The Red Knight

That was not the captain’s problem. The captain’s problem was that Gelfred was planning to venture back to the tree line alone, while the captain had no intention of risking his most valuable asset without protection. And no protection was available.

Gelfred stood in the light rain outside his tent, swathed in a three-quarter length cloak, thigh high boots and a heavy wool cap. He tapped his stick impatiently against his boot.

‘If this rain keeps up, we’ll never find the thing again,’ he said.

‘Give me a quarter hour to find us some guards,’ the captain snapped.

‘A quarter hour we may not have,’ Gelfred said.

The captain wandered through the camp, unarmoured and already feeling ill-at-ease with his decision to dress for comfort. But he, too, had drunk too much and too late the night before. His head hurt, and when he looked into the eyes of his soldiers, he knew that he was in better shape than most. Most were still drinking.

He’d paid them. It improved his popularity and his authority, but it gave them the wherewithal to be drunk.

So they were.

Jehannes was sitting in the door of his pavilion.

‘Hung over?’ the captain asked.

Jehannes shook his head. ‘Still drunk,’ he answered. Raised a horn cup. ‘Want some?’

The captain mimed a shudder. ‘No. I need four sober soldiers – preferably men-at-arms.’

Jehannes shook his head again.

The captain felt the warmth go from his heart to his cheeks. ‘If they are drunk on guard, I’ll have their heads,’ he growled.

Jehannes stood up. ‘Best you don’t go check, then.’

The captain met his eye. ‘Really? That bad?’ he said it mildly enough, but his anger came through.

‘You don’t want them to think you don’t give a shit, do you, Captain?’ Jehannes had no trouble holding his eye, although the marshal’s were bloodshot and red. ‘This is not the moment to play at discipline, eh?’

The captain sat on an offered stool. ‘If something comes out of the Wild right now, we’re all dead.’

Jehannes shrugged. ‘So?’ he asked.

‘We’re better than this,’ the captain said.

‘Like fuck we are,’ Jehannes said, and took a deep drink. ‘What are you playing at? Ser?’ He laughed grimly. ‘You’ve taken a company of broken men and made something of them – and now you want them to act like the Legion of Angels?’

The captain sighed. ‘I’d settle for the Infernal Legion. I’m not particular.’ He got to his feet. ‘But I will have discipline.’

Jehannes made a rude noise. ‘Have some discipline tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask for it today. Show some humanity, lad. Let them be sad. Let them fucking mourn.’

‘We mourned yesterday. We went to church, for god’s sake. Murderers and rapists, crying for Jesus. If I hadn’t seen it, I’d have laughed to hear about it.’ Just for a moment, the captain looked very young indeed – and confused, annoyed. ‘We’re in a battle. We can’t take a break to mourn.’

Jehannes drank more wine. ‘Can you fight every day?’ he asked.

The captain considered. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You ought to be locked up, then. We can’t. Give it a rest, Captain.’

The captain got to his feet. ‘You are now the constable. I’ll need another marshal to replace Hugo. Shall I promote Milus?’

Jehannes narrowed his eyes. ‘Ask me that tomorrow,’ he said. ‘If you ask me again today, I swear by Saint Maurice I’ll beat you to a fucking pulp. Is that clear enough?’

The captain turned on his heel and walked away, before he did something he’d regret. He went to Jacques – as he always did, when he’d reached bottom.

But his old valet – the last of his family retainers – was drunk. Even the boy Toby was curled up on the floor of the captain’s pavilion, with a piece of rug pulled over him and a leg of chicken in one hand.

He looked at them for a long time, thought about having a tempertantrum, and decided that no one was sober enough to bother. He tried to arm himself and found that he couldn’t get beyond his chain hauberk. He put a padded cote over it, and took his gauntlets.

Gelfred had the horses.

And that is how the captain came to be riding with his huntsman, alone, on the road that ran along the river, sore back, pulled neck muscles, and all.

North of Harndon – Ranald Lachlan

Ranald was up with the dawn. The old man was gone, but had left him a deer’s liver fried in winter onions – a veritable feast. He said a prayer for the old man and another when he found the man had thrown a blanket over his riding horse. He cleared the camp and had mounted up before the sun was above the eastern mountains.