Summary: A collection of stories about the goings on in Camelot as Arthur, Merlin and the knights ("the gang") set about rebuilding after Morgana's defeat. Lots of banter and bromance.

Chapter 3: Gossip - A group of refugees discover that Camelot is full of scandals...and singing drunks.

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

A/N: As people seemed to like Watching the Girls and had such good suggestions about what they would like to see "the gang" get up to next, I decided to write a few more stories and keep them all together here. They won't necessarily be chronological. This story is a bit different as none of the main characters have a speaking part. Hope you like it all the same.

Gossip

The morning after their arrival, a small group of refugees sat around in the corner of the Great Hall, perched on bags of belongings or lying back on the blankets which served as beds on the cold stone floor. Around them, children played, some folk tried to sleep and others gossiped in a similar fashion. Gossip, like the smell of the unemptied chamber pots, was spreading quickly around the hall.

"Well, not bad, eh?" said one man, tall and lean and with only four teeth. "Never thought I'd be living in a bloody castle!"

The rest of the group, all middle-aged and jaded, laughed dryly in agreement.

"Aye," said another, whose weary eyes aged even his silver grey hair. "Miletha seems a long way away."

"You don't need to tell me," said one of the women. "Take a look at my feet!"

They chuckled again.

A group of young men, most wearing the capes of the knights of Camelot, came walking into the hall. The sweet young woman with the dark curls, who had been tending the refugees so devotedly since their arrival, walked over to meet them, and a long conversation ensued with much pointing and gesticulating. The group in the corner watched them with quiet interest.

"Working out where they're going to put more folk, I expect. There'll be lots more on their way," noted the grey-haired man.

Murmured agreement rumbled between them.

"Don't look much like knights, do they?" a third man remarked, his thick eyebrows coming down heavily over his eyes as he frowned.

"You're telling me!" cried a man with a rounded belly, sat uncomfortably atop a pile of worn-out clothes. "Should've heard the mouth on that shaggy-looking one in the tavern last night. Ah, don't look at me like that Maeve; I was just getting my bearings. Anyway, he had a good few tankards of mead under his belt, by the looks of him, and him and that dark-skinned lad, well, they were singing a tune that would've made a sailor blush. Let me see, how did it go? 'I once knew a maiden who hailed from the west, and after a drink she'd show me her...'"

"That's enough, John Brunwin!" scolded Maeve, scandalized. "For heaven's sake, if my mother overheard that she'd keel over dead!"

"And we wouldn't want that now, would we?" John muttered sullenly.

"They're not all knights though, are they?" began the first man, eager to avoid an embarrassing marital disagreement. "I heard it said that that gangly-looking dark haired lad is an advisor to Prince Arthur. And the blondie to his left is his manservant. Boris, I think it was."

"Oh, aye?" the first woman asked. "And where did you hear that?"

"Owen Cobbald told me Guthrie's daughter Edith got talking to them yesterday, like. Says she's taken a right shine to the advisor fellow – I forget his name, something odd – and he wasn't exactly uninterested, if you know what I mean?"

"Well, why would he be?" Maeve asked, indignant. "Right pretty girl is our Edith. Ah, just think – all these awful goings on and young love still finds a way."

"Life goes on," the grey-haired man concurred.

"I'll tell you another thing," Maeve continued. "You know that lovely young girl who's been looking after things? The pretty girl in the lavender dress?"

All eyes flicked to where said young woman was still talking to the knights.

"When I was out fetching water this morning, I heard that her beau is Prince Arthur himself!" Maeve disclosed.

"No!" cried the other woman, eyebrows disappearing under her fringe.

Maeve looked decidedly pleased with herself. "That's what I heard," she twittered. "A fine thing for a humble young woman. Apparently the Prince kissed her in the middle of the courtyard; couldn't care less who saw them!"

"Well, that turns my stomach, I must say," the other woman declared, a disgusted frown etched on her face.

"Come now, Ailith," the grey-haired man clucked. "It wasn't unknown for you and Cedric to share a moment or two a little too openly back in the day."

Ailith coloured but shook her head. "It's not that. It's just that last night...oh, I probably shouldn't say."

"Well, you have to now, you daft woman," snapped Cedric of the hairy eyebrows. "Spit it out."

Ailith scowled at her husband, but leaned in and began speaking in hushed tones. "I was taking a walk yesterday evening to stretch out my legs, you know? There wasn't a soul about and I was walking around the corner when I saw that girl - Gwen, I think her name is – in a, shall we say amorous embrace with a dirty looking youth who I must say looked a lot like that manservant you just pointed out, Fintan."

"Who? Boris?"

"That's the one."

"Are you sure, Ailith?"

"I'm certain of it. Whispering sweet nothings, the two of them were, not a glint of daylight between them."

"Well, I say," Maeve murmured.

"What lass in her right mind is going to turn over a prince for a scruffy-looking servant like that?" John pondered. "Maybe she's not right in the head?"

The group nodded sagely and turned to watch as the cluster of knights, the Prince's advisor and his rogue of a manservant began to manoeuvre some long benches in through the door under the direction of poor soft-headed Gwen.

"Puts me in mind to wonder where the Prince is while all this is going on," Fintan observed after a moment. "Haven't seen hide nor hair of him so far. Lazy beggar."

"That's royalty for you," Cedric sighed.

As they watched, the knights and their hangers-on managed to bungle the bringing in of the benches to the extent that the Prince's advisor nearly took off his manservant's head as he swung around to talk to someone while holding a bench over his shoulder. Boris had to drop gracelessly to the floor in order to avoid the long beam of wood and the shaggy drunk laughed so hard he let his own bench slip and drop on the foot of the quiet dark-haired lad (the only one of the bunch who looked remotely like a knight). At this point, the giant heaved the drunk off his feet and made as if to drop him on his head while the others laughed and poor simple Gwen stood with hands on her hips but a smile about her mouth.

"It's a mystery to me how they won the kingdom back," the grey haired man said wonderingly.

More murmurs of baffled agreement greeted this remark. John Brunwin heaved himself off his pile of clothes and staggered to his feet.

"Where are you off to then, John?"

"Well, someone has to take care of the chamber pots before we die of the stench," he announced. "I'll have a word with Edith's advisor fellow. He can get Boris to do it."

"What makes you think he won't tell you to do it yourself?" Maeve asked. "We might be living in a castle but we're peasants all the same."

"A little bit of friendly persuasion," John answered with a wink. "I'll let Boris know we know all about his shenanigans with the Prince's simpleton sweetheart. That oughta get the scoundrel paying attention."

The others sat about and watched as John picked his way through the hall full of people and approached the group near the entrance. They couldn't hear the words being spoken but they could clearly see the knights stopping to listen and Boris's face turned a peculiar shade of puce. It took them by surprise when said knights fell about laughing and Boris, a murderous expression on his face, reached out and smacked his master firmly across the top of his head.

"I'll tell you one thing," Cedric muttered as they watched. "It might be a fine city they've got here, but it's populated by a bunch of absolute crazies."