Arthur liked his rooms at Camelot. The main space was cramped but cosy, filled with a table, Sidney’s cot and two well-padded chairs by the fireplace. The adjoining bedroom contained a four-poster so large that it constituted gross overkill. The best feature was the tiny terrace, just big enough for him and Sidney to breakfast on. It certainly helped that the guest quarters were entirely separate from the royal family’s wing; his rooms were, in fact, as far away from Gwen’s as it was possible to be on this side of the castle. Arthur wondered if Gwen had chosen them on his behalf.
‘This is nice,’ Sidney said as they ate. ‘Could get used to it.’
‘What – waking up with me every morning? If you want to marry me, just ask,’ said Arthur, through a mouthful of bread. ‘It’d solve a lot of my current problems.’
‘I meant the view,’ said Sidney. ‘You couldn’t marry me. I’d be too much for you. Romantically speaking.’
‘Sometimes I think you forget that I’m your boss,’ said Arthur, swallowing the bread and reaching for a cup of ale to wash it down. ‘I could have you roundly flogged for saying things like that.’
‘Hmm,’ said Sidney. ‘On second thoughts, I think you could romance me just fine.’
Arthur snorted. ‘Haven’t you been running around after that lady-in-waiting, pelting her with sugared buns?’
‘Ah, Agnes,’ Sidney said, sighing dreamily. ‘They won’t let me anywhere near that bit of the castle. And anyway, I’m too busy running around after you, watching you get shouted at by pubescent princesses.’
‘Well,’ Arthur said, sighing for entirely different reasons. ‘Consider yourself free of responsibility today. I won’t be going beyond the castle walls. I’m being frogmarched to an audience with the king for lunch.’
‘Sounds like plenty of potential for trouble, to me.’
‘How much trouble could I possibly get up to without leaving the grounds?’ Arthur said indignantly.
Sidney pointed a stern finger at him. ‘Those words will come back to me in a moment of vivid clarity later as I watch you being clapped in irons or hauled out of the moat.’
‘Fine, Sid, you’re not free of responsibility. I task you to go into the city and locate the very best drinking establishments for our use at a later date. Scope them out, count the entrances and exits—’
‘Sample the libations?’ Sidney said hopefully, perking up.
‘Sample all the bloody libations you want,’ Arthur said, grinning. Sidney immediately got to his feet, disappeared back into their rooms and came back out seconds later wearing his cleanest coat. ‘Oh, right. You’re going now, then?’
‘No time like the present,’ said Sidney, reaching for his cup and draining the last of his ale.
‘Sid, it’s ten o’clock in the morning.’ Sidney hovered, as if awaiting further admonition. ‘No, I mean, I’m just impressed. Off you go. Try not to make the women weep.’
‘At the sight of me?’ Sidney said, patting his pockets to check he was sufficiently funded.
‘You can’t do my punchlines for me,’ Arthur said crossly. ‘They’re quite literally all I have.’
At home Arthur’s chief occupation had been responsibilities, the avoidance thereof; his father had given up on attempting to engage him in politics or the minutiae of running the family’s affairs when he realised that no matter how much he screamed, threatened or threw things at him, his son remained determinedly uninterested. Instead of dragging him along to meetings or taking him to suppers peppered with influential people, Lord Delacey had contented himself with verbally flagellating Arthur whenever their paths crossed. As far as his father was concerned, his betrothal to Gwendoline was the only proof that he had ever made himself useful to another living person. Arthur had responded to all of this by being out of the house as much as possible without technically being classed as a runaway.
As a result, even a castle as vast as Camelot felt oppressive and claustrophobic. After dressing, Arthur started walking aimlessly around it, exploring the reaches he hadn’t encountered during his first week, trying to find his way by memory alone. There were two courtyards in the north of the castle in addition to the larger one to the south; he thought he remembered that the armoury was attached to the one in the north-west, and was pleased with himself when he visited to check and found himself correct. Other times, his memory failed him; he kept running into dead ends around corners and at the end of long, dusty galleries, and every time he approached the rooms in the most northerly part of the castle the guards would send him back the way he’d come with a shake of their heads. Clearly Gwen had not let them know that he was meant to be enjoying special privileges.
