The Aftermath
"Arthur."
Just that, in the haze. Not the ungentle tug to consciousness that the sorcerer had forced upon him, but only a human voice in the dark. Arthur knew that voice, a sound as familiar to him as the clash of sword on shield – but the tone, that was something new. He didn't know what was different about it, or why it made him want to reach for it like a child for a brightly-coloured toy . . . he only knew that it was something he had wanted for a very long time. Something worth waking for.
His first, tentative stirring was met with a burn in his shoulders and the blackly luminous certainty of worse pain to come. For a moment it chased him back into sleep; but then he heard the voice again, and Arthur knew better than to disobey. He woke to the feel of the surface beneath him canted downward by the speaker's weight, a hand laid softly on his forearm. And pain. Always, there was the pain.
His father sat on the edge of the bed beside him, looking down on him with a face too complex with emotion for Arthur to even begin to understand.
"Wh-what happened?"
"The sorcerer is dead," said Uther. "You did this kingdom a great service, Arthur. Your quick thinking may well have saved Morgana's life."
And not just Morgana's, Arthur thought . . . but knew better than to say. Instead he darted out his tongue over cracked lips, and said: "Merlin."
"Is fine. He has been filling me in on the events of the past few days while you slept; and I must admit that he has shown remarkable initiative, uncovering the identity of the assassin as he did. He might be – what was it you called him? – 'the worst servant in the Five Kingdoms' . . . but it seems the boy does have his uses."
"On occasion. He makes an excellent target, if nothing else."
Uther's lips tugged in a barely-repressed smile. "He seemed especially eager to assure me that you did not order an investigation behind my back. In fact, he insisted that he began looking into the matter without your consent."
"Of course he had my consent. You must know why I asked that Merlin be allowed to tend me, Father. I wanted – no, I needed – to know what was really going on. He was just . . . trying to protect me, telling you it was all his own stupid idea." And how easily the lie came, as his lies so rarely did. It was true that he had needed to speak to his servant, to ask for his help in discovering the truth; and it was true that in his balked rage at the boy, Arthur had wanted to punish him in the only way he reasonably could. But . . . Arthur had been awake, when Merlin dared to lay his hand on the tender skin of his back. He had been awake, when the ridiculous boy spoke to him and softly twined his fingers in Arthur's hair. His father had withheld comfort when he needed it most . . . and so Arthur had turned to the one person he knew would always give it, no matter the cost to himself.
"I understand that I may have been . . . hasty . . . in some of my judgements of late," said Uther, after a pause. "But sorcerers can cloud the mind and the heart, Arthur; they make the guilty appear innocent and the innocent guilty. I don't doubt that this . . . Rhys . . . was at work even from the start."
From his prone position on the bed, Arthur could see little of the expression on his father's usually obdurate face – but he knew what that expression would be, without the need for seeing. Uther had clutched at this threat of sorcery as a man might clutch at a lifeline in a swamp; it was sorcery that had made him overreact to the stablemaster's indiscretion, sorcery that had made an unmerciful king become an unmerciful father. I doubt any human sorcerer could do that, not even the great Emrys himself. But if you're somehow clinging to the belief that your father was under my control when he put you here, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you, sire. The sad truth is that he did that all by himself.
And, for the first time, Arthur could not help but wonder if the sorcerer had been telling the truth.
"So you've reinstated Guillam as stablemaster, then?" said Arthur. Too cooly, even to his own ears.
"Naturally I offered the man his old position, as well as a full pardon for his part in the affair. He . . . declined."
"I can't say I'm terribly surprised," said Arthur, before he could stop himself.
"I know what you must think of me, Arthur. But surely you must realise: I only threatened the people with such a harsh punishment because I did not for one second believe that anyone would defy me. It was meant as a deterrent, nothing more."
Arthur huffed. It tugged at the still-tender skin of his back, and made him keenly aware of every blackening bruise under the thin linen of his bandages. "You forgot about Merlin, then?"
"So you admit that your servant was acting alone when he aided the stableman?" Silence. "You've already served his punishment, Arthur. It would be against the laws of the kingdom to take any further action against him now, even if I were inclined to do so."
The law. And by your own law, father, a woman was almost left destitute through no fault of her own. "Merlin only broke your law because it was a law that should never have been made. He's an idiot . . . but I can't deny that he's a noble idiot."
