The Table of Less Valued Knights (21 page)

He was still aroused.

His hand found its way to his cock, where it moved, quietly.

But Marcus was a boy.

This was wrong, this was all wrong.

The next morning, Marcus looked bruised, skinny limbs twitching with fear, the skin of his face pale and blotchy with last night’s tears.

If he had got the sword
, thought Humphrey,
would he have run away, or would he have killed me first?

He made Marcus ride next to him, same as ever. He had to. He couldn’t trust the boy. Every time he looked over at him, Marcus looked down. Had the boy felt the charge between them in that moment? Humphrey felt certain that he had. If Marcus was one of those men who preferred other men, that would make sense of so much. In fact it was obvious, now he thought about it. But it wouldn’t explain his own feelings. He had never wanted a boy. Plenty of knights did. There was always talk about what went on between certain knights and their squires. It was against the law, but as long as it wasn’t blatant, it was tolerated.

And if it had been Elaine in his bed? Elaine’s draw on him was like the hum of a mosquito, impossible to ignore. But when he thought of her he thought of Cecily, glowing and excited in the early days of her pregnancy, wanting him more then than she ever had. The shock of her disappearance, the terror that he had lost not only her but their child. The months of miserable searching with his brother knights. The heartbreaking realisation of her betrayal. Her blood on his sword. And then Conrad.

So those were the twin poles of his attraction: a woman
carrying a bastard, and a boy who was probably a bastard himself. Both liars. And he’d thought these things were meant to get easier as you got older.

Meanwhile, beside him, Marcus just looked sick.

‘I haven’t decided what to do with you yet,’ said Humphrey.

The thoughts that accompanied this sentence were best not spoken out loud.

‘It was foolish,’ said Marcus. ‘I’m sorry. Only, you’ve decided to return to Lady Elaine’s quest, and I still need to find the Queen.’

If Humphrey’s hunch about Marcus was correct, he could understand, even admire, the boy’s urgency to find his half-sister. But king’s bastard or not, Marcus’s problems were none of Humphrey’s concern. And until they found Sir Alistair and offloaded Elaine, the sword stayed with him. (His mind went back to last night. The boy in the darkness, the hand beneath the sheet. He felt a stirring which he made himself ignore.)

‘I can’t find her without the sword,’ Marcus said. ‘Give Leila back to me and I will leave you, I promise.’

‘The last time that sword was in your possession you tried to kill me.’

‘Leila tried to kill you.’

‘In your hand.’

‘I’ve spun her dozens of times since then. She’s never done it again. Maybe she made a mistake the first time. Maybe she’s changed her mind.’

Where would be the harm in letting Marcus go?
Humphrey asked himself. He was sure that the boy would take the sword and disappear, never to be seen again. There was no risk in it, none at all.

‘No,’ he said.

He didn’t want to let Marcus go.

They rode on.

It was, as usual, blisteringly hot in the forge. Elaine wished she were outside with Conrad and Marcus, even in the thick torrid weather, anything to get away from the heat of the fire. She missed drizzle. Sweet, cool drizzle. The stuff that crawled through your clothes and skin and flesh until it coated your bones in icy slime that would never dry. What could be lovelier?

This smith, a man by the name of Roddy, was a Christmas pudding of a man with a holly berry of a face. Elaine was becoming an expert in smiths. They were rarely small. They tended towards loud voices and excessive perspiration, which wafted as they moved, their stench blooming in clouds through the elemental aromas of fire and metal and horse shit that surrounded them.

I will spend the rest of my life amongst these men
, thought Elaine.
We will visit each and every one of them on these islands. Have you shod a black stallion? Oh yes, too many to count. No, I have no records, for I can neither read nor write. Have you forged a suit of black armour? Black armour, me? By my lady, I have never heard tell of such a thing
. They were hardly going to answer, ‘Yes, I do forge armour for criminals,’ were they?

Roddy was friendlier than most, though. When Humphrey had explained their business to him, he had sent his boy for tankards of ale, had ushered them over to a table from which he swept a mountain of bridle parts onto the floor, and bid them to ‘rest their weary souls’. As if her soul could ever find succour sitting
on a stool of which one leg was shorter than the other three, while drinking sour hops bound to give her wind. Lord, but the baby inside her was a veritable machine for producing wind.

