‘I will not fail here,’ the captain said.
‘Because if you are victorious here, you will have finally turned your back on the fate that was appointed to you?’ said the Magus.
‘Everyone has to strive for something,’ the captain replied.
Albinkirk – Gaston
There was no battle at Albinkirk.
The royal army formed up for battle just south of the town, on the west bank of the great river, with the smaller Cohocton guarding their northern flank. Royal Huntsmen had been killing boglins for two days, and the squires and archers of the army were learning to take their guard duty seriously after something took almost a hundred war horses in the dark of the night. Six squires and a belted knight died in the dark, facing something fast and well armoured – bigger than a pony, faster than a cat. They drove it off eventually.
The army had risen four hours before dawn, formed their battles lines in the dark, and moved carefully forward towards the smoking town. But after all that work, the mouse still escaped the cat.
Or perhaps the lion escaped the mouse. Gaston couldn’t be sure which they were.
The king had almost three thousand knights and men-at-arms, and half again as many infantry, even without the levies who had been left to guard the camp. On the one hand, the force was the largest and best armed that Gaston had ever seen – the Albans had armour for every peasant, and while their mounted knights might seem a trifle antiquated, with too much boiled leather in garish colours over double maille, and not enough plate – the Alban king’s force was now larger than any Gallish lord’s and well mounted and well-served. His cousin had ceased commenting on them. This close to the enemy, the Royal Host had become slimmer, fitter, and altogether more competent, with well-conducted sentries and pickets. Young men no longer rode abroad without armour.
But his father King Hawthor had, by all reports, had at least five times as many men when he rode forth against the Wild, perhaps even ten times as many. And the signs were all around them – the lack of plate armour was not just a penchant for the old-fashioned. All along the road, he had seen abandoned farms and shops – once a whole town with the roofs falling in.
It gave him pause.
But on this day, as the sun rose behind them and gilded their lance tips and pennons, the enemy melted away before them, abandoning the siege – as if Albinkirk had never truly been under siege after the assault.
The army halted at the edge of the great river and the Royal Huntsmen finished off any boglins too slow to get down the great earth cliff to the beach below. Heralds counted the dead and debated whether to count the destruction of the small enemy force as a battle or not.
Gaston answered his cousin’s summons, and saluted, his visor open and his sword loose in the sheath. It seemed possible that there would be an immediate pursuit across the river, even though it seemed odd that the enemy would retreat to the east.
But Jean de Vrailly handed his great bassinet to his squire and shook his head. ‘A royal council,’ he snapped. He was angry. It seemed his mad cousin was always angry these days.
Followed only by a handful of retinue knights and a herald, they rode across the field, covered in summer flowers, towards the king.
‘We are letting the enemy escape,’ de Vrailly said. ‘There was to be a great battle. Today.’ He spat. ‘My soul is in peril, because I begin to doubt my angel. When will we fight? By the five wounds of Christ, I hate this place. Too hot – too many trees, ugly people, bestial peasants-’ He suddenly reined in his horse, dismounted, and knelt to pray.
Gaston, for once, joined him. In truth, he agreed with all of his cousin’s pronouncements. He wanted to go home too.
A herald rode up – a king’s messenger, Gaston saw. He went back to his prayers. Only when his joints ached and his knees could no longer bear the pain did Gaston raise his eyes to the king’s messenger who had been patiently waiting for them.
‘The king requests your company,’ he said.
Gaston sighed, and he and his cousin rode the rest of the way to the royal council.
It was held on horseback, and all the great lords were present – every officer or lord with fifty knights or more. The Earl of Towbray, the Count of the Border, the Prior of Harndon, who commanded the military orders, and a dozen midlands lords whom Gaston didn’t know. Edward, Bishop of Lorica, armed cap a pied, and the king’s captain of the guard, Ser Richard Fitzroy, the old king’s bastard, or so men said.
The king was conferring with a small man with a grizzled beard, who rode a small palfrey and looked like a dwarf when every other man present was mounted on a charger. He was sixty years old and wore a plain harness of munition armour – the kind that armourers made for their poorer customers.
He had dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes still had fire in them.
‘They were over the outwalls and into the suburbs after three assaults,’ he said. ‘They could run up the walls.’ He looked at Ser Alcaeus. ‘But you must know the story from this good knight.’
‘You tell it,’ said the king.
‘The mayor wouldn’t send the women to the castle. So I sent out my best men to force them in.’ He shrugged. ‘And they did. And by the grace of the good Christ, I took twenty men-at-arms and held the gate to the castle.’ He shook his head. ‘We held it for an hour or so.’ He looked at Ser Alcaeus. ‘Didn’t we?’
The Morean knight nodded. ‘We did, Ser John.’
‘How many died?’ the king asked gently.
‘Townspeople? Or my people?’ the old man asked. ‘The town itself died, my lord. We saved mostly women and children – a few hundred of them. The men died fighting, or were taken.’ He grimaced as he said it. ‘We kept two posterns open the next night – a dozen pole-axes by each – and we got another fifty refugees, but they burned the town to the ground, my lord.’ He bowed his head, slipped from his nag and knelt before his king. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord. I held my castle, but I lost your town. Do with me as you will.’
Gaston looked around. The Albans were in shock.
His cousin pushed forward. ‘All the more reason to pursue the enemy now,’ he said strongly.
The old captain shook his head. ‘No, my lord. It’s a trap. This morning, we saw a big force – Outwallers, with Sossags or Abenacki, going into the woods to the east. It’s an ambush. They want you to pursue them.’
De Vrailly coughed. ‘Am I to be afeared of a few broken men?’ he asked.
No one answered him.
‘Where is the main force of the enemy?’ the king asked.
The old man shrugged. ‘We’ve had messengers from convoys headed west, and from the Abbess,’ he said. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say that Lissen Carak is besieged.’ He took the king’s stirrup. ‘They say it’s the Fallen Magus,’ he said suddenly. ‘Men claim they saw him while the walls were being stormed, smashing breeches in the wall with lightning.’
Again, the Albans muttered, and their mounts started to grow restless.
The king made a clucking sound, as if thinking aloud.
The Prior of Harndon pushed his horse forward. He wasn’t a big man and he was as old as the Captain of Albinkirk, but something shone from him – power of a sort, based on piety, humility. His black mantle contrasted sharply with the blaze of gold and colour on the other warriors, even the bishop.
‘I would like to take my knights and outriders west, my lord, to see to Lissen Carack,’ he said. ‘It is our responsibility.’
The Count of the Borders was at Gaston’s elbow. Despite the frostiness of their last meeting, he leaned over. ‘The Sisters of Saint Thomas are his people – at least at a remove or two,’ he whispered.
The Captal de Ruth stood in his stirrups. ‘I would like to accompany them,’ he declared.
The Prior regarded him with a smile. It was a weary smile, and it probably wasn’t intended to convey insult. ‘This is a matter for the knights of my order,’ he said. ‘We are trained for it.’