The Red Knight

Chapter Eleven

Michael the Squire

East of Albinkirk – Thorn

Thorn sat cross-legged beneath the tree that bore his name and watched the world.

He couldn’t pretend that he liked what he saw.

He had suffered a crushing defeat the day before – the little army that the sisterhood had hired, led by the dark sun that could extinguish itself – had combined with the last convoy coming upriver to crush his best mobile force.

Even now, he couldn’t reach any of his chieftains among the irks. Boglins were coming back across the river. But the losses had been staggering.

And he could feel the waves of sheer power that still rolled across the sea of trees from the fight. Someone almost as great as him had loosed powers that were better left unloosed. That power sang through the Wild like a clarion call. And Thorn knew the taste of that power.

I should have been there, he thought. His stone mouth creased in a near smile. My great apprentice, free from his tower and loose on the world at last. He flexed the reins of his spell of ensorcellment, but the reins hung slack, severed at the far end, and he reeled them in. I wonder how the boy worked it out? He thought. But he didn’t waste much thought on it. His apprentice had tricked him once and would never, ever best him again.

But his rebellious apprenctice wasn’t the only problem. Someone had killed three of the dhags which men called trolls, the great cave giants armoured in stone of the high mountains. He had only bound a dozen to serve him, and now three were slain.

And perhaps the worst blow of all was the Sossag’s defection. Their chiefs had deserted him, and gone east to fight their own battle. Had they been present with his force, none of this would ever have happened.

Thorn wheeled his starlings and doves in the sky, and looked down from their eyes, and knew that he had been misled by the powers in the old fortress. The assault of the birds of prey had pushed his little helpers away. And he had been blind. For one scant hour.

But in his hand was a precious jewel. His friend had, at last, sent him word. Detailed word.

Despite the defeat, he now had the true measure of his enemy, and his enemy was not as strong as Thorn had feared. He didn’t like the taste of their power, but he didn’t need to fear their soldiers. They were too few.

Thorn had not risen to power by ignoring the causes of defeat. He didn’t accept false pride. He acknowledged that he had been fooled, and beaten, and immediately altered his plans.

First, the Sossag had won a victory that would serve his ends – and they were badly hurt and their leaders looked fools. This was the time to force them back to their allegiance to him. He needed them, and their ruthless human cleverness – so very different, and so much more cunning than the irks and bogglins.

He needed to consult with his allies among the Qwethnethog daemons, and he needed to convince them, with a show of force, that he was still the master of these woods. Lest they slip away too.

He savoured the irony. He was attacking the Rock for them, and yet they threatened to defect.

He sighed, because all these petty inter-plays of emotion and interest resembled the very politics that had driven him away from other men, when he was a man. The Wild had been his escape and now proved the same.

It was foolish that he needed a victory to convince the unwilling when he could take the lives of most of his allies merely by reaching into the essence of their Wildness and pulling-

He remembered one of his students admonishing him that you could not convince men by killing them, and he smiled at the memory. The boy had been both right and wrong. Thorn had never been very interested in convincing anyone.

But reminiscence would solve nothing. He withdrew his attention from the doves and the lynx and the fox, the hares were all dead, taken by dogs, and he moved his thinly distributed consciousness back to the body he had made for it.

A dozen irks stood guard over him, and he acknowledged them. ‘Summon my captains,’ he said in the harsh croak he now had as a voice, and they flinched and obeyed.

West of Albinkirk – Gaston

The army that now trailed north on the last stretch to Albinkirk, was many times larger than the elite force that had left Harndon a week before. And much, much slower.

Gaston sat his horse in the midst of a road blockage bigger than some towns in his home province and shook his head. He was watching four men who sat hunched under a bridge, eating a side of bacon.

‘It’s like the rout of a beaten army,’ he said in low Archaic. ‘Except that it is still headed towards the enemy.’

