‘What revelation?’

‘Any revelation!’ His shire horse started forward.

Great, I thought. Now we begin to jockey for position in serving San. Nothing short of god returning would quench our bloody egos. I knew Lightning likes to see himself as San’s second in command but now he was anxious that the Circle had failed, and Tornado’s grim-faced but calm faith and certainty of his role gave him a rock-sure composure. He doesn’t understand that it is often the beliefs we hold most adamantly that turn out to be wrong, because we never examine them.

I sped back to town. More sprinting along the streets, knocking on doors, a few breathless words at each one. Lightning, with Cyan unwillingly in tow, was at the top of the gatehouse.

The large square windows in its overhang were a good vantage point. Lightning and Cyan were watching Insects running among the straggling troops, dropping into quarries. They scurried, carried on their long legs over the uneven ground. They bit experimentally at abandoned carts. When the wind gusted in our direction, we could hear them crunching as they chewed up the wood’s surface in long lines. They methodically gathered balls of grey pulp in the palps behind their jaws and then rushed away to plaster it along an edge of the Wall.

They tugged at bodies on the ground, cutting them up and carrying them to the lake. The lake glimmered brown as if the wet land had been scraped flat. Dark patches of carcasses and vegetation floated on its surface. On occasional gusts we smelt it; and it turned my stomach. The rotting, waterlogged corpses stank, a bloated, gutsy miasma as thick as gravy. Above the lake, the atmosphere was so solid with the smell you could slice it. It intruded into everything and was destroying our morale.

The wooden room at the tower top always smelled of tar. I leant on the windowsill as I told Lightning the news. He rubbed his eyes and said, ‘Ask Wrenn and Lourie to increase guard on the road and I’ll send them mounted archers. We’ll go out to greet the Emperor.’

A stablehand brought our horses and we set off from town. The last of the Peregrine General Fyrd were coming into the gate. ‘Those are my men,’ Cyan said.

‘Not yet, they aren’t,’ Lightning told her. ‘I called them up with Micawater and I integrated them with my battalions.’

‘Why are they all archers?’

‘You will mainly field archers. Every man in Awia from eleven years old drills in archery every Sunday. I had that law passed centuries ago. Select longbow men train every day, shooting volleys together.’

‘Awndyn doesn’t,’ Cyan said.

‘Only Awia trains so thoroughly. The General Fyrd from Hacilith don’t drill at all because Aver-Falconet doesn’t want proficient soldiers in the city.’

Cyan’s oval face was wind-burnt and coppery and, despite herself, she had an interested shine in her eyes which I found compelling. She kept watching the troops. A small gap and the next set started past, bleary-eyed from sleeping in camps, and with moustaches and beards, not like clean-shaven Awians. She peered at them. ‘Who are these?’

Lightning said, ‘Can’t you see their standard?’

‘Yes…just. So?’

‘So who is it?’

‘Green, with a white splodge.’

‘It is a silver star on a field vert. A green flag means it’s Plainslands, and a silver star is…’

Cyan swung her feet in her stirrups and bounced them off her horse’s ribs.

‘Shivel. By god, what has Swallow been teaching you?’

‘The harpsichord, mostly. And the violin. She said I have no talent whatsoever. She said even you’re better at playing music than I am.’

‘I daresay,’ Lightning said, with a smile. ‘I was unaware your education was inadequate. I did give Swallow funds to hire the best tutors for you.’

‘She just brought in the old codger from school. I complained but you never checked…because you can’t abide the thought that she could do anything wrong.’

Lightning said nothing.

‘Because you keep pretending you love her,’ Cyan added.

‘I do love her! With all my heart.’ Lightning shifted his position in the saddle. ‘She is the best musician the Fourlands has ever produced.’

Lord Governor Anelace Shivel greeted us as he passed. Then his Select cavalry vanguard followed on, all in green brigandines and small star badges stamped from pewter.

‘Look at all these men!’ Cyan gasped.

‘Yes, and they’ve been in the Castle’s pay ever since they left their manor boundary,’ Lightning said. ‘That will dent the treasury badly.’

‘As if whether we can pay matters any more,’ I said, and turned to Cyan. ‘You haven’t seen anything yet. This is only half of Shivel’s Select, from Coutille and Pinchbeck musters. Basilard and Spraint musters are a day or so behind-and all his General Fyrd are yet to come.’

Lightning added, ‘Governor Shivel has the title “lord”, so he is able to raise twenty thousand troops or more, and from the sight of these I would say this is the first occasion he has mobilised them all. You see, my dear? Your manor will easily raise enough for you to be Lady Governor.’

‘Good incentive to look after your people,’ I said. ‘Encourage them to multiply and they might replace those we’ll lose here. Pregnant women don’t get drafted. If they have a large family they can choose who to send.’

‘Hark at the cynic,’ Lightning said.

‘The villages are empty,’ I told him. ‘San will never do this twice.’

‘I think I should lead my fyrd,’ Cyan said thoughtfully.

I had thought she wanted to renounce her manorship. I glanced at her, seeing her expression resolving into determination; she was reconsidering her identity yet again.

‘Certainly not,’ Lightning said. ‘You don’t even know one standard from the next.’

She sat up straight in her saddle for the first time. ‘Well, tell me. How do I organise them?’

‘I can’t believe she doesn’t already know this,’ I said.

Lightning sighed, ‘I blame myself. I’ll do something about it as soon as we get back. However, no reason not to start now. Mm…let me see.’ He hovered a hand at the weary men riding past in loose formation. ‘These are Select troops. Select have the same ranks as the General Fyrd and they are also used as officers for the General Fyrd-except for the lowest ranks where you can make shift with veteran General Fyrd if you have to. All Selects are trained using the same methods so different manors can fight side by side.

‘You will see, after that gap-that’s supposed to be a gap-a new battalion starting. The fellow on the smart black courser is its warden. The warden leads a battalion of a thousand men. Beside him is the vice-warden, and behind him comes the captain of a division, that one on the stallion.

‘The captain leads a division-that is, a morai-of five hundred men. The division is comprised of companies-or lamai-of fifty men apiece, and each company is led by a sergeant. A company is split into squads of five to ten men, depending on what you need them for-and squads are led by a corporal.’

‘I know that one,’ said Cyan.

‘At least!’ Lightning slapped the reins on his saddlebow in mock exasperation.

I said, ‘The fyrd has more or less stayed the same since the time of the First Circle.’

‘It’s an ugly Morenzian word,’ said Lightning. ‘Each officer has a deputy; you can see the vice-captain walking past us now. The one with the beard. Give him a nod.’

Cyan gave a cutesy nod, and the vice-captain grinned and nudged his mate.

‘All right,’ said Lightning. ‘Don’t get carried away. As a governor you can fine anyone, General or Select, who refuses the draft or goes absent without leave; and depending on the circumstances you can confiscate all their property. Your manor’s bureaucracy takes care of that sort of thing.’

Cyan was watching, wide-eyed, realising what she had been missing all this time. ‘I want to take part.’