The Table of Less Valued Knights (26 page)

To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
, though. Despite everything, Conrad had always thought that Humphrey was fair, lacking in true malice, and honest at heart. So why had he taken in Marcus, a self-confessed liar and thief, a boy who had tried to kill him? Why was he lavishing so much attention on someone who was supposed to be his captive? Why did he always take Marcus’s side against Conrad?

Conrad was loyal to Humphrey. He had sworn fealty to him. He would lay down his life for him, even though this was not part of the squire’s oath, because nobody would sign up for it if it was. Though he’d strenuously tried to avoid thinking in these terms, Humphrey was the closest thing he had to a father. It was too ironic. He’d heard what Humphrey had said back in the woods, that Conrad was just his squire, and love had nothing to do with it. But he’d also heard what Humphrey had said just before that: that Conrad was Cecily’s child. It was silly of him ever to have thought that Humphrey might love him. But he’d never realised, as was now so obvious, that his master hated him. Conrad was a constant reminder of his wife’s betrayal. It must make Humphrey sick to look at him. Well, now he had a new boy to play Daddy to – a king’s son, no less. He didn’t need a pet giant any more. Conrad was better off without him. If he could get a position with one of the Errant Companions, he might even end up being a squire at the Round Table one day. Not a knight, obviously. Giants didn’t become knights, they were killed by them.

Submerged in these thoughts, Conrad was barely aware of his surroundings. People were still streaming out through the
castle gates, and if someone hadn’t cheered for Sir Dorian, the knight would have been upon him before Conrad had the chance to hide. Hide he did, and quickly, because the last thing Conrad needed was to be spotted by snotty, superior Sir Dorian and hauled back to Camelot for a bollocking. Conrad scurried along the side wall of the castle and ducked around the corner. It wasn’t very far away; it wasn’t a very big castle. Conrad peered around the wall as Sir Dorian emerged from the gate, pulled his helmet from his handsome head, shook out his hair, and began kissing babies, accepting colours from maidens, and generally basking in adulation like a cat in a sunbeam.
It’s not you, you dickhead
, Conrad wanted to say.
It’s the position. Get yourself busted down to Less Valued Knight and they’ll forget all about you toot sweet
. He was lucky that Sir Dorian hadn’t spotted him on the way into the castle, but then again he wasn’t wearing a tight bodice. Sir Dorian was more blinkered than his horse. Meanwhile Sir Dorian’s squire and page stood by, looking bored. Conrad knew how they felt.

When the crowd finally dispersed, Sir Dorian stayed on, pacing his horse up and down and glaring with growing irritation at the castle gate. Evidently he was waiting for someone. Eventually, just as Conrad was giving up hope that anyone was going to arrive, a man on horseback came out of the gate, dressed in full armour, aside from his helmet, and looking furious.

‘Edwin,’ said Sir Dorian. ‘Finally.’

Edwin! So this was Queen Martha’s famous husband.

‘It’s
Your Majesty
,’ Edwin said to Sir Dorian.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sir Dorian, ‘
Your Royal Highness
. Did you find her?’

Edwin looked behind him at the gatekeeper.

‘Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private.’

To Conrad’s horror, Edwin began to steer Sir Dorian towards the corner where he was hiding. Conrad scuttled back to a huge horse chestnut tree and hid behind the trunk. A normal-sized
giant would never have been able to conceal himself behind a tree of any size. There were some advantages to being a runt. Edwin and Sir Dorian soon rounded the corner, with Silas and Keith trailing behind.

‘Martha’s dead,’ Edwin told Sir Dorian.

To his surprise, Conrad was dismayed. This should have been a major triumph over Marcus, but he felt sorry for the poor young Queen.

‘How do you know?’ said Sir Dorian.

‘Leo killed her. He told me himself. It was murder.’ Edwin rolled the word around his mouth like a delicious sweet.

‘But …’ Sir Dorian shook his head. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Why would your realms go to all the trouble of making such a key alliance through marriage, only for the King of Tuft to kill the Queen of Puddock before you’ve even had the chance to be crowned?’

‘I don’t know why Leo does things,’ snapped Edwin. ‘I’m not his keeper.’ He took a breath and added, in a tone he probably felt was more regal, ‘It was jealousy. Leo can’t stand that I’m a more important king than he was, of a country with a bigger castle.’

