The Dread Wyrm (Traitor Son Cycle) (68 page)

“And leave the Faery Knight unopposed in the west, and the archbishop free to sack Lorica?” Alcaeus shook his head.

Gabriel scratched under his chin—he had three mosquito bites that seemed to occupy as much of his mind as Blanche and the Faery Knight combined.

“Any force coming from the west has to pass Lissen Carak,” he said. “A tough nut.”

“Small garrison,” Alcaeus said.

“Not if you think in the
aethereal
.” He didn’t see a solution. If there was one at all, it was going to involve some miracles of marching, and every hour counted, starting a day ago.

But he had the glimmer of a plan. It was not his former plan at all. That galled him—that a plan had completely failed.

So much subtlety, gone with the arrow that killed the King.

“Right,” he said. “I assume Ser Gerald Random is in Lorica?”

“No, he and most of the men who came with him are camped between us and the beeves. The Hillmen.” Alcaeus waved.

“I need Ser Gerald, Sukey, Tom, Ranald and—” He looked around. “That’s a start.”

“First light?” Toby said hopefully.

“Now,” Gabriel said.

He was never going to get to kiss Blanche again. He tried not to let that influence his decisions, but he reckoned that if he could end the meetings and find her…

Too late for all of that. By tomorrow, the moment would be gone.

He shrugged. His shrug was a dismissal of all that.
Let love go hang,
he thought bitterly.

Toby murmured in his ear, “Ser Thomas is—er—with Sukey.”

“Good, you can get them both at once,” Gabriel said.

Let love go hang.
“Get Sister Amicia, too.”

The map was still pinned to the ground with daggers and eating implements.

The captain’s bearing made it plain that this was business. There was almost no grumbling. Toby and Nell built up the fire and began to serve roast pork and dumplings left over from a dinner most of them had never received.

“You bid fair to ruin a beautiful night,” Tom grumbled.

The captain shook his head. “The world,” he said, “is going to shit all around us. This is for everything, friends. So drink some wine, stretch your wits and get with me.”

Alcaeus and Gelfred reviewed the intelligence reports while the rest chewed pork, spat gristle, and wolfed down the dumplings.

When Gelfred was done explaining the archbishop’s position and what he had in his army, the captain nodded sharply.

“Tom, will you sell me all your beef?” he asked.

Tom shrugged. “Market price?” he asked.

“On the nail,” the captain said.

Tom nodded, and spat in his hand.

The captain turned to Ser Gerald. “Loan me the cost of the beeves?” he asked.

“Against what?” Gerald asked cautiously.

“Against that I’m now the Earl of Westwall, or Gavin is, and the Duke of Thrake, too. I own the whole northern trade from one end of the wall to the other, and if we win this war, we’ll make money as if we are transmuting water into gold.” He turned to his brother. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m not as crass as I sound, but…”

Gavin grunted. “I get it,” he said. “They’re dead, and we need money.”

Random eyed Tom Lachlan. “Yes,” he said.

The captain spat in his hand and clasped hands with Tom.

“Where do you want them?” Tom asked.

“I want them marched back north—fifty head at every stopping point in a six-day march, and I want the rest grazing in the fields south and west of Albinkirk in one week.”

“Tar’s tits,” Tom croaked. “That’s a mort of driving.”

“You’re the Drover,” Gabriel said. “Then keep going north and get your levies out of the Hills and join Ser John at Dorling. Take whatever beasts you need to feed the Emperor and four thousand men there.”

“And hold Dorling?” Tom asked.

The captain shook his head. They were perfectly silent.

“No. I’m sorry, Tom, but unless the Wyrm wants to fight for it, we’re sacrificing Dorling.”

“Why am I going there, then?” Lachlan asked.

“Because the levies will only rise for you or Ranald or Donald Dhu. And because I can trust you to follow orders—words, by the way, that no one else has ever said about you, Tom.” He smiled across the fire, and Tom grinned back.

“Only if I like ’em, boyo.”

“Raise your levies and hold the Inn until the Emperor comes. And then retreat to Albinkirk, making the road behind you a wilderness.” Gabriel leaned forward.

Tom crossed his arms. “With my Hillmen and the Emperor, I can defeat fucking Thorn.”

“No, Tom, you can’t. Not without me and Amicia and all the angels in heaven, too.” Gabriel shook his head vehemently. “Unless the Wyrm’s willing to go in person. And I shouldn’t even say that out loud. But if he is—then fight.”

Bad Tom scratched under his nose. “Retreating is not my best way,” he said.

