The Table of Less Valued Knights Page 23

  ‘I’ve been to Tuft, and Puddock is similar but nicer,’ Martha said to him. ‘Karim, please carry on with the story. Jasper was about to pretend that he’d died.’ There was a crack in her voice as she said this.

  ‘Yes,’ said Karim. ‘I am still ashamed of what we did next. We took the body of a hanged corpse from a gibbet, boiled up the bones, and sent them to his father saying that it was him.’

  ‘You mean the bones that are displayed in the chapel in Puddock as being Jasper’s belong to a common criminal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know what he was hanged for?’

  ‘It could have been anything. Theft, brawling, throwing a stone at a soldier … Things we have all done, perhaps. Would that make a man unworthy to be laid to rest in a chapel rather than rot on a gibbet?’

  There was a note of reproach in his voice. Martha looked down, chastened.

  ‘Finally,’ Karim continued, ‘with my help, Jasper found somewhere to live, a secluded place where nobody knew who he was. We bid each other farewell, knowing that in order to keep him safe we could never see one another or communicate again. It was an extremely sad time. I returned to Camelot where I told King Arthur that Jasper had died, and tried not to feel ashamed of all the mourning that ensued. I was assigned to another knight, on the table of Errant Companions.’

  ‘Nobody on the Round Table wanted a brown squire?’ said Conrad.

  ‘I prefer to think that is not the reason. I like to think well of the Knights of the Round Table. They are, for the most part, the best of men. Perhaps none of them needed a new squire, perhaps I was considered unlucky now that my master had died. Perhaps I simply wasn’t a very good squire.’

  ‘It sounds like you were an excellent, loyal squire,’ said Martha.

  Karim grinned at her. ‘Whatever the reason, I adjusted to my new life and my new master, Sir Dennis du Pont, who was, in a word, a dolt.’

  ‘The Errant Companions all are,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘One day, we were out on a minor quest – as I recall, retrieving an unbreakable shield from a dwarf who’d stolen it from a damsel – when a gang of King Leo’s soldiers ambushed us and took me captive. I do not know what became of Sir Dennis.’

  Humphrey filled him in: ‘Took a challenge from a purple knight, slept with his wife, stole his girdle of invincibility which turned out to be a piece of string, got his head cut off.’

  ‘A worthy end,’ said Karim. ‘As for me, it turned out that I had been less discreet about Prince Jasper not being dead than I should have been. I’d trusted the wrong person … My own weakness was to blame for this. After I was captured, King Leo sent word to Arthur that I had died, so that nobody would come looking for me. Then he kept me in his dungeon in an iron mask, swearing never to release me until I had revealed Jasper’s whereabouts. Leo’s brother was set to marry the princess who is now this missing Queen of Puddock, and through this union, Tuft planned to annex Puddock. If Jasper were to turn up alive, then the plan would be for nothing.’

  ‘All the more important that we find Jasper!’ This was from the unlikely source of Elaine, who hadn’t said a word about looking for Sir Alistair since they’d left Tuft Castle.

  ‘Karim, does that mean you’ve been in that iron mask for six years without ever revealing where Jasper is?’ said Martha.

  ‘I don’t know exactly how long I was in there for, but I believe so. That’s why I didn’t want to be rescued at first. I thought it was another trick, a way of getting me to lead Leo to Jasper. But I trust Humphrey. I trust you all. And you have the sword, of course.’

  ‘What’s so special about that bloody sword?’ said Conrad.

  Karim smiled. ‘It’s magic.’

  ‘We know that,’ said Conrad.

  ‘You don’t know everything,’ said Karim. But he refused to be drawn any further.

  Fifty-Five

  That night there wasn’t enough room for Karim to fit into the men’s tent with Humphrey, Conrad and Martha, so he borrowed Humphrey’s bedroll and took it out under the stars. Martha lay awake wondering what it was like for him, out beneath the huge sky, after so many years locked away in his mask, underground. After several restless hours, she crept outside to join him. She found him sitting up cross-legged on his mat.

