The First Morning

He didn't know quite when the flogging had stopped. His whole world had become one, incessant command, chasing through his head like a voice in a cave: Don't scream. Don't scream. A prince does not scream.

But he hurt, in a way that went far beyond even the worst of his battle wounds. His raw back was ablaze with agony; his wrists burned where the manacles had worn away the skin and opened his veins. He could feel the rough iron of the bars branding their heat into his chest, and the sun beating down on his neck in a hard, hot stripe. He could smell his own sharp sweat, the dust on the burning stones . . . but he could hear nothing. Even in his haze of pain, Arthur was aware of the momentous silence that had fallen over the courtyard like a pall.

He waited, feeling his breath rasp out of him in fast, furious gulps, but the whip did not fall again. It was over. It was finally, mercifully over. He let himself sag in the chains, but the shriek of agony in his wrists brought him back to himself with a gasp. No. It wasn't over until he was away from the assiduous eyes of the crowd, and free to react as a man instead of a prince. Until then he could not, would not, disgrace himself by giving way to tears.

His father would never forgive him if he did.

Arthur felt someone moving up against his side, and heard a voice he knew saying: "Sire. Be ready to catch yourself on my shoulders. I doubt your legs will want to support you for a while."

Warm, calloused hands unclasped his right wrist and slid his arm over a solid shoulder. He felt leather and linen, smelled sweat and saddle soap and the musky scent of familiarity. Leon. Arthur clutched at the older knight, and felt his left arm guided to Leon's other shoulder; then his knees buckled and he was falling, plummeting to the ground like a stone. Arms caught him by the elbows and lowered him gently to the ground . . . and there Arthur knelt, his hands on Sir Leon's reassuringly steady shoulders, swaying like an oak about to fall.

"I'm all right," he tried to say. "Just give me a minute."

"We have to put you in the cage now, sire. Your father is watching."

Arthur swallowed, and patted Leon's shoulder with what he hoped was reassurance. "And I won't hold it against you, Sir Leon. Please believe that."

"Thank you, my lord. Do you think you can stand?"

Arthur nodded, then froze at the blaze of pain that flashed across his back. "Help me," he said.

Leon cupped his hands under Arthur's elbows again, and with a heave lifted him to his feet. Arthur swayed, and for the first time became aware that the day's heat had retreated. The pain was swallowing his ability to think, sucking at the edges of the world like waves at a sandy shore. Some of the brightness had gone out of the day, leaving a fractured coolness interspersed with brilliance. Clouds. He was not passing out, as he had feared; the ground swarmed with amassing shadow as thunderclouds began to form overhead.

"If you think you can walk, sire," said Leon. "We really don't want to have to drag you inside."

Arthur nodded, and steeled himself to move. Even putting one foot in front of the other was agony – his back strained and stretched at each slight motion, and more than once he had to bite his cheek to keep from crying out – but after only five or six steps he had made it to the open gate of the cage. Leon's guiding hands fell away from his arms, and a moment later the gate clanged shut behind him.

Arthur remained on his feet for a few seconds more, listening for the footsteps of the crowd as they began to disperse . . . and then he sank to his knees, and bowed his head gratefully against the shimmering rain.

§

He was awakened by a steady clap of sound, like thunder in a lowering sky. He had no memory of slipping into unconsciousness, only of the promise of rain on his bent head. Now there was the sound of thunder in his delirium, and Arthur waited for the heavens to open and the downpour to begin.

But the rain did not come. Gradually he became aware of heat, and of the acrid taste of dust in his mouth. Even through closed eyelids, he could see the merciless sun beating down on Camelot from a cloudless blue sky. With a swallow that made his head ache and his empty stomach heave, Arthur Pendragon opened his eyes.

He was lying with his face to the ground and his back upturned to the relentless summer sun. The cobblestones were a scorching-hot brand against his chest, his stomach, and the soft underside of his forearms; they blazed furnace-white between the shadows of the bars that made up his cage. And ahead of him, on the far side of those bars, Arthur saw two black boots that made his heart stop dead in his chest.