“Tom, if you pull this off and get the Emperor and Ser John Crayford alive to Albinkirk, I promise you the greatest battle ever.” Gabriel nodded. “One toss, one fight, for everything.”

Tom raised a hand the size of most men’s heads. “Six days with my herd to Albinkirk. Two days hard riding to the Inn if no one stops us.” He frowned. “Eight days, at least. Where will you be?”

Gabriel scratched his bites. “Sukey, I need you to start north with the camp and the baggage tomorrow. Leave enough tents standing here for the Royal Guard and the company packed tight, and take the rest on the road. We’ll catch you at Sixth Bridge.”

Sukey nodded. “I can do that,” she said. “How soon can I start them up and packing?”

“Give them another hour,” the captain said.

He turned back to Tom while Sukey wrote on her wax tablets. “In eight
days, I need to be two days south of Albinkirk,” he said. “Because the rest of us are going to turn on the archbishop right now—today. Win or die, and no quarter.” He looked around. “No quarter for the archbishop, that is. The rest of them can surrender as they need.”

Random all but cried out. “You’re going
south
?”

“All or nothing,” Gabriel replied. “And you and your friends are going straight to Harndon if we win.”

Ser Gerald shook his head. “Have you lost your wits, Gabriel?”

There were people present who’d never heard the captain’s name used so familiarly.

“In ten days we can have Harndon without a bolt loosed or a man dead,” Random insisted.

Ser Gabriel nodded. “In ten days, Thorn can have done a hundred years of damage to the north country. In fifteen days—the world could be over.”

Alcaeus was shaking his head vehemently. “Ser Gerald is correct,” he insisted. “The archbishop’s cause is lost even now.”

It was Gabriel’s turn to shake his head. He looked past his brother at Ser Michael, awake and yawning.

“It’s your father,” he said. “The archbishop will crown him King, won’t he?”

Michael nodded heavily. “We have the next claim—it’s distant, but—yes.” He sighed. “Of course, that’s how they bought Pater. It’s what Pater always wanted.” He looked at the Red Knight. “Of course, your claim through your mother ain’t bad.”

Gabriel ignored him. “I need Gavin—I’m sorry, brother—I need you to go west—now. As soon as dawn breaks. Somewhere on the south Cohocton, Mountjoy is fighting. Or sitting watching the border. Either way, he has all the Royal Foresters and most of the western lords of the Brogat.”

“Wasn’t he attainted?” asked Ser Michael.

“Only the fool archbishop would attaint a man with an army already in the field,” Gavin said. “I know Mountjoy. I’m going to marry his daughter. He wouldn’t leave his post.” He nodded. “You want him?”

“At Albinkirk,” Gabriel said.

“I still think you should move north yourself,” Gavin said. He rubbed the scales on his shoulder. “The sorcerer and his allies—they’re the real threat.”

“In ten days, the archbishop might be alone with two hundred Gallish lances,” Gabriel said. “But he might be the Chancellor of Alba with a thousand lances and some reluctant Alban support. Listen, friends—this is all beyond my experience. I’m listening when you speak. But my spirit says that if we march north, we’ll never regain Harndon, and if we march south, we’ll never regain Albinkirk or Lissen Carak.”

Unnoticed beyond the firelight, Sister Amicia sighed and spoke softly, but everyone strained to hear her.

“As Gabriel well knows, if we lose Lissen Carak, we lose a great deal.” She shook her head. “I am not at liberty to say all I know.”

“It is possible that if we lose Lissen Carak we lose everything,” Gabriel said. “Amicia, I have to ask you to ride with Tom, and go to Lissen Carak with all the knights of the Order. It’s all the garrison I can put in, but with the men we hired last year, it should prove enough.”

Amicia shook her head. “You will need me tomorrow.”

Gabriel shook his head back. “Sister,
everyone
needs you. Your healing powers are beyond anything—anything. But you—you yourself—are the most potent relief force I can send to your convent.”

Very quietly, she said, “But you might die.”

Gabriel met her on the bridge. “If I die, Michael and Tom and Sauce will pull it out,” he said. “If Lissen Carak falls—then
he
opens the gates, doesn’t he, Amicia?”

She bit her lip—no mean feat in the
aethereal
.

“I think that’s what this is about,” she said. “The Abbess never told me.”

“I was in those tunnels,” Gabriel said. “I guessed then.”

Amicia met his eye. “There are other places. Lissen Carak is not the only one.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It’s the one I can prevent,” he said. “I
think
that the Faery Knight is against Thorn. I do not think Harmodius has turned. But Alcaeus thinks I’m naive.”

Amicia sighed. “I want to believe in Harmodius,” she allowed. “I will go to Lissen Carak.”

