Fic: Not Even Slightly Dickensian [1/?] [Teen]
Title: Not Even Slightly Dickensian [1/?]
Chapter: It's Entirely Possible to Get Off On The Wrong Foot Without Meeting, Yes
Author/Artist: little_giddy
Word count: ~3000
Rating: Teen
Category:Slash
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Morgana
Summary: Will include: cross-dressing, Secret Princess and Duke of Slut mockery, Penny Dreadfuls, Camelot as a completely ficties!19th Century almost industrial town, pick-pockets, masque balls. MERLIN AND ARTHUR MADE ME DO IT. And MAYBE MORGANA.
Warnings: No spoilers. There will be language.
Notes: I'm going to post a chapter a week until they let me go.
***
Morgana looked out across Camelot through the grubby garret window and wondered if she should answer the sharp knocking at the door or let them break it down.
She elected for the first; the last time she'd let them break it down, not only had it taken the landlord six weeks to replace the lock, it hadn't even blunted the edge of the guards' temper. He was a somewhat confused old soul, but still.
Wordlessly, she unchained the door, turned the key and raised an eyebrow at the blond on the other side. "Oh. You're new."
"I'm not a customer," the blond answered with a disdainful glance at her boyish clothes.
"Good," Morgana snapped back, deliberately tugging a cap from the desk on and tucking her hair up under it. "Because I'm no slapper for hire."
"Got a mouth like one," one of the blond's cronies - another man she didn't recognise - put in from the doorway.
Morgana hissed in his direction, turning as the blond turned over papers on the desk and idly tapped a key on the typewriter - now she was going to have to redo the entire bloody page.
"You know, you can't talk to us like that," the posh git said mildly, casting a raised eyebrow and slightly contemptuous glance at the overflowing and unruly bookshelves.
"I can talk to bobbies however the hell I bleedin' like," Morgana couldn't help walking across the room and slapping his wrist away from the papers on the desk. "I make a living and it's no business of yours."
The blond calmly grabbed her forearm and turned her before pushing her back to the door. Morgana shot him a glance: this one was cold. He'd pushed no harder than required to get her away from the desk, grabbed no harder than required to restrain her.
"That's the crown prince, Miss," a polite voice hissed by her ear and Morgana turned to see dark eyes and dark hair under the guard's cap. He had the flat of his hand at the base of her back, keeping her from wheeling into the doorway and the rude one from earlier.
"I don't care who 'e is," Morgana replied but with slightly less bite, "'e needs to get his bloody hands off my book before I cut them off."
The blond looked up, amused. "You write books? As your work?"
"It's enough," Morgana retorted, walking back to the desk and picking up a discarded draft copy of a book she'd sent off to the publishers the day before. "Care for a child's history of Camelot, sire? Or are my Penny Dreadfuls more your line? Look," she opened one of the cheap copies, "it even has pictures."
Arthur Pendragon looked at her, seeming vaguely amused by her existence, and gestured to the politer one by the door. "Lancelot. I think we're done here."
"Just sightseeing among the minions, my lord?" Morgana taunted.
The blond cast a glance at the one by the door again, the one Morgana could only assume answered when the royal arse decided it wasn't worth his time.
"We were informed, Miss, that this was a den of iniquity and sin," Lancelot replied with a nod and then a hard look at Arthur. "We're very sorry to have inconvenienced you in your work place."
"You should've just asked, boyos," Morgana smirked, leaning on the wooden chair, "that's Sophia's little whore house upstairs - red door. The rest of us didn't mind so much when it was just the men - it keeps the rent cheap - but she's been bringin' in some of the type that's rotting from the inside out, if you take my meaning. We don't want the poison 'ere any more than you want it on your side."
Lancelot and the unnamed oaf nodded with muttered thanks and left, Pendragon pausing in the doorway to narrow his eyes at her. "Your accent's a tiny bit mangled, you know."
Morgana raised an eyebrow as Lancelot quietly hissed, "Arthur. Tact."
"Aye," she answered, standing up and clasping her hands behind her back, "I dare say that it is. Now, don't you have other things to be doing?"
