~Chapter 4: No Matter What~
FREYA SAT IN a chair by the fire, Morgana standing before her with several cloth-covered glass jars and a worn, hand-sewn, dull black book of spells that Morgause had left her, many pages loosened as if they'd fall out if the feeble volume was held the wrong way. The fire was warm, and the bottom of the well had been bitterly cold that day, but Freya knew better than to take any pleasure from that; she was all too well-aware she was not here for comfort. Morgana meant to torture her. She would stop at nothing to get extra leverage on Emrys. It mattered little to the high priestess that she had someone who was important to him imprisoned; not if there was even the slightest chance he could still be victorious. She let her fear of doom and ultimate failure rule her senses of reason. Just as the late King Uther had let his fear of magic turn to hate. For that, Freya could almost pity her.
"You are going to tell me what I wish to know."
Freya shook her head.
Morgana reached down and grasped her face, forcing her to look at her. "Oh, but you will."
"I have nothing to say to you."
She let go of her face. "That will change." Smirking, Morgana took up one of Freya's hands. "I'm going to begin with your fingers." She sighed and turned the hand over in hers, examining the long white fingers as if she were going to paint them in a portrait rather than break or dislocate them as she planned. "You have such pretty hands, my lady."
Freya just clenched her jaw and stared mutely.
"Then, if you haven't been as...shall we say, forthcoming...as I wish you to be, I thought we could play a little game." She dropped Freya's hand and went over to the glass jars. "One of these jars contains a Nathair. Another contains a mandrake root. And the third, well, it's empty, completely harmless. You're going to get to choose one."
"I want no part in your twisted game," Freya told her.
"Want it or not, you have it," Morgana said coldly. Then, her tone softening insincerely, she added, "Personally, I'm hoping you pick the Nathair. That's one of my favorites. My little friend can cause the most unimaginable pain. You'll sing like a lark when you sample the delights of that kind of torment."
"No," murmured Freya, her eyes locking with Morgana's momentarily. "No. I'll tell you nothing. I'm not like you; I don't sell my loyalties for guile or pain. Of any kind."
"We'll see about that." Morgana took her hand again. "Let us start with an easy question, shall we? Your name."
"Why do you want to know my name?"
"Well, I need something to call you, don't I? And if you've lost your usefulness to me before Emrys arrives, I'm going to need a name to taunt his last breath with. The sorceress he failed to rescue. The sorceress he was too weak to rescue. The sorceress who was too weak to rescue herself."
Freya didn't flinch, didn't react at all to that nasty little speech, tired eyes staring numbly over Morgana's shoulder.
"What is your name?"
Nothing. Freya was far away. Her body was in the room, in the hovel, awaiting torture, but her mind was remembering a face. A face that peered at her through the bars of a terrible cage. A nice face, framed by curiously large ears and short-cropped black hair. Don't worry, he'd said, I'm not going to hurt you. And he hadn't. He'd saved her, and in more ways than one. Don't worry... She played that part over in her head again. Don't worry. Freya could still feel his protection wrapping around her like a cloak. She would always know, at least, what it was to feel loved. She had only one regret...just one...that Aithusa should be in danger, that she should have failed her friend the Dragonlord in protecting one of the beautiful creatures he was human kin to. No, make that two regrets. For there was one more thing. She wished she could see him one last time. She didn't know what would happen if she was killed again -back to Avalon, or back to oblivion, more likely? All she knew was that she had nothing to fear. No pain -physical or emotional- was worth more than the love and loyalty she felt towards Merlin.
Focusing on one of the knuckles on the hand she grasped, Morgana, eyes glowing an orange-gold, uttered, "Brecan."
Freya's knuckle shattered. A cry of pain escaped her automatically parted lips, her eyes filling with tears threatening to brim over.
"Your name," Morgana repeated, this time grasping Freya's middle and ring fingers and twisting them together painfully.
Freya grimaced.
One final pull and both fingers were dislocated.
"FREYA!" blurted the Lady of the Lake, panting, trying to keeping breathing through the pain. "I'm Freya. My name's Freya."
Pleased, Morgana smiled. "Very good. Now, Freya, I want you to tell me who Emrys is. What name you call him by."
You can break every bone in both my hands, and I still won't tell you that. Freya swallowed and closed her eyes.
"Time for our game, then." Morgana put the covered jars in front of her, lined up in a row. "Choose."
Freya didn't move. Just kept her eyes closed, remembering, trying to make herself strong: I promised I'd look after you, and I will. No matter what. You really don't realize how special you are, do you?
No matter what, he'd vowed so softly, in those catacombs, hiding from Halig.
No matter what...
No matter what...
"No matter what," Freya whispered to herself, hearing her faint voice grow a little stronger.
"What was that?" asked Morgana, brow raised in mild amusement.
"I won't tell you... No matter what."
"We'll see about that. Now open your eyes and choose, before I choose for you."
Freya opened her eyes and lightly raised her injured hand in the direction of the third jar. She hoped it was the empty one. Not doubting that Morgana would pick one if she did not, she had decided to try for her best chance, however slim that might be.
