The Red Knight (15 page)

The captain mimed a shudder. ‘No. I need four sober soldiers – preferably men-at-arms.’

Jehannes shook his head again.

The captain felt the warmth go from his heart to his cheeks. ‘If they are drunk on guard, I’ll have their heads,’ he growled.

Jehannes stood up. ‘Best you don’t go check, then.’

The captain met his eye. ‘Really? That bad?’ he said it mildly enough, but his anger came through.

‘You don’t want them to think you don’t give a shit, do you,
Captain
?’ Jehannes had no trouble holding his eye, although the marshal’s were bloodshot and
red. ‘This is not the moment to play at discipline, eh?’

The captain sat on an offered stool. ‘If something comes out of the Wild right now, we’re all dead.’

Jehannes shrugged. ‘So?’ he asked.

‘We’re better than this,’ the captain said.

‘Like fuck we are,’ Jehannes said, and took a deep drink. ‘What are you playing at?
Ser
?’ He laughed grimly. ‘You’ve taken a company of broken men and
made something of them – and now you want them to act like the Legion of Angels?’

The captain sighed. ‘I’d settle for the Infernal Legion. I’m not particular.’ He got to his feet. ‘But I will have discipline.’

Jehannes made a rude noise. ‘Have some discipline tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask for it today. Show some humanity, lad. Let them be sad. Let them fucking
mourn.
’

‘We mourned yesterday. We went to church, for god’s sake. Murderers and rapists, crying for Jesus. If I hadn’t seen it, I’d have laughed to hear about it.’ Just for
a moment, the captain looked very young indeed – and confused, annoyed. ‘We’re in a battle. We can’t take a break to mourn.’

Jehannes drank more wine. ‘Can you fight every day?’ he asked.

The captain considered. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You ought to be locked up, then. We can’t. Give it a rest,
Captain.
’

The captain got to his feet. ‘You are now the constable. I’ll need another marshal to replace Hugo. Shall I promote Milus?’

Jehannes narrowed his eyes. ‘Ask me that tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If you ask me again today, I swear by Saint Maurice I’ll beat you to a fucking pulp. Is that clear
enough?’

The captain turned on his heel and walked away, before he did something he’d regret. He went to Jacques – as he always did, when he’d reached bottom.

But his old valet – the last of his family retainers – was drunk. Even the boy Toby was curled up on the floor of the captain’s pavilion, with a piece of rug pulled over him
and a leg of chicken in one hand.

He looked at them for a long time, thought about having a tempertantrum, and decided that no one was sober enough to bother. He tried to arm himself and found that he couldn’t get beyond
his chain hauberk. He put a padded cote over it, and took his gauntlets.

Gelfred had the horses.

And that is how the captain came to be riding with his huntsman, alone, on the road that ran along the river, sore back, pulled neck muscles, and all.

North of Harndon – Ranald Lachlan

Ranald was up with the dawn. The old man was gone, but had left him a deer’s liver fried in winter onions – a veritable feast. He said a prayer for the old man and
another when he found the man had thrown a blanket over his riding horse. He cleared the camp and had mounted up before the sun was above the eastern mountains.

It was a ride he’d done with the king a hundred times. Following the highway north along the Albin, except that where the great river wound like an endless snake, the highway ran as
straight as the terrain would allow, deviating only for big hills and rich manors, and crossing the Albin seven times via the seven great stone bridges between Harndon and Albinkirk. Lorica was the
first bridge. Cheylas was the second – a pretty town with red-tile roofs and round chimney-stacks and fine brick houses. He ate a big meal at the sign of the Irk’s Head, and was out the
door before the ale could tempt him to stay the night. He changed to his big hackney and rode north again, crossing Cheylas Bridge while the sun was high in the sky and making for Third Bridge as
fast as his horse would go.

He crossed Third Bridge as darkness was falling. The Bridge Keeper didn’t take guests – a matter of law – but directed him politely to a manor farm on the west bank.
‘Less than a league,’ the retired soldier said.

Ranald was pleased to find the man’s directions were spot on, because the night was dark and cold, for spring. In the North, the Aurora played in the sky, and there was a feel to it that
Ranald didn’t like.

Bampton Manor was rich beyond a hillman’s ideas of rich – but Ranald was used to how rich the southland was. They gave him a bed and a slice of game pie, and a cup of good red wine,
and in the morning, the gentleman who owned the farms smiled at his offer of repayment.

