“Surely you don’t expect any trouble here, this close to Vérella—it’s Mahieran land—” Beclan began.

Dorrin raised an eyebrow and noticed the Marshal-General giving him a stern look as well. “You’re here to learn, Beclan,” Dorrin said. “More trouble comes when you don’t expect it than when you do.” Not strictly true, in some of the places she’d been, but a good lesson anyway. “You’ll warn us of anyone coming up behind—and that includes along the rear flanks. Daryan, you’ll signal when you see any party coming along the road the other way. Stick your hand up once for every rider or the number of people in a group. Same with the flank guards. Every time we pass through a village, rotate positions. Rear guard to river-side, river to foreguard, foreguard to land-side, land-side to rear.”

“How far out?” Gwenno asked. “Should I ride across the fields?” She looked eager to do so.

“We don’t trample crops,” Dorrin said. “Where they border the road, just ride on the verge. Stay back, about halfway along our group, where you can see any hand signals I give. We want to make it clear that we’re alert, watching on all sides. If we practice that now, where it probably is safe enough, you’ll know how to do it later, when it’s not.”

The squires set off into their assigned places. Eddes, now almost up to Dorrin’s standard as a basic militia soldier, grinned at the squires until he saw Dorrin looking at him. At the next village, Beclan turned aside from the rear and trotted up to Gwenno. “Go on,” he told her. “I’ve got this side now.”

Dorrin turned in the saddle. Eddes had indeed dropped back to take Beclan’s place, and Daryan had reined his mount to the side of the road, waiting for them to pass. Gwenno pushed her horse into a stronger trot and reached Daryan before the head of the column.

“Neatly done,” Dorrin said. She waved the column on, and they started again.

That night they camped in a field near a cluster of farm buildings. Dorrin assigned one squire—Gwenno this time—and two of the militia to dig the jacks; Beclan and Daryan set up her tent and their own and took the horses to water and to graze while the rest cut out a fire ring and Efla cooked supper.

“I wondered how you’d handle them,” the Marshal-General said.

“Hmm?” Dorrin stretched, arching her back.

“The squires. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; you’ve handled recruits before—”

“And Kieri’s squires from time to time. He assigned them to different cohorts when he had enough of them. Their fathers had sent them to us to learn military things, after all.”

“What do you think of these?”

“After one day? It’s too soon to make judgments.” She hoped she’d know much more by the time they reached Verrakai lands.

Supper was less than successful; Efla had never cooked over a campfire before. Her attempt at bread came out scorched on the outside and gooey on the inside, the redroots burned to the bottom of the pot, and only the sausages, toasted on sticks, and the sib were really good.