Gavin sighed. “I did. Ever since Kaitlin’s wedding. He was one of us as much as if he’d ridden with us for years. Christ, listen to me. I’ve only ridden with you a year.”
“I have that effect on people,” Gabriel said. But he managed a smile. “I mean it. Go kiss the Lady Mary from me, too. Bring her if you think she’ll survive Mater. And don’t, if you don’t. We’ll ride south in five days.”
“You still mean to go to the tournament,” Gavin said.
Gabriel nodded. “Gavin, I’ve made plans and I’ve made other plans. Nell!” he shouted, and Nell appeared.
“Nell, I would like to formally apologize for my behaviour.”
“Apology accepted,” Nell snapped.
Gavin laughed outright. “Just what you deserve.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Nell, I need the scroll tube. You know it, the ivory one.”
Wordlessly, Nell went back to the outer room. And returned with a scroll tube.
“If I die-this is the plan.” Gabriel shrugged. “Master Smythe told me that if we missed the tournament, we’d probably rue it. He’s so helpful that way. For what it’s worth-and my credibility is a little singed, I admit-Plangere just lost a powerful controlled mage and the daemon warband took heavy losses. I intend to advertise that he came-and he ran.” Gabriel’s smile had nothing of pleasure in it, and everything of predatory anticipation. “He lost four wyverns, too. That will hurt his credibility with them.”
“So?” Gavin asked, holding the tube.
“So I do not want to speak my plans aloud, brother. For various reasons.” He pursed his lips. “Read the scroll and give it to Tom and Michael, and then bring it back here so I can make it ash.”
Drawn like a moth to a flame, Gavin was already reading. He whistled, and raised his head. “Holy Mary mother of God,” he said in shock. “Who else knows this?”
“Gelfred. Ranald. Kronmir.” Gabriel shrugged. “To be honest, none of you know everything I know.”
“You are so trusting,” Gavin said.
“If I go down, it’s yours,” Gabriel said.
“You almost died, didn’t you?” Gavin said.
“I should be dead, right now,” Gabriel said.
Bad Tom, missing his cousin’s calm efficiency, divided his herds in the fields south of Albinkirk. A flurry of messengers found him an Etruscan factor and one of Ser Gerald Random’s company clerks, and between them they took financial responsibility for a third of the herd and hired, on the spot, twenty of the captain’s men-at-arms, hurriedly placed under Sauce and Ser Gavin, and rode away west to the fair at Lissen Carak.
Bad Tom fretted at the delay, but he had no choice. So he read the scroll that Ser Michael handed him, grinned at the captain’s former squire, and handed it back. He drank off a stiff cup of wine and looked at Ser Michael.
“I’m sending Kaitlin to Lissen Carak,” Ser Michael said.
Bad Tom poured a second cup. “He almost died, and I wasn’t there,” he said suddenly.
Ser Michael nodded. “Me, either.”
Tom met the other knight’s eye. They were suddenly within a finger’s breadth of being of a height. “I don’t want to be somewhere else when he goes down. I want to be in the shield ring. I want to swing the last blow over his corpse. I want the sword women to take me with him when they go.”
“You’re not exactly a Christian, are you, Tom?” Michael asked.
Tom gulped wine. Very quietly, he said, “Have you read yon?”
Michael nodded.
“Tar’s tits,” Tom said.
Michael considered that for a long time. Then he smiled. “Yes,” he said, and went to spend a few last hours with his wife.
Kaitlin was her usual self-buoyant and undemanding and centred on the needs of others. She wanted Michael to take her to the captain, but Michael was against it and, besides, he knew that Ser Gavin was riding in the morning. “Let the captain sleep,” he said. “You can see him in the morning, when we bury the priest and the children.” His voice was rough with forced nonchalance.
Kaitlin, who had a clearer idea of what the chaplain might have meant to the captain than most of her husband’s peers, let it go, and spent the night curled in her husband’s arms. In the morning-well rested-she levered her growing bulk off the bed. “No longer the prettiest maid in the valley,” she said.
Ser Michael knelt and kissed her hands.
“He was a good priest,” she said. “He married us.”
Michael smiled. “Cully says he died healing the captain. That-” He paused.
Kaitlin frowned. “What?”
“Cully-this is Cully, sweetie, not some pious croaker-Cully says a man in a ragged robe came and knelt by the captain, and he woke up.”
Kaitlin crossed herself. “A saint?” she asked.
Ser Michael frowned. “I’d hate to think so,” he said. “I enjoyed jousting with him too much.”
The whole town came out in the spring rain. The rain fell in sheets, and made the turf-still frozen deep under-springy and squishy like a huge pile of wet wool.
Every man-at-arms in the town came in his harness, and squires cursed them.
And the Bishop of Albinkirk stood in the rain. The coffins were plain boards. One was empty, for the lost child, and there were only red scraps in poor Robin’s coffin, rushed and overwhelmed and devoured by imps after he lost control of the horses. The goodwife stood by the coffins of her dead children, and her eldest daughter stood with her, but now wore the scarlet tabard of the company, and even through the rain a distance could be seen between them.
The priest’s coffin had the banner of the Order of Saint Thomas over it, and no other marking but the dead priest’s crucifix, helm, and gauntlets.
Like every man present, the bishop was soaked to the skin, and cold.
He raised his arms.
“What words can I say that will equal the deeds of these people?” he asked. “How can I express a mother’s grief? Or a knight’s impotence in the face of death?”
The only sound was the rain. Gabriel flinched.
“In the beginning was the word,” the bishop said. “Word” echoed. “Only the true word, the Logos, could speak for these. As the Logos was, in the beginning, so he will wait until the end, alpha and omega. And, we can only hope, wait patiently for all of us to come to him.” He stood, arms wide, his soaking vestments hanging from him and his face raised to the sky.
Perhaps they expected a flash of lightning, or the acknowledgement of the heavens, but there was only an icy wind.
Six knights-Ser Gabriel, Ser Thomas, Ser Gavin, Ser Michael, Lord Wimarc and Ser Alison-lowered Father Arnaud into the muddy hole prepared for him. Toby had a pile of earth covered carefully with oil cloth, and he’d done the same for every dead archer and page and squire and child. One by one, the soaked knights lowered their dead into the embrace of the mud, and then put fresh earth atop them.
The goodwife stood and wept. When the last coffin passed her, she reached out to touch it, and then turned away.
Ser Gabriel stood with the bishop. “You are a man of power,” he said.
The bishop shrugged. “Today I am a man with no power to make a mother feel the love of God,” he said. “And no interest in pious mouthings.”
Ser Gabriel nodded. There was cold water running down his spine. His arming coat had soaked through.
“He was a great man.” Ser Gabriel surprised himself to say it.
“You loved him, then?” the bishop asked.
Ser Gabriel turned away. Then, very slowly, he shrugged. “He was a fine man-at-arms and my people loved him.”
“And you?” asked the bishop.
“Why must you ask?” Gabriel said. His shields were back up-a smile twisted his mouth. “I have some pious mouthings of my own to deliver, my lord bishop.”
He walked over to the company. They were as still as if on parade-a rank of knights and men-at-arms, and then a rank of squires, a rank of archers, and finally a rank of pages. Ready to receive a wyvern or a cavalry charge. Or bad news.