"And if it had been someone other than Merlin? Would you have put yourself in harm's way so readily for a stranger?"
Arthur only turned his face into the pillow, and gulped away the sourness on his tongue. He was tired – so tired. His every muscle shivered with weariness, and when he swallowed it felt as if his throat had been packed with sand.
"I understand, Arthur. Did you think I haven't watched you, all these years? You were always such a lonely child. Perhaps if your mother had lived—" But there Uther checked himself, and only cleared his throat before going on. "I know the boy has been a faithful companion to you, this past year or so. He has even proven useful, on occasion. But as hard as it may seem, Arthur, you cannot do for him what you would not do for any one of your subjects. A ruler cannot be seen to favour any one subject above another; and he cannot bend the law for one man, no matter how much he may wish it."
Arthur's fists had tightened to near-whiteness on the snowy linen, now. The pillow tasted of sweat and salt on his lips, and smelled of grease where his filthy hair had stained the cloth. He remembered, so suddenly it was almost a physical blow, what Merlin had yelled at him in the early hours of Monday morning – that he had stood by while Gaius was sentenced to death, and done nothing until it was almost too late. But his father had gone one better, hadn't he? He had, after all, been the one to sentence his oldest friend to the pyre.
With a surge upwards that knocked a goblet from the table in a splash of fragrant crimson, Arthur reached over the side of the bed, and yanked open the lowest drawer of the cabinet. Inside was a hastily-wrapped bundle, tied up in one of the royal napkins with a piece of string.
"What is this?" Uther asked, as the prince deposited the bundle on the coverlet between them.
"Open it. See for yourself."
With an unamused glance at Arthur, Uther reached for the bundle and pulled aside the folds of fine white cloth. Inside was half a loaf, gone hard as a stone with age; a piece of blackberry pie, furred and green now with mould; and a small stone bottle, labelled 'Aloe' in Gaius' meticulous copperplate hand. Arthur glared at his father over the contents of this desiccated picnic, and saw the moment when understanding kindled behind the faded blue eyes. "Am I to take it that you intended this for the stableman, Arthur? Or is your servant really so incompetent that he would leave rotting food in one of your drawers?"
"The stablemaster's name is Guillam, sire. And yes. I was going to take this to him, that first night."
"So why didn't you?"
"Because at first I wasn't going to take it at all. It was only after Merlin visited me, that night . . . it was only after he begged me to help that I realised I had to do something. I meant to gather more supplies at dawn, when the bakers were finished for the night . . . but it was too late. Merlin was arrested before I could even wrap the damn thing properly."
"So instead you took the blame."
"I did what I had to. What any man of honour would have done."
For the first time since Arthur's confused awakening, Uther was the one left speechless. His frown was such that it pulled down the livid white scar on his brow, and thinned his lips to a knife-edge; but he contained whatever was brewing behind them, and said, simply: "You should get some rest. Dinner will be sent up from the kitchens shortly."
Arthur nodded, and carefully lowered himself down onto one elbow. The skin of his back pulled hot at the motion, but not too painfully, now. He was healing better than he could have ever dared hope.
Uther stood, and began to head for the door; but a few feet from the bed he stopped, and with the slightest turn of his head back over his shoulder, said: "If I am sometimes hard on you, Arthur, it is only because I fear that greater harm will come to you if I am not. I only hope that . . . well, I hope that you can forgive me, some day." Then he was gone, and Arthur was left alone with nothing but his astonishment and the vague smell of festering blackberries to keep him company.
§
Merlin couldn't help but smile at the carefully-balanced silver tray in his hands. Cook had made him stand, knees buckling a little under the weight, as she ferried dish after dish to the tray and precariously shoehorned each into place. Poached river trout with summer greens; vine leaves stuffed with raisins and saffron rice; a peach tart, sticky with honey and caramelised a deep golden-brown; and his master's beloved herb-crusted capon, lovingly prepared by Cook's own hand. She was an irascible old dragon, for the most part, and not above rapping Merlin's knuckles with a spoon whenever she caught him filching food from her kitchen; but her concern for the badly-used prince became more obvious with every weight she added to Merlin's load. Merlin didn't have the heart to tell her that the prince would likely eat little of it, after four days without food in his belly; Arthur would recognise the gesture for what it was, and that was really all that mattered.
