Episode 3.9 "Love in the Time of Dragons"
Gwaine put his forefinger to his lips, to warn the intruder to silence, as they entered the main chamber of the ruined castle, crossed the dusty floor on stealthy feet toward the young man oblivious to their approach.
Their guest gave in before Gwaine would have.
"Something smells good," the intruder remarked, and Merlin nearly fell in twisting from his crouch by the hearth. His eyes found Gwaine's though, just at their guest's shoulder, and astonishment turned to good-natured chagrin.
"Elyan," Merlin said in relief. "We didn't expect you tonight."
"Sorry if I startled you," the dark-skinned blacksmith apologized. "Gwaine's idea."
"It was not," Gwaine immediately protested, with a grin he knew neither of them would believe, but his dinner was still under Merlin's supervision.
"There's enough to share," Merlin invited. "Only two pheasants –" Gwaine had already made the joke, too bad there aren't three; Merlin glanced at him with a twinkle of memory again – "but they're stuffed with breadcrumbs and sage."
"That's probably what I smelled," Elyan said, following Gwaine's example to drop cross-legged on the wide hearth. The warmth was unnecessary as mid- edged to late-summer, but the sun had set a couple of hours ago, and the proximity to the heat wasn't unpleasant.
"What brings you this far out tonight?" Gwaine asked, as Merlin took a knife to divide portions of the roast fowl.
"The prince asked me to come," Elyan said, quiet and even-tempered as always. "The king has heard reports of a physician offering treatments in the countryside, and he suspects magic."
Gwaine looked up, surprised. On the rare occasion Merlin paid for their petty thievery with healing magic, he was usually so discretely secretive the recipients themselves didn't suspect. He caught Merlin's guilty-thoughtful look.
"Specifically?" the sorcerer said.
"Ah… he mentioned a… boy thrown from a horse," Elyan recalled. "A farmhand mauled by a boar? Apparently hopeless cases, yet each has made a full recovery. According to rumor." Elyan shrugged and Merlin shook his head.
"It wasn't me."
"The prince said there was a new case. Evoric the innkeeper? Gaius was going to investigate, but then apparently denied the use of magic in a way that made Arthur sure it was magic. Arthur asked me to come out here and –"
"Tell us to be careful?" Gwaine guessed.
"Um." The blacksmith shifted uncomfortably. "Actually, he wanted to send you to the northern border, something about Odin's men making trouble. He thinks rumors have spread that he passed through that country on his quest – the trident makes for good gossip, you have to admit – and stirred things up."
Gwaine looked at Merlin. "It's not just getting us out of the way?" he said.
Elyan shrugged; Merlin thought aloud, "Odin has long held a grudge against Arthur for the death of his son. He's sent raiders across the border and at least one assassin that I know of."
Gwaine considered Uther's probable reaction to even a hint of magic abroad in his countryside, and concluded Arthur was probably not too far off the mark – or alone – in his desire to see their friend far from harm's way. "I suppose I'll take a ride up that direction, see what I can find out."
"Did you talk to Gaius?" Merlin said to Elyan, noncommittally.
"I think," Elyan hesitated, "he avoided me."
Merlin's lips pressed together. "If someone is using healing magic carelessly enough to drawn the king's notice, Gaius is probably going to get involved," he said, and met Gwaine's eyes. "I think I might return with Elyan to the lower town tonight, see if I can help. At least maybe figure out what's going on."
Gwaine gave him a rueful grin, appreciating and understanding Merlin's tacit refusal to leave. "Be careful."
Merlin shot back immediately, "I will if you will."
Gwaine laughed out loud and took his first bite of better-than-decent roast pheasant.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Gwen's brother breathed the same caution Be careful as Merlin left him at the door of the house he shared with his sister. Merlin huffed – two and a half months now he'd been dead, and not a rumor to the contrary so far; if that wasn't careful, he didn't know what was – and heard the door latch softly behind Elyan as he ghosted down the street.
Late as it was, the Rising Sun was still doing business. Merlin's approach slowed to a series of hiding places, waiting til the street was clear before slipping to the next one to wait again. Finally he reached the corner where lantern-lit front met dark-alley side, and eased cautiously around the corner, all senses alert. As always, see without being seen.
The door was propped open with a rock, to move air through an occupied room on a summer evening, and Merlin found his eyes drawn upwards. To the narrow slice of the room he could see from that angle, and he wasn't completely surprised to glimpse the totem dangling there.