There were quite a lot of people walking around, and they all seemed to have jobs; many of them nodded at Arthur as he passed, and he acknowledged them while wondering who the hell they were. He supposed a large cast of miscellaneous castle-dwellers was required to keep the whole thing running, but had no idea where, for example, the two young men carrying a crate of tiny horse statuettes could have been going with such urgency.
Arthur made his way out into the bailey, and immediately felt more lost than ever. Everything seemed to have swapped places since his childhood; apparently the orchard was one of the only things that had been immoveable. All manner of new buildings had sprung up or been relocated, and he set about trying to catalogue them. Ice house, dovecot, forge, buttery. Almost by accident, he opened a tiny and unfamiliar door in an unremarkable-looking exterior wall and stumbled into a garden so beautiful that it stopped him in his tracks.
It was a rose garden, partially shaded from above by wooden trellises that were covered in soft yellow climbing roses in bloom; raised beds were arranged in concentric diamonds, broken up with small sculptures and stone benches. It was completely private, with only one entrance in, and nothing that overlooked it. In the very centre of the garden there was a large statue; before he’d reached it, Arthur knew exactly who would be frowning down at him.
King Arthur had seen better days. His nose was chipped, and two of his fingers had broken off. His beard was still intact, rendered in startling detail; in fact, his face was almost entirely obscured by meticulously carved bristles, his beady eyes staring out from underneath enormous eyebrows. Arthur reached out a hand and touched the rough, well-worn surface of the stone sword clutched in the king’s hands; it was almost as tall as he was.
‘Hullo, you old bastard,’ he said flatly. ‘Shagged any of your sisters lately?’
He was startled when the statue seemed to make a sound in response; this mystery was solved by the sudden appearance of a skinny, battle-worn ginger tabby cat, which gave the statue an affectionate headbutt before abandoning it for the flesh-and-blood Arthur and wrapping itself around his legs.
‘How the hell did you get in here?’ Arthur said, crouching to offer a hand; the cat closed its eyes blissfully, and pressed its little pink nose into his palm. ‘On your way to corrupt the royal purebreds, I imagine.’ He gave it a scratch under the chin; the cat purred loudly and then bit down on his index finger. Arthur swore and retracted his hand, but the cat hadn’t drawn blood. It looked extremely pleased with itself.
‘I like you,’ Arthur said approvingly. ‘Try not to get exterminated.’ A bell began to ring somewhere in the distance, and Arthur’s stomach lurched. After an entire morning of aimless wandering to kill time, he was somehow going to be late.
As he rushed from the courtyard, he was nearly tripped up by a flash of orange fur slipping between his ankles. He sprinted towards the main buildings, trying to smooth down his hair and tunic as he did so; it was only as he reached the east door, out of breath from trying to maintain a loping half-jog, that he noticed the cat was still at his heels.
‘Begone, tiny demon,’ he hissed over his shoulder. The cat blinked back at him, and then sloped off in the opposite direction as the guards let Arthur inside. As he approached the labyrinth of rooms that made up the king’s private cabinets and day chambers, he slowed down, hoping that he wasn’t too visibly sweaty. He was admitted without ceremony, and moments later was standing at the end of a wood-panelled room dominated by a very large table. The king sat alone at the far end.
The table was rectangular. Extremely rectangular, thought Arthur, as if perhaps the king were making a point of it.
‘I see you’re admiring the furniture,’ the king said, glancing briefly up from his papers.
‘Your majesty,’ Arthur said, remembering himself and bowing.
‘Yes, yes, hello, Arthur. Sit down,’ said the king. Faced with at least fifteen chairs and absolutely no idea what was appropriate, Arthur hovered for a moment before taking a seat about three places down from him, which felt a safe and respectful distance.
There was quite a long silence. Arthur, who distinctly remembered that the word ‘lunch’ had been bandied about, looked hopefully at the door to see if sustenance was forthcoming; it was not.
