Alaia Skyhawk: I love it when Merlin gets one up on Arthur XD

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

Music: The Forged Seal (Merlin OST)

"Whom History Won't Remember" Episode: N/A

~(-)~

Chapter 66: Musically Disinclined ~Part 3~

"Where there's your first problem... Where did prince Arthur get this?"

Merlin watched as Gren inspected the lute he'd brought with him, frowning a little as he did so.

"Somewhere in the castle stores, I guess. It was covered with dust when he handed it to me."

Gren winced, shaking his head.

"He hands you a lute and doesn't even realise that the strings lose tension over time. They have to be tuned regularly or they start to sound sour." He began plucking at the strings one by one, tightening each in turn until all fifteen were on their proper notes. It was clearly as complicated as it looked, and he certainly took great care with it until he was done and strummed across them to play a crisp chord. "Well despite being out of use, it was stored properly. The strings are in good condition, and so is the lute itself."

Merlin accepted the instrument when it was handed back to him, looking at least a little relieved to know his failure with it last night wasn't entirely his fault. How had he been supposed to know it needed tuning?

"Thanks. So what now?"

Gren picked up his own lute, demonstrating how to hold and how to pluck the strings.

"You'll notice the strings are in pairs, except for the highest pitch one. You pluck each pair together as though one string. Only the really complicated songs have you pluck them separately. So for all intents you'll be playing that as if it has eight strings, not fifteen."

Merlin listened intently as the other servant began to show him how to play the different chords he'd need for the song he was going to show him, and while it wasn't the easiest song in his repertoire, it wasn't the most technically difficult either. He had Merlin's complete attention as he played the song through twice, slowly, the other servant occasionally plucking at the strings of his lute thoughtfully to memorise the pattern and order they were plucked in for each chord of the piece. In fact he was so intent it was almost a little unnerving, and Gren eyed him uncertainly after completing the piece for the second time.

Merlin jolted from his thoughts when he realised he was being stared at, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"Sorry, um... What was the first chord again?"

Gren still looked a bit unnerved, but obliged.

"D-minor, and accentuate the lower A when you pluck it for the second time."

Merlin listened carefully, nodding to himself when he heard the slightly harder pluck on that note as Gren had said, before copying the position of his left hand on the neck of the lute and setting the fingers of his right to the strings where they crossed the sound hole. He then tentatively plucked them in the order Gren had dictated, slowly at first but almost immediately speeding up when it turned out not to be as difficult as he'd expected.

He grinned.

"What's the next one?" Gren demonstrated, still regarding Merlin somewhat oddly, that expression deepening when the servant performed that one with only a minor error and asked again. "The next?"

By the time they got to the fifth chord of the verse, Merlin had stopped looking up at Gren to check the finger positions on the fretboard. He just listened and then played, listened and played, until they reached the end of the chorus of the ballad and in sheer enjoyment of how easy this was turning out to be, he played through the whole verse and chorus again on his own.

By this point Gren wasn't so much unnerved as astounded, slowing shaking his head after hearing his impromptu student getting nigh to note perfect after only playing it once with guidance and having never touched a lute before in his life.

"If I wasn't seeing this, I'd have trouble believing it... Almost perfect pitch and note recall. Where did you learn rote memorisation like that?"

Merlin looked up at him, blinking, with a sinking feeling he'd just done something altogether odd. He couldn't exactly tell the man he'd been remembering the rhythms the way he memorised the timing and inflection of spell incantations.

He cringed a bit as he spoke.

"I'm guessing that what I just did is strange."

Gren shook his head again.

"Strange, no, remarkable, yes. I've only ever heard of people who are natural musicians, they're so rare. I've never met one before."

Merlin's wince became an awkward smile.

"Um well, I guess now you have. So, um... what next?"

Gren rattled his fingers against the body of his lute for a moment, thinking before answering.

"Lord Asher thinks he's going to win, and while you're naturally good at this you're not note perfect yet. And if we're really going to show him up, then you're going to have to sing as well. You want to try now? You know the words."

Merlin, hesitant, nodded with slight reluctance.

