I know it's much shorter than normal, but I had a terrible case of writer's block earlier this week. And I couldn't leave you hanging. More to come next Thursday, I promise!
Jaya nearly lost hold on her magic as the thought of striking everyone in the room with a small memory loss spell popped up in her head.
"Find...Sir Lancelot," Uther sneered. "And bring him to me!" He roared.
The guards looked at each other and then back at their King. "Sire, beggin' your pardon," one of the more brave men spoke up, "Would that be the man that was just knighted this evenin'?"
Jaya eased around the pillar in time to see the veins on Uther's neck bulge. That was not a good sign.
"Yes." he growled. "Now go find him and bring him to me." Uther looked at each one of them in turn, bearing upon them the weight of the situation and just how much wrath they would incur on themselves if they failed to do as he told them to do.
They all snapped to attention and nodded in agreement, hurrying out to do as he told them to do, none of them willing to stay behind and question why it was that that King was so angry at the newest knight. Or none of them dared to ask.
Jaya, however, was sure that things would go even worse if they were to find Lancelot and Merlin in her chambers. She wasn't sure that they would search for Lancelot in her chambers...but then again, they were desperate to do the will of the King. Jaya rolled her eyes. This was turning into a terrible night.
"What will you do, My Lord?" Geoffrey's voice wondered quietly.
"What I have to." Uther snapped.
The librarian quailed slightly.
Jaya paused in the middle of getting ready to sneak back out of the throne room to listen to see what else she could learn.
"And that would be?" Geoffrey wondered, sounding like he was agreeing with the King, while just curious about what would be done about such a serious infraction of the law.
"That is for me to be the judge of. Thank you. I will have you summoned as soon as we find the criminal." Uther dismissed him with a wave and started toward the low table that held the tray with the wine that he was drinking. He paused for a moment when he saw the back door slowly shutting. "Who's there?" he demanded.
Jaya let go of the handle that she was using to pull the door shut and quickly took two steps away from the door, holding her breath slightly while she thought of the spell that would bring her back to her chambers and get her as far away from an already angry Uther and be able to make sure that Lancelot wouldn't be found until there was enough time to think up a plan.
"Show yourself!" Uther's voice demanded, closer to the door than Jaya realized he had been. He must have been advancing on the door.
Jaya quickly closed her eyes and thought up the spell, opening them up just before the wind whisked her away, only to feel the twinge of full panic when she watched the door start to swing open quickly.
Uther bulled out into the back hallway and looked around, angry. He didn't recall ever having a servant be able to overhear anything that was said in the throne room at this time of night. Especially since he hadn't summoned one to get him anything. He looked around the dim space, wondering if it was just his imagination that it had been swinging shut, and that the last servant through the door had simply forgotten to pull the door shut completely behind him, and that there was no one around to begin with. After a moment of consideration, that was Uther decided was the most likely explanation. There was no one alive that could move fast enough to get out of the hallway before he opened the door and not make noise of some sort.
Jaya blew into the middle of the back part of her chambers, and stumbled forward to lean against the nearest post of her bed. That was close. She had almost been caught in the midst of doing magic. As it was, she still wasn't sure that Uther wouldn't have heard the wind coming from somewhere. All she could hope was that he would find it so improbable that someone would be there, and that if there was someone that to get away they had used magic that he would just ignore it and go on about what he was doing. After one more deep breath, which she blew out slowly between her teeth to calm her heart, she started back into the main part of the room.
"Well then, the King knows now, and he's not feeling very forgiving. I hope one of you has a good idea, because there's guards searching for Lancelot right now, and when they find him they have orders to bring him to Uther." Jaya announced coming back into the room and looking first at Freya, who was stoking the fire, while Merlin hovered, ready and willing to take over, only to be shooed back by Freya, who was doing just fine by herself.
"He knows?" Lancelot asked, his voice sounding strangled slightly. "What are we going to do now?"
"Merlin is going to come up with a plan." Jaya shrugged, looking at him expectantly.
"What?" Merlin squeaked.
"It's only fair, Merlin. You were the one who decided that it was a good idea to run off and make up a seal of nobility from a family that Uther knows." Jaya pointed out, shrugging.
"Are you saying that if I had come to you to begin with you would have come up with a different and better plan?" Merlin questioned, flopping down in the chair heavily.
Jaya shrugged. "I'm sure we would have thought of something.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time. Foolproof even." Merlin muttered, sounding like he was without any kind of idea of what the best idea was.
"It would have made more sense for me to tell Uther that he was from a noble family from Ireland." Jaya pointed out. "Uther has no ties, and he's not familiar with who's in charge of what lands and no personal connections with anyone that has any nobility besides my father."
"That's a…" Merlin quieted for a moment and then slapped his forehead. "That's a much better plan. Why didn't I think of that?" he muttered.
"There's no use dwelling in the past. Not when there's guards searching for you and there needs to be a plan to make sure that you don't die." Freya spoke up, turning to face the rest of the room, her back to the fire that was now going strongly again.
