Work Text:
For heartofoshun, with great affection
I have done nothing but in care of thee,
Of thee, my dear one
Hunith waits for him to make his way slowly down to her. Even from a distance she can see the change in him. He looks worn. His shoulders bent, steps slow, head bowed.
When he stands before her, she settles into an awkward curtsy, feeling slightly ridiculous with her hands clutching still soaked linens from the wash. She can see the thick trail of droplets they leave on the ground before her, and she can feel the damp chill as they soak through her apron to her skirt as she tries to keep herself steady and the wash from trailing in the dirt. "My lord," she says and bows her head.
A small smile twists the corner of his mouth as he catches her elbow and pulls her up. “I'm not that, not here anyway.”
She smiles then too. “Oh, no, my lord, you are to me.”
“Please, don't,” he says. “I don’t ...”
She cuts across whatever he had intended to say. “I gave you my allegiance, my lord, and I am glad to see you again.”
“I don't know why you should be,” he says, with a short, bitter laugh. He is no longer looking at her, his blue eyes fixed on a point a little behind her. “I haven't repaid you well.”
“Have you not, my lord?” She replies, turning away to place her things into the basket she has brought with her. She turns back and gently touches his arm. He looks at her then, lowering his gaze from the rise where the trail to the river divided itself from the road to Ealdor and her home. It is, she knows, a place where one might expect to see someone coming to help her home.
Seeing this, she brings her hand to his face. She wants to try to soothe him as she had tried to comfort her son when he had come home to her as worn and weary as the man before her.
But she stops before she touches him, fingers only the barest distance from his skin, caught by the shame clouding his eyes and bowing his shoulders.
Were he her son, she would touch him and offer the small comfort a mother can. Were he a village boy she has known since birth, she could do the same. But he is neither. He is not her son, and he never was a village boy. He is not hers to comfort, no matter how much she might wish.
She drops her hand to her side and says, “You should come with me. It’s a long ride from Camelot. You must be tired and hungry.”
He hesitates, hand gripping his horse’s reins a little tighter; he clears his throat and seems about to speak.
But he doesn’t, swallowing instead the words he was about to utter.
He clears his throat a second time and still cannot begin.
She thinks about taking pity on him and answering the question he cannot quite ask.
But she does not.
She thinks about looking away from him, knowing that he would find it easier to speak the words if he no longer felt her eyes upon him.
But she won’t.
She will not make this easier for him. He would not want her to try. He does not want her pity, and he does not want to appear any weaker than he already seems. However difficult this is for him, however difficult it is for her, she has no choice but to permit him to face it on the terms he has chosen.
She keeps her eyes on his face and watches as he draws himself up a little straighter and forces the question through half-willing lips on the next try. “Is he here?”
“He was here a fortnight ago,” she replies. “He stayed three nights then left. I think he waited to see if you would come. I thought you would in time, and I told him so. But he was always impatient.”
He nods. She is certain that he would prefer to look away from her but notices that he continues to hold her gaze. “Do you know what happened then?” he asks. “Did he tell you why he left Camelot?”
“No,” she answers gently, “but I can guess. Not many things would have brought him here.” She turns away and grasps the basket containing the wash, bracing it against her hip.
When he steps forward to try to take it from her, she stops him, saying quietly, “Thank you, my lord, but there is no need. I am used to the weight.”
He says nothing else and follows her back to her hut.
He sits quietly as she prepares a meal for them to share, her own meager offering supplemented by the provisions he has brought.
They speak little. Neither one of them is quite ready to speak of what has brought Arthur back to Ealdor.
She cannot help but find it strange, the differences between his last visit and this one. He had seemed too bright and too rich for her home, its familiar confines made smaller by his presence. It had made for such a contrast with Gwen and the Lady Morgana. Both had seemed comfortable in her home despite the vast differences between Ealdor and the life they'd known in Camelot. They had slipped smoothly into her world and adapted to its differences.
Arthur had not, though he had tried to conceal his discomfort in his own fashion. He had been a little too loud, a little too casual and a little too intent upon playing the boorish prince when he wasn’t trying to teach the villagers how to survive.
In his difference, he had reminded her of Merlin, strange though that thought had seemed at the time.
Neither was entirely at ease in her home. Neither had fit.
Arthur was trying to seem at home in a place he had never expected to be. He was trying to pretend he had not turned his world and hers upside down riding after them. Merlin had returned to the place he had called home only to find that it no longer was.
They’d needed each other then.
Arthur had relied on Merlin to find his way in a place from which he had always been removed and among people of whom he knew little. Merlin had sought reassurance that he might have somewhere to call home when the battle was won.