"Ok, let's try it."

He tried not feel any dread as they both started to play the song, listening for the entry for the first verse, and taking a deep breath as it arrived...

~(-)~

Five days, how fast could five days go by?

Arthur paced in his chambers, the hour late as he waited for his servant to show up. Surely Merlin would have made some progress with that lute by now, he'd been giving him plenty of time to practice with it. But still, what was taking him so long to get up here with it?

The door finally opened, the aforementioned servant entering with the lute and an uncomfortable expression, the prince immediately turning to him.

"So how has the practicing being going?"

Merlin averted his gaze, eyes drifting towards the floor in avoidance and his words like a portending of doom.

"Not too bad... sort of." He put on an obviously forced smile, trying to act cheerful. "This is about that bet you have going with Lord Asher, isn't it?" When Arthur choked, Merlin shrugged again. "You really didn't think I wouldn't figure it out, did you? Kind of hard no too, considering Gren has been nudging at me, saying I'm going to lose, almost as much as Asher has been doing to you."

He saw Arthur wince, saw how those words immediately put a sense of dread up the prince's spine. But to give Arthur credit, he managed to retain a nearly flawless composure.

"Well if you know then go on, play something. Whatever you think you can play well enough for when the two of them come here in the morning."

Merlin looked down at the lute he held, as if only now remembering he was holding it. He then put his fingers to the strings... strings that he had deliberately loosened a few of to render the instrument horrifically sour. It took all of fifteen seconds for Arthur to frantically wave at him to stop, and it was written all over his face... tomorrow he was going to be humiliated.

Merlin suppressed a smile, deciding to rub it in.

"I told you it took Gren five years to learn how to be that good... I guess it just shows that when you try to force others into things to make yourself look good, you get what you deserve."

Arthur, seeing Merlin raise his eyebrows while also staring at him, groaned.

"All right, so I asked for this, but still... This is going to be humiliating."

Merlin's tone was flat.

"If you think you are going to be humiliated, think about how I feel."

Merlin turned at left at Arthur's signal, the prince now about to spend a night dreading tomorrow, his frown turning to a smirk as soon as he was out of the prince's sight.

The following morning, Merlin deliberately edged at Arthur even more when he arrived with his lute after clearing the breakfast things. He paced nervously, plucking at soured strings as if in hope of managing to pull off a miracle, until finally it was time and Lord Asher arrived with Gren.

The two servants shared a brief knowing look before pretending disinterest in each other, while Asher strode confidently into the room smirking to himself.

"The week is up, My Lord. Shall we see now who is the victor?"

Arthur glanced at Merlin, who was still seemingly trying to figure out how to play the instrument he held, and cleared his throat hesitantly.

"As the one who suggested the bet in the first place, perhaps you would like to have your servant perform first."

"Certainly."

Asher waved Gren forward, the servant beginning to play a fairly standard song with as much effort as he probably rolled out of bed this morning. He was playing it more than passable, but clearly he believed he needn't try too hard to win this bet for his master. Asher seemed to think so too, still smirking as he listened to the man sing.

For Arthur this was becoming almost torturous, and it was now that Merlin edged closer to him and murmured quietly.

"If I were to ask you to swear to never again ask me to perform music in front of people, what would you say?"

Arthur gritted his teeth, muttering back.

"Trust me, after hearing you I wouldn't want you to perform ever again."

Merlin shrugged a little.

"True, but if I did ask, would you swear to it?"

Another pause...

"Yes, I would."

Merlin, hiding his amusement, leaned a touch closer and allowed himself a hint of a wicked smile.

"Swear it, and I promise I'll make this as painless for you as possible. If you won't, then I might just see how much worse I can play than what I did last night."

Arthur, cringing at the thought, showed no further hesitation.

"Fine, I swear on my honour I will never ask you to perform music or sing in public ever again."

Merlin smiled inward in victory, suppressing the urge to chuckle to himself until Gren ended his song and Lord Asher addressed his opponent again.

"Well, Prince Arthur?"

