A young woman stood on a table, flanked by a blacksmith in guild robes and a djeli with blond hair swept up in lime-whitened spikes and gold earrings gleaming in the flame of the candle lantern he held. Half hidden among the crowd waited Brennan and Kehinde. Weaponry scavenged from the field was being hauled into the city.

Camjiata rode forward. His carelessly bold manner gave him a commanding presence. I alone followed. Bee marked me with a dark look that scolded me. Then, having dispensed with me, she pulled the shawl on her shoulder up over her hair and opened her arms in a matronly manner that mimicked the festival tableau called “Dame Fortuna Welcomes the Victors.”

“The good citizens of Lutetia have given me leave to speak on their behalf, out of respect for the Lady of the River whose voice runs all through the city.” Her voice had such resonance that, although she did not seem to be shouting, the sound carried deep into the evening. “We offer our thanks here today to you, General Camjiata. You have fought your battle outside our walls. In your wisdom you leave us to fight our battles inside them. This barricade we built from the furniture and pavilions of the prince’s palace, which we have torn down as the first act of raising an assembly to rule in the place of a prince. We will follow the example of our brothers and sisters in the city of Expedition on the island of Kiskeya across the Atlantic Ocean and devise a means to rule ourselves. Your offering at the altar of our radical enterprise we accept gratefully.”

“What offering is that?” he said, with a smile whose contours I could not interpret. Was he angry? Amused? Making ready to launch an attack into the city with his victory-soaked troops?

“You have generously shared your legal code as a model for the one that will be written here! Copies have been printed across Europa and now circulate on the streets of Lutetia.”

“I am aware of the strenuous efforts of printers. May I not stand on the steps of the prince’s palace and declaim the code? I did so twenty-two years ago on those very steps, only to have the law driven out by the hounds of greed who are ever whipped forward by princes and mages.”

Bee smiled bounteously. “The people of Lutetia are grateful for your efforts. We think you have done enough.”

“And wishful to see the backs of me and my army, is that what you are saying, Beatrice? Is this what you have seen in your dreams, that I will turn away when I and my army have won the victory that allows the citizens of Lutetia to overthrow their hated prince?”