Arthur goes back to the physician's chambers the next day. When he arrives, he sees Gaius asleep on his bed near the fire and Merlin sitting next to the hearth, legs crossed beneath him. In his lap is a large, heavy book. As Arthur approaches, he realizes that he can't recognize the language inside. On one page are tightly-packed, spindly letters written in a strange alphabet. On the other is a painting, filled with blues and reds. Long, black lines extrude from the diagram, ending in more strange, skinny words.
"You're up early," Arthur comments. He keeps his voice low, just barely audible above the crackling of the dying fire, in an effort to avoid waking Gaius.
Merlin glances up from his book. The dark circles under his eyes have grown since even yesterday.
"Couldn't sleep," Merlin tells him.
"What's that?" Arthur asks, inclining his head toward the tome in Merlin's lap.
"Book," Merlin responds, closing it and placing it behind him on a bench pressed against the work table. "I'm not surprised you can't identify one, sire."
A corner of Arthur's mouth quirks up. Hearing Merlin tease him is normal. Good.
"What's it about, idiot?" Arthur asks.
"You have trouble knowing what books are, prat," Merlin returns, climbing onto his feet. "I doubt you know anything about anatomy."
"I know things about anatomy," Arthur tells him. "For example, I know that you're an anatomical wonder: two left feet and an empty head."
Merlin snorts. Arthur gives him a large grin. It's a small victory, but still a victory, and it's all Arthur can do to not pump his fist in the air at the lackluster response from Merlin.
"Right," Merlin says. He glances out the window and frowns. "I'm not late. What are you doing here?"
Arthur glances down at the ground, then back to his friend. "I wanted to check and see if you or Gaius were awake. To see if–to see whether Heda would be up to a few more questions today."
A heavy sigh escapes from Merlin. He glances up the narrow stone stairs at the door to his room, the jerks his head toward the front door. Arthur nods at him and leaves the room, Merlin's quiet footsteps padding along behind him.
They go down the steps together and into the large hallway beneath. Arthur takes them on the familiar route to his own chambers.
"She's staying with you?" Arthur asks.
"Yeah," Merlin says tiredly. "I've organized a clean-up effort with her neighbors and the undertaker. It will still be a few days until they get the hut liveable again."
Arthur nods. "And the baby? Amanda?"
"Heda needs her right now," Merlin says, his face twisting into a frown.
"You mean Amanda needs Heda," Arthur clarifies.
"No," Merlin replies, shaking his head. "I mean Heda needs her baby. It's–it's a strange thing, grief. Often people need something outside themselves to focus on that can pull them through the worst of it. Otherwise…"
"Otherwise you can get lost in it," Arthur finishes.
Merlin glances at him, somewhat surprised, then nods his agreement.
"I don't think the baby is in any danger," Merlin says quietly. "A grieving parent can sometimes be a danger, but she's so attentive and loving."
"Amanda is her child," Arthur says. It's an obvious statement, but it makes the most sense to him. Of course Heda would keep herself together to look after her own baby. Heda is Amanda's mother, and Amanda is Heda's child. It's natural. Powerful.
But Merlin shakes his head.
"Amanda is the last piece Heda has left of her husband," he says.
Arthur's breath catches in his throat. They walk in silence for a little while until they reach Arthur's rooms.
A plate of fruit and cheese has been left out since last night. Arthur considers that it makes an acceptable breakfast as well and falls into a chair at his table. Merlin follows, hovering alongside until Arthur gestures toward a chair across from him. Merlin slips into it quietly and picks at some imagined splinter in the wood.
"So," Arthur says. "Your patient."
The words are still unfamiliar in his mouth, but entirely correct. Merlin has a patient. Merlin is Gaius's assistant. Merlin took care of organizing a clean up. Merlin gave up his own chambers for a stranger to stay in. Merlin's patient.
"She may be up for a discussion today," Merlin says. "I don't know for certain."
"Would it make things worse for her?" Arthur asks. He plucks a grape off the plate and shoves the whole thing toward Merlin.
Merlin looks at the plate blankly, then takes a piece of cheese and nibbles at it.
"It's impossible to tell, really," Merlin says. "But I think it's worth a try."
"Do you think…" Arthur begins. He clears his throat and tries again, "Do you think she is a suspect?"
"No."
"Why not?" Arthur presses. "You must understand–"
"No," Merlin says again. "I do understand. You must consider all angles. But as I said yesterday, disembowelment is a difficult process. Heda is, what, fourteen hands tall, maybe? And eight stone sopping wet. Her husband was almost the size of Percival. There's no way she could do that herself."
Arthur nods. "She had said there was a spot of blood on his stomach, which grew."
