Casting Away Fear
The dawn was rising and it was set to be a brilliant day. No doubt the sky would be blue as a dream, the wind soft, and Merlin's heart would be heady with excitement, buoyant and full of adventure. But his mother's heart could not share his optimism and excitement as he set out on his journey. Merlin was leaving today. She folded and refolded his shirts, smoothing their already worn fabric into smoothness.
When Merlin had told her months ago, that he wanted to go to Camelot, her heart had sunk. She had tried to not concern herself, trying to put it down as one of his wild larks with Will, but Merlin had not left the idea alone. He had gone on about it. He had a thousand logical reasons why he should engage in this madness. It did not matter how she responded, the topic was back on the table the next morning.
She had pleaded with him for the last time only last night.
Please Mum," he had said, looking at her with his best earnest five year old Merlin expression, "Not tonight. I'm leaving tomorrow."
"Come now, Merlin," she had said reasonably. "Let me have my say one last time before you go. Think, Merlin," she had added quickly, not giving her boy a chance to respond. "You can't deny that magic is everywhere. Go see the world, son. Camelot is just one city here in Albion. But if you must go, if you really want to be true to yourself and find out where your magic will take you, then it should be where you can be free. Not in Camelot where you could be killed." It sounded trite, even to her ears, she had pleaded this same case so many times.
She could see there were a multitude of answers in his eyes, and all of them led back to Camelot. But he did not say those things. He had looked away as he had tucked something into the top of his knapsack. "Gaius is expecting me," he said lightly. "You wrote him last week, remember Mum." He did not want to plead, and he did not want to insist. She could see, as only a mother could see, that all he wanted was a hug. A quick assurance of her trust in him, an encouraging word. But she could not.
Camelot was fraught with danger. It was knee deep in a bloody history that Merlin could not know or understand. All of the five kingdoms knew of the Purge that had cleansed magic from the heart of Camelot. Uther's long vendetta was well known, and even sometimes mocked, in the other kingdoms. But he was known as a pragmatic and strong king, never shirking from doing an unpleasant deed, if it meant that Camelot's crown rested easier after the mayhem. But her knowledge went deeper than that, down to the heart of the matter. For Hunith had been there, the very moment the Purge had begun.
She could not put aside her memories of Uther, of Gaius, and of the sweet, valiant woman who had become Uther's queen. She had served Ygraine for three happy years before she died and Camelot had blazed up in grief and retribution, in horrors visited on the innocent. Even now, the thought of her sweet mistress brought tears to her eyes.
The little prince had been born after an easy labor and all the kingdom rejoiced. Uther had shown off the infant to his knights when he was only hours old. He was a strong healthy boy, red faced with anger at being taken from the arms of his mother and wailing his protest. Uther had been amused, laughing at his infant rage, joking that they would no doubt butt heads once he was grown. There was drinking and feasting, much toasting and carousing. Uther had nothing but words of love and praise for his Queen who had brought all of his dreams to fruition.
But she had died that same night, of a rising fever and a headache that came from bleeding deep within her brain, said Gaius. Hunith only knew that she had awoken to find her mistress burning with fever and vomiting from a headache in the night, and had sent for Gaius immediately. In the few minutes it had taken him to come, their mistress had grown worse, clutching desperately at Hunith in her agony, tearing at her head and her hair, and finally seizing in terrifying convulsions. She had died, unable to breathe and still seizing, in Hunith's arms, while Gaius watched helplessly. Nimue had wept, and Uther had gone mad. His broken cries haunted her to this day, but so did the blood he had spilled to slake his despair. She could bear to remember no more.
The burnings had begun before her sweet queen had been grown cold in her grave. She had slipped out of Camelot before anyone but Gaius knew she had gone. Not once, even to the physician, had she spoken of the secret price of Arthur's birth. Hunith had known of the bargain between Nimue and Uther, and she had watched Ygraine's incandescent joy as she carried Uther's heir. Knowing her lady had paid the terrible price willingly, did not make her memories any easier to bear.
She looked up at Merlin once more. She knew the look in his eyes. It was the look that brooked no reason, no matter how she might cajole or plead. But she could not put her memories from her mind.
"There are dangers and secrets in Camelot," Hunith began, but she stopped herself. This was a secret that would not help him. If it was his to know someday, then perhaps let him judge on his own the events of the past, without her memories to to torment him. This knowledge would only cripple him now. She looked away.
"Gaius will help you," she finished awkwardly.
Thankfully, Merlin didn't notice. He wrapped her firmly in hug and she snuggled into his slim strong frame. Could this be the helpless babe she remembered. The thought smote her. If she thought she had loved Merlin on the day of his birth, it held not one iota of brightness to the love that filled her now. She ruffled his dark hair, just as he had when he was toddler, and his eyes sparkled in that way that delighted her heart.
"I know it's a mad idea, Mum. I know." He spoke almost contritely. He kissed the top of her head, just as she used to kiss him when he was small. The gesture brought her to tears. "The magic is there, waiting for me," he said very softly in her ear. "I can feel it calling, not with words, but with this pull deep down. It's where I need to be, Mum."
He turned her and kissed her cheek. "I swear I'll be careful..." he started. A hundred childhood adventures arose in her mind, and she looked up at him wryly. He stopped himself. "I'll be as careful as I can," he finished in a questioning tone. She smiled.
"And I know just how careful that is. That's what has me worried."
