The Red Knight

The king was in armour, having just trounced a number of his gentlemen on the tilt field, when his constable, Alexander, Lord Glendower – an older man with a scar that ran from his right eyebrow, all the way across his face, cleaving his nose from right to left so deeply as to make most men he met wince – and then down across his face to his mouth, so that his beard had a ripple in it where the scar had healed badly, and he always looked as if he was sneering – approached with a red-haired giant at his back.

Glendower’s scar couldn’t have suited a man worse as he was, as far as the king was concerned, the best of companions, a man little given to sneering and much to straight talk unlaced by flattery or temper. His patience with his soldiers was legendary.

‘My lord, I think you know Ranald Lachlan, who has served you two years as a man-at arms.’ He bowed, and extended an arm to the red-bearded man, who was obviously a hillman – red hair, facial scarring, piercing blue eyes like steel daggers, and two ells of height unhidden by the hardened steel plate armour and red livery of the Royal Guard.

Ranald bowed deeply.

The king reached out and clasped his hand. ‘I’m losing you,’ he said warmly. ‘The sight of your great axe always made me feel safe,’ he laughed.

Ranald bowed again. ‘I promised Lord Glendower and Sir Ricard two years when I signed my mark,’ the hillman said. ‘I’m needed at home, for the spring drive.’

Sir Ricard Fitzroy, so indicated, was the captain of the guard.

‘Your brother is the Drover, I know,’ the king said. ‘It’s a troubled spring, Ranald. Alba will be safer if your axe is guarding beeves in the hills, rather than guarding the king, safe in Harndon. Eh?’

Ranald shrugged, embarrassed. ‘There’ll be fighting, I ha’e na’ doot,’ he admitted. Then he grinned. ‘I have no doubt, my lord.’

The king nodded. ‘When the drive is over?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I have reason to come back,’ he said with a grin. ‘My lord. With your leave. But my brother needs me, and there are things-’

Every man present knew that the things Ranald Lachlan wanted involved the Queen’s secretary, Lady Almspend – not an heiress, precisely. But a pretty maid with a fair inheritance. A high mark for a King’s Guardsman, commonly born.

The king leaned close. ‘Come back, Ranald. She’ll wait.’

‘I pray she does,’ he whispered.

The king turned to his constable. ‘See that this man’s surcoat and kit are well stored; I grant him leave, but I do not grant him quittance from my service.’

‘My lord!’ the man replied.

The king grinned. ‘Now get going. And come back with some tales to tell.’

Ranald bowed again, as ceremony demanded, and walked from the king’s presence to the guardroom, where he embraced a dozen close friends, drank a farewell cup of wine, and handed the Steward his kit – his maille hauberk and his good cote of plates beautifully covered in the royal scarlet; his two scarlet cotes with matching hoods, for wear at court, and his hose of scarlet cloth. His tall boots of scarlet leather, and his sword belt of scarlet trimmed in bronze.

He had on a doublet of fustian, dark hose of a muddy brown, and over his arm was his three-quarter’s tweed cloak.

The Steward, Radolf, listed his kit on his inventory and nodded. ‘Nicely kept, messire. And your badge . . .’ the king’s badge was a white heart with a golden collar, and the badges were cunningly fashioned of silver and bronze and enamel. ‘The king expressly stated you was to keep yours, as on leave and not quit the guard.’ He handed the badge back.

Ranald was touched. He took the brooch and pinned his cloak with it. The badge made his tweed look shabby and old.

Then he walked out of the fortress and down into the city of Harndon, without a backwards glance. Two years, war and peril, missions secret and diplomatic, and the love of his life.

A hillman had other loyalties.

Down into the town that grew along the river’s curves. From the height of the fortress, the town was dominated by the bridge over the Albin, the last bridge before the broad and winding river reached the sea thirty leagues farther south. On the far side of the bridge, to the north, lay Bridgetown – part and not part of the great city of Harndon. But on this side, along the river, the city ran from the king’s fortress around the curve, with wharves and peers at the riverside, merchants’ houses, streets of craftsmen in houses built tall and thin to save land.

He walked down the ramp, leading his two horses past the sentries – men he knew. More hand clasps.

He walked along Flood Street, past the great convent of St Thomas and the streets of the Mercers and Goldsmiths, and down the steep lanes past the Founders and the Blacksmiths, to the place where Blade Lane crossed with Armour Street, at the sign of the broken circle.