"Father," he said.

The owner of the boots crouched, bringing more of the man into Arthur's field of view. Black breeches, boots, belt and vest: a shirt the colour of forest shadows where the trees grew thickest. Uther looked impassively through the bars of his son's cage, and in his silence Arthur felt a world of words that he knew he could never dare to speak aloud. I hate you. You hurt me and I hate you. I'm sorry. I love you, but I hate you.

Forgive me.

Instead the prince only swallowed again, and turned his eyes up to his father's without moving his aching head.

Arthur watched, afraid to move or speak, as Uther Pendragon slid his hand between the bars and rested it softly on his son's tumbled hair. Arthur tensed beneath his father's hand, and hated himself for wanting even that small sign of affection so much that he would consider playing the dutiful son in order to keep it.

"You took it bravely, Arthur. As I knew you would."

"Thank you, Father," said Arthur. And meant it.

"This sentence should never have fallen to you. I never intended . . . but you challenged my authority in view of the people, and that cannot be allowed. The common folk would take such discord as a sign of weakness, and uprisings have begun over less. I would have spared you this if I could."

"But you wouldn't have spared Merlin. You would have tortured him merely as a lesson for the people, when he has been nothing but loyal to me."

At once, as Arthur had known it must, his father's hand withdrew. Uther only watched him through the iron bars, surprise hardening to displeasure on his face. The father was taken off, put away, and left only the king in his place. "It's the only language they understand. If the people do not respect their king, then that king cannot hope to rule them, Arthur. You know this."

"It was not respect that I saw in that crowd," said Arthur, so quietly he was not even sure he had even spoken.

Uther sat back on his heels, the leather of his boots creaking as he moved. Arthur only lay, hurting, waiting . . . longing for just one more shred of kindness from the father that had been there only moments before. But the silence lengthened – and when Uther finally spoke again, it was with that cold implacability that meant his mind was already made up.

"Did you really think that I would believe your confession, Arthur? I know you. You would never have asked your servant to take such a risk, not when you could have simply done the thing yourself. The whole court knows how you coddle the foolish boy like some sort of pet."

Arthur swallowed. The summer dust was thick on his tongue, coating his mouth with a taste as bitter as an unswallowed pill. "You knew."

"I know you were protecting that boy."

"Then why . . ?"

"Because you must learn, Arthur. You must learn that you are not above the law, that you are as subject to my rule as any other. Your interference, and that of your insufferable manservant, has ruined any chance we might have had at discovering Morgana's attacker."

"I cannot apologise for what I did, Father. You always taught me that a knight should stand for honour – but to me a knight should also stand for justice, in all its forms. It should not have fallen to Merlin to do the right thing in my place."

At last, he let his eyes leave his father's and look instead to the stone beneath his cheek. So he did not see the slight softening in the king's uncompromising face: didn't see the surprise in Uther's cold blue eyes as he gazed uncertainly at his son. But he heard the change in Uther's voice as he spoke – and again that small part of him yearned towards his father as a plant yearns toward the sun.

"One day you will be king, Arthur. You will be king, and I will not be here to guide you. You cannot afford to let compassion rule you, you cannot allow yourself to be perceived as weak. What I saw today makes me fear for the future of this kingdom, and for you – because if you will not learn to control your weakness, then you will be leaving yourself open to traitors on every side. You will be putting yourself and all of Camelot at great risk."

And like that, all the prince's resolve was for naught. He had fought, throughout that brutal lashing, to keep a hold of his tears; he had bitten back the humiliation as Leon led him inside this monstrous cage and locked him inside. But he could not bear this. He couldn't bear the disappointment in his father's voice.

At last, Arthur Pendragon felt the tears come to his eyes . . . and didn't try to fight them anymore.

"I'll send Gaius to tend your wounds," said Uther. "Perhaps you should use these two days to think on all I have said." And he began to turn away.

