Chapter 3
Quoth
This is the last thing that we need with Mina starting work.
But of course, Nevermore Bookshop doesn’t care about what was fair or convenient. The bookshop’s magic works by its own rules.
I feel the wrongness of the new arrival in my veins, causing me to drop the paintbrush I’m holding in my beak. Inspired by Mina’s arrival at the store, my mind hums with ideas for paintings, but I’m needed downstairs.
“Goddamn pox-ridden bastard—”
I leave my attic sanctuary and swoop through the bookshop, searching the stacks with my keen raven eyes for the newcomer. I fly toward Heathcliff’s raging voice, and—
Shit! Evasive manoeuvres!
I throw out a wing and execute a flawless – yet desperate – aerial roll to avoid the horse that clatters through the shop.
“Get out,” Heathcliff yells, brandishing a broom and chasing the animal from the Children’s room. “I’m not having this. Get out!”
“Are you sure we don’t want to keep him as a pet?” Morrie leans against the railing and watches with wry amusement as Heathcliff tries to corner the beast by the railway books. “He could be useful around here. You could feed him the customers that annoy you.”
I think you’ll find that horses are vegetarians, I add. I stare at the creature with its elaborate leather saddle and bridle and a woollen blanket emblazoned with an elaborate coat of arms. I wonder what book he’s from—
“He could be a magical horse.” Morrie’s lip curls into his trademark sardonic grin. “Aren’t most horse books about magical horses? Maybe he grants wishes or flies or does the dishes without being asked.”
Heathcliff swipes at a wound on his cheek that looks suspiciously horseshoe-shaped.
“I don’t care if this horse is the reincarnation of Cary Grant and has single-handedly solved world peace and rid sweet jars across the globe of black jellybeans; he’s not staying in the shop.
Morrie, get the back door open. I’ll chase him out—”
“Why Heathcliff, I’m not sure that now is the appropriate time for your amorous advances.”
“Could you shut up and help—”
Heathcliff skids around the corner, broom held aloft, only to be met by the raised tip of a sword.
The horse gallops into the main room and hides behind the sword’s owner, neighing triumphantly.
“Desist, fiend,” the sword’s owner cries in a booming voice. “You shall not harm my noble steed.”
Heathcliff drops the broom and raises both his hands in surrender, but the scowl doesn’t leave his face. “There’s nothing noble about that long-faced menace. And what are you supposed to be? A tea kettle?”
The visitor snorts, his sword arm never faltering. He bangs a gauntleted hand against his metal breastplate, which makes a melodic ringing sound, like the peal of the village church bells. “I am Lancelot du Lac.”
Lancelot of the Lake. As in, the trusted friend and famed knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, and the lothario who was supposed to protect the king’s wife but ended up stealing her away and starting a bitter civil war.
We must have ended up with his character from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. I’ve seen several versions on the Classics shelf – it’s perennially popular. We even have a limited edition with some delightfully erotic illustrations.
I hope this Lancelot isn’t the one from that edition, because that knight is hung like a—
“Neigh!” says the horse.
Exactly.
This is not good. Mina’s starting tomorrow.
She doesn’t know the truth about Nevermore Bookshop, and we have to keep it that way.
The three of us have had enough practice keeping our true identities secret, but Lancelot is going to have to get really good, really fast at pretending not to be a mythological knight, and judging from the way he holds that sword, I don’t think he knows how—
Oh, no.
An extra uncomfortable truth slams into me as I remember Lancelot’s story. King Arthur trusted Lancelot as his dearest friend, and all the while, Lancelot was seducing his wife.
If King Arthur couldn’t keep a woman around this guy, what hope do we have of keeping Mina? Especially since we don’t technically “have” her yet.
“What am I doing in this strange land?” Lancelot glances around, his sword still pointed at Heathcliff’s throat. “What sort of devilry is this? Has that witch Morgan Le Fay finally bested me?”
Morrie and I exchange a glance as we silently debate how to answer.
We don’t actually know why the shop chooses to bring some fictional characters to life.
(Oddly enough, only those that were out of copyright.
Isn’t that strange?) In the interests of hurrying along the inevitable crisis of identity faced by every fictional character when they discover they are, in fact, fictional and now exist outside of their book world, explaining his appearance as Morgan’s magic might be useful.
“Yes, this is indeed the work of Morgan,” Morrie says.
“We too are her victims. She even turned my friend Quoth here into a raven. Now, if you could remove your sword from my friend’s throat, and perhaps restrain your steed so he doesn’t eat that first edition Tolstoy, we can explain everything. Tea?”
With a final glare at Heathcliff, Lancelot lowers his sword. “Very well, I shall drink your strange beverage and listen to your tale.”
Lancelot nudges the horse away from the bookshelves and leads it over to Morrie’s favourite velvet armchair.
It chews on the back as the knight lowers himself into the chair with a sound like a steam locomotive being put in a blender.
He reaches up and removes his helmet, shaking out his dark, silken hair and peering up at us all with a pair of blue eyes so deep that they nearly make me fall in love with him right there.
We’re doomed.
Morrie clears his throat. I can tell he agrees with me about the doom-ination. “Quoth, could you fetch our guest a cup of tea?”
I want an excuse to be away from Lancelot’s magnetic presence.
I fly back into Heathcliff’s office. The place is in such disarray that even a pig would want to take a match to it.
In the other room, I can hear Morrie explaining how Nevermore Bookshop works and how we can help Lancelot live out the rest of his days as a normal, modern, not book-world human, while Heathcliff searches for poetry books he can feed the horse.