‘The last time you were here,’ the king said finally, ‘you set fire to something.’
Arthur grimaced down at his hands. ‘Yes. I mean – my apologies.’
‘What was it, do you recall?’
Arthur pretended to think about it. ‘Er – I believe it was your wife, sire.’
‘That’s right,’ said the king evenly. ‘It was only my son’s quick thinking that stopped her entire dress from going up in flames.’
‘It was actually Gwendoline, your majesty, who lit the candle in the … Never mind,’ Arthur muttered, seeing the king’s expression and thinking better of his protestations.
‘There is a time and place for dwelling on the past,’ the king said, observing Arthur thoughtfully. ‘I firmly believe that we should respect what has come before, but be sure that we are always learning from it; to emulate the good, and acknowledge the bad, and always be striving towards progress.’
‘Right,’ said Arthur, not entirely sure where this was going. ‘I agree.’
‘I have heard from many sources – my daughter chief among them – that your general conduct since we last met has been less than exemplary. So much so that I am pleasantly surprised to find that in the few days you’ve been here, nobody I hold dear has been set aflame … yet.’
Arthur opened his mouth to respond, but realised he had nothing to say in his own defence.
‘I have great respect for your family, Arthur, and I have been grateful for your father’s continued support since your mother passed on. She and I were old friends and allies, and I felt her loss keenly – although, of course, not as keenly as you yourself. It was good of your father to stand with me after she was gone, being of … well, more of Arthurian persuasion than anything else himself. The blood that runs in your veins made Camelot what it was—’
‘Not really,’ Arthur said, realising too late that he had interrupted, which was quite high on the list of things you weren’t supposed to do to kings.
‘Not—?’
‘I only meant – if there is any of Arthur Pendragon’s blood in me, sire, it’s diluted well past the point of consequence.’ To his surprise, the king let out a small exhalation of laughter at this.
‘Well. Your father has always been very proud of where he came from, however distant that line may be now. You are part of the fabric of England, and you will help write her future. Which brings me to the matter at hand.’ Arthur shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He always dreaded arriving at the matter at hand. ‘Leave whatever battle you’re fighting in the past, Arthur. You will be the Lord of Maidvale. You will be my daughter’s husband. Do not make me live to regret the choice I made when Gwendoline was born. Because if I do, then make no mistake – you will feel that regret tenfold.’
There were quite a few things that Arthur considered saying in response to this, but sanity prevailed. ‘Yes, your majesty. I … Thank you. I understand.’
‘Good,’ said the king. He pulled his papers towards him again, and Arthur sat awkwardly for a second, watching him. The king glanced back up, seeming mildly confused that he was still there. ‘You are dismissed.’
Arthur didn’t need telling twice.
When Sidney got back to their rooms, Arthur had been lying face down on his bed for the best part of three hours. After retiring from his meeting with the king, he’d heard a strange scrabbling at his door, and upon opening it had been baffled to find that the little ginger cat had managed to track him down; he watched as it slinked into his room and hopped up on to the bed for a nap, and had come to the conclusion that it had the right idea about how to spend the rest of the day.
‘Who’s this?’ Sidney said, poking Arthur on the shoulder and then gesturing at the cat.
‘My cat,’ said Arthur, as if this should have been obvious.
‘Right,’ said Sidney doubtfully. ‘What’s it called?’
Arthur turned his head and squinted at the cat, which was currently licking itself in unfortunate places on top of his silk pillowcase. ‘Lucifer.’
‘Good meeting then, was it?’ Sidney said, producing a bottle of wine and putting it down on Arthur’s desk. He took off his jacket, too, and then started relieving himself of a number of small daggers he liked to wear discreetly about his person.
‘The king thinks that if I try really hard, I can become as great a man as my father,’ Arthur said listlessly.
‘Ouch,’ said Sidney, with a sympathetic wince. ‘Want to hear my review of the great city of Camelot?’ Arthur nodded, and Sidney sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Shithole. Everything’s falling apart. Few good inns though. Auditioned them all.’
