The Dread Wyrm

Chapter Ten

The Company

Bad Tom and Ser Michael and Long Paw and Gelfred pushed the column like daemons from hell. The captain was everywhere-up and down the column-from the moment they passed the gap under an arch of trees and took the road north to Lorica.

He had a brief officers’ call in the saddle. He was terse, dividing their small force into a vanguard under Lord Corcy with his powerful force of knights-local men who knew the road and the ground around it, a main body under Gavin, and a rearguard under Tom Lachlan.

Twice, Michael and Tom turned and laid an ambush in the greenwood, with archers and a dozen knights filling the road, but no pursuit threatened them. At three in the afternoon, Gelfred launched back down the road with five of his best foresters-Will Scarlet, Dan Favour, Amy’s Hob, Short Tooth and Daud-to scout.

But for the rest of the column the afternoon passed in a haze of dust and sun and horse sweat.

Bad Tom would roar, “Halt! Change horses!” and they’d have five minutes.

Bob Twill learned to eat while holding his horse. He learned to piss while holding his horse.

Worst of all, he learned to ride.

The Queen seemed to grow with every mile they rode-louder, larger, and happier. She rode the dusty lane with her babe clutched to her, and sang him songs in Occitan and Gallish, songs of chivalry and love. Her singing was a tonic, and when she came to one the men around her knew, they’d sing the chorus-Prendes i garde or C’est la fin quoi que nus die, which made the woods ring.

Lady Blanche-they were all calling her that in the exuberance of victory-rode with all the skill of Bob Twill, and her pretty face could not hide her annoyance at the Queen’s constant correction of her seat and her hands. But she cleaned the baby and changed his linen, and at some point during the third halt, in a moment of vexation, she balled up the child’s filthy towels and threw them into the woods.

“Fie! And linen towelling so dear!” The captain was just behind her, at the edge of the trees.

She flushed. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

“I’m not. It’s the most human thing I’ve seen from you all day.” He tossed her an apple. “Toby!” he shouted.

Toby appeared, carrying the captain’s standard. He was still mounted, although the rest of them were on foot.

“Clean shirt,” the captain said. “And my towel. Give them to Lady Blanche.”

Toby didn’t ask questions. He reached behind his war saddle, to a very small leather trousseau. He extracted a linen shirt that smelled of lavender, and a slightly soiled damp towel.

“I used the towel to shave this morning,” the captain admitted.

Blanche caught the work on the shirt-mice teeth on the cuffs, embroidered coat of arms, beautiful fine stitching as good as her own or better. “What’s this for, then?” she asked. “My lord?”

“Tear the shirt up for swaddling,” he said. “The towel’s so you can wipe your hands clean before you eat the apple.” He smiled.

She did just that. Then she tossed it to him-as if they were peers. He caught it and threw it to Toby, who shied away.

“Afraid of a little baby poo?” the captain cried.

Toby blushed furiously. He rolled the towel very tightly and put it away behind his war saddle as if afraid of disease.

He smiled at her and rode off down the column.

By nightfall, Michael and Tom had begun to use the rougher sides of their tongues, and the captain was the calm, cheerful one. Bob Twill was found to have stayed on the ground at a halt. Bad Tom rode back, scared him almost to incontinence, and got him on his exhausted horse.

Cat Evil, never the best rider, complained of the pace and found himself docked a day’s pay.

“Mew mew mew!” Tom roared. “I don’t hear nowt from the babe but laughter, and you lot-old soldiers-cry like babies. A little fight an’ a few hours in the saddle-” He laughed. “We’ll shake the fat off you.”

Cat Evil, who was as thin as a young girl and had the long hair to match and a very nasty disposition, put a hand on his knife.

Tom laughed again. “If you ha’ the piss to face me,” he said, “then ye’re not e’en tired yet. Bottle it and keep riding.”

Most of the older men expected they’d halt at last light. Even Cully, who, as an officer and a trusted man, was careful not to vent his irritation at the pace, muttered that with no pursuit and no danger, it was cruel hard.

Ser Michael reined in. “Think it’s possible that the captain knows something you don’t know, Cully?”

Cully looked resentful, like a good hunting dog accused falsely of stealing food. But he kept his mouth shut, and didn’t rise to Cuddy’s open mutiny when they kept riding into the moonlight.

“We’re going all the way to Lorica, then?” Michael asked. Ser Gabriel was up and down the column, and where Tom and Michael used ridicule and open coercion to keep men moving, Ser Gabriel was everyone’s friend.

So far. He grinned at Michael, his teeth white in the moonlight. “Look ahead of you,” he said.

