Walker laughed and rubbed his hands. "My friend," he said, "I'll let you in on a little secret that may brighten your day." He shouted for food and drink.

"I could use that," Isketerol said frankly, as they ate; the usual Iraiina fare, roast and boiled meat and bread and a few vegetables, but better done than usual. I would pay gold for a handful of olives, or good tunny cooked with goat cheese, and a decent salad. "From what my scouts say I don't dare put to sea," he went on. "Not with Eagle and those two new ships about. So far, we know nothing of what Alston and the Eagle are doing, except stirring mischief."

A man screamed, not far away. "Odd that you should mention that," Walker said. "We took an enemy messenger, and he's been telling us some interesting things. Come take a look."

They rose and walked around the back of the pavilion. A series of leather panels between poles with a canvas awning overhead made an enclosure there, with two full-armed guards standing stock-still outside the entrance; Isketerol smelled fear on them, and saw it in the sweat that rolled down their faces under the helmet brims despite the cool evening air. Over the entrance hung a mask, the frontal bones of a skull mounted on a hemisphere of polished gold with a light burning within. The flames nickered through, red through the eye sockets and teeth, translucent through the thin-worked bone. Inside a hearth and living area were set up to one side, and a place of work to the other. Ingenious cabinets of folding wood and drawers stood open on the close-cropped sward; between them was a jointed table, now adjusted to a sloping surface. The man fastened to it screamed again as the figure in the green gown bent over him and made an adjustment to some metal tool that burrowed in under his rib cage.

Hong straightened up and pulled down her cloth face-mask. "Hi, Will. Hello, Isketerol, glad you could make it," she said. Then to one of the early-adolescent girls standing behind her, also in green surgical garb, "The number-four extensor, Missora."

The girl giggled and stood on tiptoe to whisper something in Hong's ear. The Amurrukan woman laughed and swatted her assistant lightly on the bottom. "Not yet. Later, when he needs to be cheered up." Her sister giggled too, crouching over the little brazier where still other instruments were at white heat.

An Iraiina stood by the man's head; his fear was undisguised. "Ask him again, Velrarix," Hong said.

The tribesman bent over the prisoner and shouted in his ear; the language was the purling glug-glug-glug sound of the Earth Folk tongue. Isketerol caught most of it, although the translator had a vile accent.

The figure strapped to the table tried to shake his head against the clamps that held it. Drops of blood went spattering on the waxed leather covering of the wood, and slow fat tears ran down his cheeks. The glass jar dripping saline solution down a tube into one arm rattled in its holder.

"No?" Hong said. "Well, maybe we'll advance the schedule again. Scalpel and clamps, little one."

She selected an instrument from the offered tray and flashed a smile over at the two men. "This is fascinating, you know. Sort of like an operation in reverse. The human body is absolutely amazing, the way it clings to life. And the way you can shape it like wood or marble. I'm developing a true art form here."

To her assistants: "Kylefra, leave those cauteries and crank his head up a little. Velrarix, explain to him what happens next. After this he'll be a lot calmer. No bothersome hormones."

The other girl in the green surgical gown came and turned a screw that pushed up the victim's head. When the sharp metal tickled the base of his scrotum he began to scream again, and then shout words-numbers, places.

"Got all that?" Hong asked the interpreter, when the Fiernan began to repeat himself for the second time. He nodded, pasty-faced. "Kylefra. We don't need to hear him speak anymore."

The men walked back to Walker's tent. Demons spare us, Isketerol thought. Will is a braver man than I, to bed with that I'd rather put the Crone Herself on my staff. He picked up a glass bottle and poured a little of the lightning spirit into a cup, knocking it back with a jerk of his wrist. He'd seen men put to the question before, beaten or burned or flogged, but this… The meal sat heavy on his stomach; he drank again. "You learned what you needed?" he said.

Walker poured himself more mead. "Better watch that hard liquor," he warned. "It creeps up on you if you're not used to it… Yeah, I think I've got what we need. And I've got a plan for a coordinated action. Here's what we'll do."

Hong's laughter rang over the sounds from behind the tent. Isketerol shuddered. "I hope you can rule her," he said.

Walker chuckled. "She has sort of blossomed into her opportunities, hasn't she? Don't worry, I can keep her in line… and if she goes completely 'round the bend, there's always-" He made a cutting gesture across his throat. "Now, let's get down to business. Here's what sulfur and saltpeter and charcoal are good for…"

In the screened-off area, Hong was singing as she worked:

"I've bought myself a new knife

You'd be surprised at what my knife can do;

Guns can jam; bombs are complex;

Sometimes grenades fail to explode.

My knife is simple-this is true;

Part of it I hold… the other part of it's for you.

A girl needs a knife… oh, a girl needs a knife…

And I've got mine!"

"How do you like my country?" Swindapa said proudly.

"Beautiful," Alston said sincerely, touching a heel to her horse.

The long column of Americans stretched back along the trackway. They'd finally made their way out of the ancient oakwoods and up into rolling downs under a mild spring sun. It shone bright on polished steel, and on the gilt eagles that tipped their flagstaffs and the spread-winged version on every breastplate and shield. A drum beat, trip-trip-trip, and a hundred and fifty feet hit the earth as one; spearheads swayed rhythmically.

Not much like it was in the twentieth, she thought.

Not even the shape of the land. In the England she'd visited, these uplands were mostly bare moorland. In the White Isle they were still covered with a coating of loess, light fertile soil that had yet to erode away. Small square fields were laid out, green with wheat, barley, rye, oats, a few turning yellow with mustard, others shaggy with nettles or yarrow. Most of the fields were already calf-high, and they rippled and fluttered in the brisk south wind that streamed out the flags. Copses of wood covered hilltops or wound across the dales along the sides of streams, birch and beech and oak, leaves fresh and clear-cut, almost glistening in their newness. Flowers starred the grainfields and meadows, thick along the sides of the rutted dirt trace. Hawthorn hedges bloomed, filling the air with a faint elusive scent of wild rose when the wind dropped.

"Absolutely beautiful," she said, reining aside.

The horse snorted and obeyed, and Swindapa's followed it. Their Nantucketer expert had broken in enough for a few officers, mounted messengers, and scouts in the weeks since their landfall. They turned and cantered down the line; she exchanged salutes with the officers, fingers going tick against the brim of her helmet.

The ordered alignment of the Americans made a stark contrast to the great shambling clot of Fiernans who walked along with them, their own numbers again or more; adventurous youths and maidens, a few Spear Chosen with their followers, traders with a shrewd eye to the main chance and trains of donkeys loaded with packs, or livestock driven along to sell to the wealthy strangers. More ran to gawk from the settlements all around. Most of those were farmers, men in sleeveless tunics of coarse wool, women in string skirts, sometimes bare above the waist, sometimes with a shirt and poncho; children were often naked or nearly so, accompanied by lean whip-tailed dogs. The dwellings they abandoned were mostly huts, round or rectangular, often grouped together and sometimes surrounded by ditch or bank or thorn hedge; the livestock enclosures always were. The thatch was cut and sculpted in attractive abstract patterns, and the wattle walls whitewashed and painted over in geometric shapes; the effect was as much African as anything else, reminding her a little of pictures she'd seen of Ndebele villages. Somehow it looked right for the landscape.