The Red Knight

Chapter Four

The Captain The Abbess

South of Lorica – Ser Gawin

Gawin Murien of Strathnith, known to his peers as Hard Hands, rode north along the Albin River in his armour, a knight bent upon errantry. And the further north he rode, the deeper his anger grew. Adam, the elder of his two squires, whistled, bowed from his saddle to every passing woman, and looked at the world with whole-hearted approval. He was not sorry to be leaving the court of Harndon. Far from it. Far from the great hall, far from the rounds of dancing and cards and hunts and flirtation, squires lived in barracks under the absolute domination of the oldest and toughest. Younger men got little food and much work, and no chance of glory. Adam was the squire of a named and belted knight, and on errantry, he expected to have a chance to win his own place in song. At Harndon, all he got was black eyes and bad food.

Toma, the younger squire, rode with his head down. Adam could make nothing of him, beyond his mumbled answers and his clumsy work. He seemed young for his age and deeper in misery than a boy should be.

Gawin wanted to do something for him, but he was having a hard time seeing through his own anger.

It wasn’t fair.

The words were meaningless. His oaf of a father had beaten any notion of fairness from him from birth. Gawin knew that the world gave you nothing but struggle. That you had to make your own luck. And a thousand more such aphorisms all with the same general message, but, by God and all the saints, Gawin had done his time, faced his monster and killed the literally damned thing in single combat with his gauntlets after his sword broke. He remembered it vividly, just as he remembered going to fight the damned thing out of sheer guilt.

I killed my brother.

It still made him sick.

He didn’t want to have to face the foe again, not for all the pretty ladies in court and not for all the lands he stood to inherit. He was no coward. He’d done it. In front of his father and fifty other men. There probably weren’t fifty knights in all Alba – from one end of the Demesne to the other – who had bested a daemon in single combat. He certainly hadn’t wanted to.

But he had. And that should have been that.

But of course, the king hated him, as he hated all his brothers, hated his mother, loathed his father.

Fuck the king. I’ll ride home to Pater.

Strathnith was one of the greatest fortresses in the Demesne. It was a citadel of the Wall, and the Muriens had held it for generations. The Nith was a mighty river – almost an inland sea – that defined the ultimate border between the Demesne and the Wild. His father ruled the fortress and the thousands of men and women who paid their taxes and depended on it for protection. He thought about the great hall; the ancient rooms, some built by the Archaics. The sounds of the Wild carrying across the broad river.

The constant bickering, the drunken accusations. The family fighting.

‘Good Christ, I might as well go find a cursed monster and kill it,’ he said aloud. Going home meant returning to a life of constant warfare – in the field against the daemons, and in the hall against his father. And his brothers.

I killed my brother.

‘They can have it,’ he said.

He’d been sent south, the young hero, to win a bride at court. To raise the family in the estimation of the king.

Another of his father’s brilliant plans.

He had fallen in love, but not with a woman. Rather, he’d fallen in love with women. And the court. Music. Card games. Dice. Good wine and wit. Dancing.

Strathnith wasn’t going to offer any of those things. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it. In retrospect, maybe his loathsome brother had a point.

His mother-

He banished the thought.

‘Lorica, m’lord,’ Adam sang out. ‘Shall I find us an inn?’

The idea of an inn helped douse his moment of self-doubt. Inns – good ones – were like miniature courts. A little rougher, a little more home-spun. Gawin smiled.

‘The best one,’ he said.

Adam grinned, touched his spurs to his horse, and rode off into the setting sun. Drink. And maybe a girl. He thought fleetingly of Lady Mary, who so obviously loved him. A beautiful body, and, he had to admit, a fine wit. And the daughter of the Count. She was a fine catch.

He shrugged.

The sign of the Two Lions was an old inn built on the foundation of an Archaic cavalry barracks, and it looked like a fortress; it had its own curtain wall, separate from Lorica’s town wall, and it had a tower in the north-east corner where any soldier could see the original gate had been. Built against the tower was a massive building of white plaster and heavy black beams, with a hipped thatch roof with expensive copper sheathing around the chimneys; glass windows opened onto the porches that ran all along the front and sunlit side, and four massive chimneys, all new masonry, rose out of the roof.

