FIC: The Royal Inquisition, (A/G, Uther/Igraine), G, 3/3
The Royal Inquisition
Part Three
Chapter: 3/3
Rating: G
Pairing/Characters: Arthur/Gwen, Merlin, Uther/Igraine, Merlin-Arthur BFFness
Disclaimer: Merlin belongs to the BBC. All the subsidiary characters are named after people from tv shows, books and films, even the ‘first King’ of Camelot. “Wolves, Witches and Giants” is named after a children’s tv series narrated by Spike Milligan.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three
***
If Arthur thought that his father might stop his plotting for even a moment, he was very much mistaken.
The next day, Arthur was still incapable of getting anywhere near Gwen, which he counted as a bad omen.
Then, his father continued grilling her to the point where the questions bordered on disbelief.
Are you certain that my son is your type? He can be a bit soppy and he’s been known to cry like a baby.
Is there a history of obesity in your family, Guinevere? Or falling under enchanted spells?
If you did become Arthur’s wife, is there anything that might make you leave him? His snoring, perhaps? A cause for humanity? Maybe even a tall, dark and more dashing man?
And despite catching his father out in using magic to try and uncover something hideous about Gwen, Uther still slipped a potion to her at breakfast to expose any deeply hidden magical powers and seemed almost surprised when it revealed nothing.
Then there was the occasion when he persuaded Gwen to entertain all the noble people by singing to them. When Arthur had asked how this was relevant to anything, Uther had pointed out that all ladies were expected to have a good singing voice (which was ridiculous because really, had he heard Morgana sing?) Despite Arthur telling Gwen that singing wasn’t a necessity and being asked to sing was akin to abuse, she agreed to do so anyway. He could only watch in trepidation as she nervously walked up to the front of the feasting room, walking as if on the way to the executioner’s. Facing the crowd, her eyes fell on Arthur, seeking reassurance. He did his best to beam and hold his thumbs up in encouragement and she gave him a quivering smile in return.
After a few moments, she opened her mouth, but no words came out. She did it again and then again, but still nothing happened. He was genuinely mortified for her. If it wasn’t unmanly, he’d be biting his nails, wishing that this public humiliation wasn’t happening.
“She is beginning to resemble a fish,” Sir Norbert, who was sitting next to Arthur, remarked.
Arthur merely glared and stamped on his foot underneath the table.
He expected people to start booing or point and laugh at Gwen, but instead the strangest thing happened. She started singing. Gwen, his sweet, sweet girl who was lovely but shy when it came to so much as standing in front a huge gathering of people and who wouldn’t hum along with any of her friends, even when prompted, was singing. And her voice wasn’t squeaky or shrill enough to shatter the window panes. It was actually extremely pleasant.
She started off quietly and hesitantly at first, but as she grew more confident, her voice got louder and clearer. Arthur was too entranced to fathom was she was singing about. Some well-known song about victory and courage, possibly.
The song drew to an end all too quickly, and Gwen’s audience erupted into deafening applause. Arthur was the one clapping the loudest, obviously, and his father was equally as admiring, which made Arthur wonder if he’d only made Gwen sing for his own personal entertainment.
***
Arthur had spent the afternoon sporting a dreamy look on his face whilst he wrote a letter to his mother, telling her how fabulous Gwen was and how angelic her voice sounded. He also asked whether she might be able to stop by and meet her. His father’s approval of Gwen would be nice, obviously, but his mother’s stamp-of-approval ranked higher in his mind.
The prince’s uplifted mood was instantly shattered the moment Merlin came rushing through the door.
“Arthur!” Merlin cried. “Come quick!”
Arthur bolted up. “What is it?”
“It’s Gwen.”
“What about Gwen? Has she-,”
“She hasn’t thrown herself out the window,” Merlin assured him.
“Good. But then what?”
“Your father, he’s taken her-,”
“Taken her where?” he interrupted.
Merlin darted his eyes to the right and stuck his bottom lip out, which Arthur immediately associated with trouble.
Arthur’s eyes widened in realisation. “He hasn’t.”
His friend nodded. “He has.”
“I’m sorry, Arthur, the servants had no idea. He said he was going for another walk with her. We didn’t realise he’d conveniently lose her...”
But Arthur didn’t hear him. He was already running out the door, sword in hand.
