The Red Knight

ridges and spring flowers of Alba’s fertile heartland, he reined up his second charger and dismounted, to the confusion of his brothers in arms, and knelt in the dirt beside the road to pray.

The mild pain of kneeling for prolonged periods always steadied him.

Images floated to the surface of his thoughts as he imagined the crucifixion of the Christ; as he pictured himself as a knight riding to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, or inserted himself in meditation into the adoration of the Magi, a lowly caravan guard sitting on his charger behind the princes who adored the newborn lamb.

Contempt broke through his reverie. He despised the King of Alba, who stopped in each town to play to his peasants, win their sighs and their raucous laughter, still their fears and give them law. It was done with too much drama and it took too much time, and it was obvious – obvious to a child – that something was happening in the north that required the instant application of the kingdom’s mailed fist.

Disgust. The knights of Alba were slow, slothful, full of vice and barbarity. They drank, they ate too much, belched and farted at table, and never, ever exercised in arms. Jean de Vrailly and his retinue rode from town to town in full armour, cap a pied, with heavy quilted cotes under hauberks of ring mail surmounted by shining steel plate – three layers of protection, which every knight in the East wore every day of his life – to town, to church or to ride out with his lady.

The Wild had not made a major incursion in the East in a century, yet their knighthood stood ready to fight at every moment.

Here, where stands of unkempt trees stood on every ridge, and where an incursion of the Wild threatened a major city just over the horizon – the knights rode abroad in colourful tunics with fashionable, long trailing sleeves, pointed shoes and carefully wrapped hats like the turbans of the far East, with their armour stored in wicker baskets and oak barrels.

Right now, four days from Albinkirk, a party of the king’s younger knights and squires were hawking, riding their palfreys along the ridge tops to the west, and he wanted to punish them for their light-hearted foolishness. These effete barbarians needed to be taught what war was. They needed to learn to take off their chamois gloves and feel the cold weight of steel on their soft hands.

He prayed, and praying made him better. He was able to smile to the king, and nod to a young squire who ill- manneredly galloped down the column raising a cloud of dust, mounted on a hot-blooded Eastern mare worth a hundred leopards as a racehorse and worthless in a fight.

But when the army, which grew every day as contingents of knights, men-at-arms, and archers joined from each town, each county, each manor, settled for the night, de Vrailly ordered his squires to set his pavilion as far from the rest of the army as could be managed – out in the horse lines, surrounded by beasts. He dined simply on soldiers’ rations with his cousin, summoned his chaplain, Father Hugh, to hear Mass and confession of his sins of passion, and then, shriven and spiritually clean, he bathed in water from the Albin, the mighty river that rolled by the door of his tent, dismissed his squires and his slaves, and towelled himself dry, listening to the sound of three thousand horses cropping grass on a beautiful spring evening. The smell of the wildflowers overpowered even the smell of the horses.

Dry, he dressed in a white shirt and braes and a white jacket, a jupon of the very simplest style. He unrolled a small, precious carpet from far to the east, and opened a portable shrine – two paintings hinged face to face for travel – the Virgin and the Crucifixion. He knelt before their images and prayed, and when he felt empty and clean he opened himself.

And his archangel came.

Child of Light, I salute you.

As he did every time the angel came, de Vrailly burst into tears. Because he never quite believed a visitation was real, until the next one confirmed all of the past ones. His unbelief – his doubt – was its own punishment.

Through his tears, he bowed. ‘Bless me, Taxiarch, for I have failed you many times.’

He tried never to look directly into its shining face which seemed in memory to be made of beaten gold, but in fact looked more like mobile, sparkling pearl. Looking too closely might break the spell-

It is not your error that the King of Alba did not do as we wished. It is not through you that this kingdom has been untimely assailed by the forces of Evil. But we will overcome.

‘I succumb to rage, to contempt, to self-righteousness and anger.’

None of these will help you to be the best knight in the world. Remember how you are when you fight, and be that man at all times.

No priest had ever put it to him so well. When he fought, he dismissed all worldly concerns and was only the point of his spear. The archangel’s words rang through him like the meeting of blades between two strong men, like the clarion call of a stallion trumpeting.

‘Thank you, lord.’

Be of good cheer. A great test is coming. You must be ready.

‘I am always ready.’

The archangel placed a shining hand on his forehead, and just for a moment, de Vrailly looked up into the archangel’s shining face, his outstretched, perfect hand, his golden hair, so much brighter than de Vrailly’s own and yet somehow alike.

Bless and keep you, my child. When the standard falls, you will know what must be done. Do not hesitate.

De Vrailly frowned.

But the angel was gone.

He could smell the incense, and he felt at peace – his mind comforted, languorous, as he was after he had a woman, but without the sense of shame or dirt.

He smiled. Took a deep breath, and sang the opening notes of a Te Deum under his breath.

West of Albinkirk – Harmodious

Harmodius lay on a pack of furs, the pottery mug of warm wine balanced on his chest, and watched Random stir a hot poker into another beaker, adding honey and spices.

Behind the merchant, Gawin Murien sat quietly mending a shoe. He didn’t speak, but he was going about the tasks of soldiering, and Harmodius was content to keep a watch on him. His left shoulder was now heavily scaled from the nipple to the neck, and down to the base of his bicep. The scales no longer seemed to be spreading, but they were growing larger and harder. The young man seemed curiously heedless of them – since the first night, he hadn’t remarked on them at all.

Harmodius was old in guile, and had known many young men. This one was preparing for death, and so Harmodius watched him carefully. The second ring on his right hand held a phantasm that would drop the boy like a blow from a spiritual axe.

‘I like it sweet. But I have a sweet tooth,’ Random said. He grinned. ‘My wife says that all my efforts to win riches and fame are merely to ensure my supply of biscuits and and honey.’

Harmodius drank from his cup again. It was far sweeter than he liked it but on this evening, under the curtain of stars with a dreadful enemy as close as the edge of the firelight, the hippocras was all he could have asked.

Immanence.

It was a mild shock, like seeing a former lover walk into a tavern. Somewhere not so very far away, something powerful was manifesting. It might be something supremely powerful, a very long way away, or something merely awesome and terrifying, in the next field.

‘To arms!’ Harmodius said, jumping to his feet. He gathered himself for a moment and extended his enhanced senses.

Gawin Morion was already in his leather jupon, and his helmet was going on his head.

Random had a breast- and backplate on over his travel clothes, and he produced a crossbow from the same wagon bed which had held the makings of their wine.

Other men repeated the alarm, but most were fully dressed, armed and armoured, and Harmodius ignored them all, reaching out – past the orange glow of firelight, past the fields of bracken and fern that surrounded them.

Nothing. Not a single boglin.

Harmodius knew the laws of identity in the use of Power. There were two ways to locate another user. He