Chapter 3: Of the Lower Town (and Magic)

My mother was very much a queen of the people. I imagine this had to do with the fact that she used to be a servant before she was queen, because her handmaidens were always her friends, and when she walked the hallways she always had time to stop and talk to the servants. And every week she would walk down into the lower town in ordinary dress and chat with and listen to the people. I always went with her – Uncle Merlin told me once that she had been taking me to the lower town with her ever since she was pregnant with me and started making her weekly trip, carrying me in her stomach. Come rain, come shine, Mother never skipped that trip, however busy she might be.

Sometimes I went with her as she talked among the people, but sometimes she dropped me off with friends she trusted and I played with the children of the lower town. There was one day when as I was running around with the village children, two new kids whom I had never seen before edged nervously toward us.

"Hey! Go away!" Braxton called out. He's something of the town bully – not a bad chap if you get to know him, but on the overbearing side.

"Are they new?" I asked Elfrida. (A bit older than me, daughter of one of the tailors, rather condescending but mostly sweet, always knows everything about everyone.)

"They just came to Camelot a few days ago," she told me. "Their father says he's a carpenter, but everyone says he's a sorcerer."

"Why wouldn't that mean he could be a carpenter too?" I asked, confused. Just because Uncle Merlin is court sorcerer doesn't mean that every magic user winds up with a position like that.

Elfrida seemed stumped by my question, so I turned back to the new children. They were a boy and a girl, clearly brother and sister, and the clothes they wore were more ragged than I was used to seeing, even down here. The other children seemed wary of them, but Mother was always welcoming to visitors and taught me to be too, so I walked over to them.

"Hey," I said, "I'm Amhar. What're your names?"

The boy scanned me as though sizing me up, before finally muttering, "I'm Galahad, and this is Anna."

"Welcome to Camelot," I said proudly. "We were just playing kick the ball. Want to join?"

The ball was a pig's bladder one of the boys had wheedled from the butcher, blown up and tough enough to handle the streets. We were playing a rough-and-tumble game of kicking and batting it, usually with the intention of keeping it away from everyone else, and with some coaxing Galahad joined in. He was an eager and enthusiastic player once he got over his shyness, and the other children accepted him readily after I did.

I was about to dive on the ball and corner it for myself when it floated away from under me, leaving me to dive face first into the muddy street. When I rolled over, the ball was in Anna's hands, and she was examining it thoughtfully.

"Hey! You stole the ball!" I shouted, but Braxton's voice echoed over mine. "Sorceress!"

I scrambled to my feet, suddenly excited. "You're a sorceress?" I asked Anna eagerly.

She stared up at me through wide, fearful eyes. The other children were silent behind me. Slowly Anna nodded.

Galahad rushed forward to her side. "We were told that sorcerers were safe in Camelot," he said quickly, defensively.

"But of course they are!" I exclaimed. "My Uncle Merlin is a sorcerer! What magic do you know?"

Still looking fearful, Anna cupped her hands and whispered something under her breath. Her wide brown eyes, still fixed fearfully on mine, flashed gold for an instant, and a tiny blue butterfly slipped between her fingers and darted out into the world. We all watched it fly for a few moments before it disappeared in a flutter of light.

All the girls gasped at the beauty of the little thing after it vanished, and I think a fair few of the boys did too. I spun back to Anna, my smile stretching my cheeks wide (I know it's Mother's smile). "That was beautiful!" I told her, and everyone agreed.

The rest of the afternoon, Galahad and Anna played with us, Galahad racing and wrestling as well as the rest of us boys, and Anna using magic to spirit the ball away at odd times or throw something unexpected in our path. Her laughter was silvery and brilliant, and her magic brought a whole new level to our fun.

It was Uncle Merlin who came to collect me that afternoon – he did it sometimes when Mother got talking or decided to stay and nurse a sick person for a bit. "I met a magic girl today," I told him eagerly as we walked back to the palace together. "She and her brother moved here just recently. Elfrida says their father's a sorcerer, so he can't be a carpenter, but someone can be both, can't they? And Anna was using her magic all afternoon, and it was the most fun I've ever had! I never knew magic could be so much fun!"

