The Birds And The Bees
Nov. 29th, 2010 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
casualtheatrics2Title: The Birds And The Bees
Rating: 12A/PG13
Word Count: ~2600 words
Summary: Merlin sees two people in a compromising position and he has a few questions....
Warnings: Painfully!naive Merlin, anachronistic euphemisms...
Notes: Written for this prompt at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
kinkme_merlin.
When Ethel ran past him, tears pouring down her face, Merlin thought little of it. It was not uncommon for the scullery maid to weep - if she broke a pot, or missed lunch, or touched something vaguely warm, tears fell easily from her eyes.
However, when he rounded the corner and saw Gordon, the steward and Ethel’s acknowledged beau, wrapped around Bertha, a chambermaid, he acknowledged that Ethel’s tears this time might be justified, although Merlin would be hard-pressed to say why. He supposed it was unpleasant to find your beau hugging another girl. Although, this hugging looked less like actual hugging, and more like writhing against each other.
Merlin coughed loudly and watched as Gordon jerked his hips against Bertha in the quiet of the alcove and groaned into her ample cleavage.
“Ethel’s looking for you,” Merlin said, his voice bouncing off the stone walls and echoing in the alcove. “Gordon? Ethel’s looking for you.”
Gordon raised his face and glared at Merlin. “I’m...busy....!” he panted, his hips never stilling. Bertha moaned, her head tipping back against the wall, and gasped, “Get lost, Merlin, there’s a good boy.”
Merlin shrugged and wandered off. Later, he heard Frieda, the cook, comforting Ethel, patting her shoulder. “He wasn’t worth it, love. Men like that never are.”
Men like what? Men who liked burying their face in Bertha’s chest? Merlin could understand the appeal of Bertha’s chest - it looked like it would be soft and squishy to rest his head against, he’d bet money that she gave amazing hugs - but why did that make Gordon not worth it? Merlin resolved to ask Gaius later, but then the Evil Sorcerer of the Week turned up and it slipped his mind whilst he was magically saving Arthur’s royal ass.
*
The arrival of Lady Alexandrina a few weeks later jogged Merlin’s memory when he caught her in her bathing room with her footman, a weaselly man who went by the name of Grintoff. Grintoff was pushing his hips against the soft round globes of the Lady Alexandrina’s bottom, and grunting like he was digging a hole in the ground. Her head was tipped back against Grintoff’s shoulder, her black hair spilling over their arms. They were both stark-naked, and Merlin could vaguely see something moving between them between thrusts.
Since Merlin knew that the Lady Alexandrina was here for the same reason every other noble young woman traipsed through the palace walls - to marry Arthur - he resolved to ask Gaius about it. He slipped from the servant’s entrance and went home for his lunch, but lunch that day was sausages - Merlin’s favourite - and he clean forgot about the Lady Alexandrina’s peculiar proclivities.
*
“Arthur!”
“Alexandrina!”
“What the...?”
Arthur was in bed, sheets pulled up to his chest, whilst the Lady Alexandrina knelt, naked, above him. Uther and Fergusal, Alexandrina’s brother, were in the doorway, staring at the scene before them.
“I’m with child!” Alexandrina burst out, before succumbing to tears. “And it’s Arthur’s! We’ve been meeting like this for some time now.”
Arthur’s indignant, “No we haven’t!” was lost to the room as Uther’s brow furrowed, whilst Fergusal’s face darkened with fury. “You will marry my sister and do the right thing by her, as you have sullied her honour!” he bellowed.
Arthur sat up in bed. “Now, hang on a minute...!”
Merlin, rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged from the anteroom and stared at the scene before him. “What’s going on?”
“My son,” Uther spat, “has been acting in a manner unfit for a prince!”
Merlin, sleepy and disorientated, shrugged. “I doubt it. It’s the Lady Alexandrina that likes to have her bottom rubbed.”
Alexandrina’s face paled. “WHAT?” she hissed. “How do you know about...I mean, what baseless accusations are these?”
