Chapter Text
Title: Prince of the Woods
Author: 
dacro
Characters: Severus, Albus, Lily and Harry
Setting: AU (with an historical fiction feel)- Loosely set in the time of Merlin with an exception to the mention of Abbeys, which were not around until a little later.
Rating: PG - Implied slavery, character death, and sex
Betas: saladbats and moonlite_tryst Thank you two for all your work and encouragement. I dedicate this to you.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the worlds created by JKR, or Mary Stewart
Summary: A simple tale of Severus – bastard, slave, journeyman, teacher, lover, madman and friend.
Notes: I wrote this after I finished reading Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. The mood, style and setting really touched me, so this AU tale of Severus' life is my tribute to an author who inspired me to challenge myself.
Feedback is always welcome.
The bards and village tale-tellers who make it their business to keep the history of this area alive have many different versions of my life story. Most of the accounts end with the depiction of the discordant doctor, old for thirty-nine, who by day wanders the sacred forest and ancient hills, and by night medicates away his grief as he stares into the fire for visions of his lost love. Just as rumours are often coloured with the truth, so there is a morsel of fact in this tale also.
They call me Prince of the Woods, but it has more to do with my mother's name than any royal blood that might flow in my veins, and it's better than Bastard, although that’s what the adults called me when I was a boy. My mother—even until her last breath—never disclosed my father's name, so I was known by hers. On my first day on this earth, she named me Severus Prince, and died a few days later from loss of blood, or so I was told. Unfortunately, reliable records are often reserved for the wealthy, and for members of the scribe's family.
It is also true that I am a doctor, of sorts, although I have been known as a holy man by some and a wicked enchanter by others. My first ten years I was raised by a man who had lost all of his sons in a fire and was willing to take me in, along with my half-brother, on the promise that we were healthy and strong, and would one day be worth some silver as slaves. He sold us for much more than he thought we were worth, to a journeyman who peddled medicine and treated minor injuries in exchange for copper coins, food or wine. We sensed he was a good man by the way he dealt with the poor, and we put up no fuss when we were told to collect our things, place them in the cart and then tend to his mules.
His name was Albus, from the Latin word for white. A fitting name, since he was pale and beyond grey when we came to be his, although, the singers now call him Albion, the Ancient. I took to him like a son, showing an aptitude for learning anything he could teach me of plants, medicines, beasts, birds, earth, and the names of all the old gods who provided them. My brother, we quickly discovered, only had love for one god, the Christian One, so Albus set him free after teaching him enough of reading and writing to be accepted into the monastery two villages east of where we were born.
He lives there still.
Eight years my master and I wandered the hills, valleys and cliffs, providing service to the common folk, learning to communicate in their languages and dialects, and accepting anything in return for our service that they could spare. Time and the aching joints of an old man eventually dictated that Albus retire from the rough traveller's life. Since he had become somewhat of an honoured elder, we were provided with a gift from the people who lived in the shadow of my brother's Abbey, a small cottage in the hills. It had once been the home of an old hermit who cared for one of the sacred shrines dedicated to the old gods who the people believe still inhabited the forest, but we were told it had lain empty after his death, waiting for a new master who would attend the gods.
It was small for two men, a common area and one small bed chamber, but we quickly made plans to expand. The kitchen was adapted to provide enough room for making our wares and drying the flowers, fruit and herbs we would need. Space for storage was found both above and below ground, and Albus designed a sheltered garden and a round hove for the mules that awed the people of the village who brought supplies for the renovations. Every now and again, a curious visitor, noting only the one narrow bed, would inquire where I slept. When I pulled out the low cot covered with straw that I stored under my master's bed during the day, they would either fall quiet again, or praise my workmanship.
I turned eighteen that winter, and Albus granted me my freedom, although the thought of leaving him never entered my mind. He insisted that he had strength enough to tend to the shrine, collect the offerings, and provide for anyone who climbed our hill for the medicines they needed. I remember, and I can still hear his warm voice, telling me that the gods were jealous, and if I didn't take myself a wife, they would claim me eventually as their own. I laughed, kissed his rough cheek and prepared for the journey we took every year, except now I would be the journeyman, not the apprentice, and I would be going alone.
