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Chapter 18
The Return
 

This is what we do. This is who we are.

—Becket

It would not be enough, John thought, but it would be all that they could do.

It was the light. It was always the light.

By himself, as John of Redhook, light was just the way of, well, seeing things. By himself, as the Goatboy, light was something of memory, while he waited in the warm dark.

Together, it was something else. John had never noticed flickering stars above shone down with the light that was not merely a dim white, but subtly colored with attenuated reds and oranges of distant stars. The Goatboy had, back when he had a body of his own. Yes, the Goatboy had been a goatboy, not a shepherd, but after a long day of hearing the goats to and from the baron's pens, he had upon occasion taken his meal up away from the keep, and up onto the hills overlooking Llwinderw. Serf he had been, yes, and a landless one at that, but he had long since been uncollared.

And his eyesight had been keen, in his youth. He had no book learning, and the only names that any of the stars that he knew were the ones that he had given them. But he remembered.

The colors were all the more when the two of them were one then they had ever been separately. How could John have never noticed the colors at all, or the Goatboy thought them dim and faded? It wasn't just the stars above—the night did not rob any colors; it merely hid them. The lush green of the meadow, stained and scarred with the burned yellow where the sheep had relieved themselves; a million different browns of the bushes. And not just the colors of nature—but those of humans. There was something beautiful about the colors in a human face—whether it was the clear and dusky complexion of young Sir Niko, or even the florid redness of the burst veins in Fotheringay's nose.

But the best of the colors were the ones that they felt, rather than saw. There were those who said that the difference between the whiteness of a White Sword and the redness of a Red was meaningless. Those had never seen with the two of them, joined into one, could now see: the rich and fiery and frightening redness of the union of Niko and Nadide, blazing to their right as they circled about the Amadan Dubh, orbiting his foul blackness while Goatboy and Sir John blazed white, white and pure, their light stopped but inches away from the foul blackness of the mad piper.

And it was not just their own light. Light flowed from the stars above, and from the world around them, filling their muscles and nerves and bones with a fire that was something of pleasure, something of pain, and everything of much more.

It is your clothes, your clothes I am washing, the pipes sang. And it was a lie. Oh, the dark piper was not without power; as had been the case for young Sir Niko, they were trapped in real time, not the fast time that had been the final astonishment for the butchers of the Kush.

They raised the sword that was not merely the Goatboy anymore above their head, and beat down upon the blackness. Again, and again—

But that was not enough.

So they burn hotter, and brighter. Hotter and brighter than they ever had before; once, in the Kush, they had let their joined flame burn almost as bright, almost as hot.

But that would not be enough. Maybe there would not be such thing as enough.

If they had been separate minds, of separate souls, they would have discussed it, they would have decided to keep beating down upon the darkness, not because it was written that the light would conquer the dark—although it surely was written—but because they could not retreat from the foulness. Leave the madness behind them? Try again in some other way on some other day?

No. They let their white flame grow brighter and brighter, aware of the damage that it was doing to both steel and body, but not caring.

The dark would fall before the light.

And yet it did not. No matter how hot they burned, how bright their light shone, it stopped at the edge of the darkness, and the pipes played on.

So they burned brighter, and hotter, knowing that it would not be enough.

It was always the same; but it was always different. Breathing was difficult, almost impossible; in the slow red time, his heart pumped hard, but too slowly, in his chest. His body—their body—obeyed as quickly as it possibly could, but mere fleshy muscles could only move it so fast, and recover only too slowly.

Sir John would take the dark piper from the front; Niko ran across the meadow, trying to circle around.

Through his wax-clogged ears, the notes of the piper reached him, but they were just notes, the slow dirge becoming merely a long wail that barely reached their mind, and touched their heart and soul not one whit.

It was always the same; but it was always different. This time, they did have their speed, but as they tried to wheel around, the soles of Niko's boots slipped on the grass, his feet shooting out from beneath him.

He could almost hear the dark piper smile, but he caught the fall on his left elbow, and didn't for a moment release his clamped grip on Nadide's steel, the grip that kept them one.

