The Red Knight

by Davies, K. T.

  “Smelling your hair.”

  “You’re a strange human; you know that don’t you?” She nestled her behind into his groin. He was instantly aroused.

  It was past noon when they finally got up. The pain in his leg had faded to a dull ache. On any other day he would have been happy about such a swift recovery, but not today.

  Garian and Suli broke their fast in silence. They hadn’t spoken about him leaving, but they both knew he had to go. Suli had told him that the Vodoni would also be moving on now that they’d given their statements to the local magistrate. Garian hoped the thugs would hang, but what concerned him most was when he would see Suli again. They had shared so much in the last few days; it felt like he’d known her all his life. The thought of being without her, even for a short time, was almost unbearable.

  Korstoi returned his gear to him without comment. The Hetman must have realised that the items he had with him were a little out of the ordinary for a cartographer. His circumspection would be rewarded after Garian had left. He and Suli had agreed that she could tell her parents why a cartographer carried two crossbows and a finely balanced hunting knife.

  Garian had broken his sworn oath and told her everything about himself. Like making love with her, it felt right, more; it felt good to be able to talk to someone about what he did. Other than his mother, nobody else had ever shown any real interest in him as a person. He couldn’t repay her kindness by being anything other than honest with her.

  Hyram would be incandescent with rage if he ever found out, but Garian didn’t care. She already meant more to him than anyone he’d ever known, including his patron. He’d be damned if he would found their relationship on lies. He wasn’t convinced the Vodoni would regard ‘spy’ as an acceptable occupation for a son in law, but he knew without a doubt, that he’d give it up in a heartbeat if that was the only way to be with her. He would do anything for Suli, she was as vital to him as breathing.

  She kissed his neck. “You’re thinking again, Captain.”

  “Are you sure you’re staying in the area? What if you go elsewhere? How will I find you?” he asked.

  She laughed and kissed him again. “Don’t worry. I’ve told you, we’ll be around here for most of the summer. We always are, and if father suddenly decides to go elsewhere, I’ll send word or you can come find us—that’s what you’re good at isn’t it?”

  “Very funny, my lady. I just don’t want to lose you. I mean, a girl as handy as you are with a jug is quite a prize.”

  She laughed and leaped into his arms, taking them both to the ground.

  Later, when Garian finished saddling his horse, Suli’s father gave him some food for the journey, a pipe and some Pel for the road.

  “Do not take my daughter’s affection lightly,” said the Hetman as he tightened the girth on Garian’s horse. “I am far less gentle than my wife if you cross me.”

  Garian wasn’t offended; the warning was only what he’d expect from a protective parent. If he could, he’d rip his heart from his chest and show the Hadami how full it was with love for his daughter. Instead he’d have to settle for using words to express how he felt.

  “I’d gladly die for your daughter, sir, but mostly I want to live for her, now that I know what life is for.”

  The Hetman laughed. Garian realised he sounded like a fool, but he meant every word of it.

  “I think you missed your calling…master cartographer,” said Maire who came over to bid him farewell. “You should have been a talespinner with such a honeyed tongue.” She took something from her pocket and pressed it into Garian’s hand. It was a crescent moon pendant, identical to those worn by the Vodoni. “Farewell, master Tain. May the gods guard you.” The shapeshifter and her husband left Suli and Garian alone to say their goodbyes.

  “You remember where to meet me in two weeks’ time? If you don’t come, I’ll take it that you have changed your mind,” said Suli.

  “I’ll be there. Just don’t go getting yourself into any more fights.”

  After kissing her for the twentieth time, Garian mounted up and turned for the Weyhithe road. When he looked back he saw that she was waving. That was the picture he wanted to remember, the image that would keep him company on the lonely journey home. Being without her for two weeks would be agony, but despite that, he was overjoyed. For the first time in his life, someone was watching him ride away.

  Korstoi and Maire came up behind Suli as the boy rode into the distance. The Hetman was tired to the bone; hopefully the stress of the last few days would be worth all the trouble they’d gone to. As if sensing his thoughts, Maire turned to their daughter.

