The Table of Less Valued Knights Read online

‘I’m not her,’ she said. ‘I’m not Martha.’

  She took the veil off herself. It was Martha’s servant, the skinny one – well, obviously. Edwin felt panic pouring into him. Where was his wife? What was this bitch doing in her clothes? One thing was certain, he had to get rid of her before anybody else found out. He grabbed the girl around the neck and started to squeeze. She struggled against him, clawing at his hands to try to make him let go.

  ‘She made me do it!’ the girl hissed with all the air she had left. ‘She made me dress in her clothes and told me to be silent so that she’d get a head start before you found out!’

  That stopped him. ‘Found out what?’ he said. The girl was turning blue so he loosened his grip slightly.

  ‘That she ran away.’

  ‘She ran away?’

  Edwin let go of the girl and she fell back on the bed, gasping. It was probably a bad idea to kill her, he’d have to get rid of the body and he didn’t know the castle well enough yet to hide a corpse. And this place was so insular and parochial that people might notice if a servant was missing.

  ‘Where did she go?’ Edwin asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The girl started to cry. ‘If I knew I would tell you. It’s true. She knows I can’t keep my mouth shut, that’s why she didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Edwin. ‘She didn’t run away. She was kidnapped. And if you tell anybody that she wasn’t, I will kill you. You will tell everyone that it was her captors who made you impersonate her. If you say otherwise, I will accuse you of conspiring with them and you will be burned at the stake, a death so agonising you will wish I had strangled you.’

  The girl nodded frantically. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Edwin corrected her.

  But he wasn’t Your Majesty, not yet. He hadn’t been crowned. And if anyone found out that the marriage hadn’t been consummated, he’d have no legitimacy at all.

  He thought fast, as fast as he was capable of. He had to get Martha back and a crown on his head or there’d be pretenders to the throne coming out of the woodwork faster than termites. That he’d be consummating the marriage went without saying. Even if he didn’t need to do it for legitimacy, he was determined to teach her a lesson about what happens to girls who misbehave. Besides, he needed an heir. But as soon as she had a child, his child, she was disposable. Find her, sprog her up, then kill her. That was the plan.

  But how was he going to find her? He’d send the army on her trail, but they were loyal to Puddock, not to him, and if push came to shove, he was the one who would get shoved. He’d have to call in assistance from elsewhere. But where? Turning to Leo was out of the question. If he found out that Edwin’s wife had run away from him, Edwin would never live it down.

  There was only one place he could go to for help: Camelot.

  Twenty-Three

  Martha decided to ride south as far as she could, then board a boat to France. Once there she could take the universal panacea and resume her life as a woman. She’d be far enough away that nobody would know her for the missing Queen of Puddock, or even if they did, they wouldn’t care. Sir John had made France sound nice. She had never been, had never even seen the sea before, although she spoke fluent French, alongside Latin, Greek and Castilian. These were some of the pointless accomplishments of being a princess.

  It took her a while to get used to riding like a man, with one leg on either side of the horse, but once she’d got the hang of it she found it much better than side-saddle. It didn’t hurt her back, for starters, now she didn’t have to twist around to see forward. Having the sock between her legs was maybe the strangest part, but the way the movement of the horse made it rub against her was far more pleasant than the closest equivalent she could think of, which was the chafing of a new boot on her heel. No, it was definitely nicer than that. The unexpectedly exciting feeling of the sock added to the thrill of being out in the open, the wind in what was left of her hair, alone (most of the time)! Free (almost)! And with each passing day, heading away from the castle, and Edwin, and responsibility (definitely)!

  The money thing turned out to be easier than she’d anticipated. It seemed a gold coin would pay for most things, although some of the tradesmen looked at it strangely before accepting it. A few even gave her some money in return, which made very little sense, but she didn’t want to show herself up by querying this. Maybe they felt sorry for her because she looked so young and lost.

  The innkeepers certainly didn’t feel sorry for her, though; she rather wished that they did. She was appalled to discover that not only did most inns have no such thing as a private room, they had no such thing as a private bed. She had never so much as shared a room with another person before, let alone got into bed with a smelly, snorting, flea-ridden member of the general public. Side by side on a lumpy mattress with a hairy, flatulent stranger – and this stranger would be a man, as often as not – she would lie, sleepless, staring at the ceiling and wondering how long it would be before she was murdered, and how often they washed the sheets. She wasn’t sure which train of thought led to the more horrifying destination. The only advantage of the situation was that whenever an innkeeper crept up to her bed to try to rob her, as they so often did, she was invariably awake and able to chase him off. She didn’t know why the innkeepers always seemed to target her. Every one of the people in the room must have been travelling with their own bag of gold, so why couldn’t they try to steal someone else’s money once in a while?

  Daytime was better. She hadn’t realised how different life was for men. They looked her straight in the eye when they spoke, asking her questions and listening to her answers, treating her with the easy, casual respect of equals. She liked it, but she was thrown by the expectation that she would have something to contribute to conversation. The frustration that she had felt as a girl her entire life – that nobody believed her to be competent at anything – was replaced by the terror that her competence was now assumed. Either way, her actual abilities didn’t seem to come into it.

