‘Put a garrison into it, for a while. I don’t quit easily – I’ll offer a sizeable benefit and a total remission of tithes to any family who will stay here and rebuild. And I, too, will recruit – there must be younger sons south of the river looking for farms. I’ll find them.’
‘That will cost a fortune,’ the captain said.
‘I have a fortune,’ said the Prior. He leaned forward. ‘You have power.’
The captain shrugged.
The Prior shook his head. ‘Your power comes from the Wild. I’ve seen it.’
Again, the captain shrugged.
The Prior nodded. ‘Very well. But if you ever choose to talk about it there are many knights of the order who channel the Wild. We know more about it than you might think.’
The captain finished his wine, rose, accepted the Prior’s embrace and even stayed still while the man blessed him.
‘Will you not tell me why you turn your back on God?’ the Prior asked.
The captain looked at him, smiled and shook his head. ‘When you offered to make me a knight of the order, just now-’ he said.
‘The offer remains open,’ said the Prior.
‘-I’ll treasure that,’ he finished.
‘Your brother turned me down, as well,’ the Prior said.
The captain nodded. ‘Gawin is riding east with me,’ he said.
He walked out of the Commandery, and down the stone steps. A valet in de Vrailly’s arms stood by the steps up to the Hall, holding a beautiful destrier – tall and grey as steel. The captain didn’t feel the slightest need to take leave of the king. Or the Queen. Or, for that matter, their new favourite the Captal de Ruth, already known as the Victor of Lissen.
Instead, he walked to the hospital, up the steps, and to Master Random’s bedside. A trio of local farmers stood by his bed, with Master Johne the Bailli.
‘A moment, good sirs!’ cried Master Random. ‘This worthy knight must always have first call on my time. Damn my foot,’ he said, trying to twist in the bed. ‘How can it hurt so much when it isn’t there?’
The captain embraced the merchant. ‘You look better.’
‘I am better, my friend. That wonderful young lady poured her spirit into me, and I feel twenty years younger for it.’ His eyes sparkled. ‘Though if I was home, I daresay the goodwife might tell you that the deal just struck with these worthies was part to my joy. Eh?’
The captain looked around. Master Johne had acquitted himself very well against the enemy, every farmer present had carried a spear or an axe. The captain knew them by name – Raimond, Jaques, Ben Carter and young Bartholemew Lanthorn, a rogue, a scoundrel, and despite that, a very successful farmer.
‘He’s bought the whole grain crop,’ Johne the Bailli said. He smiled.
The captain glanced around. ‘Of course – it’s all in the cellars.’
‘A little messed about,’ Random noted. ‘But grain’s grain, and the need downriver – the price, when they hear of the battle and the burning of farms!’
‘How will you ship it?’ the captain asked, to be polite.
‘Boats!’ Random said. ‘All those boats which brought the Queen? Mine.’
The captain shook his head. ‘A coup, my friend. You will be rich.’
‘I’ll break even or a little better,’ Master Random said with a smile. ‘Drink with me,’ he said.
The captain nodded. ‘May I broach a small item of business, myself?’ he asked.
Random nodded. ‘Always open.’
The captain took the Prior’s note from the breast of his jupon. ‘You are a bank, are you not?’
Random sniffed. ‘Not of the size of the Etruscan banks, perhaps. But I do my – Gracious God!’ he said. His eyes snapped to the captain’s.
‘I’m investing in you,’ the captain said. ‘I may have to make some pay outs, and buy some horses, but three-quarters of this sum is at your service for at least a year.’
The captain had a cup of wine, embraced all concerned, and met the Bailli’s eye. The man nodded.
He went back through the ward, to the bed where his brother lay reading. He had his feet up, but he was fully dressed and his kit was neatly packed in wicker hampers. ‘She’s not here,’ he said. ‘Don’t even pretend you are here to see me.’
‘I won’t, then,’ the captain said. ‘Where is she?’
Gawin shrugged. ‘I need out of here, Gabriel. I’ll kill the foreigner if I stay.’
‘I’ll have another cot put in my pavilion. We ride tomorrow.’ He turned to go. ‘Where is she, Gawin?’
