Chapter Text
Arthur needed to go out and reassure his people. It was a holiday. They should be feasting right now – there was food laid out, fresh boar and venison all over the city, growing cold. Today was supposed to be a celebration. Instead, a long-forgotten queen was dead, and Arthur stood aimless in a corner of his chambers supervising Hubert and several servants the way hawks guard a nest of unhatched eggs. The mortal nature of Merlin’s wound may have been healed by magic, but the wound itself, and the blood loss were still there the same way that the bite of the questing beast remained on Arthur for long weeks of healing after Merlin’s magic saved him.
A commotion in the corridor coaxed most eyes to the door, including Arthur’s, and he drew his sword in the very real expectation that this day’s violence may not be over yet. A moment later, though, he heard Leon’s voice demanding entrance to the king. The relief that Arthur felt threatened to swamp him as he sagged against the bedpost and let his sword hang at his side. “Let him in,” Arthur called.
The many servants mobbed in the hall around the door must have finally let Leon pass, because he slipped inside a moment later, his face pale and his clothing dirty from days on the road. “Sire!” He rushed forward to clasp arms in greeting, and then took in Arthur’s appearance before glancing past him to the still figure in Arthur’s bed. “I should have been here.”
“No,” Arthur negated. “You were doing as I asked.”
Leon appeared unconvinced, but he nodded. “The people are in an uproar. They’re saying that you legalized magic, and that Merlin is dead. That there was some plot and enchantment – ”
Arthur lifted a hand between them to stay Leon’s words. He didn’t want to even think on what might have been just a few candlemarks ago. “I don’t know all of the facts yet. But Merlin is not dead, and there was no magic involved in what happened.”
“Then you... Magic? Sire, you didn’t.”
Arthur’s eyes shot back to Leon’s face, and his own expression must have been awful to make Leon step back like that. He had thought that Leon wanted this too. He had thought the man an ally. “Did Hunith come?”
“Yes, sire.” Leon appeared apologetic for his words as he gestured to the corridor beyond. “I tried to shield her from the talk in the streets, but she is worried.”
“Bring her in,” Arthur replied.
Leon hesitated, though. “Perhaps you should allow George to clean you up first.”
Arthur glanced at him, startled once again by the reminder, and then looked down at the grizzly picture he made, covered in dark stains of Merlin’s blood where it had soaked into the knees of his trousers, and dried in smears across the front of his ceremonial armor. He knew it painted his face as well, spatters of dying breath etched on his skin. “No. Bring her in.”
Uncertain perhaps at the dead calm of Arthur’s affect, Leon nodded and moved away toward the door. After speaking briefly with the people outside, they parted to allow Hunith entry. She seemed better put together than Leon, but her face was still pale and drawn. Arthur wondered if it were only the tales she’d heard in the lower town that made her appear so.
Arthur stepped forward to take her hand as she paused in the middle of the room. “It’s alright. Hubert tells me he’ll recover; it will just take time. It’s not a mortal blow anymore.”
Hunith tore her eyes from the group around the bed that blocked her view of her son. “Anymore?”
Whatever reassurance Arthur might have given stalled. Would it be crass of him to say that thankfully, Hunith’s mother chose to die instead? Rather than try to address that, or explain when he didn’t know how much she already knew, Arthur merely drew her forward with him. The women assisting Hubert parted to make a place for her with deferential gestures. Hunith didn’t seem to notice the way they behaved; she was too focused on the limp form of her son draped over pillows on his stomach to expose the stab wound to the air. Hubert didn’t incline his head to her as the others did, but he took the time to speak lowly to her as he continued to clean out what was left of the wound.
Arthur left her there to watch and draw her own conclusions for the time being. Leon waited gravely to one side, and from his stance, it was orders that he was looking for. The royal steward had arrived at some point as well – a sharp and pointy man given to pinched features and severity of mien. Arthur addressed him rather than Leon. “You’ve come to tell me that everyone is assembled in the throne room?”
The steward, Alder, bowed with a correctness that put even George to shame. As it should; Alder was the man’s father. It painted an odd picture in Arthur’s mind, given that Alder had served in his capacity since Arthur was small, under Uther’s reign. George’s resemblance to him seemed little more than a shallow likeness. “Yes, sire. All parties await your majesty’s pleasure.”
