Pendragon's Folly, Chapter 7
Aug. 16th, 2014 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thismazTitle: Pendragon's Folly
Pairing: M/A, eventually.
Characters: in this chapter – Merlin, Gaius, Gwen, Lance, Gwaine, Morgana.
Rating: PG maybe even U
Chapter Word Count: 6,300
Warnings: No sex
Summary: There's an out of work wizard, a museum, a sizeable donation that turns it into a building site, suspicious happenings and magic. A sort of 'take your fandom to work' story.
Author's note 1: When it comes to romance, this story is the definition of 'slow burn'.
Comments are always greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Author's note 2: More thanks than I can say to my beta, plot wrangler and best friend,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparrow2000. And many, many thanks to DJ for (hopefully) catching the typos we missed. If you spot any more, please do let me know.
Disclaimer: I write fan fic. All the characters from the Merlin series are the property of the BBC and Shine, etc. No infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this writing.
Previously on Pendragon's Folly:
"What about your friend Will?" Gaius asked. "He's covering the financial desk, isn't he?"
"Yes. I suppose I could ask him if he's heard anything. He's probably forgiven me by now."
"Well, that would be a start." Gaius agreed.
Chapter 7
Immediately after lunch, Merlin called Will, who answered eventually with a mumbled, "'Lo."
"Hi, Will," Merlin said.
"Oh, it's you. Hi," Will replied.
"You okay?"
"I just woke up." He paused. "In fact, I don't think I'm awake yet." There were noises in the background, clicks, rattles and the sound of water running. Will muttered, "Come on you bastard," and then, more clearly, "Bloody jar lid won't come off. You stopped being an arse yet?"
Merlin laughed. "Yeah," he admitted.
"Okay then. What you want?"
"To say I'm sorry I was an arse?" Merlin flopped onto his back on his bed.
"Phah! You never phone up just to apologise. Hang on." Merlin heard a loud click as the phone was put down on a hard surface. Rattling and shuffling was replaced by the clatter of crockery. The phone was picked up again. "Okay," Will said. "Apology accepted. Now, what do you want?"
Merlin laughed again. "I really am sorry I got mad at you for what you wrote about Arthur. And I'm afraid you're right about his dad. I don't really know why, or how, but it's the Folly he wants. The building, I mean."
"I know."
"You know?"
"I'd guessed, but thanks for the confirmation. I wasn't looking forward to going through all Pendragon's current deals, one by one, just to make sure," Will said, over the top of more background clatters. "As for why; it's a valuable bit of real estate,"
"I suppose."
Merlin heard a slurp and Will cleared his throat and sighed. "Ah, yes! Gods, it's too early for this! But at least I have my coffee now. Right. The Folly. Why? Converted warehouse lofts. They're all the rage down here with the young, rich and carefree. Pendragon's have done a few of them in the last five years"
"Yes, I've heard of them. Just not in Camelot."
"What do you know about the high-speed rail link?" Will asked.
"Er…"
"Thought so. Listen. It's happening and it'll put Camelot within easy commuting range of London. No one can afford to buy in London now. Do you know what my rent is for one room in a shared flat?"
"Er…" said Merlin again.
"Doesn't matter. You don't want to," Will said. The coffee was obviously working. "Point is, the Folly fits. I'm trying to get an interview with the evil overlord himself, but I doubt the bastard will accept."
A shocked laugh escaped Merlin. "What happened to the neutrality of the press?" he asked. "Not exactly the most politically correct way to phrase it, Will."
Will snorted. "How long have you known me?" he asked. "Did I ever strike you as a politically correct whinger? I work for the Daily News, for God's sake." He paused and Merlin waited while he took another drink and sighed with satisfaction. "As for how, I guess that'll take some research. Tell you what, I'll see what I can dig up and I'll let you know if I find anything useful."
Perversely, the conversation with Will made Merlin feel a little better and he began to hope that everything would work out - Will would expose Uther's plot, Arthur would reverse it and the new museum would open in the Folly as planned.
*****
The next day was spent by Merlin in a state of mild frustration. The sense of optimism that the conversation with Will had engendered proved short lived. Overnight, doubts resurfaced. The papers had nothing new to tell them, so straight after breakfast he tried calling Arthur, although he was unclear about what he would say. It was almost a relief that he was put straight through to voicemail. He didn't leave a message.
With Gaius having locked himself away in the front room, Merlin was left with nothing to do but read his book of magic, in the hope that something both practical and ethical would present itself. He lay on his back across his bed with the book propped up on his chest.
As he read, the words flowed through him and he realised that he could taste the spells and stories that were real, although he didn't always understand them. The instructions accompanying a spell for identifying hidden meanings were so dense and obscure that even after reading them three times he was still none the wiser. He could also tell that some of the spells were incomplete. A particularly promising one, intended according to the commentary for determining another spell caster's intentions, began with a rightness that was harmonic and as soft as angora wool. But at the end of the second verse it abruptly stopped, leaving an unseasoned flavour of dissatisfaction in his mouth.
At lunchtime Gaius emerged and called him down to the living room. They sat at the table and, over sausages, mash and peas, rehearsed the same arguments and points they had already gone over numerous times.
"I never thought I'd resent a bank holiday," Merlin said, "but I feel like I could be doing something if it was a normal Monday."
"What would you do?"
"I don't know. Call Arthur, I suppose. Or try. His phone's off, today."
"Well, it is a holiday."
"I know, but I hate not knowing what's going on."
"You're not the only one," Gaius agreed. "Maybe we'll hear something tomorrow."
"Yeah," Merlin said, but once Gaius had retreated back into his office, he sat down in Gaius's easy chair and pulled out his phone. In the vain hope that Pendragon's worked bank holidays, he punched in the number for their head office. But that simply led to a complex set of automated instructions culminating in the advice that he call back during office hours. He cursed.
Google didn't help, either. It seemed that Arthur's private address was ex every directory there was. In frustration he went for a walk and ended up in the Folly, searching through the stores for anything that caused a tingle in his fingertips. He had no success there, either.
A brief telephone call early the following morning threw him into a further confusion of conflicting emotions. When he scrambled across the room to grab his phone and answer it, he was greeted by the voice of a young man that he didn't recognise.
"I'm calling on behalf of Mr Arthur Pendragon," the voice said. "I'm Owen Page, his executive assistant. Mr Pendragon will not be returning to Camelot immediately. He has asked me to tell you to continue as you were, with the structural renovations and moving the collections out. You're to keep him informed of any issues that arise."
"Is he okay?" Merlin asked.
"Okay?" Owen sounded surprised by the question. "Mr Pendragon is acting on behalf of his father. The company is in good hands, so of course he's okay."
"Acting? You mean Acting Chairman, Chief Executive, whatever it's called? What about Uther?"
Mr Uther Pendragon," Owen said in a repressive tone, "is indisposed. He has been advised by his doctor to rest, but we expect him to be back at his desk within a week."
"Arthur'll be pretty busy then, right?"
"Mr Pendragon will be extremely busy, as you say, but he will be maintaining an overview of the Camelot Project, so you should direct any communications to him by e-mail." He sounded impatient now, so Merlin allowed him to finish the call without asking again how Arthur was coping.
The question stayed with him, though, as he packed his magic book into his backpack and got dressed. He communicated his disquiet to Gaius as they walked to the museum.
"If Arthur is acting for Uther," Gaius agreed, "it does suggest that Uther's breakdown is more serious than an attack of television nerves."
"If Arthur doesn't phone me today," Merlin said, "I am definitely going to London tomorrow."
At nine o'clock, Gaius took a call from Lance, asking for news and proposing a meeting that afternoon, which Gaius agreed to. He also decided to visit his friend at the council archives immediately.
