Sleepless Knights (32 page)

“Keep back!” A strip of parchment slipped from the rope-tied bundle in Sir Kay's arms, inches away from the hungry flames.

“Please, Sir Kay, if you would only move away from the fireplace and sit down, I will explain the reason for my visit.”

“No! I've had enough, Lucas. I'm at my wit's end.”

“Then at least step forward a small pace. Your tunic is starting to smoulder.”

“Good! I shall burn myself, along with these infernal pages!”

“Come now, Sir Kay. You and I both know that would achieve little more than a temporary unpleasantness you would only regret in the morning. Along with your hangover.”

“Don't care. And I'll have you know I've had very drink to little. To drink. Very little to drink.”

Lightning flashed again, and I noticed that the room was in dire need of a thorough clean. Mercifully, Sir Kay took half a step down from the hearth, still holding the bundle of parchment close to his chest.

“I appreciate the enormous strain you are under,” I said. “If you would only take a seat —”

“There's just no pleasing him! Never. I've spent years trying to get it right. Adding this and removing that. Tweaking here, revising there. And for what? Who ever hears
The Chronicles of Sir Kay
? No-one, because they're secret! I'm the laughing stock of every tale-teller and minstrel from here to France.”

“I have been meaning to talk to you on this whole matter of minstrels. It seems that several of your songs are in wide circulation.”

“Really? Are they?” Sir Kay perked up a touch. “I have been dabbling in ditties lately. More of a side-line, really, seeing as how I'm not allowed to tell any of my proper stories.”

“That is partly the reason for my visit, Sir Kay. Your ballads are creating an unhealthy atmosphere of tavern talk,
in which the activities of the Eternal Quest are attracting undue attention.”

“And we can't have that, can we?” said Sir Kay, but his smile spoke otherwise.

“The common mind is very impressionable on the matter of the Master's return; even now, all these years later. I myself have had first hand experience of it, this very night.”

“You can't blame me for the pot-valiant prattling of mead-muddled morons.”

“Perhaps not, but there is also the matter of verity.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I think Sir Lancelot would have a few things to say about the content of some of your ballads,” I said.

“I'm sure he would. But the preening of Lance Hood is no concern of mine, and it doesn't make my complaint any less valid. The only person who ever pays any attention to my work is Arthur, and even then it's only so he can pick holes in it. What's the point of it all?”

“It is funny you should ask, Sir Kay —”

“I won't make any more changes. I refuse. I'd sooner burn the whole lot of it.”

“Please, Sir Kay, if you would only sit —”

“
And stop telling me to sit down!
” Sir Kay stepped back up onto the hearth again. “It's alright for you! You're out there with the rest of the gang, having adventures, and, and, larks!”

“Larks?”

“
Jolly
larks! And all this so-called ‘Secret Historian' gets to do is write about it. And even then, Arthur's not happy! Well
you
can sit down for once, Lucas. Sit down and listen to my latest instalment. And after you've listened, you can go back and tell him it's not changing. Not by one single word.”

I sighed, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the table.

“That's better,” he said. “Now, pour yourself some wine.”

“I would really rather —”

“Pour it!”

I managed to find enough dregs in the several flagons on the table to passably fill a goblet. Sir Kay perched on the hearth, placing the pile of parchment beside him. He sniffed, and rubbed his red-rimmed eyes with a sleeve. “Now. Where did we get up to last time?”

“Your last rewrite concerned the Master seizing the Grail.”

“Ah yes. ‘The Escape from the Otherworld.' Are you sitting comfortably?”

I pulled my chair closer to the fire. My clothes started to gently steam dry.

“Yes.”

Sir Kay picked up a squashed scroll from the top of the bundle and unrolled it. “Then I shall begin:

 

…and no sooner had King Arthur seized the Grail, than the air was rent by a piercing cry.

“Hark! Mermaidens!” said Pellinore.

Lancelot shook his head. “Le Fay. Sire, we must not tarry.” But though King Arthur knelt within an arm's reach of Sir Lancelot, it was as if a vast distance stood between them.

“Sire, please,” said Sir Lucas the butler.

