Chapter 13: Snowfall
A block of ice throbbed heavily on the side of his head, melting slowly down his face, seeping chilly into his collar, wet through his clothes. His face was numb, his fingers chunks of wood.
Someone said his name and the block split open as at a blow, shards of ice driving through his head.
Again, "Merlin."
He thought for a moment he should know the voice, know the name to use in his feeble curse, but decided to wait to try to remember. To try anything at all.
"Merlin, if you don't open your eyes and get up, you'll freeze to death here tonight."
Freeze to death. No, he didn't want that.
It was an effort to open his eyes, and when he believed he'd accomplished it, his senses told him he'd deceived himself. He couldn't see anything. He blinked deliberately, painfully, then could make out a dim blur of white against the darkness to his right. He turned his head to try to see the blur more clearly, but it moved as he turned, and his left side remained in darkness.
A shadow moved against the lighter blur, and he jerked back instinctively, upsetting equilibrium. He would have fallen, but he was already on the ground. On the ground, and in the snow. He felt a tug on the twine around his elbows, then freedom.
"That was quite a kick Cedric gave you," the voice continued.
The voice and the shadow were one, he realized, and the name came to him. Arthur. Government agent. Here to arrest the man Merlin wanted to kill.
The man the posse had come to claim.
"They took him?" he said thickly, putting both hands flat on the ground to better judge which way to stand up. He felt the light brush of snowflakes against the back of his neck. His vision was clearing on the right; he realized night had fallen and soon it would be pitch-dark. His left side remained already in the dark, and a tentative search with his fingers told him in a flash of pain that the swinging stirrup's blow had swollen his eye shut.
Arthur snorted, a grim sound. "They took him," he answered. "Didn't give me much choice about it. They took our horses, too. We can stay the night in the hut and walk back when it gets light in the morning. Won't be hard to guess what we'll find when we get there, either."
Merlin pushed himself upright, staggered unintentionally into the other man, who shoved him back, not ungently.
"We have to stop them," Merlin said.
His whole face was stiff, but whether that was from lying in the snow or from the stirrup, he couldn't guess. Didn't matter anyway. He put one boot in front of the other, shifted his weight, stumbled forward. The dark of the trees and the lighter blur of ground snow tilted, and he stumbled, but each step made the next one easier.
"Doesn't make much difference," the agent said, and there was a shrug in his voice. "They were right that I wouldn't arrest them for it. I'd need a posse myself, and no one would offer testimony against his neighbor to give me evidence. Their wives would all say they'd been home in bed, and Padlow and Whatley must've hung themselves in remorse. No great loss, though it means I've wasted my time here."
Merlin could make out the shape of the hut, a vague warm glow from the door still ajar, the coals from a fire still giving minimal light. They should stay the night there, make their way back to Emmett's Creek in the morning… His sheepskin coat had been slung over the gray's unsaddled back; he didn't feel the cold much now, and he might never until it was too late, but he figured he couldn't die on his feet. He turned toward the hut, put one foot in front of the other again.
Arthur followed, but stopped when Merlin passed the hut and made no effort to turn toward the stable, either. "Wrong way," he said laconically.
"My nag," Merlin answered.
His sight continued to clear as he walked, though his balance was affected by his diminished vision, he could make out his surroundings up to maybe twenty feet around him, and eventually he found the long-suffering nag, shaking snowflakes from its sparse mane. He hauled himself up in the saddle after untying the reins, and draped the extra blanket, damp as it was from an afternoon's worth of snow, around his shoulders before making his way back to the hut.
Arthur waited on the porch, his arms crossed.
"You could come in with me, and not wait for the morning," Merlin said.
Arthur didn't hesitate long. Merlin kicked free of his stirrup, and leaned forward to allow the agent to grip the back of the saddle for help in mounting. Then he turned the nag's head in the direction of the subtly snow-hidden track.
"All this time wasted," the agent grumbled after a moment. "Burton dead and Padlow and Whatley hanged. The governor's not going to like my report."
"You want to take Burton's body to show them?" Merlin asked sarcastically.
