The Fell Sword

Chapter Eight

Jarsay – Jean de Vrailly

The Captal arrayed his little army on the hilltop and watched the Earl of Towbray’s retainers form up on the opposite hillside. He’d sent his defiance to the Earl and then burned a swathe a mile wide down the Earl’s principal valley; looted four of his towns and wrecked his ripe crops, and killed more than a hundred of his peasants. And that night, his angel came again.

He fell on his face. The angel was even brighter; like sapphire and emerald fire.

You will defeat Towbray, his angel said.

‘Of course,’ de Vrailly said into his prayer carpet.

Do your best to take Towbray alive, the angel said. Later, he will prove useful.

De Vrailly was human enough to feel that he didn’t need angelic visitation to see these truths.

You desire to be the best knight in the world. Your triumph is at hand. At the spring tournament, all will be as we have said.

De Vrailly smiled, even under the oppressive fear of his mighty ally. ‘Ah, the tournament,’ he said.

But there are other ways in which this kingdom must be brought to orthodoxy. The Queen must fall. She is a pagan adultress. You must have no pity on her or her people.

De Vrailly bridled. ‘Not even for the wrath of heaven would I make war on a woman.’

The angel could be heard to sigh. You are the most arrogant mortal I have ever known.

De Vrailly smiled into the carpet.

Very well. You are my chosen servant, and I will allow you your will. But you must not stop her fall. The angel sounded insistent. Almost wheedling.

De Vrailly shrugged. As to that, I care nothing for the witch.

Good. Let us add some religious discipline. There is a monk – a pious man – in Lucrete. It is the will of God he become Bishop of Lorica. And restore these heathens to the way. He is a true apostle and he will stamp out the heresy of their witchcraft.

De Vrailly sometimes found talking to his angel was tiresomely like bargaining with a merchant for a horse . . .

In the full light of dawn, armed and mounted, he turned to his cousin Gaston. ‘He won’t soon defy the King his master,’ he allowed, and laughed.

Gaston was waiting patiently while a squire fixed the buckle on his visor. ‘It appears to me that he’s defying you and the King right now. That’s his standard – and there are his knights.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Quite a few more knights than we have.’

De Vrailly laughed. ‘I will defeat him easily – first, because his array is weak and his men fear to be taken as rebels, and second because I am a better knight.’

Gaston sighed and bent his head while Forwin buckled his visor. ‘As you say, cousin. Has your angel spoken to you?’

‘Yes. He told me I will soon be king,’ De Vrailly said. ‘And to summon my cousin Guillaulme to become Bishop of Lorica.’

‘The angel chose your cousin?’ Gaston knew Guillaulme for a difficult man, one in whom piety had replaced both common sense and common compassion.

De Vrailly held up a gauntleted hand. ‘I have told you before, cousin – to doubt my angel is blasphemy. This realm needs my cousin, so that they may be cured of their heresies and their tendency to accept things that should not be accepted.’

Gaston didn’t answer – merely closed his visor and leaned forward in the saddle to allow his squire to buckle it shut.

De Vrailly rode forward to his standard.

De Vrailly was not so contemptuous of infantry as he appeared, and he’d put the Royal Guard in the centre, flanked by Royal Foresters on each side – about sixty archers on either flank. Towbray had about three hundred knights and men-at-arms, and another two hundred footmen, most of whom were merely servants. Of course, all his archers had already served throughout the spring, in the north – and they were gathering in their harvests, or protecting them against de Vrailly’s raiders.

De Vrailly raised his lance and rode forward, and his knights followed him willingly. His standard bearer, Pierre Abelard de Rohan, shouted the Gallish war cry. All the Gallish knights took it up, shouting, ‘Saint Denis!’ at the Jarsayans, and Towbray’s knights charged.

If the Earl of Towbray had expected a chivalrous encounter, he was wrong. He was the first man to discover how wrong he was when his horse tumbled into a small pit that one of the archers had dug and its guts were ripped out on a stake. In a few heartbeats, the ‘battle’ was over, and the Earl’s surviving knights were riding for home. His footmen, such as they were, cowered in their camp or broke and ran.

De Vrailly took the Earl himself, dismounting and knocking the stunned traitor unconscious with his heavy war sword before leading his knights in hunting the footmen through the camp and into the dales beyond. They killed or captured every man they could catch, burned the crops, and took their prisoners back to their own camp.

De Vrailly had the Earl put in chains, in a wagon.

Gaston d’Eu found him standing on a low bluff, looking out over the burning fields and small hamlets of Jarsay.

‘You have to take him to the King,’ d’Eu said.

De Vrailly pursed his lips. ‘Why, when I can punish his serfs all autumn?’

Gaston sighed. ‘These people are innocent of anything but having a bad lord. And they are the King’s subjects. If your angel speaks you true – hear me, cousin, and don’t interrupt – they will soon be your people.’

De Vrailly motioned out at the fields of fire and smoke stretching off into the sunset. ‘But – is this not beautiful?’ He smiled. ‘Our knights are flush with victory and richer with the loot of this traitor’s lands. He’ll pay a huge ransom – and it’s all mine. The King can collect his taxes from the man while he is my captive.’

Gaston shook his head. ‘All those payments will be extracted from these rich valleys – where your men have killed the men, raped the women and burned the crops. So who will pay this ransom? The crows?’

De Vrailly waved his hand in dismissal. ‘You have grown soft here in Alba. This is what war is. We are servants of war. If you do not like it, strip off your spurs and become a monk.’

Gaston shook his head. ‘Take Towbray to the King. Immediately, before it gets worse.’

‘Ahh!’ De Vrailly rubbed his beard. ‘But- No. I could simply kill him. I can take his lands and make them my own.’

‘That’s not how Alba works,’ Gaston said. ‘And he has a son.’

‘Bah.’ De Vrailly laughed. ‘He’s no threat at all. A boy playing at being a knight.’ De Vrailly shook his head. ‘You really think that the King will not take my part in this?’ he asked.

‘I think he could argue you made the traitor revolt when you killed his nephew in an illegal duel.’ Gaston shrugged. ‘Eh?’

De Vrailly spat. ‘You ruin everything,’ he said. ‘And I was so happy. I cannot understand this place. Everywhere, their rule of law means the strong must give way to the weak. I hate it.’

Gaston shrugged. And, wisely, said nothing.

Harndon – The King and Queen

‘He did what?’ roared the King. He stared balefully at the messenger, who stood woodenly before him.

The captain of the Royal Guard – and the old King’s by-blow – Sir Richard Fitzroy, raised his eyebrow at Gareth Montroy, widely known as the Count of the Borders, who cleared his throat.

‘The Captal can be precipitate,’ the Count said quietly.

‘He fought a battle with Towbray and captured him,’ the King said, reading the letter. ‘By Christ’s passion, he burned a swathe through Towbray’s lands – my lands!’ The King looked at his new constable, the Count. ‘He says he will set Towbray’s ransom at three hundred thousand silver leopards.’

The Count struggled to maintain a straight face. ‘There’s not that much coin in the world,’ he said.

Sir Richard made a face. ‘That’s roughly the value of Towbray’s entire demesne. I have no love for the Gallish thug, but Towbray’s been a burr under Your Grace’s saddle throughout your reign. That’s why you sent de Vrailly to deal with him.’

The King paused and pulled on his beard.

The Count shook his head in disagreement. ‘Your Grace, I believe that the Earl is a dangerous man and as changeable as a weathercock. He served you well this spring, but your other peers would not take kindly to seeing this foreigner displace one of our oldest families.’ He looked at the captain of the bodyguard. ‘I could see us being well rid of Towbray.’

Ser Richard shrugged. ‘I’d like to have seen Towbray’s face when he found himself a captive of yon loon. But Your Grace has to consider sending him back to Galle for this. The commons openly say he’s a spy for the King of Galle.’ He glanced around the room. ‘And my lord, if we attaint Towbray, the other lords will be very afraid. Scared men make foolish choices. And they are already scared of de Vrailly and his Galles.’ Ser Richard looked at the King and shrugged, as if to say that this wasn’t his fault. ‘And Your Grace appointed him to choose the next Bishop of Lorica,’ he said. ‘He has chosen his cousin – a member of the University of Lutece. A priest famous for his harsh interpretation of God’s word.’

‘Did I ask for your opinions?’ said the King, eyes afire. ‘Did I ask you-’ He paused. The Queen was coming into the room, and he rose and bowed.

She had two of her ladies with her, Lady Rebecca Almspend, her secretary, in a deep blue overgown with midnight-blue stockings that she rather daringly showed through a slit of her gown, and Lady Mary Montroy, the richest heiress in the realm and the Queen’s chief maid, who wore a gown of red and black check pinned with a golden dragon – her gown revealed one red leg and one black leg, and contrasting slippers. As she had black brows and deep red hair, the contrast was maintained over her entire body – a body worthy of review.

The three women curtsied, and the men bowed.

The Count smiled at his daughter. ‘You may be the first woman to grace this court in a Northern tartan.’ Even the King smiled.

