The Cage

Night fell, and brought with it a breath of wind so faint it barely damped the taste of raw dust in the air. The baked stones gave up their warmth to the dark, but there was no relief to be had by the coming of night. The heat still stalked the castle grounds; it stuffed the lungs with cotton, and the throat with bramble thorns.

Arthur stood at his open casement, and looked out over the square with his mouth set in a fine, hard line. Sweat crawled over him, pasting his hair to his brow and his shirt to his back; his throat was already dry from thirst again, though he had taken a goblet of wine not half an hour before. It was past time for him to be in bed, and his chambers lay in unquiet darkness; but for all his weariness, Arthur had been slow to find sleep that night.

He had refused to let himself understand why: had refused to acknowledge Merlin's sharp, stolen glances when he thought the prince wasn't looking. Instead he had pretended interest in his supper, and ignored the sulky boy as he went about his work. Merlin was always sulking about something; he would blaze up like a wisp of silk in a candle flame, and spend hours afterwards moping about Arthur's chambers like a balked child. He would get over it. He always did.

The food sat in Arthur's gut now like sediment, stirred up every so often by a stab of memory. The cage was a punishment the king rarely used – most summers in Camelot were mild affairs, lacking the storm of heat and the blistering sunlight needed to roast a man alive – but roast them, it could. And had, once.

§

Arthur had been ten when he met Roland in the stable yard. It had been a day as unforgiving as this one, the sun a glaring whiteness on the castle stone, the horses bought in from pasture to shelter in their stalls. A boy had been sitting on an upturned barrel, eating a pastry with all the unconsidered enjoyment of a rabbit munching through the cabbage-patch. He had been barefoot, his face a crunch of freckles over a sunburned nose, and his black eyes darted suspiciously to Arthur when the prince had approached.

"You looking for the stablemaster?" the boy had asked, with as much disinterest in Arthur as he had regard for the pastry.

"I've come to check on Llamrei. She turned her ankle yesterday, and though it wasn't a bad sprain she was limping when we brought her home. Guillam said I could visit her this morning and see how she is."

The boy had shrugged, and tucked the last corner of the pastry into his mouth. Its scent still carried briefly to Arthur on the summer air, simmering with sugar and crystallised fruit. "Guillam's gone to the grain store for more oats. Won't be back till this afternoon, I reckon. Your horse is in her stall, but I wouldn't go near her just yet if I were you. She's in a right old temper this morning." The boy darted a quick, assessing look up at Arthur, as if challenging him to disagree. "Probably heartbroken at having to spend the day without your precious backside attached to her saddle. What with you being royalty, and all."

The young Arthur had never been spoken to that way in his life. His nurse, his tutor, the servants and soldiers and everything in between – all of them would bob him a curtsy or lend him a bow. Uther had once dismissed his instructor in axe work, simply for calling the young Arthur 'Little King' with something like derision in his voice. To hear this unmannered stableboy talk to him this way, as if he were no more than a skivvy, made Arthur flush red from the tips of his ears to the top of his undeveloped boy's chest.

"I'll have you know it's an honour for her to be chosen as my mount," said Arthur, with what he thought was princely grandeur.

"Yeah? Does she know that?"

For a moment their eyes had locked, in a silent contest that needed neither sword nor lance; then, as if on some cue that no bystander could ever hope to understand, both boys had burst out laughing.

"Roland," said the boy, and extended his hand to the prince.

"Arthur," said Arthur . . . and took it without a second thought.

§

Arthur abruptly broke off the memories, snap, like the claw of a crab. Beyond his window, a deep blue pall had settled over the city of Camelot. At any other time of the year, there would be the tiny firefly lights of lanterns and cook fires burning late into the night; but for the past few days, even they had been extinguished. Nobody wanted a hot meal in these desultory nights, and the people preferred to go without light if it also meant they would be spared the extra heat.

