No Head, an archer, hit the Fallen Magus with a ballista bolt. Many men saw the bolt go home.
We now have the help of Lord Harmodius, the King’s Magus, who duelled with the Fallen Magus with fire. Men hid their heads in terror. The Fallen Magus brought down the curtain wall by the postern gate, but Sauce saved many men and horses with her quick response.
Under the manuscript page, No Head and Sauce were crossed out. In their place were the names Thomas Harding and Alison Grave.
Lissen Carak – The Red Knight
In the end, they lost six archers and one man-at-arms. It was a hard blow. The captain looked at their names, crossed them off the list, and grunted.
On the other hand, he had the Carter boys, the Lanthorn boys, and Daniel Favor. And a likely goldsmith’s apprentice named Adrian who was a painter and a lanky youngster called Allan.
He handed the list to Tom. ‘Fix the watchbill. Messire Thomas Durrem-’
‘Dead as a nail,’ Tom said. He shrugged. ‘Gone with the tower. Didn’t even find his body.’
The captain winced. ‘We’re down another lance, then.’
Tom nodded, and chewed on a lead. ‘I’ll find you a man-at-arms,’ he said.
The Bridge Castle – Ser Milus
Ser Milus stood with the seven new men-at-arms. They were, in his professional opinion, good men who needed a swift kick in the arse.
He had a pell in the courtyard; Master Random’s apprentices had levered a huge stone out of the flagging, dug a hole as deep as a man’s was tall, and put in a post – it was handy to have so many willing hands.
He walked around the pell, hefting his own favoured weapon. The pole-axe. The hammer head was crenellated like a castle with four miniature spikes projecting from it. On the other side, a long, slightly curved spike protruded, and from the top, a small, wickedly sharp spearhead. A foot of solid steel extended from the butt, pointed like a chisel.
Ser Milus spun it between his hands. ‘I don’t expect we’ll fight mounted, from here on out,’ he said conversationally.
Gwillam, the sergeant, nodded.
‘Let’s see you, then,’ Ser Milus said. He nodded to Gwillam, who stepped forward. By the Company’s standard, his armour was poor. He had an old cote of plates, mail chausses, and a shirt of good mail with heavy leather gauntlets covered in iron plates. It was, to Ser Milus’ eyes, very old-fashioned.
Gwillam had a heavy spear. He stepped up to the pell, chose his distance, and thrust. The spearhead went an inch into the oak. He shrugged, and tugged it clear with a heavy pull.
Dirk Throatlash, the next of the convoy’s men-at-arms, strode up and took a negligent swipe at it with his heavy double-bladed axe. He embedded his axe head deeply in the post.
Archers were gathering in the towers, and merchants had emerged to watch from their wagons.
John Lee, former shipman, also had a double-bitted axe. He swung hard and precisely – matching Dirk’s cut and carving a heavy chip out of the post.
Ser Milus watched them all.
‘That’s what you do at the pell?’ he asked Gwillam.
The sergeant shrugged. ‘I haven’t done much at a pell since I was a boy,’ he admitted.
Ser Milus nodded. ‘Want to kill a monster?’ he said to the men. ‘Or a man?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ Dirk said. His mates laughed.
Ser Milus didn’t even turn his head. There was no warning. One moment, he was leaning on his war-hammer, and the next, he had tossed Dirk Throatlash into the mud, face first, and still had one arm behind his back.
‘Wrong,’ he said.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Dirk wailed.
Ser Milus let him up. He smiled, because now he had their attention.
‘We’re all going to practise at the pell, every day we don’t fight on the wall,’ he said, conversationally. ‘Like it was real. I’ll teach you how. And if you can cut through it – good!’ He grinned. ‘And then you can demonstrate your zeal by helping put in the next pell.’ He pointed to John Lee. ‘You have an accurate cut.’
Lee shrugged. ‘I cut a lot of wood.’
‘Try again. But this time, cut as if you were fighting a man.’ Ser Milus waved at the pell.
The shipman stepped up and lifted his axe, like a man preparing to hit a ball.
Ser Milus nodded approvingly. ‘Good guard.’
The former shipman cut at the pell, and a chip of wood flew. He got the axe back to his shoulder and cut again.
Ser Milus let him go on for ten cuts. He was breathing hard, and his tenth cut wasn’t nearly as strong as the ninth.
Milus twirled his grey moustache with his left hand. ‘Leave off. Breathe.’ He nodded. ‘Watch.’
He stepped up to the pell, his pole-axe held under hand.
He cut up with the back-spike, and it just touched the post. He danced to the right on his toes, despite his armour, and his cut finished with the pole-axe head behind his shoulder – a very similar position to that of the shipman’s axe. Then he cut down, again stepping lightly, and the hammer-head slammed into the post, leaving four deep gouges. The knight stepped like a cat, back and then forward, powering the spearhead in an underhanded thrust – stepped wide, as if avoiding a blow, and reversed the pole-axe. The spike slammed sideways into the post, bounced, and Ser Milus was close into the pole and shortened his grip for another strike.
Lee nodded. ‘I could almost see the man you was fighting,’ he admitted.
Gwillam prided himself as a good man of arms, and he sprang forward. ‘Let me try,’ he said. His own weapon was a heavy spear with a head as long as his arm and as wide as the palm of his hand. He sprang forward on the balls of his feet, cut the pell – twice from one side, once from the other, and backed away.
‘But use your hips,’ Ser Milus said. ‘More power in your hips than in your arms. Save your arms; they get tired the fastest.’ He nodded to them. ‘It’s just work, friends. The smith practises his art every day – the pargeter daubs, the farmer ploughs, the shipman works his ship. Bad soldiers lie on their backs. Good soldiers do this. All day, every day.’
Throatlash shook his head. ‘My arms are tired already,’ he said.
Ser Milus nodded. ‘The irks ain’t tired.’
Southford by Albinkirk – Prior Ser Mark Wishart
The king sent two messengers with the knights when the Prior took his men north-west from Albinkirk’s souther suburb, Southford. The Prior moved his men carefully over the ground, their black surcotes somehow blending into the undergrowth. His men rode easily through the densest stands of woods, through thickets of spring briars.
They halted frequently. Men would dismount and creep forward, usually over the brow of a steep hill, and wave them forward.
Despite the halts, they made good progress. Individual knights would ride away – sometimes at right angles to the line of march – and unerringly find them again.
The thing the two king’s messengers found hardest to understand was the silence. The Knights of St Thomas never spoke. They rode in silence, and their horses were equally silent. They had no pages, no valets, no servants and no squires. Forty spare horses – a fortune in war horses – followed the main body, packed with forage bags and spares, but otherwise without bridle or lead. Yet the spares followed briskly enough.
It was, as the older messenger said, uncanny.
Still, it was a bold thing, to be riding through the North Country with the Knights of St Thomas. Galahad Acon had been named for the saint’s church in London, and felt he was almost one of them. His partner, Diccon Alweather, had been a professional messenger in the old king’s day, a weathered man with more scars than a badly tanned hide, as he liked to say himself.
The messengers were used to a hard day riding and no company but their horses, but it was a hard day, even for them – fifteen leagues over broken country that challenged their horsemanship every hour. The knights didn’t seem to tire. Many of them were older than Alweather.