The Fell Sword (11 page)

‘They still out there?’ Redmede said slowly. He didn’t want the answer. He was warm and as dry as he’d been in two days and didn’t want to move.

‘I told the boys to sit tight and I’d come for them,’ Tyler said. ‘I’ll go fetch ’em in.’

‘I’d better come with you,’ Redmede said. He hoped it didn’t sound as grudging as it was.

Tyler sighed. ‘I wish I could tell you to sit and rest,’ he said. There was a long pause. ‘But I don’t think I can go out again by m’self. Fell asleep under a tree for – don’t know how long. Minute? Three? Twenty?’ He got to his feet. ‘There’s something out there, too.’

‘Something Wild?’ Redmede asked. ‘We’re allies, now.’

Tyler frowned. ‘Don’t you believe it, Bill Redmede. This is the fucking Wild. I know it like my own nose. They aren’t even allies to each other, plague take them all. It’s a world of blood and talon, and right now we’re easy meat.’

Redmede shivered. He half drew his falchion in its scabbard and it caught – there was rust on the blade, rust right down into the scabbard. As it was his prized possession he felt a flare of anger and even sadness. He checked his dagger and shook his head over his bow and quiver. He hung the quiver on a spruce tree, leaned the great bow against the trunk between the dense dead branches, and made a tent for them with his cloak.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

His confidence lasted for ten paces, and then the sheer cold of the ever-present rain and the futility of moving in the pitch blackness hit him as if someone had thrown a pail of water over his head.

Tyler was muttering to himself, and Redmede worried he was still fevered. They crashed through the brush, making as much noise as a hundred mounted knights, and taking damage from the alder and the spruce saplings. Redmede misstepped badly and fell down the bank, putting one whole wool-hosed leg into the icy Cohocton, and when he glanced back he could see the fire burning like a mountain of light just a bowshot behind them. The heart went out of him.

‘I’d never ha’ gone back into the dark wi’out you, Bill,’ Tyler said. ‘Christ on the cross, I hope I can find the lads. They’re scare’t shitless and they was more a hindrance than a help. I should hae left them wi’ you.’

‘They’ve got to learn sometime,’ Redmede said without thinking. One foot in front of the other – it always got him through these moments. Besides, it was Tyler doing the work, breaking trail and guessing where he’d left the runaway serfs. All Redmede had to do was follow him and keep his spirits up.

They walked and walked until Redmede’s head was numb and he felt as if he was asleep and yet walking in an endless sea of rain. The downpour drowned out all other sound, the darkness was nigh total, and he tracked the shine of his friend’s rain-soaked cote, the dull gleam of the leather belt that held his leather bottle, and the shape of his head against the rain. They moved from tree to tree because it was too dark to walk well, and they were far from any trail, and still low branches tripped them – it was exhausting work, and no end in sight.

And then something struck him.

He had an ill-defined warning – never fully sensed, but something made him duck and turn, and the spear haft meant to punch through his neck slapped the side of his head and came down on his shoulder instead – a flare of pain, but not a blow to stop a warrior, and Redmede had the haft in his hand. Before his head was in the fight, he’d rotated the shaft between his hands, tearing it away from his assailant, and he slammed the haft solidly into the creature and it fell away with a wet scream – the ferns under his feet were full of them—

‘Boggles!’ he screamed.

Tyler had a heartbeat more warning, and he used it to drag his blade clear of its scabbard. Redmede saw Tyler’s blade pass so close to his cheek that he might have seen himself in the blade, with more light, and then there was a wet thump and he was sprayed with warm ichor.

He began to use the spear with ferocity. The darkness was against him, but Redmede had never quit in his life, and he put the stone spearhead into two or three of the beasts before he felt the stinging pain at his ankle that told him—

—and then Tyler was there, cutting hard. He cleared the boggles off Redmede, and then the two of them got their backs against the bole of a great tree.

The boggles were gone.

‘I’m hit, Nat.’ Bill Redmede was as terrified as he’d ever been in his life. He could feel the blood flowing out his ankle, and he could see the ferns moving.

