Past Faults and Future Perils

by wryter501

Ten years into Camelot's golden age, Morgana casts a spell of exchange to send Merlin into the past - and bring his younger self forward. Inexperienced and untrained, and surely much easier to kill... In the past, Merlin must somehow connect with a young king who still hates an illegal magic, to duplicate the spell and return both his selves to the proper times...

5. New Old Friends

A/N: My thanks to Anonymous for pointing out a couple of errors in the last chapter regarding species native to the British Isles. I usually do check on these things if I'm going to mention specifics, but in one case I admit to making an assumption – or at least to not even thinking I had to check simply because it is so common in North America. But the other I did check, and even though scientists have considered this insect extinct in the British Isles for the last couple of decades, there's evidence to suggest they might have been mistaken about that, therefore they might well have been present in Merlin's era…

The appropriate correction has been made. My apologies if anyone else felt that these errors removed them from the flow of the story b/c of inaccurate historicity. Even though, tomatoes.

Also, this chapter is longer and slower as far as action goes – but it's really only the calm before the storm…

Chapter 5: New Old Friends

(Future)

Hunger led Merlin to the kitchens. He didn't figure he wanted to sit waiting in Arthur's chambers – how odd it would be, and with his hands idle in his lap, rather than on his feet or his knees, busy with chores – and he definitely wasn't comfortable with the thought of asking another servant to fetch him a breakfast tray.

So, braving an onslaught of unwanted information about his future, he went to the kitchens. It was different, too.

Not the people, not right away – busy workers wrapped in aprons, male and female alike – tending vegetables and meats and breads, pastries and preparation and preservation. Utensils and fresh produce and offal and blood – every scent and odor colliding with all the rest – sharp pepper and dusty sage and sweet rosemary and spicy cloves…

It was different because he was noticed right away, rather than ignored and allowed to enter at his own peril only if he watched his step and stayed out of everyone's way.

He was noticed, first by those closest and then in murmuring ripples spreading to the cool-room and to the hearths, and he halted, unsure of what reaction to expect, or what an appropriate response might be. And all eyes were on him, scrutinizing and evaluating and curious.

"What happened to you, then?" puffed a stout woman in a vast apron and a white cap and she spoke with the authority of the chief cook, but he didn't recognize her.

"Ah," he hesitated, wondering whether the spell of exchange was something already widely known, or something the king would prefer to remain confidential.

"Magic went wrong?" someone suggested near him, a plump young male not yet twenty.

He swallowed as a chill dropped down his spine to hear that word flung into the expectant stillness of the room. A few of the older servants huffed and turned away to continue their work, but the younger ones snickered companionably or grinned in understanding sympathy.

"That happens," he said, making it sound more like a question, than an answer.

"Are you going to stay like that?" said a woman a few years older than he was now – which meant, actually, several years younger than him. She was round enough to be anticipating the birth of a child in a month or two. "It's permanent?"

Another woman was leaning toward her before Merlin had a chance to answer. "I wouldn't mind a spell to make me look ten years younger."

Murmur of good-humored agreement.

"Er," he said, disconcerted. "Sorry, no. It'll only be a week, and then… you'll see me how I normally look. To you."

"Ah, well."

"Still, I'd do it for a week…"

"If you're hungry, try that table there," the plump young man advised him, pointing.

And instead of Merlin having to bend and twist and sidestep to avoid being trod upon, or banged into by platter or bowl, the servants all made comfortable room for him to pass them. Not like Arthur, or any noble, who made the servants all draw back and bow or curtsy – but as good as one of the knights, wandering through to snag a bite or two of something.

Odd enough that he bypassed the cold meats and instead chose two fist-sized rolls of yesterday's bread, poking holes in their soft centers to stuff full of nuts and berries on his way to Arthur's chambers after all.

He didn't find it empty.

A lanky boy with straight brown hair that flopped over his forehead was on hands and knees, scrubbing the stone floor with a soapy brush. Merlin's entrance was met without a glance, only a clipped-

"His Majesty's not here. Council chamber, if it's important enough – or tell me, and I'll tell him after the meeting."

"Um," Merlin said awkwardly. "He… said I could wait here?"

The young man – a few years Merlin's junior at his current age – sat back on his heels, paying more attention. And his eyebrows shot up in recognition. "Holy hells, Merlin – you," he said. "What are you – why did you…"

Rocking back onto his heels, he rose and came right up to Merlin, dripping scrub-brush in hand, and a puzzled wrinkle between deep-river eyes, undiscernibly gray or brown.

"You didn't just shave, and put on… those clothes," he said. "You're younger."

"I'm – not, either," Merlin said, amused to honesty. "Not exactly."

The boy stared, narrow-eyed now. "And – you don't know who I am."

"I don't know your name," Merlin corrected. "But if you're scrubbing these floors, I'd guess that you picked up where I left off?"

"Something like that," the young man agreed. "So what happened – is it an un-aging spell? Because I know some of the kitchen servants who would love-"

"No, it was a spell of exchange," Merlin said. "Your Merlin is who I'm going to be in ten years – I'm who he was ten years ago."

"What?"

"The spell switched us. I came forward ten years – the Merlin you know is back ten years ago, in my time."

"Are you two… one… are you going to get back to your right time?"

Merlin smiled. "I guess, in a week – your Merlin in my time is going to do the magic to switch us back."

"That's… insane," the boy concluded bluntly, retreating back to his scrub bucket and folding himself back down to his knees to continue his work.

"You have no idea," Merlin said, relaxing enough himself to begin to walk around the room, noting changes. There were touches of purple alongside Arthur's crimson furnishings, and vases of dried flowers next to wall-mounted spears and axes. She's away at the seaside… with the children… "Two days ago Arthur told me I was forbidden to say Gwen's name without permission."

The boy snorted, scrubbing vigorously, shuffling his position away from the expanding area of dark-wet stone. Merlin noticed the rugs, woven and fur, had been laid topside-down over the end of the table opposite where Arthur usually sat, the way he himself did it. When he wasn't simply scrubbing around the rugs to save time.

"I've heard rumors they had a rocky start," he said. "I can't imagine it was easy going from a servant to a queen. Then again, I can't imagine her as a servant… or Sire ever ordering someone not to use her name. Unless he was saying, Use the title and show the respect she deserves."

His tone and manner were clearly patterned on Arthur's, and Merlin gave a short, amused laugh. The boy threw him a grin.

"I hope you're careful when you choose to do that in company," Merlin told him, letting his feet wander toward the canopied bed.

It tickled him to think of this servant boy mimicking Arthur's voice and mannerisms and bearing, and Arthur huffing in irritation, but… Then again, he'd always chosen his moments of poking fun, also. Not in council. Not in court. Not for…

"So if you're his new manservant, and he's in council – how come you're not there attending him?" Merlin asked, pausing between steps.

