Fortunately, I rather quickly discovered when my research would be needed, the castle was abuzz with talk of the Duke of Cornwall's visit. Apparently the Duke was considered one of the most handsome men in all of Albion so the female servants in particular were very much looking forward to his visit.

I thought all rather ridiculous, but at least I knew when the Duke was coming and that was soon!

So into the archives I went hunting through the myriad of documents and books concerning Cornwall. One day I decided to bring Prince Uther in on the research, not only because I was running out of time but because there were things to be learned.

Not that Prince Uther was at all interested in what I was trying to teach namely how to select research materials, no he was more interested in Cornwall’s military history.

I suppose I should be glad he had some interest because when I first told him what we were doing his response was dismissive. “Cornwall? Who cares about Cornwall, they don’t even have a king!”

But upon seeing all the books and dispatches relating to the various battles their army had proved instrumental in, the Prince proved to be a bit of hinderance as he insisted on reading through every dispatch and commenting on it.

So I was treated to remarks such as - “They beat the Mercia’s first batallion!”

“They have a mounted calvary of archers!”

“They’ve kept the Irish from breaching their coastline for hundreds of years with hardly any help at all!”

I suppose I should be thankful the Prince was finally appreciating the library for what it could be, but this was not a very good time. I certainly didn’t want to get on the bad side of Prince Caius, I was sure he was just as frightening as the King and Prince Ambrosius when he lost his temper.

It would have helped if I’d know specifically what the Duke of Cornwall was coming here to discuss, I had to assume though that it was military strategy of some sort, so at least I was on the right track there.

You can’t imagine my surprise when towards sunset Prince Caius himself returned to the library. I was expecting to have to deliver what I had collected – with the inherit difficult that would cause – not have the Prince come in person. What if he didn’t think I had collected the correct information?

Prince Uther was as surprised as I was, but a small smile appeared on his face. “Uncle Caius!”

Prince Caius didn’t even bother to greet his newphew instead he addressed me. “Where’s Cedas?”

I gave a quick bow. “Sire, Cedas instructed me to get the information for you so –“

“You?” Prince Caius snapped, looking me up and down. “I don’t even know who the Hell you are –“

“He’s my tutor, Uncle,” Prince Uther interjected, to my surprise, since that was tantamount to him defending me, which I most certainly never expected.

Prince Caius face went red and I shrank back, wondering what exactly my punishment was going to be. Wasn't he at least going to look at it before condemning me?

Suddenly, Prince Caius slammed his fist down on the table that stood between us. "Is that the game then? Is that what his most gracious and benevolent Majesty has decreed? That I receive assistance from a simpleton and the most useless prince in the seven kingdoms?"

I finched, not just for myself, but for Prince Uther, stealing a quick look at him I saw his face was completely impassive.

"Cedas choose you, did he?" The Prince repeated slowly as if to a small child. "Tell me can you even read?"

"Yes, sire, of course I can, sire," I hurriedly picked up all the material I had gathered. It was quite an armful, but was, I thought an accurate description of the current diplomatic situation between Camelot and Cornwall.

Prince Caius stared at the various scrolls and two slim volumes, his upper lip curling in disdain. Finally he spoke. "You've picked the ones that say Cornwall, at least. Boy," he turned in Prince Uther's direction, "bring those to my chambers and be quick about it, damn it."

"Yes, Uncle," Prince Uther didn't seem to think his uncle was in too dangerous a mood, which was a relief, though in that case I shuddered to think what a bad mood would entail.

Prince Uther managed to take the whole pile all at once and hurry from the library without the stack so much as wobbling. It seemed that among other things training to be a knight gave one enviable balance.

Prince Caius put his other hand on the table and leaned forward, his eyes bored into mine. "Now, you listen to me, if any of that information is wrong and I end up looking the fool in any way, you will pay for it, understand?"

I swallowed hard, my heart was pounding in my chest so loudly I could barely hear the Prince's threat.

Apparently, I answered far too slowly for his liking because he grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me so hard my teeth clacked together. "Understand?!" He repeated.

"Y-yes, sire." I gasped, I had bit my tongue when he shook me and I tasted the bitter tang of blood.

With that Prince Caius smiled, a truly chilling smile I thought and then swept from the library.

I sat down, my legs all but giving out on me and rubbed my shoulder, which now throbbed from the force of Prince Caius's grip.

The royal family was truly the strangest one I had ever met.

I would be overstepping my bounds if I were to suggest I got to know Prince Uther well, despite the fact I tutored him for a number of hours most weeks of the year. The Prince though was not the sort of person on really got to know and I don't believe it was wholly due to out differences in rank, I noticed for instance that the Prince did not keep the company of any of his contemporaries, despite the fact they undoubtedly spent a lot of time in each other's company and were all pages. I often wondered why that was, but then I had not had many friends myself when I was a boy, on the other hand an interest in books is not really common among young boys whereas an interest in being a knight most certainly was.

Ever since noticing the bruise on Prince Uther's face I had began to see more evidence of such harsh acts towards the boy, he often arrived for lessons with red rimmed eyes as if he had been crying, but there were not always bruises to show for it. True to Cedas's advice I never brought it up and instead concentrated on getting the Prince interested in learning. This was an uphill battle on an unprecedented level as far as I was concerned, although I have to admit one of the best ways of learning something is to do it yourself. That being the case I soon found myself to be an expert on the history of Camelot as well as the various order disputes with the other seven kingdoms.

Prince Uther was not the sort of person amiable to treaties and cease fires, however. He seemed to be of the opinion that whenever possible force should be favoured over words. My attempts to teach him the benefits of diplomacy seemed to fall on deaf ears.

I did however have his full attention when it came to recounting the battles of the past, in fact hat's how he came to read, write and do arithmetic, all of which, admittedly one would need to lead a company of knights into battle. But really, I think something should be said about learning for learning's sake.

When time permitted I continued my studies with Cedas, who was cantankerous as ever, but no-one would ever deny he knew just about everything there was to know about archiving. During one lesson on the various methods of cataloguing we were both surprised when one of the royal brothers came into our midst. I believed it was Prince Caius, truth be told I couldn't really tell the middle two princes apart. Of course, he wouldn't have had the foggiest idea of what my name was, so I felt we were even on that score.

Cedas and I hurriedly got to our feet and bowed, although personally I didn't rate this prince much, etiquette needed to be respected. The Prince barely looked our way instead he curtly demanded information on the Duchy of Cornwall.

"Cornwall, Your Highness?" Cedas repeated, somewhat timidly. "What specifically did you wish to know, sire?"

It was a necessary question, we did after all have an enormous amount of information on Cornwall, it would take weeks to go through it all.

Prince Caius didn't appreciate this fact in the least, in fact he looked very affronted as if we had dealt him a severe insult.

"I have no time to answer the questions of servants," he said, coldly. "Just get me information. The Duke and his entourage are coming for a council, I won't be thought of as ignorant." He leveled us with a stare that plainly said if he was he would hold Cedas and probably me, if he remembered my face, responsible.

And with that rather broad order he swept out of the library, not even bothering to say when he expected the information, some people simply had no idea how a researcher did his work.

Cedas was annoyed as I at this less than clear request, he had an advantage however, he was able to palm the work off to me. I supposed I should have been honoured as it represented my first foray into the work of an archivist and all the necessary work needed for such.

All the same, I heartily wished it could have been something not to do with the royal family...

The loss of Maxim was quite a painful experience, I had never known anyone who had died young and it was something that was hard to forget.

While I was realising this truth of how transitory life could be, Prince Uther had had a far different experience on his trip away.

I had almost forgotten about my student in the wake of the trip to the Labrinyth of Gedref, he however had not forgotten that he was still being tutored, or more to the point the King or Prince Kentigern hadn’t forgotten because on the Monday after arriving home, the young Prince entered the library, looking very excited.

It was a bit of a shock to be honest, I certainly hadn’t expected to see a happy face, much less on Prince Uther who was usually sullen.

“Kent says I’m going to be the best squire!”

“That’s...um...good.”

"He says if I work hard and keep practicing I'll be made an apprentice knight before everyone else my age and become a full knight ahead of them all." The Prince was all but jumping up and down on the spot.

I have to confess I couldn't really share in his enjoyment of the moment, apart from the what had happened on my trip there was also the fact I didn't understand the obsession of being a knight at all. I made an attempt though to look happy and encouraging.

"Father is going to be so proud of me." The prince said this more to himself than me so I refrained from commenting. I decided it was for the best however, surely Prince Uther was right? What father wouldn't be proud to hear how well his son was doing at something so difficult?

Prince Ambrosius as it turned out. Though I didn’t realise it at first.

Prince Uther entered the library that morning with his head bowed down low and his feet dragging, I don't believe I'd ever seen such a downtrodden person in all my life. Of course I couldn't actually say anything, that would have been taking familiarities with royalty, all the same, I fought to hold my tongue when I saw the Prince's face.

The boy had clearly been struck across the face, a bright red mark that was all ready beginning to gray into a bruise in some parts, his eyes were ringed with red, which wasn't surprising, God knows I would have wept had been injured like that!

The Prince said nothing about it, so I certainly couldn't, all the same it was difficult to proceed without acting like something was amiss. I fear I'm not a very good actor at all.

The Prince was extremely dispondent spending most of the lessons staring down at the tabletop and displaying now of his usual distractive tendancies. Frankly it left me feeling at quite uncomfortable and at a loss for what to do.

During the meal break I went over to speak to Cedas.

"Well, of course I noticed," he said annoyed, "I'm not blind, lad. But you're doing the right thing by ignoring it. Royals don't want your comfort and they certainly don't want your pity."

"But the Prince is not even ten years old, how on earth did he manage such an injury?"

Cedas gave a laugh, which frankly, I found in very poor taste, although I recognised it was not a laugh of amusement. "You don't know much about Prince Ambrosius's temper do you? You should be glad of that."

I was appalled, I had imagined the injury had occurred during one of the training sessions, which was bad enough, I had never even considered the idea it could have been Prince Uther's own father.

"But... why? He couldn't have done anything that horrible, he was only telling me yesterday that the Crown Prince had praised him for how well he did on that annual hunt ."

"Exactly," Cedas gave a nod as if I had just answered some riddle.

"You mean... Prince Ambrosius struck him for that? What possible reason could he have for such cruelty?"

Cedas looked at me as if I had asked the most ridiculous question possible, then shook his head. "Prince Ambrosius doesn't need an excuse to be cruel to his son, his mere existence is insult enough."

I stared at my mentor in utter confusion, quite certain now that it would be impossible for any normal person to understand royalty. Frankly, I didn't think it was eve possible for someone who had all their mental faculties.

"But Prince Uther is his son, his heir, is that not what every royal wants? A son to follow him?"

"Not Prince Ambrosius. He's so far down the line of succession it barely makes a difference what he does, which is the only reason he's wedded in the first place. To a woman he utterly despises I might add."

Well, I had quickly realised that Prince Ambrosius's marriage hadn't been one of love, but outright hatred of one's spouse was a bit much.

"You've no doubt noticed the striking resemblance between mother and son, haven't you?" Cedas continued and I nodded. "Hardly the Prince's fault, but his father is determined to blame him so he does. He's harder on his son then any father I've ever known and I've known quite a few."

I did not doubt that, still it seemed very harsh on Prince Uther, but then emotions rarely made sense. I wonder just how that sort of treatment would affect Prince Uther as he grew and frankly I could only think that it would be poorly, very poorly.

And he wasn’t, we never saw Maxim again. We waited in front of the entrance to the maze, thinking perhaps he would emerge. Alice and Gaius did some sort of spell to find him, but it turned up nothing – either that or it simply didn’t work, I couldn’t tell.

As the sun rose the next day after a night spent waiting and hoping and then dispairing, Richard declared that he was going to re-enter the Labyrinth.

“Are you mad?” Gaius scrambled to his feet. “We barely got out of there the first time!”

“We can’t leave Maxim in there, he’s one of us.”

Alice got to her feet as well. “Richard, you can’t it’s too late,” she put her hand on his shoulder. “The spell couldn’t find him, he’s gone.”

“You could be wrong, and even if you’re not we can’t leave him there to rot!” Richard shrugged off Alice’s hand and turned towards the Labyrinth. “He wouldn’t leave us.”

Alice and Gaius gave each other a desparate look but it didn’t look like anything was going to stop Richard.

As he approached the entrance though we we’e nearly shocked out of our minds at the sudden appearance of a hooden figure. It literally appeared out of nowhere!

“Leave this place.” The voice that emerged was deep and commanding. “You are not welcome.”

That was enough for me, but Richard was not so easily ordered around, he stared at the figure. “Where is he? Where’s Maxim?” He demanded.

“You shouldn’t have been here, this is a sacred place.”

“Give him back to us, he’s our friend,” Richard’s voice actually shook.

“The one you call Maxim has been taken by the Goddess, she will take care of him now.”

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t make Richard feel any better, his fingers curled into fists. “You mean she killed him?’

“The Goddess does not kill,” the hooded figure replied in a dispassionate matter of fact manner. “Your friend made a mistake, none of you are powerful enough to pass through the Labyrinth. Your eagerness far outpaced your abilities.”

“He’s our friend,” Richard’s voice shook. “Damnit! He’s our friend! We want his body at least!”

“No-one can return from the Labyrinth,” the hooded figure was firm. “I am sorry.”

“You’re not sorry!” Richard’s voice broke and before any of the rest of us could react he raced towards the figure.

But before he got within a few feet of whoever he was suddenly thrown back, landing a good fifty feet away.

“Leave,” although we couldn’t see their face the hooden figure seemed to look at each of us and there was a sense of foreboding descended over us, or at least it over me. I was more than ready to leave the Labyrinth and never, ever come back.

Alice had gone to Richard’s side to make sure he was all right and now Gaius spoke.

“We’ll leave, we... I...we apologise for encroaching upon the labrinyth we did not realise our presence wouldn’t be welome.”

“You know better now,” the figure said, and raising an arm pointed towards the forest. “You have half an hour, do not loiter.”

And in the blink of an eye the figure was gone.

Gaius turned to look at us, and I realised that Richard had his face in hands, his shoulders shaking.

“Let’s go.”

*~*

The ride back to Camelot was a silent, gloomy affair, Richard wouldn’t speak to any of us. Gaius was also in deep silence, thoughftul and every now and then a look of guilt would steal over his face.

Although it had been a couple of days since I’d been in the saddle I was once again in a fair degree of pain, although really I couldn’t compare my discomfort to what mental turmoil the others were going through. I didn’t know what to think, I wished I could say something to ease Gaius’s conscience, what had happened was hardly his fault. It was not as if he had planned this and the rest of the group had willingly gone.

Still...even though I had ony known him for a very short time I kept looking about for Maxim, recalling what he had said, how hopeful he’d been that the Labyrinth would help him, allow him to see something, do something he’d never seen before.

And now he was dead.

I couldn’t help wondering at the fragility of life and the danger that magic presented.

Still magic was hardly the only dangerous thing out there, Christianity had lead many others to their deaths.

I didn’t think that would cheer up Gaius or the rest of the group however, so I decided to keep my mouth shut.

As we drew closer and closer to Camelot, black clouds filled the sky and soon enough there was a crack of thunder, a flash of lightning and then the rain began to fall. Soon we were all soaked to skin, which made an unpleasant journey that much worse. It was at least only another hour’s ride, and as we went through the main gate of the lower town, I swore to myself that I would never ride a horse again.

On arriving back at the stables, Alice spoke up. “Who’s going to speak to Maxim’s mother?”

Gaius flinched, I hadn’t considered family, this was not a conversation that anyone would wish to have.

Osric, Roderick, Elric and Ian looked at each other, it was clear nobody wanted to that particular task.

“I’ll do it,” Gaius spoke up, wiping the rain from his face. “It’s my responsiblity.”

“We’ll come with you,” Alice spoke up, looking towards the others. “Won’t we?”

Richard shook his head and spoke for the first time. “I should do it, he’s my cousin, I promised to look after him. It’s I who let Max down.”

Gaius shook his head, moving over to put a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t hold yourself solely responsible for what happened, it’s not fair.”

Richard look as if he were going to object, but he didn’t seem to have strength.

I wasn’t exactly sure if I was included this, but I decide that I probably was, so followed the rest of them, not that I really had anything to say.

I am not very good at such scenes, Maxim’s mother was one of the town bakers and she seemed to have no idea what we had come for, which made it all the more difficult when she greeted the group and let us in.

“Where is Max?” She asked, looking over our shoulders, trying to spot her son.

I don’t really remember what Gaius said to her, or the rest of the group for that matter, instead I watched as his mother’s face paled and her eyes filled with tears and disbelief and then wrenching sobs.

At that was the end of Gaius’s magical group.

I may have screamed as loud as whatever creature it was that had roared before and I all but passed out from sheer terror. I struggled to break free and run, but then heard a voice calling my name, a familiar voice...Gaius's voice. It was at that moment too that I realised I was still hollering at the top of my lungs.

I finally managed to close my mouth and I took in Gaius’s apperance for the first time. His clothes were torn and spotted with blood, a long bloody scratch ran across his cheek, his hair was in complete disarray.

“Where are the others?” He was asking me, his eyes wide. “Did they come this way?”

“What?” I blinked hard a few times, attempting to clear my head, there seemed to be a constant dull roaring sound making it difficult to hear, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the outside or was inside my own head.

“Have you seen the others!” Gaius grabbed me by the shoulders and all but shouted into my face.

“No,” I shook my head and looked around, the fog was starting to disperse, almost as quickly as it had come. “I haven’t seen anyone.”

Gaius’s eyes looked even more fearful if that was possible and letting go of my shoulders he turned and ran back towards the Labyrinth, I followed not wanting to be left alone.

