Page 34 of The Dungeon Book

“Why not? He was mean to me.”

“Because . . .” Neb tried to articulate the rules of the world, how children were subordinate to their elders, peasants to reeves, reeves to knights and barons, barons to . . . after that it got hazy, but there was a king involved somewhere. But he was quite certain that murder was forbidden. “Because murderers get hanged if they’re caught.”

“Not if you murder someone in a corridor,” said Bait with confidence. “Corridors are fair game. If you go wandering, you deserve what you get.” Offa’s assaults on her in the corridor were, in her mind, perfectly acceptable. But not here in the pantry.

“But this isn’t a dungeon.”

The surface world’s rules were confusing and unspoken. She sighed heavily. “What if I was a princess? If I was a princess, I could have Offa executed, right? By the Rules.”

“Are you a princess?” I don’t know if Neb was humouring Bait, or if she was so outside his frame of reference that he was prepared to consider anything as possible, and if she had declared she was a shapeshifting dragon he would have been equally accepting of the prospect.

“I am. Forgot to tell you, but I’m the daughter of King Arus and he misses me terribly. He’s spending all his days weeping and is completely disconsolatable.” Privately, Bait thought that years weeping sounded more soggy than anything else, but Sir Peledon said it important that she take her rightful place at her father’s side. “Sir Rudyard didn’t believe me, but Sir Peledon told me it was true, and that I should seek out his squire Atten, only Offa won’t let me. And Sir Peledon’s a greater knight that Rudyard. Or was. He’s a minotaur now.”

“So are you going to the palace?”

She nodded.

Neb frowned. “We came from Crowhaven, and that took months. And Crowhaven’s less than half as far away as the palace.” In this, he was correct, although more by luck than any grasp of geography. The king’s palace was just as mythical and impossible to him as any dungeon. As for Bait, she knew every inch of one small corner of the world, and next to nothing about anything beyond the Dungeon Door.

“I’ll find a way,” said Bait, although she was daunted by the thought of the journey. Underground, a journey of a half-mile implied a vast and winding labyrinth. Travelling hundreds of miles was beyond her conception.

Neb opened his mouth – to offer objection or sage counsel we shall never know – but he was interrupted by the croak of Clove.

“Where’s that damnable sneak skiving off now? Ealdufrida!? Ealdufrida!?”

The door to the pantry burst open. “She’s in here, with the new boy,” reported Offa.

“Not supposed,” muttered Bait under her breath, “to enter a lair without permission.”

“Skiving off again, Eel?” snarled Offa. “You know what that means.”

He raised his fist to strike her.

Her fingers curled around the handle of the iron saucepan.

Neb hastily stepped between the two of them, sparing Offa a staved-in skull and Bait the hangman’s noose.

“I was talking to her,” he said, “about getting food for me and my father the reeve.” Neb picked up a sausage. “Now that’s done.”

Offa snorted, bristling at this objection from a stranger, then stepped aside. It was not like he’d be short of other excuses to punish Bait in the weeks ahead.

“My father says we’ll be back again in a few weeks. Will you be here?”

“Oh, Eel’s not going anywhere. No one wants her,” snarled Offa. “She’ll be here.”

Neb looked up at the older boy.

“You might not be.”

Bait made it to Atten in the end, but it was less fruitful than she hoped. Offa fell down the kitchen stairs, of which I shall tell more anon, and in the confusion Bait slipped away. Out of the door, up the stairs and off down the road. It was winter by then, and though it was only a few hours’ walk to Lastease, the wind cut through her rags like a host of wraiths. She arrived shivering and miserable. No one she spoke to had ever heard of Sir Peledon, or Squire Atten Ever-Faithful, and it was hard to say “Atten Ever-Faithful” through chattering teeth.

A charcoal burner on the edge of town directed her to a little cottage. She watched the house for a little while, circling around it, wary of traps. There was no horse in the shed at the back, but there was a fine old saddle, and a lance, and a leather bag of tools and oils, and old whetstones that might once have been used to sharpen axes.

She knocked. After a long time – and it took all of Bait’s determination to stay waiting – the door was answered by an old man, his eyes white with cataracts.

“Who’s there?” He stretched out his hand, and Bait let his fingers trace her features.

“I’m . . . I’m looking for Sir Peledon’s squire.”