The Red Knight

The croft was low and close yet surprisingly spacious. The rooftrees were just above the captain’s head height, too low for Tom, and the building had a roof-end hearth, not a proper fireplace at all. The fire in it was enormous, filling it like a furnace, so that individual logs couldn’t be made out in the inferno – but just enough heat escaped to make the room pleasant on a cool summer evening.

Around the fireplace were heavy wooden chairs, covered in wool cloths. Some cloths were armorial, and one was an ancient tapestry, cut up and sewn to cover the chair.

The cot beams were black with age, but carving could still be seen on them.

Over the fireplace, a pair of swords were crossed and, on the main beam, a spear was carefully set on a long row of iron nails.

Mag sat with the Keeper, her legs crossed. And beyond her sat a small man smoking a long pipe.

He was so very ordinary that their eyes passed over him, at first. He wore a plain wool cote of coarse wool, and leggings of the same, and his weather-beaten face was neither handsome nor ugly, old or young. His eyes were black.

He opened them, and they were instantly arresting.

‘Welcome,’ said the Wyrm.

The captain bowed. He looked around, and none of his companions was moving – except that the men behind him in the doorway were suddenly sitting in chairs, hands on their knees.

He hung his cloak with theirs, and went to a seat.

‘Why is no one speaking?’ he asked.

‘You are all speaking,’ the Wyrm said. ‘It is easier for all of us if I deal with each in turn, in privacy.’

‘Ah,’ said the captain. ‘I’ll wait my turn.’

The Wyrm smiled. ‘I can talk to you all at once,’ he said. ‘It is you who needs the feeling that there is structure, not me.’ He took a pull on his pipe.

The captain nodded.

Of course time means nothing to them, Harmodius said.

‘Are the two of you together?’ the Wyrm asked.

‘There’s just one of me,’ the captain said. ‘I can’t speak for Harmodius.’

The Wyrm smiled again. ‘Very wise of you to see that. You know that if you do not rid yourself of him, he will, in time, demand control. He cannot help himself. I offer this information free of obligation.’

The captain nodded. A cup of mulled wine appeared at his elbow. He picked it up and drank it gratefully.

‘Why have you come?’ asked the Wyrm. ‘You, at least, had to know what I was.’

The captain nodded. ‘I guessed.’ He looked around. ‘Are there rules? Do I have three questions? Fifty?’

The Wyrm shrugged. ‘I don’t want visitors. I try never to look into the future. All that is for my busy, busy kin. They plot, and strive. I live. I seek truth.’ He smiled. ‘Sometimes I grow lonely, and a lucky traveller is brought in for entertainment.’ His smile became a feral grin.

The captain drank more wine. ‘What of the Lachlans?’

The Wyrm pulled on his pipe, and smoke wound to the ceiling and up into the draught of the roaring fire. ‘That is your question?’

The captain shook his head. ‘No, but they are my sworn men and I need to know they are being well served.’

The Wyrm smiled. ‘The concept of fealty comes so naturally to men and I am having a difficult time being bound by it. But I will deal fairly with Tom and Ranald. Ask your own.’

The captain swirled his wine, and clamped down on a question about Amicia. ‘Can the conflict between Man and Wild be resolved?’ he asked.

‘Is that your question?’ asked the Wyrm.

‘Yes,’ said the captain.

The seated figure smoked. ‘How delightful.’ He walked to the mantelpiece and opened a stone jar, took out a handful of old leaves and tamped them into the bowl of his pipe. ‘Do you believe in free will, prince?’

The captain was growing hot, and he stood up and took off his cote and hung it by the mantel to dry with a muttered ‘beg your pardon’ to his host. He sat again.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Why?’ asked the Wyrm.

The captain shrugged. ‘Either I have free will, or there’s no point in playing.’

The Wyrm rocked its head back and forth. ‘What if I were to tell you that you only had free will in some things, and not in others?’

The captain found he was chewing one of his riding gloves. He stopped. ‘I’d suggest that my power to affect the universe is about the same whether I have free will in every action or only in one.’

‘Interesting,’ said the Wyrm. ‘Man and the Wild are merely concepts. Philosophical constructs. If they were created to represent – to symbolize – opposition, then could they ever be reconciled? Can alpha and omega switch places in the alphabet?’

‘Next you will tell me there is no Wild. And there is no Man.’ The captain smiled.

The Wyrm laughed. ‘You’ve taken this class before, I take it.’

‘I sat at the feet of some philosophers in the East,’ the captain said. ‘I had no idea they were dragons, although, now that I think of it-’

The Wyrm laughed again. ‘You please me. So I will answer your question. Man and the Wild, while being two sides of a coin, can live together – just as the coin lives perfectly well in the purse.’

‘Separate?’ the captain asked.