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SECRET KNIGHT – CONSPIRACY

(Arthurian Saga Series Book 1)

Chapter 1

It was a blazing afternoon in Camelot, nearing Midsummer’s day. The sky was a cerulean blue above the white towers of the castle, and the banners of King Arthur’s court stirred gently in the breeze, scarlet and gold. It had not rained for two moons, and the surrounding fields were turning brown in the dry heat. In the narrow sloping streets of the castle town, the warm air shimmered, and light reverberated from the cobblestones. Down in the hottest corner of the narrowest street, Eric Berinon was labouring in the blacksmith’s forge.

The sweat poured down his face as he worked the bellows near to the open fire. Eric was seventeen, but tall for his age, broad and strong from his efforts here at the forge. He gazed intently into the fire, brown eyes trained onto the small piece of iron in its depths. With the tongs, he flipped the horseshoe over, and as sparks flew the metal glowed an intense orange. Eric was not the blacksmith’s son though he did in fact rather resemble Hadrian−they shared the same black hair, the same tanned skin and broad shoulders. But Eric had been raised by his grandfather in another part of town. He had come to Hadrian five years ago, bored and restless on a summer’s day as hot as this one. Hadrian had taken pity on him and showed him how to mould little birds and horses from scraps of spare metal. From that day to this, Eric had arrived at the forge every morning with his natural smile, willing to work hard and learn everything Hadrian taught him.

Now, in the summer of his seventeenth year, he was Hadrian’s trusted apprentice and friend. The smith was growing older, and whenever possible Eric took on the heavier duties in the forge. Carefully, he used the tongs to transfer the horseshoe from the flames and dipped it into the water butt. Clouds of steam hissed into the air. Eric examined the metal carefully, checking for flaws or dents. He was shoeing the horse of a strange northern knight today, and he wanted everything to be perfect. He left the shoe cooling on the side and turned back to his work, just as Hadrian came in whistling a tune.

The smith looked over Eric’s shoulder at the steaming horseshoe and made a sound of approval. They may not be father and son, but there was an easy familiarity between the two of them, a comfortable silence. Hadrian held up the basket in his left hand and the clay jug in the other, and smiling, turned on his heel and went back out the door. Eric washed the soot from his hands and followed.

The blacksmith’s tiny yard was dominated by the slender trunk and sprawling branches of an apple tree. In the springtime, the blossom on this tree was a thing to behold, and in the summer, it offered a welcome green shade against the heat. The two men settled on the bench beneath the tree, and Eric helped himself to cheese and bread from the basket and beer from the flagon. They ate in silence for a time. Then, plucking an apple from a low hanging bough, Eric peeled the fruit in a deft spiral with his pocket knife. He threw a slice across the table to Hadrian.

“Did you see that knight again on your errands?” he asked.

Hadrian swallowed his mouthful. “Just for a moment lad. He was strolling about being gallant to the ladies, talking with the town folk and so on. It was gracious enough.”

Eric smiled. “What it must be like to be him… that shining armour, and the beautiful horse! He’s the first proper knight come through here in many a moon.”

“Ay, there aren’t so many these days, that’s true. Our king likes to keep to his own company.”

In the year that Eric was born, the kingdom had been caught in a terrible war. For ninety days, the armies of Morgana Le Faye laid siege upon Camelot, and the people had been trapped inside its walls, starving and suffering. Finally, there was a devastating battle in these very streets, and victory had been won… but at great cost. Eric often heard stories of how it had been before, the gallant Knights of the Round Table, and Camelot, full of people, the beating heart of Britannia. They had rebuilt after the battle, and the city was prosperous once more. But something changed in their Great king back then, and the golden age of chivalry seemed to be over. The Order of the Round Table was broken up, its gallant youths dead or moved away.

A light breeze ruffled the leaves of the apple tree as the two men sat in the shade. Hadrian’s ginger car Peg climbed over the fence and sauntered over, purring and winding herself around Eric’s legs. Hadrian leant back and wiped the crumbs from his mouth, closing his eyes. It was in this moment of their daily routine that he would talk about Alice.

