Knight's Shadow (31 page)

Brasti walked up to the two men. As if the Gods themselves willed it, he had just two arrows left: one nocked and ready and one left in the hand of the boy. ‘No more armour,’ Brasti said. ‘No more Knights.’

‘We surrender!’ the men repeated, their voices sounding increasingly desperate.

I felt a terrible urge to stand there and watch as Brasti pulled back his arm, sighted and sent his long arrow driving with the force of a gale through the chest of the Knight standing just a few feet away. I wanted to
remember
this. I wanted to be able to play this moment out over and over as these men died for what they’d done.

‘Did you say “we surrender”?’ Brasti asked. ‘Is that what you said?’

‘Please!’ one of the Knights begged. He was a younger man; I didn’t think he was much over twenty years old. He wasn’t crying. I wanted him to cry.

‘Your armour,’ Brasti said.

‘Please!’

‘Take off your armour.’

Both Knights frantically began removing their armour, trying clumsily to unfasten the clasps at the shoulder, the buckles at the sides of their chest-plates. It’s no simple matter to take off a suit of armour when you’re sitting at home after a hard day’s fighting. When you’re staring at death in the form of a thirty-inch-long fletched shaft tipped with sharp steel, it was even harder.

After a few seconds the two Knights started to help each other.

Too slow
, I thought, and suddenly I felt as if I finally understood the Saint’s Fever that filled Kest.
Come on
, I silently urged Brasti,
shoot them!

But there was another voice inside me, a quieter voice, barely a whisper:
I’ve called out to you
, she said,
always when the victory was won but before the final blow was struck
.

No
, I thought,
no. This is
right.
This is justice.

But it wasn’t. This was vengeance, pure and simple.

It was a sublime, righteous vengeance, admittedly, but still vengeance, not justice.

Why does a trial matter when there are no questions of fact to be determined and no mitigating factors to be considered? What does it matter whether the blade falls now or after a verdict?

Because the law only matters if we hold it higher than ourselves
, I thought. My coat suddenly felt very heavy on my shoulders.

The Knights weren’t even halfway to removing all their plate when Brasti pulled back on his bowstring.

‘Brasti,’ I said. My voice was quiet. I didn’t need to shout because somewhere deep inside himself, he was waiting for me to put a stop to this. ‘Enough.’

At first I wasn’t sure what he would do. Had he wanted me to tell him to withdraw just so he could fire the arrow anyway and show me that he no longer followed my orders? The two Knights were still furiously unbuckling and unclasping and prising pieces of their armour from their bodies. The people of the village had begun to assemble around us, more than a hundred of them, packing in closer and closer, waiting to see the arrows fly.

‘Brasti,’ I said. ‘Stop.’

With a slow, almost imperceptible motion, Brasti’s bow moved down to his side and the tension of the string eased until the arrow was loose in his hand.

One of the villagers shouted, ‘Kill them!’ at us.

‘They get a trial,’ Brasti said.

A man stepped forward. His bloodied right arm hung by his side, but he was still gripping a small hatchet. ‘Why? Why should they get a trial after what they’ve done?’

‘I don’t know,’ Brasti said, his eyes on me. ‘They just do.’

There were rumblings within the crowd, bitter growls of outrage clashing with the moans and weeping of the injured, but I ignored them all. Instead, I looked around for Dariana. ‘Where’s Kest?’

‘He took off after the battle ended,’ she said, pointing to the hilltop behind us.

Someone was missing. I looked around, past the mob gathered at the village square. Bodies littered the ground, Knights and villagers. Thirty Knights had come to Garniol to destroy it; only these two were left. ‘Valiana?’

‘She’s with the older children on the other side, near the entrance to the village.’

Again I looked at the bodies of the dead Knights, lying there in their black tabards, trying to work out what I was missing – and only then did I realise what it was – or rather, whom. ‘The Knight-Captain!’ I said. ‘I saw him flee – did you kill him?’

As Dariana shook her head I swore and started, ‘Go and find Kest. Tell him to look for—’

‘Cowards!’ a voice bellowed.

At first I thought the shout had come from the crowd, then I heard a woman scream and as I turned to trace the sound something fell from the top of the two-storey barn at the far end of the square. Only when it hit the hard ground below did I see it was a young woman. The sound of her neck snapping reverberated through the square.

