“In Orane? I’ll leave that to you.” He paused. “I’ll set out in the morning. We’ll want to pick our battlefield.”

And with that, Thierry abruptly had another thought. A dark one. Although almost, he thought, poetic.

“I have an idea,” he said. “If I may?” The two men looked at him, waiting. Waiting for him.

He cleared his throat and told them.

There was a silence.

“I admit I’m surprised, Villar,” said Robbin de Vaux, finally.

“A battle is better? War is?” Thierry asked. But he felt deeply uneasy with what he’d just said.

“Not really. Perhaps not at all. Very well. Medor, set this in motion, too. Just in case. Use fast riders and horses. Choose a good place. Keep me posted.”

He left them. To ready an army.

Thierry looked at Medor Colle. He felt shaken now. The presence of darkness, a shadow crossing the sun. “You all right?”

Medor nodded. “I’m less surprised than he was, Thierry.” Using his name again. “It is a shrewd thought.”

“That’s the word we’re using? Shrewd?” He really was unsettled, he realized. Who was he to be suggesting such things?

“May save many lives.”

“Or none.”

“We are supposed to know? Shall we ask my uncle? He won’t know either. He’ll say as much.”

Thierry looked away and then back. “What should I do now?”

“Be where I can find you. I think…I haven’t really had time to think, but if we do this, it may make sense for you to be there.”

“Me?” He hadn’t expected that.

“Yes. Work it through. When you have time. If any of us have enough time.”

A dismissal, but not a cold one. But at the door Thierry took a breath and turned back.

“I need to say another thing,” he said. Medor’s expression from behind the desk quickly became remote, unreadable. Such a defended man, Thierry thought.

Another deep breath. This was difficult. He said, “Medor, whatever you do or are, I don’t care. You are my friend. I said that at Chervaux.”

A pause so long he thought there would be no answer. That he would walk out having ended any illusion of friendship.

Then, “That’s the trouble, perhaps? That you don’t care.” Medor cleared his throat. “We should both attend to…I need to do many things right now.”

Thierry turned again to go, then turned back a second time. He had begun this.

“I need to know. Or to ask. Can you still accept me as a friend? I will be loyal until death. I think…I think you know it.”

Medor stared at him, unblinking. Then, after what seemed another terrifying interval, his slow smile returned.

“I can still use one of those,” he said.

Thierry found himself able to breathe again.

“Good,” he said. “Thank you.”