Left alone, Merlin put off starting his day. He slouched in a chair with a second coffee and stared aimlessly around the room. Gwen came in, in a rush to collect a box of clocks and their various internal workings from the table. "I'm off to Rosehill Primary," she said. "Back at lunchtime," before hurrying out without waiting for a reply. Merlin drank his coffee.
On a corner of Gaius's desk, the big brass compass he had found in room 131, weeks before, caught his eye. He put his coffee mug down, stood up, crossed the room and picked it up. 'Focus', he thought. Turning it around in his hands, he confirmed that the needle moved freely and stayed true.
He put it down in the centre of the round table and picked up his coffee mug. The needle settled, pointing towards the window wall. Digging his magic book out of his bag, he sought out the seeking and finding spells he had found on Sunday. With the idea of the compass in his mind, they began to make much more sense.
Whatever it was that Miss Kay said they should be looking for, they didn't even know if it was a physical thing and they certainly didn't know where to start looking. Merlin cleared some stray papers and Gaius's tea mug off the table and fetched a handful of index cards and a marker pen from the stationary cupboard.
To test his theory, a simple yes/no choice seemed the most sensible and he carefully wrote the two words onto a couple of index cards. That made the choice of the first question easy. Placing the two cards to the north-east and north-west of the compass, he positioned himself at the south point, with his back to the door and concentrated on the question: 'Are we searching for a physical object?'
He stared at the compass needle and allowed the intangible sensation of energy beneath his skin to expand outwards. Gathering it into a single shaft, that stretched out and followed his gaze, was easy and he relaxed, allowing the question to consume the whole of him. The compass needle began to shake. He allowed the magic to build, so he was one point of a triangle of flux. The magic flowed from him to the compass, to some unknown point and back to him. The needle began to twist. He only realised he was leaning forward when he had to place his hands flat on the table top to support himself. Slowly, hesitantly, the needle moved, until it pointed at the card that read 'YES'. There it stopped.
With a sigh of satisfaction, Merlin stepped back from the table. The compass needle settled back to its natural position and the heat faded. With the heat went all his energy. He collapsed into the nearest chair and placed his forehead against the cool wood of the table top. He breathed.
Gradually, like water flowing downhill, the tension faded from his muscles and he placed his hands on the edge of the table to push himself upright. His coffee had gone cold, so he left that mug on the table and shuffled over to the kettle to make another one.
While the kettle came to the boil he considered the triangle of power he had experienced, tracing the shape, texture and colour of it, reliving the sensation of spreading and focusing and encompassing the flow.
With three sugars in his new coffee, he went back to the table and picked a handful of index cards off the pile.
The next question was a logical development of the first. He marked up cards with 'Folly', 'Town Hall', 'Library' and, as an afterthought, 'Somewhere else in Camelot' and 'Not in Camelot', placing them around the compass.
Focusing was both easier and more difficult this time. The sensation of searching was clearer and he slipped into it with ease, but the shape of the spell had changed, because of the more complex choices. Carefully and deliberately he surrendered to the spell, allowing it to dictate the form of the universe and of his being. Without intellectual thought he knew, all the way to the marrow of his bones, that his conscious will was not the key to doing what he needed. The knowledge was liberating, enlightening, and terrifying in the demands it placed upon him
There was an almost audible click at the base of his soul when the sensation of being both a single point in a circuit of power and the entire pattern grasped at him and held him tight. The needle moved confidently to point at the word 'Folly' and he blew out a breath, releasing the spell and pulling himself free of the world.
He looked at the clock, surprised to see that it was almost 11:00. Gwen would be back soon. It was surprising Gaius was not back already. As quickly as he could, before the magic of the last spell had faded, he scrawled room numbers on more cards and placed them around the compass, like a clock face.
"Where is it?" he asked, focusing on the question so that it spread across the surface of his skin and was absorbed. It flowed through his body with his blood. It roiled and gusted through his lungs with every breath. It tingled in his fingertips and on the soles of his feet. The needle shifted clockwise and hesitated on the card that said, 'This Workroom', but it didn't settle. It moved on, swung back to point at the workroom card again and then swung back towards him. It came to rest pointing almost directly at Merlin, but slightly to his right, in the space between the two cards that read, 'Great Hall' and '131'.
He stared at it and, in spite of knowing it was pointless, tried to force it to settle on a single answer. It refused to budge, no matter how fiercely he willed it to and at the back of his mind a whisper soothed the ferocity of his desire with a gentleness that was unnerving, because he knew it was his own. With a sigh he stood up straight and the needle went back to pointing north. He glanced at the clock. It was 11:30.
Disappointing as the final answer had been, the first two were helpful. Between them, Gaius and he could search the Museum. The tension in his shoulders eased and he gathered the cards together into a stack.
As he resigned himself to the idea that there was no easy answer, even with magic to assist, a thought occurred to him - there had been hesitation in the needle's movement but it had definitely paused on the word 'Workroom'. Twice. He turned slowly on the spot, scanning the room and stopped when he realised what he was looking at. He glanced behind him, at the compass, and back to the tall book case against the wall in front of him. When the needle had refused to move, it had been pointing at the bookcase. And the top two shelves of the bookcase were full of archival boxes, like the ones in the library, but older. They had a grimy appearance, of the sort that old cardboard always seems to develop. He looked back at the compass again and traced a line from its centre in the direction the needle had indicated.
Quickly clearing away the incriminating evidence by slipping the used cards into the side pocket of his bag and replacing the compass on Gaius's desk, he dragged a chair across to the bookshelf. He stepped up onto the seat, but even so he had to stand on his tiptoes and hang onto the shelf with his left hand to reach the boxes on the highest shelf and lift them down. The varnish of the shelf felt almost sticky under his fingers and when he put the first box on the floor and raised his hand to his face to scratch his nose, it smelt sour.
In all he pulled down eight boxes from each of the top two shelves, carried them across to the table and lined them up. Nearly all the labels on the ends were either blank, illegible, or missing altogether. One simply read 'R-S', another said '1931'. He pulled one that had no label closer, blinked away a sudden wave of tiredness and opened it.
By the time Gwen returned, he had searched through three boxes. One had held nothing but copies of 'the Amateur Mechanic' magazine, which were probably worth adding to a collection in their own right. The second contained pages from the Camelot Echo, dating from the days when it had been a daily publication, and another paper he'd never heard of called the Camelot Weekly Gazette. The third was half full of carbon copies of letters, on flimsy blue paper, sent by past curators, but they all dated from the 1920s and so were outside his time window. He checked through them anyway, just in case, grateful for the convention that gave each one an underlined heading after the greeting, so he didn't need to read the whole letter to know what it was about.
Seeing that the table was covered in Merlin's stuff, Gwen dumped her box of clock parts on Gaius's desk. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"You know what Uther said on Question Time?" Merlin explained. "Gaius and I were talking about it and it seemed to us that he has to have a legal way to grab the Folly."
Gwen nodded as she walked past him and plugged the kettle in. "And to say it at all, he must think it's solid."
"Yes. So we thought it has to go right back to Thomas Pendragon and his donation."
"Okay. And...?" She spooned coffee into two mugs.
"And so Gaius has gone up to the county archives to see if he can find anything there, but I saw these old boxes. I bet no one's opened them in years."
"Ah, yeah, I can see that. But one, he didn't actually say it was the Folly he was going after."
"He might as well have. What else could it be?"
She shrugged. "I guess. But two, what makes you think there's anything in there?" She waved her hand vaguely at the boxes and piles of paper on the table.
"I don't, necessarily," Merlin said, "but it's better than doing nothing." He smiled. "And besides, I don't really feel like working for Pendragon's today. I'd rather work against them."
Gwen laughed and put a mug of coffee in front of him. She took a sip from her own, considered the table in front of her and pulled out the chair opposite him. "Okay," she said. "Where do you want me to start?"
***
It was Gwen who found it, in an unlabelled box, inside a dusty folder that had nothing but the word 'Building' printed on the front. "Merlin, come here. Look!" she said.
