Gawin looked into that beautiful face – unmarred by anger, rage, or any other emotion – and he wanted to spit in it. His father would have.
I want to live.
‘I yield,’ he said, and hated himself.
‘All these Alban knights are worthless,’ de Vrailly laughed. ‘We will rule here.’
And then they all dismounted, leaving Gawin alone in the courtyard with the body of his squire. The boy was quite dead.
I killed him, Gawin thought. Sweet Christ.
But it wasn’t over yet, because Adam was a brave man, and he died one in the doorway of their corner room.
One of the foreigners threw all his kit through the window after he heard his squire die. They laughed.
Gawin knelt on the stones by Toma and, after an hour, when the bells rang for evensong, the innkeeper came to him.
‘I’ve sent for the sheriff and the lord,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, m’lord.’
Gawin couldn’t think of anything to say.
I killed my brother.
I killed Toma.
I have been defeated and yielded.
I should have died.
Why had he yielded? Death would have been better than this. Even the innkeeper pitied him.
Lorica – de Vrailly
Gaston was wiping the blood from his blade, fastidiously examining the last four inches where he’d hacked repeatedly into the young squire’s guard, battering his defences until he was overwhelmed and then dead. His blade had taken some damage in the process and would need a good cutler to restore the edge.
De Vrailly drank wine from a silver cup while his squires removed his armour.
‘He cut you, the man in the courtyard,’ Gaston said, looking up from his task. ‘Don’t try to hide it. He cut you.’
De Vrailly shrugged. ‘He was swinging wildly. It is nothing.’
‘He got through your guard.’ Gaston sniffed. ‘They aren’t really so bad, these Albans. Perhaps we will have some real fights.’ He looked at his cousin. ‘He hit you hard,’ he pointed out, because de Vrailly was rubbing his wrist for the third time in as many minutes.
‘Bah! They have little skill at arms.’ De Vrailly drank more wine. ‘All they do is make war on the Wild. They have forgotten how to fight other men.’ He shrugged. ‘I will change that, and make them better at defeating the Wild as I do. I will make them harder, better men.’ He nodded to himself.
‘Your angel has said this?’ Gaston asked, with obvious interest. His cousin’s encounter with an angel had benefited the whole family, but it was still a matter that puzzled him.
‘My angel has commanded it. I am but heaven’s tool, cousin.’ De Vrailly said it without the least irony.
Gaston took a deep breath, looking for his great cousin to show a little humour, and found none. ‘You called yourself the best knight in the world,’ he said, trying to raise a smile.
De Vrailly shrugged as Johan, his older squire, unlaced his left rerebrace and began to remove the arm harness over the wound on his wrist. ‘I am the greatest knight in the world,’ he said. ‘My angel chose me because I am the first lance in the East. I have won six battles; I have fought in twelve passages of arms and never been wounded; I have killed men in every list in which I’ve fought; in the melee at Tours-’
Gaston rolled his eyes. ‘Very well, you are the best knight in the world. Now tell me why we’ve come to Alba, besides bullying the locals.’
‘Their king will proclaim a tournament,’ de Vrailly said. ‘I will win it, and emerge as the King’s Champion.’ He nodded, ‘and then I will be the king, to all intents and purposes.’
‘The angel has said this?’ Gaston asked.
‘You question my angel, cousin?’ De Vrailly frowned.
Gaston rose and sheathed his sword. ‘No, I merely choose not to believe everything I’m told – by you or any other man.’
De Vrailly’s beautiful eyes narrowed. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’
Gaston smiled a crooked smile. ‘If we continue like this we will fight. And while you may be the best knight in the world, I believe I have bloodied your knuckles more than once – eh?’
Their eyes crossed, and Gaston saw the glitter in de Vrailly’s. Gaston held his gaze. Few men could do it. Gaston had the benefit of a lifetime of practice.
De Vrailly shrugged. ‘You couldn’t have asked this before we left home?’ he asked.
Gaston wrinkled his nose. ‘When you say fight, I fight. Yes? You say: gather your knights, we go to conquer Alba. I say: lovely, we shall all be rich and powerful. Yes?’
‘Yes!’ de Vrailly said, through his smile.
‘But when you tell me that an Angel of God is giving you very specific military and political advice-’ Gaston shrugged.
‘We are to meet the Earl of Towbray in the morning. He will engage us in his mesne. He desires what my angel desires.’ For the first time, de Vrailly seemed to hesitate.
He pounced. ‘Cousin – what does your angel desire?’
De Vrailly drank more wine, put the cup down on the sideboard, and shrugged out of his right arm harness as his younger squire opened the vambrace. ‘Who can know what an angel desires?’ he said quietly. ‘But the Wild here must be destroyed. That’s what the king’s father intended. You know they burned swathes of the wood between the towns to do it? They waited for windy days and set fires. The old king’s knights fought four great battles against the Wild – and what I would give to have been part of that. The creatures of the Wild came forth to do battle – great armies of them!’ His eyes shone.
Gaston raised an eyebrow.
‘The old king was victorious in the main, but eventually, he sent to the East for more knights. His losses were fearsome.’ De Vrailly looked as if he could see it happening. ‘His son – now the king – has fought well to hold what his father gained, but he takes no new land from the Wild. My angel will change that. We will throw the Wild back beyond the wall. I have seen it.’
Gaston released a long-held breath. ‘Cousin, just how fearsome were these losses?’
‘Oh, heavy, I suppose. At the Battle of Chevin, King Hawthor is said to have lost fifty thousand men.’ De Vrailly shrugged.
Gaston shook his head. ‘Numbers that large make my head ache. That’s the population of a large city. Have they replaced their losses?’
‘By the good Saviour, no! If they had, do you think we could challenge for the rulership of this land with three hundred lances?’
Gaston spat. ‘Good Christ-’
‘Do not blaspheme!’
‘Your angel wants us to take this realm with three hundred lances so that he can launch a war against the Wild?’ Gaston stepped close to his cousin. ‘Should I slap you to wake you up?’
De Vrailly rose to his feet. With a gesture, he dismissed his squires. ‘It is not seemly that you question me on these matters, cousin. It is enough that you summoned your knights and now you follow me. Obey me. That is all you need to know.’
Gaston made a face like a man who has discovered a bad smell. ‘I have always followed you,’ he said.
De Vrailly nodded his head.
‘I have also saved you from a number of mistakes,’ Gaston added.
‘Gaston,’ de Vrailly’s voice suddenly softened. ‘Let us not disagree. I am advised by heaven. Do not be jealous!’
‘Then I should like to meet your angel,’ Gaston said.
De Vrailly narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘perhaps my angel is only for me. After all – I alone am the greatest knight.’
Gaston sighed and moved to the window where he looked down at the lone figure kneeling on the smooth stones of the courtyard. The bodies had been taken, laid out and wrapped in linen ready for burial, but still the Alban knight knelt in the courtyard.
‘What do you plan to do with that man?’ Gaston asked.
‘Take him to court to prove my prowess. Then I’ll ransom him.’
Gaston nodded. ‘We should offer him a cup of wine.’
De Vrailly shook his head. ‘He does penance for his weakness – for the sin of pride, in daring to face me, and for his failure as a man-at-arms. He should kneel there in shame for the rest of his life.’