The Table of Less Valued Knights Read online

  ‘I mean, a prince of Tuft. They’re all inbred there. No chins. But he’s got a chin, quite a big one, actually.’

  ‘Please don’t talk about his chin.’ Some of the drawings she had seen had involved chins in places where chins should not be.

  ‘Come and have a look at him,’ said Deborah. ‘He’s honestly not that bad. He’s still got most of his hair.’

  Martha shook her head. ‘No point.’

  ‘You’re going to have to marry someone,’ said Deborah. ‘If you want to rule. And you have to rule, you’re the Queen. And you know they’re not going to let you choose.’

  Martha didn’t want to admit it, but Deborah was right.

  ‘There’ll be a list,’ Deborah went on. ‘You say no to this one, they’ll just go to the next one. You could do worse. I’ve heard things about Prince Cuthbert of Brack, on the servant grapevine. He makes the pictures in that book look tame.’

  ‘Don’t talk about that book,’ said Martha.

  ‘May I borrow it?’ said Deborah. ‘If you’re done with it?’

  Martha shuddered. ‘By all means.’

  ‘Mistress Smedley says the pictures were done by monks,’ Deborah mused. ‘I wonder how they do their research?’

  ‘I dread to think.’ Martha chewed on a sliver of lime. ‘So what does the servant grapevine say about Prince Edwin?’

  ‘They say he’s not as bad as his brother, Leo.’

  ‘And what do they say about Leo?’

  ‘They say he’s a cock, Your Majesty.’

  Martha swallowed her lime. ‘Let’s have a look at this Edwin, then.’

  Deborah climbed off the stool and helped Martha up onto it. She pressed her face up to the bars and observed the scene in the castle courtyard. Prince Edwin was standing to one side, talking to Sir John. Deborah was right – there was nothing in particular to object to in his body or his face.

  ‘I suppose he is no better and no worse than anybody else,’ said Martha.

  She turned back to the room and caught sight of her black wedding dress, hanging limp by the mirror.

  Eighteen

  As Martha appeared at the back of the chapel on the arm of Sir John Penrith, the organist, a converted Saracen who was so short he had to sit on two cushions, struck up a funereal tune, as if the music for today’s wedding and tomorrow’s interment had got confused. The lugubrious minor chords added to Martha’s sense of encroaching doom. At the entrance to the chapel was an honour guard of soldiers, supposedly there for her protection, but, Martha suspected, really posted to ensure that she wouldn’t run away. She walked down the nave, the eyes of the gathered dignitaries fixed upon her, and Sir John’s arm felt less like a means of support and more like a shackle binding her to the prison of marriage.

  They reached the front of the chapel where Prince Edwin was waiting. Sir John let go of her and stepped to one side, and all at once Martha missed that restrictive but familiar arm. She wondered if Edwin was dreading this as much as she was. She, at least, had had a glance at his face the night before; whereas in her ludicrous dress, with a heavy black veil wound around her head, his bride must look to him like a cross between a beekeeper and a very fancy ottoman. She drew back her veil with trembling hands and looked up at her husband-to-be. Edwin grimaced, unable to conceal his disappointment. Martha blinked rapidly to stop the tears that had sprung to her eyes. It is your duty, she reminded herself, echoing Mistress Smedley’s words of the night before, and with a sickening lurch remembered the other duty that awaited her later.

  The Archbishop stepped forward, and Edwin replaced his scowl with a smile. Martha gasped. Surely teeth of that magnitude could not exist in nature? There was a ripple of shocked laughter in the chapel, and Martha turned. She spotted Mistress Smedley and Deborah, sitting together close to the back. ‘Help,’ she mouthed. But there was nothing they could do.

