The Dread Wyrm

Chapter Eleven

Pennons flapped and flags waved. It was a beautiful late spring in the Brogat.

“I still think that we were better behind our stockades, and bastions,” the archbishop said.

“He challenged us,” Jean de Vrailly said. He was a figure of shining steel, towering over the archbishop who had chosen to wear his state robes of purple and ermine.

“Let him wear himself out against our walls,” the archbishop said, with a certain whine.

“He challenged us,” Jean de Vrailly said again.

“I don’t think that-”

De Vrailly turned his helmeted head. His visor was open and his angelic face seemed to shine from within. “Eminence, you make me regret I ever invited you here to help me rule this realm. I am a knight. The order of knighthood is the only one to which I have ever aspired. The Red Knight has challenged us to battle.”

“And I say-”

“Silence.” De Vrailly spoke sharply, and the archbishop flinched. No one had ever told him to be silent in all his life.

“You think I am a fool who believes in an outdated code. You think that we should cower behind our trenches and build trebuchets, conduct mass killings in Harndon to silence the city and goad our enemies into throwing themselves at our bastions and earthworks. I tell you, Eminence, that you are the fool, and that if we do that, we will find ourselves starving in a ring, a sea, of enemies, none of them contemptible. We lack the manpower to cow Harndon even if we had no foe in the field against us. The Harndoners saw the Queen and the babe. The challenge is just-the Red Knight knows the law of war. But even if it were unjust, we would be fools to do as you suggest. Do you understand me?”

The archbishop was red in the face. He struggled to find words, and finally, he turned his horse, summoned his guard, and rode away.

Ser Eustace d’Aubrichecourt turned his helmeted head. “Well said, Ser Jean.”

Other knights murmured, and while they were doing so, a herald appeared at the far wood line. He rode across the field with one man behind him, cantering easily. He held the traditional green flag that heralds bore in times of war.

He came over the low rise-really, no more than the height of a man-that stood at long bowshot from de Vrailly’s lines. Behind him, horsemen appeared in the wood line.

De Vrailly’s men began to loosen swords in their sheaths and tighten straps and girths.

De Vrailly watched the herald come with nothing in his heart. He had closed himself to his angel since the day after the tournament, and he felt as if he was already dead.

He had been used. Betrayed.

I only wish to die well, he thought. Not a thought to share.

The herald rode down, aiming for de Vrailly’s banner. At this distance, it was plain that the man behind him was Du Corse, on a good riding horse, wearing his arming coat and hose and boots.

L’Isle d’Adam and d’Aubrichecourt came forward and joined de Vrailly.

Du Corse looked grim.

“Welcome back,” de Vrailly said. “Is it too much to hope that you have escaped?”

Du Corse shook his head. “I come on oath-on my word. In exchange for Corcy’s sons.”

De Vrailly smiled a grim smile. “I have them to hand.” He turned to his squire. “Fetch them immediately. I will not be outdone in courtesy by this sell-sword.”

“Hardly a sell-sword,” Du Corse said. “He’s the Queen’s captain-general and the Duke of Thrake. I spoke to him this morning.”

Du Corse pointed across the fields at the approaching army-a small army. In fact, only slightly smaller than de Vrailly’s own.

The herald opened his mouth, but Du Corse silenced him with a glance.

“Ser Gabriel wishes us to know that our King has been badly defeated in Arelat. He offers three choices. If we take ship immediately, he will let us go. If not, he will meet you in single combat, immediately. Or, if neither of these will suffice, he says he will come to you with fire and sword. But he says to us all that in the last case only the true enemy will triumph.”

The enemy were not halting to dress their lines. On the far left, a solid mass of red and steel rode forward. In the centre, another-all in scarlet, with the Royal Standard flying. On the right, a little farther away, a solid body in the red and blue of Harndon, and the checked blue and gold of Occitan.

De Vrailly watched them for as long as his heart could beat ten times.

“This Red Knight is nobly born, then?” de Vrailly asked.

L’Isle d’Adam frowned. “There’s a rumour he’s the old King’s by-blow. But that’s probably someone’s petty hate. He’s the Earl of Westwall’s son.”

Du Corse said, “The Earl of Westwall is dead. The Wild has breached the whole of the north and west. He told me so himself, and I believe him.”

De Vrailly shook his head. “The archbishop would have us believe that it is our duty to cut our way through to Ser Hartmut, and that the Wild is in this case our ally.”

The enemy were not halting yet. They were very quick.

The herald-boldly-spoke up. “I’m to tell you that you have only until he’s in bowshot to decide,” he said.

D’Aubrichecourt spat. “The archbishop would have us believe that the Wild is a fable while also using them as allies,” he said. “Even as they defeat our King in Arelat.” He shook his head in disgust.

De Vrailly paused when his squire brought up the Corcy boys-two young blond squires, Alban through and through.

“Young gentlemen, your father has ransomed you,” he said.

The older, Robert, bent his knee.

The younger, Hamish, stuck his hands in his belt. “You had no right taking us in the first place,” he said.

“Be quiet, little brother.” Robert put out a hand but his small brother, twelve years old, wriggled away.

“It’s dishonourable,” Hamish said quietly.

Out in the field, Long Paw roared an order and the whole line halted. Pages came forward and began to collect horses.

Jean de Vrailly dismounted, too.

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” l’Isle d’Adam said.

De Vrailly walked to the boy who stood without flinching.

He knelt. His voice was not steady. He said, “Sometimes, men make mistakes, child. Terrible, terrible mistakes. All they can do is atone as best they can. I offer you my apologies as a knight and as a man.”

Hamish Corcy bowed low. “Apologies accepted, ser knight! You do me too much honour.”