Gaius was shouting out names, but there was no answer, I joined in, thinking that maybe our combined voices would carry further. The fog had almost disappeared now, and while I was expecting our surroundings to look as dishelved as Gaius now did, it looked exactly the same, there didn’t seem to be a leaf out of place.
“Alice! Richard! Roderick! Elric! Osric! Ian! Maxim!” Gaius hollered at the top of his lungs, pausing at the entrance to the Labyrinth, obviously not wanting to re-enter it, I couldn’t blame him.

“What happened in there? Where did that fog come from?” It was perhaps not the best time to ask, but I thought perhaps that would provide some clues about where exactly the rest of the group may be.

Gaius didn't answer, instead returning to calling out the names of his friends. Finally he held his hand up to the sky and shouted an incantation.
It sounded like something powerful, but the effect was hardly that, it was a puff of smoke, but it was at least quite visible. Hopefully, the rest of them would be able to see it.

"Couldn't you see the pole?" I looked over my shoulder, in the dispersing mist the red saddle blanket is as clear as day.

Gaius shook his head and called Alice’s name again.

We moved closer and closer to the entrance of the maze and I steeled myself to enter it, fearful that if we did we would never come back out. I hadn’t read about people disappearing into the Labyrinth never to return but then I had only done a very cursory amount of research and I utterly regretted that now. Perhaps if I had this never would have happened.

Finally after what seemed like hours there was a sound, it sounded like sobbing.

“Alice?” Gaius called out.

“Gaius?” A small voice called back, I didn’t recognise it, but Gaius clearly did, bolting into the Labyrinth. I took a hesistant step forward but didn’t enter, fearful that the exit would somehow disappear if I did.

Fortunately Gaius didn’t round the first bend in the Labyrinth because Alice stumbled around it, looking in even wore shape than Gaius did, the bottom of her dress was torn to shreds and her shoes had disappeared. Her feet were covered with dirt and blood as was her face, except for where streaks of tears had washed it away.

No sooner had Gaius put his arm around her shoulders to lead her out of the maze, then Roderick and Ian appeared, their eyes wide with fear as if they had seen something too horrible for words. Then Elric and Osric followed, limping noticibly and clutching his shoulder.

And then Richard, who charged at me. "Didn't you hear us?" Richard demanded, his eyes blazing.. "We were shouting for you to tell us which way to go!"

I shook my head. "I heard nothing at least...not until the screaming and the fog, it was so thick I couldn't tell where the maze was."

"Fog?" Richard looked around, the fog had entirely cleared now. "What fog? There was no fog, you bastard, you fell asleep!"

"I did not!" I protested desperately, for all the good it did me, Richard grabbed hold of the front of my tunic and I was quite sure I was about to be punched in the jaw.

“Richard let go of him!” Gaius shouted. “It’s not his fault.”

“Not his fault?” Richard spluttered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the idiot knocked the pole over! Why couldn’t we see the flag?” He turned back to me. “Where the Hell was it?”

“It’s right there,” Gaius stepped between us, pointing the branch which did indeed still stand. “There was fog when I got out of the maze, obviously whoever protects this place didn’t want us to come. You can’t blame Geoffrey for that. We survived, that’s the important thing.”

At least...that’s what we all thought, until suddenly Alice cried out. “Where’s Maxim?! He’s not here!”

It was morning before I regained conciousness and I felt much better than I thought was possible. And in a way, I suppose I was, if not for the magical concoction Gaius and Alice had made up for me I was sure I’d still have been an a world of pain.

The drink whatever it had been wasn’t a complete cure I realised as soon as I sat up, for one thing my muscles were quite stiff, they might not have hurt, but I certainly wasn’t going to moving quickly any time soon.

Still, I attempted to get up because I remembered that as I had nodded off the rest of the group had still being fighting.

It seemed I was the first to wake up and the first thing I saw when I finally manged to sit upright was the rest of the group sleeping away. It seemed peaceful enough so apparently Alice was right, fighting wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for these people. That was a relief.

I wasn’t sure what to do being the first person up, politeness seemed to suggest that I should get breakfast or something going, but I wasn’t exactly feeling all that steady so I wasn’t sure how good an idea that would be. I supposed though that I should at least refill the waterskins. I felt like an old man as I struggled to get to my feet though, I was surprised my bones didn’t audibly creak as I got to my feet, but at least I managed to stay upright and even walk around collecting the water skins and then heading over to the stream to fill them.

By the time I returned with the water skins Maxim had awoken and was rubbing his eyes before looking at me in surprise.

"Is that you, Geoffrey?"

"Good morning," I greeted him before gingerly sitting down next the low burning camp fire and offering one of the water skins to him.

He took it gratefully and took a deep sip, then handed it back to me with a smile.

"Thanks." He paused for a moment. "You know you're not bad, Geoff, horse riding excepted, I wouldn't let Rod and Richard get to you."

I looked at him in surprised and then smiled myself. "Thank you." I said rather awkwardly, not used to being praised... or having friends really. "Gaius mentioned that you wanted to come to the Labyrinth most of all."

Maxim sat up and gave a nod. "Ever since I heard about it. They say all the Druids and Priestesses of the Lake have faced the maze. If I can get in there, even if I can't make it all the way through...well, I just know that it'll make a difference in how I practise my magic."

I had to admit that comment made me curious. "Are there different ways to do magic, then?"

"'Course there are," he shook his head with a laugh as if he couldn't believe I'd have to ask such a question. "About as many ways as their are people with magic."He made a face. "My way isn't particularly good I have to admit, if my abilities are compared to everyone else's. Gaius is by far the best of us, he picks up spells a lot quicker than the rest of us. Alice is next, she's brilliant with animals and then the rest of them are pretty much even until you get to me. I haven't even mastered summoning yet." He picked up a stick and began poking at the dirt. "Sometimes I wonder if I even have magic. I mean I did something once, but I've done nothing since, maybe I was just imaging it."

I listened carefully, wondering if all things considered it was that good of an idea for Maxim to run into the maze. If it really was a place of great magic perhaps it wouldn't take too kindly to such an invasion. But then I could hardly call myself an expert on the subject so I decided to keep quiet.

"So as soon as these sleepyheads wake up we'll get to see just what the Labyrinth has to offer."

I’m not sure if the rest of them heard Maxim, what did I know about magic and what it could do, but at that moment everyone else started shifting about and rubbing sleep from their eyes.

“Geoffrey!” Gaius sat up and beamed in my direction. “You’re up and about.”

I gave a shurg. “I guess whatever it is you made up yesterday worked.”

Gaius turned to Alice who had also sat up by now smiled just as pleased and the two of them may have give Richard a rather pointed look, but nothing more said.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, the rest of the group, I supposed they were all thinking about the Labrinyth and what was going to happen once they entered it.

But of course there was still some riding to go yet.

I suggeste to Gaius that perhaps I should just remain where I was.

“That’s not such a good idea,” Osric remarked looking up from his horse. “There’s always bandits about and no offense but you don’t look as if you can fight off a rabbit, never mind a bandit.”

The rest of the group concurred with this assessment and I realised to my great dismay that I was defintely going to have to get back into the saddle and for a few more hours at that!

I will say one thing, the rest of the group did at least show some sympathy for me, offering me their blankets to place over my horse’s saddle in the hope that would lessen the impact of the ride and of course Alice and Gaius gave me a poultice to use. I was hoping for more of that magical brew but since it had the side effect of knocking a person out I sadly had to forego it.

I spent the ride mostly praying that the blankets and poultice would work and on the whole they did, it certainly wasn’t a painless ride, but I didn’t feel any worse than I had that morning ao that was something.

We arrived near the entrance of the great Labyrinth around noon, its high shrubbery almost overwhealming in its size and scale. The excitement of the rest of the group was palatable. I meanwhile was beginning to think I really wouldn’t be well served by going inside the maze, if nothing else...well...I just didn’t have the magic.

While the rest of the group were preparing themselves I spoke my thoughts to Gaius. Finally finishing by reminding him I wasn’t exactly in the best physical condition, despite the fact I could at least walk now.

Gaius looked a little disappointed, I don’t know why he wanted me to join them so badly, but he considered for a moment.

“I suppose someone should stay just outside the maze, with something that we can see while we’re in there, in case we get lost, that way we can make it back.”

Actually, that was a very good idea and I was a little concerned no-one in the group had thought about that before, just what was the plan if we all entered and got lost in there? Hope for the best?

“A very good idea, I’d be happy to be the signal man and assure you all get out safely.” I said with a smile.

With that decision made, Gaius called the group back together to inform them of my new position in this endeavour and asking for some suggestions on what exactly I should use as a signaling device.

Eventually we decided on a long pole with one of the horse’s saddle covers as a flag. Of course we didn’t actually have a pole to hand nor a saw so I wondered how exactly we were going to get a branch or anything of that nature to use. Of course, I had forgotten what magic could do.

Richard almost casually reached out his hand towards one of the imposing trees not too far away and with an incantation brought down a massive branch! I almost jumped out of skin, which proved to be a poor idea, I definitely hadn’t recovered from the ride down.

Now that we had the pole I wondered how exactly I was supposed to raise it, especially with my muscles still stiff.

Of course magic took care of that as well, which did make me wonder what my role as the signal man would be exactly.

We needed to move the branch closer to the maze before raising it, of course, which was some tow hundred feet. This proved to be a geoup effort, excepting me.

It was quite something, seeing them work in tandem like that, for the first time I noticed something. Their eyes. As they lifted and moved the branch their eyes glowed golden. I had never noticed before.

It was Gaius and Alice who raised the branch once Maxim had secured the saddle blanket to it, not by magic though, which I had to admit made me feel better, although I could certainly see why he wanted the Labyrinth to have some effect on his abilities.

In the end, it appeared that my job would simply be ensuring the branch stayed upright although if it began to fall I really didn't know what, ifanuthing I was going to be able to do, it looked far to heavy for me to hold. Gaius assured me it was very stable and that I should have no trouble at all.

I nodded and wished them luck, Richard and Ian had the grace to look awkward and then without a further word, although a significant look seemed to pass between them all, they turned and headed through the entrance of the maze.

I watched as they rounded the first corner then disappeared...and that was the right word to use, they truly seemed to disappear. The ground and the path into the labrinyth were covered with leaves and when the group first entered I clearly heard the crunching sound of their footfalls, but once they round died that first corner, I no longer heard a sound.

At first I shrugged it off, the walls of the labrinyth were probably just extremely thick and thus blotted out the sounds of those inside it. Looked up at the tall branch with the red blanket fluttering in the breeze. That would ensure that they remained safe.

The first half an hour passed by rather slowly and quite uneventfully, in fact I found myself more than a little bored and wishing I had brought along something to read. Since I had neglected to do so I instead took in my surroundings, wondering if magical places had different fuana and flora to other more mundane areas. Frankly, I wasn't able to see anything that stood out, excepting the maze, of course and I wasn't game to move any closer to it.

As three-quarters of an hour became one I started to feel uncomfortable, a sensation I chalked up to Gaius and Alice's magical brew starting to wear off, certainly my body seemed to feel very twitchy indeed. I looked back to the camp and wondered if there was any of it left, I didn't relish the thought of my body suddenly exploding in pain here all by myself. But at the same time I didn’t want to move too far away from the branch or the entrance to the maze, so I stayed where I was.

As time continued to pass I became more agitated and it wasn’t all down to the discomfort my muscles were in, I had a sense that something was wrong, and finally I decided to call out, they couldn’t have got too far into the maze surely?

But my calls went unanswered and there was more than that, a fog seemed to be moving in, a fog that came from absolutely nowhere and made no sense at all. It was past noon now, not the time fog usually formed at all and it hadn’t rained recently nor was it a particularly warm day, could the fog be magic? As soon as the thought occurred to me I felt that was the answer, but why? And who had conjured it? Was it one of the group or was someone else here?

The thought made a shiver run down my spine, I felt exposed and unprotected, what defence would I have against some with magic? None at all. Even as I had that thought though I noticed a thick branch on the ground, which I siddled over too and with some difficulty managed to bend down and pick it up. As I hefted it in my hand I really didn’t know what I’d do with it, but it made me feel a bit more secure.

At least until I heard the scream.

It tore through the silence and seemed to jolt my very bones, and I couldn't tell if it was human or something else. I couldn't even tell if it came from the maze or from somewhere behind me. Although in any case it was bad, bad news, I clutched my own branch tighter and began to pray. For the first time I considered how Christianity warned about magic, but it had been talking about tricksters and shysters, surely, not this type of magic. This type of magic was like nothing I'd heard of before. And that was frightening, because I had no idea what it could do.

Another scream rent the air and it sounded like it was just in front of me, the fog had rolled in over the labrinyth and all around me, obscuring the entrance, I squinted, thinking that I saw a shadow and that someone was coming out, but a minute passed and nothing materialised.

My heart was thundering in my chest so loudly it was a wonder I could hear anything, let alone the tiny noises like leaves cracking under foot that had me turning in circles expecting someone or something to appear at any moment and attack me.

But nothing came and eventually I was so dizzy I had to stop. I wondered how much time had passed. Where was Gaius and the rest of the group? Should I go I into the maze to look for them? Dare I go into it? That question seemed moot because I couldn't see the Labyrinth anymore and I couldn't tell which way I was facing. The maze could be to my left or right and I wouldn't even know.

Then came a noise that was so loud it rattled the very ground, a noise that was indescrible, it was not human nor was it animal, at least it wasn't an animal I knew of. As it died away I was gripped by panic and began yelling out the names of the group, wishing desparately that a familiar face would appear. But no-one did appear, in fact the fog got so thick I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face! The air seemed to become more and more oppressive, not like air at all and I found myself struggling to breathe. I was suffocating! Dying! I had no idea what to do, how to escape. I was going to die here, all all alone with no-one to tell my parents what had happened to me.

And then...something grabbed my arm.

The very next morning I was awoken early by Gaius, who had snuck into the library, shaking me awake.

I yawned and blinked, it was still dark, but then seeing as my room was more a closet than anything else this didn’t tell me much. “What time is it?”

“Just before dawn,” Gaius answered, throwing back the sheets in an effort to get me moving. “Come on, hurry up, it takes a good six or seven hours to get to the Labrinyth and everyone wants to make it there before nightfall.”

I hadn’t actually considered that…the fact we would be riding there. Since arriving in Camelot I hadn’t got so much as near a horse, let alone attempted to ride one. Quite the oversight I realised at that moment.

Gaius was telling me to hurrying up, practically shoving me out of my bed.

“I don’t think I can come,” I blurted, it seemed that tact would never be a great skill of mine.
Gaius let go of my arm and stepped back. “What? What do you mean? I’ve told you before there’s nothing to worry about –“

“It’s not that,” I was quick to tell him, “it’s…well I don’t ride.”

“You don’t ride?” Gaius repeated.

“Horses, I’ve never really ridden one before, in a saddle I mean…I always rode in a cart.”

It was still quite dark but I could see Gaius staring at me as if I was speaking in a completely different language.

“What?” I wondered if perhaps I was still half asleep and I wasn’t speaking in a comprehensible manner.

“You’ve never ridden a horse? How could you not? Does Carleon have some sort of law that prevents it?”

“Of course not. It’s just…” I shrugged. “I don’t know, my family just always used a cart, maybe because we travelled in a large party?”

Gaius shook his head. “Well, you’ll have to learn, it’s not that hard, we’re not planning on galloping the whole way there. Besides we don’t have that many good roads here, so really, you wouldn’t want to be in a cart if you can help it.”

I didn’t know if that was a good idea, but Gaius really didn’t give me a chance to bring up my apprehension, grabbing my arm and finally hauling me out of the bed.

“Come on, let’s go.”

Gaius shuffled me along, all the way out of the castle to the stables where the rest of the group was waiting.

“What took you so long, Gaius?” One of them, I think it was Clark called out. “We were starting to think you weren’t going to show.”

“I had to get Geoff, seems he’s not a morning person,” Gaius gave a chuckle. “He’s also never ridden a horse before.”

If I thought Gaius had been surprised by that announcement the group made his reaction look positively low key, it was nothing less than an explosion really, with various members wanting to know if Gaius was joking and if not how I could be coming. Eventually, Alice stepped forward and held up her hands in a gesture of calm.

“Boys stop yelling before you wake up the entire city,” she declared giving each of us a look. Then she turned to me. “You’ve never ridden a horse before? Have you never even ridden in a saddle then?”

I shook my head. “Only in wagons and one time I was in a trap.” I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to explain exactly what that was, but whether the rest of the group knew what I was talking about or not there was still a lot of grumbling from the male members of the group.

“We only have a weekend to do this,” Ian spoke up, “we don’t have time to teach someone who doesn’t know one end of a horse from the other how to ride one.” He looked in my direction. “Er…sorry.”

I couldn’t be too offended although I did feel like pointing out I certainly knew the difference between the front end and back end of a horse.

Gaius made a face. “Don’t be so melodramatic Ian, Geoffrey’s intelligent he’ll figure it out quick enough, right Geoff?”

I hestitated in answering.

“You can’t pick up horse riding in a few minutes, Gaius,” Roderick added, folding his arms. “I don’t know how long Linus let you off for, but old man Fletcher wants me back by dawn Monday, if I’m not I can forget my employment.”

I spoke up. “I don’t want to put anyone’s job in jeopardy.” I looked at Gaius. “Really, thank you for inviting me to join you, but I don’t want to cause you trouble.”

“You’re no trouble, Geoff.” Gaius was firm and glared at the rest of the group, looking more than annoyed now, he was actually angry. I started feeling even more uncomfortable, I mean I really didn’t want to cause trouble and here I was in the middle of a fight.

“Hey, look, shut up everyone!” Elric stepped in, turning to me. “Why don’t you just get on the horse, let’s see what technique you have…if any.”

Well, that was awkward having to climb atop a rather large horse in front of an audience, but Gaius was giving me an encouraging look and I didn’t want to let him down, he was after all my first friend here in Camelot.

