The Second Afternoon

He had tried not to watch the citadel's great front entrance, as the hours passed. Tried not to stare into the wood and the iron, and will for them to swing creakily open. Instead of sitting vigil, Arthur sat with his back to the sweeping front steps and his face turned resolutely away. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not help but cast a glance back over his shoulder every once in a while – just in case he should see a handsome, dignified face looking on him with something like forgiveness in his eyes.

He waited . . . but his father never came.

And though Arthur looked for him, neither did the melon-thief that had so captured his attention that morning. Perhaps the boy only ventured into the upper quarter when the vendors were most actively carting their wares; perhaps he was simply too afraid of encountering Arthur again, in case the prince should change his mind. And perhaps he was right to be afraid. As crown prince, it was Arthur's duty to uphold the law; by rights, he should have called for the guards to apprehend the thief the moment he had witnessed the crime.

Because upholding the law comes so naturally to you, doesn't it? His father's voice, stripped of all pretence here as it so rarely was in the flesh. You weren't so concerned with the law when you lied for that wretched serving boy of yours.

And not when it came to protecting beggar boys either, it seemed. Arthur struggled now to recall the youth's face, but the withered arm he remembered all too well . . . as he knew, all too well, the penalty for theft under his father's rule. Would the executioner have shown mercy, and taken the vestigial hand? Or would he have demanded the letter of the law, and taken the hand that had actually committed the crime? Arthur felt bile in his throat at the thought of the boy left with only that half-formed limb; and his stomach kicked weakly, though there was nothing inside for him to vomit up.

It seemed that Darius had taken Arthur's order to heart, at least on the face of it; he loitered now under the arch of the drawbridge, availing himself of the shade it provided as the sun drew towards its zenith. Even so, he was the only one who dared to meet Arthur's tired eyes that afternoon; not even the few kitchen boys who scurried through the courtyard dared raise their faces to the imprisoned prince, or pass too close to his cage. And perhaps he deserved their rejection – this pampered princeling who only yesterday would have done his father's bidding, and arrested Bran without a moment's thought.

You're the prince, aren't you? It's what you do.

Despite the unnatural heat, Arthur shivered. Because if that was all he was to Bran, a street urchin with barely a scrap of clothing to his name, then perhaps that was all he was to others, as well. As crown prince, he had considered it his duty to defend the people of Camelot from outside enemies; to ensure their wellbeing, maintain their morale by whatever means necessary. He was supposed to be a protector, an arbiter, and a figurehead to the people . . . but instead, it seemed, he was only their boogeyman.

He was swooning under the weight of the sun when raised voices startled him awake – a woman's voice, he was sure, panicked and beyond caring who might overhear. Then men's voices, lower-pitched and rough. Arthur jerked awake at the sound, and had to catch a cry in his throat as his back flared white-hot in protest. But the woman was crying, now, and the disturbance knocked the corners off his agony enough for the world to come hazing back into focus. For the first time in hours, Arthur could think again. There, on the drawbridge, was a woman being dragged into the square between two impatient guards.

She was caught by the two men one arm apiece, and was not consenting to go quietly. She flung her weight back against their forward momentum: dragged her heels over the cobblestones with admirable, and in better circumstances even amusing, obstinacy. She was perhaps forty, sun-weathered but still handsome under the mess of her tears; her clothes were undyed homespun, and coarse enough that he knew her immediately to be from the lower town. One of the farming community, he supposed – the peasant populace in the lower quarter was made up mostly of ploughmen and herders, millers and slaughtermen. They lived inside the walls of Camelot, but tended the surrounding land for several miles in every direction – and if Arthur were honest, he rarely gave any thought to how these people actually made their living on a day-to-day basis. As long as food continued to appear on his table and clothes in his wardrobe, he had never really cared about where any of it came from.

Now, though, curiousity got the better of him.

"Hi, there!" Arthur called – and for just a moment, it seemed as if the two guards would ignore his order. It was the woman herself who halted them where they stood; she ground her heels into the dirt, and leaned back against their pull with every inch of her strong, labourer's body.

The guards exchanged uncertain looks between them. "We're not supposed to approach you, sire," one said. "King's orders."

"So I understand. But do the king's orders also forbid you from speaking to me, provided you don't come too near?"