Arthur did not know, afterwards, how he did it. But his stomach had clenched inside him like a fist; his blood was a hot red maelstrom that surged into his muscles before he even knew that he had meant to move. With superhuman effort, Arthur seized the bars between himself and his father; dug his knees into the ground and his fingers into the burning iron; and hauled himself upright so that he knelt at the feet of his king.

"Father," he said. "I would ask a favour of you, if I may."

"Ask."

"Would you send Merlin to tend me in Gaius' place? He is the physician's assistant; he knows more than enough of healing to see me well. And it would be a fitting punishment for him, to see what his disobedience has done."

For a moment, Arthur was sure that his father would say no. The pain was darkening the edges of the world, now: the sun on his mutilated back, the heat of the bars against his chest, all submerging him slowly like a log below the surface of a pond. Then he saw Uther nod, and something in his chest unclenched in a way his fists did not dare to.

"Very well," said Uther. And left his son alone in the blistering square of heat that was his cage.

§

Merlin had never been ashamed of his tears. To him, they weren't the sign of weakness that more red-blooded men considered them to be; instead they were a strength, a badge of honour that he was not afraid to wear. From his earliest memories, his mother had never scolded him when he wept – not when the boys of the village pushed him into the dirt, not when the village elders whispered of his 'differences' with no regard for whether or not he could hear them. He vaguely pitied the rough-and-tumble men of the taverns and the ale houses, the upright knights in their confines of mail; they would never understand how freeing it was to cry, and to be seen.

But now, the tears would not come. For the past hour, Merlin had looked out on the metal enclosure in the centre of the square, waiting to feel the coming pressure in his chest. He would see the sun flash on the golden hair, the shadows moving across the motionless white flesh; and Merlin would put up a hand to his own face, and prod angrily at the dry cheeks where wet should be. Not content with earning his friend a punishment meant for himself, it seemed that now he couldn't even react as a normal human being should. Gwen had offered up her tears as the only comfort that she could give, but he—he couldn't even get so small a thing as guilt right.

It was the storm, he thought, with a sniff. The storm that never broke. I should have just . . . let it come. I should have blasted the whole lot of them away and have done with it.

I should have stopped this.

He had been so tempted. So tempted to let the lightning strike Uther down where he stood. A fist of shock had closed over him, and for those few moments in the courtyard he had been only the eye of the storm, one still centre of calm in the midst of all the chaos.

You could have stopped this, he had thought, as the storm clouds drove shadows over the barren ground. You should have stopped this. And if you weren't such a coward then you would make damn sure it never happens again.

Uther had stood alone in a half-ring of cowering spectators, only the executioner close enough to cast a shadow over his king. The people, the guards, the knights . . . all had drawn away from him by some unspoken, mutually acknowledged disgust. No-one stood within an arm's reach of him, and no-one made a move to do so.

The lightning would be quick.

It had been Gaius, that reached in through that well of shock and woke him. The gentle hand on his arm: the slight shake of the head, no. Merlin had taken a shuddering breath, and fixed his gaze on the limp figure of the prince until the clouds began to slide silently away. Sunlight lanced down through the breaks overhead, splashing the brittle ground with white. And Merlin had only stood, dry-eyed and with his throat packed full of sand, and watched as Sir Leon unchained Arthur and caught him as he fell.

The townsfolk had hovered at the edges of the square like wasps at the orchard, unsure of what to do next. To one side Merlin saw Gwen, standing alone amidst a clutch of the castle staff. Her hands had twisted into bloodless knots at her throat; her cheeks were wet with tears that she made no move to dash away. She was beautiful in her honesty, he thought, unwilling to turn away as so many others did. She offered up her own pain as the only tribute she might give to her prince, and did not care who saw.

I understand, Gwen, he thought. Believe me, I understand. It was as if she had heard him; with one great heave of breath, Gwen tore her eyes away from the fallen Arthur and looked directly at Merlin. Her expression was unreadable, her face an open wound under the tears . . . but he thought he understood, all the same. And before Merlin knew what he meant to do, he found himself walking into the empty circle of ground towards the king.

