Merlin ground his teeth as he strode down the street, his long coat whipping around his tired legs. His grip on his bag was so tight that his knuckles hurt and his wrist shot pains up his arm.
"That woman!" he spat out, in an attempt to prevent his anger from setting the nearby hedgerow aflame. "We shall be having words, Eleanor Mabel Godwyn," he said to himself, then had to spit out a few wayward hairs that the wind blew into his mouth.
He hauled the strap of his heavy bag higher onto an aching shoulder. The damp weather was playing hell with his joints today. And of course the long walk back from the Widow Abbernathy's stables wasn't helping.
Sick horse indeed! he thought. He should have known Eleanor was playing matchmaker again from the moment he'd walked into the stables. The only sick animal there had been the Widow Abbernathy.
Brazen old woman, Merlin thought. Honestly, someone her age, pinching his arse.
The roar of engines pulled him from his thoughts, and he moved closer to the hedgerow to let a large blue lorry speed past him on the road. Probably more supplies for the Summer Solstice Festival, he thought. The chaos of preparation was a nuisance every year. Still, he was looking forward to the festival itself. He could already taste the freshly made meat pies and chips-
'Merlin.'
Merlin stopped walking, all thoughts of busybody friends and summer festivals gone.
For one long moment, he stood perfectly still.
Listening.
But nothing stirred the fabric of the world. Nothing was out of place. The ancient magics were as they had been for centuries. There beneath the surface. But silent.
Off to his left, the waters of the Lake of Avalon rippled to the shore in greens and greys. Upon the island in the center of the water, the tower's ruins stood broken and still.
Idiot, he thought. And then forced his tired feet to carry him forward.
It took another few minutes before he reached the low stone wall that ran between the narrow village road and his estate.
He peered up at the large stone structure sitting in the middle of its wide lawns by the lakeside.
The North Tower needs stone work again, he thought. The seam between the rounded three story tower and the rectangular stone body of his manor house was always giving him trouble. The South Tower looked much better on the other end of the manor. But then, he'd built that a hundred years later. He'd learned a bit more about masonry by then.
"Emrys!"
Merlin pretended not to hear the call of the old woman by the front door of the manor house. Instead, he paused by the wooden gate in the low stone wall, adjusting a wooden sign declaring "Avalon Café and Apothecary" that hung from a nearby post.
Then, just to be contrary, he brushed some imaginary dirt from the sign that hung below that, which read "Avalon Museum" in small painted letters.
"Emrys Hunithson! I know you can hear me!"
Merlin brushed off some more invisible dirt, because his backside was still smarting him, then strolled casually through the gate and down the stone walkway to the main entrance of the stone manor house.
In the tall arched doorway, a short, thin, grey-haired 80 year old woman stood scowling at him, her arms crossed over a dress covered in far too many flowers. At her side were two young men in blue jumpsuits, clearly representing one of the Summer Solstice Festival vendors. The first man held a clipboard to his chest like a shield. The second was clearly attempting to hide behind the first.
"Everything under control, Eleanor?" Merlin asked sweetly.
"Are you Mr. Hunithson?" one of the men asked quickly, with a wary glance at Eleanor.
Before Merlin could answer, Eleanor spoke up. "Have you not just heard me call him that name? Honestly. And I told you he'd be here. Not that he needs to be here to sign for your tents. I told you I can do it."
"It's just- Can you sign, sir?" the man said, and thrust his clipboard at Merlin.
"Eleanor runs the festival for me, young man. She can sign for whatever it is that's so important that you're blocking the door to my business and my home." He pointed at the customers who stood behind the open double doors, wanting to leave the café beyond.
Eleanor grabbed the clipboard as the men stepped out of the way of the customers. "There," she said, thrusting the clipboard back at him. "Now get moving. The tents need to be up by this afternoon, before the food vendors. And don't put a tent over the Stone Circle!" she called after them, as they rushed away. "It caught on fire last year!" She pointed at Merlin. "Which was your fault, if I remember."
"I was only trying to-" Merlin caught himself and gave her a furious stare. "Nevermind that! I have a bone to pick with you, Eleanor Mabel Godwyn! About the Widow Abbernathy!"
She tipped up her chin and looked down her thin nose at him. "I have no idea to what you are referring."
He followed her into the vestibule to the house. "I am referring to the supposedly sick horse that supposedly required my personal attention!"
"Was her horse better when you got there?"
"Her horse was never sick! Which I could easily see from every angle imaginable as she tried to corner me in the stables! Stop laughing! It's not funny!"
He saw her cover her mouth with her hand as she walked into the cavernous main room of the main building, her laugh echoing on the stone walls.
