Winter smiled. Something about Cyte reminded her of herself, when she’d first come to Khandar. Cyte didn’t have the fear of discovery driving her, of course, but she had the same quiet dedication to mastering all aspects of her new profession that had driven Winter to memorize the drill books. That enthusiasm had been beaten out of Winter by a succession of vicious, lazy sergeants and the general lassitude of life in the garrison; she hoped that she would do better by Cyte.

“We’ve been having some . . . problems with the drills we came up with.” Winter sketched a summary of what had happened that morning, and Cyte frowned.

“There’s bad feeling between the Royals and the Girls’ Own, then?” she said.

“You might put it that way, yes,” Winter said dryly. Cyte had a gift for maps and history but could sometimes be oblivious of what the people around her were thinking. “By the way, have you been handing the Royals all the scut-work on purpose?”

“Scut-work, sir?”

“Latrine ditches, horse lines, that sort of thing.”

“Oh,” Cyte said. “I thought you asked for them to get all the nasty stuff. Captain Verity came by to tell me while I was drawing up the rotas. Did I get it wrong?”

Jane. Winter ground her teeth. It wasn’t that she couldn’t appreciate Jane wanting to shift the worst chores away from her girls and onto the Royals, but . . . She’s not helping.

No sense in taking it out on Cyte, though. “Don’t worry about it. But in the future, try to divide things up evenly. It’ll be good for morale.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Now, when you lay out today’s camp, I’d like to do it a little differently.” Winter grabbed a pencil and a piece of scrap paper and started sketching.

*   *   *

The day’s march, commenced just after noon, was over by sundown. Following behind the wagons at a leisurely pace, they’d covered another six miles. Cavalry scouts reported there were still no signs the enemy planned to make a stand any time soon.

Winter had sent Cyte and Bobby ahead to lay out the camp, keeping Jane by her side. It was a cowardly move, just as it was cowardly not to broach the subject of Jane using Winter’s name to fudge the duty rosters. But either was going to provoke an argument, Winter sensed, and she only wanted to have it once.

She glanced at her lover as they rode together, through the failing light, into the campsite. Given the choice, Jane liked to walk alongside her men, but she’d been happy enough to ride beside Winter for the day’s journey. She was better on horseback than Winter would have guessed—another legacy of Mrs. Wilmore’s institution—but still not as comfortable as Winter herself, or soldiers like Marsh, who seemed born to the saddle.