Page 117 of The Salt King

A pause. “Priests?” Latin too.

He felt his shoulders sink with relief. You could know that Latin had been an international language among educated people a thousand years ago when these knights came to England, but actually shouting it at someone about to cut you in two was something else.

Jericho put one hand on his back, the way you encouraged prize horses. Good: steady.

“There are miracles here,” Avelyn said doggedly. “We were sent to verify them. My name is Avelyn, this is Jericho. And—you?”

“Guillaume Villiers. What is this place?”

“The people here call it Caer Halen. The Salt Fortress. It . . . I think it was made with magic,” he said, because there was no use trying to explain salt light to an angry giant who couldn’t see it. He would, if he was lucky, be here all week. If he wasn’t, he would be here for about four and a half seconds.

“You’re telling me,” Guillaume said with feeling. “We can’t get out. This is the third time we’ve circled back to this castle.”

Avelyn stared at him, feeling like he was standing six feet to the left of himself. He was speaking in Latin to a knight, a very real-seeming knight, who understood. “How long have you been here?”

“God’s teeth, I don’t know. The sun never rises.” Guillaume eyed them doubtfully. “You don’t look like priests.”

“Normal clothes corrode here. They turn to salt.” Avelyn nodded at the rivets on the man’s armour, salt-fogged. “That will only get worse. You should try to find something that was made here. It’s . . .” He didn’t know the Latin for immune. “Stronger.”

The man studied him, raking over his hair, still black, and his unnerving, salt-bright skin. “What are you? Are you Irish?”

“Yes, travelling from Glendalough,” said Avelyn, naming the oldest monastery he could think of because that seemed a lot better than admitting to being from here. His English history wasn’t very good, but he didn’t think anyone born in England had been a natural friend to French knights.

The knight nodded once, as if that was reassuring. “Good. Come and preach to my men. They’re in need of a holy man.” There was a sharpness to him that said: now we’ll see if you’re a real fucking priest.

“My pleasure,” Avelyn said carefully.

“What, you don’t talk?” the knight snapped at Jericho.

Jericho said something in French with a graceful dip of his head, and the knight laughed with a mix of surprise and pleasure.

“Very good. Well, come on, both of you.”

“What did you say?” Avelyn whispered.

“I said I didn’t want to speak out of turn before a lord so great,” Jericho whispered back.

Avelyn swallowed. Knights, real knights, the kind England hadn’t seen for a thousand years, trapped here. Just like they were. “Jericho, are they dreams, or have they been here for a thousand years and they don’t know?”

“Does it matter?” Jericho said, watching them.

He was right. They were dangerous, whichever it was. Some of them had pulled their helmets off. Their heads were half shaved, the same as Guillaume’s, and they were all dirty and gaunt, stubble shadowing their faces, fingernails traced in black. Hard blank eyes followed Avelyn and Jericho as they crossed the courtyard. They were teetering right on edge of eviscerating somebody for no reason except they were tired and angry.

“God, what do we say to them?” Avelyn asked, helplessness blooming through his whole mind. What would they do, if they didn’t like what he said?

Jericho pulled his sleeve to make him come close. “Don’t overthink it. It’s just about making them believe they’re good and brave and full of chivalry.”

“Do you believe that enough?” Avelyn asked, just as quiet. He had made that joke about the Devil, but the reality of thirty violent men was different. “Because I don’t.”

“Boys! I’ve found some priests. They’re going to talk to you,” Guillaume said shortly, having rounded them up.

“See the good in them,” Jericho whispered. “Make them see it too. Come on, look at them. They’re just children.”

As the blank gazes clamped onto his, Avelyn saw with some dismay that Jericho was right. The knights were mainly younger than he was; eighteen, nineteen. Guillaume was only thirty or so.

Barely older than Avelyn’s students.

“Good morning,” he said carefully. He fell into the easy precision he had cultivated for years for the radio. “You are tired, so I won’t talk long. I know this is a strange land. This fortress is called Caer Halen, the Salt Castle. Its lord is the god of this place, who the people here say sleeps deep below.”