Merlin hadn't really meant to make the main part of the manor house a replica of Camelot's throne room in size and scale. But somehow, it had happened. He had modern decorations hanging from the walls, and WiFi, and it was filled with café tables and customers, with a lunch counter at one end and his Apothecary at the other. But otherwise, it was quite close indeed.
Well, except for the glass wall that faced the lake, he thought. Though that had definitely been an improvement. The floor to ceiling glass allowed natural light to fill the cavernous room. It also allowed an unimpeded view of the Lake of Avalon, and its tower.
"Do be sure to wash off that smell of horse manure, Emrys," Eleanor said over her shoulder, as she moved through the dozens of small round tables filling the hall.
People seated nearby glanced up at him from their coffee or tea and sandwiches as he strode after her. Well, unfamiliar faces did anyway, he noticed. The regulars just kept working on their laptops or ate their food. They'd heard Merlin bickering with Eleanor before.
Merlin stopped in the middle of a group of empty tables. "Eleanor!" he said sharply, in the tone that Gaius had always used when he had done something dangerous that had nonetheless saved the kingdom, not that anyone was thanking him for it of course.
Eleanor turned around and studied his face curiously. "Are you in pain, Emrys?"
"I am not in pain. I am giving you The Eyebrow. Do you see it? Right here?" Merlin pushed up the corner of his eyebrow with an arthritic finger. For fifteen centuries he'd walked the earth, and still he couldn't mimic that thing Gaius did. "This," he informed Eleanor, "is the Eyebrow of Disapproval. Because of you! Setting me up with a village widow! Again! Which I specifically told you I did not want you to do!"
"If the Widow Abbernathy isn't your type, I know a few others who would be interested."
"What? No! That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying! Are you listening?"
"Only when you make sense."
Merlin yanked his knit hat off, sending long strands of white hair flying wildly in the air around his face. "Why have I never sacked you? You never do what I tell you!"
"That's because I know what's best for you," she said.
Merlin's reply died on his lips, as memory replaced the waking world.
"Why do I put up with you, Merlin? You never do what I tell you to do."
"That's because I know what's best for you, my lord. You'd be totally lost without me."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Absolutely. I doubt you could even find your royal backside on your own."
"I'm sure I'd find it twice as fast."
"If you did, it would only be on account of its massive size."
"Shut up, Merlin."
A touch on his arm drew Merlin from his thoughts. Eleanor was standing in front of him, indistinct and blurry. He blinked, and felt tears slide down his cheeks and into his beard.
"I need to get these herbs to the Apothecary," he told her in a low voice, touching his hand to his shoulderbag.
She started to speak, paused, then nodded. "When you're done, meet me in the park. I know you'll want final say on where the Cornish Pasties vendor should set up. Heavens forbid that he's too far away."
"They were sold out by the time I got there last year," he informed her.
"I think I do remember you mentioning that for three solid months after last year's festival," she said wryly, and turned to go.
Merlin watched her weave through the café tables, greeting people as she passed. A request from a customer made her nod, and walk to the narrow end of the hall, where the thrones had been in Camelot. A long café counter stretched across the space, beyond which was access to both the kitchens and to his own residence in the North Tower.
When Eleanor reached the counter, even more customers smiled at her, chatting happily, or holding out empty cups towards the teapot she offered them.
Merlin sighed, his anger from earlier now mostly gone. He never could stay angry at Eleanor for long. She was too good of a friend. She had been for thirty years now. Yes, she nagged and she meddled, but it was because she cared. She was only matchmaking to give him what she'd found late in life with her second husband. Someone to care for. Someone to look after.
Someone to be the other side of the same coin.
Merlin's gaze drifted up from the customers at their tables, to the Lake of Avalon visible through the glass wall.
'You have no idea what I have to put up with in your absence, Arthur,' he thought at the tower.
'You mean fending off an old woman with eager hands?' came the memory of Arthur's voice, chiding and exasperated.
'I'd like to see you try and deal with her. She's a force of nature, is what she is.'
'Oh please. Something like that should hardly be a challenge, Merlin. Even for you.'
'Cheeky woman left pinch marks on my backside.'
'Is that why you hid in the empty stable from her? That was hysterical, honestly…'
"Oh shut up," Merlin said fondly, startling himself with the sound of his own voice.
He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, then frowned back at the tower. It was bad enough to routinely have imaginary conversations with someone who was dead. It was worse to have them out loud and in public.
Merlin heaved a heavy sigh.
He really had been alone too long.
Behind him, someone cleared their throat. Merlin pulled himself together, to discover a young couple standing there, both clearly nervous and a bit red in the face.
"Yes?" he asked, even though he could guess what they were about to ask him.
"Can you- I mean-" the girl glanced at her young man, who was studying the stone floor with great interest. "We're hoping you can, um. That is, we saw on the internet that you sell, um. An elixir?"
