Wonderly Wroth
By Yolande Kleinn
Copyright 2015 Yolande Kleinn
ISBN 978-1-946316-00-4 (Mobi)
ISBN 978-1-946316-01-1 (Epub)
Originally published in Nights of the Round Table
under the title 'Wonderly Wroth', Circlet Press, Cambridge, MA, 2015.
License Notes
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Table of Contents
Wonderly Wroth
About the Author
Other Titles by Yolande
Wonderly Wroth
Before the blade pierces his armor Arthur knows he is meant to die here.
Kings die on battlefields; such is the fate Arthur Pendragon has always accepted. But this is an even greater certainty. He knew before the sun rose that his death waited on this hillside.
He's dreamed this battlefield too many times.
And last night, a new dream: his favorite cousin came to him in sleep, though Gawain has been dead since they were both children. He stood in Arthur's tent— small and somber and dressed in his burial robes—and warned Arthur to turn back.
Arthur couldn't turn back, any more than he could send his men into battle without him. He doesn't repent his decision, even as he feels the bite of steel piercing through a gap in his mail.
Futile rage flashes through him as Mordred's blade lodges deeper in his shoulder. Mordred is only a cruel thug, a stranger intent on carving a piece of Arthur's kingdom for himself. He won't succeed—Arthur's knights will see this enemy vanquished, with or without their king—but Camelot will still fall to chaos in Arthur's absence. There is no queen to rule in his stead. Arthur has no children, legitimate or otherwise, and no heirs but for a horde of squabbling cousins to the north.
The succession will be fraught. This is one thing he regrets.
The wound cuts deep and Arthur falls to his knees. He twists painfully to see Mordred standing above him, blade poised for a second fatal blow. Arthur's own sword is in the dirt beside his helm, and his injured arm hangs useless at his side. He makes no move to escape the inevitable.
A scream of fury pierces the fading clatter of battle, and then a blur of motion and flashing steel cuts Mordred down. Mordred’s sword tumbles to the muddy ground. The life fades with surprising swiftness from his eyes.
Arthur stares. His own blood is rushing out of him with every heartbeat, but he raises his head to find Bedivere kneeling beside him. Bedivere's armor is chafed and scored, spattered with blood. His dark eyes widen with fear. Arthur offers a smile he does not feel.
The fighting has all but stopped around them, and Arthur knows his army has won. The field is theirs.
Bedivere scans the quieting battlefield, and after a moment he calls out in a ragged voice. "Merlin. Here!"
Arthur blinks, struggling to focus through blurring vision. He is slumped against Bedivere, though he doesn't remember losing his balance. Merlin arrives in a swirl of robes and skirts. She kneels at Arthur's side, her ancient face drawn stiff. Her hair, white and thick and tied back from her rigid face, is as blood-spattered as Bedivere's armor, and there is gore smudged across one dark cheek.
Her piercing gaze assesses him, and Arthur hisses when she touches his wounded shoulder. Those fingers, usually so gentle, are determined as they shove ruined armor aside. Arthur breathes through the pain, trusting himself to Merlin's hands. Her expression doesn't change as she gets a closer look at Arthur's shoulder and his blood stains her skin.
Merlin's voice shows no hint of fear when she turns to Bedivere and commands, "Find Lancelot. Now." They shift Arthur's weight between them, and Merlin settles him carefully to the ground.
Arthur's chest tightens, and he nearly protests. The desire to see Lancelot one last time clashes sharply with a more instinctive refusal. Lancelot should not have to watch him die. But Bedivere is already gone, and Arthur is too exhausted to argue.
"It's all right, Merlin." The words sound sluggish on Arthur's tongue. "This is how it is meant to end."
"Perhaps." Merlin brushes dark bangs from Arthur's sweat-soaked forehead. "But when have you ever known me to abide by the rules?"
Arthur tries to protest, but the last of his strength fails him. A thick fog swallows his senses, dragging him into nothingness and leaving the battlefield at Camlann somewhere far behind.
