[fic] The Ivy Crown, 3a/9

[da_ya_ri]

Part 3
The Man of the Summer Day


The second time, the blood that wets the blade of his axe still does not belong to the golden prince, and for that, he is grateful.

The woods just outside of Torpelei are still dark, although dawn has already begun to send its purple-golden tendrils creeping across the eastern horizon, like a tentative hand plunging into deep, dark water. In a way, he almost wishes that he had finished this more quickly, because the slowly brightening twilight sent a flicker of wild hope across his opponent's features, like he hoped that his otherworldly contestant would disappear with the dawn of the new day. The hope was crushed just a second later, and although he hadn't expected any less, he was still a little dismayed as his axe cut through muscle and bone with the swift effortlessness of a knife sliding through butter.

His hounds are circling the clearing, occasionally glancing at the bush where the head rolled to a stop and sniffing at the blood that's still trickling sluggishly from the stump of raw flesh where it once sat. Dew slowly soaks his trousers where he kneels in the grass, but he welcomes the cold wetness on this unfamiliar skin, like a friendly greeting from the grass that still recognizes him even in this body. He does not regret the kill—Torpelei is near the edge of the forest, and so he knew of the numerous poachers even before the witch bound him, and he also knows that his victim turned a blind eye.

The Man of the Summer Day lies dead in the clearing, but he never did anything to put an end to the excessive hunting in his jurisdiction, and in a way, he is glad that he was the one to put an end to the nobleman's negligence. But while he scoffed inwardly at the terror in his victim's eyes, he knows that the man would never have been strong enough to face his tests even if he'd been given a chance, and so he did his best to make it quick.

It is easier to negotiate with the pull of magic here, away from the roar of the sea and closer to his forest at the heart of the land. True, the witch bound him, but her magical ties are not the kind of refined enchantment it would have taken to surrender him completely to her control. Amidst the magic that encased him in mortal flesh and never stopped plucking at his consciousness ever since, he still has a bit of leeway left, and he uses it to his full advantage whenever he can. The father of the once and future king sent him away, but although the witch's power now has him roaming the lands, his tests were not part of her enchantment. He always kills with the single stroke that is part of his challenge, but he never exploits his opponents' weaknesses by putting them through trials that he knows they cannot face.

The blood from his axe stains the grass as he wipes the blade clean, the tiny engraved leaves shimmering in the growing light. He rises slowly, listens to the rustle of the trees' green canopy and the sounds of birds slowly waking to the new morning. A raven is circling overhead, warning him of the approach of day—the bird knows that its master cannot be here anymore when the villagers ride out to see what has become of their lord. His work is done either way, and he reattaches his axe to his belt before turning away from the body to walk away into the woods.

The blade's edge reflects the light for a moment longer, but as his silhouette merges with the shadows under the trees, the rust slowly creeps back in to cover the keen silver. On ancient stone walls down in the valley, in between the cracks marring otherwise perfect masonry, twines of ivy start to grow.





When the spring rains finally let up, Gwaine reluctantly but silently took back all the numerous curses he'd sent at the sky during the past few days, because if there was something even more annoying than riding through a constant drizzle, it was hunting in a forest still heavy with all the water the clouds had poured into it.

He thought, rather sourly, that this probably wasn't what overeager squires thought of when they imagined knighthood. His boots had gotten stuck in ankle-deep mud too many times to count, the deer he and Leon had pursued hadn't been bothered by the soggy ground at all, and to top it off, he was drenched to the bone although it hadn't even been raining anymore. It could as well have been, he figured, since wetness had dripped on them from leaves and branches all through their hunt, and for some reason Leon's clothes didn't look nearly as wet as his.

With a last glare at the dripping treeline, Gwaine sat down on a fallen log and stretched his chilled hands towards the fire that Arthur and Lancelot had lit. The clouds hung oppressively low in the sky, but he could tell by the relatively bright daylight that filtered into the clearing that it was early afternoon. They had covered quite some distance in the morning, with their horses going at a constant light trot to avoid them cooling down too much in the rain. With a bit of luck, they would reach their next destination before nightfall, although Gwaine thought that aside from the rain, they had been remarkably lucky so far in their journey. None of the horses had twisted their ankles on the muddy tracks Arthur had led them on, and no matter how much they collectively complained about the ever-present drizzle, nobody had so much as caught a cold yet.

A warm, dry towel was suddenly dropped in his lap, and Gwaine gave Merlin a grateful smile as he wiped his cold hands on the cloth and proceeded to dry his hair as best as he could. Merlin smiled back, putting a steaming cup of spiced wine on the log next to him before he turned back to the fire. A spit was already set up on twin stakes over the flames, just waiting for the first piece of venison to roast.

The towel seemed to dry his hair a lot faster than any other piece of fabric would have, and Gwaine glanced at it in slight confusion before he shrugged and wiped it across the patches of wetness on his leather vest. Maybe Merlin had given him one of Arthur's, and of course spoiled royalty would have towels that soaked up water like a sponge while only growing a little chilly to the touch. He felt a lot warmer by the time he put it on the log next to him, and his damp clothes seemed half dried as he leaned closer to the fire again.

