He didn’t know when exactly he’d started thinking of Clementine as a lady, but it seemed rather late to change his mind, now that he’d made the distinction.
Wrapped up in his thoughts, Sebastien failed to notice the sword sticking up out of the ground until he’d tripped over it, stubbing his toe good and proper. He hopped around, clutching his foot, until he realized that hopping wasn’t a very good idea, either—the damp, sandy ground was littered with swords.
“What the . . .” Sebastien said.
He spotted the rippling and winking of water in the sunlight up ahead and realized he was approaching a lake of some sort, though he hadn’t even known there was one here. A strange sound emanated from the water as he approached, like someone gargling, or wailing, or possibly both.
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.”
The wailing sound exploded out of the center of the lake, along with a fountain spout of water at least a dozen feet high—and those weren’t the only things flying through the air. A sword flew out of the lake and straight for Sebastien’s head. He threw up his arms to protect his face and, by some miracle, caught the sword by the handle.
Sebastien stared at the gleaming blade and bejeweled pommel, breathing hard, and though he knew he should be quite alarmed that someone had just thrown a sword at him, he just couldn’t help his very first thought, which was, Wow. Cool.
Sebastien hefted the sword—it was actually pretty heavy—and advanced cautiously toward the water. The form of a woman emerged—the most beautiful woman Sebastien had ever seen, with dark green hair that flowed to her knees, and eyes as pale blue as ice crystals.
“What brave traveler comes this way?” the woman asked, her voice just as thunderous as when she had been singing, though quite a deal more pleasant-sounding. “Who dares to seek what the future may bring? What hero of ages will wield this mighty sword?”
Sebastien edged forward.
“Um, do you mean this one?” Sebastien asked, holding up the sword he had caught. He couldn’t be sure. There were a lot of other available options.
The woman gasped and turned to Sebastien as if she had just noticed he was standing there.
“Oh, goodness!” she said, suddenly fretting and smoothing her hair. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to—well, of course I was expecting someone, for I see all, but you know, it’s been a while, and . . .” Her eyes turned to the sword in his hand. “Boy, where did you get that sword?”
Though a wrong answer seemed likely to end with Sebastien at the bottom of the lake, judging by the woman’s expression, he thought it best to tell the truth.
“Um, I caught it?” He cringed at the frightened crack in his voice.
But this lady of the lake didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she looked positively ecstatic.
“You caught it?” she asked. “You really caught one?” At Sebastien’s nod, she shrieked and clapped her hands with excitement. Spouts of water began shooting out in impossibly high arcs above lake—joined, even more impossibly, by multiple rainbows crisscrossing one another.
“You caught one, you caught one!” exclaimed the woman. “A hero of ages, a brave knight on a quest, finally come to me at last!”
Sebastien rather liked the sound of being called a hero of ages, but he was also a bit distracted by the shooting rainbows. If the Dark Lord Elithor saw a hint of anything so charming as a rainbow over his mountain range, he’d likely curse them all to months of darkness as punishment. Sebastien’s sword would be of no use at all against a wrathful Dark Lord.
“It’s very exciting,” Sebastien said. “But do you think you could be just a little quieter?”
The Lady of the Lake did not seem to hear him and was now making the fish and various other grumpy-looking inhabitants of the lake join her in a circle dance as she sang a painfully out-of-tune ballad, occasionally interrupting herself to exclaim once again about Sebastien’s future great feats.
Somehow, this was not how he imagined being given his first quest. To begin with, he’d thought it might entail learning what his quest even was.
Sebastien’s hopes of going unnoticed in the Dark Lord’s lands were dashed when he saw a flying shape appear in the distance, barreling around the edge of the mountain. Sebastien’s heart leapt up into his throat as vigorously as the jumping rainbows around him, until the figure grew close enough for him to realize it was not a leathery-winged bird of some sort come to peck out his eyes, but Clementine. The wind whipped her hair out behind her in a bright orange stream, looking like a flame against her black dress. She circled the lake a few times on her broomstick, then spotted Sebastien. From his spot on the ground, he thought he could feel her scowl, and he cringed.
She touched down gracefully at the lake’s edge, pausing to nudge a beached baby kraken back into the water with the end of the broomstick.
“Would you care to explain yourself?” she asked acidly, but Sebastien noticed with no small amount of relief that she did not appear to be addressing him. The Lady of the Lake, however, seemed a bit occupied with muttering to herself about coming up with a good prophecy for her “new protégé.” Sebastien gulped.
“She threw a sword at me,” he confessed to Clementine, wondering what sort of punishment would be in store for someone caught trying to take a magical sword from the Dark Lord’s own lands.
But Clementine merely squinted at the woman in the water and said, “Oh, is that it?”
Sebastien nodded.
“Don’t worry,” said Clementine. “The Lady of the Lake throws swords at everyone.”
Clementine’s utter lack of interest disappointed Sebastien. Surely, he must be destined for something significant, what with the way the Lady of the Lake was carrying on.
“I did catch it,” he said hopefully.
Clementine looked at him as if she didn’t quite believe it, but she nodded appraisingly all the same. “Huh,” she said. “I think it’s been a long time since that’s happened. That might explain the rainbows.”
