Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Arthur Pendragon,” Morgause whispered.

Her breath steamed in the cold. Her crystals sat alone on their pedestal, awaiting her attention. She leaned low over them, gazing into them, so that her breath clouded the shiny facets.

Whether the seeing crystals actively obeyed her, or whether they were simply a screen for the projections of her mind’s eye, she did not know; nor did she care.

They worked, and that was all that mattered, after the long years of study under the tutoring of the Priestesses. It had taken her a whole year just to find a scrying medium that suited her, and another year to find someone accurately. It had taken her longer still to learn to find someone she loathed with all her heart. She had to overcome her own unbidden revulsion, her wish to avoid even the sight of one she hated so much.

It was difficult, but not impossible. She could over-ride her heart. That was a lesson she had learned well. She narrowed her eyes, closing down her gaze to the depths of the largest crystal of the cluster, and murmuring the focussing chant she had been taught.

She held the memory of him in her mind – blond hair, blocky shoulders, and blue eyes. The largest and clearest of the crystals seemed to beckon her gaze into its glassy depths, and she narrowed her focus until she saw nothing but the tiny flecks and planes of the crystal’s internal world.

“Arthur Pendragon,” she whispered, again.

He had blond hair, a prominent nose, and slightly crooked teeth. He had smooth, sculpted cheeks, and a distinctive smell, of Stockholm tar, and horse sweat, and armour polish. As the memory of his scent came to her mind’s eye, the image of him came to the crystal.

“There you are,” she said, pleased with how quickly she had found him.

Her view of him seemed to be from one side, as if she hovered over Arthur’s shoulder, looking down on him. As her grasp on the vision grew, her sight expanded, so that she could see more of where they were. He was face to face with his manservant – that irritant whom she had tried to kill, and somehow failed.

They were surrounded by the honey-coloured stone walls of Camelot. Arthur was standing, and his servant was settling his mail hauberk around his shoulders. It seemed the prince was on his way to the practice field. She had caught them at an intimate moment.

Even soundless, she could see that Arthur was happily sounding off on some idea. His brows were jumping in time with his mouth, and his free hand was waving up and down in brisk excitement.

The servant was nodding, distracted, while trying to tie the laces of Arthur’s wrist armour – not an easy task when Arthur wanted to wave his hands around. As she watched, she saw the servant raise one finger and wag it at his master in admonishment. The prince curled his lip and shook his head, rejecting whatever advice he had been given.

He was an arrogant pig, and she felt her hatred of him rising. His servant only sighed, and shook his head, as if resigned to being ignored.

“Arthur Pendragon,” she said, savouring the taste of her hatred. “How I hate you.”

She narrowed her focus, going for a closer view of her enemy’s face, and as she did so, the servant snapped his head up, and their eyes met.

It was like being slapped in the face, like being smashed in the face by a wall of icy water.

Huge dark blue eyes. For a moment, the eyes filled her vision. She could see only eyes, nothing but eyes. They gazed into her soul, gouging into her like knives.

“What are you doing here?” she heard him say. His voice was in her head, inside her mind, and she staggered back from the crystals, trying to break the link. But his eyes were in her mind, looking back, staring into her with an expression of cold anger.

“Show me where you are!” His command echoed in her head, seeming to vibrate in the very bones of her skull. She clapped both hands to her head, and cried out in desperation a spell for driving out another’s possession.

The eyes vanished.

Morgause found herself lying on the black marble floor, her hair in her face. The floor was ice cold under her, but she welcomed its bite. Her mind was empty, and all hers. The giant presence had gone, banished with the breaking of the link.

She brushed her hair away from her face, sitting up. Her seeing crystals sat inert on their pedestal. She felt no magic coming from it now.

“You!” she hissed.

Who would have guessed it? Arthur’s servant was a sorcerer – and a frighteningly powerful one, too. That babyish little brat was hiding power like this? No wonder she had failed to kill him.

She would not fail again, now that she knew what he was.

// // //

Arthur snapped his fingers under Merlin’s nose. “Merlin!”

Merlin jumped. Arthur saw his eyes refocus and the taut expression relax. “Sire?”

“Snap out of it, man!”

“Snapping out right away, Sire,” Merlin agreed.

“What on earth came over you?”

His servant bent his head to Arthur’s arm again, and his fingers resumed their quick movements. “Nothing, Sire,” he said to Arthur’s wrist. “Do you want to wear your surcoat today?”

“Forget the surcoat, Merlin! You looked like you saw a ghost.” He glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of the Merlin’s glare, but there was nothing there. They were alone in his chamber. Merlin had been glaring ferociously at a blank wall. “What on earth just happened?”

The dark blue eyes flicked up to him, and then away again. “I thought I heard something.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

He hadn’t, he recalled. He had simply suddenly noticed that Merlin wasn’t listening to him, glanced at his usually-bland face, and then saw the unexpected expression of rage.

“Well, no, Sire, it was nothing.” Merlin held his head low, in the expression which meant I know nothing, don’t look at me. Arthur had not been fooled by that expression for quite some time.

“Not nothing. Answer me, Merlin, or I swear I’ll … I’ll …” he raised his finger and wagged it at Merlin, “I’ll think of something worse to do to you than put you in the stocks.”

“Ooh, there’s a threat.” Merlin turned away to the table, and if he rolled his eyes, he did it facing away from Arthur, so that Arthur had no excuse to smack him.

“I mean it, Merlin.” He closed the distance between them. “What did you hear?”

Merlin turned to face him, caught at bay against the table. “Well, Sire, it’s … I thought I heard my name being called. That’s all. But as you can see,” he gestured to the room with both hands, “there’s no-one there, is there?”

Arthur shook his head. “You didn’t hear your name being called. Nobody glares like that when they hear their own name. You looked like you were ready to punch someone. Come on, tell me.”

Merlin pursed his lips, and shook his head. “So, what will it be? Surcoat or no surcoat?”

“Forget the surcoat. Come on! Tell me! What did you hear? Or …” he paused, snapped his fingers, and pointed at Merlin. “You didn’t hear anything, did you? You saw something!”

Something in Merlin’s eyes changed, at those words. There was his answer. “Ah-ha! So, you saw something. What did you see, Merlin?”

Merlin shook his head. “Surcoat it is, then,” he decided. He picked up the surcoat, and scrolled it up in his hands so as to slip it over Arthur’s head. From a lifetime of habit, Arthur lifted his hands so that his servant could put the big garment over his head and his arms in one movement.

“Tell me, Merlin,” he said, as soon as his face was clear of bright red fabric. “You know, I can keep on asking all day. I can keep on asking all week. I can keep on asking all year.”

Merlin bowed his head and sighed. “All right. Since you’re clearly prepared to make a mountain out of a molehill even though it’s nothing – I thought for just a moment that maybe I saw someone.”

Merlin’s hands were plucking his surcoat into place, fussing over him as if he were a horse being prepared for a parade. “Who?” Arthur demanded. He stood patiently as his sword belt was strapped around his waist. “Who, Merlin?”

Merlin stepped back. “Morgause. I thought I saw Morgause watching us.”

That shook him. “You thought you saw Morgause? Standing there?”

Merlin’s eyes were sombre, but his words were garbled, as if he was having trouble describing what he had seen. “I don’t mean she was there, there, as in standing there. I mean … she was there, watching us, but she wasn’t there. But it was just a trick of the light, anyway. I was mistaken. There’s nobody there.”

He turned away, as if he considered the conversation over, and picked up Arthur’s sword in both hands.

As was his habit, as he had done ever since his very first week as Arthur’s servant, he raised the sword between his hands for Arthur to inspect it. They both knew that the blade would have been cleaned, polished and flawlessly sharpened, but Merlin seemed to get some satisfaction from showing Arthur what his own sword looked like. Arthur did not mind indulging the odd little ceremony.

He ran his eyes along the long blade, nodded, and Merlin stepped closer again and slid the long straight blade into the scabbard that already hung at his thigh.

Arthur looked at his servant’s serene face, so close to his own, and remembered the expression of anger on it, a moment ago. Nobody glared like that at a trick of the light. The expression on his face had been as if the real Morgause had stood here, not simply a mirage of her.

“All done.” Merlin stepped back, folded his arms, and surveyed his prince with the smug air of a sculptor gazing at his latest masterpiece.

“Merlin,” Arthur said. “Listen to me. I …” Words failed him, briefly. “Look, I’m not sure how to say this.”

Merlin grinned at him, and wriggled happily. “Er, you could just say ‘thanks, Merlin.’ I’d be happy with that. Actually, it would be rather nice, now and again.”

Arthur couldn’t help smiling. “No, that’s not what I meant.” He closed the distance between them, and put his hand on Merlin’s shoulder. He lowered his voice, so that he spoke for Merlin’s ears only. “Merlin, if you think you see Morgause again, hanging about, you come and tell me immediately.”

Merlin narrowed his eyes, and put his head on one side, quizzically. “It was just a trick of the light, Sire.”

“It might not have been.” Arthur drew in a deep breath. “I have been told, by someone who knows about these things, that some sorcerers have ways … secret tricks … of spying on people.”

Merlin rocked back on his heels. “Scrying, you mean?”

“Scrying, that’s exactly what they call it. You’re not as uneducated as you look, Merlin. Morgause might really have been right here in the room, watching us.”

Merlin scrunched up his mouth. “It was just a feeling I had, Sire.”

“I don’t care if it’s just a feeling. If she’s watching me, I want to know, so that I can avoid giving her information. If you ever think you see her again, you come and you tell me right away.”

Merlin nodded, reluctantly.

“Good man.” Arthur punched his shoulder. “Thank you, Merlin. Now let’s go teach Sir Ellyan how to fall off a horse, shall we?”

// // //

In the days since the ousting of Morgana from Camelot, Arthur had claimed a disused hall, which had once been the private chamber of one or other of his great-great-uncles, for his own use.

He’d had a table made up for it. He hadn’t been able to get a solid round table, so instead he’d had a carpenter put together an ordinary long feasting table, but in segments, so that it formed a large octagon. There was no head, there was no foot; and therefore there was no up or down, no place settings, and no seating in order of rank from highest blood to lowest. Here, at least, Sir Ellyan, son of a blacksmith, and Sir Leon, son of a Duke, could sit side by side.

To begin with, only the small group that he privately thought of as ‘the knights of that table’ had come here, but Merlin, of all people, had warned him against turning the table into an exclusive clique. Arthur had made a point of inviting others, and, slowly, other knights were beginning to join them in the evenings, after dinner. The almost-circular table was already becoming known as a meeting place where Arthur Pendragon was not the Crown Prince, nor the Commander-in-Chief, but merely another knight.

Tonight, however, only a small handful of knights were here; Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Percival.

Merlin was here, too, sitting on Arthur’s right; as usual playing his favourite game of being with the knights, without actually being one of them. He had a big fat foxed book spread out in front of him, but he was leaning his chin on his crossed arms, eyes closed, clearly closer to sleeping than studying. Sir Gawain and Sir Lancelot were sitting on Arthur’s left, one on either side of Sir Percival, trying valiantly to teach him to read.

It had been a vexing discovery, learning that his newest and largest knight had not, in fact, been speaking figuratively when he claimed to have been raised under a tree. Sir Percival had only decided to become a knight because he had seen knights riding through his forest, and decided that armour looked nice. He had already established himself as a superb tracker, and a woodsman second to none, and a brave fighter, but he had almost no concept of what it was that other human beings did when they were indoors.

Still, he was making amazing progress, for a man who had had to have the concept of chamber pots explained to him.

“Moo-unn, ta, ta- in – moo-un-ta-in. Mountains. Co–ve-er-ed. Covered. With, great, v- v- ve- ver. Verda. Verdant. Verdant?” Sir Percival put one huge finger on the page to mark his place, and frowned from one of his tutors to the other. “What does that mean?”

“Green,” Sir Gawain said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Sir Lancelot said.

“What does it mean, then?” Sir Percival asked.

“Um,” Sir Lancelot scratched at his chin, “I think it means…”

“Green?” Sir Gawain asked, grinning.

“Merlin?” Sir Percival asked plaintively, referring to the one man in the room who had the least likely chance of knowing what it meant.

“It means covered with plants,” Merlin said, without opening his eyes. His chin was resting on his crossed arms. “Plants are green. So it also means green.”

Then again, Merlin did spend rather a lot of time mewed up in that tower with a physician. Probably, Gaius was making Merlin read as preparation for becoming a physician himself.

Arthur sipped his mead, and bent his head to his reports. “Sir Lancelot, did you say that the patrol to Greenhill saw a wyvern?”

Sir Lancelot looked up. “Half of them say they saw a wyvern. The other half says it was a big bird.”

“Perhaps it might be worthwhile taking a ride out that way and having a look,” Arthur mused, and brushed his lower lip with the end of his quill, thoughtfully. That might be an entertaining quest. He could fit it in after his army went into winter quarters, and before the really cold weather bit down. He had only been Commander in Chief for a fortnight, and already he was bored with General Staff work.

“If it was a wyvern, they’d all know about it,” Gawain put in. “I’ve seen a wyvern. Nasty beasts, and big as ponies. You’d have to be blind to think it was a bird.”

At his side, Merlin snapped his head up. For a moment, Arthur thought he was going to say he’d seen a wyvern too, but Merlin’s eyes focused on the far wall. “Sire,” he said urgently.

“Merlin?” Arthur asked. That hard look was back on Merlin’s face.

Merlin looked at him, and without saying a word pointed a finger at the space above the empty space in the middle of the almost-circular table.

“Ah!” Arthur said. Spy on him, would she? He set his quill down in his inkwell, and folded his arms. “Everybody, don’t say anything. We’ve attracted the attention of an unwanted guest.”

“Arthur!” Merlin blurted, sounding shocked.

“It’s all right, Merlin,” Arthur said smugly. “We’ll just wait until our guest goes away again.”

“Our guest?” Sir Lancelot asked.

“We’re being scried,” Arthur explained. “Morgause is watching us. Merlin can tell when she’s looking. It is Morgause, right, Merlin?” For a moment, he wondered if it might be Morgana watching, and his heart leaped, half with hurt, half with eagerness.

Merlin nodded, but his eyes were fixed, unblinking, on Arthur.
All the blood seemed to have drained from his face, making his expression seem as hard and taut as marble.

“Ah, right, scrying,” Sir Gawain drawled. “Well, I know what to do about that.”

He raised his hand, and extended the backs of two fingers towards the empty space above the table. “You know where to find us, my sweet!” he called, and waggled the fingers tauntingly.

“An excellent suggestion, Sir Gawain!” Sir Lancelot agreed, and raised two fingers as well. After a moment’s hesitation, so did Sir Percival.

“She’s gone again,” Merlin said. “She didn’t like that.” He didn’t sound as if he liked that very much either. His voice held very little enthusiasm.

“Excellent!” Arthur said happily. “See, Merlin, you’re not quite as useless as you look. I knew there had to be a reason I still keep you around.”

Usually, Merlin’s response to a comment like that would be a wry grin, or a retort, but he just stared at Arthur as if he had never seen him before, his lips pursed sourly.

“So … Merlin can tell when he’s being scried?” Sir Gawain asked, looking thoughtfully at Merlin.

“We only found out this morning,” Arthur said, grinning happily at Merlin, but for some reason Merlin was still not grinning back. In fact, he looked downright glum. “He says he can see whoever is watching him.”

“That is a very useful trick,” Sir Percival observed.

“He saw Morgause this morning in my chambers, watching us, as if she was standing in the room,” Arthur boasted. “Go on. Tell them, Merlin.”

“Arthur!” Merlin cried out, louder, in protest. He half raised himself out of his chair in agitation.

“What?” Arthur asked. He couldn’t ignore the upset expression on Merlin’s face any longer. “What’s wrong?”

“If I thought you were going to blurt it out in front of everyone, I wouldn’t have said anything!” Merlin cried. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything!”

“Don’t be silly, Merlin. This is good! Thanks to you, we now know that Morgause spies on us. And now we can prevent her finding anything out. And now she knows we know, and her game is up.”

“It’s not good!” Merlin burst out. He looked ready to flee the room, casting his eyes wildly at the others around the table. “Sire, if word gets out … people will think I’m using magic!”

“They will,” Gawain agreed. “They will think that, Arthur.”

Arthur hadn’t considered that, but he dismissed the idea immediately, waving it off with one hand. “Don’t be so paranoid, Merlin! You’re not using magic; you’re just able to see things other people can’t.”

Merlin shook his head, his eyes fixed on Arthur. “People won’t think that. They’ll think it’s magic. They’ll hear that I can do this thing, and word will get to your father. You know how he reacts when someone has been accused of magic. You know what he’ll do.”

“My father will listen to reason,” Arthur promised. “I’ll explain to him how useful this is, and that you can’t help it, and he’ll see sense.”

Merlin shook his head again, and his voice dropped down to almost a whisper. “People have been executed for less.” He was still gazing into his eyes with an expression of desperation.

No, not desperation… Fear.

A shiver of realization ran over his skin. Merlin, afraid? Merlin was never afraid! Merlin had faced down all sorts of monsters without a second thought. He’d galloped off with Arthur to face a whole dragon, without even seeming to blink at the sheer size of it. But here he was, and he was afraid.

Had Morgana felt that same fear?

Arthur stopped, wondering. Perhaps this was what had turned Morgana so very, very bitter. Fear of discovery, fear of his father, fear of what would happen if word got out – let alone the fact that she really did have magic, and not merely a little oddball talent like Merlin.

And Merlin was right, he realized. His father would never understand. His father would immediately label Merlin’s new ability sorcery, and Merlin would be forced to flee for his life.

He couldn’t have that. He could not bear to havetwo people he cared for allied against him …

He nodded, coming to his decision. Merlin was still gazing at him, imploringly. “Very well. Merlin, you have my word. Your ability will remain a secret, unless and until you tell me I can share it. To that I swear.”

He looked around at the knights, and saw in their faces that they would abide by his unspoken command.

Gawain raised his hands, palms out. “I swear, I won’t make a peep. Not to a soul – and not to any iron stoves, either.” He crossed his fingers over his heart.

“Nor me,” Sir Lancelot agreed. “On my honour, as a knight of Camelot.”

“I won’t tell,” Sir Percival promised.

“There,” Arthur said. “You see? Your secret is safe.”

Merlin nodded. His eyes swept around the table. “And I promise I’ll tell you if I feel her watching. Any of you.”

“Good,” Sir Lancelot said heartily.

“I have just one small question,” Sir Percival asked. His right index finger had not moved from marking its place on the page, Arthur noted – a fact which really told you everything you needed to know about Sir Percival.

“And what is that?” Arthur asked.

“What is the meaning of that sign we all just made with our hands?”

// // //

Morgause turned, as the sound of her sister’s step came to her ears. “Sister,” she greeted, and went forward to meet her.

The two women embraced, and Morgana stepped back to look into her eyes. “You sounded distressed in your message, sister,” she said.

“I have made a disturbing discovery,” Morgause said. She turned, and led the way across her chamber to the pedestal on which her crystals lay. “I was scrying yesterday morning, trying to learn what our brother is doing.”

Morgana’s smile was as cold as ice. For all that Morgana preferred her warm furs and snug chambers to Morgause’s chilly fortress, her heart was far colder than Morgause’s own. Frozen by loneliness and dread, Morgause thought; and how long might it take her sister to learn that she need not be so cold, now that she had a sister like Morgause?

“And is Arthur hale and hearty?” Morgana asked.

“He is well, but his servant has been hiding a secret all this time.”

“Merlin?”

“He has magic, sister.”

“Merlin? Magic?” Morgana was incredulous. “That’s impossible! Merlin can’t possibly have magic.”

“Oh, but he does, sister.

"But he's just a servant!" She was shaking her head, still unable to believe it.

"No. Merlin is a sorcerer – and a very powerful one. He perceived my scrying, and he was able to force a link with me. It was all I could do to break the link, let alone strike back at him.”

Morgana reached behind her, and sat down in one of Morgause’s high chairs. “Merlin has magic. That worm! He has magic, and he said nothing to me about it! He left me alone to deal with it on my own!” She was looking around her wildly, as if trying to see through the stone and into her own past.

“Now, now, sister.” Morgause went to her, and knelt at her side, and stroked her hair affectionately, soothingly. “We will have our vengeance on him, and for the hemlock too.”

“Yes,” Morgana smiled. “Yes, we will.”

“We will have to take extra care with him. When he saw me, he spoke to me with the Silent Speech.”

“From this distance?”

“Yes, even from this distance. I did not think it was possible either. The strength needed to do that makes him a very powerful sorcerer indeed. He will be a formidable adversary.”

“Oh, this is bad news.”

“No, no!” Morgause smiled reassuringly. “This is good! This is a good thing, sister. One with such power cannot hide it for long – I’m surprised he has managed to hide it as long as he has. He even concealed it from me! But he can’t hide it forever. And he can’t hide it at all if we let Arthur know about it.”

Morgana smiled. “You are so clever, sister.”

“We can drive a wedge between Arthur and his loyal dog. Arthur will either kill him, or exile him. And he has nowhere to go. Who of us will take him in? The druids? The Sidhe? No-one will lift a finger to help the servant of Arthur Pendragon.”

“And then we shall have our revenge.”

“And then you will have your revenge, sister,” Morgause promised.

// // //

“Oh, I hate this,” Arthur said, leaning back in his chair to stretch his back. He kneaded his knuckles into his eyelids. “When my father gave me sole command, I had no idea he was including this. ”

Outside, behind Arthur, the wind beat against the black window panes. It was going to be a cold night, but in here the snapping fire kept the rooms comfortably warm. It would be pleasant, in fact, if not for the mountain of regimental accounts. His bookkeeper wrote them all up, but Arthur had to check them all and sign them under his royal seal.

Merlin spoke up. “And here was me thinking that you liked those new Florentine double-entry things.”

“Oh, I do. Usually.” He opened his eyes and sat forward over his desk again. “When they make sense. When they don’t … I want to throw the damned ledger out of the window.”

Merlin sat diagonally across a corner of the desk, close enough to share the light from Arthur’s brace of candelabras. He was mending a tear in Arthur’s cloak.

His needle rose and fell in a graceful loop; a steady, surprisingly elegant rhythm. Each loop raised his hand exactly far enough to draw the thread through, and no further – a perfect example of conservation of energy. His face was composed, serene; as sublimely absorbed in his work as if it were a form of worship.

Arthur picked up a piece of paper. “Look at this, for example. Sergeant Fuller lost a hauberk in mud. A whole hauberk! In mud!”

“He says it was very muddy.”

“How do you lose a hauberk, Merlin? It’s not as if it might accidentally fall off! Does he really think the Treasury is going to pay for that? Well?” He shook the page at Merlin.

Merlin didn’t lift his gaze. His needle didn’t hesitate, rising and falling smoothly. “Sergeant Fuller’s youngest son has joined your father’s diplomatic mission to Goteborg,” he said. “It’s a long way to Sweden.”

Arthur glared at him, and then glared at the paper. “So Sergeant Fuller thinks the Royal Treasury will pay to keep his brat in one piece, is that it? I’m going to take it out of his pay until it’s paid off. Just see if I don’t.”

But he picked up his quill, dipped it into his ink, and made a note in the book that the hauberk issued to Sergeant Fuller had been irreparably damaged, and was therefore listed as a combat expense. He put his signature next to the note.

“That’s nice of you, Sire,” Merlin said, smiling down at the mound of fabric on the desk, although Arthur was sure he could not have read the note upside-down.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Merlin.” He put the quill down, and screwed the lid back onto his inkwell.

He sat back, his elbows on the armrests of his chair, and watched the slow rise, rotate and fall of Merlin’s needle. Outside, the wind rushed around the battlements.

Merlin began double-stitching the end of his seam. “You’re staring at me,” he observed.

Arthur leaned forward, set his elbows on the desk, and folded his arms. “I have a suggestion to make, and I’m not sure how you’re going to take it.”

“Ah?” A quick glance in his direction was darted from under black eyebrows.

“Perhaps you can consider it and let me know if you’re willing. I’ve been thinking about nothing else all day.”

Merlin glanced sideways at him again, his brows quirking up and the barest hint of a smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry. If I don’t like it, I’ll just scream and slap you.”

Arthur shook his head. “I’m serious.”

“And I’m not?”

“No. Listen. You said you could see Morgause this morning.”

Merlin’s thread paused in mid-air, at the height of its lift. He pursed his lips unhappily. “Ah. You are being serious.”

Arthur flexed his lips against his teeth in a humourless smile, and nodded. “Deadly serious. Merlin, when you saw her, could you see where she was?”

Merlin turned his head on one side, considering the cloth he was sewing. “I felt her there, more than really saw her,” he qualified. “I think … she was somewhere dark, and very cold. Shiny.”

“Perhaps, next time, you could try to watch her back?” Arthur sat upright, and unfolded his arms. He watched the emotions waver on Merlin’s face, waiting.

It was a moment before he replied. “I don’t know how,” Merlin said. “I don’t know what I did this morning.” The needle moved again. His face was placid, inscrutable, but Arthur had the feeling he was listening intently.

“Would you be prepared to … to learn? If you can see her scrying, perhaps it is something that you can learn yourself? Would you be willing to try?”

Merlin looked up at him, staring at him as if he had never seen him before. His eyebrows were going up and down. Surprise – doubt – surprise – doubt – surprise… his face seemed uncertain as to which expression suited it.

“You want me to learn how to scry? ” he asked, amazed.

“If you can. Think of it this way.” Arthur sat forward again, and began explaining, emphasising each point with a thump of his forefinger on the desk. “The defence of Camelot is my responsibility. I have carte blanche in how I go about that defence – my father has delegated it to me.”

“I know.”

“And Morgause has no compunction against using dirty tricks – she will throw at us whatever she has at her disposal.”

“I know,” Merlin repeated.

“No matter what my father thinks, it’s stupid not to respond to a tactic that my enemies are already using against us. Scrying – if you can – will be an extra arrow in my intelligence quiver.” He threw his hands up and out. “It makes perfect military sense.”

“Military sense, yes,” Merlin agreed. “It’s not as if it’s magic, after all.” Some private humour briefly lifted the corner of his mouth, but the sad little smile was gone almost as soon as it appeared. He picked up his scissors, and snipped his thread.

“There you go! It’s not as if it’s magic. And we’ll keep it between the two of us. It will be our little secret. There won’t be any risk to you, I promise. Think about it, Merlin. Let me know?”

He watched Merlin drop his gaze to the mound of red fabric in his lap. His fingers traced the familiar golden dragon on the cloak’s shoulder, as if it was new to him. Then he looked up, and Arthur was surprised by the intensity of his wide eyes.

“Learning to scry will be … interesting,” he said. He was beginning to smile; a rather wolfish smile. “I would like that, very much.”

He had expected to have to persuade Merlin. He had expected him to overreact, and panic, as he had in the hall around the nearly-circular table. He hadn’t expected the eagerness in those eyes. “Excellent!” he said. He reached out and clapped his hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “I hoped you would say yes. I’m glad.”

“It might even be fun.” Merlin’s grin had returned to its full strength, his cheeks dimpling into deep creases and his eyes twinkling.

“You can practice in here, where no-one will see, and no-one will disturb us.”

“There is only one problem.” Merlin leaned toward him, and dropped his voice to a confiding whisper. “I don’t have the faintest idea where to start.”

“Don’t worry. Geoffrey of Monmouth hoards books like acorns. I know perfectly well he keeps a secret stock of banned books in there somewhere.”

Merlin nodded, still grinning. “I’ll look forward to it, Sire.”

“Anyway, I think it’s time to call it a night. The numbers are starting to get blurry, and I’m going to start making expensive mistakes. I might accidentally write off a hauberk.”

Arthur pushed back his chair, stood up, and walked around his desk. He crossed the floor to his bed, and sat down on the edge of his mattress. Yes, now that he was here, actually sitting on it, he could feel how much he wanted to lie down.

Merlin walked over to him, and went down on one knee at his feet. Arthur raised his foot and set it into Merlin’s hands, and Merlin took hold of his long boot by the toe and heel, and pulled.

As he did every single night, Merlin made the same joke. “Push, push, push! Come on! You can do it!”

One final yank and the boot came off. The air was suddenly cold on Arthur’s socked feet, and he wriggled his toes. Merlin tossed the boot heedlessly over his shoulder, and peeled off Arthur’s sock. That too was flicked over Merlin’s shoulder.

“You know, it’s one thing for you to throw your possessions around, Merlin. Please be so good as to not toss around mine as well?” Even as he said it, he knew that his rebuke was going to be ignored. Merlin had put him to bed too many times, and their private rituals were as time-worn as nursery-rhymes.

“Do you want me to draw the bed curtains, Sire?” Merlin asked, addressing Arthur’s knee as he took hold of the other boot.

“Yes,” Arthur said. “It’s going to be a cold night.”

He pulled, and Merlin pulled, and between the efforts of two grown men, the right boot was hauled off as well. Then he got to his feet, and Merlin helped him out of jacket, shirt and trousers, and then helped him into the soft stretched old shirt and loose trousers he kept to sleep in.

Arthur opened his bedclothes, and climbed in. He sat with his spine against his headboard.

Merlin walked the circumference of the bed to the furthest bedpost, and untied the golden cord that held the bed curtain out of the way during the day. The thick fabric unfurled in his hands, and he drew it across the side of the bed, casting Arthur into shadow as he sat in his bed, as if he sat in a warm soft cave.

Merlin spoke through the bed curtains. “You don’t really want me to scry for Morgause, do you? You want me to look for Morgana.”

There was nothing to answer to that. Merlin knew him too well.

He heard Merlin move away, and after a moment he heard the candles on his desk being blown out, one by one. The room grew incrementally dimmer with each puff of breath.

Merlin appeared around the foot of the bed again, with the last candle in one hand, and began untying the cord at that bedpost. He drew the curtain across the bottom of the bed closed.

“She’s my sister,” Arthur explained, at last, although Merlin had said nothing to rebuke or challenge him. “I thought of her as my sister before I knew she really was my sister. I can’t help worrying about her, wondering if she’s all right. She’s out there, all alone.”