I had of course seen plenty of people mount a horse before, so I had a general idea how it was accomplished, however, getting my foot in the stirrup was no easy task, for one thing it was pretty high up off the ground, I wasn’t exactly used to lifting my leg that far, and the first time I put the wrong foot in the wrong stirrup and had to remove my foot and try again lest I end up facing backward and proving Ian right.

Once I had the right foot in I had to swing my leg up and over which proved to be even more difficult, but as I struggled I suddenly had help, Gaius had stepped forward and gave me a boost and the next thing I knew I was atop the horse and seemingly very high off the ground. For a moment I almost panicked not knowing what to hold onto before remembering the reins, which I grabbed hold of immediately.

“There,” Gaius stepped back and turned to his friends. “He’s on it, he’s fine.”

The group looked as convinced of that as I was, for one thing the horse wasn’t even moving and I was all ready intimidated, wondering if I really would be able to keep a decent hold once the horse was on its way.

“He hasn’t even put it at a trot yet,” Maxim spoke, folding his arms.

Gaius looked more than a little annoyed and looked up at me. “You can do that, right Geoff?”

I looked back and gave a nervous swallow, I had a vague idea of how to get a horse to move, but I really didn’t trust myself to dig my heels in. I had no idea how much pressure I was supposed to use, the last thing I wanted was to use too much and end up on a galloping horse!

Gaius leaned in. “Just keep hold of the reins, pull them back and say ‘woah’ when you need to stop. I’ll get you going.”

Before I had a chance to question if this really was a good idea, Gaius had given the horse a rather sharp tap on the flank and next think I knew the horse was moving along at what I supposed was a leisurely pace, but felt very fast to me.

I held the reins so tightly that it was a wonder that my fingers didn’t fall off. As the horse made its way across the stable yard, I felt a bit wobbly but there didn’t seem too much danger of me falling off, but this was a smoothly swept dirt yard, it seemed to be the furthest thing away from the rough dirt tracks that we’d be riding on the way to the Labyrinth.

“Pull the reins a bit to the left, Geoff,” I head Gaius call and noticed that the horse seemed rather content to keep heading towards the stone wall that fenced of the stables.

I gave a cautious tug, which didn’t seem to do anything, so taking a deep breath I pulled a little more firmly and the horse did start to swing around, which immediately made me feel like I was going to topple from the saddle! I stayed up right though and Gaius kept urging me to pull the reins and eventually I completed a circle and was heading right back towards him and the group.

“There, look, he’s a quick study, he’s learning all ready.” Gaius announced, as I kept on heading their way until he had to rather loudly remind me to pull back and tell the horse ‘woah’, which I was surprised to find did work. But the horse and I ended up being quite close to the group, one of the horses hooves was almost on top of Alice’s foot. I gave her an apologetic wince.

Roderick and Elric looked at each other, but apparently decided that arguing with Gaius wasn’t worth the aggravation.

Roderick spoke up, his arms folded. “Fine, let him come, but you’ll have to stay with him, we’ll ride ahead.”

“Fine with me.” Gaius shot back not sounding all that fine with it at all.

It seemed the matter was settled though and soon the rest of them had saddled horses of their own and we were setting off.

My fingers were beginning to go numb with the tight hold I was exerting on the reins, but I couldn’t bring myself to loosen my grip. I looked over at Gaius as he climbed onto a horse and moved up next to me.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” I questioned him again. “I don’t want you to miss out on anything that happens at the Labyrinth.”

Gaius waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, they’re exaggerating, even at your pace it won’t take all that long to get to get to the Labyrinth, we’ll definitely get there with time to explore.”

I still thought it a very fool-hardy idea but Gaius would not be swayed, so the rest of the group saddled up and soon we were walking our horses through the streets of Camelot heading southwest. Gaius rode beside me and Alice was beside him.

"See, Geoff it's not so bad."

Indeed it wasn't, though I considered pointing out the obvious, namely that I'd only been on the horse for about ten minutes, if that. Not to mention we were riding slowly since we didn't want to wake the entire lower town, once we were through the gate and the town was behind us the rest of the group picked up their pace, just as I thought they would.

Horse riding was definitely not the sort of activity I enjoyed, the constant jolt of the trotting made my teeth clash together whenever I was unprepared for it and that turned out to be often. Furthermore before we had even cantered for an hour my rear end was all ready starting to feel the effects of the constant motion. I was absolutely sure that come noon I was going to be in a lot of pain.

I suppose on the plus side I was at least keeping up with the rest of the group. I had expected Gaius and I to be left in the dust , but we kept up enough that Gaius was able to join in the groups conversation about what we might find once we reached the Labriynth.

Alice was firmly of the opinion that the place would be non-descript, hiding in plain sight as it were, so that the average - by which I assumed were the unmagical - would nt be tempted to enter it recklessly thinking that it might contain great treasure.

Ian on the other hand thought the opposite, namely that the Labrinyth would be like nothing any of us had ever seen and would probably have an imposing entrance complete with a warning to stay out.

I rather hoped Alice was right, because otherwise we were going to be trespassing and I was certain that if so it wouldn't end well for us.

Soon enough though that was the least of my worries, as predicted my rear end started to find the whole riding process not at all to its liking and I found it all but impossible to stop wincing and just generally making a sound. It didn't go unnoticed eventually Roderick looked over his shoulder and asked me if I was having trouble.

"Does it always hurt like this?" I asked through my teeth (clenching them was the only way I could keep from accidentally biting my own tongue.)

Roderick gave Gaius a smug look. "I don't know, Gaius, does it?"

Gaius gave him a less than polite look then turned to me. "It does when you're not used to it, but we'll be stopping for lunch soon, right everyone?"

Fortunatey that turned out to be the case, a clearing beside a small stream appearing on our left like a God send.

What wasn’t a God send was when I had to climb off the horse, swimming my leg over the saddle proved almost impossible and I was quite certain Ian and Roderick were having a good laugh at my expense while Gaius came over to assist me.

“Don’t let them get to you,” he advised me giving the other two a glowering look.

“I’m not really worried about them,” I grunted as pain shot up my legs, I looked at him. “I swear I won’t be able to walk by the time we get to the labrinyth.”

Gaius looked somewhat uncertain. “Well, we probably won’t go into the labrinyth as soon as we arrive, it’ll be close to dark by then. You should be all right by tomorrow morning.”

I wasn’t entirely sure about that but I didn’t feel up to getting into an arguement so instead hobbled over to the stream to get a drink and wash my face, hoping that might make me feel better. That turned out to be a very bad idea, leaning over caused enough pain that I almost lost my balance and almost ended up in the stream.

Luckily Gaius had come over to get water as well and managed to take hold of my arm preventingmy fall.

“Why don’t you sit down,” Gaius encouraged me, “I’ll bring you a waterskin.”

I wasn’t too sure if sitting down was a good idea, but I did at least lean against a tree.

Alice came over with a sandwich in hand. “You’re doing very well for your first time,” she reassured me offering me the sandwich which I took gratefully.

“I hope I’m not slowing everyone down too much,” I answered ruefully.

Alice waed a hand “I wouldn’t worry about it Ian and Roderick can be real pains, they think the Labrinyth has been waiting for them, sort of like destiny.”

I paused just as I was about to take a bite. “They...do? Do they have any reason to believe that?”

Alice gave a chuckle. “Aside from their own egos? Certainly not, we don’t really know what the Labrinyth was constructed for, it probably is a test for some group, but I very much doubt that it’s us.” She gave me a smile, which I returned before Gaius joined us with a now full waterskin that I took a good swig off before returning to the sandwich. I had no idea what was in it exactly, but it tasted all right so I polished it off quickly.

It seemed as if we had only just arrived before Ian announced that it was time to head off again. I had to bite back a groan, but I unless I wanted to stay here by myself and ride back to Camelot by myself I was going to have to keep going.

This time Gaius had to all but manhandle me into the saddle, he was certainly stronger than he looked and then we were on our way once more.

As we continued on along the road such as it was I made a vain attempt to enjoy the scenery rather than concentrate on the increasing pain I was feeling. But really there’s only so much interest one can find in a forest before even the most curious becomes bored. I have to admit forests never really interested me in the first place, let alone when every muscle was beginning to ache, soon I was merely counting the minutes, wondering how long it would take to get there.

“Well we won’t make it by nightfall, but we’ll be quite close, we’ll probably be able to see it at least...”

As Gaius promised just before the sun dipped out of sight we crested a hill and found ourselves overlooking an enormous maze.

Not that I really noticed at first, as we had ridden on for hours I had started to droop over and by the time we got to the top of the hill I was all but drapped over my horse’s neck.

“Geoff, Geoffrey!” I was shocked out of my stupour by Gaius who reached over and took hold of my arm giving it a shake. “Wake up we’re here!”

Every muscle protested as I sat up in the saddle but I got my first view of the Labrinyth of Gedref.

I must admit, it was truly a sight to behold. I had seen some drawings of it in one of the books I researched before coming on the trip, but it had given no sense of scale. The Labrinyth was enormous, it seem to stretch in all directions and I wondered if it was even possible to go through it, it looked as if it would take years.

The rest of the group stared upon in awe also but there was something in their expressions that said more, obviously it was the magic of the maze, not that I felt anything. Whatever it was though was strong enough that Maxim at least seemed ready to go into the maze at that moment, seemingly ready to keep on riding although we had to be at least two or three hours ride away.

“Hey, slow down, we’re not going any further tonight,” Gaius’s voice sounded very loud and it seemed to shake everyone out of there revere and we all turned to him.

Maxim looked more than a little disappointed and I remembered Gaius mentioning that he in particular had high hopes that the maze would give him more control or greater access to his magic or some such.

The rest of group agreed with Gaius however, even Ian and Roderick, the later in fact declared that we needed to set up our camp and prepare our dinner.

Of course, this was easier said than done for me, I figured that after so many hours atop that horse I would have been more than ready to get off, but I was also wreary, so much so that I wasn’t sure I could even do it.

I might actually have ended up falling asleep in the saddle if not for Gaius appearing at my side and getting ready to help me down. It took quite a while because I appeared to have forgotten how to move my legs and arms properly. Eventually I ended up sort of...falling off which meant Gaius had to catch me, which somehow he managed to do without getting off balance himself.

“Whoah! Are you all right, Geoff?”

I licked my dry lips, every muscle was aching and even my bones hurt. “Not really,” I rasped.

Gaius looked concerned, putting his arm around my shoulder and leading me over to where the rest of the group had started making a fire pit and laying down blankets on the ground. Alice looked up from where she was going through knapsacks for the food and her brow immediately creased with concern. “Gaius, is he all right?”

“Not really,” Gaius looked at me, then back at Alice. “I think we...er...I might have pushed Geoff a bit too hard.”

Alice shook her head. “Gaius you let your enthuiasm get away from you.” She got to her feet and came over to me, peering into my face. “He looks utterly exhausted, let’s get him off his feet and see if we can’t mix something together for his pain.”

Gaius nodded and the next thing I knew I was being urged to sit down, which I resisted at first since the ground looked to be very hard and I was certain it would only cause my all ready painful body even more discomfort. But eventually Gaius coaxed me into sitting and since it was on the top of a few blankets it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

Of course once I’d lain down I was quite certain that I was never going to be able to move ever again, which no doubt would be quite a problem, though I suppose they could create a makeshift litter and carry me back.

Gaius gave me some more water to drink and it wasn’t long before Alice returned, with what I don’t know, but soon I heard the sound of pestle against mortar. It was quite a soothing sound and I had almost been lulled off to sleep when I heard Richard remark, rather nastily, I thought.

“Gaius did you just bring this poor fool along so you and Alice could work on your healing magic?”

“Shut up, Dick,” Gaius snapped back, which earned a few snickers.

“I’m just saying.” Richard shot back. “Why would you bring along some bookworm? He doesn’t even have a lick of talent.”

“I wasn’t aware that our group restricted people on the basis of whether they have magic or not,” Gaius sounded quite agitated now. “Have the rules changed?”

“Might never have been a rule, but it made sense,” I heard Roderick speak up now. “After all what are we all doing here if it’s not to test our abilities? What exactly is Geoffrey here going to test? The limits of our patience.”

I sensed Gaius getting to his feet and heard him marching over to where the rest of them were. The last thing I wanted was to get in between friends and start a fight, but there wasn’t all that much I could do, there was no way I would be able to get up, I made an attempt though.

Alice seemed to sense what I was trying to do and immediately she lay a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Roderick and Gaius always argue, I’d be worried if they didn’t to be honest.”

I wasn’t too sure if I believed that, but it seemed the group had wandered off out of earshot because I couldn’t make out any of their words anymore.

“Right,” Alice had picked up the mortar now and got back to grinding...whatever was in it. “Now you just need to drink this. It should help.” She assured me and then I heard her speak a few words I didn’t understand, no doubt some sort of incantation. Then she was holding the mortar to my lips and helping my lift my head so I could drink the mixture without choking. I hesitated somewhat though, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t trust Alice, although I really didn’t know her, it was more a concern that...well...magic just wasn’t natural. Was this even safe?

Alice realised my trepridition and spoke reassuringly. “It’s all right, it’s a simple mixture, I promise it’s completely safe.”

Well, I had to trust that was so since just the act of lifting my head was sending shooting pain all over.

At least the mixture tasted all right, in fact compared to the medicines I had taken during my childhood it was positively pleasant!

To say nothing of how fast it acted! I had barely swallowed it and I could all ready feel its effects. Chiefly my muscles relaxing and the pounding in my head seemed to ease.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice sounded far away to me and I didn’t even have the strenght to open my eyes. In fact I was starting to nod off to sleep.

I was dimly aware of the fact that the voices of the others were starting to get louder, although I couldn’t muster any interest in it this time. I was vaguely aware of Alice patting my arm and wishing me a good rest before getting to her feet.

What happened next...I have no idea.

It was only after the meeting was finished that I realised that I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to go. As Prince Uther’s tutor I might be required – not that I really thought my tutoring was all that good, but it was probably better than nothing. I really should have made sure I could in fact be able to go before promising to do so. Now that I had agreed to it I was rather looking forward to the idea.

I immediately went to Cedas to ask him about whether I was able to simply leave or if I needed royal permission first.

Cedas looked rather surprised at the question and I had to wonder if he had ever actually taken any leave, he didn’t have any family that I knew of and he seemed even more attached to the library than I was so in all likelihood that was probably the case.

“Well, you’d have to ask the Seneschal, I suppose. I can’t imagine why permission wouldn’t be given.” Cedas gave a slight shrug. “Other palace staff often get permission to go on short trips and so on… Although it may be different for you, being Prince Uther’s tutor.”

Well, that wasn’t what I was hoping for having to get permission from the King himself. Although I suppose I wouldn’t actually be asking him, that would be the Seneschal’s job, but still…the very name conjured up visions of a particularly strict and perhaps short tempered. I knew whoever it was would be a knight and I couldn’t say I was particularly comfortable around knights, my experiences around Caerleon the Younger had been enough to make me wary of any of them. But if I was going to join Gaius and his friends I would have to, so I screwed up my courage and headed off to do so.

The Seneschal was also second in command of the Camelot Knights, was one Sir Hector, who on first meeting was an extremely imposing man, the tallest I had ever met up to that point. The man was a behemoth! I was shaking in my shoes when I got his attention.

“I’m Geoffrey…” I began with what can only be described as a squeak; I cleared my throat and attempt to sound a bit more like an adult. “I work in the Library…and tutor Prince Uther.”

Sir Hector gave an amused laugh. “Really? And you’re still here? Quite impressive.”

I gave a small smile. “Um…thank you,” how was one supposed to respond to such a remark. “I wanted to know, though, if it would be permissible for me to have some time off.”

Sir Hector raised an eyebrow. “Time off? Planning on escaping the mad house?”

“No, no,” I was quick to say, “I really enjoy it here, Camelot is an incredible place and tutoring the Prince Uther is really an honour –“

Sir Hector held up a hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I was just jesting.” He assured me.

“Oh,” I flushed, because I really didn’t aim to make an idiot of myself.

“So time off,” Sir Hector picked up my train of though with a grin. “For how long?”

“Er…” I hadn’t actually thought of that…how long would it take to get to the maze, go through it and come back? “Perhaps a week?”

“Well, I don’t imagine Prince Uther would have any objections to being without a tutor for that amount of time.” Sir Hector looked very amused indeed. “I can’t imagine His Majesty would have much of a problem with it either, but I will, of course, bring it to his attention.”

That gave me pause, I knew that the trip was happening soon, although I'd managed to forget exactly when it was planned. I imagined though that the King had a lot to do, how long would it take for him to decide whether to grant me leave or not? I couldn’t imagine how I would even ask.

Sir Hector though saw right through me however and said reassuringly. “The King gets through quite a lot…or should I say his council does, you’ll get a response Friday evening at the latest.”

Well that was a relief, I thanked Sir Hector quite profusely, enough for it to be embarrassing I should think before heading off to the Physician’s Chambers to speak to Gaius.

I found him cleaning the eel tank, which was really something I could have lived without seeing, eels really are the most disgusting creatures.

“And you thought your job was bad,” Gaius greeted me, rolling his eyes as he fished out…something…from the tank.

“I’ve just seen Sir Hector, about taking leave to go on that trip…although I couldn’t quite remember when we’re supposed to leave.”

Gaius gave a laugh and shook his head. “Honestly, Geoffrey, you need to pay attention to the important things…But no need to worry, it was supposed to be tomorrow, but as it turns out we’ll have to wait to the end of the week. I forgot that Linus would never let me leave in the middle of the week that would be a generous thing to do.” Gaius removed yet another mysterious…something from the tank. “He’ll let me have the weekend and that’s it.”

“Oh, it’ll only take the weekend?” I asked, surprised and somewhat worried, how fast exactly did the group plan to ride? Would I even be able to keep up with them? “I asked for a week!”

Gaius shook his head. “No, that’s a good idea, I doubt the King is going to give you that much time, but you can probably wrangle a weekend. Well played, really.” He chuckled. “Although if you do manage it, by some miracle, maybe you could assist me with some of my endless chores.”

