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CHAPTER 1
Oliver Gilpoon was a very ordinary sort of boy, or so it seemed. He had most of the things other boys of his age had; he had a Play Station and computer games, trendy clothes, a bike and, since his fourteenth birthday, a mobile phone, one with a built in camera. He had several friends, lads like him who were well behaved, worked quite hard at school and didn’t like football. Oliver wore glasses, and had done since he was seven, he had, what his parents called, a ‘sensible’ hair cut, didn’t mind wearing his school uniform and certainly wouldn’t wear replica football club strip and kick a ball about when there was nothing else to do.
One day, during the English lesson, the teacher was explaining anagrams to the class and got the kids to play about with words, “Take a word,” he said, “and see if you can make other words using the letters; you must use all the letters, and ONLY those letters.” It wasn’t easy, in fact very few new words were found; Mr. Goodman, the teacher, referred to several crosswords and explained that phrases were sometimes easier.
Oliver then stuck his hand up, “Mr. Goodman,” he said, “I can prove that ghosts DO exist!”
“Go on then, Gilpoon, explain.”
“Well Sir, in history, we learned about the Goths, the Scandinavian hooligans who wrecked the Roman Empire, well, those that weren’t killed in battle will have died of old age, won’t they?”
“So?”
“Well, they are all dead, and, if you mess about with Goths, G,O,T,H,S you will get Ghost, G,H,O,S,T won’t you; that proves it, Sir.”
Mr Goodman replied, “Very good, Gilpoon, you’ve got the idea, but I’m not sure that that proves your theory. And I wouldn’t advise messing about with the Goths, they were a nasty lot, you know.”
Eric Arnold, a big lad with spiky hair, interrupted, laughing, “Cathy Trewson must be nasty bird, Sir; jumble up her letters and you can make ‘The Nasty Crow’.”
“Very clever Arnold, but not very nice,” the teacher replied, smiling, “ not very nice at all, and not very accurate, Catherine’s blonde and crows are black.”
Cathy was not amused and decided to push her luck, “Sir, I think Eric is, if you will forgive me, the King of the Apes.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Well, Sir, he is speaking, or he was?” she said.
“Yes, … but so are you.”
“Speaking, king, K. I. N. G. - spea - A. P. E. S, apes.” she explained.
Mr. Goodman smiled, “Very good Catherine, perhaps Oliver would use this to prove that we are all descended from apes.” He looked at Oliver, who was studying a dictionary. “What do you think, Gilpoon; what are you looking up?”
Oliver mumbled, “I think Eric is out of order sir”. And then said, thoughtfully, “Can you spell polygon with an ‘I’ instead of a ‘Y’ Sir?”
“No you can’t, well I don’t think you can, why?”
“Well, Sir, if you could, I would be a polygon.”
“A multi sided figure, Gilpoon, I don’t think so. A dead parrot perhaps!”
The whole class laughed and some of the kids started squawking ‘who’s a pretty boy’ and other parrot clichés. The bell rang for the end of the lesson, Oliver was relieved; he was rather shy, particularly where girls were concerned, and was feeling uncomfortable at being drawn into this conversation involving Cathy Trewson. Oliver fancied Cathy, she was a very good-looking girl, tall and slim, with long blonde hair, and he didn’t like the nasty crow remark. He had never had a girlfriend but often thought that Cathy would be the one for him, if only he had the courage to ask her out.
After school, that day, it was a Friday, Oliver rushed home on his bike; he needed to get some bits for his CDT project and wanted to change before going to the shop. The clip holding one of the brake cables on his bike had broken and the cable was a bit awkward. Oliver had picked up a roll of insulating tape while he was getting changed and used it to secure the cable; instead of taking the tape back, he put it in his pocket. As he was riding along, he was thinking of all the words he knew that started with ‘poly’ and was not paying much attention to his surroundings but, as he approached the model shop, he noticed a group of girls outside the sweet shop across the road and saw that Cathy was among them; she waved at him and his heart missed a beat.
Oliver was a regular customer at the model shop and knew the manager quite well. “Well, Oliver, good to see you again, what can I do you for today?”
