The Table of Less Valued Knights (17 page)

‘No,’ said Conrad, just as Elaine said, ‘Yes.’

‘The ladies love Lancelot,’ said Humphrey. ‘What do you think, Marcus?’

Martha hesitated. ‘No?’ she said.

‘Why not?’

Because I’m not a lady
.

‘Because he’s a hypocrite?’

‘You see – that’s what I’m saying. Everyone’s a hypocrite. If you exclude all the hypocrites, nobody’s going to be king.’

‘Even Prince Jasper?’

‘Yes. Even him.’

Martha felt herself wondering how much she really wanted to know about her brother. When she’d thought he was dead, the book was closed – he was perfect. But now that he was alive, she felt a vertiginous panic about what she might be about to learn.

She took a deep breath. ‘In what way was he a hypocrite?’

Humphrey scrutinised her anxious face. ‘You knew him at the castle?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘When I was little.’

‘You hero-worshipped him a bit, maybe?’

With all of my heart
. ‘I barely remember him,’ she said.

‘All right,’ Humphrey said, ‘if you really want to know. He talked grand talk about the importance of brotherhood and knightly values, but he was a lazy sod. Never put himself forward for a quest he didn’t have to go on. I realised a long time ago that you don’t actually have to like going on quests, you just have to be willing to do what’s necessary. I started feeling a lot better about myself when I figured that one out. Anyway, some of the knights had a problem with Jasper over that, but I didn’t, not really. He did lord it over everyone a bit because he knew he was going to be King of Puddock one day. I already told you I wasn’t grand enough to be his friend. So that was annoying, but it was understandable. On the other hand, he was nice to his squire.’

‘That matters,’ said Conrad.

‘It really does,’ agreed Humphrey. ‘He bought his fair share of drinks. And, most importantly, when it came right down to it, you could trust him. He’d have been as good a king as anyone. I mean, he was a decent bloke, and that’s all you can hope for, since who becomes king is essentially luck of the draw. Look at Arthur. He’s made a fair fist of it for someone who got the crown by pulling a sword out of a rock. Sure, he’s a sanctimonious bugger and a terrible bore if you’re stuck next to him at dinner, but I doubt anybody could have done a much better job.’

‘He’s better than King Leo of Tuft,’ said Elaine.

‘Better than Edwin,’ said Martha, with a twinge of guilt at having left him in charge of her nation.

‘Better than any of us,’ said Humphrey. ‘Do you think you’d be a good king?’

‘Me?’ said Martha, appalled. She had only just begun to relax at the thought that Jasper had no real skeletons in his closet, and now she was being invited to open her own.

‘Yes, you, if however many thousands of people died and it ended up as your turn. Could happen. Bad plague year.’

‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I’d be a terrible king. I don’t know how to do anything. You saw me with that magic sword, I didn’t know what I was doing, I was terrified, I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. I can’t fight. I can’t lead an army. I can’t lead, full stop. I’m hopeless. I can sit politely at a banquet and laugh at people’s bad jokes, and I can shake hands and admire people’s pigs. That’s it. Sum total of my qualifications. I would be a disaster as king.’

The others were silenced by this surprisingly passionate outburst.

‘Pigs?’ said Humphrey eventually.

‘Yes,’ said Martha. ‘I was always accompanying Princess Martha to county fairs. Puddock is full of pigs. I am quite the expert.’

Humphrey raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re a pig expert,’ he said. ‘That I would not have guessed.’

Then Elaine spoke up. ‘I’d be an amazing queen,’ she announced.

‘You would, would you?’ said Humphrey.

‘Yes. I would be beloved and gracious and wear a massive crown with so many jewels on it that nobody could look at it directly, like the sun. I would recline on satin pillows while naked men fed me raspberries with all the bugs picked out. Have you ever noticed how many bugs there are in raspberries?’

‘Billions,’ said Conrad solemnly.

‘Yes. I hate bugs. They really spoil raspberries. Well, there’d be no bugs for Queen Elaine. And I would have ten – no – seventeen ladies-in-waiting just to do my braids. People would come from miles around to see them. I mean the braids. The ladies-in-waiting, of course, would have been chosen for their remarkable lack of beauty. I would have a table of knights that would be the envy of Camelot, and it would be triangular in shape. I would sit at the apex. My library would be three times the size of that of Constantinople, and I would have read every book. Twice. My wisdom would be renowned the world over. I would dance every night and bestow alms on the poor, not at the same time. I would bring peace to all humanity.’

