Present Tense

25

A SCHOOLBOY OF ABOUT THIRTEEN CAME OUT INTO THE CORRIDOR and offered Alice his seat in the compartment.

She smiled winningly at him. “That's very kind of you, but I'm all right here. Thank you, though."

Blushing, he went back inside and slid the door shut.

Since Swindon, the train was far less crowded. It was possible to talk in the corridor.

"Tell me what happened after you arrived in Lemodvale and Tarion departed."

Stooping to peer out the window, Edward scowled. “I'd just as soon not talk about it, actually. Have you noticed how much luggage everyone seems to have? I think they're running away from the air raids in London."

"Possibly. And you're running away from my question."

He sighed. “I'm not proud of what happened! It was a mess. Kammaeman may have been a crafty politician, but he was no general. He hadn't done his homework."

He drew cucumber shapes on the greasy window and explained the geography. “Thargia had taken Narshvale, which had been Joalian. The Thargians are the bullyboys of the Vales, like the Prussians in Europe or the Spartans in Greece. Nobody calls out the Thargians!

"But Joalia needed to save face to keep its other colonies loyal. The original plan was to cross over Lemodvale and attack Thargvale itself, while it was still digesting Narshvale. It was to be a punishment raid—loot, rape, burn, and scram. Of course, the Thargians would have retaliated, probably the next year. I expect Joalia was counting on Nagvale taking the heat. That's what junior allies are for, isn't it? It was all business as usual, and nasty.

"But Tarion took almost all of our cavalry, so the plan collapsed. Even hitting and running wasn't in the cards without cavalry. Kammaeman had to do something with the forces he had, or face impeachment when he went home. He decided to conquer Lemodvale instead. He probably thought he could trade it back to Tharg in return for Narshvale.” Edward smiled quizzically. “Does that sound logical?"

"But not practical? Like offering to give Southwest Africa back to the Boche in return for Belgium?"

He grinned. “Something along those lines. Cavalry would be useless in Lemodvale, anyway, which probably convinced him, but Joalia had never conquered Lemodvale before, and that should have warned him. All the vales are different, and Lemod is more different than most. First of all, it's hilly. There's no—I suppose Lemodflat would be the English equivalent."

He paused to think. Alice watched the telegraph wires dip, rise, dip, rise ... Clickety-click, clickety-click...

"Valian languages use prefixes where we have suffixes,” he said vaguely. “Roughly—very roughly—it would go like this. Say Nagvale is the general term, the whole basin. The mountains all around it would be Nagwall, the foothills Nagslope. Roughly. The arable part would be Nagflat, and in most vales it truly is flat. In Nagland itself it's a plain, almost a desert. Everything that's habitable is called Nagland and everything that's not has another name—Nagwaste? The capital would be Nagtown, or just Nag. The political entity would be Nagia, I suppose. They have other terms. You could say that Nagslope is the usable foothills, and the higher bits are Nagmoor or something like that. It's not a bad system. English doesn't make so many distinctions."

"I imagine words like ebb tide would confuse the Nagians just as much as you are confusing me. What has all this to do with the war?"

"Just that Lemodflat isn't. Flat, I mean. It's all cut up by streams. There wouldn't be enough level ground in the whole country for a good ninehole golf course. And the Lemodians don't have farms, they have trees. They're strange looking trees, but all their crops come from trees. Something rather like a breadfruit gives them their basic starch, but they have others that provide stuff like flax—also cotton and fruits and nuts and wine berries and things just like potatoes ... everything. The whole country is one enormous orchard."

"Which isn't too good to fight in?"

"It's great to fight in,” Edward said bitterly, “if you happen to be a guerrilla."

He sighed and turned around to lean on the brass rail across the window. He folded his arms. “I should have seen what was going to happen. I should have guessed. But, damn it all, Alice, I was only eighteen! I was a stranger in their world. I thought they knew what they were doing in their shiny armor and fancy helmets."

She had never known him to make excuses before. “You couldn't have done anything, surely?"

"Surely I could have! I still had the mana I'd collected in Olfaan's temple. It wasn't much by the gods’ standards, of course. I knew it wouldn't build any magic castles, but I thought I might manage a faith healing or something, so I was hoarding it. But even with just my stranger's charisma I could have talked some sense into Kammaeman if I had seen the problem.” He pulled a face. “The only man with any brains was Tarion, who got out while the going was good."

He turned back to the glass and added to his map. “Lemodvale's shaped like a snake, very long and thin. We came in here, at the eastern end. That's where the main passes are. Lemod, the capital, is up here, at the western end. Nobody thought to ask what sort of openings there were thereabouts. It was autumn.” He frowned at the map he had drawn or perhaps at the scenery sliding by outside. The train was slowing for a station, but she thought he wasn't really looking, just reluctant to tell her more.

"You'd think Kammaeman would have studied the geography, wouldn't you?” he growled. “Or at least the history. He wasn't the first Joalian general to die in Lemodvale."

Houses flowed past the window, slower and slower.

"He wasn't the first Joalian general to be murdered by his deputy, either. And when the Chamber learned I was with the army, then we were fighting gods."

26

FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ARMY REACHED LEMODFLAT, GOLBFISH HAD his first experience of battle. The battle itself was not nearly so bad as the getting ready for it.

He hated Lemodvale. All the Nagians hated Lemodvale. Their own land was flat, dry, and treeless, with rarely a day when a man could not see all the way to Nagwall in every direction. At night the stars and the moons roamed overhead like fireflies in infinite space.

Lemodvale was different. Sky and mountains vanished; the world became nothing but trees, with rarely enough space to pitch a tent and no level ground anyway. Lemodflat wasn't even a decent jungle, because the trees were planted in rows, curving around the slopes. Usually there was no undergrowth, but the lowest branches sprouted at shoulder height and men became hunchbacked from creeping under them all the time. There were no open fields and few trails wide enough to let the sun through. Day after day a man saw no farther than twenty yards, and then only in one direction. He could walk for hours and the view never changed. It was like being shut up indoors, in a maze of pillars, with the roof leaking all the time. Some of the Nagians were almost out of their minds.

Rain fell every day, sometimes only a brief shower, often a dawn-to-dusk downpour. Face paint washed off and stained beards like rainbows.

Droppings showed that wildlife or packbeasts grazed the orchards, but they were never seen. The Lemodians themselves had vanished also. When cottages were located, they were always deserted, often burned. The army advanced unopposed—except by cold and constant wet and the ravages of unfamiliar food.

The scouts had finally located a village, name unknown. At last there could be a fight.

Kammaeman Battlemaster had decided to attack at dawn. He had given the Nagians the honor of leading the assault because he thought they could approach more quietly than the armored Joalians, or so he had said. The rain had stopped. Trumb was almost full, his eerie green light filtering dimly through the foliage. It was just possible for a man to see the man in front of him, as long as he stayed close. It was not possible to move without walking into tree trunks and branches. By day the warriors held their shields up until their left arms were ready to fall off, but shields would make too much noise now. So they wore their shields on their backs and felt their way forward with their hands. Golbfish followed Pomuin, and Dogthark followed Golbfish, each trying to keep the other in sight and not ram him with his spear. It was easy to lose track of where those sharp blades were in the dark.

Feet squelched on dead leaves, but otherwise there was no sound. For all Golbfish knew, they might have walked in a circle and returned to camp. His back and neck ached from stooping.

He was shivering, telling himself that the clammy morning air was at fault and knowing it was not. His feet were icy. He did not think he was afraid of dying so much as of exposing himself as a coward in front of these young peasants. What would they think of their future king if he fainted, froze, or just soiled himself with terror when the fighting started? He was probably the oldest Nagian in the army, because only single men had been conscripted and villagers married young.

They were ignorant, uneducated. They took life as it came, not questioning its meaning or the gods’ purposes, or asking about ethics.

Courage was easier for the young. Life felt permanent to them. Probably every one of those rustic warriors was a virgin. Back at the camp, they had been cracking cheerful jokes, speculating about the Lemodian women they would capture and the sport that would follow. Golbfish was no warrior. He was no virgin either. He knew that the transient pleasure was not worth the risk of being maimed or killed.

Pomuin stopped and turned. Golbfish moved closer, watching where he put his spearpoint, then swung around to find out where Dogthark was putting his. They stood side by side, then, listening to the footsteps dying away behind them. A faint rustle of sound came along the line as the men sat down in obedience to some whispered command at the front. The move was not easy in the dark with trees all around and a ten-foot pole spear attached to one's wrist by a leather thong. But Pomuin sat, Golbfish sat, Dogthark sat, the activity moving away into the distance.

They were under strict orders not to talk. Golbfish did not think he had enough saliva to move his tongue anyway. Fear was an awful tightness in his chest, a terrifying insecurity in his bowels. What if he shamed himself right here, with men on either side of him who could not fail to notice? Even in darkness they would hear him and certainly smell him. And could he ever bring himself to thrust this spear into a living man? He had no quarrel with the Lemodians. The Thargians had taken over Narshvale, so the Joalians attacked Lemodvale. Why should a Nagian care, any Nagian? He kept imagining his spear impaling some young peasant, blood and guts spilling out, the victim's scream of agony, the accusing look on his face as he felt himself dying ... rank, uncouth barbarism!

He thought of his friends in Joal, poets and artists and musicians.

Or the peasant might impale him. Somehow that did not seem so terrible, or at least not so shameful. Then it would be over and there would be no memories.

He sniffed. Smoke? The landscape was waterlogged, so smoke meant hearths. The village must be very close. Downhill, Prat'han Troopleader had said. When the signal came, they were to move downhill, and they would come to the village by the ford. Kill all the men, even if they try to surrender. Don't touch the women until the officers give permission, and then wait your turn. Go easy on the children lest you anger the gods.

Golbfish could hear quiet whisperings to left and right. He thought he could hear something from downhill, but the trees muffled sound so much that he could not be sure. Running water, probably.

