The Second Morning

It was the sun that woke him. Arthur was a heavy sleeper, a fact his trainers in woodcraft had always deplored. If you don't learn to wake up at every possible noise, sire, then you might just wake up dead, they had been fond of saying. You'd be a fit morsel for some starveling wolf's belly. It had irked him, at the time, the idea that he might not be the perfect knight. He had hated falling short of the ideal, even in so little a thing as his sleeping habits. And if he were honest, then it had often worried him, too.

He rarely worried these days. On those occasions when he ventured out of the city without an escort, he could always count on Merlin to stir whenever danger was present. How the idiot did it, he would never understand. It was almost as if the boy had some bizarre sixth sense, an affinity with the forests that bridged even the chasms of sleep.

I grew up out of doors, Merlin had replied, when Arthur asked him about it one day. I'd always be off, foraging for mushrooms or playing knights and bandits with Will. But Essetir is a real hot bed for slavers, and Cenred doesn't care if a few peasants go missing from his border villages. You learn to listen pretty quickly when a cracked twig might mean the difference between going home again and not.

Now it was the sun that woke Arthur, creeping between the towers and through the alleyways as if seeking him out. The pain in his back was somewhat lessened, this morning, although a day and a night on the hard ground had made his very bones ache like the deepest of bruises. He tentatively straightened out his locked elbows, his creaking knees: dabbed ineffectually with the salve at his sunburned arms and face. One hand reached unthinkingly for the other, exploring the bandaged skin at his wrists. Helpless. Chained and whipped like a dog, unable to fight like the knight he was. And all those eyes on him: the gallant prince who sat so tall on his war horse, brought low by the hangman's lash.

Guinevere. Dear God, please, don't let Guinevere have—

And then he saw her, a spot of softest colour against the greying dawn. She stood straight and still across the square, her hair caught in a net of early sunlight; and as he watched she looked directly into his eyes, and rested her hand softly over her heart. Her face was calm, but tear-tracks shone cracked and dry down the velvet of her cheeks. I'm proud of you, she mouthed.

It was all he needed, to remember why he was here. All he needed to remind him that maybe – just maybe – he should also be feeling proud of himself.

§

The world was a little darker when she left. She fled with the first of the early risers, and Arthur could hardly blame her for that – the idea of discovery was as terrifying to him as it was to her. As desperately as he hoarded her quiet obeisance, hugging it to him like a hot stone on a cold night, he could not help but feel a little guilty for it as well. That she would take such a risk, for him, was more than he knew what to do with.

And she was not the only one that dared raise their eyes to the captive prince, that morning. Arthur had taken to watching the dun-coloured heave of humanity from the corner of his cage – his shoulder and temple against the bars, the weight kept carefully from his back as he sat. As the day waxed, the iron would heat to the temperature of a kitchen skillet – but for now, it served to keep his aching bones from the ground. Merlin would approve.

He saw the child loitering in the recesses of an alley, watching the town traders roll carts of produce up to the castle for the day's provisioning. The aromas of new-baked bread and fresh-cut herbs streamed maddeningly from both baker's cart and grocer's, and Arthur saw the boy's nose twitch eagerly as they passed. He could understand that much, at least. The unsettled gurgling of his stomach had now deepened to an ache, and his hands shook whenever he tried to move. If this was how the people felt, when their crops failed and their livestock sickened, then he was truly sorry for them. Even at the height of the unicorn's curse, Arthur had never felt such emptiness as this. And this boy, hovering unnoticed at the edges of the crowd, appeared hungrier than most.

He was perhaps fourteen summers old: atrociously thin, with knuckles and knees bonier even than Merlin's. His eyes were sunken, and one hand twitched restlessly at his side whenever a passing guard came too near. The other hand was withered, little more than several half-boned protuberances at the end of a shortened arm. Likely unable to find work, then. His ragged clothes and underfed, hollow-eyed form would certainly suggest as much.

Arthur found himself watching the boy: covertly at first, and then with more daring as the child failed to notice him. The hungry eyes were too busy darting from bread basket to melon cart, milk pail to butter churn. None paid him any mind. None, that was, but for the caged crown prince.