De Vrailly nodded. Then he went to his horse, and mounted. “Tell the Red Knight I will meet him man to man and horse to horse,” he said.

The herald turned his horse and rode for the enemy.

De Vrailly turned his own horse so that it faced his people. His squire was mounting the two boys on a rouncy.

“Gentlemen,” de Vrailly said, and all badinage stopped. “Whether I win or lose, I propose that we leave the Albans to their own ways and troubles and go to Galle to save the King. And I suggest that you take Du Corse as your commander.”

Du Corse bowed in the saddle. The archbishop made to protest and was silenced by a glance from Du Corse.

De Vrailly pointed to his squire, and armed himself with his favourite lance-a very heavy shaft. But when his squire made to mount with two spares, de Vrailly shook his head.

“No, no. We will run one course, and then-” He shrugged. “Someone will die. Please-stay here with these good gentlemen. In fact, young Jehan-I bid you kneel.” De Vrailly dismounted himself once again.

“With this buffet, I make you a knight. Never accept another from any but the King. Know the law of war. Love your friends and be harsh to your enemies.” He leaned down and kissed the young man on both cheeks.

Jehan-Ser Jehan-was stunned. He began to weep.

De Vrailly vaulted onto his horse.

The Galles gave a thunderous cheer.

Ser Gabriel sat silently watching the Galles. They had a few Alban banners among them, mostly Towbray’s, and Towbray himself was on the far left-the Galles plainly didn’t trust him. Perhaps the feeling was mutual.

He flicked a glance at his Occitan allies. It was not that he distrusted them, as that he feared their anger and the prince’s rash judgment.

Behind him, Ser Michael spat. “I wouldn’t have believed that my own father would come to this.”

“You could be King,” Gabriel said.

“That’s not even funny,” Michael commented.

“You know what’s worst about civil war?” Gabriel asked. The Galles were talking about something, and someone was kneeling.

The company was already dismounting. Cuddy groused, loudly, “I want to see ’em fight. Better them than me. I don’t get to be fuckin’ King.”

Gabriel laughed and gestured at Cuddy. “That’s about it. In a civil war, everyone realizes that it’s all a dream and anyone can be King. And then we’re just animals fighting over the grain supply.”

The herald, his pennon flapping bravely, was riding towards them.

“Aha,” Gabriel said. “Here we go.”

His heart began to beat very hard.

Ser Michael turned. “We can take them, Gabriel,” he said.

Gabriel nodded. “We can, but some of us will die and some of them will die, and my adversary will win with every corpse. Let’s make this as cheap as we can.”

“If you lose?” Michael asked bluntly.

“Then I get to relax, and stop plotting. It’s all on you and my brother and Tom and Sauce. And Mr. Smythe and Harmodius and the Queen. And Amicia, and the rest of the people. The biggest revelation of the last few weeks has been that it’s not all about me, Michael. Muddle through.” He laughed.

“What do I do about the Galles?” Michael said, ignoring the rest.

“Offer them ships home. If they refuse, crush them here, take the losses, and offer no quarter. Towbray will desert them the moment he knows it’s you.” The Red Knight shrugged. “Make yourself King for all I care. I’ll be dead.”

“I doubt it,” Michael said. “Here, let me squire you one last time. Damn, that was ill-said.”

Gabriel laughed.

While Michael dealt with the way his arms tied on and where they sat, the herald approached.

“Ser Jean de Vrailly will meet you man to man in single combat,” he said.

The Red Knight took a lance from Toby. He thought of leaving a parting message for Amicia, or for Blanche, even.

That seemed like something Mater would have done.

“If I win,” he said, “I want you ready to march north immediately.”

He wanted to grin or smile, but his heart was pounding, and his cheeks didn’t work.

So instead, he turned his horse, and began to ride easily over the hayfield towards the distant shining figure of Jean de Vrailly.

Inside de Vrailly’s visor, the angelic face frowned as he rode across the sunlit summer field.

Usually he went to fight without a thought-beyond, perhaps, a prayer.

No prayer came to his lips.

Instead, unbidden, a host of images rose like midges and mosquitoes. Simultaneously, he considered how the Red Knight had dispatched de Rohan, who, for all his faults, he had trained with his own hands, and he considered the sparkling fall of holy water that had declared him forfeit-a flow of holy water that said that his person, or his harness, was ensorcelled. He thought of the black fire clawing at the angel’s armour in his tent, and he thought-most of all-of how his angel-

I think your angel is a daemon, said the ghost of D’Eu in his ear.

De Rohan had accused the Queen of sorcery and infidelity. And died.

Why does my angel never name the Red Knight?

Why has he ceased to speak of God?

Why did he not give me any answers?

But the utmost thought in de Vrailly’s mind was one of mingled shame and apprehension, two thoughts which he seldom entertained. Because he had willingly donned the armour that had been tainted with sorcery, this day. He had other choices.

His lance went down into the rest with the ease of ten thousand repetitions.

He saw his opponent’s arms-the six-pointed stars on the brilliant scarlet ground.

I have other choices. I hate. I doubt.

Everything.

And then his lance was just there.

Gabriel sweated behind his visor. He watched de Vrailly with most of his attention. He tried to focus on the man’s movements, on his horse.

De Vrailly had a superb horse.

But behind the simplicity of preparation for combat was fear-the fear of death over all, and under that a layer of other fears like folded steel, each fear interwrapped with minute flaws and other hesitations like the dragon’s breath of a blade folded over and over again in the forge to try and hide the imperfections in the iron and the steel.

Fear for the Queen, and fear for Michael confronting his father, and fear for the world that he loved and fear that he had behaved badly, that he would die badly, that he would fail.