“She was the same as you, you know. Always liked to see the knights riding by. ‘It makes you proud’, she used to say, ‘watching them. Gives you faith in our Great king.”

Hadrian’s wife Alice had died in childbirth years before, and the boy with her. Perhaps that was why Hadrian and Eric needed each other. Eric’s parents died in the Great battle, like so many others, and Hadrian had lost his family soon after. They both knew loss and loneliness, but together they had created a kind of family from the ashes. And every day, in the shade of the apple tree, Hadrian would tell a story of his lost love. Eric had heard them all before of course, but it didn’t matter. He knew that Hadrian and Alice had planted this tree together and that every spring when it blossomed in pink and white, he thought of her. He knew that Alice had liked to sing as she worked and that she was fond of taking in stray animals and nursing them to health. He knew that this was how Peg had joined the family, brought to the safety of the forge as a half-starved ginger kitten. And above all, he knew that Hadrian needed this, that these words and stories kept Alice alive in his memory. Eric couldn’t remember his parents, and had no stories of his own. But Hadrian’s tales of Alice−her kindness, her bravery, her sense of humour−when Eric thought of his own lost family, it was the quiet rhythm of these stories which came to mind. He settled back into his chair and listened to the smith’s deep, slow voice.

After lunch, the two men returned to the forge and worked in companionable silence. Now and again, Eric’s eyes would stray to the magnificent sword in the corner, which the northern knight had left for remounting. Eric himself had been training with the sword for several years. His grandfather had come home one November day with two rough training blades and announced that they would be practising together from now on. Letholdus was old and frail looking, but surprisingly strong. He knew how to fight well enough, and several times a week he would take Eric into the yard and teach him to cut, parry and thrust. He always supposed it was for his grandfather’s enjoyment more than anything else. He knew that Letholdus had done his bit in the Great battle, though the details of exactly what had passed were hazy to his mind. Eric assumed that Letholdus, like so many others in the town, was nostalgic for the days of chivalry. After all, Eric was a peasant lad, and there was no real purpose in this learning. Even so, he enjoyed training immensely and seemed to have something of a natural talent for it.

Although Eric had some skill with a blade, he had never seen so beautiful a sword as this one. Nor did he have any notion of how to remount it. Though Eric had begged his master to give him a try, the smith had done the work himself last night. As they laboured through the late afternoon, Eric was sorely tempted to pick up the strange northern blade, to feel the weight of it in his grasp and watch the flames reflected in its shining length. A sword like that would make a man feel different−stronger, braver. Perhaps it was growing up under his grandfather’s influence, but Eric felt a deep nostalgia for the old Camelot, the one he had never known. He liked to hear stories of Galahad, Gawain and Lancelot, brave knights long vanished from these lands.

Around four, the knight from the north came to see his horse fitted with the shoe. The mare was a beauty, a sleek grey in the late sunshine, her mane braided with ribbons and tiny bells. She was a gentle creature and crooked her foreleg obediently as Hadrian fitted the shoe. The knight, meanwhile, took up his sword with its new handle, making some experimental thrusts and parries against an invisible opponent. He looked up and saw Eric watching him.

“Very good, very good. An excellent balanced weight now, and a comfortable grip. Did you make this lad?”

“No sir,” said Eric, “I haven’t the skill. There’s not much call for weapon craft in Camelot these days.”

“No? No, I suppose not,” said the knight, glancing up at the castle keep.

“Please sir, if you don’t mind me asking… did you used to come here? Before, I mean, before the battle. When the Round Table was still…”

The knight laughed, a little wistfully. “I did indeed. Those were the glory days of Camelot, and all Britannia, I tell you. Feasts, dances, quests, tournaments…. there never was a merrier court. And those knights!” He looked up again at the distant castle towers. “I tell you, my generation could live a thousand years, and never live up to the deeds of our Great king and his old company.”

“What happened, sir? I mean, I know about the battle, but why did the court break up afterwards?”

The knight looked back at Eric and hesitated, frowning slightly and scrutinising his face.

“You boy. Who are you?” He asked suddenly.

“Sir?”

“Your family. Is this your father?” the knight gestured to where Hadrian was working.

