Chapter 4: The Cost of Freedom
Pillowing his head on his mostly-dry shirt, Merlin could get no rest, though the rain stopped shortly before midnight. He was impatient for morning's first light, to find his way to the home of his enemy.
Since coming to Emmett's Creek, he had learned that Padlow didn't live in town, but a good distance away, in a place he had hitherto been unable to locate – it seemed he hadn't explored far enough into the western woods to find it. He'd been reluctant to ask anyone more specifically for fear of revealing the intentions that so far Gaius hadn't repeated – and of course he couldn't ask the physician to help him – but now he had a better idea where to look.
If the records Freya had referred to were accurate, they could be the key he'd been looking for. The reason. The all-important why that had been burning him night and day for more than two years. Ironic that the person who'd given him answers, was the person he'd been avoiding conversation with, all this time.
The complaint of landholders and tradespeople against tax collectors everywhere was the grudge the people of Emmett's Creek held against Padlow; it made sense now that Merlin knew that detail. Uther required certain set amounts and certain percentages, and to avoid the hassle and expense of sending the agents on his own payroll out about the countryside, he sold the privilege of collecting taxes. These tax farmers owed the balance of the taxes of the region for which they were responsible every year, and anything they collected above this amount was their profit. Since the tax questions of how much, from whom, and how often, were changing constantly and could baffle even the most honest of lawyers, the average farmer, storekeeper, and rancher could never hope to know how much of the taxes they paid went to the treasury and how much lined the tax farmer's pocket.
So the tax farmer's reputation and level of job difficulty depended to some extent on the people believing they were being treated fairly and respectfully, on whether the tax farmer would make allowances in consideration of unforeseen circumstances, whether he would accept barter items for payment, or demand coin money.
All this Merlin remembered learning at a young age from conversations between his mother and father, though he couldn't recall Padlow's name ever being mentioned. Though it was a rare tax collector who didn't require the cooperation of the shire's reeve, or even a few hired strong-arms on occasion, from his observation of Emmett's Creek, Padlow and Reeve Whatley were hand-in-glove, and Burton was the threat that kept those living here in submission during the months when Padlow was gone.
He'd never seen the tax farmer for the region where his family's farm lay. His father had always ridden into town to pay their family's portion, but every time he'd returned convinced that their collector was an out-and-out thief.
And he had eventually begun to claim that he could prove it.
If there was anything at all in Padlow's records linking him to Merlin's hometown region, or even his father's farm, he would at least be able to guess at the reason his family was butchered. And he had grounds for his revenge against Padlow when he took it.
Revenge was a marginally legal operation. As long as the revenger – whether a hired professional like Morgana or the victim's next-of-kin – could prove the injury before a reeve or agent, the law allowed an eye for an eye. When no proof could be found, and a revenger chose to take the job anyway, it was murder and could be punished. If a victim was lacking a willing and able next-of-kin, or the family or friends were not wealthy enough to hire a revenger, and no agent or reeve cared enough to push the issue, nothing was done.
In the case of Merlin's family, there was no one but him. He was lucky to have been found by a professional revenger willing to take him on as an apprentice and teach him the trade.
There was another thought skirting around the edges of Merlin's mind – the question of the girl. The wife. Who was left behind for months at a time, who was abused by the partner and the rest of the town without repercussion, who came to Percival and Shasta half-starved and wearing cast-off clothing, and who couldn't answer if her husband loved her. Merlin's father would never have dreamed of treating his mother in such a manner. Percival didn't allow anyone to touch or speak to Shasta in a way he didn't approve. Morgana would have slit the man's throat herself. If Padlow didn't care much, it wouldn't hurt him to lose her, not the way Merlin wanted him to hurt – the tearing agony of something vital and precious ripped away forever.
Maybe he should wait until he could judge their relationship firsthand.
When the darkness began graying to light, Merlin stretched his stiff muscles, dressed, and descended to the ground to head three and a half leagues northwest, to search for Padlow's home.