“She’s not alone,” Merlin said. “She’s with Morgause.”

“Yes,” Arthur said, bitterly. “Morgause, who abducted her, and twisted her, and turned her against all the people who love her.”

Merlin appeared around the foot of the bed again. “You’d take her back, wouldn’t you?”

Arthur gritted his teeth, and refused to answer him.

“You mustn’t.”

There was steel in Merlin’s voice; the same steel that sometimes, on very rare occasions, cut straight through Arthur’s wishes and feelings, and bit deep into the truth - as if Merlin somehow saw things that no-one else did, under the busy pageantry of daily life. As if he knew things that no-one else did.

He’d learned to heed that voice, when Merlin used it.

“I know,” he said, “that after all the things she has done, after all the deaths she has caused, that I would be a fool to take her back. But she’s my sister, Merlin. I can’t help feeling that there must be a way to make it all right again.”

Merlin sat down on the edge of his bed – an intolerable familiarity from any other servant but him – and rested the base of the candlestick on his knee.

“None of us gets to choose who we love. If we could make a nice neat rational decision who deserved to be loved, it wouldn’t be love. But … if you let Morgana back, she’ll be your doom, Arthur.”

He had said all of this with his eyes on the stone floor, as if he was seeing something else. His face in the light of the single candle was as solemn as a monk’s.

“Are you willing to scry for her anyway?” Arthur asked.

Merlin nodded. “I’ll try – but for your sake, not hers.” Merlin stood up, and untied the last of the bed curtain cords. “Good night, Arthur.” He drew the curtain, finally, closing Arthur into the warm dark privacy of his bed.

“Good night, Merlin,” he said, through the curtain. The light of the candle faded away, leaving him alone, and pondering Merlin’s words.

// // //

The domain of Geoffrey of Monmouth had never been a favourite haunt of Arthur’s as a boy, and it had not become one now that he was a man. He was fully grown now, and a soldier, and the heir to the throne, but Geoffrey had grown no less fat, and no less condescending, and he still all-too-clearly remembered Arthur as the snotty-nosed little brat he had been.

Geoffrey stood up behind his great heaped desk when he saw Arthur entering the library, as was due Arthur’s rank. “Prince Arthur,” he greeted, folding his plump hands over his belly. “What a pleasure to see you here. How may I serve you today?”

“I need a book.”

Geoffrey blinked his eyes. He raised a ringed hand, and gestured languidly, first to his right, and then to his left, without a word, then folded his hands again. The long shelves stretched away on either side, full of books.

Arthur cleared his throat. “I need a particular book,” he clarified. “I need to find a book about scrying.”

“Scrying?” Geoffrey’s brows rose, and he stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I don’t have any books about scrying, Sire. All texts on the, ahem, esoteric arts are banned, by royal decree.”

“I know that you keep some anyway. And I know that you supply them to Gaius, when he needs to find something for my father. I need one of those books that you officially don’t give him.”

“Yes, well, you see, that is Gaius. He is a man of much greater age and experience.” Geoffrey smiled. “However, you are still at an impressionable age, Sire, and the maturity level in some of those books may be too advanced for you.”

Arthur gaped at him.

Then the part of his brain that answered to the title Commander in Chief spoke up for the affronted youth. “I’m not taking it for my own titillation, sir,” he snapped. “The military safety and well-being of this Citadel and all who live in it is my responsibility. Those books possibly contain military intelligence of the highest value.”

“Military intelligence?”

“Of the greatest importance! And if you want me to come back with a squad of soldiers and go through your stacks, shelf by shelf, book by book, believe me, I will.”

Threatening to unleash soldiers on the tidy order of his shelves had the desired effect. Geoffrey deflated. “Well, when you put it that way … the books are filed under 791.457. You should find … about six titles there.” Geoffrey leaned back and folded his arms over his stomach.

“Thank you,” Arthur said curtly, and turned on his heel to go.

Geoffrey cleared his throat. “Not that way, Sire.”

He turned back. “So where is it?”

“It is a banned book. Hardly suitable for the open stacks where just anyone might come across it.”

“Of course.”

“It is in Cabinet 55.” He raised a finger and pointed. “In the East Wing. Press down firmly upon 567.91, and the door will open for you.” Geoffrey lowered his finger, and tucked his hand back into its opposite elbow.

Arthur left him, and strode away down the corridor, aware of Geoffrey’s eyes on his back. He turned the corner out of sight.

// // //

An hour later, he was back in his chambers, with a stack of books on his desk, and a new respect for the long ago builders of the Citadel. A door designed as a bookcase, how clever! Perhaps he could get someone to build him one. It might even be tactically useful – although it was hard to imagine how.

He sat down in front of them to look the books over.

He did not, he realized, have much of an idea where to start.

He’d never been much of a scholar. His Latin had to be beaten into his hide with a cane. His Greek was non-existent, because his tutors had put the case to his father that that language was unlikely to stick in his head, when he had such trouble with Latin. He’d had better success with Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy and Music, the classical Quadrivium, but only because his tutors had thought to relate everything in his syllabus to chivalry.

And then he’d become a knight and given it all up anyway, and his tutors had been only too happy to resign and leave.

Merlin would have a better grip on all of this. Merlin was studying to become a physician, and Arthur had an idea that his education would probably have to progress a little further than basic conversational Latin. Still, Arthur had offered to teach him, therefore Arthur would have to read them first.

Arthur sorted the books into two stacks, English and Latin, and picked up the slimmest volume of the former.

I, (the letter had flowers around it) Antoninus of Camulodunum, do ʃet down here-in in writing my Knowledge of the practice of Scrying as it is performed among the Wiʃe men and Women of this Strange Iʃland, for the Benefit of my Succeʃʃors, and in the Underʃtanding that the afore-mentioned Inhabitants do not, through Habit, illiteracy and a Belief that Civilized Letters are unbefitting their Rituals, Write or Cauʃse to have written any of theʃe Practices, and that before many Generations ʃhall have Paʃʃed their Deʃcendants will have Thrown off the Cloak of ʃavagery and adopted our Civilized Roman culture, and theʃe Rituals will be forever Forgotten.

Well, that was nice, thought Arthur, who was himself descended from both Roman and Briton. He was uncertain whether to be amused or offended at the old text. Clearly this had been translated from Latin; but had the original also been one continuous sentence?

He continued.

“Thoʃe of the Barbarian Tribes who poʃʃeʃs the Power of Diʃtant ʃight, do uʃe a Plethora of means of Transferring their Viʃion from their Immediate Environments to that of the Viʃta which they Deʃire to Perceive. It has become Apparent to me that theʃe Methods do ʃhare as a common Motif the Preʃence of an Object or ʃubʃtance upon which or Within which the Practitioner of the Art perceives their Viʃions, in the Manner of a ʃhadow-play caʃt upon a drawn curtain.

On Obʃervation and after Queʃtioning, it appears that no Rites, Spells or Incantations are required, yet my Informants aʃʃure me with every ʃign of deeply held Conviction that not all are able to ʃummon these Viʃions. The Practioner Merely ʃits down in a quiet Place, cloʃeted with his Inʃtrument, and Gazes into it until ʃuch time as a viʃion appears to him, if he is able to do ʃo.

My informants have told me that it is possible to School the Mind and channel the Thoughts toward a Desired Perʃon or Place with ʃufficient Intenʃity that the Mind’s eye travels verily to that location but that ʃuch an Intenʃe Focus has to be Learned and diligently Practiced. They tell me that they Begin with ʃeeking the Image of one with whom they are Intimately Familiar, who is Cloʃe At Hand, and For Whom they Feel Affection. Once they are able to ʃummon a Viʃion of that Intimate, they Progreʃs by Stages until they have the ʃkill to ʃee Viʃions of Acquaintances, or even Enemies, at astoniʃhing Diʃtances.

My informants have told me alʃo that the Inʃtrument that beʃt ʃuits a Practitioner is Unique, and has to be Diʃcovered by each during the Courʃe of their Education in the Art. Some make Uʃe of Flames, ʃome of Bowls of Liquid. Others uʃe Mirrors, Cryʃtals either Spherical or Faceted, glaʃs, or Smoke. What matters only is that the Practitioner is able to allow their Gaze to fixate in the Inʃtrument, to the Exclusion of all elʃe in their Surroundings, in order to See not the phyʃical outer Subʃtance of the inʃtrument but somehow the internal Pattern or Structure within, inʃide which the Viʃions form.

By this Method, paʃʃed down through Generations, the Tribeʃmen, while sharing none of the Particulars of the Art but agreeing unanimously in the General ʃenʃe are able to Communicate with each other and Perceive the Actions of others be they any diʃtance Separated.

This is all I have Learned on this Subject. I will next travel North to Inveʃtigate the People known to us as Picts, to diʃcover if their reputation for ferocity is warranted.

Well, Arthur thought to himself, that seems simple enough. He would park Merlin down in a chair, shove a bowl of water under his nose, and see what happened. If nothing happened, they could just repeat the experiment with flames, crystals, glass balls, et cetera.

Hell, he would try puppies, flowers and a string of dancing girls, if he thought it might work. Here, Merlin, sit and stare at these charming young ladies, and tell me what you see…

He got up from the table, feeling suddenly very cheerful for the first time since Morgana had … left.

These books would have to be hidden away. He stacked them carefully, thinking. He would put them into the great oak linen-chest over there by the door. No-one ever had cause to open that chest.

// // //

As usual, Merlin opened the door and walked in without knocking. It was a habit that had annoyed Arthur, in the beginning, but he was now so used to it that as often as not, he didn't even glance up any more.

“Sir Leon said you were looking for me, Sire?”

“Merlin! Just the person I wanted to see,” he said, getting to his feet and rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Close the door and come over here.”

Merlin obeyed, a little warily, his brow beginning to crinkle in a worried expression. “What are you planning now?” he asked, approaching Arthur’s table. “You’ve got that look.”

“Are you ready to start learning to scry?”

Merlin’s brows shot up, and he looked back over his shoulder at the closed door, as if suddenly checking to see that no-one had been hiding behind it. “What, now? Here?”

“Yes, now, here. Why not now, here? I’ve given orders that we aren’t to be disturbed until the bells ring four o’clock. This is the most private place you’re likely to get in Camelot.” He patted the back of a chair invitingly. “Come here.”

Merlin rubbed the back of his head and stared at the floor in confusion. “Er… It’s just … a little bit soon, isn’t it? I didn’t think you meant to start the very next day.”

“I don’t want to lose any time at all. Come on, Merlin, sit down here.”

Arthur folded his hand around Merlin’s shoulder, and, a little reluctantly, he allowed himself to be steered into the chair at the head of the table. Arthur sat down at his right side.

“All right,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I have looked up how it is done, and it seems very simple indeed. You just have to look into a bowl of water, or something similar, really hard, and ignore everything else, and then you think really hard about what it is that you’re looking for. And if you can do it, Zim-Zala-Bim, it shows up. Easy!” He threw up his hands, to demonstrate how simple Zim-Zala-Bim was going to be.

“It can’t be that easy,” Merlin said, still looking doubtful. “Surely there must be more to it than that.” His lips were pursed, as if he was considering a purchase that he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to make, and Arthur was a merchant he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted.

“It is that easy! It’s not as if it’s magic. Either you can do it, or you can’t. And we’ve already seen a strong clue that you can.” He clapped his hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “Trust me! It’s easy! I’ll show you!”

He got up from the table, leaving Merlin sitting. He went over his washstand behind his dressing-screen, and fetched his water-jug and wash-bowl.

He set the bowl down in front of Merlin, and poured a cupful of water into it. He set the heavy jug down on the table, and took his seat again at Merlin’s side. He folded set his elbows on the table, and interlaced his fingers. “Now, all you have to do is stare into the water, clear your mind, and see what you can see.”

Merlin leaned forward, with his neck stretched out, and looked into the bowl as if he expected to see something other than water in it. Then he retreated from it, drawing back into himself like a wary turtle. His hands had been resting in his lap, and now he folded his arms.

“You know those times when I tell you something is a bad idea, and you ignore me and go ahead anyway, and it turns out I was right?” Merlin said.

“This isn’t one of those times. Come on, trust me. Nobody is going to know. There’s just you and me here, and nobody is going to come bursting in on us.”

“It’s not other people I’m worried about, Sire.” He shot a glance at the door, and then inclined his head closer to Arthur and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t know what I’m getting into here. We might be unleashing something we can’t control.”

For all Merlin knew, he could be summoning monsters from out of the water. Hadn’t that thing, the Afanc, come from water? Merlin was probably imagining a horrible roaring beast leaping from the bowl into the room, disrupting this quiet Thursday afternoon.

“Nonsense!” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Merlin. I’m right here.”

He shifted forward, and folded one arm around Merlin’s shoulder, so that their faces were close. He lowered his voice to a confiding murmur. “You’re as safe as houses in here. There are armed guards outside that door, and we’re in the heart of a fortified city, with a whole army around us. And I’m right here watching you. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

For a moment, Merlin’s anxiety relaxed into a wry smile. “You have no idea what I’m worried about! I’m not worried about things, I’m worried about me. Once I start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

Ah, that was what was worrying Merlin. He was spooked by the resemblance to magic. “Don’t worry. I read up about this. People used to do this all the time before the Romans came. It’s perfectly safe.”

He put a hand around the bowl, and pushed it, very slowly, very gently, until it came to a stop in front of Merlin.

Merlin stared at the bowl, as if it was a strange animal, and then, as if coming to a decision, planted his elbows on the table, set his cheeks in his palms, and stared resolutely into the water. “Right.”

“All right, now try to find Gaius. He should be easy to find. You know him, and he’s just on the other side of the castle.”

“But I already know where he is,” Merlin objected. “He’s in his tower, grinding herbs.”

“That’s makes him even better as a person to start with. Concentrate, Merlin. Pretend I’m not here. Try to imagine Gaius.” He released Merlin’s shoulder, and sat back to watch.

Merlin stared, unblinking, unmoving, into the bowl. He stared for a long time.

Arthur sat and watched, trying not to fidget.

His mind wandered, after a few minutes. The wind blew around the battlements, and he wondered idly if there was a storm brewing out to sea, and if they were going to see any dirty weather tonight. He wondered if the castle stables had finished checking the condition of all of the hay stacked in the royal barn, as he’d ordered. It wouldn’t do to have mouldy hay, this winter of all winters. He wondered if he should go and check on it. In the corridor, he heard the guard changing.

Eventually, long after the sounds of the guards’ boots had died away, Merlin groaned and sat up. “Aaaargh!” He massaged his eyelids.

“Anything?”

“Nothing at all.”

“All righty then. Not a problem. Let’s just try something else.” He pushed the bowl away, and raised one finger at Merlin to command him to sit still. “Wait right there.”

He went away, fetched a fat wax candle from his desk, and brought it to the table. Merlin watched curiously as he struck flint to steel, and lit the candle. “Try this,” he said, and pushed the candle in front of Merlin.

“A candle?” Merlin queried.

“Bowls of water are only one thing you can use. The book mentioned staring into flames.”

Merlin stared at the flame flickering on the wick. “Flames, or just one flame?”

That was a thought. The book hadn’t specified. Arthur pursed his lips, and tried to remember if the difference might have been lost in translation, but couldn’t recall. “Try one flame, and then if that doesn’t work we can try staring into the fireplace.”

Merlin sighed, but he obediently focused his eyes on the bright little flame.

Arthur went and sat on at the foot of the table, facing Merlin. He folded his arms on the tabletop, rested his cheek on his upper wrist, and resumed his patient watch.

After only a few minutes, Merlin shook his head, and met his eyes. “I can’t.”

“You haven’t given it long enough!”

“No, I mean, I can’t. All I can think of is you, staring at me. I keep wanting to laugh. It’s not working.”

Arthur rolled his tongue over his teeth. “All right. I will go to my desk, and clear some paperwork, and I will not look at you.”

Merlin nodded agreement.

Arthur was halfway to his desk, when a better idea occurred to him.

“No! Hah!” he said, spinning on his heel, and snapping his fingers at Merlin. “I’ve got a better idea! I will go up to the battlements, and you can try to find me. I’ll be even closer to you than Gaius.”

Merlin agreed instantly. “I’ll try.”

“I’ll come back in ten minutes. Now, remember, Merlin: if anything happens, you have only to shout, and the guards will come in. They’re right outside.”

“I’ll be fine,” Merlin said, as eagerly as he had previously been reluctant. “Go, Arthur, go. Let’s try this.”

He left the room, careful to shut the door fully behind him, and headed up the corridor to the spiral staircase that led up, and up, and opened eventually on the battlements high above.

He didn’t get there. He met Sir Leon, coming down. “Sire!” the knight greeted, and pressed his back against the wall to allow Arthur to pass.

“Good afternoon, Sir Leon. All’s well?”

“All’s well, Sire. I’ve just come from checking the sentries. All present and correct, Sire.”

“Pass the word to the sentries tonight that they have permission to light braziers if they want to. It’s going to be a blustery night tonight.”

“I will, Sire. I wouldn’t wonder if we got some lightning.”

“May the Gods look out for sailors on a night like tonight,” Arthur replied. “Well, winter is around the corner.”

He leaned his shoulder on the stone to the side of the arrow-slit in the tower wall, and looked out on the Lower Town below. Sir Leon joined him on the other side.

“How is Squire Robert’s leg?”

“He’s resting easy, Sire. It was a clean break, the Physician says. The rest of the garrison are keeping him supplied with mead.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“He was a bit worried that he wouldn’t get paid. He was off duty when he fell.”

Arthur nodded. “Then tell him that I’m so displeased at him falling off that wall without permission, he’s confined indoors and on vegetable-peeling-duty until further notice. I can’t have soldiers falling off things ad hoc! It messes up my patrol rosters!”

Sir Leon grinned, and gave a bow. “I will impress on him the severity of your displeasure, Sire.”

“Then I will bid you good evening, Sergeant.” He clapped Sir Leon’s shoulder as he went past him down the stairs.

“Good evening, Sire.”

Was it too soon to go back down to his chambers? He wasn’t sure. He dawdled his way down the staircase, and paused in another arrow slit to stare at the Lower Town again.

Smoke was rising steadily from chimneys. At this hour, it was usually a sign that the people in those houses were feeling cold, and had lit their cooking-fires early. He stood and stared at the rooftops.

All those people down there, and they would all be his one day. In the time that Morgana had ruled, not one of them, not a single one, had sworn allegiance to her. They’d held their faith with their rulers, when all had seemed lost, when the sensible thing for a peasant to do would have been to roll with the times, the way Cenred's subjects had immediately accepted Morgause as their ruler. He felt both proud and humbled at the thought of it. All of those people, and he was responsible for protecting all of them. The defence of Camelot was in his hands alone.

His father had put the defence of Camelot into his hands, but sometimes he did not know where to start. How was he to fight back against magical enemies? He knew nothing of magic, or magical weapons, except that swords and lances were useless against them. And how was he to even start fighting his own sister, who knew him as well as he knew himself, when even the thought of her hurt?

Well, at least he could start with this little scrying trick of Merlin’s. If Merlin could do it, it would be very useful. It would be the first, the very first step toward defending Camelot. He pushed himself away from the wall with a sigh, and clumped down the stairs back to his chambers.

When he opened the door, Merlin bounced up from his chair, and whirled to face him.

“Arthur!” he cried, as if he hadn’t seen him for days.

“Did it work?” he asked, although the grin lighting up that long face told him everything he needed to know.

Merlin spread his arms, still grinning, and gave a little bow, finished with a proud flourish of his hands. “You didn’t go up to the battlements at all!” he crowed. “You met Sir Leon on the stairs and chatted to him for a while.”

Arthur strode up to him. “You saw me!”

“Clear as day!” Merlin was bobbing with glee like a puppy, and he burst out laughing in spontaneous delight. “It worked, Arthur! It worked!” He capered around in a little circle, laughing, his eyes closing into happy crescents like a kitten.

Arthur laughed too – partly because it had worked, but partly simply because Merlin’s joy was so infectious. He clamped both hands on Merlin’s shoulders, and gave him a vigorous shake. “Well done!”

Merlin might try very hard to pretend that Arthur’s good opinion meant little to him, but there was no pretended indifference now. Merlin was puffing out his chest as if he had won a tournament and been declared Grand Champion of the World.

“I gave up on the flame itself, actually.” He pointed his finger, to just below the candle’s wick, to the little pool of melted wax that glowed there. “So I tried looking into the wax instead, just to see if it worked, and it did! It did! It worked!”

He put his hands on either side of Merlin’s face, to stop the bouncing. “Really, Merlin, well done. I knew you had it in you.”

That made Merlin wriggle a little, in embarrassment. His face went red, and Arthur released him.

He found himself surprised at how proud he felt of Merlin, at that moment. He’d learned to scry in less than an hour. He’d merely snapped his fingers at something that old Antoninus thought took years of practice!

“What does it look like?” he asked.

Merlin opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find words to describe what he had seen. “It’s … as if I’m looking at a drawing of you, without much background – only, the drawn part is real, not a drawing. I didn’t see everything, just you, and him, and a bit of a sketch of where you were. But you were as clear as day.”

“Did you hear what we were talking about?”

Merlin shook his head. “No. There’s no sound. But it worked, Arthur! It worked!” His face crinkled up again in that huge grin. “And aaah, I’m so relieved! It’s nothing at all like I was worried it would be.” He dumped himself down in the chair next to the candle again, and sat rocking himself back and forth, happily.

“What did you expect?” Arthur asked, curiously.

“I thought I would see … something scary, but all I saw was you. I’m not worried about seeing you! I was scared I would see something that would pull me in, and show me … things, that I really don’t want to see.”

“Didn’t I tell you to trust me? Huh? Didn’t I say it would work?” He sat down next to Merlin, and clapped Merlin’s shoulder again. “Well done! I knew you had it in you.”

“I want to do it again,” Merlin said. “I want to look for Gaius this time.”

“You don’t need to do it right away. We’ve accomplished a lot today.” It was always better to end a training session on a positive note, and this applied to people just as it did to horses. “But well done!”

Chapter Text

Arthur sat down at his desk, his customary place for brain-work, and set the book down on the desk in front of him with a thump.

In the last few days, Merlin had got a good grasp of the basic idea of scrying, and Arthur was more than satisfied. The second time he had tried, he had succeeded in finding both Gaius - and then Guinevere, to Arthur’s delight. She had been in the market, and Arthur had insisted on a moment-by-moment description, until Merlin grew tired and lost his focus. The third day, he’d successfully picked out Sir Leon , as he rode on patrol about five miles away.

Now Arthur wanted to see what other uses his new trick could be put to.

He resolved to read one of the bigger, more intimidating volumes hidden in his linen chest. It was time he expanded his knowledge a little bit; knowledge that he could distill, and pass to Merlin.

The beneficiary of his reading was just beyond the archway. It was Monday, floor-wash-day, and Merlin was on his hands and knees, pushing a large brush back and forth across the stones. Swush, swush, swush, went the brush on the stones, driving a little wave of soap lather to either side as he went.

Arthur looked the book over. It book had been bound in black leather, and embossed with an odd pattern of cherubs, oak-leaves, and malevolently staring eyes. He opened it, and the heavy cover fell open with a solid clack. The front page had been gloriously illuminated in red and black ink, still as glossy as the day it was painted.

“What are you reading, Sire?” Merlin asked, from his hands and knees.

“Another book on scrying,” he said, without looking up from the page. What strange illustrations this book had! Then again, most of the books in Cabinet 55 had been rather strange.

“I thought you found all you needed in the other one?”

“Well, now I’m reading a different one.”

For some reason, this writer included a whole lot of stuff about magic. Arthur wasn’t interested in reading about magic. He wanted to read about scrying, not magic.

He began turning the pages of the book, skimming through it. Shape-shifting, spells, curses, love-potions, strange beasts – and Gods, he didn’t even know what that picture was. Halfway through the book, he found the right section.

The writer began with a lengthy description of what could be done with scrying – chiefly finding lost children, it seemed – and went on to describe how difficult and time-consuming it was to learn to scry. It could take years of dedicated application and practice.

Well, nuts to that, Arthur thought. Merlin had picked up this ‘art difficult to learn’ in about three quarters of an hour, and he was becoming better at it every day. Merlin wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t exactly Aristotle, either. Either scrying was much easier than it was said to be, or Merlin possessed a single, blinding, and utterly unexpected talent; an isolated little island of ability.

He was like the man Arthur had seen once, unable to speak or look after himself, with the mind of a child, but able to play the lute with incredible skill. Such a wonderful talent, in such an unexpected place.

No. More than just a talent.

The breath whooshed out of Arthur’s body, and he stared at the lettering without seeing it, struck cold. “Merlin!” he said, without thinking.

Merlin looked up at him. “Sire?”

Arthur gaped at him, shocked at having spoken aloud. “Nothing.”

Merlin gazed up at him, dubiously. One brow rose. “Ri-ight,” he agreed, drily, and bent over his brush again.

With Merlin’s head down, Arthur was free to stare at him again.

No, Merlin didn’t have a quaint little skill at all. He didn’t have an isolated little island of ability.

What Merlin had was magic.

It was as if his perception had suddenly shifted; as if he had been looking at only one piece of a great stained-glass window without understanding the image it was part of, and only now had stood back to take in all of it.

No, it was as if he’d stepped too far back, entirely too far, and tumbled head over heels over the stone balustrade to the floor below.

Merlin could scry. Therefore, Merlin had magic.

He wished suddenly that he hadn’t understood, hadn’t put two and two together, but the obvious, now seen, was too huge to be denied. How could he not have seen it before.

He stared at Merlin, who was still on his hands and knees, head down. Swush, swush, swush. He could not possibly have noticed Arthur’s lightning strike of revelation. He had no way of knowing the cold that ran over Arthur’s skin, the roaring of his blood in his ears.

Arthur tried to work his logic back again, hoping he was wrong, but knowing that he was not.

Scrying was an esoteric art, Geoffrey had said, unsuitable for the open shelves. Books on scrying were hidden away in Cabinet 55, along with the books on magic. This book lumped scrying together with magic, right between transmogrification and magical healing spells. Therefore, scrying was a form of magic.

Merlin could scry. Therefore, Merlin had magic.

That young man over there, with the funny ears, and the engaging grin, and the desperately-shabby dress sense – he had magic. The servant who put Arthur to bed, and dressed him, and fed him, and did a thousand other things that Arthur usually barely noticed – he had magic.

And, oh God, it was Arthur’s fault! Merlin had never displayed the least ability at magic before. It might never had happened at all, if it had not been for Arthur’s insistence. It was Arthur’s fault! He found himself clutching at his hair in horror, and forced himself to stop, in case Merlin looked up and wondered at his expression.

He wanted to curse his own stupidity. He remembered pushing the bowl at Merlin, and Merlin’s reluctance. “You know those times when I tell you something is a bad idea, and you ignore me and go ahead anyway, and it turns out I was right?” It was Arthur’s fault, and Merlin might pay the ultimate price for it if he got caught. Arthur had started it, had encouraged him to learn. It was Arthur’s fault. “Just trust me”, he’d said, and Merlin had, and now look what had happened. Merlin had developed magic, just like Morgana.

Cold dread ran across his skin again.

Merlin must not find out. If he found out that what they were doing was magic – real magic, and not just a random talent – he would panic. Magic was evil, and he had it! He would be terrified! He would flee – and he would have every right to. He had magic, and if he was caught he would pay for it with his life.

Arthur found himself gripping the edge of his desk with white knuckles.

He would flee Camelot, as thousands of other had fled, as Morgana had fled. And if he did not flee … he would run the risk of being noticed, and Arthur would have to watch him die. And either way, fled or dead, Arthur would lose him.

He looked at the slim back, still pushing the brush rhythmically, quite unaware of the momentous decisions being made just behind him.

He should send Merlin away, immediately, right now, for his own good. He should.

He should send Merlin to find Morgana. She had known him for as long as Arthur had. Whatever was going on between Morgana and himself, she at least knew Merlin’s good qualities, and would take him in as one of her own.

He knew that he was being desperately, despicably selfish. He was being selfish, but in spite of it his mind was already made up.

His father’s hate of magic had cost him Morgana. He could not bear to lose the friendly face that accompanied him through all his days, from waking to sleeping. How could he do without Merlin? Merlin, who knew the truth of his feelings for Guinevere. Merlin, who knew the truth of his single-handed quest. Merlin, who had seen the same vision of his mother that Morgause had shown him. Merlin, who knew that along with the donkey’s ears and donkey’s bray had been a donkey’s tail. Merlin, who knew all his secrets, all his failures, but still smiled at the sight of him.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on Merlin, ever since that fateful day when the stranger with the wide grin and the jug-ears had popped up and chirped, “All right, my friend, you’ve had your fun…”

No, he could not give up Merlin.

He would have to come up with a plan, to keep Merlin safe, and teach him at the same time.

Horses, after all, were naturally afraid of loud noises, but they could be taught, by gradual stages, that there was nothing to fear, so that they would gallop into battle without hesitation. Surely he could teach Merlin the same way, very gently, very subtly, so that he did not realize that there was anything different about himself, and panic.

After all, Morgana had learned to conceal herself. So had Gaius. So could Merlin.

But he would have to be careful about it. No-one could find out, not even Merlin. Somehow, he had to be taught to control himself, to conceal himself – as Morgana had, as Gaius had – without being alerted to what was happening to him, without teaching him the bitterness that had twisted Morgana.

He had caused this catastrophe to happen to his friend, but he vowed silently to Merlin, there on the floor, that he would ensure that no harm ever came to Merlin because of it. What had befallen Morgana would not happen to Merlin – he, Arthur Pendragon, would make sure of it.

He could not lose Merlin.

// // // // // //

Dinner these days was a gloomy affair, without the presence of either Morgana or Guinevere. Arthur and his father were alone in the council chamber, waited on only by Merlin, and the place opposite Arthur where Morgana had once sat was too empty. Her absence sucked their conversation away.

