Igraine the Brave (20 page)

“All right, all right,” muttered Igraine, pushing a strand of dripping hair back from her forehead. “No harm done.”

They were sitting near the main gate in one of the turrets on the battlements. Bertram and the Sorrowful Knight were on watch up on the wall, but at the moment, all was calm outside the castle. Perhaps Osmund was tired of letting Albert make a fool of him, for the time being — or alternatively he was sitting in his tent thinking up a few brand-new nasty tricks. Whatever the reason, Igraine was glad of the silence.

“We had a terrible fright when Bertram came back without you,” said Albert, undoing a knot in the tail of one of his mice. “Luckily he remembers magic spells better than you do, and he got the stone lion to open its mouth. When we heard about the fix you were in, your friend the sighing knight had the idea of distracting Heartless’s attention by making his challenge right away, to give you a chance to escape. And it worked. But jumping into the moat like that …” Albert shook his head. “You’ve always been so impulsive, little sister.”

“You’re right.” Sighing, Igraine shook a tiny fish out of her shoe and threw it through the window and back into the moat. “I’m sorry about the dragon skin.”

“Don’t worry,” said Albert, blowing the magic fire out. “The water snakes will fish it out.”

They were just imagining what their parents would turn Osmund into — currently Albert favored the idea of throwing him and his castellan into the moat as a pair of particularly fat fish, and then letting Sisyphus loose on them — when the Sorrowful Knight hesitantly joined them.

“So the lance really was enchanted?” he asked.

Igraine nodded. “Oh, yes. But Albert’s powder put out the green glow. So you’ll have your first fair fight with him this evening — and I’m going to be your squire!”

Albert rolled his eyes and left them alone without another word. The Sorrowful Knight, however, folded his arms and looked down at the place that Osmund’s men were preparing for the single combat.

“You would be an excellent squire, no doubt about it,” he said. “And I thank you with all my heart for the offer, but a knight without honor can manage without a squire, too. Truly, you have shown quite enough proof of your courage. And your brother and your parents will need you this evening.”

“Not half as much as you will!” replied Igraine, picking a few water-lily petals off her armor. “You can talk as much as you want, I’ve made my mind up. I’m going to be your squire whether you like it or not. There’s nothing you can do about it! I’ll hand you your lances, catch your horse if she throws you, make sure Osmund doesn’t go casting any spells — and if the Spiky Knight tries any nasty tricks,” she added, as her lips began to tremble, “then … then I’ll push him off his horse with my own hands. I will, as true as you can call me Fearless Igraine. Because we’re friends. Aren’t we?”

Once again the Sorrowful Knight looked down at the tilting ground where he was to fight the Spiky Knight, and for a moment Igraine thought she saw something like a smile on his lips. “Yes, we’re friends,” he said, “and what I call you is Brave Igraine. So you shall have your way. You will be my squire, and I’ll try to prove myself worthy of your service.”

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S
ir Lamorak and the Fair Melisande almost got their curly tails in a twist when they heard about their daughter’s latest idea. But what could they do about it? They knew Igraine, and they were well aware that there was no point in forbidding her to do anything when she made the face that said:
I’ll do it anyway, even if I have to climb out of the tower window.

Bertram just shook his head on learning of her decision, and muttered something like, “No surprise there, then!” As for Albert, he tapped her armor and said, “I just hope this stuff is as good as the books claim. Keep your visor closed and never look Osmund in the eye. Don’t forget, he is a magician, if not a particularly good one.”

The sun was moving across the sky, the shadows were lengthening, and the magic concoction was slowly changing into thousands of tiny, shimmering globes that hopped about like popcorn, while Igraine’s parents and all the Books of Magic kept trotting around it, sometimes clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise. You could get quite dizzy just watching them. The books sang and sang until their little voices were hoarse, while Bertram prepared the bathhouse.

Down below the castle, the sound of weapons had died away again after a few halfhearted assaults on the drawbridge. It had taken Albert only a weary snap of his fingers to deal with those. Everything was going as the Sorrowful Knight had hoped: Osmund’s soldiers were hanging around among the tents, doing nothing, while Rowan Heartless’s squires prepared the tilting ground. Osmund had ordered all fighting gear to be moved away from the area between the tents and the moat, but it had taken hours to smooth the churned-up ground. Now a large rectangle had been marked out on the empty space, with torches burning on all four sides, and on the side nearest the camp, the squires had put up a wooden platform adorned with Osmund’s banner and his coat of arms.

