~Chapter twelve: The Betrayal Begins~
ARTHUR BLINKED AT his father, dumbfounded. "That's all?"
"I beg your pardon?" Uther looked a bit puzzled himself, as if he couldn't understand his son's reaction.
"You did hear what I said...?" Arthur felt the need to check, just to be completely certain.
"Of course," said Uther. "And I've responded to it suitably. The rest, I'm afraid, will be in the capable hands of Gaius. There's nothing else I can do."
"Father," said Arthur, slowly, "they beat my servant within an inch of his life. They could have killed him."
"I'm sorry this distresses you, Arthur." Uther sighed and shifted a little in his throne. "And I'm sorry if it will disturb your routine, but you needn't concern yourself any further."
"But, with all due respect," he protested, "you haven't administered justice."
"What are you saying?"
"Shouldn't these two, Nollar and Tindr," he asked, "be punished?"
"I've told you they're banned from competing in the tournament." Uther shrugged. "I admit that maiming a fellow competitor's manservant, especially that of someone such as yourself, Arthur, is bad manners."
"Bad manners?" Arthur repeated, lowering his brow. "It's worse than bad manners, it's barely a step up from attempted murder."
"I understand your concern, and that this is very upsetting for you," said Uther, "but it isn't as if they threatened your life."
"I see." Arthur looked momentarily cross. "So Merlin's life is worthless?"
"No, as I think we've discussed before," Uther corrected, a bit impatiently, "it's simply worth less than yours."
"Maybe so," he agreed, begrudgingly, "to Camelot, perhaps, but is that any reason Nollar and Tindr shouldn't be imprisoned? Or at least banished? You haven't even sent them out of Camelot."
"I've warned them not to show up on castle grounds during the tournament, even as spectators," Uther said firmly. "That is enough."
"Father..." Arthur's voice grew tense. "Forgive me, but I can't understand why you're being so lenient."
"He's just a servant," Uther said blandly, growing weary, (and very quickly), of the conversation. "If you need someone to attend to your chambers and personal needs while he is recovering, such can be easily arranged. There's nothing for you to worry about."
Arthur shook his head and walked out of the throne room. He understood that Merlin, Tindr, and Nollar were all commoners and, as such, at the bottom of Uther Pendragon's list of priorities, but he still couldn't get over the cold, uncaring way his father brushed off the matter.
Normally, Merlin drove him (Arthur) mad, and when the bumbling idiot got himself into scrapes, he didn't particularly care, seeing as they were his own fault, for being stupid; but this time Merlin had done absolutely nothing wrong, just going about his duties when some thugs decided to beat him senseless. Surely there should be something done about that... It was more than bad manners, more than simply distasteful: it was a crime. And Camelot was meant to protect its people from crime. What if it had been a female servant and something worse than a mere beating had occurred? Or what if, even, in a less random scenario, they simply hadn't let Merlin go when Arthur rang the bell for him? Would he have found his manservant dead in the armoury several hours later?
Because he could not get leave from the still-continuing tournament to do so himself, Arthur asked Freya if she would mind terribly, instead of sitting up in the stands, if she was not so keen on seeing the sport after all, going to see Gaius and checking on Merlin.
"You might sit with him for a bit," Arthur encouraged her, feeling guilty that he had not had the chance to go in and see how well his servant was recovering, too busy with training and other duties. "I respect my father's judgement, but I feel badly that those thugs got away with what they did to him. All I can do for him right now is send someone to make sure he doesn't feel that he's completely alone."
Freya was so relieved at Arthur's kindly request that she felt the urge almost to kiss him on the cheek and clasp his hands, thanking him fervently. She did neither, being of an inward, withdrawn nature, but she did smile willingly. She had considered making up a story, to excuse herself from watching what was left of the tournament, but knew Gaius would likely not grant her admittance into his quarters to see Merlin if she did so.
Ever since she'd heard of what happened to him, she had been beside herself with grief and fear.
