Miles Cameron - The Red Knight

‘Out!’ he said.

She sighed, and walked out of the tent, swaying her hips to brush by Toby, who came in, and silently relieved him of his clothes and accoutrements.

‘How old are you, Toby?’ he asked.

‘Rising twelve, my lord. Or perhaps thirteen?’ he said.

The captain lay his body down on clean linen sheets. ‘Would you care to be a squire, Toby?’ he asked.

He survived the protestations of joy and eternal loyalty, and waved the boy away. When he put his head down, though, the tent spun. So he put a foot on the ground. Gave sleep up as a bad job, sat up, and drank some water.

The headache was back.

He stood by his water basin for a full watch. Staring into the dark.

It was, as such things went, pretty dark.

You make them love you, and then you tire of the energy they demand , the voice said.

He sighed, lay down, and went to sleep.

The chapel was magnificent, with all the decoration that could be managed for an occasion that featured the King, the Queen, the Prior, and a thousand noblemen – virtually the whole peerage of Alba.

But there wasn’t room for all of them. The chapel had been built for sixty nuns, as many novices, and perhaps another hundred worshipers.

In the end the service was held in the chapel, but only a select few were there. The rest waited in the courtyard and were served communion there. It was well-managed, and had a festive air despite the great solemnity of the occasion. The courtyard was full to bursting, and velvet clad gentlemen stood shoulder to shoulder with farmers and farm wives.

The Prior and the new Abbess had been very mindful of the future in their assignment of places. Only the greatest lords were in the chapel. The King and Queen sat enthroned. By the king’s right hand stood the Captal de Ruth; by the Queen stood Lady Almspend and Lady Mary. The Count of the Borders stood with the Count D’Eu; the Earl of Towbray stood with Ser Alcaeus, as the ambassador of the Emperor Basileus. And next to him stood the captain.

The Prior said the mass, and a thousand beeswax candles burned.

It was brutally hot.

Out in the courtyard, the company stood in full armour, four ranks deep. With them, by a curious choice of the Prior’s, stood the surviving knights of the military orders in their black. Mag stood nearby, with the women of the company. Her home was gone, and Johne the Bailli had made her a proposal.

The Prior preached about Mary Magdalene. He spoke about sin, and forgiveness. About faith, hope, and charity, and the nuns brought forth the bier on which the Abbess lay. When her corpse entered the chapel, the air temperature dropped, and a smell, like lilacs, wafted in through the doors.

The captain looked at her and wept.

The Captal de Ruth looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

The Queen placed a hand on the captal’s arm.

The captain looked up – he’d surprised himself – and found that he was eye to eye with Amicia. She was standing by the rightmost choir stall, near the altar screen, with six other women in sparkling white-grey. She had, no doubt, been watching him weep.

And now, her eyes remained fixed on his.

She was knocking at the door.

He left it closed.

One is one, and all alone, and ever more shall be so.

The service went on for too long.

When the novices had been elevated; when the new Abbess had been formally invested – when the last words had been spoken over the old Abbess – then the whole congregation rose from their knees and walked in procession from the chapel, through the gate, and down onto the plain. The company acted as guards to the bier with the knights. It was a signal honour, subtly granted by the Prior.

She was lowered slowly into the newly turned earth by six knights.

The Prior threw a shovel of earth onto her.

The captain found that he had wandered away into a world of his own, when the king – the king himself – materialized in front of him.

‘I owe you a debt of gratitude,’ the king said. ‘You are not an easy man to find.’

The captain shrugged. ‘Your servant, my lord,’ he said dismissively.

The king was shocked by the mercenary’s rudeness, but he mastered himself. ‘The Queen has requested that she meet your company. We know what sacrifices they made for our kingdom.’

‘Oh, as to that,’ the captain said, ‘We were well paid.’ But he turned, and led the king and Queen and a small host of their courtiers through the ranks of the company.

The first man on the right was Bad Tom, and next to him, his brother. The king smiled. ‘Ranald!’ he said. ‘I thought that you had returned to my guard?’ He laughed. ‘I note the colour of your tabard remains the same.’

Ranald looked straight ahead. ‘Business,’ he said, seriously. ‘My lord.’

‘But this is a woman, surely?’ asked the Queen, who had taken a few more steps.

‘Ser Alison,’ the captain said. ‘Her friends call her Sauce.’

‘A woman knight?’ the Queen asked. ‘How delightful.’

By her elbow, the captal laughed. ‘Knighted by whose hand?’ he asked.

‘My own,’ the captain said.

Conversation stopped.

‘By what right do you make knights?’ demanded the captal. ‘That is reserved for the very highest nobility, members of the greatest orders, and knights of great renown.’

‘Yes,’ the captain said. ‘Yes, I agree.’

The king cleared his throat. ‘I doubt any knight in this gathering would doubt the captain’s renown, Captal.’

The captal laughed. ‘He is a bastard – a bourc. Everyone says so. He cannot be noble, and he cannot make a knight – most especially not make a knight out of a woman.’

The captain felt the tension in his chest – not fear, but something like anticipation.

In a low voice, he said, ‘My lord, you requested to see my company. If you are done, we will take our leave.’

‘Unsay it,’ the captal insisted. ‘Unsay that this woman is a knight. Make her take that golden belt off her hips. It is unseemly.’

‘Captal!’ said the king. ‘Control yourself.’

The captal shrugged. ‘You are too easy, my liege.’ He looked at the captain and sneered. ‘I say you are a bastard, a caitiff, a low-born poseur, and I say before all these gentlemen that you cannot make a knight, that no knighting of yours-’

The captain turned to the king. Leaned over, and whispered in his ear.

The king whirled, looked at the mercenary, and the blood left his face like a tide slipping away from a white sand beach. In three beats of a man’s heart, the king aged – he looked as white as parchment. His upper lip trembled. The Queen, who had not been able to hear the words, felt his hand close on her arm like a vice and gave a little grunt of pain.

On the other side of the grave, Sister Amicia gave a start, and went as pale as the king.

The silence went on for so long that wasps could be heard droning, and the grunt of the men filling the Abbess’ grave.

The king looked at the captain, and the captain looked back at the king, and then the king inclined his head – the sort of civil motion that a gentlemen makes to a lady about to proceed him through a door.

In a hoarse voice, the king said, ‘This gentleman has the power to make a knight anywhere within the kingdom of Alba, of anyone, no matter how ignoble their birth or station. Such is my word.’

The captain bowed deeply and the captal was silent.

The king acknowledged the captain’s bow, and he took the Queen and led her on, up the hill to the fortress.

The captain caught the captal’s eye. Jean de Vrailly was afraid of nothing – so he stopped.

‘I take it I have managed to offend you?’ he said. ‘It is difficult for me to understand how a whore like you can take offence. You fight only for money.’