The Table of Less Valued Knights (28 page)

‘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 may 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.

‘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.

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.

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 Lady 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?’