Grailblazers (25 page)

‘Why not?'

‘No door,' Bedevere replied. ‘The only way in is through that trapdoor thing we fell through. I think you more, sort of, stay here.'

Turquine shuffled about on the straw. ‘Surely not,' he said. ‘I mean, don't take any notice of there not being a door. They don't seem to hold with doors in this place. Reminds me of an office I delivered a couple of pizzas to once, there was just this sort of partition thing and—'

‘No, hold on a moment,' Bedevere interrupted. ‘You see, I'm basing my theory on all the, er, skeletons.'

‘Skeletons?'

By way of reply, Bedevere rattled together a couple of tibias. ‘I don't think they were on diets, Turkey. I think nobody fed them. Not for ages and ages.'

‘Oh.'

‘In fact,' Bedevere went on (and as he spoke, he had the feeling that if he was trying not to alarm his friend unduly, he had probably gone about this the wrong way), ‘not at all. Do you follow?'

‘Sort of,' Turquine replied. ‘Bit unsporting, that, don't you think?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Not on, really'

‘Yes.'

Turquine found one of the skeletons, and amused himself by pretending to be a ventriloquist; something that Bedevere found somewhat irritating. Still, he said to himself, if it takes his mind off things it's all right by me. Turquine's mind, as he knew from long experience, was a bit like nuclear war; when he got an idea into it, things were often very noisy and unpleasant for a while, but it was soon over. He lay on his back and tried to think of something clever.

A human pyramid to reach the trapdoor? No, not enough manpower.

Magic, perhaps? He felt in his pocket for the Personal Organiser, but the gold clasp wasn't even warm. No magic down here that he could detect, or if there was, it wasn't compatible. Probably the place was insulated, like the registered office.

He was just weighing up the possibility of using some of the bones to build a makeshift ladder when Turquine's ventriloquist's dummy started to laugh hysterically. Better put a stop to that straight away, he thought, or else the poor chap'll be right off his trolley in no time, which won't help matters.

‘All right, Turkey,' he said, as gently as he could, ‘Pack that in, will you? It's starting to get on my—'

‘Um.'

‘Turkey?'

‘Bedders.' There was a note in Turquine's voice that Bedevere had never heard before, in all the years they'd known each other. Fear. Say what you liked about old Turkey, he never seemed to get the wind up. If you asked him what the word fear meant, he'd probably think for a bit and say it was the German for four.

‘Turkey?'

‘Um, could you come over here and ask this, er, lady to stop talking? She won't listen to me, and ...'

That's it, said Bedevere to himself, the poor idiot's finally flipped. My fault for letting him play with the thing in the first place.

‘Now don't be silly, Turkey,' he said, edging over across the straw on his hands and knees. ‘You know it's you doing the voice and not the skull at all, so just—'

There was another peal of laughter, and Bedevere winced. Laughter like that meant only one thing. And then something occurred to him.

Turquine was talking to the skull in his own voice, asking it - begging it, even - to shut up. And the skull was still laughing. Either Turkey was a damn sight better at ventriloquism than he thought (and he wasn't; there's no ‘g' in ‘bottle') or else it actually was the skull talking...

‘Turkey,' he shouted, ‘pack it in, you hear me?'

‘Leave him alone.'

Silence. The only sound in the echoing dungeon was that of the rat banging the rathole door and jamming a piece of coal against it.

‘Sorry?'

‘I said leave the poor boy alone, you big bully.'

‘I...'

‘Go and pick on someone your own size.'

Great, thought Bedevere, absolutely spiffing. Now I've gone round the bend too. If ever I get out of here, I'm going to kick young Snotty's arse all the way from here to Benwick.

‘Excuse me,' he said.

‘Yes?'

‘Who am I talking to, please?'

There was more of the laughter, and Bedevere found that he was getting a bit tired of it. He coughed meaningfully.

‘Don't you get on your high horse with me, young man. I'm old enough to be your grandmother.'

‘Actually,' Bedevere couldn't resist saying, ‘I doubt that, rather.'

‘Don't you answer me back.'

