~Chapter ten: Much Ado, Ending In Blackmail~
FREYA'S STOMACH HURT. It was another miserable night. She found, if not comfort, then at least a faint hint of indifference, a sort of numbness, in this place between waking and sleeping, curled up on her side of the bed, mentally tuning out (as she'd had to learn to, at least to some extent, or else go mad) Arthur's snoring. The guilt and fear dulled slightly in this half-and-half state that was neither slumber nor wakefulness; just enough so that it wasn't hurting every bone in her body, every fiber of her being.
Her stomach still ached, though, and her head still throbbed. Her nerves had gotten the best of her from the start.
Where was Merlin?
Gaius had asked Gwen if she'd seen him, Morgana coming into the room shortly thereafter and noticing the grave look on both of their faces. But all she had said, in a far too light tone of 'surprise', was "That's not like him."
Freya no longer trusted her. She couldn't explain it, even if she had dared try, yet there was this sure-as-anything feeling in her gut that Morgana had had something to do with Merlin's sudden and unannounced disappearance. Worse still, she had the feeling, the one that would not go away, that if only she had done something-said something-she could have protected him.
It would have been such a relief to weep over this, even just once, but she could not permit herself. Firstly, because it would mean giving in; it would mean that she believed he was never coming back, that whatever Morgana had done was permanent and her Merlin was lost to Camelot, and his destiny, forever. She wouldn't let herself believe that; he was not dead. Secondly, Arthur, though there was very little about her he actually took note of on a day-to-day basis, she was fairly certain, stumbling upon her crying openly would at least give him pause, if nothing further. And she had no energy left to shed those desired tears, let alone explain them away.
So she had withdrawn inside herself, hoping against hope that Merlin was all right and would, somehow, find his way back to Camelot from wherever he happened to be.
It was quickly getting to the point where she distinguished surprisingly little difference between her nights, shivering even under all of the warm blankets in Arthur's bed, and her early mornings, when sunlight peeked through the gap in the curtains and she remembered all over again that Merlin wasn't there to pull them all the way open and say, "Rise and shine," the way he always did. Both were, in their own sick ways, equally long and painful.
But, then, on the morning when Freya thought she might not even bother getting out of bed, perhaps feigning a chill caught from a draft the day before if any questions were asked, the curtains were pulled open and sunlight stretched the full distance, to each and every corner of Arthur's chambers.
Freya didn't open her eyes or move; just felt a trace of the spreading sunlight from the window warm the back of her eyelids.
Arthur grunted and began to prop himself up on his elbow.
And a familiar voice, gasping in shocked incredulity, exclaimed, "What happened?"
The disbelief was in regards, evidently, to the beyond messy state of the room. Arthur had not been particularly tidy without a servant to pick up after him, leaving things (wooden bowls, shoes, hunting equipment, sword-belts, trousers, robes, pieces of armour, etc...) strewn all over the floor. The wardrobe was also open, articles of clothing hanging out of the ajar doors. It looked as if Arthur's chambers had been hit by some kind of freak wind storm. Freya had not contributed to the mess, keeping anything her fingers happened to touch in their proper places, but she had been too worried to bother trying to put anything her husband mislaid back where it belonged; she just stepped over things when the need arose, or kept to a corner by the window, where she was out of the way of the mess and it was out of her way as well.
"What happened?" Arthur snapped, sinking back into the mattress. "I've had to make do without a servant, that's what's happened!"
"Merlin?" murmured Freya, her eyes shooting open as her exhausted mind registered the voice at last.
"I wasn't gone for that long," protested Merlin.
"Without my permission?" said Arthur crossly.
Freya was leaping out of the bed now and running over to him. She was so relieved she couldn't stop herself. "Merlin!" She threw her arms around him, pulling him into a hug, not bothering to consider the fact that Arthur was watching. It was an innocent, friendly embrace, of course, but it was still just a little bit too familiar to be shared between a princess and a servant and be thought of as strictly 'proper'.