Merlin put down the sheaf of papers he'd been reading, stood and went to stand behind her.
She held a parchment-like bundle of paper, folded and tied with pink ribbon. Under the ribbon, in faded script, were the words, 'Trust Deed of the Pendragon Memorial Museum".
"Whoa! You found it!" he exclaimed, the last traces of earlier tiredness disappearing in response to the discovery. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat down while she picked open the knot and unfolded the top of the sheet. She laid it on the table and they leaned over it together.
Gwen traced the words with her finger as she read. "This Indenture made the eleventh day of May one thousand eight hundred and eighty two Between Thomas Jonas Pendragon of Camelot House Camelot Albionshire esquire of the first part and Geoffrey Richard Greeves of The Manor House London Road Rosebeck Albionshire gentleman Thomas Edmund Eustace de Bois of Ingleford House Victoria Road Camelot Albionshire gentleman and the Reverend William Edwin Orne of 152 Tonheath Lane Camelot Albionshire clerk in holy orders hereinafter called the Trustees of the second part." She broke off when she got to the end of the exposed text.
Merlin cleared all the boxes onto the floor. Between them they unfolded the whole sheet and she continued reading.
"Whereas the aforementioned Thomas Jonas Pendragon is seised of a freehold messuage and premises at Grand Central Railway Station and Station Hotel Front Street and Market Street Camelot Albionshire and Whereas in pursuit of enlarging the minds and educating the morals of the populace resident in the town of Camelot aforesaid building and land is entrusted to a Board of Trustees to be appointed by the Town Governors and Council and their successors but to exclude any such members for the purposes of a Museum."
Beneath this, the text went on to describe the means by which members should be elected to the board of trustees and to list their duties, which were to have oversight and independent control of the accompanying financial endowment. The document detailed that the money in the endowment was to be invested and the proceeds were to be used to fund the upkeep of the museum. Finally they reached the clause that described what would happen in the event that the Council and the Board of Trustees decided that the Museum was no longer required: "Provided always that the Trustees in consultation with the Town Governors and Council do maintain the Trust Otherwise it shall be dissolved and the entrusted estate revert to the donor and his heirs and assigns of his name," she read. "That must be it. If we're reading this right, this says that if the Trustees and the Council decide that the town doesn't need a museum, Uther gets the building back for nothing."
She picked up her coffee mug, tilted it to look inside and sighed. "And by the way it's phrased I'm guessing the female line's excluded. I don't suppose there are any other descendants who would want to challenge?"
"I don't think so. I think the men of the family mostly got killed in the two world wars."
"Then it looks like he can really do it," she said.
"Yeah," Merlin agreed. Grasping at a thread of hope, he added, "But only if the Town Council agrees to close the Museum."
He was answered by Gaius, from the doorway. "I'm very much afraid that the Council will," he said, snatching the thread away. Merlin and Gwen both twisted in their seats to watch him as he came into the room and put his briefcase on his desk. "The Folly is a drain on them. If Uther was to redevelop it as something else, it might be seen as good for the town." He sounded dispirited, his voice flat. When he turned around and Merlin was able to see his face properly, he looked both old and tired.
"What's wrong?" Merlin asked.
"The Trustees have frozen the project," he replied
"The Trustees?" Gwen asked.
Gaius swayed slightly. "The Board of Trustees are a gaggle of old women. And that's an insult to womankind."
Gwen got up and somehow, through polite body language, ushered Gaius into a chair. "I bumped into the Mayor on the way back from seeing James," Gaius said. "That was profitless, by the way. We found the minutes of the meeting, but they told us nothing."
"You expected that," Merlin agreed. "But what did the mayor say?"
Running both hands over his face and back through his hair, which, Merlin noticed, was getting quite long, Gaius slumped. "He said that early on Thursday evening Uther apparently e-mailed a number of the Trustees and told them he had reconsidered his position and was no longer able to provide funds, over and above the original donation."
"Which Cedric Griggs wasted," Merlin said.
"Which, as you say, was wasted," Gaius agreed.
"So?" Merlin asked.
"So, they panicked and instead of waiting for more clarity, first thing on Friday morning they went straight to the mayor to ask for emergency funding from his contingency. I can only assume that none of them watch television." He glanced at each of them and settled on Gwen. "I don't suppose you'd be a dear and make me a cup of tea?" he asked.
"I'll do it," Merlin said, getting up. "What else?" He flicked the switch on the kettle.
"Well, the Mayor refused, but he's taking it to the next Council Budget Meeting."
Turning around and leaning back against the counter, Merlin said, "We need to talk to Arthur. He's Acting Chairman. He can reverse Uther's decision."
"When's the next budget meeting?" Gwen asked at the same time.
"Next week, I think," Gaius said. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.
Gwen shook her head. "So we only have a few days to get the money back. Do you think they know what's at stake here?"
"I rather fear that they do," Gaius said.
"Gwen found the deed," Merlin said. "So we know the exact terms." He came back over to the table, placed his hands on opposite corners of the paper and twisted it around so that Gaius could read it the right way up. While Gaius did so he went back to making tea.
When Gaius had finished reading, he looked up. "Okay," he said. "Mr Thomas Pendragon had only the one son and no daughters. He did have a brother and it was his nephew who inherited the company."
"And the heir, there, is Uther Pendragon," Merlin finished for him.
His lips twisted into a grimace, Gaius said, "I still can't believe he'd do this to me. After all the years I worked for him."
"Business," Merlin said.
"Yes," Gaius agreed. "The endowment isn't worth much, as I know to my cost; trying to run this place before we won the grant."
"But the Council haven't actually said it doesn't want the Museum," Merlin said.
"What would happen if the Trustees told the Council they want to close the Museum?" Gwen asked.
"I suspect the Council would agree," Gaius replied.
Gwen shook her head. "What I don't understand," she said, "is why he announced it on Question Time. If he hadn't said anything, no one would have known until it was too late."
The phone on Gaius's desk rang and Gwen went to pick it up, so she missed the look that passed between Gaius and Merlin.
She listened for only a moment and then said, "Right. I'll come down and let you in. Yeah, no problem." Putting the handset back in its cradle, she went to the door. "That was Morgana. She's with Lance and Gwaine and they're almost here."
She left the room and Merlin got up to gather more chairs around the table. Gaius leaned over the deed and started reading it again.
When Lance, Morgana and Gwaine arrived there was the usual flurry of greetings, but Lance quickly got to the point of their visit. "We received an email from Arthur over the weekend, telling us that we will be paid for Gwaine's designs but instructing him not do any more work until further notice. We wondered if you had heard from him. After what happened to Mr Uther Pendragon, last week, I suppose we were hoping you might know more."
Gaius shook his head. "Most of what we know we've got from the papers," he admitted. He recounted again the news he had picked up at the Town Hall and Merlin told the story of finding the deed. Then they all gathered around the table and Gaius pointed out the salient paragraphs.
"I don't believe this!" Morgana exclaimed. "I'd heard some bad things about the Pendragons, but this is almost like a novel. They really are just a pair of crooks."
"It's not Arthur's fault," Lance said. "He's only obeying his father's orders."
Morgana pushed her chair back, stood up and walked away a few paces. She gave a harsh laugh as she turned back to face them. "He's only obeying orders? Can you hear yourself?" she asked.
"Oh come on, 'Gana," Gwaine said, "you can't accuse him of being a Nazi, even by insinuation."
Morgana took a breath and seemed to force herself to relax. She clasped her hands together and her ring caught the light. She started twisting it around her finger. "Okay. So it's Uther's fault. He gave the original grant and now he's coming in with an axe to steal it. But it's Arthur who's giving the orders now."
