“Bring the maestra a fresh plate,” said Camjiata. “Please be aware, Drake, that Lutetia is the crucial battle of this entire campaign. This is no time to quibble over prizes as if we are boys playing a game of sticks in the river. I have promised you that when the time is right, we will turn our attention to the Ordovici Confederation, but I cannot do so if my army is defeated. Cat?” He examined me. “Are you well? You look pallid.”

“When will the time be right?” muttered Drake under his breath. “How long must I wait to get back the throne and honor that are rightfully mine?”

“Ah, here is a fresh plate. I hope everything on it is to your liking, Cat.”

It was an imperial portion of beef and a full half of roasted chicken. I knew better than to let anger and disgust harm my appetite. I dug in while the command staff discussed the speed with which the army could move, and how far from Lutetia’s walls the hospital camp ought to be set up.

The meal’s ending gladdened me, for escape from Drake’s presence beckoned the way a street filled with the best fabric and tailoring shops calls to a fashionable woman with a limitless purse. Camjiata ushered me out of the room with a speed that took my breath away. Doctor Asante cut off Drake with a question that allowed us to get out the door, and the door shut behind us even before Rory could follow me. The general’s fingers pinched so hard I almost yelped.

“Wait before you speak,” he murmured.

He escorted me swiftly out of the hall and up a set of back stairs to a modestly furnished loft. Four young officers, one an Amazon, studied a table covered with maps. They acknowledged our entrance with salutes. He pressed me past them through an inner door into a long attic storeroom whose boxes and crates had been shoved back to leave room for bedrolls and gear. A window at the far end looked over the front of the market hall and the main square to an old stone castle tower rising above green trees.

Camjiata paused at a closed door that led into another room set in under the eaves. Hand on the latch, he paused. Long golden spears of late-afternoon sunlight lanced in through the window to illuminate his figure as in a portrait. As in a dream. His hair was pulled back and tied with an incongruously bright-green ribbon that matched the old-fashioned bottle-green dash jacket he wore, cuffs trimmed with lace.

He turned to address me with a serious look that quite disarmed me, for who would offer such a direct and confiding gaze to an enemy? His tone had an intimate color, as if despite everything he trusted me enough to speak his true mind.

“I need you to kill him. You’re the only one who can.”

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