Chapter 23: Arthur (3)
"We know you're concealing a prisoner in this chamber – let go of the door and move out of the way."
"That's absolutely absurd – get out!" Mithian struggled, couldn't hold the door; the point of a loaded crossbow showed and Arthur's galloping heart-rate thrummed a little faster – though oddly calmer to face imminent action with freedom.
An elbow showed, then a shoulder. "Get back, my lady, or we'll force you."
Arthur signaled. Mithian did not betray him by shifting her eyes – but widened them, falling back. Her chest was heaving, and her hand fluttered as though she found breathing difficult in her fright – Arthur noted that it was probably very effective in directing the man's attention to the low pointed neckline and fitted bodice of her nightdress.
"I can't believe you would… of course there's no one here but me…"
Arthur swayed back behind the screen, but the guard followed Mithian as she retreated along the wall, eyes on her even as the bow swung negligently toward the middle of the room. A second man entered – Arthur hoped Caerleon's men habitually followed orders in pairs rather than trios – with a drawn sword held upright in his hand.
The man was halfway through the door when Arthur lunged, knocking him into the lintel with the door, trapping him and seizing the hilt of the sword in his own hand. When the warrior didn't immediately let go, Arthur slammed his fingers into the wall, heaving his weight against the door again.
As the hilt slipped into his grasp, he tugged the guard into the room, off balance, slamming the door with his left hand, palm open on the plank to feel it shudder with the force of the movement.
Mithian had not shrieked or cowered – she'd attacked. With the bolt pointed safely away from her, she'd stepped into quite a forceful punch – into the throat of the bowman. Nicely done, he thought – protect those delicate little fingers and incapacitate the warrior, who freed a hand to reach for his throat as he choked momentarily on the blow. She seized the crossbow with both hands, whirling and wrenching it from his remaining hand – and leveled it on its former owner a scant second after Arthur had his appropriated sword at the neck of the second.
"Did your brothers teach you that?" Arthur asked; she was breathing as hard as he was, and didn't answer.
Swift glances all around. Arthur didn't recognize either of the two, which took an edge of panic off his impetus; he decided not to kill them outright. They seemed to realize that choice, and themselves stilled to surrender, not making further fighting necessary.
He was glad for that. The sword felt too heavy in his hand; he was nowhere near peak fighting capacity.
"When you said you knew I was here," Arthur addressed the one he'd disarmed calmly; there was no point denying who he was. "Were you bluffing the lady? Hoping to get inside to search?"
His man had a rash of dark stubble, long tangled hair showing gray, and one eye that didn't keep up with the other; the fellow Mithian covered with the crossbow had a jagged scar flattening his nose and twisting one eyebrow and the corner of his upper lip. They exchanged looks – Arthur hoped he didn't have to threaten to follow through – and his man finally answered.
"The queen said you'd be here."
Arthur felt Mithian's look, and understood. The question of how could Annis be sure seemed to be linked to the statement of, she summoned Gwaine and Merlin. Were they only having breakfast? Arthur couldn't imagine either man giving him up even under torture more intense than he'd experienced – more than once he'd decided he'd rather dunk his head in Caerleon's washtub than lose a finger to Aerldan's thumb-screw. And even if one was used against the other, Arthur thought Gwaine and Merlin understood one another well enough to allow the suffering to protect their king.
Then again, if they were suspected, it was no surprise that their chamber would be searched, or that the guards' orders would carry a given, rather than a possibility.
"Where is the king?" Arthur demanded.
Another glance exchanged, so swiftly he could not get a sense of the feeling behind it. "Still abed."
Mithian's scarred captive added, addressing and correcting his companion, "Unless he's been roused by the alarm of the prisoner's escape."
So the queen suspected, and acted on her own with a few warriors – but the rest of the fortress might be ordered to follow Caerleon's lead. And Gwaine and Merlin had begun the morning with the queen, wherever they were now.
"What were your orders when you found me?" he said. Mithian shifted her acquired crossbow, finger steady on the trigger, and he found he trusted her to follow his lead.
The guard shrugged. "Bring you to her."
