I had materialised in the mouth of the tunnel leading from the backstage dressing rooms onto the pitch. The sound of quick-marching feet filled the corridor behind me, and I jumped aside as Sir Lancelot sprinted past and out into the stadium’s floodlit brightness, followed by a squadron of soldiers. Curiously, there was no sign of Sir Gawain among their number. It was unlike him to miss out on such a spectacle. No doubt his hands were full with the demands of training up the new civilian recruits.
However, if Sir Lancelot’s confidence was anything to go by, such back-up would be unnecessary. He took to the pitch with a jaunty jog, leading his men on a lap of honour, smiling and waving to the crowd. The military were clad in their regular camouflage augmented with helmets, as well as shoulder, shin, and knee-pads. Sir Lancelot had acquired various items of light armour, presumably from the same place as the assortment of swords which, for want of enough scabbards, each soldier held aloft in his right hand. Upon completing their lap the men, at least a hundred in total, assembled in close formation, performing warm-up exercises and practising sword moves.
The clock counted down the final minute. A great stillness filled the air, a calm so intense it verged on hysteria. At last, the mechanism controlling the roof clanked into life. The great halves of the metal covering parted, revealing an unnaturally cloudy sky. I wondered if, in all the excitement, anybody had thought to make provision for luring the dragons inside. After all, out there in the city they were enjoying the dragon equivalent of a free festival. They were hardly likely to be attracted to the stadium by a mere sense of occasion. A ripple of restless disappointment passed through the audience. Even the troops appeared crestfallen, nervously shifting beneath their makeshift armour, like party guests who had misread an invitation and turned up in fancy dress.
A tiny green speck appeared against the grey gloom. With alarming swiftness, the first dragon increased in size as it began its spiralling descent. Soon it was joined by another, then another, circling like a gathering cyclone. Sir Lancelot walked out to the centre of the pitch and stood in the eye of the storm, chin set, sword drawn. The lowest of the dragons skimmed the still-retracting roof, its trailing talons screeching on the metal like nails on a blackboard. Several troops fell cowering to their knees. “On your feet!” urged Sir Lancelot. “Remember, fear is like meat to them.”
As if on cue, the lead dragon uttered a sound that made audience and troops alike gasp in revulsion. It was a sound scooped from your worst nightmare; a noise that cut like a scalpel through every atom of your existence. To the ears of everyone else it sounded like a howl of the purest pain. Only Sir Lancelot and I recognised it for what it was: a dragon’s laugh. One man bolted for the tunnel. The first dragon swooped down and, with one light snap of its jaws, bit off his torso like a jelly baby. The severed legs fell to the pitch and a stupefied hush filled the stadium. With a roar, the dragons broke formation and set upon the gathered soldiers.
‘Operation: Hostile Takedown’ had begun.
Despite the unpromising start, these men had been trained by the best. Galvanised by the sight of their fallen comrade, they sprang into action. To their undoubted surprise, the hostiles found themselves the subject of a thoroughly comprehensive take-down. Certainly, they flamed and chomped and roared as much as ever. But Sir Lancelot’s tactics worked like a dream. A dragon would be within an inch of vaporising a knight, only to find its target jumping up onto its back and relieving it of its Dracontias. By the time the beasts got wise to this strategy, covering fire from the machine guns prevented them from gaining height, and the metal roof closed again, trapping them inside the stadium.
From here on, the audience were not short changed in terms of spectacle. If anything, Sir Lancelot was surpassed by his pupils, who treated the crowd to a feast of aerial acrobatics. With every blow struck they visibly grew in confidence. Dead dragons flumped down onto the pitch with heavy slaps, like giant leather jackets. One soldier flew a dragon like a bucking bronco, steering it on loops around the stadium before killing it off with a flourish and alighting on the ground to rapturous applause. Another agile fellow waited until his steed flew over another dragon before cutting out the Dracontias. Then he used the stone like a catapulted boulder to brain the beast below him, jumping from the dead dragon onto the dazed one and repeating the trick all over again.