It was like a piece of the Palace of Harndon brought into the countryside. Lorica was an important town, and the Two Lions was an important inn.

Adam appeared to hold his horse. ‘A king’s knight is very welcome here,’ he said through his grin. Adam liked to serve a great man – it rubbed off. Especially forty leagues north of the city.

A prosperous man, razor thin, wearing a fine woollen hood lined in silk and edged with silver crosses and a fur band, swept off the last and bowed to the ground. ‘Edard Blodget, m’lord. At your service. I won’t call my inn humble – it’s the best inn on the Highway. But I do like to see the king’s knights.’

Gawin was startled to see a commoner so well dressed and so frankly spoken – startled, but not displeased. He returned the bow, all the way to the ground. ‘Ser Gawin Murien,’ he said. ‘Knighthood doesn’t necessarily make a man rich, Master Blodget. May I enquire – ?’

Master Blodget gave a tight lipped smile. ‘Your own room for a silver leopard. Share with your squires for two cats more.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I can make it cheaper, m’lord, but it will be in a common room.’

Gawin mentally reviewed his purse. He had a good memory, well-trained, and so he could almost literally see the contents – four silver leopards and a dozen heavy copper cats. And gleaming among them, a pair of rose nobles, solid gold, worth twenty leopards apiece. Not a fortune, by any means, but enough that he needn’t stint on his first night on the road, or on the second.

‘Adam will take care of it, then. I would prefer we were all in a room. With a window, if that’s not too much to ask?’

‘Clean linen, window, well-water, and stabling for three horses. The pack horse will cost another half a cat.’ Blodget shrugged, as if such petty amounts were beneath him, which they probably were. The Two Lions was at least a third of the size of the massive fortress of Strathnith, and was probably worth – Gawin tried to do the mathematics in his head – wished for his tutor – and finally arrived at a figure that had to be recklessly wrong.

‘I’m flattered you came to greet me in person,’ Gawin said with another bow.

Blodget grinned from ear to ear.

Another thing I learned at court – men like to be flattered just as much as ladies, Gawin thought.

‘I have a group of singers tonight, m’lord – on their way to court, or so they hope. Will you join us for dinner in the common room? It ain’t a great hall – but it’s not bad. And we’d be honoured to have you sit with us.’

Of course, I’m as fond of flattery as the next man.

‘We will join you for dinner and music,’ he said with a slight bow.

‘Evensong at Saint Eustachios. You’ll hear the bell,’ the innkeeper said. ‘Dinner follows the service directly.’

Harndon City – Edward

Master Pyle appeared in the yard after evensong and asked for a volunteer.

Edward had a girl, but she worked, too. She would have to understand, because a chance to work with the master was every apprentice’s dream.

The master mixed the powder differently this time. Edward didn’t see how. But he moved a heavy iron pitch-bowl for repousse work into the yard, and cleared a lot of old rubbish – bits of ruined projects and soft wood for making temporary moulds and hordles – out of the way, in case they should catch fire. It wasn’t skilled work, but he was still working for the master.

The smoke was thicker this time, and the flame burned whiter.

Master Pyle looked at it, fanning his face to get the evil smelling smoke to clear. He had a bit of a smile.

‘Well,’ he said. He looked at Edward. ‘Are you ready for your examination, young man?’

Edward took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said. And hoped that didn’t sound too cocky.

But Master Pyle nodded. ‘I agree.’ He looked around the yard. ‘Clear all this up, will you?’

That night in the loft, the apprentices whispered. The older boys knew when the master was making progress. They could tell just be the way he held his head. And because rewards suddenly emerged from the master’s purse, and boys got new work, and apprentices were suddenly tested to be journeymen. Lise, the eldest female cutler, had gone to the masters the week before. She’d passed.

And so Edward Chevins, senior apprentice and sometime shop boy, found himself up for journeyman. It was so sudden it made his head spin, and before the next morning was old enough to drink his beer, the Guild Hall had checked his papers, the Guild Masters examined him, his nerves were wracked, his hands shook – and he was left to sweat, alone, in a richly decorated room fit to entertain a king. It was plenty to overawe a seventeen-year-old blade smith.