"Oh, for God's sake, Freya!" snorted Arthur. "He's not such a treasure that you have to react like that to his return. He's quite possibly the worst servant I've ever had, actually. We might have done better to be rid of him. Taking off like that was entirely inexcusable."
"I was worried about him, is all," she said quietly, pulling away from him. She noticed that Merlin had fought back a grimace during that hug; he was clearly healing, but he had been hurt, wherever he'd been.
"What is it with girls?" mulled Arthur, irritably. "A pet or a servant goes missing and they lose their heads. Men, on the other hand, we're different. More sensible. I would never embrace a servant."
"No, of course you wouldn't," muttered Merlin, rather too loudly, "What servant would let you?"
"Merlin, you're testing my patience," growled Arthur. "You should have been here."
"What if I was dying?" cried Merlin, sounding, Freya thought, too agitated (too outraged) for that not to have actually been the case.
"I wouldn't be complaining!" he snapped. "But you're not, so where have you been?"
Merlin glanced at Freya, standing beside him, still in her nightgown, the corners of her sore, red-rimmed eyes still crusted with rheum and her black hair uncombed, then back at Arthur. "I was dying."
Arthur glared. "I don't have time for this." He sat up and yanked the covers off of himself, dangling his bare feet over the side of the bed. "The future of the kingdom, rests upon my shoulders." He pointed at Merlin. "Do you have any idea what that feels like?"
Merlin looked at Freya again; she almost smiled. If she had been less anxious, less overcome with his return, she might have done. "Well..."
"Merlin." Arthur's finger was up again, warningly, and his tone was very no-nonsense. "I should have you thrown in the dungeons, so what have you got to say for yourself?"
Merlin considered. "You've not had your breakfast this morning, have you?"
"I'll have you for breakfast!" Arthur shouted, grabbing the first hard object his hand touched, prepared to hurl it at Merlin's head. Then he noticed Freya was kind of in the way. "Um, Freya, would you mind terribly moving a few inches to the side there? Oh, and ducking? You know, so I can throw this at my manservant's head and then proceed to stuff my boot up his sorry arse when it retreats?"
"Merlin?" whispered Freya, leaning.
"Yes?"
"Can I offer a word of advice here?"
"Oh, please do." He nodded quickly.
"Run."
"Good idea." He turned around and ran as quick as he could for the doors.
Arthur threw the object at him, narrowly missing.
"Oh, no wonder this place is such a mess!" called Merlin's voice, sarcastically, over his shoulder, as he vanished into the corridor. "Oh, yes, I can see you've got all the makings of a great king..."
Arthur hurled something else that probably would have left a bruise had it actually made contact with Merlin's head, neck, shoulders, or upper back, but he was already long gone, so it just hit the wood of the left door.
LATER, MERLIN WALKED down a different corridor, when a hand reached out of an alcove and snatched his wrist, pulling him in, roughly, angrily, without even the smallest measurement of attempted gentleness.
Morgana's sneering face glared up at him. "I don't know how," she snarled, "you managed to escape." She resisted against his effort to shake free from her grasp. "But I do know one thing: if you breathe a word of what you saw, I will make your life a very short and painful one." He pulled harder and she finally let go of his wrist.
He swallowed. "You don't scare me, Morgana."
"I don't have to," she told him, smirking evilly, tilting her head to one side, knowing full-well she'd already won. "Just think how Uther would react if he learned that a serving boy had tried to poison his beloved ward."
Merlin's chest heaved with heavy, anxious breaths. Blackmail. Pure and simple, easy as if he'd handed it to her on a silver platter from the ancient gods and goddess of Britain themselves. She had him and she knew it.
"Or, for that matter," she said, arching an eyebrow, "that he conspired with a Druid girl to do so?"
His eyes widened.
"Oh, you didn't know, Merlin?" she snickered mockingly. "Well, let me fill you in. It seems I'm not the only one hiding magic, which you so kindly kept a secret up until that moment you tried to kill me, under Uther's nose in this castle. Princess Freya has been lying to him from the start." She let out a light snort and shook her head. "She's no Lady of Shalott."
"Morgana..."
