The Dread Wyrm

Chapter Nine

The Company

They moved very quickly-back over some of the same ground they’d followed the day before. Blanche saw a pair of men meet the captain-he rode by the Queen-and both men were new to her, clad in green. The day began to break after they’d been on the road an hour.

Another pair of men in green met them and led them around a village whose cocks were crowing and where early morning fires filled the air with the homey smells of cooking and smoke-Freeford, she thought.

“Quiet!” Nell hissed behind her, and the whole column passed the town like ghosts. A shepherd coming out of the town with a small flock of goats was grabbed at sword’s point and his goats were left bleating behind them.

They came to more open country at the foot of the great ridge and suddenly they were trotting-and then cantering. Blanche was not confident at this speed, and she couldn’t do anything but keep her seat.

“Relax,” the Queen said at her side. “Let your hips go with the animal. It’s lovely. Stop making the horse do quite so much work.”

“I’m sorry, your grace!” Blanche said.

“Ah, my dear, I never knew what a treasure you were until this adventure. He calls you ‘Lady Blanche’ and he has the right of it! You’re a treasure. But you must learn to ride better.” The Queen laughed.

Her laugh seemed to lift the spirits of the whole column.

A league on, and they passed a pair of farm gates and the column slowed to a walk again.

Bad Tom raised his voice. “Halt!” he roared. “Change horses!”

Nell put a fresh horse’s reins into Blanche’s hand. “That means you have five minutes to rest,” she said.

Blanche dismounted, and her legs almost folded under her. Instead of helping the Queen, the Queen helped her.

Amicia rubbed her hips like a much older woman.

The Red Knight reappeared and handed around his silver cup full of wine. “Ladies, your pardon,” he said. “We’re racing time.”

“We’re not going north,” the Queen snapped.

“No, your grace,” he admitted.

“I’m not likely to tell anyone,” she said. “Come, whose treason do you fear-Sister Amicia? Lady Blanche?”

He smiled. “If some of my men can reach a certain point-in time. If we can get there, too-” He shrugged. “Well there may be a fight.” He bowed. “Some of my household knights will take you north on the road, to Lorica and safety. I’m sending Sukey and all the baggage.”

“Nonsense,” the Queen said. She handed her baby to Amicia. “If there’s a battle, I want to see it.”

Again, Blanche thought this sounded far more like her Queen.

“Your grace-” Ser Gabriel began.

“Spare me the poor weak woman speech,” Desiderata snapped back.

The Red Knight’s face clouded. “If you are captured, your grace, you are a dead woman. And your cause is dead. And so is your son.”

“I think I know my plight well enough, ser knight.” Desiderata’s smile was cool.

Her son gave a great cry.

She clutched him to her again. “I know the risk. But if you lose-”

“Madame, this is not a set piece battle like a tournament. I hope to catch de Vrailly napping on the road or just breaking his camp. If I fail, he’ll be on us like a dog on a rabbit and we’ll be outnumbered twenty to one. Would you please ride north to Lorica, Madame?”

Desiderata smiled and put a hand on his steel arm. “Ser Knight-I would be with my army. If you lose-so be it. But if you triumph, I would have men say that my son was in battle the day he was birthed, and that his mother was no coward. Too few saw my trial by combat. My husband is dead. I would that men saw me, and knew me.”

Ser Gabriel sat a moment on his great war horse. The sky was lightening behind him. He looked like the war incarnate, the avatar of knighthood.

He took a deep breath, and then shrugged. “Very well, your grace. You are the Queen.” He nodded. “Amicia? Will you at least ride for Lorica?”

The nun shook her head. “No,” she said. “You will need me.”

The Red Knight smiled. “Blanche? I don’t suppose you’d like to take a nice ride with two handsome knights…?”

Blanche laughed. “I would not leave my lady.” Greatly daring, she said, “I’ve had offers of dawn rides from knights afore now. My mother told me never to go.”

The Queen tilted back her head and roared. She reached out and caught Blanche’s hand and squeezed it.

The Red Knight bowed in his saddle to the ladies and turned his war horse. But when he was out of earshot, he turned to Michael and said, quite savagely, “I may yet be King of Alba. Through no fault of my own.”

Michael stared.

“If she falls…” Ser Gabriel shook his head. He rode to where Ser Francis Atcourt and Chris Foliak sat on their destriers.

He put a hand on Atcourt’s shoulder. “If you two bring the Queen through this alive,” he said, “I will give you whatever I can that you desire. A nice fief in Thrake? And I’ll knight Chris on the spot, or see to it she does. If she goes down-” He shrugged. “Have the good manners to die with her.”

Ser Francis Atcourt was not a young man. “I’ve never asked for aught,” he said.

Ser Michael laughed. “It’s better than fighting, holding land,” he said.

Atcourt smiled his beatific smile. “I don’t see you at home on your farms, my lord,” he said.

He was always surprised at how seriously the professionals took knighthood.

Chris Foliak shook out the back cloak of his magnificent silk surcoat. “I rather fancy being a knight,” he said. “And I always fight my best for a lady.”

