Grailblazers Tom Holt

by Grailblazers (lit)

  He pointed at something, and Toenail stood on tiptoe and looked. He could see nothing. He said so.

  `There,' Boamund said, `can't you see, on the doorframe, very faint but it's there, definitely.'

  Toenail squinted. There was, he had to admit, the faintest possible pattern or design, crudely scratched on the paintwork. He stared at it for a while, until his imagination got him thinking that it could be mistaken for a bunch of roses, their petals intertwined. `Oh yes,' he said. `What's that, then?'

  `It's a waymark,' Boamund replied. `Part of the Old High Symbolism. Must mean that there are knights here.'

  `Is that what it means, then?' Toenail demanded.

  `Strictly speaking, no,' Boamund replied. `What it actually means is, "No insurance salesmen or Jehovah's Witnesses; beware of the dog." But reading between the lines . . . Here, what's this?'

  `Another one?'

  `Maybe,' Boamund muttered. `Let's have a look.' He rubbed away a dried-on pigeon dropping, scrutinised the doorpost carefully and then chuckled to himself. `It's definitely a waymark,' he said. `Look.'

  `This time,' Toenail said, `I'm going to have to take your word for it.'

  `It's the ancient character designed to let bailiffs know that you've moved,' Boamund observed. `We call it the Great SelfDefeating Pentagram. This is the right place, I reckon.' He thumped on the door so hard that Toenail reckoned he could feel it wince, and then called out very loudly in what Toenail would ordinarily have guessed was Bulgarian.

  Several seconds of complete silence; and then a window above their heads ground open.

  `We're closed,' said the voice. `Go away.'

  Boamund was staring, open-mouthed. `Bedders!' he yelled out joyfully, and waved. `Bedders, it's me.'

  Toenail looked up at the man in the window; a roundfaced, bald head with a big red nose. `Bo?' it replied, and its tone of voice implied that this was better than pink elephants or spiders climbing the wallpaper, but still uncalled for. `It can't be.'

  `Bedders!' Boamund repeated rapturously. `Come and open this door before I kick it in!'

  This, Toenail surmised, was entirely consistent with what he knew of the way knights talked to each other. Apparently, under the laws of chivalry, the way you expressed warm sentiments of friendship and goodwill to another knight was to challenge him to put on all his armour, be knocked off his horse, and get his head bashed in with a fifteen-pound mace.

  `You touch that door,' the head replied, `and I'll break both your legs.' An expert on courtly repartee would immediately have recognised this as being roughly equivalent to our, `George, you old bastard, how the devil are you!', but Toenail decided to hide behind the bike, just in case.

  `You and whose army, you drunken ponce?' Boamund replied tenderly. The head grinned.

  `Stay right there,' he said, and the window slammed. Boamund turned round.

  `What are you doing down there?' he asked.

  `Hiding,' said a voice from behind the bike's rear wheel. `What does it look like I'm-?'

  `You don't want to take any notice of old Bedders - that's Sir Bedevere to you,' Boamund replied. `Soft as porridge, old Bedders. Here, quick, where's that sword?'

  He rummaged around in the luggage, and when the door opened (to reveal a huge-looking figure completely covered in steel, Toenail couldn't help noticing) he had found the sword and the shield and had put his crash helmet back on. For his part, Toenail, having assessed the various options available to him, jumped into the bike's left-hand pannier and pulled the lid down over his head. There are times when it feels good to be small.

  `Ha,' he heard someone saying. `Abide, false knight, for I will have ado with you.' Toenail shuddered and closed his eyes.

  `I will well,' said the other idiot. `Keep thee then from me.'

  Then there was a noise like a multiple pile-up, followed by the inevitable sound of something metal, as if it might be a hub-cap, wheeling along the ground, spinning and then falling over with a clang. And then shouts of boisterous laughter.

  And then someone pulled open the lid of the pannier and extracted Toenail by the collar of his jacket.

  `Toenail,' Boamund was saying, `meet Sir Bedevere. Bedders, this is my dwarf, Toenail.'

