Rheged Part 4

[mcshame]

Rheged Part 4



Arthur pursed his full mouth consideringly, frowning even more deeply now, still studying Merlin with that cool gaze. Judging him; finding him, Merlin supposed, wanting, as ever, but now far too measured to say such a thing to his Court Sorceror.

Instead, with a small, sour moue, he walked to the table and sat in his chair, set at the end, picking up the goblet in front of it. He flopped back and gestured Merlin shortly to sit in the other chair at the table’s side.

Merlin swallowed and scuttled forward, sat gingerly, and looked at the full goblet of wine sitting there prepared for him.

“Drink,’” Arthur said. His voice was hard and it sounded like an order, not an invitation, so Merlin did, a small careful sip. Once he would have launched again spontaneously into an account of his doings; now he waited for a cue. It felt odd though, this strange sense of hostility; it had been so long since Arthur had shown him any strong emotion.

The silence stretched.

“Have you been back long?”

Merlin cleared his throat. “Er no… no. Um… Sire. I mean, I just had time to change and…”

“So. You haven’t seen Gwaine?”

Gwaine?

Merlin frowned, totally at a loss now, and worried.

Had Arthur somehow got wind of Gwaine’s plan? Was he unhappy that one of his knights should think to wed under the Old Religion and to a warlock? Put like that…he could see it might be an issue.

“Gwaine? Um… yeah? I just …” He braced his shoulders. Why lie? “Yes, I just left him”

Arthur’s jaw clenched and he glared down at the table, long fingers twirling his goblet stem, turning it round and round on the table. His thoughts seemed to be angering him; in fact to Merlin’s nervous eyes, he looked close to homicidal, and it was a long time since he’d seen Arthur like that. But for long seconds the awful silence ticked on.

“Tell me...” Arthur’s mouth seemed to twist and Merlin’s apprehension rocketed aloft and took wings. The king’s voice sounded harsh, older suddenly, and Merlin opened his mouth to do just that, as if compelled…

Tell him…Arthur … all about Gwaine’s insane lovely determination; about this… dream that they should wed? Admit that he, Merlin, was actually kind of considering it; the concept of being loved that much, of not having to be alone? Considering throwing both of them on Arthur’s mercy, as idiots in love. Well, it was worth a try? But he didn’t get the chance.

“You told me… after you.. returned…” Merlin’s eyes snapped to Arthur’s, startled, and he closed his mouth. “You told me what the Great Dragon said to you. At the start.” Arthur scowled down at the goblet, moving it relentlessly between his long fingers. “About… destiny. Mine. And…yours.” He seemed to force his eyes up to meet Merlin’s by an act of will. Merlin stared speechlessly back. “Repeat it again. What he said. The Great Dragon. His exact words.”

It was an order again, hard, relentless, no question of it, but Arthur, to Merlin’s eyes, was bracing himself for the reply.

Merlin stared at him, guts really churning now with worry. It was more than a sore point between them; Arthur had almost run him through when he’d admitted he’d set the dragon free. Twice. And then... the White Dragon...

Merlin could still see Arthur’s look of disgust, of betrayal, barely lessened by Merlin’s babbling excuses.

“The… um… the dragon…?” he croaked, but the withering stare he received was familiar enough of old to gather his wits. He tried to think. What had the dragon said, word for word? ‘You cannot hate that which makes you whole?’ Yeah, he thought he’d skip that one. But the gist of it…

“He said… well … at the start, that it was my destiny to …to stand with you, protect you …and help you become a great king and …unite … Albion.” He trailed off.

Arthurs jaw clenched. He was glaring into the goblet again, still twisting the stem back and forth between his strong fingers, as if the wine within was showing him grim, unwanted things. Merlin stopped.

“What. Else?” Arthur bit out.

What else? Merlin’s mind began to blank.

So many things, but they’d all been at the beginning, in his first months in Camelot. It was so long ago.