They had eaten well tonight, taking a roast chicken to pieces between them, and they were sitting back in their chairs, sipping wine to settle their digestions, while Merlin cleared their dishes away.

“So, tell me, Arthur,” his father said, lowering his goblet from his lips. “I’ve noticed you hiding yourself away with your servant these last few afternoons. What have you two been up to, in there?”

“Ah,” Arthur said. He took a sip of wine to cover the deep chill that had suddenly congealed his dinner in his belly.

Out of his father’s line of sight, Merlin had gone still and stiff as a statue. He was holding a tray, loaded with dishes, and his hands were gripping it as if an invisible force was trying to rip it away. His eyes were fixed on Arthur’s.

“Well,” Arthur said, “It’s a little bit of a private matter between myself and Merlin. He’s been a trusted and loyal servant to me, and I thought I would add a little bit to his education, as a mark of gratitude.”

Merlin’s eyes went wider, and he began shaking his head. No, no, no, he mouthed, out of Uther’s sight.

Arthur smiled at him, trying to reassure him without words. He had no intention of blurting out their secret to his father.

“His education?” Uther shifted in his chair, amused hugely by the idea of educating a servant. As far as Arthur knew, his father’s manservant couldn’t even read. What on earth would a servant need to read for?

No, no, no, Merlin shook his head more vigorously, over the King’s shoulder. His eyes were wild.

“Yes, well, I thought it might be something to do this winter.” Over his father’s shoulder, Merlin stepped closer to the table, hefting the tray, his eyes wild. “These last few days, I’ve been teaching Merlin to –.”

Merlin raised the tray in his hands, and let go.

Crash! The tray seemed to explode on the floor. Dishes shattered, cutlery sang on the flagstones and bounced away.

Arthur’s father leaped in shock, and jerked angrily to face Merlin.

“You idiot!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Merlin chanted, and went down on his knees on the other side of the table from Arthur. “I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up, I’m sorry!” Arthur could see the top of Merlin’s dark head over the edge of the table. The movements of his hair and the scraping movements told him Merlin was busily brushing up bits of broken pottery with his dishcloth.

“I’ll take those broken dishes out of your hide, you nincompoop!”

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s all right, Father, I’ll take it out of his wages. It’s my fault for employing a clumsy servant.”

“You’re damned right you will.” His father drowned his irritation by draining his goblet dry. “Clean that mess up, immediately!” he told Merlin.

“Yes, Sire!”

“And you were saying you wanted to add to his education, Arthur?”

“Yes, Father. Since he’s Gaius’s apprentice.” He saw Merlin’s head pop up over the edge of the table and stare at him accusingly. His eyes were as wide as saucers, accentuated by the fact that they were all Arthur could see of him over the table. He spoke to the eyes, as much as to his father. “I’ve been giving Merlin lessons in Latin.”

“Latin?” His father’s mood had switched from anger to amusement. “Latin? Him?” He set the goblet down, and pointed one hand at the figure on the floor. “You’re going to teach Latin to this?” He slapped his hand on the table in mirth. He shifted to Latin. “You’re going to have a lot of work ahead of you with this one.”

‘This’ was still staring at Arthur over the edge of the table. The eyes blinked, twice, as if astonished, and then disappeared under the table without a word.

Arthur didn’t trust his Latin tenses or his vocabulary to reply off-the-cuff in Latin, so he replied in English. “It will be an interesting diversion for the long winter nights, Father. We’re doing it in private, just avoid the distractions of an audience.”

“And he is Gaius’s apprentice, after all.” His father looked at Merlin, sternly. “Gaius has been making noises about packing him off to Salerno. Well, whatever amuses you, Arthur. I would not have the patience.”

“It’s a small step from teaching farmboys to fight, to teaching them to speak Latin, Father.”

The King turned to Merlin again. “So let us hear some of what you know, boy. Let’s hear some farmboy Latin.”

Merlin’s face appeared over the edge of the table, frowning in concentration.

Oh, bugger, Arthur thought. He hadn’t expected his father to ask for a demonstration.

Merlin pursed his lips, thinking, and then after a moment came out with, “Amo. Amas. Amat. I love, you love, he loves.” He thought again. “Ama … mus. Ama... um. Tis? ”

“Ama-um-tis?” Arthur demanded, feeling slightly light-headed. “Is that all that’s stuck in your head, Merlin? Ama-um-tis?”

But his father seemed satisfied, at least. “You have a long way to go, Arthur. In fact, I’m not sure you aren’t wasting your time.”

“We’ll see how it turns out in the spring, Father.”

“Now, if we’re both done, I think we are finished here.” His father rose to his feet, and Arthur stood up respectfully. “Good evening, Arthur.”

“Good evening, Father,” Arthur said, lowering his head, and waited as his father stepped around Merlin, still on the floor, and strode out of the room.

Merlin rose above the level of the table top again, not so much resembling a rabbit emerging from a hole this time, as a troll emerging from under a bridge. “What the hell was that for?” he demanded, in a trembling voice.

“What do you mean, what was that for?” He dropped himself back into his chair, and propped his knee against the edge of the table. “You have just witnessed my tactical brilliance in action, and all you can say is What the hell was that for? We now have a perfect excuse to spend as much time as we need to practice our little game! If he accepts it, no-one else will say a word against it.”

Merlin got to his feet. “Couldn’t you have warned me? I nearly had a heart attack!”

“Oh, come now! Surely you don’t think I’d be so stupid as to blurt it all out in front of my father, of all people?”

Merlin visibly ground his teeth. He stooped and picked up the tray.

“Oh, you do think I’m that stupid?” Arthur barked at him, snapping upright in the chair. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I didn’t say that!” He turned and began to leave the room, with the tray of broken crockery held in front of him.

“No, you wait a bit.” Arthur sprang up, and went after him. He reached Merlin before he had got as far as the door. Merlin stopped when he found Arthur blocking his way. “You think I’d blurt out your secret in front of my father – as if it was just nothing? ”

Merlin’s eyes had gone very narrow. “You did blurt it out in front of the knights just the other day, Arthur. Merlin can see things – hurray! What was I supposed to think this time?”

He planted his hand on Merlin’s chest, pushing him. “That was before I knew you wanted it kept a secret! I gave you my word that I would tell no-one about it. I gave you my word, Merlin, and a knight’s word is his bond! How dare you think I would just bleat it out over the dinner table!” He stepped back from Merlin, and folded his arms across his chest. “I came up with a story to keep your secret safe!”

Merlin looked down at the tray, held between them as if it was a metallic buffer state. He gulped. “If he finds out …!” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“He won’t find out! I swore to keep your secret, and I keep my oaths, Merlin!”

“I know you do!” Merlin started off sounding angry, and then something seemed to stick in his throat. He raised his eyes, to look at Arthur, and his tone changed. “I know you do, Arthur.”

“There you go!” Some of his anger at being doubted so easily faded away. It wasn’t a slur on his honour, but a mark of Merlin’s fear of being accused of magic. He remembered Merlin’s fright around the Almost-Circular Table. And after all, it was Arthur’s fault Merlin was in this predicament.

Arthur pushed his face into a smile. “Trust me, Merlin! I won’t let any harm come to you. Besides – as far as anyone knows, I’m just teaching you Latin. That’s all we’re doing – Latin!”

“Just Latin.”

“Nothing wrong with Latin,” Arthur said. “And it’s a perfectly understandable thing for a physician’s apprentice to learn.”

Merlin smiled wryly, but he nodded. “Latin it is, then.”

“What a nice master you have, taking his own time to teach it to you. Amo, amas, amat, and all that. The rest – is just between the two of us.”

// // // // // //

Arthur’s life settled around its new pattern.

Every afternoon, usually between three and four o’clock, he spent an hour with Merlin, practicing their ‘Latin lessons.’

Every night, Merlin readied Arthur’s bed, was dismissed, and departed for his own little cubbyhole to sleep. Every night, after he was gone, Arthur retrieved one of the stash of banned books in his linen chest, and read it by the light of a single candle.

Arthur had taken back to Geoffrey the books on scrying, and had taken instead a bunch of books on magic in general from Cabinet 55. It seemed like a good idea to get an grasp of what he was going to have to deal with. The finer points of scrying could wait until Merlin was past the point of setting his own chamber on fire in his sleep. Geoffrey had raised his brows at the books, but he had said nothing.

Reading about sorcery, from the point of view of the sorcerers themselves, was an experience unlike any other – particularly with the image of Merlin lodged in the back of his mind. The information in those books was so very different to any other books he had ever come across before, as if they had been written by people with a completely different history and understanding of the world to his own.

It was no wonder these books were all banned! His father would have a shrieking fit if he found out what he was doing! But he pressed on, late into the night.

Arthur came across a simple little rhyme in one of the books, and taught it to Merlin the next day. He told Merlin it was a mnemomic chant to focus his mind for scrying. Merlin did not need to know that it was in fact a four-hundred-year-old chant to help a sorcerer rein in power that was trying to escape in an uncontrolled burst. If the need came for it, it was there. Merlin need not set anyone’s chambers on fire in the middle of the night.

Merlin’s strength at scrying grew by leaps and bounds. In a week his eyes could roam the whole of Camelot, indoors and outdoors, not only scrying people but particular places, too.

Merlin’s accuracy grew too, and his attachment to what he was seeing grew more firm, so that he could tell Arthur what he saw without losing his focus on what he was seeing. His vision soon ranged over the borders, seeing into the neighbouring kingdoms, and Arthur took to keeping a sheet of paper, to make notes of what Merlin saw.

The day Merlin caught sight of Morgana for the first time was one which Arthur would not forget.

He was sitting at his desk, occupied in reading the report from one of the patrols that had returned that morning. Merlin was sitting at the table, head down, his gaze absorbed by the buttery glow of the candle.

“I’ve got her!” Merlin announced suddenly, breaking the silence. “Arthur, I’ve got her!”

For a moment, Arthur didn’t know who ‘her’ was. Then he leaped to his feet and charged over. “Where is she? How is she? What is she doing?”

Merlin didn’t raise his gaze from the wax. “Shut up!” he said, and pointed imperiously to the opposite chair without looking up. “Sit there! Let me concentrate.”

Arthur sat, and laced his fingers impatiently. After a while Merlin spoke again. “She’s too far away. It’s difficult to see her clearly.”

“Where is she?”

“Shut up, Sire, let me concentrate!” A few minutes more. “I think she’s outside, but I don’t understand. She’s going round and round.”

“Round and round?”

“For God’s sake, Arthur, shut up! Round and round. Round and round. What is she doing?” He was glaring at the candle, his eyes so intense they seemed to be burning. “Round and round. It’s too far, I can’t see … I don’t know what is behind her…”

A few minutes passed. Arthur chewed his lip, and held back his need to demand more, to insist that Merlin look harder.

“She’s on her feet. She’s outside. She doesn’t seem to be in any … hardship or … compulsion. I don’t understand, she’s going round and round. Turning on the spot. She’s…”

He lapsed into a long silence. Arthur waited, listening to Merlin’s hard breathing. His eyes were drilling at the candle, as if they were trying to blaze a hole through the wax itself.

At last, Merlin let out a sudden spasmodic cry. “Ah!” He broke his gaze on the candle, thrusting himself back with a jerk. “I’ve got it!”

“What? What is she doing?”

“She’s lungeing a horse.” Merlin grinned, and seemed about to burst into giggles. “How ordinary is that? She’s going round and round on the spot, because she’s lungeing a horse. I couldn’t see the horse, it’s too far away, so I didn’t understand.”

Morgana was lungeing a horse, right now, even as he sat here in Camelot. His heart contracted, at the memory of how often he’d seen Morgana lungeing a horse. In the long, dark winters, when it was too cold and icy to ride out, they had exercised their horses together on the lunge rein. For a moment, it was as if he could see her too, with her cheeks bright, and her eyes shining, and her breath and her horse’s mingling in brief clouds on the frosty night air.

She was lungeing a horse. That was hardly the action of someone held under duress. If she wanted to come back, she could simply leap onto the horse’s back, couldn’t she? But no, she was outdoors, calmly exercising a horse, round and round on a lunge-rein.

Well, at least she was alive, and well.

That was what he had wanted to know, wasn’t it? He’d wanted Merlin to find Morgana, and he had. It wasn’t Merlin’s fault that finding it out had incurred such a dreadful price. Arthur had insisted.

Now, he had to deal with the unintended consequences. He’d made a tactical error, now he would have to fix it.

// // // // // //

Most days, he found an excuse to go up to his chambers for a few minutes before lunch. Most days, and as if by sheer coincidence, Guinevere happened to be in his chambers, cleaning the fireplace. Most days, Merlin took over the fireplace, cleaning the ash and coals out, refilling the scuttle, laying a new fire for the evening, while Arthur and Guinevere had a few quiet minutes together, to hold each other and to talk.

Getting his fireplace cleaned had become the highlight of Arthur’s day, but today, he was running a little late.

Guinevere could not dawdle around in his chamber indefinitely, without one of the guards noticing and becoming suspicious. He would have to hurry, if he wanted to see her at all today, let alone put his arms around her.

With Merlin scurrying on his heels, carrying a large bowl of the last of the summer apples, he climbed the steep winding staircase that gave a more private route to his chamber. He took the stairs two at a time.

It had to happen sooner or later, he thought later.

He heard and felt Merlin stumble. Merlin’s weight crashed into the back of his legs, driving him forward in a mad stagger. He might still have saved himself, caught himself on hands and knees, if Merlin hadn’t grabbed the back of his cloak for balance, and dragged them both down instead.

“Ooof!” he grunted, as the impact with the stairs drove the breath out of him.

They fell together in a tangle of limbs, Merlin on top of him, the sharp edges of the steps slamming into his body. The bowl clanged, and bounced away - boing, boing, boing…

Merlin rolled off him – he’d had something soft to land on, the bastard – pushed himself up on his arms, and yelled, “No!” down the staircase.

The clanging stopped.

Arthur lay for a moment, until he was sure he wasn’t dead. Then he dragged himself up into a sitting position, and twisted to see what had happened below them.

The staircase was a tight spiral, as castle staircases usually were, with steep, triangular steps around a central pillar. It was designed to twist tightly around itself, so that anything dropped down it would be guided all the way down, to block the entrance at the bottom – as the bowl of fruit had been trying to do.

It wasn’t doing so now.

Arthur felt his eyes widen, as he took in the fruit. The apples were frozen in position. Some of them were even hovering above the stairs, visibly caught mid-bounce.

There was no mistaking what he was looking at. Nobody could mistake what he was looking at!

He twisted his head, to glare at Merlin, still lying propped up on his elbows alongside him. Merlin’s eyes were wide, and his teeth were bared in a panicky grin. “Uh-h-hm…”

“Merlin!” he barked, and clenched his fist into the front of the brown jacket to yank the other man towards him. “Undo what you just did! Right now!” he grated, directly into Merlin’s face.

Merlin twisted his head to stare down the steps, and immediately Arthur heard the tapping sound of the falling apples resume, followed by the resumption of the rhythmic ‘boing, boing, boing, clang, boing, ’ of the metal bowl, springing merrily from step to step all the way to the bottom.

They stared into each other’s eyes, while the sound faded into the distance, and terminated in the sound of the bowl spinning to a stop around itself on the floor.

Arthur hissed between his teeth. “You had better pray nobody saw that, Merlin!” He shoved himself to his hands and knees, and from there to his feet. He seemed to be all right, although he could feel that he had collected a few interesting stair-shaped bruises on his body.

He headed down the stairs with Merlin, close behind him. Round and round the stairs, one hand trailing on the central pillar, tracking his progress, and he was stepping over apples every few steps. He went down two circuits, and the staircase opened out into one of the corridors.

He found himself face to face with a knight, who was standing at the doorway that let out into the corridor.

“Ah,” he said. “Sir Lancelot.”

Lancelot’s face broke up into a smile when he saw Arthur, and Merlin behind him spilling into the corridor on his heels. “Oh, it’s you! You won’t believe what I just saw.”

“Oh, I’ll bet we will,” Arthur ground out. He was going to have to shut Lancelot up, somehow, before he blurted what he’d seen in front of everyone.

“I can explain,” Merlin said from over Arthur’s shoulder. “Lancelot, it was just me.”

“Well, I might have guessed.” Lancelot bent and scooped an apple from the floor.

“No, Merlin, it was not just you!” Arthur interrupted. “Lancelot, whatever you think you just saw, you’re mistaken. There’s a perfectly innocent explanation.”

Merlin shook his head. “Arthur, it’s all right, he…”

A voice echoed, behind Arthur, and he turned on his heel in time to see his father turn the corner. All three of them froze into silence.

The King came sweeping along, head down, in conversation with Sir Leon. He stopped when he saw Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Merlin clustered at the staircase.

“Ah, Arthur.”

“Father,” Arthur greeted, lowering his head respectfully, his mind racing.

“I need to speak with you later about this latest Druid sighting.” His eyes dropped as he saw the apples on the floor. “What’s all this?”

“Merlin,” Arthur explained. “He dropped them.” He folded his arm over Merlin’s shoulder, and gave him an affectionate shake. “Stupid duffer is as clumsy as ever.” He looked at Merlin, and gave him a grin. “He never thinks before he acts.”

“Hah,” his father grunted. “I would not have the patience to put up with him. Sir Lancelot, attend on me, please.” He stepped forward. With the habit of decades, he did not step around the men in front of him, but forward. He was King, and they would always give way to him.

Sir Lancelot grinned at Merlin as if at some private joke, flipped the apple up and caught it again, and followed the King and Sir Leon down the corridor.

Arthur and Merlin were left alone again, looking at each other. Merlin let out a breath. “That … was close,” Merlin groaned.

“That was too close,” Arthur hissed at him. “Another five seconds, that’s all it would have taken … I’m going after Sir Lancelot.”

“Arthur, about that…”

“It’s all right, Merlin. I’m going to remind him that he has already sworn an oath to say nothing about it. You, go upstairs and let Guinevere know that I won’t be able to help her clean the fireplace. Tell her I’m sorry.”

He left Merlin, there at the base of the staircase, and began marching after his father. He turned around, walking backwards for a few steps. “And pick up those apples before they bruise!” he shouted at Merlin.

He turned his back on Merlin’s indignant expression and broke into a trot to catch up with his father.

As it happened, it was nearly two hours before he had any time to talk to Lancelot in private. His father had held Lancelot for an hour, to help him decide whether the latest diplomatic message from the Duke of Anjou was mistranslated, or a deliberately-subtle slur. Lancelot’s command of French was becoming very useful.

And then the King dismissed Lancelot, but kept Arthur behind to discuss the repairs to the castle’s wall, the granary situation, the diplomatic mission to Goteborg, and most importantly in his father’s eyes, the reported sightings of a group of Druids crossing the border, heading in the direction of the Darkling Wood.

Arthur tried to suggest that the woodcutters had been mistaken, but his father overruled him. Arthur must reroute a patrol through there, in order to flush the Druids out. They were a clear threat to the safety of Camelot. They would stop at nothing to destroy Camelot – “At nothing, Arthur!” – and their presence could not be tolerated so close to the already-ravaged city.

Arthur had fidgeted over his patrol rosters, trying to make it seem as if it still mattered to him whether Tuesday’s patrol to Northstream Village went by the east road or the west, but his mind was on Lancelot. He wondered where he was, and more importantly who he was speaking to.

At last he was able to escape, and ask around after Lancelot. He tracked Lancelot down to the archery butts outside the castle walls.

News of the Prince’s arrival travelled fast, and he saw a few heads turn in his direction, but his presence here was frequent enough that he was soon ignored. He could stand for a few minutes, and survey the scene.

There were two ranks of butts – straw-stuffed targets, tightly covered with sackcloth to hold them together – set at different distances. Lines of men stood with their bows, practicing. It was not law in Camelot for every able-bodied man to practice his archery, as it was in some kingdoms, but the archery butts were well used anyway, by knights, peasants and townspeople alike. It seemed to be deeply satisfying to a commoner, to know that he could knock a prissy aristocrat off his horse from three hundred yards, if he really wanted to.

He was pleased to see that even without his presence, some of the archers had formed themselves into teams, and were competing against each other as units.

His careful teaching was paying off.

It didn’t help Camelot for its army to be a mob of warriors who all fought as individuals. The Romans had taught the world, again and again, that a disciplined corps, fighting as a single unit with a single tactical aim, would win against any howling horde. Arthur had learned from their example, and had done his best to teach the idea to his knights, and they, in turn, were spreading the idea.

He saw Sir Lancelot at the far end, practicing long-range shots, and strolled along behind the line of archers, nodding a greeting to the Master of the Archers as he went.

“Sir Lancelot,” he greeted.

Lancelot turned. “Sire,” he greeted in return, and turned back to his bow.

“Have you spoken to Merlin yet?”

“No, have you?”

“I don’t need to speak to him.”

He watched Lancelot nock an arrow, draw it back to his cheek, and loose it. There was a thunk, and the arrow appeared in the target. “Nice shot, but you’re a bit stiff in your left fingers,” he pointed out. “You’re grabbing at the bow. Loosen your hand a little.”

In his next shot, Lancelot took his advice. The arrow thunked into the target, better this time, but that was the last of his arrows. He lowered the bow, waiting for the Master of the Archers to open the range.

“Listen,” Lancelot said, “There’s no point in telling me I didn’t see what I saw earlier.”

“I didn’t come here to tell you you didn’t see it. We both know what you saw.”

The Master of the Archers opened the range, and Lancelot walked forward to retrieve his arrows from the targets.

Arthur followed him. “What you saw …” Arthur drew in a deep breath. “You remember, a few weeks ago, when Merlin said that he could see Morgause watching us? In the chamber of the Circular Table? Do you remember that we all swore that we would say nothing about it?”

“I remember.”

“That was just the beginning. We’ve found that Merlin can look back, and watch Morgause in turn. But it’s had side-effects. Unintended consequences… What you saw with the apples is a direct consequence of that. Lancelot – Merlin has magic.”

Despite himself, his voice dropped to a secretive whisper, as if he was a child sharing a secret in the classroom. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, to anyone, and the shock of it took his breath away. He glanced around, to ensure that the archer nearest them was out of earshot.

“Merlin has magic,” Lancelot agreed. He began pulling his arrows free with short, economical yanks, collecting them in his left hand.

“Lancelot, you swore, as we all did, that we would say nothing about Merlin’s abilities. You gave your word of honour as a Knight of Camelot to keep Merlin’s secret as if it were your own.”

Lancelot turned to face Arthur, and met his eye, with the forthright expression that had so appealed to Arthur when they had first met. His face was disapproving. “Arthur!” he said. “Merlin is my friend! You’ve no need to invoke the Knights’ Code to stop me denouncing my own friend!”

“I’m glad to hear that. You have no idea how glad.” Arthur sighed. “I meant no offense, and I apologise if I caused any. My only concern is for Merlin’s safety.”

“I’m not from around here, Arthur, in case you had forgotten, and I’m not as fussy about these things as some of you Camelot fellows are.” He turned back to the target, and pulled out the last of his arrows. “You have nothing to fear. As far as I’m concerned, this is a matter between you, me, and Merlin. It concerns nobody else.” He turned away to walk back to the shooting lines.

“No, no, no!” Arthur followed him, shaking his head, and gripped Lancelot’s arm at the elbow to turn him back. “It’s just a matter between you and me. Merlin does not need to know. He must not know, not yet.”

Lancelot frowned. “But surely he already knows?”

“No, he does not. He doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

The rest of the archers were all waiting for them to move out of the way, but Arthur ignored them. Damnit, what was the point of royal privilege, if he couldn’t occasionally use it? They could all wait – Merlin’s fate was more important.

Lancelot frowned doubtfully. “Arthur, I don’t know if this has occurred to you yet, but if Merlin has magic now, then surely he must have had it all along?”

“No. He might have been born with it, but it’s my fault it’s come to the surface. I started it. I encouraged him to scry, I let the genie out of the bottle. It’s my fault, so it’s my duty to deal with it.”

“When you say ‘deal with it’...?”

“I know it’s going to be difficult, and I know I’ll be breaking about a hundred laws, but there has to be a way to ease him into it, without upsetting or scaring him. He can’t find out until he’s ready, otherwise he’ll panic.”

Lancelot stared at him, and then stared closer with an wild expression, as if he’d just noticed something weird walking on Arthur’s face, and didn’t know if he should point it out. “Arthur…”

“I have to find a way to teach him to look after himself, without letting him notice that there’s anything wrong with him.”

Lancelot’s wild expression relaxed. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said, beginning to grin. “You want to teach Merlin to use magic – without letting him notice that he’s using magic?”

“He must not find out. If he finds out he has magic, he’ll – why are you laughing? This is no laughing matter, Lancelot!”

Lancelot had doubled over, to laugh at the grass. Now he straightened up, with a snort. “No, no. Of course. You’re right. Merlin has magic, so, naturally, it’s all your fault.” Lancelot’s eyes were still alight with mirth. “Have you ever heard of Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?”

“I don’t know what you think is so funny about all this, Lancelot,” he snapped, pulling himself up to his full height.

“You wouldn’t understand. It’s … it’s … it’s a French thing. Ahem.”

“Well, be that as it may, it’s not funny. I’ve seen what finding out about magic did to Morgana, and I’m damned if I’ll see Merlin suffer the same.”

That sobered Lancelot up. “I don’t think Merlin could turn into Morgana, even if he wanted to. He’s got a good heart.”

Arthur couldn’t deny that. “All I’m asking is that you don’t tell him that what you saw was real magic.”

“He’s my friend, too, Arthur,” Lancelot said. “His secret is safe with me. All his secrets.”

“He thinks it’s just a side-effect of the scrying. It’s not his fault. He really doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him. He’s still just a simple peasant at heart, you know, Lancelot.”

“Oh, believe me, he’s not the only one around here who’s simple.”

Lancelot looked very satisfied about something. Arthur still couldn’t fathom what was so funny – his plan made perfect sense to him. But Lancelot had agreed to keep the secret, and that was all that mattered.

// // // // // //

It was only later that night, much later, that either of them mentioned what had happened in the staircase.

“What did you tell Lancelot, this afternoon?” Merlin asked, very casually, with his back turned to where Arthur sat in front of his fire.

Arthur had been sitting with his feet up, his head propped up in one hand, gazing into the flames. Merlin was bustling around in the room behind him, settling all to rights before bedtime. It had been a long day since the Apple Incident. He had begun to think neither of them was going to mention it, ever again.

“Lancelot?” He hurriedly composed his thoughts. “I took him aside, and spoke to him in confidence. I told him that I knew what it looked like, but what he’d seen was related to your Latin lessons, and reminded him that he’d already sworn not to mention that to anyone.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he agreed, very readily.” In fact, Lancelot had briefly fallen about laughing about it; a puzzling reaction, that. “Lancelot is going to be all right.” He raised his head, to look at where Merlin sat, working at his table with his back turned to Arthur.

“We’re very lucky that Lancelot was the one who saw it, and no-one else,” Merlin said quietly. He had still not turned around, but his hands, that had been polishing diligently at a silver goblet, had stilled.

“Very lucky. He said he wasn’t as paranoid about that sort of thing as we are. Anyone else might have ... jumped to conclusions. But the secret is safe with Lancelot.”

“And you?” Merlin asked. “What do you think?” He still hadn’t turned around.

Oh, dear, here it was. It had to happen. Merlin had noticed that he had done something, somehow, that shouldn’t have been possible, and now the questions were going to start.

What’s happening, Arthur? What is this, Arthur? What am I, Arthur? Help me, Arthur…

He found that he could not answer, immediately. “I think I feel like a night-cap tonight, Merlin. Pour me some of that nice red?”

Merlin turned in his chair, and gave him a blank look for a moment, but then he nodded. “As you wish, Sire.” He pushed his chair back, got up, and crossed the room toward Arthur’s cupboard.

“Pour yourself a glass,” he instructed Merlin, as his servant took out the bottle and a goblet.

Merlin paused by the cupboard, and peeped at him curiously around the open door, his face lit warmly by the firelight. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Pour yourself a glass. Come here, and drink it with me.”

“Hmm,” Merlin said. He reached into the cupboard, and brought out another glass. He carried bottle and goblets to the table, pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured a measure into each goblet.

He brought the goblet to Arthur, and put it into Arthur’s hand. Arthur lifted it in an informal salute to him, and took a sip. The wine was rich and fruity; just the thing for a winter’s night.

Merlin hesitated, briefly, and then sipped. “It’s nice.”

“Sit down, man,” Arthur told him. “Take your time.”

“I have to take the warming pan out of your bed,” Merlin said.

“It can wait. Sit!” he pointed to the chair at the other end of the table.

Merlin sat down in the other chair, facing the fire. He turned the goblet in his hands.

“Look,” Arthur said, eventually. “What happened today with the apples…”

“Yes?”

“Well, it happens sometimes, to people who are learning, um, Latin.”

“Does it?”

“Oh, yes. You don’t need to worry. I read up on this, and the books mentioned it might happen. It’s just a side effect of the Latin. Completely harmless and nothing to worry about.”

Merlin stared at him for a long moment, the firelight sparkling in his eyes, and the tense expression on his face relaxed. He no longer looked worried – in fact he looked like he wanted to laugh. It was relief, probably, Arthur thought.

“I can’t help wondering what kind of books you’ve been reading, Arthur,” he observed, with a sort of delight.

“Books on Latin,” Arthur lied, glibly.

“I wouldn’t have thought there would be so many.”

“Oh, there are lots and lots. But the books are very clear, Merlin. It’s just a side effect of the intensity you get up in order to scry. A little bit of that intensity pops out, and then funny things happen. As you get more practice at your Latin, you’ll learn to control it, and it will stop.”

Only the very inexperienced sorcerers had magic that popped out beyond their control. That must have been what had happened, the night Morgana’s chambers had caught fire. With practice, however, magic could be reined in. That was clearly what Gaius had learned, and that was what Merlin would have to learn.

It might be a little bit startling, at first, to both of them, but with time and a bit of patience, he would get used to it.

Merlin sipped his wine, and said, “I didn’t intend to do anything, Arthur. I just saw the fruit falling, and I thought, ‘Aaaah, they’re going to bruise! ’ and then it just happened.”

