The Red Knight

by Miles Cameron

  Jehannes spat. ‘Jesu shits,’ he said. ‘There’s another one?’

  North of Harndon – Ranald Lachlan

  Ranald rode north with three horses – a heavy horse not much smaller than a destrier and two hackneys, the smallest not much better than a pony. He needed to make good time.

  Because he needed to make good time he went hard all day and slept wherever he ended. He passed the pleasant magnificence of Lorica and her three big inns with regret, but it was just after midday and he had sun left in the sky.

  He didn’t have to camp, exactly. As the last rays of the sun slanted across the fields and the river to the west, he turned down a lane and rode over damp manured fields to a small stand of trees on a ridge overlooking the road. As he approached in the last light, he smelled smoke, and then he saw the fire.

  He pulled up his horses well clear of the small camp, and called out, ‘Hullo!’

  He hadn’t seen anyone by the fire, and it was dark under the trees. But as soon as he called a man stepped from the shadows, almost by his horse’s head. Ranald put his hand on his sword hilt.

  ‘Be easy, stranger,’ said a man. An old man.

  Ranald relaxed, and his horse calmed.

  ‘I’d share my food with a man who’d share his fire,’ Ranald said.

  The man grunted. ‘I’ve plenty of food. And I came up here to get away from men, not spend the night prattling.’ The old fellow laughed. ‘But bad cess on it – come and share my fire.’

  Ranald dismounted. ‘Ranald Lachlan,’ he said.

  The old man grinned, his teeth white and surprisingly even in the last light. ‘Harold,’ he said. ‘Folk around here call me Harold the Forester, though its years since I was the forester.’ He slipped into the trees, leading Ranald’s packhorse.

  They ate rabbit – the old man had three of them, and Ranald wasn’t so rude as to ask what warren they’d been born to. Ranald still had wine – good red wine from Galle, and the old man drank a full cup.

  ‘Here’s to you, my good ser,’ he said in a fair mockery of a gentleman’s accent. ‘I had many a bellyful of this red stuff when I was younger.’

  Ranald lay back on his cloak. The world suddenly seemed very good to him, but he remained troubled that there were leaves piled up for two men to sleep, and that there were two blanket rolls on the edge of the fire circle, for one man. ‘You were a soldier, I suspect,’ he said.

  ‘Chevin year, we was all soldiers, young hillman,’ Harold said. He shrugged. ‘But aye. I was an archer, and then a master archer. And then forester, and now – just old.’ He sat back against a tree. ‘It’s cold for old bones. If you gave me your flask, I’d add my cider and heat it.’

  Ranald handed over his flask without demur.

  The man had a small copper pot. Like many older veterans Ranald had known, his equipment was beautifully kept, and he found it without effort, even in the dark – each thing was where it belonged. He stirred his fire, a small thing now the rabbit was cooked, made from pine cones and twigs, and yet he had the drink hot in no time.

  Ranald had one hand on his knife. He took the horn cup that was offered him, and while he could see the man’s hands, he said ‘There was another man here.’

  Harold didn’t flinch. ‘Aye,’ he said.

  ‘On the run?’ Ranald asked.

  ‘Mayhap,’ said Harold. ‘Or just a serf who oughtn’t to be out in the greenwood. And you with your Royal Guardsman’s badge.’

  Ranald was ready to move. ‘I want no trouble. And I offer none,’ he said.

  Harold relaxed visibly. ‘Well, he won’t come back. But I’ll see to it that the feeling is mutual. Have some more.’

  Ranald lay under his cloak without taking off his boots and laid his dirk by his side. Whatever he thought about the old man, there were plenty of men who would cut another’s throat for three good horses. And he went to sleep.

  Harndon – Edward

  Thaddeus Pyel finished mixing the powder – saltpeter and charcoal and a little sulphur. Three to two to one, according to the alchemist who made the mixture for the king.

  His apprentices were all around him, bringing him tools as he demanded them – a bronze pestle for grinding charcoal fine, spoons of various sizes to measure with.

  He mixed the three together, carried the mixture outside into the yard, and touched a burning wick to them.