  She found herself walking differently, taking wider steps in her comfortable britches and boots, standing up straighter now that she no longer had to bow her head to avoid accidentally making eye contact with anyone. And whether because she was now a man or because she was now a commoner, nobody guarded their speech or conduct around her. Despite what she had been told, men gossiped just as much as women. In the inns where she slept and taverns where she ate, the big rumour was that La Beale Isoud had been spotted bathing in her chemise in the Cornish sea. Did this mean that love was restored between her and Tristan, and if so was this a good thing? (General opinion: true love will out, and they’d give her one themselves if they had the chance.) The other story, inevitably, was that the Queen of Puddock had been kidnapped (not run away, Martha noted), and that the King (ha! Was that how he was styling himself now?) was heading to Camelot to enlist the Round Table in a quest to find her. When people asked her opinion of that, she just shrugged.

  In fact she shrugged as much as possible when asked about anything, because, like the apple without the core, Martha discovered that she and Nancy (mainly Nancy) had forgotten something important: she still had a woman’s voice. She worried that her feminine intonation would alert everyone to the fact that she wasn’t the man she was pretending to be. But after a while she realised that her high voice, combined with her slight build and dubious facial hair, served to reinforce the perception that she was very young. Given her evident naivity, this was in fact to her benefit.

  So on the whole her escape plan appeared to be working. Indeed, when from time to time she forgot entirely that she was meant to be male and said things like, ‘What lovely earrings, are those amethysts?’ to some barmaid or other, rather than taking her for the impostor she was, the ladies fairly melted. Even though she had no interest in soliciting the attentions of women, she felt flattered and a little smug. It seemed that, in some ways, she was better at being a man than men were them
selves.

  Twenty-Four

  Then, as things are frustratingly accustomed to do, everything changed.

  She had stopped for lunch in a pleasant spot by the shores of a millpond, at the bottom of a gentle slope, surrounded by a copse of trees. Before unpacking the pheasant pie she had bought from the inn where she had stayed the night before, she led Silver down to the shores of the pond to drink. She left the horse at the edge of the water, then took a few paces back, because the ground was boggy and she didn’t want to get her feet wet. She looked up at the clouds and wondered whether it was going to rain later.

  ‘Martha,’ said a voice.

  ‘Yes?’ said Martha, without thinking. And then – too late – ‘I mean, no. Sorry. I thought you said – something else.’

  ‘Martha,’ said the voice again. It was a woman’s voice, sonorous and clear, and it appeared to be coming from across the pond. Martha tugged at Silver’s reins to try to drag him away, but he refused to lift his head out of the water.

  In the middle of the pond there was a ripple, which grew into a small wave flowing outward in all directions, as first a sword, then a hand holding the sword, and then an entire woman, with arm outstretched, emerged from the water. The woman was wearing a blue gown and had long black hair flowing loosely down her back. She was completely dry and looked normal in every way apart from the fact that she was standing on the surface of the pond and holding a massive sword.

  ‘I am the Lady of the Lake,’ she said.

  ‘What? It’s not a lake. It’s a millpond.’

  ‘It’s a Lake.’

  ‘The mill is right there!’

  The Lady of the Lake or Pond declined to look at the mill.

  ‘You are Martha Penrose?’ she said. ‘Queen of the tiny realm of Puddock?’

  ‘Look, it’s not my fault it’s a pond. There’s no need to insult the realm.’

  ‘I have a message for you, Martha.’

  ‘I’m not Martha,’ said Martha.

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You said “yes” a minute ago.’

  ‘Well, I’m not.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ The Lady lowered the sword and scratched her foot with it. ‘It’s true, you don’t look much like a Martha. I probably should have noticed that.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Well, this is embarrassing. I’m so sorry. I must have made a mistake with my paperwork. I haven’t quite got the hang of it all yet. I’m not really the Lady of the Lake, you see. I’m just the locum. Nimue, the usual Lady of the Lake, has run off with Merlin and they needed somebody to cover. Usually I’m the Woman by the Well, and I started off as the Child at the Crossroads. Anyway, I had it in my schedule that I should appear now …’ The Locum of the Lake or Pond peered up at the sun. ‘Yes, and that Martha would be here, with a grey horse – the horse is here, at any rate – running away from her destiny, and that I should give her this sword and tell her that her brother is still alive.’

  ‘My brother is still alive?’

  ‘No. Not your brother. Martha’s brother.’

  ‘How can my – can Martha’s brother still be alive? He was killed by Picts years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but if you’re not Martha I can’t tell you that.’

  The Locum of whatever it was began to descend back into the water.

  ‘What’s the sword for?’ said Martha quickly.

  It was a beautiful sword, made of obsidian, black and gleaming, with two huge emeralds in the hilt. Martha felt something inside her ache to hold it.

  ‘This? It’s a magic sword. Its entire purpose is to protect Martha and help her get her brother back. That’s why I was supposed to give it to her. Oh well. I’ve totally cocked that up, now. I may as well just chuck it back in the Lake.’

  The Locum of the Lake/Pond swung her arm back as if to throw.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ cried Martha.