I didn't understand, then, why there were tears in Uncle Merlin's eyes when I looked up, even though he was smiling.

Uncle Merlin took on magical apprentices fairly frequently, so I'd seen other magic users besides him over the years. I'd always known that Camelot had become a refuge for those with magic, but I'd never seen it until that day with Anna and Galahad.

Two days after meeting them in the town, I was walking down one of the castle hallways near Uncle Merlin's quarters when I heard Anna's silvery voice calling my name. I spun around, and there she was running toward me. Her hair was brushed now, and she was in a much nicer dress.

"Amhar!" she shouted again, and slammed into me for a quick hug.

Girls and hugging. I don't think I'll ever get the fascination. But I returned the hug.

"You didn't tell us you were the prince," she said breathlessly, when she stepped back.

"But I wasn't the prince," I told her. At her confused look, I added, "When Mother and I go down to the lower town, we're not acting like royalty. Mother says we're just like ordinary people all the time, but we act like it then. She tells me to remember I'm the son of a servant girl as well as a king."

Anna was smiling broadly. "I liked you as a common boy," she told me cheerfully, "but I think I'll like you as a prince too."

I smiled back at the compliment. "What are you doing in the castle anyhow?" I asked her.

"Learning magic!" she nearly shouted. "My lord Merlin has taken me as an apprentice! Isn't it wonderful?"

I was really pleased by that. "Wonderful indeed!" I exclaimed. "You and Galahad must stay and play with me." There weren't a lot of children in the castle, and it was lonely at times. "But it's not my lord Merlin – I can't even imagine what he'd say if he heard you say that. He's Uncle Merlin."

Anna's face relaxed. "Uncle Merlin," she said. "That sounds a lot better. You sure he won't mind my calling him that? Mother says he's one of the most important men in the kingdom."

"Course not," I said firmly. "He's as ordinary as Mother or I are."

I walked Anna down to the courtyard, where she said her father was waiting to take her home. "Galahad will be glad to come here sometimes if he can watch the knights train," she confided in me. "He dreams of being a knight, but he's just a commoner."

"Here we knight commoners too," I said proudly. "Father was the one who started doing that." And I could tell Uncle Merlin was proud of him for that, so I was too. "Galahad could watch the practices with me," I suggested generously. "Uncle Leon lets me do that a lot. He says he'll start training me soon. I've already learned how to hold a sword."

"That sounds very kingly," Anna said, and since we felt like commoners together, it made us giggle.

"Want to see a spell Uncle Merlin taught me?" Anna asked eagerly.

"Sure," I said.

She cupped her hand, whispered, and when she opened it, there was a little flame resting in the palm of her hand. I stared at it, fascinated, till it went out. I'd seen Uncle Merlin do this once or twice, but it was always fascinating.

"Are you sure it doesn't burn you?" I asked. I'd asked Uncle Merlin that before, and he always said, no it didn't, but don't touch it because it might burn you.

She shook her head, brown plaits bouncing. "But it would be really handy for lighting Mother's cooking fire!" she said. "We won't need flint and steel now."

There were two lasting outcomes of that conversation. One was that Galahad started coming up to practices, and he and Anna became my closest friends growing up. Uncle Leon taught Galahad how to fight along with his son Kay and me, and I timed my days when Anna was up at the castle so I could walk her from Uncle Merlin's quarters to the courtyard where her father waited, and she showed me whatever magic she had learned that day on the way. It never ceases to fascinate me.

The other was that all Merlin's apprentices started calling him Uncle Merlin. They still do that to this day.

A/N: I meant to say this before, but this story is meant to have everything in the show as canon except for the very last modern-day scene, so if I make a continuity mistake, feel free to correct me!

The next chapter will be on Wednesday - "Camelot, Magic, and Merlin."