Gabriel Muriens usually entered combat, which he feared more than anything else in his life, borne along on the heady river of command. With no time to examine the reality of what he faced, he entered into combat like a black mirror-empty and yet full. His imagination rarely had time to inflate the bladder of his cowardice.

But today he had a long bowshot to cross on a horse he could not afford to tire early-a near eternity in which to think. To imagine. To wonder.

Gavin was the better jouster. But de Vrailly was now the commander of the army, and would not have accepted a lesser man or rank. And Gavin’s already gone west. In a day or two, he’ll find Mountjoy. I hope.

In his vivid and coloured fantasy, Gabriel saw himself unhorsed, saw de Vrailly’s lance smash through his breastplate to rip his intestines from his back-saw his helmet shred under a blow, saw Ataelus stumble and fall in the grass, saw Ataelus crash to earth under the hammer of de Vrailly’s deadly lance, saw the minute twist of his deadly hands as de Vrailly slapped his own lance to the ground and unhorsed him with delicate ease, saw the crashing mace blow that ended his life, saw de Vrailly chivalrously dismount to pound him to the earth with his sword-

Saw every man who’d ever unhorsed him. Relived every painful fall, every bruise, every humiliation as the quintain slapped him, as his lance missed its mark, as he caught a foot in the stirrup going down-a long, long, silly fall, and all his brothers laughing, his master-at-arms laughing, even Pru, her apron covering her face.

Ah, yes, he thought. They were not doubts, but the sordid realities of a hundred failures-some real, some fancied. As a magister, he knew that the line between them was very thin indeed.

Mater is dead. Odd-a piercing sorrow he never expected, and a vast tide of shameful relief. Whatever happened in the next ten heartbeats, neither the Earl of Westwall nor the duchess would ever mention it, being dead.

He dropped his lance from erect to the lance rest under his right arm without any sense of volition.

He refused to enter his palace. In the strange labyrinth that was his idea of chivalry, to calm himself artificially in his palace in this one fight would be to cheat.

And because all the flaws in the dragon’s breath, when forged by a master, make a stronger blade. All the flaws.

I will go down clean. This is who I am.

Eye.

Lance point.

Target.

Michael was a bowshot away. He could not breathe.

Neither adversary saluted. There was no flourish. They went at each other with a simple intensity of purpose.

To a veteran jouster, the open field, lack of barriers, and slight unevenness of the ground offered an endless subject for doubt.

Both horses went straight forward, perfectly in hand, perfectly balanced, their riders like statues in their saddles, tall and strong.

As the two came together, it seemed to Michael, watching, that both horses stepped offline. His pulse pounded in his throat, his dry mouth-he was clutching his saddle-

The sound carried after the impact was visible.

Both lances shattered, and both men rocked back. De Vrailly’s head seemed to snap back, and Gabriel’s body twisted badly, the shards of their lances falling like red and blue hail. But both horses had done what they’d been trained to-an oblique step at the moment of contact-and because there was no barrier, the two great chargers collided, breast to breast.

They rose, front hooves flailing, rearing as if neither monster had two hundred pounds and more of steel-clad man on their backs. They rose like fighting cocks, and iron-shod hooves flew like arrows on a stricken field-so fast, so many blows struck, that no watcher could even follow the course of the horse-fight.

De Vrailly’s horse came down first, and in that beat of a heart, Ataelus landed two great blows-left, right.

The sound of them carried across the field. One struck the armoured plate on the front of de Vrailly’s destrier, and the other did not, and sounded like a butcher’s hammer on raw meat. But de Vrailly’s destrier-slightly larger-sank his teeth into Ataelus below the neck armour-both animals writhed like fighting wyverns-

And both riders were thrown. Neither had ever recollected his balance from the breaking of the spears, and the sudden rear, the curvet and the roll finished both.

The two armies were almost completely silent. Many men were not breathing.

The earth had had three days of sun. Even in a hayfield, there was dust, and now the fight was obscured by the rising of the Cloud of Mars.

Armour glinted in the dust and both armies roared.

De Vrailly’s sword came to his hand like a falcon to its master and he was on one knee. The dust was all around him.

Something was wrong. Some part of his great helmet was loose-the helmet moved on his head as he swung, and his left thigh was a dull ache that could turn to real pain, but he couldn’t see what was hurt and had no real picture of anything after the moment of impact.

The dust was choking. His horse, Tristan, was fighting the Red Knight’s horse with all the savagery of two wild lions, and they raised dust.

He saw the glint of armour and stepped towards it and felt the pain in his left thigh again. He raised his left hand to his helmet and it moved-

Gabriel struck the ground hard, on his left side, his shield trapped under his body. He rolled off the shield and began to get to his feet just as the two fighting horses passed over him. He got a blow in his back plate that pitched him forward on his feet again, and the pain was intense.

Something was gone in his left arm. Or hand.

He saw de Vrailly, and the bastard was standing, almost relaxed, with his left hand on the visor of his great helm.

His own left hand was broken-possibly the wrist.

He stepped forward, his legs good, just as de Vrailly closed. He had to draw straight into a parry as de Vrailly’s huge blow crashed down, but he made the cover one-handed, took a little of it on the shield on his left arm, and the pain-

De Vrailly saw immediately that his opponent was covering his left-he threw a second blow and a third, aware that his own balance was precarious because of whatever had happened in his left thigh. Despite which, he pressed. His adversary parried and parried.

His third blow struck home.

Gabriel took the blow over his sinking left arm and shield, which he could no longer keep up. It smashed down from a high guard and struck just where the left pauldron met the maille of the shoulder under the aventail, which by bad fortune was caught on a buckle.

