Miles Cameron - The Red Knight

‘What do you plan to do with that man?’ Gaston asked.

‘Take him to court to prove my prowess. Then I’ll ransom him.’

Gaston nodded. ‘We should offer him a cup of wine.’

De Vrailly shook his head. ‘He does penance for his weakness – for the sin of pride, in daring to face me, and for his failure as a man-at-arms. He should kneel there in shame for the rest of his life.’

Gaston looked at his cousin, his face half turned away. He fingered his short beard. Whatever he might have said was interrupted by a knock on the door. Johan put his head in.

‘An officer of the town, monsieur. To see you.’

‘Send him away.’

After a pause in which Gaston poured himself wine, Johan reappeared. ‘He says he must insist. He is not a knight. Merely a well-born man. He is not in armour. He says he is the sheriff.’

‘So? Send him away.’

Gaston put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘Their sheriff’s are king’s officers, are they not? Ask him what he wants.’

Johan could be heard speaking, and then shouting, and then the door slammed open. Gaston drew his sword, as did de Vrailly. Their gentlemen poured in from adjoining rooms, some still fully armed.

‘You are Jean de Vrailly?’ asked the newcomer, who didn’t seem to care that he was surrounded by armed foreigners who topped him by a head or more. He was in doublet and hose, with high boots and a long sword belted at his waist. He was fiftyish and running to fat, and only the fur on his hood, his bearing and the sword at his hip suggested he was a man of any consequence. But he glowered.

‘I am,’ de Vrailly answered.

‘I arrest you in the name of the king for the murder of-’

The sheriff was knocked unconscious with a single blow from Raymond St David, who let the body fall to the floor. ‘Bah,’ he said.

‘They are soft,’ de Vrailly said. ‘Did he bring men-at-arms?’

‘Not one,’ Raymond said. He grinned. ‘He came alone!’

‘What kind of a country is this?’ Gaston asked. ‘Are they all insane?’

In the morning, Gaston’s retainers collected the dull-eyed Alban knight from the courtyard and packed him onto a cart with his armour; his horses were tethered behind. He tried to engage the Alban in conversation and was repelled by the man’s look of hatred.

‘Destriers,’ his cousin commanded. There was a lot of grumbling at the order – no knight liked to ride his war horse when the occasion didn’t demand it. A good war horse, fully trained, was worth the value of several suits of armour – and a single pulled muscle, a strain, a cut, or a bad shoe was an expensive injury.

‘We must impress the earl.’

De Vrailly’s household knights formed up in the inn’s great courtyard while the lesser men-at-arms prepared in the field outside the town. They had almost a thousand spears, as well as three hundred lances. Gaston had already been out the gate, seen to the lesser men, and was back.

The innkeeper – a surly, sharp faced fellow – came out and spoke to the Alban knight on the cart.

De Vrailly grinned at him, and Gaston knew there would be trouble.

‘You!’ de Vrailly shouted. His clear voice rang across the courtyard. ‘I take issue with your measure of hospitality, Ser Innkeeper! Your service was poor, the wine bad, and you attempted to interfere in a gentleman’s private matter. What have you to say for yourself?’

The rat-faced innkeeper put his hands on his hips. Gaston shook his head. He was actually going to discuss it with a knight.

‘I-!’ he began, and one of de Vrailly’s squires, already mounted, reached out and kicked him. The kick caught him in the side of the head and he fell without a sound.

The other squires laughed and looked to de Vrailly, who dropped a small purse on the unconscious man. ‘Here’s money , innkeeper.’ He laughed. ‘We will teach these people to behave like civilized people and not animals. Burn the inn!’

Before the last wagon of their small army had pulled out onto the road, a column of smoke was rising over the town of Lorica, and high into the sky.

An hour later, Gaston was at his cousin’s side when they met the Earl of Towbray and his retinue where the Lorica road crossed the North road. The man had fifty lances – a large force for Alba. The earl was fully armoured and wore his helmet. He sent a herald who invited The Captal de Vrailly and all those who attend him to ride forward and meet the earl under the shade of a large oak that grew alone at the crossroads.

Gaston smiled at the earl’s caution. ‘Here is a man who understands how the world works,’ he said.

‘He grew up among us,’ de Vrailly agreed. ‘Let us ride to meet him. He has six lances with him – we shall take the same.’

The earl raised his visor when they met. ‘Jean de Vrailly, Sieur de Ruth?’ he asked.

De Vrailly nodded. ‘You do not remember me,’ he said. ‘I was quite young when you toured the east. This is my cousin Gaston, Lord of Eu.’

Towbray clasped hands with each in turn, gauntleted hand to gauntleted hand. His knights watched them impassively, visors closed and weapons to hand.

‘Did you have trouble in Lorica?’ the earl asked, pointing at the column of smoke on the horizon.

De Vrailly shook his head. ‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘I taught some lessons that needed to be learned. These people have forgotten what a sword is, and forgotten the respect due to the men of the sword. A poor knight challenged me – I defeated him, of course. I will take him to Harndon and ransom him, after I display him to the king.’

‘We burned the inn,’ Gaston interrupted. He thought it had been a foolish piece of bravado, and he was finding his cousin tiresome.

The earl glared at de Vrailly. ‘Which inn?’ he asked.

De Vrailly glared back. ‘I do not like to be questioned in that tone, my lord.’

‘The sign of two lions. You know it?’ Gaston leaned past his cousin.

‘You burned the Two Lions?’ The earl demanded. ‘It has stood there forever. Its foundations are Archaic.’

‘And I imagine they are still there for some other peasant to build his sty upon.’ De Vrailly frowned. ‘They scurried like rats to put out the fire, and I did nothing to stop them. But I was offended. A lesson needed to be made.’

The earl shook his head. ‘You have brought so many men. I see three hundred knights – yes? In all of Alba there might be four thousand knights.’

‘You wanted a strong force. And you wanted me,’ de Vrailly said. ‘I am here. We have common cause – and I have your letter. You said to bring all the force I could muster. Here it is.’

‘I forget how rich the East is, my friend. Three hundred lances?’ The earl shook his head. ‘I can pay them, for now, but after the spring campaign we may have to come to another arrangement.’

De Vrailly looked at his cousin. ‘Indeed. Come spring we will have another arrangement.’

The earl was distracted by the cart in the middle of the column.

‘Good Christ,’ he said suddenly. ‘You don’t mean that Ser Gawin Murien is your prisoner? Are you insane ?’

De Vrailly pulled his horse around so hard Gaston saw blood on the bit.

‘You will not speak to me that way, my lord!’ De Vrailly insisted.

The earl rode down the column, heedless of his men-at-arms’ struggle to stay with him. He rode up to the wagon.

Gaston watched his cousin carefully. ‘You will not kill this earl just because he annoys you,’ he said quietly.

‘He said I was insane,’ de Vrailly countered, mouth tight and eyes glittering. ‘We can destroy his fifty knights with a morning’s work.’

‘You will end with a kingdom of corpses,’ Gaston said. ‘If the old king really lost fifty thousand men in one battle a generation ago, this kingdom must be almost empty. You cannot kill everyone you dislike.’