“Madame, this is not a set piece battle like a tournament. I hope to catch de Vrailly napping on the road or just breaking his camp. If I fail, he’ll be on us like a dog on a rabbit and we’ll be outnumbered twenty to one. Would you please ride north to Lorica, Madame?”

Desiderata smiled and put a hand on his steel arm. “Ser Knight—I would be with my army. If you lose—so be it. But if you triumph, I would have men say that my son was in battle the day he was birthed, and that his mother was no coward. Too few saw my trial by combat. My husband is dead. I would that men saw me, and knew me.”

Ser Gabriel sat a moment on his great war horse. The sky was lightening behind him. He looked like the war incarnate, the avatar of knighthood.

He took a deep breath, and then shrugged. “Very well, your grace. You are the Queen.” He nodded. “Amicia? Will you at least ride for Lorica?”

The nun shook her head. “No,” she said. “You will need me.”

The Red Knight smiled. “Blanche? I don’t suppose you’d like to take a nice ride with two handsome knights…?”

Blanche laughed. “I would not leave my lady.” Greatly daring, she said, “I’ve had offers of dawn rides from knights afore now. My mother told me never to go.”

The Queen tilted back her head and roared. She reached out and caught Blanche’s hand and squeezed it.

The Red Knight bowed in his saddle to the ladies and turned his war horse. But when he was out of earshot, he turned to Michael and said, quite savagely, “I may yet be King of Alba. Through no fault of my own.”

Michael stared.

“If she falls…” Ser Gabriel shook his head. He rode to where Ser Francis Atcourt and Chris Foliak sat on their destriers.

He put a hand on Atcourt’s shoulder. “If you two bring the Queen through this alive,” he said, “I will give you whatever I can that you desire. A nice fief in Thrake? And I’ll knight Chris on the spot, or see to it she does. If she goes down—” He shrugged. “Have the good manners to die with her.”

Ser Francis Atcourt was not a young man. “I’ve never asked for aught,” he said.

Ser Michael laughed. “It’s better than fighting, holding land,” he said.

Atcourt smiled his beatific smile. “I don’t see you at home on your farms, my lord,” he said.

He was always surprised at how seriously the professionals took knighthood.

Chris Foliak shook out the back cloak of his magnificent silk surcoat. “I rather fancy being a knight,” he said. “And I always fight my best for a lady.”

“Especially a rich, beautiful lady,” Atcourt said. “But aye, Captain. So—she’s staying with us?”