The Red Knight (62 page)

Jacques hip-checked the captain. ‘Mind?’ he said, and shot the thing, a clean shaft that leapt from his bowstring at full draw and plunged through its hide, vanishing to the
fletchings. His war-bow was as long and heavy as Wilful Murder’s, and most men couldn’t draw it.

Somebody behind it plunged a sword deep into its side, and then a man-at-arms was sawing at its neck, and it was roaring in anger. But the flurry of blows let up, and suddenly it got its feet
under it, tossed the man-at-arms free, and put its head down.

‘Oh fuck,’ Jacques said.

A solid lance of fire crossed the stream and struck the behemoth in the head, splintering a tusk and setting fire to the stump. Despite the fear, every man turned to look. Most of them had never
seen a phantasm used in combat.

The captain charged it, because that seemed better than it charging him. His horse had done all the work until now, and his legs were fresh, despite the weight of steel greaves and sabatons.

The fire was a nice distraction and he slammed his heavy spear into its face, near an eye. It was collapsing back – Jacques, also unaffected by the pyrotechnics, was walking forward,
putting arrow after arrow into its unguarded belly.

It turned away, suddenly less fearsome and sensing the defeat of near death. It tried to burst free across the stream but the rocky bottom betrayed it and it stumbled; a dozen archers, guildsmen
and mercenaries alike, poured shafts into it, and its blood swirled in the fast water. It gathered itself up and leaped – awesome in its might – scattered the archers, and killed two
guildsmen, massive front feet pounding their bodies to fleshy mush in the spring mud. And still it got its head up when the captain came out of the trees behind it, and it turned at bay. It’s
great eyes met the captain’s.

‘Me again,’ the captain said.

It raised its head and bellowed, and the woods shook. One of Tom’s men-at-arms – Walter La Tour – landed a hard blow with a pole-axe and got swiped by the whole force of its
mighty head in reply, crushing his breastplate and breaking all his ribs. He fell without a sound. Francis Atcourt, one day out of the infirmary, struck it with a pole-axe too, and danced aside as
it’s splintered, burning tusk sought his life. He tripped and fell over a rotten stump, which saved his life as its tusks and fangs passed over his head.

The captain ran rock to rock across the stream, his sabatons flashing above the swollen water, charging his prey. It turned to finish Atcourt, caught sight of the captain’s rush, and
hesitated a fraction of a heartbeat.

Bad Tom watched his captain rush the monster and laughed. ‘I
love
him,’ he shouted, and leaped after.

The monster lurched forward, and stumbled, and the captain thrust, catching it in the mouth, cutting up so that ivory sprayed. The splintered tusk caught the back of his rerebrace hard enough to
slam him into the stream. He went down, his helmet filled with water, but he got a rock under his backplate and sprang to his feet, stomach muscles screaming as he levered his own weight plus sixty
pounds up on his hips, and then he had his feet planted, knee deep in water, and he was cutting – down to the Boar’s Tooth guard, his heavy pole-arm cutting from the height of his
shoulder all the way down to his hip – then back up the same path, ripping up through its trunk to the Guard of the Woman. He reversed the blade and thrust down into its eye as the creature
fell.

Bad Tom slammed his fist into the thing before it was done moving. ‘I name you – meat!’ he shouted.

The mercenaries laughed. Some of the men-at-arms were even applauding and the guildsmen began to realise they might live. They began to cheer.

A last arrow flew into the corpse.

There was nervous laughter and then the cheers swelled.

‘Red Knight! Red Knight! Red Knight!’

The captain enjoyed it for three heavy breaths. Three deep, lung filling breaths to enjoy being alive, being victorious. Then—

‘We’re not out of this yet,’ the captain snapped.

At the sound of his voice the young knight who’d led the defence of the ford got up from where he’d knelt to pray – or fallen in exhaustion.

They looked at each other for a moment too long, the way only mortal foes and lovers look at each other.

And then the captain turned away. ‘Get the horses. Get everyone mounted. Get as many of these wagons as we can save. Move, move, move. Tom, collect wagons. Who’s in charge here?
You?’ He was gesturing at one of the men of the convoy.

