A riddle wrapped in a mystery

Then they heard the clumsy boy whisper the name of the accursed witch. They looked at the boy and expected him to be tossing and turning from a nightmare. Only when they looked, he was smiling.

Gwen closed the door making the least amount of noise as possible. She put her back against the wall and exhaled a held breath.
"Do you think..." Gwen trailed off. It was a horrifying thought that he had been enchanted once more.
What was even more horrifying was what he might do if he woke up from the trance right after killing the certain someone.
"Possibly." Arthur concurred knowing full well that magic was a force to be reckoned with.
Morgause did, after all, conjure up an illusion almost strong enough to make him kill his own father.
"He's..." Gwen trailed off at the memory of the Fomorroh crawling beneath his skin.
"Merlin." Arthur finished for her. The maid smiled out of relief.
She nearly told him that the man had tried to kill him before.
"I could keep an eye on him." She suggested as it would not be wise that, if he were indeed enchanted, they were on to him.
Arthur thought it a good plan.

The next day

When Merlin woke he had not forgotten the offer she'd made him. How he wished he could simply close his eyes and go back to the day he first laid eyes on her. He closed his eyes but his life had always been more nightmare than fairy tale. He knew that when he'd open his eyes again the world would not have changed. It would still be bitter and dark, so very real and so very wrong.

Waking up and her being his first thought had become something of a pattern that didn't even require dreaming of her, it was simply there. Some said that if you woke to the thought of someone, you loved them in one way or another. She's going to try and kill Arthur again. He deluded himself into thinking that he cared for Arthur like a brother. For a while, the delusion sufficed. Then he realised the sentence always started with 'she', that he thought of her, and it broke the pattern in a bad way. The First Thought didn't change but those that followed did. They no longer revolved around Arthur but her. Now it had changed once more. Think about it.

He wanted her kindness and forgiveness but knew right from wrong. The Morgana of old died years ago. Could he bring her back? Would he be able to soothe her anger and find that heart of hope buried so deep beneath the pain of the past?

He shook his head and pushed the thought away. Tempted though he was, he knew she would never change.

For days Gwen balanced between following Merlin and keeping Arthur safe from him. On one such day, after following Merlin home, she went back to Arthur so they could discuss the situation. It didn't take long for them to realise that Gwen's constant presence meant that the 'enchanted' Merlin would never show.

A plot was devised and immediately put into action.

Merlin entered the throne room where Arthur was briefing the knights on the situation. What annoyed the warlock was that Arthur was wearing armour already and that a briefing without him implied that he wouldn't be coming along on their little adventure.

Being a good little manservant Merlin listened and waited for the King to finish his briefing. It confirmed what he had already suspected. Morgana had been sighted in one of the nearby forests. After the briefing Merlin asked why he wasn't coming along.
"I don't want to put you in harm's way again. Besides, you always stumble into trouble." Arthur explained and left without waiting for a reply.
Merlin went back to his chambers and packed. Did Arthur really think he was going to drop it?

By the time the manservant had gotten his things Arthur and the Knights were gone. Rushing down the corridor there was Gwen who pulled him aside.
"What's the matter?" Gwen acted all innocent and surprised.
"Arthur's going after Morgana." He replied rather short of breath.
"Didn't he tell you-" She wanted to see if she could keep him from going but his mind was set.
"Yes but he's clearly forgotten all the times I've saved his sorry ass." He broke out his infamous, boyish smile again.
Whenever he did that her every protest became half-hearted. "Still-" She kept on trying to persuade him but was out of luck.
"I haven't the time." Merlin moved past Gwen who, at this point, could do nothing but worry.


Arthur made his Knights stop in the middle of the road. If they went any further, Merlin would never find them and the point never proven.
"Sire." One of the Knights sought the King's attention. "Would it not have been wiser to face the witch in greater numbers?"
There were twelve of them and Arthur definitely would have taken more along if she had actually been there. Sometimes Arthur wished the Knights just kept their traps shut and followed orders.
"If I hadn't made it up, yes."
"Then why are we here?" The Knight continued to question his King.
Since Arthur didn't have Merlin there, he thought it a fun idea to put the Knight in his place. "To see if any of you would be as cowardly as to desert."
"That'll shut him up." The King thought.

Arthur did some more thinking and reasoned that Merlin wouldn't strike them if they were huddled together like that.
"Some of the villages have been moaning about the lack of patrols. Since we're here, six of you patrol the road south and show them the colours of Camelot."
The Knights nodded and left as they were told.