The guards made some move towards him, but upon seeing where he was headed they only shuffled a little before allowing him to continue. He felt Uther's eyes on him as he crouched in the dust, and carefully retrieved Arthur's discarded shirt. His own lay in rags only feet away, thrown down by the guards when they had stripped it from him – but he made no move to pick it up. Merlin had simply turned, and walked back to Gaius' side with his spine straight and his head held high.

He had felt Uther's eyes bore into him at every step, a singular heat in the furnace of the gathering day.

§

It was some time before Merlin returned to Gaius' chambers. Though he dared not make himself known to the heartsick prince, he had been loathe to leave him altogether – and so he had hidden himself within the shadows of an archway, and kept vigil over Arthur as the people dispersed. He had watched as Uther knelt beside the cage, waking Arthur from his merciful faint; and he had watched, with his chest burning and his teeth stabbed viciously into his tongue, as the king reached between the bars to stroke his son's hair. Don't touch him. Don't you dare ever touch him again. You don't have the right.

Later Gaius had attempted to distract him, in his kindly and ineffectual way. The physician had busied himself gathering supplies, crushing herbs in his mortar, and softening beeswax for topical ointments. Uther had promised that Arthur would be afforded medical care, and Merlin supposed that Gaius found comfort in providing that care. Merlin was ashamed to find that he envied his mentor, in a way that he would never have admitted out loud. Gaius, at least, had the chance to do something.

It was the door slamming open that startled him from his bitter musings. Merlin had leapt to his feet even before he saw who their visitor was; at the table, Gaius had knocked over a dish of comfrey leaves before regaining his usual equilibrium. Both looked to the door, already knowing who they would see.

"You," said Uther, bearing down on Merlin in three, angry strides. "You are to tend Arthur and see to it he has every possible treatment that science can provide. You will treat his wounds, take him water and provide any remedies that Gaius sees fit."

Merlin only opened his mouth over soundless air; closed it; and stared at Uther with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

"Are you truly as much of an idiot as Arthur says you are? Speak up, boy."

"I . . . I will, sire."

Uther only glowered, first at Merlin, and then at the carefully expressionless Gaius. "I take it his knowledge is advanced enough to carry out these duties?"

"Certainly, sire. Merlin has always been a quick study, and his dedication to the prince's wellbeing is without question. I'm sure he is profoundly grateful for the chance to serve his master during these . . . unfortunate circumstances."

"I am, sire. I swear, I will do everything I can for Arthur, if you'll just let me see him. Please."

Uther's attention shot back to Merlin, then – and Merlin felt himself rooted to the spot by the sudden look of speculation in those distant blue eyes. "You mark me, boy; if my son suffers any ill effects from his ordeal, then I will have your head. Believe me when I say this is no idle threat."

"No, my lord. I mean—I won't fail him. You have my word." Not again. Not ever.

"See to it that you don't." And Uther swept from the room, a blur of black and green that left a vortex of frosty air in its wake.

§

The people had fled, like dandelion seeds to the wind. Never, in nearly two years in Camelot, had Merlin seen the town square so deserted – as if the ground were tainted, not just by Arthur's blood, but by the injustice of the act itself. None wanted to linger in the place where their prince had been so savagely beaten. Merlin felt it more keenly than any of them; when he listened now, all he could hear was Arthur's blood screaming from the cobblestones at his feet.

The closer he came to the ominous cage, the slower his feet wanted to move. From several feet away he saw the heavy iron manacles, still strung from the crossbar where the executioner had left them; a little closer, and he could make out the spots of dried blood on the sun-baked stone. It was not so much, perhaps – but that they were there at all made Merlin's stomach revolt. They hadn't even bothered to clean the blood from the courtyard stones when the whipping was done; their prince's blood had been left there for every passing insect to feast upon.

Like any common criminal's.

Arthur sat in a boneless heap against the far side of the cage, his forehead turned to the bars and his back bared to the open air. Merlin hated to wake him when he had, however briefly, been able to escape the pain in sleep; but allowing him respite now would only be borrowing pain for the future. And, if Merlin were honest, a part of him was selfish enough to need Arthur to wake. If only to know that he would be all right. If only to tell him how truly sorry he was.