He sprung back to his feet, to their feet, letting their fear and anger turn all red and steely.

And the dark piper but laughed.

The notes of his pipe came faster and faster, and while Niko did not know how, they spoke to him: Run, rabbit run. You can still escape from the trap, they lied.

He wasn't sure how he knew it, but with the piper concentrating upon him, the others had been released from its spell. The dim spark of Sigerson flared across the meadow, and beat down against the blackness—

But it was like sparks from a campfire extinguishing themselves in a lake. No effect at all.

They reached inward, and outward, and let their fire burn until their redness was almost as bright, almost as painful, almost as shattering as the White flame from Sir John and the Goatboy.

But it wasn't enough.

Very well; so be it. Let there be more.

His legs failed him as the pipes became nearly music, and not strings pulling his muscles; Becket fell to the grass. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might have heard or felt bones snap in his right foot, but it didn't matter.

He crawled across the ground, fingers tearing at grass and soil, toward the Amadan Dubh. It would have been nice to have had some help from his traitor legs, from his useless knees, from the shattered feet, but what of that? He had hands, and gripping the soil forced grit and grass beneath his fingernails, what of that?

His eyes were closed against the brightness of the white and the red, but he didn't need eyes. He didn't need legs. He had hands, and he had his swords in his sash.

But it wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't have been enough if he were a quarter century younger, legs like wooden pilings, the strings that he'd had in youth.

But what was it? It was what a knight could give: everything he had.

Becket pulled himself along.

The moment had come. And the moment had found Sigerson wanting. It was one thing to let the magic and the madness wash about him; it was quite another to relieve it. Three steps forward, two to the side, and he could deflect it about Bigglesworth, and McPhee, as well as Fotheringay and Becket.

But that was all he had.

Even through his jammed-shut eyelids, the light was blinding, but it was not enough, either. The darkness expanded—slowly, painfully, hesitantly, yes—but it expanded nonetheless.

What fools they had all been. They had not been hunting the Amadan Dubh; it had been hunting them, and waiting for them to assemble all in the right place, all in the right time. And now the trap was sprung, and while Sigerson had a high opinion of himself, he knew it was not for him. It was for the knights.

And not just one—and not just two. Three knights of the Order; two of them with live swords. They were the prey; Sigerson and the others were merely dessert.

And who would set such a trap?

There was one; but he should have been long dead.

Gray never knew how long it had been, or how far he had fallen. Not that it mattered; but it would have been nice to know.

He landed hard, on his side, in the dark. Sounds of the pipes pervaded his mind, and it was with his last bit of self-control that he got the Khan into his hand.

We live again.

They were one, once again. Sharper, brighter, and darker than ever before, more alive, and more real.

It was wonderful. It was wonderful to have flesh again, and not merely be imprisoned in the cold steel, and it was every bit as wonderful to be freed of the fleshy prison of the crippled body of Sir Joshua Grayling.

He was, once again, more than a sword, far more than human, and that could be but the beginning.

Where was he? Even the Gray Khan didn't know—although he knew some of the others. Some were strange, but Gray's companions—well, they could have felt them if they hadn't seen them, as they fell across the meadow, trapped in their slow time, while their fires burned.

All of them were there: Father Cully, the girl Penelope—and even Sir Guy and Albert, flaming into white incandescence more in his mind than in his eyes.

And not just them. Two others beat down against the blackness, and there was no mystery as to who they were. He had seen the dim red of Niko and Nadide on two occasions before. He had never before been present when Sir John had drawn the Goatboy—it had been Sir Robert Linsen who had carried the Goatboy at Vlaovic, after all, and who had reduced Gray's pitiful little bit of justice against the rebels to something far less than the Gray Khan would have enjoyed—the Gray Khan knew the Goatboy's flame as well as he did that of the Nameless.

You could say or feel what you would about the vapidity of those silly saints, but each of them was distinctive, just as each of the true swords, the Red Swords was.

But the greatest joy was the darkness. It huddled at the center of the meadow, beating back both the White and the Red.