Edward was a tall, gangly young man with sandy red hair and too many freckles. Standing under the stained glass of Saint Nicholas, he could think of twenty better answers he might have given to the question: ‘How do you achieve a bright, constant blue on a blade with a heavy forte and a needle point?’

He groaned. The other four boys who’d been tested with him looked at him with a mixture of sympathy and hope. It was too easy to believe that someone else’s failure raised one’s own hopes of success.

An hour later, the masters came into the hall. They all looked a little red in the face, as if they’d been drinking.

Master Pyle came and put a ring on his finger – a ring of fine steel. ‘You’re made, boy,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

Lorica – Ser Gawin

Gawin was awakened from his nap by the sound of men shouting in the courtyard. Angry voices have a timbre to them – especially when men mean violence.

Adam was at his bed. He had a heavy knife in his hand. ‘I don’t know who they are, m’lord. Men from overseas. Knights. But-’ Squires didn’t speak ill of knights. It was never a good idea. So Adam shrugged.

Gawin rolled off his bed, wearing only his braes. He pulled a shirt over his head, and with Thoma’s help got his legs into his hose and his torso laced into his pourpoint and his hose tied on.

Down in the courtyard one voice sounded clear above the others. Accented, but powerful controlled, elegant. The words ended with a long, clear laugh that sounded like bells.

Gawin went to his window and threw it open.

There were a dozen armoured men in the courtyard. At least three were true knights, and wore armour as good as Gawin’s own. Their men-at-arms were nearly as well armoured. It was possible they were all knights.

They all wore the same badge – a rose, gules, on a field d’or.

Not anyone he knew.

The leader with the magnificent laugh had silver-gilt hair and fine features – in armour, he looked like a statue of Saint George. He was beautiful.

Gawin felt ill-dressed and somewhat doltish in comparison.

Master Blodget stood in front of this saint with his hands on his hips.

‘But,’ the knight had a smile on his face, ‘But that is the room I want, Master Innkeeper!’

Blodget shook his head. ‘There’s a gentleman in that room – a belted king’s knight, in that room. First come, first served, m’lord. Fair is fair.’

The knight shook his head. ‘Throw him out, then.’

Toma had his master’s doublet and helped him into it. While Adam did the laces, Toma fetched his riding sword.

‘Follow me,’ Gawin snapped at the scared boy, and sprang down the stairs. He went through the common room – empty, because every man in the inn was in the courtyard watching the fun.

He stepped through the door and the knight turned to look at him. He smiled.

‘Perhaps I don’t wish to leave my room,’ Gawin called. He hated that his voice wavered. There was nothing to fear, here – just a misunderstanding, but the kind wherein a knight had to make a good show.

‘You?’ he asked. His tone of disbelief wasn’t mocking – it was genuine. ‘You are a king’s knight? Ah – Gaston, they need us here!’

Closer up, the men in the courtyard were huge. The smallest of them was a head taller than Gawin, and he was not a small man.

‘I have that honour,’ Gawin said. He tried to find something wittier to say, but he was more interested in defusing the tension than in scoring points.

The one called Gaston laughed. The rest laughed too.

The beautiful knight leaned down from his saddle. ‘Have your man clear your things from that corner room,’ he said. And then, in a particularly annoying tone, he added, ‘I would esteem it a favour.’

Gawin found that he was angry.

‘No,’ he said.

‘That was ill-said, and not courteous,’ the knight answered him with a frown. ‘I shall have it. Why make this difficult? If you are a man of honour then you may cede it to me with a good grace, knowing I am a better man than you.’ He shrugged. ‘Or fight me. That would be honour too.’ He nodded to himself. ‘But to stand here and tell me I can’t have it; that makes me angry.’

Gawin spat. ‘Then let us fight, ser knight. Give me your name and style, and I will name the weapons and the place. The king has announced a tournament in a two months, perhaps-’ Even as he spoke, the man was dismounting.

He gave his reins to Gaston and turned, drawing his sword – a four-foot long war sword. ‘Then fight.’

