by Tony Davis
Roland was horrified. If he’d known mice weren’t allowed in Twofold Castle he would have left Nudge with Shelby. He might even have stayed at home and let Shelby be the page.
“Look,” said Humphrey. “I can see how fond you are, how fond you are, of this Nudge creature. Why don’t you leave him in the box under your bed, and you can take some bread or cheese from the supper table to feed him. But by the new week, we’ll have to work out what to do with him, do with him.”
“Thank you so much, Humphrey,” said Roland, but he wasn’t much happier. Roland knew he couldn’t just “do something” with Nudge. He had to keep his furry white friend with him. And he had to hope that a miracle happened before Monday; that if he was good enough, and did everything well enough, that somehow the King would allow Nudge to stay.
Humphrey was still talking. He was now explaining that the King had given the pages a holiday on the festival day, and this meant they could go to the open meadow in the morning.
“We’ll be able to play with our swords before the elephant arrives. And on Monday, after we’ve worked out what to do with the mouse, to do with the mouse, you’ll receive your page uniform and you’ll join us at classes. Can you read?”
“No.”
“Can you play a musical instrument?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, it will be Lady Mary’s job to teach you to play the lute and to know your manners. Know your manners. I suppose you don’t know anything about falconry either, or horse riding, or how to play chess, or how to carve meat for the nobility. You have a lot to learn, a lot to learn.”
“Yes, but I want to learn it all. I want to be a great page, and the world’s greatest knight.”
“They all say that,” said Humphrey. “But maybe you will be, maybe you will be. Anyway, now it’s time for the main meal. I must go and serve but I will collect you afterward, collect you afterward, and we shall have our supper in the servants’ mess.”
“Just one thing before you go, Humphrey.”
“Yes, yes, Roland?”
“You wouldn’t tell anyone about Nudge, would you? Not for a piece of sugar cheese pie? You won’t even tell Morris, will you?”
“Of course I won’t, of course I won’t. I don’t even like sugar cheese pie. And you don’t need to worry, don’t need to worry about Morris. He tells a few stories … well, if truth be told, he tells a lot of stories. He just doesn’t know when to shush up. But he’s nice enough. Nice enough.
“No, Roland, it’s Hector you should watch out for. He’s twelve years old and the meanest page in the castle. The meanest, meanest, meanest. Stay right out of his way.”
Three
Hector
Roland sat waiting in his new bedroom, watching Nudge pace up and down his arm. Nudge looked very ill at ease.
“Don’t worry, Nudge, I’ll look after you,” said Roland, who was every bit as uncomfortable and wished he too had an arm to walk up and down. What’s more, Roland had been scratching his neck and head ever since Humphrey had mentioned bugs.
“ ,” said Nudge nervously.
“Yes, I know,” replied Roland, just as nervously.
After what seemed like a very long time, Roland heard footsteps and quickly put Nudge back into the small elm-wood box and slid it under his bed.
Humphrey pushed open the door. “I have done my chores, done my chores. We’re off to eat, so follow me.”
Humphrey ran down a series of corridors. With his bright mop of hair shaking from side to side, Humphrey skipped and swerved and shimmied as Roland followed.
They went up stairs, they went down stairs, they turned left, they turned right. There were so many twists and corners Roland was sure he would never find his way back if he ever had to do it on his own.
Finally they arrived in a large dining room filled with noisy people. There was a table of boys, thirty or more, all in red and blue pages’ tunics. There was a table of squires, too, and rows of chambermaids and washerwomen and laborers.
Everyone was eating lumps of rough bread with slabs of cheese and small portions of salted fish. They washed it down with watery ale served in wooden bowls.
“Roland, this is someone you need to meet,” said Humphrey. “This is our roommate, our roommate, Morris.”
“Hello, Roland,” said Morris, whose plump face produced two big dimples when he smiled. “I’ve heard about you. And have you heard about the elephant?”
“Only a little bit.”
Morris ran his hand through his straight black hair and then rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know that an elephant is taller than a castle, don’t you? And the gift may not be an elephant at all. I’ve heard that they are just saying it is an elephant.”
“What else could it be?” asked Roland, a little unsure of himself.
Morris ran his hand back through his hair and across his mouth again. “It could be a griffin, that’s what I’ve heard. A griffin has the head of an eagle and the body of a lion and the tail of a serpent. And it likes nothing better than to eat young boys.”
Roland thought a griffin sounded even more exciting than an elephant—as long as it didn’t come too close. He had only just begun to eat his bread and had taken only one sip of his ale when the constable walked in and said with his big, raspy voice: “Roland Wright!”
“Yes?” Roland answered softly. He wondered whether he was in trouble already. Maybe he wasn’t sitting correctly, or wasn’t eating in the proper way. Maybe he was spitting on the wrong part of the floor, or maybe the problem was that he was wiping his greasy hands on his shirt, instead of on his trousers like the other boys. He had a lot to learn about manners.
“Come with me,” said the constable impatiently. He quickly led Roland down another series of corridors. As they walked, the constable talked through his thick mustache and Roland realized he wasn’t in trouble.
