"Doing what?" Amara asked.

Miles gestured at the sand table. "Inflicting casualties on Gaius's loyal troops."

Amara blinked. "How?"

"Nothing I could prove in a court. Aquitaine's Legions fight beside us, but they're always just a little bit too slow, or too fast. When the fighting starts, the Crown Legion ends up taking the worst of it." He slammed the mug back down onto the sand table. Granules of sand flew up from the impact. "My men are dying, and there's not a crowbegotten thing I can do about it."

"He's very good at this sort of thing," Amara said.

"And I'm not," Miles replied. "He wants to use us up on Kalare, leave us too weak to oppose his Legions once all the fighting is over."

"Hence your argument over strategy?" Amara guessed.

Miles grunted and nodded. "Bad enough fighting a war against the enemy in front of you, without having one marching next to you, too." He rubbed a hand over his bristling hair. "And the Committee has too much influence on our strategies. Committees don't win wars, Countess."

"I know," Amara said quietly. "But you know the First Lord's position. He needs the Senate's support."

"He needs their funding," Miles said in a sour tone. "As if he shouldn't have the right to expect their loyalty in a crisis simply because of who he is." He turned and slapped the empty mug off of the sand table. "Two years. Two years of slogging through these crowbegotten fens, fighting Kalare's madmen. We should have driven straight through to Kalare the same season he attacked. Now the best we can hope for is a hard fight through the bloody swamps and a siege of the city that might last years. I've had three men die of sickness for every one slain outright by the bloody enemy. I've seen bad campaigns before, Countess, but this is enough to turn my stomach."