  The mixture sputtered and burned, with a sulphurous smoke.

  ‘Like Satan cutting a fart,’ muttered his son Diccon.

  Master Pyel went back into his shop and mixed more. He varied the quantities carefully, but the result was always the same – a sputtering flame.

  The boys were used to the master’s little ways. He had his notions, and sometimes they worked, and other times they didn’t. So they muttered in disappointment but not in surprise. It was a beautiful evening, and they went up on the workshop roof and drank small beer. Young Edward, the shop boy and an apprentice coming up on his journeyman qualification, stared at the rising moon and tried to imagine exactly what the burning powder did.

  In all his imagings it was something to do with a weapon, because at the sign of the broken circle, that’s what they did. They made weapons.

  Albinkirk – Ser John Crayford

  Ser John was taking exercise. Age and weight had not prevented him from swinging his sword at his pell – or at the other four men-at-arms who were still willing enough to join him.

  Since the young sprig had ridden through with his beautifully armed company, the Captain of Albinkirk had been at the pell three times. His back hurt. His wrists hurt. His hands burned.

  Master Clarkson, his youngest and best man-at-arms, backed out of range and raised his sword. ‘Well cut, Ser John,’ he said.

  Ser John grinned, but only inside his visor where it wouldn’t show. Just in that moment, all younger men were the enemy.

  ‘Ser John, there’s a pair of farmers to see you.’ It was the duty sergeant. Tom Lickspittle, Ser John called him, if only inside his visor. The man couldn’t seem to do anything well except curry favour.

  ‘I’ll see them when I’m done here, Sergeant.’ Ser John was trying to control his breathing.

  ‘I think you’ll want to – to see them now.’ That was new. Lickspittle Tom never questioned orders. The man gulped. ‘My lord.’

  That makes this some sort of emergency.

  Ser John walked over to his latest squire, young Harold, and got his visor lifted and his helmet removed. He was suddenly ashamed of his armour – brown on many surfaces, or at least the mail was. His cote armour was covered in what had once been good velvet. How long ago had that been?

  ‘Clean that mail,’ he said to Harold. The boy winced, which suited Ser John’s mood well. ‘Clean the helmet, and find me an armourer. I want this recovered in new cloth.’

  ‘Yes, Ser John.’ The boy didn’t meet his eye. Lugging armour around the Lower Town would be no easy task.

  Ser John got his gauntlets off and walked across the courtyard to the guard room. There were two men – prosperous men; wool cotes, proper hose; one in all the greys of local wool, one in a dark red cote.

  ‘Gentlemen?’ he asked. ‘Pardon my armour.’

  The man in the dark red cote stood forward. ‘Ser John? I’m Will Flodden and this is my cousin John. We have farms on the Lissen Carak road.’

  Ser John relaxed. This was not a complaint about one of his garrison soldiers.

  ‘Go on,’ he said, cheerfully.

  ‘I kilt an irk, m’lord,’ said the one called John. His voice shook when he said it.

  Ser John had been a number of places. He knew men, and he knew the Wild. ‘Really?’ he said. He doubted it, instinctively.

  ‘Aye,’ said the farmer. He was defensive, and he looked at his cousin for support. ‘There was tre of ’em. Crossing my fields.’ He hugged himself. ‘An’ one loosed at me. I ran for ta’ house, an’ picked up me latchet and let fly. An’ tey ran.’

  Ser John sa
t a little too suddenly. Age and armour were not a good mix.

  Will Flodden sighed. ‘Just show it to him.’ He seemed impatient – a farmer who wanted to get back to his farm.

  Before he even undid the string securing the sack, Ser John knew what he was going to see. But it all seemed to take a long time. The string unwinding, the upending of the sack. The thing in the sack had stuck to the coarse fabric.

  For as long as it took, he could tell himself that the man was wrong. He’d killed an animal. A boar with an odd head, or some such.

  But twenty years before Ser John had stood his ground with thousands of other men against a charge of ten thousand irks. He remembered it too damned well.

  ‘Jesus wept. Christe and the Virgin stand with us,’ he said.

  It was an irk, its handsome head somehow smaller and made ghastly having been severed from its sinuous body.

