13. Rifts in all the harmful places

"Sire!" The knight bowed to his King most deferentially. One never knew with Uther these days.

"Sir Leon! I didn't even know you'd returned yet!"

Leon heard the unspoken question and he knew it wasn't a friendly one. "Forgive me, Sire. I only just arrived and naturally my first way was to you to report back."

"You've taken your time. Nevertheless, welcome back. You're dismissed!"

Leon swallowed nervously. "But Sire, there's something you ought to know before it is too late…"

"What is it? Spit it out, man! I do not have all day."

"The report Lord Borowyn gave to you…it's not true, Sire. At least not all of it."

Uther turned away from the window from where he had been overlooking the yard in which the scaffold was under construction. "And which parts of it aren't true, in your most competent opinion?"

Just to be at least somewhat nearer to the safe side, Leon bowed again. "Sire, I've heard that Lord Borowyn accused Merlin of treason and of practising sorcery. Is that so?"

"It may have escaped your attention, Sir Leon but we are constructing the scaffold for the boy's execution in this very moment. Does that answer your question?"

"But Sire, I've spoken to Gaius and Geoffrey and from what they told me I'm sure that….."

Uther darted around as if he had been bitten by a poisonous snake. "You've been absent Sir Leon, so I will forgive you trespassing just this once!" he hissed. "Gaius and Geoffrey are both lucky to have escaped with their lives when I got the message that my son has been killed by his captors. After tomorrow, they're both banned from Court and country for life. From now on I'll have everyone who as much as mentions their names severely punished, is that clear? And don't think that your knighthood would save you from the whipping pole!"

"But Sire, that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Borowyn lied through his teeth, right into your face!"

"Guards!" Uther shouted but Leon's "for all we know Prince Arthur could still be alive!" drowned him out effectively.

Uther's raised arm fell uselessly to his hip. All blood drained from his face. "What did you say?" he whispered hoarsely.

"It was Merlin, Sire. He's seen the Prince; the Duke forced your son to board the ship that brought him away from Tintagel. I found Merlin still by the quayside, famished and with some bad bruises. By no way he was 'unharmed and free' when we found him, like Lord Borowyn wanted you to believe. Seems as if the boy had been working in a dirty dockside pub, hoping to find an opportunity to board another ship. But nobody had wanted to have him, with the bracelets around his wrists showing that he had once been the Duke's property."

"Lord Borowyn said the bracelets indicate that the boy's a sorcerer in Yvain's service! Always has been."

"Then the Lord of Tintagel employs a lot of sorcerers among his servants" Leon replied with as much sarcasm as he dared. "I've seen more than one person with similar looking things around their wrists. The townsfolk think the bracelets indicate that the person is a prisoner or a forced labourer, someone the Duke has singled out for punishment."

"And you say that Merlin actually watched my son boarding that ship?"

"That's what he's told me and he's never lied to me before!" Leon gulped down a sigh of relief for having come that far without being thrown in the dungeons. "Sire, I have no idea why Lord Borowyn should have told you with such firmness that the Prince is dead but if the Duke should have wanted to ….punish you by killing him, why didn't we find a body? Merlin's story is just more believable!"

"Why was nothing of this in your reports to me?"

"I had no chance to send you any reports; Lord Borowyn insisted that, as he heads the Crown Council, all reports from Tintagel should go over his desk. He also ordered me to stay behind with the occupying forces in Tintagel, countermanding your explicit orders that I was to come back as soon as possible!"

Uther's face changed. His jaws tensed visibly and through the ghastly paleness of his features two hot red spots began to build on his cheeks. "Did our Council's Chairman know that he defied my orders to you?"

"Yes, Sire. I told him so. Repeatedly." Leon swallowed again. "I… I thought about it a great deal but then I decided that I had sworn my allegiance to you, My Lord, not to your Council whether you were suspended or not."

Leon virtually saw Uther pull himself together. "Send Geoffrey to me, at once. Tell him to meet me by the entrance to the dungeons' stairway."

"Your Grace!" When Leon bowed his way out of the throne room his heart was much lighter than it had been when he had bowed his way in. Briskly he walked down the corridor. After the second turn he bumped into Gaius and Geoffrey who had been waiting eagerly for his return. "How did it go?" Geoffrey asked in an urgent whisper. "Did he believe you?"

