Jane made a disgusted face. “The girls will do what I tell them to. Just make sure the Royals will do the same, and be ready to kick Captain Sevran’s ass if he tries to pull what de Ferre did. We’ll be fine.”

“A little practice won’t hurt.”

“If you say so.” Jane shrugged. “Personally, I’d rather have the extra sleep, but you give the orders around here.”

“I’m going to go track down Sevran. Pick your best company and let them know they’ll be on the spot tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir!” Jane accompanied her salute with a lascivious smile. “Hurry back.”

*   *   *

Captain Sevran’s men had erected his tent in the middle of the space marked off for the Royals, and teams of them were hard at work putting the rest of the camp together. Their rows were a bit neater than the Girls’ Own, and their cook fires were a lot more organized, each “pot” of men gathered around its own cook fire. Outside the captain’s tent, a sentry saluted crisply and knocked on the tent pole.

“Sir? It’s the colonel.”

Winter’s lip quirked. In Khandar, “the colonel” had always been Janus. Hearing the phrase used in reference to herself always made her want to look over her shoulder.

The tent flap opened, and Sevran straightened up, silver stripes on his shoulders gleaming. His salute was as neat as his sentry’s.

“Sir!” he said.

“There’s a few matters I thought we might discuss,” Winter said. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“Of course, sir.” Sevran held the tent flap open. “After you.”

Sevran’s tent was much like her own, with a few well-worn pieces of nonstandard equipment—a trunk, a portable writing desk—marking it as the residence of a long-serving officer. Sevran himself was in his late thirties, his clean-shaven cheeks pockmarked like a crumbling wall from some long-ago illness. He had a long nose and a well-trimmed brown mustache that had yet to show a hint of gray, and he wore his well-tailored uniform with the unconscious comfort of someone who’d spent nearly his whole life in it. Winter fought down a wave of self-consciousness—meeting these old soldiers always made her feel like a fraud, no matter how many promotions Janus had showered on her.

“Welcome, sir,” Sevran said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry we haven’t had time to really get acquainted,” Winter said. “Things have been a bit busy.”

“Of course, sir.”

“How are your men settling in to the new organization?”

His expression flickered, just for a moment. Winter recognized the signs of someone preparing to tell a superior what he wanted to hear.

“As well as could be expected, sir,” Sevran said. Winter, who’d bullshitted her share of officers, smiled inwardly at the neat ambiguity of the phrase.

“I’ve received a number of . . . requests from your staff lieutenant. He doesn’t seem pleased.”