'I just said, the Sow's Back. If we can get clear of that, it ought to be a straight run.'
'In the end,' she said. 'Where are you taking them?'
The truth above all things. 'I haven't decided yet,' he said. 'It's more a case of traveling hopefully; just keeping on the move. The nomadic life, you might say.'
'That's…' She frowned. 'That's a drastic change, for a sedentary people.'
He laughed, which annoyed her. 'I don't think we've got a choice,' he said. 'If we go somewhere and stop, unload the carts, build houses, sooner or later the Mezentines will find us and attack. That'd be the end of us. They took Civitas Eremiae, which was the strongest fortified city in the world, apart from Mezentia itself. Nothing we could build would be likely to hold them up for long.'
'Eremia fell through treachery, not direct assault.'
'Yes.' He sighed. He didn't like discussing things he already knew about. 'But it was just a matter of time. They'd have modified their siege engines, trebled the size of their army. The problem with them is, beating them just makes them more determined to win.'
She raised a thin, high-arched eyebrow. 'In that case…'
'In that case,' he said, 'the only way we'll get out of this is not to fight. If we fight, either we'll lose, which'd be bad, or we'll win-unlikely, and just as bad. But if we can avoid fighting for long enough, there's a chance they'll give up and go home. Their internal politics-'
'I've made a study of the subject,' she said. 'Councillor Mezentius has been most helpful. You're hoping they'll lose the political will to continue, once the cost of the war begins to affect their economy.'
'Exactly.' If she'd known all along, why had she made him explain? But she hadn't, of course. 'So my idea is, we keep going. I haven't worked out a detailed itinerary because it's essential we keep our movements random; if there's a set plan, they might find out about it. It's pretty clear from what happened in Eremia that they've got good spies. No; I've got a list in my head of places where we can get supplies, and the distances between them. That's as organized as it gets, for the time being.'
She was still frowning. 'And the iron plates?' she said.
'We're going to be attacked, at some point,' Valens replied. 'So I'm hoping to turn that to our advantage. The only way they'll be able to engage us is by sending out cavalry detachments, to look for us when we have to come down from the mountains for supplies. I'm hoping that they will attack us, and that all this ironmongery will give us the advantage, against cavalry.'
'You want to fight them and win. But you said-'
Irritating bloody woman. 'Yes, but beating off cavalry attacks isn't the same thing as beating them in a pitched battle. It's…' He searched for an analogy. 'Losing a few dozen cavalrymen would come out of income rather than capital. It'd be annoying rather than a dishonor that could only be purged in blood. It's more likely to persuade them we aren't worth the effort and expense.'
She nodded, and he felt as though he'd just passed a test.
'Anyway,' he went on, 'that's the general idea. It's not brilliant, but it's the best we could come up with. Let's just hope it works.'
She looked at him. 'There is an alternative,' she said.
'Really?' He tried not to sound impatient, but he was fairly sure he failed.
'If your people are resigned to a nomadic life, as you put it, you could join with my people.'
For a moment, Valens wondered who the hell was sitting next to him. She was all sorts of things, he'd assumed up till now, but definitely not stupid.
'That's a really kind thought,' he heard himself say, 'but I don't think it'd be practical.'
'On the contrary.' She was lecturing him; he felt an urge to take notes. 'My people are used to life on the move. It's not nearly as simple as you seem to think. There are many hazards and complications which you have probably not considered; understandably, since you have no experience. I can advise you, but it takes more than knowledge. You will need resources which you most likely have made no provision for. If you join with us, we will take care of you.' She paused, studied him for a moment. 'If you're concerned that I don't have the authority to make this offer, I can reassure you that I do. My family-'
'It's not that,' Valens said, a bit too quickly. 'Well, for one thing, there's the desert. It can't be crossed, simple as that.'
Now she was thinking he was stupid. 'We crossed it,' she said, 'on our way here.'
'Yes, but most of your party died,' he snapped.
'Some of our party,' she said, as though correcting his arithmetic. 'And, naturally, some of your people wouldn't survive the crossing. At a guess, I would say between a third and a half. But in the course of three or four generations, you would make up the loss.'
'That's-'
'Unacceptable.' She sighed. 'Whereas you're prepared to risk the decimation or annihilation of your people in the plan you've just outlined to me.'
Valens didn't reply. Better not to.
'I should point out,' she went on, 'based on my experience of migratory life, that even if there were no enemies searching for you, it's quite likely that you will lose at least a third of your people in the first year, given your lack of experience and preparation. Spoiled or stolen food reserves; rivers in flood; mountain roads blocked by landslides or washed away by heavy rain; have you considered these contingencies and made allowances?'
Much better, Valens decided, when she'd just sat there and not said anything. 'Of course I have,' he exaggerated. 'And we've got people who know the country. It's not like we're in hostile territory…'
'The presence of the enemy,' she went on, as though he hadn't spoken, 'greatly increases the risks. You say you're relying on reserves of supplies at specific locations. It's inevitable that the enemy will find out about at least some of these. If just one supply dump turns out not to be there when you reach it, you face disaster. Will you have enough left to get you to the next one? And what if that one's gone too?'
'We can live off the land to a certain extent,' he replied, trying to stay reasonable. 'There's plenty of game we can hunt.'
She smiled. 'There speaks an enthusiast,' she said, insufferably. 'You imagine that your hobby can become a means of survival. Hunting is an essential part of my people's lives, but we know from experience that it's not enough. You'll have to do better than that, I'm afraid. Compared with the risks you face by staying in your own country, the losses from crossing the desert seem moderate, if anything. And fighting the Mezentines…' She shook her head. 'You should come to us,' she said. 'It's the only sensible course open to you.'
But I'm not going to, because I'm not going to let you turn my people into savages. It took rather more effort not to say that than he'd have thought. 'I'll have to think about it,' he said.
'If you must. It shouldn't take you long to decide.'
Back to silent sitting. When Valens realized he couldn't take the silence any longer, he leaned forward and told the driver to stop the coach. An escort trooper rode up to see what the matter was.
'Get my horse,' Valens told him. 'I'm going to go and inspect something.'
'May I ask…?'
'No.'
Something at the other end of the column, as far away from her as I can get. As soon as his horse was brought up, he mounted and waved the coach on, then sat still for a while, watching the carts go by. The mountain in the distance, the crown of the Sow's Back, was only vaguely familiar to him. When was the last time he'd been out here? He wasn't sure; quite possibly, when his father was still alive. They'd come up here one summer after mountain goats and chamois-a complete waste of time, they'd misjudged the onset of the breeding season, the she-goats had all been in kid and were therefore out of bounds, and there was no point hunting he-goats in the rut. His father had sulked and picked fights with everybody who got in his way. Not a place with happy memories. So; if that was Maornina, and that spur to the west was the Shepherd's Crook, then the range he could just see on the horizon was Sharra, over in Eremia. Too close, he decided. Not a good idea to hang about here any longer than they could help.
A harassed-looking junior officer cantered up to him, to tell him there was a problem. Six carts in the middle detail were breaking up; the weight of the armor had cracked the front-side frames, and they'd had to pull off the road before the cracks sheared right through. The problem seemed to be a result of the way the armor had been mounted-a three-quarter-inch bolt hole drilled through a load-bearing timber, weakening it and allowing too much