Oliver explained, “I was going to build a cannon, for my GCSE project, but that was a bit dangerous; I started investigating gunpowder on the net but I got warned off, too dangerous, they said, so I’m making a computer controlled ballista instead”
“A what?”
“A ballista, a medieval catapult, you know, a siege engine, for attacking castles and things.”
The shopkeeper replied, “Oh, one of those things; but why computer controlled, they didn’t have computers in those days? They didn’t have them even when I was your age.”
“I know they didn’t, I don’t know how you managed without them. For instance, the cannon, I was going to make it real, you know, a real working cannon; so, I went on the Internet to find out about gunpowder, you can find just about everything with a computer. Anyway, my ballista’s a nice project, more interesting and more technical, I’m building it on a base and have got stepper motors to control the direction and angle of fire but I need some servos and gears and things to make it work properly, I would quite like to use a couple of solenoids as well, they will be the best things to use for the release mechanism.”
“You’ve come at the right time, Oli,” the shopkeeper replied, “I’ve been having a sort out; there are all sorts of obsolete things, stuff that’s been hanging around, some of it for years, old stuff, you know; there’s even some bike bits left over from when we were a cycle shop. There is also a box of car bits, there are central locking mechanisms, I think that they have solenoids in them, and some window winder motors. I’m going to have a sale, I might even do a boot sale and try to get rid of it and make room for new stock; it’s all in the back rooms, you can go and look through it if you like, you might find something useful.”
Oliver was very pleased and said, “Thank you, thanks very much indeed.”
“Right,” said the shopkeeper, lifting the flap in the counter, “Come through, you’ll find the stuff I have sorted, on that table; the rest is in the room behind. Have a rummage through, see what you can find.”
Oliver was shown into the back room and started going through the things on the table, he picked out several likely bits and put them to one side. He then went into the other room, the light was poor so he looked for the switch and, as he moved he stumbled against a table and knocked a heavy toolbox off it. The toolbox fell onto his foot and he let out an ‘ouch’, he then bent down to pick it up. As he lifted it, he banged his head on a shelf, his glasses fell off and then he sensed a change in his surroundings, he was no longer in a dimly lit back room but he didn’t know where he was. He was standing in a large, empty stone built room with no windows and a very tall, vaulted stone ceiling.
Oliver was bewildered, he did not know what had happened to him, he didn’t know where he was and he didn’t know how he got there. The box was heavy. He looked around, if he didn’t know better, he said to himself, he would say that he was in a medieval castle. The floors were stone and there were tapestries hanging on the wall; Oliver sniffed, he could smell wood burning. In one wall, there was an alcove, he decided to put the heavy box into it before trying to get to the bottom of the mystery; he didn’t know what was in the box, he really didn’t care and he could always come back for it later. As he lifted the toolbox into the alcove, the contents rattled a bit and he wondered what was in it.
Oliver was very cautious, he didn’t know what to expect as he walked towards the elegant stone archway into the next room; he kept close to the wall and moved very slowly. He could hear talking, the smell of the wood burning got stronger; he paused and listened carefully; but could only pick out a few words. They made no sense to him until one powerful male voice, almost shouting, said, “We must wait for a sign, someone, or something, will come to tell us what we must do.” Oliver peered round the corner and his suspicions about being in a castle were confirmed.
There was a big log fire burning in an enormous fireplace at the far end of the magnificent open hall. A group of people were gathered in the centre of the room around a big man who looked a bit like Mister Goodman, the English teacher, sitting in a heavy, ornately carved, dark wooden chair; all were dressed in medieval clothing. To the side of the hall, along the wall below some hanging tapestries, there was an impressive table overloaded with food, great joints of meat, wooden bread boards under crusty loaves, bowls of fruit and large jugs of liquid that, he assumed, was probably ale or some sort of beer.
