The Table of Less Valued Knights Read online

  Martha, shaking, drew the bow. The stag turned his head, seeming to look her in the eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, not knowing whether she was speaking to the stag or to Humphrey. Either way, it was too late. In half a moment, the stag was gone.

  ‘You can’t hesitate, even for a second,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘I could see his heart beating through his skin.’

  ‘They all have hearts, you know.’

  ‘I know. But it’s not usually me who has to stop them.’

  ‘If you can’t kill a deer, what are you going to do if the Queen’s been taken prisoner and we have to fight our way through her captors?’

  Martha imagined herself shooting arrows at Jasper’s captors. Then she imagined failing to shoot arrows at them, and Jasper being killed. ‘I’ll try again,’ she said.

  They waited. After an eternity, a rabbit crept out of a patch of bracken. It was soft and brown, its fur like silk. It didn’t notice them, but hopped its way into a cool patch of the glade.

  Humphrey nodded towards the rabbit. Martha raised her bow. The rabbit wrinkled its little bunny nose. Martha aimed her arrow at the rabbit. The rabbit nibbled on a blade of grass. Martha drew her bow. The rabbit did a shimmy with its ears.

  ‘I can’t,’ wailed Martha.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said Humphrey, raising his own bow, but the rabbit had heard them, and bounced away out of sight.

  ‘It was too cute,’ said Martha.

  ‘Cute?’ said Humphrey. ‘Do you want us all to starve? Or are we not cute enough to live?’

  ‘We can go to the market and buy meat.’

  ‘You do know that meat has always been alive first?’

  ‘Of course I know.’

  ‘Well then, next time, you shoot.’

  Nothing stirred for quite a while. Martha wondered whether this might be a good moment to ask Humphrey about the Table of Less Valued Knights. She’d been trying to find the right words for days, ever since Elaine had mentioned it. She still couldn’t believe that Humphrey belonged there. There must have been a terrible mistake, or maybe Elaine had misunderstood. She was formulating a question when suddenly they heard something crashing towards them through the trees, something big. Humphrey leapt to attention and pointed an arrow towards the sound.

  ‘Aim,’ he said, ‘but wait for it to get closer before you shoot.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Martha, raising her bow again, heart beating hard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Humphrey. ‘But it’s big.’

  There was a flash of white through the bushes.

  ‘Cow?’ said Martha.

  Humphrey shook his head. ‘Horse, I think.’

  ‘Well, don’t kill it if it’s one of ours,’ said Martha.

  As the creature passed between two trees, they both got a good look at it.

  ‘Unicorn,’ breathed Humphrey, lowering his bow.

  Unicorn! Martha didn’t wait another moment. She started to run. She couldn’t afford to let a unicorn anywhere near her. Unicorns sought out virgin maidens and laid their heads in their laps. Virgin maidens. Not virgin boys. Bloody animal! Why couldn’t it have gone for Elaine?

  ‘Marcus!’ shouted Humphrey.

  ‘I’m not running away!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t send Conrad! I will come back!’

  She heard hoof-beats behind her, growing closer. The unicorn was drawn to her, as surely as a fleck of iron is drawn to a lodestone.

  ‘Piss off!’ she shouted at the creature.

  The unicorn accelerated, galloping after her through the trees.

  Trees. Unicorns couldn’t climb trees.

  She spied a trunk with low branches, and started hauling herself up. The bow and quiver of arrows were getting in her way, but she was glad to be in men’s clothes, much easier than in a dress and heels.

  At the foot of the tree, the unicorn stopped. It stared up at her, a soppy look on its face.

  ‘Go away,’ said Martha, grabbing a branch, hitching her leg up, pulling herself ever higher.

  The unicorn leaned against the trunk of the tree and looked up at her lovingly.

  Martha was nearing the top now. There was nowhere left to go except some thin branches that would not take even her slight weight. She sat on the highest of the firm branches and looked down. The unicorn was still gazing adoringly at her.

  ‘Get lost! I’m married.’

