The Red Knight

smiled, ‘where Michael marked them. Bent, take charge of running the rotations inside the fortress too. Don’t worry about who is a man-at-arms, who’s a valet, who’s an archer. Just get the numbers right.’

They all nodded.

‘You planning to take a nap?’ Bad Tom asked.

The captain smiled at the Abbess. ‘My lady and I are going to raise a nice fog,’ he said. ‘She is a very potent magus.’

He had the pleasure of watching her eyes widen in surprise.

Jehannes paused. ‘And you? Captain?’

‘I am a modestly talented magus.’ He nodded to his new constable. ‘Ah, Michael. Please don’t go anywhere.’

The other officers rattled out, Michael stood uncomfortably by the door, and after a moment it was just the three of them.

‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ the Abbess asked.

Michael writhed. ‘I love her,’ he said.

She smiled, to his shock.

‘That is the best answer you could have given, under the circumstances. Will you wed her?’ she asked.

The captain made a noise.

Michael stood straight. ‘Yes.’

‘What a dashing young fool you are, to be sure,’ said the Abbess. ‘Who’s son are you?’

Michael’s lips tightened, so the Abbess beckoned to him, and he came to her side. She leaned forward, touched his forehead, and there was a magnificent burst of colour and sparkling shards, as if a sunlit mirror had shattered.

‘Towbray’s son,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I knew your father. You have twice the looks and twice the grace he ever did. Is he still a weak man who changes sides with every twist of the wind?’

Michael stood his ground. ‘Yes, he is,’ he said.

The Abbess nodded. ‘Captain, I will take no action until our war is resolved. But what I say now, I say as a woman who has lived at court with the great. And as an astrologer. This boy could do much worse than Kaitlin Lanthorn.’

Michael looked at his captain, whom he feared more than ten abbesses. ‘I love her, my lord,’ he said.

The captain thought of the note in his gauntlet, and of what the Abbess had just said – he’d felt the power of her words, which had bordered on prophecy.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘All the best romances bloom in the midst of a good siege. Michael, you are not so much forgiven as pardoned for this. Your pardon does not include further tumblings of said girl in my solar. Understood?’

The Abbess looked long and hard at the squire. ‘Will you marry her?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said the squire, defiantly, bowed and left the room.

The captain looked at the Abbess and grinned. ‘And the sisters will go with her? They’ll liven up castle life, I have no doubt.’

She shrugged. ‘He should marry her. I can feel it.’

The captain sighed. And sighed again when he realised that there was no one to help him disarm.

‘Shall we go and make fog?’ he asked.

She extended her hand. ‘Nothing would please me more.’

Lissen Carak – Bad Tom

Bad Tom stared at the captain’s steel-clad back, slim as a blade, as he squired the Abbess down the corridor to the steps. Jehannes made as if to pass him, and Tom put his arm up and blocked him.

They glared at each other, but if they had had fangs they’d have been showing.

‘Give it a rest,’ Tom said.

‘I don’t like taking orders from a boy,’ Jehannes said. ‘He’s a boy. An inexperienced boy. He’s hardly older than his squire. That gifted young man.’ He spat.

‘Give it a rest, I said.’ Tom spoke with the kind of finality that starts fights, or sometimes ends them. ‘You were never going to be captain. You haven’t the brains, you haven’t the hard currency, and most of all, you haven’t the birth for it. He has all three.’

‘I hear the boy almost lost the castle because he can’t keep his hands off some nun. He was off billing and cooing while you were out with the sortie. That’s what I hear.’ Jehannes leaned back and crossed his arms.

‘You know what makes me piss myself laughing when I watch you?’ Tom leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the older man’s nose. ‘When he issues his orders, you just fucking obey like the trained dog you are. And that’s why you hate him. Because he’s born to it. He’s not new at this, he’s the bastard of some great man, he grew up in one of the big houses, with the best tutors, the best weapons masters, the best books, and five hundred servants. He gives orders better than I do, because it’s never occurred to him that anyone would disobey. And you don’t. You just obey. And later, you hate him for it.’

‘He’s not one of us. When he has what he wants, he’ll go.’ Jehannes looked around.

Tom leaned back, shifted until his shoulders fitted neatly along a line of stone. ‘That’s where you are wrong, Jehan. He is one of us. He is a broken man, a lost soul, whatever crap you want to call us. He has everything to prove, and he values us. He-’ Tom spat. ‘I like him,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘He’s a loon. He’ll fight anyone, anytime.’

Jehannes rubbed his chin. ‘I hear you.’

‘All I ask,’ said Tom. He didn’t do anything obvious, but a subtle shift of his hips cleared the corridor. Jehannes stood straight, and then, quick as thought, his rondel dagger was in his hand – poised at shoulder height.

‘Not planning to use it,’ he said. ‘But don’t threaten me, Tom Lachlan. Save it for the archers.’

The knight turned and walked away, sheathing his dagger easily.

Tom watched him go with a slight smile on his lips.

‘Catch all that, young Michael?’ he said, levering his giant form upright.

Michael blushed.

‘Not for his ears – hear me? Men talk. Sometimes with their bodies, sometimes like old fishwives. Not his business.’ He looked at Michael, who was not quite cowering in the doorframe.

But Michael was afraid, yes, but also determined. ‘I’m his squire.’

Tom rubbed his chin. ‘So you get to decide some things. If you hear two archers talking about stealing from a third, would you peach?’

Michael managed to meet his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. And talking about raping a nun?’ he asked.

Michael held his eye. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. And talking about how much they hate him?’

Michael paused. ‘I see what you mean.’

‘He’s not their friend, he’s their captain. He’s pretty good at it, and he’s better every day. But what he don’t know won’t hurt him. Get me?’ Tom leaned in close.

‘Yes.’ Michael didn’t back away. He tried to stand tall.

Tom nodded. ‘You’ve guts, young Michael. Try not to get dead. We might make a man-at-arms out of you yet.’ He grinned. ‘Nice, that little chit of yours. Best act quickly if you want to keep her for yourself.’

Out in the yard, a dozen archers and a pair of squires were gathered around a girl, and they were all furiously peeling carrots.

Lissen Carak – Father Henry

The priest watched the sell-swords come out of their leader’s room. The captain, the source of infection. She came out first, and the Bastard was holding her hand like they were lovers. Perhaps they were – if he was an imp of Satan then pleasuring an old whore would be just his mark. Aristocrats. Birds of a feather.