The Red Knight (115 page)

‘I’d like to defeat and destroy the sorcerer known as Thorn,’ she said.

‘Revenge?’ asked the Wyrm.

She shrugged. ‘A dog bit one of my children some years ago. He’d bitten other children. My husband went out with his crossbow and put the dog down.’ She met the Wyrm’s
eyes. ‘I’m sure that there was some revenge involved.’

‘But it was, in the main, it was about the other children?’ asked the Wyrm.

She nodded.

‘You are a very modest woman,’ said the Wyrm. ‘You allow men to speak their minds, and you keep yours to yourself.’

She smiled and looked at her hands in her lap.

‘But you, the Goodwife of Abbington, intend to encompass the destruction of Thorn, who has put himself on the path to be a Power.’ His black eyes sought hers.

She wouldn’t let him in. ‘That’s right,’ she said easily.

The Wyrm whistled soundlessly. ‘This war that you have all just experienced has enhanced your powers to a wonderful degree. Indeed, I was able to see you – really see you – as
far away as Albinkirk.’

Mag gave way to a satisfied chuckle. ‘I always knew I had the talent,’ she said. ‘But thanks to the old magister and the Abbess I know things, now.’ She looked up.
‘Terrifying things.’

‘Do you doubt God?’ asked the Wyrm.

Mag turned her head away. ‘Who are you to ask that? Satan?’

The Wyrm laughed. ‘Not hardly, Mistress. Satan’s idle young cousin, perhaps.’

‘Will you answer my question?’ she asked.

‘You haven’t asked one,’ he said gently. ‘You’ve implied that you’d like my help in attacking Thorn, and you’ve implied that you’d like to know if
there is a god.’

She straightened her back. ‘I can find my way to God without you,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said the Wyrm.

‘I’d like your help with Thorn,’ she said.

‘That’s the other side of the same coin, surely,’ said the Wyrm. ‘If you can decide for yourself about God, you scarcely need me to tackle a mortal sorcerer.’

‘It would be easy for you,’ said Mag.

‘No argument at all. In the end, that would be me putting down the dog. For
my
reasons.’ He put his chin in his hands.

She shook her head. ‘I understand, but I’d like you to separate the two sides of the coin.’

‘Nothing about a coin is separate,’ the Wyrm said.

‘Nothing about a coin is separate,’ said the Wyrm.

The captain looked around to find all his companions also blinking like people coming out of sleep.

‘It has been a great pleasure meeting you,’ he said. ‘The beds are warm, and the fire is real enough, and the food is, if I say so myself, exemplary. Please don’t stint
with the wine. I’d be affronted if you didn’t try the harp on the wall.’ He smiled at them. ‘I have little interest in the affairs of the world, but I am choosing to help
you, almost entirely to serve my own ends. Which, I will add, are infinitely less threatening to you and yours than any of the rest of my kin’s might be. I seek only to be left alone –
I have my own ambitions, and they have nothing to do with war, conquest, pain, or hate.’ He smiled, and just for a moment, they saw an enormous head with fangs the length of warships, slitted
eyes as tall as church spires. ‘You will be my allies. You will go out in the world and serve my ends with your own plans and your free will.’ He smiled. ‘I doubt that we will
succeed, but if we do we’ll have the satisfaction of having been vastly the underdogs.’ He nodded, as if to himself. ‘Ah – the party-favours. I’ve made certain
artefacts – or gathered them – for this. To each, her own. And in parting—’ The Wyrm smiled at all of them. ‘May I leave you with some genuine wisdom, in place of all
the humdrum claptrap? Do well. Act with honour and dignity. Not because there is some promised reward, but because it is the only way to live. And that is as true for my kind as for
yours.’

The captain was still pondering a smart remark when he realised that the Wyrm was no longer among them.

That was amazing,
Harmodius said.

They lingered over breakfast.

‘The marmalade is like—’ Mag giggled, her mouth full of warm, crusty bread with rich new butter.

‘Like God-made marmalade?’ asked Ser Alcaeus.

‘I feel like a thief,’ Ranald said. He’d taken one of the swords from over the fireplace.

Tom took down the other. He grinned. ‘God,’ he said, flicking his thumb over the blade. He gave a moan of pleasure as the blade he’d chosen swept through the air.

The Keeper shook his head. He had a box in his lap. ‘I’m afraid to open it.’

