The Red Knight

Gelfred breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I was afraid you’d think me mad. Will you trust that I can see – I can see – that some of the animals are servants of the Enemy?’ He whispered the last part.

The captain nodded. ‘Yes. I believe it. Go on.’

Jehannes shook his head. ‘It sounds blasphemous to me,’ he said.

Gelfred put his hands on his hips in exasperation. ‘I have a licence from the Bishop,’ he said.

The captain shrugged. ‘Get on with it, Gelfred.’

Gelfred brought out a game bag. It was stiff with blood, but then game bags generally were.

He extracted a dove – a very large specimen indeed – laid it on the camp table, and stretched out its wings.

‘The gyrfalcon took it down about two hours ago,’ he said. ‘No other bird we have is big enough.’

The captain was staring at the message tube on the bird’s leg.

Gelfred nodded. ‘It came out of the abbey, Captain,’ he said.

Milus handed him a tiny scroll no larger than his smallest finger. ‘Low Archaic,’ he said. ‘Has to limit the suspects.’

The captain ran his eyes over the writing. Neat, precise, and utterly damning – a list of knights, men-at-arms and archers; numbers, stores and defences. But no description. Nothing with which to catch a spy.

‘Limit the suspects in a convent?’ the captain said bitterly. ‘A hundred women, every one of whom can read and write low Archaic.’ And use power.

One of whom he knew was an Outwaller.

Gelfred nodded. ‘We have a traitor,’ he said, and the captain’s heart sank.

The captain leaned his head on his hand. ‘This is why you needed to meet me here,’ he said.

Gelfred nodded. ‘The traitor isn’t here,’ he said. ‘The traitor is in the fortress.’

The catain nodded for a while, the way a man will when he’s just heard bad news and can’t really take it all in. ‘Someone killed the Jack in the woods,’ he said. His eyes met Gelfred’s. ‘Someone stabbed Sister Hawisia in the back.’

Gelfred nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. Those are my thoughts, as well.’

‘Someone co-operated with a daemon to murder a nun.’ The captain scratched under his beard. ‘Even by my standards, that’s pretty bad.’

No one smiled.

The captain go tto his feet. ‘I’d like to have you hunt our traitor down, but I need you out in the woods,’ he said. ‘And it is going to get worse and worse out there.’

Gelfred smiled. ‘I like it.’ He looked around. ‘Better than in here, anyway.’

Lorica – Ser Gaston

Outside the town, a deputation of ten wagons full of forage, four local knights, and the town’s sheriff waited under the Royal Oak. The king rode up and embraced the sheriff, and the king’s constable accepted the four young knights and swore them to their duty. The quartermaster took charge of the wagons.

The sheriff was midway through telling the king of the burning of the Two Lions when he turned white, then red.

‘But that is the man!’ he said. ‘Your Grace! That is the man who ordered the inn burned!’ He pointed at de Vrailly.

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘Do I know you, ser?’ he asked, and rode to the king, the sheriff, and the other member’s of the Royal Household gathered under the great tree.

The sheriff sputtered. ‘You- Your Grace, this is the miscreant who ordered the inn burned! Who allowed the innkeeper to be beaten, a loyal man and a good-’

De Vrailly shook his head mildly. ‘You call me a miscreant?’

The king put his hand on de Vrailly’s bridle. ‘Hold hard, my lord. I must his this accusation.’ The king glared at his sheriff. ‘However baseless it is.’

‘Baseless?’ the sheriff shouted.

De Vrailly smiled. ‘Your Grace it is true. My squires kicked the worthless paysant and burned his inn as a lesson for his insolence.’ He raised his left eyebrow just a hair – his beautiful nostrils flared, and his lips thinned.

The king took a deep breath. Gaston watched him very carefully. He had already loosened the sword at his hip in its sheath. Not even de Vrailly would get away this time. The king’s justice could not be seen as weak in front of his own people, his vassals and his officers.

De Vrailly is insane, Gaston thought to himself.

‘Ser knight, you must explain yourself,’ the king said.

De Vrailly raised both eyebrows. ‘I am a lord, and I have the High Justice, the Middle Justice, and the Low Justice right here in my scabbard. I need no man’s leave to take a life. I have burned more peasants’ cots than a boy has pulled the wings off flies.’ De Vrailly shook his head. ‘Take my word, your Grace: the man received due payment for his foolishness. Let us hear no more about it.’

The sheriff put his hands on the pommel of his saddle as if to steady himself. ‘I have never heard the like of this. Listen, your Grace – this pompous foreigner, this so-called knight, also killed two squires of Ser Gawin Murien, and then, when I approached him, had me beaten. I was thrown into a shed, tied and bound. When I was rescued, I found the inn burned.’