Grailblazers

by Tom Holt

  Boamund had gone bright red. ‘Thank you, Sir Galahaut,’ he said, as stiff as a newly laundered shirt. ‘I don’t need you to make my apologies for me.’

  ‘Someone’s got to do it,’ Galahaut replied, grinning. ‘Pretty nearly a full-time job it can be, sometimes.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You understand plain Albionese, I take it.’

  The girl’s heart beat faster. They were going to fight! And because of her - yes, of course it was, knights only ever fight among themselves because of a lady. How marvellously, unspeakably thrilling!

  Toenail edged across to the coal-scuttle, climbed in and shut the lid firmly.

  ‘By God,’ Boamund was saying, ‘if there wasn’t a lady present, I’d have a good mind to jolly well ...’

  ‘Jolly well what?’

  ‘Jolly well ask you what you meant by that.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll save you the trouble of asking. I mean you’re a liability, young Boamund. Can’t take you anywhere, never could. Do excuse him,’ he said to the girl. ‘He always gets a bit over-excited if he eats too much chocolate. I remember once at school—’

  ‘Sir Galahaut!’

  ‘Sir Boamund. If only you could see how ridiculous you look.’

  Boamund reached slowly into his pocket and drew out a glove. Actually, it was a woolly mitten with the fingers cut off, but it would have to do.

  ‘My gage,’ said Boamund. ‘If you will do me the honour...’

  ‘What do you want me to do with your glove, Bo? You lost the other one again, have you?’

  ‘Sir Galahaut ...’

  ‘Always were a terror for losing gloves. At school Matron made you tie them round your neck with a bit of string.’

  ‘Very well.’ Boamund picked up the glove and slapped the Haut Prince across the cheek. ‘Now, sir ...’

  ‘Don’t do that, Bo, it tickles.’

  Oh God, thought Toenail. I suppose I’d better do something, before they hammer each other into quick-fry steak. Carefully, he raised the lid of the scuttle and lifted himself out. Then he tiptoed across the room to the door, opened it, and left.

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t understand,’ Boamund was saying. ‘That is unworthy of you.’

  ‘Honestly, Bo, I haven’t the faintest idea what you think you’re talking about. Please stop drivelling, you’re upsetting the lady.’

  ‘I ...’ Boamund was lost for words. All he could think to do was to take out the other mitten and dash it in the cur’s face.

  ‘There,’ Galahaut said, ‘it was in your pocket all the time.’

  ‘That does it. I demand satisfaction.’

  The Haut Prince giggled. ‘You what?’ he said.

  ‘You heard. You’re a knave, a cad and a blackguard, and ...’ Boamund delved back into the archives of his mind, ‘you cheated in falconry.’

  A red curtain of rage swept unexpectedly across Galahaut’s consciousness, obscuring everything else. ‘What did you just say?’ he gasped.

  ‘You heard,’ Boamund snarled. ‘At the end of the summer term back in ’08. You bought a cage of white mice from the pet shop, and you—’

  ‘It’s a lie!’

  ‘It’s not,’ Boamund retorted. ‘I found the receipt in your tuck box.’

  ‘And what were you doing looking through my tuck box?’

  ‘That’s beside the point. You used those mice to—’

  ‘So that’s where my Aunt Ysoud’s fruit cake got to!’

  ‘You used those mice—’

  ‘Greedy pig!’

  ‘Cheat!’

  The girl looked at them, puzzled. Well, at any rate, they were definitely going to fight.

  Von Weinacht jumped down from the sleigh and called for his axe.

  It had taken two hours - two hours! — for the pick-up sleigh to arrive, and then the tow-rope had broken, one of the reindeer had escaped, and they’d flown the wrong way over the Harris Ridge. The Graf took the axe from a trembling page and advanced towards the malfunctioning sleigh. He’d give it metal fatigue!

  He noticed the alarm, and snapped his fingers imperiously.

  ‘All right,’ he yelled, ‘I’m back now, you can turn that God-awful racket off!’

