Chapter Text
Merlin peered into the bit of broken mirror he’d stashed away in his room, frowned, and picked up the rag again. He dipped it into the basin and scrubbed at his face for what felt like the hundredth time; he’d gotten most of the blood off, but there was a clot stuck in his eyebrow that refused to come out. He redoubled his efforts, digging his nails in behind the rough cloth. The clot was finally gone when he pulled the rag away again, though his skin had reddened with irritation. He studied his reflection critically, his frown deepening as he took in the sight of his own face. He looked awful, pale and wan and visibly upset, but there was nothing else for it. He had a job to do, and frankly, there wasn’t anything else he could do to improve his appearance. Anyone who looked at him for more than a few moments would know at once that something was very wrong. Still, he couldn’t hide away in his room forever; someone would come fetch him sooner or later, and it would go all the worse for him if Arthur had to send someone to retrieve him.
Luckily, though, Merlin hadn’t had time to fetch a page and send Arthur a message to let him know that he had been delayed, so the King was probably angry with him, and Arthur could always be relied upon to ignore everything but his own irritation once he was well and truly annoyed. Which was a very, very good thing, because if anyone asked why Merlin was upset… well, he’d probably tell them. Which was a problem, because Merlin was pretty sure that if he started talking about it, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And if that happened, he would probably find himself saying some distinctly uncomplimentary— and possible even treasonous— things about his master.
Merlin sighed, splashed more water on his face, then blotted himself dry with another rag. He dressed quickly in his spare tunic, leaving off his jacket— the bloodstains would be far too obvious, even to an annoyed and oblivious Arthur— and descended the stairs. He crossed the floor of the infirmary and came to a stop next to the table. He leaned over it, pressing the palm of his hand to the clean white linen he’d wrapped so carefully around his patient, and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin whispered to the shroud. “I’m so, so sorry. You deserved so much better. From all of us.”
He stood, brushed away his tears, and left without looking back.
* * *
Merlin was panting by the time he reached the door to Arthur’s chambers— he’d taken the stairs two at a time, not wanting to keep Arthur waiting any longer than he had to, for fear of his inevitable punishments expanding the longer the King went without his servant— and reached for the latch.
“He isn’t there, Merlin,” one of the guards said, sounding amused. His good humor vanished when Merlin looked up at him. “What’s wrong?” the guard asked at once, standing straighter in response to whatever he had seen in Merlin’s eyes.
Merlin opened his mouth to tell him that everything was fine, reconsidered, and said, “Lost a patient today, Mark,” in a tone that he hoped conveyed exactly how little he wanted to talk about it.
The guard relaxed his stance and looked at Merlin with deep, compassionate eyes. “Sorry to hear it.” The words were simple, but honest; he meant it. “Arthur was in rare form, but he’ll understand. He’s in the Small Council; the Round Table is meeting.”
Merlin silently cursed his luck, thanked the guard, and turned to run down the stairs he’d just ran up. He flew down the hall, skidding to a halt in front of the door. He eyed his empty hands remorsefully; he hadn’t the time to fetch up a tray from the kitchens or pour a pitcher of wine, and hoped Arthur had already ordered another servant to fill in for him. If not, he’d ask what they need and run to get it as soon as possible, hopefully avoiding any more scrutiny than was absolutely necessary. If he was very, very lucky, he might not need to ask— he found himself praying that he would be able to slip inside unnoticed, appraise the state of the Table, then slip back out to collect whatever they needed.
Naturally, he opened the door and nearly ran poor George down.
The other servant had apparently been clearing away a few empty platters; he dropped one of them with a clang that stopped the room’s conversation at once. It also stopped Merlin’s every hope of slipping in unobtrusively.
“Sorry,” Merlin whispered, leaning down to retrieve the plate and set it back on George’s stack.
George smiled commiseratingly and whispered “So am I,” only a moment before Arthur— predictably— started a tirade.