  The unicorn was undeterred. It made a noise that sounded alarmingly like purring. For the first time ever, Martha wished she’d had marital relations with Edwin.

  ‘Go find Elaine! Elaine! She’s that way!’

  Martha gestured with her bow. The unicorn continued to stare up at her with limpid eyes.

  Maybe she could just climb down quickly and let him do it.

  She heard Humphrey calling her. ‘Marcus! Where are you?’

  What if it followed her back to camp? Unicorns were said to be loyal for life. How would she explain herself then?

  ‘Come back or I’m sending Conrad to kill you,’ shouted Humphrey.

  That’s me, thought Martha. Caught between a unicorn and a hard place.

  There was only one thing for it.

  Martha smiled down at the unicorn. Unicorns don’t smile, but it looked up at her with a contented and trusting air. Martha shot it between the eyes, just beneath its alabaster horn.

  Thirty-Five

  ‘Conrad!’ Humphrey marched back into camp, where the giant and Elaine were busy packing their tents up.

  ‘What now?’ Conrad was sitting backwards on Jemima, stuffing scrumpled-up canvas into her saddlebags.

  ‘Marcus has run away.’

  Conrad laughed. ‘I told you so.’

  ‘You need to find him. He was heading south.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  Conrad swivelled round on Jemima’s back and kicked her forwards.

  ‘Conrad? Don’t hurt him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s the only one who can spin the sword.’

  Conrad shook his head but didn’t say anything as he steered Jemima towards the trees.

  ‘Oh, and Conrad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be careful. He’s got the bow and arrow.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ muttered Conrad as he rode away.

  ‘Marcus didn’t take Leila with him, did he?’ said Elaine. She was sitting on the ground leaning against a tree, looking uncomfortable in the ugly grey dress she hadn’t changed out of for days.

  ‘No. She’s right here.’ Humphrey patted the sword at his belt.

  ‘Thank God.’

  Elaine reapplied herself to the blanket she had been folding. Humphrey stood watching her for several seconds.

  ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’ he blurted out. ‘That’s why you’re in such a hurry to find your fiancé.’

  Elaine’s head shot up. She stared at him for several moments, breathing hard. Then she slumped. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘I just figured it out. We saw a unicorn in the woods. I was thinking about how if it followed us back to camp, it would lay its head in your lap. The virgin maid,’ he said bitterly. ‘And then … I don’t know, the pieces somehow fell into place.’

  Elaine put a hand on her belly. ‘I suppose it will be obvious to everyone soon enough.’

  ‘Is it Sir Alistair’s?’ said Humphrey.

  Elaine hesitated, then she shook her head.

  ‘Whose?’ said Humphrey.

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘We’re on a quest to find your kidnapped fiancé. I think the identity of your baby’s father …’ Humphrey began self-righteously.

  ‘It’s Frank’s,’ snapped Elaine.

  ‘Frank?’ Humphrey tried to remember. It came to him. ‘The guard? The one who left your parents’ castle?’

  ‘That’s right. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough once I told him. And before you start, we’ve already ruled him out of the kidnapping – too tall, remember
?’

  ‘Do your parents know?’

  ‘Yes. I had the foolish idea that they might help me. And they did, I suppose, by arranging the tournament for my hand. But after Sir Alistair went missing they wanted nothing more to do with it. They’d suffered humiliation enough. They told me to find him or forget about being their daughter.’

  ‘So the plan was that you’d wed Sir Alistair in haste, consummate the marriage and then pretend the baby was his?’

  Elaine nodded. She was pink-cheeked and looked beautiful and innocent and not nearly as ashamed as Humphrey thought she deserved to be.

  ‘You … you bitch!’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Elaine was as stunned as if he’d slapped her.

  ‘You would lie to your husband.’

  ‘For the good of my child.’

  ‘For the good of yourself.’

  ‘What would you know? Are you telling me that you’ve never touched a woman other than your wife?’

  Humphrey said nothing.