She had been surprised to find that Arthur, older and far more reserved, had found it easier to express his need for the other's companionship, even, if it was mostly in casual taunts and rough gestures.
She cannot help but see the differences now.
He is still bright in the dim light of the fire. Still fair and still dressed in fine clothes. But he no longer seems as out of place as he once had. No longer too big; no longer too loud. Instead he fits at her table, slots neatly into the place that had once been her son's.
“I know what he is,” he tells her quietly as he sets the knife down on her makeshift table.
“Yes,” she says, “I thought you must. Why else would he return and you follow?”
“Are you what he is? Are you like him?” His voice remains quiet and sounds almost uncertain.
“No. I am not like Merlin. I have no such gifts.”
He leans back in his chair, one hand resting on the table and the other pressed to his lips. His hand is pale against the dark surface, the glittering metal of the ring he wears a stark contrast to the worn and pitted wood. He watches her silently for a long while and then, dropping his hand from his face to the table, he poses another question. “How long?”
“How long has he had magic?” she queries in response.
“Yes. How long has he used magic?”
“Did you not ask him?”
“No,” he replies, one corner of his mouth twisting upward. “But I think you may already know that I did not ask.”
“Perhaps,” she concedes, tilting her head to consider him. “He told me very little. But I know my son very well. I think I can guess what was and was not said.”
He nods, whether in acknowledgment or admission she cannot tell. Then he continues, speaking in slow, stilted phrases, “He tried to tell me. At least I think he did. I wouldn't listen. I didn’t want to hear him, but now I find that I need to know. I need to understand. Will you tell me?”
She does not respond at once. Instead, she ponders how to answer Arthur's question, a question that is far more difficult to answer than he could possibly know. He must recognize her concern for he tries to be patient and to allow her time to gather her thoughts. But he is not accustomed to waiting for the answers he seeks, and he wants the ones he believes her to have very badly. He doesn't betray his impatience by moving, much less speaking. But she sees it embedded in the rigid line of his shoulders and in the taut stretch of his fingers as they press against the tabletop. She knows she has little time before his impatience spills into frustration and he demands an answer. But it matters little. She has been certain that he would ask her this, and she has never found an easy answer. There isn't one.
From the moment Merlin had arrived home, worn to the bone and clinging to a horse too fine to belong to a servant, she had known that Arthur had discovered her son's secret. She had also been certain that he would follow Merlin to Ealdor if only because he would have questions for her as well. He had trusted her. He had helped her, and yet she had hidden this from him too.
In the days after Merlin had returned (only to leave again), she had imagined the prince's return to Ealdor hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times. But she had never been sure what it would bring. In her deepest fears, the dreams that left her shaking and sweating in the dead of night, she had seen him riding into the village accompanied by a score of knights.
She knows too well Uther's hatred of magic, knows the lengths to which he will go to find a person with the abilities he deems unnatural. No treaty will keep Merlin safe should Arthur have revealed her son's secret. None had prevented Camelot's knights from crossing the border in pursuit of his father
She does not believe -- she cannot believe -- that Arthur would seek Merlin's death. But she knows that he cannot always overrule his father's will or find a way around it, and she has wondered whether the prince might come himself, if only to offer Merlin a better death than one at the stake, should Uther send his knights after Merlin.
Once, she dreamt that he came to bring Merlin back to Camelot. He was not angry in this dream. He did not feel betrayed. He understood, and he wanted to bring her son back to the home he had chosen.
But she had dismissed that dream as the wish of an aging and foolish woman.
More often, she had imagined that he would come as he has: alone, angry and in search of answers.
Although she has spent little time with Arthur, she has already learned that he does not trust easily and he does not give affection readily. He had learned that lesson from his father early, and he had learned it well. Yet he had decided to trust Merlin, and he had cared enough for him to defy his father two times of which she knows and likely more besides. He had made him a confidant despite the difference in the stations. He had trusted him with everything and everyone for whom he cares. Knowing that, she has feared -- she still fears -- that he will not forgive Merlin for having lied to him, no matter the reason and no matter how apparent Merlin's devotion. Betrayals, she knows, cut deeper they come from those closest to you, even when the betrayer has little choice in the matter and even when he'd never wanted to betray you at all.
A sharp exhale forces her attention back. Arthur is watching her, expression tight. He curls one hand into a fist, only to release it. He presses the palm against the tabletop, fingers reaching away from its surface. His movements lack their usual grace. They are sharp and quick. They are almost clumsy. Almost awkward.
“Please,” he says, holding her eyes with his, “I need to know. How long?”