It was lucky for Sir Lancelot that the soldier developed this tactic. On one occasion he found himself backed into a corner and without his sword, and it was only the intervention of one such ‘boulder’ that saved him from a severe singeing. At last, perched precariously on a pile of their prey, the winners stood victorious, basking in the crowd’s adoration. Sir Lancelot — shaky, but smiling — waved and nodded. But it was his young rescuer who got the biggest cheer of the day, his delighted face filling the monitor screens.
For the first time since setting out from the Once & Future Inn, I felt a sense of relief sweep over me. The carnival atmosphere, the sense of triumph and a job well done — in the light of all this, Merlin’s prophecies seemed decidedly alarmist. Here was Sir Lancelot, mopping up the dragon menace, even without the aid of Sir Gawain and his civilian recruits! Should the so-called armies of the dead unwisely decide to put in an appearance, they would simply send them packing, too. The Master was in safe hands, and thanks to Megan and her team, the world would shortly know and love him again. Our fellowship would be reunited, and everything else rectified and restored as soon as we found Merlin.
Even as I had this thought, up on the opposite side of the stadium I could have sworn I saw a familiar cloaked figure sitting in the midst of the cheering crowd. But I must have been mistaken, for when I blinked and looked again, the hooded man was no longer there.
Yesterday Two
I
I returned to my quarters intending to blurt out the news of the impending quest to Beaumains the moment I got in through the door. But no sooner did I reach the threshold than I came to a faltering halt. With a sense of weary resignation I bowed to the inevitable, and was just about to start on my System when I realised that my recent complaint was not the reason for the pause. Nevertheless, there I was, gazing at the scene before me as if I were seeing it all for the first time.
I could not for the life of me say why. The tasks my deputy was performing — banking up the fire, keeping an eye on the eggs boiling in the pot — were no more earth-shattering than the preparations for our evening meeting, things I had witnessed a thousand times over the past thirty years. Sensing my presence, she turned and smiled, breaking the spell. As she did so, the momentous decision of the past hour fell into perspective. Gladly I stepped into a routine more welcome to me at that moment than a hot bath.
“Good evening,” I said.
“Don’t you mean morning?”
The last few grains of sand in the glass egg timer had run dry. I removed the pot from the fire and picked up a plate of bread. Scooping an egg from the bubbling water with a wooden spoon, I tapped it smartly against the plate and felt the shell give way against a perfect white.
“That egg timer,” I began.
“Is the best present you ever had,” finished Beaumains.
“Well, it is.”
“I know. I count it among my life’s greatest achievements to have given you at least one gift that gets used.”
“So, how was your day?” I sat down by the fire and handed her the plate of food.
“It would end a lot better than it started if I could see you eat something,” she said.
“I am fine.”
“I can’t remember the last time I saw you take a meal.”
“I have been grazing all day.”
“Grazing like a mouse.”
“I will have mine later. Tell me how your day went.”
She rolled her eyes. “How do you think it went? He is getting worse.” I sighed from my depths. “But you are tense,” she said, putting aside her plate. Her fingers were on my neck and shoulders before I could prote
st.
“Beaumains, this is hardly the proper way for — oh. Oh my.” Knots of tension tied some time before breakfast and drawn ever tighter as the day wore on unravelled at her touch.
“Did I hit the spot?” she said.
My body responded with an involuntary twitch, like a dreaming hound. “Yes.”
“Sorry Lucas, you were saying?”
“Mmm? Nothing. Please, carry on. Your fingers read my back like Braille.”
“Like what?”
“Braille,” I repeated, although it was as if the word came from somebody else, speaking from a great distance. “It is… I am not sure what it is. I suppose I am just tired. Please, continue. What were you saying?”
“Mordred. Even before he is out of bed, he is a bother,” said Beaumains.
