The Red Knight

Elissa shrugged. ‘Listen, the men-at-arms don’t talk to the farmers. They don’t know shit about our lives. And even the archers-’ She shrugged. ‘The archers have more money than any farm boy in this place. The men-at-arms-’

‘They ain’t all gents,’ Mary said. ‘I wouldn’t touch that Bad Tom if I had armour on.’

Fran shrugged. ‘I rather like him.’

‘You’re dumber than I thought then. Aren’t you supposed to be the smartest, fastest one? He gives me the creeps.’ Mary shivered.

Elissa raised a hand for silence. ‘That’s as may be. What I’m saying is that we-’ She looked around. ‘We have something. Of value.’ She smiled. The smile lit her face and turned her from a square jawed young harridan into a very attractive woman. Mary turned and saw that Elissa’s smile was for a middle-aged squire just walking past the kitchen with a pail of ash. Off to polish armour somewhere.

Elissa folded up her smile and put it away. ‘There’s sixty men-at-arms,’ she said. ‘Sixty chances one of them might marry one of us.’

Mary snorted.

But Fran leaned forward, the apple in her hand forgotten. ‘You might have something there,’ she said.

Elissa and Fran weren’t usually allies. But Elissa met her look and both smiled.

‘So we don’t,’ Elissa said. ‘We just don’t. That’s all you have to do, girls. Don’t. Let’s see what we’re offered.’

Mary wasn’t so sure. ‘So what. We don’t bed them? What else do we do? You’re planning to learn to shoot a bow? Go to Mag and take up fine sewing?’

Elissa shook her head.

‘Lis won’t stop opening her legs for any likely lad,’ Mary said.

‘Lis can do as she likes. She’s old and we’re not.’ Fran looked around. ‘Captain’s not bad looking.’

Elissa made a crude noise. ‘He’s doing one of the nuns.’

‘He ain’t!’ said Kaitlin. She’d been silent thus far, but some things couldn’t be allowed to pass.

‘Oh, you’re an expert, are ya?’ asked Mary.

‘I clean his room,’ Kaitlin said. She blushed. ‘Sometimes.’

Elissa looked at her. ‘You, young maiden, are a dark horse.’

‘I ain’t!’ Kaitlin said, prepared for their mockery.

‘You go right in his room?’ Elissa asked.

‘Almost every day.’ Kaitlin looked around. ‘What?’

Elissa shrugged. ‘One of us could be in his bed.’

Kaitlin put a hand to her mouth. Mary spat. Fran, frankly, looked as if she was considering it.

‘Too desperate,’ Fran pronounced. ‘He’s scary, too.’

‘Creepy,’ said Mary.

‘His squire’s pretty as a picture,’ Elissa said.

Kaitlin blushed. Luckily the rest weren’t watching.

North-west of Lissen Carak – Thorn

Thorn needed to know more. He needed his friend in the Rock to be less coy. Thorn summoned birds from the air even as he ran through the woods in the failing light. Now he was climbing ridges. The descent on the north side was never as steep as the ascent had been, and he was going higher and higher into the mountains. The trees thinned, and he moved faster as the land opened up.

A pair of ravens descended to his fists as if they were hawks to a knight. He spoke to them, planted messages in their wise heads, and sent them to the fortress. No one ever suspected ravens. They rose above him and then soared away to the south-east, and he turned and saw how very high he had come.

He looked out over the wilderness. At his feet – far, far below – was the chain of beaver ponds like miniature lakes sparkling in the last of the sun. The stream that connected them was a thread of silver, visible here and there in the warp and weft of trees.

He turned and climbed higher. The trail was steeper now, and he was not so fast. He had to use his long, powerful arms to pull himself from tree to tree. The stream began to descend in a series of waterfalls at his side.

Finally, he pulled himself over a slick rock and raised himself by main force to the top, his arms spread wide, grunting with effort as they lifted the full weight of his giant body. At his feet was a pool, deep and black, and a waterfall dropped a hundred feet into it. The spray coated him in moments. He stooped and drank deep of the magic pool.

A head broke the surface, just an arm’s length away, and he started.

Who drinks in my pool?

The words appeared in his mind without a sound being spoken.

‘I am called Thorn,’ he said.

The creature rose from the pool, black water flowing from him. As he moved up the side of the pool he grew and grew. His skin was jet-black and shone like obsidian.

He moved fast yet appeared to be perfectly still; the transitions were difficult to catch, movement always seemed to happen at the corner of Thorn’s eye. And when the creature fully emerged, he was a quarter taller than the sorcerer.

A shining black stone golem, with no face, no eyes, no mouth.

I do not know you.

‘I know a little of you,’ Thorn said. ‘I know that I need allies. Your kind are said to be fearsome warriors.’

I can feel your power. It is considerable.

‘I can see your speed and strength. They, too, are considerable.’ Thorn nodded.