21. Infection
("Status Report: Enemies and Enchantments" and "Surprise Visit" from A Challenging Hostage)
Morgana entered Gaius' chambers shortly after noon, tired from trying – and probably not entirely succeeding – to help with the harried preparations for extra mouths. She pushed the door latched behind her, taking stock of the physician's chamber. Gaius snored in his chair behind the desk, head pillowed on his arms atop the open pages of a large book. Across the room and just slightly further away, the object of her search lay sprawled on the patient-bed.
Messy black hair and long bare arms – the bandage around one blending into the pale tone of his skin – and gray blanket in unsettled disarray. The sorcerer-prince of Caerleon, who'd thwarted her efforts to help Morgause and Cenred conquer Camelot – soldiers outside the citadel gates, and magic within.
His lack of reaction assured her he was asleep or unconscious, and she glided into the room, stepping slowly and placing her feet carefully to reach the stool at his bedside without disturbing him or Gaius.
She settled onto the stool, studying him for a moment. He looking young, lying down and with his eyes shut, black curls tangled on his forehead. He closed his mouth to swallow – then opened it to inhale. His brows twitched together, then he swallowed and eyelids lifted to show a hint of blue, but not fully, though he focused on her.
He blinked, and latent contentment drained from him as clarity returned. But he didn't react defensively to find her sitting at his side as he slept, half-naked and vulnerable. He only uttered, mildly polite after their altercation over the animated bones in Camelot's crypts, "Lady Morgana."
She couldn't help it. Leaning toward him – and keeping her voice low so she wouldn't wake Gaius – she burst out, "Why did you stop me, last night? Now Uther is still king and our kind will continue to burn for his hatred."
He hummed, tightening muscles to pull himself upright, and swung his legs over the side of the little cot. She was relieved to see the cuffs of trousers over his bony ankles, but he let the blanket pool at his waist.
"I'm not sorry I stopped you." He turned from her to rummage under the blanket, and withdrew his indigo shirt, still folded. "If there's anything worse than someone using dark magic-" His voice was muffled inside the cloth, and she could tell he was having trouble with it, wincing and making little noises of pained inhalation, but she made no move to help position his shirt. "It's someone using dark magic carelessly or unwittingly."
She was glad to have anger rise. "I don't care what you were taught," she said stiffly, "there's no such thing as dark magic. Only-"
"Only powerful magic, and those too fearful or weak to wield it – yes, I know. You said. But disbelieving something doesn't negate its existence, it makes you unprepared to face it."
"I did not come here to argue with you," she said crossly, glancing over his shoulder to see that Gaius still slumped asleep over the book on his desk. "I came to tell you that if you try to persuade anyone that I had anything to do with the battle, or the king's illness, you won't be believed. I've burned the rowan staff that you broke last night, and the mandrake root from Uther's bedroom."
"You were taken in and raised, as I was, by your king," he said softly. "Don't you owe him some gratitude for that? Don't you owe it to yourself to-"
"Perhaps I should turn my gifts on others like me," she said. "Out of obedience and gratitude. I should find them and earn their trust and turn them in – and hide and suppress and deny my power, never using it for anything. To show that I'm thankful and pleased with my new silk gowns and fine jewelry."
"No, that's not what I meant," he tried to protest.
"Maybe I should ride across the border and kill innocent townspeople just so I can steal their chickens and grain," she added maliciously.
He flinched, and she was pleased to see it. "You're not listening to me-"
"Maybe not, but you listen to me." She stood from the stool, taking comfort and courage from the new difference in their height. "If you breathe a word about that staff, or the root, we will make sure you regret it til your dying day. We offered you help, we offered you to join us. If you really want to be our enemy, so be it." She turned with a flounce to leave, but wasn't unaware of him scrambling up behind her.
"Morgana…"
She turned her head just enough to see him clearly from the corner of her eye. He wasn't exactly sun-bronzed anyway, but he went sheet-white and his eyes glazed. He pitched over, onto the floor between the cot and the stool, with enough of a clatter to rouse Gaius.
