audience?’
I hesitated. I could proffer my name and former position, but an ousted queen meant only supplication for aid, which was not the best opening gambit. His men would, at best, laugh and enslave me as a quaint spoil of war.
‘Because water can run hard as a rockfall, and the earth can boil like a pool of water over a geyser,’ I said at last. ‘If the right person bids it.’
To a man they stilled, eyes wary. It was clear they’d been watching our battle with Clay. The release of the staked rope might have been a fortuitous accident from their vantage, but not the way I had buried Clay.
‘You expect us to let you within sight of the general?’ the officer said. ‘What else can you do, witch? Bring down a mountain on his head, perhaps, or set the trees alight around him?’
‘I value my own life too highly for such tactics, Captain.’ Was it weariness that made my voice so calm, as if my life might not be ended by the thrust of a spear at any moment? ‘Besides, I don’t wish him dead. In fact, I come to ask his aid.’
I wondered how far downstream Clay had washed ashore, and whether a creature of his ilk succumbed to weariness or wound. None of it crossed my face as I waited for the captain to make his decision.
‘You’ll keep your powers in check, witch,’ he said at last. ‘One hint of anything unnatural and we’ll slice you open.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Get behind her,’ the officer barked at two of his men. ‘If she twitches, run her through.’ He paused and regarded Roshi and Sepp, as if wondering what powers they might summon. ‘The rest of you watch the other two,’ he snapped, then bid us all move with a curt gesture.
Steel-tipped spears touching my back, I followed his red crest into the shadow of the pines.
It took the better part of a day to reach the main camp. It was a regimented affair: hooded bedrolls in precision lines, a circle of stones to mark a cookfire every sixth place, a thicket of spears and swords every second.
The foreign soldiers glanced at us only in passing as we were led through their midst, their assessment of us as prisoners obvious in their slack, distant expressions. Some stared a little longer, quick enough to wonder what it was about us, filthy and bedraggled and without obvious assets, that warranted a personal escort instead of a swift throat-slitting. But even they dismissed us soon enough: not my problem, I read in the glaze of their eyes.
It made me shiver.
In a Turasi army, the arrival of any new factor warranted speculation and investigation. It could provide leverage, after all, or an opportunity to wrangle more standing in the alliance. These southerners were different – cold and impartial. They would stand their ground – and accept their position – without question. Could the fractious, scheming Turasi hold against such discipline?
The officer motioned us to a halt in the camp’s centre – a great open space, rectangular to a fault. On the opposite side stood the full tents, more utilitarian than luxurious. We watched as he approached the centremost tent alone. After slipping his helmet and crest off short-cropped hair, he ducked inside.
To calm the anxiety flooding through me, I occupied myself with mustering arguments for my meeting with Sidonius. Any slight movement – smoothing a sweaty palm over my skirts, or flicking a wisp of tickling hair from my cheek – made the soldiers sharp-eyed. When I reached down to scratch an itch on my calf, one of them threatened me with his spear. ‘None of your tricks, witch.’
It was almost funny. I was so staggeringly weary, I could barely stand. A sheen of grey overlaid everything, as if I viewed the world through a pane of imperfect glass.
Finally the officer returned to the entrance and gestured me forward. A poke in the small of my back with the flat of a blade got my legs moving before I was ready, and I stumbled. Another soldier jerked me up by my bicep. ‘None of that now, either,’ he barked.
I said nothing, too tired to correct him.
‘Just the witch,’ the officer said, when Roshi and Sepp tried to follow me.
I glanced back, and Roshi gave me a look heavy with meaning: Bargain well, cousin. Beside her, Sepp kept his head down and his shoulders hunched.
I ducked into the tent, with the officer immediately behind me. All my