Four days, since his master last ate. Two in the cage, and two more since his dramatic collapse. He had been unconscious since then, and twice as he slept the prince's heart had begun to fail. Merlin had told no-one, not even Gaius, of those terrifying moments when Arthur's heartbeat had foundered like a singed moth after the candle-flame. He told no-one of how he had shoved his power into his master's chest, and simply willed his heart to beat. Or of how Merlin's own heart had faltered at the exchange, catching in his ribs like a hook on an iron fence.
Since then, he had been loathe to leave Arthur's side for more than a few minutes. He had dozed in the chair by the prince's bed; had eaten only whatever could be brought to him by Gwen or Gaius; found reasons to linger in the antechamber whenever Uther came to visit. Because yes, the king had actually deigned to come and sit with his wounded son; and if Merlin had sometimes caught him stroking Arthur's hair or smoothing down the linen sheet at his waist, then he kept that knowledge firmly to himself.
Merlin was about to shove the door open with his shoulder when the sound of voices inside gave him pause. Though Arthur had begun to stir barely an hour ago, Merlin had not dared to believe that the prince was really waking up; he didn't think he could bear the disappointment if he were wrong. The memory of that stuttering heartbeat was still too raw, too near to so easily be put aside. The king, of course, had seized upon his son's first dazed movements with all the certainty of a man used to getting his own way – and he had immediately dispatched Merlin to the kitchens for the feast he carried now, adamant that Arthur must have the very best of everything. The best medical care, Merlin thought, with an uncharacteristic stab of anger. The best food, the best pain relief. But it did not erase what Uther had done; and Merlin thought it would be a long time before he could forget that slice of time in the courtyard, and how, for one eternal moment, he had held the man's life in his hands.
Stooping a little, and with the tray's edge rammed hard into his chest, Merlin leant forward and pressed his ear to the door. There were spells to amplify sound, of course, and even more to see through doors – but in his eagerness to hear Arthur's voice, Merlin forgot every one of them. Nothing mattered but to hear that resonant purr, and know that his master was safe at last.
"So you admit that your servant was acting alone when he aided the stableman?" said Uther, behind the door. "You've already served his punishment, Arthur. It would be against the laws of the kingdom to take any further action against him now, even if I were inclined to do so."
"Merlin only broke your law because it was a law that should never have been made," he heard Arthur reply. "He's an idiot . . . but I can't deny that he's a noble idiot."
"And if it had been someone other than Merlin? Would you have put yourself in harm's way so readily for a stranger?"
Merlin hardly dared breathe as he strained his ear against the door, waiting for Arthur's reply. He remembered, all too well, the neatly-arranged tack room with Guillam's unfinished work laid out for his return; he remembered what Darius had snarled at the silent table of men, his grease-black eyes devouring their uncertainty like a rat seizing upon a fallen crumb. He kept well out of it until it was his precious manservant's hide on the line. You mark my words, Torin – he'd not lift a finger for the likes of you.
"I know the boy has been a faithful companion to you, this past year or so. He has even proven useful, on occasion. But as hard as it may seem, Arthur, you cannot do for him what you would not do for any one of your subjects. A ruler cannot be seen to favour any one subject above another; and he cannot bend the law for one man, no matter how much he may wish it."
Behind the solid wood, Merlin heard the unmistakeable grate of a drawer being opened; then a thump as whatever had been removed was thrown down, barely raising a sound.
"What is this?" came Uther's voice, and with it the first faint hint of annoyance.
"Open it. See for yourself."
A pause, as the king clearly did as he was asked. Then: "Am I to take it that you intended this for the stableman, Arthur? Or is your servant really so incompetent that he would leave rotting food in one of your drawers?"
Merlin's hands tightened on the tray until his knuckles turned white. He barely felt its weight, now; his world had shrunk down to nothing beyond the conversation unfolding in the next room.
"The stablemaster's name is Guillam, sire. And yes. I was going to take this to him, that first night."
"So why didn't you?"
"Because at first I wasn't going to take it at all. It was only after Merlin visited me, that night . . . it was only after he begged me to help that I realised I had to do something. I meant to gather more supplies at dawn, when the bakers were finished for the night . . . but it was too late. Merlin was arrested before I could even wrap the damn thing properly."
