The Fell Sword
Ser John was knocked flat. This time, he didn’t lose consciousness and so he was aware as the whirlwind of the fight passed over him. The troll planted a foot by his head, and Ser John rolled, fuelled by desperation, and he plunged his dagger in behind its hip with both hands driving the hilt. The steel shrieked—
Ser John felt his leg break, saw the armour buckle as the troll’s foot flashed out and caught him, but he didn’t lose his grip on the dagger, sunk like a piton in rock, and he fell pulling on the hilt with two hands.
The troll toppled. It fell across him, and its arm struck his chest, denting his breastplate and snapping ribs in a cascade of raw pain.
But he saw the troll’s end with almost religious clarity. He didn’t pass out – that mercy was denied him – and, instead, he was almost preternaturally aware as the troll went into the snow, the heat of its body sending up a cloud of steam and suddenly there was a golden bear in its place gripping a club, or perhaps a warhammer, and it struck so rapidly that its motions were a blur, and so hard that stone chips flew as if the great bear was a mason shaping marble.
There was a final, sharp crack, and the troll shrieked and turned to sand and rock.
The enormous bear stood over Ser John.
‘That was unexpected,’ it said. ‘I think p’raps you saved me.’
Or perhaps Ser John merely imagined that the bear said that. He expected to die.
It raised its hammer again.
The convoy reached the scene of carnage – three dead knights, Ser Anton badly wounded and the others all torn to shreds, and three damp sand-spots, and what appeared to be tens of thousands of black feathers.
Sister Amicia stood over Ser John, who was once again able to speak. She’d flooded him with healing and he was alive. Willing hands got him into a wagon. He was cold – cold all the way through. It had taken time for the bear to break him loose from the dead stone that had been a living troll.
‘We rescued bears,’ Ser John said. ‘Sweet Christ, sister – you risked us all to save some fucking bears.’
‘Some day they may save you,’ she said, more sharply than he’d heard her speak. ‘Now lie quietly.’
‘What was the thing with the feathers?’ he asked her.
She paused. ‘A Bargest,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think they were real.’
The men of the convoy were still in shock. A wave of boggles had struck the column and been defeated, but the shock of the attack and its aftermath – the dozen golden bears trotting along the flanks of the column while Amicia begged the bowmen to hold their shafts – had left men shaken, and some had gagged at the ruin of the knights killed by the trolls.
Amicia had kept them going – she wasn’t sure what else to do, and Ser John was so badly hurt that she feared to wake him, and the knights were all too young to take charge – Jarsayans with too little appreciation of the north.
And they all trusted her.
So she kept them moving – the reaction after the fight left men cold, and short of halting and gathering wood, the only recourse they had was food and movement. She ordered them to eat and men did, as if taking orders from young nuns was part of their military training. And when they’d eaten their bread or their bacon or whatever each man had, she ordered the column forward and they marched without much complaint.
Liveried cavalrymen met them – the light-armoured horsemen that Northerners called ‘prickers’ for their long spurs. They wore the Earl’s livery and they were entirely respectful.
‘Lady said there was a convoy in trouble,’ their officer said after a bow to Sister Amicia. ‘I’m Ser Edmund, sister.’
‘Your lady was right.’ Amicia was very proud of her little army – proud that they’d held together, proud that they hadn’t shot a golden bear by mistake. ‘But we won our skirmish.’
Ser Edmund nodded. ‘Didn’t think your lads looked beat,’ he said. ‘Damme! Is that John Crayford? He looks like shit.’
Alicia raised an eyebrow. ‘He’s had all the help I can provide,’ she said.
Ser Edmund nodded. ‘Well, I’m sure we can do better at the castle. I’d best be taking command, eh? You must have been terrified.’
Amicia thought of a number of replies, and settled for one she’d learned from the old Abbess. ‘Not at all,’ she said. And turned her horse and rode on, leaving the Earl’s officer sitting in the middle of the road.
Ser John was next aware when he was surrounded by stone – arches everywhere, and a pair of armoured men in green and gold livery.
‘Careful, there,’ Amicia said. ‘If those wounds open—’
‘Of course, sister!’ one man said.
