FAITH

Robert Earl

 

 

“What about this one?” Claude the retainer asked with poorly disguised irritation, holding up the bloody prize.

“As I’ve already told you,” his master replied sharply, “that is not good enough. I want something… more.”

Claude shrugged and dropped the blood-spattered head back into the dust. The orc’s rictus grin leered up at him insolently, but he resisted the urge to give it a kick. Knights had funny ideas about things like that. But then, knights had funny ideas about a lot of things.

With a grunt of disgust Claude turned his back on the grisly trophy and stalked off to collect the evening’s firewood. As he reached the tree-line he heard the sibilant hiss of whetstone against steel. It was the first of the evening’s hundred sweeps, the ritual that kept the knight’s sword sharper than any tooth or fang in this wilderness.

In spite of himself, Claude felt the sound cutting through his ill humour. This de Moreaux, Gilles, the third of his line to rely upon the old retainer’s good offices, was the first to have taken care of his own weapons. And when Claude’s rheumatism had bitten deep, curling and crippling his hands, Sir Gilles himself had ordered the older man to rest whilst he foraged and rooted for the herbs needed for a cure. Not many knights would have lowered themselves so far as to serve a servant.

On the other hand, not many knights would still be traipsing around the Massif Orcal at this time of year for any reason, let alone an apparently never-ending quest for a trophy large and impressive enough to return with.

Claude, stooping to lift a dry twist of wood from the debris that littered the forest, grimaced at the thought. True, the sun was still warm on the leathered skin at the nape of his neck, and even this mild exercise of bundling firewood was beginning to dampen his brow. But despite the comfortable heat the leaves on the trees of this valley were already beginning to redden with an autumnal fire. A thousand traceries of red and gold raced and tumbled through the green sweeps of their boughs, a final explosion of colour before the skeletal days to come. He knew that in a fortnight, a month at the most, those leaves would be gone, mulch beneath the ice and rain of winter.

He also knew that in a fortnight, a month at the most, the rheumatism would be back. Claude’s fingers twitched at the thought. If he were still out here when the ice came there would be no escape from the pain. It would eat into his bones with a fervour beyond the powers of any poultice to soothe. Every movement would become an agony, every joint would ache like shattered glass. It was too much.

Still muttering to himself, the old man claimed a length of splintered branch to complete his load then turned back towards their makeshift camp. He found Sir Gilles sitting cross-legged by the edge of the clearing. Apart from the repetitive whisper of the sharpening stone along the blade of his sword, the young knight remained as upright and as silent as one of the Lady’s stained glass saints.

Claude surreptitiously watched the blank mask of his master’s face as he built their fire. Not the slightest hint or ripple of emotion stirred the even symmetry of his dark Bretonnian features, yet still the old man knew what lay behind the shuttered windows of the youngster’s eyes. He knew, and in knowing despaired of a return to their demesne before winter’s misery began.

It was all the fault of Gilles’ brother, Leon. Leon the brave. Leon the fair. Leon who, after a scant two weeks of questing, had returned with a massive troll’s head the size of a cartwheel and the blessing of the Lady.

If only Sir Gilles had found a prize to match that, Claude thought unhappily, we’d be home by now.

He struck a shower of sparks into the tinder heart of the fire and stooped to blow them into life, his sigh lost in the operation. A few tiny flames leapt up and Claude tended them, fed them, watched them grow. After a few moments the kindling was a fist of fire, bright even in the light of the setting sun. He imprisoned the blaze within a latticework of thicker sticks and swung the pot containing the evening’s stew into the heat. Only then did he realise that the sound of the whetstone had ceased. He glanced up at his master. The knight had sheathed his sword and slipped into that deep breathless trance that seemed to be the mark of his kind.

Knights! Claude shook his head resignedly. Thirty-four years as an equerry and his masters still remained a mystery to him. Perhaps it was because the Lady asked so much of them. Perhaps it was because they truly were a different breed. Who knew?

Claude shrugged and turned his attention back to the pot. As he stirred the glutinous soup, a sudden gust of wind sprinted down the valley, rustling through the falling leaves with a thousand chill fingers. One more harbinger of winter. Silently cursing the fate that seemed set to keep him here, the old man pulled up his collar and waited for the stew to boil.

 

“The Lady is beauteous indeed,” breathed Sir Gilles.

The quiet intensity of the statement twisted Claude around in his saddle to follow the knight’s gaze. But a quick glance around was enough to still the sudden, startling burst of hope that had flared within his chest. The Lady had not appeared. All that could be seen from the eyrie of this valley pass was the usual panorama of the Massif Orcal. Claude pulled the tattered blanket that now served him as a cloak around his scrawny shoulders and studied the scene.

Beyond the distant heights, the slopes were shot through with a thousand shades of wintry dawn sunlight, the colours a sharp contrast to the depths of the valley floor, now a grey sea of morning mist. Claude pulled his threadbare blanket tighter around his shoulders and yawned.

“If you don’t mind me saying so, sire—” he began.

“We should make the most of the fine weather remaining to us,” Sir Gilles completed for him. The look of rapture faded from his face and he turned to regard his old retainer. “You are correct, of course, Claude. First, though, I will sit a while in this place. I feel her presence here, I’m sure of it. Why don’t you wait for me over the slope, and perhaps brew some of that filthy Empire tea of which you are so fond?”

This last was with a smile, the first crack in the knight’s iron mask for days. The expression was as fleeting as the rise of a trout, yet in that brief moment Claude had read the lines of frustration and exhaustion that his master’s composure had so well concealed. For a moment the old man felt his own worries swamped in a swell of sympathy.

“I’ll wait as you say, sire,” he assented, turning to lead their horses over the crest of the ridge. Behind him Sir Gilles sank to his knees, hands clasped together in silent prayer before the upright hilt of his sword. As he set to beside the fire once more, Claude snatched a quick glance at the tableaux. He felt a sudden burst of affection and shook his head.

“You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” he scolded himself in a mutter as he split the kindling sticks needed to boil his water. “Too sentimental by half.”

The ripe globe of the autumnal sun climbed into the cloud streaked depths of the sky. Claude sat and drank his tea. When he had done that, he lay back and let the warmth of it sink into him.

Sharp-edged shadows stalked across distant slopes and valleys as the sun began to rise higher. The light was bright but unnatural, thin and brittle like before a storm. Claude was watching a hawk spiral overhead on the first of the day’s thermals when a furtive movement from below snatched his attention. He lowered his gaze to where a grove of stunted bushes below rustled and moved jerkily against the wind.

