King Richard III was nervous.

It was not uncommon, those close to him might have admitted, for him to cross the room with uneven anxious paces, to fiddle with the rings on his fingers, to speak for the sake of speaking and often without realising it. But the sort of nervousness that comes of the enemy possessing an unknown magician is quite the worst sort. He did not want to consult either Merlin or Arthur, knowing both of them already to be preoccupied with the matter. He himself was supposed to be a strategist, but he found himself entirely disarmed before this strange business.

It was not that he fully believed the rumours to be true. On the contrary, he ever entertained a hope that they would be mere boasts, last-ditch attempts to weaken his position. He wondered if the other side had heard about Merlin after all, and similarly wanted to claim a Court Magician as their own. That would imply that they were weak and aware of their weakness.

But King Richard III was well aware that his was not the strongest of thrones.

He had received a missive but days past detailing the possibility of Henry Tudor landing in England. He had written to everyone he knew to ask for their support should he need it. Messengers had gone out in all directions. He had even received a handful of replies already. But it wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough.

He had paced for a quarter of an hour before realising that he was not alone in the room. Queen Anne herself alerted her husband to her presence, expressed her concern, and said:

'Merlin is an extraordinary magician. You do not need to worry.'

And, when Richard looked curiously at her:

'You are forgetting that he healed me... Not only did he heal me, dear husband, but since then I have felt better than ever. Happier. Stronger. It is as if he not only healed my illness, but he healed the inside of me as well... healed my mind.'

King Richard III stopped short, turned on his heel and furrowed his brow. 'Is that enough to defeat dark magic, though?'

'I have already answered that question,' replied his queen, not unkindly. 'Dear Richard, do not fear. That would only bring into being the problems that you now imagine.'

'Perhaps,' murmured Richard with a wry smile. And he went over to his wife, and kissed her hand. 'Anne, you should be on my throne instead of me. You are so wise.'

'Oh come; no more than any other woman,' smiled Anne.

'Yet you are more glorious to me than any other woman has ever been and ever will be,' replied Richard, stroking her cheek. 'Thank you, dear wife. Your words mean everything. You cannot imagine.'

And he kissed her again, and, looking rueful, left the room to attend to official business.

'I don't think I can quite imagine,' said Arthur one day, almost hesitantly, 'how it must feel to live a thousand years.'

'Nine hundred,' said Merlin automatically, looking up from the book he was absently browsing.

'Near enough.'

'Nine hundred is quite enough. I don't know if I would have made it to a thousand... without...'

Arthur smiled a little, amused. 'Without what?'

'Without company.'

Arthur walked over to the window, blinking in the sunlight. London was sparkling with the approaching summer: a contrast to the room, for Merlin seemed to prefer to read in the dark. The city was bustling, and even the confines of the Tower were enlivened by activity. Anyone who had never left the capital might have been forgiven for thinking the whole country was filled with winding streets and nattering women and the... interesting smell that rose from the river occasionally, when the sun was particularly strong.

'Why not?'

'I don't know.'

Merlin avoided Arthur's backwards glance, and pretended to be fascinated by something on the next page, which, unfortunately for him, happened to be mostly blank.

'It was hard. After the... the fall of Camelot.'

'Camelot fell?'

'Not really... it declined...'

Merlin drew in a deep breath, pushed the book away from him, and leaned back in his chair. At once he caught Arthur's attention; his friend's face became curious, and he crossed the room, and sat opposite. Merlin had never looked so old, so weary, yet so wise and learned that Arthur scarcely recognised him. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear this story, not from someone who would tell it in all its painstaking detail, but nevertheless he listened.

'It declined... Not because it was weak, but because it was such a long time, and England changed... changed immeasurably. You know that. I know you were surprised to find yourself in such a different place. But to have lived through those changes... I don't remember when any of this happened. It just did. I suppose I was passive.

'Camelot declined... declined over centuries. The walls faded: I remember the first time I saw them from the hill, and noticed that they were getting grey; I know I noticed it then, but I stopped noticing, and then, one day, it all looked shabby. One day the castle wasn't used any more, because there were fears it would collapse. The first to fear never saw it collapse. I saw it, a hundred years later, when the first wall finally fell...

'It went the same way as most tumbledown buildings. They used it to build Yeovil, I think. People kept coming and going with carts full of bricks, until they had carted off the entire lot. Nobody lived in Camelot any more. It was a ghost city... The wooden buildings had long since rotted. I waited in the shadows until it was just a hill, and I wanted to stay there, stay there forever, waiting...

'But I couldn't do it. I had to leave. I couldn't even see it from a distance, knowing that once upon a time there was a white castle there, azure turrets... It was quiet, too quiet. I started to wander the country, never settling. I was up north when King Richard found me. I was a bit of a physician on the side, a sort of travelling medical man that nobody ever met twice. But rumours spread that I was a magician. People always associate my name with... well, me... but I don't think anyone would believe that I was the Merlin.'

'You became famous, then.'

'We all did.' Merlin waved a hand vaguely. 'You've probably gathered that from Richard. But read some of his books. You'll be surprised how much the whole thing has been distorted. History's weird like that. – But Camelot never fell, as such. It just suffered from the forces of time. Like everything, like... everyone. Except me. Sort of.'

Arthur had been meaning to make it into a conversation, but he found for a moment that he couldn't speak. There was a strange note in Merlin's voice, and he wondered if he was about to cry. But the sorcerer merely smiled enigmatically, and said:

'Don't worry. It's been too long. I've never really told that story before, though... nobody would believe me. Nobody believes Camelot ever actually existed.'

'Except Richard.'

'Yes; well. He has proof before his eyes.' Merlin shrugged. 'And he wants to believe it.'

'I feel like I've missed too much.'

'So do I, and I've actually been alive all these years.' Suddenly Merlin smiled. 'I could have done so much, and I spent nine hundred years just wandering around in the rain and turning into a legend...'

'Well, I did absolutely nothing in that time, so you did more than me.'

'Yes, I suppose you did.'

There was a moment of silence, and then Arthur murmured:

'I wish I'd come back sooner, though.' Then, more hesitantly than he intended: 'To keep you out of trouble.'

Their eyes met across the room, and Arthur's attempt at humour fell flat; Merlin swallowed visibly, and blinked; the noise from the city below fell silent.

'I wish you'd come back sooner, too,' Merlin said, and turned his gaze towards the empty hearth.