Once the knights began their joust, Merlin watched but without much enjoyment. The real fight he was waiting for was Arthur and Everglade, as that would secure the fate of Elze. He wondered where she was and looked around the arena, but could not see a sign of her anywhere. Instead of dwelling on this, he turned his attention back to the fight, watching a man in purple take down a rather scrawnier man in light yellow.

Arthur took on two men in the time that Merlin was watching for, and beat them in both. The two men grumbled to themselves as they took off, unhappy about being beaten.

Merlin eventually got fed up with watching the men poke each other with metal and walked through the streets, looking for something to do or someone to talk to. On his way to Gaius' chambers, he saw Elze suddenly emerge wearing a cloak, the hood up, partially hiding her face.

"Elze..?" he said, walking towards her.

She turned her head away, "What's wrong?"

"I..." she trailed off, and gestured for him to follow her.

He did so and she lead him into a quiet hallway in the castle, away from any men or anybody who might be an onlooker.

She slowly took off her hood and revealed her face which had two large cuts driven into her right cheek. They were red and quite deep, and looked like they had only just stopped bleeding. Merlin pursed his lips and moved closer to her, raising his hand slowly and tentively to her face to take a look.

He studied it for a second before turning to look at her, "What caused this?"

"I...slipped." she said, obviously lying.

"Elze," Merlin sounded serious, looking her in the eye, "Tell me the truth."

"I...Everglade," she muttered, looking down at her feet, "But you mustn't tell anyone, Merlin, for he'll have me executed!"

"But he can't get away with that," Merlin said firmly, but seeing the look on Elze's face, said, "Okay, but we must go to Gaius, he must have a look at it."