Merlin settled his expression into a practiced sheepish smile and walked towards Arthur with his head angled down, moving slowly and trying to look embarrassed and contrite.
“I was wondering where you were, Merlin; I should have known all I had to do to find you was listen for the nearest disaster.” Arthur flashed a haughty, unpleasant smirk, waited a moment, then snarled, “Well? I trust you have an explanation for this; I hope for your sake it’s a good one,” once it became clear that Merlin wasn’t going to take the bait. “Where have you been all day?”
Merlin felt his smile drop. Bringing it back seemed entirely out of the question; he focused on keeping his expression flat instead. “I was in the infirmary—”
“Try again, Merlin,” Arthur said, coldly. Gwen rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation, and several of the knights shifted uncomfortably, but no one said a word in Merlin’s defense. They never did— they hadn’t for years.
“Gaius has been in the lower town all day, attending to a birth,” Arthur continued. “I know that you haven’t been working for him today. So, I’ll ask once more: where were you?”
Merlin swallowed, fighting his own rising anger, determined to stay calm and avoid a fight. “I was in the infirmary with—”
“Enough!” Arthur roared, lifting his empty goblet and thumping it down on the table to punctuate his shout. Gwen startled next to him, glared, and made a sharp sound of disapproval. Arthur shot her an apologetic glance, then glared back at Merlin and spoke again, in a voice that was softer in volume, but not in feeling. “Merlin, I’m going to give you one chance, here. Admit you were in the tavern, and maybe I’ll go easy on you.”
Merlin stiffened, straightening his spine and returning Arthur’s glare. “I was in the infirmary,” Merlin spat, “with a patient!”
“Ah, of course, a patient,” Arthur said, smiling unpleasantly. “One that Gaius didn’t mention and hadn’t known about. I should have realized. Well, I’m sure whoever it was is quite satisfied with your brilliant physick, Merlin. Perhaps I’ll ask him for a report on your bedside manner. Where might I find him?”
“Arthur!” Gwen snapped, finally speaking out; even for Arthur, that was going a bit too far. He should have known that Merlin would never lie about someone being injured or ill, and gods, did it gall Merlin that he had.
“Still in the infirmary,” Merlin answered, his voice completely toneless. “Wrapped in his shroud.”
Arthur’s haughty expression vanished in an instant. His hands clenched around the edge of the table, and his eyes fell shut. Gwen gasped and shoved a knuckle into her mouth, frowning deeply and looking utterly ashamed for her husband’s words. The knights shifted uneasily again. Mordred whispered something and made a discreet druidic Sign under the table. Merlin didn’t recognize it, but it was similar enough to the Sign against evil that Merlin suspected it was meant to ward off misfortune and ease the spirit’s travel.
“I’m sorry, Merlin,” Arthur said, solemnly. “I didn’t realize. I shouldn’t have— I’m sorry.”
An apology from Arthur was rare as hen’s teeth. In almost any other circumstances, those words would have washed away Merlin’s anger and had him scrambling to reassure Arthur that he hadn’t taken any offense. But Merlin had been nursing a slow ember of resentment for about a week now; Arthur’s near-abandonment of him at the Cauldron of Arianrhod was a wound too grave and too fresh to have healed after so little time, and his injured leg was throbbing violently, protesting his earlier sprints down the hall— he’d be limping tomorrow for sure.
And on top of all that, there was the fact that, as far as Merlin was concerned, Arthur was at least partially responsible for his patient’s death.
Merlin nodded shallowly, biting the inside of his cheek and fighting to keep what was left of his composure.
“How did he die?”
“Arthur!” Gwen said, sharply, reaching over to slap his upper arm.
“What she said, Princess,” Gwaine muttered, shaking his head and studying the grain of the table intently.
Mordred made the Sign again; Merlin started to wonder if it was his way of asking for forgiveness on Arthur’s behalf.