  Radulf, who had come out to meet him, was trying to tell him something, but von Weinacht couldn’t be bothered right now. All he wanted to do was give that worthless heap of Nipponese junk a service it would never forget.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Something was tugging at his sleeve.

  The Graf looked down and saw a dwarf. He frowned. Years since he’d seen a dwarf about the place. The last one, he remembered, had handed in his notice and gone south to work in the diamond mines. Funny.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the dwarf repeated, ‘but could you possibly spare a moment? You see, two dangerous knights have broken in, and—’

  ‘Knights?’ Von Weinacht scooped the dwarf up in one enormous hand and held him about an inch from his nose. ‘Knights?’

  ‘Yes, sire, two knights. Boamund and Galahaut, sir. They’re in your daughter’s sitting room. Having tea.’

  ‘Tea!’ Von Weinacht roared, dropped the dwarf, and broke into a run. Toenail picked himself up, rubbed his elbow vigorously, and followed.

  He just hoped he was in time, that was all.

  7

  ‘Will these do?’ the girl asked.

  It was odd, she was saying to herself, I thought knights always had their own swords. In all the books she’d ever read, a knight didn’t go anywhere without at least one sword, sometimes two. Still, there it was. Sometimes, she felt that she didn’t really know an awful lot about real life.

  ‘Thanks,’ Boamund said gruffly. ‘That’ll do fine.’

  ‘I found them,’ the girl was saying, ‘in Father’s study. He’s got lots of swords and things in there. I think he collects them or something. I brought swords, but there’s axes and flails and maces and daggers too, if you want them.’

  ‘Just swords will do fine,’ Galahaut said. ‘Unless, of course, Sir Boamund wants a shield or anything. He always insisted on having a shield at school.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘And if he couldn’t have one, he used to burst into tears.’

  ‘At least I didn’t put an exercise book down my front when I was tilting.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘There are some books in the library,’ the girl put in helpfully, ‘if anyone wants one.’

  Boamund drew his sword from its scabbard. It was very cold. ‘Shall we get on with it?’ he asked. ‘That is, if Sir Galahaut is ready.’

  ‘Perfectly ready, thank you.’

  ‘After you, then.’

  Von Weinacht stood outside the sitting room and caught his breath.

  ‘In there?’

  Toenail nodded.

  ‘Right.’

  One kick from the Graf’s enormous boot sent the door flying open. But the room was empty.

  Oh God, Toenail thought, I was too late. They’ve gone off to fight it out; there’ll be nothing left but torn clothes and a hundredweight of minced knight. Bugger.

  ‘I thought you said ...’

  ‘They must have left, sir,’ Toenail replied. ‘Gone somewhere else, I mean.’

  ‘Somewhere else?’ There was an extra edge to the Graf’s voice, which implied that it was bad enough their being there at all without them moving about like a lot of migratory wildfowl. ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere where there’s plenty of room, I expect,’ Toenail replied. ‘You see, they were wanting a fight ...’

  The Graf lifted his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘A fight,’ he repeated. ‘Well, they’ve come to the right place, then, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Only we haven’t.’

  ‘Apparently not.’ The Graf turned to his pages and shouted, ‘You lot! Search the castle, understood. Two dangerous knights. Jump to it.’

 
; Then something thudded into place in von Weinacht’s brain, and he swung down a hand and grabbed the dwarf.

  ‘You,’ he growled. ‘Who are you supposed to be, then?’

  ‘Toenail, sir. I’m a dwarf.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Attendant on the knights, sir. I came with them from Albion.’

  ‘I see.’ Von Weinacht breathed out fiercely through his nose. ‘And why are you betraying your masters to me?’ he asked.

  Toenail squirmed slightly. ‘Oh, no reason,’ he said. ‘I just thought, blow this for a lark, all this mending things and cleaning things. I have nothing to lose but my chains, I thought, and—’

  ‘What chains?’

  ‘Figuratively speaking, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ said the Graf. ‘I’ll deal with you later. Follow me.’

  He released the dwarf, smashed up a coffee table for good measure, and strode out of the door. Toenail didn’t follow him at once; he darted back to his knapsack, retrieved something from it, and then followed as fast as his legs could carry him.

