His hand on her latch, and her head next to Ser Henri’s on a pillow.
His first casting in her solar-a housefly subsumed, its tiny spirit in him.
Her voice in his ear the day-the day-
He mastered himself. It was what he did.
“And Amicia and the Queen?” he asked Prudentia.
“Ticondaga is falling even now,” Prudentia said. “Can you not feel it?”
He could. Oh, now that he let himself, he could feel it. The stones of the ancient castle were in his soul, and they were being pounded with fire and rock and hate. Only the struggle with the curse would have covered this much terror.
For the first time in his life, Gabriel fled the aethereal, because it was more terrible than the real.
Nell pushed the spear into the captain’s hands-and instantly he began to use it. She only just rolled free, and she had a scar on her right ankle for the rest of her life.
And in the next heartbeat or two, the Queen screamed again, and then said, quite clearly, “My baby!”
Tom pushed Toby out of the way and drew his sword. “By Tar,” he roared. “Let me at it, whatever it is!”
But denied access to the aethereal, he was only a spectator to the captain’s one-sided fight. The spear shone like a bolt of lightning, and blue-red fire crackled around the room.
All the candles went out, then the fire.
“Jesus Christ!” someone said.
Nell found herself by Lord Corcy. He was saying “pater noster” over and over again.
The darkness was absolute, and then sound went, too, and there was only the beat of her heart and the feel of the floor and the mantelpiece under her arm. The fear was itself like a heavy, wet piece of damp felt, and threatened to suffocate her-she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see or hear-
And then a baby cried.
Blanche, at the Queen’s side, had never quit her task, despite horror and terror and blindness. Her arms were between the Queen’s legs, and when she had the head, she did what her mother had said to her fifty times-ran a hand back, and pulled gently.
Pulled the puling thing clear, and gave it a slap.
In that moment, the curse shattered.
No light returned, because the candles and torches and fire were truly extinguished. But the quality of darkness changed, and sound returned.
Nell struggled with her belt pouch to find her tinder kit.
Blanche clutched the baby, wiping all the birthing away with one of Bad Tom’s best ruffled shirts. She dared not assay the darkened room, so she sat, the baby crushed to her.
She heard the other woman-the living saint-say, “Fiat Lux.”
A candle popped into flame. The light seemed as bright as daylight.
“God be praised,” said the sheriff, on his knees. Then-a set look on his face-the man rose and approached the bed.
“Your grace,” he said. “It is said that a woman in the moment of birth cannot lie. Whose child is this?”
Desiderata groaned. But her eyes opened in her sweat-slick face. “The King my husband’s, and no other,” she said.
Then the sheriff went back to his knees, and as Nell lit more candles, the other men bent their knees.
Ser Gabriel was crying.
No one present could remember seeing him cry, and Sauce, who might have had something to say, was two hundred leagues away.
But he reached out with the spear.
It pointed straight at the babe.
Before Blanche could think to protest, the spear moved, and cut the cord.
“God save the King,” Ser Gabriel said. He knelt.
For a moment, that’s how they all were-the Queen on the bed, where Blanche put her babe in her arms and knelt in her turn, and Amicia standing at the Queen’s shoulder, her face seeming to emit light, and all the knights and pages and squires on their knees, bareheaded, in a barn on a late spring night.
There was Bad Tom, who had no notion of kneeling to any man, and there was Nell, whose eyes had filled with tears, and there was Ser Michael, who wore a grin as wide as a cheese, and Ser Gavin, who looked as if he’d been kicked, and there were two boys who watched the barn and Ser Bertran, silent as usual, and Ser Danved, silent for once, and Cully and Ricard Lantorn and Cat Evil-all on their knees, and Francis Atcourt and Chris Foliak and Lord Corcy and the sheriff and Toby and Jean and a dozen others in the candle-lit dark, all on their knees on the dirty stone flags.
“God save the King,” they said.
Then Amicia began to sing. She raised her voice in her Order’s Te Deum, softly at first. But Ricar Orcsbane knew it, and Lord Corcy, and Gabriel-they sang, and other voices took up the hymn until the barn was full of the sound.
And Gavin went to his brother.
“What?” he asked, before the amen had sounded. “What has happened?”
Gabriel held himself together long enough to stumble out into the night, his brother at his heels. He found a milking shed, turned, and took Gavin by the shoulders.
“What?” Gavin said. “You look like you lost your best friend.” He paused. “We won, didn’t we? We saved the baby.” He looked at Gabriel’s rare, open tears. “Christ, you’re scaring me. Why do I feel this way?” he demanded.
Gabriel simply collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, and began to shiver; he said, “Nooooooo,” for a while, and sobbed.
To Gavin, it was more terrifying than fighting a hasternoch or a wyvern. He was tempted to walk away into the comforting darkness, and he told himself that his brother would rather be alone.
But he also told himself that he had a lot of atoning left to do for being the cruel brother, and so finally he pushed himself into his brother’s personal space with the same kind of effort that he’d have used to close for a grapple in a fight to the death. It was-embarrassing.
Gabriel threw his arms around his brother. “They are all dead,” he said clearly. And then he let go of any attempt at self-control.
Eventually, embarrassed and more than a little angry, Gabriel pulled himself out of his brother’s arms. “I hate that,” he sputtered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What, being human?” Gavin nodded. “Who’s all dead?”
“Mater. Pater. Ticondaga. They’re all dead.” He lost it again, moaning.
He wept.
Gavin, puzzled, looked at him. “I’m sorry even to ask this-but are you sure?”
“Unngh-I’m-sure.” He paused. “Ohhh. Ohh, God.” He had trouble speaking, and his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed.
Gavin fidgeted. He couldn’t take this seriously. His mother was literally a force of nature-not something that could even become dead.
“I killed them,” Gabriel said. “Fuck. Fuck. I… got it so wrong.”
Gavin began to fear that his brother couldn’t be lying. But he walled off the horror-father and mother and brothers all dead. He simply willed it away. “How in God’s name can you have killed them?” he asked.
Gabriel’s tear-filled eyes glittered like something malevolent in the dark. They had a faint red sheen to them. “I was deceived. Thorn is stronger-aagh. Stronger than Mater thought, and stronger than I thought.” He paused, caught his breath-lost it again, and sobbed anew.
Gavin cleared his throat. “And that’s your fault?” he asked. “Isn’t that a little selfish, even for you, brother?”
Gabriel raised his head. He didn’t chuckle, or smile, but something in his eyes said that Gavin’s shot had gone home.
“How can you know they’re lost?” Gavin said reasonably.
Gabriel coughed and cleared his throat and rubbed his nose on the wool sleeve of his pourpoint. He cleared his throat again. “Like it or not, I’ve always been able to tell where Mater was-to some degree. Unless she hid herself.” He choked a moment on some memory, and then sat suddenly on a bench. A milking bench.