“I’m sorry, Merlin,” Arthur said, nearly stunning them all; he’d probably apologized more tonight than he had in the past year combined, especially where Merlin was concerned. “But I need to know. I may not say it often, but I know you’re skilled enough to be a Physician in your own right if you only had the time. If you had a patient die in spite of your treatments, I need to know how; should we be expecting an outbreak of some sort?”
Gwen’s expression softened. She looked at Merlin apologetically but expectantly, clearly wanting to hear the answer as much as Arthur did. The King and Queen of Camelot cared deeply for the welfare of their citizens; Merlin should have expected their curiosity.
“No,” Merlin said, simply. “You shouldn’t.”
Arthur’s eyes flashed with annoyance that he quickly buried. “Merlin, I need an answer,” he said again. “What ailment did he have?”
“It was injury, Arthur, not illness.”
Arthur considered that. “An accident?”
Merlin looked away, studying the tapestries for a while. “No,” he said at last.
Arthur straightened in his chair, as did the rest of the knights. Merlin felt the full weight of all of their stares on him as a prickling in his spine, even before he looked back to see it. “Violence, then?” Arthur didn’t bother to wait for an answer. “Did he lay any accusations before he died? Or offer any clues as to the identity of his assailant? Should we begin an investigation in the citadel, or in the towns?”
“Arthur, you’ll overwhelm him,” Gwen whispered. “Can’t you see he’s grieving?”
“Guinevere, I’m sorry, but this is important. If someone’s killing people in Camelot, I have to know who’s to blame—”
“Then look in the bloody mirror!” For a moment, Merlin didn’t realize that he’d spoken aloud; he barely recognized his own voice, vicious in a way that Merlin had never allowed himself to sound in Arthur’s presence.
“Merlin!” Gwen said, aghast. “You can’t possibly mean that!”
“Can’t I?” Merlin snarled. “He was a druid—” Mordred swore, softly, and clenched his fists— “and he was fourteen; he came to Camelot because he’d heard that our King had made peace with the druids and swore that they would be treated with respect in his Kingdom. He wanted to see the castle, hoped to catch a glimpse of the King who was ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity. He found death, instead.”
Arthur had gone pale and very still. Part of Merlin was screaming at himself to shut up, apologize, and back down, but it was a small voice compared to the sound of his own raging anger and disappointment— disappointment that had, in truth, been building up over the course of years upon years of thankless waiting.
“Someone saw his druid mark. He never saw who. The next thing he knew, he was dragged into an alley and thrown down, landing hard on his wrist and breaking it against the cobblestones. Then he was being kicked and thrashed, and focusing on keeping his head down and covered. He looked up exactly once after they started in on him and made eye contact with a man in armor standing at the mouth of the alleyway— a guard or a knight, he couldn’t be sure of which. He screamed for help; the man threw a stone at him instead, then turned and walked away.”
Merlin was breathing quickly again, feeling as though he’d just run the stairs and the halls twice over. His eyes prickled wetly, though he wasn’t crying yet. He was dimly aware of Mordred’s growing pallor, Gwen’s tears, and the looks of astonished horror on the other knights’ faces. He barely took heed; he focused instead on Arthur’s expression— blank, as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, or who he was hearing it from.
“I found him entirely by chance; he’d dragged himself out of the alley they left him in and staggered to the square. I was at the well, drawing water. I barely managed to get him back to the infirmary, had to ask a guard to help carry him to manage it; the poor lad screamed at the sight of him, and only calmed down when I swore the guard was a friend and would help. Gods only know why he trusted me, but he did. He was bruised head to toe, Arthur. Two broken ribs, a shattered kneecap, fractured wrist, several missing teeth, and a broken collarbone.” Merlin listed the injuries with a clinical detachment that he didn’t feel. “The bruising was so extensive that I didn’t realize he was still bleeding internally until it was too late. By the time I sedated him and started surgery, he was past saving. Your people did that, Arthur. Your own guard contributed to it.”