“Well, he helped me … advised me what to do... at times… When there were magical attacks…on Camelot, I mean…on you. Or your father. He did help a lot…really…with the Questing Beast for one…and The Black Knight…the Dorocha… Agravaine, Mordred…” He stopped. Arthur’s eyes stayed fixed on his own hands and Merlin could see yet again that all the things he, Merlin, had done in all that time, the horrible, terrifying choices he’d had to make alone, hidden in the shadows, all for Arthur, were viewed now by Arthur himself with disgust. Unworthy acts of betrayal. But he plodded on, grimly. It seemed a lack of gratitude was to be his eternal lot with Arthur, prince or king. “Near the start he said …he said I was.. one side of a coin... and... you... were the other,” he said finally, defiantly into the frigid silence. “That we were bound and set together by destiny. Two halves of a…” his voice slowly petered out, “…whole.”

It sounded ludicrous now. Pitiful.

Merlin looked down at his own goblet and raised it shakily to his lips, gulped too large a mouthful of the king's good wine, but the burning of the liquid in his throat helped him bite back his emotion.

He looked up again bravely and met Arthur’s burning stare.

But when he looked into those hard, searching eyes, he was stunned by the depth of feeling he saw there, and he couldn’t hope to untangle it.

Merlin took a deep involuntary breath, felt his own eyes widen, startled and wary, and he realised abruptly that, whatever had happened in his absence, whatever he’d thought this might be about, he was lost. Totally out of his depth. He felt like a rabbit caught in the sights of a cross bow.

“Arthur?” he asked nervously and then caught himself, “Sire?”

Arthur’s mouth worked and he swallowed hard.

“A delegation arrived from Rheged two days ago.”

Merlin blinked, totally lost now. “Yes,” he said, cautiously, voice hushed. “Bran told me I was to meet them tonight.” Arthur frowned impatiently, as if trying to place the name, so Merlin was forced to mutter embarrassedly, “My… manservant.”

He registered the quick ironic quirk of Arthur’s lips with a kind of desperate nostalgia.

“Right,” Arthur said gravely, turning away from the open target as Merlin’s Arthur never would have done. He loosed the stem of his goblet and drummed his fingers on the table, then abruptly he stopped the movement. “You know how invaluable an alliance with Rheged could be. They came to pledge friendship. And to bring gifts to celebrate my marriage. Very belatedly, of course.” His eyes stayed fixed on his own hand. “The thing is…” His mouth thinned, “they arrived believing I’d married you.”

Merlin stilled. It took him whole seconds to begin to understand, and then shock blanked his mind. He realised his mouth had dropped open and he couldn’t stop it.

Arthur lifted his goblet and took a savage swig of wine, blue eyes blazing angrily over the rim.

“I…” Merlin began helplessly, but he didn’t truly know what to say, and he could feel the flush of nervousness on his face heating and deepening into the crimson stain of desperate embarrassment. The immediate, instinctive thought that Arthur was joking, setting him up, died stillborn in seconds; those days were long past. And Arthur wasn’t a good enough actor to feign this seething upset.

Merlin found he was trying as hard as he could not to picture the scene, and all he could feel at first was a huge, unmanning gratitude that he hadn’t been present when that little gem was revealed.

Had it been in front of everyone? All the knights? The nobility? Why hadn’t Gwaine warned him?

Then, guilt, ridiculous, automatic guilt set in, as the things he’d heard murmured among the Druids, heard and instantly filed away… easily, relentlessly ignored as irrelevant to him, all suddenly flashed back, horribly threatening. And there was a horrible, automatic sense of responsibility too, that ambassadors of magic had so embarrassed Arthur in front of his own court.

He wondered then, still half stunned, why Arthur was telling him at all. Was he meant to laugh? Apologise?

“I’ve talked to their leader, over the last two days,” Arthur went on steadily, still staring hard at Merlin like an insect on a pin, as if somehow, as ever, he was being held to blame. “Myrthyrn. That’s his name.” Arthur drew a deep, deep breath; released it slowly. He looked, Merlin thought, as reined in and emotionally knotted as he’d ever seen him. “Their king and his court sorceror are… bound. Wed.” He bit the word off distastefully. Merlin looked back at him numbly; wide-eyed, waiting, horrified. “They had heard…” Arthur grimaced and swallowed, “Believed…”

Merlin couldn’t bear it any more.