‘What about taxes?’ said Martha.

‘Taxes?’ said Elaine.

‘I’ve noticed that there are a lot of decisions to be made about taxes. Being king is a full-time administrative position, you have no idea what it’s like. When my – when the last King of Puddock became ill and couldn’t rule any more, an entire council of elders got together just to do his job. People think ruling’s glamorous but it’s a nightmare.’

‘Do you have a sense of humour, Marcus?’ said Conrad.

‘There’s nothing funny about taxes,’ said Martha.

‘Indeed,’ said Elaine. ‘Which is why I would abolish them.’

‘A woman of the people,’ said Humphrey.

‘You’d be a much better queen than I would,’ said Martha.

‘Oh I don’t know, shave your beard off, put you in a dress …’ said Conrad.

The others laughed at this, but Martha’s heart thumped in her chest.

It took several days for Sir Dorian to prepare for the quest to find Martha. His squire, a plump, cheerful lad by name of Silas, was despatched to oil, sand and polish his second-best suit of armour, alongside his third best, in case the second best became damaged during the adventure ahead. (Sir Dorian was saving his best suit of armour for a special occasion, such as when he would return, triumphant, with Martha, and King Arthur would promote him to some position of prominence in his court.) His page, Keith, a quiet boy just shy of ten years, was charged with gathering provisions and packing, with great difficulty, Sir Dorian’s pavilion, bed, folding table, chair, lamps and portable stove, all of which were loaded into a cart that would be driven by Keith and Silas at a careful distance from Sir Dorian, so as not to spoil the effect of the solitary knight errant on his lonesome quest. The fact that he was riding alongside Edwin did threaten to get in the way of this image, but that could not be helped. Edwin was the bearer of the Pentecost quest, and insisted on accompanying Dorian on the journey, no matter how often the knight assured him that he could stay behind and wait in the safety of Camelot.

Edwin, for his part, was sick with disappointment at the knight he’d been assigned. He’d been hoping for one of the famous ones, Lancelot or Galahad, or even one of the second-tier knights like Sir Bors. Who’d ever heard of Sir Dorian?

Though he would never have admitted as much, even to
himself, Edwin was jealous. Ever since boyhood, he had wanted to be a Knight of the Round Table. As a child, nothing excited him more than when Tuft Castle hosted tournaments, and all the knights would arrive on their huge stallions, gleaming in their elaborate armour, colourful pennants flying. They would bow to him (and Leo) before enacting the incredible feats of skill, courage and dexterity that were the jousts. (He wasn’t such a fan of the melees, as the churning mud would spatter his best clothes.) His favourite childhood game was Knights. Usually he played with his brother, but Leo always made him lose, which wasn’t fair, so sometimes he’d play with the son of a local lord, who liked dressing up as a princess. This boy – Edwin couldn’t remember his name, just that in princess mode he liked to be called Gwendoline – would pretend to have been captured by a dragon or a giant or an evil uncle, and Edwin would fight his way past whatever dangers they imagined with his wooden sword and rescue him. Then, as he recalled it, one day Gwendoline was simply gone. There was no explanation, and his absence was never discussed, at least not in Edwin’s presence. As children do, Edwin soon forgot about him, but looking back on it now, he wondered if the kid had been removed for his own protection. Tuft wasn’t a place for boys who wore dresses.

Anyway, back when his father was still alive, Edwin had once confided in him his wish to be a Knight of the Round Table. When his father had stopped laughing, he’d said that being a knight required certain properties – intelligence, integrity, hand–eye coordination, the ability to sleep out of doors without freaking out about bats – none of which Edwin had. Besides, the King said, there was no way he was sending a son of his to Camelot when they had perfectly good knights at their own court. But Tuft knights didn’t have a special table and they didn’t go on quests. Being a knight in his father’s castle was just a fancy way of being one of his dad’s guards, or, later, one of Leo’s, which was unthinkable. So Edwin had given up his dream. And
now that he was finally on a quest, the knight was getting all of the glory, and he – the King! (
Prince Consort
, sniggered Leo in his mind) – was riding behind.

In order to find Martha, Sir Dorian had told Edwin that they would need the assistance of the Lady of the Lake, who had arcane supernatural knowledge which would help Edwin trace the Queen’s whereabouts. (Although Sir Dorian hadn’t said that she would ‘help Edwin’. He had said she would ‘help me’, which Edwin found infuriating.) As plans went, this sounded straightforward enough. Except, as it turned out, there was no such thing as the Lake. There were lakes, in which the Lady might or might not be, as took her fancy. So, in fact, what they were doing was riding between bodies of water, hanging around for a bit until they were sure that no Lady was going to turn up, and then riding on.

