Excalibur (2 page)

‘Oh no, not you and me, but all the other humans and dragons would start fighting each other again,' said Brat. ‘You and me could have like a little treaty just for us that no one else knows about.'

‘Can I have one?' said Scraper.

‘What?'

‘A little treatie, chocolate one.'

‘SHUT UP.'

‘So where are your headquarters and your rebel army and all your weapons?' said Bloat. ‘I mean, when's it all going to happen?'

‘This is the headquarters. Here,' said Brat.

‘And the army?'

‘We're still recruiting.'

‘Weapons?'

‘Look at all these rocks,' said Brat. ‘They're my secret weapon.'

‘Secret?'

‘Yes, because the enemy won't realise they're weapons,' said Brat. ‘They'll think they're just rocks.'

‘They are just rocks,' said Bloat.

‘I know. Brilliant, isn't it?' said Brat. ‘And I've got a pointy stick.'

In the end Brat was forced to admit that his pointy stick, which wasn't actually pointy because he didn't have anything to sharpen it with, was not so much a weapon as a walking stick he had used to help himself climb up to the cave. He explained that the revolution hadn't actually started and that the only act of rebellion he had done was running away, which had probably made the Cook very cross, but not bothered anyone else at all.

‘Though if the Cook is angry, it means she'll probably spit in the Royal Soup like she has every other time something has made her cross, which is at least once a day,' said Brat.

‘Well, it's a start,' said Bloat encouragingly.

‘Yeah. I mean, it's early days,' said Brat. ‘We only ran away this morning.'

‘Well, there you go,' said Bloat. ‘A few hours and you've already got a stick.'

‘And a brain-dead idiot with a bucket.'

‘Well, things can only improve from now on. Can't they?' said Bloat, cheerfully.

And he was cheerful. It was a strange feeling that he hadn't been expecting. Like Brat, he had dreamt of rebellion and had run away. He hadn't really thought much beyond that. He certainly hadn't the faintest idea how he could change things back to how they used to be. In fact, all he had really thought was going to happen was that he would go up to the cave and hide there for a bit until he got hungry and his parents started to worry and then he'd go home again and pretend to his little brothers and sisters that he been away on a big secret mission. But now he had an ally who was a real rebel, so he could go on real secret missions.

‘Don't suppose you brought any spare food with you, did you?' he asked Brat.

‘No, sorry. I've just got a bag of gristle and a bag of oats for Scraper,' said Brat.

‘Oh. It's just that I'm getting a bit hungry,' said Bloat and hurriedly added when he saw the two boys start to look anxious, ‘Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you. We're allies, remember?'

‘Yeah,' said Brat nervously.

‘My mum says all lies are bad,' said Scraper. ‘She says you have to tell the troof.'

‘SHUT UP.'

‘Well, you can have some of my gristle and then I reckon we should go down to the main road and do some highwayman stuff and get some money and food off people,' said Brat. ‘And you can breathe fire at them if they won't hand it over.'

Bloat was excited and scared at the same time. His parents had told him that he wasn't allowed to breathe fire at people, not since the treaty with the humans, so the most exciting things he had set fire to had been a clump of grass, a cockroach and his left foot. Not exactly thrilling, though it had brought tears to his eyes. It was obvious that fire-breathing took practice, unless you wanted to keep burning your feet.

So the two incompetent rebels and their even more incompetent assistant went down to the bottom of the valley. Keeping themselves as well hidden as possible, they walked round the edge of Camelot's vast lake until they reached the road and hid behind a big oak tree. Several carriages went by before they summoned up enough courage to leap out and hold one up.

‘STOP!' shouted Brat, waving his stick. ‘Your money or your life.'

‘My life, my life?' said the coachman from his seat high up on the front of the carriage. ‘Whatcha going to do? Poke me with your stick?'

‘Yeah,' shouted Brat, ‘the pointy end.'

‘It hasn't got a pointy end,' said the coachman. ‘And besides, I've got a gun.'

‘Umm, oh,' said Brat, almost but not quite wetting himself. ‘Well, er, well, I've got a dragon.'

At which Bloat leapt out from behind the tree, blowing flames. The bag of hay tied to the horse's bridle caught fire.

‘Ooh, I'm really scared now,' said the coachman. ‘Burning grass.'

‘Well, I've got another weapon,' said Brat.

‘Oh yeah, what's that then, a catapult?'

‘No, a big strong moron,' said Brat as Scraper came out from behind the tree.