Gaius had had to tie her up when she was a Bastet and kept Merlin, in his weakened state, away from her. Even though she was calm around him, she was still, when her curse was in effect, a wild animal. As a physician, he felt it unsafe to risk putting an injured man near such a creature. She had been distressed and growled and roared so that Gaius thought he would lose his nerve entirely, but she had not actually broken her bonds, and he released her and sent her on her way when it was over.
But now, as a human, with a real excuse, given to her by her husband, Prince Arthur himself, she could attend to him; she could finally get in to see him.
Merlin, too weak to get out of bed or even lift his head up, felt the corners of his mouth, even though it pulled painfully on the cut on his lip, turn upwards when Freya walked in. He was a bit out of it, thanks to the strong herbs (some of which caused mild delusions) Gaius had had to give him, yet he recognized her at once.
"Merlin!" Freya ran over to the bedside and put her hand in his.
Gaius stood in the doorway, watching them.
"I love you," slurred Merlin, staring up at her with one swollen eye and the other half-closed from exhaustion.
Freya looked anxiously over her shoulder at Gaius, as if dreading his reaction.
"Don't worry, Freya," said Gaius, rolling his eyes, "he doesn't know what he's saying. It's the herbs talking. He loves everybody today." He shook his head. "He's gleefully wished me a happy birthday at least twice already."
"Is it your birthday?" Freya asked, forehead crinkled.
"No," said Gaius. "Not even close to it."
"I see." Freya nodded and turned back to Merlin.
He squeezed her hand, which he was still holding in his own. "I think I've been in love with you since that first day," he mumbled, "since I saw you in that cage."
Gaius grimaced at that. "Though the herbs certainly don't seem to be affecting his long-term memory much overall, do they?" For, regardless of whether he was in his right mind or not, Merlin had, right then, sounded disturbingly sincere and sure of himself.
Freya blushed, but she said nothing further, or in reply.
BACK IN BED well after midnight, Freya slept uneasily.
Perhaps it was her worry over Merlin that made her subconscious fears surface in the form of nightmares, or having been agitated as a bound Bastet earlier might have drained her of the extra mental energy needed to keep bad memories at bay, or else, this time, Merlin's mention of her being in Halig's cage might have stuck in her head for some reason.
Whatever the reason for the unforeseen torment, she found that frightening faces loomed behind her closed eyelids.
There was the man who'd attacked her, whose mother cursed her; his scream of sickly surprise when she accidentally killed him and his life went out of him; his flushed face gone pale so quickly... His mother, her eyes cold and unforgiving; she cared nothing for Freya's protests that it was done unintentionally, that she'd been attacked and was defending herself, nor was she challenged even remotely when the girl ran off in fear, for the curse followed her wherever she would go. She wanted to kill, to make widows of proud mothers? Fine, then, if that was what she desired, she would kill forever more, till her own dying day.
The last face in the dark in her dreams was Halig's. She relived his throwing her into the cage and clapping her wrists in irons. He sneered crudely and made fun of her through the bars; the bounty hunter was proud to have caught such great prey, notwithstanding the fact that he had caught her, not in her monster form, but in that of a helpless, trembling young girl.
His voice, his hands, his heartless eyes, it all seemed so real; it was as if she'd gone back through time.
She whimpered, then screamed. Then, still screaming, her eyes shot open and she was back in Arthur's bed, flat on her back, looking up at the canopy.
It was only a dream, nothing more. She lived in Camelot now, part of Uther's family rather than his sworn enemy, so long as he never learned the truth about her past.
Her screaming had woken Arthur, apparently, for he'd grunted, rolled over so that he was turned facing her, and propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her. "It's all right, Freya, it was just a bad dream, you're fine."
She realized she was panting for breath. "I'm sorry..."
"You're shaking," Arthur noted.
