`Clever of you to think of this place, Toenail,' he said. The dwarf avoided looking at him and muttered something about. getting the cave tidied up.
`All right, then,' Boamund said. `You do that while I just dig a hole.'
Ten minutes or so later, Boamund laid aside his spade, wiped his forehead and knelt down. The Grail fitted very nicely in its last resting place. He nodded respectfully at it, and then shovelled back the earth and patted it down.
`Gosh,' said Toenail, in a rather strained voice. `I expect you're hot after all that digging.'
`I am, rather,' Boamund replied. `I'd give a lot for a nice cool drink of milk right now.'
Toenail blushed scarlet and fumbled in his satchel. `Just as well I remembered to bring one, then,' he tried to say, but his tongue seemed to get in the way.
`You're a marvel, Toenail, the way you think of everything,' Boamund said, after he'd swallowed a large mouthful of milk. `Don't know what I'd do without you, really. I know I sometimes forget to say thank you, but . . . Hey, now, there's no call to start bursting into tears, you know.'
`Hay fever,' snuffled the dwarf. `Don't mind me.'
`Sorry,' Boamund said, and he drank the rest of the milk. `You know something,' he said, `all of a sudden I feel terribly, terribly...'
He lay back, and a moment later he was fast asleep. Toenail took the milk bottle from his hands and put it on one side; then he unslung the large canvas bag he'd been carrying over his shoulder. It was as tall as he was and very heavy.
`Fall for it every time, that old milk routine,' the dwarf said softly. He opened the sack and gingerly took from it a sword and a golden crown.
`Cheerio, then,' said the dwarf. He placed the crown on Boamund's head and the sword under his hands, and tiptoed quietly out of the cave. Then he stopped, took out the scrap of paper which Mr Magus had given him, and read out the words written on it in a loud, self-conscious voice. There was a great flicker ofblue fire, and the cave vanished, as if it had neverbeen.
Toenail stood for a while, not thinking of anything in particular; then he remembered that the rest of the knights would be wanting their tea before they set off. They had a long way to go, too; all the way across the sea to the Isle of Avalon, where there is neither autumn nor winter, where men do not grow old, and where (according to Simon Magus, at any rate) if you wanted a pizza, you had to go and collect it yourself. Turquine could hardly wait.
`They'll be needing a dwarf,' Toenail said to himself. He glanced back once more at the hillside where the mouth of the cave had been, stooped instinctively to pick up an empty crisp packet, and ran swiftly away down the hill.
The End :)
Grailblazers Tom Holt Page 29