I closed my eyes, and focused on her voice:
II
I tell you Lucas, I am glad to see the back of this Tournament for another year. It is hard to say who has been groaning more — the knights battered half to death, or the staff working ’round the clock to patch them up in the infirmary, just so they can go out and kill themselves all over again. Those few kitchen staff not boiling herbs or running to the scriptorium to check recipes for salves and ointments, are at the beck and call of the bedridden, who seem to forget they have squires of their own to empty bedpans or fetch them a ‘medicinal snifter.’ So where are these squires, you ask? Out on the field watching the sport, that’s where; or in the Great Hall, demolishing the Queen’s birthday feast faster than my team can make it. As for Bedwyr, he may as well start his quest now, for all the good he is in the kitchen. This Grail fever is contagious; my staff are dropping with it like flies.
Anyway, there I was, up to my arms in blood and bruises, when Mordred swaggered in, demanding that Sir Sagramour be discharged into his care.
“No,” I said. “Certainly not. His wounds had not healed when you took him out yesterday. And now they are ten times worse.”
“Tough,” he said, “I need Saggy on the field, Beaumains. Today’s the day we teach this so-called ‘Knight X’ the lesson of a lifetime and remove his coward’s mask.”
“That is not my concern,” I replied. “If Sir Sagramour gets on a horse today, his side will split and his guts fall out, splat, simple as that.”
“Then get your precious Lucas to do the stitches. I hear he’s a dab hand at knitting.” I looked at the full bedpan at my feet and considered my options. But I have held my tongue so many times around this imbecile that I have worn a special groove in it to fit my teeth.
“I’ll be back in an hour. He’d better be ready to joust,” said Mordred.
My tongue slipped from its groove, just a bit. “A joust is a test of skill. What you do is fuss and feathers, the brawling of children.”
Mordred’s mouth shrank to a thin dash. “My brother doesn’t think so. I hope you aren’t being so treasonous as to criticise the King’s plans for the Queen’s birthday. You and your butler are not as indispensable as you like to think. Which reminds me. My gift for the Queen. See that she is given it at the High Table, before the toasts are made in her honour. And I want Saggy out of here by noon for the first round, or the King shall hear of it. Step to it! His sores are weeping.” And out he went, quickly followed by my one-fingered salute.
Now, this gift of his had been bothering me, Lucas. As I told you yesterday, Mordred has mentioned it every day since it arrived last week. So, after putting in a full morning with Enid in the infirmary and then making a vain attempt to talk to a Grail-eyed Bedwyr about seating plans for the feast, I went to see Geraint.
I arrived just in time to see him being burned alive. Smoke poured from the Gatehouse door and a great clamour came from within. I was about to raise the alarm when Geraint burst out, wearing what appeared to be a cloak of fire. “Flames to ice!” he yelled, rolling on the ground at my feet, “flames to ice!” I was wondering exactly how I was supposed to achieve this, when the fire around him changed colour and shape, and I realised of course that he was casting a spell. Instead of forming into icicles, however, the tongues of flame were transformed into a hundred blue mice who scurried for cover as fast as they could.
“Ah well, close enough,” he said. I helped him to his feet and removed a stray mouse from his ear.
“What happened, Geraint, are you hurt?”
“I’ve had worse, Miss B,” he said, flashing me a gap-toothed grin and tapping his eye patch with a singed finger. “I’ve got something inside for magical burns, that’ll see me right.” He limped away and I followed him inside the Gatehouse.
This was not as easy as it sounds, for the room was packed floor-to-ceiling with deliveries for the Queen. “Careful where you step. I’m only half way through this lot,” he said, peeling off the smouldering tatters of the cloak and placing them into a large chest. “Another one for the Hazard Box. I tell you, it’s filling up fast. That last one was particularly nasty. What we wizards call a ‘catch-all curse.’ Anyway, what can I do you for?” He took a jar of foul-smelling green paste down from a shelf, applying liberal dollops to his scorched skin.
“I have a question, concerning gifts,” I said, wrinkling my nose against the pong of the stuff.
“Fire away. So to speak.”
“How easy would it be for a cursed item to reach the King or Queen?”