"So instead you took the blame."
"I did what I had to. What any man of honour would have done."
Merlin scrambled back from the door at the unmistakeable sound of the king getting awkwardly to his feet. He retreated far enough down the passageway that he missed whatever parting gambits the king and the prince may have exchanged; but at least he was in a position to pretend, as Uther slipped out of the room, that he had only just that moment arrived. He didn't like to dwell on what might happen should he be discovered eavesdropping at his master's door.
Uther closed the door behind him and fixed his impenetrable gaze on Merlin, who offered a tentative nod in return. Rarely had he been this close to the king, in all his time in Camelot: rarely had he seen so vividly the hard line of his mouth, like a crack in a stone wall, or the spot of hazel bleeding into the blue of one eye. His scar stood out livid and white on his brow, a scar so like those that Arthur might now bear that Merlin felt his throat convulse around an invisible stone.
"See that he eats something," said the king – and then cast an appraising eye over him, as if Merlin were a new species of game bird that he couldn't quite fathom how to kill. "There are things I must attend to, council matters that—but that is none of your concern. Your only concern for the moment is to tend my son. I . . . I expect you to watch over him when I cannot."
And then he was gone, leaving Merlin to clutch stupidly at the tray and wonder if he would ever understand the contradiction that was Uther Pendragon.
§
Arthur was sitting up in his bed when Merlin entered – stiffly, his arms around his knees as if to hold himself upright by them, but sitting nonetheless. Although it would be days yet before he regained his strength, and days more for his wounds to fully heal, it seemed the danger was past.
Arthur's eyes flickered up, once, as Merlin hefted the laden tray towards the bed; then just as swiftly they dropped back to his interlocked hands, ignoring his servant's approach. The unwashed hair hung over his brow like a curtain; his chin was pressed downwards into his neck, and his lower lip jutted just a little from his sunburned face. It stole the years from him, that pout; and for perhaps the first time Merlin saw not an arrogant prince, but a boy who had for years strived fruitlessly for the crumbs of his father's love. For a moment, Merlin teetered between two warring instincts like a man over a precipice; then his nerves won out, and instead of gathering the fragile prince into his arms, he only said:
"Dinner, sire! I thought you could probably do with something, now that you're awake. We've got trout, peach tart, capon . . . or we could just go with mouldy bread and five-day-old blackberry pie."
At that, Arthur stirred. His eyes wandered over the decaying food, before darting uncertainly to Merlin's face. "You'd better have some wine with you, Merlin, or five days old or not I might just have to make you eat it."
"Coming right up, sire." Obsequiously Merlin laid the groaning tray in the middle of the bed, and filled a goblet with wine before handing it to Arthur. It was watered, but still the smell of it was velvety-rich on the afternoon air. Merlin tried not to notice the eagerness behind Arthur's first swallow, or the way his hands shook as he then forced himself to take conservative sips.
"Blackberry pie," said Merlin, after a pause. "Didn't you have that on Sunday night?"
"Merlin."
"You did, I distinctly remember a piece was still on the table when I came to talk to you. About that size, it was. And a good amount of bread, too. Going to have a midnight feast, were you?"
"Merlin."
"What's that, sire?"
"Shut up."
And, satisfied that his mission was complete, Merlin did.
He set about uncovering dishes and laying out napkins, aware of Arthur's eyes devouring every tiny movement as he worked. Steam plumed from trout and capon as the silver domes were lifted; crystallised honey glazed the air with sweetness as he cut the peach tart ready for eating. Merlin laid out bread, quince jelly, and the vine leaf parcels, all the while conscious of the prince's silent presence. It took a while – but eventually, Arthur spoke.
"This is food fit for a feast."
"Well – you're not as fat as you were, sire. Cook always did say she liked to see a healthy bit of padding on a young man."
The wine had been finished, the goblet empty – so Arthur did the only logical thing. He threw it at his servant, who dodged it without a second thought.
"She does know that if I eat all this, it will probably kill me?" said Arthur, gesturing to the spread laid out before him. "Well, there's only one thing for it. You'll have to help me eat it, I can't possibly let it go back to the kitchens all but untouched. And if you don't mind me saying so, Merlin, you're even skinnier than usual."
