Aurelius closed the door behind him and made his way over to his favourite chair.
On some level, he recognised that having such things as a 'favourite chair' was beneath a man of his age and station in life. But on another, more profound level, he understood that when you were as powerful as he was, you could indulge pretty much whatever whim you fucking wanted.
As he sat, he selected a glass vial - one of the blue ones this time - from a leather pouch on the chair's armrest and popped its cork.
As it always did with the blue ones, his nose wrinkled in distaste at the acrid, metallic smell, but he tossed it down his throat anyway.
'No pain, no gain,' as he always said.
Actually, thinking on it, he had never verbalised those words before in his life. However, as it felt like an appropriately sage piece of advice, he resolved to use it more in conversation.
Cricking his neck and wincing at the resulting sound, Aurelius Ambrosius - brother to Uther Pendragon, uncle to Prince Arthur, and long, long presumed dead and gone - closed his eyes and settled into his daily ritual of cycling poison through his veins.
*
"Give it up, Lis!" the younger man called over the rim of his shield, shuffling a little to the right to prepare a new point of attack.
Aurelius rolled his shoulders and stayed silent, circling to mirror his brother's steps. Sweat streaked down his face in a river, and he shook his head to disperse the droplets.
He was getting tired. He knew it. And Uther knew it.
He couldn't keep this intensity up much longer.
Then, without warning, Aurelis let loose a series of swift spear thrusts, each aimed to strike the centre of Uther's shield. The expected counter came swiftly, the clash of metal drowning out the shouts and jeers from those surrounding them in a tight circle.
"Brother, we don't need to do this!" Uther's voice, so annoyingly filled with confidence, rang out towards him again.
Aurelius did not answer. Of course, they needed to do this. Uther had been sniping at him for weeks, and everyone knew this was a boil which needed to be lanced once and for all. If the Saxons' advance was to be halted and then pushed back, then that could only be achieved under the arm of a single Pendragon.
While both brothers agreed with that assessment, there was undoubtedly some sibling disagreement over which of them it should be.
With a sudden surge of energy, Aurelius sought to overpower Uther with a barrage of strikes - high, low, then high again. Uther's shield absorbed each blow as if nothing more substantial than a straw was assailing him, then responded with a flurry of short jabs with his own spear that forced Aurelius to retreat in an ungainly manner.
He did not miss the laughter in the crowd at his missteps and felt his heart sink. A leader could survive many slips on the road to victory. But mockery was not one of them.
Shaking his long hair again to clear the sweat, Aurelius resettled himself behind his shield, needing to regain his wind. The two now moved in a tense rhythm, each step measured, each attack deliberate.
Sensing the tiredness creeping into his elder brother's legs, Uther suddenly leapt forward, his spear darting towards Aurelius's head, but the thrust was deflected onto his shield, with a swift counterthrust snaking towards Uther's midsection. The latter was quick to react, sidestepping and bringing his shield across in a firm block.
This caused a few shouts of derision as the watching thegns grew restless. If there was one thing you were not looking for in a duel for leadership on the eve of a battle, it was a long, drawn-out bloodbath that left both participants good for nothing.
Stolen story; please report.
To tell the truth, not one of them really cared whether it was Uther or Aurelius who sat on an imaginary throne and called themselves the Pendragon. The Saxon invasion was a blight on the land of the Britons, and they were all - well, most of them - reconciled to the need to band together to meet that threat.
It had seemed like Aurelius would be the man to play the unifier role, but a year of reversals and losses in the north had led to Uther's name being very loudly championed as an alternative. During the latest retreat, it had become plain the brothers could no longer work with each other, and therefore, in time-honoured tradition, a circle had been formed under the evening sun to decide the matter.
Growing more desperate, Aurelius feigned a retreat, luring Uther forward, only to pivot and launch a sudden attack. Sparks flew as the shields crashed together, and Uther narrowly avoided a spearhead to the throat. Her retaliated with a powerful sweep of his own, aimed at Aurelius's legs, which forced him to jump back for a moment. However, he was soon back on the offensive, cutting at Uther's arms and legs as he scurried backwards.