  “Are you sure he’s ours?” she asked in a rare moment of uncertainty.

  Suli smiled. “He isn’t ours, Mati dear, he’s mine, and I’m his.”

  “That wasn’t part of the plan. Maire smiled. Oh well, the gods work in their own way, I suppose.”

  Korstoi laughed and put his arms round his daughter and his lover. Storm clouds might be gathering, but where there was love, there was hope. He kept the thought to himself; to voice it would have invited savage teasing from both women. What could he say? Like the city boy, he was a hopeless romantic.

  Chapter Five

  Two days after leaving Suli, Garian sighted the walls of Weyhithe. Pennants were flying from the highest towers of the Arth and gulls glided in lazy spirals above the smoke-plumes of a thousand chimneys. When he neared the gates, he caught a whiff of stale city air. No one could call it pleasant, but it was the smell of home.

  He found his way to Lord Hyram’s room some time before dawn. He wasn’t surprised to find his master sitting at his desk, surrounded by the nubs of a dozen dead candles. The dark circles under Hyram’s heavy lidded eyes told the apprentice that his master had not been sleeping well. Garian briefly entertained the possibility that it might be from worrying about him, but after the old man spent the next hour soundly berating him for not sending word, for helping the girl, for getting injured and just about everything else he could think of, he discarded that fantasy.

  After a few minutes’ pause to build up a fresh store of anger, Hyram continued with his tirade. “We do not send a second dog into the badger’s den if the first one doesn’t return! You’re out there on your own, so be more bloody careful. I have spent too much time and effort training you for you to go risking your neck helping strangers when you’re about the King’s business.” the old man seethed.

  Garian wasn’t stupid enough to say anything in his defence. He waited quietly for the storm of Hyram’s temper to blow itself out.

  The spymaster snatched up the paper Garian had taken from the Guthani. “And this damn thing is all we have to show for it—a bloody inventory! Without names or dates, it’s as much use as a eunuch in a brothel.” He gave a heavy sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Ships, warriors, grain and equipment, and a lot of it, but nothing that can link it to Jerim, save this mark here.” He stabbed the paper with his finger. “This is most certainly the sigil of Ulyan Redbear. I’ve only seen it on one other document, but I’m certain it’s his mark.”

  Frustration etched in every crease of his sweating brow, Hyram poured a glass of wine and threw it back in an angry gulp. “Stopping it reaching Jerim might delay the little bastard’s plans, but not for long, I’ll wager. We must find out what he intends, or more accurately, when and where he plans to attack. Urgh! I could strangle him with his own guts and not lose an hour’s sleep.”

  Garian had heard of Ulyan Redbear—he was a powerful Guthland thane and Princess Matia’s cousin. It was a reasonable leap to think that one ambitious princeling would help another if it was of mutual benefit. Guthland was a violent, lawless country where if you could take power and hold onto it, it was legitimately yours. When he was twelve, Hyram had taken him there with a trade delegation. He prayed to the Twins that he’d never have to go there again—he didn’t want to visit anywhere twice in a lifetime where rotten fish was regarded as a delicacy.


  “Well, Captain, have ye anything to add?” Hyram dared him to speak.

  Garian saw the trap. “No, my Lord.”

  “Damn right, you don’t. Red Widow Bark! You’d have been as bled as a slaughtered pig hours before you got here if those Vodoni hadn’t found you. Idiot boy. Have ye learnt nothing?”

  It was touching to see how much Hyram cared, but Garian didn’t think it prudent to say so, or mention that he’d fallen in love. That revelation would most certainly push the old man over the edge. The King’s Councillor had been married off young to a woman he hardly knew, as was the way with nobility, who matched for blood rather than love. They had two children. His daughter, Merin, was the Captain of the 3rd Company of the Royal Guards. The other, a son, had died at birth with his mother. Hyram never spoke of them. From what Garian had seen over the years, Hyram had devoted his life since then to serving Daris.

  His master threw himself into his chair and stared so intensely at the note on the table, Garian half expected it to burst into flames.

