The Red Knight

Desiderata rose and stood at the mirror – the longest mirror in the Demesne, made just for her, so that she could examine herself from the high arches of her feet, up her long legs, past her hips and thighs and the deep recess of her navel to her breasts, her upright shoulders, her long and tapered neck, deep cut chin, a mouth made for kissing, long nose and wide grey eyes with lashes so long that sometimes she could lick them.

She frowned. ‘Have you seen the new lady in waiting? Emmota?’ she said.

Her nurse chuckled alongside her. ‘She’s a child.’

‘A fine figure. Her waist is thin as a rail.’ The Queen looked at herself with careful scrutiny.

Diota smacked her hip. ‘Get dressed, you hussy!’ she laughed. ‘You’re looking for compliments. She’s nothing to you, Miss. A child. No breasts.’ She laughed. ‘Every man says you are the beauty of the world,’ she added.

The Queen continued to look in the mirror. ‘I am. But for how long?’ She put her hands up over her head, arching her back as her chest rose.

Her nurse slapped her playfully. ‘Do you want the king to find you thus?’

Desiderata smiled at her woman. ‘I could say yes. I want him to find me just like this,’ she said. And then, her voice coloured with power, she said, ‘Or I could say I am as much myself, and as much the Queen, naked, as I am clothed.’

Her nurse took a step away.

‘But I won’t say any such thing. Bring me something nice. The brown wool gown that goes with my hair. And my golden belt.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ Diota nodded and frowned. ‘Shall I send some of your ladies to dress you?’

The Queen smiled and stretched, her eyes still on the mirror. ‘Send me my ladies,’ she said, and subsided back onto the couch in the solar.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

At Ser Hugo’s insistence, the master archers had set up butts in the fields along the river.

Men grumbled, because they’d been ordered to curry their horses before turning in, and then, before the horses were cared for, they were ordered to shoot. They had ridden hard, for many long days, and there wasn’t a man or woman without dark circles under their eyes.

Bent, the eldest, an easterner, and Wilful Murder, fresh back from failing to find a murderer’s tracks with the huntsman, ordered the younger men to unload the butts, stuffed with old cloth or woven from straw, from the wagons.

‘Which it isn’t my turn,’ whined Kanny. ‘An’ why are you always picking on us?’ His words might have appeared braver, if he hadn’t waited until Bent was far away before saying them.

Geslin was the youngest man in the company, just fourteen, with a thin frame that suggested he’d never got much food as a boy, climbed one of the tall wagons and silently seized a target and tossed it down to Gadgee, an odd looking man with a swarthy face and foreign features.

Gadgee caught the target with a grunt, and started toward the distant field. ‘Shut up and do some work,’ he said.

Kanny spat. And moved very slowly towards a wagon that didn’t have any targets in it. ‘I’ll just look-’

Bad Tom’s archer, Cuddy, appeared out of nowhere and shoved him ungently towards the wagon where Geslin was readying a second target. ‘Shut up and do some work,’ he said.

He was slow enough that by the time he had his target propped up and ready for use, all nine of the other butts were ready as well. And there were forty archers standing a hundred paces distant, examining their spare strings and muttering about the damp.

Cuddy strung his bow with an economy of motion that belied long practice, and he opened the string that held the arrows he had in his quiver.

‘Shall I open the dance?’ he said.

He nocked, and loosed.

A few paces to his right, Wilful Murder, who fancied himself as good an archer as any man alive, drew and loosed a second later, contorting his body to pull the great war bow.

Bent put his horn to his lips and blew. ‘Cease!’ he roared. He turned to Cuddy. ‘Kanny’s still down range!’ he shouted at the master archer.

Cuddy grinned. ‘I know just where he is,’ he said. ‘So does Wilful.’

The two snickered as Kanny came from behind the central target, running as fast as his long, skinny legs would carry him.

The archers roared with laughter.

Kanny was spitting with rage and fear. ‘You bastard!’ he shouted at Cuddy.

‘I told you to work faster,’ Cuddy said mildly.

‘I’ll tell the captain!’ Kanny said.

Bent nodded. ‘You do that.’ He motioned. ‘Off you go.’

Kanny grew pale.

Behind him, the other archers walked up to their places, and began to loose.

The captain was late to the drill. He looked tired, and he moved slowly, and he leaned on the tall stone wall surrounding the sheepfold that Ser Hugh had converted to a tiltyard and watched the men-at-arms at practice.