The Red Knight

Her look suggested she had heard a few oaths in her day. She inclined her head slightly to indicate that he should follow her so he climbed the steps and crossed the hall in her wake, to the doorway he’d never passed through but from whence wine had been served, and stools brought.

She led him down a corridor lined with doors and up a tightly winding stair with a central pillar of richly carved stone, to an elegant blue door. She knocked, opened the door and bowed.

The captain passed her, returning her bow. He wasn’t too tired for courtesy, it appeared. His mind seemed to be coming back to him and he found that he was sorry to have blasphemed in the hearing of the nun.

It was like the feeling returning to an arm he’d slept on – the gradual retreat of numbness, the pins and needles of returning awareness, except that it was emotion returning, not his senses.

The Abbess was sitting on a low chair with an embroidery frame. Her west window caught the mid-day rays of the spring sun. Her scene showed a hart surrounded by dogs, a spear already in his breast. Bright silk-floss blood flowed down his flank.

‘I saw you come in. You lost your horse,’ she said. ‘You stink of phantasm.’

‘You are in great peril,’ he replied. ‘I know how that sounds. But I mean it, just the same. This is not a matter of a few isolated creatures. I believe that some force of the Wild seeks to take this fortress and the river crossing. If they cannot take it by stealth and subterfuge, they will come by direct assault. And the attack could come at any hour. They have massed, in large numbers, in your woodlands.’

She considered him carefully. ‘I assume this isn’t a dramatic way of increasing your fee?’ she asked. Her smile was subtle, betraying fear and humour in the same look. ‘No?’ she asked, with a catch in her voice.

‘My huntsman and I followed the spore – the Hermetical spore – of the daemon that murdered Hawisia,’ he said.

She waved him to a stool, and he found a cup of wine sitting on the side table. He drank it – the moment the cup touched his lips, he found that he was tilting it back, feeling the acid fire rush down his gullet. He put the cup back down, a little too hard, and the horn made a click on the wood that caused the Abbess to turn.

‘It is bad?’ she asked.

‘We found a man’s corpse first. He was dressed as a soldier – as a Jack.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Do you remember the Jacks, Abbess?’

Her eyes wandered far from him, off into another time. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘My lover died fighting them,’ she said. ‘Ah, there’s a reason for penance. My lover. Lovers.’ She smiled. ‘My old secrets have no value here. I know the Jacks. The secret servants of the Enemy. The old king exterminated them.’ She raised her eyes to his. ‘You found one. Or at least you showed me a leaf.’

‘Dead. Looked as if he had been killed, quite recently, by one of his own.’ The captain found a flagon of wine and poured a second cup. ‘I’m going to wager that he died a few hours after Sister Hawisia. Killed by another of his kind, as if that makes sense.’ He shook his head. ‘Then we went west, still following the spore.’ He sat down again, a little too hard.

She watched him.

‘Then we found the creature.’ He stared at her. ‘An adversarius. You know what they are?’ he asked.

‘Every person of my generation knows what they are.’ She covered her eyes with her hand for a moment. ‘Daemons. The Wardens of the Wild.’

He let another long breath go. ‘I thought they had been exaggerated.’ He looked out the window. ‘At any rate, there were two of them. I can only assume that the Jacks and the daemons are working together. If they are, this cannot be a random incident – I believe they’re the harbingers of an attack, testing your strength, and I assume that your fortress is the target. It certainly has immense strategic value. I need to ask you to let my troops in, close the gates, place yourself in a posture of defence, and victual the fortress – call in your people, of course. And send word to the king.’

She looked at him for a long time. ‘If you planned to take my fortress yourself . . .’ she said. And left it there.

‘My lady, I agree that it would be a brilliant stratagem. I even agree that I might try something like. I have fought in the East – we did such things there.’ He shrugged. ‘This is my country, my lady. And if you doubt me – and you have every reason to doubt me – you have only to look at what my archers are putting up outside the gates of our camp.’

She looked out the window.

‘You could tell me that there’s an angel of the Lord outside the gates of your camp, telling your archers that I’m the most beautiful woman since Helen, and I couldn’t see it well enough to believe you,’ she said. ‘But – I have seen you. I can smell the power on you. And – now I understand other things I have seen.’

‘You are an astrologer,’ he said. I am slow, he thought.