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Word spread throughout the five kingdoms on whispers behind hands and scandalized gasps: Queen Morgana of Essetir accused Queen Guinevere of Camelot of being unfaithful to her lord husband King Arthur before and after their nuptials. With one of his own knights, no less! But ah, some said back, hasn’t the Queen Morgana taken up that wicked art of magic since her own marriage? Are we to trust her word? Yet Queen Guinevere was common before her elevation, still others reply. Are we to trust that a mere serving girl would take the vows of noble chastity with their due reverence?
King Arthur was rumored to be livid at this smirching of his wife, and at the tarnishing of the memory of Sir Lancelot, whom the accusation also implicated. Rumors swirled anew when a rider in the livery of a messenger was seen departing the citadel at haste and taking the north road, towards Essetir. What manner of challenge would he send? What manner of response was he to get? What was to become of the Queen if these allegations were not roundly defeated?
The king’s demand for satisfaction was met with a dictation of the place: a broad stretch of river deep in the Forest of Ascetir. Bad land for a military engagement, those with such expertise murmured.
The king replied with a statement of the time, which he made to be the day of the coming full moon. A wise choice, murmured those with such expertise, for it lessened the chance of ambush in the night. The king caused the knowledge of the time and place of the duel to be sent far and wide so that representatives of Mercia, Careleon, and Nemeth might send envoys.
The choice of weapon would be left for Essetir to announce upon their arrival, but all knew of King Arthur’s prowess with weapons as varied and numerous as his victories. Few doubted the outcome.
And thus, the court of Camelot departed amidst a storm of speculation. They went to vindicate their Queen’s virtue. They went to face old wounds. They went to fight.
+++
“How dare they!” Arthur snarled once the pavilion entrance was shut behind them. He stormed to the table in the center of the large tent, gesturing for Gwen and Gaius and his knights to join him at its circumference. Merlin, as always, kept to the side, taking his station alongside a chest full of—now useless—weaponry. He was exactly as furious as Arthur and the others, but for different reasons, and listened attentively to what they said.
“What can we do?” Arthur demanded, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Merlin was proud that he had outgrown the petulant refusal to take advice. It was one of the worst features of Uther’s kingship, and Merlin had worked hard to rid Arthur of the instinct.
“Very little, I’m afraid,” Gaius said tiredly. His age was showing more than it normally did. He rarely travelled, and the three day journey from the citadel to the border had been rough on him, even though he had been in a wagon with the supplies rather than on horseback. “Since we initiated the engagement and selected the time, they are well within their rights to choose the weapon. Even if the weapon is something we are… scarcely equipped to meet.” His gaze flicked, almost imperceptibly, to Merlin, who clenched his teeth. He could feel the inevitability of this situation building up around him, the choice he was being forced into, and resented it bitterly.
“Still, the other kingdoms must see how underhanded this is,” Leon protested. “Camelot’s position on magic has been clear for thirty years. How could anyone think this is fair?”
“I doubt anyone does,” Elyan replied grimly. “But the fact stands: we must field a fighter who is proficient in magic if we are to defeat the allegations against Gwen.”
And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Gwen had never had so much as an unfaithful thought since falling in love with Arthur. But Merlin was one of the scant handful of people who knew that she and Arthur had both, together, enjoyed sharing a bed with Lancelot. It brought the acid taste of unworthy jealousy to his tongue when he thought of it too long, so he generally didn’t. But now it was all he could think about, because Morgana’s accusation, made before all the kingdoms and their subjects, had the power to break Gwen and Arthur apart, if not end Gwen’s life entirely. Arthur would never allow that eventuality, of course, but the other monarchs would not look kindly on a cuckolded king who accepted back a queen who had been publicly tried and found unfaithful. But they had no chance of defeating Morgana in single combat, not after how much power she was reputed to have, not unless Merlin…
“Sire.” Mordred spoke up, and Merlin looked at him sharply. He couldn’t think he… “You know I grew up amongst the Druids.” Merlin’s eye twitched. He did think. Arthur inclined his head to Mordred, inviting him to continue, and the young knight took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “What you don’t know is that I had some ability in magic. I still retain a little skill, though of course it has been a long time since I used any magic, in accordance with your laws. Still, it would be my honor to defend the Queen against Morgana’s lies, if you would permit me.”
