There are days when Arthur wishes he could have a normal sort of life, one that didn't involve near-poisonings, magical creatures, sorceresses bent on killing him…or being taken hostage by mercenaries.
It was meant to be a simple light ride through the woods, one of the rare days when he ducks his duties as Prince and enjoys the early summer weather before it grew too hot to even breathe clearly. He'd brought his useless manservant along, of course, just to say that he hadn't gone alone. Perhaps he should have known better than to expect the day to go so smoothly.
If he had, maybe he wouldn't currently be bound hand and foot in a mercenary camp next to said useless manservant, watching the brutish men dump out the contents of their saddlebags and argue over who got what.
"I hate you sometimes," Merlin sighs as he fidgets beside him, similarly bound with rough cords.
"Shut up, Merlin. And stop that damned wiggling about. I'm trying to think."
"Oh, I'm the great and powerful Arthur, I don't need to tell anyone where I'm going because I couldn't possibly be overpowered by a dozen armed men or taken hostage, oh no, no, not me, not Arthur the Magnificent."
"Will you shut up and be still?"
The younger man subsides with his mocking, but he doesn't stop glaring holes in the side of Arthur's head, nor does he cease wriggling.
"Merlin, have you taken with a plague of insects?" Arthur hisses as the manservant continues to squirm beside him, wriggling his shoulders.
"Oh, do shut up, you prat, I'm trying to get us out of this."
"One of these days, I am going to have that insolent tongue right out of your head—" He snaps his mouth shut as Merlin suddenly brings his hands in front of him, severed cords falling from his wrists. How in the gods' name…?
The young man leans forward and slashes through the cords on his ankles; one of the mercenaries turns towards them and shouts in alarm. With an alacrity he's never shown before, Merlin lunges to his feet and snatches up the quarterstaff that had been left propped against a tree, immediately taking a defensive stance between Arthur and the mercenaries. The nearest one lunges forward, swinging his sword hard enough to fell a sapling tree; the quarterstaff crosses it, the edge of the blade catching on one of the steel bands. Spinning the staff in hand, Merlin jabs the end into the mercenary's middle, bringing the man to his knees retching and groaning. Another blow across his back sends him to the ground.
The rest come for him in a rush, and Arthur watches in disbelief as his fool manservant wards them of with only a quarterstaff. It holds no edge, but both ends are metal, and with its greater length, Merlin has the reach of all of them. Arthur winces at the impact when Merlin lands a smashing blow against the side of a mercenary's head. It sounds something like an overripe melon bursting on cobblestones. The man collapses on the ground and doesn't get up.
Suddenly, one of them drops his sword and backs away, diving instead for a crossbow. Merlin's arm lashes out, and the mercenary collapses, a small knife embedded in his heart. Another tries to flee and meets the same fate, another knife finding his exposed throat.
The last man, the largest of the lot, holds out longer than the others, managing to parry the lighting-swift strikes Merlin throws at him. Swift and light on his feet as a dancer, Merlin steps neatly inside the man's guard and kicks out hard, striking the mercenary's knee square on with the heel of his boot. The knee gives, and the man goes down with a scream, quickly silenced with a smashing blow atop his head with the metal end of the quarterstaff.
Merlin plants the staff in the soft earth and leans against it a moment, catching his breath.
"You never told me you knew how to fight," Arthur accuses, finding his voice at last as his not-so-useless-after-all manservant turns towards him.
Merlin scoffs and leans over him, reaching down to slash through the cords on his wrists with yet another knife; how many did he have? "You never asked," he replies.
"The training bouts—"
"I'm no good with a sword. I never have been. And I don't fight in armour." Merlin cuts the bindings on Arthur's legs, then tucks the knife up his sleeve. He retrieves the other two from the mercenaries' bodies and wipes the blood on one man's grimy shirt before somehow vanishing them both into his clothing.
Arthur rubs at his wrists, watching the young man pick his way through the mercenaries, collecting their belongings. His sword is tossed at him carelessly, and he catches it without thinking, buckling it around his waist. He feels better wearing it, even if the mercenaries are already downed. Merlin whistles loudly, and the Hellion ambles over to him, ears pricked. He catches her by the bridle and starts packing their things back into the saddlebags.
He doesn't only take their things, Arthur notices. He also cuts the purses from the mercenaries' belts. "Honestly?" he remarks.
Merlin arches an eyebrow. "It's not like they're going to need it now. There are good people who could use it more than them," he answers. He shoves the last grubby purse into the saddlebag. "And unless you intend to help me dig a hole big enough for all of them, they can rot where they lie. There's scavengers aplenty in these woods who will make clean work of them."
Arthur unties Llamrei's reins, staring at him. "Bit cold, don't you think?"
The young man hums thoughtfully. "I prefer eminently practical." He walks over to the leader of the lot and turns the body over with one boot, pointing to a tarnished medallion. "See that?"