The boy made a rude sound, scrubbing industriously. "Council's boring. Sire doesn't make me go – he says if he needs something, you can get it for him anyway."

"So he makes me go to council meetings, still?" Merlin asked, feeing a bit grumpy.

The boy sluiced his brush in the bucket contemplatively. "I think you have to, if you're on the council. Most of the time, anyway."

Merlin listened to the swish-scratch of the scrubbing, dumbfounded. I'm on the council. That's… actually a helluva lot stranger than Gwaine.

The king's manservant was backing toward the bed-chamber, and Merlin moved on so as not to be in in his way – though on second thought, he wasn't completely certain he wanted to see the room that Arthur and Gwen shared… Curiosity couldn't help glancing around.

There were feminine touches here, too – a painting on the wall that he recognized as a rendering of Gwen's favorite corner of the palace gardens. But her things were all put away out of sight; she'd always been neat, and even if she'd been packing for a trip, she wouldn't have left her chamber disorganized… although, almost as strange as Gwaine on the council was the idea of Gwen having her own maidservant. Would she have the patience to watch someone else do what she used to do – especially if it wasn't done to her standards or methods?

"How do you get along with…" Merlin said. "I mean, I assume a queen gets a personal maidservant?" He wouldn't put it past Gwen simply to refuse the privilege.

"Yeah," the boy said, taking a breather to wipe sweat out from under the fall of straight brown hair on his forehead with the back of the hand holding the scrub-brush. "We get on all right. She's nice – a bit too shy, if you ask me…"

Merlin turned his grin away so he wouldn't offend.

"A bit older, too," the boy finished, sitting back on his heels to watch Merlin, who'd arrived at the side of the bed.

Did they share? Arthur habitually sprawled – but the pillows and cushions were arranged to halve the bed, not organized around the center for the king alone, if his queen slept elsewhere.

"Have I done everything right?"

"What?" Merlin said.

The boy gestured around the room before splashing water out on to the stones and continuing to scrub. "When I started. You said it was easy, that I wasn't going to be required to do everything that you were used to. But then you kept saying, and one more thing. And one more thing. How Sire should be woken – what goes on the breakfast tray and what to always pretend you've forgotten. How he likes his bath and soap and towel and clothes – there were two dozen one-more-things about his clothes, by themselves. What to leave out, what to put away and when to put it away, how to tuck the sheets and how to open them for bedtime at night…"

Merlin smiled wryly back at the servant, who seemed more amused than bothered. "I promise I won't say, and one more thing, when I go back to my own time, and meet you," he said.

"Oh, yeah you will." Complete unconcern.

"Are you responsible for the pillows and covers, or is that Gwen's maid?" Merlin asked, tipping the red-velvet cushions down to see the bleached covers. He picked two long-curly black hairs from the fine weave of the linen covering that pillow and held them up between thumb and forefinger to show the boy. Because Arthur's golden hairs were always getting pressed and rubbed into his pillow cover, and he hated being reminded that they came out – like he was secretly afraid none would grow back in their places and he'd sooner or later have none left – so Merlin was required to change the covers nearly every day.

"Oh – she does," the boy answered. "But I've orders to leave that cover on, when she's gone, til the day she gets back."

"Why?" Merlin asked, moving away from the bed where he could see the servant's face better. It comforted him somehow, that the young man felt free to continue working in his presence – he was still one of the servants, then, council or not. Of course the boy might continue this work in the king's presence – but anyone else might require a respectful-attentive stillness. Merlin knew very well which noblemen for whom he needed to straighten and tuck his hands behind him and drop his eyes to the floor – Uther had been primary – and resolved never to let that much distance come between himself and his fellows.

"I think it smells like her," the boy guessed, scrubbing away. "I think he uses it as often as his own, when she's away. Which isn't often, thank goodness."

Merlin held his smile, though his chest tightened and his nose itched like tears were threatening his eyes. Arthur in his own time was still so uncertain – not about the way he felt about Gwen, but he worried if marrying her was the best thing for the kingdom, or for her. After the fact of the banishment, and the rumors that still hid themselves around the citadel – that he'd forgiven her was different than discovering her innocence. Merlin still believed there's been interference there; Lancelot's shade had not attacked Arthur but seduced Gwen and though Merlin was no expert on the female mind and heart, he did know how devoted Gwen was to Arthur, and how confused she'd been by her own behavior. But nothing could be proved, after Lancelot's… suicide. Second sacrifice. Soul saved, but reputation ruined…

Another regret, another one of his failures.

"Say," he said to the boy. "Do you know if-"

He never got to finish the question; across the outer chamber the door was flung open, startling them both.

"…Don't know why he insists on complicating the issue with questions like that," the king was saying over his shoulder to someone behind him.

"Ah!" the young manservant said sharply, throwing out his arms in an abrupt warning, as if he could push them back off the wet floor from his place in the archway to the bedchamber.

To Merlin's astonishment, the king halted in his tracks, one boot upraised – then retracted. He even spread his own arms to keep his companions behind him on the threshold – Merlin recognized Leon over one shoulder and Gwaine over the other – a long slender scroll of rolled parchment held in one hand.

Jealousy darted through him – You never used to stop for my clean floor – if you caught it wet, you used to stomp down unnecessary boot-prints all over.

"This, now, Daeg?" the king said, sounding mildly annoyed.

Well. That's better.

"I always do it on a Tuesday afternoon, Sire," the boy returned, sitting up to stretch but not rising any further. "Except if it's rainy because then it's pointless to scrub since you'll be tracking in mud anyway…"

"We were going to talk in here," the king growled.

The boy, Daeg, held the royal gaze unabashedly, and Merlin wanted to snicker – except it might sound a bit hysterical if he let it go now.

"The private dining room," Leon suggested over the king's right shoulder.

The king met Merlin's eyes, idly drawing the scroll through his fingers, and Merlin knew instantly, the conversation was going to be about him, and needed to include him.

"If I slip my boots off," he said apologetically to Daeg, "and tiptoe?"

"Use the awegan," Gwaine's voice said lazily, his shadow lounging behind Arthur's left shoulder.

"What?" Merlin said, shivering at an involuntary chill.

"The awegan," Gwaine repeated. "You know, that spell that-"

The king twisted to shove Gwaine with that shoulder. "Do shut up."

"What did I-"

"You've probably just taught him that spell," the king added, low and displeased.

"No, that's all right," Merlin said hastily. "I knew it, I just… didn't realize anyone else would. I never… I never tried it yet."

The king looked at him, and waited.

