my love. This is our moment. Today we will lay the first stone of our future together in a free Pitoria.
Your loving husband,
Tzsayn
Catherine stroked her finger across Tzsayn’s signature.
Husband.
A shout roused her, her men pointing to the distance. The blue-hairs, led by Davyon, were advancing. The next stage of the attack was beginning. Knowing Tzsayn would be worried about her, Catherine went into her tent to write a short note to reassure him she was safe. She’d just picked up the quill when there was a different cry from outside. An alarm.
“Attackers! Attackers! Look to the queen!”
Catherine dropped her quill and dashed outside as one of her guard raced up to her.
“Boys, Your Majesty. They’re coming across the river. Heading this way. They’re fast . . .”
Catherine’s blood turned icy. They were coming for her. Her father’s spies had seen her from the Northern Plateau, and he’d sent the boys to ambush her. Why hadn’t she foreseen this?
She turned to the guard. “Find General Ffyn. Tell him that the boys’ brigades are attacking us. We need support. Go!”
The man leaped onto his horse, but the first boys were already running into the camp, heading straight for her tent, cutting down her white-hairs without seeming to break stride. One of her guards scooped Catherine up in his arms and half threw her onto her horse. “We must leave now, Your Majesty.”
Catherine snatched up the reins, but where should she turn? She wanted to go to Ffyn and the main force of white-hairs, but the boys had already cut off that route.
“Follow the River Road. Head east.” It was away from Ffyn, but it was the quickest route and Catherine knew she had to be fast. She kicked her horse, galloping hard, five guards close to her, ten or twelve boys in pursuit.
“We’ll soon be away from them,” one guard shouted.
“No. They can keep up this pace all day. Don’t let up!”
But now some more boys appeared ahead. The river was to her left, and to her right she saw even more boys converging on the road.
A spear took out one of her guards.
Catherine kicked her horse on.
But the boys were getting closer. One appeared, running alongside her nearest guard’s galloping horse, shouting and whooping as if it was a game. The guard struck at the boy with his sword, but then he was gone, pulled from his horse.
Another guard replaced his position, spurring his horse hard.
“Keep on, Your Majesty!” Then he too was gone. Catherine wanted to scream with anger and frustration. But the shouting came from the boys who surrounded her. All she could do was urge her horse forward.
And then a boy was somehow up in the air beside her, making an impossible leap, slamming into her shoulder, and sending her off the horse so she was flying through the air.
No. She was on the ground. And it was hard and the world was spinning, then black. Shouting continued around her.
Catherine forced her eyes open.
There were about twenty boys standing round her. She was dragged to her feet, and their leader looked her up and down. He had spots on his chin, and his teeth were almost green. He wore a leather jerkin with a badge in the shape of an eagle’s head sewn roughly over his heart. He was perhaps sixteen years old.
“Queen Catherine.” The boy sketched a mocking bow. “Nice to meet you this fine morning. Consider yourself a prisoner of the Eagles.”
“I’ll consider you a fool and a villain. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Catherine said.
“Did I ask for your opinion?” The boy slapped Catherine hard across the face, and she fell to the ground, blood pouring from her nose. “Now stop yapping and start walking. We’re taking you to the king.”
As Catherine was pulled to her feet, a Brigantine soldier on horseback rode up at a gallop. Even in her dazed state, there was something familiar in his posture, but her scrambled brain couldn’t quite place it until he was nearer, and then there was no doubting the handsome face.
Ambrose!
AMBROSE
NORTHERN PITORIA
AMBROSE HAD hurtled down the slope to reach the bot-tom of the plateau and stumbled across the bridge, grabbed a horse from the destroyed white-hair camp, and galloped in the direction he’d seen Catherine flee. He was beyond exhausted, and beyond desperate, and then ahead he saw what he dreaded most. Boys on their feet, and Catherine falling to the ground.