*AUTHOR'S NOTE* sorry for the late update (again) I went away with the family over Christmas and didn't bring my trusty laptop with me! But never fear, I have now written the next chapter now and its here for you lovely people to read! Enjoy
The party of knights slowly rode into Camelot, the horses' hooves clopping loudly in the courtyard. Sir Leon swung off his horse and Arthur slid off on the other side. The rest of the knights did likewise and almost immediately a group of servants came and took the horses off to be fed and watered.
"You, to the front. Arthur also, and take your manservant with you." Sir Leon barked orders as they began to move towards the castle.
Arthur turned and they came to a halt. "Sir Leon, you are forgetting who I am. I am the prince, your leader and the once and future king of Camelot. You may have been the leader in my absence, but I have returned and so you shall return to your place in the group. Stop ordering me around like some servant. Learn your place or I will have to teach it to you."
Sir Leon started, and his face contorted into anger. "Arthur Pendragon! You have been gallivanting around with a sorcerer, a threat to Camelot, and you treat him like a friend? Once Uther finds out about this you will never become king and will be removed from the circle of knights, leaving me to lead! Group forward!"
The group began to move again, pushing Arthur, Merlin and Jack forward with it. Before they reached the doors to the main castle, they flew open and Uther came running out.
As soon as he saw Arthur he let out a cry and flung his arms around his son. "Arthur! Oh Arthur I thought…I thought you were lost! I thought you were dead!" He broke the hug and looked at the group assembled in front of him. "Court meeting, now!"
The group in tow, Jack held by the arms by two of the knights and being half dragged-half walked along, followed.
"So this man, Jack I believe his name is, is a sorcerer?" Uther studied Jack, who was still being held by the knights, with hard, interested eyes.
"We believe him to be, yes." Sir Leon spoke up, puffing his chest up with pride. "When I-we found him, he was practicing magic right in front of our eyes. Arthur and his manservant, Merlin were with him!"
"I see. Jack? Is that your name? Is this true?"
Jack, who had been looking at the floor, looked up. "My name is Jack, yes. Captain Jack Harkness to be exact."
"I see, Captain Jack, were you practicing magic?"
Jack paused for a few, tense minutes before speaking again. "No, not magic to be exact. It was…well it's very difficult to explain."
"It was magic your majesty! He-they just appeared out of nowhere!" Sir Leon was almost shouting now.
"Sir Leon! Did I ask you to speak? If you have something to say, you request permission to speak, do you understand?"
Sir Leon blushed and looked at the floor. "Yes. Sorry, your majesty."
Uther grunted and turned back to Jack. "So, Jack, if it wasn't magic, what was it?"
Jack sighed. "It was, sort of, a kind of time travel. That thing, I'm assuming your knights have seen it, was something called the rift. I used it to get here, to return your son and his manservant back to here. They both got caught up in the rift and fell through it, thank god they landed in Cardiff, and heaven only knows where else that thing could have taken them!"
"Hmmm, do go on" Uther was leaning forward and listening intently to Jack's words, but Arthur knew the look he wore on his face; Uther wasn't buying it.
"Um, well, luckily I have a team back in Cardiff, like your knights we protect it. That rift, it's a hole, a rip in the fabric of time itself. Merlin came through, which took us by surprise; living things don't often come through and when they do they die in the process. When Arthur came through we knew we had more than a one off node, there was a crack that had lodged itself here. We worked to fix it, and had to wait for the right energy level to allow us passage back, once we were through I shut the crack with this," Jack shook his arm free and took the small portable manipulator from his pocket. "It opens and closes rift portals from both sides. I only use it to close them, for travelling between I would usually use a vortex manipulator, which is similar to this but doesn't use the rift."
"I see. This rift, how is it conjured?"
"I don't know sir. I only know how to control the cracks or 'nodes, the main rift and its origins are before my time and a mystery to me."
Uther just nodded and sighed. "I am going to make a decision with the help of the royal court. In the meantime you shall be kept in the dungeons. Guards, take him."
The knights on either side of Jack tightened their grip and began to drag him from the court, the rest of the knight party following. Jack didn't struggle, and already knew what was about to happen. He looked at Arthur as he left and smiled weakly before the doors slammed shut behind him.