His heart tripped in a sudden hurry – magic in Camelot was different than me doing magic in front of Arthur while he watches…

"Awegan fet," he said, and almost lost his balance as both boots rose half a dozen inches off the floor.

"Don't wave your hands around!" Daeg said anxiously.

Oh, because – his hands were now controlling the motion of his feet, levitating just off the floor.

"Lean forward a little," Gwaine advised, his own grin visible now in the doorway. "Brace yourself, but stay loose…" He sounded highly entertained, and Merlin was too distracted to be disgruntled.

He tipped his hands like he was sweeping himself forward, and moved like he was stood on a downhill stretch of ice, sliding through the air – awkwardly aiming for the door – don't crash into Arthur-

The king stepped back into the corridor, moving Gwaine and Leon back with him. Merlin hovered over the threshold for a moment, then released the spell – and still almost tumbled himself face-first into the king's shirt-front.

"Well done on your first time," Gwaine said admiringly, and the glow that exploded in Merlin's chest threatened to choke him.

Although, it was Arthur's approval that mattered…

"Don't look so pleased with yourself," the king said lightly, tapping the side of his arm with the scroll. "Your magic is almost always well done, even for a first try."

He turned on his heel even as he finished saying it – and Gwaine rolled his eyes as if dissatisfied with the king's reaction for Merlin's sake, but-

Everything and more. It was past surprise and the need to reassure with praise – it was the offhand backwards compliment of genuine acceptance because it didn't occur to Arthur anymore that it might be significant for Merlin to do magic in front of him.

This, this was worth it. This was going to be worth all of it, someday.

Merlin didn't feel his feet touch the floor at all, down that corridor and the next, around a corner and down another flight to the king's chamber. He didn't hear a word Leon or Gwaine said to him or each other, because this is mine and I can't lose it, I only have to wait for it. Already, and not yet.

It didn't even matter, much, that Leon had put on weight around his middle and the light streaks in his hair were probably more white than blonde. It didn't matter, the grey in Gwaine's beard and in Percival's – the big knight joined them when they reached the dining chamber. It didn't even matter much that he wouldn't get to see Gwen, or Elyan who was with them, or his mother, or the children. They were here, and that was a weight off his shoulders for the next decade.

They didn't find the private dining room empty, either.

A person sat halfway down the table, sideways to it, facing away from the door – a slender person in a white shirt under a crimson tunic. A person with hair shorter than Percival's, who was holding something in the palm of one hand – elbow propped on the tabletop – against the scalp just above and behind the ear. And whatever it was, it was glowing.

The king paused as if undecided whether to enter, but Gwaine sauntered past him, addressing the person with familiarity. "Why are you doing that in here?"

"It's quiet in here." The person was female – with hair like that? Or without hair, like that? – her voice low and quiet and confident. "Or at least… it was."

Gwaine put a hand to his chest, pretending affront, but he was grinning. The girl – woman? – lowered her hand to place a chunk of crystal on the table, glow extinguished, and turned as if hearing the rest of them shuffling in the doorway for the first time.

Her eyes were a light color, her chin pointed, her cheekbones wide; she was delicate and feminine and strong, with her hair short to a fraction of an inch. Immediately she focused past the king and Leon, past Percival – her smile showed plenty of teeth, and it was for Merlin.

"Oh, it happened!" she said, excited and delighted at once, and whirled the other way, out of her chair. Her hair was not the only unconventional thing about her, either – the skirt of the crimson tunic fell only to her knees, and beneath it she wore thin hide leggings that laced up the outside of her legs, and boots. "How long since he switched? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"It was only yesterday," the king said. "Now, listen-"

"It was a bit late when we got back," Gwaine interrupted, seating himself on the table and picking up her crystal. "He stayed at Alice's."

The girl – woman – evaded the king's restraining hand and came right to Merlin. Her eyes were a very light green, though the outer rim was much darker – they were fascinating and friendly and Merlin felt he liked her at once.

"It must be so strange to keep meeting people who already know you," she said to him, twinkling a grin. "I'm Dostiana, but you've always called me Dusty, and really I prefer it. Ever since the day I came to Camelot and I was tired and my feet were sore and I was scared and I didn't know anybody or where to go, and then suddenly everyone was pushing back to make way for the king!"

She said it like Daeg the manservant might have, with exaggeration like a pompous herald.

"And the king passed me right by," she continued.

"Dusty," the king said.

"But you were right behind him, and you didn't pass, you stopped right there and looked at the faces of all the people in front of me and beside me like you were looking for someone and then you saw me. Like no one ever saw me before. And you smiled and said, welcome to Camelot have you got a place to stay would you like to learn-"

"Dusty!" the king snapped, and there was an imperial ring to it that made Merlin's spine straighten. It gained the woman's attention, fading her smile. He stepped right up to her, serious and noble and… sad? "You can't. You can't do that. Because he hasn't done that yet and I don't want him going back burdened with a lot of ideas about things he's got to do, and remember to say."

"Oh," she said, round-eyed.

"No, it's fine," Merlin interjected immediately. "Aithusa told me… I can't muck things up, even making mistakes. So even if I forget – and I'm not going to try to remember – I'm not going to change something by accident."

They both looked at him – and the king exhaled in something like relief. "All right," he said. "I'm glad you feel… reassured about it. Just…" He glanced at Gwaine also. "How about, no reminiscing. No questions, no answers."

"I can ask him questions, though, can't I?" Dusty said.

"Why don't you wait til our Merlin gets home?" Percival suggested quietly.

Dusty stuck out her tongue at him.

The king cleared his throat in a significant way, striding to the table. "Our Merlin will be home in approximately six days," he said, addressing them all in a tone like he was calling a council meeting to order.

Percival and Leon followed him. Dusty tried punching the muscle of Percival's bare upper arm, without much effect. Merlin trailed them, and her backward glance immediately included him.

"Which means," the king continued, "that we have six days to meet and counter Morgana's threat, and defeat her once and for all."

"Finally," Percival murmured.

Gwaine handed the crystal back to Dusty, as the king spread the scroll he carried – longer than it was wide, and a map, by Merlin's glimpse – out on the table beside the skirt of Gwaine's long jacket.

"Have you any idea how you're going to do that?" Dusty said to Merlin. "I know this lot has always said, it'll be impossible to kill Morgana til Merlin's younger self comes to do it, and just be content with stopping her and thwarting her and overcoming her and destroying her forces…"

"Are you related to Daeg?" Merlin said without thinking.

She rolled her eyes. "No. I was in Camelot first. But he's young and he's fancied me for forever."

Gwaine snorted in a way that agreed with her.

"But you've tried," she continued, her gaze piercingly serious. "I know you have. And she's… done things to you."

