A Good Man is Hard to Find

Five

The city held its breath.

Merlin was paralysed with indecision. He knew it would be foolish and catastrophic to act now. But the less rational part of him was just watching Arthur press his forehead against the pole. That part was struggling to hear anything apart from Gwen's litany of horror: "My god, we must stop this. Merlin, we have to stop them, oh, my god..."

The whip cracked. Arthur flinched with his whole body, but he had no room to move. If he made any sound, Merlin was too far away to hear it. Gwen lapsed into silence, her lips still moving, but every other muscle frozen. The crowd were still quiet, but quivered with tension. The pragmatic fatalism that Mary had bluntly put to Merlin the night before was all but gone as a whole city pinned its griefs to the vulnerable body of its king.

The second strike drew blood. It didn't appear instantly and as though in slow motion Merlin saw beads of blood well up in the whip's wake, and tiny trickles run down Arthur's back.

The third strike made Arthur cry out like a wounded animal. Mutterings in the crowd were building, and some witnesses were turning to their neighbours to murmur something. Morgana, standing on her balcony, was attracting the odd mutinous glance and shaking fist.

The fourth strike doubled the amount of blood on the king's back, and a few flecks of scarlet flew from the cord as it flailed up again. Arthur's knees buckled suddenly and he dropped a few inches until he hung by the wrists. As he scrabbled to get his feet under him again, the fifth stroke fell, and he screamed.

Gwen bolted forwards, and Merlin caught her by wrapping both arms around her. The crowd was anything but quiet now, and despite the soldiers standing at the foot of the scaffold, the multitude had begun to push forward.

At the sixth strike, the end of the cord wrapped around Arthur's shoulder, leaving a cut which trailed blood down his chest as well as his back. He was trembling violently, breathing through his teeth.

It was difficult to tell what happened first, but suddenly a stone flew past Morgana's face and shattered a window near her head, and around the same time a voice near the back yelled "Long live King Arthur!"

Merlin looked around for the source of the voice, but soon the cry was taken up by others and a general surge forward shoved him and Gwen into the backs of the people in front. A few more missiles flew – cobblestones wrenched from the ground, horse manure and whatever people had to hand. Morgana stumbled back, hissing in fury, as something struck her on the shoulder. The whip cracked again but Merlin couldn't see the damage, he was too preoccupied with pulling Gwen to her feet before she was trampled. The noise was deafening. Words of protest were lost in the general roar. Merlin stood on tiptoe, trying to see Arthur – the missiles flying towards Morgana's balcony would hit the scaffold if they fell short, and the crowd was losing all semblance of control. The soldiers at the front were preoccupied with pushing against the surging crowd.

"Come on!" Merlin yelled, pulling Gwen by the wrist and plunging forward into the seething mass. He shoved people out of the way with his shoulder and elbow, ignoring the shouts of protest. He couldn't hear the whip any more, but the noise was so overpowering, it could have been drowned out. Somebody clutched at the hem of Gwen's dress and she half-turned, but Merlin pulled her remorselessly onwards.

Suddenly he tripped over a man crouching to prise stones out of the ground with his knife. Merlin went flying into another man's back and lost his grip on Gwen. The man elbowed him hard in the belly and Merlin coughed, drunkenly pulling himself upright on the stranger's cloak.

"Merlin!" Gwen screamed behind him. He searched for her, but more people had rushed forwards to fill the gap, and he couldn't find her in the press of bodies. Somewhere ahead of him, a crow of victory came from a civilian who'd managed to slit a soldier's throat. Screams answered it, as the crossbowmen on the balcony fired at random into the crowd.

The torturer had fled. Morgana, too, was missing from her balcony. A man in front of Merlin pitched suddenly backwards into his arms, and the young man realised in horror that there was a crossbow bolt in his throat. Merlin shoved the body aside and moved forward. Somebody was pulling on his cloak, and he gagged as the fastening pressed against his throat, and quickly pulled the cloak off, letting the crowd pull it away. Raindrops fell, one or two splashes quickly thickening into a downpour. Merlin's hair fell, soaked, into his eyes. His feet slipped as the ground turned swiftly to mud, churned by urgent feet.

There was fighting at the front. Furious people were hurling themselves upon Morgana's soldier armed with rocks and their bare hands. Bodies were beginning to stack up. Merlin felt sick. There was blood on his face and he didn't know if it was his own.

At last he got a clear view of Arthur, now alone on the scaffold but unprotected from the cobblestones which were still flying. Merlin took advantage of the general confusion to conjure an invisible dome to shelter the slumped figure of the king from the riot's crossfire.