"What of it?"
"He's a slaver. That's why they didn't kill us right off. We had issue with them constantly in Brechfa when I was younger. They had a route set up running from the ridge of Chemary to the mountains in Isgard and then over into Essetir. There's a slaver's market there," Merlin explains. "You and I would be worth good coin. Didn't you notice?" He walks over to the fire and brings his foot down on what Arthur had thought was a piece of protruding firewood at first glance. The other end lifts from the fire, however, and it is not a particularly straight branch. It's an iron rod, the end twisted into the same insignia that's stamped on the leader's medallion, glowing dull red. A brand. "It wasn't for the horses."
"Alright, you've made your point," Arthur relents, straightening up. "We'll leave them. Let's just get away from this place, shall we? If they have any companions who will come in search of them, I'd rather not be here waiting for them."
They ride a good distance from the mercenaries' camp before Arthur decides to make camp for the night. They won't make Camelot tonight, and he dislikes riding at night. "I don't suppose you thought to bring that crossbow, eh?" he asks. "Roasted rabbit sounds good about now."
Merlin hums. "No, I didn't, but find a stone or two, and we can have roasted pheasant instead," he says with a little smirk.
Somewhat baffled but hungry enough not to question it, Arthur scrounges around until he finds two decently large chunks of rock, then follows after Merlin. The young man creeps through the underbrush with a careful grace that he's never shown before on their hunts; Arthur resists the urge to swat him upside the head, knowing that he had likely been so damnably clumsy on purpose. Pausing, Merlin points towards a large bush, then carefully slides one of his knives into his hand, cocking his arm back.
You are kidding me. Did he honestly think to hunt pheasant with a knife? Arthur rolls his eyes, but he takes one of the stones and hurls it into the brush.
A pheasant takes to wing with a startled cry, the knife flashes silver through the air, and the bird falls to the earth, pinned neatly through one wing. Merlin snatches it up and breaks its neck with a swift twist.
Seven hells, Arthur thinks. "So," he drawls, lightly tossing one of the rocks in his hand. "All those hunts, and the game you spooked…"
Merlin smirks at him, and Arthur hurls the other stone at his head. He ducks it with a laugh, wiping the blood onto the bird's feathers. He holds out the pheasant by its feet. "Here. Take this to camp and start plucking. I saw some berries over there that'll be good with it."
"You do recall that I give the orders around here?" Arthur reminds him.
"Of course, sire." He holds out the bird again.
Rolling his eyes, he takes the pheasant and returns to their camp. As he sits down and starts plucking the bird, he muses on the new and incredible fact that Merlin has been able to properly take him in any of their practice bouts. The scrawny little whelp is scarce ever without that quarterstaff of his, and apparently, he always keeps those knives on him, likely when he isn't supposed to. Most well-trained knights would be hard-pressed to hold their own against that many men, and Merlin had done it with only his quarterstaff and a few throwing knives. You never asked.
Merlin returns a few moments later, neck bare, his neckerchief full of ripe berries. He pauses and arches an eyebrow at Arthur. "I don't know what you are over there contemplating so hard, but be careful, sire, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself," he remarks dryly.
He chucks a handful of bloody feathers at the young man. "Have a care for who you're speaking to, Merlin the Mighty. Saviour of dogs, defender against deer," Arthur remarks, chuckling to himself.
Merlin blinks, looking up from the berries in surprise. "You remember that?"
Too late he realises his blunder and hastily wipes the smile from his face. "Of course I do," he replies brusquely, turning back to plucking the pheasant. Arthur has both of their previous encounters carefully preserved in his memory like records in one of Geoffrey's archives.
Silverpine. Two-and-ten, just shy of his Colts' Years. He'd never had anyone dislike him before. Of a certainty, he knew that some people had to dislike him, but none were ever brave enough to show it to his face. They were too afraid of him, or more accurately, of his father. So to meet Merlin, small and bird-boned, who had looked at him with such blatant disregard, was a novel experience indeed. Arthur internally winces still to think on the things he had said, trying to coax a reaction from the other boy, not thinking much of Merlin's feelings for relishing the new experience. He remembers the look of incandescent fury that had come across Merlin's face when Arthur insulted his mother, how he'd thrown any kind of respect or hospitality to the winds and tackled him, bitten his arm like a dog.
The hunt. This one he tries not to look at too hard or too often. He was two winters younger than the rest of his fellow knights, and he had pitted himself against that disadvantage with a vengeance, determined to be better. The hunt had been celebration of both their knighting and quietly, his own victory at being the best of them. When he was thrown over the deadfall to his back, it had felt like taking every blow in training practice at one time, unable to breathe. He had expected someone to come for him; he hadn't expected it to be Leon's gangly half-brother on that spotted Aragonian horse. And he had not expected, either, for Merlin to fling himself over Arthur when they thought the boar was coming for them. Merlin might have looked like little more than skin and bones, but beneath his deceptively loose clothing, he was surprisingly muscled. Wiry, perhaps, but well-built. Arthur had laughed when the deer came bounding out simply for the sheer foolishness of it, men grown frightened by a stag, and the look of complete dismay of Merlin's face had been a sight. So was his anger when he leapt to his feet, snarling at Arthur as if he wasn't a prince.
