"What might you be doing there, Merlin?" mumbled Gwaine rapidly from behind the servant.
Merlin had been so startled and had turned towards him so suddenly that he winded up accidentally bumping the back on his head against the wooden door against which he had his ear pressed not two seconds ago.
"Hello!" spat the warlock, quite unsure on what a proper response to that question might have been. After all, it was rather imposible to hide what he had been actually doing: he was clearly, undoubtedly eavesdropping. Merlin did not want to insult his friend's intelligence by trying to convince him of anything else. Therefore, he believed that the best thing he could do was to neither deny nor confirm. "I was… here," he stated aimlessly as he struggled to find neutral sentences to string together. "And now… I'm going to go. That's what I'm doing."
And after having pursed his lips, he slid his back across the door until he was no longer cornered against it by the knight's shining armor, and then walked away briskly. Gwaine watched him closely before walking away himself, all the while making sure he did not go too far in case Merlin should return.
The conversation within the throne room, as a matter of fact, was not going any more smoothly.
"So…"
"So…"
That had been, perhaps, their fourth attempt to break the uncomfortable, deafening silence that had settled into the room from the moment Wendy had walked in.
"You asked to see me…?" she hesitated, hoping that stating the obvious would somehow jump-start the conversation.
"Right! I did," answered the king, awkwardly drumming his fingers on his throne's armrests.
When Wendy raised her eyebrows as though expecting him to proceed to explain why he had, Arthur cleared his throat, pretending it had been his intention all along to continue speaking.
"Well… given that you've decided to take residence here in Camelot— permanently, it would seem…" It was hard not to exteriorize his displeasure; as a matter of fact, he wasn't so sure he actually had. "and seeing as I'm to spend so much time with Merlin and you, certainly, are to spend so much time with Merlin…"
"—we are, therefore, to spend time with each other," she finished on his behalf.
"Quite right." The king linked his hands together, pursing his lips. "So I thought we might as well get to know each other a little better. There's… little to nothing that I know about you, as a matter of fact."
The young woman exhaled a faint, timid chuckle.
"There's not much to know, sire, I assure you."
"Oh, I'm sure it's quite the opposite," commented Arthur, not just to be polite but because he knew it for certain.
He might have lacked evidence to pinpoint exactly what it was, but something was off about that woman, he knew that much. It was a gut feeling far too powerful to ignore or dismiss as petty jealousy— not that he was jealous, of course, he very much was not. Or at least so he kept repeating to himself.
"Sire?" wondered Wendy, as if she had in fact read into his ulterior motives.
"Well, I mean… you've moved around so many times, you must know this kingdom better than I do at this point," he expanded as he forced himself to smile and appear friendly. "Not to mention you've been at the heart of a town raid, I can't imagine that being an easy thing to experience."
"Oh, no, my Lord, it most certainly was not," she agreed and, to Arthur's disappointment, the discomfort in her eyes at the mention of that particular episode seemed genuine.
"Right— I was surprised, however…" He tapped his lips, as if that thought had only just occurred to him. "… practically every house in the town had been raided, yes?"
"Each and everyone, sire."
"And yet yours was… what, spared? What I mean to say is it didn't look quite as… affected as the others."
"Oh, not by the time you got there, my Lord. You see, until you brought Merlin, I was the only one there with any knowledge in medical attention, faint as it was… so from the moment those monsters rode away, I did not stop working, not for one second. The first thing I had to do, of course, was make the inside of my house fit to receive patients. And as the days went by and people began to feel better and fitter, several neighbors helped me… tidy it up, as it were. They hadn't any money, you see, so for them that was their way of paying me back for my help… Not that I wanted or needed to be paid back, of course."
Arthur listened closely, determined to the detect the faintest sign that she might be lying, the smallest hole in her narrative, the tiniest gesture that sells out a liar, all the while trying to conceal what he was doing in the first place.
"I see," he replied, nodding his head. "Very heroic of you, you are to be congratulated."
"I just… did my duty as a neighbor, sire."
"A very good neighbor indeed— that reminds me, when those… bandits had us all surrounded, right before we…. well, for the lack of a better word, miraculously escaped."
