." Merlin's sound of understanding trails off as the two riders clamber down with the slightly stiff gait of men who've spent too long in the saddle. "Is that...?"
"Lancelot."
The last time Arthur Pendragon laid eyes on Lancelot, former knight of Camelot, it was in the middle of a forest, across a fire, with a woman between them. Then, she sat beside Arthur's rival. Now Guinevere is gone - taken by the Sídhe - and there's only the two of them to deal with each other.
"Sire." No one can fault his manners, anyway. The unthinking grace stings an old envy in Arthur, soon squashed. "I bring news of the dragon - it's whereabouts and hiding place." He looks from Arthur to Merlin and back to Arthur again, hesitant. "Your father the king...?"
"Still alive." For how long, Arthur doesn't know. "Come inside. You'll give a better report with food and drink in you." Both Lancelot and the guardsman look exhausted and there's nothing to be gained from talking out here.
"Begging your pardon, m'Lord, but I'll take young Pendryn down to the barracks. He says it's not his report to make."
He nods his permission and arranges for the guardsman to get the wine and meat from Arthur's own portions, then leads the way inside.
"How are you?" Merlin asks softly, falling in alongside Lancelot as they make their way up to the hall. "It's been a while."
"I found employment with the du Lac of Parlepont. They were in need of men at arms after a bandit war erupted along their northern borders."
"You were involved in that?" Arthur's surprised. Parlepont sits on Camelot's south-eastern borders and the bandit war naturally drifted into the edges of Camelot's forest.
"Yes. My experience in those forests came to be of use, after all." Lancelot's smile is brief and tight as they enter the hall and he is gestured to a seat, and Arthur feels a pang of envy as he sits and calls for food and wine.
He pushed his father to run a few campaigns against the bandits in that quarter, and saw a little action. Not much; Uthyr was intent on preserving Camelot's borders and integrity, not in meeting his neighbours halfway.
"So if you were working for the du Lac, what are you doing back in Camelot?" Only Merlin could make such a blunt question sound guileless - probably because it is guileless when voiced by Merlin. "Not that we're not glad to have you back, of course."
"The du Lac wished me to stay; I asked for leave to return to Camelot." Lancelot hesitates and looks to Arthur, his chin lifted, his eyes calm. "I wished to see the Lady Gwen again. But, as I was riding the circuit through the north, I heard about the dragon and the king. So I made a diversion."
The cynic in Arthur says that the other man wanted a chance to prove himself before returning to Camelot. The prince in him points out that Lancelot proved himself to Guinevere when he rescued her from Hengist.
It doesn't matter anymore. "Guinevere's gone."
"Gone? Not...?"
Merlin answers the unfinished question. "The Sídhe took her last summer."
It shakes him, Arthur can see that before he looks away, leaving Merlin to the explanations. He knows how Lancelot's feeling - to hold onto a hope for so long, only to have it torn away.
There was so little to it - just a kiss and talk of tomorrows; nothing beyond a hope and a maybe. Perhaps when you are king... And now it looks like Arthur's going to be king sooner than he thought, but Guinevere's not here to see him become the king she believed he could be.
And Arthur won't let himself dwell on the thought that Guinevere could just as easily have brought the message to him, here in Camelot, and chose not to.
A tentative knock comes at the doors of the hall and, expecting the servants bringing food, Arthur calls for them to enter.
It's not the servants. It's Gaius, with Morgana in tow.
Halfway to the table, Gaius goes down on one knee. "Sire."
Morgana detours around the kneeling Gaius, around the table, and Arthur takes her hands in his. Her skin is ice cold, like his gut, like his heart - and unlike the tears Morgana sheds, splashing hotly down over their fingers.
"My father..."
The old physician lifts his head, and tears gleam in his eyes, echoing in the armour of the guards that file in and kneel behind him. "The king is dead. Long live the king."