A guard accompanied Merlin through the courtyard to the cage, rattling a keyring in such an ostentatious manner that it put Merlin's teeth on edge. He had been informed that he would have half an hour with the prince, and might visit him twice a day to tend his wounds. Merlin could not help but wonder if he would have been afforded the same consideration, if he were the one in this cage. Guillam certainly had not been. But Arthur was the royal heir, the future king of Camelot – his continued health was vital to the kingdom in a way that a lowly manservant's was not. He would be afforded the best of everything.

And if Merlin failed him, then it would be his head on a pike.

The officious twat of a guard unlocked the door of the cage, waited for Merlin to slip inside, and then locked it again behind him. "Half an hour," he said, gruffly. "See to the princeling like a good little dog while you can." And he was gone, whistling a tune from the ale-houses of the lower town as he went.

Merlin bit back the aching flood of magic that crowded into his throat, and set his leather satchel down on the ground. Doubtless there were others who felt as that guard did; this was not the first time that Merlin had heard whispers against his master, and it would certainly not be the last. His father's son, being the most common. Daddy's little helper, being another. Mostly Merlin had learned to block them out, and decide he simply would not hear – but sometimes, like yesterday, they had sunk their barbs into him and refused to let him go. Sometimes, like yesterday, he had been all too afraid that those whispers might be right.

With achingly slow steps, Merlin approached the unconscious Arthur and knelt down beside him. This was the first clear look that Merlin had gotten at Arthur's back since the flogging, and a part of him was afraid to look; but he had already let Arthur down twice today. Once, in being the cause of his misery; twice, in being unable even to cry for his friend. The least that he could do was look, and understand what he had done.

The creamy skin was striped with bloody purple welts that left little of his back unmarked; though most had been laid across his shoulders, a few strayed down towards his waist and around his sides. Uther had been careful, laying the lash across his son's back with as light a hand as he dared – but a whipping was a whipping, nonetheless. Eventually, no matter how careful Uther may have been, he had made his son bleed.

Merlin blanched. His vision was wavering, his head full of something that made the sunlit courtyard both too loud and too bright. Not knowing what he did, he reached out with his right hand and found a place that the whip had spared; it was warm, and breathed under Merlin's hand with the steady motion of his lungs. "What did you have to go and do that for, you pudding-head?" he said, thickly. "Seriously, I've known custard with more intelligence than you."

Arthur did not stir. Carefully Merlin took his hand from the prince's back, and after a moment's hesitation, laid it on his tawny hair instead. It was as soft as fur under his hand – not the silk its golden shine had promised, but a warm, living velvet.

"All I wanted was for you to listen to me, Arthur," he said. "To just . . . believe me when I told you that something didn't add up, and not dismiss it out of hand. But you couldn't even get that right, could you? No, you had to go and make some grand, heroic gesture instead. You prat. You stupid, noble, tenderhearted prat."

At last, a movement in the softly drooping head. Merlin snatched his hand back with a start; then the prince swallowed as if past a throatful of glass, and said: "That had better be you, Merlin. Because if it's not then I have to admit I'm fairly uncomfortable right now."

Merlin barked laughter through a hard little knot in his throat, and said: "It's me, you gobdaw. Although why that makes this more comfortable rather than less, I'm not sure I want to know."

"Did my father send you?"

"Of course he did. Do you really think I would be stupid enough to come here without permission again, after everything that's—after what happened." With his heart reverberating like the citadel bell in his ears, Merlin reached for Arthur's arm . . . and then lost his courage before his fingers could close around it. Instead he lowered his hand to curl around his master's dusty leather boot, and saw Arthur's horribly pale lips tug into a half-smile. "You shouldn't have done it, Arthur."

"Shouldn't isn't a word a servant uses to their prince, Merlin."

"I do. All the time."

"True. Now, did you come to tend my wounds, or were you just going to sit here all afternoon gawping like a startled trout?"