Gawin met his brother’s eye. ‘I’d tell you if I knew,’ he said.
Their eyes locked, and Gawin motioned with a finger. A woman’s form was outlined in the curtain of the courtyard window.
The captain raised an eyebrow.
‘He’s not the enemy, Mary,’ Gawin said, and the Queen’s Lady in Waiting emerged. She was blushing.
‘You have other things to take up your time,’ the captain said.
Gawin laughed. ‘I really don’t know where she is,’ he admitted.
The captain turned with a wave, and headed out. He peeked into the dispensary and the apothecary, and he climbed the steps in the dormitory. No one had seen her. The smiles he left in his wake pained him.
Finally, in the courtyard, he met Sister Miram. She smiled at him, and took him by the hand to her cell in the chapel. ‘You are going,’ she said, pouring him wine.
He tried to refuse the wine but she was a forceful woman, and a pleasant one, and her silence intimidated him. She waited him out. Finally, he drank it. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘We will celebrate the feast of Mary Magdalene tomorrow,’ she said. She smiled. ‘We will inter the old Abbess.’ Sister Miram looked at her hands. ‘I will be ordained Abbess in her place.’
‘Congratulations,’ the captain said.
‘There is talk that the whole convent is to be moved south to Harndon,’ Sister Miram said. She looked the captain firmly in the eye. ‘I won’t have it.’
The captain nodded.
‘We will also accept the vows of novices advancing to the sisterhood of Christ tomorrow,’ she said.
Ice formed in the captain’s stomach.
‘She is performing her vigil at the moment,’ the sister said. ‘Drink your wine, Captain. No one is forcing her to.’
The captain took a breath.
‘We owe you so much,’ Sister Miram said. ‘Do you think we do not know it? But she is not for you, Captain. She is to be the bride of Christ; it’s what she wishes.’ She rose, went to her prie-dieu, and opened the triptych. From it she drew a folded piece of parchment. ‘She left this for you. If you should come.’
The captain took it with a bow. ‘Your servant, ma soeur. May I express my congratulations on your elevation, and my-’ He stopped. Swallowed. ‘I will make a donation to the convent. Please give Sister Amicia my congratulations and my kindest regards.’
Somehow, he reached the courtyard.
Toby was holding his horse.
The captain took the reins, and vaulted into the saddle, aware, in that cursed part of him that was always awake, that he was on the stage of chivalry, and that half of the knights of Alba were watching him.
Then he rode down the hill to his camp. He paused at the guard fire.
Don’t be a fool. Read it.
The Red Knight took the parchment from his breast, and threw it in the fire unread.
You idiot.
Michael was sitting in his tent. He leaped to his feet, obviously guilty about something. ‘Master Ranald is waiting for you,’ he said. ‘I was entertaining him!’
Ranald Lachlan sat with a mug of beer, and his cousin Tom sat across the captain’s camp table with another. They had dice on the table, and cards.
‘It’d be a pity to stop him playing,’ Tom said. ‘Especially as I’m taking all his money,’ he added.
‘I’m so pleased you two feel free to make use of my tent and table,’ the captai
n spat.
Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘Brother’s got something to say,’ he said.
Ranald rose. ‘I – need to make a great deal of money,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you’ll have me as a man-at-arms.’ He looked embarrassed to ask.
‘I’d have thought the king would’ve knighted you,’ the captain said.
Ranald shrugged.
‘All right,’ said the captain, sitting and pouring wine for himself. ‘Now deal me a hand.’
‘But first,’ Ranald said, ‘I have to pay a visit to the Wyrm of Erch.’
The captain gagged on his wine. ‘The Wyrm?’
‘Our liege lord in the hills, or so we call him,’ Ranald said, and Tom nodded.
The captain shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’ He frowned. ‘Possibly because I’m drunk.’
Tom shrugged. ‘The ways of the hills are easier on a man with drink in him. Tis like this, my lord: the Wyrm guarantees us peace for a tithe of the flocks. Tis been that way for twenty generations of men or more. These Outwallers that killed Hector – the Sossag – they were serving a Power of the Wild called Thorn. Aye?’
‘Naming calls. But yes.’ The captain drank.