Guillam's sentence had begun that afternoon. The knights that led him had not been unkind, and Arthur had made a mental note to commend them for their consideration at the first opportunity. To enforce the law was a duty; to do so without acrimony was a choice. But despite their careful handling of the old man, nothing about it had been comfortable to watch. Arthur had witnessed so many punishments, some far bloodier and more final than this one . . . but this had stuck in his craw as most had not.

The stablemaster had been little more than a drab brown rag between Sir Pelleas and Sir Ector, and although he had walked under his own power, Arthur could tell that the man's mind was already gone. It was a kind of terror that Arthur had never really felt in his life. He felt fear, sometimes, more than he cared to admit, but it had never been so bad as to overwhelm his spirit like that. The old man stumbled through the square with the glazed, uncomprehending eyes of a rabbit in the jaws of the hound. Perhaps it was a mercy, this unreasoning. Perhaps it would spare the old man any true awareness of what was to come.

His father had stood on the balcony before the crowd, his crown a blaze of gold on his brow, the jewel tones he favoured traded for a more forgiving suit of steel grey. He had looked strange in the glowing, over-saturated afternoon; whereas the rest of the world had blurred, its colours too bright, its edges too soft, Uther was cut out of solid iron.

That is his strength, Arthur reminded himself, hotly. My father has kept peace in Camelot all these years because he will not be deterred by useless sentiment or trickery. He understands that the people need a firm hand to guide them. He holds to his beliefs, and isn't swayed by pretty words. I should only hope to be as strong.

But today, his strength looked an awful lot like brutality.

"People of Camelot," Uther had declaimed. "You are summoned here today to witness the sentence of Guillam Le Frye, stablemaster to the royal court of Camelot. His gross negligence needlessly endangered the life of my ward, Morgana Le Fay – and for this dereliction of duty, he is hereby sentenced to spend three days in the town square without food or shade. Any subject approaching him or offering him aid in any way will receive twenty lashes, and will thereafter immediately take his place. Let this be a lesson to all – that your duty is first and foremost to Camelot, and that the honour of serving its court should not be disrespected."

Sir Pelleas and Sir Ector had then opened the door of the cage and thrust the man inside. The hinges had squealed in the stagnant air like a stuck pig. Then the door had slammed shut, the key turned in the lock, and the crowd had uncertainly begun to disperse. Uther and his guards had swept inside with no further glance to the cage below; but Arthur had remained behind, looking sightlessly out over the emptying square. My father is being merciful, he thought, and his fingers clenched on the balcony's edge until the skin of his palms blazed with pain. He is granting the man water and medical attention. Morgana could have been killed because of his negligence, and the evidence against the man was clear. My father is only giving him his just desserts. Stop thinking about it and go about your business, you big girl.

He straightened, and looked once more around the shadowless square. His eyes fell on a single figure below: a figure in a blue shirt and rolled-up breeches, standing motionless amidst the bustling of the crowd. The calm in the eye of the storm.

Merlin.

For a moment their gaze had locked across the hazy expanse of the square, and Arthur saw a steel in his servant's straight spine that he had never suspected the idiot possessed. Then Merlin had slowly turned his back on the prince, and walked away into the crowd.

§

It was late into the night when Merlin could finally get away from his chores. He had not spoken to Arthur since that moment in the courtyard, and if he was honest with himself then he had no desire to speak to him, either. Perhaps the prat would have the good sense, for once, to know that his servant was angry with him.

He refused to acknowledge, even to himself, that angry was not the word he wanted to reach for when he thought of the prince. He had spent sixteen years(1) of his life adrift, bobbing hazily around his home village like an untethered boat at the mercy of the current; he had had no direction, no explanation for his otherness, and only his mother and Will to anchor him in any one spot. Then he had come to Camelot, and everything had changed.

He had discovered a destiny within these walls. One he would never have chosen for himself, that was true, but at last he had found a reason for his aimless existence. He had found the harbour to which his tiny, insignificant boat belonged. He had found, in Arthur, the thing which tethered him to the world.

