Excalibur (9 page)

 

After they had smashed the toilet, helped Scraper out of the drain and pulled the bucket off his head, they reviewed their situation.

‘Right,' said Princess Floridian. ‘This is the situation.'

‘No, I think it's the bathroom,' said Scraper.

Brat and Bloat agreed with him.

I wish I'd listened to my teacher more
, the Princess thought,
when she said never work with children, animals and walking potatoes
.

‘Before we go any further,' the Princess continued, ‘I think there will be a new rule and anyone who breaks it will get a punch in the ear.'

‘A punch?' said Scraper. ‘Isn't that a fing for making holes in bukkits?'

‘No,' said Princess Floridian, holding up a rusty gadget for making holes in leather belts. ‘It's one of these and every time you break the rule you will get yet another place in your ear where you can put a big fat earring.'

‘But…' Scraper began, followed by a loud scream of pain.

‘You haven't said what the rule is,' said Brat, backing away behind Bloat.

‘So I haven't,' said the Princess. ‘Sorry, potato boy, you have a one-hole credit. The rule is that none of you can speak a single word unless I say you can.'

‘But…' Scraper began and then stopped very suddenly.

‘That's your credit used up,' said the Princess. ‘So if I ask any of you a question, then of course, you can speak, and if something is creeping up behind me and looks dangerous you may speak. Every other time, you must put your hand in the air and wait.'

Bloat put his wing in the air.

‘Yes?'

‘I haven't got any hands,' said the young dragon.

He put his wing in the air again.

‘Yes?'

‘It probably isn't dangerous, but there's a small black bird sitting on the windowsill looking at us,' said Bloat.

Princess Floridian spun round and tried to grab the bird, but the little vampire, who looked like a bird, was too quick for her.

‘Have you been sent here to spy on us?' she said.

‘No,' said Fissure. ‘Why, what are you doing?'

‘None of your … ow, ow, ow,' cried Brat as the Princess punched a hole in his ear.

‘Well, what are you doing here?' she said.

‘Just flying about,' said Fissure. ‘Us birds do that a lot, flying about. It's probably what we do best of all.'

‘Bird?' said the Princess. ‘I thought you were a vampire bat.'

‘Funny you should say that,' said the young bat. ‘I get that all the time.'

‘Would you like to spy for us?' said the Princess.

‘Might do,' said Fissure, thinking if he played his cards right, he could become a double-agent and get double rats. ‘What's in it for me?'

‘What would you like?' said Princess Floridian.

‘Ah, well,' said Fissure.

Because he was supposed to be a bird he was supposed to like all the gross stuff that birds ate like seeds and flowers and other planty things. He knew that birds did not suck the blood out of things.

If I ask for a rat
, he thought,
they might get suspicious
.

He knew some birds did eat rats, but they were usually quite dead rats that had bits fallen off from rotting and no blood left inside at all.

‘What have you got?' he said.

‘OK, guys, you may speak,' said the Princess. ‘Any suggestions?'

‘You could sit on my bukkit for a bit,' said Scraper.

‘Some cheese?' said Brat.

‘Have you got any cheese?'

‘No,' said Brat, ‘but I have got a sausage.'

‘Sausage?' said Fissure, who wasn't sure what a sausage was on account of them not being part of the standard vampire diet, which was mainly made up of blood with the addition of more blood. ‘What's that then?'

‘It's a brilliant new invention,' said Brat. ‘I stole it from the castle kitchen before I escaped. You take a tube out of a dead animal's stomach then you cut up bits of another dead animal or even several dead animals and mash them up with things like fat and blood and onions and bread and plants and then you stuff them inside the tube you got out of the dead stomach and then boil them.'

‘That is gross,' said Princess Floridian. ‘No one would eat that.'

‘They do,' said Brat. ‘They're really fashionable and they have a special thing to cook them on called a BarbYeCue.'

‘Did you say it had blood in it?' said Fissure.

‘Yes, loads of it,' said Brat. ‘It's a blood sausage.'

‘All right,' said Fissure. ‘I'll do it.'

‘Good boy,' said the Princess.

‘What is it I'm going to do?' said the young bat, who couldn't think of anything except the blood sausage.

‘Be our spy,' said the Princess.

‘Right,' said Fissure. ‘What am I going to spy on then?'

‘Everything.'

‘Right. So when do I get the sausage?'

‘Every time you tell us something useful, I will give you a slice.'

‘Right, I'll get started right away,' said Fissure.

‘Oh, and one thing before you go,' said Princess Floridian as casually as she could. ‘It's not important, but um, er, I don't suppose you've seen a sort of sword
thing sticking out of a bit of a rock out in the lake somewhere, have you?'

‘Do you want me to spy on it?'

‘Well, only if you happen to see it,' said the Princess. ‘It's not for me, you understand, but I've got a friend who absolutely loves swords and he'd be quite sort of excited, well, no, excited is too strong a word. I mean he…'

‘Your friend?'

‘Yes, my friend. He'd be quite interested to know where it is,' said the Princess.

‘Oh.'

‘So if you happen to see this sort of sword thing, you know, when you're flying around over the lake around all those lovely little islands, my friend would be rather sort of happy to know where it is. I think it belonged to a friend of his who might have dropped it or something like that.'