“Oh well…I don’t…” I stuttered a bit, that tank was enough to put me off.

Gaius gave a hearty laugh. “I’m just joking with Geoff. Don’t worry I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

I confess I did not stay around for long, in case Gaius changed his mind, I did not envy his choice of profession.

I waited with trepidation for the result of my request for leave, I couldn’t help thinking there could well be some sort of consequence if it was not approved. Who knew what the King would think about such a thing, maybe he would think I was presumptuous. Not that Sir Hector had indicated anything of that sort, but…

Upon my return to the library I decided that I really had been very remiss in not finding out all I could about Camelot, I was after all going to be living here, hopefully for a very long time. So, with the Prince out watching the knights’ train I searched for various books on the city and kingdoms history and soon I was absolutely engrossed.

A lot of that was down to the fact that unlike most of the other kingdoms in Albion, Camelot had a long history, usually kingdoms came and went their borders changing radically and becoming almost completely different. For a while in fact kingdoms were created and then conquered within a lifetime, although things were substantially calmer now.

Camelot or at least the castle had been around for nearly a thousand years however. The size of the actual kingdom had changed drastically during that time, of course, in fact at one time the castle had pretty much been the kingdom.

As I researched I discovered yet another intriguing thing about the kingdom and the Old Religion, the fact that Camelot seemed to be the centre of it, the Castle itself was not more than two or three days ride from the Isle of the Blessed where according to one tome I read was where the priestesses, who were so important to the various practices and rituals of the Old Religion, lived.

Then there was the Labyrinth of Gedref and I can’t honestly say what I read about it made me very enthusiastic to go. In fact if anything it made me even more wary than before. The Labyrinth sounded like a very dangerous place for the uninitiated, which I assumed we all were. All sorts of things seemed to befall those who ventured into it without permission, from who, I couldn’t find out.

I immediately wondered if I should bring up what I had learned to Gaius’s attention, it seemed perfectly foolhardy not to.

Gaius proved to be less than concerned about what I had read when he I caught up with him, I supposed that could have been due to the fact I hadn’t brought the book I had got the information from with me. It was a very old and fragile book tough and I hadn’t wanted to risk damaging it.

Gaius waved aside my worries however. “Oh, those are just old stories to scare people, we’re not going to try and destroy it or even take anything out of it as a souvenir, we’re just going to look that’s all.”

“But you are planning to go through the maze aren’t you?” I pressed. “There’s plenty of evidence that those who have gone in there have got far more than they’d bargained for.”

Gaius laughed and put his arm around my shoulders. “You shouldn’t worry so much, Geoff, besides it’s not as if we’re complete strangers to the Old Religion.”

That confused me and I looked at Gaius confused. “What do you mean?”

Gaius gave a slight shrug and grinned in manner reminiscent of a mischievous child. “My little group, we all study sorcery.”

“You do?” I wasn’t sure what to make of that, my father looked upon sorcery as nothing more than a lot of old trickery and sleight of hand. I for one had never seen practised.

“Of course, why do you think we want to visit the Labyrinth? We’re not going to gawk at it, legends say that a student of magic can increase their abilities simply by visiting a place like that.”

I couldn’t help but remain sceptical and it must have shown on my face because Gaius looked somewhat affronted.

“Are you one of those Christians who won’t accept anything but your own laws and your own ways?”

“No, it’s just that…” I trailed off, pondering how best to say what I felt, eventually I decided it was best just to say it. “Well, I’ve always thought magic didn’t exist, at least, not in the way the Old Religion says.”

If possible Gaius looked even more affronted, for a brief moment I wondered if he was going to strike me and I flinched in anticipation of the blow. Instead Gaius just gave a laugh and shook his head.

“Really, Geoff? I had no idea you were so sheltered! Doesn’t really exist? Of course it does!”

With that he stretched out his hand. Across the room was a heaving shelf full of books and various medical paraphernalia, and there before my eyes, Gaius muttered something under his breath.

And the next thing I knew a phial flew across the room directly into Gaius’s hand! I reeled a bit because…well…I’d never seen anything like it! It wasn’t like making something appear from a long sleeve or even making candle flames gutter in a room. There was no mistaking how this happened. Gaius had made the phial come to him, just with the power of…whatever it was.

I must have made quite a picture because he gave a laugh when he turned to look at me.

“You should see your face, Geoff, it’s like you’ve seen a ghost!”

I blinked a few times and finally I had to shake my head just to disperse my shock and actually speak.

“I…it’s just…I never thought…” I wasn’t really able to say anything at all really.

Gaius took pity on me and said reassuringly. “If your worried about your religion you don’t have to be, you can still believe in it, who knows maybe the answer is a little of both.”

I wasn’t too sure if he believed that, but it made me feel better nonetheless.

“And everyone else in your group can do that too? Or…or something like it?” I had to ask.

“Well mostly, Elric hasn’t quite managed to get there yet, so he’s looking forward to this trip more than anyone.” Gaius admitted.

“But I don’t have magic,” I felt pretty certain about that, I’d never done anything the least bit magical in my life and I was sure I never would. “Maybe I shouldn’t –“

Gaius cut me off. “Of course you should come! There’s not some sort of law against you coming. As long as you don’t desecrate the place, which I’m sure you won’t.”

I shook my head. “No, of course not, but I’m not really one of you, are I?”

“You’ll be fine,” Gaius said, reassuringly, “if anyone shows up we’ll vouch for you.”

I accepted that, but as I returned to the library I began to worry about who, exactly might show up that I would need vouching to, recalling the warnings n the book that permission should be sought before entering the Labyrinth.

However, if I’d hope to have some sort of excuse not to go, I discovered it was not be, the very next afternoon a message was delivered which informed me that I had been granted my request for an entire week’s leave! Unpaid, of course, but I was still very surprised and frankly worried, the fact it had been granted so easily made me wonder if the King was perhaps not happy with my work. If he was and dismissed me from the position of Prince Uther’s tutor would I still be able to work as Cedas’s apprentice or would I be required to leave Camelot entirely?

I planned to ask Cedas about this, but as it turned out I didn’t need too, I found out why I had been given the week off when I ran into the Prince – almost literally! – on my way back to the Library.

Prince Uther was practically bouncing off the walls however and barely noticed the incident.

“Geoffrey!” He greeted me. “You’ll never guess what happened!”

I was rather surprised to see the Prince in such a happy state, while he was always inattentive, he had yet to strike me as the rambunctious type, but he was certainly living up to that description at that moment.

“I couldn’t possibly,” I answered him, because I really didn’t have a clue.

“I’m going on the Annual Hunt with Kent and the best knights in the kingdom!”

Prince Uther relayed this news in a manner that indicated I should be very excited on his behalf. I had no interest in hunting whatsoever, but made a valiant attempt to look very pleased.

The Prince saw through me, shaking his head and demanding. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

“I imagine it’s very prestigious to be invited along to such an event.” I said carefully.

“It means,” Prince Uther was evidentially not satisfied with my response and sought to clarify things further. “That I’m the best of all the pages! I’ve been promoted to squire ahead of everyone else! Even Ector and he’s huge! All the other boys were sure he’d get to go, but it’s me instead.”

I had to admit that did sound rather impressive, although I’d never even heard of Ector before, judging by his name I assumed he was related to Sir Hector, likely his son.

I congratulated the Prince again and this time he seemed happy to accept it, or perhaps he was merely anxious to hurry along and proclaim his news to those who might understand and appreciate it better.

I meanwhile had preparations of my own to make for the trip to the Labyrinth.

And I didn’t, even though I didn’t imagine I would really get along with Gaius’s friends. He did have a point though, I had rarely left the castle grounds since arriving in Camelot and the lower town was no doubt full of interesting things that I hadn’t really allowed myself to see.

Prince Uther’s lessons finished for the midday meal, which was quite a relief not just for me, but the prince as well, since the knights practiced in the afternoon and of course he had to be there. I shuddered to think actually how difficult he could be if the teaching hours were extended.

So with my afternoon free rather than go and explore various sections of the library as I usually did, I bid Cedas farewell and headed out to explore the lower town instead.

Camelot’s lower town was quite a sight to behold, it was of course, nowhere near the opulence of the upper town and the Castle, but it was certainly finer than any I had seen, for one thing the streets were very clean and the houses and shops while ramshackle in places were all structurally sound. There was a general air of cheer as I wandered down the main road with the merchants hawking their wares and people mingling together and discussing this and that.

I wondered if there were perhaps any books on offer, one never knew what might show up, but sadly I couldn’t see no sign of any books rare or otherwise in amongst the various stalls, my private book collection would have to remain at its current size for the time being.

As I moved through the streets, I realised that I hadn’t actually found out where The Rising Sun was. It had been a few months since I'd been there following Prince Kentigern's return and I'd pretty much just followed Gaius that time. Of course, it was certain that if I wandered about enough I’d eventually stumble across it, but I decided it was probably to my benefit to ask for directions.

I happened to be passing by the blacksmiths where the smithy was standing out by the forge banging away at…something. I decided to stop and ask him for directions.

It took me a few tries to get his attention however, what with the ringing noise of the hammer striking metal, but finally the man looked up.

“Sorry! Couldn’t hear you!” He shouted even once he stopped hammering. “What can I do for you?”

“I was looking for the tavern,” I spoke loudly, just to make sure he got me.

The smithy gave a laugh. “You must be new here, if you don’t know that.”

I gave a rather embarrassed smile and decided not to mention I’d been here for around half a year. “I’m meeting some people there.”

“It’s just down this main road here,” the smithy pointed. “Then to your left for about two blocks, you’ll see the sign. It’s got a sun on it.”

“Thank you,” I smiled and made to leave so he could get back to his work, as I did the smithy waved a strong arm and said “You’re welcome,” picked up his hammer and prepared to get back to work.

“Papa! Papa!” A small voice called out and there was the sound of running feet and I almost found myself being knocked off my feet.

“Thomas, have a care,” the smithy boomed. “Apologise to that gentleman.”

“Sorry, sir!” I looked down to see a small boy, who greatly resembled his father, right down to his closely cropped hair, which was no doubt necessary in a blacksmiths, long hair could only provide kindling for sparks.

“No harm done,” I assured the boy, I wasn’t particularly sturdy, but the boy was very small, no more than five years old.

The boy gave me a thankful grin and hurried on into the smithy to talk to his father as I set off in the direction of the tavern. As promised it was easy to find and I was relieved that no drunken people were wandering around outside, the sun had not yet set, but one never knew with taverns.

I hesitantly entered and was surprised to find the place was welcoming and above all clean with a number of tables and chairs scattered throughout and two dartboards on either side. The afternoon bells had not yet rung and I didn’t see Gaius or anything that looked like a ‘group’ so I went over to the bar and wondered what exactly I should order.

“What’ll be,” the barmaid asked, favouring me with a rather nice smile.

I didn’t want to embarrass myself, but at the same time I didn’t want to order ale or anything strong so I asked for cider hoping I wasn’t going to be subjected to laughter.

The barmaid was quite a bit more polite than the barman at Tamworth, she didn’t mock me at all for my choice of beverage and beyond that the cider was extremely good.

I was halfway through my cup when Gaius appeared. “Geoffrey! I didn’t think you’d actually come!”

“I said I would,” I made a show of looking put out, “did you think I’d go back on my word, did you?”

Gaius gave a laugh and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Well, I’m gald you made it, allow me to introduce you to the group. This is Roderick, Elric, Ian, Richard, Maxim, Oric and Alice.” The young woman stood out in amongst all the men, not the least because she was extraordinarily pretty, I also noticed that Gaius seemed to stand a little closer to her than the rest of the group. Clearly he had an interest in her, I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

The group ordered their drinks and Gaius led us over to a large table in the corner and proceeded to begin the meeting, starting with the planned trip that Gaius was trying to convince me to join in on.

I can’t say that it sounded any more interesting, the group had a map and it looked as if it would be a long trek to get to a rather impossible maze. I didn’t quite see what the point of the trip would be, though I didn’t ask that out loud.

Gaius turned to me. “I’ve been doing my best to convince Geoff here to join us. He could use a bit of exercise, I think, spends most of his time in the library.”

“With old Cedas?” Maxim gave a chuckle and shook his head. “I don’t envy you one bit.”

“He also tutors Prince Uther,” Gaius added before I can defend my mentor and choice of how I spent my time.

There was even more chuckling and commiserations, apparently the royal family had quite a reputation with those outside the castle walls. I suppose they weren’t that far wrong in their assessment of what Prince Uther was like, but really he could be worse.

Alice turned to me. “You should come, the forests and mountains are beautiful this time of year, if nothing else it will be nice to get out of the city for a while.”

That did make me pause, I had to admit while I had studied a great many things my research was sadly lacking in terms of the natural world. I didn’t like camping very much, but it would be interesting to see what natural life the kingdom had and whether it was much different to Caerleon.

“Well,” I looked around at the group and finally gave a small shrug. “I suppose one can’t stay inside reading all the time.”

There was a cheer that caught me off guard and Gaius once again gave me a clap on the shoulder. “Brilliant! You won’t regret this, Geoff, we always have the best time, don’t we?” He turned to the others who agreed.

I gave a somewhat shy smile, this was certainly more people than I usually kept company with, I hoped that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself or do something too stupid.

The meeting continued with more drinks consumed that left a few of the members a little tipsy and ready to engage in a game of darts. I wisely stayed out of the way, which proved to be a good idea considering how far off the mark some of the dart throws went. Frankly, I was surprised that no-one was hit, but the bar patrons seemed quite used to this sort of thing and every so often would duck out of the way and shift over a bit to avoid a wayward dart.

The winner of the game turned out to be Alice, who seemed a lot less tipsy than the others. She gleefully took the prize, which was quite a few coins, but promised to pay for everyone’s drinks at the next meeting. It seemed this was typical of the meetings they had, they seemed like a rather…fun group. But I wasn’t too sure I’d fit in with them, but I supposed I needed to expand my horizons a little. They seemed nice enough though and Gaius was always kind to me so I was sure the trip would go well.

After all, what could go wrong anyway?

Tutoring Prince Uther proved to be a truly exhausting experience, but I supposed I could count myself lucky that the King and the Prince’s father didn’t seem too much care about what, if any progress he made. In fact they seemed completely uninterested in anything the boy did. I had to wonder why I had even been engaged to tutor the boy, something I brought up with Gaius the next time I saw him.

“For appearances of course,” he shook his head, “I mean you can’t have a member of the royal family being illiterate and thought of as stupid. The King has no time for Prince Uther, but the people of Camelot do know who he is.” He paused for a few moments going through his satchel producing a small hunk of cheese, he offered some to me, but I declined. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Although, the Crown Prince is somewhat fond of Prince Uther it has to be said. And the Crown Prince will one day be king and Prince Uther may well have a bigger part to play in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if Prince Kentigern had a hand in your position.”

I made a face. “I’m not sure if he should have his hopes up, Prince Uther certainly doesn’t pay much attention to me or anything that I say. I’ll be lucky if he ever learns to read.”

Gaius chuckled. “I’m sure you’re more talented than you think, Geoffrey. Prince Uther generally ignores his servants at best and makes their lives a misery at worse.”

I blinked. “He does?” Well, in that case, being ignored suddenly seemed a whole lot better.

“You haven’t heard the stories?” Gaius looks at me in surprise, he laughs. “Really, you need to do more with your life than just read books. There’s a whole world out there, you know.”

I was somewhat offended by his tone, why wouldn’t I spend my time in the library? It was what I had come here for! Besides, I had been to plenty of places in the seven kingdoms, possibly more than Gaius had. As far as I knew, he had lived in a tiny village just across the Camelot border in the kingdom of Cenred, I meanwhile had visited quite a number of places.

“You should come with us tomorrow,” Gaius suddenly offered much to my surprise.

“Come where?” I couldn’t help being slightly curious. “And what do you mean us?”

“Honestly, Geoffrey, you do realize there’s other people in Camelot, don’t you? There’s a whole town out there! You should visit the tavern now and then.”

“The tavern? I don’t even drink.” I objected.

“Neither do I…all that much,” Gaius gave me a grin. “But there’s plenty of other things to do there, play darts, people watch. Anyway, that’s where we meet.”

“Meet? For what?”

Gaius rolled his eyes. “To discuss the Old Religion, of course.”

Well, of all the things I expected him to say, that was nowhere on my list. It was true that Gaius was an apprentice to the Court Physician and physicians often used old herbal remedies as part of their work, but I hadn’t really considered that the Old Religion might be involved too.

“Anyway,” Gaius continued, “we’re going to visit the Labyrinth of Gedref tomorrow.”

I couldn’t say I’d ever heard of it.

“Why would I want to go there? Is it some sort of historical site?”

Gaius gave a snort. “Hardly, it’s still in use now. The priests and priestess of the Old Religion still conduct certain rites there. Not that any of us know what they are, not being priests.”

I was immediately cautious. “So, it’s a sacred place? Do you really think it’s a good idea to go there then? What if you anger whoever these priests are?”

Gaius gave a sniff. “And why would we do that? We’re not planning on burning the place down or anything. We just want to see what its like, aren’t you curious?”

I gave a shrug. “Not really.”

“This isn’t because your father is a bishop, is it? You’re not going to have carry a druid’s staff or draw runes on yourself.”

“No, it’s not that,” I shook my head, “it’s just…certain places shouldn’t be entered by lay people, at least in churches, this might be the same thing. Why don’t you just wait to ask a priest when one comes by? I’m sure plenty of them do.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Gaius looked appalled as if I’d just suggested he do something truly disgusting. “You can’t get all your information from reading and second hand, you need to experience things!”

“I have experienced things! I’m teaching a prince after all, it’s not as if that happens to everyone.”

Gaius gave a chuckle. “You have a point there. But really, Geoffrey, it’ll be an adventure!”

“I’ve been traveling plenty of times, you realise and I really don’t care for it.” I was making excuse I suppose, but really, it was the truth! Why would I want to willingly engage in an activity I didn’t enjoy in the least?