Gleaming purple though the crystals were colorless and the feathers white and brown-speckled.
He retreated a few feet into the cover of the alley's darkness, content for the moment to be part of Camelot again, even if an invisible part. The streets were relatively clean, relatively safe, the worries of the people minor. Except for the one he had, about the magic-user. A healer, apparently, and he found he was impressed at the evident level of skill… but the person had come to Camelot. And then attracted the notice of the king and his son and of course Gaius would feel –
A figure moved down the street, concealed in cloak and hood but Merlin recognized him almost faster than he might've done Arthur.
Gaius. Out so late? And trying to avoid notice himself?
Merlin guessed his old friend knew more about the rumored healer than he had told even Arthur, or Gwen or Elyan. He figured he knew the warning the old physician was on his way to deliver, and decided to follow, also.
Just in case.
He didn't have far to go, before Gaius stopped to knock at the door of a residence. The old man cast a glance up-street and down, before the door opened on a grandmotherly woman, short and plump, with apple cheeks and gray mixed in the long brown braid over her shawl-padded shoulder.
She beamed positively radiantly at the sight of her visitor – and leaned up to kiss his cheek, drawing him inside.
Merlin didn't know whether to gape incredulously, or snicker, or suspect. Whether to steal away and let Gaius be – an old friend, or a new one? – or to…
Another faint purple glow caught his attention. Another totem of crystal-and-feather hung from the eaves at her door, and something felt suddenly uncomfortably off to Merlin. The woman had been fifty if she'd been a day, and to know Gaius well enough to kiss him, must have spent time in Camelot before – and should know better than to hang such symbols of magic so obviously.
He knew now why Gaius had reason to be edgy and short, even with the prince, but wondered… what if that was deliberate on the part of this woman?
Crossing the street, he took a position at the corner, where the house shared a wall with the next one, plus a foot and a half. The window was open; he could hear, if not see.
"Look at you, always so solemn." The woman's voice; Merlin assumed she and Gaius were alone. She sounded just as she looked, comfortable and sweet.
"And you always teasing me."
Merlin couldn't stop a smile; he'd never heard Gaius sound so… youthful? His guardian had been mostly stern, in his experience, rarely unbending to compliment or make a joke. The idea of the pixie in love with the old physician had given them what Gwaine called the shivers, but…
"I missed you," she said softly.
"And I you."
Merlin gripped the edges of his concealing cloak together over his heart. The emotion in those simple words, he recognized. He himself might sound much the same if ever he got the chance to say them to…
"Twenty years and here we are back in Camelot again," the lady went on. "It almost seems as though nothing has changed."
He knew that nothing would bring her back, but he could understand how a decision to separate might be harder to bear than one not chosen by either.
"And some things never will," Gaius said heavily.
Outside the window, Merlin mouthed the word as she said it. "Uther." Of course.
"It's not safe for you here," Gaius continued. "He suspects that magic is at work in Camelot."
Merlin's suspicions woke again, though muted and softened by the evident feeling the two had shared, long ago. Had she been careless on purpose to attract Gaius' attention, when she might have simply walked up to his quarters to see him? Twenty years surely was enough time to change a person's appearance so no one would recognize her to point her out as a magic-user. But this oblique approach brought her to Uther's attention as well…
She was pleading now, "It is my living. I must buy food, I must pay rent…"
In the darkness, he shook his head slowly. To visit a loved one long-separated was one thing. To return permanently and so carelessly…
"But why here?" Gaius said. "The dangers are too great."
"Because I wanted to see you again."
He believed her. He did. But he also knew that Gaius could not resist or argue against such a reason, and that made him wary for his mentor's sake.
"Dawn is almost upon us, I must get back," Gaius said, and Merlin shifted back, a little. Not for the world would he be caught listening in on this conversation.
"You will come back tomorrow?" Softly pleading. "Please?"
Merlin closed his eyes. How could Gaius say no? How could he remain aloof? And if she didn't listen to his warning to leave?
"Of course."
He heard the door open – pause – then close again, before Gaius' footsteps passed him. Merlin froze and held his breath, but he needn't have worried – the old man was entirely preoccupied. And not with jubilant delight, but with weighty concern, he could tell by the hunch of Gaius' shoulders; he wondered if maybe he should say something to the woman, maybe write an anonymous note advising her, if she cared for the old man…
Another voice cut the night's stillness and chilled Merlin's blood in his veins. A male voice, and issuing from the very window where he'd listened to Gaius' conversation.
