Notes: This chapter was again beta-ed by the lovely sherlocked95! I must admit I'm thinking of adding a few chapters to my initial plan, but well, we'll see!

Chapter 11

Percival hated drills. It wasn't that he wasn't good at it but, if he was honest, it was a bit boring, especially since Arthur wasn't there. He was very busy with matters of the treaty and the foreign kings had mentioned being wary of concluding the whole affair. They had their own kingdoms to run after all and they'd already been in Camelot for a little over a month. The servants were growing tired of the extra work and the knights tired of training with the soldiers of the foreign kingdoms watching them.

They'd practised group fights with Leon, Gwaine, Elyan, Kay and a few others and now they were knackered. Leon was very keen on his new job as Leader of the Knights in Arthur's absence and he'd prepared a lot of things to do but, no matter what, Percival felt like they lacked a leader when Arthur wasn't there.

Apparently Gwaine thought the same, except he was far less skilled at hiding his emotions.

"It's getting seriously boring without the king; I can't wait for the damn treaty to end."

"I know how you feel."

Percival had never been the chatty type but enjoyed listening to Gwaine's ranting.

They'd been dismissed early in the afternoon. Leon had ran out of ideas for them to practice without giving away too much of their strategies to the foreign soldiers or their servants and had tell them to wait for him in the common room on the first floor after they'd changed. But not drilling didn't mean they had free time. In fact, they'd hardly had time for themselves since the negotiations had begun. If the kings failed, there would be a war. Apparently, Merlin's clumsy behaviour had nearly done it a few weeks ago. Even after the audience where the manservant had been retrograded, it had taken Arthur a few days to convince the king of Mercia that it had been the right thing to do. Percival felt bad for the manservant. They'd never talked much but he knew he unofficially owed his place at the round table to the boy. He'd been the one to message Lancelot and Lancelot had taken Percival with him.

He would have wanted to go and see him, just to make sure he was alright, but Leon had told them to try and not publicly engage conversation with the servant, especially not while the king and prince of Mercia were around. They'd all found this rule completely absurd, especially Gwaine, who had a lot of respect for Merlin. But they'd had so much to do in the end that they'd barely had time to even talk to a servant and assumed the servants took care of each other and that Merlin would surely be alright.

When Percival entered his chambers he felt a rush of cold. Apparently, the servant in charge of lighting up the fires in the knights' quarters hadn't come to his quarters yet. He didn't really mind, as he had more than enough skin and muscles not to feel it too much. Besides, the servants had much more work to do since the arrival of the royals and he couldn't blame them for forgetting a few things. He removed his armour as quickly as he could and washed. He then put a clean under armour garment on before putting his chainmail back on. They couldn't allow themselves to be careless and their chainmail was one of the essential things to keep on at all times.

The servant still hadn't come in for his fire when Percival left his quarters.

He crossed a maid's path on his way to the knights' common room.

"Excuse me, miss. What's your name?"

The girl looked at him, alarmed. It wasn't unusual but sometimes he wished people didn't assume he was the aggressive type because of his looks.

"Sefa, Sir."

"Well, Sefa, I'm afraid the servant in charge of lighting up the fires has forgotten to light up my fire."

Sefa looked like a statue for a few seconds, as if stunned. She then bowed a little, breaking eye contact.

"I'm sorry, Sir, I'll go and do it. I...I must have forgotten."

Percival smiled a little. She bowed again in respect and walked away quick on her small, delicate feet. Percival did the same. He wasn't late but he didn't like to make the other knights wait.

When he entered the common room, Leon, Elyan, Gwaine were sat at a table with two new recruits, Owain and Kay. Gwaine was sat in one of the four chairs circling the wooden table and he looked positively murderous. Leon was up and was having a quiet conversation with Elyan, glancing at Gwaine with a concerned look. There weren't any knights in the room besides them. However, a servant had his head in the fireplace. Good, then; it would mean his chambers would be done before the sun came down.

Maybe he's helping that Sefa girl to complete the work, he told himself.

"Ah, Percival, there you are," said Leon when he saw him.

Percival answered with a nod and went to take a seat next to Gwaine. He then looked at him.

"What?" growled Gwaine.

He was such a toddler sometimes.

"You look positively murderous, mate."

"Yeah, and?"

"And it's killing us," Elyan snapped.

Gwaine didn't say anything.

"Well, if you've got nothing to say, I suggest you put another face on." Leon suggested.

"I'm sorry. My rooms were bloody cold when I changed. It didn't do anything to help my mood."

"So were mine," Percival said. "I'm not acting angry about it. These things happen sometimes."

"Mine were done," commented Elyan.

Gwaine groaned in annoyance. He visibly didn't want a conversation about his behaviour. The knights stayed silent and, for a moment, the only sound was of some servants walking past the room in the corridors and of the servant, who surprisingly still had his head in the fireplace. Percival looked at him. He didn't think he knew him but it was difficult to say; it was definitely a boy but his garments were so dirty it made it difficult for him to know if the jacket he wore was grey or brown. He didn't think anything of it; the manservant was cleaning the fireplaces, after all. Getting dirty with ashes and dust was part of that job.

Percival noticed Gwaine was also staring at the manservant's back with his jaw clenched, visibly restraining himself from something. Maybe he's thinking the same thing as him but Percival doesn't know. He senses Leon shift and look in the young servant's direction before trying to regain a certain control on the situation.

"Well, since we can't train with that many foreign soldiers around, I spoke to Arthur and he thinks we should do advance patrol planning. This way we'll have less paperwork to do the next few times we go on pat..."

