Random looked at the other merchant venturers. ‘Albinkirk in ruins?’ he asked. ‘I’ve fought up here, friends. The border is a hundred leagues farther north, and even then – the Wild is west and north of us, not here.’
‘Something did this, all the same,’ Judson said. The corners of his lips were white, the lips themselves drawn tight. ‘I say we go back.’
Paul Silver wore high boots like a gentleman. Goldsmiths were often better dressed than their customers. It was the way of the world. But Silver had also served the king and wore a heavy sword, an expensive weapon meticulously kept ready for battle. ‘We’d be fools to ignore that something is going on,’ he agreed. ‘But bad as this is I’m not sure it means a convoy of nearly fifty wagons should turn back.’
Albinkirk rose on a high hill at the next great bend in the river. Ships would make it this far north, later in the summer when the floods were done and all the ice was out of the mountains – when the run off wasn’t carrying whole pine trees, big enough to stove in a round ship, down mountainsides and out into the great river. Albinkirk was the northernmost town that could be reached by ship, and yet the southernmost at the edge of the Great Forest that covered the mountains. Once it had hosted the Great Fair, but poor management and rapacious tolls had forced it to move further east, to the convent at Lissen Carak.
Today Albinkirk was a corpse, red-tile roofs looking grey and old, or fire-blacked, in the distance, and the spire of the cathedral gone.
‘What’s happened to the cathedral?’ Random asked.
Old Bob made a face. ‘They was attacked by dragons.’ He shrugged. ‘Or Satan himself.’
Random took a deep breath. This was the sort of moment for which he lived. The great decision. The gamble.
‘We could leave the road. Turn east on this side of the river and use the bridge at Lissen Carak,’ he found himself saying. ‘Keep the river between us and Albinkirk.’
‘A river won’t stop wyverns,’ Old Bob said.
‘Not much choice anyway,’ Guilbert said. ‘The gates are shut, so we can’t exactly take the High Road.’
‘They should want us in that town,’ Random said.
Judson watched him, and his face held something Random didn’t recognise – horror? Fear? Curiosity?
But finally the man worked up his courage and spoke his mind. ‘I’ll be taking my wagons back south,’ he said carefully.
Random nodded. Judson had the second largest contingent – eight wagons, a sixth of the total.
‘I reckon I’ll take my share of the sell-swords, too,’ Judson said.
Random thought for a fraction of a heart beat and shook his head. ‘How do you reckon that, messire?’
Judson shrugged, but his eyes were angry. ‘I paid for eight wagons to join your convoy,’ he said. ‘I reckon that’s a quarter the cost of the sell-swords, so I’ll take four of them. Six would be better.’
Random nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘No, and you know it doesn’t work that way. You joined my convoy for a fee. If you leave it – that’s on you. You didn’t purchase a share, you purchased a place.’
‘You think the King’s Court will see it that way?’ Judson asked. Fear had made him bold. ‘I’ll be back in a few days, telling my story.’ He shrugged and looked away. ‘Give me my half-dozen swords, and I’ll say nothing.’ Judson looked at Paul, and then he leaned forward. ‘You want to be Lord Mayor, Random? Start playing the game.’
Random looked at him, and then shook his head. ‘No. I won’t quarrel with you, and I won’t give you a sword, much less six. Go your own way. It should be safe enough.’
‘You’d send me back without a single man?’ Judson demanded.
‘I’m not sending you back. You’re going. Your decision.’ Random looked at Guibert and Old Bob. ‘Unless one of you has cold feet too?’
Old Bob scratched something unspeakable on his nose. ‘Going on ain’t going to be good,’ he said. ‘But I don’t need to go back.’
Guilbert looked at the older man. ‘What’s not going to be good?’ he said. ‘What in hell’s name are you on about?’
‘Wyverns,’ said the old man. ‘Daemons, irks and boglins.’ He grinned, and he looked truly horrific. ‘The Wild lies ahead.’
