The Red Knight ttsc-1

by Miles Cameron

  She made a curtsy. ‘I am, my lord.’

  ‘Could you be kind enough to make the time to visit me, Mistress? I need . . . everything.’ He smiled.

  She nodded. ‘So I can see,’ she said. Business straightened her back. ‘Shirts? Braes? Caps?’

  ‘Three of each?’ he asked. He sounded wistful.

  ‘I’ll wait on you this afternoon, my lord,’ she said with a quick bend of her knee.

  ‘Well, then,’ he said, towing his archer away by the ear. He walked back to the locals – boys were competing to comfort the Carter girls. Curiously, the Harndon boy was standing uncertainly by, taking no part. Mag flashed him a smile and went about her business.

  Lissen Carak – Bad Tom

  Tom Lachlan was sitting at his table in the garrison tower. It had become his office – his and Bent’s, because Bent was becoming his right hand.

  He looked over his cards, and his ears picked up the unmistakable sound of spurred boots on the stairs.

  He was on his feet, cards in a bag, and looking out an arrow slit at a party of boglins digging in the sun before the captain crested the stairs.

  Low Sym was all but thrown across the table. He gave a long squeal as the captain released his hold on the man’s ear.

  Tom sighed. ‘What’s the useless fuck done now?’ Low Sym was one of the company’s leading lights – in crime. ‘

  There were a dozen boys coming up the steps behind the captain.

  The captain indicated them with a shift of his eyes. ‘New recruits. Archers.’

  Tom nodded. They were likely boys – he’d been eyeing them himself – yeomen’s sons, all big, well-fed lads with good shoulders and muscles. At their head was a boy who looked as if he might, in time, be as tall as Tom himself.

  Tom nodded again, and as he rounded the table to greet the recruits he slammed his fist into Low Sym’s head. ‘Don’t move,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be in my Commandery,’ the captain said.

  Tom bowed, and turned to the boys. ‘Who here can shoot a bow?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s one other,’ the captain said. ‘Red Beve is lying in the courtyard with a busted noggin. Captain’s court tomorrow for both. Nice and public, Tom.’

  Captain’s court was official – not a casual ten lashes and no questions asked situation, but for a crime for which the captain might have a man broken, or executed.

  The captain nodded at the boys. ‘Tell the truth and do your best. We don’t take everyone, and your parents have to agree,’ he said.

  Tom all but choked on laughter, but the Red Knight was good at this – he was a fine recruiter, while Tom had never been able to recruit anyone for anything unless he had a club in one hand and a whip in the other. We don’t take everyone. He allowed a laugh to escape his gut.

  ‘Let’s go down to the archery butts and see what you boys are made of,’ he said in what he thought was his kindliest voice. Then he leaned down to Sym. ‘Best lie still, laddy. Captain means to have your guts on a stick.’

  Then he followed the boys down the steps to the courtyard.

  The captain leaned on the railing of the hoardings that had been assembled outside his Commandery – in effect, giving him a covered and armoured porch that jutted from the walls four hundred feet above the plain. He was watching a party of men – captives? They had to be captives – under the direction of something horrible. They were digging trenches.

  As far as his eyes could see, men and monsters were digging trenches. It was a maze – a pattern that he suspected was deliberate, and the scope of it was inhuman and both grotesque and awe-inspiring. The trenches were not in concentric rings, like those a professional soldier would have built – they clung to the ground, marking the edges of every contour like a tight fitting kirtle on a curvaceous woman.

  Someone had planned it, and now drove it to execution. In one day.

  He wanted Amicia. He wanted to talk to her, but he was too tired and the fortress was too full to find her. But he knew another way – if she was on her bridge. All it required was that he open his door a little. He reached to-

  Enter the room. He waved at his tutor, Prudentia, and walked to the iron-bound door.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  She’d been telling him not to do things his entire life and, mostly, he ignored her.

  ‘You can’t trust her,’ Prudentia said. ‘And Thorn is right outside that door. He waiting for you.’

  ‘He has to sleep sometime.’

  ‘Stop!’

