“I doubt you do,” Ser John said. “This’ll be the war.”
“The queen is that popular?” Ser Gabriel asked, rhetorically.
“The King must have lost his wits,” Ser John said. “T’other scroll is a tax demand on the Earl of Westwall.”
Ser Gabriel smiled. “I see,” he said. Because he did.
“There’s more. The Archbishop of Lorica has called a council to investigate…” He looked down. “A range of charges of heresy,” he quoted. “Against the Order of St. Thomas.” He met the Red Knight’s eyes. “I have to tell you, your grace, that the nun’s preaching is listed on the charges.”
“Sister Amicia?” Gabriel asked.
“She’s virtually a saint, to the people hereabouts,” Ser John said. “There isn’t a man-at-arms in Albinkirk who hasn’t felt her healing. Or her wisdom.”
Ser Gabriel flushed.
Ser John frowned. “It’s as if the King is working to destroy the kingdom.” He shook his head. “De Vrailly’s accusation will no doubt take place at the tourney.”
“And de Vrailly will be the accuser,” Ser Gabriel said.
“Can you take him?” Ser John asked.
Ser Gabriel sighed. “Mayhap,” he said. “I hesitate to stake the future of Alba on it.”
Ser John shrugged. “They say he’s the best knight in the world.”
The Red Knight smiled. “Ah, well. They say I’m the spawn of Satan.” He laughed. “Tourney is eighteen days away.”
The two men sat in a companionable silence. Finally Gabriel rose. “I need to say farewell to my lady mother.”
Ser John nodded. “You won’t change your mind?” he asked.
“I may yet, Ser John. In a way—an odd way—the King has just played into the duchess’s hands.” He rose.
Ser John shook his head. “I still can’t believe he’d take such foolish counsel.”
Ser Gabriel nodded. “Ser John—I suggest to you that the Galles at court do not have the king’s best interests at heart.”
Ser John nodded.
Gabriel went out, with the sound of his armour ratcheting along the corridor.
Gabriel knocked at his mother’s outer door, and then, after some time had passed, he worked a praxis and opened it.
“Don’t you dare!” his mother shrieked.
Gabriel opened the inner door. The bronze-eyed girl slipped from the bed, her body blushing her embarrassment from nose to navel, and passed behind the hanging that concealed the garde de robe.
“I need to speak to you, Mother,” Gabriel said. His voice was cheerful. He was fully in command of himself. “I see we really do share some tastes.”
His mother sat up, her body barely concealed by a shift. “You always were an impetuous lout,” she said.
“The King has sent you a summons, ordering you to pay twenty years of back taxes. And threatening war if you don’t.” Gabriel leaned back and settled his right pauldron into a dent in the stone of the wall.
“The fool,” Ghause spat.
“In more ways than one, Mother. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll accept a bride, in exchange for your seal on this alliance.” He handed his mother the scroll. “How do you manage to stay so young?” he asked.
“Murdered virgin’s blood,” she said, her eyes on the document. “Powdered unicorn horn.” She looked up. “Poppycock. It’s just exercise, my dear, and good breeding, and a little sorcery.” Without any fuss, she slipped out of the bed and lit a taper by ops. She took sealing wax and affixed her personal seal. “You won’t regret this.”
“I suspect I will, Mother. But it occurred to me that I didn’t actually think a thousand lives were a fair trade for my connubial bliss. I reserve only your maid. I won’t marry her.” He smiled. “Though I might want her after I have my new bride in kindle.”
His mother smiled and then bit her lip. “You’re hiding something,” she said. “I know you.”
“I am,” he said. “But if we’re both lucky, you’ll never know what. I’m off for Harndon.” He bent, and quite formally kissed her hand.
She laughed. “You are being foolish, my boy. But I am glad to have you back at my side.”
He nodded. But in his new-found wisdom, he chose not to answer her.