The King leaned forward. ‘By God, though, Montroy. I thought the Muriens colours were green and gold?’

They all laughed, and the Queen leaned forward, a hand on her chest, and said, ‘My lord must know that the Northerners have an ancient style – a set of colours that is a badge and a vaunt all at once.’

The King smiled. ‘Any man who has hunted a bear in the Adnacrags knows about tartan, my dear. And Becca – we are all informal today, I find – you are dazzling. Which, if I may, is not how I am used to see you.’

‘Fie, Your Grace! And yet my stockings remain blue.’ She said this with a fetching lift of her hem to show her ankles and a hint of dancer’s legs. The comment was so at odds with her usually severe demeanour, downcast eyes, and profusion of stylus ends and wax tablets that the King snorted and Sir Richard, who had been quite enamoured of the secretary from time to time, felt his former feeling rush back.

The Queen smiled. ‘Having a worthy lover maketh a woman bloom like a rose in summer – isn’t that what the poem says?’

The Count, a simple man with simple tastes and a devoted wife, nonetheless found his throat a bit tight and his face flushed. Ser Richard caught himself leering like a gowp and shut his mouth. The King beamed at his wife with adoration. ‘That might be the highest compliment you’ve ever paid me,’ he said, voice husky.

Her lips brushed his. ‘How clever of you to see that,’ she said. ‘The three of us are on our way to the library, but it appears that we require Your Grace’s permission to open your father’s letters.’

‘By Saint Martin’s cloak!’ said the King. ‘Whatever for? Be my guest. Here – Becca, write it out for me and I’ll seal it.’

‘Your Grace,’ said Lady Almspend, and she produced, not her usual horn inkwell, but instead a young page clad in livery, who had a heavy leather bag on his shoulder. He knelt and offered her a lap desk. She received a nod from the King permitting her to sit – it was an informal day and place and not high court – and she perched on a chair meant for a man in armour and wrote in her round, clear Gothic hand. She then produced royal red sealing wax and melted it from a device.

‘Is that hermetical?’ asked the King.

Lady Almspend nodded. ‘Approved by the old Bishop of Lorica, Your Grace. Made with the sun’s energy harnessed in a matrix of prayer and held-’ she produced the item ‘-in a cross.

They all passed it around.

‘We live in marvellous times,’ said Ser Richard, looking for some little contribution to catch her attention. It was widely known that she loved a barbarian drover – a member of the royal bodyguard named Ranald Lachlan. Paradoxically, Ser Richard held Lachlan in the highest esteem, and did what he could to further the Hillman’s career.

Almspend looked at him and shrugged. ‘I expect all times are marvellous to those who live in them, Ser Richard.’

The King was notoriously insensitive to the feelings of his men about the ladies of court, and he leaned over to watch her seal the order and asked, ‘What of your handsome drover, eh, Becca? I want my Ranald back at my shoulder.’

The Queen, in a rare display of temper, said, ‘Then Your Grace has but to make him a knight and offer him a dowry.’

Almspend’s hand paused.

The King laughed. ‘A stiff-necked drover? He’d never accept it from me. He has to go win it for himself – aye, and he’ll be a better man for it, and you’ll bloom all the more.’

Almspend finished her task. ‘As Your Grace says, of course,’ she breathed.

The King frowned at Lady Almspend. ‘Do you know as much of religion as you do of history, my dear?’

Almspend bowed in her chair. ‘Your Grace, religion is nothing but history.’

Ser Richard laughed aloud, but the Queen frowned.

‘Why do these gentlemen disapprove so strongly of the Captal’s cousin Guillaulme as Bishop?’ the King asked.

Almspend raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure I am not the one to discuss this with the King and privy council,’ she said.

The Queen put a hand on her back. ‘The King asks you.’

Almspend shrugged. ‘Guillaulme Le Penser is one of the leaders of an intellectual movement.’

The King nodded. ‘Come, that sounds promising.’

Almspend raised both eyebrows. ‘He is a teacher at the University of Lutece. He and the other Scholastics – as they call themeselves – believe that the use of hermeticism is connected to the worship of Satan; that the miracles of God are of an entirely different order; that those who use power should be burned as witches.’

There was a stunned silence.

The King leaned forward. ‘Why would they believe such a foolish thing?’ he asked.

Almspend shrugged. ‘I can give a politic answer, an intellectual answer, or a pragmatic answer, Your Grace.’

The King nodded. ‘Let’s have pragmatic, for all love.’

Almspend tried to meet the Queen’s eye before she went on. ‘Your Grace, the University of Lutece follows the Patriarch of Rhum. As the Academy – the centre of learning, especially hermetical learning – is in the grasp of the Patriarch of Liviapolis, it serves the needs of the Patriarch of Rhum to make his rival appear a witch. Further to that all of the Scholastics are men and none of them have access to power. They seek to create a world that they can dominate – after all those capable of using power are burned away.’

The Count of the Borders shook his head. ‘Sweet Saviour, then how will we stop the Wild?’

‘Lutece is a long way from any battlefront with the Wild,’ Almspend replied.

The King nodded. ‘Well, best to know. I’m sure he’ll be difficult – look at the Captal and his heavy-handed policies. But he does get things done. Perhaps his cousin is from the same mould.’

The Queen looked baffled. ‘My dear, you just heard Becca say he’ll try to rid the realm of all hermeticals?’

The King patted her hand. ‘Fear not, love – I know what’s best for the realm. Random wants a new bishop. This man sounds very intelligent. He’ll be a help at council, and we’ll simply have to show him the kindly light of our hermeticals.’ He nodded, dismissing the women. ‘Lady Almspend, your learning lights my court like a hundred candles.’

She curtsied. ‘My lord, it would be a good thing for the realm for Magister Harmodius to be replaced. A new magister could help us persuade the Bishop.’

The King nodded and waved a hand.

When they were gone, Gareth Montjoy shook his head. ‘Was that poised young woman with the lovely ankles my daughter?’ he asked. ‘Need they pluck so much of their foreheads and show quite so much leg?’

The King laughed. ‘When I was coming to manhood women wore sacks in layers. I prefer the modern taste.’

Montjoy shook his head. ‘Your Grace is not a parent,’ he said, and then stiffened. He’d come close to the unsayable.

The King looked at him mildly. ‘I suppose someday God will bless me with a child,’ he said, and his face grew tight. His sigh was heavy.

‘Your Grace, I am sorry.’ Gareth bowed. Reminding the King of his childlessness was not a good start to a day.

The King waved him off. ‘Never mind, Gareth,’ he said. ‘God will provide.’ He turned to Ser Richard. ‘Why so long-faced, Dick?’

Ser Richard shrugged. ‘I think I may need to ask a leave of absence from Your Grace and go ride about on errantry until my worth is ranked higher.’

The King frowned. ‘You were at my side at Lissen. Indeed, you stood by me to the end. No man here doubts your worth, and your hand was reckoned mighty that day.’

Ser Richard bowed. ‘It is kind of Your Grace to say so – but many men fought valiantly at Lissen.’

The Count nodded. ‘Aye, and to brag about it, carping on all day. And every one of them Galles.’ He looked at Ser Richard. ‘Are you really proposing to leave court for a while?’ he asked.

Ser Richard met the King’s eye. ‘Yes, if I have leave.’

Montjoy looked at the King. ‘De Vrailly is on his way back here with the Earl, isn’t he?’ he asked.

The King shrugged. ‘Yes.’

‘We need to get all the Southerners – all the knights from Jarsay and their retinues – away from court before there is blood.’ Montjoy leaned forward.

The King sighed heavily. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘And what if he gets above himself?’ asked Ser Richard. ‘Don’t you need the Southerners to balance the Galles?’

‘By Christ I hate all these factions,’ said the King. ‘And I’m the King, not the head of a rival faction myself. I need nothing to curb the Captal but my word.’

Montjoy’s eyes met those of Fitzroy. But after a long unspoken message – pleading – he nodded. ‘I’ll go. Where do you have in mind, my lord Constable?’

‘Albinkirk,’ said the Constable, ‘needs new men for the garrison, and Ser John has been fighting. He’s virtually alone, and he deserves better of us.’ He turned to the King and squared his shoulders as if entering combat, and said, ‘Is Your Grace determined on this new bishop? I feel it is an error to give de Vrailly another boon.’

The King set his face. ‘I will have nothing to do with factions,’ he said.

‘Your Grace, I have not asked you for anything. I stand for the kingdom. And I say that de Vrailly has too many men-at-arms and too much power already, and that this man should be sent back to Galle as soon as his ship touches the shore.’

‘I’ll consider it,’ the King said.

The Queen led the way down the corridor. ‘That was easier than I expected. Why do you think that the old King’s writs and letters are closed, Becca?’

Almspend was already regretting her fashionable gown with its high collar – managing it required the very skills she’d spurned when other girls were learning them, so that she could instead master High Archaic. Her beautiful deep-blue slippers offered no protection at all against the cold of the stone.