"Dusty," the king said warningly.

"I just mean," she turned to Arthur, "Morgana brought his younger self here for a reason, and I for one would feel more comfortable with something more solid to go on than your memories."

"Merlin told you," Gwaine said to her. "I know he did, more than once. He said, don't worry it'll be fine. I took care of it. She'll be defeated. You should trust him."

Her eyes flashed. "I do. I just… well, look at him."

And they did. And Merlin felt suddenly very much less capable than he normally did, contemplating having to face Morgana. And was it worse with everyone watching and expecting him to succeed, than for no one to know he was supposed to?

This was the final time. At least, for Morgana… as he understood it. And also, he couldn't lose.

"Please keep in mind," the king said quietly, attention focused downward on the map, "he looked exactly like that for years before we knew he was facing Camelot's magical dangers and enemies – alone and in secret – and he was victorious. You know those stories, too."

Merlin wouldn't have said victorious.

"Yes, well," she grumbled. "You lot are always laughing when you tell them, I can't tell whether to believe you or not."

"Believe in him," the king said, lifting just his eyes – past Dusty, to Merlin.

For one heartbeat, it felt like they were alone in the room – and the glow of Arthur trusting him and believing in him… threatened to smother him with an excess of expectation, isolating his inadequacy, the very reason Morgana expected her plan to succeed in the first place.

"What did I tell you?" Merlin said unsteadily. "What did I say, when I came home? She's dead… this is how I did it?"

"How we did it," the king corrected. "And no, you didn't say. You were exhausted and emotional, and by the time we were calm and rational again, we didn't really ask and you didn't really say. Only that it was over. You defeated her and she would never trouble anybody again."

"He didn't even say he killed her, in those specific words?" Dusty demanded.

Merlin winced, remembering a different Morgana. But his memories were ten years more recent than anyone else's, and didn't include whatever they had fought after his time. Gwaine, noticing, tsked reprovingly with his tongue behind his teeth.

"Sorry," Dusty said, unrepentant. "It's just you lot don't say anything when I ask."

"We don't need the particulars," the king said, eyes back on the map. "We're pretty much guaranteed to succeed this time, no matter what we plan."

Leon shifted his weight and made an uneasy noise, giving sound to the feeling in the pit of Merlin's stomach.

"Which doesn't mean we're going to be careless," the king added, acknowledging his senior knight. "Now, we know Morgana's going to be weakened for a while after doing the switching spell-"

"Even though she wasn't there?" Dusty blurted. "It was… dormant magic, right? A trap to be triggered whenever he and his younger self rode through the Valley on the same day of the same year at the same time?"

"I hate the Valley," Percival murmured into his gray-flecked beard. Wrinkles at the sides of his eyes deepened, and he gave Merlin a glance like he expected a return look of agreement – and he wasn't disappointed.

"Merlin said," the king commented, with a glance at him also, "that it would have been easy to set and leave waiting – but when it was triggered, it was tied to her in such a way as to use her power to enact. Not like starting a fire and walking away to let it build on its own. More like…"

He spoke without thinking, "Scattering seed on fertile ground, and then returning to harvest it." Glancing up, he realized they were all looking him, and he wasn't used to being regarded.

"Lots more work, reaping," Dusty mused. "Just… that spell reaps itself without your presence or attention? Only your energy?"

"So she's weakened," the king repeated. "And we know where she is." His sentence had the lilt of a question, and he focused on Dusty.

"Still on the Isle," the strange girl reported. "They were talking about preparing quarters downstairs for their expected guest."

"Who are they expecting?" Percival asked no one in particular.

"Those ruins don't have a downstairs," Gwaine remarked.

The king shared a look with Leon, who said mildly to Dusty, "D'you think they might have been referring to Merlin?"

She thought – then nodded her shorn head very slowly. "Could very well be."

Merlin didn't know quite what to feel. The center of everything, but… uninformed and unprepared, and awkward about taking steps to rectify that on his own.

"Morgana is… inefficient about taking her revenge," the king said to him, and under his golden beard Merlin recognize the set of his jaw – having to admit a personal or private thought aloud. "It makes sense to me that she'd want to… prolong her enjoyment of a perceived triumph."

"She's done that before," Gwaine said grimly.

"Um," Merlin said, daring to speak because the king was still looking at him. "How do we know where she is?"

That had been their problem half the time – nowhere definite to besiege or attack, and little enough inclination on Arthur's part. And when Merlin did know where she was, he couldn't say because he couldn't tell how he knew… and he had little inclination to do more than defend Camelot from her. If only she could have been content to be left alone to practice magic elsewhere… He'd been tempted to the same sort of existence himself, more than once – someplace small and quiet and easy – but destiny had other plans for him.

And Morgana had other plans for herself.

"Well, for one," the king answered, leaning one hand on the edge of the map on the table, "that was where I was, ten years ago when you came back. So now you know where you'll have to do the-"

"Ritual," Gwaine interrupted, with laughter in his voice.

"Both of us at the same place at the same time, again," Merlin said.

The king nodded. "And for another, it's been confirmed by my scouts and yours."

"If she's noticed your scouts, she'll know that you know, and it'll be a trap," Merlin said immediately, before realizing, "My scouts?"

"My scouts," Dusty said. The others looked at her and she added defensively, "Well, they report to me."

"And you report to him," Gwaine said as if reminding her – but he pointed to Merlin.

She angled a grin at Merlin as if the fact didn't bother her at all. "My scouts say the king's scouts haven't been observed, don't worry."

"Scouts with magic," Merlin said, and it wasn't really a guess, but… still so surreal, to think of more people than just him, serving Arthur Pendragon with active and approved and commanded magic. "Do you…" His fingers twitched toward the previously-glowing crystal tucked unseen behind the fingers of Dusty's left hand. "Do you scry, then?"

There hadn't been any visible images, if that was what she'd been doing – but the crystal had been activated, and right up against her scalp behind her ear, where-

"I can hear anyone in the kingdom," Dusty said, holding the crystal out for him to see. "Anyone I focus on. It's like… sound-scrying."

He reached to take the clear faceted stone, but hesitated. It glinted – eagerly, he thought, and voices whispered round the outside edges of his hearing.

"I better not," he excused himself, retracting his hand. Did they know about the crystal of Neahtid? He'd never forget that lesson learned.

She gave him a curious look. "You never do. I always wondered why."

"Probably because you just told him that," the king said, sounding exasperated. "We talked about this, Dusty, if you cannot control what you say-"

"Yes, my lord," she sighed in mock contrition, eyes twinkling in a way that invited Merlin to share her amusement at the king's expense.