The king was virtually unapproachable, now, as the entire knight-service of the country had reported in, and all of his great lords surrounded him. No longer could Jean de Vrailly pretend to threaten the king with his three hundred knights – his convoy was no longer the largest. The Count of the Borders, Gareth Montroy, came in with five hundred knights, hard men in lighter armour than the Galles but just as tall, and five hundred archers as well. The Lord of Bain’s banner led another two hundred knights, with the popinjay Edward Despansay, Lord Bain, at their head. They were the great lords, with uniformed retinues of professional warriors who trained together, but there also were hundreds of individual knights from the counties under the King’s Lieutenant’s banner, and almost a hundred of the king’s own Royal Knights, his elite bodyguard that also canvassed the countryside as justices and monster hunters under the king’s trusted bastard brother, Ser Richard Fitzroy. There were another hundred knights of the military orders, priests and brothers and lay brothers of Saint George and Saint Maurice and Saint Thomas whose discipline was as good or better than any company Gaston had ever seen, riding silently in their black-robed armour under the Prior of Pynwrithe and his marshal.

All together the king had more than two thousand knights and as many again men-at-arms, plus three thousand infantry who varied in quality from the superb – the green clad Royal Huntsmen rode ahead of the column and covered its flanks, dashing silently through the increasingly dense brush on specially trained horses, although they fought on foot as archers – to the ridiculous: county levies with spears and no armour who served for twenty days or until their side of bacon was eaten.

The men at his feet were eating as quickly as they could.

His beautiful cousin was riding at the head of his convoy. He wore his full harness – all the Galles did – and rode a war horse. But the last few days, the Alban knights had begun to do the same – not all at once, but in fits and starts. And in the evenings, they had begun to practise with their lances and with their swords, with their horses formed in great long lines.

And de Vrailly went from group to group, praising some and challenging others. He praised the diligent and ignored the lazy, and men began to speak of him.

Knightly men. Not this sort.

Gaston watched the men under the bridge, and they watched him, chewing and swallowing as quickly as they could manage, forcing the cooked bacon down their gullets.

He gave his horse some rein and she picked her way down the grassy bank to the stream. The men under the bridge began to pick up their belongings, but he raised a hand to forestall them.

‘We haven’t done nothing,’ a sandy-haired yokel with a short beard said, raising two greasy hands.

Gaston shook his head. ‘Answer me the one thing,’ he said carefully. Speaking Alban always left him feeling muddled.

The sandy-haired one shrugged. Gaston noted that he hadn’t said one word of polite greeting – neither saluted, nor bowed.

Albans. A nation of fools and outlaws.

‘Why are you so anxious to eat your cooked ham and scurry home?’ he asked. He walked his mare forward another few steps so that they could hear him better. He looked down at them.

All four of them looked at him as if he, not they, was the fool.

‘Cause my wife needs me home?’ said one.

‘Cause it’s going to be haying in another ten day, if the sun keeps on,’ said the second man. He had a fine linen shirt and a silver ring on his finger. By Galle standards, Alban farmers were rich, fat and very ill-mannered.

‘Cause my duty says I can go home when this here bacon is et,’ said the third, a long-haired old man. His hair was mostly white and Gaston could see the outline of a crusading badge on his tunic, carefully removed.

‘You have fought before, eh?’ he asked.

The older man nodded, his face still. ‘Right enough, boyo,’ he said. Here under the bridge, their voices echoed.

‘Where?’ Gaston asked.

‘In the East,’ the old man said, and took another bite of bacon. ‘And before that, under Ser Gilles de Laines, against the Paynim. With Lord Bain, too. And under the old king, at Chevin. Ever heard of it?’

Gaston smiled. ‘You are pleased to make game of me,’ he said pleasantly.

‘Nah,’ said the old archer. ‘You foreigners don’t really know much about war, and you haven’t ever seen a big fight like Chevin. If you had, you wouldn’t be asking us these tom-fool questions. We’re eating our bacon so we can get home and not fight. Because it’s going to be horrible, and I, for one, know just fucking how it’s going to be. And my son-in-law and his two friends here will all come with me.’

Gaston was shocked by the man’s tone, and by the murderous gleam in his eye. ‘But you – you have been a homme arme. You know what honour is – what glory is.’

The man looked at him, finished his chunk of bacon, and spat. ‘Done. Time to go home.’ He wiped his greasy hands carefully on his leather quiver and the bow case on his six-foot bow.

‘If we lose,’ Gaston said, looking for a way to reason with this arrogant peasant, ‘if we lose, your farms will be lost.’