Gabriel said, “We can win this.”

Amicia nodded. “I want to believe you. But is it not a basic tenant of war not to divide your forces? And are you not dividing yourself in every direction?”

He grinned. “Oh, dear Amicia. Yes. But I must divide you now to have a chance to combine you all later.”

She shook her head, and he left her, however much his soul cried out for him to stay—

Gabriel looked around. “So—tomorrow. Daybreak—one hour. Three battles. Ser Michael with the company in the van. Ser Ranald with the Royal Guard in the main body with the Queen, the young King, and any men of Lorica who will accompany us. Ser Gerald with the rearguard, commanding all the Harndoners we can raise.”

Ser Gerald narrowed his eyes. “If Gelfred is right—and I’m sure he is—he’s got two days of entrenchments behind which to cower. How are you going to get a battle we can win?”

The Red Knight laughed. “De Vrailly sent us a herald. I’m going to challenge him to battle.”

P
ennons flapped and flags waved. It was a beautiful late spring in the Brogat.

“I still think that we were better behind our stockades, and bastions,” the archbishop said.

“He challenged us,” Jean de Vrailly said. He was a figure of shining steel, towering over the archbishop who had chosen to wear his state robes of purple and ermine.

“Let him wear himself out against our walls,” the archbishop said, with a certain whine.

“He challenged us,” Jean de Vrailly said again.

“I don’t think that—”

De Vrailly turned his helmeted head. His visor was open and his angelic face seemed to shine from within. “Eminence, you make me regret I ever invited you here to help me rule this realm. I am a knight. The order of knighthood is the only one to which I have ever aspired. The Red Knight has challenged us to battle.”

“And I say—”

“Silence.” De Vrailly spoke sharply, and the archbishop flinched. No one had ever told him to be silent in all his life.

“You think I am a fool who believes in an outdated code. You think that we should cower behind our trenches and build trebuchets, conduct mass killings in Harndon to silence the city and goad our enemies into throwing themselves at our bastions and earthworks. I tell you, Eminence, that
you
are the fool, and that if we do that, we will find ourselves starving in a ring, a sea, of enemies, none of them contemptible. We lack the manpower to
cow Harndon even if we had no foe in the field against us. The Harndoners
saw
the Queen and the babe. The challenge is just—the Red Knight knows the law of war. But even if it were unjust, we would be fools to do as you suggest. Do you understand me?”

The archbishop was red in the face. He struggled to find words, and finally, he turned his horse, summoned his guard, and rode away.

Ser Eustace d’Aubrichecourt turned his helmeted head. “Well said, Ser Jean.”

Other knights murmured, and while they were doing so, a herald appeared at the far wood line. He rode across the field with one man behind him, cantering easily. He held the traditional green flag that heralds bore in times of war.

He came over the low rise—really, no more than the height of a man—that stood at long bowshot from de Vrailly’s lines. Behind him, horsemen appeared in the wood line.

De Vrailly’s men began to loosen swords in their sheaths and tighten straps and girths.

De Vrailly watched the herald come with nothing in his heart. He had closed himself to his angel since the day after the tournament, and he felt as if he was already dead.

He had been used. Betrayed.

I only wish to die well,
he thought. Not a thought to share.

The herald rode down, aiming for de Vrailly’s banner. At this distance, it was plain that the man behind him was Du Corse, on a good riding horse, wearing his arming coat and hose and boots.

L’Isle d’Adam and d’Aubrichecourt came forward and joined de Vrailly.

Du Corse looked grim.

“Welcome back,” de Vrailly said. “Is it too much to hope that you have escaped?”

Du Corse shook his head. “I come on oath—on my word. In exchange for Corcy’s sons.”

De Vrailly smiled a grim smile. “I have them to hand.” He turned to his squire. “Fetch them immediately. I will not be outdone in courtesy by this sell-sword.”

“Hardly a sell-sword,” Du Corse said. “He’s the Queen’s captain-general and the Duke of Thrake. I spoke to him this morning.”

Du Corse pointed across the fields at the approaching army—a small army. In fact, only slightly smaller than de Vrailly’s own.

The herald opened his mouth, but Du Corse silenced him with a glance.

“Ser Gabriel wishes us to know that our King has been badly defeated in Arelat. He offers three choices. If we take ship immediately, he will let us go. If not, he will meet you in single combat, immediately. Or, if neither of these will suffice, he says he will come to you with fire and sword. But he says to us all that in the last case only the true enemy will triumph.”