  “I must speak with the King about this. I want you examined by what passes for a proper physician. Go and see that quacksalver Lorstadt—tell him I sent you, and get some rest, d’you hear me?” Hyram growled.

  “Yes, sir.” Garian made a hasty exit before his master thought of anything else for him to do. Lorstadt was the King’s physician, but if Hyram said go see him, he would do as he was bid, this time. If Hyram knew he’d spent a day making love instead of rushing back to Weyhithe with the inventory he would’ve skinned him alive.

  Queen Thea was sitting by a window in the royal apartments, embroidering a tapestry. Stitch by stitch, red roses grew on the white silk. Hyram paced the room.

  “Come, sit by me,” said Thea without looking up from her work. “You’re wearing a hole in a very expensive carpet.”

  The Councillor obeyed his Queen. Thea’s slender fingers twisted a knot into the thread. Her shears flashed as she neatly snipped the end. Female aesthetic qualities were mostly wasted on him, but even he knew that Thea was a rare beauty. He’d known her for a long time, they had aged together—he far worse than her. Fine lines creased the corners of her eyes and mouth, but her fair hair was still lustrous and her dark brown eyes as disarming as they had always been. If, Twins forbid, he ever had to take a wife again he would do well to find one half as fair as Thea.

  “Is it bad?” she asked at last.

  “I think so, my Queen.”

  “I cannot help but think that if Daris and I hadn’t married, and he had wed a Guthani Princess as was intended, none of this would be happening.”

  “Not at all,” Hyram lied smoothly. “Jerim would have found a reason to attack Daris even if he’d married Ashania herself. It’s his nature to cause mischief. You can’t blame yourself, Thea.”

  “Perhaps, and I know I shouldn’t listen to court gossip, but when I hear them whispering about wasted alliances…”

  “Ignore them. They’re jealous and bored.”

  “Oh, I know, and I do ignore them for the most part. But every now and then I wonder how different, how much easier it would be for everyone—including you—if Daris had blood ties with Guthland.”

  “Guthani kings do not value such things; all that matters is having the strength to hold the throne. Alliances last only as long as they are useful and not a moment longer. They are foolish and greedy people, which is why they still live in huts made of dung.”

  “Aye, there have been two kings and one queen on the Dragon Throne since Daris and I were married.”

  Hyram cared little for the company of women, but Thea’s smile never failed to brighten his mood. She had come a long way, this daughter of a minor noble house. Fate and chance had conspired to throw her and Daris together, during the turbulent days of Daris’s father’s reign. Hyram had fond memories of when she first arrived in Weyhithe. She’d blown in like a breath of fresh air, but was completely unprepared for the vicious intriguing of the courtiers. For their part, they thought her little more than a brood mare from the country, a bumpkin. It came as a great surprise to those who tried to use her, how quickly she learnt to play their game. With a little help from him, she made her tormentors regret their presumption. He sighed. Wonderful times, so very long ago. Were we ever that young?

  The door to the King’s private chamber burst open. Daris swept in, and tossed Hyram’s report on the table.

  “I cannot call the Council to censure him now.” Daris raised his hand, forcing Hyram to swallow his objections and wait impatiently for the King to finish.

  “It isn’t because I don’t want to, cousin. Twins know, I’d love to deal with him immediately, but if I move now it will provoke him to act—and if your intelligence is correct, Jerim is more prepared for war than I am. You must find out who supports my brother. I have to know who I can rely on in Cathlan and here in Antia, and find out if he’s approached the Tamalak nobles.”

  “What about the boys? What about Talin?” Thea asked, unable to mask her concern.

  “Talin can stay where he is, at least until the Council meet. There’s no safer place he could be than with the Hammer. Olin is here with us, but set one of your hounds to watch over him, Hyram.”

  Hyram bowed. “Of course, there is the tournament at Trelanlith soon. I don’t wish to be alarmist, but every mercenary and vagabond knight in the kingdom will be there, and accidents happen during tourneys.”

  A look of fear flitted across Thea’s face, but it was too late to take his words back, even if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t. It was a known fact that along with boar hunting, tournaments provided the perfect opportunity to eliminate heirs to thrones.