Harndon Palace – Desiderata
The lists were pristine – the gravel carefully tended and unmarked, the barriers crisp and white with new lime, like a farmer’s dooryard fence except for the fancy red posts at either end, each topped with a brightly polished brass globe the size of a man’s fist.
The stands were virtually empty. The Queen sat in her seat, her ladies around her, and her young knights in the lower tiers of the seats, tossing early flowers to their favourite ladies.
There were professional spectators – a dozen men-at-arms, most from the castle garrison of archers. Word had spread quickly, and the rumour was that the king had been challenged by this foreign knight and meant to show him a thing or two.
Desiderata watched her husband sitting quietly by the little wooden shack where he had armed. He was drinking water. His hair was long and well kept, but even at this distance, she could see the grey in the dark brown.
At the other end of the lists, his opponent’s hair was an unmarked gold, the gold of sunset, of polished brass, of ripe wheat.
Ser Jean finished whatever preparations he was making and had a quiet word with his cousin, while his squire held the biggest war horse the Queen had ever seen – a beautiful creature, tall and elegant of carriage, its gleaming black hide unrelieved by marks of any kind, with a red saddle and blue furniture all pointed in red and gold. Ser Jean’s arms, a golden swan on a field of red and blue, decorated the peak of his helm, the tight, padded surcote over his coat armour, the heavy drapery over the rump of his horse, and the odd little shield, curved like the prow of a war-galley, that sat on his left shoulder.
It was a warm day. Perhaps the first truly warm day of spring, and the Queen bathed in the sun like a lioness and gave forth a glow of her own that bathed her ladies and even the knights on the seats below her.
Today the foreign knight glanced up at her quite frequently, as was her due.
She looked back at the king. By comparison, he looked small and just a little dingy. His squires were the best in the land, but he liked his old red arming cote and his many-times-repaired plate, fashioned in the mountains far across the ocean when hardened steel was a new thing and carefully repaired by his armourer ever since. He liked his old red saddle with the silver buckles, and if they left traces of black tarnish on the leather, it was still a fine saddle. Where the foreign knight was new and shone from top to toe, her king was older – worn.
His war horse was smaller too – Father Jerome, the king called him, and he was veteran of fifty great jousts and a dozen real fights. The king had other, younger, bigger horses, but when he went to fight for real he rode Father Jerome.
The herald and the master of the list called them to action. It was friendly play – the spears were bated. Desiderata saw Gaston, the foreign knight’s friend, say something to the king, pointing to his neck, with a bow.
The king smiled and turned away.
‘He’s not wearing his gorget under his aventail,’ Ser Driant said in her ear. ‘Young Gaston asks why, and requests that the king wear it.’ He nodded in approval. ‘Very proper. His man wishes to fight hard, and he doesn’t want to be accused of injuring the king. I’d feel the same way myself, if the king had challenged me.’
‘The king did not challenge him,’ Desiderata said.
Ser Driant gave her a queer look. ‘That’s not what I heard,’ he said. ‘Still, I suspect the king will tip him in the sand and that will be that.’
‘Men say that man is the best knight in the world,’ the Queen replied, a little coldly.
Ser Driant laughed. ‘Men say such things about any pretty knight,’ he said. He looked at Ser Jean, mounting with a vault and taking his lance. ‘Mind you, the man is the size of a giant.
The Queen felt a mounting unease, such as she had never experienced watching men fight. This was her place – her role. It was her duty to be impartial as the armoured figures crashed together, and to judge the best of them. To forget that one was her lover and king and the other an ambitious foreigner who had all but accused her of being barren.
She should judge only their worthiness.
But as the two men manoeuvred their horses on either side of the barrier, she felt a band tighten around her heart. He had forgotten to ask for her favour, and she almost lifted the scarf she held in her hand.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched men fight without bestowing her favour on one, or perhaps both.
Ser Jean wore a foreign type of helmet, a round-faced bascinet with a low, round brow and a heavy dog-faced visor with the Cross of Christ in brass and gold.
The king wore the high-peaked helmet more typical of Albans, with a pointy visor that men called pig-faced but which always reminded the Queen of a bird – a mighty falcon.
