Feast Fight! (5 page)

“You could say that,” said Patchcoat. “Except it’s for storing
people
, not things. Welcome to the castle dungeon!”

I peered again at the shapes on the walls and realized they were rusty old chains and manacles. In one corner I could make out a huge scary axe with a curved blade. Even under all the cobwebs it still looked pretty sharp.

“Yikes,” I shivered. “I didn’t even know Castle Bombast
had
a dungeon.”

The thief groaned again.

“Come on,” said Margaret. “Let’s get this villain locked up before he comes to.”

At one end of the dungeon was an ancient door with heavy iron bolts. With a screech of
rusty hinges, Margaret hauled it open.

“Sling him in ’ere,” she said.

The cell was narrow, dank and pitch-black. We dragged the thief inside and dumped him on what smelled like a pile of mouldy, stinking straw. He moaned groggily as Margaret whipped off the leather sack, shut the door and slammed the bolts into place.

“Right,” she said, wiping her hands on her nightdress. “The master can deal with him in the morning. I’m off back to bed. I’ve got a bloomin’ royal banquet to cook tomorrow!”

Chapter Six

Curry Carry-On

I hauled the thief before the king. I had single-handedly captured the most notorious robber in the kingdom. As the master-thief was led away in chains, the king drew his jewelled sword. He ordered me to kneel before him. Then he touched the blade on each of my shoulders and declared: “Arise, Sir Cedric!”
Arise… Arise… Arise…

Arise? I opened an eye. What time was it? The sun was pouring through my window. Yikes! After all the shenanigans of the night I’d overslept badly – it was late morning and I’d promised to wake Sir Percy early!

I leaped out of bed, pulled on my clothes and dashed to Sir Percy’s door. I knocked but there was no answer.

I knocked again. “Sir Percy?”

Again no answer. I opened the door and went in, ready to say sorry for not waking him sooner. Once I’d told him about the thief, I was sure he’d understand. I only hoped he hadn’t missed an important appointment in the village.

To my surprise, Sir Percy wasn’t there. Not only that, he’d even made his own bed, which is normally my job. And his nightgown was on the bed, so he’d even got himself dressed. I usually helped him with that, too.

Sir Percy wasn’t in the Great Hall, either. (All I found there was the mess from the night before, so that was another chore to add to my list.) He must have left for the village. His appointment was obviously pretty important if he’d got himself ready without any help from me!

I went to the kitchen to see how the food for the banquet was coming along. I arrived just in time to see Margaret scraping a pile of plucked crows (
eeww!
) and a mountain
of cabbage (
yuck!
) into a large cauldron of water. Patchcoat was telling a joke to two large cabbages wearing crowns made from old parchment.

“Ced!” he grinned. “Say hello to Their Majesties. I’m just practising some warm-up gags for tonight.”

“Just as long as you don’t call them a pair of vegetables,” I laughed.

“’Ere, you seen Sir Percy, Master Cedric?” said Margaret, chopping a turnip in half with a single blow of her knife. “Where’s he been? It’s nearly lunchtime. His porridge is all cold and lumpy.”

“Even colder and lumpier than normal, you mean,” quipped Patchcoat. He ducked to avoid a large slice of turnip that Margaret hurled at him.

“Oi! Less o’ your cheek,” she snapped.

“I think he went out early,” I said. “He had something to do in the village.”

“Went out?” said Margaret, offended. “Without a bowl of my delicious porridge? That’s impossible!”

Patchcoat winked at me. Anyone who’d
actually tasted Margaret’s porridge knew that it was
totally
possible.

“Oh, well, I may as well tidy the Great Hall while I’m waiting for him to come back,” I said.

“I’ll come with you,” said Patchcoat. “I need to work out where old Perkin can do his play.”

In the hall I pieced all the suits of armour together and hung
The Triumph of Sir Percy
back on the wall. Meanwhile, Patchcoat cleared a space at one end of the hall for the players. It was well past lunchtime by the time we’d finished, but Sir Percy still hadn’t returned.

After a late lunch of bread (stale) and
cheese (mouldy) in the kitchen, I returned to the Great Hall to prepare the banqueting table for the evening. First I put out Sir Percy’s five remaining silver plates – one for each of our royal guests, one for Sir Percy, one for Sir Spencer and one for the Baron. Anyone else would have to make do with our usual plain old pewter.