Gaius heaved a rather irritated sounding sigh and rolled his eyes, looking at me somewhat despairingly. “Will you at least come to the tavern with me tonight then? And get to meet the rest of the group, see how you like them and get out of the castle for once?”

I supposed I couldn’t really argue with doing that, so I agreed, though I warned Gaius that I had never played darts in my life and judging from my archery abilities I didn’t think it would be in anyone’s interest if I did.

Gaius laughed and gave me a part on the back telling me to meet him outside The Rising Sun just after evening bells.

“And don’t back out,” he warned me.

“I won’t,” I promised, rolling my eyes.

So that was how I became a tutor, not because I had any particular talent for it, indeed I had never done it, but merely by the luck of the draw.

Prince Uther wasn’t an easy student, he was intelligent, there was no doubting that, but he was also highly distractible, at the barest hint of any noise he would forget all about the lesson and want to investigate. That went double if the noise he heard happened to be of a sword blade ringing against something.

Despite various comments that the boy had no future as anything important I could well imagine him leading the Knights of Camelot, his hearing was truly exceptional.

But it did of course make educating him very difficult, the number of times we had to start over at the beginning of a particular lesson because he was suddenly distracted by something is too numerous to count.

But to my surprise, most definitely to my surprise my ad-hoc approach seemed to actually work! The Prince began to recognise letters for what they were and to string the sounds together. It was a rather plodding process really.

I feared that it would be a decade before the Prince made any real progress, so one can imagine my surprise when one day I came to the library and discovered Prince Uther running his index finger along the shelves as if he was actually looking for something.

I looked over my shoulder for Cedas, who usually didn’t allow anyone free reign amongst the shelves, but then I supposed the royal family was a special case.

“Good morning, your Highness,” I gave a somewhat clumsy bow – I didn’t think I’d ever get used to that, a courtier I certainly was not.

Prince Uther gave me a nod and went back to his searching.

I waited, wondering if I should ask what he was up to, Gaius has advised me that one didn’t question royalty, but I started to be concerned for the books as the Prince was tugging on the spines of some of them with a decided lack of care.

I gave a nervous cough and cleared my throat before finding the courage to speak up. “May I ask what you’re looking for, your Highness.”

The Prince turned to look at me with raised eyebrows and for a moment I thought he was going to call for a guard to arrest me for showing gross disrespect.

But no, instead he furrowed his brows in concentration. “Kent told me there was a book here, with all the armour that’s ever been made in it.”

Ah, well…obviously the young Prince would be interested in that, the entire royal family had a love of weaponry, the King and the Princes had almost as many swords and maces and things I didn’t even know the name of hanging on the walls as animal heads from hunting.

But I suppose we can’t all be cerebral, and as the Prince gave one rather delicate book a rather hard tug, loosening pieces of the cracked cover and sending them fluttering about.

“Er…your Highness,” I stepped forward only just managing to restrain myself from taking his arm to stop him from causing any more damage - that definitely would have been frowned upon). “Allow me to find the book for you. They’re all catalogued.”

Prince Uther looked at me quite blankly and I decided at that moment, that this was the perfect time for a lesson. A lesson in cataloguing, it was after all a subject near and dear to me, it was certainly very helpful and made life a lot easier, at least as far as I was concerned.

So I gave what was surely the greatest lecture on cataloguing, which I’m sorry to say landed on deaf ears, Prince Uther did make a show of listening but I could tell from the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot that he’d rather have the fabled book in hand than listening how it could be found.

Eventually, I conceded defeat and made my way to the front desk where Cedas was mulling over various books and parchments. He immediately got to his feet and gave Prince Uther a rather graceful bow considering his age. It was quite a sight to see actually, Cedas bowed so low his long beard almost touched the floor.

“The Prince wishes to see a particular book,” I explained to my mentor. “I felt that the catalogue would be a far better way to do it than to go through every book in the library.”

“Ah,” Cedas gave a nod. “Of course, I trust you will locate your book easily, your Highness.” He gave another bow, although the Prince was not even looking in his direction, instead he was shuffling from foot to foot, obviously desparate to get his hands on the book.

I was also somewhat skeptical that the Prince would actually find the book himself, he most certainly didn’t seem to have the patience for searching through the indexes.

I made a valiant attempt to show him how the index books worked, but I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t absorbing any of it at all.

In the end I located the book for the Prince, he did at least have the title and author at the work so at least he had enough attention to make note of that.

“It’s in the north east corner of the library in the third aisle, on the fifth shelf, five books along.” I explained running my finger across the text and then immediately wished I hadn’t, because the young Prince immediately turned and rushed from the back room into the library proper.


Oh God, the last thing I wanted was to be the one in charge of the Prince if he ruined anything in Camelot’s fragile archive. I hurried after him, past Cedas who looked more than a little distressed at the sight, but of course there wasn’t much he could do to stop a prince.

I didn’t actually know what I was going to do if I caught up to Prince Uther - he was very fast, but I hoped to slow him down at least…surely he’d be aware that having an adult running after him probably meant something.

Fortunately, I didn’t hear the sound of books falling, even as the Prince corned around shelves with a distinct lack of care and attention.

By time I caught up with the prince he had arrived in the right area of the library, he obviously had a very good sense of direction, as most knights did, I suppose, at least that was something I wouldn’t need to teach him. Direction was not a strong suit of mine I had to admit.

The Prince had come to a stop for one reason only, I found, his lack of height meant he could not reach the fifth shelf, so when I came up behind him I found him staring up at it with a look of accusation on his face, as if the shelves had deliberately conspired to place his much desired book out of his reach.

I was rather winded and it was a moment before I could find my voice. “You know…you mustn’t run in the library…your Highness,” I added quickly. “This is full of priceless and rare books, they need to treated with care. Sire.”

Prince Uther looked at me quite blankly, but I suppose I was lucky that he wasn’t affronted or offended by me lecturing him.

“How am I supposed to get the book?” He demanded instead, gesturing above his head. “Isn’t there a ladder or something?”

I hesitated, there was of course a ladder, but I was quite uncertain about allowing the Prince to gain access to it. One really did have to be careful with these books.

“I can get it for you, your Highness,” I assured him, which seemed to be the wrong thing to do, the boy immediately looked affronted. So much so, I think he was sorry he wasn’t wearing a gauntlet that he could throw down at my feet.

“I don’t need any help!” He snapped. “Now show me where the ladder is!”

You can hardly refuse a prince can you, so suppressing a sigh I went to look for the nearest ladder, returning to find Prince Uther waiting for me with his hands on hips and his foot tapping.

“You’re really slow, you know,” he announced, “and you don’t even look that old.”

I wondered again if I should attempt to tell him about the importance of not engaging in horseplay in a library. But I decided that it was probably useless, instead I pulled the ladder flush against the shelves and stepped back, keeping a hold of one side, just to make sure that the Prince didn’t get any ideas, like rolling it along from some…sense of fun.

Prince Uther scrambled up the ladder and running his finger along the spines of books on the fifth shelf - I hoped he had at least washed his hands that morning - before grabbing the one he had been hunting for, his eyes lighting up.

It was a very thick book and I clenched my teeth as the Prince held it tightly in his hands. He didn’t even bother to climb down the ladder, instead he jumped the last three rungs, which was enough to make me wince as he landed on the stone floor, his boots making a rather loud noise as he did.

The Prince immediately knelt on the floor, not bothering to go to a proper reading table, of course and plonking the book on the cold stone floor and throwing it open. Really, the boy didna’t have a clue how to treat books properly, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I waited to see what the Prince would do, particularly since I was quite certain his reading wasn’t that far advanced. The book did, of course, have the benefit of many illustrations of various armour and weaponry.

The Prince showed remarkable focus when it came to something he was actually interested in something. I was rather impressed, and I had to wonder if it was possible to transfer that to his lessons, but I didn’t hold much hope for that.

Eventually, though I grew bored of watching the Prince and tried to tactfully suggest that we move onto something else.

But who can talk back to a Prince?

Prince Uther’s tutor! The King had decided – because he couldn’t be bothered to go looking for someone for such a lowly member of his family – that I would do for Prince Uther’s tutor!

I had never taught anyone anything in my life! My immediate reaction was to ask why Cedas hadn’t been given that task, but I had enough sense about me not to defy the King. It would have been the end of me if I had said what I planned to say.

Cedas gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m not surprised, sire, always willing to help young Geoffrey.” He said as if I had any say in the matter!

“Now that that’s decided,” the King declared. “Ambrosius will take you to meet Uther.” The look he gave his brother was certainly not one I’d ever like directed at me, but far from being intimidate Prince Ambrosius actually lingered for a few moments in defiance of his brother and King’s orders.

He walked over to me and with no sign of recognition on his face told me to follow him and hurry up because he didn’t have all day.

I gave Cedas a despairing look, wondering if I would ever get to return to my duties in the map room, it didn’t seem likely. This wasn’t what I wanted at all! I wanted to be an academic not a teacher! I didn’t even know how to be a teacher! And what if the child hated me? I had no experience with young children having had no siblings. How did you even speak to one of them? Not like you would another adult surely? But at the same time I was quite sure being overly patronising wasn’t that good of a strategy either.

I wanted to ask Prince Ambrosius about his son, get an idea of what this boy was like before I met him, but of course, I couldn’t.

And there were other issues that loomed, what exactly would happen if I proved not to be a good tutor? I had been roped into this, but I was quite certain that wouldn’t make a difference to the King. I’d probably end up in the stocks or banished for something that was no fault of my own. In fact for all I knew, the King might think it was perfectly reasonable to execute me! I had no idea how the minds of royalty worked, apart from the fact that they seemed to be feel rather entitled.

The walk to the Prince’s Royal Quarters seemed to take an eternity, but part of me didn’t want to end, that I wouldn’t have to face the realities of my new post.

It did end eventually and it seemed that all too soon I was entering the Prince’s chambers.

The Prince had not made eye contact with me yet and it seemed he wasn’t planning to, how reassuring.

I almost jumped out of my skin when the Prince bellowed. “Uther! Get in here, boy!”

Silence followed the command. I wondered if the child was staying away in protest and if so I had to admire his courage, I certainly wouldn’t disobey such a command.

The Prince all ready deep scowl became even deeper and he shouted for his son again.

Still nothing.

He was just about to roar again, which probably would have shaken the walls if he’d done so when suddenly the door on the other side of the room was thrown open, but it wasn’t Prince Uther who appeared, but a woman, the Prince’s wife and she didn’t look pleased at all.

“What are you screaming about this time?” She snapped.

“Where is Uther? I’ve got his tutor here.”

The Princess, who’s name I couldn’t remember looked at me with something that was bordering on disgust, I wondered briefly if I had something on my tunic because I couldn’t imagine inspiring such a reaction otherwise. But a surreptitious look at my clothing showed that it was clean.

“So a child is going to teach your son,” she finally demanded and I almost protested, but I wisely kept my mouth shut.

“The King,” Prince Ambrosius practically spat, “ordered me, I could hardly say no.”

“You could have looked for someone yourself, anyone else would have done.”

Prince Ambrosius ground his teeth. “Or perhaps you could have, he’s your son probably more than he is mine.”

I shifted uncomfortably, ending up in the middle of a private dispute was the last thing I wanted, but there really wasn’t any way for me to extract myself.

The Princess’s eyes narrowed and she set her jaw and it looked for a moment the argument was going to descend into even worse territory, but fortunately she held her tongue.

“Uther isn’t here, which you probably should have realised when he didn’t come the first time you screamed. He’s at the stables, where he always is.” With one last withering glare, although I couldn’t tell if it was directed at me or Prince Ambrosius, she left the room.

The Prince commanded me to follow him once more and we headed directly for the stables where rather than go looking for his son personally, the Prince sent a servant to fetch him.

It was an awkward wait standing beside the still fuming Prince waiting for his son to arrive. I may not have wanted to be a tutor, but if it got me away from this situation I might find it more palatable.

The servant returned with a boy in tow and I have to admit, Prince Ambrosius’s comment to his wife about Prince Uther being more her son made quite a bit of sense. The boy was the spitting image of her really, with light brown curly hair and large green eyes. He did at least look rather less sullen that either of his parents, in fact he actually looked curious.

“Father,” he spoke in a faltering voice and gave a cautious bow.

Prince Ambrosius made a rather inelegant sound rather like a grunt, then waved a hand in my direction. “You’ve finally been assigned a tutor, boy, this is Godfrey.”

I was about to correct him, but stopped myself just in time, I’d correct the mistake with Prince Uther later.

The young prince looked up at me with a puzzled look upon his face.

I gave my own little bow, it was strange having to bow to a small boy, but there you had it.

And Prince Uther was a small boy, the King had said he was seven, but he seemed a lot younger than that. He also didn’t look particularly royal, but of course that was probably because he’d been in the stables and playing in haystacks by the looks of it. It was rather amusing.

“The King has ordered him to teach you, so you’ll accord him the respect necessary and follow his orders to the letter, do you understand me.”

Prince Uther nodded. “Yes, Father.”

“Good,” the Prince grunted and the lack of anything like affection is his tone hit me. He seemed to have no sentimentality towards his son at all, in fact his voice was almost icy. He turned to me and snapped. “At the very least don’t make him any more ignorant than he is now.”

And with that he strode off and I caught the briefest flicker of a trembling lower lip on Prince Uther’s face. I can’t say I blamed the child, I couldn’t imagine my father ever speaking to me in such a manner. I couldn’t imagine any father doing so...

I decided it best not to draw attention to it, not that it was any of my business of course. Instead I decide to ignore it entirely and introduce myself properly.

“Good morning, I’m Geoffrey of Monmouth-“ I began.

“Father said your name was Godfrey,” Prince Uther interrupted.

“Well, His Highness was...er....mistaken.” I paused and wondered if that was an acceptable thing to say.

Prince Uther looked up at me for a moment then gave a shrug. “Father gets names wrong all the time.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, at least the boy wasn’t going to go telling his father that I had presumed to correct a Prince, but I certainly wasn’t going to spend however long being Godfrey.

“You don’t look very old,” Prince Uther said, looking at me with a critical eye. “Have you tutored lots of children before?”

“Er...no, you’re the first.” Once I said it I wondered at the wisdom of doing so, surely I was doing myself no favours letting the child know all was new to all this. I hope he wouldn’t take it as an invitation to get away with murder, that was I needed.

Prince Uther didn’t immediately take on an air of defiance, so that was good, he did though look rather dejected.

“I don’t know what I need a tutor for, it’s not like I’m ever going to be important in Camelot. Father tells me so all the time.”

I had to wonder at this mean streak in Prince Ambrosius, the man certainly didn’t seem to care much about his family, with the way he spoke to his wife and now rather than encourage his son he seemed to go out of his way to put him down.

It was all very strange, but I decided that I wouldn’t attempt to offer any consolation, it could only end badly I was sure.

“Right!” I said brightly, clapping my hands together and changing the subject. “So have you had any education at all yet?”

The prince gave a shrug. “I know all about armour.”

Of course he did, princes always seemed to.

“That’s...er...nice, but do you know how to read or basic arithmetic, any of that nature.”

Prince Uther looked somewhat affronted by the question. “Of course I know how to count, I’m not a dunce.”

“Well, how about multiplication or division?” I prompted.

“What’s that?”

Right, it looked like I was going to have a rather difficult task on my hands...of course, when life threw you such tasks it rarely made it easy.

“Do you know how to read? Or write?”

“I know how to write my name, and Uncle King’s name, and Mother and Father’s names. I even know how to write the Queen’s and Cousin Kentigern’s names.” The prince boasted proudly. “And Pendragon...and Camelot.”

“Right.” I replied slowly, knowing that chances were the prince knew how to draw the names rather than actually read and write them with any level of recognition. “Well, you can learn to read and write a lot more that.”

If I expect the prince to be excited or interested in that information I was surely disappointed, if anything Prince Uther looked incredulous. “Why would I need to? They’re the important people in Camelot.”

“So they are, but just having their names isn’t really...well...wouldn’t you like to be able to write a letter to them? If you were ever away from home?”

Prince Uther frowned, at the very least he seemed willing to consider this, but he ended up simply shrugging. “I could just send a messenger.”

I heaved a rather irritated sigh that was true I supposed, but that wasn’t point. “I’m sure they’ll come a time when you’ll be required to read something and write a response to it, besides the King has asked me to tutor you, so…”

Prince Uther huffed, crossed his arms and pouted at me, actually pouted, it would have been amusing in its ridiculousiness if I wasn’t worried about the possibility of him refusing to come along and me having to explain to the King why I had failed at my task.

“I promise it won’t be as bad as you’re thinking,” I tried to reason with the boy, although seeing as he was only seven I wasn’t sure if that was being a little to optimistic. “And it’s not like you will be studying all day,” I recalled my own lessons with learning to read and write. “They’ll be plenty of breaks.”

Prince Uther looked at me suspiciously as if he didn’t quite believe it. “Really? I’ll still be able to go and see the horses and the armouring and the knights training.”

All those sounded like they’d take quite a lot of time, but I couldn’t really say ‘no’. “Of course.”

“Well...all right.” Prince Uther replied magnanimously and I only just managed not to roll my eyes. Really, royalty.

And with that settled it was time for me to wonder just exactly how I was supposed to do this, it was true that I often thought of the lessons that lead to me being able to read and write, but I really had no idea how exactly I was taught. It was after all some eight years ago. What if I completely failed at this? I didn’t want to think about it.

Fortunately, the tutoring sessions would take place in the library so when I saw Cedas behind the desk as usual I immediately made a beeline to him.

“Cedas,” I hissed not wanting to let Uther overhear me, he had wandered away looking about at the shelves as if he had entered some foreign land. “Help.”

Cedas looked up, raising his eyebrows. “Help, with what?”

I blinked at him, it wasn’t obvious? “The tutoring! I’ve never tutored in my entire life! How could the King have asked me to do this?”

