The Table of Less Valued Knights Page 22

  ‘I can,’ said Martha. ‘I have, I have, a, this …’ She pulled the tiny bottle of universal panacea that Nancy, the young apprentice crone, had given her, out of her pocket where she always carried it. ‘It’s supposed to cure everything.’

  ‘It won’t cure this,’ said Karim.

  ‘I’m going to try,’ said Martha.

  She went over to Humphrey, who was still holding Conrad’s body, and unstopped the bottle. Conrad was lying with his eyes shut and his mouth slightly open. Barely daring to hope, she poured the tiny dose of precious liquid between his lips until it was all gone. Then she stood back to see what would happen.

  It took less than a minute. As the companions watched, astonished, the hideous wound on Conrad’s belly closed and the skin healed. His clothes were still shredded and covered in blood – apparently the universal panacea didn’t stretch as far as tunics. His chest swelled with an enormous, shuddering breath, and his eyes popped open. Martha gasped, astonished that the potion had actually worked. Elaine leaned over and kissed Conrad’s perfect brow. The panacea had cleared up his spots too.

  ‘It was the King,’ Conrad said. ‘He got Keith. I tried to stop him, but he got Keith.’

  ‘Shush,’ said Humphrey, laughing joyfully through his tears.

  ‘Why are you crying? Are you a woman now?’ said Conrad, trying to smile.

  ‘You’re alive,’ said Humphrey. A huge bubble of snot and spit burst out of his nose and mouth, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  ‘But he got Keith,’ said Conrad again, and now tears were running down his own face. ‘Poor kid. And Silas, God. And Sir Dorian. I know we never liked him, but he didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘He got you,’ said Elaine. She still had her arms around Humphrey. ‘We thought he’d killed you, Conrad.’

  ‘Me? I’m fine, don’t worry about me,’ said Conrad.

  ‘I know,’ said Elaine. ‘It was Marcus. He saved your life.’

  Conrad looked over at Martha in confusion.

  ‘We thought you were done for, but he gave you some kind of magic potion,’ said Humphrey. ‘Where the hell did you get that, Marcus?’

  ‘I was given it,’ said Martha.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a bit more,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘The woman who made it has disappeared. That’s all there was.’ And the woman who was me has disappeared, she thought. Now I will always be caught between male and female.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Conrad simply.

  Martha looked down, unable to respond.

  Humphrey and Elaine helped Conrad to his feet, but Karim stayed with Martha, sensing her distress, his comforting arm around her shoulders.

  Fifty-Two

  Lacking the means to bury them, they placed the bodies side by side, heads reunited with torsos, eyes closed, hands crossed on chests. Humphrey said that he would send word to Camelot to let them know what had happened, so that they could be laid to rest with full honours.

  ‘I suppose that means there’s room on the Round Table for a new knight,’ observed Conrad.

  ‘Let’s not think about that now,’ said Humphrey.

  They borrowed Sir Dorian’s horse for Karim to ride, intending to return it to Sir Dorian’s family as soon as they could. They left Silas and Keith’s little cart behind, not realising it had belonged to them. The two prisoners in iron masks were understandably confused, but Humphrey filled them in as they made their slow way back to where Roddy was waiting for them.

  ‘So that’s you, Humphrey du Val, is it?’ said one of the prisoners, as Humphrey finished his tale. ‘I thought I recognised your voice.’

  ‘Typical,’ said Conrad. ‘We rescue three prisoners from a dungeon in Tuft, and you know two of them.’

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ said Humphrey to the prisoner, giving his squire a friendly, if somewhat ginger, cuff. ‘We know each other, do we?’

  ‘We do indeed,’ said the man in the mask. ‘It’s me, Gordy, from Camelot.’

  ‘Sir Gordon Pencuddy!’ said Humphrey, raising his eyebrows at Martha. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ mouthed Martha silently back.

  ‘How on earth did you end up in King Leo’s dungeon?’ Humphrey asked Gordy.

  ‘Got picked up by one of Leo’s goons for questing in Tuft without permission,’ said Gordy. ‘I don’t know how long I’ve been down there, but it was plenty long enough. The sooner you can get us some food, the better.’