He closed his hands around the cup of wine, letting the heat thaw his fingers as he watched Merlin put the spit through slices of raw meat with an expression of faint disgust. Merlin didn't seem to be a hunter or woodsman, yet he had held up remarkably well during the not quite two weeks that had passed since they'd left Camelot. Gwaine thought that he'd probably picked up a lot on the prince's hunting trips, although Arthur hadn't asked Merlin to accompany him into the woods in what felt like a mysteriously long time. And Merlin was fairly good at learning what he didn't know yet, and all of them were happy to help him with what he struggled with. Well, except for Arthur, who still avoided him more often than not and had lapsed into a snappish brooding mood ever since he'd talked to Merlin in the forest a few days ago.

Gwaine stood up to help Merlin haul the pieces of venison over the fire, and suppressed a smile when Merlin immediately wiped his hands on his trousers. "Thanks," he said, surveying the clearing with a distracted glance as though he wanted to check if there was anything else that needed doing. But he didn't seem to find anything, because he plopped down on the log as well when Gwaine sat down again.

Up close, Merlin looked tired, like he hadn't been getting enough sleep—his naturally pale skin made the bags under his eyes stand out in even starker contrast. His features seemed tight, his eyes constantly alert and ready to spring to attention as soon as Arthur so much as beckoned to him, but even the tense set of his shoulders couldn't disguise the weariness Gwaine sensed beneath. He suddenly wondered if Merlin spent the long evenings in the inns trying to talk to Arthur about whatever needed talking so badly, losing precious sleep over trying to find just the right words that would break through the wall of silence Arthur had built between them.

Gwaine frowned at the mental image, a familiar, useless surge of protective anger washing over him. He knew very well that asking Merlin why the hell he thought the prince was even worth it would just provoke him. But sometimes it was hard not to say anything, not to ask and poke and prod at his friend until he told him what was wrong, what he had done to Arthur that was terrible enough for Merlin to bear the silent treatment without complaint.

He pushed the thought away with some difficulty, and in lieu of talking, he settled for offering his cup to Merlin, well aware of how badly Merlin held his drink; but if he had some wine now, he'd get at least one much-needed night of sleeping like a log. Merlin flashed him another grateful smile and took a long swallow of spiced wine, wincing a little at the unfamiliar burn of alcohol down his throat before he handed it back.

They sat for a while in comfortable silence as the fire crackled and popped and the scent of grilled meat began to fill the clearing. Leon sat down on the opposite side of the fire, giving them a smile before he took off his boots and placed them close to the flames to dry. Lancelot was checking on the horses—or trying to, at least, and Gwaine smiled when he saw Gryngolet turn his backside to his fellow knight with an arrogant toss of his head.

With his damp hair and the colors of his hunting garb, it took Gwaine a second to recognize Arthur against the dark backdrop of the wet trees. He was kneeling next to his mare, wiping mud from her leg and carefully feeling her ankle; Gwaine suddenly remembered that Llamrei had tripped a little earlier that day when she'd stepped into a surprisingly deep puddle. She hadn't limped at all, as far as he could tell, but apparently Arthur wanted to make sure her leg was as fine as it appeared to be. Llamrei patiently endured the probing touch, occasionally raising her head from where she was munching on grass to bump companionably against her master's shoulder.

"You and Gryngolet seem to be getting along at last," Merlin suddenly said, and when Gwaine looked at him, he saw that Merlin was looking towards the horses as well, his gaze resting on Arthur with a fond, absent smile that he didn't seem to be aware of.

Gwaine cleared his throat and looked away. "Yeah, well," he shrugged, gulping down another mouthful of wine before he spoke again. "I'm a likeable kind of guy. Persistent, too."

Merlin snorted out a laugh, but didn't reply, and they lapsed back into silence for a while. The whole forest was sopping wet around them, water trickling down the leaves and creating a cacophony of dripping noise that almost made Gwaine think that it was still raining. Merlin got up for a moment to feed another relatively dry piece of wood into the flames; he hadn't thought they'd ever get a fire going in this weather, but it had been crackling merrily when he and Leon had returned from their hunt.

Leon tested the state of his boots by putting them back on, and Gwaine saw him blink in surprise—the leather looked almost dry, although it had only been resting next to the fire for a few minutes. He shook his head slightly and shrugged, as if to say that he wasn't going to question the welcome warmth around his toes, and rose from the mossy ground, dusting off his trousers. Merlin's gaze followed when Leon walked over to the packhorse with a new bounce to his step, and he smiled a little to himself like he was enjoying a private joke.

Gwaine got up to refill his cup from the cauldron of wine that they'd heated over the fire until the venison took its place, and when he sat back down, Merlin seemed to have straightened up a bit. He was looking at Gwaine with a thoughtful expression, like he'd just remembered something that had been on his mind for quite a while. Gwaine raised his eyebrows in a silent question as he sipped on his cup, hoping that it would be enough to encourage Merlin to talk—it probably wasn't what Gwaine wished he would talk to him about, but he still wanted to hear it.

