“She needs to eat. She’s not one of your mercenaries.” Blanche put her hands on her hips. “You can’t make her ride all night.”

Most of the casa looked away in various directions. But Ser Michael bowed and said, “The captain is doing his best—”

“I’m helping him make the right choice,” Blanche said.

Tom was looking back under his hand. “I think there’s men on the road,” he said.

It was early evening, and darkness was not so far.

“Get over the ford,” Gabriel ordered. “Now.”

Ser Michael reached down, plucked Blanche off the ground, and rode across the ford with her. The casa was mounted in moments, and Ser Francis and Chris Foliak got the Queen across—still eating.

Gabriel and his brother sat and chewed sausage.

“Local men,” Gavin said after a time. There were fifty or sixty men coming—a handful mounted.

The two of them were still in all of their tournament finery. Gavin tossed the last knot of his sausage into the river behind him and missed the swirl and snap as a pike took it. He and Gabriel rode forward, side by side, their right hands in the air.

One of the mounted men pressed forward to meet them. He took off his right gauntlet and held it up, too. “Ser Stephan Griswald,” he said. He was over fifty, and running to fat, and his coat of plates didn’t fit well—but the sword at his side spoke of some use.

“Ser Gabriel Muriens,” Gabriel said.

“That’s they!” shouted a spearman.

In fact, there were three or four dozen spearmen—with gambesons and good helmets, most of them with a chain aventail.

Ser Stephan nodded heavily. “Those your men?” he asked, pointing at the knights across the stream.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. In fact, his men were readying lances. “Are you the sheriff?”

“I am, my lord. And it is my duty to arrest you, in the name of the King.” The sheriff reached out with his truncheon, like a mace.

Gabriel backed his horse. “The King is dead,” he said. “And has been since this morning.”

That brought the sheriff up short. “My writ has just come from the King,” he said

“It is no legal writ, but a forgery by the archbishop,” Gabriel said. “Did he order out the militia?” he asked.

The sheriff shook his head. “Every county. By the saints, my lord—the King is dead? What mischief is this?”

“He took an arrow in the chest.” Gabriel nodded. “But you see the woman sitting under yon tree? That’s the Queen. The Galles want her, my lord sheriff. And I will not give her up. So you and your brave lads will have to fight us.”

Tom Lachlan was recrossing the ford with all the men-at-arms at his back. He and Ser Michael looked like the left and right hands of God in the setting sun.