Chapter Seven

A/N: Thanks to kissfromarose2, EdmundPevensie, Anoynomouse, Jess and Tallulahh for evermore for reviewing.

Arthur's mouth was still gaping a few moments later, still disbelieving of what he had just heard. 'I can't have heard her correctly.' he thought, shaking his head slightly as he did so. 'She can't have just said what I thought.' However, the expression of guilt that had flickered lengthily across his aunt's face was enough to tell him otherwise.

"Why would you do that?" Merlin asked the woman, causing both the other occupants of the room to start, as Arthur had forgotten he was there and Vivienne had not seen him. "Why would you even consider trading your daughter's life for yours?"

Vivienne remained silent for another moment, though she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. When he saw that her gaze was fixed on him, Merlin finally realised why she had not answered, and so answered her unasked question.

"My name's Merlin."

"Merlin…" Vivienne began, evidently relieved that the answer to her question had been given, though the relief dissipated after a moment. "And in answer to what you said, I did not wish to trade my daughter's life for my own and I would never have dreamed of doing so. Although what happened was my fault, I did not plan for it to occur, not by any stretch of the imagination."

"Then how could it have been you, if you did not plan it and did not carry out the action?" Arthur asked his aunt, speaking for the first time in a good few minutes.

"It was all so sudden, I didn't really know what I could do." the woman told him, placing a single hand against her forehead, as if she was truly ashamed of her behaviour, shame being one of the many emotions she was experiencing at present. "I'm sorry, I'm not really helping you by moping and feeling sorry for myself. You wish to know what has happened?"

"Yes." Merlin answered, before his master could even open his mouth. At this, the woman nodded her head slowly, her eyes glazing a little, as if she was in deep thought as to what she would say next.

"Then I shall tell you." she finished, taking a moment for prepare herself for what was to come. It was clear that speaking of the night on which her daughter's life was taken would be a difficult feat for the woman to accomplish, but she was obviously determined to do so. "On that night, that terrible night, I knew in my heart that something was destined to change, and that this change would not be for the better. Gorlois had gone away, to fight for the king, and was scheduled to return that afternoon. Immediately, I thought that that was why I was so worried. I started to wonder if he had been delayed, injured. Even killed. But I was wrong. It was not Gorlois that I ought to have worried for. It was Morgana."

Once again, Vivienne paused, as if to compose herself as she wiped away the tears that were now glistening in her eyes. On the opposite side of the room, Arthur and Merlin stood unmoving, fixated on her tale. Arthur, in truth, also had a tear tracing a shining line over his cheekbone, but did not wipe it away. He may not even have known it was there.

"I had allowed her to go out riding for the day, as I always did, really. We all needed our time alone, and Morgana's was out in the forest, on horseback until the sun went down. That is how it usually was, anyway. But not this time."

Vivienne paused in her explanations as she heard a wince coming from in front of her, and raised her eye line to meet that of Arthur, who the noise had come from. He now knew just as well as she did what would happen next.

"I thought that she was still out in the woods when the attack came. I didn't know that she had already come back, I hadn't seen her. It was probably because I was too busy welcoming my husband back to his home, but I know that is not an excuse. That is why she died, and it was my fault."

"Aunt Vivienne, that wasn't your fault." Arthur told the woman, gritting his teeth a little, as though he were annoyed to say such a thing, but felt honour bound to do so. "It was just a matter of chance."

"But that was not the whole story, Arthur. You didn't see what happened inside the house." the brunette sighed in return, a fresh line of tears dripping from her face onto the flagstones of the floor, darkening them from grey to the black of night. "When I returned to the house, so that I could try to get her out, I ran into her bedroom, where she had been trapped, and I held her while she cried. Then I made a plan. I was to go across the hallway first, so that I could tell if the wood was strong enough to hold. Unfortunately, one of my judgments was wrong. The floor had sunk a little when I tried to cross the upper corridor, and one of the beams had been misplaced. One foot on the floor and the whole ceiling collapsed in, right in front of my eyes."

Once again, Vivienne stopped in her speech, having grown too upset to carry on. Opposite her, both her nephew and his servant were attempting to hold back tears, to which they were failing miserably as the liquid gathered in their eyes, blurring their vision to the point where the sobbing woman before them was merely a silhouette.

"I hoped there and then that she had been killed by the debris, as I knew there was no way for her to get away. But I know that was not so, because I heard her screaming. And I hear her still."

That night, as he lay restless in his bed, even Arthur heard the echoing screams of Morgana. He was losing her, and knew as much, because something else had also changed, something that alarmed the prince more than he would ever say.

He could not remember her eyes.

A/N: Arthur's starting to forget! No! Please review!