Gawin squeaked. He wasn’t proud of the squeak, but he was unarmoured and had only his riding sword – a good blade, but a single handed weapon whose only real purpose was to mark your status in life and keep riff-raff at arm’s length.

‘Garde!’ the man called.

Gawin reached out and drew his sword from the scabbard Toma held, and brought it up in a counter cut that just stopped his opponent’s first heavy overhand blow. Gawin had time to bless his superb Master at Arms – and then the giant cut at him again and he slipped to the side, allowing the heavier sword to slide off his own like rain off a roof.

The bigger man stepped in as quick as a cat and struck him in the face with one gauntleted hand, knocking him to the ground. Only a turn of his head saved him from spitting teeth. But he was a knight of the king – he rolled with the impact, spat blood, and came to his feet with a hard cut at his opponent’s groin.

A single-handed sword has advantages in a fight with a heavier sword. It is quicker, even if the wielder is smaller.

Gawin funnelled his anger into his sword and cut – three times, on three different lines, trying to awe the giant with a flurry of blows. The sword rang off the mirrored finish of his opponent’s armoured wrist on the third cut. It was a fight ending blow.

If his opponent wasn’t covered in steel.

The giant attacked, drove him back two steps, and then Toma screamed. The boy had been unprepared for a fight and stood frozen, but now tried to turn and run he’d became entangled with his master’s defensive flurry. Gawin almost fell, and the bigger man’s long sword licked out, caught his, and drove his thrust deep into Toma.

He kicked Gawin in the groin when he turned to look at Toma, whose head was cut nearly in half by the blade. Gawin fell, retching with the pain, and the big knight showed no mercy; knelt on his back, and pushed his nose into the mud in the courtyard. He stripped the sword from Gawin’s hand.

‘Yield,’ he said.

Northerners were reputedly stubborn and vengeful. Gawin, in that moment, swore to kill this man, whomever he might be, if it cost him his life and his honour to do it.

‘Fuck yourself,’ he said through the mud and blood in his mouth.

The man laughed. ‘By the law of arms, you are my prisoner, and I will take you to your king to show him how very much he needs me.’

‘Coward!’ Gawin roared. Even as part of his mind suggested that slumping in pretended swoon might be the wiser course.

A gauntleted hand rolled him over and pulled him up. ‘Get your things out of my room,’ he said. ‘I will pretend I did not hear you say such a thing to me.’

Gawin spat blood. ‘If you think you can take me to the king and not be bound for murder-’

The blond man sniffed. ‘You killed your own squire,’ he said. He allowed himself just the slightest smile at the words and, for the first time, Gawin was afraid of him. ‘And calling a man who has bested you in a test of arms “coward” is poor manners.’

Gawin wanted to speak like a hero, but rage, sorrow, fear, and pain spat his words out ‘You killed Toma! You are no knight! Attacking an unarmoured man? With a war sword? In an inn?’

The other man frowned. He leaned close.

‘I should strip you and have you raped by the grooms. How dare you call me – me! – an unfit knight? Little man, I am Jean de Vrailly, I am the greatest knight in the world, and the only law I recognise is the law of Chivalry. Yield to me, or I will slay you where you stand.’

Gawin looked into that beautiful face – unmarred by anger, rage, or any other emotion – and he wanted to spit in it. His father would have.

I want to live.

‘I yield,’ he said, and hated himself.

‘All these Alban knights are worthless,’ de Vrailly laughed. ‘We will rule here.’

And then they all dismounted, leaving Gawin alone in the courtyard with the body of his squire. The boy was quite dead.

I killed him, Gawin thought. Sweet Christ.

But it wasn’t over yet, because Adam was a brave man, and he died one in the doorway of their corner room.

One of the foreigners threw all his kit through the window after he heard his squire die. They laughed.

Gawin knelt on the stones by Toma and, after an hour, when the bells rang for evensong, the innkeeper came to him.

‘I’ve sent for the sheriff and the lord,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, m’lord.’

Gawin couldn’t think of anything to say.

I killed my brother.

I killed Toma.

I have been defeated and yielded.

I should have died.

