Miles Cameron - The Red Knight

The captain had control of himself. He took his time. Composed his answer while the captal was pinned in place by convention like a butterfly to parchment.

‘Sometimes I fight for free,’ he said. ‘But only when it interests me.’ He paused, holding the captal with his eyes. ‘But I imagine that in the end, someone will pay me to put you down like the mad dog you are.’

Jean de Vrailly smiled – a beautiful smile that filled his face. ‘So,’ he said. And laughed. ‘I look forward to see you try.’

‘I imagine you do,’ the captain muttered. He wasn’t sure that he’d had the better of the exchange, but he walked away without falling over his feet.

Lissen Carak – Michael

The Earl of Towbray left his tail of men-at-arms and all but ran down the steps behind the Commandery to catch the captain’s squire. Former squire.

‘You are a knight!’ he said.

Michael turned. ‘Pater. So are you, I find.’

Towbray couldn’t be angry. ‘I gather you won your spurs and then some,’ he said. ‘Can you come home now?’

Michael shook his head. ‘No, Pater.’ He looked up, and found it easier to meet his father’s eye then he had expected. ‘I was glad to see our banner. With the king.’ He looked around. ‘Surprised. But glad.’

Towbray shrugged. ‘I can’t love the king. But – damn it, boy! Who are you to tell me how to play the game of court?’

Michael shook his head and then bowed. ‘A new-minted knight, who makes twenty-eight florins a month in a company of mercenaries. ‘He stepped back. ‘I must go.’

Towbray reached out a hand. ‘I admire you.’

‘You won’t admire me as much when I tell you that I’m planning to marry a farm girl from Abbington.’ Michael grinned, feeling, for once, that he was master of a conversation with his father.

His father started, but with grim determination, extended his hand. ‘So be it,’ said his father, although his face showed distaste.

Michael took the hand. ‘Then may I have my allowance back?’

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

An hour later, the company was mounted and ready. All week the wagons had been swayed out of the cellars and re-built, rolled down the hill, and loaded. The company’s stock had been safe in the fortress, and they were hitched with the company’s usual efficiency. The valets mounted the wagons, the archers collected the spare mounts, and the camp followers got their nags and donkeys. At the head of the column, the captain mounted a strange new war horse, just given him by the Prior, and looked back to see Michael – Ser Michael – attending to the banner.

One by one, the corporals reported in, ready to march. A small crowd formed – mostly Lanthorns and Carters and a dozen guildsmen from Harndon, come to see their boys off as they marched away. And their girls. Amy and Kitty Carter, Lis the laundress, Old Mag – who hadn’t looked as young in twenty years. Her daughter Sukey, whose husband had died in the siege. The captain had noted Sukey with Bad Tom. Twice. He made a note to himself to look into that.

The captain looked repeatedly for a single face in the crowd, but it refused to be there. Many women looked – for an instant – like her. Too many women.

So when all his people were ready, and the sun was so high in the sky that it made a mockery of his intention to march away, he raised a hand. ‘March!’ he said.

Whips cracked, men shouted, and wagons rolled.

Gerald Random waved from the walls, and Jean de Vrailly watched silently. The Prior saluted and women cried.

The king stood alone in the north tower, watching the convoy begin to roll east. His hands shook. And the Queen watched him from the courtyard and wondered what was amiss.

A young nun knelt, her back straight, at the high altar of the chapel.

A mile from the fortress, the captain came upon his huntsman, sitting his horse silently at a bend in the road. It took him a long moment to recognise where they were.

‘We still never caught the man who killed that nun,’ Gelfred said. ‘It sticks in my craw. I want justice.’

‘It was the priest,’ the captain said. ‘Sister Amicia and I figured it out – far too late to punish him for it. He’s off to the Wild, I suspect.’

Gelfred crossed himself. ‘He will go to Hell!’ Gelfred said. ‘God will punish him.’

He captain shrugged. ‘God doesn’t give a fuck, Gelfred,’ he said. He touched his heels to his magnificent new charger. ‘But I do, Gelfred, and I promise you, the priest will die.’

And with that, he put his horse’s head to the east, and rode away.

Far to the west, Thorn paused at the top of a ridge. He could see fifty leagues in the clear air, and he breathed deep. He had twenty wounds, and his powers – greater than they had ever been – were nonetheless spent.

He looked east.

That was foolish , he thought. The further he got from the rock, the more it was like a bad dream.

I could have been killed. For ever.

But I wasn’t, and when I return-

The great creature that was Thorn could not smile, but something passed over the heavy bark and stone of his face.

On the downslope of the ridge, he thought, Or perhaps I’ll do something else. Unify the boglins, perhaps.

The North Road – The Red Knight

The column rolled east at a good pace and within hours, the captain’s precautions were justified by huntsmen flushing creatures of the Wild – a pair of boglins, and a lone irk.

They made camp early, dug a trench, and stood watches.

The captain lay awake most of the night.

In the morning they moved with the dawn, and his heart began to lift. The process of camping, of moving camp, and the sounds of the horses and the wagons – the sounds of people and animals – it all raised his spirits.

It took them three days to come to the Southford of the Albin. Albinkirk still smouldered, on its hill. The Royal Standard still flew from the castle, and the captain and his officers rode to the town gate, were admitted, and dined with Ser John Crayford.

Ser Alcaeus, who was falling into the company as if he had always been there, walked them around the walls. ‘This is where we held their first rush,’ he said at the ruined west wall. ‘Here’s where a dozen of us held the gate.’ And again, with a wry look, ‘Here’s where we almost lost the wall.’

Crayford shook his head. ‘You’re the very King of Sell-Swords, now, I reckon,’ he said. He leered at the captain. ‘My squire’s older than you, boy! How’d you do it?’

The captain raised an eyebrow. ‘Clean living.’

Crayford shook his head. ‘Good on you, lad. I’m a jealous old man. If I had another battle in me, I’d follow you.’

The captain smiled. ‘Even though two of your men are leaving you for my company?’ he asked.

The old man managed to nod with a good grace. ‘Even then, you scapegrace.’

He let them go with a fine meal and a hogshead of wine.

‘No one left here to drink it,’ he muttered.

People were trickling back into the town. The captain bought bread for the whole company from a young woman with haunted eyes. Haunted, but practical.

‘Burned the house,’ she said, eyes on the west. ‘Couldn’t burn the ovens, though, could they? Little fucks.’

They rode north on the east side of the Albin in the morning, and Ranald told them of having met the Queen at the ford as her boats rowed past.

Past Albinkirk the huntsmen ranged wider, over the hills on either side. Summer was coming and the abandoned farms seemed sinister in their wrappings of verdant life. Grains stood tall and ripe and there wasn’t going to be a soul to harvest it.