Claude froze and watched the undergrowth for any further sign. Perhaps it was just a trapped deer, or some sort of mountain hare. He didn’t want to disturb his master for such a—

With a sudden snap the bushes burst apart and a ragged creature sprang out.

“Sire!” the old man bellowed, leaping to his feet with adrenaline-fuelled agility. He fumbled at his belt for his dagger, struggling to unsheathe it in time, and snatched a glance at the tattered form that even now approached him. Only then did he realise that beneath the layers of dirt and bracken it was human, a man. He found himself fumbling for words of greeting or warning but, before he could find either weapon or challenge, Sir Gilles arrived.

His appearance was silent, marked only by a sudden rush of displaced air. Gone was the man, the youngster Claude had known since his swaddling days. Gone was the tiredness, the yearning. Gone was the humanity. All that remained of Sir Gilles now was the knight, the steel-clad killing machine. The dark stormcloud of his cloak whipped around him, driven either by the wind or by the corona of terrible energy that radiated from him. Claude, without even noticing that he was doing so, flinched away from his own master.

Despite the layers of metal which encased his form, Sir Gilles bounded forward with all the grace and poise of a big cat. With the hiss of steel slicing through air, his sword was in his hand as he leapt towards the newcomer.

“Thank the gods!” the man said, his features wild with a confusion of fear and happiness. After a moment’s hesitation he threw himself to his knees. “Our prayers have been answered.”

The knight hefted the length of his sword, flicking it upwards in an effortless arc that sent a wink of sunlight flashing along the edge. And for a moment, just one moment, Claude was certain that the blade was about to guillotine down across the newcomer’s shoulders. But of course it did not. The Lady, bless and protect her, would not have allowed it.

Yet how would it be, the old retainer suddenly found himself wondering, if the knights of Bretonnia should lose their respect for the Lady?

Claude shuddered, suddenly cold, and switched his attention to the stranger who still knelt before Sir Gilles.

“…prayed for you to come for weeks. It’s become too much, far too much,” the man continued to babble, tears glinting unashamedly in the corners of his eyes. “None of us can sleep at night, none of us can work. Where are they going, where? One more and we’re leaving, I swear it.”

The man’s voice was beginning to edge upwards into the realms of hysteria. Seeming to realise it, he paused and took a deep breath. Then turned his red-rimmed eyes back to the knight.

“You will help us, sire, won’t you?”

Sir Gilles, who until now had remained poised for combat, suddenly relaxed. He sheathed the wicked length of his sword and raised his visor to reveal a hungry, wolfish smile.

“Have no fear. I am sworn to help men such as yourself,” he reassured the peasant, whose grubby features split open into a wide grin of relief. “How far is this village of yours?”

“In the next valley, sire. If you have horses it will take a few hours at the most.”

“Yes, we have horses. Perhaps you can help Claude here saddle up… ah, how are you called?”

“Jacques, sire, Jacques de Celliers. And thank you.”

Sir Gilles waved away the man’s gratitude and turned to face the bright rays of the mid morning sun. Claude led the newcomer to the horses. It took them a few minutes to saddle the beasts and lead them back to where the knight still stood.

Somehow Claude was not surprised to find his master’s head bowed and his lips moving in a silent prayer of gratitude.

 

The inn was packed.

Even with the trestle tables pushed back into the shadows there hardly seemed room to breathe. Claude had even considered slipping back outside, away from the choke of this room, but somehow the tension of hope and fear that sawed through the smoke-filled air kept him still. That and the presence of Sir Gilles, of course.

The knight sat comfortably within an almost tangible sphere of personal aura that none seemed willing to invade. He looked as calm and serene as always as he chatted to those around him about their crops, their children, the first signs of change in the season.

Claude saw the awe that washed across the features of those being spoken to, watched it being reflected on the faces of their neighbours. In a gesture that he would have denied even under torture he straightened his back and smiled with pride. Sir Gilles was, after all, his knight.

Not until Francois, the village elder, made his entrance did the meeting come to some sort of order. The inn door was thrown open by a burst of cold, eastern wind and the old man stalked into the warmth of the room. He had hooked one claw-like hand onto the shoulder of his nephew for support or perhaps guidance through the chill darkness that now laid siege to the building. Favouring Sir Gilles with what could just about have been taken for a half-bow, he then studied the depths of his guest’s face with yellowing eyes as puffy as poached eggs. For several long moments the two men regarded each other until, with a grunt of satisfaction, Francois lowered himself onto one knee. Claude could almost hear his bones creaking.

“Please,” Sir Gilles said earnestly, “there is no need to kneel, especially for one as steeped in the grey hairs of wisdom as yourself.”

“Thank you, lord,” Francois said curtly. His nephew helped him back to his feet and led him to the cutaway oak barrel that served as the old man’s seat of office. Knight and elder faced each other across the few feet of swept earth which lay between them and, in place of any common currency of small talk, smiled.

“I thank you for coming to our aid,” Francois began. “I only wish I could tell you what we need that aid against.”

The knight shifted in his chair, eyes beginning to sparkle with a quickening interest.

“Your man Jacques here told me something of your dilemma,” he said, gesturing towards the peasant. Jacques, who had become something of a local hero since his return this afternoon, puffed himself up with pride at the mention. “Perhaps, though, you could tell me the full history of these, ah, events.”

Francois nodded and sighed. Staring past the knight’s head into some invisible point beyond the inn wall he began to speak, the years seeming to weigh down on him as he did so.

“It began after the first of the year’s harvests, just after the festival of the summer corn,” he started, his voice dull and hopeless. “This year we took a goodly crop, thanks to the brightness of the sun and the depths of the rains. In fact, after we had filled the granaries we had a surplus. We felt rich so, for the first time in years, we stopped the river trader and exchanged a few bushels for gold. At first I thought—we all thought—that was what had led to Pierre’s disappearance.”

“How so?” the knight demanded. He leant forward eagerly, elbow rested on one knee and eyes locked on the elder’s tragic countenance. His right hand, seemingly of its own accord, had stolen down to brush against the hilt of his sword. Claude regarded his master with a wry smile. Now that action beckoned he looked more warrior than gentleman, and more wolf than either.

Francois, though, seemed oblivious to this change in his guest’s character. His attention had wandered far beyond the present murky depths of this world and into the past. He sighed and, with an obvious effort, dragged himself back to the here and now.

