Merlin Fic: The Goose Girl 1/4
Title: The Goose Girl
Fandom: Merlin.
Rating: Teen.
Betas: eponymous_rose, lalaithlockhart, and significantowl.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Completely, shamelessly AU after the end of series one. Nimueh returns to Camelot. Complete; 25,000 words.
++
And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said:
"O did ye never lie upon the shore,
And watch the curled white of the coming wave
Glassed in the slippery sand before it breaks?
Even such a wave, but not so pleasurable,
Dark in the glass of some presageful mood,
Had I for three days seen, ready to fall.
And then I rose and fled from Arthur's court
To break the mood. You followed me unasked;
And when I looked, and saw you following still,
My mind involved yourself the nearest thing
In that mind-mist: for shall I tell you truth?
You seemed that wave about to break upon me
And sweep me from my hold upon the world.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
++
Two hours after Bess is born, her mother dies.
There is no one to blame - her mother had been weak and often ill, and though the midwife is a stranger to the village with odd manners and cold eyes, no one doubts the woman’s skill. The midwife holds Bess’ mother’s hand as she dies, and there is such sorrow and anger and black memory in the midwife’s pale face that the other women step back, away from the bed.
“I did everything I could,” the midwife says to Bess’ father. She does not say, I’m sorry.
Bess’ father is a good, quiet man, who loved his wife in a good, quiet way. He holds his daughter closely. “Thank you,” he says.
There is no confusion in the midwife’s cold blue eyes, but she frowns. “Your wife is dead, and you thank me.”
Bess’ father touches one calloused fingertip to his daughter’s forehead, to the delicate skin on the bridge of her nose. “Because I am grateful,” he says. He looks up at the midwife, meets the old eyes set within the young, flawless face. “I would like to give her your name.”
Nimueh raises the hood of her cloak. “That will not be necessary,” she says, and walks out the cottage door and into the night.
++
Bess inherits her mother’s round sweet face, but not her wit. She is simple and slow, understands little and says less. The other children in the village taunt her, call her unkind names and say unkind things - the casual cruelties of children. When she is seven years old they knock her to the ground, pin her down and rub clods of dirt into her clean clothes.
It makes Bess laugh, the sound wordless and bubbling and clear, and the other children draw back when they realise she thinks it is a game, that they’ve finally included her in their fun. She smiles at them, sweetly, and they run off into the forest, feet throwing dust into the sunny afternoon air. Bess sits up, rubbing the fresh bruises on her arms. It’s like wolf pups playing, she thinks. They pounced me, and now I’m meant to pounce back.
But her ribs hurt, making each breath come sharp, and she goes home to her father instead.
++
People confuse Bess. Animals do not.
Horses like her easy calm and the little apples she hides in her pockets. Dogs like the unerring scritch of her fingers in the flea-bitten places. Cows like her gentle, steady hands.
Sheep don’t seem to care much one way or the other - but then, that’s sheep for you.
Bess likes spiders best, sometimes. She isn’t foolish enough to touch them, knowing they would find it impertinent, but she watches them, the silk from their bodies and the glint of their many eyes. When she is nine years old she tries to make her own web from a spare length of string, and begins to cry when it knots in her hair and tangles her fingers and holds her fast.
Her father uses his hunting knife to cut her free, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. She sees in his eyes that he is trying not to laugh, and starts to laugh herself. She must look so silly, a little girl trying to be a spider. She tips her forehead against his, giggling. “Suppose I don’t have enough eyes,” she says.
“Or enough legs.” He cuts the last knot. “Thank goodness.”
++
When Bess is thirteen years old a terrible drought strikes the kingdom. The food rots and the well fills with sand, and the village is forced to slaughter and eat the cattle it can no longer afford to keep. The men of the village ask Bess to calm each cow before it is killed, to place her small plump hand on its head and smile.
“Hush,” she whispers into each twitching ear. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
When the blow falls, she can see the gratitude in the cow’s solemn brown eyes.
Bess is simple, but she understands this.
++
When Bess is fourteen years old, she is hit by lightning.
She is walking alone in the forest at dusk, and above the green canopy of the trees the sky is grey and clear. She whistles a little, tunelessly, and stumbles over a rotten tree stump.
“Oh, bother,” she says, and bends down to poke at the sudden stab of pain in her ankle. She’s twisted it again.
Overhead the clouds grow black, coiling together like the body of a long serpent. Light gathers at its heart, shuddering through the darkness.
Bess sniffs the air, smelling something unfamiliar, something like the scent of a flame just before it is lit. She looks up from her twisted ankle and frowns. “That’s silly,” she says. “You can’t smell a fire before it starts to burn.”
The bolt of lightning sizzles past trees and shrubs and the rotted stump and strikes the crown of Bess’ dark head.
Her body makes a soft sound as it hits the forest floor. The flames die out quickly.
After a moment, it begins to rain.
++
Many miles away, the same rain falls on the Isle of the Blessed.
“What did you do?” the old man says, his voice faint. The stone altar is hard against his back, and he’s fairly certain he’s meant to be dead. In fact, he’s fairly certain that, until a moment ago, he was.
“Nimueh’s dead,” the boy says. He does not say, I have killed her.
There’s nothing like regret in his smile.
++
When Bess wakes, she has leaves in her hair and her ankle is swollen. She sits up and rubs at her eyes.
The sky is bright and morning pale, and her father will be frantic. She staggers to her feet, her stomach knotted with guilt. This isn’t the first time she’s spent the night alone in the forest, but he worries and she’s all he has.
She remembers her father, younger and taller, standing with an infant in his arms. His beard is still dark and neat, and his eyes are fixed on the infant’s face. “Because I am grateful,” he says, and the memory makes her angry, makes her wish that he would shout and scream and threaten terrible things, because his child lives and his wife is dead and it is her fault, her cursed magic and her cursed promises, and when he is done he will see her suffer. He will see her burn.
Witch, a voice hisses, and Bess’ knees buckle. She falls into a puddle, and the mud feels cool against her skin.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not a witch,” she says to the quiet forest. “At least, I’ve never been one before.”
The sun is high overhead by the time she finds her way home. Her father holds her close, and he does not see the coldness in her eyes.