Merlin yawned and straightened his sleep shirt over his shoulder. “I saw you in your bathing room, with Grintoff. You were both naked, and he was rubbing his,” Merlin gestured to his own groin, “against your bottom. Is that why you’re here? So Arthur can rub your bottom too? Is it really that nice?”
Fergusal made a strange swallowing sound and stalked to the bed to wrap a strong hand around Alexandrina’s upper arm. He hauled her from the bed, and whisked her robe around her. “You and Grintoff? Am I hearing this correctly?” he snarled.
Alexandrina went from pale and shaking to angrily defiant. “You were the one who told me to trap Arthur into marriage by any means necessary! Grintoff did what was necessary to help me!”
Fergusal’s fury faded from his face as the tip of Uther’s sword pressed against the side of his throat.
“You dare,” Uther growled, “to tamper with the might of Camelot? To manipulate us? GUARDS!”
Merlin watched through bleary eyes as the guards arrested the siblings. When the commotion died down, he turned to go back into his room.
“Thank you,” Arthur called Merlin back. “You’ve saved me from a fate worse than death.”
Merlin shrugged. “I don’t know about that, sire. Some men seem to enjoy rubbing against a woman’s bottom.”
Arthur frowned. “That’s not exactly what was happening, when...” he broke off and coloured. “The thing is, Merlin.... Do you know how babies are made?”
Merlin nodded and said cheerfully, “The stork brings the babies from the clouds down to earth in slings and puts them under gooseberry bushes for ladies to find. That’s how my mother got me.”
Arthur buried his face in his pillows. “Ask Gaius about making babies tomorrow, now go back to bed.”
Merlin did so.
*
“Gaius?”
“Merlin.”
“Arthur said I had to ask you how babies were made - but my mother told me she got me from under a gooseberry bush.”
“Ah.” Gaius pulled his glasses off his nose and looked at Merlin. “How old were you when she told you this?”
“Five.”
“And you never asked again?”
“It made sense, especially when she told me she’d dug up the gooseberry bush so the storks couldn’t leave any more babies for her. And we didn’t get any more babies, so it must have worked.”
Gaius sighed. “How...never mind. The stork thing isn’t true. What happens is, well, babies are made when a man and a woman lie down together.”
Merlin looked horrified. “But I’ve laid down with Gwen! Did we make a baby?!”
“No, Merlin. When they lie down together.”
“Yes, I lay down with Gwen, in the field! We were picking white flowers for Morgana!”
“No, not just lying next to each other, but...have you ever seen two animals together?”
Merlin frowned. “You need animals to lie down together?”
Gaius rested his forehead on his desk. “No. Forget it. I’ll find you a book. Go and see if Arthur needs anything.”
Merlin shrugged, and wandered out into the corridor.
*
As he meandered up to Arthur’s chambers, he passed Gwen in the corridor. “Gwen!” he called, bounding up to her. “I just wanted to check that the stork hasn’t delivered a baby to you?”
Scandalised, Gwen shook her head frantically and said, “No! Of course not!” She smiled apologetically at the other maids, and shrugged. They waved it off - it was long established in the castle that Merlin was a little bit mentally afflicted.
Merlin beamed. “OK, good. It’s just that Gaius said babies are made when a man and woman lie down together, and the other week, we lay down in the field when we went to pick flowers for Morgana. I wanted to check that the stork hadn’t bought a baby to you.”
Gwen took Merlin’s arm and led him to the nearest window alcove. She pushed him down onto the window sill and said, “What are you talking about, Merlin?”
“Mother told me that the stork brings babies, but Gaius says they’re made when a man and woman lie down together. Since we lay down together, I thought the stork might have bought you a baby.”
Gwen pressed a hand to her mouth to keep the laughter in. “Oh, Merlin,” came her muffled response. “No, no. No babies from the stork. Because what Gaius meant was that the man and woman have to be...” she blushed. “Well, undressed when they lie down together. In a bed.”
Understanding dawned on Merlin’s face. “Oh! I see! So no babies for you, because we were dressed and outside!”