Tyler spat. ‘Some allies,’ he said.

Chapter Four

Lutece – The King of Galle

‘J
ean de Vrailly?’ asked the King, and his voice was high and sharp. ‘He’s in the Nova Terra? How lovely. For all of us.’

Courtiers laughed. A few frowned.

The Seneschal d’Abblemont laughed. ‘He sent a letter, Your Grace.’

The King rolled his eyes. ‘I had no idea he could read or write,’ the King said. Women tittered. ‘Very well, read it.’

From the Noble Knight, Jean de Vrailly, to his royal liege and master, the most puissant and powerful, Lord of the Pensey Mountains, Defender of the—

‘Spare me, Abblemont.’ The King’s thin voice cut like a sharp eating knife.

‘Your Grace. Ahem.
Greetings. In the spirit of errantry, and to prove myself worthy of the title, granted me by many, of best knight in the world
– Your Grace that’s what it says.’ Abblemont looked a little more like a large monkey stuffed into satin than was quite right, with too much facial hair and a curling beard, protuberant teeth, and a wrinkled forehead balancing an almost perfectly flat nose with two enormous nostrils. Wits at court debated whether he was more like a pig or a dog, but the name that stuck was ‘The Horse’.

Despite a truly stunning ugliness, he remained the King’s favourite. Or perhaps because of it. His ugliness couldn’t threaten the King, and some whispered that the King was a little too easily threatened – by his favourites, by his mother, and most of all by his wife and Queen.

The Horse glanced at the King, grinned wickedly, cleared his throat and went on.

Having earned the approval of the King of Alba and all the knights of his court, I accompanied the Alban King on campaign in the north country of this kingdom, where I encountered many worthy foes, to whit: daemons, Wyverns like small dragonets, irks, and a new species of adversary, called by Albans the boglin, a small creature, insignificant in arms but dangerous in great shoals and tides – and there did disport myself with such fearsomeness and prowess as to win a great victory over the forces of evil—

The King yawned. ‘Does he really expect us to believe this tissue of self-delusion?’

The Archbishop of Lutece frowned. ‘Irks and daemons are well-known servants of the Enemy, Your Grace.’

The King sneered. ‘Has anyone seen one alive this century?’ He glanced at Abblemont. ‘Is there more of the same?’

Abblemont shrugged. ‘Yes and no, Your Grace.’ He raised his eyes from the parchment. ‘I believe him.’

The King leaned forward on the arms of his throne. ‘You do?’ he asked, his voice suggesting delight.

Abblemont shrugged. ‘First, Holy Church requires me to believe – it is an article of faith. And not one as difficult as the trinity.’

His delicate blasphemy made the ladies blush.

‘Second, de Vrailly is a rash, dangerous fool, but he’s not a braggart. Or rather, he is – but he isn’t imaginative enough to invent this. Indeed, Your Grace, if you consider the report of the Seneschal of Outremer only this morning—’

The King shot back as if he’d received a blow. ‘Silence, Horse,’ he ordered.

The whole court fell silent. No lady simpered, much less tittered or giggled; no man sneered. Their faces had a certain vacuous sameness of expression. All waiting for the axe to fall.

It was hard to say if the King was young or old. He wore black – black velvet, relieved by touches of gold – a pair of gold earrings, the gold hilt of his sword, a single gold ring set with onyx on his finger, gold buckles on his shoes worth the value of a small village. Around his shoulders he wore a gold collar of linked suns. His skin was almost perfectly white, and his hair was the same impossible golden colour as de Vrailly’s, which was only reasonable, as they were cousins. But there the resemblance ended. The King was, if not the smallest man in the room, then nearly so; well formed, but shorter than many of the women who gathered near the centre of power. He was not given to the practice of arms; and his ascetic devotion to religion did more to keep him thin than his time in the tiltyard. He was handsome – indeed, more than a few troubadours found themselves able to sing of him as the handsomest knight in the kingdom.

The Duchess de Savigny had been heard to say that he was beautiful, if you liked children – but having been heard to say it, she no longer attended court.