"How well do I know you?" Merlin asked her, quite without meaning to. "I feel like-"

"Like we're related?" she suggested wryly. "We're not. It's the magic, I expect. You're sensitive to it, in others."

He'd already entertained that suspicion about himself, and it made him self-conscious to hear it stated so casually in front of his friends – older, nobler… but they already knew what she was talking about. It made him shiver, disjointed. Out of place – or just out of his own time.

"She's your Leon," Percival said to him.

Second in command, first advisor in relevant matters, captain and stand-in during emergencies. Odd to think he even needed someone like that.

But Dusty herself seemed to disagree. "No, I'm your Gw-"

"Gwaine," said the knight of that name, grinning widely through squint-wrinkles and gray in his beard. "She's your Gwaine. Stalwart and dependable, and always makes you laugh…"

"Oh, hells," Merlin said in mock horror, hoping and depending, if she had known him very long-

Gwaine took a swipe at him from his tabletop perch, and missed. Dusty cocked a fist on one hip, glaring – but she didn't mean it. Good, that meant they were close friends. He grinned back, happy for that.

"So you eavesdrop on Morgana, and she can't tell you're doing it," he clarified. Dusty hummed confirmation, tucking the crystal in her pocket; Merlin turned back to the king. "But that means there are others with her, to have conversations that can be overheard?"

"It's hard to keep an accurate count," the king admitted. "Between five and ten at any given time."

"Magic-users also," Merlin said, feeling for the back of a chair and pulling it out, fumbling to land on the seat and not unbalance himself to the floor. All inclination to joke was gone. So, not just Morgana but near a dozen followers, too. "Even though magic has returned to Camelot? Still there are those who go to her?"

"Some few who bear the Pendragons a grudge," the king said – paused, and corrected himself, "The male Pendragons, at least. But there are also those who feel that…"

He trailed off, and none of the knights ventured to assume the conclusion of his sentence.

"Those who feel that magic makes them better than those without it," Dusty said softly.

Merlin collapsed against the back of the chair. Yes, he'd met that kind, too. Because I can, I have every right to. Take and force and order. Some things had not changed, then, even if he hadn't been aware of the hope that they would, til now.

"It's not something unique to magic-users," Leon commented. "There are fighters who think that way."

"And rich men," Percival added.

"And rulers," Gwaine said.

The king cleared his throat, attention back on the map. "Morgana is here on the Isle with, let's say, ten supporters capable of fairly strong magic. She must know by now that the switching spell has been completed – that we're aware of it, and that you're with us. She will probably expect us to decide to protect you here in the citadel while we scramble for a solution – which means that she'll plan to come here-"

"Or send her minions," Gwaine interjected. "If she's preparing to keep him at the Isle, the plan will be for someone to abduct him."

"Probably her minions, then," Leon said. "She won't risk herself – not so soon after the spell."

The king nodded like they were voicing his own thoughts for him. "Which is why I think we ought to set our own ambush here along the shore." His finger traced a wavy line on the map; Merlin leaned forward to see, but in his mind's eye he was picturing that shore. "When her people don't return, sooner or later she'll come herself. We've all been here – there are plenty of ideas for concealment of any number of fighters."

"We can keep her from scrying what we've done, with them," Dusty put in, and the king nodded.

"She dreams the future," Merlin ventured. Arthur had been aware of that already in his time.

The king shook his head. "We have you. There's something about you specifically, your involvement, that has seemed to obscure her Sight, at times. It's not always, and it's never everything."

"We don't think she ever learned to control it properly," Dusty told him quietly.

"But there's no use leaving that to chance," the king said. "We won't depend on one plan – that's something we've learned, fighting her. Strategy shifts at a moment's notice, we're all used to that. But I trust you – and I know this will be her final defeat, one way or another."

A pit of dread opened under Merlin's ribs, and yawned with teeth like a hellhound. But what if I lied, when I went back…

"We'll pack today," the king decided, addressing them all. "Leon, you'll remain – Gwaine and Percival, get me the names of twelve men you want with us, and I'll choose our final number. We'll leave at first light."

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Past)

His whole body throbbed with every bump of his heart, every bump of his limping, jarring steps. Sweat itched in his beard – he meant to shave before he came, he meant to wear different clothes, so it would be easier for Arthur… so Arthur wouldn't think…

Sweat slid down the small of his back beneath the bag whose string cut into his neck. The light was low, and flickers of sunset danced along gossamer spider-strings connecting blades of grass to bushes and low-hanging leaves.

He'd unlaced his boot so the front wouldn't rub where the dog had bitten his right shin – his trouser-leg intact so it was just bruising, like his right shoulder. He struggled out of the velvet jacket, smudged and smeared with dried mud, a little blood on the inside where it soaked through the fine weave of his shirt fabric, before it dried in itchy trickles down his left arm.

Thistle at noon and pennywinkle at midnight. Pennywinkle is also called sorcerer's violet. And belladonna at the very end…

But he couldn't focus, with the sun in his eyes. It was going to be as much as he could do to get to the charcoal-burner's hut – to eat something and sleep. There was a stream nearby, he remembered, just a little trickling brook, and he could drink his fill, and wash. He would be clean and the sun would set and then it would be cool.

Through the trees he glimpsed it, through the last nearly-horizontal rays of sunlight that gave everything a smoky glow he could almost smell. It smelled like the end of a day spent on horseback and no need to assume the protocol of the citadel and proper company yet, and if he said to Arthur, it hurts my arm hurts then he wouldn't be allowed to participate in the camp chores, and he could drowse and listen to the knights his friends tease and laugh…

He stumbled through the tangle of grasses concealing stony, uneven ground and finally the brakes cleared to reveal the charcoal-burner's hut, the mossy remains of old stone walls trailing away from it. He caught his wavering balance with a reactive hand on a similar piling of fuzzy-green stones thirty paces distant – a movement that sent pain searing along his veins again, stealing the pattern of his breath.

There was smoke.

And movement, at the door of the hut. A shadow separated from the dark shape of the structure and swam toward him, tilting in Merlin's vision.

"Oi! You bugger! Wot 'chur doin' here! Who th'ell you think you are, comin' 'round my place-"

Oh, it had been claimed.

Merlin summoned strength and begged for clarity to return and focused on a man filthy from a knot of hair bound on his head down a saggy neck covered with hair, down a collarless shirtfront and a battered leather apron not unlike a smith's.

"I didn't know anyone lived here," he said. Tried to say, with dignity and courtesy. "I assumed I could sleep here – I need to eat and drink and wash… I apologize if I assumed in error."