Merlin wet his lips before he spoke, and his gaze darted back to the fire as though he was searching for words. "I've been thinking," he began slowly, "about... you know, the whole thing with the dead vassals and the ivy..."

He trailed off, but Gwaine lowered his cup and nodded at him to continue. It wasn't like he hadn't thought of it as well sometimes during the long hours of the night, but although Arthur had explained it to him at the beginning of their journey, he still didn't really get why everyone was getting so worked up over some murdered noblemen.

"What about you, then?" Merlin asked, quietly now, like he didn't want anyone else listening in on this conversation. "Do you think the Green Knight killed Sir Ricbert? I mean, you talked to him at the feast..."

Gwaine kept his shrug casual enough, but the memory pushed itself to the front of his mind with gentle insistence, stirred back to life by Merlin's words. It was slightly hazy at the edges from how much he'd drunk that night, but the image of the Green Knight was still as undimmed as it had been back then. Oddly enough, the thing he remembered most clearly was the man's scent as he'd sat down beside Gwaine at the table—it hadn't been the usual stench of sweat, leather and horse that came with traveling. He'd smelled of wet earth and freshly-grown grass instead, of the first trees that dared to unfold their young leaves after a long winter, something clear and sharp that had roused Gwaine's cider-addled mind from its drunk state.

"I asked him where he'd come from," Gwaine said, mostly to himself; the sight of the fire seemed to blur before his eyes, giving way to the golden glow of candlelight that had filled the hall that evening. "He just said he had hailed from far away, so I reckoned he didn't want to talk and got him some cider instead."

No matter how few words had been exchanged between them, Gwaine still remembered the long, searching look the man had given him, his startlingly green eyes traveling up and down his body as if assessing his strengths and weaknesses. If Gwaine had been sober, he might have felt uncomfortable with being studied so closely, attentively enough for the look to feel like a physical touch. But he'd just smiled at the man, his spirit mellowed and tamed by wine, and hadn't second-guessed the slow pull of heat that had trickled into his stomach when the stranger had smiled back.

Merlin was silent beside him, and Gwaine realized that he'd been quiet for too long. He shook his head slightly to clear it of the echo of sound that seemed to drift up from the corners of his mind—a bard had been tuning his fiddle, he remembered, but even the music had had nothing on hearing the Green Knight speak, a voice like the rough slide of a hand over an ancient tree's sun-warmed bark.

"I was a bit sloshed," he continued, matter-of-factly, and found himself grinning at the memory of pleasant dizziness, of the odd compulsion to catch and hold the stranger's green gaze whenever possible, even though his conversational skills had been somewhat impaired by alcohol. "I tried to challenge him to a drinking game, but he said he had another challenge in stock for the night."

"And we all know how that turned out." Merlin nodded, sighing a little, and Gwaine thought that he was probably remembering the king's relapse into the jittery, white-faced silence that they'd all become so familiar with since their battle against Cenred's army.

Gwaine sighed as well, drank some more wine, and looked into the dancing flames again. The smell of roasted venison was making his stomach rumble, but the hunger seemed distant, a poor copy of sensation compared to the memory of the rush that had gone through him at the feast when the Green Knight had challenged the court. It was the sort of thing that Gwaine normally would have scoffed at, the kind of promised glory that ignited a fire in the eyes of young squires who couldn't tell foolishness from bravery.

But the reckless impulse to rise to the impossible challenge had still bubbled up in him even as a glance towards the high table had confirmed that Arthur was about to get up himself. He remembered the warning look Leon had leveled at him, but it hadn't nearly been enough to tamper the pull of exhilarated urgency that plucked at him, like the expert fingers of a musician testing the strings of his instrument. Of course Gwaine hadn't acted on his impulse in the end, astonished as he'd been by Uther's harsh dismissal of the stranger, but the memory was enough to make him almost regret that he hadn't gotten his chance.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Arthur, Leon, and Lancelot sat down on the log on the other side of the fire. Leon handed wooden dishes to each of them, then poked at the venison with his knife and pronounced it quite through. They ate mostly in silence, and although Gwaine burned his tongue on the steaming meat as he swallowed his first bite too quickly, he couldn't quite tug his mind back to the present.

His thoughts had stubbornly latched on to the evening of the feast, circling the memory like greedy predators waiting for their prey to fall, and Gwaine couldn't help but roll his eyes at himself. A wet clearing in an even wetter forest wasn't the right place to think of missed opportunities for adventures, especially since this whole quest thing they were doing was working out quite well. It was not as glorious or exciting as what the Green Knight had promised, but Gwaine figured that for now, it would have to do.





The next day, looking at the farmer pinned beneath Arthur's unrelenting glare of princely ire, Gwaine silently revised his opinion of their quest.

Granted, they hadn't done much besides riding around the countryside, staring at ivy, and questioning villagers, but feeling the silence grow thicker by the second was entertaining in its own right. Arthur's features were carved out of stone, and although they were still traveling incognito, an air of royalty seemed drawn around him like a cloak.

Never mind epic challenges or courageous adventures—the commanding fury in Arthur's eyes provided quite enough glory for this quest on his own. Well, Gwaine might have thought something along those lines if he'd been easily impressed, which he thankfully wasn't.

