Chapter Text
Karen Page was so confused. She had dealt with people in all sorts of odd circumstances, but this was a new one. She phoned Claire.
Phoning Claire was always a good idea.
Claire was the most level headed person Karen knew, which honestly, come to think of it, wasn’t saying much. But she had figured out how to wrangle vigilantes before that was even a thing.
She was pretty sure half of her friends would be dead five times over if it hadn’t been for Claire.
More.
That was a scary thought.
Claire answered the phone grumpily, as she always did.
Most of the time, the grumpiness was warranted.
“Whaddya want?” she asked.
“There’s this guy, sounds German or something but google translate isn’t picking up the language. Pretty sure he said the word Arthur though. And... Myrddin. And Camelot. Context clues, I think he’s claiming to be King Arthur.”
“Karen, I swear, if you are prank calling me.”
“I’m not. He’s this hunky blond dude, not as hunky as your Luke though, got a sword and everything. Wearing armor. I found him passed out by the Central Park reservoir. He’s kinda injured. No ID or anything.”
“I’m coming over. You owe me. Again. Where are you?”
“I brought him to the office. Seemed the best thing to do, in the circumstances.”
Claire was so done with these people and their bullshit. Armor, swords, strange languages, why hadn’t Karen called Danny? Why was Claire the one who got to deal with all the injured costumed maniacs in the city?
At least this one had probably just got lost on his way home from a costume party or ren faire or something. The language thing was probably the drink slurring his words.
She’d patch him up and send him home, and if he was still claiming to be King Arthur by the time she was done with that, Liz in the psych ward owed her a favour.
The guy was sitting on Karen’s desk, poking his sword at the fax machine that Nelson, Murdock and Page seemed to have acquired somewhere along the line and not managed to get rid of yet. He was… imposing. Smaller than Luke, but the armor gave him more… presence. If that were possible.
It sure was shiny. Claire knew nothing about these things, but she thought it was probably historically accurate. Definitely looked heavy.
She fixated on his belly, though, where the chainmail was split and darkened with dried blood.
Claire knew what a stab wound looked like, even through clothing.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she said. “Karen, I love you, but why didn’t you just drop him off at the nearest ER?”
The man started talking, and Claire now understood what Karen was getting at. He didn’t sound drunk or high. He didn’t even sound particularly weak from blood loss.
If he’d turned up at work, Claire would probably have called the police after wrapping a bandage round him.
“I’m sorry, we don’t understand you,” she said. She tried signing it, too, asking if he knew any other languages. He looked puzzled at the sign language.
She gave up and mimed taking his armor off, gesturing to the wound. She had some gauze and a suturing kit in her go-bag, and while she’d rather be doing this in a hospital, she’d definitely operated in worse places.
“Laece?” the man asked, pointing at Claire. It sounded a little like laceration. She nodded, which seemed to be the right thing to do, because he began unstrapping the shoulder plate, whatever that was called. Danny would know.
She set out her tools on the table in beside him, and he smiled.
He started trying another language, and this one Claire recognised a few words of. From her medical training, of all things. And the Church.
It sounded like Latin.
She didn’t actually know any Latin, other than medical terms - nothing that you might use in conversation. But she knew someone who did.
She glanced at Karen, then fished her phone out her bag and called Father Lantom.
“Claire?” he answered, blearily. “Does Matt need his last rites?”
“Not this time, Father,” she said. “I have a patient who seems to be speaking Latin and wearing medieval armor. We think he’s claiming to be King Arthur. Was wondering if you’d translate for us. I’m at Nelson, Murdock and Page.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “This can’t wait for tomorrow? It’s 2am. I have morning mass in a few hours.”
“I have work in a few hours, Father. You’re not the only one who wants to be in bed. We can do this over the phone though.”
“Veneficus,” the armored man hissed, when she turned it to speaker. He looked a mixture between angry and terrified.