‘You are a King’s Guardsman?’ the young man asked. ‘I am – I would like to be a man-at-arms. I have my own harness.’ He blushed.

Ranald didn’t laugh. ‘You’d like to serve the king?’ he asked.

The young man nodded. ‘Hawthor Veney,’ he said holding out his hand.

His housekeeper bustled up with a bag. ‘Which I packed you a lunch,’ she said. ‘Good for a ploughman, good for a knight, I says.’

Ranald bowed to her. ‘Your servant, ma’am. I’m no knight – just a servant of the king, going home to see my family.’

‘Hillman?’ she said, and sniffed. It was a good sniff – it suggested that hillmen themselves were not always good people, but that she’d already decided in his favour on
the matter.

He bowed again. To young Hawthor, he said, ‘Do you
practise
arms, messire?’

Hawthor beamed, and the older housekeeper cackled. ‘It’s all he does. Doesn’t plough, doesn’t reap, won’t even attend the haying. Doesn’t chase servant girls,
doesn’t drink.’ She shook her head.

‘Goodwife Evans!’ Hawthor said with the annoyance of a master for an unservile servant.

She sniffed again – another sniff entirely.

Ranald nodded. ‘Would you care to measure your sword against mine, young ser?’

In a matter of minutes they were armed and padded in jupons and gauntlets and helmets, standing in the farmhouse yard with a dozen labourers for an audience.

Ranald liked to fight with an axe, but service in the King’s Guard required knowledge of the courtly sword. Four feet of steel. The boy – Ranald didn’t think of himself as old,
but found that Hawthor made him feel old with every comment he made – had a pair of training weapons, not too well balanced, probably made by a local man, a little heavy. But they were
perfectly serviceable.

Ranald waited patiently in a garde. Mostly, he was interested in seeing how the boy came at him – a man’s character was visible in his swordsmanship.

The boy stood his ground. He put his sword on his shoulder, and came forward in a position that fencing masters called ‘The Garde of the Woman’. His stance was too open and he
didn’t seem to understand that he needed to cock the sword back as far as he could.
The sort of little error you would spot up when arms are your profession,
thought Ranald. But he
liked how patient the boy was.

The boy closed with assurance, and launched his attack without a false preamble – no bobbing or weaving or wasting effort.

Ranald cut into the boy’s attack and knocked his blade to the ground.

The boy didn’t wait for the whole move, but back-stepped.

Ranald’s sword licked out and caught him in the side of the head despite his retreat.

‘Oh!’ Hawthor said. ‘Well struck.’

The rest was much the same. Hawthor was a competent lad, for a young man without a master-at-arms to teach him. He knew lots of wrestling and very few subtleties, but he was bold and careful, a
superb combination for a man so young.

Ranald paused to get out of his heavy jupon and to write the boy a note. ‘Take this to Lord Glendower with my compliments. You may be asked to serve a year with the pages. Where are your
parents?’

Hawthor shrugged. ‘Dead, messire.’

‘Well, if the goodwife can spare you,’ he said. And he was still smiling as he headed for the Fourth Bridge, at Kingstown.

North of Harndon – Harold Redmede

Harold Redmede looked down at the sleeping hillman with a smile. He packed his gear silently, left the hillman the better part of a venison liver, picked up his brother’s
gear as well, and humped it all to the stream.

He found his brother asleep under a hollow log with his threadbare cloak all about him. Sat and whittled, listening to the Wild, until his brother woke on his own.

‘He was harmless,’ Harold said.

‘He was a king’s man, and thus a threat to every free man,’ said Bill.

Harold shrugged. ‘I’ve been a king’s man,’ he said. It was an old argument, and not one likely to be resolved. ‘Here, have some venison and the cider I saved for
you. I brought you fish hooks, twenty good heads for arrows and sixty shafts. Don’t shoot any of my friends.’

‘An aristo is an aristo,’ Bill said.

Harold shook his head. ‘Bollocks to you, Bill Redmede,’ he said. ‘There’s right bastards in the nobles and right bastards in the commons, too.’

‘Difference is that a right bastard commoner, you can break his head with your staff.’ Bill took a piece of his brother’s bread as it was sliced off with a sharp knife.

‘Cheese?’ Harold asked.

‘Only cheese I’ll see this year.’ Bill sat back against a tree trunk. ‘I’ve a mind to go put a knife in your guest.’