Even this might have been tolerable if Sir Dorian hadn’t been distracted by extra quests every five minutes. But once word got out that there was a knight errant about, it seemed like every Tom, Dick and Harry was waylaying them to ask for Sir Dorian’s help, and when Edwin said Tom, Dick and Harry, what he meant was Thomasina, Dilys and Harriet.

Just hours after leaving Camelot, riding south towards Puddock to see if they could pick up Martha’s trail, they passed a village churchyard where a young damsel in a golden dress lay on the ground beside a fresh grave, weeping piteously. Sir Dorian reined in his horse.

‘Fair maiden,’ he said, ‘I am Sir Dorian of the Round Table. May I be of some assistance?’

The damsel scrambled to her feet, furiously wiping her eyes. She smoothed the creases of her dress and dropped a low curtsey, allowing both Sir Dorian and Edwin a good look down her bodice. It was a bodice worth looking down.

‘Isadora Duquesne,’ she said in a low, thrilling voice.

‘I’m Edwin, King of Puddock,’ said Edwin.

‘Puddock doesn’t have a king,’ Isadora said. She turned her attentions to Sir Dorian. ‘Good Sir Dorian, I need to be avenged on behalf of my beloved, taken from me by a fellow named Barnabas, an unworthy type living in a village not three miles from here. If only you could help me!’

‘Fear not,’ said Sir Dorian, ‘I will give you all the help that is within my power to give. Pray lead me to this villain.’

Isadora curtseyed again, then began wending her way along a narrow path in quite the wrong direction from where they’d intended to go. Sir Dorian followed, seemingly forgetting about Edwin.

‘But aren’t we supposed to be going to Puddock?’ Edwin complained as he scrambled to catch up with the knight.

‘All in good time,’ said Sir Dorian without turning round.

‘No use protesting,’ called Silas from the cart, which he and Keith were struggling to manoeuvre along the tiny path. ‘This is the way it always is.’

When they reached Barnabas’s home – a decent-sized place, if you weren’t used to castles – Sir Dorian lowered the visor on his helmet, took a lance from his squire, and smashed down the door. A young man with thick brown hair ran out. He had obviously been having a meal, and when he heard his front door explode he had forgotten to put down his half-eaten bread roll. Apart from the breadcrumbs in his beard, he was a well-turned-out individual, and Edwin felt both excited and slightly sad that Sir Dorian was going to kill him.

‘Miscreant!’ said Sir Dorian, drawing his sword. ‘You have dishonoured this lady!’

‘Which lady?’ Barnabas spotted Isadora. ‘Oh, it’s you. I might have known.’

‘You have slain the lover of this good maid,’ said Sir Dorian, ‘and so I must –’

‘What? Wait, wait,’ said Barnabas, white-faced. He turned to Isadora. ‘Simon’s dead?’

Isadora flushed. ‘I never said he was dead.’

‘But the knight …’ said Barnabas.

Isadora shook her head. Barnabas suddenly realised that he was still holding the bread roll, looked around for somewhere to put it down, couldn’t see anywhere, was unwilling to toss it to the ground, so, with a slightly foolish look of resignation, hung onto it.

‘You were weeping on a grave,’ said Sir Dorian to Isadora.

‘Not on Simon’s grave,’ said Isadora, a little defensively. ‘It was just a comfortable place to lie.’

‘Was it the graveyard on the road from Camelot, by any chance?’ said Barnabas. ‘You and your obsession with knights!’

‘You said that this gentleman had taken your lover away,’ Sir Dorian said sternly to Isadora.

‘He did!’ said Isadora. ‘And he’s no gentleman.’

‘Is this true?’ said Sir Dorian to Barnabas.

‘I am a gentleman,’ Barnabas bristled. ‘But as for the rest of it, I suppose, in the loosest possible sense, one could say that I took him away. Simon had got dull as swill, spending all his time mooning after Dora, and all I did was persuade him to come out and get a drink or two –’

‘Or three,’ said Isadora.

‘– down at the tavern, and she’s got her petticoat in a twist about it.’

‘So he’s not dead,’ said Sir Dorian.

‘He’s not even hurt,’ said Barnabas. ‘Nothing worse than a hangover, anyway.’