The blow knocked him to one knee, and for a long, sickening moment the pain stunned him.

A second blow slammed into his helmet.

And then the two horses crashed through the knights-so rapt in their own rage that each horse injured its own master, Gabriel knocked flat by Ataelus and losing his sword and de Vrailly caught by one of Tristan’s hooves in the back of a greave and also knocked to his knees-close enough to Gabriel that he could see the Gallish knight’s halting efforts to rise on his left leg, and the split where his lance had apparently opened a gap between the great helm’s visor and the frame-and deformed the whole outer helm. Like many knights, de Vrailly wore an outer helm and an inner, called a cervelleur.

So close. Gabriel could see that his lance tip must have come a finger’s breadth from ending the fight at the first pass.

In his bascinet, Ser Gabriel smiled. Not bad, he thought. I did that well enough.

And with that, he shook the shattered shield off his broken hand and arm, rolled to his right to rise with his empty right hand, and beat de Vrailly to his feet.

De Vrailly was slower rising.

Gabriel had a moment when he might have gotten on de Vrailly before the other knight could get to his feet. It passed. Gabriel couldn’t have said whether he was chivalrous or merely tired and wounded, but the moment passed.

He had a dagger, facing the best knight in the world with four feet of steel.

He began to bounce up and down on his toes.

De Vrailly had a moment of real fear when the horses hit, and then he was down, on his face in all the choking dust, and then back up-up with a missed attempt as his left leg almost refused its function. The second try he made it.

The Red Knight was already on his feet. He had a long baselard in his right hand, the tip of it held with his left, and he was bouncing on his toes like a boxer.

De Vrailly flicked a cut and the Red Knight parried on his heavy dagger blade.

De Vrailly stepped forward and threw two cuts-a rising cut at the Red Knight’s dagger hand from the guard of the Boar and the consequent falling blow, but the latter was out of distance as the Red Knight skipped back.

De Vrailly’s left leg failed, like a dull student. He didn’t fall, but suddenly the Red Knight was on him, covering into a close play. De Vrailly raised his hands-

Gabriel bided his time, managed the distance between them, and made his covers-and when the Gallish knight moved, he faltered in his forward motion and his sword moved into empty air.

Gabriel closed, powering into the bigger man with an effort of will that emerged as a shout. He got his left hand on de Vrailly’s hands-missed his pommel, and his left hand screamed at him.

But he had all the time in the world to slam the baselard overhand into de Vrailly’s neck where the aventail met the shoulder.

Except that the blow bounced, skidding off the mail as if off plate armour.

Quick as a cat, Gabriel struck again and again, as even de Vrailly’s strength was not enough to push down the desperation of his arm. Three times his point struck home and failed to bite. No link broke. No penetration.

The armour was protected.

Gabriel was losing his fight with pain and with de Vrailly’s strength, and he slipped free and spun so that de Vrailly’s counter blow merely clipped the point of his own bascinet.

Despite the hermetical working on the maille, a trickle of blood flowed down off de Vrailly’s shoulder onto his surcoat. The needle point of the baselard didn’t have to break a link to go a finger joint’s length into a man’s flesh.

De Vrailly felt the fight-ending blows.

And he knew.

Inside the helmet, he sobbed once.

But training powered his arms. His left shoulder had three shallow penetrations and the pain was immense but the muscle steady.

He stepped back, rolled his great sword through a deceptive flourish-cut down from a high left side guard, his blow falling onto the Red Knight’s crossed hands, and then down and down, past the long tail with the weapon put behind him like a dragon’s tail and then rolling his hands precisely, his point coming in line-

Gabriel saw the feint, covered the rising cut-and knew the sequence with the same imagination that could see a thousand dusty deaths and could read the angle of his opponent’s hands.

Thrust with deception from the low line, said some distant part of his head to his strong right arm without communicating to any part of his brain that registered thoughts. His last cover had put him right leg forward, his dagger well back on the left side, point down.

All. Or nothing.

He rotated on his hips, the true volte stabile, and he caught the tip of his dagger between the index finger and thumb of his left hand. He didn’t think about it, and they worked well enough.

Neither man was thinking. All that was fighting was training and will, muscle and steel. The men were lost in the fight. The fight was, in every way, the men.

The thrust came forward. It was almost perfect, but again, at the moment of timing required, de Vrailly’s left leg was slow.

For all that, the tip struck-not in the Red Knight’s exposed armpit, as intended, but on the very front of his breastplate of Morean steel. Then-an aching heartbeat late-the Red Knight’s dagger caught it near the middle third of the end and pushed it aside, so that the blade engraved a furrow up the Red Knight’s breastplate to the top ridge, hesitated-and passed off into empty air.

Gabriel knew he’d been hit-but he pushed the blade away, his point in line, guided by the minimal pressure of his maimed left hand. The target drifted across his sight and he turned his high cover into a thrust. He used his left hand to guide the thrust, and when de Vrailly’s desperately rising hands slammed into his left arm, in front at the moment of contact, he had a galvanic shock like a hermetical attack, and his own dagger sliced effortlessly through the chamois glove inside the palm of his steel gauntlet and cut deeply into his left palm even as his point went forward between his fingers-

It caught on the bent metal of the damaged edge of de Vrailly’s helmet. The outer helmet was not hardened steel, or had been softened by repeated blows, and the point caught-harmlessly.

Without any intention beyond desperation, the Red Knight slammed his right foot down on de Vrailly’s left.

De Vrailly’s left leg crumpled. Neither man could keep his balance, and they fell together.

Michael had long since begun to ride forward. The two horses had separated-de Vrailly’s charger was hurt, but still snorted with fury. Gabriel’s Ataelus reared once more-and de Vrailly’s horse shied away.