“Exactly,” Gwen smiled. She patted Merlin’s arm and stood up.
“So what happens when a man and woman are undressed and lie down together in a bed?” Merlin asked in a loud voice.
Gwen coloured in mortification. “Merlin! Ask Arthur or something!” She gathered up her baskets and hurried down the corridor away from Merlin, who was frowning and trying to work it all out.
If, he thought, the man and woman lie down naked together in a bed, what happens when the stork brings the baby? Do they get out of bed and get dressed before they go and collect it? And if not, do they have to collect the baby naked? Because that would be terrible.
Another equally terrible thought struck Merlin. He had yet to see a gooseberry bush in Camelot’s lower town, and yet he was sure that Julia, the innkeeper’s wife, had received a baby the other week. Were the citizens of Camelot stealing the babies from under someone else’s gooseberry bushes?
He stood up, determined to find Arthur and ask these Very Important Questions.
*
Arthur looked at Merlin as though Merlin had grown a second head. “I thought I told you to ask Gaius about this?”
“I did, and he said he’d get me a book, but I need to know: are the citizens of Camelot stealing babies from other people’s gooseberry bushes? Because I think that’s rotten and mean and unkind and they should stop immediately. And get their own gooseberry bushes.” Merlin’s brow furrowed in indignation.
Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “My people are not stealing babies, Merlin. I really think you should go and get that book from Gaius, and find out how babies are really made.”
“Oh, Gwen told me.”
“Gwen told you?!”
“Yeah, she said that a man and woman lie down together, naked and in bed,” Merlin explained, “and then the stork brings the baby.”
Arthur stared at Merlin before blurting out, “There are no storks involved.”
Merlin’s face crumpled. “What do you mean?”
“Storks don’t bring the babies. Babies grow inside the woman....please go and find Gaius.”
Merlin shook his head. “Arthur, you can’t tell me there are no magical baby-bringing storks and then tell me to go find Gaius!”
“When the man and woman lie down together...” Arthur paused and wondered if he could jump out of his bedroom window and survive the fall. It would be preferable to pursuing this conversation with Merlin.
“Naked and in bed,” Merlin helpfully supplied.
“Exactly,” Arthur said helplessly, “the man puts a seed inside the woman and it grows into a baby.”
“Like an apple seed?”
“No, Merlin. Like...don’t you...haven’t you...?” Arthur made a crude gesture with his hand curled into a loose fist.
Merlin frowned. “What’s that?”
Arthur gawped at Merlin. “This?!” He made the gesture again, this time in front of his crotch.
Merlin blushed cherry-red. “Once. My mother...” he broke off, and his blush deepened. “She caught me,” he whispered. “And told me it was sinful.”
Arthur’s mouth dropped open. “So you’ve never...?”
Merlin shook his head and stumbled up from his chair. “You’re right. I think I’ll go find Gaius,” he mumbled, bouncing off the walls in his haste to leave. “I’ll be back with your supper.”
Arthur watched his hapless manservant leave, and rubbed the bridge of his nose again. He’d been fond of Hunith, but, like her food, her parenting skills were utterly rubbish.
*
Merlin staggered back into Gaius’ chambers, his face still aflame from the thought of Arthur taking himself in hand and...
He squeaked with alarm when he realised Uther was waiting in Gaius’ chambers. “My Lord,” he squeaked, dropping into a low bow.
“I wanted to thank you,” Uther said, striding forward, “for alerting us to the Lady Alexandrina’s nefarious designs on Arthur.”
Merlin shrugged. “I just said what I saw, sire.”
“Yes, you described it in a most interesting, yet accurate way.”
Merlin’s shoulders slumped in misery. “If you say so, sire.”
Uther placed a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Merlin looked up into his King’s face and sighed. “My mother told me that storks bought babies and put them under the gooseberry bush, but apparently, this isn’t the case. Everyone’s told me different things, and now I’m so confused.”
Uther chuckled. “What’s confusing you?”
