further and further out from the centre. Scouts returned with news, or set off on their errands. There was little talk, no music or laughter, no roll of dice, nothing but a dedication to what they were doing: the subtle, constant movement of determined men fading into the susurrus of the swamp.
And she could not sleep either, for sleep would bring the morrow that much quicker, and she was in no mood to meet it.
Can I lie to them? Would they believe me? I am no easy liar able to spin webs like . . . well, like Cristan, for one. He would not be at a loss, here. He would have talked his way out of it by now. He would have them at each other’s throats.
She tried to construct some falsehood that might satisfy Dr Lam. What could she tell him, though? A lie was that the men and women of Lascanne would fight to the last breath, since the truth was that they would not. Either way was damning for her.
We cannot yield the Levant. If the army was smashed by Denlander efficiency, the country would crumple. Who was left to defend it? Greybeards and old women and children, and a few public servants? Old Poldry with his outdated memories?
She tried not to think about his condemnation of her King. All lies, she knew, but she could tell that they were not his lies. He had been told them by his Parliament, and he believed them. In such a way must all these men believe that their cause was right, or from where would they draw the strength to prosecute it? And so, as we also are right, where is the give? Where will his middle ground come from; his future where we do not fight each other to the very death?
She thought further about Dr Lam’s words. Even if we win, who will till the fields? Who will trade and manufacture and labour? This war must end soon, either way.
Hanging there from her frame, beset by darkness and with the morrow’s sun promising only interrogation and torture, she found that she could see no hope, for herself or for Lascanne.
Emily was not a godly woman. She had gone to the church perhaps once in a tenday, often just once a month. She had relied on her own strengths to keep her and Grammaine going and not sought to lean on supernature.
Now she prayed, a soldier’s prayer as old as war itself: Give me a death with a musket in my hands. Not like this. This is no end for a soldier.
Something clamped about her mouth, stifling her instant cry, holding her mute in a vice-like grip. She pulled at the frame instantly, making it creak but getting nowhere. Some thing of the swamp, some serpent or nightmare had hold of her—
Some man.
‘Quiet,’ said the smallest possible voice, right in her ear. She felt his breath ruffle her hair. His hand still gripped her jaw, digging into the bruises. For a long while neither he nor she moved.
Then he released her, and she whispered, ‘Mallen?’
‘No more talk now.’ She could not see him. It was dark all around, but she could not sense him either, or hear any movement of him. He was not there – nowhere around her – yet she felt the chill of his knifeblade as it severed the rope about one wrist – a strange feeling of sacrilege to cut what had been tied and untied so dutifully.
One small victory over the Denlanders.
He sliced through the bindings about her other wrist, and she bit back a squeak as he nicked her with the keenness of the blade. For a second there was a pause, and then the hilt was pressed into her hand, and she bent forward to free her ankles.
She took this chance to feel all around, at arm’s length. He was nowhere. She was now ready to believe that he had gone native in some significant mystical way. What powers had been given to Mallen by unhuman gods?
Free now, and with a knife in her hand, she straightened up. Straight away, she felt his breath against her neck.
There was movement out in the camp. Instantly she put her arms out and stretched herself across the frame as before, trusting Mallen to shift for himself. A sentry came padding between the groups of sleeping soldiers, a lantern in his hand. He cast a suspicious glance her way, and she pretended to sleep,