The southbound convoy formed by the outer gates of the town. The Red Knight was leaving many of his best men and women behind, and taking only his household. Ser Michael rode at the head, carrying the new banner—the banner of Thrake, a golden eagle on a ground of dark red. Ser Phillipe de Beause, Ser Francis Atcourt and the young Etruscan, Angelo di Laternum, and Chris Foliak were resplendent even in the rain. Behind them came their squires and pages, and two wagons of baggage and harness, under Sadie Lantorn, whose career as a woman of the company was apparently unaffected by her sister’s marriage into the highest ranks of the gentry. Sukey had other duties for a few days.
As a rearguard, the Duke of Thrake had six Morean lances under Ser Christos—his first command in the company, although he had once been the strategos for the former duke. With him were five other magnates of Thrake, and if they objected to having to ride into the frigid delights of an Alban spring, they kept their views to themselves. Ser Alcaeus, who might have been expected to stay with his banda, was instead riding with them.
Out on the plain that stretched to the river, the Hillmen could be seen forming their flocks and herds and moving them across the water at Southford. The process had been going on for two days.
The Red Knight looked around for the one face he missed, and gave up. He drew his sword and flicked a salute at the gate guard, who returned it more formally, and Ser John, mounted on a pretty bay, came out and locked hands with the Red Knight.
“I’ll do my best,” Ser Gabriel said.
“I still can’t believe she agreed. What did she ask for?” Ser John asked.
Ser Gabriel smiled. “A life of chastity,” Ser Gabriel said. He left the older knight speechless and led his household and their baggage south, to the ford.
At the ford, he found the woman he’d missed. Sister Amicia sat on her little horse with her two attendants, Sisters Mary and Katherine.
“May we accompany you on the road?” she asked.
The Red Knight used his knees to press his riding horse close to hers. Her smile was brave. He hoped his was as good.
“You mean you wish to spend ten days on the road to Harndon with us?” he asked.
“I’ve been accused of heresy,” she said, her back straight and her head high. “I intend to meet it in person, and not cower here. I gather you have similar plans.”
He thought of various quips, but it had always been her courage he loved best. He bowed. “I’d be delighted to have your company, Sister.”
Horse by horse and wagon by wagon, the ferry took them across. In each ferry load, the weight was made up by sheep or cattle—enormous cattle with vicious horns. The lowing of the herds, the belches and farts, the sound of chewing, the hollow tread of their hooves, went on and on.
Bad Tom met the Red Knight on the south side. The road up from the ferry to the high bank was solid mud, and the younger nun’s palfrey almost lost its rider going up.
“You brought her,” Tom said with real approval.
“It’s not what you think,” Ser Gabriel said.
Bad Tom laughed. “Sometimes I think you’re the smartest loon I’ve ever known,” Tom said. “And other times the greatest fool.”
Amicia rode up in the last sentence. She laughed.
Ser Gabriel laughed. “Ten days on the road with you lot?” He smiled. “Let’s go to Harndon,” he said.
Two hundred leagues to the north, Thorn stood in his place of power, staff in left hand, but this time he cast no power. He was in his new form of stone and wood, tall and impregnable. He held the results of a year of breeding a careful, dreadful nurture.
At a distance, his right arm would have seemed to be sheathed in fur. Closer examination would indicate a dozen giant purple-black moths,
each as big as a heavy bird of prey.
He reached through the aethereal until he made contact with the aura of power that was his Dark Sun. He showed the aura to his moths, and he flung his arm up, like a falconer sending his bird after prey.
And they flew.
Chapter Three
Harndon—The Queen
Spring was a season made for joys, but Desiderata had few enough of them. She sat in her solar with Diota brushing her hair.
“Never you fuss, lass,” Diota prattled. “Soon enough he’ll come back to his duty.”
“Duty?” Desiderata asked.
“Don’t snap at me, you minx,” Diota said. “You know what I mean.”
“You mean, when I’ve had my baby, my body will be desirable again, and my lover will return?” the queen asked, mildly enough. “You mean that this is the role of women, and I should abide it?”
“If you must,” Diota said. “That’s men.”
“He is the king,” Desiderata said.
“He’s ill-advised,” Diota said, patiently. “That Rohan all but pushed the red-headed vixen into the king’s arms. The chit never had a chance.”