“Gwen said that when a man and a woman were naked together and in bed, the stork would bring the baby, but Arthur said that there are no stalks and that the man puts a seed in the woman, but not like an apple seed! And Gaius asked me about animals!”
Uther frowned and opened one of the books on Gaius’ workbench. “It’s very simple. See this diagram?”
Merlin looked down at the detailed drawing of a penis and testicles and nodded. Uther pointed out the various parts, explaining that when blood flowed into the penis, it made it hard and stiff, and stand up, out from a man’s body.
Using the other picture, less detailed but equally graphic, Uther explained about the seed that lived in the testes and the way it “planted” a baby in the woman’s uterus. Merlin listened to Uther’s explanation with wide, open eyes and the odd question to have something clarified. Uther explained what was generally meant by “the stork brings the baby” and that when Gaius referred to animals, it was because they mated regularly, and Merlin would probably have seen this whilst living in his village.
When Uther’s explanation was finished, he patted Merlin’s shoulder again and said, “Any questions?”
Merlin nodded. “Is it...sinful?”
“Is what sinful?”
Merlin made the gesture that Arthur had made earlier. Uther winced and remarked drily, “I can only assume my son taught you that gesture?” At Merlin’s nodded agreement, Uther continued, “It is not sinful, provided you don’t do it all the time. And remember that it’s better with someone else. Any other questions?”
When Merlin shook his head, Uther took his leave, reminding Merlin that if he ever spoke to anyone of this - Uther Pendragon, King of Camelot, teaching the Prince’s manservant about the birds and the bees - Uther would send Merlin to the darkest, most distant dungeons and forget about him, after a good flogging, of course.
Merlin was too nervous of his new-found knowledge to even think of telling anyone where he had acquired it. He took the book to his room, and sat cross-legged on his bed, re-reading the scrawling handwriting. The section on two men ‘lying down together’ - and Merlin now understood that this was a ‘euphemism’ - interested him most.
He drifted off to sleep that night, with grand plans to share his new-found knowledge with his Prince. Arthur would be impressed!
-end-
Rating: 12A/PG13
Word Count: ~2600 words
Summary: Merlin sees two people in a compromising position and he has a few questions....
Warnings: Painfully!naive Merlin, anachronistic euphemisms...
Notes: Written for this prompt at
kinkme_merlin.When Ethel ran past him, tears pouring down her face, Merlin thought little of it. It was not uncommon for the scullery maid to weep - if she broke a pot, or missed lunch, or touched something vaguely warm, tears fell easily from her eyes.
However, when he rounded the corner and saw Gordon, the steward and Ethel’s acknowledged beau, wrapped around Bertha, a chambermaid, he acknowledged that Ethel’s tears this time might be justified, although Merlin would be hard-pressed to say why. He supposed it was unpleasant to find your beau hugging another girl. Although, this hugging looked less like actual hugging, and more like writhing against each other.
Merlin coughed loudly and watched as Gordon jerked his hips against Bertha in the quiet of the alcove and groaned into her ample cleavage.
“Ethel’s looking for you,” Merlin said, his voice bouncing off the stone walls and echoing in the alcove. “Gordon? Ethel’s looking for you.”
Gordon raised his face and glared at Merlin. “I’m...busy....!” he panted, his hips never stilling. Bertha moaned, her head tipping back against the wall, and gasped, “Get lost, Merlin, there’s a good boy.”
Merlin shrugged and wandered off. Later, he heard Frieda, the cook, comforting Ethel, patting her shoulder. “He wasn’t worth it, love. Men like that never are.”
Men like what? Men who liked burying their face in Bertha’s chest? Merlin could understand the appeal of Bertha’s chest - it looked like it would be soft and squishy to rest his head against, he’d bet money that she gave amazing hugs - but why did that make Gordon not worth it? Merlin resolved to ask Gaius later, but then the Evil Sorcerer of the Week turned up and it slipped his mind whilst he was magically saving Arthur’s royal ass.