  `Pleased to meet you, Toenail,' said the armoured lunatic. By the looks of it, the thing that had come off and rolled about on the floor must have been his helmet, since he was bareheaded and bleeding from a cut over his left eye. `Well, then,' said Sir Bedevere, `you'd better come in. The others,' he added, `are all out, and it's muggins' turn to do the kitchen floor again.' A thought occurred to him. `Hang on,' he said, brightening, `your dwarf can do it, can't he?'

  Toenail was just about to protest violently when Boamund said, `Good idea,' and clapped Toenail heartily on the back. Much more of this, the dwarf muttered to himself, and I'm going to be sick. However, as it transpired, things could have been worse. Bedevere did show him where the mop and the Flash were kept, and it was a smaller kitchen than, say, the one at Versailles.

  `Anyway,' said Bedevere, showing his guest to the comfortable chair, `sit down, make yourself at home, tell me all about it.'

  `About what?' Boamund replied, helping himself to peanuts. `That reminds me,' he added. `I'm starving. I haven't had any food - proper food, that is - in ages.'

  `Help yourself,' said Bedevere politely, and Boamund, having recited the necessary formula, set about eating his way through a side of venison which obligingly materialised in front of him. In fact, thought Toenail to himself as he crouched on his hands and knees trying to shift a particularly stubborn stain, if all knights can do this, what do they need a kitchen for, let alone a kitchen floor?

  `You were saying,' said Bedevere.

  `Was I?'

  'Yes,' Bedevere replied. `About what you've been doing and, er . . .'

  `Yes?'

  `How come you're still alive. I mean,' Bedevere assured his friend, `wonderful that you are. Spiffing. But it's rather a turn-up, don't you think?'

  Boamund put down a pheasant's wing and looked at him. For all that they'd been through basic training, Knight School and the Benwick campaign together, that still didn't entitle young Fatty to go asking him personal questions. `What about you, then?' he demanded. `You're the one who was always stuffing himself with honey-cakes and second helpings of frumenty? If anyone should have pegged out . . .' Bedevere winced. `It's a long story,' he said.

  Boamund gazed at him defiantly over a roast quail. `Go on, then,' he said, `I'm in no hurry.'

  `All right, then.'

  The gist of what Bedevere said was this:

  Boamund no doubt remembered how sticky things were getting towards the end of Arthur's reign, what with the Saxons and everything . . .

  Well, no. Boamund was asleep at the time, but he'll take your word for it. Do go on, please .

  . . . what with the Saxons and everything, and the last thing the King wanted was for his knights to offer any resistance to the vastly superior Saxon forces. This could only make things worse, and was fundamentally a bad idea. On the other hand, chivalry would undoubtedly forbid the knights to do nothing while a lot of Danish bacon entrepreneurs took over the country and drove small shopkeepers out of business.

  Arthur therefore decided on a diversion; and since chivalry was about to end, he felt it only right and proper that it should go out with a bang. He therefore summoned his knights to Camelot, told them a little white lie about the Saxons all having gone home, leaving money to pay for all the broken doors and windows, and suggested that they might all like to go and look for the Holy Grail.

  The knights accepted the challenge with enthusiasm, for all that none of them had the faintest idea what a Grail looked like, and agreed to reassemble at Camelot a year and a day later and bring the Grail with them.

  The idea succeeded beyond Arthur's wildest dreams. When the court reassembled it turned out that of the hundred knights who had set out on the quest, fifty were dead, fourteen had been arrested, twenty-two had d
efected to the court of the king of Benwick, and eight had given up chivalry and gone into personnel management. The remaining six, King Arthur reckoned, were unlikely to bother anyone. He therefore provided them with a chapter house and a pension scheme, named them the Order of Chevaliers of the Sangrail, and left by the fire escape while they were all in the bar.

  The Chevaliers of the Sangrail continued with the quest for a while; but it should be obvious from the fact that they alone had survived out of the original hundred that they were all knights who held quite firmly to the rule that discretion - or, even better, naked fear - is the better part of valour, and besides, none of them knew what a Grail was. For three years they toured Albion on the off chance that the Grail was to be found either in an inn or a greyhound track, and then decided by a majority of five to one to abandon the quest. Their reasoning was that Albion was a small place and in their travels the chances were that they'd probably come across it; find it, His Majesty had told them, there was nothing in the fine print about recognising it once found. They then put the chapter house on the market and went to draw their pensions. All would probably have been well, had not the chairman of the trustees of the pension fund been a diehard magician and reactionary Albionese nationalist by the name of Merlin. He insisted that the Grail had to be brought to Camelot in order that the quest be fulfilled; and until it was they could whistle for their pensions.

