The Fell Sword

Chapter Five

Jarsay – Jean de Vrailly

The Count of Eu watched his cousin’s gleaming, steel-clad back as a heavy column of knights and men-at-arms moved down the Royal Highway from Harndon through Jarsay. Behind, twenty of the Queen’s new carts rolled along guarded by fifty Royal Foresters and as many Royal Guardsmen in their long hauberks, axes over their shoulders, singing. It was a small army that his cousin commanded, but it was composed of the King of Alba’s finest troops, now acting as tax collectors.

Gaston scratched at the base of his beard and wished he were home in Galle. Unbeknown to his knightly cousin he’d written a letter to Constance D’Aubrichcourt’s father, the Comte D’Aubrichcourt, asking for her hand in marriage. By implication, he’d have to go home to wed her. Once home, and away from his cousin’s endless quest for glory, he’d pull her into bed, close the hangings, and spend the rest of his life . . .

Images of her naked body diving into the pool of icy water drove across his consciousness. All the troubadours said that good love – love with an edge – made a man a better knight, and Gaston had to admit that the image of her naked body poised to dive-

‘Halt!’ called his cousin.

Gaston snapped out of his reverie to find that a dozen mounted Royal Foresters had a pair of men on horseback, seething with outrage. The older man had a hawk on his fist.

‘By what right do you ride armed in Jarsay?’ the hawker asked.

The Captal de Ruth smiled like the image of a saint. ‘By the order of the King,’ he said.

The hawker shrugged. ‘Best send a rider to request my uncle’s leave, then.’ He leaned forward with adolescent arrogance. ‘You’re the foreigner – eh? De Vrailly? You probably don’t know our ways-’

Jean de Vrailly’s face grew red. ‘Silence, boy,’ he said.

The hawker laughed. ‘This is Alba, sir, not Galle. Now,’ he said, looking at the Royal Foresters on either side of him, ‘I’ll trouble you to order these fine men to release me, and I’ll be back to my sport.’

‘Hang him,’ de Vrailly ordered the two Foresters.

The senior man, who wore royal livery, baulked. ‘My lord?’ he asked.

‘You heard me,’ de Vrailly snapped.

Gaston touched his spurs to his mount.

‘Touch a hair on my head and my uncle will have you roasted alive with your prick in your mouth,’ snapped the hawker. ‘Who is this madman?’

‘Insolence,’ said de Vrailly. ‘He is insolent! Hang him.’

The liveried forester took a deep breath and then put out a hand, restraining his companions. ‘No, my lord. Not without a writ and due process.’

‘I am the King’s commander in Jarsay!’ spat de Vrailly.

Gaston had his hand on his cousin’s bridle.

‘And he insulted me! Very well – I see where all this is heading. You – young man. You wear a sword. I’ll do you the honour of assuming that you can use it – yes? I challenge you. You have insulted me and my honour, and I will not live another moment without wiping that stain from the world.’

The hawker suddenly understood the gravity of his situation, and now he was scared – his face blotched red and white. ‘I don’t want to fight you. I want to go home.’

De Vrailly dismounted. ‘As you are foolish enough to ride abroad unarmoured, I will take off my harness. Squire!’ he called, and Stephan appeared. He ordered up two pages and a cart, and the Captal’s armour began to come off – gauntlets first, then shoulders, arms, breast and back, then sabatons and finally the legs in two pieces.

The hawker finally dismounted. His companion, obviously a servant, hissed something at him, and he shook his head.

‘Fuck him,’ said the young man. ‘I’m no coward, nor is my blade a lily wand.’

Gaston decided to try to penetrate his cousin’s stubborn arrogance. ‘Cousin,’ he said softly. ‘Do you remember how much trouble you caused killing the squires of Ser Gavin?’

‘Eh?’ de Vrailly asked. ‘I didn’t kill them, Gaston. He killed one, and you, I believe, killed the other one.’

Rage flared in Gaston, and he fought it down. ‘On your orders.’

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘There was no consequence, at any rate.’

Gaston was stung. ‘No consequence? Did you not see the position in which you placed the King with his people in Lorica?’

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘It is no business of mine if he is weak. I only act for my own honour today, no man can do more.’ He was stripped to an arming jacket and hose but he still looked like an angel come to earth – or perhaps fallen to earth. ‘Now leave me to this.The maintenance of my honour is my sacred duty. You would do the same.’

Gaston shook his head. ‘I would not put myself in a position-’

‘Are you suggesting that this is my doing? Let me tell you, cousin, that I have not found you to be as loyal as I have reason to expect as your liege.’ De Vrailly met his eye.

Gaston shrugged. ‘Perhaps you’d like to fight me, too?’

‘Do you doubt that I am the better man?’ de Vrailly asked.

Gaston stood very still, and he considered a dozen replies. Finally, he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, very slowly.

De Vrailly reacted by smiling and putting his hand on Gaston’s shoulder. Gaston flinched. De Vrailly smiled. ‘God has made me the best knight in the world. I am no more worthy than any other, and it is natural that even you, who love me best, should – shall I say it? – be jealous of the favours I receive. I forgive you.’

Gaston bowed his head and withdrew, as carefully as he could. His hands were twitching.

The servant was pleading with the hawker, but the boy would have none of it. He stripped off his peasant’s cote – like most nobles, he dressed in simple, dull colours to hunt – and stood forth in a fustian doublet, hose, and thigh-high boots. He unbuckled his sword belt and dropped it into his man’s waiting hands, and drew the sword.

The liveried Forester was shaking his head. He looked at the company of foreign knights, and then at the royal Guardsman, and finally his eyes settled on the Count of Eu.

‘My lord,’ he said formally. The man’s hands were shaking. ‘Duelling like this is illegal without express permission from the King.’

Gaston pursed his lips. ‘How does the King manage to prevent duelling?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

The Forester watched the preparations. ‘It happens all the time, my lord, but it is proscribed and I am an officer of the law. I’ll lose my place, my lord. That boy is the Earl of Towbray’s nephew. My lads were foolish to pick him up, but this duel is insane.’

Gaston shrugged. ‘My cousin is defending his honour.’ He spoke very carefully, and his jaw was more clenched than he could control. ‘I tried to stop it.’

The boy set himself in a good stance with his weight back over his hips, his riding sword in one hand, held back and across his body. Gaston knew the garde – it looked ungainly but it allowed a weaker man to block almost any cut from a stronger.

De Vrailly took his own riding sword, drew it, handed his squire the scabbard, and then walked out onto the trampled, green-brown summer grass of the crossroads. He walked towards the boy purposefully, flicked his sword up into an overhead garde and threw a cut as he entered into range – the boy covered with a rising swing. Only de Vrailly’s blow was a feint, and his sword flicked around and bit deeply into the boy’s unprotected neck, killing him instantly.

Without breaking stride, de Vrailly walked back to his squire and handed him the sword. Stephan produced an oily linen rag and wiped the blade clean. His face showed no trace of emotion – he might have been wiping furniture clean.

The retainer fell on his knees by the corpse and put his face in the dirt.

The liveried Forester shook his head.

De Vrailly began the process of getting back into his armour.

The Royal Forester followed Gaston back down the column. ‘You know what this means, my lord? Instead of merely collecting the Earl’s back taxes, and he meekly handing us the silver because we’re here in force, he will instead raise his retainers and fight. He’ll have to. Honour will demand it.’

Gaston sighed. ‘I think that will suit my cousin perfectly. A nice little war to occupy the late summer.’

The Forester shook his head. ‘I’m sending a rider to the King,’ he said.

Harndon – The Queen

The Queen of Alba stood in front of her mirror, looking for signs of her belly swelling.

‘I’m sure,’ she said to her nurse, Diota, who shook her head.

‘You had your courses-’

‘Forty-one days ago, you hussy. I can tell you where I conceived and when.’ She stretched. She loved her own body, and yet she was content to see it pregnant. More than content. ‘When can I know if it is a boy?’

‘Womenfolk aren’t to be despised, mistress,’ Diota snapped.

Desiderata smiled. ‘Women are infinitely superior to men in most respects, but the peace of this kingdom needs a sword arm and a prick with a brain behind it. Besides, the King wants a boy.’ She grinned.

Diota made a clucking noise. ‘How did you get a baby off the King, sweet?’

Desiderata laughed. ‘If I have to tell you, I suppose I will. You see, when a woman loves a man, she-’

Her nurse swatted her affectionately.