‘But you’re not the King of Puddock,’ said Sir Dorian. ‘You’re the bloody Prince Consort.’ Conrad thought that Edwin’s eyes were going to pop out of his head, but Sir Dorian didn’t seem to care. ‘We’ve got to get back to Camelot right away,’ he said. ‘King Arthur will know what to do.’

‘No,’ said Edwin. ‘Why is it always about what King Arthur wants? This has nothing to do with him. This is between Leo and I.’

‘Leo and me,’ said Sir Dorian.

Conrad wasn’t sure that correcting Edwin was a wise move. From the look on the face of Sir Dorian’s squire, he agreed with him.

‘I’m going back to Puddock, to prepare for war,’ said Edwin.

‘War?’ said Sir Dorian, appalled.

Conrad’s heart started beating so hard, he was surprised that the two men didn’t start clapping along. He’d heard war described as glorious, but it terrified him: a brutal and bloody tide of death, almost always waged for no good reason. Yes, a young woman had been killed, and that was a dreadful thing. But why it would improve matters for tens of thousands of men to die too was not at all clear to him.

‘Stop and think,’ said Sir Dorian, causing Edwin to pull a face. ‘Have you actually seen the Queen’s body? Perhaps Leo was trying to antagonise you by pretending that he’d killed her. One should not go to battle unless there is absolutely no alternative. Before you do anything, you need to verify that Leo’s claim is true.’

‘Of course it’s true,’ said Edwin. ‘Everyone knows that my brother is the killing kind. Don’t get your knickers up your bum. You can tiptoe back to Camelot and leave the war to the real men. War is what men were made for! War and fucking. War and fucking and – no, just those two.’

‘I think, perhaps, King Arthur, with his experience –’

‘You’re a patronising git, Sir Dorian,’ Edwin interrupted. ‘You always think you know best. Don’t you?’

Sir Dorian paused. ‘In certain matters, possibly. It depends on whom I’m speaking to.’

Oops
, thought Conrad.

‘You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?’ said Edwin.

Sir Dorian paused again. Conrad had a very bad feeling about that pause. It was the pause of someone who could keep silent no longer, and who was about to say something that would be far better left unsaid.

‘You want to know what I think? I think you are all vanity,’ said Sir Dorian. ‘There is nothing else to you. That’s why you want to go to war, to sacrifice countless lives – though not your own, I’ll bet. In fact I’ll bet you all the money in Puddock, Tuft and Camelot that you don’t give two shits about your wife, that
you’re just annoyed with King Leo for breaking your plaything, so now you want to send innumerable men to their deaths simply to teach him a lesson. Grow up! There are things in this world that matter more than you, astonishing as this news may be. And yes, I do think you’re an idiot. Frankly, it’s not a matter of opinion. Get a dictionary and a mirror. And while we’re on the subject of mirrors, your teeth are ridiculous!’

A scrape as Edwin removed his sword from its sheath, a swish, an unpleasantly wet chopping sound and two thuds. Sir Dorian’s head fell from his shoulders, and his body fell from his horse after it.

‘Well,’ said Edwin. ‘That was easy.’

Conrad felt paralysed. But when Edwin plunged his sword into the neck of Sir Dorian’s squire, he started to run. Not away from Edwin, but towards him, throwing himself between Edwin’s sword and the page. It was too late. Edwin beheaded the child, and then, Conrad’s head being too far away for him to reach, he rammed his sword deep into Conrad’s belly.

They clambered up the dungeon steps, half carrying, half dragging the prisoners with them. It was slow going. All three prisoners were weak and emaciated. Two of them were blinded by the masks they were still wearing, while Karim was wrapped in the spare cloak they had brought with them, the hood drawn up to hide his tangle of hair. Everyone was bursting with unanswered questions, but the time for those would be after they’d escaped.

‘You’re taking them all?’ said the halitosis guard in the anteroom at the top of the stairs.

‘We were hardly going to leave two of them behind,’ said Martha.

‘Punch me in the face, then. The King won’t believe me otherwise,’ said the guard. He sighed. ‘I’m always getting punched in the face, every time there’s a rescue.’

Humphrey punched him, then flicked him an extra gold coin. ‘Treat yourself to some false teeth.’

They left by the main door, forcing themselves to walk slowly across the courtyard and out through the front gate of the inner keep. Humphrey and Elaine walked in front, with the two men in the iron masks following behind as if they were prisoners, arms behind their backs and Roddy’s flimsy chains wrapped around their wrists. Martha drew up the rear with Karim.

‘You two know each other?’ she said to him, indicating Humphrey.