Regardless, no matter what, Morgana would get nothing from her.
Morgana lifted the covering off the glass jar. "The Nathair." She reached in and pulled the black, snaky creature out.
Freya swallowed hard and braced herself, though it was no use. Nothing could have prepared her for the moment when Morgana used her magic to order the Nathair to strike. The creature's sharp fangs sunk into the side her neck, piercing the skin, sending searing pain throughout her entire body. She flung back her head and screamed unwillingly; she screamed as she had not screamed since her days as a cursed Druid, turning into a Bastet every midnight.
Just outside, standing next to the hovel's front door until Morgana called him back to return Freya to the well with the dragon, Agravaine cringed as Freya's continued shrieks of pain reached his ears. He understood that things like this were necessary, but they were also hard to stomach. The poor girl, young and beautiful, a decent sorceress in her own right, if not a very powerful one, forced through unspeakable torment...
"Good God, will it never end?" Agravaine muttered to himself, disturbed.
FREYA WAS NEARLY catatonic when Agravaine had to bear her back to the well in the darkness of night. Morgana claimed to be finished with her, at least for the time being. She leaned, in a largely involuntarily manner, on Agravaine's shoulder as he gripped her arm and more or less dragged her along. He did, however, make a somewhat conscious effort to be a little more gentle than he otherwise would have been, considering what she'd had to endure earlier.
Eyes half-closed, the wounded, drained Lady of the Lake wearily studied Agravaine from under her lashes.
He wasn't enjoying this, she realized.
Why should he even be on Morgana's side? She certainly wasn't particularly nice to him, at any rate. And if he did not wholly approve of her methods, then why help her? Did he believe Uther had wronged her so severely that everything she did was justified? Possibly, to some extent. Only, that couldn't be the answer to all of it... Not by a long shot, it couldn't be.
It couldn't be, not entirely, hatred of his nephew, either.
Yes, Arthur probably reminded him of Uther, but there had to be some -if not a great deal of- Agravaine's sister in the king, too.
If Freya had been less weak from torture, she might have stumbled across the truth sooner. As it was, it came to her why Merlin was loyal to Arthur. In part because they were two sides of a coin, because it was meant to be, but also for a simpler reason. Merlin loved the king; they were friends. He would have done anything for him, just as Freya was willing to do anything -even withstand brutal torture- to protect the warlock who had shown her what it was to feel loved.
The answer was so readily there, just waiting, patiently, so obvious, somehow without being glaring. Agravaine loved Morgana. That was the long and short of it.
Given the circumstances, despite the age difference, and the offhanded way she treated him, rebuffing any advances he might muster up courage enough to make, Freya even suspected he was in love with Morgana.
"Agravaine," she murmured.
He paused momentarily, seeming surprised that she'd bothered using her limited strength to address him.
"Please let me go." Freya tried to make her eyes open a little wider and lean her face in his direction, largely failing. "Then it will just be you and her again."
Agravaine didn't know whether to be angry or not. On the one hand, he was mildly offended that this strange lake-sorceress knew so much after so little time with them, most of which had been spent trapped under a well with only an infant dragon for company. On the other, he understood where she was coming from. Morgana was obsessed with Emrys, and by default anything -or anyone- who had to do with him. And Freya, the one destined to be his lover, she was not going to let go of easily. She poured all her attention into this girl, into trying to make her betray Emrys. He would have liked to see her rest more.
But setting Freya free would do no good. It would only make Morgana angry. Besides, she wouldn't -even gradually- become any the calmer for it. She was never calm. And she never would be, till she sat on Camelot's throne. And it wouldn't be just him and her, should Freya and Aithusa leave them. She was always plotting, raising new enemies against Camelot. Her mind was never with him. There was always somebody else, even though he'd tried to show her, in so many ways, that he was her one true ally; her one true friend.
Moreover, he could not, in good conscience, let Freya, however pitiful she might seem right then, go. Not knowing that they would lose their chance to get rid of Emrys. Agravaine was not a superstitious man, but he knew Morgana truly believed -and feared- that Emrys would be her doom. There was something, in her eyes, in her pale expression, when she looked at him after the mere mention of Emrys' name that he could not bear. He would not let his Morgana live in fear. Nor would he risk losing her in death at Emrys' hands.
"Careful," was all he said, finally, when Freya stumbled, steadying her a bit and continuing to drag her in the direction of the well.
"I'm sorry," whispered Freya.
Agravaine furrowed his dark brow. "What?"
"I know how it feels." It was true that, unlike Morgana with Agravaine, Merlin had loved her, but that had -back in the days of their first meeting, when she was still cursed- been just as horrid and heart-wrenching; she'd known, whatever she might feel, they couldn't be together. She had known she could not have her warlock then -and possibly never- as Agravaine knew he could not have his high priestess now.
He pretended not to react to this kindness on her part, but Freya noted, albeit dimly, since she was still incredibly weak beyond description, that he lowered her down very carefully, as if she were made of glass and might break.