Another conferring look. Arthur ground his teeth at their hesitancy, and it was all he could do not to order them to attention like the soldiers they were. "I suppose not, my lord. They state only that we not approach you or aid you in any way."

"And you are not. So tell me, soldier: what has this good woman done, that the two of you must drag her through the city like a sack full of grain?"

"'Good woman', is it? Well, sire, this good woman is under arrest for non-payment of taxes. Tried to knock me over the head with a milk jug when I went to seize her goods, so she did. So, we're bringing her in to the bailiff for sentencing. Those are your father's standing orders, my lord."

Arthur took in a deep, considering breath, and let his eyes pass from the obdurate faces of the guards to the sagging woman held suspended between them. Those were his father's orders, and more often than not Arthur had been the one enforcing them. He did not think Camelot's taxes unwarranted, not at all; they paid for the army's training and housing, kept the garrison provisioned and the outer walls in good repair. All of that was fair, and as it should be. If this woman had indeed resisted the seizure of goods in lieu of her unpaid taxes, then surely it was right that she enter into a debtor's contract.(1) An exception could not be made for one, no matter how much he might be moved by her tears.

Arthur was about to send the guards about their business – with an admonition that they handle her more gently, as befitted the men of Camelot – when something gave him pause. Where before he had always heard his father's voice, imparting wisdom as he saw fit, the prince now heard another, gentler voice.

You just let it happen, his infuriating manservant whispered. Just like you almost let Gaius burn.

"Wait," he said. "Madam – why have you not paid the taxes demanded of you by the crown? Do you object to our use of them in this kingdom's defence?"

"No, my lord. But it's this heat, you see. I keep a small herd of goats outside the walls, and what with this hot weather all the pasture is drying up before our very eyes. Without their pasture, my goats just aren't producing like they ought. I'm making barely enough to feed myself and my family, and nothing over to spare. I swear I would pay if I could, sire, honest to God I would." And she broke down again, trying to cover her face with her hands only to find them still restrained by the two scowling guards.

"And your goods, Madame? Why did you refuse to give up any wares that might have paid for your debt?"

"They were going to take my herd, sire. My livelihood, my only means of keeping myself and my family. If they took my goats . . . if they left me with nought to trade, and me with four children at home to feed . . . then I would have been made destitute. We would have been out on the street by next moon."

Arthur frowned, and tried to swallow back the glaring headache that pressed against the inside of his skull. Though there was little physical resemblance between the two, this woman reminded him strongly of Hunith. Both were women of middle years, of poor birth but with a certain, gentle comeliness about the face; this woman had the same soft brown hair, and the same blue-grey eyes as those of Merlin's mother. This woman also struggled to make a living off the land, as Hunith did; perhaps she even had a boy at home of Merlin's age, amongst her four young dependents. "And are you willing to work until your debt is paid, good woman?"

She only nodded: tear-flushed, drooping, and unable to do more than indicate her assent.

"Good," he said. "Then you will immediately take yourself to the castle laundry, and tell the steward that Prince Arthur has sent you there to work off your debt. There have been a number of washerwomen laid off sick due to this heatwave, and they will be glad of another pair of hands to take a little of the load. When the regular staff are able to return to work, you may consider your debt repaid in full. I wouldn't get too comfortable, mind – it should only be for a week or two."

The change that came over the pitiful heap of womanhood before him was blinding in its suddenness. With a violent wrench that left the two guards reeling, she tore herself free of their grasp and flung herself to her knees before the prince. She was crying again, he noticed – but this time, with nothing more than relief. "Oh, thank you, my lord," she wept. "Thank you. You truly are a god among men, the finest I ever laid eyes upon. Bless you and all your descendants for your kindness."

"Go on, now. The servants' entrance is just over there." Arthur watched as she scrambled to her feet, and with a bob of her head took herself off across the courtyard in the direction of the servant's entrance.

"That's torn it, Your Highness," said Darius, who had been watching everything from his nook in the shadowed archway. "Every last pig amongst them will think they can shirk their tithes and suffer nothing worse for it than a week washing your braies."

The two guards nodded their assent. Arthur did not know their names, perhaps because these two fell under Sir Leon's duty roster and not his own – but he intended to find out.

"Your father will surely hear of this, my lord," said one, at last. "Women talk. Servants, even more so."

"He knows the right and wrong of kingship, does Uther," said the other. "He knows that to show favour to any one subject opens the way for abuse amongst the rest. He will not be pleased."

