Children of the May (Children of the May Book 1)

Chapter Eleven: North or South?

An hour later Piers, with his aching arm in a sling, was sitting up and carrying on as loudly as normal. I still felt some lingering shock at what I had been able to do with the watersnakes, but the greasy rabbit meat made me feel more like myself. Once everyone had eaten the gulls settled on the grass a little way from us. The birds kept their beady eyes on our leftover bones, pecking at the scraps we tossed towards them.

I looked at the castle. Our fire was directly in front of the gatehouse. From where we were the castle’s three towers, the one over the gatehouse and the two further behind the walls, were in a perfectly symmetrical arrangement. My mother’s castle was more ramshackle that this perfectly built place. The walls of the castle by the Lake had been rebuilt in my own lifetime, but this castle on the cliffs looked as if had been raised in a single week, such was the uniformity of its smooth grey stone. It was beautiful in its design. But the more I looked at it the more I felt uneasy: it was huge, and should have housed hundreds of people, but seemed dark and empty. No one in their right minds would abandon a castle that size and in that condition, not unless something truly dreadful had happened within.

Bellina was also looking at the walls. ‘They’re not going to let us in are they?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s a great dishonour for the master of a castle not to offer hospitality to nobles like Prince Accolon and me.’

‘Now now, my dear,’ said Accolon, who was sitting close by her. ‘I think it’s likely that yon Gaul over in the trees was imagining things when she saw a woman at the window.’

‘They’re going to leave us out here to be eaten by the beast.’ Bellina’s head fell. ‘It’s not fair.’

‘What was it like, the creature?’ said Accolon.

‘A big, bloody, evil… cat,’ said Piers. ‘The cat that dogs have nightmares about, with hounds still in its belly.’

‘I’ve never heard of anything like it,’ said Accolon.

‘I think it’s the Questing Beast,’ said Elia.

‘You’ve seen it before?’ said Palomina.

Elia shook her head. ‘My harp-master Taliesin has a story about. It describes the things in its belly, and the noises they make. King Pellinore is supposed to have this endless quest where he’s always chasing, but never catching it. He finds its leavings on the road, but the beast itself has always moved on. There’s a song too, a funny one:

King Pellinore after the Questing Beast

Chased it to the edge of the map,

But the Beast was ware and away it screeched

Leaving poor P a very wet cr–

‘Ha!’ roared Piers, anticipating the song’s punch line. ‘You’re a good one, little foul-mouthed lass. We could do with an entertainer like you on the manor.’

‘You couldn’t afford me, feller,’ grinned the girl.

‘Yes, very nice,’ said Bellina, a look of pure disgust on her face.

There had been no sign of the beast, so Mordred called the others back over to the fire. Once they had sat down he suggested we decide what to do next.

‘Does anyone have any idea where we are?’ he said. ‘Does anyone recognise this castle? What about you two? Palomides and Palomina, you’re sailors.’

Palomina shook her head. ‘We have sailed the coasts of all the British islands many times on trading missions for our father, but I recognise neither the castle nor the cliffs below it.’