"For clarity, just because I want to make sure I have this all straight in my own mind, let's run through this one last time. Do you mind? Oh, good, I'm so glad.

You are suggesting that sometime in the early morning, an unknown assailant somehow infiltrated the walls of Tintagel. This brave soul succeeded in avoiding the notice of any number of methods - both physical and magical - that I have paid a not-insignificant sum of gold to put in place to prevent just this type of nefarious activity.

It's probably worth flagging at this stage that Merlin was responsible for developing most of those protections so, goodness me, that is going to make it hard for us all to sleep soundly in our beds ever again, isn't it?

Whoever this spunky burglar was, they ignored my treasury. The armoury. They did not even, the gods forefend, attempt to assassinate me.

Instead, having demonstrated themselves as being able to achieve a feat of startling stealth and ingenuity, they chose to break into the bed chamber of Princess Guinevere and seem to have stolen her away from the boundaries of the castle.

In doing so, they took with them a not-inconsiderable portion of her wardrobe and any number of personal items that - and I do not possess to be an expert in such matters - might be considered non-essential in the cut-and-thrust of frenzied escape.

But, as I say, I am not a kidnapper. What do I know of such things?"

On the plus side, my dear, while he is being sarcastic, it means he is not pulling off anyone's fingers. I saw him do that once. It can get pretty messy. And loud. But mostly messy.

"Not. The. Time." I hissed through gritted teeth. Fortunately, I think Uther was too busy enjoying his rant to notice.

"Oh, and let us not forget that, as if that was not enough, whilst executing this improbable task, they also took the time to write a very detailed ransom note, which helpfully included clear instructions as to how a motivated Prince with access to a number of skilful followers might be able to follow and recover his missing lady. If he was minded to and wanted to make an issue of said kidnapping."

Uther's eyes slipped from me, to Igraine, to Bors and back again.

"Have I summed everything up appropriately?"

After an awkward silence, I cleared my throat and offered: "Indeed, my Lord." To be honest, I was feeling pretty damn salty about ending up the spokesman for our little band of miscreants.

But here we are.

It's the fingers, my dear. Unfortunately, you're the only one who is likely to be able to regrow them if Uther gets all ... pully. This is the very definition of taking one for the team.

"Dude, I know you think you are being funny, but if you keep this up, even if it's my last act on this earth, I will exorcise you so hard Father Merrin himself will provide me with a fucking St Joseph medallion and ask for tips. Do you understand me!"

Indeed. Although . . .

"What?"

I think you're mixing up your Exorcist clergy. Merrin has the heart attack, Karras goes out the window when possessed, and Dyer ends up with the medallion."

"I know I say this a lot, Big M, but I want you to understand that I truly mean this from the very bottom of my heart. Fuck off. And keep fucking off. And when you think you can fuck off no further, I want you to reach down inside, find some hitherto unexplored mental resources, and then seek to fuck off a bit more."

Uther was glaring at me. "I'm so sorry to be interrupting you, mage. Would you like me to hang on for a minute whilst you finish chatting with your invisible friend? Or does Merlin have any words of wisdom for us that would be useful at this juncture?"

Nope. Not going anywhere near this one. You're on your own.

I put on my most winning smile." He says he thinks you have this all completely in hand and just wanted to tell me that."

"Okay. Then I have just one remaining question, if I may?"

"Of course, my lord."

"Are you FUCKING kidding me!"

Even Bors took a step back at Uther's roar. "We're at war! We've barely scraped the last pieces of Saxon off Tintagel's lawn, and there are still hundreds of the buggers running amok the length and breadth of the country. Merlin's dead, Arthur's turned into some sort of soppy wet blanket, and he's still not managed to impregnate his bitch of a wife. I have only just returned from having to kick the arse of one of my so-called bannermen who was communicating with Bennoc of fucking Powys about changing his allegiance. And I doubt he is the only fucking one, just the one stupid enough to put it down on paper.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I went to bed thinking what a fucking shambles things were, but at least - I reasoned in my naivete - we were probably now rock bottom. But no. Here you three clowns are, and - what do you know - you've turned up with fucking pickaxes and shovels."

"Do clowns traditionally use shovels?" I asked with what I now recognise was foolish, nay suicidal, abandonment.

"Do not try my patience, mage. The only reason you still have a head on your shoulders is that not even you - a woman who, in the space of a few days, burned my son three-quarters of the way to death, healed him, oversaw the massacre of the cream of the British force and then destroyed an entire Saxon army - would think this was a good idea.

No, for this type of genuinely fucked-up thinking, there's only one place I'm going to look."

"Can I just check? You don't mean me, do you?" Bors' voice was rather strained.

Uther ignored him. "Igraine. What the fuck have you done?"

I might have mentioned it, but I have, at times, found Queen Igraine to be somewhat of a cold fish. However, in the face of Uther's white-hot fury, she was magnificent.

"Tantrum quite over, my dear?"