***
Like most castles, Camelot Castle was impenetrable and virtually impossible to infiltrate. But unlike most castles, Camelot Castle resided on the edge of the forest. The castle’s vast back gardens conjoined onto the edge of the forest. To an outsider, it would seem easy to invade the castle from the back gardens by going through the forest. But they would have to survive getting through it first.
Legend had it that when King Harold had founded Camelot, he had founded the kingdom under rather dubious circumstances and had made a lot of enemies in the process. Hence, extra security had been needed to guard the castle. Aside from the trolls that had guarded the grounds, the forest itself had been enchanted to keep away intruders. No one had ever lived to tell of what lived there, but there had been rumours of creatures dwelling there more deadly than trolls and trees that wrap their branches around anything they could get their leaves on and ingesting them. As well as that, there was a certain radius projected from the forest: anyone was standing on the castle grounds within that radius would instantly become both confused and lost and end up being sucked into the forest. They had lost a great number of gardeners who hadn’t known that, and hence had to resort to using goats to maintain the gardens.
Arthur couldn’t quite understand why his father had led Gwen to the forests. Other than it resulting in definite homicide, he couldn’t see what else Uther could gain from it. And did his father really mean to kill Gwen? He thought he had warmed to her considerably, and then he went and pulled a stunt like this. When Arthur died in his attempts to rescue Gwen from certain death, he at least hoped that his father would spend years pondering the gravity of his actions.
As he sprinted towards the forest, Arthur thought back to the first time he’d seen her at Morgana’s birthday celebrations a year ago. It had been held in the court, though luckily the elders hadn’t been present and Uther had gone to bed early, as he was wont to do. Arthur had been bored senseless, while Morgana had been having the time of her life. Then again, Morgana had been the only woman in attendance and the men he had counted as good company had been grovelling at her feet. Arthur had stood in the corner, waiting for the party to be over and then Gwen had tentatively stepped through the door, uncertain as to whether she should be there. But she had seen Arthur standing in his corner and had smiled shyly but warmly at him, without having a clue as to who he was. Her smile was enough for him to walk up to her and introduce himself, and to this day, the memory of her blushing as he placed a kiss on her hand still made him smile like a fool. He remembered that she hadn’t been very wordy and he had been the one to do most of the talking, but there had been something entirely compelling about a girl who wasn’t afraid to listen and when she did talk, every sentence she spoke had been profound. They had stayed side-by-side all night and had even danced a time or two.
Arthur knew that there would be those sceptical of the veracity of their feelings for one another. After all, this was only the second time he’d seen Gwen, which made it even more frustrating for him that he couldn’t spend time with her. But those who weren’t believers in true love could never understand him and Gwen, which was maybe why Uther was having such a hard time believing that Gwen was genuine. There had been moments when Arthur had wondered if bringing her into his life was a good idea, but the way his heart was pounding from more than just adrenalin and his rising sense of nausea at the thought of her being unsafe was all the answer that he needed to assure him that it was.
As he drew closer to the forest, it dawned on him that he’d never been this near to it before. Once when he was younger, he and Merlin had dared to venture towards the ‘radius’. As they had reached it, a swarm of bats had come flying out of the forest, and they had run away screaming and had not returned since. He tried to forget this incident, but memories of hairy, scary bats and rumours of grumpy bears and gigantic monsters roaming the forest plagued his mind. Admittedly he was scared, but he was determined to get to Gwen.
With a deep breath, he stepped over the threshold that separated the gardens from the forest and embraced himself for the worst. But a moment passed and he wasn’t dazed and another moment passed and he hadn’t been sucked into the forest. He breathed a sigh of relief.
The forest was but a few steps away and all he could see ahead of him was darkness. There was an eerie silence about the place, which didn’t make the woodland any more inviting. Arthur had never been one for darkness or eerie silences and it took a lot of will power to keep from trembling in his boots and to step forward, albeit slowly.
An ear-piercing scream broke the silence.
“GWEN!” Arthur roared. His initial hesitance waning, Arthur blindly headed into the forest to get to her. He ran, not having a clue to where he was going, but expected terrifying, terrifying things. Was Gwen being tortured by bears? Eaten alive by trolls? Being suffocated by a tree? He had no idea how he was going to save her if any of these were true, but that didn’t stop him from running as fast he could.