“Oh no sir, no Hadrian is teaching me his craft. I live with my grandfather. We’re nobody really, my parents, they…”

“All done!” said Hadrian, coming around the mare’s other side and patting her flank. “She should ride like a beauty now sir.”

“Good, good, thank you…” said the knight. He cast a long glance back at Eric, then handed a small bag of silver to the smith.

“Well, I must be back on the road before nightfall. I thank you, gentlemen, for your excellent work. God bless you.”

The knight mounted lightly and rode away, his mare’s hooves clopping over the cobbles as he disappeared around the corner. Eric and Hadrian watched him go. The sun was setting now, dazzling them with a deep golden light that poured through the thatched roofs around them. The two men went inside, tidying and closing up the forge for the night. Eric left just as dusk fell, calling out his farewells to Hadrian. The smith would go to a lonely meal at his hearth, but for Eric, the evening was just beginning. After his dinner, he must go to the local inn, where he earned money sweeping, scrubbing and serving beer to the thirsty common folk. He was young and strong, but these long working days and the hot summer left him aching and exhausted each night. Stretching out his arms, Eric walked up the steep lane towards his grandfather’s house. The heat of the day was still in the air, and the crickets were humming and whirring. Above him, the first of the night stars twinkled into being, and the towers of Camelot made a dark silhouette against the pinkish haze of the sky.

 

Chapter 2

On his way home, Eric turned down a sloping alley, heading for the local bakery. It was dark now, but the scent of fresh bread still lingered in the narrow street from the morning’s batch. He pushed open the wooden door and entered, stooping a little as he passed beneath the low frame.

“Just a moment please,” called a voice from the cellar stairway. “Oh, Eric it’s you.”

The flushed face of Eric’s childhood friend Ellyn Farfelee appeared as she came up the steps into the shop carrying a heavy sack of flour. She smiled at him, put the flour down in the corner and brushed the dust from her hands. Ellyn was a beautiful young woman though at this moment there were flecks of flour in her long auburn braid, and she wore a grubby apron over her dress.

“You’ll break your back lifting those Ellyn. Come on, I’ll help with the rest.”

“It’s fine, there’s only a few more.”

“Still, let me help. It’ll take half the time. Besides, you’re puny.”

He punched her arm affectionately as he moved past her towards the cellar. When they were children, Ellyn had been a head taller than Eric for a full year, and very proud of it. Whenever they’d played knights and ladies, she’d always insisted that she was no swooning damsel, but a powerful sorceress. With her towering height, who could argue with her? But they weren’t eight years old anymore, and the boys of the town had overtaken her in height years ago. Nowadays it was Ellyn who was small and slim while Eric seemed to get taller and broader every day. He made sure to tease her about it whenever possible.

Eric descended into the cellar and grabbed two of the sacks to bring up to the shop.

“Any fresh loaves left?” He asked as he climbed the stairs.

“Plenty. So how’ve you been? No, a better question. Where have you been? I never see you these days!”

“Well, I’m busy you know. At the forge, and working for Dulcina.”

Ellyn frowned. She had never liked Eric working in the inn. Camelot was by and large a peaceful city, but if trouble was to be found, it was sure to be at Dulcina’s tavern.

“What about you?” he asked. “How are your family keeping?” He laid the last of the sacks on the pile in the corner and leant on the counter opposite Ellyn.

“Fine. Except… well father’s illness is a bit worse you know, so it’s been harder.”

Eric noticed that Ellyn’s green eyes didn’t quite meet his own as she said this. She turned away from him, reaching up to fetch his loaf from the shelf.

“Ellyn, really, are you sure you’re alright? You’re not working too hard? I mean if you need me, I could try to come by and help more.”

“It’s fine Eric. I mean, I am working hard. But I have to. Mother’s busy looking after father. His cough’s worse, and… well anyway, I have to keep things going here in the bakery. I don’t mind though, I’m happy to help.”

She began wrapping the loaf with slender fingers and looked up at him with a wry smile. “It all used to be a lot simpler, didn’t it?”

Eric sighed, and his breath blew motes of flour dust into the candlelight. “Did you see that knight today? The northern one?”

