The Red Knight (70 page)

Judas Beard growled, and a heavy staff hit him in the back of the head – hit him so hard that he dropped like a sack of rocks.

Mag was all but nose-to-nose with the mercenaries’ commander, who had appeared – apparently out of thin air – and hit the red-haired archer with his staff of office. She
squeaked.

He was standing over the big Harndonner and the smaller archer, who was still locked face down in the bigger boy’s grip. ‘Let him go,’ said the captain quietly.
‘I’ll see he’s punished, but I need his bow arm working.’

The big youth looked up and nodded, and in one fluid motion he rose to his feet and let the archer drop to the cobbled pavement. ‘I could have taken your other man,’ he said.

‘I’m know you could,’ the captain said. ‘You’re a wagoner, aren’t you?’

‘Daniel Favor, of Harndon. My pater is Dick Favor, and he has ten carts on the roads.’ He nodded.

‘How old are you, Daniel?’ the captain asked, as he leaned down and seized Silent’s ear.

‘Fifteen,’ the Harndonner said.

The captain nodded. ‘Can you pull a bow, lad?’

The big youth grinned. ‘And fight with a sword. But a bow – aye. Any kind, any weight.’

‘Ever thought about the life of a soldier?’ the captain asked.

Daniel nodded solemnly.

‘Why don’t you come along and see this miscreant punished,’ the captain said. ‘There won’t be any carting for some weeks, if I’m any judge, and a boy who can
pull a bow can help save his friends. Save some fair maidens, too,’ the captain said, with a pretty bow to the two girls and then to Mag.

Will Carter stepped forward. ‘I can pull a bow too, Captain,’ he said. His voice trembled.

The captain smiled. ‘Can you, now?’ he asked. He looked at Mag. ‘A word with you, goodwife?’

She nodded. The captain took her aside, with the silent archer stumbling after as he kept his grip on the archer’s ear.

‘How bad was this?’ he asked.

She met his eyes. They were very handsome eyes. He was younger than he seemed at a distance. His linens were terrible – the collar of his shirt was ruined and threadbare, and his cuffs
were brown-black with grime and a long linen thread dangled from his arming cote. ‘Bad,’ she said. She found she was shaken, and her knees were weak. His eyes were not normal eyes.

‘War does not make boys nice,’ he said, giving his man’s ear a shake.

‘But you’re going to teach it to these young ’uns, anyway,’ she said, while thinking
what’s got into you, girl?
‘My lord,’ she added hastily.

He considered what she said. The archer tried to move, and the captain twisted his ear viciously. ‘I take your point, but the alternative is being eaten alive by the Wild,’ he said.
He said it ruefully, as if he understood her point all too well.

‘What will happen to him?’ she said.

‘Sym?’ the captain said, turning the silent archer by means of his ear so that he cried out. ‘Sym will have forty lashes on his back – ten a day at two-day intervals,
giving him something to look forward to. Unless my marshal thinks it is worth making an example of him.’

Sym cried out.

‘In which case, we’ll tie him to a wagon wheel and cut open his back—’ the captain went on, and Sym whimpered.

Mag swayed.

The captain grinned at her. ‘It may sound awful, but it is better than rape, and once it starts it will not stop. Sorry – I am too blunt.’ He looked at her, as if seeing her
for the first time. ‘You are the seamstress – yes?’ he asked.

She made a curtsy. ‘I am, my lord.’

‘Could you be kind enough to make the time to visit me, Mistress? I need . . . everything.’ He smiled.

She nodded. ‘So I can see,’ she said. Business straightened her back. ‘Shirts? Braes? Caps?’

‘Three of each?’ he asked. He sounded wistful.

‘I’ll wait on you this afternoon, my lord,’ she said with a quick bend of her knee.

‘Well, then,’ he said, towing his archer away by the ear. He walked back to the locals – boys were competing to comfort the Carter girls. Curiously, the Harndon boy was
standing uncertainly by, taking no part. Mag flashed him a smile and went about her business.

Lissen Carak – Bad Tom

Tom Lachlan was sitting at his table in the garrison tower. It had become his office – his and Bent’s, because Bent was becoming his right hand.

He looked over his cards, and his ears picked up the unmistakable sound of spurred boots on the stairs.

He was on his feet, cards in a bag, and looking out an arrow slit at a party of boglins digging in the sun before the captain crested the stairs.