The dust was so thick around the horses and men that Michael could no longer see even the glint of swords or armour. He opened his helmet and raised a hand-a sign of peace-and rode forward, even as Du Corse and another knight came forward with the herald.

Behind him, Ser Michael roared, “Stand your ground, or by God,” and there were murmurs.

In the Gallish ranks, men pushed forward. The centre of their line seemed to swell-as if about to give birth to a battle.

Archers in the company began to nock shafts.

Du Corse raised a hand. As he wore only an arming coat and had no weapon, his gesture carried.

Michael tugged his sword from its scabbard and dropped it on the ground.

The herald began to wave his green pennant back and forth.

Michael was close enough now to see into the haze of dust.

Both men were down.

And as he cantered up, with Du Corse converging from another angle, Michael saw no movement at all. The two men lay in a huddle of limbs and arms.

Gabriel never lost consciousness.

He had time to panic about his position, and to realize that he was atop de Vrailly, and de Vrailly was not moving. Gabriel’s chin strap was broken, his neck hurt savagely, and his bascinet was twisted enough on his head to make seeing difficult. And his head was ringing.

He realized that he was covered in blood. It was an odd, slow realization-the stickiness of his right hand, the sheet of pain from his left with its slickness, the taste of blood in his own mouth and nose all slowly added together into a universe of blood.

He couldn’t use his left hand, trapped between them, at all.

He tried to pull at his dagger to get in another blow, all with aching slowness, and it came free with a slick, wet feeling that told him where it had been.

He used the dagger to push off the ground, and got to his knees. Shook his head to clear his vision, and ignored all the pains, and settled his visor so that he could see.

But no further blow was required. Somewhere in the fall, his dagger’s point had slipped from its position on the outer helm, baulked of its prey. It had followed the path of least resistance, probably driven by their contact with the ground, sliding in between the helmets, through de Vrailly’s left eye.

The great knight was dead.

Gabriel Muriens sat back on his knees, his weight on de Vrailly’s breastplate. He heard hoof beats. He dropped his dagger, having to shake it from his sticky fingers, and scrabbled with the buckle of his chin strap until he could pull his own helmet off his head, and then he drank in the air. He drank it in, again and again, blind to the men gathering around him.

He finally raised his head, and there was the herald, and Du Corse. And Michael. He thought of Gavin, whose fight this ought to have been. Many, many thoughts came into him then, as if he’d been an empty vessel and now he was again filled.

He wept.

And Ser Michael put an arm under his and raised him to his feet. “Come, my captain,” he said. “These worthy gentlemen want to take the body of their friend, and go.”

The words passed over Gabriel, and left no mark. But other men shouted orders, and other men made plans and, in an hour, the Galles were headed south in a dejected company, with Jean de Vrailly borne on a litter between four horses.

Ser Gerald Random followed them at a discreet distance with a tithe of the Harndon militia.

The rest of the Red Knight’s little army turned on their heels and marched north. The day was not so old, and the men had not fought a battle. There was a great deal of grumbling, and Michael halted them, lectured them in a voice reminiscent of the old captain, and then promised double pay for the next month.

All the company cheered, and even Master Pye’s armourers set up three hearty huzzahs.

And two leagues further on, at their third halt, the Queen rode down the column with the Red Knight at her side, clad in an arming doublet, bare-headed, and with his left arm in a sling, but with his sword at his side. As they rode, the army cheered, so that the cheers welled up at the front and carried all the way to the back, rippling along, and then the militia marched faster, and the men changed horses with more will.

Back at the front of the column, the Red Knight reined in.

“I confess that I feared you dead,” said the Queen.

“Me, too,” Gabriel admitted. It was the first sign of the return of humour. As he said later to his brother, he had been somewhere else.

“You proved the better knight,” the Queen said.

Gabriel looked at her, in all her earthly beauty. He frowned. “Really?” he asked. He shook his head.

Silence returned. The queen found she could not speak, because, as she later told Blanche, there was something greater than human in his face, and he was so clearly somewhere else.

He broke the spell. “Now that we have broken the-rebellion? Were they rebels?” He looked out over the fields of the Brogat, brown and green, like a counterpane of linen in squares and rectangles and occasional crazy rhomboids to the edge of the horizon. Nearer at hand, spring flowers glowed at the verge of the dusty road, white and brilliant red poppies.

“They won’t rally. Du Corse is a professional. He wants to return to Galle and we want him to return to Galle. I think your grace should rest a few days in Lorica and then ride south to your capital. Ser Gerald will have all in hand.”

“Yes, Ser Gerald is like to be my chancellor,” the Queen said. She frowned in her turn. “You know, we are not yet a government. I cannot rule of my own right. There must be a regency council.” She glanced back, where the Earl of Towbray rode silently next to his son, having elected to change sides once more. “I should include all of the great magnates of my realm.”

“Yes,” said Gabriel, who was not as interested in this as he might have been.

“You are the Earl of Westwall. You were my husband’s only other child. Let us mince no words, Ser Gabriel. Will you be regent?” She smiled.

“Oh, Desiderata,” he said, and she smiled at her name. “I cannot see being the Earl of Westwall. I think that must be for Gavin.”

“You are a strange man,” she said. “Why?”

The Red Knight frowned and made a face. “A long story. But if you know that the King was my father, you must know all you need to know. I will not pretend to be the Earl of Westwall. Gavin will be a better earl than I-he loves the people and the place and all the monsters there. I will be happy in Thrake.” He smiled a wan smile. “I think-that it is a little premature to think of all this, when the battles we have just fought are merely the prelude. The musicians are only warming up, and the dancers stretch their legs.”