As Scraper lumbered towards them, he tripped over a discarded turnip and went crashing into the coach, totally demolishing one of the back wheels. The coach teetered and then the whole thing went crashing over on its side. The coachman's gun was thrown out of his hand and, by a wonderful piece of luck, was thrown into Brat's hand.

‘OK,' said Brat. ‘Like I said, your money or your life.'

There were three passengers inside the coach and luckily none of them had guns, but they did have quite a lot of money and jewellery and a very big sack of delicious pig's trotters and cabbages. They threw everything out and Scraper collected it all up while Bloat marched up and down blowing flames.

‘Why would you want my wife?' said one of the passengers, who was rather deaf.

‘What?' said Brat.

‘You said your money or your wife,' said the passenger.

‘No. I said your…' Brat began, but the passenger's wife ran across and put her hand over his mouth.

‘Don't say a word,' she whispered. ‘I've been waiting for an opportunity like this for years.'

‘Oh, oh,' she shouted, raising her hands in the air. ‘Help, help, I am being abducted. What do you mean, you'll kill me if I don't help you tie everyone up?'

Brat stood open-mouthed as the woman took the rope that had been holding the luggage on top of the coach and tied up the coachman and other passengers. When she'd blindfolded them, she took Brat aside.

‘I am the Lady Monaco d'Asparagus,' she said. ‘If you ever need somewhere to hide, come to me at the Castle Asparagus.'

‘Oh, oh, woe is me,' she shouted. ‘How could you be so cruel to a lady as to take me away into this deep dark forest?' And she slipped away into the trees.

Just as the highwaymen were about to follow her into the forest, a troop of soldiers came round the bend. Hearing the approaching horses, the coachman began shouting and the soldiers galloped towards the robbers at top speed.

‘Quick,' shouted Brat, scrambling on to the
young dragon's back. ‘Quick, Bloat, fly us out of here.'

A small dragon carrying a boy, a big idiot and a sack full of food and money does not soar into the sky like an eagle. Bloat lumbered down the road, flapping his wings like mad, but just could not get off the ground.

‘Come on, flap harder,' Brat cried, but it was no good.

Brat grabbed the sack and gave Scraper a kick so he fell off onto the road. That, and the sound of bullets whistling around their heads, was the extra impetus Bloat needed. He soared up into the air and away over the trees.

‘What about Scraper?' he said when they reached the cave.

‘Plenty more where he came from,' said Brat. ‘And look, we've got a gun, some gold and jewels and a lovely bag of food. Pretty good for a first attempt, I reckon.'

‘Maybe, and this is only a thought,' said Bloat, ‘maybe we should kind of forget about the rebellion and just be highwaymen.'

‘We could, couldn't we?' said Brat. ‘I mean,
robbing from the citizens of Avalon is rebellion anyway, isn't it?'

‘Yeah.'

‘And that crazy lady who ran away has given me an idea,' said Brat. ‘I think next time we should actually kidnap someone and hold them for ransom. That will really annoy everyone.'

‘Yeah, and we could roast them and send them back in a food hamper,' said Bloat.

‘No, no. We collect lots of money for not roasting them. That's the point. We threaten to roast them, but we don't actually do it.'

‘Not even a little bit?' said Bloat.

‘No,' said Brat. ‘Unless, of course, they won't pay us.'

 

Meanwhile, apart from the Cook, no one had noticed that Brat had done a runner and if they had, no one would so much have missed him as they were happy to see the back of him. The Cook, of course, was furious, but with the incredible amount of extra work preparing for the coronation, she had no time to try to find the boy.

No one at all noticed that Scraper had gone. He had cleaned the fingernails of the Sewer Cleaners while they were asleep and they had been completely unaware he was doing it. Even when their fingers became infected and began falling off, they still didn't realise someone had been giving them a manicure every night. They just put it down to vicious bacteria.

‘Must be all the curries everyone's eating,' the Sewer Cleaners said as they literally worked their fingers to the bone.

Upstairs in the daylight, a wonderful atmosphere of holiday happiness filled the castle. It was like Christmas Day, only all the time and not in a cold place, but somewhere warm like Australia where Christmas is very weird because it's the middle of summer. Five
hundred peasants from the surrounding villages had made lovely decorations that were strung all over the castle from the highest towers. No expense had been spared and most of the children were now bald because their hair had been woven into a huge banner welcoming everyone, except all the peasants and their bald children, to the coronation and great party.