‘Quiet,’ said Humphrey. There were a few castle servants milling around, and it was impossible to know which of them were loyal to Leo, or were frightened enough of the consequences to feign loyalty.

When they reached the drawbridge, the gatekeeper was a little more alert than he had been on their way in. Clearly people breaking into the castle was less of a problem than people breaking out. Either that, or men going for a walk wearing iron masks tended to arouse suspicion in even the sleepiest guard.

‘What’s going on here, then?’ he said, looking up from his game of marble solitaire.

‘We’re taking these two out to be executed,’ said Humphrey.

‘What’s wrong with the execution ground?’ said the gatekeeper.

Humphrey hesitated.

‘We’re taking them to be drowned,’ said Elaine.

The gatekeeper’s eyes widened. ‘Witchcraft?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ said Elaine.

The gatekeeper’s eyes narrowed again. ‘But they’re men.’

Before any of them knew what was happening, Karim had picked up a stone and thrown it with devastating accuracy, hitting the gatekeeper square between those disbelieving eyes. He tumbled from his perch into an unmoving heap on the ground. They all stared at Karim, apart from Humphrey, who began to laugh.

‘Still got it,’ he said.

‘He’ll be out for a while,’ said Karim, ‘but I think we’d better get away before anyone finds him.’

‘Right you are,’ said Humphrey. ‘Now, where’s my hairy lump of a squire? I see he paid no attention to me telling him to stay put.’

The road was empty – fortunately, as nobody had seen Karim knock out the gatekeeper.

‘He probably went off chasing skirt,’ said Humphrey. ‘Wait here, I’ll go and look for him.’

Humphrey headed off round the side of the castle wall, while the others hovered near the gatehouse, hoping the gatekeeper would not wake up.

‘So how do you two know each other?’ Martha said to Karim.

‘From Camelot,’ said Karim.

‘You’re a Knight of the Round Table?’

‘I was a squire,’ said Karim. ‘Would you mind if I took a look at your sword?’

‘Please do,’ said Martha, ‘but watch out. She’s a bit temperamental.’

‘I know,’ said Karim, strangely.

Martha drew Leila from her scabbard and handed her over to Karim. She didn’t feel the usual wrench of loss as she let her go. Karim took Leila by her emerald-studded hilt and turned her gently so that her obsidian blade caught the rays of the sun. His eyes filled with tears.

‘She’s beautiful,’ he said.

He handed the sword back to Martha, who looked with curiosity at his handsome, saddened face and didn’t know what to say. She sheathed the sword without a word.

‘You know,’ said Karim, ‘back in the dungeon, from your voice, I thought you were a woman.’

Martha laughed awkwardly, but before she could come up with a reply they heard Humphrey screaming from behind the castle wall.

‘Elaine!’ he cried. ‘Elaine!’

Without waiting a moment, Elaine began to run. Karim and Martha grabbed the arm of a masked man each and tried to run after her, but the staggering men, blinded by their masks, slowed them down and Elaine soon disappeared around the corner ahead. They heard her shriek, while Humphrey continued to yelp wordlessly, a strange low sound like a wounded wolf. In tacit agreement, Karim and Martha left the men where they were and hurried to find their friends.

When Martha came upon the scene, she was so appalled she staggered backwards, fighting her rising gorge. There were three dead bodies on the ground, all without their heads, one a child of no more than ten. A blood-spattered horse trembled nearby, taking a few paces here, a few paces there, shaking its head from side to side, shuddering. And in the middle of it all, Conrad lay motionless, in a huge pool of red-black blood, his guts ripped open. Elaine was kneeling beside him, weeping.

‘Sir Dorian,’ said Humphrey, pointing at the dead knight. ‘Silas,’ he said, indicating the squire. ‘And little Keith.’ His voice caught as he looked at the dead child. Then he dropped to his knees beside his fallen squire. ‘Conrad, you idiot, what did you have to go and get yourself killed for?’

‘He was a good kid,’ said Karim in a tight voice. ‘He grew up tall.’

‘Actually he was always a short-arse for a giant, and he hated it,’ said Humphrey. He drew Conrad’s enormous head up onto his knees and ran a hand through his hair. ‘You never stopped giving me trouble, did you? Silly boy.’ And then the catch in his throat exploded into huge heaving sobs, and Elaine crawled over, her skirt trailing in Conrad’s blood, and held him close as he cried. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘He was like a son to me, he was the only son I had.’