  A layer of icy sweat slathered Martha’s skin under that infernal dress. She felt utterly trapped. Images from the book kept appearing, unbidden, in her mind. She tried to focus her thoughts on Edwin, tried to ask herself whether he’d be intelligent, kind, a demon at cards, but all she could think about was that thing between his legs and what he was going to do with it. Although he hadn’t been married before – maybe he didn’t know what was required? Was it up to her to inform him? Perhaps she’d pretend she didn’t know either, and they could adopt a baby from some peasant girl who’d got herself pregnant by mistake – Good Lord – how could such a thing happen by mistake? It’s not as if you wouldn’t notice. And even if Prince Edwin did know, and wanted to, I’m the Queen. I can just refuse. But there was that unfortunate vow she’d be making in a few tiny minutes: to love, honour and OBEY. Oh, she could see why they put that in, now.

  The music of the organ pounded loud and discordant in her ears. She tried to keep her eyes on Edwin’s face – nice face, nice face, nothing to be scared of – yet she couldn’t help but glance at the fateful bulge between his legs. It was quite big, but squidgy-looking, not at all like in the drawings. Oh praise God, maybe his didn’t work properly! She looked back up again, into his dark brown eyes, and felt the beginning of hope – he was surely just a normal young man, maybe he was frightened, maybe he didn’t want to marry a stranger either, maybe he’d be happy to wait before consummating the marriage (wait, perhaps, for the rest of their lives) – and then he smiled again, and all she could see was those enormous, awful, extraordinary teeth clamped on one of her nipples (as per illustration page twelve) and she fought the urge to gag.

  There had to be a way out. She could – she could – break one of the stained-glass windows – push the lectern to the wall – climb up and jump out? Or grab the sceptre off the Archbishop and fight her way past all those soldiers? Frantically she looked around the congregation, desperate to find someone who might rescue her. But they were all sitting placidly watching her go to her miserable fate. Was nobody prepared to get themselves killed to release her from this marriage?

  It was too late, anyway. The Archbishop had already started. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today …’

  Dearly beloved? What did love have to do with any of this?

  Nineteen

  By the end of the wedding banquet, the ring on Martha’s finger was tighter than her corset and heavier than the wedding cake. She sat beside her new husband at the centre of the high table, perched on a dais overlooking the guests. Or they would have been overlooking the guests, except that blocking their view was an enormous marzipan sculpture of Puddock’s national bird, the hoopoe. The marzipan was slightly sweaty, which made her feel nauseous. Or maybe it was the man she was sitting next to who was making her feel sick.

  ‘This banquet is rubbish. Back in Tuft, we’d have had fifty courses at least,’ Edwin was saying, pellets of semi-chewed food flying from his mouth. ‘For my birthday we had spit-roasted foox – that’s the head of a fox attached to the body of an ox.’

  Please don’t say spit again, thought Martha. Better still, please don’t say ANYTHING.

  ‘I had the foox’s drumstick,’ continued Edwin, with a shower of masticated porcupine goulash. ‘It was massive and I ate it all. Speaking of big bones, who does a man have to bone to get a goblet of wine in this place?’

  Martha leaned around the marzipan hoopoe and gestured to a servant, who fetched two more cups of wine from the fountain in the centre of the room. It had been fashioned from the body of a small whale, so that the wine emerged from its blowhole and cascaded back into its mouth. The whale had begun to slump so that red wine dribbled out of the sides of its mouth, and the wine itself had an aftertaste of brine. Still, at least it got you drunk. Martha held her breath and knocked back half her cup in one swallow. She wondered whether her lips were stained as dark as Edwin’s. They made his teeth stand out like tombstones. Soon she’d be buried under those teeth.

  ‘It was my birthday,’ Edwin continued, ‘so I said Leo should have the parson’s nose. But foxes don’t have parson’s no
ses, did you know that? Neither do oxes.’

  ‘Neither do oxen,’ said Martha.

  ‘Is that the head of an ox and the body of a hen? But then it would have a parson’s nose. Golly, you are stupid.’

  Martha’s eyes fell on a long knife, lying next to the ribcage of a suckling goat. If she killed him, what would happen? The penalty for murdering your husband was being burned at the stake, but Sir John might be merciful and have her head taken off with a sword instead.

  ‘Don’t look so forlorn,’ said Edwin. ‘Being stupid is good in a wife. And now that I’m the King, I can make all the difficult decisions, so you don’t need to worry about anything.’

  ‘Prince Consort,’ said Martha.

