“Please don’t think I’ve forgotten them. I just can’t fight them all right now.” The Red Knight had had no sleep for two nights and his eyes were red-rimmed and angry, although his tone remained mild. “As far as I can see, right now everything depends on the Emperor making it past Dorling before the sorcerer cuts the road. Then he has to choose to come towards us so that the sorcerer is merely chewing on his rearguard. You all remember that road—the sink holes, the deep woods.”

“The wyverns,” Ser Michael said.

“Exactly. And the same fords where the Sossag beat Hector.”

Kenneth Dhu bridled. “Hector Lachlan was no beaten!” he hissed.

Gabriel passed a hand over his eyes and rubbed his cheeks. “Fair enough. Where all the Hillmen were killed in a glorious stand.”

“Ye’re mockin’ us!” said Kenneth Dhu.

The captain glared at him. “May I continue?” he asked.

The younger man subsided.

“We do not want to fight this battle on that road. If we fight at Dorling we might have another kind of ally. If we fight at Albinkirk…” He looked around. “Well, that’s always been my plan and Ser John Crayford’s. To bring the sorcerer to battle in the fields around Albinkirk. We do not want to go fight him in the Wild. But—if the Emperor gets caught up at Dorling, then that’s where the fight will be, and those last forty leagues through the hills will be very difficult. The faster we move tomorrow and the next day, the more options we will have on Friday. That’s all I can say. So—I’m for bed. I’d like to leave at first light.”

They all groaned—even the Queen. But Desiderata rose and smiled radiantly at all of them.

“My captain’s words are my own orders,” she said. “Let us to bed.”

They rose, and bowed. The captain kissed her hand, and then the tent was empty save for a few—Gelfred, who waited to speak to his captain; Sukey, who wanted orders about the morning; and Blanche, who slipped back after seeing to her mistress—to try to speak to Sukey and return her gown.

Gabriel caught sight of her pale face and called Toby to him. “Do not allow Lady Blanche to leave—I wish to speak to her.”

Toby made a face.

The captain spent five minutes with Gelfred as they planned—minutely—the best route for the morrow.

“Weather?” the captain asked.

“With God’s grace, it should be splendid, or so my weather signs tell me.” Gelfred smiled.

“Good—we need some luck,” the captain said.

“Fortune is not God. It is God’s grace that maketh the sun to shine.” Gelfred spoke low and very firmly.

The captain nodded heavily.