“I’ve been asked to take you to meet Lady Mary, young man,” the constable said. He was speaking just as sternly as if Roland was in trouble. “You will be her special page. In return, it will be her job to teach you genteel manners and culture, which, by the look of you, will be no easy task.”
There were more stairs and more corridors before Roland was pushed into the castle’s Great Hall. It was an enormous room filled with tapestries and shields and long benches. There were noblemen standing around talking and noblewomen sitting in high-backed chairs doing fine needlework.
“I’m Lady Mary,” one of the women said to Roland. She wore a bright blue dress with gold braiding and had an unusual pointed wimple on her head. “And you must be Roland Wright.”
“Yes, Lady, ma’am, Mrs. … Mary,” said Roland as he looked up at her face. He could tell straightaway that Lady Mary was gentle and kind. She spoke beautifully and had a lovely smile. Her skin was the color of bone; she was a real lady who had never been outside without shading her face.
“I will be teaching you all sorts of things, Master Wright. And I will be setting you special chores from the start of next week. I’m pleased to meet you, but I won’t keep you from your supper any longer. You may go now.”
“Thank you, my lady,” said Roland, who moved toward the door and wondered how on earth he would find his way back. Just as he was leaving, Lady Mary spoke again. “Do you know your way to the servants’ mess?”
“Yes, of course,” Roland said. He didn’t want to appear stupid.
“All the same,” said Lady Mary, “I’ll send one of my ladies-in-waiting with you, just to make sure.”
Roland sighed with relief. He knew already that Lady Mary was one of the nicest women he had ever met. Best of all, under her pointed wimple Roland could see strands of bright red hair. He was very glad that Lady Mary was “his” lady.
When Roland returned to the servants’ mess, he discovered that someone had eaten his bread, cheese and salted fish. His ale was gone too.
“How was your food?” asked a small page with brown hair that curved up at the e
nds like a helmet. He was licking his lips.
“Oh,” said Roland with disappointment, “I suppose the little bit that I ate was very good. Luckily, I already pock—” Roland suddenly stopped talking.
“Sorry?” said the page with the helmet hair. Roland had been about to say “Luckily, I already pocketed something for Nudge before I left,” but he remembered at the last moment that mice were forbidden.
Roland thought he should talk about something else, and do it quickly. “I didn’t know we’d have bread and salted fish. I thought we’d have cockentrice—you know, that meal where the cook takes a half of two different animals and sews them together to create a new one and then roasts it.”
Roland could hear boys laughing right along the table. He started to turn red. “What’s so funny? When the King sent his men to congratulate my father, the officer-of-arms brought us a cockentrice. It had the head and wings of a rooster and the body of a suckling pig and all types of herbs and fruits inside it and it was the sweetest food I’d ever tasted. I thought in castles they ate cockentrice every night.”
There was more laughter, until the helmet-haired boy rudely spat out a sentence. “Even in the King’s castle you’ll see a cockentrice only at a banquet—and the pages certainly don’t eat any of it.”
“Yes, yes,” said Humphrey in a much kinder tone. “You are very lucky to have tasted one, tasted one. I’m surprised the King sent one outside the castle.”
“Yes,” hissed a boy with dark, bushy hair and sharp blue eyes, “and to a lowly household like yours!”
Roland was shocked by how rude this boy was—and by how ugly he was. He had a big mouth that stuck out of his face and a short, sloping forehead. Roland wasn’t only shocked, he was angry.
“There’s nothing lowly about my household,” said Roland through clenched teeth. “My father is a fine man, and so is my brother, Shelby. How dare you say otherwise.”
When Roland started talking, everyone else went quiet except for Humphrey, who whispered in Roland’s ear, “Be careful, be careful, that’s Hector, Hector!”
All that could be heard elsewhere on the table were a few boys moving their spoons.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Hector snarled at Roland. When Hector breathed in between words he made a hissing noise like a snake—“s-s-s-s.”
Hector stood up and showed himself to be a head and shoulders taller than Roland—and wider and heavier too. “Or should I say, s-s-s-s, don’t talk to me like that unless you want your head knocked off, you ugly little poor boy, s-s-s-s, you redheaded squirt.”
As he spoke, Hector grabbed a piece of bread from another boy’s plate, chewed it a few times and threw the rest on the floor. The boy whose food had been taken didn’t complain—even when Hector grabbed the boy’s bowl, took a gulp of his ale and then splashed the rest on the table in front of Roland.
“My father owns thousands of acres,” Hector said as he threw the boy’s ale bowl over his shoulder, “and I can never be sent home because my father has his own army, s-s-s-s, and is so powerful the King needs him. He is almost as important as the King himself.
“You can be sent home, though. And believe me, you redheaded squirt, s-s-s-s, no tiny little poor boy will wear the page uniform while I’m here.”
Four
One Thousand and One Knights
The day was almost over. Roland rubbed his empty, rumbling stomach and looked at his narrow bed. It wasn’t filled with softest duck feathers. It was filled with soggy straw, and even fluffing it up with his hands didn’t make it very soft.
