Trials | Merlin FanFiction (Merthur)

Chapitre Douze

"You look like an idiot."

Merlin ignored him, and continued to eat, the lamb stew cold but still good. He felt as though he hadn't eaten in a week. Unfortunately, Arthur was washing in a basin, and he was getting a little distracted by all the skin currently on display, and it was a little difficult to chew and swallow while simultaneously grinning like a soppy girl.

Something caught his eye, and he frowned, putting the bowl aside. "What's that?" A new mark was high on Arthur's left hip, still angry and red, stitched neatly along the lower portion and stretching upward more shallowly towards his belly for almost a foot. "What happened?" he demanded, surging off the bed to approach him, dropping to his knees to get a better look. "Who did this?"

"It's nothing," Arthur said dismissively, twitching away from Merlin's carefully exploring touch. Merlin growled and grabbed his hip and the curve of his ass and used them as handles to drag Arthur back into position, and hey, this new thing between them was going to come in handy, because Arthur didn't get stroppy over being manhandled and instead made a small involuntary sound and softened, relaxed, let Merlin examine him.

Merlin frowned, mouth tight as he carefully traced the path of the wound, seeing the stroke that had caused it in his mind's eye. It was in the right place, the deepest part of it would have come in just below the gap of the haubergeon , a lucky stroke of the sword that would have come in on Arthur's weaker side, where his blocking might have been slowed by the heavy shield. But the cut looked too narrow and clean for a sword, and Merlin had patched up enough of Arthur's training accidents to know that a sword would have made a thicker, heavier cut. It looked like a knife injury, but that didn't make sense, because Arthur wore quilted padding to practice knife fighting, not mail, and the padding didn't have the same gaps to allow for range of motion.

He let his fingers touch it gingerly, felt the heat and the slightly puffy skin, the oily residue of a salve still lingering, and looked up at Arthur. Arthur looked very calm, and his eyes were very blue, which was good because right now Merlin felt like he was about to fly apart.

"It was an attempt, yes," Arthur confirmed, quietly, although Merlin hadn't said anything yet. "One of the new Druid recruits was a plant. We were sparring, and he dropped his sword and used a knife."

"Where is he?" Merlin didn't recognize his own voice, but Arthur didn't flinch.

"Brydain has him." Arthur didn't look away from him, and Merlin could see reflected fire in his eyes. "He's started questioning him. It only happened three days ago."

Merlin stood up, and he was too close to Arthur but he was shaking so hard it seemed like a good thing. He put his hands on Arthur's forearm when he swayed, let Arthur keep him on his feet. Arthur reached up and touched his cheek, gently, and Merlin trembled.

"I want to see him."

Arthur smiled, and it looked involuntary. "Absolutely not," he said dryly, and stepped back a bit, dropping his damp cloth in the basin. "I need him alive."

"I'd leave him alive," Merlin said, although he wasn't entirely sure that was true. He felt like something in his chest was tearing at him, desperate to be set free. Arthur's sardonic look told him that maybe Arthur didn't entirely believe him either. "Mostly."

"Don't worry about it," Arthur said confidently, and moved past Merlin to start dressing. "Brydain's confident we'll get a lot of information out of him, although he hasn't said a word since it happened. And he's under guard now. We've taken steps to secure the rest of the recruits, make sure that none of them were a part of the plan. Now that you're back, you can help with that."

"And when Brydain's finished with him?" Merlin had to fight down the surge of rage. He stared at the point of Arthur's hip, seeing now the way Arthur favored it, very slightly. "What will happen then?"

"Then he'll be dealt with," Arthur said, and propped one of his feet up on the bed, lacing up his boot. "I may exile him, I don't know. He's not a fighter, not a trained assassin, just a simple village boy, Merlin--gods only know what they threatened him with to make him go along with this." He must have read Merlin's expression. "I mean it, Merlin," he warned. "Don't go near him. Leave him to Brydain's men, they'll get answers out of him soon."

Not soon enough, Merlin thought stubbornly. "When did he arrive?" he asked, and Arthur sighed and switched feet.

"About a month ago," he glanced up from lacing, "so you probably would recognize him. Ashgillian?"

One of the youngest of the volunteers that had come forth, barely enough into his growth spurt to hold a sword. He'd arrived a month ago with a group of men from one of the outermost Druid villages, from near the Mercian border. Merlin had liked him. Arthur had muttered something about fighting with children, but had eventually given in and allowed Lancelot to start training him. "He waited for me to leave," Merlin said, and that cold, tearing feeling was back. "He waited for you to be defenseless. I should never have gone."

"No," Arthur said flatly, straightening and dropping his foot down, coming to stand in front of Merlin. He gripped his shoulders lightly, squeezed once. "You had to go--for Gaius and Gwen and Morgana, you were the only one who could have saved them. And Merlin," and Arthur's eyes were very blue, dark with pain, "if my father could order this against me, he would not have scrupled to kill them. You know that."

Merlin nodded once, reluctantly, and the warm heat of Arthur's palms on his bare skin was incredibly reassuring. Arthur's eyes held him, and he had to sigh, to let their confidence and trust push some of his sick guilt away.

"Not to mention the fact that I wasn't exactly defenseless," Arthur said, and now he was smirking, big and insufferable, stepping back and letting Merlin breathe again. "I certainly didn't need my manservant to help me defeat a boy with a knife. You're just being self-important," and that was all Merlin needed to sputter in exactly the way he knew Arthur wanted him to.