"You can talk," Merlin shot back, automatically – but he set the pathetic napkinful of mould on the floor and sat down, all the same.
Merlin had to admit that the hot aromas rising from the tray had set his mouth to watering all the way from the kitchens. Although his self-imposed fast had officially ended when Arthur was freed from the cage, Merlin had found he had little appetite. He had picked at the simple food offered him: dulled his worry with drink whenever it was forthcoming. But now the sight of the impressive feast brought his hunger roaring to the surface, and he had reached for the tray before he could even think to thank the prince for his underhanded kindness.
He was halted by a neat slap on the back of his hand, and was about to voice an objection when he caught sight of Arthur's face. There was the smirk, the one that curled his master's lip and painted a wicked gleam in his ocean-blue eyes. "Not the capon," said Arthur . . . and Merlin could only grin in return, and reach for a piece of the tart without another word.
§
For long minutes, the silence was companionable. Merlin was gratified to see Arthur pull fingerling strips from the capon, and eat them slowly so as not to overwhelm his empty stomach; the warlock himself sampled everything else, and even went back for seconds of the gloriously sticky peach tart. He was sucking his fingers clean of honey when it dawned on him that Arthur had stopped eating. Although he held a piece of apple halfway to his mouth – and had already chomped a charmingly crooked semi-circle from it – he had nevertheless all but ceased chewing.
"Do you think sorcerers always lie, Merlin?"
Merlin felt every crumb of the food he had eaten begin to curdle in his stomach. This was a question he had been dreading ever since that abominable lie he had told, that day in the council chambers. That day when he had taken Arthur's burgeoning belief in the good of magic, and twisted it back to darkness for the life of King Uther Pendragon. Now, too late to take it back, he saw the trap he had unwittingly laid for himself.
"I think . . . I think sometimes it's easy to forget that sorcerers are people, too. And people – well, people lie sometimes. When it suits them, or when they don't have a choice. But I also think they tell the truth more often than they lie."
"So basically, you're as useless on this topic as you are on everything else," said Arthur. "I should have known." And then he said no more.
They sat in silence for a time, but it was no longer quite companionable. Merlin felt as if he had been bound round with cords, each one affixed to an unstable wall; one wrong move, and all would come tumbling down. Surreptitiously, he snatched glances up at Arthur from under his eyelashes: at the skin turned ashen under its raw blistering of pink, and the lank hair gone almond-dark with grease. Those deep blue eyes, staring into a future that frightened him more than any words could say.
"Wouldn't it be too much of a coincidence, your father deciding to bring back the cage like that?" said Merlin, feeling out the words like stepping stones over a rushing stream. "You know, if it hadn't been some kind of manipulation on Rhys' part. I've been in Camelot for two summers now, and I've not seen it used in all that time. The stocks, the dungeons – they're already there, waiting to be used. Why go to the trouble of building a cage in the town square if you aren't under an enchantment of some kind?"
"Don't think I haven't worked out what you're doing, Merlin. It's . . . good of you, to lie to me. Even if it is a tiny bit insulting, and even if you are useless at it. But you've made no secret of your feelings concerning my father, these past few days. I don't understand why you're defending him."
"And I don't understand why you are so quick to condemn him. Your father's been enchanted before, and you never questioned it then. You never doubted that it was Catrina who wanted you disinherited, not for a moment. Arthur, if there's one thing I know about you, it's that your sense of duty is almost as big as your head; you've always been the first to defend your father, even when you didn't agree with his decisions. I don't understand why you would doubt him now."
"Because nothing he's done these past few days is new, Merlin. He's used that cage, in the past. The past couple of summers weren't hot enough for it to be much of a punishment, so it was never erected. That's all, that's why you never saw it till now."
"And the flogging? Did he ever order that, for any of its previous occupants?"
"No," said Arthur. "That part was new."
"Then doesn't that prove something? Doesn't it, at the very least, mean that Rhys was telling a part of the truth?"
Arthur was silent. He only stared at the fruit in his hand, so fiercely that Merlin half-expected the flesh to bruise under his unwavering stare. He wanted to believe; Merlin could see as much in the way the prince's shoulders braced, as if ready to mettle at the slightest wrong word. He wanted to accept the gift that his servant was trying so inexpertly to give him . . . but something held him back.