"Sire?"
"Well, I can't help but feel you must have had a hand in it too. After all, one minute you were gone, the next… poof! There you were. And we escaped. It was almost…"
"—miraculous?" she finished for him again with a tentative smile.
Arthur nodded.
"That's one way to put it, yes."
Here, Wendy's gaze fell to the floor for just a second before she gave herself a faint shake and looked back up at the monarch.
"I'm sure it was just luck, sire. I sleep walk, you see."
"So you've said."
"So I have."
From a strictly literal point of view, those were by innocent remarks being exchanged between the two of them. Once one heard their tone, however, one could sense the metaphorical poison they were spitting on one another, snapping such quick responses that sounded, more often than not, like accusations.
"And you might remember how I decided to isolate myself for the night. You all had little time to rest as it was, I didn't want to risk waking you. The bandits… the sound they were making, it actually led me back to you the next morning. I suppose they must have been distracted, worried that I might be somebody else when I arrived, which gave you the window to shake them off. Rather spectacularly, might I add."
Arthur feigned a chuckle.
"I see. Lucky again," he commented, raising his eyebrows. "It's as if you were… a talisman or a charm of some sort."
"Meaning… sire?" She had jumped to her own defense so fast that she had almost forgotten to keep things respectful.
"Oh, nothing. Just a thought," said he with feigned innocence. "Now," he proceeded. "it was my understanding that you and Merlin were in fact… married."
"Which we are."
"And yet you're not living together."
"Well, we've been apart for so long already…"
"Which reminds me, what was the reason you left Camelot behind in the first place?"
"What was the purpose of this audience, Your Majesty?"
"I thought I'd made it quite clear, to get to know you better."
"So you've said, but this audience is beginning to feel like an interrogation."
That stopped Arthur's mind in its tracks. It was possible that he might have gotten a little carried away, allowing his suspicions to get the best of him as he darted one question after the next.
"If that… was the impression that I gave you, I assure it was completely unintentional and I sincerely apologize."
"Perhaps it is I that should apologize," she said to his surprise. "Merlin and I have quite a talent for complicating things for people around us whenever we're together. And as I understand it, that has made things complicated for you and him as well. So I can see why you believed that talking to me would be the closest you could get to… nipping the problem in the bud."
Such a confession genuinely surprised the king, who for one moment abandoned his offensive stance, sitting on the very edge of his throne with his chest puffed out and instead leaned back into it, adopting a more relaxed position.
"In your defense, he's been making things complicated for me even when he was a kingdom away from you," he commented with a half-smile, a sort of olive branch he extended the young woman.
She, in turn, smiled back.
"So we agree this is all Merlin's fault, then?"
"Oh, absolutely," replied Arthur before they both chuckled. "You see," he then added on a more serious note. "I've been deceived by people before. People I held dear, people I trusted. And honestly, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Let alone a friend."
"I promise you, sire, hurting Merlin is the last thing that I want. And to answer your question, that's why I insist on keeping him at bay at all times. When we crossed that limit between friendship and… something more, well, we made quite a mess of things. So I would rather keep things… unsolved rather than facing what we might have to do to solve them."
Arthur nodded his head. There were still plenty of questions left unanswered, but at least he no longer felt at a complete loss as to who she was, what she was after. He thought he was beginning to recognize the trace of something, of an explanation. However unclear it remained, it was starting to sound quite understandable.
As a matter of fact, both of them appreciated what the other had shared. They reckoned it couldn't have been easy for either one of them to open up to one another as they had.
"I'll see myself out, then," decided Wendy after several seconds of reflective silence.
"Nonsense, I will walk you out myself," offered the king as he rose to his feet.
The young woman bowed as he walked past her and then followed him to the door. Just as Arthur pulled it open, his servant came falling right through it, meeting the ground with a heavy thud. Evidently, Gwaine had abandoned his post, allowing Merlin to go back to his tactless eavesdropping.
"Honestly, Merlin," groaned Arthur.
"I was," he stammered. "p-polishing the knobs, they seemed rather… they lacked shine." He began to frenetically rub the brass with the end of his sleeve.