More grumbling, this time from the two isolated groups of the nobles and the Leatherbacks. In between, though, Winter saw mostly nods, led by Folsom and Graff. For the recruits, Janus’ name was a thing to conjure with, the genius who’d led them to nothing but victory. Even the Royals were starting to come around.

“We’ll do what we can about food,” Winter went on. “As of now, I need every horse we’ve got for foraging teams. That includes mine.”

“You can’t be serious!” Lieutenant de Vend burst out. He was one of Novus’ cronies. “You expect us to slog through the mud?”

“I’m happy to slog through the mud all day if it means we’ll have something to eat at the end of it,” Marsh shot back. De Vend scowled, but said nothing.

“That’s all,” Winter said, ignoring them both. “Let’s get moving.”

There was a shuffle as the assembled officers made a ragged salute, and then they dispersed. As the crowd cleared, Winter saw Jane coming over through the muddy grass of the campsite.

“Something wrong?” Winter said.

Jane looked grim. “You’d better come see.”

*   *   *

Hanna Courvier was the cutter for the Girls’ Own, the closest thing the battalion had to a doctor. She’d taken on several of the young girls, those too small to carry muskets, as her assistants, and they’d designated a stretch of soggy hillside as a field hospital. Blankets, sewn together at the edges and staked up with bayoneted muskets wedged in the mud, provided a modicum of shelter from the drizzle.

Hanna was a solid-looking, tanned woman with long, frizzy hair pulled back into a tightly controlled bun. Winter didn’t know very much about her, other than that she’d come with Jane from the Docks. She realized, belatedly, that it must have been Hanna who treated her after the battle of Gaafen. I never even thanked her.

The cutter was not in the mood for pleasantries now. She glared at Winter as though holding her personally responsible for the weather, the mud, and everything else that had gone wrong.

“Miss Courvier,” Winter said, ducking her head politely. “How bad is it?”

“Pretty fucking bad,” Hanna said. She had the same Docks accent—and accompanying foul mouth—that Jane had picked up. “I’ve been making do with less than nothing. Most of my kit is back with the wagons.” She waved at the area under the blankets. “There’s already more than I can handle. Marching this hard, in the rain and the mud . . .”

There were at least a score of soldiers lying there, packed shoulder to shoulder, asleep or staring up at Winter, Jane, and Hanna. They were surprisingly quiet, though one man at the edge moaned in a soft, low voice and a woman gave periodic hacking coughs.

“How many of them can walk?” Winter said.