Why had he yielded? Death would have been better than this. Even the innkeeper pitied him.

Lorica – de Vrailly

Gaston was wiping the blood from his blade, fastidiously examining the last four inches where he’d hacked repeatedly into the young squire’s guard, battering his defences until he was overwhelmed and then dead. His blade had taken some damage in the process and would need a good cutler to restore the edge.

De Vrailly drank wine from a silver cup while his squires removed his armour.

‘He cut you, the man in the courtyard,’ Gaston said, looking up from his task. ‘Don’t try to hide it. He cut you.’

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘He was swinging wildly. It is nothing.’

‘He got through your guard.’ Gaston sniffed. ‘They aren’t really so bad, these Albans. Perhaps we will have some real fights.’ He looked at his cousin. ‘He hit you hard,’ he pointed out, because de Vrailly was rubbing his wrist for the third time in as many minutes.

‘Bah! They have little skill at arms.’ De Vrailly drank more wine. ‘All they do is make war on the Wild. They have forgotten how to fight other men.’ He shrugged. ‘I will change that, and make them better at defeating the Wild as I do. I will make them harder, better men.’ He nodded to himself.

‘Your angel has said this?’ Gaston asked, with obvious interest. His cousin’s encounter with an angel had benefited the whole family, but it was still a matter that puzzled him.

‘My angel has commanded it. I am but heaven’s tool, cousin.’ De Vrailly said it without the least irony.

Gaston took a deep breath, looking for his great cousin to show a little humour, and found none. ‘You called yourself the best knight in the world,’ he said, trying to raise a smile.

De Vrailly shrugged as Johan, his older squire, unlaced his left rerebrace and began to remove the arm harness over the wound on his wrist. ‘I am the greatest knight in the world,’ he said. ‘My angel chose me because I am the first lance in the East. I have won six battles; I have fought in twelve passages of arms and never been wounded; I have killed men in every list in which I’ve fought; in the melee at Tours-’

Gaston rolled his eyes. ‘Very well, you are the best knight in the world. Now tell me why we’ve come to Alba, besides bullying the locals.’

‘Their king will proclaim a tournament,’ de Vrailly said. ‘I will win it, and emerge as the King’s Champion.’ He nodded, ‘and then I will be the king, to all intents and purposes.’

‘The angel has said this?’ Gaston asked.

‘You question my angel, cousin?’ De Vrailly frowned.

Gaston rose and sheathed his sword. ‘No, I merely choose not to believe everything I’m told – by you or any other man.’

De Vrailly’s beautiful eyes narrowed. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

Gaston smiled a crooked smile. ‘If we continue like this we will fight. And while you may be the best knight in the world, I believe I have bloodied your knuckles more than once – eh?’

Their eyes crossed, and Gaston saw the glitter in de Vrailly’s. Gaston held his gaze. Few men could do it. Gaston had the benefit of a lifetime of practice.

De Vrailly shrugged. ‘You couldn’t have asked this before we left home?’ he asked.

Gaston wrinkled his nose. ‘When you say fight, I fight. Yes? You say: gather your knights, we go to conquer Alba. I say: lovely, we shall all be rich and powerful. Yes?’

‘Yes!’ de Vrailly said, through his smile.

‘But when you tell me that an Angel of God is giving you very specific military and political advice-’ Gaston shrugged.

‘We are to meet the Earl of Towbray in the morning. He will engage us in his mesne. He desires what my angel desires.’ For the first time, de Vrailly seemed to hesitate.

He pounced. ‘Cousin – what does your angel desire?’

De Vrailly drank more wine, put the cup down on the sideboard, and shrugged out of his right arm harness as his younger squire opened the vambrace. ‘Who can know what an angel desires?’ he said quietly. ‘But the Wild here must be destroyed. That’s what the king’s father intended. You know they burned swathes of the wood between the towns to do it? They waited for windy days and set fires. The old king’s knights fought four great battles against the Wild – and what I would give to have been part of that. The creatures of the Wild came forth to do battle – great armies of them!’ His eyes shone.

Gaston raised an eyebrow.

