This is a somber moment, and not the kind that Robena imagined she would find here in England.

Oh, that had always been a naive thought, hadn't it? England was not apart from the world for all the Channel's width. This was a land like any other, with knights and with things for knights to stand against like any other. Her very own shoulders were wrapped with the skin of a monstrous bear that she had strangled with her own hands not too far from here. Wallachia had its vampires and Jerusalem had its crossroads and England had...

A tyrant?

She frowned and flicked her eyes away. Far, far above her station to contemplate that. Her lady answered to the duchess and her duchess answered to the king. There were quests and then there were wars. A quest was to venture into an unquiet grave and lay the dead to rest. This, she could do. This she could be proud of.

She wrapped her arms around Constance in a giant's embrace. Half seeking the comfort of human warmth in the shadow of death and bone and blood - and half offering it to one who needed it as much as she.