From the first, he had never doubted Arthur's courage. He owed the prince his life for recovering the Mortaeus flower in time; he had nothing but respect for Arthur's willingness to give his own life in the labyrinth of Gedref. Arthur had championed the commoner Lancelot as a knight, and he had faced every monster that threatened his people without hesitation. He had given Merlin every reason to bind himself to his prince, and not look back.

So why, thought Merlin, kicking at a stone with the toe of his boot, do I sometimes feel like cutting the rope?

Silently he passed beneath the battlements of the citadel, and could not help but seek out those places where gargoyles no longer glowered from atop their stone pedestals. Fragments still lingered in the empty courtyard, chips of stone that were all that remained of Cornelius Sigan's unnatural army. He had been kicking one such fragment, only moments ago. And he forced down the bile that flared up his throat, the fullness in his chest that threatened to swallow him, when he thought about Cedric and the prince.

He does not deserve your loyalty, Sigan had said. He treats you like a slave. He cast you aside without a moment's thought.

As he had now cast Guillam aside. As he had Gaius, when Aredian denounced him as a sorcerer. All those years of service, and Arthur had shrugged it off with an ease that frightened Merlin more than any monster, any sorcerer, ever could.

But it must hurt, Sigan had said.

And Gods, but it did.

§

The lower town was silent when Merlin at last ghosted through the hazy nighttime streets. The stones sweltered in the breezeless dark; the stink of green water and decaying food festered in the alleyways. Up in the castle keep, a prince was wondering at the darkened lanterns and extinguished hearths; in the cobblestoned alleyways, a servant was feeling his way towards a certain house whose lanterns would be dark for many days to come.

You're disappointed in him, Gaius' unequivocal voice breathed out of the dark. It's only natural you should want to see the best in him.

But tonight, no matter how he tried, that 'best' was slipping fitfully away. He tried to remember Arthur's face, when he protested Merlin's drinking from the poisoned chalice; the way he had refused to take in taxes what the people did not have to give. He had stood up to Uther then, damn it. He had begged, and he had raged; he had been thrown in the dungeons, disinherited, and been willing to risk still more. Yet now, when the stablemaster that had taught him to ride needed him, he had let the man down.

He had let Merlin down.

Guillam lived in a modest, single-roomed cottage in the northern quarter of the lower town. Merlin had never been there before tonight, but the stablemaster had talked often of his home and his departed family. All but one son had moved away into the outlying villages, desperate to escape Uther's spiralling brutality, and Merlin couldn't help but wonder if that was the reason for Guillam's evident love of the stablehands. He would invigorate the long, tedious mornings by relating stories to the two boys, and feed them bread and jam at dinner time. He never yelled at them when they were slow in their work, never demanded they call him anything but his name. A good man. A kind, gentle, hard-working man, who would never knowingly have put the Lady Morgana's life at risk. Merlin was sure of that.

The house, like its neighbours, was dark as Merlin approached; but where the neighbouring cottages had thrown wide their shutters to capture a passing breeze, Guillam's stood forbiddingly sealed. The guards had dragged Guillam from his house without notice, and so nobody had thought to unshutter the windows or remove the plugs of straw from the gaps in the walls. But maybe that also meant that nobody had thought to lock the door, either.

Merlin curled his hand around the door latch, and tentatively pushed. The door swung open onto darkness – unlocked, just as he had thought. Once inside, Merlin withdrew a candle from his pocket and called a flame with only a whispered "Forbærne." It threw a small, sanguinary light over the stone walls and packed earthen floor – enough for him to see by, but no more. Merlin moved the candle cautiously around the single room, shading the flame with his hand as he passed by the windows; with every other house in the street in darkness, it wouldn't do for a light to be seen in the one house that was supposed to be empty.

It was as Merlin had expected: neat, clean, and showing no evidence of a drunken blackout. The bed looked oddly undisturbed to Merlin – surely a man supposedly drunk would have twisted and thrashed in his sleep? And the bedclothes themselves had none of the punchy, sour stench of alcohol that had come from Guillam himself.