No cockentrice to eat, no soft, wide bed to lie on—and a very scary boy named Hector to deal with. At least he had Lady Mary, who he hoped would look after him, and two roommates who seemed friendly. And at least he had managed to feed Nudge without Morris seeing, and had now pushed his box safely under the bed.
“When will I meet the knights?” Roland asked the other two boys as he climbed onto his straw and pulled up the blanket against the cold air of the tall, stone-walled room.
“Most of the knights are away at a tournament,” Humphrey replied. “It’s been so peaceful lately, peaceful lately, that the King has allowed them to go. The Queen has gone to cheer them. Cheer them. You won’t be seeing any of them for a fortnight or more.”
“It’s a shame that it’s peaceful,” replied Roland. “I was hoping for a siege or two, or maybe a major battle.”
“Don’t you complain,” replied Humphrey, now yawning loudly. “I’ve been waiting the whole year I’ve been here, the whole year, and there hasn’t even been a single attack on the castle. Anyway, it’s been a long day, a long day, and I’m going to go to sleep straighta … w … a …”
Roland could hear Humphrey sliding into a deep slumber before he even finished the sentence. Within a few seconds, Humphrey was pushing out huge grunting snores that sounded like stone houses falling down.
Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch!
“Humphrey is the noisiest sleeper in the known world,” said Morris, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. He leaned over and blew out the last candle in the room. “But you’ll get used to it. And you’ll enjoy meeting the knights in two weeks.”
“I’ve only met one knight,” said Roland in the darkness. “Do you know Sir Gallawood?”
Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch!
Morris didn’t reply until Humphrey’s snore finally finished. “Of course I do, but he’s not really interesting at all.”
“I think he is,” said Roland. “And Sir Gallawood is the best fighter I’ve ever seen, too.”
“Oh, yes? Just wait until you see Sir Horridhead in action.”
“Sir Who?”
“Sir Horridhead. He’s so ugly that if he is losing a fight he can whip off his helmet and scare his opponent almost to death—even if the man isn’t afraid of swords, axes or maces.”
Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch!
“And there’s Sir Flab,” Morris continued, “a knight who eats so much he has to have leather straps with buckles at the back of his armor so it can stretch out to fit in his enormous gut.”
“Flaming catapults …”
“Oh, yes,” said Morris. “I remember a fight when Sir Flab thrust once with his sword, then once with his shield. When that didn’t work he swung his huge belly around and knocked the other knight head over heels.”
“Morris?”
“Yes?”
“Is there really a Sir Flab?” Roland was afraid he was being rude, but wasn’t at all sure what to believe.
“Oh, yes. His first wife, Lady Evenflabbier, actually exploded during a festival. One minute she was saying ‘Pass me another leg of lamb and a hogshead of ale.’ The next moment, the leg of lamb and the hogshead of ale were going past me in the other direction at the speed of a cannonball.”
Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch!
“It was very ugly,” added Morris quietly in the darkness. “Sir Flab was so surprised he could scarcely eat another pig.”
Roland was amazed by the story of Sir Flab and Lady Evenflabbier. And he was astounded by the way Humphrey’s snores seemed to be getting even louder and closer together.
Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch!
“Who is the champion knight?” Roland asked Morris when it was quiet again.
“The bravest, strongest, most handsome knight is Sir Smellalot. He is the King’s best friend, too.”
“Sir Smellalot?” Roland laughed out loud. “Why is he called that? Does he stink like a pongy pile of rubbish?”
“He is called Smellalot, Roland, simply because he can smell a lot. He detects things with his nose that other people can’t. One of his best forms of defense is that he can sniff out danger.”
“But it’s a pretty silly name,” said Roland, still unsure about what he was hearing. “Isn’t it?”
Morris huffed. “They said that about Sir Dumdum and S
ir Dogsbreath.”
The stories kept coming. Morris was now talking about a knight who was only as tall as a squirrel and attacked the knees of other knights. But Roland could feel himself drifting away into sleep.
The last sound Roland heard was Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-c h! Ng-g-g-g-g-u-u-r-ch!
When he woke at first light, Roland could hear Morris talking. He wondered if he had been talking all night. Then he heard Humphrey too—and this time Humphrey was talking, not snoring.
“No chores this morning, this morning,” shouted Humphrey as he bounced around with delight and beamed a huge smile. “We’re going to the meadow outside the north wall to practice fighting, practice fighting. Then this afternoon we’ll see the elephant—or whatever the mystery beast is.
“You’re so lucky, Roland, to be here now, to be here now. I’ll find you a wooden sword.”
The three boys ran to the servants’ mess, ate bread and drank some more watery ale to break their fast, then walked out over the drawbridge and around to the meadow. Before they left, Roland had leaned over the side of his bed and quietly whispered.
“Sorry, Nudge, I must leave you in your box for the moment. I can’t let anyone else know you are here. I’ll bring you some food back, I promise.”
When the boys arrived at the meadow carrying their wooden weapons, there were other pages already paired off. They were fighting with fast, loud swipes of their swords. Only one boy was not joining in. He was the tallest there and Roland recognized him right away. The boy strode toward Roland and yelled straight into his face.
“Aha! Here’s the one I’ve been waiting for. It’s the new page, s-s-s-s, the dirty and poor boy.”
