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Silence hung upon the very air of the woods like a deadly stroke of a noiseless blade. One moment – a calm stillness; then next thing you know, your brow and skull are no more. But it would be wrong to name it the calm before the storm, for it felt more like the fatigue after a powerful tempest. It was as if the trees themselves no longer have the power to provide green comfort, so they stood looming over the travellers from Camelot.
Nonetheless, robins raced overhead through the cracks in the canopy: an overbearing sign of a forthcoming shadow.
Arthur forced a scoff.
Old wives’ tale.
But even he felt the unease that befell the party of knights.
Mordred sidled up over to him in a rush of disconcerted hoof beats. “I feel a terrible heaviness within this forest, my lord. The trees are grieving.”
The knights settled into an agreement. Everyone felt it. If gooseflesh did not prove it true, the lack of jests did.
They have been travelling at a slower pace since Percival’s stallion gave in to a miserable state of weariness two nights ago, and wish as they may, they could not ride at a faster pace and leave the murky woods. If Gwaine had not consoled Arthur: haste will only bind us farther from Merlin if the horses fall to their deaths, then he would have ridden fast ahead of them, rationality long abandoned in his anxiety.
It had been less than a fortnight since the party of six had left Camelot (seven, had Guinevere not have been held back by responsibility), and their supplies are drying up more quickly than they are replenished. Yet to them, the woods seem to be unending, the path twisting and turning only to arrive at a sadder bower. Forests do not ought to be so feeling and ominous, after all, it’s just flora and fauna.
Leon halted his mare. “Shh, girl, it’s all right.” He shushed comfortingly, rubbing her hide. The party looked expectantly at the knight. Leon nodded gravely and extended his hand to a willow trunk. “Someone has camped here. Well-covered, too, except for the ash – look, it’s scattered all around in a perfect sphere,” he said, sharing a glance with the king.
“Whoever that is, they’re in a hurry. Probably sensed a danger,” Arthur added, grimacing. Leon mounted his horse again and the party sped along the path on their own, except Percival, who was forced to share with Elyan. Percival appeared sceptical about the forest, especially after the robins. On the contrary, Mordred released a sigh of relief after seeing that the birds were robins once light struck their red breasts, and not crows.
Not long down the path, a worrying change has written itself all over the knights’ faces. The woods darkened unwelcomingly at a fast pace. The plants that grew twisted into an awful grey, and the carpet that covered the ground dissolved to the colour of ash. Blades clanged simultaneously as sheaths were emptied. The grey barrenness ran in a ring fifteen feet in thickness, and when they finally emerged, wary and vigilant, they came upon quite a surprise.
The clearing was blooming with new, overgrown flora that snaked along the forest floor and rose high up in walls of young green leaves dotted with glowing blue flowers. Vines of different thickness hung down like dewy drapes, framing the clearing in an unnatural kind of liveliness.
Arthur gaped. Caressing a glowing flower cautiously, he observed that the life spread out from east of where they were, spreading like ripples on water. Not only was the clearing a sight to behold, it gave off a powerful feeling that told him the life here was the reason for the fatigued trees from before. Magic. Powerful magic, Arthur thought. Surprisingly, the feeling was nowhere near ominous despite its unworldliness.
“The smell of life,” said Gwaine sarcastically.
“Better than the smell of sickly-sweet death,” countered Elyan, referring to the grey parts of the woods.
Mordred shoved past the two, face set in grim determination. “Can you feel it? Surely you can feel it,” he said shakily.
“Yes, Mordred. Can you go on? You look like you’re going to fall over,” said Arthur.
“Just dizzy. It’s. . .too much.” Mordred muttered. Percival clapped him on the shoulder.
“Why the hell would Merlin go here?” pondered Gwaine. Tension built in their midst. It was as though they all had shared a single thought.
Arthur was the first to move. “Let’s go to the centre, shan’t we?” The party all moved eastward, trekking the terrain which gradually got greener and greener as they went. At last, they arrived at an opening in between two intertwining trunks.
What they saw in the centre was a surprise.
“Morgana.” Arthur breathed.
Certainly, they had expected to meet her. But not in this position.
She had her head bowed, black dress pooling around her like ink in contrast to the blue-green grass floor. She was facing away, unmoving and pale, even as Arthur called her name. Her head was bowed but her shoulders were not hunched in the likeness of a warrior who lost a battle; they were free – free and light as a spirit who was offered her peace.
