The Red Knight

Gelfred walked a few paces. ‘I’ve heard it can’t be done,’ he said with a shrug. ‘But it can. It’s like mucking out a stall – you just try not to get the shit on you.’

The captain looked at his huntsman with a whole new appreciation. Sparring about religion had defined their relationship in the weeks since the captain had engaged him.

‘You are potent,’ the captain said.

Gelfred shook his head eyes on the trees. ‘I feel that we’ve disturbed a balance,’ he said, ignoring the compliment.

The captain led his horse to a downed tree. He could vault into the saddle, but he felt sore in every limb, and his neck hurt where the wyvern had tried to snap it, and he was still more than a little hung over, and he used the downed tree to mount.

‘All the more reason to keep moving,’ he said. ‘We’re not in the Jack-hunting business, Gelfred. We kill monsters.’

Gelfred shrugged. ‘My lord-’ he began. He looked away. ‘You have power of your own. Yes?’

The captain felt a little frisson run down his back. Run? Hide? Lie?

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A little.’

‘Hmm,’ Gelfred said, noncommittally. ‘So. Now that I have eliminated the . . . the Jack from my casting, I can concentrate on the other creature.’ He paused. ‘They were bound together. At least,’ he looked scared. ‘At least, that’s how it seemed to me.’

The captain looked at his huntsman. ‘Why do you think someone killed the Jack, Gelfred?’

Gelfred shook his head.

‘A Jack helps a monster kill a nun. Then, another man kills him.’ The captain shivered. The chainmail under his arming cote did a wonderful job of conducting the cold straight to his chest.

Gelfred didn’t meet his eye.

‘Not money. Not weapons.’ The captain began to look around. ‘I think we’re being watched.’

Gelfred nodded.

‘How long had the Jack been dead?’ the captain asked.

‘Two days.’ Gelfred was sure, as only the righteous can be sure.

The captain stroked his beard. ‘Makes no sense,’ he said.

They rode back to the track, and Gelfred hesitated before facing west. And then they began to ride.

‘The stag was a sign from God,’ Gelfred said. ‘And that means the Jacks are but tools of Satan.’

The captain looked at his huntsman with the kind of look fathers usually have for young children.

Which, the captain thought, was odd, since Gelfred was ten years his senior.

‘The stag was a creature of the Wild, every bit as much as the wyvern, and it chose to manifest itself as it did because it opposes whomever aids the Jacks.’ The captain shrugged. ‘Or so I suspect.’ He met his huntsman’s eye. ‘We need to ask ourselves why a creature of the Wild helped us find the body.’

‘So you are an Atheist!’ Gelfred asked. Or rather, accused.

The captain was watching the woods. ‘Not at all, Gelfred. Not at all.’

The trail narrowed abruptly, killing their conversation. Gelfred took the lead. He looked back at the captain, as if encouraging him to go on, but the captain pointed over his shoulder and they rode on in silence.

After a few minutes, Gelfred raised a hand, slipped from the saddle, and performed his ritual.

The stick in his hand snapped in two.

‘Holy Saint Eustace,’ he said. ‘Captain – it is right here with us.’ His voice trembled.

The captain backed his horse a few steps to get clear of the huntsman’s horse and then took a heavy spear from its bucket at his stirrup.

Gelfred had his crossbow to hand, and began to span it, his eyes wide.

The captain listened, and tried to see in the phantasm.

He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. And he knew, with sudden weariness, that it could feel him too.

He turned his horse slowly.

They were at the top of a bank – the ground sloped sharply to the west, down to a swollen stream. He could see where the track crossed the stream.

On the eastern slope, towards the fortress, the ground fell away more slowly and then rose dramatically up the ridge they had just descended, and the captain realised that the ridge was littered in boulders – rocks big enough to hide a wagon, some so large that trees grew from the top of them.

‘I think I may have been rash,’ the captain began.

He heard the sharp click as Gelfred’s string locked into the trigger mechanism on his bow.

He was looking at an enormous boulder the size of a wealthy farmer’s house. Steam rose over it, like smoke from a cottage fire.

‘It’s right there.’ He didn’t turn his head.

‘Bless us, Holy Virgin, now and in the hour of our deaths. Amen.’ Gelfred crossed himself.

The captain took a deep breath and released it softly, fighting his nerves. The ground between them and the rock was tangled with scrubby spruce, downed trees, and snow. Miserable terrain for his horse to cross in a fight. And he wasn’t on Grendel – he was on a riding horse that had never seen combat.

Not wearing armour.

I’m an idiot, he thought.

‘Gelfred,’ he said, without turning his head. ‘Is there more than one? What is downslope?’

Gelfred’s voice was calm, and the captain felt a spurt of affection for the huntsman. ‘I believe there is another.’ Gelfred spat. ‘This is my fault.’