"I didn't mean to wake you." She wasn't used to her husband looking after her. Most of the time she made herself scarce, keeping out of his way, and he made precious little effort to grow closer to her, so it was as if they didn't even live in the same chambers, despite the fact that they saw each other every day and were pleasant and cordial in their exchanges.
Nonetheless, there was kindness, even genuine concern, in his face. "What did you dream about?"
She shook her head, unable to tell him that.
Arthur lifted a hand up, as if he meant to touch her in some comforting fashion but felt so awkward that he wasn't sure how to go about it. Finally, his fingers moved a lock of dampened hair away from her face.
Freya found herself, just for a moment, wondering if it would be impossible to grow to love this man. He was not the husband of her choice, but he was good to her, and she could see in him the same king Merlin saw: the once and future king who would unite Albion. She could still not see herself properly as his queen, but she wondered if it was so impossible to care for him. She had come, in her quiet way, to like him, certainly, to care about him, to fancy his company more than Uther's, who, regardless of his kindness to her, still unnerved her greatly... But love him? As in romantically? When, even though he'd never said so, she knew he still loved Gwen, never able to grudge him that for she had feelings for another as well that, too, must remain forever unspoken? No, she could not expect, nor ever so much as hope for that. And, in a way, it was for the best; Freya did not want (or, for that matter, need) another unfinished love story in her life.
"Here." Arthur put another blanket around Freya's chilled shoulders and, unexpectedly, put his arm around her, holding her close to him.
It was a gift, she knew, this kindness, offered freely and innocently. The touch was hardly a lover's, but that of a friend, or brother's. His arms were warm, and she was cold. He had never held her like this before, and did so now only as a man would embrace an anxious child during a thunderstorm, protectively but passionless.
"Thank you," Freya murmured.
"You're welcome, Freya." After a moment, he added, "You know, I thought... That maybe, if we hadn't been sort of...nudged..." (It was the nicest way he could think to say 'forced'.) "...into marriage... Well, maybe we would have got on. If I wasn't a prince and you weren't a lady. We might have been good friends."
"I'm not," she whispered, almost inaudibly. She wasn't... She wasn't the Lady of Shalott really...
"What?"
"Nothing," she said. "Never mind."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Arthur."
When morning dawned and it was time for them to get up, it was Gwen who opened the curtains. Arthur had never said, one way or another, to his father, if he actually wanted a new servant while he was waiting on Merlin's recovery, so, in the meantime, as it was considered reasonably proper since Arthur had a wife who had no real lady's maid of her own anyway, Morgana's serving girl Guinevere could attend to a few small duties in Arthur's chamber during Merlin's absence. Waking the crown prince and princess, lighting the fireplace, heating bathwater, cleaning chamberpots... Little things like that.
Unfortunately, Gwen was not treated to the same sight Merlin had every morning he opened the curtains: of Arthur and Freya on opposite sides of the bed, a gaping space between them on the mattress. Instead, she saw rather a different scene. What she beheld was Prince Arthur of Camelot with his arms clasped round his beautiful, dozing wife, the Princess Freya, formerly of Astolat.
A little sigh escaped Gwen, but she swallowed anything else that might have accompanied that sigh back immediately. It was not proper for her to feel that tiny twinge of jealousy. Freya did not deserve it; she had a good heart and had done nothing to earn her resentment. Arthur had had no choice in who he wed. So it was not his fault, either. What was done was done. If anything, Gwen wanted, above all, to be happy that they were growing to care for each other. She did not want her Arthur, who was not (could never be) really hers, to be miserable.
Alas, jealousy could be reasoned away when you loved the people in question, but sadness, she found, could not.
TIME HEALS ALL wounds, it is said. And while many have found this to be rather a lot of nonsensical malarkey when it comes to emotional inflictions, there is no denying it does wonders for the physical ones at least.