And there was that tone, Merlin understood. That peremptory tone that meant the portcullis was down, the gates barred, and all Arthur's defences ranked against him. Whatever vulnerability had shown in the half-roused prince of a moment before, it was gone now.

With trembling hands Merlin opened his satchel, and retrieved a stoppered blue vial from amongst his supplies. He opened it, and offered it up to Arthur's lips until the neck bumped gently against them. "Here. For the pain."

"It smells like old socks," said Arthur, frowsily.

"It smells like your socks. Which I always have to pick up, thank you very much, no matter how bad they smell. Now drink."

Arthur subsided, and allowed Merlin to dribble the heady decoction into his mouth without protest. When it was done, Arthur sagged bonelessly against the bars as if even that small effort had cost him – which, Merlin understood, it probably had. "Tastes like old socks, too."

"It's poppy seed tea. Mixed with liquorice to make it more palatable, if you can call old socks palatable. It should start to work in a few minutes."

And for one of those minutes, at least, there was silence. Arthur had not quite shaken off the stupor that heat and shock had pulled down over him, and though his eyelids fluttered open more often than they were closed, Merlin doubted that he was fully aware of anything around him. It was only when he saw the prince shift against the bars with something approaching wakefulness that Merlin said: "I have to clean the wounds now, sire. It'll hurt, but . . . well, we can't risk them getting infected. You're the crown prince of Camelot, after all. We have to look after you."

Arthur only grunted. With flinching, infinitesimal movements, he managed to get his knees under him and haul himself upright once more. Merlin tried not to see how Arthur's arms and legs trembled with the strain: tried not to see that the prince's hands were curled grimly around the bars, waiting to clamp down against whatever pain might come. "Get on with it, then," he said.

Merlin took a clay bowl from his bag, followed by a water skin and a small stone bottle of vinegar. Normally Gaius would use wine to disinfect the wounds, but in the blazing heat and with nothing to protect Arthur from the spiteful summer wasps, that would be impossible. Merlin could not help but gulp as he mixed the two liquids; vinegar would get the job done, but for the long minutes that it took to clean the weeping wounds, Arthur would feel as if he were being flayed alive.

The first touch of the cloth made Arthur inhale sharply. His every muscle was quivering, like a hare braced at any moment to run – yet somehow, he remained still. He only gripped the bars in his closed fists, and breathed.

Merlin was often clumsy, a fault that Arthur delighted in taunting him over; but now, his touch was only gentle and sure. In a swoon of concentration, Merlin dabbed away the blood that oozed sluggishly from Arthur's back; dipped the cloth in the bowl to re-wet it; wrung it out and pressed it tenderly to another darkening stripe. He had expected Arthur to be stoic, as silently accepting as he had been throughout the flogging itself – but soon the prince had let out a soft whimper and dropped his forehead against the iron. A touch more, another soaking of the cloth in Merlin's hands, and Arthur was sobbing feebly into the bars of his cage.

It's all right, Arthur, Merlin promised, silently. I won't tell. I won't tell a soul that you're only human, after all.

"It's done," said Merlin, at last. "Well, the bad part, anyway. The salve shouldn't hurt nearly as much."

Arthur nodded, and Merlin tried not to notice the way the air trembled in and out of his mouth. "I told you. Get on with it."

The salve was a thick green ointment of crushed comfrey leaves and yarrow, blended with butter and beeswax to keep the wounds from drying out. Merlin scooped a little onto his fingertips and reached towards the deepest of the whip marks . . . but there, he stopped. Something else had reached for Arthur, something that Merlin had learned a long time ago had an intent and a will all its own. He felt his magic press insistently against the underside of his skin, the backs of his teeth, trying to get out.

I could heal him, came the thought, almost without warning. Just enough, just so that he won't have to suffer through quite so much pain. No-one will ever know.

"Normally we'd use honey for something like this," he said, abruptly. "But Gaius didn't think it would be a good idea out here, I mean, we don't want to go ringing the dinner bell for every insect in Camelot, now do we?"