Something painful snapped into place inside Merlin, like a broken bone being set straight. “No,” he said.
Everyone turned and looked at him, startled, except for Gaius, who was the embodiment of trepidation. Several of them opened their mouths, but he lifted a hand to forestall them, and even though each and every one of them outranked him, they obeyed.
“I need to speak to the king and queen. Alone.”
A frisson of consternation went through the group, and Arthur and Gwen both frowned in confusion. But they shared a glance and nodded, and Arthur indicated that Gaius and the knights should leave. Mordred, looking deflated, sent Merlin a look equal parts sullen and relieved as he filed past with the rest. Gaius, bringing up the rear, gave Merlin the barest of nods, and then was gone.
Merlin was alone with Gwen and Arthur.
And they were looking at him with the most intense curiosity he had ever seen.
“Merlin?” Gwen said, gently, but expectantly. “What’s going on?”
“Why did you gainsay Mordred?” Arthur asked, rather less gently. “Unless you think Gaius still has enough skill to step in, he’s the best chance we have against Morgana.”
Merlin took a deep breath. “No, he isn’t.” He went around the table and knelt before them. His splendid king, his brilliant queen. His friends. The objects of his deepest desire and strongest loyalty and fiercest guilt. “I need to tell you something.”
+++
The noon sun blazed out of the sky, declaring that the time of the duel was upon them.
The delegations of the five kingdoms gathered on the shores of the river, jockeying for the best positions. They were along a stretch of the river where the broad, slow waters had broken sections of the bank off into islets and sandbars, some only a few hands wide, some nearly the size of the citadel courtyard. On one of these large islands, ancient peoples had erected a set of standing stones, and it was there that the fight was to take place. Merlin, along with Arthur, Gwen, Gaius, and the knights, took a raft to the island, while Morgana, Cenred, and Morgause, along with a few of their men, took one from the opposite side.
Merlin hadn't seen Morgana since her marriage to Cenred six years ago, an event intended to bring peace between the kingdoms which had been so long at odds. Instead, she had immediately announced that she was a sorcerer and that furthermore, Uther had been unfaithful to his wife and sired Morgana while Gorlois was off fighting battles on his behalf. The shock of this, it was widely believed, had strongly contributed to Uther’s death some while later, after months of lassitude and growing derangement. Arthur had been doubly heartbroken, and this, above all else, Merlin could not forgive her. Yet the years had been good to her: her bearing was proud and straight, her gown was green velvet, her crown was gold and emerald atop her glossy black hair, and her gaze was brazen as the two groups neared each other.
But it was Cenred who spoke when they came to the center of the circle of stones, Cenred who said haughtily to Arthur, “Well met, brother.”
A jibe before the duel had even begun, and Arthur, already destabilized by Merlin's confession, was in no fit state to bandy wits. “You are no brother of mine,” he said shortly.
“And yet I am married to your sister. Does custom not dictate a fraternal bond between us?”
Arthur sneered. “She accuses my father and my wife of the same sin: left to itself, Morgana’s imagination has few recourses.”
“Yet you meet my accusations on the field of personal combat.” Morgana stepped forward and raked a cool gaze over them all, from Gwaine and Mordred and Leon at one side, to Arthur and Gwen, to Elyan and Percival, and finally Gaius and Merlin. Her eyes lingered on Mordred and Gaius, but in the end she sniffed disdainfully. “Though how such a measly force intends to face me I do not understand.”
Merlin scowled, but knew better than to draw attention to himself. Yet. His stomach rolled uneasily.
“Morgana, these allegations are petty and vicious, and you know they’re not true. Weren't we friends? You never would have done this before. What has wrought this change in you?” Gwen implored. “Is it really just the—the magic?”
Merlin’s heart clenched. He understood why she asked the question: she had grown up in a land intolerant of magic, had only heard it spoken of as a source of pain and corruption, had had numerous experiences herself that seemed to prove it was so. Learning of Merlin's secret a scant few hours ago would not be enough to change her perspective. It might never be enough. The thought hurt.