A stone shelf in the far left corner held an untouched loaf, brittle now, a heel of hard cheese felted with mould, and a slimy knuckle of pork. Merlin found it hard to believe that the man would not have been hungry, if he had indeed spent three days in this house drinking; on the few occasions that Merlin had become a little in his cups, he had blundered home with a raging desire for salty food. More than once he had queasily finished the loaf intended for breakfast, or a slab of cheese put aside for tomorrow's dinner. Guillam, if this little scene was to be believed, had spent three drunken days within easy reach of food and yet had eaten none of it.

Merlin stopped in the centre of the room, and snuffed out the candle with a thought. His other senses worked better this way; he could hear the scurry of a mouse along the farthest wall, an owl whooping its night-call in the rooftops outside. He could smell the gangrenous reek of the pork, and the hot grease of the candle as it cooled. He could taste the extinguished sting of smoke on the air. And he could feel.

He pushed outward with his magic, just enough to let it breach his skin and hover indelibly around his body. There it was. A sleeping spell. It was fading, withering away as the crops now withered in the fields . . . but it was there. He remembered, now, how dazed Guillam had been that afternoon – stumbling, unaware even as Uther sentenced him of his true predicament. He was still under the influence of the spell, Merlin thought. It had been fading, enough for him to wake from his stupor when the guards burst in – but not enough to restore him to his senses.

With a spasm of rage Merlin shoved against the pressure around him, and felt the spell burst like a soap bubble. With any luck, the destruction of the spell would restore the old man to his senses. A part of Merlin wished that he might have left the stablemaster in his numbing cushion for a little while longer – he would suffer so much more now that it was gone. But maybe, with his mind returned, he would remember some of what had happened to him.

Now, all Merlin had to do was go and ask him.

§

The cage rose from the cobblestones like an edifice of bone against the dark. Torches burned pockets of smoking red heat against the outer walls, but they were few and far between – the well, the water pumps, and the cage itself stood alone in unremitting darkness.

The stablemaster was sitting slumped against the nearer bars of the cage when Merlin approached. At first he feared that Guillam might be unconscious, rendered insensible by the heat and the aftereffects of the sleeping spell; but he stirred at the sound of footsteps, and rolled his greying head around to look for the source. In the congealing darkness, all Merlin could see of him was an outline as fine as spider silk against the night.

"Guillam?" Merlin said, as loudly as he dared. "Guillam, it's me. It's Merlin."

"Merlin? You shouldn't be here, lad. The king is out for blood, and he'd not think twice about having yours."

And he may have it yet, Merlin thought. He cast a glance back over his shoulder to where the guards had recently passed, squinting into the gloom for the first, flickering ember of their returning torch – but there was nothing. Not even a city fox or lean, slinking cat moved in the darkness.

Carefully he dropped to his knees beside the cage, and took from one pocket a bundle wrapped in one of his neckerchiefs. From the other, he produced a battered water skin. "Here. Drink this. I know they've been giving you water, but . . . well, I doubt it was enough."

Guillam's hands fumbled for the water skin, and Merlin felt the palsy in the weathered hands as their fingers met. "I always knew you were a good lad, Merlin. Too good to be polishing armour and mucking out stables for the likes of Uther Pendragon."

"I'm Arthur's manservant, not Uther's. If it were any other way, I would have gone home to my mother months ago." He tried not to feel the shiver of his own hands as he unwrapped the bundle: tried not to think of Arthur's unforgiving face as he upbraided Merlin outside the king's council chambers. Would you have me commit treason against my own father, Merlin? he had said. Already knowing the answer.

"Here," he said, and passed the bundle through the bars in exchange for the empty water skin. "You need to eat. It's not much . . . but it's all I could take without being caught."

He had scavenged a heel of a loaf, four plums, an oat cake, and a haunch of rabbit from the castle kitchens earlier that night. They were leftovers from the king's supper table, and unlikely to be missed. He waited as patiently as he could while Guillam inhaled the food, but he had to admit that he was becoming anxious. There were questions that needed to be asked, and he had perhaps a half-hour's grace before the patrol returned to the courtyard. Already he had wasted too much time.