Cedas sighed removing his glasses in order to polish them. “Honestly, Geoffrey, I don’t think the King has particularly high expectations for this, but you heard what he said, he wants the boy to get a decent education so as not to embarrass the family as a whole.”

“I don’t even know if I can do decent!” I protested. “He doesn’t even have a fundamental grasp on reading and writing! I don’t know how to teach that!”

Cedas waved a hand. “Don’t sell yourself short, you’ll do fine, get some interesting book, probably one about knights and start with that, get the boy to start recognising words and it’ll all go from there.”

I sincerely doubted it would be that easy, but what could I do? Nothing but follow Cedas’s advice. Fortunately it was pretty easy to find a book on the Green Knight, what with all the shelving I had done and once I had it in hand I called Prince Uther over.

“Does anyone actually read all these?” He gestured vaguely about him.

“Well, not all of them,” I had to admit, “but various people use the library and they need to look up different things. Having a wide collection means that’s possible, for example.” I brandished the book. “I found something about the Green Knight, have you ever heard of him?”

“Of course I have!” The Prince appeared insulted that I even asked.

I considered for a moment then decided this might be of benefit, although I hoped that the Prince wouldn’t find the text too boring, it looked to be a rather serious book, but then that didn’t necessary mean it was bad.

“Well, I happen to have found a book on him and his feats, I’m sure you’d enjoy learning to read that.” My tone may have been slightly pleading.

The Prince eyed the book skeptically, but finally gave a nod. “I guess it won’t be so boring.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and lead him to over to one of the tables scattered here and there about the library, then I fetched some parchment and some quills and invited him to sit down.

“You said you can write a few things? Can you show me?” I asked handing him a quill and pushing the parchment over to his side of the table.

The prince did so, happy it seemed to have a chance to show off that particular talent. But it was as I suspect, he wasn’t actually writing the words, he was drawing them.

“Good, that’s good.” I said once he’d finished (well I could hardly say otherwise!) then I decided to do a little test, picking up the other quill I wrote a few words on another piece of parchment then slid it over to the prince.

He looked at the paper than at me.

“Can you recognise any of the letters?” I asked. I had made sure to write the words clearly and all of them contained letters that were in the names he knew.

He frowned and leaned over the parchment before finally starting to pick out letters, or as he knew them shapes.

A ‘u’ was described as ‘the letter at the start of my name’ and an ‘n’ as one ‘at the end of Pendragon’. It was clear the prince had no concept of what the letters actually symbolised, but I had hope that he could learn. After all, I was certain if he paused and thought about it, he’d realise that the letter at the start of his name was a ‘u’ and we could go from there.

I had no idea if that was how I had learned to read and write, but it was the only way I could think of doing it now.

With any luck I wouldn’t make a complete ass of myself.

My duties at the library were not all to do with shelving, that was only the start. I had proved myself an enthusiastic worker and soon Cedas had me working on small projects, researching this and that and getting to see the inner workings of a royal archive.

It was indeed everything I had ever dreamed and I took to every task enthusiastically, which seemed to please Cedas greatly.

“You know, young man, before you came I truly believed I was one of a kind and no-one would appreciate the finer points of learning. My past apprentices were certainly proof of that, but in half a year you’ve proven yourself just as curious and intelligent as I am.” One could never accuse Cedas of not having a healthy ego. “This is of great comfort to me, I worried who would take my place when the time came, but now you’ve put my mind at ease. Thank you.”

I wasn’t entirely sure of the appropriate way to respond to such a speech, furthermore I was rather taken by the promise it held, that I would be the next Archivist of Camelot! Could I really have secured my future so quickly? I decided not to take things too much for granted, that had a way of coming back to bite one the posterior.

As it happened it was a good strategy because life does like to surprise, and the surprise it gave me was nothing short of completely and utterly incomprehensible.

The morning started normally enough I woke up in my little closet room and got to work with my latest project, arrange the maps of Camelot, which looked as if it would be a lengthy task indeed, there were hundreds of scrolls none of which seemed to be in any order whatsoever. So I wasn’t expecting to emerge from that task for quite a few days at least, which is why I was so surprised when Cedas appeared at the doorway. The Map room was separate from the archives down a spiral flight of stairs that I was certain he’d rather avoid, he hadn’t even come down with me the first time, but now here he was.

I didn’t have time to ask any questions about why he was here because he immediately spoke in an almost breathless voice. “Geoffrey, come quickly, lad, the King wishes to speak with you.”

“The King?”

“Yes, come on, you can’t keep him waiting.”

My brow furrowed with concern and I hesitated even as I got to my feet. “What for?”

“I have no idea, but the servant who delivered the message spoke in no uncertain terms that you get there as soon as possible. Royalty doesn’t like waiting, so come on, move, move.”

So I did, quickly outpacing Cedas who told me to hurry on ahead ad he’d catch up eventually. I hoped so because by that point he was sounding rather out of breath and I was worried he might stop all together.

I arrived at the Council Chambers to find two guards flanking the doors, this was usual, but what was unusual was that they opened the doors and nodded me through.

I gave a nervous nod as I passed by them and wished I could ask them what if anything they knew about why I was being summoned. I have since learnt that it was quite unlikely they’d have any idea, guards were hardly kept in royal confidence.

I was surprised to see the Queen beside the King when I entered, I didn’t think the Queen attended councils and then I noticed Prince Ambrosius lurking for a lack of a better word in the shadows with a scowl on his face. I wondered what was behind that and as it turned out I didn’t have to wonder for long.

“Geoffrey of Monmouth,” the King addressed me, immediately grabbing my attention, I wasn’t aware he even knew my name!

“Yes…er…Your Majesties.” I bumbled and realising I hadn’t bowed yet, hastily did so, almost overbalancing and ending up on the floor.

An awkward silence followed, I wondered if I was supposed to say more, but I couldn’t think what. I knew one wasn’t supposed to address royalty without being addressed first and the King had only said my name, I didn’t think that was an invitation to say anything more.

Then I remembered that Prince Ambrosius was in the room and I quickly turned to give him a little bow. “Your Highness.” I stuttered.

“Cedas has mentioned you,” the King finally continued, satisfied that all the protocols had been met. “He says you’re extremely diligent in your tasks, quick to learn and articulate.”

“Er…thank you, sire.” I certainly wasn’t showing much articulation right at that moment.

The King gave me a look and I realised that wasn’t a statement that needed a response, talking with royalty was a quagmire, no doubt about it.

“You’re currently working on a number of projects, I understand?”

This did call for a response. “Yes, sire, I am.” I wondered if I should elaborate, but I decided to err on the side of caution.

“Well, I have a project for you.”

I blinked a few times, a project from the King? I couldn’t imagine what such a project could possibly entail. Was I supposed to catalogue his office perhaps, all the important treaties? That actually sounded rather…interesting.

But those possibilities quickly evaporated at the King’s next words.

“You imbue all the necessary qualities of a tutor.”

I gave a start. A tutor? What on earth would the King need tutoring in? More to the point why would he want me to be his tutor? I was barely older than his own son!

The King turned to Prince Ambrosius and gave a sharp gesture that evidentially translated into ‘get over here now!’ and sullenly the man stepped forward, it looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else but here. Little did I know I was going to sympathise with him in just a few moments.

“My brother, Prince Ambrosius’s son has recently reached his seventh year. The boy is woefully uneducated and whilst he is never going to take the throne of Camelot, I will not have the Pendragon name equated with ignorance on any front.”

I have to confess that I was a little...slow, at the time I had no idea why the King was telling me this. It wasn’t as if Prince Ambrosius’s son was a well-known figure, I didn’t even know his name at the time!

“My brother has dragged his heels on finding a tutor for the boy and frankly I’ve lost patience with it. The boy doesn’t need to be a scholar, he just needs to know the basics.”

I nodded, the basics were good, yes, he might not have a future as King, but surely anyone related to the King would be expected to know the ins and outs of Albion’s history, for treaty purposes. I still didn’t see what this had to do with me.

“To that end I think that with your presence the need to conduct a widespread search for a suitable tutor is unnecessary.”

You would think it would have dawned on me at that particular moment, but you’d be wrong.

At that point I heard the doors open behind me and I heard Cedas’s voice immediately greeting the King, Queen and Prince.

“Ah, Cedas there you are. I was starting to think we might have lost you.” The King chuckled and then he dropped the pitch ball. “But you’re just in time, your protégé was just about to accept the post of Prince Uther’s tutor.”

The next morning though I rather regretted it, not because of a hangover, Gaius had been right about the bread, or maybe I just hadn’t drunk enough, but because I hadn’t bothered to return to the castle and had simple fallen asleep where I had sat.

And at some point during the night it must have rained...only a little bit, but rained nevertheless.

It did prove to be an important lesson though, I discovered that cramped and tiny as it was sleeping in a closet sized room on passable bed was much more comfortable than sleeping propped up against a building. All my joints and muscles protested as I got to my feet and I wondered where Gaius had got to. Surely he hadn’t just left me to be exposed to the elements.

My question was answered after only a few steps, there was a hay cart in front of me, and there in the back atop of the hay bales was Gaius snoring away.

I laughed and shook my head the latter proved to be a very bad choice as my neck muscles spasmed in protest. The resulting yelp I gave startled Gaius who suddenly snorted and opened his eyes, blinking against the sun.

He got up, slowly, looking around until he finally spotted me. “Geoffrey,” he frowned. “What am I doing in a hay cart?”

We returned to the castle with Gaius predicted he would be well and truly scolded by Linus for not returning last night and it occurred to me that I had no idea how Cedas would react, except perhaps for poorly. But how poorly, I prayed that I wouldn’t find myself without even a closet room.

Once Gaius and I had parted ways I began to become more and more anxious about my fate until I was almost sweating, by the time I arrived at the doors to the archives I had to wipe my hands on my tunic. I took a deep breath as I opened one side of the double doors and stepped inside.

As usual Cedas was at his desk scribbling away and I waited to hear what my punishment was to be.

And waited...and waited some more. Cedas seemed unaware that I was even in the room, so finally I was forced to clear my throat to get his attention.

He still didn’t look up.

I coughed again and still nothing.

Finally I had to do it. “Excuse me...sir? I’m back.”

“I know you’re back, boy,” Cedas snapped not looking up from his writing. “I’m not deaf, don’t just stand there like a condemned man, get to work, those shelves won’t sort themselves.”

And that was it! Really, Cedas was utterly impossible to comprehend most of the time, it could be terribly annoying. But! I was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I had expected to be lectured and possibly sacked, but neither of those things had happened. For whatever reason Cedas was being lenient on me, so I hurried to collect my list and got to work.

I found out later that Gaius hadn’t been anywhere near as lucky as me. Linus had lambasted him for a good hour on his return then sent him off to work in the kitchens for a week. On hearing about my escape from punishment he eyed me with disbelief and respect.

“If someone had told me just a few months ago that Cedas would be letting his assistants get away with staying out all night I would have called them mad. You must repair books just by touching them or something. Are you magic?”

I shook my head. “Just lucky.”

Gaius gave a snort. “You certainly are. Wish me luck in the kitchens, maybe I’ll learn something useful there, Linus really is the most appalling cook and I’m not much better.”

I did wish him luck and smiled to myself as he disappeared down the corridor towards the kitchens.

I had a lot to tell Mother and Father when I wrote to them next!

It was the first time I’d really taken in the lower town of Camelot.

With Gaius as my guide, we headed out to partake in the festivities, while the nobles and dignitaries would be entertained in the Great Hall of Camelot Castle, the rest of us were left to make our own entertainment.

And I have to say, the peasantry of the city didn’t do a bad job of it at all.

One of the first things I saw was a maypole set up in the lower town’s square and all ready young children and maidens were dancing around it. Meanwhile, various people had set up stalls, selling breads, cakes, fruits and pies.

There were also various small clusters of people playing lutes and fiddles and singers, thankfully most of these people had talent enough, although every so often we would walk past a group that really should have kept their music to themselves. Still I supposed it was the thought that counts.

By far the busiest part of the town aside from the maypole was the local tavern, the Rising Sun, people spilled out into the street, most of them holding tankards and toasting anything and everything they could think of.

I hesitated slightly when I realised it was this building Gaius was leading me to. Taverns and I didn’t have a relationship, frankly I preferred lemon drink to alcohol, but telling Gaius that seemed rather rude and the patrons of the tavern seemed pleasant enough, it didn’t appear that there would be brawls breaking out.

Still, it was difficult to actually get inside the establishment and I’m quite sure I would have a few bruises the next day from wayward elbows and just general jostling.

“Travis!” Gaius shouted over the din when we finally got within a reasonable distance of the bar.

“Gaius!” Travis easily recognised my friend and I had to wonder if he often visited the place. I’d never thought of Gaius as much of a drinker, but then I didn’t really know him all that well. “A day off, reason to celebrate right?”

“Certainly is! Travis, this is Geoffrey, he’s Cedas’s new apprentice.”

Travis, a rather short man with a lazy eye looked at me in surprise. “Really? And you’re allowed to roam free? Did you drug him or something?”

Gaius laughed and gave me a slap on the back. “No! It seems he’s actually got on the man’s good side, or at least slightly less grouchy side.”

“Well done, young man!” Travis gave me a nod then grabbed up a tankard and headed over to a large barrel that was lying on its side behind the bar. “The usual, Gaius?”

“Please! And one for Geoffrey as well. That all right with you, Geoffrey?”

I hesitated for a moment, but then Gaius didn’t really have the look of a hard drinker about him, so I was reasonable sure that whatever the ‘usual’ was it wouldn’t kill me, so I nodded gamely.

A few moments later Travis set down two tankards on the bar for us, and Gaius took up his, gesturing for me to do the same. Once I had my tankard in hand I inspected the foamy beer inside and gave it a tentative and I hoped subtle sniff. It had an interesting aroma...apples I thought and I felt somewhat hopeful that it wouldn’t taste as awful as some alcohol did.

“To Apprenticing!” Gaius held up his tankard and made his toast.

“To...Camelot!” I answered somewhat hesitantly, but Gaius didn’t seem to notice as he tapped his tankard against mine and took a long chug.

I meanwhile was far more tentative taking a small sip, there was definitely a beery taste, but there was also the twangy flavour of cider, which was rather pleasant. I took a more ambitious sip and gave Gaius a grin.

“I don’t really drink.” I explained.

Gaius chuckled and shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

Gaius may have had another tankard, but I found that one was quite enough for me, the prospect of wandering around town and falling flat on my face or otherwise humiliating myself did not appeal at all.

Still I was probably a bit tipsy when we left the tavern to join in with the festivities, which is probably why I agreed to dance around the maypole in spite of my notable handicap of being unable to dance at all. Gaius was actually drunk, but seemed to have sense enough to stay away and cheer me on from the sidelines instead.

I would certainly never recommend maypole dancing to the tipsy, I was all right for a few revolutions, but eventually my feet became entangled and the next thing I knew I was falling and taking down the person in front of me, who promptly tripped up and knocked over the next person and so it went until we all ended up in a heap.

Fortunately, the festive air and drink had put everyone in a very good mood and rather than be berated within an inch of my life and quite possibily reported to the guards my wholly inelegant actions only produced mirth.

After all that though, Gaius declared it was probably in my best interest to stay setting for the rest of the celebrations and even arranged for me to eat some strangely herbed bread assuring me it would prevent hangovers.

I wasn’t sure if that was true, but the bread was delicious so I took him at his word.

Later that evening when the sun had well and truly gone done the bonfires were lit and songs of celebration were sung. The atmosphere was happy and content and I was very pleased with myself for having taken the time off to enjoy it.

A few days after my encounter with the King, I woke up to find the castle in an uproar.

Fortunately it wasn’t a ‘we’re being invaded’ sort of ruckus, but something else entirely different. Something celebratory.

When I got out of my tiny cupboard room (Cedas had not being kidding, he certainly didn’t plan on moving me to nicer accomodation) I found Cedas acting as normal, writing away at his desk.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Cedas mumbled something that I couldn’t catch, he had an annoying tendency to do that when he was immersed in work.

“What was that?” I prompted.

Cedas gave a long suffering sigh as I was asking him to forgo his work for weeks instead of just a few moments. “The King’s son has returned.”

“The King’s son?” I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit I hadn’t paid all that much attention to the various members of the royal family, I wasn’t even sure what his name was! “Isn’t he just a boy, why would he have left the castle?”

Cedas looked at me in exasperation. “No, the King’s son is Prince Kentigern, he’s almost in his eighteenth year and he’s the leader of the knights. They’ve been campaigning on the Mercian border. Do you not pay attention?”

I almost objected, because really, it was not as if I spent my days lying around on a sofa, I was busy cataloguing the archives! But sometimes it was useless to argue with Cedas and I was quite certain that this was one of those times. So I held my tongue.

“There is a prince in the castle though, I’m sure I heard mention of him?”

Cedas had pushed his glasses back up and returned to his writing. “That’s Prince Ambrosius’s son. Very unimportant as far as royals go, the King certainly won’t pay this much attention to his comings and goings when the time comes.”

I shook my head, the royal family of Camelot seemed rather…shaky, if fighting between the brothers wasn’t enough it seemed there were intergenerational problems as well.

Still, it wasn’t as if the kingdom was falling apart, in fact it was going quite well, but that I think had more to do with the people rather than the Royal family, not that I would ever be foolish enough to say so, but it wouldn’t surprise me if others had the same opinion.
I wondered if I was going to be allowed to take part in these festivities at all, Cedas certainly didn’t appear to have any interest in such things, but then he had lived in Camelot all his life.

He hadn’t offered though, so it seemed the subject was closed, however, before I could head over to begin my work for the day I decided I might as well be bold.

“Will I be required all day? Or will I at least get a chance to see what happens exactly when a prince returns home?”

Cedas looked up with amusement. “I didn’t think you’d care about such frivolities. But if you can’t contain your curiosity –“ his tone made it clear that he couldn’t imagine anyone having trouble doing that – “you’ve earned a day off, go ahead.”