++
After that, Bess spends more time alone in the forest.
There is a lot to remember, and a lot to think about. Some memories make her frown, and some make her laugh. Many make her burn with an anger that brings her close to tears, but she is determined to go through them all. She thinks she must have them for a reason, and when she’s reached the end she understands.
She leans back against the trunk of an old elm tree and sighs. “That’s what comes of arrogance,” she says. “Murdered by a stupid little boy and his magical tantrum.” She scratches her knee. “Serves me right.”
She pushes herself to her feet and walks back to the village. She finds her father chopping wood outside their cottage. “I’m going to Camelot after the harvest,” she says. “If you don’t mind.”
Her father stops and stares at her. A bead of sweat travels down his forehead and into his eyes. “What?”
“I should probably learn to read before I go,” she says. “It’s very awkward, being illiterate.” She pulls a rag from her dress pocket and gently wipes the sweat from his brow. “Do we have any books?”
That afternoon Bess teaches herself to read with a book about animal husbandry she borrows from the village clerk. She makes faces at the pictures and after an hour or so starts to correct the author’s grammar with a piece of chalk.
Her father watches her from the across the kitchen table, his mouth a thin line.
++
The night before Bess leaves for Camelot her father comes and sits on the edge of her bed, just before she falls asleep.
“You could wait a few years,” he says. “Go when you’re older.” His fingers are knotted in the quilt, straining the seams.
Bess covers his hand with her own. “I feel sort of old already,” she says. She smiles at him, and if her eyes are a little colder, her smile is the same. “I might be too old to go, not too young.”
Bess’ father touches one calloused fingertip to his daughter’s forehead, to the freckled skin on the bridge of her nose. “Wherever you go,” he says, “I want you to be happy.”
Bess isn’t sure she ought to be happy, isn’t sure that’s the sort of life she deserves. But if her father wants it, it must be all right. She nods. “I’ll do my best,” she says, and kisses his cheek.
When he hugs her goodbye the next morning his arms are a stiff circle around her, keeping her close but careful not to hold her too tightly. It makes her throat ache and her eyes burn, and she knows she should say, I’ll come back. Should say, I will, I promise.
She doesn’t.
++
When Bess first sees the towers of Camelot, it’s early morning. The sky is sharp autumn blue, the light is pure, and the city is beautiful. As beautiful as the city in her memory.
She hates it.
She has to stop walking, rage coiling in the pit of her stomach like a sickness. She wraps her arms around herself and shudders. She remembers the smoke that darkened the sky, the smoke that stained the white walls of Camelot with ash. She remembers the damp stone floor of the dungeon, and her king standing tall above her, his face in shadow.
You’ll be the last, he says. I want you to watch.
Uther is in that city, right now. There’s nothing they could do to stop her.
Bess pinches her own leg, hard through the layers of her skirts. “Yes, yes, revenge,” she mutters under her breath. “Because that worked out so well for you last time.”
She walks the rest of the road quickly, her eyes fixed on the path in front of her. She ducks her head as she passes through the quiet of the lower village (the poisoned well had taken so many, and those that are left speak softly, if at all) and continues until she reaches the castle courtyard. A servant woman with authority in the set of her thick shoulders is arguing with a stable boy.
“It’s sheer laziness, that’s what it is, and I haven’t the time-” The woman stops, noticing Bess’ stare. “And what do you want?”
“A job,” Bess says. “Please.”
The woman raises a wooly eyebrow. “Really,” she says.
Bess has never done magic before, but she is quite certain that she could make this woman agree to whatever she wished. It wouldn’t even take a proper spell - just the push of a strong mind against a weaker one. Instead she raises her chin and says, “I’m good with animals.”
The woman sets her hands on her ample hips and gives Bess a crooked smile. “Wonderful,” she says. “How do you feel about geese?”
++
Geese are horrible.
They seem to hate Bess for the same reasons other animals adore her, snapping at her gentle fingers and hissing at the soft sound of her voice. They are fat and dirty and loud and she hates them as much as they hate her, and one day the largest, meanest gander chases her into the pond, white wings outstretched, his sharp beak reaching for her face.
She lands on her arse in the muddy water and starts to laugh.
The gander stops mid-attack, confused.
Bess clutches her stomach, laughing so hard she can barely speak. In between giggles she manages to say something that sounds like, all-powerful sorceress and feared by an entire kingdom and defeated by a Christmas goose.
The gander ruffles his feathers. It’s not polite to mention Christmas around a goose.
“Sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes. She stands, and then starts to giggle again when her skirts make a slurping sound as they leave the pond. When she gets her laughter under control she holds out her hand, a solemn offering of peace. “Friends?”
The gander waddles away with the put upon air of someone who has much more important things to do, thank you.
“I could turn you into a toad,” she shouts after him. “Or worse, a duck!”
All told, she’s had far more unpleasant jobs in Camelot than royal goose girl.
++
Bess is in Camelot for two months before the Dragon wakes her in the middle of the night.
The room she shares with two serving girls and a milkmaid is quiet, the air thick with sleep, and she creeps carefully out of her bed and into her clothes and shoes. She walks through the castle, along corridors she has never seen before, until she finds herself in the deepest part of Uther’s dungeon. The guards are playing dice and gossiping like old women, and Bess walks up to them, watching their game from over their shoulders.
They can’t see her.
It’s an old spell, cast so many times in the last year that it lingers still in the stone and the air. It smells like ozone, like fire just before it burns, and Bess rubs a hand over her tired eyes. “You’d think Gaius would teach the boy a little subtlety,” she says, shaking her head, and then she walks the long tunnel to the Dragon’s prison.
“Oh dear,” the Dragon says with a toothy grin. “What have you done to yourself?” His tone is light and mocking, as if she’s simply been the victim of an unfortunate haircut, and Bess rolls her eyes.
“I died,” she says. She shrugs. “Happens to the best of us.”
The Dragon raises a claw. “But there are measures, Sister, which one must take to prevent such a misstep from becoming a permanent misfortune.” His grin widens. “You seem to have botched yours.”