The enemy were not halting to dress their lines. On the far left, a solid mass of red and steel rode forward. In the centre, another—all in scarlet, with the Royal Standard flying. On the right, a little farther away, a solid body in the red and blue of Harndon, and the checked blue and gold of Occitan.

De Vrailly watched them for as long as his heart could beat ten times.

“This Red Knight is nobly born, then?” de Vrailly asked.

L’Isle d’Adam frowned. “There’s a rumour he’s the old King’s by-blow. But that’s probably someone’s petty hate. He’s the Earl of Westwall’s son.”

Du Corse said, “The Earl of Westwall is dead. The Wild has breached the whole of the north and west. He told me so himself, and I believe him.”

De Vrailly shook his head. “The archbishop would have us believe that it is our duty to cut our way through to Ser Hartmut, and that the Wild is in this case our ally.”

The enemy were not halting yet. They were very quick.

The herald—boldly—spoke up. “I’m to tell you that you have only until he’s in bowshot to decide,” he said.

D’Aubrichecourt spat. “The archbishop would have us believe that the Wild is a fable while also using them as allies,” he said. “Even as they defeat our King in Arelat.” He shook his head in disgust.

De Vrailly paused when his squire brought up the Corcy boys—two young blond squires, Alban through and through.

“Young gentlemen, your father has ransomed you,” he said.

The older, Robert, bent his knee.

The younger, Hamish, stuck his hands in his belt. “You had no right taking us in the first place,” he said.

“Be quiet, little brother.” Robert put out a hand but his small brother, twelve years old, wriggled away.

“It’s dishonourable,” Hamish said quietly.

Out in the field, Long Paw roared an order and the whole line halted. Pages came forward and began to collect horses.

Jean de Vrailly dismounted, too.

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” l’Isle d’Adam said.

De Vrailly walked to the boy who stood without flinching.

He knelt. His voice was not steady. He said, “Sometimes, men make mistakes, child. Terrible, terrible mistakes. All they can do is atone as best they can. I offer you my apologies as a knight and as a man.”

Hamish Corcy bowed low. “Apologies accepted, ser knight! You do me too much honour.”

De Vrailly nodded. Then he went to his horse, and mounted. “Tell the Red Knight I will meet him man to man and horse to horse,” he said.

The herald turned his horse and rode for the enemy.

De Vrailly turned his own horse so that it faced his people. His squire was mounting the two boys on a rouncy.

“Gentlemen,” de Vrailly said, and all badinage stopped. “Whether I win or lose, I propose that we leave the Albans to their own ways and troubles and go to Galle to save the King. And I suggest that you take Du Corse as your commander.”

Du Corse bowed in the saddle. The archbishop made to protest and was silenced by a glance from Du Corse.

De Vrailly pointed to his squire, and armed himself with his favourite lance—a very heavy shaft. But when his squire made to mount with two spares, de Vrailly shook his head.

“No, no. We will run one course, and then—” He shrugged. “Someone will die. Please—stay here with these good gentlemen. In fact, young Jehan—I bid you kneel.” De Vrailly dismounted himself once again.

“With this buffet, I make you a knight. Never accept another from any but the King. Know the law of war. Love your friends and be harsh to your enemies.” He leaned down and kissed the young man on both cheeks.

Jehan—Ser Jehan—was stunned. He began to weep.

De Vrailly vaulted onto his horse.

The Galles gave a thunderous cheer.

Ser Gabriel sat silently watching the Galles. They had a few Alban banners among them, mostly Towbray’s, and Towbray himself was on the far left—the Galles plainly didn’t trust him. Perhaps the feeling was mutual.

He flicked a glance at his Occitan allies. It was not that he distrusted them, as that he feared their anger and the prince’s rash judgment.

Behind him, Ser Michael spat. “I wouldn’t have believed that my own father would come to this.”

“You could be King,” Gabriel said.

“That’s not even funny,” Michael commented.

“You know what’s worst about civil war?” Gabriel asked. The Galles were talking about something, and someone was kneeling.

The company was already dismounting. Cuddy groused, loudly, “I want to see ’em fight. Better them than me. I don’t get to be fuckin’ King.”

Gabriel laughed and gestured at Cuddy. “That’s about it. In a civil war, everyone realizes that it’s all a dream and
anyone
can be King. And then we’re just animals fighting over the grain supply.”

The herald, his pennon flapping bravely, was riding towards them.

“Aha,” Gabriel said. “Here we go.”

His heart began to beat very hard.

Ser Michael turned. “We can take them, Gabriel,” he said.

Gabriel nodded. “We can, but some of us will die and some of them will die, and my adversary will win with every corpse. Let’s make this as cheap as we can.”