At least not as easily impressed as the farmer, it seemed. The man was squirming in his seat, a light sheen of sweat beginning to bead on his brow, and his gaze kept darting left and right as if in search of help. Gwaine knew that he wouldn't get any, though—the only other villagers in the room were a cowed barmaid who was wiping the same table over and over again, and the innkeeper himself, far less obliging than the one they had met in Treffynnon.

Just as Gwaine had anticipated the day before, they had reached Torpelei before nightfall, and had spent the night in the local inn, since taverns were just the right place to go to for information. Like in Treffynnon, the people of Torpelei seemed skittish, afraid of something they didn't dare to name, but on top of that, there had been a palpable unease in the air as soon as Arthur had cautiously inquired after the local dead nobleman. And well, after having heard the story that the reluctant farmer had told them, Gwaine understood why.

"Let me get this straight," Arthur said, his voice cold and final. The farmer gave him a pleading look, but the prince's stony expression didn't budge. Gwaine hadn't thought it would. "Your lord, one Sir Gromer Somer Joure, was killed almost two months ago, judging from the state of the body when you found him in the woods, but you only started looking for him when he'd been missing for several weeks."

The farmer's mouth opened, trembled, and shut again, like he wanted to defend himself and his fellow villagers, but found himself silenced against his will by Arthur's unrelenting glare. Next to Gwaine, Leon sighed almost inaudibly, looking disappointed—he'd probably hoped to see a bit more of a backbone within the trembling man before them.

"By that time, the murderer was gone, of course," Arthur went on. He wasn't shouting, he hadn't even raised his voice, but the words still sounded too loud in the perfect quietude of the room. "And your lord's house at the edge of the village was overgrown with ivy."

"It was magic, I'm sure of it," the farmer babbled, prodded out of his cowed silence at last, although Gwaine wished he hadn't spoken—his tone was a pleading tremble, as though Arthur were holding a sword to his throat and he was trying to talk himself out of certain death. "I've never seen the likes of it, it must have been magic, sire."

Arthur hadn't revealed his station to the man, but he used the honorific anyway, probably thinking that it would appease him; but by the sudden spark of danger in his eyes, Gwaine guessed that it just made him angrier.

"And you, along with some other farmers, broke into the house," Arthur continued, like he'd never been interrupted in the first place, "stole everything that wasn't nailed down and looked even remotely valuable, and sold the bauble to the first traveling merchant who came along."

The barmaid had stopped wiping the table near the window and was standing with her back to them, her shoulders rigid, and Gwaine thought that she would have long since bolted out the door if she hadn't had to cross the room to get to it. He leaned back against the door leading to the stairwell, flicking a glance at the innkeeper; Arthur had his back to him, but the man didn't look like he'd try anything foolish anyway.

Arthur shook his head, very lightly, but the gesture spoke volumes. He looked disappointed now, on top of coldly furious, and Gwaine didn't blame the farmer when he went even paler than he'd been before. "Your lord had two children," Arthur said, his voice quiet. "A girl, barely of age, and a young boy. Their mother died when they were young, and they became orphans when their father was murdered."

The farmer had stopped squirming and sat in silence, awaiting his fate like a man condemned. Gwaine was sure that Arthur wouldn't actually kill him, or any of the others, but Arthur was doing a rather good job at this whole vengeful judge impression he had going on, and the farmer was clearly fearing for his life.

"I'm sure they were terrified of the magical transformation of their home," Arthur went on. "They probably fled into the forest, but none of you went looking for them—"

"He had a hunting lodge to the west," the innkeeper suddenly interrupted, the words bursting out so quickly that Gwaine was sure that he'd been wanting to say them for quite some time. Arthur turned his head, just enough to give the man a level look, and the innkeeper shrunk back a little.

"Sir Gromer, I mean," he said, sounding slightly cowed, now that the room's attention was on him. "He used to go there in the summer, and we— we think that his children probably went there, as they couldn't stay in the house any longer, with all the ivy."

"I see," Arthur replied. Over Arthur's shoulder, Gwaine saw Merlin grimace a little as if in sympathy for the two villagers—the prince's tone was soft, silky, almost, but his left hand had clenched into a fist on the table. His other hand was doubtlessly placed on the dagger at his belt. "So you left a young woman and her fourteen-year-old brother to their own devices in the woods, after their father had died, and just assumed that they would be fine?"

No one spoke. Lancelot looked faintly disgusted and a bit sad, like it escaped him how anyone could be this unkind to innocent people; Gwaine would have rolled his eyes at his fellow knight in any other situation, but right now, he found himself empathizing with him.

The silence stretched, but this time the farmer was the first to break. "He wasn't a good lord, sire," he burst out, a bit of righteous anger stirring underneath the poorly disguised fear in his tone. "He never did anything to stop the poachers—Torpelei's forest is quite large, sire, and we never used to lack venison until they showed up. And he imposed taxes on us—taxes!"

