The Table of Less Valued Knights Read online

  ‘But what about the guards?’ said Elaine.

  ‘Don’t worry about them. In my experience guards are more easily incapacitated by gold than by fists, and I took the liberty of helping myself to a selection from Marcus’s supply.’

  Martha was too relieved to be annoyed at the theft. Well, not very annoyed, anyway.

  Tuft Castle was dainty and pretty, with a small turret at each end and crenellated battlements across the top. The battlements would be less picturesque when manned with soldiers shooting arrows from them and pouring down barrels of pitch and burning oil, but on a sunny peacetime day, framed by a blue sky with little fluffy clouds, the place had a fairytale appeal.

  ‘It’s tiny,’ said Martha, not unpleased.

  ‘In Camelot we’d call this a shed,’ agreed Humphrey.

  ‘I don’t know, I wouldn’t object to living here,’ said Elaine. ‘You two are spoilt.’

  They were halfway along the path when they heard a child near the gate shout, ‘They’re here! They’re here!’

  All at once, everyone started jostling for position. The people who’d been walking along the road started to shove their way to the grassy slopes which rose on either side, and the people who’d already taken up position there complained loudly about their view being blocked. Martha, Humphrey and Elaine found themselves bundled together close to the front, to the vocal annoyance of someone who’d set up a sausage stall just behind them. The entrance to the castle kitchens was frustratingly out of reach, the crowd too thickly packed to push through. Meanwhile, on the far side of the gate, they could see two knights on horseback, dressed in full armour – silver, not black – and flying a richly embroidered pennant.

  ‘Boar, rampant regardant on gold,’ said Humphrey, as the crowds began to cheer. ‘Terrific. That’s Sir Dorian. But who’s the other one?’

  Forty-Three

  The adulation was jolly gratifying, thought Edwin, but it was only what he deserved. He thought back to the handful of doddering ancients who had provided his desultory welcome in Puddock. It had been insulting. In Tuft, they were treating him like royalty. True, he was royalty, but they didn’t know that. He waved and bent down to shake people’s hands, drinking in the adoration as a dry flowerbed soaks up water. Here in the castle, if not between the damsels’ sheets, he was getting as much attention as Sir Dorian was.

  As much. But not more.

  The time had come to reveal himself, Edwin decided. Yes, he had wanted to surprise Leo, but it would still be a surprise, wouldn’t it? The only difference was that Edwin wouldn’t get a chance to see Leo’s face when his brother found out he was there. Never mind, he would ask him to act it out. Then Leo would be, like, ‘Bro, what are you talking about, I’m not going to do that, don’t be a dick.’ It would be like old times. In his thirst for attention, Edwin had forgotten that the purpose of keeping his arrival secret from Leo was to give him a chance to find Martha before his brother could dispose of her. He no longer cared about Martha. He cared only about the crowd.

  He reached for his helmet and ripped it off his head, revealing his enormous smile to his subjects. He hoped that he didn’t have helmet hair.

  ‘People of Tuft!’ he cried. ‘It is I, your Prince!’

  The response wasn’t quite what he anticipated.

  Forty-Four

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ said Martha, as the crowd groaned with disappointment. Behind them the sausage seller swore and started packing up his wares.

  ‘We can’t leave now,’ said Elaine, ‘We’re so close.’

  ‘We don’t have to leave the castle but we’ve got to get off this road,’ said Martha. ‘That’s Edwin, Queen Martha’s husband. What if he recognises me?’

  ‘Recognises you?’ said Elaine. ‘Marcus, who are you?’

  Humphrey shook his head at her. ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we’ll be in just as much trouble if Sir Dorian sees me. I’m not even supposed to leave Camelot, let alone be gazumping his quest. So pull your hoods up over your faces and let’s try to get into the castle at the back.’

  They all pulled their hoods up. Around them, everyone was trying to leave, but the castle gate was narrow and the crowd was bottlenecked. In the middle of the confusion, Dorian was attempting to pull his horse aside and out of the way, but Edwin was still trying to act as if he was surrounded by adoring admirers, grabbing the hand of anyone who came near him and shaking it vigorously.