‘So it belongs to your friend's friend then?' said Fissure.

‘That's it,' said the Princess. ‘And he's a good friend of mine. I don't mean my friend's friend – I've never met him – I mean my friend. So it would be
really nice if we could find the sword for him.'

‘OK.'

‘I would think he – my friend, that is – would be so pleased if you did find it that he would want me to give you an extra slice of blood sausage, if you found his friend's sword, that is.'

‘OK,' said Fissure. ‘Say no more. I'm on the case.'

And with that he flew off over the lake and all the islands.

 

A lot of people think that vampire bats were once human beings that were turned into vampires one night while they were asleep and a vampire flew into their room and bit them in the neck. This is both true and completely wrong because there are vampires and vampire bats.
⁴³

Here are the dictionary definitions:

Avalon had both types of vampire, but the ones we are concerned with now are the vampire bats. There are no vampire graves inside Camelot itself. They are all in a small town by the seaside called Byton Bay where people go on holiday to lose weight by having a couple of pints of blood sucked out of them and get a nice tan.

Vampire bats, on the other hand, do not live in graves because they are not human corpses. They are small furry mammals that hang upside down from beams in the towers of big castles like Camelot. They are actually quite soft and cuddly. It's just that they
drink blood – and who hasn't done that now and then? Actually, even if they don't suck your blood, their bite alone can give you some very unpleasant diseases. There is one called Lyssavirus which kills you and another called Rabies
⁴⁵
which makes you froth at the mouth and kills you, but you don't really mind because you've already gone completely insane.

The Vampires of Camelot
⁴⁶
have lived in the castle since it was first built and are the oldest vampire family on earth. Many people believe that all the world's vampires are descended from the Vampires of Camelot. Where they came from, no one knows. Many people believe they were created by Merlin's great-great-grandfather Merlin.

‘It's the sort of thing he might have done,' they say. ‘Aft er all, anyone who created something as evil as cats would be capable of anything.'

‘I didn't know Merlin created cats,' other people say.

‘Oh yes, he made the first one out of some rusty barbed-wire, a piece of broken glass, a cup of spit and something an owl coughed up.'

‘Wow. You learn something new every day.'

‘No you don't.'

The oldest vampire in Camelot was three hundred and fifty-seven. She was called Lucestays and she never left her beam in the bat tower of Camelot. Her legs and wings were so stiff with arthritis she could barely move them, and it had been over fifty years since she had swooped down on a sleeping creature to suck its blood. Nowadays her children would go out, grab a mouse, carry it back to the tower and hold it for her while she had a bit of a drink. Her fangs were so worn down that her children even had to make the puncture holes for her.

‘I should have died years ago,' she kept saying.

No one argued with her, even though they were the ones keeping her alive without realising they were actually doing it. It was the mice they brought her every few days. The
Muris immortalis cametloticus
or Camelot Everlasting Mouse, a creature that had definitely been created by one of the early Merlins,
actually contained the secret of immortality in its blood. A few drops could stop you ageing for up to a month
⁴⁷
and as Lucestays drank the blood once a week, she simply stopped getting any older. The only person who knew this was Merlin himself as he also sucked on an Everlasting Mouse once a week. There were also a few very, very old cats around the castle.

Lucestays was actually getting a tiny bit older because sometimes her children brought back a baby rat by mistake and that blood did not have any magical qualities apart from giving you really bad wind.

By and large the vampires kept themselves to themselves. They usually only left their tower at night and most people didn't believe they actually existed. It suited the vampires that way because by and large people tend to look upon bloodsucking in a disapproving sort of way. If they had known there was a big family of vampires in the neighbourhood, they would have all gone to bed with their socks on because, as everyone knows, ankles are a vampire's favourite feeding place.

‘Humans are ridiculous,' said Fenestra. ‘I mean, how many of them have actually tasted fresh warm blood? As we all know, if they did they would realise just how incredibly delicious it is.'

Morgan le Fey was the great exception to the rule. On the day she had been born, Fenestra had come to her as she lay in her crib beside the bed of her sleeping mother. What exactly had brought the bat to the child's side is a mystery. As the child had come into the world, Fenestra, who had been hanging from her Friday Beam
⁴⁸
dreaming of a red Christmas, which is like a white Christmas only with a lot more blood, had felt something calling her. It was not a voice, but something in her soul, a feeling more than a noise, and the calling came from Morgan le Fey. For her part the newborn princess was unaware of it, yet when Fenestra flew down and sat on her chest looking deep into her eyes, the child knew there was a bond that would tie the two of them together forever. From that day on there was barely a day when the two of them didn't
speak to each other. Fenestra became the secret eyes and ears, bringing secrets from all around Camelot to the young princess, secrets that she stored away in her memory, secrets that were there to use whenever she needed them.

Fenestra's friends and relations were Morgan le Fey's friends too and watched over her wellbeing day and night. Now that Sir Lancelot had come into her life, they watched over her day and night and knight.

There were two hundred and fifty-eight vampires living at Camelot and every night they spread out across the countryside looking for warm ankles. Only Lucestays and the baby vampires stayed behind. The baby vampires were still being fed by their mothers so they didn't need fresh blood. However, to make sure they knew what to do when they were old enough to go out and feed, each baby was left with a big red tomato to practise biting on.