Free Grailblazers by Tom Holt

Arthur’s abdication, and tradition has it that this was a deliberate decision on the Benicians’ part, to save their nation from ever becoming a mere federal part of the united states of mediocrity that made up the World. Since all known Benicians vanished with their kingdom it would be interesting to learn where this attractive little tale is supposed to have originated - a young Benician knight by the name of Sir Prime de Ganys was riding forth upon errantry one day when he came across a castle in the middle of a desolate land.
    Since night was rapidly closing in and the young chevalier had strayed far from his path, he knocked at the gate of the castle and was admitted by the duty dwarf.
    It turned out that the castellan of the castle was a beautiful damosel without a lord, who lived there all alone apart from twenty-seven tall, well-built young esquires and a small colony of dwarves, who had spacious and well-appointed quarters of their own at the bottom of a disused wellshaft. Sir Prime was ushered in to a splendid banquet, feasted on broiled duck with lapwing, and entertained by a quartet of dwarfish minstrels playing all the bits they could remember out of Ma Beale Dame.
    Happening to fall into conversation with the castellan, Sir Prime discovered that the castle, which was large and rather a nuisance to keep up, was supposed to be the repository of the Holy Grail, left there hundreds of years previously by Joseph of Arimathea as security for a substantial Snakes and Ladders debt. The only problem was that, what with the castle being so big and so many of its rooms having to be shut up for most of the year, nobody could remember where the dratted thing had last been seen. Naturally, periodic attempts were made to find it; but since these searches tended to reveal nothing more cheerful than further outbreaks of dry rot and death-watch beetle, they were usually abandoned at an early stage. What was needed, the castellan continued, was a fearless young hero who wasn’t easily cowed by the sight of huge patches of purple fungus growing out of the walls, who would make a thorough search of the place, find the Grail and thus provide the damosel with a nice capital sum with which to finance her dream of turning the old place into either an eventide home or a sports complex.
    Sir Prime’s imagination was fired by this entrancing tale, and he pressed the castellan for further details. She obligingly produced a complete set of plans and elevations, builders’ estimates, grants of outline planning permission, detailed budgets, profit-and-loss projections prepared by her accountants, and a joint-venture agreement by which, for the investment of a paltry seventy thousand marks, the knight would be entitled to a forty-per-cent share in the equity, together with interest on capital and fifty per cent of net profits. Delighted, Sir Prime produced his cheque book, wrote out a draft for seventy thousand marks, signed the contract and at once fell into a deep slumber.
    When he awoke, he found himself lying on the cold fells. All trace of the castle, the castellan and his signed part of the contract had vanished. Furthermore, he seemed to have misplaced his gold crucifix and a number of other trifles of personal adornment.
    As he rode homewards, he encountered an ancient hermit, to whom he related his strange and terrifying adventure. The hermit, controlling his laughter by stuffing the sleeve of his robe into his mouth, mumbled that Sir Prime would have appeared to have had the ill fortune to wander into the fabulous castle of Lyonesse. If that was the case, then the damosel was none other than La Beale Dame de Lyonesse, and the knight should count himself lucky to have got away with just being ripped offfor seventy grand. Some poor fools, he explained, had fared far worse than that. Really stupid knights, for example, had been known to buy two weeks in July and August at Lyonesse for the rest of time; fortunately