When he found it, he almost passed it before he realized what he'd found. It was little more than a hovel, the smallest sort of cabin, with a moss-stuffed roof and a stable behind that was almost as big as the house, but empty. Merlin was surprised; he had expected Padlow made a substantial profit from his excessive tax farming, and would have had a more expensive lifestyle.
He crouched behind a large bush for half of an hour, to make sure Padlow's partner Burton was nowhere around – the trapper was at his leisure during the fine-weather months to fish and hunt as he pleased, and none dared deny him meal or bunk when he came knocking.
Merlin frowned to himself. If the wealth Padlow was fleecing from the people of the region was not in his personal property, where was it?
As the sun rose over the edge of the trees, and Merlin was satisfied Burton was nowhere in the immediate vicinity, he skirted the hovel once, then lifted the latch and ducked inside. Leaving the door open to let the sunlight illuminate the one windowless room, he began on the right side. A neat pile of worn and faded quilts lay on a musty straw mattress in a bed frame that shared two sides with the log walls. Beneath the bed were shoved two bundles of furs, wrapped and tied too tightly for Merlin to tell if they concealed anything; he didn't have the time to take them apart to see, and doubted his ability to retie them without rousing suspicions in the mind of their owner.
A stack of coarsely chopped firewood poked from the wood-box in the corner, and a dusty oven squatted on the hearth – unused, Merlin guessed, since Padlow had departed and Freya had come to Percival's tavern. The ashes in the fireplace were cold and long dead. A table and two rickety chairs were the only furniture on the other side of the room.
And on the uneven wooden mantel above the fireplace, he found what he'd been looking for – a stack of tattered pages sewn together into a journal. It was still too dim in the room to read, but he doubted that the scrawled, blotted handwriting belonged to Mia, just as he doubted Burton could read or write.
He stepped to the open door, into the sunlight, and swept a keen gaze carefully over the forest, as far as he could see. Nothing… no one. He was still alone. Thumbing open the scrawled, smudged pages at random, he took a moment to decipher several lines of the murderer's handwriting. The names of Emmett's Creek folk were the easiest to make out – Percival, Elyan, Mike, Gaius. The numbers next to them only slightly less so. He flipped pages, but it seemed other towns and other taxpayers in the region were referred to by initial only, a code that would take a while to work out.
And, he had never paid taxes. He had nothing to compare the figures to, nothing to confirm his suspicions… so. Go to the source, Morgana had taught him, when trying to verify information.
Merlin tucked the pages into his shirt as he gave the hut a final glance, then left.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
"Alice?" Freya called, ready to retreat if the physician's wife was with one of the townspeople.
"Back here – Freya, isn't it?"
She let the door of the physician's office close behind her, looking around and inhaling the new-wood smell of the furniture. Even though the building had not been completely rebuilt, the signs of the fire were only there if you knew what to look for. She followed the sound of the older woman's voice, through the large front room – lined with shelves of salvaged books, new medicines, other replaced supplies, the few guest-chairs arranged in the middle of the room – down the hall. She peeked into both of the examination rooms – each furnished with cot and chairs – and the more private office where Gaius kept records, another desk, a bench against the side wall.
Alice was in the back room, what might have functioned as a kitchen if the building were a home, the preparation area with the fireplace and a water pump, the raw materials of the physicians' trade locked safely away. Gaius' wife was rinsing rags in a large basin of water, pinning them to an in-door line that spanned the width of the room.
"How are you managing on your own? Having lost your husband as well as your helper," Freya said lightly, commenting on the fact that both Merlin and Gaius had left Emmett's Creek that week.
"So it seems," Alice agreed placidly. "I would have liked to have gone with Gaius to Camelot, but…" She shrugged her plump shoulders and gave Freya a glance over the makeshift wash-line. "He said he thought Merlin had business there to look into as well."
Freya leaned against the high block-counter in the middle of the room. "Maybe Gaius was wrong about him," she said, assuming the old man had discussed with his wife, what he'd warned Freya about Merlin.