"You have done well. The physician is vital to our plan." The voice twined with a sinister hissing whisper.
Ah, hells. A plan, and one Gaius was already caught in, unknowing, because of his history and companionship and care for the newcomer. As a fellow healer, and magic-user, and survivor of Uther's purge – and something more, if Merlin had to guess.
"Please, do we have to use him this way?" Her voice was changed, and Merlin straightened with interest, if not surprise. There was fear there, and protest – whatever the plan was, she was not following eagerly. Not participating freely?
"I've told you before." Cold, and hard. "Uther trusts him. He alone can get us close enough to the king."
Merlin filled his lungs, and let the breath out slowly. This, again. He almost wished he hadn't heard; every time he discovered a plot against Uther – and a tyrant with the blood of so many of his people on his hands, but Arthur's father – he had to decide.
But it wasn't in him to stand back and watch anyone murdered. And this time, Gaius was involved.
"But he will be blamed for everything that happens." The woman was unhappy, and clearly not the decision-maker in the partnership. Which meant – was the unknown man a sorcerer, too, to have achieved her loyalty in spite of fear and the lack of cooperative planning? What was their bond?
"And you will not, how perfect," the man spat, heartless and now sounding a bit angry.
"But his punishment will be terrible," she said desperately – and a pained choking sound followed so suddenly that Merlin straightened and took a step out from concealment, sure that the sorcerer had inflicted some wordless reprimand on the woman who dared question him.
"You must put aside your feelings," the male voice said, steely-smooth – reassuring Merlin that he need not intervene to save her life, at least not at that moment when he had so little information about the other, or the plan – "and do what needs to be done."
Her voice was breathless and pained. "Yes."
Silence. And after a moment, darkness.
Indecisive, Merlin waited until dawn truly threatened him with discovery, before he made his unseen way back to Elyan's forge. Arthur would need to be warned.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Arthur went to the blacksmith's forge in broad daylight. Nodding to Elyan – who nodded back, unsurprised – without interrupting his hot, noisy task, he passed through the open work-space to the more sheltered room behind, where supplies and tools and projects could be locked at night.
Startling the young man who sat on a keg with his back to the door, shirtsleeves rolled against the dual heat of the season and the forge, toying idly with a great iron lock.
Click-open. Click-shut. No keys.
"Merlin," Arthur said, and in spite of the situation felt a very satisfied amusement when the younger man jumped and darted a guilty glance over his shoulder. "In broad daylight, and the middle of Camelot?" A moment of awkward realization, and he added sarcastically, "Not that that is anything new for you, though, is it?"
Merlin looked uncomfortable and muttered, "I wasn't really paying attention."
Arthur felt a grin threatening both awkwardness and self-composure. "And that is nothing new for you, either."
Merlin relaxed into a grin of his own.
There were moments – rare, as they were rarely together – when it felt like they were strangers. Like Arthur was the peasant who had stepped onto a knight's training- or battle-field. He didn't know the weapons, or the rules, and he hated the feeling of vulnerability that ignorance gave him.
But then, just as quickly, something invisible would shift back into place and he would feel like no one knew Merlin better than he did, no one knew him better than Merlin did, and they could fight back to back without hesitation without thought, and be unstoppable.
"I searched the house," Merlin offered, along with the keg; Arthur straddled it, as Merlin perched atop a high work-counter. "It was empty."
Arthur nodded, leaning his elbows on his knees and twisting his mother's ring around his forefinger thoughtfully. "Gaius invited her to stay in the physician's chambers in the citadel yesterday," he said. "She brought all her things with her, I assume."
"No, I mean…" Merlin hesitated. "It was empty, Arthur. Uninhabited."
Arthur exhaled through his nose, closing his eyes briefly. Already the steady muffled rhythm of Elyan's hammer promised him a headache if he stayed too long.
It had been a trying week. He'd been worried to hear rumors of magic loose in the countryside – ready to fight his father if someone was arrested only for healing – relieved to hear Merlin wasn't their quarry – exasperated that he wouldn't hear of making himself scarce during a time of heightened security and suspicion – worried all over again when Merlin told him his suspicions.
An old friend of Gaius, using him and his position of trust to get close to the king – and not for any innocent reason – but herself being used by a mysterious third. Someone Merlin had only heard, and no one else had seen.