‘Look at these good tankards – I made them myself,’ said Roddy as his apprentice handed out the beer. Elaine examined hers. The handle had been soldered on wonky. ‘I’m doing a special deal on them, buy three get the fourth one free.’

‘Is that so?’ said Humphrey.

‘It is, it is. Drink up now, good gentleman, good lady. What an honour it is to have a Knight of Camelot here, in my most humble workshop.’

‘Knight of Camelot’ was the formulation that Humphrey was using to avoid saying ‘Less Valued Knight’.

‘These stools were made by an associate of mine,’ added the smith. ‘I’m sure I can get you a preferential rate.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Humphrey. ‘But, as I said, we are looking for a gentleman who wears distinctive all-black armour.’

‘I do armour of all varieties,’ said Roddy. ‘Hauberk, haubergeon, partial plate, full plate (man and horse), engraved, embossed, for self or gift, or as a gift for yourself, ha ha, all very reasonable, especially if you’re buying in bulk, I doubt you’ll find a better offer within a hundred miles.’

‘We’re not actually buying.’

‘Everybody’s buying. If you think you’re not, it’s just that the price isn’t right. Now, I don’t like to haggle, but I am always open to a spot of gentlemanly negotiation.’

‘I assure you that I have all the armour I need. Now, about that man in the black armour I mentioned earlier,’ said Humphrey, trying to steer the smith back to the point.

‘I can see you in a suit of black armour, my lord. It would go very well with your complexion. My boy can measure you up while you wait, if you like.’

‘I am not shopping.’ Humphrey’s voice got surprisingly
squeaky when he was annoyed. ‘Have you ever made a suit of black armour? That’s all I want to know.’

‘I am well versed in all types of armour, as I said.’

‘Have you or haven’t you?’

‘The colour of the armour doesn’t affect the skill that it takes to make it. Black, silver, blue, green, it’s all built the same way. Crafted by these very hands.’ The smith held up his two huge cracked and blackened palms. ‘If you’d like, I can get my lad to show you a few prototypes, see which you prefer. They come in every price bracket from the basic suit to the “regal” range featuring gold and mother-of-pearl inlay, carved to your specifications.’

‘Yes or no. Just say yes or no.’ The tankard actually started to bend in Humphrey’s furious grip. ‘Have you ever forged a suit of completely black armour?’

Roddy’s face fell. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Right,’ said Humphrey, ‘we’re off.’

He and Elaine got up from their stools, Elaine barely bobbing a curtsey in her desperation to get back outside.

‘I’ve worked for King Leo!’ the smith cried at their retreating backs. ‘I oversaw the retooling of the castle dungeons! That’s a lot of metalwork! Shackles, chains, bars for the windows. I did him an iron mask!’

At the words
iron mask
, Leila started clattering furiously back and forth in her scabbard. Elaine’s eyes shot to the sword, then to Humphrey. Could King Leo be holding Queen Martha in an iron mask? It would make sense. He benefited from her being out of the way, leaving his brother to hold the throne. Or could it even be Sir Alistair? He was wealthy and popular – maybe Leo saw him as a threat. Perhaps they were finally on the brink of finding him! Elaine wasn’t sure how she felt about this. It certainly wasn’t happiness. Humphrey meanwhile was staring at the sword by his side, no doubt thinking along similar lines.

‘I can do you a mask,’ said Roddy eagerly. ‘A matching set, if you like. Buy one, get one half price.’

Elaine didn’t need to spin a sword to know where they were heading next.

Just when Edwin was giving up all hope, he found her. He had almost forgotten that they were looking. Sir Dorian had developed the sleek, satisfied look of a well-fed seal, fat with gratitude from all the damsels they had encountered. Edwin, meanwhile, felt that his balls were set to explode. He blamed Martha for this. If she hadn’t run away he’d be safe at the castle, banging every serving maid who took his fancy, and her, of course, when duty insisted upon it. Instead he was playing second fiddle to a priapic cavalier. Plus he had lost so many games of piquet to Sir Dorian’s squire while they were waiting around that he was going to have to raid the castle coffers when he got home to cover his debts. They were Martha’s castle coffers, true, but even so.