How wonderful. No, there was nothing of wonder in its stinking blackness—there was nothing of joy in its corruption and madness. But it was strong; it was powerful. It could resist the power of both Nadide and the Goatboy, and even adding the pallid white light of Albert would be no match for it.

It was, after all, what both Gray and the Khan had always wanted: an opponent worthy of the fullness of their power, and their glory.

And it was only a minor irritation that Father Cully stood before him, before them, his mouth moving slowly, his face creased in concern, his eyes wide. They had been through this before; and the part of them that was Gray had been weak. This time, they would not be so weak—but handling Father Cully could wait until the dark enemy was handled.

He could have fought with himself over whether or not to strike Cully down, but there was no point in that, no point in battling with himself. That could wait for later.

After all, Cully was just a human, and hardly a foe worth thinking of; let the strength that was the Khan and the sentimentality that was Gray work that out later. It didn't matter what they decided; what mattered was the dark piper.

It was the work of but a heartbeat to step to one side, to slip away from Cully, and to bring all that they were to bear on the darkness.

Vlaovic—hah. Linfield—nothing. Bring down the darkness upon this darkness, and let the world know of the power and the glory of the Gray Khan.

They let the redness build within them, and poured it out into the darkness, beating back, further and further, as the hymn of power within them, saying a louder and purer song with every passing moment.

"No," Cully shouted.

But it was, as the Wise had said, too late. Gray slipped to his right, seeming to gain in size and strength as he moved.

But it was different, this time. The last time that Cully had seen Gray take the Khan in hand, the light had been blindingly red. This time, it was red enough, but there was a darkness mixed with the light that chilled his heart more than blinded his eyes.

The grass beneath Cully's feet began to curdle, to twist and grow, thin blackened fingers reaching out to grasp at his boots, trying to anchor him in place.

The sword was in his hand, and he hacked at the grass with every step.

"Joshua, no." There was no doubt in his mind that Gray and the Khan could destroy the Amadan Dubh—but at what price? Turn all of—

—Oh my God. They were on Colonsay, just miles from the Scottish coast. How far would the destruction go? Just over the island? To Islay on the mainland? And could it stop there? Would it stop there?

No. Madness and magic from the Amadan Dubh was a bad thing, a horrid thing, a terrible thing—no question of that. But to lay waste to how much? To how many?

There were worse things than defeat; a victory that would blacken the soil for miles, perhaps hundred miles, was one of them.

The Wise had done them no favor by bringing them here. Why had he done that?

"Joshua, Joshua—you must stop."

But the flame, the horrid red and black flame, grew brighter.

And the pipes played louder.

It is my shirt, and your shirt, and his shirt, and all their shirts that I am washing, the pipes said.

Madness.

"Joshua, Joshua—as you love me, stop."

There was but one thing to do. And Sir Cully of Cully's Woode, sworn knight of the Order of Crown, Shield, and Dragon, did it.

It had begun slowly, and was all over in a moment.

Niko found himself standing in the predawn light of the clearing. He never did remember how—or why—he had sheathed Nadide, but she was in her sheath, and in his sash.

The dead were scattered about the clearing. Sir John's body was still smouldering, and the breeze brought the horrible smell of cooked flesh to Niko's nostrils. It was all he could do not to retch.

Nor was Sir John the only one.

Niko knelt beside Becket. He was unmarked—Niko felt for a pulse at his throat, hoping.

No. The body was already cold.

All of the rest, save two, had fallen, but some of them were still breathing—the girl, Sigerson, Bigglesworth, a local whom Niko didn't recognize.

Sir John was dead; Sir Guy was dead; Sir Martin was dead; and Sir Cully wept over Gray's body.

That left Sir Niko in charge. He should do something, he knew, but he wasn't quite sure what. Becket wasn't there to tell him, after all, and he didn't know.

Fotheringay stood over the smoking heap of black robes, idly wiping his dagger back and forth on his sleeve. Their eyes met, briefly, and Fotheringay just nodded.