“How so? Well, because when a man has gold in his pocket and the sun is warming the stone of the high passes it’s only natural for him to consider straying. Especially when…”

Francois eyes flickered upwards with a sudden guilty start and he broke off in consternation. Claude wondered what had caused his host’s evident discomfiture until, from behind him, a woman’s voice rang out.

“Especially when he’s married to such a shrew. Isn’t that what you were going to say, Francois de Tarn?”

Claude turned to regard the speaker. She was, he thought charitably, a solidly built woman. The black cloth of her smock looked hard-pressed to contain the bulk of her hips and chest. Despite her impressive girth, though, her face look pinched, sharp and hard even in the dull glow of the rush lights.

Shrew-like indeed, thought Claude sadly, and felt pity welling up inside of him. He could guess how it must have been for this woman when she tried to tell her neighbours of her husband’s disappearance. How they must have frowned and talked of search parties in public whilst privately wishing the runaway all good speed.

“No, Celine, I wasn’t going to say that,” the elder rallied, cutting through the thread of Claude’s speculation. “I was going to say that when a husband and wife have problems… well, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” the widow sighed, suddenly deflated. Francois shrugged uncomfortably and ploughed on.

“Anyway, about a week after Pierre was taken we lost Charles. Then Alain the smith. Then Bastien. Then Fredric and Sullier right afterwards. And then… then the children, Sophie and Louise…” His voice trailed off into nothingness and he swallowed painfully.

As the old man had recited the terrible litany of the lost it had been punctuated by choked sobs or low, miserable moans from the assembled villagers. Claude shifted uncomfortably. The air felt greasy with the grief and fear that was tearing this small community apart. The tension, almost unbearable, crushed down on his chest.

But if the weight of their misery had made any impression on Sir Gilles he wasn’t showing it. The only emotion visible on the knight’s face was a terrible hunger, an eagerness that reminded Claude of boar hounds straining at the leash. For the second time in as many days the old retainer faced the gulf that lay between them and shivered.

“So,” the knight said, his tones crisp and oblivious to the pain around him. “What sort of intervals are we talking about between disappearances?”

“It varies.” Francois shrugged his shoulders. “Between Pierre and Charles ten days. Between Sophie and Louise only three.”

“The children. Not as much meat on them, I suppose,” Sir Gilles mused aloud.

Behind him Claude heard a stifled cry and a rush of feet to the door.

“And you found no sign of a struggle? No smashed doors, no cries in the night?”

“No.” The elder paused for a moment, his eyes flickering over the assembly before he continued. “Charles was taken from his very bed whilst his wife lay sleeping beside him.”

Sir Gilles nodded. One moment crawled slowly into the next, the time marked only by the rise and fall of the wind outside and the spluttering hiss of the rush lights within. When the knight finally spoke it was with a cry that sent those nearest to him lurching backwards.

“Of course! Where do you bury your dead?”

“In the crypt behind the shrine,” the elder replied, puzzlement adding a fresh tide of wrinkles to his brow. “Why do you ask, lord?”

“And tell me, do you have a store of garlic here?” the knight continued uninterrupted.

“Of course, my lord. What kitchen doesn’t?”

Claude shared the old man’s confusion until, with a sudden flash of inspiration, he remembered a tale from one of the castle grimoires. A tale of nocturnal vanishings and blood black in the light of the moon. A tale of strange weapons, garlic and water and…

“The only other things you’ll need are sharpened staves.” Sir Gilles rubbed his hands together and sighed with satisfaction. He looked, thought Claude with a touch of awe, like a man contemplating a feast or a day’s hunting.

“Well,” the knight prompted his host after a moment or two, “could you find such staves of which I speak?”

Francois, the bafflement which marked his liver-spotted features reflected in the faces of the rest of the assembly, nodded slowly.

“We can certainly make some, and that within the hour. But, my lord, Charles and Pierre were woodsman, with woodsman’s axes. If their weapons failed them, what use will sticks be to us?”

Claude watched a touch of irritation flicker across the brown depths of the knight’s eyes before he answered.

“Using steel against the thing which now preys upon you is like trying to drown a fish. No, don’t ask me why. Only the Lady knows how these things gain their terrible strengths. All I know is that against the vampire the peasant’s only weapon is wood, his only shield garlic.”

“The… vampire?” Francois asked, eyes widening in horror. A chorus of whimpers and low curses rushed through his fellows, the sound as soft and insistent as the chill wind that even now tried the locks and hinges of the inn.

Claude felt the hairs raise themselves one by one along the back of his neck as he moved unthinkingly with the press of bodies that huddled closer to the knight. As the crowd around him shifted with the restrained panic of a herd of cattle before a storm, he noticed the furtive glances they cast towards the shadowy corners of the inn and the rattling shutters of the windows.

Vampire! It was a name to chill the hardest of hearts, a name to conjure up a thousand half-remembered terrors from the darkest nights of childhood. Claude was suddenly very grateful for the claustrophobic mass of warm bodies that were packed so tightly around him.

“Am I right in thinking, my lord,” Francois began with all the caution of a man taking the first step out onto a tightrope, “that you intend to lead us against this beast?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Sir Gilles replied. There was a sudden, angry murmur of protest from the crowd and, for the first time, the knight seemed to notice them. He looked up and the granite wall of his gaze cut off their protests with a guillotine’s speed.

“I won’t be leading you good people anywhere,” he continued, turning back to Francois as if there had been no interruption. “I will go now to await this monstrosity in the crypt you mentioned. Such things are usually tied to their burial grounds, making a mockery of these resting places with their filthy presence. Meanwhile, you’ll bring everyone back here tonight and arm yourselves against the creature’s attack.”

A thoughtful silence descended upon the villagers. Claude could almost taste their relief. “Any further questions?” the knight asked.

“I don’t think so, sire.” Francois shook his head. “But is there naught we can do for you?”

Sir Gilles looked into the old man’s eyes and smiled, the expression cold and humourless. “Yes. Make sure that nobody goes anywhere on their own until this is finished.”

“Even to the latrines?”

A ripple of nervous laughter spread through the confines of the room at this. Sir Gilles was pleased to hear it. Better foolish catcalls than blind terror.

“Even to the latrines,” he replied presently. “Now, who will show us to this sepulchre?”

 

It was dark and, despite the bulk of Claude’s borrowed blankets, cold. He could smell the thin, metallic scent of rain on the wind and feel the choking weight of cloud that blocked out even the scant light of moon and stars. Only the guttering red fire of their rush lights gave the two figures any trace of light by which to keep their lonely vigil.

