William. The Southern Plain The army was laid out around him like a great sweeping blanket of leather and steel and mud. The rain still poured in earnest, and William could see the Southmen's front lines but no more. He looked behind him in the downpour but found he saw nothing beyond the first few ranks, the rest shadowy shapes in the grayness. Somewhere in the storm was the queen, high atop the blood bay gelding she loved so dearly, flanked by her squires and the captain of her guards. I should be with her, he thought, and then, My place is here, just as quickly. His chest was still warm from where her sleeping body had rested, his palms hot from touching her skin and his loins burning for her. William had needed her, needed her dark hair falling on his chest, her heart beating along with his, her body welcoming his and her lips parting to breathe his name. It had been a different kind of need, though, a more visceral kind than lust or unquenched desire. He needed her the way he needed breath, and lying with her as like the first gulp of fresh air after a long time underwater. The need ran its courses like a fever, strong for moments and then dormant for much longer. Only now the fever raged. It made him want to forgive her for the Degarre marriage pact, for how service on her privy council became more like imprisonment, with her deep brown eyes as the jailer. They had watched him even at home, when he tried to close his eyes against his little wife's eyes that were so like Aliana's. Had Aliana known that? The better to punish him with if she had. He wanted to punish her back even now when his lips still tingled from her kiss, but the only way to punish her now was to die, and that was too cruel. William knew what had gone unspoken when she made him promise to return. I am all she has left. Him, and her pompous uncles in Varenne, and councils who included her without ever really trusting her. She is the great King Ansell's daughter, and she is her brother's sister. If anyone is fit to lead a kingdom, it is Aliana. And I should be beside her. William had thought about it before, when his anger at her over the Degarres had raged its worst. What could he hope for other than such a marriage? He was nobly born, a man with both a respected family name and a high office all his own. Marriage to a woman like Lynelle Degarre was advantageous to him as much as it was a valuable political move for the queen. His folly that he had somehow expected to aim higher, that he thought she had designed for him to aim the highest. He'd had no reason to object to the marriage, and yet it was Aliana who was selling him off, and that rankled. Aliana, who not only stood to gain from the alliance but by nature of the choice removed William as a possible suitor for herself. You were a grand fool, William Ingraham, to ever have thought that. But thought it he had, every day since she had taken him to bed the night Derrick was hurt. They had not spoken about it, just as he was certain they would not speak about the night in his tent, and it was nothing worth speaking about. They had been lovers, in a plain desperate way, and it had comforted them. If William thought for a moment that it somehow changed anything, gave him more privilege than he already had, then it was a childish and unlikely conclusion that he had drawn entirely by himself. William looked back again, but the rain was thick and gray as ever. His ears had started ringing from the rain pounding on his helm. He looked upward to see the standards flying above his own head, held by his nephew squire: the blue-and-silver of Randal, Aliana's blue-and-silver met with gold, his own indigo field slashed with red. They were all sagging with water, flapping sloppily in the wind. "Will we wait for them to charge?" His brother Ricaud stood beside him as Commander of the First Cavalry, and from the way his brother's black destrier paced in place William could tell both horse and rider were anxious. "On my command, whenever it comes," William answered. The steel-and-sapphire chain of the High Commander weighed heavily from his neck, weightier even than the layers of mail and armor covering almost all of him. From the pounding rain he heard a disturbance, and it seemed the Southmen's ranks were rallying, cheering for the start of battle. A rider rode back and forth before their front lines, waving a longsword in the air from atop what appeared to be a more magnificent horse even than Derrick's once had been, and that mount had been the pride of the Selletian army by far. "Now?" Ricaud asked, practically shouting above the pouring rain. William glanced over his shoulder into the gray nothingness of the storm, his blood pounding in his ears in time with the patter of the rain on his helm. Be safe, he heard in her voice, recalled from somewhere in his mind. He let it warm him, and then cast it aside. "Now." He reared his chestnut destrier and thrust his sword in the air. The cry of battle went up around him, and then they were galloping, harder and faster than he had run his horse before. Rain whipped at his face through the mask of his greathelm, wind catching in his cloak and whistling through the joints of his armor. A matching roar erupted from the Southmen, and the horses charged toward one another, the foot soldiers in their formations behind and to the sides. William was a more skilled rider and swordsman than most others from being trained by the royal masters, and he slashed at the enemy with passionate abandon, imagining each bore Tambor Renfry's standard and face, the greater to avenge himself and Aliana. For a brief moment, he caught view of Ricaud out of the corner of his eye, locked in swordplay with a Southern rider, and thought his brother was the late King Derrick. When he recognized his own hallucination, it only gave him more to avenge. The fighting raged what felt like most of the day, only there was no sun by which to judge. The storm stopped for brief moments, but the freezing rain had already soaked through all his layers of clothing and he was chilled to the bone. But he was hot with war in his blood. It was clear that the Southmen were falling. William had divided the mounted