“I’ll come as fast as I may,” Lord Corcy said.
The sheriff was more openly angry. “Christ on the cross, gentles! I swore my oath! Let me be!”
The spearmen who’d accompanied him the day before muttered angrily.
Bad Tom came out of the yard. “We don’t have horses for this lot,” he said. “They’ll only slow us down.”
Blanche put a hand to her throat, convinced she was about to see these poor men butchered.
A tight ring of pages and archers surrounded them, and suddenly they had swords in their hands.
The captain put his hands on his hips. His golden belt glowed in the moonlight.
He winked. It seemed improbable, but she was sure he had winked.
“We’ll be long gone to Lorica,” he said. “Let them go.”
The archers and pages sheathed their swords.
The sheriff and his men were even handed their weapons. They took no more damage than some taunts.
Most of them fled.
Blanche was interested to see that two men-both big, capable-looking peasants-remained. They had a brief conversation with Cully and were put up on wagons.
The Queen smiled at her. “Oh, it is good to be alive! The sun is coming. It is just across the rim of the world. There’s a fox in yon hedgerow looking for a meal, and a family of mice in the foundation just here-by the blessed Virgin, it is the world.” She looked at the worthy sister. “I did not expect to see this morn at all,” she said.
Amicia nodded. “The fox will eat the mice,” she said.
Desiderata’s clear, delighted laugh rang out. “Only some, Amicia. That is the way of the world, too.”
The column began to move.
Chapter Nine
The Company
They moved very quickly-back over some of the same ground they’d followed the day before. Blanche saw a pair of men meet the captain-he rode by the Queen-and both men were new to her, clad in green. The day began to break after they’d been on the road an hour.
Another pair of men in green met them and led them around a village whose cocks were crowing and where early morning fires filled the air with the homey smells of cooking and smoke-Freeford, she thought.
“Quiet!” Nell hissed behind her, and the whole column passed the town like ghosts. A shepherd coming out of the town with a small flock of goats was grabbed at sword’s point and his goats were left bleating behind them.
They came to more open country at the foot of the great ridge and suddenly they were trotting-and then cantering. Blanche was not confident at this speed, and she couldn’t do anything but keep her seat.
“Relax,” the Queen said at her side. “Let your hips go with the animal. It’s lovely. Stop making the horse do quite so much work.”
“I’m sorry, your grace!” Blanche said.
“Ah, my dear, I never knew what a treasure you were until this adventure. He calls you ‘Lady Blanche’ and he has the right of it! You’re a treasure. But you must learn to ride better.” The Queen laughed.
Her laugh seemed to lift the spirits of the whole column.
A league on, and they passed a pair of farm gates and the column slowed to a walk again.
Bad Tom raised his voice. “Halt!” he roared. “Change horses!”
Nell put a fresh horse’s reins into Blanche’s hand. “That means you have five minutes to rest,” she said.
Blanche dismounted, and her legs almost folded under her. Instead of helping the Queen, the Queen helped her.
Amicia rubbed her hips like a much older woman.
The Red Knight reappeared and handed around his silver cup full of wine. “Ladies, your pardon,” he said. “We’re racing time.”
“We’re not going north,” the Queen snapped.
“No, your grace,” he admitted.
“I’m not likely to tell anyone,” she said. “Come, whose treason do you fear-Sister Amicia? Lady Blanche?”
He smiled. “If some of my men can reach a certain point-in time. If we can get there, too-” He shrugged. “Well there may be a fight.” He bowed. “Some of my household knights will take you north on the road, to Lorica and safety. I’m sending Sukey and all the baggage.”
“Nonsense,” the Queen said. She handed her baby to Amicia. “If there’s a battle, I want to see it.”
Again, Blanche thought this sounded far more like her Queen.
“Your grace-” Ser Gabriel began.
“Spare me the poor weak woman speech,” Desiderata snapped back.
The Red Knight’s face clouded. “If you are captured, your grace, you are a dead woman. And your cause is dead. And so is your son.”
“I think I know my plight well enough, ser knight.” Desiderata’s smile was cool.
Her son gave a great cry.
She clutched him to her again. “I know the risk. But if you lose-”
“Madame, this is not a set piece battle like a tournament. I hope to catch de Vrailly napping on the road or just breaking his camp. If I fail, he’ll be on us like a dog on a rabbit and we’ll be outnumbered twenty to one. Would you please ride north to Lorica, Madame?”
Desiderata smiled and put a hand on his steel arm. “Ser Knight-I would be with my army. If you lose-so be it. But if you triumph, I would have men say that my son was in battle the day he was birthed, and that his mother was no coward. Too few saw my trial by combat. My husband is dead. I would that men saw me, and knew me.”
Ser Gabriel sat a moment on his great war horse. The sky was lightening behind him. He looked like the war incarnate, the avatar of knighthood.
He took a deep breath, and then shrugged. “Very well, your grace. You are the Queen.” He nodded. “Amicia? Will you at least ride for Lorica?”
The nun shook her head. “No,” she said. “You will need me.”
The Red Knight smiled. “Blanche? I don’t suppose you’d like to take a nice ride with two handsome knights…?”
Blanche laughed. “I would not leave my lady.” Greatly daring, she said, “I’ve had offers of dawn rides from knights afore now. My mother told me never to go.”
The Queen tilted back her head and roared. She reached out and caught Blanche’s hand and squeezed it.
The Red Knight bowed in his saddle to the ladies and turned his war horse. But when he was out of earshot, he turned to Michael and said, quite savagely, “I may yet be King of Alba. Through no fault of my own.”
Michael stared.
“If she falls…” Ser Gabriel shook his head. He rode to where Ser Francis Atcourt and Chris Foliak sat on their destriers.
He put a hand on Atcourt’s shoulder. “If you two bring the Queen through this alive,” he said, “I will give you whatever I can that you desire. A nice fief in Thrake? And I’ll knight Chris on the spot, or see to it she does. If she goes down-” He shrugged. “Have the good manners to die with her.”
Ser Francis Atcourt was not a young man. “I’ve never asked for aught,” he said.
Ser Michael laughed. “It’s better than fighting, holding land,” he said.
Atcourt smiled his beatific smile. “I don’t see you at home on your farms, my lord,” he said.
He was always surprised at how seriously the professionals took knighthood.
Chris Foliak shook out the back cloak of his magnificent silk surcoat. “I rather fancy being a knight,” he said. “And I always fight my best for a lady.”
“Especially a rich, beautiful lady,” Atcourt said. “But aye, Captain. So-she’s staying with us?”
The captain nodded. “For our sins. Or perhaps because of them. Enough prattle, gentlemen.” He took a war hammer from his saddle bow and waved it at Bad Tom, who vaulted into his saddle and bellowed.
Before a nun could say an Ave Maria, they were all mounted, and the jingle of horse harness mixed with the rattle of plate armour. In the west, the sun was rising.
Gavin rode beside his brother. He knew most of the men who came out of the dawn and guided them-members of Gelfred’s green banda, the woodsmen and the prickers and scouts. They seldom stayed in sight long enough for more than a recognition signal and a waving hand to show the new line of movement, and then the green-clad figure would ride into the dust or vanish into a wood-edge. He saw Amy’s Hob canter along a thicket with a crossbow out and cocked, and then ride around the edge-gone.