Arthur blinked before leaving: in the last sentence she had sounded as proper and correct as any courtier at his father's court, but apparently the mystery would have to wait, because she shut the door on him with a polite smile and correct, if rusty, curtsy.
*
The door slammed open and Morgana's eyes narrowed, hunched over the desk earning the rent, when a voice at her ear said, "So guess what old Lady Helen dropped at the market? Go on. Guess. The old bitch won't need it, don't worry; she hits her servants anyway."
Morgana clenches her teeth. "I am in the middle of a positively scintillating chase through the woods, complete with a ripping of a bodice, ghouls and a ditch. You and the percussion department upstairs are really not helping and Tauron is picking it up tonight."
Merlin grinned impudently, standing next to the chair with his hands behind his back, dressed in an old brown tan jacket, his usual scruffy trousers, shirt and neck tie. "Oh, I end up in a ditch this week? Leave me the latest when you're done."
Morgana snorted in a pretty unladylike fashion, if you asked Merlin. Not that Morgana did that often or anything. "Bodice, Merlin. What have you got that would justify a bodice? Don't answer that." Making a noise that stated outright rather than mysteriously implied Merlin's imminent death, Morgana turned in her seat and glared up at him from under whispy dark bangs. "I've saved your life once today. Piss off before I render that action pointless."
"Speaking of points-" Merlin brought his hand out from behind his back and grinned. The dagger was small, with a jeweled handle and made of a silver so fine that small ripples of blue appeared in the light. Morgana raised her eyebrows, slender fingers reaching for it almost automatically.
Merlin curled his fingers around the hilt and removed it from her reach. "If it's all the same," he said over his shoulder with a grin as he made his way to his room, "I'd rather wait til you've stopped threatening my life." He paused by the door and looked back, trying to make his expression as sincere and earnest as he could manage, "maybe Midwinter. I'd wrap it."
Morgana unceremoniously threw an old number of one of the rags she wrote for at him and when he removed his forearm from in front of his eyes, she was trying hard not to smile.
"So how was playing to the bobbies?" Merlin asked, shrugging off his coat and throwing it on his bed and returning to the main room. He pulled the bookcase that separated his room and their living space back across the gap in the door. It was a nice interior effect, and no one could say the flat was ordinary, but it was really because Morgana had nearly killed him the third time he'd walked past the living room door half-naked and the landlord hadn't bothered to fit a new door. He was crap like that.
"Fun," Morgana grinned, "I think I've nearly got this Lower City accent sorted, ol' mate."
Merlin swallowed and shook his head, keeping very still. The consequences for any perceived laughter would be truly, spectacularly dire. "No. You really haven't. And I don't see the need for it, either."
Morgana made a face and the typing resumed. Merlin grinned at her back and rooted around a box in the corner until he found what he was looking for: a brightly feathered hat and a slightly worn red cape that would pass inspection for a little while.
"Going out!" Merlin called as he stuffed the hat in a leather satchel, pulling on a less eye-catching cap that he was pretty sure belonged to Morgana. Apparently still with the bodice ripping fiend in the forest, she only nodded and waved imperiously over her shoulder.
*
Merlin took the uneven steps of the blood red stairwell quickly, nearly running into the landlord on the bottom flight. "Merlin," the old man said with a toothy grin that made Merlin thankful for the near-dark, drawing his name out like something rough dragged across a stony wall.
"Evening," he replied, bracing his back against the railing for maximum distance. God, had the landlord been at that stall in the market? His breath was pickled enough to be flammable.
"Going out?" He raised an eyebrow and leaned forward in a somewhat leery manner.
"Something like," Merlin replied, fidgeting with his neck scarf and fighting the urge to do what he'd done as a child: duck under taller men's arms and run like hell. Unfortunately, he'd turned out like a discarded ballet dancer- all arms and legs and different directions by fourteen, which narrowed down the options for places to duck and run.
"Good," the landlord grinned, almost purring, "good, young Merlin. Find-" Christ, the guy was even hiccuping, "-your destiny."
Merlin blinked as the landlord went into the first floor flat that was his own. He waited until the door had properly shut and then enacted part two of the earlier plan: running like hell.