"Yer hurt yer shoulder," the man observed with no trace of compassion in his voice, and Merlin alerted, reminded immediately of various bandits and mercenaries encountered over the years. Greed spoke in his voice, an ravenous envy for those perceived to have more, and better. "Wot's in yer pack, there?"

Merlin was far too tired to consider anyone else an enemy. He answered honestly, "Three wooden bowls, a blanket and a spare shirt, an apple and some dried flowers."

"Fla'rs?" the man said, disgusted and confused. He squinted Merlin over. "What happened to yer shoulder, then?"

It hurt to turn his head to try to look, to what it might look like through someone else's eyes. This time he lied. "I slept out, last night. It might have been wolves or a pack of wild dogs, maybe, I didn't see them clearly. Lucky they didn't go for the throat."

Which was the truth. But the royal hounds were well-trained, and without an order to kill, they wouldn't.

"You slept out," the man repeated skeptically.

"I was traveling through the area," Merlin began, but the man wasn't interested in his story.

"You got any coin?"

"Not a single one." Merlin wasn't used to traveling with coin, riding the forests of Camelot with Arthur and the knights. He rarely dealt with coin anyway, having room and board provided and otherwise resisting putting a monetary value on his service to Arthur. What coins the king tricked or pressured him into accepting, he usually gave away in the lower town or sometimes in villages they passed through. And Gwen commissioned his clothes from the tailor. When he let her.

The man huffed. " 'S a fine jacket," he observed. "Blood looks fresh – should come right out, wouldn't you say? Sew up a tear or two? That dark cloth'll hide a flaw."

"I suppose so," Merlin said. Now that he'd stopped moving, he needed to sit down before he simply fell down.

"A meal an' a bed an' tending," the man proposed, rocking on his heels and puffin out his considerable belly. "In trade fer the jacket."

He sighed. And hoped he wasn't going to need it for the rest of the week. "Done."

The man came right up to remove the garment from its place in the crook of Merlin's elbow, and he stank. And when he bellowed out suddenly, "Hey, girl!" Merlin flinched so badly the world tilted.

A form with long light hair appeared behind the trailing stone wall, but didn't approach them, remaining indistinct. The man left Merlin's side, sauntering back to join her at the hut, speaking loudly enough to be overheard.

"Comp'ny fer dinner an' th' night. Water th' stew and get this clean and mended an' do it fast."

The girl took the jacket without a word, rounding the stone wall to slip into the house. The man ignored Merlin to squat beside a trio of connected iron rods supporting a small cookpot over a smokeless coal-pit in the dooryard, shoving a wooden stir-spoon into the pot repeatedly, impatiently.

Merlin decided he'd paid for the right to treat the place like his, at least til morning. On stiff legs and numb-sore feet, he hobbled toward the door, realizing that a rough sort of porch had been laid before it, peeled branches and willow-stalks half-buried or pressed into the muddy earth, and that, he thought, was as good a destination as any. Leaning on the crooked stone wall that kept back encroaching brambles, he lowered himself to sitting and eased the relentless string of his pack off his shoulder to let it rest beside him.

Then he thought, Should've gotten the water before I sat down…

Too tired to push his legs out straight, he leaned his forehead on one knee, feeling tremors weaken various muscles randomly. "Do you have water?" he said aloud, his voice feeling hoarse with the effort of projecting it to the man at the cook-pit. "Or have I got to fetch it myself?"

"Yana!" the man hollered, sounding irritable. "Bring the water! Yer feet're as slow as yer wits!"

Footsteps sent subtle reverberations through the ground and the roughly-planted porch floor. Bare dirty feet and the unevenly-hemmed edge of a skirt paused next to Merlin momentarily before the girl padded on to the firepit, carrying a wooden bucket. The man struggled upright as she bent to ladle more water into the cookpot, long-handled spoon still in his hand.

"That's not how you stir it, poking," the girl said. "You gotta go in circles and get the bottom of the pot or it'll stick and burn."

Her back was to Merlin. Her hair was too light for brown and too dark for blonde, hanging in filthy tangles around her face and down her back and… couldn't be. He was hearing things. Making connections with a mind fogged by… exhaustion and pain. Loneliness and worry for his friends – the ones here who didn't recognize him, and the ones he'd left behind.

Arthur, who had known about this, and hadn't said…

"Shut yer yap," the man snarled, gesturing to threaten her with a back-handed slap. She cringed momentarily in reaction. "S'yer job anyway, th' cookin'."

"And the cleaning, and the foraging and the fixing," she snapped back, turning away from him to the cabin again.

Merlin straightened. It was her. It was her, it had to be.

The man snatched a handful of her hair, dragging her head back so her chin lifted and her neck angled and she almost dropped the water bucket.

"An' I make sure you have food in your mouth, you ungrateful wench," he said. "Get that jacket sewed and washed – it can dry on my way."

He released her with a thrust that overbalanced her for two steps, but she strode the rest of the way as if unaffected.

Merlin looked up into her face – dirty face, pointed chin, disheveled hair hiding the rest – as she set the bucket down beside him. Ignoring him as well.

"Yana?" he said, leaning to keep her in view as she made to enter the cabin. "Is that your name?"

"I also answer to hey, girl," she said sarcastically, barely pausing before she disappeared inside.

Merlin wasn't worried about washing water anymore. She said she'd come to Camelot when her father died – this must be her father. She never said how he'd died; she didn't talk about him like she missed him. She didn't talk about him at all.

"Do you make a habit of striking your daughter, sir?" Merlin said to the man, not caring if she heard him, inside the house. Not much caring, in the moment, that he hadn't meant to make more enemies, today.

"Non'a yer bloody business," was the sullen response. The man stalked away, out of sight behind the wall and the brakes.

Merlin tried to twist to face the door, and nausea rose in his throat at the swollen ache spreading up his neck from his shoulder. Dusty, he wanted to say. Instead he ventured to call out, "Yana?"

No wonder she hadn't minded him using the nickname his younger self had learned in the future.

She didn't answer. He didn't know what to say, anyway.

His arm throbbed, and he had to be able to continue, tomorrow, he had to be able to find either willow or watercress – and thistle at noon – and pennywinkle at midnight. He had to return to Camelot to meet Gaius for the rest, he had to go to the Isle… His fingers were clumsy on his shirt-laces, and twinges of pain shot through him at unexpected angles as he maneuvered his right arm out of his shirt.

Hells, look at that bruising. Where the first dog had clamped, it was swollen and deeply blue-purple, and it had spread beyond teeth-shape or jaw-pattern. He ducked his head to pull the shirt over, and let it peel down his left arm.

It stuck where the blood had dried, and tugging made him feel dizzy and ill. He leaned awkwardly to grab the ladle left in the bucket – couldn't scrape it full even if the bucket was tipped – and poured it over the highest mark. Wet the shirt fabric, loosen it, pull it down to see the rest. See if it needed stitching.