The King whistled a moment, and then shrugged. ‘So – perhaps these improbable monsters exist,’ he said. He looked at Abblemont. ‘And perhaps there truly are witches who cast spells too?’ he added, giggling.

The Horse gave a very slight nod. ‘Perhaps there are, as you say.’

Conversation returned.

‘Go on,’ the King said.

Abblemont laughed. ‘Nay, I shan’t read it word for word,’ he said. ‘Only that they fought a great battle and slew thousands of these monsters, and now de Vrailly is named the Alban king’s champion.’

The King nodded, pulling his beard.

‘He says that the Queen of Alba is one of the most beautiful women in the world,’ Abblemont continued, his eyes scanning the page.

‘You might have mentioned that at the start,’ the King said with more interest. ‘Does he send a portrait?’

‘And she and the King are the most perfect example of wedded bliss.’ Abblemont glanced at his master, whose fist closed.

‘They will give a great tournament next spring, after Lent, to celebrate his victory—’

‘He’s a braggart. I suspect she’s beautiful as a poxed whore and just as faithful.’ The King looked down at his Horse, and the Horse gazed resolutely at his parchment.

‘He closes by mentioning his unshakeable loyalty to Your Grace, and stating baldly that he expects to take the kingdom for his own. And for your crown. Your Grace.’ Abblemont looked up and met the King’s eyes, and saw them flash almost red, as if lit by an inner fire – reviewed his last ten words and realised he’d misstepped. ‘Ah – my apologies, Your Grace.’

He should not have mentioned that de Vrailly intended to conquer Alba for the King in open court.

But the King was a consummate actor, and he stretched and smiled. ‘Perhaps Lady Clarissa would be kind enough to play for us, Abblemont?’

Clarissa was fifteen, pretty as a virgin in a book of hours, and a near-perfect player of the psaltery. She was shorter than the King by almost a head, and had a quiet, demure quality that affronted many of the other ladies.

‘The Queen has refused to permit her in her solar,’ whispered the Contesse D’Angluleme. She gave her cousin, the Vidame, a significant look.

‘Poor thing, she looks underfed.’ The Vidame watched her walk by, cradling her musical instrument. ‘I think the Queen is cruel,’ she said, her voice suggesting the exact opposite.

‘I don’t. The creature is brazen as a steetwalker, dear.’ She leaned close to her cousin and whispered in her ear.

The Vidame’s arched eyebrows still had a little room to rise, and they shot up – her handkerchief came out of her sleeve as if snapped by a crossbow, and she raised it to her lips. ‘No!’ she said, sounding too deeply satisfied.

If Clarissa de Sartres heard a word, it didn’t crease her dignity, and she crossed the black and white marble floor, her plain brown wool overdress gliding silently over it, her head down just a little, hiding her expression. She wore an intricate net of silk and beads in her hair with a pair of linen horns rising from a base of auburn hair and pearls, and from the front hung a linen veil so fine that it was possible to see the shape of her face without distinguishing, at least by candlelight, her expression. She held her instrument the way a proud mother might hold a baby. If she was aware of the unbridled hatred she received as the King’s first female favourite, she showed not the least sign of it.

And in fairness, it must be said that no woman in the whole of the great, cavernous throne room looked
less
like a royal favourite. If all the flowers of the field were not enough to adorn the rest of the women and most of the men, Clarissa de Sartres was as plain as a sleek brown mouse and about as noticeable. Without the magnificent headdress and the musical instrument, she might easily have been taken for an important female servant – complete to a small linen apron over her gown and set of keys with a pair of scissors tied to her apron strings.

Gossip and comment moved before her like a wind-blown fire in a dry forest.

She arrived at the base of the throne and curtsied so deeply that it seemed possible that she would collapse on the floor – yet so gracefully that no one ever imagined such a thing might happen.

‘Your Grace,’ she said.

The King smiled at her, and his gold and ivory face warmed to life. ‘Clarissa!’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you.’