“Good.” Arthur twisted his upper body and caught sight of Hunith pulling on the chain around Merlin’s neck to expose the royal seal of Arthur’s house. He shifted his eyes away from her and waited until Gwaine met his gaze. “You will stay here. No one enters without my leave.”
If Arthur didn’t know him so well, the cold look in Gwaine’s eyes might have frightened him. It spoke of the kind of fury that came quiet like a predator in the night. Uncharacteristically, all Gwaine said was, “Yes, sire.” Arthur had expected an argument, or a demand for the right of vengeance. Perhaps Gwaine well knew the danger of his own impulses, and the wisdom of staying where he was.
“Sire.” Hunith pulled away from the bed and turned to face him. “I would like to accompany you, if you would allow it.”
Arthur paused to study her briefly. He knew this woman – kind and unapologetic for her poverty. She appeared little changed from the woman who had housed him in Ealdor, and fought for her small village, except for age. A peasant, and yet noble in some way. “My lady – ”
“Please, sire. It is my family that was wronged, as much as yours.”
Arthur swallowed. “I fear that you may hear some things that would shock you. It may be better to wait until I can explain – ”
“Did you not make him family?” Hunith gestured back to Merlin, and the seal she had seen him wearing.
“I did,” Arthur croaked. “He is.”
“I know.” Hunith tried to smile, but it came off wet and wobbly. “I have explanations to give as well.”
Arthur stepped away from Leon and Alder to face her properly. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“With respect, I believe I do, sire.” She spared a glance back, but it only touched on Merlin’s boots where they muddied the coverlet on Arthur’s bed. His clothing had been cut away from his upper body in Hubert's haste to see the damage beneath, and lay in a wet, bloody heap covering the small of his back. It was enough to make Arthur's bile threaten to rise. Hunith swallowed and looked away quickly, as if she suffered the same. “The time for keeping secrets seems to be past.”
Arthur didn’t nod, but he acknowledged that all the same. “Your mother…the Lady Gwendydd…”
“I know my lineage, sire.” Hunith bit her lip to contain whatever she felt at that. “And I ask for nothing from it. I never wanted my family’s curses inflicted on my son. My mother died a long time ago. Her titles may lay with her. I am content with that.”
The way she said that betrayed a cruel truth, because it seemed clear that she thought it in the literal sense. She didn’t know that her mother had lived all these years in Camelot, finding succor only among whores. And Perhaps Arthur needed to reevaluate his opinions of that trade, if it was the one place a disinherited queen found safe harbor until this day. Arthur had no idea how to even begin breaking that news, though, so he merely gestured her toward the door. “There is something you should see first.”
The chapel hall stood mostly empty, as it always had, save for the raised stone in the center of the room. Once, Arthur’s father had lain here for the watch before his entombment. Now, a different royal house occupied this room, but one would never know it. The only attendants to the body were prostitutes in obnoxiously shiny rags.
Arthur immediately stopped himself from that train thought, as he knew how uncharitable it was. Especially now, after learning that only a brothel had heart enough once to offer harbor to the disinherited. What did it say of Camelot that the kindest people within her walls were the shunned women who sold their flesh for bread?
Hunith paused in the doorway when Arthur did, and turned back to ask him a silent question.
“Please.” Arthur urged her forward, and moved to precede her to the plinth so that he could pull back the sheet covering the lady Gwendydd’s face. He glanced back and waved Hunith to his side. “Do you recognize her?”
Age and toil had certainly not been kind to the late queen, so it was no surprise at first that Hunith merely appeared puzzled. “My lord? I don’t understand.”
The brothel madam, who Arthur had learned was called Seren, stepped up to Hunith’s other side in a manner that echoed not a prostitute, but a lady’s maid, as she almost certainly had been, in truth. “My lady Hunith.” She curtsied, and then clasped her hands, so far from the mannerisms Arthur had seen in her from the street of the lower town. “I served your mother with all my heart, ma’am. It is my honor to offer you the same, such as it is.”