‘Nah,’ said the younger man with the beard. ‘If you’n lose, they’ll squash the north flat. We ain’t northerners.’ He shrugged.

The old archer shrugged.

The other two grinned.

The old archer came over to the knight’s stirrup. ‘Listen, ser knight. We stood our ground at Chevin, and a lot of folk died. The old king told us we was done, for our lifetimes. Well, I’m holding him to that promise. Right? Here’s some advice from an old soldier. When the boglins scream and charge you, say a good prayer. Cause they won’t stop coming, and there’s a lot worse behind them. They eat you while you’re still alive. There’s creatures that’re worse, and eat your soul while you’re still alive. So it don’t even matter if you heard Mass, does it?’

Gaston had considered killing all four of them for their insolence, but the old archer had touched on something, and instead, he found himself nodding.

‘I will prevail. We will prevail,’ Gaston said. ‘You will be sorry you were not there, for our day of glory.’

The old archer shook his head. ‘Nope. That’s just what gowps like you never see. I won’t be sorry, but I do wish you luck.’ He chuckled. ‘We had twenty thousand men when we went into battle at Chevin.’ He nodded again. ‘The king has what – four thousand?’ He laughed, and it was a nasty laugh. ‘Can I offer you a bite of bacon?’

Talking to the peasants had caused Gaston to fall behind, and when he rode up the far bank, chewing on bacon, he found himself in the midst of the Borderers. He rode forward until he was among the liveried knights, the professionals, who rode around the Count of the Borders.

A herald spotted him and he was quickly passed from the herald to the captain of the bodyguard, and then on to the knot of men around the count himself. He was riding armed, in a good white harness made in the East, with mail and leather under it. A squire carried his helmet, and he had a green velvet cap on his head with an Eastern ostrich plume sprouting rakishly from a diamond brooch.

‘Gareth Montroy,’ said the great lord, extending his hand even as he reined in his horse. ‘You’re the Count of Eu?’

‘I have that honour,’ Gaston said, bowing and clasping the man’s hand. He was thirty-five, with dark hair and heavy eyebrows and the absolute air of command that came with great lordship. This was a man who commanded men every day.

‘Your cousin has the big convoy – all Galles?’ Lord Gareth grinned. ‘They look like bonny fighters. Big boys every one of ’em, like my lot.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘Your men look like fighters,’ Gaston said.

‘Pour us a cup of wine to cut the dust, eh, Gwillam?’ Lord Gareth said over his shoulder. ‘My lads have seen a spot of fighting.’

Every man in the count’s escort had a facial scar.

Gaston felt more at home here than he had in days. ‘Where have you been fighting?’ he asked.

Lord Gareth shrugged. ‘I hold the Westland borders, though there’s some awkward bastards at court and elsewhere who don’t give me my due,’ he said. A silver cup, beautifully made, with sloped sides and a carefully worked rim, was put in his hand, and another was passed to Gaston, who was delighted to find that it was lined in gold and full of chilled wine.

Chilled wine.

‘Company magus,’ Lord Gareth said. ‘No reason he can’t keep some wine chilled until we fight.’ He grinned. ‘And sometimes, we fight the Moreans. Bandits, the occasional boglin – we know what boglins look like, don’t we, boys?’

They laughed.

‘And you, my lord?’ Lord Gareth turned to Gaston. ‘You’ve seen service before, I take it.’

‘Local wars,’ Gaston said dismissively.

‘How big is a local war, in Galle?’ Lord Gareth asked.

Gaston shrugged. ‘When my father marches on an enemy he takes a thousand knights,’ he said.

‘Mary, Queen of Heaven!’ Lord Gareth swore. ‘Christ on the Cross, my lord. Only the king has a thousand knights, and that only when he sends out Letters of Array.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d heard of such doing, but never from a witness.’

‘Ah,’ Gaston said.

‘And what do you fight?’ Lord Gareth asked. ‘Boglins? Irks? Daemons? Trolls?’ he looked around. ‘How many creatures can the Enemy muster, that your father takes a thousand knights?’

Gaston shrugged. ‘I have never seen a boglin,’ he said. ‘In the East we fight men.’

Lord Gareth winced. ‘Men?’ he said. ‘That’s a nasty business. I admit, I’ve faced the Moreans on a few fields – but mostly brigands. There’s little joy in facing men, when the Enemy is to hand.’ He leaned close. ‘Who fights the Enemy in the East, then?’

