Arthur's words penetrated Merlin's daze, and bounced around his skull as if unable to find the way out. He stared at Arthur for a moment, opening his mouth and closing it again, like a fish trying to breathe once it's water had been taken away; he felt closer to sober, but there was a fuzzy feeling that kept getting in the way of his speech. He didn't even know what to say.
"Kidnapped!" Morgana cried, for him, releasing him to run down the stairs. He staggered a few steps, but gripped the railing in time to stop himself from falling down. He took his steps cautiously, trying to work through his haze as he moved closer to Arthur; Morgana's words were loud enough for the entire inn to hear, however, so there was little risk of missing their conversation.
"Gwen's been kidnapped!" she repeated, loudly. "Why has Gwen been kidnapped! What is being done! Why are you here! How did you even find us!"
Arthur put a restraining arm on her shoulder, and Merlin paused in his descent of the stairs; he was grateful Arthur hadn't taken notice of him yet, when Morgana slapped him full across the face. "Don't touch me, Arthur. Don't try and calm me down like I'm some hysterical lady of your courts. Tell me what's happening!"
"You are hysterical, Morgana," he seethed, fingering the spot she'd hit. "Or you wouldn't be…" he took a deep breath, and moved back a step to ward off his next blow. "I found you because you're easy to find; there's only a handful of places that sell the silk you'd need, and this is one of them; which is exactly how father will find us, unless we leave Inow/I."
"And why is it bad for your father to find us?" Morgana demanded. She was calm enough to not mention the king's name, at least; Arthur was grateful for that. He moved down a few more steps, doing his best to be quiet about it.
"Because, my father only cares about Gwen so long as Gwen has information that can put you in danger; if he finds you first, he'll call off all rescue attempts; he won't even make a move against those bandits if he doesn't think he might lose you."
"So we just…" Merlin put a hand against his forehead, rubbing at it with his fingertips. He was aware of the others turning their focus to him, and somewhat regretted drawing it; but he continued to speak regardless, hoping to get the thought out before he lost it. Or his head, as would undoubtedly happen if he went ahead with one of Arthur's plans. "So we just… need to stop the king from finding her, right? Then he'll save Gwen, and it'll all be fine…"
"No." Arthur's smile was different than any Merlin had seen on him before; thin, not just mirthless but actually dangerous. "The knights have orders; if they think they can't save her without an 'unreasonable loss for a servant of her stature,' they're to assassinate her, instead. Before she can give away any information regarding Morgana."
"So we need to rescue her." Morgana glanced between both men, giving a dangerous looking grin of her own at Merlin's slack jawed look. "Your goal is to save her while keeping me out of the king's sight; you want to use the army as a distraction, right? While you sneak in and get her out before the knights can make any decisions about her life. You can't honestly think I'm just going to hide behind some bushes for the entire duration…"
"Well…" Arthur hesitated, seeming to sense that he was on dangerous territory. "Merlin, tell her what we expect from her."
"We… expect you to… do what you want to do regardless of how much I don't want you to do it?" he offered. The world seemed to be tilting at an odd angle. Arthur was staring at him; Morgana was smiling. Both of them looked lopsided, to him.
"Are you drunk, Merlin?" Arthur demanded, taking a step towards him. The prince seemed to tilt away as he walked forward. Or perhaps it was that the ground was simply so slippery to stand on, and the world wasn't tilting but he was… falling.
He hit the ground on his side, his head smacking lightly against the floor; the sharp pain did something to pierce through the fog of his brain, but added a new layer of haze that he had to climb through as he pushed himself back up.
"You're drunk!" Arthur sounded surprised; and a little bit outraged. "You're supposed to be guarding Morgana! How could you let yourself get drunk!"
"Because I told him to, Merlin." Morgana; there were there of her, but they all looked very pretty to him, if a little fuzzy, and confusing in the way they insisted on waving about. They all reached for him, but only one set of fingers closed around his arm and tugged him up. "He's done a good job, and I was planning on working him half to death, tomorrow, so I ordered him to take… perhaps a mug more than I should have," she admitted. It was sweet of her not to admit that he'd only had one.
Arthur didn't seem to find it so sweet, but he contented himself with a quiet grunt, and moved out of the door. "We can't afford to take the main road," Arthur warned. "The knights will be looking for you all over the place; your rescue would cost us too much time to avoid…"
"So we'll take the forest track," Morgana offered, never looking up from her horse as she began to adjust her own saddle. Merlin worked on his own gelding, the haze lifting enough that his fingers were only a little bit clumsier than they should have been.
"Good; we'll start with whatever path you took to avoid me while you were doing whatever it was you were, and move on from there."
"What makes you think we were doing anything out of the ordinary?" she demanded. "The town we were visiting simply didn't have the silk we were interested in. You can ask Merlin when he's feeling… better."
The servant in question gave them both a baleful glare, no less for Morgana lessening her friendliness once Arthur was about. He made no comment, though, merely moving onto his horse and listening as Arthur began to laugh.
