all worrying themselves over nothing.
But, when she returned to her room, it was the harsh words of Mr Northway that stayed with her.
3
We have stopped fighting for now, for a five-day rain has set in. Five days is Master Sergeant Mallen’s guess, at least, and all here seem to accept his word as a divine truth.
I have yet to lay eyes on any Warlocks, but the camp is full of word of them: the Kings special servants bound to him in blood. I do not want for stories of their powers and the use they put them to in battle. I have tried to imagine how it must be: to stride through this gloomy place wreathed in flame; to sear away the fog and murk of the swamps with one’s very being; to carry no musket or pistol but to make one’s own hands weapons of war; to be a weapon.
It must be wonderful to be lifted thus above the common lot of humanity. Not, it seems to me, for the ability to destroy, nor even for the righteousness that must come from bearing the King’s mark, but merely because with such power comes control over one’s own destiny. Surely it must, for what use would such power be if its possessors are as confused and impotent as the rest of us?
Emily found Mary standing outside with a very small axe in her hand, staring down at a log.
‘What on earth are you doing there?’
Her elder sister looked up with a worried expression. ‘I’m trying to chop wood.’
‘What are you trying to do?’ asked Emily, incredulous.
‘Chop wood,’ Mary repeated hopelessly. ‘It’s just that Cook’s always complaining about having to cut the wood as well as her other tasks, so I thought I would help her. Besides . . .’
‘Besides what?’ Emily looked down at the log in front of Mary, which bore a very small incision, as that of a surgeon preparing to operate. ‘Is this it? How long has it taken you to do this?’
‘The best part of an hour, I’m afraid,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t think I have the knack of it. But I need to learn.’
‘Why? Why do you need to learn?’
Mary gave her a sad smile. ‘Think, Emily. Surely you must have thought of this. When we’ve won the war at last, what happens to all those heroes that come back? Do you think they’ll be content to go back into service, or to be mere tradesmen’s apprentices? The country will love them. They won’t want to go back to drudging, after the way they’ve fought. They’ll all be far too proud and warlike.’
‘You worry too much,’ Emily told her.
Mary essayed another hack at the wood, but the weight of the axe fell short and she failed to mark it at all. ‘Then there’s the women,’ she said.
‘Let me try.’ Emily took the axe away from her sister before she hurt herself, and tried a practice swing. The unfamiliar weight seemed so overwhelming on the way down, but the blade simply bounced back off the wood, leaving just a tiny scar far from where she had been aiming.
‘The women who’ve been doing men’s jobs,’ Mary continued, now free to philosophize. ‘Do you think they’ll all be happy going back to being maids and scrubbers and schoolmistresses? Everyone has different lives these days.’
‘Except us.’
‘We will, too. You’ll see.’
‘And so you’re learning to chop wood,’ Emily noted. ‘You’re right, there is an art to it. I think it might be easier if you got down on your knees and just chipped away until you cut through. How many of these were you wanting to cut?’
‘Grant said that Cook needs two dozen of them cut into something called billets before luncheon,’ Mary said. ‘Perhaps if we both held the axe, that would work better.’
‘That sounds like a sure recipe for injury,’ Emily decided. ‘I don’t want them putting my leg on the fire.’ She handed the axe back to Mary. ‘Is there anything you need from Chalcaster? Poldry’s going to take me in so that we can buy provisions, or at least whatever we can. Last week the market was almost bare. Everything’s going to the war. We will have to tighten our belts.’
‘Ma’am?’ Jenna had come round the side of the house to find them. Emily expected the girl to stare, seeing the two elder Marshwics about such a task, but she seemed already full of astonishment over something else. ‘If you will, Mrs Salander, ma’am, there’s a