‘I know how to make the beast with two backs, you little minx. I know how to find the sap and how to make it rise, too. None better!’ Diota stood with her hands on her hips – a big woman with breast and hips ample enough to make her waist seem small. When Diota laughed, she filled a room. And there was something indescribable to her manner that led men to find her desirable, even when she belittled them.

The Queen smiled. ‘I never doubted it.’

‘But the King-’ Diota paused, and frowned. ‘I’m sorry, mistress. It’s not my place.’

‘Now you have me going, you coarse old woman. What do you know?’

‘No more than half the court knows. That the King incurred the anger of a woman. And she cursed him to father no children.’ Diota’s voice grew quieter as she spoke. It was treason to speak of a curse on the King.

Desiderata laughed. ‘Nurse, you speak nothing but nonsense. He has no curse. Of that, I can assure you.’ She beamed. ‘When he came back from the battle-’ She stared dreamily off into time.

Her nurse smacked her on the rump. ‘Get dressed, you strumpet. If you’ve kindled, you might as well enjoy these summer kirtles while you still have a flat tummy and a maiden’s breasts.’ But she squeezed her mistress’ hand. ‘I meant no harm,’ she said.

‘Do you think I hadn’t heard the rumour?’ Desiderata asked. ‘Heard it, and heard other whispers, too. Two years in the King’s bed and no baby?’ She whirled on her nurse. ‘Ugly stuff. Hurtful, ugly rumours.’ She looked away, and her face settled into its habitual look of open pleasure at the world. ‘But my powers are as great as any challenge. Or curse.’ Her voice lowered a little, and Diota shivered. ‘Who was she, Diota? This woman who cursed my King?’

Diota shook her head. ‘I’d tell you if I knew, mistress. It was long ago. When he was young.’

‘Twenty years ago?’ the Queen asked.

Diota shrugged. ‘Perhaps, sweeting. I was nursing you, not listening to court gossip.’

‘And who got you with child, that you were my nurse?’ Desiderata asked.

Diota laughed. ‘Weren’t exactly the King, if you take my meaning,’ she said.

Desiderata laughed aloud. ‘My pardon, I meant no such thing, and I am being indiscreet.’

Diota put her arms around her mistress. ‘You’re scared, sweeting?’

Desiderata shivered. ‘Since the arrow struck me,’ she said, ‘the world seems darker.’ She shook herself. ‘But my baby will make it right.’

Diota nodded. ‘And your tournament?’

‘Ah!’ said the Queen. ‘My tournament – oh, my sweet Virgin, I had forgotten! I will be big as a sow at Pentecost.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, some other girl must be the Queen of Love. I’ll be a mother.’

Diota shook her head. ‘Are you growing up, pipkin? The knights will still come for you – not for Lady Mary or any of your other girls, pretty as they are.’

‘I hear that the Empress’s daughter is the most beautiful woman in the world,’ the Queen said.

‘Well,’ said Diota, ‘she will be in a few months, anyway.’

‘Oh, fie!’ said Desiderata, and smacked her.

And they both gave way to laughter.

Harndon – Edmund the Journeyman

Edmund the Journeyman – as his peers now called him – sat on a workbench with his feet dangling. He was facing three younger men, all senior apprentices. His anxieties were mostly caused by the fact that for two years he’d eaten and slept with them, and pulled pranks, stolen pies, wrestled, and been bested or triumphed, swaggered sticks, swashed and buckled-

And now they worked for him, and he wasn’t sure how to reach across the sudden gulf between them.

‘I see three ways of approaching the problem,’ he said. ‘We can cast them, like hand bells. We can cast blanks, and bore them – and that’s dead slow.’

The youngest, a white-blond boy named Wat, but whom every other apprentice called ‘Duke’ for his aristocratic looks, laughed. ‘You mean we’ll bore it while you sit in the yard and think lofty thoughts.’

Edmund had learned a thing or two from Master Pye and he looked mildly at Duke, and said nothing.

‘Sorry!’ said Duke, in the same semi-demi-mock-rueful tone he used with the master.

‘The third way is to build something like a barrel of iron staves, and hoop it, and forge weld the whole.’ Edmund held up his first successful model. ‘Everyone look at this.’

Sam Vintner, the eldest, held the octagonal tube for a few breaths. ‘It failed,’ he said flatly.

Edmund sighed inwardly. ‘It failed after twenty shots. My forge welds weren’t good enough.’

Sam pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Do it on a mandril?’ he asked.

Edmund had to bite a comment. He didn’t like having his work questioned. But if he slapped Sam down now- Still, he was human. ‘Of course I used a mandril,’ he said.

Sam shrugged to show he meant no harm. ‘A red-hot mandril? To keep the heat?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Edmund, intrigued.

Sam grinned. ‘I’m making this up as I go along. But it stands to reason, don’t it? You need the welds to be as strong and smooth inside as out, right?’

Edmund nodded, already thinking through to the end of the argument. ‘In fact, the welds only have to be strong and smooth inside.’

The middle apprentice took an apple out of his back and started eating.

‘Tom?’ asked Edmund.

Tom shrugged. ‘Just tell me what to do,’ he said.

‘Talk about the project,’ Edmund said. ‘That’s what we’re doing. When you are an apprentice, mostly no one asks your opinion; the more senior you are, the more your master will consult you.’

Tom nodded. Took another bite of apple. ‘Sure, boss. I’ll bite. Why not cast ’em?’

Edmund had the first one he’d cast. He handed it around. ‘Bronze,’ he said.

All three boys groaned. Bronze cost twenty times what iron cost.

‘Cast them in iron,’ Tom said.

Edmund chewed on the idea for a moment. ‘I’ve never cast anything in iron,’ he said. ‘Have you?’

All three apprentices shook their heads.

Edmund shrugged. ‘I have heard cast iron is brittle. I’ll ask Master Pye.’

‘And I imagine that, if you cast them, the bore will be rough when you want it smooth,’ said Duke.

Tom finished his apple and threw the two small bits of the core he’d left into the forge fire.

Edmund shook his head. ‘Let’s start with a heated mandril,’ he said.

The boys all nodded.

‘Tom, you and Duke make a mandril. Here’s my old one. One inch in diameter, no taper. Best make three.’

‘Has to be steel,’ said Tom.

Edmund shook his head, stung. ‘Of course it does.’

‘It’ll deform with heat,’ said Tom. ‘And if it’s hot enough to keep up the temperature in the welds, it’ll end up welded to the barrel staves.’

Edmund was beginning to see why Master Pye had been so willing to part with Tom. ‘That can probably be controlled by careful judgement,’ he said. ‘And a little judicious use of water or oil.’

‘Sure,’ said Tom, by which he pretty obviously meant, Wait and see. I’m right.

Edmund ended the day feeling that Mr Smyth’s hundred gold leopards might be harder to obtain than he’d expected.

But in the evening, he dressed in good wool and linen, hung his buckler – all steel, burnished like a lady’s mirror – on his belt with his sword – also his own work – and after preening in Mistress Pye’s glass for a moment, he walked out into the evening air. Summer was on the wane, and darkness was coming earlier – sad news for all working folks, for whom long summer evenings meant relaxation, warmth, and gossip.

He crossed the square to his sister, who stood with four other girls. They fell silent as he approached. Anne – his favourite, although nothing was settled, as one might say – smiled at him, and he returned her smile. She had full lips and large eyes; a kirtle that fit a little more tightly than most girls’, in a fine burgundy. She sewed for her living, and was already fully employed, running shirts and braes for Master Keller, the tailor, to half the court. Her white linen shift had fancy threadwork at the neck and cuffs, but all her patient labour didn’t catch his interest as much as the creamy white tops of her breasts and the swell of her hips.

‘See something you like?’ said his sister, and slapped his side – hard.

No man is a hero to his sister. He rolled away from her follow-on blow and looked rueful. ‘The sele of the day to you, ladies.’

‘Now he’s a perfect, gentle knight,’ Mary said, and laughed. ‘Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to be? We’re talking. Girl talk.’

‘A court boy tried to put his hand down Blanche’s gown!’ said Nancy, who was too young to know you didn’t say such things in front of a brother.

Edmund bridled. ‘What court boy?’

Blanche was his sister’s best friend – tall and blond and elegant. She worked at the palace, and gave herself airs. But she looked less haughty than usual today. ‘I gave him no cause,’ she said. ‘He just – grabbed me.’

Edmund didn’t like this, the more so as his sister wanted a palace position, too.

‘What were you doing?’ he asked.