“Non veneficus, filius,” came through the phone. There was a pause, as Father Lantom seemingly tried to find a word. He settled on: “Technologia. Not sorcery, technology.”
“Esne sacerdos?”
“Ita. Quid mali?”
“Nescio ubi sum. Morior eram, et Myrddinus magum esse dicebat, et hic evigilavi per lacum alienum. Has feminas non intellego. Quam linguam loquuntur?”
“Tardius loquere, quaeso. Meum latinum non tam bonum est quam vellem.”
“Quae lingua?”
“Lingua Anglica. Tu in America es.”
There was a pause, as the man appeared to take this information with more confusion than any before. “Anglice? America?”
“Ah,” the priest said. “I think I know what’s going on. Quid annus est? What year is it?”
“Quot annus? Octavus regni mei annus, et quinquagesimus tertius annus, ex quo pater meus Uther ad has oras venit.”
“Credo te diu mortuum fuisse, filium meum. Salva.”
The man’s face fell.
“Bring him to the Church,” Lantom said. “I think this is a conversation better had in person. We can take care of him, give him a bed.”
Claire breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Father. I’m not even going to ask what that was about. I don’t want to know.”
Karen, however, was practically vibrating. She definitely wanted to know.
Claire was happy to leave her to it. She re-bandaged the wound, which looked… unpleasant. It was oozing slightly, and would need debriding, but any infection hadn’t reached far.
It looked odd, for a stab wound. Definitely caused by a sword, but healing… oddly.
She would almost be inclined to say his story was the truth, at this point. She’d heard odder things. Undead ninjas, people (Danny) punching dragons in the heart.
The fact that her patient might well be a legendary king come back to life wasn’t too hard to believe.
If only she hadn’t fished Matt out of that dumpster, all those years ago.
Why had she agreed to tend to a violent masked man, again?
Oh yeah. Because she was an idiot with no self preservation instinct who now attracted idiots with even less.
At least Luke couldn’t get injured.
At least the Church was only a couple of blocks away.
The man (Claire refused to think of him as Arthur) could walk, but he was leaning pretty heavily on Claire and Karen. He’d strapped his armor back on, which didn’t help matters, but any attempts to get him to change into the spare clothes Matt kept in the office were met with blank stares.
Father Lantom met them at the gate. He’d got dressed, and the man breathed a sigh of something that felt like relief.
“Pater,” he said.
“Filius, gratus in hac domo dei.”
“Gratias, Pater.”
Lantom invited them in for a latte, decaf if preferred, but Claire declined. She was dreaming of a couple of hours in her nice warm bed. Karen seemed to be staying, so Claire shot her a look that said ‘you owe me,’ and wished them goodnight.
Karen didn’t think she could have a quiet walk. She missed the mountains sometimes. Vermont was a long time ago and a long way away, and she wanted it to stay that way, but she wished there were more trees in this city.
She wanted to go hiking.
Central Park was the next best thing.
When she’d run across the guy in armor, her first instinct had been to do the New Yorker thing and ignore him. He was probably crazy, drunk, on drugs, or otherwise dangerous.
She wasn’t sure why she’d decided to take him to the office, but this one felt different, kinda. Definitely injured. And if he was on drugs, well, it wasn’t like she didn’t know what that was like.
Maybe hanging out with Matt had got to her.
She was really glad Claire had understood some of his rambling and got Father Lantom involved. Latin. Who’d have thought it?
They were talking away at each other now, as she sat and sipped at her latte. It was good coffee, she had to admit. Maybe Foggy had a point and hers could be better. It was not swill, though, whatever he said.
She was curious about this man she’d rescued. She wasn’t sure if she’d actually rescued him, but it was nice to think of herself as the saviour of a literal knight in shining armor.
This would not have happened in Vermont.
“Have you ever met anyone called Myrddin?” Father Lantom interrupted her fantasy.