Oliver looked carefully around and was convinced that he was in an old castle at a medieval banquet; but it was much too early for a banquet, he looked at his watch, it was about half past four. What he could not understand was how he came to be there. He knew that these banquets were very popular, people took a lot of trouble to dress appropriately, the food was authentic and looked as if it had been prepared in the traditional way. He expected there to be musicians playing medieval instruments but there were none. He looked at the people and felt that they were not really enjoying themselves, the women seemed to be distressed and the men were agitated and appeared to be angry.
Oliver noticed that the Mister Goodman look-a-like was wearing a crown and he thought that that was bit over the top. The big man pointed to a large painting on the wall; Oliver looked at it and saw that it was a portrait of a young lady, he was startled, the portrait bore a striking resemblance to Cathy. He was mesmerised for a moment, his heart racing as he gazed at the picture. He was suddenly brought back to reality; two musicians, one carrying a lute, the other another stringed instrument he didn’t recognise, entered the hall and noticed him peering round the corner.
“Hail, fellow,” one called out, “why hidest thou there? Come thou hither.”
Oliver was amused; the imitation medieval speech sounded funny to him, it certainly didn’t sound like genuine old English; he did think, however, that he didn’t know what real old English sounded like. He was, nevertheless, rather apprehensive, he did not know how to explain his presence without a ticket, he hadn’t paid to get in and he wasn’t wearing the right clothing; he realised that he would be questioned and branded a gatecrasher. He was not dishonest but how could he tell these people why he was there, he didn’t know himself. He moved forward, gingerly; the assembled crowd stopped talking and stared at him as he was escorted towards them, one minstrel holding each arm.
“Sire!” one called out, “we have an interloper, this scoundrel we found spying on you from the anteroom.”
“Bring him unto us,” the big man instructed.
“Ought we bind his limbs, your majesty?”
“We think not, he is merely a boy, we sense no danger from him. Come boy, come stand before us and explain thyself.”
All the people were being very serious and Oliver felt distinctly uncomfortable, all eyes were on him and he wished he were somewhere else, he didn’t know where he was but anywhere else would have been better. He said nothing.
“Speak, boy; tell unto us thy name, and from whence thou hast come.” The big man said; he did not seem to be cross, and seemed to be playing his part very well.
Oliver still said nothing.
The big man spoke again, “Thou must answer, boy; who art thou and from whence come’st thou?”
Oliver felt embarrassed, the pseudo king seemed to be getting impatient; it was, he decided, all part of a game but he didn’t really want to play. He cleared his throat, was trying to think of the old fashioned way of speaking, but blurted out, “My name is Oliver Gilpoon and I have come from the model shop.”
One of the other men looked at him sternly and said, “When addressing the King, it behoves one to bow one’s head and say ‘your majesty’.”
“Sorry, …. Your Majesty.” Oliver really didn’t like this game. “I’m sorry for gate crashing your party, your majesty; but I don’t know how I came to be here.”
“Boy,” the king replied, “thou speakest in a strange tongue and useth terms we do not recognise, pray tell, what is this ‘model shop’?”
“It’s a shop that sells models,” Oliver replied, cautiously.
“Shop, models, we do not understand, and, pray tell us,” he continued, “ thine apparel, from whence?”
“Apparel, do you mean my clothes, your majesty?”
“That which thou art wearing, boy; it is of a style and fabric that We know not,” he continued, rather pensively, “Thou art not from these parts, art thou boy?”
“Your majesty,” Oliver confided, “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here, and I think it is time I went home.”
The king beckoned two of his courtiers to him and spoke, very quietly, to them; there was much nodding of heads, murmured remarks and glances at Oliver. The king then dismissed the courtiers, rose to his feet and looked straight at Oliver, a broad smile spreading across his face. “Oliver Gilpoon, welcome to our kingdom, welcome to our castle, come, dear boy, stand beside us, thou art, indeed most welcome.”
Oliver thought, ‘Nutters, they are all raving nutters, re-enacting the past is one thing, taking it this far – they’re all absolutely bonkers.’ He walked towards the king, not knowing what to expect. As he approached, he was aware that the other people were whispering to each other and, again, glancing at him. He was very worried and looked at his watch but, before he could check the time, he was stepping up onto the raised platform supporting the great chair. The king put his arm around Oliver’s shoulder and said, “Master Oliver, thou art indeed the answer to our prayers.”