Part of Bess is fascinated by the Great Dragon, fascinated and terrified and a little bit in love. The rest of her - the part that remembers watching him swallow a cow whole and smelled his belch afterward - is just annoyed.
“Also, you cheat at cards,” she says, and if the Dragon is confused by the non sequitur, he doesn’t show it.
“What went wrong, do you think?” he asks, folding one enormous clawed foot over the other. His chains clink, and the sound echoes through the cavern. “Was it Merlin’s curse? Some sort of impurity in the original spell casting?” He pauses, delicately. “A flaw in your choice of surrogate body?”
Bess clenches her fists. “I am not a surrogate body.”
The Dragon blinks. “I suppose that answers my question.”
“Get stuffed,” Bess says, and stomps back up the winding path to the dungeon.
“Two souls at war will never find peace in the same heart,” the Dragon calls after her, because of course he has to have the last word, the more ominous and incomprehensible the better.
“Overgrown lizard,” Bess mutters, and goes back to bed.
++
Bess meets Gwen in the castle laundry.
Outside the city walls the December wind blows cold, but the crowded laundry is a midday nightmare of heat and steam and raised voices. Bess thinks that hell must smell like this, like women’s sweat and harsh soaps that burn the inside of your nose. She darts in, drops her linens in the nearest basket, and then hurries to the nearest door, hoping no one’s noticed her.
“Oi!” A tall scullery maid with ginger braids shoves Bess aside, knocking her into a pile of dirty clothes. “Watch where you’re walking, you little freak.”
“I’m not little,” Bess says. She doesn’t say, You’re just terrifyingly tall.
The tall maid grins. It’s not a pleasant expression. “But you are a freak.”
“Well, yes,” Bess says. “But not a little one.”
Bess isn’t sure of the tall maid’s name - in her head she calls her Gargantua, which admittedly isn’t very nice - but she’s been dodging the girl for months, ducking around corners and hiding behind tapestries whenever she walks by. Bullies have always loved Bess; she thinks there must be something about her face. Perhaps a tattoo on her forehead that reads, Weakest sheep in the flock. Get your mutton here.
Like all experienced bullies, Gargantua travels with a pack. They gather around Bess now, blocking out the rest of the bustling room and trapping her in the pile of dirty laundry.
“You still haven’t apologised for bumping me,” Gargantua says.
“I am very, very sorry.” Bess pauses, considering, and then adds, “Very.”
She isn’t sure which very alerts Gargantua to her insincerity, and the question becomes somewhat academic when the tall girl bends down until her nose is inches away and says, “You’re ugly, you smell like goose shit, and you don’t belong here.”
Bess smiles, leaning forward until their noses touch. “You have eyes as wise as a hen’s, a face as delicate as a sow’s, and breath like the depths of a donkey’s bottom.”
The tall girl’s face turns a bright, steam kettle red.
“I’m sorry,” Bess says. “I thought we were being honest.”
Gargantua lifts one large, damp hand and slaps Bess hard across the mouth.
Before the lightning strike in the forest that day, Bess hadn’t really been capable of anger. Frustration and bitterness, yes, and many other foul moods besides, but never anger toward another person. Never anything like this.
She can taste her own blood in her mouth and it makes her grin, something cold and rain-soaked and ancient rising inside her, pricking the tips of her fingers. The words are like honey at the back of her throat, and if she gives them voice the tall girl’s life will be clay in her hands - a delicate thread, ready to snap.
Her fingers twitch.
“Penny Goodfoot,” a new voice says, “what do you think you’re doing?”
Another girl has stepped into the circle. She’s older than all of them, with dark curls and a simple yellow dress, and when she speaks she doesn’t raise her voice. She just stands there with her arms crossed, her expression unamused and yet not at all unkind. Bess loves her at once, the way weeds love the sun.
Gargantua - or Penny, apparently - wilts under the new girl’s gaze. “She bumped me, Gwen. I was just letting her apologise.”
Gwen nods. “Apologising is very important,” she says, and gives Penny a pointed look.
Penny sighs, grabs Bess’ arm, and pulls her out of the laundry pile. “Sorry,” Penny says, as if the word hurts her teeth. “Won’t happen again.”
“No, it probably will,” Bess says brightly. “Next time I’ll try harder to run away.”
Penny and her gang shuffle off with dark, sullen looks on their faces, and when they’ve gone Gwen shakes her head. “She really doesn’t like you. I mean, she doesn’t like anyone, but she really doesn’t like you.” She stops, her pretty face suddenly anxious. “Not that that’s a bad thing. Because she’s awful, isn’t she, and no one wants awful people to like them.”
Bess still isn’t sure she’s not an awful person herself; she nods mutely, not sure what to say.
Gwen’s expression softens into a smile and she reaches out to touch Bess’ split lip. It stings, and Bess winces. “Come on,” Gwen says, taking her hand. “Let’s get that patched up.”
Gwen leads Bess out of the laundry, tugging her through busy corridors and telling a peculiar story about the awful Penny and an old tomcat that used to sleep in the castle kitchens. She’s trying to cheer Bess up, trying to distract her from the pain in her lip and dark bruise spreading across her cheek, and Bess nods too much and keeps laughing at the wrong parts of the story. Gwen doesn’t seem to mind; she laughs too, and Bess is just beginning to think that maybe this talking to people lark might not be so bad when Gwen leads her past a small wooden sign that says Court Physician.
“Almost there,” Gwen says, and Bess panics. She reaches out and grabs for the wall, refusing to take another step.
“No, no,” she says. “No need to bother him. Waste of his time, court physician and all. Very busy, I would think. All that science.” Gwen stares at her, and Bess swallows hard.
“He’s a friend,” Gwen says slowly, gently, and oh, of course he bloody is. “He’ll be happy to help.” And then, before Bess can argue or, you know, run away, Gwen calls out, “Gaius! I have a patient for you.”
“Bugger,” Bess says.
A door opens at the top of the stairs and an old man with white hair steps out. “Hello, Gwen. Nothing too serious, I hope.”
Gwen says something in reply, but Bess doesn’t hear it. She can’t hear anything above the rush of blood in her ears, the hot press of her pulse high in her throat. Gaius meets her eyes and the rage is so complete it’s like a living thing, something dark and clawed crouched inside her, livid and eager and waiting.