‘Ninny!’ said his sister. ‘It’s not her fault, you gormless fool. Sod off – go hit someone with your sword.’ She made a shooing motion with her hand. ‘Go away!’

She threw a slight smile in the last motion – almost a wink. They were brother and sister and he got the message. ‘Your servant, madam,’ he said with a deep bow.

Across the square, two dozen boys took turns playing at sword and buckler. The game was a complex one with many unwritten rules. Boys and men used sharp swords – so the only target permitted was the buckler. Some games allowed the defender to move the buckler, and some specified that the buckler had to be hit a certain kind of blow, and some boys had elaborate sword and buckler chants, with each boy going through a particular rhythm of blows and blocks to a rhyme or a poem.

Edmund fancied himself a fair blade. He practised at the pell in his master’s yard; he had a chance to watch real knights and men-at-arms test new weapons. Master Pye sometimes even took lucky apprentices and journeymen with him to the palace to watch the Royal Guard practise, or to see knights prepare for the tournament.

He paired up with Tom, who, despite being three years his junior, was already fully his height and weight. They started slowly, and Edmund requested a halt to take off his cote and retie his hose. Tom shook his head. ‘Why wear a cote and tight hose to the square?’ he asked. ‘It’s like you was dressed for church!’

Other, older boys rolled their eyes. Most boys over fifteen dressed up to go to the square.

Edmund smiled to himself and folded his jacket.

He and Tom had a fine bout – long enough to work up a good sweat, skilful enough that the other young men pressed around, watching them. Edmund was the better blade, but Tom was so fast that the exchanges were never one-sided.

Eventually, though, as the younger boy’s wrist started to tire, Edmund began to strike his buckler faster and harder. And then Tom stepped back and raised a hand – at first Edmund thought it was surrender, but then he saw what Tom had seen – the other young men were watching something else.

The four new boys stuck out from the moment they entered the square. They wore bright clothing, where most apprentices wore drab or black. The leader – and there was no mistaking that he was the leader – wore hose that were striped in three colours, in the Gallish fashion, aping the look of the new foreign knights and making him look like a fool to Edmund. But he noted that all the girls turned to look at this display.

The new boys talked loudly, too, and swaggered. The thinnest of them – a boy so thin he was on the edge of invisibility – managed to take up so much space that he bumped into one of the boys watching the sword and buckler play.

The local boy stepped back and mumbled, ‘Beg your pardon’ automatically.

The colourful boy shoved him. ‘Hey, fuckwit, watch where yer going!’ he said, and his mates laughed.

The boy who’d been shoved looked resentful, but didn’t take the matter up.

The thin boy whooped. ‘Look at the pretty sluts,’ he said.

Tom sighed. ‘They want trouble.’

Edmund had just heard his sister called slut. He was doubly maddened to see several of the girls giggle and look at the brightly clad bastards. But his sister met his eye firmly.

He was a journeyman. It wasn’t his place to get in brawls.

But his three apprentices were watching him. Sam smiled, Tom frowned, and Duke was picking up his buckler.

The leader had the short hair the Galles wore, and his, like Duke’s, was white-blond. He had sharp features and a long dagger on his crotch, with a sword on his left hip. He rubbed the hilt of his ballock dagger. ‘Which of you bitches wants it?’ he asked. He laughed. ‘You, sweet?’ he said, stepping close to Mary.

Their behaviour was absurd. But Edmund had heard about them – gangs that acted like Galles, and kept to what they called the ‘Rule of War’. Some of them really were the squires and pages of de Vrailly’s men, and some just dressed to be like them.

The thin boy cackled. ‘They all want it,’ he shouted. ‘There’s not a man with balls here!’

Edmund stepped out of the crowd of apprentices. ‘Get lost,’ he said. It wasn’t said as mildly, as drily, or as loudly as he’d intended, and worst of all, his voice rose as he spoke. His hands were shaking.

The colourfully dressed boys were scary.

‘What was that, little fuckwit?’ asked the leader, whom Edmund had christened Blondie. ‘Go hide in your bed; the hard boys are here.’ He put his hand on his dagger. ‘Want some of this?’

For days afterwards, Edmund would think of witty replies. But at the time, he just shrugged.

‘What’s that?’ said the boy, and drew both weapons.

Edmund was Harndon born and bred. He knew that lower-class boys were tough as nails and fought differently from apprentices. On the other hand, he’d used weapons since he was a boy, and he was a Harndonner – he didn’t make way on the street for anyone.

He plucked his buckler onto his fist. ‘He drew first,’ he said cautiously, to the crowd of apprentice boys.

Blondie made a sly cut – a long, leaping cut from outside engagement range. It was a fight ender. And a move that would probably lead to a murder trial.

Edmund got it on his buckler and almost lost the fight immediately, as the other boy tried to power over the rim of his little shield and into his shoulder with his hilt. He had a feeling of unreality. The fool was really trying to kill him.

Then the reality of it hit him.

He got his sword out of his scabbard in time to stop two strong cuts to his open side, and blind luck and long training left his buckler in the way of the dagger strike – which nonetheless licked past his buckler and pricked his arm.

He backed away.

‘I’m going to fuck you up,’ Blondie said, just as one of his mates slammed his fist into Edmund from behind.

Everything happened at once.

The punch shocked Edmund – but it fell on bone, and it turned him and made him stumble to the left. Blondie attacked, stamping his foot and cutting heavily at Edmund’s unshielded side – even reeling in pain, Edmund had the boy summed up. He only had three cuts.

Unfortunately, his stumble didn’t save him and he fell.

But he rolled, cut low, and connected.

It was the first time Edmund had ever used a blade with intent – and even hurt and desperate, he had a heartbeat’s hesitation in putting his full force into the blow. But it landed hard enough, and Blondie gasped.

Edmund got to his feet to find that a dozen apprentices were burying the thin boy in fists.

Blondie’s hose were ruined, and blood was spreading over his shin.

He backed away. ‘I’ll be back with twenty bravos,’ he said. ‘My name is Jack Drake, and this square is mine. And everything in it.’

Edmund would, under other circumstances, have let him go except for the last comment. He followed the retreating boy.

‘Coward,’ he said. It was the first thing in the fight that went the way he wanted.

Blondie paused, and then laughed. ‘I’ll be back, and then you’re dead,’ he said, and his boys came and helped him walk. But as soon as they were clear of the ring of bystanders, the man called Jack turned and came after Edmund.

He cut at Edmund’s head again – outside line, high to low.

This time, no one hit Edmund in the head and his sword licked out, picked up the cut and forced it down even faster across his opponent’s body and onto Edmund’s buckler as he stepped forward. He bound the man’s arms under his buckler, and slammed his pommel into the man’s mouth, making teeth fly.

The same motion threw the man to the ground. Edmund kicked him. The man threw up.

‘Kill him!’ shouted several apprentices.

The thin boy had been beaten bloody. The other two were across the square.

Edmund had every eye on him. Anne looked-

‘Yield,’ he said, putting his sword at the man’s throat.

‘You better fucking kill me, fuckwit,’ Drake said. He spat another tooth.

Edmund shrugged. ‘You are wode,’ he said. ‘Insane!’

The other man’s eyes bored into him. ‘This square is mine.’

Edmund didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just kill the bleeding man in cold blood. And his insistence was as frightening as his original challenge.

‘That’s why I’ll beat you, fuckwit,’ Drake said. ‘You haven’t got the balls-’

A board hit Drake in the head, and his body sagged. Tom leaned on the board – a door lintel from a building site. ‘My da says you have to kill ’em like lice,’ he said.

‘What about the law?’ asked Edmund. He couldn’t tell whether the man was alive or dead.

‘I don’t see the sheriff,’ said Tom. ‘Good fight, by the way. Nice move.’ He laughed. He sounded a little wild, but his hands were steady. ‘Let’s take him somewhere – the monastery. Monks always know what to do.’ He shrugged. ‘He’s not dead. You gonna let him live?’

Edmund found his hands were shaking hard. ‘Yes,’ he said. And knew he’d regret the weakness. But he also knew he couldn’t kill Jack Drake in cold blood. Not and be the same man afterwards.

Albinkirk – Ser John Crayford

Ser John looked at himself in the polished bronze mirror recently mounted on the armoury wall, and laughed aloud.

His new squire, young Jamie, paused. ‘Ser John?’

‘Jamie, there’s nothing sillier than an old man aping a younger one,’ he said.