*
In the castle, Arthur dislodged his feet from the unoccupied chair on the other side of the table and sat up a little straighter as his father quietly entered the room by having both doors flung open and his most officious footman announce his Majesty, King Uther of Camelot and its Territories throughout Albion and the Greater Seas and Isles across the Continents of the World-
"Yes, yes," Arthur stood and closed the door on the footman before the Pendragons conquered the moon and any trumpet players joined in, "quite. Now shoo."
His Majesty - also, merely coincidentally, you understand, his father - stood stoically and disapprovingly by the chair at the top of the table until Arthur rolled his eyes and pressed his back against the door. "Bloody hell, what did you do that for? Now they'll come and ask if we need anything every two seconds."
Uther's expression turned first a strange purple colour and then crinkled into amusement. "I thought you might be sleeping," he answered, leaning both hands on the top of the chair and mouth twitching, "you used to do that, you know - sleep in the oddest places."
"Well, not today," Arthur shot back, most of the irritation out of his voice.
His father frowned slightly and looked down at the table, raising a gloved hand across his mouth. "Good Heavens. A book. Are you quite all right?"
Arthur rolled his eyes and slid it across the table.
"The Tales of the Forest: The Fall of the House of DuFray, part two of eight," Uther read slowly, flicking through the cheap paperbound horror by 'Feyran O'Day' and chuckling under his breath. "It's not Aristotle, Arthur, but I'll take what I can get. Now, how are the patrols coming along?"
*
Merlin looked at the hat in the tall mirror opposite (lot #27, reserve price £100 according to the auctioneer's missing programme, safely in Merlin's pocket) and winced. But like a good little thief, he winced on the inside. On the outside, he smiled politely to Lady Helen and took a glass from the offered tray.
Sticking to the rear of the room, he moved around the edges of the crowd until he saw the item he was after. Lot #82, the final lot of the night. Reserve price £800. The reserve price - a very low estimate - was enough to make his palms sweat, but this wasn't commissioned thievery. This he needed.
Merlin circled the table widely, spying for the locks he knew would be underneath the table and possibly on the underside of the glass cabinet.
Two of the house officials hurried towards it, politely scattering the crowd and taking out keys that glittered to Merlin's eyes. His heart began to thump uncomfortably as they hustled lot #82 away, glass cabinet and all. Cleaning. They were taking it for cleaning. Or - something. He made his way to the extreme left of the crowded room, noting Lady Helen's absolutely pickled expression for future reference, and ducked into a staff hallway. The auction house was plush and ludicrously so; the staff areas lacked the same sheen and called for adjectives more along the lines of 'dilapidated' and 'dangerous.'
He rounded a corner and damn it, he was more careful than that, but the fresh smack of hindsight didn't stop Merlin banging into a baffled serving boy.
"Who-who- are you?"
Merlin blinked and then realised that, although a few inches shorter, the boy was a similar size.
"Sorry, my friend," Merlin apologised sincerely a few minutes later, stripping the unconscious man of his shirt and trousers. After pulling them on and stuffing his own clothes into his satchel, he rolled his eyes at himself and threw the red cloak over the bloke before running on.
A few minutes later, he slid into a cupboard next door to the auctioneer's main clerical office. Out in the hall, he knew, the auction would be just beginning. He knew that the same way he knew where the main office was: he'd been planning this lift for months. Muttering quietly about colossal injustices that came with actual hard work, Merlin gently took one of Morgana's little whiskey glasses from his bag and pressed it to the thin wall.
"Did his Majesty give any reason for requesting the item?"
The auction house owner sounded moderately desperate and Merlin couldn't blame him. A low reserve of £800. It was more money than most saw in a lifetime. Unless, of course, you were the bloody king of the bloody castle.
"Apparently not, but the prince's birthday is coming up soon," an assistant answered, and Merlin heard the sound of cloth being hurriedly cut.
"The prince?" There was a low laugh. "He'd have to know how to read. And spend a few hours away from his harem. I think he got funny ideas from all those idiotic stories about the colonials."
"Well," defended the assistant, "Hold that, will you- anyway, I don't think he's that bad. Else the Lower City would be full of little blond bastards, wouldn't it? And you mind how the queen loved books."