The peasants were not, however, being totally left out. On the top of each castle tower, a signaller stood with two flags and as events unfolded inside the castle the signallers spelt it out in semaphore.
⁴
Semaphore is very slow at the best of times, even more so when the peasants watching the flags can't read or spell. Most villages had a team of twenty-six peasants, each one knowing one letter of the alphabet. This meant that while time moved at its normal speed inside the castle, for those outside it was like a very, very, slow motion action replay. Here is an example:

10am – Friday
– King Arthur and his procession come out into the central courtyard of the castle.

10.05am – Friday
– The signallers on the towers report this with their flags.

4pm – Friday
– The peasants reading the flag messages know there is a King and his name is Art…

5pm – Friday
– hur.

Then it got dark, so no one could see the flags until someone had the bright idea of setting them alight.

7pm – Friday
– The peasants now know that as well as there being a King called Arthur, the signallers are being treated in the sick bay for burns.

The week before the coronation, Camelot had been testing carrier pigeons to tell everyone what was going on and it had been a popular idea with the peasants, who marvelled at the King's kindness in sending them dinners that not only had a little paper napkin tied to their legs, but actually flew into the peasants' houses and waited to be killed. Then they had tried carrier snails, which were a bit slow but also tasted delicious when they arrived six months after the coronation.

‘It be wonderful to feel such a part of everything,' said many peasants. ‘To know that our wonderful King do want all us humble folks to be part of his corosomething.'

It didn't bother them that by the time they found out their beloved King had actually been crowned, all the leaves had fallen off the trees and there was snow on the ground. They felt the King cared and that was what mattered. Standing outside the castle looking up at the deserted towers for three months and losing several fingers and toes to frostbite was a small price to pay for being a part of the new countrywide harmony that was sweeping Avalon.

Just let any of them foreigners try and invade now
, the peasants thought,
and they'll have us to deal with
.

The preparations for the great coronation went without a hitch. King Arthur's new best friends, the dragons, were dressed in finest silk and gold braid by the castle's costumiers. Strutting up and down in front of a big mirror looking magnificent quickly made Spikeweed and Primrose, King and Queen of the Dragons, forget any doubts they might have had about signing a peace treaty with humans.

‘This is the finest costume I have ever owned,' said Spikeweed. ‘Something truly worthy of my Kingness.'

‘I think,' said Primrose, ‘it's the only costume you've ever owned unless you count the dead grass that used to get stuck in your ears.'

‘That wasn't a costume,' said Spikeweed. ‘It was an infestation. You know I always had a mouse problem.'

‘Anyway, you do look mighty handsome,' said Primrose.

‘It's a pity our eldest isn't here,' said Spikeweed.

‘Yes. I hope he's not getting into any mischief, ' said Primrose. ‘You know what a headstrong boy he is.'

‘Yes, but I doubt he's off starting a revolution or anything ridiculous like that,' said Spikeweed.

For two days the two dragons flew back and forth carrying visiting dignitaries into the castle for the celebrations. As there were only two dragons, only the most important visitors were flown in.
⁵
The not-quite-so-important visitors were taken across the lake by boat while everyone else had to ride over the line of bridges and islands.

Meanwhile, upstairs King Arthur himself was going through the long process of getting ready to be crowned. He would have been quite happy to wear his everyday tights and shirts, but fancy tunic after fancy tunic and tights in every shade of mauve and purple were laid out before him, all clothes that Brat, the Pretender, had adored, but which the true King, who had grown up as a simple peasant who had heard of shoes but wasn't sure they really existed, found garish and decadent.

‘Do I have to?' said Arthur. ‘They're all really flash and horrible.'

‘But you are the King, sire,' said Sir Lancelot, who had been chosen to advise the young monarch on account of his extreme handsomeness and excellent taste in clothes. ‘It is expected of you.'

‘But, they are awful and anyway,' said Arthur, ‘wouldn't it be better if I didn't look exactly the same as the Pretender?'

‘True,' said Lancelot. ‘And to be perfectly honest, all this stuff is seriously tacky.'

‘Yes, it is, good sir knight. So what do you suggest?'

‘Well…' Lancelot began.

‘Could I not wear something like you've got?' Arthur suggested. ‘You know, a nice floppy white shirt and some tasteful skin-tight black leather trousers.'

‘Indeed, sire,' said Lancelot. ‘I always say nothing says good taste on a man better than a pair of shiny leather pants finely craft ed from the delicately tanned hide of the archaeopteryx and hand sewn by Giuseppe Armandlegmani Pantalon of Medina. If my liege would permit, I will measure your inside leg this very moment and send instructions by carrier pigeon to Medina this very afternoon.'