In the middle distance, the cathedral of Lorica rose above the town’s walls, which gleamed like white Etruscan marble in the moonlight. Just short of the walls, fires burned.

He waved, and turned his horse-his fourth of the day-back down the column. “Less than an hour now, friends,” he called.

Outriders greeted them well outside the silent town. Ser Ranald embraced his cousin, and then dismounted and bent his knee to the Queen and her son.

The Queen gave him a hand. “It was you-in the darkness,” she said.

“Not just me, your grace,” he said. “But yes, I was there.”

She smiled in the moonlight, and for the first time that Gavin had seen her, she seemed older, with lines around her mouth and under her eyes. Not old-just not the vision of youth she had been that afternoon, riding in the shadow-spackled sunlight.

“Will you command my son’s guard?” she asked.

Ranald grinned. “I have the better half of it right here,” he said. He waved in the direction of the camp.

But Ser Gabriel forbade any kind of ceremony. “Unless your grace overrules me directly,” he said, “I want everyone to bed.”

But Lady Almspend-Becca, to the Queen-was at Ranald’s side, and there were more hugs, and the Queen all but fell into her friend’s arms.

The captain rode up almost between them. “I’m sorry, your grace, but there’s two hundred men who have fought for you this day, and they want to be asleep.”

The Queen sat back. “Of course-I’m thoughtless. Go!”

But despite this admonition, men and women were roused as the column entered camp. Blanche was surprised at how orderly was the apparent chaos. Sukey, who she had thought ere this to be a decorative camp follower or possibly the Red Knight’s lover, stood by the palisaded gate with two pages at her shoulders with torches and read off tent assignments. When Tom Lachlan rode up, Blanche was close behind. Too close.

Sukey graced him with a pleasant smile.

“Not my tent, Ser Tom,” she said.

He grimaced.

“You’ll find Donald Dhu and all the beeves he has yet unsold just a long bowshot to the west, by the river,” she said.

“And if I don’t want to ride any further, woman?” he asked.

She tossed her hair. “There’s space in the ditch outside,” she said. “Next!”

She put the Queen in the captain’s pavilion, on his feather bed, and she was waiting when the Queen’s woman-the tall blonde-came out of the pavilion with an armload of smelly linen.

“I have a bed for ye, if you’ll sleep. Give all that to one of my drudges. Come.” Sukey walked off towards the cook fires.

The same men-and a few women-who had bitched about fighting and riding all day were now sitting at fires drinking wine and re-telling it all. A dozen knights of the Order were listening to Ser Michael’s account of the ambush. Two nuns were brushing out Sister Amicia’s hair.

Prior Wishart, who Sukey knew from two days in camp, was deep in conversation with the captain, who gave her the “not now” sign. So she pushed past, Blanche at her heels, and took her around the fire that had become the hub of conversation-and thus, no work could be done-to the main fire line. There, despite the hour, twenty women and a few men were heating water, cooking, washing…

“Anne Banks! Get your nose out of his business and come over here,” Sukey yelled. A young woman who had been kissing a young man came, in a sulky, put-upon way.

“Annie’s a scullery and she’ll do as she’s told most o’ the time,” Sukey said. “Annie, this is Blanche, the Queen’s-friend. She has a mort of linen needs cleaning.”

Anne was prone to be difficult. Blanche knew her kind well enough. She smiled and kissed the younger woman’s cheek. “For the baby, Miss Anne. I don’t expect you to do my things.” She laughed. “Except I don’t have any things.”

Annie nodded. “For the baby?” She took the whole armload without demur. “For-the King?” she said.

“His shit is just as shitty as any other baby’s,” Sukey noted. “Anne Banks, if you lie down with that boy and get a baby in you, you’ll end a common harlot.”

“Which they gets paid a damn sight better than sculleries. An’ the work is restful,” Annie said in a tone aimed to infuriate her officer.

Sukey smacked the girl with her open hand. “Don’t be a fool,” she said. “You want to hear about being a whore, talk to Sauce. I’m sorry, Lady Blanche.”

“I’m no lady,” Blanche said. “They just call me that.”

Sukey was now clutching Anne to her chest. “I’m sorry, Annie. But you ain’t got a mama to teach you, so all you get is me.”

“You hit me!” Anne wailed.

Sukey winked at Blanche. Over Anne’s head, she said, “You and I are of a size. Want some clothes?”

Blanche contemplated refusal, but it seemed stupid. “Yes,” she said. “I can’t pay.”

Sukey smiled. It was an odd smile, as if she knew something that Blanche didn’t know. Which she probably did.

