PART SIX - THE TALL TREES OF TEARS
the tall trees of tears and the fields of blooming sadness
"Oh, hello," a soft voice says from somewhere above Merlin, "there you are at last."
The light is bright and strange when he cracks his eyes open a fraction. The feel of the sheets is unfamiliar and so are the noises around him, but the smell... the smell is... he must be...
"Merlin. Merlin?" The voice persists. "Can you talk? How are you feeling?"
There's a hand holding his, a small female hand, and when he opens his eyes just a little more, frowning in disapproval of the light, a face hovers over him like a mirage, a very beautiful one.
"What in...? Morgana?" It comes out like a small, pathetic croak, but Morgana smiles as if she just heard a blackbird sing. Her hand squeezes his. "Where am I?" he asks in confusion.
"In hospital," she says. "Oh, Merlin, I hope you can tell us what's wrong with you."
"Uh," Merlin says, because he has no idea that anything is wrong, except the fact that he seems to have been unconscious. His body is heavy and strange between the sheets that feel so unfathomably clean after the mud and dirt of the trenches. He moves experimentally and it doesn't hurt, nothing hurts, he is only abysmally tired. "I don't know. Is there something wrong?"
"Merlin..." Morgana laughs, a small, thin, joyless laugh. "You've been unconscious for ten days. The doctors haven't been able to find anything. No external injuries, your reaction tests are fine..."
"I don't think," Merlin says as his head slowly clears, "I don't think I'm injured. I feel... normal. Just tired. Can I have some water?"
She gives him some, holding the glass to his lips while her other hand raises his head, cupped under the back of it. He swallows and gasps, chokes and coughs, before she gently lowers him back onto the pillow, and to Merlin's surprise he feels her warm, soft lips touch his forehead. It feels marvellous; the first tender touch of skin against skin for an eternity. Loss and longing come shuddering through him in an irrepressible wave.
"What are you doing here?" he manages.
The question is valid and sincere. Morgana, stunning socialite with a taste for champagne in the afternoon – what on earth is she doing in a military hospital?
"I would have thought that's obvious, Merlin," she says in a clipped tone, her nostrils distending in fake disapproval, and now she sounds very much like the old Morgana of Cambridge. "I'm a nurse." Then she grins down at him. "Sometimes Arthur and I are more alike than I feel comfortable admitting," she states matter-of-factly. "The truth is I just couldn't sit around in England twiddling my thumbs when there was so much to do here. I wanted to go where the action was. I wanted to do something, something real, and try to make a difference in whatever way I could. If I can't do it in the wider perspective, so perhaps at least for one person."
Merlin's head is clearing, and the idea of Morgana twiddling her thumbs is absurd enough to make him laugh. It feels unreal, to be away from the mud and damp and gunfire, talking to Morgana, of all people.
"Art history didn't seem very urgent or important all of a sudden," she says. "It will keep."
"Yes," Merlin mutters, "but will we?
A stern woman who looks like some kind of head nurse appears briskly at the edge of his field of vision, the sound of her heels hard against the floor. "Sister LeFay!" Her voice is like a whip. "What are you doing dawdling here? Bed 16 is vomiting. Go and tend to him."
"Oh, the endless fun and games," Morgana sighs as she rises from the chair, reluctantly letting go of Merlin's hand. His fingers trail against hers; he doesn't want to let her go, either. She's a piece of home, of England, of Arthur, of everything that he misses. "Apparently we have a vomiting bed. I'd better go and see to it."
Merlin snorts and Morgana smiles down at him, very softly. The light from the window behind her gives her an incongruous halo.
"I'll come back as soon as I can," she promises.
She throws him a last smile over her shoulder as she walks away, wearing her nurse's uniform like it's haute couture. Merlin closes his eyes around the image of her.
xxx
The doctors never do find out what's wrong with Merlin. He stays silent, offering no theories, unable to tell them he was most likely unconscious after exhausting his magic. When he woke up it was still faint but it's returning to him gradually, with a different feel to it, like it's reborn stronger, like a balance has been restored. The golden haze of Arthur in Merlin's mind is the same as the gold of his magic, snaking through his veins, weaving into his thoughts.
Even without Merlin's help, the doctors eventually conclude that he is suffering from exhaustion, physical and mental – a common enough condition among soldiers at the front.