Gaston shrugged. ‘In the north, the military orders. But no one has seen a creature of the Wild for-’ He searched for the words. ‘Please do not take this ill – but if you Albans were not so very sure of the Wild, we’d doubt you. None of us has ever seen a creature of the Wild. We thought they were exaggerations.’

To a man, the knights around Lord Gareth threw back their heads and laughed.

A tall, swarthy man in a harness of scale armour pushed his horse through the press to Gaston’s side. ‘Ser Alcaeus Comnena of Mythymna, my lord.’

‘A Morean,’ Lord Gareth said. ‘But a friend.’

‘Perhaps your convoy needs to be taught about the creatures, yes?’ he volunteered.

Gaston shook his head. ‘No, no. We’ll do well enough. We train very hard.’

All the knights around him looked at him as if he’d just sprouted wings, and Gaston had a moment’s concern.

Alcaeus shook his head. ‘When the boglins get in among the horses, they will give their lives to gut your charger,’ he said. ‘A single troll loose in a column can kill ten belted knights as fast as I can tell you this. Yes? And wyverns – in the air – are incredibly dangerous in open ground. Only men with heavy crossbows threaten them, and the very bravest of knights. On foot, horses will not abide a wyvern. And no amount of tiltyard training will prepare you for their wave of fear.’

Gaston shrugged, but now he was annoyed. ‘My knights will not succumb to fear,’ he said. The Morean looked at him as if he was a fool, which made him angry. ‘I resent your tone,’ he said.

Ser Alcaeus shrugged. ‘It is of no moment to me, Easterner. Resent me all you like. Do you want your knights to die like cattle, paralysed by fear, or would you like to strike a blow against the enemy?’

The Count of the Borders pushed his horse between the two men. His displeasure was evident. ‘I think that the good Lord of Eu is saying that we have nothing to teach him about war,’ he said. ‘But I do not tolerate private quarrels between my knights, Lord Gaston, so please do not taunt Ser Alcaeus.’

Gaston was flabbergasted. He looked at the man. ‘What is it to your knight whether you tolerate his quarrel?’ he asked. ‘Surely if a knight’s honour is at stake, the least his lord can do is to stand behind him.’

Lord Gareth’s face became carefully neutral. ‘Are you challenging Ser Alcaeus on his honour, because he tried to tell you that your convoy needs training?’

His tone, and the point he made, caused Gaston to squirm in the saddle. ‘He suggested that my men would be afraid.’

Alcaeus nodded as though this were a forgone conclusion. All the other men-at-arms around them were silent, and for a long moment the only sound was the jingle of horse harness and the rattle of armour and weapon as the retinue knights walked their horses down the road.

‘You do know that every creature of the Wild projects a wave of fear, and the greater the beast the stronger it is.’ Lord Gareth raised both eyebrows. It made the diamond on his cap twinkle.

Gaston shrugged. ‘I have heard this,’ he admitted. ‘I thought it might be . . . an excuse . . .’ He stammered to silence in the face of the massed disapproval of a dozen scarred knights.

Ser Alcaeus shook his head. ‘You need us,’ he said quietly.

Gaston was trying to imagine how he might convince his cousin while he rode up the column.

North of Lissen Carak

They came, each with his own tail of followers, because that was the way of the Wild.

The man known as Jack, the leader of the Jacks, came from the west. His face was masked in ruddy leather, and he wore the same dirty off-white wool jupon and hose of his band. He wore no badge of rank, and carried no obvious symbol of it – no fancy sword, no magnificent bow. He was neither short nor tall, and a greying beard came out from under his mask to proclaim his age. With him were a dozen men with long yew bows, sheaves of arrows, long swords and bucklers.

Thurkan came from the south, where he had run the woods with his qwethnethog daemon kin, watching the Royal Army coming up the Albin River. A fifty-mile run through the woods had not winded him. The wave of fear that he projected made the hardened Jacks fold their arms; even Thorn felt his power. With him were just two of his mighty people – his brother Korghan, and his sister Mogan. Each was the size of war horse with jaggedly pointed beaks, inlaid brow ridges, beautiful eyes and long, heavy, muscular legs, long arms tipped with bone scythes, and elegant, scaled tails. With them came the greatest of the living abnethog wyverns in the north woods; Sylch. His people had borne the greatest losses, and his anger was betrayed in bright red spots that moved like flickering fire on the surface of his smooth grey skin.

