Then he stopped, looking at the three falconets now dwarfed by the mighty cannons and the sakers and demi-cannon. “You brought them all the way?” he asked, amazed.

Duke couldn’t resist. “Master, last night we shot them on another world.”

“And before that, another world yet,” said Tom.

Master Pye shook his head. “Well,” he said. “Well, well.” He was grinning. “What artifice and the hand of man can do, we’ve done. Now you must take them into action.”

Edmund hesitated. “Me?” he asked.

Pye frowned. “Of course you,” he said. “You are now the master. I have fired one of these—the great cannon. Once. You have made all these men and women, and you have commanded them in battle. This is your art, your craft. Please take command.”

Edmund looked around, unable to speak. Finally he said, “But, Master Pye . . .”

But his master was already walking away, shouting orders about unloading the prepared cartridges.

Edmund shrugged. He glanced at Duke, who winked.

“Right,” Edmund said. “Now we need forty crews. Tom, get the weights of the gonnes and tell off the crews.”

“Saint Barbara!” muttered Tom. “Do we have forty gonne captains?” he asked.

Edmund nodded. “I’m sure we do,” he said. “And if we don’t now, we have until dawn to practice.”

Hawissa Swynford was wakened from her cloak between two warm mates by the off-going watch—Bill Stouffy.

“Fucking creepy,” Stouffy said. “Snowin’.” He shrugged. “Come on, Hawi. Yer turn. I wanna’ get some shut-eye.”

Swynford wanted more sleep more than anything in the world. She had been so warm.

She got up. They were in a shed—a furrier’s shed for storing furs—and the roof had somehow survived sorcery and dragon fire. She got her feet under her and groaned a fair amount, but she felt better than she had in days, and better still when Sarah Goody put a steaming cup of chicken soup in her hand.

She drank the hot soup, scalding her tongue, chewing on the chicken bits automatically. Her sword was ruined; she had a dagger . . .

Stouffy was already deep in the piles of furs and cloaks. “Arrers,” he said. “Bales o’ they. Stacked on the north side o’ the shed. Nighty-night.”

Swynford went out into the icy darkness, where the snow was now coming down steadily, and found the arrows, in neat bags with spacers, all stacked against the back wall under the overhang. She took a sack, opened the end, and withdrew one. It had the Royal Armoury mark on the head, over the broken circle of Master Pye.

She kissed it. And dropped the whole bag into her open quiver.

Then she buckled on her heavy belt and pulled her cloak over her kit and ducked into the snow.

Collingford was waiting for her, and they checked their sentries: half a dozen cold and tired men and women staring out at the snow. Then they went north along the edge of the town. There were still fires burning, and the snow was mostly ice melt here; terrible on the feet.