cavalry, sending the First straight into battle with him and his brother while the lower ranks smashed into the Southmen's left and right flanks after the initial thrust, taking out much of their foot strength. They had not recovered. As he felled another Southern rider, William saw the magnificent horse from the Southmen's front lines. He was finally afforded a good view of the prize mount's rider. At first glance, he could see the man was slight of build and expensively armored; the metal plates covering his body shone brilliantly even in the rain, and his helm was crested with streaming silks in blue and silver. Blue and silver. William had already charged his horse forward when he recognized that the knight bore the colors of the Randals. It was a coincidence that any commander ought to have corrected, even in a young wealthy knight and especially in such a decisive battle. It fled from his mind when he met the knight in combat. The Southman's horse may have been a beauty, but it was shorter than William's destrier, and he had the upper hand slashing downward at the knight. The other man swung up with his own sword, and steel met steel with a sharp crack through the rain. William rounded back on the Southman after their initial clash and aimed for his shoulder, hoping to knock him from his elegant mount. The other knight was swift, and managed to hack at William's arm with his sword as he rode by, leaving a dent in the armor. William could feel it dig into his skin, knew blood would rise to the surface beneath the battered armor, but could hardly feel the pain. He rounded on the Southman again and charged, this time successfully landing a blow to the man's shoulder and sending him to the ground. The Southmen's ranks were falling, many horses fleeing without riders while soldiers met in single combat. William knew the man he'd thrown to the ground was a leader; if he bested him, it could be over. As the man scrambled in the muddy field to get a grip on his sword, William swung down from his own destrier and slapped the animal's rump; it took off in what he thought was the direction of the camp. William had hardly a moment to find his footing before the Southman had recovered and was on him with an impressive sequence of parries that had him struggling for his footing. His injured arm protested, burning like a fire had been lit beneath his armor, but he ignored it. The other knight was skilled, the best swordsman William had dueled in a long time, better even than Tambor Renfry, possibly even better than Derrick. But recalling his late best friend's face made William angry, and he swung at the Southman with a sudden burst of passion, driving him backward, slipping over the mud. They were well-matched, and carried on for several minutes, one driving the other back before having the tides turned in the other's favor. William could hardly see through his helm, just shapes and the glimmer of steel, and the fluttering of blue and silver silks. Blue and silver. Aliana. The momentary distraction gave the Southman an opening, and William met his charge too late, managing to block the sword but crashing to the ground with the force of impact. It was his good fortune that the other knight stumbled in the mud, affording him time to return to his feet, throwing his helm off in the process. Tossing his wet hair out of his eyes, William glared at the Southman, pacing slowly in opposition to him, looking for an opening, gauging the other man's movements. He was good -- perhaps too good, even with his heavy helm still firmly on his head, silks flopping about in the rain. This time, their colors emboldened him, and William gave a great shout as he charged, forcing all his strength to his arms as they wielded his sword, knocking the man back, and back, and back, trying to withstand the fierce blows. Each man was slipping about in the mud, swords clanging against armor without doing much damage in the moments when stability lapsed. William's arm was screaming in protest where the dented armor dug into the wound it had caused, but he did not let up. There was a loud crack of thunder, ringing in his ears. He saw behind the other knight a gory tableaux, soldiers lying dead in pools of their own blood mixed with mud mixed with the blood of dying horses writhing nearby. It was slipperier here in the thick of it, and William saw his opening. Mustering what remained of his strength, he charged at the Southman with one, two, three heavy blows, driving him back to where the field ran its reddest, and then the knight was in the bloodied mud, losing his footing and landing hard on his back. William leapt practically on top of him, landing his boot squarely atop the man's chest and kicking his sword away with his other foot. To William's surprise, the man did not struggle, merely groan. William tossed his own sword aside, leaning down to pull the crested helm off the knight with one hand, finding his dagger with the other; he wanted to know the Southmen's leader before he sunk his dagger into his throat. The knight was young, maybe a few years his junior. He had dark hair, the deepest auburn that was nearly black, now matted with mud and blood. His eyes were a familiar bright blue. William stumbled back off of him, having seen a ghost. The man remained smashed into the mud and blood of the field, too winded to move. He was the incarnation of Derrick and Aliana in one person -- in their brother. The Southmen had fallen, and William found himself flanked by his brother and several of his officers. "Take him," he stammered thickly, throat swollen, pointing at the man on the ground. "Take him prisoner." The rain had slowed in the last few minutes to a drizzle; the storm had passed. William could see more clearly as the officers dragged the man from the ground and bound him. Garratt. William had not seen him since he'd fallen in that fateful skirmish more than ten years earlier. He had not forgotten the great King Ansell, screaming over the mutilated body of his younger son, the way Derrick had looked on in horror. They had buried the body in the crypts beneath Castle Randal -- and yet here he was. William knew his face, and it was he. Aliana would know it too.