The women prodded and pinched her, forcibly washed her in cold water, dragged brushes through her hair and stabbed her scalp with pins, all the time complaining that they would be lucky if Sir Garlon thought Columbine at all worthy to join him at the grand feast. They doused her in a sweet perfume, forced her into a red dress that pushed the swell of her breasts over the top of her bodice, and was so tight around the waist that she found it difficult to breathe. They clagged paint to her face and lips, which made her skin feel starved of air. As a final insult, the servant with the bag strangled her with a heavy necklace full of glittering jewels that sat tightly around her throat, but had sparking fronds that pointed straight down. Columbine had observed enough men looking at Lily to know that their eyes rarely needed guidance towards a girl’s chest. When the servant called Phyllis showed Columbine her own face in a cloudy mirrored glass, all the girl from Vellion could see was the strange mound of intricately coiling plaits that had once been her hair, the lips they had painted bright red to match the dress, and the glare of the necklace around her throat. She didn’t resemble herself at all.

‘It’ll do, do you think, Phyllis?’

‘Not exactly a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, my darling, but we’ve done the best we can with what we had.’

The process had taken what seemed like hours, and indeed, when they allowed Columbine to stand on her tricky new shoes there was darkness outside. She tottered over to the window and saw torchlight far below. Cheers and music drifted up from the camp at the bottom of the rock. She longed to be down there where the fun was, rather than caught up in the trappings of King Pellam’s court.

The two servants left, pointedly thanking Columbine for thanks she had not given them.

She felt ridiculous as she entered the great hall of Spar-Longius. Sir Garlon had told her to take his hand, but she was insulted by the way he presented his forearm as if she needed support. She had quickly mastered the high shoes by thinking of the stance they forced her into as one she used when rock climbing. She did not need Sir Garlon to keep her upright.

The hall was arranged in the traditional style, with a grand table on a raised platform across the width of the room, where the king and queen would soon join the other folk of highest rank. Twenty further tables went down the length of the room, perpendicular to the high table. The rest of the guests sat along these. The further away from the high table you were placed, the lower your rank.

Though the feast had not formally begun, Columbine and Garlon were two of the last to take their seats. He guided her between the servants and crowded tables, leading her eventually to a bench near the head of a table at the far right of the hall. Her back was to the wall, which was where she felt most comfortable, and it was a good place from which to observe the rest of the room.

There were hundreds of knights and ladies crammed into the hall. Sir Breuse Saunce Pité’s back faced her on the next table, his blonde daughter on his right side and his dark wife on his left. Columbine scanned the room, looking for familiar faces. The chairs of the king and queen were empty, but the rest of the high table had taken their seats.

Columbine’s breath caught against her will when she saw the young man who had taken the seat on the immediate left of the queen’s empty chair. Even though her eye was not well trained to recognise such things, she felt his staggering beauty hit her like a hammer. His face was framed in golden curls, his eyes keen and soft at the same time. His lips had a bee-stung appearance, and his skin almost glowed with the sheer health contained within his form. The one blemish on his skin, a mole near his left eye that looked almost like a teardrop, only served to enhance his beauty; it announced the gorgeousness of the rest of him like a town crier. A long white cloak flowed from his shoulders, and the silver dress armour he wore was at once incredibly well made, and casually worn. He was studiously ignoring both the very beautiful young woman in the white dress sat on his left, and the many, many pretty girls in the hall who gave him long meaningful glances, before turning back to giggle with their friends. He didn’t favour any one of them with a smile, but looked into the middle-distance, not recognising anyone. He was the prettiest sad angel Columbine had ever seen.

‘Is that?’ she said without thinking. She felt embarrassed when she heard the gasp in her own voice.

‘Sir Lancelot, yes,’ said Sir Garlon, amused by how long she had been staring at King Arthur’s favourite. ‘He is, isn’t he. True beauty has odd effects, don’t you think? Look at how he ignores Lady Neave by his side, who is by any standards a beautiful woman.’

‘She looks furious with him.’ The more she looked at the woman in the white dress beside Lancelot, she could see that the silence on her part was not distaste, but rather despair at Lancelot’s refusal to pay her any attention. Columbine wondered how many women had threatened to kill themselves if Lancelot failed to love them. ‘I suppose looking like that must be something of a curse,’ she said. ‘It must warp the way people behave towards to you.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Garlon, ‘though I will never know. You, however… My dear Columbine, have you seen how the men are looking at you now you are dressed as befits a woman?’

She had not, and she would not.

A fanfare of trumpeters sounded harshly from the high minstrels’ gallery, and the whole company stood. They fell silent as King Pellam and his queen made their entrances. The royal couple emerged from a door behind the high table, hand-in-hand. The big, grey-bearded king in a luscious robe that matched the colour of his castle; the slender queen in purple, with a long pink veil flowing behind her from her headpiece. When they got to their thrones the king raised his hand to silence the buglers, though one of them did not see the signal, and played on a phrase longer than the rest.

King Pellam coughed. ‘My fellow kings, my queens, my lords and ladies, princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, knights and gentlemen, welcome once more to our Whitsuntide festivities.’ His voice was big enough to fill the whole room and some way beyond it. He went on for some time, giving a speech that seemed over-familiar to both the speaker and many of the hearers, and Columbine’s attention wandered elsewhere.

