When Arthur heard Merlin's voice he let go of Much. "Merlin, "he said, hugging him, "where have you been?" Merlin told Arthur about ending up in a castle and overhearing the Sheriff and Gisborne talking, and how he had run into Marianne.

"Merlin and Arthur?" Robin asked Marianne, pointing at them. "Are you serious?"

"You think they made up the names?" Marianne asked him.

"It's preposterous," Robin replied. "How could they travel from the past?"

"I don't know but here we have two strangers called Arthur and Merlin who say that they came from Camelot." Marianne told him.

"You're probably right, Arthur nearly killed Much for saying Guinevere's name and he asked if Morgana or Agravaine had sent us," Robin told her.

"Morgana? Agravaine?"

"I knew he was for real," Much told them. "We're in the presence of King Arthur and Merlin."

"What's the big deal?" Little John asked, "They're just a couple of boys."

Robin and Marianne were watching Arthur and Merlin talking. "I say we get to the bottom of this," Robin said.

000

"So you have magic," Arthur told Merlin, after Robin, Marianne, John, Alan and Will had talked to them.

"Yes."

Merlin would have wanted to deny it but with all the evidence that Arthur had – from the stories that Robin and his men were telling and the irrefutable proof of the books which Robin and Marianne had told them that they had read, books that told the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable – Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine, Tristan and Elyan and his sister Guinevere, a servant girl who became Arthur's wife. And of course the great magician Merlin, who helped Arthur become the great king that he was. And of Morgana his evil half-sister who tried to kill him.

To say that Arthur and Merlin were shocked was putting it mildly. Arthur stared at his friend in shock, Merlin had lied to him for more than four years and he thought they were friends. Best friends, even. He walked off and Merlin ran after him.

"So all those times, when you said that you had saved my life," Arthur said dully, "you were telling the truth."

"Yes," Merlin replied.

"That's how you knew that Valiant was using magic, how you knew that my father had married a troll," Arthur continued, "how you knew that Morgana had magic and that Agravaine were betraying me."

Merlin nodded, wishing that his friend seemed happier with the revelation.

"And you didn't think to tell me?" Arthur asked.

"How could I?" Merlin asked, "Magic is forbidden in Camelot. You, of all people, know that."

"You really think I would have had you killed?" Arthur asked his friend. They looked at each other and then Arthur walked off again, he needed to be alone to clear his head and try and understand how he could have been so blind not to have noticed that there was something different about Merlin. And that it wasn't his ability to always somehow end up in trouble and to spend a lot of time in the tavern.

000

"If we're in the history books," Arthur told Robin, "then we must be in the future."

"By some miracle," Robin agreed, "you ended up in the future."

"So the question we should be asking is," Arthur said, "How do we get back to Camelot?"

They pondered that in silence and then Will Scarlet said, "Maybe you were brought here for a reason."

"What do you mean?" Arthur asked him.

"You're a great warrior, the greatest King England has ever known," Will said, "and now you're here in Nottingham when the kingdom is under attack. The king is in the Holy lands and Prince John and the likes of the Sheriff want to take over the land. Maybe you're here to save us."

"I don't think so," Arthur replied, "I'm just one man there's nothing I can do here. And besides I have bigger problems, I left Camelot under attack. I have to go back and try and save it."

"You're not one man," Much pointed out, "you have us. Together we can do something. Besides aren't you forgetting something, we have Merlin, which has to count for something."

Arthur turned and looked at his friend who had been silent throughout the whole exchange. "You're the one with all the magic, what do you think?"

"I seem to have lost my magic," Merlin told them. He had tried it ever since he had found himself in the castle in Nottingham to no avail.

"Right," Arthur said, "so we are stuck here."

"In the meantime," Robin pointed out, "you get to spend time with us and you have proved very handy in a fight and you know we have plenty of those on our hands. In fact, I'm surprised that…"

They never got to hear what Robin was surprised about because the boy on the lookout came running into the camp. Gisborne and thirty men were bearing into the forest looking for Robin and Arthur. They picked their weapons and began to run.

"I will distract Gisborne," Marianne told Robin.

"Be careful."

000

They run until they came to a cave under the trees.

"I think we'll make our new camp here," Robin said. The area was well hidden and they set out putting traps around it to ensure that no one would find them without giving them fair warning.

"You'll find a way to go back," Robin told Arthur. "Think about it, you have to go back."

"But how?" Arthur asked him. "How? I don't even know how we got here."

"You have to go back," Robin told him, "otherwise the history of this country changes. If there's no King Arthur the England we know is gone for good and I, for one, cannot let that happen. Don't give up hope my friend."

Arthur smiled at his new friend. Robin was right, he had to hold onto the hope that he would return to his beloved Camelot, and that he would see Guinevere again.

"You will see her again," Robin broke into his thoughts.

"What? Who?"

"Your Guinevere," Robin laughed, "you will see her again."

"How can you be so sure?" Arthur asked.

"When I went to fight with King Richard in the Holy lands," Robin told him, "I was sure that I would return to find Marianne married but here we are many years later and she's still unmarried and what's more she still likes me. So you see my friend, there's always hope."

Arthur nodded.

"You'll get back to Camelot and save your kingdom, you'll see."

000

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