The Red Knight

‘I will be closer to him,’ Mary said. She sighed. ‘I didn’t know that I loved him until the king sent him away.’

Desiderata held her Mary for a few tears, and thought of her husband’s letters.

He was worried. That came through, either despite his foolish banter or because of it.

He needed her there. To remind him who he was.

She fell asleep thinking of Mary and Gawin, and awoke to find that she was the admiral of a fleet of forty river boats, twenty oared boats with sturdy masts and slab sides, capable of a turn of speed and a heavy cargo. By the time the sun was above the river banks, her flotilla was pulling north, and the townsmen were glad to see the backs of the rowers, who had made more trouble than a dozen companies of soldiers. Despite her plans she’d ended up with all of her ladies, a set of pavilions, and a cargo of armour and dried meat for the army. And a company of Lorican guildsmen in horrible purple and gold livery; crossbowmen who had, to the man, never been out of the town before. They were the only soldiers that the bishop could find.

‘Give way, all!’ called the timoneer.

She lay back under the bright sun, dressed in white, and let the sun turn her hair to gold.

Chapter Twelve

Hector Lachlan

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

The Siege of Lissen Carak – Day Six

The woods around us are silent. Do monsters mourn?

Day before yesterday, the captain won a great victory over the Enemy. He took most of the company across the Cohoctorn to the south, where Master Gelfred had located a convoy coming to us. It was hard hit, but the captain’s sortie took the enemy in the rear, and destroyed them. The captain thinks we killed upwards of five hundred of the enemy, including four great monsters, to whit, three great Stone Trolls and a Behemoth.

The men say the captain killed the Behemoth himself, and that it was the greatest feat of arms they had ever seen.

Yesterday, the company stood to all day, waiting for attacks that never came. Men slept at their posts, fully armed.

Many of the farmers and as many nuns say this will be the end of the siege – that the enemy will slink away. The Abbess has called a great council of all the officers.

The Abbess had a table brought in, and the captain thought it might be the longest he’d ever seen – it filled the Great Hall from hearth to dais, space for thirty men to sit at table together.

But there were not thirty men at the table.

There were just six. And the Abbess.

The six were the captain himself, sitting in one chair with his feet on another, and Ser Jehannes, sitting upright in a third; Master Gerald Random, who by virtue of saving almost half his convoy had suddenly become the representative of all the merchants, taking another pair of chairs, and Ser Milus, as the commander of the Bridge Castle, sat with his head propped on his hands. Master Gelfred sat separately from the other men, a self-imposed social distance. And the priest, Father Henry, sat with a stylus and wax tablets, prepared to copy their decisions.

The Abbess sat to the captain’s right, flanked by two sisters, who stood. The captain understood that the two silent figures were her Chancellor and Mistress of Novices, the two most powerful offices in the convent. Sister Miram and Sister Ann.

When all the men had settled the Abbess cleared her throat. ‘Captain?’ she asked.

He took his booted feet off a chair and sat up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We are now, at long last, under siege. Our Enemy has finally realised how few we are, and has sealed the roads.’ He shrugged. ‘Frankly, this is a harsher defeat than any we have suffered in the field. He should have thought, after yesterday’s incredible stroke of luck-’

‘The work of God!’ Master Random said.