The years of war had ended by the time I was old enough to crawl, but it left parts of the land badly scarred and uninhabitable, and other regions crowded and in need of leadership and engineers. Within one day's ride in all four directions of my home were four kingdoms, each capped with their own lesser king. This meant a growing need for servants, farmers and tradesmen willing to be of service, and also meant that someone like me, didn't need to wander too far in order to sell my balms, set broken bones, or lay to rest any of the unfortunate souls who did not survive the winter.
During that time, there were several pleasant women who spared a look for the young doctor, but I was content to keep busy with my work and care for my master. As any boy of eighteen, I looked and wondered, but never invited more than a polite kiss. I don't know if any would have considered me handsome, but those thoughts never took up too much of my time. I found it far more satisfying to be considered skilled and educated.
In the spring of my twentieth year, Albus and I fell in love with the same woman.
She was of royal blood, granddaughter of King Edward of the North, but a bastard child of Princess Alexandra and one of the King's men, Maurus. Since she was promised to another man, there could be no marriage. The child was considered an embarrassment to the court, and she was sent to live with her father's cousins in the hamlet that lay on the western edge of my forest. Shortly after her arrival, her father was commissioned into service with the High King. We never heard another word of him, but his daughter was easily recognised for the sunset-fire hair, emerald eyes, and streak of stubbornness they both shared.
Her name was Lilith.
She was thirteen when I hired her and her cousin Cecilia to prepare daily meals for Albus and assist him whenever necessity dictated I leave our cottage. Cecilia only ventured up the hill a few times before she declared the forest 'haunted' and refused to return, but Lily, as I later came to call her, appeared every day without fail, even through weather most men would not venture out into.
When I returned after months of travel, I was greeted by the sounds of a sweet voice accompanied by harp, and the aroma of a waiting supper, fit for a king. Albus sat in his chair by the fire, covered with a warm blanket. He looked weary and his skin was of poor colour, but there were joyful tears in his eyes as she sang a song I had never heard before.
Lady roams the trees and the hollow hills
Once servants she had many
Now they scorn and call her Witch
And tell tales of her treachery
When the woods were rich and green
And she of two and twenty
Followed her a rich young man
And bed him upon the ivy
He woke alone on autumn ground
Her laughter on the wind
Vowed him to Esos, god of willow wild
She would be his again
Behind locked doors with iron chains
He tried to hold her still
But no device of men can hold
The Goddess of the hills
When she had finished, she set the small harp beside her on the floor and placed her cheek on Albus' knee. He stroked her hair as if he were a proud father, and thanked her for her kindness. I was standing at the door, arms full of supplies, frozen in the moment until Albus' cough shook me back to awareness. I can still feel the effects of her smile when her eyes finally lifted to mine, and the way my heart warmed when she bowed her head and whispered, 'My lord, Severus. Welcome home.' She rose from where she had been kneeling, relieved me of my burdens and saw to the mules before I was aware of my master's call to come in and tell him of my journey.
I was surprised to learn that Lily took to the study of medicines and healing as fast as I had, and was never far from Albus' side while I was away. He taught her everything he could during the spring and summer months and she had planted, collected, harvested, dried and assembled everything in the order he dictated. As he sipped his wine, eyes ever full of mischief, he mentioned that I had outgrown my bed, and would need to make myself a new one. My small truckle bed had been set in the main room, against the far wall, but close enough to the fire if the nights became cold.
It was now hers.
The bards have their own, more colourful accounts of what transpired in our hills that winter, but what I tell you is the truth. From that day, two became three, and she became a dying man's joy, and a young man's friend.
Albus had collapsed three weeks before my return. When Lily found him in the morning, struggling to stand, she cared for him and refused to leave after nightfall. I assumed Albus would be more feeble when I returned, but I wasn't fully prepared to see only a shadow of the man I considered a father. As I sat and talked the week away with him, a small voice in my mind whispered that this would be the last Christmas I would spend in his company.
