Sleepless Knights (35 page)

“The problem is one of content. Specifically, in relation to our ‘lying low in France,' as you put it, and its effect on the aforementioned tavern talk.”

“Go on…”

“The Master feels that the very existence of your
Chronicles
is a threat to the continuation of the Eternal Quest. Until now, he has found it useful, even necessary, to maintain our secret history. Recently, as I have said, he has had cause to revise that opinion.”

“But that's crazy! How can my stories be a threat when no bugger will ever read them, apart from you and the King? It's not as if anybody
can
read on this island, aside from us and about eight monks.”

“Be that as it may, the Master envisions a time when far more primacy is placed upon the written word.”

“So what are you saying?”

“He wants you to start again. To write a brand new history. One that ends by stating that King Arthur and his knights did
not
go off to seek the Grail, but remained at Camelot, where they died in a last battle against the usurper Mordred.”

“Died?”

“Unequivocally. And permanently.”

“Blimey. Talk about a downbeat ending.”

“The Master even has a title and a pen name in mind.
The History of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
by Godfrey of Wales.”

“That's… actually not bad.”

“Then, having written this definitive history, you are to circulate it amongst monks and clerics schooled in the art of penmanship. So that it might be copied, and eventually filter down to the common people, to become the accepted version of things.”

“I see. So, all of this,” Sir Kay waved a hand over the heap of parchment, “just stays between us?”

“No, Sir Kay. The Master wishes you to destroy all your existing
Chronicles
.”

“When you say ‘wishes'…”

“I am under express instructions to consign every last piece of parchment to the flames,” I said.

“Oh.”

“I am sorry, Sir Kay.”

“The very thing I was threatening to do when you first arrived. Talk about dramatic irony.”

“Indeed, Sir Kay.”

“Right then. Best make a start, I suppose. I shall see to it the moment you leave.”

“My orders are to witness the book's destruction with my own eyes. I really am sorry, Sir Kay.”

“Stop apologising Lucas, for God's sake.” Sir Kay sighed and sat down. He picked up a flagon, but not a drop of wine remained. “Official History, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Big potential readership, there. Something like that could last for a long time.”

“That is the intention, Sir Kay.”

“Right then. Put the kettle on the fire, Lucas.”

“The fire is almost out, Sir Kay.”

“We'll soon sort that, won't we?”

Sir Kay dropped the first pile of his
Chronicles
onto the embers and stirred them up with the poker. The cottage filled with the smell of burning parchment. A single page lay at my feet. I picked it up and glanced at the last line. ‘And they rode off into the sunrise, into the dawn of the Eternal Quest.' I added it to the fire. Sir Kay selected a clean page, cut a fresh quill, and started to write as the flames licked higher.

 

As I swished and spun in the Otherworld vortex, I offered up a prayer of repentance for every spider I had mistakenly washed down a drain. I soon lost all sense of my bearings as I was buffeted in every direction, and sometimes in several directions at once. The sound was like a torrent of water thundering in my ears. And all I could see were dazzling swirls of colour, as if a child were scribbling on my retina with a handful of crayons. It therefore came as no surprise that I could make out nothing at all of Merlin within this supernatural whirlpool.

Just when I could not endure the experience for a second longer, my feet touched solid ground. My senses gradually steadied and reset themselves. Sir Pellinore's lifeless body lay heavy on my shoulder, but I was reluctant to put him down until I had gathered my bearings. I blinked a few times.

No Merlin. Nobody at all.

I was in a large, gloomy room, its true size obscured by endless tables piled with teetering towers of dirty plates, bowls and serving dishes. My hands itched at such vast dereliction of domestic duty. But it was difficult to know where to begin, not least because everything beyond my immediate surroundings was obscured with a dingy haze. I was also still burdened with Sir Pellinore, so I lowered him as gently as I could to the floor. Something crunched
beneath his body. I looked down and saw that the vortex had delivered me knee-deep into the middle of a graveyard of unburied carcasses.

My first thought was that the room was the site of a battle, even a massacre, but I breathed slightly easier when I realised the remains belonged to various species of animal. The glowing eyes of a large rat, very much alive, stared at me from inside a boar skull, on which half of the flesh still hung like a loose hood. The rodent was competing for the stinking meat with a swarm of flies, and small pulsing forms I was happy to assume without closer inspection to be maggots. Disturbed mid-meal, the rat dived for cover. His departure alerted his unseen dining companions, and the putrid bones around me shook with secret scurrying.

This sudden movement jolted the nearest table. A stack of plates, poised on the edge like coins in an amusement park machine, crashed down onto the floor, the sound strangely muffled in the room's heavy atmosphere. This sound in turn provoked a different kind of movement, coming from the darkness over to my right.

“Hello?” I called, my voice feeble in that vast expanse. The commotion was coming from a large empty alcove. A thumping sound, as of something hard knocking against stone. The wide space of the alcove was festooned in thick cobwebs. I brushed them away and leaned my head inside. The pounding came again, making me jump and bang my head, dislodging a cloud of black dust.

A heavy
thud
,
thud
,
thud
was coming from under the stone floor.

“Merlin?” I whispered.

An arm shot up out of the stone, and I fell backwards onto a bed of sharp bones. The arm snatched at my foot, grabbing my ankle and pulling me towards the hole from which it had appeared. I flailed about for a hand-hold, my palms sliding on
the greasy floor, the phantom arm dragging me ever closer. I changed my tactic and faced the creature head on. I caught a glimpse of green eyes and yellow teeth, before I smashed a serving platter into its monstrous face. The creature released its grip with a low groan. Then another hand pulled me up onto my feet. “Run!” said a male voice, its owner turning away before I could see his face.