Jamie Vorwarts was a Hoek merchant’s son. His whole family had died in the siege and the boy had nowhere to go. He knew more of arms than business, and he could polish steel better than any squire Ser John had ever had. He was perhaps fourteen. He was tall, a little too thin from hard rations, and his face was a little too pinched to be considered handsome.

He went back to polishing his master’s new six-piece breastplate. It was an expensive miracle of steel and brass, with verses from the Bible inscribed around the edge.

‘You could at least tell me I’m not old,’ Ser John said.

He was standing in front of the first mirror he’d owned in twenty years, wearing a fine green doublet, three layers of heavy linen covered in silk, and laced to the doublet were a pair of hose in green and red – themselves embroidered in flowers and fall leaves. The hose were slightly padded and quilted to wear under armour, and so was the doublet, but for Albinkirk they were as good as court clothes and they made him look slim and dangerous.

And old.

‘Mutton dressed as lamb,’ he said with a curse.

Jamie looked at him and allowed himself a smile. ‘That’s damn good, my lord.’

‘I didn’t concoct that little saying myself, you young scapegrace. When I was about forty years younger, that’s what we called prostitutes who were too old to roll over.’ The old man frowned.

‘Older women are very attractive,’ Jamie said carefully.

‘I know somewhere you will be very popular indeed,’ said Ser John.

An hour later, the two of them arrived at Middlehill Manor with a pair of donkeys laden with hampers. Ser John sat on his horse in the yard, noting that the new sheep had trimmed the yard grass, and he didn’t see so much as a wayward scrap of cloth on the ground – the grass was yellower than formerly, but the house was clean and neat, the door was replaced on its pintles – he’d helped with that himself – and out in the fields, six women took turns holding a plough for winter wheat. Their furrows were none too straight but then ploughing was hard work even for a fit man.

‘Jamie?’ he asked. ‘See those fine ladies struggling with a plough?’

Jamie leaped down and then paused. ‘Is it a chivalrous thing to plough?’

Ser John frowned. He felt like a magnificent hypocrite whenever he spoke on chivalry, as he’d spent most of his life killing men for money while wearing armour. But he shrugged. ‘Jamie, to the best of my understanding, anything you do to help a woman who needs help is chivalry. In this case, that’s ploughing.’

Jamie stripped his cote and his doublet in the warm sun, and Ser John smiled, thinking that he would endear himself very deeply to the six women who now paused, favouring their backs and fully aware that they were about to be saved from more ploughing.

Helewise came into the yard and smiled. ‘I ploughed yesterday,’ she said. ‘My pater taught me a woman can do aught a man can do. But by the wounds of Christ, he was a gentleman and never had to plough a furrow in his life.’ She caught herself tossing her hair, which just happened to be down. And clean.

‘I could rub your back,’ Ser John said. ‘It works when I’ve exercised too long with the sword.’

She smiled happily at him. ‘I might hold you to that, ser knight. But not, I think, until all are abed.’ She was already moving towards the door, and although she spoke naturally, she kept her voice low. ‘And perhaps not tonight.’

He stabled his own horse and saw that the nun’s palfrey had been there – her elegant shoes had left prints in the straw, and there were fresh droppings in the next stall.

He went into the house, and Helewise indicated a settle in the kitchen and went back to wrapping twine around herbs. ‘I saved most of my herb garden,’ she said. ‘I suppose they’re really wild plants, and the Wild didn’t mind them too much.’

He joined her, cutting lengths of hemp twine and giving each bundle of rosemary a single twist. A very young boy – just seven or eight – took them one at a time, climbed a ladder, and hung them from the rafters.

‘What brings you here this time?’ Helewise asked, eyes twinkling.

‘I’ve sent to the King for a new garrison,’ Ser John said. ‘Until then, Jamie and I are knights bent on errantry. You may see us more frequently than you like.’

‘I doubt it,’ she said, and just for a moment their hands touched.

‘Sister Amicia was here,’ she went on. ‘She’ll be back tonight, more’s the pity.’

‘You mislike her?’ asked Ser John.

‘Never say it. By the rood, John, I love her for her confidence. She makes women proud to be women and my daughter fair dotes on her. I won’t say my daughter’s bad, John, but she was in Lorica where it is all the fashion for young gentlewomen to play the wanton-’

John smiled.

‘Don’t smirk at me, sir! I’m too old to kindle and too practical to come to harm.’ She blushed.

‘For myself, madam, I find you very beautiful.’ He reached out, greatly daring, and pushed a lock of her hair from her forehead. He smiled into her eyes. ‘But it is all the Queen. She is a force of nature, and she has them all playing at it.’

‘I won’t hear a word agin’ her.’ Helewise sat back.

‘I speak none. But what is right for the Queen might not sit so well with a mother,’ Ser John said.

‘Where was all this wisdom twenty years ago, messire?’ she asked.

He laughed. ‘I hadn’t a grain of it, sweeting.’

She shook her head. ‘I miss Rupert. Seems an odd thing to say to you, but he was solid. And he was better with Pippa than I am.’

John shook his head, leaned into the chimney corner and stuck his booted feet out towards the fire. ‘I was never jealous of him. I’d never make a husband.’ He looked at her. ‘He’d never ha’ made a knight.’

‘True that,’ she said. ‘I crave your hands on my body,’ she said suddenly.

‘Now who’s wanton?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Any gate, you best not come to me tonight while the nun is here.’

He smiled and rose. ‘In that case, I’ll not quibble to hold the plough and work up a good sweat.’

‘Though you look very fine,’ she replied.

As swift as a sword strike, he bent over and planted his mouth on hers.

Three long breaths later, she broke away. ‘Fie!’ she said. Delight rather ruined her attempt to be severe. ‘Broad daylight!’

Later the nun came into the yard, and Ser John, now stripped to his hose, took her palfrey, and then used a fork to muck the straw and put in new. She brought feed.

‘I have your package,’ he said. ‘Right here in my saddle pack.’

She smiled. ‘You needn’t have. We’re not much for things of this world.’ She smiled more broadly. And then frowned. ‘I haven’t seen a Wild creature, but down towards the old ferry I saw a swathe of destruction as if a herd of oeliphants had made a dance floor. Trees are down. And there’s a house I think I remember intact, now roofless.’

‘By the ferry?’ Ser John asked. He was rooting in his pack and it began to occur to him that he’d left her package on his work table in Albinkirk. ‘How often do you get to the ferry?’

‘Every week,’ she said. ‘I have a special dispensation to say mass at the ruined chapel there. It’s the only kirk for seven mile.’

Ser John had a sudden notion. ‘Wait,’ he said. He reached in his belt-purse, and there it was – a package the size of a big walnut. ‘Not in my saddle bag at all, I fear,’ he said ruefully.

She took the package and looked at it. He thought she looked disappointed. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘May I borrow your eating knife?’

He drew it from the sheath of his roundel and handed it to her, and she slit the waxed linen of her package. It proved to actually be a walnut. She cracked it open it and gasped.

He paused and then said, ‘Are you all right?’

Her face worked, and she was weeping silently. Then she gathered her wits. ‘Bastard!’ she spat, and hurled the walnut shell across the stable to clatter against a distant stone wall, lost in the darkness.

Ser John, provided with yet another test of chivalry, elected to slip quietly out the main stable door. Some things are too perilous for mere men, and the air around her had begun to glow a golden green, casting light in the dark stable, and he didn’t think he was up to whatever she might be about to face.

But in a few heartbeats the light died away, and he heard a fragile laugh. She stepped into the dying light of the day from the darkness of the stable, and something glittered on her hand.

‘He sent me a profession ring,’ she said. She held out her hand, the way a woman might show a betrothal ring. The ring bore the letters ‘IHS’ in beautiful Gothic script.

‘Who did?’ asked Ser John, feeling like a man caught in someone else’s story.

She frowned. ‘I think you know,’ she said.

Ser John bowed. ‘Then I think he’s a bastard, too.’

Over dinner, the women admired the ring. It was gold, and very handsome. Sister Amicia was back in control of herself – she showed the ring calmly, and admitted readily that Ser John had brought it to her.

Phillippa tried to tease her, leaning forward and saying, ‘Perhaps it is from a secret admirer!’

The look she received caused her to sit silently for five whole minutes.

Helewise kept shifting in her seat, looking at the ring from various angles, and finally she reached out, almost unconsciously, and caught Sister Amicia’s hand. ‘It seems hermetical,’ she said.