There was a beat of silence before a knock on the door and a polite female voice asking if the item was ready yet, because the payment had arrived, and the escort for the item.
"Escort?"
Merlin silently blessed the auctioneer. Yes, that was what he needed to know. Maybe he could take a shot at getting it in transit.
"Half the knights of Camelot, sir," came the polite, deferential answer and with it, the near-irresistible urge for Merlin to slam several fists into the wall.
"What was that?" the auctioneer asked, alarmed.
Merlin froze, struggling to calm his breathing.
"Just the wind outside," the assistant answered. "Please, Emily, take this down to them. And for God's sake, be careful with it. The king will have our heads if anything happens to it."
Merlin fervently wished he were a bad, bad person. Emily sounded shy - timid, even - and for all that he was a skinny wretch, Merlin was wiry and knew tricks with a fists or a pinch. He could hold his own, which was how one reached the grand old age of twenty one in the Lower City as a thief. But he wasn't a bastard. He couldn't attack this girl, not even for this.
*
Morgana raised her eyebrow and then kept raising it. Her editor, Tauron wasn't that intimidated.
"Morgana, you're the best writer I've got - drafts always on time, copies always sell - but this is where it's all going, you understand? At least for now. Give it a couple of months."
"I can kill people off horribly and imaginatively, really, I can," Morgana answered icily, taking a drink of her tea to soothe her, "but do not ask me to write trash about swooning maidens and masque balls and courtiers."
"The prince's birthday is coming up," Tauron explained with a hint of an indulgent smile, "and the king is in residence at Camelot again. Suddenly people are caring about the royals again. And they want to read trash."
"Can I write them as selfish, womanising bastards?" Morgana asked hopefully. "And then kill them horribly? Really, Tauron, I think it has a future."
Tauron laughed and patted her arm. "You're a vicious one, but try more sugar in your tea for this next serial, will you, child? I need this."
"Fine," Morgana rolled her eyes and shook the outstretched hand. "Only because it's you asking, you understand?"
The door opened in a flurry of curse words and Merlin stopped sharply, blinking in the firelight and waving. "Hullo, Tauron."
"Merlin," Tauron smiled crookedly, reaching into his bag and throwing him a bundle wrapped in string. "Here. The latest otherworldy mysteries for the young master."
Merlin laughed and Morgana squinted at him, catching the strain in his voice. He shook his head: later. "How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing," Tauron replied, standing and checking Morgana's latest rough copy was in his bag, "I haven't bought them yet. Tell me if you think they're good enough."
Merlin nodded and held the door open as Tauron exited.
Morgana caught his eye and pointed to the soft, wrecked chair across the low table from her that Tauron had vacated. "Sit."
Merlin sat and accepted the tea Morgana passed him.
"I hate the prince," Merlin said venomously over the rim of the mug. "And his stupid birthday."
"Me too," Morgana nodded, tapping the side of her own mug ominously. "First he comes along with the bobbies and messes up my pages. Now Tauron wants an eight-part serial all about - I don't know. A prince that's not quite Arthur so the press doesn't get shut down and enough Arthur that all of the Lower City buys the damn thing. I suppose he'll have to meet some Lower City flower girl and be happy or some bollocks," Morgana finished morosely. She looked up at him and sighed. "Why do you hate him?"
"He was here?!" Merlin spluttered, looking around the flat.
"Yes, Merlin," Morgana rolled her eyes. "And now he's not. Except in print. When I write it."
"Great," Merlin heaved a sigh and leaned back in the chair. "I think I prefer living with my own fictional selves than some Prince Prat." Morgana drew him a look. "What? It's not like you were actually going to call him Arthur."
"No, but now it's going to have to start with P!" Morgana countered, groaning.
"Which is, of course, the end of the city and the world," Merlin replied, stirring in another sugar. "Anyway, I went to steal the book, but before I could get near it, never mind put the plan in motion, Uther Bloody Pendragon sent someone to the auction house and bought it from under my nose. As a present. For Prince Arthur's birthday. So now I'm going to have to steal it from the sodding castle."
"He's making our lives hell and he doesn't even know it," Morgana curled her knees up under her body and glared out of the window.
