AN: Sorry for the wait! Here is an angsty chapter...
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Chapter 11
"Despite his opponent remaining alive, it is the consensus of the court that Lord Agravaine be declared the winner. As he is a known traitor of the throne, he is to be escorted from the kingdom to live out the rest of his days banished to the lands of Queen Annis, an ally of the crown. Under her watch, he will live out his banishment." Gaius felt a burst of pride when he realized his friend had just saved Sir Leon from fighting the lord in Sir Elyan's place while also making sure that the man would receive the punishment he deserves for his crimes.
"Are my wounds to be seen to before I am ran from my home?" Gaius grit his teeth and focused on stopping the bleeding from the side wound.
"Your home was the land of the De Bois, not Camelot. And seeing as the court physician is occupied and his assistant is bedridden due to your treachery, you will have to tend to them yourself on your way to Caerleon." Gaius did not have time to enjoy his friend's words as two guards arrived with the stretcher.
From then on, Gaius' sole focus was keeping Sir Elyan alive. He was not willing to imagine the girls if he failed. As he and the guards rushed toward the citadel, Sirs Gwaine, Percival, and Thomas and a handful of guards hauled the traitor off towards the city walls and the man's doom.
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George woke to the distinct feeling of having not finished a task he should have completed. His head felt like he had gotten drunk and fallen down every stair in the citadel, but he felt as though he had left something half complete. A few years ago, the feeling would have bothered him, but after his lessons with Merlin, he now knew perfection was within his reach.
Thinking about those early days of lessons triggered a more recent memory, King Arthur asking him to teach Merlin to be a better servant. That triggered the memory of her injury, getting permission to court her from the king and knights, Merlin nearly drowning, getting drugged and left in his remembrance laden home, fighting with the man who had hurt Merlin, and then a haze of pain and worry.
Slowly peeling his eye not pressed into the pillow open, he saw he was laying on a bed directly across from a sleeping Merlin with Gwen sitting in a chair beside them angrily sewing. He was worried for a moment when he realized that he could hardly hear her perturbed mumbling, but the feeling of a bandage over his raised ear dispelled it as quickly as it had come. That was when he remembered his own injuries.
He had been exhausted before his fight with the assassin, but that was nothing in comparison to how he felt now. On top of his tiredness, his neck felt like he had fallen asleep on the armory floor after being pummeled by the all the knights of Camelot from the darts the man had stabbed into his neck coupled with how he had been sleeping at Merlin's bedside. His swollen, bandage-wrapped hands throbbed, especially around the tips of his fingers where he had nearly ripped his nails out clawing at the man. His mouth was a mess from the fight, teeth loose, jaw sore, and swollen tongue. Then there was his head, the spy had hit his skull so hard against the wall that his brain hurt. Not being able to hear completely through a covered ear was the least of his concerns.
He was about to brave the idea of using his tortured mouth to ask Gwen for some water when the main chamber door flew open. Two guards rushed in carrying a stretcher while Gaius seemed to be treating the person as they went. On the litter was Elyan.
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Gwen was frustrated with everyone for not telling her anything. She had expected answers when she had come to Gaius' chambers, but instead, she had been left to watch her love-stricken friends sleep while she stewed in questions. She didn't know who had hurt the three of them, if the person had been caught (though she suspected they had been), why they had done it, or why she was being kept from knowing the answer to any of those questions. She was irritated and she was stabbing a needle through cloth to vent and if it ended up a new shirt for George, then so be it.
What could be so horrible that she shouldn't know why she had been drugged, why Merlin had nearly drowned, why George had a head injury, a damaged jaw, and possible hearing loss? All of it was likely Agravaine's fault, but why? Him working with Morgana wasn't far-fetched by any stretch of the imagination, but him just hating Uther, Arthur, and all of Camelot for taking his sister from him was just as likely. None of that would be a reason to keep her in the dark about what was going on.
She could not think of a single good reason for it. The only bad reason she had come up with was that Arthur and her brother were being overprotective males who thought she was too delicate to be burdened with the truth and had asked Gaius to help them. And that idea just irked her even more, leading her to sew more and more aggressively.
She was so angry that she missed George waking up, Merlin rousing, and the sound of approaching footfalls. When the door flew open, she was about to let whoever had barged in get the full brunt of her frustration when she realized what was happening. Elyan was on a stretcher, covered in blood despite Gaius pressing down heavily on his wound. At that moment, she understood why they hadn't told her what was going on.
Her brother was dressed for a fight. He had known this might happen and hadn't told her. The only reason he wouldn't have was if he was going to fight her attacker. That could mean only two possible things in her mind, Agravaine had been behind everything and Elyan had challenged him or he had been allowed trial by combat and had fought her brother. If the look of how much blood he had on him, Elyan had lost that fight.
Her anger was swept away by her worry and fear for her brother. There was no free patient cot, so she rushed to clear off the table for Gaius to treat Elyan on. She did not even stop to think it was not her place to treat her own brother. She just did what she knew she could for Gaius before looking over to check on Merlin and George only to see that both her charges were awake and staring in horror.
George looked sick. He was even paler than usual, shaking, and looked like he was a moment away from vomiting. She was not sure why he seemed more upset than she was, but given his state, he may have been thinking that their attacker had struck again for all she knew. But he looked better than Merlin.
