Merlin quickly found the manor to be a very lonely place when Lord Edward wasn't around. There wasn't much to do inside, yet outside was apparently off limits to him, as Lord Edward had explained this morning. Or stated, either way.
Sometime after breakfast Lord Edward had roamed away from Merlin, perhaps returning to his chambers to eat, and he had yet to see him since.
The entire manor was too quiet, demanding Merlin to tread lightly where ever he ventured, even though he really wanted to break it by screaming or yelling or breaking something to rebel against the silence.
He didn't think that Lord Edward would want him to wander around the manor by himself, after all he had stopped him before, yet there was nothing left for him to do otherwise. It was either explore the manor or explore outside, and the manor seemed to be the lesser of two evils.
So here he was yet again roaming the hallways of the manor. Every so often he would knock on a door before pushing it open to explore inside. Most of them were bedchambers, which all appeared to be very similar. Dust dominated most of the room, giving it the appearance that no one had been in them for many years. There was a stripped bed, dusty and broken, and busted more likely beyond repair, and a table with a couple of chairs around them. Some didn't even have that much in there, old parchment and splintered wood sometimes being all that was inside.
Overall Merlin was finding his little adventure to be rather boring and more than a tad bit disappointing. Empty, broken rooms were not what he had expected from the manor, even though everything should have told him that that was more than likely what was inside. There had to be something there that was at least a tad bit interesting, after all what did that prat of a lord spend all his time doing?
Merlin sighed when he opened a door and once more found it to be less than entertaining. The room seemed less damaged than most, yet infinitely more dusty if that was possible. He was just about to turn around to go find something else to explore, when he noticed a book sitting on the floor.
The book was partially covered by a blanket that must have fallen off of the bed that had perhaps once been there, only the edge of it peeking out. Slowly, Merlin walked towards it, his hands reaching out to touch the cracked leather.
The book was old. Very old if the hand writing inside had anything to say about it. His eyes scanned the words, trying to understand why there had been a book left alone on the floor when none of the other rooms had had any. There were shelves where it was obvious books were meant to be, but there hadn't actually been any there in a long time.
The words were nearly all gibberish to him, just a handful making any sense. The few that did, however, almost shocked him.
This book was filled with magic. There weren't as many spells or incantations that the book Gaius had given him back home had, yet there were still quite a few. Simple words like "forbearne" and "scildan" stood out like a sore thumb to him, and would have anyone who had ever looked in a book of magic before.
What was a spell book doing in Camelot, in a lord's manor none the less? Sure, Gaius had one, but he was a close friend to the king and almost always free of suspicion, which would keep him safe should Merlin ever do anything foolish or impulsive. At least Merlin hoped it would anyways. Hopefully it would never have to come to such a thing in the first place.
He continued to flip through the book, knowing he wasn't likely to have it for very long. It had been abandoned here for quite some time and it didn't seem like lord Edward had ever ventured in here, at least not recently. There was a reason for it to be forgotten, the Purge had taken most of them and burned them, or kept them hidden deep in the vaults of Camelot at the very least.
Did lord Edward even know that this book was here? It didn't seem likely that he did, he was a lord after all and bound by Uther's rules just the same as anyone else, plus the door and room had appeared to be untouched. Should he tell the lord about the book of magic he had found in one of his chambers? He thought for a moment, wondering if there was any way he could possibly be incriminating himself by bringing forward the book. He had magic himself and tying magic of any form to him just seemed like a bad idea. Plus he really didn't want to burn or lock away a book of magic where it would never be seen again. It just didn't seem right.
He glanced over to the door, which was still standing wide open where he had pushed it. Faintly he was wondering about the sanity of his plan, when he walked over and pushed the door shut softly. It had been a while since lord Edward had checked in on him, and he always did seem to know when Merlin was getting up to something.