"Oh, but that's all right," she went on, her smirk tightening, "because you're not going to say anything, about me or her, having magic; not just yet. And I'm not going to tell, not until I have a little more time to figure out exactly whose side she's on and what I intend to do about it."
"Freya," panted Merlin, "is just a girl. She hasn't done anything to you... The poison was my idea, I-"
Morgana rolled her eyes. "Do you really think I'm stupid enough to believe that, Merlin?"
"She's Arthur's wife," he tried, grasping for some footing in all this. "To bring an accusation against me is nothing; not to you, and not to Uther. To bring one against Freya, that... That is an entirely different matter. You wouldn't risk..."
"Don't forget, Merlin," Morgana told him, "that just because I've decided to let no harm come to her in case she proves useful to me, doesn't mean I actually need her. If you breathe one word, just one word, then you and your little Druid friend will regret it."
"I don't understand how anyone would want to hurt their friends," mumbled Merlin.
"No," said Morgana coldly. "You just poison them."
"Freya is your friend, too." Or at least she was, before you became like this...
"Perhaps." She shrugged indifferently. "But that's beside the point. The important thing is that she's your friend. And nothing is more important to you than your friends, if I understand you right. Even the ones with dark little secrets. You'll do whatever it takes to protect her, even if you won't protect your own sorry neck." She started to step out of the alcove. "I would expect nothing less."
Helpless, unable to say anything further, Merlin leaned back against the stone wall and watched Morgana slowly and proudly, head held high, walk away, vanishing down at the other end of the corridor.
"I WASN'T EXPECTING you yet," Merlin said, when Freya came in around suppertime; he and Gaius were sitting at the table, eating leftover stew.
She smiled. "I needed to speak with you."
"Does Arthur know you're here?" Gaius asked.
She shook her head.
"Where does he think you are?" Merlin wanted to know.
"Napping on the divan to recover from a headache." Freya shrugged. "It's only a pillow under the blanket, but he doesn't need to know that."
"And Uther?" Gaius frowned. "Didn't he request your presence to take a meal with himself, Morgana, and your husband? What did you tell him?"
"That I got too much sun picking flowers in one of the hothouses."
Merlin smiled.
"Merlin!" chided Gaius, looking concerned. "Don't grin at that. She's being blatantly deceptive."
"You mean more than usual?" Merlin asked pointedly. Freya had to be deceptive. She was like him; Uther couldn't know who-and what-she really was or she'd be as good as dead.
"She has to keep the fact that she's a Druid secret," said Gaius. "But she has no reason to sneak off and see you in the middle of the day by means of lying about it."
"I had to," insisted Freya, sort of quietly. "I've been so afraid." She looked imploringly at Gaius, as if willing him to somehow understand. "When he went missing... I was starting to think..." Her voice caught in her throat, and she found herself choking on the words.
Merlin stood up and put his arms around her. "I'm fine, Freya." He kissed her forehead and lifted up her chin with his index finger. "As a matter of fact, I'm pleased to tell you, I've never felt more alive."
Freya grinned teasingly. "That's good."
"Yeah?"
"Because I still think Arthur wants to kill you."
"Lovely," he chuckled. "Just great. I look forward to that."
"He'll cool down," Freya told him. "He would never admit it, but just between you and me, I think he was worried about you, too."
"Thanks for your advice earlier, by the way," said Merlin. "It was a real life-saver. Possibly literally."
"Morgana had something to do with you being gone, didn't she?" Freya asked flat-out, her voice back to being serious.
"She and Morgause kind of tried to kill me," Merlin admitted, a tad sheepishly. "I followed Morgana, when she was going out to meet her, and they didn't like that I was listening in. Morgana especially didn't like that I knew she was still talking to her sister and could tell Arthur all those things she said about being a prisoner for the past year were lies. She knew I was there from the start, and she let Morgause chain me up..." He continued his story, telling her about how the chains had been magical, growing tighter and tighter, and none of his incantations could break them; and then the Serkets began to swarm. One of them stung him on the back. If Kilgharrah hadn't answered his call, he would never have survived.
