He passed a point where the hill steepened, and suddenly, by turning in the saddle, he could see Du Corse’s lances on the far side of the lane-over to the north, where, if he didn’t move quickly, they could cut him off from his retreat.
Ataelus was snorting with furious effort, cresting the last and steepest bit of the muddy field.
“Come on, lad,” he said. “Come on, Ataelus. Don’t die on me here-never had a horse like you.”
Ataelus’s ears moved, and he gave a little more-and they were up.
Now he had a view of the whole battlefield. Gelfred’s men were forming along the village hedges. His own pages and archers were now mixed in, and the knights-the jousters-were slapping each other in exhilaration.
Gabriel took a cup of water from Nell and drank it off. The Queen was there, and Amicia, already healing a man-a Gallish prisoner, apparently.
“Bravely done, ser knight!” the Queen called.
“Not bravely enough,” he said. “Du Corse is a very good captain. He’s slipped my ambush and now he’s flooding the fields with men.”
Gelfred came up on a palfrey. “They found another lane, my lord,” he said. “I’m sorry-I must have missed it in the dark.”
Gabriel could see that Towbray’s men-and other Albans and Galles who must be under his banner-were pouring into the southern fields at the base of the hill like water through a leaky dyke. They weren’t coming around the jam of baggage wagons. They were coming up another road to the south and east that almost outflanked the hill.
Gabriel looked out over the hillside at the wreck of his clever plan.
He just didn’t have enough men.
Despite the various flaws in his battle, though, he had lost almost no men and Towbray’s knights were completely uncoordinated with Du Corse on the other side of the hedge.
The Queen smiled. “Is that my old friend the Earl of Towbray?” she said. She took her newborn son from Blanche. “Those are Albans. This is what I came for, Ser Gabriel.”
The Red Knight nodded. “Few enough archers. It’s worth a try, your grace.” He turned to Daniel Favour. “Go fetch Ser Michael and Ser Thomas and tell them my little ambush has failed and I need them on the hilltop.” He’d put them off to the north a little in the woods, to complete the rout of anyone who attacked up the-
“Stop!” he cried. “Never mind, young Daniel. Go to them-and tell them to see if they can take Du Corse in the flank when he comes for the village.”
Gavin shook his head. “They’ll be thinner than goose fat on a peasant’s bread.”
Gabriel grinned-not a happy grin. “Have I ever lost a battle?” he asked.
There was no one around to remind him that he had.
The Queen rode down the hill out of the town. For a woman who had, in the last day, survived an attempt to burn her to death and a ride cross-country only to birth a baby in a barn, she looked more like a goddess than a human woman. Her skin glowed in the sun, her rich blond-brown hair seemed to have invented its own colour between gold and bronze, and she rode like a centaur, her plain linen veil trailing behind her.
The white linen penitent’s gown that de Rohan had forced her to wear now shouted her innocence. The babe on her chest proclaimed who she must be-and who the babe must be.
Gabriel Muriens grabbed the royal pennon from Chris Foliak’s hand. “Stay here,” he said, and followed the Queen and her babe.
Foliak sputtered. “That’s my knighthood riding away!”
“Let him be,” Ser Francis said.
Down near the foot of the hill, the earl sat his charger with Ser Christopher Crowbeard-Kit to his boon companions.
“I mislike the hedges and the ploughed fields,” Crowbeard was saying. “Let de Vrailly throw his sell-swords at yon.”
Towbray looked down at the young corn shoots under his horse’s hooves. Ahead of him, fifty good lances-knights and squires-had dismounted to rest their horses. Off to the right, a solid body of Harndon militia in red and blue emerged from the woods-crossbows and spearmen with great tall pavises. He had none of his own foot-de Vrailly had cut them up last summer, and now they were far away, home in the Jarsays. So he had no archers and no peasants to clear the hillside and test the enemy’s intentions. If the hedge was lightly defended…
But if it wasn’t…
A rider came through a gap in the town hedge just a long bowshot away.
“Blessed saint Mary Magdalene,” Crowbeard said. “It’s the Queen.”
Towbray watched her ride effortlessly down the steepest point of the ridge.
A second, armoured rider came through the gap in the hedge. He had a lance and was flying…
Towbray spat, contemplatively, on the ground. “The Royal Standard,” he said.
“She has a babe on her breast.” Crowbeard paused. “Sweet Jesu, my lord earl. She’s foaled.”
Towbray nodded. “Just sit and watch, Kit,” he said.
The Queen rode down the hill until she was in easy bowshot of the Towbray men-at-arms, and then she rode along their front, attended by just one knight. She rode from near the village lane to well over by the Harndon militia.
While she made her ride, the Galles of the rearguard finally broke through the carts and the panicked routiers choking the main road and began to enter the field behind Towbray. Half a mile away, Towbray could see de Vrailly’s banner.
Some of his men-at-arms were kneeling.
Towbray chuckled. He watched her pass back, headed up the hill to the town on the crest.
A rider dressed in Du Corse’s livery reined in. “My lord earl?” he asked. “Monsieur Du Corse asks your support in assaulting the village. Peek-ton,” he said, pointing up the hill. “He orders that you cover this side of the lane, and he’ll go up his side.”
At the word orders, the earl frowned. But he thought a moment and nodded. “I agree.”
The courier bowed and rode away, picking his way as best he could along the ploughed ground.
“What orders, my lord?” Crowbeard asked.
Towbray made a little motion with his eyebrows, almost lost in his bascinet, but Crowbeard had known him his whole life. “Monsieur Du Corse orders me to-how was it phrased? Cover? This side of the lane.” He nodded. “Alban-such a difficult language. Do you think we could cover our side from the little rise just here?”
“You mean to leave Du Corse to his own devices and let him swing in the wind?” Crowbeard said.
Towbray made a clucking sound with his tongue. “I mean that on the one hand, Kit, the newborn King of Alba rode along our ranks and I doubt there’s five lads out there with any heart for this fight-eh? And on the other, that Gallish prick had the nerve to give me-me orders.”
“Might ha’ been any pretty wench wi’ some base-born bastard,” Crowbeard said, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Towbray shrugged. “Let’s go and cover the hill,” he said. He sent a messenger to order the Harndon militia to go forward to the base of the first swell.
Their dogged slowness made his men look positively eager for a fight.
Gabriel handed the pennon back to Foliak and slapped his armoured back with his own gauntlet. “I’d never have believed it,” he said. He looked at Ser Francis, who was watching the Harndon militia through the hedge.
“Some of them even cheered us,” said the Queen.
The captain dismounted. “Every jack of you on this hedge,” he shouted. “Get up and go to the other side of the lane. Move. Move!”
Archers like Three Legs grumbled at having to pick up all the arrows they’d stuck in the ground, but they moved. Pages shifted their horses. Dan Favour was back-one wave and a glance and the captain knew he’d passed the message.
He looked at Francis Atcourt. “You and your lances and the Queen-that’s all I’m leaving on this side,” he said.
Atcourt bowed.
“Right,” Gabriel said. He ran, sabatons clicking and clanking, across to the lane. He peered down it, but there was no squadron of death-or-glory Gallish knights ready to crush his cat-and-clay plan.