Back towards the gate, a voice called, “Sukey!” like the sounding of a great horn.

“Damn the man,” Sukey said. “Anne, wash those linens and bring them to…” She looked at Blanche. “I guess you’re casa 24-R2.”

“What’s that?” Blanche asked. Anne picked up the linens without another sniff and curtsied as if Blanche was indeed a lady. Blanche responded-it was a little like the laundry at home.

“24-R2 is the twenty-fourth tent of the second corporal of the red band,” Sukey said, already underway. “Look, I’ll show you.”

“Sukey!” called the deep voice.

“I’ll kill him. You know, he went off and lay with another girl at the Inn of Dorling, and now he thinks he can walk back in here-”

“Suuu-key!”

Blanche, always everyone’s confidante, giggled. “That’s Bad Tom?” she asked.

“Aye,” Sukey said. “That’s Bad Tom.”

“He’s very handsome.” Blanche hadn’t thought it aloud before that. But Tom’s sheer size was-remarkable.

“Aye he is, and he knows it, the devil.” Sukey was walking fast through a darkened camp. “See the captain’s pavilion? No, there. See? Red flags.”

“I see it,” Blanche allowed.

“All the lances of his household camp in a line behind-knights at the head of the camp, then men-at-arms and pages and then servants. See? R2 is Ser Francis, and a nicer gentleman you’ll never meet. Twenty-four is just a spare at the back of camp. I walked all the way around so you’d see the how and the why. See? And see the cook fires?”

Blanche swallowed heavily. “Yes,” she admitted. “So many tents!”

Sukey laughed. “Honey, wait until you see whole company-that’s nearly five hundred tents. An army! Christ and all his saints, you can get lost walking around looking for a spot to piss.”

“Suuk-keeyy!”

“He’ll make a fool o’ himself,” Sukey said. She seemed perfectly well pleased. “Come to my tent and I’ll gi’ you a gown and a couple of shifts.”

“You’ll want to get to sleep,” Blanche said.

Sukey laughed and licked her lips. “I doubt Tom has sleep in mind. He’s been fightin’.” She grinned. “Fightin’ makes him think o’ just one thing. Come on-I don’t mind makin’ him wait.”

Back, by some incomprehensible path through the endless rows of white wedges in the moonlight, like a monster’s teeth, like headstones in a churchyard. Blanche was instantly lost as soon as she couldn’t see the captain’s two red tent banners.

Then they emerged into a cross street, as broad as half a bowshot.

“Officer’s line,” Sukey said. “See, there’s the cap’n’s tent again. Got your bearings?”

Blanche shook her head.

“Well, never mind. Here’s my little home.”

Sukey’s home was a wagon with a tent on the wagon box. She lit a taper with magick, as easy as kissing her own thumb.

“I don’t ha’ my mother’s talent, but I can do a thing or two,” she said.

By candlelight, Blanche could see Sukey better. She was beautiful, with rich black hair, a pert nose and freckles and light eyes that were improbable in her face-large and full of humour, at odds with her nose and mouth. She wore a fine kirtle with the skirts pulled high enough to show a fair amount of leg, and the front cut low enough to advertise her figure, which was as good as Blanche’s own.

The two women eyed each other.

“I think you’ll fit me to a T,” Sukey said. She opened a chest in the wagon box. “Red?”

“I daren’t,” Blanche said.

“Cap’n won’t care. It’s his favourite colour,” Sukey said.

“I serve the Queen,” Blanche said. “Red’s the King’s colour.”

“Oh, aye,” Sukey said, as if the notion had no interest for her. “A nice dark brown?”

She held up a kirtle with side lacing and a low neck.

Blanche whistled. “That’s fine cloth.”

“Aye, my mother made it for me in Morea,” Sukey said. She put her hands around Blanche’s waist. “Oh, you’re as little as me in the tummy. Take the brown-I never wear it. It makes me look poor. You ha’ the hair for it.”

She took down two shifts from a basket. “I can spare you two. I’ve no stockings-I’m barefoot myself until we reach Albinkirk.”

Blanche took the other woman and kissed her. “You’re a true friend.”

“Sister, women in this lot need to be friends.” Sukey laughed. “Besides, soon eno’ I’ll need favours of you.”

“Su-key!” came a roar, almost outside the wagon.

“Get a room!” came an angry call from the tent lines.

Blanche took her prize wardrobe and dropped off the wagon box to the ground. “Thanks!” she said.

“I’m right here, you great ox,” Sukey said.

“I brought you something,” Bad Tom said.

