Ser Hartmut nodded. ‘On what will you swear?’
Thorn massaged his memory until his puppet produced a lopsided grin. ‘My name.’
‘On these terms, I am willing to make alliance.’ Ser Hartmut turned to de Marche, who was doing his best to maintain a blank expression.
‘One last thing,’ Thorn said. Ser Hartmut reminded him of all the things he disliked about men, especially fighting men.
Ser Hartmut raised an eyebrow. Inside a bassinet, it was still an expressive gesture.
‘I get Ghause. And all the Murienses are to be killed, without exception.’ Thorn’s voice was like adamant.
Hartmut bowed. ‘It pleases me to say I don’t even know who Ghause is. And the Murienses-’ He snapped his fingers.
More than two hundred leagues as the eagle flies, to the east, Mag was working. So was Morgon Mortirmir, and the Red Knight, and every other man or woman who could harness potentia and transmit it to those who could heal. The barn stank of shit and blood, and as soon as men were bound up, bones were reknit, or intestines closed – or as soon as their eyes closed on the pain for ever – they were carried to cleaner places.
Not all of the work was hermetical, far from it. Even with Amicia’s support from far off South Ford, even with every scrap of training and working they could muster, much of the blood was cleaned by men and women with their hands. The Yahadut, Yosef ben Mar Chiyya, worked until he fell asleep, rose, and worked again, always carefully using his medical skills to augment his hermetical mastery.
He was not the only practitioner who worked also in the real.
Father Arnaud had not stopped working for three days. And as Mortirmir shook his head over the pile of entrails that had once been a man’s digestive tract, and let the man’s soul slip away; as Mag sat like a marionette with her strings cut, beyond tears for her love or for any of the boys who were dying in desperate hope as they looked into her eye; as the Red Knight realised that he had struck an absolute wall to his potentia, and could do nothing more, he looked up, and saw Father Arnaud bent over Wastewater Will, a boy whose only wound was a simple slash to the leg. It was a slash that had occurred in a barn yard, gone septic, and now would cost the boy his life.
The priest muttered, and shuddered. And raised his hands, and prayed. And prayed.
And the boy died.
Father Arnaud rose from his knees and let a long sigh escape him. Then he made the sign of the cross over the boy’s forehead, and said, ‘Christ be with you on your journey. Know no further pain, but only joy.’ He walked back to another blood-soaked pile of straw, once a man called Lingcropper. But this time he didn’t bother to try his injured powers. ‘I’ll just rewrap that bandage,’ he said cheerfully.
Gabriel watched the priest, and wanted to say something. But he couldn’t think what it was. So in the end, he only stood a moment with his hand on the man’s shoulder. And then he went to find Mag.
Mag was sitting on her chair where she’d collapsed after the last hermetical medical miracle. Her daughter Sukey was by her side; Kaitlin de Towbray held her hand. And of all men, Bad Tom stood at her back.
Mag looked up. ‘I’m not going to explode,’ she said.
Gabriel Muriens took her free hand. ‘I won’t pretend that didn’t come to my mind.’
Mag looked away. ‘It had to have happened sometime. A truly powerful practitioner loses their wits? It would be terrible. Christ defend us.’
He knelt by her a while. Suddenly, and without warning, Kaitlin – heavily pregnant Kaitlin – burst into tears with a great moan and whirl of sobbing, and in a heartbeat Mag and Sukey joined her.
Gabriel Muriens was capable of tears. His weren’t very loud, but there were quite a few of them.
But long before the sobs or the Lanthorn keening were done, Tom grabbed his shoulder. ‘You need to drink,’ he said. He marched the Megas Ducas out of the barn and out of the mud and blood and faeces and into the green fields beyond. The Duke’s pavilion was set up on clean, green grass.
Tom guided the Red Knight to a stool and put him on it. Toby came and washed his hands, and he watched the old blood come away. He watched it a bit too closely.
‘Blood under my nails, Tom,’ he said.
‘Aye. Consequence of killing folk,’ Tom answered.
Toby poured wine. Others were coming over. He could see Ser Alison, who had, of course distinguished herself in the fighting against the Easterners, and Gelfred, who’d commanded that last operation. His mind whirled a bit. He settled for solid things.
‘Why’d you go to Mag?’ he asked.
Tom stretched out his legs. ‘Oh, comfort the widow,’ he said, as if this was a natural thought. ‘Offered to marry her,’ he continued. ‘She said no,’ he added, as if miffed.
‘Don’t tell Sauce,’ the Red Knight said. He raised his wine cup.
‘Old Gods, you are an evil bastard,’ Tom said, and slammed his cup on the table. ‘This crap’s too thin. I have mead.’ He walked off as Sauce came up.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Sauce asked as she ducked under the tent edge. She had been batting her eyelashes at Count Zac, who was performing mounted tricks like a much younger man out in the field.
‘You know how he is,’ Gabriel said.
An hour later, they were well into the post-battle drink. Bad Tom stood at the table, a great horn of mead in his hand, and his laugh boomed over the camp. ‘And then the loon says: stop fighting!’ He looked at his prisoner, Ser Christos, who had an arm in a sling and a bruise which covered half his face. ‘Mind you, thanks to yon, I was bleeding like a stuck pig. That was a mickle blow, messire.’
Ser Christos bowed.
Ser Michael could see the man was pained, like all of the prisoners, at being present at a victory celebration. His inherent gentility won out over his need to boast. ‘Ser knight, there’s many of us who’d like to have the power to put a lance in Bad Tom.’
Ser Gavin laughed, and Tom joined the laughter. ‘They do!’ He laughed. He turned and cocked an eyebrow at the priest, who looked more like sixty than forty. ‘And I hear we’re all to call him Ser Gabriel now, eh? Not lord high god of all? Not Duke any more?’
Ser Gabriel frowned, and then made himself laugh – at himself. ‘I liked being Duke,’ he said.
Father Arnaud drank more. ‘You’ll be a better man as Gabriel.’
Ser Alcaeus looked puzzled. ‘You are still the Duke,’ he said.
Ser Gabriel was looking at Tom. ‘There’s men who feel that there is no rank higher than that of knighthood, Ser Alcaeus,’ he said. ‘And there’s men who feel it’s time I used my given name.’ He looked at Father Alcaeus.
Tom nodded. ‘Time and time, I’d say. Ser Gabriel. I like the sound of it.’
‘That puts me in mind of something,’ Ser Gabriel said. ‘Toby, fetch my sword!’
Toby went quickly, his face showing a boy who didn’t dare to hope. But he was doomed to disappointment.
The Red Knight drew his sword and pointed it at Long Paw. ‘Come here and kneel,’ he said.
‘You wouldn’t!’ Long Paw said. But he was dragged by other men, nor was it so much against his will. ‘You know what I was,’ he said, from his knees, with dignity.
‘No worse than what any of us were,’ said the Red Knight. ‘By my knighthood, and the power of my right hand, I dub thee knight.’
‘There’s another good archer lost for ever,’ muttered Cully, but he gave his mate a hug hard enough to hurt his back. ‘You bastard,’ he said.
After that, there was some serious drinking. Captain Dariusz, who proved to have an excellent signing voice, raised it in an ancient hymn – a marvellous tune, that they all had to learn. Count Zac already knew it, and translated the words to Ser Alison, who grew still.
They drank more wine, and debated the strategy of the campaign.