He turned to Jacques. ‘Find out who’s in charge of the convoy, get a head count. The knight in front of you—’

‘I know who he is—’ Jacques said.

‘He looks wounded,’ the captain replied.

The knight they were talking about rose and hobbled forward. His right leg was shiny and slick with blood.

‘You.
Bastard!
’ he said, and cocked back his sword to swing at the captain. He collapsed just as Jacques took his sword.

Tom laughed. ‘Someone who knows you?’ he said. Chortled, and got to work. ‘All right, you lot! Archers on me! Listen up!’

But the captain, sometimes known as the Red Knight, stood by the young knight’s body. For reasons none of them knew, except perhaps Jacques, it was a deeply satisfying moment. A great
victory. And a little personal revenge.

Rescuing Gawin Murien.

Killing a behemoth. This one, in death, didn’t look any smaller. It was still fucking huge.

The captain threw back his head and laughed and the favour on his shoulder fluttered in the breeze.

Tom met his eye.

‘Sometimes, this is the best life I could ever have imagined,’ the captain said.

‘That’s why we love you,’ Tom said.

Harndon – Desiderata

Lady Mary stood by the empty bedstead, and watched a pair of southern maids roll the feather mattress.

‘We’re taking too much,’ Desiderata said.

Diota laughed. ‘My sweet, you won’t lie easy without a feather bed. All the knights have them.’

‘The Archaics slept on the ground, rolled in a cloak.’ Desiderata swirled, admiring the fall of her side-slit surcote and the way the slightest breeze caught the thing. Silk.
She’d seen silk before – silk garters, silk floss for embroidery. This was more like something from the aether. It was magic.

‘You cannot wear that without a gown,’ Diota said. ‘I can see your tits right through it, sweeting.’

Lady Mary turned away and looked out the window.
I think that’s what the Queen had in mind,
she thought to herself. She exchanged a look with Becca Almspend, who glanced up from her
reading to smile her thin-lipped smile.

‘Sleeping on the ground under a cloak doesn’t sound any worse that being a maid in the Royal Barracks,’ Becca said. ‘In fact,’ she glared at Lady Mary,
‘perhaps in a military camp, your friends don’t come and steal your blankets?’

The Queen smiled at Lady Mary. ‘Really, Mary?’

Mary shrugged. ‘I have seven sisters,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to take other people’s blankets. It just happens.’ Her eyes twinkled.

The Queen stretched, rose on her toes like a dancer, and then settled, arms slightly outstretched, as if she was posing for a portrait. ‘I imagine we’ll all sleep together,’
she said.

Almspend shook her head. ‘Pin your cloak to your bodice, that’s my advice, my lady.’

Diota snorted. ‘She won’t sleep under a cloak. She’ll have a feather bed in a tent the size of a palace.’

The Queen shrugged, and the maids packed.

Lady Almspend worked her way down the day’s list. The preparations of the king’s baggage train – and then of the Queen’s – had made Lady Almspend a much more
important person.

‘War horses for my lady’s squires,’ she said.

The Queen nodded. ‘How goes that task?’

Almspend shrugged. ‘I asked young Roger Calverly to see to it. He has a head on his shoulders and he seems to be trustworthy with money. But he’s come back to report that there are
simply no war horses to be had. Not for anything.’

The Queen stamped her foot. It didn’t make much noise, small as it was and clad in a dance slipper, but the maids stopped moving and stood still. ‘This is not acceptable,’ she
said.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. ‘My lady, this is a matter of military reality. I asked questions this morning at first breakfast in the men’s hall.’

Diota made a spluttering sound of outrage, perhaps she did it too often, but it still effective. ‘You was in the men’s hall for breakfast, you hussy? Wi’out an
escort?’

Almspend sighed. ‘There aren’t any
women
likely to know much about the price of war horses, now, are there, Diota?’ She rolled her eyes with the effectiveness that only
a woman of seventeen can muster. ‘Ranald has taken me to the men’s hall as a guest. And—’ She paused and cleared her throat a little awkwardly, ‘And I had an
escort.’