  Edwin choked and spat out a tangle of gristle.

  If I ask really nicely, Sir John might be merciful and have my head taken off with a sword even if I don’t kill Edwin.

  ‘You’re so lucky your brother got killed,’ said Edwin.

  ‘Yes, what glorious good fortune,’ said Martha.

  ‘I wish mine would die. Then I’d be King of Tuft instead of here.’

  ‘You’re not King of here. You will never be King of here.’

  Edwin opened his mouth to remonstrate, but on the far side of her, Sir John had got to his feet.

  ‘Perhaps now would be a good moment for a toast,’ he said. He tapped the side of his goblet with a knife to get the room’s attention. ‘To the bride and groom!’

  ‘The bride and groom,’ chorused the guests, and everyone drank.

  ‘And to the bride’s beloved father, departed but yesterday,’ said Sir John.

  ‘And to my dear brother, and my mother,’ said Martha quietly, before she raised her cup.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a good one,’ called out Edwin. ‘Here’s to the King. What king? Fuc-king!’

  The guests laughed, some genuinely, but most nervously.

  ‘And now, to the bedchamber!’ said Sir John.

  To the bedchamber? That seemed like a strange toast. But before Martha had a chance to drink, Edwin leapt up, grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder and started to run for the door.

  ‘Put me down. Put me down!’ Martha battered her fists against Edwin’s back. ‘I’m the Queen!’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ said Edwin, slapping her on the bottom.

  The rest of the guests had got up and were chasing after them.

  ‘Where is the damn bedchamber?’ yelled Edwin.

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ said Martha into his flank. With every step his shoulder jabbed into her stomach, and she was at serious risk of regurgitating the entire banquet down his back.

  ‘Up the grand stairs and across to the east wing,’ called Sir John. ‘Follow the rose petals!’

  ‘Rose petals, see?’ said Edwin. ‘Because you’re going to get deflowered.’

  The pun was the first sign that Edwin had any intelligence at all, but being carried upside down up the stairs followed by a mass of baying subjects, Martha was not in the best position to appreciate it.

  Twenty

  As Edwin lugged Martha up the stairs and prepared to take what had damn well better be her virginity, he reflected that there was a silver lining to every cloud. She was far too skinny to be a decent lay, but at least she didn’t weigh much. Dropping her in front of everybody would be bloody embarrassing.

  He had been to plenty of weddings before, and he’d always looked forward to the moment when the guests chased the bride and groom into the bedroom and ripped off the bride’s clothes. He was thrilled that it was his turn now, but Martha didn’t seem to be as excited about it as he was. She was kicking and squirming on his back, almost as if she wanted to be dropped. Edwin clutched her tightly and ran along the trail of rose petals, swerving back and forth to avoid the grabbing hands.

  Reaching the bedchamber, he hauled Martha inside, followed immediately by the drunken, shrieking mob. He chucked Martha onto the bed.

  ‘Go on then,’ he said to the mob, ‘and hurry up.’

  He stood aside.

  Martha lay in a ball on the bed, her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. I hate you all, she thought, as her subjects crowded around her, yelling and cheering as they ripped strips off her wedding dress. She recognised several members of the Regency Council, some of whom were wearing party hats. The throng were laughing, singing, clapping, comparing prizes (‘I got a sleeve!’), behaving as if it was a cross between Christmas morning and a fox hunt. Somebody actually shouted, ‘Tally-ho!’ On it went, for what felt like hours: grabbing, grabbing, grabbing.

  These were the people who were supposed to obey her, respect her, love her? These were the people for whom she would spend the rest of her life in servitude, fighting their wars, administering their laws, leading them, protecting them, anticipating and providing for their every need? These gannets?

  For them she had married that, that, thing she could not bring herself to call a man, who was standing to one side and yawning while his bride was torn to pieces before his eyes? Who was merely waiting his turn to ravage her in ways unimaginably worse than this rabble’s greedy, grasping fingers? Whose daughter she might bear, for her to be thrown to the mob in turn?

  And all because of an accident of birth, and the accident of death that had taken her brother away – a brother who would never have been treated in this way on his wedding night. Nobody had touched so much as a thread of Edwin’s clothing, she noticed.

