Grailblazers. Part 26

'Young blackguards,' said von Weinacht. 'I'll soon teach them a thing or two.'

The girl's eyes lit up and she smiled.

'I love you, Daddy,' she said.

'I love you too, Popsy,' muttered von Weinacht, gruffly. 'Right, where are those knights? Dwarf'

Toenail, who had been standing on a chair and looking out of the window at the courtyard, jumped down and ran over to him.

'Yes, sir?'

'You got any idea where those knights are?'

'In the courtyard, sir. Not fighting,' he added, thoughtfully.

'Where's that dratted dwarf got to?' said Boamund. :always wandering off somewhere, I've noticed.'

'Typical,' Galahaut said, putting on his jacket. 'Especially when there's work to be done.'

'And he's got the luggage.'

The two knights looked around the huge courtyard.

'Could be anywhere,' Galahaut said at last. 'Big place, this.'

'Gloomy, though.'

They started to stroll towards the main hall.

'I vote,' said Galahaut, 'that we find this Graf von Weinacht, make him tell us where the Socks are, and buzz off. How does that sound to you?'

'Pretty shrewd,' Boamund replied. 'Where shall we start?"

'How about over there?'

'Good idea.'

They pushed open the doors of the main hall and walked in. They stared.

'Toenail?' they said, in unison.

In front of them, sprawled on the hearthrug like a pile of bright red bedclothes, was the Graf von Weinacht. An enormous Danish axe lay by his right hand. Standing over him, grinning and holding an aerosol can of chemical Mace, was the dwarf.

'I suppose,' the Graf said, 'I'd better begin at the beginning.'

It had been a long day. Acting on the information received, he had gone das.h.i.+ng off to Atlantis in search of Grail Knights, had been beaten up twice and rolled down a spiral staircase, crash-landed his sleigh in the middle of nowhere, arrived home to find the place knee-deep in knights, been Maced by a dwarf and tied up with his own dressing-gown cord. It was enough to make you spit.

'Is that necessary?' yawned Galahaut. 'Only . . .'

'Yes,' the Graf snapped. 'Absolutely essential. All right?'

'Fire away, then,' replied the Haut Prince. He leant back, put his feet up on a stuffed bear, and helped himself to a big, fat bunch of grapes.

Simon Magus turned the page and settled his reading-gla.s.ses comfortably on his nose.

The Pitiful History, he read, of the Count of Christmas.

He reached for his notebook.

It was a h.e.l.l of a story. If it wasn't quite the greatest story ever told, that was just because the Graf wasn't quite in the mood to give it the full treatment .

. . . About how, getting on for two thousand years ago, he packed in his promising career as a weather-G.o.d to study astrology at the University of Damascus. About how he and three of his fellow students, looking through the University's electron astrolabe, discovered what at first they took to be a bit of dirt on the lens, and then realised was an entirely new star.

About how they set off to observe it from the University's hi-tech observatory near Jerusalem. About how there was the inevitable c.o.c.k-up with the hotel bookings, which meant that they arrived in Galilee one cold, wet night to find that their rooms had been given to a party of insurance salesmen from Tarsus, and they were going to have to doss down in the stables.

And how, just as they were squelching across the courtyard and muttering about sueing somebody, young Melchior happened to look up and notice that the star was slap-bang over their heads; and that the group of shepherds who'd just come out of the stables were looking very worried indeed . . .

'And another thing,' said the shepherd, grinning insanely. 'I don't know if you're superst.i.tious or anything, but if you are, don't go in there. The place is knee-deep in angels, okay?'

'Angels?'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

The shepherds hurried away, leaving Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar and Klaus standing in the rain.

'Did that man just say the Angels were in there, someone?' Balthazar asked.

'I thought so.'

They groaned. As if they didn't have enough to put up with without sharing their sleeping accommodation with a gang of greasy, leather-clad, foul-mouthed, camel-riding hooligans.

It was dark in the stable. The oil lamp flickered atmospherically in the slight draught. Suddenly, all four of them felt this very great urge to kneel down.

'h.e.l.lo,' Balthazar called out. 'Anybody here? Hey, lads, I don't like this, it's kind of spooky in here...'

It grew lighter; there was a soft golden glow coming from the far manger.

'Hush,' said a woman's voice, 'he's asleep.'

It was Melchior who spoke first. Very gently, he crept forward towards the crib, peeped into it, and then rocked back as if he had been stunned. Then he knelt dawn and covered his head with the hem of his cloak.

'Lady,' he said.

The woman's face was in shadow. 'Welcome,' she said. 'Blessed may you be for ever, for you are the first to look on the face of the Son of Man.'

Melchior rocked backwards and forwards on his heels. 'Lady,' he said again, 'is it permitted that we might offer gifts to your son?'

The woman smiled, and nodded, whereupon Melchior searched in his satchel and produced a small, s.h.i.+ny box. The woman nodded, as if she had been expecting it.

'Gold,' Melchior explained. 'Gold is a fitting gift for a king.'

The woman took the box without looking at it and laid it down beside the crib. Caspar stepped forward, fell on his knees and offered the woman a little alabaster jar.

'Frankincense, lady,' he said shyly. 'To anoint Him who shall be crowned with thorns.'

