The Table of Less Valued Knights Read online

  ‘I’m coming,’ she said. ‘And you can’t stop me.’

  The two of them locked eyes, both with expressions of implacable determination.

  Humphrey caved in first. ‘Very well, if you insist. But it is entirely against my wishes and my best advice.’

  ‘I have no problem with that,’ said Elaine.

  ‘Right then,’ Humphrey resumed. ‘Elaine will do her best to get killed for no reason. Conrad, you’ll break the bars where Roddy’s indicated the weaknesses. I’ll cover you with the bow and arrow. Marcus, you –’

  ‘Me?’ interrupted Martha. ‘I don’t even know which hand I’m supposed to hold a sword in.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Humphrey, ‘I’m going to give Leila back to you, and she’ll do all the work.’

  ‘What?’ said Conrad. ‘You’re going to give him the magic sword he used to try to kill you?’

  ‘The sword wants to find the Queen, and she only cooperates with Marcus.’

  ‘He, she or it, it’s still sharp and it still wants your neck.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘And giving it back to Marcus is the best way to find out?’

  Humphrey looked at Martha. He saw a very young, very pale face with worried eyes. But behind that worry shone a fierce tenacity.

  ‘We need Marcus,’ Humphrey said. ‘And I trust him.’

  ‘Because you think he’s got blue blood?’

  Elaine frowned as she looked from Martha to Humphrey and back. Roddy considered the previously unimportant boy in a whole new lucrative light. Martha’s mouth fell open, her heart pounding. ‘What? What do you mean, blue blood? Don’t be absurd. Humphrey, what did he mean?’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with that,’ Humphrey said to Conrad. ‘Since that first day, he’s done nothing to make us doubt him.’ Nothing except run away in the woods. Nothing except try to steal Leila back from me. Humphrey knew that Conrad was right to be cautious, but his instincts told him to have faith in Marcus. That his instincts might be clouded with lust or greed was a possibility that he refused to consider. ‘Stop acting like a brat, Conrad. You’re the one who’s slowing us all down.’

  Conrad got to his feet and crossed his enormous arms. ‘Fine. Do what you like. I’ve had enough. When we get back to Camelot I’m asking for a new knight. Marcus can be your squire, seeing as you’re so fond of him.’

  ‘You’re being childish,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘For the rest of this quest, I follow orders, but that’s it. You can keep your personal observations to yourself. I’m done pretending that we’re some kind of happy family. Consider this my notice.’

  There was a long silence. Even Jemima looked embarrassed.

  Then Roddy said, ‘Can I just make sure – I’m still not coming, right?’

  Forty-One

  Edwin and Dorian skirted around the Lake, which was perhaps just a lake now that the Lady was gone, and this took them briefly into Puddock before they finally crossed the border into Tuft. The dwarf at the border post recognised Edwin immediately as the Prince of the Realm, jumping from his stool and kneeling down in the dirt, his head so low that his bushy eyebrows grazed the ground. Edwin looked over to see if Sir Dorian had noticed, but he was busy picking a stone out of his horse’s hoof, and Keith and Silas were down the road, hurling contraband apples out of the cart before they were fined for smuggling. By the time anyone was paying attention the dwarf was back on his feet.

  It was gratifying to finally get some recognition, but unfortunate too, because the last thing Edwin needed was Leo getting wind that he was on his way. If he had Martha in his custody, it would be just like him to kill her before Edwin had a chance to do it himself. The dwarf had to be silenced. Edwin considered cutting out his tongue, but that was gross. He couldn’t figure out how to do it without holding onto the tip, and who wanted to hold onto a dwarf’s tongue? And killing him would just attract more attention once the body was discovered. In the end, Edwin merely relieved the dwarf of his employment and told him to report to Puddock Castle for incarceration. The dwarf slunk away down the road in tears. Edwin had no sympathy. He probably wouldn’t even show up to prison. Dwarves were notoriously duplicitous. He hoped that the others would be impressed at his show of power, but Dorian said something patronising about how they were supposed to protect the weak, not lock them up, while Keith and Silas were annoyed at the waste of apples, now that there was no longer a customs officer to inspect the cart.

