Short Story: Merlin and the Dragon Queen chapter 3

[milo]

OK milo, I’ll try to only critique chapter 3 once! A great deal has transpired herein and you have established a major plot detail. As before, I have corrected typos directly within , as well as .

Merlin and the Dragon Queen chapter 3
Merlin walked back to his quarters along the main hallway of the east wing as the barest glow of the sun was visible at the horizon. He had intended to make his travels to Avalon at dawn but something had happened to delay that. The previous evening Merlin and Arthur headed down to the to join in the merrymaking of Arthur’s other knights. On the long, main table was laid a full side of oxen lined with roasted herbs and tubers including a wealth of new potatoes drizzled with the savory drippings from the roast ox. In addition to this were several whole roast boars with trimmings, an odd pheasant here and there and pitchers of mead. There was a cask of dark Camelot Ale on a stand at the end of the table. Gawain (‘Sir Gawain’, Merlin reminded himself several times through the night) had already been drinking and eating with his usual gusto before Merlin and Arthur arrived. He was standing on top of one of the side tables with a greasy mutton leg in one hand and a mug of ale sloshing over in , shouting a tale of valor so loudly at gathering of knights that bits of fat and ale-soaked spittle raining down on them. He finished his story and burst into laughter, stomping his feet and sloshing more mead out of his mug onto the onlookers, then looked up and spied Merlin and Arthur entering the hall.

Gawain jumped down from the table, scattering young knights in his path, and rushed to them with a roar of greeting. He stood a foot shorter than Arthur and barely crested the middle of Merlin’s chest but grabbed both men by the arms and dragged them physically over to the main table the whole time shouting and laughing a non-stop stream of ebullience that kept them off-balance. As he was pushing them along forcing a feast of vittles and drink into their arms<,> he stopped and grabbed Merlin’s beard in both hands and gave it a fierce tug shouting, “Arthur! Look at this marvelous warrior’s beard Merlin has produced! You can barely even tell he is a of a girl now!” then burst into laughter and dragged them along without leaving time for a response. Merlin nodded a knowing look over to Arthur as if to say, “ is a man who knows the value of a beard,” as Gawain continued to man-handle them over to the most crowded table in the room all the while shouting and knocking young knights and guards out of the way.

As Merlin and Arthur stumbled out of the feasthall several hours later, fattened on meat and dizzy from drink and cheer, Gawain was tying the ox tail to a surprised and sober Sir Kay and was attempting to mount his shoulders in order to joust Sir Ban riding Sir Bors. Merlin and Arthur walked in quiet for a ways as the enthusiasm of the feasthall drained from them and the echoes from Gawain’s shouts dimmed in their ears. Arthur stopped suddenly, stood straight up and looked over to Merlin soberly, “There is something I have not told you, old friend. We have guests from Rome, staying in the villa. Twenty four knights along with their retinue and the Seneschal to Gaius Julius, the Roman governor of Brittany.”

Merlin nodded contemplating for a full moment before replying, “what have they asked of you?”
“Truage, for one,” Arthur answered. “They claim Camelot is currently in rebellion, not having paid the proper truage to Rome, but there is more - they have a note from Bishop Epiphanius as well. It is a list of demands of Camelot, at risk of excommunication.” Arthur looked over to Merlin and placed his arm on his shoulder, “I need you there at the meeting of the royal court tomorrow, old friend.” With that, Arthur bid Merlin goodnight and headed off to his chambers.

Merlin lingered in the hallway a moment and watched him walk, tall and regal, before heading off to his own chambers. Once again, Merlin didn't feel a need for sleep. Instead, he produced a small package of herbs from his robes, set them to smoldering in a small pewter dish sat on the floor, inhaled deeply, closed his eyes to bring forth the visions . . .

The first vision that came to Merlin was of the resplendent villa of Gaius Julius, Roman governor of Britannia. In a rich bath room, Gaius was lounging on the steps, breathing the steam while several man-servants brought more steaming water to the bath or arranged crimson silk pillows on the wicker chaise or couch in the seating area. A single bronze-skinned women, nude from the waist up rubbed a rich scented musk oil into his skin. Abruptly disturbing the trance-like atmosphere, Bishop Epiphanius marched through the entrance and right up to the bath. He was from the throat down in bishop’s regalia. He dismissed the serving girl with a wave and stared down at Gaius who opened his eyes, saw the bishop and groaned, “ now?”