--
Days later - busy, frantic days later - a light knock at Arthur's door is all the warning given before Merlin walks in carrying a tray of food. "You're going to eat," his manservant says as Arthur pulls on a jacket with rough disdain for the niceties of its cut or colour. He's a ruler, not a clothes horse, and it doesn't matter what he wears, people have to be polite to him anyway.
"I haven't the time. I'm due to meet Lord Godfric of Olverstone at midday."
"Morgana's flirting with both Lord Godfric and his son, and she's roped Lancelot into charming Ilvessa. I've brought you your lunch and you're going to eat it before you leave this room."
"Has anyone ever said that you fuss like a mother hen?" But Arthur sits with something like relief as he begins to slice up the roasted meats on the plate. In the last week he's learned not to fight the quiet moments, but to just breathe amidst the chaos his life has become.
A king has little time to himself as it is. This king has barely enough time to even think between the matters of his father's funeral, his own coronation, the shifting morass of the kingdom's political and social allegiances, and, of course, the matter of the dragon.
If it weren't for Merlin and Morgana, Arthur would have gone mad by now and there'd be no king on Camelot's throne.
Arthur frowns as something Merlin said catches his attention after the face. "Wait a moment. Lancelot's charming Lady Ilvessa?"
"He's doing very well. With all that innate nobility and politeness of his, they don't realise he's a commoner at all. It'll be rather amusing when they do find out - at least, Morgana thinks it will be."
"And Morgana's amusement is so important in these times!"
Merlin's honest enough about his own motives. "If it stops her from taking revenge against me, I'm all for it."
Arthur snorts at that.
Knowing his foster-sister, she's probably just saving her revenge for later. There's more opportunity for entertainment in the court's politics right now, and Morgana's becoming very good at derailing a young man's attention when she chooses; just as Arthur's becoming very good at avoiding the daughters of the nobility being paraded in front of him like so much cattle before a prospective buyer.
It's not that he's opposed to marriage; he's just not willing to consider it at this moment. With his father not even interred in the crypts and a dragon on the loose in the north, he's got other things to think about.
"I'm going to rescind the rule against knighting commoners."
Merlin's smile is blinding. "I knew you would! He's too good not to be a knight of Camelot. It'll have to wait until after your coronation, of course--"
"Believe it or not, Merlin, I do know the protocols of these things."
"Sorry. I sometimes forget that--"
"That I'm not a complete fool?" Arthur demands dryly, caught between amusement and exasperation - still two common emotions when dealing with Merlin. "A noble idiot? A royal prat?"
Merlin smirks. "Well, you're still a royal prat, but two out of three isn't bad." He puts up a hand in grinning defence as Arthur lifts a chunk of potato on his fork and threatens to throw it at him. "Camelot could do with more knights like him."
"He's not a knight yet. I'm still going to make him face me before he's knighted."
"You already did that."
"I'm doing it again. If he's good enough, I'll knight him."
"But you won't let him face the dragon?"
What Lancelot had to add to their knowledge of the dragon was the location of the dragon's hiding place, high and solitary in the mountains. He'd intended to come to give the news to the palace, intended to see Guinevere one last time before he returned to face the dragon alone.
To give the man his due, he's not a coward. Just an idiot for thinking he could go up against the dragon without anything other than his sword. Arthur forbade him to stir out of the city, and Lancelot, being Lancelot and not Arthur, has obeyed his king.
"I can't afford to lose any more of my knights to the dragon." They lost six knights to the dragon - dead, maimed, or injured - not even counting his father. Six men who won't fight again.
"But you'll go up against it yourself?"
"Merlin, I can't ask my knights to do what I won't."
"Camelot can't afford to lose its king, either."
Arthur sets down his knife and stares pointedly at his manservant. "Then you'd better get me that sword back."
"Have you been working your way around to Excalibur all conversation?"
"Merlin, I've been working my way around to it all week. The dragon needs to be executed for what it's done. If I can't rule it - if it won't be ruled by me - I can't let it live to oppose me." It's not something Arthur wants to do, but if he has to kill it, he will.
There has to be justice.
