Gabriel stretched his back and watched the distant camp. “Where’s Gelfred?” he asked Tom.

Tom Lachlan just shook his head. “No one came to the rendezvous,” he said. “Mind ye, we had to go find you!”

Gabriel winced. “Not my finest hour.”

“You found yersel’ a nice piece. You should keep her,” Tom said, in his friendly way.

“Or,” Chris Foliak put in, “if’n you don’t want her—”

“Gentlemen,” the captain snapped, “if you are quite through—”

“He’s just like himself,” Ser Danved said loudly to Ser Bertran.

“I need a rouncy or two for the ladies. Unless Nell plans to take the good sister all the way to Lorica.” He managed a smile at Amicia. “What happened?” he asked.

“The King?” she replied. “Oh, Gabriel…”

Blanche ran back to them. She curtsied in the dust of the road with a fine straight back.

“Look here, Captain,” she said. “Sir.”

Gabriel managed a bow which made his back burn as if a fire had been lit under it.

“My lady—the Queen—she can’t go much further,” Blanche said. “She’s too proud to say, but she could birth at any moment.” Blanche looked around. “You’re all a fine lot—any of you fathers? Blood and fighting brings on the birth, so they say.”

Gabriel was still watching the camp.

There was movement. They had the fire out, and he saw the glint of armour.

“Eight hours of light left,” he said. Nell brought him Abraham, his oldest and calmest riding horse. He swung into the saddle. “Nell, you’re a peach,” he said.

Nell blushed.

He rode along the column to the Queen, sitting with her back against a small tree. She looked serene—and deathly pale.

Gabriel dismounted on willpower alone and managed a creaky bow. “Your grace—I can’t stop here any longer or we will all be taken or killed.”

Her marvellous brown-gold eyes met his. “I know,” she said. “Blanche loves me, but she’s trying to mother me.” The Queen extended a hand and Gabriel got her to her feet. “I can keep him in for another few hours—days, if I must.”

“You are a woman of power,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

“I healed you last year, when the arrow struck you,” he said. “That’s how I know. I wonder if you could share some of your ops with us—with me and with Sister Amicia.”

The Queen nodded. “Of course—whatever I can do.”

Gabriel reached out and touched her and entered into her palace—a veritable fortress. He’d never seen a palace so well guarded. In the middle of it rose walls of solid, shining gold—pure gold, so well fitted that he could scarcely see where each gold stone fitted to the last.

She led him—slim and lovely—through a doubly barred gate and into the citadel.

“Is it true—that my love is dead?” she asked.