"Prat," Merlin agreed, chinking his already-chipped tea cup against Morgana's.
***
Chapter: It's Entirely Possible to Get Off On The Wrong Foot Without Meeting, Yes
Author/Artist: little_giddy
Word count: ~3000
Rating: Teen
Category:Slash
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Morgana
Summary: Will include: cross-dressing, Secret Princess and Duke of Slut mockery, Penny Dreadfuls, Camelot as a completely ficties!19th Century almost industrial town, pick-pockets, masque balls. MERLIN AND ARTHUR MADE ME DO IT. And MAYBE MORGANA.
Warnings: No spoilers. There will be language.
Notes: I'm going to post a chapter a week until they let me go.
***
Morgana looked out across Camelot through the grubby garret window and wondered if she should answer the sharp knocking at the door or let them break it down.
She elected for the first; the last time she'd let them break it down, not only had it taken the landlord six weeks to replace the lock, it hadn't even blunted the edge of the guards' temper. He was a somewhat confused old soul, but still.
Wordlessly, she unchained the door, turned the key and raised an eyebrow at the blond on the other side. "Oh. You're new."
"I'm not a customer," the blond answered with a disdainful glance at her boyish clothes.
"Good," Morgana snapped back, deliberately tugging a cap from the desk on and tucking her hair up under it. "Because I'm no slapper for hire."
"Got a mouth like one," one of the blond's cronies - another man she didn't recognise - put in from the doorway.
Morgana hissed in his direction, turning as the blond turned over papers on the desk and idly tapped a key on the typewriter - now she was going to have to redo the entire bloody page.
"You know, you can't talk to us like that," the posh git said mildly, casting a raised eyebrow and slightly contemptuous glance at the overflowing and unruly bookshelves.
"I can talk to bobbies however the hell I bleedin' like," Morgana couldn't help walking across the room and slapping his wrist away from the papers on the desk. "I make a living and it's no business of yours."
The blond calmly grabbed her forearm and turned her before pushing her back to the door. Morgana shot him a glance: this one was cold. He'd pushed no harder than required to get her away from the desk, grabbed no harder than required to restrain her.
"That's the crown prince, Miss," a polite voice hissed by her ear and Morgana turned to see dark eyes and dark hair under the guard's cap. He had the flat of his hand at the base of her back, keeping her from wheeling into the doorway and the rude one from earlier.
"I don't care who 'e is," Morgana replied but with slightly less bite, "'e needs to get his bloody hands off my book before I cut them off."
The blond looked up, amused. "You write books? As your work?"
"It's enough," Morgana retorted, walking back to the desk and picking up a discarded draft copy of a book she'd sent off to the publishers the day before. "Care for a child's history of Camelot, sire? Or are my Penny Dreadfuls more your line? Look," she opened one of the cheap copies, "it even has pictures."
Arthur Pendragon looked at her, seeming vaguely amused by her existence, and gestured to the politer one by the door. "Lancelot. I think we're done here."
"Just sightseeing among the minions, my lord?" Morgana taunted.
The blond cast a glance at the one by the door again, the one Morgana could only assume answered when the royal arse decided it wasn't worth his time.
"We were informed, Miss, that this was a den of iniquity and sin," Lancelot replied with a nod and then a hard look at Arthur. "We're very sorry to have inconvenienced you in your work place."
"You should've just asked, boyos," Morgana smirked, leaning on the wooden chair, "that's Sophia's little whore house upstairs - red door. The rest of us didn't mind so much when it was just the men - it keeps the rent cheap - but she's been bringin' in some of the type that's rotting from the inside out, if you take my meaning. We don't want the poison 'ere any more than you want it on your side."
Lancelot and the unnamed oaf nodded with muttered thanks and left, Pendragon pausing in the doorway to narrow his eyes at her. "Your accent's a tiny bit mangled, you know."
Morgana raised an eyebrow as Lancelot quietly hissed, "Arthur. Tact."
"Aye," she answered, standing up and clasping her hands behind her back, "I dare say that it is. Now, don't you have other things to be doing?"
Arthur blinked before leaving: in the last sentence she had sounded as proper and correct as any courtier at his father's court, but apparently the mystery would have to wait, because she shut the door on him with a polite smile and correct, if rusty, curtsy.