Desiderata rocked her head from side to side. “Perhaps. But I think that ruling is always like this-it is always a terrible crisis of one sort or another. Bad rulers use these crises as excuses not to handle routine, and things decay. Under my hand, there will be no decay. I will build a rose garden that men will remember until the sun fails and the moon falls.”

“Madame, sometimes I fear that you sound like my mother,” he said. He winced, because in the change in his reins he’d just managed to hurt his hand. But then he smiled. “But in truth, she would have been a great queen-as you will be. I think you should be your own Regent, your grace.”

This was, perhaps, too much truth for the Queen of Alba, and she narrowed her eyes until she saw the blood dripping from his bandages and remembered that he had just given her back her kingdom.

In fact, he had two broken fingers and a deep cut across his hand that would probably maim him to some extent for the rest of his life, unless Amicia could work her miracles.

I put Jean de Vrailly in the dust.

My mother is dead.

Gabriel rode into the sunset, towards Lorica.

They made camp, having ridden forty miles in two days and fought a battle and lined up for a second. At the news that the Galles had dispersed, and that Gerald Random was marching on Harndon, Lorica opened its gates to the Queen with many an embarrassed flourish.

Blanche had the Queen’s new lodgings-the abbot’s guest chambers in the magnificent abbey of Saint Katherine of Tartary-swept and clean. She had a cradle for the babe and coverlets from Lorica’s many ladies and great bourgeois who were suddenly all too willing to play host to the Queen and her son, the King.

Blanche went about her duties with a correct deference and a somewhat distant manner, as if her thoughts were elsewhere, because they were. News of the Red Knight’s victory came in the late evening, before sunset; she had just two hours to move the Queen from the captain’s pavilion into the city, and that left her little time to consider-anything.

He was alive, and victorious.

He probably wouldn’t even remember that she was alive. A kiss in moonlight-he no doubt had one a day. And bad cess to him.

And yet…

I could be-someone. I think he would be easy to love. I could work with Sukey and help Nell.

Through the whole move, she was supported with ruthless efficiency by Lady Almspend. Blanche had always disliked the cold, scholarly woman more than a little; Lady Almspend could rattle off orders without a care for the chaos she caused below stairs. But in the midst of the fast-moving events of the evening, she was a rock of strength, and Blanche was shocked to find herself treated as an equal, a partner, consulted and debated with and never ordered.

Lady Almspend, knowing her lover safe, was a very kind, gentle, and considerate woman. And she had a superb memory for the locations of things, from hairbrushes to diaper cloth. Moreover, she seemed to know everyone, from her time as royal chancellor and, with the Queen triumphant, Lady Rebecca suddenly seemed to have many, many friends in Lorica.

She produced a wet nurse as if out of the air, a fine, large girl, newly married, with a baby just barely born within the sacred banns and a fine jolly manner and lots of milk. The young King took to her left breast immediately and with relish. Her name was Rowan, and her baby son’s name was Diccon.

“An’ what will we call the li’l King?” Rowan asked, settling into a chair with a babe on each breast.

Lady Almspend turned to Blanche and gave a theatrical shrug. “We haven’t named him or baptized him,” she admitted.

“Oh, they die like flies at this age, don’t they just,” Rowan said. “Oh, my pardon, ladies. But they do. But I have good milk, and I’ll keep him alive, by the rood and all the saints.”

Blanche was not, ordinarily, a political thinker. But just for a moment she froze and wondered what would happen if the little King were to die. Children died.

She fell to her knees, crossed herself, and prayed.

For the first time in her life, but not the last, she wished that she did not know so much. So much of what was at stake, of what people could do, would do, might do.

When she rose, the Queen was arriving at the gates. Blanche watched her reception from the tower balcony, with Lady Almspend.

“Will we go north, my lady?” Blanche asked.

“Call me Becca,” Lady Almspend said.

Again, the breath was stolen out of Blanche’s lungs. “I’m a laundress, my lady,” she said.

Rebecca Almspend had always dressed very plainly-to the amusement of the maids and laundresses. She wore dark, shapeless woollen hose under ill-fitted kirtles and large, practical, warm gowns in winter.

All the palace knew when she fell in love first with Ranald of the Royal Guard, because her shoes grew more pointed, her hose began to fit and even be of silk, and her kirtles seemed to shrink to fit her slight figure. But even today, a day of triumph, she wore a simple, dark blue overgown over a matching kirtle of no great distinction and with plain buttons and not so very many of them, while Blanche wore the magnificent brown wool kirtle that Sukey had given her, which fit her so well as to turn men’s heads wherever she walked. It was not quite indecorous, but the bust and the hips lay on the edge of too tight and the long line of buttons of fine gilt silver on the sleeves were worth her laundry wages for a year and more.

Becca looked at her, head to toe, brown slipper to coiffed head, and laughed. “Well, if anyone entered and wanted to know which of us was a great lady and which a laundress, I’ll wager I’d be the laundress. Fie, girl-you saved the Queen’s life and you’ve been her constant companion-you birthed her son. You can be anything you wish. You have only to ask. Desiderata is the most generous creature in the world, and wouldn’t hesitate to raise you. Lady? Duchess? My sweet, if we survive this war, it will be a new world. I am determined that women will be born anew in this new world. So I say-be a lady.”

“Who’ll do the laundry?” Blanche asked. “The Queen is that particular.”

They both laughed.

“Becca?” Blanche asked very quietly, as if afraid to be caught out.

“Yes, my dear Blanche,” Lady Almspend replied a little too brightly.

“Do you know the Red Knight?” she asked.