The lake where the Lady finally appeared was in a valley that straddled the Camelot–Puddock border. It wasn’t much of a lake, though it probably looked more impressive when not surrounded by a ring of cracked mud where the water level had fallen. It was the same story everywhere. Rivers were turning into streams, streams were drying up entirely. They could no longer rely on finding drinking water at wells, so Silas and Keith loaded up the cart with barrels of water wherever they could. The added weight was slowing them down, and that afternoon Sir Dorian had hung back to remonstrate with his tardy squire and page, leaving Edwin to ride ahead to the lake, unable to wait another moment to strip off his clothes and plunge into the cool water. How Dorian was feeling inside his tin box in this heat Edwin could barely
imagine, though he wouldn’t go so far as to say that he felt sorry for him. Nobody was forcing the berk to ride in full armour.

Edwin dismounted from Storm and peeled off his shirt, and was loosening his boots when he heard a woman’s voice calling him from across the water.

‘Prince Edwin of Tuft?’ she said.

‘King of Puddock,’ Edwin said automatically as he looked up.

‘The King of Puddock is dead,’ said the woman, a brunette in a blue gown, pretty enough, in fact definitely worth a poke, except that she was standing on the water in an unnatural way that made Edwin queasy.

‘So is the Queen by now, probably,’ he said, ignoring the discomfited way she was making him feel.

‘No,’ said the woman. ‘Martha is still alive.’

‘What?’ said Edwin, suddenly alert. ‘How do you know? Have you seen her? Who are you? Are you the Lady of the Lake?’

‘Martha is still alive. I know because I am the Lady of the Lake. I have seen her. I am the Lady of the Lake. Yes.’

‘What?’ said Edwin again.

‘Martha is still alive. I know because –’

‘It’s all right, I got it.’ Edwin started to pull his shirt back on.

‘There’s no need to dress on my account,’ said the Lady of the Lake, fixing him with a gaze that he could only describe as flirtatious. Actually, now that he thought about it, he could also describe it as come-hither, though he had no intention of trying to walk on water, and also sexy, or possibly slightly short-sighted. ‘I’ve been watching you,’ the Lady continued. ‘Waiting to get you alone for weeks. But there’s always that knight there, spoiling things.’

Edwin pulled his shirt off again and squared his shoulders, showing off his chest to its best advantage.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I can’t shake him. He’s so annoying.’

‘I hate knights,’ said the Lady. ‘They treat you like their own personal library. All they want is information.’

‘They think they’re better than everybody else,’ agreed Edwin. ‘And they hog all the maidens.’

‘But not the Ladies,’ said the Lady of the Lake with an unladylike leer. ‘The Ladies like a prince.’

For once, Edwin resisted the urge to point out again that he was actually a king. ‘The thing is,’ he said instead, ‘I need your help finding my wife. But I don’t love her or anything. It doesn’t need to come between us.’

‘I think I can give you some pointers,’ the Lady of the Lake said. ‘God, it must be awful being married to her. She’s a right little madam. Not nearly good enough for you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Edwin, in heartfelt tones. ‘Nobody else gets it.’

‘The things I could tell you about her,’ said the Lady of the Lake. ‘You should see the way she looks these days! Unfortunately I signed a confidentiality clause. Secrecy is the cornerstone of the Sorcery industry.’

‘I don’t suppose you would consider letting slip a morsel or two,’ said Edwin. He winked.

The Lady of the Lake giggled. ‘I wish I could,’ she said. ‘We don’t get a lot of men in the Lake. It’s just Ladies, Ladies, Ladies. It’s a real treat to meet a handsome fellow like you. Although you could say, in some significant ways, that meeting Martha was a lot like meeting a handsome fellow like you.’

She winked back, and watched to see if what she said had sunk in. Edwin couldn’t make head or tail of it, but he wasn’t about to ask for an explanation. He concluded that she meant that meeting a woman was an awful lot like meeting her husband, which he supposed he agreed with. He nodded intelligently.

‘To be honest with you, I’ve had enough of the Lake,’ the Lady confided. ‘I’d love an excuse to leave. It isn’t even my proper job. I’m just filling in for Nimue, since she ran off with Merlin. The Ladies do that, you know. Run off with men. I’ve often thought about –’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ Edwin interrupted. He hated it when females didn’t know when to stop talking.

The Lady paused, annoyed. Apparently she didn’t like being interrupted. Typical female. Edwin was disappointed that the magic ones were no better than the normal ones.

‘They’re heading towards your brother’s castle,’ she said, a little brusquely.