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through the passes and into the uncivilised west where, no doubt, they will foment new discord.’
    ‘Cowardly bastards!’ Cosca slapped at his thigh. ‘Could they not stand and be slaughtered like decent men? I’m all for fermentation but fomentation is a damned
imposition!’
    Lorsen narrowed his eyes as though at a contrary wind, and ploughed on. ‘For political reasons, his Majesty’s armies are unable to pursue them.’
    ‘Political reasons . . .’ offered Temple, ‘such as a border?’
    ‘Precisely,’ said Lorsen.
    Cosca examined his ridged and yellowed fingernails. ‘Oh, I’ve never taken those very seriously.’
    ‘Precisely,’ said Pike.
    ‘We want the Company of the Gracious Hand to cross the mountains and pacify the Near Country as far west as the Sokwaya River. This rot of rebellion must be excised once and for
all.’ Lorsen cut at imaginary filth with the edge of his hand, voice rising as he warmed to his subject. ‘We must clean out this sink of depravity which has too long been allowed to
fester on our border! This . . . overflowing latrine! This backed-up sewer, endlessly disgorging its ordure of chaos into the Union!’
    Temple reflected that, for a man who professed himself opposed to ordure, Inquisitor Lorsen certainly relished a shit-based metaphor.
    ‘Well, no one enjoys a backed-up sewer,’ conceded Cosca. ‘Except the sewer-men themselves, I suppose, who scratch out their wretched livings in the sludge. Unblocking the
drains is a speciality of ours, isn’t it, Sergeant Friendly?’
    The big man looked up from his dice long enough to shrug.
    ‘Temple is the linguist but perhaps I might in this case interpret?’ The Old Man twisted the waxed tips of his grey moustaches between finger and thumb. ‘You wish us to visit a
plague upon the settlers of the Near Country. You wish us to make stern examples of every rebel sheltered and every person who gives them shelter. You wish us to make them understand that their
only future is with the grace and favour of his August Majesty. You wish us to force them into the welcoming arms of the Union. Do I come close to the mark?’
    ‘Close enough,’ murmured Superior Pike.
    Temple found that he was sweating. When he wiped his forehead his hand trembled. But what could he do?
    ‘The Paper of Engagement is already prepared.’ Lorsen produced his own sheaf of crackling documents, a heavy seal of red wax upon its bottom corner.
    Cosca waved it away. ‘My notary will look it over. All the legal fiddle-faddle quite swims before my eyes. I am a simple soldier.’
    ‘Admirable,’ said Pike, his hairless brows raised by the slightest fraction.
    Temple’s ink-spotted forefinger traced through the blocks of calligraphy, eyes flickering from one point of interest to another. He realised he was picking nervously at the corners of the
pages and made himself stop.
    ‘I will accompany you on the expedition,’ said Lorsen. ‘I have a list of settlements suspected of harbouring rebels. Or rebellious sentiment.’
    Cosca grinned. ‘Nothing more dangerous than sentiment!’
    ‘In particular, his Eminence the Arch Lector offers a bonus of fifty thousand marks for the capture, alive, of the chief instigator of the insurrection, the one the rebels call Conthus. He
goes also under the name of Symok. The Ghosts call him Black Grass. At the massacre in Rostod he used the alias—’
    ‘No further aliases, I beg you!’ Cosca massaged the sides of his skull as if they pained him. ‘Since suffering a head-wound at the Battle of Afieri I have been cursed with an
appalling memory for names. It is a source of constant embarrassment. But Sergeant Friendly has all the details. If your man Conshus—’
    ‘Conthus.’
    ‘What did I say?’
    ‘Conshus.’
    ‘There you go! If he’s in the Near Country, he’ll be yours.’
    ‘Alive,’ snapped Lorsen. ‘He must answer for his crimes. He must be made a lesson of. He must be put on display!’
    ‘And