*
The arrival of Lady Alexandrina a few weeks later jogged Merlin’s memory when he caught her in her bathing room with her footman, a weaselly man who went by the name of Grintoff. Grintoff was pushing his hips against the soft round globes of the Lady Alexandrina’s bottom, and grunting like he was digging a hole in the ground. Her head was tipped back against Grintoff’s shoulder, her black hair spilling over their arms. They were both stark-naked, and Merlin could vaguely see something moving between them between thrusts.
Since Merlin knew that the Lady Alexandrina was here for the same reason every other noble young woman traipsed through the palace walls - to marry Arthur - he resolved to ask Gaius about it. He slipped from the servant’s entrance and went home for his lunch, but lunch that day was sausages - Merlin’s favourite - and he clean forgot about the Lady Alexandrina’s peculiar proclivities.
*
“Arthur!”
“Alexandrina!”
“What the...?”
Arthur was in bed, sheets pulled up to his chest, whilst the Lady Alexandrina knelt, naked, above him. Uther and Fergusal, Alexandrina’s brother, were in the doorway, staring at the scene before them.
“I’m with child!” Alexandrina burst out, before succumbing to tears. “And it’s Arthur’s! We’ve been meeting like this for some time now.”
Arthur’s indignant, “No we haven’t!” was lost to the room as Uther’s brow furrowed, whilst Fergusal’s face darkened with fury. “You will marry my sister and do the right thing by her, as you have sullied her honour!” he bellowed.
Arthur sat up in bed. “Now, hang on a minute...!”
Merlin, rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged from the anteroom and stared at the scene before him. “What’s going on?”
“My son,” Uther spat, “has been acting in a manner unfit for a prince!”
Merlin, sleepy and disorientated, shrugged. “I doubt it. It’s the Lady Alexandrina that likes to have her bottom rubbed.”
Alexandrina’s face paled. “WHAT?” she hissed. “How do you know about...I mean, what baseless accusations are these?”
Merlin yawned and straightened his sleep shirt over his shoulder. “I saw you in your bathing room, with Grintoff. You were both naked, and he was rubbing his,” Merlin gestured to his own groin, “against your bottom. Is that why you’re here? So Arthur can rub your bottom too? Is it really that nice?”
Fergusal made a strange swallowing sound and stalked to the bed to wrap a strong hand around Alexandrina’s upper arm. He hauled her from the bed, and whisked her robe around her. “You and Grintoff? Am I hearing this correctly?” he snarled.
Alexandrina went from pale and shaking to angrily defiant. “You were the one who told me to trap Arthur into marriage by any means necessary! Grintoff did what was necessary to help me!”
Fergusal’s fury faded from his face as the tip of Uther’s sword pressed against the side of his throat.
“You dare,” Uther growled, “to tamper with the might of Camelot? To manipulate us? GUARDS!”
Merlin watched through bleary eyes as the guards arrested the siblings. When the commotion died down, he turned to go back into his room.
“Thank you,” Arthur called Merlin back. “You’ve saved me from a fate worse than death.”
Merlin shrugged. “I don’t know about that, sire. Some men seem to enjoy rubbing against a woman’s bottom.”
Arthur frowned. “That’s not exactly what was happening, when...” he broke off and coloured. “The thing is, Merlin.... Do you know how babies are made?”
Merlin nodded and said cheerfully, “The stork brings the babies from the clouds down to earth in slings and puts them under gooseberry bushes for ladies to find. That’s how my mother got me.”
Arthur buried his face in his pillows. “Ask Gaius about making babies tomorrow, now go back to bed.”
Merlin did so.
*
“Gaius?”
“Merlin.”
“Arthur said I had to ask you how babies were made - but my mother told me she got me from under a gooseberry bush.”
“Ah.” Gaius pulled his glasses off his nose and looked at Merlin. “How old were you when she told you this?”
“Five.”
“And you never asked again?”
“It made sense, especially when she told me she’d dug up the gooseberry bush so the storks couldn’t leave any more babies for her. And we didn’t get any more babies, so it must have worked.”