The younger man's expression is troubled, the dark cap of hair brushing Merlin's temples as he bows his head. "It made the sword, you know. Of the old power."
"It killed my father."
This isn't a battle of wills but a statement of facts. And in the end, Merlin sighs. "All right. But not until after you're crowned. Morgana says the sword was made to be wielded by a king."
"Morgana says a lot of things."
"Well, you should listen to this one."
--
Arthur comes down to the knights' training yards in the midmorning, where Sir Leon is looking over the nobleman's sons swordwork.
A cluster of seasoned knights stand to the side, observing and making comments loud enough for the young men to hear. Beyond them, Morgana and her 'embroidery' preside over a cluster of young noblewomen who chatter and squeal and clutch each other with every advantage gained in the stroke of a sword.
"How are they?"
"Terrible, sire." Leon's mouth lifts in a wry half-smile. "You could take most of them hopping on one leg."
A swift glance across the assembled noblemen illustrates Leon's point - their technique is sloppy, their reflexes sluggish, and their tactics non-existent. Arthur's gaze drifts across the swording field to rest on the man who stands by the sword rack, his long hair tied back in a simple queue, his arms folded over his leather jerkin as he watches the swordplay with a keen eye.
Arthur crosses over to stand beside him.
"Sire."
"Had a go yet this morning?"
"Not yet."
"Good." Arthur claps him on the shoulder as he heads for the armoury. "You can go up against me."
He ignores the oohs and aahs of the crowd, Sir Leon's muttered grumble, and Lancelot's initial protest as he lets the chain mail settle over the padded gambeson and smooths the dragon surcoat over it. It feels like days since he's had the opportunity to train, to fight, to be simply Arthur and not sire.
And this has more to it than just a chance to get out and practise his swordfighting. If Arthur has his way, Lancelot will be the last knight of Camelot to prove himself against Arthur Pendragon. Whether or not Lancelot defeats him or not isn't the point; the point will be to show that there's a new order of knights - ones whose worth is defined by their skills in the field and their chivalry to those of all ranks and background, not their bloodlines.
They face each other, armed, and weaponed, and a space clears for them in the training yards.
Arthur waits until he's sure Lancelot is ready, then attacks.
Blades cross with a ringing noise and the fight has begun. The other man defends, neat and spare in his movements, with the swift reflexes that Arthur remembers from the first time they fought - with broomsticks. If he was diffident then, Lancelot's learned confidence in his abilities since.
As he battles against the other man, Arthur thinks they might even be matched.
If he had the energy to spare, he'd grin. It's been years since they fought against each other, and a man's fighting style changes with experience, confidence, and time. What skill the other man possessed all those years ago has been honed, just as Arthur's skills with sword and tactics have been honed.
Cheers and gasps follow their every move as they retreat and fall back, advance and defend. It's a dance, the like of which Arthur hasn't felt the pleasure of in a long time.
And in the end, it's a matter of endurance.
He's been too long in meetings with his father's advisors, with the lords and ladies of Camelot's holdings; and although he's honed his skill, Lancelot's been fighting bandits, who are considerably more desperate than any of Camelot's knights.
A twist of the wrist, and his guard is thrown wide; the tip of Lancelot's sword is pointed at his heart, and the other man meets his gaze with a steady, earnest look.
Arthur cedes the fight with a huff amidst the cheers of the watching crowd. "I suppose I should be glad you didn't try to trick me this time," he says pointedly, clapping a hand to Lancelot's shoulder as they head for the sword rack.
"I'm glad I didn't have to, sire." But there's a soft amusement in the accented tones. If Arthur's grown up in the intervening years; Lancelot's grown into his skin. They know who they are now.
"Call me Arthur."
Dark brows rise. "Sire?"
He shrugs, trying to be nonchalant about it. "Merlin does."
"With respect, sire, Merlin's known you longer."
"Am I going to have to make it an order?"
The serious face breaks into a smile. "No, sire."