Alice frowned in thought, then shook her head. "No," she said. "That one will be back, sooner or later. He hasn't forgiven, and he hasn't forgotten."
"At least your office is fully furnished again," Freya commented, lifting her errand-basket to the countertop.
"Merlin did a good job of it, too," Alice agreed. "Not a single leak. He's got the makings of a good man in there, somewhere. It's a pity…"
"What's a pity?" Freya said.
The physician's wife sighed and gave her a wry smile. "Whatever happened to make him like he is."
"I think he could be very kind," Freya said, half to herself, but saw that Alice had heard. The older woman said nothing further, but looked as if she didn't know whether to smile or frown.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Gaius caught up with Merlin his second day on the road.
The old physician had given him a small amount of coin to pay for his extra work on the internal furnishings, and because he no longer owed Percival for the use of a bedroom, he'd been able to pay Elyan, who owned the livery stable as well as the smith's forge, what he owed for the care of the nag – thus canceling his debt and giving him the use of the horse to leave town once again. He'd hoped to be able to buy a better mount, but the nag served its purpose, and he wasn't exactly in a hurry. Gaius' filly, by contrast, was high-stepping and spirited, and so had no trouble closing the distance, though the old physician rode a light two-person cart rather than a saddle.
Merlin heard the hoof-beats and wheel-rattle behind him, but didn't turn, not even when the physician pulled the filly to a slow walk just ahead of Merlin's nag.
"Do you mind if I share the journey with you?" Gaius said.
"If I said yes, would you go on your way?"
Gaius only smiled, and said, "You're going to Camelot, aren't you?"
"If you journey with me, I guess you'll find out," Merlin retorted.
"Well, that's where I'm headed. I need some supplies for my practice, and I like to read the latest medical journals occasionally, see what my brothers-in-arms are up to. If we share a room, we can save money. And maybe you can work off that other debt to me a little more."
His eyes were twinkling when Merlin looked across at him. Merlin shook his head, but found it difficult to feel any anger toward the physician. There was too much anticipation for what he might find when they reached the capital.
It took Merlin and Gaius five full days to reach Camelot, and most of the conversation was one-sided. The physician, as always, seemed content to talk without reply, though, and Merlin figured if the old man's unspoken conjectures satisfied him, who was he to care if they were right or wrong?
Camelot was the second-largest city, the capital of the territory, a busy, bustling center of commerce and growing industry. The governor's palace and the adjacent villas of the prosperous and influential were on the north side, the warehouses and livestock holding-pens on the west toward the river. The east and south sections of the city were comprised of smaller-scale businesses and homes of the city's inhabitants. The squares where the government officials lived and controlled their various arenas of power was right in the middle of Camelot.
Merlin and Gaius found a small private room above a tavern slightly rougher in character than Percival's Place, just outside the governing section of the city. And while Gaius browsed the stalls and shops to stock his medical supplies, Merlin wandered unobtrusively to the courtyards where monetary affairs were settled. Here again, direct questioning would only bring scrutiny down on himself, which he didn't want.
Tax farmers from all over the territory came and went, as well as a few private citizens on personal errands who could afford to leave their land or business for a few days' travel. Merlin drifted through knots of merchants deep in discussion, behind desks of various agents recording payments from collectors, arguing with farmers and shopkeepers who'd traveled days and weeks, in some cases, to bring grievances to the top.
Merlin's ears were waiting for two things – mention of his birthplace, or Padlow's name.
The first day he heard neither, but he learned that the records kept by the agents were stored in the city's library. He made a mental note to check those records against the ones written by Padlow, which lay in his saddlebags in a corner of their room.
The second day he overheard a conversation between two farmers, comfortable in neat dark suits, who'd just turned away from a long meeting with one of the agents, and spoke in low tones, but he caught the name he'd been waiting to hear. He fell in behind them as they left the courtyard, keeping close enough to catch the gist of the conversation, but running no risk of being noticed in the busyness of the street. Women shopped and gossiped, children played and ran errands, men with carts or riding horses bought, sold, or just traveled through, just like in Emmett's Creek, but on a much grander scale.
