Ranald Lachlan, who she remembered perfectly well, bowed deeply and then knelt.
She gave him her hand. ‘It is a long way, since you were in my bridal guard.’
He smiled at her. ‘A pleasure, my lady.’
She looked past him, up the tall bank, where Donald Redmane had the lads dismounted. ‘You have a small army of your people here. Come to aid the king?’
He shrugged. ‘My cousin lost a small army, my lady. We’ve already fought the Outwallers. But I have a thousand head of beeves and some sheep, and I’m looking to sell them to the Royal Army.’
She nodded. ‘I will buy them all. What’s your asking price?’
If he was surprised by her tone or manner, he hid it well. ‘Three silver marks a head,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’ She said. ‘Is it chivalrous for a knight to bargain with his Queen?’
Ranald shrugged, but he couldn’t stop looking into her eyes. ‘Lady, I could say I’m no knight, but a drover. And I could say I’m a hillman, and not in any way your subject.’ He grinned, and knelt. ‘But he’d be a rude bastard and no kind of a man, who ever failed to acknowledge you as his Queen.’
She clapped her hands delightedly. ‘You are the very spirit of the north, Ser Ranald. One mark per beeve.’
‘You, my lady, are the living embodiment of beauty, but for a mark a head, I could have sold them to the Keeper of Dorling. Two silver marks a head.’ His eyes flicked to something behind her, and his smile intensified.
‘You remember my secretary, the very learned Lady Almspend?’ she asked. ‘One and a half.’
‘One and a half, right here, on this side of the river?’ he asked. He made another deep bow, this time to her secretary, who was standing on the gunwale, beaming. ‘Two if I have to drive them over the river.’
‘What’s a kiss worth,’ sang Lady Almspend. She blushed, shocked at her own boldness.
‘Everything!’ he shouted back. ‘But these aren’t my beeves, so I can’t trade them for a kiss, my sweet,’ He relented. ‘Your Grace, my price is two, but I’ll drive them where you like, and pledge my lads to serve your Grace.’
The Queen nodded. ‘Sold. Fetch me my navarch. I have a thousand head of cattle to ferry over the river.’ She turned back to the hillman. ‘So despite your sordid money, you’ll do a deed of arms with me?’
She put extra effort into her voice. She saw a coldness in him – something absent, some terror recently passed – and her voice caressed it like liquid gold.
The hillman looked cautious. ‘What kind of deed?’
‘What knight asks what deed is required of him? Really, Ser Ranald,’ she said, and put her arm through his.
‘I’m no knight,’ he said. ‘Except perhaps in my heart,’ he added.
She smiled at Lady Almspend. ‘We must do something to rectify that.’
On the bank above them Donald Redmane watched his cousin with the Queen.
‘What’s happening?’ asked one of the boys.
‘We just sold the herd to the Queen,’ Donald said. ‘What’s an Alban mark worth?’ he asked, and then shrugged. ‘And now we have to live to spend it.’
Lissen Carak – Harmodius
Harmodius listened to the angry crowd and kept his head down. He was almost drained of power – needed more recovery time, and the last thing he needed was a confrontation with ignorant witch-hunters.
Let the boy handle all that.
He dressed carefully. The old Abbess had never been a friend of his – but now, in death, he had to admire her. She had disclosed power of a level she had never had in youth – and had deployed her power brilliantly. She’d held the Enemy for long moments, while he prepared his masterstroke.
Sadly, his masterstroke hadn’t quite come off. But she hadn’t died in vain. The fortress still stood. And the Enemy’s beard had been badly singed.
Again.
Harmodius imagined himself standing at the Podium at Harnford, staff in hand, lecturing on Hermeticism. I learned the underpinnings of the nature of reality in the middle of one war, he would say, and I learned to manipulate them myself in the middle of another. Or perhaps he would say, I saved the world for mankind, yes, but I only stood on the shoulders of giants. That was better. Quite good, in fact.
And now all of her secrets would go to her grave with her, and her soul would fly to her maker.
