‘Umm, yes, exactly,’ said Sir Lancelot, who hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about.
‘Though of course,’ the Princess continued, ‘they could be going somewhere else completely different where we would never think of looking.’
‘Exactly.’
Sir Lancelot was not stupid, by no means, but his job as a noble knight and executor of fearless deeds did not require a lot of thinking about stuff. In fact, part of his rigorous training had been a month at Avalon’s famous Noble Knight And Executor Of Fearless Deeds Boot Camp where all sorts of stuff he wouldn’t need had been removed from his brain. These included:
• All long words.
• All his times tables over the number three.
• All the stuff his mother had taught him about personal hygiene.
• Belgian.
• Knitting.
• Lots of other stuff.
• The recipe for rabbit stew.
• More stuff.
Some new things had been implanted in his brain and they included:
• How to make a campfire out of some grass and two damp peasants.
• Killing baddies in dozens of exciting and creative ways.
• How to boil water without burning it.
• The recipe for boiled water.
• Belgian.
• Not very much other stuff.
• How to kiss girls, horses and swords, though not necessarily in that order.
So it was not surprising that as Morgan le Fey speculated on the highwaychildren’s whereabouts, his eyes glazed over. They had been glazed over before she had started talking due to his being in love with her. So now he was double-glazed.
Morgan le Fey was only single-glazed. She had the being-in-love glazing, but knew exactly what she was talking about even if it wasn’t getting her any nearer to finding Brat and Bloat.
‘Maybe, my lady,’ Sir Lancelot suggested, ‘we need some aerial recon … reconnais … umm, er.’ Curse those long words, he thought. ‘Something flying about in the sky,’ he said.
‘What, like a bird?’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘Well, sort of, except a bird that could follow them and then come back here and tell us where they had gone.’
‘Ah, a clever talking bird,’ said the Princess. ‘Know you of such a bird?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘I know of birds and I know of clever things and I know of things that talk, but I do not know of one thing that can do all three.’
‘I do,’ said Morgan le Fey, ‘except it is not a bird.’
‘What else does fly, but birds?’
‘A vampire.’
‘But are not vampires mere fictions?’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘I know people lived in fear of them in the Dark Ages, but now we are in the Days of Yore and surely people no longer believe in such fairy stories.’
‘Except vampires are not fairy stories,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘They are rare and secretive and very few have seen them, yet they exist. Not only that, they live right here in Camelot, in the castle itself. Come, I will show you.’
She led Sir Lancelot to the window and pointed across the wide courtyard to a line of towers on the far side. The very highest tower was hidden from view. It was a bright, sunny day, yet a single large cloud encircled the tower like a soft, pale grey cardigan.
‘Up there,’ she said. ‘The tower in the clouds. That is where the vampires live.’
‘You have seen them?’ asked the knight.
‘Indeed I have,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘More than seen them, for they have been my friends since I was a baby. On the day I was born, as I lay alone in my crib bathed in the moonlight, they came to me and spoke to me and although I was but a few hours old, I understood their words. They became not only my friends, but my teachers. They taught me all the ancient wisdom of the world, more wisdom than even Merlin himself knows.’
She turned to Lancelot and took his hands in hers. ‘You are the only person I have ever told this to,’ she said.
Lancelot blushed. He tried to look away, but could not. He tried to speak, but could not. He was desperate to go to the toilet, but could not, which did sore make his eyes water.
‘I, umm, I, umm,’ he said, but Morgan le Fey put her fingers to his lips.
‘You know and I know that we are destined to be together,’ she said. ‘Your shyness does you credit, my lord. But don’t worry, it will pass.’
‘Yes, but, yes, but,’ Lancelot blurted out. ‘I am bursting.’
‘I, too, am overwhelmed, but it is our fate,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘You must relax and go with the flow.’
Go with the flow was too much. The brave, fearless, noble knight wet himself. He was, however, saved by his cloak and very large boots. He just hoped his beloved would not hear the squelchy noise as he walked about.
Morgan le Fey took a silver whistle from around her neck and blew on it. There was no sound, or rather, the sound it made was way above the range of human hearing, even above the range of dogs, but sure enough, as the two humans looked up into the cloud, a small dot appeared. It circled twice and flew down to their window faster than the human eye could see.
‘You have finished your homework, my child?’ said the vampire, Fenestra, as she came in through the window.
‘No. I’m sorry. I am still working on it,’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘But it has been three years, my child,’ said the vampire.
‘I know, I know, but geography’s really difficult,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘I keep getting stuck in Belgium.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ said Fenestra.
She then noticed Sir Lancelot and froze.
‘You know it is forbidden for you to tell anyone of our existence,’ she said.
‘This is not anyone,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘This is Sir Lancelot and we are as one. Our destinies are intertwined forever.’
‘Fair enough,’ said the vampire. ‘I just thought he might be a boyfriend or a servant or something like that, but if your destinies are actually intertwined then that’s fine.’
The vampire held out a thin black wing and fluttered her heavy black eyelashes at Sir Lancelot.
‘Nice-looking boy, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Even if he has wet himself.’