"The posse took that too."
Merlin gritted his teeth, tried to urge the nag to walk more swiftly. He'd pushed himself to the limit of human endurance time and again to find his adversary, to feel the warm spread of blood on his hands, to see the last breath gasped, the last look in the murderer's eyes. If there was a chance any life remained in Padlow's body…
He had felt blood on his hands this night.
The thought was abrupt, an about-face shift from his desire for revenge. Blood had soaked through her shawl, had stained his vest. He looked down at the dark smear visible against the lighter material, and rubbed his hand across it.
Arthur caught his movement, grabbed his arm as if afraid Merlin might fall from the saddle. "Are you badly injured?" he said, attention in his voice, if not concern.
"It's Freya's blood," he answered. "They had her locked in the cellar. I brought her to Shasta, before…"
"Before you came back to try your hand at two against one," Arthur finished for him. "If you hadn't, I wouldn't have come in time…"
In time to save him, or in time to stop him, did he mean? The agent didn't finish his sentence.
A stitch began to circle around Merlin's injured arm, sweat to trickle down with the tiny melted snowflakes that lighted on his face and in his hair. Behind him, Arthur's breath came more quickly as they labored on through the darkness, and an occasional shudder from the cold.
"I understand why you tracked him down, why you wanted so badly for him to pay with his life," Arthur commented after a while. Merlin's knees tightened; the nag startled into an awkward jog for a few paces before stubbornly, stiffly slowing again. "Isn't it enough for you to know he's dead?"
Merlin didn't answer. It wasn't enough. It might have to be enough.
But he needed to know, needed to keep pushing, keep trying. There was no one to hold him to account, no client to refuse pay on a technicality. There was no one but himself, and the hate stuck in his heart like a live coal.
The light snow still drifting down from darkened skies had stopped almost entirely by the time Merlin could make out the glow of a handful of lights from town. He pressed the nag to a quicker walk. Despite the absence of daylight, the fading of twilight into the dark of night, the hour was still early; more windows should be lit from within, more lanterns swinging outside homes and shops to light the streets. There was also a complete silence that carried no noise on the crisp night air.
Arthur shifted, behind him on the nag.
"There's nothing for us to worry about," he said, only partly to Merlin. "If they wanted to hurt us they could've done it when they took Padlow."
Merlin didn't answer. He also didn't bother to circle behind the tavern as he had done a few short hours before, concealing his arrival. He knew the men of the posse, knew that though they had decided upon swift retribution for their enemy, their good sense and conscience would demand an even swifter return to their homes and lives, maybe even a pretense that they had not been involved.
The tavern's front window released the soft glow of a single candle that said they'd already closed for the night. At the large barred doors of the forge, a lantern was lit, swinging slightly. Beyond it and the moving shadows it threw, another larger shape swung from the signpost of the stable.
Merlin shivered, cold suddenly in his shirtsleeves as the blanket slipped away from his shoulders.
"Damn," Arthur said.
Merlin drew the nag alongside the signpost, reaching to the body that hung there, and withdrew his knife from just above the rope that spanned the neck. They'd hung Burton's body exactly where Burton had strung him up; if that wasn't irony, he didn't know what was. He kicked the nag into moving further down the street, past the boot-maker's, and found Padlow's body swinging from another signpost.
Padlow's stiff feet, bound at the ankle, knocked the vertical post, spinning the body slightly. Arthur's twine still bound the wrists, the kerchief puckered the cloth of the bloodied pant-leg. There was dried blood also on Padlow's swollen face and the collar of his shirt. His eyes were half-open, his expression frozen in shocked disbelief at his end.
Down the street, another form swung stiffly outside the reeve's office. No wonder the windows were dark; no one wanted to look out on the ghastly trio of dangling corpses. Emmett's Creek had gone to bed to sleep away the memory of the night's work, even if only for a few hours.
Arthur reached out and grabbed at Padlow's arm, found the wrist, held and measured for a short moment.
"He's dead," he confirmed. There was anger and regret in his voice, and curiously enough, relief.