“Especially a rich, beautiful lady,” Atcourt said. “But aye, Captain. So-she’s staying with us?”

The captain nodded. “For our sins. Or perhaps because of them. Enough prattle, gentlemen.” He took a war hammer from his saddle bow and waved it at Bad Tom, who vaulted into his saddle and bellowed.

Before a nun could say an Ave Maria, they were all mounted, and the jingle of horse harness mixed with the rattle of plate armour. In the west, the sun was rising.

Gavin rode beside his brother. He knew most of the men who came out of the dawn and guided them-members of Gelfred’s green banda, the woodsmen and the prickers and scouts. They seldom stayed in sight long enough for more than a recognition signal and a waving hand to show the new line of movement, and then the green-clad figure would ride into the dust or vanish into a wood-edge. He saw Amy’s Hob canter along a thicket with a crossbow out and cocked, and then ride around the edge-gone.

His brother waved to Bad Tom and as they trotted, called, “No shouts, no horns or trumpets now.”

Tom’s laugh was startlingly loud in the clear morning air.

They crested a shallow ridge, and found the whole valley of the great river at their feet. Distant bluffs marked the Harndon side of the Second Bridge.

Gelfred rode up a path as if the meeting had been planned for weeks. He wasn’t smiling.

“De Vrailly’s up and almost ready to march,” he said. “You’re late.” Then Gelfred saw the Queen. In a moment he was off his horse in the road, and kneeling.

He kissed her offered hand. Then he reached into his plain green cote and pulled out a small, red banner. It had the pennon of a captain, and on it was a magnificent golden dragon.

“I brought it for the King,” Gelfred said. “Ranald sent it. He said he couldn’t bear the bastards to have the Royal Guard’s pennon.”

The captain rolled his eyes.

“It’s his by right,” Gelfred said. He reached out as if afraid of being bitten, and touched the baby. The baby made a fist, grabbing Gelfred’s hand.

“What a fine crop of royalists I’ve grown,” the captain said. “Chris, put it on your lance.” He gazed out over the valley. “We’re going to be visible on the crestline unless we move,” the captain snapped. He smiled at Long Paw-now Ser Robert Caffel. Long Paw was not dressed as a knight, and he had a heavy bow over his shoulder, a mail shirt almost black with oil and a green hood that went almost to his waist.

Long Paw took his horse from Short Tooth, another green banda man. “All right where you said, Captain,” he noted.

The captain waved his war hammer. “If only de Vrailly may follow our plan.”

They rode down into the valley’s long morning shadows.

An hour later, and the waiting was killing them all.

Mosquitoes-the first crop of the year-settled on the casa like a biblical plague. Cully looked reproachfully at Long Paw, six trees away. Long Paw merely shrugged.

Gavin felt the scales on his shoulders writhe and prickle.

He watched his brother, who was watching the road with a fixed intensity. It was the hour of the day when peasants went to their fields, when men yoked oxen or horses to ploughs if they had them, when the cocks ceased to crow and work began. As the weather was fine after days of rain, there should have been peasants on the road and in the fields to their front.

They were a mile or more from Second Bridge, where the road bent sharply to the east, following the contours of a hill. On the east side of the road-the inside of the curve-a round hill rose, covered in farm fields. At the top of the hill, almost hidden behind a high hedge that could be defended, stood the small village of Picton with chimneys smoking.

No one was moving in Picton’s fields, either.

On the west side of the road the ground was flat for a few furlongs until it dropped sharply towards the river. It was heavily forested in big, old oak trees with some maples and, in the centre, a stand of ancient fir trees like the masts of heavy ships.

If the road circumventing Picton Hill was a bow, Cully, Gavin, Long Paw and the captain stood where the archer would grip it, in the dark patch of firs at the centre of the bow. Gavin could see the road for a bowshot in each direction-almost to Second Bridge. And he could see up the Picton village road, a narrow lane between two hedges that ran up the hill like the arrow on the bow.

He hated waiting in ambush. He could see on his brother’s face that he didn’t like waiting either-he snorted quietly in frustration a little too often.

The mosquitoes were devastating. Ganfroy, the trumpeter, was fighting a losing battle with his self-control, trying to stay calm. He’d been bitten often enough that one side of his face was beginning to swell.

The captain snorted again. “I give up,” he said. “Nicholas, when I raise my arm, sound the-”

Up in the Picton hedge at the top of the long hill, a mirror flashed-one, two, three times.

“Son of a bitch,” the captain said.

The first riders were visible a few hundred heartbeats later. They were light horse-Alban prickers, young men in light armour on fast horses. They were in the Towbray livery, and they were moving fast.

They passed the captain’s position in the open fir wood so close that their conversation was clearly audible.

“… fooling playing soldier,” one young voice said with all the self-importance he could muster. “There’s not a soldier in fifty leagues.”

“Certes there’s none near me,” barked an older voice. “Now shut up and ride.”

The prickers passed.

The mirror flashed again. This time, it flashed just once.