"I assure you, Alice has not smuggled a sorcerer into the citadel," Arthur said. "I searched Gaius' chamber this morning, while you were busy with the house in the lower town." Merlin's mouth dropped open, and Arthur forestalled him, "Of course I waited til they both were out."
"And?" Merlin said, pushing himself down from the counter to crouch closer to him. "Was there anything that gave you a funny feeling? Like you were being watched? Or that seemed strange, or… old? I thought, maybe the sorcerer forcing Alice's cooperation wasn't really there, you know, maybe they had some means of communication, even though he'd have to be close by to –"
Arthur nearly made a sarcastic comment about funny feelings and his former manservant's girlish sensibilities. But that would be unhelpful right now. He didn't have all day to meet with ghosts and discuss treasonous plots and culpability.
"There wasn't anything to indicate close association with a man recently," Arthur said. No items of clothing or accoutrements, no extra supplies of a general nature or even anything suggesting it was a gift not purchased by the woman herself.
Camelot's physician had introduced her to Arthur; she was sweet and placid and undeniably happy to be with Gaius – who was undeniably happy to be with her. Perhaps the old man felt, with Arthur's change of perception regarding the neutrality of magic, he was content to keep his lady-friend in Camelot. Close enough to supervise her use of magic, which Uther no longer actively hunted.
It occurred to Arthur that there might be a reason for Merlin's reaction, something the young man hadn't himself recognized. He'd been perfectly happy for Guinevere to assume some of his old chores for the physician – and content to relinquish his care of Arthur to Orryn – but this stranger was a different story. Living now in his old room, free to practice at least judicious use of magic in healing – something Arthur had gathered Merlin had always struggled with – he wondered if the young sorcerer-renegade wasn't letting jealousy color his perception of the kindly older woman.
"Are you sure you weren't mistaken," he said, ready to tease the younger man to a more relaxed state of mind. "Don't you think you might be the least bit –"
Merlin's pique had hitherto been a thing of amusement. His intellect a thing to be mocked – brief flashes in a sea of absent-minded ridicu… wait.
The sorcerer's anger cut Arthur's words off mid-sentence, and he suddenly wondered uneasily about fury.
"No," Merlin bit out. "No, I wasn't mistaken. If it was my father, I wouldn't take the chance, but… Are you ever going to just believe me?"
Arthur dropped his gaze from Merlin's intensity – and it landed right on the sorcerer's hands, draped over his knees as he crouched at Arthur's side. Risking his life – again, still – even to be here. And that last missing joint that spoke so eloquently, so silently, of obedience and truth and sacrifice.
And he realized, even if Merlin had misheard, had jumped to a mistaken conclusion, he owed it to the younger man to take him seriously. To take precautions.
"I'll notify the gate-guards, no strangers unescorted," he said. "I'll try to find some way of warning Gaius, and I'll make sure she doesn't get near my father. Satisfied?"
"What was under the bed?"
Arthur blinked, and realized that Merlin's gaze has shifted vaguely a few inches. "Under the bed?" he repeated, incredulous.
"Mm. Was there anything?"
"There was a box." He described its dimensions swiftly with his hands. "Black iron, bound with copper, lined with wool-padded linen, hinged lid, unlocked and empty." He stifled the urge to ask what Merlin had kept under the bed when it was his room. "Why?"
Merlin hummed again. "No reason. I think I'll… stay here. Close by, if you need me."
"All right." Arthur stood at the same time as Merlin pushed to his feet, and the space was small and they were quite close and Arthur thought how he'd feel, shut out of the citadel and its doings during a time of indeterminate threat. "It won't always be like this."
"Hot and noisy, you mean?"
Arthur allowed a half-smile; Merlin's good humor was always so quickly restored. "You know what I mean."
Merlin shrugged. "I can wait."
Waiting was not something Arthur considered himself good at. It was necessary, of course, and he did know how to be patient, it was just – not really required of someone of his rank, often.
In the street, he met Guinevere, her hair in a neat twist at the back of her neck, apron over peach-pink dress, basket at her elbow. Sauntering with a troubled inattentiveness.
"My lady," he said, with humor and a brief bow, to make her smile and notice him.
"My lord." She returned the smile, with a curtsy that was somehow saucy, even as it was entirely proper.
"You're busy, I take it? Errands for Gaius?" He noticed that her basket was empty.
