The Table of Less Valued Knights (24 page)

‘Give me my helmet right now or I’m having you all put to death!’ he shouted.

The helmet dropped down and landed on the ground.

‘I am not the piggy!’ he yelled. ‘Do you all hear me? I am not the piggy!’

The crowd went very quiet, apart from a small child who started to cry. A middle-aged woman picked the helmet up off the ground and handed it up to Edwin.

‘It was just a bit of fun,’ she said.

‘Don’t you tell me what’s fun,’ said Edwin. ‘I decide what’s fun.’

He passed the helmet to Sir Dorian. It was covered in dirty handprints and dust, and had a large dent in one side. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘I told you they’d get fed up with it eventually.’

Sir Dorian looked down at the helmet and then back up at Edwin. ‘And you’re revered here, are you?’

Edwin fought the desire to knock Sir Dorian into the dirt. He had seen the knight joust. If he tried to dislodge Sir Dorian from
his horse, it was assuredly Edwin himself who would end up on the ground. He refused to undergo that particular humiliation, especially in front of this crowd who were now shuffling silently towards the gate, uttering the occasional muffled jeer.

‘You know,’ he said to Sir Dorian instead, ‘it seems to me that it would be better if I went to see my brother on my own. He might take it the wrong way if I turn up with a knight from an enemy realm.’ Officially Arthur was no enemy of Leo’s, but then again, officially nobody was. Leo didn’t pay much attention to what was official.

‘Whatever His Highness wishes,’ said Sir Dorian. Apparently he was as frustrated with Edwin as Edwin was with him. Edwin couldn’t think why. ‘I’ll go and wait with Silas and Keith outside until His Highness is ready to resume his quest.’ The knight turned tail and followed the dregs of the crowd towards the castle gate.

Edwin had hoped that once word reached his brother that he was there, Leo would come down to meet him at the entrance in person, but instead he had sent Noah, the deputy head steward, a freakishly tall and gaunt individual with a long nose, deep-set eyes and a film of sandy hair.

‘Where’s Olivier?’ asked Edwin, dismounting and handing the reins of his horse over to some kid or other. Olivier was the head steward.

Noah shrugged. He was a man of few words.

‘Why did Leo send you?’ said Edwin.

Noah shrugged again. Edwin didn’t like having to look up at this lanky lunk. Maybe it would be better if he got back on Storm, but the horse had already been led away, and anyway that might give the wrong impression, make him look like he was leaving again, or was the kind of indecisive person who didn’t know if he wanted to be on a horse or not.

‘Where’s Leo?’ he asked Noah.

Noah jerked his chin. Which was a different response, at least.

‘So, Noah, it’s been a while,’ said Edwin, as he followed the deputy steward into the main hall of the castle. ‘There must have been lots of changes around the old place, eh?’

Noah didn’t reply. Edwin tried to remember if he’d ever heard Noah speak. Perhaps he had a disease, or was mentally defective. But in fact there didn’t seem to be that many changes around the old place at all. It still smelt the same, of beeswax with a
hint of blood, and Leo hadn’t bothered to repaint or knock down any walls or do any of the things that Edwin would have done in his place. The one difference that Edwin noted was that there were a lot more paintings of Leo hanging on the walls. He was glad to see that the painting of himself as a boy with Leo and Daddy was still there, although he did notice that his bit of the painting was somewhat obscured by a potted plant. The portraits of himself on his own were all gone.

Noah led Edwin up the stairs, which creaked in the same places they always had. When he was a boy, he had learned how to sneak out of the castle by climbing down the stairs without making them creak, and Leo had learned how to creep up behind him, make the stairs creak and then run away, leaving Edwin to get into trouble.
Those were the days
, thought Edwin, but it was a hollow thought. He was starting to remember why he hadn’t been that upset about being sent away to marry Martha No-Tits.

When they reached the tall double doors of the throne room, Noah held up a finger, then slipped inside. Edwin supposed that meant wait. He waited. There were candles burning in the two alcoves that flanked the doors. Edwin pulled some wax off one of them and tried to mould it into a shape, but it was really hot and burned him, and then it hardened too fast. First the helmet and now this. He was starting to get into a really bad mood.

Noah came out of the throne room. He lifted another finger. His fingers were really long. Then he just stood there. So Edwin supposed that meant wait again.

‘What’s the weather like up there?’

Noah didn’t say anything.

‘You’re very tall, aren’t you?’

Noah still didn’t say anything, but he looked down at Edwin as if Edwin were a streak of pondweed he’d got tangled in his boots.

Now Edwin didn’t say anything. He’d used up all his best material.

