A/N: No matter how long I leave this fic alone, coming back to it always feels like coming home.
Happy birthday, MegMarch1880!
. . .
This was what most witnesses remembered about George: They didn't.
George found this useful, both as he performed the duties he got paid for and the ones he didn't.
. . .
George was used to things being flung at his head. Most servants were.
Still, stepping out of the way of Lord Regin's drunken throws did warm the blood rather more than usual. George had been one of the ones to help move Martin's body away, and the dent in his skull had been sizable. Lord Regin was a man of impressive strength.
Pardon. Martin's tragic accident had left an impressive mark. Lord Regin, of course, had not been involved.
George had been the one to clean the blood off the sliver pitcher. Ann didn't need to see that, and George was quite fond of polishing. It gave him lots of time to think.
. . .
When the gargoyles began their attack a few nights later, he helped escort a once again drunken Lord Regin to his rooms.
There was such a lot of stone flying around. Large chunks of it just falling from the sky.
Lord Regin blanched as they passed one man who had fallen to it.
"Looks like that boy," he slurred. "So young . . . Should have been more careful . . . "
"He was very young," George agreed. He made it a point to be agreeable. "Just a moment, my lord."
. . .
Such a tragic accident, what happened to Lord Regin, but then, there was an awful lot of stone falling from the sky.
It left an impressive dent in his skull if George might say so himself.
. . .
George was not officially assigned to the kitchens, but of course everyone did what they could before a feast, and George was very good with knives.
"Is Nell ill?" he asked Mary politely as he diced the pile of onions he'd been handed.
The cook's red face darkened. "Nell's gone," she said shortly before pushing her way to where they were preparing the meat.
"One of the guards told the witchfinder he'd seen her doing something witchy," Ann whispered when she brought him another bin on onions. "You know how jumpy Nell was. She tried to run, and - " Her eyes flicked down.
"Ah." And unfortunate illness had kept him occupied through much of the witchfinder's stay. He regretted that. "Which guard might that be?"
. . .
Camelot, sadly, was not free of crime. On occasion, a guard wandering home from the tavern was robbed at knifepoint, and on occasion this went fatally wrong.
George did enjoy polishing knives, and it was so fortunate Nell's mother received that sudden windfall.
. . .
George was very concerned when Merlin was accused of theft and vanished from the castle.
Merlin had handled Lady Sophia and her father. Merlin had handed a slew of troublesome or false knights. Merlin had handled the witchfinder.
Surely it would not now be George's job to handle all of these cases alone?
And with a troll in the castle as queen, no less. There was a reason George left the odd cases to Merlin.
Then the new queen was dead, and everyone was forbidden to speak of her. The details were unclear, but as important as the details of service always undoubtedly were, those served by them never really needed to know. The less a servant said the better.
George made a point of being the one to plate the prince's breakfast the next morning so he could hand it off to Merlin when the other servant came running in.
George gave him a nod of respect, one master of their craft to another, and then headed off to clean the brass.
No one had yet noticed that one of the more violent tax collectors had gone missing in the recent chaos, but best to clean the blood off all the same.