  The Chavaliers decided to make the best of a bad job. Instead of actively searching for the Grail, they resolved in future to look for it passively; that is to say, to do something else, hopefully something more interesting and profitable, while waiting for the thing to turn up. After investing all their spare capital in a scheme to dig a tunnel connecting Albion with Benwick, which was frustrated by the fact that Benwick disappeared into the sea when they were five miles short of it, they moved into the chapter house, let the ground-floor premises to a man who arranged bucket-shop pilgrimages, and got jobs in the local woad factory.

  The woad factory is, of course, long gone. The knights are still there.

  `Except,' Bedevere said sadly, `for Nentres, of course.'

  Boamund surreptitiously wiped a tear from his eye and murmured, `Dead?'

  `Not quite,' replied Bedevere. `About six months ago he announced that he'd had enough and was going south. Apparently he'd met this chap who was starting up a video shop somewhere. The blighter,' said Bedevere savagely, `he buggered off with our outings fund. Seventy-four pounds, thirty-five pence. We were planning to go to Weymouth this year.'

  `Where's Weymouth?'

  Bedevere explained. `So,' he went on, `here we all are, and here you are too. It's a small . . .'

  Then the penny dropped. Bedevere had been in the process of raising a glass containing gin and tonic to his lips. He spilt it.

  `I see,' Boamund was saying. `That would account for it, I suppose.'

  Bedevere picked a slice of lemon out of his collar. `Always delighted to see you,' he gabbled, `and it would have been nice if you could have stayed for a while, but if you're really busy and in a hurry to get on with whatever it is you're here to do, which must be really important, then please don't let us...'

  `Actually,' Boamund said.

  `. . . stop you. After all,' he wittered frantically, `we're just here, minding our own business, or rather businesses Turquine delivers pizzas, you know, and Pertelope's got a really nice little window-cleaning round, shops and offices as well as houses, and Galahaut's an actor, though he's resting just now, and Lamorak buys things and sells them in street markets and I . . .' He broke off and, unexpectedly, blushed.

  `Go on,' said Boamund, intrigued. `What do you do?'

  `I . . . I'm an insurance salesman,' Bedevere muttered into his beard. `It's a really interesting job,' he said hurriedly. `You've no idea what a wide cross-section of society...'

  `An insurance salesman,' said Boamund.

  `Um,' Bedevere mumbled. `You wouldn't by any chance be interested in a . . .?'

  `I see.' Boamund was frowning. On his broad, plain, straightforward, honest and, well yes, stupid face a cold look of displeasure was settling, like ice on the points of a busy commuter line. `You know what we used to call you back at the old Coll, Bedders?'

  `Er, no,' said Bedevere. Actually he had had a fair idea and he'd always resented it. The way he saw it, a chap can't help it if he's born with big ears.

  'Li chevalier li plus prest a succeder,'* replied Boamund, severely. `Double first in tilting, I seem to remember. Honours in falconry. Dalliance blue. Captain of courtesy three years running. And now,' he sighed, `you're an insurance salesman. I see.'

  `It's not like that,' Bedevere growled unhappily. `Times change, and-'

  `I remember,' Boamund went on obliviously, `I remember when your father, rest his soul, came to Sports Day one year, and you were jousting for the Deschamps-Mornay Memorial Salver. He was so proud of you.'

  Bedevere snuffled. `Look,' he said, `they don't have jousts any more. It's all your televised snooker, your American football-'

  `And when he heard you'd been selected for the Old Boys match,' Boamund continued cruelly, `well, I've never told you this before, Bedders, but-'

  `Look!' Bedevere was close to tears. `It's not as simple as that. We tried our best, honest we did. We looked all over for the wretched thing. We even went to,' and the knight winced,

  *Since Bedevere's father was the Duke of Achaia and ninety-seven years old, the term `most likely to succeed' might be interpreted rather more literally than Boamund thought.