Harmodius ran his fingers through his beard.
What if—
What if all the power in the world came from a single source?
That’s what it was, wasn’t it? It was, in a way, a commonplace.
Green or gold, white or red? Power. It’s just power
And that meant—
No good. No evil. No Satan. No – no God?
Did it mean that, in fact? Were there really any fewer angels on the head of a pin, if all power came from a single source?
His head spun.
What if Aristotle was wrong?
He could hardly breathe. One thing to think it. Another to know it to be true.
He stumbled down the tight staircase to the common room of the dormitory, and then he forced one foot in front of the other as he walked toward the chapel.
Bad Tom appeared at the captain’s side. The captain was doing his damnedest to appear to be a member of the congregation. He had just sung a hymn. He had himself well in order.
She had wanted him to understand.
He knelt when the other attendees knelt. Sister Miram led the service in the absence of the priest, a matter that seemed to excite no comment.
I swear on my name and my sword that I will avenge you, my lady.
‘My lord?’ asked Tom, at his elbow.
‘Not now.’
‘Now, my lord,’ Tom said.
Glaring at his corporal, the captain stood, walked to the aisle and genuflected to the crucified figure that towered over him, and then backed down the aisle to the doors. Every head turned.
Too bad.
‘What?’ he barked, when he was outside. The nuns were singing her to rest – every voice it the woven fabric of music a thread of power. It was incredibly beautiful.
Tom looked at the door to the cellars. ‘I hae’ the priest, God rot his false soul to hell. I put him I’ the darkest room wi’ a lock.’ Anger made his voice thick.
The captain nodded. ‘You valued her too.’
Tom shrugged. ‘She blessed me.’ He looked away. ‘That priest, he’s going to die hard.’
The captain nodded. ‘We’ll try him for treason, first,’ he said.
Tom had his back to the door. ‘Why try him? You’re the captain of a fortress under siege. Law of War.’
Lissen Carak – Gerald Random
Gerald Random picked his way fastidiously along the captain’s trench, following Ser Milus – clambering over the cooked bodies of a hundred boglins, their charred remnants a testimony to the power of fire. They smelled like cooked meat, and when he lost his balance and stepped on one, it crunched as if he’d stepped on charcoal. He paused.
His skin prickled.
Gelfred the huntsman strode past him, eyes wary, moving faster. The mercenary didn’t seem to mind stepping on the cremated boglins.
Random wondered how long he’d have to do this before he was like Gelfred, or Milus.
Behind him, forty men moved carefully along the trench – company archers, new recruits, farm boys. The reinforcements.
They came out of the trench under the wall of the Bridge Castle and hollered to the watch to open the postern. Random had answered the call from the fortress before mains, and he wasn’t in armour. He grabbed a bite of bread and a sound apple, and one of the young whores who’d come with the convoy handed him some good cheese. He smiled. ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’ he asked. Dora. She was Dora Candlesomething. Young Nick Draper fancied her, and Allan Pargeter had drawn her naked, which was still a nine-day wonder among the wagons, despite the flying mon
sters and magic. That made Random laugh.
She smiled back at him. ‘Money,’ she said. ‘Same as you.’
He shook his head and laughed again. ‘If we get back to Harndon, come and ask me for a job,’ he said.
She looked at him. ‘You mean that?’ she asked.
He made a face. ‘Of course.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Just when we’re all going to die.’
Lissen Carak – The Red Knight
The captain looked out through the hole in his wall and watched the fires burning in a swathe across the enemy’s camp. The enemy’s men, at least, cooked supper.
The rest of the camps were dark.
His back hurt. But then, his side hurt too, he now had cracked ribs on both sides of his ribcage – his shoulders were wrenched from the stress of being plucked off the ground by his knights, and his right hand had odd, numb spots in it and he had no idea why.
He was supposed to be in bed.
Toby stood uncertainly by the door.
‘You want to be in bed, I suppose,’ he said.
Toby shrugged. ‘I’m hungry.’