‘It is!’ Amicia said, obviously delighted. ‘I can store potentia in it. It is a blessed thing.’ She smiled at Helewise. ‘How did you know?’

Helewise shrugged. ‘It seems to change shape.’

‘Change shape?’ asked the nun. She grinned. ‘I haven’t seen that. What shape does it take?’

Helewise shook her head. ‘You – a holy woman of power – accepted this token and put it on without question?’

Amicia paled. But her face cleared when she drew the ring easily from her finger, and it sat, heavy and potent, in her hand. ‘You are right, Helewise, and Sister Mirim will rightfully assign me a penance for recklessness. Among other things,’ she said, frowning.

‘There it goes again,’ said Helewise. ‘It changed shape in the palm of your hand. Just for a moment.’

‘What did it look like?’ asked Amicia.

‘Much the same, I suppose,’ Helewise said, looking at Ser John for support. He smiled at her, having seen nothing.

But young Jamie leaned forward with the earnestness of the young. ‘Ma soeur, sometimes it doesn’t say IHS.’

Amicia flushed. ‘It doesn’t? What does it say?’

He shrugged. ‘It looks to me like “G amp;A”.’

Amicia sighed. ‘Damn,’ she said, and dropped the ring into her belt pouch. Then she smiled her girlish, impulsive smile at Phillippa, and said, ‘I think you are right after all. A secret admirer.’

The Wild North of the Inner Sea – Thorn

Thorn had walked several hundred miles, by his own count. He had crossed the Adnacrags, and then he had crossed the Wall, and then he had crossed the river. He had gone west, and he had gone north.

His wanderings took him to the great marshes where boggles bred in the freezing headwaters of the immense river system that defined the borders of the far west. He worked his will on them, not once but five times – in a swamp so vast and desolate that there seemed nothing alive but rotting vegetation and ooze for a day’s walk in every direction, and the massive mounds that bred the boggles rose like organic volcanoes at his command.

And then he started east, now on the north shore of the mighty Inner Sea. He had never been here before but he walked with confidence, and the knowledge of where to place his feet seemed to roll like a helpful poison from the black space in his head.

Somewhere to the east lay the land of the Sossag people. Beyond them was the country of the Northern Huran.

Thorn felt it would be petty for a being of his power to avenge himself on the barbaric Sossag for their failure to aid him in his hour of need. He felt such behaviour was beneath him, but he found himself plotting it nonetheless. The Huran had lost many warriors in his service. The Sossag had not. They had chosen to go their own way.

North of the Inner Sea was a different kind of country – Wild, indeed, but thickly populated with Outwallers. He had had no idea that the Great North Woods held so many men and women and children, and he moved cautiously. It was not that he lacked the power to destroy; but he had learned enough humility to know that moving undetected created fewer complications. He moved cautiously west, skirting the settlements of the great beaver and the Gothic swamps of the Kree where the Hastrenoch bred amid dead trees and brook trout. He passed to the north of the outlying Sossag villages and their northern cousins of the Messaka, and turned south into the squalid villages of the Northern Huran, whose markings he recognised. There were also ruder settlements – wild irks without a lord, and in the middle of the lakes, islands made of great logs and piled rocks by the Ruk. The giants.

The black space in Thorn’s head had plans for the Ruk.

He stood on the shore of a lake in the burned lands and waited until the Ruk came to him. He gave them gifts, like children at a party, and turned them to his own ends. The Ruk were too simple for debate and argument – instead he ensnared them and sent them on his business, breaking them to his will as easily as a man disciplines a dog.

He repeated this at every lake in the burned lands that had one of the islands that the Outwallers called crannogs.

He sent other creatures to listen, and to speak, and to gather news, and he learned that the Northern Huran, having taken losses in his wars, were threatened by their southern cousins across the Great River, and from further east. And he learned that the great Etruscan ships had not come this year. He set spies to visit the distant court of the King of Alba, and to watch that blazing fire, his wife, the Queen.

He made his decisions, then. He did not help the Northern Huran simply because they had been his allies. They had been loyal. But the forests were full of potential allies and slaves and he owed the Northern Huran nothing. But now he had goals, and goals led to plans, and the Northern Huran would be his servants – willingly or unwillingly.

Thorn stopped for a day in the deep woods, and practised a new mantle – a body into which he put much skill, making it a form he could wear with ease. It was that of an old, sage Outwaller – one with clear, honest eyes and old scars. An old man with wisdom writ hard on his lined face and chose the name Speaker of Tongues, an old shaman. In that form he visited the smaller towns. He sat at the fires and listened to the matrons, healed children, made medicine. Many benefited from his powers. Word of him spread like wildfire among the Kree and the Northern Huran.

In each village he whispered a few thoughts, and pinned them to the minds of the men and women who were the deepest in greed. He left them like seeds, to grow with time.

Then he shed the semblance of Speaker of Tongues like an old snake shedding a skin, and he moved in great strides, passing through the endless forest like a light wind. He used his new powers sparingly – to contact a man in Lorica, a woman in Harndon, and a man deep in the Wild to the south. For them, he wore no semblance. He was a voice in the ear, and a thought, briefly tasted. It was exhausting, and he spent whole days in rest, standing exposed to the elements, before he would walk on. He had new powers to explore, new venues to work, and this ability to manipulate his shape so easily was disturbing.

He couldn’t remember how he’d achieved it. Nor was he quite sure who he was.

Almost seventy days had passed since he had faced the Dark Sun.

He knew that, for his next move, he needed a secure retreat and a place of power. That without such a place there was no point to his making any further plans whatsoever. The death of the great tree in the Adnacrags had changed him, he now suspected – and the advent of the great power who had left him the armoured egg was enough to prompt him to action. Or that was how he now saw his metamorphosis.

He walked along the northern shore of the Inner Sea in his own guise, and pondered war.

Ticondaga Castle – The Earl of the Westwall

Ghause was not a woman to hesitate. But the ramifications of the Queen’s pregnancy were great enough to give her pause, and she chewed on her spells for long weeks before she knew how she meant to act.

The Earl was launching his usual raids across the Great River into the Outwallers’ country. He raided for slaves and information, and sometimes for Wild honey and pelts. The Earldom of the North lacked the vast resources of Jarsay or Brogat; it had sheep, and cattle, and timber and everything else, as the Muriens liked to joke, was rock. Astute raiding did a great deal to provide agricultural labour and some coin.

This year he had a dozen knights of the Order of Saint Thomas. The order had knights in commanderies along the wall, and more in Harndon – and the latest news suggested that they intended to form a new garrison at Lissen Carrak. But their power of grammerie and their deep knowledge of the Wild allowed the Earl to plan a major raid, and she lost another week to helping plan the food and baggage for it, and in welcoming fifty knights from the south – a few hard-bitten professionals, the rest knights on errantry with girls to impress.

When his raid was all but formed and he was training his conroy in the great fields south of the castle, she was finally at leisure to consider her options and plan her own battle.

She read a great deal for a day or so – delving into texts she hadn’t touched for decades. Then she sent a careful probe south – an old working, called a ‘scent’. From then on, nothing happened as she’d intended.

She was a careful sorceress, so her scent rode south wrapped in layers of deception and cocooned in hermetical workings that would detect any attempt by the young Queen to see her. And it was one of these that triggered before her scent had even reached the Queen, when it was still fluttering through the aether. Ghause suspected that the aether worked in utterly different ways than the real, so she felt – rather than knew – that the real distance between Ticondaga and Harndon had very little to do with their distance in the aether.

But she was jolted into action moments after releasing her precious working, the fruit of weeks of work, days of research, and a dozen amorous couplings to fuel her needs.

She ran her fingers over the threads of her casting the way a bard would caress a beautiful instrument’s gut strings.

She found him immediately. She frowned.

‘Richard,’ she said out loud. ‘You are such a man – all power and no subtlety.’

Of course, Plangere didn’t answer.

If she called him Thorn he might answer, but then there’d be a fight.

She extended her sight and followed her scent as far as she could, but the aether was a roil of angry motions – there was a great deal going on beyond her sorceressly reinforced walls, and she withdrew.

She threw on a robe – she always cast naked, which made winter a daunting time to work – and fell into her favourite chair. From there she looked through her window, six storeys above the walls, so that she could see across the Great River, and feel the wonder of the forest rolling away unbroken to the north until it became the ice. She’d been there, and she knew the power of the land of ice.

She took a sip of wine. ‘Why is the Wild so active?’ she asked aloud. She looked at her cats.

They licked their paws, like cats.