"Eventually he did" Leon said. "He wants to meet with you, Master Geoffrey, by the dungeons' entrance. Immediately!"

"Thank heaven" the old secretary murmured. "I had begun to fear that all reason had left him when our beloved Chairman informed him of Prince Arthur's death!"

"Your insistent distrust of Lord Borowyn must have had a greater impact on the King than you yourself noticed" Leon said. "As for me, if it hadn't been for your warnings before we left for Tintagel I'd never even thought of defying the man, let alone accuse him before the King!"

"So for all your better knowledge of how you found Merlin, for all you knowing that he is Arthur's close friend you would not have lifted your backside on a horse for his sake alone?" The first words Gaius spoke to the knight since Leon's return were so full of an aggressive bitterness that both men winced at it.

"Why…no….I didn't say that" Leon stammered aghast.

"No, you didn't" Gaius snorted. "And by your own words you wouldn't have said much else to anyone even if you had seen my boy burn tomorrow!"

Geoffrey sadly looked down for a moment before he pointed at Gaius with his eyes. Leon understood the silent message: Take care of him for me, will you? The knight was all willing to do just that, but of how to do it, he had no idea.

"Well, I must be off" the secretary said. "No use to let the King wait. He may still change his mind!" and he shuffled away towards the dungeons.

Once arrived there he found an already impatient Uther. "There you are. About time! Let's go!" and Geoffrey found it wise not to mention that by all accounts he was a sentenced man; a man banished from Camelot for life.

It took the old man quite an effort to follow the agile King to the dungeons. When they arrived at the last cell door in the row Geoffrey was virtually puffing. Uther dismissed the guards with an impatient nod of his head and opened the door himself.

Inside the dank cell the old man needed some time to adjust to the dim light that filtered through the single window. Other than the secretary Uther had spotted his prey immediately.

Merlin lay curled up in a corner and didn't stir, not even when Uther took his shoulder and shook it. The young man just curled up even tighter after a moment. Sighing, Uther grabbed the nearby water jug and without any further ado emptied it over the warlock's face, making sure that as much water as possible hit the nose.

Spatting and coughing the prisoner bolted up until he sat on his backside. "Now, would you grace your King with a bit of attention or do I have to call for more water?"

Merlin looked up at him, his expression shy and defiant at the same time, a peculiar mixture. It made him look vulnerable and obstinate alike.

"As you were not willing to defend yourself at the trial someone else has taken on the trouble" Uther said flatly. "Sir Leon told me that you've seen my son alive. That Arthur boarded a ship together with Duke Yvain. Is that true?"

It took some time but finally Merlin nodded furtively. "Yes" he said, almost inaudibly. "They forced him, though. Even from a distance I could see that they had bound his hands. Two soldiers held him. He didn't go willingly!"

Uther frowned. "Naturally he was forced. But why didn't you say this at the trial?"

Merlin looked at his feet and shrugged dismissively. "You wouldn't have believed me anyway!"

"Well, I'm all willing to believe you now."

"Above the word of Lord Borowyn?" Merlin said defiantly. "I don't think so!"

Uther inhaled deeply to prevent himself from any rash reaction. As a father he knew these sulking moods too well to try and yell some sense into the boy right now.

"Merlin, it's not for you to judge what I do or don't believe" he said sternly. "Now would you tell me how and where my men found you in Tintagel? The truth, please!"

For the first time the warlock's eyes wandered past the King and spotted Geoffrey who smiled encouragingly. "Please, my boy" the secretary said kindly. "For Prince Arthur's sake." And for Gaius' sake he thought but he didn't say it.

Merlin rubbed his nose and sniffed softly. "It was in this tavern where I worked as a dogsbody" he said with audible reluctance. "I had hoped to find a ship or at least someone who'd know where Yvain's ships had been headed but they didn't want me! They didn't even talk to me unless they had to! They fear your brother like hell, even when he's absent. They thought the bracelets bear his curse. That the things make me a Jonas."

"A what?" Geoffrey asked.

"A harbourer of bad luck for a ship" Uther said absently. "It's a common superstition among sailors!"

"But I still don't get it. How did you come to Tintagel in the first place? And come to think about it" the King frowned angrily with a side look at Geoffrey. "How do you know that Yvain is my brother?"