  To her horror, the momentum of the crowd pushed Martha directly into Edwin’s path. Her stomach lurched. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her. But he looked straight down at her and smiled his awful smile.

  ‘There’s no need to be shy, lad,’ he said.

  He stuck out his hand. Martha held hers up, trembling. Edwin took it. He had a terrible handshake, limp and clammy: it was like shaking hands with a snot-soaked handkerchief.

  ‘God save the King,’ said Martha.

  ‘What king? Fuc-king!’ said Edwin.

  In shock, Martha looked up, right into Edwin’s eyes. Edwin’s grip tightened on her hand as he stared at her for several long seconds, trying to place her. Then he shrugged, laughed and let her go.

  ‘It’s an oldie but goodie,’ he said. He kicked his horse onwards into the crowd.

  Martha realised she had been holding her breath, and let it out, in a long tremulous exhale. He hadn’t recognised her.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Humphrey behind her. ‘Now, if you’ve finished making friends, let’s go.’

  Forty-Five

  Smile and wave, thought Edwin. Smile and wave, smile and wave, smile and wave.

  Sir Dorian was sniggering, which was interfering with Edwin’s ability to pretend that there was nothing wrong. He couldn’t wait to find Martha so that he could send this smug-bag back to Camelot with all the other smug-bag knights. Or maybe he could persuade Leo to arrest him? They could stick him in an iron mask and shove him in the basement. It would be fun to have a pet knight to torment.

  In the meantime, Edwin carried on shaking as many hands as people would allow. There was one boy, a terrified-looking lad of about fifteen, he could swear he’d seen before, but he couldn’t figure out where. Just a servant boy from the castle, like as not, but there was something about him that bothered Edwin.

  His mind picked at the memory for a minute or two, until a burly man jogged his arm, causing him to drop his helmet. It landed with a clang. A young girl picked it up and threw it in the air. Then someone else caught it and threw it up again.

  ‘Can I have my helmet back?’ Edwin called.

  But nobody gave it to him. The helmet was tossed back and forth like a brilliant steel balloon, cheers going up whenever it was thrown, and again whenever it was caught.

  Sir Dorian turned to Edwin. ‘That is quite an expensive helmet,’ he said.

  ‘They’re just having fun,’ said Edwin, ‘I’m sure they’ll give it back in a moment.’

  But the helmet game went on. Hadn’t these people ever seen a helmet before? Maybe they hadn’t. Or maybe they were too poor to afford balls and so a helmet was all that they knew how to throw. Edwin didn’t want people like that touching his helmet.

  ‘Give me back my helmet!’ he commanded.

  Someone tossed the helmet towards him, but so high he couldn’t reach it, and it went sailing over his head to the crowd on the other side. Then the person who caught it threw it back over his head to the original side.

  They’re playing piggy in the middle with me, Edwin realised. That’s my least favourite game. When I played it with Leo and Daddy, I was always the piggy. They never let me catch the ball, not once. I was the piggy for fifteen years.

  ‘Give me my helmet right now or I’m having you all put to death!’ he shouted.

  The helmet dropped down and landed on the ground.

  ‘I am not the piggy!’ he yelled. ‘Do you all hear me? I am not the piggy!’

  The crowd went very quiet
, apart from a small child who started to cry. A middle-aged woman picked the helmet up off the ground and handed it up to Edwin.

  ‘It was just a bit of fun,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you tell me what’s fun,’ said Edwin. ‘I decide what’s fun.’

  He passed the helmet to Sir Dorian. It was covered in dirty handprints and dust, and had a large dent in one side. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘I told you they’d get fed up with it eventually.’

  Sir Dorian looked down at the helmet and then back up at Edwin. ‘And you’re revered here, are you?’

  Edwin fought the desire to knock Sir Dorian into the dirt. He had seen the knight joust. If he tried to dislodge Sir Dorian from his horse, it was assuredly Edwin himself who would end up on the ground. He refused to undergo that particular humiliation, especially in front of this crowd who were now shuffling silently towards the gate, uttering the occasional muffled jeer.

