The Black Chalice

rummaging through the pots. 'There's no food.' The knight looked at him as though he were speaking in tongues. 'Think about it. They weren't lured out by anyone; they went in search of food.'

'By Christ, you're right,' Sir Lowick said, making the sign of the cross over his chest as the blasphemy slipped from his tongue. It was the most telling thing they hadn't seen, and offered one rational explanation why the men had ventured out into the snow. What it didn't explain was why they had allowed their victuals to run so low in the first place? Neither did it explain why they hadn't sent word along to the next mile house to beg rations to see them through until the knight and his squire made their rounds and could send for proper supplies, nor did it account for the fact that one of them hadn't simply returned to the estate whilst the other maintained their watch. There was something that was just wrong about the whole thing.

That was when a second alternative occurred to him; that their food supplies had been tampered with.

It made sense of a couple of the whys. Tampering with the rations would explain why the rations had run out — or rather why they had been allowed to. Simply put, the men hadn't been any the wiser. As far as they were concerned they had supplies to last out the worst of the winter.

'I'll be back,' Sir Lowick said. 'Be ready to leave as soon as I return.'

With that, he donned his cloak and, drawing it about him, pushed open the door and plunged out into the storm. The snow had hardened into hail, which bit into his cheeks as he floundered through the snow to the side of the building. He pulled open the wooden doors of the shed that served as a pantry for the main building. The place was bare. On closer inspection he saw the black shadows of the scorch marks on the walls where fire had claimed the oats and other victuals the men had stored out here in the cold cupboard. Someone had burned the lot. Only the fact that the shed was stone and isolated from the main building had saved the entire mile house from going up in smoke.

Grunting, he threw closed the wooden doors and trudged around to the stables to see to saddling the horses.

Knowing that hunger was no doubt behind their desertion made all of the difference. Without doubt, he had been looking for the men in the wrong place.

When Alymere emerged from the dwelling wrapped up against the cold, without looking up the knight asked him, 'If you were hungry, where would you go?'

'The nearest settlement,' Alymere said. It was the most obvious answer, and sometimes the most obvious answer was the right one.

'Exactly. We've been looking for them in the wrong place. We assumed they were going to help someone else, not themselves. Saddle up, lad. The road waits for no man.'

They rode out, the knight urging his mount into a gallop before they were halfway across the open field. Alymere spurred his horse on. The animal was grateful to be given its head. The nearest settlement was five and some miles south, close to the crossroads where the Stanegate Road met Deere Street, deep in the heart of the valley between the Tyne and the Irthing. Stanegate wound and wandered more than other Roman roads, but offered reivers easy passage deep into the southlands.

The stretch of road from the wall down as far as the crossroads was known colloquially as The Maiden Way.

They rode in silence, heads down, hunched low over the necks of the racing horses, spurring them on to greater and greater speeds despite the treacherous footing the road offered. The wind whipped at Alymere's face. In front of him, Sir Lowick's cloak billowed out behind him like some black wraith looking to snag him and haul him down out of the saddle. The forest raced by on either side, shadows and phantom forms pulling at Alymere's eyes again and again, but not once did he catch sight of anything even remotely resembling the red hart running along beside them.

He knew rationally that his uncle was right; a red hart was a long way from a white hart in terms of symbolism and meaning. White reflected purity, while red equated to guilt, sin, and anger. It conjured images of blood and sex. His mind raced, avoiding the most obvious explanation and the Crow Maiden's parting words, and instead wanting to believe that somehow his father was still with him, watching over him. There was comfort in it. It was as simple as that.

Up ahead, the road widened.

It took him a moment to realise that what he was seeing wasn't snow but rather smoke through the trees ahead, and the maiden's words came back to him: 'Follow the smoke…'

'Smoke!' Alymere yelled, his voice torn away from his mouth by the blustering wind. Lowick looked back over his shoulder to see Alymere pointing to the curls of smoke rising from the distant trees, and like Alymere before him, seemed to take an age to distinguish the smoke from the snow and recognise it for what it was, but when he did, he spurred his horse on, urging it to go faster still. Hooves thundered on the road, the two of them riding like the hounds of Hell themselves were snapping at their heels.

Because smoke meant fire, and fire meant suffering, torment, and pain. Because, like the hart, fire was red.

Thirteen

The thatched roofs of the ring of homes had caved in beneath the heat. The straw had curled, withering, while the edges charred, and finally the entire structure collapsed, the flames leaping higher.

Alymere's horse shied away from the fire and smoke, snorting and kicking as it pranced sideways, refusing to go any closer to the burning buildings.

As he watched in horror, the fire quickly consumed the wattle walls, blistering the whitewash daubed on the facades.

The heat coming off the huts was staggering. It battered him. He felt his mouth dry and the inside of his throat shrivel as the heat intensified and it became progressively more difficult to breathe.

The horses refused to go any nearer to the flames.

Beside him, the knight swung down out of the saddle and rushed toward the closest building. He didn't look back, didn't hesitate. The door hung on one rope hinge, as the other had burned through. He pushed it out of his way and plunged into the fire. Alymere was slower to react, not through fear but because of what he saw lying in the snow a few feet beyond the door of the second hut: a body, though it was barely recognisable as such. It lay curled up, one arm outstretched, clawing at the snow. The entire body was charred, the clothes fused to its back and legs where they had melted into the skin. Licks of steam rose off blistered flesh where the snow cooled it, and blood had begun to congeal. Slain.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

Not even remotely.

Alymere swung down from his horse and walked toward the ruined body, sick to the stomach.

As he neared, it became more and more difficult to deny the truth of his own eyes. The body in the snow was that of a child. Alymere caught himself saying the words of a prayer as he knelt beside the body. It was impossible to tell whether it had been a girl or a boy, the damage wrought by the blaze was so complete.

His eyes stung, and not just from the smoke.

He wiped away the tears with his left hand.

The smell, the sickly sweet stench of burning meat, stuck in his throat.

Alymere felt his gorge rising. He turned away from the ruined body, gagging, and retched violently. He dry heaved again and again, doubling up as the spasms wracked his body. There was nothing in his stomach to bring up but bile.

Gasping, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

What he had seen, he would never forget. That small body, broken and burned in the snow, would forever shape his fate, and time and time again affect decisions he made from that moment until the day he died.

It was only then that he became aware of the screams: there were people trapped inside one of the buildings, begging for help.

This time he didn't hesitate.

Alymere pushed himself to his feet and ran toward the burning building.