“Ho, well, you’ve asked a question there, Miss B. I try to check every one of them myself, but with the best will in the world, I won’t make it through this lot by tonight. What I could really do with is an apprentice. But nobody wants the work, not when so many people are having a pop at the King. Not that you can find many suitable candidates anyway. It’s all jousting and questing with young people nowadays. Which reminds me — Sir Perceval and Sir Gareth are back.”
“Ah, that is good news! Lucas will be pleased.”
“Aye, they’ve gone off to find him. Tch, those kids! Full of it, they were. Wouldn’t go into details, said I’d have to wait for tonight’s Chronicles.” Geraint put the ointment back on the shelf with a wistful look in his eye. “Always wanted to have a go at that myself. Some of the things that’ve happened to me would make blinding stories, the wife is always saying I should –”
“Geraint.”
“Hm?”
“The curses.”
“Oh right; yes, sorry. My own tests are as rigorous as I can make them, but they’re not foolproof. Thing is, before he left us — way back before your time, Miss B — Merlin installed a load of enchantments, to protect Camelot from all manner of curses, jinxes and hexed objects. And for a while, they worked a treat. But magic’s moved on so much since then. Practically all of the spells are out of date now, easily beaten by new magicians trying to make a name for themselves. And that’s just the young ’uns, never mind the old pros — believe me, the hexmanship on some of these is out of this world. Take that Scorch Cape just now. That kind of fire-power could only come from a very powerful sorcerer indeed. Not to mention all this lot.” He pointed at the items in the Hazard Box. “Already this morning I’ve turned up three bags of Coughy Apples, a set of Paperback Dragons, and a hand-held Mirror of Madness and Maelstroms.”
My attention drifted at this point, for my eye had been caught by a set of ladies’ undergarments of exquisite design and delicate weave, and I reached out to pick them up. “Don’t touch those!” shouted Geraint, slamming the box lid shut. “Underwear of Doom. Very nasty. Believe me.” The few un-scorched patches on his skin turned as red as the rest of him. “Er, moving on, about that question of yours — why do you ask?”
“I am concerned about Mordred.”
“Aren’t we all. I was meaning to have a word with you and Mr L about that Tribe of his.”
“Tribe?”
“Aye, that gaggle of young knights who follow him around like sheep. Hanging around the Gatehouse, mocking everyone who turns up, doing impressions of the older knights as they walk by. Behind their back, of course. Time was, they’d be
taken down a peg by one of the old guard. The Tribe would keep their cheek in check, if Sir Lancelot was around more often! No respect, the lot of them. Mind you, to be fair, one of them’s got Sir Gawain down to a T.” He chuckled, briefly. “But that’s not the point.”
“Has Mordred submitted anything for testing?”
“He has, as a matter of fact. This.” Geraint handed me a non-descript toasting goblet. “With specific instructions that it’s presented to Her Majesty for the toasts after the feast.”
“And have you checked it for hexes?”
“I should say! It was top of my list. But so far I’ve come up with nothing, and I subjected it to the full works, believe me. I’ve no choice but to give it the all clear and let him have it back.”
“Hmm.” I turned the goblet over in my hands. It seemed perfectly normal; tasteful, unostentatious, refined. In short, nothing like Mordred.
“I do have one theory, as it happens, Miss B. Only, it’s a bit, er… delicate.”
“You can speak freely with me, Geraint.”
“Well… it’s like this. They do tell of a goblet hex called The Cup of Shame. You curse a goblet so that it spills the wine of an unfaithful lover. My cousin Will knows a man who knows a man who saw it used once, on the bride-to-be of a baron up North. She took one sip and copped a face full of red, all down her white dress. Hilarious, it was; not for her, mind, she was burnt at the stake. You don’t think Mordred’s got his hands on one of those?”
†
At this point, I was compelled to interrupt my deputy’s story.
“Come now, Beaumains! The King has nothing to fear concerning the Queen’s fidelity. I would not have expected you to lend credence to the millers of rumour.”
“Excuse me, Lucas, I do no such thing!”
“Well, then. You had nothing to fear from such a trinket.”
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