Coward, the rage purrs, its long claws unfurled. Traitor.
“Thank you, Gwen,” Gaius says quickly, interrupting the girl’s explanation. “You’d best return to your duties.”
“Of course,” Gwen says, looking a little uncertain. She squeezes Bess’ hand and hurries away.
Bess and Gaius stare at each other, the staircase between them.
Gaius is the first to break the silence. “That’s a nasty lip.”
“Got slapped in the face by a giant scullery maid.”
“Penny Goodfoot?”
Bess shrugs.
“You’re lucky you escaped with nothing more than a split lip. That tomcat’s never been the same.” Gaius leans against the doorframe, his face unreadable. “Merlin isn’t here.”
“I’m not looking for him,” she says. “I wasn’t looking for you, either.”
One of Gaius’ eyebrows wobbles high above the other. “Oh?”
“I’ve been here for months. Working.” She blushes and hates herself a little for it. “I’m the new goose girl.”
Gaius frowns. “The simple one who hides behind tapestries?”
“Most people just call me Bess,” Bess says. “It’s shorter.”
Gaius stares at her, utterly uncharmed, and somehow she’d forgotten that he was like this, sharp and prickly and always two steps ahead of her, always three steps ahead of everyone else. It had been so frustrating and so strange, not being the cleverest person in the room, not if he was in it. It made his good opinion that much more precious, his censure that much more heartbreaking. She’d forgotten that.
Gaius watches her face, his expression guarded, careful. After a moment, he seems to come to a decision. “You’d better come in, then. Do you still take sugar with your tea?”
++
His workroom is the same, long tables cluttered with open books and bundles of herbs and vials of strangely coloured liquids. Of all the familiar places in the castle this one is the least touched by time; the half-eaten bowl of porridge by the window could easily be her own, abandoned years ago in a sudden fit of inspiration or a summons to attend her queen.
But the porridge is Merlin’s, as are the muddy footprints on the floor and the thick residue of magic, hanging in the air like smoke. Bess shudders a little, folding her arms across her chest.
“You don’t seem very surprised to see me,” she says.
Gaius fusses with the kettle, putting the water on to boil. “There are many methods - most rather unsavory - by which a sorcerer of your abilities might unnaturally extend her life. It was only a question of which method you would choose.” He turns his head and gives her a hard, piercing look. “You stole that child’s life.”
“Not exactly,” Bess says.
Gaius doesn’t reply - he simply gestures to an empty spot on the nearest table. Bess hops up and perches at the table’s edge, her eyes on the door. Gaius dips a cloth into a bowl of water, rings it out, and passes it to her. “Hold that against your lip. It’s swelling.”
The cloth is cold against her mouth, and it feels wonderful. She’s thirsty and feverish, her head throbbing with each beat of her heart, and when Gaius steps close with a jar of salve in one hand and clean cloth in the other, she flinches back, dizzy and overwhelmed by memory.
She sees Gaius years ago, his face less lined, his hair grey and cropped short. Younger hands move quickly as they unscrew the lid of the jar, and he scowls at her, his expression fond beneath its veneer of irritation. “Next time you decide to attempt unstable magics without the necessary precautions, I hope you’ll remember this moment.” His fingers are gentle against her singed face and cool with salve. The corner of his mouth quirks up in half a smile. “You look quite silly without eyebrows, you know.”
In the present, Gaius watches her warily, the jar unopened in his hand. “What did you see just now? Where did you go?”
“I don’t-” She stops, swallowing around the thickness in her throat, and looks away. “Forget it. It’s not important.”
Gaius slams the jar down on the table. “Nimueh-”
Her head snaps up, something fierce in her round, sweet face. “That is not my name.”
Gaius’ eyes widen, lighting with comprehension. He takes a step back. “You’re the little girl.”
“I’m both,” Bess says. “And I’m not little.”
Gaius picks up the jar of salve, his eyes never leaving hers. “No,” he says slowly. “No, of course not.” He cleans and treats her lip, rubs ointment into her bruised cheek with steady fingers. When he is done he wipes his hands on a clean cloth and says, “Bess, why did you come to Camelot?”
She raises her chin. “I didn’t come to kill anyone, if that’s what you mean. ”
Gaius folds his hands in front of him, the patient teacher. “But you have not forgiven Uther.”
The name alone is like flames licking her skin, like the hiss of a falling axe. Bess closes her eyes. “No,” she says. “I haven’t.”
“And have you forgiven me?”
When Bess opens her eyes, she can see Gaius’ regret, and his guilt. So many died as he stood beside his king, and he has not forgotten a single face. They live on in his dreams, in his nightmares. He watches them burn. Good, she thinks. So do I.
The kettle whistles; the water is ready. Gaius crosses the room and lifts it from the flame.
“I don’t want your forgiveness,” Bess says, “and I doubt you want mine, either.”
He shrugs. “Probably not,” he says.
“We both did what we thought right.”
Gaius pauses, his hand over the teapot. He turns back to her. “And what do you think now?”
She’d really hoped he wouldn’t ask that. She looks down at her feet and sighs. “Now I think we were both fools.”
Gaius nods once, and then stands very still, his head bowed. Bess slips gracelessly down from the table, her shoes loud against the stone floor. She’s almost to the door when Gaius turns and takes a step toward her, a cautious advance. She hesitates.
Uther had been her friend and her king, and twenty years later his betrayal burns her still. But Gaius - Gaius had been her teacher. She’d been so powerful, so arrogant and quick to anger, and Gaius had never feared her. He’d been patient, and taught her control. Been kind, and taught her compassion.
Gaius had been her family, and he’d watched silently as Uther’s men bound her to the stake and left her there to burn.
“I have biscuits for the tea,” he says, twenty years and a lifetime later. “If you’d like one.”
Bess looks to the door. Gaius is a traitor and a coward, and she will never forgive what he’s done, not if she lives for a thousand years. Not if she lives forever.
Still, though, she thinks. Biscuits.
++
“I still hate you, you know,” Bess says around a mouthful of biscuit.
“Believe me,” Gaius says, “the feeling is perfectly mutual.” He smiles. “More tea?”
