The Red Knight

John Judson, worshipful draper, and St Paul Silver, a goldsmith, drew their horses closer to Random where he sat with Old Bob, Guilbert’s friend and the last man he’d hired, a bald, ruddy skinned drunkard whose voice and carriage suggested that the spurs on his heels were actually his.

Old Bob was the oldest man in the company, and had a much-broken nose, bumpy with knots of erupting flesh. His straggly salt and pepper hair erupted from a narrow zone around his ears and was always dirty, but the man’s eyes were deep and intelligent and a little disturbing, even to a man as experienced as Gerald Random.

He wore good armour, and he wore it all the time.

‘That’s what the peasants said yesterday,’ Old Bob noted calmly.

Random looked at the other merchant venturers. ‘Albinkirk in ruins?’ he asked. ‘I’ve fought up here, friends. The border is a hundred leagues farther north, and even then – the Wild is west and north of us, not here.’

‘Something did this, all the same,’ Judson said. The corners of his lips were white, the lips themselves drawn tight. ‘I say we go back.’

Paul Silver wore high boots like a gentleman. Goldsmiths were often better dressed than their customers. It was the way of the world. But Silver had also served the king and wore a heavy sword, an expensive weapon meticulously kept ready for battle. ‘We’d be fools to ignore that something is going on,’ he agreed. ‘But bad as this is I’m not sure it means a convoy of nearly fifty wagons should turn back.’

Albinkirk rose on a high hill at the next great bend in the river. Ships would make it this far north, later in the summer when the floods were done and all the ice was out of the mountains – when the run off wasn’t carrying whole pine trees, big enough to stove in a round ship, down mountainsides and out into the great river. Albinkirk was the northernmost town that could be reached by ship, and yet the southernmost at the edge of the Great Forest that covered the mountains. Once it had hosted the Great Fair, but poor management and rapacious tolls had forced it to move further east, to the convent at Lissen Carak.

Today Albinkirk was a corpse, red-tile roofs looking grey and old, or fire-blacked, in the distance, and the spire of the cathedral gone.

‘What’s happened to the cathedral?’ Random asked.

Old Bob made a face. ‘They was attacked by dragons.’ He shrugged. ‘Or Satan himself.’

Random took a deep breath. This was the sort of moment for which he lived. The great decision. The gamble.

‘We could leave the road. Turn east on this side of the river and use the bridge at Lissen Carak,’ he found himself saying. ‘Keep the river between us and Albinkirk.’

‘A river won’t stop wyverns,’ Old Bob said.

‘Not much choice anyway,’ Guilbert said. ‘The gates are shut, so we can’t exactly take the High Road.’

‘They should want us in that town,’ Random said.

Judson watched him, and his face held something Random didn’t recognise – horror? Fear? Curiosity?

But finally the man worked up his courage and spoke his mind. ‘I’ll be taking my wagons back south,’ he said carefully.

Random nodded. Judson had the second largest contingent – eight wagons, a sixth of the total.

‘I reckon I’ll take my share of the sell-swords, too,’ Judson said.

Random thought for a fraction of a heart beat and shook his head. ‘How do you reckon that, messire?’

Judson shrugged, but his eyes were angry. ‘I paid for eight wagons to join your convoy,’ he said. ‘I reckon that’s a quarter the cost of the sell-swords, so I’ll take four of them. Six would be better.’

Random nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘No, and you know it doesn’t work that way. You joined my convoy for a fee. If you leave it – that’s on you. You didn’t purchase a share, you purchased a place.’

‘You think the King’s Court will see it that way?’ Judson asked. Fear had made him bold. ‘I’ll be back in a few days, telling my story.’ He shrugged and looked away. ‘Give me my half-dozen swords, and I’ll say nothing.’ Judson looked at Paul, and then he leaned forward. ‘You want to be Lord Mayor, Random? Start playing the game.’

Random looked at him, and then shook his head. ‘No. I won’t quarrel with you, and I won’t give you a sword, much less six. Go your own way. It should be safe enough.’

‘You’d send me back without a single man?’ Judson demanded.

‘I’m not sending you back. You’re going. Your decision.’ Random looked at Guibert and Old Bob. ‘Unless one of you has cold feet too?’

Old Bob scratched something unspeakable on his nose. ‘Going on ain’t going to be good,’ he said. ‘But I don’t need to go back.’

Guilbert looked at the older man. ‘What’s not going to be good?’ he said. ‘What in hell’s name are you on about?’

‘Wyverns,’ said the old man. ‘Daemons, irks and boglins.’ He grinned, and he looked truly horrific. ‘The Wild lies ahead.’

Harndon Palace – Desiderata