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The moment the blacksmith names his daughter Arthur knows.
Gwen, he thinks, of course.
Dread stills his heart for one terrible moment, but there’s still hope – still that small chance that the culprit responsible for this miracle is a better magician than a manservant and the executioner’s axe will not soon be screaming for more innocent blood. It is a cold comfort. He hears the beat of the executioner’s drum even before the poultice is found.
Merlin really is a bumbling idiot.
When his fists close over the damnable object in white-knuckled fury, the future seems all too clear: a jeering crowd; Morgana looking on darkly from the torrents; his father calling out his usual condemnations; the glistening blade, poised to strike; and Merlin – oh, God, Merlin–!
Thump-thump-thump goes the silent drums.
Thump-thump-thump goes his heart.
He wonders if his heart will stop when the drums do: a laughable notion, perhaps, but already he senses that Merlin is his on levels he cannot even begin to comprehend and he has a sneaking suspicion that the opposite is also true. Something in him whispers of destiny and forever and the knowledge that he’s only known that stupidly amazing boy for hardly more than a month doesn’t silence the restless certainty of an unspoken future. He doesn’t know what any of it means, but he wants to find out. Death simply isn’t an option.
The eyes of his guards are on him, waiting for their orders. He weighs his options, balances the scales between justice and necessity. Magic is forbidden. Someone must be held accountable.
In the end, it isn’t even really a choice.
“The witch serves the Lady Morgana,” he says, steady and unrelenting. “She must be apprehended immediately.”
He pities the girl as they drag her away, innocent tears staining his heart. But he isn’t sorry.
Morgana is enraged at the injustice of it all and makes her sentiments known to all who will listen, but the only opinion that matters is the King’s and he will not listen. Fear makes him deaf and blind. What is a man without sound and sight but a man lacking all sense for reason?
Arthur swears he will do better when Camelot is his, but this will not save Gwen.
Sometimes he thinks justice is dead.
He still isn’t sorry.
Considering Merlin’s gentle nature, Arthur ought to have expected him to attempt something foolishly heroic, but he is as surprised as anyone else when the boy comes bursting through the doors of the council chambers, babbling his guilt for all the world to hear. He doesn’t have to fake his initial sneer of incredulous disgust: yes, his manservant is an idiot – but he hadn’t known he was suicidal on top of that! All for some air-headed girl.
A spark of rage (or is it jealousy?) flares briefly, but there’s no time for that now because his father has spoken and there’s little time to waste if he’s going to make this right. It takes him a moment to find a weakness – to determine his line of attack – but he remembers laughter and fondly murmured insults and suddenly he’s all charm. “He’s in love,” he says with exaggerated despair, “with Gwen.”
Merlin protests of course.
But soon the lords of the council are smiling their amusement, easily swayed because if their Prince says it’s so then it must be so and isn’t that sweet? They recall their own early years, their first attempts at love, and are both indulgent and pitying: poor lad has been ensnared by the wrong woman.
No! Merlin is moaning, watching helplessly as his hope of saving his precious maiden slips away. No! No! No! Arthur would have been lying if he claimed he hadn’t desired to have Merlin trembling under his touch, but this really isn’t the way he’d imagined it.
Steel coils around his heart. He will not bend. The alternative is unthinkable.
Relief fills him when his father cracks a rare smile. He’s won. For once he is glad of his friend’s stupidity, because had he been smart enough to cast a spell right then it would have been all over. But he’s not. And it isn’t.
Gwen is still the witch.
Merlin the idiot – his idiot – is safe.
“Merlin is a wonder,” he laughs with relief, “but the wonder is that he’s such an idiot.” Arthur meets the boy’s wide-eyed gaze, letting just enough of his inner fury shine through to still that dangerous tongue. “There’s no way he’s a sorcerer.”
Merlin stumbles away, stunned and bewildered and terribly pathetic, and maybe Arthur feels just a little sorry. But only for a moment.