“No, wait,” I said, intending to go back for Sir Pellinore. But several other creatures had now emerged from various sides of the room and were dragging his body away like incompetent pall-bearers.

“Leave him! There's nothing you can do!” cried the voice of my rescuer, and I reluctantly ran alongside him as he sped between row-upon-row of the laden tables.

Several of the creatures gave chase. My saviour pushed over stacks of plates as we ran past. I followed his example, sending cascades of crockery into the creatures' path. At the end of the room, we flung ourselves against a pair of heavy wooden doors, pushing open a gap just big enough for us to squeeze through. The creatures had almost caught up with us. I could see their livid faces and caught the warm stench of rotting flesh as they loped out of the gloom. I shoved the doors shut and my rescuer wedged a timber of wood through the thick outer handles, forming a barrier that held fast as the doors buckled. The creatures' pounding gradually ceased as they abandoned their thwarted chase.

I gulped in a lungful of the cold outside air, only to immediately expel it again in an exclamation of surprise.

“Sir Perceval!”

“Lucas,” he said, flatly. I was disappointed my delight at seeing him was not mutual. But before I could say another word, I realised where I was standing. “That was the Great Hall!” I said.

“Yes.”

“This is Camelot?”

“Yes.”

“My heavens.”

“There's no Heaven about it,” said Sir Perceval. “Welcome to Hell.”

 

We did not remain overlong in the ruins of Camelot and made our way out through the dilapidated rear gates. The road was uneven and unkempt, strewn with rubbish and clumps of weed. The light was failing, but enough of the surroundings were visible for me to see that the land surrounding Camelot had fallen into a similar state of barren neglect. A cold mist seeped up out of the ground and seemed to grasp at our feet.

“Those creatures will come for you again. You can be sure of that,” said Sir Perceval. “What happened to you, Lucas? How did you die?”

“I am not sure that I did, Sir Perceval.”

“You must have. Those things go for all the dead, when they first arrive. They came for me. Showed me what I had to do. Lucky I found you when I did. I was only at Camelot because that's where the Grail led me.”

“The Grail! Then it is safe?”

“As safe as anything can be, here. I've been seeking it since the moment I arrived.”

“Where did it go?”

“This way. I was about to follow it out of Camelot, and then I found you.”

“What manner of creature are those things?” I said. Something about them reminded me of Morgan's skeletal army, for they seemed to be neither living nor dead.

“Whatever they are, they're part of this place. Part of Hell. Part of Annwn.”

“That cannot be so, Sir Perceval. Annwn is only one part of the Otherworld. It does not account for this wasteland. And in any case, it does not explain what Camelot is doing here. I do not understand.”

“I don't either, Lucas, and Lord knows I've had enough time to try.”

“But you have only just arrived.”

Sir Perceval shook his head. “It's hard to keep track, but it feels like I've been here for years. And every day is the same. I catch a glimpse of the Grail, soon after I wake. I chase it for miles, until I can run no more, and sleep where I fall. Then I wake up cold and bone weary, see the Grail, and off I go again. Like I said: ‘Hell.' ”

“Come, Sir Perceval, there is hope yet. I came here in search of Merlin, and I intend to find him. To get him to put everything right, once and for all. And while there is strength left in my body, dead or otherwise, that is what I intend to do. Are you with me?”

“There!” said Sir Perceval, pointing into the mist. “Did you see it?”

“I saw nothing, Sir Perceval.”

“Are you blind? The Grail was right there! Floating between the weeds, low to the ground.” He fixed me with a cold glare. “Don't you dare follow me. It's my quest this time. Mine!” And off he sprinted into the fog, leaving me alone on the path.

†

The track took me down to the outskirts of the Enchanted Forest. Here, too, the desolation had spread its curse. I quickly lost the path and became surrounded by a conspiracy
of trees, hampering my progress with thick branches as if the forest were folding its arms against me. I wanted to call out for Sir Perceval, but had no desire to attract any more of those monsters from the Great Hall. In any case I was reluctant to disturb the complete silence of the forest; the kind of silence so intense it very nearly shouts.

So I pushed on as best as I could, the brush of every branch like the grasping half-dead fingers of those pitiful creatures. But the more I struggled forwards, the more the forest seemed to tighten its grip. I stopped and forced myself to breathe deeply. What was I doing? A butler does not panic, no matter what the circumstances; and I
was
still a butler, even in Hell. I would just have to start thinking like one, for I was damned if I was going to be thwarted by foliage, infernal or otherwise.

I lifted the branch directly blocking my face. Another dropped down to take its place. I lifted that one with my other hand, and yet another replaced it. But I found that by holding up the two branches, and ducking under a third, I could pass through, and by stepping over the low branches beyond these, I was on my way. By such methodical means my progress soon became, if not smooth, then certainly steady going. The fog started to thin out and so did the forest, my stride growing more confident. Until, that is, I took a step forward and lost my footing, tumbling down a steep bank and through several clumps of brambles before coming to a winded standstill.

I had fallen into a small valley with a stream running through it. On the opposite bank was the beginning of a large camp. Tents and marquees, men, women and horses, lights and voices. And fire. The sight of it reminded me how cold I was. Such a camp did not seem to be the kind of gathering the creatures would make, and so I crossed the stream to take a closer look.