"You will probably be pleased to know that Merlin, that Arthur's servant who intrigued you so much during your last stay in Camelot, Guinevere, her brother Elyan, whom I think you should remember, and other people of low estate sat at this table with us. You must know, dear sister, that I only realised the extraordinary nature of this event when writing to you. I became so attached to them, I loved them so much, that at that moment it did not even cross my mind that none of them is of noble birth."

Extract from a letter from Sir Leon DeGrance to his sister, Lady Eleanor Fermoy.

At the root of evil

Part 4.

I woke up and came to the conclusion that I had fallen out of bed. I was surprised a bit, because although all sorts of little accidents have probably been maliciously written into my supposedly great destiny by someone, until now I have always woken up in the place where I fell asleep. I was certain that I hadn't fallen asleep on the floor that night. Admittedly, after leaving Arthur's chambers I was overwhelmed by a terrible, almost overpowering drowsiness, but I clearly remembered the moment I lay down.

I opened my eyes and made another startling discovery. It wasn't my ceiling. Definitely not my cracked and fly-stained ceiling. How the hell was that possible? Had I, in some sudden fit of sleepwalking, come into Arthur's chambers at night and thought it a brilliant idea to lie on the floor? Unless it was the ceiling felt bored of staying in the same place all the time and decided to move. Given everything that was going on in Camelot, this couldn't be completely ruled out.

Footsteps sounded. I knew it was Arthur. I sat up abruptly. I felt as if I had spent several hours training with the knights the previous day. Every, smallest muscle in my body was protesting against any movement.

"Good morning," said Artur, crouching down next to me. "Did you sleep well?"

The amusement in his voice was feigned, his eyes almost glittering with concern. A shiver ran down my spine. That look usually meant there was really something to worry about.

"Not quite. It may be a royal floor, but it's not the most comfortable. Everything hurts me."

"Oh, I believe. But it's not the floor's fault."

He looked at me carefully. Even if I didn't know him, I would have known something was very wrong. My stomach squeezed painfully. Several candles were burning in the candlestick standing on the table. So it's still night, I thought. Another bad sign.

"What has happened? Why... Why am I not in my bed? After all, I know where I went to bed. And no, don't even try to tell me that I probably got drunk and don't remember anything, because that's not true."

Arthur sighed, brushing a strand of hair away from his forehead. He looked tired.

"One thing at a time, Merlin," he said in the tone he usually used to gently call to order witnesses testifying in cases he was judging. I sent him an irritated look. Please, say it already. Let's get it over with.

"You took a little trip into the forest. Barefoot, in just a nightgown. I know why, but I want to hear it from you."

"What!" I almost shouted, and then I remembered with all the clarity of a nightmare about a strange, half-dead black cat. "It was just a dream," I said, already a little quieter. I was beginning to feel a sense of dread, which must have been painted on my face, because Arthur unexpectedly put his hand on my shoulder.

"That's what I thought at the time too. A black cat, right? With a red neckerchief around its neck. You must have followed it. Earlier in the day, you saw it hanging from an apple tree and went in to take it down, but it disappeared."

"How did you know?" My voice was trembling and I was ready to swear I could smell the aftertaste of forest mulch in my mouth.

"The same thing happened to me once. My father wouldn't let cut down that apple tree because my mother supposedly liked to sit under it very much, but I know... I know it was cursed ever since Gwen found that unfortunate Morgana's cat on it. That animal was always somehow abnormal and stayed that way after it died. Do you remember? I told you about it."

"It was hard to forget. For a long time I thought it was you who had hung it, to spite... her."

I immediately regretted not biting my tongue in time. Arthur twisted his lips in an angry grimace.

"I didn't touch it with my fingertip," he hissed. There was more pain than anger in that. The former, wrongful accusation tormented him like a badly healed old wound, and I had stabbed it unnecessarily with a sharpened stick. But I couldn't take back the ill-advised words. All that remained was for me to try to explain.

"Hey! You're not listening to me. I didn't say I thought that now. Back then... well... I wasn't fond of you, to put it mildly."

"With reciprocation," he muttered, already calmer, but the expression of hurt hadn't completely disappeared from his eyes. I was reminded of how to save Gwen, in an act of desperation, I confessed to the entire royal council that i'm a sorcerer. Arthur, though he hardly knew me, assumed I wasn't telling the truth, that I couldn't be "incarnate evil" and defended me from the consequences of my own stupidity. And I, although I hardly knew him, assumed that he had hanged Morgana's cat. The fact that we were both wrong was funny in about the same way as a group of comedians at a their friend's funeral.

"Yesterday you had the apple tree cut down," I picked up after a moment.

He nodded.

"Because, of course, you had to see that demon in a cat's skin and get in there. I hoped it would help that the cat wouldn't appear. My father is unlikely to see it, and even if he did, I'd tell him that the wind had broken it and it had to be cut whole tree."

"It didn't help," I replied. "What's this cat actually trying to do? It led me to some tree and started digging in the ground. That's what I remember."

"When I caught up with you, you were digging in the ground with your bare hands, like a madman. I managed to drag you away from there, but you were asleep and couldn't be woken up. Me... It didn't even get me out of the castle. The guards stopped me. They thought I was sleepwalking."

"Did you follow me?"

"The plan was completely different. I intended to make sure you didn't leave the physician's chambers that night, but I fell asleep right after you left. Either it was the weather or this devilry had somehow affected me too. In any case, when I woke up, you were gone. I took the dog, set off on your trail and found you, just in time, as we see."

"What do you think would have happened if you hadn't been found me?" I asked, massaging my sore neck. Damn it! After all, I wasn't using to digging my head.

"I don't know if I want to know."

