Simon Green - A Hard Day's Knight

“He’s not in his right mind,” said Sir Gareth. “Grief and loss have made him forget his vows. But I still believe he can be saved, brought back to a state of grace.”

“Of course you believe that, Gar,” said Sir Roland. “You’re his friend. I wanted to believe in him. He was the best of us. Best I ever trained. But what happened today changes everything. We must deal with the man he is and not the man we remember. Look round you, at all the dead and the wounded. He caused all this and meant worse. It’s time to put him down, like any suffering beast.”

“I’m still not sure what this was all about,” I said. “Did the elves want to take Excalibur, or was that only Stark? Did they want to destroy the castle and everyone in it, with their hellgate? Or did they have some other end in mind? Do you have any prisoners we can question? I can’t help feeling we’re missing something here.”

“Of course we are,” said Sir Gareth. “They’re elves. A secret hidden inside a mystery hidden inside an enigma.”

“We should never have put you in charge of the library,” said Sir Roland.

As it turned out, the knights did have one elf prisoner. Two knights had knocked him down during the battle, then sat on him when all the other elves ran. The elf was currently chained to a wall with a hell of a lot of cold iron. The metal burned his bare flesh where it touched, but the elf wouldn’t even acknowledge it. He glared at Sir Roland, Sir Gareth, and me with cold, aristocratic disdain. The kind of blunt contempt that makes you want to punch someone in the face. We didn’t. It was what he wanted, so he could feel superior to us. To the elves, humans will always be barbarians. His spelled armour had been stripped off him, revealing a bare pale torso covered in cuts and bruises. He was almost supernaturally slender, his pale skin covered with hundreds of etched, burned, and tattooed signs and sigils. Even chained naked to a wall, he still had that basic elf poise and arrogance, designed to make us mere humans feel base and clumsy.

“Jerusalem Stark brought you here,” Sir Roland said heavily. “Why? Talk to me, elf. Are we at war with Oberon and Titania, or with Mab?”

The elf said nothing because that would have interrupted his sneer, which was now so concentrated it was almost a work of art. He stared straight through us as though we weren’t worth looking at. I leaned forward, and, to his credit, he didn’t flinch. I studied the designs etched deep into his bare hairless chest, and grimaced despite myself.

“I know a few things about elves,” I said, straightening up painfully. My muscles were really starting to ache and complain, after the battle. “I know those markings. This one serves Queen Mab.”

“Why?” barked Sir Roland, sticking his face right into the elf’s. “Why has Mab declared war on the London Knights?”

“He won’t answer to threats or intimidation,” I said. “He won’t even give you his name. He’s waiting for the torture to start because that’s what he’d do if the positions were reversed.”

“We don’t torture prisoners!” said Sir Roland. “We are honourable men. And I think ... we already know everything we need to know.”

He drew his sword, raised it high, and brought it swinging down in a long arc so that it sheared right through the main lock on the elf’s chains. They fell apart instantly, freeing the elf. Sir Roland stepped back, lowered his sword, and nodded stiffly to the elf. “Off you go. On your way. We give you your freedom.”

For the first time, the elf acknowledged Sir Roland’s presence. “Why?”

The knight smiled. “Because it’s the proper thing to do. The chivalric way. Because we’re better than you.”

The elf turned his back on us and strode off through the knights, who all made a point of bowing and saluting him. When the elf was a safe distance away, he muttered a Word and disappeared. Because elves always have to have the last word.

And then, all the alarums all went off again. A knight in blood-smeared armour came running up to us.

“We’ve been breached again! Small-scale, this time. We think Stark’s back somewhere inside the castle!”

“Search everywhere,” said Sir Roland. “Inner and outer. And send word to the Redoubt for the families to stay where they are. I don’t think Stark would stoop to taking hostages, but after today’s events, it’s clear we don’t know him at all any more. The order is given: kill Stark on sight.”

He strode off with the other knight, still barking orders. Sir Gareth and I looked at each other. He shrugged.

“Might as well make ourselves useful. Come with me; we’ll check the outer layers.”

“Do you think Stark has come back?” I said.

“He still wants Excalibur,” said Sir Gareth. “Where else can he go?”

So we went walking back through the outer stone corridors and hallways. All was quiet. At the Hall of Forgotten Beasts, the long-dead animal bodies still lay where they had fallen. The stone walls were still cracked and broken, the wall mounts shattered. We made our way slowly between the piled-up dead, and I don’t think I ever saw anything so simply sad in all my life.

“We’ll clear this all away, when there’s time,” said Sir Gareth.

“Make sure it’s done respectfully,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” said Sir Gareth. “They won’t remount the heads. I’ll have a word. For a man of your destructive reputation, you can be remarkably sentimental sometimes, John.”

We hurried on and came at last to the Portrait Gallery. Excalibur stirred in its invisible scabbard on my back, and I stopped immediately. Sir Gareth stopped with me and looked round sharply.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “Excalibur is warning me.”

Sir Gareth drew his sword. The Gallery was quiet and empty. And while we were both standing and looking, the portrait behind me, that I hadn’t even looked at, came alive; and Jerusalem Stark reached out of his portrait, grabbed Excalibur and its sheath, invisible as they were, and hauled them right off my back. It was all over in a moment. Before I could even cry out, Stark had retreated back into his portrait with his prize, and was gone. And the portrait was only a photo again.

I swayed sickly on my feet. It felt as though part of my soul had been ripped away. Sir Gareth grabbed me by the shoulder to steady me.

“He’s got it, hasn’t he? He’s got Excalibur!”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know if he can hold on to it, but he’s got it.”

Sir Gareth pushed me away. “Only John bloody Taylor could gain and lose Excalibur in the same day!”

“Don’t count me out yet,” I said, matching his glare with one of my own. “I can get it back. I have a special gift for finding things, no matter where they are.”

I raised my gift, forcing my inner eye open as wide as it would go. It didn’t take me long to find Excalibur.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s back in the Nightside. Only place he could hope to hide it. I’ll have to go back and get it.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sir Gareth said immediately.

“No,” I said, just as quickly. “I already have a partner in the Nightside. And ... you’re a London Knight. You don’t belong there. You wouldn’t know how to act, in the Nightside.”

I left London Proper for the Nightside with a certain sense of relief and emerged from the Underground station into a refreshing dazzle of neon noir, amber street-lights under an endless night sky, and a bustling sea of Humanity driven along by unhealthy appetites and bad intentions. It felt good to be back, to leave the London Knights behind me, with their strict morality and uncomplicated sense of good and evil. And it felt even better to dive back into the usual crowd of gods and monsters, saints and sinners, and all the lost and battered souls who couldn’t hope to survive anywhere else. I was home again, back where I belonged. And the moment I stepped out of the station, there was Suzie Shooter, waiting patiently for me. I went straight to her, and we hugged each other tightly for a long moment. Then Suzie pushed me away, so she could look me over thoroughly.