The woman nodded, and put the jar down by the box. Balthazar, his knees trembling, now stepped forward, knelt, and held out a silver phial.

'Myrrh, lady,' he whispered. 'To embalm Him who shall never die.'

Again, a trace of a smile crossed the woman's lips. She took the phial from Balthazar's hands, looked at it for a moment, and put it with the other gifts.

Why didn't they tell me, Klaus muttered to himself. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Why didn't they say something?

There was a moment's pause, while the other three looked at him. He decided to improvise. He grabbed something out of his satchel, tore a page out of a book to wrap it in (the book was a treatise on ornithology, and the page he had selected had little pictures of robins on it) and stepped forward.

'Um,' he said, and thrust the parcel into the woman's hands.

She gave him a long look, then slowly unwrapped the parcel.

'Socks,' she said. 'Just what He always wanted.'

The expression on her face told a different story as she held up two knee-length stockings to the light. Klaus winced.

'They're probably a bit big for him right now,' he said, as lightly as he could, 'but never mind, he'll grow into them.'

The woman gave him another long, hard look; then she rolled the socks up into a ball and dropped them. 'You may go,' she said.

'Thank you,' Klaus mumbled, backing away. 'Oh yes, and a happy . . . happy. The compliments of the season, anyway.'

He banged his head on a rafter, reversed out of the door, and ran for his life.

'A fortnight later,' the Graf went on, breathing heavily, 'I got a parcel. It contained a pair of socks, and a letter. It was delivered by an angel.'

He hesitated, closed his eyes, and continued. 'The letter wasn't signed, but then, it didn't need to be. I won't bore you with the first three paragraphs, because they were mostly about me. What you might call the business part of the letter came in the last few lines.

'To cut a long story short, I was cursed. For the rest of Time, it said, until the Child comes again to judge the quick and the dead, it would be my job to deliver presents to all the children in the world, every year, on the anniversary of my . . . on Christmas Eve. Presents as inappropriate, unwanted and futile as the present I had seen fit to choose for the King of Kings. And, just to drive the point that little bit further home, just in case I hadn't quite grasped it by now, on each ensuing Christmas Eve every child in the world would henceforth see fit to hang at the foot of its bed the longest, woolliest sock it could find, as a perpetual reminder.'

There was a long silence.

'Yes,' said Galahaut, pulling himself together, 'be that as it may, what about these Socks?'

'Socks?' Klaus von Weinacht looked up at him and laughed. 'Haven't you worked it out yet? The socks you and your friend here have been looking for are the Socks. Hence,' he added with a bitter chuckle, 'the name. Do you seriously believe that I can hand them over to you, just like that?'

Boamund set his face in what he hoped was an impa.s.sive expression. 'You'd better had,' he said, 'or it'll jolly well be the worse for you.'

Von Weinacht turned his head and looked at him.

'Please?' Boamund added.

'No.' The Graf curled his lip. 'You don't think I wouldn't be delighted to see the back of them, do you? I hate the very sight of them. But they aren't mine to dispose of. Certainly not,' he added, 'to you.'

Boamund became aware of an urgent digging in his ribs and glanced down.

'What is it?' he said. 'Can't you see we're busy?'

'It won't take a moment,' Toenail replied. 'Just come over here, where he can't hear us.'

Boamund shrugged and got to his feet. They walked over to the fireplace.

'He's not telling you the whole story,' Toenail said, 'I'm sure of it.'

'Really?' Boamund raised an eyebrow. 'It must be a pretty long story, then, because . . .'

Toenail shook his head. 'It's true all right, about the Socks and that. But there's more to it. I know there is.'

'Do you?'

'Yes.'

Boamund considered. He had always known that everybody, even servants, knew much more about everything than he did, and that was the way it should be. A knight has far more important things to do than go around knowing things. The way he saw it, if your head's full of knowledge, it'll get too big to fit inside a helmet. Nevertheless, wasn't the whole thing supposed to be a secret?

'How do you know, exactly?' he asked.

Toenail looked round. 'I just do, that's all. Maybe it's because I'm a dwarf.'

'How does that come into it?'

'Race-memory,' Toenail replied. 'That and it's easier for dwarves to keep their ears to the ground. Look, just ask him about the Grail, see how he reacts. Go on.'

Boamund nodded. Great heroes, he knew, had faithful and wise counsellors, invariably of lower social rank, but dead clever nonetheless; and the good part of it was that their names tended to drop out of history at a relatively early stage.

He turned to the Graf, narrowed his brows to indicate thought, and walked slowly back across the hall.

'You're keeping something back, aren't you?' he said. 'Come on, out with it.'

'Drop dead.'

'Don't you take that tone with me,' Boamund replied. 'What about the Grail, then? You tell me that.'

By way of response, von Weinacht roared like a bull and struggled furiously with the dressing-gown cord that held him to the chair. Galahaut frowned and reached for the rolling pin he'd found in the kitchens.

'Now cut that out,' he said. 'Honestly, some people.'

'Knights!' Von Weinacht spat. 'b.l.o.o.d.y knights! Always the same. If I ever get my hands on you two . . .'

Galahaut hit him with the rolling pin. It seemed to have a mild therapeutic effect, because he stopped roaring and confined himself to looking daggers. Boamund nodded.

'Thanks, tally,' he said.