What would Ymma say if she could see him now, sitting on wet leaves in a dark forest, damned nearly naked, waiting to kill or die? She would roll around on the bed screaming in hysterics, with her big breasts flopping from side to side....

He jumped as an icy hand took hold of his. He looked around, into Dogthark's eyes, glistening bright in the green moonlight.

Dogthark's hand was shaking. He squeezed Golbfish's fingers.

Golbfish squeezed back. “What's wrong?” he whispered.

"I'm thkared!"

Dogthark was one of the youngest, but big. He had lost all his front teeth, which gave him an idiot look and slurred his speech. He was a troublemaker, a bruiser. Golbfish was afraid of him and avoided him normally, not wanting to get involved in a pointless brawl he would certainly lose. Dogthark was just the sort of moronic kid who might find it amusing to beat up his future king. He was exactly the sort of dolt Golbfish had been envying for his unthinking courage.

"We're all scared!” he said.

"Not you, thir!"

"Yes I am."

"But everyone elth was making thilly jokes and you were jutht quiet, all confidence, quiet courage!"

How wrong could one be?

"I am scared shitless,” Golbfish said. “Like you. Worse. I've never been in a battle either. Keep thinking about the girls down there. How many girls can you rape in one morning?"

Dogthark made a strange panting sound that was probably a laugh. “Three?"

"Oh, come on! Husky young fellow like you ought to manage four or five."

"You really think tho? I've never had a girl before, thir."

Golbfish sniffed again. Smoke! How long until dawn? “They're nice. Lot of hard work after the first couple, though. It'll really make you sweat."

"I think you're marvellouth, thir! A king fighting in the rankth! We're all tho proud of you!"

"I feel like a bloody fool,” Golbfish confessed. “I..."

Only his own stupidity had brought him to this. Why had he refused royal rank and insisted on remaining a warrior? What did he really owe to D'ward that he so much wished to be worthy of that youngster's approval? He was certainly acting out of character these days.

Sounds. Men rising, unslinging shields. Leaves crackling underfoot. It was not dawn yet, but the attack had begun.

"Come on!” he said, clenching every sphincter. “Save a few girls for me."

A hundred yards downhill and they saw the flames.

There were no women. There was no battle. Half the cottages had collapsed into embers already. Howling and yelling in disgust, the Nagian warriors milled around in the single street that had once been a village.

"There'th no girlth!” Dogthark wailed. “No wariorth! They all ran away! Cowardth!"

Golbfish felt drunk with relief. No battle! No need to impale men, no men to impale him! He wanted to dance and sing with joy.

"Tie a knot in it until the next time, son!” he said. “Next time you can try for a dozen!” He laughed aloud. The warmth from the fires was a caress on his permanently damp hide. But, oh, all that warm, dry bedding going up in...

Dogthark said, “Huh?” He looked down in surprise at the arrow protruding from his chest. Then he dropped.

Golbfish realized that he was well illuminated. Pomuin toppled forward on his shield with a shaft sticking out of his back. Arrows were everywhere and men were falling.

That was how it began.

Sometime in the next couple of fortnights, Golbfish decided it was all just a matter of numbers. Nagland sent out its unmarried adult males to make war. The Joalians allowed any man to volunteer, but in practice few but young bachelors chose to do so. Those were barely a twentieth of the population. When a Lemodian village was threatened, everybody fought, even the children. Their bows were crude, homemade affairs and their arrows merely fire-sharpened stakes. That did not matter, because the range was rarely more than a few yards and often only feet. The guerrillas hid in the branches or behind the trunks and waited until a warrior came within reach. If the victim's companions gave chase, then as often as not there would be an ambush waiting.

Progress slowed to a crawl. Every morning the army marched; by noon it had to stop and begin chopping trees. It spent far more time building stockades and huddling inside them than it did waging war. It killed a million trees and hardly a single Lemodian.

With every precaution the officers could think of, sentries died at their posts, sleeping men had their throats cut, fire arrows came over the palisade. Moas and packbeasts were slaughtered in the night or driven off. Day after day the wastage continued, while the army blundered its way through the unbounded woods of Lemodflat.

Lemod itself was the answer, Kammaeman insisted. Lemod was a fair city. When the capital fell the country would fall. Lemod was the prize and the sanctuary. The army marched on Lemod.

But there was no road to march on. The trails and lanes wandered all around the countryside, and every mile brought another ambush. On rainy days—and most days were rainy that fall—even the leaders lost their sense of direction. Streams and rivers wound and twisted like tangled wool. In some lands rivers were highways; in Lemodland they flowed in gullies or gorges and were barriers.

Officially the sick and wounded who could not keep up were left to die, but in practice their friends made sure the enemy did not take them alive. Knowing how they themselves interrogated prisoners, Joalians considered such murders a kindness.

"There's a new plan,” D'ward Hordeleader said.

He had called the troop in around him to hear the new plan. It was midday break, and raining. The closer ones sat down on the soggy ground, wet and dispirited. The rest just stood or leaned against trees to listen. The supply of face paint had run out, and now they had nothing to hide their despondency. They were cold and deeply frightened, naked before their unseen foe and the anger of the gods.

Golbfish sat in the front row. The closer he could get to the Liberator, the better he felt afterward.

Even D'ward did not look happy. His eyes were raw, as if he did not sleep much; he was leaner than ever. He came around at least once every day, and his daily pep talk always raised the men's spirits. It was the only thing that ever did. He visited every Nagian troop every day.

But today even he did not look happy.

"Casualties, Troopleader?” he asked.

Prat'han had been elected to lead the Sonalby contingent when D'ward had been promoted. He was a good kid, but he was not the Liberator.

"Just one today, sir. Pogwil Tanner. Booby trap."

D'ward bared his teeth in anger. “Just one is too many! Well, there is a change of tactics. We're going to make a forced march. We're going to outrun the monkeys."

He glanced around and won some smiles.

Golbfish did not smile. He sensed desperation. Regular forces could not outrun guerrillas. These peasants would not know that. They would find out soon enough.

"No more wasting half the day building forts!” D'ward said. “We're going to push on now until dark, at the double. Then we'll bivouac. Same thing tomorrow. We'll set triple watches all night. Grab any chance for sleep you can get! Some of you have complained about getting blisters on your hands. From now on you're going to get them on your feet—and you certainly won't get any on your backsides!"

More smiles.

"A few days and we'll be in Lemod itself. I told Kammaeman Battlemaster that we Nagians could run rings around his metal-plated Joalians. Was I wrong?"

Loud jeers ... Golbfish wondered what the Joalian leaders would think if they heard this pep talk. Every one of them would just snap out the new orders to his troop and leave it at that. None would ever bother explaining an order—but D'ward always did.

"By the time the monkeys realize where we are,” he was saying now, “we'll be miles away!"

What difference would that make? The whole of Lemodvale was full of people. The enemy was everywhere, endless as the trees.

D'ward began talking details—foraging must be done on the way, no squad ever to be less than six ... He was proposing a rout and making it sound like storm tactics. Soon he had the men twitching with eagerness to try this new plan.

Eventually he even had them laughing. He did not speak very long after that. He rarely said even as much as he had today. It was the way he said it that left everyone smiling and chuckling.

At the end he caught Golbfish's eye and jerked his head in a beckoning. Then he left, and Prat'han ordered the troop to its feet.

The Liberator was waiting a few trees away, leaning on his spear. His sky-blue smile jerked Golbfish's backbone a few notches straighter and dispelled the cold. He wanted to ask if Kammaeman had gone completely insane, but he knew he wouldn't. D'ward would not criticize the battlemaster, even to a prince.

"How are you surviving, Your Majesty?"

"Better than I would have expected, sir. Er, may I ask that you not call me that?"

D'ward held the smile for a few seconds in silence. Then he said, “Warrior, then. It is a more honorable title, because it is one you have earned for yourself. Do you think this experience will make you a better king?"

"It will make me or break me, I suppose. Yes, of course."

"If it were going to break you, you'd have broken long ago. You even look like a warrior now, you know. You stand like one, walk like one. I suspect Joal may eventually find you a tougher nut than Tarion. If all kings were trained this way, there would be fewer wars.... But that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. How well do you know the Filoby Testament?"

Golbfish sighed. “Not at all well! I tried to read it once, but it's such a muddle I lost interest.” He wished he could be of more help to this youngster who had helped him so much. “I've heard bits of it quoted, of course."

"Does it say anything about Nagvale?"

Golbfish shook his head. “Not a word. That I do know."

D'ward frowned thoughtfully. “How about Lemodvale?"

"I don't recall anything about Lemodvale. That doesn't mean it isn't—You mean you—"

The blue eyes twinkled. “No, I've never read it. None of it. I'm not sure I could, since it's written in Sussian."

"Oh, that's not so far from Joalian. But—” Golbfish choked off the question. Why would the Liberator not have read the prophecies about himself?

"I just wondered if there was anything that might be relevant.” D'ward sighed and straightened up. He hitched his shield to a more comfortable position. He hesitated. “You haven't any idea how far it is to Lemod, have you?"

"None at all."

"Mm. Pity. Well, keep up the good work. You're a great inspiration to your countrymen, you know."

With an encouraging smile, the Liberator strode away.

Golbfish wondered afterward if he should have mentioned the Filoby Testament's prophecy about a prince.

27

LESS THAN THREE QUARTERS OF THE ORIGINAL ARMY ARRIVED AT Lemod. There it was thoroughly balked. Lemodwater, the main drainage of the vale, writhed like a mad snake in a deeply incised canyon. The city stood on a shaped salient, practically an island, its fifty-foot walls poised on the brink of sheer cliffs, a hundred feet above the torrent. The only approach was along a narrow neck of land from the north, which dipped almost to river level, so that attackers must charge uphill to reach the gates. Needless to say, those gates were closed. Lemod had been starved into submission a time or two, but even the Thargians had never taken it by storm.