Arthur got up, walked over to the table and poured himself some water from the jug. I was thirsty too. Got to get my ass up off this floor eventually. I looked at my feet, which seemed strangely devoid of feeling, as if I had put on several pairs of socks. They were wrapped in a thick layer of bandages.

"You have very injured feet," Arthur announced, as if in response. Oh, great. Filled with my worst fears, I began to unwrap the bandage on my right foot. It was burning a little when I touched it.

"Why did you yell at me instead of telling me that the apple tree is cursed?" I asked. "You like to complicate simple things, don't you?"

"There was a chance that nothing more would happen. I preferred not to suggest anything to you. I was counting on you to think it was an illusion and that was the end of it."

"I figured I had something wrong with my head."

Arthur snorted slightly.

"It's only now that it's come to you? Everyone's been telling you that all along."

"Asshole," I muttered under my breath, but loud enough for him to hear.

"Crimen laesae maiestatis," he remuttered in a way that suggested he was writing it down on parchment.

I couldn't contain my laughter when I finally saw my foot. There were a few cuts, scrapes and abrasions on it, but the term 'very injured' was far too dramatic.

"What is it that amuses you so much?" Artur asked, walking over to the window and pulling open the curtains. It didn't get much brighter, although, as it turned out, it was after sunrise. A layer of clouds covered the sky, but as far as I could see from my current position, it wasn't raining.

"Do you call a few scratches injuries? From what you said I understood that there was almost nothing left of my legs."

"I know... I knew people who died from one such scratch," he replied, surprisingly quite seriously. This wasn't the first time I had noticed that although he was in the habit of mocking slight injuries sustained during training or in battle, he was concerned about wounds of other origins. For some reason, he considered it extremely dangerous to cut his skin with anything that wasn't a weapon.

"Probably because they lubricated with mud, chicken dung, or a mixture of both. Possibly with the addition of the blood of a midnight-killed goat."

"Don't be so swollen-headed, Merlin. If you still lived in Ealdor, you would act the same way."

It made me feel stupid. Arthur was right. Compared to others, I was lucky, and in many ways. I can't forget that, I can't let knowledge and magic drive me into hubris.

"By the way," continued Arthur. "That was exactly it. Cuts stained with earth and God knows what else. You went barefoot into the bloody forest. I didn't know what to do with you when I brought you back. You didn't wake up. What does one do when there is no court physician and an accident happens?"

"An apprentice is called in," I replied, getting down to removing the bandage from the other foot. As I expected, Arthur sighed ostentatiously.

"What if the physician's apprentice is the idiot who had the accident?"

"Then it's best to send for an executioner. He can gut a person, so there is a likelihood that he will be able to put them back."

"Oh yeah, indeed I should send for the executioner, so that, according to the law, he will chop off your hand, for stealing apples from the royal apple trees. I found fourteen in your bag."

"You rummaged through my bag!" I exclaimed with indignation. In my spirit I thanked all the deities, known and unknown to me, for not having anything there that could raise doubts. Of course not counting the stolen apples, which, if I had been exceptionally unlucky, could have exposed me to a day in the stocks. Uther always sentenced apple thieves to have their hand chopped off, and then, at the last moment, changed that punishment to a day in the stocks. Except in one case, when someone was caught trying to cart away three carts of fruit. At least that's what Gaius claimed.

"You usually carry there ointment for cuts. Besides, you keep rummaging through my things every day," Arthur stated.

"Well, yes, but... This is a slightly different situation."

"I don't see the difference. In the case, I'm a prince and I had a reasonable suspicion that I would find evidence of a crime there."

He put the bag next to me. There were still apples inside. I fished out the vessel of ointment.

"Thanks," I said, looking at Arthur with the hope that he understood the full extent of this thanks. It reached me emphatically that he had bandaged my feet, and quite skillfully at that, that he had once again done something spectacularly inappropriate for a man of his status, but endearing to someone like me, and that, as king, he would truly be a servant to his subjects.

Arthur shrugged his shoulders. He still looked worried.

"I think we should go to the forest and see what this cat wanted me to dig up," I said, bandaging my left foot. "You assumed it wanted to do something bad, but I think it's just trying to show something."

"Don't you dare even think about it, idiot," he threw back sharply. "This is some nasty magic. A trap. A curse."

It's possible. All the more reason to destroy it, and that second tree is definitely related to it. Let's just find it and figure out what's behind it."

"No, Merlin. This is my last word."

I laughed in the spirit. Oh, Arthur, do you really still believe in the power of this sentence? I'm sorry, it's not a magic spell.

I finished dressing my feet again and stood up. They hurt a little more than I expected and the first few steps looked rather pathetic. Arthur looked at me with a mocking smile, but didn't comment on it.

"What if the cat comes back?" I asked. "If it comes to me tonight?"

At that moment someone knocked vigorously on the door. I shuddered. This kind of knocking at this hour, always heralded trouble.

"Come in!" called out Arthur. And trouble entered in the form of Lord Agravaine. The first thing he did was to fix a more than disgusted gaze on me. If the disgusting had taken human shape, he would have been Agravaine at that moment. But, to be honest, I could be the illustration of the definition of indecent appearance. I reflexively smoothed the nightgown with my hands, unintentionally emphasizing its deplorable state.

Agravaine grunted and turned to Arthur.

"Forgive me, my lord, for disturbing you at such an early hour, but the matter is urgent. There's no doubt that we're dealing with magic. The apple tree you ordered to be cut down yesterday..." He hesitated, as if searching for the right words.

"What about it? I ordered the wood to be burned. It was rotten."

"Yes, Arthur, but it... It is where it was. It's as if... It grew back overnight."

Arthur raised his eyebrows, and it flashed through my mind that we were getting dangerously close to the border beyond which there are only wandering ceilings.

Footnote:

Crimen laesae maiestatis - from latin: crime of insult to majesty.

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