Morgana simpered faux-sweetly at Gwen's questions. “Dear little Gwen,” she said. “Friends? Us? You stole my throne.” And she raised her cupped palm and conjured a little ball of yellow light. Arthur and the knights reacted at once, grasping sword hilts and pulling Gwen behind the wall of their bodies, and Merlin crooked his fingers in preparation to defend them all, cursing himself for not expecting this treachery.
But instead of attacking, she clapped the hand to her mouth, seeming to swallow the light. When she spoke again, her voice was magnified, echoing out across the river so that all the dignitaries ranged along the banks could hear.
“Gathered worthies,” she cried. “You are here to bear witness to the decisive shaming of the so-called Queen of Camelot, Guinevere. I tell you now she is unworthy of her title and accolades! I knew her when she was a serving girl in the castle, and saw how she constantly positioned herself in proximity to power, angling for an advantageous match and biding her time. But I doubt she ever expected to catch the eye of the Heir Apparent, as he was then, nor to eventually rise to stand by his side as his wife and queen. But her infamy and licentiousness were boundless then as they are now, and even before she was wedded and crowned, she had betrayed her lord! The false knight Lancelot was her paramour and lover until his death.”
The entire Camelot party had seethed through her recitation, unable to interrupt her sheer volume, but at this there were murmurs of consternation from the crowds. Lancelot’s virtue had been known far and wide, and he had been well loved even only from his reputation.
“I hear your doubts,” Morgana cried. “But consider: why else, in four years of marriage, has she had no children? Why else would her womb run dry, if not as punishment and proof of infidelity? No, this visage of graces and airs is as false as the woman herself. I declare her a traitor to her king and kingdom, and will see her shamed as she deserves!” She smiled cruelly. “And now, which of you shall step forward to defend this hollow queen?”
There was a hush of silence for the space of three breaths while Merlin got his temper in hand. But it was long enough for Arthur to look at him with a flatness borne of iron-clad control, and say in a low voice, “Well?”
Merlin took a harsh breath in, then out, and strode forward far enough that his intention could not be mistaken.
In other circumstances, he might have felt some humor at her expression, caught somewhere in the middle of scorn, amusement, and disbelief. “Merlin?” she scoffed, and sounded so much like Arthur that his heart twisted. But seeing how serious he was, her disbelief and amusement melted into realization, and then a snarl of rage and betrayal. “You lied to me!” she spat.
“And can you believe that I used to feel bad about it?” he replied.
+++
The duel would be fought to a yield. One was not obliged to yield if one were injured, even badly injured, but killing the other combatant was not acceptable. Non-combatants were not to set foot within the ring of stones, nor the combatants exit it; Morgause and Gaius laid enchantments to ensure this. No form of magic was off-limits. King Arthur and King Cenred were each permitted to call for one five minute respite in the course of the fight, or to yield on behalf of their sorcerer.
“Don’t,” Merlin said, locking his gaze on Arthur’s.
Arthur frowned, but inclined his head.
Too late, Merlin realized how that sounded like he thought Arthur would seriously consider saving him over Gwen, and flushed hot. His standing with Arthur was tenuous: he was defending Gwen, yes, but that defense was predicated on ten years of deception. The friendship that had also filled those years could no longer be assumed. To cover his gaffe as best as possible, he turned to Gwen. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”
And he stepped under one of the stone gates, pushing through the magical barrier that would keep him and Morgana contained until one of them was defeated. Until she was defeated: Merlin would not yield. Not with Gwen on the line.
Morgana was already within the circle, stalking back and forth over the grass, the very image of ill-concealed rage. She would never have taken an admission of Merlin’s magic well, not after he concealed it from her when she told him of her own in Camelot. He had tried to help her by sending her to the Druids, yes, but it was still a betrayal. Still, it would be difficult to concoct a worse scenario for her to learn the truth in than this one.
“So,” she spat. Her volume spell had ended, so she spoke just to him. No performance: just anger. “Behold the fruit of your dishonesty.”
“Don’t pretend all this is for vengeance on me, Morgana.”
“I pretend no such thing! Your imminent defeat is merely a secondary satisfaction to Gwen’s disgrace.”
Fresh anger crackled up Merlin’s nerves like sparks catching in tinder. “And in what way was Gwen ever dishonest with you?”