Merlin's eye caught on the ring and he couldn't look away. There was a pressure building in the room. Something like flame licked at the part of his mind that he associated with his magic, but it sat oddly on his consciousness, a foreign sensation. It settled around his neck and shoulders like a too warm, winter scarf on a summer's day. Red, gold and green swirling patterns formed before his mind's eye. A kaleidoscope of colour that prickled and soothed, burned and irritated. It was unfair, he thought. Arthur would do exactly what Uther told him to do. He'd steal the Museum from all the people who loved it. And the design contract from Lance and Gwaine. And they had to do something.
"Merlin!" Gaius interrupted his thoughts. "Pay attention boy. Can you do anything?"
"Do what?" Merlin asked, blinking back to full attention.
"Honestly, Merlin," Gaius snapped. "Do you never listen? Lance thinks that if we can stop Arthur –"
Somehow they were all standing. Lance interrupted him. "That's not exactly what –"
"Yes it is," Gwaine said.
Magic! It was magic. Merlin looked around the room, seeing faces twisted in various stages of still mounting anger. Even Gwen's eyes were hard. Only Morgana's face was smooth and her lips were twisted into a sour smirk as she glared at the deed on the table.
Merlin managed not to look at her hands while he frantically searched his memory for a spell that would block the anger. Gaius, Gwen, Lance and Gwaine had gathered together and were almost in each other's faces, their voices rising as they talked over each other. Morgana stood a few paces back from them, next to the table.
He latched onto that and willed.
With a screech of wooden legs against the lino of the floor, the chair she had pushed away jerked forward hitting the back of Morgana's knees and she went down with a crash. Merlin started forward, reaching for her, but was unable to prevent her head hitting the edge of the table. She ended up on the floor, lying on her side.
There was an abrupt silence when the shouting stopped.
"Morgana!" Gwaine exclaimed.
Merlin reached Morgana's side and dropped to his knees beside her.
Gwen rushed over. "Are you all right?" she asked, but seeing that Morgana didn't respond, redirected her query to Merlin. "Is she all right?" She leaned over Merlin's back and reached out, but didn't touch Morgana's face.
"I, I don't know. I think so." Merlin ran his fingers gently over Morgana scalp. "There's no blood, but I think she hit her head."
Gwaine knelt next to him and placed his fingers against Morgana's neck, looking for a pulse. He obviously found one, because he was visibly relieved.
"I, I think we better not move her," Merlin said. "And we should probably call an ambulance. The paramedics said we did the right thing, not moving Pell when he cracked his skull."
"Right," Lance agreed, pulling out his phone. "Gwen, would you mind going down and guiding them in?"
"Yes, of course," Gwen went, while everyone else hovered uselessly.
"Give her some air," Gwaine said, and once they had all moved back, apart from Merlin who stripped off his jacket and laid it over her, he added, "What the hell just happened?"
For a moment Merlin thought he was talking about the magic, but he was looking down at Morgana. "She seemed to just trip," Merlin said. "I don't know how. I think she was heading towards you. I know I was. You sounded like you were about to come to blows."
Gaius, Lance and Gwaine exchanged looks and Gaius grimaced. "I don't know why I got so annoyed," he said. "I do most sincerely apologise if I said anything…"
"No, no you didn't," Lance said. He paused and sounded faintly puzzled when he said, "I don't even remember what we were arguing about."
"Something about Arthur?" Gwaine suggested. He sounded equally confused. "I was so angry. About the contract. I don't really know why. Business is always just business and given Uther's behaviour, you can't blame Arthur for wanting to establish the facts before authorising more new work."
"I know," Lance said. "And we have the Redbridge job you're busy on, it's not like we're totally dependent on this job for our survival."
"Near enough," Gwaine said. "But yes, I'll have more time to concentrate on Redbridge for a bit"
"I'm going to call Arthur," Merlin said. "He's probably trying to sort it all out, as we speak."
"Of course he is," Gwaine agreed.
"You'll let us know when you hear something?" Lance asked.
"Of course," Merlin said. "As soon as I get the good news confirmed."
Gwen came in with the paramedics. They went to work settling Morgana, who was beginning to stir.
"Don't move," one of them said. "Let us do this."
He glanced back at Gaius as they lifted the stretcher up onto its legs. "Second time this has happened, isn't it?" he observed. "You ask me, it's just as well they closed the place down." He saw their expressions and added, "She'll be fine. Don't worry. We just need to take her in as a precaution." He started walking backwards, pulling the wheeled stretcher towards the door, while his colleague took the other end. "And I'm sure the accident was just a horrible coincidence."
"Yes, indeed," Gaius replied. "Thank you."
Lance and Gwaine elected to accompany Morgana to the hospital and Gwen left with them, to see them out. "I'm taking the afternoon off," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Gaius nodded. "Yes, it's been that sort of day," he agreed.
"See you tomorrow," Merlin said.
Gaius started gathering mugs to take them away to wash and Merlin picked up the phone.
He eventually got through to Arthur's office, but was told that both Arthur and Owen were in a meeting.
When Gaius returned, he began to refold the deed to put it back in its folder. "Merlin," he said. "Come and have a look at this."
Merlin joined him at the table and looked down at the paper. "Do you remember that being there before?" Gaius asked.
The bottom of the paper was scorched. The previously square corner was now rounded and edged with char.
"No," Merlin said. "That wasn't there. I remember thinking that it was in really good condition, except for the folds. All four corners were tucked inside when it was folded up. They weren't damaged."
Gaius looked at him in dawning recognition and horror. "Oh my," he breathed, falling into a chair. "It's one of them. But, but which one?"
"It's, it's Morgana," Merlin said. "Her fall just now. Umm... That was me. I didn't mean to knock her out, but she was doing something. I don't know how, or what, really, but I felt it and you were all getting so angry with Arthur." Suddenly everything connected. "And, and she was here when the bust fell," he said. "Her office overlooks where Arthur almost got run over. And, oh bloody hell, she was here when Pell had his accident. And just now she was staring at the deed."
Carefully folding the edges of the deed inwards, Gaius studied the charred corner. "I seem to have accepted that it is magic we are dealing with," he said. "And I agree, it appears that it is Morgana. I don't think she meant to do this, though."
Merlin nodded miserably. "Miss Kay said she's using wild magic. I don't really understand what that means, but I think it means she's not really in control. But I don't understand why she's doing what she's doing. If all she'd done was influence Uther to talk, I'd say she was trying to bring his plans into the light, but the rest?"
They neither of them had an answer for that question.
"I need to go and see Miss Kay again," Merlin decided.
"Not right now, surely?" Gaius said.
"No, I'll go tomorrow. Today, I need to try and speak to Arthur."
It took three phone calls before he managed to speak to Owen, who told him that Arthur was in meetings all day and that he should email. Merlin left a message asking Arthur to call him back.
He spent the rest of the afternoon fretting, while he helped Gaius sort through his personal papers, which Gwen had agreed to deliver to Francis Street, and later working on the plan for moving the collections into storage. Gaius found a specialist cabinet maker who would come and give a quote on the display cases in the Ticket Office, later in the week, and placed an order for storage materials that would be delivered the next day. When they eventually left to go home, they had a schedule for the removal of the collections, but were no nearer discovering a motive for Morgana's behaviour, let alone formulating a means to combat it.
Pendragon's Folly, Chapter 8
Pairing: M/A, eventually.
Characters: in this chapter – Merlin, Gaius, Gwen, Lance, Gwaine, Morgana.
Rating: PG maybe even U
Chapter Word Count: 6,300
Warnings: No sex
Summary: There's an out of work wizard, a museum, a sizeable donation that turns it into a building site, suspicious happenings and magic. A sort of 'take your fandom to work' story.
Author's note 1: When it comes to romance, this story is the definition of 'slow burn'.