Arthur remained silent through the man's slight pause, and the farmer deflated a little since he'd obviously been hoping for some sort of acknowledgement. "We'd ask him what king he thought he was collecting taxes for, sire, since we knew he was thinking about selling us to Camelot," he went on, a bit subdued now since Arthur's expression didn't budge. "And he said he was collecting them in advance so he could get the best possible feudal relationship out of Camelot's king once he'd sworn his oath of fealty."

A muscle twitched in Arthur's cheek, but other than that, he didn't allow himself a visible reaction to the fact that the late Sir Gromer had been planning to bribe his father into finally making him an official vassal of Camelot. "And that's his children's fault?" he asked, simply enough, but the last bit of fight seemed to drain out of the farmer at the words. He stared down at the table, not daring to meet the prince's eyes anymore.

After a pause, Arthur rose from his seat and turned to the innkeeper, who shrank back a little against the wall. His eyes were still hard as flint, ready to strike up sparks at the slightest provocation, but his tone was civil enough, if slightly clipped. "I refuse to stay in this inn any longer," he said, and the man nodded hastily, not even remotely indignant at the veiled insult to his tavern.

Gwaine pushed himself away from the door frame when Arthur sought his eyes, and watched as Arthur glanced at each of them as though searching for contradiction in their features and finding none. "We'll ride out into the forest and search for this hunting lodge," he stated, his tone brooking no argument, but Gwaine knew that none of them would have objected even if the prince had given them the chance. "Lancelot, Gwaine, come with me and ready the horses. Merlin, Leon, get our luggage."

They sprung into action without question; Gwaine noticed, with a small flicker of amusement, that Merlin had started to edge towards the stairwell even before Arthur had completed his order. He flashed him a quick grin on his way to the door, and Merlin smiled back, looking just as relieved as Gwaine felt—even without this story of the lord and his village, he wouldn't have wanted to stay in the tavern any longer either. The beds were so lumpy that he'd hardly slept the night before, and the food wasn't nearly as good as in Treffynnon.

He followed Arthur and Lancelot to the door, but glanced back for a moment. The farmer was wiping sweat from his brow, looking like he couldn't quite believe his luck—apparently he really had thought that Arthur would stab him with the dagger he'd been gripping under the table. The innkeeper looked just as shell-shocked, but the barmaid seemed almost relieved; she'd started wiping down another table, her movements quick and practiced, like she was just glad that no blood had been shed.

Gwaine barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes and stepped out of the room, squinting against the bright sunshine that greeted him. Arthur really had it in him to intimidate people if he wanted to—true, he had been furious with the villagers, but Gwaine knew very well that he'd never have taken his anger out on them, no matter what they had done wrong.

He glanced over at the prince as he trailed after Lancelot, and thought that while Arthur's shoulders still seemed tight, there was a determined bounce in his step that had been missing before. Gwaine felt his own mood lighten right along with the prince's—it would be nice to actually have witnesses to question about the murder, instead of standing around staring at ivy. And maybe the hunting lodge was better stocked in terms of drinks.





When Merlin nearly got unhorsed by a stubborn tree branch for the fourth time, he was ready to just dismount and walk on foot.

He sighed in annoyance as he brushed twigs and leaves from his hair, and ducked low over his horse's neck just in time to avoid another low-hanging branch. The huge, nameless forest that covered the western section of the Northern Plains was thicker than any of the forests he'd been in in Camelot. At least there'd been a trail to follow when they had approached Torpelei, but now they were just riding along without so much as a dirt track for orientation. They were still headed west in the general direction of the dead lord's hunting lodge, and the undergrowth was thickening progressively, to the point that they'd had to slow their horses down to a walk.

Well, at least his horse wasn't plotting to throw him off. Ahead of him, Gwaine was swearing under his breath, the curses getting more and more colorful the longer they rode on. Merlin had thought that he'd made a truce with his horse, but apparently Gryngolet had just been waiting for the right moment to let his evil intentions towards his rider resurface. He kept edging away from the others no matter how much Gwaine tried to keep him close to Arthur and Lancelot's horses, and Gwaine constantly had to dodge prickly pine branches and leaf-laden twigs whipping into his face and tugging at his hair.

Merlin suppressed his smile despite the fact that Gwaine's back was turned to him, and turned to glance over his shoulder for a moment. The packhorse seemed unperturbed by the stubbornly clinging undergrowth, trudging along behind him, and their luggage was still safely tied to its back, although various twigs and leaves had gotten stuck in the straps. Merlin caught Leon's eye across the packhorse's bowed head, and the knight gave him a tight smile before he resumed gazing at the forest around them as though he was waiting for them to be attacked at any second.

Prodded into a mild state of alarm by the way Leon's hand was gripping his still-sheathed dagger, Merlin turned back around just in time to see a growing glimmer of light ahead. He touched his heels to his horse's flanks, and it sped up obediently, matching the quickened pace of the others—apparently Merlin wasn't the only one who was excited at the prospect of getting out of the thicket and into a clearing, if only just for a moment.

The treeline fell away as though cut down as Merlin reached open ground to the sound of a small brook gurgling through the undergrowth. The forest had been thick enough to muffle it, but now the sound of running water echoed through the clearing; his horse urged towards the water, and Merlin dismounted in time to see the others do the same.