The poor thing was nearly hyperventilating, she was trying to sit up, but didn't have the strength to do so, and looked all the world as if she thought this was her fault. Merlin had trained with Gaius more than Gwen, so maybe she saw something her dark-skinned friend didn't understand or maybe she knew there were so many things that could go wrong. Either way, she needed to calm down before she vomited, passed out, or both. Because no one in the room wanted those possibilities to happen.
For the next quarter of an hour, Guinevere tended to her friends while the physician worked to help her brother. Twice Merlin had fallen into a coughing fit, George nearly fell out of his bed to try to help her, and Gwen had also had to help the guards assisting Gaius finds the supplies the physician had asked for. For 15 minutes she managed not to think about the fact she might lose her brother.
After that, she not only thought about it, but she over thought. She then got lost in her memories of losing her mother, how she thought she had lost Elyan when he had left to travel outside of Camelot and their home city, and the death of her father. She was not sure she could survive losing any more family.
She eventually calmed down not only herself but her fellow servants as well by sitting on Merlin's bed and holding both of them close until the injured pair fell asleep against her. Merlin leaning on her shoulder and George on her lap. The weight of them grounded her, keeping her from losing herself to her despondent thoughts.
She stayed there for a long time, looking at the details of her friends' faces and hair that she had never noticed before. How George had pale freckles on his nose and chin, how he had a small burn scar on his cheek where he had been splashed by some kind of scaling liquid, or how his hair had strands of blonde mixed in with the brown. How Merlin had the early signs of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth from her constant smiles, how her hair was actually a very dark brown, not truly black as some seemed to believe, or how her mouth was slightly crooked. She looked at those little details and several others until Gaius had her brother moved to his bed behind the screen and dismissed the guards helping him.
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He did what he could for the young knight. He slowed the bleeding with herbs and stitches, he used potions and pastes to ward off infection, and doused the boy with draughts for his pain and to keep him asleep. Now, it was up to Elyan.
Even if he managed to avoid infection, there was still damage to Elyan's abdominal obliques, abdominis, sartorius, and iliopsoas muscles. If he was very lucky, he would only feel pain from his scars in his old age when there was bad weather, but that sort of recovery was about as likely as the late king Uther walking into the room. Given the state of the blade when it inflicted the wound and the amount of debris he had been forced to flush from the injury, even after the extensive amount of bleeding that had occurred, infection was all but inevitable.
Explaining that to his sister has been painful. Especially given the way she was clinging to his other patients, her friends, as if they were only things keeping her together. He tried to be optimistic, but he refused to give her false hope that her brother would heal back to how he had been.
Elyan was very likely to survive, but the quality of his life after this was what was in question. Given his injuries, he would presumably have to give up being an active knight. He would still be able to tend to his father's forge if his body healed expectedly. A task such as mounting a steed for a patrol would not be easy or at all comfortable given the muscles damaged.
Poor Gwen nodded and pulled the sleeping pair closer. If she did not come to terms with her brother's wounds relatively soon, Gaius knew he could easily have a 4th patient on his hands. He had faith it would not come to that though.
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Arthur watched from the ramparts until the party escorting his uncle were out of sight. He wanted to check in on Elyan's condition, but he also did not want to disturb Gaius while he tended the knight. Hopefully, he had waited long enough.
On his way to the physician chambers, he thought about how things would be if Elyan had won the fight, if Agravaine had succeeded in killing Elyan, and if Elyan had fought until Agravaine had capitulated. In a way, this could possibly be the best outcome of the whole situation, but that was only if Elyan lived through it. As harsh as that sounded, it was the truth.
If Elyan had won the fight, killing the lord, there would have been an outcry from the outlying nobles and those supportive of the traitor. Elyan's death would be a blow to the reputation of Camelot's knights and shatter the spirits of his family and friends. Agravaine yielding would have meant he would be sent to Caerleon, which would not have been viewed as fair by many, some thinking it too lax while others saw it as too harsh. None of them show Camelot as favorable as what had played out. With his uncle winning without killing his opponent, his banishment to Annis' land could be taken as further punishment or leniency, but not as a weakness. It was a good thing.
Or so he thought until he saw the state of Guinevere and heard Gaius' diagnosis. There was still a chance of losing him to infection, but they would almost definitely lose his services as a knight outside of training others, strategy meetings, and weapon management. It was hard news to take, but choice did the king have?
He had lost men before and would in the future. This was just more personal than most. Elyan was a close friend, brother to the woman he loved, and an important part of Merlin's and the knights' lives. Losing him would weigh on Arthur especially because he had been the one to decide he was the right person to challenge his uncle.
He tried to comfort his love, but she seemed too lost to even notice his as she stared at her brother laying on the bed and clung to the sleeping forms of George and Merlin. He even offered to stay with the four of them while Gaius informed the Council of Sir Elyan's condition. He was oddly relieved when the physician turned down the offer saying George's sister was going to be staying and helping out until the servants were on their feet again.
When he met her later that day, Arthur offered to pay the woman, but relented to allowing her a nearby room for the extent of her stay as payment for her help. He admired her ability to hold her argument steady against the King of Camelot all while keeping her toddler from grabbing things it ought not. She was like a younger, slightly more assertive Hunith and she was just what was needed to drive the gloom in Gaius chambers out.
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AN: So... I made a new character... I wanted to give George a deeper connection with the Knights and Arthur and this popped in my head. I hope your enjoyed this.
Thank you for sticking around and reading despite my non-existent posting schedule. It means a lot to me.