The Red Knight went to the table in the middle of the room and tossed his valet a biscuit.
Then he looked at the lute on the table. He hadn’t played it in—
He couldn’t remember when he played it last.
He picked it up, suddenly decisive, and walked out the door into the hallway. Toby tried to cut him off.
‘Oh, Toby,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ He knocked on the door to his Commandery.
In three heartbeats, Michael was there.
‘Grab your lute,’ he said. ‘Good evening, Miss Lanthorn. Michael, these people need some music. Not a grim silence. Let’s light a fire.’
Michael sometimes forgot that his master was only a few years older than he was. He grinned. ‘Give me – us – a moment.’
Lissen Carak – Mag the Seamstress
Mag looked out into the darkness because she’d heard music.
There it was again, the sound of a southern lute. A wild, joyous sound.
And then another, lower lute played back.
There was a bonfire burning on the cobbles.
An archer, Cuddy, came and peered out of the North Tower. He shouted something.
Amy Carter peered out of the stable door and saw Kaitlin Lanthorn dancing by firelight, her legs flashing.
She ran back inside and rubbed her sister’s cheek. ‘They’re dancing!’ she said.
Kitty sat up, fully awake.
Low Sym heard music playing below the windows at the end of the hospital room. He threw his feet over the end of the bed and walked softly across the floor and opened one casement, and the sound of the notes raced in like a spell. He leaned out, listening.
The nun appeared by his side. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
Sym giggled. ‘Capt’n likes to play. Fast.’ He shook his head. "Leastways, he used to play. On the Continent. Ain’t heard him in an age.’
She smiled. Leaned out. ‘You like him,’ she said.
Sym thought about that for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer.
From their vantage point, they saw the music do its work. Men came out of the stable and down the steps from the towers and the stumps of the towers. Women emerged from the stables and from the nun’s dormitory.
Suddenly, there were as many people in the courtyard to dance as had been there for the priest.
The two instruments were joined by pipes and a drum.
The dancers began to move in a circle.
‘I don’t hate him.’ Sym admitted.
Amicia turned. ‘You are not lost, Sym,’ she said. ‘You are more hero than villain, even now.’
He stepped back as if she’d struck him. But then he grinned.
Then he stiffened. ‘Where you going?’
She smiled. ‘You can come guard me. I’m going to dance. Or at least to watch.’
In the courtyard, Sister Miram stretched her arms and smiled wearily at the Red Knight, who stood with his back to the fire playing his lute like a madman. She turned to Sister Anne and ordered a cask of ale opened.
Bad Tom put a man-at-arms on the door to the cellars and another on the barracks. He and Jehannes whispered for a moment in the darkness beyond the fire, and Jehannes doubled the watch and forced some unwilling soldiers onto the walls where the farmers could see them.
When Jehannes looked down, Tom was dancing with the seamstress’ daughter.
Mag, Lis, and Sister Mary Rose hauled a great cauldron of beef soup to the door of the dormitory. Cheering archers and farmers hauled it together into the firelight.
Long Paw appeared with a brace of wine jars, and handed them to the first men he saw. They toasted him, and the bottles passed around, soldier to farmer, and farmer to soldier, until they were empty.
A farmer went and burrowed in his belongings in the stable, and returned with a jug that proved to contain apple jack.
And the lutes played on.
Lissen Carak – Michael
At some point, Michael knew he had never played so well, and he also knew that his fingers were going to hurt all the next day. Kaitlin whirled by, leaped in the air and was caught by Daniel Favor; Bad Tom caught Mag’s Sukey around the waist and she, a widow of twenty-four hours, squealed like a girl; Low Sym turned with the eight-year-old daughter of the Wackets, and Sister Miram and Sister Mary turned a somewhat statelier pavane together when Long Paw bowed, very Continental, and took Sister Miram’s hand and led her around the yard. Francis Atcourt bowed over Sister Mary’s hand and she laughed, and curtsied. Amicia danced with Ser Jehannes, Harmodius whirled Lis like a much younger man, and her feet spun her skirts out around her like a king’s cloak. and then Amicia spun by again with Ser George Brewes, and the Red Knight drank off his fourth glass of the Abbess’s red wine and played on. Cuddy tilted the apple jack back and back . . . and rolled off the barrel on which he was perched, and landed flat on his back, and didn’t move, and the farmers laughed. Wilful Murder had an arm around Johne the Bailli and a leather flagon in the other hand, and was singing at the top of his voice, his face lit like a daemon’s in the firelight.