The captain shook his head. “Ready,” he called softly.

Gavin didn’t know any of the banners that rounded the bend a bowshot to their right, coming from the south. But the enemy vanguard was well closed up, and very professional-three hundred lances in crisp array, all in full armour. Behind them marched a dense column of infantry.

The mirror flashed again. This was a longer signal.

“Better than I deserve,” the captain said, but his demeanour had changed. The anxiety was gone. He was smiling.

The enemy van was moving at the speed of a swiftly marching man. A babble of Gallish came floating on the morning air.

Gavin had time to think that just the vanguard outnumbered them enormously. And he cursed inwardly, as nowhere did he see de Vrailly’s banner.

Ganfroy quivered with excitement. The captain put a hand on the younger man’s arm.

“Nothing for us to do,” he said. “Gelfred will open the dance.”

The enemy vanguard began to pass them. They were so close that Gavin could see individual faces-some dark and heavy, some boorish, but many men were laughing and some-too many-looked like good men, good companions for an evening’s drinking or a joust.

He’d never fought this way before. He didn’t like seeing his enemies as cheerful, open-faced fellows.

Off to the south, there were screams. A cheer. More screams.

“Stand up!” the captain called.

All through the woods, men stood. They weren’t in neat lines, and here and there, despite the bugs, a man had fallen asleep.

The captain stood with his back to the enemy, as if oblivious of them, watching the woods on either side of him. Then he raised a horn to his lips.

The men on the road were just reacting.

They still weren’t sure what they were seeing.

Gavin loosened his sword in its sheath and gripped his spear. What he really wanted to do was scratch the new bites on his groin.

And perhaps hide.

The horn went to his brother’s lips.

“Now and in the hour of our deaths,” said a voice.

The horn sounded. As soon as it rang out, a hundred other horns were raised and blown, so that the woods rang with them, over and over, as if every hunting pack in Alba was coursing in the woods.

Archers with a clear lane of trees began to loose shafts.

Those without moved forward.

The horns went on and on.

Gavin still had his visor open. He saw Cully loose a shaft almost flat, and then take a few steps forward. Gavin moved with him. Gabriel had his spear in hand by then, and moved with them, and Long Paw had begun to loose-the range was suddenly very close, the road was right there.

A bolt or an arrow slammed into Gavin’s bascinet, half-turning it on his head. He got his right hand up and pulled his visor down and his thumb moved of its own volition, latching the visor.

On the road in front of them were the Gallish infantry-the routiers. They were well-armoured and most of them had heavy pole weapons or long spears, and big, heavy shields.

But their shields had been on their backs when the first arrows struck, and there were a lot of dead and screaming men on the road.

Cully took three more steps forward. In a moment, he and Long Paw both drew, their hands coming all the way back to the edges of their mouths like they were matched automatons. They-and the Gallish routiers-were framed by two vast old trees against the brilliant sunlight of the fields beyond.

There were screams, and grunts. The company archers were loosing from so close that the shafts sometimes penetrated a shield. When they struck armoured flesh, the needle points went home with a horrible meaty sound, like a butcher making tough meat tender.

The routiers broke. They turned and ran into the field on the far side of the road. Most of them fell into the deep ditch at the road side and some few never rose again.

Ahead of them, Du Corse’s three hundred lances-six hundred armoured horsemen-took a few arrows, lost some horses, and charged the woods like the professionals they were.

By that time, most of the rest of the company was at the road edge or on it.

“Whose is the banner?” the captain asked. “Is that Du Corse?”

Away to the south, brazen trumpets were roaring.

Gavin stood in his stirrups to look.

“Gelfred’s killed all the baggage animals, and now their wagons are blocking the road,” Gabriel said. “The problem is: we don’t have the lances to finish off Du Corse.”

The Gallish routiers had discovered that there were archers in the hedgerows of the town. They were caught in the open fields, in spring, with no cover. The archers began to flay them. There were fewer than a hundred archers all told, but their arrows were fearfully accurate.

“Sound recall,” Gabriel said crisply.

“Du Corse is in the woods,” Gavin said.

His brother shook his head. “Let’s go. It’ll take de Vrailly a day to unfuck this.”

Ganfroy sounded the call. Immediately archers to the west of the road came out of their cover. Many of them had horses to hand. Others simply ran-across the road, over the ditch, and up the hill.

A few terrified routiers ran around the end of the line of archers and went south to safety. More of them died as they were run down by mounted archers.

To Gavin’s left, a dozen Galles re-emerged onto the road. And then suddenly there were fifty lances-more, perhaps.

“Oh well,” the captain said as he closed his visor. Nell put his horse’s reins in his hand and took his ghiavarina.

He swung a leg over Ataelus. Gavin got up on his Bohemund. A dozen more knights closed in around them, coming from the south.

“Up the lane,” Gabriel ordered through his visor.

The Gallish men-at-arms were forming for a charge. They were being hit with occasional arrows-a torment of shafts, but not a torrent, and not an immediate danger. Here, a shaft found a horse-there, a man whose mail didn’t fit under his arm.