  ‘What about your squire, is he all right?’ Martha asked.

  ‘I don’t know, my lady,’ said Gordy.

  Conrad chuckled at Marcus being mistaken for a woman.

  ‘He’s probably still in that prison somewhere,’ Gordy went on. ‘Don’t worry about it though, squires are two a penny.’

  Conrad stopped chuckling and took an angry step towards Gordy, but Elaine put out a hand to restrain him.

  ‘Not now,’ she mouthed.

  ‘How about you?’ she said to the other man in the iron mask, who could barely walk. ‘You’re not an old friend of Humphrey’s too, are you?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said the man. ‘My name’s William, but I prefer to be called Gwendoline. And apparently that’s enough of a reason in Tuft to end up in one of these.’ He indicated the mask.

  ‘Gwendoline, my dearest friend, for so many years all I had was your voice in the darkness,’ said Karim. ‘I’m so glad to see you finally free.’ He reached out and squeezed Gwendoline’s hand.

  ‘And me you,’ said Gwendoline. ‘Thank you all,’ he said turning his head to where he approximated the group to be. ‘I will never be able to express how grateful I am to you for getting me out of there.’ They could hear tears in his voice.

  ‘There is no gratitude enough,’ agreed Karim. ‘We are forever in your debt.’

  Martha was about to ask Karim why he had refused to be rescued at first, but Gordy spoke over her.

  ‘You’re in deep shit with Arthur for running off without permission, Humph,’ he said to his fellow Less Valued Knight. ‘Word got back to Camelot that you’ve been fighting unauthorised duels all over Tuft. The Round Table are up in arms.’

  ‘You can talk,’ said Humphrey. ‘I heard you were out looking for the missing Queen.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ said Gordy. He shook his iron head. ‘Never mind, that Queen’s way more trouble than she’s worth. The minute this mask is off I’m heading back to Camelot and I’m never going on a quest again.’

  ‘There’s no point looking for her anyway,’ said Conrad. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘What?’ said Martha. ‘No, she isn’t.’

  ‘She is,’ said Conrad. ‘I heard Edwin say so.’

  ‘When did you see Edwin?’ said Martha.

  Conrad looked at her as though she was crazy. ‘Um, just before he killed Sir Dorian, Silas and Keith, and tried to kill me?’

  ‘That was Edwin?’ said Humphrey. ‘You said the King. I assumed you meant Leo.’

  ‘No, King Edwin,’ said Conrad. ‘Of Puddock.’

  ‘He’s not the fucking King of Puddock,’ said Martha furiously. ‘He’s the Prince Consort.’

  ‘Well, whoever he is, he said that Leo had murdered Martha and now he was going to take Puddock to war with Tuft to get his revenge.’

  Everyone stared at Conrad.

  ‘War?’ said Humphrey.

  ‘We cannot let this happen,’ said Karim.

  ‘And it isn’t even true,’ said Martha. ‘Martha’s still alive. I know she is. And anyway, the only reason that Edwin would go to war with Leo is because he hates Leo and he wants Tuft for himself.’

  ‘Well, short of Martha walking back into Puddock and reclaiming the throne, I can’t see what’s going to stop him,’ said Conrad.

  Martha turned to Humphrey. ‘We have to find Jasper,’ she said. ‘Jasper is the rightful King of Puddock. If we find him, we can depose Edwin and stop this war.’

  ‘But Jasper’s dead,’ said C
onrad.

  ‘He’s not,’ said Martha.

  ‘Jasper’s not dead, Martha’s not dead,’ said Conrad. ‘You’ve certainly got enough insider knowledge about the state of health of the Puddock royal family.’

  ‘Marcus is right,’ said Karim. ‘Jasper’s not dead. Not as far as I know. And assuming he hasn’t moved house in the last six years, I know where to find him.’