"Listen, you arrogant prat," he began hotly, smiling a little helplessly as Arthur began laughing, when someone knocked at the door.

Lancelot stuck his head in, looked a little startled to see Merlin standing there naked--Merlin looked down at himself and immediately started to blush--and Arthur doubled over with laughter.

"Uh, sire?" he said carefully. "The men are ready, if you are."

"I'll be there in a minute," Arthur said, still chuckling. "Go on, start without me."

"Of course, sire." Lancelot bowed with impeccable manners, and Merlin blushed and blushed and pretended he wasn't standing there starkers, with--oh god--love-bites all over his chest. He and Arthur exchanged suppressed grins, and then Lancelot was gone, and Merlin grabbed for his trousers quickly.

They were still wet, and what kind of plank didn't know to wring out clothes before you hung them to dry? Arthur leaned against the bed and watched him grit his teeth and wriggle into them, every icy damp inch clinging stubbornly to his skin, eyebrow raised and smirk obvious.

"Why don't you just magic them dry?" Arthur asked, blandly.

"Shut up," Merlin said sullenly, because it actually hadn't occurred to him, and if this was what shagging Arthur was going to do to his head, he might as well go drown himself in the village pond and save himself the embarrassment. Not to mention that he was not thinking at all about the way that his skin still tingled, because whenever he did, he almost fell over his own feet--and Arthur waited for him to finish tying the soggy laces before he crossed the room, cupped Merlin's face, and kissed him.

Merlin stopped thinking.

After a period of time that was vastly too short, Arthur stepped back, mouth red and a little swollen, face flushed. "All right," Arthur said breathlessly, in a voice that lacked some of it's normal command. "Come on, get me ready. Can't hang about all day in here."

Merlin waited until Arthur was in the middle of training, surrounded by ahundred men with Lancelot at his back, before he left the practice fields.

"Let me see him," Merlin told Brydain when he found him, and Brydaindidn't bother to pretend not to understand.

Ashgillian was in one of the rooms of the Hall, one ankle bound to the wall butnot otherwise tied. He looked dirty and smelled awful, and Merlin ignored thebruises, the blood that spotted his shirt. He was sitting against the wall, andhe looked up when Merlin opened the door. Arthur was right, he really was justa boy--he was sixteen, Merlin knew, but here he didn't look older than twelve.

Arthur was a good man. Arthur could forgive someone who'd tried to kill him.Arthur could actually contemplate a merciful exile, allowing him to take hisoathbreaker's shame to some far corner of Camelot. He didn't know if he couldbe the kind of man that Arthur was.

But for Arthur, he would try.

Merlin stared at Ashgillian for a long time. The boy met his stare with aleaden, dull resignation. His fingers were swollen, Merlin noticed clinically,dark with bruises. Broken.

"Be glad you failed," he said finally, and Ashgillian flinched.

"Yes," he said after a minute, so softly that Merlin could barelyhear him. He felt the guard beside him react, and waved him away. The guardhesitated, and Merlin gave him a flat stare that made guard blanch and fallback. Merlin stepped into the room, and shut the door behind him, using magicto do it, knowing that it would make his eyes burn in the dim light. Ashgillianstared at him, apparently awestruck. Well, that would make it easier.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes." The word was breathed out.

"Who am I?" Merlin held out his hand to the fireplace, effortlesslycalling flame to the cold wood and filling the room with ruddy light.

"You're Prince Arthur's warlock," Ashgillian said, and there wassomething trusting and vulnerable in the way he said it, something that Merlincouldn't quite place.

"Why did you do it?"

Ashgillian looked down, and slowly drew his knees up to his chest. His feetwere bare, and the soles left smears of blood on the dirty floor.

"My sister," he whispered, and there was a hitch in his breath."They took my sister away."

"Who took her?"

Ashgillian didn't look up. "Men on horses." Merlin waited, but hedidn't continue.

"Go on," Merlin said harshly, trying to put all his frustration, hisanger, into the bitten-out words. Ashgillian cringed a little.

"They wore blue," the boy said, "red and blue. They said she wasa witch, they said they would burn her. If I didn't--do what they said."He stopped, heaving for breath.

"Go on," Merlin said, a little softer now, but he didn't need to. Theboy's broken hands twitched, and he looked up at Merlin, tears streaking thedirt on his face.

"She's five," he said, helplessly. "They said to go join PrinceArthur. They told me where to go, what to say. They said, when--when I could, Ishould take my knife. They told me what to do," he finished, and he closedhis eyes.

Merlin stared down at him. He tried to see the man who'd tried to assassinateArthur, tried to see a would-be killer. But all he saw was a boy, and he sighedand leaned back against the wood of the door.

"Her eyes," Ashgillian said, and he still didn't look at Merlin, buthe sounded even younger now, scared and defeated. "They glowed. Likeyours. That's why they took her. She was my only sister." Past tense.Merlin winced, in spite of himself.

"You love your sister."

Ashgillian didn't look up. "I'd have done anything for her," he saiddully. Hopelessly. He had to know, Merlin thought uncomfortably, and felt hisfirst real flash of sympathy, that she was probably already dead.

Merlin turned to leave, Ashgillian sunk back into his silence, but somethingfroze him in his tracks, staring unseeing at the doorway. Red and blue riders.Red and blue.

Red.

And blue.

He turned back to Ashgillian. "The riders you saw," he said, slowly."What crest did they wear?"