The Red Knight

‘Men have defeated your kind again and again. They burn the woods. They cut the trees. They build farms and bridges and they raise armies and your kind lose.’ He realised that he was trying to negotiate with a child. ‘Tunxis,’ he said, laying hold of the young creature’s essence. ‘Do my bidding. Go, and watch the men, and come back and tell me.’

But Tunxis had a power of his own, and Thorn watched much of his compulsion roll off the creature. And when he let go his hold, the daemon turned and sprinted for the trees.

And only then did Thorn recall that he’d summoned the boy for another reason entirely, and that made him feel tired and old. But he exerted himself again, summoning one of the Abnethog this time, that men called wyverns.

The Abnethog were more biddable. Less fractious. Just as aggressive. But lacking a direct ability to manipulate the power, they tended to avoid open conflict with the magi.

Sidhi landed neatly in the clearing in front of the holm oak, although the aerial gymnastics required taxed his skills.

‘I come,’ he said.

Thorn nodded. ‘I thank you. I need you to look in the lower valley to the east,’ he said. ‘There are men there, now. Armed men. Possibly very dangerous.’

‘What man is dangerous to me?’ asked the wyvern. Indeed, Sidhi stood eye to eye with Thorn, and when he unfolded his wings their span was extraordinary. Even Thorn felt a twinge of real fear when the Abnethog were angry.

Thorn nodded. ‘They have bows. And other weapons that could hurt you badly.’

Sidhi made a noise in his throat. ‘Then why should I do this thing?’ he asked.

‘I made the eyes of your brood clear when they clouded over in the winter. I gave you the rock-that-warms for your mate’s nest.’ Thorn made a motion intended to convey that he would continue to heal sick wyverns.

Sidhi unfolded his wings. ‘I was going to hunt,’ he said. ‘I am hungry. And being summoned by you is like being called a dog.’ The wings spread farther and farther. ‘But it may be that I will choose to hunt to the east, and it may be that I will see your enemies.’

‘Your enemies as well,’ Thorn said wearily. Why are they all so childish?

The wyvern threw back its head, and screamed, and the wings beat – a moment of chaos, and it was in the air, the trees all around it shedding leaves in the storm of air. A night of hard rain wouldn’t have ripped so many leaves from the trees.

And then Thorn reached out with his power – gently, hesitantly, a little like a man rising from bed on a dark night to find his way down unfamiliar stairs. He reached out to the east – farther, and a little farther, until he found what he always found.

Her. The lady on the Rock.

He probed the walls like a man running his tongue over a bad tooth. She was there, enshrined in her power. And with her was something else entirely. He couldn’t read it – the fortress carried its own power, its own ancient sigils which worked against him.

He sighed. It was raining. He sat in the rain, and tried to enjoy the rise of spring around him.

Tunxis killed the nun, and now the lady has more soldiers. He had set something in motion, and he wasn’t sure why.

And he wondered if he had made a mistake.

Chapter Two

Bad Tom

Harndon Palace – The Queen

Desiderata lay on the couch of her solar chewing new cherries and savouring the change in the air. Because – at last – spring had come. Her favourite season. After Lent would come Easter and then Whitsunday, and the season of picnics, of frolics by the river, or eating fresh fruit, wearing flowers, walking barefoot . . .

. . . and tournaments.

She sighed at the thought of tournaments. Behind her, Diota, her nurse, made a face. She could see the old woman’s disapproval in the mirror.

‘What? Now you frown if I sigh?’ she asked.

Diota straightened her back, putting a fist into it like a pregnant woman. Her free hand fingered the rich paternoster at her neck. ‘You sound like a whore pleasing a customer, mistress – if you’ll pardon the crudity of an old woman-’

‘Who’s known you all these years,’ the Queen completed the sentence. Indeed, she’d had Diota since she was weaned. ‘Do I? And what do you know about the sounds whores make, nurse?’

‘Now, my lady!’ Diota came forward, waggling a finger. Coming around the screen, she stopped as if she’d hit an invisible barrier. ‘Oh! By the Sweet Lord – put some clothes on, girl! You’ll catch your death! It’s not spring yet, morsel!’

The Queen laughed. She was naked in the new sunlight, her tawny skin flecked with the imperfections of the glass in her solar’s window, lying on the pale brown profusion of her hair. She drew something from the sunlight falling on her skin – something that made her glow from within.