It was a disturbance that made him break cover. As the melon cart passed, one wheel broke free and pitched the cargo sideways with a lurch. Melons of all shapes and sizes went toppling to the dirt; they bounced, rolled, smashed open against the cobblestones in bloody detonations of juice. And while the stallholder swore curses after them and began to angrily gather his wares, Arthur saw the boy make his move. It was quick, a dart of motion that would so easily be overlooked amidst the commotion of the square . . . unless you had already been looking for it. Unless, like Arthur, you had been studying the boy long before the melons had even spilled.

Like a cat after a mouse, the boy snapped forward and snatched the nearest of the fallen fruit in his arms. In seconds he was back within the shadows of the alleyway, clutching his prize to his chest and shooting furtive glances around the courtyard. His dark eyes slid unseeingly over Arthur, hesitated . . . and then widened in horror as he noticed the prince for the very first time. The prince that was watching him cooly from the sunlit cage, his eyes taking in every little detail of the theft.

The prince who only sat, and did not once call out to either thief or victim as the boy turned tail, and fled.

§

The morning wore away, like a piece of honeycomb held too long in the mouth. The flurry of activity, too, wore away, and soon Arthur found himself regretting their loss almost as bitterly as he had resented their presence. At least when the people were going about their business, he was provided with some small distraction from his thoughts. He would find himself wondering at the destinations of those unfamiliar to him, and for several, endless minutes had been fascinated by the grocer's cart as it trundled across the cobblestones. He had had no idea that carrots grew with leafy green tops attached, or that the bland white flesh of turnips came packaged in such a pretty purplish skin. Arthur had never wanted for food, save those few days under the unicorn's curse, and had even less idea of where it came from. Hunting, he understood, and was a reasonable fisherman when necessary – but agriculture was altogether a mystery to him.

He could practically hear Merlin's derisive laughter in his head, as he thought this. Could almost hear the affectionate, not-quite-serious clotpole if the boy ever learned of his ignorance. Merlin had been raised in a tiny farming community in Cenred's lands; he and perhaps eighty other villagers had ploughed and sowed and harvested, only for Kanen to come and claim what they had grown. He would know, as Arthur did not, how long onions took to grow in the ground; how oats were harvested, and when beans were supposed to be sown. And he would have known hunger. When his belly was full and he saw only the well-fed occupants of the citadel itself, Arthur had never spared a thought for what went on outside the city walls. It had never occurred to him, until today, to wonder how many nights in the past his manservant had gone to bed hungry.

§

Mid-morning, and this day already promised the same excoriating heat as the previous fourteen. There was no breeze, no stir of air along the barren ground. As Gaius ate a late and lonely breakfast, Merlin sat at the tower window and tried once more to spur the distant clouds to his will. Not bend them, no, that had never been his way; he looked only to coax them, mould them to his fancy as he might a nervous horse. Other magic-users may command the elements, as Nimueh had done – but Merlin had never felt the need to subjugate even the impersonal weather to his will. As his mother had always been so fond of saying, you caught less flies with vinegar than with honey.

The clouds resisted his call, even so. For a moment it trembled on his lips to demand they answer him, and drive them before him like sheep before the crook . . . but that was a notion he bit down on, hard. He might succeed in bringing the rain, and make Arthur's last day in that cage a little more easy to bear . . . but in doing so, he might well cause a drought in some distant and just as deserving kingdom. All of nature was in balance, as Gaius had so often impressed upon him. There is no taking without the giving.

"Did you think I hadn't noticed?" came the old man's voice, presently.

Merlin jumped, and turned to Gaius with what he hoped was a fair attempt at innocence. "Noticed? Noticed what?"

"That you're not eating, boy. You'll be no good to Arthur if you faint on the way there." Gaius held out a bowl from which steam curled in a warm, sweet brume. In it Merlin could smell not only oats and milk, but fresh summer strawberries and a hint of drizzled honey. His stomach punched against the underside of his ribs, like an unborn child kicking at its mother's belly – but he swallowed away the growing saliva in his mouth, and turned towards the window once more.

"I'm not hungry."

