He was gone at last. Ann relaxed her grip on Hume, and Hume stirred. She looked at him, thinking he ought to be praised for kneeling so still and quiet, and saw that he had simply been stunned with delight. “What – what was that?” he said, still barely able to speak. “Another robot?”
“No, that was a knight in armour riding a horse,” she said.
“I know the horse, stupid,” he said. “What’s a knight?”
This is before we found that lake, Ann thought He knew about knights then. But she was still shaken with dread of that knight. “A knight is a man who fights,” she said curtly.
But she might have known it was impossible to put Hume off like that. He clamoured questions: who were knights, what did they do, who did they fight, and how did someone get to be a knight? So Ann trudged back with him, walking with her legs stiff so that her sodden jeans would not touch her skin too icily often, and explained as they went how you trained to be a knight. She saw no reason not to put in some propaganda here. She told Hume you had to deserve to be a knight before you were knighted, and when you were made a knight, you had to fight and behave with honour.
Then Hume insisted on knowing all about that particular knight. “He lives in the castle, doesn’t he? He guards the king from dragons, doesn’t he? Does he fight dragons?”
Ann had forgotten how Hume was obsessed with dragons at this age. She said she supposed that the knight did. By this time they were in the copse near the river and here Hume became, if possible, more excited than ever.
“I’m going to be a knight! I’m going to fight dragons for the king!” he shouted. He seized a dead branch and began hacking at trees with it. And when they came to the edge of the copse and found a rabbit – or maybe a hare – skinny and wretched, caught in the last of the snares there, Hume went half mad with delight. “I’m going to kill dragons!” he screamed. “Like this! Kill!” he screamed, and beat the rabbit furiously with his branch.
Ann screamed as well. “Hume, stop!” The rabbit was making a horrible noise, almost human. “Stop it, Hume!”
“Dragon! Kill, kill, kill!” Hume shouted, battering at the rabbit
Mordion heard the din as he sat sipping a hot herbal drink. He flung off the duvet and sped to the spot. Ann saw him coming up the path in great loping strides and turned to him thankfully. “Mordion, Hume—”
Mordion slung Hume aside, so that Hume sat down with a crash in a heap of frozen brushwood and, in the same movement, he knelt and put the rabbit out of its agony. “Don’t you ever do that again!” he told Hume.
“Why?” Hume said sullenly.
“Because it’s extremely cruel,” Mordion said. He was going to say more, but he looked up just then and saw Ann’s face.
She was fixed, unable to look away, seeing again, and again, and again, the way Mordion’s long, strong fingers had known just the right place on the rabbit to find and the deft way they had flexed, just the right amount, to break the rabbit’s neck with a small final crack. He didn’t even have to look! she kept thinking. He was busy glaring at Hume. She kept hearing that weak, clean little snap.
Mordion opened his mouth slightly to ask her what was the matter. But there was no point. They both knew what they knew, though neither of them wanted to.
As for Hume, he sat in the heap of brushwood and his face passed from glowering to mere thoughtfulness. It looked as if he had learnt something too.
The three remaining Reigners gathered in the conference hall in the House of Balance, none of them in the best of tempers.
“What does Four think he’s playing at?” said Reigner Three.
“How should I know? He turned his monitors off on Iony,” Reigner Five snapped. “For all I know, he’s still there.”
“Nonsense,” said Reigner Three. “Iony, Yurov and Albion all say he passed their portals without any trouble at all. The reports are on the table in front of you.”
“But not Runcorn’s,” said Reigner One. He put a faxsheet down on the glassy surface and let it slowly unfold there.
The other two stared from it to Reigner One’s benign old face. “What has Runcorn to do with it?” demanded Reigner Three. “Nobody’s taking any notice of them any longer.”
“I am,” said Reigner One. “They are more or less on the spot, after all. They have not of course heard of Reigner Four, thanks to the zeal of Giraldus on Albion, but they are still mighty concerned about the disappearance of their Area Director. Read the first thing on this sheet.” He pushed it across to them.