"Merlin! What's going-" Bemusedly, the physician's gaze caught on Morgana instead; she shifted her posture to make it seem like she was entering, rather than leaving. "My lady?"
"Sorry." Merlin's voice was breathless, and the cot tipped and thumped as he attempted to use it to balance in rising to his feet. The stool skidded further away before he made it. "Sorry. I just stood up too fast."
"I warned you," the old man reminded him sternly – before turning his attention back to Morgana. "Can I help you with something, my lady?"
Only now did she realize, she'd threatened Merlin about telling anyone what she'd done, but she hadn't asked if he already had. "No, I was just… checking you were all right. If you needed anything, after the…"
Merlin swayed on his feet, and just that quickly Gaius' attention was completely diverted; Morgana was annoyed.
"Sit down, boy, before you fall again. And tear all your stitches open, and crack that thick skull of yours, likely as not."
Merlin grimaced into the air between them, but shuffled forward to the workbench, instead of dropping back down onto the patient bed.
"But I guess you're both fine," she concluded sardonically, whirling once again to leave.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Gaius took a deep cathartic breath and let it out slowly, reveling in a rare spare moment of rest when he wasn't actually exhausted, but able to sit at his desk and peruse a book rather than frantically brewing yet another potion to slow blood loss or encourage bone-knitting or inhibit infection.
Thinking of infection, he glanced up at the lanky prince lounging on his patient-bed, aware of the occasional turn of a second book's page, and the odds against finding a young man who could be such a simple and easy companion. A royal of another kingdom, with magic.
Merlin was currently looking through a section of Gaius' enormous tome on the human anatomy, propped on his elbow, the fingers of one hand shoved through his curls, blinking drowsily and no longer making any effort to hide his yawns.
Gaius narrowed his eyes, trying to visually ascertain if Merlin's fever had abated. The young man wasn't happy or patient about the development – complication of his wound, continued treatment, or the need for constant supervision – though he seemed perfectly content to remain in these chambers.
But he was reading the script on the pages, Gaius could tell. Not growing bored after a moment and flipping on, but… studying? learning?
Gaius closed the book on his desk in a puff of dust, just as the door of the chamber moved to signal a visitor. He lifted his head and opened his mouth to speak, to welcome, but found himself rising to his feet behind his desk, hands braced on either side of the history-book for swiftness and balance.
This woman he recognized. Wearing a dark gray-blue gown and her red-brown hair loose over a white fox-fur arranged casually over her shoulders and a stern expression to make every man lower than a king quake – Queen Annis of Caerleon.
Gaius ignored the guard intoning the introduction. His eyes went straight to the obvious object of her visit – whose tousled curls were now nestled in the open pages of the anatomy book, the knuckles of one hand dragging gently on the floor beneath the cot with every breath.
"Your Majesty," Gaius greeted her in a low voice of caution, raising his palms to gesture for quiet.
The queen paused a few paces inside the door, following his gaze, but another woman younger than Annis by a decade or more – plain gray woolens, green scarf over brown hair as long as the queen's down her back – pushed past her and was at the patient-bed in an instant. In one motion she was bending over the prince and lowering herself to sit on the stool beside the cot.
"Please don't," he said immediately, his most strident whisper. "Don't wake him!"
Merlin had been resisting the idea of a midday nap as unnecessary, even flushed and feverish, and maybe part of that was the knowledge of too much work being done by those who'd slept too little, in the lower town.
The woman shot Gaius a reproachful look. Merlin didn't stir, and the queen stalked to Gaius at his desk rather than to her sleeping adopted prince. He bowed politely as she reached him, but kept one eye upon-
"His mother," Annis explained softly. "How is he?"
Gaius summarized the wound, his treatment, and the prince's recovery thus far in a few quiet sentences, watching the younger woman – Hunith, then, though their paths had never crossed before now – examine her son as he spoke. Lightly touching the sleeve that covered the bandage, coaxing elbow to bend and lifting his arm to rest on the bed beside him in a way that would prove more comfortable when he woke.
Then, she rose from the stool and came to join them, watching her sleeping son over her shoulder.