‘And why exactly is Richard Plangere watching the Queen?’ she asked. And in the safety of her own head, she said his new name.

Thorn.

One Hundred Leagues West of Lissen Carrak – Bill Redmede

Tyler found his men. He found them amidst the flashing lightning by the bank of the stream. They were all gleaming bones and organic shapes – they’d been dismembered and eaten.

Bill Redmede retched and the lightning went on and on – faster and faster – and the rain fell harder, and the thunder and the rising stream covered all sound. The sight of the corpses, stripped to gristle, was like a shout inside his head.

He put his back to a tree and gripped his spear.

Tyler whirled, wild in the lightning. ‘They’re surrounding us!’ he screamed.

He began to cut at the unseen enemy.

Redmede jumped to help, but even in a long series of lightning flashes, he couldn’t see the enemy. Nat cut and hacked – Redmede had to duck, and leap, and finally shouted ‘Nat – Nat! There’s nothing there!’

Nat turned to glare at him as the thunder ended with a wild series of claps, so close that Redmede felt them like blows.

And then the thunderhead swept past, and the darkness was the more absolute for what had come before. Redmede felt Tyler step past him in the darkness, and put out a hand.

‘Sweet Jesus, we’re done!’

Redmede dropped his spear and threw his arms around Tyler. ‘Snap out of it! They’re gone. Let’s get out of here.’

Tyler was frozen for a moment.

Then he started to sob.

Dawn was a watery grey by the time Redmede got them back to camp. He feared everything by then – feared that the camp had been hit, that the Jacks were all dead too – he was awash in fear as the rain fell and fell, and first light found him stumbling like the greenest runaway serf through the wet woods just a few hundred paces from his fire.

There was no hiding Tyler’s state. The man was moaning, and Redmede cursed himself for leaning too hard on a sick man.

Somehow, with curses and cajolery and all the persuasion he could muster, he got his Jacks to pack their gear and leave the warmth of the fire and march.

By midday they were all soaked to the skin – both by the fitful rain and the wet forest, wet grass, wet ferns. There was no wool, no matter how well woven, that could repel so much water. His shoes squelched when he stepped, and when they had to cross a deep stream swollen with days of rain, every man and women simply ploughed through it, bows over their heads. No one tried to skip across the stepping stones.

By mid-morning, they had to carry Tyler again and there was some grumbling about it. Bess put a stop to it, and she and another woman carried the old ranger without complaint.

In the early afternoon, a boy from Harndon sat down by the trail and refused walk any further. ‘I just want to go home!’ he said.

Redmede was numb. He shook his head. ‘The Wild will eat you,’ he said.

‘I don’t care!’ the boy wailed. ‘I can’t walk! Me feet’s rubbed raw, an’ I haven’t had any food in days. Got the rheum. Let ’em eat me!’

Redmede hit him. The boy looked at him in stunned disbelief.

‘Get up and walk or I’ll kill you myself,’ Redmede said.

The boy got heavily to his feet and started to hobble away. He was crying.

Redmede felt like a caitiff.

Bess stood at his shoulder and shook her head. ‘That wasn’t the way, Bill Redmede,’ she said. ‘You sounded like a lord, not a comrade.’

‘Fuck you, Bess,’ he spat. Then he held up a hand. ‘That’s only weakness talkin’. I was up all night with Nat. The boglins attacked us.’

Bess’s eyes widened. ‘But we’re allies!’

Redmede shrugged.

And they headed west.

An hour later they came to the third stream of the day. The advance guard splashed across and the main body followed, and on the far side they found another abandoned irk village – this one with the roofs intact. In a moment they were inside, drier than they’d been in a day, and within an hour there were fires lit.

There was no food and Redmede couldn’t get more than a handful of volunteers to leave the huts and stand guard, so there he was, standing silently behind a screen of leaves, when he saw movement across the stream. The irk village was cunningly placed and difficult to approach, on a bluff of packed earth with low ramparts and palisades. But Redmede had posted his guards out across the cornfields – these, unfortunately, were bereft of corn.

He watched the movement. They weren’t boglins – they were both cautious and, by comparison, clumsy. He saw a flash of green – and a man emerged into the open. There was just enough light in the sky for Redmede to know him.

The man standing at the edge of the ford was Cat.

Behind him was Grey Cal.

Redmede held on to his whoop of delight and instead whistled the recognition call. Grey Cal straightened up, and whistled ‘Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son’ in response. Redmede called like a meadowlark, and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, he was embracing his lost sheep.

Cal hugged him tightly. ‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘That was nasty. This loon saved my life.’

Cat chuckled and smiled to himself.

‘We had a deer, but we dropped it when the boggles gave chase,’ Cat said. ‘The little bastards are everywhere.’

Cal nodded. ‘I lost my boys,’ he admitted. ‘We had to run. When they didn’t run far or fast enough, they got ate.’

Redmede nodded heavily. ‘We don’t have any food,’ he admitted in turn.

‘We don’t either,’ Cal said. ‘And a body can’t hunt. It’s just giving meat to the boggles.’ He shrugged. ‘Not to mention this fucking rain.’

Cat produced some raspberries. ‘I’ll share,’ he said in his odd, sing-song voice.

Redmede hesitated, but decided that if he didn’t eat then he might as well die. The wiry boy had filled his whole copper with the berries – they were delicious, and the three men ate their fill.

‘You carried them all this way?’ asked Cal. ‘No offence to Bill, but we could’a stopped an et anytime.’

Cat smiled enigmatically. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Not until now.’

In the morning, people were hard to wake and slow to rise. The more experienced men went and stripped sassafras by the stream to make tea. Cat, prowling the high ground north of the village, found the hives, and came back sticky and triumphant, and every man and woman had two cups of hot, honeyed sassafras tea.

And six or seven berries.

‘Just enough to make you fucking hungry,’ Bess said on behalf of everyone’s thoughts.

And then they went west. Again.

The streams were coming more and more frequently, and their crossings became sloppier with each one. The advance guard no longer stayed a hundred paces ahead of the main body, not even after noon when Redmede halted them in the watery sunlight and reset the intervals.

He pointed at the low hills to the north. ‘There’s boglins in those hills,’ he said. ‘Or worse. Stop slacking off or we’ll all be dead.’

‘Dead anyway,’ shouted someone in the crowd.

Redmede swallowed that and took charge of the vanguard for a few miles. But well before it was time to make camp, Cat appeared at his shoulder and jerked a thumb in the direction of the rear of the column. ‘They’re falling behind,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘More and more of the green ones. Some are just sitting by the trail.’

‘You and Cal go and find me a campsite,’ he said.

Redmede saw Bess carrying Tyler. He patted her shoulder, squeezed Tyler’s hand, and headed back along the column. However far he went, the men at the end told him that they were keeping up and there were more further back.

He’d just found the same boy as the day before, sitting under a tree, when he heard shouting from the front – now far away.

The boy didn’t wait to be argued with, or struck. He got to his feet and started hobbling forward, cursing. He was crying again.

‘Are there more behind you?’ Redmede asked, but the boy just kept going.

Redmede stood on the trail in complete indecision for a long moment – and then unslung his bow and slowly drew it from the heavy linen bags. He’d messed it up properly – he needed to sharpen up the march order and keep his people together. He needed folk he could trust at the front and back. He wasn’t going to lose anyone else. He started to walk back, sure that his headcount was six men short, and equally sure that something was watching him. With practised ease he began to string his bow, the bottom nock firm against his sodden right foot. He pulled and found how weak he was when it was a struggle just to get the string in place. But his string was dry enough, and his bow was dry. He put a shaft on the great bow, and breathed a little easier as he jogged back east into the gloom.

He rounded a sharp curve in the old trail and saw boglins. There were thirty or forty, all together in a mass, and two of his people, back to back, hitting the little things with their walking staffs while a third man fought with a sword – somewhat wildly, but with effect.

Redmede had feathered three boggles before he really realised what he was seeing, and then the boggles were gone, and the thin man with the long sword stumbled – obviously wounded.

They were deep into twilight – the best time of day for boggle eyes and the worst for men. Redmede ran forward.

He saw what had happened to his other men. They were the reason the boggles had been all clumped up, and they were red ruins.

The two with staffs slumped to the ground.

‘No, you fools!’ Redmede shouted. ‘Run!’

Then he turned to the swordsman.

It took a long moment of twilit confusion to realise that the figure with the sword was an irk. He was a man’s height, wore forest colours of deerskin and wool, and his sword was almost as tall as he was and looked as if it were made of a lightning bolt. His elfin face had enormous eyes and equally prominent teeth.

