Uther was completely transfixed in the presence of his wife, and she in his. The buzz of that day in Granny's ended with the citizens of this city following King Arthur to the camp. He stayed there with them late into the evening, until he returned to the chamber he shared with Merlin, not speaking to either of them.
"Is he...everything you dreamed he would be?" Uther asked Igraine as they watched their son ascend the stairs, face grim and pale.
"He is and more, lord..." Igraine swallowed.
"He looks so much like my father. Do you remember my father, Uther?"
Silence, as Uther chuckled to himself.
"I remember a man that quite hated me and wanted me far away from his little girl."
The Pendragons chuckled, recalling their youth.
"I see a lot of you in him. I always did...but he...is changed too. The Arthur I knew was not so...dark..."
Uther swallowed hard. The steps were many and Arthur was climbing slowly. He could hear them talking below, but whether he discerned what they were saying or not, he did not slow his pace, and pretended he did not know they were there. The truth was that he was crying and did not want them to see it.
"As I carried him, I knew I would love him. Oh, I knew it. But Uther, I was not prepared...for such soul-crushing love as this. I-I thought I knew what it was to love when I married you, dear. But then I had a son." Igraine turned to her husband, grinning from ear to ear, but her grin slowly faded.
She was suddenly in tears.
She looked at Uther in earnest, covering her mouth with her hand. He already knew what she was about to say, and he shook his head, not sure he was ready to see her cry so soon after having her returned to life, not sure if he could bear to talk about the obvious reason why their child was so different than they expected.
"I cannot...even imagine...that being true." She covered her mouth with her hand.
They stood in silence. As a father, long ago, Uther would have stormed up the stairs after the boy when he had clearly sunken deeply into a depression. It was not known to many, and was even unknown to Merlin, that Arthur as a young teenager saddled with the responsibility of being the general of Camelot's armies, had bouts of deep depression and anxiety often. Only his father knew this.
Uther swallowed.
"I am a coward, my lady. Truly...The man I was before the Death Sleep...I would have charged the stairs. I would not be able to let him go to bed without explaining what he said this evening..." Uther was shaking now.
"But I-I almost can't even face him now." Uther laughed, a hollow laugh.
"My son...I only remember as a boy. To think of the man he became, and the price he paid for it..."
The two parents stood in silence in the center of the room. A fire crackled in the hearth. Upstairs, Arthur had come face to face with Merlin, and their joke from early that day had made the king forget his tears, and they both laughed so hard they started crying. The Pendragons did not hear the two cackling upstairs over the fire and the darkness of their thoughts.
"Do you remember when we pledged ourselves to each other, even against my father's initial wishes? How you swore to me you would, no matter what may come, be a man. You told me then there is no greater test of manhood than to confront a greater man..."Igraine turned and stared at Uther.
It had not been said until now, but he could see in her eyes that she had thought it, and he knew it too. Their son had far surpassed his father in manhood. Uther, for all his pride, was not even remotely offended by the inference because it was so true. The people of Camelot were not even aware that several of the kings of their people's past were in their midst with the camp. All of the kings before paled in comparison to the one who had died for them.
"When I vowed this to you...I was a young, brash man standing before a proud warrior that I thought of as my inferior at the time, I admit. I truly am a fool and a coward, Igraine. Never have I ever truly stood up to a man I knew was my better." Uther smiled, a watery smile.
Igraine laughed.
"You were young and a fool. A hot-headed fool I loved. You have been a truly fortunate man, Uther Pendragon. For now that it comes to it, and you must fall into the hands of a greater man, be glad that it is the one whose kiss upon your brow woke you from the Death Sleep." Igraine's smile shattered into giggles at the dumbfounded look that Uther gave her.
"What? Did no one tell you? Oh, I thought you knew since his was the first face you saw on waking. Your curse...it was the kind that only true love's kiss could break. Did you know this?"
"I-I did know...Gaius has told me all the many wives tales for one lifetime..."Uther smiled, sheepishly. Igraine studied him with intent. It was still causing him to feel numb all over that he could look into her living eyes.
"The curse requires that the truest love of the person in death-like sleep is the one who kisses them. That bond must run both ways. It was not I who woke you, lord king, but your son. So, you see, you are a lucky man. You will not fall into the hands of a better man who may yet despise you. No, when the day has come for you to fall into the hands of a greater man, now that man also is perhaps the only man on the face of the good earth you can say for certain loves you truly now. Oh, yes, Uther, I have been hearing stories..."Igraine smiled at the look on his face, peeved but still loving.
"But I am not ready to confront them all now. That will come with time. Now, if you love me, or ever have, you will find a way to gather your courage and go and face your son."
With that, Igraine excused herself out away to the porch and the moonlit night.
Uther stood in the room alone, swathed in darkness and the crackling of the fire. Away upstairs, Merlin had caused himself a proper belly ache he had laughed so hard, and decided to go to bed. Arthur, however, stood on the balcony staring into the night, watching his mother skip through the garden with girlish cheer, smiling at her ways.