“He needs a bath,” Gabriel said with a smile. “And some food. He’s starving away to nothing.”

“I am, that,” Kessin said.

Gabriel gave him a Rose Leopard and rode over to Ser Tobias.

“Me?” Ser Tobias asked. He dismounted, and began to strip out of his harness, and his squire came forward to help him strip his kit. In a minute, it was laid out on the ground: armour, maille, cloak and eating kit, purse and sword and dagger, a small Ifriquy’an war hammer, and a heavy wool hood.

“You’re the newest,” the emperor said with a smile. “Who taught you to clean armour anyway?”

“You,” Ser Tobias said. “And Jehan.”

Gabriel swatted his former squire on the back. “Tom? Any other awkward sods I ought to examine?”

Tom shook his head. “Not a one.”

“Ser Michael has your tent assignments. Gentlemen and ladies, the gate is waking up. We will be fighting in four days. Eat well and rest.” He mounted up.

“Just like hisself.” Kessin nodded to Cully.

Cully made a face.

“What?” Kessin hissed.

“He’s worried,” Cully said. “I never like it when Cap’n’s worried.”

Dawn.

There were two stakes in the ground; each stake was six feet tall, and they were planted on the field of Arles, exactly one hundred and twenty feet apart.

Bodies of archers were drawn up facing inward on either flank, their file leaders touching the marker stakes. The casa was drawn up facing the area between the stakes: forty knights wide. Behind each knight was a squire, and behind each squire, a fully armoured page.

And behind the pages, ten ranks of scarecrows with fifteen-foot pikes, formed so close together that there didn’t seem to be room for men to breathe.

Cully and Tom Lachlan walked up and down; Cully had archers loft blunt arrows and played with the angle of his supporting wings, and Tom Lachlan moved the casa and its supporting block of spearmen back and forth, back and forth. He formed it and unformed it, ordering every man to run for his life, sounding a whistle and ordering them back to the ranks. He did this over and over, for hours, until his knights hated him, sweating through their arming clothes and rusting their newly polished armour despite the chilly autumn morning.

Cully did the same with the archers: run, re-form, run, re-form.

“There’s Sauce!” called Francis Atcourt, and every head turned.

The Army of Etrusca was marching onto the field of Arles. And there was the emperor, with a guard of Vardariotes around him, and six Nordikaans in constant attendance.

“I hope she gave the poor bastards a day to polish their kit,” muttered Kessin.

“Eyes front,” roared Bad Tom.

They broke and re-formed again, facing the gate.

“When do we go through the fuckin’ thing?” muttered Atcourt.

“When we’ve stopped whatever is waitin’,” Tom snapped. “Ever think o’ that?”