Though, to be fair, Umbo was a very kind and sweet husband, and he made no effort to interfere with her authority as Queen-in-the-Tent. If anyone spoke less at these war councils than Param, it was Umbo. He would not offer an opinion or even ask a question unless she commanded it, or so it seemed.

His diffidence was, of course, annoying, especially since it extended into the bedroom. Into all their time alone. He never even asked for intimacy. Never even waited around as if hoping. If she said—or implied—that she wanted him to share her bed, then there he was, always compliant, and in the moment quite enthusiastic yet also gentle. Always careful of every sound, every flinch, every cue she gave, whether it meant anything or not. This made him in some ways the perfect husband, the perfect lover—and in other ways, completely annoying. Wasn’t there any moment in which he would step up and be her equal? Assert himself?

How could he? She had spent so many months openly disdaining him, before they married, and she was sure he remembered every slight, every offense. Umbrage was his normal state, and she had given him so much cause to doubt that she had or could ever have any respect for him that she could hardly expect him to behave otherwise. Loaf, Leaky, Olivenko, and Ramex had all explained to her, quite kindly, that any strangeness between Umbo and her was entirely the result of the way they had been reared.

“Actually, you’re quite compatible,” said Olivenko. “Now that you’ve stopped picking at him, he seems to be nearly perfect for you.”

“Tiptoeing around me as if I were a sleeping lioness is not ‘perfect,’” Param had replied.

“You are a lioness,” said Olivenko, “and most definitely not asleep. I think he’s doing very well, and for you to be impatient with him is not just unreasonable but destructive. He knows he’s displeasing you but since the thing you’re displeased at is how perfectly he avoids displeasing you, it’s hard to imagine how he could act differently without, well, without displeasing you even more.”

Thus they stood around the table, around the map, contemplating various potential battlegrounds. South of General Haddamander’s main army was a place where the ground would favor Param’s army—but, as both Loaf and Olivenko pointed out, victory would leave them no better off than before, since Haddamander would still be between their army and the capital. But if they simply took possession of the capital, it would be an easy matter for Haddamander to besiege them, leaving her to feed hundreds of thousands of citizens as well as her army.

“We could do it,” said Rigg. “The way we feed our army now—by making purchases in the past.”