"After you challenged him at Guillam's sentencing," said Arthur, "my father spoke to me about you. He told me that the other servants were starting to test their boundaries a little too much, because I let you get away with murder. He said . . . he said if I didn't take you in hand, then he would."
"So you weren't just being a heartless prat, then. When you warned me off."
"You really do have such a high opinion of me, don't you, Merlin."
"But don't you see? Only last week your father came to thank me for talking you down, after . . . well, after Morgause. And even before that, he's always . . . well, given me the impression that he approved of me, in some way. It was Rhys that wanted to set me up, Arthur. Not your father."
He did not add that Uther, in that self-same encounter, had promised to have Merlin hanged if he even once spoke out of turn about the matter. He didn't mention those times at dinner, or in one of those interminable council meetings, when the king's cold eyes would drift towards him with something approaching dislike.
"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Merlin. You're actually being a good servant for once, as much as it pains me to admit it. But I'm the one who's played this – this game before. I'm the one who's lived in Camelot and known my father my entire life. And I think I know what he is and is not capable of a damn sight better than you do."
"So why don't you tell me?" said Merlin, hardly daring to believe his own audacity. "Tell me why I shouldn't blame Rhys for what your father did. Because right now, Arthur, I don't understand any of it."
"What is there for you to understand, Merlin? What do you think happens, those times when I'm fool enough to stand up to him? When I refuse an order to his face, or worse, get caught disobeying him behind his back?"
Merlin fixed his eyes on the desiccated parcel of food at his feet, and felt the knot in his chest pull tighter with every breath. His ears felt hot, his curling toes, cold.
"He punishes me, Merlin. Not like this, not—but there was always something. The stocks, the dungeons. Even a whipping, once or twice."
The drenching sweetness of peaches and saffron-scented rice made Merlin's stomach flip over like a beetle kicked onto its back. He had wondered, at times, if Uther's lightning-strikes had ever found a convenient target in Arthur: if, perhaps, Arthur's bullying tendencies were only those of a victim attempting to pass on his pain. Little wonder, then, that the prince was so hesitant to believe in the excuse of magic this time. Little wonder that he bridled at even the slightest suggestion of pity.
"I didn't know," said Merlin.
"No reason you should. I'm a soldier – if I fail in my duties then I should be corrected for that, just as any other soldier would. I daresay I even deserved it, in the past."
"But you didn't deserve this. You were innocent, and he knew it. Doesn't that . . . doesn't that tell you something?"
"And what should it tell me, Merlin? That my father knowingly sentences innocent people, is that what you're saying?"
"No, of course not, I just—"
"Because you wouldn't be saying anything I haven't already thought. In the past, when—I never blamed him. I never hated him, for what he had to do. But now . . . now I can't help but wonder how many other people he might have punished, for crimes they didn't even commit."
Merlin swallowed, and forcibly turned his face away. His heart hung like a hawk in his ribs, poised over a sudden, precipitous drop. For a moment – one reckless, exhilarated moment – he almost said it. Almost asked if, perhaps, Uther's persecution of the magical community might be wrong. But Arthur's lively blue eyes were dull, now, with a pain no salve could touch. The long white fingers clutched, unwittingly, in the sheet that lay puddled at his waist. And under that colourless surface, where Merlin's magic would often sense the only answering flame it had ever known, the prince's fire had burned down to mere embers. Arthur needed him to be a friend, just now – and so once again, Merlin decided to betray his own kind. Not for the king that would destroy magic, but for the prince that would one day bring it back again.
"Has anyone told you what happened, after you collapsed?" asked Merlin, trying a different tack.
"Not yet. I assume you sent for Gaius, and he had me moved to my chambers."
"I did. I did send for Gaius. But, Arthur – even as Court Physician, Gaius wouldn't have the authority to order you moved like that. Not without your father's permission."
Arthur's over-bright eyes were fixed on Merlin, now, with something like suspicion; then he appeared to rouse himself, and with that uncertain tug of his lips around unspoken words, he said: "If you're going to lie to make me feel better, Merlin, you could at least come up with something more convincing than that. My father never repeals a sentence once it's been given, and he would never have had me released early."