The wealthy farmers had come to Camelot, so it seemed, to complain of Padlow's cheating and deception to the agents in the hopes that something would be done. They were not optimistic after their meeting, but they had a secondary purpose which made Merlin's foot twist on the curb and almost sent him sprawling into the mud in front of a draft horse and cart.
They were from a town neighbor to Ealdor, his birthplace, and they discussed with the air of repeating what had already been said many times, the rumor of a family butchered years earlier by the tax farmer to keep his excesses from being revealed.
Merlin's father. His family.
Evidently part of their outrage stemmed from the fact that nothing had been done to find and punish the murderer – Padlow being the primary suspect – in the two years since the tragedy, and the result was that Padlow's power of intimidation had increased throughout their shire. Merlin marveled at the irony of his headlong flight from Ealdor, his intention being to put as much distance between himself and his former home as possible, after his own crime. Had he stayed, he might have learned the identity of the killer, and maybe even found opportunity to confront him much sooner.
Had he stayed, he might have been executed for murder. And surely wouldn't have gained the training necessary to succeed in his revenge.
Merlin also gathered, from looks and gestures more than from their words, that they were to some degree also intimidated by Padlow's violence. They were nervous that he'd learn of their trip and deal them and their families the same injustice dealt to Balinor.
He stopped on a street corner, then, thoughtfully watching the two merge into the other traffic and disappear. A ragged one-legged tramp curled against the wall shook a couple of coins in a tin cup hopefully at him, and he absent-mindedly dropped in a third, before turning away.
The governor, or at least his agents, now knew of the suspicions and accusations of Padlow's questionable dealings. Merlin had two choices – he could work to prove his revenge on Padlow justified, even turn him over to the agents, or he could simply proceed with his plan to murder the murderer. Perhaps he'd take a day to investigate the records at the city library, and make his decision then. And if Padlow's records proved valuable as evidence against him, Merlin would spare Freya for leading him to them, though unknowingly.
When Merlin returned to the room he and Gaius had rented for their stay, the old physician was busy at the small bedside table dividing different colored mounds of powder into smaller twists of paper. After the first few inquiries into the status of Merlin's business answered with nothing but silence, Gaius had stopped asking directly, but hadn't surrendered his curiosity.
"Do you feel like a trip to the library tomorrow?" Gaius said, not looking up. "If you're free, that is."
Coincidence? Merlin thought. He didn't reply, just threw himself down on his cot and stretched his legs out.
"I've purchased everything I need, this trip," Gaius went on, his eyes still on his task. "I wanted to spend a day reading the journals and talking to my brother physicians, before we – I – return to Emmett's Creek."
Merlin responded in a bored way, "Sure, why not? I meant to leave tomorrow, but I can spare a few hours."
Gaius slanted him an inscrutable look. "Are you going back to the Creek when you leave here, or are you moving on?" Merlin crossed his outstretched legs, didn't answer. Gaius added, "Now that the debts you incurred are paid off, you've got nothing to hold you there."
Merlin bared his teeth in a half-smile, half-grimace. "It amuses you, old man?" he said.
"What?" The twinkle in Gaius' eye revealed that he fully understood the younger man, and knew that Merlin wasn't fooled, either. "I already know everything worth knowing about the folk in Emmett's Creek. A new person to figure out? – yes, it amuses me."
"Getting very far?" Merlin thought suddenly of the record book lying unattended in his saddlebags with Gaius alone in the room.
The old physician hummed noncommittally. "Have you found what you were looking for in Camelot, then?" he continued conversationally. And when Merlin didn't reply, Gaius went on, laying aside his papers and powders and leveling a look at him. "I wanted to have a word with you. No one denies that Padlow deserves what he's got coming. He has plenty of enemies, and it stands to reason some of them would like to act on their hatred. And you haven't hidden the fact that you're one of them. But… I wouldn't be doing my job as your physician, or following my conscience, if I didn't try to change your mind. I know Uther's policy for the punishment of a crime is an eye for an eye, but giving back how you've been paid makes everyone a loser, then."
