Sukey smiled. It was an odd smile, as if she knew something that Blanche didn’t know. Which she probably did.

Back towards the gate, a voice called, “Sukey!” like the sounding of a great horn.

“Damn the man,” Sukey said. “Anne, wash those linens and bring them to…” She looked at Blanche. “I guess you’re casa 24-R2.”

“What’s that?” Blanche asked. Anne picked up the linens without another sniff and curtsied as if Blanche was indeed a lady. Blanche responded—it was a little like the laundry at home.

“24-R2 is the twenty-fourth tent of the second corporal of the red band,” Sukey said, already underway. “Look, I’ll show you.”

“Sukey!” called the deep voice.

“I’ll kill him. You know, he went off and lay with another girl at the Inn of Dorling, and now he thinks he can walk back in here—”

“Suuu-key!”

Blanche, always everyone’s confidante, giggled. “That’s Bad Tom?” she asked.

“Aye,” Sukey said. “That’s Bad Tom.”

“He’s very handsome.” Blanche hadn’t thought it aloud before that. But Tom’s sheer size was—remarkable.

“Aye he is, and he knows it, the devil.” Sukey was walking fast through a darkened camp. “See the captain’s pavilion? No, there. See? Red flags.”

“I see it,” Blanche allowed.

“All the lances of his household camp in a line behind—knights at the head of the camp, then men-at-arms and pages and then servants. See? R2 is Ser Francis, and a nicer gentleman you’ll never meet. Twenty-four is just a spare at the back of camp. I walked all the way around so you’d see the how and the why. See? And see the cook fires?”

Blanche swallowed heavily. “Yes,” she admitted. “So many tents!”

Sukey laughed. “Honey, wait until you see whole company—that’s nearly five hundred tents. An army! Christ and all his saints, you can get lost walking around looking for a spot to piss.”

“Suuk-keeyy!”

“He’ll make a fool o’ himself,” Sukey said. She seemed perfectly well pleased. “Come to my tent and I’ll gi’ you a gown and a couple of shifts.”

“You’ll want to get to sleep,” Blanche said.

Sukey laughed and licked her lips. “I doubt Tom has sleep in mind. He’s been fightin’.” She grinned. “Fightin’ makes him think o’ just one thing. Come on—I don’t mind makin’ him wait.”

Back, by some incomprehensible path through the endless rows of white wedges in the moonlight, like a monster’s teeth, like headstones in a churchyard. Blanche was instantly lost as soon as she couldn’t see the captain’s two red tent banners.

Then they emerged into a cross street, as broad as half a bowshot.

“Officer’s line,” Sukey said. “See, there’s the cap’n’s tent again. Got your bearings?”

Blanche shook her head.

“Well, never mind. Here’s my little home.”