The company knights-some of them, anyway-rode into the village lane and a short distance up the hill, and then turned to face their pursuers.

The Galles halted when they began to pack into the lane.

“Come on,” muttered the Red Knight.

But the Galles hung back.

“They’re moving into the field beyond the hedge,” Ser Danved shouted.

“Back,” the Red Knight called. Ganfroy sounded the retreat again. They had twenty lances by then-all the picked jousters in the company, the men who had intended to fight at the tournament.

Except Michael and Bad Tom.

They reached a point almost halfway up the hedge-lined lane.

Finally, the Galles at the foot of the hill followed them. There were no more arrows flying. The horns from the direction of Second Bridge were closer.

“Let’s break a lance,” the captain said. “For the Queen.”

“The Queen!” his knights called.

Gabriel opened his visor and smiled at his brother. “This is the way war is supposed to work, isn’t it?” he said. “We’re hideously outnumbered, and we charge them. Two at a time. Care to join me?”

Gavin laughed. “You’re mad,” he said. “Of course.”

“See the little bend?” Gabriel said. “See the path into the field?”

Even as he spoke, the lead Galles passed it.

But Gavin was an old hand at jousting, if not at this kind of war. “See you in the fields,” he said, and pulled his visor down again.

He put spurs to his horse before Gabriel had his visor shut, and he was alone, flying down the narrow, cool lane. His war horse’s hooves struck sparks off the white gravel of the road.

The men at the front of the Gallish column should have been ready, but they were far more concerned with the arrows that came through the hedge from time to time and had killed a valuable war horse.

He got his spear in the rest in good time, and he caught his first man almost at a stand. The blow from his lance snapped his neck inside his helmet and he fell like a man who had been hanged, his head lolling horribly.

The impact didn’t break Gavin’s lance, so he went on, unhorsing the second man on the right, and then Bohemund was savaging another horse and it was all a tangle, a swirling dog fight. The Galles were all as big as Gavin and as well-armoured. But Bohemund took him past the third and fourth man-

He knew from the sound that his brother had struck behind him. Something hit his helmet so hard his ears rang-he lost his sword, plucked out his dagger and rammed it into a man’s armpit under his raised arm and then-no thanks to any planning-Bohemund plunged through the narrow gap in the hedge and out into the newly planted cornfield. The young maize was already tall enough to carpet the ground, and not yet tall enough to give any cover.

An arrow slammed into his back plate and he cursed. But he pointed his horse up the slope and crouched low on his saddle, hoping that the archers would see his arms on his surcoat.

Gabriel went through the Galles like a threaded needle where an awl has already passed. He unhorsed men on either side as if it was a tilting game-rings-and not a blow landed on him. He watched Gavin pass the gap in the hedge and he touched his spurs to Ataelus and they were through-he just managed to get his lance tip up and not unhorse himself on the hedge, which would have been embarrassing. As he passed the hedge, he had a flash of Ser Danved and Angelo di Laternum running their courses.

The open field was like a different world. They had emerged on the south side of the hedge, so none of Du Corse’s men-at-arms were there. But new banners were flooding into the field from the south. The leading banner was the Earl of Towbray’s.

Ser Bertran, Le Shakle and di Laternum all emerged from the hedge with Ser Danved at their heels, a heavy mace in his hand. He was roaring his war cry.

There was nowhere to rally in the patchwork of planted fields. Nor did Gabriel want another go. He pointed uphill with his lance. “Go!” he shouted. “Follow Gavin!”

In the fields below him, the Earl of Towbray’s knights hooted and began to cross the first ditch. Gabriel watched them. On the road, a man took aim with a crossbow and loosed, and Gabriel had a moment’s deep fear, and then the bolt sailed into the ground well short.

A heavy rider burst out of the hedge. He saluted as he rode past. “I’m the last, Monsieur!” called Jean, Ser Bertran’s squire.

The Earl of Towbray’s knights-fifty lances or more-crossed the ditch in good order and started up the hill. There were more men behind them-Albans and Galles, most not as well armoured as Towbray’s professionals.

The Red Knight turned Ataelus and rode up the hill. The ploughed earth was hard going, and Ataelus was having a hard day-three fights in two days. He was impatient to get to the top-but he did not want to kill this horse.

Towbray’s men were having a hard time, too.

He passed a point where the hill steepened, and suddenly, by turning in the saddle, he could see Du Corse’s lances on the far side of the lane-over to the north, where, if he didn’t move quickly, they could cut him off from his retreat.

Ataelus was snorting with furious effort, cresting the last and steepest bit of the muddy field.

“Come on, lad,” he said. “Come on, Ataelus. Don’t die on me here-never had a horse like you.”

Ataelus’s ears moved, and he gave a little more-and they were up.

Now he had a view of the whole battlefield. Gelfred’s men were forming along the village hedges. His own pages and archers were now mixed in, and the knights-the jousters-were slapping each other in exhilaration.

Gabriel took a cup of water from Nell and drank it off. The Queen was there, and Amicia, already healing a man-a Gallish prisoner, apparently.

