The Red Knight (42 page)

Archangel’s boglin popped like a ripe melon, its chest and neck caving in with a dull thud and a fine spray of ichor. Gawin’s screeched as the cold iron pierced its hide – iron
was poison to its kind, and it screamed its hate as its tiny soul rose from its corpse like a minute thundercloud that dissipated on the first whiff of breeze.

All at once they were away, the big horse galloping easily over the wildflowers. Gawin had trouble breathing. His visor seemed to cut all the air from his lungs and his chest was tight.

As he rode, he could see there were other knots of the things – perhaps four or five groups of them spread across the flowers like shit stains on a pretty dress, and suddenly he was filled
with a fey energy, a will to do a great deed and die in the accomplishment.

I am a knight
, he thought fiercely.

Gawin sat up in the saddle, holding his long, sharp sword with new purpose, and he turned Archangel and raised it at the boglins. Something dead within him rekindled as the sun lit the blade
like a torch.

He felt the touch of something divine, and he saluted as if riding in a tournament.

‘Blessed Saint George,’ he prayed, ‘let me die as I wish I had lived.’

He put his spurs to Archangel – gently, a nudge rather than a rake – and the great horse thundered forward.

The boglins scattered. Javelins flew past and then he was among them, through them, using his knees to turn Archangel in a long curve toward the next clump, who were already running for the
trees.

Gawin had no plans to survive so he thundered after them, slaying any that stood or were merely too slow to escape, leaning far out from the saddle—

Something called from inside the wood – a wail that froze his blood.

It was out of the woods and at him in heartbeats.

Archangel was ready, pivoted his whole great bulk as Gawin’s weight shifted so that the war horse moved like his own feet in a fight, and the huge enemy – scent of burned hair and
soap and old ashes – shot past. One taloned arm stretched out like an angry cat’s paw, reaching for Archangel’s neck, but the war horse was fast, and some steel-shod forefoot
smashed the taloned hand with lethal precision.

The thing screamed, its left talon hanging limply, the bones broken. It rose on its hind feet, raised its right claw, and fire shot from its outstretched talons – a beam of fire that
caught his body where the mail aventail of his helmet hung over his padded jupon. It had no pressure, no impact, and Gawin ducked his head, putting the peak of his helmet into the flame by instinct
rather than training. His left eye flared with pain even as the first cold knife of agony pierced his left shoulder. His body, with no guidance from his mind, cut down blindly with the sword.

His blow was weak and badly directed – the edge of the blade didn’t even bite into the thing’s hide – but the sword’s weight fell on its brow ridge, and it
stumbled.

Archangel shouldered it. Gawin almost lost his seat, his back and rump crashing into the high-backed saddle as his war horse made its own fighting decisions and leaped forward, bearing down the
monster again with weight and momentum, so that the creature’s stumble was more off balance and the horse landed two more blows with its steel-shod forefeet, forcing the creature onto all
fours. It roared with pain as it put weight on the broken limb.

And then the grass was full of boglins thrusting their stone-tipped spears at him, and some of them scoring hits. The deerskin of his padded jupon turned a few and the damp sheep’s wool
stuffing turned others, but at least one punched straight through and into his skin. Unthinking, he touched his spurs to Archangel and the great horse responded with a mighty leap forward, and then
they were running free.

Gawin turned him in a wide circle. He couldn’t see from his left eye, and the pain in his side was so great that he could scarcely feel it – or anything else.

I want that thing,
he thought.
Let them take that head back to Harndon and show it to the king, and I will be content.

He got Archangel around. The horse had at least two wounds – both from javelins. But like his rider he was trained to fight hurt, and went at his prey with all the spirit he could have
asked.

But the monster was running – weight forward, low to the ground, only three legs working, a dozen boglins gathered tight around it in the strong sunlight, as they fled into the trees.

Gawin reined up – surprised at himself. Death lay waiting in those trees. But it was one thing to fight to the death out here under the sun, and another to follow the Wild into the waiting
trees and die alone – and for nothing. He reined up, and looked at the litter of broken boglins, and his view of them suddenly narrowed – he tasted salt in his mouth, and copper,
and—

Lorica – Ser Gaston

Lorica again.

Gaston spat the foreign name as he watched the grey stone walls approach. He flicked a look at his cousin, who was riding serenely at his side.