Oliver felt even more uncomfortable, this silly ‘game’ was getting out of control; he felt that the adults were making fun of him and he wanted to go home.
“Come, master Oliver, sit by our side,” the King said.
“I really should be getting home,” he replied, anxiously, “my mother will be wondering where I am.”
“Thou art safe with us, dear boy, and will come to no harm; thou hast been sent to help us, in these, our darkest days; these are indeed troubled times. Now sit, we must prepare our plans.”
Oliver did sit beside the king, but he was feeling very uncomfortable, almost frightened. He had his mobile phone with him, but decided not to get it out; if he was in some sort of trouble, he thought, it might be better not to let it be seen, his captors would take it from him and deprive him of the opportunity to call for help. He also needed to know where he was. He put on a brave face and said, “Tell me, your majesty, where am I, please?”
“Thou art in our castle; We are King Goodone, it is from here that we rule our kingdom, Grandinavia.” He then slumped in his chair, rested his head in his hands and started to explain. “We have been a kingdom at peace for many a long year, we have even been called, by the peasants, Prosperland; we are indeed a prosperous kingdom, we have not been at war for many years, our subjects love us, they are all in rude health. We have disbanded our army, we have destroyed all our weapons, we are at peace with our neighbours, we live in idyllic surroundings, the mountains, the valleys, the streams and the enchanted forests. Life, here in our Kingdom, hath been ….” He then started to sob, very quietly.
Oliver felt less threatened, he was impressed by the performance, felt that he shouldn’t spoil it and decided to play along with the charade. “Hath been?” he prompted.
“Yes, Oliver,” he replied, “hath been; but that has all changed. Barely a year ago, last Michlemass, Our dear Queen, our lovely Alluringa, was taken from us by a dreadful ailment, she suffered endlessly, despite the constant and dedicated attention of our physicians, before succumbing to the disease. The whole Kingdom was devastated, none more so than our delightful daughter, the Princess Catherine.” He pointed to the portrait.
Oliver replied, “Yes, I know Cathy, she’s lovely.”
“Cathy, Cathy; what sayeth thou?”
Oliver felt uncomfortable again and felt that he was blushing. “Catherine, I know Catherine, not very well, not as well as I would like. We go to school together, well not actually together, but we are in the same year and the same class, top group, for most subjects.”
“Oliver, thy words cause me some concern; this Cathy, this school, and this class,” he said, “I do not understand, and we do not have class in Grandinavia, well not really, I am the ruler, I have my cabinet and my advisors; we have Lords and Knights, we have Yeomen, we have Ministers, but we do not have a class system. Oliver, dear boy, We, like thou, do not understand thy presence nor can explain it, however, thy entry to the castle without alerting the guards, thy timely arrival, strange manner of speech and thy unusual vesture, assure me that thou art the chosen one, thou art he who will guide us through these terrible days and bring our Kingdom back to the splendid life, or, indeed, bring the splendid life we once enjoyed, back to our Kingdom.”
Things were not getting any better for Oliver, the king was certainly acting his part very well but Oliver wanted to go home; people, all adults he noticed, dressed in medieval clothing, talking in ‘thees’, ‘thys’ and ‘thous’ wasn’t his idea of fun. He needed to know where he was, and as he had never heard of Grandinavia, he needed to get outside the castle. He thought of a plan; using the smoke from the fire as his excuse, he started to cough. The courtiers were concerned, Oliver spluttered, “I must get some fresh air, please allow me to go outside.”
