There were no horses in the Lake so Edwin had to share Storm with the Lady. It wasn’t comfortable. He tried tying her up and slinging her over Storm’s neck but she kept sliding off, so then he untied her legs and got her to sit in front of him, but there wasn’t enough room on the saddle. There was no way Edwin was riding bareback, so he shoved her forward as far as he could, but she kept bouncing back again and pushing him off the saddle onto Storm’s bony back. They made terribly slow progress. He hoped they weren’t going far. Maybe I should just kill somebody and take their horse, Edwin thought, when they passed other travellers, but it was probably a bad idea. If he gave the Lady of the Lake her own horse, she might escape. Anyhow, he was relieved when she told him to pull up on the outskirts of a village on the border with Grint.
‘Is she here?’ asked Edwin.
‘I don’t know where she is exactly,’ said the Lady of the Lake, ‘but she’s close. And on the far side of this village there’s a camp with somebody else who is looking for her, and he can help you find her.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing,’ said Edwin, gathering the reins and preparing to move on.
‘Wait,’ said the Lady of the Lake.
‘What?’ said Edwin.
‘He’s not going to want to help you. So you’ll have to find a way to persuade him.’
‘Oh, I can be very persuasive,’ said Edwin, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.
They rode into the village. It was like an ants’ nest that had been kicked, with swarms of people hurrying in the same direction they were going, dragging handcarts piled with produce, while others scurried in the opposite direction hauling bundles of dirty clothes. On a corner, a madam was doing a headcount of her prostitutes.
‘How many people are camped out there?’ Edwin asked the Lady of the Lake.
‘Only one that you need to worry about.’
‘You mean only one who needs to worry about me,’ said Edwin.
The Lady of the Lake didn’t say anything to that.
The lane through the village curved at the far end and climbed a slight incline, so they were almost upon it when they saw the huge pavilion that had been erected on the side of the hill, surrounded by several smaller tents.
‘Yellow and blue,’ said Edwin. Leo’s colours. ‘Of course.’
There were soldiers everywhere. They were all bustling around as if they had something incredibly important to do, because if you didn’t look busy around Leo, you got sacked or executed. Even the two guards at the entrance to the pavilion were standing to attention to the point of paralysis, silently exuding the message that standing still was itself a form of being busy, if you put your all into it.
Edwin rode up to them.
‘Halt!’ said both guards in perfect chorus. ‘Who goes there?’
‘I’m Edwin,’ said Edwin. ‘Prince of Tuft, King of Puddock.’
‘Really?’ said one of the guards, not entirely respectfully. ‘Oh, I suppose you are. And who’s that?’
The Lady of the Lake was sitting sullenly in front of him, barefoot, long black hair tangled from the ride, hands bound with rope, blue dress hitched up to her thighs so that she could straddle Storm.
‘Right,’ said the guard, uninterested.
Edwin dismounted and dragged the Lady of the Lake after him. He handed Storm’s reins to one of the guards and the Lady of the Lake’s arm to the other one.
‘Look after them both,’ he said. ‘And be careful. I am very fond of that horse.’
He started to go into the pavilion.
‘You can’t just go in there,’ said the guard holding Storm.
‘Yes I can,’ said Edwin.
The guards exchanged sneering looks as he swept inside, but nobody tried to stop him.
The air in the pavilion was hot, close and fetid. In the dim blue light, soldiers seethed like maggots on carrion. Edwin grabbed the shoulder of a passing officer.
‘Show me to Leo,’ he said.
‘What makes you think the King’s going to want to see you?’ said the officer.
‘I’m his brother,’ said Edwin.
‘I know,’ said the officer. He shrugged Edwin off and moved on.
Above the heads of the soldiers, Edwin saw a face he knew: Noah, the deputy head steward. Edwin forced his way through the military mass towards him.
‘Noah!’ he called out. ‘Noah, it’s me! Prince Edwin!’
Noah turned his head towards the approaching prince, his face as inscrutable as if it had been carved out of stone.
‘I need you to take me to Leo. Immediately.’
Without moving a muscle, Noah somehow managed to convey his doubt that Edwin’s undertaking could in any way be of importance. But from through the crowd, Edwin heard a bored voice say, ‘Oh God, bring him here, then.’
Noah turned and, with a wave of his arm, parted the soldiers as easily as if he were drawing curtains. Beyond them, Leo was sitting at a large, ornate wooden desk that must have been a nightmare to transport from place to place. On the desk was a map, and on the map was a small silver eagle. Leo pointed to it.
‘Me,’ he said.
On the desk beside the map was a crumb.
‘You,’ said Leo.
Edwin did the smallest bow that he could manage, he hoped for the last time.
‘So you’re invading Grint, then?’ he said.
It wasn’t a bad idea. Grint was a nation of lunatics and floozies who needed a firm hand. Edwin planned to get around to invading it himself, when he’d taken care of a few more pressing grudges.
‘What, this?’ said Leo. ‘No. Well, eventually, yes, when I can be bothered. But if you’re asking what I’m doing here, I’ve had some prisoners stolen from me, one of them a very important prisoner. I’ve been tracking them. They passed this way, so I’m here to get them back.’