# # # # #
Arthur doesn't wake. Darkness weighs him down too heavily, bearing him away from distant sensations like pain and fear. Fresh oblivion hovers at the edges of cloudy, jumbled awareness, waiting to carry him away once more. But oblivion is a patient threat, and it gives way when memory tumbles across Arthur's mind with the startling vitality of a dream. The throne room, awash in sunlight, draped with endless banners of gold and crimson.
His coronation day.
Arthur was twenty-two the day he claimed his father's throne, though by then he had been ruling Camelot for three years. He had watched his father's health fail with closing dread, and had taken up a king's responsibilities one by one. Eventually, only the crown itself remained.
When his father died, Arthur took that up too.
Heat and pain cut through the vivid memory in a jarring rush. Arthur is aware, suddenly, of burning agony in his shoulder. The jagged sensations overwhelm him and carry ominous shadows crashing forward. An undercurrent of voices echoes just out of reach, but Arthur can't decipher them. They sound muffled, distorted by distance and the deafening beat of Arthur's own heart. Or perhaps the problem isn't that the voices are too far away, but that Arthur can't listen past the pain of his shoulder and the vicious ache beneath his skin.
When pain recedes, the voices fade alongside. Fresh memories rise in their wake.
Arthur remembers his father with a tight twist of sadness. Uther Pendragon was a powerful man, stubborn and fearless. His reputation bordered on the mythic by the time sickness took him, making it all the more devastating to watch him die by slow, agonizing degrees. Uther's intimidating height and powerful frame were no match for an illness that even Merlin could not remedy. Her magic bought the dying king more time, for which Arthur would always be grateful. But she couldn't unmake a mortal disease, any more than she could simply will closed a fatal wound.
Even magic had limits.
A new surge of pain bursts in Arthur's shoulder, though it isn't half so fierce as before. This time, Arthur is sure he hears voices—one voice at least—Merlin murmuring, quiet and steady like a chant. Arthur can't make out the words. His head is too fuzzy to be sure if the problem lies with him, or if Merlin is speaking a language he doesn't recognize. Merlin knows half a hundred languages, after all, and not all of them are human.
A fire pops and roars nearby, audible even through the murk of Arthur's tenuous awareness. He wonders if it's the sound of his own hearth—if he is in his own bed—or if his dying soul only desperately wishes it were so.
When the next memory comes, Arthur sees Camelot spread beneath him. A familiar view from the eastern parapet, Arthur's hands tight on the stone edge...
The year following Uther's death was difficult. Skirmishes on every border signaled a deliberate testing of the new king's mettle, and for a time Arthur despaired of ever restoring peace to Camelot. He fought and negotiated, drew treaties that rarely held his enemies at bay. Those who knew the father always seemed disappointed on meeting the son. Arthur was not as tall as the old king had been. His shoulders were not as broad, his sta
ture not half so imposing as that of Uther Pendragon.
A lean man of unimpressive height, Arthur would have stood unnoticed as a knight. As a king it seemed he was doomed to disappoint.
But Arthur was a man of stubborn character. He may not have shared Uther's intimidating figure, but he had inherited something better: his father's force of will. By Arthur's twenty-sixth birthday, Camelot's borders were as secure as they had ever been during Uther's reign. Treaties were respected, alliances were held sacred.
The surrounding kingdoms learned better manners, and no one dared to cross Camelot's new king.
The encroaching darkness carries only a dull wash of pain this time when Arthur falls from his memories. He hears the heavy thud of a door falling shut, and then Merlin's voice, soft and immediate. She isn't chanting now, but she speaks far too quietly for Arthur to make out her words. Arthur's curiosity makes him suddenly desperate to open his eyes, to see who she's talking to. But struggle as he might against the weight of exhaustion, he only sinks deeper into shadow.
Before Arthur slips too far, he hears a stern, familiar voice ask, "But will he live?" and there is only one face to which un-summoned memory can carry him then.
