“Run along and have a chat wi’ your lad,” she said in her best grown-up voice. “I’ll finish this little pile of things and hang ’em. But come back and show me where to sleep, eh, my sweet?”
Nell nodded and gripped her hand like a man. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Diccon’s never long,” she said with a sly smile.
Diccon’s head vanished.
“You know how babies is made?” Blanche asked.
“Oh, aye. I even practise, from time to time. You?” Nell shot back.
Both girls laughed, and then Nell went off into the dark stone barn, and Blanche kept boiling her linens, though her eyes would scarcely stay open.
She did a haphazard job, by her own standards. Really, what she needed was more clean water, and she was, just for a moment, too tired to fetch it and a little defeated by not knowing where it had come from.
The inner door opened, and she turned, hoping for Nell.
Instead, it was the dark-haired lord. The Red Knight, except he’d worn green all day.
She was seated, and tired, but she managed to get to her feet.
He waved a hand and looked at the Queen and the babe asleep on her breast. The Queen’s eyes were open-Blanche had a moment of unease at what she might have heard, but she smiled.
“I’m alive,” she said, in her normal voice. “Is that Blanche?”
Blanche curtsied.
“What are you doing here, Blanche?” she asked. “Never mind, my dear. May I have a cup of water?”
“Oh, your grace, I’m out of water,” Blanche said. Both of them were whispering. The baby stayed asleep.
“I’ll fetch water,” the Red Knight said. He looked odd. Like he’d been crying. Blanche thought he was the handsomest man, but his eyes were red and puffy like a little boy caught stealing a cake.
“Just show me,” Blanche said.
“I can fetch water,” he insisted. He took the big bucket from where it sat by the fire. In the flickering light, it was easy to misjudge distance, and he bumped into her hard.
“A thousand apologies, Mistress,” he said.
He went out.
Blanche was considering following him, but then the Queen would be alone, except for Sister Amicia who was, somehow, not quite human. Not directly with them. Blanche lacked a vocabulary to describe her, but she shone softly golden in the darkness.
The Queen called out. “I’m sorry to be so helpless, Blanche, but I am so hungry…”
Blanche had no idea where to get food, and she didn’t want to interrupt Nell.
The Red Knight came back and managed to set the full bucket down by the fire without spilling a drop.
“My lord, can you-fetch some food for her grace?” Blanche hesitated. It was always dangerous, giving any kind of a demand to a lord. “I’m sorry, my lord, but it’s for the Queen.”
“Ser Gabriel will do,” he said. “We did share a saddle all day. Your grace,” he said, bowing in the Queen’s direction, “what do you fancy that I can find for you? I wouldn’t wake my worst enemy right now for service.”
The Queen stretched out a hand and took his. “You saved us,” she said.
Ser Gabriel knelt.
“Ghause…” the Queen said.
Gabriel cleared his throat. Blanche thought he might have sobbed. “She tried to kill you and the babe,” he said.
“And now?” the Queen asked.
“I fear she is dead-though not through our efforts.” Gabriel’s smile was shaky in the firelight, and Blanche turned away, unwilling to watch. “I hope it is not treason to want my mother not on my conscience.”
“Your mother is dead?” the Queen asked. “Oh, ser knight, I’m so sorry.”
“If you are so sorry immediately after she tried to kill you and your baby,” he said savagely, “then you are a saint.”
Desiderata smiled. “A hungry saint,” she said with a glance at Sister Amicia. “She is watching in the aethereal.”
Ser Gabriel put a hand on her forehead with great tenderness. “In the Wild-when a Power reaches a certain-level-”
Desiderata nodded. “I know. Apotheosis.”
Gabriel looked at Amicia. “I think she’s close.” He shrugged, trying to make light of it. “What happens to Christians? Sainthood?”
Desiderata smiled. “She will not leave us just yet, ser knight,” she said with serene confidence, as if…
… as if someone else were speaking through her. Blanche shivered. She knew the Queen intimately-and the Queen was somehow different.
But Ser Gabriel merely bowed. “Can I help you with a hale winter apple, some sausage and a nice hard cheese?” he asked.
Blanche busied herself with the water. She served the Queen two cups and put a third at her elbow. Then she put the rest on to heat in a big, often-patched copper cauldron that seemed to have more rivets than a porcupine had quills. It held water well enough, though.
She stirred her first laundry load and skimmed the foulest crud off the top.
Ser Gabriel came back with food. At the first scent of the sausage, Blanche realized that she, too, was famished.
He knelt by the Queen and fed her.
While she was chewing, he asked, “Can you ride tomorrow, your grace?”
Blanche put a hand to her throat, but the Queen managed a chuckle.
“I guess I’ll have to, won’t I?” she asked. “De Vrailly won’t give me a day to rest.”
Ser Gabriel was cutting sausage with his eating knife. “I fancy it is the archbishop at the root of this, and not poor de Vrailly.”
“Poor de Vrailly?” Desiderata asked, and the open malice in her voice was the Queen that Blanche knew. Human. And angry.
“He’s a pawn,” Ser Gabriel said. “We are all pawns.”
“Now you sound like de Rohan,” she said. “Yes, I can ride tomorrow. Or right now, if you let me have more cheese first. Promise me you’ll feed Blanche, too. She’s done nothing but ride and work all day.”
Ser Gabriel nodded. He put the last piece of cheese in her mouth as if she was an infant. “I can give you about eight more hours,” he said. “Unless the news is bad.”
“Worse than the death of your mother?” Desiderata asked. “I’m sorry, that was pert.”
Ser Gabriel managed a smile. “Yes. Many things could be worse. Mater and I seldom saw eye to eye.”
“You saved me,” Desiderata said again. “I will never forget it.”
Ser Gabriel chuckled. It was a dark sound with no pleasure in it. “Can I tell you something?” he asked. He was cutting the apple into slices.
Blanche suspected that they’d forgotten she was there, but as a servant to royals, she was used enough to the feeling. But the Red Knight’s manner scared her.
The knife paused on the apple.
“Yes, if you will,” Desiderata said.
“My mother wanted me to be King,” he said.
Desiderata’s breath was loud.
The small eating knife rested against the apple’s skin. And cut.
“It is the deepest irony,” the Red Knight said, “that on the very night of her death, I have you and your babe under my hand.”
He reached out, a piece of apple pressed to the knife blade by the pressure of his thumb. The knife blade passed within a fraction of an inch of the Queen’s mouth and all but rested on her cheek as he pressed the apple slice between her lips.
The Queen’s eyes were locked on his.
Sweet Christ, he seemed so nice.
Blanche was moving, but she was too far away.
“You never wanted to be King,” Desiderata said. If the knife troubled her, she didn’t give a sign. Blanche’s lunge was checked by the pail of water, over which she tripped.
Both heads turned. The Red Knight rose, cut the last piece of apple in half, gave the Queen one part and ate the other himself. He shook his head. “The world is an odd place, your grace,” he said. “Nothing is what it seems, and few things worth having are easy to have. I suppose there is a man who, finding the power of Alba under his horse’s hooves on the road, would abandon everything he’s ever done to make himself King.” He bowed, but somehow his glance collected Blanche. He gave her a hand and helped her up. “The Queen is in no danger from me, Lady Blanche. I am not my mother.”