As the old dragon turned to look they ran away down the tunnel.
‘Hello, Wee Blind Jock,’ they could hear Bloat’s granny say. ‘Come over here and speak up. I can’t hear you because you’re blind.’
‘Are you sure this is the only way in and out of this tower?’ said Princess Floridian. ‘I don’t think I can go through all that rubbish every time.’
‘Once we get set up in the tower, we can get Bloat to fly us in and out,’ said Brat. ‘We’ll just have to wait until it’s dark.’
‘Can you see in the dark?’ the Princess asked Bloat.
‘Of course I can,’ said the young dragon. ‘It’s easy. I mean, it’s only one colour, just a big black thing.’
Princess Floridian began to wonder if the whole pretending-to-be-kidnapped thing had been such a good idea. Maybe it would have been better to have beaten up the useless highwaymen and gone on to King Arthur’s coronation. Who knows, she might have ended up becoming Mrs King Arthur. She knew that boys found her irresistible and OK, so the King was only eleven years old, but she could wait. In five years’ time he would be eighteen,33 the same as her. Of course this could still happen. She could beat up Brat and Bloat, stuff Scraper’s bucket over his head again and drag them all back to Camelot.
She would be a hero and everyone would want to marry her. She’d probably get a big reward too. But there was a bigger reward waiting to be claimed and she was determined to get it.
Excalibur was the stuff legends were made of and then some. Children everywhere, not just in Avalon, but all over the world, knew about the magical sword. Thousands of them dreamt of the day plastic would be invented so they could have a model of their own. Sure, there were cardboard34 Excaliburs, but owning one of them always ended in tears. You would be out playing knights and damsels with all the other children and it would start raining, and before you knew it your Excalibur was a limp soggy mess with everyone laughing at it.
No, the Princess had seen the beam of sunlight shine down through the clouds on the mighty sword and she was determined that one way or another she would be the one to claim it. Legend said that whoever pulled it out of the rock would be the one true owner of the sword and its incredible powers and no one would ever be able to take it off you. Of course she could go and tell King Arthur about seeing the sword, but if she did that, there would be no way she would be allowed to own it. No, her best chance was to use the idiots she was with to lead her to it. Brat might think he would be the chosen one, but Princess Floridian decided that once they found the right island, she would have no problem claiming ownership.
She would just kill the other three.
They reached the place where the tunnels led into the drains beneath Camelot. There were hundreds of pipes leading down from the castle. All the toilets, baths, basins, rainwater pipes and other leaky things like the blood pipes from the ancient torture chambers and the cheese overflows from the mighty pizza ovens fed into this one huge drain that flowed away into a darkness no one had ever explored. It was rumoured to run into the very core of the world itself, though a race of natives living on an undiscovered island somewhere in the South Seas knew otherwise. From the top of their single mountain, the most disgusting stream imaginable poured down over a great brown waterfall into their valley. The air was permanently filled with the aroma of ancient sewage and boiled cabbage and old blood and pizza. Of course, the natives had never known anything else, so to them it was the river of life and it made their land so rich they grew potatoes the size of footballs.35 They tasted absolutely awful, but they were enormous.
Luckily, Bloat had been one of the young dragons who had blown bubbles up into the toilets of Camelot36 so he knew which drain led up into the remote tower where they were to make their hideout.
‘Me go, me go first, please, please,’ said Scraper jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Bukkit all ready to clean up.’
‘All right,’ said Brat, ‘as you have been such a good boy, we will let you go up first.’
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ said Scraper. ‘Me and bukkit will make so clean and shiny you could eat your dinner off it.’
‘Great,’ said Brat.
‘Shouldn’t you have some sort of brush?’ said the Princess.
‘Got hairy arms,’ said Scraper. ‘Better than brush.’
He forced himself into the pipe and began to wriggle upwards.
‘Well, if he can get up there, we’ll have no problem,’ said Brat.
Half an hour is not a very long time when you are enjoying yourself. However, if you are standing in an enormous sewer as all sorts of unmentionable things float past you, some of which reach out and try to grab your ankle, half an hour is a very long time indeed.
While Scraper worked his way up the pipe, two half an hours went by. Now and then something fell out of the pipe – one of Scraper’s boots, two small crocodiles and a lot of brown things followed by nothing. The nothing went on for another ten minutes.
‘I hope he’s not stuck,’ said the Princess.
‘Well, if he is, there’s nothing we can do about it,’ said Brat.
‘I realise that,’ said the Princess. ‘I don’t care if he does get stuck, except if he does we won’t be able to get up into the tower.’
But as she began to say more, an enormous flash of water shot out of the pipe followed by Scraper.
‘Brilliant way to get down,’ he said with a grin. ‘Just flushed meself.’
‘So it’s all nice and clean?’ said the Princess. ‘We can go up?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Scraper. ‘Queen could eat her dinner off toilet pipe.’
One by one they all wriggled up the pipe with Scraper at the back in case any of the others lost their grip and slipped down. With potato boy there they would have something soft to land on and not fall all the way down to the bottom.
One by one they climbed out of the toilet bowl, except Scraper, who could only get his arm up into the room.