Lemod was a very easy city to invest, for the white-water river was neither fordable nor navigable. The Joalians settled in. Relieved to be out of the pestilential trees at last, they cleared a campsite and a safety zone around it. They set up barricades against any attempts at sorties; they laid out sanitary trenches and generally established a proper military camp. Then they sat back and waited—to sicken, starve, and rot.

At first it was not too bad. The orchards provided food, but five thousand men ate many tons of fruit a day. As days stretched into fortnights, the foragers must go ever farther in search of fresh trees to strip. The greater the radius, the greater the guerrillas’ opportunity for ambush.

Attempts to storm the gates failed before a blizzard of arrows and missiles from the defenders. Casualties were heavy. The attackers began digging trenches, building breastworks and siege engines, and generally going through all the proper motions of investment that Lemod had seen a dozen times before. Periodically the defenders would sally out to burn or smash what had been achieved. The earthworks crept steadily up the hill, but progress was desperately slow.

Disease spread through the camp. The temperature fell steadily, and the snow line slunk downward on the peaks of Lemodwall. Soon it became obvious that the city could endure the siege far longer than the besiegers could.

The mutiny took Edward by surprise. He had little to do with the Joalian officers and too much to do keeping the Nagians in line. He worked day and night at keeping up their morale. Without his steadying hand they would have broken long ago. They would have fled in a mob for home and been cut down in the trees. Old Krobidirkin had foreseen that.

Besides, Edward was not familiar with Joalian customs, and Kolgan Coadjutant had the law on his side. When he convened a meeting of the officer cadre, he invited the Nagian commander along to witness Joalian democracy in action.

The rain had stopped at last, but a bitter wind blew. Ropes creaked and canvas thumped. The meeting was held in the general's own tent. It did not take long. Kolgan denounced Kammaeman as incompetent. Kammaeman blustered. The troopleaders voted. Kammaeman was taken out and beheaded.

Kolgan assumed command.

"Thank you, citizens,” said Kolgan Battlemaster. “I shall endeavor to be worthy of your trust. Pray inform the army of your verdict. Tomorrow I shall issue new orders."

The officers saluted and trooped out into the thin sunshine.

Edward wandered over to a stool and sat down.

The tall man scowled at him and then pulled another stool up close, very close. He sat down and said, “Well, Hordeleader? You wish to see me?” Their knees were almost touching.

"Very democratic!” Edward said. “How long do you have before someone pulls that trick on you?"

Kolgan glared. Facing challenge, he went on the offensive. “As it happens, I wish to speak with you. I hear reports that you have been releasing prisoners."

Who had been blabbing? “One prisoner."

The admission made the Joalian pause. “Any lesser man guilty of that offense would be executed on the spot. You had better explain, Hordeleader."

"I was out on patrol,” Edward said, knowing that Kolgan would not have raised the matter if he were not aware of the details. “A couple of the fellows captured a girl. She was no more than fourteen, I should say. Not a warrior."

"She might have provided valuable information."

"Under torture?” Edward let his disgust show. “The only thing she could provide was sport. They told me I had the right to go first, as I was senior. I said that the gods damned men who made war on children and that a rapist was about the next lowest slime I could imagine. Then I asked who wanted to take my place. When no one offered, I told the child to make herself scarce and she did. What did I do wrong?"

Kolgan stared at him blankly. Finally he said, “Don't you have any balls at all?"

"The same number you have, I'm sure. But I don't let them rule me."

The big man curled his mustache up in contempt. “You prefer Dosh Houseboy?"

"I don't spin in that direction, Battlemaster."

"Ha! That reminds me—all this damp is making my back ache. I am told he is an accomplished masseur. May I borrow his services this evening?"

"No,” Edward said. “You may not. That would be rape too."

The tall man flushed almost as red as his beard. For a moment the confrontation teetered on the brink of open quarrel. Then Edward turned on a grin, consciously using his charisma. “I am sorry about old Kammaeman,” he said, “but not terribly sorry."

After a brief hesitation, the tall man grinned back. He was in armor but without a helmet. There was gray in his hair, and that was new. He was deeply worried, trying to hide the fact.

"Just an old Joalian custom, Hordeleader!"

There was another old Joalian custom that Edward did know of—betrayal of allies. He had even less confidence in Kolgan than he had lately had in Kammaeman. Too lately. Obviously this expedition was a disaster. His own loyalty was to his Nagians, and they were going to be slaughtered unless he could pull off something dramatic. He should have been smarter sooner; he felt responsible.

"So now it is your turn, sir. How long do you have to find a solution?"

"A fortnight at most, if I stay here.” The new commander glanced around the unfamiliar command tent. His angular features were somehow reminiscent of a pointer sniffing the air. “The old fart used to keep some damnably good Niolian brandy hidden away somewhere."

"Not for me. What do you plan to do?"

Kolgan's gray eyes narrowed within their wrinkles. “What plan do you propose, Hordeleader?” He would put no stock in Edward's judgment. Charismatic or not, D'ward was merely another peasant.

"You summarized the situation clearly, sir. Winter is almost here. Food is almost out of reach. We take the city soon or we die."

Coppery eyebrows rose ironically. “I did not put the question quite like that. Have you a solution?"

"I am only a village laborer. Instruct me."

If the Joalian was needled by this sudden assertiveness from his colonial subordinate—his juvenile colonial subordinate—he was still sufficiently under the spell of the stranger's charisma to reply civilly.

"I must rescue the army. If I can lead it safely back to Nagland, or get even a substantial fraction of it back safely, then I shall be in the clear, and possibly a hero."

So his motives were purely personal, which Edward should have expected. “And how can you rescue the army?"

Kolgan scratched at his beard for a long moment, as if weighing his words carefully. “The prisoners tell us there is a rarely used pass to the north. Tomorrow we strike camp and head for it. The season is late."

"Your men are far better dressed than mine, Battlemaster. Can you supply us with warm clothing? Is this road passable for men going barefoot?"

"No, to both questions."

Without warning, fury was a tight hand around Edward's throat, making normal speech almost impossible. His voice came out so harsh he did not recognize it. “Are you certain this is not a trap? Can armored men carry enough food to cross the ranges? Do you expect the Lemodians to let you leave unopposed? What happens if a storm strikes while you are in the high country? Can you carry the sick and the wounded? What of my men? You just abandon your allies?"

Kolgan had paled until the rough weathering on his face seemed lit from within. He raised a clenched fist like a mace. “Have you a better plan, Nagian? If we stay we starve. If we try to fight our way back the way we came, we shall be butchered in the woods. The Thargians will hold Siopass in force by now. Do you propose to parley? Kammaeman tried it and was refused. The Lemodians think they have us by the testicles."

And so they did, Edward thought, except for one factor. They could not know that the besieging army included a stranger with a store of mana. He did not want to use it for so fell a purpose, but he had been left no choice.

He sprang to his feet, rage pulsing in his ears and a sour taste in his mouth. “I need to borrow a bugle!"

Kolgan rose also, half a head taller. “What for?"

"Trumb will eclipse tonight?"

"I believe so. Why?"

"Tonight we Nagians will force the gates for you. When you hear the bugle, advance and take the city!"

Edward turned around and stormed out of the tent.

Cursing his folly, he stalked off through the camp, heading downhill. He could feel his store of mana like a pocketful of gold, but how much would it buy? Major gods like Tion or Zath would have power to blast a hole through a city wall as easily as Apollo leading the Trojans through the Achaeans’ stockade. Or levitate the invaders to the battlements. Or just convince the Lemodian guards that they should throw open their gates, which would be the simplest solution. Edward did not think he could even do that much. If he tried and failed then he would have spent his mana to no purpose.

Nevertheless, he had taken up the ball and he would have only one shot at the wicket, so he had better think of something before dark.

The wind was icy on his bare hide. Fallow had encouraged toughness, but running around naked in winter was a little more stringent than cold baths. Lemodwall shone with fresh snow. The peaks to the north looked higher than any he had yet seen on Nextdoor. Those to the south were lower, but behind them lay Thargvale.

Kolgan's rumored pass to Nagvale might not exist; it might be already blocked; it certainly could not be attempted without warm clothes and stout boots. The Nagians were doomed unless their madcap leader could deliver on his boast. Probably the Joalians were too.

As he neared the edge of the camp, he sensed that he was being followed. It was Dosh Houseboy, of course, now formally Dosh Envoy, although no one but Edward ever used that name. Edward waved for him to come closer, and then walked on. In a moment the youth was pacing at his side, decently dressed in a blue Joalian tunic, yellow breeches, and a stout pair of boots. Where or how he had acquired those was a mystery. He might have stolen them. If he had bought them, Edward preferred not to know what price he had paid.

Except when running errands, Dosh clung to Edward like a shadow. None of the warriors would have anything to do with him, lest their friends suspect them of unmanly desires. He could not even find a meal or a place at a fire unless he was with the hordeleader. The Nagians left him alone because D'ward had commanded them to, but he had been punched up by Joalian troublemakers at least twice. Perhaps Dosh's life had never been easy. At the moment it was certainly not, but he never complained.

He might be years older than he looked. He refused to give his age, or say much about himself at all. He was short and slight, had fairish curls, and his face had been childishly pretty until Tarion took a knife to it. Now it was scrolled with crosshatched red lines that bore a bizarre resemblance to railway tracks on Ordnance Survey maps, although only one man in this army would ever notice the resemblance. He had let his downy beard grow in since his promotion to messenger, but it was invisible at a distance. At close quarters it made him seem like a boy playing at dressing up. He could be mawkish or servile or acidly witty as circumstances required. And underneath the professional softness, he was as hard and bitter as a harlot—at least, Edward assumed a harlot would be like that, having never met one. He felt sure that sweet little Dosh was as tough as any bruiser in the army and much less trustworthy than the average tarantula.

"How long would you need to round up all the troopleaders for a council?” Edward asked.

"An hour. Half that if you'll let me delegate some to fetch others."

"Have the forager leaders returned?"

"No. You want substitutes?"

"Yes. Stay with me awhile, though. I have a problem."