"You are, Merlin, and what's more, you're delighting in that hunger. You want to share in Arthur's punishment in any way you can, because you think that it should have been yours."

"No. No, that's where you're wrong, because you see, I don't think it should have been mine. I know it should. It should have been me that was flogged, Gaius, it should be me cooked half to death out there while everyone watches. But no, instead I'm here in the shade and sleeping in a proper bed while Arthur suffers for something he didn't do."

Merlin heard the scraping of Gaius' chair on stone as the old physician stood, and then the slippered footfalls that always reminded him somehow of a lumbering bear. Gaius crept up silently behind him . . . and then without warning, clamped his hand onto Merlin's left shoulder.

Merlin squawked, and batted away the hand too late to hide his discomfort. Instead he glared at Gaius, who met his gaze with a steel that only decades of living could impart.

"As I suspected," said Gaius. "Take your shirt off, lad, let me see what you've gone and done to yourself."

"Me? I haven't done anything!"

Here was Eyebrow Number Five, the I Know You're Hiding Something, Boy, and as caustic as Merlin had ever seen it. With a sigh Merlin grasped the hem of his shirt and lifted it over his head; then he turned his back, and waited for his mentor to recognise the fading wounds for what they were. It was easier, so much easier, than trying to explain it all in words.

Silence. Then Merlin felt a whisper of fingers on the sensitive skin, a fleeting touch that was there and gone again before it could properly be felt. "Oh, my boy. You tried to heal him, didn't you?"

Merlin nodded. "Not so's anyone would notice, I knew I would be found out if I did. But just enough, you know? Enough to—"

"Enough that he might not be in quite so much pain," Gaius prompted him, not ungently. "I understand, Merlin, I do – but your healing magic has always been unpredictable at the best of times. Healing magic cannot be achieved by brute force alone, not even by one so powerful as you. It requires knowledge of the human body, an understanding of the bones and tissues you would seek to mend. What you have done is appeal to the laws of equal exchange – an eye for an eye, and his pain for yours. That's why these marks have appeared, Merlin. You've quite literally given Arthur the skin off your own back."

Merlin felt the steady physician's hand begin to probe, gently, at the fading stripes on his shoulders. Though they were sore, and ached below the surface with the weight of old bruises, he found he could bear the old man's careful touch without complaint. And somehow, as stupid as it would sound to say it out loud, Merlin could only feel guilty that his wounds were not worse.

"No more," said Gaius, dropping his hands at last. "I'll give you some arnica to help with the bruising, but you must promise me, Merlin – do not attempt to heal Arthur any further than you already have. Somebody will be bound to notice. If the prince would put himself in harm's way to save you a whipping, then I can only imagine what he might do should Uther try to have you executed for sorcery."

With a wry smile, Merlin hooked his shirt back over his head and hid the incriminating evidence from view. "Not to worry, Gaius. If Arthur thought I had really used magic on him, then he would stand by and let Uther execute me. No daft heroics on his part then, I can assure you."

And though he said it as a joke, it worked on them both in the way that so many bad jokes are wont to do – because, in their heart of hearts, they could not help but think it might actually be true.

§

For Arthur, pinned to his patch of earth like a moth on a pin, time had lost all meaning. Though the sun moved relentlessly across the sky overhead and told of the hours passing, the prince no longer cared to look. By mid-morning, his skull felt two sizes too small for him; another hour, and he was vomiting bile between the bars of his cage. Let Darius make his jibes, and enjoy his illusion of superiority while it lasted. The snivelling little rodent would be cleaning out the latrines for the rest of his life, once Arthur was free. He would have the disrespectful wretch digging plague pits if ever the opportunity should present itself.

But when Arthur slumped back against the bars for the fourth time that morning, it was not Darius' flinty black eyes that met his; it was the flinching gaze of the melon-thief, peering at him from the shadows of an open doorway.

Up close, the boy was even leaner than Arthur had remembered. Filthy, flinching, and with eyes that darted about him in constant expectance of danger, he reminded Arthur more of a starving rat than a child.