Once again Merlin's ears were filled with a roaring silence, the silence of a morning in a kitchen where no breakfast was served, no plans for the day discussed. The silence of a sanded, scrubbed plank floor soaked in blood, in Merlin's own blood.
He was lost.
There was no father to guide him, to teach him, to correct him. There was no mother to love him in spite of his moods, to provide the stability of assured warmth and comfort. There were no sisters to tease as a release and cover for his feelings, to look at him with complete trust and shy adoration in big eyes.
He was alone.
There was no future, no goal, no purpose. Only emptiness. The murderer had not remembered and regretted his crime.
The cold was like a vise closing him in, squeezing air from his lungs to make room for nothingness, squeezing sight from his eyes, the sensation of touch from his fingertips. There was nothing left for him to hate. There was nothing left.
He let his body lean forward over the nag's neck, his face coming to rest in the rough tangled mane. He heard Arthur's voice as a faraway murmur, felt the agent's hand as though he touched someone else. What did Merlin care if he fell from the horse? What did he care if he died on the street this night, also?
"Merlin!" Arthur's voice snapped. "Get off the horse." Each word was a sharp, concise command.
He realized vaguely that Arthur had already dismounted; Merlin leaned to the left, swung his leg over the horse's back. He kept his feet with an effort and a hand on the nag's withers when he landed.
"Go to the tavern," Arthur continued in the same tone. His hand on Merlin's shoulder gave him a little shake, as the agent studied him keenly. "Get yourself taken care of. We can talk in the morning."
Merlin's feet started him across the street of their own accord. At the door of the dimly lit tavern, he paused, turned, blinked his eyes clear. He wanted this memory, this vision, to hold up to himself, to shield him from the nightmare visits from his dead family. But Padlow's body was a pitiful lifeless thing, an empty scarecrow with no power, no passion. No threat, no anticipation, no preparation. He had lived to see his enemy dead.
Arthur reached to cut the body down.
Merlin looked down at the knife still held in his hand, sticky with the blood of the trapper, and let the knife fall to the boards of the sidewalk. Then he turned and entered the tavern.
Gaius was there, leaning on the bar behind which Percival tilted a large mug of beer, half-gone, to swallow from. A small neat glass, empty, stood on the counter before the physician.
"Merlin!" the old man said, and Percival seemed to choke a little, fell into a coughing fit. "We were just talking about whether or not to ride out for you, or let you stay put until morning."
"Didn't want to leave you out there," Percival muttered without meeting his eyes, and coughed some more.
"The nag was out behind the stable," Merlin said by way of answer. It all seemed so remote now, so pointless, but… "Freya?"
"She's fine for now," Gaius reassured him. "Sleeping. Is the agent with you?"
Merlin nodded, gesturing loosely behind him, and the physician hurried toward him with an air of taking charge.
"Look at the light," Gaius commanded, taking Merlin's face in his gentle wrinkled hands to turn one way then the other, peering up into his eyes. "Head hurts, does it?" he commented finally.
Merlin didn't answer.
"It wasn't right, what they did," the old man said softly, and Percival shifted uncomfortably. Probably he'd already had this piece of Gaius' mind. The physician went on, "Off with your shirt. I'm sure you must have something hidden that needs attention."
When Merlin didn't move, Gaius unbuttoned the vest for him, then the shirt, pulling its tails out for removal. He stepped behind Merlin to lower the sleeves of both garments from his arms.
"Ah yes," he said. "Percival, my bag, please."
The bartender set his mug down deliberately on the bar before he emerged from behind it, reaching down to the floor where the black bag leaned against the base of the bar, brought it to Gaius.
"Does Shasta still have water hot on the stove? And a couple of rags."
Percival headed for the kitchen without answering or looking at either of them. He staggered slightly as if drunk, though Merlin had never seen him take more than a swallow of what he sold. He steadied himself with a hand on the bar – it occurred to Merlin to pity the big man. It wasn't easy, what Percival had participated in, necessary maybe, but he hadn't the preparation Merlin had.
It should've been him, to kill Padlow.