‘Well, we can either flush him down again or smash the lavatory and get him out,’ said Bloat.
‘I think we should smash it,’ said Princess Floridian, ‘but before we do, can you boys leave the room while I use it?’
‘What about Scraper?’ said Bloat. ‘I think we should warn him.’
‘Scraper, can you hear me?’ the Princess shouted.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you got your bucket?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Well, put it on your head.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘Bukkit might get stuck again,’ said Scraper.
The Princess explained why and Scraper agreed that getting his head stuck in his bucket was probably the nicer option.
‘Why would they go to the Dragon Valley?’ said Sir Lancelot as they circled around on Susan’s back. ‘The little dragon’s parents will be looking out for him.’
‘Exactly,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘So that means they are going to hide in the last place they think we would look for them.’
‘They’ve gone into that cave,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘So all we have to do is fly down there and grab them.’
‘I think not. I think that is the cave with the tunnel at the back that leads into the castle drains. I don’t think they’re going to hide in the Dragon Valley. I think they are planning to hide in Camelot itself.’
‘That is brilliant,’ said Lancelot. ‘I know they are highwaymen and all that and we want to capture them, but what a brilliant bit of strategy, hiding not so much under our noses as right up our noses.’
‘Quite,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘Too bloody clever by half. There are over a hundred drains going down into the sewers. It could take weeks to find them.’
‘We’ll place guards in the cave,’ she added, ‘but I think once they get into the castle they’ll find another way to get in and out.’
Morgan le Fey had been an independent free-thinker all her life. Someone only had to tell he
r not to do something for her to want to do it. Her parents and teachers had thought this would be the easiest way to get her to do something they wanted her to do, but which she didn’t want to do. However, the Princess was far too clever for that and usually beat them at their own game. If there was something she wanted to do, maybe stay out late to watch a Wild Minstrel sing rude songs, then she would first of all pretend it was the last thing in the world she would ever want and then make her guardians believe that being made to do it would actually be really, really good for her education.
This was what is known as a win, win, win situation because:
1. Morgan le Fey would get to hear the Wild Minstrel.
2. Her parents would believe they had made her go when she really hadn’t wanted to, which meant they thought they were actually in charge when they weren’t.
3. Her parents would even believe the Wild Minstrel’s rude songs had taught her a lot of wonderful, useful new knowledge when in fact all they had taught her were a lot of wonderful, useful new swear words.
Part of her rebellion had been to go to places she was specifically told not to go to. This included all of the Remote Wing of Camelot, a collection of corridors and towers that had been almost deserted since the Terrible Hauntings And Turning Into Frogs that had taken place two hundred and fifty years before.
The Terrible Hauntings And Turning Into Frogs had never happened. The whole thing had been created by Merlin’s grandmother to get some peace and quiet. She had got so fed up with people bothering her all day with requests for spells and potions to cure everything from The Purple Plague to Belgian Ague With Added Sauce that she had begun to tell stories of terrifying ghosts that had started appearing in the Remote Wing.
This had confused the people living in the Remote Wing, which in those days had been known as the remote wing and had been a peaceful, laid-back sort of place. They had never seen a single ghost. So Merlin’s grandmother began wandering around at night covered in a white sheet, wailing painfully and chucking lots of frogs about. This had been back in the Dark Ages and in those days people had been very gullible and superstitious.37 In no time at all the remote wing was deserted because everyone living there had fled.
Once they had all gone, Merlin’s grandmother, Grannivere, moved in and no one bothered her ever again. She gradually faded from everyone’s memory and if her name cropped up now, it was assumed that she had died a long, long time ago. Aft er all, Merlin himself was very, very old and his mother Mummivere had died many years before. So his granny must have died long, long ago.
She hadn’t.
And the one and only person who knew she was still alive was Morgan le Fey, because she was the one and only person who had been brave enough to venture into the Remote Wing since it had been abandoned.38 She had been all over the Remote Wing because she had been told it was the most dangerous place in the whole world and she must never, never go anywhere near it.
‘And if I was them that’s where I would go and hide,’ she said.
‘If that’s the case,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘they are unassailable.’
‘No they’re not,’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘Well, it won’t matter anyway. Everyone knows the Remote Wing is the most dangerous place in the whole world and no one must ever, ever go anywhere near it,’ said the brave and fearless knight.
‘That’s just a myth.’
‘No, no, it’s not,’ said Lancelot. ‘Everyone knows it is a terrifying place that no one ever comes back from because they have been haunted to death by big white ghosts and ferocious frogs.’
‘How long have you lived at Camelot?’
‘Five years,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘though I was away doing noble deeds for four years, eleven months and three weeks.’
‘I was born here,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘There is not a single room that I have not been to. Apart from the Secret and Hidden Rooms that I have not visited because they are secret and hidden and may not actually exist, but I have been all over Camelot including the Remote Wing, into every room and corridor and cupboard lots and lots of times. Well, I’ve only been into the cupboards once, but I’ve been into the corridors and rooms tons of times.’
‘And the frogs didn’t get you?’
‘Does it look like they did?’
