The Black Chalice

Sir Lowick was brutal, ruthless and efficient. The broadsword in his hand became an extension of his body.

It lasted less than a minute.

The knight's thrust slipped inside the big warrior's guard, driving deep into his shoulder. The reiver wore furs in place of mail, but all the fur in the world couldn't have protected him from the knight's next blow. He twisted the hilt before pulling the blade free, opening the wound wide, then spun on his heel and, with all of his weight behind the blow, swept the broadsword through a savage arc that only ended when the edge of the blade embedded itself in the bones of the dead man's neck.

There was so much blood.

Alymere had seen men die, but not like this.

The raider's head fell against his chest, nothing supporting it, while blood gushed out of the gaping wound. For a few seconds it looked as though the dead man intended to go on fighting, and then he stumbled and went down.

The knight's sword was the only thing preventing him from collapsing at his feet. Sir Lowick planted his foot on his foe's chest and freed his sword, turning to face his next victim.

'If you have any hopes of seeing the sunrise you'll throw down your weapon,' the knight said. He could have been talking to his own mother, so lightly did he speak.

Alymere crossed himself. The monk merely watched from under his cowl.

'I'm not as easy to kill as Douglas,' the Scot hawked and spat onto the dirt at his feet. 'So let's have at you.'

Sir Lowick shrugged, equally happy to dispense justice twice as once.

They came together in a clash of swords.

The reiver had not lied — he was considerably more accomplished with his own weapon, and stronger despite his smaller build. His arms were powerful, each forearm as thick as a ham hock and his thighs like tree trunks. He planted his feet in the dirt and met the knight's charge head on.

Swords clashed, but otherwise the cloister was eerily silent.

The knight rained down three savage blows in quick succession, arcing the blade down from above, and looking to cleave the reiver's skull in two. The attack left him wide open, but the warrior was too busy protecting himself to exploit it.

Gasping, they broke apart again.

The heat from the burning buildings had sweat glistening on the knight's brow. Rivulets of perspiration ran down to sting his eyes. He blinked them back without once taking his eye off the reiver.

Now they circled each other warily, respectfully. The pair were evenly matched. Four more times they came together, trading blows without working an opening. Neither one pushed the other onto the back foot for more than a couple of blows before they parted again, breathing harder each time.

Alymere stood rooted to the spot. He might as well have been another one of the garden's dead trees. He couldn't look away from the two men as they danced. That was what it looked like to him; every movement carefully orchestrated, every feint and parry, every leap, thrust and counter.

Finally the Scot launched himself, hoping to overcome the knight with sheer strength. Their weapons came together, the momentum of the northerner's swing driving Lowick back a step before his heel dug in. He gritted his teeth as, instead of breaking away, the reiver pressed on with the blow. It took every ounce of strength the knight had to keep the claymore's razor-sharp edge from his throat.

There was neither nobility nor honour in what happened next.

The knight's arm trembled violently with the strain of holding his opponent's sword at bay. The pair remained locked like that for what seemed like forever, and then Lowick's sword arm appeared to buckle, suddenly offering no resistance.

The northerner lost his balance and pitched forward.

As he stumbled Sir Lowick abandoned all pretence of fighting fair and drove his forehead into the middle of the Scot's face.

The sound of cracking bone was sickening. Blood exploded from the reiver's broken nose, spraying both men.

He staggered back, shaking his head and trying to wipe the blood from his eyes, but the effort was pointless. Lowick's blade plunged deep into his gut, opening him up. The shock barely had time to register on the dying man's face.

'You'd do this…' he looked down at the sword still buried in his stomach and at his guts unravelling around it, 'for that demon?' The reiver spat blood.

'No,' the knight rammed the sword deeper, the bloody tip pushing out through the man's back. 'I'm doing it for every man, woman and child you murdered on your way here.'

He pulled his sword clear, but not cleanly, slicing through the man's belly as he withdrew. The northerner slumped to his knees, dropped his own blade and clutched at his stomach, as though trying to feed his guts back into the hole in his body. Sir Lowick's face was impassive. 'I wouldn't bother,' he said, again in that frighteningly casual tone. He wiped his sword on the fallen man's clothes contemptuously and sheathed it. 'I've seen plenty of wounds like that before. There's nothing that can be done. You're a dead man. It won't be a quick or clean death. It will take an hour, two at the very most. You can feel it, can't you? You can feel death stealing into your bones already and making itself comfortable. Nothing can save you. But your passage from this life into the next could be eased, if you were to beg for mercy.'

The reiver looked his death in the eye, and rasped bitterly, 'I am Cullum McDougal of the clan McDougal. I will not beg any man, never mind a sasunnach whoreson.' He winced, biting back a fresh wave of pain. The blood leaked out between his fingers. His face was already deathly pale and the colour had begun to leave his eyes.

'Oh, I think you will. I think you'll beg for me to kill you soon enough,' the knight taunted. 'The pain isn't going to lessen.'

'You want me to absolve your guilt?'

'Not particularly. I'd much rather you suffered for all the suffering you have caused my people. If you die, your pain dies with you. Where's the satisfaction in that?'

'Kill me and be done with it.'

'No.'

He turned his back on the dying man.

Alymere could not believe it.

The injustice of it stuck in his craw. How could his uncle allow this vile man to breathe even one more breath? He saw again what these men had done, the misshapen corpse of the burned child lying in the snow, and remembered with horror the mother dying in his arms. Something inside him snapped.

Alymere moved without thinking.

His first step, he almost stumbled, but by his tenth he was running flat out. He held his sword out in front of him and, shrieking, drove the blade through the man's back. He wrenched the blade free only to plunge it in again and again, and then froze, soaked in blood, staring down at what he had done.

Then he began to shake.

He could not stop.

Nineteen

Alymere dropped his sword.

Sir Lowick looked at him, aghast. For all his coldness, he was a pure man. He held to the tenets of the knighthood. He had sworn an oath of chivalry. An unknighted boy acting in anger, taking the life of an unarmed man — a defenceless man — from behind like that was tantamount to cowardice. 'God have mercy… What have you done?'

Alymere didn't have the words, so offered his bloody hands in answer. He couldn't think. Nothing inside him