The Red Knight

by Miles Cameron

  The King of Alba stood there, in Jean de Vrailly’s cote armour.

  ‘He said he knew of a plot to kill me, in an ambush – and he wished the honour of taking my place.’ The king shook his head. ‘He is truly a great knight.’

  Gaston swallowed his thoughts, and wondered what his mad cousin had done. And why. But the mad eyes were closed forever.

  Near Lissen Carak – Thurkan

  Thurkan watched the king fall. His eyesight was tremendous and from two ridges away he and his clan watched the abnethog fling themselves on the knights.

  Of course, he had told them that he would support their attack.

  He’d told the Jacks much the same.

  But Thorn was doomed, and Thurkan had no intention of letting his people suffer any more.

  He turned to his sister. ‘If the men begin fighting among themselves, well and good – we will feast.’

  ‘I see nothing of the sort,’ Mogan said.

  ‘Nor I,’ Korghan said.

  Behind them stood forty of their kind – enough Qwethnethog to turn the battle. ‘Go tell the Sossag and the Abenacki that the battle is lost,’ Thurkan said to his sister.

  ‘It isn’t lost unless we flee,’ his sister insisted. ‘By rock and flowing water – is that your will?’

  Thurkan frowned, deep creases appearing in his jaw. ‘Thorn must die – now, while he is weak. Otherwise he will hunt us down.’

  Mogan poked her snout close to her brother’s. ‘Do not let me believe that this is all the rivalry of two Powers,’ she spat. ‘I have lost kin – you have lost kin. We were promised a feast, and—’

  ‘We had a feast at Albinkirk and another on the road.’ Thurkan shook his head. ‘I do not do what I do lightly. Thorn must go. We are being—’ he flexed the talons on his forefoot, moving each digit in an intricate arc, ‘—manipulated. By something. I can feel it.’

  Mogan snorted. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I obey. Under protest.’ And ran off into the trees, as fleet as a deer.

  ‘West,’ Thurkan told his brother.

  ‘I can help you,’ his brother insisted.

  ‘Perhaps. But Mogan cannot lead our clan or fertilize new eggs. And you can.’ The great head turned. ‘Obey, brother.’

  Korghan flicked his tongue in anger. ‘Very well, brother.’

  The two clan companies started west, even as the Royal Household Knights began to climb the ridge towards them.

  Bill Redmede ran, loosed an arrow from his dwindling store, and ran again. His bodkin points were all but gone, and he had only hunting arrows.

  The God-damned aristocrats had more plate armour than he’d ever seen. And the monsters – he’d been a fool to ever trust them and no doubt imperiled his soul, as well. He was bitter – tired, angry, and defeated.

  But he’d seen the king fall. It was some consolation, but it didn’t seem to slow the rest of the aristos any, and like all his kind, he faced an ugly death if he was caught, so he waited a heartbeat, stepped from behind his tree and put a shaft under the arm of somebody’s fucking lord and turned, and ran again.

  He made it up the second ridge, where they had started the morning, where the big daemon lord had issued its orders.

  All the daemons were gone. Sod them, too. Oligarchs. Bad allies for free men.

  The river was close now.

  There were knights in red surcotes at the base of the ridge, and he could see them coming up the hill – most of them had dismounted, and a flurry of arrows told him that his boys were still fighting back. Fighting the Royal Guard.

  He was damned if he was going to lose any more Jacks.

  He turned and ran diagonally across the face of the ridge.

  He came up behind Nat Tyler as the man loosed his last arrow. ‘Come on, Nat – the boats!’

  Tyler turned like a wild thing – but he got a hold of his wits, paused, and winded his horn and whistles sounded in response.

  ‘Follow me!’ Bill called, and ran back up the hill – legs labouring, lungs searching for breath.

  Behind him, the Jacks loosed a last arrow and ran – the sauve qui peut had been blown.

  Bill ran, and the Jacks ran behind him. He paused when he saw three of his own trying to face a knight with drawn swords and bucklers, and he put a shaft to his bow – another knight burst from the trees and crossed the crest of the ridge – raised his visor—

  Too good a shot to miss.

