The Table of Less Valued Knights (13 page)

In the middle of the pond there was a ripple, which grew into a small wave flowing outward in all directions, as first a sword, then a hand holding the sword, and then an entire woman, with arm outstretched, emerged from the water. The woman was wearing a blue gown and had long black hair flowing loosely down her back. She was completely dry and looked normal in every way apart from the fact that she was
standing on the surface of the pond and holding a massive sword.

‘I am the Lady of the Lake,’ she said.

‘What? It’s not a lake. It’s a millpond.’

‘It’s a Lake.’

‘The mill is right there!’

The Lady of the Lake or Pond declined to look at the mill.

‘You are Martha Penrose?’ she said. ‘Queen of the tiny realm of Puddock?’

‘Look, it’s not my fault it’s a pond. There’s no need to insult the realm.’

‘I have a message for you, Martha.’

‘I’m not Martha,’ said Martha.

‘You’re not?’

‘No.’

‘You said “yes” a minute ago.’

‘Well, I’m not.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ The Lady lowered the sword and scratched her foot with it. ‘It’s true, you don’t look much like a Martha. I probably should have noticed that.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Well, this is embarrassing. I’m so sorry. I must have made a mistake with my paperwork. I haven’t quite got the hang of it all yet. I’m not really the Lady of the Lake, you see. I’m just the locum. Nimue, the usual Lady of the Lake, has run off with Merlin and they needed somebody to cover. Usually I’m the Woman by the Well, and I started off as the Child at the Crossroads. Anyway, I had it in my schedule that I should appear now …’ The Locum of the Lake or Pond peered up at the sun. ‘Yes, and that Martha would be here, with a grey horse – the horse is here, at any rate – running away from her destiny, and that I should give her this sword and tell her that her brother is still alive.’

‘My brother is still alive?’

‘No. Not your brother. Martha’s brother.’

‘How can my – can Martha’s brother still be alive? He was killed by Picts years ago.’

‘I’m sorry, but if you’re not Martha I can’t tell you that.’

The Locum of whatever it was began to descend back into the water.

‘What’s the sword for?’ said Martha quickly.

It was a beautiful sword, made of obsidian, black and gleaming, with two huge emeralds in the hilt. Martha felt something inside her ache to hold it.

‘This? It’s a magic sword. Its entire purpose is to protect Martha and help her get her brother back. That’s why I was supposed to give it to her. Oh well. I’ve totally cocked that up, now. I may as well just chuck it back in the Lake.’

The Locum of the Lake/Pond swung her arm back as if to throw.

‘Don’t do that!’ cried Martha.

‘You’re right. It’s dangerous, throwing swords in lakes. You never know what might be under the surface. Or who. You’d think I’d know that, being of the Lake. I’ll carry it down with me.’

The Locum of the Lake/Pond resumed her disappearance into the water.

‘Wait!’ said Martha. ‘What if you gave it to me and I gave it to her?’

The Locum of the Lake/Pond paused, about knee-deep. She peered at Martha with suspicion.

‘You know Martha?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘The same Martha?’

‘Queen. Running away from the castle. Dead brother. I mean, not dead brother. Yes. She’s my best friend.’

‘How do I know you’re not just saying that to trick me into giving you the sword?’

‘Well … Ask me anything about her.’

The Locum of the Lake/Pond thought for a bit. ‘What’s her favourite colour?’ she said.

‘Brown,’ said Martha.

‘Wrong.’

‘But it is brown.’

‘Nobody’s favourite colour is brown.’

‘Yes it is!’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘So what’s her favourite colour, then?’

‘How am I supposed to know?’

‘But you just asked me!’

‘Exactly. I wouldn’t need to ask you if I knew the answer.’

Martha fought the urge to march over the surface of the water and throttle the Locum of the Lake/Pond.

‘Can’t you just trust me?’ she said instead.

‘Why should I?’

Martha tried to think of a reason and couldn’t come up with anything.

‘Forget it,’ said the Locum. ‘I’ll sort out the paperwork and we’ll get it to her another way. I just hope nobody kills her in the meantime, while she’s unarmed. I’m still in my probationary period.’

‘What if I told you …’ said Martha. She looked around to make sure that nobody else was within earshot. ‘That I am Martha.’

‘You just said you weren’t Martha. You don’t look at all like a Martha.’