"Yeah," Merlin sighs. "And mentioned visions. I've been speaking with Gaius about it."
"And?"
Merlin spreads his hands out in front of him. "We don't know."
"No ideas?"
"Not yet," Merlin says, scrubbing a hand over his face.
He suddenly looks much older than he should. Arthur knows his manservant is three or so years younger than him, but right now, the man looks ageless and worn down. Dark stubble has appeared over his strong jaw. Candlelight throws strange shadows across his face, making it twice as gaunt and strained as it does in full light.
"Okay," Arthur says. "We'll interview Heda again, then her neighbors. And anyone that her husband worked with. What was his name?"
"Henry," Merlin supplies.
"Henry," Arthur repeats. "Very well. Merlin… would you be there, later? When we interview Heda?"
Merlin's tired eyes finally come up from the table to take Arthur in. The king looks slightly uncomfortable. His eyes keep flitting from Merlin to the breakfast between them and to the table.
"She just seemed to respond well to you," Arthur explains. "And I think it would be helpful if you were to be there."
"Of course," Merlin says.
"Take the day," Arthur says. Merlin goes to protest, but Arthur waves a hand in the air and continues, "Just from your manservant duties, Merlin. You have… more important things to tend to."
Merlin furrows his brow. "Gaius can manage. He doesn't need me right now."
"Heda does," Arthur tells him. "I can get along for a day, you know."
"Sure," Merlin says, his voice suspicious and tired. "You can last a day without me to carry your armor or dress you or–"
"Believe it or not," Arthur tells him, a smile playing on his lips, "I have picked up a few things from watching you over the years, Merlin. I'll be fine."
"You won't go traipsing out of the castle and attacked by bandits?" Merlin asks. "Or wayward creatures?"
"I'll be in the castle all day, mother," Arthur promises. "And you'll be in your chambers, looking after Heda and Amanda and speaking with Gaius further about how such a grievous wound can appear out of mid-air. Perhaps something magical–"
"No," Merlin says, voice dark. "Magic cannot do that."
"No?" Arthur asks, raising an eyebrow.
Merlin leans back in his chair, running a hand through his mussed hair.
"No," he says. He glances back up at Arthur, then looks quickly away again. "My technical knowledge of magic is, of course, limited. But I know that you cannot inflict wounds with magic alone. Magic users can manipulate the elements–earth, air, wind, fire. They can change how a person perceives reality, heightening their senses or emotions, adjusting for a temporary time how they see the world. More powerful magic users can even transform matter, living or not, into something else for a time. But magic cannot rend flesh."
"I think it can," Arthur mutters darkly.
"No," Merlin insists. "It can levitate a knife that can make a cut. It can throw a stone that can break an arm. But magic itself cannot cut or crush. So if Heda remembered correctly and that horrible wound came from nowhere, it is not a magic that Gaius or I know of."
Arthur, too, leans back in his chair. The pair sit quietly for a minute, thinking over Heda's abbreviated account of the death of her husband and considering how such a thing could have happened.
"I would suggest, sire," Merlin says, "looking into whether there is something that connects the man we found a few days ago and Henry. There may be nothing, but it could be worth your while."
Arthur nods. "Thank you, Merlin."
The king stands. Merlin stands with him, fingers twitching at his sides. Arthur takes him in, all the gauntness and exhaustion, and claps a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Get some rest," Arthur commands, voice soft. "I need you at your best to help me with this."
"Yes, sire," Merlin says quietly. He bows slightly and takes his leave, padding off toward his shared chambers again. Arthur watches him leave, his mouth flattening into a grim line.
The interview with Heda goes in fits and starts. She relies just a bit less on Merlin's presence to guide her toward calm and instead relies on him to pull her from somewhere far away. Her eyes are glazed and unfocused. When Merlin asks her a quiet question or brushes her hand, she starts as if just reminded that she inhabits a body, and that other people, in other bodies, surround her and wait for her answer.
They get precious little additional information. Heda insists that Henry had been completely fine, eating breakfast with her and Amanda before heading to work the morning he died. Then, in the middle of a sentence, his eyes had become unfocused, and he kept repeating no, no, no, no, no, before erupting into intelligible rants about war and death and terrible machines.
Heda had tried talking to him, then put Amanda down to shake him, slap him, but nothing she tried worked to pull him from the strange visions.
Then Henry had clawed his own eyes out with his bare fingers. Heda began screaming then, she tells them, and grabbed up Amanda to clutch her to her chest. Henry stood, scratching at his face, yelling about what he had been seeing. Then he had gone still. Heda tells them that she had approached again, warily and crying, but he just stood there, still and stiff as a board, empty eyes weeping blood, before saying Please. And then the spot of blood on his stomach appeared, and grew and grew. For an entire candlemark, she watched and pleaded and watched him continue to bleed.