And she'd probably wonder if they delayed too long, and might even send reinforcements. Arthur focused on the fellow at the receiving end of Mithian's pending shot. "Get the curtain cord – tie your friend here in that chair. Tight, or I'll make sure he doesn't leave the room because he can't."
As the man complied with slow and careful movements, Mithian said to Arthur, "We're going to them?"
Arthur nodded. "We'll take this fellow to make sure we get to the queen safely, and then…" He hesitated to say, We'll take her hostage, in front of loyal warriors who were cooperating so far – probably because they didn't think they could or needed to risk stopping him themselves.
Mithian seemed to understand. "Maybe she can assist in our escape," she murmured significantly. And did not ask to be allowed time to dress properly; Arthur was impressed.
They supervised the binding of the scarred warrior; Arthur would have tied the curtain cord himself, but for the thought that he didn't have the strength to fasten the knots tightly enough. The guard was gagged also, but they only needed to manage a few moments without the impediment of two hostages at this point; perhaps the whole castle was alerted already, or would be in moments. Speed was more important than preventing discovery.
"Lead to the way to the queen," Arthur ordered the second guard. "Mithian, cover him. An arrow in his… er, seat, is acceptable if he attempts anything unpermitted."
Mithian had a wide cheerful smile that lit up her face, and a healthy dose of courage; Arthur didn't think the guard fully appreciated either. He decided he was going to personally make sure that Merlin fully appreciated Mithian and her smile and her courage, in spite of her fear that he'd changed his mind.
If the king still lay abed, it seemed the bulk of his fighting force might have chosen to do the same. Once they pressed to a corridor wall as a loose four-man group passed unmindful through the open chamber at the end of the hall. And once they startled a pair of middle-aged servants on hands and knees scrubbing – Mithian smiled and held a finger to her lips and the women sat back on their heels to watch the three of them, Arthur behind Mithian to cover their retreat.
"It's just here," Mithian's captive said.
Arthur's fleeting glance gave him the impression of a set of double doors – possibly recognizable from his dinner with Brenner and Leon how long ago now – before his attention was yanked to the end of the last hall they'd turned down. A shout – two warrior-figures silhouetted against the greater light of the chamber beyond, which wasn't saying much, but joined by two more, then another. Arthur might have been able to take two; he hoped the queen was in that room, and not heavily guarded.
"Get inside!" he snapped over his shoulder.
"Open the door!" Mithian ordered in turn, using much the same tone.
Arthur heard the hinges; light spilled out over his shoulders, throwing the shadows of both Mithian and the guard onto the stone wall of the corridor. The five shadows at the far end rushed to join them –
"Don't touch it!" Mithian commanded someone behind him. Arthur kept close to her, shuffling into the room backwards, without crowding her elbow. "Drop the crossbow and step back, or your friend suffers for it!"
She was inside. The pursuers were scant paces away, drawing weapons and significantly not calling any warnings – Arthur shouldered his way through the door, reaching to slam it and drop the ready bar into place. Unfortunately, it wasn't a beam to span the width of the double entrance, but only a foot-long block that held both doors together in the middle. It could be broken through eventually; raising his sword slightly, he turned to survey the room.
In the corner of his vision, Mithian and the guard they'd brought from the bedchamber – a second who'd probably stood attendant in the room, crossbow at his feet and empty hands raised in surrender – a drab servant cowering in the corner.
Centrally, Gwaine. Dressed almost as finely as he had been for his knighting ceremony in Camelot, but without the chainmail, dressed as finely as Arthur had last seen him in Gawant. Further away, at the head of the table – seated, but still a presence – Queen Annis, auburn hair bound only by the gold circlet that rested on her forehead. Both with looks of surprise, maybe consternation.
And – a pace back from the table, and nearer Arthur than Gwaine – Merlin.
Not in the black robe of his dreams, nor the subtle-fine clothing he'd persuaded the newest member of Camelot's court to wear lately, but what looked like someone else's cast-off servant's garb. Trousers that sagged over his boots, a stained tunic over an unbleached shirt that looked like he'd been sleeping in it for a week. But there was no brutally murderous gold in his eyes, no empty lack of human compassion.