After an age, a familiar voice from inside the room called, ‘Come!’

Noah – without a word, of course – opened the double doors, then stepped aside. Edwin entered alone.

Getting into the castle kitchens was easier than they’d expected. Lots of the servants were heading back that way, slightly subdued after the aborted excitement of Edwin’s arrival. According to Roddy, the prison tower was in the north-west corner of the castle, with one entrance on the inner courtyard, and a service entrance from the kitchens for the delivery of food, inasmuch as the prisoners were ever fed. Inside the kitchens, which Martha considered barely large enough to put together a modest picnic, they found some heaps of vegetables that had been gathered for the next meal, so Elaine, doing her best to look filled with legitimate purpose, piled up a trencher, and the group headed together to the service entrance.

The prison tower was the largest part of the castle, but even so, only a certain class of prisoner was held there for long. Wealthy prisoners bribed their way out; famous ones were rescued; the most and the least important ones were swiftly killed, for opposite reasons. Those who were kept locked up for years on end either had information that was more useful when their heads were still attached to their bodies, or were from families over whom the King wished to exercise leverage. A little bit of torture could go a long way. Though having said that, with Leo, it was rarely just a little bit of torture.

The man – or woman – in the iron mask was being held in the basement dungeon. This was the darkest, dankest hole; the prisoners kept there were the lowest of the low, literally and
figuratively. Roddy had said that he didn’t know who he’d made the mask for and that he had never seen him.

‘It was for a special prisoner, though?’ Martha had insisted.

Roddy had shrugged. ‘As far as I know he might just have been an ugly blighter.’

The would-be rescue party headed to the prison tower door, a sturdy-looking wooden affair, but with bands of iron which, according to Roddy, might as well have been paper chains.

Humphrey knocked. A panel at head level slid aside and a cloud of halitosis emerged.

‘Lunchtime,’ said Elaine.

‘Piss off,’ said the cloud. ‘We haven’t had vegetables in here since Leo’s great-grandfather’s reign. Transparent rescue attempt.’

The panel slid shut. Elaine put her vegetables down. Humphrey knocked again. The panel slid open again, and the cloud re-emerged.

‘We’re friends of the King,’ said Humphrey.

‘Bullshit,’ said the cloud.

Humphrey held up a gold coin with Martha’s father, King Peter’s, face printed on it.

‘This King,’ he said.

‘How good friends are you?’ said the cloud.

‘We’re extremely close,’ said Humphrey. He shook the bag of coins so that it audibly clinked.

The door opened. The halitosis cloud turned out to be emanating from a man of middle age, middle height and middle weight, whose main distinguishing feature was that both of his teeth were black.

Humphrey handed over the bag of coins, leaning back as he did so to try to avoid the full force of the guard’s breath. The guard dug into the bag and took out a coin, but he couldn’t bite it because his teeth were too far apart. He scratched at it instead with a filthy fingernail. Martha couldn’t see what that achieved, but he seemed satisfied. He stepped aside, and they entered the tower.

‘Going up?’ said the guard.

‘Down,’ said Humphrey.

The guard’s forehead creased with consternation. ‘Down? Are you sure?’

‘We’re sure.’

‘I should give you some of this back if you’re only going down.’

Martha assumed he was joking, but he raked through the sack, carefully picked out some coins and handed them back to Humphrey.

‘Fair’s fair,’ said the guard. ‘I’ll give you back even more if you let me hang on to that one.’ He pointed at Elaine.

‘She’s not for sale,’ said Humphrey.

‘Not unless you want your nuts to end up in that sack,’ added Elaine.

The guard seemed sanguine at this prospect, but Humphrey shook his head.

A long, stone staircase wound down in a spiral from the base of the tower. As they began to descend, Martha remembered how she and Jasper had been taken to visit the man in the iron mask in her own castle’s dungeon once, when she was very small. Martha had thought he was a monster with a huge metal head, and had cried and been carried away. She had never gone back, although the man had periodically reappeared in her nightmares. She wondered what had become of him. She supposed that he was still there. Guilt buzzed around her like a fly. She swatted it away.

The stench of the guard’s rotten breath was soon replaced by the cloying funk of the cheap tallow candles that illuminated the dank underground passageways, and the encroaching miasma of piss, shit, vomit, sweat and low-quality foodstuffs that outweighed oxygen in the air of any self-respecting basement dungeon. They continued along a downward-sloping bare-brick passageway, with small holes in the roof through
which guards, if needs be, could shoot arrows or other missiles at absconding prisoners. Eventually, the passage opened out into a low, square room, lined with three iron-bar-fronted cells. They stopped, and looked first to one side, then to the next, then to the next.

