“He’s using you, Winter, and he’s got you so wrapped up you’d hang for him and smile while you put your own head through the noose . . .”

“It’s . . .” Janus paused. “It is difficult to explain.”

Winter said nothing.

“There is a way,” he said eventually, “in which you are a better officer than I will ever be. I can lead an army, but I can never be a part of it. I am too . . . different.” He sighed. “I think I see the way forward, and to me it seems so obvious, but somehow others fail to grasp it. It is something I have struggled with all my life.

“I think I know what to do now, and I thought that the army might support me. But if I was wrong, if I failed—as I have often failed—to understand the thoughts of other men, then the Army of the East would tear itself apart. I could not allow that.

“So I left the decision to you. You understand the . . . the feelings of the men and women in the ranks, in a way I do not. I presented the opportunity, confident that you would be able to exploit it if you felt it was the correct decision.”

“What if I’d decided the other way?” Winter said.

Janus closed his eyes again. “Then they would have taken me to Vordan, and I’d probably have been executed in due course. I sent appropriate instructions to Colonel d’Ivoire against that eventuality.”

There was another long silence.

“You said you know what to do,” Winter said quietly. “So what happens next?”

Janus grinned, his smile there and gone again like summer lightning.

“What do you think, Colonel?” he said. “We’re going home. All of us.”

The carriage rattled to a halt beside the sentry line, where in spite of their efforts at secrecy a small crowd had gathered. Janus emerged first, and the sight of him drew cheers. Muskets waved in the air, fixed bayonets glinting dangerously.

They have no idea what the politics are, Winter thought, looking at the excited men. They don’t care about the Directory or the Deputies-General. All they know is that this man has always brought them victory. With him to lead them, they’d smashed the vaunted armies of the Free Cities League and captured the impenetrable bastion of Antova without firing a shot.

Framed in the carriage doorway, Janus looked back at Winter and gave a slight nod, as if in thanks. Then he hopped down and, flanked by cheering Colonials, rejoined his army. It was only once most of the crowd had moved off that Winter saw Abby waiting, with a set to her jaw that meant that something had gone badly wrong.

She hopped down herself, stomach tight. Abby gave her a tight salute, which Winter waved away.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Abby said. “I couldn’t stop her.”