The Red Knight

Michael was mystified. His elation was ebbing quickly to be replaced by fatigue and the thumping pain of his ribs, jarred by the gallop and barely held together by his cote armour.

All of the men-at-arms and many of the archers were changing horses. The men on the walls were cheering them.

The captain rode up to him and opened his visor. ‘You’re moving badly,’ the captain said bluntly. ‘In fact, you look like shit. Fall out.’

‘What? Where-’ Michael spluttered.

Jacques took his reins. Michael noted that the valet was in armour – good armour – as Jacques got him out of his saddle and Michael wanted to cry – but at the same time, he couldn’t imagine fighting again.

Then Jacques swung up on a heavy horse of his own – an ugly roan with a roman nose. ‘I’ll keep him alive, lad,’ Jacques said.

So Michael stood there and watched as they changed horses and formed up, and then to his surprise they turned away from the beaten enemy and rode south, along the edge of the rising sun, moving at a canter. They rode straight for the Bridge Castle’s gate, and it opened as if by magic letting them pass through, canter over the bridge, and vanish onto the southern road.

Even as he watched, Gelfred, the master of the hunt, left Bridge Castle with three men and a cart. The men each took a brace of dogs – beautiful dogs – and moved briskly off to the west with a dozen archers covering them.

Just as the first starlings and ravens began to appear, gyrfalcons began to soar into the heavens over Bridge Castle, one after another. Up on the walls, a great eagle leaped into the air with a scream that must have chilled every lesser bird for three leagues.

Gelfred had struck, and the Abbess with him.

Braces of hounds emerged from the cover of Bridge Castle, running flat out for the leverets and the coneys and any other animal that lurked at the edge of the woods, and the gyrfalcon, Parcival the eagle and the lesser birds – well-trained birds brought from Theva to sell at the fair – struck the starlings, the ravens, and the oversized doves, ripping through their flocks like a knight through a crowd of peasants, and feathers, wings, blood and whole dead birds fell like an avian rain.

It took Michael half an hour to climb back to the fortress gate. The valets ignored him, and he stumbled many times, until someone on the walls saw the trail of blood he was leaving and a pair of archers appeared to hold him up.

Amicia cut the sabatons off his feet, and found the flint javelin which had cut deeply into the muscle at the back of his leg. Blood was flowing out like beer from an open tap.

She was speaking rapidly and cheerfully, and he just had time to think how beautiful she was.

Lissen Carak – the Abbess

The Abbess watched the captain’s sortie head east along the road, moving so fast that they were gone from sight before she recovered her eagle.

I have certainly given away my station to every gentleman here, she thought. She wondered if the siege would leave her any secrets at all.

Parcival, her magnificent Ferlander eagle, was killing his way through the flocks of wild birds like a tiger let loose in a sheepfold. But she could see the big old bird was tiring, and she began to cast her lure. Just to be sure.

She whirled it carefully over her head, and Parcival saw it, turned at the flash of Tyrian red, and abandoned his pursuit of his defeated enemies. He came to her like a unicorn to a maiden – shyly at first, and finally eager to be caught.

His weight was far too much for her, but young Theodora helped her, and got a faceful of wings for her trouble as the creature bated and bated again, unused to his mistress having a helper. But she got the jesses slipped over his talons, and Theodora put the hood on him, and he calmed, while the Abbess said, ‘There’s my brave knight. There’s my fine warrior – you poor old thing.’ The eagle was tired, grumpy and very pleased with himself, all at the same time.

Theodora stroked his back and wings and he straightened up.

‘Give him a morsel of chicken, dear,’ the Abbess said. She smiled at the novice. ‘It’s just like having a man, child. Never give him what he wants – only give him what you want. If he eats too much we’ll never get him into the air again.’

Theodora looked out from the height of the tower. The plain and the river were far below them, and the eagle’s sudden stoop from this height had shattered the lesser birds.

Amicia appeared from the hospital with a message from Sister Miram. The Abbess looked at it and nodded. ‘Tell Miram to use anything she needs. No sense in hoarding.’

Amicia’s eyes were elsewhere. ‘They’re gone,’ Amicia said. ‘The enemy’s spies. Even the wyverns. I can feel it.’

Theodora was startled that a novice would speak directly to the Abbess.