They sat like mismatched bookends on either side of the burial pit, these two, their very presence defying the hungry shadows of the sepulchre’s maw. Claude glanced across at his master, a little awed as always by the man’s inexhaustible capacity for stillness.

Only the silvery glitter of the knight’s hooded eyes gave any indication that he was awake, or even alive. That same glitter was reflected in the straight-edged length of steel which lay across his begreaved knees. Sir Gilles had been strapped into his full armour as he had given the villagers their last instructions.

“Stay together. Even if it breaks in, don’t panic. Stand shoulder to shoulder and call for me. But don’t pursue it. Remember, stay together.”

Claude, remembering the earnestness of the young knight’s expression and the terrified eyes of the villagers, smiled. Had Sir Gilles really believed any of that frightened herd would have charged a vampire, a drinker of souls?

The old retainer’s grin faded as he studied the reassuring lines of his master’s face. The steel dome of his helmet was gone, a concession against the near-blinding darkness that enveloped them, and even in the flickering half-light of their peasant torches Claude could see the look of peace which had fallen across Sir Gilles’ trail-hardened features. The expression reminded him of the knight’s father. He had had the same look about him on the night before the Battle of Ducroix. It was only at times like these, whilst sat in the very eye of the storm, that the Lady’s chosen warriors seemed to find true peace.

A sudden burst of wind whistled around his ears and the old man shrank down further into his blankets. It had started to warm up within this little cocoon. Claude yawned and stretched, luxuriating in the rare feeling of comfort. Gradually, little by little, his thoughts melted away into dreams.

He jerked back into wakefulness with a guilty start, eyes springing open like traps. It was too late. Sir Gilles was regarding him with the tolerant composure that the older man found so irritating. Claude opened his mouth, fumbling for an apology, but the knight silenced him with a gesture.

“Try to sleep, Claude. I will need your wits about me in the morning.”

“Sire, I said I would share your watch and I will.”

“And I said there was no need. Sleep. If I have need of you I will wake you, have no fear of that.”

“Well…” Claude begin, then stopped and shrugged. The heavy droop of his eyelids weighed more than any arguments. And, at his age, what did he have left to prove?

“Thank you, sire.”

Sir Gilles nodded, the gesture almost imperceptible amongst the wind-chased shadows of the night, and returned to his silent meditation.

A few moments later Claude began to snore. The wind, as if in response to the old man’s guttural breathing, blew harder. It screeched through the draughty eaves of the burial pit, groping with icy fingers at the chinks and hinges of the knight’s armour and setting the forest-lined slopes of the valley aroar. The distant trees rushed and splintered as though some mighty beast had been set loose amongst them.

Sir Gilles, unmoved by the rising tumult, sat and waited. Soon even the rise and fall of his servant’s breath was drowned beneath the howls of the wind, but this hardly concerned him. And when the rush lights started to die, one by one, he merely smiled at the memory of how darkness had frightened him as a child. That fear was gone now. It had gone the way of all other fears during his training as a knight.

All other fears but one, of course, the last and the greatest. And with the Lady’s help that final fear would be vanquished tonight.

The last of the torches died, its flame strangled by a sudden gust. In the blinding depths of the darkness that remained, Sir Gilles sat and awaited his destiny, a murmur of thanks on his lips.

If he survived this night’s trial he knew that he would be blessed indeed. If he survived this night all would know that the blood of his line ran true in his veins and that his faith in the Lady was true. Yes, all would know it. Even himself.

He just hoped that the vampire, when it came, would be the equal of its reputation.

 

Claude awoke to dew-soaked blankets and tingling joints. His knuckles felt hot and swollen, blistered from within. There was no real pain, not yet, but in the vulnerability of the single unguarded moment that separates sleep from wakefulness he made a mistake. He thought about what might be going on beneath his reddening skin.

He imagined the gristle in his fingers swelling, choking off the blood. He imagined the nerve endings rasping and sawing against granite-edged bone, fraying like lengths of twine. He imagined a colony of rat-headed creatures eating into the very stuff of him, their burrows growing deeper and more painful by the minute.

With a low moan he clenched his fists, damning the first sparks of pain the movement ignited. The cold, he knew, would fan those first few sparks, tend them and feed them until they twisted his hands into crippled, burning claws.

Well, to the hells with it. If he had need of his hands the Lady would unclench them. And if the pain became unbearable the Lady would take it away. In one way or another, She would take it away.

The old man sighed and opened his eyes. The dawn sky above him was as sombre and cheerless as a shroud, lacking even a smear of cumulus to cut through its grey monotonous weight. Claude shrugged indifferently and climbed to his feet. At least it wasn’t raining. He wrapped his blankets around his thin shoulders and yawned. Time to start on breakfast. Now where had he left those damn horses?

He coughed, more out of habit than anything else, and swept the camp with his gaze. It wasn’t until he noticed the dark bulk of the sepulchre that remembrance hit him with an impact as dizzying as vertigo.

This was no trail camp, no woodland clearing or rocky overhang. There would be no quiet breakfast routine here, no wistful meditations. This was Celliers, the village where Sir Gilles had finally found a monster worth killing.

But Sir Gilles was nowhere to be seen.

“Sire?” Claude called, his voice cracked with sleep and uncertainty.

“Sire?” he called again, louder this time against the dumbing curtain of fine mist that had begun to dampen the air.

There was no reply. Claude wrapped the roll of blankets tighter around the frail stalk of his neck and studied the ground. A deep depression still marked the spot where the knight must have kept his vigil last night, although some of the crumpled blades of grass had already sprung defiantly back. The old man shook his head and hissed. His master must have been gone a fair while.

“Sire?”

No reply.

He looked further and studied the semicircle of burnt out torches that surrounded the spot. Their black stumps jutted out of the damp earth like a jaw full of bad teeth. None of them, it seemed, had been disturbed.

“Si-?” Claude began, and then froze. He listened, straining his ears against the blanket of drizzle that had begun to fall. For a while there was nothing more than the muffled sounds of a damp and dreary morning and the distant croak of pheasant. One minute crawled towards the next, then the next. Finally the old man began to relax. His ears must have been playing tricks on him, he decided.

Then he heard it again.

The low moan drifted as softly as a dandelion seed on the morning’s breeze. Claude listened cautiously as the cry faded back into nothingness and shivered suddenly as it ceased. His fingers, arthritis forgotten, clenched tightly around the heft of his stake.

Surely that weak and inhuman keening couldn’t be from a man, he told himself, let alone a knight.

