‘Something should be done,’ murmured Aliz, wistfully.

Finree clenched her teeth. ‘You’re right.’ She gave her horse the spurs, possibly flicking a few specks of mud over Aliz’ white dress, covered the ground in no time and slid her mount into the knot of officers that was the frequently misfiring brain of the division.

They spoke the language of war up here. Timing and supply. Weather and morale. Rates of march and orders of battle. It was no foreign tongue to Finree, and even as she slipped her horse between them she noticed mistakes, oversights, inefficiencies. She had been brought up in barracks, and mess halls, and headquarters, had spent longer in the army than most of the officers here and knew as much about strategy, tactics and logistics as any of them. Certainly a great deal more than Lord Governor Meed, who until last year had never presided over anything more dangerous than a formal banquet.

He rode at the very centre of the press, under a standard bearing the crossed hammers of Angland, and wearing a magnificent azure uniform rigged with gold braid, better suited to an actor in a tawdry production than a general on campaign. Despite all that money wasted on tailoring, his splendid collars never seemed quite to fit and his sinewy neck always stuck from them like a turtle’s from its shell.

He had lost his three nephews years ago at the Battle of Black Well and his brother, the previous lord governor, not long after. He had nursed an insurmountable hatred for Northmen ever since and been such a keen advocate of war he had outfitted half his division at his own expense. Hatred of the enemy was no qualification for command, however. Quite the reverse.

‘Lady Brock, how wonderful that you could join us,’ he said, with mild disdain.

‘I was simply taking part in the advance and you all got in my way.’ The officers chuckled with, in Hal’s case, a slightly desperate note. He gave her a pointed look sideways, and she gave him one back. ‘I and some of the other ladies noticed the refugees on our left. We were hoping you could be prevailed upon to spare them some food?’

Meed turned his watery eyes on the miserable file with the scorn one might have for a trail of ants. ‘I am afraid the welfare of my soldiers must come first.’

‘Surely these strapping fellows could afford to miss a meal in a good cause?’ She thumped Colonel Brint’s breastplate and made him give a nervous laugh.

‘I have assured Marshal Kroy that we will be in position outside Osrung by midnight. We cannot stop.’

‘It could be done in—’

Meed turned rudely away from her. ‘Ladies and their charitable projects, mmm?’ he tossed to his officers, provoking a round of sycophantic laughter.

Finree cut through it with a shrill titter of her own. ‘Men and their playing at war, mmm?’ She slapped Captain Hardrick on the shoulder with her gloves, hard enough to make him wince. ‘What silly, womanly nonsense, to try to save a life or two. Now I see it! We should be letting them drop like flies by the roadside, spreading fire and pestilence wherever possible and leaving their country a blasted wasteland. That will teach them the proper respect for the Union and its ways, I am sure! There’s soldiering!’ She looked around at the officers, eyebrows raised. At least they had stopped laughing. Meed, in particular, had never looked more humourless, which took some doing.