‘So I call him and he comes and I gut him,’ said Tom. ‘So?’
‘Excellent point,’ the captain said. ‘Go on.’
‘The Wyrm owes us for our loss,’ Ranald said.
The captain sat back. ‘I’m not drunk enough to believe that,’ he said.
Tom and Ranald sat with set faces.
The captain finished his cup. Michael poured him more, and he didn’t say no. And then he said, ‘She’s taking orders as a nun, Tom.’
Tom shrugged as if all women were one and the same. ‘Best find another one then,’ he said. And then, as if the collapse of the captain’s hopes was not the most important thing in the world, he said, ‘So we want leave to go to the Wyrm.’
The captain shook his head. ‘I have a better idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s all go.’
Ranald looked at him and raised an eyebrow at his brother.
‘I love him,’ Tom said to his brother. ‘He’s mad as an adder.’
Ranald smiled. ‘So we all go? The company?’
Yes. This is important.
The captain suddenly had a piercing pain between his eyes.
Be quiet. You’re a guest.
You are getting drunk because you’ve been spurned by a woman. How romantic of you. Of course, that note might have confessed her undying love for you and her willingness to elope tonight to face the future as a mercenary captain’s whore. Hmm? But you burned it, so you’ll never know. Youth is wasted on the young.
Shut up. Fuck off.
Listen, young man. The Prior is right – humanity is losing. But he is also wrong – as I will endeavour to prove. The world is not as I thought it was, and your going to see the Wyrm is the very best idea I have ever heard. You must go to the Wyrm. The stakes of this game are immense. The consequences of failure are extermination – the death of our race. Your dalliance with some novice – albeit one imbued with power of the very highest order – is not quite in the same league.
The captain put his head in his hands.
Tom grinned at him. ‘You’re drunk, my lord.’
The captain looked around for Jacques, but of course he was dead. The last piece of his old life – the last man to connect him with-
I’m conveniently dead, too. Prince Gabriel.
The captain took a deep breath. ‘I have a headache,’ he said. ‘I find it unfair that I have the hangover before I’m done with the drunk.’
Michael leaned forward and poured more wine.
Ser Jehannes came in with Ser Milus, both of them drunk too. They were singing ‘Green Grow the Rushes’ with their arms around Sauce, who seemed to be carrying them.
Three, three, the lily white boys, clothed all in green, oh,
Two, two the rivals.
And one is one and all alone, and ever more shall be, oh.
Their attempt at harmony was almost as horrible as a charge of boglins.
Tom started to laugh.
Jehannes poured a cup of wine, sat on a stool, and raised his cup. ‘Absent friends,’ he said.
Tom’s laughter stopped. He rose to his feet, and so did the rest. ‘Victory and defeat are for amateurs,’ Tom said. ‘For us, there is only life and death.’
They all raised their cups, and drank. ‘Absent friends,’ they chanted, one by one.
The captain put his cup down on the table carefully, because it seemed to be a long way away and it moved slightly, and he leaned on the table to make sure he could stay on his feet. ‘They will bury the old Abbess tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’d like every man and woman at that service in their best kit. But with the camp struck first, ready to march.’
His corporals nodded.
‘The Prior paid me today,’ he said. ‘With a success bonus and a tallage for the horses we lost. A pretty sum. I invested it. But none of you needs to fight for a living. Your shares will be a hundred gold nobles or more. Enough to buy a knight’s fee.’
Jehannes shrugged.
Tom sneered.
Sauce looked away.
Michael laughed.
Ranald smiled. ‘Wish it was mine,’ he said.
‘It will be,’ the captain said. ‘We have a new contract, and I mean to wrap it up quickly.’ He felt a little better. ‘Sauce, come here.’
She was dressed in old hose and a well-cut man’s doublet – something of a brag, since it flattered her figure as much as any kirtle. She leered at him. ‘Any time, Captain,’ she said, with a spark of her old sauce.
‘Kneel,’ the captain said. He held out his hand to Michael.
Michael handed him his war sword.
Sauce paused and knelt. On the edge of a double entendre, she stopped.
Tom nodded. ‘Do it.’