The irk abruptly sat on the trail. There was blood – ichor – coming from its legs.

The bush moved. The boggles were right there.

Sometimes, in a moment of extreme danger, everything becomes crystal clear.

Redmede saw it all. ‘Stop!’ he bellowed at his two men. They hadn’t run yet – he got the irk’s cloak over its fanged head even as it thrashed in pain at the wounds to its feet. He laid the cloak on the ground, heard the boggles closer still, put the two staffs onto the cloak and threw the ends in over the staffs. Then he lifted the irk, who swiped a talon at his face for his pains. He’d expected that, and he dropped the foul creature into the stretcher he’d made. The creature’s weight pinned the cloak against the walking staffs, and the stretcher held together as the two Jacks lifted it on the edge of panic.

The boggles were coming for them.

‘Now run,’ Redmede said.

The two Jacks needed no further urging.

Redmede didn’t think very highly of his own leadership skills, but he knew himself to be an expert archer. Maybe the best, save his brother. He laid a shaft on his bow and had another in his fingers. He stole a moment to put five more into his belt, heads pointing up.

He was just going to try and make a break for it when the rush came, and the seven ready arrows flowed away in a steady stream – he didn’t even feel the great bow bending, he released without a thought, and he scarcely noted the shaft that pinned two of the foul things to a tree, nor the one that pinned a boggle, screaming shrilly, to the ground.

His fingers fetched another arrow from his bag, but the rush was broken. Creatures of the Wild are no keener to die than men – and even as he nocked his eighth arrow, the smoothly muscled predators were gone into the cedar scrub and small spruce trees north of the trail.

He watched the bush for the count of three long breaths, and then he stooped and caught up the irk’s glowing sword. It stung his hand, but he had expected it to, and held on.

And he ran.

There are times when heroism is invisible; when the effort required to do what you know to be right is more than your frame can bear. Redmede had fought, had used his great bow, had walked for miles and miles, and had done so with little sleep and less food. He knew his men needed him. He knew the ford crossing would be hard – he feared that the boglins would get in among his raw Jacks and make meat of them.

He knew that there were boggles moving behind him on the trail.

And yet, after one burst of speed, he found himself walking – striding along with his long-legged stride, but not sprinting or even jogging.

He all but ordered himself out loud, to run. And yet he walked.

‘Damn you, Bill Redmede,’ he said aloud. He leaned forward, daring his own body to fail him, and his legs caught him, and he broke into a heavy, flat-footed jog. His turnshoes slapped the trail heavily, and his run lumbered more than he liked, but he was moving.

After what he estimated to be two long bowshots, he found six of his Jacks, carrying the irk.

‘Move!’ he shouted, as soon as he saw them.

They, too, burst into lumbering runs.

He stayed behind them. When they flagged, which they did almost immediately, he bellowed, ‘Don’t slow down! They’re right on top of us!’

They ran. One of the younger ones looked back, and his eyes rolled in total panic.

Redmede couldn’t bring himself to care.

They pounded along the trail and his breathing began to come in gasps, and he cursed his weakness and every bad decision he’d ever made. But the men in front of him kept running and he was damned if he was going to slow down when they were keeping the pace despite carrying the wounded irk.

They climbed a shallow ridge among the heavy trees, and Bill heard fighting ahead.

‘Halt!’ he snapped. ‘Into cover – lie still.’

He ran past them, tossed the irk’s sword at the weary men, and drew his own.

He crested the low ridge, and looked down into the ford. It was a scene from the priests’ visions of hell.

The boglins had caught his Jacks in mid-crossing. Half his force was on the far bank, and they were holding, but only just. The men caught in the river, however, were being systematically killed and eaten – boglins lined the banks and were hauling corpses in and consuming them on the spot, and some – many – were still alive, screaming in horror as the little creatures ate them. The men in the ford were dying because they were exposed in the open, stumbling across slick round rocks where to lose their footing was death – and as they crossed, the boglins loosed a barrage of arrows on them. Flight after flight fell on the hapless Jacks, and even the weak bows the little creatures had were sufficient to wound or kill at fifty yards.

Redmede took deep breaths.

Boglins didn’t usually cooperate well in groups larger than twenty or thirty. Yet there were a thousand here, at least, chewing away at his Jacks.

He unslung his bow while he looked. He expected to find a man in their midst. But irks sometimes made use of boglins. He wondered if he could even make out an irk at this range. He wondered for a moment if the irk he’d saved was, in fact, the lord of these monsters . . .

But the flash of white from across the stream told him that it was neither man nor irk that he faced, but one of the Priests, the rare royal caste of the boglins, with their red, black and white chitonous armour, their elongated bodies and heads that made them look, to Redmede, like vicious hornets. He watched the creature as it used two human-made swords to chop a man down. A wight.

Two hundred and twenty yards away. Some wind; the air was moist, and his bow was cold. The string was dry enough. He sheathed his sword and ran his hand almost absently up his bowstring, pulled a light arrow out of his quiver, and put three more into his belt.

Then he took a lump of maple sugar from his belt-purse and ate it. Two more of his men died – their screams went on and on while he ate but he needed the surge of energy. He couldn’t afford to fail. The temptation to do something was so powerful that he could scarcely think – his body was full of the spirit of combat, and he wanted to fight.

He had a long pull of water, and corked his canteen, put the light arrow on his bowstring, and without further thought, he pulled – back leg slightly bent, his shoulders all the way into the pull – the arrowhead came up, past the target, and when his sense of the shot told him to release his fingers flew off the string almost as smoothly as the arrow leaped away in the opposite direction.

He didn’t watch the fall of his first shaft, but loosed all four he’d had ready, one after another.

His third shaft struck the Priest squarely, but the range was so long and the arrow so light that his arrow didn’t penetrate deeply enough. The fourth arrow struck one of its sword arms and went through it.

It fell back out of the tide of melee and began to search for him.

They don’t have to talk. They communicate by magic. Or scent. Or something.

He pulled four more arrows out of his quiver. He felt strong, he had the range now, and he took out his heavy war arrows; what King’s men called ‘quarter pounders’. He planted three of them in the ground, and drew his bow all the way to his ear so that his back muscles strained.

He loosed – nocked, drew, and loosed, with a grunt, like a man lifting weights; and again, and finally, with his last arrow, he all but cried aloud his release was so poor.

He had time to say ‘Too fucking tired’ as he watched the fall of his shafts.

To reach two hundred yards with a war arrow required a big bow – Redmede’s was more than six feet long. And he had to pull it to the ear, and aim it almost fifty degrees from the ground, rendering the concept of ‘aiming’ impossible. The archer can’t even see the target under his arrow.

His first arrow landed at the edge of the stream, forty yards short of the target, but dead in line.

The second shaft flew true, and for a heart-stopping moment Redmede thought he’d hit the thing, but it sprang, not into the air as he hoped, but forward, and came towards the stream. The third arrow went long and to the right as the wight sprinted for the stream bank. And the fourth arrow pulled to the right, and fish-tailed, losing energy. The boglin chief changed direction to leap onto a great rock – raised its wing cases-

What does that mean? Christ – he’s casting!

– and blue-white fire played along them.

His badly released arrow plummeted from the heavens like a stooping raptor. The wight stepped directly into it, and the shaft went into his extended wing case – penetrated the chitonous armour and ripped the monster’s wing clean off.

Even two hundred yards away, Redmede saw the spurt of ichor as it took the wound. It stumbled and fell into the water.

A panicked Jack, Bill Alan, pinned it to the stream bed with his sword. He chopped and chopped at it, and the stream turned a green-brown around him as he cut. It landed a blow on him – he stumbled back, lost his footing, and fell. By then Redmede was running for the stream’s bank and fitting another heavy arrow to his string. He had three left.

Alan got a hand under him and got to his feet, his arming sword still clutched in his fist. The wight came at him, rising heavily out of the water, still spraying ichor. It hacked through the man’s guard, notching his sword and his over-cut opened Alan’s cheek. But the panic had passed, and Alan cut back and his luck held – he landed a hard blow on the wight’s arm. It stumbled and vanished beneath the water.

Every boglin on the bank was launching itself into the water and coming across.

It knows who I am, Redmede thought. They’re coming for me.

He ran along the bank, skipping from rock to rock like a small boy, paused and balanced on a pair of huge boulders.

