Chapter 4
Magic?
Magic?
The boy has magic!
Arthur shoves himself to his feet and away from the table, turning toward the wall in anger.
After everything! After all the stress and horror of the last two days, the gods had to throw magic into the mix?
Why?
Why him?
In absolute rage, Arthur hurls the goblet he's still holding at the floor, growling deeply.
The boy has magic.
In Camelot.
And he's still alive?
He paces to the fireplace, clenching the mantle with both hands, refusing to turn around and see those damningly fearful blue eyes yet.
A memory flashes through his mind. Lord Iorwerth explaining how he'd bought the boy off a witchfinder. A witchfinder! A man who deals in monsters. He'd been so disgusted by everything else in that conversation that he'd completely missed that detail.
Arthur turns around.
The boy has slipped from his chair to the floor, trembling as he kneels with his fingers twisted in his tattered trousers, his eyes swiveling back and forth between Arthur, the sword the prince has left propped against the wall, and his own knees.
Arthur knows he's supposed to be thinking so many things right now – how to eradicate the threat, how it slipped through in the first place, fear and disgust and fury… But the only thought he finds running through his bruised mind is that the boy bowed before him just doesn't look like a monster at all.
"When you…when you do it…" the boy's broken voice cuts through the room, even though the sobs are barely more than whispers. "Use…the sword. Please? Please, don't make me…make me burn…"
Arthur fists hands in his hair and scrunches up his face, his gut recoiling at the thought.
The boy has magic.
Bound magic, but still magic.
Magic is evil!
People who use magic are evil, should be put to death! That is the law!
His father's law…
The father who says slavery is evil, but turns a blind eye when it's his friends who benefit from it.
When it's himself who benefits, Arthur thinks with a shudder, knowing now that his father has "a type," appreciates a "good gift."
The law that says the beaten, abused, starving, already half-dead slave boy in front of him is evil and needs to die…
The boy –
Arthur stops his thoughts with a shake of his head.
The boy has a name, a name that has probably already been mostly stripped from him. A name – because he's not a chair or a pleasure toy or a monster – he's a human boy. And his name is Merlin.
Merlin has magic.
Arthur glances at his sword, imagines plunging it into that fragile, heaving chest…and then closes his eyes in dismay as another one of his infallible truths crumbles into dust at his feet.
Merlin has magic. Merlin is not evil.
His father is wrong.
He scrubs hands over his face, exhaustion hitting him like a blow, then walks over to Merlin.
"Hey," he says, crouching down to look him in the eyes. "It's okay. You're safe."
Merlin looks like he doesn't believe him at all, and Arthur can hardly blame him. "Didn't I give you my word? My knight's oath? I will not harm you."
"But I have magic," Merlin whispers.
Which, Arthur realizes, the boy hadn't needed to even mention. He could have lied, made up some origin for the mark on his chest, and the prince never would have known. But he told the truth. Something made Merlin trust Arthur with the truth.
"You're the prince."
"Yes," Arthur replies.
"And I have magic."
Feeling surprising sorrow for the boy's loss, Arthur reaches out and brushes his fingers over the tunic that hides the brand. "Not right now, you don't. And besides, I find I suddenly do not care."
00000
"Do you like being a prince?"
The question catches Arthur completely off-guard. Not one person has ever thought to ask him that.
"Um…well…yeah. Of course I do," he finally answers, rolling onto his back.
The room is dark save for the embers still glowing in the fireplace. After the magic confession and that whole shock, it had taken Arthur a considerable amount of time to regain Merlin's tentative trust, and by then it was simply time to go to bed.
By unspoken agreement, neither boy would enter the second room again, so the prince dragged enough bedding to the floor in front of the fireplace to create a sort of bedroll nest and told the younger boy to get some sleep.
He'd had a moment of uncertainty as he passed his sword, still leaning against the wall. Merlin was still an unknown, a possible threat, a former magic user and heaven knew most of them held a grudge against the Pendragon line. It was completely contrary to all his training as a knight and a warrior, not to mention his instruction as a prince, to allow someone like that to sleep near him while he was unarmed.
But he hadn't picked it up and brought it to his bed. Had left it there, against the wall.
He doesn't understand it, but there is just something about Merlin. He trusts him – implicitly – without any reason for doing it.
And he'd promised. The boy would never sleep if he knew Arthur had gone to bed clutching his sword.
Instead, he'd walked away, changed, and simply climbed into bed to get some sleep.
Which apparently neither of them were doing.
"What's it like?" the boy asks next, rolling over so he's facing Arthur from his bedroll across the room.
So Arthur tells him. Tells him about growing up with nurses and tutors. About training and feasts and a father who is more king than family.
