“No!” cried Bertram.

“Hear me, God and all the saints!” screamed Minka.

Margaret stood her ground. The charging horse was almost upon her. She squinted against the sudden blaze of orange light that streamed out of the west around the spires of the church. By what faith did she think she could stop the charging steed? By what faith did she believe her crooked leg would hold her steady? Margaret squeezed shut her eyes against the onslaught of the horse. And then, just as suddenly, she threw aside her crutch and yanked the mirror from her belt, and, using every ounce of strength to stay standing, to stay strong, she held the mirror to the sun.

Geoffrey’s mount screamed, a sound to curdle the blood, to visit in nightmares, terrible and heart-shattering. With the sun reflected into his eyes, the horse reared and twisted, and his hooves came pounding to the ground inches from where Margaret stood, mirror clutched high in both hands. The earth shook, Margaret fell, and the mirror flew from her hands and through the air. It landed at the feet of the mighty horse, who trampled the shining thing as if it were a snake. In the next moment the horse bolted wild and ran Geoffrey underneath the friar’s banner on the shield tree. There sounded a terrible crack! The horse galloped on, and Geoffrey fell senseless to the ground.

The shards of the shattered mirror, blinking and broken and beyond repair, reflected the orange sun. Margaret, on her knees, blinked back.

The sheriff appeared now that everything was over, ordered Lord Geoffrey taken into custody, broke up the crowd, and turned to the few who remained. “Er, a few questions,” he said, and sighed. Twenty-odd years on the job, and somehow he always managed to snooze through any bit of excitement. Made it blasted difficult to get a story straight.

The braided woman’s name was Alice, and she was John Book’s wife. They’d not been wed at the door of any church, but married just the same these many years, and no escape. She told of the night she’d pulled the little girl from the River Severn and taken her to their camp. She told of the night Geoffrey was supposed to pay ransom for the girl and collect her, and how instead he’d paid for her death. She told of how she’d comforted the little girl. How John Book had allowed her to keep the child, how he’d used the gift to bind her more tightly to him. But much as Alice had loved the sweet girl, she’d feared for the life she would lead with that lot. She could not subject another to her fate.

“One night while the men slept, I took her into town and left her in a henhouse. I figured the hens’d keep her warm, and she did so love to guzzle raw eggs,” Alice said fondly. “I told John she run away, and then, quick like, I told him I seen a rich party traveling heavy by the road, and him like a magpie, he forgot about little Bebe and we went after those people and took ’em for all they had.”

She sagged. “It pained me. Little Bebe, she were sweet as butter, and I loved to play at being her mum. She used to clutch my hair for comfort; it would soothe her crying. So I cut off my braid what she seemed to like. It’s all I could leave her with. I cut it off and give it to her. I hoped she’d remember me not unkindly, poor chick.” She was weeping now. “When my hair grew long again, I felt I’d betrayed her. I knew not whether she lived or died. And yet my hair went on ever as before.”

The woman wiped her eyes. “I look for her wherever I go, these dozen years.” She looked hopefully at the party. “Knows you what became of ’er?”

Until an hour or so ago, Margaret had believed it was she. Putting a hand on Alice’s arm, Margaret whispered, “She lived,” and the woman smiled through fresh tears.

“I lives” came a voice. Urchin wiggled her way around Minka, behind whom she’d crept up unawares.

Everyone stared. A cricket could be heard fiddling in the grass.

Then: “Holy Mother of the jumped-up!” Bilious gasped.

“The wily thing,” Minka muttered. “Surprised?” she said, elbowing Bilious. “Not I. And you didn’t want to take her in!”

Brother Henry beamed. “God’s hand guided you, Minka,” he said, to which Bilious gave a snort.

Bertram moved close to Margaret and grinned from ear to ear.

“Who’d have thought,” Emma said, gawping.

The sheriff scratched his head.

Urchin stepped slowly to Alice’s side, with little Pip wrapped around her neck. Then she reached into the belt that cinched her grain-sack tunic, withdrew a matted hank of hair, and held it out. Alice alone did not grimace or cringe. For a few long moments no one spoke, and then Alice rose and pulled Urchin to her, and Urchin did not refuse her embrace. She stood tolerantly and let herself be smothered, while Alice’s long braid fell across her shoulders.

“And how then did you go from the henhouse to the streets?” Bilious wanted to know, but Urchin only shrugged and worked a tooth with her tongue.

The sheriff cleared his throat, and Alice released Urchin and turned to him.

“I did come to the city with John Book once before, lately,” she told him, “on what ’e called pressing business.”

“And what was the pressing business John Book had in the royal city?” the sheriff asked.

“Blackmail.” Alice sniffed loudly, and Henry passed her a cloth to blow her nose. “He wanted more money for taking the child from Lord Geoffrey.”

“Did he get the money?”

“He did.”

“Will you swear it?”

“I will.”

Brother Henry walked with Alice and the sheriff down the hill and into the city.

Petronilla was eager to know her sister “once my sister has known a bath,” so Minka and Bilious and Emma took charge of Urchin and promised Petra they would spare no effort to get her clean and to the castle. That left Petra and Margaret and Bertram, who sat together in the grass of the high meadow, picking shards of the ruined mirror from the dirt.

There wasn’t anything to say, really. All this time spent wishing for some bit of magic. Finding and then losing the mirror, again and again. She might as well have tried to hold the moonlight, or the wind.

Margaret tossed a tiny piece of useless, sparkling mirror into the dirt. The bridge of her nose began to sting, and she thought she might cry. “I thought I had a sister,” she said. “I was so sure.” She was only Margaret the Crutch, then as ever.

“Just look-alikes,” said Bertram, after a moment. “Like looking in a mirror. Strange.”

“None so strange as a two-headed goat, I suppose,” said Margaret, and they tried to laugh.

“Not sisters,” Petra said, “but friends. Always and ever, our blood oath will stand.”

Blrrr-blrrr! There sounded all at once a trumpet.

They turned toward the sharp tones and saw approaching in the distance a band of riders some twenty strong, outfitted in traveling cloaks and many in armor and mail. And then came the loud, matched tones of high minstrelsy—the curved horn, the blaring trumpet and drumming nakers—and such shining in the sun of the instruments of combat and music-making blinded the eye and thrilled the heart. And finally came into view the standard-bearers holding aloft the banner as all approached the grand gatehouse, and on the banner rode the colors of the Duke of Minster.

Blr-blrrrr! sounded the trumpet, and again, blr-blrrrr!

“God’s wounds!” cried Petra, craning her neck and smoothing the crumpled silk of her skirts. “Did no one send a messenger? It’s Frederick de Vere!” When Margaret showed no recognition, Petra flung out her hands in vexation. “It’s the Toad!”