The Red Knight

The man laughed. ‘By the law of arms, you are my prisoner, and I will take you to your king to show him how very much he needs me.’

‘Coward!’ Gawin roared. Even as part of his mind suggested that slumping in pretended swoon might be the wiser course.

A gauntleted hand rolled him over and pulled him up. ‘Get your things out of my room,’ he said. ‘I will pretend I did not hear you say such a thing to me.’

Gawin spat blood. ‘If you think you can take me to the king and not be bound for murder-’

The blond man sniffed. ‘You killed your own squire,’ he said. He allowed himself just the slightest smile at the words and, for the first time, Gawin was afraid of him. ‘And calling a man who has bested you in a test of arms “coward” is poor manners.’

Gawin wanted to speak like a hero, but rage, sorrow, fear, and pain spat his words out ‘You killed Toma! You are no knight! Attacking an unarmoured man? With a war sword? In an inn?’

The other man frowned. He leaned close.

‘I should strip you and have you raped by the grooms. How dare you call me – me! – an unfit knight? Little man, I am Jean de Vrailly, I am the greatest knight in the world, and the only law I recognise is the law of Chivalry. Yield to me, or I will slay you where you stand.’

Gawin looked into that beautiful face – unmarred by anger, rage, or any other emotion – and he wanted to spit in it. His father would have.

I want to live.

‘I yield,’ he said, and hated himself.

‘All these Alban knights are worthless,’ de Vrailly laughed. ‘We will rule here.’

And then they all dismounted, leaving Gawin alone in the courtyard with the body of his squire. The boy was quite dead.

I killed him, Gawin thought. Sweet Christ.

But it wasn’t over yet, because Adam was a brave man, and he died one in the doorway of their corner room.

One of the foreigners threw all his kit through the window after he heard his squire die. They laughed.

Gawin knelt on the stones by Toma and, after an hour, when the bells rang for evensong, the innkeeper came to him.

‘I’ve sent for the sheriff and the lord,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, m’lord.’

Gawin couldn’t think of anything to say.

I killed my brother.

I killed Toma.

I have been defeated and yielded.

I should have died.

Why had he yielded? Death would have been better than this. Even the innkeeper pitied him.

Lorica – de Vrailly

Gaston was wiping the blood from his blade, fastidiously examining the last four inches where he’d hacked repeatedly into the young squire’s guard, battering his defences until he was overwhelmed and then dead. His blade had taken some damage in the process and would need a good cutler to restore the edge.

De Vrailly drank wine from a silver cup while his squires removed his armour.

‘He cut you, the man in the courtyard,’ Gaston said, looking up from his task. ‘Don’t try to hide it. He cut you.’

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘He was swinging wildly. It is nothing.’

‘He got through your guard.’ Gaston sniffed. ‘They aren’t really so bad, these Albans. Perhaps we will have some real fights.’ He looked at his cousin. ‘He hit you hard,’ he pointed out, because de Vrailly was rubbing his wrist for the third time in as many minutes.

‘Bah! They have little skill at arms.’ De Vrailly drank more wine. ‘All they do is make war on the Wild. They have forgotten how to fight other men.’ He shrugged. ‘I will change that, and make them better at defeating the Wild as I do. I will make them harder, better men.’ He nodded to himself.

‘Your angel has said this?’ Gaston asked, with obvious interest. His cousin’s encounter with an angel had benefited the whole family, but it was still a matter that puzzled him.

‘My angel has commanded it. I am but heaven’s tool, cousin.’ De Vrailly said it without the least irony.

Gaston took a deep breath, looking for his great cousin to show a little humour, and found none. ‘You called yourself the best knight in the world,’ he said, trying to raise a smile.

De Vrailly shrugged as Johan, his older squire, unlaced his left rerebrace and began to remove the arm harness over the wound on his wrist. ‘I am the greatest knight in the world,’ he said. ‘My angel chose me because I am the first lance in the East. I have won six battles; I have fought in twelve passages of arms and never been wounded; I have killed men in every list in which I’ve fought; in the melee at Tours-’

Gaston rolled his eyes. ‘Very well, you are the best knight in the world. Now tell me why we’ve come to Alba, besides bullying the locals.’

‘Their king will proclaim a tournament,’ de Vrailly said. ‘I will win it, and emerge as the King’s Champion.’ He nodded, ‘and then I will be the king, to all intents and purposes.’

‘The angel has said this?’ Gaston asked.

‘You question my angel, cousin?’ De Vrailly frowned.

Gaston rose and sheathed his sword. ‘No, I merely choose not to believe everything I’m told – by you or any other man.’

De Vrailly’s beautiful eyes narrowed. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

Gaston smiled a crooked smile. ‘If we continue like this we will fight. And while you may be the best knight in the world, I believe I have bloodied your knuckles more than once – eh?’

Their eyes crossed, and Gaston saw the glitter in de Vrailly’s. Gaston held his gaze. Few men could do it. Gaston had the benefit of a lifetime of practice.

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘You couldn’t have asked this before we left home?’ he asked.

Gaston wrinkled his nose. ‘When you say fight, I fight. Yes? You say: gather your knights, we go to conquer Alba. I say: lovely, we shall all be rich and powerful. Yes?’

‘Yes!’ de Vrailly said, through his smile.

‘But when you tell me that an Angel of God is giving you very specific military and political advice-’ Gaston shrugged.

‘We are to meet the Earl of Towbray in the morning. He will engage us in his mesne. He desires what my angel desires.’ For the first time, de Vrailly seemed to hesitate.

He pounced. ‘Cousin – what does your angel desire?’

De Vrailly drank more wine, put the cup down on the sideboard, and shrugged out of his right arm harness as his younger squire opened the vambrace. ‘Who can know what an angel desires?’ he said quietly. ‘But the Wild here must be destroyed. That’s what the king’s father intended. You know they burned swathes of the wood between the towns to do it? They waited for windy days and set fires. The old king’s knights fought four great battles against the Wild – and what I would give to have been part of that. The creatures of the Wild came forth to do battle – great armies of them!’ His eyes shone.

Gaston raised an eyebrow.

‘The old king was victorious in the main, but eventually, he sent to the East for more knights. His losses were fearsome.’ De Vrailly looked as if he could see it happening. ‘His son – now the king – has fought well to hold what his father gained, but he takes no new land from the Wild. My angel will change that. We will throw the Wild back beyond the wall. I have seen it.’

Gaston released a long-held breath. ‘Cousin, just how fearsome were these losses?’

‘Oh, heavy, I suppose. At the Battle of Chevin, King Hawthor is said to have lost fifty thousand men.’ De Vrailly