"They stole from me," Merlin said, staring at the plain wall that hid the staircase from view. "Something I can never get back. All I wanted–" He stopped, swallowed, tried to start again. "And now–"
"Everything's changed," Gaius supplied. "I did try to warn you. Revenge, killing your enemy, never would have eased the aching of your loss. The laws allow you to seek blood for blood, payment in kind, and you wouldn't be punished for a fair fight, either, but I believe you'd have felt the emptiness and disappointment at that ending, all the same."
Percival returned with a small steaming bowl, a handful of rags. He set both on the table nearest Merlin, and would have headed for the front door but for Merlin's hand on his arm. Merlin didn't grip tightly, didn't feel anger at the big bartender who only flicked his eyes up to Merlin's face for a quick glance.
"I've got nothing against you," Merlin said quietly, as the physician behind him began to clean his wounds. "You protected your family and paid him back. I only wish you'd have let me have him."
"The boys wanted a hanging," Percival confessed. "Wanted for Emmett's Creek folk to see justice done ourselves like we ought to have done long ago, not leave it to outsiders. I knew there would be trouble with the agent, knew you wouldn't want to let Padlow go, if you were both still alive. Cedric said he'd make sure you didn't get the same as Padlow, if you started making noise about it. I didn't know he was going to–"
Merlin cut him off with a quick jerk of his head that set it pounding again. "I'll speak to Cedric myself, tomorrow maybe," he said, and at the look that crossed Percival's face, and the doc's next to him, he added with a small bitter smile, "It'll be words only, unless he's inclined otherwise."
Percival's mouth twisted, but he nodded. He turned away, but swung back. "Guess you should know, he refused to tell us where he'd hid the money. Maybe thought we wouldn't… Anyway, looks like everything he stole is lost to anyone forever." He turned away again, adding to no one in particular, "Better go help the agent. Guess he's seeing to the bodies so daylight won't have to look on them."
The big bartender wavered through the door; Merlin thought the freezing night air would sober him up quickly. He took a deep breath, let it out.
Behind him, Gaius murmured, "This'll sting," before he felt the sharp hot prick of a needle in the back of his arm and the burning pull of thread closing the wound. "I guess you'll be heading out with the agent in a few days," he went on. "But if you ever need someone to talk to, I hope you'll think of me. We would like to see you again, someday."
Merlin focused on the far wall, didn't respond. He felt the pull of the physician's words, as he had in the old man's office, before he'd left Freya alone there, but he had no anticipated revenge to hold him back from succumbing to it now.
There was an emptiness inside, which might be filled with just about anything if he wasn't careful.
The swinging door to the kitchen bumped open, and Merlin's hand dropped immediately to his belt. He'd forgotten he no longer had an enemy in this world; it would take long to unlearn his reflexes.
Shasta came through, her bulk wrapped in a long woolly bed-jacket, her red braid over one plump shoulder, feet thrust into floppy house shoes. A steaming bowl in her hand with spoon propped in it – and he thought sardonically, that wasn't the sort of emptiness he felt.
"You haven't eaten all day, have you?" Shasta said, her tone gentler than its usual. She set the bowl on the edge of the bar and leaned against it.
"Give me a chance to finish here first, Shasta." Gaius' touch was light and gentle as he finished his stitching. He muttered once or twice under his breath, but left Merlin without another word of unwanted advice, only a sympathetic look and a hand laid lightly on his shoulder. The old man fastened his black bag and headed for the kitchen door, pausing to murmur to Shasta before disappearing to the back room.
Merlin pulled the torn and bloodied shirt on slowly, shivering a little; his hair was still damp from the snow. He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, or the last.
It was over. He was done, and he'd be leaving here soon. He was surprised to feel a little regret at that, as well.
Shasta approached him, then, carrying the steaming bowl - beef stew by the smell; Merlin's stomach growled. She chuckled a little wryly, hearing it in the silence of the room, and handed him the bowl.
"Sit down and eat," she invited.
"If I sit, I won't be getting up til tomorrow," Merlin stated tiredly.