  He put his whole weight against the door – his whole dream weight – and turned the handle until the tumbler clicked-

  And the door slammed back against its hinges and a solid green fog roared into his chamber, enough power to light a city – ten cities-

  North of Lissen Carak – Thorn

  Thorn grinned as he felt the dark sun – felt him surface to the world of power – and he sent all his power along the contact lines to bind him. No more hesitation. Men of power always tried a direct challenge. Thorn was ready.

  Lissen Carak – The Abbess

  The Abbess felt the rising tide of Wild power and stopped – she was feeding bits of chicken to her bird, and the plate of raw chicken fell to the marble floor. There couldn’t be this much power in her fortress – she reached out and felt him-

  North of Lissen Carak – Thorn

  Thorn felt her golden brilliance and he paused, licking at it to taste her, amazed at her potency. Delighted, saddened, angered, guilt-ridden-

  Utterly distracted.

  The Memory Palace – The Red Knight

  He lay on the floor, and Prudentia was trying to reach him, her marble hand inches from his own – her hand and the black and white parquetry tiles were the only things he could see in the roiling, choking cloud of green, the green of trees in high summer. He was pinned to the floor – he could see the shape of the cage closing over him, a phantasm so potent that he could only breathe his wonder as it crushed him – it hesitated. He strained, but it was too powerful, even as it seemed to lose its focus, and he pushed against it his mind screaming ‘Fool, fool, fool-’

  The door slammed shut leaving him lying crumpled in the corner of his armoured balcony.

  The old Magus stood over him, his staff still glowing, and wisps of fae-fire played along its length. ‘Well, well,’ the old man said. ‘That would be your mother in you, I suspect.’

  The captain tried to get to his feet and found himself boneless and almost unable to move his arms. ‘You have the advantage of me,’ he said softly.

  The old Magus offered him a hand. ‘So I do. I am Harmodius, Royal Magus, and you are Lord Gabriel Moderatus Murien – Anna’s son.’ He smiled grimly. ‘The Viscount Murien. Don’t try and deny it, you little imp. Your mother thinks you’re dead, but I knew who you were the moment I saw you.’ He got the captain to his feet, and led him across the room to a chair.

  Jacques came in with a cocked and loaded arbalest. It was smoothly done – Harmodius had no chance to react.

  ‘Say the word, my lord, and he’s dead,’ Jacques said.

  ‘You heard,’ the captain said. He felt as if he had the worst hangover of his life.

  ‘I heard,’ Jacques said. The bolt-head on the trough of the crossbow didn’t waver.

  The captain took in a shaky breath. ‘Why shouldn’t I have you killed?’ he asked the Magus.

  ‘Is your petty secret worth the lives of everyone in the castle?’ the Magus asked. ‘None of you will live through this without me. Even with me the odds are long. In the name of the Trinity, boy, you just felt his power.’

  The captain wished he could think. The Magus’ use of his name – Gabriel – had hit him as hard as the green cage had. He didn’t even allow himself to think the name Gabriel. ‘I have killed, and allowed men to die, to protect my secret,’ he said.

  ‘Time to stop doing that, then,’ said the Magus.

  Jacques didn’t move, and his voice was calm. ‘Why don’t you
just shut up about it?’ He shrugged, but the shrug never reached the crossbow bolt’s tip. ‘You being the mighty King’s Magus, and all. You stop talking about some dead boy’s name, and we can all go on together?’

  ‘Three in a secret,’ the captain muttered.

  The Magus pursed his lips. ‘I’ll give my word not to disclose what I know – if you give me yours to talk to me about it. When and if this is over.’

  The captain felt as if the floor had dropped from under his feet, and all he wanted to do was jump into the hole and hide. ‘Fine,’ he said. He remembered that Gawin Murien was lying in the hospital, almost exactly over his head. Four in a secret, and one my enemy, he thought. My lovely brother.

  ‘I so swear, by my power,’ the Magus said.

  The captain forced himself to raise his head. ‘At ease, Jacques,’ he said. ‘He’s just sworn an oath that binds – if he breaks it, his own power will be crippled.’ He turned back to the Magus. ‘You saved my life,’ he said.

  ‘Ah – some shred of courtesy survives in you. Yes, boy, I saved you from a grisly death – he wanted your power for his own.’ The horrible old man grinned. ‘He was going to eat your soul.’