++
part two
Fandom: Merlin.
Rating: Teen.
Betas: eponymous_rose, lalaithlockhart, and significantowl.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Completely, shamelessly AU after the end of series one. Nimueh returns to Camelot. Complete; 25,000 words.
++
And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said:
"O did ye never lie upon the shore,
And watch the curled white of the coming wave
Glassed in the slippery sand before it breaks?
Even such a wave, but not so pleasurable,
Dark in the glass of some presageful mood,
Had I for three days seen, ready to fall.
And then I rose and fled from Arthur's court
To break the mood. You followed me unasked;
And when I looked, and saw you following still,
My mind involved yourself the nearest thing
In that mind-mist: for shall I tell you truth?
You seemed that wave about to break upon me
And sweep me from my hold upon the world.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
++
Two hours after Bess is born, her mother dies.
There is no one to blame - her mother had been weak and often ill, and though the midwife is a stranger to the village with odd manners and cold eyes, no one doubts the woman’s skill. The midwife holds Bess’ mother’s hand as she dies, and there is such sorrow and anger and black memory in the midwife’s pale face that the other women step back, away from the bed.
“I did everything I could,” the midwife says to Bess’ father. She does not say, I’m sorry.
Bess’ father is a good, quiet man, who loved his wife in a good, quiet way. He holds his daughter closely. “Thank you,” he says.
There is no confusion in the midwife’s cold blue eyes, but she frowns. “Your wife is dead, and you thank me.”
Bess’ father touches one calloused fingertip to his daughter’s forehead, to the delicate skin on the bridge of her nose. “Because I am grateful,” he says. He looks up at the midwife, meets the old eyes set within the young, flawless face. “I would like to give her your name.”
Nimueh raises the hood of her cloak. “That will not be necessary,” she says, and walks out the cottage door and into the night.
++
Bess inherits her mother’s round sweet face, but not her wit. She is simple and slow, understands little and says less. The other children in the village taunt her, call her unkind names and say unkind things - the casual cruelties of children. When she is seven years old they knock her to the ground, pin her down and rub clods of dirt into her clean clothes.
It makes Bess laugh, the sound wordless and bubbling and clear, and the other children draw back when they realise she thinks it is a game, that they’ve finally included her in their fun. She smiles at them, sweetly, and they run off into the forest, feet throwing dust into the sunny afternoon air. Bess sits up, rubbing the fresh bruises on her arms. It’s like wolf pups playing, she thinks. They pounced me, and now I’m meant to pounce back.
But her ribs hurt, making each breath come sharp, and she goes home to her father instead.
++
People confuse Bess. Animals do not.
Horses like her easy calm and the little apples she hides in her pockets. Dogs like the unerring scritch of her fingers in the flea-bitten places. Cows like her gentle, steady hands.
Sheep don’t seem to care much one way or the other - but then, that’s sheep for you.
Bess likes spiders best, sometimes. She isn’t foolish enough to touch them, knowing they would find it impertinent, but she watches them, the silk from their bodies and the glint of their many eyes. When she is nine years old she tries to make her own web from a spare length of string, and begins to cry when it knots in her hair and tangles her fingers and holds her fast.
Her father uses his hunting knife to cut her free, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. She sees in his eyes that he is trying not to laugh, and starts to laugh herself. She must look so silly, a little girl trying to be a spider. She tips her forehead against his, giggling. “Suppose I don’t have enough eyes,” she says.
“Or enough legs.” He cuts the last knot. “Thank goodness.”
++
When Bess is thirteen years old a terrible drought strikes the kingdom. The food rots and the well fills with sand, and the village is forced to slaughter and eat the cattle it can no longer afford to keep. The men of the village ask Bess to calm each cow before it is killed, to place her small plump hand on its head and smile.
“Hush,” she whispers into each twitching ear. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
When the blow falls, she can see the gratitude in the cow’s solemn brown eyes.
Bess is simple, but she understands this.
++
When Bess is fourteen years old, she is hit by lightning.
She is walking alone in the forest at dusk, and above the green canopy of the trees the sky is grey and clear. She whistles a little, tunelessly, and stumbles over a rotten tree stump.
“Oh, bother,” she says, and bends down to poke at the sudden stab of pain in her ankle. She’s twisted it again.
Overhead the clouds grow black, coiling together like the body of a long serpent. Light gathers at its heart, shuddering through the darkness.
Bess sniffs the air, smelling something unfamiliar, something like the scent of a flame just before it is lit. She looks up from her twisted ankle and frowns. “That’s silly,” she says. “You can’t smell a fire before it starts to burn.”
The bolt of lightning sizzles past trees and shrubs and the rotted stump and strikes the crown of Bess’ dark head.
Her body makes a soft sound as it hits the forest floor. The flames die out quickly.
After a moment, it begins to rain.
++
Many miles away, the same rain falls on the Isle of the Blessed.
“What did you do?” the old man says, his voice faint. The stone altar is hard against his back, and he’s fairly certain he’s meant to be dead. In fact, he’s fairly certain that, until a moment ago, he was.
“Nimueh’s dead,” the boy says. He does not say, I have killed her.
There’s nothing like regret in his smile.
++
When Bess wakes, she has leaves in her hair and her ankle is swollen. She sits up and rubs at her eyes.
The sky is bright and morning pale, and her father will be frantic. She staggers to her feet, her stomach knotted with guilt. This isn’t the first time she’s spent the night alone in the forest, but he worries and she’s all he has.
She remembers her father, younger and taller, standing with an infant in his arms. His beard is still dark and neat, and his eyes are fixed on the infant’s face. “Because I am grateful,” he says, and the memory makes her angry, makes her wish that he would shout and scream and threaten terrible things, because his child lives and his wife is dead and it is her fault, her cursed magic and her cursed promises, and when he is done he will see her suffer. He will see her burn.
Witch, a voice hisses, and Bess’ knees buckle. She falls into a puddle, and the mud feels cool against her skin.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not a witch,” she says to the quiet forest. “At least, I’ve never been one before.”
The sun is high overhead by the time she finds her way home. Her father holds her close, and he does not see the coldness in her eyes.