From the east came a party of painted men; Akra Crom of the Abenacki led them. They had harried the suburbs of Albinkirk, taken a hundred prisoners, and were now ready to go home. Such was the way of the Outwallers – to raid and to slip away. Akra Crom was as old as a man could be and still lead Outwaller warriors – his skin betrayed his age. He was hairless, painted a metallic grey that gleamed like silver in the light. He was the rarest of Outwallers – a possessor of power. A shaman, warrior, and a great song-maker among his people, the old man was a living legend.

Exrech was the chief paramount of the gwyllch that men called bogglins. His thorax gleamed white, and his arms and legs were a perfectly contrasting ebony black, as was his head. He was as tall as a man and power flickered around his mandibles, far more pronounced than a lower-caste gwyllch; his natural armour was better, and his chain mail, carefully crafted in the far East and taken in war, had been riveted carefully to his carapace to join the living armour. He carried a pair of man-made great swords in his two large hands and wore a horn at his waist.

Thorn was pleased they had come, and he offered wine and honey.

‘We have taken heavy losses, and suffered costly victories and humiliating defeats,’ Thorn began. He left it there – the fact of defeat.

‘The Sossag have won a great victory in the east,’ said the painted man. The other warriors with him grunted their approval.

‘They have, at great cost,’ Thorn nodded. Overhead, the stars were rising – a spectacular display of light in the blue-black sky of late evening. But their meeting was not illuminated by fire. Few creatures of the Wild loved fire.

Thorn pointed at the heavens. ‘The Sossag and the Abenacki are not as numerous as the stars,’ he said. ‘And many Sossag fell at the Crossings of the Otter.’

Exrech’s jaws opened and closed with a firm click indicating waste of valuable warrior stock; not easily replaced; no clearly defined target. Strong disapproval.

Akra Crom shrugged. When you rule the Outwallers, you may choose their wars.

The black and white gwyllch lord gave an acrid spray of anger. In deep woods, all soft-skins alike to we.

Thorn grunted and both lords settled down.

Thurkan spoke, his daemon voice high and badly pitched – a shock from such a large and beautiful creature. ‘I blame you, Thorn.’

Thorn had not expected a direct challenge and began to gather power.

Thurkan reached out a long forearm and pointed. ‘We each act under your order – but we do not mesh. We are not together. No gwyllch stand with the Sossag. No gwyllch climb with the Abnethog when we fly against the Rock. Abnethog and qwethnethog and gwyllch fight the same foe in the same woods, but no creature goes to the support of the other. The hastenoch died with gwyllch a few hands away.’

Thorn considered this – full of power, ready for the challenge that criticism usually led to, he was not at his most rational.

‘You have armed yourself against me,’ whined the great daemon. At least, his every utterance sounded like a whine. ‘Yet I challenge you not, Once Was Man.’

Thorn let some of the power he had gathered dissipate.

Faeries had been attracted, as they always were by raw power, their slim and elegant shapes flitting suddenly through the air where his release of power glowed a virulent green.

Mogan plucked one from the air and ate it, and the faeries’ death-curse filled the night as the little thing vanished down her gullet.

Exrech nodded. Strong one. Well taken.

Jack of Jacks shuddered. To most men, the killing of a faery was sacrilege. He spat. ‘Thorn, we are here for one reason only. You promised us you’d defeat the aristocrats. For that, we have gathered every bow from every farm. Our people suffer under our lords’ hammers this summer so that we can defeat them. And yet, the king’s army comes closer and closer.’ Jack scowled. ‘When will we fight?’

‘You are a deadly secret, Jack of Jacks.’ Thorn nodded. ‘Your long shafts will be the death of many a belted knight, and your men – you said yourself they must stay hidden. They will emerge from decades in the shadows at the right moment, when we play for everything. I will face the king and his army on ground of my choosing. You will be there.’