  `Wales. But we just didn't have the faintest idea of what it was we were looking for. Chivalry doesn't prepare you for things like that, Bo. Chivalry is all about finding someone who's big and strong and mean sitting on a ruddy great black horse and clouting him around the head till he passes out. In chivalry, you leave all the planning and the thinking to someone else. You're just there to do the important bit, the bashing people up side of things. We couldn't manage it on our own, Bo, with nobody to tell us what to do. There's no place for knights in the modern world, you see. We're...' He searched for the exact term. `I suppose you could say we're over-qualified. Too highly trained. Over-specialised. You know what I mean.'

  `Useless, you mean.'

  `Yes,' Bedevere agreed. `It's just that there aren't any dragons left any more. And no damosels to rescue, either. Young Turquine tried to rescue a damosel the other day. It was some sort of a party, and he was delivering pizzas. He walks in through the door and there's this terrible barbaric music and all these men pulling girls about by the arms and . . . Well, he jumped right in, like a true knight, sorted a few of them out, I can tell you. And then this damosel kneed him in the-'

  `I see, yes.'

  `Then they called the police,' Bedevere said. `Luckily, Galahaut and I happened to be passing, so we were able to pull him off before he did any of them a serious injury, but...'

  `Nevertheless,' said Boamund. His face looked like something rejected by Mount Rushmore for excessive gravity. `I think it's probably just as well I've come to take charge here, don't you? Delivering pizzas! Selling insurance! Old Sagramor would turn in his grave if he knew.'

  Bedevere, remembering their old venery tutor, secretly agreed, and hoped that this would involve his brushing up against something sharp. `But . . .' he said.

  `What I was about to say,' Boamund went on, `is that I've been woken up from a fifteen-hundred-year sleep to take charge of this Order, and by God, take charge of it I jolly well will!'

  Just then, the door of the Common Room flew open and a large, round man with a red face bustled in, holding a portable telephone in one hand and a huge stack of thin styrofoam boxes in the other.

  'Bedders,' he called out, `there's a dwarf in our kitchen. I went in there to heat up the pizzas and the nasty little thing was making the floor all wet. I chucked him in the bin, naturally, but the damage was done. How many times have I told you about leaving the back door open in the . . .'

  He fro
ze, and stared. The pizzas fell from his hand and started to roll around the room like slow, anchovy-garnished hoops.

  `Bloody hell,' he said at last. `It's Snotty Boamund!'

  `Hello, Turkey,' replied Boamund coldly.

  Sir Turquine went, if anything, redder than before. `Hell fire, Bedders, a joke's a joke, but what the hell do you think you're playing at? I was only saying the other day, things may be a bit smelly these days, but at least we don't have to put up with that sanctimonious little toad and his incessant wittering on about ideals any more. And you agreed with me, I remember. You said-'

  `Er, Turkey,' said Sir Bedevere. `I-'

  `And now,' Sir Turquine protested, `you get someone all dressed up with a mask on or something, just to give me the fright of my life! Look at my pizzas, you stupid idiot, they've got fluff all over them...'

  `It's me, Turkey,' Boamund whispered, in a tone of voice that would have frozen helium. `How are you keeping?'

  Turquine now dropped the portable telephone as well. `My God,' he said, `it is you! What in the name of . . .?'

  Bedevere swallowed hard, stood up and, as briefly as he could, explained. The other two knights exchanged looks that

  would have had a sabre-tooth tiger yelping for joy and growing an extra thick winter coat.

  `Bollocks,' said Sir Turquine at last. `He's got no authority. If he'd got any authority, he'd have a commission or something, sealed by that bastard Merlin. He's just having us on.'

  Without speaking, Boamund reached inside his jacket and produced a thick, folded parchment, from which hung a seal. The odd thing about the seal was the way it glowed with a strong blue light.

  Sir Turquine, whose mouth had suddenly become extremely dry, took the parchment and opened it. He stared at it for a moment and then said, in a kind of quavering roar, `Nuts. It's in gibberish. He's just written it himself.'

  `Tell Sir Turquine,' said Boamund quietly, `that he's holding it the wrong way up.'

  Sir Turquine glowered at him helplessly and turned the parchment round, so that the seal hung from the bottom. Boamund sniffed; Turquine could remember that damned supercilious sniff as though it were yesterday. He glanced down at the writing.