I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression of the villagers though, some of them may have been less than trusting of me, but on the whole they had good hearts and saw us off the next day with plenty of provisions to see us through to the capital without the need to hunt for dinner. Sir Harold thanked the leader and promised to deliver the village’s requests to the King as soon as he was able and with that we rode off on our way.

Although for a time some of the village children ran alongside us, they were extremely amused by the ‘trap’ and wanted to see it in action. I felt rather self-concious especially since they kept giggling and seemed to find it all quite a joke. It seemed that everyone in Camelot knew how to ride a horse. I had a feeling I’d probably need to learn how to if I was going to get any respect here.

The children were eventually called back by their parents and waved at us until we entered the forest and were out of sight.

For most of our journey I hadn’t really listened to any of the guards’ conversation, apart from anything else I’d been too busy making sure I didn’t fall off the ‘trap’! But after three days I’d got quite used to sitting in the thing and as we rode on I couldn’t help over hearing their discussion this time.

“Do you think you may have promised those people too much?” Sir Harold’s right hand man sounded concerned. But then he seemed to me to be a worrier by nature. “You know how His Majesty can be.”

“There are more ways to assist those people than royal favour, Jared.” Sir Harold spoke with confidence, but I noticed his brow furrowing. “Besides, His Majesty agreed to the settlement becoming official, I’m certain he plans to follow through on his promise to the villagers.”

As the two spoke it occurred to me that I had overlooked something very important when I had decided to come here to Camelot and that was the King. I had absolutely no idea what he was like, or how he felt about foreigners and considering that the Royal Archivist was, of course, royal, this was a rather large oversight. I wondered for a moment if I had come all this way only to be let down at the very end. But almost as soon as the thought entered my head, I dismissed it. There was no way I’d come this far to let unfounded doubts stop me now, besides, how likely was it that I’d even meet the King of Camelot. Royal Archivist he might be, but I was quite sure that that Cedas wouldn’t be in the King’s company all that often and if I managed to become his apprentice, I was sure I wouldn’t be in the King’s company at all, he probably wouldn’t ever know my name.

Having satisfied myself that I wouldn’t be incurring royal disfavour any time soon my thoughts turned to the Royal Archivist himself, remembering from the letter that he’d been described as quite...difficult. I had to wonder what exactly did that mean? After all one persons irritation was not another’s and I liked to think I was rather easy going when it came to such things. And of course many people found scholarly individuals rather trying, although considering Bishop Maxim’s own literary bent – religious though it was – I didn’t think he would complain about that.

Finally I decided that there was no point in worrying about that now, Camelot was less than a day’s ride away now! Just one more night and I’d be there. I found myself almost bouncing in my ‘trap’, which would have been a very bad idea indeed, so fortunately I restrained myself.

But still! The excitement was building, I wondered just how I would react when I finally reached the great city itself.

I didn’t have long to wait.