‘We are going to be arrested,’ Gaston said.

Jean made a face. ‘For what?’ he asked. He laughed, and at the silvery peel of his laughter, other men smiled all down the column. Their contingent was third; first the king’s
household, then the Earl of Towbray’s, and then theirs. They had more knights than the king and the earl together.

‘We killed the two squires. I locked the sheriff in a shed. You burned the inn.’ Gaston winced as he said the last. Ten days in Alba and he was beginning to appreciate just how poor
their behaviour had been.

Jean shrugged. ‘No one of worth was involved except the knight,’ he said. His voice rode the edge of a sneer. ‘And he has chosen not to take exception. He has shown especial
wisdom in this, I think.’

‘Nonetheless, the king will learn exactly what happened in the next hour or so,’ Gaston said.

Jean de Vrailly gave his cousin a sad smile. ‘My friend, you have much to learn of the workings of the world. If we were in the least danger, my angel would have told me. And it seems to
me that our knights make up the best part of this column – bigger, better men in superb armour on fine horses. We can always fight. And if we fight, we will win.’ De Vrailly shrugged
again. ‘You see? Simple.’

Gaston considered taking his own men and riding away.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

The captain rode through the postern gate of the Bridge Castle with no one but Michael, also mailed and armed. They’d ridden out of the upper postern of the fortress with
a minimum of fuss – two men-at-arms on detail. But the captain rode fast and hard down the ridge because the sky was full of crows to the west. He noted there wasn’t a bird to be seen
over the fortress or the castle.

He dismounted in the Bridge Castle courtyard, where big merchant wagons were parked hub-to-hub leaving just room for a sortie to form up. As the captain looked around he realised that all the
wagons were occupied. The merchants were living in them. No wonder Ser Milus said he had room. Over by the main tower, dogs whined and barked – four brace of good hounds. He stopped and let
them smell him. Dogs made him smile with their enthusiastic approval. All dogs liked him.

Cleg, Ser Milus’ valet, came and led him into the main tower, where the garrison had their quarters on the ground floor – plenty of paliasses of new straw, with six local women and
another half-dozen company trulls sitting on the floor and sewing. They were making mattresses – there were twenty ells of striped sacking already measured and cut, as the captain had seen
done in a dozen countries. Clean sacks made good mattresses while dirty linen spread disease – any soldier knew it.

The women rose to their feet and curtsied.

The captain bowed. ‘Don’t let me disturb you, ladies.’

Ser Milus took his hand and a pair of archers – older, steady men, Jack Kaves and Smoke, pushed the merchants away. Three of them were waving scrolls.

‘I protest!’ the taller man called. ‘My dogs—’

‘I’ll take you to law for this!’ called a stout man.

The captain ignored them and went up a set of tight steps to the uppermost floor, where tents had been used to partition the tower into sleeping quarters for officers.

Ser Jehannes nodded curtly to the captain. He nodded back.

‘Ready to move back up the hill?’ the captain said.

Jehannes nodded. ‘Do I owe an apology?’

The captain lowered his voice. ‘I pissed you off, and you sulked about it. I need you. I need you at the fortress, giving orders, kicking arses and taking names.’

Jehannes nodded. ‘I’ll go back up with you.’ He looked over to Gelfred, and indicated the huntsman with a nod. ‘It’s bad.’

‘No one ever summons me for good news.’ The captain was relieved that he hadn’t lost his most senior man forever, and clapped the man on the back hoping it was the right
gesture. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Jehannes paused. ‘I am also sorry,’ he said. ‘I am differently made to you, and I lack your certainty.’ He shrugged. ‘How is Bent doing?’

‘Very well indeed.’ Bent was the archer in Ser Jehannes’ lance – and also the most senior archer in the fortress.

‘I’ll send you Ser Brutus,’ the captain said to Milus, who grinned.

‘You mean you’re trading me the best knight in the company for a kid with an archer he can’t control?’ He laughed. ‘Never mind – Jehannes outranked me and
never did any work anyway.’

The captain thought – not for the first time – how sensitive his mercenaries were. Jehannes had chosen to go to the castle garrison as a mere man-at-arms rather than go to the
fortress with the captain, because he was angry. And everyone knew it, because there was no privacy, in a camp or in a garrison. And now that he and the captain had made it up everyone was very
gentle about it., The teasing would start later. The captain thought it remarkable that such men had so much tact, but they did.