‘Sorry,' Bedevere said, ‘but I do happen to be well over fifteen hundred years old.'

There was a click, like rolling dice or - but it didn't do to think too hard about it - a skull's jaw falling open.

‘Don't you try being funny with me, young man, because—'

‘Really,' Bedevere said. ‘I used to be one of King Arthur's knights, you see, and I'm here on a—'

‘King
Arthur?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh. Oh I see.'

‘Good.'

‘No disrespect intended, I'm sure.'

‘Not at all.'

‘My name's Mahaud, by the way.'

‘Sir Bedevere de Haut Gales.'

‘I've heard of you. Aren't you the knight who used to—'

But Bedevere interrupted. The name was familiar, and the voice - ye gods, how could he ever forget that voice? But no, surely not. It wasn't possible.

‘Did you say Mahaud?' he said.

‘That's right,' Mahaud replied. ‘Mahaud de Villehardouin.'

Bedevere's voice quivered as he spoke. ‘Matron?'

The skull laughed again, and this time Bedevere laughed too.

‘You remember me, Matron,' Bedevere exclaimed. ‘I was in the same year as Aguisant and Bors and Gaheris Minor.'

‘Of course I remember! You kept beetles in a shoe box in the junior dormitory.'

‘Look...' It was Turquine, and there was just a hint of peevishness in his voice. ‘I hate to interrupt, but aren't you going to introduce me?'

There was a puzzled silence and then Bedevere said, ‘Sorry, Turkey, I forgot. Matron left the term before you arrived. Matron, this is Sir Turquine le Sable. He was at the old Coll too, but after your time.'

‘Pleased to meet you.'

‘Likewise. Look, Bedders, do you know what's going on here, because—'

‘Shut
up,
Turkey, there's a good chap. Sorry, Matron. How are you keeping, anyway?'

There was a long silence. ‘I'm dead.'

‘Surely not?'

‘I most certainly am.'

‘I see. Oh I am sorry to hear that, Matron. I...'

Bedevere stopped in mid-sentence. Was it just him, or was something turning out a bit counter-intuitive here? ‘Dead?' he repeated.

‘As nail in door,' Matron replied. ‘And I'm not at all pleased about it, let me tell you.'

‘I'm not surprised.'

‘I mean to say,' Matron went on, ‘when I retired, the Coll was
extremely
generous - much more than I expected, really very moving - and so of course I wanted to invest my little nest-egg for my old age. And then I met this charming young lady, said she was the elder sister of one of the boys at the Coll...'

Bedevere felt a lump rise in his throat. ‘Lyonesse Capital Growth Trust units?' he asked.

‘Lyonesse Managed Income Bond, actually,' Matron replied. ‘And not six months after I'd taken out the policy, I got this letter saying the whole thing had gone into liquidation and how sorry they were. It made my blood boil, I can tell you. So I came straight down here and... Well, here I am. And if ever I get my hands on that wicked little chit of a sales girl, I'll ... Well, she'd better watch out, that's all.'

‘That's awful, Matron,' Bedevere said. ‘Cheating you like that and then murdering you as well. That's - well, awful. They really shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.'

‘Hear hear,' muttered Turquine, and added something about it needing no ghost come from the grave, which Bedevere thought was in rather poor taste. He shushed firmly, and then scratched his head.

‘Excuse me asking,' he said after a moment's thought, ‘but how come you can still, well, talk? I thought you needed to be...'

The skull clicked its teeth. ‘Some people may let themselves run to seed when they retire,' Matron said. ‘Not me. Like I always used to say to you boys at the Coll, the important thing is willpower, willpower and determination. I was
determined
not to let myself get out of shape, and it's worked.'

‘I can see that,' Bedevere replied, and added, ‘Good for you.' But he still felt there was something lacking. An explanation, for instance. Still, it was bad manners to keep on, and Matron had always been most particular about things like that. He changed the subject, and they chatted for a while about the other boys in Bedevere's class. This kept them entertained for a while; except that all of them were dead, and there was a risk of the whole thing getting a touch morbid; not to say repetitive. Very carefully, he reverted to the earlier topic.