“A couple of your doxies to do my scut work?” Sukey shot back.

“Don’t be like that, woman,” he said.

Blanche covered her ears and giggled.

“Like what? Spiteful? Mad as a cat in water?” Sukey asked.

Tom laughed. “You’re jus’ play-acting.”

“Try me, Tom,” she said.

“You? Dare me?” Tom said, and roared his laugh.

Blanche lengthened her stride.

She ran far enough to escape the sounds, and stopped to catch her breath.

She’d come the wrong way-or perhaps not. As she spun, she gradually got her bearings-the captain’s banners, the pavilion, the cook fires near at hand.

She was ravenous. She came to the fire where so many had been gathered a quarter of an hour before. Now there were only a handful of men. Sister Amicia and her nuns were gone.

Toby was with the captain. “I’d need help to bed them all down,” Toby was saying.

Ser Gabriel shook his head. “I can’t order men out of their straw,” he said.

Blanche stepped up boldly. “There’s pages awake at the cook fires,” she said.

Toby shrugged. “They’ll be all the lackwits and awkward sods-”

Ser Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder. “You need me?” he asked.

Toby backed away hurriedly. “No-no, my lord. Go to bed.”

Ser Gabriel nodded to her.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“We captured horses at the tournament and more at the end of the fight today. They don’t belong to anyone yet, so they’re all just milling about at the end of the horse lines. Toby is too professional to leave them, and too tired to do anything about it.” He looked at her. “What do you have there?” he asked. He handed her his cup, which was full of sweet wine.

She drank it off before she thought about it.

“Damn, you did it again,” he said.

“I’m sorry, my lord. Sukey took care of me, and gave me a kirtle and some linen.” She paused. “Women’s prattle.”

“I like women,” he said. “I especially like Sukey, who gets more work out of fewer people than anyone I’ve ever known. Sukey has a list for every occasion.” He smiled. “Did Tom find her?”

“When she was ready for him,” Blanche said. Then she winced.

But Ser Gabriel laughed. His right hand found a bottle, and he re-filled his cup. “I’m going to be un-gallant,” he said, “and have some of this before you get it.”

Blanche smiled at him. “You should go to bed, my lord,” she said.

He kicked his feet in front of him, sat with his back against his war saddle and handed her the cup. He indicated his cloak, a great red cloak she’d seen tied behind his saddle. “This is my bed,” he said, a little sharply. “Sukey gave my tent to the Queen and her baby, and now she’s off playing with Tom.”

“I have a tent,” Blanche said. She almost bit her lip in vexation.

The silence went on far too long-ten heartbeats or so.

“I’m not sure just how I want to answer that,” he said. But then, without further hesitation, he was kissing her. She never got clear in her mind how she came to be kneeling by him to be kissed.

Blanche had been kissed before, and she didn’t melt. But she was ashamed of all the things that went through her mind before she let it float away on the kiss. Some of them were very practical.

Then she had both of his hands and she was kissing him. It made her want to laugh.

A log popped in the fire, and Toby cleared his throat very softly.

“Gelfred, my lord,” he whispered. In one motion, he flipped the captain’s red cloak open and threw it over Blanche even as Ser Gabriel flowed to his feet.

Blanche lay smothered in red wool, her heart beating fast as the hooves of a galloping horse strummed the earth.

“Road’s clear all the way back to Second Bridge,” Ser Gelfred said. “We picked up a herald on the road, who claims he’s been sent to you from de Vrailly. I blindfolded him.”

“Nicely done. Send him to Lord Corcy in the morning, Gelfred. De Vrailly will want Du Corse.” He laughed. “Do you think they’re related? Du Corse, and Corcy?”

“Never gave it a thought,” Gelfred said. “I saw Alcaeus out by the gate. He’ll be wanting you, too.”

Blanche writhed inwardly. Her mind was spinning. Drink? How much had he drunk? He couldn’t really want her. He’d want the Queen-that’s how these things played out. Like with like. Aristo with aristo.

But it had been a spectacular kiss.

Gabriel was acutely conscious of the young woman under his cloak ten feet away in the flickering firelight. He gave Toby a look.

Toby walked off.

What was I thinking? She’s hardly a light o’ love.

Is that what I want? Or is it just what Tom wants for me?

There was the unmistakable sound of horse’s hooves. Gelfred put a hand on his long sword hilt.

Gabriel knew the man by his seat-shorter stirrups, the Morean style. “Alcaeus!” he called. “I haven’t seen you in two days and it’s like being blind.”

The Morean knight-dressed in a simple cote and long boots, like any messenger-threw a leg over his light saddle and dropped to the ground. His little mare simply dropped her head and started eating. She was clearly done in.