  ‘After years in perpetual darkness, it is too light for me to sleep,’ said Karim. ‘The moon is like a flaming torch.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep either,’ said Martha, sitting down next to him. ‘It seems like I never can.’

  ‘No,’ said Karim. ‘Something is bothering you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Martha.

  ‘What is it?’ said Karim.

  She felt that she could trust him. Not absolutely, perhaps. But enough.

  ‘My father died,’ she said. She started to cry. ‘And I’ve been running so fast I haven’t even let myself think about him.’

  Karim put an arm around her and held her quietly as she wept, sobbing out the anguish not only of those weeks since her father had died, but of the months and years she’d suffered before that, as she’d slowly, agonisingly lost him. Eventually her tears slowed. They sat together in comfortable silence. Karim didn’t move his arm away. Martha wondered how it could possibly be that she felt she’d known him for so long, when in fact it was less than a day.

  ‘There’s something else,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’ said Karim calmly.

  ‘You know that other prisoner? William?’ she said.

  ‘Gwendoline,’ said Karim.

  Martha took a deep breath. Not once had she been close to being truthful with anyone since she had left the castle on her wedding night.

  ‘I’m like her,’ she said. ‘I look like a boy, but really I’m a girl.’

  She could feel fresh tears welling in her eyes.

  ‘Is that all?’ said Karim. He laughed softly. ‘Don’t worry. You will find that there are people who don’t mind.’

  He drew her to him, and kissed her, very gently, on the mouth.

  Fifty-Six

  There was no point looking for Martha by himself, that would take far too long. It was possible that she was still at Leo’s castle but equally likely that she was not. Edwin didn’t like to think of himself as lazy; the word he would have chosen was efficient. He found a small body of water. Not a lake. A lake would be too big for his purposes. A stream too small. In the end he settled on a little pool made from a dug-out quarry that had been filled by an underground spring.

  He stripped off Sir Dorian’s third-best armour and plunged into the water. The coolness was pleasant in the heat, but he barely noticed. He made sure he swam on his front and on his back. You never knew exactly what it was that people liked to look at. Then he got out and lay down in the sun by the side of the pool, nude. Bait. If you wanted to catch a fish, it was all about bait.

  Edwin knew he’d got to the Lady of the Lake the first time around, even though she’d left in a fury. Maybe especially because of it; he’d managed to get under her skin. When a maiden appeared not to like Edwin it was a sign that she liked him really. And when she appeared to like him, that was also a sign that she liked him. Not enough men in the Lake, that’s what she’d said. Well, he was nothing if not a man.

  He waited. Time passed. In another man doubts would have set in. In Edwin, doubts presented themselves, decided that this was not a hospitable environment, and left again. If she didn’t come, why, then, she was playing hard to get; or she was washing her hair; or she was stupid. It couldn’t be because she had no interest in him, or because it wasn’t a good plan. It was Edwin’s plan. What more was there to say?

  ‘You’re going to get sunburnt.’

  He had drifted off. He sat up with a start, feeling indeed a little burned, and queasy from the heat. Nevertheless, he flexed the muscles in his chest and gave her his best smile, the one that showed all of his teeth.

  ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about you,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ said the Lad
y of the Lake. She was standing on the surface in the middle of the pool, twirling a length of her midnight hair around her finger. Her face was too eager. It was sad.

  ‘I was ungrateful before,’ said Edwin. ‘You have such a difficult job. It’s hard for a king like me to understand.’

  ‘You’re actually not a …’ The Lady of the Lake stopped. She bit her thumb coquettishly. ‘Aren’t you going to get dressed?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to get undressed?’ said Edwin.

  Come closer.

  She took a step closer, across the surface of the water. Then she stopped.

  Damn it, thought Edwin. The pool was deep all the way across. He should have picked somewhere shallow that he could wade into. He would have to be patient. Patience didn’t come naturally to him.

  ‘We’ve been warned to stay away from men like you,’ said the Lady of the Lake. ‘Because of how Nimue ran off with Merlin.’

  ‘I’m not Merlin,’ said Edwin.