The horses drank deeply, and Merlin let his gaze travel across the tall trees around them. The treeline was thick, no trails or tracks leading away from it, and even the path that their horses had cut through the undergrowth seemed to disappear progressively, the bushes bending back and the grass straightening up again. He could hear the rustle of leaves all around them, stirred by a breeze that didn't reach all the way down into the clearing, and from far away, the stubborn tapping of a woodpecker.

For just a moment, he paused, frowning, his eyes resting on a pine tree where the brook burst out of the forest—he thought he'd seen a flash of silver there, the tell-tale shimmer of sunlight being reflected by armor. But he didn't see it again, and none of the others seemed to have noticed anything. Arthur and Leon were talking quietly, and although Merlin was standing too far away to make out the words, he could guess what they were discussing. Leon looked unnerved and vaguely entreating, like he was insisting that they had to leave this forest as soon as possible; Merlin couldn't see Arthur's expression, since his back was turned to him, but judging from his gestures, he was trying to reassure his fellow knight.

Gwaine flopped down on an outcropping of rock near the brook, bent over, and shook his head. Tiny twigs and pine needles tumbled down to his shoulders, and he started combing his fingers through his hair with an annoyed look in Gryngolet's general direction. The stallion chose that exact moment to lift his head from the brook and glance over at Gwaine, like he was examining the fruits that his hard labor had brought, and the annoyance in Gwaine's eyes transformed into a glare that promised revenge. Apparently the truce was over for good.

When Merlin turned towards the packhorse in the hopes of grabbing a bite to eat before they set out again, he spotted the knight immediately.

He must have made some sort of warning noise, because the murmur of Leon's voice cut off, and then he heard a dagger being drawn to his left. Someone pushed past him, shouldering him roughly aside so that he stumbled into Lancelot, and he had just steadied himself when Arthur stepped in front of them, putting himself into the stranger's line of sight.

There was a short, tense silence, only broken by the sounds of the forest around them. Then the knight stepped forward and out of the shadowy treeline, and Merlin immediately felt stupid for his alarm. True, the knight was in full armor, but something looked slightly off—the hauberk seemed too long, the pauldron sitting awkwardly on narrow shoulders, and it took Merlin a long moment to realize that the armor was simply too big for the stranger.

"Prince Arthur Pendragon of Camelot?" the knight asked, and his voice confirmed Merlin's suspicion—it wasn't as high as a child's, but he could tell that it had only just begun to deepen into the lower registers of adulthood. His tone made up for it, though, a thinly veiled threat hovering behind the simple words; Merlin had no doubt that if the stranger had been older, the knights would have moved to stand at Arthur's side by now, their daggers unsheathed.

As it was, they seemed a bit nonplussed. From the corner of his eye, Merlin could see Gwaine slowly advance towards them, closing their left flank, but although he walked carefully enough for his feet to make no sound on the soft ground, his expression was thoroughly baffled and even a bit amused, rather than tight and ready for battle. Lancelot exchanged a quick glance with Leon, looking just as puzzled.

After a short pause, Arthur gave a single nod, his shoulders relaxing visibly although his hand didn't stray from his belt. Merlin stepped around him, a bit annoyed that Arthur's back was blocking his view, and received a short glare for his trouble. Leon moved to Merlin's right, apparently not trusting the stranger's relatively harmless appearance.

The man—boy—paused for a moment, as though he hadn't expected Arthur to be so straightforward in his reply, and despite himself, Merlin felt a small twinge of wariness coil in his stomach. Then the stranger moved to loosen his gauntlet from his wrist, his gloved fingers clumsy on the buckles; Merlin thought absently that the boy was possibly even more unpracticed at taking off armor than he had been on his first day as Arthur's manservant.

He almost smiled at the thought, but the expression slid from his face as though wiped off when the boy finally managed to disengage the gauntlet and threw it down at Arthur's feet. It bounced slightly on the soft ground, the metal shimmering like it had been freshly polished.

"I challenge you to a duel," the boy said, raising his voice as if to cover up a tremor of uncertainty. He sounded oddly tinny through his helmet, and he rested his hand on the hilt of his sword—which was too big for him as well, Merlin noticed—as if to make up for it. "Single combat, here and now. To the death."

A ringing silence followed the words, only interrupted by a slightly incredulous snort from Gwaine. Lancelot, who had come to stand next to Gwaine at some point, nudged his fellow knight with his elbow, and the snort tapered off into a poorly faked cough.

Arthur inclined his head in acknowledgement at the boy, but he made no move to take up the gauntlet. His features had hardened into what Merlin had long ago started to call his courtly mask—the one he wore when he tried to convince his father of something in a council meeting. It was a mixture of respect and persistence, although Merlin saw that his heart wasn't in it now, judging from how he was keeping his hand well clear of his long dagger.

He looked down at the gauntlet for a moment, but Merlin knew that he wasn't even thinking about taking it up—nevertheless, he kept his tone polite and aloof when he asked, "May I see to whom I am speaking?"