Slowly, but surely, Merlin had recovered from the beating of a lifetime Nollar and Tindr had given him and was back to his old duties as if nothing had ever happened. It was true he looked a bit more wary of big, hulking strangers in tight small places like the armoury, but aside from that he was very much as he had always been.
He resumed also his vigil over Freya while she was a Bastet, and it was an improvement, for she didn't need to be bound when he was present and calming her and she no longer became agitated, the teeth baring and growling back down to a minimum.
There came one fateful evening that, if it had not occurred, perhaps things would have gone on that way, fairly peaceably, for a while longer. Perhaps, if temptation had not been presented that night, just after midnight, alongside a usually absent friend, that is, full-blown opportunity, Merlin would have remained strong in his longtime resolve not to betray Arthur. The words of his delusions back when he'd been under the influence of the healing herbs might have amounted to nothing more than just that, meaningless words, if only that night had not been.
Gaius happened to be away (something to do with herbs and medical supplies and a late shipment), and was not set to return until late the following afternoon of the next day. Although he still worried about Merlin and Freya's feelings for each other, for all his stern warnings, he did trust Merlin, and thought nothing unsafe about leaving them entirely on their own for just that one night.
The weather had grown colder, the nightly walks from Arthur's chamber to the physician's living quarters leaving Freya rubbing her arms with cold. She needed something a bit warmer than her nightgown. So she went to the wardrobe and found a dress to wear before setting off down the corridors. By chance, the dress happened to be the same one they'd found her in; the one Merlin had taken from Morgana what felt like so long ago, back when he was hiding her under the castle, back when he'd wanted to run away with her.
When she arrived just before midnight, Merlin looked up at the lifting latch and saw Freya enter, gilding quickly into the room, smoothly, like a magical being out of some wonderful dream, wearing the dress he'd seen her die in.
She looked like a princess, as always, but not, right then, Arthur's princess. A girl like that belonged to no son of a hater of magic, no mortal prince; she was magic, every step, every small breath that came out of her, was bewitching.
"What's wrong?" Freya looked at him, concerned.
Merlin blinked and shook it off. "Nothing. You..." His voice trailed off, then picked back up again. "You look lovely."
Freya glanced down at her feet.
For a passing second they stood, across the room from one another, not knowing what to say. Then, all at once, Freya remembered that she had to get ready for her transformation into a Bastet; she slipped the dress over her head and draped it across a nearby stool.
Usually, Merlin looked away from her when she was undressed right before her transformation, but that night his eyes were still on her. He lowered his gaze, ashamed and apologetic, and handed her the blanket to cover herself, when he realized she was aware of his eyes lingering on her bare body.
Her time as a Bastet went by as it always did; she initially felt panicked in her new form and Merlin soothed her. Except, when she had turned back into her human self again, the unspoken tension between them returned in tenfold.
Merlin watched her as she slipped the dress back on, and struggled to find something-anything-to distract himself.
The only thing he came up with, a forced conversational piece, was that Druid goblet Gaius had; he thought Freya might like to see it, since she saw so little of anything to do with her former kin, and knew where the physician's new hiding place for it was. He could just put it back and pretend it had laid undisturbed when Gaius returned.
Freya admired the beautiful chalice, truly enjoyed looking at it, but perhaps Merlin would have been wiser not to have taken it out at all; for she happened to get thirsty and drank water from it, and Merlin had a few sips also.
Because it was a Druid marriage cup, they almost felt, alone together like that, glinting eyes full of promises and longing, as if they were wedded to each other. It would have saved them more future pain had they drunk their very deaths from the Druid goblet.
They set the goblet aside on the table, and Merlin's arms slipped around Freya. His touch, unlike Arthur's, though equally protective, was indeed that of a lover's as well as that of a friend.
They were under no spell, save the bewitchment of their own feelings rising, they were wholly in control of, and thus responsible for, their actions, but they were as dizzy and unthinking as if they had been enchanted.