“Not at all,” Almspend replied. They could both hear hooves in the flagged courtyard, and night was falling and the babe was blessedly asleep. “But Ranald loves him. He knighted Ranald and sent him back to me. I don’t need to know much more.” As she spoke, she bustled about the Queen’s chamber, laying a few of the Queen’s surviving possessions in their accustomed places. Ranald had rescued what he could from her rooms in the palace.

Blanche realized that she was blushing.

Lady Almspend was too well-bred to notice.

And then the Queen swept in, tired, nay, exhausted, and yet in tearing spirits, with another victory behind her.

“That Red Knight is the very paragon of chivalry,” she said. “So-odd, considering. I knew he could beat de Vrailly. God willed it.” Desiderata paused. There was her old familiar hairbrush, and there was Rebecca Almspend to wield it.

She looked at her friend, and suddenly, without volition, tears filled her eyes and she sat rather suddenly. “Oh, Becca,” she said.

Rebecca shot a glance at Blanche and went and cradled her friend’s head on her chest. “Your grace-”

“They killed Diota,” the Queen said suddenly. “They killed her. They killed all my friends but you and Mary-all the knights. Oh, Mary, Mother of God.” She choked, almost gagged on her tears, and then wept.

They were her first tears in many days.

Becca held her head and rocked her.

Her eyes met Blanche’s. Blanche was frozen, but Becca blinked, and Blanche understood. She came and took one of the Queen’s hands, very hesitantly, and squeezed it.

“We’re here, your grace,” she said.

“I hate the dark,” Desiderata cried. She clung to Blanche as if Blanche was a floating plank and she was drowning.

“Shush, your grace. It’s all over now,” Almspend said as if she were holding a baby.

The Queen raised her face, and it was ugly with tears, the muscles of it moving as if her face were full of worms, and she gave voice to a wordless cry of anguish.

“Annnnghhh,” she cried. “I loved him, even if he-Even when he-Sweet Christ, they are all dead. All my friends, and my love. Dead, dead, dead. They cut her head from her body and put it on a spike-I saw it.”

Blanche was chilled-horrified.

Lady Almspend merely held her friend. Blanche slipped out and went to the prince, her brother, who came immediately, dropping his cervelleur into the hands of a squire without a word.

He nodded to Blanche. “You are the Queen’s tire-woman? Your hair is like the silk of the east and your eyes are like the sky of early evening.” He smiled. It was a beautiful smile. “I have waited days to say that.” He was still in his arming clothes, sweat-soaked and smelling strongly of man and horse.

Blanche had met Occitans before, and she moved briskly along the corridor.

“I know my suit is hopeless, fair maiden, but give me a lock of your hair and I’ll-”

“Your sister the Queen is in a bad way, your grace,” Blanche said stiffly.

He bowed to her-still moving. He was as graceful as an irk, and there were those that said that there was irkish blood in the south. “I stink-I know it. But I promise you, I am a prince, and well able to-”

Blanche blushed. “Your grace,” she barked. She bowled him through the door into Desiderata’s outer chamber.

He looked back. “I am a fool, of course. You do not want reward for your love, but only-”

Then he saw his sister. To his credit, his face transformed, and from a comic lover he was instantly a caring brother. “Oh, sweet Mother of God,” he said.

Desiderata fell into his arms, and Rebecca backed away.

Rebecca took in the extreme discomfort writ large on Blanche’s face and nodded, even as Desiderata calmed.

“Her grace’s breviary is still, I fear, in her captain’s pavilion,” she said. “Blanche, would you be kind enough to fetch it?”

Blanche curtsied, even as the Queen protested.

“Let her rest, Becca. She has gone through everything I’ve been through but the birth.” The Queen’s sobs were slowing, and with much the same transformation as her brother had shown, the Queen’s face seemed to change. Lines smoothed, tendons were erased, and her breathing slowed.

Her brother held her by both hands. In Occitan, he said, “I haven’t seen you cry like that since you broke your arm as a girl.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t know where it came from,” she said, her voice lower and easier.

Blanche sighed, accepted Lady Almspend’s smile and nod, and fled before the prince’s eye fell on her again.

She was vexed, and fatigue made her vexation feel like something more serious. The pain was like a splinter in her finger-the more she worried it, the more painful it was.

The prince fancied her and offered her reward. It was plain enough-that’s what men of his class did to offset things like pregnancy and shame. They offered lower-class women money.

But the night before, she’d-this was the splinter in her soul-imagined rewards herself. What did that make her?

Sweet Christ, what did Sukey think? She stopped in the darkness, halfway across the smooth field of grass that grew for a long crossbow shot outside the city walls and on which the company was camped-camped, if few fires and no tents make a camp. The captain’s pavilion-travel stained and with a slightly sagging ridgepole between its two high points-was the only tent in the camp.

Sukey was gone, of course.

Suddenly Blanche had no interest in going to that pavilion, where he sat. She could see the candle-lit space within-there was Toby, his squire, fussing, and there was Nell. And, her mother’s voice said, what would they think?

Men had fancied Blanche since her breasts began to bud. She’d always enjoyed it and never let it drive her, like some girls, whose heads were turned forever-not by love, but by the power. But in this case, she bit her lip in annoyance, turning on her heel.

She was close by the pavilion by then, and she missed a tent-rope in the dark. It tripped her, and she squealed.

In a moment, there was a hard arm across her throat.

A tall, thin man glared at her. His eyes were unfriendly, and his face was like a ferret’s. She remembered him from the birthing.

“What you got there, mate?” barked a voice near at hand.

The thin man gave her a hand up. “Never mind, Cully,” he said. “It’s just the captain’s piece.”

Blanche flushed. Her ankle hurt, and so did her pride. She sputtered.

Cat-that was his name-was not unkind. “No need to sneak, Miss. We all know ya now.”