Toby appeared with Nell, who looked as mad as a viper. Between them they were carrying a ghost-no, it was a stack of linen sheets.

“Make me fucking work in the middle of the night-” She was spitting when she saw her captain and stopped.

“You weren’t exactly working,” Toby shot back.

Alcaeus seized the proffered wine cup and drained it. “Some prefer a company of infantry, and some love the sight of ships, and some love a troops of horse,” he said in Archaic. “But the thing I love is good intelligence.”

“I don’t think that’s quite what Sappho had in mind,” Gabriel said, and laughed.

“You ready?” Alcaeus said. “It’s all gone to hell.”

To the Morean knight’s right, Toby and Nell put up a folding frame and began to drape it with sheets.

Alcaeus looked at them with interest. “Do they really do your laundry in the middle of the night?” he asked. “And how is the sweet lady laundress? What a beauty.”

“What a mouth,” Gabriel said, hoping to head him off.

Alcaeus laughed. “She has wit. I fancy her. Bah-at any rate. I have birds and birds-message on message. But first, from our dear friend in Harndon.”

He handed Gabriel a folded scrap of parchment, and Gabriel flipped it open and held it to the flames for light. It was Kronmir’s hand.

The city is ours when we wish it. The archbishop employs a potent sorcerer, Master Gilles. Say the word and I can dispose of him. I am now the chief of intelligence for his eminence. There is word that the Galles have suffered a terrible defeat against some Wild opponent in Arelat. The Etruscan and Hoek merchants are in panic.

I believe that his eminence is in contact with our other foe.

A factor here has told me that the Emperor is planning to take the field in person.

I await orders. A very sticky, but fascinating problem, is it not?

Gabriel sipped his wine. “You’ve read it,” he said.

“Ten times,” Alcaeus said. “You trust him?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said.

Alcaeus made a motion of the lips that suggested that his captain was naive, and perhaps shouldn’t be trusted out alone after dark.

Toby appeared. “It’s getting chilly,” he said, and laid the captain’s red cloak over his shoulders.

Gabriel got the message. Boy, you are the finest squire who has ever lived, he thought.

He breathed in, hoping her scent would be on his cloak, but in truth, he smelled only horse sweat and wood smoke.

I want her.

Mother would be so proud. Damn her.

The pang-he still forgot that she was dead for whole minutes at a time-came back like a fist in the stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Alcaeus asked.

Gabriel shrugged. “I trust him because I’ve given him scope to play a bigger game. The biggest.”

Alcaeus nodded. “You read men well,” he said.

“The Emperor?” Gabriel asked. He was very tired.

“The Emperor has left his daughter Irene at Liviapolis with a skeleton guard, and he and Ser Milus are marching past Middleburg.” Alcaeus took the cup from Gabriel and drank.

Not long ago, it was Blanche drinking from that cup.

Oh, Amicia, am I so fickle?

But you said no. So often.

I know you don’t mean it.

Or that you do.

“So-we can take Harndon behind de Vrailly.”

“I don’t think de Vrailly is in command,” Alcaeus said. Toby opened a folding stool behind him, and he sat. The ground by his side was empty, the sheets gone. Nell put a second stool behind Gelfred.

“I think the archbishop is now in command. De Vrailly is-not himself.” Alcaeus shrugged. “At any rate, the archbishop has summoned the levies of the whole of Jarsay, the Albin and the Brogat. He’s sitting at Second Bridge and fortifying his camp.”

Gelfred nodded. “That goes with what my people tell me. We picked up a deserter who says that he ordered Corcy’s sons hanged, but de Vrailly cancelled it.”

Gabriel’s pulse quickened. “Would de Vrailly change sides?”

Alcaeus shook his head. “If Kronmir could do it in person-perhaps. It would take a delicate touch and a great deal of-how do Albans put it?-sugar. The man is a monster. But no. Not where we are now.” He held up a hand. “It is the north to which we must see.”

He and Gelfred held the corners of a map-more a sketch.

“Pardon me, that I must speak of hard things.” Alcaeus put a hand-very tentatively-on his captain’s arm.

Gabriel nodded.

“The sorcerer has taken Ticondaga. His forces increase every day-the northern Wild is flocking to him.” He shrugged. “Ser John Crayford and Ser Ricar have the northern army at Broadalbin north of Albinkirk. They have some survivors from Ticondaga, including your brother Aneas. I am to tell you that the duchess and earl both died in the taking.” Alcaeus paused. “I’m sorry.”