“Well, that would explain it then!” he blurted, all desperate overdone cheer, “They just got… confused… Their customs aren’t ours. Thankfully!”

Was Arthur trying to prepare him for the mockery of the court? Warning him, from some left over friendship? What? Merlin’s heart was racing, skittering like a mouse on a wheel.

He found he was grinning desperately, a pitifully false attempt at camaraderie.

Arthur didn’t return it.

“Yes,” Arthur bit out with cold precision, “That’s what he said at first... before the court.” He threw his head back suddenly, his strong, smoothly tanned neck stretched before Merlin’s eyes, Adam’s apple bobbing, as he sneered at the ceiling. “Forgive us… Our customs are different…” He dropped his head again and stared at Merlin for long, angry seconds. “But I spoke to him. Later. And the day after. Did you know that we were foretold? Merlin. You and I? Did your dragon tell you that?”

Merlin drew a sharp breath, the discounted words of Taliesin, of the Druid priests echoing emptily in his head.

“I …told you…” It occurred to him suddenly, stupidly, that he and Arthur were talking like people again, as they used to, but it didn’t sober him enough to stop. He was beyond that. “He said... the dragon said…”

“Two sides of a coin. Yep. Funnily enough that’s exactly how…exactly how Myrthryn described it too… his king’s bond with his sorceror. It’s what caught me first. Those … exact… Words.” Arthur took a deep draught of wine, and his voice sounded even more displeased when he’d swallowed, his eyes trained again on the goblet as he set it on the table. “He very graciously gave me all the gory details when I asked.”

He drew a deep breath through his nose, then let it out in a long, angry sigh.

He looked up and held Merlin’s gaze effortlessly. “A binding of two souls.” Voice somehow accusing, full of suppressed anger. “Destined to be linked; meant… always… to be united… in this life and all that follow. A union of two halves, essential to make a whole, or neither will ever be complete. Set in place by magic. Between creatures of magic. Beyond death. Eternal.”

There was a long, shocked silence when he finished, as Merlin stared back at him, wordless and appalled.

Where was this going?

Arthur looked to him, Merlin realised with a kind of mounting, animal panic, aggressively focussed, the way he'd always seen him before a vital tournament or a battle to the death. The way he'd looked after Merlin had told him about his ancient destiny as the king who would forge Albion forever.

“Arthur…?” Merlin’s throat felt parched. “I don’t…”

“Did you know…? Merlin? Just… neglect to tell me? Again.”

“No! No I didn’t! Arthur! ” And he hadn’t. The dragon hadn’t said that. Not like that.

But what he had said…Merlin thought now, mind skittering with fear… He should have known. Looking at it now, Kilgarrah had always more than implied it, hadn’t he …he’d told him over and over that they needed each other to be whole?

‘You cannot truly hate that which completes you.‘

How, looking at it now, how could he have ignored the implications of that? But Merlin had ignored it, with perfect ease, hadn’t even thought to look at it that way, blanked it because it was just… ludicrous. And anyway... all the dragon had talked about for years was Merlin’s role as Arthur’s protector whose task to shepherd Arthur safely to his place in history. Nothing more. Merlin had almost forgotten all he was told at the start, until he’d been forced to tell his whole story to Arthur.

“Its just … their king though,” he put in desperately, ‘It doesn’t mean… you.”

But his gut suddenly knew differently. And so, he was beginning to see, did Arthur.

Those beautiful eyes glared at him, flinty, accusing.