“Has this sort of thing happened before?”

Merlin hesitated. “Um. A few times. Now and then. Here and there.”

“Has anyone else seen it?”

“No. Just Lancelot.”

“Good.”

The fire crackled to itself for a few minutes.

Gods above, Arthur thought, he was being irredeemably selfish. Maybe Merlin had a right to know. Maybe he should just own up and confess what a mess he, Arthur, had landed him in. He was a rotten friend.

But if Merlin found out too soon, he would panic. Maybe Arthur was protecting him from rashly throwing away his life in Camelot? Maybe he had a duty to shield him from the truth until he was ready? He was a prince; he had a duty to protect those who depended on him. He had a duty to coax Merlin into the truth, gently, so that he thought he had come to the discovery all on his own.

Merlin spoke. “Arthur? You don’t mind? You aren’t … upset about it?”

“Why ever would I mind, Merlin? Didn’t I just tell you it sometimes happens? There’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.”

“Besides, it would be a trifle rich for me to blame you for the consequences of what I asked you to learn.”

Merlin spoke rapidly, his words tumbling out. “It’s just that I know exactly what it looked like, and it didn’t look very good. It looked like...”

“I know what it looked like,” he interrupted. “So you must be extra careful. If someone saw that, without knowing what we know, they’ll jump to all the wrong conclusions, and we could get into trouble. So you must learn to hold it in.”

“Right. Hold it in,” Merlin agreed.

“You remember that little rhyme I taught you last week, to steady your eye for… Latin lessons? Well, next time you feel something about to pop out, like today, you just recite that little rhyme, and it will help you keep the Latin in.”

Something seemed to be amusing Merlin because he was suddenly smiling sweetly at his glass. “I’ll try that, Arthur. Thank you.”

Arthur drained his glass. “Now, I think it’s time for bed.”

“Yes, Sire.” Merlin drained his glass. “I’ll go take out the warming pans.”

// // // // // //

Arthur sat at his desk, waiting for the required number of buckets of water to be sloshed into his bathtub by Merlin.

Arthur liked his baths. Other knights might be content with sponging themselves with soap and warm water, but not him. Arthur may have been a knight, but he was also a prince. He had every intention of enjoying his royal privileges to the full, and that included sitting in hot water as often as he liked.

That was what servants were there for, weren’t they? Specifically, that was what Merlin was there for, wasn’t he?

While he waited for Merlin, who had turned up for work this morning later than usual, Arthur read a few more pages in yet another big book on magic. He was beginning to find himself growing mesmerised by the subject for its own sake.

It was a whole world that was utterly unknown to him, and utterly forbidden, and therefore he found it irresistably interesting. The more he read, the more he understood, and the more he realized that he did not know.

Rather more distressing was the fact that the more he learned, the more he recognized must have been deliberately hidden from him.

He had not known, for example, what the Cup of Life actually did. Now that he did know, he shuddered at the power he had unwittingly played with. The balance of the world – well, that was a novel concept, and one that none of his tutors had mentioned.
He had not known that the Druids were benign by comparison to the High Priestesses of the Old Religion, and often opposed to them.

He had not even known that the Priestesses, the Druids, and the rebel sorcerers led by Alvarr were, in fact, not the same people, but different groups, with different goals. It seemed there was politics in the magical world, just as there was in the secular world, and he would have to negotiate a path for Camelot through that world too.

There were other discoveries, just as great – and just as secret. There was so much that he had not been taught! There had been so much withheld from him! The more he read about it, the more he realized how his father had filtered his education. He had never been allowed to even speak to a Druid, before he was old enough to go about hunting them.

He was beginning to wonder why.

He turned the page. This book had a more bleating about the Once and Future King. He had been predicted as coming any minute now for the last five hundred years.

When he did show up, he was going to be appalled at how much was expected of him. Unite Albion? If Arthur was in his shoes, the first thing he’d do would be jump in the sea and swim for France as fast as he could. Poor dumb bastard.

He smirked to himself at the idea, turned the next page, and came across a picture of something he knew.

The drawing was of a crystal, drawn in blue ink to indicate its sharpness and clarity, the flawless straight lines a tell-tale that the long-dead scribe had drawn it with a ruler. Each segment had been drawn to scale, with painstaking precision.

It was the Crystal of Neahtid.

The subject of this drawing lay right here in Camelot’s royal vault, under his feet, where for some unknown reason Morgana and Morgause had left it.

He lifted the opposite page, and read it closely.

The text was tiny, crabbed, and written in a hand that was clearly not that of a professional scribe. It took some time to decipher it, but when he had he sat back in his chair. The book claimed that the Crystal held the power of time itself – whatever the hell that meant – and then it went on to describe the long list of old fossils who had used it, and more importantly, what they had seen in it.

The Crystal of Neahtid was a scrying-stone!

“No wonder we couldn’t find it in any books on weaponry!” he said aloud.

“Sire?” Merlin said. He had paused, in the process of upturning a bucket of water into the bathtub.

“Nothing, I was just thinking aloud.”

“You want to watch that,” Merlin informed the water, as he poured it. “Next thing you know, you’ll turn into Old Henry, and argue with yourself.”

Arthur ignored the warning. He bent over the page again.

They had all assumed the Crystal was some sort of weapon. Certainly it had played a role in a great many wars, and it had passed through the hands of a great many powerful princes - he himself was probably the least noteworthy of the lot. But it wasn’t a weapon at all! It was a tool for communicating! No wonder none of Geoffrey’s searches through the histories of magical weapons had turned it up.

Hadn’t old Antoninus of Camulodunum said that some scryers were able to use crystals as their instruments? The Crystal of Neahtid was clearly one of those, then. But this one was so powerful that sorcerers were willing to give their lives for the chance of possessing it.

It was strange that Morgana and Morgause hadn’t taken it. Perhaps they hadn’t known what it was either?

The door clunked shut behind Merlin, as he departed with an empty bucket in each hand. Arthur knew that down in the Citadel’s huge kitchens, a great pot of water was being heated over a fire by the kitchenmaids, waiting for Merlin to come back with the two empty buckets.

Merlin could scry. Perhaps Merlin could use the Crystal?

It would be worth his while to find out. It would be a simple matter for him to take the Crystal out of the vault this afternoon – he had a perfectly good key, and every right to go in there without being questioned, and his father would never notice the thing was gone. They could try out the Crystal tonight, and if it didn’t work he could just take it back to the vault again tomorrow.

It seemed very soon before Merlin clumped back into the room with a bucket of water in each hand again. He set each one down on the floor next to the bathtub, and groaned, stretching his back. “That’s the last of it,” he said. “Bathtime, my lord.”

“It’s about time, too,” Arthur grumbled.

He went behind his dressing-screen to strip, listening to Merlin filling the bathtub with the last of the water.

He pulled his shirt over his head, peeled off his socks, dropped his trousers on the floor, and wrapped a clean white towel around his waist. The air was chilly on his bare skin – winter was on its way – but he would be immersed in hot water soon enough. He tucked the top fold of the towel in against his hip to hold it up, and walked out around the dressing screen. “Ready, Merlin?”

“Not – quite. ” Merlin said, and he gave a quick little bow, with a mischievous grin beginning to sneak up the corners of his mouth. “I want to show you something. Check the temperature?” he invited, waving a hand to the water, like an auctioneer.

He strode to the tub, and stared at the water. No steam was rising from the surface.

Yes, that right there was a noticeable lack of steam. “Merlin,” he said. “That water is cold.”

“Yes! Yes, it is!”

“If you think I’m going to have a bath in cold water, Merlin, I can assure you the stocks are always ready for you.”

“No, no, no! Wait. Watch this.” Merlin turned his back on Arthur, and bent over the tub. He stretched one hand over the surface of the water, and muttered something under his breath.

Steam obediently lifted itself from the water, and curled away into the air.

Merlin twirled around. “Ta-dah! ” he said, and gave a happy little bow, complete with a flourish of both hands. “Hot water!”

Arthur realized his mouth was hanging open, and clicked it shut. “Merlin…”

“I heated it with Latin.” That grin was back, making his eyes twinkle with the glee of accomplishment. He’d grinned much the same way, on the night he’d first succeeded at scrying. He’d grinned much the same way when they had driven off the dragon together. “Test it – it’s the right temperature.”

Arthur stared at Merlin, and stared at the water. The now hot water. The now magically-heated hot water.

Merlin might not be aware of what he’d just done, but Arthur knew all too well. He’d used magic – deliberately, consciously, intentionally used magic, right in front of Arthur. Not only that: the trick had worked on the very first attempt. It would have been impressive, if Arthur had not been so appalled.

That water had been heated with magic. Magic-touched water - and now, oh Gods above, Arthur was going to have to drop this towel, and sit in it.

Merlin was still waiting for his reaction.

He could not let his horror show. He could not let Merlin know that his blood had turned to ice. If he did, Merlin would realize that there was something to be horrified about, and he would realize that something was very wrong with what he had just done.

No, Arthur would have to act as if everything was all right. He would have to project a confident air he did not feel, as if he was trying to convince a shying horse that there was nothing there to shy about.

Well, he’d faced down gryphons and dragons and wyverns; his courage was up to dealing with hot water.

“Right,” Arthur said. “Hot water.” He unwrapped the towel, and let it drop to the floor. He picked up one foot, and lowered it into the water, trying not to show that he was gritting his teeth.

The water was the perfect temperature, just the way he liked it; hot enough to sting but not hot enough to hurt. He put his other foot in, and slowly, regally - with all the dignity he could muster while naked – sat down.

Merlin was a good servant, in his own idiosyncratic way. Many servants might know their master’s weight, but he was willing to bet that very few knew their master’s displacement. The level of the water in Arthur’s bath, once Arthur was immersed in it, was always exactly deep enough to reach the top of the bathtub without slopping over onto the floor. Arthur leaned his back against the back of the bathtub.

Merlin, as usual, had turned his back, as soon as Arthur’s towel dropped away.

He always avoided looking at Arthur naked. Arthur had long since given up on teasing him about his shyness – he would only go red in the face, and start stammering. It was less painful for both of them just to let him be shy.

But now Merlin turned around again. “What do you think?” he asked, with a sort of jittery eagerness.

“Well, it’s the right temperature,” Arthur conceded. He dipped his hands in the water, and rubbed the warmth of it over his shoulders. Magically-heated water, but at least it was warm. He felt his muscles relaxing, in spite of himself.

“How did you do that?” he asked, although he already knew.

Merlin bent over to pick up the towel, and retreated out of sight behind Arthur. “Um. I used a bit of … um, Latin. I asked the water to get hot, and it did. It was the same thing as asking the apples to stop falling. It was easy, really; no trouble at all.”

“How did you know it would work?”

“Oh, I’ve done it before.” He heard the stool scrape on the floor slightly, and knew that Merlin had perched on it; probably facing away from Arthur, as usual. “I tested it out last night. Arthur …? You don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind you using Latin to warm the water. It’s just right.”

“Oh, good. I’ll do it again from now on. It’s easier to heat it all up at once, than one kettle at a time.”

“However, I do mind you practising it where people might see you. I don’t mind you doing it for me, but I don’t want you to try it for anyone else.”

“No, no, of course not,” Merlin said, behind him. “You’re the only person whose bathwater I draw, anyway.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He sat forward in the tub, to twist around from the waist and stare at Merlin sternly. “Listen to me. I don’t want you practising Latin on your own. I want you to practice it here, where it’s safe, and where I can keep an eye on you.”

“I did it in my rooms, Sire. Nobody saw me.”

“Listen to me! I’m trying to keep you safe, you idiot! I don’t want you to practice it, unless I’m right here in the room. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sire,” Merlin agreed, reluctantly.

“I know it’s just a bit of a trick with your Latin lessons, and quite harmless, but anyone else might see it, and they might jump to the wrong conclusions. You could get into a lot of trouble.”

“I know. You don’t need to remind me,” Merlin said. “Latin lessons,” he added, cryptically, with a sigh in his voice.

Arthur settled back in the hot water with his arms arranged around the rim of the tub. The warmth was soaking into his muscles, and he could feel himself starting to get drowsy. He would have to stand up, and soap himself, but the air up there was going to be cold, and for the moment he was only too happy to sit and savour the pleasure of warmth. He leaned his head back against the edge of the tub, and closed his eyes.

There was a long silence.

“I can do other things with the Latin,” Merlin said after a while. “I’ve learned how to move things around with it, as well. I just look at what I want to move, and tell it to move, and it does.”

“Show me,” Arthur said, opening his eyes.

There was a brief silence, behind him, and the chair across the room scraped across the floor, all by itself.

“Now, that’s impressive,” Arthur said.

“Really?” Merlin sounded quite pleased with himself.

“I think, the more you get to know what you can and can’t do, the more control you will have over what you don’t want to do, and when you do it. Or don’t do it. Control comes with practice. After a bit, little accidents like the Apple Incident will stop altogether.”

Merlin sighed. “Right.”

“But don’t practice anywhere but here. You can move all the furniture you want, as long as you do it in here.”

There was another long silence of non-compliance, and Arthur sighed.

“Just don’t get caught, that’s all I ask. We might know that it’s just a little bit of your Latin lessons popping out, but other people might over-react.”

“I’ll take care, I promise.”

// // // // // //

Arthur decided to put his little experiment into practice after his usual after-dinner meeting around That Circular Table. He’d visited the vault that afternoon, on a pretext, and quietly pocketed the Crystal as he left. No-one but himself and his father had a key to go down there, and his father wasn’t due to go there until next week. It would be easy to slip the Crystal back again before then.

He led Merlin to his chambers.

“I have something a little different in mind tonight, Merlin,” he said, pushing his door open, striding in, and leaving Merlin to close it behind him. “Come here, and look at this,” he said, and walked over to the table.

On the table was the small leather bag he had fetched from the Citadel’s vault that afternoon. He sat down at the head of the table, the bag in front of him, and waited for Merlin to follow him.

Merlin started towards him, with his usual gangling willingness, but he didn’t get there.

He stopped dead, his arms flying out. His whole body rocked with the impact. It was as if something slammed into him, an invisible club to the chest. “Arthur!” he croaked.

“Merlin!” Arthur demanded, startled. “What’s wrong with you?”

Merlin had whipped his head back, and he was staring at the bag on the table wildly. “I know what that is!” he whispered.

“It’s the Crystal of Neahtid,” Arthur said to him.

“I know!” Merlin’s voice was suddenly hoarse, with a sort of breathless dread.

Arthur picked up the bag, and dropped the Crystal into his palm. It was heavy and cold in his hand. It glittered in the firelight, as if it held the fire inside itself. “I thought we might try scrying with this, instead of the candle, tonight. Consider it an experiment.”

“Arthur!” Merlin said again. He was still frozen, his arms spread, as if he could not step closer. His face had gone pale, his eyebrows scrunched and his lips bared, as if in a grimace of pain.

“It’s all right, Merlin. Come here and sit down.” Arthur sat down in his usual chair, the stone in his hand. Merlin didn’t budge.

Arthur sighed. “Come here, Merlin. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take it back to the vault tomorrow.”

Merlin shook his head, but his eyes were glued to the Crystal. “I would rather you took it back to the vault tonight. I don’t want anything to do with that thing.”

“Come on, you know you want to. It’s just a new trick to learn. You like new tricks.” Arthur put the Crystal down, stood up, and walked over to Merlin. He wrapped his arm around Merlin’s shoulder and tried to coax him to the table, closer to the Crystal, but Merlin bucked back against him with sudden strength, refusing to be budged an inch closer.

“No, no, no…” he insisted, each word emphasised with a shake of his head. His eyes were locked on the Crystal, with the intensity of a hawk. “I know what that thing is.”

“It’s just a scrying crystal, Merlin, that’s all.”

Merlin shuddered, the violence of it communicating through Arthur’s arm where it rested over his shoulder.

“You’re not scared of it, are you?” Arthur asked, drawing a teasing note into his voice.

“Scared of it?” For the first time since his strange reaction began, Merlin looked at him, deeply into his eyes. “Arthur, I’m terrified of it. That thing holds more power than I can handle.”

He looked on the verge of bolting from the room.

“Listen, you’re perfectly safe,” Arthur said. “There’s nothing to worry about. I won’t let any harm come to you.”

He turned himself to face Merlin, so that his back was to the Crystal, blocking Merlin’s view of it. He shifted his hand to Merlin’s neck, kneading the tight muscle there reassuringly.

Merlin just squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head, wordlessly.

It wasn’t going to work. If Merlin was already open about the fact that he was scared, he couldn’t be mocked into trying. He couldn’t very well force him to use it, either. He would have to try something else.

“All right,” he relented. “I can’t force you.”

That got a result. Merlin opened one eye, just a crack, and looked at him suspiciously. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I can’t make you learn Latin, if you don’t want to. Latin doesn’t work that way.”

Merlin opened both eyes, and stared at him.

“Really,” Arthur said. “Leave it. I’ll take it back to the vault tomorrow.” He stepped back from Merlin, and deliberately walked away.

He went over to the window behind his desk, and stood staring out at the night.

“How did you know what it was?” he asked casually, resting his elbow against the wall and his head against the heel of his hand.

“I can feel the power in it. It reaches out,” Merlin said. He could dimly see Merlin’s reflection in the small glass panes. He hadn’t moved from where he stood, facing the table.

“What does it feel like?”

“Um. Like – you know when someone pinches that nerve on the top of your shoulder and it hurts? Only – different. Less painful and more…um…” Merlin’s voice trailed out. “More like really clashing music.”

Arthur realized he was trying to find words to describe something that could not be described, as if he was describing colour to a blind person. Colours that were bright and glorious to Merlin, but to which he, Arthur, would forever be blind. For the first time in his life, he felt a twinge of regret.

In the dark counter-world of the glass, he saw Merlin’s reflection take a step closer to the table. Slowly, his hand came up, his fingers stroking the air, feeling something that Arthur could not see. Arthur kept quiet, not daring to speak lest Merlin back away again.

“Do you know what it does, Arthur?” Merlin asked.

“It’s a kind of scrying stone, that’s all. A special scrying stone. It probably gets a better distance, or clarity, or something.”

“I think it’s a bit more than a scrying stone.”

Arthur nodded. “It must be good for something, or so many people wouldn’t have died trying to keep it. It’s had a bit of a bloody history.

He was watching Merlin closely in the reflection. Merlin shifted one leg, taking another tiny step closer to the table. His trembling fingers were reaching very slowly towards the Crystal.

He would keep talking. And he would pretend he was not watching. He would let Merlin make up his mind on his own time, without pressure or coaxing. Curiosity was the trick. He let his mouth run on.

“The Romans wrote about it first. They said that the Britons had a magical crystal that was so powerful that Caligula changed his mind about invading Albion when he heard about it.”

Merlin’s reflection picked up the Crystal, very gingerly. Arthur swallowed, and kept talking, his eyes on Merlin.

“But then, many years later, after the invasion, the Crystal fell into Roman hands. They say Agricola was the only Roman able to use it, and that’s why he was such a successful general. He defeated many armies, and the Crystal helped him do it. That’s what Tacitus says, and he should know. Agricola was his father-in-law.”

Merlin was standing frozen, head down, staring at the Crystal in his hands. Arthur could not make out his expression, but his body had gone rigid. He dared not turn around. He could not let his excitement leak into his voice. He kept talking.

“Anyway, after Agricola died, it disappeared. No-one knows where it went to. Definitely none of Agricola’s successors used it, or they would kept going North and stomped all over the Scots, too. I suppose the Britons probably stole it back again and hid it. But one way or another, it’s mine now, whatever it is.”

Merlin collapsed.

Arthur was across the room, and kneeling over him, almost before he knew that he was moving. “Merlin?”

He gripped Merlin’ shoulders and heaved him over onto his back with strength made rough with panic. Merlin’s eyes were closed, and his face was bleached pale.

“Merlin?” he asked, and slapped at the white cheek. “Wake up, Merlin, you’re scaring me!” he begged, but Merlin didn’t move.

He got up, to rush to his washstand and throw water on his face, but before he could take a step, Merlin began to move.

He began to shudder, his limbs jumping.

This was no faint!

Arthur turned on his heel, opened his mouth, and roared “Guaaaards!” with all the strength left in his terrified lungs. He fell back down to his knees, alongside Merlin. “Guaaards!”

Oh, Gods, what had he done?

Merlin’s muscles were twitching – not just his arms and legs but his face and neck as well, twisting the familiar face into a horribly stiff rictus. His head had to be drumming painfully against the floor. Arthur shoved his hand under the dark head, wincing at the pounding, but glad to take the punishment on his palm rather Merlin’s poor skull.

The door banged open, and an armed guard lurched in, his sword drawn.

“Sire?” the man blared, his eyes darting left and right in search of attackers.

“Call the Royal Physician!” Arthur shouted at him. “Go!”

He heard the guard departing, but his attention was all on Merlin. His left thigh was thudding against the leg of the chair, and Arthur reached down across his body to shove the chair away.

Another guard arrived. “Sire?” he demanded. “Are you harmed?”

“I’m not harmed! Merlin’s having a fit! Is the Physician coming?”

“Malcolm went to fetch him…”

“Go after Malcolm!” Arthur turned on his haunches, to snarl over his shoulder at the guard. “Bloody well carry him here if you have to!”

Merlin was having a fit! A fit, of all things, and what if this was just the beginning? What if the Crystal had done something to him – broken him – poisoned him?

He saw the glint of ice, just by Merlin’s arm, and he snatched it up, filled by rage at the horrible thing, and dashed it across the room with all his strength. He heard it slam against something and bounce away into the corners of the room, but his eyes were on Merlin.

“Merlin, it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right…” This was his fault, his fault, his fault. He was Arthur, world’s stupidest prince, and he’d caused this to happen.

“Merlin, it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right,” and he wanted Merlin to wake up so that he could apologise, explain, make it all right, ease the horrible band of guilt around his heart. Merlin’s arms were as rigid as wooden lances, and he wrapped his hands around the narrow wrists, stroking them, trying to warm them.

“It’s all right, Merlin, it’s all right, it’s all right,” and he realized he was repeating the words over and over like a stupid chant; and then Gaius arrived.

“Arthur?” the old man said, “Are you ill?”

“It’s not me!” he called, raising his head. “It’s Merlin!”

“Merlin?” Gaius asked, striding over as swiftly as he was able, his robes brushing the floor like an oncoming wave. He went down on his knees next to Merlin, creakily, one joint at a time. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. He just collapsed.”

Merlin’s fit was easing. His movement was slowing, becoming more rhythmic, as if a blanket of calm was being laid over him. Perhaps it was over.

“Merlin?” he asked, leaning over the still face and cupping Merlin’s cheeks in his palms. He saw to his horror that Merlin was going beyond pallor, to a near blue colour. He was gasping. “Gaius, he’s going blue!”

“He’s still breathing.” Experienced hands were running over Merlin, taking his pulse, feeling his brow, peeling back an eyelid, opening his lips with professional roughness and running a thumb over his teeth. “How long did it go on for?” Gaius asked.

“I don’t know. A few minutes? You arrived fast.”

“I was with your father. Has this happened before?”

“No.” Merlin was beginning to breathe again in deep sobbing breaths, as if he was weeping in his fit. The movement had stopped, and he lay limp between them.

“Did he eat or drink anything out of the ordinary beforehand?”

He meant, had Merlin taken in anything harmful that had been intended for Arthur? The band of guilt tightened further. “No. Nothing.”

“He needs a pillow.”

“I’ll fetch one,” Arthur said. He climbed to his feet, and for the first time noticed the guards who were hanging back around the doorway like a Greek chorus. “That will be all,” he told them. “Return to your posts.” They departed, clumping out reluctantly, and he went to the bed to fetch one of his own pillows.

He brought it to Gaius, who raised Merlin’s head, and slipped it in underneath.

“Right,” Gaius said, “Now let’s roll him onto his side, to make him more comfortable, shall we? He’ll breathe better on his side, and if he throws up he won’t choke.” He directed Arthur, and together they got Merlin rolled onto his side, as if he was sleeping, with his head pillowed. Arthur found that under Gaius’s calm directions, his own wildly beating heart slowed, and his trembling hands began to move more steady.

“You can put a blanket over him, if it makes you feel better,” Gaius added, and Arthur dragged the coverlet off his bed, and draped it over Merlin’s unmoving body. It did make him feel a bit better. He still felt as helpless as a kitten, but at least he could keep Merlin warm. He could not do much else, right now.

“Is he going to be all right?” he asked.

“It depends,” Gaius said. He picked up Merlin’s wrist, and felt his pulse. “He should sleep it off, and wake on his own time. If not, we’ll look at a different diagnosis. Now, what were you doing, before this happened?” Gaius asked.

“Nothing!”

Gaius gave him a piercing look, one eyebrow up, the other drawn down. His chin drew down into his chest. “Nothing,” he repeated, sourly.

“Well, he fell, and then he started to shake, and I shouted for the guards.”

Gaius’s chin lowered even further. “Thank you, Sire. Now, tell me what you were doing before he had the fit?”

“Nothing!”

Gaius’s eyes could not get any more blue or any more rheumy, or any more disapproving. Gaius stared at him, and then, as if settling in for a long wait, folded his arms. “There was a time when you thought twice about lying to me, Prince Arthur.”

It was the closest a mere physician could come to calling a crown prince a liar, and for a moment Arthur felt like he was ten years old again.

He looked down at Merlin, still lying between them with his eyes closed. He was breathing deeply now, but he wasn’t moving, and his face was white. He looked as fragile as a cut flower on a table; limp, drained, and helpless.

“Can he hear us?” he asked.

“No,” Gaius said. “He is completely unconscious. He will remember nothing. Tell me, Sire.”

He drew in a breath. “You are a physician, Gaius.” He looked up, and into the severe blue eyes.

“That I am, Sire.”

“If I remember correctly, you swore some sort of oath not to repeat anything you hear as a physician, about your patients?”

Gaius nodded, but his expression did not soften. “I swore to keep anything that I hear in my practice a secret, and never to reveal it.”

He himself had sworn an oath to Merlin never to reveal Merlin’s secret, but Merlin might be seriously ill. Was it better to keep his oath, or to do whatever he could to help him?

No, that was no question at all.

And who else could he trust more than Gaius? He had known Gaius since the hour of his birth, but he knew that Gaius had never looked at him with the same love that he gave to Merlin. Merlin’s secret would be safe with Gaius.

“I swore an oath, too,” he said, softly, “But I’ll break that oath in a heartbeat, rather than see him harmed.”

“What were you doing?”

He drew in a deep breath. “When he collapsed, he was looking at the Crystal of Neahtid. He was trying to scry in it. He looked at it for a moment, and then he collapsed.”

“The Crystal of Neahtid?” Gaius rocked backwards, appalled. “The Crystal of Neahtid is not a plaything, Sire!” he said, as if in despair. “It is a very powerful instrument of magic.”

“I know that,” Arthur said. “I thought Merlin might be able to use it, because Merlin … has very powerful magic.”

There was a long silence. Gaius regarded him quietly, but the old lined face was utterly inscrutable, neither approving nor disapproving of the information.

“We found out by accident that he can tell when he’s being scried,” Arthur explained. “I thought he might be able to learn to scry himself, so we sat down one night, and I showed him how. And he could do it! He picked it up really quickly!” He found himself feeling very proud of Merlin. “He doesn’t just have magic – he has lots of magic. He has a real aptitude for it. I thought, if he was so good at scrying, perhaps he might learn to use the Crystal of Neahtid, too.”

“You toy with objects of such power at your peril, Sire,” Gauis warned.

“I know that! As soon as he looked at it, he collapsed! It was too much for him.” Merlin had said himself that the Crystal was too powerful for him, and Arthur had not listened. It was his fault. He looked down at the sleeping face. “Will he be all right, Gaius?”

Gaius felt Merlin’s wrist and waited silently, obviously counting in his head, and then put his arm down again. He sighed. “I believe he will be, in time, but the Crystal may have given him a deep shock. He will recover, but you might have to be patient with him for a while.”

Arthur looked down at Merlin’s face again. “I can look after him. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. All that has happened to him is my fault, anyway. Teaching him to scry was not a good idea. It brought out his magic.”

“You didn’t bring it out of him, Arthur. Sorcerers are born, not made. He was born with it, just as you were born with your title.”

Arthur shook his head. “No, this is my fault. He might have been born this way, but it was dormant in him, and I kicked it awake. And I swore no harm would come to him because of it.” He looked hard at Gaius. “Gaius, what I just told you must be kept a secret. You must not tell Merlin.”

“That you blame yourself for his magic?”

“No. That he has magic at all. He doesn’t know yet that he’s a sorcerer. I told him that scrying is just a talent some people had in the Old Days, and he believes me. I’ve been teaching him, bit by bit, but he doesn’t yet understand that he’s different.”

“You’ve been teaching him? ” Gaius asked, as if the thought of Arthur teaching Merlin anything was strange to him.

“Yes. Very subtly, so that he doesn’t come on the knowledge all at once. I think he’ll accept it a bit more easily if he thinks it’s all his own idea. I don’t want him to get the same shock that Morgana got.”

Gaius shook his head. “Sire, you must not think that. Merlin will never be like Morgana.”

“No, because Merlin is not alone. He has us to teach him. Morgana had only Morg– .”

Merlin jerked. He spasmed violently under the blanket, flinging himself over onto his face. He thrashed wildly, his arms and legs lashing the flagstones. “No!” burst from him.

“Merlin?” Arthur said, reaching down for him, but Merln scrabbled at the floor and writhed away from his hands.

“Arthur!” Merlin wailed. He pushed himself up on his arms like a seal, his legs scooting for purchase on the flagstones. “Arthur!” He tried to force himself up onto his hands and knees, but collapsed again onto his face.

Arthur went after him, on his hands and knees. “It’s all right!” he said, and put both hands on Merlin’s back.

“No, no, no!” Merlin wailed again. He jerked himself up again, and hooked back his elbow to throw off Arthur’s hands. He forced himself up again, and his arm latched onto the nearest chair. He used the seat to lever himself up into a sitting position. “Arthur!” he wailed again, his head turning this way and that as if he was blind.