Merlin let one eyebrow rise in skepticism, and Gaius took it as an invitation to explain himself.
"I've been thinking a lot on forgiveness," the old man continued. At the low growl in Merlin's throat that he hadn't been quick enough to swallow, Gaius put up one hand. "Now, I don't mean to let him – or anyone – off the punishment they deserve for wrong-doing. I just mean… justice. Rather than revenge. Do you see the difference?"
Merlin found his hands were clenched into fists, and he swung himself up to a sitting position on the cot. "You have no idea." Every word was distinct, forced past the raw patch in his throat. "You have no idea." He tried to say more, to shove Gaius 's understanding a little closer to the depths of the hellish agony he carried inside, but words failed. "Sometimes justice isn't enough," he tried again. "Sometimes…"
He turned his mind away from the memory of his mother's outstretched fingers lying inches from his sisters' soft brown curls on the blood-soaked wood of the kitchen floor, the horror etched on his father's frozen face, the littlest coffin – Merlin thought instead of the jobs he'd been assigned while working for Morgana.
"Sometimes justice is not enough." He needed something more – an end. Some proof of Padlow's suffering to show the specters of his family. Even if it cost his life and soul, too.
Gaius raised one of his eyebrows. "What if your revenge isn't enough?" he said, with a stern sort of compassion. "What if, in the end, you're still not satisfied? What if you pay him back only to find it's not what you're looking for, after all? And you get no lasting peace?"
Merlin didn't allow the troubled feeling that crept up on him to show. With the memories of past jobs, other memories surfaced – the father of a murdered child losing his temper upon learning that the laws governing personal vengeance didn't allow for extended torture – the woman who'd insisted upon being present to watch the punishment of the street thief who'd left her with a long red knife scar down her face and had turned away in tears – the boy who'd paid to the last coin for revenge upon his sister's rapist and had returned home to a family now penniless as well as wounded and irreversibly broken.
Killing Padlow wouldn't bring his family back. This he knew. But he was counting on the killing of the murderer to alleviate the gnawing ache of tragic loss and guilt – that he hadn't protected his family, hadn't even been present to share their fate.
What if he wasn't satisfied? What if the dreams didn't stop? He'd go mad, or kill himself, eventually. Or he could spend the rest of his life as a revenger, righting wrongs… of those who could afford to be avenged. But what of the others? And what of himself?
"What do you want?" Gaius said softly.
Merlin lifted his eyes to the physician's face, for the first time letting all his hate and rage boil over inside, and Gaius sat back abruptly in his chair as if unaware that he'd moved. "I want him to pay," he said in a low hard voice. "I want him to match the suffering he's caused. I want him to feel what he's made others feel, to know loss and pain and hopelessness, to be-"
"To be sorry?" Gaius filled in. There was a pause. "And what if he isn't?"
Remorse. Regret. Was that truly what Merlin was after? For Padlow to beg for forgiveness, to apologize again and again, to wish with all his being that he could go back and change the past – and then to die rejected. That would be far more satisfying that to fight an unrepentant and jeering Padlow to a finish.
Then, would his death be enough?
"And what would your mother want?" Gaius continued. "Surely not for her son to be–"
Merlin clutched the last of his self-control. "Not another word," he said. And though it hurt his throat to say it, "Please." And for once, the physician fell silent. Merlin rolled over on the cot with his face to the wall, and considered himself justified in counting his debt to Gaius paid.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
The library was quiet, and permeated with the smell of leather and glue and old dust, the walls lined with shelves, and tables piled high with huge tomes, alcoves half-hidden by more free-standing shelves.
"Let me know if you decide to leave?" Gaius said, too excited by the prospects of his visit to pay much attention to Merlin, and hurried off to a far corner of the library without waiting for an answer.
Merlin wandered for the better part of an hour, his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, hat in hand. In skimming the titles of the books printed on their spines, he gradually developed a feel for the shelving system, and soon found his way to the legal section, of which tax law and records was only a small part. The tax records, he noted, only dated to the beginning of the current governor's term. The older records had probably been archived, or destroyed, as Uther chose.
