“Look what I have!” said an Alban voice. But as she turned her head and her right hand came up, she saw it was another Alban boy aping the Galles in his tight hose, his arse hanging out in the breeze. Something pricked her right arm as she tried to fight him…
He put his hands around her waist from behind and tried to nuzzle her neck.
She raised herself on her toes, her hands on his, and as the master-at-arms taught the maids, she broke his grip and slammed her basket at him. With her right hand she pulled the offending object from her hair—her thread knife.
She slammed it into his reaching hand and it went all the way in and ripped out again, sharp as any razor. Blood fountained, and the man stumbled back.
He couldn’t take his eyes off it. “I’ll do you, you bitch!” he shouted.
The southerner tried to grab her. With the grace of desperation, she pivoted and slammed her skirted knee into his balls—hard enough contact to make him mew like a kitten, although his backhand almost knocked her down. She scraped her thread knife over his face and backed into the alley.
She backed three steps. It looked like a dead end—she prayed, and prayed, her mind running too fast, and she saw the dead man’s feet—a corpse—and thought of how soon she’d join it. And how odd that the dead man’s boots had curly toes like a Moor’s.
She toyed with using the little knife on her own wrist. It was a mortal sin. Eternity in hell.
She wished that she was a little luckier, but the dead end was resolutely dead.
The little knot of men were playing with her now. They knew she had nowhere to go, and they were laughing. The bleeding man laid claim to be first on her body.
She looked for a weapon.
“Look out! She bites,” laughed one of the Albans. He had a big dagger in his fist, and he thrust it into the southerner as he passed, and stepped aside as the blood flowed. The southerner looked stunned by his own death, and the squire laughed.
He looked at Blanche. “Come out, you little slut, and take what you get. If I have to dirty myself dragging you out, I’ll slit your nose when I’m done fucking you.” He smiled, raised his hand, and beckoned.
She shrank back.
“Last chance,” he said.
The alley ended where four ramshackle buildings came together, and two of them shared an ancient set of roof trees. Blanche had seen the gap—at her head height—the smell of piss told her that men and animals stood here to urinate, especially when it was raining. The gap was too high for her.
She whimpered.
“Stupid slut,” the man said.
“Four men on one poor girl!” she managed. “You cowards!”
He shrugged. But he respected her enough to keep his knife well forward, and he pushed in.
She decided to make him kill her, and she attacked.
He passed the dagger effortlessly under her hand and broke her right wrist in the twinkle of an eye. Her beautiful sewing knife fell in the piss.
He kneed her in the gut so hard that she threw up as she fell to her knees.
“Now,” he said, with grim humour, “I think I’ve earned the right to be first. I—”
She didn’t really see what happened, because her head was down, but suddenly there was an apparition out of hell in the alley—a big man, black as night, in outlandish foreign clothes.
The black man had come out of the gap above her. The dead man’s boots—the man wasn’t dead. Her disoriented senses allowed her that much.
“Who the fuck are you?” the squire said. He backed up a step and went for his sword.
The blackamoor stood easily, legs slightly apart. He wore a curved sword, sheathed.
The squire’s friends shouted from the mouth of the alley.
Blanche pushed a vomit-soaked strand of hair out of her mouth and tried to think.
The squire drew, and as his hand moved, the black man drew, and cut—one incredibly beautiful motion—a minute pivot of the hips and the squire’s sword—and hand, still attached—fell to the earth.
The squire shrieked. It was the sound of a man having the soul ripped from his body, and like Blanche, he fell to his knees. Blood fountained.
He seemed unable to understand what had happened. He leaned forward, and his searching left hand found his severed right and tried to pull it to him.
The black man snapped his sword in a short arc, and the very tip passed across the wounded man’s eyes and through the bridge of his nose, killing him instantly with an economy of effort that was wasted on the onlookers. The squire fell forward over his own lap, still kneeling.
The blackamoor stepped forward. Blanche got her hand on her sewing knife—like her clothes and her skin, it would wash. Her right wrist was broken or sprained. It would mend. She pushed her back against the filthy wall behind her and levered herself up.