  She gritted her teeth and refused to cry.

  I hate each and every one of you. Why would I want to be your queen?

  Despite everything, a few tears squeezed through and dripped hotly onto her nose and cheeks. She could feel the fingernails of her subjects clawing at her very flesh.

  Suddenly, Edwin’s voice cut through the shrieking of the crowd.

  ‘That’s enough! Everybody go! Now!’

  The hands stopped tearing, and Martha felt a pathetic relief and gratitude to her husband, which was swiftly replaced by a new and different terror. This was it. Every horror in that book was about to befall her. She began to shudder, backing into a corner of the bed like a wounded animal. But Edwin just staggered over to the bedside, muttered, ‘Long day,’ collapsed face first onto the mattress and began to snore.

  This might be her only chance.

  Twenty-One

  Edwin appeared to be a deep sleeper; that was lucky. Martha packed as quickly and silently as she could while he snored, stuffing a few essentials into a set of saddlebags she found in the stables. There were plenty of leftovers from the wedding banquet and she wrapped a selection of the most appealing dishes to tide her over, reasoning that she could buy more on the road. Though money was a problem. She had never used it, had no idea what anything cost, so she didn’t know how much she’d need. She didn’t want to weigh down her horse, but nor did she want to run out. Ideally, she’d take enough to last her for the rest of her life, as she couldn’t imagine how she was going to get more, but this seemed a little unrealistic. In the end she took several handfuls of gold from the treasury, which, unbelievably, was left locked but unguarded at night. She had seen where the treasurer kept the key when he’d taken her on the tour. If she’d been carrying on as queen, she’d have done something about that, but she wasn’t carrying on as queen. By the time the sun came up she’d be gone. Let Edwin run the country and see how he liked it. She felt a stab of disquiet at this thought – he might like it, but she doubted that the country would – but she ignored it.

  Deborah slept in a small chamber near Martha’s room in case she was needed in an emergency, which this most certainly was. Martha slipped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar to allow in light from the candles in the corridor. She shook Deborah awake, explained in the briefest terms that she was leaving, and whispered a few hasty instructions. Deborah wasn’t the most discreet person in the world, but that couldn’t be helped.

  ‘And you’re never coming back?’ said Deborah.

  �
��Never,’ said Martha.

  Deborah started to weep. She flung her arms around Martha and held her tight, sobbing into her hair. ‘You were always a good mistress. I’ll miss you, I really will.’

  Martha was startled. She tried to remember the last time someone had hugged her, and came up with nothing.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she said, awkwardly patting Deborah’s back. ‘I’ll send for you as soon as I get to –’

  ‘Don’t tell me where you’re going,’ interrupted Deborah. ‘You know I can’t keep a secret.’

  That doesn’t bode well, thought Martha.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?’ asked Deborah.

  ‘I’m certain,’ said Martha, who wasn’t. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Deborah, who would, and she wept a fresh slew of tears.

  ‘Goodbye, dearest Deborah,’ Martha said, feeling a surge of warmth for her loyal maid, and she kissed her on the forehead. Deborah appreciated the kiss, but she might also have liked one of the gold coins in Martha’s bags. Martha didn’t even think of it.

  She returned to the stables, saddled her horse, Silver, and rode the sleepy and reluctant beast to the Crone’s cottage, a stone shack surrounded by pines on the edge of the castle estate. She knocked on the door, first gently with her knuckles, then, when that drew no response, thumping hard with her fists. Eventually, the door creaked open to reveal a small girl, around twelve years old, with huge brown eyes. She was wearing a nightgown and wrapped up against the cold in a rough woollen blanket.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Martha.

  ‘I’m the Acting Crone,’ said the girl.

  ‘I need to see the real Crone,’ said Martha. ‘It’s an emergency.’

  ‘She isn’t here.’ The girl looked terrified. ‘Aren’t you the Queen?’

  ‘Yes. Let me in.’

  The girl stood to one side, and attempted a curtsey as Martha passed her. It didn’t really work with the blanket. Then she closed the door.