The Red Knight

Lissen Carak – Michael

The Siege of Lissen Carak – Day Thirteen

Last night the enemy came with all his might to storm the fortress. The King’s Magus and the Abbess and the Red Knight duelled with him and drove him back, but the Abbess died defending her place, shot in the back by a foul traitor.

Michael sat with his head propped on one hand, looking at the hastily scrawled words. He sipped the wine next to him and tried not to go to sleep over the journal.

The captain was in the hospital. His breastplate had a dent in it the size of a man’s fist. They’d lost five men- at-arms.

The archers were openly saying that it was time to ask for terms.

He turned on the wooden stool he was using. Kaitlin Lanthorn lay, fully dressed, on his bedroll. She’d come in after the sortie returned, kissed him, and stayed by his side while he saw to little things – like having the armourer get the dent out of the captain’s breatplate.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said.

She lay, open eyed. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said. She sat up. ‘Oh, I might be wrong, but Amicia says I am. She’d know.’ Kaitlin shrugged. ‘I’m pregnant, and the sorcerer is going to kill us all, anyway. So what’s it matter if I spend the night with you?’

Michael tried to think like the captain. To balance it all out. But he couldn’t, so he put the quill down, and took her face in his hands. ‘I love you,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘Cause I love you, too, and we’re going to have a baby.’

‘If we live through the next few days.’ He lay down next to her.

She turned to him. ‘You’ll protect me, I think.’

Michael stared into the dark.

Mag stood with her daughter Sukey and a dozen other nuns and local women, laying out the dead.

This time there was no feeling of triumph. The cost was high – the Abbess was dead, and there was a line of figures wrapped in white linen to show the losses of her community and the losses of the captain’s company, intermingled.

And the Red Knight was gone, carried into the hospital.

The Abbess had been killed by an arrow. And no one seemed to be looking into her murder.

Mary Lanthorn smoothed a sheet over Ser Tomas Durren. ‘He was bonny,’ she said.

Fran shook her head. Sukey sobbed, and Mag pulled her daughter’s head against her chest. Sukey’s husband was dead too. Third winding sheet from the right. She held Sukey for a long time, and then went back to wrapping Third Leg. His body had been crushed – his face almost erased – and yet Mag was gentle in wrapping the fresh white linen tight. Details mattered to Mag.

God, let these boys come to you swiftly despite the lives they led.

‘I hear the Red Knight’s on the verge of death,’ Mary said.

Amy Carter looked up. ‘That novice will save him. Amicia.’

Kitty looked at her sister. ‘The men are saying she’s a witch.’ She looked at Sukey and Mag for a moment, and then back at her sister. ‘Ben says she killed the Abbess.’

Amy’s eyes grew wide.

Mag put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Best not be spreading that kind o’ talk, girls.’

‘It’s all around in the stables,’ Kitty said. ‘All the boys is saying that some of the sisters is witches.’

Sister Miram was shaking out a winding sheet. Her hearing must have been unnaturally sharp. She turned.

‘Who says we are witches?’ she asked.

Kitty blanched.

Miram frowned. ‘Child. Who is spreading this poison?’

Kitty looked around, uncertain. ‘My brother Ben says the priest said it.’

Sukey looked at her mother. ‘Bill Fuller too.’ She spat the words. ‘Fuller’s been talking crap all night.’

Miram looked around. She went and touched the first body in the row – smaller then the others. The Abbess.

‘I have been remiss,’ Sister Miram said. ‘I let loss cloud my vision of earthly iniquity.’

Kitty Carter looked at her sister. ‘I didn’t really think Amicia killed the Abbess.’

Amy rolled her eyes.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

It wasn’t yet morning when he came to. Noise in the corridor had awakened him. He heard armour – and he was in the wrong bed.

There was no sword by his bed.

The door opened, and Sister Miram entered his cell, in the full robes of the order; Ser Jehannes in harness, and Michael; Johne, the Bailli of one of the towns, and Master Random.

He pulled the linen sheet up over his chest.

‘The Abbess died in the enemy attack,’ Sister Miram said. Her face had aged.

The captain had scarcely heard her speak. What she had said took a moment to register, so that his mind explored the fact of Sister Miram’s speaking for heartbeats before he realised the import of what she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Useless, empty words.

‘There’s open talk of negotiation. Of surrendering the fortress for free passage away,’ Ser Jehannes said. The others flinched at his tone.

‘No,’ The captain said. ‘There will be neither surrender nor negotiation.’ He was noticing that he’d been bandaged around the ribs, and that all the hair had been shaved away – well. Lots of hair. He winced. The Abbess was dead and he realised that he had, in his way, loved her.

Always looking for a better mother, he thought. ‘If you all will leave Michael to dress me,’ he said quietly.

‘Dress quickly,’ Ser Jehannes said. ‘It’s happening right now.’ He was quiet. ‘All the local people. Some of the men.’

Sister Miram withdrew to the door. ‘She would never have surrendered,’ she said quietly. ‘The men in the courtyard are saying Amicia did it,’ she added.

The captain winced and met her eye. ‘I’ll see to it.’

The nun closed the door.

The captain got himself out of bed, despite a touch of vertigo. He had a feeling he knew from childhood – the feeling of having tapped his Hermetical powers utterly. An emptiness, but also a good feeling, like a well-exercised body.

Prudentia is dead.

It was not the first time that good people had died to keep him alive.

Toby appeared with his old black doublet and his old black hose and his fine gold belt. He looked terrified.

Hose took time to get on – he tried to quiet his own pulse. To think about something besides the Abbess and his tutor.

‘She was murdered,’ Ser Jehannes said. ‘Someone shot the Abbess in the back.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Gelfred says it was Witch Bane.’

The thought of it made him physically sick.

‘And no one saw this?’ he asked wearily.

‘Everyone was watching the fight outside the walls,’ Ser Jehannes said.

The captain sighed. ‘Secure the gates and all the passages. There is a passage under the main donjon which leads out of the fortress. Right now, it’s blocked by our wagon-bodies, but put a pair of archers – good archers – on the stairs. Give me a nod when this is done.’

‘When you say I should secure-’ Jehannes paused.

‘As if we were taking the fortress for ourselves,’ the captain said harshly. ‘As if we were in Galle. Trust no one