“I don’t think so. Pretty sure I’d remember a name like that. I can look into it though. Any last name?”
The priest asked something else, and got a long reply that he seemed to only half understand.
“No, apparently he isn’t a noble,” He paused, and let that sink in. “Arthur here is or thinks he’s from the middle ages. I’m not sure when exactly, not sure he is, either. He’s talking about Saxon invasions.”
“I’ll look into that too,” Karen said. She vaguely remembered learning about the Saxons at school, but didn’t pay enough attention at the time, let alone remember any of it now. She’d just recognised Arthur and Camelot cause she’d watched Sword in the Stone and had a bit of an obsession for about two months in fifth grade.
In her time as private eye for Nelson, Murdock and Page, learning from Jessica Jones (best in the business, amenable to bribery with cheap whiskey), Karen had found the best way to track someone down with a name was not through super crazy hacking skills, or bashing heads together (whatever Matt might think).
A good old light LinkedIn stalking usually did the trick.
That was, if the person being tracked had a last name.
She looked up Myrddin on the internet instead. Myrddin Wyllt, a legendary poet and bard, later connected with the figure Merlin, and the legendary King Arthur.
No sources seemed to agree on whether they’d been the same person, or even existed, but given the apparent evidence in front of her, or at least claims, she was willing to bet.
Myrrdin Wyllt on LinkedIn didn’t lead anywhere.
None of the names she searched with any connection to Merlin went anywhere.
She decided to go to a higher authority.
In the morning (late morning, practically mid afternoon) she begged off work for a couple of hours and went to see Jessica. She hadn’t told Matt or Foggy about the guy, they had enough on their plates.
“I have a problem,” she said.
“Uhuh.” Jess had her feet propped up on her desk, was chewing gum in place of drinking (they were collectively trying to get her to go sober, and it was almost working) and going through her latest case on her phone.
Or she was reading crappy fanfictions of the Avengers.
It was always hard to tell, with Jess.
“Guy I’m trying to track down; no last name, probable alias, only connection is a guy I dragged out of the reservoir last night who was wearing armor, only speaks Latin, and calls himself Arthur. Claims his friend’s name is Myrddin.”
Jessica swung her legs down and stared at Karen over steepled fingers. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. Half wish I was. Left him with Father Lantom. Thank God for Catholic priests that are still taught Latin in seminary.”
“Honestly, I’m gonna go with take this one to the cops. He’s not gonna pay you.”
“But I want to help!”
“Not why we’re in this, Kare.”
“You, maybe.”
“Bills exist. The boys know what you’re doing?”
“Nope.”
"Good. They’re entirely too selfless for their own good, those ones. Seriously, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the fuzz might be your guy’s best bet right now. Take him to Brett. Get his prints run. They’ll take him off your hands. And yep, I really can’t believe this is me saying this.”
“I, ah, he has a big sword. He will not be separated from it. I don’t think the cops like blunt instruments.”
“Get the priest to tell him that if he wants to find his friend, he’s gonna have to leave it in the church. I’m sure the nuns’ll look after it. You can’t win all of them, sometimes you’ve gotta give in before you start.”
Karen wasn’t satisfied with this, but she heeded it as fair enough advice. Brett was a good man. He would help, or at least, wouldn’t just lock the guy up immediately.
She went to talk to him first. She thought that was probably a better idea than turning up at the precinct with some guy in armor.
She really hoped Father Lantom had been able to persuade Arthur out of it and into something more modern. That could not be comfortable.
Wonder of wonders, Brett was at his desk.
Unfortunately, he seemed to be dealing with a Situation.
This involved an old man, a child, and an actual live goat.
Apparently its ownership was being contested. Karen could almost see Brett contemplating goaticide.
There was that story, wasn’t there, about the cow (or whatever) that got cut in half and split between the claimants. Some moral about fairness and justice. Matt had probably told it to her at some point. That cow couldn’t be more annoying than the goat.
