Duke Groverman and a full hundred knights were rushing up the hill with weapons drawn. Behind them ran commoners. Some looked furious, others dismayed. Some could not believe what had happened. Gaborn heard shouts, the hue and cry of “Murder, murder most foul!” and “Kill him!” and others shouting in wordless grief at the death of their King.

Young boys with scythes and sticks were running up the hill, their bloodless faces twisted in dismay.

Iome dropped to her knees, took her father’s head in her lap. She rocked back and forth, weeping. Her father’s blood was pumping out quickly through the huge wound, as if he were a steer being bled by a butcher. The blood pooled and mingled with the melting snow.

Things had happened so quickly, Gaborn just stood, dazed. His guard had killed the father of the woman he loved. Gaborn’s own life might well be in jeopardy.

Some here would see it as their duty to avenge House Sylvarresta. A tide of people swept toward Borenson. Some young men were stringing longbows.

Gaborn shouted, using all the power he could muster in his Voice, “Stop! Leave him to me!”

Borenson’s horse danced backward at the shout, and he fought to control the mount. Those nearest Gaborn all stopped expectantly. Others still rushed up the hill, unsure.

Iome looked down at her people, raised a hand for them to halt. Gaborn suspected that her command alone would not have stopped the mob, if Borenson were not such a deadly foe. But partly from fear, partly from respect for their Princess, the crowd advanced only falteringly, and some older and wiser lords near the front spread their arms, to hold the more hot-tempered men back.

Borenson glared at the mob in contempt, then flourished his hammer, pointing at Iome, and gazed into Gaborn’s eyes: “She should have died with the rest of them! By your father’s own orders!”

“He rescinded that order,” Gaborn said calmly, using all his training in the control of Voice, precisely repeating every studied inflection, so he could convey to Borenson that he spoke the truth.

Borenson’s mouth fell open in horror, for he was full of guilt, and Gaborn now laid it on him thicker. Almost, Gaborn imagined that he could hear the sneers that would be cast at Borenson’s back for years: “Butcher. Assassin. Kingslayer!”

Yet Gaborn could not speak anything but the truth, no matter how horrible it might be, no matter how it might destroy his friend. “My father rescinded that order, when I presented King Sylvarresta before him. He hugged the man as a friend dearer than a brother, and begged forgiveness!”

Gaborn pointed down with his spear at King Sylvarresta for effect.

If he had thought Borenson gone in madness before, now he became certain of it.

“Noooo!” Borenson howled, and tears filled eyes, eyes that now gazed past Gaborn’s head, at some private torment. “Noooo!”