“I’m here!” Arthur called at him, gripping Merlin’s shoulders with his hands to support him. “It’s all right, I’m here!”

Merlin’s face turned to him, white and crumpled with horror. Merlin reached out to him, but his strength seemed to fail him and he collapsed again. Arthur caught him against his chest before he could reach the floor, and folded his arms around him.

“Arthur! No, Arthur!” Merlin howled against Arthur’s chest, as if Arthur was many miles away and lost to him. Gaius was here, trying to look into Merlin’s eyes, trying to feel his pulse, but Merlin didn’t even seem to notice him.

“I’m here! It’s me. Look at me, Merlin.” He put his hand around Merlin’s jaw, and directed his face firmly upwards to look at him. “Look at me, Merlin. I’m here!”

For a moment Merlin stared blankly at him, then his eyes filled with recognition. “Arthur! The snake!” His wiry arms wrapped around Arthur, as if he would never let him go, his fingers knotting like roots into the back of his jacket.

“What?” Arthur said. “There is no snake, Merlin.”

“Don’t let them draw their swords! One of them will draw their sword to kill the snake, and you mustn’t let them! It’s the end! You mustn’t let them draw their swords!” His eyes were filled with horror. His hands clenched into fists, shaking at Arthur’s jacket with his urgency.

He was delirious. “All right! I won’t let them draw their swords. I promise.”

“I saw it all, Arthur! I saw you! I saw the battle! But where am I? I’m not there! I’m not there, Arthur! I don’t know where I am! You’re there, but I’m not! Where am I? I tried to see but I couldn’t! I couldn’t!” His words were rushing out, falling over each other in garbled urgency. It was the frenzied anxiety of delirium. It was nonsense.

“You’re in Camelot, Merlin,” he soothed. “You’re in my chambers. Everything is all right. You’ve had a fit.”

“No, no, no, no!” Merlin insisted, shaking his head. “You don’t understand! Where am I? Why aren’t I with you?” He seemed to be running out of strength. “If I’m there, I can do something, but I’m not there. I tried to see, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t see. I don’t know where I am. Where am I?” His movements were growing weaker, less panicked.

“You are with me,” Arthur said. He put his hand up, and stroked his fingers through Merlin’s hair. “There, there. You’re all right.”

Merlin was subsiding, sagging slowly against Arthur’s chest. “Arthur,” he protested. “I should be there. I would never leave you! Where am I?”

“You’re safe,” Arthur promised. “You’re in my chambers, and Gaius is here, and you’re safe. I’ve got you.”

“Oh, no,” Merlin sighed. He was going limp, sliding down in Arthur’s arms as if he was falling asleep. “It’s all wrong. I should be there with you. I wouldn’t leave you, I love you too much.” His head came down to lie on Arthur’s shoulder.

“There’s no battle. Lie still.”

“It’s all wrong,” Merlin sighed. “I love you too much. I wouldn’t have left,” and then he was still. He was still breathing in Arthur’s arms, but his fingers unknotted themselves and fell limply to the floor.

Arthur was on his knees, his arms full of unconscious Merlin, leaning back to support Merlin’s weight. He met Gaius’s eyes over the top of Merlin’s dark head. “What …” he hissed under his breath, “was that?”

Gaius shook his head. “The Crystal of Neahtid holds more powerful magic than you or I will ever understand,” he whispered back. “Some say that it does not only show things that are, but also things that are still to come, and things that have passed already.”

“The power of time itself,” he breathed, understanding at last. “Do you think he saw the future?”

He saw Gaius nod. “I don’t think he will wake up soon, after that,” Gauis said. “Can you carry him?”

“Of course,” Arthur whispered. “He’s as light as a feather.”

“I would rather have him in my tower, where I have the tools to look after him.”

Arthur looked down at the sleeping face crumpled against his chest. Part of him wanted to wrap Merlin up in his own bed and keep him right where he could watch over him all night; the larger, more rational part knew that he would be better off under the eye of the physician. “Of course.”

// // // // // //

Arthur woke up, and stretched. He lay in his bed for a few minutes, snug and warm, until he realized that this morning would probably not be like other mornings.

His morning procedure was always the same. Every morning, a kitchen maid would be let into his bedroom with his breakfast. She would tiptoe into his bedroom, put his plate down, and tiptoe out again without saying anything. Arthur always ignored the arrival of breakfast.

He always ignored Merlin, too, for as long as possible, when Merlin banged his way in and bumbled around the room. Arthur was Officially Still Asleep until Merlin made his loud declaration that the day had begun, with, “Up and at ‘em, lazy daisy,” or something equally inappropriate and murderously cheerful for that time of day.

But Merlin could not be expected to show up, marginally late and hideously perky, the morning after having a seizure.

Arthur wondered if he would be able to find himself clothes, or if he should just pick up yesterday’s cast-offs. He was probably already very late.

Last night, Arthur had carried the unconscious Merlin all the way to Gaius’s tower, settled him into his bed, and tucked him up in his blankets. They had left the door open so that they could hear if Merlin made any noises, and then Arthur had told Gaius everything that had happened in the last few weeks. He’d told Gaius about the scrying, about Morgana, about the books that he was borrowing from Geoffrey, and all the strange and worrying things he was learning from them. Finally, he told Gaius about the Crystal of Neahtid.

And then, Gaius had voiced his opinion on what Arthur and Merlin had been ‘playing at’ - at considerable length.

But at least Gaius wasn’t going to rush off and inform the King. His disapproval could be borne, as long as he kept their secret.

He became aware, suddenly, that someone was on the other side of the curtain.

He sat up with a jerk. “Who’s there?” he barked.

The bed-curtains were drawn, all around, but he was sure he had heard someone behind them, against the window, trying very hard to breathe without making a sound.

He tossed the covers off, ready to whip out the sword that was always ready in a hidden scabbard by the headboard.

“It’s only me, Sire,” a voice said.

“Merlin?” Arthur demanded. He sat up on his knees, grabbed the curtain, and opened it. He leaned out.

Merlin was on his hands and knees by the side of the bed. He looked up, with a guilty expression.

Arthur glared at him. “What … are you doing … down there? ” he asked, slowly and carefully.

“I … um … I was looking for that thing we were playing with last night.”

“That thing? The Crystal?”

“Did it fall on the floor?” Merlin asked. “It must have. Because I’ve searched everywhere else. I went through your pockets and the cupboard, and I can’t find it. I thought maybe I dropped it … somewhere.” He leaned down again, raised the hanging blankets, and looked under the bed.

“Get up off your knees, Merlin.” It was far too early to deal with Merlin. Really, when he was King he was going to pass a law that said that the day did not begin until ten o’clock.

“Did you see where it went to?” Merlin said. “The thing? ”

“It’s in my strongbox,” Arthur said. He got out of bed. The day had begun, apparently. “Merlin, what are you doing here?”

“I come here every morning, Sire,” Merlin said, in a tone that wondered if his master had forgotten his conditions of employment.

“Are you well enough?” He stood waiting, ready for Merlin to bring out the day’s clothing.

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m a bit bruised, but I’m absolutely fine.” Merlin abandoned the search, and got up off the floor.

“Are you sure? I would have thought Gaius would have kept you in?” He remembered his lecture from Gaius last night, after settling the unconscious Merlin into his own bed, and tucking him up in his blankets. The main theme of the lecture had been ‘Magic is not a toy! but there had also been a recurring motif of ‘Do not break my apprentice!’ It was surprising that Merlin had been allowed out at all, this morning.

“Gaius doesn’t know I’m here. I sneaked out. I came to see if I could find the thing. I’m sorry if I woke you, Sire, I thought I could get it and be out before you woke up. Can I get it out of your strongbox?”

“Why do you want it?”

Merlin was opening cupboards and taking out clothing, ready to dress Arthur. “I wanted to try and look at it again,” he said, without looking at Arthur.

Arthur straightened up, wide awake suddenly. “Are you mad? It gave you a fit once, now you want to have another go?”

“Well,” Merlin addressed the inside of the cupboard, “I think I know what I did wrong. I want to try again, and see if I’m right. Did you undress yourself last night? Where is your belt?”

Last night he’d been terrified of it, but now suddenly he wanted to play with it? “Listen to me, Merlin. You can’t look at that thing again.”

Merlin turned, and stared at him. “I think I’ve got the trick of it. I wanted to see more, and I went deeper, and I got pulled in. I think if I just skim the surface from facet to facet I can manage to see what I need to see without getting stuck in it.”

“It’s out of the question, Merlin. You said yourself it would be too much for you, and it was. You were out cold on the floor! Don’t you remember? You had a seizure! And now you want to try again?”

“I have to know more about what I saw last night.” Merlin said, obstinately. He turned back to the cupboard.

“No, Merlin, it’s not happening. The Crystal is going straight back into the vault.” That had been Gaius’s suggestion last night, and Arthur had agreed willingly.

“Sire,” Merlin said. He abandoned his attempt to find a jacket and shirt that matched. He put one arm against the cupboard, and leaned on it, gazing into the cupboard so that his face was hidden by the carved wooden door. “What I saw last night … I have to know more. I have to know what happened so that I can stop it.”

“What did you see last night that was so awful?”

Merlin lowered his head. “I think I saw you die.”

“Die? Me?” That was rather startling. In fact it was dizzying.

Merlin nodded, or rather the top of his head – all Arthur could see of his face – nodded against the shelter of the cupboard. It was as if he was the one whose death had been seen.

“How does it happen?” Arthur asked, creepily fascinated. How many people got the chance to ask that question?

“In battle. You get hit in the head.”

“Oh, that’s not so bad. That’s a good way to go.” If he died in battle he would be a posthumous hero, felled in his prime, how tragic. Songs would be sung about him. He found the idea cheered him up. It was better than dying old and dribbling in your bed, forgetful and forgotten. “How old was I?”

Merlin spoke against the cupboard. “Older. You’ve got grey in your beard.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” He’d been facing the prospect of dying in battle since he was sixteen, and the idea did not worry him. “So I die a warrior’s death, and not for a long time. Who – how do I put this? – who finally bests me in battle?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I couldn’t see. I could see the battle, but not who was in it. I was trying to get deeper, to see more of the joining bits, more of why, but I couldn’t.”

“And then you collapsed,” Arthur finished for him.

“And then I collapsed.” Merlin turned around and faced him. “Please, I need to have another try at it. I need to know.”

“No.”

“Sire…”

“No, Merlin!”

“But…”

“No, Merlin. It’s completely out of the question. You are not yet strong enough to handle it. Grey in my beard, you said? Then I have years and years before I have to worry about it. There is plenty of time. It can wait.”

“Yes, but…”

“Merlin, there is no ‘but.’” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “You’re new to this scrying thing. The Crystal is still too strong for you, now. We can practice, build up your skills, and when you’re a bit stronger, a bit better – then we’ll try again.”

Merlin was glaring at him, stubbornly. “I would rather try now. Arthur, I had just a taste of it. I can see more! I can see what’s going to happen!”

“You’ve no idea how scared I was for you, last night. You had a seizure, on the floor. I thought you were dying! I’m not willing to risk hurting you again. I’m sorry, but this is for your own good.”

Merlin sighed. He walked over to the bed, and sat down next to Arthur. “I could use it only when you’re around.”

“Hah. The way you promised to use the rest of your Latin only when I’m around? Nice try, but no. The Crystal is going back into the vault until next year.”

“Next year?”

“Next year, we’ll try again. You have my word.”

Merlin sighed again, deeper. “Just don’t grow a grey beard until then.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Besides, it is my death you want to look at, Merlin, not yours. If I can wait to find out, so can you. There’s no hurry.”

“All right,” Merlin said, reluctantly. “I can wait a year, I suppose. ”

“There you go.” He patted Merlin’s knee. “Time to get me dressed, Merlin. The day’s started.”

“Yes, Sire.” Merlin didn’t sound happy. But he sounded as if he accepted Arthur’s order, for once, and not as if he was going to steal the Crystal and try again anyway.

// // // // // //

About a week later, Arthur stood on the Citadel wall, surveying the Lower Town spread out below him.

“Sire,” a voice greeted him.

He turned, to see Sir Leon at his side. “Sir Leon.”

“Sir George’s patrol has just returned, Sire. He was stopped by a hermit on the edge of the Darkling Wood, who said that there are a group of Druids camping in a cave there.”

“Druids,” Arthur mused, stroking his chin. He turned on his heel, and stared out towards the horizon, in the direction of the Darkling Wood. “I wonder if I can guess what cave they are living in?”

“I think there is only one cave large enough for a group to live in, Sire. Sir Gawain says it’s very comfortably appointed, with the very finest rocks available.”

That sounded like Gawain. Arthur smiled. “Oh, it’s fit for a prince, I can assure you.”

“What are your orders?”

“My orders?” Arthur glanced at Sir Leon, and frowned at him. “My orders are to do nothing.”

“Nothing?” Sir Leon boggled. “Sire, I can have a troop mounted and ready to ride at first light.”

Arthur turned, and stared a challenge at Sir Leon. “Are you questioning my commands, Sir Leon?” he asked through tight lips.

“No, no, Sire. Of course not.”

“You’ll do nothing, Sir Leon. Nothing at all. The Druids are not to be attacked, unless and until I see fit. Sir George’s report is to remain a secret.”

“Your father will want to know, Sire,” Sir Leon pointed out, concern rumpling his brow.

“My father does not need to know every single trifling incident in the Kingdom. He is not … he’s not well enough for that kind of worry.”

He wondered briefly if he should take Sir Leon into his confidence, but dismissed the idea. Sir Leon was a knight in the old style, and he had sworn his oaths of fealty to Arthur’s father. It would be unfair for Arthur to push a conflict of loyalty on him. Besides, he had grown up, as Arthur had, with the belief that all magic was evil. He hadn’t learned what Arthur had learned in the last few weeks, and it was too much to expect him to simply accept.

“The Druids are to be left unmolested, for now,” he ordered. “Let them think they have not been seen. They may move on of their own accord, and we have enough internal concerns without riding out and creating more. But for now, we will ignore them.”

“Yes, Sire,” Sir Leon agreed, consenting with a bow.

// // // // // //

The next day, it was time for Merlin to teach Arthur a lesson. Thou shalt not poke a sorcerer with a stick…

Knighthood was not all about chivalry. To be sure, most of it was about chivalry; there had to be something to distinguish a knight from an armed thug, and thus the insistence on oaths and codes of honour and heraldry. But, when you got right down to the nitty-gritty, what the knights were really about – really – was the last line of defence of Camelot.

In that light, he had taken to teaching his newest knights the kinds of fighting tricks that chivalrous gentlemen were not supposed to know.

For this reason, he gave the lessons hidden away, in the little meadow just outside the walls, where there were no houses and no inconvenient passersby, and where they were just far enough from the walls not to be seen clearly. There, twice a week, he met with a group of a dozen youngsters, to teach them the subtle arts of choking, kicking and gouging.

Sir Gawain had offered to help him teach, on the basis of his survival (if not always victory) in a hundred bare-fisted brawls from here to Scotland. Arthur was beginning to enjoy training in collaboration with Sir Gawain. He never lost his laughing demeanour, as if he was nursing a private joke about the whole knighthood business that no-one else knew about yet. He was scatty, easily distracted, but never predictable, and always quick. Truly, no-one else did fight quite like Gawain.

In the middle of a bout, Sir Gawain stepped back, raising his free hand to signal for a rest. His opponent stepped back, reprieved for a moment from an educational strangulation.

“Look who’s arrived, Arthur,” Sir Gawain said, and pointed with one hand over his opponent’s shoulder.

Arthur turned. The whole class turned, but Arthur was the only one who smiled at the sight.

Merlin was sitting under a tree with his back against the trunk and his long legs extended in front of him. He looked as if he had been there all morning, although Arthur knew he had not been there when the lesson started. He was, thought Arthur, playing his usual game of being as close as he could to the knights, while disdaining any suggestion that he was one of them.

“How long has he been there?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know, but he does have a talent for turning up in places where he’s not expected, right, Arthur?” Gawain asked, cheerily.

Arthur knew Gawain was referring to the quest Arthur was supposed to have been performing unaided, in order to prove his right to rule. He knew how appalled Arthur had been at the time when he found he wasn’t alone – although privately Arthur had concluded that if his quest meant anything, it was that he needed allies to succeed. Royal mythology aside, that was simply realpolitik for you.

He looked at Merlin, raised his brows as high as they would go in a questioning expression, and put up one hand in the private signal they used to symbolise Guinevere. Merlin nodded, and gave him a thumb’s up in return.

Merlin had seen and spoken to Guinevere, and she was well. The simple information caused a moment of blissful sunny warmth to run over him.

“Five gets you ten our boy Merlin knows a few dirty tricks of his own,” Sir Gawain said, with a mischievous look at Arthur.

“I’m not letting you go over there and throttle him, if that’s what you want,” Arthur told him.

“Ah, spoilsport. Would have been an interesting experiment. You ready?” Gawain asked his young pupil, who nodded, and raised his hands in readiness. The bout went on, and ended when the knight succeeded in breaking Gawain’s hold on his throat.

The lesson finished, in due course, and the little group broke up. The young knights went off in a chatting group, nursing their bruises, and shoving and heckling each other affectionately. Sir Gawain declared that he needed a mug of ale, and went off in the other direction.

Arthur had kept two of the wooden practice swords, and he crossed them over his shoulders and walked across the grass to where Merlin lay.

Merlin had fallen asleep, his arms folded and his mouth open to the sky. Arthur wished that he had water to splash on him, but he did not, so he simply booted him in the thigh. “Wakey, wakey,” he said.

Merlin opened his eyes, smacking his lips sleepily. His eyes focused on Arthur, accusingly. “Did you really have to do that?”

“Of course I did,” Arthur said, grinning. “Come on, Merlin! On your feet!” He swung one of the swords down from his shoulder, and dropped it next to Merlin. “Time for a fencing lesson.”

“Oh, no,” Merlin moaned.

“Oh, yes. Your turn, Merlin.”

As always, it was as if yesterday’s Merlin had been replaced overnight with an identical copy who knew nothing of swordsmanship. Arthur had been teaching him swordsmanship for years, and yet he still had only enough swordsmanship to avoid getting killed long enough for Arthur to rescue him.

Why was it that he took so readily to the study of magic, but the simple concept of a feint just did not stay in his head?

After a while, Arthur let Merlin catch his breath. He put the tip of the wooden sword on the grass, and leaned on the pommel. Merlin brushed his sweaty hair back from his brow, and panted.

Arthur spoke. “That thing you did last week – pushing the chair.”

“Yes?”

“Can you do that with something heavier?”

“How much heavier?” Merlin straightened his back, and looked at Arthur warily.

“About – say, up to two hundred pounds or so? Like me? Can you move me?”

“Oh, er, actually I’d rather not.” Merlin raised his sword, as if to change the subject by resuming the lesson.

“Yes, you can. Come on. Let’s see you try to move me.”

“No thanks.”

“Do you know what I think? I don’t think you can move me. I don’t think you can move anything heavier than a chair.”

“Yes, I can.”

“I don’t think you can. No, I think you’re a one-piece-of-furniture pony, Merlin.”

“I could move you if I wanted to!” Merlin said hotly.

“All right, let’s see it. Let’s see it, Merlin.” He pushed Merlin’s shoulder with the end of the wooden sword. “Come on, then.” Another poke with the sword.

“Stop it.”

Ooh, he didn’t like that. Arthur would do it again. He licked his lips in anticipation, and grinned. Another poke.

“Come on, push me.”

“No.” Merlin took a step back.

Poke.

“You know you want to, chicken.”

Poke.

“Push me.”

Poke.

“Come onnnnn!”

He knew the second before the push happened, because he saw the intention telegraphed on Merlin’s face just before Merlin threw his hand out. Gold flamed in Merlin’s eyes, and the next thing he felt himself blasted backwards off his feet.

It was a little like being unhorsed in a joust. There was a brief, beautiful instant of swirling flight, which always lasted just long enough for him to realize that it wasn’t a good omen.

Then he impacted with the ground, hard. All the breath was slammed from his body, and he rolled helplessly, over and over.

He fetched up on his back, gasping for air, and staring up at the sky. He could taste blood in his mouth. He’d bitten the side of his tongue.

His brain seemed to be moving sluggishly. That had really not been a good idea. If he ever got the urge to tell Merlin to push him, ever again, he told himself groggily, he would have to remember this day.

He heard a voice shout, from a few thousand miles away, “Arthur!” and then Merlin loomed over him, blocking out the sunlight. “Arthur! Are you all right?”

He coughed, spasmodically, but he didn’t think he had anything damaged. “Now, that’s what I call a dirty fighting trick,” he said.

“I’m sorry, I moved you a little bit harder than I meant to!”

“I said, move me, not send me flying across the lawn like a ball!”

“Did I hurt you?”

“It’s all right, Merlin, you only killed me a little bit.” He held up his hand. “Pull me up,” he ordered, and Merlin locked his hand with his, and heaved him up to his feet.

He wobbled. He would have a nice new pattern of bruises from hitting the ground; a fitting sequel to the bruises from the tumble on the stairs. He’d have to write it off as his just deserts for causing Merlin to have his fit. This magic business was more rough-and-tumble than he had thought!

He looked around. He wasn’t sure, but he thought they had been standing over there, which meant he had been blown backwards about twenty feet.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Merlin asked, bobbing and bending in an attempt to look into Arthur’s eyes for signs of concussion.

“I’m all right. I didn’t hit my head.” He coughed into his fist, and waved Merlin’s anxious hands away with the other. “I hope no-one saw that.”

Merlin blinked, then turned on his heel, scanning the trees. “I didn’t see anyone.”

“I think we got away with it.” Arthur turned to look up at the castle walls, but no heads showed above the battlements. “Gods above, Merlin! Remind me never to shove you again!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t apologise, dammit! That was impressive! That was very impressive!” There was blood in his mouth, where he’d bitten his lip. “You’re not as useless as you look, Merlin!”

“Er, thanks.”

“Well, I can say one thing. I’ll be damned if I’ll waste any more time trying to thump swordsmanship into your thick head, if you can do that.” He leaned over and spat bloody saliva onto the grass.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Stop apologising! Next time we get into a fight, just forget about the sword and push your enemies over.” The next bunch of bandits they faced in the forest was in for a horrible shock, Arthur thought gleefully. “Actually, that will be a battle worth waiting for.”

“I’ll keep it in reserve, if it’s needed,” Merlin promised. “At least you know now I can do it, if I have to.”

“Practice is over for the day.” He reached out and punched Merlin appreciatively in the shoulder. “We’re going to follow Gawain. I need a drink to soothe the bruises you just gave me.”

Chapter Text

The days passed, growing shorter and shorter with the coming winter.

Merlin’s lessons all took place by candle-light, now. To Arthur’s huge relief, he hadn’t had another fit, but his abilities and his strength were growing steadily, day by day, the more he exercised them.

Arthur had begun to think that they had pushed their luck too far. Lancelot had seen, and now Gaius knew – and thoroughly disapproved – but so far, they had been lucky. That luck could not hold. It would only take one moment, one badly-timed messenger bursting in through the door, and it would all be over, finished, done. He would have to deal with that.

He would also have to come up with an excuse to give Geoffrey, as to why he was suddenly so very interested in the contents of Cabinet 55. He did not want Geoffrey mentioning his new reading tastes to his father.

// // //

Arthur was walking along the corridor toward his own chambers. He heard the yelling voices before he’d turned the corner. He recognised Merlin’s sharp voice, yapping in short hard bursts. His voice was alternating with two deeper voices, rumbling with anger.

He turned the corner and found an argument in progress. Merlin was planted in front of the secondary door to Arthur’s chambers. His back was set solidly against the planks, in an expression of mulish stubbornness.

Arrayed in front of Merlin, bristling with anger and bulging with muscles, were the two workmen Arthur had engaged just that morning in Camelot’s marketplace. One of the workmen had his fists bunched and raised, ready to punch the annoying little gnat in front of him into so much Merlin-mush. His brother looked worried, as if he was considering thrusting his shoulder between them and forcing his furious sibling away before a real fight started.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Arthur barked, stepping faster. His sudden appearance cut the argument short – and just in time, too.

“My lord!” the bigger of the brothers said, turning to face the oncoming prince. He let his fists drop. “Tell him you hired us!” He jabbed a rigid finger at Merlin.

“They want to mess with your door!” Merlin said, angrily, without budging from the doorway.

“We’re not messing with his fucking door!” the smaller – and angrier – brother barked. “For fuck’s sake, man, he hired us!”

“That’s enough! Go on with your work.” He swept past the little knot of anger in the corridor, breaking up the torrent of aggression with his presence. “Merlin, come with me.”

One of the workmen made a jeering noise. Merlin glared at him with burning eyes, but slowly, reluctantly, as if he was having to unpeel the back of his shirt from the door’s planks, he stepped away and followed Arthur.

Arthur turned on his heel for the other door, without waiting to see if Merlin followed him. He pushed open the main door to his chambers, and strode across the room.

He heard Merlin close the door behind him.

“I’m grateful that you think it necessary to defend my property so vigilantly, Merlin,” he declared over his shoulder, “but you really didn’t need to. I have guards to do that.” He gripped his jacket by the lapels, flipped it off his shoulders, and tossed it onto the bed in passing.

“You didn’t tell me anything about it!” Merlin said, aggrieved.

“Well, excuse me for forgetting to ask your permission to re-arrange my own living quarters, Merlin. I’ll be sure to ask your consent first next time!”

He pulled out his chair, and sat down at his desk. He leaned back, creaking the legs of the chair under him, and took a moment to examine Merlin.

Merlin had followed him into the room, but he still looked mutinous. His head was down, but there was a dreadfully familiar set to his lips.

Arthur sighed. A mutinous Merlin was a silent Merlin. A silent Merlin was no fun to be around, at all. Arthur would have to make up.

“Merlin,” he said, dropping his voice to a confiding tone. “I asked those men to change the locks on that door. I want it so that it can only be opened from the inside. I’ve said to them it’s an extra barrier against an assassination attempt, but really it’s not.”

“It’s not?”

“No. I don’t want anyone bursting in through that side, and seeing something they shouldn’t see. I’m sure I don’t have to draw you a picture.”

The anger went out of Merlin, as if it had been snuffed out. “Oh.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our little Latin lessons, and it occurred to me that I have a whole adjoining room which is supposed to be for my servant to sleep in. You know, you’re supposed to be at my beck and call at all times, Merlin.” He thumped his palms on the surface of his desk. “In fact, it’s a wonder I haven’t demanded it of you before now!”

Merlin rubbed the back of his hand across his nose, and picked up his discarded jacket. “Well, I’m supposed to be at Gaius’s beck and call too, but he feeds me more.”

“Well,” Arthur picked up his letter knife, and began playing idly with it. He bobbed it the length of it at Merlin for emphasis, holding the point pinched between finger and thumb. “Everybody knows you’re the worst servant in Camelot anyway. The point, however, is that that room,” he pointed at the connecting door with the knife’s handle, “is now yours.”

Merlin had folded the jacket neatly, and was heading toward the closet to hang it away. He stopped short. “Mine, Sire?”

“Yours. All yours. For the quiet, uninterrupted practice of … Latin.” He tilted his head sideways, looking closely at Merlin, to make sure Merlin was understanding him properly. “You are following my meaning, aren’t you, Merlin? If you’re going to do this … No, no, wrong choice of words. If we are going to do this, then we’re damn well going to do it where no-one can see you. I’m having those men change the lock on that door, so that it can’t be opened from the corridor at all. That way, if you’re in there, no-one can surprise us at it.”

Merlin was staring at him, round-eyed. “You’re serious about this!”

“Of course I’m serious about this. Tomorrow, you’ll start moving your belongings up here, and from now on you’ll stay here.”

Merlin stared at him. His mouth dropped open, and then clamped shut again, and then popped open to say, “I’m doing – what?” He half-turned away, throwing his hands up, as if appealing to an invisible companion to give him strength. “I don’t believe this!”

“What?”

“You – you – you – Aaaaahhh, you are so arrogant!” Merlin turned around in a circle, stamping his foot. “Sometimes I can’t believe you!”

“What did I do?” Arthur demanded. “Some people would be glad to have a room in the Royal Wing!”

Merlin exploded. “Some people would be glad to have someone else step in and re-arrange their whole lives for them! Some people would be glad to have Prince Arthur decide, oh no, Merlin, you can’t possibly like living with old Gaius, oh no, drop what you’re doing and move up here, Merlin! Without even so much as a by-your-leave! Has it ever occurred to you, even for one second, that I might not actually want you to decide my life for me? Has it? You decided on the scrying, you decided to call it Latin lessons and teach me, as if I can’t learn on my own. You decided, as if it’s all too much for my poor little head! And now you’ve decided for me that I want to live up here with you! Excuse me for pointing this out, but I am not an idiot, I am not a bloody pet cat, I am perfectly bloody capable of looking after myself, and I don’t bloody well want to live up here, mewed up twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, with you! Thank you very much!”

Merlin ran out of irritation and out of breath at around the same time. He ended up, staring at Arthur with his mouth open.

Arthur found his own mouth open, and shut it with a click. “Oh,” he said. He shook his head, dazed. “Oh, I didn’t know.”

Merlin looked as if he was taken aback by his own flood of aggravation, but he propped his hands on his hips anyway. “Well, now you do!” he snapped.

“I was only trying to help.”

“I know that, Dollop-head!” He turned on his heel, and stomped out, with a parting roar of “Aaaaahhh!” The door banged shut behind him.

Arthur was left staring at the door.

About a minute later, the door reopened, banging against the wall.

Merlin reappeared. He walked in, stopped short, folded his arms irritably, and said, “I’m supposed to help you arm yourself for jousting practice at one o’clock.” He said the words in a sour tone, staring fixedly at the floor, as if the time was somehow Arthur’s fault.

“Well, I can’t arm myself without you,” Arthur pointed out, reasonably enough, in his opinion. “And you are my manservant, after all.”