Arthur nudged Merlin forward, trying his best not to wince in anticipation. However, Merlin now had a sly smile on his face as he strumed over the soured strings... and then re-tuned them to sweet harmony. Both nobles now looked a little surprised, Merlin chuckling under his breath before starting to flawlessly pluck out the opening chords of his chosen song. And then, when his entry came, he started to sing.

Arthur practically gaped when Merlin's voice filled the room in lyrical perfection, resounding tones drawing irrepressible shivers of awe from both him and Asher. Merlin's smile had faded as he threw himself entirely into the song, capturing their attention until he ended it and they stared enraptured for a moment in the silence that followed.

Gren started to clap, seemingly grudgingly, but he had a glint in his eye. His action broke the frozen stillness of the two nobles, who then quickly started to clear their throats and clap as well.

Into that awkward silence, Merlin grinned to himself over the lute he was holding.

"I think that wins the bet."

Lord Asher turned to Arthur, thoroughly incensed.

"You never said your servant was a musician already!"

Merlin, filling in for the presently speechless Arthur, kept his tone carefully polite. Time to forestall any future explosion from Arthur by making him look good on his terms.

"You never asked, Lord Asher. You just assumed that, if you drew him into this bet, you would win. My Lord suspected as much, and decided to let you think that."

Asher almost gaped for several seconds, before scowling at having been so thoroughly 'outsmarted'.

"I'll send my servant to you with the gold before I leave."

He stormed out of the room, Arthur only now spotting the wry smile Gren gave Merlin. The prince folding his arms across his chest in increasing suspicion once the door was closed.

"You two planned this, didn't you?"

Merlin couldn't help it anymore, he burst out laughing and took several moments to recover enough to speak.

"Well when Gren agreed to help me, and then discovered I was a musical genius, we thought... we'd both get our own back on our masters for pushing us around for their own gain." He now folded his arms and regarded Arthur like a teacher rebuking a student. "Lord Asher needed to learn not to use his servant to show off for his own personal prestige, and you needed to learn to think twice before trying to do the same using me." His grin returned, and he pushed the lute into Arthur's grasp. "Besides, I have your oath now... No matter how good I am at this, you can't make me perform again unless I decide to myself. If you want some light musical entertainment from now on, maybe you should learn to play that yourself."

He left the room jauntily, while behind him Arthur could only stare.

~(-)~

Spoons clattered against the edges of wooden bowls, guardian and ward seated eating their supper of soup and leftover bread. Merlin had been smiling and chuckling to himself all day, and it was now that Gaius decided enough was enough.

He eyed his ward with raised eyebrows, waving his spoon at him a little.

"All right, what's gotten you so cheerful all of a sudden. Is it anything to do with the fact that lute no longer has residence in your room?"

Merlin gazed back, breaking into a grin.

"Lord Asher drew Arthur into a bet, that I would be able to play a lute, or sing, as good as Gren with just a week of practice to learn how. Little did he or I know, it turns out I'm a musical genius. Gren and I turned the whole thing around, so that Asher thinks he was outsmarted and will think twice before betting again in future, and so I got what I wanted from Arthur."

Gaius' eyebrows went a little higher, hinting at amusement.

"And what would that be?"

Merlin laughed.

"You should have seen the look on their faces, it was priceless. I've got Arthur's oath he won't ever ask me to do music again. I'll only do it if I decide and choose to do it myself. They way he's been the rest of today, it's like he's in some state of shock."

Gaius was now having to fight a smile.

"I should well think so, if you mastered he lute in just a week. So, do you think you'll ever perform again?"

His ward shrugged, chewing his way through a bite of bread and swallowing it.

"I don't know, maybe. If he's nice I might sing at his wedding or coronation, or something."

The physician nodded to that, thoughtful.

"Well if you do, and you sing as well as you say, then I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

"He'd better."

They looked at each other for a few moments longer, and both started laughing. Before Merlin then started gloriously singing an inane rhyme about how much of an idiot Arthur was.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: HEE HEE HEE! This part had me grinning like crazy, and I even included foreshadowing for something that might happen in season 4 :D