A/N: So, I'm going to switch around povs whenever I feel like it, fair warning. I can be a whore like that. Thanks to Sofiajedi, as always, and massive thanks to everyone who reviewed! I love reviews. They're like brownies.
A note on me: I hate the period of time when it's freezing but hasn't snowed because one, it hurts the plants and I like plants. It sucks having to replant half the garden because no snow insulated it. And I consider it a yucky time of year. And now Merlin is my ranting tool, bwaha!
"This is bloody cold!"
"Don't be such a girl Merlin!"
"How is this girly? Girls are smart enough to not catch pnemonia by going around damp and dark tunnels to check water supplies!" Merlin shivered. "I hate this season."
"Why's that?" Arthur handed Merlin the torch. "Here. Since you're such a wimp, you can have the torch."
"Thanks. Even though I'm not a wimp, I just don't have those layers of fat you do." Arthur dearly wished he hadn't given the torch to Merlin. Now Merlin had a torch to hold in front of him, so Arthur couldn't swat his shoulder. By the grin on Merlin's face, he knew it. "And it's because it's so dreary. It's cold and grey and yucky, there's no snow, and everyone is in a bad mood."
"Everyone doesn't go into a bad mood during the last month of fall Merlin." Arthur took a left turn. "Hurry up with the torch!"
"You're grumpy no matter what season, so you can't tell, but they do! Gaius made me clean his leech tank." Arthur fought back a grin. "Stop smiling!"
"How could you tell?" Arthur turned around and stared at his manservant. "All you could see was the back of my head!"
"You're very predictable." Merlin flashed Arthur a sunny grin. "Really, you are. Miracle nobody's killed you yet."
"Shut up Merlin." Arthur turned another corner. "Here, I can see the reservoir." Arthur had gained a new appreciation for Camelot's massive water supply when he'd seen Merlin's village. Having to haul water from a stream a mile off must have been hellish. So he'd decided to drag Merlin along to check the water with him.
Not that he wanted to impress Merlin. That would be stupid.
"Remind me again, why are we here?" And it would be a failing plan, and Arthur Pendragon did not make plans that failed. Therefore, this had not been a plan. Really.
"We're checking to make sure nothing crawly is in the water." Arthur peered into it. "And to set up torches so it doesn't freeze in the winter." Arthur gestured to the logs set in the cavern walls around the pool. "These burn through the entire winter."
"No, I meant why us. Specifically. Someone else could be doing it." Arthur grimaced.
"Fenron."
"Ah." Merlin's tone was suddenly very sympathetic. "He's still hovering around?"
"Yes. Prince Arthur, might I have conference with you? Prince Arthur, have you attended to this small and unimportant task? Prince Arthur, may I lick your boots?" Arthur was beginning to despise the counselor with a passion. "He'll never look for me down here."
"You really should just send some knights to hassle him." Arthur choked.
"Merlin!" Merlin shot him an innocent look.
"What?"
"I can't use the knights as brutes to kick around anyone who annoys me!" Merlin paused.
"Isn't that the whole point of having knights?"
"No!" Arthur groaned. "They are to protect the rights of the people. Though…" Arthur allowed himself a grin. "It would be nice to put Fenron in a dark alley with Percival."
"Oh, yes." Arthur peered over at Merlin. The boy was examining the edges of the tank, looking fascinated.
"What do you have against him?" Merlin shrugged.
"He just isn't very nice to servants. You know, one of those guys who drags them down into freezing cold tunnels and calls them idiots." Arthur snorted.
"Shut up. Well, we only need to send a woodcutter out for two logs, these ones should last the winter." Arthur sighed. "Merlin, can you think of any stupid task that puts us no where near Fenron?"
"You could work with the knights?" Merlin suggested. His eyes glinted. "Ooh, I know." Arthur raised his eyebrows.
"Care to share you one and only stroke of genius?" Arthur had a feeling that might've been harsh. After all, Merlin was only trying to help. But Merlin just grinned, like the insult bounced right off.
"Take a ride through the lower town to oversee construction work. You haven't been down there in ages, and Fenron certainly won't deign to walk amongst the lower classes." Arthur thought about it.
"And a public show of strength would revitalize the people, helping show that the crown is strong! Merlin that's brilliant!" Merlin's grin lit up the underground cavern far better than the torch. Arthur backtracked. "You know. For you."
"Whatever you say Arthur."
Merlin liked the lower town quite a lot. He had a lot of friends down there. No one, or at least no one but a very small and disliked percentage, looked down on him. When he tripped over things, they were very rarely expensive and or old.
