"Father? May I borrow you for a moment?"
It was Amharr who interrupted his and Guinevere's lunch with the new King of Mercia. His son was nearly a man, on the cusp of his sixteenth year, and Arthur had thought he knew better than to interrupt important diplomatic engagements such as this.
"Can't it wait?"
"It's Merlin, Sire." Amharr's face, usually so expressive, was carefully schooled; a sure sign of just how worried he really was. "He... needs you. Will you come?"
Arthur made his apologies and left the visiting King in the capable care of his wife.
"He's alright," Amharr hastened to reassure as soon as they were out of earshot. "Well, mostly. He's just acting strangely."
"What do you mean?"
"We started organising the vault today." Arthur had set Amharr and Merlin the task in last week's council meeting. "We went a little slowly at first - you know how Merlin likes to tell stories - but soon we'd gotten into a rhythm. I had just gone to ask one of the servants to fetch us some lunch, but when I came back he was holding this."
By now they had reached the bottom of the steps which led to Merlin's tower and Amharr pulled out a chunk of crystal, rough and unpolished. Arthur recognised it immediately.
It had been years since he had last set eyes on the Crystal of Neahtid, but he remembered it well. For all the tales of power and foresight, in Amharr's hands it remained just a hunk of rock. In Merlin's, however...
"I spoke to him, but it was like he couldn't hear me. He just kept staring into it. In the end I had to grab it off him."
"And then?"
"He ran off. I tried to follow him but he's quite quick for one so-"
" Don't say old," Arthur warned, for Merlin was a year or two younger than he was. The rebuke prompted a slight smile from his son, though worry still lurked beneath.
"One of the servants said he was in his workshop. I thought you'd want to know."
"You did the right thing," said Arthur. "Will you go and support your mother with King Bevall? Truth be told the man is a frightful bore. I think Ygraine nearly fell asleep when she sat next to him at dinner last night..."
"Of course." Amharr hesitated and, sounding more like five years old than fifteen, asked, "Will Merlin be alright?"
"I'm sure," Arthur answered, though the growing pit of foreboding in his stomach suggested otherwise.
Merlin had his own chambers, but there was a cot in the corner of his workshop for those not-so-rare occasions when he dozed off while researching some enchantment or another. He was laid upon it now, staring blankly at a fixed point on the ceiling.
"You've pulled quite a stunt, managing to get me out of lunch with King Bevall."
Merlin didn't move.
"I've sent Amharr in my place," Arthur continued, keeping his tone light as he lifted Merlin's legs so he could perch beneath them at the end of the bed. "You gave him quite a scare, you know."
Still nothing.
"Merlin... what did you see?"
Silence, again. He was just considering whether he ought to fetch some sort of healer, when,
"The future." Merlin's voice was dull and listless. "Things yet to come."
"What things?"
"I can't say."
Arthur frowned. "Is it something about me?"
"No."
"Guinevere?"
" No."
"Amharr then? Ygraine?"
Merlin sighed heavily. "I'm not going to tell you."
"But I-"
"Leave it, Arthur. Please."
Helplessness seized Arthur in the face of his friend's obstinate apathy. "Surely there's something I can do? Some way I can help?"
Merlin's lip twitched, a pathetic ghost of his usual blinding grin. "Just stay with me a while? I may not be the best company, but still better than boring King Bevall."
"Of course. As long as you need."
"Talk to me about something? Something normal."
Arthur searched his memory for something to distract his friend with. "Word is that Sir Gwaine is in love."
Merlin barked a laugh - a little forced, but it was a start. "Gwaine's always in love."
"Ah, but Percival tells me this time is different."
"Oh? And why's that?"
Their conversation drifted over various inconsequential topics, carrying them through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Amharr came looking for them once King Bevall had retired for bed.
"Father, Ygraine is asking for you." The prince hesitated. "Actually, Merlin, she was asking for you too."
"Yes, I did promise I would read to her..."
As Merlin went to fetch the book in question, Amharr cast his father a curious look. Everything alright?
Truthfully, Arthur wasn't sure. Merlin's mood was much improved, but there was a definite something which lay beneath. A worry, a knowing, an unsayable thing that Arthur couldn't put his finger on.
Still he nodded firmly back to his son, doing his best to project a sense of reassurance. The future was not written in stone after all - perhaps whatever Merlin had seen in the Crystal would not come to pass?