Reigner Five picked it up, took hold of the split-point at the corner, and peeled off a copy for Reigner Three. He read aloud from his own: “‘A party consisting of ten picked men from Rayner Hexwood Security, commanded by our Chief of Security in person and accompanied by three senior observers and two Junior Executives, has been sent to investigate the library complex at Hexwood Farm. In view of the disappearance of Sir John, it was thought advisable that this party should go fully armed.’ Sensible,” said Reigner Five. “Though I imagine their weapons aren’t up to much.”
“Now read the second communication,” said Reigner One.
Reigner Three read it out. “Blah blah. ‘The armed party sent to investigate Hexwood Farm has not returned and has now been missing for two days. In view of this second set of disappearances, we urgently request advice from Reigner Heads and, if possible, armed reinforcements.’ Blah, blah, blah. ‘Repeat urgently.’”
“Now look at the dates,” said Reigner One.
They looked. “Oh,” said Three. “These Runcorn people went in after Reigner Four got there.”
“Precisely, my dear,” said Reigner One. “The evidence points to the bannus still being functional and still pulling people in.”
“So Four failed,” Reigner Five said. “Well, I’m not surprised.”
“Not necessarily,” said Reigner One. “It does sometimes take a while to get to grips with the bannus. And, bearing in mind that Four had three tasks, we should not leap to the concl—”
Reigner Five got up. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m going in. Myself. Now. It’ll be a pleasure to blow that machine up and to wring Two’s stupid neck – and Fours too, if he doesn’t do some fast talking!”
“And the Servant?” asked Reigner Three.
Five answered by giving a sarcastic nod towards the doorway, where all that remained of the two statues were the stumps of their pillars. The entry was now guarded by robots.
Reigner One smiled at Five. “Ah, yes. But our present Servant is mobile. Be very careful, won’t you?”
“Why? Do you think I’m senile or something?” said Five. “Stun and stass. What could be simpler?”
“Of course you’re not senile,” Reigner One replied soothingly. “I simply meant to warn you that our Servant hates us all very deeply.”
“I wish you wouldn’t joke, One!” said Reigner Three. “It’s tiresome. You know the Servant is totally loyal to all of us.”
Reigner One turned his soothing, benevolent smile on her. “Of course he was totally loyal, my dear. But the methods I used to make him that way were not at all kindly. I advise Five to keep his distance.”
“Your advice is noted.” Five strode to the door and shouldered the robots there out of the way. They were just regrouping when Five shouldered them aside again, in order to lean back into the hall and say, “Two days. If I haven’t got in touch after two days, you’d better go to panic stations. But I will be.”
Food was very short that winter in the castle. Sir Fors did not notice straight away. For one reason, the forest was suddenly infested with outlaws. They were said to be under the command of a renegade knight called Sir Artegal. Sir Fors spent much pleasurable time hunting these villains down, either alone or with a band of Sir Bedefer’s soldiers. He would dearly have loved to catch Sir Artegal. By all accounts the man was an excellent fighter and would have made a lot of sport. But he was thoroughly elusive. All Sir Fors ever found of him was an occasional camp, complete
ly deserted.
In the castle, the Right Reverend Sir Bors had decreed a time of fasting and prayer, in order, he said, to lift the curse of Sir Artegal from the king’s realm. It struck Sir Fors as neither very reasonable nor very enjoyable, but he went through with it because everyone else in the castle did the same.
He went with the rest of the castle people to the chapel twice a day, and three times on some days, where he stood to watch King Ambitas carried in and then knelt for an hour’s long service. It was penitential. It was ludicrous.
“We have all sinned,” Sir Bors said, clutching his Holy Key in both hands. Under his rich vestments, he was thin and uneasy and weighed down with holy thoughts. “By our sins, the sacred Balance is disturbed, our king’s wound remains unhealed, and our lands are plagued with the abomination that stalks the forest in the guise of Sir Artegal. We can only make amends by praying and fasting and cleansing our minds.”
