Merlin was kept busy all the next morning working in the infirmary, and running to fetch supplies for Gaius. The bodies of the dead and wounded spilled out of the Citadel and into the streets. Churches and monasteries had opened their doors, and the king had ordered the great halls opened to receive the fallen. Still, it was not enough, and when Merlin left the castle for supplies, he saw corpses heaped carelessly atop carts, dragged through the roads by filthy men. Some bodies lay in the gutters, and were worried at by dogs and crows. Merlin averted his eyes, and kept his gaze to himself after that.
Arthur had decreed that all those who fought in the battle would receive treatment if they applied for it. His ministers had tutted and asked who would pay the physicians' fees. Many healers, including Gaius, simply worked day and night, and did not question if or when the money would come.
Even as they toiled, Merlin knew that those whom Gaius treated were the fortunate few. The mingled stenches of blood, spilled humours, and healing balsams filled Merlin's nostrils as they bound and dressed the terrible injuries. Gaius had been instructed to prioritise the knights, for they had been in the vanguard. The more knights who recovered, the more men Arthur would have to hold the city. It was true the knights had borne the brunt of the assault, but on the other hand, they were professional soldiers with intense combat training, and they had the best quality armour and equipment.
Merlin's heart sank when he saw the commoners who had rallied to Arthur's side in the forest. These had not been warriors, and many of them had sustained grievous injuries fighting for their king. How would they be repaid for their service?
There had been a time when Merlin had thought Arthur a prat. Like Will, Merlin had been cynical about the knights who made war for their own vainglory, letting the common people bleed for their selfishness. This war between Arthur and Morgana was nothing new. Noble families always fought, and they tossed the lives of ordinary people away like game pieces.
But Arthur had not been like that. He had said as much to Merlin when they had been in the forest. There was nothing special about Arthur. He could see nothing that distinguished him from any of his subjects, except for his skill with a sword, which he no longer saw as a mark of nobility, but as a thuggish inclination to violence. He had been ready to walk away, but Merlin had not let him go.
Merlin had brought all those knights, men-at-arms, and commoners, to the sword in the stone. He had persuaded them that taking back the city was just, because Arthur deserved to sit on the throne. He had orchestrated a cheap magic trick - and the mouths of those poor, simple folk had fallen open when they had seen their king draw that sword from the earth! They had believed it a mark of Heaven's favour.
Had they thought the sword would protect them? Had they thought the Triple Goddess or the saints were marching with them when they retook Camelot? When poor Jack, the baker's boy, who now lay with his belly slit open like a fish, felt the blow, did he wonder why the magic sword didn't save him? Had Jen, the washerwoman, who now writhed with her whole right arm gone - she would never play sweet songs on her fiddle again - had she wondered why the blessing of the High King's sword had flown from her?
The worst part was that magic could have saved those people.
Merlin could have called the Great Dragon to set the ramparts of the Citadel aflame. He could have summoned a whirlwind and blasted away the Southron armies. He could have spoken a word, and the stones of the castle walls would have tumbled down. He could have raised a finger and sent lightning arcing through the mercenaries' swords.
Had he not hidden his magic, coward that he was, he could have spared all those people from giving their lives. Instead he had spun them a fairy tale, and convinced them to follow Arthur wherever he led, even into hell.
Was he a monster? Was he any better than Morgana? He didn't value the lives of the ordinary people any more than she did. It wasn't as though he had done it to save Arthur's life - he had done it to save Arthur's throne. Why was this one man being king so much more important to him than anything else?
What would change for the little people while Arthur ruled? Magic was still outlawed. Had their lives become substantially better under the new king? Even if the Old Religion were restored, would the life of the butcher or the beggar or the farmer change? Would they simply have High Priestesses as their overlords in place of princes and kings?
Why was Arthur more important to Merlin than anyone else?
