He chose to treat me like a country bumpkin, and I let him say what he liked. I thought he’d be safest while being patronizing. He pointed out all sorts of innocuous little places of interest, using traditional guide language.

“That’s a well at which a god once drank in the childhood of the world.”

I know something about architecture and could not resist saying, “A second childhood, maybe? It’s no more than a couple of centuries old.”

He stared. “All right, expert, want to deny the priests to 216

their very faces? Up them steps sharp, this old lady likes service. Right… That there’s the barracks the stinking Northern army is mainly cantoned in.”

“Don’t let nobody hear you call them stinking.”

“Rot.” He swaggered. “Blank blanking rot No need to be blank scared. Anybody what heard me would be so pleased and agreeable to what Fm saying they’d give me a kiss on the arse instead of a clip on the ear. Except one of them fellows, of course. They have to watch public relations.”

He nodded at a group of horsemen now clappering down the narrow street. They were cantering, probably for show, and any pedestrians had to dash for the walls and be quick-witted about it. The horsemen gave no warning except the muffled sound of hooves on the snow and the lesser sound of accoutrements jingling. The horses, even at a glance from someone like me who is unfamiliar with horses, were quite different from the wagoner’s animals. These were lean and fierce and elegant, terribly beautiful compared with the Northern national steed, with flaring pink nostrils, hard lean quarters, deep in the girth and long in the shoulder, short backs and prominent withers. The harness was red leather with heavy silk tassels falling from the neck-straps and the stirrups. The riders, even though they were cantering, sat very straight with the dagged reins gathered in one hand and the other hand resting lightly on the hip. Nearly all our cavalry slouch in the saddle. These riders wore spotless white leather uniforms, so you could tell at once they were only parade-ground soldiers. They wore smart, wide-topped, elbow-high gauntlets and you could hardly see their disdainful faces under the shadowing brims of their high cylindrical helmets. They were armed with beautifully hilted, unsheathed, silver knives, and there was another knife in the sheath attached to the neck-strap of each man’s horse. This magnificent sight passed at once in a spume of snow.

As Jode and I trudged on with our loads, his eyes were ridding themselves of a dazed glazed look and I knew mine were as well. We had just seen soldiers pass and we were both boys. As the day went on our loads lightened.