++
After that, Bess spends more time alone in the forest.
There is a lot to remember, and a lot to think about. Some memories make her frown, and some make her laugh. Many make her burn with an anger that brings her close to tears, but she is determined to go through them all. She thinks she must have them for a reason, and when she’s reached the end she understands.
She leans back against the trunk of an old elm tree and sighs. “That’s what comes of arrogance,” she says. “Murdered by a stupid little boy and his magical tantrum.” She scratches her knee. “Serves me right.”
She pushes herself to her feet and walks back to the village. She finds her father chopping wood outside their cottage. “I’m going to Camelot after the harvest,” she says. “If you don’t mind.”
Her father stops and stares at her. A bead of sweat travels down his forehead and into his eyes. “What?”
“I should probably learn to read before I go,” she says. “It’s very awkward, being illiterate.” She pulls a rag from her dress pocket and gently wipes the sweat from his brow. “Do we have any books?”
That afternoon Bess teaches herself to read with a book about animal husbandry she borrows from the village clerk. She makes faces at the pictures and after an hour or so starts to correct the author’s grammar with a piece of chalk.
Her father watches her from the across the kitchen table, his mouth a thin line.
++
The night before Bess leaves for Camelot her father comes and sits on the edge of her bed, just before she falls asleep.
“You could wait a few years,” he says. “Go when you’re older.” His fingers are knotted in the quilt, straining the seams.
Bess covers his hand with her own. “I feel sort of old already,” she says. She smiles at him, and if her eyes are a little colder, her smile is the same. “I might be too old to go, not too young.”
Bess’ father touches one calloused fingertip to his daughter’s forehead, to the freckled skin on the bridge of her nose. “Wherever you go,” he says, “I want you to be happy.”
Bess isn’t sure she ought to be happy, isn’t sure that’s the sort of life she deserves. But if her father wants it, it must be all right. She nods. “I’ll do my best,” she says, and kisses his cheek.
When he hugs her goodbye the next morning his arms are a stiff circle around her, keeping her close but careful not to hold her too tightly. It makes her throat ache and her eyes burn, and she knows she should say, I’ll come back. Should say, I will, I promise.
She doesn’t.
++
When Bess first sees the towers of Camelot, it’s early morning. The sky is sharp autumn blue, the light is pure, and the city is beautiful. As beautiful as the city in her memory.
She hates it.
She has to stop walking, rage coiling in the pit of her stomach like a sickness. She wraps her arms around herself and shudders. She remembers the smoke that darkened the sky, the smoke that stained the white walls of Camelot with ash. She remembers the damp stone floor of the dungeon, and her king standing tall above her, his face in shadow.
You’ll be the last, he says. I want you to watch.
Uther is in that city, right now. There’s nothing they could do to stop her.
Bess pinches her own leg, hard through the layers of her skirts. “Yes, yes, revenge,” she mutters under her breath. “Because that worked out so well for you last time.”
She walks the rest of the road quickly, her eyes fixed on the path in front of her. She ducks her head as she passes through the quiet of the lower village (the poisoned well had taken so many, and those that are left speak softly, if at all) and continues until she reaches the castle courtyard. A servant woman with authority in the set of her thick shoulders is arguing with a stable boy.
“It’s sheer laziness, that’s what it is, and I haven’t the time-” The woman stops, noticing Bess’ stare. “And what do you want?”
“A job,” Bess says. “Please.”
The woman raises a wooly eyebrow. “Really,” she says.
Bess has never done magic before, but she is quite certain that she could make this woman agree to whatever she wished. It wouldn’t even take a proper spell - just the push of a strong mind against a weaker one. Instead she raises her chin and says, “I’m good with animals.”
The woman sets her hands on her ample hips and gives Bess a crooked smile. “Wonderful,” she says. “How do you feel about geese?”
++
Geese are horrible.
They seem to hate Bess for the same reasons other animals adore her, snapping at her gentle fingers and hissing at the soft sound of her voice. They are fat and dirty and loud and she hates them as much as they hate her, and one day the largest, meanest gander chases her into the pond, white wings outstretched, his sharp beak reaching for her face.
She lands on her arse in the muddy water and starts to laugh.
The gander stops mid-attack, confused.
Bess clutches her stomach, laughing so hard she can barely speak. In between giggles she manages to say something that sounds like, all-powerful sorceress and feared by an entire kingdom and defeated by a Christmas goose.
The gander ruffles his feathers. It’s not polite to mention Christmas around a goose.
“Sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes. She stands, and then starts to giggle again when her skirts make a slurping sound as they leave the pond. When she gets her laughter under control she holds out her hand, a solemn offering of peace. “Friends?”
The gander waddles away with the put upon air of someone who has much more important things to do, thank you.
“I could turn you into a toad,” she shouts after him. “Or worse, a duck!”
All told, she’s had far more unpleasant jobs in Camelot than royal goose girl.
++
Bess is in Camelot for two months before the Dragon wakes her in the middle of the night.
The room she shares with two serving girls and a milkmaid is quiet, the air thick with sleep, and she creeps carefully out of her bed and into her clothes and shoes. She walks through the castle, along corridors she has never seen before, until she finds herself in the deepest part of Uther’s dungeon. The guards are playing dice and gossiping like old women, and Bess walks up to them, watching their game from over their shoulders.
They can’t see her.
It’s an old spell, cast so many times in the last year that it lingers still in the stone and the air. It smells like ozone, like fire just before it burns, and Bess rubs a hand over her tired eyes. “You’d think Gaius would teach the boy a little subtlety,” she says, shaking her head, and then she walks the long tunnel to the Dragon’s prison.
“Oh dear,” the Dragon says with a toothy grin. “What have you done to yourself?” His tone is light and mocking, as if she’s simply been the victim of an unfortunate haircut, and Bess rolls her eyes.
“I died,” she says. She shrugs. “Happens to the best of us.”
The Dragon raises a claw. “But there are measures, Sister, which one must take to prevent such a misstep from becoming a permanent misfortune.” His grin widens. “You seem to have botched yours.”
Part of Bess is fascinated by the Great Dragon, fascinated and terrified and a little bit in love. The rest of her - the part that remembers watching him swallow a cow whole and smelled his belch afterward - is just annoyed.
