Amicia reached up towards heaven and grasped the rope of green fire that rolled down and took it. Only as her hands closed on it did she know what she had grasped-her working for Gabriel’s invulnerability, which she held in her guard. She was voiding it.
She might have let go, but high in the light of the aethereal, Gabriel pulled. And out of the shadow of death, she rose.
She found her bridge-she perceived herself as under it, drowning in power, in potentia, and she swam-she had never seen power like this-
He was on her bridge. He grasped her by both hands and lifted, and she had her feet on solid ground. The aethereal was more a dream state than a physical reality-she had, simultaneously, never left her bridge and now more fully occupied it.
He looked at her. “Your bridge is a particularly complex metaphor,” he said. “I don’t think I could fall off my palace, but then, I can’t see how I’d get back in, either.”
She laughed-the sheer embrace of life. She reached out into the real. She wanted the real, and breath, and hope-
The King was still dead, two arms’ lengths away, and the archbishop was bent over his body. Behind Amicia, out in the sandy length of the lists, the Green Knight stood over the body of his dead foe.
For a moment, everything was balanced.
Then the archbishop raised his head. “They killed the King!” he shouted, in passable Alban. His vaguely pointing hand was accusatory. And it pointed in the direction of the Green Knight, standing over his adversary.
Du Corse put a small horn to his lips and blew.
The man in the red hood raised a small shield. It was the first open display of hermetical talent of the day and people screamed. There was a stampede from the stands-above her, the men and women in the topmost rows began to fight to get out, and the stands moved-first resounding like a drum and then developing a motion-a swaying-
Amicia got off the lower rung of benches, hiked her kirtle, and ran. Ser Gelfred had told her to make for the western end of the lists, the red pavilion. It was hard to miss, and she was not afraid to stretch her legs. Hundreds of people-half the gentry of the home counties-were running.
But behind her, before she could go ten full strides, the stands began to collapse. Screams of fear changed to animal pain.
Amicia stopped. She looked back, into the cloud of dust. The length of a horse away, to her right, the archbishop was clear of the ruin of the royal box and the stands and was giving orders-his voice had a hint of hysteria, but men and women were obeying. Du Corse was using the spear in his hand to push men into line, making a box of foot soldiers around the archbishop.
A heavy arrow fell from the sky and struck a Gallish foot soldier to the ground. The arrow struck the top of his head and went through his helmet and through his skull.
Nor were the soldiers the only targets. Someone was dropping arrows into the screaming survivors of the collapse of the stands.
She smelled smoke.
Ser Gabriel stood alone in the middle of the lists. It took him too long to fully recover his senses, and he felt exhausted-the pain in his back from the moth, the sudden drain of ops-
It took him too long to register that the stands had collapsed, were afire, and someone was shooting into them. More than one man.
“Fuck,” he said distinctly.
His plan was shredding away into chaos. He’d lost Amicia in the dust-and now, smoke-and he suspected that Bad Tom and Michael were doing exactly what they’d planned-riding like fury for Lorica.
His plan hadn’t included being on foot without a horse in the middle of a disaster.
Habit made him wipe his blade clean. Only the last four inches had tasted blood, and he used de Rohan’s surcoat.
Sheathed his sword. He did these simple tasks while his senses took in the chaos around him and he tried to make sense of it.
He could feel Amicia was casting. He felt her work almost directly, so closely were they linked.
She was healing.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
But he could sense where she was.
Amicia was a woman who believed things, and let her beliefs shape her actions.
She knew the possible consequences of lingering. But she was a healer, and hundreds of people were injured-maybe thousands. She made herself turn and go back to the stands. She found a middle-aged woman with a broken arm, and mended it, and helped the woman find her daughter, a child-neck broken but horrifyingly still alive.
This is why God made me, Amicia thought. She prayed, and as she prayed, she worked.
Wat Tyler continued to drop arrows. No one stopped him. In fact, people ran from him as if he’d attacked them, or merely averted their eyes.
When he’d dropped his last heavy arrow, he turned to find a dozen men and two young women watching-watching as if it were something entertaining.
“It’s time we strike back,” he said.
“Against the Galles?” one of the women asked him.
“Against them all, honey.” Tyler wished he had more arrows. He’d never really thought he’d get the King-the fucking King. And he’d always imagined a hundred enraged men-at-arms coming at him like dogs on a wounded hart. Not this-a half-empty field and no foes. A hundred yards away, the collapse of the stands had shattered any organization, and he had done his part.
He turned to leave. His handful of new recruits were still loosing arrows-he could see one, even now, skidding in the air because Luke had plucked his string. He looked back. “I’m a Jack,” he said. “We mean to pull all the nobles down and have a government without them. Any of you want to come-it’s a hard, thankless life. And when they recover from today, they’ll hunt us like wolves.” He grinned. “Except that we bite back.”
One man muttered that he’d just killed innocent men and women.
“No one is innocent,” Tyler spat. “They take our land and our silver and years off our lives. Kill them all, comrade. The babes and the mothers, too.”
The prettier girl-the one with almond eyes and red-blond hair and a fine wool overgown-started kirtling up her skirts. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I can use a bow, too.” She didn’t smile-she looked grim as death. “I’m Lessa,” she said.
“You’re too fine to make a Jack,” he said.
“Try me,” she said. She didn’t toss her head or flirt. Out on the sand, the archbishop’s men were becoming visible as the dust settled and Tyler wished he had a dozen more arrows.
“I live with beggars and I move fast and if you slow me, I’ll leave you,” he said to her.
She shrugged.
Two of the men nodded. They were more his usual recruits-thickset, stubby-fingered ploughmen in thick wool, who stank of unwashed bodies from a yard away. They had heavy staffs and big leather bags.
“Take us, too,” one said. They looked like enough to be brothers.
“Sam,” said one.
“Tom,” said the other.
Tyler liked the looks of both of them. “It’s a hard life,” he said.
“Try pushing the master’s plough,” said Sam. “Let’s kill ’em all.”
Tom clearly liked the looks of the girl.
Tyler winded his horn. Some of the episcopal soldiers looked his way, but he had to give the signal or some new clod would die.
Then, without another word, he ran north, into the clear air. There was a tree line past the black smithery, about two hundred paces. His rendezvous point.
He was a little surprised when he looked back to see five of them follow him.
The stands were well-ablaze. At the north end of the stands, a crowd had gathered-as best he could tell, they were pulling survivors from the smoke and broken timbers.