"Oh! No, not really." She bit her lip and looked past his left shoulder with a little frown. "I was given the night off early. Gaius'… ah, visitor, has been helping out, so they don't really need me, and – she's sweet, have you met her? And so clever, I feel all thumbs trying to work with her, and… well it is awkward when they want to…" her dusky complexion pinked slightly as she finished, "be alone."
He took half a step closer, as the people in the street moved and spoke around them. He didn't touch her; he couldn't touch her, but he sympathized. If only he didn't also suspect.
"I think I have some news to cheer you up," he said, and she cocked her head to study him curiously. "Your brother has company also."
"Who would –" Her eyes widened. "Is he really? You're not – what's happening? You're not in danger, are you?"
"No, I'm fine." Her reaction bothered him; he wished she could simply enjoy a rare visit from their friend. "It's just… something of a precaution."
Though it occurred to him to wonder, whose idea it had been to send Guinevere off, and for what reason. He had a sudden desire to insert himself into his father's company and remain there, until Gaius persuaded his lady-friend to leave, or the stranger sorcerer made a definitive move.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" he added. He didn't see her as often as he had when she'd been Morgana's maidservant, but it was still almost daily.
"My lord," she said again, spreading her skirt slightly.
Four paces beyond her, he looked back – to see that she'd glanced at him over her shoulder, too. And if his grin felt a bit silly, the look of shy pleasure on her face was worth it.
However he felt and whatever he wanted, though, had to come second to duty and obedience to orders – which delayed him rejoining his father until just after dinnertime.
Arthur rounded the corner debating the advisability of giving even a general warning to the guards perpetually stationed on his father's chambers, but lost track of the thought at the sight of the man just closing his father's door.
"Gaius!" he called out, and the physician waited, patient look on his face and empty glass vial in his hand. Arthur knew what it was, of course. His father's injury was an old one, the physician's remedy frequently called for. "My father was in pain tonight?" he said, approaching.
"Indeed."
He had to ask. "And you made that yourself, not Gwen or –"
"No, Alice was kind enough to mix this concoction," Gaius said. Not a hint of suspicion, himself. "She is quite a skilled physician herself, I am fortunate to have her assistance."
Arthur wanted to say, for how long? He wanted to say, I know she's used magic, also. But instead he said, "Would you mind waiting a moment while I speak to my father? Then I have a matter –" both of them aware of the guards close enough to hear every word – "I wish to discuss with you."
"Of course." Gaius made a little bow; Arthur left the door open when he went inside.
The remains of his father's dinner still on the table; the soft sounds of Uther's manservant in the antechamber. The king already in bed, reclined against his pillows, head tilted sideways as if sleep had half-claimed him already.
"Father," Arthur tried; there was no response. "Sire?" He rounded the bed, heart beginning to pound, and dared to touch his father's wrist, give him a shake. And had to catch his father, sliding bonelessly from the pillow. "Gaius!" he shouted, and again, "Father?"
Uther's eyelids slid open as he gasped – ebony orbs in their sockets. Arthur almost dropped his father in his shock, and – hearing Gaius' hissing intake of air beside him – knew the physician had seen that, too.
"What's wrong with him?" Arthur said. "He's been poisoned, hasn't he?"
Gaius nudged him aside to bend over the king. "I cannot say at this stage."
Arthur moved around to the other side of the bed; the king's mouth dropped open on an incoherent moan, those dead-black eyes once again flashing open. "Just look at him, Gaius, what else could it be?" He cursed himself for sparing the old man's feelings, for not giving orders about the sorceress. "His food and wine are tasted each and every meal," he continued, hardening his tone. "It's brought here under armed guard. No one can interfere with it in any way. So it can't be his food and drink." Gaius looked up at him without straightening, realization dawning terrible. Arthur concluded, "The only other thing he's had is that remedy." Gaius bowed his head, and Arthur shouted, "Guards!" The two appeared, and the order tasted bitter in his mouth. "Arrest the woman Alice for using sorcery against the king – you'll find her in the physician's quarters. Take her straight to the cells."
As they quick-marched to obey, Arthur looked back at his old friend's slumped posture, the slow vague way he set about checking Uther, making him comfortable, providing what care he could.
"Why?" Gaius whispered. "Why would she?"
He opened his mouth to say, Merlin thinks she's being forced – and didn't. Soon enough the old man would know they had suspected the lady he'd believed a long-lost friend returned to his life. "What can we do?" he said in a low voice. "Gaius – my father, the king. What can you do for him?"
"Without knowing the poison…" Gaius shook his head. "Very little, I'm afraid."