Ticondaga was built on the same scale as Lissen Carrak – all grey stone and red brick rising into the heavens like a cathedral of war. The courtyard itself was twice the size of the yard at her convent, and the barracks building had the new internal chimneys and a lead roof.
Now safe in the greatest fortress in the north, they sagged to the ground in relief. The knights got themselves off their horses, and their squires – including the squires of the dead men – took their horses and then the castle’s men-at-arms flooded the courtyard, and the Earl Muriens was there, barking orders and offering hot stew – from a great bronze cauldron which he and another knight had hauled into the yard with their own hands.
‘You – lass. Out of those wet clothes,’ he barked at her. Then bobbed his head in an insolent parody of a bow. ‘Oh – you’re a nun. Well – here, drink this and then get out of your wet clothes.’ He leered. ‘You are the fucking lovesomest nun I’ve seen for many a year. Are there more like you?’ he asked.
He was big, with iron-grey hair and an attitude she knew immediately. The Red Knight might despise his father, but he certainly carried himself with the same air of cocky dominance.
‘I’ll see to the convoy first,’ she said. ‘My lord Earl. That worthy knight is Ser John Crayford, and he brought this convoy here to succour the fur trade.’
Amicia watched the old knight being carried into the castle. The Earl walked beside his stretcher for a few paces and said something, and she heard a weak grunt for Ser John.
‘That’s a fine man-at-arms. He must be fifty! As old as me – a good knight.’ The Earl grinned. ‘You his?’
Amicia laughed.
The Earl had the grace to be abashed by her laugh. ‘Well – there’s no fool like an old fool. So you’re here for our furs?’
‘If we can do it, it will save Albinkirk. As a trade town.’ Amicia tried to follow his mercurial changes, and was reminded . . .
‘Might save our trade, too.’ Muriens laughed. ‘I’ll take all the money I can get, but we haven’t a tithe of the furs we usually have. The trade went east to the fucking beg-your-pardon Moreans as soon as folk heard about the attacks in the south.’
‘You have no furs?’ asked Messire Amato.
Muriens laughed. ‘Fucking Etruscans. Of course I have furs. Why don’t you all come out of the cold before we start dickering like a man with a whore on a cold night – beg your pardon, sister,’ he added with a smile. ‘Although, sweet Saviour, you can come and take my confession anytime.’
Amicia smiled right back at him. ‘That will be enough of that, Your Grace,’ she said.
His mouth moved in a way – a sort of self-aware wryness, an appreciation of his own failures – that she knew so well it almost melted her heart. Then his face cleared and he bowed. ‘My apologies, sister. It is just my wicked way!’
Amicia allowed herself to be steered inside, even as she felt the very edge of the zone that surrounded beings with great power. She cloaked herself as carefully as she could, using what she had learned from both the Red Knight and Harmodius during the siege, and she kept her eyes down and thought of mice.
This was a mistake, she thought.
A pair of servants led her into the Great Hall and then up a winding stair and along a corridor that went up and then down.
‘Ma soeur, do you have a m
aid?’ one servant asked.
‘No,’ she answered.
The woman nodded. ‘I’ll send you a woman to help. This is the portmanteau from your horse – is there more?’
Amicia looked at the narrow bed with something close to lust. The air of the castle was cold, but not like the open marshes of the Adnacrags. And there was a stack of wool blankets waiting to serve her.
‘No more, I thank you. That’s all I have.’ She smiled. ‘I was very much a last minute addition. Goodwife, I am spent. May I lie down?’
The other woman nodded. ‘I doubt that Lady Ghause will receive you until after evensong. It is Christmas Eve.’ Despite being a senior servant, or perhaps even a lady-in-waiting, the older woman took the time to help Amicia strip.
The moment her soaked undergown was off, she was warmer, despite the frigid air. A pair of servant girls came in, and brought her a wool flannel gown – floor-length, and a lovely blue.
The younger bobbed a curtsy. ‘Lady Ghause sends this with her compliments, and says that religious women are all too rare here. She hopes that it suits you.’
