At evening, his trail ended abruptly in a deep swamp right at the edge of the Inner Sea. He cast north, trying to get around the swamp, and found a pair of canoes but no path and no good ground.
Just after nightfall, he heard a tell-tale crashing along his backtrail. He filled the canoes with his goods and released the pack horses. He was quite fond of his saddle horse and he tried to entice her out into the black water and, eventually, she followed his canoe as he paddled and she swam. He knew she wouldn’t go far, though, and cast desperately for dry ground in the dark.
Twice, he had to balance his canoe to rest a hand on her head and offer her his store of ops. But as the stars rose, clear and cold, finally he heard the swishing sound of small wind-driven waves on gravel, and she was ashore before he had carefully grounded his canoes. His little mare was none too happy to find herself on a rocky islet with a little shelter and no grass, but she wasn’t drowned and he’d saved all his goods. He put his small wool tent over her and when she was drier and warmer, he pulled her down, threw all his blankets over both of them, and curled up against her back. He fed her oats by hand.
They both slept, and he didn’t wake until she pushed herself against him and got to her feet. The world was nothing but a grey mist; and as soon as he was awake he could hear the Ruk. They were splashing in the fog, and he was afraid – deeply afraid. He had no idea how well they moved in deep water. Could they swim? His experience of them was limited – he’d never been pursued, only read about it.
He folded his wool blankets and his small tent while his poor horse stood and shivered, and then he packed his canoe as quickly as he could. The splashing noises went on, the Ruk seemed to be all around him.
He had a notion, drew an arrow from his quiver, and used it as the basis of a very short-range spell of finding.
As quick as he cast, he felt the three, each still wearing one of his arrows. The widest gap among the monsters was to the east so he got the canoes tied together and paddled the lead east. His little horse stood on the islet for a long time, and then, with a horse noise of panic, plunged into the water and swam powerfully after him.
The fog closed in, and he paddled hard, praying to Saint Mary the Virgin and all the saints to preserve him and his horse against the cold, the water, and the giants.
Liviapolis – The Red Knight
Ser Michael had kept the journal since the opening of the siege at Lissen Carrak. He’d changed the format and moved the journal into a large volume bound in dark red leather, acquired using his restored allowance in the endless bazaars of Liviapolis, and he’d decided to count the days from their first contract and work from there. Since he didn’t plan to share the journal with anyone, he didn’t have to account for how he kept it.
Military Journal – Day one hundred and eleven
The defeat of the Etruscan Fleet has had every result that the Captain promised, despite our having failed to entice any part of their squadron into the arsenal after No Head loosed one of his precious engines too early. We captured a single over-bold galley, thus doubling the Imperial Fleet. But the capture of Ernst Handalo, the Etruscan captain, accomplished what his death would not – the near total capitulation of the Etruscans. Handalo is a senator of far-off Venike. Apparently, he has begun to negotiate a peace on his own behalf.
Closer to home, our little victory had procured a certain good-will – or perhaps, as the Captain likes to say, merely the foundations on which future good-will might be laid. The Captain also released all of our prisoners from our battles under the walls; he has arranged with the Princess Irene for all of the prisoners to be cleared of treason. If the knights of Morea have consequently grown to love us for our clemency, they are extremely adept at hiding it.
However, the gates are open, the markets are open, and the harvest is in. Perhaps most importantly, convoys have begun to reach us from over the mountains, via the Inner Sea and the lake country. The Captain has plans for the fur trade and for Harndon. And on that topic, the Captain has arranged a series of loans against our profits that have paid the men, which cured a good deal of grumbling.
And finally, our victory seems to have won us the approval of the Patriarch and the University. The Captain is to meet the Patriarch on Sunday after mass. We have collectively crossed our fingers.
Ser Michael leaned back and licked his fingers to get the ink off.
Kaitlin came and leaned heavily against him. ‘Could you carry this little bastard for a week or so while I have a rest?’ she asked.
Ser Michael turned. ‘Please let’s not call our child a bastard.’
‘He is, you know.’ She smiled. It was a pleasant smile, not a nasty one, and yet Michael knew she meant business. He’d promised marriage, and she, a peasant girl, was currently widely viewed as his whore.
‘Then marry me,’ he said.
‘When? Where?’ she asked. ‘And I really don’t have a thing to wear.’
‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said, and put his hands on her waist. He held her against him so he could feel the swell of her belly against his own stomach. ‘Sorry. I’ve been busy.’ Christ, that sounded lame.
‘There’s a rumour that the Knights of Saint Thomas sent us a chaplain,’ he added. ‘Why don’t we have him marry us when he arrives?’
She sat heavily in his lap. She wasn’t really big yet, but she felt she was the size of a horse – ugly, frumpy, and the very antithesis of all the slim, elegant, perfumed Morean ladies she saw every day in the markets. ‘I suppose that when you asked, I imagined we’d have a wedding in a cathedral, and I’d be – glorious. Somehow.’
‘My father hasn’t said no, but he certainly hasn’t said anything nice, either.’ Ser Michael stared out the window for a moment. In point of fact, the silence from home is rather ominous. I got one allowance instalment and then nothing. And no answer to my letters.
‘Could we be married by the chaplain? Set a date?’ she asked. ‘I think – I think I’d rather be married with a fat belly than not married at all.’
He kissed her. ‘I’ll ask the Captain,’ he said.
‘The Duke,’ she said.
He paused. ‘What’s that mean?’ he asked.
Kaitlin was both his leman and a lower-class Alban woman in the barracks. She heard things he would never hear. Being viewed as Ser Michael’s whore had its positive side – women who wouldn’t dare approach Ser Michael’s wife would happily share hot wine with her.
She shrugged. ‘He likes being called Duke, doesn’t he? The archers resent it. They grumble that he used to be one of them.’
Michael shook his head. ‘Sweet Christ, my love, he’s the Earl of the North’s son; he was born with a bigger silver spoon in his mouth than I ever had. He was never one of them.’ But even as he said the words, he thought of the Captain loosing a bow or fighting in the sheep pens at Lissen Carrak, before the siege started. The common touch.
She kissed him back. ‘Don’t get all huffy with me, love. And do not, I pray, get your ink-stained hands on my one neat kirtle which has a belly that fits. Hands off!’
She slid off his lap. ‘Just tell him.’
Ser Michael nodded.
The Duke of Thrake sat in his new office in the barracks of the Athanatoi and read through a mountain of correspondence. He had a Morean secretary named Athanasios to help Master Nestor, a perfect gentleman who seemed to know everyone at court. The Duke suspected that Athanasios spied on him for the princess, but as he didn’t have anything to hide from the princess, he didn’t rock that particular boat.
‘I can’t read this one – Nestor?’