The Red Knight

He walked around the pell, hefting his own favoured weapon. The pole-axe. The hammer head was crenellated like a castle with four miniature spikes projecting from it. On the other side, a long, slightly curved spike protruded, and from the top, a small, wickedly sharp spearhead. A foot of solid steel extended from the butt, pointed like a chisel.

Ser Milus spun it between his hands. ‘I don’t expect we’ll fight mounted, from here on out,’ he said conversationally.

Gwillam, the sergeant, nodded.

‘Let’s see you, then,’ Ser Milus said. He nodded to Gwillam, who stepped forward. By the Company’s standard, his armour was poor. He had an old cote of plates, mail chausses, and a shirt of good mail with heavy leather gauntlets covered in iron plates. It was, to Ser Milus’ eyes, very old-fashioned.

Gwillam had a heavy spear. He stepped up to the pell, chose his distance, and thrust. The spearhead went an inch into the oak. He shrugged, and tugged it clear with a heavy pull.

Dirk Throatlash, the next of the convoy’s men-at-arms, strode up and took a negligent swipe at it with his heavy double-bladed axe. He embedded his axe head deeply in the post.

Archers were gathering in the towers, and merchants had emerged to watch from their wagons.

John Lee, former shipman, also had a double-bitted axe. He swung hard and precisely – matching Dirk’s cut and carving a heavy chip out of the post.

Ser Milus watched them all.

‘That’s what you do at the pell?’ he asked Gwillam.

The sergeant shrugged. ‘I haven’t done much at a pell since I was a boy,’ he admitted.

Ser Milus nodded. ‘Want to kill a monster?’ he said to the men. ‘Or a man?’ he asked.

‘Not really,’ Dirk said. His mates laughed.

Ser Milus didn’t even turn his head. There was no warning. One moment, he was leaning on his war-hammer, and the next, he had tossed Dirk Throatlash into the mud, face first, and still had one arm behind his back.

‘Wrong,’ he said.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Dirk wailed.

Ser Milus let him up. He smiled, because now he had their attention.

‘We’re all going to practise at the pell, every day we don’t fight on the wall,’ he said, conversationally. ‘Like it was real. I’ll teach you how. And if you can cut through it – good!’ He grinned. ‘And then you can demonstrate your zeal by helping put in the next pell.’ He pointed to John Lee. ‘You have an accurate cut.’

Lee shrugged. ‘I cut a lot of wood.’

‘Try again. But this time, cut as if you were fighting a man.’ Ser Milus waved at the pell.

The shipman stepped up and lifted his axe, like a man preparing to hit a ball.

Ser Milus nodded approvingly. ‘Good guard.’

The former shipman cut at the pell, and a chip of wood flew. He got the axe back to his shoulder and cut again.

Ser Milus let him go on for ten cuts. He was breathing hard, and his tenth cut wasn’t nearly as strong as the ninth.

Milus twirled his grey moustache with his left hand. ‘Leave off. Breathe.’ He nodded. ‘Watch.’

He stepped up to the pell, his pole-axe held under hand.

He cut up with the back-spike, and it just touched the post. He danced to the right on his toes, despite his armour, and his cut finished with the pole-axe head behind his shoulder – a very similar position to that of the shipman’s axe. Then he cut down, again stepping lightly, and the hammer-head slammed into the post, leaving four deep gouges. The knight stepped like a cat, back and then forward, powering the spearhead in an underhanded thrust – stepped wide, as if avoiding a blow, and reversed the pole-axe. The spike slammed sideways into the post, bounced, and Ser Milus was close into the pole and shortened his grip for another strike.

Lee nodded. ‘I could almost see the man you was fighting,’ he admitted.

Gwillam prided himself as a good man of arms, and he sprang forward. ‘Let me try,’ he said. His own weapon was a heavy spear with a head as long as his arm and as wide as the palm of his hand. He sprang forward on the balls of his feet, cut the pell – twice from one side, once from the other, and backed away.

‘But use your hips,’ Ser Milus said. ‘More power in your hips than in your arms. Save your arms; they get tired the fastest.’ He nodded to them. ‘It’s just work, friends. The smith practises his art every day – the pargeter daubs, the farmer ploughs, the shipman works his ship. Bad soldiers lie on their backs. Good soldiers do this. All day, every day.’

Throatlash shook his head. ‘My arms are tired already,’ he said.

Ser Milus nodded. ‘The irks ain’t tired.’

Southford by Albinkirk – Prior Ser Mark Wishart

The king sent two messengers with the knights when the Prior took his men north-west from Albinkirk’s souther suburb, Southford. The Prior moved his men carefully over the ground, their black surcotes somehow blending into the undergrowth. His men rode easily through the densest stands of woods, through thickets of spring briars.

They halted frequently. Men would dismount and creep forward, usually over the brow of a steep hill, and wave them forward.