Chapter Text
Some time ago, a life-time ago if you’re at the age of twenty-seven, two monarchs residing in the kingdom of Camelot wanted an heir. Unfortunate as it was, the Queen was barren. But on the bright side, they were wealthy, and they were in charge of a country, and could ask anything of anyone.
Their wish would be granted by a crew of pirates - a title once praised and given as an endearment to the most dedicated of high-seas merchants.
Their captain was a man named Balinor.
Their first mate was a woman named Nimueh.
The rest of the crew also had names and complex inner lives, though none will be mentioned as they are of no consequence.
Balinor and Nimueh were invited into the King’s court with special instructions: find a way that the Queen may conceive.
Merchants as they were, the pirates had one simple answer. What’s in it for us?
The King promised riches beyond comparison. Mountains of gold coins that would take a fortnight to climb. Enough money to have servants to attend to the servants who attended the crew. A life free of work and full of relaxation until they lost the fight with old age. Everything they could ever hope for and more - in exchange for a cure to infertility.
The pirates scoured the Earth for a treatment. They consulted holy men, shamans, and doctors. They accumulated herbs and oils and crystals from every continent. After a year they found it fit to return and hope for the best.
Three months later, the Queen cradled her belly and celebrated her luck with her husband.
Six months after that, the Queen gave birth to a baby boy. That boy’s name is Arthur Pendragon, and he is who this story is truly about, though at that moment he was too busy drooling and coming to terms with object permanence to be of any concern.
And six months after even that, the pirates still had not been paid. The pirates did what anyone scorned in a deal would do - they stormed the castle, guns blazing.
The King met them from a balcony two stories high, his child barricaded inside with a young girl named Morgana (who was staying in the castle while her parents voyaged across the Atlantic, and was soon to become an orphan when they never returned,) and his wife behind the glass door on that same balcony. Soldiers upon soldiers lined the battlements above. In all things the King’s arrogance outweighed his sense, and so his voice carried across the courtyard and asked them who they thought they were, opening fire on a building they knew had a Queen and her baby inside.
The pirates responded that they didn’t mean any harm to the women and children of the castle, only that they sought repayment for their long year of service and none had been given. They were completely content to leave with their guns and swords holstered so long as they also had their promised share in their hands.
To this, the King said simply, “I don’t recall a promised share.”
“Of course you do,” Balinor answered, with his hands cupped around his mouth so the King could still hear him. “The money you promised us to give your Queen a child. She has her child, we want our money.”
“I think you misunderstand, because no promise was ever written. I have no recollection of such a deal, and so I have no intention of honoring it.”
The folly of the pirates was one that should never cause shame, and it was that they had trust. In their ignorance of the King’s ways, the pirates never asked the monarchs for their promise on paper. Aside from the child itself there was no proof a deal had even been brokered, and one can hardly hold an infant as a receipt.
In their outrage Balinor and Nimueh fired one shot each. Balinor’s shot embedded into the King’s shoulder, and he went down with a roaring cry of pain. Nimueh’s shot came just a second after, but that one second changed the world for the next two decades.
Because the King had already fallen, and the Queen was right behind him.
The shot, meant for the King’s chest, broke through the glass door and pierced the Queen’s neck. The pirates did not see her fall, and did not know that as the King screamed the name of his wife she was choking to death on her own blood. They only knew that they had little time to run before the soldiers opened fire and killed them all.
It is important to note that had Nimueh known her shot would kill the Queen she never would have fired. It was not the Queen she had quarrel with, only her mold spore of a husband.
This is a fact that is largely ignored. Mainly because the King found their broken contract to be very bad press, and told everyone he could demand listen that the pirates turned on the crown and announced themselves to be traitors before attempting to assassinate the royal family.
The world is ruled by accidents, coincidences, and plots by the very powerful. All three together lead to the newsprints the next day reading King Names Pirates Enemies of the Crown , and not King Names These Pirates Enemies of the Crown .
Rather than own up to its mistake the newspaper claimed this was their plan all along. And the King, sensing that a ban on all pirates would bring him his pirates that much faster, considered it law.
From that day forward pirates were no longer merchants and navigators. They were criminals, traitors, and otherwise people-to-be-persecuted-by-all-means-possible. This came as quite a surprise to the pirates who were away while all of this insanity took place, and upon docking at ports to sell their wares were accosted, read their crimes, and hung in the square on Saturdays after the rich were finished with their breakfast and ready for their mid-morning tea.
Balinor escaped, if only narrowly and with the help of a long-time friend. He was sent to a small fishing village and took lodging with a woman. As things often go they fell deeply in love. Unlike the Queen, she had no difficulties in the realm of fertility, and it did not take long for her to have a child. That child is Merlin Wylt, but to ease confusion he will largely be performing under the name Emrys.
Nimueh did not fare as well, and did not escape. Upon being caught by the King he ordered not a gallows but a pyre, and she was sentenced to burn. She did, at tea time on a Saturday, and more than one madame crinkled their noses when her ashes drifted into their cups.
Though her fate is the cruelest, and the most undeserved, she died with her chin held high and her integrity intact. The same cannot be said for our King, who will die with his pants down and his heart broken.
How such a fate comes to pass is yet to be told.