A Hidden Threat

Chapter two

Thank you for the lovely reviews. I know this chapter has taken a while, but I have been very ill so by way of an apology I have uploaded a one shot (check it out!). Hope you enjoy this chapter! And thanks again for taking the time to read my work!

The sun rose over Camelot, the golden light blessing everything it touched. The light autumn breeze carried the scent of wild flowers and crisp leaves; the only sound to be heard was bird song and the wind in the trees. Inside the castle the first of the servants were rising to complete their tasks for the day. The knights were in their chambers after returning from a hard morning's training, all was quiet.

"MERLIN!" Arthur bellowed, causing the windows to shudder in their frames.

Merlin skidded into the prince's quarters, narrowly avoiding the discarded sword and shield strewn across the floor. Arthur was stood next to his bed with just his trousers on, clearly waiting for his servant to provide the rest of his clothes.

"You yelled, my lord?"

"Merlin, where is my shirt?" He replied in an inflamed manner, Arthur clearly wasn't in the mood for tracking down lost garments.

"Have you looked in the wardrobe sire?" Merlin replied irritatingly coolly.

Arthur crossed to the wardrobe as if to prove a point, "Of course I've looked in the…" his voice tailed off as he pulled the shirt out of the wardrobe, Merlin tried to hide a smirk, unsuccessfully.

"Oh shut up!" Arthur replied.

He pulled the shirt over his head and smoothed down his golden hair, while throwing Merlin a look dripping with venom. Merlin crossed to the window and gazed out at the crowds of people milling about, preparing for the day's festivities. Arthur pulled a belt around his waist and went to retrieve his sword from where it had been dumped after training.

"Are you looking forward to today?" Merlin enquired, an attempt to improve the prince's clearly foul mood. "You never know it could be fun!"

"Or it could be like every other tedious event Camelot has hosted this year." Arthur spat indignantly. All hope of improving the prince's mood evaporated with this statement.

"There's no pleasing some people."

The event to which Merlin was referring was the festivities held in honour of Princess Meredin of Claymere's sixteenth birthday. Uther had pulled out all the stops, inviting the great and the good from all four corners of the kingdom, laying on entertainment and a great feast. Fair to say despite the impressive preparations the young royal would no doubt be able to find fault, as she did with all matters. The celebrations were mainly in aid of cementing the relationship between the two kingdoms. But the princess didn't need to know that, as far as she was concerned it was merely a gesture of good will on Camelot's part.

"The girl's a terror, Merlin. It's alright for you, you don't have to sit with her all night. She's self-obsessed, arrogant and just plain rude!" With this Arthur threw himself onto his crisp bed sheets, staring up at the ceiling he began to fiddle with his nails.

"Who does that remind me of?" Merlin replied under his breath. Arthur either didn't hear or chose to ignore the comment.

"You know, she laughs at her own jokes." He continued absentmindedly, "God her laugh. You could strip paint with it! I don't know how I'm going to last a whole night having to sit and talk to her."

Merlin was still staring out the window as an ornate carriage drew up outside the castle, drawn by two beautiful black stallions, and accompanied by at least four footmen. Clearly, when it came to the princess, there was no expense spared. Without turning round Merlin stated, "Well, you're going to have to work that out later, she's arrived."

Arthur crossed to the window, standing behind Merlin he looked down at the courtyard below. Merlin didn't need to turn round to work out that Arthur was rolling his eyes. The prince exhaled noisily.

"Well I suppose we'd better go down and greet her." Arthur finally stated, defeated.
Merlin suddenly panicked, he had been dreading the princess's arrival just as much as Arthur was. There was no way he was going to go down there willingly. Arthur realised this but he was not going to let Merlin get out of it on this occasion, if Arthur had to suffer then so did he.

"Oh well, sire, I'd love to but I do have a lot of jobs to get on with." Merlin racked his brain to come up with some chores that would take a long time to complete. "Your horses need mucking out… and… your armour, your armour really needs polishing."
Arthur simply stood there, stony faced, unimpressed. He was staring Merlin down, determined to win this argument. And if Arthur wanted something, chances are, he'd find a way to get it.

"Merlin?" He asked his voice quiet and unnervingly reasonable.

Merlin wasn't sure whether to fight his corner. Was there really any point? By now he'd realised that it was futile trying to contradict Arthur. Besides it was only fair that if the prince had to endure this infuriating adolescent then so should his servant, not that Merlin would ever admit this.

"Yes, sire?" Merlin replied defeated.

"Get downstairs." Arthur finished sharply.

Merlin trudged dejectedly towards the door, Arthur followed him grabbed his cloak from its resting place on the table and whipped it over his shoulders dramatically. Arthur then followed Merlin out of the room, a sinking feeling overwhelming him and telling him that the day was not going to go well.

…

Sat at the head table, next to Princess Meredin was not Arthur's idea of fun. She had been prattling on for the last hour about how brilliant she was and about how much everyone around her enjoyed her company, Arthur's opinion was that whoever these people were they must have been either mad or lying. Luckily he had wine, lots of wine; the one and only good aspect of this celebration was that the alcohol was certainly not in short supply, a common convention of many of Camelot's feasts. Fortunately Princess Meredin had turned away to talk to the Lady Morgana, although Arthur pitied her, at least it meant that he had a few moments of peace and quiet. Arthur suddenly spied Merlin and beckoned him over.

"Merlin, you have to get me out of here." Arthur muttered desperately "I don't think I can take much more of this. The girl's driving me insane!"