  Hawthor Veney made it to the top of the ridge on pride alone. It was his first fight, and he was a King’s Guardsman. His red surcote shouted his allegiance, and the Jacks were his enemies, and he pursued them ruthlessly. He caught one and hewed him from behind, a clumsy stroke that buried his point in the man’s neck, but the man fell hard, blood burst from the wound, and he ran on, wrenching the sword from the man’s corpse.

  The next one he caught fell to his knees and begged for mercy. He was perhaps fourteen years old.

  Hawthor paused, and an older guardsman beheaded the boy. ‘Nits make lice,’ he said, as he swept by, and Hawthor hardened his heart and ran on. Running in armour was hard. Running up a ridge with soft footing and tangled spring undergrowth was worse. His lungs began to labour and, as the Jacks rallied and rallied again, whipping deadly shafts at the guardsmen, Hawthor had to fight the temptation to open his visor.

  He began to pass men when he could see the light through the trees that meant the crest of the ridge was coming. There was shouting to the right – he turned to look, and he heard the sound of steel on steel. He looked back and forth – it was closer, and with his faceplate closed, he couldn’t see where. There was a flicker of motion to the front – he looked, ran a few steps, stopped, and looked again.

  Heard the scrape of blades. A voice called ‘Sauve Qui Peut!’

  He was breathing like a horse after a race. He was afraid – he was afraid they were behind him. He popped his visor, turned his head—

  And died.

  Near Lissen Carak – Bill Redmede

  Bill got another shaft on his bow after putting one through the knight’s face – felt better for doing it – but two more of his men were down and he knew better than to join the hand to hand fight. He ran.

  They crossed the ridge, and started down the far side towards their boats. A handful of knights from the vanguard tried to stop them, and the Jacks just ran around them – exhausted men without armour have an advantage over exhausted men in armour.

  Bill saw the Count of the Borders, close enough to touch, and he cursed his fate, that he should be so close to a mortal foe and be able to do nothing.

  But he ran past the man, down the steep berm, into a broad field – ploughed, until recently. Nat Tyler came out of the trees to his left, and dozens more – a handful, compared to their numbers three weeks ago. But enough to start again.

  Up the last dyke, and there were the boats. Fifty light bark boats – it had taken them three careful trips to get everyone over, night before last, and now . . .

  Now they’d all fit in one go.

  He tossed his bow into the bottom of the light boat, pushed it into the water, and stepped in, running lightly down the length of the boat to kneel in the bow. Then he rocked the stern off the muddy beach, and held his position in the current with his paddle until a young blond man in dirty white tossed his own bow into the boat and stepped clumsily into the stern. He almost swamped the light boat, and they were away into the current.

  Twenty other boats were putting off behind him – the better boatmen got the boats moving. The less competent men started to die, as the Royal Guard began to close on them.

  A few last Jacks dived into the water, abandoning packs and bows, quivers of invaluable arrows, but a few men had had the presence of mind to drag the rest of the boats off the mud and tow them and, safe in the current, they got the swimmers into boats.

  More than a hundred Jacks had been saved from the disaster.

  They began to paddle out into the centre. It was obvious from here that Br
idge Castle was still in the hands of the sell-swords – an arbalest bolt skipped across the water to put a hole in one boat.

  Tyler waved, pointed downstream, waved again, and paddled frantically to turn his boat.

  Jack looked into the rising sun and it’s brilliant reflection on the broad river – and saw flashes. Rhythmic flashes – banks of oars on heavy bateaux, rowing upstream. He counted twenty – counted a second twenty—

  Disaster. Disaster after disaster.

  He turned his head. ‘Less power and more finesse, comrade. We have to turn this boat and paddle upstream – all your power will serve us well, then.’

  A pair of crossbow bolts, like swallows feeding on insects, skipped by, passing within an arm’s length of their boat before sinking out of sight.

  The man in the stern shook his head. ‘I’m no boatsman, brother,’ he admitted.

  ‘Never mind, lad. Drag your paddle on the left – just there. And we’re around.’ Bill hadn’t risen to leadership for nothing; he was patient, even when everything was at stake.