Oh Gods, let it not be her – I told her not to go there . . .
But as I ran towards the woman I saw with a relief that made me ashamed that it wasn’t Valiana. The Knight-Captain stood on the roof of the two-storey building. He had hastily tied ropes around his arms, his torso and even legs, and the other end of each rope was attached to a child. Young boys and girls –
the littles
, I realised – sobbed as they tried to pull away, but the Knight-Captain yanked their ropes and drew them back to him.
He’s turned the children into a shield – no
, I thought,
into
armour.
He’s using them as armour.

‘Cowards!’ the Knight-Captain yelled, and now it was clear he was screaming at his two men. ‘Put your armour back on and fight! Knights do not retreat!’

The younger of the two Knights called out, ‘Sir Learis, stop! This isn’t—’

‘Silence! We came to pacify this village, and pacify it we will. We must show them our resolve, Sir Vezier.’ His voice rose as if he were giving a lesson to a group of wayward students. ‘The peasants need to see this doesn’t end until they kneel before us.’

Brasti aimed an arrow. ‘You’re a dead man.’

‘Am I?’ The Knight-Captain stepped forward, the children pulled close to him. ‘Which of these will feel the bite of your arrow as you try to reach me?’ He yanked hard on one of the ropes and a small girl slipped and started swinging over the corner edge of the building.

‘Eila!’ a man yelled. ‘Please! No!’

‘Come on, then!’ the Knight-Captain shouted. He hauled the girl back onto the roof next to him. ‘Fire, archer: maybe you can hit me without hitting the children. Come on. Show your skill.’

Brasti’s arm pulled back, but I stopped him. ‘Don’t. He’s got the children tied to him and he’s standing on the corner of the roof on purpose. If you shoot, even if he falls backwards, there’s a good chance he’ll go over the edge and drag the children with him to their deaths.’

‘Clever little brown bird – smart enough to know these little ducklings won’t fly.’ The Knight-Captain’s gaze went across the crowd. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘kneel.’

‘Do it,’ I said.

The men and women of Garniol dropped to their knees, and those few who tried to remain defiant, mostly young men, were pulled down. Brasti and I knelt as well, and Dariana hesitated but finally joined us.

‘Good,’ the Knight-Captain said, ‘very good. Obedient hounds. You see that, Sir Vezier? Sir Orn? This is the power of true command. More than a hundred of them and they bow before one righteous Knight.’

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

The Knight-Captain ignored me. Instead, he spoke once again to his men. ‘Sir Vezier. Sir Orn. You will take up your swords. You will go from dog to dog in this whining pack of mongrels, and you will strike their heads from their bodies.’

The man was grinning from ear to ear as if he truly believed these people would simply kneel and give up their lives, even knowing that those of their children would surely follow.

The older of the two Knights looked around uncertainly but began to rise. The younger – Sir Vezier – grabbed him by the shoulder and held him down. ‘No, Knight-Captain,’ he said. ‘This isn’t what we . . . This isn’t worthy of a Knight.’

‘No? Feckless boy. Are you afraid they’ll rise up against you? A Knight? Then you don’t deserve the title. Sir Orn, you will take up your sword and do as I’ve commanded. You will begin with Sir Vezier.’

This time the older man stayed where he was, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of him.

‘We seem to be at an impasse, Knight-Captain,’ I called out.

‘Are we? Very well then, let us see how long this impasse holds. Watch and wait and you will see what true courage looks like: you will see that a true son of War does not flinch when the fire comes.’

‘What’s his game?’ Brasti asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Knights don’t do well with losing a battle at the best of times, but this man was clearly out of his mind with rage. If he’d planned to throw the children off the roof, he could have done it by now, but that didn’t feel like it would be enough for him. He was going to make a point, and he wanted us to watch—

Damn all the Gods
, I thought, and I looked at the barn beneath his feet. Sure enough, smoke was beginning to emerge from the wood-slat windows. ‘He’s lit a fire in the barn,’ I said. ‘He’s going to immolate himself with the children.’

A woman rose from her knees and tried to run through the crowd, but a man cried out ‘No!’ and others grabbed her before she could run into the burning building.

‘Come,’ the Knight-Captain shouted, roaring with laughter, ‘who will join me?’