“I agree that she’s little to blame,” Desiderata said. She enjoyed the kiss of the sun on her bare shoulders and her hair, and listened to the sounds her baby made—increasingly strident and yet beloved sounds.
She was contemplating her unborn child when a bell rang and the outer door opened.
“Fuss, it’s the witch,” Diota spat, and moved protectively to her mistress’s other side.
Outside, a young woman said, “And where is the royal lady this morning?” in a Jarsay accent.
Lady Genevieve was the plainest—and eldest—of the queen’s ladies, a good ten years older than the queen. She wore a cross big enough to hang on a wall and her dress was plain to the point of being frumpish. She wore dark colours and sometimes even wore a wimple, although today she wore her hair in an Alban fashion—each plait was wound in the shape of a turret, making her head look like a fortress gate, which the queen found particularly apt.
“Welcome, Lady Genevieve,” the queen said.
“All this hair brushing is mere vanity,” Lady Genevieve said. She sat without asking permission. “I have brought you some religious instruction.” She looked at Diota. “You may go.”
The queen frowned. “My lady, it is for me to welcome or dismiss my servants. Of whom you yourself are one. I have never been much for formality, but you may stand until I ask you to sit.”
“Do not give yourself airs,” Lady Genevieve said. “You are a wife taken in adultery, bearing another man’s bastard, and the sign of your shame is on you every instant.” She remained seated. “My lord de Vrailly has sent me to attend you, and I shall. But do not pretend with me.”
Desiderata nodded slowly. “So you refuse my command,” she said.
Lady Genevieve was the widow of a southern lord. She knew how to make herself obeyed. “I will accept any reasonable command,” she said sweetly. “Let me read to you from the Life of Saint Catherine.”
“What if I do not wish you to read?” the Queen asked, already weary.
“You are unwomanly in your striving,” Lady Genevieve said. “A woman’s role is passive acceptance, as I told my husband on many occasions. Indeed, I was a byword for passive acceptance.” She snapped her fingers. “If your woman is to remain, she may as well be useful. I’ll have a cup of sweet cider, Diota.” She turned back to the queen. “Where was I? Ah yes—passive acceptance.”
Diota slipped out and found Blanche, one of the queen’s laundry maids, in the outer solar.
The nurse took a cup and poured cider from a jug, and then, catching Blanche’s eye, she reached under her skirts and wiped her hand there and then used it to stir the cider.
Blanche stifled a cackle and handed the nurse a slip of parchment that had been pinned to a shift.
Another of the queen’s “new ladies” came in the outer door without knocking, but by the time she came in, Blanche was folding shifts and putting them into the press.
Lady Agnes Wilkes, twenty-nine, unmarried, and with a face capable of curdling milk, stalked in and looked sullenly at the serving girl. “What are you about, slut?” she asked.
Blanche kept working. “Folding, milady.”
Lady Agnes frowned. “Do this sort of thing at night,” she said. “I don’t need to see your kind in these rooms by day, and neither does the queen. What if the King were to come?”
Diota slipped away with her cup of cider and gave it with a sketchy curtsy to Lady Genevieve, who didn’t acknowledge her at all. She took the cup and drank from it. “Tart and sweet,” she said.
Diota smiled happily. “A pleasure to serve you, my lady,” she said.
“Well,” Lady Genevieve said. “A change for the better, then. I see Lady Agnes has come in and I’ll exchange a word with her.” The older woman rose and set her cup down with a click.
She went out, and they could hear her in the outer chamber.
Diota handed the Queen the slip of parchment. The Queen seized it, read it—and then put it in her mouth and began to chew.
Diota collected cups and a shift and began to tidy the queen’s private chamber.
The two ladies came in. “Your Lady Rebecca has deserted you,” Lady Agnes said with real satisfaction. “Lord de Rohan sent for her this morning, but she’s fled. Many things are missing—she was a thief as well as a heretic. I am here to make an inventory.”
“Lady Rebecca had no need to steal,” the Queen said. “She was the lord chancellor for half a year.”