“I already knew. But Gavin will have to be told in the morning. I told him-I felt it in the aethereal. He will be glad Aneas is alive.” Gabriel tried to smile, but nothing came. “I will be glad, too, when I have some gladness in me.”

“I have an imperial messenger from Ser John. He has four hundred lances and he’s ordering out the shire troops, but he will not attempt to make a stand in the wilderness. He wants us to know he’s been fighting every day.”

Gabriel tried to see it. If Thorn was at Ticondaga and all the creatures of the Wild were with him…

“Where is Ser John?” he asked.

“Broadalbin, north of Albinkirk. His messenger bird reported that he fears for Dorling.” Alcaeus paused. “I thought that we believed Dorling unassailable, because of our… friend.”

Gabriel stroked his beard. “I’ve made a number of mistakes in the last few weeks, Alcaeus. The greatest of them was assuming that Thorn was less gifted than I am. He’s not. He’s as willing to take risks. Suddenly he’s daring. He may risk Dorling. He may even be right to.”

“There’s more,” Alcaeus said. “Harcourt on the west wall fell to the Faery Knight yesterday. I didn’t hear-the message went to Albinkirk by bird and I only have it from Ser John. Another army crossed the Great River just east of N’pano over a week ago, from the north.”

“Oh, sweet Christ,” Gelfred said. The man who never swore.

Alcaeus nodded. “One must assume that the Faery Knight and the sorcerer have come to some accommodation. The Faery Knight has an army-or he wouldn’t have taken Harcourt.” Alcaeus hesitated. “I’m sorry to say that Harmodius was said to be with the Faery Knight.”

Gabriel took a deep steadying breath. “Ahh,” he said.

Gelfred spat. “First Towbray and now Harmodius,” he said. “I knew the magus was black-hearted, but this-”

“Judge not rashly,” Gabriel said. He drank another sip of wine. “Toby, are you there?”

Toby appeared at his side.

“All officers at first light.” He nodded. “Another busy day.”

“May I make a recommendation now, in private?” Alcaeus asked.

“Of course,” Gabriel said. The Morean was solemn-he put a hand out and rested it on Gabriel’s shoulder.

“If you think we can trust Kronmir, then I say-take Harndon. Now. Destroy this upstart archbishop, crush him against the city walls, finish the rebellion.” Alcaeus waved his hands.

“I like that, as right now the archbishop thinks we’re the rebels.” Gabriel managed a wry smile.

“And then hold Harndon.” Alcaeus shrugged.

“Against the Wild?” Gabriel asked.

Alcaeus nodded. “We have a saying-when the tide rises, climb a big rock. Harndon is the biggest rock. And my reading of the ancients is that this has happened before-all of it. The big invasions, the sudden welling forth of the Wild. Places like Liviapolis and Harndon are built to withstand-exactly this.” He paused. “I have this, too. It is an imperial message. But then you are still, I hope, an imperial officer.”

He handed over a thin piece of the nearly transparent paper that the messenger birds-the big imperial ones-carried.

The Venike ambassador in the city reports that the armies of Galle and Arelat were destroyed in a great battle south of Nunburg in Arelat. Venike has formally requested assistance from the Emperor.

Gabriel spread the map out and stuck his green-hilted dagger through one corner and his eating knife through the opposite.

“That’s for another day,” he said. Oh, Mr. Smythe, for an hour of your time. I think we’re losing.

“We’re five days from Albinkirk, moving fast,” he said. He nodded to himself. “Dorling’s about the same from Albinkirk-shorter as the crow flies, but the road is dreadful.”

Gelfred and Alcaeus both agreed.

Gabriel thought a moment. “If we lose Dorling, we can’t link up with the Emperor.”

“And leave the Faery Knight unopposed in the west, and the archbishop free to sack Lorica?” Alcaeus shook his head.

Gabriel scratched under his chin-he had three mosquito bites that seemed to occupy as much of his mind as Blanche and the Faery Knight combined.

“Any force coming from the west has to pass Lissen Carak,” he said. “A tough nut.”

“Small garrison,” Alcaeus said.

“Not if you think in the aethereal.” He didn’t see a solution. If there was one at all, it was going to involve some miracles of marching, and every hour counted, starting a day ago.

But he had the glimmer of a plan. It was not his former plan at all. That galled him-that a plan had completely failed.

So much subtlety, gone with the arrow that killed the King.

“Right,” he said. “I assume Ser Gerald Random is in Lorica?”

“No, he and most of the men who came with him are camped between us and the beeves. The Hillmen.” Alcaeus waved.