‘Don’t let the king hear you call it a shithole,’ said Arthur, reaching out to stroke the cat. ‘It’s his pet project.’
‘Fine, it’s up-and-coming,’ said Sidney. ‘He could have just settled at Winchester like everybody else for the past ten million years, or given London a go if he wanted to modernise, but he had to give this old relic one last gasp.’
‘All right, well, you’ve really sold me on it,’ Arthur said, retracting his hand as the cat attempted to shred it. ‘I need you to carry a note for me. We’re going out tonight.’
‘Out,’ said Sidney, ‘or out?’
‘What do you think?’
Sidney just sighed, picked up one of his daggers and slid it back into place in his belt.
Arthur knocked on the door for a second time, his brow furrowing.
‘She knows we’re coming,’ he said to Sidney, who shrugged. ‘The guard let us through.’
Arthur was about to knock for a third time when the door opened; a pretty face with a faint scattering of freckles over the bridge of its slightly upturned nose was looking warily at them through the gap.
‘Good evening, Agnes,’ said Arthur. ‘I believe we were expected?’
‘My lord,’ Agnes said, with a little curtsy. She pulled the door fully open to let them in.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Sidney, as they walked into a room at least twice the size of theirs; it contained a dining table that seated six, a set of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and an enormous fireplace carved all over with flowers and gurning cherubs. Soft, cushioned chairs were arranged regimentally around the hearth, which was carpeted with a plush and extremely expensive-looking rug. In the corner there was a thickly padded cot, with blankets and cushions stacked neatly. It was too clean. The only sign of life was a vase full of bluebells on the dresser by the window. ‘This is a very nice room.’
‘Her highness will be with you in a moment,’ Agnes said, smiling shyly at Sidney and then retreating through an adjoining door.
‘There’s no way she’s read all these,’ Sidney said, straying over to the bookshelves and picking a book at random.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said Arthur, throwing himself into one of the armchairs and immediately putting his feet up on the upholstery. ‘She’s got nothing else to do.’
‘Hello,’ Gwendoline said warily from the doorway. Her eyes swept over Sidney mauling her books and Arthur’s boots on her armchair, but Agnes was watching them, so she just treated them to a very tight and unconvincing smile.
‘Evening. Wine?’ Arthur said, pointing at Sidney, who put down the book and presented a bottle with a flourish.
‘Agnes,’ Gwendoline said with some effort. ‘Could you please pour the boys some wine, and then – and then you’re dismissed.’
Agnes looked startled. ‘But … you want me to leave you alone with him?’ she said, her voice dipping to a loud whisper.
‘Yes,’ said Gwendoline firmly. Agnes did as she was told and then left, glancing back over her shoulder with wide-eyed astonishment.
‘Why did she have to leave?’ said Sidney, sounding genuinely disappointed, knocking back most of his glass in one gulp.
‘Get your feet off my chair,’ Gwendoline snapped at Arthur. In the interest of temporarily keeping the peace, Arthur did. ‘Sending her away is much more effective than having her sit here and listen to us pretend at being sweethearts. If the guards don’t talk, then Agnes certainly will. She’ll tell her noble friends at court; it’ll be all over the castle by tomorrow that we’re being hideously indecorous, because we’re so terribly in love.’
‘So you don’t want any wine then,’ Sidney said. Gwendoline gave him a withering look.
‘I’m going to go back to my bedroom to read,’ she said. ‘You can sit out here and drink as much as you want. Just let me know when our great romance is over for the evening.’
‘Ah – actually,’ said Arthur, getting up and crossing to the mirror on the opposite wall so that he could check his reflection. ‘We’ll be heading out.’ He took a length of ribbon out of his pocket and used it to tie up his hair, twisting it expertly into a knot at the nape of his neck.
‘What do you mean, heading out?’ Gwendoline said, crossing her arms. ‘I thought the whole point was that we’re supposed to be having a – a clandestine evening together. How does that work, if you’re not even here?’
