The Table of Less Valued Knights by Marie Phillips

Author:Marie Phillips [Phillips, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-35996-4
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2014-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

Thirty-One

It took several days for Sir Dorian to prepare for the quest to find Martha. His squire, a plump, cheerful lad by name of Silas, was despatched to oil, sand and polish his second-best suit of armour, alongside his third best, in case the second best became damaged during the adventure ahead. (Sir Dorian was saving his best suit of armour for a special occasion, such as when he would return, triumphant, with Martha, and King Arthur would promote him to some position of prominence in his court.) His page, Keith, a quiet boy just shy of ten years, was charged with gathering provisions and packing, with great difficulty, Sir Dorian’s pavilion, bed, folding table, chair, lamps and portable stove, all of which were loaded into a cart that would be driven by Keith and Silas at a careful distance from Sir Dorian, so as not to spoil the effect of the solitary knight errant on his lonesome quest. The fact that he was riding alongside Edwin did threaten to get in the way of this image, but that could not be helped. Edwin was the bearer of the Pentecost quest, and insisted on accompanying Dorian on the journey, no matter how often the knight assured him that he could stay behind and wait in the safety of Camelot.

Edwin, for his part, was sick with disappointment at the knight he’d been assigned. He’d been hoping for one of the famous ones, Lancelot or Galahad, or even one of the second-tier knights like Sir Bors. Who’d ever heard of Sir Dorian?

Though he would never have admitted as much, even to himself, Edwin was jealous. Ever since boyhood, he had wanted to be a Knight of the Round Table. As a child, nothing excited him more than when Tuft Castle hosted tournaments, and all the knights would arrive on their huge stallions, gleaming in their elaborate armour, colourful pennants flying. They would bow to him (and Leo) before enacting the incredible feats of skill, courage and dexterity that were the jousts. (He wasn’t such a fan of the melees, as the churning mud would spatter his best clothes.) His favourite childhood game was Knights. Usually he played with his brother, but Leo always made him lose, which wasn’t fair, so sometimes he’d play with the son of a local lord, who liked dressing up as a princess. This boy – Edwin couldn’t remember his name, just that in princess mode he liked to be called Gwendoline – would pretend to have been captured by a dragon or a giant or an evil uncle, and Edwin would fight his way past whatever dangers they imagined with his wooden sword and rescue him. Then, as he recalled it, one day Gwendoline was simply gone. There was no explanation, and his absence was never discussed, at least not in Edwin’s presence. As children do, Edwin soon forgot about him, but looking back on it now, he wondered if the kid had been removed for his own protection.

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