As the knights prepared to defend and advance, Arthur walked forward. Three steps in and his boot caught in a lute discarded on the ground. He stepped over it and spoke: “Is it you who had done this?” His voice sounded strange even to his ears, clouded with the heaviness of emotion he did not expect to feel in that moment.
Morgana inclined her head to take a glance at him, and then at the knights, before gazing back down to her lap. And Arthur’s fists loosened. For her eyes did not hold fire nor war, or defeat nor resignation. They were simply emerald. Peaceful. Rain-soaked. Anew. Morgana Pendragon.
He cannot be blamed if he thought she would never speak again. “No. I do not possess such power,” answered Morgana simply.
Arthur knelt in front of Morgana, hand drawn to the sheathed Excalibur. Protests from the knights faded away like a faraway murmur. In her lap a purple handkerchief lay; in her hands a cloth of red. The king’s face hardened.
“Where is Merlin?” he asked harshly.
Morgana clutched the neckerchief close to her brow with eyes shut tightly before lazily handing it to Arthur. “He means to give you this. As a promise.”
“Of what? Where is he? What have you done?” snapped Arthur.
Morgana ignored his most prized enquiry. “That he will return. ‘When all is ready and he is Merlin once more’.”
“We will find him. Whatever game you’re playing at, we will find him,” Gwaine said firmly, unshed tears in his eyes.
“No, you will not,” retorted Morgana with a mirthless laugh. “Not unless he wanted to be found.”
“I’m sure we’ll find him; he leaves trails in the firmest of grounds,” Arthur said half-heartedly.
“You underestimate him, Arthur. I think we all did,” Morgana spoke no more.
Leon spoke over the silence. “So you will not attack us? No longer going to try claiming Camelot?”
But Morgana need not answer. Mordred walked over and squeezed her pale hands, the two sharing a silent communication which the others ogled at. “He trusts you now, doesn’t he?” asked Mordred in the softest of voice, filled with wonder and adoration. Morgana only nodded in response.
“Will you ever come back? To Camelot, I mean.”
“I don’t believe she is ready.”
“Camelot?”
“Both of them whom I betrayed.”
Arthur stood and cleared his throat. “We need to leave now. We might find Merlin before it gets dark.”
The party rounded on their horses with little uncertainty. After all, is Morgana not an enemy of the kingdom? Does she not belong in the dungeons to pay for her crimes? When Mordred did not stand up to join them, Arthur called. “Mordred.”
“I shall stay,” Mordred stated with finality.
“What?”
“I believe the Lady Morgana. We underestimated Merlin. I don’t suppose we will find him until he wishes for us to. We were always so close to his trail and yet we never crossed paths – and I won’t say it’s exactly because of the fleet of foot,” Mordred blinked. “I must remain with the lady, and you must go back to your queen lest you miss the time of Merlin’s homecoming.”
Elyan shook his head. “I cannot believe I am trusting this riddling.”
“If you wish it, sire, half of us can search for a few days more ahead, and the other half can wait inside citadel walls,” Percival suggested. The king shook his head no.
Arthur ran a hand down his face in dawning comprehension. Secrets. Lies. Betrayal. Loneliness. Wisdom. Grief. Suspicion. Protection. Undeserved hostility. He closed his eyes and held the neckerchief close to his breast. “Swear to me that he will return. Swear that you spoke the truth.” He turned to Morgana.
“He sang his heart out in a tongue no mortal, no matter how versed they are, can transcribe into words. He lost himself in his own war, and he means to reclaim what can be. How can I lie after he laid bare all that we shared? I am once again Morgana – because I chose to be in spite of what I have taken and lost.
“And Merlin? I swear that his intentions were true. Trust that, at least. Do not let what you have found here be another cold blade to his chest.” Morgana was still once more.
After an embrace with their youngest brother-in-arms, Camelot’s party left Morgana’s clearing and rode westwards. Three days and two nights they had spent inside the murky woods, and when they emerged, they all held a new light in their eyes. The spring sun bathed them softly, and it fit their moods, as if coming out of that blasted forest melted their burdens, encouraging them in a gentle whisper to accept this new beginning.
When Merlin comes home, Arthur expected that there shall be a moment of trust.