Her linen basket had not spilled. She dropped the knife into it and picked it up left handed. She wasn’t thinking well. She needed the knife.
The black figure was not a daemon. He was an infidel—she’d seen his kind a few times. Black men were part of her life—Joe Green was the king’s greengrocer, and Miles Greathorn was black as pitch and in the King’s Guard. But this man’s blackness was almost blue, and he was taller and thinner than the others she’d seen.
And very still. He was at the mouth of the alley, now, and yet it was as if he’d never moved. His sword appeared almost small in his hands, held out behind him like a tail.
She watched the Galles hesitate.
The paynim didn’t hesitate. When the other men paused, he leaned and his blade snapped in a short arc, and blood fountained.
“Go for the watch!” shouted the wounded man.
The infidel moved his sword into a new guard, held economically in front above his hips, the curving point aimed at the Galles. The biggest of them drew—and attacked.
The black man spun and spun again.
The biggest Galle fell like a tree, and the paynim’s blade flicked back to kill the man he’d wounded.
There were now five corpses cooling, counting the southerner.
The Galles and their friends backed away. “You can’t do this,” one said, over and over.
Another began screaming for the watch.
Blanche’s head began to work again. However black the man might be, and dressed like a foreign unbeliever, he’d saved more than her life. And the watch, whatever she might say, would side with upper class men over a dirty woman and a foreigner. Unless they were very lucky and got someone she knew, like Edmund.
Very carefully—he was unbelievably lethal, and his stillness was as terrifying as his colour—she moved behind him. She talked to him as if he was a horse, sure that he couldn’t speak her language.
“If you come with me—just come. I’m not going to hurt you—passing behind you, kind sir. Come along with me.” She passed behind him, well within the lethal range of his curved blade. Her knees were watery and her hands shook and her wrist throbbed with a sick kind of pain, but she bit down on the urge to be weak.
Like a skittish horse, she knew she had his attention by the tilt of his head.
She passed behind him, out of the mouth of the alley, stepped past the dead man who lay there and heard people coming.
“Come!” she said.
In the far distance, she heard “Watch, watch!” bellowed.
“Come!” she shouted. He was not moving.
She turned. She’d tried. Down the hill lay Cheapside and safety.
“Come on!” she called. She extended a hand—a damaged, blood-soaked hand. It was swelling already.
He flicked her a glance—and moved. He stooped over one of his victims and picked up the man’s hat, and in two strides, he’d cleaned his sword with the hat, tossed it aside and returned the curved blade to his scabbard without looking.
She began to run.
He followed her.
Her wrist began to throb, and every long stride hurt it more, and she tried to catch
it in her left, and that hurt—she screamed. She hadn’t meant to, but her scream came out with the pain and she was kneeling in the street. Now one of her knees hurt, too.
Another armed man had appeared.
He had a naked sword in his hand, and he was as tall as a tree and almost as wide as a house.
She shuddered in relief, because everyone in her part of Harndon knew Ser Ricar Orcsbane, Knight of the Order.
But even as her vision tunnelled, she knew she could not let go.
She got her head up.
“Ser Ricar!” she said. “Oh, Christ—he saved me, ser knight.”
Ser Ricar was under a vow of silence. He looked at the paynim. He kept his long sword between them.
“He saved me, you hear me, ser? Galles attacked me—Sweet Virgin, mother of God—” She was babbling, and somehow, she was listening to herself babble from a great distance and the pain was ebbing and flowing like a tide.
She moaned, and tried to sit up.
They were of a height, the two men—one pale and red haired, with freckles across his enormous nose, and the other black as pitch with indigo added. The Ifriquy’an’s nose was smaller and finer, but otherwise, they were a measure of wide shoulders and narrow waists. Their swords were a match, too.
Both looked at the girl who had fallen forward over her knees. Both kept their swords up, between them, with the ease of long familiarity.
And neither spoke.
In the near distance, voices cried for the watch.
Ser Ricar gave the very slightest bow. Then, like an uncoiling spring, he sheathed his sword and bent, lifting the fallen woman as if she was made of feathers.
