Shota stood unmoving nearly the entire time, usually with her arms folded, her fair features fixed in a vaguely grim cast, watching Jebra tell her story, or watching Richard listen to it, as if making sure that his attention didn't wander.

"Galea had reserves of food aplenty for their citizens," Jebra said, "but not for anything like the numbers of invaders now occupying the city, who themselves did not have plentiful supplies with them. The troops stripped every storehouse of food. They emptied every larder, every warehouse. Every animal for miles around, including the great many sheep that were raised for wool and the milk cows, were butchered for food. Rather than keep the chickens for a steady supply of eggs, they, too, were killed and eaten.

"As the food ran low the officers sent off messengers with ever more urgent requests for resupply. For months the supplies did not come — no doubt in good part because winter had set in and slowed them."

Jebra hesitated, and then swallowed, before going on. "I remember the day — it was during a heavy snowstorm — when we were ordered to cook some fresh meat the Imperial Order soldiers delivered to the kitchens. It was freshly killed, headless, gutted human carcasses."

Richard abruptly turned to stare at Jebra. She gazed up at him as if from a place of insanity, as if in fear that she would be condemned for what she knew was beyond the pale. Her blue eyes brimmed with tears of supplication for forgiveness, as if she feared he would strike her dead for what she was about to confess.

"Have you ever had to butcher a human body for cooking? We had to. We roasted the meat, or stripped it from the bones to make stews. We dried rack upon rack upon rack of the meat for the regular soldiers. If the soldiers were hungry and there was nothing to feed them, bodies would be delivered to the kitchens. We went to extraordinary lengths to stretch what supplies of food we had. We made soups and stews with weeds, if we could find them beneath the snow. But there was just not enough food to feed all the men.

"I witnessed many things that will give me nightmares the rest of my life. Seeing those remorseless soldiers standing in the open doorway, the snow blowing in behind them, as they dumped those bodies on the floor of the kitchen will be one of the things that forever haunts me."

Richard nodded and whispered, "I understand."

"And then, early this past spring, the supply wagons finally began arriving. They brought great quantities of foodstuffs for the soldiers. I knew, despite the seemingly endless wagons full of supplies, that it would not last a long time.

"Beside the supplies, there were also reinforcements to replace the men who had been killed in the battle to crush Galea. The numbers of Order troops occupying Ebinissia were already overwhelming; the extra soldiers seemed to add to my numb sense of hopelessness.

"I overheard newly arrived officers reporting that more supplies would be coming, along with yet more men. As they streamed in from the south, many were sent on missions to secure other areas of the Midlands. There were other cities to be taken, other places to be captured, other pockets of resistance to be crushed, other people to be enslaved.

"Along with the supplies and the fresh troops came letters from the people back home in the Old World. They were not letters to any specific soldiers, of course, since the Imperial Order had no way of knowing how to find any individual soldier within their vast armies, nor would they have cared to, since individuals, as such, were unimportant in their eyes. Rather, they were letters sent to the general delivery of the 'brave men' fighting for the people back home, fighting on behalf of their Creator, fighting to defeat the heathens to the north, fighting to bring backward-thinking people the salvation of the Order's ways.

"At night, every night for weeks, the letters that had come with the supply wagons would be read to assembled groups of men — most of whom couldn't read themselves. They were letters of every kind, from people telling of the great sacrifices they had made in order to send food and goods north to their fighting men, to letters extolling the great sacrifices the soldiers were making to advance the divine teaching of the Order, to letters from young women promising their bodies in service to brave soldiers when they returned from vanquishing the uncivilized and backward enemy to the north. As you can imagine, this last kind of letter was quite popular and they were read over and over to hoots and wild cheering.

"The people of the Old World even sent mementos: talismans to bring victory; drawings to decorate the tents of their fighters; cookies and cakes that had long ago rotted; socks, mittens, shirts, and caps; herbs for everything from tea to bandages; scented handkerchiefs from enraptured women eager to offer themselves in duty to the soldiers; weapons belts and such made by the corps of young boys who trained with groups of other boys their own age until the day they could also go north to smite the people who resisted the Creator's wisdom and the Imperial Order's justice.

"The long trains of supply wagons, before they went back to the Old World to get more of the supplies necessary to support the enormous army up in the New World, were loaded down with loot to be taken back to the cities of the Old World that were supplying the food and goods needed by the army. It was like a loop of trade — booty for supplies, supplies for booty. I suppose that seeing endless wagonloads of plundered riches streaming south was also intended to be a great incentive for the people back home to continue to support what has to be the enormous cost of the war effort.

"The army that had invaded was far too large to fit in the city, of course, and with the reinforcements arriving with each train of supply wagons the endless sea of tents spread even farther out into the countryside, blanketing the hills and valleys all around. The trees for a goodly distance had all been stripped and used for firewood throughout the previous winter, leaving the landscape around the crown city looking lifeless and dead. The new grasses never grew beneath the teeming masses of men, the countless horses, and variety of wagons, so that it seemed that Galea had been turned to a sea of mud.

"From new units just arrived, men coming up from the Old World were formed into strike forces that were sent to attack other places, to spread the rule of the Imperial Order, to establish dominion. It seemed that there was an endless supply of men to enslave the New World.

"I was working to exhaustion feeding all the officers, so I was frequently around the command personnel and often overheard invasion plans and reports of cities that had fallen, tallies of prisoners taken, accounts of the numbers of slaves sent back to the Old World. On occasion some of the more attractive women were brought back for the use of the men of rank. The eyes of these women were wild with fear of what was to become of them. I knew that their eyes would soon enough become dull with longing for the release of death. It all seemed to me one endless attack, one long endless savagery that showed no signs of ever ending.

"The city by then, of course, had been all but emptied of the people who once had called it home. Almost every male over fifteen had long ago been put to death and the handful who hadn't had been sent off as slave labor. Many of the women — the ones too old or too young to be of use to the Order — had been put to death if they were in the way, but many had simply been left to starve to death. They lived like rats in the dark crevices of the city. Last winter I saw droves of old women and little girls who looked like skeletons covered in a pale veneer of flesh begging for scraps of food. It broke my heart, but to feed them would only end in execution for them and for me. Still, if I could get away with it, I sometimes slipped them food — if there was any to be had.