"Merlin!" Gaius said. "Stop daydreaming! Help me hold him down!" Gaius was struggling to restrain a knight. As Merlin watched, the wounded man batted the physician away and screamed in pain. Eventually, the knight subsided, once Gaius, with Merlin's help, got an infusion of poppy into him.
Merlin, put on edge by the warrior's bestial screaming, saw an opportunity to direct his anger and sorrow at someone other than himself.
"Your Southron did this," Merlin muttered to Gaius. "Our people are dying all around you. You can't save them. But you watch at the bedside of that enemy soldier day and night."
"That young man didn't invent war, Merlin," Gaius said. "Arthur and Morgana will fight, as princes always have, and men will follow them, rightly or wrongly. The Southrons invaded us today. Yesterday it was Eireans, before that the Vykings, before that the Saxons, tomorrow it will be the Normans and the Franks. I am a physician. I cannot hold a single wounded man responsible for what all warriors do everywhere. Ask King Caerleon's widow what the knights of Camelot did to her cities on the Day of Five Dragons, and she will tell you the men of Camelot are monsters. And she's right. All men are. Our job is to care for them. It is the king's job to judge them.
"Now heat up some more honey and salt it for me. This wound is beginning to fester."
Merlin could not deny the truth of Gaius' words, but nor could he blame the people of Camelot for resenting the Southrons, when the mangled bodies of their kin lay all around them. There was moisture in his eyes as he hurried to do Gaius' bidding.
Members of Sir Leon's family were clustered outside the chamber when the king arrived. All of them, even the aged matriarchs and patriarchs of the family, went down on one knee as they saw the king approach. The sun was setting, and great swatches of ruddy light were streaming through the western windows.
Arthur made a hasty gesture for the family to rise. As they did so, the king noticed a priest among them, no doubt their household chaplain. The cleric did not stand out in his dark cassock, for the whole family were swathed in black. They looked like a mass of storm clouds gathered to blot out the sun.
"My king," said an elderly woman, whom Arthur recognised as Sir Leon's grandmother, Lady Agnes. "You do us great honour. Many more worthy families have sacrificed for you-"
"Nonsense," said Arthur. "Sir Leon was my father's right hand. King Uther relied upon him utterly, as he relied on Leon's father Sir Lionel before him. Your grandson's sacrifice will be remembered, my lady. Where is Leon now?"
"He is inside, sire," the lady replied. "We have kept vigil throughout the day. Leon returned from his knightly duties not long ago. He asked to be alone in prayer."
"Then I shall leave him," Arthur said, "and pay my respects without."
"My lord," Lady Agnes said, "go to him, an it please you. He would not deem it an intrusion, but an honour. Who better to understand his grief than a fellow knight, and a brother-in-arms? He will not think it amiss."
While the family parted around him like storm clouds before the gale, Arthur pushed open the door to the chamber, stepped inside and shut it behind him.
The room was long, and decorated with great tapestries and portraits showing feats of martial valour and the miraculous deeds of saints. Large black drapes shaded the windows, and twined around the pale azure banners and crouching leopards of House Felix, creating a sombre air. In the centre of the room, the body of a young squire, no more than sixteen winters in age, lay on a block of marble. Kneeling beside the corpse was the bent figure of a man in black.
Arthur had never seen Sir Leon like this. His hair had ever been unruly, but now it hung limp and dishevelled about his face, as though his fingers had torn at it in grief. The stalwart knight, who epitomised the restraint and self-mastery prescribed in the chivalric code, had given himself over to passion. The face was crumpled, the eyes bloodshot, great trails of tears and mucus streamed over the skin's surface, the jaw was clamped so that the words of prayer could barely escape the lips.
"Put not your trust in princes," said Sir Leon hoarsely, "nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth. In that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he whose hope is in the Lord his God. The Lord preserveth the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and the widow. But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down."
Leon fell silent, his voice choking in his throat.
Arthur, drawing close to him, said quietly, "Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis."