Yet where was Sir Gilles?

Once more the cry came floating through the haze, raising the wiry hairs on the back of Claude’s neck. He waited until the fell voice began to wane and then, with a blasphemous combination of curses and prayers, the old retainer lurched forwards towards the sound.

He left the burial pit behind him and stomped past the dripping grey bulk of the village shrine and the first of the houses. The village seemed as desolate and empty as any ghost town. There were no scurrying children or scolding women or singing artisans. All that moved here was the drizzle, its silent rain weighing down on an atmosphere already leaden with dread.

The moan came again, louder this time. Louder and closer. In fact, Claude decided as he shivered the weight of blankets off his shoulders, whatever was making the noise seemed to be around the next corner.

A ghostly reflection of his master’s wolverine smile played around the old man’s lips, a nervous reaction as he plucked the dagger from his belt with his free hand. Then, with a last murmured prayer to the Lady, he stepped around the corner.

And froze.

Sir Gilles was there, the centrepiece of the huddled mob of peasants. The sight of his broad armoured shoulders shook a delighted bark of laughter from Claude, who allowed the wavering point of his stave to drop.

“Sire! You’re all right?”

“Yes, of course,” the knight replied, a pair of puzzled lines marking his brow as he turned. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

Claude shrugged, still smiling with relief. Then the plaintive wail that had brought him here rang out again and for the first time he noticed the girl.

She squatted in the cold and damp of the earth, supported on either side by two solidly built village women. They flanked her protectively, like two mother hens with a single chick, but she obviously drew scant comfort from their presence. The girl herself was pitifully thin, the bundled rags she wore incapable of hiding the frailty of her frame. Every shuddering breath she took seemed to rattle down the knuckles of her vertebrae, every choking sob seemed ripe to burst the tight cage of her chest.

Claude felt obscurely glad that her face was turned away from him. He had heard such misery before, of course. From battlefields and deathbeds and scaffolds he had become familiar with the sound of the human heart torn and bleeding. Yet had he ever heard such horror mixed in with the grief?

Without giving himself time to think the old man pushed forward into the mass of cringing villagers who encircled the girl. He looked over her shoulder to the… the shape that lay upon the crimson turf.

Just think of it as meat, he told himself. It’s not human. Not now.

But the signs of the thing’s humanity were still horribly plain to see. Almost half of its face had been left, the exposed tendons and drained flesh conspiring to lock the man’s face into a final eternal scream. Some of its fingers also remained. They were as rigid and gnawed as the branches of autumnal trees and even more dead. Claude studied the savaged expanses of the man’s forearms, shoulders and neck. The frenzy of half-moon bite marks somehow reminded him of a head of corn.

Biting back a sudden rush of bile, the old man looked away and studied the faces of the villagers whilst composing himself. He read the disgust and frightened rage he had expected, the emotions as clear as any sculpture could ever make them. But there was something else there too, something that skulked guiltily behind their horror like rats behind a skirting board.

It took Claude a moment to recognise it as relief. The realisation snared his revulsion, gave it a target. Selfish swines! Relieved for their own worthless skins even with this child choking her heart out over the corpse of her father. His lips drawn back in a silent snarl, he turned to Francois, the village elder.

“I thought you were told not to let anybody go out on their own,” he spat.

But if Francois heard the anger in Claude’s voice he gave no sign of it. “We didn’t let anyone go out on their own. Jules here, Lady guide and protect him, went out with Jacques. Jacques whose absence from the village stopped the killings. And whose return brought them back.”

Claude stepped back and dug thumbs into his forehead in an effort to stop the turmoil of his thoughts.

“Look at the wounds on Jules,” Francois added. “What beast leaves marks like that?”

Claude gazed steely eyed at the carcass. It was the same as a hundred others he had witnessed. His career had led him through many valleys a lot more death-filled than this one. He had seen savaged bodies abandoned by all manner of wild beasts. Aye, he thought grimly, and ones trained to it too. Yet something about this one was different.

“Of course!” he finally cried out, voice thick with horrid realisation. “The teeth. The bite marks. They’re like mine. I mean like any human’s,” he added hurriedly—even this far from the border, Sigmar’s hungry witch hunters had ears—and daggers. “So Jacques was the vampire?”

“No, he’s no vampire,” Sir Gilles cut in with a sigh. “He only has human teeth. He’s just a man. A sick man.”

“Sick?”

“Yes, sick of mind. Or Chaos-tainted perhaps. It matters not. My cousin told us of it the last time he returned from the Empire. There they call it the madness of Morrslieb, the contagion that flows from the Blood Moon when it’s at its zenith. That is when your problems began, isn’t it?”

This last was addressed to Francois. The old man shrugged vaguely, then nodded.

“Madness indeed,” Claude muttered, taking a last look at the corpse which lay congealing in front of its daughter. “Shall I prepare the horses, sire?”

“Yes. Light tack. Against this pitiful creature we’ll need speed more than power. Francois, are there any hounds here?”

As Claude turned to ready their horses, he heard the bitterness of the disappointment that edged his master’s words. But he realised that above the sobs that still wove through the mist he alone had heard it, and for that he was thankful.

 

The day’s hunt was a futile affair. The only hounds to be found in the village were a trio of aged boar hounds, gaunt beasts whose stiff movements and swollen joints made Claude wince in sympathy. Sir Gilles, still hiding his disappointment behind a flawlessly polite mask, had decided to leave the motley pack behind, overruling Francois’ attempts to press the dogs into service by explaining that speed of horse and clarity of vision would suffice to hunt down the fugitive.

It had proved to be a foolish boast. The beast of Celliers, although only a man and a crazed one at that, had vanished with all the ingenuity and cunning of any other animal. As Claude followed Sir Gilles out of the village the impossibility of their task struck him. What chance did they stand of finding the fugitive in the mighty swathe of forests and crevasses that covered this, his native territory?

By the time they had cleared the fields and broken into a canter the old man had begun to wonder why the same thought hadn’t occurred to his master. It wasn’t until Sir Gilles, with a wild cry that ignited frustration into exhilaration, closed spurs that Claude finally understood.

Their task here was complete. Jacques was gone. They might catch him, they probably wouldn’t. Either way it made little difference to the lunatic. Alone and unarmed against the predators and dark races of this savage land he wouldn’t last long.

He gave his own horse its head, allowing it to race along behind the knight’s charger. Holding on to his mount with aching knees, branches slashing over his head and the wind stinging his eyes, Claude listened to the rolling thunder of their horses’ hooves and felt a rush of excitement course through him.