  ‘Exactly. You can spread your favours without any fear of repercussions. If a child is conceived, you can run away like Frank, and even if it is known that you’ve fathered a baby outside marriage, it just demonstrates your virility! There’s no shame in it as there is for a woman. Even before this I knew that I must be someone’s daughter or someone’s wife, or else, I suppose, I might go to the convent or the brothel, but I am not allowed to be simply myself, ever! And now, even though I was one of a pair who chose freely to lie together, and I have been abandoned, I am the only one who must carry dishonour, I am the one who will be shunned by society and turned away by my parents if I raise this child on my own.’

  ‘So you would trick a man into believing that he is the father of somebody else’s child?’

  ‘Why not! He will love it all the same.’

  Humphrey thought over everything that had passed between them. ‘That night when you tried to seduce me,’ he said, ‘you were lining me up as an alternative, should Sir Alistair not materialise.’

  Only now did Elaine’s face show contrition. ‘I changed my mind,’ she said.

  ‘You decided that a Less Valued Knight would not be a worthy enough father for your bastard?’

  ‘No! I thought you were too good a man to trap like that.’

  ‘So you agree that it is a trap.’

  Elaine was crying now. ‘Would it really have been so bad? You’ve done it before.’

  Humphrey could feel himself softening at Elaine’s tears, and so he forced his voice to be harder. ‘Don’t bring Conrad into this.’

  ‘He’s your wife’s son, isn’t he? That’s why he’s so short. He’s half human.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whose son he is. He’s not mine.’

  ‘But you love him.’

  ‘He’s my squire. Love has nothing to do with it.’

  As he spoke, Jemima emerged from the trees, a stony-faced Conrad on her back. Sitting in front of him was Martha, and in front of Martha was the body of the dead unicorn, slung over Jemima’s neck. Conrad leaned over and pushed the unicorn onto the ground where it landed with a thud.

  ‘Seven years’ bad luck,’ he said.

  ‘What did you hear?’ Elaine demanded, wiping her eyes.

  ‘That there’s no love lost between him and me. As if I didn’t know.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Nothing. So whatever precious secrets you have are safe.’

  Meanwhile Martha was babbling to Humphrey. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to run away, I’m scared of unicorns, did you see that I killed him, Sir Humphrey? I mean I know you’re not supposed to, but it shows that I can do it, like you said.’

  ‘Finish packing,’ Humphrey told her. ‘You’ve wasted enough of our time as it is.’

  ‘Humphrey,’ said Elaine, standing up and taking a step towards him.

  ‘I have nothing more to say to you,’ said Humphrey, walking away.

  Thirty-Six

  While the rest of them packed, Conrad, surlier than ever, cut the unicorn flesh into strips and rubbed it with salt so that they could take it with them on the road. The meat tasted pungent and gamey and, to Martha, of guilt, and of triumph. She couldn’t believe she was eating an animal that she herself had killed. Perhaps it hadn’t been for the most honourable of reasons – felling the finest creature of the forest just to keep her secret – but she had done it all the same. Now that she knew what she was capable of, the next time would be easier.

  ‘Mount up,’ Humphrey told the group. ‘We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.’

  ‘Don’t you want me to check the direction first?’ said Martha.

  Humphrey squinted at her as if he couldn’t remember what she was doing there. ‘We don’t need directions,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a map.’

  ‘But we don’t know where the Queen is.’

  ‘We’re not looking for the Queen. Lady Elaine has lost her fiancé and is in a terrible hurry to find him. Isn’t that right, Lady Elaine? The sooner we find Lady Elaine’s fiancé, the sooner Lady Elaine can have her big romantic wedding and the rest of us can go home.’

  Humphrey tied Silver’s bridle to his saddle, something he hadn’t bothered to do in days.

  ‘But …’ said Martha. ‘But I don’t want to go home.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you want. We’re on Lady Elaine’s quest and we must do Lady Elaine’s bidding. Isn’t that right, Lady Elaine?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Elaine, chin raised, fingertips flicking tears from her cheeks as though they were nothing more than raindrops. Though Martha was pleased to see that even Elaine’s pretty nose ran when she wept. She was not as perfect as all that.

