He rode back to di Laternum, who had the goodwife out of the water and had, himself, waded into the mud and retrieved the mangled corpse of one of her children. The other was, of course, gone. Cully had an arrow on every string—and had the wagon out of the water, for which incredible engineering feat No Head received Gavin’s terse and hurried thanks. Two horses from the wagon team were coyote food, and two were exhausted but alive.

The goodwife, a solid woman who had seen many defeats, was sunk in her grief. Ser Gavin rode up to her—at a loss. She knelt in the road next to the appallingly small bundle that was her dead second daughter.

“I made her,” she said. “I made ’em all, and I sweated blood, and I love ’em. Oh, blessed Virgin, why?” She looked up at the knight. “You came to rescue us?”

Ser Gavin had seen enough grief to know the anger was a part of it.

“Into the wagon,” he said gruffly. “We’ll mourn tomorrow. Tonight, we live.”

“I’m not—” the woman said, but whatever she was not, her eldest daughter took her elbow and moved her to the wagon.

“But Jenna! We can’t leave Jenna to get ate!” she wailed.

Her eldest son, without even a flirtation with hesitation, scooped up the bloody linen shawl that held his sister’s corporeal remains and carried it—tenderly—to the wagon.

Cuddy had the heads of both horses. They were weak and twitchy and deeply scared.

Ser Gavin reined in.

Cuddy waved him off. “I’m gonna walk with ’em.”

“We’re going back,” Ser Gavin said. “For the captain.”

“Course we are,” Cuddy said.

“Amen to that,” No Head agreed.

Gavin wanted to gallop down the road. There were ten minutes of useful light left, and something was making noise north of the marsh.

It made him want to cry, deep inside, that he was learning to lead men from his brother—the brother whose effeminacy he’d mocked throughout his youth. But he took the time to turn his horse and clap a hand on di Laternum’s arm as the wagon began to move. “Well done,” he said.

The Etruscan boy—he looked like a boy now, with dark circles under haunted eyes—shrugged. “I scarcely did a thing, my lord,” he said. “Cully…”

Ser Gavin managed a hard smile. “Listen to Cully. But think for yourself, too.” He gave the boy a crisp and very real salute, hand to his visor, and cantered off east to find his brother. He still didn’t know if his wonderful, terrible brother was alive or dead.

And only now could he let himself wonder.

Zac had a cordon around the tree, and he’d found the shaman’s feather cloak and the pieces of his axe.