"I didn't expect to see you again so soon," said Arthur. "I take it the melon has been put to good use?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," said the boy. "I haven't even seen a melon in weeks."

"You have. And unless I'm very much mistaken, you have the juice right there on your shirt."

The boy startled at that, his one good hand biting into the stone of the doorway. He looked ready to bolt, and Arthur felt a peculiar lurch in his stomach at the thought that he might have frightened away the only person who was willing to talk to him. "Wait," he said. "Stay. You don't have to be afraid of me."

"But you're the prince," said the boy. "I've seen you, you and your guards. You arrest people. You arrest people and they don't ever come back."

"Perhaps. But I'm not going to arrest you, if that's what you're afraid of."

The boy looked back at Arthur with a brittle defiance on his face; half belligerence, half fear, it made his eyes burn dark and his jutting chin wobble as he spoke. "But you're the prince. You enforce the law round here, that's what you do."

Arthur felt as if he had been kicked in the face by this pronouncement, and the very real fear with which this boy had offered it. Was that how the people thought of him, when he was not being ostracised? Not as the soldier who would ride into battle for their protection, but as the lawman who would take them away for the slightest fault. "I don't know if it's escaped your notice," he said, "but I'm locked in here with my back flayed precisely because I didn't enforce the law. And if you don't want to end up occupying this cell when I'm done with it, you'll be more careful about the melons you steal. Is that understood?"

The boy nodded, his sulky mouth clearly itching to say more. Instead he only regarded Arthur with wary eyes, and said: "Melon season's almost over, anyway."

Arthur laughed, something he had not expected to do with the pain still throbbing dully in his back. "Are you not afraid to be seen talking to me, lad? The king has ordered that no-one approach me on pain of banishment."

The boy shrugged. "Don't matter. Might as well starve in Essetir or Mercia as here. Maybe I'll even find some bandits to join, I always fancied being a bandit."

"Do you have no family? No-one who would miss you, were you to leave Camelot?"

"There's Brulyn, I s'pose. He's the cobbler in the lower town. He's got an old kennel he lets me sleep in, when it gets too cold out. No dog, that died last winter, but he lets me sleep there if I'm good."

Arthur felt a chill penetrating his vitals at that, and darted a glance at the boy's downturned face in disbelief. Those three words, if I'm good . . . Despite the sweat crawling over his skin and the burn of hot bile in his throat, Arthur shivered. "And he doesn't feed you? Doesn't try to help you beyond that?"

"I wouldn't be stealing melons in front of the sodding prince if he did, now, would I?"

"So you admit it! You did steal a melon this morning when the cart went over."

The boy tilted navy-blue eyes up at him from under his lashes, and for the first time there was something like amusement in the haggard young face. Whatever fears he had harboured of the young prince only moments before, they seem to have been mollified by Arthur's gentle teasing. "I rescued it. It was only going to be trodden on if someone didn't . . . you know, risk life and limb to go recover it."

Risk life and limb to go recover it. Arthur swallowed, and tasted the acid of his violent upheaval as it slid back down his throat. The boy may joke . . . but his limb was exactly what he risked, if ever he were caught. "You know that if I caught you stealing in the presence of my knights or guards, I would have no choice but to arrest you? Today I am not the prince, and so I could make an exception – but there can be no more exceptions after this."

The boy looked mulish, intent only on scraping the loose stone from the doorway. "Then I won't let you catch me."

"That wasn't what I—look. There are other ways of earning a crust, surely. Apprenticeships, casual labour. No-one has to steal if they're willing to work."

"For someone who isn't a prince while he's in that cage, you don't half sound like one. Who would hire me with this—" and he brandished his withered right arm as if it were a sword, "—when there's able-bodied boys looking for work? Boys who have families to vouch for them?"

For a brief moment, Arthur let his eyes close against the look of disgust on the boy's hollow face. For over a day, now, he had blocked out the raw throbbing of his back and the gnawing in his belly: had retreated inside himself to escape the heat as a crab withdraws into its shell. How would it be, to feel this hunger every day? To suffer through blazing heat and numbing cold, with no hope of easing either? To know that he risked a flogging – or worse – every time he screwed up the courage to steal what little food he could. God, but he deserved this. He deserved every inch of his pain, for failing to notice theirs.