"The fever's broken, then," she whispered, sparing Gaius barely more than a glance. There were lines at her eyes that spoke of frequent smiles, but he could clearly see the fresh beauty – the compassion and concern – that must have drawn Balinor, wounded invisibly and to the heart as he'd been, sick with remorse and afraid for his life for the first time.
"I believe so," he returned. "The inflammation of the infection in the wound has subsided, the last time I rebandaged it." He let a pause separate his sentences, then added deliberately, "Welcome to Camelot, Your Majesty… my lady Hunith."
Merlin was beginning to move, and Hunith returned to the bedside to perch on the little stool. Annis stood at her shoulder, looking down – and in one instant, Gaius thought to envy the boy for his own prince's sake. To have two such mother-figures in his lifetime, and Arthur none… though he didn't suppose the king of Caerleon was any easier upon his heir than the king of Camelot.
Merlin shifted to his back, blinking up at the queen, and slurred, " 'M skinny 'n clumsy 'n weak…"
"Not for quite some time, dear heart," the queen responded, sounding amused.
Hunith leaned forward. "Merlin. Do you know where you are, my son?"
Gaius came around the corner of the desk, watching Merlin's eyes circumnavigate the room, ending with the vaulted tower-ceiling. He concluded, in the tone of a guess, "In bed?"
Hunith clicked her tongue and gave his hand a fond slap of reprimand for his levity in the situation. The queen snorted and Merlin grinned – then frowned.
"What are the two of you doing in Camelot?"
"We came to visit you," Hunith told him, smiling.
And Annis added, "We need to talk."
21. Part 2: Infection
("Balinor the Dragonlord" from A Challenging Quest)
Mordred woke to find himself lying down, and still. He was warm and not particularly uncomfortable, and above him orange light flickered dimly over rock and earth. He felt heavy and thick-headed and slow, and when he raised a hand to rub his eyes, his fingers encountered something on his cheek that interrupted the smooth of his skin.
Experimentally he scratched to get it off – was it mud? it felt like a spot of spattered mud – and it stung. A scab. A cut, or a scrape.
He remembered what happened. He remembered beginning to slide over the hillside, down the ravine. He remembered being propped a-horseback with Arthur, and tipping off that saddle, too.
Something caught his attention and he turned his head, recognizing his surroundings for a small crack in the mountainside, hollowed out by weather and roofed with weed-roots and captured dust. The different darkness of the night sky was partially obscured by the shapes of the horses, nosing into their feed bags, in the absence of natural forage. There was a small fire above his head, tucked carefully into the back of the cave.
Arthur slouched shirtless against the opposite wall, a few paces away. Merlin sat cross-legged between them with his back to Mordred; he had Arthur's hand tucked awkwardly under his elbow.
"…Sorry if I'm hurting you." Merlin's murmur echoed back to Mordred in the stillness and shape of the cave.
Arthur grimaced his answer; if he added anything verbally, Mordred didn't hear it.
"…Should have said something… this is a mess…"
Arthur lifted his free hand to rub his forehead tiredly. Mordred wondered how much of the night had passed. Merlin reached to the side, picking up something or laying something down, then began to make rhythmic movements that Mordred's mind interpreted as bandaging. Then Arthur's gaze shifted and connected to Mordred's – he saw his name form on the Pendragon's lips.
Merlin looked over his shoulder at Mordred.
Between blinks, or so it seemed, Merlin was bending over Mordred, a cup in his hand. "Hey. How are you feeling? You want something to drink?"
He did. It might cool him down – he hated the fire, and the blanket - and he was terribly thirsty all of a sudden.
But he couldn't sit up. His muscles worked, tightened, but pain shot through him and panic followed in its wake. He couldn't move – he couldn't sit up – he was helpless. They'd be angry and leave him, and he couldn't move… His eyes blurred with tears.
"I can't!" he gasped, and his chest burned with words he couldn't say. Emrys! Help me, please!
Mordred. He heard, to the core of his being. Calm down. I'm here. I'll take care of you, don't worry.