Although her eyes were dragged back towards Sir Lancelot as if they were chained to a team of shire horses, she spotted something on the other side of King Pellam that drew her gaze to the far side of the high table. Watching the king make his formal welcome were two figures Columbine recognised. The Lady of the Slates was staring directly at the Pellam. She was dressed not in her blood-spattered work-smock and apron, but a red-orange dress that was almost the same colour as the king’s robe. Standing beside her was the holy man Columbine had met at Lily and Balan’s grave. He had made no effort to make himself more presentable for the feast, and neither did he disguise his boredom with the king’s speech. His eyes wandered up to the roof of the hall, his silver skullcap catching the candlelight and casting small reflections on the wall behind him. Eventually the king stopped talking, clapped his hands, and ordered Sir Bagdamegus, his steward, to have the servants bring in the food. The king flopped back into his throne, which meant that his guests could sit down and resume their chatter. 

Up in the minstrels’ loft, bards took turns to sing for the crowd. Some of them had dreadful voices, but it seemed that every entertainer had to be allowed their turn. Columbine was tucking into a very pleasant pie of pheasant, duck and turkey when a particularly good voice began a song that caught the attention and imaginations of the lowlier knights at the back of hall. When Columbine looked up at the musicians she saw to her disappointment that the singer was Elia, Bellina Saunce Pité’s spy.

Shining lads in armour bright

Come to this our Whitsun fight

Prove your strength, don’t you yield

Win your place on tilting field

Shining lads, come out to play

Steal ladies’ hearts this glorious day

Shine your plate to please the eye

For this may be your day to die

The king’s hand falls

The peasants roar

You bet your life

In our game of war

Honour’s there for you to win

Give no quarter to your kin

To the victor, his the spoils

Stir your blood until it boils

An’ if you die, which many could

Bless this field with shining blood

The game goes on from year to year

Go honoured ghosts with clam’rous cheer

Some of the knights hammered on the tables, joining in with the girl’s chorus and demanding more than one encore performance.

The king’s hand falls

The peasants roar

You bet your life

In our game of war

When they were done with the song, the knights applauded Sir Breuse for bringing the little bard with him. Though the Marble knight did not exactly dismiss their praise, he did not welcome it either.

It did not take long for the men to take on enough drink to make a scene or two. What started as a formal meal soon transformed into a series of drinking games, wench-gropings and tests of strength, all watched over by King Pellam’s indulgent eye. The arrangement of seats by rank was broken, and men began to move freely, going from table to table to talk to their friends, and snaffle last pieces of lonely pie. Sir Garlon left Columbine and displaced Bellina Saunce Pité from her father’s side. The blonde looked around for a place to sit, and fixed upon Sir Garlon’s recently vacated chair. The sour girl’s face was a beautiful mask; if she felt distaste for the antics of the knights, or the way that they stared at her, she did not show it.

‘Going to talk to me this time, are you?’ said Columbine as the girl sat down next to her.

Bellina’s eyes were fixed on Sir Lancelot, who had barely moved during the meal other than to reply politely but briefly to the queen’s questions. ‘You look quite nice, I suppose,’ said Sir Breuse’s daughter. ‘A bit overdone, but much better than you were in that awful torn cloak. You’ve done well in one short day. Sir Garlon is very rich, I hear. He will make a good husband; better than that frightful staring boy.’

Columbine folded her arms. First thoughts always turned to marriage with girls like Bellina. ‘Why talk to me now? Wouldn’t you rather send your bard to trick me into betraying myself? She did such a good job on the road, after all.’

Bellina finally turned her head in Columbine’s direction. It felt as if the girl of London was trying to sand her out of existence with a glare. Columbine refused to be intimidated by her.

‘The bard doesn’t lie,’ said Bellina coldly. ‘She doesn’t know how to behave like a normal person. Everything she told you was the truth.’

‘Pull the other one. All that rubbish about Avalon, the lad who killed the Questing Beast…’

‘All true. I was there.’ Columbine thought she saw a crack in Bellina’s mask of control. ‘I wish I could forget all about it. I wish I could have a normal life. But my father is very angry with King Arthur, and will not drop the matter until he considers himself properly recompensed.’ She turned back to look at Sir Lancelot again. ‘But can we not just talk like ordinary girls, you and I? Look at Lancelot. He is such a pretty thing.’

‘He’s a miserable git, if you ask me,’ Columbine said, without really thinking about it. But as the words came from her lips she realised it was true: being with Lancelot would involve having all her imperfections reflected straight back at you, every moment of the day. She preferred someone who was as imperfect as her.

She felt colour flush into her cheeks; for the first time she was glad of the paint Garlon’s servants had trowelled onto her face. Her tangled mind had remembered the last thing she said to Balin before Sir Garlon attacked them.

‘Where is your friend?’ said Bellina, as if reading her mind.

‘Gone up north to join your May-children in their so-called rebellion, I imagine. He’s stupid enough for that.’

‘I am surprised he left you behind,’ Bellina said. ‘He drank you in whenever he looked at you, even in the state you were in earlier.’

‘I reckon your eyes are failing you, lass,’ said Columbine. She checked herself when she realised that she was unconsciously imitating Balin’s north-eastern accent. She needed to change the subject.

She looked up to the high table, where the dignitaries were mostly deep in conversation. ‘Do you know who that holy man is sitting next to the Lady of the Slates, Damosel Saunce Pité? Is he the Bishop of Canterbury or something?’

‘No,’ said Bellina firmly. ‘That is no holy man. That is pure evil in the form of a man. That is Merlin.’

Columbine’s mouth went so dry that she had to take a gulp of wine. Everyone had heard stories of how Merlin used his magic to manipulate people into betraying themselves. She hadn’t even questioned him when he gave her the Dolorous Stroke on the road to Northumbria. Her hand went to her face.

‘What are you doing?’ said Bellina. ‘You’re smearing your paint.’

But Columbine barely heard her. She had received gifts from two magicians: the gift of the Dolorous Stroke from Merlin, and the gift of Balin’s life from the Lady of the Slates. Such gifts were catastrophically dangerous things.