There was a young man, kid really (goat pun, ha), who Karen recognised from the couple of times she’d been down to the morgue, trying to control this goat on the end of a piece of string next to Brett’s desk. She wasn’t really sure why a pathologist would be called in to deal with a goat; she assumed he’d grown up on a farm or something. He had a British accent, and ears that stuck out a little too far, and Karen had never learned his name.
“I’ll be with you in a minute, Page,” Brett yelled over at her.
“Take your time,” she yelled back.
She struck up a conversation with goat boy, who was apparently called Martin, and had grown up on a farm in what he called ‘the old country.’
She knew what that was like. They bonded over missing forests, a bit. He seemed like a good kid, a bit odd, but he worked in a morgue, that was to be expected.
She told him she’d found a man by the reservoir who spoke Latin, who she’d left in the church, and watched in concern as he turned several shades paler, until he looked even more like the corpses he worked with.
“Did you get a name?” Martin asked.
“Arthur, I think.”
He didn’t even respond, just gathered up the goat in his arms and ran out the door.
The claimants shouted after him, as Karen started to follow. She could hear Brett’s sigh over the racket, it was so loud.
She hated running in heels, but Martin was carrying a disgruntled goat so she could track him pretty easily. He was fast, though, even with the goat.
Several passers by stopped to move out his way, but this was New York. No one stopped to help the guy in armor, no one was especially phased by the goat.
Arthur (she was calling him Arthur now, in her head. She thought he probably deserved a better name than armor dude), was wearing a pair of jeans under the chainmail shirt, when she got to the church, puffing a little.
She really did need to work on her cardio. What would Jess think?
Martin was standing in the entrance, still holding the goat, staring at Arthur.
Arthur said something in the language he’d been speaking when she found him. Martin said something back, hesitantly, as if he didn’t quite remember the tongue.
Karen recognised the name that came next.
“Myrddin!”
Martin, Myrddin, whatever, dropped the goat, which landed with a startled bleat and tried to bite him.
He ran towards Arthur, but stopped a foot away and reached out, hesitantly, to touch his arm.
Arthur grabbed him, a little roughly, and pulled him into a kiss.
Myrddin pulled away, looking a little startled, and Karen could see the pain in Arthur’s posture.
A quick glance passed between them, and Myrddin reached up to kiss him right back, long and deeply.
Karen looked away. She felt slightly voyeuristic, intruding, and it wasn’t a nice feeling.
She left them to it, and went to find the goat. She owed Brett that much.
“Thank you, Karen,” Arthur said, haltingly, a couple of months later, Merlin’s arm around his waist. She’d been to see them a couple of times, and when she’d expressed confusion about Merlin’s name, that’s what he told her he called himself.
“I was Myrddin for a long time,” he’d said, “But I was named after the bird, and when the language changed I took that name. Actually, Myrddin means sea-fort, but you should try telling my mother that!”
“Hunith was a force of nature,” Arthur agreed. “I would not argue with her.”
Translations
Laece is old English for physician, referring to leeches rather than lacerations. Claire is horrified when she finds this out.
Latin section
"Sorcery,” the man hissed, when she turned it to speaker.
“Not sorcery, son,” came through the phone. There was a pause, as Father Lantom seemingly tried to find a word. He settled on: “Technology.”
“Are you a priest?”
“Yes. What's wrong?”
“I don't know where I am. I was dying, and Myrddin said he was a sorcerer, and I woke up here next to a strange lake. I don't understand these women. What language are they speaking?”
“Speak slowly, please. My Latin isn't as good as I would like.”
“What language?”
“English. You're in America.”
There was a pause, as the man appeared to take this information with more confusion than any before. “English? America?”
“Ah,” the priest said. “I think I know what's going on. What year is it?”
“What year? The eighth year of my reign, and the fifty-third year since my father Uther came to these shores.”
“I believe you have been dead for a long time, my son. Welcome back.”