Heda tells them that after about half a candlemark, she could see lumps beneath Henry's shirt. He still hadn't moved, and so she had grabbed his shirt and lifted it up to see the sore or wound that caused the blood. When she did, his intestines spilled past her hands and onto the floor. Henry had stumbled back, then landed awkwardly on his shoulder.
She remembers hearing a sickening crack of bone before fleeing the hut and collapsing outside, her hands still covered in her husband's blood, screaming for help.
She doesn't quite remember what happened after that.
Merlin, Arthur, Leon, and Gaius excuse themselves from the physician's chambers, leaving Heda to spoon warm, honey-sweetened gruel into her mouth. One of the handmaidens in the castle with free time had volunteered to take Amanda, and they can see the young woman bouncing the babe on her hip through the Great Hall as the group moves toward the council room.
The Round Table is already present, waiting for their report. Gwaine frowns when he sees Merlin, and has positioned himself as close as possible to Merlin's right-hand seat at the table. He claps Merlin on the shoulder and gives the man a nod that is only briefly and half-heartedly returned.
Gaius recounts for those assembled Heda's tale.
"Sorcery?" Leon asks.
Gaius shakes his head. "Sorcery cannot do such a thing."
"As Merlin explained to me," Arthur says, "only steel could inflict such wounds. But Heda did not remember a knife or sword being levitated by magic. She doesn't remember a person in their house killing her husband. Just the wound appearing."
"And the begging," Merlin supplies, his voice dark.
Arthur nods. "And the begging."
"A magical creature, then?" Gwen says. Her delicate brows are pulled together in the perfect picture of concern and pity.
Gaius and Merlin share a glance, then shrug as one.
"We are looking into it, my lady," Gaius answers. "But so far, we have not found anything that could do such a thing."
"It's sounding more and more like a manhunt," Leon comments.
"For an invisible man?" Gwaine asks. "That will go well."
"What do you suggest, then, Sir Gwaine?" Leon returns, crossing his arms.
"I don't know," Gwaine says, mimicking Leon's exasperated tone. "But right now, it's sounding more mystical or magical than like we should be starting a lockdown of Camelot."
"A lockdown likely isn't necessary," Merlin interjects. "Typically, with murders such as these, the perpetrator is not a stranger. There is likelihood yet that interviews will uncover some kind of person who wanted Henry dead."
"And what of the other death?" Elyan asks. "The man who hung himself–"
"We do not know for sure he hung himself," Gaius interrupts. "In fact, it is more likely that the man who was found a few days ago was also murdered."
"So we're thinking someone in Camelot murdered two men?" Gwaine asks. "Was there evidence of a horrible fight? Past sordid affairs, a macabre tale of revenge?"
"The scenes were both similarly destroyed,' Merlin allows. "But Henry was, by all accounts, a good man, if not unmemorable in his normalcy. Same with Timothy."
"Timothy?" Gwen asks.
"The man who was found swinging in his hut," Merlin replies, then winces at his own words. "I apologize. The first man we were informed had died under such strange conditions that Gaius and I were called to observe. His name was Timothy."
"Both were men," Gwen offers. "Perhaps a slighted lover?"
"A guess worth investigating, my lady," Gaius says. "But at the same time, Henry, the victim of this most recent… occurrence… he was of a size that would pose a challenge to even women most well-trained in fighting."
"But Heda didn't see anyone," Merlin argues. "Not a man fit for fighting, or a scorned lover. Not a soul. Just her husband having visions and the wound growing."
"Grief can do terrible things to the mind," Gaius returns. "Perhaps she–"
"Grief can do terrible things," Merlin says, eyes blazing as he looks up from the table to look at Gaius. "But she's telling the truth."
"The truth can be many things," Arthur says slowly. "I agree that she is telling the truth, but her truth may be… separate from reality at the moment."
Merlin's burning gaze falls on Arthur then.
"I'm just–" Arthur says before taking a deep breath and trying a more measured, less defensive approach. "I believe Heda when she tells me what she saw. But it doesn't make sense, if what you and Gaius are telling me is true as well. "
"We just haven't found an explanation that fits," Percival says, ever the calm diplomat.
"We're still looking," Merlin tacks on, his tone brusque and tired. Everyone in attendance looks at him in concern, then, their primary relationship as friend momentarily superseding the need for the king's council. .
Merlin keeps his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. He sits slumped in his seat. Rather than his normal, relaxed (if bored) stance taken seated at the Round Table or serving in attendance at council meetings, he seems more defeated than anything.
"Merlin, mate," Gwaine says, bumping his shoulder. "Did you go to both scenes?"