They came to the lowest point of the neck, flanked by the river on either hand and barely above its level. Beyond them the land rose steeply to the gates. Joalian soldiers were working on breastworks and siege engines just out of bowshot of the defenders. Edward stopped and stared at the activity without going any closer.

If he were defending the city, he would be about ready to make another sortie and burn those scaffolds. He wondered if they were dry enough for the attempt to come tonight. Probably not. It would take many fortnights for the earthworks to reach the gate. Winter was at hand. Tomorrow Kolgan was pulling out.

He turned his attention to the city itself, the high wall and the tall buildings within. The toothed battlements went all the way around, which seemed unnecessary—why build walls on the edge of vertical cliffs? Was there some reason to expect attack from the flanks, or was that merely an artistic conceit?

The cliffs were not perfectly sheer, and the plateau was irregular. In places the ground projected out beyond the walls, although those salients had mostly been beveled away to steep slopes. Between them, where the ground dipped, the walls were necessarily higher. An army could not march around the city, but possibly an active man could work his way along there, if he had time and was sufficiently suicidal. A squad of sappers might find a place to undermine the foundations, but how could they possibly do so undetected? The defenders would drop rocks on them. Still, there were spots where a man might stand back a short distance from the wall, so that he would not be looking straight up at it. Or shooting straight up it? Or?...

He felt that there was an idea there somewhere, but he could not find an end to tug on. Many generals much wiser than he must have considered all these possibilities in the past. Lemod had never been taken by storm.

"It should be possible to walk right around the base of the walls,” he said, shivering.

"If they didn't see you. A couple of the Rareby kids claim to have done it."

Edward glanced down at the guileless blue eyes in their long golden lashes. “How do you know that?"

"Eavesdropping."

Obviously. Nobody spoke to Dosh unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Bring them to the meeting too."

"Want me to ask if any others have done it?"

"No.” Edward chuckled. “Did you speak to Tarion this way?"

"What way?"

"All terse and efficient and military."

"No."

"How did you speak to him?"

Dosh looked away for a moment, then turned back to Edward with tears glistening. “I love you,” he said with a break in his voice. “I will do anything for you, anything to make you happy.” He seemed completely sincere. “I love you for your smile, for the touch of your—"

"That's enough, thank you! I get the gist."

"You asked."

"And I should not have. I didn't mean to humiliate you."

"How could you humiliate me? You don't know what humiliation is."

"No, I suppose I don't. I am truly sorry."

"Don't be,” Dosh said. “Sorry is a waste of time. The Green Scriptures, Canto 474."

"Really?"

"Who knows? Who ever reads that junk?” He smiled ruefully at Edward's laughter. “What's your problem?"

"Can I trust you?"

"If you mean will I tell anyone in the camp what you say to me, the answer is no. Who would listen?"

"Can you talk to anyone outside the camp?"

Dosh flinched. “Of course not!” he snapped.

Which confirmed what Edward had suspected for some time. The wind was gnawing through to his bones now and he was probably turning bright blue, but this was important.

"You were spying on Tarion, weren't you? Who for?"

"I won't answer that."

"You can't answer that! And you couldn't tell him, either! That's why he cut up your face!"

"You calling me a hero?"

"No, I'm not. You're not spying for a mortal, are you?"

A spasm that might have been pain twisted the red scars beside Dosh's eyes. “Can't answer that,” he mumbled.

"Then you needn't try. If I name a name, can you—"

"Don't, sir! Please?"

"All right,” Edward said, still uncertain how much of this performance was real. “If you get the chance, will you stick a knife in my back?"

Dosh curled his cherubic lip in contempt. “You would be well rotted by now."

"Yes. I see. Thank you.” Not Zath, then. “Did you ever wear a gold rose in your hair?"

Dosh stared at him, then nodded. A boyish blush spread around his scars. What did it take to make a harlot blush?

But the answer to the real question was obviously Tion. “Just snooping?"

"Just snooping. Now, what's the problem?"

He was a born spy, curious as a cat about everything. Even little Eleal had been no nosier than Dosh. Edward did not like to think about Eleal.

He hugged himself, hunching against the wind. “I told the new battlemaster that I would take the city for him tonight, and I don't know how. Haven't the foggiest."

"Oh, you'll find a way."

"You display a gratifying confidence in...” Edward stared at that cryptic, mutilated face. “What do you mean by that?"

Dosh smiled slyly, twisting the crimson railway lines around his eyes. “Nothing, Hordeleader."

"Out with it!"

"The prophecy?” Dosh said reluctantly.

"What prophecy?"

Surprise ... disbelief ... “The long one? The one about the city? The Filoby Testament, about verse five hundred, or four-fifty?"

"Tell me!"

"You don't know? Truly?"

"No, I don't know."

For a moment Dosh seemed to think Edward must be joking. He shook his head in astonishment, thought for a moment, then declaimed: “The first sign unto you shall be when the gods are gathered. For then the Liberator shall come forth in ire and be in sorrow revealed. He shall throw down the gates that the city may fall. Blood in the river shall speak to distant lands, saying; Lo—the city has fallen in slaughter. He shall bring death and exultation in great measure. Joy and lamentation shall be his endowment."

28

TOO MUCH HAPPENED THAT NIGHT. IN RETROSPECT, DOSH WAS NOT to recall ever panicking or disgracing himself. He was never to doubt that he had remained clearheaded during the events themselves. He did what was needed, with far greater courage than he had ever known he possessed.

It was his memory that betrayed him. Terror piled on terror and horror upon horror until his mind could not retain them all. Reality faded like a nightmare, so that afterward he recalled only glimpses, the highlights mostly, but also a few unimportant incidents like incongruous flickers of dream. It was as if the turning point of his life had been written in a precious book and then he had lost all but a fraction of the pages before he could even look at them. Long stretches were evermore blank.

It was a night of quadruple conjunction, a wonder that few mortals ever see, coming only once in generations. Even then, most people will not be alerted in time; it never lasts long. Neither Niol nor Tharg would admit afterward that the great event ever happened. The Niolians insisted that Ysh passed close by Trumb that night, but not actually behind, while the Thargians claimed it was Kirb'l who narrowly failed to cross over Trumb. In Joal the weather was bad and no one noticed anything at all.

Dosh knew better. He witnessed the gathering of the gods that had been prophesied, and his world was changed forever.

As for all the rest ... just pictures on a wall.

The first picture: faces around a campfire at sunset.... He huddles silent on the outskirts, ignored. A dozen or more near-naked Nagians shiver in the dusk, their unpainted faces listening in awe as the Liberator promises a miracle.

He does not mention the word. He does not tell them he is the Liberator; he seems not to believe that himself. In his own mind he has no great faith that he can deliver a miracle—Dosh knows this from what he heard earlier—but certainly no one else around this fire will guess as much from D'ward's manner. He gives orders calmly, with perfect poise. He needs a miracle, so he will attempt one. To profit from it he must have his troops standing by, so he is promising them that he will open the city. If he fails he will have destroyed himself, but he is the Liberator and they believe him. It shows in their wild, childlike eyes. They would follow him into a furnace, these crude peasants. They are all muscle and faith and no brains.

They will be the Warband, the first of all his followers.

Does Dosh sense that, even then?

What says the Liberator in this image by the campfire? Alas, most of that precious speech is written on pages lost. Dosh will recall no words, except a few, right at the end, when the Liberator turns and points at him and all the warriors scream in fury.

Their hordeleader has told them he will take only one man with him to help carry the ropes. A dozen strong voices have cried out, demanding the honor. No, none of them, D'ward has said. Not the troopleaders, for they must lead their men. Nor the prince, nor even Talba and Gospin, although they know the way. No, he will take Dosh Envoy and no one else. Only he ever calls Dosh by name. Everyone else has other terms for the despicable catamite.

This is the second picture—a dozen furious warriors howling in outrage and the Liberator shouting them down. To Dosh his words are to be the beginning of the other miracle, his personal miracle, but he does not know that yet.

"Because you ask,” D'ward is saying in that second picture, “and only because you ask, I will tell you why. I need a man whose courage I cannot doubt. Be silent! Look at those marks on his face! They were made in the dark, while he was bound and gagged. See how close they come to his eyes? See how his throat was slashed? That man endured vile torture, yet did not tell his tormenter what he wanted to know. Will any of you now claim to be this man's better in courage? Will any of you exchange your merit marks for his? I will have Dosh Envoy at my side tonight, for I trust him beyond all others."

Another glimpse: Dosh weeping, as the warriors come, each in turn, to embrace him and beg his forgiveness for past slights.... Some also whisper in his ear that he will die most terribly if he fails D'ward this night, but he ignores that. He is finding the experience very strange, for many reasons. The body contact arouses him, and he knows that will disgust them if they sense it. Their admiration distresses him—why should he care what these bullocks think?

Not the least strangeness is that he knows the Liberator is lying. The Liberator is fully aware that Dosh could not have given Tarion the information he wanted. Dosh does not understand why the Liberator should tell such a falsehood now, nor why he apparently believes his own lie enough to trust Dosh, or why Dosh himself in his present terror is not refusing the suicidal honor. He has not been asked, and he does not refuse.

Do the wonders begin here?

The waiting in the trenches as the sky darkens ... gut-wrenching anxiety. Dosh and D'ward crouch amid timbers and stonework while the weary soldiers trek back to camp for the night. Below an empty sky, the temperature drops by the minute. Trumb's green disk peers between the eastern peaks, huge and ominously perfect. Nights are bright when Trumb is full.

Has the Man already eclipsed? Will he wait for true darkness? The Liberator is counting on those few precious moments of distraction to let him approach the city unobserved. An eclipse of Trumb is a time of dread, when reapers claim souls for Zath. The guards will be watching the sky and praying. It is a time of ill omen, the last time anyone should choose to launch a mission such as this.

Trumb did eclipse, of course. Trumb must have eclipsed. At D'ward's side, Dosh must have sprinted through the darkness under the stars, stumbling up the slope under his burden, forcing legs and straining lungs to greater effort before the brief blessing was withdrawn. He must have reached the base of the walls before the light returned and hence escaped the notice of the watchers above. If he hadn't, he would have died. He must have done.

