Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [12]
Let her put the fear of God into the nobles who paid her fealty if that was what she desired. In the meantime, since she was always too much engaged to talk to him, he would beat the fear of God out of the peasants instead.
‘The ale in this inn wouldn’t get a fish drunk,’ sneered Dornard as the landlord hurried up with another jug.
‘Dishwater!’ He snatched the vessel out of their host’s grasp and hurled it across the room. It smashed to pieces against the fire-mantel.
Dornard roared with laughter as the landlord trembled before them. ‘Bring us something better!’
Mordred just snorted. He was growing weary of Sir Dornard de Breunis. They had drunken and wenched together since Dornard had first become a bachelor knight, but the Prince’s latest crony was getting old. Dornard was growing a girth like a larded pig with too little adventure and too much ale. His mind had turned sluggish amongst the stews around the Tagel barracks. He no longer made Mordred laugh. His wild behaviour, once a foil to Mordred’s own, was now vulgar and gross in one of advancing age.
Dornard was nearing thirty.
It was time for Mordred to find new drinking companions. This was no new thing for the Prince.
Nothing was new. The thirteen worlds prospered and changed little under the rule of Deathless Morgaine.
Nor did they change for her son.
Mordred, Crown Prince-in-waiting to an immortal mother. But he was immortal too, with appetites that were always young. The Battle Queen’s gift to her son.
Always in waiting. Always bored. Thirteen worlds without end.
He needed young heads around him with the new amusements they might bring. But drinking companions came and grew old as quick as summer flies. Nothing ever changed.
‘Yes, fetch me something better, landlord.’ The Prince held up a single gold bezant.
The host’s eyes widened. ‘What can I bring, my lord?’
‘I hear you have a daughter...’
‘Lord Prince...’ he stuttered. ‘She’s my only child!’
‘Have a care, landlord, or I’ll have you fetch her mother for my fat friend here!’
But my lord...’ The little man tried to meet the prince’s dark eyes, but his will was broken. He scuttled for his kitchen.
‘And more ale. Proper ale!’ yelled Mordred. He was cold tonight. Something like the choleric bile dulled his soul.
For no apparent reason, an old memory of Merlin repeatedly mocked at his thoughts.
Dornard waited for his Prince to laugh, but there was not so much as a sneer. The drunken knight leant forward and laid his head on the table amid the empty mugs.
A low trill sounded from Mordred’s discarded helmet.
The Grade 2 summon/warning alarum that he had ignored all night had moved up to Grade 1.
He struggled to his feet, sword in hand. He was drunker than he had thought. Beside him, Dornard lay face down, grumbling in his stupor.
The inn door swung open and a figure in the livery of a Royal Flightsman pushed inside. When she saw the swaying prince, she came smartly to attention and saluted.
‘Your highness, I have sealed orders from the queen.’
The relay capsule she took from her jerkin was imprinted with Morgaine’s seal. Mordred pulled on his armoured helmet and fumbled to fit the relay into the receptor plate.
The incantation was simple. It needed only his name spoken in his voice to break the seal.
The Flightsman waited as she heard the Prince begin to laugh. Then he lifted his visor. He was half sober again already. ‘Your ornithopter. Is it flight-ready?’
‘Yes, your highness.’
‘Then let’s be away from this ratsty.’ He tossed the gold bezant down on the table and left Sir Dornard asleep among the last dregs of their friendship.
Chapter 3
Spring had been postponed.
The roads were slippery with the wet green leaves stripped from the trees by the storm. Zbrigniev’s training took each obstacle of debris in its stride, but although the onslaught had died, the UNIT car never topped fifteen miles an hour.
Since radio contact with the convoy had given out