Merlin doesn't see Morgana again. When Sister Wright comes to tell him he'll be released from hospital and sent back to the front, she presses a note into his hand with a conspiratorial whisper of "Sister LeFay" and a wink.
When Merlin unfolds the note, the hastily scribbled words kick in his chest like a shock. Even if he knew, it's good to have confirmation:
Merlin,
I'm so sorry I couldn't come back and see you.
I thought you'd like to know that Arthur is in hospital in France and will be taken to London as soon as he can be moved. His plane was shot down – he is being treated for burns but nothing life-threatening.
Clara - Sister Wright - tells me you are to return to the front. God, Merlin. If only there was something I... or you... could do to stop it all.
Just survive, Merlin, please.
Yours,
Morgana
xxx
Being bedridden in hospital, injured and in pain, is one thing; being on the mend is another, and apparently it means boredom. Arthur tries to stave it off by writing endless letters in his head to Merlin, who is dead for all he knows. Passchendaele has come to be synonymous with heavy losses and unfathomable suffering, synonymous with hell on earth. What are the odds?
Arthur sits in bed with an unlit cigarette in his mouth and thinks of Merlin at Cambridge, in another life when the world looked different and they were different people. Someone on the other side of the wall is screaming endlessly, howling and retching and cursing; perhaps one of the poor devils who were gassed and can't bear the touch of their own clothes as they vomit up their rotting insides.
A nurse comes up to him. "There's a letter for you, Captain," she says.
He can't recall seeing her before. She is pretty despite the dark circles beneath her eyes and the brittleness that comes from months of sleep deprivation. Her smile is frail and sharp like a piece of glass and Arthur thinks his own must be much the same, cut and shaped by pain.
There is a split second of wild hope as he takes the letter from her, but it dies as quickly as it flared up.
The letter has taken its time to reach him. It's dated a month ago, and even Morgana's flowing, elegant hand is dulled by her exhaustion.
When I think I've seen everything, she writes, it gets worse, or just different, and when I think it has to stop it starts all over again. All this dying, Arthur! All the groaning and bleeding and vomiting, all these men whose lives are destroyed along with their bodies, and this horrible, horrible stench. We burn amputated limbs in the incinerator. It's all so revolting, so hopeless. Where will it end? Will it ever end?
Arthur leans back and closes his eyes. The unbearable sounds from the other side of the wall continue, and further off someone is calling nurses to the ambulance entrance where more casualties are coming in. No, Morgana, he thinks wearily, imagining her with blood-spattered apron and tired eyes, there is no end in sight.
xxx
Morgana's next letter reaches Arthur at Etaples, where he waits to be sent home. He puts it in his pocket and goes for a walk. By the war cemetery he stops to look out over the rows of spindly wooden crosses that are leaning slightly this way and that. It makes them look like a copse of odd, ghostly trees swaying in the wind. At the far end more graves are being dug.
Shuddering, he breathes in the salty air from the sea and pulls the letter from his pocket.
He reads it, and reads it again, and sits down on the ground. Tears must be a common sight here by the cemetery with its crooked crosses, but Arthur's tears are not from sorrow; they are born of relief and anger.
Merlin looked so horribly thin, Morgana writes, but as far as we could find there was nothing wrong with him apart from exhaustion, and he laughed the same way he did at Cambridge.
So this is the good news and the bad, because Merlin's been sent back to the front.
Seagulls are crying overhead, and beyond the rows of crosses the sun glitters on the sea. Arthur wipes at his eyes and puts the letter back in his pocket.
xxx
The silence is the strangest thing about this place, Arthur thinks as he lies with his eyes closed, listening to the absence of noise. The stillness feels unreal after the endless months of engines and guns and adrenaline, and later the clamour of military hospitals. It does him good and scares him in equal measure. He is glad to be back in England and out of danger, but it frightens him not to be in action, stranded here unable to do anything of importance.
The house is large and the surroundings beautiful; a country house commandeered by the military as a convalescent home for those invalided out of the war. The library is intact and they have free use of it, but Arthur had to turn around and leave as soon as he entered. The smell of dust and old leather held too many memories.
There are footsteps in the corridor, approaching the room and entering, but Arthur doesn't look up until someone touches his hair.