“Bravely done, ser knight!” the Queen called.

“Not bravely enough,” he said. “Du Corse is a very good captain. He’s slipped my ambush and now he’s flooding the fields with men.”

Gelfred came up on a palfrey. “They found another lane, my lord,” he said. “I’m sorry-I must have missed it in the dark.”

Gabriel could see that Towbray’s men-and other Albans and Galles who must be under his banner-were pouring into the southern fields at the base of the hill like water through a leaky dyke. They weren’t coming around the jam of baggage wagons. They were coming up another road to the south and east that almost outflanked the hill.

Gabriel looked out over the hillside at the wreck of his clever plan.

He just didn’t have enough men.

Despite the various flaws in his battle, though, he had lost almost no men and Towbray’s knights were completely uncoordinated with Du Corse on the other side of the hedge.

The Queen smiled. “Is that my old friend the Earl of Towbray?” she said. She took her newborn son from Blanche. “Those are Albans. This is what I came for, Ser Gabriel.”

The Red Knight nodded. “Few enough archers. It’s worth a try, your grace.” He turned to Daniel Favour. “Go fetch Ser Michael and Ser Thomas and tell them my little ambush has failed and I need them on the hilltop.” He’d put them off to the north a little in the woods, to complete the rout of anyone who attacked up the-

“Stop!” he cried. “Never mind, young Daniel. Go to them-and tell them to see if they can take Du Corse in the flank when he comes for the village.”

Gavin shook his head. “They’ll be thinner than goose fat on a peasant’s bread.”

Gabriel grinned-not a happy grin. “Have I ever lost a battle?” he asked.

There was no one around to remind him that he had.

The Queen rode down the hill out of the town. For a woman who had, in the last day, survived an attempt to burn her to death and a ride cross-country only to birth a baby in a barn, she looked more like a goddess than a human woman. Her skin glowed in the sun, her rich blond-brown hair seemed to have invented its own colour between gold and bronze, and she rode like a centaur, her plain linen veil trailing behind her.

The white linen penitent’s gown that de Rohan had forced her to wear now shouted her innocence. The babe on her chest proclaimed who she must be-and who the babe must be.

Gabriel Muriens grabbed the royal pennon from Chris Foliak’s hand. “Stay here,” he said, and followed the Queen and her babe.

Foliak sputtered. “That’s my knighthood riding away!”

“Let him be,” Ser Francis said.

Down near the foot of the hill, the earl sat his charger with Ser Christopher Crowbeard-Kit to his boon companions.

“I mislike the hedges and the ploughed fields,” Crowbeard was saying. “Let de Vrailly throw his sell-swords at yon.”

Towbray looked down at the young corn shoots under his horse’s hooves. Ahead of him, fifty good lances-knights and squires-had dismounted to rest their horses. Off to the right, a solid body of Harndon militia in red and blue emerged from the woods-crossbows and spearmen with great tall pavises. He had none of his own foot-de Vrailly had cut them up last summer, and now they were far away, home in the Jarsays. So he had no archers and no peasants to clear the hillside and test the enemy’s intentions. If the hedge was lightly defended…

But if it wasn’t…

A rider came through a gap in the town hedge just a long bowshot away.

“Blessed saint Mary Magdalene,” Crowbeard said. “It’s the Queen.”

Towbray watched her ride effortlessly down the steepest point of the ridge.

A second, armoured rider came through the gap in the hedge. He had a lance and was flying…

Towbray spat, contemplatively, on the ground. “The Royal Standard,” he said.

“She has a babe on her breast.” Crowbeard paused. “Sweet Jesu, my lord earl. She’s foaled.”

Towbray nodded. “Just sit and watch, Kit,” he said.

The Queen rode down the hill until she was in easy bowshot of the Towbray men-at-arms, and then she rode along their front, attended by just one knight. She rode from near the village lane to well over by the Harndon militia.

While she made her ride, the Galles of the rearguard finally broke through the carts and the panicked routiers choking the main road and began to enter the field behind Towbray. Half a mile away, Towbray could see de Vrailly’s banner.

Some of his men-at-arms were kneeling.

Towbray chuckled. He watched her pass back, headed up the hill to the town on the crest.

A rider dressed in Du Corse’s livery reined in. “My lord earl?” he asked. “Monsieur Du Corse asks your support in assaulting the village. Peek-ton,” he said, pointing up the hill. “He orders that you cover this side of the lane, and he’ll go up his side.”

At the word orders, the earl frowned. But he thought a moment and nodded. “I agree.”

The courier bowed and rode away, picking his way as best he could along the ploughed ground.

“What orders, my lord?” Crowbeard asked.

Towbray made a little motion with his eyebrows, almost lost in his bascinet, but Crowbeard had known him his whole life. “Monsieur Du Corse orders me to-how was it phrased? Cover? This side of the lane.” He nodded. “Alban-such a difficult language. Do you think we could cover our side from the little rise just here?”

“You mean to leave Du Corse to his own devices and let him swing in the wind?” Crowbeard said.

