“Is this your sword?” the knight asked.
“Yes, though that’s not how it looked when last I saw it,” said Charming.
Speaking in a thin shaky voice, Excalibur said, “Thanks, fellas, I believe I can stand on my own.”
The sword rose off the pillow, almost fell over, then balanced steadily on its point. The bright jewel in its pommel looked at Charming without winking.
“It’s him, all right,” Excalibur said. “He’s the one who abandoned me on the field of battle.”
The knights turned to Charming. “The sword asserts that you abandoned it on the field of battle. Is that true?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Charming said. “The sword is raving.”
The sword swayed, then regained its balance. “My friends,” it asked, “do I look deranged? I tell you, he threw me away for no reason at all and left me to rust on the hillside.”
Charming made a gesture of finger to the temple, denoting that the thing referred to was crazy.
The knights didn’t seem convinced. One said to another, in a clearly audible voice, “A little weird, perhaps, but definitely not crazy.”
One of the knights, a tall gray-bearded man with the eagle-eyed look and thin lips of a spokesperson, took out a sheet of ruled parchment and a stylus.
“Name?”
“Charming.”
“First name?”
“Prince.”
“Occupation?”
“Same as first name.”
“Present assignment?”
“Mission.”
“What type of mission?”
“Mythic.”
“Nature of mission?”
“Awaken Napping Princess.”
“By what instrumentality?”
“A kiss.”
After completing their questions, the knights retired to a quiet part of the field to consider what to do next, leaving Charming trussed hand and foot with silken cord and rolled under a hedge.
It seemed to Charming that these were not the ordinary run of knights. Their line of questioning was unexpected. Their faces, bony pallidities half-hidden behind moldering iron-and-wood casques, were unprepossessing. Charming overheard them talking as they moved off:
“What’ll we do with him?”
“Eat him,” came a reply.
“That goes without saying. But how?”
“Fricasseed is nice.”
“We just had fricasseed knight last week.”
“Then let’s do the pony first.”
“How?”
“What about roasted with fines herbes? Did anyone see any fines herbes around here?”
Charming immediately decided (a) knights didn’t speak as he had supposed they did, or (b) these fellows were not knights at all but actually demons in knights’ clothing.
A general consensus was reached on the fricasseeing. But they had some difficulty getting a fire going. It had rained recently in this part of the forest and there wasn’t much dry wood to be found.
Finally, one of the knights caught a baby salamander. Piling moist kindling against it and rapping its nose sharply when it tried to escape, they soon had a good blaze going. Two more knights turned to the creation of the sauce, and another pair made the marinade while the rest sang.
Charming knew he was in deadly peril.
Chapter 5
Azzie was under way again, having given up the Seven League Boots in favor of his own demonic flying abilities. He flew and scanned the woods, noting a fire in the distance. He went to it, circled overhead, adjusted his vision, and saw Charming, trussed like a capon, awaiting fricasseeing aux fines herbes while the pony cooked and screamed.
“You can’t do this to me!” it cried. “I haven’t finished briefing him.”
The demon knights kept on singing.
Quickly Azzie set down in the bushes nearby. He was considering things he might do to harass the knights and free Charming when, of a sudden, Babriel appeared beside him, resplendent in white armor, his dazzling white wings fluttering.
“Come to brag about your cathedral?” Azzie asked him.
Babriel looked at him sternly. “I hope you’re not thinking of wading in there yourself, old man.”
“Of course I am,” Azzie said. “What do you think, I’m going to let my hero be eaten by renegade demons?”
“I didn’t mean to intrude, but it is my duty to keep an eye on you. I can see that your Prince is in trouble. But you know the rules as well as I do. You mustn’t help him. Not directly. You must not try to influence matters by your own actions.”