Even as she watched, he flicked the visor down and it closed with a click audible across the field.
There was a stir up in the castle yard – soldiers craning their necks, others moving to the walls, while still others jammed up at the gate beyond which were sounds of shouting and galloping horses.
The Queen did not often pray. But as she watched the king she put her right hand to the rosary around her neck and prayed to the Queen of Heaven, asking her for grace-
Two horses flashed past the gate, galloping along the cobbled road to the lists down by the moat yard, their riders shouting and horseshoes striking sparks that leapt even in the sunlight.
She could feel the gathering of powers in the tiltyard, exactly as she had been able to feel the first gathering of Harmodius’ not inconsiderable power, but this was power of another order – like bright white light on a dark day.
The foreign knight touched his spurs to his horse.
The king spurred Father Jerome, almost in the same instant. In another time, she would have applauded.
The two messengers were racing along the moat road, neck and neck, as king and knight charged each other-
– and Ser Jean’s horse shied beneath him as a great horse fly sunk its sting far into the black horse’s unprotected nose, where the soft lips emerged from beneath the chamfron.
The war horse balked, missed a stride, and half-reared, half-turned from the barrier. Ser Jean fought for his seat, tried to force his mount’s head back to the barrier, but he was hopelessly out of line and now too slow to strike with real force. He raised his lance and then cast it aside as his pained horse reared again.
The king came on at full tilt, back straight, Father Jerome perfectly collected under him, lance aimed like a swift arrow from some ancient god’s bow. A foot short of Jean de Vrailly’s prow-shaped shield his lance tip swept up, plucked the swan from his helmet, and then the king thundered by, his lance dropping again to strike the brass globe on the last post of the lists. He struck it squarely, so hard that it ripped from its post and flew through the air to bounce and roll past Ser Gaston, past the two messengers thundering up the rise to the lists, and into the moat.
The Queen applauded . . . and yet felt that the king – she tried to keep the thought in check – that he might have voided his lance and passed his opponent without taking his crest. It would have been a generous act, and such things were done, between friends, when a knight was obviously struggling with his horse.
De Vrailly rode back toward his own end, back straight, horse now firmly under control.
A dozen royal archers ran to get between the king and the two riders, who were bearing down on him with intent, shouting but their words indistinct. They both held scrolls, the colourful ribbons dangling.
The archers parted to let them through when the king opened his faceplate and beckoned to the messengers. He was grinning like a small boy in his victory.
The Queen wasn’t sure whether this was the outcome of her prayer or not, and so she prayed again as the messengers reached the king, dismounting to kneel at his feet even as his squires began to take his armour.
At the same end of the lists, only a few feet away, Jean de Vrailly dismounted. His cousin spoke sharply to him, and the tall knight ignored the smaller man, and drew his sword – almost too fast to follow.
His cousin slapped him – hard – on the elbow of his sword arm, and the foreign knight fumbled his sword – the only clumsy movement she’d ever seen him make. He turned on his cousin, who stood his ground.
The Queen knew unbridled rage when she saw it, and she held her breath, a little shocked to see the Galle so out of control – but even as she watched, the man mastered himself. She saw him incline his head very slightly to his cousin, as if acknowledging a hit in the lists.
He turned and spoke to one of his squires.
The man collected the mighty horse’s reins and began to strip its barding with the help of a pair of pages.
She lost the action for a moment while she tried to take in what she had seen.
Suddenly the king was by her side.
‘He’s very angry,’ the king said, while bowing over her hand. He sounded content with his opponent’s anger. ‘Listen, sweeting. The fortress at Lissen Carak is under attack by the Wild. Or so both these two messengers say.’
She sat up. ‘Tell me!’ she demanded.
Ser Gaston came up, approaching the king with the deference that his cousin never seemed to show even when kneeling.
‘Your Grace-’ he began.
The king raised a hand. ‘Not now. The joust is over for the day, my lord, and I thank your cousin for the sport. I will be riding north with all my knights as soon as I can gather them. One of my castles, and not the least of them, is under attack.’