  Fifty-Three

  The trouble with war, Edwin reflected as he rode for Puddock, is that you can’t just decide to wage it and then off you go. In that respect it differed greatly from killing a few (say, four) people at a time. No, there was all this boring organising you had to do first. For example, it was one thing to decide to conscript all of the men in the realm of fighting age into your army (which meant everyone over the age of twelve, except for the rich ones whose families you didn’t want to piss off), but it was quite another to actually do it. You had to send people to go and get them. If you just stuck a couple of notices up on trees, nobody would turn up. So Edwin would have to send Puddock’s existing army off to round everybody up, which meant that they wouldn’t be available for getting the war started in the meantime. Also, even when you had everyone in place, you still had to arm them, and feed them, and train them to march and stuff. Although Edwin wasn’t planning to do that with all of them, it would take too long. Only the ones at the front had to learn how to march and the others could just follow them. And only the ones at the back needed to be armed, because the ones at the front always got killed straight away – there was no point wasting weapons on them. Except, now Edwin thought of it, if the ones at the front were all going to get killed straight away, then the ones at the back were going to need to learn to march after all, because there would be nobody left to follow.

  It would be worth it, though, if he could wipe the smirk off Leo’s face. And then wipe the face off his head, and the head off his body. Edwin thought back to the moment just before he’d sliced off Sir Dorian’s head, and felt annoyed all over again. That remark about his teeth had been uncalled for. Then he laughed. Sir Dorian had looked so surprised when Edwin had sliced through his neck. The squire and the little page had looked frightened, which was satisfying in a different way. As for the giant – Edwin had killed a giant! He felt taller just thinking about it. True, it hadn’t been a very big giant, but you had to start somewhere.

  All in all it had been a very successful trip. True, Leo had been a prick, but that would make defeating him in battle even more pleasing. True, he hadn’t found Martha, but either she’d turn up in her own time, in which case he would kill her then, or she’d never come back, in which case it didn’t matter that he was claiming she was dead. True, the people of Tuft had not been as welcoming as he might have wished, but once he’d subjugated them in the coming war, there’d be no more piggy-in-the-middle, no more wenches giving all their favours to unworthy knights, no more boys who –

  He drew his horse up sharply. That boy. That boy he thought he’d recognised. He knew where he’d seen him before now. He – she – it? – was Martha! Oh Lord. He felt cold all over. He’d had Martha within a sword’s length – he’d had her by the hand! – and he’d just let her go. It was a good disguise, he gave her that – she definitely looked like a boy. God knows how she’d managed to grow a beard, even a patchy one. Maybe she was naturally bearded and usually shaved – you saw ladies like that in circuses. Anyway, he couldn’t worry about that now. The question was, what was he going to do about it?

  He couldn’t leave her be. Sure, that was the decision he’d made only a few seconds ago, but a great leader always knows when to change his mind, plus now he knew where she was. And now he knew that she knew that he hadn’t recognised her! How she must be laughing at him! It could not be tolerated. And what had she been doing at Leo’s castle, disguised as a boy? Maybe she was planning to go to war with Leo herself. Maybe she was planning to assassinate him. That was unacceptable. Only one person was going to bring Leo down, and that was he, himself, Edwin, King of Puddock, future King of Tuft!

  The decision was made. He would send word to Puddock to begin preparations for war. And while they did all the boring stuff, he was going back to find Martha.

  Fifty-Four

  They left Gordy and Gwendoline with Roddy, who agreed to take the two prisoners back to his forge and release them from their masks, as part of a two-for-one special deal. Then Karim led the way with Humphrey, as Elaine, Martha and Conrad – whose notice to quit had been quietly forgotten by all parties – rode behind. Or at least that was the way it was supposed to go. Martha found herself drifting forwards to ride beside Karim, while Humphrey hung back closer to Elaine and his squire. Jemima seemed to sense that something terrible had happened to Conrad since he’d been gone, and kept reaching up to touch him with the tip of her trunk. Conrad in return scratched her ears the way that she liked best.

  Karim’s presence made Martha feel safe. He had a calm, composed way about him that she wanted to be near. She liked him. It was a simple feeling. At the same time she had so many questions that she barely knew where to start.

  ‘You were a squire at the Round Table?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Karim.

  ‘You don’t seem like a squire.’

  Karim was a tall, imposing man, even with his matted hair and emaciated limbs.

  ‘I was younger then,’ he said.