Gaius sighed. “How...never mind. The stork thing isn’t true. What happens is, well, babies are made when a man and a woman lie down together.”
Merlin looked horrified. “But I’ve laid down with Gwen! Did we make a baby?!”
“No, Merlin. When they lie down together.”
“Yes, I lay down with Gwen, in the field! We were picking white flowers for Morgana!”
“No, not just lying next to each other, but...have you ever seen two animals together?”
Merlin frowned. “You need animals to lie down together?”
Gaius rested his forehead on his desk. “No. Forget it. I’ll find you a book. Go and see if Arthur needs anything.”
Merlin shrugged, and wandered out into the corridor.
*
As he meandered up to Arthur’s chambers, he passed Gwen in the corridor. “Gwen!” he called, bounding up to her. “I just wanted to check that the stork hasn’t delivered a baby to you?”
Scandalised, Gwen shook her head frantically and said, “No! Of course not!” She smiled apologetically at the other maids, and shrugged. They waved it off - it was long established in the castle that Merlin was a little bit mentally afflicted.
Merlin beamed. “OK, good. It’s just that Gaius said babies are made when a man and woman lie down together, and the other week, we lay down in the field when we went to pick flowers for Morgana. I wanted to check that the stork hadn’t bought a baby to you.”
Gwen took Merlin’s arm and led him to the nearest window alcove. She pushed him down onto the window sill and said, “What are you talking about, Merlin?”
“Mother told me that the stork brings babies, but Gaius says they’re made when a man and woman lie down together. Since we lay down together, I thought the stork might have bought you a baby.”
Gwen pressed a hand to her mouth to keep the laughter in. “Oh, Merlin,” came her muffled response. “No, no. No babies from the stork. Because what Gaius meant was that the man and woman have to be...” she blushed. “Well, undressed when they lie down together. In a bed.”
Understanding dawned on Merlin’s face. “Oh! I see! So no babies for you, because we were dressed and outside!”
“Exactly,” Gwen smiled. She patted Merlin’s arm and stood up.
“So what happens when a man and woman are undressed and lie down together in a bed?” Merlin asked in a loud voice.
Gwen coloured in mortification. “Merlin! Ask Arthur or something!” She gathered up her baskets and hurried down the corridor away from Merlin, who was frowning and trying to work it all out.
If, he thought, the man and woman lie down naked together in a bed, what happens when the stork brings the baby? Do they get out of bed and get dressed before they go and collect it? And if not, do they have to collect the baby naked? Because that would be terrible.
Another equally terrible thought struck Merlin. He had yet to see a gooseberry bush in Camelot’s lower town, and yet he was sure that Julia, the innkeeper’s wife, had received a baby the other week. Were the citizens of Camelot stealing the babies from under someone else’s gooseberry bushes?
He stood up, determined to find Arthur and ask these Very Important Questions.
*
Arthur looked at Merlin as though Merlin had grown a second head. “I thought I told you to ask Gaius about this?”
“I did, and he said he’d get me a book, but I need to know: are the citizens of Camelot stealing babies from other people’s gooseberry bushes? Because I think that’s rotten and mean and unkind and they should stop immediately. And get their own gooseberry bushes.” Merlin’s brow furrowed in indignation.
Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “My people are not stealing babies, Merlin. I really think you should go and get that book from Gaius, and find out how babies are really made.”
“Oh, Gwen told me.”
“Gwen told you?!”
“Yeah, she said that a man and woman lie down together, naked and in bed,” Merlin explained, “and then the stork brings the baby.”
Arthur stared at Merlin before blurting out, “There are no storks involved.”
Merlin’s face crumpled. “What do you mean?”
“Storks don’t bring the babies. Babies grow inside the woman....please go and find Gaius.”
Merlin shook his head. “Arthur, you can’t tell me there are no magical baby-bringing storks and then tell me to go find Gaius!”
“When the man and woman lie down together...” Arthur paused and wondered if he could jump out of his bedroom window and survive the fall. It would be preferable to pursuing this conversation with Merlin.
