The Untameables E-Book

Clare Pollard

• Herausgeber: The Emma Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Emma Press Children's Fiction Books
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 149

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Under the bloody rule of King Arthur – as the cruel knights of the round table wage wars and hunt magical creatures – the ordinary people of Camelot are getting sick. Really sick. Something is poisoning the land. No one in Arthur's court seems to care, but a spark of hope remains... The Holy Grail could save them all, and two children embark on a quest to find it.Shy, gentle Roan, a young dog keeper who works for the knights, is desperate to find a cure for his mum. He befriends Elva, a generous and outspoken kitchenhand with her own reasons for seeking the elusive Grail. Together, can they beat the knights to find it? And will drinking from it save Roan's mum? Beautifully illustrated by Reena Makwana.

Leseprobe

THE UNTAMEABLES

CHILDREN’SFICTION

Na Willa and the House in the Alley, by Reda Gaudiamo, translated from Indonesian by Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul and Kate Wakeling, illustrated by Cecillia Hidayat

We Are A Circus, by Nasta, illustrated by Rosie Fencott

Oskar and the Things, by Andrus Kivirähk, illustrated by Anne Pikkov, translated from Estonian by Adam Cullen

CHILDREN’SPOETRYCOLLECTIONS

Eggenwise, by Andrea Davidson, illustrated by Amy Louise Evans

Balam and Lluvia's House, by Julio Serrano Echeverría, translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel, illustrated by Yolanda Mosquera

Cloud Soup, by Kate Wakeling, illustrated by Elīna Brasliņa

The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me: A Book of Insect Poems, edited by Fran Long and Isabel Galleymore, illustrated by Emma Dai’an Wright

SHORTSTORIESANDESSAYS

Parables, Fables, Nightmares, by Malachi McIntosh

How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart, by Florentyna Leow

Night-time Stories, edited by Yen-Yen-Lu

Tiny Moons: A year of eating in Shanghai, by Nina Mingya Powles

The Secret Box, by Daina Tabūna, tr. from Latvian by Jayde Will

POETRYCOLLECTIONS

Europe, Love Me Back, by Rakhshan Rizwan

POETRYANDARTSQUARES

The Strange Egg, by Kirstie Millar, illustrated by Hannah Mumby

The Fox's Wedding, by Rebecca Hurst, illustrated by Reena Makwana

Pilgrim, by Lisabelle Tay, illustrated by Reena Makwana

One day at the Taiwan Land Bank Dinosaur Museum, written and illustrated by Elīna Eihmane

To Gruff and Cate:

I wrote this for you

THEEMMAPRESS

First published in the UK in 2024 by The Emma Press Ltd.

Text © Clare Pollard 2024.

Cover design and interior artwork © Reena Makwana 2024.

All rights reserved.

The right of Clare Pollard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978-1-915628-26-8

EPUBISBN 978-1-915628-27-5

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the UK by TJ Books, Padstow.

Typeset by Emma Dai’an Wright.

The Emma Press

theemmapress.com

[e-mail]

Birmingham, UK

I

Welcome to Camelot, the home of King Arthur.

Yes, it’s real.

I know it’s hard to imagine, after so many years, so many losses, but it’s important to try.

Come, let me show you. This is a land where there is still enchantment. Before the forest was razed; before the extinctions. The deep green woodland is lit by primroses and bluebells in the spring, and in autumn berries roll on the floor like spilt beads. Red deer munch, beavers build their dams and bears nap. At night howls make the canopy shiver.

Look at the dragon in its nest: its scales and sharp-boned wings. A baby eats a morsel of regurgitated mouse from its beak. You think it impossible, but when they existed they were no more impossible than the lynx or grass snake – they were everyday creatures.

A boggart giggles as she curdles milk; a griffin carefully scrapes a burrow into the cliff with her paws and squats on it to lay eggs. A faerie in a gossamer dress trips over a toadstool. A green-skinned giant pulls on his muddy boots.

And look, in the heart of all this wonder and wildness, at the castle of Camelot: its pale, tall walls cut with narrow slits for arrows. Its deep moat and drawbridge and many guards; its defences of catapults and cauldrons of boiling oil. Inside are men who hate this land, and will in time destroy it – who only trust what they can conquer, rule or own.