“I need Ser Gerald, Sukey, Tom, Ranald and-” He looked around. “That’s a start.”

“First light?” Toby said hopefully.

“Now,” Gabriel said.

He was never going to get to kiss Blanche again. He tried not to let that influence his decisions, but he reckoned that if he could end the meetings and find her…

Too late for all of that. By tomorrow, the moment would be gone.

He shrugged. His shrug was a dismissal of all that. Let love go hang, he thought bitterly.

Toby murmured in his ear, “Ser Thomas is-er-with Sukey.”

“Good, you can get them both at once,” Gabriel said.

Let love go hang. “Get Sister Amicia, too.”

The map was still pinned to the ground with daggers and eating implements.

The captain’s bearing made it plain that this was business. There was almost no grumbling. Toby and Nell built up the fire and began to serve roast pork and dumplings left over from a dinner most of them had never received.

“You bid fair to ruin a beautiful night,” Tom grumbled.

The captain shook his head. “The world,” he said, “is going to shit all around us. This is for everything, friends. So drink some wine, stretch your wits and get with me.”

Alcaeus and Gelfred reviewed the intelligence reports while the rest chewed pork, spat gristle, and wolfed down the dumplings.

When Gelfred was done explaining the archbishop’s position and what he had in his army, the captain nodded sharply.

“Tom, will you sell me all your beef?” he asked.

Tom shrugged. “Market price?” he asked.

“On the nail,” the captain said.

Tom nodded, and spat in his hand.

The captain turned to Ser Gerald. “Loan me the cost of the beeves?” he asked.

“Against what?” Gerald asked cautiously.

“Against that I’m now the Earl of Westwall, or Gavin is, and the Duke of Thrake, too. I own the whole northern trade from one end of the wall to the other, and if we win this war, we’ll make money as if we are transmuting water into gold.” He turned to his brother. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m not as crass as I sound, but…”

Gavin grunted. “I get it,” he said. “They’re dead, and we need money.”

Random eyed Tom Lachlan. “Yes,” he said.

The captain spat in his hand and clasped hands with Tom.

“Where do you want them?” Tom asked.

“I want them marched back north-fifty head at every stopping point in a six-day march, and I want the rest grazing in the fields south and west of Albinkirk in one week.”

“Tar’s tits,” Tom croaked. “That’s a mort of driving.”

“You’re the Drover,” Gabriel said. “Then keep going north and get your levies out of the Hills and join Ser John at Dorling. Take whatever beasts you need to feed the Emperor and four thousand men there.”

“And hold Dorling?” Tom asked.

The captain shook his head. They were perfectly silent.

“No. I’m sorry, Tom, but unless the Wyrm wants to fight for it, we’re sacrificing Dorling.”

“Why am I going there, then?” Lachlan asked.

“Because the levies will only rise for you or Ranald or Donald Dhu. And because I can trust you to follow orders-words, by the way, that no one else has ever said about you, Tom.” He smiled across the fire, and Tom grinned back.

“Only if I like ’em, boyo.”

“Raise your levies and hold the Inn until the Emperor comes. And then retreat to Albinkirk, making the road behind you a wilderness.” Gabriel leaned forward.

Tom crossed his arms. “With my Hillmen and the Emperor, I can defeat fucking Thorn.”

“No, Tom, you can’t. Not without me and Amicia and all the angels in heaven, too.” Gabriel shook his head vehemently. “Unless the Wyrm’s willing to go in person. And I shouldn’t even say that out loud. But if he is-then fight.”

Bad Tom scratched under his nose. “Retreating is not my best way,” he said.

“Tom, if you pull this off and get the Emperor and Ser John Crayford alive to Albinkirk, I promise you the greatest battle ever.” Gabriel nodded. “One toss, one fight, for everything.”

Tom raised a hand the size of most men’s heads. “Six days with my herd to Albinkirk. Two days hard riding to the Inn if no one stops us.” He frowned. “Eight days, at least. Where will you be?”

Gabriel scratched his bites. “Sukey, I need you to start north with the camp and the baggage tomorrow. Leave enough tents standing here for the Royal Guard and the company packed tight, and take the rest on the road. We’ll catch you at Sixth Bridge.”

Sukey nodded. “I can do that,” she said. “How soon can I start them up and packing?”

“Give them another hour,” the captain said.

He turned back to Tom while Sukey wrote on her wax tablets. “In eight days, I need to be two days south of Albinkirk,” he said. “Because the rest of us are going to turn on the archbishop right now-today. Win or die, and no quarter.” He looked around. “No quarter for the archbishop, that is. The rest of them can surrender as they need.”