Part of Niko wanted to laugh. Two knights of the Order—a Red and a White—and then two more, one of each, and who had done for the Amadan Dubh?

Nigel Fotheringay, of course.

Fotheringay's lips moved. But Niko didn't need to hear the words to know what they were.

"Just doin' me duty, young sir." It was a rare moment that Fotheringay allowed himself an expression that wasn't bland, as he kicked the body of the Amadan Dubh. "King tol' me to watch his back, you bloody git. Didn't tell me not to put a knife in yours."

But it wasn't a day for laughter, as Cully knelt over the body of Sir Joshua Graying, the Khan lying inert on the grass, with Cully's own bloodied sword behind it.

"No."

Niko turned at the sound of Sigerson's voice.

The wizard looked much the worse for wear. "It could have been worse," he said. "But it's not a good day at all." He looked out to the sea. "If I've read this aright, it's as bad a day as there's been in closer to a millenium than far from it." He cocked his head. "Have you any ideas what we ought to do, Sir Niko?"

"Gather the swords—but don't touch them with your hands."

The obvious thing to do was to make for Alton, and the Order, but they had already done the obvious.

"Nigel."

"Yes, Sir Niko?"

"Get Cully on his feet. We're going to get moving."

"Yes, Sir Niko. Would you mind me asking where?"

That was obvious, but there was no reason not to state the obvious. "The Lady, Nigel. We're going to see Her."

Fotheringay nodded, but he didn't move right away. "Thought so. Mind me asking a favor? If it isn't too much trouble?"

"Go ahead."

"I wouldn't want you to stay your hand, mind, and I wouldn't ask that, sir. But if it turns out to be convenient, you think maybe you could try to arrange for me to do for whoever it was that killed Sir John?" Fotheringay shrugged. "I'll confess that I'm a sentimental man, and I was passingly fond of the good knight."

"We'll see," Sir Niko said. "Enough talk; we need to get to a boat, and get to the mainland. Quickly."

"Yes, Sir Niko."

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Framed

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Chapter 18
The Return
 

This is what we do. This is who we are.

—Becket

It would not be enough, John thought, but it would be all that they could do.

It was the light. It was always the light.

By himself, as John of Redhook, light was just the way of, well, seeing things. By himself, as the Goatboy, light was something of memory, while he waited in the warm dark.

Together, it was something else. John had never noticed flickering stars above shone down with the light that was not merely a dim white, but subtly colored with attenuated reds and oranges of distant stars. The Goatboy had, back when he had a body of his own. Yes, the Goatboy had been a goatboy, not a shepherd, but after a long day of hearing the goats to and from the baron's pens, he had upon occasion taken his meal up away from the keep, and up onto the hills overlooking Llwinderw. Serf he had been, yes, and a landless one at that, but he had long since been uncollared.

And his eyesight had been keen, in his youth. He had no book learning, and the only names that any of the stars that he knew were the ones that he had given them. But he remembered.

The colors were all the more when the two of them were one then they had ever been separately. How could John have never noticed the colors at all, or the Goatboy thought them dim and faded? It wasn't just the stars above—the night did not rob any colors; it merely hid them. The lush green of the meadow, stained and scarred with the burned yellow where the sheep had relieved themselves; a million different browns of the bushes. And not just the colors of nature—but those of humans. There was something beautiful about the colors in a human face—whether it was the clear and dusky complexion of young Sir Niko, or even the florid redness of the burst veins in Fotheringay's nose.

But the best of the colors were the ones that they felt, rather than saw. There were those who said that the difference between the whiteness of a White Sword and the redness of a Red was meaningless. Those had never seen with the two of them, joined into one, could now see: the rich and fiery and frightening redness of the union of Niko and Nadide, blazing to their right as they circled about the Amadan Dubh, orbiting his foul blackness while Goatboy and Sir John blazed white, white and pure, their light stopped but inches away from the foul blackness of the mad piper.

And it was not just their own light. Light flowed from the stars above, and from the world around them, filling their muscles and nerves and bones with a fire that was something of pleasure, something of pain, and everything of much more.