  The captain nodded. ‘I feel as if he did. Or perhaps he didn’t like the taste?’ he tried to grin and gave it up. ‘A cup of water, Jacques.’

  Jacques backed up a step, took the bolt from the action and used the goat’s foot at his belt to slowly unlever the string. ‘Loons,’ he muttered, as he left the room.

  When he was gone, the Magus leaned forward. ‘How powerful are you, boy? Your mother never said a word.’

  The captain’s heart beat faster at the word mother, and flashed on his beautiful mother, drunk and violent and hitting him-

  ‘Don’t mention my mother again.’ He sounded childish, even to himself.

  Harmodius hooked a stool over with his staff and sat. ‘All right, boy, sod your mother. She was never any friend of mine. How powerful are you?’

  The captain sat back, trying to recover his – his sense of himself. His poise. His captainness.

  ‘I have a good deal of raw power, and I had a good tutor until-’ He paused.

  ‘Until you ran away and faked your death,’ the Magus concluded. ‘Which of course you did with a phantasm. Of course you did.’ He shook his head.

  ‘I didn’t mean to fake it,’ the captain said.

  The Magus smiled. ‘I was young and angry and hurt once, too, lad,’ he said. ‘Despite appearances. Never mind – cold comfort. I glimpsed your memory palace – magnificent. The entity within it – who is she?’

  ‘My tutor,’ the captain said.

  There was a long pause. Harmodius cleared his throat. ‘You- ?’

  The captain shrugged. ‘No I didn’t kill her. She was dying – my mother and my brothers, they . . . never mind. I saved what I could.’

  The Magus narrowed his eyes. ‘That’s a human woman bound to a statue in a memory palace?’ he asked. ‘Inside your head.’

  The captain sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Heresy, thaumaturgy, necromancy, gross impiety, and perhaps kidnapping too,’ Harmodius said. ‘I don’t know whether to arrest you or ask how you did it.’

  ‘She helped me. She still does,’ the captain said.

  ‘How many of the hundred workings do you know?’ the Magus asked.

  ‘The hundred workings, of which there are at least a hundred and forty-four, and perhaps as many as four hundred?’ the captain asked.

  Jacques came in with a tray – apple cider, water, wine.

  ‘No one comes in,’ the captain said.

  Jacques made a face that suggested that he was no fool – but perhaps his master was – and left.

  The Magus fingered his beard. ‘Hmmm,’ he said noncommittally.

  ‘I can work more than a hundred and fifty of them,’ the captain said. He shrugged.

  ‘It was a splendid memory machine,’ the Magus replied. ‘Why – if I may ask – aren’t you the shining light of Hermeticism?’

  The captain picked up his cup of water and drained it. ‘It is not what I want.’

  The Magus shocked him by nodding.

  The captain leaned forward. ‘That’s it? You nod?’

  The Magus spread his hands. ‘I’m keep saying I’m no fool, lad. So your mother trained you all your life to be a magus, I’ll guess. Brilliant tutor, special powers. It all but drips off you – you know that?’

  The captain laughed. It was a laugh full of anger, self-pity, brutal pain. A very young, horrible laugh he’d hoped he’d left behind him. ‘She-’ He paused. ‘Fuck it, I’m not in a revealing mood, old man.’

  The old Magus sat still. Then he took the wine flagon, poured a cup, and drank it off. ‘The thing is,’ he began carefully, ‘the thing is, you are like a vault full of grain, or armour, or naphtha – waiting to be used in the defence of this fortress, and I’m not sure I can let you stay locked.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve discovered something. Something so very important that I’m afraid I’m not very interested in what men call morality right now. So I’m sorry for the hurt your bitch mother caused you – but your wallowing in self-pity is not going to save lives, especially mine.’

  Their eyes locked.

  ‘A vault full of naphtha,’ the captain said, dreamily. ‘I have a vault full of naphtha.’

  ‘She taught you well, this tutor of yours,’ Harmodius said. ‘Now listen, Captain. The mind that opposes us is not some boglin chief from the hills – nor even an adversarius, nor even a draconis singularis. This is the shell of a man who was the greatest of our order, who has given himself to the Wild for power and mastery and as a result is, quite frankly, godlike. I don’t know why he wants this place – or rather, I can guess at some surface reasons, but I can’t guess what he really wants. Do you understand me, boy?’

