A Tail of Camelot

by Julie Leung

  Calib recognized that crest immediately. It belonged to Sir Lancelot, the bravest and fiercest of King Arthur’s knights, whose feats were renowned among every inhabitant of Camelot. Like most of the Two-Legger knights, Sir Lancelot was supposedly far away, seeking adventure. Even King Arthur himself had departed last month on a quest to the Holy Lands. Calib’s nose twitched with excitement. Perhaps Arthur and Lancelot were returning.

  With so many human knights gone, Camelot’s stores were full of uneaten food. While this was certainly not a bad thing, the abundance of crops also made the castle a target for the creatures of the woods. The mice sentries were ever on alert for signs of trouble, especially as rumors of the Darklings’ raids escalated.

  Studying the riders, Calib thought that they looked like men-at-arms rather than true knights. Still, to have an arrival for once . . . That was news.

  Bringing up the rear of the group was a boy riding on a smaller pony. The lad had large ears that poked out from his white-blond hair. He was dressed in a freshly pressed page’s uniform, and his jaw was set in a tight frown. Calib wasn’t very good at estimating human ages, but he thought the boy looked somewhere around ten or twelve.

  “Cheer up!” said one of the men as he grabbed the boy’s reins and tugged the pony toward the stables. Calib ducked to avoid being seen on the trough. “We’re at your new home! Isn’t it grand?”

  The boy only scowled.

  Calib waited until the Two-Leggers disappeared into the stables before he climbed down and scampered across the remaining distance to the tapestry hall. Squeezing under the heavy wooden doors of the Two-Legger chapel, he entered the nave. Calib felt a familiar awe wash over him. Colored light shone like daggers through the stained-glass windows, and the wooden pews seemed to give off a warm glow. The air smelled of aged wood and dust.

  Working his way up onto the rafters, Calib emerged on a stone ledge that circled the base of the chapel’s dome. The morning sun illuminated tapestries—no larger than a Two-Legger’s palm—that hung just out of sight from the Two-Leggers below. The hallowed history of Camelot’s mice was preserved in every stitch. Suits of mouse-sized armor stood at attention between each tapestry, like ghostly guardians.

  Calib quickly set to work, fetching a carpet beater made of twigs from the corner. He beat the tapestries in a steady rhythm, studying them as he went: the grand wedding feasts, stern knights, and glorious battles. Several scenes depicted the Great War between Camelot and the Darklings.

  Calib paused as he reached the last tapestry. It showed a solemn-faced warrior, whiskers trimmed to perfection, dressed in a magnificent, wine-colored cloak and gold armor. His eyes flashed with confidence as he brandished a broadsword high in the air. His tawny fur and whisker pattern were a mirror image of Calib’s, right down to the small round patch of white fur on his right ear.

  “Sir Trenton Christopher, felled at the Battle at Rickonback River,” read the fine silk stitching beneath the portrait. Beside the warrior stood a lady dressed in a regal purple dress. She held a mouse-sized needle and thread elegantly in her paw.

  A small tingle rolled down Calib’s spine. His mother had truly been the most talented seamstress Camelot had ever known. This tapestry was the last one Lady Clara had sewn before she had passed away from sea fever many years ago. It had been her hope that Calib would not forget what his parents looked like.

  “Hi, Mom,” Calib whispered. Sometimes Calib would talk to the tapestry as if his parents could hear him through it. Even though he knew it was silly, pretending made him feel less alone.

  Calib finished his dusting and moved on to polishing the suits of armor. By now, his cheek was throbbing. He peered at his reflection in a burnished steel breastplate. The bruise from the acorn was quickly purpling under his fur and turning into a nasty blotch. To add insult to injury, he’d also slept on his whiskers wrong and they were all askew.

  He tried to smooth the ends down, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, Calib gave up. Frustrated, he looked up at Sir Trenton’s kind face.

  “How am I supposed to fight a real enemy if I can’t even win a battle against my own whiskers?”

  “A bit of oil will smooth any crinkle out.”