Merlin smelled a rat, remembering the day he had been eavesdropping in the throne room. "By the time I found him the Duke had already told Arthur everything!" he stated. There. This wasn't a lie. No harm in not telling that he had been informed by Gaius in advance.

Uther rose to his feet abruptly and turned away, face to the wall. Apparently this piece of news wasn't exactly welcome.

The young wizard twisted nervously then got to his feet too. "I'm telling the truth" he said obstinately. "Arthur told me that he would have to go with the Duke. He said his uncle would have a 'prolonged seaside vacation' and that he had no chance but to go with him. He didn't know where the Duke was going, though."

The whole conversation became more and more enigmatic to Geoffrey by the minute. "Prince Arthur told you? You spoke with him?"

Merlin sighed. "Yes. I was in his quarters. He was with me when I regained consciousness, after I had been caught in the magic seals. Obviously they…." He bit his lip and looked down again.

"They what?" Uther asked sharply while Geoffrey looked from one to the other, more confused than ever.

"They used me to keep him in check" Merlin said softly. "He said I had made things much worse for him." His eyes wide and pleading without him even knowing it, he looked at the King's hard face. "I…I thought I'd still do some good but we only had the one night before Yvain decided to run. At least that's what Arthur called it. He said that at the news that Camelot would send in troops 'the Duke was going to run, with his tail between his legs'.

"My son knew that I had been overruled by the Council and that Camelot would send in troops?"

Merlin shrugged again. "Apparently he did. I was released all of a sudden. I pretended to run away from Tintagel as fast as possible but I hid in the harbour and I saw the Duke force Arthur to board the ship and they cast off. All on the same day, eight days after the messenger and I had arrived at Tintagel!"

"Merlin, let me get that straight" Uther said. "You followed the messenger all the way to the stronghold? How long did it take?"

"Three weeks!"

"And eight days later Yvain knew that I had failed him and that Camelot would send in troops?"

The warlock nodded while Geoffrey looked as if he finally saw daylight. "But Your Majesty assembled the Council only 18 days after the messenger had left. There wasn't enough time for your brother…"

"..to learn of our military preparations before he took my son and made his escape!" Uther finished the secretary's sentence. "There is only one possible explanation. There is a traitor in my own Council. He must have found a way to inform Yvain of what had happened here within less than 12 days, long before our preparations would have given anything away to a normal observer."

"I do not have to tell Your Majesty who this traitor might most likely be" Geoffrey stated resolutely. "And why he should have an interest in getting rid of young Merlin here. He must have known from Leon's embezzled reports that Merlin had seen your son alive. If for some still unknown reason Borowyn wanted you to believe that Arthur is dead it would have made perfect sense to delay Leon in Tintagel until you had executed the boy. On his own accord Sir Leon would never have mentioned it, not after the execution! He would have thought you had had reason to believe that Merlin had lied!"

"There is nothing 'unknown' to Borowyn's reasons" Uther hissed through clenched teeth. "The Council clerk came to me this morning. The Council most humbly beseeches me to finally name an heir to the Crown, now that Arthur's death can no longer be doubted. They have chosen a candidate. Lord Borowyn's son. Myrion."

Uther turned his head to the ceiling. "Dear Gods, he planned it well. With you and Gaius neutralized, Arthur presumed dead and the only witness executed it would have been a piece of cake to make the Council virtually force me to name Myrion. His mother was Igraine's cousin."

The King gritted his teeth, his surroundings and his audience completely forgotten. "The damned bastard has betrayed me and Yvain to put his imbecile of a son on the throne. His castle was the last Arthur visited. He must have informed the mercenaries of where and how to capture my son. He informed Yvain that his plans had failed after he himself had led the Council's opposition against me."

"But your brother didn't oblige" Merlin said softly. "Arthur isn't dead!"

"I wouldn't have thought it possible" Uther murmured to himself. "I would have sworn Yvain would..." he broke off and rubbed his eyes with two fingers. "Merlin, show me these bracelets" he said sharply, reaching for the warlock's arms.

Reflexively Merlin hid his wrists behind his back.

"Oh, damn your stupidity" the King said and pulled the young man's arms forward again. The engraved runes and seals shimmered in the dim light. "I have been blind!" Uther said flatly. "Dear Gods, that I should have been fooled by the bastard that easily!"