"Guillam," he said, when the man had done with the bread. "I'm sorry if this was wrong of me, but I visited your house earlier tonight. I remembered what you said, that you didn't know where the wine jugs had come from . . . and I thought I might be able to find some clue as to who put them there, and why. I've known you for over a year, now, and I don't believe for a moment that you would simply abandon your duties to get lost at the bottom of a wine jug."

The stablemaster sighed, and wiped his mouth free of rabbit-grease with his sleeve. "I'm touched at your faith in me, young 'un. If only others were so forgiving."

"I like to think I'm a good judge of character," Merlin said, dismissively. "I know it's probably a bit of a blur, but . . . what do you remember, about the last three days?"

"Nothing since Thursday night. I'd been tending to Lady Morgana's palfrey for the following day, and I saw to Sir Kay's destrier, who'd turned his ankle in a bog, poor beast. Then I handed off to the stablehands for the night and went home. The last thing I remember, I was having my bit of bread and dripping(2) when I come over sleepy all of a sudden. Next thing I know, the guards are hammering on my door."

Merlin felt his back stiffen, his fingers curl involuntarily around the bars. They were still warm, and gave out the soothing heat of a bathtub; but he could all too well imagine how they would scorch like a brand under the noonday sun. "Wait – did you say you checked Lady Morgana's horse on Thursday night?"

"That's right, lad, and mended a tear in her spare saddle."

"Did you notice anything wrong with its shoes? Were any missing, or damaged in any way?"

"You think I would have left those good-for-nothing boys in charge of something as important as that?" The old man gave a good-natured chuckle – and Merlin felt that twist in his heart again, like a rag being wrung out to dry. Even in the face of torture, Guillam was refusing to lose himself in self-pity or bitterness. It was something Merlin had always strived for in his own, often miserable life.

"So . . . there's no way it was missing a shoe when Morgana rode out the following day? The only reason Uther even sent out search parties for you was because of her accident. She could have been killed when her horse threw her, that's why he was so blinded by rage when they found you. But if you say there was nothing wrong with the horse the night before, then . . ."

"Then perhaps someone tampered with her after I left? Aye, lad, that stands to reason. But who?"

"That's what I intend to find out. I think somebody made you sleep away those three days, so that they could sneak into the stables and sabotage Morgana's horse. I found evidence of a . . . a sleeping draught, in your house. One that made you so insensible, you couldn't even argue your case to the king today."

Guillam sighed. Merlin had not been able to judge their distance in the darkness, but the gust of breath on his cheek was hot and close . . . too hot, he couldn't help but notice. There was a dry rattle to the old man's chest as he breathed, and the air he expelled was vitriolic and sour. "He wouldn't have listened, lad. Not where the Lady Morgana is concerned. He dotes on her like a daughter, gives her the best of everything. He wouldn't take the word of an old stableman over the evidence of his own eyes."

"But Arthur might. If we can find proof—"

"Arthur." It was barely a murmur on the night. With food inside him, and the day's heat bearing down on him like a stone, Guillam was slipping back into sleep once more. "Arthur's a good boy, at heart, but he's still his father's son. He won't go against Uther for me, no matter his own feelings."

You're wrong, Merlin thought, and felt his fists curl around the bars until the warm iron bit into his skin. He's done it before. He's defied his father before, for his people. For me. But then he remembered Arthur's face outside the council chambers that afternoon: regretful, but ultimately immovable. Unwilling to countenance, for even a second, that his father might be in the wrong.

"I'm going to get you out of here, Guillam. I promise you that. If Arthur won't listen . . . well, then I'll just have to do it myself." Like I always do.

NOTES:

1) One of the show's creators (I forget which one) said in an interview that they intended for Merlin to be three-four years' Arthur's junior, which means he was sixteen or seventeen when the series began.

2) Though very few people eat it nowadays, bread and dripping was a staple food for the common folk for centuries. Families would roast a joint for Sunday lunch, and collect all the meat fat and juices – the 'dripping' – to spread on bread throughout the week. My mum swears by it, but I'm going to have to take her word for it since I'm a vegan, lol.