‘Well,’ said Humphrey, ‘I hadn’t anticipated this.’

All three of the prisoners were wearing iron masks.

Good old Leo. Even when he was supposed to be ruling, he was shagging. Not that he was shagging right now, because that would be awkward. But he was sprawling on his throne – a huge jewelled one he’d had made, not that spindly old thing that had been around for donkey’s years and went straight on the woodpile when he became king – with no shirt on, and he had a comely damsel on his knee, naked except for a silk sheet wrapped around what was quite clearly a top-notch bod. Her hair was messy and she looked a bit dazed.

‘Hello Leo,’ said Edwin.

Leo stared at him. He didn’t even smile.

‘What?’ said Edwin.

Leo inclined his head just slightly.

Oh yes! Bow
. Leo was the King, so Edwin had to bow, even though they were brothers. Edwin bowed, making a mental note to ensure that Leo bowed to him if he ever came to Puddock.

‘So,’ said Leo, ‘to what do I owe the …’ He yawned and made a vague gesture with his hand. Edwin waited for him to finish his sentence. After a while it became obvious that he wasn’t going to.

‘Well,’ said Edwin, ‘I’m sort of on honeymoon, so I thought I’d drop in.’ He had decided to put a positive gloss on things until he figured out how much Leo knew. And, in any case, it was semi-true. He and Martha were both travelling after their wedding. Just not together.

‘On honeymoon?’ said Leo. ‘Really? I heard about your wife getting snatched. You couldn’t hold on to her for more than a day. That’s pretty shoddy, even for you.’

‘I’m going to have her killed when I find her,’ said Edwin, ‘once I’ve managed to get a sprog out of her, anyway. So it doesn’t really matter.’

‘Ever the romantic,’ said Leo. He pinched the damsel’s nipple through her sheet. She squealed and then laughed, but it didn’t look as if she found it very funny.

‘I should introduce you to my fiancée,’ Leo said.

‘You’re getting married?’ said Edwin.

‘I wouldn’t need a fiancée if I wasn’t,’ said Leo.

‘Congratulations, brother.’
Ha ha, I got married before you!
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ he said to the maiden in the sheet.

‘Oh, this isn’t her,’ said Leo, ‘don’t be absurd. No, I’m marrying a fat milch cow from a good family who’ll breed me lots of brats. Her name’s Annabel or Arabella or something. She’s already knocked up. The physician said she’s having twins. She didn’t want to submit to me before we got married, but I’ve always believed you should try before you buy. She was all right. Cried a bit, but I can beat that out of her.’

‘Well, gosh,’ said Edwin. ‘So you’re going to be a father now. Lots of sleepless nights for you! Of course you’re used to that, from all the carousing and bonking and stuff. But I mean, sleepless nights with a baby! Two babies. Wow! Imagine if Daddy had lived to be a grandfather!’

‘He did live to be a grandfather. I sired my first child at fourteen.’

‘Oh. Yes. But you know, a real grandfather, to real kids.’

Edwin was starting to feel, as he so often did with Leo, like someone trying to climb a steep slope of loose pebbles. The harder he strove, the more he fell backwards. ‘Well, congratulations anyway,’ he said. ‘I’ll send you a pair of silver spoons. That’s
traditional, isn’t it? Although how do you get the spoons into their mouths before they’re born?’

‘My God, Edwin, you are thick.’ Leo looked up at the ceiling in a pantomime of exasperation.

‘Ha ha,’ said Edwin. ‘You’re so funny, bro. Ha ha.’

It was like old times. Two brothers together.

Leo’s hand slid up underneath the sheet of the maiden on his lap, and she started to move and moan. Edwin took the opportunity to look around for somewhere he could sit down. He’d been riding for days and he was bloody knackered. He wouldn’t mind a drink too, and a bit of grub. Leo’s throne was on a high dais, and on the floor beside him on a thick Persian rug was a golden jug with matching goblets, cool beads of condensation slipping tantalisingly down its side, and a silver dish filled with exotic fruits and those little continental biscuits that come wrapped in pieces of thin paper that fly up into the air when you set fire to them. The paper, not the biscuits. The rest of the throne room had a floor of bare stone, and was decorated with the stuffed carcasses of animals that Leo had killed. Just the big ones, the bears and wolves and stags. Not the bunnies, which would probably go into the nursery after Leo’s sons were born. There weren’t any chairs, and Edwin was buggered if he was going to kneel to his brother, king or no king, so he was forced to carry on standing. Christ, he was starving.