The ugly man looked like he wanted nothing more than to honestly answer her question. But he was on the Sainnite side of the gate’s iron bars, and that fact meant he had long ago traded his freedom for security. He said to Cadmar, in Sainnese, “She asks if you are sincerely interested in making peace on any terms.”

“Will the Paladins lay down their arms?” asked Cadmar loudly.

Garland translated.

“What is this, a duel of questions?” said Mabin. “Is giving a straight answer a sign of weakness?”

“I’m afraid it is,” said Garland.

Karis said, “Lucky Man, tell him that when the Paladins no longer need weapons, they will lay them down. Will the Sainnites lay down their arms?”

“Will the Shaftali people acknowledge the Sainnites as their rulers?” Cadmar countered.

Karis looked into his hard, mocking eyes. “Do you truly believe that people can be ruled?” she asked in amazement.

While the Lucky Man translated, Garland heard Mabin say, “This is just a game to him, Karis.”

“I need to be certain that it’s hopeless!” Karis said.

The general seemed to find Karis’s most recent question disconcerting, or perhaps merely irritating. “You offer me nothing!” he said. “Why should I make peace?”

“I am offering you something: a choice. I will make peace with you, General Cadmar. Or I will make peace without you.”

Mabin, who had been nonplused when Karis gave her the identical choice, seemed much amused by Cadmar’s bewilderment. Then, the general uttered a harsh, mocking laugh, and gestured–at the pistols and crossbows overhead, at the bristling soldiers that surrounded him. “You threaten me?”

“Surely the person who needs no weapons is far stronger than the one who does,” said Mabin. Perhaps it was a Paladin maxim. Garland was not certain who Mabin meant to address, but the Lucky Man translated her words, and Cadmar no longer seemed amused.

Karis said, “I will not give you this choice again. Will you make peace?”

Cadmar said, “You give me no reason to choose!”

Karis said to Mabin, rather blankly, “How could I possibly give him a reason?” Then Karis glanced deliberately at the tired, desperately attentive woman who stood several paces away, but well within hearing. “Reasons are created by the reasoner!”

The lieutenant‑general looked jolted, and half opened her mouth as if to protest that a soldier, whose job is to obey orders only, certainly has no use for reasoning.

The Lucky Man’s translation was distracted and awkward. Cadmar glared impatiently at him.

Mabin was saying to Karis, “If the general is incapable of making his own reasons, he’s incapable of making peace. Is that what you’re thinking?” Karis nodded. “That’s a pretty piece of air logic, Mabin said dryly.

“It’s hopeless. By any logic.”

The Lucky Man had not missed this interchange. As he summarized it in Sainnese, he tried to soften it. But the general turned on Karis. “Incapable? Because I choose not to bow my head to a rabble of dirt‑grubbing peasants? Because–”

Garland, beginning to translate, noticed distractedly that Karis’s often‑mended glove had worn through again in the palm. Her soot‑black skin showed through in patches framed by frayed red yarn as she lifted her left hand from his shoulder, took hold of the thick iron bar, and bent it neatly aside like a green twig. She reached through the gate, and took hold of Cadmar by the collar. The heavy wool of his uniform ripped like paper.

The general’s big hands pounded helplessly at hers. His shout became a gurgle.

The lieutenant‑general cried sharply, “Hold!”

The silence and stillness that reigned there at the gate was a wonder. The fascinated, horrified soldiers stood rigid as stone, unable to shoot lest they injure or kill the general by accident. Then, Lieutenant‑General Clement stepped forward. “Clement!” cried the gate captain. The Lucky Man grabbed for her shoulder, but missed. She heedlessly put herself within reach of Karis’s other hand, and said, “Let him go. Please. I beg you.”

Karis said, just as calmly, “Only a fool picks a fight with a blacksmith.”

Another maxim, thought Garland wildly. This one was probably from Meartown, where fistfights were said to be rare.

The lieutenant‑general put her hand on the arm that was strangling Cadmar to death. She said reasonably, “Your strength came from him, though.”

“He left me to become a smoke‑addicted child whore in Lalali. What strength I have certainly did not come from him.”

Cadmar struggled again in Karis’s grip. She tightened the garrote of his collar, and he stopped, his eyes starting to glaze.

Garland looked at the lieutenant‑general. She seemed only distantly aware of Cadmar’s desperate, humiliating position. She seemed to be thinking of something else–something painful enough to make the soldier’s mask slip off her face. She said, “My people have forgotten how to take responsibility for a child, Cadmar among them. It is true.”

Karis gazed at her steadily, patiently, as though she were waiting for a wild bird to make up its mind to alight on her finger.

Clement said, “But do you want to be the kind of person who would murder her father because of his carelessness?”

“I will not murder your general for that particular carelessness,” Karis said quietly. “His personal failings are no longer important.”

Garland knew what Karis really meant, but Clement looked expectantly at her, as though she thought she had won something.

With her right hand, which had not let go of the gate, Karis bent another iron bar casually out of the way. The lieutenant‑general, either very brave or very well‑disciplined, did not flinch or draw back out of reach. Karis reached into her doublet and then put her hand through the bars of the gate. She offered Clement the bottle of milk. “This is your son’s life,” she said. “Give it to him, Clement.”

Clement’s ungloved hands were numb with cold, but the bottle was warm from the G’deon’s breast. Clement closed her hand around the bottle and then she jammed it into her pocket.

She had been precisely, deliberately, irresistibly coerced, and she knew it.

The G’deon said, very gently, “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you.” She released her hold on Cadmar’s throat. He stumbled back, gasping for breath, then opened his mouth in a raw shout of rage.

Karis gazed somberly at him through the twisted bars of the gate. The iron lay between his fist and her.

Clement had stepped forward to steady him, but that courtesy only brought her within range. I should have known better,she thought, just before his massive fist smashed into her face.

When Clement’s vision cleared, she found herself sprawled on ice and cobblestones. There was a lot of shouting. She was dragged aside like a sack of turnips. Something clattered lightly on the stones. She reached for it, but could not quite seem to grab hold of it. It was farther than she thought, then closer. Finally, she grasped it, and examined it with puzzlement.

A piece of a shattered crossbow bolt.

She lifted her head and peered at the guard tower. Her vision swam–but those dismayed shouts concerned her.

“Lieutenant‑General, keep your head down!”

It was very forward, and very thoughtful, of the soldier to shout at her like that. She ignored her, and with some effort got herself on her elbows, knees, and finally to her feet, in a sickeningly spinning world.

The soldier caught her before she fell again.

“I have got to talk to the general,” she slurred.

“Not wise,” the soldier said. “Give it a moment. You’re addled from the blow.”

“Wise?” She looked at her in confusion.

“Gods of hell,” said the soldier. “Why can’t they get the gate unlocked?”

Clement looked at the gate. The captain fought the key in the resisting lock. He shouted an order at the towers. Clement looked up–when would the sky stop that nauseating spin? In the towers, armored soldiers picked up a ladder. It fell apart in their hands. Rungs clattered onto stone. Side supports broke into pieces.