Marshal Lugo stood by Bottero, listening to the cavalry officers bragging about what they’d do to Bucovin if the king turned them loose to fight the way they wanted to. The marshal looked like a man who’d just taken a big bite out of a horse-manure sandwich.

“You can do this?” Bottero asked when the officers finished their excited exposition.

“Yes, your Majesty!” Nornat and Sanfrat chorused. Carsoli wasn’t there. Maybe he’d go along if the king ordered it, but he was no convert.

King Bottero turned to Orosei. “What do you think?”

“It’s something we haven’t tried before, anyhow,” the master-at-arms answered. “What we have tried against Bucovin hasn’t worked real well, so why not trot out something different for a change?”

“We can use this against Lenelli, too,” Nornat said. “Once the lancers break the enemy line, it’s like breaking a turtle’s shell. What’s inside is meat. Our meat.”

“Mm.” The king plucked at his beard. “How about you, Lugo? You haven’t had much to say.”

“Everything sounds wonderful when you’re drinking beer,” the marshal said. “How well it’ll work when we really try it out … That’s liable to be a different story, and not such a pretty one.”

The crack held just enough truth to sting. Hasso gnawed on his lower lip. Perhaps noticing him look unhappy, Bottero asked, “What do you have to say to that, outlander?”

“Nothing is perfect, your Majesty. Some things is – uh, are – better, some worse,” Hasso said. “How good is what you do now? Bucovin is still here, so maybe not so good. Maybe try something different, something new.”

“A good answer,” King Bottero replied.

“No, not so good!” Lugo cried. “The foreigner will risk our men, risk good Lenelli. But where will he be? Someplace safe, that’s where. Someplace where he doesn’t need to take chances.”

“I am no lancer,” Hasso said. The marshal sneered. Hasso held up a hand. “Not done yet. I am no lancer, but I ride at the front, when the column charges.” He bowed to Lugo and clicked his heels. The Lenelli didn’t do that, but they recognized the formality of the gesture. “I ride there, yes. You ride beside me?”

Nornat and Sanfrat sucked in their breath together. Orosei chuckled and then politely tried to pretend he hadn’t. I’ll put my money where my mouth is, Hasso might have said. Have you got the balls to ride along?

Lugo looked as if he hated him. He likely did. But he was ruined if he looked like a coward in front of his sovereign. “If the king orders this foolish scheme to go forward, you will not see me hang back,” he said. “No miserable outlander will ever say he dares to go where a Lenello dares not come with him.”

“Good.” Hasso ignored the insult. “We ride together. Together, we crush the Grenye. Nothing else matters. You do not have to love me, Marshal. You only have to want to win. That is all I want.”

“Ha!” Lugo said. “You want to make a big name for yourself, to show everyone how smart you are. Be careful you don’t outsmart yourself.”

He wasn’t wrong there, either, no matter how little Hasso felt like admitting it. The German only shrugged. “What can I do? Where can I go? This is my land now. I want to see King Bottero win. If the king wins, I win. If the king loses, I lose. Better for everyone if the king wins.”

That last should have been a subjunctive. Hasso realized as much after the easier, more common indicative came out of his mouth. The grammatical error wasn’t all bad, though. It made King Bottero’s triumph sound more nearly inevitable, less doubtful, than the subjunctive, a mood made for showing uncertainty, ever could have.

Orosei winked at him. Maybe the master-at-arms thought he’d made the mistake on purpose. Or maybe Orosei thought he’d said the right thing, even if his grammar was bad. He could hope so, anyhow.

By the way Bottero’s eyes lit up, Hasso had said the right thing. “I am going to win,” the king boomed. “The kingdom is going to win. We will drive the Grenye before us like chaff on the breeze.” But that seemed to remind him of something else. “You got silly about some Grenye wench not long ago, didn’t you, Hasso Pemsel?”

Except for Velona, the Lenelli mostly used his full name when they weren’t happy with him, the way a parent might have. Hearing it used that way put his back up. “Silly? I don’t think so, your Majesty. Does Aderno treat a horse or a dog bad on purpose? Not likely. Why treat a Grenye bad on purpose, then? Just make trouble with no need. Plenty of trouble already, yes? Why make more if you don’t have to?”

“This will help our folk,” Bottero said in that-settles-it tones.

Marshal Lugo was no fool – or, at least, was not the kind of fool who made a bad courtier. “Yes, your Majesty,” he intoned. If his tone suggested he would sooner go on the rack than do anything Hasso proposed … well, how could you prove that? You couldn’t, and Hasso knew it too bloody well.

If King Bottero found anything wrong with the way his marshal agreed, he didn’t let on. He made a fist and slammed it into his other hand. “We march against Bucovin,” he declared, and that was that. The Fuhrer could have been no more decisive.

As Bottero’s realm readied itself for war, Hasso found himself wondering whether the king might not be too decisive. It struck him as late in the year to start a major campaign. Germany had moved against the Ivans on 22 June after delaying six weeks to squash Yugoslavia and Greece. That delay probably kept the Wehrmacht from taking Moscow. And 22 June was right at the summer solstice. They were well past it here; Hasso grimaced when he remembered how they’d celebrated it.

So much he didn’t know about the way things worked here. How big exactly was Bucovin? Bottero’s maps had no reliable scale of distances. And how bad were the local winters? Hasso had no idea. He’d never been through one.

He could find out. Velona’s eyes got wide when he asked whether rivers or lakes froze over. “No,” she said. “Farther north, maybe, but not around here. Do they do that where you come from?”

“Sometimes.” Too damned often, in Russia, Hasso thought. Then he asked, “Does it snow here?” Only trouble was, he didn’t know how to say snow in Lenello. The question came out as, “Does ice fall from the sky?” He used fluttering fingers to show snowflakes dancing on the breeze.

Velona laughed after she understood what he meant. “Oh, yes,” she said, and taught him the words he needed to ask the question the right way. She kissed him when he showed he remembered them and could pronounce them. If he’d got rewards like that in school, he figured he would have grown up to be a genius.

“How often does it snow in the winter?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Velona said with an enchanting shrug. Don’t get too distracted, Hasso reminded himself. She went on, “It snows every winter – sometimes more, sometimes less.”

“You make war in the wintertime?” Hasso persisted.

“Not so much as in the summer, but we do,” Velona answered. “We aren’t peasants, the way the Grenye are. Fighting in the winter is harder for them. It takes them away from their farms.”

Maybe there was method in Bottero’s madness after all, then. Hasso could hope so, anyhow. “Your harvests the past few years are good?” he asked.

“Good enough.” Velona started laughing again, this time at him. “Good heavens, darling, are you going to count every ear of wheat in the granary and every arrow in every horse-archer’s quiver?”

“Someone should,” Hasso said stubbornly. Man for man, panzer for panzer, the Wehrmacht was better than the Red Army. Everybody knew that, even the Ivans. But when they could mass five times the men, eight times the panzers, twenty times the guns, quantity took on a quality of its own. Bucovin wouldn’t have that big an edge – or he hoped it wouldn’t. Even so … “Lots of Grenye.”