Lady Agnes made a face, and Lady Genevieve made a rude noise. “Perhaps the King pretended that she was the chancellor,” she said. “No woman could ever hold such an office.” She spoke as if she relished the low estate of women. “What foolishness. Women have no aptitude for such things. When I was with my husband, I cultivated a becoming passivity. I never put myself forward.”
“What happened after?” the queen asked sweetly.
“After what, my dear?” Lady Genevieve asked.
“After your husband died?” the Queen asked.
Diota almost choked, but Lady Genevieve frowned. “I have no idea what you are about, madame.”
The queen rose.
“You need to dress,” Lady Agnes said. The Queen was wearing only a shift, and her belly was magnificent—and very visible.
“I am more comfortable like this,” the queen said.
“You are lewd. Indecent.” Lady Agnes began to seize clothes from a cabinet.
“In my private solar?” the queen asked. “I think not.”
“I do not wish to gaze on your body,” Lady Agnes said. At odds with her words, her eyes were on the queen’s belly.
“You are very wanton,” Lady Genevieve said. “We will dress you. It is time you had the becoming clothes of a matron, and shed all this vanity.”
The queen smiled. Her smile was lazy and slow, and took its time, and in the end, she shocked Diota.
“You know, my ladies,” she said. “I think perhaps you have the right of it, and my baby has addled my wits. I will, indeed, cultivate a becoming passivity.”
Blanche took her laundry basket and went into the corridors below the Queen’s Tower, moving briskly. No one particularly wanted to see servants in the formal areas of the palace, not even trusted servants like Blanche, who wore the crisp red and blue livery of the winter. It had only changed ten days ago, and her sideless surcoat and matching kirtle marked her as “belonging.”
Of course, few were quite so rude about their wishes as the queen’s new “ladies.”
Ladies, Blanche thought to herself, and crossed the corridor that led to the King’s Tower after a careful glance in either direction. The Galles who now inundated the court like crabs at high tide were often present here, gathered in little knots with their cousins and brothers, looking for offices and sinecures.
They were the most determined rascals she’d e
ver known. None of them had tried outright rape—not yet—but she’d been offered every insult short, and various grasping hands and sweaty palms and scratchy moustaches had tried her virtue over the last few months.
Blanche’s contempt—the contempt of an attractive young woman—was absolute. She loathed them for their obvious contempt for women, she thought them weak for their ceaseless striving, and she cursed them with the worst derision she could offer because they appeared desperate. None of them had any idea how to approach a woman—all the servants said so. They were as aggressive—and mindless—as hungry wolves.
Blanche passed the king’s corridor with a feeling of relief, her mission nearly complete, and descended two winding stone staircases—servants’ stairs, and thus almost unfailingly safe. She passed one of the upper palace male servants—Robin le Grant, wine steward—who gave her a bow and a smile.
The servants were developing a whole language for the situation. That smile meant the stairs were clear.
Blanche slowed her pace and breathed a little easier. Her contempt for the Galles was not unmixed with fear.
She passed the kitchen corridor with a nod to three kitchen girls she knew.
“Laundress was askin’ for you,” said the nearest. She flashed a smile.
Blanche suspected that all three of them were malingering—loitering in corridors was not encouraged by the Butler, who was both a gentleman and a senior servant and ruled with a rod of iron. But she returned their smiles. “Stairs is clear,” she said as she swept past and turned again, walking down the familiar short flight of steps. To the right was the river gate, or at least the portions of the old fortifications and the corridors that led there. To the left lay the laundry, a kingdom—or rather, a queendom—entirely populated by women. There were laundresses who actually washed, and laundresses who only ironed, and laundresses who were really fine seamstresses for everything from repair to marking—every garment in the palace was marked with the owner’s initials in fine, neat cross-stitching. All in all, from twelve-year-old Celia who washed the dirtiest linens to ninety-year-old Mother Henk who could barely work but still had the finest embroidery stitches in Harndon, the laundry employed forty-five women all day, every day. The Laundress—Goodwife Ross—wore upper palace livery but never left her domain.