Ser Alcaeus rose and took down the sword hanging behind the main roof beam – with a belt and scabbard. It matched his arms – a surprisingly short sword with a heavy wheel pommel.
‘These are things left for us. Indeed, unless I miss my guess, the whole cot is made for us.’

‘I’m not leaving until the marmalade is finished,’ Mag said, and laughed. She picked up her napkin to get the stickiness out of the corners of her mouth, and there was a
chatelaine on the table beneath it – gold and silver and enamel, with sharp steel scissors, a needle case full of needles, and a dozen other objects suspended on chains – including a
pair of keys.

‘Oh,’ she said, and flushed, her hand to her bosom. ‘Oh, par dieu. It is magnificent.’

Gawin tried some of the marmalade. ‘I had the most remarkable dream,’ he said. ‘I wore a green belt—’ He stumbled to silence. There was a green belt around his
hips, worked in green enamel with gold plaques, and from it hung a heavy dagger in green and gold.

The captain stood under the roof beam, looking up at the spear.

‘Just take it, man!’ said Tom.

The captain rubbed his chin. ‘I’m not sure I want it,’ he said.

Take it! Take it!
Harmodius couldn’t control himself.

Five feet of ancient blackthorn, knotty and yet straight as an arrow. And at the top, a long, heavy blade gleamed.

‘Someone has taken the magister’s staff, and fitted it like a glaive,’ the captain said.

Take it, you fool.

The captain rubbed his chin. ‘I’m going to see to the horses.’

So much of my power. Please? He wouldn’t have brought it here unless he trusted us to use it.

‘I can’t help but notice that his gifts either bind, are pointed, or are double edged,’ said the captain. ‘Belts and blades.’

Don’t be a fool.

Am I a fool to be slow to make use of tools I do not understand?
asked the captain.
The stakes are very high. I will probably take it in the end. But not right now—

He took his time currying the horses. They looked fat and happy. It had been a way of hiding from his father when he was young.

When they were all gleaming like the sun on the water of the high loch outside, he went back into the cot – so much bigger on the inside than the outside – and took the spear down
from its nails.

It was a heavy blackthorn shaft, but the butt was spiked in bronze and inlaid in gold, and the head was magnificently worked – folded steel, carefully chiselled.

Oh. Empty.
Harmodius lost all interest in it.
Not mine at all.

The captain hefted it for a long time.

Then he frowned and tucked it under his arm.

One by one they filed out of the cot. Mag left last, and closed the door behind her.

She looked puzzled. ‘I thought it would . . . vanish’ she said.

‘He’s not showy,’ the captain responded.

They all mounted, and rode over the ridges. In two ridges, the cot was gone, hidden in the folds of earth.

‘If I ride back, will there be aught there?’ Tom asked.

The captain shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

‘You know what?’ Tom said. ‘He reminded me of you. Only – more so.’

He laughed.

The captain raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I’m flattered, Tom,’ he said.

Tom patted the sword at his side. ‘I have a magic sword,’ he said happily. ‘I want to go try it on something.’

Ranald shook his head. ‘Tom, you
hate
magic.’

Tom grinned. ‘Och. You can teach an old dog a new trick, if ye are patient.’

Gawin shook his head. ‘Why us?’

The captain shook his head.

They rode on.

The woodsmen were gone. There was no pile of bodies, no line of graves, no rusting tools. Merely gone.

Over the Irkill a stone bridge stood on heavy pilings, as wide as two horsemen abreast or a single wagon, and on the other side sat a new keep – a square tower – with a small toll
house.

It was solid, and smelled of new masonry. The Keeper sat in the road, looking at it.

‘Open it,’ said the captain.

The Keeper looked at him.

‘The box – open it.’ The captain crossed his arms.

There was an anticlimactic moment as the Keeper rooted in his malle and emerged with his box. He opened it.

The box held a circlet, an arm ring, and a key.

The key fitted the door of the keep.

The circlet fit on his brow. He tried it and then snatched it off.

‘Damn,’ he said.

‘He’s telling you something,’ said Ranald.

‘The arm ring is for the drover,’ said the Keeper. ‘I know it.’

Ranald looked at it. ‘Leave it lie, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in spring, and we’ll see.’

They rode back to the inn.

Toby unpacked his master’s portmanteau and appeared at his elbow. ‘M’lord?’ he asked.

