Cyan looked up at me. ‘I want to watch Governor Carniss’s men come in.’

Wrenn said, ‘Let’s go, then.’

She glowered at him. ‘Not with you! And don’t look at me like that!’

‘I wasn’t looking at you like anything.’

‘You’ve been staring at my tits all night, you syphilitic Miroir bogtrotter!’

Wrenn’s face split in a grin. ‘Well, they are nice tits. You must be very sporty. I’ve heard you can shoot straight.’

‘Now you’re leering!’

‘I’m not leering. I’m smiling. Don’t you want a smile from the world’s best swordsman?’

‘The only weapon you handle is your own dick…mangy wanker.’

‘I don’t think she’s feeling the fun of the day,’ Wrenn said to me.

She stuck her nose in the air. ‘No, because a short-arsed whore-monger keeps asking if I want to see his sword.’

‘Come on, Cyan,’ I said hastily.

Sheets of rain hissed down on us as we walked out to the gate. I cupped my tall wing around her to give her some shelter and I felt her warmth. We stood in the archway under the lanterns and watched a line of horses moving above their amorphous rain-pocked reflections. The men’s heads bowed, greasy rivulets ran down their waxed cotton hoods and tent-like cloaks they had stretched over their saddles. Bow cases projected from bundles and panniers on their cruppers. The nearest horse’s ankle flexed, its unshod hoof splashed down shattering the reflection.

Most men were on foot, carrying spears over their shoulders. They walked past wearily, in a worn and handed-down, or looted, assortment of armour; threadbare brigandines with steel scales showing through the rents. Their cuirasses were flecked orange with recent rust, fur scarves tucked into their metal necklines. Mud had rubbed up their boots between their legs to the thighs.

Their standard bearer dipped the Carniss crescent flag under the archway as he passed us. I thought the outpost’s association with the rest of the kingdom was a thin veneer; the slightest battle tension scratched it and showed their harsh settlers’ identity. Their greatest loyalty was to each other.

Cyan breathed, ‘Wow. I haven’t seen anything like this before. Awndyn fyrd never go anywhere.’

‘Wait till the Eske heavy cavalry turn up. Then you’ll have something to stare at. See the man who looks like his mare? That’s Governor Veery Carniss.’

Veery was dismounting to greet Lightning. His teeth were so horsey his voice whinnied. His ears were like bracket fungus and, though he frowned, a duelling scar lifted one corner of his mouth, permanently changing his expression for the better.

Cyan said, ‘Oh no, look at Daddy being bloody effusive.’

I wondered what to say to her. I wanted her to stop making Lightning’s life so difficult, but on the other hand I didn’t want her to end up stuck in a palace all her life, even more jaded than she already was.

I said, ‘Lightning’s torn between his duty to the Emperor and to you. Ten years ago he put his love for you first and it cost him severely. I know in the past he hasn’t given you the attention you deserve. But he’s incredibly busy now and your attention-seeking is distracting him. Have you told him about your brush with jook?’

‘No.’

‘Well, Rayne knows. If you took it again, she would definitely tell him.’

‘God, no. I don’t want to see those things again.’

‘The Gabbleratchet?’

Cyan shot me a look. ‘How did you know?’

‘I was there.’

‘It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.’

‘Oh, the Shift is real, all right. San ordered me to keep it secret from Zascai. I suppose he doesn’t want mortals trying to reach it and dying in the process.’

Her quick temper ignited. ‘You pansy boy! That’s bullshit-all bullshit!’

‘I was there, Cyan.’

‘As a trick of my imagination!’

‘The Gabbleratchet is not a trick of your imagination.’

‘Gabbleratchet.’ She rolled the name over her tongue and scowled. ‘I once longed to fly like you can. I used to dream of the smell of clouds and the thin air, the way you smell. Now I have nightmares of rotting hounds. I woke up screaming last night. Daddy wanted to know what was the matter, but I told him that being lost in Hacilith had frightened me. You’re not joking, are you?’

‘No. There are more worlds than we visited but the distance to Shift would kill us. The Insects’ own domain cuts through thousands of worlds; I meant it when I said they make us look inferior.’

‘God might be in the Shift.’

I laughed. ‘Oh, don’t you start.’

‘God is on a break. Why not in the Shift?’

‘Sure,’ I said sarcastically. ‘San keeps it prisoner in Epsilon and feeds it chocolate biscuits.’

‘Are you the only person to know?’

‘No. Rayne has also been to Vista, when she was your age…’

‘What a scary thought.’

‘Yes. She was young once…so she says. Your father has seen a Shift creature but he wouldn’t discuss it with me afterwards. He won’t say a word about the Insect bridge too, even though he burned it down. It’s too weird for him.’

‘Typical of Daddy to ignore an adventure so important!’

‘He’s denied it, filed it away in the same part of his mind that he’d use if you told him you’d taken jook. He treats me with a bit more suspicion, though; as if I’m having a disordering effect on the world.’

‘I think he blames me for a sea change too,’ Cyan said. ‘But if he can’t deal with it, it isn’t my fault.’

‘Maybe in twenty years I’ll drop the Shift into the conversation and see if he responds.’

The Carniss troops filed in past us. Those on horseback were mainly women, with crossbows slung on both sides of their saddles-two crossbows, to work in duo with their reloaders. They were pulling bolts from bandoliers around their bodies and slipping them point first into the depleted racks attached upright on their saddlebows.

The crossbow bolts’ points gleamed-hard steel moulded to soft iron sockets, which cushion the shaft so it doesn’t split on impact with Insect shell but drives straight through.

Cyan stared at the division captain, who wore a rain-darkened leather apron over her lap on which a hook from her pulley belt rested. She had been spanning her crossbow in the skirmishes. Insect mandibles had slashed her boots and the metal toecaps shone brightly through the cut leather. Her sallet helmet was not as shiny; it had a golden-brown patina from being polished with sheep fat every night.

She bowed her head to me as she passed. She trailed a leash from the saddle, attached to the muzzle of the division’s mascot. It padded beside her on big paws like snowshoes, pasted with mud. Its deep, pure white fur was flattened by the rain, but its galena-grey eyes were keen.

‘What’s that?’ said Cyan.

‘A Darkling white wolf.’

Wrenn appeared beside us. ‘Don’t mind me standing here?’ he asked, risking death by dirty look from Cyan. ‘The others, they…Well, I just feel better to be around you two.’

I understood. He’s only thirty, and the average age of our colleagues in the hall was about eight hundred.

‘It’s good to see Veery again now I’m Eszai,’ he said. ‘I gave him that scar but he seems OK about it.’

‘After all, you did turn out to be Eszai-good,’ I said.

He hopped from foot to foot. ‘The Emperor, coming here! We’re in for it, aren’t we?’

I nodded. We stood there for a while, watching the seemingly endless procession. Sporadic hammering still echoed in the background; rain drove through the spotlights around the palisade. The carpenters, proficient Peregrine shipbuilders drafted to the fyrd, were continuing through the night.

Eventually Cyan said, ‘That captain was a woman.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Not much older than me.’

‘That’s right. Come inside.’

‘I want to watch.’ She stood, stubbornly, and descended into her thoughts again.