The Red Knight

He spent an eternity searching the torchlit darkness.

Elissa was sitting on a barrel entertaining half the garrison with a lewd story. But her youngest sister wasn’t there.

Mary was drinking wine in the Western Tower with Lis the laundress, Sukey Oakshot, the seamstress’s daughter, Bad Tom, Ser George Brewes, and Francis Atcourt. There were cards and dice on the table, and the women were laughing hard. All seven looked up when Michael leaned in.

‘She’s not here,’ Tom yelled, and guffawed. The other men-at-arms laughed indulgently, and Michael fled.

‘Who’s not here?’ Lis asked.

‘His leman. Boy’s in love.’ Tom shook his head and his great hand, under the table, chanced against Sukey’s ankle. She kicked him. ‘Which I’m a’married,’ she said, apparently unafraid of the largest man in the castle.

Tom shrugged. ‘Can’t fault a man for trying,’ he said.

‘Who’s his leman, then?’ Lis asked. ‘One o’ your slatterns? He’s too nice for an oyster, ain’t he?’

‘Oyster?’ asked Mary.

‘A lass as opens and shuts with the tide,’ Lis said, and drank more wine.

‘Like you, eh?’ said Mary.

Lis laughed. ‘Mary, you’re a local girl. Boys think you are easy. That’s a long chalk from what those girls do.’

Francis Atcourt shrugged. ‘They’re people like everyone else, Lis. An’ they play cards and go to church.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry. I got a deep draught of mortality today.’

Tom nodded. ‘Drink more.’

Mary looked at Lis, caught beween admiration and anger. ‘So what you do-’ she said.

‘What I do is live my life wi’out being ruled by a man,’ Lis said. ‘Men is good for play and not so good for anything else.’

Tom laughed.

Ser George tossed his cards on the table, disgusted. ‘What is this, philosophy hour?’

‘And it’s your fucking sister the young squire’s riding,’ Lis said. She wasn’t sure just why she was angry.

Mary stood up, affronted. ‘That’s just like Fran – make a rule and then break it herself.’

Lis laughed. ‘Not Fran.’

Mary stopped dead. ‘Kaitlin? She’s not – she wouldn’t! She’s-’

Lis laughed.

Michael found her in the stable with three other girls, all younger. They were dancing. He went from horse to horse, looking them over. The girls stopped dancing, and one suddenly shouted that she was an evil monster and started shrieking, and the other two were laughing, or crying.

And then one of them was screaming, and Kaitlin was soothing her. Michael had been fooled by the screams, but he was over the stall and with them in a moment.

Kaitlin’s eyes met his. She had the little girl pressed against her.

‘We’re going to be eaten,’ bawled the child.

Kaitlin rocked her back and forth. ‘No, we’re not,’ she said firmly. She raised her face to Michael.

Michael knew she was asking something of him, but neither of them were sure exactly what it was. So he knelt with them. ‘I swear on my hope of being a knight and going to heaven, I will protect you,’ he said.

‘He’s not a knight, he’s just a squire,’ said the other girl, with the dreadful truthfulness that afflicts the young. She looked at Michael with enormous eyes.

Kaitlin’s eyes met his.

‘I will protect you anyway.’ Michael said, keeping his voice light.

‘I don’t want to be eaten!’ said the first girl. But the sobs were fading.

‘I’ll bet we’re gooey and delicious!’ said the second girl. She grinned at Michael. ‘And that’s why they attack us!’ she said, as if this solved a deep, difficult problem she’d been having.

Kaitlin hugged them both. ‘I think some people are silly,’ she said.

The third girl threw a clod of horse manure at Michael and he was caught in an odd dilemma. He wanted Kaitlin alone and yet, watching her with children, he wanted this moment to go on forever. And for the first time, he thought – I could marry her.

Amicia reached out. His door was very slightly open and she slipped through, a wraith in the green light. The Warlock who laid siege to the fortress was so powerful that he shone like a green sun in her woods, and the green light battered his tower door.

He was there, standing by the statue of a woman.

‘I was just coming to look for you,’ he said happily. And yawned.

She shook her head. ‘Go to sleep. You didn’t even renew your powers this morn.’

He shook his head. ‘One hour with you-’

She backed away. ‘Good night,’ she said, and she shut the door. From outside.

He fell asleep so quickly he dreamed of her.

Michael leaned down and placed his mouth tenderly on hers, and her lips opened under his.

‘I love you,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘Silly.’

He grabbed her chin. ‘I’ll marry you,’ he said.

Her eyes grew huge.

The door of the next stall flew open. ‘Kaitlin Lanthorn!’ shrieked her sister. ‘You little bitch!’

Green light exploded in the sky outside the stables, and a thunderous concussion shook the walls.

‘To arms!’ shouted twenty voices on the walls.

The captain leapt from his bed without knowing what had awakened him, and found himself standing by his armour rack with Michael, who had never gone to bed, getting him into his hauberk. He wasn’t even awake and Michael was pulling the laces as tight as he could at the back, and then he had his old shoes on over bare legs and was racing along the wall.

‘Bridge Castle,’ Bent shouted from the tower above them. Michael was trying to get into his brigantine while simultaneously watching the starlit sky and the walls.

The fog was gone – it had been swept away in a mighty gust of wind. The captain felt the wind, and knew it for what it was. He smiled into it.

‘Here we go,’ he said.

Two beacon fires were alight, and there was a lot of shouting – the distinctive sound of men in danger, or anger.

‘We need a way to communicate with the Bridge Castle.’ The captain leaned on the wall as Michael, now secure in his brigantine and feeling the pain from his ribs, knelt to buckle his knight’s metal leg harnesses on – a pair of valets were carrying the armour along behind them as the captain moved. It might have been comical, if the situation hadn’t been so terrifying.

Michael gradually got the captain into his harness as the infuriating man moved from position to position throughout the fortress. He made off-colour jokes to nursing sisters and he clasped hands with Bad Tom and he ordered Sauce to mount up in the new covered alley in the courtyard – covered, Michael assumed, to keep the wyverns off the horses. It was the same sortie he’d prepared the night before, and ordered to stand down.

An hour later, the west tower ballista loosed with a sharp crack. As far as Michael could see the bolt had no effect out in the dark.

Michael got the rest of his own armour on, paused to rest, and fell asleep standing up at the corner where the west wall intersected the west tower.

He awoke to a loud roar. A sea of fire stretched almost to his feet and screams pierced the full-throated bellow of war. The captain’s hand closed on his vambrace. ‘Here they come!’ he shouted. ‘On my mark!’

Michael looked up, and saw a man leaning far out over the west tower edge, and the sky was not light, but it was grey.

‘Welcome back,’ the captain said cheerfully. ‘Have a good nap?’

‘Sorry,’ Michael mumbled.

‘Don’t be. Real soldiers sleep every minute they can, in times like this. Our attackers are making an attempt on