In that one breath as Arthur turned from barring the door to connect his gaze with Merlin's – his young sorcerer gave him a smile.
Small, relieved, not forgetting the tension of their situation – but Arthur almost gasped in reaction. After the month he'd had, he felt very much like wrapping his arms tightly around the younger man for a moment, just like he'd done in the birch forest on their way to the Castle of Fyrien. Except this time it would be, I thought I was dead.
The moment didn't last. Even as Arthur exhaled and began to allow the muscles of his face to relax toward an answering smile, the single door at the far corner of the room – servants' entrance – banged open. Caerleon strode in, sword bare in his hand, followed by a number of his warriors, blending together in the shadows and the tattered edges of obscure clothing.
Perhaps they could be counted by their swords – but they didn't all have swords, or not only swords, and there seemed to be more behind them, waiting beyond the doorway.
"Take the one with the sword alive," Caerleon sneered, his beady eyes glittering at Arthur across the room. "Kill the rest."
In the moment everyone drew breath, and Arthur's eyes dropped to see Gwaine unarmed, what was he thinking – something large and heavy crashed into the double doors behind Arthur. Bench or chair – something to help more enemy fighters break through.
Kill or capture Caerleon, was Arthur's thought, as he forced images of utter magical destruction to the edges of his brain.
The door held, for now. Merlin could defend himself. Arthur caught Gwaine's eye and tossed him the sword he'd taken from the guard who'd invaded the bedchamber – and then everything was happening at once.
Gwaine spun to defense. Beside him, Merlin's hand rose ready. Some of the indigo-clad warriors diverted to the other side of the table in the center of the room; Annis was on her feet.
The improvised battering-ram slammed into the opposite side of the door, causing it to shudder and the bolt holding both halves together to creak.
Closer, and using the slam! against the door as a distraction, the wall-eyed guard they'd caught in the bedchamber knocked Mithian's crossbow away. She cried out as the bolt zip-thunked into the wood of the door; Arthur and the other bent for the second crossbow at the same time. Arthur's reaction was slower and he knew it, so he delayed long enough to break the warrior's nose with his knee, and the crossbow was his to claim.
Mithian struggled not to lose her bow to the wall-eyed man – who tried to yank it out of her hands, raising a clenched fist to menace the princess' face as he did so. Arthur swung his bow around and pulled the trigger – the wall-eyed guard cried out and went down, atop the cowering servant and knocking the bloody-faced other to the floor.
Slam! The doors shuddered, the short-bar joining them closed beginning to splinter.
Arthur grabbed Mithian's upper arm, intending to shove her behind him, then search the two downed guards for a bladed weapon. As she whirled away she snatched at the bolt sticking from the door to retrieve it and load her crossbow.
Impressive.
He began to turn back to the two warriors closest to them. The motion arrested when he saw that Caerleon was directing more of his men to go around the table, bypassing Gwaine – who'd felled three already, endangering his footing – and Merlin. And they'd reach Mithian first.
"Merlin!" he hollered without thinking.
His sorcerer didn't turn to him for further instruction – instead he looked across the table, where Arthur meant to direct his attention. In a moment, Merlin had passed Gwaine, leaping to the table – one foot on the arm of a chair, then kicking trays of food and dishes out of his way.
Dammit, he was a target up there, empty-handed; some of Caerleon's men had crossbows.
Another slam! of whatever piece of furniture functioned as a ram in the corridor outside, and the bar that held the double doors together cracked all the way through. As they opened they separated Arthur from Mithian; he ducked behind one and seized the arm of the first man through in an attempt to simultaneously disarm an enemy and gain a weapon himself.
Mithian shrieked – more anger and warning than fear or pain. On top of the table, Merlin whirled, and now his eyes were blazing gold.
"Down!" he bellowed.
Arthur didn't think twice. Releasing his startled opponent, he dropped to one knee and lifted his arm to shield his face, glimpsing Mithian folding into a graceful crouch against the wall.