“Haste!” said Pellinore, laying a hand upon the King's shoulder and breaking the spell.

“Yes, of course, we must fly,” said Arthur, getting to his feet. “To the Prydwen!” Whereupon the Grail did rise up into the air and follow behind King Arthur like a faithful hound.

They had scarcely gone ten paces when the cry of Morgan Le Fay rose to a shriek. As if at the bidding of this foul scream, the walls of the Glass Fortress splintered like winter ice pressed by a boot. The cracks widened, revealing soldiers made entirely of glass and with the heads of dogs (these heads were
also
made of glass, should any man have cause to wonder). These strange warriors blocked the way ahead and behind. Death most certain stared the four knights full in the face, as the dog soldiers advanced with their swords of crystal, snarling as if they had never been fed. “Now we are done for!” cried Sir Lancelot, with damsel-like distress.

But just then, when all hope seemed lost, the heads of a dozen of the dogs shattered into smithereens! With a mighty battle cry, Sir Kay arrived on the scene, felling twelve of the monsters in a single stroke. So thoroughly did he set upon them that Sir Gawain, who was following behind, was forced to cry, “Save some for me, Sir Kay!” Thanks to the timely inspiration afforded by this brave and bold hero, the six-strong company fought their way back into the entrance hall of the Glass Fortress.

Her warriors defeated, the unseen Morgan howled with rage. The shining walls darkened. The roof above the knights cracked and fell in a swift sharp blizzard. The company ran for the doorway, jumping and rolling and leaping through the raining shards, and not a single cut upon their heads did this deadly ice sustain. Once outside, the six and the Grail found themselves upon the coast, where a blessed sight met their eyes. King Arthur's ship the Prydwen, moored beyond the surf with Sir Perceval standing on the deck, their small landing boat still beached and waiting on the shore. “Raise anchor!” King Arthur cried out to Perceval, as twelve hands pushed the landing boat into the waves, the Grail alighting in its stern.

The evil enchantress rose up from out of her dark castle, in the land of Annwn that lies behind the Glass Fortress. Full wroth was she at the raiding of the Otherworld's greatest treasure. “Do not look back!” said Sir Lancelot. Only the heart of Sir Kay was stout enough not to heed his warning. Glancing o'er his manly shoulder, he saw the form of Le Fay filling the sky, tall as a tower, churning up the earth as if the land itself had turned to ocean. A torrent of rocks and sand crashed into the sea. But fortune smiled upon the fleeing knights, for instead of capsizing their small vessel, the rising wave carried them past the breakers and out to the waiting Prydwen, where Perceval pulled them safely aboard.

Seeing the advantage her rash rage had afforded her foes, Le Fay's mood blackened a hundredfold. Mustering all her magic, she summoned forth a wild tempest that tore up the water around the Prydwen. The sea writhed as if it were a nest of angry serpents, and lo, it was indeed full of serpents, and angry ones at that. They champed their pin-like teeth in the ship's wake, crunching up the wooden deck of the boat beneath the knights' feet. The elements united in the service of the Dark Queen, pouring down on the seven with all their might. The blasting wind battered mast and sail. Rods of rain beat down on the deck. The Prydwen rolled on a gathering wave, pitching up a mountain of water into the death-dark sky.

“Secure the Grail!” said King Arthur, and Perceval and Lucas lashed it fast to the mast, while the rest of the knights turned their hands to tiller and sail.

“The ship will be torn apart!” howled Perceval.

“Sturdy is the vessel that brought us to the Otherworld shore,” said King Arthur. “And sound the sail that outran the Flying Squids of Atlantis. By my soul,
she will not fail us now!
”

The Prydwen bared its teeth into the eye of the storm, the gigantic wave rising ever higher, until the ship sat near upright on its rear. Barrels slid down the deck and down into the sea, swallowed up by the champing serpents. The knights grabbed for hand-holds, hanging tight with all their might. All save Perceval, who could not secure a grip fast enough, pawing and clutching in vain at the slippery deck. A serpent bit through the stern and opened wide its jaws to welcome him. With a desperate cry, Perceval fell head-first down the length of the ship. But swift and strong was the arm of Sir Kay, who caught the plummeting Perceval by the foot and held him fast, a hair's breadth from the snapping teeth, until the serpent slid back into the deep.