One afternoon, a man and his wife, on their way to leave an offering at the shrine, greeted me from the path. I offered them food by a warm fire, and in return, they carried a letter back to my brother at the monastery. I knew he would want to see Albus and pray over him when it was time. I started building a larger bed, and it was ready by the time my brother rounded his mare up the old trail. People showed our monks more respect than they did the kings, and yet, he was not above helping me drag the old man's bed close to the fire in the larger room, or assisting with the assembly of the new bed we would share until it was time for him to return.
Lily was holding Albus' hand the night he finally slipped away from us and into his rest—Christmas Eve, the High King's birthday. My master's last wish was for Lily to stay on at the cottage as my assistant, continuing her studies in the winter, and caring for the cottage, garden and shrine in the summer when I traveled. She was delighted with the news, but the quiet days that led into the New Year told me that I wasn't the only one deeply affected by Albus' passing.
When the snow was thin enough to uncover the trail, I set out again for the villages, making a brief stop to arrange for Lily's relatives to check on her twice a week. She held her own against beast and storm, but thieves rode through the forests from time to time, although less than in years past. A young girl, living alone was too tempting a lure if any immoral man were to catch wind of the situation.
Much like the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly, three short years turned a girl of fourteen into a woman of seventeen. I gradually discovered that extending the hours of our lessons together, and watching the graceful sway of her body as she worked the bread dough and hung the wet clothes, took priority over traveling down into the valley to peddle and heal in the villages.
She still slept in the main room at night, although now on Albus' bed, not the small truckle bed hidden beneath it, waiting for any weary travellers or guests who happened to pass our way. The door between the two rooms closed only for privacy when changing clothes or bathing. When I sat up in bed, back to the headboard, I could see her sleeping on the other side of the cottage. Most nights I would watch the slow rise and fall of her chest until sleep claimed me as well, or until I managed to turn my eyes away.
I knew then that I loved her, but it became clear to me that I was incapable of speaking of anything other than medicines, meals or mules. I now know that other young men are often struck with this affliction when faced with their own earthly goddess, and I, at the time nearly twenty-four, was similarly stricken. Nothing, not even words, seemed more important than the curve of her lips, the sound of her voice, or the soft flutter of her long copper hair that had grown down past her delicate waist.
The night that things changed between us, she was waging war on her wind-tangled hair with an old brush, as she prepared for bed. When the brush handle gave a pitiful crack and spilt into two useless pieces, I was watching from the shadows and safety of my bed. I still smile when I remember the curses that fell from her lips as the brush met its fate in the fire.
What happened next, I blame on weakness, curiosity, a warm spring night filled with a million stars, and her hair.
Her hand covered her mouth to stop the cursing, shame reflected in her eyes as she turned to see if I had slept through her disrespectful display. She met my gaze through the dim light as I left my bed and sought out my own hair brush. As I advanced, she sat down on the bed silently, poised to either escape or kneel, depending on my reaction. I sat down beside her, my master's old bed groaning under the weight of two, and took up the slow battle of taming her tousled hair with my ancient brush . Her response was a slight turn away, a soft exhale of breath, and a whispered 'Thank you, Severus.' It was the first time she had addressed me informally, despite my best efforts of the past. Something in my stomach moved uncomfortably and caused my hands to shake. The brush paused in mid-stroke. She turned towards me, took my useless hands in hers, and stole my breath when her mouth met mine.
Until that moment, I knew very little of love, and even less of women, but the gods were kind to me (as I suspect they are to many novices) and allowed my body to disregard any rational thoughts that would have stilled my hands again. I followed her willingly as she collected the large quilt from my bed and led me, with soft kisses, out into the garden. With the blanket still settling on the dew-damp ground, I pulled her down with me and felt for the first, and last time, the consuming union of heart and flesh.
Even after many years, and the heart-shattering emptiness that followed in her absence, I would have gladly relived that night, changing nothing, ready to face the grief of the morning a thousand times. Instead, my dreams replay the early light from the window, the sweet kiss she gave me before pulling on her cloak, and her soft promise to bring back fresh mushrooms for our breakfast.
It was the last time I saw her.