‘The old king was victorious in the main, but eventually, he sent to the East for more knights. His losses were fearsome.’ De Vrailly looked as if he could see it happening. ‘His son – now the king – has fought well to hold what his father gained, but he takes no new land from the Wild. My angel will change that. We will throw the Wild back beyond the wall. I have seen it.’

Gaston released a long-held breath. ‘Cousin, just how fearsome were these losses?’

‘Oh, heavy, I suppose. At the Battle of Chevin, King Hawthor is said to have lost fifty thousand men.’ De Vrailly shrugged.

Gaston shook his head. ‘Numbers that large make my head ache. That’s the population of a large city. Have they replaced their losses?’

‘By the good Saviour, no! If they had, do you think we could challenge for the rulership of this land with three hundred lances?’

Gaston spat. ‘Good Christ-’

‘Do not blaspheme!’

‘Your angel wants us to take this realm with three hundred lances so that he can launch a war against the Wild?’ Gaston stepped close to his cousin. ‘Should I slap you to wake you up?’

De Vrailly rose to his feet. With a gesture, he dismissed his squires. ‘It is not seemly that you question me on these matters, cousin. It is enough that you summoned your knights and now you follow me. Obey me. That is all you need to know.’

Gaston made a face like a man who has discovered a bad smell. ‘I have always followed you,’ he said.

De Vrailly nodded his head.

‘I have also saved you from a number of mistakes,’ Gaston added.

‘Gaston,’ de Vrailly’s voice suddenly softened. ‘Let us not disagree. I am advised by heaven. Do not be jealous!’

‘Then I should like to meet your angel,’ Gaston said.

De Vrailly narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘perhaps my angel is only for me. After all – I alone am the greatest knight.’

Gaston sighed and moved to the window where he looked down at the lone figure kneeling on the smooth stones of the courtyard. The bodies had been taken, laid out and wrapped in linen ready for burial, but still the Alban knight knelt in the courtyard.

‘What do you plan to do with that man?’ Gaston asked.

‘Take him to court to prove my prowess. Then I’ll ransom him.’

Gaston nodded. ‘We should offer him a cup of wine.’

De Vrailly shook his head. ‘He does penance for his weakness – for the sin of pride, in daring to face me, and for his failure as a man-at-arms. He should kneel there in shame for the rest of his life.’

Gaston looked at his cousin, his face half turned away. He fingered his short beard. Whatever he might have said was interrupted by a knock on the door. Johan put his head in.

‘An officer of the town, monsieur. To see you.’

‘Send him away.’

After a pause in which Gaston poured himself wine, Johan reappeared. ‘He says he must insist. He is not a knight. Merely a well-born man. He is not in armour. He says he is the sheriff.’

‘So? Send him away.’

Gaston put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘Their sheriff’s are king’s officers, are they not? Ask him what he wants.’

Johan could be heard speaking, and then shouting, and then the door slammed open. Gaston drew his sword, as did de Vrailly. Their gentlemen poured in from adjoining rooms, some still fully armed.

‘You are Jean de Vrailly?’ asked the newcomer, who didn’t seem to care that he was surrounded by armed foreigners who topped him by a head or more. He was in doublet and hose, with high boots and a long sword belted at his waist. He was fiftyish and running to fat, and only the fur on his hood, his bearing and the sword at his hip suggested he was a man of any consequence. But he glowered.

‘I am,’ de Vrailly answered.

‘I arrest you in the name of the king for the murder of-’

The sheriff was knocked unconscious with a single blow from Raymond St David, who let the body fall to the floor. ‘Bah,’ he said.

‘They are soft,’ de Vrailly said. ‘Did he bring men-at-arms?’

‘Not one,’ Raymond said. He grinned. ‘He came alone!’

‘What kind of a country is this?’ Gaston asked. ‘Are they all insane?’

In the morning, Gaston’s retainers collected the dull-eyed Alban knight from the courtyard and packed him onto a cart with his armour; his horses were tethered behind. He tried to engage the Alban in conversation and was repelled by the man’s look of hatred.

‘Destriers,’ his cousin commanded. There was a lot of grumbling at the order – no knight liked to ride his war horse when the occasion didn’t demand it. A good war horse, fully trained, was worth the value of several suits of armour – and a single pulled muscle, a strain, a cut, or a bad shoe was an expensive injury.