Actually, I was rather surprised by how interested I was in this event, perhaps I really had been working too hard and it was possible for me to tire of books. I didn’t think that would last for long, but for the time being I was going to enjoy getting out of the library without a scroll or book in hand to be delivered to somebody.

As I headed down the corridors towards the main courtyard I saw a familiar figure in front of me heading in the same direction.

It was Gaius.

I hadn’t spoken to him since arriving except for a few brief sentences here and there, I’d been ridiculously busy after all and he had his own duties to attend to. But this time I was able to able to catch up with him.

“Geoffrey!” He turned to me with a grin on his face. “Finally escaped the archives, did you? I thought they’d swallowed you whole.”

I made a face. “Well, it did...but Cedas gave me permission to attend this...festivity.”

Gaius raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really? He must actually like you! Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “Your father is a bishop right? Maybe you’re a miracle worker.” He laughed.

“I don’t think so. But he hasn’t been that bad, lately, I think he at least respects my dedication to being an archivist.”

“Lucky for you.” Gaius gave a sigh. “Linus seems to be under the impression that all I’m good for is being a general dogsbody. I’ve learned more about cleaning out the scorpion tanks then I have about medicine.”

“Have you tried telling him off?” I ventured. “That seems to have changed Cedas’s mind about me.”

“Really?” Gaius looked intrigued and pursed his lips thoughtfully. I wondered if I was going to hear about the Physician’s Apprentice talking back to the Physician sometime soon.

“So, what is this Prince...Kentigern – is it? – like?”

“Well, I certainly don’t know him personally, but he takes his Princely duties seriously enough, which certainly has him on his father’s good side, which is why there’s all this fuss. You certainly won’t see all this when Prince Caius returns from the Continent.”

“Well, Prince Kentigern is his son,” I ventured.

“Oh it’s much more than that, surely you’ve heard about the royal brothers? It’s a damn mess, Linus tells me that the bad blood went back to when they were small children. Some brothers get along famously, but others...” Gaius shook his head. “Well, others are like the Pendragons. I recommend that you never get between the various camps when there’s a falling out.”

Well, that didn’t sound particularly good, the castle had run smoothly enough since my arrival here, and the idea of it all descending into a fracas was hardly something I would want to be in the middle of.

But there didn’t seem to be any danger of that today and Gaius and I headed along to the grand courtyard which by now was packed with people, many of whom were cheering and waving red pieces of cloth.

I looked up to see the King had appeared on the balcony, just in time to see his son enter the square, at least I have to assume that’s what happened, I couldn’t actually see anything, but there was a huge cheer from the crowds.

“Can you see anything?!” I shouted to Gaius over the din.

“No, but it won’t be too long!” He promised.

True enough to his word, the crowd started to part all the while continuing the cheer and I finally saw a hugely regal white stallion and a top of it was a young man dressed in chainmail and wearing the long flowing Pendragon cape. I saw the resemblance to the King immediately, although of course, Prince Kentigern was in the prime of his youth and looked ever inch a royal. He was somewhat above the peasantry, but not in a manner that could be considered offensive and every so often he would bestow a smile on the crowd and there would be even louder cheering. He was certainly popular!

“Welcome home, Prince Kentigern,” the King’s voice boomed out across the square, calling everyone’s attention to the balcony where the Queen had taken her place at her husband’s side. I hadn’t seen the Queen too often since my arrival, which wasn’t all that surprising since her duties hardly brought her into the archive, I was surprised by how young she looked. She must have been a very young bride, she looked just as proud as her husband.

“Once again you have done the people of Camelot proud, protecting our borders and preventing incursions by those who would wish us harm.” The King continued his welcome and whilst he was no longer physically fit, his ability at oration was second to none. His deep commanding voice arrested everyone’s attention and the crowd hung on his every word.

Prince Kentigern inclined his head and spoke, his voice was almost as commanding as his father’s. “I thank you, sire, for your words, it is ever my pleasure to keep Camelot safe for our people.”

Then the Queen stepped forward. “Welcome back, my son, it cheers all our hearts to have you back safe and sound.” Her voice was deep and melodious and now that she was in the sun I could see that her dress was covered in jewels that sparkled as they caught the rays. I wondered if that was all together a good choice of outfit, several times I was almost blinded!

The King then thanked the rest of the knights who had gone with his son to the borders and received their replies before addressing the crowd at large.

“In honour of Prince Kentigern’s return I declare this a day of festivity! All work is to be suspended and I invite all citizens to enjoy this day and be thankful for our continued safety.”

The cheer that greeted that particular announcement was almost deafening, it seemed the people of Camelot enjoyed a good celebration and since this was the first one I would be experiencing I was very much looking forward to it as well.

As the King and Queen withdrew from the balcony, I noticed that there were three other people on the balcony, who had stood in the shadows and being all but invisible. I recognised Prince Ambrosius and I could only assume the woman was his wife, but the other man I hadn’t seen before, he must have been the second eldest brother, Constans. I had never seen him before, he was rather a mystery and I didn’t really catch all that good a glimpse of him then.

It was at that point that I realised something, whilst I might proclaim that I didn’t want any part of a family feud, I had to admit the familial relationships or lack thereof of the Pendragon family made an intriguing study.

Although I had no idea at that moment just how close I would be able to study those relationships.

Of course, that was hardly the end of it, oh no, that would have been too easy. I wasn’t sure what Cedas had heard about what happened, but he was certainly most amused, in his way later on that week. I can only assume he heard about it then and as he was wont to do he decided that the best thing to do was to make me do something like that again, except, of course, on a grand scale.

Not a month after my encounter with Prince Ambrosius I was given another scroll to deliver...

To the King himself!

The horror of been given such a task was enough to make me speak up. “Do you think I’m the best person to undertake this task, sir? I mean...the King...well, surely one of his own personal servants are needed?”

Cedas looked up in surprise that I had talked back, it was after all one of the things I wasn’t supposed to be doing. “Young man, do you realise how busy the King’s servants are? Far busier than you, you do nothing compared to them. And let me tell you something, if you plan to continue being my apprentice you will do the tasks I set you, without complaint, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir, of course.” I spoke quickly, the last thing I wanted was for him to fire me, I had managed not to get myself into trouble since arriving and I hardly wanted to lose it all now.

Still, my heart was pounding at a ridiculous speed as I left to deliver the scroll. I really didn’t want to do this, it was...well, in the few months I had been here in Camelot I had heard more about the royal family.

It was a large family, especially for a royal one (they tend to be small I’ve found, with an heir and a spare if that), aside from Prince Ambrosius and the King, there were two more brothers, Princes Constans and Caius, who I had yet to meet - not that I was in anyway looking forward to such a meeting should it ever happen). Four brothers...for some reason I had a sense that this was a recipe for disaster, after all royalty weren’t exactly known for their ability to share. And there was one brother who was King, with everyone below him, including the brothers and if there was anything I’d learnt about brothers (not having any myself) it was that they could be ridiculously competitive.

And the Pendragons seemed to be a very competitive lot.

Still I hadn’t heard that many complaints about the family, not that I really had time to hear much in the way of gossip, but there was just a general sense...

Either way, I really didn’t want to have to meet the King...certainly not in a private setting. It was one thing to see him on Camelot’s grand balcony, or leading the knights out of the courtyard for a hunting expedition or war games, but to go into the Royal Study and hand him a scroll, well I feared that I would do something really stupid and possibly treasonous.

But I had my orders and Cedas had a point, if I was going to be an archivist one day I had to act like one, someone who was confident in their knowledge and collection and that what they had was worthy of delivering to others, even if these others were very, very important people indeed.

The Royal Study was on the ground level of the castle not too far from the Throne room. I had learned more about the layout of the castle in my time, so this time it didn’t take me long at all to arrive before the door.

This time I was quite sure that barging in was out the question, but knocking was even more intimidating than with Prince Ambrosius. Much more intimidating.

Finally I managed to give a very timid knock, one that certainly wasn’t heard…so I had to screw up my courage once more and knocked a bit louder.

“Enter.” A voice called.

I bit my lip and with a shaking had managed to turn the door knob and walk through.

I had seen the King from afar a few times, but this was the first time I had come within a few feet of him.

He was…rather shorter than I thought, and quite a bit…larger, in girth I mean, but he wasn’t wearing the long Pendragon cloak that I usually saw him in, it seemed that it hid a multitude of sins.

He was writing something when I entered and looked up, his face immediately turning to a scowl. “Who the devil are you?” He demanded, looking ready to call in the guards and throw me in the dungeons.

“I’m from…my name’s Geoffrey…of Monmouth,” I spluttered out, tripping over my words.

Unsurprisingly, this extremely poor introduction was not to the King’s liking at all. He rose to his feet. “And you think you can interrupt me?”

“No! I mean, Cedas sent me, I have your scroll.” This was going even worse then it had with Prince Ambrosius! I hardly believed it was possible.

The King’s eyes dropped to the scroll and continued glowering. “And you believed it was appropriate to come in here as if you something urgent? Are you a complete idiot? Did Cedas teach you nothing? You leave scrolls in the antechamber, I have important work to do and that work does not include humouring imbeciles.”

I swallowed hard, seeing myself clapped in chains, just what was the punishment was for wasting the King’s time.

I didn’t move, I couldn’t and finally the King snapped. “Well, put it down over there and get out.” He jabbed a finger at a small sideboard beside the door.

The sharpness in his tone galvanised me into action and dropping the scroll on the table I all but ran through the door and into the wall on the other side of the corridor.

“Close the door!” The King shouted as I tried to collect my wits, I almost stumbled back into the study as I moved back to do so, but fortunately I managed to keep my balance, although I do believe I managed to slam it.

Still, I wasn’t pursued by any guards as I hurried back towards the library, so I decided I was safe enough, upon my return I did go straight to Cedas.

“You didn’t tell me to deliver the scroll to the King’s antechamber!”

Cedas looked up in surprising, raising an eyebrow. “Excuse me, boy?”

“I said, you didn’t mention the King’s antechamber! I thought he was going to order my head to be chopped off!” It was the first time I had actually spoken back to the man since my arrival, and I even I was doing so, I couldn’t believe I was doing so, this man did hold my future in his hands and here I was shouting at him. I immediately closed my mouth, worried that I had gone too far.

Cedas was silent for a few long moments, then finally he gave a sniff. “Well, how dramatic. I thought you wished to be an academic, not an actor.”

“I…I was just…” I wasn’t entirely sure what I had meant to do actually.

To my shock, the corners of Cedas’s mouth quirked up and then, unbelievably the man laughed, actually laughed!

“Young man, I was beginning to think you were utterly spineless. Even the most timid servants haven’t managed to last a fortnight in my service. I thought that there was something wrong with you. I see now that you’re just exceptionally patient, which is something very handy for an inspiring archivist to have.” Cedas was actually looking at me with something akin to respect.

I think I must have been gaping at him because he gave a rather irritated gesture. “But you look like an idiot when you stand there all slack-jawed like a mule. Sit down.” He pointed to the chair across from him.

This was another first, he had never invited me to sit down before, my feet and legs had certainly toughened up since my arrival, nonetheless I eagerly took up the offer.

“This was all a test?” I asked.

“Not all of it, I don’t appreciate sass back,” Cedas gave me a sharp look. “But I do appreciate someone who actually speaks up. Which if you had I would have told you how to deal with King. He doesn’t have what you would call the common touch, he’s decidedly prickly in fact.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” I said dryly.

“But really, his anger is generally reserved for his brothers or knights who fail to meet his expectations. Although I suppose the odd servant has found themselves in the stocks for lesser infractions then you have.”

This didn’t make me feel any better…I wondered if the King was one who held a grudge, I certainly didn’t want to end up in the stocks later on for something stupid like not bowing quick enough.

“But you’ve learnt an important lesson here, Geoffrey,” I gave a slight start, this was the first time he had called me by name. “An academic needs to question, to research, to look into things. If you weren’t certain about the etiquette of delivering something to the King you should have asked.”

“I see…I’ll make sure to do that in the future.”

“Good,” Cedas looked satisfied. “But don’t go thinking that I’m going to go easier on you, you’ve proved that it wasn’t a mistake to take you on, but running an archive, particularly a royal one is not for the faint hearted.”

And before I even had a chance to comment, he ordered me to get back to work on the cataloguing.

All the same I had, at least, discovered Cedas was human.

And start at the bottom I did. As Gaius had mentioned I was well immersed in dust and the monotonous busy work of an archive. I do believe weeks passed without me having a chance to open a book and actually read what was inside.

I will say however, that I seemed to make quite a good impression on Cedas, or perhaps he just enjoyed having someone to boss around. It seemed he’d never had an assistant before, or if he had they hadn’t lasted very long - not that that was a surprise. He had me hauling books from one place to another for reasons that weren’t clear to me, dusting shelves and even scrubbing the floors and walls of the huge space that the library took up!

There was one rather interesting aspect of the job however and that was the delivering of books, it didn’t happen all that often, but every now and then someone in the castle would request a volume or volumes to be brought to them and I of course was given that duty.

It was how I met my first member of the royal family, in fact, a few weeks after I began my apprenticeship.

It seems strange, that I was living in the castle and had thus far not met a single one of them, but considering the fact I wasn’t a courtier and a foreigner besides it wasn’t as if I had been invited to any royal functions. And royalty of course kept itself aloof from the part of the castle I was in. And it didn’t seem like the royal family were readers since Cedas seemed quite surprised when the request came in, delivered by a rather out of breath servant who had to rush off somewhere else hence I was the one instructed to be deliver the book...or scroll as it turned it.

“What is it?” I asked curiously as Cedas shoved it into my hands.

“None of your business,” he snapped. “Just deliver it to Prince Ambrosius.”

I stopped short at his words, blinking a few times, wondering if I’d heard him right. “Prince Ambrosius.”

“The King’s youngest brother.” Cedas said, impatiently. “And stop standing there, the Pendragons aren’t a patient lot.”

I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to meet one of the royal family, I hadn’t had the best luck with royalty thus far, but it didn’t look as if Cedas was going to accept any excuse I had.

“Where exactly will I find him?”I asked, swallowing nervously.

Cedas had all ready returned to his desk and didn’t notice my unease. “Just go to the royal wing, then ask any of the guards you pass by, Royalty can’t go anywhere without them knowing, they can point you in the right direction. Now go on, move it.”

Without any further ado, I headed off briskly, almost running really, the castle was a very large and if I walked at normal pace it would probably take me a good five minutes to even get to the Royal wing.

Upon my arrival at the large double doors that separated that wing from the rest of the castle I was greeted by two stony face guards.

“I have something to deliver to Prince Ambrosius,” I said somewhat out of breath, I held up the scroll. “From the Royal Archives.”

One of the guards looked me over and turned to his partner, who also gave me a brief cursory look.

“He’s in his chambers,” the first guard said curtly and he and the other guard pulled open the doors.

“Er...” I bit my lip, embarrassed to have to ask this. “Where exactly is that? I’ve never...um...I’m new here...to Camelot, I’m not sure where the Prince’s chambers are.”

The guards looked at each other as if they couldn’t believe it, the first one rolled his eyes, but the second one decided to be helpful. “It’s up the first flight of stairs, down the hallway, then left, then another hallway and the last door on your right.”

I wasn’t all that sure I could remember that and I repeated it a few times silently hoping to commit it to memory finally the first guard spoke.

“Anyone you meet can direct you, move along, buddy, this door is heavy.”

I apologised and scurried past, hoping that I would indeed come across someone, because the second guard’s directions had flown pretty much out of my head.

I did remember to go up the staircase however, and at the top I did see a maid and managed to catch her attention.

“Prince Ambrosius’s chambers?” She looked at me somewhat sympathetically and I had to wonder if Cedas had sent me on this errand on purpose. He seemed to enjoy seeing me out of depth. And having to deliver a scroll to a very bad tempered member of the royal family was undoubtedly out of my depth. The fact that if this went badly Cedas was certain to hear about it was probably how he was planning on enjoying this particular indignity.

The maid gave me the necessary directions, these ones I managed to retain and soon I was standing before the door, trying to screw up enough courage to knock on it. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette here, were servants allowed to just knock on doors uninvited? And I certainly couldn’t imagine a royal deigning themselves to answer a knock, but I couldn’t think of any other way.

There was a silence that seemed to last forever after I knocked, but finally I heard a muffled voice.

“Enter!”

I couldn’t tell if it was the Prince, having never even seen him let alone heard his voice, but I had to assume it was, or at least someone who had the right to be in his room and to let someone else in.

I turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping inside.

I’d never seen royal chambers before, they were really quite amazing and I don’t think that was just because I had been spending the last few weeks sleeping in what amounted to a closet. I suppose it wasn’t all that surprising, royalty are a pampered lot, still, I hadn’t expected anything quite so...well, opulent.

There were soft bearskin rugs scattered here and there, and on the walls various animal heads hung, no doubt trophies of the various hunts the prince had been on. And the furniture was ornate and of a dark wood, oak, I assumed, it was covered with a intricate carvings and I wondered how long it had taken the woodworker to create even one chair, let alone the dozen or so that were scattered about the room.

“You have something for me?” A sharp voice rang out interrupting my reverie. My head jerked towards the sound and I came face to face with a nearly middled aged man, with a scowl on his face. It was about then that I noticed the various weaponry that also hung on the walls, this was not a good place to anger someone.

I gave what had to have been the worst bow in history, holding out the scroll. “Your...my...Your highness, I’m from the Archives, Cedas sent me, you wanted this?” It all came out in rather a pathetic jumble and the prince stared at me for a moment, his brow furrowing. I’m not sure if he understood what I said, but the scroll made it clear enough.

“Set it down here,” he gestured to the table before turning away.

I wondered why he didn’t just come over and take the scroll from me and I realised with a start that he didn’t actually want to take it, apparently I was too far beneath him to be given that privilege.

