Du Corse’s banner went down. Tom Lachlan’s great axe went up and down, and then he swept out his dread sword, and men cheered. Ser Michael’s lance was as steady as a fence pole, and every man he touched, he threw to the ground, broken.
The whole mass bunched in one melee, the line crumbling and bunching, like a thin snake trying to eat a very big meal. But the company men stayed together, and followed their orders. They knocked a hole the width of twenty lances in Du Corse’s line and took his banner, and then swept through.
Tom Lachlan, having knocked his own hole in the line, dismounted by Du Corse.
Lord Corcy rode right past him and slammed a slim steel axe into the wounded Galle’s helmet. He reined in and raised his visor. “I need him to trade for my sons,” he said.
Du Corse’s men did not break. Some died, but more were simply knocked into the ground. The rest clumped into the corner of the field by the lane and prepared to sell their lives dearly. Only as they rallied did they see how few their assailants were, but by then the Thrake stradiotes had swept into their pages, and were herding a fortune in Gallish war horses-even ill-fed and spoiled by sea voyage as they were-up the road to Lorica.
A half dozen archers-trapped in the woods west of the road since the original charge of the Galles-slipped out of the trees and joined the company and were double mounted. Will Starling grinned and Daud the Red and Wha’hae slapped their bared arses at the distant Galles.
And then, the Queen well-protected in their midst, with a handful of high-ranking prisoners and some rich ransoms, they mounted fresh horses where they could and rode north, towards Lorica.
De Vrailly rode up to the Earl of Towbray. The hilltop town lowered above them.
Towbray shrugged. “The militia won’t advance, and Du Corse ordered me to cover the hill,” he said. “What can I do?”
De Vrailly glared at him with unconcealed contempt.
He rallied Du Corse’s veterans and made camp in the field below the town, which he had the survivors of the routiers clear, loot, and burn to the ground. But burning Picton couldn’t get him back his army’s morale, or the three hundred horses he’d lost.
The archbishop ordered Corcy’s sons hanged. De Vrailly remanded the order. The archbishop sat and dictated a dispatch, claiming victory as that they held the battlefield, and denouncing the Queen as a whore and strumpet who was spreading a false rumour that she’d born an heir.
De Vrailly made himself as distant as he could. The routiers were happy enough to burn Picton, but the Gallish knights were drawing away, in body, from the archbishop.
When the archbishop slept, de Vrailly summoned a herald and sent him to the Red Knight, at Lorica.
Then he went to his pavilion, where his squires had already laid out his plain bed and his prie-dieu with the triptych of the Virgin, Saint Gabriel and Saint Michael. He poured a cup of water from a magnificently ornate gold and crystal bottle on a shelf in the prie-dieu, blessed himself, and placed the cup carefully behind the flange that covered the inside of his right knee.
He knelt for a long time, in his harness, without even a single candle. His knees ached, and he ignored them. He ignored the feeling that his greave tops and his knee articulation were cutting gradually through his padded hose.
Pain is penance.
Come, beautiful angel. I have things to ask and say.
The pain continued, and so did the darkness. From time to time his meditations were broken-outside, he heard Jehan, his squire, trying to explain to the Corcy boys that he had saved their lives and that they should be grateful for being alive.
The archbishop’s tempers were infantile.
De Vrailly thought of the figure of the Queen, seen in the distance, riding across the hillside, the banner streaming behind her. It had moved him, at some point beyond simple decisions.
So easy to believe that she is a witch.
He thought of the King-his friend. In many ways, his closest friend. No man in Galle had ever been so close to him.
I failed to protect him.
I never even saw the arrow, because I was sulking in my tent-because I was ensorcelled.
His rage grew.
His hands began to shake, and an unaccustomed heaviness grew in his throat and chest.
And then the angel manifested.
He hovered above de Vrailly’s head, his fair form shining almost perfectly gold, his robes a paler white gold and his armour paler yet. In his right hand was a heavy spear, and his left hand held a small round shield with the cross in stark black.
You called for me, my knight.
De Vrailly looked at the angel and struggled for his rage and his belief.
We were tricked by the vile sorceress, and thwarted. But all is well, my knight. All is as it should be. Today, you will defeat the Queen’s army and her cause will collapse. You will kill her champion-
De Vrailly mastered himself. He raised his head and his eyes met the angel’s. “I am told that the King of Galle has been defeated in a great battle in Arelat,” he said.
That is of no moment now, the angel said. You will be King, here.
De Vrailly rose from his knees. His right hand picked up the small silver cup, and with a flick of his wrist, the holy water struck the angel.
Black fire rent the angel. With a shriek, the angel shook himself-and was whole and gold and beautiful, without expression on his serene and commanding face.
That was childish.
De Vrailly was standing with his hand on his sword hilt. “The archbishop tells me that I am a child,” he said.
Come, my knight. I confess that we failed at the tournament. I was surprised at a number of developments-but the black sorceress who opposes me was before me in many ways. I pray your pardon, mortal-I, too, can be confused. And even hurt.
De Vrailly thought of what he had just seen.
“By the black sorceress, you mean the Queen?” de Vrailly asked carefully.
I do not think you will find this line of questioning to your comfort, my knight. But yes, I mean the Queen, and the malign presence that defends and abets her-a succubus of hell.
De Vrailly wanted very much to believe what the angel said. He balanced on an exquisite, torturous knife edge.
“I think that you killed the King. I think that you manipulate events. I think I have been your pawn.” De Vrailly threw the words like blows in a fight to the death. Now his head flooded with all his doubts-now he could marshal his doubts like armies, whereas when the angel first manifested, he couldn’t even breathe. The holy water had changed something.
And yet, the archangel looked like everything that de Vrailly wanted. From this world, and from his God.
I think it would be better for you to banish these doubts and do what you were created to do, my child. I wish you to see that all the world is a shadow, and that there are many truths and many realities. But for you, there must be just one reality. One world, one spirit. The Queen is a sorceress who arranged that you be taken from your rightful place as the King’s champion and manipulated events to kill the King. I have worked tirelessly to defend you-
“Have you put magical protections on me and my armour?” de Vrailly asked.
The angel paused. The pause was so brief that it scarcely existed, yet to de Vrailly, used to the angel almost seeming to read his thoughts, it seemed long.
I would never do anything that would prevent men from giving you the glory which you deserve of your right. Stop this, my knight. Go forth and conquer your enemies. Tomorrow the Queen will send someone to offer you single combat. Defeat him, kill him, and you will be master here. These doubts will only confuse you. This is not the time to be confused. This is the time to get revenge.