"Freya's resting on the bed in our room," Shasta went on, as he began to eat on his feet, bowl in one hand and spoon in the other. "Gaius said with rest she should be just fine."
He nodded, his mouth full.
"Percival told me how it went tonight," she added. "I know you were figuring on being the one to end it for old Padlow. I'm not gonna say I'm sorry you didn't, though. No, I'm glad you didn't make yourself a killer."
"Burton is dead by my hand," he told her, ducking a little closer over the bowl, though he lifted the spoon instinctively to his mouth. He swallowed. "He attacked me from behind."
"That's different," she said. "You didn't come here to quarrel with Burton, and your story sounds like self-defense to me."
He shrugged, scraping the last of the stew. She took the bowl from him and sighed.
"Emmett's Creek is going to be a lot different, now," she said. "Gonna be some changes made. They'll sell the taxing rights away to someone else off in the capital, and we'll have to decide on a new reeve." She moved away to the kitchen, paused and turned, a twinkle in her eye. "You'd make a good one, if you'd stay."
Merlin didn't answer, walked woodenly to the stair and climbed to his room. The pitcher of water on the commode was far from warm, but he washed thoroughly the parts of him that weren't bandaged, almost frantically, scrubbing as though he would remove his very skin. A new blanket had been laid on the cot and he wrapped himself in it tightly and stretched out.
His injuries made it hard to get comfortable, to find a way to sleep that did not hurt. Memories of childhood bedtime seeped into his mind, the softness of his mother's worn dressing gown, the candlelight shining in her eyes, the fragrant brush of her hair on his cheek when she bent to kiss him goodnight. Later memories followed, other bedtimes, two heads nestled close together on the same pillow, dark brown curls mixing, his father's hand on his shoulder as they both stood in the doorway to watch the mother kiss her baby girls goodnight.
How far he had come! To the edge of revenge and beyond. He had never planned for anything, after.
Did he want it, anyway?
Merlin woke hours later, and lay on his cot staring into the darkness. What had disturbed him? Not a dream.
He remembered with clarity the fact of Padlow's death, the sight of his body swinging slightly in the lantern-light, in the snow, head bowed in false repentance by the knotted rope. He remembered Percival and Gaius in the candlelit tavern, Shasta bringing soup. He remembered all this without any feeling, any sense of caring.
No gratitude. No resentment. Nothing. But it seemed to him that there was something he had forgotten.
He heard a whimper, like a little child lost or hurt. He threw aside the blankets and stood, feeling the pull of new stitches and tightly-wrapped bandages distantly. Arthur's snoring from the next room was louder in the hallway, but faded as he padded downstairs dressed only in his trousers. He glanced out the window involuntarily, noticing that the forge's lantern was still burning, though the bodies had been removed from the signposts. Merlin wondered if the men of the posse slept well tonight, if their families had seen the hanged men along the street. He should be furious with Cedric for the lump on the side of his head.
It seemed to him that he heard the whimper again. He crossed to the kitchen, the wood floor cold beneath his bare feet. Coals smoldered in the fireplace, and Percival snored on a pallet spread along the length of the hearth. Shasta probably lay asleep in the alcove bunks with Gwen.
Standing just inside the swinging door, Merlin had only to turn his head to see into Percival and Shasta's room through the open door. The lamp was still lit on the dresser, but turned low. Freya's body was a long low wrinkle under the quilt, her face a dark smudge on the pillow. One step took him to the doorway, one glance told him she was alone in the room. She would be all right, as Shasta had said, if Gaius had gone home for the night.
Freya's head turned slightly on the pillow, her feet shuffled under the cover. He stepped closer. The bruising on her face was faded by the dimness of the lamplight, and the blood had been sponged away. She looked very young and vulnerable; a solitary bubble of anger at Padlow rose in his chest, then released.
She moved again, restlessly. The quilt shifted down from her shoulders, and the thin straps of an undergarment lay loose on her bruised skin. He moved the quilt back up to her chin, touched the smooth curls of her unbound hair. It was longer now that when he'd arrived and he wondered if she had made the decision to cut it that spring, or if that decision had been made for her. It would be beautiful when it was long. It would make her beautiful, maybe. Her hair and her eyes.