“No. I’ve been in here since six.”

“Well, he came to the forge. His mare lost a shoe on the road south and he had Hadrian remount a sword too. You should have seen it, Ellyn. And his horse! She was so beautiful. It makes things seem…”

“What?”

“Small, I suppose. I know we live in Camelot, and it’s supposed to be the capital and all, but it’s not how it used to be, is it? How it was in the stories?”

Eric began to pace in the small shop, bending his head every now and again to avoid the sloping beams. He had been thinking all afternoon in the silent forge, and it felt good to speak.

“Men come through the inn all the time, strangers. They tell such tales, of Bristol, and York… even France! There are so many places out there, people still doing Great deeds, fighting tourneys and winning victories. And look at us! I’m training with the sword, but what’s the point? I’ll never use it in battle. At the rate Hadrian is teaching me to smith, I’ll probably never even make a sword. I just wonder sometimes… what about the future? Is this all I’ll ever do, or see, or become? Because if it is… it just seems small.”

He had come to a halt near the open window. There were moths spinning and fluttering in the darkness just outside, drawn to the candlelight. He glanced over at Ellyn. She was watching him with an expression he’d never seen before. She began to speak, quietly.

“I’d have thought you’d be glad, Eric, that you don’t need to wield that sword in battle. You talk about the old days as if they were so glorious, but what about the people that died? The blood running in Camelot’s streets. Your own parents.”

“I know, I’m glad we live in peaceful times but I just… don’t you just want to run away sometimes? To get away from Camelot, see the country?”

Ellyn surveyed him from across the counter. Something like excitement seemed to pass across her face, but then she frowned again.

“No, I don’t. I’m happy here. It’s not so boring as you make out−we have Midsummer festival coming up remember? Besides, I have responsibilities. And I’m not the only one, am I? How is Letholdus?”

“Grandfather! Damn, I better go.”

Eric took the bread under one arm and put a bronze coin on the counter.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… just ignore me. I’ll come again soon, I promise. We can go for a walk down by the river or something, like the old days.”

Eric gave her a rueful smile and hurried out of the shop, leaving the wooden door swinging on its hinges behind him. Ellyn sighed and stood lost in thought long after the door had closed.

When Eric got home, there was a stew simmering in an iron pot over the fire. He sniffed the air tentatively. Letholdus was a little eccentric in all things, and a particularly experimental cook. He kept a small garden plot in the yard where he grew turnips and onions. Every summer he would also try to grow something called “tomatoes”. Eric had never heard of them, but his grandfather assured him they were very popular in the lands over the sea. Letholdus had even shown him a drawing of such a fruit, plump and red though Eric noted that the ones from their own yard were usually sour and green. Indeed, most of his grandfather’s tomato harvests ended with Letholdus stomping in from the garden, muttering darkly about the “bleeding English weather.” This summer had been exceptionally hot, and Letholdus had at least managed to produce a change in colour−his tomatoes were now sour and orange.

Inside their little cottage, Letholdus kept a supply of rather odd ingredients, purchased from traders on the south road. French garlic cloves and cured meat from the Low Countries hung from the ceiling. The mantel was cluttered with all manner of strange things; powdered spices, salts and herbs, a jar of nettles and another of wild lavender. There were dustier bottles mixed in with the edible ingredients, the contents of which seemed more suspect−one filled with what looked like tiny eyes, another with an oily red liquid, and a jar containing something slimy which Eric suspected was pickled frog. Today’s stew smelled fairly safe however, and, detecting the comforting aroma of turnips, Eric sat at the kitchen table.

“Home are you? About time too.”

Letholdus came shuffling in, his long silvery beard tucked into his belt.

“The turnips are overdone now, see? The stew’s gone all purple. That’s your fault that is.”

Eric smiled. His grandfather was always chastising him for something or other and was grouchy by nature. He loved him all the same.

“I brought us some bread though grandfather.”

“Been to the bakery eh?” Letholdus gave his grandson a knowing look. He took the loaf and bustled around the kitchen looking for a knife. “Didn’t happen to run into young Sweet-Ellyn while you were there did you?”