‘I’m in disguise.’

‘You’re a boy.’

‘I’m in disguise as a boy.’

‘You’ve got a beard. Sort of.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m sure they’d have mentioned it, if Martha had a beard.’

‘It’s a magic beard.’

‘Make it do something, then.’

‘No. I mean the fact that I have it is magic.’

‘So it doesn’t do anything.’

‘It grows out of my face. Isn’t that enough?’

‘Well, it’s not much of an act. I wouldn’t pay to see it.’

‘I’m a girl with a beard. A
queen
with a beard.’

‘Says you.’

‘What can I do to prove it to you?’

‘A minute ago you were trying to prove that Martha was a friend of yours, and you didn’t do a very good job of that either.’

‘That’s because Martha isn’t a friend of mine.’

‘Aha!’

‘I
am
Martha.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m here when you said I would be, aren’t I? I’ve got the right horse with me. I’m the right height, the right build, I know Martha’s favourite colour –’

‘I still don’t believe that it’s brown.’

‘It’s because it goes with her hair! My hair!’

‘Still weird.’

‘I have the voice of a woman.’

‘That’s true,’ conceded the Locum of the Lake/Pond. ‘But it might be that your voice hasn’t broken yet.’

‘Of course it would be broken – I’ve got a beard.’

‘You just said it was a magic beard.’

Martha clenched her fists and tried not to scream.

‘If I looked like a girl you wouldn’t make me go through all this,’ she said, with as much calmness as she could muster. ‘What kind of proof were you going to ask for?’

‘Well, none.’

‘You were just going to give the sword to any old girl who walked past with a grey horse –’

‘At precisely the right time.’

‘At precisely the right time! And here I am!’

‘Looking like a boy.’

‘In disguise!’

The Locum of the Lake/Pond hesitated. ‘Do you have some form of identification?’

Some form of identification. Martha could only think of one. She grabbed hold of the waistband of her britches and yanked them down, sock and all.

‘Good enough for you?’ she said.

The Locum of the Lake/Pond averted her eyes. Martha pulled her britches back up.

‘I concede that you are female,’ the Locum said primly. ‘I will allow that you may therefore be Martha in disguise. Thus, I will give you this sword and a message.’

‘What’s the message?’

‘Your brother is still alive.’

‘I know. You already said that. What else?’

‘Nothing. That’s the message.’

‘That’s it? Where is he?’

‘I can’t tell you that. All I can do is give you this sword, and –’

‘Why can’t you tell me?’

‘All I can do is give you this –’

‘Tell me where he is!’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s a thing.’

‘A thing?’

‘A Lake thing.’

‘It’s a pond!’

‘Secrecy is the cornerstone of the Sorcery industry. If you put your complaint in writing I will raise it at the next Lake board meeting, but until then, all I can do is give you this sword –’

‘Fine. Give me the godforsaken sword.’

Neither of the women moved.

‘You need to come and get it,’ said the Locum of the Lake/Pond.

‘In there? Not all of us can walk on water, you know.’

‘There’s a boat.’

The Locum indicated a small wooden boat tied to a rickety jetty.

‘I’m not getting in that. I’m the Queen of a tiny realm, remember?’

‘I don’t recall that there’s any prohibition on royalty and boats.’

‘Can’t you bring me the sword?’

‘If you want to rescue your brother you must come and receive this sword from me. It’s regulations.’

‘Is there someone else I can talk to?’

‘If you put your complaint in writing I’ll raise it with the –’

‘Forget it! I’ll get in the damn boat!’

Martha picked her way over to the jetty. She climbed gingerly into the boat, untied it, sat down and picked up the algae-stained oars. ‘This had better be worth it,’ she said.

‘It’s a very good magic sword,’ said the Locum of the Lake/Pond. Martha felt the pull of the sword again, though she was loath to admit it.

‘And if I wield this sword,’ she said, trying to figure out how to make the boat go in the direction of the Locum rather than round in a small circle, ‘I’ll rescue my brother?’

‘Not definitely. Pull harder with the right.’

‘Not definitely?’

‘Good acts one way. How Evil responds is up to Evil. I know it’s not ideal, but it took us years to negotiate that contract.’

‘I am on the side of good, though?’

