"HOLD!" Leon shouted, springing up from the bench where he sat, watching the training with his arm still in its sling. Leon stepped backward from his dueling partner and clapped his hand to his bleeding arm.
"Sorry, Perce!" Sagramor exclaimed. "I slipped."
Arthur, who came up to them at the same time Leon did, handed Percival a handkerchief to hold over the cut. "If you'd let the armorer make you some new chainmail, your upper arms would be protected," he remonstrated.
"A little cut like this doesn't bother me any," Percival shrugged.
"Well, let's have someone take a look at it, anyway," Leon answered. "Anna!" he called to the figure coming down the colonnade by the training grounds. When she looked up, he waved her over.
Arthur watched her approach. He had hardly seen her since Gaius had brought her to him two weeks before and asked his (nominal) permission to take her on as a second apprentice. Since then he had noticed that Merlin had been even more annoyingly cheerful than usual, which he took be a sign that Anna was a success. Merlin had been whistling—whistling!—while airing out his cupboard the day before, while Arthur had been trying to read an important missive. When Arthur asked him what on earth he was so happy about, Merlin had chirped out some nonsense—something about never having to clean out a leech tank again. Arthur didn't know, and he didn't want to know.
Anna curtsied to him and the others. Her bag was slung over her shoulder—she had been doing rounds for Gaius.
"What do you think of this cut?" Arthur asked, indicating Percival. The large man pulled the handkerchief away from the wound and leaned down so she could see.
"It's a clean cut, but it should be stitched," she answered in a moment.
"Alright. Up to Gaius you go," Arthur said cheerfully.
"Or I could do it here," Anna offered. "If there's soap and water."
In a few minutes she was seated next to Percival on a bench, a bowl of water and a bar of soap from beside the pump in the armory between them. She dried off the wound and began to thread her needle. Most of the knights had returned to their practice and Arthur stood nearby, watching them. Some of Anna and Percival's conversation floated over to him, and he strained his ears to hear.
"Is there a particular reason, Sir Percival, why your chainmail has no sleeves?" Anna asked as she readied her thread.
"I had to cobble my armor together from what I could get in Usk," Percival explained. "I managed to find some chainmail, but it was too small for me. So I made some adjustments." He indicated the large rent up the center and the leather buckles that held it closed. "Arthur has recommended I get some new mail, but…" He shrugged with the shoulder she wasn't working on. "I'm used to this."
"Hm. Well," Anna said, pausing in her stitching, to which Percival seemed to be paying no attention, "sewing up a cut in your arm is nothing. But this"—she stuck her hand into the top of the rent, causing Percival to start—"is your heart. If you get stabbed there, you'll probably die instantly. Not a big deal," she continued, "considering this is your stomach… your liver… and your bowels. If you get stabbed here," she poked her hand in hard, "you are likely to linger for days, in horrific agony, alive when you should by rights be dead, your entrails hanging from your body, begging your friends to be merciful and end your life—and there would be nothing Gaius or any other physician in the world could do to save you, or even to reduce the pain." She returned to her stitching, and Arthur turned a fraction in order to see Percival's face: wide-eyed and staring at her. Arthur hid a smile.
"My recommendation, Sir Percival," Anna said, tying off and cutting her thread with a small knife, "is to order some new chainmail as soon as possible."
"Good shot, Elyan," Arthur called. "Right in the gut!"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Percival jump and stare.
"Right! That's enough for today!" Arthur called, and the men turned toward the armory as Anna packed up her supplies.
"Where are you going, Perce?" someone called.
"I, uh, have to see someone," Percival said, turning around and walking backward. "I'll see you at supper."
Arthur grinned as he watched him jog off in the direction of the armorer's. "Good job," he said to Anna as he passed.
"Thank you, Sire."
"And I don't mean the stitches."
She met his eyes and grinned.
000
Anna was emptying the bowl of water into the grate by the pump when Gwaine came in from the training field. "Hello again," he said cheerfully. Anna looked up and slopped the water all over her skirt and his boots, nearly dropping the basin the process.
"I'm so sorry!"
"Don't worry about it!" Gwaine laughed. "These boots have seen far worse than a little shower. I've heard you're working for Gaius now," he added as she wisely put down the basin. "How's he treating you?"
"Oh, wonderfully. I'm so thrilled to be working for him."
"Are you still staying in the castle?"
"Yes, but Prince Arthur has very kindly offered to let me stay in a small house that has fallen vacant in the lower town. I'm moving in a couple of days."
"Oh, that's nice. Where is it?"
"A street down from the Rising Sun. It has honeysuckle next to the door."
Gwaine narrowed his eyes. "Green shutters?"
"That's the one! You know it?"
"I've been past it a few times," Gwaine answered with a grin. "I know most of the houses around the Rising Sun. I hope you'll like it," he added, and left to hang up his chainmail.
He ran into Merlin not long after. "I just saw your new comrade," he said. "How do you like her so far?"
"She's taken over so many of my chores that I'd be an ungrateful wretch if I complained! But the fact is I like her a lot. I took her out the other day to show her where the herbs grow in the woods, and we had a great time. Gaius hasn't been sorry he took her on, either: she's organizing his stores and his library, and she's taken over seeing Geraint for him and hasn't even suggested poisoning him yet, which Gaius says he's tempted to do on a daily basis."
Gwaine laughed. "She seems like a nice girl—if a bit clumsy," he added.
Merlin looked confused. "Clumsy?"
Before he could answer, Gwaine's head shot up at the sound a bell being struck in the direction of the kitchens. It put Merlin in mind of a hunting hound at the signal of a distant horn. "Supper! I'll see you later, Merlin!" He clapped him on the arm and was gone.
000
The visit of the younger princes of Mora was delayed for a few weeks by business at home. Meanwhile, Anna moved into her new cottage, finished reorganizing Gaius's surgery, and made fast friends with Merlin.
She managed to be in the courtyard when the princes of Mora and their retinue arrived in Camelot. Arthur and Agravaine, surrounded by the knights, stood on the main steps, and the courtyard was full of other people who had found excuses, like her, to be in the citadel that morning.
The two princes, Bergam and Cranog, had not brought a large retinue: three knights, and only one servant. Arthur greeted them heartily: Anna had heard that they had been friends when Arthur was younger, but hadn't seen one another in several years.
Arthur was very happy to see them. His memories of them were very pleasant: hunting in the forest under the care of Uther's master of the hounds, hawking in the fields around Camelot, training with Bergam and Cranog's older brother on the training grounds in Mora. "I hope your stay in Camelot will be pleasant," he said as he escorted them into the castle. "Consider our servants your servants. This is Merlin, my manservant," he added, beckoning Merlin forward. "He'll see to anything you need."
"Arthur," Agravaine called.
"Sorry, I have to go," Arthur said briefly. "Merlin will show you to your rooms." He hurried off.
Cranog dropped the satchel he was carrying, and one of the Camelot servants who was following him with a trunk nearly tripped on it.
"Merlin!" Cranog called. "See to that."
Bergam chuckled, and hung his own satchel from Merlin's other shoulder. "And that. Now where's our room?"
"Second and third doors on the right," he called, struggling to follow them under the weight of both satchels.
"Come on, keep up!" Bergam called. Merlin and the man carrying the chest exchanged a look. This didn't bode well.
TBC
AN: Please review!