Aurelius intensified his attacks, his spear a whirlwind. He pressed Uther, aiming a rapid succession of thrusts, each one parried but inching closer to their mark. Uther's shield work was impeccable, yet the relentless assault from Aurelius was starting to wear him down.
Indeed, for the first time in the confrontation, Uther felt himself needing to concentrate. He was bigger than his brother. Stronger. Whereas Aurelius was more comfortable addressing a crowd, Uther was at home in the shield wall. He loved the press, the push, the feeling of matching your raw power against an enemy.
He knew the longer this bout went on, the more certainty there was for his victory. And that was without his trump card needing to become involved. Uther adopted a more defensive stance - absorbing a flurry of impacts on his shield - and took the opportunity to glance at the tall, gaunt figure that stood a little way back from the ring of thegns.
Uther wasn't sure what to make of that man - cultivator is what he called himself, wasn't it? However, if a quarter of what Merlin had promised him came true, he would indeed be a very happy man indeed. After all, was he not to be the father of the greatest of all British Kings?!
And that, he supposed, was where he was so different from his big brother.
He watched Aurelius over the rim of his shield, sensing his efforts to sneak any advantage. He watched as his brother made a number of feints to the left, followed by a forceful jab rattling Uther's shield. Seizing the moment, Aurelius aimed for Uther's exposed side, but with a grunt of effort, he managed a last-second parry.
No, Aurelius would not be satisfied in preparing the way for his son to be king. He would need to be the one to do it himself.
Merlin had explained that unless Uther was the one to lead the assault on Salisbury on the morrow, the future he had prophesied would never come into being. He had gone to his brother, asking for the command, but he had been refused.
And now, here they were, locked in a fight to the death. Worryingly, Uther thought that their parents would be very proud.
The sun was falling low, and they both knew the duel was nearing its climax. Seeing Aurelius' shield droop slightly, Uther found a reserve of strength and surged forward, his spear leading in a series of unpredictable thrusts. Aurelius, caught off-guard, scrambled to defend and nearly disengaged effectively. Uther, however, feigned a strike to Aurelius's head, then, in a swift change of direction, aimed a low thrust towards Aurelius's legs, momentarily throwing him off balance.
Aurelius struggled to keep up with the attacks and parried a high strike but missed the follow-up at his midsection.
Uther's spear found its way past Aurelius's guard, and the final blow was delivered.
Uther would have liked to have felt more sorrow. However, in the end, it was mostly a sort of hollow triumph.
As Aurelius fell to his knees, blood gushing from the wound, the thing he thought hurt the most was the cheers from those he had sought to lead.
*
"Bastards. Fucking ungrateful bastards." Aurelius' eyes snapped open, and the memory faded away.
After all he had done for them they'd left him there to bleed out.
If the retreating Saxons hadn't stumbled upon him the following morning - because, of course, Uther led the Britons to victory, didn't he! - he'd have died of that wound.
But no.
He wasn't destined to be that lucky.
Years of torture and imprisonment followed. Aurelius's eyes flashed as those memories flared to life. But he'd shown them, in the end. Hadn't he? My word, he had.
Aurelius selected another vial from the leather pouch and - without bothering to check the colour - uncorked it and drank it down.
It hadn't been easy, but thirty-five years - almost exactly to the day, now he thought about it - later, and he was poised to complete his revenge on his brother,
He'd taken Merlin from him. He'd destroyed the mind of his latest wizard. And now - and was this not the cherry on the cake? - he was going to kill his precious son.
The acid - it must have been a green vial - burned through Aurelius' cheek and dribbled through the hole to fall down his neck. He dabbed at it ineffectively, burning his fingers as he did so.
Uther may have become the Pendragon.
But the Bretwalda would soon have Arthur's head.
And then there would be a reckoning.