Chapter Text
A log popped in the grate, sending a shower of sparks up into the waiting darkness of the chimney. The cheerful crackle of the fire was the only sound to disturb the silence. Its ruddy, golden light competed with the candles, painting highlights and shadows on the figure slumped over the desk, his head in his hands.
No crown adorned his brow and no armour clad his frame. This was not Camelot's prince, strong and stalwart. This was just Arthur, slowly breaking apart under the strain of a kingdom brought to the brink by Uther's actions.
Merlin shut the door quietly in his wake, setting the tray of food on the table. For once, nothing clanked or sloshed, and he crossed the room to prop his hip on the corner of the desk by Arthur's elbow. It was not what a servant should do. They should be seen and not heard, but Merlin had never followed those particular rules. He would rather be of help to Arthur than a silent witness to his distress.
'No luck with the peace talks, then?'
A sigh whispered between Arthur's lips, and when he dropped his hands, Merlin could see that his eyes were red and sore, hooded and exhausted. The muscles in his neck were like cords of rope. His shoulders formed a tense line, and his pulse was a visible flicker in the hollow of his jaw.
'My father does not see the point. Not when he thinks we can rout Bayard by blood and blade.' He gave his head a fractional shake, his expression haunted by the possibility of the carnage such a war would bring. 'He will not listen to reason.'
'And Bayard?'
Arthur slumped deeper in his chair. 'Despite my father's accusations to the contrary, he is a man of sense. Mercia and Camelot are equally matched. It would be a bloodbath. All this tension over a strip of land two miles wide along our border. Mercian for more than a decade, right up until my father decided the map misrepresented the line. Bayard does not see why he should displace his people for Camelot's pride, and my father will not surrender the point, nor agree an exchange.'
Arthur shifted, a spasm of pain pinching his face. One hand lifted to rest over where the scar from the Questing Beast's bite left its mark, his fingers tense and his knuckles white beneath his skin.
Merlin hated to see him like this, that strong body wrought to misery by tension. It was not that Arthur feared a war, but nor did he revel in the glory of it. He was not like his father, eager to throw away the lives of his soldiers in the name of the crown. Nor was he quick to anger or take insult. In the years since Merlin had first come across a prattish prince in the marketplace, Arthur had grown in both heart and mind, becoming a man Merlin would happily call his king.
Uther believed in power, gold and riches. Arthur believed in his people, his kingdom, and the idea that good men could make life better for everyone, not just the individual who sat upon the throne.
That was why this situation pained him so. If he were more like his father, he would think nothing of the cost of war. He would charge in, sword flashing, in the name of Camelot's dubious honour. Instead, he had spent the past week trying to bridge the ever-widening rift between two neighbouring realms, more than aware that it was his own father that was being unreasonable.
'If it were the other way around: if it were Bayard claiming the land after it had been Camelot's for all this time, what would happen then?' Merlin opened a cupboard, pulling free a pot of salve and tweaking at Arthur's collar. 'Get this off. I'll sort out your shoulder.'
It felt like a risky move. Once, Arthur wouldn't have even hesitated, but since finding out about Merlin's magic almost six months ago, they had been walking a rocky road of forgiveness, each of them trying to find their way to new, firm ground. They were almost there, Merlin thought: not back to the way they were, but something beyond it, something better, where they both knew each other's true depths and trusted each other implicitly.
Still, sometimes he feared Arthur might recoil from him, or return to those first, awful days when he refused to even look Merlin in the eye. Even now, he half-expected it all to come crashing down around his ears, his life brought to an end by axe or pyre. Yet Arthur proved him wrong. Again and again, he turned towards Merlin rather than away from him, showing him in deed and word that, despite everything, he had found his faith in Merlin once more.
'We'd defend the land.' Arthur grabbed the hem of his tunic and peeled it off without hesitation, revealing skin turned gold in the firelight. 'The same as Bayard is doing.'
'But what would you think was going through Bayard's mind?'
If there was one flaw in Arthur's thinking, it was the blind-spot he had when it came to his father. It was the result, Merlin thought, of being raised in his shadow. Arthur had been given no choice but to look up to him, and though he had been known to privately criticise some of his father's decisions, his support in public remained as staunch as ever. Even as a grown man, he had a habit of trying to believe the best in Uther, when Merlin suspected he should be thinking the worst.