The soles of her bare feet whispered her approach, accompanied by a soft hiss that confused him. It hurt to try to look up into her face, but when he did, she moved on from the porch.

The water was a faint cool relief, gone again in two seconds. Disheartened, he watched Dusty inspect the jacket she carried critically as she stepped to the firepit. Seemingly satisfied, she folded and rolled it, taking out two clay dishes carried under her elbow and tucked the jacket between arm and body instead. One dish was left resting in the grass, the other filled, and she carried the dish and jacket off in the direction the man had taken.

Rinse the bloodstain in the stream, maybe. It can dry on my way, the man had said. Was he going to take it somewhere to sell? It surely wouldn't fit him, but the quality of the fabric was still fine enough to be worth… more than a meal. Merlin wasn't certain he wanted to sleep in the cabin, anymore. Could Dusty's father make it to Camelot and back yet tonight? Maybe the way was familiar to him, and he had a buyer in mind. Maybe he planned to carry a lantern.

I didn't know. It was like this for you. You never told me… I told you about Ealdor and my mother and Will and Old Man Simmons. I told you about my father. And you never said…

"That shoulder won't take care of itself."

He was startled into opening his eyes, only then realizing he'd let them fall shut.

Her matted hair swung past her face as she bent to leave the second clay dish balanced on the curve of one of the larger limbs of the porch floor, staying just out of his reach. She moved back inside, and he couldn't hear much of her movements. Quiet and efficient.

Dusty wasn't… quiet. Or shy. He kind of loved that about her – other people loved it about her, too, even Arthur though he pretended not to.

Merlin stared dumbly at the steaming bowl, grease swirling on the surface as nameless pale blobs bobbed against each other. Chicken and dumplings? Rat stew? Hells, Arthur, I'm sorry for that one… They'd eaten worse in Ealdor, on occasion. Rather than starve, they'd eaten…

"It's rabbit," she said, sounding defensive. Her toes curled over the threshold. "I set traps, in the woods. That's fresh-caught today. Leeks and sorrel and carrot. And… watercress, if you want it. My da never does."

He had to shift his whole body to be able to see her hovering uncertainly behind his left shoulder. She had a poorly-woven wicker-reed platter in her hands, greens damp from washing on it.

"I do want it," he said. Watercress, carried right to him on a platter. God bless Dusty.

She squatted, setting it down by the stew-bowl, like she was reluctant to get close to him, but didn't bounce up to move away again.

He eyed the rabbit stew and the cress, wondering if he was hungry enough to move when movement made his stomach lurch anyway. He did not fancy repeated vomiting two days in a row – or in front of her.

"Who are you?" she asked suddenly.

But you never said. You never told me – did you ever realize it was me? It was a little like looking in a mirror at his eighty-year-old self. Glimpsing a life that wasn't his – but would be.

"No one in particular," he said.

She reached as if to touch his shirt where it still clung to the wound. "You're not dressed like no one in particular," she said. "Not like a farmer or a craftsman, even. But if you're nobility, you could have gone to Camelot. Not come here."

"Have you ever been to Camelot?" he asked.

"Do I look like I go to Camelot?" She clucked her tongue derisively, hitching closer and brushing her fingers down the inside of the peeled sleeve, testing to see if it could be teased away from the blood. "Every other week-end, and on holidays the king asks us to stay over as special guests."

"You should go, sometime," he dared, because the sleeve was burning his skin, pulling away at her insistence. He couldn't help turning his head away to hide the grimace of pain she caused. "It is definitely a sight worth seeing. The white towers of the citadel…" He hissed an inhalation between his teeth as the sleeve broke free and slipped off his arm.

"The white teeth of the king's hounds…"

That made him look at her, stiff ache or none. She held his gaze with her own, light green like moonlight on a secret pond, and shadows around the edge, daring him to lie.

"It was a misunderstanding," he said lamely. "Really Arthur is quite fair… And the loyalty of his men is a good thing…"

She hummed sarcastic disbelief, looking at the dark-and-scarlet smear of his upper arm.

"I swear," he said, feeling a bit of desperation threaten to lift his head from his shoulders and waft it away on the breeze like dandelion fluff. "I swear on my father's grave and my mother's love. Arthur is a good king and I would die for him."

"Arthur," she repeated mockingly, turning from him to retrieve the stew-bowl. He accepted it with his right hand – able to make bruised muscles lift it to slurp from the side of the dish.

She dunked the sleeve of his discarded shirt into the water-bucket, beginning to wipe – scrub – the blood from his skin. It took all his energy to focus on chewing and swallowing and ignoring the flashes of fire and lightning from his left arm.

"You should come to Camelot," he said again, around a lump of something he rather hoped was potato. "Ask for Gaius, the court physician. Learn how to do this – ah! properly."

"Do you want to, instead?" she retorted.

"Hells, no. Thanks." Probably. Done yet, there, Dusty?

"I can't see if it needs stitching," she said shortly. "You can come inside. I've got a lamp. But the sun's down and it's cooling and you're still sweating."

He shivered as his bare skin flushed and then cooled. "It's probably the beard. I meant to shave before I came…"

"How come you didn't?" she said, as though it was a perfectly normal thing for him to have said. That was disconcerting, and he found himself replying.

"It hides a scar. My friends used to look at it when they looked at me, and I didn't like what it made them think. And anyway it made shaving complicated at a time when I didn't have the time for that. And then I just… left it."

"It's probably a fever," she pronounced, maybe deciding that his rambling nonsense was proof. Pushing to her feet, she retreated into the cabin.

"Elderberry," he said, to no one still standing there to listen. "Rosemary, and yarrow." After a moment he corrected himself, "Rosemary or yarrow." Both good for sweating out the causes of a fever and thereby breaking it – not necessarily together.

Did it need stitching, after all? He couldn't tell that her hurried ministrations had caused any renewed bleeding. And they wouldn't have wine here, for a more thorough cleansing.

"Honey, maybe?" That would be good for it.

Was it bleeding again? Or oozing? Should get it wrapped up pretty soon.

With some honey, maybe.

"Damn, you're useless, aren't you?" She was back, hoisting his drawstring bag up and retrieving his mostly-empty bowl from its resting place on top of his thigh. "Or worse off than you realize. Get up."

He leaned forward, getting his weight over his knees – over one knee, as his bitten shin throbbed and threatened to give out entirely. Twisting to protect the muscles in the left side of his upper body, he jammed his right elbow into the stone wall sheltering that side of the cabin and porch and tried to ignore the feeling of making new bruises.