Freya stroked one of his cheeks with the back of her fingers. "Were you frightened?"
"Maybe a little," he confessed softly, leaning closer to her.
Gaius, seeing that they were being too familiar with each other again, rolled his eyes and told Freya to sit down. "You've not eaten yet, have you?"
She shook her head. Having declined supper so she could sneak in here and hear Merlin's story, she had of course not had a single bite.
Gaius poured her some stew and made room for her at the table.
"This is good," Freya told Gaius, spooning some of the stew into her mouth and nodding appreciatively. "Thank you." She turned to Merlin, who had also sat back down. "You...we... One of us, at least, has to say something to Arthur about Morgana."
"We can't," said Merlin sadly. "She's got us in a bind and she knows it."
"What do you mean?"
"She knows you're a Druid and possibly suspects I already knew that."
Gaius looked nervous. "Merlin, you told me Morgana didn't know you had magic!"
"She doesn't," Merlin assured him. "But, like I said then, she knows I tried to poison her, and that Freya knew what was happening."
"Uther hangs on her every word now more than ever," moaned Gaius. "If we tell him she's conspiring with Morgause he'll never believe us. Even Arthur would be doubtful."
"Morgana would say it was a false accusation," Freya knew; "to save my own skin. Because I'm a Druid and I lied about it."
"Does she know about your curse?" Gaius asked next.
"I don't think so," Freya said. She certainly hoped not.
"Let's try and keep it that way." Gaius let out a low groan.
After the stew was finished, Gaius told Freya to leave and come back when she was supposed to: quarter to midnight. "People would expect you here then. Right now it only raises suspicions."
"Morgana comes in here all the time," protested Freya.
"To inquire about a sleeping draught," Gaius pointed out, a little sharply. "As everyone around here would expect her to do. I've treated her since she was a child. You're a newer patient, Freya; her excuses don't always work for you."
"All right." She rose up and smiled shakily. "I'll go." She glanced at Merlin. "See you later."
"Freya..." Gaius stared very hard at her, never taking his eyes off her face as he got up and held open the door for her.
"Yes?"
He leaned out into the corridor and looked both ways, just to be sure no one was listening. "I hope you realize that Merlin has no intentions of betraying Arthur."
Freya blinked at him, puzzled. "Of course."
"In any way," he added.
Merlin sighed. "Gaius, please..."
Freya finally understood. "I know."
"I think he would appreciate it if you didn't tempt him."
"Gaius!" protested Merlin, from where he was still sitting.
"You sneak around the castle enough when you need to," Gaius pressed. "If you come here again after lying to Arthur or Uther about your whereabouts, I may have to deny you admittance. This cannot go on."
She nodded, bit her lower lip, and wordlessly walked down the corridor.
Merlin glared at Gaius as he shut the door behind her. "Why did you have to talk to her like that?"
"Like what?"
"She's our friend, Gaius!" he exclaimed, standing up. "She was worried about me. That's all. Nothing has happened. And you're right, Gaius, I don't intend for it to, but you don't have to talk to her like she's the enemy."
"I wasn't speaking to her like she was the enemy, Merlin," Gaius said. "But I was trying to protect you. She gets overly familiar with you, shows you how easy it is for her to sneak around behind Arthur's back, and you honestly expect me to believe nothing is going to come out of all this?"
"Yes!" cried Merlin. "I expect you to believe it, because it's the truth!"
"I believe you think you mean that," Gaius told him, "but I also believe that you don't know how to just be her friend."
"Oh, that is not true!"
Gaius slumped down onto a stool. "Just eat your stew, Merlin."
"I'm done," he said, lowering his brow. They'd all been finished when Gaius had dismissed Freya and this argument had started.
"Then clear away the dishes," he grunted curtly.
"Gaius..." Merlin took a step closer to him. "I'm sorry. I know you were only trying to help, it's just... Freya means a lot to me, she's one of the best people I've ever known, and I think you hurt her feelings." And he hated seeing her hurt.