The captain was playing piquet with Maggie. He looked up.

‘What do I do with these?’ he asked. He held up two velvet bags. They all but glowed a deep, dark red.

‘Not mine,’ the captain said.

‘Begging your pardon, m’lord, but they was in your bag.’ Toby held them out again.

The captain looked in one, and laughed. ‘Why, Toby, I’ve just discovered our host was more thoughtful than I had imagined. Come here.’ He gestured to his new squire. ‘I
assume these are for you.’ He handed the bag over.

In it was a pair of silver spurs. Rich squires wore such things.

Toby gasped.

The captain shook his head. ‘He knew we were coming, but we sent Toby back.’ He looked in the other bag. And frowned.

A small, and very beautiful ring, gleamed in the bottom of the bag. It said ‘IHS’. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘This is too much,’ he said quietly, and flung the bag
across the room.

It bounced off the wall.

He went back to his cards.

In the morning, when he went to pay the Keeper, he found the ring among his coins.

Give it up
said the magister.
He wants her, as well. You two are not done with each other, it seems.

He embraced the Keeper. ‘Got anyone going west to Lissen Carak?’ he asked.

The Keeper grinned. ‘In the autumn, maybe, and then only with twenty swords,’ he said.

The captain wrote a brief note on parchment. ‘Send this, then.’ He wrapped the ring in the parchment. It gave him the oddest feeling.

‘Go well, Captain,’ said the Keeper. ‘Stop here when you come west for the tournament.’

The captain raised his eyebrows.

‘You are a famous knight,’ the Keeper said with his child-like delight in knowing news the others didn’t know. ‘The Queen has ordained that there will be a great
tournament at Lorica, at Pentecost in the New Year.’

The captain rolled his eyes. ‘Not my kind of fight, Keeper.’

The Keeper shrugged. ‘So you say.’

They spent five days riding over the mountains to Morea. They came down the pass north of Eva and the captain took them south and then east over the hills to Delf. He
didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Gawin and Alcaeus were of the same mind, and Tom and Ranald saw the whole trip as an adventure, riding high on the hillsides, searching out caves . . .

‘Looking for a fight,’ Mag said in disgust. ‘Can we get home?’

‘Home to our company of hired killers?’ said the captain.

Mag looked at him and shook her head. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If you must. Aren’t you – excited? Hopeful? Interested?’

He was watching the two hillmen ranging high above them. Alcaeus had purchased a good goshawk from a peddler and was flying him at doves. Gawin was riding ahead, feet crossed over the pintle of
his saddle, reading.

He shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve just been enlisted by one mighty Power to fight another in a war not of my making, over things I don’t
understand.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I swore off being a tool when I was a child.’

‘The Wyrm is good.’ Mag put a hand on his arm. ‘I can feel it.’

The captain shook his head. ‘Mag, what do my thoughts of good and evil mean to the worms in the road? I can be the most honourable knight who ever lived, and my horse’s iron-shod
hooves will crush their soft bodies every step, after a rain.’ He smiled at her. ‘And I won’t even know.’

Down in the deep valley ahead of them, he could see rows of tents; a palisade; neat circles of heavy wagons, and over all, a banner, black, with lacs d’or worked in gold.

‘Damn you,’ she said. ‘Why can’t we just act? Why can’t we simply win?’

The captain sighed. ‘Men love war because it is simple,’ he said. ‘Winning is never simple. I can win a fight – together, we can win a battle.’ He rubbed his beard.
Down in the valley, men were pointing and messengers were mounting horses. ‘But turning victory in battle into something that lasts is like building a place to live. So much more complicated
than building a fortress.’

He pointed at the riders. ‘Luckily for me, those men are bringing me word of our contract. A nice little war.’ He forced a smile. ‘Something we can
win.
’

Harndon City – Edward

Edward finished his first rondel dagger – a fine weapon with a precise triangular blade and an armour-piercing point – and handed it to Master Pyle with trepidation.
The older man looked it over, balanced it on the back of his hand, and threw it at the floor, where it stuck with a satisfying
thunk
.

‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Hand it to Danny to be hilted. I’ll have a project for you in a few days – until then, cover the shop.’

Well – shop work was clean and dull, but Edward was courting his Anne in the long summer evenings, and shop work allowed him to dress well – fine hose, a good doublet, not shop-worn
linen stained in nameless chemicals and burned with a thousand sparks.