"What do they call you, boy?" he asked, after a pause.

"Bran."

"All right, Bran. I'm going to call your bluff. Once I am released from this cage tomorrow, I will see to it that you find a job suitable to your . . . limitations. You need someone to vouch for you – well, you can do no better than the crown prince."

Bran's eyes were intent on his, avid in a way they had not been before – and Arthur thought he saw a new interest in the boy's distrustful face. Something that, praise the gods, had begun to blunt the edges of his fear. "You're just saying that. Soon as you're out, you'll forget about me."

"Bran," said Arthur. "I can tell that you don't have a terribly high opinion of me, or my role as the king's lawman. And I'm not angry – at least, not at you. But I would know what I've done to make you despise me so much. Did I arrest someone close to you, is that it? Your parents, perhaps?"

"My parents are dead. Died last year, from that sickness in the water. You know they say a witch put a curse on it, don't you? All because the king outlawed magic and killed her kind."

He remembered that 'curse', that creature. A thing of mud and malice, it had poisoned the water so that many in the lower town died from its influence. Even the nobles of the court had not been immune to its effects.

"I never saw the witch herself," said Arthur. "But I know all about the creature she used to poison the water. I know . . . because I killed it."

Silence. Then: "I didn't know that. S'pose I should say thank you."

It only occurred to Arthur, this late into the conversation, that the boy had not once attempted to address him by any of his accepted titles. Technically, Arthur could not insist upon it as long as he remained in this cage . . . but even Darius had attempted to address Arthur with a modicum of false respect. Either this boy did not believe in such blatant dishonesty, or else he really didn't care what happened to him . . . and all at once he reminded Arthur of another skinny youth that had come blundering so forcefully into his life, and refused to call him by anything but his given name.

When he wasn't calling him a prat, that was.

"Listen, Bran. You have my word, as a knight, that I mean what I say. I will find you a position in the city, and you will no longer have reason to steal. But mark me on this: if I catch you stealing once there is no need for it, then I will not be kind. Is that understood?"

Numbly, unable to take his eyes from those of the deadly serious prince, Bran nodded. "Thank you. Sire." And with that, like a hare streaking away into the undergrowth, he was gone.

§

That morning was the hottest for many a year, at least to hear the castle servants tell of it. Camelot lay crucified by the unfeeling sun, like a beetle under a piece of glass. Merlin could not help but feel that the sun which beat down on Camelot was unnatural, even sorcerous; and he was racked by the awful certainty that his own attempts to bring about the rain had somehow caused this. His own guilt bore him down as the endless blue sky bore down upon the earth.

Arthur was awake when Merlin was let in to tend him at mid-morning, and was sitting up on one hip with his head lolled back against the bars. That he was upright, and of his own volition, should have come as somewhat of a relief – but one glance was enough to make Merlin's heart plummet into his stomach. Awake, he may be: upright, undeniably. But well, he was not.

He was flushed, alight with sunburn and with a faint score of blisters on his lips. He trembled under a fine sheen of sweat and his deep chest heaved over high, quick breaths. "Come to whisper more of your seditious ramblings in my ear, have you?" he asked, quietly.

"No. No, actually, I thought I would come here to make sure you don't die. But if you'd rather I leave, I'm sure the guard hasn't gone far—"

"Merlin. Please, just . . . just sit. Tell me what you've found out."

And against his own distrust of this new, more reasonable Arthur, Merlin allowed himself to be wound forward on a wave of the prince's hand. The cobblestones were as hot as an oven range, and burned through Merlin's breeches as he sat . . . but this, he bore in silence. If Arthur could lean against those burning iron bars with nought to protect him but his skin, then he could surely suffer a singed backside for the duration of his stay.

It was the least he could do, when he owed so much more.

"I visited the stables yesterday," he began, and saw Arthur nod. "I, um . . . I checked the Lady Morgana's horse, and she's mending well – but, Arthur, the injury to Amra's leg wasn't all that serious. The worst that should have happened was a moment's unsteadiness, maybe a short tumble. Morgana should have walked away with nothing but a few bruises to show for it. You were with her, sire – can you remember what happened?"