Hunith blinked at the woman, looked again to the greying, still face in death before her, and then stepped back with a breath that visibly hollowed her stomach. “Oh.” Arthur and Seren both steadied her as she backed away another step and exclaimed again, faintly, “Oh.”
Arthur looked away to spare her a witness to her shock and grief. “I’m sorry, my lady. The queen of Dyfedd is dead.” Then he looked back, and gently proclaimed in a hushed and private tone for only those few in the room with them to hear, “Long live the queen.”
It took a moment for Arthur’s words to penetrate, and then Hunith covered her mouth as she looked at him. The women surrounding Wynn’s body curtsied low as she stood there.
“Your house was never purged. The titles remained.” Arthur tried to hold that out as a comfort, though he didn’t see how it could be one. “It’s no replacement for what you’ve lost, but your family is my family, if you’ll have us, cousin.”
Hunith’s eyes filled, and her breaths sounded shallow as she stared. Seren seemed to be supporting part of her weight as well, where she stood with Hunith’s arm leaning over hers.
“You don’t have to answer,” Arthur assured her. “And I place no obligation on you.”
Something in Hunith’s façade cracked, and she straightened to cup Arthur’s face in her hands as only a mother can do to a child she loves. It was something Arthur never had, growing up. He didn’t expect the way it made him feel now, conflicted and somehow more alone, but he allowed Hunith to smile and wipe at his cheeks with her thumbs because it seemed to be something she needed to do. “Precious boy,” she whispered.
Arthur couldn’t quite hold her gaze; it was too forgiving of the terrible things he’d done in his life, and the debt he owed from his father. Rather than try to feel any of that, lest he be tempted to forget, Arthur told her, “Anything you need, it’s yours. And Merlin’s. Anything.”
“I have what I need,” Hunith replied. When she let him go, Arthur couldn’t tell if he were relieved or upset at the loss of her gentle touch.
Arthur cleared his throat and stepped back. “My court is waiting, unless you want to remain here? Or go back to your son?”
Hunith composed herself as well. “No, sire. I need to see this through.”
“Of course.” Arthur nodded toward the hall. “If you’ll follow me.”
It gave Arthur a sense of rightness when the guards at the door bowed as she passed, followed by Leon and the knights waiting outside, and then Alder and Sir Geoffrey with his log book. Seren came with them, one step behind her new queen. Just outside the doors to the throne room, Arthur paused to gather himself. He knew that he looked a fright, bloodied and pale still, but it served as a reminder. He straightened his sword belt, glanced back at the retinue of people following him, and then strode inside.
The room fell silent as Arthur entered. He strode past his knights – most of them the men who had accompanied Arthur on the ill-fated hunt. There were others present as well, though – a few older lords retired from the council, higher ranking servants including the head cook, and the emissaries to Camelot’s court from Mercia and Nemeth with their secretaries. Arthur largely ignored them all. He didn’t even look at Meliot knelt in the center of the room before the empty throne, bruised from Gwaine’s fists and stripped of his armor and the trappings of his rank. He looked small, folded up there with his head down. The way Merlin had looked small in the armory, begging Arthur to use anything but fire to kill him. Was it really only a mere week ago? Six days for so much to fall apart.
Before Arthur could cross even half of the room, a guard stepped out in front of him and dropped to his knees. “This is my fault, sire. I told Sir Meliot what I heard. What he did was on my testimony.”
Arthur dropped back onto his trailing foot and stared at the man’s bowed head. “You indicated your silence that night. I took you at your word.”
“I know, sire.” The guard remained where he was, his eyes trained lower than Arthur’s boots in front of him. “After you passed, I worried about what I’d heard all night. And on my patrol, I noticed light under Sir Meliot’s door. It was an impulse, sire, and ill-thought. I didn’t know what else to do. I feared you had been enchanted, or that perhaps Merlin had, and that you would need help with some plot. I never meant to betray, sire. I was confused, and afraid for you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You should have come to me with these concerns.”
“I didn’t know if I could,” the guard admitted softly. “If you were under a spell, you would kill me, and then no one would know to help you.”