Merlin warmed the salve between his hands, inhaling the scent of sage and rosemary before he nudged Arthur forward, making him fold his arms on the desk and rest his head on top of them. His back was a wall of tense muscles, corded like bowlines, and Merlin set to work. It would be easier if he could get Arthur to lie on the bed, but he knew it would be a hiding to nothing. Arthur would see moving from his desk as surrender, and he would not give up on this until he had either found a solution or succumbed to Uther's bull-headed commands.
'I'd think he was mad.' Arthur's voice, muffled by the desk, ended on a moan as Merlin hit a good spot. He turned his head, the better to be heard, and Merlin forced himself to start listing the herbs Gaius needed replenishing. It was that or lose himself in the heat of Arthur's back beneath his hands, or the way his lips parted, pink and pretty, around another sound of pain-cum-pleasure.
In moments where he was lost in his care for his kingdom, it was all too easy to see what a good king Arthur would be. He believed, where Uther did not, in the duty of royals to their land and the people of it. At times like this, there was something almost holy about Arthur's devotion: breath-taking.
It made Merlin wish he could find himself the centre of Arthur's focus, pinned by that same, fervent gaze. He wanted Arthur to look at him as if he were something worth cherishing, but it was not to be. He was just a servant, after all, and a sorcerous one at that.
Silently, Merlin shoved the longing aside. He was used to it by now. Besides, he should be grateful. Arthur knew what he was. He knew every secret, and despite that, their friendship had survived intact. There had been days where he had feared that such an outcome was an impossible dream. Really, he couldn't ask for more, despite the longings of his heart.
'That,' Arthur continued, oblivious to Merlin's distraction, 'or I'd think he wanted something. Something specific to that bit of land. Resources or a tactical advantage.'
Merlin smiled, hearing the dawning realisation in Arthur's voice. It was easy, when stuck in the quagmire of a problem, to forget to look at all the tangled strings behind the scenes. Uther was many things, but he was not a fool. He would not risk all-out war for nothing but his pride.
Somewhere in that strip of terrain was something Uther wanted. If they could get it for him from somewhere else, or convince him it wasn't needed, then there was a good chance he could at least bring himself to compromise with Bayard.
'So, what's there?' Merlin asked, digging his thumbs under the edge of Arthur's shoulder-blade and feeling the resistance beneath his skin ease away. 'A ford over a river? An important road?'
'Trees?'
Merlin grimaced, trying not to think of all the wood Uther had once required for his pyres. 'There's probably something else there somewhere.'
Arthur sighed, lifting his head. 'I need a map.'
'I can –' Merlin bit off the words, swallowing hard as his hands stuttered against Arthur's skin. He had been about to offer to use his magic. It knew the land – was of the land – and it could recreate images of it better than any chart. Yet even now, something stifled his voice. He did use his power to help Arthur, but even now he knew of it, Merlin kept it subtle. It was one thing for Arthur to turn a blind eye to it, but another all together for him to ask for its assistance.
'I can go to Geoffrey?' he finished lamely, pulling his hands away from Arthur's back, already turning to move towards the door. Warm, calloused fingers around his left wrist stopped him in his tracks, and he pursed his lips, glancing back over his shoulder.
'That wasn't what you were going to say, was it?' Arthur's thumb skimmed the underside of Merlin's wrist, his blue eyes dark in the firelight. His expression was controlled and carefully blank in a way that suggested there was a wealth of emotion held beneath the surface, tucked carefully out of sight. 'Is there –' Arthur hesitated, wetting his lips. 'Is there something you can do with your magic?'
He sounded as scared as Merlin felt, not of the sorcery itself. Instead, it was as if he had taken a step out onto ice, unsure whether it would hold his weight. This was untried ground between them, and neither one of them were sure of their footing.
Silently, Merlin nodded, shifting back to press his fingers to the surface of Arthur's desk. He reached out with his power, letting it spill beyond the confines of the chamber and soar on the breeze. It raced towards the border with Mercia, pooling in dips and spilling like a wave over the hills until it found the narrow band of land in question.