"If he dies, Gaius…" Something else he hated to say, both parts of it, "she must be executed for murder."
"I'll speak to her," Gaius said suddenly, desperately. "If she'll tell me what she used…"
"No – my father needs you here. I will speak to her," Arthur decided.
"But you're –" Gaius cut off, but Arthur knew what he almost said. You're a Pendragon. Your father's son. Motivation was always painfully clear in these cases – revenge for Purge-related wrongs done – why should anyone expect the magic-user who'd attacked the king to help the prince save him?
"I'll be back soon," Arthur promised.
The clanging noises of the door closing and locking echoed up the stairwell, informing him that the prisoner had only just arrived. The first guard who emerged from the cell-block gave him a single, silent nod, from which he inferred the prisoner had not resisted.
She stood forlornly – hopelessly, even – just inside the door, one hand negligently on a bar of her cell and her head drooping. But he knew she noticed and recognized him.
"Do you admit to using magic?" Arthur said, keeping his voice even with an effort. "Admit to poisoning the king?"
"Yes, yes," she said, looking up into his face with earnest innocence he wanted to believe. She looked, he realized, a bit like Merlin saying, believe me. "But it forced me to do it. It, it made me."
"Who forced you?" he said. An open question; he wouldn't lead or startle her by betraying knowledge even of the fact of her confederate.
"The creature," she said. "The creature."
Well. They had been searching for a human sorcerer. He supposed they could hunt it down and kill it later. "Please, my father is dying," he said to her. "Tell me how to cure him?"
"I don't know," she said. And he believed that too; he slammed his palm against the bar, making her jump. "I don't know! The manticore –"
It was his turn to jump, as her eyes flicked to the same soulless black and her throat closed on her words – she gasped, clearly choking. She clutched at her throat and twisted her head, and finally managed to gain a little air; the comfortable wrinkles of her face drew deeper with fear.
"It possesses you?" he said quickly, almost a whisper, as if they could be overheard. "It knows the origin of the poison?" Desperately she nodded, and he hazarded a guess. "It is the origin?" Again, that nod.
"Gaius will know," she breathed. "He will know what to do."
"Where is it?" Arthur said, squeezing the hilt of his sword.
If it was in a far country, his father was doomed – if it was in the forest, Arthur needed to ride immediately, and with Merlin, recognized or not. If it was closer, in the town – in the citadel? – more people were in danger.
Her hands measured a square space in the air – just as he had done for Merlin earlier in the day – and he understood. Inside a box - the same one he'd found? How small was this creature? Had she been carrying it with her when he searched the rooms and found the box empty? She pointed vehemently at the cot by the wall of the cell, pointed sideways to indicate, under.
"Thank you," Arthur said hurriedly. "If we are in time to save his life, I will speak for you at trial, I promise."
Surprise smoothed out the fear on her face, but he had no time to stay to chat.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
"And, she was quizzing Gaius about mountain balm," Gwen finished, her dark eyes twinkling as she glanced up from the sewing in her hands.
Merlin chuckled, but couldn't raise more than that. Sitting still at the table in Gwen and Elyan's house – eating her cooking, infinitely better than his own or Gwaine's – his muscles fairly ached to be sprinting himself about the citadel.
It was all well and good to say, I can wait. For his dreams to come true, yes, forever. But patience wasn't really a virtue he'd acquired in situations like these; it felt odd to rely on Arthur to face a magical opponent. And, he felt more than a little suspicious of Gwen's unexpectedly early arrival.
Merlin shifted sideways on the bench that faced the two siblings, the better to hear warning bells or at least a shouted warning from the street. He wondered if the threat of danger would decrease, the later the hour got, or increase.
Something alerted him, scant seconds before a boot or heavy fist pounded at the door; Elyan was on his feet moments after Merlin, but he remembered to restrain himself. He stepped just as swiftly to the back of the home in preparation to hide himself from strangers, as the blacksmith did to open the door.
"My lord!" the soft-spoken young man exclaimed, and Merlin untangled himself from the curtain, stumbling over an unopened bag of flour to rejoin the others.
The prince was pale and grim, carrying a box that Merlin recognized from Arthur's description of it earlier that day – in both hands, and at a distance from his body. Awkward, though it didn't appear heavy.
"What's going on?" he said, as the prince thumped the small chest down on the table, cleared of dishes by Gwen only an hour or so ago.