‘Really?’ Lady Mary asked. ‘Sir Ricar, I suppose?’

Lady Rebecca looked at the ground. ‘He hadn’t left yet – he was eager enough to help me.’

Diota sighed.

The Queen looked at her. ‘And?’

Almspend shrugged. ‘Alba doesn’t breed enough horses for all its knights,’ she said. ‘We import them from Galle, Morea and the Empire.’ She looked at her friend
defiantly. ‘Sir Ricar explained it to me.’

The Queen stared at her secretary. ‘Gentle Jesu and Mary his mother. Does the king know?’

Almspend shrugged. ‘My lady, the past week has revealed that men conduct war without women with all the efficency and careful planning that they do anything else without us.’

Diota let out a most unladylike snort.

Lady Mary laughed aloud. ‘Is there beer involved?’ she asked.

The Queen shook her head. ‘You mean to say we don’t have enough war horses to mount our own knights, and no one cares?’

Lady Almspend shrugged. ‘I won’t say no one cares. I could gurantee that no one has taken any thought for it.’

‘What of remounts?’ the Queen asked. ‘Horses die. Like flies. I’m sure I’ve heard that said.’

Almspend shrugged.

Lady Mary nodded. ‘But Becca – you must have a plan.’ Somewhat cattily, she added, ‘You always do.’

Lady Almspend smiled at her, immune to her sarcasm. ‘As it happens I do. If we can raise a thousand florins we can purchase a whole train of Morean horses. The owner is camped outside the
ditch. I met with him this morning and offered for his whole string. Twenty-one destriers.’

The Queen hugged her impulsively.

Diota shook her head. ‘We have no money, sweeting.’

The Queen shrugged. ‘Sell our jewels.’

Diota stepped up to the smaller woman. ‘Don’t be an arse, sweet. Those jewels are all you have if he dies. You don’t have a baby. If he goes down, no one will want
you.’

The Queen looked steadily at her nurse. ‘Diota – I allow you nearly unlimited liberties.’

The older woman flinched.

‘But you talk and talk, and sometimes your mouth runs away with you,’ the Queen continued, and Diota backed away.

The Queen spread her arms. ‘You have it precisely backwards, dear heart. If the king dies,
everyone
will want me.’

The silence was punctuated only by the barking of dogs outside. Diota quailed. Lady Mary pretended to be somewhere else, and Becca opened her book.

But finally, Diota straightened her spine. ‘All I’m saying is let the king look to his own war horses. Tell the squires where they can buy them and let them squeeze their rich
parents for the money. When you sell your jewels, sweeting, you will have
nothing.
’

The Queen stood very still. Then she smiled her invulnerable smile at her nurse. ‘I am what I am,’ she said. ‘Sell the jewels.’

Ota Qwan

Otter Creek Valley, East of Albinkirk – Peter

P
eter lay on the ground behind a tree as big as a small house, unable to see anything, and waited for battle.

More than anything, he wanted to piss. From a tiny irritant at the base of his penis, the feeling gradually grew to envelope his every thought. After the first of several eternities, the need to
void himself overtook his fear and terror.

From time to time, he drifted off on other thoughts – the possibility of moving to a better hiding space; finding a view of the oncoming enemy; finding some actual cover. He had no
experience of war in the west, and couldn’t imagine what it might be like to face a man in steel armour.

He had a knife, a bow, and nine arrows.

And he had to piss.

It began to seem possible that he should just let go, and lie in his own urine for however long they lay there.

He wondered if he was the only one. He wondered if Ota Qwan had meant to tell him to relieve himself before the ambush was set. Or if he had not told him deliberately. The black painted man had
some cruelty in him – Peter was already sensing that Ota Qwan had few followers because he enjoyed twisting the knife too much. And he thought that the honeymoon between them was ending
– in the beginning, Ota Qwan had been as desperate for his company as Peter had been desperate for an ally amidst the alien Outwallers, but now, with a war-group forming around him, Ota Qwan
was undergoing a subtle metamorphosis. And not a pretty one.