Nevertheless, I half-scrambled, half-slid down the precarious swaying load and vehicle. I now discovered my hands had been hurt by the bridge, there was a lot of skin off them and a lot of blood on them. I hurt them even more now, but it was one of those times when you don’t feel pain except as just another urgent sensation.

At the bottom of my journey I found myself grasped by numbers of the Golds who had laughingly watched. They should not have so much as glanced out of line, particularly they who are so jealous of their reputation against the other regiments’, but there was so much need for action during the marching today that those who hadn’t been stoned were treating the whole thing as a holiday. Almost complete anarchy reigned everywhere.

I hardly heard the laughing, lewd shouts of welcome I received, I hardly felt the many rough grasps and breaths.

The glare of heat on my uncovered head was making me feel, as I dashed between the marchers, that I was getting ringing head-blows. My eyes and ears were confused, my panting was drying my tongue till it swelled, and to run was a real bodily effort. I was not thinking at all now. This is proved by the fact that only at the end of the chase did I put my hand up to my throat and think, “Oh, so this sore ache is my tight collar and not the beheading blade!”

The threat pursued me. What a threat—big, scarlet, black, muscular, tall, important! My heart thudded.

Well. I ran through the soldiery, the soldiery marching through thrown stones and verbal and physical filth.

I sensed the pursuit.

Except as I turned corners I never saw the General. I was too busy looking ahead, but I heard behind me the pounding of his swift, steady running-strokes, the respectful murmurs of the men as they crowded together to let him pass, and as I passed soldiers who took no notice of me I saw them turn to stare at his approach. Before they could realize that there was not merely a pursuer but a pursued, I was ahead again.

A soldier presumably intent on approbation or even promotion started to chase me, but was soon behind the General.

I blundered into another part of the baggage-train.

“Cija!”

The word was repeated twice before it became a name, and again before it made sense to me. I stumbled aside, one step, and saw a little boy grinning anxiously at me.

Ow, the goat-boy, Narra’s brother.

“You be in a hurry, Lady Cija.”

As if I’d never been away. Had he, in his little goat-herd world, even noticed my long absence—and his sister’s?

“Ow, I’m running away from someone who’s furious to punish me—” His urchin’s eyes glittered. “—Ow, for Gods’ sakes drive your goats across the street, behind me—”