Gelfred was waiting, and from his expression, he was about to explode.

The captain went into his ‘room’ and sat at the low camp table on a leather stool. Gelfred beckoned to the other two officers, and both came in. Jehannes paused in the doorway and
spoke to someone just outside the tent flap wall. ‘Clear this floor,’ he said.

They heard men grumbling, and then Marcus, Jehannes’ squire, said in his guttural accent, ‘All clear, sers.’

Gelfred looked around. ‘Not sure where to start.’

‘How about the beginning? And with a cup of wine?’ The captain tried to be light hearted, but the others looked too serious.

‘The merchants came in – two of them had animals.’ Gelfred shrugged. ‘I’m telling this badly. Two of them had a dozen good falcons and some dogs. I took the liberty
of securing them. Aye?’

A dozen good falcons and some hunting dogs would be worth a fortune. No wonder the merchants were so incensed.

‘Go on,’ the captain said.

‘Today is the first morning I’ve been here.’ Gelfred cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been in the woods.’

‘You did a beautiful job,’ the captain said. ‘Tom hit their camp just right – didn’t even see a guard.’

Gelfred smiled at the praise. ‘Thanks. Anyway. Starting this morning, I—’ he looked at Ser Milus. ‘I started flying the hawks against the birds – those that watch
the castle.’ He shrugged. ‘I know this sounds lame—’

‘Not at all,’ said the captain.

Gelfred breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I was afraid you’d think me mad. Will you trust that I can see – I can
see
– that some of the animals are servants of the
Enemy?’ He whispered the last part.

The captain nodded. ‘Yes. I believe it. Go on.’

Jehannes shook his head. ‘It sounds blasphemous to me,’ he said.

Gelfred put his hands on his hips in exasperation. ‘I have a licence from the
Bishop
,’ he said.

The captain shrugged. ‘Get on with it, Gelfred.’

Gelfred brought out a game bag. It was stiff with blood, but then game bags generally were.

He extracted a dove – a very large specimen indeed – laid it on the camp table, and stretched out its wings.

‘The gyrfalcon took it down about two hours ago,’ he said. ‘No other bird we have is big enough.’

The captain was staring at the message tube on the bird’s leg.

Gelfred nodded. ‘It came
out
of the abbey, Captain,’ he said.

Milus handed him a tiny scroll no larger than his smallest finger. ‘Low Archaic,’ he said. ‘Has to limit the suspects.’

The captain ran his eyes over the writing. Neat, precise, and utterly damning – a list of knights, men-at-arms and archers; numbers, stores and defences. But no description. Nothing with
which to catch a spy.

‘Limit the suspects in a convent?’ the captain said bitterly. ‘A hundred women,
every one of whom can read and write low Archaic.
’ And use power.

One of whom he knew was an Outwaller.

Gelfred nodded. ‘We have a traitor,’ he said, and the captain’s heart sank.

The captain leaned his head on his hand. ‘This is why you needed to meet me here,’ he said.

Gelfred nodded. ‘The traitor isn’t here,’ he said. ‘The traitor is in the fortress.’

The catain nodded for a while, the way a man will when he’s just heard bad news and can’t really take it all in. ‘Someone killed the Jack in the woods,’ he said. His eyes
met Gelfred’s. ‘Someone stabbed Sister Hawisia in the back.’

Gelfred nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. Those are my thoughts, as well.’

‘Someone co-operated with a daemon to murder a nun.’ The captain scratched under his beard. ‘Even by my standards, that’s pretty bad.’

No one smiled.

The captain go tto his feet. ‘I’d like to have you hunt our traitor down, but I need you out in the woods,’ he said. ‘And it is going to get worse and worse out
there.’

Gelfred smiled. ‘I like it.’ He looked around. ‘Better than in here, anyway.’

Lorica – Ser Gaston

Outside the town, a deputation of ten wagons full of forage, four local knights, and the town’s sheriff waited under the Royal Oak. The king rode up and embraced the
sheriff, and the king’s constable accepted the four young knights and swore them to their duty. The quartermaster took charge of the wagons.