She stiff-armed him with her uninjured left hand. “Don’t touch me!” she spat, though she heard herself say it from a distance. “I can walk!”
The infidel allowed himself a smile. He inclined his head, and his sword vanished into the mouth of its scabbard.
The Knight of the Order released Blanche and stepped back, hands held up.
Blanche got to her feet. “I’ll get myself there,” she said grimly.
The Knight of the Order gave her a bow—respect, admonition, concurrence—it was a very expressive bow. And then he turned and ran down the hill toward Cheapside, Blanche trailing, stumbling, but managing her legs the way a mother might manage wayward children, and, last, the infidel.
Albans, like many folk, have never been fond of what they don’t know. Hence, the new Archbishop of Lorica was almost always referred to as the “new bishop” as if newness itself was something disgraceful.
The new bishop, Bohemund de Foi, was a Galle. This, too, led to an illogical prejudice. Most of the population of Harndon had names that indicated a Gallish origin; merchants and apprentices and nobles, too. Under the Semples lay Saint Pols. Under the Dentermints lay D’Entre Deux Monts. Six hundred years of prosperous trade between Harndoners and their Gallish cousins should have built trust and love, but it hadn’t, and despite Gallish fashions, Gallish swords, and Gallish Bible covers in every home, Galles were often the subject of biting witticisms or even riots, and the new bishop’s origins would have told against him had he been of saintly and humble demeanour.
In fact, the opinion of the people kept the young Archbishop of Lorica in a state of constant ferment. He was booed in the street, he had clods of earth thrown at his palanquin, and when one of his priests was accused of some very venal flirtation with one of the boys in the ritual choir of the cathedral, the man was badly beaten by apprentices.
So it was in no humble or contrite mood that the most powerful cleric in Alba met with his political ally and cousin, Jean de Vrailly, and his household. Present at de Vrailly’s table was his other cousin, the Count D’Eu; the Sieur de Rohan, whose power at court was beginning to eclipse de Vrailly’s own; and Ser Eustace l’Isle d’Adam, a rising star among de Vrailly’s knights.
De Rohan was the last to arrive and the first to speak. “I have under my hand the good squire Maurice d’Evereoux,” he said, indicating a young man standing in the doorway. “He is prepared to report on the latest outrage perpetrated by the Queen’s people. I am very sorry to tell you gentlemen that four of our people have been killed.”
The Archbishop’s hand went to his throat—the other men present touched their swords.
“What killed them?” de Vrailly spat.
“A woman—one of the Queen’s tire women—summoned a daemon on a public street. The daemon killed four of our noble squires. When our people attempted to pursue the thing, a knight of the so-called ‘Order of Saint Thomas’ was seen, sword in hand, defending the thing.”
The Count D’Eu leaned back, an enigmatic smile on his face. “If it killed four of our squires, messieurs, why did it need defence?”
De Rohan shot him a look full of scorn. “My lord, why ask such a thing? I merely relate the events as they happen.”
D’Eu laughed softly. “Do you know Blanche Gold?” he asked. “I do not think that the notion that she conjured a daemon is going to play especially well.” He looked around. “Not least as it’s a fairly obvious lie.”
De Rohan shot to his feet. “Do you, monsieur, give me the lie?”
D’Eu didn’t stir. “Yes,” he said. “I say you lie.” He nodded to his cousin. “He is lying on purpose, to make trouble.”
De Rohan’s face carried honest, blank amazement.
De Vrailly frowned in distaste. “I wish you would not speak so of the good de Rohan in public; he seeks only to serve.”
“Does he indeed, cousin?” D’Eu rose. “I offer to fight you, de Rohan—right now. By the Law of War.”
D’Eu was in his harness. De Rohan wore the long pointed shoes and short gown of a courtier.
Jean de Vrailly nodded, jaw outthrust. “I take your point, fair cousin. Monsieur de Rohan, you will kindly return to wearing your armour on all but formal occasions. We must remind the court at all times what we represent—the manly virtues that their effeminacy has forgotten.”