It is your clothes, your clothes I am washing, the pipes sang. And it was a lie. Oh, the dark piper was not without power; as had been the case for young Sir Niko, they were trapped in real time, not the fast time that had been the final astonishment for the butchers of the Kush.

They raised the sword that was not merely the Goatboy anymore above their head, and beat down upon the blackness. Again, and again—

But that was not enough.

So they burn hotter, and brighter. Hotter and brighter than they ever had before; once, in the Kush, they had let their joined flame burn almost as bright, almost as hot.

But that would not be enough. Maybe there would not be such thing as enough.

If they had been separate minds, of separate souls, they would have discussed it, they would have decided to keep beating down upon the darkness, not because it was written that the light would conquer the dark—although it surely was written—but because they could not retreat from the foulness. Leave the madness behind them? Try again in some other way on some other day?

No. They let their white flame grow brighter and brighter, aware of the damage that it was doing to both steel and body, but not caring.

The dark would fall before the light.

And yet it did not. No matter how hot they burned, how bright their light shone, it stopped at the edge of the darkness, and the pipes played on.

So they burned brighter, and hotter, knowing that it would not be enough.

It was always the same; but it was always different. Breathing was difficult, almost impossible; in the slow red time, his heart pumped hard, but too slowly, in his chest. His body—their body—obeyed as quickly as it possibly could, but mere fleshy muscles could only move it so fast, and recover only too slowly.

Sir John would take the dark piper from the front; Niko ran across the meadow, trying to circle around.

Through his wax-clogged ears, the notes of the piper reached him, but they were just notes, the slow dirge becoming merely a long wail that barely reached their mind, and touched their heart and soul not one whit.

It was always the same; but it was always different. This time, they did have their speed, but as they tried to wheel around, the soles of Niko's boots slipped on the grass, his feet shooting out from beneath him.

He could almost hear the dark piper smile, but he caught the fall on his left elbow, and didn't for a moment release his clamped grip on Nadide's steel, the grip that kept them one.

He sprung back to his feet, to their feet, letting their fear and anger turn all red and steely.

And the dark piper but laughed.

The notes of his pipe came faster and faster, and while Niko did not know how, they spoke to him: Run, rabbit run. You can still escape from the trap, they lied.

He wasn't sure how he knew it, but with the piper concentrating upon him, the others had been released from its spell. The dim spark of Sigerson flared across the meadow, and beat down against the blackness—

But it was like sparks from a campfire extinguishing themselves in a lake. No effect at all.

They reached inward, and outward, and let their fire burn until their redness was almost as bright, almost as painful, almost as shattering as the White flame from Sir John and the Goatboy.

But it wasn't enough.

Very well; so be it. Let there be more.

His legs failed him as the pipes became nearly music, and not strings pulling his muscles; Becket fell to the grass. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might have heard or felt bones snap in his right foot, but it didn't matter.

He crawled across the ground, fingers tearing at grass and soil, toward the Amadan Dubh. It would have been nice to have had some help from his traitor legs, from his useless knees, from the shattered feet, but what of that? He had hands, and gripping the soil forced grit and grass beneath his fingernails, what of that?

His eyes were closed against the brightness of the white and the red, but he didn't need eyes. He didn't need legs. He had hands, and he had his swords in his sash.

But it wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't have been enough if he were a quarter century younger, legs like wooden pilings, the strings that he'd had in youth.

But what was it? It was what a knight could give: everything he had.

Becket pulled himself along.

The moment had come. And the moment had found Sigerson wanting. It was one thing to let the magic and the madness wash about him; it was quite another to relieve it. Three steps forward, two to the side, and he could deflect it about Bigglesworth, and McPhee, as well as Fotheringay and Becket.

But that was all he had.

Even through his jammed-shut eyelids, the light was blinding, but it was not enough, either. The darkness expanded—slowly, painfully, hesitantly, yes—but it expanded nonetheless.

