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said Meg when she noticed that Rasu wasn’t looking at her.
    ‘I’m Lee Runningriver,’ Lee interrupted. ‘Can I look at the big peacemakers?’
    ‘Lee!’ Bill remonstrated, but Rasu smiled and beckoned to a soldier.
    ‘Show the boy the cannon,’ he instructed.
    Lee looked up at Bill. ‘Dad?’
    ‘It will give you time to get that lip mended,’ Rasu encouraged. ‘The boy will learn something.’ Bill met Rasu’s gaze. ‘He will be safe,’ Rasu assured him. ‘My word is law.’ Bill nodded to Lee and the boy ran off ahead of his soldier escort.
    ‘If anything happens,’ Bill muttered.
    Rasu smiled and nodded. ‘A good father is always protective of his firstborn son for in the son is the father’s hope. It’s an ancient Ranu saying. The Ithosen still teach it. Come with me and we will find a surgeon for that lip.’

CHAPTER SIX
    ‘ Y ou are very tall for a woman,’ Rasu remarked, as he escorted Meg along the riverbank. ‘I have never seen Andrak women as tall as you.’
    ‘My father was tall,’ Meg replied, watching the wooden ferry chugging across the river, its steam-powered engine hauling the heavy cords out of the water as it crawled along them from bank to bank. Soldiers, horses and vehicles packed aboard pressed it perilously close to the waterline.
    ‘And what did your father do?’ he asked.
    Meg looked down at him, seeing the dark eyes studying her. ‘He was a farmer,’ she said.
    ‘Like your husband,’ Rasu noted.
    Meg left the comment unanswered. Rasu assumed that Bill was her husband and Lee her son, and she saw no reason to correct him. ‘How many soldiers in your army?’ she asked.
    Rasu paused on the bank and looked across the river at the men waiting to board the ferry. ‘It will take three days to cross over,’ he said in response.
    ‘Why cross here? You could have followed the others to the bridge at Bridge Crossing.’
    Rasu smiled. ‘Western Andrak is a large piece of land. Some of it lies to the south and that is what I have been assigned to acquire.’ He turned to Meg and added, ‘Now that I have told you my military secrets I will have to have you killed.’
    Meg stepped back in alarm, but Rasu broke into laughter. ‘Oh please,’ he chortled. ‘I am joking.’ He looked back across the river, still chuckling. ‘There are no secrets to this war. We are invading the Andrak provinces and soon they will all be Ranu. My task is to take the southern section of Western Andrak. When that is done, I will become the provincial official and I will work to bring order and prosperity to everyone.’ He turned and seeing that Meg was still standing back from him he asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Have you ever considered that the Andrak people don’t want to be under Ranu control?’
    He nodded. ‘Ah, yes—the issue of freedom of choice,’ and he turned away to gaze across the river again. ‘The fundamental rights of all people. The most important philosophers always dwell upon this matter and this always weighs upon my conscience. I often ask myself who am I to invade another’s land? What right do I have to do this?’ He turned back to her. ‘You see me as the invader, an enemy who comes to destroy, don’t you?’
    ‘That’s what you are doing,’ Meg confirmed. ‘You’ve come uninvited.’
    ‘Uninvited by your government, yes, I would agree with that. But what about you? Why do you care whether you have an Andrak government or a Ranu government? What will change?’
    ‘You take things away. You kill people,’ she accused.
    ‘The wagon? It’s nothing—a trifle. When the war is over your husband will get a new wagon—a better one even. Besides, what is material is not important. A littleinconvenience now in the greater cause will lead to prosperity tomorrow.’
    ‘You see it that way, but we don’t. The inconvenience now matters to us. And you still kill people.’
    ‘Our president has issued strict instructions for us to kill only when it is