And then memory sprang clear, and with a sound that he only realized afterwards had been his brother's name, Blaise wheeled back to watch what was going to be the ending, one way or the other.

He had only ever seen this done as a jest among friends, and that had been twenty years ago. The uplifted sword was the invitation, almost too transparent, luring one's opponent to venture a backhanded side-stroke at the exposed right side. What used to follow, when this was tried in the tiltyard at Garsenc, was a silly, undignified manoeuvre that had usually left both combatants rolling in the dust, swearing and laughing.

There was no laughter by the shore of Lake Dierne. Blaise watched the king of Gorhaut succumb completely to the ruse, driven by his fury at Ranald's orders to his men. Ademar launched a wild stroke of such force it would have half-severed Ranald's torso through the links of his armour had it landed.

It didn't land. Ranald de Garsenc flattened himself on his horse's neck and let fall his sword as Ademar's blade whistled over his head biting nothing but air. The king's motion carried him lurching sideways in his saddle and partly turned his horse. By the time he began, cursing, to straighten, Ranald, lightly armoured as always, had hurled himself from his horse towards the back of the king's saddle. Very much like a boy, Blaise was thinking, like the boy for whom all of this had been discovery and exhilaration, with pain and sorrow and ageing quite inconceivable concepts.

Ranald actually made it. Landed, almost neatly, behind Ademar, swinging a leg across the horse's rump. He was already grappling at his waist for the knife that would kill the king when the crossbow dart caught him above the collarbone and buried itself in his throat.

The half-drawn dagger fell from splayed ringers and a moment later Ranald de Garsenc slid slowly to the ground to lie beside it in the winter grass. Blood was pulsing from his neck, bright red in the sunlight.

Above him, controlling his horse with an effort, Ademar of Gorhaut looked down upon him, and then at the man who had fired that small, hidden crossbow.

"You interfered in a challenge," said the king of Gorhaut. His voice was thin, disbelieving. He was visibly shaken.

"Would you prefer to be dead right now?" asked Galbert de Garsenc, High Elder of Gorhaut. He didn't even look at the body of his son. Ademar made no reply. There was no growing tumult now to the north of them.

"Watch him," Blaise said to no one in particular, and slid from his horse. Ignoring Ademar completely, he knelt beside his brother. He heard footsteps behind him but did not turn. Ranald's eyes were closed; he was still alive, but only just. With all the care in the world Blaise shifted him a little, so he could lay his brother's head in his lap. Blood from the wound had already soaked the ground; now it began to seep into his clothing.

From above and behind he heard his father say to the king of Gorhaut, "I have not come this close to be balked by a drunkard's folly or your own carelessness."

Ranald opened his eyes then, and Blaise saw that his brother was aware of him. A faint, genuine smile, crossed Ranald's face.

"It would have worked," he whispered. "I only tried it as a jest."

"Spare your strength," Blaise murmured.

Ranald shook his head slightly. "No point," he managed to say. "I can feel poison. There is syvaren on the dart."

Of course. Of course there was. This time it was Blaise who closed his eyes, feeling grief and a terrible, ancient rage threatening to overwhelm him. He fought desperately for control, and when he opened his eyes again saw that Ranald's gaze had moved away now, to someone beyond Blaise.

"I have no right to ask for anything," he heard his brother whisper. Blaise looked over his shoulder then and saw Rosala standing there, tall and grave.

"I know you do not," she agreed quietly, adhering, even at the last, to her own inner laws. "But I have the right to grant what I wish." She hesitated, and Blaise thought she would kneel but she did not. She said, very calmly, "It was bravely done at the end, Ranald."

There was a silence. Far off, Blaise heard noises that sounded like men fighting. He ought to turn, he knew, this mattered so much, but he could not.

Ranald said, "Guard him if you can. Cadar, I mean." And then, so softly it was difficult to hear, "It is a fine name." It was in that moment that Blaise thought he felt his heart beginning to break, hearing the unspoken thing, the lost lifetime of sorrow beneath those words.

And Rosala seemed to hear it too, for she did kneel then, neatly, in the blood-soaked grass beside her husband. She did not reach out to touch him, but Blaise heard her say, in that same grave, calm voice, "Cadar Ranald de Garsenc now. You have earned as much. If it pleases you, my lord."

Through a blurring of tears Blaise saw his older brother smile then for the last time and heard him say, no more than a breath now, "It pleases me, my lady."

He seemed to be gripping both of Ranald's hands—he couldn't actually remember taking them—and he was almost certain he felt a pressure then, the strong fingers squeezing his for a moment, before they went slack.

Blaise looked down at his dead brother, feeling the cold wind passing over the two of them. He slipped one hand free after a time and closed Ranald's eyes. He had seen a great many dead men. Sometimes their faces seemed to become calm and peaceful when life passed out of them and they began their second journey to the god. Ranald looked as he always had, though; perhaps when it was someone you knew well the comforting illusions of grace were harder to find.

He hadn't actually said farewell, he realized. He hadn't said anything. Spare your strength, had been his only words. Fatuous, really, to a man with a dart in his neck and syvaren running cold through him. Perhaps the touching, their hands holding each other, perhaps that would have been enough. It would have to be; there was never going to be more.

He made himself look up. Ademar, still visibly shaken by what had happened, was on his horse above them. Blaise said nothing to him at all. He looked over his shoulder and saw that his father was still holding the tiny, lethal crossbow he had brought hidden to this place. The ancient rules of such things, the rituals and laws of parleys or challenges, would mean nothing to Galbert. Blaise had always known that. Ademar hadn't, it seemed.

The king of Gorhaut would be wondering how he was going to hold up his head among the nations now—even before his own people—after being so shamefully rescued in the midst of a formal challenge. It would probably make sense to taunt him, to unsettle him further, but Blaise had no heart for that at all. In fact, at another time, another place in the world, he might even have been able to feel sorry for Ademar, who would only now perhaps be discovering the degree to which even he was simply another instrument of Galbert de Garsenc's designs.

He seemed to be looking down at his brother again, as if trying to memorize Ranald's features, so like and yet unlike his own. "You had best get up," he heard Rosala say, as if from a distance. She herself had risen again. He looked up at her. She had never appeared to him to so much resemble one of the spear-maidens of Corannos, straight-backed and proud, a figure from a chapel frieze, her face seeming as if sculptured in stone. Her level gaze met his. "He died as a man with mourning," said Rosala de Savaric de Garsenc, "but it seems that this battle has begun."

It seemed that it had.

He slipped his hands under Ranald's head and lifted it so he could slide himself free, then he laid his brother down again on the grass. Rising, he looked at Ademar and said formally, over the growing clamour to the north, "As his brother I lay claim to this body. Do you challenge me for it?"