The captain raised his sword. ‘By the virtue of knighthood and my birth, I dub thee knight,’ he said. He didn’t slur the words. His sword pressed down hard on each of her shoulders.
She burst into tears.
Tom smacked her, quite hard, on the shoulder. ‘Let that be the last blow you ever accept without reprisal,’ he said. He grinned.
‘Michael, kneel,’ the captain said.
Michael knelt.
‘By the virtue of knighthood and my birth, I dub thee knight,’ the captain said.
Michael accepted the slap from Tom, rocked back on his heels, and smiled.
The captain took his wine cup. ‘I meant to do it on the battlefield,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘We were busy.’
Michael stood up. ‘I’m a knight?’ he laughed. ‘A man-at-arms and not a squire?’ He laughed again.
‘I’ll need a new squire,’ the captain said.
Sauce was still crying. ‘Is it real?’ she asked.
Tom put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Of course it is, lass. He wouldn’t mock you with such.’
The captain sat back down. ‘We need twenty new men-at-arms. We need as many squires and a dozen valets and some archers.’ He shrugged. ‘My brother Gawin is one. Johne the Bailli is another. Both have their own harness, and they’ll ride away with us. Ser Alcaeus himself, despite negotiating our contract, will be joining us. Any other prospects?’
Jehannes nodded. ‘I have half a dozen younger sons ready to sign articles – all with harness and horses.’
Ranald shrugged. ‘All my lads, too,’ he said. ‘We have no other means of employment, at least for the balance of the year.’
Tom leaned forward. ‘Daniel Favor. Likeliest man-at-arms I’ve ever seen. He signed with me. And two of the Lanthorn boys – dangerous boys. Murderous.’ He grinned. ‘Archers.’
Jehannes nodded. ‘I made out a watchbill,’ he said. ‘If we go to one man-at-arms, one squire, one valet and two archers to a lance, we have a company.’ He looked at the captain. ‘Gelfred should start arming as a man-at-arms too.’
The captain nodded. ‘We
could use twenty more lances,’ he said. ‘I wrote a contract for forty, and we only have what – twenty?’ He sat up, decided that was a mistake, and shuffled to his feet. ‘Tomorrow night we’ll be on the road. Less wine.’ He raised his cup. ‘To the company,’ he said.
They all drank.
‘Now, since it’s my tent I’m going to bed,’ he said. And motioned to the door.
One by one they ducked under the awning and left, until it was Michael and Sauce – each seeming to want the other gone first. Finally Michael spoke.
‘Can I help you, my lord? I’m not above myself yet.’ He laughed.
‘I’m guessing you already have a nice pair of solid gold spurs to go on those heels, and you’ll have them on your boots in the morning,’ the captain said, slapping his shoulder. ‘Just send me young Toby.’
Michael smiled. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I-’
The captain waved his thanks away, and Michael bowed low.
That left Sauce.
‘Good night, Sauce,’ the captain said. He avoided her embrace. ‘Good night.’
She stood with her hands on her hips. ‘You need me.’
He shook his head.
‘I won’t go all soppy on you, Captain.’ She shrugged and then smiled engagingly.
‘Good night, Sauce.’
She grunted.
‘I just made you a knight,’ he said. ‘Don’t play the woman scorned part.’ Even drunk he could see his refusal hurt her. He raised a heavy hand. ‘Wait,’ he said, and stumbled through the curtain to his bed, reached into his trousseau and found his other spurs. The solid gold ones his mother had given him, which he never wore.
He came back out. ‘Take these.’
She reached out and took them. Realised they were solid gold. ‘Oh, my lord-’
‘Out!’ he said.
She sighed, and walked out of the tent, swaying her hips to brush by Toby, who came in, and silently relieved him of his clothes and accoutrements.
‘How old are you, Toby?’ he asked.
‘Rising twelve, my lord. Or perhaps thirteen?’ he said.
The captain lay his body down on clean linen sheets. ‘Would you care to be a squire, Toby?’ he asked.
He survived the protestations of joy and eternal loyalty, and waved the boy away. When he put his head down, though, the tent spun. So he put a foot on the ground. Gave sleep up as a bad job, sat up, and drank some water.
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