He blinked away tears; Merlin bent over him, curling fingers around the back of Mordred's neck, lifting him as easily as a baby, and he didn't need to engage his muscles or cooperate with the movement at all, til he was upright and gravity tugged at him differently, pulling at the blood in his bruises.
"Drink this now," Merlin coaxed.
Mordred reached with his off hand. It was stew-broth, thick and rich and tangy.
"I think you've cracked a bone in your arm," Merlin told him, with a weary quirk of a smile. "That won't be fatal. But it's still serious, while we're out here alone. Do you know any healing spells? I could try?"
Mordred searched foggy memories, and shook his head slowly. "I wasn't… taught any of that."
Merlin made a face. "Me neither. Should probably rectify that, when we get home."
When we. Get home. Mordred swallowed the rest of the broth, feeling the ache in his chest tighten, drawing more tears from his eyes. How long had it been since he'd had a home?
"Here," Merlin said, scooting closer and passing his arms around Mordred. "Lie back down again. In the morning it will be difficult and painful, but for now – just rest."
That he could do. Let go and allow Merlin to ease him back down more gently than he could have wished, with some cushioning material under his head and more bolstering his right arm along his side. And if he lay very still, there was no pain at all…
He fell asleep listening to the sounds of Merlin moving quietly around the little cave.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Balinor had been watching the little party since shortly after dawn. Sometimes they disappeared for the better part of an hour, wending their way higher and closer, and Balinor found curiosity piqued along with irritation. It had been decades since he'd given up the company of men – partly in penance, partly in self-preservation, and now it seemed likelier every hour that he'd be forced to experience at least minimal interaction with these men.
Who were they and what did they want?
He and began to stride downward along the path. He'd head them off, see what they wanted, turn them away…
The two who were riding weren't straight in their saddles, weren't looking around them with any measure of alertness; none of them were conversing with the others. Balinor watched them round the last curve below him, able now to hear the huff of the horses, the ring of hoof on rock, and positioned himself astride the path, waiting for them to reach and notice him – and now they were close enough to identify details.
The foremost rider was no more than a boy, and his right arm was strapped to his chest. Both riders' legs had been tied to their saddle-leather to keep them from falling, and both bounced and swayed inattentively. The man on foot held the reins of the foremost horse, and there was a rope connecting the two horses together, long enough to allow the second to pick footing through the mountain passes, but short enough not to become hazardously tangled. The man in the lead wore a shirt of Caerleon indigo under a ring-studded breastplate, and the hilt of a sword angled over his shoulder.
Balinor snorted to himself. A barbarian.
It brought a grim smile to his face when the barbarian looked up from his arduous climb and visibly startled to see Balinor standing above him on the trail. His hair was black and shaggy, an unshaven scruff covered his jaw, and he shaded his eyes with his hand. Balinor's shadow stretched down over him but not fully; the sun must be right behind him to the stranger's perception.
"Oh," he said – close enough for Balinor to hear him without having to shout out. "We've found you, then. I'm glad."
"I'm not," Balinor said shortly. "What do you want?"
For the space of one breath and a pair of heartbeats, the young man simply stared up at him. Then he tossed an arm backwards at his mounted companions – both blinking blearily and half-aware up at Balinor. "My friends are injured. We could use some help."
Balinor grunted derisively. "Of course you could. What do I get out of it? A knife in the ribs in the dead of night so you can rob me." He turned on the path and began to stalk upward, back to his cave.
"Please," the barbarian called after him, pleading with the difficult word, and not his tone. Balinor heard the clop of hooves and knew that the stranger was dragging his strange cavalcade behind him; the horses seemed nearly as worn from hard travel as the men. "I've tried to help them but they need medicine and that's beyond my skill. If you're the dragonlord, your education-"
"My education," Balinor grunted, but it was as if the stranger never heard him.
"-Should have included that, and healing magic. Which I could try if you'd at least tell me which spells… But we're a long way from anyone else who could help and I doubt I could get my friends back to that without resorting to something like the Astyre-us thaneonward-"
Balinor spun, the tails of his long coat flaring with the movement, and the stranger startled on the steep path, putting one hand down for balance before he straightened. "You'd risk that?" he demanded. "Chancy magic at best, and you could be killed or worse if you made one mistake."