  ‘You’re right. It’s dangerous, throwing swords in lakes. You never know what might be under the surface. Or who. You’d think I’d know that, being of the Lake. I’ll carry it down with me.’

  The Locum of the Lake/Pond resumed her disappearance into the water.

  ‘Wait!’ said Martha. ‘What if you gave it to me and I gave it to her?’

  The Locum of the Lake/Pond paused, about knee-deep. She peered at Martha with suspicion.

  ‘You know Martha?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The same Martha?’

  ‘Queen. Running away from the castle. Dead brother. I mean, not dead brother. Yes. She’s my best friend.’

  ‘How do I know you’re not just saying that to trick me into giving you the sword?’

  ‘Well … Ask me anything about her.’

  The Locum of the Lake/Pond thought for a bit. ‘What’s her favourite colour?’ she said.

  ‘Brown,’ said Martha.

  ‘Wrong.’

  ‘But it is brown.’

  ‘Nobody’s favourite colour is brown.’

  ‘Yes it is!’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘So what’s her favourite colour, then?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  ‘But you just asked me!’

  ‘Exactly. I wouldn’t need to ask you if I knew the answer.’

  Martha fought the urge to march over the surface of the water and throttle the Locum of the Lake/Pond.

  ‘Can’t you just trust me?’ she said instead.

  ‘Why should I?’

  Martha tried to think of a reason and couldn’t come up with anything.

  ‘Forget it,’ said the Locum. ‘I’ll sort out the paperwork and we’ll get it to her another way. I just hope nobody kills her in the meantime, while she’s unarmed. I’m still in my probationary period.’

  ‘What if I told you …’ said Martha. She looked around to make sure that nobody else was within earshot. ‘That I am Martha.’

  ‘You just said you weren’t Martha. You don’t look at all like a Martha.’

  ‘I’m in disguise.’

  ‘You’re a boy.’

  ‘I’m in disguise as a boy.’

  ‘You’ve got a beard. Sort of.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m sure they’d have mentioned it, if Martha had a beard.’

  ‘It’s a magic beard.’

  ‘Make it do something, then.’

  ‘No. I mean the fact that I have it is magic.’

  ‘So it doesn’t do anything.’

  ‘It grows out of my face. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Well, it’s not much of an act. I wouldn’t pay to see it.’

  ‘I’m a girl with a beard. A queen with a beard.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘What can I do to prove it to you?’

  ‘A minute ago you were trying to prove that Martha was a friend of yours, and you didn’t do a very good job of that either.’

  ‘That’s because Martha isn’t a friend of mine.’

  ‘Aha!’

  ‘I am Martha.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m here when you said I would be, aren’t I? I’ve got the right horse with me. I’m the right height, the right build, I know Martha’s favourite colour –’

  ‘I still don’t believe that it’s brown.’

  ‘It’s because it goes with her hair! My hair!’

  ‘Still weird.’

  ‘I have the voice of a woman.’

  ‘That’s true,’ conceded the Locum of the Lake/Pond. ‘But it might be that your voice hasn’t broken yet.’

  ‘Of course it would be broken – I’ve got a beard.’

  ‘You just said it was a magic beard.’

  Martha clenched her fists and tried not to scream.

  ‘If I looked like a girl you wouldn’t make me go through all this,’ she said, with as much calmness as she could muster. ‘What kind of proof were you going to ask for?’

  ‘Well, none.’


  ‘You were just going to give the sword to any old girl who walked past with a grey horse –’

  ‘At precisely the right time.’

  ‘At precisely the right time! And here I am!’

  ‘Looking like a boy.’

  ‘In disguise!’

  The Locum of the Lake/Pond hesitated. ‘Do you have some form of identification?’

  Some form of identification. Martha could only think of one. She grabbed hold of the waistband of her britches and yanked them down, sock and all.

  ‘Good enough for you?’ she said.

  The Locum of the Lake/Pond averted her eyes. Martha pulled her britches back up.

  ‘I concede that you are female,’ the Locum said primly. ‘I will allow that you may therefore be Martha in disguise. Thus, I will give you this sword and a message.’

  ‘What’s the message?’

  ‘Your brother is still alive.’

  ‘I know. You already said that. What else?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s the message.’

  ‘That’s it? Where is he?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. All I can do is give you this sword, and –’

  ‘Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘All I can do is give you this –’

  ‘Tell me where he is!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s a thing.’

  ‘A thing?’

  ‘A Lake thing.’

  ‘It’s a pond!’

  ‘Secrecy is the cornerstone of the Sorcery industry. If you put your complaint in writing I will raise it at the next Lake board meeting, but until then, all I can do is give you this sword –’

  ‘Fine. Give me the godforsaken sword.’

  Neither of the women moved.

  ‘You need to come and get it,’ said the Locum of the Lake/Pond.

  ‘In there? Not all of us can walk on water, you know.’

  ‘There’s a boat.’

  The Locum indicated a small wooden boat tied to a rickety jetty.

  ‘I’m not getting in that. I’m the Queen of a tiny realm, remember?’

  ‘I don’t recall that there’s any prohibition on royalty and boats.’

  ‘Can’t you bring me the sword?’