"Okay." she agreed quietly, and after readjusting her hood she let Merlin lead her to Gaius' chambers.
The two of them walked in silence until they reach it, where Merlin swung open the door and luckily Gaius was inside.
"Gaius." Merlin said.
The old man strode over and Elze took down her hood again. Gaius studied the fresh, deep cut on her cheek. After a while her turned to her.
"How did you get this?" he asked quietly.
"I..." she trailed off, looking down.
"Everglade." Merlin said.
Gaius looked surprised.
"Are you sure?"
Elze nodded, "Yes."
"Because this cut was caused by sorcery, of the strong kind."
Merlin's eye grew wide, "But that means..."
"That would mean that Everglade was a sorcerer, yes," Gaius finished, and turning to Elze, said, "Do you know anything about this?"
She nodded slowly, "Yes. He has expressed his powers before, only not so obviously."
She delicately pulled up the sleeve of her cloak to reveal a deep gash from one side of her arm to the other, just below the crease of her elbow. It looked like any other cut would, apart from the fact it that little tiny vertical lines had formed in the opposite direction, coming off of the deep cut. At closer look, they swirled around slightly, forming almost a pattern coming off of the cut.
Gaius studied it saying nothing but taking it in and making a mental note
of what it looked like.
"I have another." she said quietly.
"May I...?" Gaius asked in a calm voice.
Elze took off her cloak and placed it down on the table, and then turned around so that she was facing away from Merlin.
"Unzip." she said.
"I...sorry...what?" he stuttered, but Gaius nodded at him.
Slowly he unzipped the back of her dress and bit the side of his mouth as so not to gasp as the cut was revealed. The scar was at least six inches long, reaching from almost one side of her back to the other. The swirls and spirals coming off of it were a lot more prominent, covering about a quarter of her back.
"This is not good." Gaius said, turning away from her and starting to look through his books.
"Figured as much." she laughed, wincing as the action caused her cheek to hurt more.
"When did you receive each?" Gaius asked.
"Uh, my cheek, about an hour ago, maybe two. Arm, three weeks ago maybe? And then my back was about two months ago." she said calmly.
Merlin realised that her desire to stop working for Everglade was a lot deeper than just disliking him for being smarmy. He had been physically hurting her for over two months, but the most chilling thing was how calmly she acted about it.
He smiled at her and then left through the door, heading towards the arena.
He strode quickly with meaning, not stopping until he reached where Arthur was standing talking to another knight. He spotted Merlin and said something to the knight, leaving him and heading over to Merlin.
"Is everything okay?" he asked, prodding him to say more."Yes, I was just..." he stopped, wondering if he should say anything to Arthur or not.Arthur raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer, "Spit it out, then.""You have to beat Everglade. Elze has...she can't go on working for him." Merlin said, trying to contain his anger at what he had seen."I already told you, Merlin, I will try as hard as I can. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to, I usually beat most people, don't I?" he said, a slightly arrogant look on his face."I...thank you." Merlin walked quickly back to Gaius' chambers, unsure of what the point to that had been, as he couldn't express anything to Arthur about what he had seen on Elze, because although it was horrible and Uther hardly ever used physically punishment unless there was a particularly bad crime committed, he knew in other towns punishment of the PHYSICAL kind was used regularly on slaves.He came back in to find Gaius dabbing a liquid from a vial onto Elze's cheek, which already appeared to be turning pink instead of the bright red it had been before."Merlin." Gaius said, and there was a certain sense of urgency in his voice."Yes?" "I have found what has caused this. It is dark magic; some kind of leather or weapon laced with a slow spreading poison. I am ADDING this ointment to try to draw out the poison, but if this does not work then I will have to try something else. But whatever happens, magic has been involved, so magic will have to be involved to undo the actions." He looked pointedly at Merlin."I...right." he said, wondering how they would be able to cure Elze without her knowing that either of them were warlocks."I must go and collect some more of the ingredients used to make the ointment, for I am running low. Would you apply the rest of this to Elze?""Of course." Merlin took the vial from Gaius and poured a drop onto the rag, dabbing it lightly on Elze's cheek. Gaius disappeared through the door, and Merlin could not help his NOSINESS anymore."Why...why did he do this to you?" Merlin asked."I disobeyed his orders." Elze replied quietly, and although Merlin wanted to ask more he got the idea that she didn't want to talk about it, so kept quiet."Turn around, I need to do your back." He said, slowly unzipping her dress again so that he could apply the ointment to the scar on her back.She winced slightly as he DABBED the liquid onto her scar, but made no noise, looking silently around the room at the books and papers. Merlin delicately applied it with the rag, watching it change slightly as he did so. It was no longer red as it had been from a couple of months ago, but was instead raised and puckered. The big change he could see was that the strange pattern around it, even if only by a little, disappeared so that less of her back was filled with it. After he had covered the whole of the scar and used up the entire vial, he placed the cloth on the table and did her dress back up."Thank you Merlin." She said, turning to him and smiling."That's quite alright." He grinned."I really hope Arthur beats Everglade in this joust." She muttered quietly."Me too." Merlin took her hand, squeezing it lightly and looking at her, half smiling.At that point Gaius entered the chambers again, holding an assortment of ingredients in his hands. He laid them down on the table and turned to Elze, "I will concoct a mixture the same. It is called Bayus Leaf Potion, and if you apply it twice a day it should take all of the poison out of the wound. However, the scarring may open up again, so if any of the cuts start to draw blood again, you must come to me and stop using it immediately, do you understand?" Elze nodded, "Yes. Thank you so much, Gaius."She walked up to him and pulled him into an embrace. He hugged her back, patting her fondly but avoiding the area of her scar."It may feel rather tender but that is normal," He told her, "Just return here later for the vial.""I will do." She smiled at him."Right, Merlin, you better head off to, or Arthur will be at me again for taking you away too much." Gaius sighed, stacking up some papers that had fallen to the floor."Of course." he waved goodbye to Gaius and they both reached the door at the same time, Elze taking up her cloak.Merlin held out his arm for her to take, "Shall we?"The two of them headed out to the arena where their masters were, walking slowly through the streets of Camelot.Though Merlin was pretty sure the jousting tournament had only been going on for two days, it was as if he had been in an endless cycle of watching the people joust for weeks. As the knights whittled down, eventually there were only a few left, that including Everglade and Arthur. Merlin decided that he would wait until the fight between the two of them to watch, as it was getting rather tiresome seeing the same thing over and over. Instead, he took to staying near to Elze so that she would never be quite alone with Everglade; so that he could make sure she was okay.The day wore on slowly and eventually Merlin returned to his room to read his book in peace, for he needed a rest from everything and Arthur was busy with entertaining all of the knights, and Gaius was finishing mixing some more of the Bayus Leaf JHYTGR. When he had finished he handed it to Merlin to deliver to Elze, for he wanted to check that she was okay anyway, and this seemed like a reasonable excuse to do so.He walked down the hallway of the castle, looking for the servant chambers where Elze would be staying. He peered his head around each of the rooms but each were empty, until he heard a murmuring coming from the end one. He approached it cautiously, but as he stuck his head around the door he merely saw Elze lying on her bed."I brought this for you." He said, handing her the vial."Thank you so much Merlin." She said, smiling."That's okay." He smiled to himself before leaving, walking back to Gaius' chambers.