Epiphanius looked to a spot above his head, “ you still the Governor of Britannia? The pagan, devil worshiping province of Britannia that pisses on our lord the Christ and pays nothing to Emperor Glycerius?”

Resigned, Gaius stepped out of the bath and wrapped himself in a towel, “Britannia is being ruled by Arthur, now. He has assured me he intends to honor Christ and empire, that he is ruling a pious and Christian state and that once things settle, he will reaffirm loyalty to Rome.”

The bishop walked ahead of Gaius toward the couches, talking as he went, “I have been informed that he has a devil-spawned warlock for a councilor named “Merlin”. That he is turning the whole of Britannia away from the Kingdom of Christ! We need to do something about this now. Give me your seneschal and I will send a party to investigate.”
Gaius sat in the couch and cupped his face in his hands, “, very well then. Send the seneschal, but if everything is fine there, give me some peace, Epiphanius.”
Epiphanius looked down at Gaius coldly, but if he is consorting with Satan or if he attacks any of our soldiers, I expect action.” With that, he turned and left a droopy looking Gaius on the couch exited the room. Once out of the room, his visage misted over and underwent a massive change into a pale, raven-haired Aelf.
“Mab!” exclaimed Merlin shocked as the vision seemed to turn, look right at Merlin and wink.

The vision faded and another took its place, the seneschal of Rome in a tent with several Roman knights and three Gaulish warlords. Merlin couldn't make out what they were saying but the seneschal signed several documents and presented them to the warlords along with a sack of coins for each. This vision then faded into another, the seneschal and a party of twenty four knights and their retinue marching along the great highway south of Londinium, leaving thirty thousand warriors camped in the fields off the port of Dubris. Merlin snapped out of his visions to the six o’clock bells ringing for Angelus.

Merlin walked into the royal hall of Camelot as the room was settling to business. The royal court of Camelot was unique in several ways. Traditional royal halls were long rectangular rooms, usually well-furnished with rich furnishings and tapestries headed at one end by the royal seating or “throne” area flanked on both by an assemblage of seating for the royal “court”, a gathering of nobles who owe loyalty to the king. The royal hall of Camelot was a massive square chamber built in size and shape to house the piece of furniture that dominated most of the room - The Round Table. The round table was a massive circular table constructed of simple, undecorated oak planks burnished to a shine with seating for up to one hundred and fifty. As a piece of furniture it was both spectacular and spectacularly nonfunctional. Arthur and his “Knights of the Round Table” - a group of eighteen nobles that had sworn fealty to him, occupied a tiny section at the far end.

For servants, merely offering basic refreshments to Arthur and his guests was a logistical impossibility. The center of the table was too far way for anyone to reach anything set there which required food and drink to be offered to each noble individually. Just carrying trays of food and pitchers of wine around the circumference was an exhausting task that culminated in an awkward bend and reach in order to serve.

On one side of the table sat the Romans - twenty-four knights and the seneschal of the governor of Britannia, all well-trimmed and perfectly presenting in their finest dress. On the other side was Arthur in his royal dress robes, flanked by Sir Kay on his left and Sir Gawain on his right as well as twelve additional nobles of Camelot. Merlin the perimeter of the room slowly, sizing up the Romans as he went until he stood directly behind Arthur. Gawain beamed a smile at Merlin and Arthur looked visibly relieved while Sir Kay continued to look nervous and uncomfortable.