Well, she was a widow now, whether she knew it yet or not. It would take a couple of weeks for her to heal, but he was well enough to ride tomorrow. She was surrounded by friends, she had her freedom and her future. She would probably mourn the murderer's death as an obligation.
You got your wish, he thought bitterly. I didn't kill him after all.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
It was close to dawn when Freya woke.
The first thing she was aware of was hunger, then she turned her head and the tender bruised skin on her face tightened painfully. She licked her lips and winced at the coppery twinge of scabbed blood.
There was a lamp lit on her right; her eyes roved the room and she was surprised to find herself in Shasta's bed. She was sore, she was hungry, but she was warm, and thankful for it. There was a tight feeling around her middle; she remembered tying her shawl with shaking fingers to stop the bleeding she wasn't able to see in the darkness of the cellar. Yet she was here, tucked safely into Shasta's bed, cared for and bandaged.
I'll live, she thought, and she was thankful for that, too. She had been rescued by – someone.
Someone had come into the cellar and whispered in her ear, and lifted her gently. Someone's body had been warm next to her in the long cold darkness, someone's arms had held her securely. She remembered the cold scent of snow, and horse, and something else she couldn't name. She remembered her face resting against the softness of someone's neck, the comfort of trusting and depending.
Someone sighed next to her, and the mattress moved beneath her. She turned her head, stretching sore muscles that she promptly forgot when she saw him.
Merlin lay asleep on his stomach on top of the quilt, turned slightly to her. His hair made spiky shadows on his face and his mouth drooped open. The fierceness of his habitual rage was smoothed away, and like the night when he'd smiled unguardedly at her, she thought that he looked very young.
He was undressed to his trousers; she saw the white of a bandage wrapped around his upper arm and his lower ribs. He'd met Padlow, then, and that meant they'd fought. His injuries might have been inflicted by Whatley or Burton, but she doubted very much that Merlin would have allowed himself to be drawn into another fight when his goal was killing Padlow, and she doubted that he would be lying here sleeping if Padlow still lived.
So he'd killed Padlow. The thought refused to touch her, to hold meaning for her. She was warm, and she was tired. There would be time to think about it later.
She looked down at Merlin's hand, lying palm up on the quilt between them, at his long fingers and honest calluses. There was no blood, no indication of violence. Just a hand. A strong man's hand. Even if he had killed her husband, she knew that the fight would have been fair, a lawful avenging of the deaths of his family. She wondered if that meant he was no longer a revenger.
It should have been different. So much should have been different, but it wasn't. But that didn't mean it wouldn't work out, in the end. Whether that end was here and now, or not, was not for her to know.
She moved her own hand out from under the quilt, inch by inch, working against the occasional stabs of pain in her side, stretched her arm down beside him to fold her fingers around his. She closed her eyes for a moment's rest, took a deep calming breath.
And so she slept again. And his fingers tightened around hers.
…..*….. Epilogue …..*…
Merlin was seated where Freya had first seen him, at the end of the bar with his back to the wall. He didn't look up when she and Shasta entered the room from the kitchen, and she was struck by the change in him, a change unsuggested by his sleeping calmness of three nights ago. The taut alertness was gone, the fierce and feverish hate was gone, she was relieved to see, but there was an uncharacteristic lethargy in his slouch, in the vacant stare directed out the window. He looked almost gaunt, and hadn't shaved in probably three or four days.
Was this really the same man who'd smiled at her so beautifully, so intimately?
"Merlin, you got a visitor," Shasta announced, but he gave no indication that he'd heard. Shasta cocked an eyebrow at Freya, and helped her lower herself into a nearby chair. "Call if you need me," she instructed Freya, then whisked back into the kitchen.
They sat for a long moment, Freya watching him and wondering if she should say something first, and if so, what? before he turned his head to look her full in the face. She shivered at the emptiness that darkened his eyes, the bruising now visible, and felt her own filling with tears. What a pair they made.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice emotionless. "I should have come sooner."