Ser Gaston bowed. ‘My cousin requests that he might ride one course against you.’ He bowed. ‘And he wishes your Grace to know that he honours your Grace’s horsemanship – he sends you his war horse, in hopes your Grace might school him as well as your own is schooled.’
The king smiled like a boy who’s been well-praised by a parent. ‘Indeed, I love a horse,’ he said. ‘I do not claim the good knight’s horse and arms, you understand – but if he offers.’ The king licked his lips.
Ser Gaston nodded to where the squire was leading the now-unarmed horse. ‘He is yours, your Grace. And he asks that he be allowed to take another horse and have another course with your Grace.’
The king’s face closed like the visor of his helmet had clicked down. ‘He has ridden one,’ the king said. ‘If he wishes another chance to prove himself, he may gather his knights and ride with me to the north.’ The king seemed on the verge of saying more, and then he steadied himself. But he allowed himself a small, kingly smile and said, ‘And tell him that I’ll be happy to loan him a horse.’
But Gaston bowed. ‘We will ride with you, your Grace.’
But the king had already dismissed him, and turned to the Queen.
‘It’s bad,’ he said. ‘If the writer of this letter knows his business, it’s very bad. Jacks. Daemons. Wyverns. The might of the Wild has joined against us.’
At the names, all of her ladies crossed themselves.
The Queen rose to her feet. ‘Let us help these worthy gentlemen,’ she said to her ladies. She rose and kissed the king’s face. ‘You will need carts, provender, supplies, canteens and water casks. I have the lists to hand. You gather your knights, and I’ll have the rest ready to follow you before noon.’ In a moment, the winds of war – actual war, with all it implied about glory and honour and high deeds – blew away her fancy for the foreign knight.
And her lover was the king. Going to war with the Wild.
He looked into her eyes with adoration. ‘Bless you!’ he whispered. And her king turned, and shouted for his constable. And the Earl of Towbray, who was ready to hand.
Towbray had the grace to give the king a wry smile. ‘How con
venient that I have all my armed strength to hand, your Grace. And that you have summoned your knights to a tournament.’
The king usually had no time for Towbray, but just for a moment they shared something. The king clapped the other man’s shoulder. ‘If only I had planned it,’ he said.
Towbray nodded. ‘My knights are at your service.’
The king shook his head. ‘That’s the trouble with you, Towbray. Just when I’ve found reason to despise you, there you are doing something to help. And unfortunately a year hence, you’ll do something to spoil it again.’
Towbray bowed. ‘I am what I am, your Grace. In this case, your Grace’s servant.’
He glanced at the Queen.
She didn’t see his look, already busy with a list of long-bodied wagons available in the town of Harndon.
But the king followed Towbray’s glance, and his lip curled.
Towbray had been watching the king, too. It was easy to dismiss him – he didn’t seem to have any finer feelings, or to have any purpose beyond the tilt-field and his wife’s bed.
And yet here was the Wild, launching an attack, and the king just happened to have already summoned his host. That kind of luck seemed to happen to the king all the time.
Lissen Carak – The Red Knight
The captain woke in the Abbey infirmary, his head on a feather pillow, his hands – the left heavily wrapped in bandages – laid neatly on a white wool blanket atop a fine linen sheet. The sun shone through the narrow window well over his head and the shaft of light lit Bad Tom, snoring in the opposite bed. A young boy lay with his face to the wall in the next bed, and an older man with his whole head wrapped in linen opposite him.
He lay still for a moment, oddly happy, and then it all came back to him in a rush. He shook his head, cursed God, sat and got his feet on the floor.
His movement caused the duty sister to raise her head. He hadn’t noticed her. She smiled.
Amicia.
‘Aren’t you afraid to be alone with me?’ he asked.
Her composure was palpable, like armour. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I am not afraid of you, sweet. Should I be?’ She rose to her feet. ‘Besides, Tom is only just asleep and old Harold – who has leprosy – sleeps very lightly. I trust you not to disturb them.’
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