Why is it the Queen never seems to be affected by these things? Almspend wondered. The Queen seemed to float along, never hot, never cold, never troubled by cramps or headaches or even a runny nose.

‘My lady, I would guess that the old King said some outrageous things in his time. He certainly had lovers – women and men both, according to my father. He played favourites and while he was an excellent king, my lady, one rather has the feeling that he was not a particularly good person.’ She shrugged.

The Queen laughed. ‘How exciting! For the first time, I understand your interest in history. Where are we?’

‘My lady, this is the donjon – we are entering by what would have been the secret passage, back in King Uthaneric’s day. But when the New Palace was built-’

‘Becca, is there anything you don’t know?’ asked Lady Mary. ‘By the Virgin! I thought the New Palace had been here two hundred years and more.’

‘Yes, Mary,’ Almspend said, in the voice she reserved for the great number of otherwise intelligent beings who seem to have no interest in history. ‘The New Palace is almost exactly two hundred years old. I can show you a foundation stone with the date. Sixty-two sixty-three.’

‘How old is Harndon, then?’ asked Lady Mary.

‘The Empress Livia and her legions established a fortress here one thousand and fifty years ago. Or so.’ Almspend shrugged. ‘Actually, there’s a great deal of argument among scholars about the date of the expedition, and whether Harndon was established in the first or second expedition to the Nova Terra.’

‘Really?’ asked the Queen. She rolled her eyes at Lady Mary, but Almspend either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

‘At any rate, my lady, Harndon is a very old name and probably pre-dates the Archaics. When good King Ranulf returned from the Holy Land and built the New Palace, his chamberlain, Hildebald, writes that the deepest excavations found both tunnels, a temple foundation, and a road of logs laid side by side and planed flat with an adze of great antiquity. The temple still held enormous latent potentia and had to be cleansed by the archbishop. He died of the task, and the Patriarch had to come from Liviapolis.’

The three women walked along the corridor for a few more steps.

‘How terrifying!’ said Lady Mary. ‘Where was this temple?’

‘Oh, just behind us, about twenty paces. Some of the old stones were reused in the corridor – look – see the Green Man? That’s one of their old signs.’

The Queen put a hand on the stone. She closed her eyes. ‘They still have power. They called this place-’ She paused. ‘Harn Dum.’

‘Why yes!’ Almspend was delighted. ‘Did you read that in Tacitus?’

‘No,’ said the Queen, clearly shaken. ‘I just heard a voice in the stone.’

‘You mean to say that our world sits atop yesterday’s world, and that one sits atop another, and another? Under our New Palace is an older palace, and then a temple – what’s under the temple?’

‘Something wrought by the Wild, perhaps, or by the Old People.’ Almspend laughed.

‘The Wild cannot build anything,’ said Lady Mary.

‘Nonsense! The Wild makes wonderful things. The new scholarship studies these things. Irks build, they have music, and they have towns and castles.’ Almspend nodded, happy to be able to discuss the things that delighted her with her friends, who too often talked about dancing.

‘That is merely the imitation of man,’ said Lady Mary.

‘Not at all. That’s a very dated theology, my dear,’ said Almspend. ‘In fact, it is far more likely that our works are an imitation of theirs.’

‘Poppycock!’ snapped Mary, who was tired of being patronised by her father and didn’t intend to let Becca Almspend get into the habit. ‘Rubbish!’

Surprisingly, it was the Queen who agreed. ‘Before he left, Harmodius was experimenting with issues raised along these lines,’ she said. Almspend nodded. ‘The Archaics understood these things far better, Mary. I could-’

‘By the virgin, Rebecca, in a moment you’ll tell me that you worship Tara.’ Lady Mary crossed herself.

Rebecca smiled. ‘Mary, would it shock you to know that some scholars think that the Virgin may be the early Church’s attempt to harness the worship of Tara the Huntress?’

‘You only say that because we’re deep beneath the earth where the lightning can’t hit you,’ said Mary. Her voice was light, but she was clearly mortified.

‘Tar,’ said the Queen.

The other two women were silent. They had come to a great oak door with iron hinges and all three women stopped.

‘They call her Tar,’ the Queen said, in a dreamy voice. ‘She became later Tara, but her name is Tar.’

‘My lady?’ asked Mary.

The Queen looked at her strangely. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.

Almspend kicked Mary with one slippered foot and Mary squealed and stepped away from the Queen. ‘Ouch, what was that for?.’ Her eyes met Almspend’s.

‘What just happened?’ asked the Queen.

‘You touched one of the Green Man stones and went all funny,’ said Almspend in her matter-of-fact voice.

The Queen shrugged. ‘And now I remember. Well. Here we are.’ She produced a key, and the three women took turns working it in the lock with sweet oil until it turned.

The Queen put a strong hermetical light over the door, and the three women gaped. There were piles of scrolls spilling onto the floor, and heavy tomes piled on heavy slab tables. A large rat stood in the middle of the central table, chewing parchment with malevolent, spiky teeth.

The rat met the Queen’s eye.

The Queen raised a hand and the rat turned to ash.

‘Oh – very good!’ said Lady Almspend. ‘Well hit!’

The Queen allowed herself a smile. ‘I have been practising. That animal was under someone’s control – I can see the web of its hermetical owner.’

‘Who would want to read these old-’ Lady Mary stepped back and gave a shriek. She leaned against the door frame, a hand to her bosom. ‘By the Blessed Virgin. Saints protect me.’

‘By all that’s holy – or unholy!’ said Almspend. ‘I see why this room is protected! These are Plangere’s papers! In with the King’s! Sweet Jesu, my lady – this is raw power for the taking! Did Harmodius know?’

‘I’ll guess he did not. But his own papers need to be protected as well – you wouldn’t believe what I’ve found in his rooms. That man was far deeper than we ever realised.’

‘They all are,’ muttered Almspend, rifling through an enormous grimoire. ‘Oooh! This stinks of Archaic necromancy.’ She literally held her nose. ‘My lady, what are we looking for?’

The Queen looked back and forth between her two most trusted friends. ‘Do you two know what old wives whisper about my husband? That he is impotent, and cursed?’

There was a pause. Hermetical light is very white, and unflattering and the two women looked at their Queen under its glare, each struggling to hide something.

Almspend bowed her head. ‘I have heard this, yes. And worse.’

Lady Mary nodded. ‘Although the Galles all say it is you, my lady. That you are barren.’ Even in the cold white light, she flushed.

Almspend nodded. ‘The Galles are the most vicious gossips I’ve ever heard, for men. I thought only women were so poisonous. Once or twice I’ve wished I wore a sword and could use it, so I could cut the comb of a braggart who needed it.’

The Queen put a hand to her belly. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said. ‘By the King, if that needs to be said.’ She sighed.

In some ways, she was the most human that Lady Mary had ever seen her.

‘My husband has a secret,’ the Queen went on. ‘It concerns the Red Knight. Beyond that, I know the older women say the King had an affair, and she is the woman that cursed him with impotence.’

Mary smiled. ‘Well, if that was the case, you seem to have cured him.’

The Queen smiled. ‘I have powers,’ she said, her voice low. ‘And after the battle – that woman, Amicia? She healed us. I think her power and mine combined sufficed to break the curse.’

To Mary, who had no access to power whatsoever, this was too much information; like hearing about another person’s toilet habits. But Almspend leaned forward. ‘Really!’ she said. ‘Fascinating!’

‘I want to know who cast the curse and why,’ said the Queen. ‘So that I can fight it.’ She shrugged. ‘Among other things, it occurs to me that whoever cursed him in the first place might want to harm my baby.’

The two ladies-in-waiting nodded slowly, but Mary smiled. ‘Perhaps you were just slow to kindle?’ she asked.

The Queen laughed. ‘I have lain with the King upwards of three times a day since we were wed,’ she said with a low chuckle. ‘More, when the fancy took us.’ She met her maid’s eye. ‘I know by my powers that I am fecund. Absurdly so. Need I say more?’

Mary blushed so hotly that she fanned herself.

Almspend took a deep breath. ‘Your Grace?’ she asked quietly. As the women hardly ever addressed the Queen by title, she bowed her assent to let her secretary go on.

‘Your Grace must understand that the study of history is littered with unpleasant truths,’ she said.

The Queen nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘That’s all,’ Almspend said. ‘You may well learn something you do not wish to know. Or need to know.’

‘I intend to save my baby,’ said the Queen.

Harndon – Ser Gerald Random

Random was comfortably and pleasurably abed with his wife when the wings began to beat at the window. His first reaction was annoyance, and then fear – the wings were immense and, to a veteran of combat in the Wild, portended something worse than a messenger pigeon. He rose, naked, and drew his sword from its place over his bed, knelt because hopping on one foot is not the best way to face a monster, and pushed his wife’s naked flank to hurry her from the room.

