Well, I don't have very much to say, so let's get on with my version of the Witchfinder's visit. Read and review!

Chapter 36

Arthur

Arthur had of course heard the stories about the Witchfinder, the living legend, who had battled against magic for as long as anyone could remember. The man had succeeded in rooting out sorcery everywhere he went. He's was the nightmare of every sorcerer. They were known to flee the places where he came, his reputation alone being enough to scare every evil-doer out of their wits.

And now he was in Camelot. They should be honoured to host such a famous man and apparent friend of his father's. But still, there was another side to this, because Aredian did not come here to pay a social call. He was here on duty. It was the necessity of his visit to Camelot that made Arthur feel slightly uncomfortable. It was the feeling he had so often felt as a child, when he had messed something up and he could not fix it himself, so one of the grown-ups had to come and help. It made him feel ashamed, a feeling he not so often experienced.

'So, where's he been all this time?' Arthur wondered as he accompanied Alina and his father to the council chamber to meet their newly arrived guest.

'Foreign lands,' the king replied. 'Wherever the pursuit of sorcery takes him.'

'And he does all this in your name?' Arthur asked in a disbelieving voice.

'The Witchfinder serves no one,' Alina explained and Uther nodded in agreement. 'He's a law onto himself.'

How was it possible she always knew things like that? 'You heard of him? Even in your homeland you've heard of him?'

She snorted. 'Unlike you sometimes, I do have my ears open, you know. One hears stories.'

They were all of them startled when a deep voice behind them spoke up. 'Do you smell it?' the voice said.

They turned around in surprise. From behind one of the columns Aredian stepped into the light. They must have walked past him only a few seconds ago, but none of them had noticed him.

'Do you smell it, Uther?' he repeated.

'Aredian,' Uther greeted.

Arthur took a moment to look at the legend that the Witchfinder was. As much as he'd heard about him, he had never actually met him. Or rather, he had, many years ago, when he was only a toddler, but he had no memories of it. Apparently his father had asked the Witchfinder for his aid during the Great Purge. The man he now saw was tall, had blond hair and light-coloured eyes and was dressed in black. He had an unrelenting air about him. He looked so confident, so strong, filled with so much authority that Arthur felt almost jealous. Aredian was someone he could look up to, a role model of how a man should be.

'It's all around us,' Aredian continued. 'The foul stench of sorcery. It has infected your great city like a contagion.'

His father ignored the insult in those words. 'I welcome you to Camelot,' he said. 'Thank you for making such haste to be here.'

'Well, let's hope I'm not too late, hm?' Aredian said. 'For every hour counts in the war against sorcery.' Arthur could not agree more. 'Unchecked it spreads like a disease,' the Witchfinder went on. 'It seeks out the young and the old, the weak and the able, the fair and the foul of heart alike.' Whilst delivering this line he walked around the table, now turning to face the king once more. 'You've grown lazy, Uther. You've grown idle. Your once noble Camelot is rotten to the core. You stand on the brink of dark oblivion.'

Arthur had felt how Alina tensed during this speech. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with Aredian's manner of addressing his father himself, but he decided not to speak up for fear it might be offending.

Alina had no such reservations. 'Sir, we all appreciate your coming here, and with such haste at that, but I think you are forgetting yourself. You are speaking to the king of Camelot and as such you ought to give him the respect he is entitled to.'

This struck the Witchfinder speechless. In fact, even Uther looked at her in what appeared to be shock.

'They're equals,' Arthur hissed.

'Even so, that is no reason to be so rude. I think we can all bear witness as to how hard the king has fought to banish magic from the realm,' she insisted. 'So, your accusations are exaggerated if not completely untrue. And even if they were true, you have no right whatsoever to lecture the king on how he runs his kingdom. You are only here to help and nothing more.'

Uther walked over and laid a hand on her shoulder. 'It's all right,' he said. 'Aredian is right.'

Alina looked daggers at the Witchfinder. Strangely enough she did not appear to like him in the slightest. Arthur could understand the concern she had for his father. Alina was nothing if not completely loyal to him, treating him as she would her own father. But this was going a bit too far.

'Allow me to disagree, sire,' she said in a cold voice.

Aredian's gaze now settled on her. 'You must be the Lady Alina.'

'I am, sir,' she replied.

'I remember seeing you at your father's court many years ago,' the Witchfinder went on.

'And I remember seeing you there,' Alina retorted.

Hang on a second, she actually knew this man? Arthur could not believe his ears. Why on earth had she not told him?