Merlin found an opening at last and darted past a soldier who was engaged in a grappling battle with a hammer-wielding blacksmith. He pulled himself up onto the platform. Rain had spread the blood out across Arthur's skin, running in pink lines down his spine. Water dripped from his hair. Close up, he looked even worse. Merlin noticed that several fingers on one hand were bruised and crooked. He was reluctant to touch him.

"Arthur?" he croaked. "Are you... can you hear me?"

Arthur moaned and stirred.

"What's happening?" he whispered, without lifting his head.

"You caused a riot," Merlin told him.

"I caused..." Arthur's voice was thin, but Merlin smiled at the note of indignance.

"I'm going to try and get you out of here, before this gets any uglier." Arthur seemed startled by this, and finally lifted his head to stare at Merlin through his own rain-soaked fringe. His lips were pinched with pain. "Merlin?" he said, as if he's only just realised who he was talking to. "Oh, for God's sake..." he added, vaguely exasperated.

Merlin nodded distractedly, blinking raindrops from his eyes. "Who else?" He reached out for Arthur's bound hands. The king's fingers twitched nervously. A crossbow bolt shattered against the protective dome he had conjured, and Merlin spun round in shock as he felt the vibration shake him.

"Merlin – we have to stop this." Merlin was rocked by surprise again, hearing Arthur echo the words Gwen had been repeating only a short while earlier. Arthur was more lucid than he'd thought, and was gazing at the devastation surrounding them in hollow-eyed despair.

The thought of Gwen brought Merlin a pang of guilt – he had had no time to search for her between negotiating the general chaos and fighting his way to Arthur's side. He hoped fervently that he would not have to tell Arthur that he'd lost his former fiancée.

Merlin pulled a knife from the belt of an unconscious soldier and stood close to Arthur to reach up and get to the ropes. He could feel the king trembling, and was surprised at how cold his skin was. Unlike the blood on Arthur's back, the blood on his wrists was old, and it had stuck the ropes to the welts in his skin. Arthur groaned as Merlin peeled them away, and as soon as they were no longer taking his weight he slumped, despite his efforts to plant his feet securely and stand up straight. Merlin caught him, slightly uncomfortable with the intimacy of wrapping both arms round the shirtless king and crushing him to his chest. Arthur wriggled, clearly sharing his sentiment.

"Get off me," he mumbled, without any real ire. He clumsily got one arm around Merlin's shoulders and straightened.

Though it had been somewhat muted to their ears by Merlin's protective enchantment, the riot was still in full swing when they turned around. In one corner, where the soldiers had been forced back, the crowd had begun to stack up crates and debris with the aim of climbing to Morgana's balcony. Others were battering against the heavy studded castle doors, though the fortress' design made this position particularly vulnerable to the crossbowmen on the ramparts. A few, wounded or frightened, had begun to flee into the town, and others had taken shelter under upturned carts. Fighting remained fiercest at the foot of the scaffold, and Merlin's actions had not gone unnoticed by either soldiers or civilians, though nobody so far had managed to extract themselves from the battle to approach them.

Into the confusion came a ball of fire, bright and hot, hovering at the centre of the courtyard and expanding with a roar, sending people scattering in all directions. Merlin took a step back when he felt the heat on his face, dragging Arthur with him.

"Stop!" Morgana's voice rang out from above them. "Stop this now, or everyone dies." The threat was extravagant, but by no means idle – Merlin could feel the staggering power in the air. The general movement towards escape intensified. Several people threw down their weapons in fright at this new unconquerable, inexplicable enemy.

"Go now," Arthur hissed fiercely in Merlin's ear, struggling to pull away from Merlin's supporting arms. "Get out of here. For God's sake, don't get arrested."

Merlin protested, and Arthur pushed him with surprising force. "Don't be stupid, this is not the time."

Merlin remembered the plan he'd had before the world went insane. "Leon's alive," he said urgently. "There are hundreds, maybe thousands, hiding out in the woods. I'll come back..."

Arthur nodded gratefully, understanding. "You'd better." Arthur stumbled back, bracing one arm against the pole to stay upright. The guards were dispelling the last and bravest rioters in the yellow light of Morgana's fireball. The rain on their faces glinted strangely.

"Merlin!" Arthur called softly. Merlin paused. "Gaius is alive. Gwaine, and Elyan too." Merlin waited, giving his friend a questioning look, but Arthur dismissed him with an urgent gesture. Merlin fled. Arthur slumped to the ground. He was unconscious before the guards reached him.

~/~/~/~/~

After the bells had stopped, there had been a long silence, and then a gradual build towards the sort of cacophony that Gwaine recognised from battles. And finally, silence returned. Nobody spoke.

The door, at last, opened as usual. With a thump, the guards dropped their burden into the cell and turned to leave.

"What happened?" Gwaine called after them as they marched away. "Hey, what happened?"

The door slammed. There was nothing but silence from Arthur's cell.