Sir Fors suspected that King Ambitas slept through most of these sermons. He wished he could too, but he did not have the luck to be carried round in a bed. And when they came out of chapel, it was to a meal of dry bread, thin beer and lentil hash. Sir Fors’s empty stomach started to keep him awake at nights, and he lay listening to more chanting coming distantly from the chapel until well into the small hours.
But at last it seemed to be over. King Ambitas summoned Sir Fors and Sir Fors went and knelt at the king’s bedside. “Well, Champion Fors,” the king said, nestling comfortably among his pillows, “all this praying and fasting comes to an end tomorrow, thank the Bannus! I hope the Reverend Bors knows what he’s doing, because I don’t follow his reasoning at all. I think Sir Artegal would be there whether people behaved themselves or not. And I don’t think my great sickness has much to do with sin either.”
“Surely not, sire,” said Sir Fors. He was too polite to enquire into the exact nature of the king’s illness, but it had never struck him as very severe. The king’s face was lined, but it was plump and pink in spite of the fasting.
“Anyway,” said Ambitas, “tomorrow brings the yearly Showing of the Bannus and we are going to have a proper feast. I want it worthy of my lady bride. Let’s make it really lavish, shall we? Go and give orders for it, will you?”
Sir Fors bowed and left to order the feast. Twelve courses, he thought, and not a lentil in one of them. But he was much astonished that it was Bannustide again. Two years had gone by in the castle in feasting and mirth, hunting and knightly exercise, as if it were as many days. Not that it worried him. It showed how generally good life was here – although, he had to admit, he had been here long enough for certain aspects of the kings household to irritate him.
One thing was Sir Bors’s piety, which seemed to get steadily stronger. Another was the king’s bride, but the least said about her the better. And the beautiful blonde lady, Lady Sylvia, was another. She had always just left the place where he was, or she had decided at the last moment not to come a-Maying, or he had given her up and left for the picnic and she arrived after he had gone. This annoyed Sir Fors considerably. He was an important man in the castle these days. The king relied on him. Everyone else came to him for orders instead of bothering the king.
Sir Fors gave orders for the feast – and immediately came up against the most irritating part of the household of all. The Lord Seneschal, Sir Harrisoun. Sir Harrisoun sought audience with him. Sir Fors could not abide Sir Harrisoun. Sir Harrisoun’s unhealthy face, orange hair and skinny frame grated on him unbearably. There was an aggressive man-to-man familiarity about the way Sir Harrisoun spoke to him, which showed that Sir Harrisoun considered himself at least the equal of Sir Fors. This of course was utter nonsense.
“Now see here, Fors,” Sir Harrisoun began, strutting up to him in a lavish new black velvet tunic, “about this feast you just ordered.”
“What about it, Sir Harrisoun?” Sir Fors asked coldly. He eyed the gold embroidery on Sir Harrisoun’s new tunic. Costly. Though he could not prove it, Sir Fors suspected that Sir Harrisoun quietly helped himself to the king’s funds to line his own pockets. He had that greedy look. Everything he owned was as costly as the new tunic.
“Well, I just want to know how you think we can do it, that’s all!” said Sir Harrisoun. “It’s not just the short notice. I mean, twenty-four hours is a tall order for a full feast, and I tell you straight it’s asking a lot of the kitchen staff, though I’m not saying they couldn’t do it.”
This was what Sir Fors really hated about Sir Harrisoun. The man was a grumbler. No matter what you asked him to do – equip a hunting party, provide a picnic for ladies to take hawking, or even just get supper early – you got this stream of whining complaints. He had never once heard Sir Harrisoun agree to do something willingly. Sir Fors folded his arms, tapped on the floor with one boot, and waited for a quarter of an hour of solid belly-aching.
“It’s asking a lot of flesh and blood,” continued Sir Harrisoun, “but the chefs could do it, providing they got the materials. But I tell you frankly, Fors, the materials just are not there this time.” And much to Sir Fors’s surprise, Sir Harrisoun shut his mouth, folded his arms in a swirl of hanging velvet, and looked Sir Fors angrily in the eye.