After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached her. But she wasn’t being tortured by bears, or being eaten alive by trolls or even being suffocated by a tree.
She was kneeling on the forest floor with what looked like a motionless gnome by her side and a tree branch in her hands. Her dress was reduced to tatters, her face was covered in dirt and she looked absolutely exhausted. Arthur’s jaw dropped at this unexpected sight.
When she saw him coming, she lifted her head and looked at him with a forlorn expression on her face.
“I think,” she began, “that I would rather like to go home now.”
***
Somehow, they got out of the forest unharmed. Gwen couldn’t walk on her own and Arthur had to support her. Haphazardly, Gwen explained how she was walking in the gardens with Uther when she suddenly became lost and ended up in the forest. She expected Uther to come and find her, except he hadn’t. Instead, she’d been attacked by gnomes. Actual gnomes, with pointy hats and tiny pickaxes. Gwen had managed to grab a fallen tree branch and tackle one of them, which had sent the others fleeing out of sight. But even as she and Arthur made their way out of the forest, they could hear the unmistakeable sound of growling.
Gnomes.
Arthur’s mouth set in a grim line. Gwen had been viciously attacked by gnomes! His beloved had almost been killed by tiny creatures with pointy hats! This was serious. Very serious indeed.
When Gwen started to trip up, Arthur stopped and lifted her up from the ground. She protested a little, but he didn’t give in. She certainly wasn’t a heavy weight in his arms and she was far too tired to protest for long. Resolutely, he headed back to the castle, his mind distracted. Any other time he would have revelled in having her in his arms and getting to act heroic but all he could think about was the confrontation that was going to happen as soon as he got back to the castle.
***
Dramatic entrances were more Uther’s forte, but Arthur had watched the master long and hard over the years and knew the secret to making a dramatic but effective entrance.
It started with making sure that Gwen was in safe hands in the castle’s infirmary and ensuring that Merlin was at a constant vigil by her bedside. Then it meant storming over to the throne room, barging through the doors in spite of the guards, giving the guards standing there The Look, watching as they ran away, then glaring at his father who was sitting in his throne reading his book, going up to his father and tearing the damn book from his hands so that he actually could see that he was glaring at him and then placing his hands on his hips and waiting for his attention.
Uther looked up at him immediately. “That was my book!” he cried in dismay as it went flying in the direction of the fire.
“And that was my girlfriend you just tried to kill!”
His father looked confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Uther’s deliberate ignorance instantly vexed his son.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about!” he cried.
Uther frowned. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Because there are certain things I am willing to forgive,” Arthur rambled on, ignoring him. “Commanding Guinevere come to the castle even though she faced mortal peril is just about one of them. Trying to place an enchanted pea under her mattress is another. Interrogating her ad nauseam is only just permissible and don’t get me started on making it entirely impossible for me to get anywhere near her.” The prince took a deep breath. “But intentionally leading her out to the edge of the gardens where you know it’s dangerous- that is unforgiveable.”
“I did no such thing!” The King cried, outraged. “How dare you insinuate that I would deliberately endanger Guinevere’s life!”
“Then tell me why I had to go and retrieve her from the forest, Father.”
Uther shrugged. “After our walk, she wanted some time to wander around the gardens by herself. Maybe she stumbled across the forest from there.”
“And you were happy to just abandon her like that, knowing full well that she could have stumbled into the forest?”
“Nothing bad would have happened to Guinevere.”
“Before or after evil gnomes swarmed onto her?”
Uther raised an eyebrow. “Gnomes?”
“Yes, gnomes.”
“I always thought there were giant spiders in the forest...”
Arthur’s glare got bigger.
Uther waved his hand, in dismissal. “If Guinevere is meant for you, then no serious harm would have come to her. The forest protects those of royal blood and their entrusted ones. If you are meant to be with Guinevere, the forest would recognise this and would not have harmed her.”
“And what if she wasn’t? Is that a gamble you were willing to take? And no royal person has ever stepped in the forest: how do you know that this rule is true? Both of us could have been killed today!”
“You are perfectly alive, aren’t you? And I assume Guinevere-,”
“-is in the infirmary sleeping off her injuries, yes.”
“Then you were able to rescue her without harm.”
Arthur coughed. “Actually, she had the situation under control by the time I got there.”
“See. If the rule wasn’t true, then neither of you would have been able to escape the forest alive.”
