Argument: Knightliness is considered the King’s game, Lathy hides in a wardrobe, the Queen talks to herself and someone else and a wrong turning leaves a burning cliffhanger of sorts.Why this knightliness?
Day after day, day after day, he entertained the notion of being the greatest knight of all the countries and the oceans.
Why great? why not a jobbing knight? he could land a bandit or two, claim a treasure to set him up past a life of austerity, he could ride it out and camp it up in his armour – his life could be a knightly life without the terror of a lord to serve its justice on him.
A freelance.
However, he correctly pointed out the multitude of swords-for-hire – a mercenary army is the strongest one, but the saddest one – the faces take no joy in the killing; the audience never cheer, never spark a fire of applause.
No-one needs the need to want this chorus line of swords and halberds – but a King’s knight, oh what a thing to be.
One afternoon, after hours of this talk, we broke into the castle – took a smash through a window that led to a larder, then to a kitchen, a hall and up to a chamber, calmed and warm.
How we guessed where we were going I’ll leave others to know – but like some Fagin we entered the Queen’s bedchamber, we sat on her bed, rifled her magazines, kicked a shoe across the floor – unhung a jacket from the wardrobe door and stepped inside.
We hid.
A hour passed and in she came, talking to someone who never replied – Lathy shooshed me though I was silent.
“Boring!
What was the point
of that day out from dull boredom
to tedious jousting
to armoured joint?
“I saw
the battle, yes,
and they watched the damned audience
not damned me – why have knights
who slight their queen?
“Waiting
for excitement…
Maybe I’ve seen too many too.
I want excitement now,
give me plenty.
“Bored, bored…
bored bloody bored
what a day that was, sitting dull…
did you laugh much? see much?
no, me neither.
“Live much?
No. Me neither…
… but still, it’s always a day out.
Still a time to be seen
and lay about…”
Quiet for a minute – a pacing and a swish, a curtain flung over, a clap of shoes kicked off on the wooden boards.
“Newness!
Some newer knights.
I’ll speak to the King who’ll sort it…
Some new blood spilt for me,
laid out for me…
“The boy
in green armour?
I saw him – an odd face on him.
More a midget, I think,
than a young boy.”
I smiled, nudged Lathy and whispered:
“Perhaps
you might prefer
the simpler life of a boy-knight
more likely to get fame
through youth than height.”
He pinched me back, feeling him look in the dark – she trod across the room, always talking to her silent partner.
“Some cry
to be noticed
with their shouting or hollering
or that quiet business
with depression.
“Raining
days annoy me –
real tears to be noticed by me –
I never give in though:
tears are for kings."
Uh-huhs and Yeahs and Yeses came from her, I listened closely to her words that were no words and never came, ‘til she finally shouted:
“But oh!
remember him
of the fifteen fingers – monster
of a man, with three arms
and one lone leg.
“He walked
away on arm
and leg one day and never thought
to return prettily,
enjoyably.
“Some fear
kept him distant.
There were those others, similar
in novelty and glee –
but they vanished.
“Good ones,
entertainers,
all leave the Castle and vanish,
leaving us quite bored
with dull knights left.”
She spoke of the flash-in-the-pans who jumped from the pans and out into the world of clouds and blockages:
- Sir Guy the Cliché;
- Sir Gowther the Devil;
- Sirs Teefer and Fiefer, the Lesbian Knights;
- Sir Dagonet, jester, the Comedy Knight (and said with no ‘t’, the frenchified way);
- Sir Matzerath, the Dwarfish Knight, the first named such, Germanically haphazardly, the Zwergen Ritter (– sorry, Lathy, it’s true);
- Sir Quixana, the Stay-At-Home-All-Day-and-Knight, the good Don Quixana with his second-hand books in Español;
- Sir Agiluf the Empty Knight;
- Sir Marie the Girl Knight, bless, she was a darling at Lancelot’s beck and call;
- Sir Sad, Sir Bad, Sir Humourous-to-Know – the triple act dance act, poets on persuasion;
- et cetera;
- et cetera.
All vanished, all gone, all jokes she never conceded nor laughed at – just a memory of entertainment – pure, sheer, clear and glassed enjoyment.
“Granted,
we laughed at them.
But they led out the field to take
the laughter on themselves,
as their namesakes.”
It went quiet and she whispered goodbye – I felt the sadness in the parting and Lathy’s face creaked some in the dark – he similarly whispered goodbye.
Her feet clumped to shoes, she dressed and she left – the door echoing - we waited cramped – I had told him to leave his armour behind but no knight could et cetera.
An hour passed, we sat cuckoo nested before moving – we sneaked down stairs, we took a wrong turn – Lathy’s ears began to burn as we entered the Knight’s common room.
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