By the Lady this was the life! Ahead of him, pulling away as swiftly and as surely as a stag from a drunken orc, Sir Gilles crested a low hill. By the time Claude had reached the spot the knight was already disappearing into the arms of the wood that lay beyond. Just before he was lost to sight the armoured figure turned in the saddle and called back.

“The pass. Meet me at the pass.”

“Aye, sire, the pass it is.” Claude bellowed his reply as Sir Gilles vanished. As if sensing that the race was lost Claude’s horse slackened its pace from gallop to canter to brisk walk.

“Lazy beast,” he muttered affectionately as they plodded along. The blood was still racing briskly through his veins after the impromptu charge and, despite the continuing grey dampness of the day, his spirits were high. And why not? Celliers’ problems had been resolved, the beast had been vanquished. Even if he did return to the village, the madman, now that he had been unmasked, would find little chance of repeating his atrocities. For the people of this valley, at least, the winter would hold no more than the usual dangers. For himself and his master, though…

Claude sighed, his high spirits draining away at the thought of the coming months. “I’m too old for this,” he told nobody in particular and spurred his mount into a canter.

By the time he reached the high saddle of the pass, Sir Gilles’ horse was already grazing contentedly. The knight himself sat perched atop a boulder, dark eyes scanning the valley below. His aquiline nose and deep, predatory stare made him look a little like a beast himself, Claude thought as he toiled up the final approaches to the pass.

“It seems the king has more than one hippogriff,” he muttered to himself, the words lost beneath the clatter of scree underfoot.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sir Gilles called out as his man approached. Claude bit back on the expression of mortification he knew had crept treacherously across his weathered features and shrugged.

“And how else would I have meant it, sire?” he asked ingenuously.

Sir Gilles barked with laughter and jumped lightly from the boulder. The tension of the preceding days seemed to have melted away leaving the young man full of fresh energy. It was almost as if the conclusion of Celliers’ problems, bloody and seedy as it had been, had lifted a weight from his shoulders—almost as if his task had been accomplished.

Claude hardly dared to ask, but the sudden rush of hope within his chest was too much to be denied.

“Sire…” he began, then hesitated, not quite knowing how to put the question. A moment’s confusion passed before he shrugged and ploughed on: “Is our quest complete?”

The knight’s brows shot up in amazement as he studied his old retainer.

“No, of course not. Why should it be?”

“You seem… rejuvenated,” Claude explained, trying to keep the weight of disappointment out of his voice, out of his posture. It was hard work.

“I thought maybe you had seen the Lady after, you know, saving the village,” he continued with another shrug.

Sir Gilles’ brow cleared with sudden realisation.

“I understand,” he nodded. “But no, I have done nothing yet. And yet I do feel as if a burden has been lifted. I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to exchange greaves and bucklers and lances for furs and push on into the heart of these mountains. It is only there that I can be sure of proving the strength of my belief in the Lady and continue slaying the evil that would devour her people.”

Claude felt a moment’s unease as he watched the features of the knight harden, straightening into a mask of fanaticism stronger than any steel. Even after all these years this transformation of his masters from men into something… something more… still sent a cold shiver racing down his spine.

But then his master was once more just Sir Gilles. His expression softened as he turned his attention from the jagged spikes of distant mountains to his faithful old retainer. “The other decision I’ve made is that you’ll stay in Celliers until I return. Or until the summer, whichever comes first. I’ll leave you gold and a letter of safe conduct in case I am found, um, wanting.”

Now it was Claude’s turn to look amazed. “Sire, I will not leave you. I am sworn to follow you on this quest. My honour is at stake as much as yours.”

“You are sworn to obey!” the knight snapped, his tones suddenly harsh. “And by the Lady you will! I’ll not take any ill man into the ice and snow of mountains in the winter. And I’ll certainly not throw your life away.”

In a gesture that looked strangely guilty Claude thrust his reddening knuckles behind his back. “Sire, I—”

 

“You’ll obey my orders,” Sir Gilles cut him off. “Apart from anything else I don’t want to waste one of my father’s best men. You will stay here.”

The old man, who suddenly looked much, much older, dropped his eyes and slumped his shoulders. Without another word he turned back to his horse.

With a last resentful look towards his master Claude led his mount down the shifting carpet of scree and tried not to let his anger get the better of him. To be cast aside now, left in safety like a woman whilst his knight rode off into bitter danger! Was he an idiot or a cripple to be left on the roadside like a piece of useless baggage? It was an outrage.

What made it even more difficult to bear was the treacherous sense of relief that even now buoyed up his steps. But that, at least, proved to be short-lived.

 

“What do you mean you’re leaving? Are you mad?” Sir Gilles barely controlled his exasperation, but at a cost. His wind-rouged cheeks reddened further and a small vein began to pulse a warning above his brow. If the village elder noticed these small chinks in his guest’s composure he gave no sign of it.

Without taking his eyes off the two men who continued to overburden his haywain, Francois sighed and shook his head. “No, we’re not mad. Madness would be to stay.”

“We found something after you went, ah, hunting this morning.” The elder flicked a glance almost contemptuously over the mud flecked flanks of the knight’s horse. Her mighty chest heaving in great lungfuls of air and the heavy organic smell of horse sweat radiated off her in waves. After Claude had returned, his foul temper buried under consternation at the sight of Celliers packing up to go, Sir Gilles had ridden back here as hard as he could, sparing neither his horse nor himself.

“What did you find?” the knight finally asked, successfully keeping the irritation to himself.

“Jacques.” Francois said the word softly, almost reverently, and Sir Gilles wondered at his tones. What terrible vengeance must these villagers, his erstwhile comrades and erstwhile prey, have meted out to make them now sound so compassionate about the lunatic?

“Oh. Well, that’s good. I take it he’s dead?”

The pained expression on Francois face deepened and Gilles could almost imagine that tears glinted beneath the craggy overhang of the elder’s brow.

“How did the village execute him?” the knight asked gently, choosing his words now with the care of a surgeon choosing his instruments. A village execution. How clean that sounded. How impersonal.

Francois, however, had obviously being pushed beyond the niceties of not just diplomacy but even common sense. With a sudden start he wheeled on the knight, the fury in his eyes no longer hidden.

“Nobody executed him,” the elder hissed, lips drawn back in a snarl as he pronounced the word. “He was murdered, horribly murdered, just like all the rest.”

