Amicia shook her head. “You will need me tomorrow.”

Gabriel shook his head back. “Sister, everyone needs you. Your healing powers are beyond anything—anything. But you—you yourself—are the most potent relief force I can send to your convent.”

Very quietly, she said, “But you might die.”

Gabriel met her on the bridge. “If I die, Michael and Tom and Sauce will pull it out,” he said. “If Lissen Carak falls—then he opens the gates, doesn’t he, Amicia?”

She bit her lip—no mean feat in the aethereal.

“I think that’s what this is about,” she said. “The Abbess never told me.”

“I was in those tunnels,” Gabriel said. “I guessed then.”

Amicia met his eye. “There are other places. Lissen Carak is not the only one.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It’s the one I can prevent,” he said. “I think that the Faery Knight is against Thorn. I do not think Harmodius has turned. But Alcaeus thinks I’m naive.”

Amicia sighed. “I want to believe in Harmodius,” she allowed. “I will go to Lissen Carak.”

Gabriel said, “We can win this.”

Amicia nodded. “I want to believe you. But is it not a basic tenant of war not to divide your forces? And are you not dividing yourself in every direction?”

He grinned. “Oh, dear Amicia. Yes. But I must divide you now to have a chance to combine you all later.”

She shook her head, and he left her, however much his soul cried out for him to stay—

Gabriel looked around. “So—tomorrow. Daybreak—one hour. Three battles. Ser Michael with the company in the van. Ser Ranald with the Royal Guard in the main body with the Queen, the young King, and any men of Lorica who will accompany us. Ser Gerald with the rearguard, commanding all the Harndoners we can raise.”

Ser Gerald narrowed his eyes. “If Gelfred is right—and I’m sure he is—he’s got two days of entrenchments behind which to cower. How are you going to get a battle we can win?”

The Red Knight laughed. “De Vrailly sent us a herald. I’m going to challenge him to battle.”

Chapter Eleven

Pennons flapped and flags waved. It was a beautiful late spring in the Brogat.

“I still think that we were better behind our stockades, and bastions,” the archbishop said.

“He challenged us,” Jean de Vrailly said. He was a figure of shining steel, towering over the archbishop who had chosen to wear his state robes of purple and ermine.

“Let him wear himself out against our walls,” the archbishop said, with a certain whine.

“He challenged us,” Jean de Vrailly said again.

“I don’t think that—”