  Startled, Calib turned and saw Commander Yvers approaching. The stout, barrel-chested mouse walked with a slight limp, an injury from the Great War. His golden fur was tinged at the ends with silvery gray hairs. He wore a simple brown robe, the kind he donned for when he did not want to be noticed.

  “But something tells me that is not what is truly troubling you.”

  “It’s nothing, Grandfather. I was just polishing,” Calib said quickly.

  Commander Yvers’s kind brown eyes searched Calib’s own. “You are a mouse of Camelot, Calib. You do not have to bear your burdens alone. ‘Together in paw and tail, lest divided we fall and fail,’ remember?”

  Every mouse of Camelot knew that motto by heart. It was even inscribed on the doors of the Goldenwood Hall. Calib nodded. He was never good at hiding things from his grandfather.

  “My name was entered into the Harvest Tournament as a prank, but now I’m too ashamed to withdraw and too afraid to go through with it,” Calib confessed. He felt shame creep all the way into the ends of his whiskers. “I don’t know how I’ll ever live up to the Christopher name.”

  Commander Yvers smiled as he looked at the tapestry of his son on the wall. “You know,” he remarked, “when I was a page, they used to call me Yvers Faintheart—I was so shy! Once, I even set the commander’s cloak on fire with a poorly placed candle but was too scared to tell him until his fur began to singe.”

  Calib couldn’t imagine his grandfather as a page, much less one who would make a mistake like that. “Really?”

  “Really. And your father was worse. He tried to hide in a burdock bush to avoid his Harvest Tournament. We were removing burrs from his fur for a week! He faced the strength challenge looking like a hedgehog!”

  Calib laughed, and his grandfather placed a paw on Calib’s shoulder. Together, they looked at Sir Trenton’s tapestry in silence.

  “You know, the knights discuss the tournament candidates at length before we approve the list,” Commander Yvers said quietly. “If you made the cut this year, it’s because we thought you were ready, regardless of whether or not it was a prank.”

  Calib was stunned. “Then why am I so scared?” he asked.

  “Being brave is not about lacking fear,” Commander Yvers said. “If you are never scared, you will never understand what it means to be brave.”

  Calib pondered this in silence. He was still scared, but knowing that Commander Yvers and the rest of the knights believed in him made him feel like he might have a chance in the Harvest Tournament after all.

  “Camelot needs protection now more than ever, Calib. There is said to be trouble stirring in the east. And we all must be ready to defend our home. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m late to a meeting with the bell-tower larks. Living so close to the sundial has made them extremely punctual.”

  Calib hopped up to his footpaws and gave Commander Yvers a sharp salute with his tail. Suddenly, he felt fizzy with a sense of purpose and possibility.

  Every knight, Calib thought, had to start somewhere. All Calib needed was one chance to prove himself. One chance to show that he too was a Christopher mouse: brave, strong, and wise.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Again and again, Galahad remembered the last thing his mother had said to him before he left the only home he’d ever known.

  “When you get to Camelot, remember to be polite and respectful to everyone, be they knights or the lowest servants.”

  His mother’s fingers had snagged on a knot in Galahad’s hair, and she untangled it gently. Her own dark braids were tucked away under a white wimple that cascaded down her back.

  “Act like you belong there, and you will.”

  “But I belong here,” Galahad had said, trying to quell the tremble in his voice
, “with you and the sisters.”

  Lady Elaine looked her son in the eyes. “You are Sir Lancelot’s son. You belong at Camelot.”

  She kissed him good-bye on the forehead and then turned him to face the two men who had come for him. They were Sir Lancelot’s men-at-arms, who’d sworn allegiance to the greatest knight the land had ever known—and the father Galahad had never met. Lancelot was so busy adventuring, he couldn’t even come in person to fetch his only son.

  “Act like you belong. Act like you belong.” Galahad now chanted this as he threw open the doors to the dining hall. They had arrived late to the castle, and the rest of the pages and squires were already seated for breakfast. Long tables lined the hall on both sides. Trenches of gray-looking porridge were emptying faster than Galahad could blink. The space echoed with laughter and conversation.