“If you lose?” Michael asked bluntly.

“Then I get to relax, and stop plotting. It’s all on you and my brother
and Tom and Sauce. And Mr. Smythe and Harmodius and the Queen. And Amicia, and the rest of the people. The biggest revelation of the last few weeks has been that it’s not all about me, Michael. Muddle through.” He laughed.

“What do I do about the Galles?” Michael said, ignoring the rest.

“Offer them ships home. If they refuse, crush them here, take the losses, and offer no quarter. Towbray will desert them the moment he knows it’s you.” The Red Knight shrugged. “Make yourself King for all I care. I’ll be dead.”

“I doubt it,” Michael said. “Here, let me squire you one last time. Damn, that was ill-said.”

Gabriel laughed.

While Michael dealt with the way his arms tied on and where they sat, the herald approached.

“Ser Jean de Vrailly will meet you man to man in single combat,” he said.

The Red Knight took a lance from Toby. He thought of leaving a parting message for Amicia, or for Blanche, even.

That seemed like something Mater would have done.

“If I win,” he said, “I want you ready to march north immediately.”

He wanted to grin or smile, but his heart was pounding, and his cheeks didn’t work.

So instead, he turned his horse, and began to ride easily over the hayfield towards the distant shining figure of Jean de Vrailly.

Inside de Vrailly’s visor, the angelic face frowned as he rode across the sunlit summer field.

Usually he went to fight without a thought—beyond, perhaps, a prayer.

No prayer came to his lips.

Instead, unbidden, a host of images rose like midges and mosquitoes. Simultaneously, he considered how the Red Knight had dispatched de Rohan, who, for all his faults, he had trained with his own hands, and he considered the sparkling fall of holy water that had declared him forfeit—a flow of holy water that said that his person, or his harness, was ensorcelled. He thought of the black fire clawing at the angel’s armour in his tent, and he thought—most of all—of how his angel—

I think your angel is a daemon
, said the ghost of D’Eu in his ear.

De Rohan had accused the Queen of sorcery and infidelity. And died.

Why does my angel never name the Red Knight?

Why has he ceased to speak of God?

Why did he not give me any answers?

But the utmost thought in de Vrailly’s mind was one of mingled shame and apprehension, two thoughts which he seldom entertained. Because he had willingly donned the armour that had been tainted with sorcery, this day. He had other choices.

His lance went down into the rest with the ease of ten thousand repetitions.

He saw his opponent’s arms—the six-pointed stars on the brilliant scarlet ground.

I have other choices. I hate. I doubt.

Everything
.

And then his lance was
just there
.

Gabriel sweated behind his visor. He watched de Vrailly with most of his attention. He tried to focus on the man’s movements, on his horse.

De Vrailly had a superb horse.

But behind the simplicity of preparation for combat was fear—the fear of death over all, and under that a layer of other fears like folded steel, each fear interwrapped with minute flaws and other hesitations like the dragon’s breath of a blade folded over and over again in the forge to try and hide the imperfections in the iron and the steel.

Fear for the Queen, and fear for Michael confronting his father, and fear for the world that he loved and fear that he had behaved badly, that he would die badly, that he would fail.

Gabriel Muriens usually entered combat, which he feared more than anything else in his life, borne along on the heady river of command. With no time to examine the reality of what he faced, he entered into combat like a black mirror—empty and yet full. His imagination rarely had time to inflate the bladder of his cowardice.

But today he had a long bowshot to cross on a horse he could not afford to tire early—a near eternity in which to think. To imagine. To wonder.

Gavin was the better jouster. But de Vrailly was now the commander of the army, and would not have accepted a lesser man or rank. And Gavin’s already gone west. In a day or two, he’ll find Mountjoy. I hope.

In his vivid and coloured fantasy, Gabriel saw himself unhorsed, saw de Vrailly’s lance smash through his breastplate to rip his intestines from his back—saw his helmet shred under a blow, saw Ataelus stumble and fall in the grass, saw Ataelus crash to earth under the hammer of de Vrailly’s deadly lance, saw the minute twist of his deadly hands as de Vrailly slapped his own lance to the ground and unhorsed him with delicate ease, saw the crashing mace blow that ended his life, saw de Vrailly chivalrously dismount to pound him to the earth with his sword—

Saw every man who’d ever unhorsed him. Relived every painful fall, every bruise, every humiliation as the quintain slapped him, as his lance missed its mark, as he caught a foot in the stirrup going down—a long, long, silly fall, and all his brothers laughing, his master-at-arms laughing, even Pru, her apron covering her face.