  Then they were around, and his young companion’s strong arms were pushing the boat forward like a leaping deer. It was a waste of the man’s energy to spend so much but Jack let him tire himself, steering from the bow. Another volley of crossbow bolts from the distant bateaux and he lost a trio of Jacks – they were broadside on to the enemy and all three of them caught bolts.

  Bill Redmede was an old boatman. And a master archer. He stowed his paddle, took his bow from the bottom of the light boat, wiped the stave and the string – good wax, not too much moisture. He was glad he’d left it strung, and he rose to his feet, the boat tipping – leaped lightly onto the ash gunwales, one foot on each.

  ‘Good Christ!’ shouted his stern paddle in dismay.

  He drew and loosed in one motion, tipping the boat from side to side, loosing high – a hunting point. Then he knelt as he watched the fall of his arrow.

  He lost it in the sun-dazzle. But he felt better for the shot, and he took up his paddle and gave way with a will.

  Near Albinkirk – Desiderata

  Desiderata was in a borrowed chain shirt – worn with a man’s hose, a heavy wool kirtle laced as tightly as her maids could manage, and a man’s arming cap. The effect should have been ludicrous, but was instead both martial and quite attractive, to judge from the reactions of the guildsmen and the hillmen all around her on the foredeck of the lead row-galley.

  Lady Almspend stood by her side, also in a shirt of mail, with a sallet on her head and a sword at her waist. She was more ridiculous, but beaming at Ranald Lachlan, whose attention was torn between his lady-love and the approach of combat. The herd was penned in camp, with twenty of his brother’s men as guards. He stood in hauberk and leg armour, his open-faced bascinet and leather cote almost barbaric in comparison to the crossbowmen of the guilds of Lorica, most of whom had fancy cotes of plates and visored helmets, the latest fashion from the Continent. His hands rested on the great axe he carried.

  The Queen looked at him. He was quieter than she had known him in year’s past. According to her secretary, he had actually been dead. The Queen suspected this might be a sobering experience.

  ‘Boglins on the bank,’ Ranald said, pointing a gauntleted hand.

  ‘Got them,’ said one of the guild officers. ‘Boglins to starboard. Pick your targets. Loose!’

  A dozen bolts flew.

  ‘The king must have been victorious,’ Lady Almspend said. ‘Those aren’t our men fleeing across the river in front of us.’

  Ranald turned so fast the chain aventail at his neck slapped his helmet. ‘Good eyes, my lady.’ He flashed her a smile – pleased to have her company in his favourite pursuit. He looked under his gauntleted hand for a long time. ‘They’re men – they’re in a sort of uniform. Now they turned their boats away—’

  The guild officer had scrambled up into the bows past the Queen. ‘Jacks, by God. Rebels! Traitors! Heretics!’ He raised his arbalest, took careful aim, and loosed a bolt.

  The boglins on the north bank began to flick arrows at them.

  The Queen started. The back of her throat was scratchy. For the first time, she was afraid.

  ‘We have come too far west,’ Ranald said. ‘There are enemies on both banks, and the king won’t yet know that we are here.’

  The Queen had received a message from the king late in the afternoon, and she had ordered the boats to row all night. She’d picked up the messenger at midnight, and his information had been exact. Today was to be the day – she intended to see it.

  She stood on the foredeck and shaded her eyes with her hand – to the front, and to the right, and to the left. To the left, she saw a flash of red, and then another – and then half a dozen Royal Guardsmen appeared on the bank. She waved, and her ladies cheered.

  ‘Anchor here,’ she ordered.

  A half-dozen boglin arrows fell onto the lead galley – most were deflected by the leather curtains that protected the rowers, but one struck home, and the man’s oar fell from his hands as he screamed. The arrow was deep in his shoulder.

  Boglins poisoned their arrows, and his screams froze her blood. He had laughed and joked with her maids when they lay on the banks of the Alba, eating sausage.

  It was as much of a shock as the sight of a boglin.

  An arrow plummeted from the heavens like a stooping hawk, struck her helm, ripped down her back and knocked her flat.

  She lay on the deck – suddenly the day was darker, and her back was wet.

  ‘Ware the Queen!’ Ranald called.

