Brocky said reflectively. ‘There’s many a way of telling someone he’s doing the right thing. Lascari surely thinks that he’s doing the King’s will right now, and if the King knew about it, he’d have to agree. Us knowing the enemy’s plans is worth one singed Denlander, he’d say. And we sit here and listen to the result of that thinking, and we all cringe inside, but what’s right and what’s wrong? And if you can’t make the call when one man is – let’s face it – torturing the life out of another poor bugger, then how can you do it with wars?’
‘Brocky,’ interrupted Scavian. ‘This is too serious. Club rules, yes?’
He wants so badly to know what he does is right. Emily caught Scavian’s eye and smiled, but got no smile in return, angry and confused as he was.
‘We all used to be like good friends, until the regicide,’ Brocky grumbled. ‘Then some bastards across the border off a king, and we’re all stuck here fighting a fool’s war. You’ll grant me that, Scavian?’
‘I suppose I cannot, in truth, deny it,’ Scavian said. ‘My grandfather fought alongside the Denlanders in the Hellic wars, after all. You’re right, there was no need for this.’
‘A toast,’ said Emily, startled by her own boldness. ‘A toast to the ordinary Denlanders, perhaps. Not to their leaders, but to them.’
After thoughtful hesitation, four glasses were lifted to join hers.
Later on, after three rounds of brandy and a half-dozen hands of cards had failed to quell their unease, Emily excused herself to do the rounds of the sentries again. She was aware that, in making this choice, she was doing exactly what she had chided Ensign Caxton for doing. Her actions were not the mark of a good officer but of someone with time on her hands.
As the impossibly protracted agonies of the captive Denlander wailed out into the night, and as Justin Lascari did his grim duty for king and country, she went from man to man, from woman to woman, skirting the camp’s perimeter.
‘You’d think they’d hear,’ said one, with his eyes fixed on the swamp. ‘You’d think they’d come and rescue the poor bastard.’
‘Perhaps they will, so keep your eyes sharp.’ Emily passed on down the line, holding out no hope that any such thing would happen.
‘I once knew Denlanders,’ came a voice from behind her. ‘Spoke with them. Knew them well.’
‘Mallen,’ she acknowledged, turning to see his spare frame looming out of the dark.
‘Before the war,’ he continued. ‘Back when no one came here. None from Lascanne, anyway: just me. Only other people studying here were Denlanders. We got to know each other. All on the same side, back then.’
‘It must have been easier,’ she observed.
‘Than war?’ He snorted.
‘And your friends, they have fought?’
‘Some.’ He pinched an insect out of the air as it whirred past his face, looked it over and let it go. ‘Hunted them down myself. Had to. They were near as good as me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mallen.’
He shrugged. ‘They understood.’ When he looked at her again, his eyes caught the lamplight briefly and shone. ‘Good job, Marshwic.’
A pause, then she understood. ‘The indigenes? I thought you might be angry. I should have told you before.’
He gave a brief bark of a laugh. ‘You? They told me, day after you left them.’ He shuffled, and she realized she had never seen him awkward before, or anything less than self-assured. ‘I owe you,’ he said shortly.
‘Really? For . . . the swamp people? The indigenes? I can’t say I understand . . .’
His hand had gripped her wrist hard, before she saw it move. He pulled her close, and she was uncomfortably aware of the alien cast of his face, with those tattoos breaking up the betraying human lines and angles.
‘My people, Marshwic – more than you; more than Lascanne. I can’t ever be one of them, can’t live like they do, see the world as they do. Been trying all my life to understand them, though. You did well. Good job.’
He released her just as quickly, stepping back a pace but unwilling just to go.
‘You don’t need to owe me anything,’ she told him.
‘Always pay my debts, understand?’ he said and, thinking of the indigenes and the lengths he went to in order to protect them, she had to admit that he did.
He suddenly tensed all over, looking about him. A heartbeat later she realized why. The screaming had stopped.
‘Perhaps Lascari needs a rest himself,’ she said, but