*
The door slammed open and Morgana's eyes narrowed, hunched over the desk earning the rent, when a voice at her ear said, "So guess what old Lady Helen dropped at the market? Go on. Guess. The old bitch won't need it, don't worry; she hits her servants anyway."
Morgana clenches her teeth. "I am in the middle of a positively scintillating chase through the woods, complete with a ripping of a bodice, ghouls and a ditch. You and the percussion department upstairs are really not helping and Tauron is picking it up tonight."
Merlin grinned impudently, standing next to the chair with his hands behind his back, dressed in an old brown tan jacket, his usual scruffy trousers, shirt and neck tie. "Oh, I end up in a ditch this week? Leave me the latest when you're done."
Morgana snorted in a pretty unladylike fashion, if you asked Merlin. Not that Morgana did that often or anything. "Bodice, Merlin. What have you got that would justify a bodice? Don't answer that." Making a noise that stated outright rather than mysteriously implied Merlin's imminent death, Morgana turned in her seat and glared up at him from under whispy dark bangs. "I've saved your life once today. Piss off before I render that action pointless."
"Speaking of points-" Merlin brought his hand out from behind his back and grinned. The dagger was small, with a jeweled handle and made of a silver so fine that small ripples of blue appeared in the light. Morgana raised her eyebrows, slender fingers reaching for it almost automatically.
Merlin curled his fingers around the hilt and removed it from her reach. "If it's all the same," he said over his shoulder with a grin as he made his way to his room, "I'd rather wait til you've stopped threatening my life." He paused by the door and looked back, trying to make his expression as sincere and earnest as he could manage, "maybe Midwinter. I'd wrap it."
Morgana unceremoniously threw an old number of one of the rags she wrote for at him and when he removed his forearm from in front of his eyes, she was trying hard not to smile.
"So how was playing to the bobbies?" Merlin asked, shrugging off his coat and throwing it on his bed and returning to the main room. He pulled the bookcase that separated his room and their living space back across the gap in the door. It was a nice interior effect, and no one could say the flat was ordinary, but it was really because Morgana had nearly killed him the third time he'd walked past the living room door half-naked and the landlord hadn't bothered to fit a new door. He was crap like that.
"Fun," Morgana grinned, "I think I've nearly got this Lower City accent sorted, ol' mate."
Merlin swallowed and shook his head, keeping very still. The consequences for any perceived laughter would be truly, spectacularly dire. "No. You really haven't. And I don't see the need for it, either."
Morgana made a face and the typing resumed. Merlin grinned at her back and rooted around a box in the corner until he found what he was looking for: a brightly feathered hat and a slightly worn red cape that would pass inspection for a little while.
"Going out!" Merlin called as he stuffed the hat in a leather satchel, pulling on a less eye-catching cap that he was pretty sure belonged to Morgana. Apparently still with the bodice ripping fiend in the forest, she only nodded and waved imperiously over her shoulder.
*
Merlin took the uneven steps of the blood red stairwell quickly, nearly running into the landlord on the bottom flight. "Merlin," the old man said with a toothy grin that made Merlin thankful for the near-dark, drawing his name out like something rough dragged across a stony wall.
"Evening," he replied, bracing his back against the railing for maximum distance. God, had the landlord been at that stall in the market? His breath was pickled enough to be flammable.
"Going out?" He raised an eyebrow and leaned forward in a somewhat leery manner.
"Something like," Merlin replied, fidgeting with his neck scarf and fighting the urge to do what he'd done as a child: duck under taller men's arms and run like hell. Unfortunately, he'd turned out like a discarded ballet dancer- all arms and legs and different directions by fourteen, which narrowed down the options for places to duck and run.
"Good," the landlord grinned, almost purring, "good, young Merlin. Find-" Christ, the guy was even hiccuping, "-your destiny."
Merlin blinked as the landlord went into the first floor flat that was his own. He waited until the door had properly shut and then enacted part two of the earlier plan: running like hell.