“Don’t call her that grandfather, you know she hates it! But, of course, I did. She works there all the time now, her father’s sick remember?”

Letholdus found the knife on the side, under a pile of chopped roots. He glanced down at the muddy blade, shrugged, and, wiping it in a fold of his long robe, came back to the table.

“What’s wrong with her father again?” He asked, sawing an uneven hunk off the loaf.

“His lungs. They aren’t right.”

“Hhm. Well go on lad, eat your stew. Do you want to let it spoil even more?”

Letholdus sat down opposite his grandson and ate a spoonful of stew. He screwed up his face.

“Disgusting. I’m sorry lad, I cook like a blind bat. Go on then, tell it.”

Every evening at dinner, Eric would tell Letholdus about his day. You wouldn’t think there was much to tell since he so rarely strayed from his routine at the forge and the inn. But Letholdus would make him talk anyway, asking the kind of questions that no one else would think of, forcing his grandson to observe and remember little details.

“And the sunset?” He would ask. “What was it like today?”

“Um, you know, it was beautiful. Yellowish.”

And then Letholdus would give him a piercing look with his blue eyes, and raise an eyebrow.

“Okay okay! It was gold at first, and then it became a kind of reddish pink. And…” Eric closed his eyes for a second, remembering. “And there were a lot of mosquitoes out tonight, and moths, you could see them in the air….”

And so it went on, every evening the same, Letholdus pressing for details of the day. Eric supposed it was because his grandfather hadn’t got out much lately. Of course, every now and again Letholdus would disappear for a day or so, off trading on the south road. But between times, he could spend many months in their little cottage and garden, mumbling to himself and ignoring the neighbours. Eric couldn’t help feeling sorry for him during these times, and so he tried hard to see with curious eyes, to remember the sights, smells and sounds, the faces he passed in the streets, the things that Hadrian and Ellyn had said to him.

Tonight he ate quickly, pausing between mouthfuls to tell his grandfather about the strange knight and the beautiful sword. Aware that time was getting on, he mopped up the last of his stew with a hunk of bread. Swallowing this, he moved to clear his bowl away.

“I have to get to the inn now grandfather.”

“Alright, get gone lad.”

Eric washed his hands in the clay bowl beside the water barrel, put on his hat, and went out once again into the balmy summer night.

Chapter 3

Dulcina’s tavern was outside of the city walls, on the thoroughfare that lead from Camelot to the Great south road. It was always busy with passing travelers, which was what Eric liked most about his work. He was just a scullery boy, mopping and sweeping, serving the odd beer. The travelers rarely spoke to him, but he liked to listen to them anyway, to hear their tales of the wide world. Wandering wise men, merchants from foreign lands, knights, jesters, millers, monks, farmers. Gentle people and common, they all came through Dulcina’s tavern. In the past, many of them would have made the journey right into Camelot for a place to rest, but these days the city quiet enough that many didn’t bother.

Tonight Eric was almost late, hurrying through the kitchen door just as Dulcina came downstairs. He looked at her with apprehension. For Eric, there was nothing in the world so fearsome as Dulcina. His grandfather’s ire never really shook him, for even at his gruffest Letholdus seemed slightly amused, as if enjoying some private joke. When it came to Dulcina though, there was no knowing what mood you would find her, and her temper could be black. Eric remembered working here as a boy and going through his first growth spurt. He had been all limbs for months, gangly and unsure of himself, constantly bumping into things. Work had been a daily nightmare back then, as he tried desperately to avoid Dulcina’s anger. There was one shift in which he’d spilled two tankards of beer and smashed a plate. The guests thought it was hilarious, offering to buy, “more beer for the drunken scullery boy!” They had tried to trip him up then, stretching their legs out as he passed. Dulcina saw what was happening and took him back to the kitchen, but she wasn’t sympathetic. She shrieked and cursed at him, called him a “lazy good for nothing fool”, and smacked his legs with her broom handle. He’d gone home with his eyes watering, and his ears red from humiliation.