Lancelot of the Lake served Uther for years, but it was to Arthur he gave his fiercest loyalty. The young prince had been a child when Lancelot was knighted. Lancelot was only seventeen, nobility in search of some greater destiny than growing up a third son in a family who did not need him. He wore brightly polished armor, his sword newly forged for the occasion. He swore himself not only to Uther but to the entire Pendragon line, and Arthur does not remember a Camelot without him.
A fleeting blur passes across the clear memory, and in the span of a heartbeat Arthur is looking at a different Lancelot. Older, stronger... his handsome face not the least bit diminished by the passage of years.
Lancelot was a hero in the truest sense, and Arthur admired and adored him for it. By the time Arthur had begun to pay particular notice to the faces at court, Sir Lancelot of the Lake was the most coveted knight in Camelot. There was something intensely somber about him, the weight of responsibility focused and honed like a weapon. His quiet confidence made him distracting, and Arthur Pendragon could ill afford distraction.
Though he spent countless idle fantasies on the idea of Lancelot in his bed, he never spoke so much as a word to give himself away. He pursued other interests—other men—and never troubled Lancelot with any hint of his fascination.
Arthur understood the value of secrets long before he became a king.
# # # # #
When true awareness returns, Arthur can no longer escape the unlikely fact that he is not dead. He wakes to sullen daylight skulking through the narrow windows of his chambers. Stone walls and tapestries surround him, and the familiar softness of his own bed. There's a noisy fire in the hearth, and the chamber door stands barely ajar.
Arthur's final memories of the battlefield are clear enough. He moves now with ginger caution, and is startled to feel only a dull ache in his shoulder. The wound that should have killed him seems all but healed, and Arthur knows that isn't possible. Merlin's magic is potent, but she can't perform miracles.
Arthur should be dead. He can't fathom why he isn't.
He stares at the ceiling in silence, focusing on the flow of air in and out of his lungs. It's in the overwhelming quiet that he becomes aware of a different feeling, so strange it takes him several minutes to decipher: the surreal sensation of two distinct heartbeats, pulsing together within his chest. Little as he understands how or why, the disjointed sensation must be magic. A lifetime of witnessing Merlin's talents allows for no other conclusion.
He lets his breath out slowly, shifting onto his uninjured side, and freezes when he realizes he isn't alone. In what is normally an empty corner between bedstead and window sits Lancelot, with his chin drooping onto his chest and his eyes heavily closed. Asleep.
Despite the confusion and questions filling Arthur's head—despite the strange sensation of his own heartbeat doubled behind his ribs—Arthur smiles. It's not often he can watch Lancelot unnoticed, and he indulges in the opportunity now. There's a hint of trouble on Lancelot's handsome face even in sleep, but such worry is only reasonable. The fact that he's here in Arthur's chambers, exhausted enough to fall asleep at his vigil, is proof of Lancelot's concern.
Arthur wonders how long he's been unconscious himself, though he's not quite ready to wake Lancelot and ask.
Lancelot's demeanor is every bit as somber in sleep as it is when the man is awake. His face is striking, deeply lined with cares, and from his left ear he bears a faint scar along a clean-shaven jaw. His hair is the most changed of all his features, gone from rich brown to gleaming silver in only a short span of years. More than once he's put the blame of it at Arthur's feet, always with a glimmer of mischief in his eye. The expression is the closest Lancelot ever comes to smiling.
Slumped forward as he is, Lancelot's hair falls pale across his brow. There's no sign of his customary armor. He hardly looks combat ready in his dark leggings and dull tunic, but his sword sits propped against the stone wall beside him. Even in sleep Lancelot protects his king.
"Lancelot," Arthur says at last, pushing himself upright and leaning against the ornate headboard. Lancelot stirs, and that unfamiliar feeling in Arthur's chest falters, his plural heartbeats speeding as un-summoned relief rises alongside. Arthur blinks in confusion, but holds quiet. Lancelot's eyes are open now, and locked on him with an intensity that makes it difficult to breathe.