She knew what he meant. "I'm sorry too," she told him. "I should have stayed with Gaius."
He shook his head once, hitched his shoulder in a shrug. "Doesn't matter now," he said only.
There was another moment of silence, then she said, "Shasta told me what happened. I'm glad it wasn't you." She was glad he hadn't been killed, glad also that he hadn't been the one to kill Padlow.
His eyes, still on her, gained a little of their old intensity. "It should have been."
She shook her head slowly. "Your family would not have said so. Your mother would not have said so."
He leaned forward with an abruptness that was more like his old self. "He is dead. It is out of my hands. My revenge is gone."
"So you can find peace," she said.
He looked her over, head to foot. "There is no peace. There is no satisfaction. There is nothing." His eyes slid away, and he straightened from the stool.
"Do you still dream?" she asked softly.
He paused, looked across at her again. He didn't answer, but she could see in his eyes a faint confused wonderment and hope, that told her he hadn't dreamed.
"Why don't you stay?" she said. "Whatley is gone, and we need a new reeve – Shasta thinks you'd be good at it, and I do, too. You could talk to Gaius, sometimes. That helps me when I have a question, or I feel troubled."
He gave a short, mirthless chuckle, his gaze on the plank floor. "I have talked to Gaius," he said, then took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "But I can't stay."
Freya wanted to say, please. She knew then, as she'd known when Shasta had earlier mentioned Merlin and Arthur's upcoming departure, that she'd be lonely when he left, lonely as she'd never been during Padlow's absences. She felt a sense of something for him, and responsibility was the name she put to the feeling. Padlow had never needed her, had used her for his wife in many ways, but she had never felt that she owned any part of his life. Maybe it was because her husband had taken Merlin's life when he took his family; Merlin had been too young to inherit and had lost also his father's land and everything they'd owned. Maybe it was because her actions had caused Merlin to lose his revenge, hollow as he might have found it. She felt that she had to take care of him, in some way.
She had to say something, but she worked to keep desperation out of her voice. "Why? Is it because Percival and Elyan–"
"I have no quarrel with them," Merlin said, with a wry twist to his lips. "They were defending their families and livelihoods."
"Then–"
"I promised Arthur." He glanced at her. "You may have guessed that we have a history."
Freya nodded, remembering vaguely Gaius telling Alice that Arthur had gone to take charge of the orphaned boy Merlin. "I heard," she said.
Merlin drew his finger along his ribs on his left side. "The agent bears a scar from my knife," he said. "I have a sentence to serve, and I promised to go with Arthur without resisting, if I could finish this business first."
"Prison?" Freya said, her heart dropping.
Merlin shook his head. "The army. Cadet corps."
"How long?"
"Half a year."
"What will you do in the army?"
"Train. March. Guard duty." He shrugged. "Not much different, really, than apprenticeship with Morgana."
"Who's Morgana?"
"The revenger who took me in after… The revenger I worked for. It was her investigation that got me Padlow's name."
Half a year was a shorter time than Padlow had taken for his trips. Half a year would be late spring, after planting season, crops and orchards green and beginning to show the promise of the harvest, the newborn of the herds gaining strength and courage. It was a good time of year, full of life.
"What will you do after the army?" she said. He couldn't stay, but maybe he could return… "Will you go back to the revenge business?"
A lot could happen in half a year. But maybe he'd never forget that she had been her husband's wife. Maybe he could never look at her as a woman. Maybe he'd never smile…
"Maybe," he said. "It never felt as much like home there as…"
Hopefully she whispered, finishing his sentence as she wished it to be, "Here?"
His eyes weren't on her, his gaze directed out the window, but a faraway look said that what he was seeing was in his mind's eye.
But the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile as he repeated, "Maybe..."
A/N: Here ends part 1: Revenger. But in composing "Psych Ops", I have to say that I have neglected my NaNoWriMo story begun last November, so here's the deal. Going to focus on finishing part 2 of Psych Ops, and when/if I get a section of the NaNoWriMo original finished, I will post another chapter that continues this story into part 2... The Agent.