Thump thump thump

Thump thump thump

Once, when he had been a boy, great luna moths had come to the horn windows of his father’s house in South Harndon. His mother, a seamstress, had purchased beeswax candles to allow her to work late – a special commission – and the moths had been drawn by the light. They had been as big as his head or bigger; creatures of the deep Wild. And the thump of their alien, insectile bodies against the mullioned horn and glass windows of his parents’ house had been terrifying and yet fascinating. And very young Thomas Random had watched their shadows flit and nudge and, greatly daring, he had stepped out into a summer night to watch them. The largest moth had fluttered about in its clumsy flight and come to hover just a few inches from the tip of his nose and he’d missed it at first in the dark, and then felt the breeze of its wings, each as big as his hand. He’d felt no urge to kill it. In fact, he’d wondered what it saw when it looked at him.

He’d always been curious about the Wild. He’d ignored his father’s instructions, cashed out his apprenticeship and marched with the Royal Army as a young man – just to see the Wild.

And now, he used the tip of his sword to throw the catch on his bedroom window. The windows opened outward, so he pushed.

The sheer size of the thing outside took his breath away, and then he saw the colour and laughed.

The gigantic raptor was half black and half white – and every child knew what an Imperial messenger looked like. Random had never seen one before, but he knew it, even soaked with rain and desperate with fatigue, and he threw the windows wide so the poor bedraggled thing cartwheeled in and fell in a sodden mass on his bed.

By the time his wife, now decently arrayed, dared return to her bed chamber, Random had the message. He was sitting on the bed, shaking his head.

‘These sheets are ruined,’ Lady Alice said. ‘Six weeks sewing wasted. Couldn’t you have let the damned bird into the stables, or something?’

Random grinned at her.

She stepped back. ‘This isn’t some damned adventure- Oh, no! You are directing the Queen’s tournament.’ She leaned forward. ‘So you can’t leave.’

He caught her and kissed her. ‘It’s a different kind of adventure,’ he said. ‘All I have to do is raise a hundred thousand Etruscan ducats.’

Harndon – Edmund the Journeyman

The first corpse in the square shocked every man and woman in the neighbourhood.

The body was that of a young man – a handsome young man. His murderer meant him to be found – he was spiked to the stump of the maypole with a pair of daggers. He’d been killed with a sword. He was expensively dressed in red and yellow wool and silk.

Edmund saw the crowd around the corpse and waited his turn to see the thing itself. He’d seen enough corpses to know the look – white as milk, a slackness about him that threatened any man’s belief in an afterlife. Dead was dead.

Friars came and took the man down and by late afternoon, when he and his apprentices were taking turns boring the latest barrel, a shop boy told them that the body was one of the Queen’s squires.

‘It was them Galles,’ said Sam.

Tom and Duke kept working.

‘Well, it stands to reason. Jack Drake tried to take our square, and he’s the king of them Galle lovers. One of the Queen’s squires dead? The Galles kilt him.’ He shrugged. ‘Or Jack Drake did. To warn us off.’ Sam looked at his acting master, who shook his head.

‘What a lot of foolery,’ Edmund said. ‘The Galles are knights. They don’t go around killing other gentles-’

‘But they do!’ said Duke. ‘Christ on the cross, Ed! Where’ve you been? Their top knight, Vrailly, kilt the Earl of Towbray’s nephew in cold blood! Just hacked him down.’

Tom shook his head. ‘Kilt him in a duel, fair as fair. That’s the way I hear it.’ He went back to turning his drill, and then paused. ‘Mind you, Vrailly is as big as a house and the other was just a boy – but a fight’s fair if both parties agree to fight – eh? Ain’t it?’

‘Galle lover,’ Duke spat.

‘Nope,’ said Tom. ‘I just like to have my facts straight.’

‘Could have been Drake, though,’ Sam said.

Edmund nodded. ‘That’s enough. Let’s get this job done.’

Duke grunted, angry. The boy was often angry, these days. The city air was poisoned with the new factions – the Galles, the Jarsays, and the Northerners. Galles dressed in bright colours, wore their cotes and gowns very short, and walked about looking for trouble.

Naturally, all three of these things had appeal for young men.

The Jarsays were predominantly men and boys from the Southern farmlands. The city was full of Jarsayans after harvest, and there were more than ever this year – some with tales of brutal attacks by Royal troops. The sign of the Jarsayans was a farmer’s smock.

The outer wards of the city had received an influx of Northern refugees in the late spring. Most of them were going back to their homes now, but the remnant were angry and dispossessed and very prickly.

The guilds had responded by holding an increased number of drills for all the trained bands within the city. The armourers prided themselves on being one of the best military guilds, and they drilled so often that Edmund was tired and hungry all the time. But he had become aware that the guild masters were using the trained bands to overawe the factions.

‘We’re armourers,’ he said firmly. ‘We’re above faction concerns.’

‘That’s crap,’ said Duke. ‘The Galles is foreign, and they’re out to get the Queen. Calling her a whore. Saying she’s barren. They say she’s-’

Master Pye appeared at the door, and Duke flushed.

Master Pye looked at them grimly, but he didn’t say a word.

‘I don’t believe any of those things!’ Duke said.

Master Pye nodded and beckoned to Edmund.

Edmund felt like his feet were made of lead. But he followed Master Pye across the yard to the master’s office, a room as full of vellum and parchment as the royal secretary’s office at the palace.

He felt like the best defence might be a good offence, so as soon as the master was seated, he bowed and said, ‘Master Pye, I am sorry. The body found this morning disturbed everyone.’

Pye nodded. ‘I’m glad you accept responsibility, young Edmund. What your men say reflects on you. What my men say reflects on me.’ For a moment, his mild eyes, framed by his enormous Etruscan spectacles, magnified and enhanced, met the journeyman’s, and Edmund felt a jolt of pure fear. He had only seen the master really angry once. ‘I spend too much time at the palace. I need you, Edmund. How is the project?’

Edmund shook his head. ‘There’s no end to it, Master. But I’m making three barrels with one-inch bores. I think – think – they’ll answer some of the specifications on Mr Smyth’s contract. And the strange bell with the holes for bolts.’

Master Pye steepled his hands. ‘Good. Get it done. You know something about both casting and making punches.’

Edmund bowed. ‘Yes, Master.’

‘I will need you to take charge of a number of projects here, Edmund. These iron barrels have done a good job of training you to run a project – you are well inside your budget and your work nears completion. I will need you to direct ever more of the work here, which is why I need you to be better at controlling the apprentices.’ The master raised his hand. ‘I understand that these are difficult times and, make no mistake, I understand that you used to be one of them and therefore lack that quality of awe that might give you an air of command. In the old days I’d send you to another shop.’ Master Pye shook his head. ‘I hate to say this, but I think I have more orders than I can possibly fill without engaging another dozen apprentices and two more journeymen – yet I lack the time to train and oversee them in a way which would make them good masters in their turn.’ He looked up. ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’ he asked.

Edmund coughed. ‘No. Yes. I’ll do what I can.’

‘The most important commission in the shop is the King’s armour for the tournament. Yet I have done almost no work on it since we completed the hardening process, because I am cutting the dies by hand.’ He looked at Edmund. ‘And I need hundreds of coin blanks cast and cut.’

‘I can do that,’ Edmund nodded.

‘No, boy, I don’t need you to do it. I need you to develop a process to allow apprentices to do it, so I can cut dies and you can embellish the King’s armour.’ Master Pye’s eye met his again.

‘Tom could run it,’ Edmund said. ‘He’s very good.’

Pye took a deep breath. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Young Tom is a street boy. You know that, eh?’

Guilds took on a proportion of foundlings, but they seldom amounted to anything because, even inside a guild, success required both nepotism and ready silver.

Edmund knew that. Tom tried not to be resentful of it, but sometimes his superior skills so obviously overshadowed Edmund’s that he was acerbic about it.

Edmund leaned forward. ‘He’d be loyal – for ever – if we give him this opportunity.’

Pye rubbed his unshaven cheeks. ‘Good call. I knew my confidence in you was not misplaced. I’ve been too long out of the shop. Send for him this instant.’

By the time an enthusiastic young woman could have murmured an ave maria, young Tom was standing with his cap in his hand in the master’s office.

‘Edmund says you are ready to be a journeyman,’ said the master.

Tom moved the cap round and round in his hands, as if his fingers were looking for flaws in the frayed edges. ‘Oh!’ he said, and looked at Edmund. Then he slumped. ‘Can’t pay the fees,’ he said.

Master Pye nodded. ‘Don’t slouch, Tom. I’ll pay your fees on two conditions.’

Tom sprang to attention. ‘Anything!’ he blurted.

‘Always wait to hear what the contract holds before you sign, young man. First – will you work for Edmund?’ The master leaned forward.

‘Yes!’ said Tom.

‘Second; you’ll have full wages as a journeyman, but I’ll have you bound to me for two years. No leaving me for other shops or other cities.’

Tom laughed. ‘Master, you can bind me for the rest of my life.’

Pye shook his head. ‘Never say it, boy. Very well – go make yourself an iron ring and meet me at the guild hall. Have a cup of wine to celebrate,’ he said, ‘for by God, it’ll be the last afternoon you spend out of the shop for many a day.’

