A/N: I'm not even gonna try and apologise for this being so late. I think we all know by now that my uploading is sporadic at best. My muse hates me and sulks in a corner when I try and force myself to write. I'm getting ready to go to uni in the next twenty days, though, so I probably won't upload before I'm typing from my desk in my studyroom XD

This chapter gave me a lot of trouble, though, as there's a lot of filler here . Many thanks to my Beta, TheImpossiblePen, for being so patient and encouraging me to carry on the plot as it is. And thank you all who are reading, reviewing, favourite and alerting.

AWA xx

Chapter 7

"My name is Tamara," she replied, standing straight before carrying on. "But you may know me as the Queen of Tam's Kingdom, Dauth."

Merlin's mouth fell open.

"You're-" he paused to swallow the shake in his voice and tried again. "You're the Queen of Tam's kingdom?" he questioned, hoping she was just pulling his leg. But no. Tamara. Tam. It made sense. Plus, it would explain the haughty tone her voice had taken on earlier when she thought he was going to walk out on her – as though no one had ever turned their back on her like that before. Her clothes, as well, should have at least alerted him to the fact she was nobility of some kind. They were too well made for simple travelling clothes, and as he looked at her more carefully, he saw that her necklace was made of gold, silver and semi-precious gems. What he thought to be the sleeves of her dress were in fact fingerless gloves of intricate lace and silk ribbon.

"Yes, that's what I just said," Tamara replied patiently, obviously amused by Merlin's reaction.

Merlin pursed his lips and put his hands on his hips, his first defence being offence. "Well, excuse me for not trusting that a Queen would come out here, into the middle of a forest in another kingdom, just to kidnap someone and ask a favour of them. I thought that was what counsellors and treaties and messengers were all for. You know, making friends with other kingdoms so you can use their resources and ask for help when you need it, without having to go through the whole process of kidnapping someone!" His voice had risen slightly towards the end, making his frustration towards the situation more than just a little obvious.

Tamara sighed. "You're not going to let that go, are you?" she asked rhetorically. "I am sorry about the kidnapping, but your friends are safe, as is your King. In fact, I dare say he is safer here than he is at home. All those scheming bastards he keeps around, blind as to their true loyalties..."

The young warlock facing her nodding slowly in agreement. Then he blinked rapidly and looked up at her sharply.

"What scheming bastards? What do you know? Who the hell is planning against Arthur now?" he demanded. The worry and fear grew within him, but other than his narrowed eyes none of it showed in Merlin's expression.

"It's nothing for you to worry over, Merlin," Tamara assured him. "Arthur is with Damien now. He won't let any harm come to your King. After all, once this matter has been settled I have been hoping to meet Arthur formally, myself."

Merlin stared at his new companion for a few seconds, until his eyes slid closed and he took a of steadying breathe. Tamara simply watched him with compassionate eyes, partly amused and partly exasperated that they hadn't yet moved on. But they still had plenty of time, she reasoned, and stayed her tongue to allow Emrys enough time to gather his thoughts and accept the situation.

Thankfully the young man was never one to disappoint. "So let me get this straight. You want my help for something and to do that you couldn't go through Arthur or any formal means, so you made up a story about the Holy Grail being found and made sure it got to Arthur in the knowledge he would go on a quest after it, himself? And then you kidnapped me and put this Damien guy - who's disguised with magic - in my place so none of the knights would know I'm gone. Is that everything, or would you like to explain what you need my help for?" Merlin said diffidently, gesticulating frantically as he started to pace back and forth across the cave.

"No. That is all for now. I'll explain why I need your help later on, when I will be able to show you what has happened. For now, we should be going. If we leave now we can make camp for the night in Dauth and be at our destination by tomorrow morning." The young Queen took in Merlin's tense shoulders and the muscle jumping in his jaw and added, "or we can push on through the night and be there before midnight."

Spurred on by the prospect of getting this task done quickly, Merlin paused in his pacing and twirled round to face her. His jacket flew out behind him as he did so, reminding Tamara of a bird in flight.

Merlin nodded firmly. "Yes, lets. I'd like to get this over with as quickly as possible. So long as Arthur doesn't realise I'm gone, I don't see much harm in helping you," he reasoned.

~#~~#~

Sunlight filtered down through the grey clouds and the canopy of leaves overhead as Arthur signalled for everyone to stop and dismount their horses. The party was at the edge of the forest now, not a mile from the border to Tam's kingdom.

"Remove your armour and anything with the Pendragon crest," Arthur commanded, turning to his knights. "Don your travelling cloaks and change your shirts if you need to. Merlin, come help me out of my armour, would you? Then feed and water the horses. We may as well take a short break before crossing the border."