‘We must impress the earl.’

De Vrailly’s household knights formed up in the inn’s great courtyard while the lesser men-at-arms prepared in the field outside the town. They had almost a thousand spears, as well as three hundred lances. Gaston had already been out the gate, seen to the lesser men, and was back.

The innkeeper – a surly, sharp faced fellow – came out and spoke to the Alban knight on the cart.

De Vrailly grinned at him, and Gaston knew there would be trouble.

‘You!’ de Vrailly shouted. His clear voice rang across the courtyard. ‘I take issue with your measure of hospitality, Ser Innkeeper! Your service was poor, the wine bad, and you attempted to interfere in a gentleman’s private matter. What have you to say for yourself?’

The rat-faced innkeeper put his hands on his hips. Gaston shook his head. He was actually going to discuss it with a knight.

‘I-!’ he began, and one of de Vrailly’s squires, already mounted, reached out and kicked him. The kick caught him in the side of the head and he fell without a sound.

The other squires laughed and looked to de Vrailly, who dropped a small purse on the unconscious man. ‘Here’s money, innkeeper.’ He laughed. ‘We will teach these people to behave like civilized people and not animals. Burn the inn!’

Before the last wagon of their small army had pulled out onto the road, a column of smoke was rising over the town of Lorica, and high into the sky.

An hour later, Gaston was at his cousin’s side when they met the Earl of Towbray and his retinue where the Lorica road crossed the North road. The man had fifty lances – a large force for Alba. The earl was fully armoured and wore his helmet. He sent a herald who invited The Captal de Vrailly and all those who attend him to ride forward and meet the earl under the shade of a large oak that grew alone at the crossroads.

Gaston smiled at the earl’s caution. ‘Here is a man who understands how the world works,’ he said.

‘He grew up among us,’ de Vrailly agreed. ‘Let us ride to meet him. He has six lances with him – we shall take the same.’

The earl raised his visor when they met. ‘Jean de Vrailly, Sieur de Ruth?’ he asked.

De Vrailly nodded. ‘You do not remember me,’ he said. ‘I was quite young when you toured the east. This is my cousin Gaston, Lord of Eu.’

Towbray clasped hands with each in turn, gauntleted hand to gauntleted hand. His knights watched them impassively, visors closed and weapons to hand.

‘Did you have trouble in Lorica?’ the earl asked, pointing at the column of smoke on the horizon.

De Vrailly shook his head. ‘No trouble,’ he said. ‘I taught some lessons that needed to be learned. These people have forgotten what a sword is, and forgotten the respect due to the men of the sword. A poor knight challenged me – I defeated him, of course. I will take him to Harndon and ransom him, after I display him to the king.’

‘We burned the inn,’ Gaston interrupted. He thought it had been a foolish piece of bravado, and he was finding his cousin tiresome.

The earl glared at de Vrailly. ‘Which inn?’ he asked.

De Vrailly glared back. ‘I do not like to be questioned in that tone, my lord.’

‘The sign of two lions. You know it?’ Gaston leaned past his cousin.

‘You burned the Two Lions?’ The earl demanded. ‘It has stood there forever. Its foundations are Archaic.’

‘And I imagine they are still there for some other peasant to build his sty upon.’ De Vrailly frowned. ‘They scurried like rats to put out the fire, and I did nothing to stop them. But I was offended. A lesson needed to be made.’

The earl shook his head. ‘You have brought so many men. I see three hundred knights – yes? In all of Alba there might be four thousand knights.’

‘You wanted a strong force. And you wanted me,’ de Vrailly said. ‘I am here. We have common cause – and I have your letter. You said to bring all the force I could muster. Here it is.’

‘I forget how rich the East is, my friend. Three hundred lances?’ The earl shook his head. ‘I can pay them, for now, but after the spring campaign we may have to come to another arrangement.’

De Vrailly looked at his cousin. ‘Indeed. Come spring we will have another arrangement.’

The earl was distracted by the cart in the middle of the column.