He just lost the memory somewhere.

Terror.

Fingers scrabbling in dirt for purchase, feet fumbling and slipping, the coiled rope a crushing weight on his back threatening to pull him out into the abyss, a hundred feet of nothing above the rumble of the torrent. His face pressing into the rimy grass.

Why did he not remember sooner how much he hates heights?

His nose against the gritty surface of the masonry as he edges his way along, spread-eagled against the wall ... Nothing below him at all, just a hundred feet of vertical rock in the ghastly green moonlight, and below it the raging cataracts of Lemodwater. How many seconds would a man have to scream as he fell? How often would he bounce on the ledges?

Wind.

Cold. Icy, biting cold, and he is swaddled in a double layer. He has wool underwear that nobody knows about, except the three Joalians who sold it to him all through one very hard night. D'ward must be frozen to the marrow of his bones.

Slippery wet grass and steep slopes. Not a bush, not a root.

Greasy rock with nothing to grasp hold of.

Always the smooth face of the wall above, merciless and uncaring.

Always the thought that someone up there may chance to look down and see the two intruders. They will be amusing target practice. Even in moonlight, fifty feet straight down is not a difficult shot.

Dosh will remember quite a lot of that journey. Too much.

The dike ... that is the Liberator's name for it, not a word Dosh has ever heard. It is only a narrow buttress jutting out from the cliff face a few feet below the brink, a crumbly black rock about ten feet across. Here D'ward can stand a small way back from the wall to work his miracle. Of course they are much more visible here than they were earlier, directly underneath. Watchers on the battlements will see them easily if they look down.

That is what watchers on battlements are supposed to do, isn't it?

The wind tugs and pushes viciously, striving to throw them both from their perch. D'ward curses under his breath as he fights with the thin line and the wind tries to carry it all away or tie it in tangles. His teeth chatter. In the lurid green light he looks like a walking corpse.

Picture: Dosh unbuttoning his tunic and pulling it off—he offers it to his near-naked companion and it streams out sideways like a flag.

D'ward's angry snarl: “Stop that! Are you trying to get us killed?"

"You need it."

"No. The others do not have it. Put it on again.” He goes back to tying knots with numb fingers.

The others are not crouched on this accursed ledge a hundred feet above the rapids.

The throw ... the beginning of the miracle.

In the wind and the dark at that impossible angle, the Liberator succeeds at his first attempt. It is beautiful: the log rising into the night, trailing the string behind it, the wind arcing it away.

D'ward teetering on one leg, flailing his arms, and somehow recovering his balance. For a moment Dosh is sure he is about to fall. That image will remain always, one of the clearest—the Liberator poised over the abyss, with one leg and both arms outstretched, face rigid with terror, and Dosh leaping forward to catch him just in time....

If the log makes a noise as it falls on the parapet far above, then the wind steals it away.

There must have been a hasty scramble then, back up to the base of the wall, into relative cover. Dosh does not recall it. That is a moment of terrible danger, for if anyone has heard or seen that log arriving then he must inevitably peer down to see where it came from.

The waiting.

How long it lasts, he will never know. The two of them huddling up against the cruel masonry, waiting, waiting ... D'ward looking as if he will freeze to death. Again—perhaps several times—he has refused to accept a share of Dosh's garments. In the end Dosh wraps him in his arms, and the Liberator does not resist the embrace.

It is hardly romantic, anyway, like hugging a glacier.

The fading of hope. The despair...

The moons. Trumb's glare drowns out the stars, but Ysh had risen soon after him, and then Eltiana. Three moons shine together, close together: a huge green disk, a tiny blue disk, and a red star. In the required order. Not quite a straight line, but close enough, yes? Please! Imperceptibly but inevitably, the red and the blue catch up with the green.

The prophecy is being fulfilled. Three of the gods gather, as they do every few years. It is awesome and auspicious, but it is only three. Three are rare; four are epochal.

Where is Kirb'l, the Joker?

The Maiden and the Lady edge closer to the Man. Where is the Youth?

No one can predict Kirb'l. He moves in strange patterns, straying far to north and south. He appears and he disappears at will. Sometimes, at his brightest, he travels from west to east.

Dosh praying.

The Joker!

Dosh will never forget that dramatic entrance. It will be the sharpest of all his recollections of that night—the tiny, brilliant, golden moon flashing into view ahead of Trumb, so that all four gods blaze together in the velvet silver of the sky. Kirb'l, visibly moving, moving east! Four lights. Four shadows.

Eltiana and Ysh on one side, Kirb'l on the other, almost in a line, in perfect order and relentlessly closing on the great disk of Trumb.

Quadruple conjunction, a gathering of the gods!

Wait for it...

The Liberator's sudden hiss, and the brightness in his eyes...

"What?"

"Someone's coming!"

Dosh peers all around, and of course there is no one on this accursed windswept cliff top. Someone up on the battlements, then? How can D'ward possibly know?

(Perhaps that was the beginning of belief.)

"He's found it!” D'ward pushing free, sitting up, tense in the moonlight.

"Here it comes!"

The miracle!

Some weary sentry, cold and bored, walking his beat on the parapet, has found a chunk of firewood. His superiors will not approve of litter where a fighting man may trip over it.

Perfectly natural for such a man to pick up the log and heave it over the side and then resume his march. He will be watching the skies tonight, like any other man.

Not natural for a sentry to overlook the twine attached to the log ... that is the real miracle. Not entirely luck, either, that he does not throw it out the same crenel it came in by. But he does not notice the twine he is thus looping around a merlon, and he does not notice that twine running out as the log slides down the wall, snagged on a stone tooth.

He plays his part in history and walks away to die, and at the base of the wall the Liberator relaxes with a sob, a gasp of breath held far too long.

Miracle.

There are more pages missing here.

One of the two invaders unfastened the twine and attached it to the heavier rope. One of them hauled on the twine, muttering prayers that the string would not wear through on the crenelation or just break under the strain. One of them then grabbed the rope when it came and tied a noose in it and hauled it tight.

It may have been Dosh. It may have been D'ward. It must have been one of them.

The four moons closing.

Faint sounds of chanting coming down on the wind. The priests of the city are rousing the people to come and praise the miracle in the heavens.

They do not notice the miracle on the walls. So small a thing, to bear such fruit—a length of twine looped around the battlements, and then a rope.

The Nagians will be on their way now.

The quadruple conjunction.

Side by side, sapphire Ysh and ruby Eltiana vanish behind Trumb. A moment later Kirb'l slides in front, and the gold speck is lost in the green glare. Only Trumb remains.

A gathering of the gods, omen of great destiny.

No one ever forgets seeing that.

D'ward has gone, gone up the rope. His corpse has not come back on its way to the river; there has been no sound of challenge. He must still be alive up there. Dosh waits to show the way.

He is to remember that waiting as being worst of all, because D'ward is up there alone.

Then the cream of the Sonalby troop emerges out of the darkness in single file, bringing more ropes. Bringing no spears or shields, only their clubs, clambering along that same perilous road.

Dosh insists that he be allowed to go next, first after D'ward.... They argue and Prat'han concedes, letting him go.

Stripping off his clothes so that he will not be mistaken for a defender.

Climbing near-naked and unarmed up a vertical wall in the dark.

That image will remain, always.

And after that ... a great blank.

The Sonalby troop followed the Liberator into the city. They overpowered the watch. They opened the gates for the rest of the Nagians, the spearsmen who had crept forward while the defenders watched the conjunction.

Someone sounded the bugle to summon the Joalians.

The Joalians arrived as the defenders rallied and began to slaughter the club-wielding, unarmored Nagians.

Dosh was to remember none of that. None.

The memories that came after drove them away, perhaps—bitter memories, better forgotten: glimpses of battle in near darkness, blood splattering on walls, bodies in the streets, much screaming, panicking mobs. Dead babies.

A man run through dies cleanly, showing only surprise. Men dispatched with clubs have their heads beaten into shapelessness like broken jam pots.

Women cower in corners or lament over the bodies.

Children, tiny children, running, screaming. With blood on them. Clinging to their fathers’ corpses.

Great fires stream up into the night as the failing defenders try to deny their city to the victors.

The chapel of Yaela Tion, the goddess of singing—an avatar of the Youth ... Dosh has found it somehow, he cannot remember how.

The main temple is full of hysterical refugees, but this little crypt is deserted, dark and silent, lit by one flickering candle before the diminutive image of the goddess. He will not remember entering, kneeling, or performing the secret ritual given him for this purpose.

He remembers the coming of the god, the blaze of his beauty and glory ... although that particular recollection may have blurred and merged with those of other, similar, occasions when the god has come in response to his call. He never can remember afterward just exactly what he has seen—only the impact and the beautiful voice of the god. Sobbing with happiness, barely able to speak because of the love that fills his throat to choke him, he whispers his report to the stones of the floor.

And is praised!

"You have done well so far, Beloved,” says the god. “Quite well. The prophecy of the city is fulfilled, yes. I feel the prophecy of the prince is not. Tarion offered you to the Liberator, certainly. I expect he offered you to just about everyone, but you were no temptation to D'ward. There is more to come, and it would seem that Golbfish is the prince to watch now. Carry on."

Despair! Sorrow! “Take me, master! Take me with you!"

"No, dear boy! Not yet. You must stay and watch, for my sake. And report of course. When the prophecy is played out to the end, when you have completed this task I gave you, then I promise you will be reunited with me and my love. Stop slobbering..."

This above all will remain with him: the drab emptiness when the god has gone, the unbearable pain of knowing that his mission is not complete.

Later came an unfamiliar gnawing doubt, a reluctant, treasonous, blasphemous sensation that obedience to his real master, which formerly filled him with unalloyed joy and pride, now bore an odious aftertaste, the certainty that he is betraying the Liberator.