Aithusa's snout touched the side of her arm. The little dragon let out a squeak of terror, knowing her friend who had been -what felt like a lifetime ago just then, in the narrow, brick-walled darkness, though it hadn't been all that long, really- the arm in the lake was badly hurt.
"It's all right," Freya said quietly, pulling the dragon into her arms, while, above, Agravaine was closing them in, rolling the stone back into place over the dry well. "I didn't tell her." She let out a sharp, raspy breath before going on. "About the man who called you out of your egg. I didn't tell her... I lied..."
All Morgana had learned that night was Freya's own name, followed by a bunch of nonsense about the sorcerer Emrys. One mad story screamed out under duress after another.
Freya'd told her, brokenly, that Emrys was trapped in an oak tree somewhere, last she heard; that Emrys was in an invisible castle, asleep; that Emrys was actually a secret priestly title, passed on by the Druids, and she didn't suppose the current Emrys was really the one Morgana was looking for, since she kept saying he was an old, old man who'd attacked her outside the hovel, and so was likely dead with a younger man newly serving in his place; that he was a cambion, the child of an incubus and a mortal princess from Odin's kingdom...
Basically, under the Nathair's influence, Freya had told her everything...
Everything, that is, but the truth: that Emrys was really Merlin, a young man who had been Arthur's manservant for many years.
MERLIN WAS PACKING to go, tossing a few things into an open satchel on the table. He wouldn't need much, he didn't think, just a few supplies. Food and water, of course. A blanket, in case he ended up stuck spending a night outside and it got cold. Little else. If he was successful, he would have rescued the sorceress from Morgana, left her someplace safe -with the Druids, maybe, if they had gotten over their guilt issues concerning her- and come back home to Camelot, not having been too long missed.
Of course, there were dangers involved. Morgana wouldn't let her prisoner go easily (whatever she was keeping the sorceress for must be something terribly important or else she wouldn't be bothering), and if she caught him there would be hell to pay... But it wasn't as if he could just leave her to fend for herself. And with Arthur unwilling to help and that dreadful Agravaine snooping about... Well, here he was, going in circles in his mind again... As if he was, after the hundredth time, going to magically come up with another way. Merlin had already gone over all this in his head, so many times he'd lost count. He had to do this.
Explaining what was so clear and unyielding in his own head to Gaius, on the other hand, was a completely different story...
The anxious physician was watching him pack with a look of nervous disdain. "Merlin, think for a moment."
"I have thought, Gaius," he insisted, closing the satchel and throwing it over his shoulder. "I've thought it over all of yesterday and last night."
"How can you risk so much for a sorceress you don't even know?" Gaius protested, undeterred.
"You didn't know me, when I first came to Camelot," Merlin pointed out, shrugging the shoulder opposite to the one the satchel was slung over. "And you still protected me; you still taught me everything that was good and right, all the while keeping me safe from Uther."
"I was friends with your mother," Gaius said. It was a weak rebuttal, but it was the first thing that came to him. "I knew she had sent you to me in confidence. To have betrayed Hunith... Even before I came to feel truly protective of you..."
"Well, I know Aithusa."
"You haven't seen her since she hatched."
"I am a Dragonlord, Gaius." There was no way he was backing down. "It is my sacred duty."
"And if Morgana sees you sneaking into her hovel?" he snapped, taking a step closer to Merlin, eyebrow raised. "What then?"
"She didn't recognize me the last time."
"You honestly expect," huffed Gaius, "to escape from Morgana's clutches, under the tiring effects of an aging spell with -not just a glass jar containing a creature of black magic, this time- a young sorceress and a dragon in tow? You intend to snatch this girl and Aithusa from under her very nose?"
"I have to try something." He shook his head. "However hopeless. I'm sorry. Don't try to stop me, because you can't." Sighing, Merlin gently nudged Gaius aside and stepped around him. "I'll try to be back soon."
He was almost to the door when Gaius said, "And what am I supposed to tell Arthur?"
"Tell him I'm..." Merlin paused. "...Er... Out picking rare herbs for you. Have we used that one yet?"
Gaius folded his arms across his chest and stared at him in a withering fashion. "Yes, Merlin. Frequently."
"All right, then think of something else." He opened the door, preparing to go. Over his shoulder, he added, "Oh, but not the tavern. Tell him I'm anywhere but there. And be careful of Agravaine. He's the one I'm worried about piecing together where I'm really going."
"Merlin-"
"Yes?"
"Be careful." Gaius' tone was gentler now.
"Aren't I always?"
"I mean it." The physician swallowed hard, taking in the impatient, eager form of his ward and assistant, the young man who'd come to be like a son to him, an unexpected blessing in his old age, as if he was worried -as he always was, deep down inside- he would never see him again.
"Gaius, I will be, I promise." And with that, perhaps fearful that someone would come their way and see him standing in the corridor with the satchel over his shoulder before he had a chance to make a break for it, he was gone.
This was the problem with loving someone who had a destiny, Gaius thought, looking at the now empty doorway. You were always left watching an empty space, looking out of windows, wondering if fate would bring them back to you or if their luck would have run out.
And, no, even with the passing of years, you never did get quite used to it.