“So, do you intend to come to a full accounting with regards to truage and arrears?” shouted the seneschal from one side of the room. His voice barely traveled the distance to Arthur’s side.
Arthur looked to Merlin who stood perfectly still, gazing over to the Romans, “We are a new kingdom now, united under Camelot, we don’t yet even have a treasury,” Arthur boomed back to him.
“Kingdom?! Your “kingdom” is the taste of dirt that I try to spit from my mouth after in this >!” the seneschal wore a sadistic grin. Gawain, reaching for his sword, made to jump from his seat but Merlin settled him with an arm on his shoulder. Merlin slowly walked the outer ring of the table toward the Romans until he was midway between the Britons and the Romans.
“Rome believes it is due truage does it?” he started. The seneschal made to speak but Merlin silenced him with a hand. He heard one of the Romans hiss ‘devil-spawn’ under his breath. “For Rome’s good service in uniting Britannia and keeping the peace, in providing civil engineering, for emperor Glycerius supporting Arthur in defending against the Gauls and the Saracens, is this what you wish your truage for?”
“Enough, witch!” started the seneschal, “Rome demands truage of all provinces that are part of the Roman empire. Pay your truage or relinquish your status as a state of Rome. I am warning you, peasants, if you are not a member of Rome, we will send our legions to make you a member!”
“Camelot will pay Rome what Rome has coming to it, never fear,” Merlin responded soothingly.
“I don’t fear you, witch,” said the seneschal, “however, the emperor does insist that all provinces are loyal to the church, the Christ and the Holy Kingdom.”
“Of course,” reassured Merlin, "we are good Christians here in Camelot.” A warm smile spread over his face.
“I have a document here from Bishop Epiphanius. It lists the requirements your little backwater will need to meet in order to comply.”
Merlin could feel the growing tension from Arthur and his knights on the one side of the room. The seneschal had obviously received instructions to provoke a fight as he was doing everything to incite the Britons.

Merlin walked to the Roman side of the table and took the document from his hands. Several of the Romans pulled back as he neared but the seneschal just smirked derisively as if daring Merlin to do something threatening. Merlin took the document back to Arthur’s side and handed it to him, speaking under his breath, “Arthur, the Romans have thirty thousand troops inside Britannia, how many knights can you make ready?”
Arthur gasped slightly and Sir Kay looked visibly disturbed as did some of the other nobles, “Merlin, I have four hundred knights at the ready with a total of around five thousand troops I can make available. If they force a siege we could defend but they would ravage Britannia!”
“Just placate them for now, your we need time to beseech your allies.” Merlin stood and smiled over to the Romans, “ looks reasonable,” he assured them.
All did not look reasonable. The document was over one hundred pages of demands that ranged from the small (“all members of Roman provinces must swear obeisance to the church”) to the slightly absurd (“the king shall assemble a team of witch hunters for the purpose of ferreting out and burning any suspected of paganism or witchcraft”).

Arthur stood and spoke, “ course, as a Roman province, I see nothing unreasonable about your demands. Please take back my response of fealty to Gaius and Epiphanius. Will you be staying to enjoy the hospitality of Camelot another night?”
The seneschal curled his lip but nodded and his knights to rise, “I would rather lay with the pigs.” With that, the Romans left the court, the keep and Camelot and began the long march to the port of Dubris.

As dusk started to dim the way along the great military highway between Camelot and Londinium, King Lot of Orkney rode out of the forest and flanked the > Romans with two hundred knights all dressed as bandits and slew every one of them leaving a pike dressed in the red lion of Pendragon in the dead corpse of the seneschal of Rome. He directed his men to remove any of their dead or cast off arms that could be traced back to Orkney and into the woods.

You have picked up the pace milo, but some of the character development has lessened. You may be elaborating them further in later chapters, but I found myself wanting to know more about the motivations of the Seneschal and his harshness, several of the quickly introduced knights of the table and King Lot. Merlin’s character remains well developed and that sentence along the lines, now there's a man that can appreciate beards was fantastic and funny.

I do understand the concern with character development but I mostly don't intend to add too many more developed characters (I'm not pynchon for god's sake).

I was hoping it was obvious but the reason the seneschal was a prick is because he was instructed to start a fight so that the Romans would have cause to march on Camelot and flatten it. Merlin knew this and steered them clear but Lot ended up springing the trap anyway.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Milo, You are welcome and you are right about the seneschal. I thought there might be more to his wickedness than just duty or plan. However, since he is deceased there is no need to developed him further. I was more curious about King Lot of Orkney and a few of the other Knights of the round table. As you make clear, you don't have to write as densely detailed as Thomas Pynchon, but a bet you could use that $500K+ MacArthur award! Cheers/Chris

I do intend to develop lot further