"Geoffrey, look at the things" he exclaimed, louder now. "The Duke's seals on them, Your Majesty, that's what Borowyn said. The Duke's seals my foot! These are my brother's seals, all right, his seals from the Blessed Isle, the signs that indicate his rank as a master sorcerer! They've always been much more important to Yvain than his Pendragon seals but they are secret, known only to his family or his close friends! How would my Council's Chairman know them to be Yvain's if he hadn't been in close contact with him before?"

"What are you going to do, Sire?" Geoffrey asked wearily. "You can hardly confront Borowyn openly, with the Council being able to go against you again at the slightest provocation. Nor can you accuse the Lord openly of treason with a few symbols that indicate your brother's magical abilities as your only proof!" With his guts twisting the secretary waited for his King to come to the obvious conclusions all by himself.

"No, of course I can't" Uther muttered angrily. "But I can refuse to name Myrion as my heir, based on Leon's intelligence that my son has been seen alive. The Council's decision might have caused his death, by a hair's breadth it didn't come to that. Borowyn will be hard put to persuade them again to endanger Arthur's safety, law or no law!"

"This is a great idea, Your Majesty, if I may say so!" With an effort Geoffrey abstained from mopping the sweat off his brow. It had been a close call.

"The only thing is: How do we rid ourselves of our young friend here?" Uther mused. "Without an execution, Borowyn will smell the rat too early!" Impulsively he squatted down at the wizard's side. "There's nothing for it, Merlin, you have to die tonight" he said. "Otherwise we'll never get you outside the castle without anyone being the wiser!"

Only the next day, when the young warlock joined Gaius and Geoffrey on the driver's seat of their cart it became obvious that not all of the King's recent ideas were rubbish. At last this one, to tell everyone that Merlin had committed suicide in his cell and that Gaius would take the body with him, had worked a treat.

Slowly they sauntered across the land until they reached Ealdor where an exhausted and still somewhat stupefied warlock decided to forget about things for a while and threw himself into the arms of his mother.

Naturally they couldn't stay in Merlin's home village. Uther had made that very clear. The four of them travelled on together, to reach the border regions of King Olaf's realms where they would wait for further notice from Camelot. At least that was the plan. But that didn't mean that they had to be happy with the situation.

It took only a few days before Merlin became restless. There was no peace, not for him, not from him. "For the Gods' sake, sit down" Gaius finally yelled one evening, when the young man's continuous pacing and fretting about each and every thing drove even Hunith mad. Geoffrey cast one look at his old friend and the young ward, took Hunith by the hand and made haste to give the two men some room to argue out what ailed them both, once and for all – or so he hoped.

Neither wizard nor physician took any heed of the two of them leaving. "Merlin, I understand that you are worried, we all are" Gaius made the first move. "But we can't go on like this!"

"I shouldn't have allowed you all to persuade me" Merlin replied. "I should have gone back to Tintagel, tried to find a ship."

"What for? You've tried that before and it was no use! You're much safer here!"

"But I don't want to be safe!" Merlin shouted it at the top of his lungs. "I didn't ask for anyone to keep me safe! I'm not a child! If that was what you ditched Arthur for I curse you for it, you and Geoffrey!"

"Who said anything about ditching Arthur?" Gaius' face was white now, ghostly pale.

"Don't play games with me, I learned on the journey back to Camelot that it had been you and Geoffrey who spilled the beans that Arthur was kept prisoner in Tintagel, although you knew that it could have been the death of him."

"That's not true Merlin..." Gaius tried to explain but it was no good.

Even more furious because of the tears of rage he couldn't suppress Merlin almost snarled. "Don't lie to me, Gaius. You told Uther that he had no choice but to yield to Yvain's demands, that he had to fulfil them to the letter to save Arthur's life and then you and Geoffrey spoilt it all by telling the Council everything!" The young man panted heavily by now. "If it wasn't to get me back from Tintagel, why should you have done it?"

"It had nothing whatsoever to do with you, you insolent brat!" Gaius too was now beside himself with anger. "I informed Geoffrey because I knew I could trust him and he decided to keep the information as a last resort. He spilled the beans only after the Council had overruled the King. How were we to know that the deluded idiots would press for war?"

"But you were already suspicious of Borowyn. You must have known the risk you took!"

