Ticks, Drips, and Ounces

In the pitiless, objective light of day, Arthur cringed when reflecting back on his graceless escape from the prison. However, at least the first part of his mission had been easy and incredibly quick, given the circumstances. As he was constantly reminding his father (usually under his breath while the latter's back was turned), more often than not the big risks paid off. He was barely a week into his stay-slash-polite incarceration, and he already knew what was going on. Now he just had to figure out what the hell he should do about it.

The code he had established with his father had a few problems. The first was that messages could not be sent frequently without arousing suspicion. He would also have to find ways to use all of his knives as much as possible in public places in order to make them blunt again. The people of Essetir would probably think he was a bit weird, but he wasn't here to make friends. Finally, what the sender could say was limited to a short series of prearranged reports; he could not elaborate beyond without getting very creative with the knife symbolism and risking confusing the receiver. Luckily, what he had discovered as the cause was one of the first things Uther had thought of: magic. Descriptions of a single-ridged knife handle (one for magic, two for an ally, and three for no news as already used) and the chain-design filigree dagger instead of the flame-patterned one (Vortigern had captured a sorcerer, not found some sort of artifact or discipline to let him or a hireling perform unnatural feats) would get the point across. Uther's reply with instructions on proceeding could afford to be more eloquent since it would be scripted, encoded, on the back of the "receipt" in invisible ink.

Arthur would rub Gwen's face in this when he got home. Of course it was magic; what else would it be? She had been teasing him for inheriting the "Pendragon paranormal paranoia" for years.

The boy tears down to the courtyard without a backward glance. He's escaped his tutors again, but he can practically hear the rustle of their monochromatic robes and omnipresent stacks of parchment as they come pounding after him. Facts and figures and game theory and manners–ugh. It makes his head spin. He couldn't stay in that dusty, airless room any longer, even knowing he'll now have to watch his father glower at him in that way that makes him want to shrink back into his shell like a snail encountering a spike of rusty metal. His father always glares at him in an almost bemused way, as if he's shocked and enraged that his son would dare to attempt to make off with one troy ounce of his attention.

But it looks like the boy has gotten away for now. He's always been a fast runner. Now the time stretches out before him like a banquet table. So much unscheduled potential. What will he try first? There are just so many smells here!

He notices a girl glaring heatedly at him from next to the staircase he just clattered down. She pointedly does not break eye contact as she bends down to pick up the scattered clothing articles he knocked to the ground in his mad dash for freedom. She's pretty, about his age with smooth, dark skin and wild hair made more disheveled by his explosive entrance. He thinks he recognizes her from the castle halls. She maintains her steady, belligerent gaze as she snags another clean tunic up out of the dirt, and his good breeding hijacks his brainwaves.

"Sorry," he mumbles as he bends to pick up a soiled corset with tangled laces. He knows he must not mumble, but she's kind of scary. Her glare is a little reminiscent of his big sister's: she's not scared of him at all. He scrunches that thought into a tiny, damp, wadded-up ball and tosses it into the back of his brain. The boy does not get scared.

She seems slightly mollified by his gesture, which makes him a little bolder. He hands her a woolen sock with a hole in the toe. It's purple. Hm. Royalty, then. "Hey, I'm Pr–...Arthur!" he chirps.

The glare loses a little more of its paralyzing power. "I know. I'm Gwen."

Working together, the two finish the cleanup pretty quickly. The boy casts around for a topic of conversation, but years of conditioning on how to make small and not-so-small-as-it-

appears talk seem to have deserted him. He goes with his gut. "Hey, wanna race?"

The last of the glare fizzles out, and she beams at him. "Yeah!"

The laundry basket is forgotten on the bottom step as they dash across the courtyard, giggling uncontrollably. They shoulder aside smaller people and dodge or duck the rest (pretty much everyone) as they chase each other pell-mell down the narrow, angled alleys of the Upper Town. It's late afternoon on that kind of day where the sunlight seems to have filtered through a bell jar of orangey glass over the city, filling the air with an amber glow and comfortable shadows. The air seems to buzz with a low pitch like that of a bee drunk on honey. The boy thinks he smells orange blossoms, but there are none in the hanging wire flower bins that line the creamy, light beige stone walls.

But Gwen is pulling ahead! He can't lose to a girl! He tries to pump his little legs faster, but she has a slight height advantage and knows the high-walled alley maze better. When he circles back into the courtyard, puffing out lazy afternoon air, she is already sitting on the steps and disguising her own panting behind a smug grin.

He is indignant and infuriated. "There's!" Puff. "No way!" Wheeze. "Sorcery!"

The last accusation was a little loud, but not anywhere close to a shout. The semi-crowded square goes quiet. People are staring at Arthur more than usual, and more warily, too. The courtyard quietly empties in the space of a half a minute, and time seems to slide past with the speed of a spoonful of honey oozing into the cracks between tiles or cobblestones. Neither child understands the gravity of what is happening as they stand in the center of an empty square filled wall to wall to shuttered window with echoing silence.

Now the moments are like snapshots that drip rather than ooze.

Gwen puts a defiant hand on the hip of her stained blue-and-brown dress. Drip.

A window behind him is shuttered with a clatter. Drip.

On the other end of an alley, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpses a twitch of red fabric. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Then Gwen starts cackling, and time resumes its normal pace. "You're just sore because you lost!" Arthur can't help laughing with her, a little abashed and flushed bright maroon not just from the chase because he recognizes that it's true. He wasn't really serious; this lively serving girl being a magician would be a little ridiculous, wouldn't it? She's a little scary, but not like that. The twitching red cape-end does not reappear.

Arthur's tutors arrive to drag him back to cough over dusty old manuscripts insulated from the drowsy afternoon air. But he's made a friend, so it's been a good day, hasn't it?

He missed Gwen.

~o8o~

Weeks passed, weeks of dodging George the bland, beige shadow, of his eyes avoiding the staircase to the dungeons when he happened to pass by, of blunting his daggers on wooden targets on the practice field (and he could never resist giving brash, evil little grins to Vortigern's knights who jumped when a long blade thunked deep into the center), of deceptively cordial exchanges with Vortigern like tossing back and forth a hot potato studded with poisoned spines. Finally, he sent his message. Maggie was a boisterous and chatty as ever, with even more meaningful looks and double-sided comments that left him spluttering and glancing over his shoulder. Three more weeks passed. Then another. He became casual friends with the assistant chef, a weedy-looking boy who really knew his way around a ragout. This time, he kept up with his sword training but stored his remaining knives sharp.

The reply arrived exactly four weeks, three days, and six hours after Maggie sent off his report. He was still basking in the warm internal glow from delivering a particularly lethal barb at dinner the night before ("Oh, the Queen? I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Funny, I thought I had met all the ladies who are friends of my lord. Perhaps I never introduced myself because I saw you by my lord's side and mistook you for the virtuous Lady Cachonda. An inadmissible error; I humbly apologize." Arthur hadn't known a person could turn that shade of purple). The satisfaction was sucked away immediately when Maggie handed him the "receipt," and in the abrupt new vacuum he almost dropped one of the proffered knives. It took every ounce of his self-control to master his facial expressions and respond naturally to the other spy's smiling wave as she turned to banter with the next customer.

Alone in his room, by the trembling light of a single candle, he read.

"Lions in Hunter's Wood. On September harvest moon night bring to camp. Alive if possible (C. forces diminished). Earn trust: use it instead. –U. P.

Then, as an afterthought but still unquestionably written there in the bold, unslanted, slightly boxy script: "Good work."