Yet on another occasion, a smirking foreign knight had spoken loudly of the Great battle to anyone who’d listen. He had sat astride a bench, beer slopping from his tankard and talked of the slaughter of the common folk, the reams of orphaned urchins roaming the streets of Camelot ever since. Dulcina looked at Eric’s face and never said a word, but at the end of the shift she had handed him a pork pie, the biggest in the store, and chivvied him out. That was the thing about Dulcina−you never quite knew which version you would find. She had a husband, Bert, but he never seemed to be around much, hiding himself upstairs with the bookkeeping. So Dulcina ran things alone for the most part. She did this so competently, and with such memorable bouts of humour and temper, that the inn was known simply as “Dulcina’s place” from here to the Dover coast.

Luckily, Dulcina seemed in a fairly placid mood tonight. He could tell almost before he looked at her. Whatever Dulcina’s mood, whether foul or cheerful, it tended to permeate the whole atmosphere.

“Evening dear.” She said, coming towards him. She handed him his apron. “Broom’s in the shed. Off you go.”

Eric stepped back out for a moment, fetching the broom, the bucket and the scrubbing brush from the outhouse. The air had finally begun to cool, and the stars were bright above him. An owl was hooting faintly in the nearby wood. It was such a beautiful night, and he was reluctant to go back into the sweltering tavern, with the smell of stale beer, sweat and food, and the noise of the customers loud in his tired ears. It’s for my own forge, Eric told himself. I went blithering on about knights and swords all day, but I know how the future really goes. I need the money to buy my own forge, to pay rent on our house, to look after Hadrian and grandfather, to find a wife maybe. I need the money. He took a last lingering glance at the night sky and ducked back into the tavern.

Inside, the tables were filling up with the early evening crowd. Eric saw several regulars, merchants and craftsmen from Camelot mostly, and some travellers who often took this road. A group of old men were sat in a corner, singing heartily in the glow of the candlelight. It was an old tune, one that everyone knew well, a melancholy ode about the Great battle;

In Camelot’s white-towered keep,

Of death and sorrow must we speak.

The wolf was at the castle door,

For four score nights and many more,

The good king and his brave knights tried,

To save us from the witch outside,

And God be good, the town was saved

By knights and commoners, true and brave,

And Camelot found peace once more,

The deathly wolf has left our door.

 

But never did we think the King,

Should tremble from the wolf within,

The battle won, but at such cost

The King his precious treasure lost

The King his only treasure lost…

 

Eric stopped listening to the familiar words, sweeping the floorboards in a thoughtless, rhythmic motion, his mind elsewhere. He kept thinking back to his talk with Ellyn and wondering why she had reacted like that. They’d both loved stories of the old Camelot when they were younger, and played at knightly deeds for hours. They had talked of traveling too, of roaming in the northern mountains, or tracking the Great forests of the English south. Of boarding a ship and discovering new lands, slaying dragons and fearsome sea monsters. He didn’t understand why she had begun to behave so differently lately, why she’d looked so upset when he talked of leaving.

 

The tavern door swung open, and a gust of night air caused the candles to momentarily flicker and dim. Eric looked up. A group of strangers entered, young and well dressed though their doublets and colourful cloaks were not in the English style. The one at the front stepped into the light. A thin young man, with ice blonde hair and a pale, pointed face. As his companions settled around a table in the corner, the pale man glanced quickly about, surveying the inn with cold blue eyes.

 

Chapter 4

“Eric!” called Dulcina from behind the bar, “go fetch another barrel of the Cornish ale! Go on boy, look sharp!”

Eric had been watching the strangers as they settled around the corner table. Dulcina’s voice snapped him out of his reverie and resting his broom in the corner, he hurried to the outhouse. The barrels were heavy, and he was panting slightly by the time he had hauled one onto his shoulder and carried it inside. The bar was filling up with the usual crowd. Dulcina was moving quickly, pouring tankard after tankard of the foaming ale. Eric noticed that one of the strangers was waiting in the queue, and he didn’t look too happy about it. He was huge, towering a full head above the men around him, with vast shoulders and thick arms. A sturdy axe was hanging from his belt, and as the man scowled over the heads at Dulcina, he ran a thick finger along the top of the blade. His small eyes were narrowed in the folds of a round, ruddy face.