I circle the room several times, narrowly avoiding knocking over a pyramid of empty whisky bottles, but I can’t see the kettle anywhere.
Where did you put the kettle?
“Under the Churchill biographies,” Heathcliff yells from the other room.
I fly two more circuits of the room before I finally spot the towering stack of books about Britain’s most notorious Prime Minister in an alcove.
I shove the bottom of the stack with my foot, and they tumble to the floor with a satisfying CRASH, revealing the electric kettle, miraculously upright beneath them and still half-full with water.
You were supposed to price those Churchills and put them in the shop, I grumble as I stomp down on the switch and arrange a cup, teabag, and spoon on the corner of Heathcliff’s desk.
“I’ve done one better – I’ve hidden them away so that I will never have to talk to the insufferable boors who come in here asking for Churchill biographies,” Heathcliff shoots back. “No need to thank me.”
“How do you expect the shop to make any money if you refuse to sell books?” Morrie says. “It’s basic mathematics, we’ve been through this a hundred times—”
“Morrie, we have a guest. It’s rude to talk about my finances in front of our guest.”
The kettle dings. I kick the chipped and possibly clean mug into position, grab the handle with my talons, and tip.
The teacup fills with hot water. I let the tea steep while I hunt for the milk.
Lancelot has just come from the land of Black Death and no indoor plumbing – he doesn’t also need the misery of black tea.
I pick up a sugar cube in my beak and drop it in.
The milk, however, has been left sitting under Heathcliff’s desk and is currently sentient and establishing an empire, so I leave that out, but add a second sugar cube for good measure.
I grip the rim of the cup in my talons and carefully – so as not to splash hot water on my feathers – carry it to Lancelot.
Enjoy your tea, I say with a dramatic flourish of my wing as I set the cup down on the table beside him.
“Thank you, ill-portent of doom.” Lancelot turns to Heathcliff. “Wait, what is this sorcery? The bird speaks inside my head? And it can make a drink? You are certain that the bird is not a servant of Morgan Le Fay?”
“Nope. Quoth’s an entirely different harbinger of doom.
He’s from a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, whereas you’re a character in a book written by a man named Thomas Mallory,” explains Moriarty.
“Your author was the kind of chap I admire – he was a deeply immoral rascal who dreamed up your character from his jail cell. And when I say ‘dreamed up,’ I mean ‘chopping up a bunch of stories from some French authors and passing them off as his own in true British fashion.’”
“I am not some hero dreamed up by a villain.” Lancelot tries to get his fingers through the delicate cup handle, but finds he has to remove his gauntlets. “I am Lancelot du Lac, a Knight of the Round Table, trusted friend of your king.”
He wraps his fingers around the cup and raises it to his lips, glaring at me as if I’d dared him to drink the tea. His hands are long-fingered and soft – the hands of a great lover. I dig my talons into the stuffed armadillo and glare right back at him.
“I’m sure you are,” Morrie says pleasantly. “Does your horse have a name?”
“Of course he does…” Lancelot beams. “We name all creatures of importance. Even my sword has a name – Arondight. Arondight was gifted to me by the Lady of the Lake.”
“Yes, yes, the sword is lovely and stabby. But what about this fine beast?” Morrie pats the horse’s snout. “Doesn’t he get a name?”
“Of course he does. My steed’s name is… is…” Lancelot screws up his face. “Gary! Gary the horse!”
“I thought so.” Morrie thumbs through the pages of the book. “Your horse was never named in Malory’s story, so you don’t know his name.”
He doesn’t look like a Gary. Can we call him Peaches? I ask, eyeing up the remains of Heathcliff’s breakfast bowl on the corner of the desk. Also, I’m hungry.
“Everyone, shut up.” Heathcliff shoves his hands over his ears. “Here’s what we’re going to do – Morrie, get this horse out of the shop. Find a place where Gary— Peaches can be stabled.”
“Why me?”
“Because if I do it, I’m taking him straight to the glue factory.”
We all know this was a lie. Heathcliff may be a grump, but he cannot fathom any kind of animal cruelty, and he’s actually quite fond of horses, just not when they…
The horse whinnies as it raises a hind leg and shits on the rug.
…do that.
“Quoth, you’re cleaning that up.” Heathcliff picks up the shop’s ancient red phone. “I’m calling Mina Wilde and telling her not to bother showing up tomorrow.”
Morrie grabs the phone from Heathcliff’s hand and slams it down. “Oh, no, you are not.”
“I am. We can’t have someone like her working here while he’s around. He’ll decide she’s a descendant of Morgan Le Fay and stab her.”
That’s not what I’m worried about.
“I’m not letting you get out of this that easy,” Morrie huffs.
“Quoth is smitten, and I haven’t seen you in this state since that distillery tanker broke down outside the shop and the village smelled like whisky for a week.
You like this Mina; otherwise, you wouldn’t have hired her.
And if there’s even a chance that she’s the one Simson told us about…
Besides, we need an assistant who won’t scare away the customers.
This shop needs to make some money because I can’t keep paying the bills.
Eventually, my boss is going to get suspicious.
We’re just going to have to figure out how to keep Lancelot away from her. ”
“From her?” Lancelot perks up. “Is there a fair maiden nearby? Does she need a brave knight to protect her virtue—”
“You aren’t getting anywhere near her virtue,” Heathcliff growls with such ferocity that Lancelot blanches and returns to his tea. Heathcliff turns to glare at Moriarty and me. “How do you propose we keep this medieval manwhore from seducing our new assistant?”
The answer is simple. I flap my wings for emphasis. Lancelot is a knight of the Round Table, right? We need to send him on a quest.