He turned to the qwethnethogs. ‘I am guilty of sending each of you to fight your own foes in your own way. This still seems wise to me. Between gwyllch and Outwaller there is no friendship. The Jacks have no love for any creature of the Wild. Every beast in the woods fears the qwethnethog and the abnethog.’ He ate a dollop of honeycomb. ‘We should have triumphed by now, and I feel the strong hand of fate on the rim of our shield. I command that you all take more care.’ He’d lowered his voice and imbued it with power from the air around him and the store he held for emergencies, and even so the daemons challenged him.

‘Obey me, now. We will not fight the king at Albinkirk. We let our early victory spread us too far, dissipate our strength. Let Thurkan watch the king and eat his horses. No more. Let Exrech withdraw from Albinkirk. Offer no battle. Let the Sossag and the Abenacki fall back to their camps here. Let the Jacks sharpen their bodkins. Our day approaches, and the king will never reach Lissen Carak.’

Thurkan nodded. ‘This is more to my liking,’ he hissed. ‘One mighty fight, and a rending of flesh.’

Thorn forced a piece of a smile – it seemed to crack the flesh around his mouth – and all but the daemons quailed. ‘We will scarcely need to fight,’ he said. ‘But when they have fought among themselves, you may rend their flesh to your heart’s content.

Thurkan nodded. ‘Such is always your way, Thorn. But when it comes to teeth and spears I do not like having the Cohocton at my back.’

Thorn hated being questioned, and his anger rose. ‘You fear defeat before a single spear is cast?’

The great daemon stood his ground. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have seen many defeats, and many empty victories; my hide bears the scars, and my nest is empty where it should be full. Both of my cousins have died in the last moon – one on the spear of the dark sun, and one with his soul ripped from him by their cruel sorceries.’ He looked around. ‘Who will come to my aid? You expect treason – and I agree that humans are born to betray each other. But many will fight, and fight bitterly. This is their way! So I say – who will come to my aid?’

‘Have you finished whining?’ Thorn bellowed.

Jack squared his shoulders. ‘If it is your unshared plan that the mighty daemons face the king then my comrades and I will be honoured to share the danger with our scaled allies.’

Thorn wanted to scream in frustration. My plan is my plan is my plan. I will not share it with the likes of you. But he narrowed his eyes, banished the bile from his great heart, and nodded.

‘Then gather more boats, and prepare to cross the river. This time, protect them. For unless the king is a great fool, he will advance on the south side of the river, as my brother Thurkan fears. Yes? And if you are hard pressed, I will send gwyllch, at least the lighter kind, who can pass the river.’

Exrech spat a clear fluid. Waste of resources; conflict of interest.

Thorn took a deep breath, and pushed power into his word.

‘Obey,’ he said.

By the time the fireflies came out, the clearing in the woods was empty.

Lorica – Desiderata

Desiderata sat on her throne in the Great Hall of the castle of Lorica, still dressed for travelling. She had a dozen minor issues on which to pronounce justice, and all she wanted was dinner and bed. Taking a train from Harndon to Lorica in a day was harder work than she’d expected.

She worked her way through the cases – the murder of a draper by a woman, the theft of a herd that trailed off into accusations and counter-accusations by the monks of two rival abbeys – and then there was a messenger.

He wore the royal scarlet and midnight blue livery, and even covered in road dust it commanded instant attention.

He was young and not particularly handsome, and yet had an air about him. He knelt at her feet and presented a bag.

‘The king sends to you, my lady,’ he said formally.

She didn’t know him, but word of war had made the king increase every part of the household – an action that would affect the royal budget for ten years to come.

‘Royer Le Hardi, my lady,’ the messenger said.

‘The news?’ she asked.

‘All is well with the army,’ Royer replied.

The Queen took the pouch and opened it, cutting her husband’s seal carefully and opening the lead wafers that secured the buckles with the small knife she always wore in her girdle.

There were four scroll tubes holding about a dozen folded and sealed letters – she saw letters to the Emperor of Morea and the King of Galle – and a thick packet with her name on it in his handwriting, which she snatched up.

She read a few lines and frowned. ‘My lords, ladies, and good men and women,’ she said formally, rising to her feet. ‘I will hold court in the morning, and all cases are held over until then. The seneschal and sheriff shall attend me, as will my own lords.’ She smiled, and many in the multitude at her feet smiled back, so personable was her smile.