Towbray made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I mean that on the one hand, Kit, the newborn King of Alba rode along our ranks and I doubt there’s five lads out there with any heart for this fight-eh? And on the other, that Gallish prick had the nerve to give me-me orders.”

“Might ha’ been any pretty wench wi’ some base-born bastard,” Crowbeard said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Towbray shrugged. “Let’s go and cover the hill,” he said. He sent a messenger to order the Harndon militia to go forward to the base of the first swell.

Their dogged slowness made his men look positively eager for a fight.

Gabriel handed the pennon back to Foliak and slapped his armoured back with his own gauntlet. “I’d never have believed it,” he said. He looked at Ser Francis, who was watching the Harndon militia through the hedge.

“Some of them even cheered us,” said the Queen.

The captain dismounted. “Every jack of you on this hedge,” he shouted. “Get up and go to the other side of the lane. Move. Move!”

Archers like Three Legs grumbled at having to pick up all the arrows they’d stuck in the ground, but they moved. Pages shifted their horses. Dan Favour was back-one wave and a glance and the captain knew he’d passed the message.

He looked at Francis Atcourt. “You and your lances and the Queen-that’s all I’m leaving on this side,” he said.

Atcourt bowed.

“Right,” Gabriel said. He ran, sabatons clicking and clanking, across to the lane. He peered down it, but there was no squadron of death-or-glory Gallish knights ready to crush his cat-and-clay plan.

He left one page-the new man, Bill something, recruited that morning in the barnyard-to watch the road.

“Call out if you see any men-mounted or on foot-in the lane. Do you understand me, Bill?”

Bill looked terrified, but whether that was at the coming battle or the mere fact of conversing with a lord, Gabriel didn’t know.

“You have a weapon?” he asked.

“No, lord,” Bill said stolidly. “I had a spear, but it’s back wi’ the wagons, wherever they is.” He paused. “Awhich I’m Bob, not Bill. Bob Twill, that’s me.”

Gabriel breathed out, a long and steadying exhalation. He unbuckled his arming sword and tossed it to Bob. “Don’t lose it, Bob,” he said.

The former ploughman clutched it.

Gabriel turned and ran for the other side of the hedgerow.

He arrived at one of the many gaps to find that Du Corse had arrayed his men well-a solid line of horsemen, well spaced out to make worse targets, and behind them he’d dismounted two hundred men-at-arms in a body.

Gabriel couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. His brother came and they knocked their armoured fists together.

“Why are you so happy?” Gavin asked.

Gabriel wanted to hug him. “Unless Towbray attacks this minute or Du Corse decides to be rash instead of professional,” he said, “we’re about to hand him his head.”

“Suddenly you’re cocky,” Gavin said.

“It’s the Queen,” Gabriel said. “Never mind. It’s everyone. But we’re going to pull this off. Listen up!” he roared, raising his voice. “Du Corse is going to roll up the hill and we’re going to beat him. The moment his men break-and trust me, lads and lasses, they’re going to break-we mount and follow them. See the road down there to the north where it enters the woods? Go to there. Rally there. Do not mess about. Ten minutes’ hard fighting, and we ride free. I promise. You all hear me?”

They shouted.

“You see the King?” he asked them.

He pointed down the hedge to where the Queen sat on her palfrey and the Royal Standard floated.

They roared.

Gavin laughed. “You are shameless, brother.”

Gabriel smiled. “You know what?” he said. “We are going to rock de Vrailly back. And then we’re going to ride north and collect the rest of our forces.” He paused, watching Du Corse, who was giving a speech. “And then, by my powers, I’m going to show Master Thorn something.”

The Galles gave a throaty roar.

The horsemen put their beasts to the trot and then the canter. They had charged once, and they weren’t fresh, and they, too, were on their second or third fight in a few days. Many of their horses hadn’t recovered from a sea voyage. Those didn’t get past a trot.

And when they passed Cully’s almost-invisible line of withies stuck into the ground, the arrows fell on them.

Gabriel took a riding horse from Nell and rode back along the hedge to the Queen.

Towbray’s men had come a third of the way up the hill. The militia hadn’t even come as far.

“About time to go, your grace,” he said. He smiled at Amicia.

She frowned. “You love war,” she said. She shook her head. “It’s an odd thing to love.”

The Queen made a face. “I’m ready to go wherever you lead,” she said to her captain.

He nodded at Ser Francis. “When we charge, follow us down,” he said. “We’ll cut our way out and ride for Lorica.”

Ser Francis nodded. “What are the odds on my fief in Thrake?” he asked.

“Not bad at all,” Gabriel answered. He trotted back to the hedge. All the archers were working as hard as men can work, their bodies straining into the big bows, their back muscles and arms doing a day’s work in a few minutes.

Cully pulled a shaft to his ear and let it go.

Flarch and Ricard Lantorn called out, almost together, “Twenty.” Most of the archers only had a hand of shafts in the ground at their feet along the gaps in the hedge, and maybe three more in their belts.

It was not yet even noon.