‘Matron,' he said, ‘do please excuse me if this is a bit, well, personal, but I'd always understood ...' Inspiration! ‘When I was at the Coll, Sir Giraut taught us that when a person's sort of dead, that's it, you know...'

‘Giraut!' snapped the skull, contemptuously. She has no lips to purse now, Bedevere reflected; otherwise

... ‘The man was a charlatan. Used to leave apple-cores behind the radiators.'

‘I never liked him much.'

‘Good for you,' Matron replied. ‘What did he know about being dead? Just because he'd got a fancy degree from some university somewhere, that doesn't mean to say he's got the right to pick the middle out of the bread.'

Bedevere nodded, not that anyone could see him. ‘So what's it really like, then?' he asked. ‘Death, I mean. I've always wanted to know.'

‘Well,' Matron said, after a moment's reflection, ‘I can only speak as I find, you understand. You won't catch
me
pontificating about things I know nothing about, like some people we could mention. But personally, I find it's quite like being alive. Of course, the magic makes a difference.'

‘I see,' Bedevere said. ‘The magic.'

Matron laughed. ‘I can tell
you
didn't pay much attention in class, young Master Bedevere. Too busy playing Hangman with that Ector de Maris, I'll be bound.'

Bedevere flushed, for nobody likes to be maligned; but he repressed his indignation and said, ‘About the magic, Matron. What does it do?'

‘Magic,' Matron said, in that slightly plonking voice of hers, ‘is a by-product of the decay of the gold isotope Gold 337. It's a form of radiation. All radiation can make living things mutate; it influences molecular structures, you see. But magic radiation is extremely powerful. It can make living things mutate very quickly - turn you into a frog, for example - or it can affect inanimate objects, such as vases of flowers or the flags of all nations; make them pop out of top hats, that sort of thing. It can also, well, raise the dead.' Matron hesitated for a moment. ‘No, that's not strictly true. More a case of making death a bit more like life, you might say. No, that's still not quite right. More the other way round.'

‘Make life seem like death, you mean?' Bedevere enquired. This was like GCC Philosophy with Dr Magus; and then he remembered, very faintly, that Matron and Dr Magus used to take long walks down by the archery butts. Under cover of the friendly darkness, he grinned.

‘Exactly,' Matron was saying. ‘If there's a lot of magic about - and there's plenty down here, I can tell you; if you don't believe me, ask the rat to show you his conjuring tricks - then a person can be dead and alive at the same time. That's to say, she's alive, but her body is dead. It's all a bit spooky, really,' she added, ‘but you get used to it after a while.'

‘I see.'

‘Not,' Matron continued, ‘that it's the slightest bit of use to me being alive if the rest of me is nothing but a lot of old bones. In fact it's the worst of both worlds, except that I don't get toothache any more. One must be grateful for small mercies, I always say.'

Bedevere sat in silence for a while. Turquine, for his part, was surreptitiously trying to fit together the bits of the skeleton that he'd started to use to make a set of stumps and a cricket bat with.

‘How would it be,' Bedevere said at last, ‘if we all got out of here? I mean what would happen, do you think? Would you - well, stop being half alive and be wholly dead, or would you stop being half dead and be...?'

‘I really couldn't say,' Matron answered. ‘Mind you, either would be an improvement. I never could be doing with shilly-shallying, you know that.'

‘Fine,' Bedevere said thoughtfully. ‘So if we could get out of here...'

‘If, young man. As we used to say when I was a girl, if ifs were horses, beggars would ride.'

‘Quite,' Bedevere agreed. ‘But you've been down here a long time. Haven't you, well, noticed anything?'

The skull mused for a moment. ‘Not a great deal, no,' it said. ‘From time to time, people drop in, they die, we talk for a while, then usually we fall out and they sulk, and they give up the power of speech. Some people can be so petty.'

‘So you haven't got any suggestions about how we might...?'

‘Well.' A long silence. ‘There is something. I tried it with a young man who dropped in fifty years or so back, but I'm afraid he made rather a muff of it. No backbone, you see.'