‘And the important one is Martha?’
‘Your runaway bint?’ Leo smirked. ‘How could she be, when, according to you, I killed her?’
Edwin looked around, but there was no hope of privacy.
‘We both know that you didn’t kill her,’ he hissed. ‘And the Lady of the Lake told me that you were here looking for Martha.’
‘Then the Lady of the Lake is wrong,’ said Leo.
‘Are you sure? You said you were looking for some of your prisoners. You might not even know that you have her.’
‘I think I would notice,’ said Leo. ‘For a start, they are all men.’
‘Exactly. Martha is disguised as a man.’ It was Edwin’s turn to smirk.
Leo had looked startled in front of Edwin once before and he wasn’t about to do it again. Even so, he took a breath before he answered. ‘One of the prisoners did always insist that we refer to him as a woman. It seems unlikely that that ugly bastard is your wife, though, because he’s been in the dungeon since –’
But Edwin had heard enough.
‘King Leo of Tuft,’ he announced in a loud voice, ‘you have stolen my wife, the Queen of Puddock, and thus breached the sovereignty of the nation of Puddock. I challenge you to a duel.’
Leo had trained his soldiers to react to nothing without his cue. Edwin might as well have made his pronouncement in an empty room.
‘A what?’ said Leo.
‘A fucking duel, you dick. Winner gets Martha and both nations.’
‘You remember, of course, that I have a fiancée who is pregnant with not one but two of my heirs?’
‘I’ll take a spot as Regent,’ said Edwin. Just until she shows up to make her claim and I get a chance to kill her and her babies too.
Leo leaned back in his chair. ‘And why would I want to fight a duel with you?’
‘It’s either that or I’m challenging you to a war.’
‘You don’t challenge someone to a war,’ said Leo. ‘You declare a war.’
‘It doesn’t matter! I’ll war you! So choose!’
‘You’ll lose either way,’ said Leo.
‘If that’s what you really think, then get it over with.’
A soldier appeared beside Edwin at Leo’s desk. Edwin recognised him as one of the guards from outside the tent. The soldier bowed with a huge flourish.
‘Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘the prisoners have been found. The Lady of the Lake revealed their whereabouts in exchange for her liberty.’
‘What?’ said Edwin. ‘You can’t let her go. That’s my Lady of the Lake!’
‘Too late,’ said the guard with a shrug.
‘Well done, Brian,’ said Leo.
‘My name is George, my liege.’
‘We must be on the move at once. Tell the men to pack up the tents.’
George hurried away. Leo looked back at Edwin as though he were an apple core he didn’t know what to do with.
‘A duel or a war?’ Edwin reminded him. ‘It’s your choice. If you’re so sure you’ll win, what’s the risk?’
‘Fine, fine,’ said Leo, ‘a duel it is. It is the cheaper option, after all. I look forward to adding Puddock to my prizes, and to having a go on your bitch, of course, once I smoke her out. But let’s make it snappy. I’ve got these prisoners to catch.’
Edwin was already wearing Sir Dorian’s third-best armour and had taken his second-best helmet, Sir Dorian not requiring it any more, so he was ready to fight. Leo got Noah to dress him quickly. There was no dissenting voice amongst the soldiers as to the wisdom of the duel. Not one of the men there would dare contradict the King once he had made a decision.
Noah went ahead, to prepare a suitable site. It was clouding over outside, for the first time after the long stretch of summer heat, and in the distance Edwin could hear the first rumblings of thunder. Although he was focused on the forthcoming task of killing his brother, he couldn’t help but wonder how often knights got struck by lightning. He hoped he would be able to take his armour off soon.
‘I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to die,’ said Leo, as the pair of them walked together towards the designated field.
‘On the contrary, I’ve been waiting to kill you ever since I was born,’ said Edwin.
‘Really? I’ve barely been aware of you at all. Ah, here we are.’
Edwin looked around at the field of his destiny. It was a large, rough rectangle, the grass knee-deep, interrupted here and there by molehills. Noah had picked a spot for them where the ground wasn’t too uneven, lessening the chance of this encounter being decided by who tripped first. Thunder growled more loudly now, and Edwin felt the first few drops of rain clang against his armour. Apart from Noah, they were alone.
‘Come on!’ said Leo. ‘Back to back. Three paces to Noah’s count, then turn.’
Noah looked intensely annoyed that he was going to have to speak, but there was no way around it.
Edwin and Leo stood back to back, swords drawn, Edwin facing the tents. The soldiers were busy preparing to move the encampment, and none of them were looking in their direction. There was no question in their minds that Leo was going to win this duel. Anybody who might have doubted it had already been eliminated from the command chain. This view could be the last thing that Edwin ever saw, this ultimate expression of Leo’s mastery, that he controlled even the thoughts of his troops.
Noah inhaled, ready to begin his count. Edwin wheeled around, sliced him in half through the belly and, even as the steward fell, plunged his wet sword through the one soft part of Leo’s armour, the part that covered his buttocks, thrusting upwards through his arsehole and out the other side.
Leo collapsed to the ground. He looked up at his brother with pride for the first and last time.
‘I was planning to turn on “one”,’ he gasped as he died.