They sit in the Great Hall around a round table, and every chair says something on it like ‘Strongest Knight’ or ‘World’s Best Knight’ or ‘Cleverest Knight’ in glowing golden letters, and they eat meat, drink wine out of jewelled goblets and bray about what heroes they are. ‘Here’s to another dead traitor!’ they like to toast, about whoever didn’t agree with them that week.

Perhaps you’re thinking: Hang on, I thought those knights of the round table were nice guys! You think you’ve heard stories like this before, but the truth is you haven’t.

Sir Lionel has just defeated the Black Knight, for example, and in the usual tale he’s portrayed as a lordly defender of Britain – so famous for defeating a fearsome and gigantic wild boar that ballads have been sung about him through the ages. In such versions his armour gleams; his sword has magical powers. He returns from fighting on his trusty milk-white steed, with the fair maiden he has rescued and will marry. She swoons in the saddle behind him, probably wearing pink. Everyone cheers.

But history is written by the powerful, who can never resist tweaking it a bit.

In actual fact, Sir Lionel is a blonde-haired thug who is always boasting that he once killed what was, in truth, just a constipated pig.

He returns to the castle gate in drizzle, with his horse Valiant badly wounded – limping and neighing pitifully. The bearded groom, John, greets him. ‘Was the princess you went to rescue not there, sire?’ he asks, seeing the saddle behind Sir Lionel is empty.

‘Princess, ha! Some princess,’ Sir Lionel snaps, still smarting from her escape. Not so keen on being ‘rescued’ after all, the princess pretended to need a wee behind a bush then, when at a good distance, stripped to her vest and knickers and dived into the river. It turned out she could swim a very brisk front-crawl.

‘No helping some of these pagan plague-sores,’ Lionel spits. ‘She was making out she liked the Black Knight! I hurt her friend, apparently! Well boo hoo! She could have come to the court of Arthur, the Rightful King of Britain, with me, Sir Lionel, slayer of the fiercest hog that ever rolled in English mud and a knight of the round table! Thank you would have been the correct response, but oh no…’

Sir Lionel dismounts, the spurs on his heel smashing into Valiant’s wounded side and making her whinny. ‘Valiant’s badly hurt,’ John says. ‘Did she fight the Black Knight courageously?’

‘Courageous, that’s a joke! Valiant! More like Vali-isn’t’ Sir Lionel says. ‘This stupid old nag wouldn’t even gallop after the princess after I gave her a stern whipping. Chop her into steaks and feed her to the hawks and hounds.’

‘Oh I don’t know if I need to…’ John begins, nervously, but Sir Lionel grasps John by the neck with his big ham-coloured fist and pins him to the castle wall.

‘Audi, vide, tace,’ Sir Lionel spits, which means ‘hear, see, be silent’ in Latin. It’s posh for ‘shut up.’ John doesn’t understand of course, but Sir Lionel particularly loves speaking Latin when the other person doesn’t understand it.

Luckily, it so happens that a ten-year old boy called Roan is passing at this moment with some of Sir Lionel’s skinny greyhounds: Troy, Nameless, Amiable and Nosewise.

Roan, the dog boy, is to be the real hero of this story, although he would not enjoy me saying so because he does not like heroes. It seems to him that ‘hero’ is usually just another name for ‘murderer’. The dad he can’t remember died in one of Arthur’s battles. Roan won’t play sword-games, even though those are the only games the other boys play. If he sees someone or something hurting, the pain flinches through him too.

‘Kill the horse, now,’ Sir Lionel orders John, scowling with bloodthirst, holding out his sword. ‘Go on, I don’t tolerate rebellion. Let me see you butcher it.’

Roan has dark hair, long lashes, his mother’s full lips. He is tanned from always being outside, thin and gentle, with a little perpetual cough. Panic floods through Roan at what he’s just heard. He looks at Valiant’s gentle, bowed head. How breath pours through her nostrils, hot and sad.

Her watery eyes seem to plead with him to do something.

Okay, Roan thinks, shaking with adrenalin. I’ll do something.

Roan is not actually very brave though.

In fact, if you want to know how scared Roan is of knights on a scale of one to ten, it is three million six hundred thousand and ninety-six.

But John is taking the sword, his hand trembling. Roan has to act now. It is then that he has an idea. A great idea! A very – oh. Oh no. It is a very brave idea, which is the last thing Roan wants.