  ‘No,’ said the Lady of the Lake. She licked her lips. ‘You most certainly are not.’

  ‘Come closer so that I can show you my magic,’ said Edwin.

  ‘You don’t actually have any magic,’ said the Lady of the Lake.

  ‘No,’ said Edwin.

  ‘You shouldn’t joke about that kind of thing,’ said the Lady of the Lake. ‘We take it very seriously in the supernatural community.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Edwin.

  ‘You can’t go around claiming to have powers that you don’t have.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I didn’t just fall into this, you know. I had to take exams.’

  Edwin raised an eyebrow. He was very proud of being able to do that. ‘That’s impressive,’ he said. ‘What kind of magic can you do?’

  The Lady of the Lake took several steps closer now, flattered by Edwin’s interest. ‘Well, finding things mostly,’ she said.

  ‘And people?’ said Edwin.

  ‘Yes. That’s how I started off, being the Child at the Crossroads. Then I got my module in Future Divining, which is how I became the Woman by the Well, which is my proper job. Did I mention I’m just covering here?’

  ‘You don’t like the Lake, do you?’ said Edwin.

  ‘No,’ said the Lady of the Lake. ‘It does terrible things to my skin. I’m getting all wrinkled.’

  ‘So what do you see in the future for us?’ asked Edwin.

  The Lady of the Lake concentrated. Then she broke into a smile. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘You’re going to take me away from here?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Edwin, nodding encouragingly.

  Now the Lady of the Lake was beaming. ‘Nimue thinks she’s so special! Like she’s the only one who could get a man! Wait till she sees I got myself a k –’ The Lady of the Lake broke off, too honest to say king. Then something occurred to her. ‘Oh Lord, they’re going to be furious with me down in the Lake. Maybe I can sneak out. What am I saying? They probably already know I’m leaving. Bloody sorcerers!’

  Hurry up, woman, thought Edwin.

  ‘I hope they don’t make me pay back my tuition fees,’ the Lady of the Lake continued. ‘I wonder who’ll take my place? Not the Girl by the Gate, surely. Her incantations are really derivative.’ She caught the bored expression on Edwin’s face. ‘Oh, sorry. Wait here, and I’ll go and pack my things. Hopefully I won’t run into anyone while I’m down there.’

  The Lady started to descend into the water.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Edwin.

  The Lady stopped and looked at him quizzically.

  ‘Come and give me a kiss before you go?’

  The Lady smiled. ‘Of course, my dearest love!’

  She fairly skipped across the water towards Edwin. Edwin rose to his feet, and the Lady, no longer of the Lake, threw her arms around him with delight. They kissed for several long and very enjoyable moments. Then he reached down behind himself, picked up his sword and clubbed her over the head with the hilt. There was no point taking chances. As she crumpled to the ground at his feet, he did wonder whether he’d be better off with someone a little more adept at divining the future, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Fifty-Seven

  ‘We’re here,’ said Karim.

  It was a village. There was nothing remarkable about it. They had ridden up to a pleasant enough green where some children were playing some kind of bat and ball game under a sky that had started to fatten, at long last, with thunderclouds. There was a tavern and a church, and some houses that were neither pretty enough nor ugly enough to be of any note. The trees were trees, the grass was grass, the mud was mud. Daisies and dandelions competed to be the less obtrusive.

  ‘Why here?’ said Martha. ‘It’s so ordinary.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Karim.

  Martha blushed. She blushed whenever Karim said anything at all. She felt that everyone could tell what they had been doing, which was nothing more than kissing. Suddenly all those images from the book had come flooding back to her, and to her astonishment, instead of being disgusted, she longed to try them with Karim. (Karim! Why had she ever even looked at Humphrey?) Except, of course, that she couldn’t. She was sure he had taken her words, ‘Really I’m a girl’, as a metaphor, and now she was afraid to disappoint him when he found out the truth. Could anything be more ironic? When they were together, she kept having to move his hands in strategic directions. Thinking of it, she blushed once more. And now he would notice her blushing and he’d never want to kiss her again.

