Nat stood up. ‘I’m for leavin’,’ he said. ‘I’m healed. I don’t want to sit in a dream. I want to kill the King and make men free.’
Redmede sat back. ‘Nat,’ he said.
‘What?’ the older man asked. ‘I’m still true, even if you ain’t.’
Redmede shook his head. ‘Winter is falling out there,’ he said.
Bess looked at both of them.
Tyler leaned forward. ‘If you said you was coming with me, the rest of ’em would come.’
Redmede heard the faery music as if it was playing inside his head, and he looked at the art on the walls – the spidery tracery that defied his human eyes on the tapestries, the rich layers of colour in the felt hangings – and he sighed. ‘Give me a day or two to think,’ he said.
And then some days passed.
He shared a little house with Bess, and she was all he wanted. They played games, and they guarded sheep, and they made love. The other Jacks became friends – sometimes they gathered at each other’s little houses for a meal, and sometimes, they sat in the Great Hall.
Parties of Outwallers came and went, and sometimes they brought women. The Jacks had had few women. Now they had a few more – or rather, perhaps there were fewer Jacks.
One frosty afternoon, Redmede went out to gather wood. The men’s iron axes and strong muscles made them the premier gatherers of wood in the whole community, and they had gradually taken the chore upon themselves, in the irkish way – the best at any task took it, and taught it.
Redmede was a canny firewood gatherer – skilful and lazy, too. He liked to find one tree – preferably a good, big maple, dead and still standing, or dead and newly fallen, before its upper branches could rot on the ground. He liked to wander with his axe on his shoulder, enjoying the dusting of snow, the cold on his almost bare arms, the smell of the woods.
And he wore his sword, because this was, truly, the Wild of children’s stories. The hastenoch walked these marshes; the great rock trolls prowled the hills to the south, and boglins tunnelled where they didn’t run, while great beaver built six-feet-high dams that lasted a hundred years, and herds of bison moved in the clearings, watched by Guardians, the daemons of the woods. They, too, came and visited the Faery Knight. Redmede was growing more used to them. But he suspected that if he met one in the woods, alone, he would be prey, and not friend.
So he walked with pleasure, but warily. And despite his wariness, Tapio Haltija took him unawares, as he stood in silence contemplating the ruin of a great oak.
‘Ssso. Man.’ The irk was his own height, and moved without a sound.
Redmede nodded pleasantly. ‘Ser Tapio,’ he said.
The Faery Knight looked at the fallen oak. ‘Thisss issss how we will all end,’ he sang. ‘No matter how many wintersss we passs firssssst.’
Redmede nodded.
‘Man, I have many guessstsss coming.’ Ser Tapio met his eyes, and the irk’s eyes were a fathomless dark blue like a summer night lit by stars, with no whites.
Redmede never found it easy to communicate with the irk. The other creature’s mind did not work like a man’s. ‘What guests?’ he asked.
‘Alliesss,’ Tapio said. ‘The cold in the air is the firsst bite of war.’
Redmede was startled by the turn of conversation, but then, talking to the lord of the irks was never easy. ‘War?’ he asked. ‘What war? Against the King?’
The Faery Knight shrugged – a very human gesture. ‘I care nothing for any king of men,’ he said. His voice sounded like a dozen stringed instruments playing together in harmony. ‘I consssider a war with a rival. I consssult thossse who I sssee asss alliesss.’
Redmede broke off gazing at the irk and looked back at his fallen oak. ‘Am I an ally?’ he asked.
The irk’s smile was hard for a man to get used to. It meant something different among irks, and it involved a great many teeth. Tapio further complicated communications by using his smile both the irk way – as aggression – and the human way, for pleasure.
‘That isss for you to tell me, man.’
The next day brought a retinue of Wardens – or Guardians, or daemons, depending on your point of view. They had tall red plumes, which Bill knew to be natural and not worn as decorations, although the magnificent gold and silver and lead and bronze and tin inlay in their beaks was all craft. Redmede watched two young daemons receive their first inlays by a pair of irk craftsmen who worked with their hands and magic alike. A year before he’d have fled. Now he watched in fascination.
The next day, Nat Tyler caught him by the shoulder as he entered the worm’s nest of corridors of the great central keep.
‘I’m gone,’ he said. ‘You comin’?’
Redmede took a deep breath. ‘Nat – I kept you alive,’ he said. ‘I dragged your weary arse out of the battle, and I carried you out here – most of the way. Now I want a winter off.’
Tyler shook his head. ‘Man and women are being worked to death by lords in Jarsay,’ he said. ‘The fuckin’ Church will celebrate Christmas on the backs of the poor. Outwallers will be hunted like vermin. You want a rest.’ He leaned in close. ‘You’ve found a lord, just like your turncoat brother.’
‘Nat, will it kill us to be happy for a while, and rest? Listen to music? Lady Tamlin nursed you herself – do you owe her nothing for that?’ He had no trouble meeting Tyler’s eyes, which he found slightly mad.
He had the oddest feeling, because they’d switched roles. He had always been the driven one, the committed one.
‘Mayhap you need a girl,’ he assayed.
‘Jarsay is in flames and Alba is on the verge of civil war, you fool! This is our time. The nobles are fighting each other.’ Tyler was shouting, and irks paused to look at them, or drew back against the walls. A blue-crested daemon was framed against the snow outside.
Redmede’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you say?’ he asked.
Tyler shrugged. ‘Nothing. Come or don’t. The cause is bigger than you, Bill Redmede. Stay here and rot.’ He avoided Redmede’s attempt to restrain him and pushed past.
Redmede turned to catch him and found himself face to snout with the elegantly inlaid beak and tall blue crest of Mogon, the Queen of the western daemons. He knew her. Not well, but they had been-
alliesss.
The thought slipped into his head.
‘Mogon,’ he said. She smelled like burning soap, and filled the tunnel from side to side. She had to crouch to fit.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘Not your true name, I will guess.’
He stood his ground. ‘I’m Bill Redmede, daemon,’ he said, fighting an urge to turn and flee. All the daemons projected a sort of wave front of fear – as did many of the other Wild creatures, but the daemons were the most powerful in every way. Even at rest, in a quiet hold, surrounded by other creatures, she emanated menace.
She made an effort – the blue feathers on her crest went flat. ‘Why must your little men require me to pretend to be dominated?’ she asked.
Her beak had surprisingly little effect on her speech.
He found himself released from terror. He forced himself to speak. ‘Are you an ally? Of Tapio?’
She sighed and stretched herself in the confined corridor. ‘We’ll see, Master Redmede. May I say: it is a pleasure to find a former ally here?’
‘I am only a guest,’ he spat. ‘I lead no men,’ he added. ‘But the men I brought here remember you. You left us to die, at Lissen.’
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘My brother sent me to warn the Outwallers. Were you not warned? We are a chivalrous people.’ The stench of burned soap increased.
‘Chivalrous? Lady, a hundred of my Jacks died for nothing when you turned tail and ran.’ People – irks, men, even a winged faery – were gathering to watch them.