Raesinia put her hand over the note and waited until the courier had gone. She pretended to stare at the broadsheet, engrossed in its hyperpatriotic idiocy, while she unfolded the message. Andy leaned across to get a better look.

The note was written on thin foolscap, in a neat hand, and read:

Your message received and transmitted. Still secure here but not sure for how long. Backup plans under way. Will bring you over here as soon as I can, but may take some time to arrange secure transport. Contact again using usual arrangement. Giforte.

“Well,” Andy said, “that’s something.”

“At least Maurisk hasn’t found them,” Raesinia said. “Come on. We’d better show Marcus, before he goes mad with waiting.”

Chapter Sixteen

WINTER

“—And then we’ll ride out and give ’em hell!”

Winter exchanged a look with Jane, and tried not to smile.

She and the other officers had followed the cavalry commander back to the designated campsite, which was in a broad meadow beside a belt of woodland. A few fences indicated this land was used to pasture animals, but whatever farmer did so had long since fled, and the soldiers had mostly torn the split-rail barriers down to feed their fires. Give-Em-Hell had about five hundred cavalry camped there, a regiment that, like Winter’s command, was a mix of old Royal Army horsemen and post-revolution recruits.

They’d already kindled fires, and as the men and women of the Third stumbled in, the cavalry brought them food and water. As on the previous days, the regiment had stretched into an extended column on the march, so its soldiers didn’t arrive in a body but in an extended trickle. At Winter’s request, Give-Em-Hell had sent more of his men back down the road with torches, to help gather up stragglers and show the way in the dark.

In the meantime, he’d been explaining the plan in his typical idiom, which involved a great deal of slashing at imaginary foes with an imaginary saber. It was short on tactical niceties, however, and Winter cleared her throat.

“Colonel?” Give-Em-Hell had gotten his own promotion, presumably around the same time Winter had. “Did Janus leave you any written orders?”

“Yes, he did, as a matter of fact.” The cavalryman dug around under his breastplate and came out with a much-folded sheet of paper, which he passed to Winter. “He’s got everything laid out, as usual.”

Winter unfolded the note and read. While she did, Give-Em-Hell turned to Abby and looked her slowly up and down.

“You’re a woman,” he said, with a faint note of surprise.

“So I’ve been told,” Abby said dryly.

Winter paused, holding her breath and waiting for the explosion. The old cavalry commander had not exactly been famous for his open-mindedness.

“So it’s true that there’s a women’s battalion?” Give-Em-Hell said. He sounded more curious than angry.

“Yes,” Abby said.

“And they’ll fight?”