"I know." The young man held his gaze. Balinor realized his eyes were a deep and exhausted blue. Not that it mattered.
"Why not just leave them?" Balinor suggested, half-taunting, half-curious. "There are Saxons at Ismere, and that is not far. They might stab you in the back and rob you, but if you sold them your companions, they'd be cared for as valuable merchandise, and you're free to return to your own depredations. Raiding, stealing, killing…"
Something ignited in those eyes, and Balinor found – while he didn't fear the barbarian at all; too young for serious threat – he could respect the temper, and its check. Until the stranger spoke.
"Is that what you did, then. Sold your companions to Uther Pendragon, in return for your own freedom."
Balinor briefly considered seizing the young man by the corners of his breastplate and throwing him off the side of the mountain. He did take two steps down and stab his forefinger into the stranger's breastbone, emphatic enough to feel through the hard leather. "Do you want my help, boy, or not."
The rider in the rear said one word, maybe the name of the warrior. "Merlin."
"I am handling this," the young man snapped back, without taking his eyes from Balinor's. The breath drawn and exhaled was shuddery and uneven, though his jaw remained set. "Yes. Please. I apologize for the offense."
"Yeah. Well. Rude is what you barbarians do best, isn't it." Balinor spun again and stalked away, letting the pace burn out some of his own irritation and pain. Let the strangers follow as best they could.
"The boy fell off the path – I think he's cracked the bone in his upper arm. But he didn't sleep well and he's not interested in eating or drinking enough, so he's gotten weak and light-headed. My other friend – well, he fell too, he was knocked off his horse. His shoulder was cut up a bit, and he's developed an infection. There's swelling, and fever…"
Balinor glanced back as he approached the level of his cave. "Leave the horses there," he told the young man below him. "The path is steep and there's no room for them. Bring your friends just up here."
He stomped on, into his little home, focused on retrieving the items he'd need to treat the warrior's two companions. He didn't live in a forest anymore, surrounded by plants and roots and leaves of medicinal quality, but old habits died hard and he didn't have much else to occupy his days anyway. Carving and carpentry and selling those bits and pieces for things he couldn't scavenge from the woods and countryside, when Kilgarrah could be persuaded to carry him within a day's walk of a town or village.
A dish and a stir-twig for mixture, strips of bandaging, cups for water from the rain-reservoir he'd built. Comfrey and boneset and calendula and see if the old spells still worked. It was different than using magic on one's own self…
He could hear the stranger's voice occasionally, speaking to his companions or soothing their horses or even just complaining out loud, and he'd forgotten how loud and annoying other people could be. He bristled as the barbarian scuffed into the cave, panting under the weight of the suffering boy, filling the space with noise that didn't originate with Balinor.
"Where do you want him?"
"On the pallet," Balinor said tersely. "And get your other friend up here quickly. I want you gone as soon as you can travel."
The barbarian straightened from easing the boy to a sitting position, and Balinor could tell he was looking at him again. He refused to meet his eyes, shouldering past him to kneel by the boy. The barbarian – Merlin, he supposed was his name, though if they didn't bother to introduce themselves properly, he wasn't going to worry about niceties and names – departed the cave again more quietly, and without saying a word.
Balinor lit and positioned the oil-lamp next to them, and the boy roused to watch him untie the bindings on his arm. Remnants of someone's shirt, and not one in rags anyway. It was well-made from superior cloth, and Balinor wasn't too reclusive to lament the loss of a quality garment. Or to wonder.
"What's your name?" Balinor asked.
"Mordred…"
Balinor timed the spell for the moment he answered, and the boy gasped, stiffening in reaction as the bone began to knit, drawing substance from the boy's own body and energy from Balinor. He had it to spare, most days.
"There, Mordred," he said, satisfied and soothing. "It'll be sore, and take a while to regain strength, but that's better than it was?"
The boy tested it gingerly, eyes wide and expression carefully blank. Wary of Balinor, now that his focus wasn't his pain.