"Merlin, Arthur is the only heir the Council would ever unanimously accept. We thought that they would do everything to keep him safe. If they had accepted Endred 'pro forma' we could have negotiated with Yvain behind the scenes. We reckoned that negotiations with the Council would make Yvain more careful, once he had got from Uther what he had wanted above anything."

"Maybe he has" Merlin said desperately. "Maybe you all have. Yvain has kept his brother's most prized possession; you and Geoffrey saved the neck of your precious King! There's only one looser in this game and he's the only one who has nothing to do with the whole damned mess!"

"So you really think I saved my pet Pendragon at the expense of yours!" Gaius' voice had never been that cold before. But then he had never been insulted like that before. At least by a young man he loved as he would have loved his own son.

"Yes, that's what I think!" Merlin already fought to keep up his rage but not for the life of his he wanted to let go of it. Right now it seemed to be his only source of strength.

"And you're sure this is about me and Uther" the physician said. "You're sure this isn't about you and your guilty conscience!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You've made it an issue that Arthur was forced to board that ship when you spoke to Uther but it isn't true. He went willingly, didn't he? The only force he was under was an agreement he had consented to, an agreement with his uncle on your behalf, that's what you really think, isn't it? The great warlock to the rescue but this time it just didn't work! And now you're tormenting yourself day and night with speculations of what else he might have agreed to."

Merlin found he had nothing to say to that. It was no use to try and hold on to his rage. It had already faltered.

"So that's why you didn't defend yourself in this mock trial" Gaius stated. "You thought you deserve to die."

"But don't you see it? I did fail him. I failed him in the forest when they first took him and I allowed myself to be captured like a bloody fool in Tintagel. I'm good for nothing, exactly as he always said I was! All this great talk of our glorious destiny has come to nothing. He knew his father's troops to be only weeks away and yet he would have to go with these bastards, no matter what! Some protector I am, am I not?" Once he started laughing derisively he found that he couldn't stop. It was like a cramp that shook him to the bones.

"Merlin, stop that! Stop the hysterics!" Desperate at the sight of his shaking ward Gaius slapped the magician's face with some power and it brought the young man back to his senses.

"They have robbed me of my magic and without it what am I, Gaius?" the warlock whispered miserably. "What am I? A useless, clumsy idiot. A good for nothing monster without its monstrosity!"

"Come here by me, you monster" Gaius said while he pulled his ward into a bear hug. "If it's any use to you, when Uther signed your death warrant, I thought of killing him with my bare hands."

"And why is this meant to console me?" Merlin's muffled voice from somewhere in the physician's robe forced the ghost of a smile to Gaius' face. "Because it reminded me that I want Uther's son back almost as urgently as you do!"

'And I am sick of worrying myself to death about both of you for something Uther did' he added silently, only to himself.

"But we'll need support to get him back, all the help and resources only Camelot can provide" Gaius said aloud. "And we will need time to think of something to get these accursed bracelets off your wrists. You can't do this on your own. Not this time. We have to wait until we hear from Uther."

Merlin nodded miserably and it occurred to Gaius, and not for the first time, that his ward by his very nature wasn't an altogether patient person.

However, this time Merlin had to learn some patience, like it or not. They finally reached their destination and put up house there, under false names and false pretences. With Gaius working as a physician, Geoffrey as a scriptor and Hunith tending to the house, the magician without magic felt utterly useless and idiotic. For the first time in his life Arthur's kind, warm-hearted and always good-spirited friend and servant was bad company for everybody, especially for himself.

Gaius and Geoffrey, even Hunith blessed the day that brought Sir Leon and the news that Borowyn had been arrested. They were officially called back to Camelot. Apparently there had been a ceremony the day it had been a year since Arthur's abduction and Borowyn had pressed too hard for Uther to give up the search for his son. Although he had had a firm stand on Camelot's succession act, the Council had not followed him a second time. The rift had sufficed for Uther to gain the Council's consent to persecute the former Chairman.

Merlin rejoiced with the others although he didn't exactly know why. After all they hadn't come closer to finding the lost Prince. But everything was preferable to this horrible, useless waiting and for some mysterious reason returning to Camelot seemed to be something like a fresh start.

The young warlock's joy lasted until a blindingly hot pain shot through his head and he began to scream while his world went dark.