The scarred wood of the desk disappeared under a gleaming gold image of the terrain. Mountains were made into mole-hills, each crag picked out in exquisite detail. The trees were no bigger than toothpicks, though minuscule, individual leaves adorned their branches. There was a small town, and Merlin twitched in surprise when he realised there was smoke curling from the thatch of the clustered cottages.
Arthur stared at it, his face slack and shocked. His grip around Merlin's wrist remained, a loose clasp holding him in place. Reluctantly, he eased himself free, slipping across the chamber so he could check the door was locked and barred against the outside world. Showing this to Arthur – doing magic at his request – was stressful enough. He didn't need to add the risk of discovery to the mix.
'It's beautiful,' Arthur whispered, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he stared, the image reflected in his eyes. Merlin wasn't sure if he was talking about the magic or the land itself. Perhaps he meant both. All Merlin knew was he looked like a man experiencing an epiphany, seeing the world in a new way for the first time.
Cautiously, he approached Arthur's side once more, looking for any sign of uncertainty or disgust. Yet not a trace of either marred Arthur's expression. Instead, his fascination gave way to the sharp twist of that strategic intelligence as he started to look, not just with awe, but with awareness.
'The only pass through the mountains is to the east, unimpeded by this territory dispute. It's not about access to trade-routes.' He leaned back in his chair, still gloriously bare-chested, and Merlin swallowed hard. 'There's no river to cross either, nothing that might impede Camelot's movements into the north.'
'It's not even good land for farming,' Merlin murmured. 'That close to the mountains, it's sparse at best.'
'So what does Bayard have here that my father wants?'
The two of them fell to silence, Arthur in his chair and Merlin on the other side of the desk, his hands braced against its edge. Together, they scrutinised the lay of the land, searching out its secrets, but there were none to find. In the end, it was unremarkable. There appeared to be nothing of any significance worth speaking about, at least on the surface.
Realisation tangled the next breath in Merlin's chest, and he gave his magic a twist, letting the view shift to reveal another layer beneath. There, down beneath the soil and stone, he felt it: a gleam in the darkness waiting to be uncovered, and the small little landslide right on the border that had brought the first shimmering hint to the surface.
'What is that?' Arthur tilted his head, trying to understand what he was seeing. It looked like a lightning strike underground, jagged lines sprawling through the earth in a dozen directions, plunging further back into Mercia's heart.
Merlin pursed his lips, knowing exactly what he was looking at. It was the one thing that brought Uther's insistence into stunning, brutal clarity. 'Silver. It's a vein of silver: a rich one. Some must have been found on the surface on Camelot's side by some scouts or something, that's how he knows it’s there, but he must suspect that it travels back into Mercia. That's why he wants the land, so that he can mine it.'
Arthur shook his head, a slow, disappointed motion. 'I should have known. There is little that motivates my father to such an extent beyond the promise of riches.' His chest swelled with a sigh, the meek light flashing off the pendant he wore around his neck. Merlin found himself dearly wishing Arthur would put his tunic on again, if only so he could better focus on the conversation. 'Worse, it's not like I can convince him we don't need more coin. Not with the treasury running low. He would think a war worth such a prize.'
'And he doesn't want to acknowledge to Bayard what he wants, because that would just alert Mercia to the existence of the silver and expose one of Camelot's weaknesses.'
Arthur groaned. The smile faded from his lips and the furrow returned to his brow as his hope dimmed. 'It's not as if we can offer him an alternative, either. Camelot's only silver deposit was exhausted long before I was born.'
Merlin tilted his head. 'The only one that you know of.'
He let his magic flare, pulling back from the narrow cross-section of disputed land. The world rushed by in his mind, the scent of a summer evening blooming around him as he plunged his magic down, seeking out the hidden places in the earth. There were pockets of darkness that had not seen the light of day for years beyond man's knowing. Water seethed and shifted in great, subterranean rivers. Tree roots sank downwards, drinking deep as hills and valleys rolled like ancient waves above his head.
And there, at last, he found what he was looking for.
His magic prickled at his fingertips, nipping at him like the air in the depths of winter. It seethed and roiled, bunching and flexing before the spell fell away. The map of Camelot lingered, but there, by Merlin's hand, was a lump of rock the size of his fist, painted with traceries of not just silver, but butter-yellow gold, as well.