Two of the chairs from the table – heavy, high-backed, solid-armed things – flew through the air, smashing into the still-opening doors. Forcing them back into place as the various broken components of the two chairs rearranged themselves into a horizontal barricade, held in place with magic.
Swiftly, effectively… violently. The man Arthur had grabbed spun away to the floor, screaming above the clash and grunt of the rest of the battle in the room. The left side of his clothing was saturated with blood; crimson showed at his mouth a moment later in a breathless gurgle. And Arthur could see more than one man's hand caught between the two doors – could hear more than one screaming from the hall outside.
Too brutal for Merlin, he thought. But it was still defensive.
No time to ponder the ethics of war or the character of a friend. Now that they were covered to the rear – the best plan was still to kill Caerleon and capture the queen to force their escape. But he and Mithian were too far from the skirmish – both targets if one of Caerleon's men used a bow, or even threw a knife with any accuracy.
At least Merlin was descending to the far side of the table, no longer elevated and conspicuous.
"Get behind Merlin!" he shouted to Mithian, leaning fully against the side wall in her shock at the sorcerer's forceful barricade, crossbow dangling from inattentive fingers. She met his eyes, nodded without hesitation, and slipped along the wall toward Merlin's back.
Arthur bent for the sword the dying – no, dead now – first warrior through the double doors had dropped. And had to twist out of the way of the one whose nose he'd broken, lunging awkwardly at Arthur with a belt knife. He shoved his own blade through the man's chest, clumsy and surprised, already feeling weakness dragging at him.
Cursing Caerleon for a month of the worst of prison rations, he turned back to the room with the intent to join Gwaine. His knight had either to advance or retreat, or try to fight atop the bodies of men he'd dispatched – two of whom lay on others rather than the floor now.
He noticed the royal pair just off the head of the table, Annis gesticulating, arguing – pleading? – and Caerleon shifting like he wanted to join the fight, paying her little and resentful attention as he watched to both sides of the room-dividing table. Merlin had a sword in hand and was using it with acceptable efficiency – but when a warrior flew past the king and queen to slam into the wall with blatant supplementing magic, Caerleon shoved Annis aside to choose the fight on his left.
Annis clawed dark blue skirts out of her way and began to wade toward Gwaine and Arthur – he couldn't worry about her unarmed in the middle of warriors swinging wildly, though, or why she'd try to approach them when that would give them an advantage.
"Gwaine, on your left!" he called, his body falling into an instinctive ready-to-attack stance, though he felt as tired as if he'd already been fighting the better part of an hour.
There was room for both of them to fight alongside each other, though Gwaine was protecting Arthur more than he was letting him hold his own. Because of that, Arthur was able to catch glimpses of Mithian behind Merlin, clutching his shirt and moving with him – his stance solid and his off arm extended to the side to provide her greater protection with his own body.
A flash of the surreal – Merlin fighting with a sword to save a princess – and Annis ducked behind Gwaine to reach Arthur. The knight let her; Arthur knew the queen was unarmed, and probably too honorable to knife either of them in the back, anyway.
"Arthur!" she called, keeping back from his elbows, clutching fistfuls of her skirt so she wouldn't trip – maybe so she wouldn't bloody them on the casualty-strewn floor. "This has to stop!"
"Have your husband call off his men!" Arthur returned – his arms quivering under a blocked attack before Gwaine swung sideways to oppose the man.
"He won't, he –"
Annis broke off so suddenly that Arthur back-stepped to check her – following her line of focus past Gwaine to Caerleon, at the other side of the room. At that moment Caerleon shoved the one remaining warrior between himself and Merlin aside – right into the sorcerer's inelegant-but-adequate slice. Arthur could see the side of the king's sneer as he raised his sword for a killing stroke – and Merlin couldn't recover his blade to defense fast enough –
Didn't bloody have to.
Merlin's empty off hand came up and clenched into a fist. Caerleon froze mid-attack.
Gwaine shoved another body to the side – and paused himself, as no enemy immediately leaped to assault him. Arthur thought the remaining half-dozen indigo-clad warriors in the room – blocking more in the doorway and the corridor beyond, it might be – had halted, instinctively aware of their king's situation.