  ‘Will this do?’ the girl asked.

  They were standing in the main courtyard. Because the entire staff was occupied in searching for intruders, the place was empty except for an abandoned and rather beat-up looking sleigh.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ said Boamund. ‘I suppose we’d better get on with it.’

  Although he was still burning with pent-up fury and rage, he was doing it rather more sheepishly than he had been a few minutes before. True, Sir Galahaut had wronged him quite unforgivably, and the shame would have to be washed out in blood; nevertheless, when you thought about it, it was a dashed silly way to settle an argument, chopping the other fellow’s head off. Or getting your own chopped off. And a fellow you’d been at the dear old Coll with, into the bargain. He couldn’t help feeling, deep down, that there might be a better way of dealing with situations like this. A really aggressive, hard-fought game of squash, for example.

  Galahaut had taken off his jacket and was doing flamboyant practice sweeps with his sword. The girl was sitting on the sleigh. She had picked up a box of chocolates from somewhere, and was eating them avidly.

  ‘Ready?’ Boamund asked.

  ‘Just a tick,’ Galahaut called back. ‘Um - got a bit of cramp in the forearm, I think. You don’t mind if I just loosen up a bit, do you?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Jolly decent of you, old man.’

  ‘Not a bit of it, Gally. Have as long as you like.’

  The Haut Prince did a few more practice sweeps, and then some arm-flinging exercises. Not, he assured himself, that he wasn’t eager to get on with it and give young Snotty the hiding he’d been asking for ever since he could remember; but there wasn’t any rush, was there? All the time in the world.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the girl, ‘but why haven’t you started yet?’

  The knights looked at her.

  ‘We aren’t ready yet.’

  ‘Can’t rush these things.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be sporting.’

  ‘Oh.’ The girl shrugged. ‘I see. Sorry.’

  The knights circled gingerly. Once or twice they tried a few very tentative lunges, but not without asking the other fellow whether he was ready first. The Grafin, meanwhile, finished her chocolates and started clapping. Slowly.

  In desperation, Boamund attempted a double left-hand reverse mandiritta, a fiendishly complex and difficult manoeuvre which, as he remembered only too well once he’d started, he’d never quite managed to master. It involves a duplex feint to the right side of the head, a slow pass to the left body, and finally a long lunge, executed by the fencer on one knee with his left hand passing behind his back until it touches the inside of his right knee.

  ‘Help,’ he said. ‘I’m stuck.’

  ‘Oh, hard luck,’ exclaimed Sir Galahaut, sheathing his sword and helping him up. ‘Better?’

  ‘I think I’ve sprained my wrist.’

  ‘That does it, then,’ said Galahaut quickly. ‘No earthly good fighting if you’re not feeling a hundred per cent. Wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Pity,’ Galahaut went on, ‘but there it is. We’ll have to call it a draw, I suppose.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ Boamund levered himself to his feet, winced, and put up his sword. ‘Just when we were getting back into the swing of it, too.’

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ said Galahaut sympathetically. ‘Hey, where’s that dratted girl gone?’

  They both looked round. They were alone.

  ‘Got bored, I expect,’ said Boamund with contempt. ‘That’s girls for you, of course. I never did meet one who was really interested in Games.’

  When the Graf came thundering down the main staircase into the Great Hall, he found his daughter sitting on the steps of the dais crying into a small lace handkerchief. He dropped his axe and hurried over to her.

  ‘What’s the matter, precious?’ he said. ‘Tell Daddy all about it.’

  ‘It’s those silly knights,’ the Grafin sniffed. ‘They won’t fight. They’re just standing there chatting.’

  ‘There, there,’ said the Graf. ‘Don’t upset yourself over a couple of silly knights. They’re not worth it really.’

  ‘And I thought they were both so brave,’ the girl went on. There were little tears, like pearls, on her cheeks. She blew her nose loudly.

  ‘Huh!’ The Graf snorted contemptuously. ‘Knights! They don’t know the meaning of the word.’