"Not well. Morgana was riding ahead with Sir Dinadan – did you know they both have an absurd interest in falconry, they can prattle on about it for hours – and I was, um, I was hanging several paces back. With Guinevere."

Merlin felt his lips begin to stretch into a grin, and quickly smothered the motion with a cough. "Right."

"We were entering a particularly treacherous stretch of road. You don't know the route to Gorlois' grave, Merlin, but there's a chalk cliff leading up into the hills that is rather difficult – even for experienced riders." Arthur paused, and swallowed away the dryness in his throat. Wordlessly Merlin pulled a water skin from his satchel, and waited while the prince took two long swallows. "What with all this dry weather, the path had crumbled away at the edge. And of course Amra had to go and take her stumble on a curve of the road, where the chalk had mostly worn away. Morgana didn't just fall a few feet to the ground, Merlin – she was thrown clear over the cliff. If there hadn't been a ledge, about ten feet below . . ."

"Then she would have been killed," said Merlin.

Arthur wet his lips, and took another drag from the water skin. His usually red mouth was bloodless, cracked under the weight of the sun, and his voice when he next spoke was rough. "I had to . . . I had to climb down and lift her back to the road over my shoulder."

"I'll bet she just loved that."

Arthur gave his short, fox-bark of a laugh. "Absolutely. Threatened to cut my hands off if I so much as thought about putting them where they didn't belong."

Both sobered, then. One, because he had seen in Morgana the ability to do just that and more; the other, because he could not shake the image of a boy thieving a melon from the grocer's cart, despite the likely penalty if he were caught.

"Do you . . . do you think it could have been sorcery?" Merlin asked, when the silence had grown as thick as syrup. "The likelihood of the horse tripping at just that time, on that stretch of road – well, you have to admit, it's pretty low. It seems a bit slap-dash and uncertain for an assassination attempt, don't you think? Unless someone was using magic to ensure she fell at just the right time, and in just the right place."

The silence pressed down on them, as the empty dish cover of the sky pressed down upon the land. Merlin knew he would never get used to this, this outing of fellow magic-users in order to protect his future king. For hours throughout the night he had lain awake, wondering if there was a way he could solve this mystery without ever telling the prince that magic had been involved – but he saw no other way of conclusively proving Guillam's innocence. Still he balked at every life he chose to end, to preserve the life of the one man he could not bear to lose.

"The one thing I don't understand," Merlin ventured, at last, "is who would want to harm the Lady Morgana?"

"That's easy, Merlin. Anyone that's met her."

"I'll tell her you said that. But . . . Arthur, what if she wasn't really the target at all? Maybe whoever caused the accident is trying to attack the king through his family, or distract him from some imminent attack. It wouldn't be the first time a sorcerer has come to Camelot seeking their revenge."

The prince's eyes grew hard, at that. Bright as a magpie's, and every bit as alien. "No. No, it wouldn't be the first time, would it, Merlin? Because the king has so many enemies, they're practically lining up to take his crown. Well, that's what you meant, isn't it? That's what you're too much of a coward to say to my face."

Why is it, thought Merlin, with a stab, that even sick and with bandages covering nearly half his body, the bastard can still look so bloody regal? "I can't win with you, can I?" he exploded. "If I speak my mind, then it's treason; and if I don't, then I'm a coward. You asked me to investigate the accident, Arthur, it's hardly my fault if you don't like the answer."

Arthur subsided; but his eyes and jaw remained hard, and the hands that lie awkwardly in his lap began to flex against the empty air. "You really don't care that I'm the prince, do you, Merlin?"

"I care. I just don't think it matters all that much."

And at that, something like the promise of a smile hovered over Arthur's lips. It wasn't forgiveness, not yet; but it was enough to roll the first of the boulders away from Merlin's heavy heart, all the same.

§

Arthur didn't ask after the rest, as if the effort to speak had already cost him more than he had to give. He had broken out in a sweat again, and it clung like dew to the tarnished bronze stubble on his jaw.