"And what more can he do to me?" Arthur snapped. "He already thinks me a weakling and a fool. Go, the lot of you. Get out of my sight."

Darius, of course, was under the king's orders to remain: but the two whose names Arthur didn't know made hasty bows to their lord, and stomped back across the courtyard in the direction they had come. Arthur watched until their bright red tabards were lost to sight, his back straight and his head held high . . . and then collapsed against the bars, all the breath shuddering from him like air from a set of bellows. His eyes were awash with swarming white spots; his head felt stuffed with wool, and a creeping nausea had flooded his mouth with the taste of milk and metal. He had never looked less like a god than he did at that moment – sunburned and shirtless, his body swathed in bandages that still showed here and there a dot of drying blood. He had never looked less like a god . . . but, as he thought of the goat herder's rapturous, upturned face, he realised that he had never felt more like a future king.

And perhaps, he thought . . . perhaps that was enough.

§

Morgana's chambers had a sense of stillness about them that Arthur's rarely, if ever, did. For the longest time he had thought it purely a product of the things within it – soft, girlish things that put aside all thought of malice as soon as your eyes touched upon them. But after two days alone to wander through the space that Arthur had left behind, Merlin finally understood the difference that had so far eluded him; it was not the things, but the prince and the lady themselves who informed such a change on everything around them.

And he missed it. He missed Arthur's bold, material presence; the way he seemed to take up so much more space than his physical body could ever explain. His snoring. His ill-aimed projectiles, bouncing harmlessly off the walls more often than they ever bounced off Merlin's head. Though he still tended his master as often as he was allowed, no amount of contact could entirely erase the hole his absence had left in Merlin's life.

Morgana was sitting up in bed when Merlin arrived, her black hair like a river on the shoulders of her soft blue gown. Her fair white skin was bruised at the temple to the colour of blackberry jam, and her bound ankle rested high on a stack of pillows . . . but her eyes were calm.

"Merlin! How good of you to stop by. Gwen told me you might." Here she lowered her voice theatrically, and said: "I swear, if she tries to interest me in needlework one more time, I might honestly have to stab myself in the eye."

Merlin chuckled, and wordlessly extended the bunch of corn marigolds that he had gathered. Morgana accepted them with a twinkle in her eye that made Merlin's cheeks flame red as harvest apples in his dry-hot face. "I think it's more likely that I'll take up needlework than you, my lady. Arthur always does call me a girl, when he's in one of his moods."

"I heard what happened," she said. "I . . . I heard him scream."

Merlin sank down in the chair beside Morgana's bed, and wetted suddenly dry lips under the intensity of her gaze. Of all of them, Morgana was the one person that would revile Uther's actions almost as violently as Merlin himself. "How much do you know?" he asked, carefully.

"Only what Gwen told me – that Uther was torturing the poor stablemaster in the courtyard and Arthur tried to intervene. Instead of asking why Arthur believed the man to be innocent, our benevolent king whipped him and made him take his place."

"Has anything like this ever happened before? I mean, you've known them both for years – you must have seen them testing each other in all sorts of ways in the past."

Morgana appeared to consider, and did not answer right away. "Not exactly. But after what happened with Roland, I can't imagine Arthur was very eager for Uther to build a new cage. It's no surprise that they fought about it."

"Roland? I don't think I've heard of him. Why, what happened?"

"Of course, you're not from Camelot, are you? I forget, sometimes." She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, and Merlin almost held his breath as he waited for her to speak. He felt he was on the cusp of something, a discovery that would finally lend some sense to Arthur's unfathomable sacrifice . . . but he could not appear too eager.

"Roland was a stableboy, many years ago," she said, at last. "When Arthur was ten, he and Roland somehow became friends – as much to spite Uther as for the boy himself, as far as I could tell. They played together whenever Arthur could sneak away, doing whatever it is that little boys do. There was no harm in it, but Uther was never going to see it that way. When he found out, he was . . . furious. He threatened to dismiss the boy if Arthur ever spoke to him again. Oh, Arthur fought him tooth and nail, of course – but he was never going to change his father's mind. Our king bends to no-one's will but his own."

There was no reluctance to her story, now, if there had ever been to begin with. Her face had taken on the closed, inward-turning look of someone finding new meaning in a memory long past . . . but her jade-green eyes jetted malice as they locked on his.

