Thanks again to Gingeraffaelene and Taz for reviews!
The answer to your question, Taz is definitely: "Yes!"
Time to wrap this up - there will be more from me below.
Published November 17, A.D. 2020 to complete the story.
10. Roses for the Queen
The journey back to Camelot was nothing special, Merlin remembered half a year later.
Their departure was however. Merlin had detected visitors, and it was no surprise that now when the weather allowed traveling at last, the sheriff would come for his regular inspection of the fortress.
The round table decided that it was best to serve the sheriff a late breakfast in a castle he was used to see, which meant the knights' eyes grow wide when it was de-merlin-ised and returned from cosy holiday resort to a cold, almost unfriendly fortress. The knights figured that the very presence of the King allowed the food to be excellent, just like before, however. Was he surprised, the Sheriff did not say anything about it, but enjoyed the royal hospitality until they all went their different ways.
The camelotians travelled from village to village and from town to town, receiving the cheers and blessings from happy people who simply adored their nice young King (it could almost be that he is one of us, some said). As it was still cold, they rode during the short days, but stayed indoors for the nights.
Coming home they were of course received in Grand style. All had their rooms heated, fires lit in advance, baths drawn and clothes laid out, and in the evening a special Banquet with laughter, food and a very funny welcome speech from the Queen, ending with asking her husband where the roses he had promised her on his return were.
The day after that Merlin had been granted a special audience with Guinevere, and Arthur could see Merlin bring the leather bound file with the drawings into the Queen's study.
Situated just beside one of his own chambers, Arthur could not help hearing both surprised cries and happy laughter from his wife. Had she also maybe had some suspicions?
Then weeks became months and winter turned to spring in a rushed blur. There was so much to do. Researching knowledge of magic, preparing change of the laws, meet with the Druids and find a magnificent moment to ordain Merlin as official Camelot Court Courcerer (he was the one to insist on that spelling to make his own personal seal a Calligraphy with three Capital C:s).
Merlin himself had a lot of adaptation to do. New clothes (most sewn by Guinevere), a seat at the Round table, meals with the most important knights or the royals themselves – only one thing was hard for Arthur to pull off. Not until Gaius' new medical apprentice arrived, the King managed to get Merlin out of his former small room into new chambers close to Arthur's own. And still the wizard kept bringing up breakfast to the Royal couple each day.
It took some time for others also to tune into the new music, so to speak, and Arthur came back to his chambers both disappointed and angry after many a council meeting where things he wanted to get changed was disputed or challenged or outright met with hatred.
It was not until the surprising end of one of the (too) many shouting matches that the council began to bend slowly to Arthur's will. It had been an old, distinguished lord who all the time had refused to accept that there were indeed new times. He had opposed every change, getbecomingting just louder and louder. Eventually he was standing up, red faced, shouting and accusing Merlin to have the King enchanted, when suddenly one stained glass window in the council chamber shattered, fragments falling outwards.
It was old and needed replacement, thought Arthur afterwards, but wondered if maybe Merlin had ...
In these difficult times Arthur could not but see help coming. First his own former nursemaid, now a fierce lady in her 40s. Arthur guessed she would be able to stare even a Dragon out of Camelot with her glares of Doom, without even saying a word. After her arrival, the resistance in the Council was broken and one after another of the older lords apologised and asked to be retired from service and allowed to go home to their respective estates.
In the palace Arthur and Guinevere saw more and more magic people. It seemed that after a trying Council meeting, their chambers were attended to by young servants who could cheer them up with a bath of perfect temperature, having flames erupting as dragons in the hearth or conjuring flowers or sweets out of nowhere.
When the Queen grew heavier and their baby larger, she started to spend the nights in a bedroom of her own, all the time attended to and monitored by young ladies from the lower town, most of them having druid blood.
Many hidden older magicians hesitated to come out in the open at first. Maybe it was Merlin telling the children in lower town of Arthur's adventures, using magic to show riding knights and beaten bandits, unicorns and flying dragons etc., that finally helped?
When spring turned to summer, a Crown prince was born. The Druids from the afar mountain top had come, as they promised, to help Guinevere, but then stayed to follow Arthur when he personally visited all the Druid camps in his kingdom. Without them coming, making amends would have been so much harder.