Leon was about to finish his sentence when a loud, banging noise coming from the fireplace surprised them all.

"Sorry," said the manservant in a hoarse, muffled voice. The servant coughed. The voice was so extinct by the ashes that must have filled the boy's throat that Percival wondered if it was even safe for a servant to work in such conditions.

But he didn't get the chance to ask because Gwaine was already talking.

"Are you nearly finished with that? You've been cleaning it for ages! I've never seen someone so bloody slow."

The servant stilled. He was still kneeled in front of the fireplace but his back was straight now. He put the brush he was holding into the wooden bucket next to him. Percival noticed the servant's shaky hand. He put a hand on Gwaine's shoulder as if to calm him but Gwaine didn't pick up and shook it off roughly.

"Why don't you just get out? Go get Merlin. Merlin's good at this stuff. And we haven't seen him in a long time, whatever he's been doing these days. Go get Merlin. Please."

The request seemed somewhat less harsh but Percival still sensed the annoyance and anger in his friend's voice.

There's another silence, in which the servant finally got up, taking the cloth he was kneeling on in his hands and squeezing it into a ball with his dirty but fragile-looking hands. He cleared his throat.

"I'll go and get him, Sir."

It was like air had been drained from the room. If it'd been slightly cold before, now everything was frozen, as if iced up by shock and dreadfulness as the young manservant turned slowly, his head bowed, to reveal Merlin himself standing weakly before them. He was awfully dirty and almost unrecognisable. Percival always thought he looked a bit like a twig but now was beyond skinny and his now oversized, dirty coat made him look even thinner. The knight could see the servant's bruised knees through a hole in the boy's worn-out black trousers. He'd always looked at Merlin differently because Merlin was a proud, stubborn man and had always walked with his head high even in the presence of nobles. But now the boy's back was slightly bent as if to express forced and absolute submission. His eyes were directed at nothing else but the ground and his head was down, as if permanently bowed. Because he was stood, Percival could see his features. He tried to remember what Merlin looked like when he was happy but there was nothing left of that man on this boy's face. There was no grin on the boy's lips, no spark in his eyes. There was nothing but the sad, tired face of a man who'd seen too much and not lived enough. Like the others, Percival could only stare. Deep inside his body, the knight felt shame flourishing, paralysing his brain, his muscles and his bones all at the same time.

The man standing before them wasn't simply in bad shape. He was utterly and completely broken, from head to toe, from flesh to soul.

From the corner of his eye, Percival saw Gwaine's open mouth and white, shocked face. Shame had already made its way up to his friend's heart. He though he heard Elyan curse, and he definitely heard Leon whisper a great deal of variations of "oh my god" and "what the hell".

Silence stretched between the knights and the servant.

"Merlin, oh...my god, Merlin, I'm sorry." Gwaine spoke in a pleading voice as he got up, walking straight to the servant.

The knight was shaking, trembling and stretching his arms with his hands open as if to touch his friend but Merlin clumsily backed away in fear.

"Don't touch me," he said in a sharp breath, not daring to look at Gwaine.

"Merlin, it's – it's me, it's Gwaine, I'm sorry..."

"Please."

Gwaine looked somewhat hurt at Merlin's fragile plea but he gave in to the servant's request. The boy quickly grabbed his tools and his bucket.

"Excuse me, but...I have work to do. I'll do your chambers."

He quickly bowed and waited a few seconds, as if to make sure nobody was going to stop him. He then walked out of the room without much of a glance in any of the knights' direction, keeping his head bowed and his back crouched like he wore the weight of eternity on his shoulders.

In the aftermath, the silence was so dense it could have crushed them all. Gwaine was still standing where he'd been after backing away from Merlin and he was breathing heavily. Leon looked completely stunned, his mouth forming an "o" and his brows shaped into a deep, worried frown.

In the end, Elyan was the first to move, getting up and walking up to Gwaine, but the other knight refused the attempted comfort.

"I...I didn't recognise him," Gwaine blurted out on a shaky breath. He wasn't angry anymore. He was shaken and Percival knew too well where it would end.

"Me neither. And I saw him less than two weeks ago," added Leon "He's a completely different person. He didn't look like that the last time I saw him."

Gwaine turned on his heels but stayed in place.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

The knight's voice was harsh, demanding and very dubious.

"Yeah – well, he did look a bit worn out, but aren't we all? It was before the earthquake."

"Before the earthquake?How is that even possible? We cross the path of every servant in the castle almost every day!"

"Except the night servants, we don't see them much." Percival corrected.

"Yeah, but the night servants are just new servants rotating shifts. He couldn't have been working at night for that long." Gwaine contested.

"He did look rather pale and, besides, he is considered as a servant in training at the moment."

"Does that mean none of us crossed his path during the last two weeks?" Elyan questioned.

They all shook their head silently.

"No. I don't think so. But two weeks, Gwaine, it's nearly impossible he – he must be at least 10 pounds skinnier than he was before, he..." Leon tried.

"I need a drink."

Gwaine stormed out of the room, his cloak flying behind him. It took a split second for Percival to get up and follow his friend out of the room.

"Percival, where are you going?" he heard Leon ask as he passed the doorframe.

"To see the king!"

Notes: Comments are always very much appreciated because they often give me ideas! I hope people who were sad to see the knights hadn't seen Merlin are a bit more satisfied now. I really dearly hope you like where it's going. I'll try and publish the next chapter during the week-end but I'm really busy so it may be at the beginning of next week.