"Two days later, Arthur disappeared from the citadel. Uther was frantic, suspecting all manner of plots against the prince – until he learned that Roland had gone missing at exactly the same time. I don't think they meant to run away for good – you know Arthur, he would never abandon his people without good reason – but you know what little boys are like. And I can understand, his wanting to get away for a little while.

"Uther sent out search parties in every direction, but no-one could find a trace of them. I learned later on that they had run away into the hills to the west, hunting rabbits in the meadows; but when they finally decided it was time to come home and face what they had done, they realised they were lost. They must have wandered for hours, looking for some sign that they were heading in the right direction – but night came and they were still lost. That summer was unbearably hot, as hot as this one or more, and Arthur always was very fair – he was starting to show signs of heat sickness by the end of that first day."

Spellbound, Merlin listened to her tale and forgot, for the moment, that it was Arthur's story she was telling. Something in the mesmeric lilt of her voice had about it all the witchcraft of the natural storyteller, pulling him in to a summer long past, and a young prince testing his father for perhaps the first time.

"The next two days were like a furnace," she said, "and the two of them were still lost. By the time a search party found them late into the third afternoon, Arthur had fainted from the heat. Uther blamed Roland for leading his son astray, of course: claimed he may even have lured Arthur out into the hills deliberately, as some kind of plot. He sentenced Roland to suffer the same way he made Arthur suffer – three days in the blistering sun, with no food or shade."

Silence descended over the drowsy sickroom once more. Morgana finally levelled her gaze on Merlin, and there was a gleam in her eyes as polished and lustrous as the colours on a bluebottle's back. As if daring him to question the truth of her words.

Merlin would have happily taken his leave, if only it meant sliding out from under that look; but the story was not done, and so he asked, tentatively: "So what happened? To Roland, I mean?"

"He died," she said. And then would say no more.

§

The silence, though deafening, was not quite complete. Somewhere in the emptiness of the room – in the recess of the window, perhaps, or trapped inside a rustle of curtain – he could hear the drone of a heat-stupored fly. Merlin listened to it: reached out to it with unphysical fingers to touch its tiny, incandescent glitter of life. Even a fly deserves life, if it is harming nobody. How much more so, a boy who had done nothing more than befriend a lonely prince when no-one else would.

"Arthur must have tried to stop him," he said, at last. "Surely Arthur told him it was all an accident."

"You know Uther. He would never believe in an accident when he could choose to see traitors and regicides around every corner."

"So he thought that this . . . Roland . . . lured Arthur away from the city on purpose?"

Morgana nodded. "Arthur was the one who got sick. Roland barely had sunburn from his three days in the hills. It hardly looked good for him."

Silently, Merlin had to agree; and he wondered, so briefly it was barely a touch upon his mind, if perhaps Uther had been right. A sorcerer could have protected his own body from the sun whilst subtly weakening Arthur's; a sorcerer could have turned them around in the endless grasslands, and made sure they didn't reach home. But no: if Uther had scented sorcery, even for a moment, then the stableboy would have burned in a far more literal sense. "Poor Arthur," he said. And could say no more.

The fly droned hotly in a corner of the ceiling. The air in Morgana's chambers was listless, as still as the blue sky beyond her open windows. And outside, in the scorching summer afternoon, another innocent victim burned for Uther's unreasoning wrath.

"How is he?" Morgana asked, after a time.

"He's . . . he's Arthur."

She nodded, as if that was all the answer she needed. The cold mineral gleam in her eyes had gone, now; they were only sad as they drifted towards the open window, and the remembrance of Arthur's pain. "Arthur confessed to bullying Roland into going with him, that day. He tried to tell Uther that it was all his own idea, that he was the one who ought to be punished . . . but Uther would have none of it. He even accused Arthur of lying to protect his friend. I remember . . . I remember after the boy had died. Arthur was raging at his father, screaming that he was a murderer and that he had killed his only friend . . . so Uther locked him in his chambers until he could 'learn to behave like a future king'. No-one was allowed inside – not me, not his tutor, not even Gaius. It was two days before Uther finally let him out – and no-one ever spoke of Roland again."

The fly, and its frenzied loops through the blistering afternoon air, had ceased. So, too, had Merlin's heart. He could still taste his pulse on his tongue, strong and sluggish and oddly thick . . . but a cavity gaped in his chest where his heart should be.