"Arthur."
Uther Pendragon is a tall man, towering above the bed, and Arthur's first reaction is not joy or even surprise - it's a gut reaction to stand up not to be at a physical disadvantage.
"Father," he says, scrambling to his feet.
"No, no," says Uther hastily, reaching out to touch Arthur's shoulder and remembering, settling instead for a gesture towards the bed. "You need to rest, I am told."
His suit is immaculate as always, the white shirt perfectly crisp, but there is more grey at his temples than Arthur remembered and a tiredness around his eyes that has more to do with worry than age.
"I do nothing but," Arthur replies, sounding petulant. "Rest doesn't mean I have to lie down. Let's go outside."
A nurse brings them tea, watery and weak from the leaves being used too many times, but it's good to have something to do with their hands, something to hide behind.
"The doctor tells me you have healed well," Uther says as the wasps drone around the honey pot. "Are you in any pain?"
Arthur shakes his head, wondering if Uther thinks he would admit to it if he was. Uther appears to want to say something without quite knowing how. Something is off - Uther is a politician, and glib phrases always roll easily off his tongue. He is looking at Arthur's left hand, still bandaged for protection from the sun, and his eyes are watering as if the light is too sharp. It's not until he reaches out and places a hand on Arthur's undamaged shoulder that Arthur realises he is moved.
"I want you to know that I'm very proud of you, Arthur," Uther says, choked. "Very proud."
Arthur braces himself not to shrink from the touch, looks at his father and sees a middle-aged, still handsome man with hard eyes, unused to expressing true emotion. I'm not afraid of him any more, he realises, but it gives him no satisfaction, only makes him feel empty and sad. The irony of it is bitter - that he should have his father's approval now, when he no longer feels the need for it.
It's too late, father, he thinks, but nods and says quietly: "Thank you."
When Uther rises from the bench to leave, the visit has lasted an hour, and Arthur can't remember the last time he spent that much time with his father alone.
xxx
The leaves of the trees are dancing in the wind, the gently rolling hills are misty blue in the distance. If Arthur keeps his eyes level with the second-floor window where he is standing, this could be peacetime, it could be England prosperous and bright as she should be, not tired and drained as she is. But when he lowers his eyes he sees the park scattered with broken men, on crutches, in wheelchairs, on recliners; men with bandage-covered eyes and missing limbs.
He turns away from the window and slowly descends the still carpeted stairs. The men are encouraged to spend time outside, take fresh air and as much exercise as the nature of their injuries allows.
After a turn around the park Arthur settles on a bench by the orangerie, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes to the sun. His burns have healed well; his left arm and shoulder and part of the side of his neck are a desert of puckered skin, taut and ridged, fragile and shiny pink. In two months he is due before a medical board to see if he is fit to return to duty.
A shadow falls over him, darkening the red glow behind his eyelids and cooling the heat on his face.
"Arthur?"
Startled, he opens his eyes to the sound of the familiar voice, and there is Leon blocking the sun. Leon of kindness and wide smiles, of childhood adventures and teenage posturing, of cricket matches and drinking games and the old world where they were whole. Arthur stands and embraces him, wordlessly.
Leon turns to sit on the bench, leaning his crutches against the wall. He has lost his left leg from the knee. The glass panes of the orangerie are blinding in the sun and Arthur blinks at the sting.
They look at each other, acquainting themselves with their altered appearance. Leon pats the stump of his leg, Arthur opens his shirt to demonstrate his scars and quickly covers them again; they're not to be exposed to the sun.
"Repulsive, isn't it?"
But Leon shakes his head. "People know what it is. They'll see it and know you're a hero; it won't put anyone off."
"Neither will your lack of left foot," Arthur replies solemnly.
Leon snorts and suddenly they're laughing. The air is ringing with it, the feeling is so good, the warmth of it under their ribs.
"We're alive," Leon says.
Others didn't have their luck. Gwaine is dead. Percy is dead. Lancelot is reported missing.
"Have you heard from Merlin?" Leon asks quietly, and Arthur can only shake his head.
A blackbird is hopping on the lawn, a squirrel scurries up a tree and the wind bows the long grass in the meadow. The men sit side by side in silence, marring the pastoral with their mess of human emotion.