The sudden vehemence of the elder’s words sent Sir Gilles stepping automatically backwards into a defensive stance. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword before he realised what he was doing. He dropped his empty fist guiltily, but it was too late. Francois had already seen the gesture. The elder laughed bitterly, hopelessly.

“Oh yes, the protection of your knightly virtues,” he sneered mockingly, pulling himself to his feet and lurching towards the armoured man who towered above him. One of the lads who had been loading the cart appeared at his elbow to offer a supporting hand. The elder shook him off angrily as he stalked towards Sir Gilles.

“The only difference you’ve made is to double the number of this cursed thing’s kills,” he said, the anger in his voice twisting into an accusation. Once more the youth, with a terrified glance at the knight, grabbed the elder’s arm and tried to pull him away. Once more the old man shook the anxious hand off, this time turning his ire on the youngster who hovered nervously at his grandfather’s side.

“Get away. What’s the great knight going to do? Kill me? Ha!” He spat a gob of contemptuous phlegm onto the ground an inch away from Sir Gilles’ boots, then turned away with a grunt of disgust.

Claude had watched his master flush beneath the old peasant’s tirade, the vitriolic fusion of shame and rage burning on his cheeks. Now, as the villagers went on with their wary preparations, Claude saw the colour drain away from Sir Gilles’ face, leaving him pale and shaking with emotion. The retainer opened his mouth to say something, anything, that might be of comfort to the stricken young knight. But before he could think of a single thing to say it was too late.

The muscles in Sir Gilles’ jaw bulged with sudden determination and he strode forward after Francois. The old man’s hunched back was still turned towards his guest. He must have seen something reflected in his grandson’s widening eyes, though, for he turned when the knight had approached to within a dozen paces. Claude saw the rigid mask of defiance still etched across the elder’s features. There would be no apology, of that he was sure, no more bowing. And behind the stubborn old fool a dozen of his sons and grandsons had noticed events unfolding.

As the steel giant closed in on their ancestor they fumbled for knives, hoes and pitchforks. In their shaking hands and round eyes Claude saw the same desperate courage that will drive a ewe to attack the wolf pack that has cornered her lambs. He felt his heart plummet at the tragedy he knew was about to unfold.

Sir Gilles, reaching out one gauntleted hand towards the old man, seemed oblivious to all this. His whole attention was focused on the elder. As the mailed fist fell towards him the old man’s only response was the small straightening of posture that was all an aged skeleton would allow. The first of the villagers lowered his pitchfork and started forward. Claude, mind frozen by the speed of events, wished futilely that what was going to happen wouldn’t.

Then the metalled talon of Sir Gilles’ hand swept past his host’s neck and landed gently upon his shoulder.

Bowing down to peer into the astonished elder’s eyes the knight said: “I am truly sorry to have so failed you. I am sorry that you are frightened enough to leave your village. I have failed in my duty to the Lady and to you, her people. My father would not have failed. Nor would my brother, Leon. But I have and I have no excuse.”

 

Suspicion chased astonishment off Francois’ wizened features. By the time the knight had finished his apology the sincerity of the words had melted away even that.

“No, no, lord. I should apologise to you,” he replied warily, voice softened now with grudging compassion. “I had no call to blame you. Since the black hail fell on these hills in my grandfather’s day much has happened here, much that has proved beyond man’s power to change.”

“Yet I would be more than a man,” Sir Gilles smiled bitterly. “And perhaps I still can be. All I ask is that you give me one more night. Give me one more chance to find the monster that would prey upon the Lady’s people.”

Francois hesitated for barely a moment before giving the shallowest of nods and turning to address his flock.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” he told them. Then, with a stiff bow towards Sir Gilles, he turned and hobbled back into his hut. The knight returned the bow and walked stiffly back to his horse.

“What will we do now, sire?” Claude asked, hurrying to catch up.

“I go to beg for the Lady’s aid. There was a pool a little way into the woods we rode through this morning. It seemed like a goodly place.”

“And will I come with you?”

“No, you’ll stay here. I want you to organise these people into three regiments and make sure they stay in them. I leave you in charge of the details.”

“Yes, sire, of course.” Claude bowed subserviently whilst his master climbed back into the saddle and cantered back out of the village. He waited until Sir Gilles was out of sight before crossing to Francois’ hut. He ducked below the heavy oaken lintel of the door and instructed the elder.

“I want you to organise your people into three groups,” he told the old man urgently. “All of them are to carry their weapons at all times. None of them are to leave their groups for any reason. Any that break these rules are to be fined half of their wealth. Do you understand?”

As soon as Francois had grumbled his assent Claude took his leave and went to fetch his horse. He had carried out his orders. Now he would go to watch his knight’s back, as was proper for an equerry. There was nothing underhanded about that, he thought, as he carefully scanned the horizon. Nothing underhanded at all.

 

Sir Gilles was not difficult to follow, especially to one as skilled at reading the land as Claude. He had followed the path of crushed moss and snapped twigs through the forest just as easily as he had followed the great crescents of the charger’s hoofs through the mud of the road.

He had tethered his own mount some way back and continued stealthily on foot beneath the great damp overhangs of beech and birch and twisted ancient oak. The undergrowth was thick here, heavy with moisture and dying brown leaves. As Claude pushed through it his nose wrinkled at the acrid smell of decay. In most parts of Bretonnia, he reflected, such a bulk of vegetation would have been cropped back by deer or boar, but here it seemed untouched.

And come to think of it the forest did seem strangely quiet, almost as if it had been cleared of life by something, perhaps even something that left human bite marks in the raw flesh of its prey. The thought sent a sliver of ice down the old man’s spine and he found himself walking faster.

“Don’t be such an old woman,” he scolded himself, consciously slowing his pace. “A small wood in a small valley is easily over-hunted. There’s nought more mysterious here than greedy peasants.”

Even so he was more than a little relieved when he finally reached Sir Gilles. Only the fact that the knight was so obviously immersed in prayer stilled the cry of greeting that rose to his retainer’s lips.

Sir Gilles knelt silently before a wide pool, his attention lost in its cool depths.

Overarching trees shone and glimmered in the calm surface, one world reflected by another, and around the banks rushes swayed gently to some ancient and inaudible rhythm.

Claude sank to his haunches at the edge of the clearing, lulled by the peace of the scene. The only real movement was the light fall of autumn browned leaves. He watched one as it spiralled down onto the placid mirror of the water and began to float away, pulled by some invisible current.