Up and up the Prydwen climbed, till it seemed as if her prow would puncture the roof of the world. Then, with a sad groan, the deck of the ship began to break apart. At this, King Arthur at the mast fell to his knees before his new-won treasure.

“Deliver us,” he said to the Grail, and his voice, though still and small, came clear to the ears of every knight in the midst of that squall. “Deliver us back to our own sweet shore.” At his words the Grail did seem to glow like the first light of dawn. All turned their eyes to the heavens and lo, there indeed was the dawn — shining down over the crest of the wave, a small patch of blessed light caressing the blighted deck.

Morgan Le Fay poured the last of her powers into the seething sea, which snatched at the ship with watery fingers, pulling at its sides, ripping down the sail and sousing the deck so that the knights knew not if they were on the water or under it. But the Prydwen heeded her not, pressing on to the peak of the wave, where it seemed to pass briefly through a doorway. There, all of a sudden, the foul malevolence of the maelstrom fell away. And Morgan Le Fay was no longer in the water and the air, but somewhere back in the depths of her realm. There was a sound like a door being slammed with a thooming thud. The scream of the witch was replaced by the keening cry of sea birds. The Prydwen, still atop the giant wave, was thrust out into the cold fresh air of a summer morn.

Bold now was the light, bold and bright, warming each knight to his bones and causing him to laugh aloud with the brimming joy in his breast. The Prydwen soared high above the wide green meadows of the sea, like a swan, like a ship of the sky. And it seemed to all seven souls as if they were sailing a course into the very heart of the sun…

†

…Well? What do you think?” said Sir Kay.

The front of my tunic had dried out nicely but my cloak still clung to my back, cold and clammy. “Most entertaining, Sir Kay,” I said.

“As requested, I've toned down my own role a
lot
since the last draft,” he said.

“It is much improved in that respect, Sir Kay. Though, if memory serves, was it not the Master who saved Sir Perceval from the sea serpent's jaws?”

“That's what I said, wasn't it?”

“I believe in the current draft it was you who performed that heroic function.”

Sir Kay cast his eye back over the scroll. “You're right. Hang on, though. It couldn't have been Arthur. He was next to the Grail at the mast. He
had
to be, in order to speak to it, remember?” I tried to cast my mind back to the episode in question, but found, as I often did, that my own memory of events was overlaid by the many subsequent revisions of Sir Kay's story.

“I shall make the necessary changes,” he said.

“Before you do, perhaps I might come to the reason —”

“Hold your horses, Lucas. I've not finished the story yet:

 

Not forever could the brave knights be born aloft on the wings of their escape. And so it was, that the mountain of water upon which the Prydwen perched came foaming down, as all waves must, into the sea.

The ship gave up her ghost and began to split from stern to prow. “Land ahoy!” shouted Perceval, and lo, white cliffs filled the horizon. But the falling wave was full and mighty and would surely dash them onto the rocks without mercy.

“I have not been to Hell and back to be smashed and strewn like driftwood!” said King Arthur. It was then that Sir Kay had another of his justly famous great ideas. This being that each knight should tear up a plank from the disintegrating deck, and by means of balancing upon it, traverse the surf to the safety of the shore.

“As fine a plan as any I've heard!” said Sir Gawain, and with his axe he cleaved seven boards from the deck, while the King unlashed the Grail from the mast, at which the cauldron hovered amidst the splintering chaos, awaiting the event.

And so from out of the shipwreck of the Prydwen there passed a sight most strange. Seven knights balanced on boards of wood, sliding down the tumult of surf as it curled and broke on the shore, the Grail flying ahead like a stone skimming the surface. The wave snatched the dragon-headed
prow of the Prydwen from out of the wreckage and threw it after them, like some last remnant of the Otherworld still snapping at their heels. In this manner did the seven pass through the deep and crashing waters and into the shallows, where the prow ran aground. The knights rode the surf until they could ride no more, wading out of the water and flinging themselves down upon the sand.