"Follow me," Merlin said, and led them out of the café area, to the opposite end of the hall. A stone wall closed off the south end of the building. Double glass doors were set into it, under an old wooden "Apothecary" sign.
Merlin pushed open the doors and walked into a room filled with rows of shelving. Each shelf held bottles and boxes and jars of various potions, as well as herbs, soaps, and other herbal remedies he and his assistants made for sale.
"Wait right here," Merlin said to the couple, and walked over to the far wall, to the sales counter that stretched along it.
His assistant Danyl sat behind the counter by the cash register, his black hair nearly obscuring his eyes as he hunched over his laptop. On a chair next to him sat his other assistant Heath, who today looked as if he'd just walked off the rugby pitch, his blond hair mussed and his face ruddy, his dirty trainers up on the counter while he played a game on his phone.
Merlin shoved his shoulderbag onto the counter right where Heath's feet were, nearly toppling him off his chair.
"Oi!" Heath shouted at him.
Merlin held up the sleeping bag that he'd carried all the way from the Widow Abbernathy's house. "I am not your pack horse!" he said, and threw the bundle at Heath. "If you need anything else from your Gran for Festival camping, get it yourself."
"I would have had to leave poor Danyl alone with the shop," Heath said. "You know he's completely helpless here without me."
"Only if we're talking about brainlessly lifting boxes," Danyl informed him. "Then sure. You're definitely better at that."
"So you've been watching me, eh?" Heath held up his arm and flexed his bicep at Danyl.
"You wish," Danyl muttered.
Merlin noticed Danyl's ears go red, and Heath's gaze linger on Danyl's profile. Good gods, Merlin thought, it's like being around the stallions in the stables again.
"Which reminds me," Merlin said to Heath. "The next time I get a call about your Gran's horse, you're coming along with me to see if it's actually sick. Maybe that will help your Gran keep her grabby hands to herself."
Heath watched in horror as Merlin made groping gestures with his long fingers. "Oh my god please stop," the young man begged him.
"That's what I kept saying to your grandmother," Merlin said, just to have the satisfaction of watching Heath cover his face with both hands.
"Ugh- Seriously, that's- You guys are like a thousand years old!"
"At least," Merlin agreed, and pushed his messenger bag at him again. "So help an old man by taking those herbs up to the greenhouse on the roof for drying. But first…" He picked up a small glass bottle from a group sitting on display on the counter. "Give this to that young couple over there, will you?"
After Heath had gone, Merlin rounded the counter and took his seat beside Danyl. His feet were aching from the long walk this morning. In fact, everything was aching today. He felt every bit of the 90 years his body now wore. That, and a little more, besides.
"I've got to ask you," Danyl said into his thoughts. "I know you don't always like to say… But I have to know. What's that Magic Elixr stuff that's been selling like crazy lately?"
"Vitamin C, Vitamin B, a little anisette for scent, and a little bit of honey, for sweetness."
Danyl gave him an incredulous stare. "But- That's not anything special. People are raving about it online. They say it- That it- Well. That it does all kinds of things."
"In the bedroom, you mean?" Merlin said, and happily watched Danyl close his eyes and make a horrified and disgusted face at him. Because honestly, what was the point of being old if you couldn't torture young people now and then?
"Yes, yes, that. Those ingredients shouldn't have anything to do with that."
"Sometimes," Merlin said, "all it takes is a little mystery to get the real magic to work. So you better not tell Heath what I just told you. It might ruin any fun you two might have together."
"Ssshhh!" Danyl hissed at him, with a glance over to where Heath was vanishing up the spiral stairs to the floors above.
"Haven't you told him how you feel yet?' Merlin said, not bothering to lower his voice.
Danyl waved an urgent, silencing hand at him. "I'm waiting for the right time!" he said in a low voice.
"How much longer are you going to wait? Until it's too late? You've been pining for that boy for weeks!" Merlin turned towards the stairs leading to the roof. "Heath!"
Danyl grabbed his arm. "Oh my god what are you-"
"Yes?" came the call down the stairwell.
"Danyl would like you to go with him to the Summer Solstice Festival. On a date. As a couple. Romantically." Merlin slapped at Danyl's hands as they pulled at his coat. "What do you say? Will you go with him and put him out of his misery?"
"I am never telling you a secret again!" Danyl moaned into the hand that covered his face. "You are the worst secret keeper in the history of secret keepers!"
"Tell him I'll go," came Health's voice down the stairwell. "And tell him it's about damn time he asked me."
At Merlin's side, Danyl went still, his eyes widening.
"The older you get, Danyl," Merlin said, "the more you realize that some secrets shouldn't be kept." He gave Danyl's hand a little pat. "Trust me on that."