  The captain nodded. ‘I have a thought or two in my head, thanks. I have to help you, if we’re going to make it.’

  ‘Even in the moment of his treason, he was too smart for me,’ Harmodius said, ‘although, for my sins, I’ve only had to face my own failure in the last week.’ He shrugged and sat back. He seemed suddenly smaller.

  The captain downed the soft cider in four long gulps.

  ‘I’d like to survive this, too,’ he said. He sighed. ‘I’m not against the use of power. I use it.’

  Harmodius looked up. ‘Can you channel?’ he asked.

  The captain frowned. ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘But I’ve never done it. And besides, my strength is poor. Prudentia taught that we grow in strength by the ceaseless exertion of muscle, and that the exercise of power is no different.’

  The Magus nodded. ‘True. Mostly true. You have a unique access to the power of the Wild.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Mother raised me to be the Antichrist,’ said the captain bitterly. ‘What do you expect?’

  Harmodius shrugged. ‘You can wallow or you can grow. I doubt you can do both.’ He leaned forward. ‘So listen. So far, everything he has done is foreplay. He has thousands of fresh-minted boglins; he has all the spectrum of fearsome boogiemen of the northern Wild – trolls, wyverns, daemons; Outwallers; irks. He has the power to cast a cage on you – on you who can tap directly into the Power of the Wild. When he comes against us in full measure he will destroy us utterly.’

  The captain shrugged and drank some wine. ‘Best surrender then,’ he said with a sneer.

  ‘Wake up, boy! This is serious!’ The old man slapped the table.

  They glowered at each other.

  ‘I need your powers to be deployed for us,’ Harmodius said. ‘Can you take instruction?’

  The captain looked away. ‘Yes,’ he muttered. He sat back and was suddenly serious. He raised his eyes. ‘Yes, Harmodius. I will take your instruction and stop rebelling against your obvious authority for no better reason than that you remind me of my not-father.’

  Harmodius shrugged. ‘I don’t drink enough to remind you of your odious not-father,’ he
said.

  ‘You left out the Jacks,’ the captain put in. ‘When you were listing his overwhelming strength. We caught some of them in camp, in our first sortie. Now he’s moved them elsewhere and I’ve lost them.’

  ‘Jacks?’ Harmodius asked. ‘Rebels?’

  ‘Like enough,’ the captain said. ‘More than rebels. Men who want change.’

  ‘You sound sympathetic,’ Harmodius said.

  ‘If I’d been born in a crofter’s hut, I’d be a Jack.’ The captain looked at his armour on its rack as if contemplating the social divide.

  Harmodius shrugged. ‘How very Archaic of you.’ He chuckled.

  ‘Things are worse for the commons than they were in my boyhood,’ the captain asserted.

  Harmodius stroked his beard and poured a cup of wine. ‘Lad, surely you have recognised that things are worse for everyone? Things are falling apart. The Wild is winning – not by great victories, but by simple entropy. We have fewer farms and fewer men. I saw it riding here. Alba is failing. And this fight – this little fight for an obscure castle that holds a river crossing vital to an agricultural fair – is turning into the fight of your generation. The odds are always long for us. We are never wise – when we are rich, we squander our riches fighting each other and building churches. When we are poor, we fight among ourselves for scraps – and always, the Wild is there to take the unploughed fields.’

  ‘I will not fail here,’ the captain said.

  ‘Because if you are victorious here, you will have finally turned your back on the fate that was appointed to you?’ said the Magus.

  ‘Everyone has to strive for something,’ the captain replied.

  Albinkirk – Gaston

  There was no battle at Albinkirk.

  The royal army formed up for battle just south of the town, on the west bank of the great river, with the smaller Cohocton guarding their northern flank. Royal Huntsmen had been killing boglins for two days, and the squires and archers of the army were learning to take their guard duty seriously after something took almost a hundred war horses in the dark of the night. Six squires and a belted knight died in the dark, facing something fast and well armoured – bigger than a pony, faster than a cat. They drove it off eventually.