The boy hesitated, but then he took off the helmet, and Merlin almost recoiled when he saw how young he really was. His face was flushed from the heat that must have accumulated under the metal, but his eyes, a startling blue under a mop of tousled brown hair, were blazing.

"Do you refuse me?" he asked, his tone angry and incredulous in equal measures. He drew himself up to his full height, although he still barely came up to Arthur's shoulder. "By the chivalric code, you are obliged to—"

"The chivalric code," Arthur interrupted, the barest hint of steel lacing the patience in his voice, "applies to knights, and knights only. Show me your seal of nobility that states where and when you've been knighted, and then I might think about this challenge of yours."

Of course the boy didn't move, just held Arthur's gaze in a stubborn effort to save the last scraps of his dignity. Merlin saw that his hands were clenched into fists, and suddenly he noticed the dark circles under the boy's eyes, how pale he seemed under the flush on his face. Arthur sighed, briefly rubbing a hand across his forehead; he seemed tired as well, and Merlin fought down a sudden rush of sympathy. No matter how often he had called Arthur arrogant in the past, he knew that the prince didn't enjoy humiliating a mere child in front of his knights.

But then he cleared his throat in an attempt to chase the awkward tension from the air, and gave his would-be challenger a long, searching look. "How did you know who I am?"

The boy's head snapped up as if Arthur had struck him, his eyes blazing with fury, and Merlin didn't blame Leon for taking a startled step forwards, closer to Arthur's side. "You—," the boy sputtered, as words seemed to fail him in his sudden anger for a moment. "You have the audacity to show your face here—"

Leon took a breath, obviously about to intervene, since that was no way to speak to a prince, but a quick, forbidding glance from Arthur made him swallow down the reprimand. Nobody made a sound, save for the boy, whose breath was coming in short, sharp bursts of air as he fought to rein in his anger enough to speak.

"You had my father murdered," he said at last, his voice trembling with the effort of keeping himself from shouting, "and now you've come to claim his lands—don't think I haven't figured out your conspiracy!" He took a deep, hitching breath, and Merlin was sure that he'd already have flown at Arthur with his fists if it hadn't been for the knights surrounding him, chivalric code be damned. "Those ungrateful pigs down at the village probably sent you here, for all I know! They were so glad when father died, they plundered our home before they'd even buried him in the backyard—"

He broke off, chest heaving under the pauldron that was surely too heavy for his thin frame, and Merlin glanced away, swallowing hard. The dark shadows around his eyes and the invisible weight that seemed to bear down on his shoulders made a lot more sense now. Arthur looked stricken for a moment, comprehension dawning on his features—the boy had challenged him to avenge his father, however misguided the attempt might have been.

Then he straightened up, as though to bear the weight of that accusation for the moment until it could be removed. His tone was almost soft when he asked, quietly, "Who was your father?"

"The lord of Torpelei," the boy replied, barely above a whisper this time, although not even that could disguise the tremble in his voice anymore. "Sir Gromer Somer Joure."

Merlin blinked at him in utter surprise, and saw Lancelot and Gwaine exchange an astonished look from the corner of his eye—obviously, none of them had quite seen that coming. He suddenly remembered the farmer's words in the tavern, and of course it made sense now; the boy had mentioned that the villagers had been less than grieved at their lord's death. But the farmer had also told them about the ivy, and as unwilling as Merlin still was to believe that the man was evil in any way, it seemed out of the question that the Green Knight was once more the one responsible for the murder.

But he certainly wasn't affiliated to Camelot, and Merlin didn't understand why the boy thought Arthur—and, by association, the king—to be the culprit. He looked back and forth between Arthur and the dead nobleman's son, and saw that Lancelot was frowning too, waiting for some sort of explanation to be coaxed out of him.

"Whose armor are you wearing, boy?" Arthur asked at last, not unkindly, and Merlin couldn't help a small sigh of relief when he realized that Arthur wasn't going to press the issue now. He'd probably noticed as well that the boy had been pushed to the limits of his endurance for now, and was trying to steer the conversation onto safer ground.

"My father's," the boy replied, the sullen defeat in his tone quite at odds with his earlier bravado. "And my name is Erik."

Arthur nodded slowly, seeming to choose his next words with great care so as not to make the situation even worse for him. "Your gauntlet," he finally said, gently now, and stepped back, an unspoken invitation for the boy to retrieve the piece of his father's armor.

The boy took a few reluctant steps towards them, his wary glance skimming over Leon and Merlin as he bent down, obviously unwilling to bare his neck to them. Merlin attempted a reassuring smile, but Erik was already looking away once more, giving Arthur a humiliated, suspiciously bright glare as he grabbed the gauntlet and stepped back.

"I'm not dressed for combat, as you can see," Arthur went on, gesturing at his hunting garb and the daggers on his belt. "You wouldn't have wanted to win an unequal fight, would you?"

Insinuating that an untrained fourteen-year-old could have won a duel against Arthur seemed ridiculous, but no one laughed, not even Gwaine, and Merlin found himself suddenly grateful. Erik held Arthur's gaze for a long moment, visibly conflicted as he turned the words over in his head and tried to find fault with them, but at last he shook his head and looked away, shoulders slumping.

