‘Yes,’ said the squire, defiantly, bowed and left the room.
The captain looked at the Abbess and grinned. ‘And the sisters will go with her? They’ll liven up castle life, I have no doubt.’
She shrugged. ‘He should marry her. I can feel it.’
The captain sighed. And sighed again when he realised that there was no one to help him disarm.
‘Shall we go and make fog?’ he asked.
She extended her hand. ‘Nothing would please me more.’
Lissen Carak – Bad Tom
Bad Tom stared at the captain’s steel-clad back, slim as a blade, as he squired the Abbess down the corridor to the steps. Jehannes made as if to pass him, and Tom put his arm up and blocked him.
They glared at each other, but if they had had fangs they’d have been showing.
‘Give it a rest,’ Tom said.
‘I don’t like taking orders from a boy,’ Jehannes said. ‘He’s a boy. An inexperienced boy. He’s hardly older than his squire. That gifted young man.’ He spat.
‘Give it a rest, I said.’ Tom spoke with the kind of finality that starts fights, or sometimes ends them. ‘You were never going to be captain. You haven’t the brains, you haven’t the hard currency, and most of all, you haven’t the birth for it. He has all three.’
‘I hear the boy almost lost the castle because he can’t keep his hands off some nun. He was off billing and cooing while you were out with the sortie. That’s what I hear.’ Jehannes leaned back and crossed his arms.
‘You know what makes me piss myself laughing when I watch you?’ Tom leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the older man’s nose. ‘When he issues his orders, you just fucking obey like the trained dog you are. And that’s why you hate him. Because he’s born to it. He’s not new at this, he’s the bastard of some great man, he grew up in one of the big houses, with the best tutors, the best weapons masters, the best books, and five hundred servants. He gives orders better than I do, because it’s never occurred to him that anyone would disobey. And you don’t. You just obey. And later, you hate him for it.’
‘He’s not one of us. When he has what he wants, he’ll go.’ Jehannes looked around.
Tom leaned back, shifted until his shoulders fitted neatly along a line of stone. ‘That’s where you are wrong, Jehan. He is one of us. He is a broken man, a lost soul, whatever crap you want to call us. He has everything to prove, and he values us. He-’ Tom spat. ‘I like him,’ he said. And shrugged. ‘He’s a loon. He’ll fight anyone, anytime.’
Jehannes rubbed his chin. ‘I hear you.’
‘All I ask,’ said Tom. He didn’t do anything obvious, but a subtle shift of his hips cleared the corridor. Jehannes stood straight, and then, quick as thought, his rondel dagger was in his hand – poised at shoulder height.
‘Not planning to use it,’ he said. ‘But don’t threaten me, Tom Lachlan. Save it for the archers.’
The knight turned and walked away, sheathing his dagger easily.
Tom watched him go with a slight smile on his lips.
‘Catch all that, young Michael?’ he said, levering his giant form upright.
Michael blushed.
‘Not for his ears – hear me? Men talk. Sometimes with their bodies, sometimes like old fishwives. Not his business.’ He looked at Michael, who was not quite cowering in the doorframe.
But Michael was afraid, yes, but also determined. ‘I’m his squire.’
Tom rubbed his chin. ‘So you get to decide some things. If you hear two archers talking about stealing from a third, would you peach?’
Michael managed to meet his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. And talking about raping a nun?’ he asked.
Michael held his eye. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. And talking about how much they hate him?’
Michael paused. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘He’s not their friend, he’s their captain. He’s pretty good at it, and he’s better every day. But what he don’t know won’t hurt him. Get me?’ Tom leaned in close.
‘Yes.’ Michael didn’t back away. He tried to stand tall.
Tom nodded. ‘You’ve guts, young Michael. Try not to get dead. We might make a man-at-arms out of you yet.’ He grinned. ‘Nice, that little chit of yours. Best act quickly if you want to keep her for yourself.’
Out in the yard, a dozen archers and a pair of squires were gathered around a girl, and they were all furiously peeling carrots.
Lissen Carak – Father Henry
The priest watched the sell-swords come out of their leader’s room. The captain, the source of infection. She came out first, and the Bastard was holding her hand like they were lovers. Perhaps they were – if he was an imp of Satan then pleasuring an old whore would be just his mark. Aristocrats. Birds of a feather.
Bile flooded his throat, and his hands shook a little to think that he had – he had-
He ducked his head to avoid looking at them, and went back to his sermon. But it was a long time before his hands were steady enough to scrape the old parchment as clean and thin as he needed it to be.
And when the biggest of the sell-swords came down the steps, he caught the priest’s eye and smiled.
Henry felt fear go through him like a wave of cold and dirty water. What did the man know?
He got up from his work-table as soon as the giant walked off, and he slunk across the chapel to the prie-dieu in the chapel. Reached under the altar cloth to make sure it was still there. His war-bow. His arrows.
He sagged with relief, and hurried back to his work table, imagining one of his shafts in the giant’s groin. Listening to him scream.
Dormling – Hector Lachlan
The fast horsemen hadn’t learned enough to change Hector’s mind. He looked at the rough sketch of the country and shook his head. ‘If I go east, I’d as well take my beasts over the mountains to Theva,’ he said. ‘And I don’t intend to do that. I have customers in Harndon and Harnford waiting for their cattle. West of the mountains, there’s no way to pass a few thousand head except the road.’
The Keeper had spent the night dancing and drinking his own ale as well as some nasty foreign spirits and his head was pounding. ‘So wait here and send a message to the king,’ he said.
Lachlan shook his head. ‘Sod that. I’ll be away in the first light. What can you give me, Keeper? How many men?’
The Keeper grimaced. ‘Perhaps twenty helmets.’
‘Twenty? You have a hundred swords here, wasting your money and standing about idle.’
The Keeper shook his head in turn. ‘The Wild’s coming,’ he said. ‘I can’t just drift away like some. I have to hold this place.’
‘You can hold this place with thirty men. Give me the rest.’
‘Maybe thirty like you – thirty heroes. Normal men? I need sixty.’
‘So now you’ll give me forty? That’s better. Forty brings me near a century strong – enough to watch both ends of the herd and still leave a sting in my tail.’ Lachlan looked over his sketch. ‘When we come down out of the hills, it’ll be worse – I’ll want horses. So I’ll take fifty of your swords and two hundred head of horses.’
The Keeper laughed. ‘Will you now?’ he asked.
‘Yes. For a third of my total profit.’ Lachlan asked.
The Keeper’s eyes widened. ‘A third?’
‘Of the profit. In silver, payable when I’m standing on your doorstep on my road home.’ Lachlan was smiling as if he knew the punch line to a secret joke.
‘And nothing if you’re dead,’ said the Keeper.
‘I confess, paying my debts won’t matter so much to me if I’m dead,’ Lachlan answered.
The Keeper pondered a while. The tall serving woman came in, and the Keeper was surprised to see that nothing but the blandest of smiles passed between them. He’d been sure the dark-haired woman was the drover’s type.
‘I need your trade, and you’re a well-known man,’ the Keeper said. ‘But you’re trying to take all my horses and half my fighting strength on a wild-haired adventure with little profit and a great deal of death.’ He rubbed his head. ‘Tell me why I should help you?’