“Of course, Master Oliver; Decora, take our guest into the courtyard.” A young woman escorted Oliver to a big oak door, a courtier opened it and they went outside. Oliver was disappointed; he noticed that the light was fading and that he was in an enclosed area, surrounded by the castle walls. There was not a sound, he couldn’t hear any traffic, he couldn’t hear anything. He learned nothing about his whereabouts and wondered what he should do next. He stopped coughing, smiled at Decora and asked for a drink of water. She took him to a well in the middle of the courtyard, turned the handle to raise the bucket, took a heavy iron ladle, drew some water with it, poured it into a metal drinking vessel and handed it to him. Oliver was cautious, he had visions of rubbish in the well and stagnant water but felt obliged to take a sip; he was pleasantly surprised, it was cool and fresh. He swallowed the lot, wiped his mouth and said, “Thank you, I’ll be okay now.” Decora returned the ladle and the cup to their hooks and then escorted him back into the hall.
Once inside, Oliver saw that the King had moved and was standing with two of his men at the other side of the hall, he was ushered to his side and welcomed. “Oliver, excellent, thou art returned to us in good health, I trust; we have moved away from the fire. Doest thou not have fires?”
Oliver was getting more exasperated and decided to ignore the game. “Yes we do have fires, some burn coal, some use electricity or gas; some DO have log fires but these are mostly for extra heat, to supplement the central heating and for the cosy appearance. Now, I really should be getting home.”
The King ignored him and a courtier, was introduced to him as the Lord Chancellor, Lord Process. The Chancellor continued telling Oliver the sorry tale of the Kingdom’s trouble. “His Majesty is too distressed to recount the dreadful circumstances in which we find ourselves. He toldest thou of the untimely demise of our adored Queen. His meagre solace was in the love of his only child, the beautiful Princess Catherine, she would, in due time, inherit the Kingdom. He also alluded to the peace and prosperity we have enjoyed these many long years, a way of life that has been tragically snatched from us.
There lives, in the hostile Northern Territories, a blaggard known as Ermanaric the Barbaric, he is descended from the Goths of olden times, many centuries ago; he is a terrible, treacherous, belligerent barbarian. He has only recently arrived in the kingdom, he arrived during our time of mourning the loss of our dear queen; and he would be king. He has a band of hostile warriors, barbarians and hooligans to a man, and could, if he so desired, take the country by force. He is, however, quite intelligent and has chosen a different stratagem; he wants the Kingdom to remain prosperous. Taking it by force would destroy the prosperity and demoralise the peasants, forgive me, our people. A prosperous kingdom would be ripe for extortionate taxing and, Ermanaric would be provided with a continuing stream of considerable wealth.”
The chancellor was pacing up and down as he spoke and Oliver, beginning to feel less uncomfortable, also walked around with him; he began to feel important, he did not know why, but an inner voice, something inside him, was telling him that all would be well. He was still convinced that he was with a group of middle-aged nutters but he no longer felt threatened, he would humour them, it still wasn’t particularly late. He stood, by the Chancellor, close to a window; it was just a narrow slit in the stonework and he was surprised to see that there was no glass. Oliver looked through the opening and was very surprised at what he saw outside.
The castle looked down on a valley and, in the failing light, he could see several other buildings nearby, and, beyond them, he could see for miles. He then noticed some flickering lights, close to the castle wall, he focussed on them and realised that they were small fires, burning in the small dwellings close by the castle. There were no signs of any other type of lighting, no light bulbs, just the light from naked flames. The words ‘Theme Park’ came into his head and he asked, “Those fires, are they barbecues?”
“Barbecues! What are barbecues? They are peasants’ dwellings with fires for cooking their victuals.” He effectively dismissed the question and then continued, “Ermanaric and his hoard, rampaged through the country and invaded the castle, they met with no resistance, we have no army and the sentries outside the castle were really only there for decoration. The marauding barbarians entered the castle, demanding to know the whereabouts of the Princess Catherine, found her and dragged her away. They were gone as quickly as they came.”
“But why ….?” Oliver asked.
“Ermanaric’s plan, was very simple; he would abduct the Princess, incarcerate her in his castle in the Northern Territories until the death of her father, the King, and then return with her, as his wife, to claim the throne.”
“But why,” Oliver wanted to know, “Why didn’t he offer to marry the Princess; save all the trouble?”
“His majesty would not countenance such a suggestion, the Princess is too young and the one chosen to marry her, in due course, would be a man of honour, a handsome knight with wisdom and integrity; not a blaggard and a scoundrel.”