“What do you mean?” Sir Fors said, disconcerted.
“I mean,” said Sir Harrisoun, “the larder’s empty. The buttery’s dry. There is not one keg nor one sack of flour left in the cellar, nor even one ham on the beams. The kitchen garden’s out too. New stuff not grown in yet. There’s barely hardly enough for tonight’s supper, even at the rate Sir Bors has us eating. So – I’m asking you straight – what do we do?”
All Sir Fors could think of to say was, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time?” Sir Harrisoun retorted. “But no – you wouldn’t listen. Not you. Just order the very best of everything regardless, that’s you.”
Sir Fors took a turn round the narrow stone room while he tried to digest this. The man was a grumbler. But this did not alter the fact that he seemed to have given the wretched fellow a chance to be in the right. It was infuriating. He would greatly have liked to have knocked Sir Harrisoun’s orange head off Sir Harrisoun’s skinny shoulders. But that wouldn’t solve anything. How did you have a feast with no food to make it from? For a moment, Sir Fors felt so helpless that he almost considered sending for Sir Bedefer and asking Sir Bedefer’s advice. But, if he did that, he would be admitting Sir Bedefer was his equal, and ever since that lucky stroke when Sir Fors first came to the castle, Sir Fors had done his generous, laughing best to make sure Sir Bedefer stayed one notch below him in the castle hierarchy. No – he would have to think of something for himself.
He took two more turns round the room and tried not to look at the sneer on Sir Harrisoun’s face. “I suppose,” he said at last, “that the peasantry must have some supplies left still. Frugal, saving sorts most peasants are. Whereabouts do most of the peasants live?”
From the look on Sir Harrisoun’s face, he had considered the peasants even less than Sir Fors had. “Tell you straight,” he said, laughing uneasily, “I’m not sure.”
Sir Fors pounced on this uneasiness. “You mean,” he said incredulously, “that the scum haven’t been sending us any tithes?”
“No,” Sir Harrisoun said, in a thoughtful, relishing sort of way. “No. I don’t think the scum have, to be honest with you.” A little smile lit the corners of his mouth.
It was not a smile Sir Fors liked. It was the smile of someone who was going to put the blame on Sir Fors the moment anything went wrong. He ignored it. Something had to be done. “Well then,” he cried. “No wonder we’ve no food left! Call to arms, Sir Harrisoun. I’ll tell Sir Bedefer to fall in his best squad. You fetch Sir Bors. Tell him it’s his holy duty to make sure there’s a feast for Bannustide. Meet you in the outer court in half an hour.”
“Right you are, Fors,” said Sir Harrisoun and sped away eagerly.
That man has
ambitions to replace me, Sir Fors thought. I’ll have to watch him. But now was not the time to worry about Sir Harrisoun. The next hour was all lively bustle, shouting orders, strapping on armour, rushing downstairs, commanding horses brought, criticising their tack, and the men’s – the sort of things Sir Fors most enjoyed doing.
Down in the courtyard, Sir Bedefer rode to meet Sir Fors at the head of a smartly turned-out troop, of cavalry. There was honest doubt in Sir Bedefer’s wide face. “You’re sure this is really necessary, Champion?” he said.
“A matter of life and death,” Sir Fors assured him, “or I wouldn’t have ordered it. These wretched peasants have been denying us our rights for two years now.” Sir Bors rode up beside Sir Bedefer while he said this. To still those doubts too, he added, “Our strength is as the strength of ten because our cause is just.” Now, how did I think of that? he wondered admiringly. That’s good!
“Twenty men,” Sir Bedefer pointed out, “is what we actually have. Do I count them as two hundred?”
Sir Fors ignored him and concentrated on keeping his eager horse quiet while they waited for Sir Harrisoun, who was always late.
Ann went past the yellow crisp packet in the hollow tree. She was beginning to suspect it marked the boundary of the Bannus field. She kept a careful look-out to see just when after that the wood changed. But her attention was caught and distracted by a blue flickering among the trees.