Balin and Columbine (A Children of the May Novella - Book 1.5b)

Chapter Fifteen: The Steward of Spar-Longius

Castle Spar-Longius was much as Garnish had described it. Shaped like a trident, with three prong-like towers stabbing the blue sky, it looked an impossible place, beyond the imagination of any master builder. The central tower bore weight well beyond normal tolerances. The side-towers seemed attached to the stem by no more than thin bridges of red stone. The towers slowly revolved, so that the most important areas of the place were always facing the sun.

Ahead of King Pellam’s tournament the place was abuzz. Sir Breuse’s procession was not the only group making their way towards the gates of the fortress. Large parties of horses and riders congregated on the castle plain at the foot of the red rock, all crowding to make their way up the narrow causeway that led to the great gates of the castle. They had come from all over Britain and from Gaul, from the lands around the northern seas, there were even a small contingent of knights from Erin, still half-starved and broken from king Arthur’s brutal conquest of their land.

Sir Bagdamegus, the Steward of Spar-Longius, stood at the great gate, allocating the dignitaries their chambers in the side-towers. Bagdamegus never enjoyed these days, they were the most stressful time of his year. He was constantly confronted with angry nobles, furious that their favourite servants and squires were to be housed in servants’ quarters, or, worse, in the tents outside the walls, where the lower lists took place.

The camp at the foot of the rock was known to be rowdy, a place where a young man could find himself out of his mind with drink or an illegal spell. Just the year before King Lot of Orkney’s youngest son had lost a hand, after a sorceress convinced him that he could win a place on the lists of the main tournament by taking part in the brutal melee organised by the unknighted men. Young Gaheris had not been up to the task, and now wore a hook where his left hand had been.

The first guests had arrived for the tournament some four days before, starting with a trickle before the Pentecost, but today was the day on which Sir Bagdamegus was most called upon; the day before the main tourney. He had started work at the crack of dawn, when Sir Lancelot had rode in on his white steed, dressed in his intricately-etched golden armour. As Sir Bagdamegus had discussed with Sir Kay the Seneschal of Camelot (‘seneschal’, such a grand word for exactly the same job as a steward), Sir Lancelot’s presence always made a big event more complicated. Not only would the steward have to deal with his ordinary business, but twenty times an hour he would find himself approached by a blushing young maiden wishing to confirm that the handsome Knight du Lac (not that lake, a different one in lancelot’s homeland of Guyenne) had arrived to sweep up hearts as he swept away opponents. As if the job of stewarding people around Spar-Longius was not difficult enough: the motion of the castle made most directions meaningless, so Bagdamegus had to organise a team of heralds to take King Pellam’s guests to their chambers.

Bagdamegus was just glad that only a few of Arthur’s round table knights had decided to come along to this year’s tournament. It was a little insulting to King Pellam that so few had made the day’s journey from Camelot, but Bagdamegus didn’t care about that; the castle was already seriously over-full, and earlier in the day he had been forced to beg compromises from some of King Pellam’s more intimidating guests.

He had found Sir Dagonet and Sir Beaumains a small room to share in the second side-tower, but there had been nothing for Lady Neave, the beautiful middle daughter of the Lady of the Lake. She had arrived late, alongside her champion, a big knight in strange icy armour that gave off swirls of water vapour in the heat of the late-afternoon sun. Bagdamegus had long since given away the room he had earmarked for the Lady of the Lake to the Lady of the Slates, the Red Rock’s previous owner. Lady Helen had arrived both unexpected and uninvited. They said she lived out a mad life in a red chapel somewhere, though she hadn’t seemed particularly insane. Lady Neave had looked ready to drown Bagdamegus where he stood when he suggested a compromise to her: could she possibly lodge with Lady Helen? Thankfully she had agreed, and her icy champion hadn’t needed a chamber, preferring instead to spend his hours in the castle’s bathhouse, which relieved the strain on space a little.