29

YSIAN APPLEPICKER DID NOT KNOW THE CITY WELL. SHE HAD ARRIVED there only a couple of fortnights before the war came. She should have gone home again while there was time—her parents had written, urging her to do so—but the marriage had already been arranged and to leave would have seemed like terrible cowardice. Everyone had insisted that Lemod was impregnable. Soon all the rope bridges over Lemodwater had been cut down to prevent the invaders crossing, and then it had been too late. So she had remained at her uncle's house, patiently waiting until the siege was lifted and a day could be set for her wedding.

She had been all ready for bed when Aunt Og-footh had come flustering into her room in great excitement to announce that there was going to be a holy event, a quadruple conjunction, and Ysian must come and watch. Such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was not to be missed; she had dressed in her warmest furs and gone out into the night with her uncle and aunt and with Cousin Drabmere, who wore his sword.

The best view would be from the battlements, Uncle Timbiz had explained, but the wall was off-limits in this time of siege. They had gone instead to the great square, which wasn't truly great, even to the eyes of a rustic orchard girl, but was the largest open space in the city. The palace fronted it, and the temple too. The entire population seemed to have had the same idea, so the crush was enormous.

To be perfectly honest—although Ysian already knew that honesty was one virtue that should be exercised with discretion—the quadruple conjunction was not especially impressive. She could recall a couple of triple conjunctions, and this was not all that much more. The excitement she felt came from the crowd itself, like an infection. People wept and sang hymns and called out praises to the gods who were thus promising to protect their loyal and faithful worshippers in Lemod. Ysian wondered if the besiegers viewed the sign that way or if their interpretation might be very different. Time would doubtless tell who was right.

The singing faded, the conjunction ended as Kirb'l parted from Trumb. Ysh reappeared shortly thereafter.

Ysian looked around and realized that she had become separated from her companions. Well, her highly respectable aunt and uncle could always be relied upon to do the right thing, and in this case the right thing was obviously to attend the inevitable service of thanksgiving in the temple. At least half the crowd had come to the same decision, so the squash inside was frightening, the air chokingly stuffy. The high priestess made the service brief, almost indecently brief, shorter than the conjunction itself had been. Soon, but not too soon, Ysian found herself back outside in the welcome cool of the night.

She could still see no signs of her family. Being all alone did not bother her unduly. Indeed it was an adventure. An unmarried maiden should not wander the streets alone, even by day, although that was more a matter of propriety than safety, for Lemod was very law-abiding. She hung around the square as the crowd dispersed, looking for her relations until she was forced to conclude that they must have gone home. Quite likely they had all been separated and each would assume she was safe with one of the others.

She set off to make her own way home. Lemod's streets were narrow and winding, all very dark, and she had no lantern. Anytime she had been out of doors in the past, she had been accompanied by her aunt or Cousin Drabmere or by someone, and everything seemed different by night, anyway. Propriety made her reluctant to ask strangers for directions. She wandered around for a while, and all the time the city was growing quieter and quieter around her, the roads emptier and emptier, as the citizens repaired to bed. Very soon her sense of adventure became a feeling of misadventure, of being incredibly stupid. Somehow or other, she had managed to get lost.

Then the shouting began. Alarms rang. People started running. She guessed what was happening, but soon she was caught up in the panic. There were still no lights, only the eerie colored glow of the moons. Even the few lighted windows winked out into darkness. She ran away from the clamor, but invariably it circled around in front of her again. Shouting became screaming, and the clash of steel. She could not tell if the screams came from men or women. Once she almost tripped over a body.

But then—Oh, praise the gods!—she recognized an elaborate marble horse trough. A few gasping minutes later, she stumbled against the great double doors of her uncle's workshop. To her intense astonishment, the little postern door was not merely unlocked, but ajar. She could clearly remember Cousin Drabmere locking it behind him when they left. She hesitated, wondering if this might possibly be some sort of danger signal. Common sense told her that the invaders were charging around the streets killing people, not lurking in dark interiors, but still she hesitated. Then a howling, battling mob surged around a corner into the street. Ysian jumped through the door and shut it behind her.

The big shed was as black as a cellar, but she knew her way, roughly. At the cost of a dozen or so bruises on her shins, she reached the stairs. She crept up them, making no more noise than a growing mushroom, stepping very close to the wall, so that the stair treads would not creak. The house itself was dark and silent. Only the big clock in the living room made any sound at all.

She crept into the kitchen and armed herself with the biggest, sharpest knife she could find. Then she explored every room, all the way to the attics. She found no one, not even the servants, which explained the unlocked door.

She worried about that door. Common sense ... Her parents had been great believers in common sense and had made an appreciation of its importance a central element of her education—common sense told her to keep it locked. But suppose her aunt or some of the others in the family came home seeking refuge as she had done? That thought brought immediate nightmares of them being cut down on their own threshold. Furthermore, if the Joalians succeeded in seizing the city, they would mount a house-by-house search for defenders, while the Lemodians, if they won, would go around rooting out any stray invaders. The door could certainly be forced easily enough, which would mean damage to her uncle's property. To leave it open might divert suspicion. In the end she went back downstairs and opened it again, leaving it ajar as she had found it. Then she hurried back upstairs to find a hiding place.

The big closet in her aunt and uncle's bedroom seemed a likely choice, but when she went to look at it, she decided that it was all too obvious. She sat down on the edge of the bed in the dark to think. Faint but horrible noises kept drifting in through the open window, sounds of death and violence. As always, the big room was scented with her aunt's favorite perfume. It was warm, this room, never chilly. A soft, friendly room.

She wondered why she did not feel more frightened, even terrified. She decided that there was a blanket of unreality over the events of the night. Quadruple conjunction, big disappointment ... on her own for the first time since leaving Great-uncle Gooba's orchard ... unvanquished Lemod about to fall ... at least it sounded as if it was falling. She really could not believe any of this! Some prayers to the gods would likely be a sensible precaution, especially to Eth'l, patron goddess of Lemodvale.... Eltiana had been eclipsed by Trumb tonight.... Ysian decided that praying could wait until after she thought of a good hiding place. She would likely have more than enough time for praying then.

A house was burning a few streets away, ruling out any temptation to consider the attics. The workshop downstairs? The big laundry copper where the clothes were boiled?

Cousin Drabmere was probably caught up in the fighting, although he had been an inoffensive, bookish man until the war came. If her aunt and uncle were not already dead, then they had probably fled. Common sense—Ysian could not help wondering now if common sense might be a poor guide to wisdom in such an uncommon event as a sack—common sense suggested that she ought to go out and discover who was winning. If the Joalians were, then she should flee also. Trouble was, she knew she could not find her way to the gate. Other refugees would guide her, but she would be just as likely to blunder into a gang of murderous Joalians or Nagian savages, who would be worse. She would be killed or raped or both.

Well, if she was going to be raped, she would rather it happened in a private bedroom than out in a cold public street. She might well be carried off into slavery. A virgin of sixteen was probably very valuable slave material, although she would not count on remaining a virgin much longer. She clutched the big knife tightly to her chest. The first man who tried was going to regret it!

The second one would probably succeed, though.

Probably her marriage had been postponed indefinitely. She might never even know the name of the man she had been about to marry! Aunt Og-footh had revealed only that he was a widower, wealthy, and a prominent citizen. And a man of mature years ... The one member of his family Ysian had yet met had been a nasty old harridan with a million wrinkles and few teeth, and even her name had not been disclosed. That was the custom in Lemodia. Ysian had assumed at the time that this antiquated crone was negotiating on behalf of a son or more likely grandson, but then Aunt Ogfooth had let slip the word brother....

Why did Ysian not feel dismay at the thought of losing the advantageous marriage she had been promised? It was for that purpose she had been sent to the city. Her parents had very little money. A well-married daughter was their only hope of comfort in their old age. She should be heartbroken at the collapse of all her prospects, so what wickedness was this sense of relief she felt? Had she no shame?

It was at that point in her meditations that she heard men's voices downstairs.

30

"'THE CITY WAS SACKED,'” EDWARD SAID BITTERLY. “YOU READ about it in history books, but that doesn't prepare you for the real thing. Drogheda, Cawnpore, Boadicea in London, or the Goths in Rome ... the Saxons, the Vikings. Just words."

The train had slowed to a crawl, waiting for a clear signal to pull into Greyfriars station. Only the grassy sides of a cutting crept by the windows, with a single church spire bright against the evening sky.

"It can't possibly compare with what's been happening in Europe lately,” Alice said. She had been wrong to make him speak of it.

"In some ways it's worse, because it's more personal. You pull the trigger on a machine gun and you don't see the blood spurting, I suppose. But battering a man to death with a club—that's real."

"Well, don't talk about it anymore."

"Why not? If I'm ashamed to talk about it ... I mean, I did it. I opened the city. I knew there would be killing, didn't I? I must have done, mustn't I? It was them or us. The old, old excuse. If I wasn't ashamed to do it then, why should I be ashamed to talk about it now?"

He was ashamed, she knew, deeply ashamed. This was part of the change she had sensed in him. He had brought about the death of thousands.

"Fire and slaughter?"

A clamor of couplings ran down the line and the carriage lurched. Picking up speed, the train began chuffing toward the station.

"There was some fire, yes, but the defenders did that. Men were slaughtered. Children and the old were mostly driven out. The thing had not been properly planned, of course ... too many deaths. The Lemodians out in the woods reacted very quickly. They broke into the camp and killed all our sick and wounded. In the end it was a reversal of positions—us inside, them outside. But we had the supplies and could wait out the winter. That was what mattered."

People were emerging from the compartments, bringing their bags.

"And rape, I suppose?” she said. “You haven't mentioned the rape."

He shrugged. “That really wasn't so bad. Gosh, I know that sounds awful, but being gutted with a spear is frightfully permanent. There was no violence, no public violence at least. The women knew the rules. When the killing was over and the Joalians held the city, then every man just picked out a woman and said, ‘I'm so-and-so. You're mine now.’ They submitted and made the best of it."

"Edward! How can you be so ... callous?"