"I'm afraid I can't sire, I have to attend to drinks and the cooks need help with the food, they're very understaffed." Although the words may have seemed sympathetic, it was obvious from his tone of voice that Merlin was in fact highly enjoying the prince's agonizing encounter with the princess.

"Merlin, please. I'm begging you, get me out of here." The Prince looked up at his friend with pleading eyes, and what did his friend do?

"Sorry." He turned his back on the prince and walked away. Making it obvious he was not sorry, it took all his energy and restraint not to fall about laughing. Arthur called after Merlin, desperate for an escape route. Too late. Merlin was out of earshot and the princess had lost interest in Morgana and now turned back to the prince.

"And so my riding instructor said I had the best canter position he'd ever seen."
The prince bit his tongue hard, just to stop himself running out of the banqueting hall screaming in anger.

…

Merlin exited the banqueting hall with as much haste as possible, he did not want to be around when Arthur finally lost his temper with Princess Meredin. He was carrying a jug of wine back to the kitchen. In his haste Merlin didn't look where he was going and as he rounded a corner he crashed into another servant coming in the opposite direction. As a result he ended up throwing the jug of wine over himself, soaking his shirt.

"Oh my God!" The servant picked up the fallen jug and handed it back to him.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were there." She explained.

"Really it's fine." Merlin replied, calm and accepting as usual.

Merlin rubbed at his shirt trying to remove some of the wine but it wouldn't budge. He looked up, for the first time, at the young woman who had just crashed into him, and she was beautiful. Tall and slender with blonde hair that fell about her shoulders and deep blue eyes. For a very awkward moment they both had no idea what to say. They just stared into each other's eyes. But for some reason it wasn't romantic, more like sibling admiration.

Thankfully the tension was broken by a very familiar voice, "Merlin!"

Merlin visibly sank as his master's voice hit him. He turned to see the prince striding towards him, his cape billowing behind him, his face a picture of borderline psychotic rage. "Sire!"

"Merlin, I am going to kill you!" The prince spat. His voice a mixture of pure anger and imminent madness as he pinned his servant against the wall.

"Evening not going well then? At this point the prince looked as if he was going to either strangle his servant or burst into tears, but Merlin couldn't quite tell which. He was intrigued to find out though.

"Not going well? Not going well? Merlin I don't know how I'm going to survive the next three hours, short of sticking forks in my legs." He truly sounded defeated, a man on the brink of reason, when a thought occurred to him that somewhat lifted his mood.

"Or in yours!" The prince revelled in a tone of twisted pleasure. "That girl is driving me to the threshold of neurosis. You could have got me out of there, made an excuse, anything. But you walked away. And now I am going to. Murder. You."
The prince was suddenly interrupted by an audience he hadn't counted on. In his rush to persecute Merlin he had not acknowledged the woman standing next to him.

"Is that Princess Meredin?" The girl enquired in an exasperated manner.

The prince looked at her quizzically. So she continued, in answer to her own question.

"I'm Carmen, Sire. I work for the princess. She's a handful but you learn to love her." She realised what she said and then began to reconsider it.
"Well, love is hardly the right word, endure is probably better."

An idea suddenly dawned on the prince, "Hold on, you work for her. So how do you shut her up?"

This was clearly Carmen's area of expertise as she replied without fault or hesitation "Try hunting or local politics. Anything that involves an ounce of intelligence will bore her."
Arthur's face suddenly lit up at this revelation, as these were his areas of expertise. At this point Merlin saw an opportunity to make an ill-conceived joke.

"I don't see how hunting is intelligent!" He laughed, taking great delight in Arthur's cutting look.

"I like hunting" Carmen replied, earning an admiring look from Arthur and one of disbelief from Merlin. Now it was Arthur's turn to take delight as Merlin squirmed. Although he would have loved to see how this situation was going to play out, the prince took this as his cue to exit

"Thank you Carmen, you have no idea how amazing you are." He stated.

"Oh I think I do sire," She replied jokingly, "I wake up every morning, look in the mirror and can't help thinking, 'yeah, I'm just that good'"

Arthur laughed at his, but then realised that people would start to wonder where he was. So he bowed his head to Carmen, who returned the gesture, threw one last look of distaste at his servant before turning his back, armed with this new information, and making his way back to the banqueting hall. This meant that Merlin, Carmen and the awkward silence were left alone, together.

Merlin decided to break the stillness, "About that, I didn't mean you weren't intelligent, I just… I didn't think."

Carmen smiled sweetly putting Merlin at ease "It's fine, I throw alcohol over you, you call me stupid!" She laughed "I guess that makes us even."
Merlin laughed in response, he'd decided, he liked Carmen.

"Oh, Merlin by the way" He stated, realising he hadn't properly introduced himself. She shook his outstretched hand and then turned to leave.

"Well, nice to meet you Merlin."

Carmen then strode back to the banqueting hall, Merlin watched her go. He then realised that maybe he should do something a little more productive than standing in an empty corridor, and so he turned his attention back to his sodden shirt. If he was quick he could probably get changed and come back before anyone had missed him. So he walked off in the opposite direction to Carmen and the prince.

Had he looked back as he walked away he may have noticed something slightly out of the ordinary. Somehow, out of thin air, a man appeared, a golden mist swirling about his feet. He, however, was nothing out of the ordinary, an ordinary man with an ordinary face. Well maybe not completely ordinary, there was a particularly distinguishing feature about this man. Something almost mesmerising.

And that was his piercing green eyes.