Caerleon's chin tipped up; his face was reddening. His free hand rose to claw at a shirt collar already open, as he took a step back, then another. His throat worked against the hold of Merlin's magic, visible even across the room.
"Arthur, he's killing him," Annis said tensely. "He can't –"
He can. He probably shouldn't. Arthur watched, fascinated in spite of himself, unable to resist a feeling of rather dark vindication. How does it feel to be unable to breathe?
"Your Highness, please." The queen sounded half-frantic, half-controlled. "Spare him. Call off your sorcerer."
Caerleon stumbled back. Merlin followed, fist white-knuckled; he tossed the sword down contemptuously without breaking his gaze from his enemy. Mithian was still behind him, one hand tangled in the material of his unfamiliar tunic.
Gwaine turned to look at Arthur; his face was impassive, waiting for Arthur's response without any indication of what he thought it would be – or should be. Arthur opened his mouth – and nothing came out. He cleared his throat and spoke into the terrified tension of the room.
"Merlin."
His friend paused, with a quarter-turn of his head toward Arthur to indicate attention, but keeping his focus on Caerleon, who continued to gape like a fish. His dark, beady eyes were wild – he dropped his sword, but Arthur didn't think it indicative of surrender so much as panic.
"Please don't kill him," Annis said, very nearly pleading – which surprised Arthur, because he hadn't thought there was much love lost between the two. "I surrender by proxy – Arthur, I surrender the castle and the kingdom to your control and judgment, only please. Don't let your sorcerer…"
Arthur, haunted by the dreams of the cell, wondered if he could stop his sorcerer. He wondered if he should trust Annis – or return to the original plan of killing the king and taking the queen hostage. Only now, he rather thought she'd defy him on principle if Caerleon died…
"Merlin," he said again, more insistently.
Mithian reached up to wrap her fingers around Merlin's arm, upwards of the fist that represented his stranglehold on Caerleon, and drew it slowly down to his side. Merlin twisted as she did so, meeting her eyes momentarily; his were still angry-gold when he lifted them to Arthur and Annis, but the magic faded almost immediately.
Caerleon gasped breath audibly, painfully, the ugly purple color beginning to drain from his skin. Merlin faced him, and Arthur anticipated from the set of his shoulders what he was going to do, wincing in sympathy as –
Merlin drove his fist into Caerleon's face – as hard as he could, from the look of it. The king went down like a felled tree.
Arthur almost smiled from pride and surprise; had Gwaine taught Merlin how to hit like that? Mithian gasped, "Oh!" - and Annis sighed in relief.
Gwaine said with calm admiration, "Damn."
Merlin spun in reaction to rather obvious pain in his hand – now shaking it out, now cradling it in his other – the pained contortions of his expressive face almost comical, when compared to the dark impassivity of Arthur's dreams.
Just dreams. It would be dishonorable and unfair of Arthur to believe his idealistic young friend capable of such atrocity, even with extreme provocation.
The warrior nearest Caerleon knelt for a moment beside his king, then rose to report, "He's breathing…"
Annis looked at Arthur. He looked back at her. For a moment both of them ignored the aftermath of bloody conflict, sounds and smells and blood. She said to Arthur, "Please allow the doors open so the rest can hear me?"
Arthur looked at Merlin, who wasn't thinking about his hand anymore. And gave him a nod. If treachery was being contemplated, he'd be surprised – but they were still reasonably ready. And it was good to know such a thing now, rather than later.
Merlin didn't question, turning his gaze golden to the double doors, and the pieces of two armchairs dropped to the stone floor with a jarring clatter. A moment later the doors were pushed open tentatively by the warriors without – there were injured there, as well, and the sweep was impeded by pieces of the furniture, and the bodies of dead and injured guards inside the room.
Annis waited til those hovering on the threshold had absorbed the situation inside the room, and most eyes turned to her for order or proclamation. "Caerleon has surrendered to King Arthur of Camelot," she said clearly. "You are to treat his orders as sovereign in all things – and within a quarter of an hour, everyone in this stronghold must be made aware."
