The mood in camp was festive as the Queen dismounted and Ser Ranald caught her down and then held her arm as she swayed. Behind her, Rowan, the new Lorican wet-nurse, fed the baby, who had slept through the attack and all the consequent archery and sorcery and now looked around with wide-eyed curiosity at the adult exaltation.

The Red Knight bent his knee and kissed the Queen’s hand. “Another good victory for your grace,” he said.

“Another good victory for my captain,” she allowed. “Come, Ser Gabriel. I wish to read all the dispatches.”

“Grim reading, your grace,” he said, and motioned to Toby to start lighting candles in his pavilion. The Queen had acquired courtiers and new men—but he knew most of them and he also knew his sole power over her would not last long. Corcy was at her side, and that seemed well enough. There were two pretty younger men he didn’t know at all. And Towbray. The earl looked like a tired old falcon—bedraggled and yet still dangerous.

There was Blanche. Their eyes crossed, and she flushed, looked away, and frowned.

Damn.

Nicomedes laid out glasses and Alcaeus opened a leather pouch and stacked the messages in the neat imperial order of times and dates. Becca Almspend put a hand gently on the Queen’s arm and then pulled out her spectacles and began to read.

“You see? I’m not even allowed to read my own messages,” the Queen said.

“Not your own, your grace, but my master the Emperor’s,” Ser Alcaeus said. “Loaned to you perhaps.”

A frosty silence lay over the table.

“Alcaeus?” the captain said, in that particular voice.

A pause.

“My apologies, your grace. I felt a point needed to be made, but I have spoken ill.” Alcaeus’s voice was silky with twenty years of surviving various courts, but his brow sprung beads of sweat.

Lady Almspend looked up from the dispatches. “I’m sure we all know the debt of gratitude we owe the Emperor in these dark days,” she said.

Michael cleared his throat. Francis Atcourt looked out the pavilion wall at the suddenly fascinating tail end of the sunset.

“Right,” the Red Knight snapped. “We all love each other. And each other’s intelligence services.”

Ser Ranald laughed aloud. “I think you’ll love this particular well, my lord,” he said, and handed Ser Gabriel a small twist of parchment.

Gabriel laughed aloud. “Well, I for one am going to hell,” he said. “Because I find this delightful. Someone has gifted the archbishop six inches of steel—some sort of small crossbow bolt. I wonder how that might have come about?”

“Dead?” Michael asked. His eyes were on his father.