Miles Cameron - The Red Knight

Ranald was up with the dawn. The old man was gone, but had left him a deer’s liver fried in winter onions – a veritable feast. He said a prayer for the old man and another when he found the man had thrown a blanket over his riding horse. He cleared the camp and had mounted up before the sun was above the eastern mountains.

It was a ride he’d done with the king a hundred times. Following the highway north along the Albin, except that where the great river wound like an endless snake, the highway ran as straight as the terrain would allow, deviating only for big hills and rich manors, and crossing the Albin seven times via the seven great stone bridges between Harndon and Albinkirk. Lorica was the first bridge. Cheylas was the second – a pretty town with red-tile roofs and round chimney-stacks and fine brick houses. He ate a big meal at the sign of the Irk’s Head, and was out the door before the ale could tempt him to stay the night. He changed to his big hackney and rode north again, crossing Cheylas Bridge while the sun was high in the sky and making for Third Bridge as fast as his horse would go.

He crossed Third Bridge as darkness was falling. The Bridge Keeper didn’t take guests – a matter of law – but directed him politely to a manor farm on the west bank. ‘Less than a league,’ the retired soldier said.

Ranald was pleased to find the man’s directions were spot on, because the night was dark and cold, for spring. In the North, the Aurora played in the sky, and there was a feel to it that Ranald didn’t like.

Bampton Manor was rich beyond a hillman’s ideas of rich – but Ranald was used to how rich the southland was. They gave him a bed and a slice of game pie, and a cup of good red wine, and in the morning, the gentleman who owned the farms smiled at his offer of repayment.

‘You are a King’s Guardsman?’ the young man asked. ‘I am – I would like to be a man-at-arms. I have my own harness.’ He blushed.

Ranald didn’t laugh. ‘You’d like to serve the king?’ he asked.

The young man nodded. ‘Hawthor Veney,’ he said holding out his hand.

His housekeeper bustled up with a bag. ‘Which I packed you a lunch,’ she said. ‘Good for a ploughman, good for a knight, I says.’

Ranald bowed to her. ‘Your servant, ma’am. I’m no knight – just a servant of the king, going home to see my family.’

‘Hillman?’ she said, and sniffed. It was a good sniff – it suggested that hillmen themselves were not always good people, but that she’d already decided in his favour on the matter.

He bowed again. To young Hawthor, he said, ‘Do you practise arms, messire?’

Hawthor beamed, and the older housekeeper cackled. ‘It’s all he does. Doesn’t plough, doesn’t reap, won’t even attend the haying. Doesn’t chase servant girls, doesn’t drink.’ She shook her head.

‘Goodwife Evans!’ Hawthor said with the annoyance of a master for an unservile servant.

She sniffed again – another sniff entirely.

Ranald nodded. ‘Would you care to measure your sword against mine, young ser?’

In a matter of minutes they were armed and padded in jupons and gauntlets and helmets, standing in the farmhouse yard with a dozen labourers for an audience.

Ranald liked to fight with an axe, but service in the King’s Guard required knowledge of the courtly sword. Four feet of steel. The boy – Ranald didn’t think of himself as old, but found that Hawthor made him feel old with every comment he made – had a pair of training weapons, not too well balanced, probably made by a local man, a little heavy. But they were perfectly serviceable.

Ranald waited patiently in a garde. Mostly, he was interested in seeing how the boy came at him – a man’s character was visible in his swordsmanship.

The boy stood his ground. He put his sword on his shoulder, and came forward in a position that fencing masters called ‘The Garde of the Woman’. His stance was too open and he didn’t seem to understand that he needed to cock the sword back as far as he could. The sort of little error you would spot up when arms are your profession, thought Ranald. But he liked how patient the boy was.

The boy closed with assurance, and launched his attack without a false preamble – no bobbing or weaving or wasting effort.

Ranald cut into the boy’s attack and knocked his blade to the ground.

The boy didn’t wait for the whole move, but back-stepped.

Ranald’s sword licked out and caught him in the side of the head despite his retreat.

‘Oh!’ Hawthor said. ‘Well struck.’

The rest was much the same. Hawthor was a competent lad, for a young man without a master-at-arms to teach him. He knew lots of wrestling and very few subtleties, but he was bold and careful, a superb combination for a man so young.

Ranald paused to get out of his heavy jupon and to write the boy a note. ‘Take this to Lord Glendower with my compliments. You may be asked to serve a year with the pages. Where are your parents?’

Hawthor shrugged. ‘Dead, messire.’

‘Well, if the goodwife can spare you,’ he said. And he was still smiling as he headed for the Fourth Bridge, at Kingstown.

North of Harndon – Harold Redmede

Harold Redmede looked down at the sleeping hillman with a smile. He packed his gear silently, left the hillman the better part of a venison liver, picked up his brother’s gear as well, and humped it all to the stream.

He found his brother asleep under a hollow log with his threadbare cloak all about him. Sat and whittled, listening to the Wild, until his brother woke on his own.

‘He was harmless,’ Harold said.

‘He was a king’s man, and thus a threat to every free man,’ said Bill.

Harold shrugged. ‘I’ve been a king’s man,’ he said. It was an old argument, and not one likely to be resolved. ‘Here, have some venison and the cider I saved for you. I brought you fish hooks, twenty good heads for arrows and sixty shafts. Don’t shoot any of my friends.’

‘An aristo is an aristo,’ Bill said.

Harold shook his head. ‘Bollocks to you, Bill Redmede,’ he said. ‘There’s right bastards in the nobles and right bastards in the commons, too.’

‘Difference is that a right bastard commoner, you can break his head with your staff.’ Bill took a piece of his brother’s bread as it was sliced off with a sharp knife.

‘Cheese?’ Harold asked.

‘Only cheese I’ll see this year.’ Bill sat back against a tree trunk. ‘I’ve a mind to go put a knife in your guest.’

Harold shook his head. ‘No you won’t. First, I drank with him, and that’s that. Second, he’s wearing mail and sleeping with a dirk in his fist, and I don’t think you’re going to off a hillman in his sleep, brother o’ mine.’

‘Fair enough. Sometimes I have to remember that we must be fair in our actions, while the enemy is foul.’

‘I could still find you a place here,’ Harold said.

Bill shook his head. ‘I know you mean well, brother. But I am what I am. I’m a Jack. I’m down here recruiting new blood. It’s going to be a big year for us.’ He winked. ‘I’ll say no more. But the day is coming.’

‘You and your day,’ Harold muttered. ‘Listen, William. You think I don’t know you have five young boys hid in the beeches north of here? I even know whose boys they are. Recruits? They’re fifteen or sixteen winters! And you have an irk for a guide.’

Bill shrugged. ‘Needs must when the de’il drives,’ he said.

Harold sat back. ‘I know irks is folks,’ he said, waving a hand. ‘I’ve met ’em in the woods. Listened to ’em play their harps. Traded to ’em.’ He leaned forward. ‘But I’m a forester. They kill other folks. Bill. If you’re on their side you’re with the Wild, not with men.’