"There was no one in the town who'd even seen you, Morgana; your words may work on my father, but they aren't going to work on me; though you might want to change your story to having settled on a different town at the start, unless you want the soldiers coming up with that same complaint."
Arthur's smile wasn't dangerous, but it was terse, and he moved his horse quickly forward without glancing back. "Next time do a better job or don't try and deceive me at all, Morgana; if you wanted to get me some sort of present, you should have just said so."
"A… Present," she whispered, giving his back a shocked lock. "You think I would waste my time on getting you a present, you-"
"We ran out of time," Merlin interrupted, pulling his horse up alongside the Lady's. "Morgana let me get some medical supplies for Gaius while we were out. We were going to pick up the actual present tomorrow. You came too early."
It was Morgana's turn to glare, though she, like Merlin, chose to keep her mouth shut and continue moving forward. It was the best excuse they were going to get against him. "If you Iknew/I we were getting you a gift," she asked eventually, "why did you focus your search on places where we could get silk?"
"Because it was as good a place as any, and you might have wanted something for yourself as well; considering I found you two, there, it would seem I was right."
His smile was insufferable, even through the remnants of Merlin's drunken haze. He gave his sweetest smile back before asking, "Perhaps the lady Morgana thought to get you something in a nice, and light, pink?'
Arthur took his turn scowling, at last, kicking his horse to move a step forward. Though Morgana had broken into a smile herself, Merlin was starting to regret the hasty words; he should have something with more room to argue, at the very least. Morgana's smile was already fading, and Arthur had yet to let go of his scowl. Merlin was feeling it, too.
Worry. Arthur seemed to be feeling it particularly badly; moving his fingers through the rains, clutching and releasing, glancing from side to side. Morgana was better, but still bad. Fidgeting with her reigns, running her tongue across her lips. He didn't think either of them were concerned with what to say, so much as what to do; how to save Gwen, before she could be killed, before Morgana could be captured, or before the army stopped being a distraction and started to take place in an actual battle. People were going to lose their lives if they weren't careful.
"Arthur," he said, eventually. "She'll be okay; trust me."
The prince didn't respond; Morgana didn't respond. At the very least, neither was derogatory to him; and he thought he might have seen a slight easing of the prince's shoulders, a hint of relief. Not much, of course; not enough to be certain that the words had even been heard. But perhaps enough to say that Arthur did trust him.
"Merlin," the other man said, eventually. "We're going through dangerous territories inhabited by man eating baby rats, trying to protect the king's ward from rescue so that we can save a lady's maid from death by order of the king; I'd worry more about saving your own head, if I were you, and leave Gwen's fate to us."
"…Oh." Merlin went quiet, and the party didn't speak. He supposed there wasn't much to say; or at least nothing he could think of. Other than that Arthur was right. He'd be surprised if the king didn't toss the lot of them in some high tower for risking the lives of heir and ward like that. Though he suspected Arthur would manage to get out of it, as he always seemed to – assuming he was successful. Assuming he didn't first have to convince the king that he'd actually been rescuing Morgana, and had no intention of going after Gwen. Assuming that they could still escape in that case – or else somehow navigate a land crawling with soldiers, just to get to the one grouping in the entire area that might be trying to kill them instead of 'save' them.
Perhaps he did have more to worry about than he'd have liked to admit. But saying that to the others wasn't going to help matters. He needed something to distract them all; perhaps a spell of some sort, to make them think of a threat; to make them work together. It would work on Arthur, at least.
That was if he could even get anything working with his bloody hazy head. He moaned, doing his best to keep it low key, and lowered his head in defeat, not making a sound. Eventually, the fuzz began to fade, leaving a surprisingly strong headache. He suspected it was what people called a hangover; he could actually hear every twig they stepped on, cracking, from all four horses. It would have been wonderful if his head wasn't threatening to bloody explode from all the noise.
There were twigs breaking above his head, too; he could hear those not all cracking, but actually falling to the floor. He'd heard them on the way over, as well. Small animals, most likely; he smiled at the trees, but looked immediately down when the light threatened to gouge his eyes out.
There was another series of cracks, and something like a snarl; perhaps it was angry that they were in its territory; that was cute. He resisted the urge to laugh, certain it would hurt.
A larger crack resounded through the forest, making all three of them wince, though neither of the other two as bad as Merlin himself. He glanced hurriedly at the trees, and then down at the floor as a larger branch smacked into the ground; it looked as big around as her forearm, though slightly rotted through. There were gouge marks against the bark, surprisingly big.
"Arthur?" he whispered. "Morgana?"
"Yes, Merlin? Speak up." Arthur's voice was painfully loud, but he didn't close his hands over his ears. He didn't think Arthur would appreciate it.
"I think we have company, Arthur," he said, slightly louder, and titled his head towards the fallen tree branch.
The thump of something large smacking into the ground seemed to agree with him.