The wool was soft and very fine and held a healthy charge of potentia like musk.
Amicia pulled it over her naked body, and the older maid pulled the covers over her, and she was asleep.
She awoke flushed and breathing hard, after the most erotic dream of her life. A dream with a very particular focus. She lay in her bed, calming her breathing.
The old Abbess had taught her to make a virtue of necessity. To meditate when only meditation could help. She imagined her knight – still very fresh in her traitorous memory, so she clothed him and armed him and placed his image, kneeling, in a nativity scene – a guard for one of the three great kings who had come to visit the newborn babe.
The nativity played out – the kings gave their gifts, and retreated, and he went with them, his steel sabatons crunching through the snow, and she watched him mount his horse with his usual grace, his annoying, ever-present grace. And she looked back to see the Virgin take up her child from the manger.
She breathed, calm, and centred—
‘Time to wake, sister! Time for mass!’
She stretched, at peace with herself, and smelled – perceived – the musk in the real and the touch of ops in the aethereal. The gown had been ensorcelled.
Honi soit qui mal y pense, she thought and stripped the thing off. She handed it to the maid, who was more than a little shocked at her nudity – and her tattoos.
‘Have this washed,’ Amicia said. ‘It stinks.’
After mass, she followed the housekeeper – the older woman who had led her into the castle – into the Great Hall and up a short set of steps.
Amicia could feel Ghause from across the fortress, and so she was prepared when the housekeeper opened the door.
The woman who sat on the tall chair of dark wood had no embroidery in her lap, and she held her head as few women did – up, with a direct gaze.
‘Ah – the nun. My dear sister, it is all too rare to receive a religious vocation here. Are you permitted to speak?’
Amicia thought so this is his mother. She burns in the aethereal like – like—
‘I have no vow of silence,’ she said.
‘You are the most remarkably attractive nun I’ve seen in many a day,’ Ghause said. ‘Watch out for my husband. He doesn’t like to take no for an answer. And he likes to break things.’ She smiled. ‘And people.’
Amicia felt her face burn hot. ‘My lady,’ she said softly. What else could she say to such a remarkable introduction?
‘Are you a virgin, girl?’ Ghause asked.
Amicia realised – just in time – that she was in a contest as surely as if she were fighting in the snow. ‘That is a rude question, my lady.’
‘Oh, I’m a rude woman. You do not fool me, sister. You seek to hide your powers, and I can feel them – sweet Christ, girl, you lit the very moon with your sword of light. You are a witch – a very powerful witch. Why are you here?’
Amicia made a good straight-backed curtsy. ‘My lady, I am here to help Ser John escort his convoy. As you have apparently seen, I have some skill in working the hermetical.’
Ghause watched her.
Amicia resisted the invitation to talk further.
‘You are from Sophie’s convent? Eh?’ the older woman asked.
Amicia winced at her own foolishness. When she had volunteered to come, she had imagined herself secure. She had imagined that she might look at his father and mother and see the source of his revolt against God. Learn things to his good.
In her pious arrogance, she had assumed that she would be secure and powerful here.
Ghause Muriens wore the aethereal not like a cloak or a fog, but like a garment of regal splendour. It was part of her. She lived in potentia.
Amicia felt naked before it. ‘I serve the Order of Saint Thomas,’ she said.
Ghause licked her lips. ‘At Lissen Carrak?’ she said softly. She was beautiful. Amicia had never seen a woman as beautiful. And what she manipulated was not as simple as air or darkness or light or fire.
Amicia nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘So – you know my son, perhaps?’ Ghause asked again. She rested a hand on Amicia’s arm, and the nun warmed to the touch. She warmed to her navel, and to the tips of her fingers.
The ring on Amicia’s finger flared. Ghause spat – like an angry cat – and started back and Amicia recovered control of her own body and mind. And was only then aware that Ghause had been overwhelming her. Seducing her.
‘Bitch,’ Ghause said. ‘That was unnecessary.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘A mere mind your own business would have sufficed.’
Amicia’s mind reeled. The ring had saved her. She took a deep breath, and then another.