‘It must be because you are a royal Princess. I expect the great and wise Merlin gave you a special protection spell when you were born,’ said Sir Lancelot.
‘Or,’ said Morgan le Fey, ‘and this is just a suggestion based on the fact I’ve been there lots and lots of times, there are no frogs.’
‘But…’
‘Or ghosts.’
‘But…’
‘Not a single one. And there is someone living there,’ said the Princess. ‘Someone who will not be at all pleased to find she has visitors.’
‘Who?’
‘Grannivere, Merlin’s grandmother.’
Sir Lancelot thought about it. He began to wonder if Morgan le Fey had maybe drunk too much strange mushroom tea that morning and it was affecting her brain. He hoped that was the case.
Otherwise, he thought, I have fallen in love with a looney.
‘But she would have to be over two hundred years old,’ said Lancelot.
‘Two hundred and eighty-seven, to be precise,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘Her birthday was last Thursday. I made her a cake.’
Now Sir Lancelot knew he was in love with a crazy person.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Susan, I think we should go back to the castle now.’
Even Susan thought Morgan le Fey was probably mad. She had flown past the Remote Wing, at a safe distance, quite a few times and had never seen any sign of life apart from thick cobwebs over the windows.
‘But then again, if there are giant frogs there,’ Susan said out loud before she could stop herself, ‘there wouldn’t be any cobwebs because the frogs would have eaten all the spiders.’
‘Did that horse just speak?’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘Sorry,’ said Susan. ‘Didn’t mean to startle you.’
OMW,39 thought the Princess, I have fallen in love with a strange man who has a mad talking horse.
Luckily, Susan was wearing her self-righting saddle, the one with the velvet seatbelts, otherwise Morgan le Fey would have fallen off with surprise. Nevertheless Susan flew back to Camelot as quickly as possible.
There were seventy-four towers in the Remote Wing and some of them were more than twenty-three stories high. To search all of them would take ages.
‘And of course if they got any idea we were looking for them, they could just keep moving around so we’d never find them,’ Morgan le Fey. ‘What we need is a spy.’
‘I could fly around and look through the windows,’ said Susan.
‘Yes. I think a big flying horse looking in the window at them might make them a bit suspicious.’
‘Well, I could pretend I hadn’t seen them.’
‘Umm, that’s one option,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘But I think we need someone a bit smaller.’
‘Or someone disguised as something else,’ Sir Lancelot suggested.
‘Yes, you could tie feathers all over me and I could pretend I was a bird,’ said Susan.
‘I think you’ll find most birds weigh quite a bit less than a thousand kilos,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘Probably about nine hundred and ninety-nine kilos less.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of feathers,’ said Sir Lancelot. ‘I was thinking of a bit of trompe l’oeil.’
‘I’m not being covered in dead fish,’ said Susan.
‘It means trick of the eye,’ said Lancelot. ‘I was thinking of painting you to look like a big cloud.’
Morgan le Fey went to the window and blew her vampire whistle. When Fenestra arrived she explained the situation. How they’d seen the runaways going into the dragon’s cave and where she thought they were probably headed. She told the vampire that with a bit of luck she could be in for a nice bit of bloodsucking quite soon, once the
y could find out exactly which tower they had taken refuge in.
‘I have the perfect solution,’ said the vampire. ‘My nephew Fissure. He’s only eight years old and he’s so small for his age you could easily mistake him for a crow. Give him a couple of plump rats to suck dry and he’ll fly round every tower in Camelot, not just the ones in the Remote Wing.
‘Because, I know you think that’s where they might be,’ Fenestra continued, ‘but I’m not so sure. For a start they might think that you might think that’s where they would probably go, so they won’t. And secondly, they probably know all the myths about the Remote Wing and might be too scared to go there.’
‘You could be right, but Brat has been there before,’ said Morgan le Fey. ‘To go to the lavatory when the young dragons were blowing bubbles at him.’40
While the Princess sent down to the kitchens for a pair of plump fresh rats, Fenestra flew back to her tower to fetch Fissure. The young vampire had never seen two plump fresh rats at the same time before and his eyes lit up like small fires. He began to drool and tremble in anticipation and would have eaten his own mother if he’d been asked to.41
‘You can drain one rat now,’ said the old vampire, ‘and have the other one when you find them.’
‘And if you find them nice and quickly, you might even get a third rat too,’ Morgan le Fey added.
‘Wow, I’ll be as quick as lightning,’ said Fissure, though it sounded more like: ‘Mmmmmm urggh ooh yummmmm,’ because he had both fangs in a rat’s neck.
The young vampire flew off towards the Remote Wing. From where she stood at the window, Morgan le Fey could just make him out as a tiny black dot flying round and round the towers like an eccentric corkscrew as he spiralled down from the top windows to the bottom. He shot round a dozen towers in less than five minute and then vanished. He flew round the back of the farthest tower to begin the corkscrew, but didn’t reappear.
‘I wish someone would invent a long cardboard tube with a bumpy glass bit at each end that would make things that are a long way away look as if they were much nearer,’ said Morgan le Fey.
‘No one would buy anything like that,’ said Sir Lancelot.
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