“But, surely, the Princess should be allowed to pick her own husband, she might even have liked him.”
“Of course she will pick her own husband, she will pick whomsoever her father chooses for her. But now, that will not be possible, she has been taken from us.” Oliver then realised the significance of what the king had said earlier, with the Chancellor’s next words, he said solemnly, “You, Oliver, have been sent to us, thou art the one who will rescue the Princess and restore her unto us.”
“What!” Oliver exploded, “You’re joking, this is a wind up, where are the cameras?” He looked around but could not see where any could be hidden. “I think it’s time I went home, mother will be getting worried.” He looked at his watch, discretely, “Half past four,” he commented to himself, “still half past four? It must be later than that, the watch must have stopped, that’s the time I went into the model shop.” And then aloud, “I really must be going, it’s getting dark, please let me go.”
“Oliver, thy place is here with us; come, let us speak with Sir Tarot, it is he who predicted your coming, he will explain.”
Sir Tarot asked Oliver to step out into the courtyard again. “Come, Sire,” he said, “come let us walk in the cool evening air, away from the smoke.” Oliver followed him; they walked up and down the stone pathway. “Oliver, thou art the redeemer of our dreadful situation, thou, without doubt, hast the power to correct this monstrous circumstance. Thou art a man of many talents, a multi-faceted figure, a polygon and, undoubtedly, a paragon of virtue.”
Oliver, remembering his English lesson, replied, “This is definitely a wind up, you’re playing tricks on me, AND you are wrong; Polygon is spelled with a ‘Y’, not an ‘I’, I checked, ….. and what’s a paragon?”
“Oh, Master Ghylpoon; thy name, with the ‘I’ is not how it was; the correct, or original spelling is ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘Y’, ’L, poon. A ghyll is a stream in a wooded ravine, a typical feature of our landscape; your forebears lived in such an area and are reputed to have made the first ever floating bridge, a structure they called a ‘Pontoon’, a bridge for use on the ghyll. Hence thy name – Ghylpoon, G. H. Y. L. P. O. O. N.”
“Very clever,” Oliver replied, “But there is no ‘H’, your theory is wrong, I’m afraid.”
“Not so, Master Oliver; let me show you.” He took a decorative dagger from under his cloak, Oliver recoiled momentarily; and then stopped by a large flat stone and scratched the surface with the outline of a blocky letter ‘H’. “See, this figure, a representation of our land, is bounded by these twelve lines; each line is straight and true and represents one facet of thy being. This figure represents honour, knowledge, commitment, fortitude, chivalry, wisdom, understanding, bravery and the like; your leadership skills are all encompassed in the figure ‘h’. You are, indeed, the saviour of our kingdom.”
Oliver was intrigued by what must surely be a load of absolute rubbish and his attitude began to change and, as Sir Tarot moved to another stone slab, he followed him eagerly. The Knight began to scratch another outline, “Our Country, Master Oliver, can also be represented in another way by the letter ‘H’, albeit a distorted one; there are no straight lines, each is curved.” He lightly drew an irregular oval shape, leaving the top and bottom open, he then closed the top and bottom with roughly semicircular shapes. “Here, in the Southern part, we have the great harbour around which many of our good people work; we have a flourishing fishing industry, skilled blacksmiths who make tools, and the land is beautiful and extremely fertile.”
As he spoke, he pointed to the different areas. “Here we have our great forest, the trees grow, like your letter ‘H’, straight and true and provide timber for dwellings and boat building, our carpenters are highly skilled. Here we have some of our quarries, producing material of the highest quality. These quarries give us the slate we use for pathways and roofing the artisans and peasants dwellings. Here we have another area of forest and all this,” he sweeps his pointer around the lower half of the sketch, “is all our excellent and fertile farm land. Over here, we grow flax and the peasants weave it into the finest linen”
He then continued, more solemnly, pointing at the top, “This area, is the treacherous Northern Territory; until Ermanaric and his hordes arrived, it was largely uninhabited; the land is inhospitable, covered in impenetrable forests and stinking swamps and bogs. They, the barbarians, inhabit an ancient castle that dates back to the fifth century, or even earlier; Ermanaric seized it, claiming that it was built by his marauding Teutonic ancestors.”