He doesn't know why – he hardly even knows this boy – but they're bonded together now by shared terror, and again there is just something that tells the prince he can trust Merlin. Between that and the dark and the exhaustion, it loosens his tongue.
Merlin listens to everything, occasionally commenting or asking another question.
"It sounds lonely," he finally says, when Arthur runs out of things to say.
It is, Arthur wants to answer. Wants to say that yes, he's known since he was five summers old that princes can't have real friends. But he manages to rein in the uncustomary flow of words. "I'm a prince," he says with pretend haughtiness. "We don't get lonely."
The boy makes a sound that's almost like a scoff.
"What about you?" He turns the question around, though the moment the words are out of his mouth he cringes. Merlin is a slave – who asks how a slave enjoys his life? But rules of conversation dictate he must say something, and Arthur's brain is too tired to be creative.
The boy shrugs. "I just scrub things." He pauses as if done, but then his face lights up. "Oh, but the kitchen cat had kittens and they're starting to explore. Five of them: three grey and two orange. I found a bit of thread when scrubbing the floor in the laundry and at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping in the kitchen, I can get them to play with me. It's hilarious to see them falling all over each other. They're even more clumsy than me.
"And the other day, when I was cleaning out Lady Imogene's fireplace, there were fresh flowers on her table. They were beautiful. I forgot how pretty flowers are."
The part of Arthur that he rarely lets out of a box – the part that feels things – is struck with immense grief but also wonder. Even living a life of terror and abuse, stripped of all freedom, dignity and personal identity, this boy still has the ability to see beauty and find joy.
It's quiet for a while after that. Arthur thinks the boy might even be falling asleep, but the prince can't. There's a question still burning in his mind that refuses to let him rest. Finally, he can't hold it back any longer and it slips out past his lips in an earnest whisper.
"Why did you tell me? About the magic?"
The younger boy's weary eyes flick momentarily to Arthur's sword then down to the blanket clutched in his hands.
"You promised…so…I…I dunno… I just did."
No one says anything after that. Arthur doesn't know how to respond and Merlin rolls over, facing away from him, blanket pulled up over shoulders the older boy pretends aren't shaking. After a long while, the prince finally drifts to sleep, lost in turbulent thoughts and half-baked plans.
00000
The cuffs around his ankles cut into his skin like knives as he pulls fruitlessly against them, straining for freedom even though he knows there is no hope. His chest heaves and his panicked tears have made the blindfold almost as wet as the gag tied through his mouth, but he can't seem to stop them. He tugs at the chains again, the clanking echoing off the walls of the stone room around him, further driving up his terror.
Suddenly, he freezes.
Was that a noise?
A creak?
A door?
Is someone coming?
Is someone in the room even now?
Soon there will be hands on him – touching, pulling, hurting….
And he's stuck and can't –
"Why have these carrots not been skinned and put on to boil?!"
Merlin jumps, coming out of a memory so vivid it was almost a trance, to find himself elbows deep in a pot he's been scrubbing mindlessly for who knows how long. He glances around, realizes the shout wasn't directed at him, and quickly sets the clean pot aside, grabbing the next one in line that's almost as big as he is.
The kitchens at Caer Fawydd are in utter chaos as the preparations for the Feast of the Tithes hit a fever-pitch. Servants and guards rush in and out, carrying things, fetching others, issuing orders. All three hearths are blazing, filling the room with smoke and almost unbearable heat that carries the smells of roasting boar and pheasant, baking bread, and a sundry of other herbs and spices.
Merlin wipes the sweat from his eyes and tries to ignore it all again, doggedly working faster to make up for time lost in his head. His hands are raw and bleeding from the five hours of scrubbing with boiling water at his pile of pots and dishes that never seems to grow any smaller, but his thoughts…those keep getting lost in dark places that make him shiver despite the heat.
One more night.
That's all the protection he has left.
One more night until the hands really will touch and hurt and…
As if mocking his thoughts, a hand suddenly slaps hard against his back. He jerks himself out of the large cauldron that had swallowed his head and shoulders as he tried to scour the very bottom and whips around.
"Hey! Cook wanted that pile of pots done before the pies came out!"
The kitchen girl – at least four or five years his senior – points to a haphazard stack of dirty stewpots near his feet as a jolt of fear rushes through him.
"Sorry!" he cries, dropping to his knees and dragging them to the washbasin. "I forgot! I'll do them right now! Sorry!"
"Don't you know, Marta?" Bernice calls from across the room where she's working on a pudding. "The slave is too good for us now!"
"Got promoted from working on his knees to his back!" Peter shouts out, and the whole room erupts in raunchy laughs as Merlin's face grows red and his whole body trembles.
"He's the prince's new favorite plaything!" someone else adds and the laughter grows stronger.