Master Pye went out into the courtyard, and Edmund stayed to help Tom make himself a blued steel ring. While the older boy was trying to get a bezel to form and cursing over it, he said, ‘Thanks. I owe you.’

Edmund said, ‘He’s going to expand the shop. We’re going to make coins.’

Tom whistled. ‘That’ll put the cat among the pigeons.’

Edmund was polishing the ring as if he were a new apprentice but, by tradition, when a boy got raised his friends pitched in. ‘Why?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Them Galles want to kill our coinage. If’n we’re minting new they’ll come after us too.’

Edmund nodded slowly. ‘Best take some precautions.’

Tom smiled. ‘After I make journeyman. Thanks again. I never thought it would happen.’

West of Lonika in Thrake – The Emperor and Duke Andronicus

They dismounted in the courtyard of a small castle. The place was no bigger than a manor house, with two stone towers and a timber-built Great Hall that filled the space between. The castle had an outer palisade wall and stood atop a high ridge. From the tallest tower, the sentry could see the snow-covered tip of Mons Draconis, sixty leagues to the west amidst the Green Hills.

Sixty stradiotes of the Duke’s personal household accompanied the Emperor, and they received him with an elaborate ceremony that failed to conceal his status as a prisoner in a miserable border castle, so far from his home that rescue was impossible.

His dignity remained unmarred. He accepted the plaudits of his enemies, and their bows, and he went to the room assigned him with good grace. The guard on his door begged his blessing.

That night, he tied his sheets together and went out through the window, but a light snow was falling and horsemen took him at first light.

One of the Easterners took his steel axe, and used the handle to break both of the Emperor’s legs. Then they carried him back across the frozen swamp to the castle, returned him to his room, and the guards all asked his blessing.

Southford under Albinkirk – Ser John Crayford

Another week passed before Ser John had time to ride to the ferry. There were more and more settlers arriving – the latest merchant convoy from Morea brought ten new merchant houses, come for the autumn fur trade and the Wild honey that the Outwallers would be selling at the fair in another month. Ser John bit back his usual comments on the rapacity of the merchant class. Instead, he carefully regulated their entry into his city, assigned them to empty houses and ordered them to rebuild the houses on pain of forfeiture of their goods. That was, in fact, far beyond his powers, but the mayor and council had been killed by boggles in the siege of Albinkirk and none had replaced them, and he didn’t see the King appearing to order him to cease.

The merchants grumbled but they hired the surviving local men as labour. And stonemasons appeared from Lorica, lured by the promise of work.

Every day there was a new crisis, but they were all small. On Wednesday, the newly appointed Bishop for Albinkirk arrived. He had a retinue of one priest and one monk, and they rode donkeys.

Ser John missed his arrival as he was north of the town, listening to complaints about irks and Outwallers. When he returned, his useless sergeant reported that the bishop had arrived, had moved into the bishop’s ruined palace and wanted the captain’s attention at the earliest opportunity. Ser John rolled his eyes.

‘An’ he’s peasant born,’ said the sergeant.

Ser John laughed. ‘And so am I. And so are you, knave.’ He dismounted and gave Jamie his horse. ‘I’ll get to the low-born prelate when I have time to breathe.’

But best of all, on Thursday Sir Richard Fitzroy appeared with forty lances – all court men except for a single black-robed knight – a priest of the Order of St Thomas.

Ser John met Ser Richard in the fore-yard of the citadel, and they embraced.

‘Are you here to relieve me?’ he asked.

Ser Richard shook his head. ‘Not a word of it – you are high in the King’s favour, and I have forty archers for your permanent garrison, and these lances to bolster you for the autumn. I’m the King’s Justice on Eyre for the north this season, and I’m rather hoping you have a few monsters left to kill.’

Ser John saw several men-at-arms who looked, to him, too young to be away from their mothers, but he slapped Ser Richard on his armoured back. ‘Most pleased to have you. Plenty of monsters; I killed half a dozen boggles just the other day.’

The youngest man-at-arms looked as if his eyes would pop out of his head.

Over a cup of wine, Ser Richard revealed that all was not well in Jarsay, and the Constable had sent the captain of the guard with all the Jarsay knights from court to avoid unpleasantness with the returning Captal de Ruth. Ser John, whose garrison had not been reinforced in six years, whose men were three years in arrears of pay, and who had lost four of his five good surviving men-at-arms to the Red Knight when the insufferable upstart passed through in early summer, cared nothing for the politics, and he spent a delightful day organising his shire into patrol areas and assigned them to the older and more reliable knights.

On Saturday he held a feast after mass – supported by a little direct taxation levied on two Hoek merchants who come up the river. They reported that they evaded boggles and something worse at Southford, and had been succoured by a nun with miraculous powers. He taxed them for wine and gold and assigned them a house to repair, and then held his carefully planned feast. He held it in the Great Hall of the citadel, had his servants construct a dais, and on that dais he placed a golden shield with a bright red cross displayed. The Bishop of Albinkirk – the new man, Ernald Anselm – was invited, and he sat in his episcopal throne on the dais, with Ser Richard on one side and Ser John, who had some thoughts about his own hypocrisy, on the other by the priest of the order, Fra Arnaud. There were six empty seats on the dais, and when the last remove was reduced to mutton bones, and the squires were pouring hippocras, Ser John rose and the hall fell silent.

‘Brothers,’ he said. ‘There are six empty seats here, prepared for those who best comport themselves as knights errant.’ He smiled at all of them and walked to the edge of the dais. ‘Listen, friends. I’ve watched you for most of a week. I’ve seen you in the tiltyard and at the pell; watched you wrestle and watched you ride. You are ready to face the foe in every way but one.’

They started to cheer when he said ‘ready to face the foe’ but quieted at the end.

‘Most of you,’ he said, ‘know that I’m a plain soldier; I’ve served in many places in this world, in Tartary and in the Holy Land, and in Galle and Arles and a few other places. I know a little about war. And what you gentlemen are going to is war. So stop thinking about fucking Jean de Vrailly, forget the court, ignore whatever political situation landed you here, and stay alive. I guarantee that by this time tomorrow night, one of you will be dead or badly injured – not because the Wild is such a deadly foe, but because you fine gentlemen are off to fight the Wild with your heads in the clouds or deep in worry and hate about what is happening at home. Forget all that. Remember the woman you love, for that love will make your sword hand fast and heavy. Obey your officers, because they see more than you do. Remember your King, because it is in the King’s grace we fight a just war. Remember your training. The rest is crap. Forget it. And in a few weeks, when you ride home covered in glory – well, then you can bicker about the Captal and his policies again.’

The bishop rose to speak. He had a beautiful voice, and despite being peasant born, he was highly educated and eloquent. He spoke briefly of a knight’s duty to the Church, and on their opportunity to do penance for their sins by wearing armour and serving the cause of man. He bowed graciously to Father Arnaud, who returned his bow with a pained smile.

Ser John had met him once before and didn’t know what to expect, so he was as surprised as everyone else when the bishop walked off the dais and among the men-at-arms. He laughed, and his laughter was a clear, bright sound. ‘It is odd, is it not, to be sent to kill in the name of our Lord? He never said, “Raise me armies and fight the Wild.” He said, “Turn the other cheek.” ’ He walked on in stunned silence. ‘But he also said, “Succour the little children.” ’ The bishop paused. He was in the middle of them. ‘My people are not nobles. My father tills his fields in the shadow of the walls of Lorica. My mother is a yeoman’s daughter. My brothers and I are the first generation in our family to leave serfdom and be free farmers.’ He looked around at them. ‘Freedom to farm means that in exchange for our tax and tallage you protect us with your bodies. Knighthood, my brothers, is not all pointy shoes and plucked foreheads and dancing. The men and women who sweat and work on your farms do not serve you because God ordained it. It is a contract, and in that contract you receive the fine sword, the tall horse, and the admiration of all the pretty girls and in exchange you are willing to die. That is your duty.’

He looked around at them. The power of his voice was immense. They weren’t even shifting in their seats, and Ser John had a cup of wine in his right fist and had forgotten to raise it to his lips.

‘Every family in this town and the surrounding country has lost people. I administer the sacred host to a flock almost without men. Children are terrified. Women are hopeless. The reconstruction work lags. We question our faith. How can God allow this?’ He looked around and thumped his crozier on the floor. Men jumped.

‘You can save them!’ he roared. ‘Every widow who sees you ride by will feel a ray of hope. Every child who sees a knight will know that mankind is not beaten. Show these people who you are. Prove yourselves worthy of your knighthoods. If you are required to, die for them. That is all God asks of you, his knights. In his name, go forth, and conquer.’ The young bishop walked back through the knights, blessing those closest to him, and he mounted the dais, turned, and made the sign of the cross. ‘And know that if you fall, you die in the good grace of our Lord, amen.’

‘And take a lot of the little bastards with you,’ muttered Ser John.