You've questioned him in the past. We both have. What makes this any different?

It just is. That's all.

Merlin swallowed down something that caught like a fish bone in his throat. He remembered, now, the moon-gleam in Arthur's eyes as he ordered Merlin to stay away; the chill in his voice, as he said: Merlin. You will hear me on this. I absolutely forbid you to pursue this matter any further.

He was not, as Merlin had thought, choosing Uther's side over that of an innocent man. He had only been choosing which innocent man to protect.

Oh, Arthur, he thought . . . and briefly closed his eyes against the tears that wanted to come.

"To be honest, I never thought that Arthur would dare get close to a commoner again after that," Morgana was saying. "You're quite the little miracle, Merlin, to break through that thick skull of his after all these years. It wouldn't surprise me if he didn't make you his companion-at-arms one of these days."

"I'm only his servant. Really, Morgana, it's good of you to say so . . . but I shouldn't expect any special treatment from him, just for doing my job. Arthur is the future king, and I'm just a farm boy from Ealdor. I'm not even a born citizen of Camelot – when you come right down to it, I'm nobody important."

"But you are, Merlin. I've known Arthur since we were children, and a more self-absorbed, swaggering little peacock I swear you never met. He would never have done something like this before you came into his life. He cares about you far more than he ever cared about Roland Tanner; and he wants to impress you far more than he ever did his father."

Morgana was smiling on him, now, with a hint of teasing in her cool green eyes. And perhaps she was teasing him, just a little bit . . . but he didn't doubt that she was also telling the truth.

"Wait—what did you just say?"

"Now you're just fishing for compliments, Merlin. I said he cares about you."

"No, no, after that – you said the boy's name was Tanner?"

She was alert, now: awake to the fact that the mood in the room had changed, and for now the time for teasing was passed. "That's right, Roland Tanner. Why, is that important?"

Merlin could only look wildly over the rumpled sickbed and the dazed, uncertain face of the girl who occupied it. "It could be very important, my lady. I think I know who the saboteur is . . . and just what it is he wants with the Pendragons."

§

At the height of the afternoon, Arthur began to shake. The glare had long since blinded him to all but his own shadow, and the world was a swarm of white against the achingly blue sky. The sunlight laughed at the fallen prince, curled up against his pain like a woodlouse on a burning hot coal.

Arthur shuddered – and this was not the fine, unconscious thrumming of the past two days, but a violent spasm that made his teeth chatter together uselessly in his head. You're succumbing to the heat, Arthur. Just like the weakling you are. After all, it's only a bit of sun.

Had he really said those words, only three days ago? Had he really called Merlin a haddock, for daring to express concern over the stablemaster's life? He supposed he had . . . but it had all receded into the wash of white that had become his world, and he no longer remembered what was real and what was only a product of his delirium.

You really are a haddock, Merlin, to think a strong man like him can't survive three days doing nothing in hot weather.

But Arthur was a strong man . . . wasn't he? Young, and healthy in a way only those who used their muscles in rigorous daily exercise could ever be. He had honed his body as a blacksmith hones a blade; but more than that, Arthur had always thought he possessed discipline. For years he had been trained to fight the weaknesses of the flesh: to focus on a single goal, and separate body from mind until that goal was achieved. A man must be master over himself, Arthur, his father had so often told him. He must be able to rise above such petty things as hunger or pain. He must control his lusts and refuse his greed, or he will be nothing but a servant to his own selfish desires.

He was a strong man, but after only two days in this hell his body was failing. His mind came to in fits and starts, and gave out in shocks of blinding white light that led down into black.

"Arthur." A woman's voice, calling him from the deep. "Arthur, you have to wake up now. I know you can."

It was her, as he had known it would be. She shone like mother-of-pearl against the brightness of the day, a thing of cobwebs and gossamer that made all around her seem garish by comparison. His own deep blue eyes looked back at him from her milk-white face; his own pouting lips trembled open on a breath as she reached to touch his cheek. For a moment too brief to satisfy a lifetime of wanting, Arthur allowed it. Then he took in a shuddering breath, and said: "You're not her."

"But I am, Arthur. I'm a part of you, just as any parent is a part of their child." A pause. "And you have every right to be angry with him."

"I'm not angry with Merlin."

"You know that's not who I meant. And you know that . . . that it's not really me telling you this, don't you?"

