Title: The Wounded King (2/4)
Author: Emma
Characters: Canonical Torchwood Three members… sort of.
Rating: Some chapters definitely not safe for work.
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Summary: A young soldier is all that stands between the kingdom and disaster...
Author's Note: Canon calls this one To the Last Man
Author's Note: A sharp-eyed reader noticed that the Series had changed name to The King's Magicians. This is in keeping with the changes in nomenclature that happens when a British sovereign dies. If the new sovereign is a King, it becomes His Majesty's Government, and God Bless the King. It follows that the Crown's own vassals would also change their “unofficial” name.

Part One is here

“His name is Tommy Brockless,” Andy told them. “One of the original First World War tommies. Enlisted the moment hostilities broke out. Only nineteen, poor sod.”

They were racing up Abbey Road towards Valle Crucis, Jack, Ianto, the Prince and his bodyguard on the first SUV and the rest of them crammed into the second. Rhys, Rhiannon and the children were back at the castle, taken in hand by a couple of the prince's equerries.

“What happened to him?” Owen asked.

“I don't exactly know,” Andy admitted. “Somehow he ended up working for Jack in Special Ops, and something went wrong.”

“His unit stumbled onto a coven of Germanenorden sorcerers,” Toshiko said quietly. “In Belgium. October twenty-six, nineteen seventeen. The push had started to retake Passchendaele one more time. Tommy's unit was instructed to fall back towards Sint Jan and Ypres. The men were exhausted, and it had started to rain.” She was holding her hands against her stomach, rubbing them together restlessly. “They passed a small ruined church, but some of the roof was still up, and they wanted more than anything to be dry, so they went in.”

Owen reached over and took her hands in his. “And found the sorcerers hiding?”

“They weren't hiding, exactly. By that time, some of the Imperial High Command believed that the only way to defeat the United Kingdoms was to strike magically at our heart.”

“The Royal family,” Gwen said.

“Right. They had gotten their hands on some genetic material from the King's brother, Prince Edward.” At Owen's raised eyebrow she giggled. “The former Prince of Wales who had been killed earlier that year, you ignoramus. The body was in such bad condition that he had been cremated. They were going to raise a demon of decay and force him to curse the family using the Prince's remains.”

He nodded. “And they had to get as close to the Kingdoms as they could for the law of contagion to work.”

“When Tommy's unit went into the church, the coven had managed to raise the demon, but it wasn't fully under control yet. The soldiers' arrival broke the concentration of the coven's high priest and the demon got loose, killed or wounded the sorcerers, and went after the soldiers. Tommy tried to distract the demon while the others got away. It caught him by the thigh, dug his claws in, and pulled him to the altar. Tommy remembers being dragged through ashes and bones, having some of the stuff forced into his mouth... As the demon was getting ready to curse Tommy, the high priest, dying on the floor, saw the opportunity and triggered the contagion spell. But Tommy was in the way. The way the experts figured it out later, the spell went through him, hit the Prince's remains, and bounced back into Tommy.”

“When the demon shoved some of the remains into Tommy's mouth, he created a closed circuit.” Gwen frowned. “It would have made the contagion spell... Tosh, did they ever figure out what kind it was?”

“Yes. It was a blood, bone, and sinew spell.”

Gwen blanched. “In a close circuit, that kind of spell would have transferred properties from one to the other of the objects until it found a target. And the clearest target is a living being.Tommy was Invested, didn't he? Prince Edward had been Heir Apparent before his abdication, that would have been enough. But with that much Magick, both Dark and Light, bouncing about...” She sat up as if someone had poked her. “Tosh, you said Tommy was wounded. Did he ever heal?”

Tosh shook her head. “No. He doesn't heal. When he is awake, he is in pain all the time.”

“Great Mother. He became a Wounded King.”

“A what?” Owen said.

“Later,” Ianto said from the driver's seat. “We're here.”

The pulled into a small gravelled parking area to one side of the great quadrangle created by the Abbey's precinct. They piled out and joined Jack and the others near a gate that opened into a narrow passage between two buildings. Two monks stood on the other side, waiting with their hand tucked inside their sleeves, looking to Gwen's eyes like a medieval illustration.

She studied them curiously. Although she was now perfectly comfortable with having Christians around, and had become quite close to Kathy Swanson, cloistered monks were a whole other experience. They were both tall and seemed lean under the plain woven robes. One was definitely older, white-haired, with a face that seemed to have been carved with a hatchet and the eyes of someone who has spent too much time inside his own thoughts. The younger one was open-faced and comfortable in his own skin. He reminded Gwen of Mother Katherine's secretary, sister Angharad, with her simple faith and welcoming smile. I suppose there are all kinds, even inside a place like this.

The monks bowed to the Prince. The older one opened the gate and stood back while the other started briskly down the passage. The Prince's bodyguard, at a sign from Jack, returned to the SUVs, while the rest of them followed the younger monk into the monastery enclosure.