Shit. We couldn’t kill him and we couldn’t wait for the fire to reach them. ‘Me,’ I said softly.

‘Are you mad?’ Dariana asked. ‘You can’t run in there. You’ll burn alive.’

I flipped up the collar of my coat and tied the straps tight, imagining I looked like a highwayman coming to rob a carriage. ‘The leather and bone of the coat will protect me from the heat and the silk in the collar will block out some of the smoke,’ I muttered hopefully.

‘And what the hells do you do when you get to the top?’ Brasti asked. ‘If you try to rush him he’ll just jump – and besides, even if you do make it to the roof, there’s no way you’ll get back down through the fire.’

‘There’s a ladder attached to the water tower,’ I said. ‘You and Dariana, go and get it.’

‘Falcio, you don’t have a plan! You’re going to die for nothing!’

I smiled. Always smile when you’re terrified. ‘I
always
have a plan, Brasti. It’s just that sometimes it’s not a very good one.’ I rose to my feet. ‘On the other hand, I wouldn’t be averse to a miracle, so you’d better have that ladder ready just in case.’

*

The first floor of the barn felt oddly peaceful. The flames were still small enough that it looked as if someone had lit braziers to set the scene for a romantic dinner. But I could see the smouldering bales of hay were beginning to catch alight, and the smoke was starting to hang heavy in the air.

I ran up the stairs to the second floor, but the smoke was rising and now it was almost impossible to see more than two feet in front of me. If it hadn’t been for the sound of her crying, I never would have known the girl was there.

All I could really see of her as she sat huddled in a corner was her dark brown hair for her head was buried in her knees.

‘Run downstairs and out of the barn,’ I said, my voice low. ‘Go on!’

The girl sobbed and held her arms out to me.

‘I can’t go with you – I’ve got to go up. Please, just run down the stairs and get out now!’

She shook her head and her crying grew louder as her arms kept reaching for me. I started coughing uncontrollably.
Damn it all . . . as if this wasn’t difficult enough already
. I put one arm around the child and lifted her to me. ‘It’s time to be very brave,’ I said to her. ‘You can stay with me, but you’re not going to cry, all right?’

I started up the second set of stairs that led to the roof.

I felt the girl’s face nuzzle into my hair. ‘’m scared,’ she said.

‘I know that, sweetheart, but it’s not the time to be scared right now.’

‘What’s your name?’ I asked as we were halfway up the stairs.

The girl hesitated, then said, ‘’m not telling. Da says don’t trust no strangers.’

‘Good plan,’ I said.

We reached the top and I stepped quietly onto the wooden rooftop. I didn’t want to risk startling the madman so I said, ‘I’m here.’

He turned, pulling the children with him. ‘Ah, my little brown bird – and I see you’ve brought my wayward duckling. How gracious of you.’

I set the girl down and she grabbed at my leg. I gently pried her fingers apart and moved away. ‘Time to be brave now,’ I reminded her.

The Knight-Captain scoffed. ‘Bravery? Without honour what is bravery but the impulses of a dog? The animal has no honour. Whether scared or angry, it simply does as its base instincts command.’

‘I am getting seriously tired of men who murder children preaching to me about honour,’ I said.

The Knight-Captain’s face grew grim. ‘And I am weary of watching this country fall to the lesser nature of those who lack honour. The King was a tyrant, the Dukes have failed in their commitment to their own Knights and the peasants and townsfolk fail to obey us as is our Gods-given right. Only we precious few remain to maintain the strength of this country.’

‘So you act in defiance of the law, in defiance even of your own Dukes?’

‘Some of us have come to the conclusion that the Dukes are false rulers,’ he said. ‘It is time for a change.’

Well, at least there was one thing we agreed on. The Knight-Captain was looking at me as if he was daring me to debate him.
Saints, he thinks I will! He actually believes we’re going to stand here and talk about the will of the Gods and Saints and the nature of honour. Well, sorry, Sir Knight, but I have more pressing concerns.

I looked at the children tied to the Knight-Captain, all sobbing and wailing, so full of fear that some were even clutching at him as if he were a stout tree.
Ducklings, he called them, as if he’s calling out the game we all played as children – or no . . . not all of us
, I suddenly realised. Only
poor
children ever played that game, a wealthy Knight would never have learned it. You didn’t need toys or balls or anything to play Ducklings, just a group of children.