Arthur glanced aside, and then down, his heart pounding with unexpressed anger, but also shame for letting it come to this, for keeping so many secrets that his own men couldn’t bring their concerns to him. And perhaps the anger he felt was less for the guard’s broken promise, and more for his own short-sightedness. “Get up.”
The guard twitched as if expecting something else, and then slowly climbed back to his feet.
“You have a family?”
“I…” The guard’s face paled. “Sire, please. They’ve no part of this. I bear the shame alone.”
Arthur sneered at him. “I’m not threatening your family. For gods’ sakes.” He whirled away and rubbed hard at his brow in an effort not to lose sight of his goals when his temper frayed more with each interaction forced upon him. “It is a holiday. You should be with them. Go home. And tomorrow, you will report to the perimeter watch commander in the south tower. I will make it clear to him that you endure no censure for what happened here, but you are banned from the royal apartments and any duties which may directly involve me or my household. Even if I accept your explanation for your part in this, you have made it clear that I cannot trust your judgement.” Arthur let out a long sigh and looked up at the ceiling instead of the guard, or anyone else. “Now get out. This matter is closed.”
Behind him the guard babbled inane gratitudes and at least one more apology before the sound of hasty footsteps carried him out of the throne room. Arthur turned toward the low murmurs coming from beneath the windows that let in light from the courtyard. Leon and a servant were attempting to convince Leundugrance to leave.
“Leon.” Arthur hurried over. “A moment, please.”
Leon shuffled aside. “Of course, sire. I only wanted to ensure that there would be no interruptions from my father.”
“It’s alright.” Arthur squeezed Leon’s shoulder as he passed. “I believe that your father was instrumental in mitigating the deaths we saw today.” He tried to give Leon an encouraging smile, though it likely fell short, and knelt down in front of the stool that someone must have pulled over from a corner. Oddly, Howel stood beside him still, and his stance seemed both protective and one of old friendship, though long soured by the elder man’s senility. “My lord, forgive me. Do you have a moment to speak of what happened today?”
Leundugrance hummed at something that only he could likely see past Arthur’s ear.
“My lord?” Arthur placed a hand on one thin, boney shoulder, joints fragile under paper-velum skin. It at least drew a wobbling gaze his way. “My lord, I wonder if you can take yourself out of your pocket for a moment?”
Behind Arthur, Leon repeated that odd phrase to himself. It could not have made any sense to him, but Howel smiled a bit, and Leundugrance focused on him, if absently. “Hm. I like my pockets.”
“I know you do,” Arthur told him. “But I really need to talk to you about what happened today.”
“It’s hard to climb out,” Leundugrance lamented lowly.
“Will you do it for me?” Arthur asked in like tone. “And after, you can go back in and sleep, or do whatever you wish. Please? It’s about Myrddin.”
Leundugrance grinned, all of his yellowed teeth showing – the ones he had left, anyway. “Such a good boy. Takes after his father. Suffers his mother's madness, though; such a shame. He could never be free of it.”
Arthur nodded. “What happened today in the courtyard? You spoke to George, my servant.” Arthur could have asked George himself, of course, and he would later. But for now, George had his duties in Arthur’s chamber, and Arthur preferred him there to keep an eye on things.
“Alder’s boy,” Leundugrance nodded at the ceiling. He might not have known who he was even speaking to at that moment. “Mm. He runs well. I can’t run anymore. It called for running.”
“What did?” Arthur held his fingers up in Leundugrance’s line of vision, then drew the old man’s gaze back to his own without touching him. “Did you tell him to run?”
“I remember!” Leundugrance asserted with surprising force. “He made me promise I wouldn’t forget. I never forget. I kept it in my pockets so it wouldn’t get lost.”
Arthur nodded, and ignored the shuffling of Leon and a few others behind him. “What did you promise?”
“It can’t be forgotten. Dyfedd can’t be forgotten. I told my boy that too. Don’t forget, I said. We can’t forget about them.”
Leon cleared his throat. “The lineage, sire. As I mentioned before, he bade me remember.”
Arthur glanced back and nodded, then up to Howel. “Do you recall what was said, my lord?”
Howel glanced down at the top of old Leundugrance’s head. “He told George to find the queen, but it was I who told him where to find her.”