He walked over to the table and righted a chair. He used the blanket that had been discarded on to the floor to wipe away some of the dust that had gathered there before sitting gingerly down on the chair. He had almost expected it to give under his weight, but all the old thing did was creak.
He slowly moved around, placing his legs fully under the table and the book on top of it. The worry of lord Edward walking in and seeing him reading a book of magic was strong, yet the urge to find out what was in the book was stronger.
What if lord Edward was cursed? He knew that he occasionally felt magic react with his magic, and the lord did have those sickly vein-looking things that could possibly be from a curse. Could there be a way to reverse the curse he was under, or maybe cure the lord of whatever sickness ailed him?
He flipped through a few pages of the book, trying to read anything that he could. The words were different than the ones that Gaius had kept from the Purge; these were harder to read and made less sense all around. The pages were literally filled to the brim with words or drawings that helped describe what it was a spell did, but even with the pictures and diagrams it was still hard to understand what a spell was supposed to do.
He wasn't sure how long he had spent sitting in the low lit room, the only light coming in from the partially boarded up window. As the day dragged on the light only faded more, leaving the room almost completely shrouded in darkness. His eyes were straining in the low light, causing his head to throb painfully at the stress.
When it was eventually too dark to see much more than the nose in front of his face he shut the book and stretched. His back gave a loud popping sound, relieving some of the stress and aches he'd been feeling all day.
Beside where the bed should be was a nightstand with two drawers. Deciding that it was better to hid the book than bring it directly to lord Edward, Merlin stashed it inside, shoving it as far back as he could and using several pieces of parchment to cover the book. Satisfied with his work, Merlin turned around and walked out of the room, his foot falls as light as a rabbit's.
Cautiously, Merlin peered out into the hallway. He let out a relieved, shaky sigh upon seeing that there was no lord Edward lurking the corridors. His stomach let out a low growl, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning, and it was well into the evening by now.
He made his way down both flights of stairs, bypassing all of the rooms to explore in favor of finding food. He wondered if lord Edward had eaten earlier in the day, leaving him to dine alone, or if he had waited for him to come down. It was awfully late in the day, with light just inside the kitchen, flickering and casting shadows onto the floor. There was one particular shadow that was the shape of lord Edward, moving back and forth inside the room.
Merlin's foot caught on the floor, causing him to trip and stumble in the hallway. The shadow stopped moving inside, coming to a standstill at the sound of Merlin's heavy footsteps.
"Merlin?" Lord Edward called out. A second later his helmeted head appeared in the doorway, the dark eye holes of the helmet staring directly at Merlin, who was holding his hands out in front of him in case he fell. Upon seeing what Merlin was doing the lord snorted and motioned for Merlin to follow him inside.
A simple meal was set up inside, again surprising Merlin that the lord had made his own food, plus plenty for Merlin. He supposed it shouldn't really surprise him, but after seeing some nobles in Camelot the fact that this lord dressed himself was surprising.
Lord Edward motioned for Merlin to sit down at the table, near where he had sat this morning, which was across the table from Lord Edward, neither one of them sitting at the head of the table. Neither one of them spoke as Merlin began to eat, noting that Lord Edward had already eaten if the empty plate beside him was anything to go by, but Merlin could feel lord Edward's eyes roaming and searching over him.
Merlin took a large bite out of his piece of bread, purposefully keeping his eyes anywhere but the lord across from him. He knew his eyes held a suspicious look about them, if the glimpse of the lord's seemingly red eyes underneath his helmet was anything to go by.
Perhaps if he ignored the look the lord was giving him he'd be able to get away without any questions.
"Merlin…"
Oops, maybe not.
"Yes?" Merlin said when it became apparent that the lord wasn't going to continue his sentence until he had Merlin's full attention. His gaze flickered to lord Edward, just barely taking in anything about him.
Lord Edward seemed frustrated by Merlin's lack of attention, and he let that be known by sighing and pulling Merlin's plate back away from him, letting him know that he wanted his full attention and that the peasant had his full attention.
