The Red Knight

The code won.

Lachlan heard the grunt that signified their refusal, and he had both hands on his sword, swinging a heavy overhand blow at the nearest man. He had a sword in his hand, but was too slow to save his own life; the heavy swing batted his parry aside and cut through his skull from left eyebrow to right jaw, so that the top of his head spun away, cleanly severed.

Hector’s own men started to come forward, abandoning their places with his herd. Which meant that when this was over, with all the attending noise, violence, blood and ordure, a day would be lost while they collected all the beasts who ran off into the glens and valleys.

Someone – some ancient philosopher Lachlan couldn’t remember from the days when a priest came to teach him letters – had said that the hillmen would conquer the world, if only they would ever stop fighting among themselves.

He pondered that as he killed his third man of the day, as his retinue charged with a shout, and as the doomed men of the toll gate tried to make a stand and were cut down.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

The camp below the Abbey vanished as quickly as it had appeared, the tents folded and packed into the wagons, the wagons double-teamed and hauled up the steep slope into the fortress.

The first chore that face all of them was billeting the company. Captain and Abbess walked quickly through the dormitory, the great hall, the chapel, the stables, and the storehouses, adding, dividing, and allocating.

‘I will need to bring all my people in, of course,’ the Abbess said.

The captain bit his lip and looked at the courtyard. ‘Eventually, we may have to re-erect our tents here,’ he said. ‘Will you use the Great Hall?’

‘Of course. It’s being stripped even now,’ she said. She shrugged. ‘It is Lent – all of our valuables are put away already.’

One of the company’s great wagons was just crossing the threshold of the main gate. Its top just fitted under the lintel.

‘Show me your stores and all your storage places,’ he said.

She led him from cellar to cellar, from store room to the long, winding, airless steps that led deep into the heart of the living rock under their feet, to where a fresh spring burbled away into a pool the size of a farm pond. She was slower coming back up the winding steps than she had been going down.

He waited with her when she stopped to rest.

‘Is there an exit? Down there?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Of course – who would hollow out this mountain and not make one? But I haven’t the strength to show you.’ They reemerged through the secret door behind the chapel altar, and the Abbess was immediately surrounded by grey-clad sisters, each demanding her attention – matters of altar care, of flowers for the next service, of complaints about the rain of blasphemous oaths falling from the walls, now fully manned.

‘All you cock suckers get your fucking arses in armour or I’ll chew off the top of your sodding skulls and fuck your brains,’ Bad Tom was dressing down a dozen men-at-arms just going onto the wall. His tone was conversational and yet it fell into a moment of silence and was carried everywhere inside the fortress.

An older sister stared at her Abbess in mute appeal.

‘Your sisters are silent,’ the captain said.

The Abbess nodded. ‘All are allowed to speak on Sundays. Novices and seniors may speak when they are moved to – which is seldom for seniors and often for novices.’ She made a gesture with her hands. ‘I am their ambassador to the world.’ She pointed at the cowled figure who followed her. ‘This is Sister Miram, my chancellor and my vicar. She is also allowed to speak.’

The captain bowed to Sister Miram, who inclined her head slightly.

The Abbess nodded. ‘But she prefers not to.’

Whereas you - the captain thought that perhaps she liked to speak more than she let on, and liked to talk to him, to have an adult to spar with. Yet he did not doubt her piety. To the captain, piety came in three brands – false piety, hypocritical piety, and hard won, deep and genuine piety. He fancied that he could tell them apart.

At the far end of the chapel stood Father Henry. He looked harried – hadn’t bathed or shaved, the captain suspected. He looked at the Abbess. ‘Your priest is in a bad way,’ he said.

He knew that she had cast a phantasm on him last night. She’d done it expertly, and so revealed she was more than a mere mathematical astrologer. She was a magus. She’d probably known the instant he cast his glamour in her yard, and on her sisters.

And she was not the only magus. There were wheels within the wheels that powered this situation. He looked at Sister Miram, his sense of power reaching tentatively towards her, like a third hand.

Aha. It was as if Sister Miram had slapped that hand.

The Abbess was looking at the priest. ‘He’s in love with me,’ she said dismissively. ‘My final lover. Gentle Jesu, might you not have sent me someone handsome and gentle?’ She turned and smiled wryly. ‘I suspect he was sent me as a penance. And a reminder of what – of what I was.’ She shrugged. ‘The Knights of our Order didn’t send us a priest last winter, so I took him from a local parish. He seemed interesting. Instead, I find he’s-’ She paused. ‘Why am I telling you this, messire?’

‘As your captain, it is my duty to know,’ he said.

She considered him. ‘He’s a typical ignorant parish priest – can scarcely read Archaic, knows the Bible only from memory, and thinks women are less than the dirt on his bare feet.’ She shook her head. ‘And yet he came here, and he is drawn to me.’

The captain smiled at her, took her right hand between his and kissed it. ‘Perhaps I am your last lover,’ he said.

As he did it, he saw the priest squirm. Oh, my, what fun. The man was loathsome, but his piety was probably genuine too.

‘Should I box your ears for that? I understand that’s the fashion,’ the Abbess said. ‘Please desist, Captain.’

He retreated as if she’d struck him. Sister Miram was frowning.

To regain his composure, he summoned Jehannes and Milus. ‘Get the drovers to dismantle the wagons. Put the hardware in the cellars – Abbess, we’re going to need some guides.’

The Abbess sent for the old garrison – eight non-noble men-at-arms hired at the Great Fair a dozen years before. They were led by Michael Ranulfson, a grizzled giant with gentle manners, the sergeant at arms the captain had met briefly the night before.

‘You know that I’ve placed the captain in charge of our defence,’ she said. ‘His men need help moving in, and guides to the storerooms. Michael – I trust them.’

Michael bowed his head respectfully, but his eyes said on your head be it.

‘How are you set for hoardings?’ the captain asked. ‘Do you have pre-cut lumber?’

The old sergeant at arms nodded. ‘Aye. Hoardings, portable towers, a pair of trebuchets, some smaller engines.’ He rolled his head on his neck, as if trying to rid himself of a stiffness. ‘When you are in garrison, you may as like do a good job of work.’

The captain nodded. ‘Thanks, Ser Michael.’

‘I’m no knight,’ Michael said. ‘My da was a skinner.’

The captain ignored his statement to look at Jehannes. ‘As soon as the lads are unpacked, give this man fifty archers and all the riff-raff and get the hoardings up while the men-at-arms stand to.’

Jehannes nodded, obviously in full agreement.

‘Store the dismantled wagons wherever the hoardings are now,’ the captain said. ‘And then we’ll start on patrols to fetch in the peasants. Gentlemen, this place is going to be packed as tight as a cask of new-salted mackerel. I want to say this in front of the Abbess. There will be no rape and no theft by our men. Death penalty on both. My lady, I can’t do much about casual blasphemy, but an effort will be made – you understand me, gentlemen? Make an effort.’

She nodded. ‘It is Lent,’ she said.

Jehannes nodded. ‘I gave up wine,’ he said, and then stared at the floor.