Geoffrey liked to talk while they were working. He rambled on gently about people and places Cottia had never heard of. She didn't mind. He didn't need much response, and she was genuinely interested in his stories. History had been her favorite subject - what little the schools taught. And, of course, the wonderful history books had led her to the glorious stories set in the past, and that was what had set her mind free.
Most of his stories were triggered by the books they were handling at the time, and so they were mostly about knights and fallen kings and old battles. But there were a few books that were different, bound in thicker leather with iron clasps. Some of them had burn marks and water damage. The stories he told then were stranger, about odd beasts and terrifying plagues and executions and a secretive band of people known as druids. He kept on mentioning one of them in particular: Emrys, apparently the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth, and the protector and savior of Camelot. Cottia liked those stories the best, but she quickly learned not to show any interest, because when she asked questions, the old man looked nervous and shut up like a clam. There was definitely something odd about the druids.
Today she was working alone, though. Geoffrey had hurt his back the day before, and although he had tried to shrug it off, when they had begun tidying up a new bookcase he had clearly been in pain. She had persuaded him to go sit quietly for a while, and he had taken a few of the dirtier books and wandered off to sit in the surprisingly comfortable chairs by the long windows on the other side of the library. Cottia was left alone to wipe down the shelves and dust the books.
It was beautifully silent in the library. The rustle of the pages and the soft slap of her cloth on the leather bindings were the only sounds.
A board squeaked behind her. Cottia jumped up, knocking over a stack of books nearly as high as herself, her instinct to run kicking in before she could stop it. Someone caught them and held them before they could topple over and bend their pages.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." It was the boy she had seen with the King, the one with the beautiful eyes.
"You're awfully quiet," she said, forcing her hands to stay steady. He was not going to hurt her. There was no reason for him to hurt her.
He finished balancing the books again and looked around. "Uh, I was actually here to see Geoffrey." The boy pulled a little bottle of liquid out of his brown leather jacket. "He said his back was hurting."
Up close he looked a little older. She had thought him to be around her own age, but now she saw that he was probably in his mid-twenties. Around the same age as the Queen. She pulled herself together. "He's on the other side cleaning some books. I managed to get him to sit for a while."
The boy smiled. "Good for you. You've done a nice job here. I think this is the cleanest I've ever seen it."
"There's a lot more to do. Why are you bringing him his medicine? I thought you were the King's secretary or something."
"Yeah, I'm his servant. But even Arthur doesn't need to have me hanging around him twenty-four hours a day, so I'm also the apothecary. I could be a doctor, but I don't have the time for that. So I help Alice by making up most of her medicines and gathering the ingredients for everything else. My name's Merlin, by the way."
Cottia looked at him with renewed interest. "Do you know how to deactivate portals?" she blurted out. "Oh, I'm Cottia."
He looked surprised, and then smiled again. "I remember you. And yes, I could take your portal out. If you want it taken out."
"Why wouldn't I?"
He shrugged. "Some people don't. They hack it and reprogram it to conceal their inner thoughts and then go back to the Other Side to help more people escape. They say it helps them."
"I'm never going back," said Cottia firmly, and for a second her face was set and grim. Then it softened a little. "Except to help my parents escape."
Merlin's eyes were full of compassion. "Then I will remove your portal for you. When would you like to have it done?"
"As soon as possible. Could - could you do it today? How long does it take?"
"I could take it out today," he said, looking surprised. "It only takes about twenty minutes for me to switch it off and remove it. It will hurt a bit, and you'll have a cut that will take a week or two to heal. You won't be much good for anything else today, too."
She bit her lip. "I don't care how much it hurts. I want it off me."
"Then I'll go give this to Geoffrey and persuade him to give you the rest of the day off, and you go tell Alice. You might be back late - it depends on how you react to the sedative and how you feel when it's gone. Some people get a bit disoriented."
She shrugged. "I don't care," she repeated stubbornly.
"Then I'll meet you at my chambers. In the main residential block, west tower, second floor. That's the second floor above the highest level of the main block," he added helpfully. "It isn't technically a tower until it rises above that level. I'm the second door down the corridor. There's a sign." He hurried away between the dusty bookshelves.
Cottia put her cleaning things away in haste and limped as quickly as she could along the maze of galleries to tell Alice.
0000
Alice was surprised, but she approved of Cottia's decision. Cottia navigated her way uncertainly through the castle to the entrance to the west tower and began to pull herself up the spiral stairs. Her leg was beginning to hurt from all the walking.
She heard someone running below her, and Merlin came up the stairs behind her two at a time. He stopped beside her.
"Sorry, I got held up arguing, but I managed to get him to let the library be for a few days." He noticed that she was holding herself up by the railing. "Are you hurt?"
Cottia smiled faintly. "I got shot escaping. It's healing nicely, but I've still got a limp and stairs aren't the best."
Merlin looked concerned. "Do you want some help?"
Cottia bit back a snap of refusal. Why couldn't she accept his help? He was practically a doctor, and her leg really was starting to hurt. She nodded instead. He put his arm around her waist and half carried her up the rest of the stairs. When they reached the second floor, he led her a few steps out onto the landing and then gently released her.
"Thanks," she said. He nodded.
