When Kenna had been assigned to the cell three days earlier, it soon turned out that Kohut–if he tolerated the emancipation and equality of women at all–had his own views on the subject. He had thrown a blanket over Kenna’s upper half in the middle of the night and intended to avail himself of the lower half, which he certainly would have done but for the fact that he had happened upon a tele-empathic. Kenna penetrated his brain so deeply that Kohut howled like a werewolf and cavorted around the cell as though bitten by a tarantula. Then, out of pure vindictiveness, Kenna telepathically forced him to go down on all fours and bang his head rhythmically against the metal-plated cell door. When the warders–alarmed by the dreadful thumping–opened the door, Kohut butted one of them, for which he received five lashes with a metal-tipped truncheon and as many kicks. Summing up, Kohut didn’t get the gratification he’d been hoping for. And took offence at Kenna. He didn’t even dare to take his revenge, because the next day the Scarra sisters joined them in the cell. The fair sex thus formed the majority, and furthermore it soon turned out that the sisters’ views on equality were similar to Kohut’s, if completely the other way around concerning the roles ascribed to the sexes. The younger Scarra looked at the man lasciviously and made explicit comments, while the older cackled and rubbed her hands together. As a result, Kohut slept with a stool with which he planned to defend his honour. Nonetheless, his chances and prospects were meagre; both Scarras had served on the front line and were veterans of numerous battles, so would not have been daunted by the stool. Had they’d wanted to rape him they would have, even if the man had been armed with a battle axe. Kenna, though, was certain the sisters were only joking. Well, almost certain.

The Scarra sisters were in the slammer for assaulting an officer, while in the case of Kohut–who had served as a quartermaster–an investigation was ongoing into a notorious, major scandal regarding the theft of army bows, which was creating ever-widening ripples.

‘In the shit, Kenna,’ the older Scarra repeated. ‘You’ve got yourself in a fine pickle. Or rather they got you into it. How come you never bloody caught on it was a political game?’

‘Humph.’

Scarra glanced at her, not quite knowing how to interpret her monosyllabic response. Kenna looked away.

I’m not going to tell you something I kept quiet about in front of the judges, am I? she thought. That I knew what kind of game I was getting tangled up in. Or when and how I found out.

‘You’ve landed yourself in a sorry mess,’ said the younger Scarra solemnly. She was the much more dull-witted one, who–Kenna was certain–understood nothing of what it was about.