Merlin planted a kiss on Freya's lips and she returned it unhesitatingly. He gently tightened his grasp, now of her waist, and pulled her closer. She kissed him again; their locked lips parted, opening, allowing their tongues to meet.
They broke apart. "Freya, I..." he murmured.
She reached up and touched his face. "I love you, too."
"You do?" In spite of everything, he could not keep the faintest hint of (almost comical) hopeful surprise out of his tone. "Really?"
She might have giggled at his mild shock, as if their feelings were (from each other, anyway) ever such a great secret to begin with, but she didn't feel like giggling. Instead, she took his hand and brought it affectionately to her lips, kissing his trembling knuckles.
Merlin bent over their linked hands and tenderly kissed the Druid mark on her arm. Usually, she had to pretend it wasn't there; with him, though, it was part of who she had been and still was. It was the real Freya, curse and all, that he loved, not the dead nobleman's daughter she was forced to play the part of.
His lips pressed against her forehead next. Then he scooped her up into his arms, carrying her as he had when she'd been dying. She tenderly caressed and kissed his neck and lower jaw.
"Merlin?"
"Yes?"
"Don't let go of me."
"I won't." He carried her into his room and managed to shut the door behind them without putting her down or letting go of her.
He lowered her down onto the bed, easing down with her. Even then, lost in his emotions, he was still in semi-ignorance of what he was doing, the mistake he (they both) were about to make.
Freya felt the same. She didn't think of Arthur; if she had, she might have stopped while she was ahead. But she and Merlin had found and slipped into, rather unwillingly to their conscious selves that knew better, a world of their own where, in their eyes, there was no Arthur or Uther or Camelot or Albion, only the two of them.
They resumed kissing. Freya's hands went behind Merlin's neck to untie his scarf. She ran her fingers along the back of his neck. One of his hands pulled the sleeve of her dress down, leaving one of her shoulders bare, which he kissed, sighing softly. That was when Freya's hand went over his other hand and guided it down from where it rested at her waist to where he could feel the upper part of thigh through the skirt of the dress.
She moaned lightly and Merlin's forehead touched hers, resting against it briefly.
Freya felt something wet on her skin and realized something. "You're crying."
Even in the darkness of the room, he fancied she could still see him blush. "I'm sorry..."
"Merlin, you have nothing to be sorry for," she said, reaching up and wiping his tears away with the side of her wrists.
That was when what was beginning to happen slowly dawned on him. "Freya, I've never..."
She smiled and, understanding also, craning her neck upwards, kissed him full on the mouth, pulling him further into the middle of the bed with her.
Holding her, feeling her so intently pressed against him, Merlin whisper-asked, "Freya?"
"Yes?"
"How do you feel?" He couldn't read her mind, but as for himself, he felt like his stomach was doing back-flips; his heart was racing like a hummingbird's.
Freya gazed into his face, half-hidden by the shadows of the room. Her answer was only one word, but it summed up everything between them so perfectly. It was the only thing the both of them had longed to feel all along. "Loved."
"Oh, Freya..."
GAIUS NODDED TO the guards as he walked through one of the side entrances of the castle. If they were at all chaffed at his coming back so much earlier than expected, and at such a late hour, they said nothing about it to him. Most likely, they were indifferent; they had to stand there, as long as they were on nighttime duty, no matter which servants came in and out, so it probably mattered not at all to them.
Gaius could have gotten a room at an inn, he supposed, but he'd been so close to home it seemed a waste. He would rather sleep in his own quarters than in a strange room built over a tavern, given the choice. He assumed Merlin would already be asleep, as would the rest of the castle, so he lifted the latch quietly.
"What on earth is that doing out?" His eyes widened at the sight of his and Alice's Druid-made goblet out on the table. "What was that boy thinking?" He made a mental note not to, under any circumstances, allow Merlin to know where he hid it next. He was sure he hadn't meant any harm, but leaving it out like that was extremely careless. The last thing he needed was Uther, or anyone who would tell Uther, finding out he had kept that.