‘I can’t confirm it. Evil often thinks it’s the good one and that Good is evil, and as for Sorcery, we’re inscrutable. If you stick your oar in and push with it, you’ll go in reverse.’

Martha concentrated on the boat for a while. Every time she lifted the oars out of the water, cold pond water dripped down from the blades and up her sleeves. Every so often the Locum of the Lake/Pond would make observations like ‘Have you never been in a boat before?’ and ‘Could you get a move on, please, I have a Chalice of Chastity to deliver before my shift is up’, which didn’t help with Martha’s mood at all.

‘These oars are giving me splinters,’ said Martha.

‘Put on some gloves?’

‘You’re not helping.’

‘I’m not here to help.’

‘You don’t say. Surely I’m close enough, now?’

‘Not even almost.’

‘What if I don’t want to rescue my brother?’

‘Martha,’ said the Locum of the Lake/Pond, her voice suddenly serious. ‘We have done a bit of research, you know. We don’t give these swords to just anybody.’

Martha focused all of her will on moving the boat in the right direction, as the rain clouds she had spotted earlier began to deliver their load. Finally she drew up alongside the Locum, dropped the oars and wiped her sweaty forehead on the back of her wrist. She signed and dated the form the Locum gave her, and then, at long last, she took possession of the sword. As soon as she touched it a thrill ran up her arm. She closed her hand around the hilt and felt the perfect rightness of the way it filled her palm. She gave it an experimental swoosh. It was a good swoosh, though it made the boat rock alarmingly.

‘I’ve got to give you this as well, or I won’t get my bonus,’
said the Locum, tossing a sword belt with a plain leather scabbard into the boat at Martha’s feet.

‘Thank you,’ said Martha.

‘You’re welcome,’ said the Locum, a little sulkily, as the murky water of the pond swallowed her.

Forgetting that she had planned to have lunch, Martha remounted Silver and guided him back towards the road. But she didn’t know which way to turn. Jasper was still alive. How was it possible? His bones had been on display in a glass case in the castle chapel for the last six years. They were decoratively arranged around a sentimental watercolour of the boy in his prime, which had been framed with the precious stones that gave Jasper his name. Then again, she supposed the bones could have been anybody’s. Jasper’s squire had arranged for the flesh to be boiled off them before sending them home, so none of them had ever seen the body. But if they weren’t Jasper’s bones, whose were they? There was no way of asking the squire, because he, too, had been killed, not long after Jasper’s death. Martha shook her head. Apparently there was no such thing as Jasper’s death. So where was he? What had happened to him? And why had he never come home?

Martha tried to feel joy and relief in the fact that her brother was still alive, and of course she did feel those things. But she also felt a deep, terrible sense of disturbance. Death was not the worst fate that could befall a person, far from it. Her father was better off dead than alive in the state he had been in. And she remembered a story she had heard as a child, which had given her nightmares, about Elaine of Corbenic, the mother of Galahad. Until Lancelot rescued her, she was trapped by a sorceress’s spell for years in a bath of boiling water, consumed in
endless, hopeless agony. What if Jasper was in a similar predicament? Did she really have the ability to rescue him, even with a magic sword? She drew the sword again for a moment, looked at its beautiful, gleaming blade. She had no idea what to do with a sword, she had never even held one before. She had to hope that the sword knew what it was doing.

As for where to look for Jasper, she had no idea. He had been in the far north when he died – when he disappeared – or so she had been told. In reality he could have been anywhere. And that was six years ago. Who was to say that he hadn’t moved since then? Curse that damned bitch in the pond! Why couldn’t she have told her where to find him? Martha should have commanded her, as Queen –

Martha stopped. She wasn’t Queen. If Jasper was alive, he was the King. She was just a princess, same as she had always been. When she found Jasper, he would take his rightful throne and she would … Go back to a life of putting rosettes on marrows? And of being married to Edwin? No. Martha would find him, she would rescue him, she would send him home, but she was not going back to that.

Which didn’t solve the problem of where her brother was. Martha had nothing, no clues, no way to even begin tracking him down.

Except what had the pond woman said? That the purpose of the sword was to help Martha find her brother. Not just save him. Find him.

Martha dismounted from Silver and removed the sword from its scabbard. She placed it on a flat piece of ground, put her hand on the hilt, and then spun it as fast as it would turn. The direction in which the sword pointed when it stopped? That was the way she would go.