The Red Knight

‘Messengers sent. Allies cost money and our profit on this is slim as it is. We were in pretty desperate straits before we got this job. And those merchants represent a source of cash to us. I leave aside the morality of the thing. We can make them pay for protection and split the money with the abbess. Fair is fair – it’s her fortress and our steel.’ The captain’s gaze was out the window, on the distant woods.

The sun moved in the sky.

‘I give up,’ Michael admitted. ‘Unless it’s something very simple like more rocks for siege engines, or more water.’

‘I think I’m glad that you can’t find it, lad, because you have a brain and your family has a lot of war craft. And if you don’t see it, perhaps they won’t see it either.’ The captain pointed out the window.

‘They? The Wild?’ Michael asked quietly.

The captain scratched at his beard again. ‘Active patrolling, Michael. Active patrolling. Starting in about six hours, I’m putting our lances out in fast-moving patrols. In all directions, but mostly east. I want to be familiar with the terrain, to relocate our foe, and then I’m going to ambush, harass, irritate, and annoy him and his minions until they go elsewhere looking for easier prey. If they choose to come here and lay siege to us I intend to have them leave a trail of blood – or whatever they have for blood – through that forest.’

Michael was looking at his hands, which were trembling. ‘You intend to go out into the Wild?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Again?’

‘If the initiative is in the woods, I’ll seize it in the woods,’ said the captain. ‘You think the enemy are ten feet tall and made of adamantine. I think they have a corps of men as servants, archers and woodsmen, who have so little war-craft that I can see the smoke of their dinner fires from here.’ The captain put a hand on his squire. ‘And ask yourself – why is the main body of our enemy to the east?’ He looked out. ‘Gelfred is out there right now,’ he said quietly.

Michael whistled. ‘Blessed Saint George. Have they passed us by?’

The captain smiled. ‘Well guessed, young Michael. Our enemy has bypassed us – a tribute to our preparations and our little raid. But there’s a reason you don’t bypass a fortress, and I’m about to teach him. Unless,’ he smiled, and just for a moment, he showed his youth. ‘Unless it’s all a fucking trap.’

Michael swallowed.

‘Anyway, his human allies are right there as well – to the east. Don’t point. I suspect that some of the birds are spies.’ The captain turned away.

‘Then they can see everything we do!’ Michael said.

‘Everything,’ the captain said with evident satisfaction. ‘Go to the refectory, find some parchment, write me a list of all of your notions for the defence of this position, and then go polish something.’ He smiled. ‘But first, get me some wine.’

‘I was afraid,’ the squire blurted. ‘In the fight with the wyvern – I was so afraid I could barely move.’ He breathed heavily. ‘I can’t stop thinking about it.’

The captain nodded. ‘I know,’ he said.

‘But it will get better, won’t it? I mean – I’ll get used to it. Won’t I?’ he asked.

‘No.’ The captain shook his head. ‘Never. You never get used to it. You shake, vomit, foul your braes, piss yourself, whatever you do, every fucking time. What you get used to is the power of the fear, the onset of the terror. You learn you can face it. Now get me some wine, drink a couple of cups yourself, and get back to work.’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

There was a constant flow of men and materiel up and down the hill, from the top of the fortress to Bridge Castle. The war engines on the towers lofted practice rounds into the fields, and trusted corporals took patrols out into the farmland – careful, wary patrols on fast horses. The closest farmers had responded well enough to the alarm bells and yesterday’s summons, and Abbington, the biggest of the hamlets, was clear, but the more distant had only sent children to ask for more information, and none of them had brought in any of their precious grain unless the soldiers had brought it themselves. The patrols either went to fetch in the timid or led out farmers who had believed it was merely a drill.

And the more prosperous yeoman had other questions.

‘Who is going to pay for our grain?’ demanded a strong middle-aged man with an archer’s forearms and a handsome head of brown hair. ‘This is my treasure, ser knight – my precious store. What we scrimp and save up over the winter turns to silver when the merchants come in the spring. Who’s paying for it now?’

The captain directed all such questions, firmly and quietly, to the Abbess.

As the sun set on the third full day the cellars were bursting with grain. A further hundredweight lay at the foot of the track that ran up the hill to the fortress where a cart had broken loose and smashed to pieces, and now every wagon up or down ran with ropes attached to the gate winches – and the main gate had stood open all day.