At this point in the tale, the singers will tell you that when she vanished--abducted by a white wolf--I went mad from heartache, drank a magical draught from the Goddess to ease my suffering, and wandered the hills naked, until the wildness took hold and I lay myself as an offering on the shrine alter. A heavy dose of exaggeration is always expected in song, but as I mentioned before, the bards often stumble on a measure of truth.
There was an abduction, but of men, not wolves. Her relatives, uneasy with the amount of time she had spent hidden away with me, an intellectual but by no means wealthy man, had set up a marriage match with Becan, a grandson of the lesser king to the east of the Abbey. They planted seeds of her beauty in his feeble mind, struck a deal of compensation, and sent two of her larger cousins to collect her.
I knew nothing of this plan as I searched the woods until the light was poor. By nightfall, my mind had become a dark place. I did not resort to wailing naked in the shadows, but to say that I was a changed man would not be a lie. Once I had discovered the truth of her departure, by way of threats and curses directed at her family, I tried to follow her. News from the kingdom was that Becan had planned to wed and bed her on the day that she arrived, but Lily's escort had lost her along the way.
She was never found.
I will not give detailed account of the countless nights I spent in a haze of wine and other medications, the days I wasted in my bed while the villagers went without a healer, or the bleak years that turned into a tribute to the demons of self pity, bitterness, and regret. What I will confess to is that I became the man of the song, feared by all, and left alone to curse at the luckless travellers who were not fortunate enough to know of my story.
In all, thirteen years passed, remembered only by the notches I carved on Albus' walking stick each Christmas, and by letters that came from my brother every month. It helped, over time, to write back, confessing a small section of my transgressions to the only person who still cared for me. Because of his status within the Church, he was advised to deny that I was of his blood, and yet he never spoke ill of me or condemned me for my ungodly actions with the girl I had not married. In contrast, he wept for me and prayed for her soul.
Four years ago, he even sent me hope, in the form of a new assistant.
Depression proved to be a poor master, and I had buried enough of my loss to see the wisdom in salvaging the years I had left. I am ashamed to admit it, but there were also selfish reasons why I accepted my brother's offer. Ties with the villagers had been severed, and I was in need of a new, friendly face to present them with if trade and trust would ever again be an option.
It took almost nine months to repair the damage of several years of neglect. The cottage was unfit for guests, the garden had long since gone wild, and there was also the matter of my disagreeable demeanour, but when I was ready, I sent for the boy the letter spoke of, an orphan who had been left at the Monastery gates with only a sealed letter to his name. My brother described a sharp lad of nearly fourteen, able to read and write, but ill suited for a life devoted to God.
A week after I sent for him, I climbed over the crest and down to the dark caves that hid behind the brier, in search of the new crop of mushrooms I knew would be ready for harvest.
Someone was already there.
My mind spun with confusion, and my heart hammered with hope. I had seen the cloak before, hood pulled up and covering a slender form. The fine-boned hands moved with grace as each mushroom dropped into the cloth sack that lay open on the ground. I called out her name before I could stop myself.
Her eyes met mine, but they belonged instead to a young boy.
We were frozen in the moment; two strangers sharing one soul that didn't belong to either of us. Even the forest had grown still. My thoughts were a mess of old weeds and new growth, and it took a moment longer than it should have to convince myself that he was flesh, and not some spirit born of my loneliness. I tried to regroup my venom for his trespassing and thievery, but found that it had melted away. He then wiped a dirty hand over newly wet eyes and asked if I had known her, and if I truly was Severus, Prince of the Woods.
The story-tellers still dispute the truth of this part of the tale, and the last few events I have yet to mention, but on my word, and on the memories of the ones who have gone before me, this is the way it happened.
I gave only a nod to his question, and wondered why he seemed to be silently crying. He fell abruptly to his knees, and shoved a trembling hand into his cloak, as if searching for a knife on his belt. I stepped back on instinct. His eyes came up quickly, and his small voice urged me not to be afraid. A grown man has nothing to fear from a wisp of a boy, but since I promised to report the truth, I'll admit that I was shaken enough that even the sudden jump of a fawn would have been too much. His hand came back into sight, but instead of a weapon, he produced a thick bundle of letters, sealed with the Abbot's seal, and lifted it up to me, head bowed in reverence.