Albert and Bertram were watching these preparations from the battlements, but Igraine was searching the armory for lances for the Sorrowful Knight. She found five jousting lances in working order, and asked Albert to cast a spell to remove the rust from her great-grandfather’s best sword. That much magic must count as fair play — after all, the knight had broken his own sword on the drawbridge. Then she carried it all down to the Great Hall, where the Sorrowful Knight was sitting under the portraits of her ancestors, cleaning his helmet.

Igraine put the sword on the table in front of him, and took the helmet from his hands. “I’m afraid this is the best blade I could find,” she said. “And polishing helmets is a squire’s job.”

“If you say so!” The knight smiled, and swung the sword through the air to try it out. “My word, not a bad sword. But with a good many notches on the blade. Your great-grandfather must have fought many a battle with it.”

“Yes, he did; I’ve read all about them in the family histories.” Igraine picked up Sisyphus, who was rubbing restlessly around her feet. “My great-grandfather Pelleas was always having to protect his friends the dragons from other knights, and back then even the King was trying to steal the Books of Magic.”

“Indeed? Then it’s time this sword saw some use again, don’t you agree?” The Sorrowful Knight put the old sword back in its sheath. “How high is the sun now?”

“Just above the woods already. It will soon be time.” Igraine looked at the portrait of her great-grandfather. He was smiling. He was the only one of her ancestors who smiled down at her from his golden frame. The other great-great-great-grandmothers, grandfathers, great-aunts, and great-uncles all looked terribly serious and important. Pelleas’s squire was in the picture, too, a small, stout young man whose breast was swelling with pride as he held a jousting lance. Not long now, and Igraine herself would be a squire following her knight to the tilting ground. But it was quite different from the way she’d imagined it night after night in her dreams. The knight she served wasn’t going to fight in a royal tournament, yet there was so much more at stake than just a kiss from a princess. If the Sorrowful Knight was defeated too quickly, all would be lost: Pimpernel Castle, the Books of Magic … and her parents, she supposed, would be running around with curly tails for the rest of their lives, unless something even worse happened to them. What would become of Albert, of Bertram, of Sisyphus, of Igraine herself? She held Sisyphus tight and pressed her face into his gray fur.

“Don’t go!” he purred, and his amber eyes looked anxiously at her. “You’re only twelve.”

“I must go,” she whispered into his pointy ear.

The Sorrowful Knight put his helmet on and went up to her.

“Well, the time has come,” he said. “Are you sure you won’t stay here with your brother after all? I really don’t need a squire, believe me.”

But Igraine simply shook her head without looking at him, and put the cat down on the tiled floor. “Sisyphus, go and tell my parents that we’re just setting out.”

The cat rubbed his broad head against her knee and ran away.

Igraine and the Sorrowful Knight, however, walked through the great empty hall to the gateway leading outside. It was dark in the castle courtyard. The light of the sun, now low in the sky, hardly came over the high walls. The Sorrowful Knight reached the flight of steps and turned to Igraine.

“It distresses me, Brave Igraine, to think that you will be the squire of a knight without honor,” he said quietly, “in a fight that is probably lost already.”

“You can’t know that,” replied Igraine. “You were defeated three times by an enchanted lance. It’s all going to be different today, you just wait and see.”

As they went down the steps to the yard, the two pigs put their snouts out of the tower window.

“Good luck, honey!” called the Fair Melisande. “The enchanted bath is ready.”

“So if all goes well,” grunted Sir Lamorak, “we’ll be ourselves again by the time you come back. As you know, we only need an hour. Do you think you can distract Osmund’s attention for an hour, noble knight?”

The Sorrowful Knight bowed low. “I will do all that is within my power,” he replied.

“They’re ready down there, too!” Albert called from the walls. “The Iron Hedgehog is already mounting his horse. You’d better get into the tunnel.”

“So be it. Let us go,” said the Sorrowful Knight to Igraine.

“Promise me not to do anything silly again, honey!” Melisande called from the tower.

“And leave your hot head here!” cried Albert. Bertram just waved. He was too fearful for her to say a word.

“See you later!” called Igraine. She blew them all a kiss, put the lances under her arm, and dragged them to the entrance of the tunnel. The Sorrowful Knight pushed aside the stone slab and clambered into the dark hole. Before Igraine followed, she looked around once more.

“Look after yourself, Sisyphus,” she called to the cat as he watched uneasily from the tower window. Then she heaved the lances into the passage and, like the knight, disappeared down the tunnel that had been her great-grandfather’s escape route.

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