Comments are always greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Author's note 2: More thanks than I can say to my beta, plot wrangler and best friend,
sparrow2000. And many, many thanks to DJ for (hopefully) catching the typos we missed. If you spot any more, please do let me know.Disclaimer: I write fan fic. All the characters from the Merlin series are the property of the BBC and Shine, etc. No infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this writing.
Previously on Pendragon's Folly:
"What about your friend Will?" Gaius asked. "He's covering the financial desk, isn't he?"
"Yes. I suppose I could ask him if he's heard anything. He's probably forgiven me by now."
"Well, that would be a start." Gaius agreed.
Chapter 7
Immediately after lunch, Merlin called Will, who answered eventually with a mumbled, "'Lo."
"Hi, Will," Merlin said.
"Oh, it's you. Hi," Will replied.
"You okay?"
"I just woke up." He paused. "In fact, I don't think I'm awake yet." There were noises in the background, clicks, rattles and the sound of water running. Will muttered, "Come on you bastard," and then, more clearly, "Bloody jar lid won't come off. You stopped being an arse yet?"
Merlin laughed. "Yeah," he admitted.
"Okay then. What you want?"
"To say I'm sorry I was an arse?" Merlin flopped onto his back on his bed.
"Phah! You never phone up just to apologise. Hang on." Merlin heard a loud click as the phone was put down on a hard surface. Rattling and shuffling was replaced by the clatter of crockery. The phone was picked up again. "Okay," Will said. "Apology accepted. Now, what do you want?"
Merlin laughed again. "I really am sorry I got mad at you for what you wrote about Arthur. And I'm afraid you're right about his dad. I don't really know why, or how, but it's the Folly he wants. The building, I mean."
"I know."
"You know?"
"I'd guessed, but thanks for the confirmation. I wasn't looking forward to going through all Pendragon's current deals, one by one, just to make sure," Will said, over the top of more background clatters. "As for why; it's a valuable bit of real estate,"
"I suppose."
Merlin heard a slurp and Will cleared his throat and sighed. "Ah, yes! Gods, it's too early for this! But at least I have my coffee now. Right. The Folly. Why? Converted warehouse lofts. They're all the rage down here with the young, rich and carefree. Pendragon's have done a few of them in the last five years"
"Yes, I've heard of them. Just not in Camelot."
"What do you know about the high-speed rail link?" Will asked.
"Er…"
"Thought so. Listen. It's happening and it'll put Camelot within easy commuting range of London. No one can afford to buy in London now. Do you know what my rent is for one room in a shared flat?"
"Er…" said Merlin again.
"Doesn't matter. You don't want to," Will said. The coffee was obviously working. "Point is, the Folly fits. I'm trying to get an interview with the evil overlord himself, but I doubt the bastard will accept."
A shocked laugh escaped Merlin. "What happened to the neutrality of the press?" he asked. "Not exactly the most politically correct way to phrase it, Will."
Will snorted. "How long have you known me?" he asked. "Did I ever strike you as a politically correct whinger? I work for the Daily News, for God's sake." He paused and Merlin waited while he took another drink and sighed with satisfaction. "As for how, I guess that'll take some research. Tell you what, I'll see what I can dig up and I'll let you know if I find anything useful."
Perversely, the conversation with Will made Merlin feel a little better and he began to hope that everything would work out - Will would expose Uther's plot, Arthur would reverse it and the new museum would open in the Folly as planned.
*****
The next day was spent by Merlin in a state of mild frustration. The sense of optimism that the conversation with Will had engendered proved short lived. Overnight, doubts resurfaced. The papers had nothing new to tell them, so straight after breakfast he tried calling Arthur, although he was unclear about what he would say. It was almost a relief that he was put straight through to voicemail. He didn't leave a message.
With Gaius having locked himself away in the front room, Merlin was left with nothing to do but read his book of magic, in the hope that something both practical and ethical would present itself. He lay on his back across his bed with the book propped up on his chest.
As he read, the words flowed through him and he realised that he could taste the spells and stories that were real, although he didn't always understand them. The instructions accompanying a spell for identifying hidden meanings were so dense and obscure that even after reading them three times he was still none the wiser. He could also tell that some of the spells were incomplete. A particularly promising one, intended according to the commentary for determining another spell caster's intentions, began with a rightness that was harmonic and as soft as angora wool. But at the end of the second verse it abruptly stopped, leaving an unseasoned flavour of dissatisfaction in his mouth.
At lunchtime Gaius emerged and called him down to the living room. They sat at the table and, over sausages, mash and peas, rehearsed the same arguments and points they had already gone over numerous times.
"I never thought I'd resent a bank holiday," Merlin said, "but I feel like I could be doing something if it was a normal Monday."
"What would you do?"
"I don't know. Call Arthur, I suppose. Or try. His phone's off, today."
"Well, it is a holiday."
"I know, but I hate not knowing what's going on."
"You're not the only one," Gaius agreed. "Maybe we'll hear something tomorrow."
"Yeah," Merlin said, but once Gaius had retreated back into his office, he sat down in Gaius's easy chair and pulled out his phone. In the vain hope that Pendragon's worked bank holidays, he punched in the number for their head office. But that simply led to a complex set of automated instructions culminating in the advice that he call back during office hours. He cursed.
Google didn't help, either. It seemed that Arthur's private address was ex every directory there was. In frustration he went for a walk and ended up in the Folly, searching through the stores for anything that caused a tingle in his fingertips. He had no success there, either.
A brief telephone call early the following morning threw him into a further confusion of conflicting emotions. When he scrambled across the room to grab his phone and answer it, he was greeted by the voice of a young man that he didn't recognise.
"I'm calling on behalf of Mr Arthur Pendragon," the voice said. "I'm Owen Page, his executive assistant. Mr Pendragon will not be returning to Camelot immediately. He has asked me to tell you to continue as you were, with the structural renovations and moving the collections out. You're to keep him informed of any issues that arise."
"Is he okay?" Merlin asked.
"Okay?" Owen sounded surprised by the question. "Mr Pendragon is acting on behalf of his father. The company is in good hands, so of course he's okay."
"Acting? You mean Acting Chairman, Chief Executive, whatever it's called? What about Uther?"
Mr Uther Pendragon," Owen said in a repressive tone, "is indisposed. He has been advised by his doctor to rest, but we expect him to be back at his desk within a week."
"Arthur'll be pretty busy then, right?"
"Mr Pendragon will be extremely busy, as you say, but he will be maintaining an overview of the Camelot Project, so you should direct any communications to him by e-mail." He sounded impatient now, so Merlin allowed him to finish the call without asking again how Arthur was coping.
The question stayed with him, though, as he packed his magic book into his backpack and got dressed. He communicated his disquiet to Gaius as they walked to the museum.
"If Arthur is acting for Uther," Gaius agreed, "it does suggest that Uther's breakdown is more serious than an attack of television nerves."
"If Arthur doesn't phone me today," Merlin said, "I am definitely going to London tomorrow."
At nine o'clock, Gaius took a call from Lance, asking for news and proposing a meeting that afternoon, which Gaius agreed to. He also decided to visit his friend at the council archives immediately.
Left alone, Merlin put off starting his day. He slouched in a chair with a second coffee and stared aimlessly around the room. Gwen came in, in a rush to collect a box of clocks and their various internal workings from the table. "I'm off to Rosehill Primary," she said. "Back at lunchtime," before hurrying out without waiting for a reply. Merlin drank his coffee.
On a corner of Gaius's desk, the big brass compass he had found in room 131, weeks before, caught his eye. He put his coffee mug down, stood up, crossed the room and picked it up. 'Focus', he thought. Turning it around in his hands, he confirmed that the needle moved freely and stayed true.
He put it down in the centre of the round table and picked up his coffee mug. The needle settled, pointing towards the window wall. Digging his magic book out of his bag, he sought out the seeking and finding spells he had found on Sunday. With the idea of the compass in his mind, they began to make much more sense.