Still, Valiant’s moist eyes continue to look at him hopefully. Gulping back his fear, he whispers to the greyhounds: ‘Pups. I have a plan. I need you to welcome your master Sir Lionel back. Yes, I know we don’t like him, but this is important. For me. Your BIGGEST welcome, alright?’ The dogs seem to nod, and…

RUFF, WOOF, BOW-WOW-WOW!

It works! When Roan slips them off their leashes, the greyhounds go crazy! They race towards Sir Lionel all at once, leaping up and knocking him to the floor with a clanging of armour, CLUNK, CLANK, and pounce on his chest and lick his face through the helmet with their shiny doggy tongues. ‘Bleugh!’ Sir Lionel shouts, which is not Latin. ‘TONGUES! Slimy, bone-stinking, slop-mouthed TONGUES, in my eyes! I need a wipe, CAN’T SEE…’

‘So sorry, sire,’ Roan apologises. ‘You know how much they love their master. Please be merciful. Come on, dogs!’ he adds, rather half-heartedly, whilst he watches John slipping away with Valiant out of the corner of his eye. ‘Get off him now.’

Eventually he pulls the dogs off. Sir Lionel gets up from the puddle of drool, slipping with fury.

‘If that happens again,’ he barks at Roan, blinking away gloop, ‘you’ll be sacked, you little hedge-born churl. We’ll kick you out of Camelot and you’ll never see your family again. Let’s see how you fare out there, in the wild, with the monsters and wolves!’

‘Yes sire, sorry sire, I’ll make sure they don’t do it again,’ Roan stammers, bowing as low as he can, because he still thinks he’s lucky to live in Camelot. Everyone knows that the court of Arthur, the Rightful King of Britain, is the greatest place in the world!

Isn’t it?

II

That evening, in the leaky hayloft behind the castle brewery, Roan hugs Valiant, fingers catching in her blood-crusted silver mane. ‘O Valiant, you poor thing,’ Roan says, his chin crumpling. She’s the horse John sometimes lets him ride, who likes to nuzzle treats out of his palm. ‘O Valiant, I’m so sorry you’re hurt.’

‘She’ll be right,’ John says, warmly. ‘She’ll heal, don’t worry, same as the others.’ This is where they hide creatures who can’t be tamed: those who have angered the nobles or knights and must be kept away from view. See that beagle curling on the hay? It once bit King Arthur’s nose. That other horse, Goldentrot, launched Guinevere into a bog. Vesper the peregrine falcon kept going for the trainer’s eyeballs with her beak, whilst that dappled goat called Pocket, which currently seems to be eating a bucket, once munched a hole in Sir Lancelot’s best pyjamas in a place where you definitely wouldn’t want a hole.

‘You’re too soft,’ John tells Roan. ‘You need to man up a bit, stop feeling everything so much. Toughen up. I can teach you to fight if you want to know a few moves. I see those other boys bullying you, you know.’ But Roan shakes his head.

‘Thanks for this afternoon, anyway,’ John says. ‘You sure know how to talk to the animals, you do. Go on, lad. Remember to check both ways before you leave here – don’t want anyone spotting you. Now go and see your mum.’

‘Put some honey on Valiant’s wound,’ Roan says, anxious about leaving his favourite horse. ‘That’s good for cuts, isn’t it?’

‘Honey! The kitchen’ll smell her and roast her up for a feast.’

‘The cut needs dressing, John. Please?’

‘Okay,’ John says. ‘I’ll find summat.’

Roan heads for his mum and sister’s room. He likes its homely, body smell; the warm glow of the tallow candle.

His little sister Gwen, three, has a wild massive tangle of pale hair, always hopping with lice, and when he gets there their mother, Bonnie, is trying to comb it. The knots are so bad they must be elf-locks, which the little folk tangle in the hair of sleeping children. Bonnie plucks out a nit with her fingers. ‘… So that’s why you shouldn’t be rude to the knights,’ she’s saying. ‘You’ll get in trouble, my darling.’

‘They stink,’ Gwen says, her lower lip jutting out with disgust. She has the most expressive face ever. ‘They stink like parps.’ And then her eyes go round and she starts to giggle, hee-hee. ‘I just parped, Muma. Sorr-ee.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ Roan says, which it is, although he can’t help smiling at her. ‘That’s worse than the kennels.’

