The Red Knight

Be quiet. You’re a guest.

You are getting drunk because you’ve been spurned by a woman. How romantic of you. Of course, that note might have confessed her undying love for you and her willingness to elope tonight to face the future as a mercenary captain’s whore. Hmm? But you burned it, so you’ll never know. Youth is wasted on the young.

Shut up. Fuck off.

Listen, young man. The Prior is right – humanity is losing. But he is also wrong – as I will endeavour to prove. The world is not as I thought it was, and your going to see the Wyrm is the very best idea I have ever heard. You must go to the Wyrm. The stakes of this game are immense. The consequences of failure are extermination – the death of our race. Your dalliance with some novice – albeit one imbued with power of the very highest order – is not quite in the same league.

The captain put his head in his hands.

Tom grinned at him. ‘You’re drunk, my lord.’

The captain looked around for Jacques, but of course he was dead. The last piece of his old life – the last man to connect him with-

I’m conveniently dead, too. Prince Gabriel.

The captain took a deep breath. ‘I have a headache,’ he said. ‘I find it unfair that I have the hangover before I’m done with the drunk.’

Michael leaned forward and poured more wine.

Ser Jehannes came in with Ser Milus, both of them drunk too. They were singing ‘Green Grow the Rushes’ with their arms around Sauce, who seemed to be carrying them.

Three, three, the lily white boys, clothed all in green, oh,

Two, two the rivals.

And one is one and all alone, and ever more shall be, oh.

Their attempt at harmony was almost as horrible as a charge of boglins.

Tom started to laugh.

Jehannes poured a cup of wine, sat on a stool, and raised his cup. ‘Absent friends,’ he said.

Tom’s laughter stopped. He rose to his feet, and so did the rest. ‘Victory and defeat are for amateurs,’ Tom said. ‘For us, there is only life and death.’

They all raised their cups, and drank. ‘Absent friends,’ they chanted, one by one.

The captain put his cup down on the table carefully, because it seemed to be a long way away and it moved slightly, and he leaned on the table to make sure he could stay on his feet. ‘They will bury the old Abbess tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’d like every man and woman at that service in their best kit. But with the camp struck first, ready to march.’

His corporals nodded.

‘The Prior paid me today,’ he said. ‘With a success bonus and a tallage for the horses we lost. A pretty sum. I invested it. But none of you needs to fight for a living. Your shares will be a hundred gold nobles or more. Enough to buy a knight’s fee.’

Jehannes shrugged.

Tom sneered.

Sauce looked away.

Michael laughed.

Ranald smiled. ‘Wish it was mine,’ he said.

‘It will be,’ the captain said. ‘We have a new contract, and I mean to wrap it up quickly.’ He felt a little better. ‘Sauce, come here.’

She was dressed in old hose and a well-cut man’s doublet – something of a brag, since it flattered her figure as much as any kirtle. She leered at him. ‘Any time, Captain,’ she said, with a spark of her old sauce.

‘Kneel,’ the captain said. He held out his hand to Michael.

Michael handed him his war sword.

Sauce paused and knelt. On the edge of a double entendre, she stopped.

Tom nodded. ‘Do it.’

The captain raised his sword. ‘By the virtue of knighthood and my birth, I dub thee knight,’ he said. He didn’t slur the words. His sword pressed down hard on each of her shoulders.

She burst into tears.

Tom smacked her, quite hard, on the shoulder. ‘Let that be the last blow you ever accept without reprisal,’ he said. He grinned.

‘Michael, kneel,’ the captain said.

Michael knelt.

‘By the virtue of knighthood and my birth, I dub thee knight,’ the captain said.

Michael accepted the slap from Tom, rocked back on his heels, and smiled.

The captain took his wine cup. ‘I meant to do it on the battlefield,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘We were busy.’