He looked at her oddly. “That's how it's always been—in their world or in ours. That's more or less how the women were married in the first place. No one ever asked their opinions. Like in Africa, women are property; you know that. This isn't Kensington we're talking about. Even in Kensington it happens. Ask some of the debutantes! Valians live closer to the ground than we do."

She shook her head in disbelief. Was he serious?

"And the men were dead!” he added bitterly. “They had it worse, wouldn't you say?"

The station slid into view, and a sign saying GREYFRIARS. Some of the people standing on the platform were waiting to board, standing patiently until the train came to a stop. Others were there to meet friends, and were waving and running. Porters scanned the windows, hunting for hire.

"There was no numen in Lemod,” Edward said, peering out the window. “That was probably lucky from my point of view. Most cities in the Vales are sited on nodes, and I think that's true here, too. Lemod had been chosen for its defensible location. It had just a trace of virtuality near the north wall, and there were shrines there and a small temple to Eltiana. But no numen."

Clattering and huffing, the train came to a stop. He slid down the window and reached out to the door handle. He went first with the suitcase and handed Alice down to the platform.

"So there we were, locked up snug in Lemod for the winter, knowing that the Thargians would arrive in the spring. I had fulfilled the prophecy and given the first sign, so I had advertised where I was to Zath. Apart from that—By Jove, there's Mrs. Bodgley!"

31

JULIAN SMEDLEY HAD HAD A BAD DAY. THE CROWDS NIGGLED AT HIS nerves; the close-packed mob in the train suffocated him. He felt as if everyone were watching him, especially men in uniform. He developed an absurd tendency to sweat whenever he saw a policeman. He was frightened he would suddenly start weeping in public.

Women bothered him, especially young women. He found himself staring at them, even while terrified that they would notice his attention. At his age he ought to have learned something about affairs of the heart, but the war had stolen those years out of his life. He was still the innocent virgin he had been when he left Fallow. How could he ever catch up now? No girl would be interested in a cripple—a cripple with no profession, a part man who burst into tears without warning.

His invisible right hand was tightly clenched, aching and cramped. He could feel the nails digging into his palm. Even if he pushed the end of his stump against something to make it hurt, he could not convince himself that those fingers had rotted away in the Flanders mud.

He exchanged little talk with Ginger, except when they changed trains at Chippenham. There they paced the platform together, but they seemed to have nothing left to say to each other. In the cold light of day, the previous night had taken on a tinge of nightmare. They did not mention Exeter at all. His story now seemed like the wildest sort of jiggery-pokery, a tale of the horse marines. Perhaps both he and Ginger were ashamed to admit having believed it.

Even now the cops might be informing the guv'nor that his lunatic son was not just a physical and emotional cripple but also a criminal.

The local train was as crowded as the express, puffing along from station to station, full of farmers and West Country burr. Jones disembarked at Wassal, hoping his bike was still where he had left it, chained to the railings. Smedley carried on alone to Greyfriars.

And there he was met by Mrs. Bodgley. Surprisingly, she was just as large and loud as he remembered her, a weathered dreadnought armored in Harris tweed. Her hair was streaked with silver now; there were lines like trenches radiating from her eyes. She beamed at him and boomed at him, saying nothing that might surprise anyone overhearing. Luggage? No luggage? Well, that made things simpler. The cart was this way, for of course motorcars were out of the question these days. He braced himself for questions about medals and the war, for mention of his mother's death or her husband's or Timothy's murder—and none came. He realized as they strode up the station stairs together that Ginger would have warned her about his nerves.

The dogcart might have belonged to Queen Anne, and the shaggy pony between the shafts was almost as ancient. Before Smedley could protest, Mrs. Bodgley scrambled up nimbly on the near side. There she sat, calmly adjusting her skirt, apparently engrossed in watching a gaggle of children playing hopscotch. For a moment he dithered. Of course, when a couple rode together the gentleman must drive, but ... but she knew about his hand. With a rush of both gratitude and embarrassment, he heaved himself awkwardly into the driver's place. He almost tied himself in a knot reaching the brake. He jiggled the reins. The pony did not know he could not use the whip. It wandered off homeward, dragging the dogcart behind it.

Timothy Bodgley, poor old Bagpipe, had been Exeter's friend, not especially Smedley's. Smedley had never visited the Grange. He whistled under his breath when he saw it in the distance, a crenelated backdrop to a hundred acres of stately park. There were sheep grazing in that park! Nothing he had seen that day had so clearly shown him the changes that war had brought.

Now the Army occupied the Grange, and his destination was the Dower House—a gloomy, ugly box buried in monstrous yew trees, ancestral storage for unwanted mothers-in-law. As he drove into the yard, three enormous dogs came roaring to greet him.

"Down, Brutus!” Mrs. Bodgley bellowed. “Be quiet, Jenghis! Oh, do stop that, Cuddles! There was a most beautiful house here, you know, designed by Adam. There's an etching of it in the Grange library. But Gilbert's grandmother had it torn down and put up this dreadful Victorian barn. I shouldn't complain. I can't imagine what I should have done if the Army hadn't taken over the big house. Oh, these dreadful pigeons! They turned it into a hospital, you know. Can't get servants for love nor money these days, and with just myself, it would be far too ... Heaven knows what I'll do with it after the war is over. Let me do that. And I'll give Elspeth her rubdown. Please don't argue. She's used to me. Just go on inside, dear boy. Captain, I mean. Make yourself at home. If you want to put the kettle on we can have a cup of tea. Jones said the others would be arriving on the four fifteen, so we've lots of time...."

The Dower House was dark and smelled of damp. Its furniture was old and lumpish, its plaster stained. There was no electricity, not even gas. Smedley filled the black iron kettle from the pump and carried it indoors. He poked up a flame in the range, which would have roasted oxen in herds. Just a little place, this—only seven bedrooms. It was a mausoleum, but at least his nerves would not be troubled by crowds. The kitchen was the size of a ballroom, a vast expanse of shadow and stone. It echoed, full of emptiness. He thought of prisons. He sat on one of the hard wooden chairs and wondered what life should have been.

"There you are!” Mrs. Bodgley boomed, bustling in with the dogs all around her. “I can show you to your room if you like. No, don't thank me. It is I who should be grateful. I have so little company these days. Stop that, Brutus! One tries to keep busy, you know, and do one's bit. Knitting for the troops and war bond committees and visiting our poor dear boys up at the Grange, but I do confess that sometimes the evenings drag, so I was only too happy when Mr. Jones called, and I do so want to hear Exeter's story from his own lips because I never for one moment believed he had anything to do with what happened to Timothy. And where he went to! I have some Madeira cake around somewhere. That inspector man was utterly incompetent, and Gilbert himself was quite distrait at the time. Where did he disappear to so dramatically, do you know?"

Exeter, not the general. “He went to another world, Mrs. Bodgley."

Mrs. Bodgley had been rummaging in a drawer for spoons. She straightened to her full height and transfixed Smedley with a stiletto eye.

"Did you say, ‘Another world'?"

"Yes, I did."

"Oh.” Mrs. Bodgley pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “How very curious!” she murmured, and returned her attention to the cutlery.

He had never felt so helpless in his life. He was appalled to discover that his hostess had no resident servants, only “old Tattler's daughter who comes in twice a week to do the rough cleaning.” Moreover, Mrs. Bodgley did not seem to find that situation remarkable. He had not realized how much the war had changed things.

She began peeling spuds. He could not help with that. He might possibly make beds, but she assured him the beds were already made up. There was no shortage of linen. She had trunks and trunks of stuff she had brought from the big house, she said. Perhaps he could just look through that one and find some more plates?

He had run out of fags. He could not even walk into town to buy some—partly because he was a hunted fugitive, mostly because he had no money. Oh hell! How had he ever blundered into this bog?

Rumbling nonstop as she prepared dinner, Mrs. Bodgley spouted news of his old chums, and he felt the chill of the war's grim shadow. Wounded, wounded, dead, dead, dead ... She talked of the difficulties the school was having now, for although she was no longer wife of the chairman and hence Honorary Godmother, she had maintained her interest.

She asked what his plans were now. He had to confess that he had none. He had always assumed that he would return to India, where he had been born, following in the guv'nor's footsteps. The Government of India would probably prefer men with two hands, but he had some gongs and he was Sir Thomas's son ... but the police were after him now. Whatever happened in the next week or two, that blot would never fade from his record. Scratch India.

He kept thinking of Exeter's Olympus—dressing for dinner in the jungle, house servants galore ... but that mythical world was wilting under the clammy breath of reality. Magical powers and miracle cures, prophecy and vindictive gods ... how could anyone believe such ravings?

Oh, for a cigarette!

The time came to harness up the pony again. Mrs. Bodgley set off for Greyfriars and the station. Smedley wandered out into the garden. The vegetables were well tended, the flowers needed work. He removed his jacket and tie. Clippers or lawn mower were beyond him, but he found a hand fork in the shed and set to work on the weeds. When that palled, he established that he could use a hoe, after a fashion, and even rake leaves.

The scent of fresh earth reminded him of the trenches. But this was an autumn afternoon in England. He was Home. Thick hedges and ivy-furred walls enclosed him like a womb. There were leaves overhead and white clouds. He could hear a chaffinch and the pigeons. He had done his bit, his war was over. Home! Blighty! A fierce contentment seized him.

After a while he realized that his invisible hand had gone, and he had not wept all day.

The trap came jingling back, with Exeter driving. Smedley went to open the yard gate for them, but of course Alice was there. Alice was a girl. Confused by the strange shyness that suddenly possessed him, he hastened back to his gardening. There, at least, he would not have to listen while Exeter discussed old Bagpipe's murder with his mother, if they had not already gone over that.

An hour or so must have drifted by before he heard a mechanical rattling. Exeter came around the corner, grinning cheerfully and pushing a lawn mower. “Escaped!” he said. “Tired of talking! You've got a good show going here."