“So, I’m not going to get a great quest today?” He just wanted to be absolutely clear.
The Lady of the Lake floated right up to the edge of the lake, beaming, but then frowned a little when she finally set eyes on Sebastien.
“Ooh, you’re a little young, aren’t you?” she asked, crossing her arms and tapping her chin with her finger. “A bit on the short and scrawny side, too, but there’s time, there’s time!” she assured him. “Rome wasn’t built in twenty minutes, as they say.”
Sebastien sighed. He didn’t know what Rome was, but he did understand the lady’s tone of disappointment.
“Keep your skin up. There’s a good lad,” said the Lady.
“Chin,” corrected Clementine quickly. “She means ‘chin.’”
“Yes, yes, that,” said the Lady. “Come back when you’re done cooking!” And with that, she dove back into the water.
The lake was motionless mere moments later, the rainbows faded into the warm air and blue sky.
“I’m not sure what to make of that one,” admitted Clementine, still watching the lake with her hand on her hip.
Sebastien let out a deep breath and sighed, swinging his sword along the ground.
“I should have known,” he said, shaking his head. The sword clanged off the side of another blade, nearly sending Sebastien off-balance. Clementine regarded him with a delicately raised ginger eyebrow.
Sebastien righted himself and turned away from her, scowling. He wasn’t destined for greatness, and he’d looked like a fool in front Clementine, as well. This visit had been a total mistake.
“It was silly to think I’d ever . . . that anyone would let someone like me be . . .”
“Be what?” Clementine asked.
“A . . . a knight,” Sebastien said defiantly. It was the first time he’d ever admitted his dream to anyone. There didn’t seem to be muc
h point in hiding it, since now he knew it to be a silly idea.
He didn’t wait for Clementine to answer, and instead started picking his way through the swords, using his own as a walking stick. He stopped when he remembered that he would have about as much use for a sword as the eels in the lake, and turned around to toss it back in, when Clementine called out to him.
“Wait!” she said.
He paused midthrow.
“The villagers might not have use for a knight,” she said, “but . . . I might.”
“What?”
Clementine dug her heels into the damp shoreline, shifting from foot to foot.
“As the heir to the Dark Lordship and a lady of House Morcerous, I can name you a Brack Knight.”
“A Black Knight?” Sebastien asked.
“No, a Brack Knight,” corrected Clementine. Sebastien detected the hint of exasperation in her voice. “For Castle Brack. Some Dark Lord in the west claimed the Black Knight title for his men ages ago. He’s been hoarding it quite selfishly for years. It’s caused no end of creative strife for the rest of us . . . but, well, the suits are still black, if that was a big selling point.”
She said this all so very quickly that Sebastien could barely keep track.
“Really?” Sebastien asked. “I could . . . be a knight?”
“A Brack Knight.”
“‘Brack’ doesn’t really sound all that different, does it?” Sebastien mused.
“I’ve always thought so.” Clementine shrugged. “So . . .” She held out her hand, and Sebastien almost reached out with his own before he realized it was the sword she wanted. He held it out to her hilt first, hoping his ears weren’t blushing, and knelt before her.
“Ahem.” Clementine cleared her throat, struggling to lift the sword over his head. He kept very, very still, hoping that Brack Knighthood did not entail, say, being a headless huntsman. “I, Lady Clementine Morcerous of House Morcerous, future Dark Lord of the Seven Sisters Mountains, dub thee Sir Sebastien . . .”
“Erm, Frawley.”
“You haven’t a middle name or anything?”
“Not one I want to be reminded of,” said Sebastien. “Can we get on with it?”
Clementine huffed but went on. “Sir Sebastien Frawley of Castle Brack, and entrust to you the sacred rights, privileges, and responsibilities of the Order of the Brack Knights.”
She did not elaborate as to what these rights and responsibilities might be, but Sebastien supposed that might ruin the important and symbolic mood. With some difficulty, she touched the sword to one of his shoulders, and then the other, and finally backed up a few steps to touch the tip to his chest. The metal brushed like a dangerous kiss across his shirt.
“Now please take this,” she said, her wrists shaking. “It’s very heavy.”
Sebastien happily obliged.
“My lady,” he said with a low bow, planting the sword at his side. “What will my first quest be in your service?” It was a little formal, but he felt he should speak the part from now on.
“Well . . .” said Clementine, shaking out her hands from the effort of holding the sword. “Is there any chance you know how to build a chicken fence?”
Chapter 16
Knights in Shining Armor
or Cheerfully Trampling over Hundreds of Years of Dark Lord Tradition
Much to Clementine’s surprise, Sebastien Frawley—Sir Sebastien Frawley now—did know how to build a chicken fence. And so, apparently, did about half a dozen other boys from the village, who all appeared with him at the front door of Castle Brack, panting slightly from their trek up the mountainside. They looked at the castle grounds and at each other with wide eyes, like cats who could not quite believe how high they’d climbed in a particular tree and had just realized they did not know how to get down.