  She had no idea why Elaine was crying, seeing as she had got her own way. For that matter, she had no idea why Conrad was in such a sullen mood. It couldn’t possibly be that stuff they’d overheard Humphrey saying about love – he was an employee. Martha was the one being punished for having run away, she was the one who deserved to be upset. Humphrey was acting as if she wasn’t even there, riding alongside him, though obviously that mattered much less than the fact that he’d given up on looking for the Queen. They were heading doggedly towards Sir Alistair Gilbert’s home town, which was in a completely different direction to the one they’d been going in before. Humphrey was using his map to find forges along their route, and the only times that Leila was deployed were to determine the innocence or guilt of the men (and occasional women) who’d commissioned black armour. There was no way that Martha could co-opt those spins to help her find her brother.

  She knew what she had to do. She had to get Leila back and leave this group behind. She had no loyalty to them. Any sentiment that she experienced was just weakness on her part. Grabbing Leila during one of their spin sessions was the most obvious way of going about it – they were the only times she had her hands on the sword – but then she’d have to fight her way out. Martha felt a cold finger trailing down her spine. Even with Leila on her side she had lost that fight with Humphrey, and a less compassionate man – Conrad, say – would have killed her. And she couldn’t rely on Leila cooperating with her anyway. She was a sword with a mind of her own. Why she had attacked Humphrey in the first place was as mysterious to Martha now as it was the day she’d done it.

  She decided to take Leila at night, while Humphrey was sleeping. By the time they noticed she was gone she’d have several hours on them. It wasn’t much of a plan, but sometimes the simplest was the best.

  The night she chose was sultry, with storms that circled but never came. Martha thirsted for rain. She lay sweating in the oven-like tent, waiting for Conrad’s breathing to slow, for the reliable saw of Humphrey’s snore. Once she was sure they were both asleep, she gathered what things of hers she could find in the dark and then slipped out to saddle Silver. She considered loosing the others’ horses, chasing away Jemima, to give herself more of a head start, but these people had treated her adequately, for a captive; there was no need to leave
them stranded.

  She went back into the tent and knelt down by Humphrey’s bed. All the habitual tension was gone from his face, leaving behind a surprising innocence. She began to slide her hand around under the covers searching for Leila, trying not to touch him. Their faces were close together now. His elephantine snores (no offence to Jemima, who was a relatively quiet sleeper) did spoil the moment somewhat, but even so she wondered whether he would wake up if she kissed him. If it was a very light kiss. Just the slightest brush of lips. And another part of her wondered, if he woke up, exactly what he would do …

  Humphrey had never had a problem with sleeping. Even in the weeks after he’d returned from Castle Maudit he had dropped off as soon as he closed his eyes. This was more of a curse than a gift back then. When awake, he had some control over his thoughts, the ability to open a book, say, and distract himself, even if only for a few minutes at a time. When asleep, it was just his wife laughing, the sword sweeping towards him, her scream and then her silence, over and over again.

  So he was surprised that night to open his eyes to absolute darkness and silence. Something was wrong. He waited – the slightest movement – there was someone in his bed – a woman! He could tell by the weight, the scent of her. Elaine? His heart jumped. He reached out and grabbed her by the wrist – there was a cry, high and light – he pulled her towards him – felt the stubble of her cheek against his. Stubble?

  ‘Marcus?’

  Silence. Then, ‘Yes.’

  He gripped the boy’s wrist harder, angry.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He could feel the boy’s breath on his face – hot – fast – frightened.

  ‘Taking Leila,’ said Marcus.

  Humphrey realised with shock that he was aroused.

  He threw Marcus’s wrist from him.

  ‘Go back to bed. Go back to bed now.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the boy choked.

  ‘Get away from me before I hurt you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marcus said again.

  Humphrey watched the shadowy form of the boy as he scuttled away from him to the mess of blankets, where he huddled, shaking. Humphrey thought he heard him crying.

  How could he have mistaken Marcus for Elaine?