“Also, you cheat at cards,” she says, and if the Dragon is confused by the non sequitur, he doesn’t show it.
“What went wrong, do you think?” he asks, folding one enormous clawed foot over the other. His chains clink, and the sound echoes through the cavern. “Was it Merlin’s curse? Some sort of impurity in the original spell casting?” He pauses, delicately. “A flaw in your choice of surrogate body?”
Bess clenches her fists. “I am not a surrogate body.”
The Dragon blinks. “I suppose that answers my question.”
“Get stuffed,” Bess says, and stomps back up the winding path to the dungeon.
“Two souls at war will never find peace in the same heart,” the Dragon calls after her, because of course he has to have the last word, the more ominous and incomprehensible the better.
“Overgrown lizard,” Bess mutters, and goes back to bed.
++
Bess meets Gwen in the castle laundry.
Outside the city walls the December wind blows cold, but the crowded laundry is a midday nightmare of heat and steam and raised voices. Bess thinks that hell must smell like this, like women’s sweat and harsh soaps that burn the inside of your nose. She darts in, drops her linens in the nearest basket, and then hurries to the nearest door, hoping no one’s noticed her.
“Oi!” A tall scullery maid with ginger braids shoves Bess aside, knocking her into a pile of dirty clothes. “Watch where you’re walking, you little freak.”
“I’m not little,” Bess says. She doesn’t say, You’re just terrifyingly tall.
The tall maid grins. It’s not a pleasant expression. “But you are a freak.”
“Well, yes,” Bess says. “But not a little one.”
Bess isn’t sure of the tall maid’s name - in her head she calls her Gargantua, which admittedly isn’t very nice - but she’s been dodging the girl for months, ducking around corners and hiding behind tapestries whenever she walks by. Bullies have always loved Bess; she thinks there must be something about her face. Perhaps a tattoo on her forehead that reads, Weakest sheep in the flock. Get your mutton here.
Like all experienced bullies, Gargantua travels with a pack. They gather around Bess now, blocking out the rest of the bustling room and trapping her in the pile of dirty laundry.
“You still haven’t apologised for bumping me,” Gargantua says.
“I am very, very sorry.” Bess pauses, considering, and then adds, “Very.”
She isn’t sure which very alerts Gargantua to her insincerity, and the question becomes somewhat academic when the tall girl bends down until her nose is inches away and says, “You’re ugly, you smell like goose shit, and you don’t belong here.”
Bess smiles, leaning forward until their noses touch. “You have eyes as wise as a hen’s, a face as delicate as a sow’s, and breath like the depths of a donkey’s bottom.”
The tall girl’s face turns a bright, steam kettle red.
“I’m sorry,” Bess says. “I thought we were being honest.”
Gargantua lifts one large, damp hand and slaps Bess hard across the mouth.
Before the lightning strike in the forest that day, Bess hadn’t really been capable of anger. Frustration and bitterness, yes, and many other foul moods besides, but never anger toward another person. Never anything like this.
She can taste her own blood in her mouth and it makes her grin, something cold and rain-soaked and ancient rising inside her, pricking the tips of her fingers. The words are like honey at the back of her throat, and if she gives them voice the tall girl’s life will be clay in her hands - a delicate thread, ready to snap.
Her fingers twitch.
“Penny Goodfoot,” a new voice says, “what do you think you’re doing?”
Another girl has stepped into the circle. She’s older than all of them, with dark curls and a simple yellow dress, and when she speaks she doesn’t raise her voice. She just stands there with her arms crossed, her expression unamused and yet not at all unkind. Bess loves her at once, the way weeds love the sun.
Gargantua - or Penny, apparently - wilts under the new girl’s gaze. “She bumped me, Gwen. I was just letting her apologise.”
Gwen nods. “Apologising is very important,” she says, and gives Penny a pointed look.
Penny sighs, grabs Bess’ arm, and pulls her out of the laundry pile. “Sorry,” Penny says, as if the word hurts her teeth. “Won’t happen again.”
“No, it probably will,” Bess says brightly. “Next time I’ll try harder to run away.”
Penny and her gang shuffle off with dark, sullen looks on their faces, and when they’ve gone Gwen shakes her head. “She really doesn’t like you. I mean, she doesn’t like anyone, but she really doesn’t like you.” She stops, her pretty face suddenly anxious. “Not that that’s a bad thing. Because she’s awful, isn’t she, and no one wants awful people to like them.”
Bess still isn’t sure she’s not an awful person herself; she nods mutely, not sure what to say.
Gwen’s expression softens into a smile and she reaches out to touch Bess’ split lip. It stings, and Bess winces. “Come on,” Gwen says, taking her hand. “Let’s get that patched up.”
Gwen leads Bess out of the laundry, tugging her through busy corridors and telling a peculiar story about the awful Penny and an old tomcat that used to sleep in the castle kitchens. She’s trying to cheer Bess up, trying to distract her from the pain in her lip and dark bruise spreading across her cheek, and Bess nods too much and keeps laughing at the wrong parts of the story. Gwen doesn’t seem to mind; she laughs too, and Bess is just beginning to think that maybe this talking to people lark might not be so bad when Gwen leads her past a small wooden sign that says Court Physician.
“Almost there,” Gwen says, and Bess panics. She reaches out and grabs for the wall, refusing to take another step.
“No, no,” she says. “No need to bother him. Waste of his time, court physician and all. Very busy, I would think. All that science.” Gwen stares at her, and Bess swallows hard.
“He’s a friend,” Gwen says slowly, gently, and oh, of course he bloody is. “He’ll be happy to help.” And then, before Bess can argue or, you know, run away, Gwen calls out, “Gaius! I have a patient for you.”
“Bugger,” Bess says.
A door opens at the top of the stairs and an old man with white hair steps out. “Hello, Gwen. Nothing too serious, I hope.”
Gwen says something in reply, but Bess doesn’t hear it. She can’t hear anything above the rush of blood in her ears, the hot press of her pulse high in her throat. Gaius meets her eyes and the rage is so complete it’s like a living thing, something dark and clawed crouched inside her, livid and eager and waiting.
