“Look at those shoulders! She must have wrestled bulls back on the farm!”

“Everyone knows women are a cursed sight meaner than men. I heard at Lemovis they plowed down a division of the crack Arverni militia, just crushed ’em. Cut their balls right off.”

“We go around back,” said Luce, rolling her eyes as her cadre hurried ahead. “If I shall have to hear one more idiot babbling about Amazons cutting off men’s balls, I shall cut off his eggs just to prove ’tis no empty tale! I have heard that story a hundred times since I joined up! I wish they would just leave it be.”

“It sounds very painful,” observed Rory.

“’Tis not true!” she cried.

He frowned. “You don’t love me like you used to, Luce. You used to purr at the sight of me.”

She patted his arm. “That was a long time ago, Rory, and don’ think yee kisses weren’t delicious. But I’ve a sweetheart now, and anyway no time for men.”

“How can anyone have no time for men?” he muttered, looking a bit peevish.

“Where is the general?” I asked.

“Why, this is the headquarters. The Amazon Corps is seconded to the command division. We’s not regular army like the rest.”

A woman dressed in the Amazon uniform and armed with sword and pistol emerged from the market hall with a brisk gait I recognized. Captain Tira changed course to intercept us. Luce and her cadre halted to salute.

“Washed up, did yee?” Captain Tira looked me up and down. She was a maku even by Europan standards, with sun-worn skin, hair as black as my own, and eyes that spoke of ancestors in far Cathay where, legend had it, a dragon emperor ruled. Maybe the stories were true! Whatever her origins, she was Camjiata’s loyal soldier through and through. “Is the gal brought as a prisoner, or of she own wish?” she said to Luce.

“Of my own wish,” I said.

“Yee shall come with me, then. Trooper, yee lot shall return to yee company. Dismissed.”

Just like that, we were parted. Under Captain Tira’s stern eye we dared not even embrace.

“Take care, Luce,” I said, hoping my look spoke my heart.

“I shall find yee,” she promised. They loped off, settling into a brisk jog.

The captain led us into the long, lofty market hall. By a tiled stove, the general sat in a chair receiving reports and visitors. Five clerks occupied a table, writing busily without looking up. A striking group they were: a Taino woman, a feathered person, an old Iberian man, a thin Celt, and a curly-haired Kena’ani scribe.