“But I thought that the Goths were nomadic people,” Oliver interrupted, “And didn’t stop in one place for very long.”
“Quite right, Master Oliver,” he replied, “But, it seems that, in this case, they did. It’s a dreadful, daunting place, almost impossible to get to and, if one did get there, impossible to get inside the castle. It is built atop of a high rocky hill, it is fortified and, we suspect, guarded by hooligans with fearsome weapons.”
Oliver was pensive, he shook his head and then said, “Umm, Mission Impossible, if what you say is true; particularly without an army and weapons, and, if you did try to get to and attack the castle, there would be a massacre, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“That we know, Master Oliver; that is why we need thy help.”
“But what can I do? I’m not even fifteen yet, not till next month, I have no knowledge of warfare, I wasn’t even a boy scout; I can’t see what I could do that you haven’t already thought of. Mind you, there is one thing, I’ve seen this stone before, I can’t remember where, I think it was in a museum somewhere. The historians said that the shape, carved in the stone, represented a double-headed battleaxe; they were wrong, weren’t they?”
“They were indeed, Master Oliver, quite wrong; we do not have those, nor any other weapons, except the examples in our museum; the nearest we get are the axes used by our woodsmen to fell the trees and manage our forests. Now, it is time to retire, let us return to the hall and announce that you will accept the challenge.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Oliver replied, hoping that he might find an opportunity to get out, “but I will think about it.”
“Thank you, Master Oliver, our people will be eternally grateful.” The Knight said, as they went back into the Hall.
The King was much happier and greeted Oliver with open arms, “On the morrow, we prepare our stratagem, this night, we sleep. Oliver do’est thou require sustenance, here there is food aplenty, pray attend the table; and when thou art ready, Decora will show thee to thy quarters, they are prepared and await thee.”
Oliver was feeling a bit hungry and helped himself to food. “A goblet of mead, Sire?” Decora asked.
“Have you got any Coke?” he replied.
“Coke, what is Coke? There is mead and there is ale.” She did not understand him.
“Could I have a glass of water, please,” Oliver asked, politely, I don’t drink beer and I don’t think I would like mead; what is it?”
“It is from fermented honey and spices, Sire,” she replied.
“No thanks,” Oliver replied, “Perhaps I’ll stick to water. Can you tell me where the loo is, please?”
Decora looked confused, “Loo, Sire?” she asked, “ To what do you refer, I know not ‘loo’.”
“Sorry,” he answered, beginning to realise, at last, that he was not in some theme park with people re-enacting the past, “The toilet, the lavatory?”
Decora looked even more confused. He tried again, using the only other words he could think of, “The water closet, the W C,” he felt very embarrassed and wanted to point to his private parts but could not bring himself to do it, she might misunderstand his motives.
As they approached the room he was to sleep in, Decora pointed to an alcove in the wall, “The privy, Sire.” In the room, she asked again, “Loo, Sire?”
“Not to worry,” he answered, “It is the privy; you have shown me, thank you.”
As soon as the maidservant had left, Oliver went to find the privy. It had become quite urgent. He was horrified to see a sturdy plank of wood, with a large hole in it, placed on a ledge; he could see the castle moat below. Oliver shuddered but nature needed to be attended to but, when he actually tried, nothing happened, he couldn’t understand it but he no longer felt the need. A few moments later, he was back in his room preparing to sleep; he kept most of his clothes on, curled up on the straw filled mattress and pulled the coarse blanket over himself.
He then listened to hear if anyone was about before taking his phone from his pocket. He wondered why no one had rung him, particularly his mother, as she would be worrying about him. He then remembered that he had turned the phone off at school and had no recollection of switching it back on; it was still turned off. He turned it back on, waited for a moment, and then looked at the screen, there was no signal; he was disappointed and looked at his watch, it was still half past four. He wasn’t happy but was too tired to worry about it and soon was fast asleep.
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