“Eric Berinon are you deaf? Get back to your chores!”

Jumping slightly, Eric turned sharply and went back into the room, retrieving the broom, bucket and brush from the corner beside the fireplace.

“You stupid or what? My turn!” said a loud, heavily accented voice behind him.

The big man had clearly grown tired of queuing and pushed his way through to Dulcina.

As Eric turned to look, he saw Dulcina’s steely gaze as she regarded the man, who was towering over her.

“It was his turn,” she said calmly, gesturing to the man who had been first in the queue.

Eric saw that it was Quentin, the Camelot tailor. He was a small whiskery fellow, and he was rubbing his narrow shoulder where he’d clearly just been roughly elbowed out of the way. He was eyeing the stranger nervously.

“No need Dulcina, no need to worry. This ah… this gentleman can go before me, I’m sure I don’t mind…”

Eric grinned a little, pretending to sweep but surreptitiously watching everything. These were the moments when he loved working for Dulcina. Her flares of anger might be unpredictable, but you could guarantee she would lose her temper when a bully came to town. Eric had seen her break up bar fights with men every bit as burly as the stranger and send them back out into the night like disobedient children.

Yet now the man was showing Dulcina something, and her face fell. “You serve me beer! I very important!” shouted the man, spitting a little. “I with the emissary of Moravia! Give beer!”

Eric saw that he was showing Dulcina some kind of crest on a piece of cloth. She looked from the cloth to the man’s ruddy face, then shrugged and began to pour his drinks, assuming an expression of silent disdain.

Eric looked across to the corner table. They were emissaries? It certainly explained their foreign clothes, the unfamiliar weaponry slung on their hips and across their backs. Dulcina had no choice but to give them preferential treatment then−these were important men. Even Eric knew of Moravia, the mountainous northern land on the far side of Gallia, across the narrow sea. Moravia was ruled by King Odis and his seven sons, and they’d been peaceful allies of Britannia for a generation. No doubt the party were on their way to see the king this very night.

Yet the man at the bar was not who Eric would have chosen for such a mission−he could hardly be accused of diplomatic tact. He had drawn all eyes to him with his shouting, and the whole room was now watching curiously as he gulped down a huge mouthful of ale. The man belched and wiped the foam from his gingery blond beard, just as another from his party got up.

“Lars!” said the second man. “Come and sit down, leave these people to their revels.”

He was handsome, with golden hair combed neatly back from his face. His accent was unfamiliar but lilting and pleasant. He seemed to choose his words with care. Looking around, he flashed a grin.

“Good people of Camelot, I apologize for my friend. I am Ivan of Moravia, come to treat with your king and enjoy your Midsummer festival. Blessings upon your Great Britannia.”

He sat, and Lars lumbered back to their table, passing around the tankards of beer. Eric got the impression that the others were embarrassed by their large companion. Unlike him, they were a noble looking group, young men with neatly trimmed hair and beards, their armour shining in the low light. The one who had called himself Ivan looked to be their leader. No sooner had he taken his seat again than he launched into a story, and the group were soon laughing loudly as if to erase the impression that Lars had made at the bar. But Eric noticed that one of their number didn’t seem entirely at ease. The palest man among them sat silently as the others talked and joked, his pointed face in shadow. Eric couldn’t be sure, but he thought that the pale man kept looking back at Lars, regarding him quietly with narrow blue eyes.

Gradually normality returned to the tavern, and the small room was soon filled with the hum of conversation. Eric went back and forth carrying barrels for Dulcina, and when that was done, he returned to his sweeping. Strictly speaking, the floorboards were as dust free as they were likely to get, and he should move on to the scrubbing. The trouble was, that would mean heading back outside to fill the bucket, and he couldn’t quite resist the temptation to loiter instead. Months of the same faces, the same routine… and then suddenly there was the northern knight and these foreign guests in one week! Eric wondered if the times were changing if Camelot might be waking from its deep slumber. Perhaps these foreign emissaries would sign a new treaty with the king, and they would celebrate with a tournament. Hadrian would have to teach him weapon craft after all, and he would see the knights every day as they came to the forge with armour and swords for mending. Perhaps he might even find a companion his own age to practice swordplay with−the page of a foreign knight perhaps, someone low-ranking enough to cross blades with him. All kinds of possibilities began to fill Eric’s mind, and almost unconsciously, he found himself sweeping closer and closer to the corner table.

