West groped for words, but then thought better of it. 'I cannot imagine, your Highness.'

'Joined the Inquisition! Well, I never.' They rode in silence for a moment. Gradually, the Prince's smile returned. 'But we were talking of the honour of war, were we not?'

West grimaced. 'We were, your Highness.'

'First through the breach at Ulrioch, weren't you? First through the breach, I heard! There's honour for you, eh? There's glory, isn't it? That must have been quite an experience, eh, Colonel? Quite an experience!'

Struggling through a mass of broken stones and timbers, littered with twisted corpses. Half-blind with the smoke, half-choking on the dust, shrieks and wails and the clashing of metal coming at him from all around, hardly able to breathe for fear. Men pressing in on all sides, groaning, shoving, stumbling, yelling, running with blood and sweat, black with grime and soot, half-seen faces twisted with pain and fury. Devils, in hell.

West remembered screaming 'Forward!', over and over until his throat was raw, even though he had no idea which way forward was. He remembered stabbing someone with his sword, friend or enemy, he did not know, then or now. He remembered falling and cutting his head on a rock, tearing his jacket on a broken timber. Moments, fragments, as if from a story he once heard someone else telling.

West pulled his coat tighter round his chilly shoulders, wishing it was thicker. 'Quite an experience, your Highness.'

'Damn shame that bloody Bethod won't be coming this way!' Prince Ladisla slashed petulantly at the air with his riding crop. 'Little better than damn guard duty! Does Burr take me for a fool, eh, West, does he?'

West took a deep breath. 'I couldn't possibly say, your Highness.'

The Prince's fickle mind had already moved off. 'What about those pets of yours? Those Northmen. The ones with the comical names. What's he called, that dirty fellow? Wolfman, is it?'

'Dogman.'

'Dogman, that's it! Capital!' The Prince chuckled to himself. 'And that other one, biggest damn fellow I ever saw! Excellent! What are they up to?'

'I sent them scouting north of the river, your Highness.' West rather wished he was with them. 'The enemy are probably far away, but if they aren't, we need to know about it.'

'Of course we do. Excellent idea. So that we can prepare to attack!'

A timely withdrawal and a fast messenger to Marshal Burr was more what West had in mind, but there was no point in saying so. Ladisla's whole notion of war was of ordering a glorious charge, then retiring to bed. Strategy and retreat were not words in his vocabulary.

'Yes,' the Prince was muttering to himself, eyes fixed intently on the trees beyond the river. 'Prepare an attack and sweep them back across the border…'