The air in the room was thick with tension and despair. It pressed against them when Merlin fell silent. The silence grew, becoming absolutely unbearable. After a few long moments, Mordred let out a soft, choked sob, made a Sign where anyone could see it, right out in the open, and whispered, “May the Gates of Avalon open to receive him. May the Goddess take him in her arms and into her care.” Percival mimicked him, though his Sign was much shakier, and whispered his own prayer. The silence rose again; the druid knight’s words seemed to echo in the room, in spite of the fact that they’d been spoken too softly to leave a true echo.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur said, sounding lost and broken, but not half as broken as Merlin’s own heart felt.
“I know you are, Arthur,” Merlin said, his voice finally softening. “I know you; you’d never condone something like that. But gods help us, Arthur, what have you done to prevent it?” Merlin tossed his head back, twisted his fingers in the hem of his shirt, and shifted his weight uncomfortably. He knew he’d been harsh— probably too harsh— but he also felt as though it needed to be said, and that he had gone too far not to finish this now.
“You swore to respect the druids and to end their persecution, and, to your credit, you’ve stopped the raids. You’ve ordered your knights to leave them all alone. That’s an excellent start, Arthur, but it’s only a start. It isn’t only your army that threatened them, it was your people; after decades of your father’s lies and propaganda— I’m sorry, Arthur, but there’s no easier way to say it, that’s what they were— your people distrust and despise the druids.” Merlin let that sink in, then said, softly, “It’s been nearly a year since you swore to protect them, but you’ve never bothered to talk to them. You’ve never tried to learn about their traditions, their faith, their beliefs… you don’t understand them, Arthur. They’re a peaceful people, with their own way of viewing the world, and you’ve never bothered to learn about them, and all because they have a different opinion about magic than Camelot’s laws. And if you don’t learn about them, how can you teach your people not to fear them?”
The silence returned. It dragged on, growing more and more uncomfortable until Merlin became increasingly convinced that he’d badly overstepped. He started to worry that he might have just blown past all of Arthur’s tolerance and permanently damaged his relationship with the King. His twisted the hem of his shirt again and again, until it squeezed his fingers so tightly they started to go numb. He tugged them free, let his hands drop to his side, and looked down, scuffing the floor with the edge of his boot.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin said at last. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Gods, Merlin, shut up,” Arthur said. His voice was thick and quivering. “Don’t you dare apologize to me. I’m… I’m glad you said what you did; you’re right. I— I meant what I promised the druid boy’s ghost, but it was so much easier to promise to respect the druids than it is to actually hold up that promise and do right by them.”
Arthur stood and slowly walked around the table until he stood before Merlin. He reached out, gripped Merlin’s shoulder tightly with one hand, and inclined his head in a nod that was as close as a King would ever come to bowing to a servant. “I need you to promise me something now, Merlin. Promise me you’ll do this again, if you need to. Don’t let me forget again. When it’s just us, or just the Round Table, I need you to speak up. I promise I’ll listen. From the start, next time.”
Merlin nodded; he didn’t trust his voice. Arthur gave his shoulder one last squeeze, patted it twice, then withdrew. “Take the rest of the night off, Merlin. Rest. Grieve. For God’s sake, man, you deserve to.”
Merlin nodded again, but licked his lips and said, “Arthur… I think we should send a message to the druids. They deserve to know what happened… they deserve to have the chance to claim him for burial.”
“You’re right,” Arthur said, softly. “God help me, but you’re right again; I should have thought of that.”
Mordred cleared his throat. It barely helped; when he spoke, his voice was still scratchy and rough. “Do you know what Clan he came from?”
Merlin shook his head. “I wish I did,” he said, sadly. “He passed out before I could ask. I don’t even know his name. I only know he was training to be a shrine-keeper. I’m not even sure which shrine it was.”
Mordred stiffened. “Gods save us,” he whispered. Then he stood, abruptly, and bolted out the door.
Arthur blinked and stared in the direction Mordred had gone. “What was that about?”
Merlin shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”