  ‘So … whose squire were you?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Humphrey’s?’ This wasn’t really her guess. Her real guess was too frightening to say out loud, in case it wasn’t true.

  ‘No,’ Karim laughed. ‘I wouldn’t squire for that lazy goat turd for love or money.’

  ‘As if I would offer either for you,’ retorted Humphrey.

  ‘I was Prince Jasper’s squire,’ Karim told Martha, which was exactly what she’d hoped.

  ‘But Jasper’s squire died,’ she said, the words sounding foolish even as she said them.

  ‘Surely by now you’ve realised that hearing that someone has died, and someone actually dying, are not the same thing,’ said Karim. ‘Jasper didn’t die, and neither did I.’ It seemed as good a time as any to tell his story, and so he began.

  ‘My parents were brought to Camelot from the Maghreb as – well – King Arthur does not have slaves, of course; he does not believe in them. Shall we say instead as indentured labour? They were more or less willing, I suppose. My father was a field worker, my mother a necessary woman.’

  ‘Is that the same as a whore?’ asked Martha, proud of her new vocabulary.

  ‘No,’ said Karim. ‘It means that she emptied the chamber pots.’

  Martha was mortified. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, apologising both for her error and for the job Karim’s mother had had to do. It had never occurred to her before to give a moment’s thought to the person who emptied the chamber pots.

  ‘So am I,’ said Karim. ‘It was not a dignified position, although she remained a dignified woman. As for me, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t work. Up the chimneys at first – they used to joke that the soot didn’t show on my skin. Then, when I got too big for that, I was put to work in the kitchens, helping to prepare food. I became very skilled with a knife. So much so that when the kitchen boys had their breaks, I graduated from chopping and slicing to throwing. Another boy would stand with an apple on his head and I would toss a knife and hit the heart of the fruit. Every time. Well, except for that child I blinded.’

  ‘I never heard about that,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘That is because I am joking. Anyway, one day Prince Jasper came out into the kitchen gardens, looking for somebody, I suppose. And he caught me at my knife-throwing game. I was terrified. I thought I’d be turned out of the castle, my parents and sister with me – my sister was a scullery maid. But Jasper was impressed.’

  ‘It does sound very impressive,’ said Martha.

  ‘I can demonstrate on you, if you like. Though I ma
y be a little rusty after years with my head in a bucket.’

  ‘Maybe demonstrate on Conrad.’

  ‘Maybe not!’ said Conrad.

  ‘Well, anyhow, Jasper said that I was wasted in the kitchens. Actually I was not wasted at all in the kitchens, the kitchens are exactly where a boy with exceptional knife skills should be. But I was bored in the kitchens, and bored and wasted are close enough kin. So when he asked me if I would like to be his squire, I said yes. I even thought that I might become a knight myself one day, like Sir Palamedes, although the other squires used to say that Arthur already had one black knight, so why would he want another one? But I was hopeful. And Jasper was kind to me. So much so that my sister fell in love with him, but that is another story. He did not have eyes for her, anyway. To continue with my tale, I was very happy as Prince Jasper’s squire until one summer when we returned to his home in Puddock to visit his family. He was heir to the throne there, as you know.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Martha.

  ‘He and his father argued very badly.’

  Martha was shocked. ‘What about?’

  ‘I am not at liberty to disclose that. And in any case, I was not there when it happened. The King had requested that I keep to the servants’ quarters. But perhaps Jasper will choose to tell you himself what they argued about, if and when we find him. Anyhow, afterwards, Jasper came to fetch me and told me that we were leaving the castle immediately and that we would never return. Once we got away, he told me that he was going to pretend to die on a quest so that he didn’t have to become king.’

  Martha stifled a gasp. Like her, her brother had run away from the throne. She could hardly blame him for that. But he’d let her believe that he was dead? He’d let her grieve?

  ‘Nobody wants to rule that place,’ observed Conrad. ‘It must be one hell of a dump.’

  ‘Puddock is the most beautiful place in the world, actually,’ said Martha.

  ‘Really?’ said Conrad. ‘You’ve been everywhere in the world?’

  Ever since Martha had saved his life, Conrad’s attitude to her had changed, if not to open affection, at least to fraternal teasing.