The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle) (58 page)

“This is never a good idea in the romances,” he said.

“I would like to laugh,” she said. “I would like to run amidst flowers and feel love again.”

Gabriel finished the dipper. Then he reached out a hand and found Amicia
and beckoned to her, and she came, stepping through the walls as if they were not there—because she had been invited—and the Queen gave her the dipper to drink.

And Amicia took the
potentia
and worked it, and healed the wounds in his side and armpit. She rubbed her thumb across the back of his left hand and frowned.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” she said.

And then Sister Amicia walked along the column, healing small hurts of men—and horses.

Tom shook his head. “She’s—” He looked around and hung his head.

Gabriel sighed. “Yes,” he admitted. “Now, let’s get out of here, before something goes wrong.”

The Company

A
t Second Bridge they went east again—much the same route they’d used in the morning. It was possible that someone very quick might have sent a force by the west road on the other side of First Bridge and cut them off and, healing or no, Gabriel didn’t fancy another combat.

But as they climbed the low hills of the southern Albin, so that they could see all the way along the main ridges back to Harndon, Gabriel was sure he saw a column on the main road and
another
moving on the far bank—there were dust clouds there.

“We should have killed ’em all while we had the chance,” Ser Michael said. “I wish I knew where Da was.”

“I am not even sure you’re wrong,” Gabriel said.

But Gavin came to his rescue. “No,” he said. “We did what we set out to do. It’s all the plan we could make. If we’d had two hundred men-at-arms…”

“Anyway,” Tom said. “That stream’s gone past, eh? It was na’ a bad fight, as such things go. We didn’t lose a man.”

“Or a woman,” said Blanche, who was riding with the Queen. She was doing well.

At the Freeford crossroads, where the Harndon Road and the Eastern Road crossed the Meylan Stream, Gabriel gave them an hour. Toby led the squires off in search of food and came back with a laden mule and links of
sausages flung casually over his shoulder. They all ate, even the Queen. In fact, she was ravenous, and Blanche accosted the captain again.

“She needs to eat. She’s not one of your mercenaries.” Blanche put her hands on her hips. “You can’t make her ride all night.”

Most of the
casa
looked away in various directions. But Ser Michael bowed and said, “The captain is doing his best—”

“I’m helping him make the right choice,” Blanche said.

Tom was looking back under his hand. “I think there’s men on the road,” he said.

It was early evening, and darkness was not so far.

“Get over the ford,” Gabriel ordered. “Now.”

Ser Michael reached down, plucked Blanche off the ground, and rode across the ford with her. The
casa
was mounted in moments, and Ser Francis and Chris Foliak got the Queen across—still eating.

Gabriel and his brother sat and chewed sausage.

“Local men,” Gavin said after a time. There were fifty or sixty men coming—a handful mounted.

The two of them were still in all of their tournament finery. Gavin tossed the last knot of his sausage into the river behind him and missed the swirl and snap as a pike took it. He and Gabriel rode forward, side by side, their right hands in the air.

One of the mounted men pressed forward to meet them. He took off his right gauntlet and held it up, too. “Ser Stephan Griswald,” he said. He was over fifty, and running to fat, and his coat of plates didn’t fit well—but the sword at his side spoke of some use.

“Ser Gabriel Muriens,” Gabriel said.

“That’s they!” shouted a spearman.

In fact, there were three or four dozen spearmen—with gambesons and good helmets, most of them with a chain aventail.

Ser Stephan nodded heavily. “Those your men?” he asked, pointing at the knights across the stream.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. In fact, his men were readying lances. “Are you the sheriff?”

“I am, my lord. And it is my duty to arrest you, in the name of the King.” The sheriff reached out with his truncheon, like a mace.

Gabriel backed his horse. “The King is dead,” he said. “And has been since this morning.”

That brought the sheriff up short. “My writ has just come from the King,” he said

“It is no legal writ, but a forgery by the archbishop,” Gabriel said. “Did he order out the militia?” he asked.

The sheriff shook his head. “Every county. By the saints, my lord—the King is dead? What mischief is this?”

“He took an arrow in the chest.” Gabriel nodded. “But you see the woman sitting under yon tree? That’s the Queen. The Galles want her, my lord sheriff. And I will not give her up. So you and your brave lads will have to fight us.”