"Let's get those bandages off you, sire. See how those wounds are doing." And to Merlin's surprise Arthur complied, although with the painfully heavy movements of a man too lost in weakness to do anything more.

The raised welts on his back had sunk down into the skin, leaving only the raw stripes behind. Beneath them the bruising had bloomed, and mottled his skin with deep black roses of colour. Merlin blinked, and without thinking felt his fingers reach to trace over the marks he had seen so faithfully mirrored on his own back. Lash for lash, blood for blood, they were the same. Only these now looked a week old, days' worth of healing accomplished in only one night.

"They're healing perfectly, sire," he said, and snatched back his hand before Arthur could comment on it. "No signs of infection, no swelling or tearing open of the wounds. Give it a month and you'll never know they were there at all."

Arthur twitched, the powerful shoulders flexing like a horse's flank at the touch of a fly. "It must be that salve that Gaius gave you," he said. "It feels so much better than it did yesterday. But did he develop a new formula, or add something new? I swear it never worked this well before."

Merlin said nothing, and instead set about applying the salve to Arthur's back once more. It was hardly needed at such an advanced stage, and would do little but keep the bandages from sticking – but if Arthur wanted to attribute his miraculous healing to a simple pot of balm, then better for everyone that he be allowed to do it. And if Merlin were honest, he had come to treasure these few moments when he could touch his master without the need for some kind of pretext. The sight of Arthur kneeling there, his flaxen head bowed and his unprotected back turned submissively towards him, was something that Merlin had never dared hope to receive.

Trust. It was all he had ever wanted from this hermetic, headstrong prince.

"Has he ever done this before?" Merlin asked, when the ointment had been daubed on every inch of Arthur's tender back.

"You mean punished me for something my miscreant of a manservant did? No, Merlin, I can't say that he has."

Shut down, again. But then to Merlin's surprise, Arthur turned his head a little over his shoulder, and said: "Is that what they're saying about me? That I'm such a poor excuse for a prince my father has to bring me into line like some kind of wayward squire?"

"No! No, Arthur, of course they're not."

"Well, what, then? Come on, Merlin, you talk to the other servants, you must have heard something."

"Leave it, Arthur. Please. You don't want to know."

"You mean you don't want to tell me. You don't want to tell me how little they really think of me."

"No. I don't want to tell you how little they really think of him."

Arthur's head had drooped down heavily against the bars. He was breathing in those hard, quick gulps, and when Merlin pressed a hand to his cheek the skin was clammy and cool. Heat exhaustion. He had been fighting it, but Arthur was far too sick to be left out here even a minute longer. Again Merlin felt his hatred of Uther curdle inside of him, like gravy left too long in the pan. "You really want to know what they think of you, of both of you? They think your father was wrong. He was wrong to condemn Guillam without trial, and he was wrong to do this to you, especially you. They haven't forgotten how he tried to raise their taxes last month—"

"That was the troll, Merlin, he wasn't—"

"—and they haven't forgotten it was you who stood against him. You, their prince. You tried to help them and he punished you for it. Just as he's punishing you now."

Arthur's silence was a deafening roar in his ears. In it Merlin could hear his own heartbeat, pounding in his head like the sound in a giant seashell. Arthur would dismiss him, now. Not just from the cage, not just from his presence . . . but from his life. He would take Merlin's honesty for the treason it most certainly was, and break their destinies apart with only a single word.

But Arthur said nothing. His arms came up to grasp the opposite elbows; his throat convulsed as he swallowed. Merlin didn't need to see his master's face to know that he was crying.

"Here, sire," he said, picking up a roll of linen with a forced smile. "Stay where you are, and let me get these new bandages on you. We don't want to undo all the good work of Gaius' miracle salve, now do we?"

And for long minutes, Arthur sat docile while Merlin worked. Just as Merlin was tying off the last of the new bandages, Arthur finally spoke.

"This prince they're talking about – he doesn't exist, Merlin. And neither does this king you say you came here to serve. He's just a myth, a fantasy. You'd do well to remember that."

Merlin did not reply. And if he tugged at the final knot just a little too viciously, then neither of them saw fit to mention it.