"How very thoughtful of you," said Arthur, dryly. And that was all he said.

With a swallow, Merlin took his courage in his hands and begun to carefully anoint Arthur's back. The flesh was tight under his fingertips and the welts hot to the touch, but the bleeding had mostly stopped. Though the whip had flayed away the top layers of skin and drawn blood, it had gone no deeper than that.

Merlin smoothed the liniment along the stripes with slow sweeps of his fingertips, expecting at any moment that Arthur would flinch away from so intimate a touch. He didn't. Slowly the prince relaxed against the side of the cage; the muscles beneath the straining skin grew pliant under Merlin's hand.

"I don't think these will scar," said Merlin. "Your father was careful of you."

"I can't say it felt terribly careful."

"The strokes are spaced out as well as they could be. They don't cross nearly so much as they might have, and they aren't as deep. It's a good job you're so broad, sire. I . . . I don't think I would have fared nearly as well."

At last Arthur's shoulders stiffened under Merlin's ministrations, and he half-turned his head back towards his servant to lock one murderous blue eye on him. "Is that your way of saying I'm fat?" he bit.

"No. No, it's . . . it's just that I've seen Aelfric's work before, on other men. He would have skinned a bony thing like me alive if you hadn't stepped in. I . . . I think what I'm trying to say is thank you. Thank you, Arthur."

"Don't." Arthur's voice was like a blade. "Don't you dare, don't you DARE try to thank me for this! I told you to leave it alone, Merlin, I ordered you as your crown prince to just let the matter drop, and you disobeyed me. You disrespected me, you disrespected my father, and you aren't even sorry. I should have just let you take what was coming to you, you worthless cretin. I should have let them toss you in here and throw away the key."

"Then why did you ask for me?" Merlin demanded, before he could stop himself. "Why did you ask your father to send me instead of Gaius, if you hate me so bloody much?"

"I didn't ask for you. Don't be stupid." But there was no real heat to the words. The opium was working its everyday magic, cooling both the fire in Arthur's back and the fire in his belly alike.

"The king would never have entrusted your health to me, sire, not while Gaius is in Camelot. You're too important, to him, to the kingdom. The only way he would do such a thing is if you asked him to."

Arthur sighed. It was exasperated, treading the line towards anger once more . . . but not quite there. "All right. All right, I asked for you – but only because I want you to do something for me. If you think you're actually capable of doing what I ask for once, and not messing it up."

"Anything. Anything you want from me, Arthur, it's yours. Just tell me what you need."

Arthur shifted again in those same, wincing increments that had attended him before – this time to put his right shoulder to the bars, and turn to look at Merlin with clouded, pain-dulled eyes. "I need you to continue your investigation. I want you to find whoever was responsible for laming Morgana's horse, and drugging the stablemaster, and . . . and all of it. And I want you to bring them to me . . . so that I can ask them why."

§

Arthur burned. Not on the pyre, as so many had done in this very spot – but slowly, and from the outside in.

The stones under his knees seared through the linen of his breeches; the iron bars against his shoulder were blisteringly hot, and branded their memory into his flesh in angry red stripes. And his back. God, his back. From his neck to the base of his spine, only a raw, red scream.

Whenever he opened his eyes enough to squint into the hazing prison of the square, he would make out the blur of passing figures hunkered close to the walls. Most had the bowed heads and drab clothes of the common folk, a few the bright linen and leather of the guard. But all had one thing in common, as they went about their business in the bright heart of the day – without exception, every eye was turned from him as if to look upon him would turn them instantly to stone.

So this was what it felt like, to be ignored. To be below notice, shunned by everyone who passed him by. Always he had seen it from the outside – a child left out of the others' games, an unmarried mother spurned by the respectable women of the market square – and thought vaguely that the ones ostracised must have done something to deserve it. It was survival of the fittest, the strong culling the herd of its weakest souls. But as the people hurried by with their faces turned away from him, Arthur thought only that he had been wrong about everything.