“Myrthryn told me. He explained it all… the legends of the Old Religion.” He pursed his mouth. “You should know them, shouldn’t you?” He looked coldly furious. Raging with accusation and resentment, as if this was somehow his fault. Merlin’s fault. “After all, it’s you and me. Apparently. He said these bonds in magic are incredibly rare anyway. But we’ve been foretold for centuries. That’s what he said. Emrys.” Merlin started, and he knew Arthur had seen it; saw it in the curl of his lips “That’s who he says you are, Merlin. But we knew that. The Awaited One. The greatest warlock ever born,” His steely glare bored into Merlin. “And the Once And Future King who’ll conquer evil with his aid … unite all before him. And defeat the power of death to protect mankind in its greatest need.“

Merlin took a gasping breath. “Arthur…” He felt quite terrified and yet he didn’t know why. “I don’t know what …“ Then at last, from nowhere, a desperate focus, even if it betrayed all he knew. “Look… It makes no difference. Its just a legend!"

“It’s your religion, Merlin! Its magic.“ Then, “You knew!”

“No! Not… The Druids … well they may have mentioned something about my destiny and maybe... something about it being... tied to the The Once And Future King, but not specifically…”

Arthur stood and threw back his chair in one smooth, violent movement, the scrape of wood on stone shockingly loud in the stillness of the room. He turned and paced to the window, then turned again. He looked ragingly angry now, emotions boiling at the surface, on the edge of violence as he rarely was off the field.

“And were you going to tell me?” He seemed to be fighting to keep his voice level but it was still loud, intimidating. “Or keep it from me, ‘for my own good’ like so many things you’ve hidden? So many things you manipulated me into and away from?” The volume lowered but it sounded no less threatening, just colder. “Can I ever really trust you, Merlin?”

And there it was, what Arthur so clearly felt every time he looked at him, but never voiced aloud any more. What hurt Merlin all the time now, as he hadn’t believed he could hurt: the exchange of what he’d gained - Arthur's knowledge and tolerance - for all he’d lost - Arthur’s blind belief in his loyalty.

Suddenly it was an intolerable rage building and boiling in Merlin’s ears and his head and his blood. All the injustice of it - of all he’d done, all for Arthur, his focus; of all the tears he’d shed for him, all the dark, bitter guilt he bore, all the long overlooked years of fear and mockery and slow rejection, only to climax in this. He pushed back his chair too and jumped to his feet, unable to bear the vulnerability of sitting down a second longer.

“And what was I supposed to say, Arthur? Exactly?” Yelling. “If I’d even thought it through myself? Oh I know! I could’ve said... the Druids have this deranged idea that I may be the most powerful sorceror ever, and without me you can’t be the greatest king in history! How’s that your Majesty? And the Great Dragon says we’re two sides of a coin, so maybe that really means we should be bound together! You and me! Merlin! That incompetent servant you never wanted or respected and don’t trust! Then there’s the little detail that you don’t trust the Old Religion either and you loathe magic. But… that’s destiny for you! How deep a dungeon would you have shoved me into? Sire.”

Arthur stared at him through his rant, silenced. It felt almost like old times. His full mouth tensed, and then his shoulders seemed to slump minutely, anger draining from him almost visibly. He looked away.

He said, slowly, carefully, “You think I haven’t been scratching through it every hour since they came? Trying to find a way not to believe it. But if they’re right, it’s part of it ... all of it. You and me. Two halves of a whole.”

“And you know what’s involved?” Merlin asked harshly. “You know what you have to do to form a union like that? Its not like a friendly agreement. Did your chatty visitor tell you that?”

Arthur looked away, his mouth a twist of distaste.

“Myrthryn said… “ He straightened, flushing. “It’s formed through the force of life. Seed. And magic. To do it… I'd have to take you, and your magic finishes it.”

Merlin stared at him, and his pulse was thundering in his ears like the tide.

Gwen was his friend. And Gwaine was the true knight who’d just laid his heart at his feet. This had to stop.