Ghause smiled. ‘You do know him!’ she said. ‘Ah – sometimes, I wonder if there is a God after all.’
Amicia had recovered her control. ‘Madam, I nursed two of your sons in my place as a novice. And both were fine knights and gentle men.’ Her voice was steady as rock, and she had her version of events prepared. She fixed it in her palace, and banished all the rest to the locked box where she kept the Red Knight.
‘I am a proud mother, and I was led by false rumour to fear that Gabriel was dead. What can you tell me of him?’ Ghause asked.
Amicia shook her head. ‘Madam, he was the Captain of a fortress under siege by the Wild, and I was a novice serving in the hospital. Twice when he was wounded, I used my powers to heal him, and I stood by your younger son – Ser Gavin – and saw him fight. Brilliantly.’
‘My housekeeper says you have tattoos. Why does a sister of the great order have tattoos?’ Ghause smiled like a cat with a bird.
‘Once, I lacked the power to stop others from imposing their will on me,’ Amicia said gently. ‘I no longer lack that power.’
‘It pleases you to think you can match me,’ Ghause said. ‘I know what you dreamed,’ she said, almost cooing. ‘I watched it.’
‘I know of no reason that I should have to match you,’ Amicia said. ‘If you know what I dreamed, then you also know what I did with it. I am not your foe, madam, but if you attempt to enter my head again, I might feel myself attacked.’
Ghause licked her lips. ‘You admired my son.’ She put a hand to her bosom. ‘This interests me profoundly, woman. Tell me!’
Amicia dropped another curtsy. ‘My lady, I am a sister of the Order of Saint Thomas and my only bridegroom is Christ. You may impose on me with your manipulations – I will only see them as torments. I admire your son as a good knight and a good man.’
‘By Lady Tar!’ Ghause hissed. ‘My son Gabriel is not a good man or a good knight. That horseshit is for the peasants. I made him to be like a god!’
I should never have come here.
The air was full of Ghause’s power, and the impulse to speak lay on Amicia like a shirt of heavy maille. But she resisted. God has the ultimate power. Christ be with me. Virgin
, stand with me, now and in the hour of my death.
‘Who gave you that ring?’ Ghause asked suddenly.
Amicia opened her mouth to speak, her own will broken by the sudden question, but a voice behind her cut her off ruthlessly.
‘Stop bothering the girl. Christ on the cross, woman, you are at her as if she’s a maid who’s stolen a silver spoon. Never mind the old hag, sister, she likes tormenting pretty women, and look, you are one.’ The Earl leaned in the door of the solar.
Trapped between them, Amicia knew a moment of true fear. It was like being a fawn caught between two giants.
‘She’s no maid. She’s a sorceress of immense power, she has more secrets than Richard Plangere, and I think she’s lying to me. I wouldn’t have let her in my wards, but now that someone else has, I mean to know her.’ Ghause stood with her hands on her hips. ‘You’re no nun.’
Amicia’s breath caught. ‘My vocation is not for you to criticise,’ she snapped.
‘Look at those breasts!’ the Earl said, slapping his booted thigh. ‘Sweet Christ, breathe harder, sweet.’
Amicia stood straight-backed, as if she was the equal of an Earl and the King’s sister. ‘May I be excused?’ she asked. ‘If this is your courtesy, I’ll stay with the servants.’
She ducked under the Earl’s arm and got down the steps to the main hall without a voice being raised.
With help from servants, she made her way to Ser John’s room, where the old knight was lying in a closed bed with heavy curtains. His colour was good and he was awake, and his squire was reading to him from a book of chivalry. He rose, but Amicia waved to the young man to sit.
‘Do you know Muriens?’ she asked.
Ser John shook his head. ‘Met the Earl in forty-nine or fifty. We was on the same side after Chevin, and I played dice with him once or twice. That’s all.’ He raised his head. ‘You, my girl, are red as a beet.’
‘Lady Ghause has been interrogating me. The Earl would like to peel me and perhaps eat me as well.’ She threw herself into a chair. ‘I’m a terrible nun. I want to burn her to ash. I need to go to confession for fifty things.’