Whatever it was that Miss Kay said they should be looking for, they didn't even know if it was a physical thing and they certainly didn't know where to start looking. Merlin cleared some stray papers and Gaius's tea mug off the table and fetched a handful of index cards and a marker pen from the stationary cupboard.
To test his theory, a simple yes/no choice seemed the most sensible and he carefully wrote the two words onto a couple of index cards. That made the choice of the first question easy. Placing the two cards to the north-east and north-west of the compass, he positioned himself at the south point, with his back to the door and concentrated on the question: 'Are we searching for a physical object?'
He stared at the compass needle and allowed the intangible sensation of energy beneath his skin to expand outwards. Gathering it into a single shaft, that stretched out and followed his gaze, was easy and he relaxed, allowing the question to consume the whole of him. The compass needle began to shake. He allowed the magic to build, so he was one point of a triangle of flux. The magic flowed from him to the compass, to some unknown point and back to him. The needle began to twist. He only realised he was leaning forward when he had to place his hands flat on the table top to support himself. Slowly, hesitantly, the needle moved, until it pointed at the card that read 'YES'. There it stopped.
With a sigh of satisfaction, Merlin stepped back from the table. The compass needle settled back to its natural position and the heat faded. With the heat went all his energy. He collapsed into the nearest chair and placed his forehead against the cool wood of the table top. He breathed.
Gradually, like water flowing downhill, the tension faded from his muscles and he placed his hands on the edge of the table to push himself upright. His coffee had gone cold, so he left that mug on the table and shuffled over to the kettle to make another one.
While the kettle came to the boil he considered the triangle of power he had experienced, tracing the shape, texture and colour of it, reliving the sensation of spreading and focusing and encompassing the flow.
With three sugars in his new coffee, he went back to the table and picked a handful of index cards off the pile.
The next question was a logical development of the first. He marked up cards with 'Folly', 'Town Hall', 'Library' and, as an afterthought, 'Somewhere else in Camelot' and 'Not in Camelot', placing them around the compass.
Focusing was both easier and more difficult this time. The sensation of searching was clearer and he slipped into it with ease, but the shape of the spell had changed, because of the more complex choices. Carefully and deliberately he surrendered to the spell, allowing it to dictate the form of the universe and of his being. Without intellectual thought he knew, all the way to the marrow of his bones, that his conscious will was not the key to doing what he needed. The knowledge was liberating, enlightening, and terrifying in the demands it placed upon him
There was an almost audible click at the base of his soul when the sensation of being both a single point in a circuit of power and the entire pattern grasped at him and held him tight. The needle moved confidently to point at the word 'Folly' and he blew out a breath, releasing the spell and pulling himself free of the world.
He looked at the clock, surprised to see that it was almost 11:00. Gwen would be back soon. It was surprising Gaius was not back already. As quickly as he could, before the magic of the last spell had faded, he scrawled room numbers on more cards and placed them around the compass, like a clock face.
"Where is it?" he asked, focusing on the question so that it spread across the surface of his skin and was absorbed. It flowed through his body with his blood. It roiled and gusted through his lungs with every breath. It tingled in his fingertips and on the soles of his feet. The needle shifted clockwise and hesitated on the card that said, 'This Workroom', but it didn't settle. It moved on, swung back to point at the workroom card again and then swung back towards him. It came to rest pointing almost directly at Merlin, but slightly to his right, in the space between the two cards that read, 'Great Hall' and '131'.
He stared at it and, in spite of knowing it was pointless, tried to force it to settle on a single answer. It refused to budge, no matter how fiercely he willed it to and at the back of his mind a whisper soothed the ferocity of his desire with a gentleness that was unnerving, because he knew it was his own. With a sigh he stood up straight and the needle went back to pointing north. He glanced at the clock. It was 11:30.
Disappointing as the final answer had been, the first two were helpful. Between them, Gaius and he could search the Museum. The tension in his shoulders eased and he gathered the cards together into a stack.
As he resigned himself to the idea that there was no easy answer, even with magic to assist, a thought occurred to him - there had been hesitation in the needle's movement but it had definitely paused on the word 'Workroom'. Twice. He turned slowly on the spot, scanning the room and stopped when he realised what he was looking at. He glanced behind him, at the compass, and back to the tall book case against the wall in front of him. When the needle had refused to move, it had been pointing at the bookcase. And the top two shelves of the bookcase were full of archival boxes, like the ones in the library, but older. They had a grimy appearance, of the sort that old cardboard always seems to develop. He looked back at the compass again and traced a line from its centre in the direction the needle had indicated.
Quickly clearing away the incriminating evidence by slipping the used cards into the side pocket of his bag and replacing the compass on Gaius's desk, he dragged a chair across to the bookshelf. He stepped up onto the seat, but even so he had to stand on his tiptoes and hang onto the shelf with his left hand to reach the boxes on the highest shelf and lift them down. The varnish of the shelf felt almost sticky under his fingers and when he put the first box on the floor and raised his hand to his face to scratch his nose, it smelt sour.
In all he pulled down eight boxes from each of the top two shelves, carried them across to the table and lined them up. Nearly all the labels on the ends were either blank, illegible, or missing altogether. One simply read 'R-S', another said '1931'. He pulled one that had no label closer, blinked away a sudden wave of tiredness and opened it.
By the time Gwen returned, he had searched through three boxes. One had held nothing but copies of 'the Amateur Mechanic' magazine, which were probably worth adding to a collection in their own right. The second contained pages from the Camelot Echo, dating from the days when it had been a daily publication, and another paper he'd never heard of called the Camelot Weekly Gazette. The third was half full of carbon copies of letters, on flimsy blue paper, sent by past curators, but they all dated from the 1920s and so were outside his time window. He checked through them anyway, just in case, grateful for the convention that gave each one an underlined heading after the greeting, so he didn't need to read the whole letter to know what it was about.
Seeing that the table was covered in Merlin's stuff, Gwen dumped her box of clock parts on Gaius's desk. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"You know what Uther said on Question Time?" Merlin explained. "Gaius and I were talking about it and it seemed to us that he has to have a legal way to grab the Folly."
Gwen nodded as she walked past him and plugged the kettle in. "And to say it at all, he must think it's solid."
"Yes. So we thought it has to go right back to Thomas Pendragon and his donation."
"Okay. And...?" She spooned coffee into two mugs.
"And so Gaius has gone up to the county archives to see if he can find anything there, but I saw these old boxes. I bet no one's opened them in years."
"Ah, yeah, I can see that. But one, he didn't actually say it was the Folly he was going after."
"He might as well have. What else could it be?"
She shrugged. "I guess. But two, what makes you think there's anything in there?" She waved her hand vaguely at the boxes and piles of paper on the table.
"I don't, necessarily," Merlin said, "but it's better than doing nothing." He smiled. "And besides, I don't really feel like working for Pendragon's today. I'd rather work against them."
Gwen laughed and put a mug of coffee in front of him. She took a sip from her own, considered the table in front of her and pulled out the chair opposite him. "Okay," she said. "Where do you want me to start?"
***
It was Gwen who found it, in an unlabelled box, inside a dusty folder that had nothing but the word 'Building' printed on the front. "Merlin, come here. Look!" she said.
Merlin put down the sheaf of papers he'd been reading, stood and went to stand behind her.
She held a parchment-like bundle of paper, folded and tied with pink ribbon. Under the ribbon, in faded script, were the words, 'Trust Deed of the Pendragon Memorial Museum".
"Whoa! You found it!" he exclaimed, the last traces of earlier tiredness disappearing in response to the discovery. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat down while she picked open the knot and unfolded the top of the sheet. She laid it on the table and they leaned over it together.