*
In the castle, Arthur dislodged his feet from the unoccupied chair on the other side of the table and sat up a little straighter as his father quietly entered the room by having both doors flung open and his most officious footman announce his Majesty, King Uther of Camelot and its Territories throughout Albion and the Greater Seas and Isles across the Continents of the World-
"Yes, yes," Arthur stood and closed the door on the footman before the Pendragons conquered the moon and any trumpet players joined in, "quite. Now shoo."
His Majesty - also, merely coincidentally, you understand, his father - stood stoically and disapprovingly by the chair at the top of the table until Arthur rolled his eyes and pressed his back against the door. "Bloody hell, what did you do that for? Now they'll come and ask if we need anything every two seconds."
Uther's expression turned first a strange purple colour and then crinkled into amusement. "I thought you might be sleeping," he answered, leaning both hands on the top of the chair and mouth twitching, "you used to do that, you know - sleep in the oddest places."
"Well, not today," Arthur shot back, most of the irritation out of his voice.
His father frowned slightly and looked down at the table, raising a gloved hand across his mouth. "Good Heavens. A book. Are you quite all right?"
Arthur rolled his eyes and slid it across the table.
"The Tales of the Forest: The Fall of the House of DuFray, part two of eight," Uther read slowly, flicking through the cheap paperbound horror by 'Feyran O'Day' and chuckling under his breath. "It's not Aristotle, Arthur, but I'll take what I can get. Now, how are the patrols coming along?"
*
Merlin looked at the hat in the tall mirror opposite (lot #27, reserve price £100 according to the auctioneer's missing programme, safely in Merlin's pocket) and winced. But like a good little thief, he winced on the inside. On the outside, he smiled politely to Lady Helen and took a glass from the offered tray.
Sticking to the rear of the room, he moved around the edges of the crowd until he saw the item he was after. Lot #82, the final lot of the night. Reserve price £800. The reserve price - a very low estimate - was enough to make his palms sweat, but this wasn't commissioned thievery. This he needed.
Merlin circled the table widely, spying for the locks he knew would be underneath the table and possibly on the underside of the glass cabinet.
Two of the house officials hurried towards it, politely scattering the crowd and taking out keys that glittered to Merlin's eyes. His heart began to thump uncomfortably as they hustled lot #82 away, glass cabinet and all. Cleaning. They were taking it for cleaning. Or - something. He made his way to the extreme left of the crowded room, noting Lady Helen's absolutely pickled expression for future reference, and ducked into a staff hallway. The auction house was plush and ludicrously so; the staff areas lacked the same sheen and called for adjectives more along the lines of 'dilapidated' and 'dangerous.'
He rounded a corner and damn it, he was more careful than that, but the fresh smack of hindsight didn't stop Merlin banging into a baffled serving boy.
"Who-who- are you?"
Merlin blinked and then realised that, although a few inches shorter, the boy was a similar size.
"Sorry, my friend," Merlin apologised sincerely a few minutes later, stripping the unconscious man of his shirt and trousers. After pulling them on and stuffing his own clothes into his satchel, he rolled his eyes at himself and threw the red cloak over the bloke before running on.
A few minutes later, he slid into a cupboard next door to the auctioneer's main clerical office. Out in the hall, he knew, the auction would be just beginning. He knew that the same way he knew where the main office was: he'd been planning this lift for months. Muttering quietly about colossal injustices that came with actual hard work, Merlin gently took one of Morgana's little whiskey glasses from his bag and pressed it to the thin wall.
"Did his Majesty give any reason for requesting the item?"
The auction house owner sounded moderately desperate and Merlin couldn't blame him. A low reserve of £800. It was more money than most saw in a lifetime. Unless, of course, you were the bloody king of the bloody castle.
"Apparently not, but the prince's birthday is coming up soon," an assistant answered, and Merlin heard the sound of cloth being hurriedly cut.
"The prince?" There was a low laugh. "He'd have to know how to read. And spend a few hours away from his harem. I think he got funny ideas from all those idiotic stories about the colonials."
"Well," defended the assistant, "Hold that, will you- anyway, I don't think he's that bad. Else the Lower City would be full of little blond bastards, wouldn't it? And you mind how the queen loved books."
There was a beat of silence before a knock on the door and a polite female voice asking if the item was ready yet, because the payment had arrived, and the escort for the item.