"My father's been poisoned," Arthur said bluntly. "She slipped it into a batch of the pain remedy Gaius gives him for – never mind. Gaius is tending him but can't cure him and if my father dies Gaius is implicated also."
Merlin's mouth was dry – he will be blamed for everything that happens, his punishment will be terrible. "But I'm rubbish at healing –"
"Manticore venom," Arthur said, and made a motion directing Elyan to both stand back and protect his sister; the blacksmith obeyed. "You must have overheard the creature talking to Alice – Gaius says it can't live in our world and the box is a portal, that's why it looks empty."
He flipped the lock and tossed the lid back – Merlin took a long step forward as Elyan pressed Gwen back, both of them wide-eyed. The box was indeed empty, but Merlin could feel a tingle of strangeness about it; he passed his hand over the bare body of the box without touching it.
"Gaius says, if we call it here and destroy the box – the portal – the manticore will die and its poison in my father with it."
"Okay, but I don't –" Merlin shivered involuntarily; he'd encountered many creatures in the past three years, and never prevailed immediately. Not without a frantic search to find a solution and often a struggle to master the magic, risk and injury to others around – the afanc, the griffon, the sidhe, the questing beast, the troll the goblin the pixie, serkets… "Arthur-I-don't-know-how-to-"
"Calm down." Arthur fished in an inner pocket of his dark brown vest for a scrap of paper. "Gaius sent the spells you should use. The first to open the portal, the second to destroy the box."
Merlin took the sheet, reading, mouthing, memorizing. What if it didn't – no, it would have to work right away. Much like the transportation spell the old man had given him to escape his pyre. He knew nothing about manticores – poisonous, obviously, capable of intelligence and speech – he couldn't lose one at length in a room with Arthur, Gwen, and Elyan. What if it was enormous, or strong? What if it had teeth and claws? He couldn't fail to summon it either, or Arthur's father would die.
"I expect, it'll be angry, when it comes?" Gwen said, her voice tremulous in a moment of silence.
"And fight back." Elyan moved at the same time as Arthur did, arming himself with a fire-iron as the prince drew his sword.
Arthur crouched, readying for a fight, and met Merlin's eyes. Some of the prince's determination and confidence – arrogance – seemed to seep into Merlin through that contact. The prince nodded. "You can do this."
Merlin took a deep breath, and steadied the hand he reached toward the box. "Cume her, pin scinnlaecan!"
A consciousness reached out and touched him, much as the dragon had. A disdainful query, to an unrecognized stranger. Merlin let it feel a hint of his magic to pique curiosity, let it feel his sense of trepidation and it-has-all-gone-wrong. The consciousness took immediate notice, and exception, tried to reach through Merlin to discover where he was and who he was with; Merlin resisted and immediately sensed the creature rush forth, ancient and infuriated and alien. He tensed, ready for –
A creature the size of a cat with an evil baby face, framed with bat-wing fringe – and a segmented carapace of a tail, curled and tipped with a deadly stinger. Quite like the serkets after all. Small and clever, and it leaped from invisibility to the rim of the box intent upon Merlin.
Arthur – unsurprisingly – swung his sword; it whistled through the air unchecked as the manticore leaped again. And met Elyan's fire-iron swinging from the opposite side of the table. The manticore let out a blood-curdling grunt-screech as the iron bar connected, and another as it hit the bricks of the hearth.
Merlin took a single step forward - palm still raised – and concentrated on the box as his enemy. He roared the second spell, "Adee thas sawle duru!"
Even as Arthur and Elyan both pursued the creature on the floor beyond the table, the box exploded into shimmering motes. And Gwen shrieked as the manticore scuttled away from Arthur and Elyan, under the table like a thirty-pound spider – toward them.
Merlin whirled as she jumped, gathering her up in a confusion of skirts to shove her onto the long counter running the length of the back wall – and the venom-tipped stinger smashed through the slat-thin door of the under-cabinet inches from his right leg. He completed his turn blocking Gwen and holding her in place off the ground with his own body, and nothing more came to mind than to kick the manticore threatening his shins.
So hard it actually rose in the air, and Arthur - circling the table intent on his prey – twisted and compensated as only a skilled swordsman could. His weapon cleaved space through another explosion of sparkling motes; Arthur, expecting resistance when his blade met the creature's body, stumbled a bit before catching himself.
"Oh, my goodness," Gwen said weakly, clinging with both hands to one shoulder of Merlin's shirt as he leaned back against her drawn-up knees.
