Gabriel’s smile was genuine. He reached out, right hand to right. “I’ll take you to the Queen. Immediately. How far to your barn?”
“Less than a league.” Corcy looked at the sheriff.
The sheriff reached out his hand. “I’m for the Queen,” he said impulsively.
Gabriel backed his horse in the near darkness. “How about it, gentles?” he called to the spearmen. “Who among you will bow to the Queen like loyal Albans?”
He turned to Corcy. “Which way?”
“This side of the river-up the Morea Road.” Corcy nodded. “I’ll ride with you and be my own guide-and hostage.”
Michael knew the game. His father had played it all his life. “I’ll just fetch the Queen back across, shall I?” he asked. “Gabriel? This is it? We’re now…?” He shook his head.
Gabriel twitched his reins, and his eyes went from Bad Tom to Michael to Gavin. “For good or ill, we’re about to become the Queen’s men.”
The Queen came back across the stream at a trot, and her pretty palfrey threw spray high into the red sunset air. She had knights all around her, and Amicia and Blanche attended her. Despite nine months of pregnancy and ten days of hell, her carriage was upright, her face was both beautiful and dignified, and her horsemanship, as always, was perfect.
Every knight on the road dismounted.
Gabriel joined them.
All the spearmen pushed to be in front.
Chris Foliak held the Queen’s horse and she dismounted.
Then all the company knights were dismounting, and the squires and pages. By happenstance, she dismounted in front of a pair of wild rose bushes that bowed in early fulfilment of their blossom. Nell took the reins of her horse and knelt behind her.
“Ah,” she said. Her voice held unconcealed delight.
“Your grace.” Gabriel spoke loudly. “Your grace, these loyal gentlemen seek only to bend their knees to you and offer their loyal service to you-and to your house.”
She walked among them, putting her right hand on their heads-on the sheriff, and on Lord Corcy, and on Bob Twill the ploughman. Her smile was like the last light of the sun.
“I honour every one of you for your daring and your loyalty,” she said. “I swear to you by my honour and by the Virgin and my immortal soul that the child in my womb-seeking to get out!-is my husband’s child and the rightful heir of Alba.” She walked back to her horse.
“Lord Corcy has offered us lodging for the night,” Gabriel whispered.
She dazzled him with her smile. “I accept,” she said.
And then she folded in half and gave a great cry.
“Birth pangs,” Blanche said. She caught the Queen and wrapped her in her arms, supporting her.
The Queen caught herself and straightened. She looked at Ser Gabriel. “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said. “It is now.”
Ghause had spent too much of her day watching her ancient crystal for news of the south. It was very difficult to hold the thing on one place for any length of time-the effort of will drained her, not of ops, but of the strength to manipulate it.
But she had to know, and so she went back like a child picking a scab, even when her enemy’s infernal legions stormed the Saint George bastion’s gatehouse and she had to strengthen her barriers and throw fire on them until her bold husband could rally his knights and drive them out.
Ser Henri died retaking the Saint George bastion. So did a dozen of her husband’s best knights, and the earl, who had gone unwounded in twenty fights, took a blow that robbed him forever of his left eye. But they drove the Gallish knights and their Outwaller allies back off the walls.
And then Ghause had to heal the survivors. Another time, she would mourn Henri-the best chivalric lover any woman would ever want-brave, clever, handsome and hard and utterly silent.
The earl woke under her healing and that of the other talents attending-the four witches, men called them. His good right eye opened.
“One of the fuckers is wearing the Orley arms,” he spat. “I almost had him-I-” He closed his eye. “Oh, sweet. I lost Henri.”
Suddenly, and for all too many reasons, Ghause felt her eyes fill with tears. Not just for Henri. But for him. For all of them. She motioned the other witches away.
“We can hold this castle forever,” Ghause said.
Her husband clasped her hand. “Just get me up and fighting,” he said. “Their Black Knight is-something.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t get past him.”
“He’s thirty years younger than you, you old lecher.” Ghause hid her feeling behind her usual asperity.
“I’ve killed a lot of men younger than me,” he said, a hint of anger in his good eye. “Christ, you’re hurting me.”
She was trying to work on the eye, but its structures were too damned complicated, and she had to settle for killing infection and stopping any further damage. “I can’t save your eye,” she admitted.
He sighed. “I can still see what you look like naked,” he said. “I may just be slower to catch you.”
She smiled. “I’m no faster than you are, you old goat. It’s the maids that will breathe a sigh of relief.”
She gave his hand a squeeze and then went and found Aneas. He was unmarked, although he had fought almost without pause for two days. He had arrived with a dozen lances from Albinkirk just before the siege began and he’d become a pillar of defense-subtle, magical, and deadly.
“I need you to prepare the sortie. Your father’s down for a day or two.” Ghause spoke with absolute command. She didn’t need the men trying to take control now. Even as she spoke, Thorn-or his dark master-tried her defences.
And what was happening at Harndon?
Aneas-ever the dutiful son-gave a tired salute. “Mother-”
“Yes, my plum?” she asked.
“Is anyone coming to rescue us? Where are Gavin and Gabriel?” He met her eye. “Mother-we can have the best hermetical defences in the known world and the highest walls, but we’re already running out of men.”
“You’re not spreading this poison, my plum?” she asked lightly.
Aneas gave her a lopsided grin-a grin that his brothers also had. “I am the soul of cheerful confidence,” he said. “Is anyone coming?”
She nodded. “Ser John Crayford is bringing the northern army,” she said.
Aneas paused a moment. Then he collected his gauntlets. “You’re lying, Mother,” he said quietly.
He had never contradicted her before.
She shrugged. “We’ll hold,” she said.
Aneas pursed his lips and nodded. “Have you given thought to escape?” he asked. “The man who claims to be Kevin Orley has promised us all some spectacular tortures and humiliations.”
“The Orleys were never worth a tinker’s curse,” she said, snapping her fingers. “And if I leave this rock, it will fall. You know that.”
He frowned. “We have a bolt hole,” he reminded her.
“I won’t be captured,” she said. “But I’m not going anywhere. Hold the walls, my last son. I’ll hold the sorcerer.”
And when Aneas was gone back to his men, she all but flew up the steps to her solar. She gazed into the ball-
Waved her hand, moving the scene this way and that, her whole intent concentrated on the crystal artifact.
“Mary Magdelene,” Ghause swore. “He’s dead!”
For too long-time she could not spare-she watched the catastrophe play out in the south. She had no idea how the tournament had played out, but the King-her brother-was dead, his corpse wrapped in linen. She was bonded with her brother in a very special way, and she found him easily, even in death. She watched the corpse, and the Galles and the Albans gather around it like the flies.
The new archbishop was giving a speech. Over her brother’s corpse.
She bit her lip.
“Henri and you, in one day?” she asked the crystal. “Goodbye, brother.”
Then she moved her hand and sent the scene spinning northward. After an agonized minute of scrolling she faced her fears. She unlaced the side of her kirtle with hurried fingers, and pulled both it and her shift over her head.