‘I am your cute little stinky puppy, Roan,’ Gwen tells him, sticking out her tongue and panting like a dog. ‘Woof woof.’

‘Hey Roan,’ his mum says. ‘Gwen needs to listen to me this time. Can you talk some sense into her? I’m serious. I’m worried. She actually shouted ‘Knights are YUKKY’ at Sir Bors today.’

‘He was picking his nose,’ Gwen giggles.

‘He’s a knight,’ Bonnie says. ‘He’s more important than you. Don’t you understand? You don’t get to tell him off. You’re going to get punished, or—’ her voice breaks off in desperation. She is twenty-something, but somehow old already: grey streaks in her brown curls, raw hands. She has felt terrible all month: weak and feverish, like she is coming down with something.

‘Listen to Mum, Gwen,’ Roan says, uselessly, as his sister has already started crossing her eyes to make him laugh. It’s true, though. They’re going to have to hide Gwen in the stable with the other untameables soon, if she carries on this way.

‘Bor-ring,’ Gwen says. Roan notices she is feeding a mouse in her pocket with a bit of crust. ‘Her name is Binka,’ Gwen tells him. ‘I just made that name up.’

‘She’s cute.’

‘She bites,’ his mum warns him. ‘Are you alright, Roan love? You seem down.’

‘Oh, a horse got wounded again,’ he says. ‘Valiant. I hope she’ll get better.’

‘You love your animals, don’t you? Kind boy.’

‘How about you, are you alright?’ he asks his mum.

‘Oh, just a bug, I’m sure it’s nothing. I’d better not hug you, though.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Gwen tells Roan, brightly, and she gives him her most squeezy hug. Roan hugs her back – he likes hugs – and the mouse runs up his shirt, which tickles.

Afterwards Roan goes to the kennel. Part of his job is sleeping with the hunting dogs, to keep them from fighting. It’s considered a good job, because the kennel is actually heated and he can sleep with the dogs on oak beds, which is better than most servants get. But it’s hard to sleep tonight, Roan finds he’s worrying again: about Valiant, his mum, his sister. Troy licks his hand and he can smell the blood on her teeth.

He realises that Camelot always smells of blood.

III

Morning begins in the dark, under the spittle of stars. You can see your breath. In the kennel, Roan pulls his tunic over his head and begins his to-do list: feed the hounds, get fresh water for their bowls, change their straw. They must be pampered and fussed over. They leap joyfully around his legs. ‘Morning, Clench,’ he says. ‘Morning, Brag, ooh, that’s some real dog-breath you have today. Cabal, how’s your tummy? Would some grass settle it? Is that a thorn in your paw, Nameless? Ooch, let’s get that out.’

When his chores are done, some of the knights take their dogs. Sir Lionel is going on a hunting jaunt with his brother, Sir Bors. Sir Lionel, his floppy golden fringe bobbing over his massive jaw, is still angry with Roan for the licking and has decided there is a single flea in Troy’s water bowl, although Roan can’t see anything. ‘He’ll be sick, you dumb little lubberwart. Fresh water, from the spring.’

‘It was fresh, sire,’ Roan stutters, trying not to cry. He can’t help it – when he’s told off he always feels his chin wobbling.

‘Don’t you dare speak back!’ Sir Lionel fumes. ‘The nerve of you! You’re the dog boy, you mangy little mongrel, and you know what? You can’t even control them, as you proved yesterday. I should – ugh.’ He kicks Roan, hard, on the knees, then – oof – in the stomach, then smooths his fringe back down and laughs. He begins to sound his horn. Roan tries to blink his tears away before they see the glint. These men think crying is pathetic.

‘Look at my new spear,’ Sir Bors grunts at Roan, tapping it menacingly on his chest. ‘Sharp.’ Sir Bors is always red, like a thumb that has been trapped in a door.

They gallop away with the hounds.

Once the dogs are gone Roan has time to eat his breakfast: a chunk of bread, still coarse with the grit from the grinding stones. He thinks he’ll check on his mum, but unfortunately runs into the other castle boys who are play-fighting in the courtyard again. ‘Die like herring, you filthy mermaids!’ Acwel is shouting. ‘I’ll shoot you with my bow and arrow, twang, whheeee, thunk, uurrrrgh...’