The Red Knight

Or perhaps the lion escaped the mouse. Gaston couldn’t be sure which they were.

The king had almost three thousand knights and men-at-arms, and half again as many infantry, even without the levies who had been left to guard the camp. On the one hand, the force was the largest and best armed that Gaston had ever seen – the Albans had armour for every peasant, and while their mounted knights might seem a trifle antiquated, with too much boiled leather in garish colours over double maille, and not enough plate – the Alban king’s force was now larger than any Gallish lord’s and well mounted and well-served. His cousin had ceased commenting on them. This close to the enemy, the Royal Host had become slimmer, fitter, and altogether more competent, with well-conducted sentries and pickets. Young men no longer rode abroad without armour.

But his father King Hawthor had, by all reports, had at least five times as many men when he rode forth against the Wild, perhaps even ten times as many. And the signs were all around them – the lack of plate armour was not just a penchant for the old-fashioned. All along the road, he had seen abandoned farms and shops – once a whole town with the roofs falling in.

It gave him pause.

But on this day, as the sun rose behind them and gilded their lance tips and pennons, the enemy melted away before them, abandoning the siege – as if Albinkirk had never truly been under siege after the assault.

The army halted at the edge of the great river and the Royal Huntsmen finished off any boglins too slow to get down the great earth cliff to the beach below. Heralds counted the dead and debated whether to count the destruction of the small enemy force as a battle or not.

Gaston answered his cousin’s summons, and saluted, his visor open and his sword loose in the sheath. It seemed possible that there would be an immediate pursuit across the river, even though it seemed odd that the enemy would retreat to the east.

But Jean de Vrailly handed his great bassinet to his squire and shook his head. ‘A royal council,’ he snapped. He was angry. It seemed his mad cousin was always angry these days.

Followed only by a handful of retinue knights and a herald, they rode across the field, covered in summer flowers, towards the king.

‘We are letting the enemy escape,’ de Vrailly said. ‘There was to be a great battle. Today.’ He spat. ‘My soul is in peril, because I begin to doubt my angel. When will we fight? By the five wounds of Christ, I hate this place. Too hot – too many trees, ugly people, bestial peasants-’ He suddenly reined in his horse, dismounted, and knelt to pray.

Gaston, for once, joined him. In truth, he agreed with all of his cousin’s pronouncements. He wanted to go home too.

A herald rode up – a king’s messenger, Gaston saw. He went back to his prayers. Only when his joints ached and his knees could no longer bear the pain did Gaston raise his eyes to the king’s messenger who had been patiently waiting for them.

‘The king requests your company,’ he said.

Gaston sighed, and he and his cousin rode the rest of the way to the royal council.

It was held on horseback, and all the great lords were present – every officer or lord with fifty knights or more. The Earl of Towbray, the Count of the Border, the Prior of Harndon, who commanded the military orders, and a dozen midlands lords whom Gaston didn’t know. Edward, Bishop of Lorica, armed cap à pied, and the king’s captain of the guard, Ser Richard Fitzroy, the old king’s bastard, or so men said.

The king was conferring with a small man with a grizzled beard, who rode a small palfrey and looked like a dwarf when every other man present was mounted on a charger. He was sixty years old and wore a plain harness of munition armour – the kind that armourers made for their poorer customers.

He had dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes still had fire in them.

‘They were over the outwalls and into the suburbs after three assaults,’ he said. ‘They could run up the walls.’ He looked at Ser Alcaeus. ‘But you must know the story from this good knight.’

‘You tell it,’ said the king.

‘The mayor wouldn’t send the women to the castle. So I sent out my best men to force them in.’ He shrugged. ‘And they did. And by the grace of the good Christ, I took twenty men-at-arms and held the gate to the castle.’ He shook his head. ‘We held it for an hour or so.’ He looked at Ser Alcaeus. ‘Didn’t we?’

The Morean knight nodded. ‘We did, Ser John.’

‘How many died?’ the king asked gently.