"Freya's a good girl," Gaius said, "but what you need to understand, is that you are my top priority, Merlin, not her. She has as much protection at the moment as she's likely to get: she has you to keep her sane when she's a Bastet and a politically strong marriage with Arthur to ward off anyone without magic thinking she's a Druid. It's you who's most likely to get hurt in all this. I don't want to see that happen."
"It won't, Gaius," Merlin said, putting a hand on the physician's shoulder. "Please trust me."
"I do," Gaius replied. "Please don't betray that trust."
THAT NIGHT, AFTER Freya turned back into a human, Gaius was asleep in Merlin's room. He had tried to keep awake, but was tired from a long day of seeing patients and worrying about Merlin and Freya, and what Morgana's plans might be, and couldn't force his old eyes to stay open.
Merlin opened the door a crack and peeked in, hearing snoring. "He's sleeping."
Freya swallowed back a giggle. "Where are you going to sleep?"
"Out here, I guess." He shrugged. "I'm not that tired, though."
"I should go back," said Freya, though she made no effort to actually do so.
Merlin looked out the window. "Nice night tonight."
"Beautiful moon," commented Freya.
He looked back at the dozing Gaius. "Do you want to go somewhere?"
"Where would we go?"
"I'm a Dragonlord," Merlin reminded her. "We can go anywhere you like."
"Kilgharrah won't like that," Freya laughed.
"He'll be fine," Merlin said, fighting back an unconcerned snort. "One ride won't kill him. We could go over a meadow. Or a lake."
"One completely frivolous ride."
Merlin considered this. "Would it make you smile?"
"I suppose so," said Freya.
"Then it's not frivolous." His fingers closed around her wrist. "Come on."
"All right."
They crept out, carefully peering and squinting down every corridor before they entered it, not feeling safe until they had made it out into a concealed clearing where they were in sight of the castle but it was not necessarily in sight of them.
Freya watched, a little awestruck, as Merlin summoned the Great Dragon.
"Hello, young warlock," he said, landing directly in front of them. "Hello again, cursed Druid. Or, I suppose I should say, your Highness."
"Hello." Merlin grinned at him.
"What do you need?"
Merlin told him.
The dragon's face contorted into an expression of deep annoyance. "I am not a horse, Merlin!"
Nonetheless, not even ten minutes later, they were soaring over the lake of Avalon as the yellow-white reflection of the moon shone over it, setting it alight with glittering sparkles.
Freya held onto Merlin's waist while he rode at the front and occasionally bellowed directions to the disgruntled and highly offended but evidently acceptant Great Dragon. With anybody else, she would have been afraid of falling off, but not with Merlin; she knew he wouldn't let her fall. She was sure, if all else failed, he'd use magic to break her fall should her tightening grasp on him suddenly slip for some reason. She trusted him as she trusted nobody else.
All too soon, it was time to be getting back. Merlin thanked Kilgharrah, who grumbled something about 'impertinent warlocks and abuse of Dragonlord power,' yet did not, for all that, seem particularly angry, and they headed for the castle on foot.
Freya crept, quiet as a mouse, into her side of the bed in Arthur's chambers. He grunted something in his sleep that was either 'potatoes' or else 'tomatoes' and never actually stirred or so much as cracked an eyelid. Arthur hadn't the foggiest clue she'd been gone any longer than she was supposed to.
Merlin was not so lucky.
He walked in to Gaius standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded across his chest. "Merlin, where have you been?"
"Uh..." He smiled guiltily. "Out."
"With Freya?"
"Yes."
"Merlin, I trusted you..."
"I know. And we didn't do anything wrong. We just weren't tired, that's all. I took her to see a lake."
"Do anything like that again and I'm getting a padlock on the door," said Gaius, putting his hand to his forehead in frustration. "Go to bed."
Merlin obeyed, but he still couldn't sleep. He was up most of the night, staring at the ceiling, thinking, deep inside his mind where Gaius couldn't say anything against it, about Freya.
He imagined another life, one where it was him Freya had married instead of Arthur, in the Druid fashion, perhaps barefoot, and by the shores of a lake.