  ‘We can’t have more encounters like that,’ Edwin told Sir Dorian as they rode away from the customs post. ‘Now that we’re in Tuft, I need a disguise. Everybody here knows what I look like, and they revere me. There’s no way I can get to the castle without being recognised.’

  Dorian, who was still annoyed that Edwin had had the entire encounter with the Lady of the Lake without summoning him, had started pretending that he hadn’t heard anything Edwin said, waiting three seconds, then saying, ‘What was that?’

  ‘What was that?’ said Dorian after three seconds.

  Edwin fought back the urge to kick Dorian in his (inferior) teeth. If Dorian insisted on pretending he hadn’t heard Edwin, Edwin could only respond by pretending that he didn’t care.

  ‘Now that we’re in Tuft, I need a disguise so that Leo doesn’t find out I’m coming,’ he repeated.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Sir Dorian. ‘We could dress you in rags and say you’re a mendicant?’

  This was not at all the type of disguise Edwin had in mind. ‘I could drape myself in rare silks and darken my skin with clay, and pretend to be an Arabian potentate?’ he suggested in return.

  Sir Dorian made a great show of looking around the wide, empty valley. ‘Where are we going to get rare silks from?’ he said. ‘They are, by definition, rare. How about … you lie in the cart under a blanket until we get to the castle, and pretend to be a heap of turnips?’

  There was a certain appeal in being able to sleep the whole journey, not to mention getting away from Sir Dorian, but Edwin was damned if he was going to lie under a blanket in direct sunlight in this weather. Also, he was not a man who could easily be mistaken for a turnip.

  ‘I know!’ he said, as if he’d just thought of it and it wasn’t what he’d had in mind all along. ‘Why don’t I borrow your other suit of armour and pretend to be a Knight of the Round Table? It’s the perfect cover. What could be more unremarkable than two knights travelling together? I could keep the visor of my helmet down so that nobody would recognise me, and if I’m called to undertake a few quests, comfort a few damsels, then so be it.’

  ‘You can’t pretend to be a Knight of the Round Table,’ said Sir Dorian in genuine horror. ‘That’s fraud. And quite possibly treason.’

  ‘Treason? That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?’ said Edwin. ‘Anyway, I’m the King. I’m pretty sure I can’t commit treason.’

  Sir Dorian – as he had done many times before – swallowed back the urge to point out to Edwin that he was not, and never would be, a king.

  ‘You are not the King in Camelot,’ he said instead, ‘and the Round Table is a holy order, a compact with God. You cannot put yourself above God.’

  Even Edwin had to concede that no, he probably couldn’t do that.

  ‘If you wish,’ Sir Dorian said, a hint of amusement entering his voice as he came up with a particularly mean idea, ‘you could claim to be on the Table of Less Valued Knights. I don’t think God is particularly bothered about them.’

  Edwin did not like the idea of being a less valued anything. ‘No, no, you were right,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we can come up with something else. The last thing I want is to commit fraud. Or for that matter treason.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Sir Dorian. ‘They let pretty much anybody be a Less Valued Knight. And it would be a good disguise. Who could possibly believe that the great Prince Edwin of Tuft is a Knight of Lesser Value?’

  Edwin – as he had done many times before – swallowed back the
urge to point out to Sir Dorian that he wasn’t a prince, he was a king. And anyhow, it occurred to him that he probably wouldn’t have to say what kind of knight he was anyway. People would assume he was a Knight of the Round Table, and appearances were the most important thing.

  ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘A Less Valued Knight it is.’

  They pulled up and waited for Silas and Keith to catch up with them in the cart. The child inside Edwin was excited about the idea of dressing as a knight, any kind of knight, while the adult inside him was looking forward to taking advantage of his new-found status with the maidens.

  ‘Though of course,’ said Sir Dorian, as if reading his mind, ‘you can’t actually raise your visor at any point. If anyone recognised you, that would completely defeat the object of being in disguise.’

  Edwin toyed with the idea of keeping his helmet on while he removed everything else, but even he could see that this was absurd. The bits you did with your face were some of the best bits.