“−drawing attention to yourself, which is the last thing we need,” Ivan was saying in a low voice.

Eric glanced up carefully, never breaking the rhythm of his sweeping. The mood seemed to have changed among the Moravian diplomats. Ivan was now surveying Lars across the table, his handsome features arranged into a very different expression than he had worn when he addressed the other guests. Eric had been right then. They were angry with the oafish Lars, and who could blame them.

“Yes Ivan, I gonna do better…” Lars began.

“Call him ‘my lord’ you fool,” said a cold voice from the very corner.

It was the young man with the icy blonde hair. He leant in, and the light from the candle reflected in his pale blue eyes.

“Lars, you troll. You will address my Lord Ivan by his proper title. You will not forget it again. And if you disrupt this mission in any way, you’ll be nailed to a gate post and left in this miserable country to rot. Won’t he?”

He looked to Ivan, who nodded curtly.

“So. My Lord Ivan is the Chief Emissary of the Kingdom of Moravia. We are his trusted assistants and companions. You, Lars, are his guard. Jona and Vlad are noble dukes of our country and I am humble Geert, the Lord Ivan’s secretary. Understood?”

Lars nodded meekly.

Eric, listening, wondered how the young man could inspire such obedience from his huge and violent companion. The pale blonde one was only a secretary, so why did his quiet voice hold so much authority? Ivan was speaking again, and Eric raked his broom through the dust pile, scattered the dirt so that he could begin again in the same spot.

“We begin tomorrow evening,” said Ivan, “we announce ourselves at the castle keep and gain an audience with the English King. I, as Chief Emissary, will be granted all the honours fitting to my station. I will announce King Odis’s desire that our two Great nations be better acquainted, that we renew old vows and make good the treaty between us.”

“That’s all very well,” said one of the strangers, “but how will we stay? What excuse can we find to remain in Camelot?”

“That will be simple enough Jona. In times past this city was well accustomed to entertaining. Back then the court was full of emissaries. They would stay for months to relay messages between our own king and this one. After all, that’s how they got their French Queen over here…”

“Guinevere?” said Lars hopefully.

Ivan sighed. “Yes Lars, Guinevere. She was from French Gallia originally, but she’d Moravian blood on her mother’s side. ‘Twas our emissary that sealed the deal between them, and had Arthur and Guinevere meet. Of course, once that was a Great diplomatic advantage to us, but now… Naturally, after her death our relations with Britannia have cooled. Now is the opportune time to renew our filial affections.”

Jona and Vlad sniggered. Lars looked at them blankly for a second, then let out a large hooting guffaw and began to choke on his ale.

“By all that’s holy…” muttered Ivan, clapping Lars on the back. His eyes fell on Eric. “You boy.”

Eric jumped slightly, kicking over the empty bucket in his haste to turn around.

“Yes, sir! I mean, my lord?”

Ivan regarding him coolly then broke into another grin.

“You’re rather a thorough cleaner. You might want to put some water in that though,” he said, waving a careless hand at the upturned bucket. “Go and see what’s taking so long with our food won’t you?”

Eric muttered a hurried “Yes sir,” and backed away, grabbing the bucket as he went. He was such an idiot! The first noblemen in the city for months and they’d caught him loitering about by their table like a simpleton. Even worse, what if Lord Ivan suspected he’d been eavesdropping? Or the pale one, Geert. There was something Eric really didn’t like about the steady gaze of that pale young man.

Vowing to eavesdrop no more, Eric came hurrying back to the table five minutes later, with a saucer of rabbit stew and five bowls on a tray. As he neared the corner, his way was blocked by Quentin and his friends as they got up from the neighbouring table. Through the scraping of chairs and calls of farewell, Eric heard Ivan’s urgent voice addressing his friends;

“− and that’s when I’ll kill him. That’s when I’ll kill King Arthur of Britannia.”

 

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