‘That was a marvel,’ said Ser John after the bishop seated himself.

Anselm smiled. ‘It was rather good,’ he admitted. ‘I cribbed some from Patriarch Urban, and the rest was inspiration. I prayed a great deal. But this is what these people need – the flash of armour on the roads every day. A ray of hope.’

Ser John put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t welcome you as I should have,’ he admitted.

‘You were busy, and I’m only a low-born prelate,’ said the younger man with a twinkle in his eye.

Ser John shook his head. ‘Did I say that?’ Next to him, Father Arnaud almost spat up his wine.

The bishop shrugged. ‘It’s all hearsay, Ser John. And I am a low-born prelate. But I intend to rebuild this flock, and to help you rebuild this town. By the way, Sister Amicia of the sisters of Saint John asks to be remembered to you. She has the most remarkable dispensation – there can’t be ten women in Alba who are allowed to say mass.’

‘She’s a remarkable woman,’ Ser John said.

Father Arnaud nodded. ‘I would very much like to meet her,’ he said.

‘I gather she was instrumental in stopping the enemy at Lissen?’ asked the bishop.

‘Her powers are formidable,’ Ser John said. He grinned. ‘That’s hearsay too; I was here.’ Ser John looked at the other man, who was handsome in a rough-hewn, red-haired way, and looked far more like a knight than a monk. ‘But she has been very helpful to me in the last weeks.’

The bishop shrugged. ‘Well, she wished me to remind you to take a look at the devastation at the ferry. I saw it myself – something evil is lurking there. My own powers are in the hands of God – they come and go – but I can feel it.’

Ser John nodded. ‘I’ll have a look.’

Father Arnaud nodded. ‘Ser John, I’m merely passing through but I’d very much appreciate it if you would let me accompany you?’

‘A knight of the order?’ Ser John laughed. ‘I’ll hide behind you if it gets rough.’

In the morning he had four patrols mounted in the yard. It made him feel as if he was a great lord; forty knights at his beck and call, and another forty men-at-arms or squires, plus pages and archers. The archers were all his own, and he’d celebrated the feast after mass by issuing his surviving veterans with all their arrears of pay. Even the new men were paid to date, an unheard of benison.

But he rode for the ford with Father Arnaud, two new archers, his own squire Jamie, Ser Richard and finally his squire, Lord Wimarc, a rich young sprig whose armour was better than Ser Richard’s and Ser John’s. But Wimarc’s manners were exceptional, the boy obviously worshipped Father Arnaud, and he didn’t condescend to Jamie in the least. They were a good team by the time they rode along the river to the ford.

It was a clear day, with a magnificent blue sky. A few trees had colour – most maples tending to yellow, and a few beeches. The river sparkled.

The corpses were covered in ravens.

Ser John hadn’t even known that men were trying to rebuild the ferry, but their attempts only stirred his pity. Something had broken right through their new log walls and freshly thatched roof, and torn a baby from its cradle. It had ripped two men to very distinct shreds – an arm here, a long, horrible shred of human gristle there. The heads, arranged neatly on spikes in the ferry’s yard, all pecked about by ravens.

Lord Wimarc swallowed a few times but didn’t lose his breakfast. Father Arnaud dismounted, prayed over the corpse flesh, and then set about the grisly task of gathering the remnants for burial.

Ser Richard had not risen from royal bastardy to captain the Royal Guard on looks and patronage alone. ‘It’s big,’ he said. ‘Not an adversary. Even bigger.’

Ser John looked at the rooftrees. ‘I can’t believe this is a Wyvern,’ he said. ‘Nor do mammoths eat folk.’

‘Troll?’ asked Ser Richard. ‘I fought them at Lissen,’ he said, eyes suddenly moving about. ‘Christ’s wounds, but they scared the shit outen me.’

Ser John stood in his stirrups, raising his lance to measure the height of the arm that had torn aside the thatch to reach inside. ‘That’s a very large troll,’ he said quietly. ‘Sweet Jesu. And I had hoped to dine with a friend today.’ He kept his voice low because the priest was nearby.

Ser Richard laughed. ‘This must be an adventure,’ he said.

Ser John raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m already shit scared,’ said Ser Richard, and the sound of their laughter rang out, over the ferry, and into the woods.

They crossed the Great River, and Ser John saw immediately what the nun had wanted him to – a swathe of destruction like a road made by a mad woodchopper, running west into the deep woods.

‘Blessed Crispin.’ Ser Richard reined up. ‘We can’t ride in that.’

Father Arnaud fingered his short beard and then stripped off his riding gloves and put on his gauntlets. Lord Wimarc darted about, trying to be the priest’s squire.

He had a cervellieur – a much older rig than the Gallish bassinet now in favour at court. Wimarc put it over his head; a light skull cap of steel with its own aventail of chain mail.

Father Arnaud smiled at the young man. ‘I’m not used to having a squire,’ he said, and the younger man flushed.

Ser John studied the terrain for as long as the squire drew twenty breaths.

Grown trees had been ripped down and tossed about like matchsticks – dozens of them. It looked as if some gargantuan child had played jacks with the trees – and they lay like jack-straws in a massive tangle that stretched into the west as far as the eye could see.

‘I’m going to guess this will intersect with the Royal Road somewhere,’ he said. ‘So much for my pleasant dinner with pretty women.’ He looked over. ‘Your pardon, Father.’

Father Arnaud smiled. ‘I’m certainly not offended that you like pretty women, Ser John. I misdoubt God is offended either. He made them.’ He grinned. ‘As to dinner – I’m always in favour of dinner.’

The two archers, Odo and Umphrey, were too junior even to have nick-names, and they were both looking a little pale. Ser John smiled at the two. ‘You boys like camping?’ he asked, and went to check the pack horses. When he was satisfied, he changed from his palfrey to his warhorse.

Ser Richard did the same, and then both of them pulled on helmets and gauntlets.

Ser John looked at the priest. ‘Isn’t that skull cap a little light?’

The priest nodded. He took a full helm out of the bag at his saddle bow and put it on his head – Ser John noted with professional interest how the lugs he had scarcely noticed on the skull cap engaged with corresponding tracks inside the great helm, locking the massive steel helmet in place and creating a protective system of two layers of hardened steel. He whistled.

Father Arnaud dropped the great helm home with a click.

They rode for a mile at a cautious pace. From the Royal Road, which ran west to Lissen Carrak and then crossed the Bridge Castle and on to Hawkshead, they could see the open sky of the devastation just to the north, between the road and the river. Sometimes they lost it, but then they would spy it again and, after a mile when the road cut north, they slowed to a walk, and the road entered the devastation.

They picked their way carefully for about three hundred paces, and then they were deep in. Ser John reined up, raised a hand and shook his head. He pushed up his visor.

‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘We need to come back with the archers, clear the road, find whatever did this and kill it. As it is, we’re in its terrain and our horses are useless.’

Ser Richard raised his visor. ‘I agree. I’m already tired, and my poor Arrow will probably bite me right through my harness if I make him jump another log.’ He turned his horse. Both men looked at the priest, who was perfectly still on his black charger.

He was looking past Ser John’s shoulder, and he’d just drawn his sword.

There was a loud snap as a branch was broken. Everyone froze.

‘Blessed Virgin,’ Ser Richard said.

Ser John saw movement in the downed trees. ‘Dismount!’ he shouted.

Ser Richard didn’t dismount. He put his horse at the downed tree immediately behind them and his horse made the leap – man and armour and all. Ser Richard had a royal education – so he rode like a centaur.

The archers and squires dismounted. Jamie took the horses’ heads and pulled them clear of the men, but the downed trees on the road made the space so restricted that any fidgeting from the horses would crowd the men, or worse.

Ser John’s eyes met his squires’. ‘Get them out of here,’ he barked.

Jamie began to thread his way through the fallen timbers.

The archers were still stringing their great war bows.

‘What is it?’ asked Ser Richard.

‘No idea,’ spat Ser John.

‘Giant,’ said the priest. Like Ser Richard, he was still mounted.

Behind him, the smell of something foul reached the horses, and they panicked. The pack horses ran – one misstepped, and its leg broke with a sickening crack. The horse screamed.

The scream acted like a signal, and two giants rose out of the downed trees and struck.

They were huge.

And, unlike legend, they were fast.

In forty years of fighting, Ser John had never seen one, and he was rooted to the spot for a fatal moment. His mouth framed the word, ‘Christ.’

The priest went forward, and his horse leaped a downed spruce, despite the weight of the armoured man on his back, and the priest’s sword took a finger off the giant’s reaching left hand and he was by.

The monster was shaped like a man, if that man were very ugly, had legs only as long as his torso, and no neck. And only one great eye.

And carried a club roughly the size of a small boy.

But for some reason, the thing threw its blow at the screaming pack horse, as if its cries pierced the thing’s enormous shell ears, or the pain of the wound to its hand disoriented it.

