“Like the rest of us,” Gabriel said.

Tom nodded.

De Beause said, “I thought I was brave.” He sighed. “Now I find I’m afraid of death.”

“Join the club,” Gabriel said.

Tom frowned. “What ha’e ye.” He looked at Gabriel. “You fear death?”

“All the time,” Gabriel said. “Death, decay, humiliation, torture, agony, failure, success . . . you name it, I fear it.”

Tom grunted. “I misdoubt ye.”

Gabriel nodded, and smiled at de Beause. “Since you are alive, I need the household with me. Atcourt’s near run off his feet.”

“I need a new archer,” de Beause said. But he rose. “But I’m still game.”

“Take the bogglin,” Tom said.

De Beause smiled. “I will, at that,” he said. “I like the little bug. Do you mind having him in the casa?”

Gabriel shook his head. “I can thole him,” he said in Hillman cant.

His attempt at Hillman was lost on Tom. “Good,” the big man said. “I don’t suppose we’ll all fit on yer flyin’ beastie?”

“No. Get the company ready to move, and send the imperials along the road with the food shipment.” He waved at the Scholae. “I’m leaving Comnena and Michael with Blanche to garrison Arles. And run things.”

“Aye. Because?” Tom asked.

“Because Michael is my replacement as captain and Comnena is my replacement as emperor,” Gabriel said.

“Aye,” Tom said. “Ye should crown young George.”

Gabriel smiled. “I forget how close you Hillmen are to the empire,” he said. “I should.”

Tom grinned. “I ha’e a tanist. And I don’ ha’e the weight o’ the world on my back. Just some coos.”

Gabriel laughed. He really laughed, better than he had in days.

“Food?” Tom said.

“There’s a four-hundred-wagon train coming up the pass right now,” Gabriel said. “Didn’t you wonder where Sukey was, Tom?”

“She tol’ me not to ask,” Tom said with a secret smile. “We still on our dates for . . . you know. The gates?”

“As far as I know,” Gabriel said. “I didn’t expect to have refugees to feed. At least, not so many. Otherwise, all is well. I mean, except that Ash keeps winning and the Necromancer is out there and Harmodius thought a month ago that there was a third player, whose hand has not yet been seen. And the plague is undefeated. And anything else we’ve forgotten. Aside from all that, everything is fine.”

Tom laughed. “Well, I’d love to chat,” he said. “But I have a mort o’ work to do.”

Gabriel walked back to where Ariosto was polishing off the juicy hindquarters of what had once been a hefty bullock. No one followed him; the company remained the family it had always been, and he didn’t need courtiers here.

But there were two boys watching Ariosto. One offered to catch the griffon’s reins.

Gabriel smiled. “Don’t even think it,” he said.

The boys ran off and left him alone. Blessedly alone.

“You do kill them before you eat them?” he asked.