The Red Knight

There were close on five hundred people in the market, and more coming in every hour.

A taproom boy from the inn rolled two small casks up, one at a time, placed a pair of boards across them and started serving cider and ale. He set up under the old oak that marked the centre of the market field, a stone’s throw from the bear master.

Men began to drink.

A wagoner brought his little daughter to see the bear. It was female, with two cubs. They were beautiful, with their gold-tipped blond fur, but their mother smelled of rot and dung. Her eyes were wild, and when his daughter touched one of the cubs the fearsome thing opened its jaws, and his daughter started at the wicked profusion of teeth. The growing crowd froze and then people shrank back.

The bear raised a paw, stretching the chains-

She stood her ground. ‘Poor bear!’ she said to her father.

The bear’s paw was well short of touching the girl. And the pain of moving against the spiked manacles overcame the bear’s anger. It fell back on all fours, and then sat again, looking almost human in its despair.

‘Shh!’ he said. ‘Hush, child. It’s a creature of the Wild. A servant of the enemy.’ Truth to tell, his voice lacked conviction.

‘The cubs are wonderful.’ The daughter got down on her haunches.

They had ropes on them, but no more.

A priest – a very worldly priest in expensive blue wool, wearing a magnificent and heavy dagger – leaned down. He put his fist before one of the cubs’ muzzles and the little bear bit him. He didn’t snatch his hand back. He turned to the girl. ‘The Wild is often beautiful, daughter. But that beauty is Satan’s snare for the unwary. Look at him. Look at him!’

The little cub was straining at his rope to bite the priest again. As he rose smoothly to his feet and kicked the cub, he turned to the bear master.

‘It is very like heresy, keeping a creature of the Wild for money,’ he said.

‘For which I have a licence from the Bishop of Lorica!’ sputtered the bear master.

‘The bishop of Lorica would sell a licence to Satan to keep a brothel,’ said the priest with a hand on the dagger in his belt.

The wagoner took hold of his daughter but she wriggled free. ‘Pater, the bear is in pain,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said. He was a thoughtful man. But his eyes were on the priest.

And the priest’s eyes were on him.

‘Is it right for us to hurt any creature?’ his daughter asked. ‘Didn’t God make the Wild, just as he made us?’

The priest smiled and it was as terrible as the bear’s teeth. ‘Your daughter has some very interesting notions,’ he said. ‘I wonder where she gets them?’

‘I don’t want any trouble,’ the wagoner said. ‘She’s just a child.’

The priest stepped closer, but just then the bear master, eager to get a show, began to shout. He had quite a crowd – at least a hundred people, and there were more wandering up every minute. There were half a dozen of the earl’s soldiers as well, their jupons open in the early heat, flirting with the farmers’ daughters. They pushed in eagerly, hoping to see blood.

The wagoner pulled his daughter back, and let the soldiers pass between him and the priest.

The bear master kicked the bear and pulled on the chain. One of his boys began to play a quick, staccato tune on a tin whistle.

The crowd began to chant, ‘Dance! Dance! Dance, bear, dance!’

The bear just sat. When the bear master’s tugging on the chains caused her pain, she raised her head and roared her defiance.

The crowd shuffled back, muttering in disappointment, except for the priest.

One of the soldiers shook his head. ‘This is crap,’ he said. ‘Let’s put some dogs on it.’

The idea was instantly popular with his mates, but not at all with the bear master. ‘That’s my bear,’ he insisted.

‘Let me see your pass for the fair,’ said the sergeant. ‘Give it here.’

The man looked at the ground, silenced, for all his size. ‘Which I ain’t got one.’

‘Then I can take your bear, mate. I can take your bear and your boys.’ The sergeant smiled. ‘I ain’t a cruel man,’ he said, his tone indicating that this statement was untrue. ‘We’ll put some dogs on your bear, fair as fair. You’ll collect the silver. We’ll have some betting.’

‘This is a gold bear,’ said the bear master. He was going pale under his red, wine-fed nose. ‘A gold bear!’

‘You mean you spent some silver on putting a bit of gilt on her fur,’ said another soldier. ‘Pretty for the crowd.’

The bear master shrugged. ‘Bring your dogs,’ he said.

It turned out that many of the men in the crowd had dogs they fancied against a bear.

The wagoner slipped back another step, but the priest grabbed his arm. ‘You stay right here,’ he said. ‘And your little witch of a daughter.’

The man’s grip was like steel, and the light in his eyes was fanatical. The wagoner allowed himself, reluctantly, to be pulled back into the circle around the bear.