Gwen traced the words with her finger as she read. "This Indenture made the eleventh day of May one thousand eight hundred and eighty two Between Thomas Jonas Pendragon of Camelot House Camelot Albionshire esquire of the first part and Geoffrey Richard Greeves of The Manor House London Road Rosebeck Albionshire gentleman Thomas Edmund Eustace de Bois of Ingleford House Victoria Road Camelot Albionshire gentleman and the Reverend William Edwin Orne of 152 Tonheath Lane Camelot Albionshire clerk in holy orders hereinafter called the Trustees of the second part." She broke off when she got to the end of the exposed text.
Merlin cleared all the boxes onto the floor. Between them they unfolded the whole sheet and she continued reading.
"Whereas the aforementioned Thomas Jonas Pendragon is seised of a freehold messuage and premises at Grand Central Railway Station and Station Hotel Front Street and Market Street Camelot Albionshire and Whereas in pursuit of enlarging the minds and educating the morals of the populace resident in the town of Camelot aforesaid building and land is entrusted to a Board of Trustees to be appointed by the Town Governors and Council and their successors but to exclude any such members for the purposes of a Museum."
Beneath this, the text went on to describe the means by which members should be elected to the board of trustees and to list their duties, which were to have oversight and independent control of the accompanying financial endowment. The document detailed that the money in the endowment was to be invested and the proceeds were to be used to fund the upkeep of the museum. Finally they reached the clause that described what would happen in the event that the Council and the Board of Trustees decided that the Museum was no longer required: "Provided always that the Trustees in consultation with the Town Governors and Council do maintain the Trust Otherwise it shall be dissolved and the entrusted estate revert to the donor and his heirs and assigns of his name," she read. "That must be it. If we're reading this right, this says that if the Trustees and the Council decide that the town doesn't need a museum, Uther gets the building back for nothing."
She picked up her coffee mug, tilted it to look inside and sighed. "And by the way it's phrased I'm guessing the female line's excluded. I don't suppose there are any other descendants who would want to challenge?"
"I don't think so. I think the men of the family mostly got killed in the two world wars."
"Then it looks like he can really do it," she said.
"Yeah," Merlin agreed. Grasping at a thread of hope, he added, "But only if the Town Council agrees to close the Museum."
He was answered by Gaius, from the doorway. "I'm very much afraid that the Council will," he said, snatching the thread away. Merlin and Gwen both twisted in their seats to watch him as he came into the room and put his briefcase on his desk. "The Folly is a drain on them. If Uther was to redevelop it as something else, it might be seen as good for the town." He sounded dispirited, his voice flat. When he turned around and Merlin was able to see his face properly, he looked both old and tired.
"What's wrong?" Merlin asked.
"The Trustees have frozen the project," he replied
"The Trustees?" Gwen asked.
Gaius swayed slightly. "The Board of Trustees are a gaggle of old women. And that's an insult to womankind."
Gwen got up and somehow, through polite body language, ushered Gaius into a chair. "I bumped into the Mayor on the way back from seeing James," Gaius said. "That was profitless, by the way. We found the minutes of the meeting, but they told us nothing."
"You expected that," Merlin agreed. "But what did the mayor say?"
Running both hands over his face and back through his hair, which, Merlin noticed, was getting quite long, Gaius slumped. "He said that early on Thursday evening Uther apparently e-mailed a number of the Trustees and told them he had reconsidered his position and was no longer able to provide funds, over and above the original donation."
"Which Cedric Griggs wasted," Merlin said.
"Which, as you say, was wasted," Gaius agreed.
"So?" Merlin asked.
"So, they panicked and instead of waiting for more clarity, first thing on Friday morning they went straight to the mayor to ask for emergency funding from his contingency. I can only assume that none of them watch television." He glanced at each of them and settled on Gwen. "I don't suppose you'd be a dear and make me a cup of tea?" he asked.
"I'll do it," Merlin said, getting up. "What else?" He flicked the switch on the kettle.
"Well, the Mayor refused, but he's taking it to the next Council Budget Meeting."
Turning around and leaning back against the counter, Merlin said, "We need to talk to Arthur. He's Acting Chairman. He can reverse Uther's decision."
"When's the next budget meeting?" Gwen asked at the same time.
"Next week, I think," Gaius said. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.
Gwen shook her head. "So we only have a few days to get the money back. Do you think they know what's at stake here?"
"I rather fear that they do," Gaius said.
"Gwen found the deed," Merlin said. "So we know the exact terms." He came back over to the table, placed his hands on opposite corners of the paper and twisted it around so that Gaius could read it the right way up. While Gaius did so he went back to making tea.
When Gaius had finished reading, he looked up. "Okay," he said. "Mr Thomas Pendragon had only the one son and no daughters. He did have a brother and it was his nephew who inherited the company."
"And the heir, there, is Uther Pendragon," Merlin finished for him.
His lips twisted into a grimace, Gaius said, "I still can't believe he'd do this to me. After all the years I worked for him."
"Business," Merlin said.
"Yes," Gaius agreed. "The endowment isn't worth much, as I know to my cost; trying to run this place before we won the grant."
"But the Council haven't actually said it doesn't want the Museum," Merlin said.
"What would happen if the Trustees told the Council they want to close the Museum?" Gwen asked.
"I suspect the Council would agree," Gaius replied.
Gwen shook her head. "What I don't understand," she said, "is why he announced it on Question Time. If he hadn't said anything, no one would have known until it was too late."
The phone on Gaius's desk rang and Gwen went to pick it up, so she missed the look that passed between Gaius and Merlin.
She listened for only a moment and then said, "Right. I'll come down and let you in. Yeah, no problem." Putting the handset back in its cradle, she went to the door. "That was Morgana. She's with Lance and Gwaine and they're almost here."
She left the room and Merlin got up to gather more chairs around the table. Gaius leaned over the deed and started reading it again.
When Lance, Morgana and Gwaine arrived there was the usual flurry of greetings, but Lance quickly got to the point of their visit. "We received an email from Arthur over the weekend, telling us that we will be paid for Gwaine's designs but instructing him not do any more work until further notice. We wondered if you had heard from him. After what happened to Mr Uther Pendragon, last week, I suppose we were hoping you might know more."
Gaius shook his head. "Most of what we know we've got from the papers," he admitted. He recounted again the news he had picked up at the Town Hall and Merlin told the story of finding the deed. Then they all gathered around the table and Gaius pointed out the salient paragraphs.
"I don't believe this!" Morgana exclaimed. "I'd heard some bad things about the Pendragons, but this is almost like a novel. They really are just a pair of crooks."
"It's not Arthur's fault," Lance said. "He's only obeying his father's orders."
Morgana pushed her chair back, stood up and walked away a few paces. She gave a harsh laugh as she turned back to face them. "He's only obeying orders? Can you hear yourself?" she asked.
"Oh come on, 'Gana," Gwaine said, "you can't accuse him of being a Nazi, even by insinuation."
Morgana took a breath and seemed to force herself to relax. She clasped her hands together and her ring caught the light. She started twisting it around her finger. "Okay. So it's Uther's fault. He gave the original grant and now he's coming in with an axe to steal it. But it's Arthur who's giving the orders now."
Merlin's eye caught on the ring and he couldn't look away. There was a pressure building in the room. Something like flame licked at the part of his mind that he associated with his magic, but it sat oddly on his consciousness, a foreign sensation. It settled around his neck and shoulders like a too warm, winter scarf on a summer's day. Red, gold and green swirling patterns formed before his mind's eye. A kaleidoscope of colour that prickled and soothed, burned and irritated. It was unfair, he thought. Arthur would do exactly what Uther told him to do. He'd steal the Museum from all the people who loved it. And the design contract from Lance and Gwaine. And they had to do something.
"Merlin!" Gaius interrupted his thoughts. "Pay attention boy. Can you do anything?"
"Do what?" Merlin asked, blinking back to full attention.
"Honestly, Merlin," Gaius snapped. "Do you never listen? Lance thinks that if we can stop Arthur –"
Somehow they were all standing. Lance interrupted him. "That's not exactly what –"
"Yes it is," Gwaine said.