  ‘Where, exactly?’ he demanded. And turning, he ignored Tom Lickspittle, who was a useless tit in a crisis. ‘Clarkson! Sound the alarm and get me the mayor.’

  Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

  Patience had never been the captain’s greatest virtue, and he paced the great hall of the convent, up and back, up and back, his anger ebbing and flowing as he gained and lost control of himself. He suspected that the Abbess was keeping him waiting on purpose; he understood her motives, he read her desire to humble him and keep him off guard; and despite knowing that he was angry, and thus off guard.

  Gradually, frustration gave way to boredom.

  He had time to note that the stained glass of the windows in the clerestory had missing panels – some replaced in clear glass, and some in horn, and one in weathered bronze. The bright sunlight outside, the first true sign of spring, made the rich reds and blues of the glass glow, but the missing panes were cast into sharp contrast – the horn was too dull, the clear glass too bright, the metal almost black and sinister.

  He stared at the window depicting the convent’s patron saint, Thomas, and his martyrdom, for some time.

  And then boredom and annoyance broke his meditation and he began to pace again.

  His second bout of boredom was lightened by the arrival of two nuns in the grey habit of the order, but they had their kirtles on, open at the neck and with their sleeves rolled up. Both had heavy gloves on, tanned faces, and they bore an eagle on a perch between them.

  An eagle.

  Both of them bowed politely to the captain and left him with the bird.

  The captain waited until they were clear of the hall and then walked over to the bird, a dark golden brown with the dusting of lighter colour that marked a fully mature bird.

  ‘Maybe a little too fully mature, eh, old boy?’ he said to the bird, who turned his hooded head to the sound of the voice, opened his beak, and said ‘Raawwk!’ in a voice loud enough to command armies.

  The bird’s jesses were absolutely plain where the captain, who had been brought up with rich and valuable birds, would have expected to see embroidery and gold leaf. This was a Ferlander Eagle, a bird worth—

  —worth the whole value of the captain’s white harness, which was worth quite a bit.

  The eagle was the size of his entire upper body, larger than any bird his father – the captain sneered internally at the thought of the man – had ever owned.

  ‘Raaaawk!’ the bird screamed.

  The captain crossed his arms. Only a fool released someone else’s bird – especially when that bird was big enough to eat the fool – but his fingers itched to handle it, to feel its weight on his fist. Could he even fly such a bird?

  Is this another of her little games?

  After another interval of waiting, he couldn’t stand it any more. He pulled on his chamois gloves and brushed the back of his hand against the talons of the bird’s feet. It stepped obligingly onto his wrist and it weighed as much as a pole-axe. More. His arm sank, and it was an effort to raise the bird back to eye level and place it back on its perch.

  When it had one foot secure on the deerskin-padded perch, it turned its hooded head to him, as if seeing him clearly, and closed its left foot, sinking three talons into his left arm.

  Even as he gasped, it stepped up onto its perch and turned to face him.

  ‘Rawwwwwwwk,’ it said with obvious satisfaction.

  Blood dripped over his gauntlet cuff.

  He looked at the bird. ‘Bastard,’ he said. And he went back to pacing, albeit he now cradled his left arm in his right for twenty trips up and down the hall.

  His third bout of boredom was broken by the books. He’d given them only a cursory glance on his first visit, and had dismissed them. They displayed the usual remarkable craftsmanship, superb calligraphy, painted scenes, gilt work everywhere. Worse, both volumes were collections of the Lives of the Saints, a subject in which the captain had no interest whatsoever. But boredom drove him to look at them.

  The leftmost work, beneath the window of Saint Maurice, was well-executed, the paintings of Saint Katherine vivid and rich. He chuckled to wonder what lovely model had stood in a monk’s mind, or perhaps a nun’s, as the artist lovingly re-created the contours of flesh. Saint Katherine’s face did not show torment, but a kind of rapture—

  He laughed and passed to the second book, pondering the lives of the devout.

  What struck him first was the poor quality of the Archaic. The art was beautiful – the title page had a capital where the artist was presented, sitting on a high stool, working away with a gilding brush. The work was so precise that the reader could see that the artist was working on the very title page, presented again in microcosm.