It seemed a bit much, but then Caerleon the younger had been less polite than that, he probably would have mentioned something about not wanting to come into contact with the lesser people. Still the reason was rather implicit and I still felt offended.

But, I suppose that’s how royals were, so I stepped forward and set the scroll down...then wondered about my next move, something told me, despite the standoffish nature of the prince that I couldn’t just leave, I had to wait to be dismissed. The prince wasn’t facing me however and it didn’t look like he’d be turning back round any time soon, so I was forced to stand there feeling quite stupid until finally, after what seemed like hours, he did.

“Is there something else? Some message from Cedas for me? Has he found a tutor?”

“Uh...no, not that I’ve heard of.” I didn’t have a clue as to what the man was referring to, a tutor for what? But one didn’t ask questions of royalty.

The prince frowned. “Then what are you standing around here for? Move along, get back to Cedas.”

I felt a bit like an errant child being scolded, but I had no recourse to complain, so instead I gave another rather sloppy bow and hurried out, almost tripping on one of the rugs as I did.

It was quite a relief to be finally out of there and I hoped fevorently that I wouldn’t have to do anything like that again.

The door hinges were well-oiled not making so much as a squeak as Gaius turned the knob and pushed one side open, stepping aside to allow me to go through first. Of course, that was only polite, but I couldn’t help thinking that he was perhaps using me as a shield.

But whether he was or not, this was what I wanted, to be a scholar, so it was only right that I should go first.

On entering the room I completely forgot about canterkerous archivists, for before me was the most amazing collection I have ever seen before or since.

Now it is true the library in Tamworth was bigger, but that was in physical dimensions, the library of Camelot was indeed smaller, but there were more shelves and each of them were packed with volumes. There was also the most amazing sense of knowledge, as if the books amassed here were from more places and on more subjects than one could imagine. Which was a rather strange sensation for me to have considering the fact I hadn’t looked at any of them and couldn’t even see the titles from where I stood. Still I was absolutely certain that I would find information in this library that was available nowhere else.

My pleasure in being able to bask in all this knowledge was rather abruptly ended by the intrusion of a very annoyed voice.

“My God, can’t I be left in peace for five minutes? I know Linus has his own collection in that chamber of his, why doesn’t he damn well use it?”

I turned to the source and was greeted by my first sight of Cedas.

My first reaction was surprise, he was extremely short, at least for a full grown man, reaching only to the middle of my chest (and I was by no means a giant). He was also rather younger than I expected though still on the other side of fifty. He had a long beard that curled at the ends and rather wild hair on his head. He also possessed the thickest pair of glasses I had ever seen, they were perched at the end of his long nose and I wondered at how they didn’t fall off. He was also dressed in a rather heavy robe for this time of year. It also appeared to be rather too big for the man, puddling about his feet, how he could walk about without tripping over it was a mystery to me.

He hadn’t seemed to notice me, instead he was peering up at Gaius, hands on hips, eyes narrowed. If looks could kill. Well, Gaius would have at least had quite a serious injury.

“Peace, Cedas.” Gaius held up his hands in gesture of goodwill. “I haven’t come here to mess up your shelves.”

“I very much doubt that,” Cedas snapped back.

“No, I promise, in fact, I’m here with good news.” Gaius was rather overselling me I thought, we had only just made acquaintance!

Nevertheless he took me by the arm and motioned me forward. “This is Geoffrey, of Monmouth, you’re expecting him I think?”

Cedas squinted and looked up at me, a frown on his face. “Why would I be expecting anyone?”

This was my cue, I immediately went ruffling in my satchel. “I have a letter of recommendation here...Bishop Maxim, in Cornwall should have written to you?” I hoped to job his memory because, of course, the letter had worked its way to the very bottom of my bag.

“A letter of recommendation? For what?” I couldn’t tell if Cedas was being sarcastic or genuine and fate wasn’t helping much either, the awkwardness continued as I grabbed a hold of the letter a few times only to have the paper slide out of my grasp.

“For a position, as your apprentice,” I continued, finally gaining a firm hold and pulling.

Of course, half the contents of my satchel was carried along with the letter and made a very loud noise falling to the floor.

Cedas’s eyes narrowed even more. “Would you mind not destroying the library, boy, there are books in here worth more than your life.”

I gulped. “Sorry, but I have the letter.” I thrust it in his direction, praying that he would take it.

Thankfully he did, pushing his glasses up on his nose as he unfolded it. I hoped that Bishop Maxim had written me a good reference, especially considering the fact we had never actually met in person. We had exchanged a few letters though and that seemed to have been enough to convince the man that I was genuine in my desire to be a scholar and to write me a recommendation in the first place.

Although I wondered if Cedas trusted Bishop Maxim’s judgement, he didn’t look like the sort of man who cared for anyone else’s opinions and I had to wonder if this was a wasted trip and what exactly I was going to do with myself if this archivist threw me out on my ear.

It seemed that hours passed before Cedas finally looked up and squinted at me a bit more. “Maxim seems to think you have the smarts and enthusiasm for the job, I did give him very specific instructions.” He paused. “I was expecting someone a bit older. But then they do say the young are good for moulding.”

I had a sudden imagine of him treating me like clay and banging my head against a table trying to put it into proper shape, but I couldn’t let my imagination run away with me.

“But Monmouth, in Caerleon? I didn’t think they had much in the way of scholars there.”

“No sir,” I answered. “That’s why I had to look elsewhere to continue my studies. Bishop Maxim told me that Camelot’s library is the very best.”

For the briefest second I thought I saw a proud smile grace Cedas’s face, but it was gone in a flash and I had to conclude I’d been imagining it.

“It’s a one of a kind establishment, certainly. And not for just anyone, I want someone who’ll respect my work and the work contained within these volumes. I don’t need any puffed up young jackass thinking they know what’s what.”

“No sir,” I said quickly. “I know that I have a lot to learn. And I’m willing to, if you give me a chance.”

Cedas grumbled to himself, then refolded the letter stuffing it into his pocket. “All right then, I’m willing to give you a trial.” My face must have lit up because he added rather sharply. “Just a trial, mind you. You’ll be completely at my beck and call, no sass back, no commentary. I give you an order and you obey it no questions asked, you go that.”

“Yes sir.” I promised.

“Good. Now pick up all that and take it through into that room over there.” Cedas pointed to a door on the far side of the room. “That’s where you live now. And if you don’t like it, you can leave now.”

“It’ll be fine, sir.” I promised despite not having seen it, after all I wasn’t about to be turned away from my destiny now.

Although, I briefly reconsidered when I entered the so-called room...cupboard would have been more appropriate. There was indeed a small ‘bed’ inside – although that’s a generous description – and even a tiny window, but with the door closed I barely had room to move. I wondered if I’d actually be able to spend the night in here or if I’d suffocate.

But Cedas had made it clear that if I made any complaints I could leave, so I tossed my satchel onto the ‘bed’ wondering exactly where I was going to put the contents of it.

I turned to leave and nearly ran into Gaius again who had come up behind me.

“Good lord, and I thought Linus was hard-hearted, my room is practically a chamber compared to this.”

I made a face. “We can’t all be so lucky I suppose.”

Gaius grinned. “I wouldn’t worry, it’s not as if you’ll spending much time here.” He gave a chuckle. “You’ll be spending most of your time in musty old bookshelves instead.”

I rolled my eyes, but I appreciated the fellow’s sense of humour nevertheless.

It was a relief to get out of that ‘room’ and that was only after a few minutes. Cedas had returned to his table and was writing away, I wasn’t entirely sure how to get his attention. Should I just speak up? Cough? Or was it better just to wait until he looked up and noticed me?

Gaius solved that problem for me, perhaps a bit too obviously, by rather loudly announcing he had to return to his own work for the Royal Physician and wishing me luck.

Cedas glared at him as he left with a cheery wave and peered at me once more.

“I’m in the process of cataloguing at the moment, making sure everything is still here and that it’s all where it should be. Nobles and courtiers often just help themselves without any regard to where things go. It’s a bloody mess.” Cedas explained and then picked up a rather tatty and sad looking book, pushing it across the table towards me. “Here’s the second volume of the catalogue. Get to work on it.”

That was the only instruction I was given, but I figured I was supposed to go to the shelves the volume pertained to and check to see if all the books listed were there. If they weren’t...well, I wasn’t entirely sure what I supposed to do then, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it, I decided.

Though I wondered if I was actually going to get to do any scholarly work, I hoped Cedas wasn’t just going to treat me as a librarian, as much as I loved books, I was more enamoured by the knowledge they contained than just handling them.

But I was an apprentice and I supposed I needed to start at the bottom.

Even after all these years I can still remember that moment, the moment I arrived in Camelot.

I didn’t get much sleep that last night in the woods and it wasn’t just because of the hard ground and I was so anxious to leave the next morning, Sir Harold remarked on it with no small amount of amusement.

I readily admitted my overexcitement, but all the same I couldn’t calm down! I was almost there.

I did wonder briefly why we had stopped for the night in the first place because it was only another two hours ride until the capital, but I suppose if I was going to reach my destiny, the impact was far greater arriving in the shining light of day.

Bishop Maxim had written that Camelot put Tamworth to shame, but I hadn’t quite believed it, at least not until the castle came into view.

The Castle of Camelot was a shining beacon, constructed of white stone, the purest white stone...I had never seen anything like it in my life, and never saw anything like it in all the years that followed. When I was a child one of my favourite bedtime stories was about a dragon and a castle, which my mother had always described to me as one of impossible beauty, with soaring towers and waving banners and flying buttresses everywhere. It was a castle of imagination, at least I had always thought so, but it seemed that Camelot was that castle.

“Impressed, Monmouth?” Jared asked wryly with a raised eyebrow.

“Does it always look like this?” I asked, somewhat stupidly.

The guards laughed and I blushed, embarrassed. Honestly, as a scholar I really should have been able to come up with something a little more...memorable.

“No,” Jared replied with a straight face. “Sometimes it’s pink when the sun sets.”

I blinked at that, wondering if Jared was mocking me, surely he was...I mean, pink?

I didn’t really consider that too much, I was all ready making plans about what he was going to do once we got through the city gates. I was all but jumping out of my skin.

The guards did not accompany me, they had...some other business to attend to before entering the city. Probably to do with their horses, the one I had used included.

I made sure to thank them for allowing me to accompany them and hoped that I hadn’t slowed them down or proved to be a bother.

Sir Harold accepted my thanks with a jesting smile. “You weren’t too much trouble, Monmouth, if you’re ever in the tavern when we are, I’ll buy you a drink.”

I was quite certain he made that offer purely because he didn’t believe he’d ever see me in such an establishment, but still, it’s the thought that counts.

I was rather glad that I had packed on a few items for my trip, just my books really and they were only enough to fill a large satchel. I hoisted it onto my shoulder and taking a deep breath entered my new home.

Like most capitals, Camelot had both an upper and lower town and I entered the latter first. In general lower towns aren’t all that much to look at, since the lower classes live there there’s very little stonework to be seen and mostly the roads aren’t even paved. However, they’re always a hive of activity and Camelot’s lower town was no exception. There was the sound of merchants hawking their wares, of children laughing and the ringing sound of the blacksmith hard at work at his forge. I wandered down the main road – which incidentally was paved, my eyes wide trying to take everything in. I wondered briefly if I stuck out like a sore thumb, being new to the city, indeed the country, but I couldn’t have been too much, although every now and then I’d receive a curious but still welcoming smile from one of the locals as I passed them.

I passed a bakery and the smells of fresh bread was enough to make my mouth water, we had had breakfast of course, but that seemed like a very long time ago. I briefly considered taking a detour and purchasing a roll, but the draw of castle itself, rising up ahead of me and the possibility of seeing a royal archive kept me moving. I was sure I’d have plenty of time to eat once I introduced myself to Cedas.

The walls of the castle proper loomed before me, dazzling white with red caped guards patrolling the tops, the enormous main gate was open and I noticed with some curiosity that rather than being surrounded by a moat the castle was encircled by a ditch. It was a very deep ditch however and I was more than sure that falling from the drawbridge would result in death or serious injury, in fact it was a far more likely outcome than falling into water. Still I found it rather odd.

As I neared the guard house I wondered if I’d be stopped, I couldn’t imagine that they would just let anyone wander about, but it seemed rather open, people from the lower town and knights were walking past me.

I suppose the city was feeling rather safe because I did indeed pass through those gates without being stopped, although I did notice the eyes of the guards on me, so undoubtedly had I tried anything my days would have been numbered.

Beyond the main gates was the Upper Town, the buildings here were made of stone and supremely graceful and the roads were paved with stone and smooth underfoot.

I was quite frankly gawking unable to take in all the sights and I ended up being so absorbed by it all that I didn’t notice anyone around me until I collided with someone. And this was no simple bump, I almost sent us both toppling to the ground.

I immediately stuttered out apologies, before I even saw who it was I’d ploughed into, just in case it was a knight or a God forbid a courtier or a member of the royal family even!

“No harm done, no harm done,” a cheerful voice assured me, reaching out a hand to pat my shoulder.

“I really must apologise,” I said again, finally getting a good look at the young man before me.

He was about my age, or maybe slightly older, with long brown hair and the one thing that immediately stood out which was that he was quite skinny.

Well, that and the fact he was wearing a long tunic, one would almost say it was robe. I can’t say I’d ever seen anyone wearing a robe outside of church and I wondered for a moment if I’d managed to all but knock down a priest.

“Really, it’s all right.” The fellow was quite earnest and I allowed myself to be reassured that I hadn’t caused some sort of incident by running into him.

As I had looked him over in curiosity, so he was doing the same to me, finally saying. “You must be new to the city, I’ve never seen you before.” The fellow stuck out his hand for me to shake. “I’m Gaius.”

“Geoffrey.” I answered, then added. “Of Monmouth.” I hoped that would make my slack-jawed behaviour more understandable.

“Monmouth? In Caerleon?” Gaius raised an eyebrow. “You’ve come quite a long way, haven’t you? What brings you to Camelot?”

“I’ve come to see Cedas, the Royal Archivist-” I began before been interrupted by Gaius’s laughter.

It was a somewhat infectious sound and I found myself smiling, but I was also rather concerned. “Is that a problem?”

“Well, maybe not if you care for books,” Gaius replied, “although it’s still a tough thing.”

My face fell. “Is he really that awful then?”

“No-one would ever accuse old Cedas of being particulary...easy going. One could call him cantankerous and that’s being polite.” Gaius spoke rather quickly, the smile never leaving his face.

“I see...” He wasn’t really filling me with a lot of confidence here. It was one thing to read about a man’s off-putting manner, it was quite another to actually encounter someone who would speak about it out loud. Cedas must be really bad.

Gaius seemed to realise, belatedly, that he was causing me some distress and quickly changed tack. “But it’s well worth it, Camelot’s archive and library is the best in Albion, if I do say so myself. I’ve been there a few times, in the course of my own duties.”

“And what are those?” I asked, happy for a chance to talk about something else.

“I’m an apprentice to the Court Physician, I hope to take up the post myself one day.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” I said, then amended. “With the Royal Archivist, I mean, I have a letter of introduction...to be his apprentice.”

Gaius laughed yet again. “So old Cedas has had to look right outside the kingdom to find someone to put up with him then?”

“Er...no, I asked.” I was rather hoping that the less Cedas’s reputation the less likely it would be true.

Gaius seemed to sense my nervousness and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “I guess you want to know the way the library then?”

“If you could,” I gave a wry smile. “I might as well walk into the lion’s den.”

“That’s the spirit!” Gaius laughed, giving me another pat on the back. “Follow me.”

He lead me through the Upper Town to the gates of the castle proper, and these gates were guarded, and the guardsmen in question were huge and more than a little intimidating. Gaius seemed to know them well, giving a cheerful hello and wave.

“This is Geoffrey, here to see Cedas.” He introduced me.

The two guards exchanged a look and shook their heads.

“Brave man,” one of them said.

I may have gulped, unbelievable, Cedas could even intimidate those two! It was almost...well inspiring.

Although I wasn’t feeling all that inspired as we continued on our way across a large courtyard the main entrance to the castle was an enormously wide sweeping staircase with stone dogs flanking either side. We did not go up those stairs however, I supposed they were for special guests, other royalty and dignitaries rather than young men from Caerleon.

Gaius lead me into the castle through a far smaller, almost non-descript door, inside the castle was cool and calm. Tapestries, most of them red with a gold dragon in the centre, lined many corridors. Others were watched over by long rows of polished armour. Large decorative windows were interspaced here and there allowing wide shafts of light to brighten foyers and corridors.

There was definitely a civil, almost Roman air to the place, much more so than the Castle of Caerleon or any of the Bishop’s Palaces I had been to. There was a strange sense in the air, a sort of reverence, not just for the royalty, but for the castle itself, it really was something special.

And massive, although that could just be the fact that while I had stayed at the Castle of Caerleon I hadn’t actually wandered around it. I had seen the throne room and the Grand Dining Room there and that was all. This time I was almost getting the grand tour! Indeed Gaius kept up a steady stream of conversation, he was indeed the most talkative chap.

“Old Linus made me polish this entire area of tile once,” he gestured about as we walked through a, relatively, small foyer. “For sassing him. I hardly thought the punishment fit the crime, rather oversensitive if you ask me.”

I nodded giving him a sympathetic look, but inside I was wondering if the Court Physician dished out those sorts of punishments and it went unremarked by guardsmen, what exactly did Cedas do? I thought of the gleaming white exterior of Camelot and decided I most certainly didn’t care to find out.

Finally after what seemed like an hour of walking we reached a large chamber and ahead of us was a set of grand doors. For the briefest second I thought that Gaius had taken me to meet the King and I almost turned tail! But then I realised while grand the doors didn’t really say ‘throne room’ or ‘council chamber’. Plus there was no-one guarding them.

This was it then.

I took a deep breath, a very deep breath. It was time...

Time to meet my destiny.