“Enough chatter.” She tossed her head as though the question were beneath her. “Your time to be humbled is long overdue, Merlin.”
“So I’m often told,” he retorted, and suffered for his snark when she seized the initiative and summoned a blasting wind that flung him back against one of the massive stones. The pressure of the wind held him there for several seconds, and when it released him, he slumped to the ground, barely landing on his feet.
“You’ll need a lot more than cheap tricks like that if you hope to win!” he shouted, rolling the soreness of the impact out of his shoulders.
“Says the man who hasn’t done any magic whatsoever!” she jeered.
Yes, it was time to remedy that, wasn’t it?
He sucked in a deep breath, and on the exhale, hurled a wind of his own at her, mocking her with his greater power. It pushed her back, but not as far as Merlin had gone: she had been prepared.
But she looked at him with a new sort of calculation when his wind dropped, and he knew she understood that he was a true and proper threat.
And so the battle was joined.
She hurled more wind at him; he responded in kind, trying to overpower her, and failing. She continued and reconfigured her spell to pluck up hundreds of blades of grass and sharpen them into tiny blades and fling them at him; he redirected most of them with a curt motion, but some still got through, slicing his skin and clothing. She summoned flame and sent a great wave of it rushing across the space between them; he threw up a wall of pure force and only a faint wash of heat reached him, but the magic felt… awkward.
In spite of his superior power and superior motives, Merlin kept finding himself on the back foot. Morgana was ferocious, and angry, and had spent the years since her marriage freely training in magic, especially martial magic, evidently. She gave no quarter, launching attack after attack without pause, or, it seemed, effort, and he was hard-pressed to keep up.
And he couldn’t make himself get used to the sensation of being watched. He only ever did magic in private, or with Gaius, or against enemies who wouldn’t live to tell of what they’d seen. Now, not only was he not allowed to kill Morgana, but Arthur, Gwen, their knights, all the kings of the other kingdoms and their lords and knights were spectating, staring, calculating, considering. It was stupid, but it was distracting. Ten years of making secrecy a way of life could not be undone in a day, no matter how momentous the day might be.
And so Morgana struck, and struck again, and Merlin defended himself and sometimes struck back, but he lost his boots to the vines she made to sprout up and grab at his legs, and he lost his shirt and coat to another rain of grass-knives, the cloth falling in bloody shreds from him as he struggled to focus on his shield, and he lost a chunk of flesh from his side to the snake she created from thin air.
“Respite!” Arthur’s voice seemed to come from far, far away, and the urgency in his tone made it seem that it wasn’t the first time he’d called it. “Respite!”
He and Morgana both suspiciously eased out of their tense postures, letting the half-formed spells evaporate from their fingertips. For the first time, Merlin looked around at the wreckage they’d caused. The ground was torn up and burned, the remains of spells destroyed or aborted scattered about indiscriminately. Morgana had taken a few blows: her arm had been scratched deeply enough to scar, and a blow to her face had left her sclera stained red from an internal bleed. But despite her hard breathing, she still stood straight and proud, glaring at him with a promise of more to come.
Merlin staggered to the perimeter of stones, following Arthur’s bark of “Merlin!”, starting to truly feel his injuries as the hot adrenaline faded. He ached all over, and the skin of his chest and face felt tight from the fire blast he had barely blocked. The wound in his side was ragged and bleeding, the leg of his trousers slowly turning crimson on that side. His head was ringing in a worrisome way. His knee crunched awfully with every step he took. But this respite was only five minutes long. He didn’t have time to do anything for himself.
Arthur stood under one of the lintel stones, in shadow, toes against the invisible line drawn by the spell which denied entrance to non-combatants. He looked furious; he looked afraid. Merlin bowed his head as he approached, knowing that his performance thus far had let his king down. He had promised he would defend Gwen: instead, Morgana was using him as target practice.
“Arthur…” he said when he was also under the lintel. The cool shade felt nice. But Arthur’s disappointment was scathing.
“Shut up,” Arthur said through clenched teeth. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“You can’t continue like this.”
“Mordred wouldn't have been strong enough—”
“That's not what I'm saying. It's clear you're powerful. But it's worth shit if you keep letting her lead you by the nose. She's been setting the pace this entire time. You'll never win unless you can get the jump on her.”