“Let’s get it over with, then,” Merlin addressed the floor, without looking up. He walked over to the table, where he had already laid out Arthur’s armour that morning – his mail, his plate, his padded jacket, his helmet – in a pattern convenient for efficient dressing. He stood above the table and glared down at it, as if he’d never seen it before.

Arthur pushed himself up from behind his desk. “Merlin…” he said.

Merlin shook his head, sharply. “Look, I know I was over the line. Just …”

“I don’t care about that.” He walked over to Merlin. “Merlin, I can’t help wanting to look after you. I started this. Therefore, it’s my duty to make sure no harm comes to you because of … the Latin lessons.”

Merlin still did not look up. Nor did he make any attempt to pick up the armour. He was staring at it blankly, as if not seeing it.

There was a long moment in which Arthur looked at Merlin, while Merlin looked at the armour.

Merlin sighed, as if coming to a conclusion. “That’s the problem, right there, isn’t it?” he said. “Latin.”

“What’s the problem with the Latin?” Arthur folded his arms, waiting to hear it.

“The problem isn’t with the Latin, it’s with … Latin! You keep saying these things. No harm will come to you, Merlin. Nothing bad will happen. Don’t worry your little head about it, Merlin, let Arthur take care of it all. Nothing to worry about, it’s just Latin lessons, it’s all above board and innocent, and everything’s going to be hunky-dory.” His eyes, still gazing at the armour, were half-closed, almost as if they were shuttered. There were deep frown lines between his brows.

“It is all innocent,” Arthur insisted. “It’s just L–.”

“No!” For the first time, Merlin turned and looked at him, raising his eyes to Arthur’s face. “No, it isn’t, Arthur, and we both know it. We both know what’s going on. Don’t try to pretend you don’t know. I’ve had enough of pretending.”

He had such a soft face. Soft babyish nose, and soft lips, and huge liquid eyes, and those eyes were filled with a need that Arthur did not understand.

Merlin went on speaking, his words tumbling out; not angrily this time, but rather as if he had been holding them back too long, and now they had to emerge. “You expect me to think it will all be all right – but you can’t even bring yourself to say the word. You’re still calling it Latin. As if … even the word will harm you. How am I supposed to believe it will be all right, if even now, even after everything that’s happened, you still can’t even say the word?”

And there it lay, at last – the truth.

Merlin knew. Merlin had known for some time. The secret that he had tried so hard to keep from Merlin, for Merlin, was already out. He knew. And he knew that Arthur knew, and that Arthur knew, and that Arthur had been trying to keep it from him.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, and put his hand on the thin shoulder, reassuringly.

Merlin yanked himself backward from his touch. His lips were quivering, his nostrils flared. “Please, Arthur, I just want to hear you say it, out loud, just once,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I need you to look me in the eye and say it. Just once. I don’t feel like I can trust you until I hear it. It won’t feel like it’s real until you say it. Please, Arthur.”

Merlin’s eyes, glowing with restrained tears, were staring into his, and they were full of bitter knowledge, and understanding, and a hollow, aching need.

Arthur understood. He remembered how it had felt, to say out loud, in public, I love Guinevere. Saying it had made it real, in his mind. It had made it solid and irrefutable, quod erat demonstrandum. The words had been important in themselves.

He could do no other than to give Merlin - loyal, faithful, innocent Merlin - what he so obviously needed. He clearly didn’t need to be protected; not from the truth. What he needed was trust – and he was right, Arthur realized, there could be no real trust until they both acknowledged what was going on.

Life could never be the same for Merlin, and Arthur was deeply sorry for it, but at least Merlin would know that he was not alone. They would face it together.

Arthur stepped closer to Merlin. He raised his hand, and put it around the back of Merlin’s neck, and tugged his head closer, so that they were eye to eye, brow to brow.

“Magic,” he whispered, into that secret, intimate space.

He felt the shiver run through Merlin’s neck. His lips parted, his breath coming in and out in little whinnying pants. He whispered, so softly that if they had not been so close, Arthur would not have heard him. “I know.”

Merlin knew. Arthur sighed. He ran his thumb up the side of Merlin’s neck.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you, but … I didn’t want to scare you. I was only trying to protect you.”

“I don’t need protection.”

“No, you don’t. Clearly I underestimated you.”

“Obviously.” A tiny smile was beginning to curve Merlin’s lips, although he still looked close to tears, from some deep emotion that Arthur did not understand. It was not fear, he decided. “I’m a sorcerer, not a pet cat. I don’t need to be protected from my own magic.”

“I know,” Arthur agreed.

Merlin had called himself a sorcerer. And he was not panicking, was not fleeing, was not running away in terror at discovering what he was.

On the spur of the moment, he raised his other arm and wrapped it around Merlin’s shoulder, and tugged Merlin in against himself. He folded Merlin in against himself.

“You have magic, and it is all right,” he breathed, against Merlin’s neck. “Your magic won’t harm you. You won’t turn into Morgana, or into a monster. You have magic, and it is all right.”

He had never embraced Merlin before. Merlin’s chin tucked in perfectly against his shoulder. He was warm, even through their clothing; a warmth that Arthur felt against his body all the way from neck to knees.

He was holding magic in his arms, pressed to his heart. Magic; living, breathing magic. The embodiment of that magic wrapped his arms around Arthur, hugging him back, and pressed his face against Arthur’s shoulder, as if he belonged there and never wanted to leave. He could feel Merlin’s heart beating, a solid thudding that was slowly accelerating. He felt the quick breathing against his chest, felt the tension in him release in a long, deep sigh. The sigh seemed to come from deep inside him, as if he had been holding on to it for a long, long time.

He spoke softly. “I was only trying to keep you safe. I thought if you found out too soon that you had magic, you might panic.”

He felt a sudden spasmodic shiver run through Merlin, and then Merlin pulled away, convulsively breaking the contact.

He thought for a moment he had said something wrong, and made matters worse. He let Merlin go, but Merlin only turned himself sideways, so that while he was no longer touching Arthur, he was not going away.

“And …” Merlin asked, as if not quite sure of himself, as if he was suddenly shy. “You’re really all right with it? With me having magic?” He glanced at Arthur under his eyelashes, and then quickly away. His face was flushed.

“Why on earth would I not be all right with it?”

“Well, it is magic, after all.”

“If I got upset about it, would you stop doing it?” It was a rhetorical question. Merlin wasn’t just not stopping, he was practicing on his own time. The hot bathwater had attested to that.

“No.” Merlin looked down at his hands. “I don’t think I could stop – even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. This is the only thing I’ve ever been really good at, in my whole life. Without the magic, I’m just a nobody.”

“Well, there you go, that answers that question.” He patted Merlin’s shoulder. “You won’t stop, and I won’t arrest you for it. Well, then, it looks like there’s only one course left. We have to make sure we don’t get caught.”

“We?”

“You have been practising magic, for which the punishment is death.” He heard his own voice echo the rhythm of his father’s words. He had heard his father say those words, more than once. He had heard it too often. He hadn’t realized before just how sick he was of hearing it.

Merlin had heard those words too, because he lowered his head, sudden doubt narrowing his eyes once more.

Arthur spread his hands, theatrically. “And I? What have I been doing? Fulfilling my duty? Upholding the law? Honouring my oaths? No – I have been aiding and abetting a sorcerer. No, no, no,” he held up one finger and wagged it at Merlin, “It’s even worse than that. I have been procuring the services of a sorcerer. That’s even worse.”

“It is?” Merlin queried, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“Of course it is. Under the law, one who causes another to commit a crime is also guilty of that crime. This thing … this magic of yours started up because of me. I set you on this road. You might never have come to it, if not for the scrying lessons. It’s my fault, therefore I am as guilty as you are.”

“Right,” Merlin said, nodding, emphatically, as if he didn’t believe a word Arthur was saying. “Of course you started it. It couldn’t possibly have happened on its own.”

“We’re co-conspirators, Merlin. Accomplices. Partners in crime. We need to make sure you don’t get caught, or we’ll both be hip-deep in the sticky brown stuff.”

“I think I’ll be a bit deeper in it than you, though,” Merlin said.

“That’s true, but…” He set a hand on Merlin’s cheek, and turned his face so that his eyes met Arthur’s. “I can’t let him execute you. I don’t want to see that day, Merlin. We need to be careful. We need to keep the magic a secret.”

Merlin nodded, dipping his head deeply in agreement, like a horse feeling the extent of his reins, and then grinned. “But I’m still not going to move into that room, you know.”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Arthur said. He held up one finger at Merlin’s nose. “You might have magic, but I am still the boss around here. I’m in charge. I give the orders. Don’t forget that, Mister Magic.”

Merlin laughed, and then sniffed at that, and turned on his heel to face the table. “Right,” he said, heartily, surveying the weapons on the table. “Padded jacket, first. Then, a nice padded cell.”

Arthur laughed at him.

Merlin was going to be all right. Everything was going to be all right.

// // //

Arthur soon grew accustomed to having a sorcerer in his household. The only surprising thing about it was how soon it came to seem normal; as if really, in all the ways that mattered most, nothing had changed at all.

Merlin with magic remained Merlin.

He lost none of his cheerfulness, and gained none of the secretive arrogance that Arthur had always believed was a characteristic of sorcerers. In fact, he seemed even more cheery than ever, as if he was about to float away on a bubble of glee.

He was still the worst servant in Camelot – always late, always clumsy – but now there were compensations for his incompetence. Arthur grew used to having his fires lit with magic, his bedding warmed with magic instead of a warming-pan, his food always hot on his plate.

He grew used to the fact that, nowadays, if he threw objects at his incompetent servant, they would drop to the floor long before they reached Merlin’s head.

Of course, he carried on bullying Merlin. He’d been pushing Merlin around for far too long to just stop. He went on tweaking his ears, ruffling his hair, dragging him around on the tournament-field in an affectionate headlock. The only difference was that, now, these caresses were spiced with an element of risk. If Merlin suddenly objected to having his hair pulled, he was capable of striking back.

He quickly grew used to some of the other useful things about having magic around. He knew where his patrols were. He knew where his enemies’ patrols were. There were soldiers in the forts on the other side of the border, and he knew how much stores they had, and how many men they held.

He knew, too, where Morgana was. He knew exactly where she was, and who she was with.

There could be no more denying the fact that the reason she did not come back was not because she could not, not because she a prisoner, not because she was trapped in thrall to Morgause … but because she was, utterly and irrevocably, his enemy. She had not tried to usurp the throne by accident – she had meant it. She had meant all of it.

The knowledge hurt, as if it re-opened the wound of what she had already done. How much of his friendship with her had been founded on secret hatred? How much of what she had said had been lies? Even if she came back, and even if he found it in himself to forgive her (and he could, he knew; he could forgive anything of those he loved) how would he ever trust her again, knowing how deeply she had lied to him before?

He kept this private pain to himself.

But he also found a great and simple pleasure, in watching Merlin learn, and in watching his delight at discovering the extent of what he could do.

Merlin could blow the sparks from a burning log, and shape them into images. At first these were only flat pictures, but at Arthur’s prodding he learned to give them depth and solidity, and later movement. He made lengths of string dance. He made the floorbrush scurry around sweeping the floor on its own, and when Arthur observed that it looked like a small wooden terrier, he took it as a challenge.

The next day, Merlin whittled a little head from a piece of wood, and knotted a little tail from a bit of wire and some string, and glued them onto each end of the floorbrush. Now, Arthur had a floorbrush dog living permanently in his chambers. It barked, it wagged its tail, it pursued balls of paper that were tossed for it. It even played dead if strangers entered the room.

Arthur found he occasionally had the urge to talk to it. Logically, it was not alive – it was a floorbrush, for goodness sake! – and logically he knew it was kept moving only by the web of spells inside it. He knew this, logically, but somehow the dog seemed to embody the liveliness and spirit of the man who had made it. He heard it at night, snuffling around the corners of his room, bumping into the furniture as clumsily as its creator.

Gaius was not happy about the arrangement. He disapproved mightily of the floorbrush dog. He did not think it was wise, not even in the privacy of Arthur’s chambers. He did not like Arthur egging Merlin on, inciting him to try new tricks.

“Magic is not a game, Sire! It is a secret, to be guarded at all costs!” He glowered at Arthur, one eyebrow up, the other down.

Arthur straightened his back, refusing to be intimidated. “Of course it’s a game, Gaius! It’s the same game as jousting, or wrestling, or fencing, or archery-contests. It’s a game that Merlin has to learn to play, and play well, because one day he’ll have to do it for real.”

Gaius looked as if that had never occurred to him before. He drew both eyebrows down to the same level, and went away.

The Crystal of Neahtid still lay far below them in the vault. Neither of them mentioned the vision Merlin had seen in it. They had plenty of time.

// // //

Arthur was sitting at his desk, with the floorbrush dog at his feet. He was working away over the payroll of his men, when there was a knock at his door.

“Enter!” he called.

Guinevere put her face around the door. “Arthur?” she greeted, demurely.

“Gwen! Come in!” He leaped to his feet, grinning, his hand outstretched. “To what do I owe this unexpected surprise?”

Guinevere came into the room, and closed the door behind her. Arthur was before her in a second, standing opposite her, and he put his hands on her shoulders, savouring her closeness.

“Arthur … I was approached by a man in the marketplace this morning.” She wasn’t smiling. In fact her dark eyes were downright grave.

Instinctively Arthur felt his fists tighten. A man approached Guinevere? In the marketplace? What did he say to her, and could Arthur find him and punch his face in?

But Gwen was still speaking. Her fingers were knotting in her apron nervously. “He says he has a message for you.”

“Tell him he can see me at the morning audience, along with everyone else.” He could join the rest of the petitioners who queued up to put their case to the King.

She shook her head resolutely, her curls bobbing around her face. “He says he can’t, Arthur. He says he bears a message for your eyes only. From … from your sister.”

A message from Morgana? From Morgana herself? For the second time in less than a minute, Arthur’s heart leaped. “Where is he? Bring him to me here, and I’ll speak to him.”

“He’s outside, with Ellyan. I didn’t want to bring him in here without – without a witness.”

“Show him in.” Arthur crossed the room and assumed a suitably princely pose, while Gwen pulled the door open and spoke inaudibly to someone just outside.

The man who entered ahead of Sir Ellyan wore a peasant’s clothes, and was unshaven, as if he had been travelling. “Prince Arthur,” the man said, bowing low.

“Miss Guinevere has said that you have a message from me, from the Lady Morgana,” Arthur said, drawing his regal coldness around himself. He would not look eager for news of his sister in front of this stranger.

“I do, Sire,” the man said. “The Lady Morgana said the message was to be given to you, alone.”

He wanted to be left alone with Arthur. That was not going to happen. The last time he’d been alone with a strange sorcerer, he’d ended up with donkey’s ears – and the embarrassing braying had persisted sporadically for days. “You may speak freely in front of Sir Ellyan and Guinevere,” he said.

“Her Ladyship was most insistent that the message was for you alone, Sire,” the man said, and bowed again, managing to communicate mulish stubbornness with the too-low bow. “She has instructed me to ensure that the message was given to you in private.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Arthur said. “Sir Ellyan, please escort this man to the Rising Sun, and ensure that he is given a good meal and a room for the night. You may return to your mistress in the morning,” he told the messenger. He turned his back on all of them, and began walking back to his desk.

There was a brief silence behind him. He heard the messenger gobble briefly, panicked, and Sir Ellyan said, “Come along, then.”

“I cannot return without delivering my message!” the messenger squawked.

Arthur turned on his heel, implacable. “Then you will give it to me. Now. Here.”

The messenger glanced at Sir Ellyan, and at Guinevere. Then he put his hand inside his tunic, and drew out a small pouch. He pulled loose the drawstring of the pouch, and took out a rolled up piece of paper.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Arthur smiled. He held out a hand. “Gwen, pass the letter, if you would be so kind.”

Gwen stepped forward, took the letter from the messenger, and carried it the huge distance of three yards to Arthur. Her fingers were warm as they brushed against his.

Arthur broke the seal on the letter, and unrolled it. He backed away, so that his hip rested comfortably on the corner of his table, and read the letter.

My dear brother

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits, and not still too furious at me. Believe me that it was never my intention to hurt you.

I do not regret the blow I struck against Camelot, because it was an honest attempt to free my own kind from cruelty and persecution. My only regret is that I had to betray you too, Arthur.

Morgause wanted me to poison you, but I refused. I know that you will one day see the honour in what I tried to do, and come to understand how evil Uther is. I know that truth will out, and right will prevail.

I hope you can forgive me for keeping it all a secret from you for all this time. I was afraid, and alone, and I did not know who to trust. You cannot know how terrifying it is to discover magic in yourself, and to know that you can be killed because of it. I have no doubt that Uther would have executed me, had he known what I was.

I am not writing to you to ask for absolution, Arthur. I am writing to you instead on behalf of one who is very dear to both our hearts. You know there are others in Camelot secretly practising magic, who are in even more danger every day than I ever was, not having even the small protection of being your father’s ward.

I am referring to Merlin, of course.

I did not even know about him myself, until the Witchfinder accused me, him and Gaius of magic. But it was Merlin and me, working together who broke the enchantment that brought the dead from their graves when Cenred attacked. We made a good team, then, and we did again, many times. I am sorry that we had to keep it a secret from you at the time.

However, he is now alone in Camelot. He is in danger of his life, if he is caught, as I was so nearly caught many times. He does not have a lifetime of court intrigue and politics to help him conceal himself.

He cares for you deeply, and you for him. I know he does not want to leave you, but the best thing you can do for him is set him free from a life of fear and secrecy. I am sure you wish only the best for him. I hope that you can see the wisdom in sending him to me, where I can take care of him as he deserves.

Your sister,
Morgana

He stood, and stared at the letter.

Morgana knew.

How had she found out? Perhaps someone in this castle was watching them, and had observed some tell-tale sign of it. Perhaps someone had seen Merlin send him flying that day in the practice meadow. Hell, perhaps someone had seen the floorbrush dog. He sent a quick glance to his desk, but it was lying on its side, head facing away from them all, playing dead.

Well, it didn’t matter how she had found out. She knew now. That genie could not be put back in the lamp.

Perhaps she was right.

Morgana had been through the same thing as Merlin was now going through, although her circumstances, and her choices, had been different. Morgana would look after Merlin. For all that they were on different sides now, they shared something with each other that Arthur never would. She would take care of him.

He himself had once considered sending Merlin to Morgana for his own safety, hadn’t he? Back when he had worried that Merlin’s magic might prove to be uncontrollable and put him in danger. Perhaps it would still be a good idea, for Merlin’s sake. He did owe Merlin the duty of a friend, after all.

Then again, surely she must know that Arthur would not willingly let Merlin go anywhere near Morgause? He would never let sweet-natured Merlin fall into the dark, twisted orbit of Morgause. Even if she was blind to Morgause’s faults herself, she knew too well Arthur’s opinion of her.

There was something in this letter that he was not grasping. He read the letter again.

Why did she think Arthur would be willing to turn over Merlin to her, instead of the Druids? For that matter, why did she think he could make Merlin go anywhere he didn’t want to go? He was only a Prince, not a god. Merlin had all the loyalty of a dog, and all the obedience of a stray cat. He obeyed only the orders that he felt like obeying, and Morgana knew that.

Now that he thought about it, it was a little bit odd. If she wanted to help Merlin to leave Camelot for his own safety, why had she written to Arthur, instead of to Merlin himself? Merlin would have mentioned a letter from Morgana, if he had received one.

No, if she truly wanted to Merlin to join her, she would simply ask him to. Merlin was perfectly capable of reading his own letters.

“I hope that you can send him to me, where I can take care of him as he deserves.”

No.

Something in his brain shifted, the way sand shifts as a wave passes over it. Something in his heart went cold, the living, loving sentiment of a man freezing to the icy tactical consideration of a warrior. A shiver ran over the skin of his back, leaving all the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

This was not an kindly attempt to protect Merlin. This was an attempt to kill him.

He thought through the plot again, testing his logic, although he was sure that he was not mistaken.

She had learned, somehow, that Merlin had magic. Very well, that was fair. Merlin did have magic.

But she had no way, no way at all, of knowing that Arthur knew too.

She thought he did not know. She thought that he would be shocked, horrified, appalled, frightened by the knowledge that there was another sorcerer in Camelot, hiding under his nose. He was supposed to read this letter, get a horrible shock, and immediately put Merlin under arrest.

She still believed him to be the ignorant brainwashed fool that he had been, just a month ago! How wrong she was. Huge changes had happened since she had last seen him! A month ago, he had known nothing of magic, or of sorcerers, or of the Old Religion. A month ago, he might very well have arrested Merlin – but a month was long enough.

He looked over the letter again.

What a clever piece of disinformation this letter was! She had learned well from their father. It seemed so sweet, so demure, yet every word was chosen to encourage the opposite reaction. It was a common diplomatic trick – request something in such a way that the person being asked immediately does the opposite.

All the best lies had a grain of truth hidden in them. Yes, the witch-finder had accused all three of them of magic, a fact found out only after reading the scoundrel’s notes. But Merlin certainly hadn’t helped her foil Cenred’s attack. Merlin hadn’t the brains to foil a sandwich.

And then, the cherry on top: a nicely drawn picture of the two of them conspiring against him, sharing secrets together in the shadows. ‘We had to keep it a secret from you’ – indeed!

Morgana was a good chess player. He was a better one. He set the corner of the letter to the candle on his table, and watched it flare. He tossed the flaming scrap into the cold grate.

“You will wait there until I have a reply for you,” he told the messenger, coldly. He sat down, took up a clean sheet of parchment, and picked up his quill, aware that he was being observed by Sir Ellyan, Gwen, and the messenger.

This piece of subtle trickery needed a direct reply.

My dearest Morgana

Thank you for telling me that Merlin has magic. Did you think I would arrest him? You were wrong. I already knew. He does not only have magic, he has lots of it. His strength grows by leaps and bounds. He will soon be a match for your harridan sister.

Merlin is one of your own kind. He was your friend. He has never done you any harm, but you have still tried to kill him. I can’t even begin to fathom why, but no matter. Do not write to me again. There is no way to make things right between us.

Arthur

He sanded the wet ink, and rolled it up, and wrapped around it the same ribbon that Morgana had sent to him. He applied sealing wax to a candle, dripped it to seal the ribbon, and pressed his seal into it. The beloved dragon glinted in miniature perfection on the red wax.

“This is for the Lady Morgana,” he said. He held the letter out, not bothering to step forward, and without being asked, Guinevere again carried it the short distance to the messenger’s hand.

“I will deliver it without delay.”

“You had better. If I see you in the City after nightfall I will kill you where you stand.”

The messenger gulped, shocked by the sudden threat, but Arthur turned away, dismissively.

“Now get out,” he said, coldly, without looking back. “Sir Ellyan, see to it that he gets on his horse and leaves immediately.”

He heard the door open behind him, and boots move out into the corridor. The door closed again.

The air rushed from his lungs in a deep sigh, as if he had not exhaled for hours. He was alone, and he could relax. He could brace his hands on his mantel and stare glumly at the ash of Morgana’s letter in the grate. He could feel his anger still churning against the tense muscles in his stomach, as if he had been in a fight, but it was dissipating.

“Arthur?” Guinevere said.

Arthur jumped. “Gwen?” he said. He let go of the mantel, and turned around. Gwen had not left with Sir Ellyan.

“What was in the letter?” she asked, uncertainly.

He crossed the floor toward her. He had a few minutes alone with her, and he would make use of that unexpected blessing. Besides, holding her in his arms would help him feel better.

She was warm, and she slipped in under his chin. His arms tightened around her soft, warm body. “Just lies, and treachery,” he whispered against the top of her head.

“What did she say?”

He thought for a moment. He could lie, but this was Guinevere. He could tell her half of the truth. “She tried to make me believe that Merlin has magic, and is secretly serving her.”

“Merlin? Merlin doesn’t have magic.”

“No, of course not. ”

“I hope you don’t believe a word of it.”

“Of course not. Even if Merlin did have magic, he would never work with Morgana. I would sooner mistrust my own eyes, than mistrust Merlin.”

“What did you write back?”

He felt his voice harden. “I gave her the reply she deserves.”

“You scared me, Arthur.” She pulled away, to look up into his face. “You were standing there, and then you went away, somehow. You changed. As if you were turning into someone I don’t know, right in front of me.”

She’d seen Morgana slowly change into an enemy, right in front of her. She’d told him how she had started to suspect Morgana of turning against all of them, and how she’d tried to convince herself she was imagining it. The thought of him doing that too had to worry her.

“No, no!” he tried to reassure her. He smiled down at her. “I’m not going to turn into someone else. What you see is what you get, with me. I was just … disappointed in her, that’s all.”

“I think we’re all disappointed in her,” Guinevere agreed.

“I can’t even hate her for it. Morgause twisted her out of all recognition.”

“No,” she corrected him firmly. “Magic twisted her. Your father is right about that much. Morgause just grabbed the opportunity.”

Now was not the time to tell her that all magic was not evil. It would have to wait for another day. “If anyone tries to tell you any stupid storis about Merlin, come and tell me,” he said. “She might try to spread rumours about him, instead.”

“Nobody would be dumb enough to think Merlin has magic!”

“People will believe the strangest things, if the liar is convincing enough.” He cupped her cheek in his palm, and she tipped her face up towards his.

He kissed her, and the feeling of her lips sent a thrill shivering deep into his belly. His arm tightened around her waist, and his other hand slid into her hair. Her mouth was soft, and warm, and opened up to his lips.

He was going to become aroused. He was nearly aroused already. He broke the kiss, and released her.

“I should go,” Guinevere said. She was flushed. She let him go, and stepped backward again. “I’m sorry, I have work to do.”

“I know. Me too.” He watched her walk away from him. She walked to the door, and opened it. In a moment she would be out of the door, and he watched her go, knowing that in a moment she would be gone. “I’ll have to clean your fireplace tomorrow, Prince Arthur,” she said, for the benefit of the guard standing outside.

“Be here at ten o’clock,” he told her. “And bring fresh candles.”

“I will do that, Sire.” She dropped him a curtsey, and the lopsided, shy smile that he loved so much, and then she was gone.

// // //

One evening, as the shadows drew over the Great Courtyard, Arthur led Merlin across the cobbles. They had time for another lesson, but as they reached the foot of the statue, Merlin suddenly took a few skipping steps to catch up, and caught at Arthur’s sleeve.

“Sire,” he said. “Wait.”

He’d just been manhandled by a commoner – a technical crime – but there was nobody watching to see Arthur stop and turn around to listen to the commoner.

“What is it?”

“Let’s not go up to your chambers tonight. Let’s go up to my room instead.”

“Your room?”

“There’s something … something I want to show you.”

“Can’t you bring it up to my chambers?”

“It’s not something I really want to lug around the corridors. Sire?” There was a little bit of a grin on Merlin’s face, as if he was contemplating mischief.

“Very well,” Arthur agreed. He felt in an indulgent mood. “Lead on, Merlin.”

Merlin took the lead, walking with an eager little bob in his stride. He led under the familiar archway, up the staircase, past the little plaque on the wall notifying everyone that here was the Court Physician. He opened the door to Gauis’s quarters, and turned to usher Arthur into the room with an oddly formal little bow.

“What is this thing that you can’t bring to my chambers, Merlin?” he said, coming to a stop and looking around him.

“I’ll show you.” Merlin closed the door behind him, and turned around. The room was already gloomy and cold. Arthur heard Merlin mutter a word under his breath, and to his surprise, every candle in the lower half of the room flickered into life.

“Merlin…” Arthur said through his teeth.

“It’s all right, Sire. Gaius isn’t here, he’s in the Lower Town doing his rounds.”

“Every candle, Merlin?”

“Nifty, isn’t it?” Merlin said, pleased with his newest trick. “I can light them, but Gaius won’t let me put them out that way, because I might snuff out one of his experiments by accident along with the lights. Some of his potions need to be kept on the boil for days and days, you know.”

The walls of Gauis’s chamber were a dirty yellowish colour, stained by the smoke of decades of bubbling potions. Mysterious bundles and bottles and books lined the walls on all sides. The air in here always smelled pungent, the fresh air from the window overpowered by the reek of Gaius’s herbs and oils.

This was not Arthur’s place; no more than the library was, in spite of the fact that he'd known Gaius all his life. He'd been coming in here to see the court physician with his bruises and scrapes ever since he was too small to climb up onto the table by himself – until quite suddenly he was too big for it, too princely and powerful for the humble physician's room, and from that day Gaius had come to his chambers instead. He’d been in and out of here as a child, but he’d never become familiar with this small space as a man.

Merlin belonged here, though. He picked up a pile of laundry from the bench at the table, and dumped it unceremoniously on the floor. "There you go. You can sit here."

"Merlin..."

"No, no. Sit-sit-sit-sit! This is my home, Sire. You're my guest. Sit there, I want to show you something."

Arthur sighed, and sat. Merlin bobbled happily at him, and scooted quickly up the little scrap of staircase into the cubbyhole he slept in.

A few odd bumps and thumps came from Merlin’s room, and a moment later he emerged under his archway, carrying something bulky wrapped in what looked like an old towel.

“Gaius doesn’t think I should show you this, but I wanted to,” Merlin announced, and set his bundle down on the rough planks of the table. He sat down, and unfolded the towel. “He gave this to me, when he found out about the magic. He said it would probably be more use to me than it ever was to him.”

It was a great thick book. Another book. Arthur sighed inside, at the reminder of how much written words had become part of his life in the last month. Files, books, ledgers, reports, rosters, payrolls, more reports, and the quiet worry that Geoffrey of Monmouth was becoming suspicious.

But Merlin was freeing the book from its towel with the air of a matron uncovering her family heirloom. He set the book down in front of Arthur. “There,” he said.

“A book,” Arthur declared.

“And there’s the benefit of a military education for you! He can recognize a book!” Merlin teased.

“Don’t make me throw this at you, Merlin.”

“Open it, Sire.”

He took up the top cover, and opened the book.