“Then you did know her the other day in the street?”
“I wasn’t certain, sire.” Howel frowned at his hands. “It has been a long time, but I could think of no one else he might have meant. It was a chance to take, that it was her.”
Arthur nodded and looked once again to Leundugrance, who seemed happy to hum some wordless song with his eyes closed now, rocking back and forth on his stool. But then he perked up and told no one at all, “You don’t have to worry. He knew all along, it couldn’t be him.”
The words, so familiar, struck Arthur’s features slack on his face. “He planned this? Myrddin?”
“Mad old sorcerer,” Leundugrance muttered with a hint of asperity. “But not mad enough. Should have kept to his pockets. Can’t catch on fire there.”
“Did the Lady Gwendydd know? All this time, did she know?”
“No one ever knows,” Leundugrance crooned. “Smoke and crystals, he told her. Sight goes with age. I can see you, though. No more turtles here. They’ll steal your life if you let them. Promise it to someone else. Where is my pocket?” Leundugrance patted around his person in a sudden burst of concern. “I need my pockets!”
Arthur swallowed with the realization that he would likely never get the full story from Leundugrance, but he didn’t need it. The old man had done his part, and Arthur could forgive him his lapses. “Here, my lord.” Arthur guided his hand to a breast pocket and watched Leundugrance smile in relief at finding it. “Thank you for climbing out. To your last, you have served Camelot well.”
“Picket pocket ladder stop. Climb too high and buckets drop.”
Arthur nodded as he lowered his eyes to the floor and stood. He clapped Leon on the shoulder and allowed the servant to resume his promises of warm wine and blankets to coax Leundugrance off of the stool. Everyone in the room, save one, watched him amble away, sidetracked as he went by tapestries and then the wood grain of the door. “Don’t forget!” Leundugrance admonished it. “Tell her when it comes. You’ll know. She's waiting. Cranky old goat, he was, but we promised.” He made a few more insistent sounds at the lintel, gibberish by Arthur’s guess, before the servant was finally able to lead him out of sight.
Speaking of the one who did not turn to watch Leundugrance leave, Arthur let out his breath and meandered across the room at a safe distance from Meliot. “You lied to me, Sir Meliot. To my face this afternoon in the colonnade, and before that when Korbin’s men caught you in the vaults.” Arthur didn’t approach his throne. He faced it, but only because no one stood near enough to it to threaten him with acknowledgement or expectant glances. Or doubt. “You attacked a member of my household in plain sight of at least a hundred people, and sought to ruin the trust I have fought to build on the integrity of my crown.” When Meliot didn’t respond, Arthur turned to face him. The only sound in the room for a long time was that of Arthur’s labored breathing as it hissed and spit unexpectedly through his teeth. Finally, when he felt able to make his words intelligible, Arthur growled, “Give me one good reason not to kill you here and grind your blood into the tile grout as a reminder.”
Arthur could not recall a single moment when Meliot had ever been this subdued. His voice hoarse and thick, Meliot merely said, “I thought I was protecting you.”
An incredulous sound raked Arthur’s throat on the way out. “Protecting me? From Merlin?”
“He’s a sorcerer.”
“I know what he is!” Arthur bellowed.
“I didn’t know.” Meliot lowered his head even more, and to Arthur’s incredulity, he sounded as if he’d started to cry. “I didn’t know. I swear, sire. I thought he must have enchanted you, and your speech today…I thought there was no more time. I had to act. But then the way you looked…the way you sounded when you realized… It’s the way Uther sounded when Ygraine lay dying. I didn’t want another one of him, I swear. No one would ever be safe.”
Arthur’s lip trembled as his lungs seized in his chest. He only realized that he had drawn his sword when he noticed the point of it digging into the back of Meliot’s neck. “This wasn’t spur-of-the-moment. You contrived to steal a magical blade from the royal vaults to do it with. You were stalking him in the wheat field!”
“I’m sorry,” Meliot coughed. “I thought I was saving you from him.”
Arthur couldn’t stop shaking all of a sudden. He shoved his sword harder into Meliot’s skin, right into the spot where, on Merlin’s neck, the knot of his neckerchief would sit. A single bead of blood welled up against his blade, broke, and slid in a crimson line toward Meliot’s ear. The only spot of color in a grey room. “Do you know what Merlin told me last night?”