Unfortunately, Merlin didn't want his full attention. He didn't want any of his attention in fact.
"Why are your clothes covered in dust?"the lord asked. Merlin finally looked away from the middle distance where he had been staring to look back at the lord in armor.
Upon noting that he finally had at least some of Merlin's attention the lord prompted Merlin to look down at his own clothes with a nod of his head, leaving Merlin's gaze to follow.
Merlin was stunned to realize that his clothes were indeed covered in dust. There were lines of dust where he had brushed against tables and chairs and shelves, and dirty hand prints were he had brushed off his now clean hands at.
So that was what the lord was so upset about, obviously he thought Merlin was dirty and stupid peasant who didn't even know how to wash up before eating. At least his hands were clean, although it came at the expense of his shirt.
"I was…exploring?" Merlin said lamely. At least that wasn't a lie, he had been exploring, before he'd been distracted by the magic book at least.
Lord Edward shifted in his seat, his body language alone telling Merlin what he thought about his "exploring" without even saying a word. Yet, being the prattish lord he was, he just had to comment.
"You were exploring?" he asked, his voice dripping with disbelief.
"Yes," Merlin said uncertainly, not completely sure that he had said the right thing. It was too late to take it back now though, so he just hoped it was right.
"Exploring where exactly?" the lord asked, his tone taking on a less condescending tone and a more curious one.
Merlin paused for a moment. He knew he couldn't tell which room exactly he had been in for so long, as it would give away the location of the spell book. That is, if Lord Edward didn't already know about it. If he did, then Merlin might as well be telling him exactly what it was he was doing all day, and if he didn't, then Merlin telling him might prompt him to find the book.
No, it was better to lie, even if Merlin didn't want to.
"Just different rooms around the manor. Don't worry, I didn't step a foot outside," Merlin said, harking back to their previous conversation.
This seemed to give lord Edward pause, as he leaned back in his chair and slide Merlin's plate back in front of him again. Merlin figured he could have been a bit nicer about it all, and he knew that pulling that out was a low blow, but he couldn't help it. He was a little high strung from worry about wondering whether or not he'd dropped some hint of his magic to the lord across the table from him.
If lord Edward knew, he showed no sign of it all throughout the rest of the night.
XXX
It became something of a habit after that day. Merlin would wake up early in the morning, make breakfast before Arthur woke up, and then disappear for the rest of the day. Then he wouldn't show up until almost dinner time although significantly less dusty than the first day it had happened.
Arthur was honestly at a loss for where Merlin would disappear to during the day. There were a lot of rooms in the manor, plenty that it would take time searching through, yet it didn't seem like he was still exploring the rooms. The lack of a Merlin roaming the halls during the day seemed to attest to that. But if he wasn't still looking through the rooms, what was he doing during the day? There didn't seem to be anything in the manor to keep anyone occupied to so long, except maybe the library, although Arthur was almost positive Merlin had never found it, nor was he quite sure just exactly how much the peasant could read.
Besides, he was sure that Merlin would have mentioned seeing his makeshift bed if he had found it.
So that meant that Merlin had secluded himself away in a room somewhere. The only problem was was that Arthur had no clue where to even start looking for the pesky peasant. During the day while he was hiding away wherever he hid he was silent as a mouse. He wouldn't hear a single peep out of the boy until it was about time to eat.
It drove Arthur mad not being so close to Merlin and wondering where he was all day. He supposed it was for the best in the end, another day or so and Arthur would probably never see Merlin again once Gaius arrived to take him back to Camelot.
Then his life would go back to the long, boring, monotonous mess it had been before.
XXX
Well, there you guys go. I had planned on typing up some more, but alas, Thanksgiving dinner called to me today, along with my brother-in-law and his Magic the Gathering cards before Black Friday Shopping.
I hope everyone (who celebrates) has had a great Thanksgiving and be safe Black Friday shopping!