He rode to Gavin, dismounted, and tossed his reins to Nell, who gave him back his spear.

Out in the fields below, everything had changed.

Du Corse’s cavalry were dead or dismounted. Many of them were still coming, because they were insanely brave. Near at hand, a man in a fine segmented breastplate had six or seven arrows in him and still came forward. He was only a few yards away.

Cuddy put a four-ounce arrow into his groin from almost close enough to touch, and the man went down to die in agony. But there were others.

A short bowshot behind them, Du Corse’s dismounted men came on unscathed. Du Corse led them in person, and they cheered as they came, trudging over the damp ploughed fields in their heavy armour.

The first of the original mounted men burst into the hedge-a knight on a dying horse came first, and Gavin put him down with a single blow of his axe. Then a trio of men whose horses were dead-they ran into one of the gaps.

It was Gabriel’s gap, and then the battle was no longer an intellectual exercise or a sport. Terror and pain filled the three with rage.

The Red Knight cut with his heavy spear and the first knight’s head leapt from his body. This time, Gabriel knew what to expect and his weapon passed through the low guard on the left side, point down, and rose again as fast as his arms could uncurl-it cut through the second man’s sword and his breastplate, too-up through his aventail, cutting through hundreds of links of riveted chain and then up through the man’s jaw and out the top of his helmet in an impossible cut, as if the man and his armour were made of butter.

And around in a reverso, crossing Gabriel’s hands briefly, right over left and then the right shot out along the haft. His adversary’s parry was useless, and he died, and fell in two pieces.

The men around Gabriel began to cheer.

It gave him no pleasure. It was like cheating on a test.

At his feet, the Gallish line had quickened its pace despite the steep hill and the near mud.

Just to the right of the enemy line-at the edge of the woods-a banner broke out of the trees, and horsemen began to enter the field.

Gabriel’s heart stopped. It was not Bad Tom, or Michael.

It was three antlered heads in black on a golden chevron and a white field, and a voice like thunder roared, “A Corcy!”

Gabriel leaned on his heavy spear. He sighed.

“Lord Corcy will not betray us,” said Desiderata. “You have too little faith in men, Ser Gabriel.”

She pointed. “Look!” she called.

And then Ser Michael and Bad Tom came out of the wood line, a little north and east of Corcy. They had all the Thrakian knights and men-at-arms, and Tom Lachlan led them in his favourite wedge, his heavy lance held well over his head.

“Mount!” Gabriel called. “Sound ‘mount’ Ganfroy!”

He was ready to weep again, from sheer relief. Just for a moment.

Corcy and his retainers struck the end of Du Corse’s line. The men on foot were caught in the flank at open shields, and many were simply knocked down as the local knights rode them over.

Bad Tom’s wedge crashed obliquely into the line of dismounted men-at-arms. They hit it like a plane cutting wood, and the ranks seemed to peel asunder.

Already, at the south end of the Gallish line, men were forming orbs. Pages were bringing war horses forward. It was not a rout-

Not quite a rout. But in the centre of the line Du Corse’s standard wavered.

The captain pointed with his war hammer at Du Corse’s standard. “Follow me!” he roared, and charged.

Down through the hedge poured his household knights-the tournament champions who’d been with him all day. Behind them came all the pages and archers-and the Queen and Blanche, and anyone else with a horse. Even Bob Twill the ploughman, on Blanche’s spare rouncy.

Du Corse’s banner went down. Tom Lachlan’s great axe went up and down, and then he swept out his dread sword, and men cheered. Ser Michael’s lance was as steady as a fence pole, and every man he touched, he threw to the ground, broken.

The whole mass bunched in one melee, the line crumbling and bunching, like a thin snake trying to eat a very big meal. But the company men stayed together, and followed their orders. They knocked a hole the width of twenty lances in Du Corse’s line and took his banner, and then swept through.

Tom Lachlan, having knocked his own hole in the line, dismounted by Du Corse.

Lord Corcy rode right past him and slammed a slim steel axe into the wounded Galle’s helmet. He reined in and raised his visor. “I need him to trade for my sons,” he said.

Du Corse’s men did not break. Some died, but more were simply knocked into the ground. The rest clumped into the corner of the field by the lane and prepared to sell their lives dearly. Only as they rallied did they see how few their assailants were, but by then the Thrake stradiotes had swept into their pages, and were herding a fortune in Gallish war horses-even ill-fed and spoiled by sea voyage as they were-up the road to Lorica.

A half dozen archers-trapped in the woods west of the road since the original charge of the Galles-slipped out of the trees and joined the company and were double mounted. Will Starling grinned and Daud the Red and Wha’hae slapped their bared arses at the distant Galles.

And then, the Queen well-protected in their midst, with a handful of high-ranking prisoners and some rich ransoms, they mounted fresh horses where they could and rode north, towards Lorica.

De Vrailly rode up to the Earl of Towbray. The hilltop town lowered above them.

Towbray shrugged. “The militia won’t advance, and Du Corse ordered me to cover the hill,” he said. “What can I do?”