'There's another vein, a better one.' He wet his lips, blinking his hazy vision as a sharp ache pressed behind his eyes. It had taken a surprising amount of strength to pull the rock free from the earth's clutches. It had been buried deep, but the sheer size of the deposit made it worth digging for. 'Look.'
He gestured to the bit of land he had found and the sprawling traceries that painted their way through the stone. The movement upset his unsteady balance, and before he knew it, Arthur's hands were cupped over his shoulders, bullying him around the desk and into the chair he'd just vacated. The side of Arthur's thumb brushed Merlin's throat above the line of his scarf, skin against skin, and Merlin blinked stupidly at him as he hunkered down in front of him.
'Are you all right?' The question was sharp with concern, and Merlin stared as Arthur ran his hand down his arms before catching his fingertips in the bowl of his palms, chafing at the cold flesh. 'You're freezing.'
'I'm fine,' Merlin promised. 'It was harder than I thought it would be, getting that out of the ground, that's all.'
He expected Arthur to leap to his feet, eager to act. Instead, he lingered, kneeling before Merlin like a penitent, his hands capturing Merlin's in their grasp. The look he got was a searching one, as if Arthur sought the answer to a hundred questions and hoped to glean them from Merlin's face alone.
At last, he seemed satisfied that Merlin was not about to keel over in front of his very eyes. His thumb swept across Merlin's knuckles once more before he rose to his feet. Despite his tension and the stress of the day, he moved with a warrior's grace as he picked up the piece of rock Merlin had found and turned it this way and that, watching it sparkle in the light.
'You found this here?' He gestured to the new terrain picked out in the glimmer of Merlin's magic: a ridge of granite than ran through the northern edge of the Darkling Woods. He knew Arthur recognised it. They'd passed it on patrol last week.
'It would be possible to mine it. It's deep, but not too deep, and it doesn't spread anywhere beyond Camelot's borders. There's no questioning the kingdom's rights to it.' Merlin leaned his head back, closing his eyes and taking a moment to rally his strength. 'I brought a bit to the surface. Enough for scouts to find if you want to send them searching, but you could just say you found that on patrol and forgot to mention it.'
He became aware of the thoughtful silence emanating from Arthur. It was not a tranquil calm, but one that suggested a great deal of thought was going on inside that golden head. Cracking open one eye, Merlin found himself the target of that same, intense look: something that, in the right light, looked a little like quiet awe, as if Arthur couldn't believe his good fortune.
'Without your magic, we would never have found this.' He gestured to the map once more, watching as it collapsed into a froth of golden glimmers and disappeared from sight. 'There would have been no way to turn my father from his course. We would have become embroiled in a war that could have been the ruin of two kingdoms, not just one.'
'You'd have thought of something,' Merlin said, his lips curving into a reassuring grin. He meant every word. Arthur was determined, and there was nothing he cared for more than the safety of his kingdom and its people. 'I just helped you find an easy solution. When will you tell your father?'
Arthur set the rock aside, snatching up his tunic and pulling it over his head. 'There's no time like the present.' He ran a hand through his hair in an effort to make it presentable, giving only a rough sound of protest as Merlin peeled himself out of the chair and reached out to straighten Arthur's collar.
'Thank you.' Arthur's gratitude thrummed between them. For once, it was not accompanied by a cuff round the head or hastily hidden behind an insult. The relief in Arthur's voice was a palpable thing, and something in Merlin trembled to hear him speak so soft and genuine. 'And Merlin?'
'Mmmm?'
'As soon as this mess with Mercia is sorted, I want to learn more about your magic.'
Merlin swallowed, trying to keep his voice steady. 'What do you want to know?'
Arthur retrieved the rock from the table, his grin bright and boyish. 'Everything.'
And as he followed Arthur towards the King's chambers, Merlin's heart thrilled in its delight, feeling three times too big for his chest. Perhaps he would never have Arthur's love, or taste his kisses, or get to hold him through the hours of the night, but this could be enough. It was what he had always wanted: him and Arthur working together to build this broken, blood-drenched land into a place the world would always remember.
Arthur was a champion for his people and a paladin for his kingdom. He would take care of them all, strong and unflinching, and Merlin?
Merlin would take care of him.