Then I went back to the kitchen to get the cutlery, including some newfangled eating tools called “forks” that Sir Percy bought a couple of months back. (Waste of money if you ask me. Why bother with forks when you can spear your food on the end of your knife? They’ll never catch on.)

The kitchen was starting to fill up with
steam and the stink of boiling crow and cabbage.
Pooh!
Then I had an idea. All this steam provided the perfect chance to pep up Margaret’s foul-smelling stew…

While she wasn’t looking, I grabbed my sack of curry powder from behind the logpile. I quickly untied the sack and tiptoed up to the fireplace. Then, under the cover of the steam, I shook a bit of powder into the bubbling cauldron.

“Oi! Fingers out of my stew!” said Margaret. I was so startled that I jumped – promptly tipping most of the powder into the pot. Yikes! Oh well, it would
definitely 
be tastier now. I hastily stuffed the almost-empty sack up my jerkin before turning round.

“Sorry, Margaret,” I said. “I couldn’t resist tasting it. It looks so delicious!”

Margaret smiled, then her face fell.

“Hold on,” she said suspiciously. “You’ve got something up your jerkin. You been nicking my turnips?”

ROOT-I-TOOT-I-TOOT!

Before I could reply, the sound of a trumpet drifted through the window.

“Whassat?” said Margaret.

There was another
ROOT-I-TOOT
, closer this time and accompanied by the pounding of hooves.

Margaret and I ran to the window to look. Riding into the castle courtyard was Baron Fitztightly, plus two junior heralds blowing trumpets.

“I’d better go and greet them,” I said. “I expect they’ve come to tell us when the king and queen are arriving.” It was only teatime and the royal couple weren’t due for another two hours.

I ran outside and bowed to the baron.

“Good day, Master Cedric!” said Baron Fitztightly. “Kindly fetch your master.”

“Er – well, I
would
, your lordship,” I said. “But I’m afraid he’s – um – not here.”

“Not here?” said the baron. “I’m afraid Their Majesties get very upset if their host
isn’t present to greet them.”

“Their Majesties, your lordship?” I said. “You mean to say—”

“Yes,” said the baron. “They’re early.”

I gulped as, over the baron’s shoulder, I saw a whole procession come clattering across the drawbridge. In front rode eight palace guards, while two trumpet-tooting heralds brought up the rear. But it wasn’t the soldiers and heralds that made me gasp. In the centre of the procession was a splendid gold coach drawn by four magnificent white horses. It stopped right
in front of me and one of the coachmen hopped down to open the door. As he did so the heralds blasted out a fanfare and the baron bellowed, “Pray welcome to Their Majesties the king and queen!”

I watched in awe as the king stepped down from the coach. He turned to help the queen, but she brushed away his hand.

“Out of my way, Fredbert!” she cried. Then she hitched up her skirts and leaped out of the coach.

“Better now, Malicia dear?” said the king.

“
Much
better,” she said. “I needed a jolly good jump after so long in this rotten coach. My bones have been rattled to bits!”

The king drew himself up to his full height. “Greetings, one and all!” he boomed. Then he saw that it was just me. “Oh. Where’s that old rascal Sir Percy, boy?”

I bowed and said, “I-I’m not sure, Your Majesty.”

“What, boy? Not here to welcome his sovereign?” said the queen.

“Quite so, Your Majesty,” said the baron. “Disgraceful!”

“Steady on, you two!” said the king. “Don’t terrify the poor lad. After all, it’s not Sir Percy’s fault we left our last host early. I’m sure he’ll be along directly. Why don’t you show us to our chambers, boy?”

“
Must
we stay here, Fredbert?” said the queen sniffily. “It’s a frightfully small castle.”

“Don’t fret, my dear,” said the king. “I’m sure Sir Percy has given us the very best rooms, eh, boy?”

“Y-yes, Your Majesty,” I stammered. “Follow me, Your Majesties.”

Yikes! In all the palaver I had forgotten to prepare the Royal Suite, which was right next to Sir Percy’s chamber.

“Slow down, boy!” the queen called after me, as I hurried up the stairs. But I had to get to the room first.

I reached the Royal Suite and flung open the door. The last king to stay in it was King Ogbert the Odd back in Sir
Peregrine’s day – and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since. No way could I let the king and queen set foot inside there.