Tom looked after Sauce, and then down at Sukey. “Na,” he said. “I don’t e’en think o’ her that way.”

“Not e’en drunk?” Sukey asked.

Tom was just discovering that Sukey was wearing a kirtle with nothing under it.

“I’m nae that drunk,” he said. He ran a hand up her bare leg to her bare thigh. He growled.

“I hoped not,” Sukey purred.

Ser Michael spent the next day passing orders. He had meeting after meeting, most of them in the open on the vast parade field, while a dozen other officers conducted inspections, while armourers tinkered and arrowsmiths passed out sheaves of arrows and horses were fed and shoes repaired and every magister in the host put in a share of time magicking arrows. Michael drew up lists, and passed them: orders of march, subordinate appointments.

By the time the church bells were singing out the midday, there were thousands of men and women facing various problems at pairs of stakes one hundred and twenty feet apart. More than a hundred practitioners, led by Mortirmir and Petrarcha, stood in another field, casting and casting, working potentia, passing ops, sharing palaces in the aethereal. The whole army was treated to a spectacular display as they raised a set of layered shields powered as a choir, each shield like a snakeskin armour, composed of thousands, tens of thousands, of scales that interlocked, and moved, flowed, layered up, and thinned out at the will of the conductor.

The emperor moved from meeting to demonstration to drill, watching, coaching, joking. He watched the mamluks of the Sultan of Ifriquy’a ride into camp; he saluted them graciously.

“No one has done this in two thousand years,” he said.

Tom Lachlan shook his head. “What do we ha’e? All told?”

Michael raised a tablet. “Fifty-six thousand, two hundred and seventeen,” he said.

Tom stood in his stirrups. “And ye’re takin’ ’em all?” he asked.

“Every blessed one,” Gabriel said.

“Ye’re a loon,” Tom said. “How many fights?”

The emperor shook his head. “No idea. We have to pass through at least three gates. I’m fairly confident it’s three. It might be four. Or five. At least two fights.”

“How do you figure?” Michael asked.

“The rebel and the shadow expect an ally to come through this gate,” Gabriel said. “So there’s someone on the other side right now.”

“Aye,” Tom said, brightening. “Who is it?”

“Little green cheese eaters,” Gabriel snapped. “How do I know?”

“Ye generally pretend that ye know everything,” Tom said. “I just like to see ye squirm.”

“And the second?” Michael asked. “Is whoever Ash expects to find at Lissen Carak?”