The records he was looking for were filed by shire and town, not by collector, so Merlin grabbed a stack of recent tax records for Emmett's Creek, and picked through a stack for Ealdor, to find the records from the year his family had been massacred. These were the records written by government agents, not by the tax farmer himself, so it was impossible to match it swiftly to Padlow's own record book in the saddlebags.
For as busy and as noisy as the courtyard had been, the tax records corner was very quiet. Merlin sat down at a table and immersed himself in the pages. He'd scrounged a few scraps of paper to make notations on, and an inkwell and pen sat ready on every table.
The more he read, the more his anger grew.
Merlin started by averaging the reported profits of the twenty largest farms and ranches of both Ealdor and Emmett's Creek, which weren't very dissimilar. Then he calculated the tax based on the governor's basic tax laws and added a reasonable percentage for the tax farmer's allowed profit, and compared it to the records listed in Padlow's book.
Padlow's profits, after paying the agents, were roughly equivalent to the calculated value of five farms and two ranches in each shire. He was easily the wealthiest individual through the whole shire, based solely on the profits garnered from Emmett's Creek folk.
Merlin was seized by the desire to know how other tax farmers were faring, and shoved his chair back from the table to stand. He'd chosen a chair with its back to the wall, sideways to the alcove's entrance, but had become so engrossed in the records books that the other's presence had gone completely unnoticed.
What stopped Merlin cold in his seat was not so much the unexpected arrival of another reader, or the fact that the intruder was watching him instead of perusing the shelves. It was the menacing look of complete recognition and deep animosity in the blue eyes of a man who looked both fit and mature enough to command several hundred of Uther's troops.
Merlin froze for a moment, trying to decide on an appropriate reaction – fight, flight, or bluff.
Then his own recognition kicked in. This man he knew.
This man he had first seen approaching on horseback as he struggled to guide the plow in his father's furrows. This man had calmly subdued his raging refusal to leave, binding him bodily over the back of his own plow-horse. This man Merlin had stabbed with his unnoticed boot knife when caught trying to cut his bonds and escape in the night.
This man he thought he'd killed. Merlin felt relief… then terror. This man knew very well who he was.
"I misjudged you," the golden-haired agent said.
He made no move, but Merlin saw he was ready for anything his quarry might try. It was an unpleasant feeling, being the prey again.
"I couldn't believe it when I saw you in that courtyard," the man continued, not taking his eyes from Merlin's. "I never thought you'd have the gall to show your face in Camelot. At least not before you'd come of age."
They measured each other for a moment – Merlin knew he'd put on pounds and inches both in two years, as well as gathering experience. Thank Morgana for that.
"I could still take you into Uther's service, where you belong," the man continued.
"You'd find it harder than last time," Merlin said.
"Or I could kill you here and now, for your crimes. I'm still an agent."
Merlin eased up from his chair and took a step back. The man straightened and tensed, but kept his hands folded together over his belt buckle, so Merlin kept his hands carefully in view as well.
"What does it get you?" the agent said, referring to his obvious readiness to fight. "Death, prison, or on the run again."
On the run, he'd still eventually track Padlow down and kill him. Death, before he'd gotten his revenge, was out of the question. And prison, knowing the murderer was alive and terrorizing freely, would drive him mad.
"Are you arresting me?" Merlin asked. "I'll not go." The blade of his boot knife this time was longer and sharper. And the table was still between them – circling, the agent wouldn't be able to lay a hand on Merlin without leaving the exit unguarded. Unless he had reinforcements.
"I figure I deserve this scar," the man said, raising his left hand to sketch a short line across his vest over his ribs with his forefinger. "I should have checked you for weapons, child though you were."
Merlin bared his teeth in a silent snarl. "Say that word again," he said, and it was a warning and a dare.
"I hated you for that, and for the long chase you led me," the golden-haired man said. "But you never even knew I was on your trail, did you?"
