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mustered the main body of the cavalry, because they consume a tremendous amount of fodder. In the other direction a tumbrel cart of manure was setting out from the stables towards the pine plantation. ‘We will position twenty battalions of Select, wielding axes, there … and there.’
    I said, ‘It’ll be very muddy once they start to march.’
    Lightning said, ‘That is an understatement. Think what it’ll be like for the battalions in the rear after the first ten thousand have walked over it in front of them. We will need a whole division to lay duckboards as they go. We will progress slowly across the drained lakebed, keeping in line, chopping down the Insects’ buildings. Without …’ He savoured the words: ‘Without any expectation of casualties at all.’
    ‘I’ve never been in an Insect cell before,’ Eleonora said thoughtfully. ‘But they’re too close together to take horses through.’
    Lightning said, ‘When we reach the new Wall, we will secure the area, continue to dismantle the cells and bring up some trebuchets. The Queen’s lancers will patrol and act as rearguard.’
    The wind was ruffling Lightning’s dark blond feathers and making them stand upright. Irritated, he shook his wings out and folded them tightly. I can’t believe he gave Eleonora his coat. Doesn’t he know her reputation? I looked at him carefully, thinking that even he must be aware of the ribald rumours. Eleonora was the only child of Lord Governor Osprey Tanager, who was killed by Insects twenty years ago, the last of that family. When she was not at the front she held court in Rachiswater Palace, but as soon as she had rebuilt her family’s manor house she intended to restore the capital of Awia to Tanager, as it was in 1812 before the Rachiswaters took the throne.
    The lake reflected the banded mackerel sky, with thin clouds the grey-purple colour of an artist’s paintbrush water. Trochanter, the morning star, was growing fainter. Below, the surface of the river winding east towards Lowespass Fortress had an oily, rainbow scum of old poison washing out from the Wall.
    We crossed a bridge over the dry overspill chute and descended to the shore. The two soldiers guarding the access to the walkway uncrossed their spears promptly and we passed between them.
    A beacon basket full of twigs and hay stood next to a large bell on a pole and my semaphore device set at neutral. Their metal stands prevented Insects eating them. Eleonora’s bodyguard of four Tanager Select lancers sat obediently at attention on their warhorses. She appraised them out of habit: their embossed armour, the woollen cloaks hanging to their stirrups, their helmets with blue and white striped horsehair crests and fluttering muslin streamers. They love ornamentation, do Awians.
    Eleonora’s horse waited between them. The silver inlaid armour on his head was richer than anything I owned. The chafron plate beaked over his nose came to a point; the crinet covering his neck was steel openwork, scallop-edged like batwings. Lightning’s horse was drab incomparison. Eleonora greeted them enthusiastically, ‘Hello, Perlino! Hello Balzan!’
    Perlino looked skittish at my scent. He put his ears back and flared his nostrils imperiously. ‘I don’t like you, either,’ I told him.
    Eleonora patted his neck and he nuzzled her hand.
    I said, ‘It isn’t my fault most horses are afraid that Rhydanne want to chase them down and eat them.’
    ‘Maybe I should take Perlino to Darkling and give him a sniff of pure Rhydanne for comparison. Then he’d appreciate you.’ She fitted her toe into a stirrup, swung herself onto the horse. She sat straight, holding the reins loosely. Perlino high-stepped with his strong front legs, in rein-back, then Eleonora made him pirouette.
    She leaned from the saddle and prodded my chest, ‘Race you!’ She tapped Perlino’s flank and was away down the track. Her bodyguard looked at each other and followed suit, standing on their