“Always.” She hesitates, and then she clenches her hands, forces herself onward and begins to explain. “He has always had magic. Ever since he was born.”
He inhales sharply and says, “I don’t understand.”
“How could you?” she says, smiling ruefully in response. “I don’t entirely understand myself.”
"Then tell me what you do. Please."
She speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. “I need to explain, my lord. You deserve to know, and I need – Merlin needs – for you to understand what he is and why he felt he needed to hide it from you. I believe that he is still dear to you. I believe that is why you are here, so please listen to me and let me speak freely.”
He watches her intently as she speaks. When she finishes, he inclines his head, a gesture she takes both as permission to proceed and a promise to listen.
She pauses for a moment and presses her hands together on the table before her. She takes a deep breath and begins, “Magic is not simply something Merlin can do or not do. It isn’t a thing he learned from a book or a tool he can pick up and put down at will. It goes deeper than that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is a part of him. He didn’t need to be taught to use it. He doesn’t need spells to work it. It is so much a part of him that he cannot be rid of it and he cannot refuse to use it. He could no more live without it than you can live without air.”
She watches Arthur closely and is dismayed, though not surprised, to see fear flicker across his face.
He shakes his head, refusing to meet her eyes and saying, “That can’t be. It isn’t possible. It’s not …”
“Not what?” she cuts him off. “Not natural? It is what he is. He didn’t decide to become this. He isn’t responsible for how he was born or for the gifts he was given. He was no more able to choose this than I was able to choose my station or you yours.”
He turns further away from her, a pained expression twisting his features. She stands and moves to kneel beside his chair. She catches his arm and forces him to meet her eyes. When he does, she pleads, “Would you tell a child that what he is, what makes him who is, is wrong? Would you have me? He is my child. Why would I believe that? How could I?”
He leans towards her, his eyes intent upon her face. “It’s dangerous,” he begins.
“Dangerous?” she spits the word out. “Yes. It is. But all power is dangerous. You are born to power. You are dangerous. Does that make you evil? Would you have me treat you as if you were? No matter that you had done no wrong? Would you treat my son that way? As if he were wrong? Evil? Tainted?”
He tries to interrupt her a second time, but she grips his arm harder and stops him. “Is that truly what you think of him? You. Of all people, you should know better. He has used his magic to shield you and to save you. He has tried to ensure that you will live to succeed your father when it is time. He has saved me and my home. He hasn’t used it to harm. How is that evil? How is he evil?”
She releases him, stands and turns away to stare into the fire. After a moment, she hears the soft rustle of fabric and feels a hand at her shoulder. She looks up to find him watching her, the same pained expression on his face. He releases her shoulder and touches her arm. Holding her gaze with his, he says softly, “It isn’t evil. He isn’t evil. I never said he was. I thought you knew me better.”
“But …” she starts.
“It’s only that …” he pauses, seemingly uncertain as to how he should proceed. He releases her gaze and drops his eyes to the floor. He continues slowly, words careful and cautious. “I’ve always been taught that magic is evil and that those who use it seek to do harm. I’ve encountered many who did. I’ve very nearly been the victim of several, as has my father, Morgana, Guinevere and Merlin himself. I also know that there is a difference between those who use their power to protect and those who use it to harm …”
He breaks off. But he breathes in deeply and meets her eyes, then begins again. “I know Merlin isn’t evil and I know he hasn’t used his gifts to harm. But it is still hard for me to understand who he is and what he can do. I came here to try.”
“All right,” she says. Then, because he is a man who needs to act, she adds, “What can I do? What do you need to know?”
He looks at her. “He can’t help it?”
“No.”
“He’s always been this way?”
“Yes.”
“Since he was born?”
“As I said.”
He nods. Then he extends a hand to her and leads her back to her chair before returning to kneel before the fire. He begins to tend to it, slowly and methodically adding new logs to the fire. He positions each one carefully to ensure that the fire lasts throughout the night. When he is done, he stays there, watching the fire inch its way across each of the new logs and begin to consume the wood.
Still facing the fire and not her, he asks softly, voice barely audible over the crackling flames, “What was it like? Raising him here?”
“Mad,” she replies. “Frightening.” His shoulders stiffen and he places his right hand on the ground as if he seeks to steady himself. She continues, “Wonderful.”
His stance eases, and he turns back to look at her, part of his face illuminated by the fire and part remaining in shadow.
She gestures, a little awkwardly, for him to take his chair, but he shakes his head and sits on the ground beside the fire and in front of her.
“How so?” he says gently.
She starts to tell him about the first years of Merlin’s life. At first, her words are slow, as awkward and hesitant as she herself is.