Coward, the rage purrs, its long claws unfurled. Traitor.
“Thank you, Gwen,” Gaius says quickly, interrupting the girl’s explanation. “You’d best return to your duties.”
“Of course,” Gwen says, looking a little uncertain. She squeezes Bess’ hand and hurries away.
Bess and Gaius stare at each other, the staircase between them.
Gaius is the first to break the silence. “That’s a nasty lip.”
“Got slapped in the face by a giant scullery maid.”
“Penny Goodfoot?”
Bess shrugs.
“You’re lucky you escaped with nothing more than a split lip. That tomcat’s never been the same.” Gaius leans against the doorframe, his face unreadable. “Merlin isn’t here.”
“I’m not looking for him,” she says. “I wasn’t looking for you, either.”
One of Gaius’ eyebrows wobbles high above the other. “Oh?”
“I’ve been here for months. Working.” She blushes and hates herself a little for it. “I’m the new goose girl.”
Gaius frowns. “The simple one who hides behind tapestries?”
“Most people just call me Bess,” Bess says. “It’s shorter.”
Gaius stares at her, utterly uncharmed, and somehow she’d forgotten that he was like this, sharp and prickly and always two steps ahead of her, always three steps ahead of everyone else. It had been so frustrating and so strange, not being the cleverest person in the room, not if he was in it. It made his good opinion that much more precious, his censure that much more heartbreaking. She’d forgotten that.
Gaius watches her face, his expression guarded, careful. After a moment, he seems to come to a decision. “You’d better come in, then. Do you still take sugar with your tea?”
++
His workroom is the same, long tables cluttered with open books and bundles of herbs and vials of strangely coloured liquids. Of all the familiar places in the castle this one is the least touched by time; the half-eaten bowl of porridge by the window could easily be her own, abandoned years ago in a sudden fit of inspiration or a summons to attend her queen.
But the porridge is Merlin’s, as are the muddy footprints on the floor and the thick residue of magic, hanging in the air like smoke. Bess shudders a little, folding her arms across her chest.
“You don’t seem very surprised to see me,” she says.
Gaius fusses with the kettle, putting the water on to boil. “There are many methods - most rather unsavory - by which a sorcerer of your abilities might unnaturally extend her life. It was only a question of which method you would choose.” He turns his head and gives her a hard, piercing look. “You stole that child’s life.”
“Not exactly,” Bess says.
Gaius doesn’t reply - he simply gestures to an empty spot on the nearest table. Bess hops up and perches at the table’s edge, her eyes on the door. Gaius dips a cloth into a bowl of water, rings it out, and passes it to her. “Hold that against your lip. It’s swelling.”
The cloth is cold against her mouth, and it feels wonderful. She’s thirsty and feverish, her head throbbing with each beat of her heart, and when Gaius steps close with a jar of salve in one hand and clean cloth in the other, she flinches back, dizzy and overwhelmed by memory.
She sees Gaius years ago, his face less lined, his hair grey and cropped short. Younger hands move quickly as they unscrew the lid of the jar, and he scowls at her, his expression fond beneath its veneer of irritation. “Next time you decide to attempt unstable magics without the necessary precautions, I hope you’ll remember this moment.” His fingers are gentle against her singed face and cool with salve. The corner of his mouth quirks up in half a smile. “You look quite silly without eyebrows, you know.”
In the present, Gaius watches her warily, the jar unopened in his hand. “What did you see just now? Where did you go?”
“I don’t-” She stops, swallowing around the thickness in her throat, and looks away. “Forget it. It’s not important.”
Gaius slams the jar down on the table. “Nimueh-”
Her head snaps up, something fierce in her round, sweet face. “That is not my name.”
Gaius’ eyes widen, lighting with comprehension. He takes a step back. “You’re the little girl.”
“I’m both,” Bess says. “And I’m not little.”
Gaius picks up the jar of salve, his eyes never leaving hers. “No,” he says slowly. “No, of course not.” He cleans and treats her lip, rubs ointment into her bruised cheek with steady fingers. When he is done he wipes his hands on a clean cloth and says, “Bess, why did you come to Camelot?”
She raises her chin. “I didn’t come to kill anyone, if that’s what you mean. ”
Gaius folds his hands in front of him, the patient teacher. “But you have not forgiven Uther.”
The name alone is like flames licking her skin, like the hiss of a falling axe. Bess closes her eyes. “No,” she says. “I haven’t.”
“And have you forgiven me?”
When Bess opens her eyes, she can see Gaius’ regret, and his guilt. So many died as he stood beside his king, and he has not forgotten a single face. They live on in his dreams, in his nightmares. He watches them burn. Good, she thinks. So do I.
The kettle whistles; the water is ready. Gaius crosses the room and lifts it from the flame.
“I don’t want your forgiveness,” Bess says, “and I doubt you want mine, either.”
He shrugs. “Probably not,” he says.
“We both did what we thought right.”
Gaius pauses, his hand over the teapot. He turns back to her. “And what do you think now?”
She’d really hoped he wouldn’t ask that. She looks down at her feet and sighs. “Now I think we were both fools.”
Gaius nods once, and then stands very still, his head bowed. Bess slips gracelessly down from the table, her shoes loud against the stone floor. She’s almost to the door when Gaius turns and takes a step toward her, a cautious advance. She hesitates.
Uther had been her friend and her king, and twenty years later his betrayal burns her still. But Gaius - Gaius had been her teacher. She’d been so powerful, so arrogant and quick to anger, and Gaius had never feared her. He’d been patient, and taught her control. Been kind, and taught her compassion.
Gaius had been her family, and he’d watched silently as Uther’s men bound her to the stake and left her there to burn.
“I have biscuits for the tea,” he says, twenty years and a lifetime later. “If you’d like one.”
Bess looks to the door. Gaius is a traitor and a coward, and she will never forgive what he’s done, not if she lives for a thousand years. Not if she lives forever.
Still, though, she thinks. Biscuits.
++
“I still hate you, you know,” Bess says around a mouthful of biscuit.
“Believe me,” Gaius says, “the feeling is perfectly mutual.” He smiles. “More tea?”
++
part two