He released her from the hug and she led him over to the fire. Wordlessly, she had handed him a small wooden bowl, where she scooped a simple stew into the center.
"I'm going to miss your cooking," he said softly.
"More than you know," she said quickly, smiling at him as she recalled the foul potions Gaius used to brew back in the day she had lived in the castle. The smell alone could kill your appetite. She wondered if Margolys still worked in the kitchen. Merlin ate a second serving before she had eaten half of hers. He devoured the bread, she had made that morning.
"Still hungry,", she asked as he took a break in his determined shoveling of food. He shook his head and smiled. She could see he wanted to say something, but he couldn't find the words. She smiled at him, just to see the brilliant grin that had lit her way for years. She missed him already, even though he was right next to her. His heart was elsewhere, and it was time she accepted it.
He went out to check the animals in the barn and make sure everything was secure for the night. He had always loved doing that since he was old enough to push the barn door shut by himself. Knowing him, he was whispering goodbye to the animals, giving them explicit instructions on how they were to behave in his absence. That brought a smile to her heart. Hunith could not bring herself to imagine what her life would be like once his his daily presence would be gone.
'Probably cleaner,' she thought, as looked at the mess of items jumbled next to his knapsack, awaiting last minute use. But then she thought of his laughter, and his long stories, and his small, daily kindnesses, and the smell of his hair, and the tears rose up to choke her before she could stop them.
She sat down by the hearth, wiping her eyes and pretending that her eyes were not red, and that her arms did not ache for her child. She could fix every difficulty in those days, she recalled with a sad wistfulness. A kiss from her and the hurt was gone. A good meal could help him forget the cruel words of townspeople to a fatherless boy; a hug could erase the pain of his disappointments. In Camelot, there would be no way she could help him, there was no way that she could put right the things that might attack him. Hunith remembered all the times she had to teach Merlin to hide his gift. Now, she could not shield him if he was discovered to be what he was. She admitted to herself, that it had been a long time since she had been able to do that. Nor could she shield him from the truth of the role of magic in Camelot.
The simple carved bowl, still sat by the hearth where Merlin had left it. She picked it up, sliding her fingers over the familiar surface. Balinor had made it, she remembered. During a long winter's storm, he had carved it simply to have something to do. She still remembered the rhythmic sound of his knife as it scraped against the wood, the way his hands had moved, caressing the wood, and how his eyes had glinted in the firelight. Merlin had loved to eat from that bowl, since he was old enough to serve himself at the table. And then suddenly, she could not stop her tears.
She knew she could not tell Merlin about his father. The danger to Merlin would be overwhelming, although she knew his heritage would inevitably seek him out. She thought of the dragon that Uther had chained in the bowels of the castle, and she trembled when she thought of the creature's retribution. It terrified her to think if he should ever get loose. But even more deeply, she feared the dragon, and how it might call to her son. Balinor had said Kilgarrah was a dangerous creature, wise and possessed of a strange kindness, but full of anger at his betrayal, sunk in bitterness. For the hundredth time, she wondered if her lover and the dragon had been more alike than even Balinor could admit. She believed he was alive, somewhere. It was a familiar pain. So she wept.
She wept for her fear for Merlin. She wept for the family that she could not give Merlin; she wept for the Purge that threatened her child's wondrous gift, and she wept for the unknown destiny that had stalked him since his birth.
"Oh, Mum", he had heard him say as he came back in the house, and the compassion in his voice lightened her fear, just as he knew it would. He put his arms around her and leaned his head into the crook of her neck. "I'll miss you ." She nodded her heart too full for words.
And now it was time to go. It was morning. She walked with him to the edge of the fields,pausing under a tree to tuck an apple in his pocket as he gave her one last embrace. She wanted to say something wise, something encouraging. But she could find no words . So like all mother's, through all of time, she held him close and told him she loved him and to write her soon. And then he was gone. She watched him out of sight, waving merrily as he had turned back once more as he reached the top of the hill.
As she turned to go home, a flapping shape landed beside her, high in the tree where they had said goodbye.
"Oh, there you are", she said to the bird, somehow unsurprised to see it once more at her side. "Come to see him off I guess." The hawk only gave a piercing cry.
She knew she had decided rightly. Her silence had granted him the only freedom he would know,. She might never know what would come of her decision, but her mother's heart was sure. He would be free for at least a little while. Free to learn who he was, to make friends and flirt with love, and understand his heart's desire. She knew that Merlin would come to understand in his own time, when the weight of his destiny, and the danger of his both of his heritages became inevitable. Let him be free until then to meet his destiny, she thought. Let him be free to find his way through the ruins of the past, through the secrets that could break his heart, and doom his magic. Love and freedom were stronger than destiny, she told herself. They mattered more than prophecies and signs and portents. They were stronger even than the dark secrets of the past.
He was Merlin. Her brave, kind ,sweet boy and his gift of magic flowed through him like the force of creation through the darkness of the earth, like the movement of a flame. Through the years of her motherhood she had learned to trust Merlin's magic. Magic led him where he needed to go. Magic answered the questions he could not find the words to express; it comforted him when the way was dark. Magic held him together when doubts ate his soul. Magic had called him to Camelot. Believe, she told herself. Believe in the power of his gift. Believe.
The hawk shot into the sky, his powerful wings lifting him until it caught a thermal and it rose high into the cloudless sky. Her eyes followed the falcon with a now familiar hunger, praying in her heart for her faith in his magic to cast out her fear.
"Be free. " she whispered. "Be free, Merlin."