She focused on him again expectantly, and he experienced a moment of dizziness as the sudden reversal of fortune. Except… he wasn't dreaming.
"Sir Gwaine is my second in command," he said, and met the eyes of his most daredevil knight. Marveling a bit at the quirks of destiny that brought each into the other's life so unexpectedly – so beneficially. "Gwaine, see to it that former king Caerleon is secured in a cell of your choosing. Queen Annis, if you would be so kind as to select a reliable guard to see to your husband's needs while he is restrained. And he must remain restrained."
She nodded, and looked past them to signal one of the warriors.
Gwaine stepped to where Arthur stood in one of the few remaining clear patches of floor in the dining hall, to throw his left arm over his shoulder in a quick rough embrace, reassuring Arthur that he had not been injured in the fight. "Just like that, huh?" he said. "Helluva plan."
"It wasn't a plan," Arthur said.
Merlin and Mithian came around the foot of the table and joined them, the princess examining Merlin's right hand for damage as they moved together.
Gwaine said to Merlin, "I admire your restraint."
Annis' eyebrow quirked, and Merlin tipped his head to grin sideways at Gwaine.
Arthur ignored all of them to reach for his young friend, gripping him tight without caring who saw. He had to take several breaths against the emotion that rose uncontrollable in his chest, gratitude for his rescue and a bit of guilty regret that he hadn't allowed himself to expect it. Merlin responded by fisting his hands in Arthur's shirt over his shoulder-blades, burying his face in Arthur's neck for a shaky inhalation of his own, and he guessed that some of the passion he'd dreamed in the younger man's reaction hadn't been too far off the mark.
"You came," Arthur said into his ear – a reassurance for both of them, that it was over. The very faint blame he'd never articulated even to himself, with the passing of time that month, disappeared in the face of proof that Merlin had done his utmost, and still wished he could have done more.
Merlin made a sound that might have been a huff of laughter, or a half-stifled sob. He was trembling, but he lifted his head far enough to say, clearly and softly into Arthur's ear, "Sorry I'm late."
Arthur slapped his back lightly, and stepped back, but kept his hands on the younger man's shoulders. "This is not your fault, you hear me?"
Merlin dropped his arms, and breathed once very deeply under Arthur's hands, searching his eyes with a deep keen blue. "Well, I thought…" he said in a low voice, and almost-shyly, "I might have lost you."
Arthur snorted and thumped a fist on Merlin's shoulder before releasing him. His own words, from when he'd discovered Merlin not dead from execution on his father's pyre, after all – and applicable, he thought, after this month of involuntary feelings of abandonment and nightmares of soulless retribution. I thought I might have lost you…
The moment passed with Gwaine gripping Arthur's shoulder and telling him, "I'll see to Caerleon, but you should return to the bedchamber. Eat something, and sleep some more – you look like hell."
In focusing on Gwaine to nod in agreement – he had to trust that between the queen and his knight, things would remain peaceful – his gaze passed over Annis, who stood slightly apart and watched them with a faint expression of astonished disbelief. After a moment of all of them watching Gwaine and another turbaned warrior support and half-drag a groggy Caerleon out of the room – all the while the groans of the wounded and the stench and gore of the battle began to intrude on the senses – Annis faced Merlin and Arthur.
"What did you mean, torture?" she demanded.
"Not now," Merlin interrupted firmly. "We are leaving this room and going back to our own chamber, and if we don't receive food and water for washing in a quarter of an hour, I will come to fetch it." He said it without inflection, but Annis flinched like it was a threat. "When my king and my lady are taken care of, I will come and speak to you."
"We will come and speak to you," Arthur corrected neutrally.
Merlin glanced at him – then gave a small smile that seemed relieved, and a nod that was also a bow. Arthur appreciated that he was willing and capable of acting as his representative, but he knew his friend well enough to recognize that Merlin was glad that Arthur wanted to handle this himself, as proof of his state of mind. This time would also give Annis a chance to organize her troops and recover the room and the casualties. And Arthur himself could decide more objectively, what should be done with the situation before they could all leave Caerleon and ride for home.
