The commissar loved them, though he hated their cruelty. Though he gestured angrily he heard about it, he condemned it as he might have condemned viciousness in one of his own children, had he had any—angrily, yet excusing them in his heart, as if their cruelty had come out of an excess of some good quality, energy, perhaps, or courage. He forgave them because they symbolized for him the pure essence of soldiery, the way they laughed and never complained, the way they fought until they died, the way they rode those huge, savage horses as if they were part of them, careening down the scorched gullies just for the love of riding, and then all changing direction in a mass, without a word or signal, wheeling like a flock of birds.

Also, there was something in their disorganized appearance that touched the heart in his starched, polished old breast. They had no uniforms. Some rode almost naked under the white sun.

When there was wood, at night they lit bonfires and played music and danced. Then the old commissar would walk down from his tent and sit somewhere on a rock above their camp. Alone and far away, but not out of earshot, he would sit with a cigarette and listen to some saxophone rip up the night, and watch the figures of the dancers. He hadn’t much to do. As he had anticipated, he was with the transport corps, bringing up ordnance from the city on the backs of dying elephants.

* * *

The commissar had gone with the first wave of reinforcements, veterans and reserves, and a few companies of the purge. Thanakar remained in the city a few days, putting together a mobile hospital with a man he had known from medical school named Creston Bile. They had seven surgeons and a muleteam, along with some episcopal spies posing as assistants. These spies were to make sure that no one but Starbridge officers got more than rudimentary first aid, certainly no anaesthetic, nothing to blunt the pain when God saw fit to wound a soldier for his sins. “We’ll ditch them first thing,” said Creston Bile. “I had to agree. Otherwise the bishop would have locked us up.” He was a good man.

The night before they were due to leave, Thanakar got a message from Charity Starbridge. “Please come please,” it said, in a style of calligraphy only the brightest and best-educated were allowed to use, the first percentile of the graduates from Starbridge schools. There Charity had been taught, along with physics, calculus, and astronomy, never to show discomfort or displeasure, but when Thanakar reached the commissar’s tower, she was on the verge of tears. She was trying to control herself, but her famished body seemed to shake from the exertion. “I don’t mean to scare you,” she said as she met him in the hall.

“Please, if you have something else to do . . .”

“What is it?”

“Please, I feel so ashamed.”