Low Sym was all but thrown across the table. He gave a long squeal as the captain released his hold on the man’s ear.

Tom sighed. ‘What’s the useless fuck done now?’ Low Sym was one of the company’s leading lights – in crime. ‘

There were a dozen boys coming up the steps behind the captain.

The captain indicated them with a shift of his eyes. ‘New recruits. Archers.’

Tom nodded. They were likely boys – he’d been eyeing them himself – yeomen’s sons, all big, well-fed lads with good shoulders and muscles. At their head was a boy who
looked as if he might, in time, be as tall as Tom himself.

Tom nodded again, and as he rounded the table to greet the recruits he slammed his fist into Low Sym’s head. ‘Don’t move,’ he said.

‘I’ll be in my Commandery,’ the captain said.

Tom bowed, and turned to the boys. ‘Who here can shoot a bow?’ he asked.

‘There’s one other,’ the captain said. ‘Red Beve is lying in the courtyard with a busted noggin. Captain’s court tomorrow for both. Nice and public, Tom.’

Captain’s court was official – not a casual ten lashes and no questions asked situation, but for a crime for which the captain might have a man broken, or executed.

The captain nodded at the boys. ‘Tell the truth and do your best. We don’t take everyone, and your parents have to agree,’ he said.

Tom all but choked on laughter, but the Red Knight was good at this – he was a fine recruiter, while Tom had never been able to recruit anyone for anything unless he had a club in one hand
and a whip in the other.
We don’t take everyone.
He allowed a laugh to escape his gut.

‘Let’s go down to the archery butts and see what you boys are made of,’ he said in what he thought was his kindliest voice. Then he leaned down to Sym. ‘Best lie still,
laddy. Captain means to have your guts on a stick.’

Then he followed the boys down the steps to the courtyard.

The captain leaned on the railing of the hoardings that had been assembled outside his Commandery – in effect, giving him a covered and armoured porch that jutted from
the walls four hundred feet above the plain. He was watching a party of men – captives? They had to be captives – under the direction of something horrible. They were digging
trenches.

As far as his eyes could see, men and monsters were digging trenches. It was a maze – a pattern that he suspected was deliberate, and the scope of it was inhuman and both grotesque and
awe-inspiring. The trenches were not in concentric rings, like those a professional soldier would have built – they clung to the ground, marking the edges of every contour like a tight
fitting kirtle on a curvaceous woman.

Someone had planned it, and now drove it to execution. In one day.

He wanted Amicia. He wanted to talk to her, but he was too tired and the fortress was too full to find her. But he knew another way – if she was on her bridge. All it required was that he
open his door a little. He reached to—

Enter the room. He waved at his tutor, Prudentia, and walked to the iron-bound door.

‘Don’t,’ she said.

She’d been telling him not to do things his entire life and, mostly, he ignored her.

‘You can’t trust her,’ Prudentia said. ‘And Thorn is right outside that door. He waiting for you.’

‘He has to sleep sometime.’

‘Stop!’

He put his whole weight against the door – his whole dream weight – and turned the handle until the tumbler clicked—

And the door slammed back against its hinges and a solid green fog roared into his chamber, enough power to light a city – ten cities—

North of Lissen Carak – Thorn

Thorn grinned as he felt the dark sun – felt him surface to the world of power – and he sent all his power along the contact lines to bind him. No more hesitation.
Men of power always tried a direct challenge. Thorn was ready.

Lissen Carak – The Abbess

The Abbess felt the rising tide of Wild power and stopped – she was feeding bits of chicken to her bird, and the plate of raw chicken fell to the marble floor. There
couldn’t be
this
much power in her fortress – she reached out and felt
him—

North of Lissen Carak – Thorn

Thorn felt her golden brilliance and he paused, licking at it to taste her, amazed at her potency. Delighted, saddened, angered, guilt-ridden—

Utterly distracted.

The Memory Palace – The Red Knight

He lay on the floor, and Prudentia was trying to reach him, her marble hand inches from his own – her hand and the black and white parquetry tiles were the only things
he could see in the roiling, choking cloud of green, the green of trees in high summer. He was pinned to the floor – he could see the shape of the cage closing over him, a phantasm so potent
that he could only breathe his wonder as it crushed him – it hesitated. He strained, but it was too powerful, even as it seemed to lose its focus, and he pushed against it his mind screaming
‘Fool, fool, fool—’

The door slammed shut leaving him lying crumpled in the corner of his armoured balcony.