Sir Lancelot fainted.25
Morgan le Fey explained about Bloat and Brat and how they were trying to find out where they were going.
‘I thought maybe you could fly over the area and see if you can spot them,’ she said.
‘Well, it’s not the sort of thing we normally do,’ said the vampire. ‘I mean, we are a noble race of philosophers, not an HPS26. Our minds are focused on higher things than that.’
‘What, you mean like sucking blood?’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘Well, umm, that’s just a hobby,’ said Fenestra. ‘A bit of light relief to break up the endless hours of introspection and doing philosophical stuff.’
‘If you find the bandits, you can suck their blood,’ said Morgan le Fey, ‘as much as you like.’
‘Oh, well, that’s different then,’ said the vampire.
She thought for a bit and then said, ‘This bloodsucking, would we be able to do it without having to fill out all the usual forms and endless paperwork?’
In the bad old Dark Ages there were no rules controlling bloodsucking, and vampires, who are not known for self-restraint, frequently sucked so much blood out of their victims that they dropped dead.27 When the Days of Yore started, King Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, decided something had to be done as everyone was getting fed up tripping over deathly white corpses all the time. So regulations were brought in that meant vampires had to fill out seven forms in triplicate saying exactly when and where and who and lots of other details.28
‘Yes,’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘Can you do that? Are you allowed to overrule the rules?’
‘I am the King’s sister,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘I can pretty well do anything I like.’
&
nbsp; ‘All their blood,’ said Fenestra, beginning to drool, ‘until they are completely white and empty.’
‘Not every last drop. You can make them pale grey, but you must leave them enough to survive. You’re not allowed to make them dead,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘And you know what that means, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘When they have made new blood, you can drain them all over again.’
‘Wow,’ said the vampire. ‘And the dragon, we can have his blood too?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Gosh, I’ve never tasted dragon’s blood,’ said the vampire. ‘It’s legendary.’
‘So you’ll do it?’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘You’ll try to find them?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Fenestra. ‘Though could we keep this just between us? I mean, there’s only one very small dragon and two humans. If all my twenty-six relatives could suck their blood too, there wouldn’t be very much for each of us.’
‘So your philosophy doesn’t have a problem with selfishness,’ Morgan le Fey said with a smile.
‘Who cares?’ said the vampire. ‘Dragon’s blood, I mean, come on!’
Morgan le Fey agreed that even if the vampire didn’t manage to trace the rebels, but they were found anyway, the vampire could still suck their blood. She realised this meant the vampire could simply sit up in her tower and wait until someone else found them, but Morgan le Fey knew the lure of paperwork-free illicit blood would be strong enough to keep the creature searching all day and all night.
When Sir Lancelot came round, the vampire had left and was already floating back up in her high tower, preparing for her mission.
‘We could always go looking ourselves,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘On my trusty steed, the magnificent Susan.’
‘Yes, but that could take forever,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘Even for me it can take half a day just to get across the bridges to the mainland.’
‘We do not need to cross the bridges,’ said Lancelot.
‘Of course we do. How else can we go searching everywhere?’
‘Because Susan is no ordinary horse,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘She has wings on her heels. She can fly.’
‘Yes, right,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘You are a wonderful man who I shall love and respect forever, but flying horses? Come on. This is the Days of Yore, not the Dark Ages when people believed all that sort of hippy stuff.29 Horses can’t fly.’
‘But Susan was born in the Dark Ages,’ said Sir Lancelot and went over to the window.
This time it was his turn to take a silver whistle from round his neck and blow it. Slowly a large horse that had been grazing in the courtyard below rose into the air. The back of each of her hooves was a blur as eight small wings carried the horse higher and higher. Luckily the window was a big window, so when Susan came level with the sill she simply drift ed silently into the room. She walked over to Lancelot and nuzzled him.
Morgan le Fey did not faint. She thought about it and decided fainting was not as fashionable as it had been last week, so decided against it.
‘Can she carry both of us?’
Susan nodded.
‘Can she understand what we’re saying?’
Susan nodded again.
‘So does she know that we are as one and our destinies are intertwined forever?’ said Morgan le Fey.
Susan looked surprised and fainted.30
When she came to, she stood up and smiled at Morgan le Fey as only a horse can smile, which is kind of weird. Then she nuzzled the Princess to let her know she was cool with the situation.
I don’t think the Princess is ready for a talking horse, Susan thought and winked at Sir Lancelot, who understood perfectly.
Meanwhile Brat, Bloat, Princess Floridian and Scraper were approaching the dragons’ valley. Until recently it had been a desolate, burnt-out place. Every living plant, from the smallest blades of grass to the great oak trees and everything in between, had been scorched to death by angry dragons breathing fire everywhere, but since Spikeweed, King of the Dragons, had signed the peace treaty with King Arthur, everything had calmed down and the dragons only burnt nasty stinking nettle or prickly things. A good summer of warm rain had worked wonders for the place. The grass was lush and green and tall enough for rabbits to hide in, except for the burnt patches that hadn’t been tall enough for rabbits to hide in, where rabbits had thought they were hiding until they were suddenly converted into dinner by a passing dragon.