‘It is a giant,’ said Odo the archer, unnecessarily. And then his first shaft, thirty-five inches long and weighing four royal ounces, slammed into the giant’s thigh. The livery head with a bodkin point went so far into the giant’s meat that only the fletching showed.

The giant roared, and the woods shook with the sound.

Off to his left, Ser John heard Ser Richard call his war cry and heard the pounding of his horse’s hooves.

Umfrey loosed a shaft and missed.

Sir John made himself move forward at the giant, which was just about three times his own height. Its club had pulped the horse’s head and spattered all of them with gore.

Lord Wimarc followed at his shoulder, a fine gold-chased pole-axe in his hand.

‘What- What do we do?’ asked the younger man.

‘We kill it,’ said Ser John.

The giant was as fast as a man. It turned to face the two armoured men, and while Odo missed, Umphrey’s second shaft went right through the thick muscles of its upper right arm, spoiling its blow at Lord Wimarc. Most of the blow went into the ground, but the club skipped and caught him, breaking both his legs and knocking him flat. He screamed – a nasty, choked sound. Despite the wound, Wimarc swung his pole-axe at a finger the size of his wrist, and connected despite lying flat on his back. Only then did he lie back and scream in earnest.

Ser John didn’t waste his free moments. He had a hammer with a five-foot haft and a spiked back. He slammed it full force into the giant’s right foot, shattering bone, and then stepped in between the reeking thing’s legs and lifted his hammer, catching the giant’s dangling testicles with the spike and ripping – pivoting on his hips and passing the pole-arm through a whole butterfly to slam his third strike into the giant’s left knee.

Its scream sent every bird for four miles into the air. Its mate paused, turned and took Ser Richard’s lance in its belly.

She cut down with her club, shattering Ser Richard’s shield, breaking his hand and arm, but Ser Richard put spurs deep into the side of his beloved Arrow and the big horse responded in a rage of injured horse-friendship, plunging forward into the bad smell and pushing the lance head deep into the she-giant’s belly.

Umfrey and Odo saw the male giant go down, turned together like veterans, and engaged their second target. Neither missed. They drew and loosed, nocked, drew and loosed, their bows singing every few seconds. The female giant was only ten paces distant, and she had no cover.

Ser John slammed the point at the end of his hammer into her rump as she fell, got between her legs and turned and hit again.

It made a piteous sound, and fell to hands and knees across Lord Wimarc. Ser John was behind it, and he broke its thigh with his hammer on his third blow. And then started on where its kidneys ought to be.

The female plucked Ser Richard from the saddle, breaking his collarbone and dropping him on his already broken arm and hand. But she didn’t seem to be able to understand where the heavy livery arrows were coming from, and she slapped at them after they hit her, like a small child slapping insects that have already bitten and left.

Ser Richard rolled over on training alone, cut at the ankle and connected. He cut again, screaming his terror and his war cry at the giantess, and she ignored him and turned and saw the archers.

Umfrey’s bow broke with a snap – he’d been drawing hard, with every shot, in something like blind panic. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said.

Odo put an arrow into her face, but he missed the eye and the arrowhead bounced off the bone. He reached for another shaft but there weren’t any more. The rest were on the pack horse.

Umfrey drew his sword and turned to run.

Odo caught an arrow in Umfrey’s belt by the head and pulled it clear. He nocked.

Ser Richard cut with everything he had at the giantess’s hamstring and then fainted.

Father Arnaud appeared behind the giantess. His horse rose like it had wings, and his sword went in to the hilt – in with a long over-arm thrust, out again like a deadly needle punching living flesh, and he was past again, and her blow missed him as his horse bounded away like a deer.

Ser John’s giant voided his bowels and collapsed. Ser John couldn’t see Ser Richard – the other knight’s horse was kicking at the giantess, and she stood stock-still on one foot. There was an arrow in her eye, and Odo was standing, watching her with a curious look of triumph on his face.

Her club pulped him.

But when she stepped forward to finish his mortally wounded mate, her right leg gave under her, the hamstring completely severed, and she fell.

Umfrey saw Odo die and went berserk. He shouted. He screamed. He wept, and his sword hacked at the downed giant as fast as a woodpecker eats insects, striking along her dangling breasts and into her shoulder. She screamed and tried to rise.

Father Arnaud hit her in the back of the head with a mace plucked from his saddle bow, full force, and the mace head broke the back of her skull with a spurt of blood and pulverised brains.

Darkness was falling when Helewise, who listened every night for such things, heard voices from the gatehouse, which had become a sort of barracks for their newer folks. She had sixty people now – far more women then men, and most of the men were older, but everyone worked and the fields had been cleared.

She wasn’t yet undressed, but she ran a brush through her hair in hope and then ran down the steps from her solar to the main hall of the old manor.

‘Blessed Saint Katherine, what is that smell?’ she asked before she was out the door.

The yard was full of horsemen and Phillippa was there, and both the Rose girls and old Gynn and Beatrice Upton. Then there were torches.

Ser John appeared among the men. He was in full armour, and he looked old. But he managed a smile for her. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he said. ‘I’m covered in shit.’

She flinched back, and saw that there were other knights – a man on a stretcher between two horses, and a bundle that held the particular quality of a corpse. She put her hands to her mouth, but only for a moment.

‘Hot water,’ she called. ‘And get Sister Amicia!’

‘I’m here,’ said the nun. She was dressed only in a shift, and she ran across the yard to the man on the horse-stretcher.

Ser John swung a leg over his horse and dismounted slowly. His squire came and took the horse.

‘He fought a giant. By himself,’ said Jamie.

‘Crap I did,’ said Ser John. ‘Sister, Ser Richard isn’t dying. This boy is.’ Ser John led her to another man, also on an improvised stretcher between two pack horses.

Helewise went to the man called Ser Richard. She waved to the girls. ‘Let’s get him inside,’ she said. ‘Smartly with the stretcher.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ her daughter said with her usual attitude.

She and Jen got the stretcher unlashed from the saddles and they carried the wounded man inside, grunting at his weight. He was a big man in full harness. The two young women grunted but they got him onto the hall table, while Mary Rose took the cloth and rolled it away, moving the two great bronze candlesticks that the looters couldn’t break, and dropping a heavy salt-cellar on her foot and cursing.

‘Christ, they stink,’ said Mary.

There was a glow of gold-green light outside, and then they heard Sister Amicia praying.

‘Oh,’ said Phillippa. ‘I want to see her miracles!’

‘You can stay right here and help me with these buckles,’ said her mother.

Golden light like the rising sun played outside.

‘Oh! It’s not fair!’ said Phillippa.

‘Be a help and not a hussy,’ spat Helewise. ‘Get his arm harness off.’

While she fumbled with the unfamiliar buckles under the man’s sword arm, Ser John and the priest and Sister Amicia came in. Phillippa suddenly became very serious about her buckles.

Sister Amicia had hair going every which way, and there were lines under her eyes. Helewise had never seen her look so old.

But she put a hand on Phillippa’s hand. ‘You must be even more gentle,’ she said. ‘Look – collarbone is broken, and the arm, and all these bones in the hand. And his breastplate – see where it is bent?’ Amicia took a deep breath. ‘All those ribs are broken, and they can’t even spring back until the breastplate is removed.’ Her voice emitted a sort of warm calm, like a mother’s love made palpable.

She took a deep breath and turned the collet on her ring so that the bezel was out. ‘Oh, my sweet Lord,’ she said.

Six hundred leagues to the east, the Red Knight paused, his breath caught, and for a moment he was sitting hand in hand with Amicia the novice, under the magical apple tree on the wall of the convent at Lissen Carrak. The feeling was so powerful that he was there.

She didn’t seem to ask, but he gave her every scrap of his horded ops – the deep reserve he kept for the moment he might have to face Harmodius.

She took it all.

Ser John reached past Phillippa and undid the side-straps on the other knight’s breastplate – one, two. But the third moved something inside, and Ser Richard gave a choked scream.

Ser John looked at the nun, and she shook her head.

He drew a dagger and cut the strap, and the armour hinged open, and the man’s body made a wet sound.

‘Helewise!’ Ser John said, and she got a hand in with his and they rolled the man a little, and the priest got the backplate off as he coughed blood.

‘No!’ said Amicia. ‘Lay him flat. Gently.’

Phillippa finally had the last straps on the arm undone, and Ser John opened the left vambrace with a sticky, wet sound.

Ser Richard’s eyes opened, and he screamed and then choked and said, ‘Awfully sorry.’

Sister Amicia put a hand on his shoulder. Her face grew pale, then almost leaden. The ring flared like a diamond in sunlight, and then like a small sun.

She sighed. And slowly smiled.

Her eyes opened.

Ser Richard’s eyes fluttered again. He released a breath that he might have been holding for a very long time. ‘I’ll never doubt God again,’ he said dreamily.

Sister Amicia laughed. It wasn’t a strong laugh but it was a good one, and she sat heavily on the trestle bench.

Now that the crisis was past, Helewise and her daughter looked at each other. They both smiled.

The stench was truly awful.

