the most part. A couple of the support from Locke, but that’s the size of it.’
‘May I ask . . . ?’ She didn’t know how to ask the question. It had hung about her since Doctor Lam had emerged from the trees with his flag of truce, but now it choked her. The major nodded, though, and clearly understood.
‘You want to know what happened? What went wrong? You’ve a right to ask that, I think.’
And, as they played hand after hand of cards with no real tally of gains or losses, she heard about the fall of the Couchant front and how the Denlanders had won the war. The major recounted how the Lascanne army had thrust into the heart of Denland during the first month of the conflict, only to overextend and meet furious resistance on all sides. She heard how the Denlanders had simply not fought as soldiers were supposed to, using all sorts of dishonourable measures to slow the advance, and then turn it back. Then the war had separated into its two fronts. On the Couchant the army of Lascanne had regrouped and gone on the offensive once again. Superior in numbers, they had advanced at a snail’s pace, being ambushed at every canyon, beset by sharpshooters, mines and traps, so that by the end of two years of fighting they had still not quite regained the Denland border.
And then the war had changed, for the Denlanders had brought in their new inventions. They had hauled in more artillery, of improved design. They had brought in their rifles, too: that simple idea that had revolutionized the war for them. From a grudging retreat they began to retake ground. The Lascanne soldiers were cut down at range, before they could even get close enough to fire, and when the Denlanders melted away before their charge, it was only leading to an ambush of more riflemen.
And it became clear to Emily that in the Levant they had been blessed. The swamps, the cloudy air and tangled trees, those were no gunner’s ideal ground. Instead, there had always been the close engagements, when the Denlanders had broken and run rather than stand. The open spaces of the Couchant front were a gift for the cavalry charge that Lascanne was so proud of, but they were an even greater gift for a steady rifleman. The Couchant army of Lascanne, the great hope of the nation, had been steadily cut away by a Denlander force one-third of its size.
In the end, the Lascanne soldiers had been ordered to take on the Denlanders in one final great battle, rather than lose man after man to the nipping teeth of the Denland rifles. They had come together in one great host – in numbers that made the whole Levant front seem trivial: a huge hammer intent on cracking the far smaller nut that was the Denlander army of the Couchant.
The major himself told her about what the Denlanders were calling the ‘Golden Minute’. It had taken place on what had been, for all purposes, the last day of the war. The Lascanne forces had spread themselves out on a plain of the Couchant, advancing forward into the Denlander artillery, into the thunder of their fixed guns and their horse-drawn guns, and the terrible, rumbling traction-artillery that ground their way about the field like monstrous beetles, musket balls springing uselessly off their armoured plates. The Lascanne advance had begun to falter, and it had been Lord Deerling himself who had ordered the Lascanne cavalry, every mounted man available, to break up the Denland firing line and charge their big guns.
It had been a glorious sight, the major recounted, with a tear in his eye. Nigh on a thousand men on horse, every last steed saddled and ridden, and they had arrayed themselves in perfect order before the infantry. Lord Deerling, on the lead mount, had given the order and they had set off at a leisurely canter, to start with. How fearsome they must have seemed to the Denlanders, all flashing cuirasses and helms, lances and sabres and horse-pistols. With the dignity of princes, they had advanced towards the enemy lines.
The major said that, through his glass, he had personally seen Lord Deerling’s sabre raised to signal the charge. Then the old man was shot from his saddle, at a range quite incredible. The cavalry had taken that cue to pick up speed, though – to build momentum and thunder down upon the