“I think you’d need a legion of angels to arrest this lot,” said another old man in armour. “Leave it go, Stephan.”

The newcomer rode forward. Under the trees that lined the road it was almost night. He emerged—a straight-backed old man in fitted steel.

“Lord Corcy,” Gavin said.

“Ah—Hard Hands himself. And that’s young Michael, Towbray’s scapegrace older son.” He smiled and offered his hand. “Would you gentlemen send my duty to the Queen? And will you give your word not to attack us? You have more men and are far better armed—but we are”—he didn’t chuckle, but he sounded amused—“the arm of the law.”

Corcy was an old man, one of the old King’s military barons.

Gabriel took his hand. “I give you my word. Just let us go, and that’s the end.” Then he dared. “Unless you’d hide us?”

Lord Corcy thought for a moment, and his face became hard. “No,” he said.

Bad Tom came up on his bridle hand side. “If we kill them, they can’t tell aught where we went,” he said.

Lord Corcy’s hand went to his sword hilt.

“Damn it, Tom!” Gabriel spat. “Lord Corcy, we will offer you no violence unless you attack us.”

Corcy backed his horse. “My sons are at court,” he said.

Ser Gavin nodded. “We understand.”

Corcy’s eyes were lost in the darkness under the visor of his light bascinet, but he shook his head. “I’ll keep the news from court as long as I can. Who killed the King?” he asked suddenly.

“Honestly? I have no idea,” Gabriel said. “If I had to guess, I’d say the Jacks killed him. Or the Galles.” He shook his head. He was tired—too damned tired. He couldn’t see the shape of the plots. He’d lost the threads.

Lord Corcy spoke out of the darkness of his helmet. “It will be war. Civil war. With wolves on every border.”

Gabriel took his own hand off his sword hilt. “Not if I can help it,” he said.

Corcy leaned forward, and just for a moment, his eyes glittered. “Think the Queen’s brat is the King’s?” he asked.

Gabriel was too tired for this. But it occurred to him, in that moment, that he had the Queen. In his possession.

Possibilities unrolled like carpets. No—like a spider rapidly spinning out silk, the plots unwound. Structure after structure, faster than speech. It was, in every way, the opposite of the feeling of entanglement.

The civil war starts right here, he thought. I’m a side. And Corcy could be won over.

Is the baby in her womb the King’s?

Does it matter? As plots and plans and counter plans exploded in all directions in his head, he realized that it was not whether the Queen’s baby was legitimate that mattered.

It was what he decided.