“The storyteller could also live there,” said Gilly, speaking loudly over the baby’s wailing. “I’ll help with the cost, of course. I’ve always wanted to be somebody’s uncle.”

Clement said, “I’m not sure I heard you, with that shrieking in my ear. Did you say you want to be an uncle!”

Grinning, Gilly stood up and leaned upon his sturdy cane. “I’ll check those rooms in the morning, and if they look passable, I’ll rent them on your behalf.”

She opened and held the door for him. Out in the hallway, the storyteller rose up lightly from where she had been squatting with her shoulders against the wall. “Let’s get some sleep if we can,” Clement said to her. “Will you be all right on the stairs, uncle?”

Gilly gestured crudely and shuffled into the shadows.

When Clement first set eyes on her son’s new wet nurse, she was flirting with the soldiers at the gate: a plain, thin, sullen girl, younger than Kelin had been. She unbuttoned despite the chill to display her swollen, milk‑leaking breasts. “Satisfied?” she asked sharply, then added placatingly, “Madam.” “What became of your own baby?”

“He went to the father’s family.” Winking at the goggling soldiers, the girl did up her buttons.

No doubt that this girl would be a trial to Clement, just as she surely had been to her recently discarded parents. In the rented rooms, though, where at Gilly’s instigation the plaster was being repaired and furniture was being delivered, the girl sat down beside the glowing coal stove and demonstrated that she could suckle, though the baby appeared to need some training. The storyteller squatted on her heels and watched this amateur performance with what seemed to Clement a healthy skepticism.

Clement squatted beside her. “If this were your son, would you leave him in this girl’s care?”

“I cannot answer that question,” the storyteller said.

Clement hired the girl only because she had no choice. That night she lay in her own room, alone, trying to convince herself that she appreciated the luxury of an uninterrupted night. At sunrise she was in the rented rooms again, holding her son beside the newly lit stove, having a quiet conversation with him while the nurse and storyteller slept.

“Acquiring a child is no different from acquiring a horse,” she said to him. “For every Sainnite but me.”

The baby lay in her arms, an unopened package, a blinking, sleepy stranger. “For me,” Clement said, “it appears to be a shocking occasion. Perhaps as much as it is for you.”

She glanced at the door that hung half ajar to let in the heat, beyond which the storyteller slept on a pallet on the floor. “You can thank the storyteller for this. Or curse her, if you like. Whatever you think she deserves.”

The baby uttered a small burbling grunt.

“No, I can’t make up my mind either,” she said.

The day of Clement’s departure for the children’s garrison had arrived too soon. “Where did all those ravens come from?” said Gilly from the back of his horse, as he escorted her to the garrison gate.

Black birds swarmed above the garrison gate. As Clement watched, their flying mass compressed together, then exploded upward, uttering eerily gleeful rattling cries.

The forty gloomy soldiers who awaited Clement at the gate watched the departing birds with undisguised anxiety. “Hell,‘

Clement muttered. Ravens were battlefield birds; Sainnites loathed and feared them. “They’ll be thinking those birds are an ill omen.”

Gilly was usually contemptuous of soldier superstitions, but now he looked worried.

The gate captain was approaching. Though he was one of the most dispassionate soldiers in the garrison, even he looked discomforted. He carried an unlabeled package wrapped in oilcloth, sealed with red wax, tied with twine, and smeared with bird droppings. “What is it, captain?” asked Clement sharply.

“Lieutenant‑General, this thing seemed to fall from the sky.”

Involuntarily, Clement looked again at the disappearing flock of ravens. One had separated from the group and now swooped down to land on the peak of a rooftop. Gilly’s voice spoke harshly. “Keep your imaginings to yourself, captain!”

It was what Clement should have said to the gate captain. She turned to him belatedly and said, “Morale is going to be tricky enough without the soldiers thinking we’re getting packages from ravens.”

“Yes, ma’am. But what should I do with this?”

“Give it to me,” Gilly said. In a low voice he added to Clement, “Go talk to your soldiers.”

She stepped forward to greet Captain Herme, and with him beside her walked through the ranks of the gloomy company, greeting every soldier by name, enthusiastically touting the inevitable success and importance of their venture. By the time she had finished trying to raise their spirits, she could see Cadmar and Ellid arriving for the official departure. She hurried back to Gilly.

Looking both unhappy and unwell, he briefly held up a slim book for her to see, then hid it again in its dirty oilcloth wrappings.

“A book?” said Clement. “In Shaftalese?”

“It purports to be written by Medric.”

“That’s a Sainnite name,” she said. Then she remembered who Medric was. “The one who claimed to be a seer? The one who disappeared from Wilton Garrison? He’s written a bloody book?”

“Not just a book, Clem. It’s about the Sainnites. And Medric is in fact a seer–a true seer.”

“How can you be certain of such a thing?”

“Because he knows the numbers.”

She stared at Gilly, dumbstruck. She knew perfectly well what numbers he meant: the secret numbers, which Gilly had ciphered only once and then had burned to ashes. The numbers that were only known to the two of them and to Cadmar.

Gilly continued, “This seer can cipher too. And he has a printing press. No doubt this book is right now being read all over Shaftal. And that seer is taunting us by sending us a copy! Because he knows there isn’t a thing we can do about it!”

Clement took in a breath and let it out. “There’s nothing we can do,” she said. “So don’t tell Cadmar.”

“Clem–”

“He’ll prevent me from going on this mission!”

They stared at each other, then Gilly said grimly, “And that would only compound the disaster.” He tucked the grimy package inside his coat. “I’ll give you a day.”

“Two.”

His gaze briefly focused over her shoulder, then he smiled stiffly at her, apparently trying to pretend this was a pleasant conversation. “He’s coming over to us.”

“Two days, Gilly. I can’t be out of his reach in one.”

“Right,” Gilly said. “Well, I certainly look forward to hearing about all your adventures, and wish you a safe journey.”

She turned around and found Cadmar and Ellid had come within hearing. “Well, General, will you wish us well?”

He did. She saluted. He saluted. Ellid saluted. The gate was opened. The soldiers marched out, snowshoes on their backs, dragging awkward sledges that would soon be gliding on snow. Clement followed them out the gate, reeling.

Ten days later, in the teeth of a howling snowstorm, her company arrived at the children’s garrison. As Clement explained to Commander Purnal why she had returned, and with such a large escort, his astonishment soon turned to sarcastic appreciation. “So, your bungling has turned our garrison into a symbol! And now you’re finally forced to take us seriously! Well, it’s six days yet until Long Night, and there’s plenty of roof repairs needing to be done in the meantime.”

“We’re going to remain invisible indoors. You will continue your business as though we were not here. And I’m placing those soldiers I left behind under Captain Herme’s command.”

“It’s only what I expected of you,” Purnal said bitterly, and stumped off in a temper.

An experienced Paladin commander who was planning an attack would keep a watch on his target for days beforehand, so to keep their arrival unnoticed Clement’s company had avoided roads and farmlands as they neared their destination. Snow‑covered streambeds had often offered the best paths as they navigated through the woods by compass and dead reckoning. One glorious day, they had followed a frozen river and had been lucky to find shelter in an empty building with its dock pulled onto the riverbank to keep the ice from destroying it. Most days, though, had been grueling, and at night they sheltered themselves in makeshift constructions of snow, branches, and tarpaulins. It took two days by the hearthfires of the children’s garrison for the soldiers to thaw out. But every night, once full dark had fallen, with an audience of fascinated children they rehearsed the battle.