‘Everyone wash,’ said Helewise. ‘What in the name of heaven is it?’

Ser John shook his head. ‘Giant shit,’ he said. ‘Pardon my Gallish, but that’s what it is.’

The hall was full and so was the yard, and everyone was awake. And everything happened at once – girls got pails of water from the well, fires were lit in the kitchen and the hall fireplace and even in Helewise’s solar, and every kettle they possessed was pressed into service heating water. Ben Scold, the best of the new men, started cleaning the horses, and the surviving archer joined him. Young Jamie began collecting the reeking armour – Lord Wimarc’s was the worst – and by then Phillippa had some boiling water for him. He looked at her and smiled.

‘Did you kill one?’ Phillippa asked.

Just for a moment, he thought of lying to her – she was so pretty. But he shrugged and looked at the ground. ‘I was sent with the horses,’ he said. ‘I didn’t strike a blow.’

She smiled at him. ‘Your time will come,’ she said, and he fell instantly in love with her.

Everyone bathed. The knights had soap, of all things, and the women had made some more; the women bathed in the hall and the men in the kitchen, and Helewise started a fashion by wearing her kirtle without a shift under it, because there was still dirty work to do.

Ser Richard attempted to rise and was pressed back into a bed by Amicia. ‘Good knight, the power of my healing, even with God’s help, is greatly aided by careful rest and a great deal of sleep.’

He looked at her with worship. ‘Beautiful sister, why? I feel better than I have in a long time.’

She smiled and smoothed his hair. ‘Shall I tell you? When I heal – when any good healer heals – we knit the tissues just as much as we need to bring them together, and no more. The power used is greater than any other kind of casting.’ She smiled hesitantly, and then shook her head. ‘Think of the power you would use to cut a man’s hand off with a sword. The power to put it back on is many times greater. So we fix what we can, but then we must let God and nature do the rest over time.’ She shook her head. ‘And nature’s healing gives a greater hope of success.’ she said. ‘And, when it comes to healing, I really need more training.’

Ser Richard gazed adoringly at her and said, ‘I’m sure you need no further training.’

Amicia had some experience being a healer – and a woman – and knew when it was time to fluff the pillow and be all business.

Lord Wimarc was moved into Helewise’s solar. The smell of giant began to recede, although it continued to catch at the back of people’s throats for days. Helewise broached a keg of cider, and everyone had a little – there wasn’t that much of it – and Old Gwynn produced a leather flagon of wine that they all drank greedily, and Mag Hasting brought out fresh bread.

Eventually, the excitement faded. Helewise made sure that her daughter went to bed with her friend Jen and not with either of the squires – she didn’t really think her daughter would, but she had to check – and then scrubbed the hall table one more time and helped Old Gwynn wipe down the kitchen where the men had slopped wash water. Amicia had passed out in the hall settle, and Helewise threw a heavy wool blanket over her. She stood in the middle of her hall, and listened to the silence. Gwynn smiled toothlessly and went laboriously up the stairs to the rooftrees, where she had a little garret.

Helewise stood there indecisively for just long enough to realise that there was someone there with her, and then his hands were around her waist.

‘I think you should dress this way all the time,’ he breathed in her ear.

‘John Crayford, if I catch one whiff of giant on you-’ she muttered. When he tried to kiss her, she ducked her head and slipped through his arms, but she caught his hand and pulled him into the yard. ‘Where’s your squire?’ she asked.

‘In the gatehouse,’ he breathed in her ear. ‘I kept the barn for myself.’

She put her arms around his neck. ‘Was it bad?’ she asked.

‘Better now,’ he said. He lifted her and carried her into the barn.

Father Arnaud sat in the hall and sipped from a cup of wine. His hands were shaking.

Sister Amicia came and sat by him. ‘Can I help?’

He smiled at her. ‘You are the famous Soeur Sauvage?’ He rose and bowed. ‘No one told me you were so pretty,’ he added.

‘Are you sure you’re a priest?’ she asked. But she grinned, and he had to grin back.

He drank more wine. ‘I’m good at killing monsters,’ he said. ‘Pardon me, ma soeur. I am suffering a crisis of faith.’ He turned his head. ‘Why on earth did I just tell you that?’

She shrugged. ‘People tell me things like that all the time. I suppose I’m easy to talk to – being pretty, and all.’ She sat opposite him, seized a dirty cup and poured wine into it. ‘I’m in a perpetual crisis of faith myself, though, so I’m of no help to you.’

He sat back. ‘Mayhap I could argue that if you have many crises of faith, you must also resolve them often, and thus you are my fittest guide.’ He looked away.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘I couldn’t heal. I haven’t been able to because-’ He paused and looked away.

They sat silently for a bit, because he was crying, and she knew better than to interrupt. After a little while, she said a prayer and then handed him her plain white handkerchief.

He dried his eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t want to be a sop. I am simply so tired of failure.’

She watched him, waiting, listening.

But he surprised her by turning with a wry smile. ‘And you, ma soeur? Why your crises of faith?’

She shrugged. She had little interest in discussion or confession; she knew her sin, and talking about it would only make her feel more vulnerable.

On the other hand, he’d confided in her.

‘I’m in love,’ she said. Even saying the word gave her a jolt, like touching a sacred relic.

His smile sharpened. ‘Ah – love,’ he said. He drank off his wine, and his hands shook.

She couldn’t tell whether that was bitterness or not. ‘Has anyone asked if you killed the giants?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes. Both dead. Two of God’s creatures, as innocent as babes, and we killed them.’ He raised his eyes.

They were empty and hard for a moment. And then they softened, and he wrinkled his mouth – a particular tick. ‘Bah, I am too talkative. Lift my vow of silence and I ramble on and on.’

She got up and stretched. ‘You don’t seem especially talkative to me, ser priest. But I think I’m too tired to drink any more.’

‘Who is it?’ he asked. ‘Who do you love?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not important. He’s not around, so I cannot err.’ She was quite proud of how light her voice sounded.

‘I fell in love with a lady.’ Father Arnaud raised his eyes. ‘I ruined her life. I was proud and vain, and our love was a gift from God. Even now, I’m not sure that I repent it.’ He swirled the wine in his cup. ‘Isn’t it interesting that God can cut me off from the power to heal, but my strong right arm can continue killing? Despite my sin?’

She sat down with a thump. ‘So far, it sounds like you are more interested in being a romantic hero in a troubadour song than in being a good man. Despite which I promise you, ser priest, that the only thing that stands between you and healing is yourself.’

They sat for a moment, glaring at each other.

He shook his head, wrinkling his mouth again. ‘Sometimes our situations resemble the best troubadour songs. That’s why we love them, is it not? And yet – and yet, I feel a pang of something at your words, and you anger me, and that is good. I have considered that my limitations on casting must come from within me, like some kind of amnesia. But there is nothing there.’

She reached out a hand. ‘Let me look,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘No – pardon me, ma soeur, but you are too puissant for me. I will go and do my duty, and perhaps God and I will come to be friends again.’ He got up. ‘The worst of love is the change in habit – you know that? Years of celibacy, and now all that is overturned. I see you as a woman, not a sister. I see women all around me.’

‘Not altogether a curse,’ she said. ‘Might it not be better if some of our order lived and worshipped with yours?’

He laughed. ‘It would certainly alter our convents,’ he said.

She crossed her arms. ‘I’m cold. Good night to you, Father.’

He watched her climb the stairs, and then he poured himself a cup of wine, and later he prayed his beads and cried.

The next day, when the wounded men were stable and the dead man was buried, the priest took his leave.

Crayford embraced him. ‘You are a fine man of arms, Father,’ he said. ‘I wish you were staying. Where are you headed?’

Father Arnaud was booted and spurred and had a warm cloak over his arm. He bowed to the Lady of Middlehill. ‘Thanks for your hospitality, my lady,’ he said.

She curtsied. ‘May I ask your blessing, Father?’ she asked.

‘You need no blessing beyond the presence of Sister Amicia,’ he said. But he held out his hand and blessed her, and her daughter, and all the manor.

‘Where are you headed, Father?’ asked Ser John.

‘Over the mountains to Morea,’ the priest replied. ‘I’m off to be the chaplain to the Red Knight.’ He said it lightly enough, but Ser John’s brow darkened and the nun put her hand to her throat. The ring on her finger seemed to flash in the autumn sun. ‘I gather he needs a chaplain. Perhaps I’ll even reform him,’ he said.

Ser John shook his head. ‘You won’t. For an upstart sprig of nobility, he’s a fine fighter. Nor any worse than any other sellsword. But he stripped me of my best men-at-arms in the late spring, and now he gets you as well. Despite which, send him my regards.’

Sister Amicia coughed. ‘And mine, Father.’

‘You know him, I gather,’ said the priest. He vaulted onto his horse.

She nodded. ‘I do,’ she said.

When the priest was gone, Sister Amicia thought, There goes a man who thinks me a pious hypocrite. And who is too intelligent for his own good. They’ll get along famously. She sighed, clamped down on her regrets, and got on with her work.