He's never met anyone who could make 'sire' sound so much like 'you wretched cankerous bastard.'
Once the bird is spitted and set over the fire to cook, Arthur sits back and rubs at his wrists, the skin chafed raw from the rough cords the mercenaries had used to bind their hands. "Who trained you?" he asks. At Merlin's puzzled glance, he nods towards the quarterstaff propped up beside him. Now that he looks at it, he can see that the exposed wood surfaces are nicked and scratched from use, the metal bands polished and cared for. It's obviously a well-loved weapon.
"Sir Lionel did," Merlin answers. "During Leon's squiring."
Arthur nods. The fathers of the squires weren't permitted to be involved in their training, to avoid any bias or favouritism, so Lionel certainly would have had time enough to do it. "Why? Did you want to be a knight?"
That earns him a loud snort, which Arthur suspected it would. "Maiden's mercy, no. But he thought it was good for me to have a discipline, to be able to defend myself." Merlin reaches over to turn the pheasant, then glances at him, eyes narrowed. "Why are you suddenly so interested?"
Arthur shrugs one shoulder. "You hadn't told me because I hadn't asked. I'm asking. So, you can take down pheasants with your knives. What else?"
Merlin makes a mild shrug of his own; his fingers twitch, and one of the slender knives appears in his hand. He spins it between his fingers, flashing silver in the firelight, dancing it through his fingers with casual ease, though Arthur wouldn't have attempted it for risk of losing a fingertip. "I don't know. I've never gone hunting with them, if that's what you're asking. These are meant for beasts of the two-legged variety," he says with a sly glance at Arthur.
"You don't use a sword, though?"
"No. Too heavy, too cumbersome. Longsword isn't a good option in close quarters, and it cannot be easily hidden. A knife is, and can." Merlin tosses it up lightly and catches it again before making it vanish once more up his sleeve.
"Hm." Arthur doesn't inquire further, and Merlin doesn't say anything else, the two of them eating in quiet. "I'll take first watch," he offers, leaning back against a tree, sword laid across his knees.
Merlin doesn't argue for a first, curling up beneath his jacket, one of their saddlebags serving as a pillow. Arthur leans his head back against the tree trunk behind him, eyes half-lidded as he carefully preserves the details of this day and stores it beside the memory of a summer day in Silverpine and a hunt in a spring wood.
Three days later, Arthur walks into the armoury and aims a sideswiping kick at Merlin's backside as he strides up to the young man, diligently scrubbing his armour clean. For some reason, he's chosen to sit on the floor instead of at one of the tables. "Get up, Merlin. Fetch my sword and come with me."
Merlin throws him an irritated glare. "I'm nearly done."
"Finish later. Come along, we don't have all morning."
With a great deal of angry muttering—much of which would have landed him in a cell if the King heard a word of it—Merlin sets aside the armour and cleaning rag, stomping over to snatch up Arthur's sword from the table where it sat, newly polished and sharpened. Entirely in Arthur's reach, too, but why have a manservant if not to do things for him? "Anything else, sire?" Merlin snipes.
Arthur fastens the belt around his waist. "Get your quarterstaff and follow me."
They don't go to the training field proper, since he doesn't want to risk any of his knights observing them. Instead, Arthur leads Merlin out to the small clearing just outside the city walls where they had practiced during the tourney. The last time they had sparred out here, Merlin had done little more than flail about whilst Arthur mercilessly laid into him with the practice sword until the young man could scarce lift his arms.
"Name of the Mother, Arthur, it is entirely too early for this nonsense, will you just tell me what—"
Arthur draws his sword and turns to face him. "Spar with me."
Merlin stops dead in his tracks and snaps his mouth shut with an audible click, staring at him. "I do beg pardon?"
"You heard me perfectly well." He flourishes his sword neatly before him, slashing the air with the blade. "Spar. Properly, now."
Merlin begins to grin, a slow, pleased smile. "Truly? You want to spar with me?"
"I'm asking," Arthur says simply, hefting his sword.
"Very well." He spins the quarterstaff so swiftly the ends whistle sharply through the air. "Shall we dance, then?"
An hour later and not a single clear victory either way, Arthur drops to the grass, his tunic plastered to his skin with sweat, fumbling for his waterskin. "Seven hells," he gasps out once he has breath enough to speak again.
Merlin sprawls out on his back near him, one hand curled loosely around his quarterstaff. "Told you, sire," he pants out. "Like a swan."
Arthur chuckles and dumps the rest of the water over Merlin's head.