  With Silas’s help he put the armour on. It was more comfortable than he’d expected. It was a combination of mail and plate, which meant that it was more flexible and less heavy than he’d imagined, and he could easily bend his arms and legs and get on and off Storm without help. What bothered him more was the padded gambeson he had to wear underneath. It was saturated with Sir Dorian’s sweat and the stench was almost unendurable. With the armour on top, he was unspeakably hot in the thick summer swelter. Edwin had seen people burned at the stake who looked cooler than he was. Sir Dorian had never complained, though, and so Edwin refused to as a matter of pride. The knight’s forbearance filled Edwin with reluctant admiration, and this only made him resent Sir Dorian even more.

  To Edwin’s delight, though, where one knight had attracted attention, two sent the population into raptures. Ladies ran out of their houses, waving and cheering as they rode by. Children chased after them until their little legs gave out in fatigue. Men bowed and saluted them as they passed. Edwin had never felt so adored. But although he now rode up front with Sir Dorian as his equal, although he now shared the love of the crowds, when push came to shove and shove came to poke, it was still Sir Dorian who fought the duels (‘We can’t risk a prince getting hurt,’ he said with maddening accuracy and to Edwin’s slight relief) and still Sir Dorian who reaped the rewards in the bedroom (or on top of the haystack or up against the back of the barn). Edwin was incensed. But this is my childhood dream, he told himself, as he tried not to faint from the heat, and one way or another I am going to bloody well enjoy it. The platonic love of the populace would have to do.

  And it was good to be home. Tuft, land of his childhood! And early adulthood! Its rolling hills, its boggy dales! Edwin felt his heart swell with pride. Although as they drew close to Tuft Castle, he had to admit that it was a bit crappy-looking in comparison with Camelot. When he was growing up, he’d thought it was the grandest castle he had ever seen, but this may have been partly because it was the only castle he had ever seen. It did have some storybook charm, but it was quite small. Very small, in fact. He should have known it wasn’t normal for two princes to have to share a bedroom. The king’s quarters were bigger, as one might expect, but as soon as he was crowned, Leo had stuck a KEEP OUT sign on the door. Still, at least from then on Edwin could sleep on whichever bunk he preferred.

  Looking at the castle now, he couldn’t believe how lazy Leo was, leaving it in the same state he’d inherited it in. If Edwin ran the place, he’d keep the main body of the castle as it stood for public functions – heritage impressed the lower orders – but add two new wings: one as living quarters for himself, and one for his child. Martha would be dead by then – they’d put the story about that she’d died in childbirth – so he’d have to hire a wet nurse. Bonanza! Wet nurses always had massive jugs. He wondered if he could design some kind of one-way door so that he could go in to visit the boy, but the boy could not come out. (It never occurred to Edwin that his baby might be a girl.) That would work nicely for the nurse as well, of course.

  Leo’s laissez-faire attitude to the castle extended to the nation around it. Rolling hills were one thing, but the boggy vales didn’t have to be quite so boggy: if only he would instigate some kind of proper drainage programme! You couldn’t imagine a king like Arthur letting things slide to this extent. If Edwin were in charge, he’d hire somebody to deal with that and any other civil engineering projects that needed doing, aqueducts or whatever. Then he’d get his own knights, and send them off on quests just as daring as Arthur’s, not for the Holy Grail of course, that was taken, but the Bible was full of stuff. The Holy Plate They Ate The Bread Off – they could look for that.

  People would respect him. People would adore him. And if they didn’t, he’d have them put to death. That was what being king was all about.

  He could do all of this in Puddock, of course – he was sure you could bung an aqueduct into Puddock, no problem – but it wouldn’t be quite the same. No matter how much he might protest, he knew that he was never really going to be King of Puddock. For as long as Martha was still alive, he’d be Prince Consort, and then after he killed her, he’d be Regent for his son. People didn’t write epic poem cycles about regents, no matter how numerous their knights and effective their irrigation solutions. More than anything – more even than wanting to be a Knight of the Round Table – Edwin realised that he wanted to be king.