What fools they had all been. They had not been hunting the Amadan Dubh; it had been hunting them, and waiting for them to assemble all in the right place, all in the right time. And now the trap was sprung, and while Sigerson had a high opinion of himself, he knew it was not for him. It was for the knights.

And not just one—and not just two. Three knights of the Order; two of them with live swords. They were the prey; Sigerson and the others were merely dessert.

And who would set such a trap?

There was one; but he should have been long dead.

Gray never knew how long it had been, or how far he had fallen. Not that it mattered; but it would have been nice to know.

He landed hard, on his side, in the dark. Sounds of the pipes pervaded his mind, and it was with his last bit of self-control that he got the Khan into his hand.

We live again.

They were one, once again. Sharper, brighter, and darker than ever before, more alive, and more real.

It was wonderful. It was wonderful to have flesh again, and not merely be imprisoned in the cold steel, and it was every bit as wonderful to be freed of the fleshy prison of the crippled body of Sir Joshua Grayling.

He was, once again, more than a sword, far more than human, and that could be but the beginning.

Where was he? Even the Gray Khan didn't know—although he knew some of the others. Some were strange, but Gray's companions—well, they could have felt them if they hadn't seen them, as they fell across the meadow, trapped in their slow time, while their fires burned.

All of them were there: Father Cully, the girl Penelope—and even Sir Guy and Albert, flaming into white incandescence more in his mind than in his eyes.

And not just them. Two others beat down against the blackness, and there was no mystery as to who they were. He had seen the dim red of Niko and Nadide on two occasions before. He had never before been present when Sir John had drawn the Goatboy—it had been Sir Robert Linsen who had carried the Goatboy at Vlaovic, after all, and who had reduced Gray's pitiful little bit of justice against the rebels to something far less than the Gray Khan would have enjoyed—the Gray Khan knew the Goatboy's flame as well as he did that of the Nameless.

You could say or feel what you would about the vapidity of those silly saints, but each of them was distinctive, just as each of the true swords, the Red Swords was.

But the greatest joy was the darkness. It huddled at the center of the meadow, beating back both the White and the Red.

How wonderful. No, there was nothing of wonder in its stinking blackness—there was nothing of joy in its corruption and madness. But it was strong; it was powerful. It could resist the power of both Nadide and the Goatboy, and even adding the pallid white light of Albert would be no match for it.

It was, after all, what both Gray and the Khan had always wanted: an opponent worthy of the fullness of their power, and their glory.

And it was only a minor irritation that Father Cully stood before him, before them, his mouth moving slowly, his face creased in concern, his eyes wide. They had been through this before; and the part of them that was Gray had been weak. This time, they would not be so weak—but handling Father Cully could wait until the dark enemy was handled.

He could have fought with himself over whether or not to strike Cully down, but there was no point in that, no point in battling with himself. That could wait for later.

After all, Cully was just a human, and hardly a foe worth thinking of; let the strength that was the Khan and the sentimentality that was Gray work that out later. It didn't matter what they decided; what mattered was the dark piper.

It was the work of but a heartbeat to step to one side, to slip away from Cully, and to bring all that they were to bear on the darkness.

Vlaovic—hah. Linfield—nothing. Bring down the darkness upon this darkness, and let the world know of the power and the glory of the Gray Khan.

They let the redness build within them, and poured it out into the darkness, beating back, further and further, as the hymn of power within them, saying a louder and purer song with every passing moment.

"No," Cully shouted.

But it was, as the Wise had said, too late. Gray slipped to his right, seeming to gain in size and strength as he moved.

But it was different, this time. The last time that Cully had seen Gray take the Khan in hand, the light had been blindingly red. This time, it was red enough, but there was a darkness mixed with the light that chilled his heart more than blinded his eyes.

The grass beneath Cully's feet began to curdle, to twist and grow, thin blackened fingers reaching out to grasp at his boots, trying to anchor him in place.

The sword was in his hand, and he hacked at the grass with every step.