Sir Leon, startled, jerked upright, staring at Arthur, then turned his face away, rubbing at it with a sleeve.
"My lord!" Leon said in a muffled voice. "You should not be here! That is… I did not wish to be seen…" Suddenly remembering that he was in the presence of the sovereign, Leon half rose, turned towards Arthur, then knelt again, on one knee instead of two.
"Enough of that," Arthur said. "We are in the presence of a greater king than myself, and we are all made equal before the great Reaper of Men. Stand."
Leon did so.
"I'm sorry," Arthur said, gripping Leon's upper arms. "Truly I am."
Leon closed his eyes for a long time, then opened them again. "Thank you," he said. "Many gave their lives for this city. At least he got to die with a sword in his hand, fighting for his king. It was a noble death, a warrior's death, of the kind he'd dreamed of since he was a little boy. And he will have the ship burial he wanted. Only… I did not think I would lose hold of myself like this. You don't imagine your little brother dying before you do..."
"No," said Arthur, thinking, I've never known what it is to have a brother. Perhaps it would have been less lonely. But then… Leon and Leopold were so alike. Morgana and I were so different. What might have been, had the two of us had learnt to be as close as these two were…
"Come," said Arthur. "Let us pray together, and honour, as knights, the fall of a noble squire who shone as an example to us all."
The two of them knelt side by side. There were cushions on the ground, and stools on which mourners could rest their elbows during the long hours of the vigil, but Sir Leon had shunned these, and Arthur followed suit. Arthur wondered how long Leon had kept his knees pressed against the hard stone floor, his arms folded before him with no support. He understood, though. Leon did not want comfort. He wanted to feel pain. It was wrong that he should be lying on cushions when his brother lay dead of a sword wound, beyond the power of any physician to heal.
It was bizarre, but Arthur almost missed kneeling, though he did it only before God, and not men. He had not taken the knee before a man since the death of his own father. Arthur was the highest ranking lord in Albion now. He was the one to whom people cried, paid homage, surrendered their lives and their service. He was the refuge and the gift-giver, the guardian of his people and the father of the kingdom. He himself could not bow, and had no one to turn to. Not on this earth, anyway.
Arthur remembered keeping watch at his own father's side when the late king was laid out. Grief was an experience common to all, surely, yet Leon's relationship to Leopold had seemed a simple one of brotherly love. It was a different thing to mourn a man who was one's king first, then one's liege lord and commander, and only then one's father.
The men crossed themselves, and Arthur, in keeping with his kingly dignity, began.
"All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O Lord, when they hear the words of thy mouth. Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly. But the proud he knoweth far off. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me. Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me..."
It was dark when the king emerged from the chamber of the wake. He found the family arranged around the doors, some sitting, some kneeling, others standing, all in attitudes of prayer. When they saw the king they made obeisance once again, and again Arthur waved at them to stand.
As he was taking his leave, Lady Agnes came to his side.
"My lord king," she said, "thank you for doing us this honour."
Arthur said, "My lady, I meant what I said about your family's service to our kingdom. It is my intention to render you every aid and comfort that I can. Should you require anything, only ask, and it is yours."
"There is one thing you can do for us, sire," she said, her sea-green eyes blazing. "We have heard that you have taken one of the Southrons alive. If you would comfort us, then kill the wretch, and do not give him the mercy of a slow death. Flay him alive, or burn him, or have him torn apart by horses. Make it public, so that all may see what comes of those who go against your throne, and the House Felix. I myself intend to be in the front row at the execution, and will bring stones to fling at him as he dies, the vile scum. And as for your former foster sister, that treasonous hag Morgana… " A quite frightening expression spread across the elderly woman's face. "If it would not beseem Your Majesty's knightly honour to treat a woman ill, hand her over to me. I shall see to it she gets the punishment she deserves."
The lady sank into a deep curtsey, twitched her black lace veil back over her face, and returned to her kin.