"I'm Gaius's apprentice," Merlin says as a response.
There are nods of understanding and sympathy around the table. Arthur looks at them carefully. Leon, Elyan, and Percival, at least, look as uncomfortable at the idea as Arthur secretly does. Gwaine, Gaius, and Gwen, however, simply have empathy etched on their faces.
The Round Table is dismissed not long afterward, with no particular forward action declared outside of continuing interviews.
The interviews last two more days. On the dawn of the third, Merlin and Arthur are crossing the courtyard back toward the lower town for continued interrogations of neighbors and possible witnesses when the screaming becomes audible.
Merlin and Arthur share a glance. Arthur watches in real time as Merlin's pensive, distant gaze hardens into an impassive mask of concentration. Arthur tears his gaze away and hurries in the way of the horrible, desolate caterwaul.
They are drawn to a crowd on the edge of the courtyard centered near the portcullis. Arthur shoves his way through the surrounding people, Merlin hot on his heels. They spill into an empty space surrounding a small family.
Two children stand beneath the falling snow clinging to a man who must be their father. He shifts from foot to foot, his torso leaned forward, both protective and unsure of the woman in front of him. The woman in question sits in the snow, pressed against the stone wall of the inner gates. She has the heels of her palms pressed against her eyes and rocks back and forth, her chest shaking with her bone-rattling cries.
Arthur watches and hangs back, once again, as Merlin walks forward with sure steps until he stands before the woman. He drops into a crouch, his hand going to her shoulder.
"Can you hear me?" Merlin asks, voice so low that Arthur can only hear it from virtue of being nearest to the pair.
Arthur moves to position himself between the apprentice attending to the sobbing woman and the audience around them. He makes sure his position is blocking the view of most of the crow as well as the man and his children, who still stand too close for comfort.
The woman heaves a huge breath and screams again.
"What's your name?" Merlin asks, shifting his weight so he is positioned more on the balls of his feet even in a crouch.
He is met only with another shuddering breath and a scream. When she quiets to take another breath in, Merlin tries to get through to her again.
"My name is–" he starts, going to introduce himself.
The woman's head whips up and looks at him, her gaze wild and unfocused. Her red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks twinkle in the early winter light. The look is enough to stop Merlin mid-sentence, an admirable feat in any circumstance in Arthur's estimation. The look on her face is one of misery, sorrow, pain. But when she sees the physician's apprentice, looking on with a clinical concern, her expression morphs into one of recognition and… and pity.
"Merlin," the woman breathes.
Merlin exhales heavily, rocking back on his heels again.
The woman in front of him is older than he is, with wrinkles forming at the edges of her eyes and on her cheeks, where her mouth must lift them up in a smile too regularly to remain unblemished. Her dark brown hair is pulled back and hidden beneath a heavy headscarf. Dark brown eyes rake him up and down, as if she is trying to commit every detail of the apprentice and manservant's appearance to memory.
Even to Arthur, the woman's resemblance to Hunith is remarkable.
"Do you know me?" Merlin asks, voice small and quiet.
"Merlin," the woman breathes, and throws her arms around the man.
Merlin stays still for a moment before folding himself into a hug. He pats her back.
"I'm the physician's apprentice," Merlin murmurs. "I want to help. Are you in pain?"
"Pain?" the woman whimpers.
Merlin feels her hands move up again to press at her eyes. He shifts in her hold, which is like steel around him.
"What's your name?" Merlin asks again.
Then he hears the gasps from the crowd and the crying and screaming of her children, the protests from the woman's husband.
"Oh, Merlin," she cries. Her hands are working behind his back, elbows locked around his neck.
He feels Arthur move behind him, swift and sure. The woman flinches and shifts in Merlin's hold, her arms tightening against some unseen force behind them. She fights against whatever the force is for long enough that Merlin feels something hot and wet on his back long before he can see what she had been doing.
When Arthur finally gets the woman's hands forced back to her sides, Merlin's back is tingling with quickly evaporating heat. Arthur's strong arms appear on either side of him, forcing the woman back, far enough for Merlin to see her face. As he does so, the frigid winter air takes on the stench of wet, acrid copper.
Two black-red sockets stare back at him, crying rivers of blood. Steam curls in the cold air from the hot wounds, covering the woman's face in mist. Merlin glances at her hands, now pressed against her thighs, slick and shining with blood, her fingernails caked with the bloody, gelatinous remains of her eyes.
"Merlin," the woman repeats. She collapses back against the wall and says in a voice so quiet that only Arthur and Merlin can hear, "Please."
Arthur looks then at Merlin. He sees that the younger man's physician's mask is cracked in two. In its place is an expression of naked horror.
