Raesinia shook her head. “He spent most of his career in Khandar.”

“Hmm. You think he would be averse to finding one?”

“I’m sure I have no idea,” Raesinia said, cheeks reddening a little. “Why, are you planning to marry him?”

“I’d thought about it. He saved my life, after all, and that is supposed to make me go all starry-eyed.” She shrugged. “He is a kind man with a fine figure, and I think Father would accept a colonel for a son-in-law. It would keep the proposals away, at least. What do you think?”

“I think,” Raesinia said, “that we have more potatoes to chop.”

“There must be a more efficient way,” Viera said as they wandered back to the table. “If the potatoes were strapped to the outside of some sort of explosive chamber, and the powder input carefully regulated—”

“Raes!” Cora was waiting by the mound of spuds, waving frantically. “There you are. The colonel’s been looking for you!”

“Duty calls,” Raesinia said to Viera. “Try to make sure the potatoes end up chopped instead of blown to smithereens.”

Viera snorted. “Powder residue would ruin the flavor anyway. I need to think of a better design.”

“Do you know what happened?” Raesinia asked Cora.

The girl shook her head. “It can’t be good, though. He looks like he’s in a temper.”

Raesinia sighed. He shouldn’t have bothered. It couldn’t be helped, though. Sometimes you needed to hit the wall headfirst before you know it was there.

Marcus, Andy, Hayver, and Lieutenant Uhlan were gathered in the quiet corner where Cora piled her books, Marcus and Uhlan in quiet conversation while the two rankers looked on uncomfortably. Marcus looked up as Raesinia approached, and she paused for a moment.

A kind man with a fine figure. I suppose he is.

“Raes?” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” She shook her head and stepped into the little circle. “So, what’s the plan?”

Chapter Twelve

WINTER

“We’re eager to work with the Vordanai, of course,” the tradesman lied. “And the terms your general offered us were more than fair.”

“More than fair,” his fat companion agreed. “I won’t hear a word said against General Janus.” He pronounced the name wrong, jah-noos instead of ya-nuhs.

“It’s the quartermasters,” the tradesman continued. “They’ve been promising us payment for days, and now they say they’ve delivered it. But what am I supposed to do with this?”

Winter looked at the paper the man held out to her. It said, on embossed parchment with many elaborate curlicues, that it was a bill to be drawn against the treasury of the Vordanai Crown and Deputies-General, to the amount of six thousand five hundred crowns, payable no more than six months after the conclusion of “the present hostilities.”