"How did a druid come to share company with barbarian warriors?" Balinor asked, handing him a dosed cup of water – for pain relief, and for bone health. "You're not a slave, are you? He's not using you for your magic?"
The boy didn't respond, which was in itself an answer. His attitude was more than just careful reticence with a stranger, there was fear and mistrust there, deep-seated and long-held, based on terrible personal experience.
"Is that the first thing you assume about everyone you meet?"
Balinor twisted at the sound of the barbarian's voice. He had a sword tucked under his pallet but in the moment magic would be faster and more subtle, if it was needed. He hadn't heard the warrior return, but both young men stood in the high, wide mouth of the cave.
The injured one had blond hair, bruising on his face, white shirt under a hide vest that wasn't really proper armor – but the sword at his hip was a proper sword. As he leaned against the rock of the wall, it appeared as if the barbarian's hand on his chest held him upright and in place. His own hand wrapped the brace trapping the indigo sleeve, as if he had gripped his companion's forearm to thrust the support away, and found himself clinging instead.
"You think any man whose path you cross is capable of that sort of betrayal?" the stranger in indigo asked, and there was an odd edge to the curiosity in his voice.
Balinor sneered. "Any man is capable of that sort of betrayal," he informed the younger man. Naivete in a barbarian was unexpected. "Knowing that means I'm spared the disappointment."
"So words like hope and trust and friendship," the barbarian Merlin challenged, lifting his chin. "Don't they mean anything to you?"
"Why the hell would it matter to you?" Balinor snapped, irritated that he'd allowed himself to be baited. This was why he avoided people.
The younger man huffed sardonically. "I guess it wouldn't."
"Merlin…" his companion murmured, and instantly gained the barbarian's full attention, as his legs gave out. The black-haired warrior helped his friend slide to the floor, slowly and carefully.
"Mordred will need to carry that arm in a sling for a few weeks," Balinor said, straightening from his crouch beside the pallet to come to the mouth of the cave. "And if I'm busy with them this afternoon, the least you can do is prepare some dinner, and tend the fire for the night."
Merlin glanced about. There was a firepit outside the cave but no firewood; Balinor had spent the morning watching these three travel rather than scavenging dead wood and fresh greens from the narrow valley. He didn't offer supplies either; he'd be damned if he'd feed the interlopers also. Least they could do was offer him a meal in trade for his help.
Balinor knelt beside the wounded warrior, whose feverishly glassy gaze followed him. His friend Merlin unlaced his shirt, pushing it down off his shoulder to expose the bandage. Balinor cupped the young man's forehead in his palm to gauge his fever – and it was high.
"Drink this," Balinor said, stretching for the second cup of water, infused with yarrow for the fever. "I'll put a poultice on the wound and then-"
"Balinor," the blond warrior managed. Less than fully conscious. "My name is-"
"Swefe nu," the barbarian blurted with a gesture, catching his friend's head as it lolled in immediate sleep and easing it back between the rock and his uninjured shoulder.
Balinor quirked a suspicious eyebrow at Merlin.
"He talks too much," Merlin said defensively. Evasively.
Balinor repeated sarcastically, "He talks too much? Or is it just that you don't want him to say the wrong thing where the wrong person can hear? Are you hiding something?"
"Because you're perfectly trustworthy?" the barbarian countered, moving back.
Balinor snorted, beginning to unwind the bandage. The lowest layers were crusted, stained and moist with yellowish fluid that had leaked from the tears in the skin, edged with red and beginning to show faint streaks down his shoulder in the direction of his heart. Too bad he didn't have honey, but the comfrey and calendula should be enough, in addition to the healing magic that didn't really cost him anything.
Merlin watched him a moment, hovering just out of Balinor's sight. Well, as long as he wasn't blocking the light… Balinor ignored when the barbarian retreated back down the path – to their horses or supplies, or looking for firewood, he didn't care.
Mordred scrutinized him, and said nothing. Balinor cleaned the wound on the blond warrior's shoulder and spread the comfrey paste over the swollen flesh. Positioning his hand, he breathed out the healing spell.
"Ahluttre tha seocnes… Thurh-haele braed."