Merlin bustles up, unhampered by the formal politeness of the young lords and ladies hovering genteelly beyond the practise yards, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on Arthur, Lancelot, or both. "So?"
"So?" Arthur returns innocently.
"Are you going to knight him or not?"
"Sire?"
Arthur rolls his eyes as Merlin, then turns to the stunned Lancelot. "I need someone I can trust to be my champion. You're the best fighter I've come across in years."
And...the man walked away from the woman he loved because he felt another man could give her the life she deserved. Arthur respects that sacrifice, even if it stings to know that Guinevere would have chosen Lancelot over him if the man had stayed.
"Sire, a knight must be nobly-born. That was your father's law."
"Nobility isn't just about birth." And trust isn't just about those who were allied with his father. His father's allies were just that - his father's allies.
Arthur's rule won't be Uthyr's. And he needs people who can share his vision.
Morgana will - at least, Arthur hopes she will once he explains it to her; she never seemed to look beyond his father's death and her freedom from the constraints of keeping her magic hidden. Merlin does - or has his own vision of what Arthur could be. Guinevere would have.
Will Lancelot understand?
"Will you accept?"
Lancelot looks up at the towering walls of Camelot as though seeking a missing face among the watching women. Then he turns back and the belief that burns in his eyes is the answer Arthur wants. "I will. Si-- Arthur."
A rush of relief prompts Arthur's grin, and after a moment, the dark, tense features soften in an answering smile as their hands meet in a sealing grip.
--
It's cold in the catacombs, but he tugs his cloak more firmly about his shoulders and breathes the dust of his ancestors.
A soft tread echoes through the arches, and the light swish of skirts rustles across the stone floor. Arthur doesn't look up. He hoped an hour or two down in the crypts by his father's tomb would keep most people at bay and grant him a measure of peace.
It has. It just doesn't keep Morgana away.
"Merlin says you're going after the dragon."
He's been expecting this conversation for the last couple of days now. That it hasn't come up yet is more a testament of just how busy their lives are, a constant storm of nobles, meetings, arrangements, condolences, congratulations. And Arthur's in the middle of it all, turning everywhere with nothing to hold onto.
"I promised father I would," he says, shifting on the cold stone. The low riser leading up to the tomb of Sir Godfric of Marescot is only partly insulated against the cold by his cloak, but it gives an excellent view of the tomb of Uthyr Pendragon, King of Camelot.
Someday, there'll be a tomb here that reads Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot, and maybe Arthur's son will sit in front of it and contemplate the crown he's about to inherit. Maybe one of his daughters will come and interrupt his peace just as he's relaxing out of sight of the court.
"Has it yet occurred to you that Uthyr reaped what he sowed with the dragon? Twenty-five years locked up for simply being magical--"
Arthur's considered this; with Merlin, by himself. He's thought about his answer many times in the last week. Now, he cuts through the gristle to reach the meat of the matter. "Would you be arguing for clemency if the dragon wasn't magical, Morgana?"
She's taken aback, but only momentarily. Nothing floors Morgana for long, certainly not this. "Would you be so hell-bent on revenge if it wasn't? Uthyr's dead, Arthur, but nothing can change that - not even going after the dragon. And it's been locked up for your lifetime - doesn't that require even a little mercy?"
He looks up at her by the light of the torches that flame steadily in the silent catacombs. "A death - for any reason - requires justice, Morgana."
"Justice? Or revenge?"
"I'm not going to renew the prohibition against magic. But I'm not going to turn a blind eye when it's used for evil, either."
"How long before you realise--?"
"No, Morgana." He stands and interrupts the start of her diatribe. The torch throws gold across her skin, lights fires in the dark of her hair, but it's just Morgana; he's known her nearly all his life. "How long before you realise? This is not about magical or non-magical. The dragon is not you, Morgana. It's made its choices; it has to live by them."
"Or die by them?"
"Or die by them. As we all do." He indicates his father's tomb. "I'm not father, Morgana. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm the same as him."
That stops her, if only for a moment. "I would never think you're the same as your father, Arthur."
