The Red Knight

‘How could you know? Any word on the wounded? How’s Bad Tom?’ He felt the crisp cleanness of the new white shirt. ‘I’ll have a bath before I dress, if you can arrange it.’

Toby nodded at the challenge. ‘Twa shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ He vanished. Reappeared. ‘Ser Thomas is up and about. An’ Ser Jehannes, as well.’

The captain heard the boy’s footsteps, running. The boy made him smile. Made him feel old.

He stripped out of his arming clothes. He had had them on for – hmm. Two days now, without rest?

The shirt was damp and warm and smelled bad. Not like sweat, but like old blood. There was a lot of blood in it. It had a tear, too, all the way down one side.

He had a mirror, somewhere in his kit. Michael had unpacked his malle and his scrip and the portmanteau he stored in the wagons – he rooted around, vaguely aware that evening was coming, and he wasn’t armed.

He found his bronze mirror in its travelling case, found his razor, and unfolded it from its fancy bronze handle. Looked in the mirror.

He’d forgotten the wound he’d taken last night. He had a long crease down the left side of his face which was still sweating a little blood. As soon as he looked at it, it started to hurt. It didn’t look bad. It merely hurt.

He shook his head. Felt fuzzy with post-combat shock, and the shock of what he’d just seen in the mirror.

He tried to look at the wound in his right shoulder. It was a dull ache, and he couldn’t locate it, despite the fact that his arming clothes were soaked in blood.

A bit more of a shock, that.

Stiff with blood would be more accurate.

He peeled his braes off. They were stuck to his crotch with blood and sweat, and where his leg met his groin, he had sweat sores. He stank.

Toby reappeared. ‘Which the bath is on its way, m’lord. I told Master Michael and Master Jacques you was awake.’

Jacques came through the door and sniffed.

Even naked, the captain still had authority. ‘Toby, take my arming cote out and air it. Give my linens to the laundress and ask her respectfully if they can be saved.’

Jacques was holding one of the new arming caps. ‘This is fine work. As good as court.’ He looked at Toby.

‘The tire woman. Mag.’ Toby shrugged. ‘She tol’ me what the captain had ordered of her. Did I do aught wrong?’

The captain shook his head. Jacques smiled. ‘I’ll go and pay her. And order my own,’ he said. ‘You are commanded to dinner with the Abbess,’ Jacques went on. ‘As are a number of other worthies. Best dress well and try to behave yourself.’

The captain rolled his eyes. After a pause, he said, ‘How bad is the wound on my back?’

Jacques looked at the back of his shoulder. ‘Healed,’ he said with professional finality.

Toby had the arming jacket over his arm.

The captain snatched at it and held it up.

The right arm had a slash that ran from just above the underarm voider of chain all the way down to the top of the underarm seam.

Jacques gave a sharp noise like a dog’s bark.

‘One of the daemons tagged me.’ The captain shrugged. ‘I slept . . . what a sleep!’ Suddenly he picked up the goblet by his bedside.

‘The pretty novice gave me a cordial I was to give you,’ Toby said. He cowered a little.

The captain found his wallet, a small miracle all by itself, and extracted a silver leopard. He snapped it across the room to young Toby, who scooped it out of the air.

‘I think I owe you a debt of thanks, young Toby,’ he said. ‘Now – bath.’ He scratched himself.

Out in the yard he could see that there were men with swords and bucklers, practising. He walked across the room, and peeled back a corner of the tapestry to gaze out over the fields, the sheepfolds, and the smoking ruin of Lower Town.

‘Wyverns?’ he asked. He was still unbelievably tired.

‘Been pounding us with rocks all day,’ Jacques said cheerfully. ‘Gave No Head the fright of his life. Ballista is gone.’

‘He’s moving his engines again,’ the captain said. ‘No – he’s having boglins dig a new mound, but the engines are still safely out of range.’ The captain found he was scratching things that could not publicly be scratched, not even in front of servants.

‘I need to see Tom, if he’s up to it. With the day’s reports.’

Then he squeaked and ripped the coverlet off the bed as two farm girls appeared in the doorway with a tub of steaming water.

‘Coo!’ said the dark-haired one. ‘Nothing I ain’t seen before.’ She giggled, though, and the other girl blushed, and then they were gone.

But the water wasn’t gone.

‘I’ll wash myself, if you don’t mind,’ he told Jacques.

Jacques nodded. ‘You’re too old to be bathed.’ He counted the linens in the basket. ‘I’ll just go pay the lady, eh? And fetch Tom.’

‘Thanks, Jacques,’ said the captain. The water was hot – nearly boiling hot.

He got in anyway, hoping to scald some of the dirt and worse away. The captain was sure there was something crawling over him.

He had just immersed his torso – slowly – when there was a stir behind him.

‘Tom?’ he called.

‘No,’ replied Harmodius.

The captain wriggled. The water seemed to burn where he had abrasions, and where he had cuts, and where he had sores.

So pretty much everywhere.

He realised that his soap – his lovely almond scented soap from Galle – was in his leather portmanteau.

Harmodius came across the room. ‘You are stronger,’ he said without preamble. ‘I saw you last night. Fast and strong.’

‘I do your exercises every day,’ the captain admitted. ‘And as you said – I try to do everything I can by the arts.’ He shrugged, and the water was delicious. ‘When he lets me.’

‘Our adversary?’ Harmodius nodded.

‘He’s camped outside my place of power.’ The captain reached all the way to the well, a long way for him. Thirty paces through rock. But he could feel the power there, now. He reached out, touched it, took a sip, and cast.

The soap rose, crossed the room, and fell into the bath with a splash.

‘Damn,’ said the captain. Not his soap. The sharpening hones for his razor.

Harmodius grinned. ‘Soap? Is it pink?’

‘Yes,’ said the captain.

‘Still, you are much improved. I know you were well trained, you just have to be less secretive.’ He shrugged. ‘An easy thing for me to say.’ He picked up the soap and then held it out of reach.

‘I’d be able to do more if he weren’t right outside my door, waiting to come in and rip my soul out,’ said the captain, scratching. ‘Soap please?’

Harmodius looked out from the tapestry. ‘Nice new window,’ he said. ‘Get your power elsewhere. You know how.’

‘From the well?’ the captain asked.

‘How about the sun?’ Harmodius asked.

‘I’m a child of the Wild,’ the captain said. ‘My mother made me that way.’

Harmodius wasn’t looking at him. He was looking out over the fields. ‘Do you trust me, boy?’

The captain looked at the tall, proud figure. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Not to give me my soap, anyway.’

Harmodius barked a laugh. ‘Fair enough. Fair enough. Do you trust me as a mentor in Hermeticism?’