  The captain breathed deeply in appreciation of the work, and the humour of it. And then he began to read.

  He turned the page. He imagined what his beloved Prudentia would have said about the barbaric nature of the writer’s Archaic. He could all but see the old nun wagging her finger in his mother’s solar.

  Shook his head.

  The door to the Abbess’s private apartments opened and the priest, hurried past, hands clasped together and face set. He looked furious.

  Behind him, the Abbess gave a low laugh, almost a snort. ‘I thought you’d find our book,’ she said. She looked at him fondly. ‘And my Parcival.’ She indicated the bird.

  ‘I can’t see how such a brutally bad transcription merited the quality of artist,’ he said, turning another page. ‘I thought as much f that’s your bird, you are braver than I thought.’

  ‘Am I?’ she asked. ‘I’ve had him for many years.’ She looked fondly at the bird, who bated on his perch. ‘Can you not see why the book is so well wrought?’ she asked with a smile that told him that there was a secret to it. ‘You do know that we have a library, Captain? I believe that our hospitality might extend as far as allowing you to use it. We have more than fifty volumes.’

  He bowed. ‘Would I shock you if I said that the Lives of the Saints held little interest for me?’

  She shrugged. ‘Posture away, little atheist. My gentle Jesu loves you all the same.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘I am sorry – I would love to spar with you all morning, but I have a crisis in my house. May we to business?’ She waved him to a stool. ‘Still in armour,’ she said.

  ‘We are still on the hunt,’ he said, crossing his legs.

  ‘But you killed the monster. Don’t think we are not grateful. In fact, I regret taking the tone I did, especially as you lost a man of great worth, and since you were so very effective.’ She shrugged. ‘And you have done your work before the new month – and before my fair opens.’

  He made a sour face. ‘My lady, I would like to deserve your esteem, and few things would give me greater pleasure than to hear you apologise.’ He shrugged. ‘But I am not here to spar, either. Unworthily, I assumed you kept me cooling my heels to teach me humility.’

  She looked at her hands. ‘You could use some, young man, but unfortunately, I have other issues before me this day or I would be happy to teach you some manners. Now, why
do you say you do not deserve my regard?’

  ‘We have killed a monster,’ he acknowledged. ‘But not the one that killed Sister Hawisia.’

  She jutted out her jaw – a tic he hadn’t seen before. ‘I must assume that you have ways to know this. You must pardon me if I am sceptical. We have two monsters? I remember your saying the enemy seldom hunts alone this far from the Wild – but surely, Captain, you know that we are not as far from the Wild as we once were.’

  He wished for a chair with a back. He wished that Hugo were alive, and he hadn’t been saddled with internal issues of discipline that should have been Hugo’s. ‘May I have a glass of wine?’ he asked.

  The Abbess had a stick, and she thumped it on the floor. Amicia entered, eyes downcast. The Abbess smiled at her. ‘Wine for the captain, dear. And do not raise your eyes, if you please. Good girl.’

  Amicia slipped out the door again.

  ‘My huntsman is a Hermetic,’ he said. ‘With a licence from the Bishop of Lorica.’

  She waved a hand. ‘The orthodoxy of Hermeticism is beyond my poor intellect. Do you know, when I was a girl, we were forbidden to use High Archaic for any learning beyond the Lives of the Saints. I was punished by my chaplain as a girl for reading some words on a tomb in my father’s castle.’ She sighed. ‘You read the Archaic, then,’ she said.

  ‘High and low,’ he answered.

  ‘I thought as much . . . and there cannot be so many knights in the Demesne who can read High Archaic.’ She made a motion with her head, as if shaking off fatigue. Amicia returned, brought the captain wine and backed away from him without ever raising her eyes – a very graceful performance.

  She wore that curious expression again. The one he couldn’t read – it held both anger and amusement, patience and frustration, all in one corner of her mouth.

  The Abbess had taken Parcival the eagle on her wrist, and she was stroking his plumage and cooing at him. While the arm of her throne-like chair helped support the great raptor, the captain was impressed by her strength. She must be sixty, he thought.