His chambers were warm and sunny and smelled of wood smoke and herbs and old books. The room that the door opened into was a long rectangle, with the wall at the far end curved like the outside of the tower. There were three tall windows in it, with glass panes set into wooden frames. There were two doors on either side of the room - one pair facing each other close to the corridor entrance end of the room, and another facing pair near the windows. There were two columns in the middle of the room.
All the available wall space was covered in shelves, and the shelves were crammed with books and bottles and little boxes, but mostly with books. There was even a loft over the half of the room nearer the windows, and she could see that it was full of bookshelves. It could apparently only be reached by a ladder propped rather casually against the wall. The room was untidy and messy, but it was comfortable, and in some curious way, exactly what she had always been longing for in a home.
There was a little woodstove set beside the nearest column, and the chimney pipe ran up it and across the ceiling (that was really the floor of the loft) to exit through a neat little hole in the glass of the window. In front of the stove was a big table covered in interesting glass equipment that looked vaguely like a science kit. There was a clear space at one end, free of bottles and tubes but occupied with an empty plate and an open book. It looked interesting; it was thick and the cover was stained. There was a chair there, pushed back invitingly.
Merlin looked slightly embarrassed. "Sorry about the mess," he muttered, grabbing the plate and setting it on the counter next to a big, deep sink. The kitchen area apparently consisted of the sink, a long counter that bent around the right corner of the room nearest the corridor, and a big double-doored cupboard. One door was half open, and Cottia could see bins and sacks stuffed inside.
"I prefer to do my own cooking," he explained, noticing her glance as he picked up the book and put it carefully on a shelf. "I don't like going down to the kitchen."
"Neither do I," she agreed. "But Alice doesn't have time to cook, and I don't know how. Not on these kind of stoves, anyway."
He gestured for her to sit in the chair by the table. "I'll just get my stuff," he said, and bolted into the room on the left side nearest the windows. Cottia leaned back and looked around with now undisguised interest. This room felt much more lived in than the rest of the castle. It was a lot warmer, too, which was lovely.
Most of the room was taken up with Merlin's apothecary things, but in the right corner near the window on that side was a big chair with comfortable worn cushions, a low table, and a battered low couch big enough to seat at least three people. It looked like something from her world about a hundred years before she was born. On the table were stacks of books and a big lantern with four candles in it. She could only see all this by leaning back, because the little sitting area was divided off from the rest of the room by a carved wooden screen about six feet high. It started at the wall right next to the door on that side and cut off nearly half the area. She liked it. It was comfortable.
Merlin came out again, carrying a little bag full of things. He laid them out on the table. Cottia noticed a very small knife with a very sharp blade.
"It can't be helped," he said apologetically. "I can't switch it off without touching it, and I can't touch it without making an incision."
"I know. As long as I am free of it, I'll do anything."
He stopped what he was doing and raised an eyebrow. "Anything?"
"Yes. Within reason," she added hurriedly. He laughed.
"Good. Always think before saying things like that." He handed her a cup. "Here. It'll make your muscles relax. It'll put you to sleep with any luck. I'll give you a local anesthetic too, but this works best."
She drank the water and watched curiously as he tested a syringe. "That doesn't fit here."
"I know. I learned this from your world. It's a great improvement." He had his things all set out now, and turned to her. "Could you twist around the other way? Pretend the chair is a horse." He helped her settle down astride the chair with her head resting comfortably on the table. She felt him brush aside her hair, and a tiny pain as the needle slid in, but soon the base of her neck was completely numb. She didn't care. It was warm and she was getting sleepy.
She could feel him touching the unnumbed skin on her neck and shoulders occasionally, and he sometimes shifted position, but nothing hurt. At one point, there was the sensation of a click and something, some noise or vibration nearly beyond the range of her senses, ceased. It felt wonderful. Restful.
"That's it," said Merlin's voice, coming from a long way away. She felt him lift her into his arms. "Sleep now. You'll be fine."
0000
Merlin set the girl down on his couch and made sure the bandage at the base of her neck had not slipped. Then he drew a blanket over her. He stood looking down at her for a few minutes.
When he had first seen her talking to Arthur, he had thought, stubborn. She knows what she wants and she won't stop until she gets it, and the gods help those in her path. Now, although he still felt he was right, he was a little more curious about her. She clearly loathed her portal, and was running from her past. She was a very orderly person, judging from her work in the library, but she also had a temper.
Physically, she was pretty enough, though not a beauty. She had a heart-shaped face and wide grey eyes, with fair hair that was made of strands of both blond and red so that it shifted hue from pale yellow to rich amber depending on the light. It was just long enough to brush her shoulders, and hung now in thick locks, showing a tendency to corkscrew into wild fuzzy curls. Her skin was pale, and she had the suspicion of freckles starting on her nose and on her cheeks beneath her eyes. She was short and rather boyish in figure, but he suspected that she was not quite done growing.
Merlin hoped Arthur knew what he was doing, letting this little firebrand run tame in his kingdom. For all her meek demeanor, she had character, and he had seen the hint of a strong and stubborn will. He was even more certain of that now that he had caught a glimpse of the scars on her back.
He would have to keep an eye on her.