"Did it get you?" Arthur demanded. "Either of you?"
Merlin felt her shake her head, and watched Arthur sheathe his sword. Moved out of the way when the prince came to lift Gwen back down to the floor – and met Elyan's eyes when she twined her arms tightly around the prince.
"I see now what Gwaine was talking about," the blacksmith said.
"What?"
"Camelot is not a dull place," Elyan said, with the gleam of a smile in his dark face.
Merlin huffed a wry-amused chuckle – and was unprepared for Arthur's hand on his shoulder, turning him slightly to face his prince as Gwen released him. Merlin tensed, worried for a moment what reaction – and Arthur's hand slid closer to his neck in a grip that was fondly proprietary. For a moment the prince said nothing, but he hid nothing either.
The blue of his eyes said, thank you. The sort of deep, bonding gratitude between friends that could never be repaid – and didn't need to.
"I know," Merlin said. "You, too."
"Elyan, thank you for your help. I have to get back to my father," Arthur declared, striding toward the door. He paused briefly. "Merlin…" The quirk of a half-smile. "I'll see you sometime, I guess."
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
The king looked like he should still be in bed, to Arthur's eye. And if Gaius had said the same thing to Uther's face, he'd said it in private. But then again, how many times hadn't the king reiterated, the strength of a king is very much in his people's perception of his strength. So this morning, Uther held court.
"I am fortunate, indeed, that you found an antidote, Gaius," Uther commented, setting a goblet of water back on the tray offered by a serving boy.
"It will take time, my lord," Gaius responded, with a half-bow, folding his hands into his sleeves. "But you will make a full recovery."
"What of the woman?" the king added.
It was Sir Leon who stepped forward to answer. "We have her in the cells, sire. She awaits your judgment."
"She won't have to wait long," the king said shortly. "She's sentenced to death. We'll execute her in the morning."
"Sire, if I may." Arthur's heart was pounding, but he spoke casually. Politely, but clearly to oppose the king. Now he had the attention of the room; Uther was aware of it, and he saw in his father's eyes an anticipation of what Arthur was going to say. A testing, for the first time, of the tentative understanding they'd reached when Morgana died. "It seems the woman was in the thrall of some kind of creature. I saw for myself the difficulty she encountered when she resisted whatever enchantment was between them, to give information vital to your recovery."
"A creature?" his father said unpleasantly, straightening a bit on his padded great-chair; a whisper of tension ran around the room. He deliberately avoided catching Gaius' keen gaze.
Arthur pre-empted questions and orders, both. "I saw it for myself – it has been destroyed and is of no further threat to anyone," he declared. "And with it gone, neither is this woman." He wondered if it would do any good to bring up the instances of miraculous healing that had been attributed to the woman, and decided it would complicate things unnecessarily. "Perhaps, in light of that, her sentence might be lightened?"
Uther drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, contemplating – but Arthur had the feeling his father thought of him, rather than the case. "What would you suggest?"
"Banishment," Arthur said immediately. Surely Alice had made her home somewhere peacefully enough for twenty years; she could simply return there.
"It is," Uther remarked lazily, "yet another proof that magic is untrustworthy, dangerous and subversive. If her death is not to bear witness of the penalty of trusting and allowing and associating with sorcery – be sure that she knows, her life will." He shifted again, leaning forward – though weak in body, determination was strong as ever in his eyes. "She is banished on pain of death, and Arthur, if it comes to that… you will preside over her execution. Are we clear?"
Arthur took a deep breath. If she died, it would be at his hand – but for now, she would live. For now, it was enough. "Yes, my lord," he said.
A/N: A bit longer, this one. But no one minds. And, it was a perfect opportunity to show that bit of a shift I hinted at between Uther and Arthur, at the story's end. Arthur's going to champion 'innocent' magic-users a little more, and Uther's going to allow it…
300 reviews, everyone! That's a record for any of my stories! Thanks so much to all of you who contributed your opinions!
Kirsten: Thanks for reviewing, glad you liked this version of "Eye of the Phoenix". I always love rewriting so Arthur is in the know – but for this ep, it's not only that he didn't complete his quest 'alone and unaided', but that it wasn't really about him or the trident. Although, it's quite a good opportunity to demonstrate Arthur's maturation, that he can lay aside that arrogance or hurt pride, for what is ultimately best for the kingdom (not only the Fisher King's land, but to have that 'help' when danger comes to Camelot in the future)…