The wight errupted from the water at Alan’s feet. His sword swept up-

Redmede loosed. It was less than sixty yards, and his arrow went into the soft, mammalian skin under the thing’s armpit, and the thing unmade. It literally fell apart. Alan’s desperate parry caught nothing; the wight was falling to pieces and the stream was already sweeping him away.

The bond that held the boglins to one another dissipated with the wight’s power – Redmede watched them fall apart as well. Instead of a mass of creatures expressing a single will, they became, in three heartbeats, hundreds of individual creatures more afraid of his Jacks then determined to conquer. In the time it took a man to say a prayer they were gone.

Redmede wished he could vanish as well. He couldn’t tell how bad his losses were, but they were bad enough. His men were alone in the vast Wild; exhausted, panicked, and beaten. And darkness was falling.

He sounded his great horn, gathering the survivors. Many had scattered at the first attack; Nat Tyler had held all the men and women left on the near bank and refused to let them cross, which Redmede thought a wise decision, and on the far bank Bess had crossed with Cat and Cal in the vanguard with the veterans – men and women with good swords and bows. They had held their own – indeed, they had killed quite a few boglins.

But in the centre they had lost forty men and two women. There wasn’t much of them left to bury.

Any man wounded had died, save six, and Tyler, Bess, and Redmede spent the night on them, using scraps of fabric from the dead as bandages while Tyler organised watches to resist another attack. Then he came back and squatted by a fire with Redmede.

‘That was bad,’ Tyler said. ‘We won’t last another fight like that.’

Redmede sat and stared at the fire. As long as there had been something to do, he hadn’t had to think. But now . . .

‘It’s all my fucking fault,’ Redmede said. He slumped down, head on his pulled-up knees. ‘We should ha’ gone south, to Jarsay.’

Tyler was silent and Redmede knew the other man agreed – they should have gone south.

‘Don’t you believe it, Bill Redmede!’ Bess emerged from the darkness, found the water bucket by feel, and began to wash her bloody hands. ‘Jarsay would ha’ been death for all o’ us. The nobles would be huntin’ us for sport. The Wild’s better. It’s just cold.’ She smiled, collected the hot water and went back to tending her wounded.

Tyler watched her with hungry eyes. ‘Even when she’s dead beat and hasn’t bathed in ten days, she’s a beauty,’ he said.

Redmede shrugged. Bess was a good companion and probably a better leader than he was. He didn’t see the rest of her. He didn’t allow himself to see the rest of her.

‘Think she’d go for an old fuck like me?’ Tyler asked.

Redmede couldn’t even think of such things. ‘I have to talk to the irk we picked up. We need a friend out here.’

Tyler grinned. ‘I’ll just go help Bess, then, won’t I?’

Redmede took some time boiling water in his own small copper pot. A rout like today’s had a thousand small impacts. One was that most men had abandoned any camp equipment they’d had – and pots were as precious as arrows in the Wild. Redmede had saved his – for all he knew, it was the last metal pot west of Lissen Carrak. He groaned, and waited for the water to boil. It was frustrating – they had no tapers, no rush lights, and no oil lamps, so that the darkness above the fire was absolute, and he couldn’t see down into his little copper pot to see if the water was boiling. Finally he detected it by feel, through a twig. He added some sassafras – last season’s – and the last of the honey. He was making a princely offering because it was all he had to give, and he needed the irk to like him.

Redmede took tea to the irk, who raised the horn cup in acknowledgement.

‘Can you talk?’ Redmede asked.

The creature sighed. ‘Yiss,’ it said.

‘What’s your name, then?’ he asked.

‘Tapio Haltija,’ it sang. ‘I am lord of these woods, little man.’

Redmede spat. ‘I have no time for lords,’ he said. But his heart rose a little.

The irk stiffened, but then looked away. ‘Half a thousand yearsss I haf lorded these woodssss. But I am not ssso ungentle asss to be ungrateful. Even to a ssservant of Thorn’sss.’ He nodded. ‘And your name? ’

Redmede shook his head. ‘I am no servant, least of all to that bastard. He left us high and dry.’ He looked away. He was too tired for this. ‘Bill Redmede,’ he said.

‘Ahhh, man, your ssspeech isss ever more pleassssing. Fair Friend, let me hosst you and your men. I mean you no harm – and few men hasss ever heard sssuch an offer of me before.’ He smiled, and his fangs glittered wetly in the dark.

Bill Redmede knew too little about irks. His brother liked them – that much he knew. His brother had feasted in their halls, and traded with the bolder ones in the woods. But this one was old, and very, very dangerous, or so his instinct told him. And he had just given the creature his name. That had been foolish.

‘My people are coming. I can feel them in the blood of the earth. I would esssteem it an essspecial favour if you would give me another cup of thisss tea. And my sword. I sssee you pressserved it.’

Redmede wished he could trust the creature, but he didn’t. ‘I bandaged your ankles,’ he said. ‘You can’t walk. I’ll return your sword soon enough.’

The irk smiled, which was horrific. ‘When you dine in my hall, man, you will ssssee that I need no treachery to dessstroy the likesss of you. If I wanted you, I would meet you ssssword to sssword. I am Tapio Haltija. I do not lie.’

Redmede found talking to the thing was tiring. He had trouble controlling his mind, his thoughts went tumbling off like the creature’s sibilant esses. He went and sat on his blankets after another check on the wounded, and Bess came and sat down beside him.

‘Just give my hand a squeeze,’ Bess said. ‘And tell me a pretty story, because I had the shit scared out of me today.’ She grinned. ‘And Nat Tyler is more scary than comforting. Ain’t he?’

‘The irk we just rescued is a figure out of legend, and he’s going to save us all,’ Redmede said. He took her hand and squeezed it, happy to be able to give her good news. It was no different to giving Nat’s hand a squeeze when the man was sick. But the hand was cold, and he found he was holding onto it. Bess pressed up against him. There was nothing erotic in her approach. She was cold.

‘A famous irk?’ Bess managed a weak laugh. ‘Who is he – Tapio Haltija?’ she snorted derisively.

‘That’s what he says,’ Redmede answered.

She sat up. ‘That ugly monster claims he’s the Fairy Knight?’ she said. ‘I dreamed of him as a girl. He rides a unicorn and carries a lance of solid gold.’

‘Right now he’s been hamstrung by boggles and he can’t get a cup of tea,’ Redmede said.

‘Can’t be,’ Bess said. But her voice was calmer – happier. ‘But that’s a good story, Bill. You done good these last days. If’n we die. Well, hell, we stood on our feet today, din’t we?’

Redmede rolled a little so that his shoulder pinned hers. ‘Listen, Bess. I swear to you that we are not beaten; we’re going to get through this. I’m going to kill the fucking King, and men are going to be free.’

He had the most unlikely amorous urge towards her. He never thought of Bess as a woman – and now, suddenly, she smelled like a woman, and felt like a woman. I’m exhausted, he thought.

‘And women,’ she said. She turned, and he caught a little of the look in her eyes from the firelight and the background light. That look wasn’t sisterly, and so he had a moment’s warning when she wriggled and put her mouth on his.

Her mouth was salty and strong, like she was herself.

‘Oh, Bess,’ he said, because he wanted to tell her that he was the commander, and he had to be an example. And because his body was so sore – he could fall asleep in a few heartbeats . . .

. . . only his hands had other ideas – one swept under her back, and pressed against her spine, and the other found her stomach, as hard as his own. She caught his hand and carried it away – and he found it on a breast.

All thoughts of sleep fell away from him.

Nat Tyler stood a few yards away, and his hand clenched on his dagger.

‘So,’ he said.

Tapio Haltija sighed and let go the gentle bonding he had cast.

Men were so easy. And their females, as well. So many rules, so many customs – so eager to leave them all behind. Ultimately, they were creatures of the Wild. No different from stags, or beavers.

He called to his sword, and it came.

He set a healing on his feet and ankles. Only his foolish arrogance had allowed the poor boglins to get him. It was deeply ironic that these men had rescued him. The boglins should have bowed to him, and had not – and that was Thorn’s doing.

His hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. It sang to him.

I could kill them all, he thought.

He leaned back, listening to the earth’s blood. Listening to the two animals make love. It was many years since he had been among men. Outwallers had a different taste. They embraced the Wild. Nature. These were still servants of other ways.

I can kill them whenever I like, he thought. Perhaps I’ll keep them as pets. Or as hunting dogs.

He reached out along the lines of the earth’s blood, and called for his knights.