Unbidden, the language of her childhood hissed out. “Sod off, Beanpole! I’m not your captain’s doxy or any man’s.”

Cat laughed. Cully grinned. “Oh, aye. Our mistake,” Cully said. Then, seriously, “He’s not-his self. He’s…” Cully shook his head and his helmet glinted in the darkness and she realized they must be guards.

“Who’s there?” called Toby.

Blanche writhed.

“The Queen’s lady,” Cully said.

The captain-visible as a shape, a very Red-Knight-like shape, right to his profile, on the lantern show of the tent wall-sprang to his feet. In another mood she might have been pleased by his alacrity.

Cully guided her firmly around the tent-stakes as if she were a wayward infant, which made her mad.

“Lady Blanche,” the Red Knight said.

“I’m no lady, and I’ve a-told you so before, my lord. My lady, her grace, has sent me to ask for her breviary, which she left in your tent.” She gave a stiff-backed curtsey. “And I’d appreciate it if any other little thing her grace left might be returned, so that I don’t have to make another trip.”

She could see she’d wounded him. In another mood, she might have relented.

“Toby, I’d like to speak to Blanche, if I might, and then perhaps-”

“No, my lord, I will not be alone with any man, thank you,” Blanche said. She spat it more than said it.

His back went up, she saw it, and liked him better for it, right through her anger.

With a coldness she admired he looked down his nose at her. “Very well. Fetch the Queen’s things, Toby, I’m going out to have a look at our posts.”

“Oh, Christ Jesus,” muttered Cully. “Lady…”

He made a sign to Cat, hidden by the tent flap, and the younger archer ran off into the darkness just before the captain stalked out of the tent and vanished into the darkness.

Nell looked at her accusingly. “What was that for?” she asked.

Toby didn’t meet her eye, but his disapproval was obvious. He had the Queen’s prayerbook, as well as a small reliquary that Ser Ranald had rescued and a ring, and he put them all in a soft bag and handed it to her.

“Look for yourself,” he said, in almost exactly his master’s tone. “We wouldn’t want you to have to come again.”

Blanche sniffed. It was a sniff of dismissal, contempt, the most formidable of all the weapons her mother had given her, and she had used it to put apprentices and laundry maids in their places on many occasions. She took the bag and did indeed walk around the pavilion, giving everything a careful look.

She knew the great tent well from a day spent with the Queen; the inner hangings, the small chest of bound books, the absence of any kind of religious equipment. On the back was a small tapestry of a knight and a unicorn.

She loved the tapestry.

But she was too angry-and hurt-to enjoy it. So she turned, delivered another sniff, and started out.

“I’ll take you back to the bishop’s palace,” said Nell. “I wouldn’t want anyone to do you an injury.”

“I can find my own way,” Blanche shot back.

“Can you?” Nell asked. “Military camps can be dangerous for unarmed women. You don’t want Cat Evil finding you alone. Or any of the others. They’re only tame to some fists, like falcons. They ain’t tame.”

Blanche, who’d survived months of the Galles at court, snorted. “And you’ll protect me?” she asked. Nell was tall and big-boned, but she was fifteen years old to Blanche’s twenty, and Blanche suspected she could drop the younger woman with a single blow. Laundry gave a girl muscles.

They were out in the darkness. “What’s eating you?” Nell asked. “Why’d you go and spit at the cap’n? He likes you.”

“He wants me,” Blanche said sullenly. “That doesn’t mean he likes me.”

“Is that the rub? Toby says the two of you…” Nell made a hand motion that was, blessedly, hidden in the darkness.

“Toby doesn’t know shit,” Blanche spat.

“Now you don’t sound like a lady,” Nell allowed, so very reasonably that suddenly Blanche stopped, crouched-and burst into tears.

She found herself crying on Nell’s shoulder. Like the Queen, she shook it off. “You should give me your coat,” Blanche said. She pushed a smile. “It stinks.”

Nell nodded. “I’d be happy-” she said. “I thought we was friends. But then you were-”

Blanche put up a hand. “I’m tired and-” She shook her head. “Damn it,” she said. She knew the fatigue and the worry had sapped her. Last night’s lack of sleep was no help. “I’m not a whore,” she said.

Nell laughed. “No one said you was!” she allowed.

“Cully thought so, and Cat,” Blanche said. They were walking more quickly.

“Aye, well, Cat pretty much hates women and Cully doesn’t think there’s another kind.” Nell shrugged. “I never get close to Cat.” She looked out into the darkness. The gate was close.

“But the cap’n likes you,” she went on. “And people are going to catch holy hell ’cause you spat on him. He’s out there right now, looking at sentries. Hear it? He’s caught someone asleep. Pay lost, and maybe a beating.”

“Very nice,” Blanche said stiffly. “Not my fault.”

Nell’s face, by the light of the torches burning at the city gate, showed a worldly cynicism that belied her years. “No?” she asked. “If’n you say.”

“You love him yourself-you lie with him if it’s so important to everyone.” Blanche regretted the words as soon as she said them.

Nell frowned. “No,” she said, as if considering the proposition. “No, that wouldn’t work. Bad for discipline, I expect.” She shook her head. “You need sleep,” she said, as if she were the older one. She gave Blanche a brief hug.

Blanche didn’t resist.

Released, she fled in past the town guards. She thought that if she met Prince Tancredo in the corridors she’d kill him, but everyone was asleep but a handful of servants. She put the Queen’s treasures in her outer room, found that Lady Almspend had rather thoughtfully made her up a pallet with a sheet and blanket next to her own, and lay down on it.

She wanted to go to sleep. Instead she lay thinking about what a fool she was for a long time.