After a few minutes Arthur grew a bit bored and sighed. It was then that an arrow buried itself into his shoulder and knocked him off his horse. Down but not out, Arthur scrambled to his feet and heard more arrows cut through the air. Only one other person fell off his horse but he wasn't so lucky. The arrow had pierced the armour and struck his heart. The roars of the assailants were many and more than they could handle. The riders fell with their horses and in this moment of chaos Arthur decided to flee into the woods.

Merlin heard a noise in the distance. According to another traveller the Knights couldn't be much further. What the manservant saw, however, wasn't Knights but bandits. The warlock dismounted and took out his sword. The horses in the middle of the road were draped with red cloaks of Camelot with the Knights still attached to them. They had been raided. Although Merlin could only see three bandits so far but he knew that these were just the scavengers. There was no way three bandits would be able to jump Knights on horseback. Judging by the shapes on the ground these couldn't be all twelve of them.

One of the scavengers noticed Merlin and drew his sword. The warlock had already observed their surroundings and there were no onlookers. He would finish them off quickly and search for his friend. The bandit raised his sword and Merlin whispered a sleeping spell which made it look like he ran into his opponent's sword.

The two remaining bandits charged him at the same time.
"Thurhdrife hi ecg!" Merlin sent the sword of the fallen bandit flying into one of his attackers.
The last bandit looked back at his fallen ally for a mere moment but it was enough for the warlock to stab him by surprise. Merlin briefly examined the dead bodies belonging to both the patrol and its assailants. Both sides had suffered heavy casualties. Merlin counted five Knights and no Arthur.. It didn't take a tracker to see which way the remaining bandits had gone, all the footsteps led to one side of the forest.

As Merlin searched for Arthur, the man in question tried to fend off his attacker. The two remaining bandits had split up earlier and one of them caught up. Arthur wielded his sword with two hands since the shoulder of his sword arm was wounded. The King's assailant was clever enough to do battle with a different goal. He didn't try to cut or maim him. He brought the hilt of their blades together and exerted pressure to wear him down. Arthur didn't want to admit it but it was working.

Arthur's heart was in his throat and he could hear it pound. The ache in his shoulder built and built. Holding his sword was becoming exercise and then, with one more push, he was disarmed. The man in front of him recognized victory. He raised his sword high and Arthur, trying to get away, fell onto his back.
"Didn't happen to bring your crown, did you?" He mocked the fallen King.
Leaves rustled behind him.
"Oh, good." The bandit's friend seemed to have joined them but when he turned around a sword ran him through.
"Merlin?" Arthur spoke in amazement. How did he always arrive in the nick of time?
The manservant laid his sword behind his head to make a victory pose but Arthur flinched when he raised his sword to do so.
"Don't be such a girl." Merlin mocked him as he held out his hand and pulled the King to his feet.
"Not a word." Arthur said seriously as he picked up his sword.

They sat in the physician's chambers, Merlin, Arthur and Gwen. They hadn't waited for the remaining six Knights to return since they could have been ambushed as well. Merlin was just done wrapping the bandage around the King's shoulder when he saw Arthur and Gwen exchange a look.
"What?" Merlin asked.
"This is kind of my fault." Arthur said with a pained look.
"Our fault." Gwen added. Merlin kept quiet and waited for her to continue. "We visited you the night after your run in with Morgana."
Arthur picked up where Gwen left off, "You whispered her name and you were smiling. Gwen followed you around and nothing happened. There wasn't opportunity for anything so we made a plan."
Merlin sighed. "This was a test." he concluded and began cleaning up the equipment used for Arthur's bandage.
"You're not mad at us?" Gwen asked and set off his rant.
"SOME FAITH YOU HAVE IN ME!" He shouted, "Do you really trust me so little?"
"We're supposed to ask if you're enchanted?" Arthur tried to defend them.
"You didn't even ask what happened that day." Merlin clarified upset.
The door opened and Gaius waddled in.
"What's all this shouting? I thought I was the only deaf person here." The old man frowned at them.
"Did you know?" Merlin fired the question without preamble and Gwen answered for him, "He didn't"
The manservant shook his head again.
"You know better, Gwen." Merlin glared at her on his way out and slammed the door behind him.

AN:
Merlin and Arthur banter and bicker all the time. He's not turning evil that easily.