The trees were heavy with fresh leaves and even a few birds had returned to nest in the topmost branches, where they were out of reach of the dragons’ flames. If there is one thing a dragon likes for his tea more than a rabbit, it’s a few roasted songbirds. Dragons can fly and dragons can breathe fire, but they are rubbish at multitasking, so if they try to breathe fire while they are concentrating on flying, they usually burn their own wings which means they crash. The birds knew this and that is why they were safe in the treetops. The birds also knew that it could be really good fun to fly down and sing a lovely song to a dragon until it couldn’t contain itself and flew after them up into the treetops and set its own wings on fire.
‘I just wish us birds could laugh,’ they would tweet to each other as their latest victim fell headfirst onto a big rock.
‘We can,’ said a kookaburra and laughed so hard it fell off its branch and was crushed to death by a falling dragon.
The four rebels hid behind a rock and looked down into the clearing where most of the dragons lived. Since the peace treaty other dragons had come to the valley. They had come from other countries where humans and dragons were still bitter enemies trying to wipe each other out. The countries included every country that wasn’t called Avalon.
‘We need to pick a moment when my mum and dad aren’t around,’ said Bloat. ‘Then we’ll creep down and slip into Granny’s cave.’
‘What about her?’ said Princess Floridian. ‘Won’t she say something?’
‘She doesn’t even know what planet she’s living on,’ said Bloat. ‘If I tell her we’ve come to polish her scales, she’ll be happy. Actually, if I tell her we are four large bunches of green bananas and have come to her cave to ripen, she’ll be happy.’
‘What’s a banana?’ said Scraper. ‘Are they dangerous?’
‘No, they are cuddly little marsupials,’ said Bloat.31
‘Oh,’ said Scraper. ‘I spect your granny like them. My granny eated marsupials on toast for her brekfus.’
‘That was marmalade, you idiot,’ said Princess Floridian.
‘Not marmalade,’ said Scraper. ‘Granny sayed marmalade was evil. No, granny eated baby possums on toast for her brekfus every day.’
‘Shut up,’ said Brat.
‘Do you want to hear a joke my granny done?’ said Scraper.
‘No,’ said everyone.
‘Sometimes she didn’t have them on toast, sometimes she boiled them up in a bukkit, not my bukkit of course. She had her own bukkit wot was lovely, but not as lovely as my bukkit which is the loveliest bukkit in the whole world, and you’ll never guess what she called it?’ said Scraper.
‘Marsoupials,’ said Princess Floridian.
‘Oh, I didn’t know you knew my granny.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I will show your granny my bukkit,’ said Scraper. ‘Grannies love bukkits.’
‘Yes, you do that,’ said Bloat. ‘Look, there’s no one about right now, let’s go.’
The four of them crept out from behind the rock and tiptoed down into the cave. No one saw them except for two people flying through the clouds on a horse. Fortunately the two people were Morgan le Fey and Sir Lancelot and the horse was the wonderful Susan. Fenestra did not see them. She was back in her tower getting ready to begin the search. Vampires are notoriously vain and will not go anywhere without sharpening their claws and covering their skin in a protective layer of magical grease to attract evil spirits.32
The ancient dragon was sleeping in a very large puddle at the back o
f the cave. King Arthur had given the dragons a large supply of incontinence pants for the old granny when they had signed their peace treaty, but even wearing three pairs of Super Strong Leakylegs was not enough to contain the endless stream of wee that leaked out of the ancient creature. The smell was so powerful that it made the visitors’ eyes sting and burnt the back of their throats.
Although she was fast asleep and snoring like a hippopotamus with a very bad sinus problem, the minute the three runaways got within three metres of her she shook herself and spoke.
‘I smells visitors,’ she said. ‘A boy, a lovely grandson, a lovely Princess and a big lovely walking potato with a lovely bucket.’
‘Hello, Granny,’ said Bloat. ‘We came to see how you were.’
‘Who’s that?’ said the old dragon. ‘Is it young Bloat?’
‘No, he’s not here at all,’ said Bloat. ‘It’s me, Clarence, Bloat’s cousin.’
‘Clarence?’
‘Yes, Granny,’ said Bloat as the four of them tiptoed past the old creature towards the tunnel entrance.
‘Why are you all tiptoeing past me towards the tunnel entrance? Anyone would think you hadn’t come to visit me at all and just wanted to go into the drains.’
‘Oh Granny, how could you think such a thing?’ said Bloat.
‘Because it’s true,’ said the old dragon. ‘No one comes to see me any more except Wee Blind Jock.’
‘And we all know he’s not real, don’t we, Granny?’
‘Of course he is. Look at all the wee on the floor. That’s Wee Blind Jock, that is. He comes every night and cocks his leg on me. How else do you think all this wee gets here?’
The old dragon opened her eyes and tried to breathe fire, but all that came out of her nose was a puff of damp black smoke.
‘I must get my nostrils cleaned out,’ she said. ‘They’re all full of clinker. I don’t suppose you could do it, could you? I’ve got a wire brush and if you do, I’ll let you touch my magic wart.’
‘Hey, look,’ said Brat, pointing towards the cave entrance. ‘Here comes Wee Blind Jock now.’
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