‘And the shirts?' said King Arthur.

‘I have heard from my lady Morgan le Fey that her lady-in-waiting sews the finest thread she has ever seen,' said Lancelot.

‘The Lady Petaluna?' said King Arthur as casually as he could.

‘Indeed, sire, a sweet young thing, only surpassed
in beauty by her mistress,' said Lancelot as casually as he could.

The thought of Lady Petaluna making him a shirt sent the young King into several states at the same time. The first state was panic at the idea of someone as lovely as Petaluna pressing a tape-measure up against him. The second state was excitement at the idea of someone as lovely as Petaluna pressing a tape-measure up against him. The third state was embarrassment at the idea of someone as lovely as Petaluna pressing a tape-measure up against him.

When he had been the humble kitchen boy, Romeo Crick, and had first set eyes on Morgan le Fey's beautiful lady-in-waiting, Arthur had become very depressed. How could a mere oven-scraper ever hope to win the heart or even little finger of such a high-born lady? Now, though, he was the high-born one, quite a lot higher than the Lady Petaluna in fact. Now, there would be an endless line of desperate mothers introducing their daughters to him in the hope he would marry them and make them Queen. But the King knew in his heart that Lady Petaluna was his one true love.

When word was sent for Lady Petaluna to come and make the King a beautiful shirt for his coronation, the thought of it sent the young girl into several states at the same time. The first state was panic at the thought of pressing a tape-measure up against someone as handsome and perfect and wonderful and unattainable as King Arthur. The second state was excitement at the thought of not so much as pressing a tape-measure up against someone as handsome and perfect and wonderful an unattainable as King Arthur, but of even being in the same room with him when he might not be wearing a shirt.

When she had first set eyes on the King he had been the humble kitchen boy, Romeo Crick, and she had become very depressed. How would she ever be allowed to have a relationship with a mere oven-scraper, when she was such a high-born lady? Now, of course, he was far higher born that she was, so how could she ever hope to compete with the inevitable endless line of desperate mothers introducing their daughters to him in the hope he would marry them and make them Queen? She may have been a lady, but she was only a class-C lady with no wealth, not a true
eldest-daughter-Princess-type class-A lady whose very undies would be made with thread of pure gold. Aft er all, her own mother had been only too happy to sell her to Morgan le Fey for a few coins and a set of tea towels depicting pictures of the Lizards, Frogs and Other Amphibians of Camelot.

To add to both of their problems, both King Arthur and Lady Petaluna were extremely, incredibly, painfully shy.

The shirt did not turn out well. It was not because Lady Petaluna couldn't sew very well. She was the finest seamstress in the whole of Avalon. The problem was that because she was so shy she had kept her eyes shut all the time she had been measuring the King. Luckily, Morgan le Fey had given Lady Petaluna a maid of her own the week before, a young girl called Dave.
⁶
Dave had read the measurements off the tape measure and written them down. Unfortunately Dave was too shy to admit she couldn't read and had just made up the numbers. She couldn't count either, so the numbers were even more inaccurate. Nor
could she write so the piece of paper with the King's measurement on was not so much a list of detailed figures as a lot of scribbles.
⁷

Lady Petaluna was too embarrassed to admit she had kept her eyes shut and too embarrassed to admit that she couldn't read either, so she had made the shirt by guesswork, but love is blind so King Arthur thought the shirt was wonderful.

‘Isn't it wonderful,' he said to Lancelot. ‘And it fits me like a glove.'

‘Indeed, your majesty, but for whose hand?'

Because Arthur was King no one else dared say it was dreadful. In fact, within two hours there were people wearing exact copies.

‘I think it is brilliant,' said a Yuppie To The Court of King Arthur. ‘I cannot imagine why no one has ever thought of making one sleeve twice as long as the other before.'

‘Yes, and three sleeves, too,' said another. ‘So clever for those embarrassing times when you lose a
sleeve or dip your cuff in your soup.'

‘Which, with one sleeve so long, happens frequently,' said a third.

But poor Lady Petaluna knew the shirt was a disaster and lay on her bed in tears. Any slight hopes she might have had of the King falling in love with her were gone forever.

If only there was a wise book called the
Blue Sages
or maybe the
Yellow Sages
that listed different types of places throughout the land that one might wish to go,
she thought,
I would find me a remote monastery and hie me there to spend the rest of my life as a nun wearing naught but sackcloth and eating ashes and gruel for every meal, even Christmas dinner.