He had pain in both knees after years in the saddle, and marching, and fighting hand to hand, and his bowels were uncertain now. One sword wound, in the thigh, hurt him at night, routinely. It came, like an unwanted guest to a banquet, when he lay down in the dark of a field tent. He was the banquet, he sometimes thought, the wound come to devour him.

But during the day, most of the time, he felt entirely capable. He had lived with his injuries a long time, knew them well, and he had tasks to do, for his country and the god.

He was now in a place he knew from childhood. The de Vaux lands lay not far from where they were, just a little to the east and then north. He could have been at his own castle in a long day’s ride. He had thought about sending his wife and children there, but Orane was safer: the Anglcyn were burning where they went.

He even understood about that.

King Hardan, aside from having a lust for blood (which he did), would be terrified right now. Indeed, depending on what happened when the two armies met, if they met, he had made the sort of mistake that could end a reign and a life. He should have sailed home, even in failure, Robbin de Vaux thought, even with a great many dead at sea and ships lost.

But, the constable admitted to himself, he really did not have a clear picture of the Anglcyn court across the channel. There would surely be rivalries and ambitious men, just as there were here. It was possible that Hardan could not safely go home without some sort of victory to claim.

It was Robbin de Vaux’s task and intent to ensure that did not happen. Right now, accordingly, he needed to know where Jeanette de Broché and her so-called army were. And he didn’t.

He had a better sense now, from his advance riders crossing and recrossing wet and muddy terrain, as to the location of the Anglcyn. Which was more than a little strange, he thought.

There were noblemen in his own army who would not be unhappy if he failed. They could step in, they’d be thinking, even as they nodded sagely during his evening briefings and orders. They could save their beloved, beleaguered country after an incompetent constable’s disasters: the cavalry of the lords of Ferrieres, glittering and gallant, surging like another storm wave to smash the infantry and archers of the invaders from the sea, winning great glory. Such matter for songs!

Robbin de Vaux would happily have had half of them disembowelled. Ferrieres had been a victim of this preening vanity so many times in this long conflict. War as a game of lords—lordlings!—who viewed it solely in terms of themselves and their advancement. Laurels for the cavalry! And rank! And wealth!