Random all but cried out. “You’re going south?”

“All or nothing,” Gabriel replied. “And you and your friends are going straight to Harndon if we win.”

Ser Gerald shook his head. “Have you lost your wits, Gabriel?”

There were people present who’d never heard the captain’s name used so familiarly.

“In ten days we can have Harndon without a bolt loosed or a man dead,” Random insisted.

Ser Gabriel nodded. “In ten days, Thorn can have done a hundred years of damage to the north country. In fifteen days-the world could be over.”

Alcaeus was shaking his head vehemently. “Ser Gerald is correct,” he insisted. “The archbishop’s cause is lost even now.”

It was Gabriel’s turn to shake his head. He looked past his brother at Ser Michael, awake and yawning.

“It’s your father,” he said. “The archbishop will crown him King, won’t he?”

Michael nodded heavily. “We have the next claim-it’s distant, but-yes.” He sighed. “Of course, that’s how they bought Pater. It’s what Pater always wanted.” He looked at the Red Knight. “Of course, your claim through your mother ain’t bad.”

Gabriel ignored him. “I need Gavin-I’m sorry, brother-I need you to go west-now. As soon as dawn breaks. Somewhere on the south Cohocton, Mountjoy is fighting. Or sitting watching the border. Either way, he has all the Royal Foresters and most of the western lords of the Brogat.”

“Wasn’t he attainted?” asked Ser Michael.

“Only the fool archbishop would attaint a man with an army already in the field,” Gavin said. “I know Mountjoy. I’m going to marry his daughter. He wouldn’t leave his post.” He nodded. “You want him?”

“At Albinkirk,” Gabriel said.

“I still think you should move north yourself,” Gavin said. He rubbed the scales on his shoulder. “The sorcerer and his allies-they’re the real threat.”

“In ten days, the archbishop might be alone with two hundred Gallish lances,” Gabriel said. “But he might be the Chancellor of Alba with a thousand lances and some reluctant Alban support. Listen, friends-this is all beyond my experience. I’m listening when you speak. But my spirit says that if we march north, we’ll never regain Harndon, and if we march south, we’ll never regain Albinkirk or Lissen Carak.”

Unnoticed beyond the firelight, Sister Amicia sighed and spoke softly, but everyone strained to hear her.

“As Gabriel well knows, if we lose Lissen Carak, we lose a great deal.” She shook her head. “I am not at liberty to say all I know.”

“It is possible that if we lose Lissen Carak we lose everything,” Gabriel said. “Amicia, I have to ask you to ride with Tom, and go to Lissen Carak with all the knights of the Order. It’s all the garrison I can put in, but with the men we hired last year, it should prove enough.”

Amicia shook her head. “You will need me tomorrow.”

Gabriel shook his head back. “Sister, everyone needs you. Your healing powers are beyond anything-anything. But you-you yourself-are the most potent relief force I can send to your convent.”

Very quietly, she said, “But you might die.”

Gabriel met her on the bridge. “If I die, Michael and Tom and Sauce will pull it out,” he said. “If Lissen Carak falls-then he opens the gates, doesn’t he, Amicia?”

She bit her lip-no mean feat in the aethereal.

“I think that’s what this is about,” she said. “The Abbess never told me.”

“I was in those tunnels,” Gabriel said. “I guessed then.”

Amicia met his eye. “There are other places. Lissen Carak is not the only one.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It’s the one I can prevent,” he said. “I think that the Faery Knight is against Thorn. I do not think Harmodius has turned. But Alcaeus thinks I’m naive.”

Amicia sighed. “I want to believe in Harmodius,” she allowed. “I will go to Lissen Carak.”

Gabriel said, “We can win this.”

Amicia nodded. “I want to believe you. But is it not a basic tenant of war not to divide your forces? And are you not dividing yourself in every direction?”

He grinned. “Oh, dear Amicia. Yes. But I must divide you now to have a chance to combine you all later.”

She shook her head, and he left her, however much his soul cried out for him to stay-

Gabriel looked around. “So-tomorrow. Daybreak-one hour. Three battles. Ser Michael with the company in the van. Ser Ranald with the Royal Guard in the main body with the Queen, the young King, and any men of Lorica who will accompany us. Ser Gerald with the rearguard, commanding all the Harndoners we can raise.”

Ser Gerald narrowed his eyes. “If Gelfred is right-and I’m sure he is-he’s got two days of entrenchments behind which to cower. How are you going to get a battle we can win?”

The Red Knight laughed. “De Vrailly sent us a herald. I’m going to challenge him to battle.”