Miles Cameron - The Dread Wyrm

“Ten days!” Ser Thomas shook his head. “The forage by Southford won’t feed my beasts ten days.”

“If we don’t cover the fair…” Ser John shrugged. “The convoys are just coming in from the south,” he said. “I’m trying to keep the roads clear, but-”

Ser Gabriel-the mercenary-surprised them all. He stood. “I’m for it. Tom, let’s give them a week and then see where we all are. Ser Ricar, can you make do with a week, and an option for a few more days if required?”

Ser Henri raised an eyebrow. “It is not my choice but my lady’s,” he said. “But it sounds worthy, and certes, Ticondaga would be better knowing the south was safe.”

Zac raised two bushy eyebrows at Ser Gabriel. He gave a slight nod.

“Count Zac is an officer of the Emperor,” he said. “He serves with me in my person as the Megas Dukas of the Empire. He will join you for your spring hunt.”

Ser Ricar clanked over to the dapper easterner and shook his hand. Ser Alcaeus took out a wax tablet and began to write at his captain’s elbow. “We have forty lances and another twenty stradiotes ,” he said. “Ser Henri?”

The Etruscan rubbed his head. “If the duchess agrees,” he said carefully, “I have twenty lances. And four huntsmen who know the enemy intimately.”

Ser Ricar nodded. “I also have forty lances, though eight of them are on patrol even now.”

“So-with the count’s imperial troops, we can muster as many as six hundred men,” Ser Ricar said with relish. “By God, gentlemen.”

Bad Tom sighed. “Well, I can gi’ ye another hundred who’ll face anything in the Wild.”

“I count this a favourable sign, gentlemen,” Ser John said. “The council has not even begun, and we have an army in the field.” He turned to Ser Ricar. “When will you march?”

“Dawn,” Ser Ricar said. “I’ll open the ball with a sweep along the west road. I know our fathers all taught us not to split a force, but I’ll send half north of the Cohocton and half south, and we’ll clear the whole convoy route on both banks.”

Ser Gabriel rose. “Then, if you gentlemen will settle the minutiae of what you have clearly planned, I will release my soldiers under Ser Bescanon. I must visit my mother.”

He bowed to all-even Ser Henri-and walked across the springy turf to where his squire waited.

“Why does he set my teeth on edge?” asked Ser Ricar.

“He was not like this as a boy,” Ser Henri said. “He was a most unmanly boy, much given to-”

Ser Gavin appeared between them, and there was no more reminiscence.

Ser Gabriel unarmed carefully, and went to his room to bathe. In his room, alone with Toby, Nell, and two of his Thrakian servants, he drank two cups of malmsey and put on a suit of red wool worked with his arms, a golden spur rowel of six points that might have been mistaken for an hermetical symbol. He put on his gold belt of knighthood. He didn’t wear a sword, but he didn’t disdain his ivory-gripped baselard.

Nell and Toby had some idea what he was going to. They both tried to smile.

He had time to wish he had Tom, or Alison. Or Arnaud.

He walked to the small balcony his room had, high above the valley. He took one breath, drank off the last of his wine, and set the cup down a little too hard.

“No,” he said, when Toby, dressed in his best, presented himself as an escort. He motioned instead to Ser Christos’s son, Giorgos, a tall Thrakian with a beak of a nose and no Alban whatsoever. “Please come with me,” he said in High Archaic. He smiled at Toby to indicate that there was no slight intended, but he didn’t need to have his mother’s words repeated.

And then he went out into the hall. Giorgos knew the way-it was his duty-and led him to the south tower. They climbed two dozen steps in a tight stairway and emerged onto a platform with two doors. Giorgos knocked and they waited.

A demure young woman with red hair and bronze eyes opened the door and curtsied. She led them into the outer solar, almost identical to the same chambers that Ser Gabriel had in the north tower.

“Is that my prodigal son?” Ghause called. “I have a present for you, my darling. Come in.”

The bronze-eyed young vixen opened the door to the inner solar, and Gabriel, after a deep breath, and ignoring the trembling of his hands, walked in.

Amicia sat in the sunlight, doing embroidery. The winter had sufficed for her to learn some of the tricks of it, and she’d learned to make letters with a prick stitch and to cut them out and overcast stitch them to an altar cloth before couching them in silk thread. She was slowly working the paschal cloth of her chapel at Southford, the linen and silk going everywhere with her, packed in oiled silk and canvas. Helewise had taught her-a lady’s pastime, and not usually one for nuns. Her I H S was crisp, the gothic letters elegant and almost even.

She was working on the last I in domini when Ghause joined her in the inner solar and began to fuss with the great bird on the perch.

Amicia realized she was casting.

Ghause finished with some tuneless, throaty sounds that made Amicia blush.

Ghause laughed. “Ah, my pretty, I usually work alone. And naked.”

Amicia laughed. “As did I, once.”

“We are not so different,” Ghause said.

Amicia put her head down and went back to her stitches. “What is it?” she asked.

“A gift for Gabriel. No, don’t get up. That will be him now.” She put one hand on the inner solar door and called, “Is that my prodigal son? I have a present for you, my darling. Come in.”

Then she flung the door wide. As she did, with her right hand, she removed the cover on the great bird.

It was bigger than Amicia had imagined, but her shock was completely overwhelmed by the reality of Gabriel Muriens.

It was not that he had changed.

It was merely that he was.

Gabriel lost control of his face and his heart, like an untried army in an ambush. He was blind with the sight of Amicia, and unwarned, unprepared-a grin covered his face, and he stepped forward and took her hand and kissed it.

And she flushed.

And his mother laughed.

And the young griffon on the perch, a true monster of the Wild, was subsumed in a wave of love. It gazed on Gabriel, raised its great wings, and poured its own love back. It gave a great cry as if its heart had been pierced.

Ghause’s laughter rose. “Oh! Brilliant!” she said. She stepped forward like a victor delivering the coup de grâce , and kissed her son on the cheek. “Two presents, then.”

Amicia, moved beyond endurance, rose too quickly and stepped on her altar cloth. But she set her face, and pushed past him, and walked, head high, out of the room.

“She’ll come back,” Ghause said. “She wants you more than she wants her anaemic vows.”

Gabriel was trembling.

“I have brought you a mighty gift,” Ghause said. “And where are my thanks? Hello, my son.”

“You used her to bait the impressment of a griffon?” Gabriel asked.

“Of course! What better love bait than your leman? As good as anything in a romance. And look, it’s done! Your own griffon, which cost me a lot of effort, too.” Ghause was not a woman given to prattle, but the rage on her son’s face scared her. “Oh, my dear. Griffons need to be greeted with love. That’s all that holds them. You cannot turn a griffon. They’re too stupid. And too smart. Now he’s all yours.” She smiled. “All’s well that ends well.”

“You have not changed much,” Gabriel said. He did smile at the griffon. He walked to the perch and cooed at it. Him.

“How old?” he asked.

Ghause smiled inwardly, knowing she had indeed impressed him. “He’s about two months old and he eats like ten wolves. He’ll be four times that size in six months. His mother was big enough for a grown man to ride.”