Toby came in, chewing on a biscuit, and began to lay out his clothes. He moved warily, and the captain assumed from his averted head that something was wrong. Whatever it was, the captain would have to work it out for himself.
‘What news, Toby?’ the captain asked.
‘Boglins in the fields,’ the boy said, and went back to chewing.
‘Where’s Michael?’ the captain asked, when no one came to help him point his hose.
Toby looked away. ‘At chapel, I reckon.’
‘Only if Jesu came and visited Michael in person in the night,’ the captain said. Mornings made him nasty. Toby wasn’t to blame, but the boy idolized the squire and he wasn’t going to rat him out.
The captain pointed his own hose, and took an old arming doublet and began to lace it up. He didn’t call for Michael until he was ready to lace the cuffs. When the young man still wasn’t there, he nodded to Toby. ‘I’m going to go find him,’ he said.
Toby looked terrified. ‘I’ll go, master!’
The captain felt annoyed. ‘We can go together,’ he said, and his long legs took him out of the solar and down the hall to the Commandery where Michael slept.
Toby tried to beat him to the door, but a combination of shorter legs and deference kept him a stride behind.
The captain flung the heavy oak door open.
Michael leaped from his bedroll, a long dagger in his right fist. He was naked. So was the beautiful young girl he put behind him.
‘Michael?’ the captain said to the dagger.
Michael blushed. The blush started just above his groin, ran in splotches over his chest and up his neck to his face. ‘Oh my God – my lord, I’m so sorry-’
The captain looked at the girl. Her blush was even brighter.
‘That’s my laundry maid, I believe,’ he said. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps maid is the wrong word, given the circumstances.’
She hid her head.
‘Get dressed. Michael. It’s full light, and when that poor young woman walks down the steps to the courtyard, every person in the fortress will know where she’s been; either with you, with me, or with Toby. Perhaps with all three. Toby at least has the virtue of being her own age.’
Michael was trying to put his dagger away.
‘I love her!’ he said hotly.
‘Wonderful. That love is about to bring down a mountain of consequences that may end in your no longer being in my employ.’ The captain was angry.
‘At least she’s not a nun!’ Michael said.
That stopped the captain. And filled him with black rage; in a moment, he went from a distant, weary amusement to the flat desire to kill. He was struggling not to draw a weapon. Or use his fists. Or his power.
Michael took a step back and Toby placed himself between the captain and the squire.
Heavy, strong arms suddenly encircled the captain from behind. He thrashed, angry beyond sense, but he couldn’t break the grip. He tried to plant his feet and headbutt his adversary, but the man lifted him straight off the floor.
‘Whoa!’ said Bad Tom. ‘Whoa there!’
‘His eyes are glowing!’ Michael said, and his voice was trembling, Kaitlin Lanthorn cowering in the corner.
Tom spun the captain and slapped him clear across the face.
There was a pause. The captain’s power hung in the air – palpable even to non-talents. Kaitlin Lanthorn saw it as a cloud of golden green around his head.
‘Let go of me, Tom,’ said the captain.
Tom put his feet on the ground. ‘What was that about?’
‘My idiot squire deflowered a local virgin, for sport.’ The captain took a deep breath.
‘I love her!’ Michael shouted. Fear made his voice high and whiney.
‘Like enough,’ Tom said. ‘I love all the women I fuck, too.’ He grinned. ‘She’s just one of the Lanthorn sluts. No damage done.’
Kaitlin burst into tears.
The captain shook his head. ‘The Abbess-’ he began.
Tom nodded. ‘Aye. She won’t take it well.’ He looked at Michael. ‘I won’t ask you what you were thinkin’, ’cause I can guess it well enough.’
‘Get him out of my sight,’ the captain said. ‘Toby, get the girl dressed and get her . . . I don’t know. Can you get her out of here without everyone seeing?’
Toby nodded soberly. ‘Aye,’ he said, eager to help. Toby didn’t like it when his heroes were angry, especially not with each other.
The captain had a splitting headache, and he wasn’t even into the day yet.
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ he asked Tom.
‘Sauce has a patrol out and there’s the remnants of a convoy in the Bridge Castle,’ Tom said. ‘Bad news.’
Sauce reported an hour later, handing a child down off the saddlebow of her war horse and saluting her captain crisply.
‘Twenty-three wagons. All burned. Sixty corpses found, not yet ripe, and not much of a fight.’ She shrugged. ‘Slightly chewed.’ She lowered her voice, as there were dozens of people in earshot, all looking for news. ‘Many eaten down to sinew and bone, Captain.’
The captain fingered his beard, looked at the desperate people surrounding his horse, and knew that any morale won by his raids on the enemy camp was now dissipated in a fresh wave of terror.
‘Back to your work,’ the captain called.
‘We ain’t got no work!’ a man shouted, and the crowd in the courtyard rumbled angrily.
The captain had mounted in anticipation of taking out a patrol. He was restless and depressed himself, and craved action – anything to distract him.
But he was the captain. He nodded to Gelfred. ‘Go north, and move fast. You know what we want.’
He swung one spurred foot over Grendel’s back and slid from the saddle. ‘Wilful Murder, Sauce, on me. The rest of you – well done. Get some rest.’
He led them inside. Michael dismounted too, looking as furious as the captain felt having lost an opportunity to substitute honest fear for nagging terror. He clearly knew that he now had no opportunity to expiate his sin. But he took his own destrier and the captain’s and headed for the stable without untoward comment.
Sister Miram – the heaviest and thus most easily identified of the sisters – was passing through the courtyard with a basket of sweet bread for the children. The captain caught her eye, and waved.
‘The Abbess will want to hear this,’ he said to her. She put a biscuit in his hand with a look that might have curdled milk – a look of blanket disapproval.
There was a slip of vellum underneath it.
A bolt of lightning shot through him.
The Abbess arrived while he was still standing in his solar. He’d just stripped off his gauntlets and placed them on the sideboard, his helmet was still on his head. Sauce took it from him, and he turned to find the Abbess, hands clasped loosely in front of her, wimple starched and perfect, eyes bright.
The captain had to smile, but she did not return it.
He sighed. ‘We’ve lost another convoy coming to the fair – six leagues to the west, on the Albinkirk road. More than sixty dead. The survivors are panicking your people, and they aren’t helping mine much.’ He sighed. ‘In among them are refugees from Albinkirk, which, I am sorry to report, has fallen to the Wild.’
To Sauce, he said, ‘In future, no matter how badly off they are, take new refugees to Ser Milus. Let him keep their ravings contained.’
Sauce nodded. ‘I should have thought-’ she said wearily.
The captain cut her off. ‘No, I should have thought of it, Sauce.’
Wilful Murder shook his head. ‘It’s worse than you think, Captain. You’re not from around here, eh?’