“He could do magic before he could walk. Before he could even talk. He could move things by simply thinking about them, by wanting or needing them. Blankets when he was cold. Food when he was hungry. Toys, such as he had, when he wanted them.”
She looks down at her hands, twisting in her lap, and then up at Arthur. He’s silent, listening to her intently.
She continues, “He had very little control over at first. He didn't know -- How could he? He was only a babe. -- that it wasn't something that he should do. He knew only that, when he needed something, he could make it come to him. So I carried him as much as possible. I tried to guess what he needed before he did, so he wouldn't try to find it himself. I kept him away from other people as much as possible until he was old enough to understand, until he was old enough to begin to control it, old enough not to use it.”
Hunith pauses for a moment, scrubs her face with her hand and then continues. "It isn't an easy thing to teach a child to hide what he is -- to hide who he is -- from everyone. It isn't an easy thing to teach him to trust no one with what he can do, to allow no one to see who he is. It isn't an easy thing, and it's not a good one. But it was necessary."
Arthur shows no sign of wanting to interrupt her and gives no indication that he wishes her to stop. Instead, he listens quietly, attends to each word she says.
“He became better at controlling it as he grew older. He grew better at hiding it too. He had to. He still used it from time to time. He was curious about it. He wanted to know what he could do, so he would try different things when I wasn’t around. I’d know he had when I found things broken or spilled on the floor."
"Were you angry with him when he tried?"
"Yes," she says. "No. I understood why he wanted to know; it was the same reason another boy might try to see how fast he could run or another how much he could lift or another how many men he could best with a bow. I understood, but I knew that his talent might cause him to be killed when another boy's would win him renown. He would try such stupid things too. He'd try to help me. He'd move the flour or try to hang with wash, and he would want me to be happy. He wouldn't understand why I was afraid."
She stops, hands twisting in her lap, and she looks at the young man sitting before her. "He didn't want to hide," she says.
"He wouldn't," Arthur answers. "He didn't."
"No," she replies. "He didn't. But he had to, and I made him."
He seems to have no answer to that, but she hadn't expected him to have one. He remains silent for a very long time, eyes fixed on the ground between them.
But, at the moment when she begins to clear her throat and then continue, he interrupts.
"It can't have been easy," he says, "for either one of you."
"It wasn't," she answers. "Merlin didn't understand why he needed to hide. He believed that he could help people and that they would accept him when they understood that he meant no harm. He didn't realize that some would fear him and that others would try to use him. He only began to understand when he heard them speak of magic with fear in their voices and hate in their eyes."
"No wonder he never chose to tell me. I treated him as badly as he feared."She has no reason to disagree, and she does not intend to. Arthur had not treated Merlin well when he'd learned. He had not understood. He'd ordered him out of his presence and forced him to leave his side.
But she meets his eyes, and the hurt and shame is so very clear that she finds herself saying something else instead.
“I doubt he wanted to lie to you,” she tells him.
"Do you mean he wishes he had told me? Why would he?"
“No,” she says, “I believe he wishes he had never had to hide it from you in the first place. He never wanted to hide anything from you.” Then, because she has come this far already and he needs to know why Merlin would not seek to hurt him, “He has never found it easy to hide things from those for whom he cares.”
He doesn’t speak, but the question and the underlying doubt are clear in his eyes.
“Of course, he does. I sent him to Camelot, but no one, not even Merlin, would have remained where his life was forfeit without a reason.”
Arthur still does not respond. She finds it strange that he is silenced by something of which he has long been aware, though he has refused to acknowledge it. Merlin has been loyal to him -- has offered his life for Arthur's -- not because Arthur was a prince and not even because he was destined to be a great king. He did not offer his service for gold, for land, for influence or power. Instead, he chose to save him the first time -- long before he had even liked him -- because no one should stand aside and allow an evil to be perpetrated if one had the means to prevent it. He continued to stand beside Arthur and to protect him because he had learned enough about the prince to believe that, beneath the bluster and the pride, the arrogance and the short-temper, he was a good and decent man and that he could become someone for whom it would be worth fighting.
Arthur hadn't truly understood this. He had only known that the boy who had refused to bow before him and had mocked him in the shadow of his own castle had somehow and sometime stopped speaking to him with disdain. He had only discovered that that same boy would stand at his side when no one else dared and fight for him when no one else would. He'd begun, reluctantly and grudgingly, to accept Merlin's loyalty, and he had, still more grudgingly and still more reluctantly, begun to care for Merlin in his turn, though he would never say it and hardly knew how to show it.
She allows him time to become re-accustomed to that truth, watching him struggle with it. His shoulders bow and hands clench, making him appear as young as he truly is in the dim light of the fire.