But he especially liked it for it's loyalty. Arthur rode through the dirt roads, gazing over the houses and vendors. Quite a few people were poking their heads out of the windows to gawk. Merlin couldn't blame them.
Arthur certainly cut a figure here. He was wearing his red jacket at Merlin's insistence (it was cold) and his horse was a massive white stallion. No one in the lower town even owned a horse, let alone one of such breeding. Arthur had him at a walk, tracing through the crooked streets and peasantry like a King.
Like a better King than Uther ever was or could be. Merlin was by his side walking, grinning at the people he knew. These were the lower lower town. The peasants who weren't blacksmiths and didn't have high paying jobs in the palace, but worked in the fields surrounding Camelot or in the bowels of the castle. And somehow they still looked up at Arthur with awe and devotion.
"Whose house is this?" Arthur asked suddenly. Merlin blinked at it. Half the roof had caved in, but it was still clearly inhabited.
"John and Kearn live there. John works in the fields and Kearn does grunt work in the royal gardens." Merlin waved into the crowd. "John! Kearn!"
The couple emerged the spectators. They were both wary. Arthur dismounted.
"Master John, Master Kearn. How long has your house been in such disrepair?"
"Since ahbat month agos milord." John, a man with a scruffy beard and watery blue eyes, said. He scratched his hair. "We don 'ave the coins to fix er." Arthur frowned.
"Did you put in a request for aid?" Master John blinked.
"Y'mean fill aht a scroll 'n give it to the tax c'lectors? No milord, arn't a one of us round ere what can read 'n write." Arthur frowned. John gulped. "We f'gured we best jus deal with ahr lot milord."
"No, I'm not at all angry with you Master John. I'll send people down here immediately to fix your roof and fortify the house." Arthur turned to the crowd and raised his voice. "Who else needs help?"
Tentative hands raised. A lot of hands. Arthur beckoned them forward. "Form a line and state your needs. I'll send people to fulfill them as soon as possible." Arthur said to Merlin in an undertone "Do you have parchment?"
"In the saddlebag." Merlin fished it out and grabbed the reins. "I'll hold the beast for you."
"Thanks." Arthur returned to the peasants. One old woman's chimney grate had broken and her floor was flooded. Moss had started to grow that made people lightheaded as they entered the room. A young boy's father had broken his leg and the boy needed a job to put food on the table. There were several others whose roofs had large holes. One woman who could barely keep her voice from shaking said her family had no blankets, and that her children were cold.
Arthur wrote down the requests with growing sense of horror. Some people lived in foul conditions-he had bejeweled chamber pots that were changed whenever he left the room. He had blankets aplenty.
Somehow the system that gave him these privileges had failed and all these people were suffering for it. When the last person had stated their problems-a skinny young man whose cottage was so drafty fire's wouldn't stay lit-Arthur nodded to the peasants.
"These will be dealt with immediately. And, on behalf of the crown, I apologize." Arthur bowed his head. "Your problems should have received help as soon as they happened, and not been allowed to fester so long. It was my failure. But I assure you, this will be fixed if I have to take the blankets out of my own room."
There was a second of shocked silence. Then the clapping began. Arthur mounted his horse amidst thunderous applause. For the first time in months, the denizens of the poor areas in Camelot had someone listen to their woes and do something for them.
It was a tremendous feeling, being cared about.
Arthur was shocked when the clapping began. He didn't deserve it. It was his family that let these people starve and freeze, with the only way to lodge pleas for help being writing forms to the tax collectors, despite the fact that half of Camelot was so poorly educated they'd never seen books.
Merlin, for his part, was glowing. As prattish as Arthur could be, as insulting and hurtful and mean as his comments often were, Arthur was a great prince. Few monarchs ever even spoke to their poorer people. And he'd never seen one noblemen head down to the lower town and see if they could help. He snuck a glance up at Arthur.
The prince wasn't basking in the adulation. He looked troubled.
"What's wrong?" Merlin asked as soon as they were in the stables. Arthur still had the half guilty half horrified look on his face.
"This is awful!" Arthur burst out. "There are people starving and dying down there, and no one's helping them!"
"Yeah." Merlin shrugged. "In Ealdor, we used to only really get to know a child once they were over five, because unless they were hardy they died by then." Arthur stared in mute horror. "And people starved as well."
"They shouldn't!" Arthur snapped. "I cannot allow people who serve the crown to suffer that way!"
"That's why you're going to be a great King." Merlin said. He touched Arthur's shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up, you can go challenge Gwaine for that. You didn't know, and now that you do know you want to help. That's a step up from before."