"But you're accusing me of being over-zealous because the dragon's magical."
"And you aren't?"
"This isn't about magic; this is about the law."
"You're the king. You can change the law!"
"And I will regarding the use of magic. But that doesn't stop the need for the law to be fair, no matter who it's dealing with."
Will she understand the need for him to start his rule differently - a rule of fairness and even-handedness? Will she understand his desire to hold himself to the same standards he requires of his knights, of his nobles, of his servants, of those who use magic, and those who don't? Will she understand who he needs to be as a king, for his own sake, as well as Camelot's?
Saying it means nothing if your actions betray you.
"Someone who can use magic needs different rules, Arthur. We can't be bound by the same considerations that others have - not with this power. It's not right - not after what your father did to them."
And there, Arthur realises, lies the divide between them: Uthyr and magic, fairness and privilege, the law and justice.
The question of magic can be left for the moment; she won't like his decree, but he trusts her not to break faith with him. The lesser question of his father is something else - more pressing upon him with the coronation due in a matter of days. Whatever Uthyr's sins, Arthur doesn't intend to bear them - his shoulders aren't broad enough for that.
"And am I to pay for my father's sins for the rest of my life?"
Morgana smirks, thinking her argument won and never realising she's lost more than the argument. She reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. "Only the first few decades, I think."
As they leave behind the echoing chambers of death and dust, climbing the stairs to light and life, Arthur wonders to himself: if Morgana had understood the king he wants to be, would he have asked her to stand with him as he ruled?
--
One day later, standing before the assembled nobles of Camelot in the great hall, Arthur Pendragon is crowned King of Camelot.
Banners hang down in bright colours, their coats of arms indicating the lords who swore loyalty to Uthyr. Today, each and every one of them will swear loyalty to him. Beneath the bright standards floats a sea of faces, their gazes considering, calculating, expectant as they look up at their new king.
Do they want the king Arthur Pendragon will be?
Arthur glances down to where Morgana, Merlin, and Lancelot stand in the front of the gathered throng, their gazes steady and hopeful upon him.
And he thinks of Guinevere.
He will be a king to make her proud of him, wherever she is, whatever she's doing. He doesn't have to, but he will.
It was Guinevere who first spoke to him of the king he could be. Even as Merlin strove to connect him with his better side; Guinevere challenged him to be a better man than his close-minded, parochial father.
She's not here to challenge him anymore; but with the help of the three standing before him, Arthur Pendragon intends to be a better man than his father and the best king he can be.
This he swears today.
"I, Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot, swear to rule with justice, to uphold the laws of Camelot, to protect the people of Camelot with my life and the lives of those sworn to me. I will stand against evil, cruelty, and oppression, in whatever form they come. I will shelter the good, the innocent, and the downtrodden, whether serf or freeborn, commoner or noble, magical or unmagical. I will be king to all those who acknowledge me and keep my laws, but I will be justice and penalty to those who break them.
"This I, Arthur Pendragon, swear to you, my people. So it will be."
"As it shall be." The response swells through the hall - a mighty affirmation that blends into a great cheer rising up from many throats, and Arthur stands there and feels himself lost.
It's his literal crowning moment of glory, and yet this crowd of people only see what they want to see for themselves.
Until today, he never realised how lonely it was to be king; to feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders alone - no father to arbitrate the final decision, and a kingdom's rise and fall on his choices.
He trusts Merlin and Morgana to be there for him - not only because they know him so well, but because they have a personal stake in his rule; Lancelot is still learning to trust, but Arthur has faith in the man's loyalty. Gaius will serve Arthur as he served Uthyr - and more, as a contact with many magical people who've otherwise vanished from the land. And Arthur can trust Sir Leon to continue to lead and train the knights of Camelot now that he can't.
Yet, as the nobles come up one by one to swear their oaths of allegiance to him, Arthur wishes for someone to see him, and not the king who's yet to be.
- tbc -
FEEDBACK: I'd love to hear what you think so far!