After a long while, he straightens. He still does not face her but continues instead to stare into the fire as he speaks. "I wouldn't have told," he says. "I couldn't have. No matter how angry I was, no matter how much I didn’t understand, I wouldn't have repaid him that way.”
“And yet you sent him away when you did learn.”
“I ... I had to ... It's not allowed.”
“Does that really matter to you?”
“I have my duty.”
A duty you have thrown aside for him time and time again, she thinks but does not speak aloud. She says instead, "You have a duty to do what is fair and right.”
He looks away from her, casting his eyes down to the ground. But he speaks clearly and she has no difficulty understanding him. “I know,” he says. “But I was angry, and I didn’t understand. I couldn’t believe he’d lied to me, couldn’t accept that he had reason to lie. But I wouldn’t put him in danger. I wouldn’t tell my father."
He turns back to her face, voice stronger and more determined. "You know that. You've known that. Why else would you tell me about him? If you thought I'd meant him harm -- that I didn't care what happened to him, you would have lied and sent me away. I wronged him. I didn’t know what to do. I was angry with him. I was afraid to let him stay. But I wanted him safe. I still want him safe.”
“He isn't safe, not apart from you.”
“He isn't with me either.”
“Then, if neither is safe, let him choose where he would stay.”
Much later, he says a little more. She had expected it, having learned already that he is not comfortable sharing his secrets and that he finds it easier to speak of them in the dark where even his chosen confident cannot see him and the expression he wears easily. She wonders if he knows that the night offers him little protection; the raw emotion in his voice is clear for anyone to hear.
“Are you sure you want him to stay with me?”
“Yes,” she says, “it is what he wants.”
“Are you sure? I can’t offer him much. Not now, maybe not ever. You know that.” He speaks hesitantly. Apologetically.
“Yes.” She does know.
“Then why would he stay?”
“I’ve already told you.”
His cloak rustles as he shifts. She turns and looks in his direction only to find him sitting up and watching her. He looks wan and tired. She is certain that he hasn’t slept and that he won’t. When he speaks again, his voice is diffident and uncertain,
“Shouldn’t he be somewhere where he can be what he is, with someone who can offer more than I?”
“That choice is his, not mine and not yours. Unless you no longer want him with you.” She has no other answer.
He remains silent for a very long time. So long that she would have decided that he had regretted speaking were she not able to see him sitting and staring into the fire.
“Would you rather he had not been the way he is?” he asks.
She gasps, startled, and cannot answer right away.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No,” she replies, “I don’t mind that you did. I love my son, but I have sometimes wished it. I’ve wished he weren’t as he is. I have wished that he were like the others, that he was like Will was. I’ve wished he could stay here. I have wished that he didn’t need to know more than this place, that he need have no greater concerns than whether the harvest would provide enough or the cow would give enough milk. I thought that would be enough for anyone to worry about.”
He looks away from her and prods the fire with a long stick.
She continues, “But it wasn’t what he wanted and it isn’t who he is. I decided that there was no point in wishing for those things and that it was wrong for me to do it. I decided that, if I were to waste my time with wishing, I would wish for a world in which he could be safe. A world where he was not in danger because of who he is. A world where he didn’t have to hide.”
He leans forward and tends to the fire, adding the stick with which he'd stirred it and another two or three small pieces of fuel. When he has finished and has wrapped himself in his cloak again, he asks her another question. It's one he has asked her before.
“Why did you send him to Camelot?”
She knows she owes him the full answer now.
"For the reasons I gave you before," she answers, softly at first and then more clearly. "He could not stay here. Had he stayed, he would never have understood who he is and what he can do. He never would have learned to use his gift well and for the right reasons. Had he stayed, he might have been shunned and hunted for what he was. Worse yet, he might have become a person who, having been shunned and hunted, sought to use his gifts to avenge himself on those who tormented him. I would not like to think that could happen, that my son could become such a person, but I have lived long enough to see the things we can do to one another, what we do when we are hurt and afraid. I didn’t want to take the chance.”
“You weren’t afraid that he would be shunned or hunted in Camelot? That he would not have reason to seek vengeance on those who mistreated him.” The bitterness in his voice is still there, another injustice in which he has been complicit and one he cannot yet remedy.
“No. I trusted Gaius to teach him and to keep him safe. I hoped he would meet others who would care for him and protect him too.”
She hadn’t meant to wound, but he ducks his head, ashamed.
She sighs and says, “I know that there are things you cannot give. But tell me this. Will you accept him as he is? When you are king, will you let him be what he is meant to be?”
He answers much faster than she had expected. “Yes. Yes, of course. I will.”