“This is madness, Arthur!” He said, voice low and sure, even to his own ears, no nonsense. “You’re have your queen. One day she’ll give you children... Pendragon heirs. And she’s beautiful and kind and brave! She’s the perfect wife; your true love. Even the dragon said so!" Arthur looked at him sharply and Merlin nodded frantically in confirmation, desperate to get through to him somehow. "Yes. That’s how the spell binding you to Lady Vivien was broken! Gwen! You’ve known for years that she was for you! You defied your father; turned your back on political marriages, offered up your throne.. hell you handed over Gedref, remember? Just to be with her. You waited years to have her! Just her!” He laughed suddenly, “This is insane! I’ve never ever seen you as …as content as you've been since you married! You could have lost her when Morgana took her, but you were lucky! You have your true love. She’s totally yours! And here you are, letting yourself get screwed up listening to insane prophesies from mad old warlocks!”

He ground to a halt eventually, uneasily aware of how over the top that had been. But it was all true. And he was desperate to make Arthur see, to stop this madness before it damaged him…damaged them any more. He was sure Arthur had just needed to be reassured, that was all, and Merlin had years of practice in doing that.

Arthur was looking at him, expression impossible to read. Then he looked away.

“Well. You’re certainly a loyal friend to Guinevere,” he said uncomfortably. His gaze snapped back to Merlin, eyes hard, unreadable. “Or are you just that desperate to run away from this?”

Merlin stared back, shocked into silence. And at last then, the knowledge became real in his head, that Arthur wasn’t just discussing this. This wasn’t some exchange of views.

“I don’t understand,” he said at last and he knew he sounded plaintive, pitiful, lost, very far from a great and legendary sorceror. “I don’t… what do you want me to say?”

“What do you want Merlin?” Arthur countered nastily. “To forget it? See Albion’s ultimate destiny laid out before us, inexorable and …there… and just ignore it? Like cowards?“

Merlin swallowed hard. He stood tall, urgent, defensive.

“We don’t have to ignore anything, Arthur! Can’t you see that?”and he was pleading now, “I swore it to you. I’ll stay by your side, protecting you and helping you... or die beside you. It doesn’t have to be more than that. If you try to make it more… we could ruin everything! Think of Gwen … and I …love Gwaine.”

“Are you this…Emrys? Are you sure?” Arthur interrupted harshly. His stare was steel; a challenge.

“Arthur…I don’t… Look, I don’t know. Honestly.” He held out his hands, palms up, in supplication. “The Druids… they keep calling me that… The Cailleach ... did…” He hadn’t told Arthur about that before, he realised suddenly; the visions that came to him when Morgana tore the veil between the worlds. Taliesin. The Fisher King. And Mordred... don’t forget Mordred.... He hesitated, but all his past dishonesty, all his lies to Arthur, forced his tongue. “I know I’m ...different …more powerful than most, because I can do things… do magic without spells and…slow time, ” he saw Arthur’s eyes widen slightly - he’d held that bit back when he showed Arthur how strong he was - but he hurried on, “But I don’t know… I don’t feel like some legendary sorceror. Alot of the time I’m sure they’ve got it wrong.”

“You battled Nimueh and killed her.” Arthur’s voice was relentless, low and powerful. “You told me. And all the things you did to help me… over the years…”

All those things you resent me for…

Just then, as if the gods were laughing, a shaft of evening sunlight broke through the window and lit Arthur’s hair to new gold and Merlin thought in that second that he looked like some young warrior god, too beautiful and terrifying for the world. Certainly too great and fine for Merlin. The despair he felt was almost solid in him; a lump in his chest.

“It doesn’t matter! Does it? If I’m Emrys or not! I’m your servant. Any power I find I have… it’s yours! Arthur?! I told you… until the day I die! It doesn’t need to be...”

Arthur moved suddenly, three long paces until he was directly in front of Merlin, still standing defensively in front of the table.

“Or maybe it does, Merlin. Maybe, I want it to be.”

Merlin stared at him, and Arthur glared back, all impatient power. Merlin raised his hands helplessly. He felt like he was losing, losing an important fight.

“What does that...? You’re not a creature of magic!”

“I was born of it. Myrthyrn said that’s enough.”

“I don’t…” Merlin closed his eyes, shook his head, panic making his thoughts thick and slow, like congealing honey.

“I know, Merlin. I know you don’t. And that’s why it’s down to me. I have to choose. I have chosen.”
To Part 5