The old Magus stood over him, his staff still glowing, and wisps of fae-fire played along its length. ‘Well, well,’ the old man said. ‘That would be your mother in you, I
suspect.’

The captain tried to get to his feet and found himself boneless and almost unable to move his arms. ‘You have the advantage of me,’ he said softly.

The old Magus offered him a hand. ‘So I do. I am Harmodius, Royal Magus, and you are Lord Gabriel Moderatus Murien – Anna’s son.’ He smiled grimly. ‘The Viscount
Murien. Don’t try and deny it, you little imp. Your mother thinks you’re dead, but I knew who you were the moment I saw you.’ He got the captain to his feet, and led him across
the room to a chair.

Jacques came in with a cocked and loaded arbalest. It was smoothly done – Harmodius had no chance to react.

‘Say the word, my lord, and he’s dead,’ Jacques said.

‘You heard,’ the captain said. He felt as if he had the worst hangover of his life.

‘I heard,’ Jacques said. The bolt-head on the trough of the crossbow didn’t waver.

The captain took in a shaky breath. ‘Why shouldn’t I have you killed?’ he asked the Magus.

‘Is your petty secret worth the lives of everyone in the castle?’ the Magus asked. ‘None of you will live through this without me. Even with me the odds are long. In the name
of the Trinity, boy, you just felt his power.’

The captain wished he could think. The Magus’ use of his name – Gabriel – had hit him as hard as the green cage had. He didn’t even allow
himself
to think the name
Gabriel. ‘I have killed, and allowed men to die, to protect my secret,’ he said.

‘Time to stop doing that, then,’ said the Magus.

Jacques didn’t move, and his voice was calm. ‘Why don’t you just shut up about it?’ He shrugged, but the shrug never reached the crossbow bolt’s tip. ‘You
being the mighty King’s Magus, and all. You stop talking about some dead boy’s name, and we can all go on together?’

‘Three in a secret,’ the captain muttered.

The Magus pursed his lips. ‘I’ll give my word not to disclose what I know – if you give me yours to talk to me about it. When and if this is over.’

The captain felt as if the floor had dropped from under his feet, and all he wanted to do was jump into the hole and hide. ‘Fine,’ he said. He remembered that Gawin Murien was lying
in the hospital, almost exactly over his head.
Four in a secret, and one my enemy
, he thought.
My lovely brother.

‘I so swear, by my power,’ the Magus said.

The captain forced himself to raise his head. ‘At ease, Jacques,’ he said. ‘He’s just sworn an oath that binds – if he breaks it, his own power will be
crippled.’ He turned back to the Magus. ‘You saved my life,’ he said.

‘Ah – some shred of courtesy survives in you. Yes, boy, I saved you from a grisly death – he wanted your power for his own.’ The horrible old man grinned. ‘He was
going to eat your soul.’

The captain nodded. ‘I feel as if he did. Or perhaps he didn’t like the taste?’ he tried to grin and gave it up. ‘A cup of water, Jacques.’

Jacques backed up a step, took the bolt from the action and used the goat’s foot at his belt to slowly unlever the string. ‘Loons,’ he muttered, as he left the room.

When he was gone, the Magus leaned forward. ‘How powerful are you, boy? Your mother never said a word.’

The captain’s heart beat faster at the word mother, and flashed on his beautiful mother, drunk and violent and hitting him—

‘Don’t mention my mother again.’ He sounded childish, even to himself.

Harmodius hooked a stool over with his staff and sat. ‘All right, boy, sod your mother. She was never any friend of mine. How powerful are you?’

The captain sat back, trying to recover his – his sense of himself. His poise. His
captainness.

‘I have a good deal of raw power, and I had a good tutor until
—
’ He paused.

‘Until you ran away and faked your death,’ the Magus concluded. ‘Which of course you did with a phantasm. Of course you did.’ He shook his head.

‘I didn’t mean to fake it,’ the captain said.

The Magus smiled. ‘I was young and angry and hurt once, too, lad,’ he said. ‘Despite appearances. Never mind – cold comfort. I glimpsed your memory palace –
magnificent. The entity within it – who is she?’