Once the seal was broken, several pages of my brother's handwriting greeted me, as well as a faded page, written by some other hand, that fell loose from the collection. It landed in the boy's upturned palms, but he brought it to his chest almost at once, as if it were sacred. 'This is the letter she left addressed to your br—the Abbot, the day she left me in the care of the monks' he told me, embracing the yellowed parchment. I turned back to my brother's letters in my hand and read part of the first page, my heart in my throat.
Severus,
It is my pleasure and honour to at last be writing this letter, and to know it will be presented to you by the boy I have grown to love as much as I loved his mother. I have also included the original letter that was with the child when he first came to us, because it rightly belongs to the both of you, and I have kept it safe long enough.
I am sorry, dear brother, for the deception, but her wishes were for me to educate and care for him until your heart had healed, or until he was nearing fourteen, the same age as she was when you brought her to Albus. I have waited long years to present the boy to you, but this day is not for me, it belongs to my brother and his son.
My eyes snapped from the paper as the truth was finally revealed to me.
The boy gasped at my stunned appearance as the papers shook like autumn leaves in my trembling hands. I must have been white, but a sudden wave of heat enveloped me, and I sank to my knees. I set the letters on the bed of scattered mushrooms and took his face firmly between my hands. I sounded like a stranger, my voice high with emotion, as I looked into familiar green eyes and asked if he knew what was written in the letters. Tears fell as he nodded and covered my hands with his own. Even now, I can hear his whispered 'yes, father' over the shrill cry of a Merlin Falcon, and the sound of the kisses I pressed into his hair.
She had named him Harry, but the monks had insisted on calling him Henry, meaning 'home ruler'. They thought it a more fitting name. My brother and I called him as his mother had intended, and his eyes shone the first time I spoke it.
Considering thirteen years of missed conversations, I was surprised at how quickly we became comfortable with each other. We both expected an awkwardness that never materialised. I spoke freely to him of his mother, and he provided stories of his life at the Abbey and his love for the forest and all things that grew wild. I taught him all I knew, and witnessed the same hunger to learn that Albus must have seen reflected in my own eyes. For one who grew up surrounded by the Church, Harry was willing to open his mind to recognise the gods of the forests as well, and took to caring for the forest shrine with the maturity of someone well beyond his years.
I would have thought that Lily's tale of escape, bravery and sacrifice would have been documented by the ones who exchanged copper for a song, but other than her own letter, and the few poems Harry and I wrote for her, nothing else has been recorded until now. Perhaps one day, my son will tell his own children about his mother's flight from her escort, how she hid herself in both village and cave, neglecting her own health and happiness for that of her son, eventually placing him in the care of his uncle when it became evident that Becan's trackers would not rest until they found her. On the other hand, the wandering minstrels, men of superstition, have always been convinced that Lily was the true Hill Goddess from the song that she once sang so sweetly, and that the young man with hair like my own before the grey, was her parting gift to an aging enchanter who was almost lost to darkness.
Fact or fable, my son, my love's parting gift, grew up strong and brave, but also humble, with a willingness to serve either king or peasant. He is both his mother and I, and yet he is his very own being, and has become, now at seventeen, a man that I am most honoured and proud to know.
There are times, even now, when dark thoughts of Lily's lonely death and how I could have done nothing to protect her settle on my mind. Harry will always notice the shadows in my eyes, bring a warm blanket, kneel at my feet and place his head on my knees. In turn, I stroke his hair, tell him the gods are jealous, and suggest he find himself a wife before they claim him as their own. He will laugh, rise to kiss his father's cheek, and tell me it's too late--he has already been claimed.
Somewhere Albus is laughing quietly and placing words in the heads of the bards. And if we are very fortunate, he may just add a morsel of truth.
~*~
The song Goddess of the Hills that Lily sings, was created by me.
Information about:
Mary Stewart
The legend of Merlin
Religions of Britain
Merlin Falcon- a bird of prey