It was a little while before he remembered the pot of salve that Merlin had pressed into his hand, with the tiniest of smiles pulling hesitantly at his lips. "I know you're not an acrobat," he had said, "and you probably won't be able to reach because, let's face it, you're incapable of doing anything without me . . . but in case it helps. I can always ask Gaius to make more."

Arthur tugged the lid from the little clay jar and saw a yellow-green ointment swimming in the bottom. The heat had caused the fat to split, and green flecks of herb floated in a pool of waxy white; but he knew from the smell that it was the same salve Merlin had used on his back earlier that morning. Carefully Arthur dabbed his fingers into the jar, and began to apply the slippery mixture to the blistered red skin of his wrists.

The salve was pleasant, and helped to seal the abused flesh against the scorchingly hot air, but Arthur was disappointed to discover that it did no more than that. He waited for the soothing tingle that had followed Merlin's fingers across his back: waited for the numbing sensation that had settled in the wake of his servant's touch. But it did not come. Gaius' tonic had begun to wear thin, and he had hoped . . . but clearly he had been mistaken. It must have been the opium, that faded the edges of the world into that peaceful, balmy coolness. It had not been the ointment, at all.

And it had certainly not been Merlin.

§

He had lost count of the hours, now. If he measured them by the water skin that Merlin had left for him, then he was perhaps an hour past noon; he had taken only one swallow for every degree of the sun across the sky, but even so the water was almost done. He must conserve what little remained, if it was to last until Merlin returned. Whenever that might be.

Merlin. Arthur had never thought, even in his wildest dreams, that his father would agree to the boy tending him in Gaius' place. Had never thought, as he threw himself into the line of fire, that the king would punish him in his servant's place. Father. It was me.

Only it hadn't been. And they both knew it.

It had been brewing on and off for some time, this contention between his father and his manservant. He would catch the king in closed, speculative looks whenever Merlin mistakenly called Arthur by his first name in the king's hearing. Arthur had done his best to keep them separate, but that look had settled into Uther's face like the carved channels of a riverbank. Even when Merlin had saved the king from Arthur's own reckless hand, Uther had only remembered his gratitude for a single day.

"That boy of yours is starting to arouse gossip, Arthur," Uther had said, as they took wine over the remains of the king's lunch the previous day. "The other servants hear the way he speaks to you. They see him laying hands on you as he might another peasant, and they notice that you do not correct him for it. I've had several reports from the knights that their squires have become overly familiar with them of late, and when disciplined the boys in question protest that Merlin does much the same with you. It has to stop, now."

Arthur had only stared moodily into his wine. It was far from the best, thick with sediment and a little syrupy for his liking – but it had given him something else on which to focus. He had quickly downed the last of the goblet in three, hard swallows. And said nothing.

"You heard him in the council chambers earlier today. If he were to forget his place in front of a visiting delegation, do you know what it would do to our credibility? It would make us appear weak. It is making you appear weak."

"Merlin was never raised to be a servant, sire. That position was awarded him in return for saving my life, and it will take time for him to learn what's expected of him."

"He has had eighteen months to learn his place, Arthur. Just how much more time does he need?"

Sulkily, Arthur had nodded. "Yes, Father. I'll have a word with him about it."

"You will do more than that. I am not without sympathy, Arthur; I have seen for myself that you're fond of the boy, and there's no harm in it as long as you do not forget yourself. I will admit he has shown you unwavering loyalty since his appointment, above and beyond the call of duty. But I will not allow him to interfere with my judgements as he did today, is that understood? Either you take him in hand, Arthur – or I will."

Arthur could not forget the look on his father's face as he made his threat; it had made of his mouth a harsh line, like a single crack in a granite rock. Perhaps his father had not expected it to happen so publicly, or so soon – but Arthur was sure he meant to take the first opportunity he could to put the incautious boy from Ealdor in his place.

You lost, Father, thought Arthur, as the swooning heat of the day began to tug him down like an undertow. You finally found something I would not allow you to do. I'm sorry that I made a fool out of you, I'm sorry if I disappointed you, but you found the line I will not allow you to cross.

And you left me no choice.