‘Good Christ,’ he said suddenly. ‘You don’t mean that Ser Gawin Murien is your prisoner? Are you insane?’

De Vrailly pulled his horse around so hard Gaston saw blood on the bit.

‘You will not speak to me that way, my lord!’ De Vrailly insisted.

The earl rode down the column, heedless of his men-at-arms’ struggle to stay with him. He rode up to the wagon.

Gaston watched his cousin carefully. ‘You will not kill this earl just because he annoys you,’ he said quietly.

‘He said I was insane,’ de Vrailly countered, mouth tight and eyes glittering. ‘We can destroy his fifty knights with a morning’s work.’

‘You will end with a kingdom of corpses,’ Gaston said. ‘If the old king really lost fifty thousand men in one battle a generation ago, this kingdom must be almost empty. You cannot kill everyone you dislike.’

The earl had the Alban knight out of the cart and on horseback before he rode back, his visor closed and locked and his knights formed closely behind him.

‘Messire,’ he said, ‘I have lived in the East, and I know how this misunderstanding has sprung up. But in Alba, messire, we do not keep to The Rule of War at all times. In fact, we have something we call the The Rule of Law. Ser Gawin is the son of one of the realm’s most powerful lords – a man who is my ally – and Ser Gawin acted as any Alban would. He was not required to be in his armour at that hour – not here, and not when taking his ease at an inn. He is not in a state of war with you, messire. By our law, you attacked him perfidiously and you can be called to law for it.’

De Vrailly made a face. ‘Then your law is something that excuses weakness and devalues strength. He chose to fight and was beaten. God spoke on the matter and no more need be said.’

The earl’s eyes were just visible inside his visor and Gaston had his hand on his sword; while the earl was speaking reasonably, his hand was on the pommel of an axe at his saddle bow. His knights all had the posture – the small leaning forward, the steadying hand on a horse’s neck – of men on the edge of violence. They were one step away from a disaster of blood. He could sense it.

‘You will apologise to him for the barbaric deaths of his squires, or our agreement is at an end.’ The earl’s voice was firm, and his hand was steady on his axe. ‘Listen to me, messire. You cannot take this man to court. The king has only to hear his story and you will be arrested.’

‘There are not enough men-at-arms in this country to take me,’ de Vrailly said.

The earl’s retainers drew their swords.

Gaston raised his empty, armoured hands and interposed his horse between the two men. ‘Gentlemen! There was a misunderstanding. Ever it has been so, when East meets West. My cousin was within his rights as a knight and a seigneur. And you say this Ser Gawin was also within his rights. Must we, who have come so far to serve you, my lord Earl – must we all pay for this misunderstanding? As it pleases God, we are all men of good understanding and good will. For my part, I will apologise to the young knight.’ Gaston glared at his cousin.

The beautiful face showed understanding. ‘Ah, very well,’ he said. ‘He is the son of your ally? Then I will apologise. Although, by the good God! He needs training in arms.’

Gawin Murien had recovered enough of his wits to pack his armour onto one horse and mount another. Then he followed the earl through the column, the way a child follows his mother.

The earl raised his visor. ‘Gawin!’ he called out. ‘Lad, the foreign knights – they come from different customs. The Lord de Vrailly will apologise to you.’

The Alban was seen to nod.

De Vrailly halted his horse well out of arm’s reach, while Gaston rode closer. ‘Ser Knight,’ he said, ‘for my part, I greatly regret the deaths of your squires.’

The Alban knight nodded again. ‘Very courteous of you,’ he said. His voice was flat.

‘And for mine,’ de Vrailly said, ‘I forgive your ransom, as the earl insists that by your law of arms, I may have encountered you unfairly.’ The last word was drawn from him as if by a fish hook.

Murien looked a less-than-heroic figure in his stained cote-hardie and his hose ruined by a night of kneeling in the courtyard. He didn’t glitter. In fact, he hadn’t even put his knight’s belt back on, and his sword still lay on the bed of the wagon.

He nodded again. ‘I hear you,’ he said.

He turned his horse, and rode away.

Gaston watched him go, and wondered if it would have been better for everyone if his cousin had killed him in the yard.