The book had creamy pages, stuffed with loose leaves of old parchment and paper. He ran his hand over the first page, feeling the expensive texture of the paper under his fingers, and then ruffled through the first few pages.

“What do you think?” Merlin asked. He was looking at Arthur eagerly, and Arthur suddenly realized that his chirpy attitude was born of nervousness as much as from pleasure.

“Very nice. What is it for? Your own case book?” Gaius kept case books – scores of them. They recorded every notable medical problem he’d ever seen, in his long, long career. Arthur had thought that Gaius had given up on Merlin following him into medicine, but perhaps the old physician still held hopes for Doctor Merlin.

“Case book?” Merlin asked, blankly.

“What are you going to write in it?”

“Write in it?” Merlin grabbed at the book, as if he was worried that it might have something scribbled in it since he’d seen it last. He gazed at the clean pages. “It’s already written in!”

Arthur picked up the thick wedge of pages, and riffled through them all between finger and thumb from back to front. Nothing but creamy blankness. “No, it isn’t.”

“Of course it is!” Merlin took the book and turned it the right way around for himself. He riffled quickly through it, opened it at a particular page, and picked it up so that Arthur could see it. “There! What do you think of that?”

Blank. “It’s blank, Merlin.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s the spell to heat hot water. Look there,” and his index finger tapped earnestly at the top left corner of the left-hand page. “Look at that letter H. It’s huge, and it’s got a tree tangled up in it. At least I think it’s a tree – it might be a horse.” He turned the book around again and frowned at it.

“Merlin, I swear to you, I see nothing there. The page is blank. In fact the whole book is entirely blank.” For a moment he wondered if Merlin wasn’t pulling a practical joke on him. Unless Merlin was hallucinating – but written text was a bit of an odd thing to hallucinate.

By the look on Merlin’s face, the same thought had occurred to him. “You can’t be serious. Blank? You really can’t see anything?” He held the book up again, as if showing Arthur again would somehow cause words to appear on the pages. “No letter H? And the tree-horse?”

“Wait,” Arthur said. “It’s the spell to heat hot water?”

Merlin nodded at him over the top edge of the book. “You really can’t see it?”

“It’s a book of spells?” He looked closely at the book, but the pages stayed resolutely blank.

“Maybe it’s not just a book of magic, it’s a book of magic,” Merlin wondered aloud. “Maybe it’s some sort of protective … thing. Like a charm or a spell set in the book itself.”

“All the other books I’ve read have been books about magic. I’ve never come across a book with actual spells in it.” Arthur stroked his chin, thoughtfully. “You can read it?”

“Clear as day,” Merlin said. “And so can Gaius.”

“And so would Morgana, if she found it,” Arthur guessed. “But I can’t. Nobody who doesn’t have magic would know what it is.”

It shouldn’t have been surprising to find that Merlin could see things he couldn’t. He’d felt the Crystal of Neahtid, even in its velvet bag. And, if Arthur cast his mind back, there were a lot of things Merlin had noticed before anyone else had – like the fact that his brand-new step-mother had been a troll. No, it shouldn’t have been surprising, and it shouldn’t have stung at all.

“I wanted to show it to you,” Merlin said. He sound crestfallen.

“You have shown it to me, twit.” He reached over and punched Merlin affectionately on the shoulder.

“If we’d known it was invisible to people without magic, I could have brought it up to your chamber after all.”

“You should keep it hidden away, anyway.”

“I have been hiding it, Sire.”

“Where? Under your bed? Half the castle comes into Gauis’s chamber, Merlin. It’s not exactly private. Actually, now that I think about it, it might be a good idea to keep it in my chambers instead, where nobody will accidentally come across it.”

“I’d rather keep it close to me,” Merlin said.

“Excellent idea! You can move into my antechamber, and bring the book with you.”

“Not going to happen, Sire,” Merlin said, but there was a smile underlying his voice. He put the book back into the centre of the towel, and wrapped it up again.

“Worth a try.” He gave Merlin another punch, and for good measure tweaked his ear as well. “Put it away, Merlin, and then let’s go back up to my chambers. Scrying time.”

“Yes, Sire,” Merlin agreed, and took the book back into his little room.

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in Arthur’s chamber, with the doors closed securely behind them, and orders to the guards that they were not to be disturbed. Merlin was going to translate some Cicero.

“Poor bugger,” Arthur heard one of the guards mutter, when they closed the door.

Merlin set the candle down on the table, and sat down in front of it. “What do you want me to look for, Sire?” he asked. “Morgana?”

Arthur sat on the far end of the table, watching. “Not tonight. I want you to try and look for something else.”

Merlin nodded his willingness to try.

“I want you to try and see if you can find the Cup of Life.”

Merlin’s face fell.

“What’s wrong, Merlin?”

“I’ve already tried, Sire. And I can’t find it.” Merlin folded his hands on the table top. “I know you’re still looking for it, so I thought maybe I could find it, but I couldn’t. Somebody is hiding it.”

“Hiding it?”

“I tried looking for where it is, but I couldn’t find it. So I tried looking for it where I know it was – in the Council Chamber a month ago – and working forward from there, but it doesn’t work. It seems to be stuck in a sort of circle. I can trace it backwards to the Druids in the cave, but if I try to trace it forwards all I see is the Druids in the cave again.”

“Hmm,” Arthur said.

“It shows me the Druids in the cave, us, Morgause, here, and back to the Druids in the cave. It just goes around in a circle.”

“I see. Well, well, well.”

“It might help if I could take a peek in the Crystal, Sire. That one sees much better, future as well as past.”

“Not going to happen, Merlin.”

Merlin shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Worth a try.”

// // //

The messenger bowed low. “My ladies.”

“I hope you bring us good news,” Morgause said. It had been three days since the letter had been given to this man, with strict instructions on what to do with it.

She hadn’t been able to scry the letter’s reception. In fact she hadn’t been able to find Arthur in her scrying crystals for weeks. Merlin had done something to block her. He’d worked some indescribable piece of trickery that ensured that whenever she looked for Arthur, her vision was redirected to one of Camelot’s tanners – a man whose only notable characteristics were blond hair and equine teeth. She was beginning to hate the sight of the tanner almost as much as Arthur himself.

She could still scry for Merlin, of course, but only at the risk of being trapped again by his gaze.

The man shook his head. “I bring only a reply, nothing more.”

Morgana was standing behind Morgause’s chair, leaning one pale hand over the high carved back.

“Arthur did nothing?” she asked, in disbelief.

“He read the letter, but all he did was write a reply.” The messenger put one hand into his saddlebag, and brought out a small scroll. He held it out. “Here, my lady.”

“Give it to me,” Morgana said, stepping forward. She took the letter, broke the seal, and unrolled it.

Morgause watched her sister’s face as it took in the brief letter. Her face hardened, as if it was turning to stone. She held the letter out to Morgause. “Arthur says he already knew!”

“What? But that’s …” Morgause took the letter. It had been scrunched and battered during the ride in the messenger’s saddlebag, but the handwriting was clear and bold.

My dearest Morgana…

“He knows,” she breathed. This letter amounted to a declaration of war. And she was a harridan, apparently. She would make the bastard pay for that slur. She let the letter drop to the floor at her feet. “And the rest of it? Did you see him alone?”

The messenger shook his head. “He refused to grant me a private audience. The maid was there, and her brother. I could do nothing.”

“He’s no fool,” Morgause agreed. “He’s been enchanted too many times. He knows better than to let himself be alone with one of us.”

“And the spell in the letter?” Morgana asked.

The messenger shook his head again. “He had the maid pass the letter to him. The spell would have discharged into the maid instead,” he said. “Wasted.”

The spell had been set into the fabric of the letter itself. It should have given Arthur a cold jerk of fright, and provided an added spur to his paranoia. It should have shocked him into destroying Merlin for them without stopping to think. Instead, all it had done was give a little frisson to some servant.

“Wasted,” Morgana said, her fists opening and closing with icy anger. “A wasted letter, and a wasted spell.”

She had spent hours on the letter, scribbling and crossing out, and drawing arrows from one idea to another, until the letter was as perfect a weapon as could be crafted from mere ink and paper. It was a weapon honed to wound Arthur, and Arthur alone. How could it have failed?

“No, sister,” Morgause said. “The letter was not wasted. Revenge lies yet within our grasp.” She bent down, and picked the letter up again. She unrolled the stiff parchment, and read it again.

“What are you thinking, sister?” Morgana asked.

“I have had a better idea...”

// // //

It was perfectly understandable for Arthur to go hunting alone at this time of year.

The huge castle kitchens had a never-ending hunger for venison that was never sated for long. Besides, Arthur’s habit of escaping from the hustle and bustle of the Citadel for a day of peaceful solitary stalking was well known in Camelot. No-one raised eyebrows when he announced at breakfast that he would be going hunting today, alone. Alone, that is, except for Merlin.

They rode out after breakfast.

At this time of year, the trees were almost all bare; thin black veins threading into the dead flesh of the sky. The gorgeous green canopy that they had walked under a month ago was already gone, shrivelled up and fallen, as were the birds that had sung up there. He’d barely noticed the birds, then, too lost in his own depression and self-pity, but now he mourned their absence. The air was crisp, and silent. Winter was coming.

Merlin also showed signs of the coming winter. He was beginning to disappear inside his cold-weather clothing. He wore a fur-lined but moth-eaten cloak that had once belonged to Arthur, and a woollen scarf that had been given to him by Gaius, and a grey woollen object, sagging almost to his knees, that Arthur thought he might have seen Sir Leon wearing a few times. His narrow face peeked out from between hood and scarf like a pale mouse’s.

Merlin made no comment, as he rode behind Arthur along the tracks towards the forest. No sensible comment, that was: he kept up his usual happy babbling.

Arthur didn’t mind listening to that babble while they rode. He could let the sound of Merlin’s voice wash over him, rather like birdsong. It was as cheery as birdsong, and usually as intelligent. Some things never changed.

But, when Arthur turned his horse onto the narrower track that led into the deep silent trees of the Darkling Wood, Merlin gigged his horse closer. He leaned from the saddle towards Arthur, and lowered his voice.

“This is the Darkling Wood, Sire,” he pointed out.

“How astute of you to notice, Merlin!” Arthur teased. “This may have escaped your attention, but I was actually born in Camelot. I know where I’m going.”

Merlin straightened up in the saddle, as his horse interpreted his lean toward Arthur as a command to sidestep closer to Arthur’s horse. “Not a lot of hunting in the Darkling Wood, though, is there? I mean if there was a lot of game here you wouldn’t have ended up eating rat the last time we were here, would you? And they’re not much sport, are they? Rats, I mean. Not much honour in hunting rats. Can’t take their horns home and mount them, they haven’t got any, although I suppose there’s a lot more usefulness in hunting rats. More useful than hunting stags, anyway. Stags don’t get into your granary and pee all over your barley …”

“Shut up, Merlin!” Arthur ordered, over his shoulder, without much heat. He’d been telling Merlin to shut up for years now, and the command was more like a nervous tic than an order. He had no expectation of Merlin obeying. Some things really never changed.

He counted, in his head. Merlin shut up for about a dozen equine hoofbeats, allowing his mount to slow down and fall behind Arthur’s. Then, “We’re not here to hunt, are we?” Merlin clicked his tongue, and Arthur could picture him shaking his head. “Naaah, we’re not here to hunt. Why are we here, then?”

Arthur grinned at the back of his horse’s head. “You’ll see soon enough.”

“You know there are people hiding in the Darkling Wood?”

“I know.”

“They might be bandits. What if we get attacked?” Merlin asked. “We could be attacked at any moment. We are at war, you know.”

“Scared, Merlin?”

“Me? Scared? No, I’m not scared. Terrified, is what I am.”

Arthur grinned. Merlin was afraid of very little. He had all the self-preservation sense of a dachshund. “Well, you can always use your Latin. If someone attacks you, give them a bit of a shove.”

“I could. I’ve been practising.”

“Oh, you have, have you, Merlin? Give us an example then.” He twisted around in his saddle to grin at Merlin challengingly. “Let’s hear some Latin. Go on, impress me.”

“Well then,” Merlin said, and smiled a rather private smile at his horse’s mane. “I have been practicing the first conjugation. Amo, I love. Amas, You love. Amat, He loves. Amamus, We love. Amatis, You love. Amant, They love.”

“All right.” He faced forward again, and grinned. “So, you really have been learning Latin!”

“Gaius has been teaching me. Amabo. Amabit. Amabunt. ”

“Right.”

“Semper amabo. ”

“Ah, I will always love. Very good, but you’ll need an object in there at some point, Merlin! Semper amabo Guinevera. ”

There was a long silence behind him. Five hoofbeats, then ten hoofbeats, and he was about to turn in the saddle again to ask if that was all the Latin Merlin could remember, when Merlin spoke.

“And luckily for you, she loves you back.”

Arthur sighed. “She loves me back, but that just makes it worse. There’s nothing worse than loving her, and her loving me, and knowing that nothing can ever come of it.” He had no intention of indulging himself with Guinevere, and dishonouring her. She deserved to be treated with all the delicacy and dignity of any high-born lady.

“No,” Merlin said. “There’s nothing worse than loving someone with all your heart, and they don’t even notice. And all you can do is look, and admire, and take what you can get, because that’s all there’s ever going to be. That’s the worst.”

Odd. The consensus in the Citadel was that Merlin was as celibate as his guardian, but there was all the weight of painful experience in his words. “So, who do you love, Merlin?” Arthur asked, curiously. He twisted around in the saddle.

Merlin looked at him, one brow raised, and suddenly grinned. “I read it in a book,” he said. “What would a poor foolish serving boy like me know about courtly love?” he asked, and gave a wry little bow over his horse’s neck.

Merlin had smiled rather too brightly, and Arthur had the distinct feeling that if he had turned sooner he would have caught a sad expression.

Well, if Merlin didn’t want to tell him, it wasn’t any of his business. Arthur faced forward again. “Merlin, if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last month, it’s that you’re not even close to a poor foolish serving boy.”

“Naah,” Merlin retorted. “I’m close to a poor foolish prince, right now. About six feet away from one, in fact.”

“You know, it’s almost a good thing that you are a sorcerer. If you were still just a servant, I’d feel obligated to get off this horse, right now, and teach you some manners.”

“Well then, I suppose I can be glad I’ve got magic, then,” Merlin chirped happily. “I’d hate to make you get off that horse unnecessarily. You might not manage to get up again.”

They rode on again, lapsing into silence.

After they had gone almost a mile, Merlin spoke again, and this time his tone was quite different. “This isn’t what I expected,” Merlin said.

“What isn’t?” He turned in his saddle, to look at Merlin again.

“I was afraid that everything would change.”

“Everything has changed, Merlin.”

“Some things have changed, but mostly…. All the important things are still the same. You know what I am, but you treat me just the same as before. I have magic, and life goes on. And now, here we are, riding along as if nothing happened.”

Arthur bared his teeth. “Would you like me to have a delayed panic attack right here and now?” he challenged. “What did you expect?”

“Well, worse, I suppose. I was scared that you would chase me away, and I’d never see you again.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Merlin, but as you say, life goes on. You’re still stuck with me.”

He was right, though. Two months ago, the suggestion that his servant might have magic would have made him either panic or laugh. And here he was, riding along with a powerful – if rather young – sorcerer just behind him, and he felt perfectly at ease. But Merlin was still Merlin, and he, Arthur, was still in command. He was a prince, heir to the throne, riding in his own realm, and Merlin obeyed him as he always had.

Merlin was a sorcerer, true, but he was Arthur’s sorcerer, and one day the world would know it.

Arthur wasn’t entirely sure when, exactly, he’d decided to repeal the laws against magic. The decision had simply been born in his mind, fully formed.

He’d been sick and tired of the Purge for a long time. He’d had the feeling that surely not everyone born with magic must be evil. That implied the existence of inherently evil babies, and that was not a concept he could easily fold his mind around. But his sense of distaste at the Purge had only crystallized into decision this last month.

If his father, for whatever reason, had gone to such lengths to conceal from his own son what magic was all about, then surely his father had to know in his heart that his hatred of magic was wrong.

He turned around again. “You are still you, and I am still me. That has not changed, Merlin, and it won’t change. You have grown, and I have grown, but we are still the same.”

Merlin smiled. “Sic semper Merlinus et Artorius? ”

“Exactly.”

They rode on.

After another hour in the saddle, Arthur drew rein. “This is the place. We’ll go on foot, from here.”

“All right,” Merlin agreed, kicking his foot out of the stirrups and dropping to the ground.

They dismounted, ran up their stirrups, loosened their girths, and tied the horses to convenient branches. Arthur’s horses were all used to the idea of being picketed while on the trail. They could be trusted not to squabble with each other, or fight themselves free.

Arthur patted his horse’s haunch in farewell, and walked off the track between the trees. He knew exactly where he wanted to go. They were both very familiar with this part of the Darkling Wood. They had lived here for a week, after all.

“We’re going to the cave, aren’t we?” Merlin asked from behind him.

“Yes, Merlin, we’re going to the cave.”

“Why?”

He had no ready answer. I’m going to break the law, just wasn’t explanation enough. “There’s someone I want to talk to,” he said.

Then there wasn’t much breath for talking. The land here was rough, and the climb from the path to the cave was steep and slippery. Their way led through tumbled rocks and fallen trees, covered with moss.

Merlin spoke up behind Arthur. “We’re being watched,” he puffed.

Arthur stopped, scanning the forest around them. It was gloomy and quiet. “With Latin?” he asked, his eyes darting around from tree to tree. It was amazing how quickly he’d come to rely on Merlin’s extra senses.

“No. There’s someone here.”

Arthur stayed where he was, looking around as if pausing to catch his breath, but he saw nothing.

Then again, he would have been surprised if he had seen them. They were masters of blending into the forest. They slipped through the land like ghosts. The only time his father had been able to catch them was on the rare occasions when they ventured into the villages.

“Come on,” he said to Merlin.

The cave mouth lay in a subsided hollow between the trunks of some trees, buried in leaflitter. From the outside, it didn’t look much more than a random fold in the land, its depth concealed by deep shadow, but once inside the little fold and around the corner the shallow cleft opened into a rocky tunnel as tall as a man.

“Somebody is living here,” Merlin whispered.

Arthur could also smell it: smoke, and what smelled like stew. “Even Druids have to eat.”

“Druids?” Merlin asked. “You didn’t say we were going to meet Druids.”

“There are a lot of things I don’t tell you, Merlin,” Arthur said. “Come on.”

Arthur jumped down into the hollow, and walked forward to the entrance. He heard Merlin jump down after him, and they made their way into the cave. Their footfalls were sure, even in the dark, picking the easiest route over the rocks out of habit.

It was dark, and quiet. If he had not smelled the cooking, he would never have thought anyone was here.

“It’s all right,” he called into the deeper part of the cave, to the owners of the stew. “You can come out. We mean you no harm.”

“Why have you come here?” a male voice asked.

There was a light, drawing his eye. He had not heard a flint and steel struck, but there was now a flame, flickering on the end of a torch.

Even if he had not seen Merlin doing it for the past week, he would have recognised magic. Behind him, Merlin let out a startled squawk.

The flame was held up by a figure in a brown robe, standing close against the side of the cave. Somehow, Arthur’s eye had failed to pick him out in the gloom just a moment ago, but there he was.

They had not, after all, had a ride for nothing.

The figure in the robe raised the torch, so that the light played on his face. His was a fighter’s face, lean and hard but calm, with salt-and-pepper hair curling down over his brow beneath the hem of his cowl. His eyes met Arthur’s with a forthright gaze, unafraid.

It was the same Druid to whom he had entrusted the little boy, the same Druid who had yielded the Cup of Life to him. It was quite a coincidence; or was it? Was this Druid one of the decision-makers in his circle, or was he just the representative shoved in Arthur’s direction to do all the talking for them?

He had a sudden mental image of all the Druids meeting up around a campfire and drawing straws to decide which of them would have to Talk To Arthur Pendragon.

He spread his hands and turned his palms to the Druid, to show that he held no weapons. “I have come to talk to you.”

“Perhaps we have nothing to say to you, Arthur Pendragon.” The words were spoken softly, and framed as a statement, but his tone waited for a reply.

“If we have nothing to say to each other, then I will go back where I can from and leave you in peace,” Arthur said. “But I don’t believe you came all this way just to admire my cave - cosy as it is.”

There was a long silence. Now that he was here, facing a Druid, he could not remember how he intended to start. There was no welcome on the Druid’s face, only patience.

Arthur stood, waiting, and the silence stretched out.

Merlin broke the impasse. “Arthur,” he said.

Arthur turned to him. Merlin had been standing a pace behind him in the gloom, watching and guarding Arthur’s back.

Now Merlin took a step closer to the Druid. “Look,” he said. He raised his hand, and flame fluttered in his eyes. A moment later, a warm glow lit up his cupped palm – magic glowing in his hand like a pat of molten gold.

Arthur staggered on his feet. He sprang to Merlin, and grabbed Merlin’s shoulder urgently. “What are you doing?” he hissed, into Merlin’s ear. “Put that away, for Gods’ sake!”

“No, no, it’s all right,” Merlin whispered back, his cupped palm of light still held out toward the Druid like a talisman. “If we can’t trust them with it, who can we trust?”

Arthur gritted his teeth. “It’s your neck,” he breathed at Merlin, and turned on his heel to face the Druid.

The Druid was still watching, patiently. He had watched the little exchange between them without moving or making a sound.

Merlin moved, stepping past Arthur. He held out his hand, tipped his palm over, and allowed the little ball of light to plop to the floor. It rolled to a halt, exactly midway between Arthur and the Druid, casting its light on them both.

If Merlin intended symbolism in the position of that light, Arthur approved of it.

Merlin perched his rump on what had once been Gaius’s favourite seat, and looked from Arthur to the Druid, waiting to see what they would do next.

“You need say no more,” the Druid said, placidly. “We have seen all that we need to see, to understand. Events which have long been predicted are now coming to pass. Albion’s golden age is at hand.”

“I must say more,” he insisted, half worried that the Druid’s pronouncement was a hint that he was going to disappear in a puff of smoke. Ta for the chat, bye now. He hadn’t come here for garbled prophecies – Merlin could stay here and swap magical gobbledygook with them if he wanted to, but Arthur had come to talk sense.

“Then speak. Your words will be heard, and shared with my people.”

He drew in a deep breath. “I have come to ask you a question.” His eyes were growing used to the darkness. There were other Druids here, back in the dark, watching. One there. One over there… Was that a third?

“Ask.”

“Do your people have the Cup of Life?”

He heard Merlin gasp.

“Why do you want it?” the Druid asked. The eyes in the calm face had not shifted. They were uncompromising eyes, demanding uncompromising answers.

“I don’t want it. I just want to know who has it, and to know that my enemies won’t find it.”

The Druid nodded, not in reply, but as if Arthur had said something enormously satisfying to him. “We have it,” he said.

“Good,” Arthur said. “If you didn’t have it, I would have to keep looking for it. I can’t let Morgana get it back.”

“We will hide it, far and deep, where no-one but the purest and truest heart will find it.”

He was glad to hear it. Morgana and Morgause would not find it.

Neither would Arthur himself, for that matter, because he was hardly pure and true. Just being here, talking to this man, was treason, and a betrayal of his father, and a breach of his honour. Deception was becoming easier and easier for him. He was turning into a real miscreant.

Arthur shook away his doubts.

“I should not have taken it from you. You warned me that I was risking more than I knew, and I should have listened. As soon as I took it, I lost it, and it was used for evil. I messed with things that I didn’t understand, and I brought misfortune on my kingdom.”

“But you have learned better.”

He shook his head. Too many people had died teaching him that lesson. “May the Gods spare me many more such lessons.”

“They will not,” the Druid said. “You will make other mistakes, and learn more lessons, but you will be a better king for them.” He looked over Arthur’s shoulder and directed a brief but piercing stare at Merlin, as if he wanted to say something to him, but then with the words still unsaid he swung his gaze back to meet Arthur’s eyes again. “And the first lesson you have learned is that you have not been taught things that you need to know.”

Arthur ducked his head. It was as if the Druid knew about the secret trips into Cabinet 55, and the forbidden books hidden in his linen chest. It was definitely not a comfortable feeling. “The more I learn, the more I understand has been deliberately hidden from me. I don’t know why, but one day, I’ll get to the bottom of that.”

The Druid nodded. “I will answer the question you have not asked. We are not in alliance with your sister.”

“Will you ally yourselves with me?”

The Druid shook his head. “We ally ourselves with no-one. We will not aid you, but neither will we harm you.”

“You might not have the luxury of neutrality forever,” he warned. “War is coming.”

“We know this,” the Druid said. “But we have withstood war before, and we do not fear the Priestesses. Nor do you need to fear us.”

That was satisfactory. “You should not stay here,” Arthur said. “I am not your enemy, and I’ve kept my patrols away from here, but I can’t do that for much longer. If you’re caught, I can’t help you.”

“We’ve done what we came to do,” the Druid said. “We will depart in peace.”

“Then go in peace. Come on, Merlin.”

Arthur turned, and led the way out of the darkness. Merlin let the light die.

Merlin followed him out of the cave mouth in silence. Arthur scrambled up the edge of the cave’s hollow, and waited a moment for Merlin to climb up after him. “Never a dull moment with you, is there?” he heard Merlin mutter under his breath.

“We’re going back to the horses,” Arthur announced, and led off down the slope.

“How many of them do you think there were?” he asked, after walking a few minutes. “I counted four.”

“Seven,” Merlin said confidently behind him.

He had no reason to doubt Merlin. He’d had time to look around, while Arthur was talking, and perhaps he could sense the Druids with his magic.

In hindsight, Arthur realized, what had just happened was quite incredible. He had been in a cave with seven sorcerers, and emerged unscathed. Once upon a time, he would have been terrified at the idea.

No, he realized, that wasn’t quite right. He had been in a cave with eight sorcerers. There had been nine people in that cave, and he was the only one who hadn’t had magic. He laughed aloud.

For the first time, ever, he’d been surrounded by Merlin’s people. He’d been the intruder in Merlin’s world. He’d been aware of Merlin’s magic behind him, but he’d assumed, without even thinking about it, that Merlin’s magic was his protective shield. It hadn’t entered his head for a second that Merlin might have decided that he was on the side of the Druids after all.

“What’s funny?” Merlin asked.

“Nothing,” he said, realizing that he didn’t know how to explain his sudden sense of novelty to Merlin without offending him.

They walked in silence.

They were almost back to their horses, when Merlin broke the silence.

“I thought the Druids were your enemies?” Merlin asked.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. If they were the allies of Morgause and Morgana, they would have handed the Cup over to them as soon as they could. But they didn’t, so they aren’t. As long as they have it, it is … out of play, as it were.”

“Right,” Merlin said, non-committally.

“And besides, if it wasn’t for them, Sir Leon would be dead. They didn’t have to save his life – we would never have known the difference.”

“Your father won’t like hearing that they have the Cup again.”

“My father won’t find out. I’m starting to think that perhaps … perhaps … my father doesn’t always know the right course to follow. Perhaps he’s wrong. In this matter, at least.”

It was as close as he could come to speaking out against his father. Even to Merlin, even alone in the forest, such criticism bumped up too firmly against his oaths to be spoken aloud.

Merlin was staring at him, as if he was struck dumb. “Right,” he said. His tone could not be read.

Their horses were still tied up, placidly stripping the twigs off the trees and chewing on them.

Arthur untied his horse and turned the beast down the path, but didn’t mount it. “Merlin,” Arthur said. “Listen to me.”

Merlin was running down his stirrups. “I’m listening,” he said, distractedly.

“Maybe it would be better if…” He did not really know how to say it. “If you want to …”

Merlin focused his eyes on him over his horse’s wither, raised his brows, and waggled his head. “Yes? If I want to … what?”

“If you want to, you can go back in there, and stay with them.”

“Go with them?” Merlin asked, startled.

“You can keep the horse. I’ll explain to Gaius, he’ll understand. You don’t have to come back to Camelot, if you’d rather stay with your own kind.”

“You’re my kind,” Merlin said, as if Arthur was being stupid.

“No, I’m really not,” Arthur said. He cut off Merlin’s protest with a raised hand. “I’m not. They’ll take you in, and they’ll teach you things that I’ll never be able to. I’ll miss you,” he added; and Gods above, how he would miss Merlin. “But if you want to go with them, then go.”

Merlin looked at him for a long moment, and then threw his head back on his neck and stared into the sky. “Gods, you really have no idea, do you?”

“I beg your pardon?” That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

“You don’t. You don’t have the foggiest clue how much I … of how special you are.” His voice was filled with warmth, and exasperation. “Do you know how rare it is for someone to look at what they were raised to think, and say, Hey, I don’t believe that anymore? ”

Arthur blinked. Surely everyone did that? If no-one ever changed their minds, when they were presented with new information, the world would be filled with ignorant bigots in a very short order. “Well, I changed my mind.”

“Well, I haven’t! I said I was happy to be your servant, Dollop-head, and I meant it!”

He wasn’t sure if he was being complimented or insulted, so he fixed his mind on the most important thing Merlin seemed to be saying. “So … you don’t want to go with the Druids, then?”

“No!” Merlin grinned, and shook his head again. “Camelot is my home. My place is to serve you, and that’s all I want to do. I can just serve you in a different way, now. I am your sorcerer, Arthur.”

Sincerity sparkled in his voice. Arthur had the feeling that in some way, an oath was being sworn, fully as heartfelt, and as binding on them both, as any words of homage spoken in front of a court of witnesses.

An oath of loyalty was a two-way commitment. It required a response from the lord, as well as the servant. “Well, if that’s really what you want, then I’m very glad to have you as my sorcerer, Merlin.”

// // // //

The great fortifications of Camelot always seemed to reach out like enfolding wings, welcoming him home – layers of stone wrapped around the City’s heart, solid, timeless, and impregnable. It was an illusion, he knew – there was still a whacking great hole in the wall where Cenred’s siege engines had smashed a breach, during his first attack.