De Vrailly glared at him with unconcealed contempt.

He rallied Du Corse’s veterans and made camp in the field below the town, which he had the survivors of the routiers clear, loot, and burn to the ground. But burning Picton couldn’t get him back his army’s morale, or the three hundred horses he’d lost.

The archbishop ordered Corcy’s sons hanged. De Vrailly remanded the order. The archbishop sat and dictated a dispatch, claiming victory as that they held the battlefield, and denouncing the Queen as a whore and strumpet who was spreading a false rumour that she’d born an heir.

De Vrailly made himself as distant as he could. The routiers were happy enough to burn Picton, but the Gallish knights were drawing away, in body, from the archbishop.

When the archbishop slept, de Vrailly summoned a herald and sent him to the Red Knight, at Lorica.

Then he went to his pavilion, where his squires had already laid out his plain bed and his prie-dieu with the triptych of the Virgin, Saint Gabriel and Saint Michael. He poured a cup of water from a magnificently ornate gold and crystal bottle on a shelf in the prie-dieu, blessed himself, and placed the cup carefully behind the flange that covered the inside of his right knee.

He knelt for a long time, in his harness, without even a single candle. His knees ached, and he ignored them. He ignored the feeling that his greave tops and his knee articulation were cutting gradually through his padded hose.

Pain is penance.

Come, beautiful angel. I have things to ask and say.

The pain continued, and so did the darkness. From time to time his meditations were broken-outside, he heard Jehan, his squire, trying to explain to the Corcy boys that he had saved their lives and that they should be grateful for being alive.

The archbishop’s tempers were infantile.

De Vrailly thought of the figure of the Queen, seen in the distance, riding across the hillside, the banner streaming behind her. It had moved him, at some point beyond simple decisions.

So easy to believe that she is a witch.

He thought of the King-his friend. In many ways, his closest friend. No man in Galle had ever been so close to him.

I failed to protect him.

I never even saw the arrow, because I was sulking in my tent-because I was ensorcelled.

His rage grew.

His hands began to shake, and an unaccustomed heaviness grew in his throat and chest.

And then the angel manifested.

He hovered above de Vrailly’s head, his fair form shining almost perfectly gold, his robes a paler white gold and his armour paler yet. In his right hand was a heavy spear, and his left hand held a small round shield with the cross in stark black.

You called for me, my knight.

De Vrailly looked at the angel and struggled for his rage and his belief.

We were tricked by the vile sorceress, and thwarted. But all is well, my knight. All is as it should be. Today, you will defeat the Queen’s army and her cause will collapse. You will kill her champion-

De Vrailly mastered himself. He raised his head and his eyes met the angel’s. “I am told that the King of Galle has been defeated in a great battle in Arelat,” he said.

That is of no moment now, the angel said. You will be King, here.

De Vrailly rose from his knees. His right hand picked up the small silver cup, and with a flick of his wrist, the holy water struck the angel.

Black fire rent the angel. With a shriek, the angel shook himself-and was whole and gold and beautiful, without expression on his serene and commanding face.

That was childish.

De Vrailly was standing with his hand on his sword hilt. “The archbishop tells me that I am a child,” he said.

Come, my knight. I confess that we failed at the tournament. I was surprised at a number of developments-but the black sorceress who opposes me was before me in many ways. I pray your pardon, mortal-I, too, can be confused. And even hurt.

De Vrailly thought of what he had just seen.

“By the black sorceress, you mean the Queen?” de Vrailly asked carefully.

I do not think you will find this line of questioning to your comfort, my knight. But yes, I mean the Queen, and the malign presence that defends and abets her-a succubus of hell.

De Vrailly wanted very much to believe what the angel said. He balanced on an exquisite, torturous knife edge.

“I think that you killed the King. I think that you manipulate events. I think I have been your pawn.” De Vrailly threw the words like blows in a fight to the death. Now his head flooded with all his doubts-now he could marshal his doubts like armies, whereas when the angel first manifested, he couldn’t even breathe. The holy water had changed something.

And yet, the archangel looked like everything that de Vrailly wanted. From this world, and from his God.

I think it would be better for you to banish these doubts and do what you were created to do, my child. I wish you to see that all the world is a shadow, and that there are many truths and many realities. But for you, there must be just one reality. One world, one spirit. The Queen is a sorceress who arranged that you be taken from your rightful place as the King’s champion and manipulated events to kill the King. I have worked tirelessly to defend you-

“Have you put magical protections on me and my armour?” de Vrailly asked.

The angel paused. The pause was so brief that it scarcely existed, yet to de Vrailly, used to the angel almost seeming to read his thoughts, it seemed long.

I would never do anything that would prevent men from giving you the glory which you deserve of your right. Stop this, my knight. Go forth and conquer your enemies. Tomorrow the Queen will send someone to offer you single combat. Defeat him, kill him, and you will be master here. These doubts will only confuse you. This is not the time to be confused. This is the time to get revenge.

De Vrailly returned to his knees.

Sometime in the night, all the Harndon militia marched away from the army.