  ‘You know,’ he said to Sir Dorian instead, ‘it seems to me that it would be better if I went to see my brother on my own. He might take it the wrong way if I turn up with a knight from an enemy realm.’ Officially Arthur was no enemy of Leo’s, but then again, officially nobody was. Leo didn’t pay much attention to what was official.

  ‘Whatever His Highness wishes,’ said Sir Dorian. Apparently he was as frustrated with Edwin as Edwin was with him. Edwin couldn’t think why. ‘I’ll go and wait with Silas and Keith outside until His Highness is ready to resume his quest.’ The knight turned tail and followed the dregs of the crowd towards the castle gate.

  Forty-Six

  Edwin had hoped that once word reached his brother that he was there, Leo would come down to meet him at the entrance in person, but instead he had sent Noah, the deputy head steward, a freakishly tall and gaunt individual with a long nose, deep-set eyes and a film of sandy hair.

  ‘Where’s Olivier?’ asked Edwin, dismounting and handing the reins of his horse over to some kid or other. Olivier was the head steward.

  Noah shrugged. He was a man of few words.

  ‘Why did Leo send you?’ said Edwin.

  Noah shrugged again. Edwin didn’t like having to look up at this lanky lunk. Maybe it would be better if he got back on Storm, but the horse had already been led away, and anyway that might give the wrong impression, make him look like he was leaving again, or was the kind of indecisive person who didn’t know if he wanted to be on a horse or not.

  ‘Where’s Leo?’ he asked Noah.

  Noah jerked his chin. Which was a different response, at least.

  ‘So, Noah, it’s been a while,’ said Edwin, as he followed the deputy steward into the main hall of the castle. ‘There must have been lots of changes around the old place, eh?’

  Noah didn’t reply. Edwin tried to remember if he’d ever heard Noah speak. Perhaps he had a disease, or was mentally defective. But in fact there didn’t seem to be that many changes around the old place at all. It still smelt the same, of beeswax with a hint of blood, and Leo hadn’t bothered to repaint or knock down any walls or do any of the things that Edwin would have done in his place. The one difference that Edwin noted was that there were a lot more paintings of Leo hanging on the walls. He was glad to see that the painting of himself as a boy with Leo and Daddy was still there, although he did notice that his bit of the painting was somewhat obscured by a potted plant. The portraits of himself on his own were all gone.

  Noah led Edwin up the stairs, which creaked in the same places they always had. When he was a boy, he had learned how to sneak out of the castle by climbing down the stairs without making them creak, and Leo had learned how to creep up behind him, make the stairs creak and then run away, leaving Edwin to get into trouble. Those were the days, thought Edwin, but it was a hollow thought. He was starting to remember why he hadn’t been that upset about being sent away to marry Martha No-Tits.

  When they reached the tall double doors of the throne room, Noah held up a finger, then slipped inside. Edwin supposed that meant wait. He waited. There were candles burning in the two alcoves that flanked the doors. Edwin pulled some wax off one of them and tried to mould it into a shape, but it was really hot and burned him, and then it hardened too fast. First the helmet and now this. He was starting to get into a really bad mood.

  Noah came out of the throne room. He lifted another finger. His fingers were really long. Then he just stood there. So Edwin supposed that meant wait again.

  ‘What’s the weather like up there?’

  Noah didn’t say anything.

  ‘You’re very tall, aren’t you?’

  Noah still didn’t say anything, but he looked down at Edwin as if Edwin were a streak of pondweed he’d got tangled in his boots.

  Now Edwin didn’t say anything. He’d used up all his best material.

  After an age, a familiar voice from inside the room called, ‘Come!’

  Noah – without a word, of course – opened the double doors, then stepped aside. Edwin entered alone.

  Forty-Seven

  Getting into the castle kitchens was easier than they’d expected. Lots of the servants were heading back that way, slightly subdued after the aborted excitement of Edwin’s arrival. According to Roddy, the prison tower was in the north-west corner of the castle, with one entrance on the inner courtyard, and a service entrance from the kitchens for the delivery of food, inasmuch as the prisoners were ever fed. Inside the kitchens, which Martha considered barely large enough to put together a modest picnic, they found some heaps of vegetables that had been gathered for the next meal, so Elaine, doing her best to look filled with legitimate purpose, piled up a trencher, and the group headed together to the service entrance.