"Escort?"
Merlin silently blessed the auctioneer. Yes, that was what he needed to know. Maybe he could take a shot at getting it in transit.
"Half the knights of Camelot, sir," came the polite, deferential answer and with it, the near-irresistible urge for Merlin to slam several fists into the wall.
"What was that?" the auctioneer asked, alarmed.
Merlin froze, struggling to calm his breathing.
"Just the wind outside," the assistant answered. "Please, Emily, take this down to them. And for God's sake, be careful with it. The king will have our heads if anything happens to it."
Merlin fervently wished he were a bad, bad person. Emily sounded shy - timid, even - and for all that he was a skinny wretch, Merlin was wiry and knew tricks with a fists or a pinch. He could hold his own, which was how one reached the grand old age of twenty one in the Lower City as a thief. But he wasn't a bastard. He couldn't attack this girl, not even for this.
*
Morgana raised her eyebrow and then kept raising it. Her editor, Tauron wasn't that intimidated.
"Morgana, you're the best writer I've got - drafts always on time, copies always sell - but this is where it's all going, you understand? At least for now. Give it a couple of months."
"I can kill people off horribly and imaginatively, really, I can," Morgana answered icily, taking a drink of her tea to soothe her, "but do not ask me to write trash about swooning maidens and masque balls and courtiers."
"The prince's birthday is coming up," Tauron explained with a hint of an indulgent smile, "and the king is in residence at Camelot again. Suddenly people are caring about the royals again. And they want to read trash."
"Can I write them as selfish, womanising bastards?" Morgana asked hopefully. "And then kill them horribly? Really, Tauron, I think it has a future."
Tauron laughed and patted her arm. "You're a vicious one, but try more sugar in your tea for this next serial, will you, child? I need this."
"Fine," Morgana rolled her eyes and shook the outstretched hand. "Only because it's you asking, you understand?"
The door opened in a flurry of curse words and Merlin stopped sharply, blinking in the firelight and waving. "Hullo, Tauron."
"Merlin," Tauron smiled crookedly, reaching into his bag and throwing him a bundle wrapped in string. "Here. The latest otherworldy mysteries for the young master."
Merlin laughed and Morgana squinted at him, catching the strain in his voice. He shook his head: later. "How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing," Tauron replied, standing and checking Morgana's latest rough copy was in his bag, "I haven't bought them yet. Tell me if you think they're good enough."
Merlin nodded and held the door open as Tauron exited.
Morgana caught his eye and pointed to the soft, wrecked chair across the low table from her that Tauron had vacated. "Sit."
Merlin sat and accepted the tea Morgana passed him.
"I hate the prince," Merlin said venomously over the rim of the mug. "And his stupid birthday."
"Me too," Morgana nodded, tapping the side of her own mug ominously. "First he comes along with the bobbies and messes up my pages. Now Tauron wants an eight-part serial all about - I don't know. A prince that's not quite Arthur so the press doesn't get shut down and enough Arthur that all of the Lower City buys the damn thing. I suppose he'll have to meet some Lower City flower girl and be happy or some bollocks," Morgana finished morosely. She looked up at him and sighed. "Why do you hate him?"
"He was here?!" Merlin spluttered, looking around the flat.
"Yes, Merlin," Morgana rolled her eyes. "And now he's not. Except in print. When I write it."
"Great," Merlin heaved a sigh and leaned back in the chair. "I think I prefer living with my own fictional selves than some Prince Prat." Morgana drew him a look. "What? It's not like you were actually going to call him Arthur."
"No, but now it's going to have to start with P!" Morgana countered, groaning.
"Which is, of course, the end of the city and the world," Merlin replied, stirring in another sugar. "Anyway, I went to steal the book, but before I could get near it, never mind put the plan in motion, Uther Bloody Pendragon sent someone to the auction house and bought it from under my nose. As a present. For Prince Arthur's birthday. So now I'm going to have to steal it from the sodding castle."
"He's making our lives hell and he doesn't even know it," Morgana curled her knees up under her body and glared out of the window.
"Prat," Merlin agreed, chinking his already-chipped tea cup against Morgana's.
***