Arthur let out an almost inaudible sigh, brief, guilty unease flashing across his expression as he'd obviously noticed that the boy was close to tears. But he didn't hesitate when he placed hand on Erik's shoulder, and held on when he tried to flinch away. "I am sorry for your loss," Arthur said, his voice gone quiet with sincerity, "but I swear to you, on my honor as crown prince, that Camelot did neither plan nor benefit from your father's death."

A moment passed before Erik looked up at Arthur again, his too-bright eyes flickering across the prince's features, like he was searching for deceit or dishonesty and found none. He might not have been properly introduced to the chivalric code yet, but he obviously could recognize a vow when he saw one, because Merlin saw his stance shift from stubborn to something more relaxed. His throat worked as he swallowed, but then Erik nodded, albeit reluctantly, and looked away towards the treeline, breathing hard through his nose to get himself under control again.

The tension seemed to lift from the air, and Merlin allowed himself a relieved sigh of his own. Dried leaves crackled on his right, and he knew without looking that Leon had stepped back, his hand probably dropping from his dagger now that the situation was defused.

"I don't know about you," Arthur declared, the jovial tone only partly forced as he gazed around the clearing to include the knights in the statement, "but I'm famished all of a sudden." He turned to Erik again, with a smile that was half tentative and half reassuring, and continued, "Why don't we hunt down some lunch, and you tell us what happened, and we'll see if we can figure out who really killed your father?"

The boy nodded again, more quickly this time, and cast a tentative look at the surrounding knights. "You could..." His voice came out scratchy and he cleared his throat, straightening up a little before he repeated, "You could all come to my father's hunting lodge, if you like."

Arthur declared that they would like that indeed, and clapped him on the shoulder, maybe a bit too heavily—Erik stumbled when the weight of his too-large armor was suddenly tipped forward. But the brief, hesitant twitch of his lips when he looked up at Arthur was unmistakable, and Merlin turned away to hide his own smile.

His horse was waiting for him by the brook, chewing on a bit of grass, and the packhorse greeted him with a friendly bump of its nose to his shoulder when he took up its reins. Leon had already mounted and was riding over to where Arthur was trying to convince Erik to mount Llamrei, in vain, it seemed. But Arthur kept rolling his eyes surreptitiously whenever Erik wasn't looking, so Merlin guessed that the boy was insisting that he couldn't just ride a prince's steed.

Merlin heaved himself up onto his horse's back easily, unlike Gwaine, who was hopping after Gryngolet with a disgruntled expression, his left foot already in the stirrup although the stallion kept stepping to the side whenever he tried to swing himself up into the saddle. Gwaine's back was turned to him, so Merlin allowed himself a wry grin—he knew that Gwaine was actually quite good a rider, but it was nice not to be the one looking like an idiot around horses for once.

The clearing seemed larger from horseback, and Merlin took one last look around as he slowly steered his horse over to where Erik was motioning them to a previously unnoticed trail into the forest. The brook was still rippling and gurgling away, the water glittering in the sunlight, but something else caught his attention from just above eye level.

He looked up into a tall beech that seemed oddly out of place amidst all the pine trees, and saw three ravens sitting on a low-hanging branch, in a neat row as though they'd observed the whole scene and were now waiting for them to leave. It could just have been a trick of the light, but Merlin thought their feathers were an almost too glossy black, shimmering even in the shade beneath a thick canopy of leaves. They seemed to be looking at him, beady eyes twinkling as they cocked their heads as if in thought.

Then one of them took flight in a flurry of wings, shaking the branch, and the other two followed suit. Merlin turned his head to watch them fly past, disappearing out of sight beyond the treetops, and he rolled his eyes at himself—it had just been some random birds, and it was stupid to assume they'd been watching them. He urged his horse forward with a nudge of his heels, catching up to the others as they rode beneath the shady trees once more.

The image stayed with him, though, the three black silhouettes sitting next to each other on a tree branch, oddly unreal for their utter stillness until one had flown away. A memory rose to the front of his mind, unbidden and long forgotten—it had looked almost like the picture from Gaius' book of fairytales and songs, the one he'd been perusing that night after the disastrous feast. True, there'd been a knight in the picture as well, and at least one dog, but the three ravens had been just the same, sat in a row upon a tree as though bearing witness.

Merlin ducked to get rid of a stubborn twig that had lodged itself in his hair, and rolled his eyes again. If this were a fairytale, he thought somewhat sourly, he wouldn't keep getting whacked in the face by cheeky trees' appendages. On the other hand, in a fairytale he'd probably be wearing a pointy hat, and possibly a wand, and maybe he'd have a beard too. He shook his head, brushing leaves out of his hair—no, all in all, he was quite satisfied with things as they were.






__________ __________

Comments

[kassandrastoker.livejournal.com]

oh hello gwaine :))

Can't stop reading and its already 430 in the morning :))

[dayari.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that's such an honor, thank you so much! :) I hope you weren't too tired the next morning (or, well, midday :P)! And I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the fic--I can promise you that you'll see quite a lot more of Gwaine!