  He was thinking all of this as he rode towards the castle gates. The castle belonging to Leo, his brother, the King. The unmarried King, with no legitimate issue. The unmarried King, with no legitimate issue, who was his only brother.

  A plan was forming, but, this being Edwin, it was forming very slowly.

  Forty-Two

  The plan they finally came up with was quite straightforward. Martha couldn’t decide whether that was its strength or its weakness. They would disguise themselves as servants and enter the castle through the kitchens. Once inside, they would calmly follow Roddy’s directions to the dungeons. Conrad, with his superior strength, would incapacitate the guards and break the man in the iron mask out of his cell, and then they would bring the prisoner back to Roddy, who would free him.

  They rode their horses and Jemima as far as they could without risking being seen from the castle, then dismounted and left the animals with Roddy. Martha wouldn’t put it past Roddy to sell the animals, if offered a good price or even a mediocre one, but that could not be helped. Everyone put on their cloaks to hide their weapons and make it easier for them to pass as servants. They took a spare with them for the man in the iron mask. Humphrey had to leave his armour behind because it was too obvious, even under a cloak. Martha tried not to imagine him being slit from gut to throat. It was easier than it might have been, because she was so busy imagining herself being slit from gut to throat.

  Just before they set off, Humphrey removed Leila from his side and strapped her to Martha’s hip.

  ‘I’m trusting you,’ he said.

  Conrad swore under his breath and kicked at a clump of dirt. Martha put her hand on Leila’s hilt, tears of gratitude springing to her eyes, but she didn’t pull the sword out of the scabbard. She was still too afraid of what Leila might do to Humphrey.

  ‘Humphrey,’ she said, ‘what did Conrad mean, about you thinking I have blue blood?’

  Humphrey smiled a half-smile. ‘Just that I realise this quest might be a bit closer to home than you’ve let on. But don’t worry, Marcus. If that is Queen Martha in there, we’ll get her out safe.’

  If he doesn’t think I’m Martha, who on earth does he think I am? Martha shook her head. Whoever he thought she was, it didn’t matter. He hadn’t tried to drag her back to Puddock and hand her in for some reward. He trusted her, and she would have to trust him.

  The road to the castle was busy, and nobody gave them a second glance. That is to say, they didn’t attract more attention than Conrad usually got, which was quite a lot. But nobody regarded them with suspicion. By the time t
hey reached the gates, there were dozens of people pushing their way through, abuzz with excitement. All around them, the talk was of two Knights from Camelot who were said to be making their way to Tuft Castle.

  ‘Do they mean us?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Humphrey. ‘No mention of Jemima. Bollocks, though. Do you think someone else has got wind that Queen Martha’s there?’

  ‘Do you think it might be Sir Gordon?’ said Martha, remembering the so-called knight she’d met in the tavern.

  ‘Possibly,’ said Humphrey. ‘That wouldn’t be so bad. Even if he found the Queen, he’d be far too inept to get her out. It had better not be Sir Dorian, though. I’m not letting him have her, not after all the work we’ve put in.’

  Martha was silently satisfied by Humphrey’s use of ‘we’.

  The castle gatekeeper appeared to have lost interest in controlling the crowds, and was slumped listlessly on a stool, watching people pass, a spear lolling in his hand. But when he saw Conrad, he snapped to attention.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘Stop there. No giants.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Conrad.

  ‘But he’s my –’ Humphrey stopped himself from saying ‘squire’ just in time. ‘Friend,’ he finished, lamely.

  ‘I don’t care if he’s your mother, he’s not coming in,’ said the gatekeeper.

  ‘All right. Wait for us here,’ Humphrey said to Conrad. ‘Don’t move. Any sign of trouble …’

  ‘Do what, exactly?’ said Conrad. ‘Send a pigeon?’ He sat on the grass beside the castle wall and leaned back against it, closing his eyes. ‘Wake me up when you get back.’

  Without Conrad’s reassuring bulk, Martha felt even more nervous as they squeezed with the crowds through the castle gates and started along the track towards the inner keep.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ she said to Humphrey.

  ‘We don’t need him,’ said Humphrey. ‘Roddy said the metalwork is like twigs.’