man had ducked into the tent, and the soldiers snapped into a kind of crouching attention.
‘What’s this then?’ said the newcomer, still lost in the shadow cast by the two soldiers.
‘Prisoner for you, sir.’
There was an exasperated hiss of breath, and the newcomer’s voice said, ‘For Heaven’s sake, get her some clothes, soldier. What do you think this is, a bordello?’
As the junior soldier ducked out of the tent, the man had room to come forward, kneeling down with the low table between them. An old man, she saw. His hair was almost gone, just a silvery fringe about his ears, and his face was creased into dozens of lines. He must have been as old as Poldry at least: far too old to be in the uniform he wore; to be out here in the swamps fighting battles. He had a wide mouth, quirking itself into a smile even as she watched, and his eyes seemed avuncular, even kind.
‘I would never have thought it,’ he said. ‘One of the fabled fighting women of Lascanne. It took us so long to believe women like you even existed. We didn’t quite credit Lascanne with such madness. If I might ask, are there more of you? Many more?’
‘Hundreds,’ said Emily, and then wished she had said ‘thousands’.
‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said the old man. The prospect seemed to depress him, and she could not tell whether he believed her or not. ‘Would you fetch us some tea and a little to eat, soldier?’ he asked the remaining man.
‘You shouldn’t be left alone with the prisoner, sir.’
‘Oh, we’re hardly alone. There are “hundreds” of soldiers in earshot, as she well knows.’ The old man regarded her, not without sympathy. ‘And besides, she seems hardly in a condition to do much real harm, even if the spirit is willing.’
‘If you’re sure, sir.’
‘I am, thank you, soldier.’
And then she was alone with him, with just the low table between them. The short walk from the doctor’s lean-to had taken so much out of her that she found in herself no desire to attack him. Not yet. Whilst she had her life and her hands free, she could wait for some ideal moment in the future, and thus spare herself the toil of acting now.
‘Might I know your name, young lady?’ he asked her.
That bit at her. ‘Sergeant Marshwic, Stag Rampant Company. Sergeant, if you please,’ she got out.
‘Of course, of course. Believe it or not, I am pleased to meet you. I seldom have the opportunity to talk to Lascans of either gender. While I am told we hold great numbers under guard behind the lines of the Couchant, you may have noticed that this is not a war that sees many prisoners, here in the Levant.’
A day and two nights of screaming, with the cutting fires of Justin Lascari ripping information away a piece at a time.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘The swamp takes all,’ the old man said, in the manner of a proverb. ‘Forgive me. I am Doctor Nathanial Lammegeier.’
Again she nodded. ‘What are you going to do with me?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you’ll be sent to Denland as soon as we can arrange the journey,’ he said, almost as though this was a good thing. ‘I’m afraid there will be a little questioning here, but they’ll do the real work there. Yes, no more war for you, Sergeant.’ He genuinely seemed to believe that this was a thing to be celebrated, a prize that he himself could only dream of. She found herself thinking, Poor old man forced out to fight at his age, and then: Doctor Nathanial Lammegeier.
And it struck her at last, and she said, ‘You’re Doctor Lam.’
The silence stretched between them in the tent, and finally snapped.
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Yes, I am.’
If she was going to attack him, then that was her moment, but a crawling fear had seized her by the throat. Doctor Lam, who led the Levant army of Denland; Doctor Lam the torturer, the severer of tendons, the peeler of flesh. The screams of the captured scout were still bright in her mind and she thought, a little questioning, and knew that there was no reason she too should not be put under the knife. They had the drawn-out death of one of their own to avenge, if no other motive presented itself.
‘I see you’ve heard of me,’ he said drily, as she huddled back towards the far end of the tent.
‘You’re a butcher,’ she