'I also remember that you were not there for long as my father told you he had no need of your services. I see that your manners have not improved much since that day,' Alina said.

Arthur understood a little of why she so disliked the Witchfinder. If his manner of speaking to his father upset her so much, he wasn't sure he wanted to know how she had reacted when he had addressed her own father in that manner. Arthur had witnessed her anger a few times and he could only say that was a fearsome thing to behold.

'I go where the sorcerers go,' Aredian said.

Alina grinded her teeth. 'I'd like it if you stopped insulting everyone in the room and just do what you were called here to do,' she said furiously. If it had been someone she knew well, she would have hit him five minutes ago, Arthur knew. So he jumped at the opportunity, just in case she might forget that Aredian was not someone she could slap in the face, no matter how much he deserved it.

'I am at your disposal, Aredian,' he said. 'The knights will aid you in any way they can.'

The Witchfinder turned to look at him now, instead of his fiancée. 'You must be Arthur.'

'I must be,' he confirmed, not feeling completely at ease. There was something about the Witchfinder's eyes that he thought was very unnerving. It was as if he looked right through him, right into his very soul. Alina had a certain look that could do that as well. But where hers was often calming and loving, Aredian's was cold and measuring. It made him feel like the bad kid all over again.

'You're a great warrior, the finest this kingdom has ever known,' Aredian said. But the message he somehow managed to convey with this words was: You're a fine warrior, but still not good enough. I can do better.

'Thank you,' he said, unable to rid himself of the feeling that he had just thanked the man for paying him an insult.

'So you won't be offended when I say that I shall have no need of you, or your knights,' the Witchfinder said dismissively. 'The subtle craft of sorcery can only be fought by yet subtler means, methods honed over decades of study. Methods known only to myself.'

Arthur had to come to a not so nice conclusion: the conclusion that he did not like this man as much as he had believed. To be quite honest, he thought him a prat and, for want of a better word, a clotpole. Of course, if he wanted to fight sorcerers on his own, that was his decision to make, but he could have said it in a gentler way. This was rude.

'We are grateful for your help,' his father said. Arthur did not understand why his father swallowed all Aredian's remarks. Alina had been right to speak up, Arthur realised. Even if all the Witchfinder's accusations were true, there still were a few rules on decency that had to be obeyed. Aredian did not.

'Gratitude alone can't keep a man alive,' he said. 'You must put food in his belly.'

So now he was greedy, too. No wonder Alina's father had much rather solved his problems himself than hiring this man to do it for him. Arthur still thought Aredian was a hero for fighting magic at every turn, but now he realised he much rather had him do that somewhere he would not need to see him.

'I will pay your price, Aredian,' the king promised. 'Whatever it may be.'

'I will bid you good night.' Now that he had heard what he wanted to, there apparently was no need for him to remain in their company.

The Witchfinder was about to exit the room, but Arthur called him back. 'Aredian!'

The man stopped.

'When do you begin?'

'I've already begun,' the Witchfinder said before leaving the council chambers.

Arthur did not know why, but he suddenly had a feeling this might not have been such a good plan after all.

Alina

'So, what do you think of him?' Alina asked.

They had made themselves comfortable in her room, deciding to talk a while before going to bed. She had gotten them some wine and a few things to eat. So now they sat at the table, talking.

'I… I don't know,' Arthur replied. 'I mean, he is a true hero, but he has appalling manners.'

They both laughed.

'All too true,' she grinned.

'You could have told me that you knew him,' Arthur said indignantly. 'You met the legend.'

She snorted. 'Where I come from only his rudeness is legend,' she told him.

She once had a dream about the time that the Witchfinder came to the court of the other Alina's father, demanding that he hand a certain sorcerer over to him. Her father had grown angry, pointing out to Aredian that sorcery was in fact not forbidden in his kingdom and therefore he would never ever give the sorcerer to him. To execute a man who had, according to their laws, committed no crime, that would be considered a crime. Aredian had then gotten very angry, uttering insults that she, at the time, had not fully understood, but she now knew were beyond any normal rudeness. The guards had escorted the Witchfinder out of the kingdom, telling him to stay away in future, unless he wanted to get himself killed.

Alina found herself now wishing that Aredian had been foolish enough to return and had gotten himself killed. It would have saved her and every citizen of Camelot this ordeal.

Arthur folded his legs beneath him, sipping from his wine. 'Now, I'm curious,' he told her. 'What has he done to deserve such a reputation?'