Sidney walked over to the windows and started methodically checking them, opening each one and popping his head out to peer around before moving on to the next. ‘Got one,’ he announced.
‘I’d ask if you’ve ever climbed out of one of these, but that would be a silly question, wouldn’t it?’ said Arthur, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a rather squashed, wide-brimmed hat with a feather in it. He stretched it out with his hands and then pulled it low over his eyes.
‘Out of the window?’ Gwendoline said incredulously.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Arthur. He whipped off his jacket, turned it inside out and then put it back on again. The outside was dark green embroidered satin, but the lining was brown and nondescript.
‘There’s a tricky bit where the masonry’s coming apart, but otherwise it’s a piece of cake,’ said Sidney. ‘Do you want me to leave this, or can I take it with me?’ He was holding up the bottle of wine.
‘But – people will see you,’ Gwendoline spluttered. ‘The guards, for one thing—’
‘Ah,’ said Arthur knowingly. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Because we’ve timed it, and there’s a tasty little break in the patrols that leaves just enough time for two dashing young whippersnappers to make a run for it.’
‘Well, what about the guards at the gate?’ Gwendoline countered. ‘They’ll certainly see you.’
‘And say what?’ said Arthur. Sidney had wedged the cork back into the bottle, tucked the wine into his jacket and hauled himself out on to the windowsill; he glanced down with the tip of his tongue sticking out in concentration, judging the distance, before dropping out of sight. ‘A manservant and a nondescript man in a hideously unfashionable hat slipped past their defences and off into the night? The horror. Agnes and the guards outside will still think I’m here secretly meeting with you.’
‘But …’ Gwendoline tried again. ‘Where are you going?’
Arthur climbed out after Sidney and then grinned back at her over the sill. ‘Out,’ he said, enjoying the half-furious, half-baffled expression on her face before he found the next foothold and disappeared from her view.
The pure, unadulterated joy he derived from annoying her buoyed him all the way out of the gates, past the guards and down the hill until they reached the busy streets of Camelot. They were narrow and winding, turning back on themselves and producing dead ends with no rhyme or reason, ramshackle rows of houses suddenly and dramatically interrupted by large statues of Galahad clutching the grail, or Gawain in his little sash. Everything smelt like blackened meat, soiled straw and woodsmoke; they seemed to be walking down another dead-end alley when they finally reached the inn Sidney had picked out for them.
They took up residence in a back corner on rickety stools, watching all manner of people competing for the innkeeper’s attention, laughing and shouting and spilling their drinks on to the already ale-soaked floor. Arthur took a glass of wine, and then another, knowing he shouldn’t but finding it difficult to care; he felt the day slide away from him until the conversation with the king could have happened to somebody else and been recounted to him second-hand. Sidney kept fetching him drinks, and he kept knocking them back, and when an elderly man started singing an extremely explicit drinking song he joined in heartily, raising his hands aloft as if conducting the crowd.
Just as he was getting tired, and the last glass of wine was starting to feel sour in his stomach, he saw a sandy-haired boy watching him from over by the bar. He looked painfully familiar; for a second Arthur thought that a ghost from his past had somehow followed him all the way to Camelot. He blinked a few times, and realised the boy was familiar, although he wasn’t the ghost in question. Mitchell from the feast ducked his head and looked a little pink when he noticed Arthur staring back.
Sidney said something in his ear, but Arthur wasn’t listening. When he glanced back up, Mitchell was looking at him curiously; as Arthur watched, he raised his eyebrows and then glanced towards the back door of the inn, which opened out into a cramped alleyway. Sidney looked from Arthur to the bar and took it all in remarkably quickly.
‘It’s … You know that’s not him,’ he said quietly.
Arthur shrugged. ‘No, but – I know him. He works with dogs.’
‘Does he now? Well, it’s your funeral. Ten minutes,’ said Sidney, swapping seats so that he had eyes on the door.
Arthur watched as Mitchell shouldered through the crowd to reach it and disappeared into the alley without a backwards glance. He drained the rest of his drink, smoothed down his jacket and then followed.