On the way she saw a couple of girls, idling unconvincingly in the corridors, who hurried ahead of her and out of sight as she approached. Other than that, the corridors were empty, and Winter frowned as she came closer to the dining room. Is that a drum? What the hell’s going on?
She opened the door to find that the tables-and all the debris of the previous evening-had been pushed to the edges of the hall, leaving a broad clear space in the center. In that space, lined up in nearly even ranks, were Jane’s girls. There were about two hundred of them, Winter guessed, in a ten-deep formation, with one young woman on the end holding a child’s drum. When she caught sight of Winter, she beat a simple pattern, and every one of the girls straightened up and saluted. They had obviously been practicing this, and while they didn’t quite have the parade-ground snap, Winter had to admit they did a better job than most of the Patriot Guard.
Jane stood by one side of this formation, grinning in a way that Winter didn’t like at all.
“Good, aren’t they?” she said, catching Winter’s slack-jawed expression. “I thought we should get in a little practice before heading down to the Triumph.”
“What?” Winter shook her head. “Jane, what in Karis’ name are you doing?”
“We’re going to volunteer.” She looked over her shoulder. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, sir!” the girls said, in a soprano chorus. Clearly they’d practiced that as well.
“You’re going to volunteer,” Winter repeated, feeling sandbagged.
“To fight,” Jane explained patiently. “Vhalnich said he needs every man he can get to carry a musket. So I thought, why not us?”
Winter crossed the room, grabbed Jane’s arm, and dragged her without a word toward the door. Jane came along willingly enough, shouting over her shoulder as she went, “Chris! Get them to practice the salute a few more times!”
Once the door had closed behind them, Winter pushed Jane against the wall and looked her in the eye. “Have you gone totally out of your mind?”
Jane, still grinning, shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why would you put them up to this?” Winter glared. “Is it supposed to be a joke? If so-”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Then you really want to take them to a battle? Some of those girls should still be playing with dolls, and you want to give them muskets?” Winter took a step back and shook her head. “I think you have gone mad.”
“They wouldn’t all fight, obviously.” Jane straightened her shirt and brushed herself off. “Just like with the Leatherbacks. But the younger ones could still make themselves useful somehow.”
“You’re really serious about this.” Winter drew in a long breath. “God above, where do I start?”
“I don’t see why you’re so shocked. We’ve been fighting Orlanko’s tax farmers for years.”
“This is not the same thing. A little brawl in an alley is one thing, but these are Royal Army troops. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“You did it, didn’t you? Why can’t they?”
Winter paused, temporarily thrown by this line of reasoning.
Jane crossed her arms. “Besides, your colonel seems to be taking any men who are willing. My girls may not be soldiers, but they’ll do a better job than some of the boys I’ve seen going to sign up.”
“But-” Winter gritted her teeth. “This is about me, isn’t it? You want to follow me.”
“That’s what it was, at first-”
“You can’t be serious. I don’t care how you feel-marching two hundred people into harm’s way just so you can be near me is wrong. It’s wrong, Jane.”
“I said at first.” Jane took a deep breath. “Listen. Last night I thought, all right, Winter ran away and joined the army, so why don’t I? I’ll just go after her and keep her safe. I got up early so I could make sure everything was arranged here for the next few days. But when I came downstairs, Chris told me she’d caught four of the younger girls trying to sneak out, because they wanted to try the same thing.”
“I would have thought you’d put a stop to that,” Winter grated.
“I was about to,” Jane said. “But I thought, I can’t tell them not to do what I was about to do myself, can I? And by then news had gotten around, and some of the others said they wanted to go as well. They want to help, Winter. They hate the tax farmers, and they hate Orlanko, and they want to help defend this city.”
“I don’t-they’re not thinking straight, then. None of them know what it’s like, either.”
“And the men who’re signing up do? You’re fine with every butcher’s boy and apprentice fisherman in the city carrying a musket in the ranks, but not us?”
“It’s. .” Winter stopped. She wanted to say, “It’s not the same.” But it is the same, isn’t it? She remembered watching the recruits at Fort Valor, thinking how young they were. Raw boys, enticed into the king’s service by the promises of recruiting sergeants, and thrown willy-nilly across thousands of miles of ocean to fight people they’d never heard of. These are girls-people-who want to defend their own home. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But I didn’t think that was good enough to tell them they had to stop.”
Winter lowered her voice. “Even if it means some of them won’t come back? Because that is what it means. Even if we win.”
“You don’t think they know that?” Jane shook her head. “Our battles may be just ‘little brawls’ to you, but the tax farmers and their thugs aren’t fighting with cushions. Everyone in there knows what it’s like to lose someone.”
“But. .” Winter paused, still not quite believing she was being talked into this. “Look. Even if I agreed with you, Janus would never allow it. There’s no way we could sneak them all in as boys. Even getting you in”-Winter glanced at Jane’s chest, and blushed slightly-“might be difficult. If we tried it with more than a few, someone would give the game away.”
“You’re right,” Jane said.
“Then you don’t think we should do it?”
“I don’t think we should do it in disguise.”
“You want to just. . what? Walk up to the colonel with two hundred girls, and say you want to sign up to fight?”
Jane nodded. “Exactly.”
“He’ll think you’re mad.”
“Everyone already calls me Mad Jane.”
“But he’ll never agree to that!”
“He might,” Jane said, “if you were the one asking.”
An hour later, crossing Saint Vallax Bridge to the North Bank, Winter could still hardly believe what she was doing.
“Remember the deal,” she said to Jane, under her breath. “If Janus says no, that’s the end of it. For all of you.”
“I remember,” Jane said. She looked over her shoulder. “Jess! Keep ’em moving!”
The girls had started out in a column, and even tried to keep in step, but by the end of the first street they’d devolved into a mob. They’d passed over the Island like a gang of tourists, pointing at the grand buildings and laughing with one another. For most of them, this was the first time they’d been over the bridges from Southside, and they were as new to the city as country children, for all that they lived only a few miles away.
Jane’s lieutenants kept the group together and in motion. They still drew stares as they passed by, and the occasional shout. Some of these were obscene, and were answered cheerfully in kind, but most people just wanted to know where they were going. Every time this happened, one of the girls would sing out, “We’re going to join the army!” and everyone around them would start laughing.