"He would if there was new evidence, you prat. Or if . . . if the spell that made him give that sentence had just been broken. You killed the sorcerer, Arthur, it must have freed him from whatever influence Rhys had over him. Your father ordered you moved, he even ordered the cage dismantled on the spot. And I know you won't believe me, but . . . but it was your father who carried you here."
Arthur's lips pressed so tightly together that for a second their natural crimson turned pale as lard; then they shook apart over a ragged breath, and Merlin could only sit and watch as Arthur's careful facade began to crumble. The bright eyes had turned to glass; the firm red mouth was loose and trembling under the bloom of oak-gold beard. Then he sucked in a breath, and Merlin watched in fascination as the prince silently rebuilt his outer walls, brick by broken brick. "I thought I told you to eat," he snapped. "I'll not have Audrey offended because her food went back to the kitchen untouched. That woman is bloody terrifying when she's slighted."
Merlin chuckled, and gingerly reached for his half of the apple. "You should have seen her when I spilled pea soup all down her apron. I thought another dragon had somehow found its way into Camelot."
"A dragon would be a blessing compared to old Audrey in a rage. I swear to God, Merlin, it sometimes amazes me that you're still alive."
"And it amazes me that you still have the power of speech, the amount of times you've been clonked on the head(1)." And for those few moments, they were simply Merlin and Arthur again: servant and prince, warlock and eternal clotpole. And if Merlin thought the term no longer quite applied to the man sitting across from him, well . . . he was certainly never going to tell.
It became apparent, within minutes, that both were done eating. There was still a woeful amount of food left on the tray, and Merlin could not help but think back to his childhood in Ealdor, where every scrap would be used and nothing let go to waste. Rather than let all of Cook's loving preparations go to the pigs, Merlin simply carried the tray over to the dining table and set it aside. It would do just as well cold, if Arthur felt up to it later.
He was reluctantly turning to leave when he heard Arthur say: "I don't suppose you have any more of that salve left over, do you? I'd like to get back on my feet as soon as possible. You know, before I actually die of boredom."
Merlin hesitated. They did, indeed, have more of the salve in Gaius' chambers – it was a common enough remedy, used on any number of injuries by all in the citadel. But: No more, Gaius had said. And Arthur was healed enough, now, that he no longer strictly needed it . . . but Merlin had heard how brittle the prince's voice had been, for all its briskness. This was not about his bruised flesh or broken skin, any more than his order to eat had been about offending Cook. With a sigh, Merlin turned back to his master, and said:
"Actually, I think we do. Even your royal wideness isn't enough to have used up a whole pot, at least not yet. Why don't you have some more wine while I run and fetch it?"
He was almost to the door when Arthur once more called him back. This time there was no jaunty veneer to dress up the naked uncertainty in his voice; he only sounded tired, and more than a little unsure of himself. "Merlin, I – I know I can be hard on you, sometimes . . . but you must know I would never let you come to any real harm. You do know that, don't you?"
It was the one question that Merlin had most asked of himself, while his master lay sleeping. Had all of Arthur's sacrifice been nothing but manipulation on the part of a sorcerer, after all? Had his own? He thought, briefly, of the magpie that had so swayed him the morning of his arrest – an animal messenger spelled to him by Rhys, of that he had no doubt. But though he had sensed the weight of magic in the stables and in Guillam's tiny house – and had not been close enough to Uther to pick up on whatever enchantment might cling to him – he had felt none of it around either himself or Arthur. Whatever choices they had made, whatever idiotic gestures had passed between them, Merlin knew they were entirely their own.
"I do. I do know that, now."
Arthur nodded, and settled gingerly back into the bed. It was put away, done with, like the winter blankets when summer came. "Well, hop to it, then, you're as slow as a slug with a wooden leg today. What on earth is it I actually pay you for?"
Merlin only grinned, and hopped to it with a willingness that surprised even himself. No more, Gaius had said . . . but Arthur still bore scars far deeper than those on his back, and would never ask his help for any of them. Without this he would fester and fret, turning over his father's every word as if looking for the crack inside; he would lie wakeful in his bed, and curse all of magic-kind for uncovering the chasm that had grown between father and son.
No more, Gaius had said.
Just a little more.
NOTES:
1) Just a little Easter egg for those who have heard Colin and Bradley express this opinion in episode commentaries and interviews, lol. They're not wrong.