Merlin forced a breath down through all his pain and shame. “It's just… I've never had an audience before. When I've fought.”
Arthur stared at him for a few moments, his gaze calculating. Then he reached through the magical barrier—obeying the stricture of not setting foot over it—and gripped the back of Merlin's neck, hard. He pulled him in until their foreheads were pressed together, and Merlin had nowhere to look but his king's brilliant blue eyes.
“Fuck the audience,” he said, voice rough and intense. “Fuck everything that's not the flight. I'm angrier at you than I have ever been before, but I'm trusting you with this, Merlin. You say you're the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth? Good: save Guinevere.” He swallowed, and Merlin saw how absolute and ironclad his control was over his emotions in that moment. “Save Camelot. ”
Merlin's blood still poured from his gouged ribs and his skin was still singed and his knee was still twisted, but he stood up straighter, pressing his forehead to Arthur's. “I will,” he said, already thinking forward to the fight to come, what strategies Morgana might employ and how he could best counter them—no, how to best head them off so that she couldn't finish them to begin with.
But Arthur slid his hand up Merlin's neck to cup the back of his head, fingers carding through the dirty, sweaty strands. “And then come back to me,” he said, quiet and broken. “so I can forgive you.”
Merlin's heart stammered in his chest, startled at the sudden intimacy. But before he could respond, Arthur squeezed him once and released him and stepped back, once again standing straight and tall and impeccably regal. And Gwen came up beside him and took Arthur's hand, but her gaze was on Merlin as she nodded, telling him that she believed he could do it. Merlin nodded back and turned to face the arena.
Morgana had used the respite to do some hasty healing, so her eye no longer blazed red and her arm was no longer actively bleeding. Her crown was still in place on her head, though her hair was more tangled than it had been, and her dress was dusty and torn. But she was still scornful and proud, not in the least concerned that she might come out of this the worse.
But he was focused on a new way. The gazes of the myriad watchers didn't matter anymore. Defeating Morgana mattered. Saving Gwen mattered. Getting back to her and Arthur mattered.
Still, Morgana was in her native element, whereas Merlin was heartsore and weary already, and instead of the verbal mockery he had half-expected, she lunged across the space between them, throwing herself where before she had thrown elemental forces and weapons. And she changed as she moved, sprouting fur and claws and a slavering muzzle, her body elongating and dropping to all fours, and by the time she crashing into Merlin, she was a massive ash-black wolf, and Merlin was too slow to respond.
He managed to keep her jaws from closing on his throat, but at the cost of her catching the arm that he threw up in defense, and the crack of bone was like a lightning strike of pain. He howled with it, but he was already shifting, growing claws and fangs and fur of his own, and then he was a wolf himself and could fight back.
The twist and surge and burn of striving to be stronger, more forceful, more violent than his opponent came naturally in this body, and the pain of his injuries seemed less intense somehow. He tore at Morgana’s belly with his hind legs, snapping at her face and neck, and she returned blow for blow. They snarled and separated, only to rush each other again, Merlin's broken foreleg hardly slowing him down.
But just as he caught the rhythm of the fight, Morgana began to change again, and Merlin realized he had already failed to seize control of the battle: she was still directing them, forcing her own terms. But she had him pinned, and was quickly growing bulky and massive until it wasn't a she-wolf holding him down, but a she-bear, and Merlin had to change in kind or be crushed.
So he changed, took on the bear shape as his own, and it seemed easy to shift this time, and again there was less pain than before.
He leveraged his greater size and strength to throw her off, and lumbered to his feet. Her lip peeled back in a snarl, and he bellowed a challenging roar from deep in his chest. She rushed and raked him with her claws, and he roared again, more in anger than pain, and struck back. They tore and battered at one another, both losing blood, both determined to outlast the other.
Just as Merlin started to gain the upper hand, she shifted yet again, this time shrinking. Merlin tried to press his advantage and crowded in on her, trying to bite her, only for her to shoot into the air on her new kestrel’s wings. Then she dove, too quickly for him to defend against, tearing a furrow down his face with her beak, battering his ears and head with her wings, and he bellowed his rage and followed her into the air.