Sebastien shrugged at Clementine, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Er, sorry,” he said. “But, it looked like you could use a few extra hands, and—”
“And we want to be knights, too!” piped up one of the boys, a curly-headed, dirty-faced creature Clementine thought she recognized as Curly Cab. A chorus of grunts of agreement followed.
Clementine did not allow herself the completely justified moment of horror that such a declaration would have normally warranted. (Commoners strolling through the gates of Castle Brack? Commoners becoming knights?) Here she was, surrounded by a peasant mob of the like her family had threatened and intimidated and cursed for hundreds of years, and they were . . . clamoring to pledge themselves to her service for life?
Clementine doubted they understood it to be that much of a commitment. But they were fairly excited about the swords.
Sebastien was right. She did need the help. The formerly silent farm was now teeming with noise—chickens clucking, nightmares and horses neighing, chimaera heads on the wall sneezing at the dust collecting on their noses. The snakes in the snake pit had even started hissing; they were surprisingly loud, all bunched together like that, which Clementine thought sort of ruined the “surprise” element of said trap. The poison apples would need to be harvested soon, carefully picked by hand, as any that fell to the ground would be contaminated and their absolute perfection lost. It was a lot of work for her and Darka alone.
And so Brack Knights they became. The chicken fence was completed in an afternoon with only two singed buttocks from the fire-breathing chickens, which Clementine thought qualified as a success. They mucked out the stables, replaced the shingles that had blown off the roof, and fixed the leaks in the gatehouse ceiling. They pitched hay and picked hellebore and caught mice to feed to the snakes. How they had the energy to do this after their schoolwork and their work on their own farms was a mystery to Clementine, but it appeared that the allure of knighthood was enough to lift any of their spirits.
At least, it was at first. But it did not take long for the village boys to figure out that the tasks their Lady had set them to were not very much like quests at all, and an awful lot like chores.
“When do we get to do real knightly things?” asked Gregor one afternoon as the boys and Clementine weeded the kitchen garden. He was a thin-faced boy with wispy blond hair, who Clementine remembered had been one of the first to heckle Darka in the village. (Darka tended to keep herself scarce when the boys were around. Clementine didn’t really blame her.)
Clementine did as any Dark Lady of standing would do, and simply ignored him. Unfortunately, he did not seem to take the hint.
“Helloooooo,” he said to Clementine, sitting on his heels and wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. “I said, when are we going to do real knightly things?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Clementine continued her own fight with a particularly strong dandelion. “It is your duty as a knight to protect and preserve the House Morcerous. What better way to support your lord than by growing the very food that sustains him?”
This was not the answer that wispy-haired, whiny Gregor wanted.
“That’s servant stuff,” said Gregor. Some of the other boys nodded, pausing in their work. “I mean real knightly things. Hunting dragons, saving you from dragons, going to war with, uh . . .”
“Dragons?” Clementine suggested. Gregor scowled.
“Or . . . tracking lost relics!” a redheaded boy said, holding up his spade.
“Or jousting!” called another.
“Feasting!”
“Hunting!”
“I expect we’ll have to do the hunting before the feasting,” Sebastien observed.
“Now, really—” said Clementine, but the boys cut her off with their protests that they absolutely would not lift one more finger at farmwork. And suddenly, they were all on their feet, garden implements in hand—even the youngest, Little Ian, who couldn’t have been more than seven—and despite a few half-hearted attempts by Sebas
tien to quiet them, a chant of “We want a quest! We want a quest!” soon rose into the air. Feet stomped along to the rhythm, carelessly crushing perfectly good vegetables under their dirty soles.
“Please,” Clementine begged with a fleeting look toward her father’s tower. “I must ask you to be quiet, or I shall—”
“We want a quest! We want a quest!”
“Come on, lads,” said Sebastien. “Let’s all just—”
“We want a quest! We want a quest!”
Clementine scooted backward, tripping over the hem of her dress, as Roderick, the nearest boy, took a step toward her. This was exactly the sort of mob violence her father had warned her about, and she hadn’t listened, and now she was going to be murdered by angry peasants in her own vegetable patch.
“We want a quest! We want a quest!”
“What in Seven Sisters is going on here?”
Darka stepped into the garden. She had not yelled, had not threatened, had barely raised her voice—and yet absolute silence fell in her wake. That sort of talent, Clementine thought ruefully, was not something that could be taught, no matter how many times one practiced in front of the mirror.
Gregor the Whiny did not seem as inclined to speak up now that a purported witch was in their midst.
“Lady Clementine,” said Darka with a short bow. Clementine nearly laughed—she didn’t think Darka had ever bothered to call her by her title, and it sounded a bit silly now. “Are these schoolboys causing you trouble?”
“We’re not just schoolboys,” said Roderick indignantly. He puffed up his chest. “We’re knights.”
“And . . . some of us did think there might be more adventuring involved,” explained Sebastien with a grimace.
“Oh,” said Darka, striding among the rows of plants. “I see.” Most of the boys tried (and failed) to keep from flinching as she passed. Curly Cab’s eyes darted to her scar so often he looked as if he were having a fit.
The Dark Lord Clementine Page 14