Leaning back against the bole of a willow, the old man half-closed his eyes. In his imagination the leaf became a ship, bound for distant Cathay or even mythical Lustria. The stem became a mast, the withered edges the gunwales. And when the first splash of water sent thick ripples rolling towards the little craft he saw only waves riding before a storm.

A moment later he began to wonder what had caused such a disturbance in the water. Surely this pool was too isolated to contain trout to rise and leap. He looked up with a frown. For a moment he saw nothing but the enveloping mass of trees and shadows that encircled them, and the stooped form of his master’s back.

Then he saw her and his heart leapt.

It was her, there could be no doubt of that. How many times had he seen her form, revered in stone or glass or on parchment? How many times had men whispered of her in the depths of the night or called upon her in the midst of battle? He’d even met her before in dreams and amongst the labyrinths of his imagination and felt her sacred presence, a comforting hand in the depths of hardship or a playful ripple of light on the water.

Yes, it was her. As she glided through the pool Claude’s eyes caressed the skin that glowed paler and more precious than Araby pearl. Her hair cascaded down onto her shoulders, framing a face both girlish and ancient, wise and forgiving. And her eyes! How they sparkled and shone with a healing warmth of green fire.

Claude felt a moment’s dizziness and realised that he had been holding his breath. He managed to tear his eyes away from the Lady for long enough to glance at Sir Gilles.

The knight still sat slumped in prayer, lips moving silently even as his goddess approached. The light gossamer of her dresses flowed around her, shining with a ghostly luminescence against the dark backdrop of rotten forest. For a moment Claude considered calling out to his master, of heralding her approach, but somehow he lacked the courage. In the presence of such divine beauty he felt too unworthy to speak. Instead he gazed upon her and let every detail of her magnificence burn itself into his memory.

She had almost reached Sir Gilles before he looked up. He rose to his feet, then started as though stung. The Lady smiled at his astonishment, a beatific expression of love and compassion speeding slowly across her face, and he sank back down to his knees.

“My Lady…” he whispered as she approached, arms opening and hands outstretched in benediction. Sir Gilles, head bowed, watched her glide through the last few feet of water and step onto the bank. He saw the water dripping from the hem of her dress, the white of it now speckled with the green of pond weed.

“My Lady…” he repeated breathlessly as she laid a perfect hand on his shoulder and stooped down to brush cold lips across his brow. She smiled again, revealing teeth as white and hard as bones and lowered her lips to kiss his neck.

“My Lady!” he said a third time, his voice suddenly full of fire as he sprang backwards. With an evil hiss of steel against leather, his sword was free of its scabbard, the burnished metal of the blade dull despite the divine light that surrounded the goddess. Then, before the enormity of the knight’s actions could penetrate through Claude’s shock, he watched his master slice his sword backhanded across the smooth, cream-coloured flesh of her neck.

It was a killing stroke. The blade spat out a bright plume of blood as it sawed effortlessly through the cords and tendons of her neck, almost decapitating her where she stood.

Claude watched as she crumpled backwards into the mud and filth of the forest floor. After a moment he walked numbly over to where the body lay and gazed down stonily at the ruined flesh that had once lived, once breathed… had once been a goddess. Now it was no more than meat cooling on the forest floor.

And bad meat at that. He watched as the flowing silk of its hair withered and died, shrinking back into a malformed skull. Already the supple grace of her frame had collapsed into something ruined and hunched, the skeleton twisted out of shape by who-knew-what dark sorcery?

Claude shivered and hugged himself as the fair pigment of her skin darkened and mottled, turning into a sickly grey leather before his very eyes. Even worse was the thing’s face. How could those evil and wizened features have resembled anything even the least bit fair? Only the colour of the eyes remained unchanged, but the green now seemed rotten and cancerous and so very cold.

He remembered the expression she had worn. He remembered how beautiful it had been, how alluring. Suddenly, for the first time since the brooding of his first battle, Claude’s stomach clenched itself into a fist that doubled him up with nausea. With hardly a backwards glance he stumbled away into the undergrowth, leaving Sir Gilles still standing pale and trembling over his foe.

 

The next morning they crested the pass above Celliers for the last time. Below them the valley was laid out like a map. Claude turned in his saddle to take a last look at the village, the forest, the smoke from the great bonfire upon which the beast’s body had been burned so gleefully the night before.

Where had it come from, he wondered for the dozenth, the hundredth time. Had it been made, or born, or ensorcelled by Chaos? And how long had it lived here, silently haunting the edges and dark places of this land before hunger drove it in to the village and the addictive taste of man-flesh?

Claude found his gaze shifting from the valley floor to the distant rock spires that were the heart of the Massif Orcal. Beyond them, peering from between the granite peaks, towering clouds waited blue and heavy with the year’s first snow.

The old retainer shivered and thankfully turned his back on them. By the time they caught up with him he would be back beside the great fireplace of Castle Moreaux, a horn of spiced wine steaming in his hand.

Only one thing still bothered him. It hung in a leather bag from Sir Gilles’ saddle, a diminutive, evil smelling lump that still sweated a disgusting grey slime. It had no scales, this head, no savage teeth or needle-sharp fangs. Its jaws were weak, lacking even the knots of muscle any man might boast. In fact when it had been cleaned the thing would be scarcely bigger than two clenched fists.

“Well, sire,” Claude began, knowing that he would have to broach the subject before they went much further. “I’m sure we’ll be able to pick up that boulder of an orc’s head tomorrow afternoon. I lashed it to a lone pine tree for the birds to clean. It should look good mounted in the great hall, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?” the knight asked, turning in his saddle to regard his servant. “I have my trophy here.”

“Yes, of course. Your real trophy. But for the family gibbet…”

“This is for the family gibbet. This thing is the beast that tested my faith to the utmost. It is this that will hang amongst the rest of my family’s great trophies.”

Claude, sensing the strength of purpose that lay behind his master’s words, sighed as he realised it would be pointless to continue.

“How… how could you be so sure that thing wasn’t the Lady?” he dared to ask, changing the subject.

Sir Gilles smiled wistfully for a moment before he replied.

“The eyes,” he said at length. “In the old tales she is always dark, a real Bretonnian woman. Brown hair. Brown eyes.”

“Tales, yes,” Claude nodded. “But when your brother saw her she had green eyes. As green as your mother’s, he said.”

“Yes,” Sir Gilles nodded, “I know.”

Then, for no apparent reason, he began to laugh until his sides shook and tears glinted in his eyes.

Claude lapsed back into silence and shook his head. Knights! He would never understand them.