The Red Knight

Mag didn’t know what she felt was wrong here – the tone of it? The anger of the local boys seemed to fuel the archers.

‘If’n you put some tallow on that flax, it’d hold the grit better,’ said another boy – really, a young man. ‘Less you’re just doing it for show.’ The lad grinned. He was tall, broad in the shoulders, and no more a local than the archers.

Silent gave him a mocking look. ‘If I need a yokel to tell me how to polish my armour, I’ll ask,’ he said.

The big lad grinned again. ‘Yokel yourself, farm boy. I’m from Harndon, and I can smell the shit on your shoes from here.’

Kitty giggled.

It was the wrong sound – feminine derision at a critical moment – and Silent turned on her. ‘Shut up, slut.’

And suddenly everything changed, like cream turning to butter in the churn.

Kitty turned red, but she put a hand on the nearest farm boy. ‘No need to do ought,’ she said. ‘No need to defend me.’

Mag was proud of the girl.

But Judas Beard stood up and dusted his lap of tufts of tow. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Be reasonable.’ He smiled. ‘Learn to spread your legs like she does, when there’s a man about.’

Every farm boy was back on his feet, and both archers suddenly had knives – long knives. They took up practised, professional stances. ‘Anyone here got balls?’ Judas Beard said. ‘Heh. You’re just sheep who pay us to guard you. And if I feel like fucking one of your ewes, I will.’

The big Harndon boy stepped out of the knot of locals. ‘I’ll take you both,’ he said. ‘And I’ll see to it you are taken to law.’ He spat on his hands, apparently in no hurry – but as he spat on his left hand, his left leg shot out. He was in close with Silent, his left knee behind the archer’s knee, and suddenly the knife hand was rotating and the knife wielder was face down in the dust, his knife hand behind his back.

‘Christ!’ he screamed.

The Harndon boy had his knee in the archer’s back. He turned to the other. ‘Drop your whittle or I’ll shatter his shoulder. And I’ll still come and break your skull.’

Judas Beard growled, and a heavy staff hit him in the back of the head – hit him so hard that he dropped like a sack of rocks.

Mag was all but nose-to-nose with the mercenaries’ commander, who had appeared – apparently out of thin air – and hit the red-haired archer with his staff of office. She squeaked.

He was standing over the big Harndonner and the smaller archer, who was still locked face down in the bigger boy’s grip. ‘Let him go,’ said the captain quietly. ‘I’ll see he’s punished, but I need his bow arm working.’

The big youth looked up and nodded, and in one fluid motion he rose to his feet and let the archer drop to the cobbled pavement. ‘I could have taken your other man,’ he said.

‘I’m know you could,’ the captain said. ‘You’re a wagoner, aren’t you?’

‘Daniel Favor, of Harndon. My pater is Dick Favor, and he has ten carts on the roads.’ He nodded.

‘How old are you, Daniel?’ the captain asked, as he leaned down and seized Silent’s ear.

‘Fifteen,’ the Harndonner said.

The captain nodded. ‘Can you pull a bow, lad?’

The big youth grinned. ‘And fight with a sword. But a bow – aye. Any kind, any weight.’

‘Ever thought about the life of a soldier?’ the captain asked.

Daniel nodded solemnly.

‘Why don’t you come along and see this miscreant punished,’ the captain said. ‘There won’t be any carting for some weeks, if I’m any judge, and a boy who can pull a bow can help save his friends. Save some fair maidens, too,’ the captain said, with a pretty bow to the two girls and then to Mag.

Will Carter stepped forward. ‘I can pull a bow too, Captain,’ he said. His voice trembled.

The captain smiled. ‘Can you, now?’ he asked. He looked at Mag. ‘A word with you, goodwife?’

She nodded. The captain took her aside, with the silent archer stumbling after as he kept his grip on the archer’s ear.

‘How bad was this?’ he asked.

She met his eyes. They were very handsome eyes. He was younger than he seemed at a distance. His linens were terrible – the collar of his shirt was ruined and threadbare, and his cuffs were brown-black with grime and a long linen thread dangled from his arming cote. ‘Bad,’ she said. She found she was shaken, and her knees were weak. His eyes were not normal eyes.

‘War does not make boys nice,’ he said, giving his man’s ear a shake.

‘But you’re going to teach it to these young ’uns, anyway,’ she said, while thinking what’s got into you, girl? ‘My lord,’ she added hastily.

He considered what she said. The archer tried to move, and the captain twisted his ear viciously. ‘I take your point, but the alternative is being eaten alive by the Wild,’ he said. He said it ruefully, as if he understood her point all too well.

‘What will happen to him?’ she said.

‘Sym?’ the captain said, turning the silent archer by means of his ear so that he cried out. ‘Sym will have forty lashes on his back – ten a day at two-day intervals, giving him something to look forward to. Unless my marshal thinks it is worth making an example of him.’

Sym cried out.