Blanche nodded. “Two reasons,” she said softly. “One, because we cannot afford a new infiltration. The second, because at least one of our two cases seems to be a new worm, not an old worm.”

Michael paled. “They’re still out there,” he said.

Blanche shrugged. “We don’t even know where they come from,” she admitted. “Or how they get into people in the first place.” She shuddered. “I used to dread dying of leprosy; then I dreaded rape. Now all my fears have been replaced by this . . . infestation.” She looked away, took a breath. “Kronmir went south to investigate the Patriarch; now he’s dead.” She rolled her head, stretching her neck. “I need to do more sword swinging.” She smiled. “My point is that we’re not safe, Arles is not safe, and we need to remain vigilant right to the end.”

Michael nodded. “Right. So we send the Scholae to cover the convoy.”

“And anything else you can think of to feed the survivors, get them shelter, and get them processed so we can move them,” Blanche said. “We have almost six thousand northern Etruscans ready to go home. More by the end of the week. They need food and a safe road. If we’re quick, they can, maybe, help bring in their own harvests on their own farms.”

Michael was reading another report, also about dissent, this one from Harndon. “So?” he asked.

“What if Comnena marched them to the convoy, fed them from the beef herd there, and then took them over the mountains to Sauce? While we have a clear chain of logistics and outposts?” She leaned forward.

He shook his head. “I know you feel for them—” he began.

“It’s not Christian charity,” she snapped. “Or if it is, it’s also practical. By Thursday we could have ten thousand of them out of the fields; that’s ten thousand mouths we are not trying to feed at the end of a two-hundred-league supply line. That’s a lighter burden on the Arelat, both here in the city and out in the countryside. Because the food coming over the mountains isn’t for starving people, is it, Michael?”

“No,” he said. “It’s for armies.” He looked at the paper with the report on dissent in Arelat, and back at Blanche’s eyes. “Gabriel said nothing of this,” he said.

“No,” she said. “He didn’t think of it. I did.”

Michael looked out a small window. “I hate making decisions,” he admitted. “But yes. If we can get ten thousand mouths back over the mountains to Mitla and Berona, let’s do it. They’ll have to leave day after tomorrow, though. Sauce will come home in three days, unless there’s more action. The big convoy will pass her position . . . later today? I hope?”

Blanche was already writing orders.

Forty leagues from Arles—The Red Knight