The hall’s chamberlain smacked the floor with his staff. ‘The Queen has dismissed the assembly,’ he said, in case there were those who didn’t understand.

Before the last draper had cleared the portico the Royal Steward and the King’s Treasurer – were at her side. ‘News?’ asked Bishop Godwin. Lord Lessing – a banker promoted to the aristocracy by the old king – rubbed his beard.

She tapped the cover note against her teeth. ‘We will continue north to join the army,’ she said. ‘If we have a tournament at all, at this rate it will be in the face of the enemy, at Albinkirk or even Lissen Carak.’ Her thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

Her king’s note sounded desperate, and he had ordered her not to come.

‘Strip this town of carts,’ she said. ‘I will leave everything that I don’t need – I’ll take four maids. No state gowns, no frippery, no clothes. You, my lords, should stay here. You will form the government.’ She paused. ‘No. Go back down the river to Harndon.’

The bishop breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I might be gone a month,’ she said. ‘Or more. I may stay with the king until the emergency is past. Lord Lessing, I would take it as a kindness if you would organise the supply convoys as I have been doing.’

Lessing pulled at his beard. He had gold wire in it, which somehow served only to make it look greyer. ‘I will do your will, Lady,’ he said gravely. ‘But some of those wagons need to start coming back. We have stripped the southern kingdom bare and I doubt that there is even a wheeled cart to be had in Harndon. If they are lost, the harvest will rot in the fields.’

‘Best they not be lost, then,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll see to it that the wagons I’ve sent north are turned around – either empty, or full of the northern harvest.’

‘Boats,’ Lessing said suddenly. ‘If he’s aiming for Lissen Carak, you should go by boat. The docks here are full of empty hulls – Master Random of Harndon’s boats. He’s arrayed a mighty fleet of river boats to buy the grain harvest in the north. It’s supposed to be a secret, I admit. But I had it from his wife, and you can go faster by oars and sail up the river. And it’s safe as houses – never yet heard of a boglin as could swim. Eh?’

She loved her lords because they weren’t going to try to stop her, and because both of them began immediately to plan for the practical details of her trip to join the army.

After they’d made a dozen lists and summoned half the prominent men of Lorica to witness deeds and to become commissioners of this and that, she collapsed at last into the best bed in the royal keep of Lorica.

Mary stripped off her silken cote hardie, her kirtle, her shift, and the man’s hose she’d worn underneath so she could ride astride. ‘You will take me with you?’ Mary asked.

‘You and Emmota, Helena and Apollonasia,’ the Queen said languorously. ‘And Becca.’

‘Bath?’ Mary asked.

‘Perhaps the last for many days,’ the Queen said. ‘Oh, par dieu, Mary, we are about to break free of it all and have an adventure.’

Lady Mary smiled at her mistress. But her eyes had no smile in them, as if she was looking far beyond their room.

‘Do you still think of him?’ the Queen asked her First Maid.

‘Only when I’m awake,’ Hard Heart admitted. ‘And sometimes when I’m asleep.’

‘He is not with the army.’ Desiderata had received two missives from her husband that included the name of Gawin Murien, but in both his whereabouts was unknown.

‘I will be closer to him,’ Mary said. She sighed. ‘I didn’t know that I loved him until the king sent him away.’

Desiderata held her Mary for a few tears, and thought of her husband’s letters.

He was worried. That came through, either despite his foolish banter or because of it.

He needed her there. To remind him who he was.

She fell asleep thinking of Mary and Gawin, and awoke to find that she was the admiral of a fleet of forty river boats, twenty oared boats with sturdy masts and slab sides, capable of a turn of speed and a heavy cargo. By the time the sun was above the river banks, her flotilla was pulling north, and the townsmen were glad to see the backs of the rowers, who had made more trouble than a dozen companies of soldiers. Despite her plans she’d ended up with all of her ladies, a set of pavilions, and a cargo of armour and dried meat for the army. And a company of Lorican guildsmen in horrible purple and gold livery; crossbowmen who had, to the man, never been out of the town before. They were the only soldiers that the bishop could find.

‘Give way, all!’ called the timoneer.

She lay back under the bright sun, dressed in white, and let the sun turn her hair to gold.