Jaya nodded and looked back and forth between the two men. "Any ideas?"
Merlin shook his head. It hurt like nothing else had up til this point. He wasn't sure if it was because he suddenly had a hangover, or if it was a headache from the realization that it was because of him that they were where they sat now.
"How long do you suppose it will take for them to find out where I am?" Lancelot wondered, looking over at Jaya.
Jaya shrugged. "The good news is the castle is quite large. The bad news is, they'll soon have quite a bit of help. However, I'm not entirely sure that'll they'll bother me in the search. So we may have a few hours."
A few hours later they had made it no farther than they had been when Jaya had come back. A few times their conversations stopped or became more hushed than usual when the sound of rushing feet went past the door.
"What are we going to do?" Merlin wondered for what to be the hundredth time, his legs were hanging over the arm of the chair that he was sitting in and his head hanging over the other arm.
"There's nothing for it. They're going to find me eventually." Lancelot mused.
"I'm not quite sure that I like that idea." Jaya muttered, laying on the floor between the two chairs, her head pillowed on her arms that were crossed behind her head and on Ridire who was sprawled out on the bearskin rug.
"There's nothing for it. All I can do is go where they can find me and hope that the King will understand why I did what I did." Lancelot shrugged.
"That's very gallant of you." Jaya mused.
"There's nothing for it." Lancelot shrugged.
"He's not known to be a forgiving person." Jaya muttered, her voice bordering on mutinous.
"Arthur will help us." Merlin assured.
"How can you be so sure, Merlin?" Lancelot questioned, looking at him and tipping his eyebrow slightly. "We've both lied to him. He has absolutely no reason to."
"I know Arthur. Almost better than I know myself. I'm with him all the time." Merlin pointed out.
"Except when you're off causing trouble for us." Jaya grumbled, though the look on her face made it seem like she enjoyed the trouble.
"Anyway," Merlin started looking down at Jaya and then back up at Lancelot. "He's seen you fight. You're the first one since Jaya arrived in Camelot to actually come close to beating him in an honest fight. That'll mean something to him." Merlin smiled largely. "He's just as loyal as he wants his knights to be."
"Then we shall hope that he is true to his character, and that the King will have mercy." Lancelot decided, sitting upright more.
"So that's your plan then?" Jaya wondered, sitting up abruptly, the wolf bouncing against her neck and the gems winking in the light from the fire and the few remaining candles that were still burning.
"With all do respect, M'Lady," Lancelot smiled tiredly at her, "Is there anything else that you can think of that would be a better one?"
Jaya sighed, with a growl at the back of her throat when she realized that he was right and that there really wasn't any plan that was worth mentioning. It was only a few hours before morning, and they hadn't come up with anything. There was nothing for it. It was simply down to facing Uther's wrath and hoping that Arthur would be able to persuade his father that it was a good thing to keep Lancelot on. Or, at least, not kill him outright for the 'offence' that he had committed.
Lancelot slid off his chair and laid a hand, tentatively, on Jaya's shoulder. "Thank you for your help. And for the warning. I know that it wasn't easy for you to get all that information. And I appreciate that you did it on my account."
Jaya smiled and shrugged slightly, her embarrassment mostly hidden by the lack of light left in the room.
Lancelot stood and looked at Merlin. "Shall we go back to your chambers then?"
Merlin stood up, doing his best to look like he was sure and confident, when it really looked more grim and determined. "Let's. Goodnight, Jaya."
Jaya rolled to her feet and clapped Lancelot's shoulder. "It'll all be fine. We'll make sure you make it out of this with your head still attached to your shoulders."
Lancelot barked a laugh and shook his head slightly. "You have a very amusing sense of humor."
"Well, I wasn't very pretty, so I had to work on my personality." Jaya winked at him and shooed them both toward the door. "Off with ya. Tomorrow's goin' to be a busier day than we would like I'm afraid." She closed the door quietly behind them, hoping that between the two of them, they would make it back to Gaius' chambers without being caught. They deserved the little bit of sleep they were going to get.
She walked into the inner room of her chambers and flopped down on her bed with a groan.
"Did you get a plan together?" Freya's quietly sleepy voice asked from the other half of the bed
Jaya looked over at her, not completely surprised the Freya had decided to fall into the bed and sleep. She shifted and grunted a little when a less than careful Ridire jumped onto the foot of the bed and flopped down with his head on her legs and his body curled up tightly between the two of them. "No. Lancelot's decided to face Uther. Now we just have to pray that Uther will be gracious enough to not kill him as soon as he sees Lancelot."
Freya shifted slightly, and brought one of the pillows down so that it was under her head more comfortably. "It'll be all right, Jaya. You'll see. I know between you and Arthur it'll all work out."
"I only hope you're right." Jaya muttered, yanking a pillow down for herself and shifting down into it so that she was more comfortable.