D’Eu shook his head. “Nay, cousin, I mean it. This gossipy viper has nothing in his head but the destruction of the Queen and the smearing of her reputation. I say he lies. I offer to prove it on him, with my sword.” D’Eu leaned back. “Par Dieu, I’ll even let him put on his harness—if he can find it.”
Silence fell.
De Rohan was white as parchment. “You—You traitor!”
D’Eu frowned. “My pardon, Monsieur, but detesting you is not treason.”
“You are the one who shields the Queen and warns her!” he began.
Jean de Vrailly stood. “As master of this household, I must require you, cousin, to withdraw your challenge.”
Gaston D’Eu also stood. “On what grounds?” he asked.
Jean de Vrailly’s eyes all but begged him to withdraw. “By my will,” he said.
“You mean, when you killed Towbray’s cousin and I begged you to withdraw—that was different?”
“He challenged my honour,” Ser Jean said patiently.
“De Rohan has just pronounced me a traitor,” D’Eu said reasonably.
“He will retract it,” de Vrailly said.
D’Eu nodded, pursed his lips, and sat. “I will consider,” he said.
De Rohan frowned. He whispered a few words to his squire, D’Alace, and looked at l’Isle d’Adam. “If I am to be given the lie, perhaps I should not continue,” he said.
“I will continue,” the Archbishop of Lorica said. “And perhaps no lout will give me the lie. These people hate us. They are nothing but a nest of heretics and rebels. And the so-called ‘Order of Saint Thomas’ is nothing less than a heretical cult. They harbour witches and Satan-workers, and they have never been approved by the scholastica.”
Patiently, as if dealing with a fool, D’Eu said, “Cousin, you must have been here long enough to know that the Albans follow the Patriarch in Liviapolis and not the Patriarch of Rhum. They care nothing for our scholastica or the theology of the bishop or the University of
Lucrece.”
“Heretics,” Bohemund de Foi insisted. “The Patriarch of Rhum has never approved of them. And he, not the upstart infidel in Liviapolis, is the primarch of the world.”
D’Eu made a motion of his hand. The motion suggested that he wiped his arse with the bishop’s argument.
The bishop turned bright red. “You dare!”
D’Eu set his jaw. “What I see, gentlemen, is a small set of my countrymen determined to stop at nothing to create a civil war here. I will be kind and suggest that it is ignorance and not malfeasance that leads you, my lord archbishop, to say these things.”
De Vrailly tapped a thumb on his teeth. “The Order of Saint Thomas were, my lords, fine knights and good men-at-arms when fighting the Wild.”
“Oh, the Wild!” the archbishop all but spat. “All day I listen to this prattle. Weak minds deluded by satanic manifestations! The Wild is nothing but a snare of this world, like women’s wiles and gluttony.”
De Vrailly combed his twin-pointed beard with his fingers. “In this, my lord archbishop, I cannot agree. The Wild is—quite palpable. My angel says—”
The archbishop held up his hand. “Please, Monsieur de Vrailly.”
Silence fell for a moment as the two men glared at each other.
“I propose we move against this Order and suppress them,” the bishop continued. “I have recorded enough of their use of satanic powers to burn every one of them. They brag of their powers.” The archbishop turned on his cousin. “And you threaten your immortal soul every time you consort with them. Or the Queen and her witches.”
De Vrailly was not a man who enjoyed being spited, especially not at his own table and in front of his own squires. “You speak too forcefully for me, my lord archbishop,” de Vrailly said.
“I speak for the good of your soul,” de Foi replied. “The Queen is a witch and must die. The Order are her minions. Everyone in this room knows that what I say is true. If we are to save the souls of these Albans, we must begin by ridding ourselves of these two forces for evil.”
Gaston D’Eu snorted his derision. “I don’t know any such thing,” he said. “And I recommend that my lord archbishop take a dozen of his priests and some animals and ride west into the mountains. I would strongly suggest that what he experiences there may change his mind. If he survives the experience at all.” D’Eu tapped his dagger on the table.