The Red Knight

The hundredweight of grain had the curious effect of dragging birds out of the sky to eat the free bounty. Archers, led by Gelfred, netted them.

The fortress was so packed with people that there were men and women planning to sleep on the stone flags on straw despite the briskness of the evening. Torches burned all around the courtyard and a bonfire burned in the centre, the flickering orange light reflecting off the towers, the donjon and the sparkling dormitory windows. Chickens – hundreds of chickens – ran about the courtyard and the rocks on the ridge below the gate. Pigs rooted in the convent garbage at the base of the cliff, nigh on two hundred of them. The convent sheepfold, hard against the eastern walls, was also full to bursting and in the last light a man standing in the Abbess’s solar could see the glitter of a dozen men-at-arms and as many archers, bringing in another thousand sheep from the eastern farms.

The captain stood in the Abbess’s solar and watched patrols, the sheep, and the formal closing of the gate. He followed Bent’s craggy form as the big archer changed the watch in the donjon, marching the off-going watch around the whole circuit as he collected them and put fresh men in their places. It was an impressive and efficient ceremony, and it had the right effect on the villagers, most of whom had never seen so many armed men in their lives.

The captain sighed. ‘In an hour’s time a virgin will have been deflowered and a husbandman will have lost his farm at dice,’ he said.

‘You have a virgin in mind?’ the Abbess asked.

‘Oh, I’m quite above such earthy concerns.’ The captain continued to watch, and he was smiling.

‘Because you are worried, you mean. You must be worried that nothing has come at us yet,’ the Abbess said.

The captain pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘I’d rather be a ripe fool, the laughing stock of every soldier in Alba,’ he said, ‘then face a siege by those things. I don’t know where they are yet or why they let us get everyone under cover. In my dark moments I think our walls are already undermined, or they have a legion of traitors inside the walls-’ He raised a hand, making a warding-off motion. ‘But in truth, I can only hope they know as little of us as we know of them. The day before yesterday we were easy meat. Today, if sheer fear doesn’t break us, we could hold for a year.’ He glanced at her worried face.

She shrugged. ‘How old are you, Captain?’

He was clearly uncomfortable with the question.

‘How many sieges have you seen?’ she asked. ‘How many Wild creatures have you faced in combat?’ She turned towards him and stepped forward, boring in on her target. ‘I’m a knight’s daughter, Captain. I know these are not polite questions, but by God I feel I deserve to know the answer.’

He leaned against the wall. Scratched under his chin for a moment, staring off into space. ‘I’ve killed more men than I have monsters. I’ve stood one siege and, to be fair, we broke it in the second month. I’m-’ He turned his head and met her eye. ‘I’m twenty.’

She made a sound between a satisfied hrmmf and a snort.

‘But your divination told you that.’ He straightened from the wall. ‘I’m young, but I’ve seen five years of unending war. And my father-’ He paused, and the pause became a silence.

‘Your father?’ she asked quietly.

‘Is a famous soldier,’ he finished, his voice very quiet.

‘I’ve entrusted my defences to a child,’ the Abbess said, but she pursed her lips in self-mockery.

‘A child with a first rate company of lances. And there is, truly, no better sell-sword captain in Alba. I know what I’m doing. I’ve seen it and done it before, and I’ve studied it, unlike the rest of my breed. I’ve studied them all – Maurikos and Leo and Nikephoros Phokas, even Vegetius. And if I may say so, it’s too late to change your mind now.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid.’ She drank her wine and, quite spontaneously, she took his hand. ‘I’m fifty,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve never withstood a siege, myself.’ She let his hand go and bit her lip. ‘Are you afraid?’

He took her hand again and kissed it. ‘Always. Of everything. My mother made me a coward. She taught me, very carefully, to fear everything. Starting with her. See? You are become my confessor.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I am the world’s expert at overcoming fear. Cowardice is the best school for courage, I find.’

She had to smile. ‘Such a wit. Vade retro!’

He nodded. ‘I’m too tired to get out of the chair.’

Their laughter and light conversation lasted through the rest of her wine, and his. Finally she said, after looking out the window, ‘And what do you fear most?’

‘I fear failure,’ he said. He laughed at his own words. ‘But alone of the people in this fortress, I have no fear of the Wild whatsoever.’

‘Are you posturing?’ she asked.