Simon Green - A Hard Day's Knight

“Yes,” said a wary voice from nowhere. “We know who you are. But we also know who that is standing beside you. That’s Shotgun Suzie, isn’t it?”

“She’s with me!”

“I know. That’s the problem. I’ll have to check.”

The voice fell silent, and Suzie and I were left standing there, in the open on Oxford Street, for some time. People were starting to pay serious attention to us, and not because I was loudly berating an apparently empty stretch of wall. If anyone looked like they were getting too close, Suzie just looked at them, and they remembered they were needed somewhere else. Suzie’s always been good at that. The voice finally came back again, hovering on the air.

“You can both come in, but only as long as you agree to vouch for her behaviour; at all times and under all conditions.”

“I promise Suzie won’t kill anyone who doesn’t need killing,” I said.

The voice sighed loudly. “I told them this was a bad idea. I’m going to hide all the good china. Come on in, and remember to wipe your shoes.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me,” said Suzie. “There will be special treats for you when we get home.”

The Green Door appeared before us and swung slowly open. Suzie and I passed through into Castle Inconnu, and the Door closed quickly behind us. A knight was waiting, in full armour, to guide us through the many stone corridors. Suzie looked about her unhurriedly, being deliberately not at all impressed, as usual. The knight took us by the quickest route, and maintained a steady pace. He didn’t bother us with questions, probably because Suzie kept looking thoughtfully at his armour, as though judging exactly how many shotgun blasts it would take to penetrate it. We finally ended up back in the Main Hall again. Sir Gareth and Sir Roland were waiting there for us, still in their full armour, with their helmets clasped under their arms. They nodded to me and gave Suzie a long, thoughtful look. She gave them her best hard look in return.

“So you’re Shotgun Suzie,” said Sir Roland. “The posters don’t do you justice. We’ve heard a lot about you. Did you really ... ?”

“Almost certainly,” I said. “Take that as read, so we can move on to more important matters. I have spoken with Gaea ...”

“And she has spoken to us,” said Sir Gareth. “You do get round, don’t you? It seems you are to give Excalibur to King Arthur, after waking him from his long sleep. You can imagine how that news has gone down here. We always assumed that duty would fall to one of us.”

“Yes, well, that’s life for you,” I said vaguely. “Now, I could use my gift to find him, but I can’t help feeling there are bound to be all kinds of difficulties. King Arthur wouldn’t have stayed hidden all this time unless he was protected by really heavy-duty defences. And a whole lot of psychic booby-traps. So I’m pretty sure I need to speak with your Grand Master first, and see what he knows, before I try anything.”

“Of course you do,” said Sir Gareth. “He is the oldest of us all and knows many things. You’d better come with me. If you’re really going to raise up the once-and-future King himself, you need to talk with the last surviving Knight of the Round Table.”

Sir Gareth led the way through the increasingly crowded corridors and meeting places that led to Castle Inconnu’s interior, where the knights and their families lived. The area presented quite a contrast to the far-more-austere outer layers. The interior was much more comfortable, with all modern comforts. Sir Gareth had a smile and a kind word for everyone, and they nodded cheerfully back. They hardly looked at Suzie and me. We passed through large open-plan rooms, full of men and women hard at work, and children playing in the corridors, and a roomful of teenagers with swords, practicing mock duels. They were really good at it.

“Not everyone here becomes a knight,” said Sir Gareth. “Only those most suited to it. It’s not for everyone. The rest work at maintaining the castle’s infrastructure. There’s a lot of work involved, keeping a place this size running smoothly. And we are completely up to date, where we need to be. Everyone here knows how to use a computer. Though someone always wants to take it that one step too far. A few years back, one young man spent far too much time watching American television, and began enthusing about the benefits of organised productivity. He drew up plans for cubicle farms, and efficiency officers, and piped Muzak. He works in the sewage-disposal area now, for the good of his soul, and he’ll stay there until he’s learned the error of his ways.”

Sir Gareth finally led us up a long, winding stair inside a tower, opened a locked door at the very top, and ushered Suzie and me into a richly appointed study, with walls of books, tables covered in computers and monitor screens, and one very big heavy-duty Victorian desk, covered with piles of paper. He sat down behind the desk and gestured for Suzie and me to make ourselves comfortable on the visitors’ chairs set out before the desk. They were surprisingly comfortable. I was also surprised that Sir Gareth’s chair didn’t collapse under the weight of his armour, but I supposed all chairs in the castle were heavily reinforced, as a matter of course. Sir Gareth looked at me thoughtfully.

“Are we waiting for someone?” I said. “Only I thought you were supposed to be taking us to meet the Grand Master of the London Knights?”

“I have,” said Sir Gareth. He moved his left hand in a certain gesture, and his illusion spell collapsed. The young and easy-going Sir Gareth disappeared, replaced by a much older man with a very familiar face. It was Kae, Arthur’s stepbrother, last seen by Suzie and me in the sixth-century Strangefellows. Kae grinned at us, his eyes cold and commanding.

“Were you really expecting someone else?”

A large, blocky man, Kae now wore a simple but expensively cut grey suit. But I knew that under the suit lay the functional, compact musculature that comes from constant hard use and testing rather than regular workouts in the gym. I knew, because I’d seen it at close range back in the sixth century, when he and I went head to head, and he did his best to kill me and Suzie. He had a square, blocky, almost brutal face, marked with scars that had healed crookedly. Sitting there behind his desk, he had an almost overwhelming air of authority; of a man who could enforce his decisions through sheer brute strength, if necessary. His smile seemed friendly enough, but his eyes were watchful.

“Where did your armour go?” I said, just to be saying something.

“It disappears with the illusion,” Kae said easily. “It’s only there when I need it these days. I prefer suits. Nothing like wearing plate armour for centuries to make you appreciate well-tailored clothing.”

“And what happened to Sir Gareth?” I said. “Is he ... real?”

“Real enough. He’s me. A more approachable me that I developed to deal with outsiders.” Kae grinned again. “So much less intimidating, you see. And it makes things easier for dealing with everyday matters. Even a knight bloodied in battle can still get surprisingly bashful and tongue-tied round a survivor from the original Round Table, a man who actually knew Arthur and grew up with him. So I pretend to be Sir Gareth, and everyone else pretends it isn’t me, and we all get along swimmingly.”

“What was Arthur like, as a child?” said Suzie.

“A real pain in the arse,” said Kae. “Always running after his older stepbrother, wanting to be involved in everything, and throwing major sulks when he was excluded. Best student I ever had, mind. I taught him everything he knows about fighting.”

He stopped for a moment, as one of his computers chirped politely, and he took time out to run through his latest e-mails and make notes.