Alcaeus looked at them with interest. “Do they really do your laundry in the middle of the night?” he asked. “And how is the sweet lady laundress? What a beauty.”

“What a mouth,” Gabriel said, hoping to head him off.

Alcaeus laughed. “She has wit. I fancy her. Bah—at any rate. I have birds and birds—message on message. But first, from our dear friend in Harndon.”

He handed Gabriel a folded scrap of parchment, and Gabriel flipped it open and held it to the flames for light. It was Kronmir’s hand.

The city is ours when we wish it. The archbishop employs a potent sorcerer, Master Gilles. Say the word and I can dispose of him. I am now the chief of intelligence for his eminence. There is word that the Galles have suffered a terrible defeat against some Wild opponent in Arelat. The Etruscan and Hoek merchants are in panic.

I believe that his eminence is in contact with our other foe.

A factor here has told me that the Emperor is planning to take the field in person.

I await orders. A very sticky, but fascinating problem, is it not?

Gabriel sipped his wine. “You’ve read it,” he said.

“Ten times,” Alcaeus said. “You trust him?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said.

Alcaeus made a motion of the lips that suggested that his captain was naive, and perhaps shouldn’t be trusted out alone after dark.

Toby appeared. “It’s getting chilly,” he said, and laid the captain’s red cloak over his shoulders.

Gabriel got the message. Boy, you are the finest squire who has ever lived, he thought.

He breathed in, hoping her scent would be on his cloak, but in truth, he smelled only horse sweat and wood smoke.

I want her.

Mother would be so proud. Damn her.

The pang—he still forgot that she was dead for whole minutes at a time—came back like a fist in the stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Alcaeus asked.

Gabriel shrugged. “I trust him because I’ve given him scope to play a bigger game. The biggest.”

Alcaeus nodded. “You read men well,” he said.

“The Emperor?” Gabriel asked. He was very tired.

“The Emperor has left his daughter Irene at Liviapolis with a skeleton guard, and he and Ser Milus are marching past Middleburg.” Alcaeus took the cup from Gabriel and drank.

Not long ago, it was Blanche drinking from that cup.

Oh, Amicia, am I so fickle?

But you said no. So often.

I know you don’t mean it.

Or that you do.

“So—we can take Harndon behind de Vrailly.”

“I don’t think de Vrailly is in command,” Alcaeus said. Toby opened a folding stool behind him, and he sat. The ground by his side was empty, the sheets gone. Nell put a second stool behind Gelfred.