Marta, who is still standing next to him, pulls at the red tunic Arthur had given him, jerking the back up like a tent. "He must have been really good! Got a prince's favor and everything!" she goads. "Didn't even have to wait for the Yule-giving like the rest of us lowly servants, who work twice as hard." She tugs on the tunic sharp enough to make him jerk sidewise before she lets him go.
The laughing is louder this time – meaner – mixed with hisses and vulgar whistles.
"At least the prince left him able to work," Gerty – one of the older women – adds darkly. "Won't be so lucky when it's Lord Iorwerth he's pleasing. Make the prince look like a puppy."
Merlin tries not to listen, tries not to think or remember or imagine…but it's impossible given where his own thoughts have already been mired.
"Remember Toby?" Bernice says, continuing the conversation as she shakes her head. "Only lasted two weeks before he…you know…"
"Long step off the tallest tower," Peter finishes darkly.
Toby…
Merlin remembers Toby. The boy had been there when he'd first come to the castle, maybe six or seven years older. And then…the older boy just wasn't around anymore.
Lord Iorwerth had…to him?
And Toby had…off the tower?
The boy shudders, setting a clean pot aside and reaching for another, Marta still waiting impatiently at his side.
Merlin is used to abuse – it has defined his existence since he was ten. He's come to accept that it is to be his lot in life – drudgery and pain. It's only the vague memory of his mother that keeps him struggling to find the good and beautiful in his very narrow, miserable world.
And because of her, that memory of someone who loved him and deemed him worth – something – he's never thought…never wanted to…end it.
He'd never be that desperate, would he?
But the terror he'd felt, bound and gagged, helpless and exposed as he waited for a horror he could barely comprehend to be done to him… He can't imagine living through that over and over again, for the rest of his life. Or worse, for the terror to wear off and him to accept it – for it to become his life.
"At least it won't be a loss when it's the slave!" Marta cackles, kicking at his leg as the conversation around him continues, heedless of his spiraling thoughts. The room fills with laughter again and Merlin stares fixedly at the pan he's cleaning, hoping no one will see the moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes. Suddenly, the noise dies as a wiry figure looms in front of him and his pots. He glances up into the cold eyes of Cook.
"Prince's favorite or not, boy, you get your work done on time, or this tunic won't last much longer than your last one. And I don't care if you spend the rest of your life warming some noble's bed, I will not tolerate shoddy work in my kitchen! Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," Merlin whispers, hating that he's unable to hide the wobble in his voice as he ducks his head, forcing himself to scrub harder and faster, anything to avoid the bite of the lash.
But his cheeks still burn from the servants' taunting and the cruel words ring in his ears.
Plaything.
Bedwarmer.
Won't be a loss…
Toby had been a servant not a slave. He could have just left! But he'd been hurt bad enough he'd decided to…
Merlin has no choices.
None that won't ultimately end up as fatal as Toby's had.
Like telling the Prince of Camelot you have magic, a little voice whispers in his head.
Merlin finishes the last stewpot and shoves the lot at Marta, who marches off in a huff. Then he sits back on his heels for just a moment, staring at his dirty trousers.
That hadn't been an act as desperate as Toby's.
Had it?
He'd known – somehow – that the prince wouldn't hurt him. Arthur had promised. He trusted him.
He'd trusted Arthur, hadn't he?
It wasn't because there was only one night left and the chains had been cold and waiting in the dark when he couldn't move was like waiting for a monster to come and consume him and…..
Numbly, he grabs for the pile of dirty plates that has been growing by his side and drops the first stack into his washing water.
He'd been twelve summers the one and only time he'd tried… And it had been weeks before he could walk properly again.
He picks up the brush without thinking, starting on the first plate his fingers find.
The Lord…he'd sworn if Merlin ever tried it again…he'd kill him. And Merlin, who saw his red face and watched the spittle fly from his mouth as he ordered the whip brought down again and again, believed him.
But he'd told Arthur about the magic, with the sword in the room and…
Because…
Because…
…he already knew then that dead was better than waiting bound and in the dark in Lord Iorwerth's chambers tomorrow night.
And he has one night left.
And, thanks to Prince Arthur, a tunic on his back.
And food in his stomach.
And one more night of no one watching him – once the prince is asleep.
He sets the last clean plate on the top of the stack and reaches for the next pile of dirty ones, not seeing anything around him. And then suddenly, they are slipping from his hands, falling to the stone floor as if time has slowed down…and the fog in his mind is parting.
He has to run.
Escape.
Tonight.
Because, he realizes as the sound of the shattering plates coincides with the first completely clear thought he's had in days, he'd rather his body die than his soul.
And so he barely even notices the yelling that follows, or the rough hand that grabs him by the ear and hauls him to his feet, throws him at a loitering guard.
What are five more lashes now? By tomorrow, he'll either be free or dead.