“That’s reassuring, Father, thank you,” Arthur drawled.
Uther’s lips set in a firm line. “I wish a lot of things Arthur, but I do not wish Guinevere dead.”
“Then why all these games and tricks? Could a simple dinner not have sufficed?”
The king looked puzzled. “I told you, I needed to make sure she has a good heart.”
“Making her sing in front of all the noble people won’t prove that.”
“But potions will.”
Arthur shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious to you what you’re doing?”
“What?”
“You’re punishing her.”
The King looked put out by this. “Punishing her for what?”
“Because of Mother.”
A stormy looked descended on Uther’s face. They had never, ever talked about Igraine before.
“Your mother has nothing to do with this.”
“Really? Then why is it that since she went away, every woman here has been subjected to rigorous tests? Granted, Guinevere’s was by far the worst and Lady Catrina didn’t even get any but you treat them all with suspicion.”
Uther’s eyes and lips twitched, as if he was fighting a great internal battle. “She abandoned me!” he cried; his voice suggesting the depth of pain he felt about this.
Arthur looked at his father in pity. “Even after all this time, you still don’t understand, do you?”
“What’s there to understand?” Uther bitterly asked.
“She didn’t abandon you. You abandoned her.”
“She left us, Arthur! She left us to go dancing with dragons or planting trees or whatever it is!”
“She got a new hobby.” Arthur replied. “And that threatened you. You weren’t used to your sweet, docile wife doing something for herself and you felt that your position as the most important thing in her life was being usurped. So you gave her a choice, you or her new lifestyle.”
“And she chose her new lifestyle,” Uther spat.
Arthur shook his head. “No, she chose freedom.”
Uther looked at his son in bewilderment.
“I was there, remember? I may have been young, but I was there and I remember! You gave her this ultimatum, but you made it sound like if she stayed, you would take away all her liberties. You might as well have threatened to lock her in the dungeons and throw the key away for all the good your words did!” Arthur sighed. “I remember the night she left. She came into my room, and she was crying. I was too young to understand what was going on, but I remember thinking that if she was never going to smile again, then she shouldn’t stay. And in the morning she left.”
A quick look at his father revealed him still sitting in his throne, with a sombre expression on his face.
“This is the modern age, Father. Women aren’t expected to be voiceless people anymore. To expect Mother to stand by your side like a statue is inconceivable as well as incredibly insensitive. You were a big part of her world but it is selfish to think that you could be the only part it. She wanted to explore who she could be without fully depending on you, and you criticised her for that, told her that she was a vast change from the woman you fell in love with. But the only person who changed was you. If you loved her- if you truly loved her then you would have accepted her no matter what. Somewhere along the way you must have forgotten what it feels like to really be in love; otherwise you would have never let her go. But you did, and you didn’t even try and go after her!”
Uther’s eyes were now closed, his face screwed up and his fists clenched.
“Even if she wanted to return, you went and married the first woman who flung herself in your face. And we all know how well that turned out.” Arthur waited for his father to say something, but he didn’t, so he carried on speaking. “All these years you blamed Mother for all your problems. You’ve treated women horribly because of what you thought she did, and not once did you ever stop to blame yourself.”
The King’s eyes were open, but he couldn’t quite meet Arthur’s gaze.
“I love Guinevere,” Arthur stated. “I love her so much that I humoured your inquisition of her because I wanted you to accept her, and I chased after her when you left her to stumble upon the forest because I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to her. There’s a strong part of me that hopes that if we ever did marry and that she does begin to differ from the woman I fell in love with, that I would still love her no matter what, because isn’t that what love is supposed to be about?” He gave his uncharacteristically quiet father another long look, before Arthur made his way out.
Just as he made his way to the door, he stopped and turned around. “By the way, I’ve invited Mother to the castle tomorrow to meet Guinevere. I just thought you should know that.”
For a moment, Arthur believed that Uther wouldn’t say anything, but then he spoke, his voice subdued and quiet. “Guinevere is a wonderful woman who has proved herself more than worthy of your affections, Son. I hope you find happiness with her.”
Arthur smiled at his father’s final acceptance, and walked out of the door.
***
The next morning, Gwen had fully recuperated and when Arthur had heard that Igraine had arrived, he took her out to meet her.
