The Red Knight

A glass of wine, if I might?’

She departed.

He walked over to the Lives of the Saints. Now that he knew its secret, he was far more interested and only lack of time had kept him from it. It was so obvious now – a Hermetical Grimmoire. He turned the pages, deciphering them roughly. Know this one. Know this one. Hmm. Never even heard of this one.

It was, quite literally, an awe-inspiring tome. Which was sitting in the open, under a window, in a fortress.

He scratched under his beard.

Say that every woman here is like Amicia, he thought. And the Order sends them here. To be safe? And to keep them out of common knowledge. Why else-

She was standing at his side. He could smell her – her warmth. And he could feel the golden power on her skin.

‘You,’ she said.

He turned. He wanted to take her in his arms. It was like hunger.

‘You have come to God!’ she said.

He felt a flare of anger. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing like.’

‘I can feel it!’ she said. ‘Why would you deny it? You have felt the power of the sun!’

‘I tell you again, Amicia,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t deny God. I merely defy Him.’

‘Must we argue?’ she asked. She looked at his face. ‘Did I heal you?’

‘You did,’ he said, far more rudely than he meant.

‘You were bleeding out,’ she said, finally moved to anger. ‘You scared me. I didn’t have time to think about it.’

Oh. He raised a hand. ‘I thank you, mistress. Why must we always spar? Of course. Is it the cut on my face you worry about? I scarcely feel it.’

She licked her thumb, like a mother removing dirt from her child. ‘Don’t flinch,’ she said, and wiped her thumb down the wound. There was a flare of intense pain, and then-

‘You should pray when you cast, Amicia,’ said the Abbess from the doorway.

The captain took a step back from the novice. They had been very close indeed.

‘We are none of us without sin, without need of guidance. A prayer concentrates the mind and spirit. And sometimes His hand is on our shoulders, and His breath stirs our hearts.’ The Abbess advanced on them.

‘Although, in the main, God seems to help those who help themselves,’ said the Red Knight.

‘So easy to mock, Captain. I gather you have tasted the sun. And yet you feel nothing?’ The Abbess tapped the floor with her staff, and two novices helped her onto her throne.

‘It is, after all, just power,’ Harmodius said from the doorway.

The Abbess nodded at the Magus in greeting. ‘There are more things on heaven and earth, Magus.’

‘So easy to mock,’ Harmodius said. ‘And yet – as a seeker after sophia, I confess that when I look inside you, lady, I see something greater than myself. In you and in the Queen.’ He nodded. ‘Perhaps, in this novice too.’ He shrugged. ‘And in Thorn.’

‘Name him not!’ said the Abbess, striking the floor.

Ser Jehannes came in. With him came Ser Thomas, and the Bailli, Johne, and Mag the seamstress, of all people.

Sister Miram sat quietly and with immense dignity, next to Ser Thomas. He grinned at her. Father Henry sat the far right of the table.

Ser Milus arrived late, with Master Random and Gelfred from the Bridge Castle.

‘You took a risk,’ the captain said, looking at the Abbess.

She met his gaze mildly enough. ‘They came through your trench, Captain, and through the tunnels. This hill has many rooms and many doors.’

‘Like your father’s house?’ asked the captain.

The Abbess’s look suggested that he wasn’t as witty as he wanted to be.

‘And many secrets,’ Harmodius said. ‘We are thirteen.’

‘The number of Hermeticism,’ said the Abbess.

‘Jesus and his disciples,’ Harmodius added.

The captain gave a lopsided smile. ‘Which of us, I wonder, is Judas?’

The men at the table gave a nervous laugh. None of the women laughed at all.

The Abbess looked up and down the table, and they fell silent. ‘We are here for a council of war,’ she said. ‘Captain?’

He rose and stretched a little, still feeling strong. A curious feeling, for him. ‘I didn’t summon a council of war,’ he said. ‘So what do you wish of me?’

‘A report,’ she snapped. ‘How are we doing?’

He was being told to mind his manners. Amicia was glaring at him, and Jehannes, too. He thought of Jacques’ admonition to be on his best behaviour. Jacques seldom said such things by chance.

‘We’re not losing.’ He shrugged. ‘In this case, that constitutes winning.’

Jehannes looked away and looked back.

‘Your own men disagree with you, Captain,’ the Abbess said.

‘That’s an internal matter,’ the captain said.

‘No, Captain. It is not.’ The Abbess tapped the floor with her staff.

The captain took a deep breath, looking around to pick up social cues from the audience as he had been taught.

Amicia was very tense. The Abbess gave nothing away, nor did Harmodius, although their blankness contrasted – his a studied indifference, hers an apparently angry attentiveness. Father Henry was nervous and upset. Mag was willing him to do well. To deliver good news. Johne the Bailli was too tired to listen well.

Tom was trying to look down Amicia’s dress; Jehannes was on the edge of his seat; Master Random was sitting back with his arms crossed, but his whole attention was on the captain.

Ser Milus was trying not to go to sleep.

The captain nodded.

‘Very well, lady. Here it is.’ He took a steadying breath. ‘This fortress is ancient, and contains a powerful Hermetic source that is of equal value to magisters of all species. This fortress and the people in it are an affront to the Wild. Events – a slow progression of events that recently reached a crescendo, and include the advent of this company – forced the hand of certain powers of the Wild. And now, the Wild has come to take the fortress.’ He paused.

‘Take it back,’ he said, slowly, for dramatic effect.

Even the Abbess was startled.

‘It was theirs,’ the captain said, in a quiet, reasonable voice. ‘They built the well. They carved the tunnels.’ He looked around. ‘We took it in a night of fire and sorcery,’ he picked up his wine cup, ‘two hundred years ago, I’ll guess. And now the Wild is back, because the lines are shifting and things fall apart, and now we’re weaker than we were.’

‘Alba?’ asked Jehannes.

‘Humanity,’ the captain said. ‘That’s all just background. But it is important, because I have puzzled again and again over why the enemy is taking casualties and engaging us here. It is costing them. Jehannes, how many of the enemy have we killed?’

Jehannes shook his head. ‘Many,’ he said.

‘So many that I can only wish I’d signed the Abbess to a per-creature contract,’ the captain said. ‘In fact, I was suckered into this contract. My youth was taken advantage of.’ He smiled. ‘But never mind that. The enemy has lost several dozen irreplaceable minor powers, as well as hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of the small inhabitants of the High Wilderness. We have lost twenty-seven local people, seven sisters, three novices, and thirty of my soldiers. We have lost all the farms, and all of the animals not penned within the fortress. We have lost the Lower Town.’ He spread his hands and leaned onto the table. ‘But we have not lost the fortress. Nor the bridge. Most important of all, we have not lost.’