Miles Cameron - The Red Knight

The captain left him to it.

In the garden, Ser Thomas’ squire and half a dozen archers had stripped the bodies of valuables – and collected all the body parts strewn across the enclosure, reassembled as far as possible, and laid them out, wrapped in cloaks. The two men were almost green, and the smell of vomit almost covered the smell of blood and ordure. A third archer was wiping his hands on a linen shirt.

Ser Thomas – Bad Tom to every man in the company – was six foot six inches of dark hair, heavy brow and bad attitude. He had a temper and was always the wrong man to cross. He was watching his men attentively, an amulet out and in his hand. He turned at the rattle of the captain’s hardened steel sabatons on the stone path and gave him a sketchy salute. ‘Reckon the young ‘uns earned their pay today, Captain.’

Since they weren’t paid unless they had a contract, it wasn’t saying much.

The captain merely grunted. There were six corpses in the garden.

Bad Tom raised an eyebrow and passed something to him.

The captain looked at it, and pursed his lips. Tucked the chain into the purse at his waist, and slapped Bad Tom on his paulder-clad shoulder. ‘Stay here and stay awake,’ he said. ‘You can have Sauce and Gelding, too.’

Bad Tom shrugged. He licked his lips. ‘Me an’ Sauce don’t always see eye to eye.’

The captain smiled inwardly to see this giant of a man – feared throughout the company – admit that he and a woman didn’t ‘see eye to eye’.

She came over the wall to join them.

Sauce had won her name as a whore, giving too much lip to customers. She was tall, and in the rain her red hair was toned to dark brown. Freckles gave her an innocence that was a lie. She had made herself a name. That said all that needed to be said.

‘Tom fucked it up already?’ she asked.

Tom glared.

The captain took a breath. ‘Play nicely, children. I need my best on guard here, frosty and awake.’

‘It won’t come back,’ she said.

The captain shook his head. ‘Stay awake anyway. Just for me.’

Bad Tom smiled and blew a kiss at Sauce. ‘Just for you ,’ he said.

Her hand went to her riding sword and with a flick it was in her hand.

The captain cleared his throat.

‘He treats me like a whore. I am not. ’ She held the sword steady at his face, and Bad Tom didn’t move.

‘Say you are sorry, Tom.’ The captain sounded as if it was all a jest.

‘Didn’t say one bad thing. Not one! Just a tease!’ Tom said. Spittle flew from his lips.

‘You meant to cause harm. She took it as harm. You know the rules, Tom.’ The captain’s voice had changed, now. He spoke so softly that Tom had to lean forward to hear him.

‘Sorry,’ Tom muttered like a schoolboy. ‘Bitch.’

Sauce smiled. The tip of her riding sword pressed into the man’s thick forehead just over an eye.

‘Fuck you!’ Tom growled.

The captain leaned forward. ‘Neither one of you wants this. It’s clear you are both posturing. Climb down or take the consequences. Tom, Sauce wants to be treated as your peer. Sauce, Tom is top beast and you put his back up at every opportunity. If you want to be part of this company then you have to accept your place in it.’

He raised his gloved hand. ‘On the count of three, you will both back away, Sauce will sheathe her weapon, Tom will bow to her and apologise, and Sauce will return his apology. Or you can both collect your kit, walk away and kill each other. But not as my people. Understand? Three. Two. One.’

Sauce stepped back, saluted with her blade and sheathed it. Without looking or fumbling.

Tom let a moment go by. Pure insolence. But then something happened in his face, and he bowed – a good bow, so that his right knee touched the mud. ‘Humbly crave your pardon,’ he said in a loud, clear voice.

Sauce smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile, but it did transform her face, despite the missing teeth in the middle. ‘And I yours, ser knight,’ she replied. ‘I regret my . . . attitude.’

She obviously shocked Tom. In the big man’s world of dominance and submission, she was beyond him. The captain could read him like a book. And he thought Sauce deserves something for that. She’s a good man.

Gelfred appeared at his elbow. Had probably been waiting for the drama to end.

The captain felt the wrongness of it before he saw what his huntsman carried. Like a housewife returning from pilgrimage and smelling something dead under her floor – it was like that, only stronger and wronger.

‘I rolled her over. This was in her back,’ Gelfred said. He had the thing wrapped in his rosary.

The captain swallowed bile, again. I love this job, he reminded himself.

To the eye, it looked like a stick – two fingers thick at the butt, sharpened to a needlepoint now clotted with blood and dark. Thorns sprouted from the whole haft, but it was fletched. An arrow. Or rather, an obscene parody of an arrow, whittled from . . .

‘Witch Bane,’ Gelfred said.

The captain made himself take it without flinching. There were some secrets he would pay the price to preserve. He flashed on the last Witch-Bane arrow he’d seen – and pushed past it.

He held it a moment. ‘So?’ he said, with epic unconcern.

‘She was shot in the back – with the Witch Bane – while she was alive.’ Gelfred’s eyes narrowed. ‘And then the monster ripped her face off.’

The captain nodded and handed his huntsman the shaft. The moment it left his hand he felt lighter, and the places where the thorns had pricked his chamois gloves felt like rashes of poison ivy on his thumb and fingers – if poison ivy caused an itchy numbness, a leaden pollution.

‘Interesting,’ the captain said.

Sauce was watching him.

Damn women and their superior powers of observation, he thought.

Her smile forced him to smile in return. The squires and valets in the garden began to breathe again and the captain was sure they’d stay awake, now. Given that there was a murderer on the loose who had monster-allies in the Wild.

He got back to his horse. Jehannes, his marshal, came up on his bridle hand side and cleared his throat. ‘That woman’s trouble,’ he said.

‘Tom’s trouble too,’ the captain replied.

‘No other company would have had her.’ Jehannes spat.

The captain looked at his marshal. ‘Now Jehannes,’ he said. ‘Be serious. Who would have Tom? He’s killed more of his own comrades than Judas Iscariot.’

Jehannes looked away. ‘I don’t trust her,’ he said.

The captain nodded. ‘I know. Let’s get moving.’ He considered vaulting into the saddle and decided that he was too tired and the show would be wasted on Jehannes, anyway. ‘You dislike her because she’s a woman,’ he said, and put his left foot into the stirrup.

Grendel was tall enough that he had to bend his left knee as far as the articulation in his leg harness would allow. The horse snorted again. Toby held onto the reins.

He leaped up, his right leg powering him into the saddle, pushing his six feet of height and fifty pounds of mail and plate. Got his knee over the high ridge of the war-saddle and was in his seat.

‘Yes,’ Jehannes said, and backed his horse into his place in the column.

The captain saw Michael watching Jehannes go. The younger man turned and raised an eyebrow at the captain.

‘Something to say, young Michael?’ the captain asked.

‘What was the stick? M’lord?’ Michael was different from the rest – well born. Almost an apprentice, instead of a hireling. As the captain’s squire, he had special privileges. He could ask questions, and all the rest of the company would sit very still and listen to the answer.