He hung his jacket and tie on a branch. After a few passes across the straggly lawn, he stopped and glanced at the hedges. The lane outside was a cul de sac, with no traffic. He took off his shirt, to work in his undervest. The ladies were busy in the kitchen, he said. They wouldn't notice. It wasn't quite gentlemanly, but it did make sense. Smedley removed his shirt also, and went back to killing weeds.

His mood of lonely content had faded. Every time he caught sight of Exeter's bronzed shoulders he thought of those ritual scars the man must still have on his ribs. How could he have gone native like that? What little he had said about the Service had made it seem like a very worthy cause. Olympus had sounded like a true outpost of civilization. But spears and mutilation and painted faces ... those were not pukka!

Dinner was a strange meal. Even with all the windows open, the sepulchral dining room was dim and breathless. Its monumental mahogany furniture would have seated twenty without trouble, so the four of them clustered at one end of the table, Smedley paired with—and tongue-tied by—Alice Prescott. If either of the ladies had ever studied the culinary arts, the food did not bear witness. They both wore dresses, but not evening dresses, and of course the men had nothing except the clothes that Ginger had acquired for them from the mythical barrow. The total absence of servants screamed wrongness.

As compensation, the wines were superb. Everyone became a little louder than usual.

Exeter hardly had a chance to eat. Whenever he paused, either Alice or Mrs. Bodgley would fire more questions at him. He repeated much that Smedley had heard before. He added a lot more. Mrs. Bodgley raised her eyebrows a time or two, but never expressed a doubt as the unlikely tale unfolded.

If Exeter was making it up, or had imagined it all, it was astonishingly detailed and consistent. Reluctantly, Smedley began to sense belief creeping back again, and odd stirrings of something that felt strangely like relief. He was too close to being tipsy to work that out.

After the cheese, the men declined port, and all four moved out to the little crazy-paving terrace to sit on a pair of extremely uncomfortable wrought-iron benches and watch the sky darken and the stars awaken. Alice brought coffee. Mrs. Bodgley disappeared and returned with cobwebs in her hair and a very dusty bottle in hand.

"This is older even than I am,” she said. “It's part of a stock of wines and spirits that Gilbert laid down for Timothy when he was born. It seems only fitting that his friends should enjoy them. Edward, will you do the honors, please?"

It was an angel of a brandy.

There was only one thing wrong with the day now.

"Captain?” Mrs. Bodgley boomed. “Mr. Exeter? What am I thinking of? I do believe there are still some of Gilbert's cigars in the humidor. Would either of you care..."

It was a goddess of a cigar. Corona Corona, finest Cuban.

"Listen!” Alice said. “That can't be a nightingale? This late in the year?"

"Well?” Mrs. Bodgley demanded, shattering a reflective silence. “What are your plans now, Mr. Exeter?"

Smedley jerked out of a reverie. Good question!

"I do wish you would go back to calling me Edward, Mrs. Bodgley."

He had asked that several times. Smedley was amused to see the redoubtable Mrs. Bodgley not in perfect control of her tongue, but he knew that this evening must be a devilish strain on her. She must feel haunted by ghosts of past, present, and future—son, husband, and better days. She deserved a medal for even trying.

"Tch!” she said. “I keep forgetting. What are your plans now, Edward?"

"I want to enlist, of course; do my bit."

"Naturally. I would not expect anything different of a Fallow boy."

Alice shifted on the bench at Smedley's side. He thought she was about to speak, but she did not.

"Preferably not in the Foreign Legion,” Exeter added.

Mrs. Bodgley thundered a brief laugh like a signal cannon. “Indeed not! But from what you say...” She was talkative but her wits were not befuddled. “Oh, some of Gilbert's friends will help. I'll think of someone in the morning."

"That would be wonderful! Thank you.” Exeter's gaze flickered toward Smedley's empty cuff—and then away again, quickly. “But I also must get word back to the Service, on Nextdoor. About the traitor. That is urgent."

Even the deepening twilight could not conceal the shrewdness in the old lady's stare. “But you say that only people can cross over? You cannot just drop a note?"

Again Exeter glanced briefly at Smedley.

"That is correct. All messages are verbal. Someone will have to make the trip there and back. One possibility would be Stonehenge, the portal I used before, but Alice says the Army has it shut off."

"I am sure that is correct."

Smedley waited for her to invoke some more of her late husband's friends, but she just sipped her brandy in silence.

Exeter scratched his chin. He had cut it while shaving for dinner, and now he was making it bleed again. “Another approach would be to get in touch with the, ah, the numen who cured my leg. The one I called Mr. Goodfellow."

"And where is he?"

"Not far from here, but I'm not sure where. Do you have any local Ordnance Survey maps around?"

"Gilbert had reams of them, but they're packed away in boxes somewhere. And I don't think you can buy any just now—in case of spies, you know. Why do you need them?"

"To find a hill with standing stones on it."

"Nathaniel Glossop."

"Beg pardon?"

"Nathaniel Glossop,” Mrs. Bodgley repeated infallibly. “A neighbor. He knows all the local archaeology. I shall call on him in the morning."

"Oh, jolly good!” Exeter said. “Spiffing! That would be very good of you."

"No trouble, Edward. But tell me something. Why did it take you three years to return?"

His hesitation was interesting.

"Well, the Service weren't frightfully helpful, I admit."

"You were a prisoner?"

"Er, hardly! But they'd suspended all Home leave during hostilities, and the Committee didn't want to make a special case for me. They kept saying that the war would be over before I could do any good. Olympus doesn't keep up to date very well, you see. The Times doesn't circulate there. We knew the war was still going on, but months would go by without news, and the war always seemed to be on the point of ending. And ... they had this conviction that I have a destiny to play out as the Liberator."

Mrs. Bodgley made clucking noises of disapproval. The moon was rising, silver behind the sable yews.

"Well, naturally they're more concerned about what's happening on Nextdoor than here,” Exeter said defensively. “They're very dedicated to their own cause. And it did take me almost two years to arrive at Olympus in the first place."

"Why?"

He peered at his fingers and found the blood on them. Muttering angrily, he fumbled for a handkerchief. “What? Oh, the Vales are primitive compared to Europe. The distances are not great, but it's like wandering around Afghanistan or ancient Greece. Strangers attract suspicion. Unattached young men are apt to be taken for spies. Remember how Elizabethans felt about paupers—Poor Law, and all that—send them back to their home parish? There's slavery in some places. Thargvale, in particular."

"How barbaric!"

"Believe me, it is! And if not slavery, then military service. For the first year or so, I was caught up in a war."

Pause. “A war?” Mrs. Bodgley repeated the word with disapproval. The brandy was making her louder and more matriarchal than ever. Smedley wondered what Alice was making of her. Alice had not spoken in a long time. She was too close for him to see her expression. She was too close.

"'Fraid so,” Exeter agreed.

"Like Afghanistan, you said? Bows and arrows? Some squalid tribal squabble?"

"Very much squalid."

"Edward, I'm afraid I feel a little disappointed in you! Could you not have left the natives to fight their own battles? I really can't see why it need have been any of your business. Your duty lay back here, surely?"

Smedley wondered what the good lady was going to say when she heard about the scars and the face paint. Perhaps Exeter could guess, because he did not mention them.

"I felt that way too, Mrs. Bodgley. But it wasn't so easy. First, no army tolerates deserters. Secondly, I—” Exeter shot another brief, cryptic glance at Smedley, as if checking his reactions. “Well, I had responsibilities there, too. I had made friends, you see, who had given me hospitality, so I could hardly just run away and leave them, could I?"

"You weren't fighting in the ranks, though, were you?” Alice said.

Exeter pulled a face. “Not in the end,” he admitted.

"They elected you leader?"

He nodded unwillingly.

"Leader?” Mrs. Bodgley paused, as if rolling the idea around in her mind. “Leader of what?"

"The combined Joalian and Nagian armies. In our terms not much more than a brigade, five or six thousand."

"Indeed? Well, that does make a difference, I admit."

It certainly did, Smedley thought. Brigadier Exeter? Field-Marshal Exeter! Bloody good show!

"Of course, it would be just like a Fallow boy to take command,” Mrs. Bodgley mused approvingly. “Leadership! Initiative! The traditions of the Old School. The school magazine will—No, I suppose not."

"Oh, it was nothing to do with me,” Exeter protested. “It was just my stranger's charisma."

"You are modest, Edward. It is starting to get chilly, isn't it? But let's stay out here a little longer. I hate the smell of those paraffin lamps. Do tell us about this war of yours."

Exeter laughed unconvincingly. “It wasn't very noble. I worked my way up from the ranks. By the time they elected me supremo, we were locked up in a besieged city with the finest army in the Vales certain to come after us as soon as spring opened the passes. The seasons are running about three months behind ours just now, so that would have been roughly a year after I crossed over."

"Your cause was just, I trust?"

"My cause was just to save our necks. There was no hope of winning anything, nothing at all. All we wanted to do was get home safely."

"Xenophon and the Ten Thousand!"

"On a very, very small scale."

Better still! Smedley had always approved of wily old Xenophon, and he was intrigued by this charisma business—could use bags more of it on the Western Front! “How did you get them to elect you leader?” he asked.

Exeter shrugged. “I didn't. It just sort of happened. Joalians are great believers in pour encourager les autres. They'd already beheaded one general. They were ready to shorten his successor and put me up instead. I said I would help, but only if they'd just demote Kolgan back to being my deputy.... I told you, strangers have charisma."

"But you'd got them safely into the city in the first place,” Alice remarked quietly.

"True. But that was a magic trick."

"So how did you get them out?"

Exeter scratched his chin. “By reading, mostly,” he said vaguely. “We had a whole winter to kill, and there were books in Lemod—that was the city, Lemod. I did a lot of reading. And I had Ysian to help."

"Who's Ysian?” Alice asked.

"Er ... a friend, ah, native, I mean. A Lemodian. Helpful."

"Describe this friend!"

Even in moonlight, his hesitation was obvious. “A girl. I—I found her under a bed, actually."