'Let's just say that he paid my father some insults that make the ones he paid your father look like compliments in comparison,' she told him. She did not think it wise to explain to him what exactly had been the reason for Aredian's coming to them. She was not sure he would understand.

'Did your father plan on hiring him?' Arthur asked. He was fishing for information, she could feel it.

'Not exactly,' she replied in a voice that carried the message that she would not want to talk about this any further.

'Then why did he come?' Arthur pressed, not letting this one go. She could feel his curiosity pulse through their connection. There was also some wariness. He could feel she was holding out on him.

She shrugged. 'He came on his own account. You know he goes where the pursuit of sorcery takes him. Apparently it took him to my father's court.'

The other Alina's father had known of his daughter's magic. The art of sorcery was never really outlawed in their kingdom, but after he had found out that his only daughter possessed that gift, he had begun to actively protect it. Attacking magic was the same as attacking his little girl and he did not take too kindly to people who tried anything like that. Nonetheless they had agreed that it would be best not to make her gifts public knowledge, because not all kingdoms were so fond of magic-users.

'You had a problem with sorcerers too?' Arthur asked.

She could not help but laugh. 'Far from that,' she assured him.

'You're trying to hide something from me, aren't you Alina?' The prince narrowed his eyes.

'Fine,' she said, giving up. 'It's just that where I come from magic isn't outlawed, but protected. Aredian was hunting a sorcerer at the time. That particular man had sought refuge in our kingdom and the Witchfinder demanded that we hand him over to him. My father refused. Aredian did not take that too well. He was furious. My father had him removed from the land, decreeing that he would be executed immediately if he ever dared to show his face again.'

Arthur's eyes widened in disbelief. 'Magic is allowed in your brother's kingdom?'

'It is,' she nodded.

'But that must be dangerous! Weren't you constantly afraid of being attacked?'

She snorted. 'Of course not.'

'How could you not be?' he exclaimed. 'Magic is pure evil!'

'No, it isn't,' she disagreed. 'I know plenty of good sorcerers. There are even sorcerers among my friends. One of them was my best friend. He used his gift to heal people. Whenever someone was ill they would go to him and he would make sure that they were in perfect health when they left again. And there was one of my father's most trusted guards who had magic too. He saved me from bandits more than once, using his powers to knock them unconscious or sent them flying backwards or something like that. He never killed them, though. He was too kind for that. He only killed when necessary and his idea of necessary differed a great deal from what the others thought. Even if a bandit was about to cut his throat he would still try to reason with him.' She took things from her dreams to explain to him what she knew.

Arthur's jaw had dropped. 'That's impossible. Magic is always evil.'

'Isn't,' she disagreed again.

'In Camelot that always is so,' he insisted.

She shook her head. 'I think you're wrong again. You just say that because every sorcerer you've ever encountered has been trying to bring Camelot down. You never met the good ones, because they are all smart enough to be hiding, waiting until magic is destined to return to the land.'

She shrugged, as if this all was common knowledge. But inside of her, her heart was beating too rapidly to be considered healthy. Her words could be considered treason and with a known witch hunter in the castle, her declaration had not been the wisest thing to say. But the words had escaped her mouth before she could stop them, driven by the desperate urge to make Arthur see that not all sorcerers were bad, that there were good ones, trying to keep him safe. If that realisation dawned on him, maybe in time she could reveal to him that she was one of the good ones. She hated all the lies that still needed to be told. She wanted to cry her secret out, make him know, make him understand, but she knew all too well that she could not. Not yet, at least.

'If you don't know any good sorcerers in Camelot yourself, how can you be so certain?' Arthur asked in a very condescending voice.

'Well, there are the prophecies for starters.'

'What?' Arthur bellowed.

'There is a prophecy about a powerful warlock who goes by the name of Emrys. This prophecy states that he is destined to protect you,' she explained. It had been a spur of the moment decision, but she knew in her heart that it was the right one. Arthur had always been so clueless in the series, maybe it would be better to plant the thought of a good sorcerer. You could never know when this knowledge might come in handy.

He eyed her warily. 'Where did you learn all that?'

'Unlike you, I take the time to read every now and then. That's how I stumbled across this one. I read about it. In a book. From the library.'

'We don't have books on that subject,' he denied.

A teasing smile formed on her face. 'And how come you're so certain about that? You've never even been in the library!' she laughed.

He threw a cookie at her head, missing her by a few inches, which gave her another something to tease him with. The subject of magic was dropped and not mentioned again that night, but she could feel Arthur was thinking on what she said and she prayed that it would be enough.

I hope you enjoyed it. Please review. I love reviews.