Damien looked over at the King from where he'd been talking softly to his mount. Animals were not as easily fooled by the magic he was using to disguise himself and while she hadn't yet given him away, the mare was twitchy and on edge. She knew Damien wasn't her master (the sorcerer wondered if Merlin was her only master, judging by the mare's reaction to Damien handling her) and the boy was doing all he could to keep her calm and get her to like him, even just a fraction as much as she liked Merlin.

"Yes, Sire," the servant nodded his head and strode over to Arthur. Thankfully armour was something he knew how to deal with and his fingers moved deftly over the ties and buckles until Arthur stood in his chain mail. Divesting his 'master' of the heavy links of steel, Damien left the armour for Arthur to pack away in his saddle bags; extra, empty bags had been brought to accommodate hiding their armour, seeing as they had rode rather lightly until now and the armour they were wearing would make the bags bulky unless hidden carefully. He stepped off to feed the horses as ordered, tuning out the banter between the knights.

Arthur watched the man he thought to be his manservant for a few moments, noting how he frowned instead of smiling idiotically and how his brow was just slightly creased. It could have been that the younger man was simply concentrating on the task at hand, but somehow Arthur doubted it. Merlin had been helping Arthur into and out of his armour, and feeding the horses, for almost a decade. There was no way he would be concentrating on it hard enough to make him frown. Some thing's on his mind, Arthur concluded with a concerned frown of his own. He rolled his eyes as he considered just how that would have sounded had he spoken his thoughts aloud. He could never keep his concern for his friends from his voice and when it proved to be needless he was teased and ribbed about it until even the knights grew bored of the subject. Still, he would get the idiot to cough up about it later if he had to. He was King, after all. Merlin had to tell him if he ordered him to.

Laughter drew his attention from his friend even as concern coiled even tighter in his stomach.

The knights had taken it upon themselves to try and lighten the ever darkening atmosphere, the one that had fallen over them since Merlin had told them of the Holy Grail on the first evening. Arthur didn't know what, exactly, had just happened, but the results were amusing enough to allow him to push his manservant's distraction from his mind.

Elyan was currently sprawled out on his back on the road as the others stood laughing around him. They were packing their armour away, dressed in travelling clothes with worn leather jackets that would act as thin armour for now. Leon was already wearing his cloak; Percival had his own draped over one arm.

Gwaine held his hand out for Elyan as Leon said something Arthur couldn't hear. Percival laughed and Gwaine looked up at Leon to respond, his grin widening to ridiculous proportions.

In a movement too quick for the long-haired knight to react to, Elyan grabbed Gwaine's wrist and yanked him down. The action threw him off balance and caused Gwaine to yell out in surprise. The knight landed sprawled face-down on the dusty road. Elyan was on him in an instant, mindful of his friend's injured shoulder as he held him down and rubbed the knuckles of one hand fiercely against Gwaine's skull. Elyan, Percival and Leon laughed harder. Gwaine swore vehemently and he tried to wriggle out from his friend's hold with no such luck. He was even loud enough to take Damien's attention away from the horse he was murmuring quiet nonsense to.

"Fools," Damien muttered darkly, turning back to Arthur's horse and stroking her mane tenderly.

The word had been quiet and obviously not intended for the ears of another, but Arthur was still close to him and heard it clearly. His chest felt unusually tight and the King paused in sorting his saddle bags out. Arthur thought about how Merlin had been acting strange all morning – heck, he'd been acting weird since the previous evening! But Arthur couldn't for the life of him fathom why.

It was with great reluctance that Arthur went back to his saddle bags, watching Damien out of the corner of his eye. The boy was doing exactly as he'd been told, almost working without thinking about what he was doing as he fed and watered the horses in turn.

"Merlin, mate," Gwaine greeted as he approached Damien a few minutes later. The brunette received a rather dark look for interrupting the imposter, but Damien said nothing to dissuade Gwaine from saying more. "You all right? You've been acting a bit off since yesterday."

Damien tensed, wondering just how off he had been acting. He'd bantered with Arthur, joked and sang with Gwaine and made a few teasing comments towards Percival when the opportunity to do so arose. He had even smiled so much his jaw ached.

Shaking his head, he looked up and gave Gwaine a disarming, lopsided grin. "I'm fine. Just a bit tense, you know?" he tried, going back to feeding the horse before him.

Gwaine sighed and patted the horses' flank, stroking gently as he nodded. "Yeah, I hear you," he said empathetically, before smiling brightly. He filled his smile with such enthusiasm and optimism that even Damien felt himself smiling slightly as the sight of it. "But we always manage to come out intact in the end, don't we? We've been on far worse quests than scouring a whole kingdom for something like this Grail, right?" Gwaine nudged Damien's shoulder good-naturedly, and Damien took the cue to laugh lightly.