  ‘And they just left me sitting there,’ the Grafin said, ‘after I’d given them tea and everything.’

  ‘Young blackguards,’ said von Weinacht. ‘I’ll soon teach them a thing or two.’

  The girl’s eyes lit up and she smiled.

  ‘I love you, Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘I love you too, Popsy,’ muttered von Weinacht, gruffly. ‘Right, where are those knights? Dwarf!’

  Toenail, who had been standing on a chair and looking out of the window at the courtyard, jumped down and ran over to him.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘You got any idea where those knights are?’

  ‘In the courtyard, sir. Not fighting,’ he added, thoughtfully.

  ‘Where’s that dratted dwarf got to?’ said Boamund. ‘Always wandering off somewhere, I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Typical,’ Galahaut said, putting on his jacket. ‘Especially when there’s work to be done.’

  ‘And he’s got the luggage.’

  The two knights looked around the huge courtyard.

  ‘Could be anywhere,’ Galahaut said at last. ‘Big place, this.’

  ‘Gloomy, though.’

  They started to stroll towards the main hall.

  ‘I vote,’ said Galahaut, ‘that we find this Graf von Weinacht, make him tell us where the Socks are, and buzz off. How does that sound to you?’

  ‘Pretty shrewd,’ Boamund replied. ‘Where shall we start?’

  ‘How about over there?’

  ‘Good idea.’

  They pushed open the doors of the main hall and walked in. They stared.

  ‘Toenail?’ they said, in unison.

  In front of them, sprawled on the hearthrug like a pile of bright red bedclothes, was the Graf von Weinacht. An enormous Danish axe lay by his right hand. Standing over him, grinning and holding an aerosol can of chemical Mace, was the dwarf.

  ‘I suppose,’ the Graf said, ‘I’d better begin at the beginning.’

  It had been a long day. Acting on the information received, he had gone dashing off to Atlantis in search of Grail Knights, had been beaten up twice and rolled down a spiral staircase, crash-landed his sleigh in the middle of nowhere, arrived home to find the place knee-deep in knights, been Maced by a dwarf and tied up with his own dressing-gown cord. It was enough to make you spit.

  ‘Is that necessary?’ yawned Galahaut. ‘Only ...’

  ‘Yes,’ the Graf snapped. ‘Absolutely essential. All right?’

>   ‘Fire away, then,’ replied the Haut Prince. He leant back, put his feet up on a stuffed bear, and helped himself to a big, fat bunch of grapes.

  Simon Magus turned the page and settled his reading-glasses comfortably on his nose.

  The Pitiful History, he read, of the Count of Christmas. He reached for his notebook.

  It was a hell of a story. If it wasn’t quite the greatest story ever told, that was just because the Graf wasn’t quite in the mood to give it the full treatment.

  ... About how, getting on for two thousand years ago, he packed in his promising career as a weather-god to study astrology at the University of Damascus. About how he and three of his fellow students, looking through the University’s electron astrolabe, discovered what at first they took to be a bit of dirt on the lens, and then realised was an entirely new star.

  About how they set off to observe it from the University’s hi-tech observatory near Jerusalem. About how there was the inevitable cock-up with the hotel bookings, which meant that they arrived in Galilee one cold, wet night to find that their rooms had been given to a party of insurance salesmen from Tarsus, and they were going to have to doss down in the stables.

  And how, just as they were squelching across the courtyard and muttering about suing somebody, young Melchior happened to look up and notice that the star was slap-bang over their heads; and that the group of shepherds who’d just come out of the stables were looking very worried indeed ...

  ‘And another thing,’ said the shepherd, grinning insanely. ‘I don’t know if you’re superstitious or anything, but if you are, don’t go in there. The place is knee-deep in angels, okay?’

  ‘Angels?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  The shepherds hurried away, leaving Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar and Klaus standing in the rain.

  ‘Did that man just say the Angels were in there, someone?’ Balthazar asked.

  ‘I thought so.’

  They groaned. As if they didn’t have enough to put up with without sharing their sleeping accommodation with a gang of greasy, leather-clad, foul-mouthed, camel-riding hooligans.