  The prison tower was the largest part of the castle, but even so, only a certain class of prisoner was held there for long. Wealthy prisoners bribed their way out; famous ones were rescued; the most and the least important ones were swiftly killed, for opposite reasons. Those who were kept locked up for years on end either had information that was more useful when their heads were still attached to their bodies, or were from families over whom the King wished to exercise leverage. A little bit of torture could go a long way. Though having said that, with Leo, it was rarely just a little bit of torture.

  The man – or woman – in the iron mask was being held in the basement dungeon. This was the darkest, dankest hole; the prisoners kept there were the lowest of the low, literally and figuratively. Roddy had said that he didn’t know who he’d made the mask for and that he had never seen him.

  ‘It was for a special prisoner, though?’ Martha had insisted.

  Roddy had shrugged. ‘As far as I know he might just have been an ugly blighter.’

  The would-be rescue party headed to the prison tower door, a sturdy-looking wooden affair, but with bands of iron which, according to Roddy, might as well have been paper chains.

  Humphrey knocked. A panel at head level slid aside and a cloud of halitosis emerged.

  ‘Lunchtime,’ said Elaine.

  ‘Piss off,’ said the cloud. ‘We haven’t had vegetables in here since Leo’s great-grandfather’s reign. Transparent rescue attempt.’

  The panel slid shut. Elaine put her vegetables down. Humphrey knocked again. The panel slid open again, and the cloud re-emerged.

  ‘We’re friends of the King,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said the cloud.

  Humphrey held up a gold coin with Martha’s father, King Peter’s, face printed on it.

  ‘This King,’ he said.

  ‘How good friends are you?’ said the cloud.

  ‘We’re extremely close,’ said Humphrey. He shook the bag of coins so that it audibly clinked.

  The door opened. The halitosis cloud turned out to be emanating from a man of middle age, middle height and middle weight, whose main distinguishing feature was that both of his teeth were black.

  Humphrey handed over the bag of coins, leaning back as he did so to try to avoid the full force of the guard’s brea
th. The guard dug into the bag and took out a coin, but he couldn’t bite it because his teeth were too far apart. He scratched at it instead with a filthy fingernail. Martha couldn’t see what that achieved, but he seemed satisfied. He stepped aside, and they entered the tower.

  ‘Going up?’ said the guard.

  ‘Down,’ said Humphrey.

  The guard’s forehead creased with consternation. ‘Down? Are you sure?’

  ‘We’re sure.’

  ‘I should give you some of this back if you’re only going down.’

  Martha assumed he was joking, but he raked through the sack, carefully picked out some coins and handed them back to Humphrey.

  ‘Fair’s fair,’ said the guard. ‘I’ll give you back even more if you let me hang on to that one.’ He pointed at Elaine.

  ‘She’s not for sale,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘Not unless you want your nuts to end up in that sack,’ added Elaine.

  The guard seemed sanguine at this prospect, but Humphrey shook his head.

  A long, stone staircase wound down in a spiral from the base of the tower. As they began to descend, Martha remembered how she and Jasper had been taken to visit the man in the iron mask in her own castle’s dungeon once, when she was very small. Martha had thought he was a monster with a huge metal head, and had cried and been carried away. She had never gone back, although the man had periodically reappeared in her nightmares. She wondered what had become of him. She supposed that he was still there. Guilt buzzed around her like a fly. She swatted it away.

  The stench of the guard’s rotten breath was soon replaced by the cloying funk of the cheap tallow candles that illuminated the dank underground passageways, and the encroaching miasma of piss, shit, vomit, sweat and low-quality foodstuffs that outweighed oxygen in the air of any self-respecting basement dungeon. They continued along a downward-sloping bare-brick passageway, with small holes in the roof through which guards, if needs be, could shoot arrows or other missiles at absconding prisoners. Eventually, the passage opened out into a low, square room, lined with three iron-bar-fronted cells. They stopped, and looked first to one side, then to the next, then to the next.