Come the autumn equinox, they were all gathered on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake.
Arthur had called the knights of the Round table, and Merlin of course, for a ride to celebrate the Queen's name-day. Merlin had risen an eyebrow, asking Gaius if this was an old tradition, but got not much more of an answer than being persuaded to go.
The king had taken them to a cottage in the woods, not far from Camelot. Outside it was a large terrace with a long table, laid for a fiest. Obviously the king had sent many ahead of them, as there were servants, cooks, Druids and other guests waiting for them when Arthur and his company arrived. Even Gaius had come.
After the meal, Arthur tried very hard to make a speech.
-"One of my friends," he said, "once met a girl to fall in love with. They wanted to spend a life together, living in a small house overlooking a lake, having some fields, a few cows, and just be happy there."
-"Tragedy prevented them to stay together for long, but as a good king, I would like that my friend's girl's name will live for ever. Therefore," and Arthur pulled out a large golden key, and handed it to Merlin, "I have built you this. Please accept as a token of Camelot's gratitude, this small house. We wanted to call it Freya's cottage."
Merlin, having to hide the many tears in his eyes, bowed deeply to his king, croaked something that could be interpreted as a thank you, and turned to open the front door while all present rejoiced and smiled wildly.
The only one to be more serious was the small Druid Seer girl Anna. In several dreams she had percieved how much sadness the royal gift would at first cause to Merlin. Only Anna knew how much sorrow was still bottled up inside him, and how long time it would take for Merlin tonpiece by piece let it out and handle it. How much time it would take could not even Anna know, but she had Seen how Merlin often retired from his official court duties to come to Freya's cottage to work a little more on ridding his girief.
All friends of Merlin took their time before they went into the cottage to be showed it by him.
When they came out, the long table was set for desert, but just after Anna, hand in hand with Merlin, had winked to her family, thunder was heard and some wet drops of rain were felt by everyone present.
-"Merlin, this cannot be for such a lovely day," exclaimed the Queen.
-"Can't you do something about it?" asked the King.
Merlin could of course. Releasing Anna's hand he raised both his to erect a shield above the terrace.
Now it should have been time for cake, if not the Druid girl had sneaked off at Merlin from behind and started to mercilessly tickle him.
It took not long before a wriggling Merlin fell to the ground, laughing and trying to push the girl off himself.
Then his shield collapsed. No one realised that there was no more rain, because they concentrated on the shield falling. At first it looked like a deflating balloon, getting smaller and smaller. Then it looked like an umbrella being closed. And it closed around Arthur, until it suddenly was gone, absorbed by the King, as to belonging to him.
-"Old friend . . ." Arthur turned to Merlin. Still on the ground. Merlin could see Arthur's eyes glow golden and feel himself be lifted up to his feet, seeing a warm smile from his master. The response was quiet, but everyone there could still hear it:
-"Prat!"
-"Indeed so, my very special, important, clumsy court c- . . .idiot!"
Then Arthur turned to his Queen. Knowing the king not to be very good at expressing affection, all could see that he was really struggling now. He took several deep breaths, eyes wide from what looked like fear, until he eventually managed to collect himself.
-"This, my Queen, I have dreamt of doing every day since I first saw you."
He cupped his hands, and all could see the golden glow in Arthur's eyes; all but for Guinevere, who only saw his smile.
When Arthur opened his hands, there lay three beautiful red roses.
-"Thes, the love of my life, are for you!"
And now you know why the manuscript, still in my PC, all along has been callled "Flowers for the Queen."
As stated before, the snowball fight which decided to intervene into my story, had a huge impact on how it come to end.
And thanks for all comments, reviews and to all who have read! There has been so many more of each than to any of my Narnian stories.
Bye for now, and enjoy the upcoming festivals!
Ps: I do have several ideas which popped up this last week of this story, for a sequel and for a modern Arthur return in time of grave need,
but Covid-19 is accelerating here in Sweden, travel is to be avoided, and as my stories are generally written in a train seat,
I can unfortunately not make any at all promises for neither if, or when, writing might be again possible.