The Carter girls began to dance, a fast, flashy dance of their own creation, and the Lanthorn girls, not to be beaten, leaped into the circle, and the music ran away with them. More pipes joined in, and Ben Carter produced bagpipes, and his drunkenness seemed to fall away as he played for his sisters. Fran Lanthorn leaned out of the turning circle and kissed him hard on the cheek as she swept by, and he blushed furiously and his tune tumbled, but he caught it and launched it anew.
Lissen Carak – Michael
Michael and his master allowed their fingers to fall still. The lutes dropped out of the busy music, which swept on.
Michael felt his captain’s arms go around his shoulders. He was afraid he’d cry. The captain had never hugged him before. Or anyone else that he knew of. He’d never seen the man’s face so open. So – defenceless.
And then he was gone into the swirling darkness and firelight.
Lissen Carak – Thorn
Thorn could hear the music. It drew him the way a candleflame will draw insects and frogs on a still summer night in the deep woods. He walked heavily to the edge of the woods, and listened with his keen senses to the sounds of people laughing and dancing, to the sounds of as many as ten instruments.
He listened, and listened. And hated.
Lissen Carak – The Red Knight
The Red Knight lay with his head in Amicia’s lap. She was looking at the firelit scene at their feet, inside the walls of the courtyard, and he was looking at the line of her throat and jaw. She was thinking about how simple happiness could be, and he felt the current of her thoughts through their joined hands.
Gradually – glacially slowly – she lowered her mouth over his.
Playfully, at the last moment, he licked her nose, and they both dissolved into laughter, and he shifted, grabbed
her under the arms and began to tickle her and she shrieked and tried to hit him.
He put her in his lap and bent to kiss her. She arched her back to reach him more quickly, and their tongues touched, their lips touched—
He drank her, and she drank him. Each of them could feel the contact, real, aethereal, spiritual.
He had pulled her robes above her hips, and she had not stopped him. The feeling of her naked flank inflamed him, and he pressed on.
She broke the kiss. ‘Stop,’ she said.
He stopped.
She smiled. Licked her lips. And then rolled out from under him, as swift as a dancer. Or a warrior.
‘Marry me,’ the Red Knight said.
Amicia stopped. She froze. ‘What?’
‘Marry me. Be my wife. Live with me until we die, old and surrounded by children and grandchildren.’ He grinned.
‘You’d say that to any girl who keeps her legs closed,’ she said.
‘Yes, but this time I mean it,’ he said, and she swatted him.
‘Amicia,’ said Sister Miram. She was standing by the apple tree. She smiled. ‘I missed you at the fire.’ She looked at the captain, who felt like a schoolboy. ‘She may choose for herself whether to marry a mercenary or be the bride of Christ,’ Miram said. ‘But she can choose in daylight, and not on an apple-scented night.’
Amicia nodded, but her half-hooded eyes concealed a spark that the Red Knight saw, and rejoiced at. He sprang to his feet. And bowed low. ‘Then I bid you good night, ladies.’
Miram stood her ground. ‘It was well thought,’ she said. ‘They needed to rejoice. And the lady would have wanted a better wake than we were providing.’
The captain nodded. ‘It was good. I didn’t—’ He shrugged. ‘I just wanted some music. And maybe to lure this lady into my lair’ He smiled. ‘But it was good.’
‘There is more heart in us tonight than last night, despite everything.’ Miram looked at Amicia. ‘Will you wed her?’
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