Still, riding under the great portcullis, the sense that he was re-entering the seat of his own power, the place in all the world where he, Arthur Pendragon, was strongest and safest, had never dissipated.

The horses clattered through the Lower Town, and wound through the narrow streets up to the Citadel. Merlin trotted on his heels under the archway into the Great Square, and drew rein alongside Arthur at the statue of his great-great-uncle.

Arthur dismounted, and gave his reins to the guard who hurried down the wide steps to meet him. “Tend the horses, Merlin, and then wait on me in my chambers. I’m hot, and I want a bath.”

“Yes, Sire,” Merlin bowed obediently.

Arthur strode up the stairs two at a time, and in through the doors.

“Good hunting, Sire?” the guard in the hall asked.

“Empty handed, Frank, empty handed,” he replied, cheerily, “But a good and pleasant day’s ride, for all that.”

He had only been in his chambers for a few minutes, enough time to pull off his riding jacket, unbuckle his swordbelt, sit down, and pour himself a goblet of water, when boots drummed in the corridor outside. He turned, as the door banged open.

Sir Percival threw himself inside, his broad brow crumpled with distress. “Sire!” the huge knight said. “Come quickly!”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, already striding for the door, and snatching up his discarded swordbelt.

“It’s Merlin! He’s been arrested!”

“What?” Arthur asked, aghast. He stamped past Sir Percival through the door. There could only be one reason for his father to arrest Merlin.

“The castle guards are taking him to the Council chamber.”

“Come on!” He broke into a run.

He pelted down the hall, as fast as his legs would go, throwing his royal dignity to the winds. Sir Percival pounded after him.

Fright nibbled at his nerves. Had they got caught? How had they got caught? Had Merlin done something stupid? Had someone seen the floorbrush dog? Had they been betrayed? How much did his father know?

He’d walked up here just minutes ago in what seemed like the blink of an eye, compared with this agonisingly slow progress now. He went down the staircase, using the iron bannister as a pivot to spin himself down the stone steps faster. Down, down, down!

He saw the little knot outside the Council Chamber doors, before his eyes picked out Sir Gawain’s lean face. Sir Gawain swivelled to face them as they hammered up to the doors.

“What’s going on?” Arthur demanded.

“As soon as the king heard you were back, he sent the guards to get Merlin. They’re in there now.”

“What’s the charge?”

“Magic.”

“Shit.”

“That’s what Merlin said,” Gawain agreed, grimly. “I don’t know how the King found out. What do you want to do, Arthur?” he asked.

He ran his eyes over the curious little crowd already gathering around them. They were already eyeing him, and he could see the conjecture already in their faces. Soon, the rumours would be flying. Merlin … arrested… magic… Whatever happened in that chamber now, it was not suitable fuel for the gossips of Camelot.

“Stay here, and keep the nosy-parkers away,” he told Gawain, and then turned on the cluster of people. “All right, there’s nothing to see. Go about your business.”

“You heard the man,” Sir Gawain raised his voice in support of Arthur’s order. “Bugger off, the lot of you. Go! Get lost! You too…! And you…!”

The two guards at the door saw the grim clench of his jaw, and without his command put their hands on the doors and swung them open as he approached.

The doors opened, revealing to his eyes a frozen tableau, with the the long shadowed pillars of the Council Chamber as its backdrop. All eyes had turned to face him at the sound of the doors opening.

To the left of the door was a little clump of men, two guards holding Merlin pinned between them. He looked tiny and weak in their grasping arms, like a kitten trapped by two bulldogs. Sir Lancelot and Sir Leon were to the right of the door, standing stiffly, their faces strained.

Between them, alone by the table, framed by the men on either side of him like wings, stood the King.

“Arthur,” the King said, with a steel-hard smile. “Glad you could finally join us.”

Arthur was aware, suddenly, of all the weight of the history in this space bearing down on his shoulders.

So many great and terrible things had happened in this chamber. Of all the public spaces in the Citadel – the Banquet Hall, the Great Hall, the Square – this place was the true seat of power. The ceremonial deeds and diplomatic receptions might happen out there, for all to see, but the negotiating and the decision-making that stapled the city together happened here. And now, here he was, youngest and weakest scion of his line, coming to add his own chapter to this history, to plead for his friend, and his servant, and his sorcerer.

Arthur drew in his breath, steeling himself for whatever was going to happen. He stepped inside.

Merlin had twisted his head back over the shoulders of the guards to see him. There was panic in his eyes, and a kind of wrung-out plea. Arthur stepped forward, passing Merlin without daring to speak to him. He came to a stop, midway between Merlin and his father.

“What is going on, Father?” he asked. “Why have you arrested my manservant?”

His father picked up the goblet from the table, and sipped at it. It was water, Arthur knew; it always was water at this hour. “Your servant has been accused of practising magic.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Arthur said. “He’s a true and loyal servant. If he were practising magic, I’d know about it.”

His father smiled tightly. “How ironic that you should say so. However, the evidence I have at hand leaves me no doubt whatsoever. He is guilty, and he will be executed for it in the morning.”

He heard Merlin gasp, and heard a struggle. “Be still, Merlin!” he ordered, pointing his hand behind him without shifting his gaze from his father’s face. The sounds of a struggle stopped.

“Father, on what grounds are you arresting him? Surely he has the right to know what he’s being accused of, and by whom, and to give an answer to it?”

He saw the hardness in his father’s face, the sudden anger, before he banged the goblet down on the table with enough force to spill water on the polished wood.

“He stands accused by you, Arthur,” he rasped. He reached for the stack of papers at the head of the table, and snatched one of them up. “By you, Arthur.” He held the piece of paper up, as if it was a treaty, or a declaration of war.

Three strides took Arthur to him, and to the paper, but his blood had already run dry in his veins. He took the paper out of his father’s fist, but he already knew what the words were.

My dearest Morgana…

Oh, the minx. Oh, the scheming bitch.

He looked blankly at his own handwriting on the piece of paper, without seeing the words he had written there. His legs were moving of their own accord, back to Merlin, away from his father. His eyes were on the letter but his mind was racing.

Oh, Morgana, Morgana, you have been too clever for me.

He remembered the icy anger with which he’d written these words. He should have known better than to respond in anger to the provocation of an enemy. Lesson of war, number one: don’t let your enemy push you into action out of pique.

“What is it, Arthur?” he heard Merlin whisper, and realized that he was standing frozen in front of Merlin, frowning at the letter in his hands as if he was alone in the room. He turned the letter around so that Merlin could see it.

Merlin was still being held by the guards on either side of him, gripping his arms, and he poked his head out like a tortoise and narrowed his eyes to read the letter.

“Oh, for Gods’ sake, let his arms go!” Arthur snapped at the guards. “I’m not standing here holding this up like a human billboard!”

The guards exchanged glances over the top of Merlin’s head, and then they let go of Merlin’s arms. They obeyed slowly, but they obeyed.

Merlin reached out with trembling fingers and took the letter; the stupid, stupid letter. He read it, frowning. Arthur saw his lips form the word Morgana, without a sound. He read the letter down to the bottom, and shook his head at is, as if he did not understand. Then he looked up at Arthur.

“Arthur…” he began. There was fear in Merlin’s eyes. Real fear, the fear of death, and Arthur had caused it.

“Have you seen enough?” the King said, jerking Arthur’s attention away from Merlin’s awful face. “Do you understand now?”

Arthur turned on his heel. His father had walked away to the head of the table, and sat down in his chair, as if the discussion was over, and he had already dismissed Merlin’s fate from his attention. He was looking at Arthur over the goblet of water with an expression of cold anger.

Arthur bit back his panic, squashed it away as if he were facing combat. “Father, there is a perfectly logical explanation for this. You’re making a mistake. You don’t know my strategic thinking.”

“I don’t need to know your strategic thinking, Arthur. There is my proof, and his death warrant. Guards, take him away.” He gestured with the goblet at the guards.

They grabbed obediently at Merlin’s arms again, yanking him off balance. The paper fell, and slanted away to the floor like a falling leaf. They hauled him backwards towards the door, his feet stumbling under him.

They went out through the door, and the last Arthur saw of Merlin was the look of desperation in his servant’s eyes.

He turned. Sir Lancelot, and Sir Leon were both still here, standing to one side, watching. He’d forgotten they were here. He met Sir Leon’s eye, and jerked his head in the direction of the door. Sir Leon nodded, and tapped Sir Lancelot’s elbow to follow him. Arthur turned back to face his father.

The doors boomed shut behind them. Arthur knew Sir Leon would send someone to bar the upper entrance to this chamber. There would be no eavesdroppers to this conversation.

He was alone with the King.

He stood for a moment, gazing at the floor, his mind in a whirl of lies and subtleties and evaluations. He was drowning in strategems, in a great chess game, in which the prize was Merlin’s life. When had his life become so complicated? Ah, that was right. A month ago.

He composed his thoughts, taking in a deep breath, waiting for the right opening words to come to him, waiting to make his opening gambit.

His father took the choice from him, instead. “You yourself will not escape from this betrayal unscathed, but I do expect at least some token words of expiation.”

He turned, summoning all his royal coldness. “Expiation?” He frowned at his father where he sat at the far end of the table. “I will make no apologies for doing my duty.”

“Your duty?” His father stood up, disbelieving his reply. He pressed his fists on the tabletop, and leaned his weight on them, the full force of his disapproval aimed down the length of the table at Arthur. “Your duty? Your duty is to uphold the law, Arthur.”

Don’t stand here, Arthur told himself. Command the room. After all, he was a prince, and in the seat of his power, and beyond reproach. He began walking the length of the table, slowly advancing on his father where he stood at the head. “I did my duty, as it was given to me. You charged me with the defence of Camelot. You stood in this very chamber, and entrusted to me the sole undivided command of Camelot’s army, to manage as I saw fit.”

“I hardly expected you to see fit to keep a sorcerer in your household,” his father objected.

Arthur did not slow his walk, nor let any emotion interrupt his calm, measured gait. He paced out the length of the table, patting the back of each chair as he went as if he was careless.

“You gave me carte blanche, to safeguard Camelot, by any means necessary. When I saw the weapon that I had at my hand, I used it.” Keep your voice low, and slow. This is not a battle. High emotion will not sway him.

His father straightened up as he approached, watching him come. They had duelled once, in this room, beside this very table.

He reached the table. Every instinct roared in his heart to grab his father’s arm and plead for Merlin’s life. He pulled out his usual chair, instead, and sat down.

His father stayed on his feet, imposing from his height. “This has been an unfortunate mistake, Arthur. I gave you too much responsibility, and you have erred, but the error is easily fixed.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Father. Please sit, and hear out my tactical reasoning, before you dismiss my battle plan as an error.”

His father stared at him. “Your battle plan.” He sighed, and his eyes shuttered briefly in a blink, as if he was weary of this stubborn child of his. “Very well, let us hear your battle plan.” He sat down in the highbacked chair that was always his.

When Arthur was King, his chair would be no taller than his seat at That Circular Table. He swore it now, silently.

“This letter, Arthur,” his father said. “You do not deny that you wrote it?”

“I wrote it.”

“And for how long has this being going on behind my back?” His voice was calm, steady, interrogative.

Arthur abandoned his idea of claiming that Merlin’s magic was all a bluff. It was too late now for his father to swallow the whole lie. “For about a month. Since you gave me command of the army.”

“For a whole month, you knew that he had magic, and yet you did nothing?”

“You gave me a free rein to defend the realm as I saw fit. This has been one of my strategies.”

“When I said you had free rein, Arthur, I didn’t mean you to break the law!”

“Breaking the letter of the law, Father, in order to better protect the whole. You know our strategic situation as well as I do. We have lost every single spy in Northumbria in the last four weeks. Morgause has found them all out, and killed them all.”

His father was momentarily silent, undoubtedly remembering the Morgause had used to inform them that she had caught and executed the last of his spies. Where the rest of that poor man lay, Arthur had no idea; his head, at least, had been buried with military honours.

Arthur forced his voice to stay calm, as if he was discussing the qualities of a horse, or a breeding hog. “Merlin’s magic has only been active for a month. He’s far from as strong as Morgause, but what he does have is the ability to scry.”

“It doesn’t matter how long he has been doing it. The ability to scry makes him a sorcerer, Arthur.”

“The ability to scry makes him the perfect spy, Father. He can see into places where no other spies will get. And he can never get caught, because he never physically goes there. He is the perfect spy! Even if he never does anything else, the intelligence from his scrying alone is worth keeping him alive.”

“The scrying alone is worth executing him, you mean!”

He shook his head, adamantly. “The information I get from him is absolutely beyond price. His are the only eyes I have left, in the whole of Northumbria. Troop movements, training habits, even who commands which detachments … Merlin sees it all. I cannot see a way to prosecute the war without him.”

“He cannot be trusted. He is a sorcerer. His loyalties lie with them, and not with us. You’re deluding yourself if you think he won’t skip off to his own kind at the first chance he gets.”

“That letter right there is proof that Morgana is his enemy, as well as ours. She wrote to me, trying to trick me into destroying him. She wants us to destroy him, which is the greatest clue that we should not. She knows his value to us.”

“I still don’t think he can be trusted,” his father said, shaking his head adamantly, but Arthur sensed he had conceded that point, at least.

“Merlin must be trusted. There is no other way. This will not be a war that can be ended by a compromise treaty. Our enemies will stop at nothing in their attempts to destroy us, and we must stop at nothing to defend ourselves. I have only done what is necessary to protect this kingdom.”

“You would protect this kingdom, by giving it into the hands of those who would destroy it?”

“I will protect this kingdom any way I have to. If that means getting myself a sorcerer who can match the sorcerers of our enemies, then so be it. Remember, Father, crossbows were also regarded as an evil weapon, when people started using them. What has happened to those kings who refused to use them? They have all fallen, while we, who adopted them early, have prospered. And so it must be with scrying.”

“You cannot equate the use of crossbows with the use of magic! Magic is evil! Those who practice it turn to evil! It is inevitable. You may trust him now, but he will turn against you.”

“I will deal with that, when the time comes.” That day would never come, but he did not say that aloud. Merlin belonged to him, heart and soul. He was Arthur’s sorcerer, and no-one else’s. He gave his loyalty to no other, not even the King.

“It is better to get rid of him now, while we still can.”

“Not now. We need him too much. I need Merlin, like I need horses and armour and arrowheads. Magic is a military necessity.”

“I cannot allow this, Arthur. Camelot will never be host to a sorcerer while I rule!”

“Then your rule will be short, Father! Sorcery will defeat us. We have nothing to counter it! The only way to avoid defeat is to arm outselves with our own sorcerer.”

“Sorcery will defeat Camelot, only if we allow ourselves to be seduced by it! If we allow sorcery to run free in Camelot, it will poison all that this kingdom stands for! Have you learned nothing, Arthur?”

“I have learned more than you know, Father.”

“No, clearly you have not! How many times do you have to be attacked before you will learn that magic is not to be trusted!”

He could not sit any longer. He stood up, drawing himself to his full height. “It’s because I’ve been attacked so many times that I have learned better, Father! Every hand is turned against us! Look at what happened when Morgause attacked! Not one of our allies came to help us! We are in a war for our very lives! If we do not defend ourselves before it’s too late, it won’t matter what Camelot stands for! Camelot will be nothing more than a dukedom of Escetia!”

There it was, out loud at last, the last secret dread: the utter political dissolution of the Kingdom of Camelot as a sovereign country. His father blanched, his head jerking back.

He had won his throne in battle alongside his brother, Arthur’s long-dead uncle, Arthur knew. For a long time it had seemed that there would be no Camelot, and no more Pendragons. And now, for a whole week, he had thought that he had lost his throne again, to his own sorcerous daughter.

Arthur sensed suddenly that he had almost won.

It was time to press his advantage. He pressed the tips of his fingers against the tabletop to emphasize his point. “Merlin’s magic is a weapon, Father. What he can do, we can use! Fate has dropped him into our laps, but he is here, and he is sworn to serve us, and we must use him. We must.”

There was a shuffle, and a rumble, and the door banged. His father’s mouth was open to speak, but whatever he wanted to say died unsaid. Arthur turned to see the door open.

Gaius entered, framed by the doors and the brilliant red banner hanging in the hall. He bowed. “My lords.”

“I thought I gave orders that no-one was to disturb us!” Arthur snapped.

“I have information that pertains directly to the discussion at hand,” Gaius said, not intimidated at all by the anger of a mere prince. The old man gave him a glance, and then refocused his gaze on the King. It was only the briefest glance, but it was enough to fill Arthur with hope. If anyone could convince the King, it was Gauis.

“Come forward, Gaius,” his father said. His voice had grown quiet again, as if the interruption had taken his anger off the boil, but there was just enough purr in his voice for Arthur to tell that he was still displeased. “I’m curious to know what your part in all of this has been.”

Sir Gawain leaned in, and drew the doors shut behind Gaius. They boomed.

Gaius walked forward, his hands clasped respectably in front of him. “My apprentice has been arrested, on the accusation of magic.”

“You have heard correctly, and Arthur has confirmed for me that the accusation is true.”

“Father,” Arthur said, urgently. “Whatever Gaius has done, whatever he knows, he has kept silent under my orders. He cannot be blamed for what I have ordered him to do.”

“Silence, Arthur. Say your piece, Gaius.”

Gaius bowed again, just low enough to honour the King, without being obsequious. “Sire,” he said. “You know that I have served you, and your brother, and your father before you. I have served your family all my adult life. I have always served you, with magic and without it.”

“You’ve no need to remind me of the passage of years. What of it?”

“I am old, Sire. I forswore magic, but my knowledge of magic is still in me. My learning is at your command, but … I will not live forever, Sire. And all that I know will die with me. But when I am gone, magic will still be here. There will always be enemies, Sire, and there will always be monsters.”

“There are always monsters,” the King agreed. “As long as there is magic, there will be monsters.”

“One day, Sire, Arthur will be King, and he will need someone at his side with knowledge of the dark secrets of the world. But there is no-one left with that knowledge. Sire, I feared for Arthur’s future.”

“As do we all,” the King growled. His eyes flicked to Arthur.

“And then one day I discovered that my own assistant had magic. Merlin is young, and loyal, and he learns quickly.”

“And so you started teaching him,” the King said bluntly.

“Yes, Sire. It seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“You are a fool, Gauis.”

“I am a loyal fool, Sire. Just as Merlin is loyal to Arthur. Arthur will not have me, but if I can train Merlin, if I can impart to him what I know while I still can, then at least Merlin can replace me. Merlin can be to Arthur what I have always been to you.” He bowed low. “It is the last service I can do for you, my king. I can give my successor, to serve and protect yours.”

The king rocked back on his heels, staring at Gaius.

“There has not been a court sorcerer since the day you were born, Arthur,” he said, slowly.

“Perhaps the time has come,” Arthur said, “to fill that position again.”

The King’s gaze seemed to withdraw, lose focus, as if he was no longer seeing the old physician, but rather looking at a view within his mind. Perhaps he was looking back, revisiting that long-ago decision. He turned, without a word, and walked thoughtfully around his throne.

Arthur found he was holding his breath.

Nobody ever interrupted the King. Nobody dared to interrupt his thoughts now, as he set a hand on the high back of the throne, and walked around behind it. His fingers caressing the carved wood, as if exploring his ancestral throne for the first time.

His gaze swept the room, and settled on Arthur.

“Keep him away from me.” His eyes were bleak marbles. “Do not bring him into my sight again. I do not want to see him, I do not want to hear about him, I do not want my court to know about him. What he does and what he tells you is your concern. I want nothing to do with him.”

“Yes, Father.”

The King turned his eyes to Gaius. “Teach him. I don’t want magic practiced under my roof, but anything else, you may teach him.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“That will be all,” the King said, abruptly turning away. “Send for the royal sommelier. I will have wine.”

The interview was over.

Arthur turned. He was aware of Gaius, alongside him, falling back so as to allow the prince to go through the door first.

He pressed his hand to the door, and it swung open.

Sir Gawain was right at the door, and he turned as it opened.

“Sire?”

Sir Ellyan was here, and Sir Leon, and Sir Lancelot. They were close by the door, keeping back the crowd of eavesdroppers.

“All the charges have been dropped,” Arthur said. He didn’t have to speak very loudly. All eyes were on him.

Sir Gawain whooped, and clenched his fist. “Yes!”

Sir Lancelot just smiled, a wide smile full of relief, and walked away quickly. “I’ll tell Sir Percival and Sir Ellyan at the other door.”

“Sire?” Sir Leon asked. “Does that mean … the King believes you?”

“Why would he not believe me?” Arthur asked. He began walking along the corridor, and as was proper, they followed behind him. “Merlin was falsely implicated in a crime, and now he has been cleared, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That must have been a whopper,” Sir Gawain said, happily. “We thought Merlin was for the high jump, and no mistake.”

“Yes,” Sir Leon agreed. “I was with the King when he found the letter, and I didn’t think there was any way out of it.”

“I simply explained to my father why I wrote the letter. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“Yes, but how did you explain it? That’s what I want to know.” Sir Gawain persisted. “How do you explain away something like that? I thought we’d have to be rescuing him. Either that, or … does he do that twirly whirly tornado thing some of ‘em can do?”

“Gawain!” hissed Sir Leon, sharply.

“I beg your pardon?” Arthur stopped dead, his heels thudding on the floor. The twirly whirly tornado thing? “You knew!” he blasted through tight lips. He swung around to glare at Sir Gawain.

Sir Gawain had the sense to step back. “Er,” he temporised, but Arthur’s anger had already swung around to Sir Leon.

“You bloody well knew!”

Sir Leon drew in a deep breath. His eyes narrowed, as he sucked up his courage for an answer. “Yes, Sire.”

“How long have you known?” Arthur demanded, reaching out to prod Sir Gawain in the chest with his finger. “Who else knows?” He turned the finger in Sir Leon’s direction, as if it was a spear.

“Well,” Sir Leon looked at Sir Gawain, and then back to Arthur. “It’s a long story, Sire.”

“There’s no time like the present, Sir Knight!”

Sir Gawain and Sir Leon exchanged a worried glance. “All of us, Sire. We all know,” Sir Gawain said, answering for both of them - and by extension, all of them.

“All of you?”

“All the knights of the table, that is. All of us who were there at the Castle during the invasion.”

“How did you find out?” he demanded.

“We all found out in different ways, Sire,” Sir Leon said. “I saw him knock you off your feet on the practice field.”

“I know – because of the wyverns,” Sir Gawain said. “You don’t chase wyverns away by smacking them on the arse with a rolled up newsheet. No, you need magic to do that – it’s the only thing they respect.”

“Sir Lancelot said he saw Merlin do something he shouldn’t have been able to do. And Sir Ellyan noticed him pushing dents out of your armour with his fingers.”

“Aye, and Sir Percival … just knew. He was shocked that we didn’t all know. Says it’s common knowledge where he comes from. Don’t want to think about the implications of that too much, to be honest.”

“And one night, around the table, the story just sort of…” Sir Leon’s words ran out, but the shrug of his shoulders was an eloquent enough description, “and then we found we all knew.”

“We decided that if Merlin has magic, then it’s all right, because he’s with us. He’s one of us, even if he isn’t one of us, because he’s … I don’t know. He’s just with us. He’s with us.”

They had closed ranks around one of their own, protecting Merlin as if he was a brother. They had done, in actual fact, exactly what he’d hoped the knights of That Circular Table would do. He just hadn’t expected them to do it against him!

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he demanded.

They exchanged a glance. “Well,” Sir Gawain said, “Because we thought you’d have a shrieking fit.”

“A shrieking fit,” Arthur said, gloomily. They thought he was the kind of prince who had shrieking fits. That rankled. “Does Guinevere…?”

“No,” Sir Gawain said. “Ellyan said it might not be a good idea. All things considered.”

“No,” Arthur agreed. “Not yet.”

Not after Gwen’s father died for the accusation of doing what Merlin was doing in reality. Not after Gwen saw Morgana change so utterly and so horribly right in front of her eyes. Gwen was not yet ready to find out, no more than Arthur would have been a month ago. One day, yes, and Arthur would explain it to her when that day came … but not yet.

“But Lancelot said you’d be all right,” Sir Leon said. “He said we should just keep quiet, and Merlin would tell you himself when he was good and ready. We just didn’t want to tell you too soon, in case you, um… in case you…”

“In case you had a shrieking fit,” Sir Gawain finished for him.

Arthur had a sudden image in his head, of his knights sitting around the table, merrily discussing Arthur’s bizarre delusion that he could hide anything from them. That must have been a fun conversation. And they’d all kept straight faces for a whole month, the bastards.

“You,” he said, and shook his finger at Gawain, and then at Leon. “You lot … of scheming …” he couldn’t think of an animal scheming enough to call them, “of scheming…”

“No less than scheming Latin tutors, eh?” Sir Gawain piped up. “But we’ve got more important things to think about now, right?”

Arthur glared at him for a moment longer, and then let it go. He sighed. “Yes, we do. But first, I have a court sorcerer to let out of the dungeons.”

“Court sorcerer?” Sir Leon asked. “But there hasn’t been a court sorcerer for decades!”

“And there still isn’t one. Not officially,” Arthur cautioned. “His magic is still a secret, for now. But one day, when I am king…” He let his promise hang on the air, unfinished.

“That’ll be a day worth waiting for, then, I reckon,” Sir Gawain said, cheerfully.

// // // // // //

Morgause turned to see her sister enter the chamber. “I have great news, sister!”

“It worked?” Morgana stiffened with pleasure. Her smile was as sharp as a fox’s. “Uther has acted on the letter?”

“It worked, sister. I have been watching Uther all morning, and a few minutes ago, he had Merlin arrested and thrown into the dungeon.”

“And Arthur?”

“He is with his father.”

“Probably trying to plead for the little worm’s life,” Morgana said, with satisfaction.
“But pleas will not serve him. Nothing he can say will change Uther’s mind. I saw how he was when his precious Gwen was arrested, and Uther was as a stone.”

“Merlin is as good as dead,” Morgause agreed. “Without him, we can do as we wish, sister. Gaius alone cannot stop us.”

“Camelot will fall to us once again,” Morgana agreed, and then her voice hardened. “And this time we’ll take care of Arthur, as we should have the first time. Look again in your stones, sister, and tell me what you see.” She gestured with one pale hand toward Morgause’s scrying crystals.

“You know I cannot find Arthur.” She could imagine him, wrung out with grief at the loss of his faithful dog, tears in his eyes - but all she would see, if she looked, would be that damned tanner again.

“Not Arthur. Merlin. I want Merlin to know we are watching him, and enjoying what is happening to him.”

Yes, Morgause thought to herself. Of them both, Morgana was unquestionably the coldest. She herself hated Arthur with an explosive heat that boiled in her blood. Morgana’s hatred was cold, as cold as ice, as cold as the stars.

As cold as the crystals to which Morgause turned, now.

Behind her, she heard Morgana make herself comfortable in Morgause’s chair. Then she cleared her mind of thoughts of her sister, and summoned up the image of Merlin.

Whatever trickery he had used to hide Arthur from her gaze – and how had that even been possible? – he had not bothered to do it for himself. His only defence against her sight was his strength and willingness to leap into and take over her vision.

The tiny facets and flakes of light inside her crystal resolved themselves almost instantly into his form.

He sat on the floor of a dark stone cell, surrounded by mouldy straw. The only light in the cell came from a single candle flickering on the floor in front of him. His legs were doubled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his knees. He lifted his head from his contemplation of the candle, as if she had called his name.

His eyes met hers, across the miles of distance between them. Deep blue eyes, and as soon as they met hers they were all that she saw, as if the crystal and the room around her had vanished, as if she and he were alone.

He didn’t seem angry or upset. In fact the corners of his mouth lifted somewhat. “You are too late,” his voice drummed against her mind. “Too late, too late, too late…”

“I am here, and you are arrested,” she told him. “It is you who are late.”

“You are too late. You are too late to turn Arthur, too late to unlearn the things he now knows, too late to lie to him. You are too late, Morgause.”

“You are under arrest! And Uther will have you executed!”

Yes, he would die tomorrow. He could sit there now, and tell her whatever he liked, but tomorrow he would die, and she would watch. And without him, Arthur would be open and unguarded.

He seemed to have felt her thought, because his shoulder lifted in a shrug, and returned to gaze at the candle. It was as if he was disinterested in his own fate, as if he knew something she did not. “Arthur is on his way,” his voice echoed again against her skull. “And then we shall see. But even if I die, you are too late. Arthur knows enough to keep himself safe from you.”

“Arthur knows nothing.”

“Arthur knows that he doesn’t know enough – which is all he really needs to know.”

She would stay, and watch. It would be worth the effort of maintaining her vision over such a great distance, to see the tragic farewell between the oafish prince and his dog. She hoped Arthur would weep.

A difference in the light heralded a change in the cell. Somebody carrying a lantern had arrived in the corridor outside. Merlin looked away, his eyes going to the door. He unwrapped his arms and legs, sitting up eagerly.

His mouth moved, speaking, and for a moment she was startled to recall that in scrying visions there was no sound, that the voice she had just heard from him was his mental voice alone. Someone moved, below her point of view.

She forced her vision to swivel, keeping her bearings by maintaining her grip on the sight of him.

Blond hair, and broad shoulders showed behind the bars, and then the cell doors were pulled open by the guard. Arthur stood there, by the open door, and he held out his hands to Merlin, inviting him out of the cell to freedom.

And Merlin scrambled to his feet, and stepped through the open door, free, and was immediately folded tightly in his prince’s arms. Arthur had his arms around Merlin’s shoulders, hugging him close, and he was smiling, damn him! He was smiling! Smiling!

“No!” Morgause screamed aloud into her crystals, and flung herself backward out of her vision.

“No!” she screamed again, and smashed both fists down on the pedestal. “No! How is this possible?”

“What’s wrong, sister?” Morgana was here, putting her arms around her, and Morgause stopped.

“The worm lives! He lives!” She smashed her fists into the pedestal again and again. “How did we fail? He has been set free! He is free, and he is still with Arthur! How is this possible? How? How?”

Her chambers echoed with Morgana’s scream of anger.