Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone and the Red Knight

‘Must I die a second time?’ Tancred whispered dismally.

There would be no witnesses. The city seemed deserted, even the noise of traffic had died away; the only sound that Tancred could hear was a faint clattering, which he mistook for his own beating heart. But the clattering grew louder. And now the sound resembled hoofs cantering on stone, and then a voice cut through the night, ‘ASHKELAN!’

The swordsman whirled round and Tancred blinked in amazement as a knight on a white horse charged into the square. The knight was dressed from head to foot in glittering chain mail; he wore a helmet of polished metal with a plume of red feathers flowing from its crown, and a red cloak that billowed behind him like a sail. In his right hand he wielded a bright sword, the hilt encrusted with glittering jewels, and the shield that hung from his saddle was emblazoned with a burning sun.

‘You!’ grunted the man called Ashkelan; holding his sword aloft, he rushed at the knight.

With one blow of his own weapon the knight swept the sword from his assailant’s hand, and it rattled over the cobblestones. There was a scream of pain, followed by a roar of anger as the owner of the sword fell to the ground, clutching his arm.

A stream of mysterious and indecipherable words issued from the man as he reached for his sword. Tancred had been about to run from the scene but he stood rooted to the spot, scarcely able to believe his eyes. For all at once the fallen sword was in the air and flying towards the knight. Lifting his weapon, the knight parried the blow that would surely have severed his arm, but the enchanted sword came at him again, and again he fought off the blow. An extraordinary duel was taking place and, frightened as he was, Tancred could not bring himself to leave the square.

The knight and his mount seemed almost to be one, for the horse turned in a flash. It leapt high above the fountain and raced around the square, its hoofs moving in a cloud of sparks. The enchanted sword, now a flying streak of light, attacked the knight from every angle. How he managed to fight off such a battery of lightning blows, it was hard to comprehend. And then, at last, came the strike that might have finished him. It fell across his chest, slicing through the chain mail and drawing a deep grunt of pain from the knight. But with a mighty upward thrust he caught the enchanted sword and set it spinning into the sky.

Tancred didn’t wait for the sword to fall to earth. Astounded by what he had seen, he tore down the alley and on to the High Street. Fear and excitement caused great gusts of wind to whistle round his head; his hood blew back and the air above him fizzed with blue and white sparks. He reached Frog Street and ran towards the Pets’ Café, calling, ‘Mr Onimous, let me in!’

A tall man stepped out of the shadows and Tancred ran straight into him. With a moan of defeat the weather-boy closed his eyes and dropped to the ground.

Charlie Bone had been fast asleep. Now, suddenly, he was not. There were voices in the courtyard below. Charlie got out of bed, crossed the dormitory and looked out of the window. Two men were moving towards the main doors of the Academy. One Charlie recognised as Norton Cross, the doorman at the Pets’ Café. He was half-dragging, half-carrying a smaller person in a large hat with a drooping feather at the back.

‘Grief!’ muttered Charlie. He couldn’t see the face of the man beneath the hat, but he was groaning horribly. Charlie opened the window, just a crack, so that he could hear what was going on.

‘Ssssh!’ hissed Norton. ‘You’ll wake the whole school, sir.’

The two men climbed the steps to the main doors and Norton rang the bell. A moment later there was a loud rattle and one of the doors opened. Weedon the porter stood on the threshold. He was a bald, stocky man with a sour face.

‘I thought he wasn’t supposed to go out yet,’ said Weedon.

‘He wanted to see the city.’ Norton dragged his companion through the door.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Weedon, frowning at the sword that danced past him.

The door was closed before Charlie had a chance to hear Norton’s reply. But then his attention was drawn to a second arrival. Three women came through the arched entrance and crossed the courtyard. Grizelda Bone’s imposing beak of a nose led the way. Grizelda was Charlie’s grandmother. Her sisters, Eustacia and Venetia, came close on her heels. All three were tall and lean, their dark eyes small, their black brows thick and heavy. Grandma Bone’s hair was a startling white, Venetia’s black, Eustacia’s somewhere in between.

Charlie watched them climb the steps, his grandmother teetering very slightly in her high-heeled boots. As she rang the bell, Eustacia, for no good reason, suddenly looked up at the window where Charlie stood.

Charlie backed into the shadows. Eustacia boasted that she was clairvoyant, though Charlie was not entirely convinced. Her power could wax and wane. Tonight it appeared to be waxing.

To complicate matters the dormitory door was suddenly flung open and Charlie was caught in a strip of light from the passage. The matron, Grandma Bone’s third sister, Lucretia, stood silhouetted in the doorway. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ she demanded.

‘Er, getting some air,’ Charlie said feebly.

‘Air? There’s enough air in here to fill the lungs of a thousand boys, let alone twelve.’

‘Is there?’ Charlie looked round at the eleven boys sleeping behind him. Not one had woken up, even though the matron had made no attempt to lower her voice.

‘Get back to bed!’

Without waiting for Charlie to obey, the matron closed the door. Her footsteps receded so fast Charlie imagined she must be running down the passage. In the two years he had been at the Academy he had never known his great-aunt Lucretia to run. Tonight she must either be escaping from something unpleasant, or she was late for a very important meeting.

And who would be holding a meeting at such a late hour? Only Ezekiel Bloor, Charlie decided. At a hundred and one years old, Ezekiel made no distinction between night and day. He spent his mornings dozing in his wheelchair and afternoons reading up on unpleasant spells. It was only at night that his malicious mind really came alive, and then woe betide anyone who didn’t fit in with his plans.

Charlie was about to close the window when a curious smell drifted up to him: a salty, seaweedy tang that left its taste on the tongue. It was horribly familiar. Looking down into the courtyard he wasn’t surprised to see a large figure appear in the archway. The man wore an oilskin coat and long fisherman’s boots. He moved over the cobblestones with an odd swaying stride, as though he were on the heaving deck of a ship.

Charlie raced back to his bed. Before he climbed into it, however, there was a husky whisper from the bed at the end of his row.

‘The window. Close the window.’

Charlie pulled the bedclothes over his head. He could hardly bear to look at Dagbert Endless, let alone talk to him. Dagbert kept protesting that Tancred’s near-drowning had been an accident. Even the headmaster believed his story. The school had been told that Tancred Torsson had accidentally slipped in the Sculpture room, and been drowned by water pouring from a broken tap. Charlie knew better. Dagbert was a drowner. He even boasted of his power. But neither he nor the Bloors were aware that Tancred had survived. Tancred’s friends intended to keep it that way.