Arthur let his eyes slip closed against her light, the love in her eyes when she looked at him. He knew. The woman he had seen in Morgause's cave had not been real, as this was not real – but he liked to pretend, sometimes. He liked to think that her image, at least, had been true, even if her words had not. This was the face of his mother; and he clung to the little piece of her that he had been given, even if he knew it was all he could ever have. "The law must be upheld," he said, and hated how his voice shook with every syllable. "Camelot is strong because my father understands that, because he does not bow to idle sentiment. The people need a firm hand to guide them, or the kingdom cannot prosper."

"Arthur. Look at them. Look at our people. Is it really prosperity that you see?"

"You're not here. You're not real."

"No. But you are. Arthur, look at them." And be it because her hand felt so good against his skin, or because it was his mother or because it was only himself, Arthur looked.

The light still glared from the pallid square as if it were made of glass. Walls turned to mirrors, the stone to a glaring white sea. Against this blazing backdrop, Arthur began to make out the stream of people as it had been before – people coming, going, walking, shoving. Until now Arthur had seen them only in relation to himself, the way their rejection hurt something inside of him that he had no name for; but now, he saw them. This woman, with the bundle of firewood in her arms – she limped a little as she came, favouring her left leg so that her tattered skirts swayed as she walked. That man, leading behind him a scrawny cow with bones jutting out from its patchy brown hide. And he remembered, now, the way the goat-herder's shoes had been bound up with string and patched with horse glue.

He had always known that the people of Camelot were poor, and their livings barely scratched from the surrounding land. He had seen firsthand the tumbled houses and the sparse, anaemic-looking crops. But always he had visited as the crown prince, and been greeted by brave smiles and the best hospitality the townsfolk had to offer. Always, he had seen only what they wanted him to see. Now, he saw the secret underbelly of the kingdom he was supposed to protect.

And he had never felt so ashamed.

§

For hours, now, he had studied the people who passed him by. At some point his mother slipped away like smoke on the breeze, leaving him alone with his grief.

Prosperity. The word sat like lead in his belly, like a death knell in his head. These people could barely afford to keep clothes on their backs, or food in their bellies. But worse than that . . . worse than that, was the aura of despair that clung to them like grease to an axle-blade. Even those who were well-fed and well-dressed, the merchants and artisans of the upper quarter, had about them a subdued air that darkened the viscid brightness of the day.

They scurry about their business, like mice constantly expecting the cat. That was what Merlin had said, with that withering tone of his that would have immediately seen most servants dismissed. They're terrified they could be next.

And who was the cat, in this scenario? Who, but the one who could thin the herd with naught but a wave of his hand.

His father had always been a man of absolutes, a man who believed in his own divine right to rule. He expected the people's veneration as no more than his God-given due, and was swift to crush even the slightest stirrings of unrest. Arthur had always admired his father's strength of will, and despaired of ever living up to such unwavering conviction – but as he looked out on a Camelot peopled by ghosts, he could not help but feel that admiration begin to curdle in his stomach.

It was not respect that I saw in that crowd, Father.

It's the only language they understand. You cannot afford to let compassion rule you. You cannot allow yourself to be perceived as weak.

But the woman's face was still so vivid, even in his delirium: not the lost Ygraine, but the one who reminded him so strongly of Hunith. Her grey eyes, overtaken by tears; her hands, upraised to him as if in fervent prayer. And the final words she had spoken to him, a parting gift he would not easily forget: Bless you and all your descendants for your kindness.

It was that image that Arthur took down with him into unconsciousness, at last. That, and the memory of Merlin's ardent young face, gazing at him with a hunger he couldn't even begin to understand.

NOTES:

1) Although I can't imagine Camelot condoning slavery, even during Uther's reign, I was thinking of the debtor's contract described here as more akin to community service. It has been a common practice throughout history for debtors to sell themselves into indentured service as a means of paying off their debt, or even to sell their own children for the purpose. By those standards, Camelot's version is far more enlightened. However, it would still be a terrible punishment for the poor goat herder in this chapter – if she had been forced into a contract of unpaid service, even for a few months, then she would have had no time or energy left to tend her goats. Without the income from their milk and cheeses, she could not have fed her family or paid her rent, and the result would have been the same as if the bailiffs had taken her herd. Arthur, with his far lighter sentence, spares her all of that.