"Joshua, no." There was no doubt in his mind that Gray and the Khan could destroy the Amadan Dubh—but at what price? Turn all of—

—Oh my God. They were on Colonsay, just miles from the Scottish coast. How far would the destruction go? Just over the island? To Islay on the mainland? And could it stop there? Would it stop there?

No. Madness and magic from the Amadan Dubh was a bad thing, a horrid thing, a terrible thing—no question of that. But to lay waste to how much? To how many?

There were worse things than defeat; a victory that would blacken the soil for miles, perhaps hundred miles, was one of them.

The Wise had done them no favor by bringing them here. Why had he done that?

"Joshua, Joshua—you must stop."

But the flame, the horrid red and black flame, grew brighter.

And the pipes played louder.

It is my shirt, and your shirt, and his shirt, and all their shirts that I am washing, the pipes said.

Madness.

"Joshua, Joshua—as you love me, stop."

There was but one thing to do. And Sir Cully of Cully's Woode, sworn knight of the Order of Crown, Shield, and Dragon, did it.

It had begun slowly, and was all over in a moment.

Niko found himself standing in the predawn light of the clearing. He never did remember how—or why—he had sheathed Nadide, but she was in her sheath, and in his sash.

The dead were scattered about the clearing. Sir John's body was still smouldering, and the breeze brought the horrible smell of cooked flesh to Niko's nostrils. It was all he could do not to retch.

Nor was Sir John the only one.

Niko knelt beside Becket. He was unmarked—Niko felt for a pulse at his throat, hoping.

No. The body was already cold.

All of the rest, save two, had fallen, but some of them were still breathing—the girl, Sigerson, Bigglesworth, a local whom Niko didn't recognize.

Sir John was dead; Sir Guy was dead; Sir Martin was dead; and Sir Cully wept over Gray's body.

That left Sir Niko in charge. He should do something, he knew, but he wasn't quite sure what. Becket wasn't there to tell him, after all, and he didn't know.

Fotheringay stood over the smoking heap of black robes, idly wiping his dagger back and forth on his sleeve. Their eyes met, briefly, and Fotheringay just nodded.

Part of Niko wanted to laugh. Two knights of the Order—a Red and a White—and then two more, one of each, and who had done for the Amadan Dubh?

Nigel Fotheringay, of course.

Fotheringay's lips moved. But Niko didn't need to hear the words to know what they were.

"Just doin' me duty, young sir." It was a rare moment that Fotheringay allowed himself an expression that wasn't bland, as he kicked the body of the Amadan Dubh. "King tol' me to watch his back, you bloody git. Didn't tell me not to put a knife in yours."

But it wasn't a day for laughter, as Cully knelt over the body of Sir Joshua Graying, the Khan lying inert on the grass, with Cully's own bloodied sword behind it.

"No."

Niko turned at the sound of Sigerson's voice.

The wizard looked much the worse for wear. "It could have been worse," he said. "But it's not a good day at all." He looked out to the sea. "If I've read this aright, it's as bad a day as there's been in closer to a millenium than far from it." He cocked his head. "Have you any ideas what we ought to do, Sir Niko?"

"Gather the swords—but don't touch them with your hands."

The obvious thing to do was to make for Alton, and the Order, but they had already done the obvious.

"Nigel."

"Yes, Sir Niko?"

"Get Cully on his feet. We're going to get moving."

"Yes, Sir Niko. Would you mind me asking where?"

That was obvious, but there was no reason not to state the obvious. "The Lady, Nigel. We're going to see Her."

Fotheringay nodded, but he didn't move right away. "Thought so. Mind me asking a favor? If it isn't too much trouble?"

"Go ahead."

"I wouldn't want you to stay your hand, mind, and I wouldn't ask that, sir. But if it turns out to be convenient, you think maybe you could try to arrange for me to do for whoever it was that killed Sir John?" Fotheringay shrugged. "I'll confess that I'm a sentimental man, and I was passingly fond of the good knight."

"We'll see," Sir Niko said. "Enough talk; we need to get to a boat, and get to the mainland. Quickly."

"Yes, Sir Niko."

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Framed