  She reached for the golden light of the sun – it was all about her, such a glorious day—

  ‘She’ll bleed out. It is in her back.’ Ranald was doing something.

  ‘Is it poisoned?’ Lady Almspend asked.

  ‘I don’t think so – give me your pen knife. Wicked bastard – a swallowtail point.’ Lachlan sounded afraid.

  She was floating above them, able to see the hillman digging in the flesh of her back with a knife. He had the mail shirt hiked over her hips having cut the shaft of the arrow. She’d seldom seen herself look less elegant.

  ‘It’s in her kidneys,’ Lachlan said, and sat back on his haunches, suddenly defeated. ‘Sweet Jesu!’

  The captain had slept in his harness like everyone else, his helmeted head in the corner of the curtain wall where the west wall met the north tower. Four assaults had failed to re-take the wall, but he was so tired—

  ‘Boats on the river, Captain.’ Jack Kaves, senior archer, stood over him. ‘I brought you a cup of beer. Young Michael tried to wake you and went off to find more wine.’

  The captain took the beer, rinsed his mouth and spat onto the mound of dead boglins outside the wall, and then took a long pull. Half of the mound of boglin bodies was still moving, so that the whole pile seemed to writhe – and they made mewling sounds like a pile of kittens, somehow more horrible than the screams of men.

  No more men were screaming. The wounded had been sent up the hill to the fortress during a lull between attacks – the Knights of Saint Thomas, like their sisters, were doctors as well as fighters, and they gave basic care and rigged stretchers between horses. And the enemy killed every wounded man they could.

  He got slowly to his feet. The weight of his armour and his own fatigue combined to make the process of rising painful – his neck hurt like he had been kicked by a horse. ‘Michael?’ he asked, confused and looking around.

  ‘In the store rooms,’ Kaves said.

  ‘Jack, help me get my helmet off,’ the captain said. He unbuckled his chinstrap, and Jack lifted the helmet clear of his head. The aventail was clotted with gore, which dragged across his face. The visor was gone.

  He unlaced his arming cap. It was one of Mag’s, and with the intense interest of total exhaustion, he noted that she had embroidered his lacs d’amour across the crown – lovely work.

  The cap was full of power. He hadn’t seen it before – perhaps hadn’t be
en able to see it. He held it closer and saw that every stitch held a tiny rainbow of light – the whole, with the lines of embroidery, was not unlike a set of tiny fish scales.

  Jack Kaves whistled.

  The captain turned and looked at his helmet, which had a great gouge in it where some weapon had punched right through it. Indeed, with all too little effort, the captain could remember the boglin chief’s scythes, slicing at his unvisored face and never quite reaching it.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. He leaned forward, and Jack upended a pot of river-water over his head.

  The old archer handed him a rag and he dried his hair, face and beard. While he used the rag, he walked along the wall, feeling the damp spread down inside his breastplate. He could all but hear it rusting. Michael was going to be—

  There were, indeed, boats on the river. Fifty row galleys – obviously crewed by men.

  He stood and watched them for several long minutes.

  Jack Kaves stood beside him, holding out a sausage. ‘What’s it mean, Cap’n?’ he asked.

  The captain gave a wry smile. ‘It means we win,’ he said. ‘Unless we screw it up really badly, we win.’

  Albinkirk – Desiderata

  Lady Almspend shook her head. She was tying the points of her sleeves back. ‘Don’t be a ninny. That’s fat. You there – get my kit-bag up from the hold. The barbs – I have a tool for them.’

  ‘You do?’ Lachlan asked.

  Almspend took the Queen’s hand. ‘I know you can hear me, my lady. Stay with us. Take power from the sun – take strength. I can get this out, with a little luck.’

  Lachlan grunted.

  An oarsman came up the foredeck ladder with her leather bag.

  ‘Dump it on the deck,’ she ordered. He did, breaking an ink bottle and putting black ink on every shift she owned.

  She snatched the item she sought – a pair of matching halves, like a mould for an arrow.

  ‘Hold on, my lady,’ she said. ‘This will hurt.’

  She pushed the mould over the arrow – in and in, along the path of the original wound, and the Queen moaned, and a long line of saliva mixed with blood came out of her mouth.