It was true. Merlin had expected retribution for killing an agent someday, but he hadn't expected the man he thought he'd killed to be following. Well. Then Padlow would be his first kill after all – it was more appropriate.
"Thanks for not dying," he said. "Considerate of you."
"I lost you after you left Morgana's organization," the man informed him conversationally. "Lovely lady, that. Most persuasive."
Merlin grinned suddenly. Morgana's favorite form of persuasion was usually an edge of steel.
"But after all that, and two years, I figure you owe me at least thirty stripes and a year in prison." Seeing Merlin's answer on his face, the agent's expression hardened. "We could still conscript you into training for the cadet corps, if you prefer that option."
"I wouldn't go then, I won't go now," Merlin said shortly. "My business is elsewhere." He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. The agent stepped forward, eyes glancing down to the records Merlin had left open on the table.
"Business in Emmett's Creek?" he said. "Why would a revenger like you be interested in–" his blue eyes shifted to the second set of records, that of Merlin's hometown of Ealdor. Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, thinking that it would be a matter of seconds only… "You think it was the tax farmer who killed your family, and you're going after him," the agent guessed flatly. "A little private revenge. Not very lucrative, is it. And now it's cost you your freedom."
The agent lifted his right hand, and Merlin saw he held a whistle – meant to call other agents for aid. He'd be outnumbered; he'd fight and be beaten to death, or be captured and take the thirty lashes and one year in prison. One year in which Padlow could move on, disappear. One year to lose his quarry, his satisfaction – to lose his sanity to the nightmares that would visit his cell relentlessly.
Would his pride let him stoop to begging for time? He didn't see any way out, by fighting. He certainly couldn't climb one of the library's confining shelves to escape.
"Well, what have we here?" said Gaius' stern-cheerful voice. The old physician moved into the alcove, a fold of journals under his arm. His keen eyes took in both men, the expressions on their faces and the tension in their bodies. His tone didn't change. "Gentlemen, please, if you must fight, could you take it outside the library?"
"Stay out of it, Gaius," Merlin said rudely. And could have bitten his tongue in two at his careless mistake. Guarding his tongue had never been a problem for him; what was wrong with him that he slipped like that?
The agent looked at Merlin, looked at the old physician. "You know him?" he said, and the question was directed to both.
Merlin chose not to answer, but Gaius did it for him. "Yes. He was my patient, a couple of months ago."
"Patient?" the agent said, looking Merlin over to assess possible weaknesses. "Where are you from?"
"Emmett's Creek," Gaius said. "Merlin's first night there, he managed to start a fight with our reeve."
"Yeah, that sounds like him," the agent said, a note of bitter humor creeping into his voice for the first time.
And it was Gaius' turn to ask, "You know him?" gesturing to Merlin in surprise.
The agent smiled. Merlin's heart dropped to his boots.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Freedom was preferable to prison. At any cost? Merlin decided yes. But this time, the cost was high, and Merlin's pride was paying it in coin money.
Between the agent, whose name was Arthur, and Gaius, they'd effectively tied Merlin's hands. Figuratively, that is – he'd never willingly allow Arthur to lay a finger on him again. He'd be true to his word, though given under duress and grudgingly, but the agent was keeping an eagle eye on him, just the same, as though he expected Merlin to give the old nag a kick in the ribs and disappear into the underbrush.
Twice now, Merlin had noticed, his turning over in his bedroll had caused the agent to bolt upright – keeping watch on him at night, too. Though he didn't blame him for that, given their history.
The whistle had never been blown, that afternoon in the library. The canny physician had persuaded the two antagonists to be seated at the table to work out a peaceable solution – and had profited greatly himself by the information he learned about Merlin and Padlow both.
In the end, Arthur had agreed to stay Merlin's deserved punishment til he learned more of the tax situation in that region, and another agent had been sent to Ealdor to see what could be learned there. Merlin in turn had agreed to abide by Arthur's judgment after his goal of revenge had been reached. There were loopholes, of course, that both were aware of, but the agreement, however tentative it was, had been made.