Tom Lachlan was recrossing the ford with all the men-at-arms at his back. He and Ser Michael looked like the left and right hands of God in the setting sun.

“I think you’d need a legion of angels to arrest this lot,” said another old man in armour. “Leave it go, Stephan.”

The newcomer rode forward. Under the trees that lined the road it was almost night. He emerged—a straight-backed old man in fitted steel.

“Lord Corcy,” Gavin said.

“Ah—Hard Hands himself. And that’s young Michael, Towbray’s scapegrace older son.” He smiled and offered his hand. “Would you gentlemen send my duty to the Queen? And will you give your word not to attack us? You have more men and are far better armed—but we are”—he didn’t chuckle, but he sounded amused—“the arm of the law.”

Corcy was an old man, one of the old King’s military barons.

Gabriel took his hand. “I give you my word. Just let us go, and that’s the end.” Then he dared. “Unless you’d hide us?”

Lord Corcy thought for a moment, and his face became hard. “No,” he said.

Bad Tom came up on his bridle hand side. “If we kill them, they can’t tell aught where we went,” he said.

Lord Corcy’s hand went to his sword hilt.

“Damn it, Tom!” Gabriel spat. “Lord Corcy, we will offer you no violence unless you attack us.”

Corcy backed his horse. “My sons are at court,” he said.

Ser Gavin nodded. “We understand.”

Corcy’s eyes were lost in the darkness under the visor of his light bascinet, but he shook his head. “I’ll keep the news from court as long as I can. Who killed the King?” he asked suddenly.

“Honestly? I have no idea,” Gabriel said. “If I had to guess, I’d say the Jacks killed him. Or the Galles.” He shook his head. He was tired—too damned tired. He couldn’t see the shape of the plots. He’d lost the threads.

Lord Corcy spoke out of the darkness of his helmet. “It will be war. Civil war. With wolves on every border.”

Gabriel took his own hand off his sword hilt. “Not if I can help it,” he said.

Corcy leaned forward, and just for a moment, his eyes glittered. “Think the Queen’s brat is the King’s?” he asked.

Gabriel was too tired for this. But it occurred to him, in that moment, that he had the Queen. In his possession.

Possibilities unrolled like carpets. No—like a spider rapidly spinning
out silk, the plots unwound. Structure after structure, faster than speech. It was, in every way, the opposite of the feeling of
entanglement.

The civil war starts right here,
he thought.
I’m a side. And Corcy could be won over.

Is the baby in her womb the King’s?

Does it matter?
As plots and plans and counter plans exploded in all directions in his head, he realized that it was not whether the Queen’s baby was legitimate that mattered.

It was what he decided.

This is Mater’s doing.
But the sense of power was heady—like the moment in which he’d first really worked in the
aethereal
, and made fire.

If her child’s a bastard.

Stillborn.

Dead.

Then I’m the King. Or at least, it’s mine for the taking.

If the child is the King’s…

…
and I have the Queen—

He allowed himself a brief smile, and all the realities and futures rattled around the hermetical multiverse for the time it took for a pretty girl to flash her eyes.

“My lord, I believe the Queen’s child is the rightful King of this realm,” the captain said.

He heard Gavin’s intake of breath. Tom wouldn’t know, yet, what that pronouncement meant. Michael would.

Amicia would.

Sometimes, the “right” thing is the Right thing. It’s beautiful when it works that way.

Ah, Mater. You are about to be cruelly disappointed.

I think.

Michael had it immediately. “My Lord Corcy, Ser Gabriel today upheld the Queen’s right in the lists against the King’s Champion, and slew him.”

“Christ, boy, you killed de Vrailly?” Corcy asked.

“Only the Sieur de Rohan, I fear,” Gabriel said.

The sheriff, silent until then, spoke up. “Trial by combat is barbaric,” he said. “And not recognized by law.”

Gabriel had to laugh, and did. “I agree,” he said, and slapped his thigh a little too hard, so that he yelped in pain as his left hand reminded him that it was not healed.

But he had Corcy’s eye.

“I would bend my knee to the Queen,” Corcy said. “And though I am loath to offer you poor hospitality, I have a barn—a storage barn. It would hide you all.” He let his horse take another step forward, so that he and the captain were shoulder to shoulder—inside each other’s guards. “I will cover you for one night. God help me.”

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.