Silence stretches just long enough to be uncomfortable, and then Lancelot stands. He reaches for his sword as he moves, ties the scabbard to his belt, and inclines his head in something like a bow.
"I'll tell the Lady Merlin you've woken." Lancelot's voice is rough-edged with sleep, but his movements are familiar precision.
Arthur doesn't want him to go, and he moves with a speed that surprises both of them, reaching out to grab Lancelot by the wrist. He stares up, startled at an even stronger surge of feeling in his chest. Lancelot shakes free with a sharp gesture, and the look on his face stops the protest in Arthur's throat.
Despite every instinct screaming that he needs Lancelot to stay, Arthur lets him go.
# # # # #
By the time Merlin arrives, Arthur has already summoned a servant to prepare a bath. The wooden tub has been carried in and placed near the fire, and several attendants come and go, carrying hot water up from the kitchens. Outside the narrow windows, the sun has grudgingly begun to set, and candlelight joins the hearth in casting the room alight. Two more servants are changing the bed linens, another carrying food to the table by the far wall. Arthur spares each of them a nod of gratitude, but keeps to himself near the window. The cool air doesn't bother him. He still feels heavy with bone-deep fatigue, and the faintest ache throbs in his shoulder.
Arthur watches the sky and the darkening parapets below. It's beside the window that Merlin joins him. Her white hair is loose and clean, and it gusts carelessly in the breeze. Merlin's eyes are paler than when Arthur was a child, and he knows her sight is failing. But her mind and magic remain sharply honed, and there are none in Camelot so foolish as to suggest blindness will weaken her.
"Your highness," she greets him, dipping low in an elegant curtsy. When she straightens, there is warm fondness in her expression. Arthur recognizes exasperation in the subtle twitch at one corner of her mouth. She's clearly displeased to find him out of bed, but knows better than to chastise him.
"I should be dead." Arthur keeps his tone bland by willpower alone. These are not words easily spoken, but he says them without trembling. Merlin's expression sobers, and her mouth presses into a thin line.
"Yet here you stand," she says with an air of unrepentant challenge.
"Thanks to you?"
She nods. "And to Lancelot."
"How?" he asks quietly, for Merlin's ears alone. "Something tells me I haven't
been asleep long enough to heal from so grave a wound. Tell me, Merlin. How many days since Camlann?"
"Only three, my lord," she says just as softly. "And the how of it is... complicated."
"Merlin," he admonishes. He's impatient for answers, and a note of severity creeps into his voice.
"It was a dangerous gamble, Sire, and I make no apology for it. Until you woke, there was no knowing if the enchantment would hold." She turns away from him now, facing the window and the bruise-purple sky. "I invoked a magic older and more powerful than my own."
"A magic strong enough to heal a mortal wound?" Arthur asks, skeptical even to his own ears.
"No." Merlin shakes her head. "A magic to lend you the strength of another. To give you a fighting chance. Perhaps you have noticed something of that strength? A hint of someone else's will? A heartbeat that is not your own?"
"Yes." Arthur hesitates. "And other things. Feelings."
Merlin nods, a reluctant smile tugging at her mouth. "Lancelot is strong in both body and soul. He would never let you die while it was within his power to save you. It is not my magic, but his strength that has allowed you to heal."
"Does it hurt him?" Arthur tries to mask his alarm, but Merlin's expression softens to sympathy.
"It tires him. But no, it does not hurt him." She turns toward Arthur and briefly touches his wounded shoulder. Her hand is steady, and it carries an extra pulse of tingling warmth. Her gaze turns momentarily distant, and the permanent wrinkle at the center of her brow deepens. Then she withdraws and folds her arms before her, expression smoothing.
Something in her stance speaks of hesitation, and Arthur's eyes narrow.
"What are you not telling me? If the magic doesn't hurt him, why do you say it was dangerous?"
Merlin falls silent and for a moment will not meet Arthur's eyes.
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