Annis glanced around the room, as the warriors who remained on their feet began seeing to the fallen – checking, bandaging, helping up and carrying out. She sighed, and the lines on her face seemed to deepen; Arthur labeled the expression regret, and the fact that she felt so gave him hope.
"At your convenience, my lord," the queen said.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
"I'm sorry," Merlin said. For the third time – and they hadn't even reached the room yet.
"Shut up," Arthur told him. Then again, it was the second time he'd been forced to pause on the stair. Merlin was so close at his side he was probably aware of just how unsteady Arthur was; Mithian behind them had been silent so far. Sighing and gritting his teeth in determination, Arthur lifted his foot and continued mounting to the top of the stairs. "Mithian said you healed most of the damage – thank you."
Merlin moved ahead of him to open the door – and daylight from the chamber's windows contrasted with the dimmer corridor. "It shouldn't have happened," he said. "I should've been with you."
"No," Arthur said, conscious of the princess behind him. Merlin's reason for his absence from Camelot and Arthur's patrol – and they all knew it, Mithian included. "You were right where you belonged – and so was I. We just… were unprepared to meet a king and his band of warriors, rather than just raiders. And no one could've predicted… what Caerleon chose to do."
He shuddered involuntarily, forcing the words – but then he was past Merlin in the doorway, and wanted to change the subject.
"How's your hand? Break any of your fragile bones?"
"Just bruised, I think," the princess answered, passing Merlin, who closed the door behind them again. "It was starting to swell a bit…"
"It's fine," Merlin said, and by his tone, it was not a subject he wanted to discuss.
And, if Arthur pushed, he was capable of turning the medical attention back around on his king. Which Arthur didn't want. He headed for the bedchamber, his stomach pinching as he thought of breakfast, and the fact that he was free to eat, now – but it was used to being empty and wasn't really, this morning. And the bed with its soft mattress and clean sheets and fragrant pillows was drawing him.
"I'm glad you didn't kill him," Mithian said behind him. For a moment Arthur wasn't sure which of them she addressed.
But Merlin answered in a low, quiet voice, "I wanted to. I was angry enough."
Arthur reached the bed and turned to ease himself down to sitting. He felt sore, after more exercise that morning than he'd had any day in a long while. It was going to be a long, boringly painful process to return his body to anything like fighting fit. Across the room, he watched Merlin and Mithian watch each other.
And Merlin added, "I have, before. Killed people, I mean." Arthur opened his mouth to correct a potential misconception, but some part of his friend's heart that was pure and beautiful conscience prompted him to add, "Enemies."
Mithian's hands were on her hips, and her chin lifted – every inch of her answered, So what? She said, "At least you can have that bath, now."
Merlin looked at her a moment longer before responding, "You'll want to use the screen to change. I'll wait for you to finish. Your Highness."
Arthur stripped his socks, bloodstained from the floor of the dining hall, and rubbed his feet on the rug before lifting them to the mattress. He didn't see any reason to keep himself upright, anymore, and groaned aloud in pleasure to feel every inch of his body relax into the luxury of a bed.
Merlin stepped to the foot of it, where Arthur could see him, the discarded socks retrieved in his hand.
"I don't know how you did it," Arthur remarked. And forestalled Merlin's question, adding lightly, "Sleep on the ground for nearly twenty years."
"More like ten. I shared the bed with my mother as a young child." Merlin opened his mouth to say I'm sorry again –
"Stop saying that," Arthur told him. "I know you are – I know you. But I've got to – get back to myself, without worrying about hurting your feelings. Understand?"
"Throw things," Merlin said, and there was humor and relief in his voice that pleased and settled Arthur. "And call names."
"Like, you're being an idiot." Arthur closed his eyes and enjoyed the drowsy drifting sensation.
"Exactly."
"No, Merlin – you're being an idiot. With Mithian. She said she thought you might be – changing your mind?"
"Arthur…" Merlin's voice was conflicted, and floating further away. "Just rest now. I'll wake you in a while to eat and dress."
It was a good thing he'd already mostly decided what to do about Caerleon and Annis, Arthur thought, as all sensation eased away to slumber.