The Red Knight

‘And where’s our daring mercer?’ asked the master.

‘Late, your worship,’ said his apprentice.

Tad shook his head. ‘That boy would be late to his own funeral,’ he said, but his voice suggested he had nothing but praise for the mercer. ‘Pack the helmets in straw and take them round to Master Random’s house, will you, Ned?’

No matter how kind your master is, there’s no apprentice who doesn’t relish a trip beyond the Ward. ‘May I have a penny to buy baskets?’

Master Thaddeus put coins in his hand. ‘Wish I’d made him a helmet,’ he said. ‘Where’d the thought of a dragon come from?’

Harndon Palace – the Queen

Desiderata sat primly on an ivory stool in the great hall, its stucco walls lined with the trophies taken by a thousand brave knights – the heads of creatures greater and smaller, and a very young dragon’s head, fully the size of a horse, filling the northern wall beneath the stained glass window like a boat hull protruding from the sea. To her, it never quite looked the same way twice, that dragon – but it was huge.

She sat peeling a winter apple with a silver knife. Her hair was a halo of brown and red and gold around her – a carefully planned effect, as she sat in the pool of light thrown by the king’s beloved rose window. Her ladies sat around her, skirts spread like pressed flowers on the clean checkerboard marble floor, and a dozen of the younger knights – the very ones who should have been tilting in the tilt yard, or crossing swords with the masters – lounged against the walls. One, the eldest of them by half a dozen years and some fighting, was called ‘Hard Hands’ for his well-known feat of killing a creature of the Wild with a single blow of his fist. It was a story he often told.

The Queen disliked men who boasted. She made it her business to know who was worthy and who was not – indeed, she viewed it as her sacred role. She loved to find the shy ones – the brave men who told no one of their deeds. She thought less of the braggarts. Especially when they sat in her hall and flirted with her ladies. She had just determined to punish the man when the king came in.

He was plainly dressed, in arming clothes, he smelled like horses and armour and sweat, and she wrapped herself around him and his smell as if they were newly wed. He smiled down into her face and kissed her nose.

‘I love it when you do that,’ he said.

‘You should practise your tilting more often, then,’ she said, holding his arm. Behind the king, Ser Driant stood rubbing his neck, and behind him, Ser Alan, and the constable, Lord Glendower. She laughed. ‘Did you defeat these poor knights?’

‘Defeat?’ asked Driant. He laughed ruefully. ‘I was crushed like a bug in an avalanche, my lady. His Grace has a new horse that’s bigger than a dragon.’

Ser Alan shrugged. ‘I was unhorsed, yes, lady.’ He looked at Ser Driant and frowned. ‘I think it rude to suggest the king’s horse rolled you on the sand,’ he said.

Driant laughed again. He was not a man who stayed downcast for long. ‘There’s a great deal of me to hit the ground,’ he said, ‘and that ground is still frozen.’ He rubbed his neck again, peering past the Queen to her ladies sitting with their knights. ‘And you lads – where were you when the blows were being dealt and received?’

Hard Hands nodded appreciatively. ‘Right here in the warm hall, basking in the beauty of the Queen and all these fair flowers,’ he said. ‘What man goes voluntarily to fight on frozen ground?’

The king frowned. ‘A man preparing for war?’ he asked quietly.

Hard Hands looked about him for support. He’d mistaken the bantering tone of conversation for permission to banter with the king.

The Queen smiled to see him humbled so swiftly.

‘Out beyond the walls are creatures who would crack your armour to eat what lies within – or to drink your soul,’ said the king, and his voice rang through the hall as he walked beneath the rows of heads. ‘And alone of these fair flowers, Ser knight, you know the truth of what I say. You have faced the Wild.’ The king was not the tallest man in the room or the handsomest. But when he spoke like this, no other man could compare.

Hard Hands looked at the floor and bit his lip in frustration. ‘I sought only to entertain, Sire. I beg your pardon.’

‘Seek my pardon in the Wild,’ the king said. ‘Bring me three heads and I will be content to watch you flirt with the Queen’s ladies. Bring me five heads and you may flirt with the Queen.’

If you dare, she thought.

The king grinned, stopped by the younger man and clapped a hand on his shoulder. Hard Hands stiffened.

He did not want to leave the court. It was plain to see.

The king put his lips close to Hard Hand’s ear, but the Queen heard his words. She always did.

‘Three heads,’ the king whispered through the smile on his lips. ‘Or you will stay in your castle and be branded faithless and craven.’