  The chatter quickly quieted, however, as all heads turned to face Galahad. He turned around and realized with a sinking feeling that Lancelot’s two men-at-arms had followed him into the dining hall.

  “Attention, young sires!” one of them called. This one had chattered nonstop during the journey. He had wanted to make very clear to Galahad how lucky he was. Galahad had heard at least four times how they’d pulled many strings to get the training master to take on Galahad at his age. Most pages started at the age of nine, and he was already eleven. But with so many knights gone from Camelot recently, the castle was undermanned, and Sir Kay finally made an exception.

  “This is Galahad, son of Sir Lancelot! He joins us from St. Anne’s Nunnery. I trust that you all will give him a warm welcome! And”—he turned to Galahad—“I hope you show these pages a thing or two about proper manners.”

  There was a stunned silence followed by low snickers. A few muttered halfhearted hellos.

  “There, properly introduced,” the man said, smiling broadly. He clapped Galahad on the back and then turned to leave the hall. “Don’t forget. We expect great things from Lancelot’s son.”

  Mortified, Galahad slowly made his way toward the nearest table, his ears and cheeks burning hot. So much for acting like he belonged.

  One of the last open spots in the dining hall was next to a boy with a single eyebrow that extended across his forehead. But as Galahad moved to sit down, the boy slapped his palm down on the bench.

  “This seat’s taken,” he said. “I don’t care who your father is.”

  Galahad looked around, but there was no room to sit anywhere, since each of the pages spread out along the benches.

  Keeping his head high, Galahad reached the end of the hall with the double doors. He would either have to go back and face everyone again or skip breakfast entirely.

  “Did you see his face?” someone whispered. “Looked like he wanted to run back under his mother’s skirts!”

  Galahad decided maybe he wasn’t that hungry after all. He all but ran through the doorway.

  CHAPTER

  4

  What little bravery his grandfather had inspired that morning had evaporated by the time Calib put on the armor Sir Alric had assigned him. He scurried into line behind Devrin and strapped his breastplate over his tunic. Since he was a bit smaller than most mice who faced the Harvest Tournament, it had taken a while to find chain mail that would fit him. And now he was late, with only a dented helmet, a wooden sword, and a too-large breastplate to show for it. Doubt crept back into Calib’s heart like a poisonous black spider.

  The paw traffic in the tunnel grew thicker as he approached the arched doors of the Goldenwood Hall. Calib dodged through the crowds of mice, larks, and other castle inhabitants streaming through the passages. Fur crushed up against fur, and whiskers tickled Calib’s face. Making a beeline for the staging room, Calib ran headlong into Sir Percival Vole.

  “Careful, mousling!” The portly brown vole popped a candied seed into his mouth and smiled. Calib tried not to make a face. Sir Percival’s teeth were black with rot. The water vole was famous for loving sweets. “You don’t want to injure the only trained healer right before the tourney!”

  “Apologies, s-sir!” Calib stammered as he scooted past. He made sure to keep a good six inches between him and Sir Percival’s rotten-egg breath.

  Calib stepped inside a long hall with rounded ceilings, and benches on the left and right sides. Every mouse-knight in Camelot’s history had once taken this same path to face their Harvest Tournament challenges. He spotted Devrin and Warren standing by the doors to the arena. He scurried into line behind Devrin.

  “Thought we’d have to march in without you,” she said, fiddling with her tailguard. She looked irritated. The guard did not fully cover her long tail. Warren’s armor, on the other hand, shone like polished silver and fit him like a glove.

  Calib opened his mouth to respond when a reedy voice sounded out.

  “Greetings, contestants!”

  Sir Alric skittered into the room. As Camelot’s premiere engineer and metalsmith, the white mouse had designed contraptions that many credited as instrumental in defeating the Darkling forces. He was also responsible for designing the Harvest Tournament challenges.

  “I just wanted to assure you three, I haven’t had a page die in one of my challenges yet,” Sir Alric said, blinking his pink eyes rapidly. Calib’s stomach dropped another few inches. “A few injuries here or there, yes. But all have survived! Just make sure to keep your armor on at all times.”