  “You must send for him immediately, Daris,” Thea insisted.

  Daris frowned at his Councillor. Hyram made sure to look suitably abashed even though he wasn’t, and Daris knew it. So long as he made a show of contrition the King wouldn’t have to throw him in the dungeons.

  “I’m sorry, love, but I can’t. If I brought Talin home for no good reason it would be a sure sign to our enemies that something was amiss. Don’t worry, I’ll send word that he cannot take part in the tourney.”

  “But they could send assassins; murder him in his bed. Tell him, Hyram!”

  Daris knelt beside her, his expression softened, all trace of kingly authority vanished. “They could do that here.” He took her hands in his and kissed them.

  She kissed him, and brushed a strand of hair from his face. “No they couldn’t, I wouldn’t let them.”

  Hyram examined his finger nails. He never knew where to look when they got all mawkish.

  “Talin is a grown man, Thea, not a child—despite how he acts. I promise you, he’ll be perfectly safe at Trelanlith.”

  She looked unconvinced. Hyram sympathised but now that he thought about it, there was another good reason to keep Talin away from Weyhithe. Daris and Thea only had two children. If assassins were sent, it was better they were not in the same place at the same time. An heir must survive. He knew it was cold, but someone had to be practical for the sake of the kingdom.

  “I need to gather my forces—quietly.” Daris laughed. “Forced to sneak in my own kingdom, damn my brother! I’ll send word to our lords in the south; I think it’s time they organised some training exercises. Mark me, Hyram; I undertake these preparations in the hope that Jerim will see sense before his schemes ruin us all. I must give him the chance to stand down before I plunge the kingdom into civil war. I will not close the door on that, I cannot, not until he raises his banner against me—do you hear me, Hyram?”

  “Yes, Majesty.” Hyram bowed. His conscience was clear; whatever he did it would be for the good of Daris, and the kingdom, and what the King didn’t know wouldn’t hurt either of them.

  Alyda pushed back on her chair until it rocked gently on two legs. The wood creaked in protest, but the stout oak could take the abuse. She picked up the Silver Spur and idly flicked the wheel while she waited.

  She never grew t
ired of looking at the Spur, even the tiny rowels were decorated with intricate vines and flowers. After her sword, it was the most precious thing she owned. The words of command began to form in her mind. She felt the metal start to flow beneath her fingers. It was as though she was holding a living creature, one that wanted to change; to leap to life in her hands, but now wasn’t the time to play. Reluctantly, she put the words from her mind. The Spur was still, nothing but cold, dead metal.

  Nevenna was waiting with her. She was looking out of the window, watching her fellow knights practicing manoeuvres.

  “When do you think we’ll go?” she asked Alyda, her gaze tracking the wheeling horses.

  “No idea. Trease just sent orders to get the recruits trained up quickly and to, maintain standards. That’s his way of saying, be ready for battle.

  “Will it affect the tournament?

  Alyda flicked the rowels of the Spur. “I shouldn’t think so. I don’t think we’ll be going far if we get the order to move out. No need to prepare for a long sea voyage, if you see what I mean.

  Nev grinned. “Aye, Captain. I’m pleased about the tourney. I fancy Del’s going to do well in the melee this year.”

  “You’re biased, but speaking of the tourney; how angry was our newest recruit when you told him?” Alyda asked.

  “Teeth-spitting furious.” The Herald grinned. “I was particularly impressed by the stream of invective he came out with; very imaginative.”

  “Well, he has been studying under the master. I hear he and Kieran have become firm friends.”

  “Aye, unfortunately Kieran isn’t developing the manners of a prince—more that the Prince is becoming as rough as a cavalryman. What do you think his Highness will do?”

  A little later than expected, Alyda heard the sound of heavy footsteps echoing in the hallway. “I think we’re about to find out.” Alyda swung her feet off the desk and pretended to read some papers just before Prince Talin burst in. She glanced up. He’d obviously come straight from the practice yard and as Nevenna said, looked completely furious.