‘Temeriaaaa! For the king, boys! Kill the Black Cloaks!’

But neither was it coming easily to the landsknechts. Alba didn’t let itself be broken up. Swords and battle-axes rose and fell, hacked and slashed, and the infantry paid a grim price in blood for every horseman knocked from the saddle.

Oberst Eggebracht, stabbed through a slit in his armour by a pike blade as thin as a bodkin, yelled and rocked in the saddle. Before anyone could help him, an awful blow of a flail swept him to the ground. The infantry teemed over him.

The standard with a black alerion bearing a gold perisonium on its chest wobbled and fell.

The armoured soldiers, including also Second Lieutenant Devlin aep Meara, rushed over to it, hacking, hewing, trampling and yelling.

I’d like to know, thought Devlin aep Meara, tugging his sword out of the cloven kettle hat and skull of a Temerian landsknecht. I’d like to know, he thought, deflecting with a sweeping blow the toothed blade of a gisarme which was stabbing at him.

I’d like to know what all this is for. What’s the point of it? And who’s the cause of it?

‘Errr… And then the convent of the great master sorceresses gathered… Our Esteemed Mothers… Errr… Whose memory will always live among us… For… Errr… the great master sorceresses of the First Lodge… decided to… Errr… Decided to…’

‘Novice Abonde. You are unprepared. Fail. Sit down.’

‘But I revised, really—’

‘Sit down.’

‘Why the hell do we have to learn about this ancient history?’ muttered Abonde, sitting down. ‘Who’s bothered about it today? And what use is it?’

‘Silence! Novice Nimue.’

‘Present, mistress.’

‘I can see that. Do you know the answer to the question? If you don’t, sit down and don’t waste my time.’

‘Yes I do.’

‘Go on.’

‘So, the chronicles teach us that the convent of master sorceresses gathered at Bald Mountain Castle to decide on how to end the damaging war that the emperor of the South was waging with the kings of the North. Esteemed Mother Assire, the holy martyr, said that the rulers would not stop fighting until they had lost a lot of men. And Esteemed Mother Philippa, the holy martyr, answered: “Let us then give them a great and bloody, awful and cruel battle. Let us bring about such a battle. Let the emperor’s armies and the kings’ forces run in blood in that battle, and then we, the Great Lodge, shall force them to make peace”. And this is precisely what happened. The Esteemed Mothers caused the Battle of Brenna to happen. And the rulers were forced to sign the Peace of Cintra.’

‘Very good, novice Nimue. I’d have given you a starred A grade… Had it not been for that “so” at the beginning of your contribution. We don’t begin sentences with “so”. Sit down. And now, who’ll tell us about the Peace of Cintra?’