“Naked and in bed,” Merlin helpfully supplied.
“Exactly,” Arthur said helplessly, “the man puts a seed inside the woman and it grows into a baby.”
“Like an apple seed?”
“No, Merlin. Like...don’t you...haven’t you...?” Arthur made a crude gesture with his hand curled into a loose fist.
Merlin frowned. “What’s that?”
Arthur gawped at Merlin. “This?!” He made the gesture again, this time in front of his crotch.
Merlin blushed cherry-red. “Once. My mother...” he broke off, and his blush deepened. “She caught me,” he whispered. “And told me it was sinful.”
Arthur’s mouth dropped open. “So you’ve never...?”
Merlin shook his head and stumbled up from his chair. “You’re right. I think I’ll go find Gaius,” he mumbled, bouncing off the walls in his haste to leave. “I’ll be back with your supper.”
Arthur watched his hapless manservant leave, and rubbed the bridge of his nose again. He’d been fond of Hunith, but, like her food, her parenting skills were utterly rubbish.
*
Merlin staggered back into Gaius’ chambers, his face still aflame from the thought of Arthur taking himself in hand and...
He squeaked with alarm when he realised Uther was waiting in Gaius’ chambers. “My Lord,” he squeaked, dropping into a low bow.
“I wanted to thank you,” Uther said, striding forward, “for alerting us to the Lady Alexandrina’s nefarious designs on Arthur.”
Merlin shrugged. “I just said what I saw, sire.”
“Yes, you described it in a most interesting, yet accurate way.”
Merlin’s shoulders slumped in misery. “If you say so, sire.”
Uther placed a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Merlin looked up into his King’s face and sighed. “My mother told me that storks bought babies and put them under the gooseberry bush, but apparently, this isn’t the case. Everyone’s told me different things, and now I’m so confused.”
Uther chuckled. “What’s confusing you?”
“Gwen said that when a man and a woman were naked together and in bed, the stork would bring the baby, but Arthur said that there are no stalks and that the man puts a seed in the woman, but not like an apple seed! And Gaius asked me about animals!”
Uther frowned and opened one of the books on Gaius’ workbench. “It’s very simple. See this diagram?”
Merlin looked down at the detailed drawing of a penis and testicles and nodded. Uther pointed out the various parts, explaining that when blood flowed into the penis, it made it hard and stiff, and stand up, out from a man’s body.
Using the other picture, less detailed but equally graphic, Uther explained about the seed that lived in the testes and the way it “planted” a baby in the woman’s uterus. Merlin listened to Uther’s explanation with wide, open eyes and the odd question to have something clarified. Uther explained what was generally meant by “the stork brings the baby” and that when Gaius referred to animals, it was because they mated regularly, and Merlin would probably have seen this whilst living in his village.
When Uther’s explanation was finished, he patted Merlin’s shoulder again and said, “Any questions?”
Merlin nodded. “Is it...sinful?”
“Is what sinful?”
Merlin made the gesture that Arthur had made earlier. Uther winced and remarked drily, “I can only assume my son taught you that gesture?” At Merlin’s nodded agreement, Uther continued, “It is not sinful, provided you don’t do it all the time. And remember that it’s better with someone else. Any other questions?”
When Merlin shook his head, Uther took his leave, reminding Merlin that if he ever spoke to anyone of this - Uther Pendragon, King of Camelot, teaching the Prince’s manservant about the birds and the bees - Uther would send Merlin to the darkest, most distant dungeons and forget about him, after a good flogging, of course.
Merlin was too nervous of his new-found knowledge to even think of telling anyone where he had acquired it. He took the book to his room, and sat cross-legged on his bed, re-reading the scrawling handwriting. The section on two men ‘lying down together’ - and Merlin now understood that this was a ‘euphemism’ - interested him most.
He drifted off to sleep that night, with grand plans to share his new-found knowledge with his Prince. Arthur would be impressed!
-end-