Magic! It was magic. Merlin looked around the room, seeing faces twisted in various stages of still mounting anger. Even Gwen's eyes were hard. Only Morgana's face was smooth and her lips were twisted into a sour smirk as she glared at the deed on the table.
Merlin managed not to look at her hands while he frantically searched his memory for a spell that would block the anger. Gaius, Gwen, Lance and Gwaine had gathered together and were almost in each other's faces, their voices rising as they talked over each other. Morgana stood a few paces back from them, next to the table.
He latched onto that and willed.
With a screech of wooden legs against the lino of the floor, the chair she had pushed away jerked forward hitting the back of Morgana's knees and she went down with a crash. Merlin started forward, reaching for her, but was unable to prevent her head hitting the edge of the table. She ended up on the floor, lying on her side.
There was an abrupt silence when the shouting stopped.
"Morgana!" Gwaine exclaimed.
Merlin reached Morgana's side and dropped to his knees beside her.
Gwen rushed over. "Are you all right?" she asked, but seeing that Morgana didn't respond, redirected her query to Merlin. "Is she all right?" She leaned over Merlin's back and reached out, but didn't touch Morgana's face.
"I, I don't know. I think so." Merlin ran his fingers gently over Morgana scalp. "There's no blood, but I think she hit her head."
Gwaine knelt next to him and placed his fingers against Morgana's neck, looking for a pulse. He obviously found one, because he was visibly relieved.
"I, I think we better not move her," Merlin said. "And we should probably call an ambulance. The paramedics said we did the right thing, not moving Pell when he cracked his skull."
"Right," Lance agreed, pulling out his phone. "Gwen, would you mind going down and guiding them in?"
"Yes, of course," Gwen went, while everyone else hovered uselessly.
"Give her some air," Gwaine said, and once they had all moved back, apart from Merlin who stripped off his jacket and laid it over her, he added, "What the hell just happened?"
For a moment Merlin thought he was talking about the magic, but he was looking down at Morgana. "She seemed to just trip," Merlin said. "I don't know how. I think she was heading towards you. I know I was. You sounded like you were about to come to blows."
Gaius, Lance and Gwaine exchanged looks and Gaius grimaced. "I don't know why I got so annoyed," he said. "I do most sincerely apologise if I said anything…"
"No, no you didn't," Lance said. He paused and sounded faintly puzzled when he said, "I don't even remember what we were arguing about."
"Something about Arthur?" Gwaine suggested. He sounded equally confused. "I was so angry. About the contract. I don't really know why. Business is always just business and given Uther's behaviour, you can't blame Arthur for wanting to establish the facts before authorising more new work."
"I know," Lance said. "And we have the Redbridge job you're busy on, it's not like we're totally dependent on this job for our survival."
"Near enough," Gwaine said. "But yes, I'll have more time to concentrate on Redbridge for a bit"
"I'm going to call Arthur," Merlin said. "He's probably trying to sort it all out, as we speak."
"Of course he is," Gwaine agreed.
"You'll let us know when you hear something?" Lance asked.
"Of course," Merlin said. "As soon as I get the good news confirmed."
Gwen came in with the paramedics. They went to work settling Morgana, who was beginning to stir.
"Don't move," one of them said. "Let us do this."
He glanced back at Gaius as they lifted the stretcher up onto its legs. "Second time this has happened, isn't it?" he observed. "You ask me, it's just as well they closed the place down." He saw their expressions and added, "She'll be fine. Don't worry. We just need to take her in as a precaution." He started walking backwards, pulling the wheeled stretcher towards the door, while his colleague took the other end. "And I'm sure the accident was just a horrible coincidence."
"Yes, indeed," Gaius replied. "Thank you."
Lance and Gwaine elected to accompany Morgana to the hospital and Gwen left with them, to see them out. "I'm taking the afternoon off," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Gaius nodded. "Yes, it's been that sort of day," he agreed.
"See you tomorrow," Merlin said.
Gaius started gathering mugs to take them away to wash and Merlin picked up the phone.
He eventually got through to Arthur's office, but was told that both Arthur and Owen were in a meeting.
When Gaius returned, he began to refold the deed to put it back in its folder. "Merlin," he said. "Come and have a look at this."
Merlin joined him at the table and looked down at the paper. "Do you remember that being there before?" Gaius asked.
The bottom of the paper was scorched. The previously square corner was now rounded and edged with char.
"No," Merlin said. "That wasn't there. I remember thinking that it was in really good condition, except for the folds. All four corners were tucked inside when it was folded up. They weren't damaged."
Gaius looked at him in dawning recognition and horror. "Oh my," he breathed, falling into a chair. "It's one of them. But, but which one?"
"It's, it's Morgana," Merlin said. "Her fall just now. Umm... That was me. I didn't mean to knock her out, but she was doing something. I don't know how, or what, really, but I felt it and you were all getting so angry with Arthur." Suddenly everything connected. "And, and she was here when the bust fell," he said. "Her office overlooks where Arthur almost got run over. And, oh bloody hell, she was here when Pell had his accident. And just now she was staring at the deed."
Carefully folding the edges of the deed inwards, Gaius studied the charred corner. "I seem to have accepted that it is magic we are dealing with," he said. "And I agree, it appears that it is Morgana. I don't think she meant to do this, though."
Merlin nodded miserably. "Miss Kay said she's using wild magic. I don't really understand what that means, but I think it means she's not really in control. But I don't understand why she's doing what she's doing. If all she'd done was influence Uther to talk, I'd say she was trying to bring his plans into the light, but the rest?"
They neither of them had an answer for that question.
"I need to go and see Miss Kay again," Merlin decided.
"Not right now, surely?" Gaius said.
"No, I'll go tomorrow. Today, I need to try and speak to Arthur."
It took three phone calls before he managed to speak to Owen, who told him that Arthur was in meetings all day and that he should email. Merlin left a message asking Arthur to call him back.
He spent the rest of the afternoon fretting, while he helped Gaius sort through his personal papers, which Gwen had agreed to deliver to Francis Street, and later working on the plan for moving the collections into storage. Gaius found a specialist cabinet maker who would come and give a quote on the display cases in the Ticket Office, later in the week, and placed an order for storage materials that would be delivered the next day. When they eventually left to go home, they had a schedule for the removal of the collections, but were no nearer discovering a motive for Morgana's behaviour, let alone formulating a means to combat it.
Pendragon's Folly, Chapter 8
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no subject
Date: 2014-08-16 08:35 pm (UTC)Things look dire for The Folly!
What is going on with Morgana? Is she purposefully targeting Arthur or are the attempts on his life her anger at the Pendragons manifesting? I'm also wondering if she's able to sense Merlin's magic now that he whammied her. it's all very exciting!
no subject
Date: 2014-08-17 02:32 pm (UTC)They don't look good, do they. Hmm... *g*
I'm so glad you are still enjoying it. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-17 03:08 pm (UTC)You've gone a great job with your cast of characters, I care deeply about them all.
And I find myself suspicious of Arthur's unavailability. Could someone be keeping him out of the way? Hmmm.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-18 07:09 am (UTC)Thank you; I don't think you could have said anything that makes me as happy as that. I am smiling widely here.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-07 03:09 pm (UTC)I'd forgotten how snotty Owen was! *g*
Reading it fresh, the compass scene still works wonderfully and even though I knew the outcome it was really satisfying to have them find what they were looking for.
The mounting anger between everyone had me holding my breath and I admit when Merlin did his thing with the chair and knocked Morgana over I gave a little cheer! So know we know for sure it's Morgana, I look forward to catching up some more with the next part.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-08 05:09 am (UTC)*pets Owen* Don't be too hard on him; he was only protecting his boss's time and dignity *g*
Thank you, hon. *twirls you*