The passage ended in a beautiful cloister planted with an old-fashioned herb knot garden. They filed down a narrow walk, through another passage and into what was clearly the abbey's infirmary. Two lines of beds marched down each wall, each with a small side table, a chair for visitors, and a privacy curtain. All the beds were empty but one. In that one, half-way down the middle on the left-hand side, facing a window that would allow the patient a view of the pond and woods beyond, lay a young man, only a little past adolescence, with tousled dark hair and a plain, honest face that lit up into handsomeness as he caught sight of the group coming in.

“Hey, boss!”

“Hello, Tommy,” Jack leaned down and hugged the boy. “I won't ask how you're feeling.”

“That's nice of you,” Tommy grinned at him cheekily, but his eyes were already sliding past Jack. “Tosh!”

“Hi, Tommy.” She hurried to his side. “It's been a while.”

“How long?” He lowered his voice. “The brothers here are not the communicative sort, if you know what I mean.”

She giggled. “It's been eight years.”

“Short nap, then.” He struggled up, swinging his legs awkwardly to sit on the side of the bed, smiling up at Tosh. “No, don't worry. Worst is over. Jack, why am I awake?”

“The Queen is dead, Tommy.” Jack put a hand under Tommy's arm and boosted him gently. “Let me introduce you to the new Prince of Wales.”

Prince Gwyllym bowed. “Sire.”

Tommy blushed fiery red from his hairline to his neck. “Please don't. I am sorry for your loss. I know it's supposed to be the nation's loss, and it is, but for you and Jack... Your father is in London?”

“And my brother in Boston. The Princess Royal is in Edinburgh, since I have no sister.”

“Then all I have to do is sit around until after the coronation.” He winced as he took his first step, then turned again to Tosh. “Can you stay for a while?”

“I would be honored,” Prince Gwyllym said, “if you would come stay with us at Dinas Bran. The coronation is scheduled for Friday fortnight. No need to stay cooped up here.”

Gwen caught the glance that passed between Jack and Ianto, and she remembered the rumours about the prince's precognitive abilities. Something was making the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and she wondered whether he was picking up something that her own unpredictable ability couldn't quite focus on.

“Come on, Tommy,” Jack said. “I know you want to catch up with Tosh. And I can promise you the best fish and chips this side of Greenwich.”

Tommy laughed. “All right. If it won't be any trouble.”

He reached for Jack's arm to steady himself and his fingers landed on the bracelet around Jack's wrist. He examined it briefly, then his eyes went directly to Ianto. “So it was a true dream.” He gave a mischievous chuckle. “Even the party.”

Prince Gwyllym inserted himself smoothly between Tommy and Jack, offering Tommy his arm. “You dreamed of Jack and Ianto's engagement party? I was away on a state visit to Granada and missed it, and all my usual sources are very tight-lipped about it. Let's make a quick visit to the Abbot to inform him of your decision and then you can tell me all about it.”

They walked out of the infirmary arm in arm, two young men of a similar age bent on mischief. As everyone followed, Gwen put a hand on Andy's arm and shook her head. When the others had walked out, Andy raised his eyebrows at her in silent question.

“There's something...odd.”  She waved her hands about in frustration. “I can't tell whether it is my own inner biases against Christianity or whether something is really going on. I was hoping you could...” She sniffed at the air.

Andy grinned at her. “Play hound?” He closed his eyes and made a slow circle. Suddenly his eyes shot open. “This way!”

He ran out of the infirmary. Gwen followed closely behind him, scanning for trouble; when Andy was like this, he tended to lose sight of everything but what he was hunting. He ran down the walk that framed the cloister and into a long hall subdivided into small cubicles. It was obviously the monk's dormitory, and Gwen felt very uncomfortable being there, but Andy seemed to know where he was going. He wan into one of the cubicles and sniffed at the air around the bed and the robe hanging from a hook in one of the privacy panels.

“What are you doing here?”

The young monk that had led them to the infirmary was standing at the entrance to the cubicle, looking rather bewildered.

“Who sleeps here?” Andy demanded.

“Brother Eadgard,” the monk stuttered.

The name opened a window in Gwen's mind. “The one who was with you when we got here?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?” Andy asked.

“He went to the pond. This is our personal study time; he likes to read sitting under one of the oaks there.”

This time it was Gwen who ran. “Come on, Andy!”

When they reached the gate, they found the Prince's bodyguard seated on a small stone bench near the SUVs. “Did you see a monk go by?” Gwen asked.

“Yes, towards the pond, a few minutes ago.” He reared back as Andy sniffed the air around him. “What's going on?”

“Residual magic all over him, Gwen,” Andy said.

“Did the monk say anything to you?” Gwen asked.

“No. He just... he just....”

“Andy, get Jack. Something's very wrong here.”