It was a game of dressing up, of make-believe, of playing their roles as surely as actors played theirs on rude creaky stages. In Radstac's judgment she and Deo were currently enacting a farce. But, like most comedies she'd experienced, she didn't think this one especially funny.

She crossed the open ground toward the squad circle, steps measured, unhurried. But not so slow as to draw the interest of a supercilious junior officer looking for a subordinate to reprimand or order about for sport. There were significant differences between serving in a national military, such as this one made up of the Felk and conscripts from the states they had conquered, and serving in a mercenary force, which was Radstac's true element. Mercenaries weren't required to do anything but fight on behalf of their employers. They needn't waste faith on foreign causes, and the code of discipline they adhered to did not include servile fealty. One need only go through the motions of loyalty when one was a mercenary. And what was more, nothing greater than that was expected.

Masquerading as a Felk soldier, however, meant that Radstac had to submit to all manner of affronts, to personal offenses she would not otherwise have tolerated longer than an eye blink. This army's hierarchy, its complex chain of command, was quite annoying. She had thought several times of appropriating an officer's uniform for herself, even if it meant bodily removing that uniform's rightful occupant. But, no. She and Deo needed to maintain a minimal visibility. Going about this huge encampment in the trappings of a typical Felk foot soldier was the smart thing to do.

Radstac wasn't a member of this particular squad, but she slipped casually into the meal line with a tray and waited until she'd reached its head. The squad circle's cook dully scooped out a load of the hot, not particularly appetizing food.