Harold shook his head. ‘No you won’t. First, I drank with him, and that’s that. Second, he’s wearing mail and sleeping with a dirk in his fist, and I don’t think
you’re going to off a hillman in his sleep, brother o’ mine.’

‘Fair enough. Sometimes I have to remember that we must be fair in our actions, while the enemy is foul.’

‘I could still find you a place here,’ Harold said.

Bill shook his head. ‘I know you mean well, brother. But I am what I am. I’m a Jack. I’m down here recruiting new blood. It’s going to be a big year for us.’ He
winked. ‘I’ll say no more. But the day is coming.’

‘You and your day,’ Harold muttered. ‘Listen,
William.
You think I don’t know you have five young boys hid in the beeches north of here? I even know whose boys
they are. Recruits? They’re fifteen or sixteen winters! And you have an
irk
for a guide.’

Bill shrugged. ‘Needs must when the de’il drives,’ he said.

Harold sat back. ‘I know irks is folks,’ he said, waving a hand. ‘I’ve met ’em in the woods. Listened to ’em play their harps. Traded to ’em.’ He
leaned forward. ‘But I’m a forester. They kill other folks. Bill. If you’re on their side you’re with the Wild, not with men.’

‘If the Wild makes me free, mayhap I’m with the Wild.’ Bill ate more bread. ‘We have allies again, Harold. Come with me. We can change the world.’ He grimaced to
himself. ‘I’d love to have a good man at my back, brother. We’ve some right hard cases, I’ll admit to you.’ He leaned forward. ‘One’s a priest, and
he’s the worst of the lot. You think I’m hard?’

Harold laughed. ‘I’m too fucking old, brother. I’m fifteen winters older than you. And if it comes to that—’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll be with my
lord.’

Bill shook his head. ‘How can you be so blind? They oppress us! They take our land, take our animals, grind us—’

‘Save it for the boys, Bill. I have six foot of yew and a true shaft for any as tried to grind me. But that won’t make me betray my lord. Who, I may add, fed this village himself
when other villages starved.’

‘Farmers are often good to their cattle, aye,’ Bill said.

They looked at each other. And then both grinned at the same time.

‘That’s it for this year, then?’ Harold asked.

Bill laughed. ‘That’s it. Here, give me your hand. I’m off with my little boys for the greenwood and the Wild. Mayhap you’ll hear of us.’ He got up, and his long
cloak shone for a moment, a dirty white.

Harold embraced him. ‘I saw bear prints by the river; a big female and a cub.’ He shrugged. ‘Rare down here. Watch out for her.’

Bill looked thoughtful.

‘Stay safe, you fool,’ he said, and swatted him. ‘Don’t end up eaten by irks and bears.’

‘Next year,’ Bill said, and was gone.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

Gelfred led them west along the river for miles, on a road that became increasingly narrow and ill-defined, until they had passed the point where they fought the wyvern and the
road disappeared entirely. There were no longer any fields; the last peasant’s cot was miles behind them, and the captain could not even smell smoke on the cool spring breeze, which instead
carried an icy hint of old snow. The Abbess had not been exaggerating. Man had lost this land to the Wild.

From time to time Gelfred dismounted in patches of sunlight and drew his short, silver-tipped wand from his belt. He would take his rosary from his belt and say his beads, one prayer at a time,
eyes flicking nervously to his captain, who sat impassively on his horse. Each time, he would lay the shrivelled, thorned stick of Witch Bane on the ground at his feet, and each time it pointed,
straining like a dog on a leash.

Each time, they rode on.

‘You use the power of grammerie to track the beasts?’ the captain said, breaking the frosty silence. They were riding single file along a well-defined track, the old leaves deeply
trodden. It was easy enough to follow, but the road was gone. And by almost any measure, they were in the Wild.

‘With God’s aid,’ Gelfred said, and looked at him, waiting for the retort. ‘But my grammerie found us the wrong beast. So now I’m looking for the man. Or
men.’

The captain made a face, but refused to rise to the comment about God. ‘Do you sense their power directly?’ he asked. ‘Or are you following the same spore a dog would
follow?’

Gelfred gave his captain a long look. ‘I’d like your permission to buy some dogs,’ he said. ‘Good dogs. Alhaunts and bloodhounds and a courser or two. I’m your
Master of the Hunt. If that is true then I would like to have money, dogs, and some servants who are not scouts and soldiers.’ He spoke quietly, and his eyes didn’t rest on the captain.
They were always roaming the Wild.