A prickling sensation spread from where Merlin's fingers touched his jacket to Arthur's chest and down his arm. Arthur's lips wanted to curl up in a stupid smile.
"And why didn't you tell me?" Merlin took his hand away. "You go through there all the time! You knew the very people whose house didn't have a roof, and you didn't think I might be concerned?"
"You prat!" Merlin glared at Arthur. "I had other things to think about, and you've had other things to thing about!"
"Oh, so you can't keep a single thought-people have no roof-in your head! You're an idiot!" Merlin bit the inside of his cheek to keep from hurling a spell at Arthur.
"It's the way it's always been! Nobody go's to the crown unless someone's breaking the law! And that's because of your family's ruling!" Merlin spat. "You're blaming things on me for absolutely no reason!"
"I…go clean my armor!" Merlin gaped at him. Arthur whirled and stalked out to the training fields. "If it isn't shining by tomorrow morning I'll pay someone else to do it and take it out of your salary!"
Arthur's wave of indignation carried him up the stairs to his father's study, and partway into the orderings for supplies to be brought to the lower town and manpower to be dispatched. Then guilt hit.
He'd been awful, irrational, and stupid. Furthermore, he'd been taking out his anger on Merlin, who was the nicest person ever and had actually gotten him down to the lower town in the first place. Oh, he felt like bastard.
"Sire, did you want to see me?" Fenrod, in all his slimy glory, entered the study. "I had heard manpower was being sent out to the lower town."
"Yes. There are some unacceptable circumstances down there I mean to rectify." Fenrod sniffed.
"Are they being rebellious?" Arthur gritted his teeth.
"No, they're starving. And freezing." Fenrod gave a little gasp.
"Oh the poor things. Yes, give them some reparation." Arthur wanted to point out that he hardly needed Fenrod's approval for anything. He was crown prince. "May I help?"
"Yes, actually. Go fetch Merlin for me. Then go down to the kitchen and get me some nice dish. Something rich and elaborate." Fenrod's slimy smile vanished. Arthur felt a surge of vindictive pleasure. "On you go."
"Of course, sire." Fenrod bowed slow. He looked like he'd tasted something foul. Arthur reflected that it must be humiliating, being a great lord and having to go fetch the same class of peasantry you condescended. He hoped it put a bad taste in Fenrod's mouth. "Right away."
Merlin glared at the armor.
Bang. Another dent. The armor floated in midair. Merlin narrowed his eyes. An invisible blow from the other side hammered the dent back into place. With a scraping sound, the armor smoothed itself back over and returned to it's previous shiny condition.
Arsehole prince.
Another bang and a dent appeared right in the center of the armor. Merlin scowled and slowly unbent it, listening to the screeching sound as the metal shifted.
Ungrateful, arsehole, bloody, gitface, stupid, dollopy, irrational, gorgeous-
There was a creak as the armory door opened. Merlin waved the armor over and put it over his lap. He picked up the little used polishing cloth, and when councilor Fenrod rounded the corner, he was diligently working. Just like a good human.
"You, boy." Fenrod's voice was tinged with disgust. "Your Master orders you to attend upon him."
As prattish as Arthur was, Merlin doubted he'd used those words.
"Really?" Merlin blinked. "Well, I'm polishing armor."
"This is not to be interpreted as a request." Fenrod's nasally voice took on new heights of ugly. "Move, servant."
Merlin got to his feet, chanting Pick your battles to himself. He stepped past Fenrod without bowing and went to find out what the clot pole wanted now.
Arthur was busy filling out forms when Merlin stepped into the study. Arthur looked up then down again quickly. So he felt bad.
"Yes?" Damn, but he hadn't meant to sound friendly. But the very, very, guilty look on Arthur's face had melted his anger. Damn, damn, damn.
"I thought you might be hungry." Arthur indicated the very delicious looking custard on the desk. "I also had a servant bring you a chair." Merlin sat down. Arthur scribbled on the paper. "I thought it your due, for having come up with the idea of going to the lower town."
"Oh. Thanks." That was as close to an apology as he was going to get anyway. Merlin took a spoonful of the custard. It was delicious. A hundred times better than anything he got in Ealdor, or even anything that Gaius served. Gaius's meals were rarely elaborate. "How's the paperwork coming?"
"Well. I should have people mobilized by tomorrow morning." Arthur and Merlin settled into comfortable silence as Arthur moved from those to the assessments of supplies and tax reports.
Merlin was content with it. Here was he, a relatively unstressed Arthur, and a custard. He would take his moments of rest as they came.
A/N: Sorry for the slightly shorter chappie. I ran out of stuff to say.