Sighing, Gaius began to ease down onto a chair he pulled out for himself, when he thought he heard a strange sound; sort of like grunting and moaning. This noise seemed to be coming from Merlin's room.
"Merlin?" Gaius called, speaking up so he'd hear him through the door. "Are you all right?"
Inside the room, Merlin disentangled himself from Freya and stuck his head out from under the blankets on the bed.
"I thought he wasn't coming back until tomorrow," whispered Freya, anxiously running her fingers through her disheveled hair, sitting up beside him.
"So did I," Merlin whisper-replied, closing his eyes and wincing. This was definitely not a good time for Gaius to return early.
"Merlin?" he called again.
"Yes, Gaius?" He arched an eyebrow at Freya and put his index finger to his lips, signaling for her to keep quiet.
"Are you all right?" he repeated.
"I'm fine..." He glanced at Freya, then back at the door. "Really."
"Are you sure? It sounded like you were dying in there."
"No, I'm fine. Definitely not dying. Just getting some sleep."
"All right," said Gaius, shrugging on his side of the door. "See you in the morning."
"There's only one thing for it," Merlin whispered to Freya; "I have to sneak you out of here before he wakes up tomorrow. You can't go past him now; he'll see you."
Freya nodded.
"We can try to get some sleep till then."
Merlin, when he finally fell asleep, with Freya in his arms and her head leaned back on his shoulder, had a strange dream.
In this dream, he and Freya were walking through the forest when they came across a unicorn. The unicorn regarded himself and Freya, even whinnying in their direction, but it turned and spurned them, rather than approaching them or allowing them to come near him. That was when Anhora, Keeper of the Unicorns, appeared.
Freya was suddenly gone, vanished without explanation (which is so often the way of dreams), leaving just Merlin behind to talk to Anhora.
"Why did the unicorn run away from us?" Merlin heard himself ask.
Anhora turned his head and looked at him. "You know why."
"No." Merlin shook his head. "I don't, actually."
"The unicorn does not keep company with anyone impure," said Anhora.
"Impure?" repeated Merlin. "I don't understand."
"You betrayed someone, a friend," Anhora told him. "And gave away a part of yourself you can never have back. You are not a bad warlock, certainly not lacking in power, if that means anything, but you're no longer innocent enough for the likes of a unicorn's admiration."
"What I did," Merlin said, looking down, "it wasn't right, was it?"
Anhora gave no answer, either to justify what he'd done, on the grounds of true love, nor to condemn him as the unicorn evidently had, on the grounds of disloyalty.
When Merlin woke from his dream, he found sunlight had already filled the room. They'd over-slept. So much for sneaking her out early...
It was so odd, the way he felt, waking up with Freya in his arms.
On the one hand, Merlin had never been so happy in his life, while, on the other, he had never felt so guilty and miserable.
Freya was Arthur's wife...
What had he done?
But before he had time to dwell on his guilt and see where it took him, Merlin heard the door opening and flinched, aware, in the one split-second he had to prepare himself, of what was inevitably coming.
"Merlin, you're going to be late!" Gaius stuck his head into the room. He stopped in his tracks, taking in what he could hardly have missed even if he'd been half-blind.
Merlin was not alone; Freya was in the bed with him, wearing his nightshirt. Merlin didn't appear to be wearing anything except for the blankets that covered him. Their clothes (including Freya's dress, which was currently in a rather pitiful, wrinkled state) were in a haphazard pile on the floor at the bedside. Gaius wasn't an idiot; he knew now what they had been doing in his absence.
Freya squirmed out of Merlin's arms and buried her face in her hands. She couldn't stand the horror-stricken, disappointed way Gaius was looking at them.
"Gaius, I... We-" Merlin began, though he knew there was nothing he could say to explain it away.
"Get dressed," said Gaius coldly, shaking his head and slowly backing out of Merlin's room.