Yet again, the transformation was easier than it should have been, and the slash on his face went from a sharp agony to a dull throbbing. The wound at his ribs likewise felt better, and the broken bones in his arm—wing—were mended enough to bear his weight as he took flight.
And so they fought as hawks, kestrel against merlin, screeching and tearing at one another with beaks and talons, and then on through other forms, though he was no longer following her, but matching her, sensing her intention before she even began. Even when she noticed and started changing faster and faster to try and keep ahead of him, he knew anyway.
And the more he shifted, the easier it became, and the less pain he felt, until it was almost euphoria, flowing from form to form, falcon to adder to boar to stag and on. He had never felt this way when he’d done magic before, and it exhilarated him and scared him in equal part. He sought the limits of his power and couldn't find any: only more and more and more, an endless font of magic pouring in from the earth and the air and the verdancy of life and the boiling heat deep below. Everything answered to him, and his growing fluency and control helped him see that wearing a shape at all was unnecessary, was playing by her rules, and that Arthur had been very clear about not doing that.
Obeying this strange new instinct, he sloughed his latest animal shape, instead turning vaporous and untouchable and vast—collecting moisture from his blood and the air around them, collecting color from the standing stones and the dust in the air, collecting force from the lingering magic all around them, and the terror and focus of their irrelevant audience, and the scream of defiance Morgana loosed when she saw what he was doing, but by then he was the thunderstorm and nothing she did could hurt him.
He swept her up into the maelstrom inside himself, tearing the animal disguise from her resisting body, swallowing her screams and spells.
The viciousness of a storm was impersonal, but Merlin still loved his king and queen, and he tormented Morgana past what might be considered chivalrous for an imminently victorious combatant. When her screams shrank to whimpers, he let them both crash down to earth in the center of the cromlech which was their arena. The body of his ancient kin came to him more naturally than his own in that moment, and when he landed, crouched over Morgana’s huddled form, he had scales and claws and a whipping tail and fire on his tongue.
“YIELD!” he roared, and the thunder in the sky echoed him. “RECANT!” The ground under them shook with the force of it; rain pelted down and that which struck Merlin rejoined his body. “BE SHAMED!”
Only because he was crouched so closely over her, as a lover might be, did he hear her whisper, “Please.” A shivering little sob worked its way out of her. “I am defeated.”
He rose onto his feet—his hind legs—and howled his victory, breathing a long gout of flame straight up into the remains of the storm he had been.
“Queen Guinevere stands innocent of any unfaithfulness or infidelity.” His sensations of the world were beginning to return to a more normal mode, and human weakness was reentering his limbs. He bore no injury after all that had happened, he had been too infused with the magic of the world, but his strength was utterly sapped now that the magic no longer propped him up. “Queen Morgana recants her spurious words. We do not wish for further conflict. Pax… draconis…”
Swirling darkness rose up and grappled him to the ground.
+++
“Admit it.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
“I saw how you were looking at him. I saw how you touched him.”
“Imagining things, my lady?”
“Arthur,” Gwen said, in her ‘I am no longer pretending I’m not serious about this’ voice.
Merlin was breathing, which he supposed was a good sign. He felt like he’d been swaddled in a score of blankets, and the idea of opening his eyes was a far distant dream, but he could feel himself breathing. And he could hear Gwen and Arthur. That was an incredible comfort.
There was a bout of silence. Or perhaps Merlin slept again. Either way, the next thing he heard was, “Ten years, Guinevere. I would have sworn on open flame I knew everything there was to know of him. And then…”
“I know,” she agreed softly. There were footsteps, and then a brush of something over his forehead, up over his head. Her hand? “And maybe this is a distinction without a difference, but I still trust that he has been honest about his motives and intentions. He is devoted to us, Arthur. Defeating Morgana yesterday was completely unnecessary for me to believe that.” Yesterday? “Even if you didn’t already want to reform the laws against magic, he has made it a political imperative.” He had? He had? “And besides, that’s not what I was talking about, and you know it.”
There was another silence, and this time Merlin was pretty sure he didn’t fall asleep. At last, Arthur sighed. “We haven’t tried with anyone since Lancelot… Are you sure you want—?”
“Yes, and so are you.”
Arthur chuckled. “Well. Put it on the list of things to talk about when he wakes up.”