  No, Calib wanted to say. I’ve changed my mind. But it was too late. The arena musicians trumpeted a bright tune. Already, Warren and Devrin were shuffling forward.

  Calib’s heart pounded as he clanked clumsily behind Devrin. He tried to step in time to the music but was too nervous to follow its rhythm.

  A riot of noise and color greeted him. Calib couldn’t help admiring the Goldenwood Hall for the hundredth time. Quarried underneath King Arthur’s own throne room, the stone hall served as the highest court and tournament arena for Camelot’s allied creatures. The black-iron ceiling beams curved together high above his head like a bear’s rib cage. Tall wooden grandstands lined both sides of the arena. They curved like parentheses, ending on the opposite sides of a raised stage.

  In the center of the stage stood the Goldenwood Throne—in truth, a broken wooden goblet rumored to have been discarded by Merlin. The bowl of the cup was cracked open, one side missing entirely. Velvet pillows lined the inside so that a mouse could sit comfortably. Tonight, the throne glistened in the firelight.

  All of Camelot’s allied creatures were present this evening, from the larks who lived in the bell tower to the moat otters, from the red squirrels who lived in the orchard trees to the moles who burrowed under the gardens.

  Calib scanned the stands and noticed Cecily waving her pennant at him.

  “Bon chance, Calib!” she shouted, her voice barely audible above the din.

  Distracted, Calib accidentally trod on Devrin’s tail. She gave him a withering look over her shoulder. “Step to the beat, Cal. Ever heard of it?”

  Warren snickered.

  The march halted before the stage. The three pages turned to face the arena. Calib surveyed the oval-shaped pit before him, barricaded on the longer sides by the crowded stands. He thought about dashing across the dirt-packed floor and fleeing past the doors from which he’d just come. But that would be as good as admitting he would never be a knight.

  From her chair next to the throne, Sir Kensington Knaps stepped forward to address the crowd.

  A fearsome knight, Sir Kensington was Commander Yvers’s second-in-command. It was rumored that she had single-handedly defeated an entire battalion of rats in the Great War. With a pointed nose and crosshatched scars along her face, Kensington now looked more wolf than mouse.

  “All quiet in the Goldenwood Hall!” Her voice pierced through the noise like a finely pointed needle. She fixed those who dared ignore her command with an icy glare until they quieted. “All rise for Commander Yvers Christopher the Valiant, Darkslayer, and Master Knight of Camelot!
”

  The crowd stood and applauded as Calib’s grandfather emerged from behind the curtain. He was dressed in wine-colored robes—the Christopher family color. With his golden fur brushed back like a lion’s mane, Commander Yvers seemed so fearsome that Calib felt insignificant just looking at him.

  “Lords and ladies, my bannermice and my people, this autumn marks the tenth year of peace and plenty among the creatures of Camelot,” Commander Yvers began. Atop his head was a silver crown that had once been a ring of Queen Guinevere’s. “It is truly a time of celebration.”

  He waved his arms to calm the resounding cheers that followed. His eyes became grave and resolute.

  “However, we must never let peace lull us into carelessness. It took the sacrifices of many warriors to shepherd us to safety. We owe it to them, and to ourselves, to preserve what they fought for. We must uphold the sacred oath made to Merlin, even at the cost of our lives.”

  Generations ago, the mice of the castle had made a promise to the wizard Merlin. In return for Camelot’s shelter and bounty, they were to protect the castle. (Two-Leggers were too unobservant and slow to notice that their pantries were being raided.)

  Calib felt his grandfather’s gaze fall briefly on him. He shivered. How could he ever be brave enough?

  “The true purpose of the Harvest Tournament is to find those worthy of protecting the realm. In our three challenges this evening, we shall test our pages for bravery, strength, and wisdom. Those who rise above their fears this day will find themselves in the pawsteps of our mightiest warriors. Tonight, we will begin with the challenge for bravery.”

  The hall was filled with murmurs of excitement. A team of five apprentices wheeled a contraption the size of three Two-Legger dinner plates into the arena. A gasp rose up from the stands. Calib felt as if his legs had been replaced by pudding.