‘Indeed, Your Grace, I considered staying away.’ Did she smile? The veil was so delicate that you thought you
ought
to be able to see her expression. Some imagined that she simpered, and some that she sneered, and a few thought she looked troubled.

‘May I play?’ she asked.

The King’s smile grew warmer still. ‘I live for it,’ he said.

Abblemont permitted himself the very smallest smile.

The King waited for the notes to begin, watched his court dissolve into ill-mannered conversation – no one listened to her music but he – and turned to his other favourite. ‘That was ill done, Horse.’

‘Apologies, Your Grace.’

‘None of us is perfect, Horse. Watch yourself. The brute may yet pull the whole – Sweet Jesu, she can play.’ He smiled at the girl, and she played on, quite obviously lost in her own music.

The King watched her a moment and then nodded to Abblemont. ‘When she’s done, clear the room,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk to any of them, and I’ve given them a proper target for their execrable gossip. Does de Vrailly need anything?’

Abblemont watched the girl play. He loved music, and he could all but feel her passion and the strings under her fingers. She made the rest of the women look like fools.

She made him feel a fool, too.

‘There are one or two things, Your Grace.’

‘We’ll have a military council, then. But let her play, first.’

Abblemont was on all of the councils – military, civil, treasury, even Church. To be the King’s favourite was to be the keeper of his time and his innermost confidant. Most of the men present – even the hard-faced professional knights like de Ribeaumont, the Marshal, tended to ask Abblemont for his opinion before approaching the King. They assembled in full armour, because that was the way of Galle, and the Rule of War applied every day. Only the King was excepted. De Ribeaumont wore elaborate armour, with sliding plates across his chest edged with bronze and plated gold, with verses from the Bible in hammered silver. Tancred Guisarme, the Royal Constable and the oldest man present by twenty years, wore the highly decorated armour of his jousting guild, made to look as if he were himself a young dragon, all in green metal and gold trim. His arm and leg harnesses were made of scales as small as the tip of a lady’s finger, in alternating rows of silver, gold, and copper-bronze. Steilker, the Master of Crossbowman, wore black armour with gold lettering praising God; Vasilli, the Master of the King’s Works and sometime architect of the King’s castles, wore a breast- and backplate and maille. No one was likely to challenge him to fight to the death, as he was both commonly born and foreign, but it spoke volumes for the Rule of War that even he wore metal. Abblemont himself wore plain white harness – excellent stuff, utterly without adornment, the way the Etruscans made it.

As he’d already been asked about today’s notion and found it acceptable, men spoke to the King with confidence. And Abblemont, true to his word, had already mentioned the whole notion to the King – that they begin exploring the northern wastes of the Nova Terra.

‘The Moreans have many contacts with the Outwallers in the north,’ the merchant said. He was far more than a mere merchant – he was a great owner of ships and his ships formed the flexible backbone of the navy. He had twenty great round cogs, high-sided, bluff-bowed, and impervious to weather and to all but the strongest of sea engines – almost impregnable, too, to the sea creatures of the Wild that were just as vicious as their land-based cousins. His name was Oliver de Marche, and he was dressed as plainly as the girl, Clarissa. His doublet was good black wool, and his hat, too; his hose were more of the same, and if that wool cost twenty gold leopards the ell when fulled, that was something only he and his tailor knew.

‘Despite the Church prohibition on contact with the Wild,’ de Marche went on, ‘the Emperor has officers appointed to deal with the chiefs of the Outwallers, and through them, he receives the very best of their trade goods – spider silk, beaver pelts, and Wild honey,’ he said.

The King was given samples of all three to examine. He tasted the honey and smiled. ‘Delicious,’ he said.

‘Apparently in Nova Terra there are small ponds of the stuff, leaking from great hives of monstrous bees the size of hummingbirds,’ de Marche said. ‘Men there say it is hermetical.’ He shrugged as if to dispose of such notions. ‘Men in the Nova Terra believe such superstitions, Your Grace.’ Stony royal silence. He bowed. ‘I have seen several of the bees. And—’ he looked around the room ‘—an Irk.’