"Tantrum! How dare you -"

"Uther, I accept that it was probably unwise to have enacted this plan without running it by you first. This was an oversight, and we are willing to address that now. However, you are behaving exactly as you did when I told you I was no longer willing to wear that particular costume you were so keen on. And I should not have to remind you how that unfortunate episode was resolved."

There was an awkward silence that quite simply dwarfed all other awkward silences of which I have partaken. And I was once caught blowing my therapist. By his kid. In a Toys R Us.

Then, as if all the air was sucked out of Uther - again, like ... nope, too crude - he sat down heavily on his throne and ran his hands through his hair.

Igraine crossed over and patted him lightly on his head. "Now that you've got that off your chest, and we've all calmed down, why don't we talk about this like grown-ups?"

*

Just to catch you all up.

Late that previous evening, I'd fast-travelled Guinevere to the village of Beocca and Sǣþrȳð. Remember them from the whole Knockers sub-quest?

Well, we'd - Igraine. This is all on Igraine. I'm absolutely not taking any more flak for this bollocks - figured this was far enough away that Arthur would seriously need to get his quest-groove on in order to save her properly, but not so far out of the that too much could go wrong.

Full disclosure, we were all perfectly aware of how much we'd just tempted fate as soon as I'd said it.

While packing her things, I'd tried to engage the Princess in some mild bantery of small talk, but after a couple of false starts, I realised, with a crushing sense of disappointment, that we probably wouldn't ever be gal-pals.

Of course, it might have been the whole 'cultivator' thing that meant she wanted to keep her distance. Or the 'being the wizard who set my husband on fire' could have contributed to the slight chilliness in her behaviour towards me. Or, and let's be honest, this probably played a significant part, she just might not have been too keen on swapping sewing patterns whilst preparing to flee a castle in the middle of the night.

I'm trying not to take it personally, as I'm sure you can tell.

Her and Sǣþrȳð, on the other hand? It was like they were long-lost friends who'd been unexpectedly reunited. Within minutes, they were walking, arm in arm, around the village, Sǣþrȳð pointing out the - admittedly few - sights to be seen and Guinevere cooing appreciatively. Beocca trailed a little way behind them with the look of every man dragged along on a shopping trip. He was in hell, and he knew he wasn't getting out of it any time soon.

Watching the two of them casually bond, I'm big enough to note that I felt a touch jealous. I'd never had that 'knack' some people had of easily getting on with others. It was like I'd been off that day at nursery where the teacher had put everyone in their friendship groups. And when I got there, I had no space to slip into—that kind of felt like a metaphor for my life.

God, I've gone all maudlin.

All caught up, now?

Excellent. Back to Igraine quietly humiliating her husband.

"It might not be the perfect plan, but we hope this will allow Arthur to rediscover the spark he lost due to his wounding. You must admit, it has more chance of success than just constantly berating him."

Uther shook his head, but - fortunately - he was much less angry than before. "Do you really think he will fall for this?"

Bors nodded emphatically. "Without wishing to cast aspersions on the intellect of my best friend, he really has no sort of deductive mind. Give him a bad guy, a quest and a firm pair of tits, and he won't ask many questions." This big man suddenly seemed to remember his audience and went a very amusing shade of blush.

"Not unlike his father in that respect," the Queen added, deadpan.

Did I mention Igraine is fucking awesome?

Uther took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. I don't think this confrontation had worked out quite how any of us had expected. "Okay. Fine. The die is cast, and we're going to need to make the best of it. Even if we wished to, there's no way to undo what's happened. Too many people know the Princess is missing, so we probably only have a few moments before Arthur comes crashing in here. What do you see as the next steps?"

I stepped forward. "As soon as Arthur finds the ransom note, we figure he will want to suit up and get straight on the road after... sorry, what did we call the kidnapper?"

"Maleagant."

There was another awkward pause following Uther nearly choking on his own rage. "Seriously, Igraine?"

I sensed I was missing something. The Queen smiled and shook her head. "Not to worry, it's just the name of an old flame. Uther has never quite managed to get over it."

I sensed the King and Queen had some significant issues that needed working through, but I wasn't going anywhere near that particular nest of vipers. "Anyway, we know some Saxon stragglers are hanging around out towards that village - nothing too problematic - so we figure we'll 'track' Guinevere through them, work off some excess tension and then 'find' where this Maleagant has stashed her, rescue her from, and then Bors and I will make ourselves scarce whilst Arthur and Guinevere make passionate post-kidnap make-up sex. I hear that's a thing. And it's supposed to be glorious."

Uther chose to ignore me colourful commentary. "So, just you, Arthur and Bors?"

"Yep. Judging by the quality of Saxons we've been wiping out of late, we probably won't even need the three of us. Honestly, Your Highness, this is no more interesting than one of those filler episodes you see in US dramas where the budget has run down, and a couple of the main characters wander around in the woods talking about their feelings to fill an hour or so. Genuinely, and I mean this with all sincerity, what's the worst that can possibly happen?"

And, yes, we were instantly aware again of how much I'd just tempted fate.