"Or maybe clever enough to fool me into thinking you're useless," she added narrowly, backing through the doorway as he stumbled over the rounded tree-limbs laid into the ground for the porch-floor.

He stopped himself on the threshold so as not to topple into the house – larger on the inside than it looked from the front door, he remembered. "No, I'm useless," he told her. "Just ask Arthur. He'd be happy to tell you all day long how useless I am."

And none of it would be true, anymore. At least from his Arthur.

She added sardonically, "And you'd die for him."

The inside of the cabin was nothing like he remembered. Nothing dangled from the rafter-beams or cluttered the earthen floor. There was a new bed-box in the front corner, and a table flanked by two short benches next to it, the basket-platter of cress already on it, and the water-bucket beside it on the floor. A ragged swath of stitched burlap hung above the half-wall toward the rear of the room; the amendments had probably been made for two occupants of opposite genders. It was rough but clean, and the musty smell carried notes of lavender and lye and beeswax.

For a moment he simply stood in the doorway, helpless before the memories. Once, Lancelot – and once, Arthur. Emotions of friendship, lasting and true, lanced with the fear of the moment…

And now, Dusty. Before she'd ever met him.

You never said. If you realized – if you remember this at all…

She took advantage of his moment of hesitation to move an oil-lamp to the table, dropping his pack between one short bench and the box-bed in the corner with less care than he would have liked. But before he could take a single step inside, she retreated behind the table toward the storage shelves and floor-baskets, cautiously not turning her back on him.

A stranger. Carrying his torn bloody shirt in his hand rather than wearing it with whatever propriety was possible, under the circumstances.

"Did you father leave you here alone with me?" he asked, realizing a moment too late that she could easily misunderstand the intention of the question. He tried again, "Do you expect him back soon?"

No – stupid, stupid. Remember she doesn't know you.

Dusty shrugged, trailing fingers over utensils and tools, then bottles and jars. "It doesn't matter if I'm alone," she told him, her eyes cutting through the dim light of the cabin all the way to his heart. "I've got a knife and a shovel. And I know how to use them both."

His chuckle stung his throat and surprised her. "Perhaps I ought to be the wary one, then? How many hapless travelers have you gutted and buried in the woods behind your house?"

Feeling his knees threaten to buckle, he shuffled forward and clumsily straddled the nearest bench, his back to the cabin wall and the throbbing wound on his arm closest to the light on the table. Exploring fingertips told him, there were places of broken skin further back than he could see, but nothing gaping or ripped away.

After a disconcerted pause, she answered, "It can always be one more."

"My mother raised me to be a gentleman," he said, pressing the dampened sleeve of the ruined shirt to one mark welling blood after her abrupt cleaning. "And, you invited me in."

She hesitated only a moment longer, finally coming to seat herself on the opposite bench without bothering to adjust her skirts, small clay jar covered with a scrap of waxed cloth tied over it, in her hand.

"You can use this for a bandage," Merlin told her, pushing the shirt across the table. "I've a spare in my pack."

Untying the string, she dipped her finger into the honey-jar, crooking it to pull up more of the sticky substance, then dabbed and smeared it over the teeth-marks in his skin. She could have been gentler but she wasn't; it felt hot and pulsed uncomfortably, like his head was doing. Like his leg beneath him – he wanted to lie back and prop it up and quit moving.

"Comfrey," he said, to distract himself. "Or calendula."

"I don't know what that is," she said defensively.

"For the bruising," he explained. "Or apple cidar vinegar. It doesn't matter. It's fine." He was grateful for her help – wormwood and valerian and yellow-dock. And feverfew would be good for the fever and he had calendula but he needed that for the Faelg. And… cress.

Fumbling the tie of his pack open with one hand – it could be knotted so that a simple yank on the right cord would open it, but it wasn't cooperating tonight – he fished out the spare shirt. Not the blood-spotted neckerchief, though, that was tucked back inside.

"What's that?" she said. "It'll do for a bandage. Better'n tearing up a shirt."

"No, it's dirty," he said, keeping the fabric crumpled around precious bloodstains. The one thing he could not replace should he lose it.

"I can rinse it-"

"I'm going to need it later." He reassured her, "The shirt is fine. My shirt – my choice – don't worry about it, just do it."

"Maybe I should make you do that part yourself, too," she snapped.

"Sorry. No… thank you, really – you've no idea how much I appreciate this."

She didn't believe him. That didn't matter much either, he supposed. Ripping sounds filled the silence between them, as he maneuvered half a dozen slender stalks of watercress topped by a round green leaf into the twist of Gaius' straining-cloth that sheltered his other ingredients.

"Just eat it." She leaned across the table to paste one end of the strip of cloth to his honey-sticky upper arm, and he flinched. She didn't seem to notice, stuffing the material under and behind his arm, wrapping it around.

"I'll need that later, too," he told her. Not so loose – not so tight…

"It won't be any good, later." She hadn't ripped the whole shirt completely, maybe a long strip off the bottom – around once and halfway again – but she'd torn the far end into halves far enough so double back and tie neatly.

He sighed, slumping a little. "That will hold for a while. Thank you, very much."

"That's my da's bed, behind you. He won't be back tonight."

It might be filthy. It might reek. There might be bedbugs or lice – he longed to stretch out and surrender to oblivion, but he hesitated. "You're sure? I mean, that he won't be back, and get angry you've let me use his bed."

"He'll sell your jacket quick enough – it was a nice piece of work." She wound the string back around the wax-cloth sealing the honey jar, keeping her smeared finger clear of her work. The mounds of his two shirts lay before him, but he had no energy for putting on the one that was still intact. She bent for the water-bucket, wetting her sleeve and wiping off her finger before turning to put both bucket and jar away. "He'll drink most of what he gets for it, though. Til the ale-house closes and someone dumps him in an alley to sleep it off. When he wakes, if there's anything left, he'll spend it in the market before he comes home."

And did he really trust her to protect herself against the possibly dishonorable intentions of a male stranger? Or did he just not care?

"Oi," she said suddenly. "Get into the bed."

He blinked dazedly, feeling his face smushed by the fist propping it up, elbow still on the table. Still throbbing.

"Don't sleep on my table," she added, scowling. "I can't lift you into the bed, and I won't try."

Sitting down, the edge of the box-bed was even with his face – an insurmountable climb. He groaned, having to try twice to get his feet under him instead of the bench, and then didn't even straighten fully, just tipped by careful degrees onto the bed. Knee, then hip, then roll to his back, avoiding both shoulders as much as possible.

"You're on top of the blanket," she observed dispassionately.

"I don't care." And he couldn't be bothered to remove his boots. Shadow and lamplight swirled in his vision, and he gave up, sinking away from consciousness.