Meliot shook his head, even though it caused Arthur’s sword to dig in deeper.
“He told me that if one of my knights tried to kill him, he wouldn’t stop them.” Arthur grit his teeth over the impulse to simply jab his blade forward. It would be so easy. So satisfying. “Because my knights are supposed to protect me. And that’s not wrong of them. And he doesn’t want to hurt people who are not doing anything wrong.”
Meliot flinched as Arthur flipped his sword up, and then watched Arthur’s feet carry him away toward to the people lining the perimeter of the room.
“You attempted to assassinate a prince of Dyfedd,” Arthur announced, his voice flat by force alone. Several of those gathered murmured to themselves at this new information, while others merely heard the confirmation of what they already suspected or knew on their own. “And through your actions, its queen lay dead.”
“I place myself at your mercy, sire.”
Arthur bit the tip of his tongue and then countered, “You should be placing yourself at the mercy of Dyfedd. However wrought that alliance, Dyfedd is sworn to Camelot, and has proven itself in spite of us. You risk a war by your actions. How am I to appease them?” No matter that Dyfedd had no armies left. Or at least, not the kind that men were accustomed to fighting. Arthur had to wonder, if idly, what kind of force of magic might rise against them, were Merlin to call for it. Morgana’s allies still littered his kingdom; they might answer another call like hers.
Meliot snuffed at the floor where his knees rested. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”
“Spare him.”
Arthur looked up to where Hunith stood slightly apart from the others. He had wondered what she would say, when she realized that Arthur meant to leave the decision in her hands. If she would accept the burden. “My lady. You wish to speak?”
Hunith swallowed and glanced about at the sudden collection of eyes resting surprised upon her. “Sir Meliot acted according to his conscience. Even if he were right, he knew he could have been killed for his act of loyalty. Dyfedd forgives those who recognize their mistakes, sire. There has been enough death.”
No one moved for several moments, and then Arthur looked down at a man he had never liked, and who had never liked him. He didn’t trust Meliot’s show of repentance, but at the same time, he had no proof that what he claimed now was a lie. Softly, with a hint of teeth, Arthur asked him, “Do you know what else Merlin believes?” Without waiting for a response, he continued, “He believes that clemency is a virtue. Remember that as you walk these halls in future. It is only for him that I spare you. Do you understand?”
Meliot shifted on the ground and finally raised his eyes. The arrogance was still there, as it must be – no man can change his nature so quickly. But it was tempered now, and he had been humiliated. Meliot was not an easy man, and he and Arthur would never like each other, but Meliot did try to be loyal. He always had, in his own way. “Sire?”
“The Queen of Dyfedd has advocated for you, though you tried to murder her son.” Arthur shifted to make sure that his sword, while visible, remained pointed at the floor. “I accept her treaty on your behalf.”
Over near a pillar, Leon appeared ready to object, but he quelled the impulse without interference from anyone else.
“But I only forgive once, Sir Meliot. Your lapse was understandable this time. Such acts will not be excused again. My knights and nobles will support this kingdom, and the laws I make for it, or they will no longer enjoy my lenience. Get up.”
Meliot climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes flickering to the sword in Arthur’s hand. “I thank you, most humbly – ”
“Save it,” Arthur snarled. “And get out of my sight until I can look at you again without the blood you put on my hands.”
Meliot swallowed his words and the pride he had left, bowed, and then paused as he realized that at least half of those present were turning their backs to him as he stood. His slow steps carried him through a gauntlet of disgrace as he made his retreat.
Arthur deflated like a bellows as soon as Meliot was gone, and then nodded to Hunith that she might leave as well to go sit with her son. The congregation broke apart after that, and Arthur finally sank to sit on the throne he had claimed as his own for perhaps the first time. He would need to show his face in the lower town and put the fears of his people to rest, make sure that they still enjoyed at least some part of the celebrations and feast. But first, he needed this moment to himself, to let the weight of a kingdom settle onto shoulders that had finally built up strength enough to accept it.
~TBC~