The Red Knight nodded. “Few enough archers. It’s worth a try, your grace.” He turned to Daniel Favour. “Go fetch Ser Michael and Ser Thomas and tell them my little ambush has failed and I need them on the hilltop.” He’d put them off to the north a little in the woods, to complete the rout of anyone who attacked up the—

“Stop!” he cried. “Never mind, young Daniel. Go to them—and tell them to see if they can take Du Corse in the flank when he comes for the village.”

Gavin shook his head. “They’ll be thinner than goose fat on a peasant’s bread.”

Gabriel grinned—not a happy grin. “Have I ever lost a battle?” he asked.

There was no one around to remind him that he had.

The Queen rode down the hill out of the town. For a woman who had, in the last day, survived an attempt to burn her to death and a ride cross-country only to birth a baby in a barn, she looked more like a goddess than a human woman. Her skin glowed in the sun, her rich blond-brown hair seemed to have invented its own colour between gold and bronze, and she rode like a centaur, her plain linen veil trailing behind her.

The white linen penitent’s gown that de Rohan had forced her to wear now shouted her innocence. The babe on her chest proclaimed who she must be—and who the babe must be.

Gabriel Muriens grabbed the royal pennon from Chris Foliak’s hand. “Stay here,” he said, and followed the Queen and her babe.

Foliak sputtered. “That’s my knighthood riding away!”

“Let him be,” Ser Francis said.

Down near the foot of the hill, the earl sat his charger with Ser Christopher Crowbeard—Kit to his boon companions.

“I mislike the hedges and the ploughed fields,” Crowbeard was saying. “Let de Vrailly throw his sell-swords at yon.”

Towbray looked down at the young corn shoots under his horse’s hooves. Ahead of him, fifty good lances—knights and squires—had dismounted to rest their horses. Off to the right, a solid body of Harndon militia in red and blue emerged from the woods—crossbows and spearmen with great tall pavises. He had none of his own foot—de Vrailly had cut them up last summer, and now they were far away, home in the Jarsays. So he had no archers and no peasants to clear the hillside and test the enemy’s intentions. If the hedge was lightly defended…

But if it wasn’t…

A rider came through a gap in the town hedge just a long bowshot away.

“Blessed saint Mary Magdalene,” Crowbeard said. “It’s the Queen.”

Towbray watched her ride effortlessly down the steepest point of the ridge.

A second, armoured rider came through the gap in the hedge. He had a lance and was flying…