"Yeah, right," he said. Outwardly, he was agreeing with the uncouth knight, but inwardly, Damien was laughing at his idiocy. This lot really were all brawn and no brains. That must have been why they kept Merlin around, he thought wryly.

Clapping Damien on the shoulder as he moved away, Gwaine was completely unaware of the taunting thoughts running through the younger man's mind. He was just happy that said man seemed to have cheered up a little again and that he now understood 'Merlin's earlier behaviour.

~#~

"Reminds me of the border between Essetir and Camelot," Gwaine remarked. He looked over at Arthur and Damien and smiled widely, thinking they would understand that he was referring to their quest into the Perilous Lands.

"It does, a little," Arthur smiled at him, then faced forwards to take in more of the view of what lay before them.

Damien glanced at him, wearing a funny expression mirrored in the faces of the other knights – an expression that spoke of not understanding what must have been an inside joke. Damien shrugged, staring out at the landscape with a small smile now. "I guess," he said, figuring that Merlin would have known what Gwaine was on about and therefore it would be odd for him not to reply in affirmation at least in some way.

They all sat in their saddles, the horses stood side by side in the middle of a field. Tall, untamed grass surrounded the group, yellowed by the sun and lack of rain and dotted by wild flowers of a variety of colours; white, blue, lilac, red, yellow, orange... It was truly a stunning sight to behold.

Behind them the forest stretched out on either side, disappearing somewhere on the right and giving way to fields and farms. On their left the forest reappeared a league or two from their current position and curling around until it came back up in front of them again, spread out at the bottom of the decline until it tapered off to give way to a sprawling citadel at least twice the size of Camelot.

Details of the citadel were hard to make out from their current position, but they could see the tall wall around the outer-most reaches of the town. Three large sets of gates set into the wall at the North, East and Southern cardinal points, marked by the dual look-out posts on either side of each gate. Three slimmer, smaller walls intersected parts of the city, making it look like there were different tiers. The west tier, the 'highest' tier, was taken up by the castle.

Leon found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the magnificent sight laid out below. "I take it that's where the royal family lives," he said haltingly. His eyes were narrowed as he ran a scrutinising eye over the city, searching out the defences and any observable weak points. He was, after all, a knight of Camelot through-and-through. Any kingdom could be an enemy at any point of time in the future. Treaties could be broken almost as quickly as they were created. It was better to get to know a city's weaknesses before any situation occurred where they would be in need of such knowledge. It gave them an advantage, should a war be declared and they decided to march on the enemy's stronghold.

Percival cast his gaze over the land to the east and west, making out a couple of villages a few miles from the citadel and spying a river that ran from the north-east toward the citadel, where it dwindled and disappeared before it reached the city.

"It would probably be best to go to the city first, get provisions and see what the local gossip says about the situation," Percival suggested thoughtfully.

Arthur and Damien both nodded their heads without looking away from the grey walls of Dauth. It was Damien that spoke first, unwittingly slipping into a tone that mirrored Merlin's own voice on occasion.

"It's where the Grail would have been kept, so any guards present when it was found to be gone would no doubt have gossiped to other guards and their families. Even if word hasn't gotten far from the city, most within its walls will know something of what happened," he said.

Arthur couldn't help but smirk to himself. As far as he knew, Merlin has just had one of his wise moments again, a distant look in his servant's eye that told of some kind of plan being formed. He was definitely going to corner the sly idiot later on.

"Well, we're just acting like normal travellers right?" Gwaine started, looking around at his friends. As soon as they stepped across the border, they would be knights, servant and King no longer, shedding their titles and status' as they entered unknown territory. Without waiting for some kind of response, Gwaine said jovially, "Well then, have some enthusiasm, people!" With that he spurred his horse on, quickly gaining in speed as it raced down the hill. He shouted back to those staring after him. "Race ya!"

"Gwaine!" Arthur shouted in exasperation. Damien's horse kicked up dirt as it suddenly thundered past him, as well. "Merlin!" the King shouted louder, his frustration growing as he was left behind in the dust.

Leon sighed and dropped his head into his palm. Elyan and Percival grinned at each other. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," the former laughed, taking off after the pair already disappearing into the trees near the bottom of the hill, Percival hot on his heels.

Arthur groaned. "Why are my knights such children?" he moaned to himself.

Leon chuckled. "Well, Arthur, Elyan was right at least."

That earned him a confused look from his King, until comprehension dawned on the blond and Arthur smiled indulgently, spurring his own mare into a gentle canter. "Come on, then. Can't let them get themselves lost or, gods forbid, one of them beat us there." Sure that Leon was right beside him, Arthur cast aside the unease created by this new kingdom and nudged his horse into a steady gallop.

Word count: 2,944