  ‘I can’t believe that Jasper would choose to live in Grint,’ she said, to cover her embarrassment. ‘The people here are cranks. They don’t have a king, all decisions are made by committees of commoners, they barely have any laws, just the obvious ones like murder, and they never put anybody to death.’

  ‘That was the appeal,’ said Karim. ‘What exactly do you consider to be the disadvantages?’

  ‘I …’ said Martha. ‘Um … It’s just so strange. They don’t have a king.’

  ‘I’d sooner a committee of commoners than one King Leo,’ said Elaine. ‘Or Edwin, for that matter.’

  Karim led the way past the green and into a nest of narrow streets that curled behind the churchyard where Martha hoped her brother wasn’t buried. Her heart was racing and her hands were so slippery with sweat that she could barely hang onto her horse’s reins. What if Jasper wasn’t there? What if he was? What was she going to say to him? What if he was married now? What if he had children? What if he was dead? What if he didn’t want to come home? How was she going to explain to him that she was a boy? What would the others do when they found out the truth? What would Karim do? But joy and excitement edged out the fear. I’m going to see my brother again! Jasper wasn’t dead. The Lady of the Lake had said so. What else mattered, really?

  Karim brought his horse to a halt.

  ‘There,’ he said.

  The cottage Karim had stopped in front of was modest but in good repair, with a well-tended vegetable garden in front of it, and roses climbing up beside the front door and into the thatch above. They all dismounted. Karim handed the reins of his horse to Humphrey, unlatched the front gate and walked up the path. Martha thought she could see his hands tremble. She tried to think of what she was going to say when she saw her brother. Hello, Jasper, it’s me, Martha. And … and … and … At her side, Leila bounced in her scabbard in time with the beating of her heart.

  Karim knocked.

  For a few seconds nothing happened.

  ‘There’s nobody home,’ said Martha, awash with the certainty of disappointment. But then from inside the cottage Karim heard footsteps.

  ‘He’s coming,’ he said.

  Martha could hardly breathe. The door opened. A slim, blond man with sparkling blue eyes peered out from behind it. Martha had never seen him before in her life.

  ‘Sir Alistair!’ said Elaine.

  The man slammed the door in Karim’s face.

  Martha felt dizzy. She’d go
ne over every possible scenario, but she had never thought of this.

  Humphrey turned to Elaine. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘You said you wouldn’t recognise him, back in the dungeon.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Elaine.

  She hurried up to the door and knocked again.

  ‘Sir Alistair, it’s Lady Elaine. I just want to talk to you.’

  ‘Are you there, Jasper?’ called Karim.

  ‘Is it definitely the right place?’ said Martha.

  ‘It was,’ said Karim. ‘But it’s been six years.’ He shouted through the door again. ‘Jasper! Are you there? It’s Karim!’

  ‘It doesn’t look like a prison,’ observed Humphrey.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Karim.

  Humphrey looked at Elaine. ‘I mean, he just walked to the door and opened it.’

  Elaine didn’t say anything to this.

  Humphrey turned to Conrad. ‘Knock the door down.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem to be striking the right note,’ said Conrad.

  ‘Conrad!’

  ‘Fine. Stand back, everyone.’

  Conrad pulled back his fist to punch through the door, but before he could, it opened again, this time revealing a taller, round-cheeked man with auburn hair.

  ‘Steady on,’ said the man.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Conrad, lowering his arm.

  ‘Jasper!’ said Martha.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Jasper. Then he smiled, a broad, infectious grin. ‘Karim!’ He took his former squire in his arms and hugged him closely. ‘What are you doing here? I never thought I’d see you again! I wasn’t supposed to see you again. But I can’t say I’m sorry. Are you well?’

  ‘I am,’ said Karim.

  ‘Except that he’s been in an iron mask for the last six years,’ said Humphrey.

  ‘Christ, Karim. Why didn’t you say? You look bloody good on it. And … Sir Humphrey?’ said Jasper. ‘My God, is that you?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So that must be little Conrad all grown up. With an elephant, no less!’