During her visits to the castle, his mother had not been permitted to actually enter the building. Instead, Arthur and his mother had to convene in the gardens. This had meant that many meetings in the harsh and cold winter had been short-lived, but it also meant that summer meetings had been long and glorious and full of adventure. Even as he had got older, Arthur still looked forward to such meetings with his mother.
Igraine was waiting by the hibiscuses when Arthur met her, hand-in-hand with Gwen. He could tell that Gwen was slightly taken back by his mother’s appearance. She was dressed in a short but colourful tunic, her hair was let down and flowers were woven into plaits- a far cry from the austere appearance of Uther. Igraine also wasn’t wearing any shoes, but he hoped this wouldn’t be a problem for Gwen.
If Gwen had any reservations that Igraine would be stand-offish and interrogate her quite like Uther had, this was immediately shattered when his mother let out a delighted cry and embraced her, exclaiming how beautiful and wonderful and simply delightful she was.
This cheered Arthur up to no end, and the three of them began to walk around the gardens. Igraine had gently probed Gwen about herself and in turn, Gwen had asked all about Igraine. The two of them got on encouragingly well, so well that Arthur momentarily wondered whether Gwen was going to run off and become a pagan along with his mother. Not that it mattered, of course.
A casual glance up at the castle tower revealed a shadowy figure at the window, which made Arthur smile. In all of Igraine’s visits, Uther had made sure he was never nearby. In fact, Arthur wasn’t sure that Uther had even seen his former wife since she had left that fateful night. That he was even observing her was promising. Maybe after all this time, he was finally ready to reconcile with her.
Arthur sensed him coming before he could see him. His mother, who was facing the castle, immediately stopped talking, her breath hitched and her gaze was fixated on something behind Arthur and he knew that it was his father. Uther may have been cagey when it came to the subject of Igraine, but Igraine was never afraid to ask Arthur how his father was. Somehow, he knew she still deeply cared for Uther, despite everything.
Turning around, the prince saw his father approaching, and he stepped aside so that he wasn’t standing in between the king and his mother.
His eyes fixed on Igraine, Uther could only utter her name. Igraine did likewise.
Arthur could almost sense the years melting away between the two of them. They weren’t glimpsing each other as two estranged people who so happened to have an adult son between them. No, to each other they looked like a couple in love with one another, long before they were King and Queen, long before they had a son, long before one had dared to seek out an interest and embrace nature to the extreme, long before the other had asked that person to make a choice and long before the one left behind had dashed any hope of reconciliation by marrying the first beautiful woman who came along (and so happened to be a troll.)
Arthur wanted to stay and wait to see what happened, but a gentle tugging at his hand drew him away. In a stunned daze, Gwen had to lead him over to a bench, where they both sat down.
“My parents are talking to each other!” he exclaimed.
Gwen beamed. “I know.”
“Do you think this is a reconciliation? Do you think that maybe they’ll get back together? And...and get married again?”
Gwen laughed. “One step at a time.”
Arthur let out a content sigh. “I always wanted to be one of those kids who didn’t have a nomadic mother and whose parents were still married.”
“You still can be,” she said, snuggling close to him and leaning her head against his shoulder.
It suddenly occurred to Arthur that he was truly alone with Gwen for the first time, and he placed an arm around her to affirm this.
Despite her insistence to go home yesterday, Arthur had persuaded her to stay at least another day, which she had conceded to, much to his delight. It meant that the two of them could actually spend time together and do all those sickeningly-sweet things that couples-in-love did.
A goofy grin crept up on his face when he realised this.
“Thank you, Gwen,” he suddenly said.
“For what?”
“For agreeing to come here. For meeting my mad father and indulging his crazy whims, and for helping to facilitate this,” he said, pointing in the direction of where his mother and father were. “Any other person would have run a mile at what my father had in store for you. I’m just grateful that you stuck through it all.”
“It wasn’t even a question, Arthur. You know I’d do anything to gain your father’s approval, and yours,” she replied as Arthur’s goofy grin got wider. “Besides,” she began with a smile. “What your father had in store for me is nothing compared to what my father has in store for you.”
Arthur’s eyes widened as she placed a kiss on his cheek.
***
A/N: Just on a side-note, this is part of what I hope will be an ongoing fairytale series. The next one will hopefully be a take on Beauty and the Beast.