 The Province, known as Hypolita, is ruled by woman warriors, and the monarch of The Icemark is its overlord.The Hypolitan became The Icemark's greatest ally.Maggiore Totus, Thirrin's tutor, discovers in the Hypolitan archives that The Icemark's King Theobad had also signed a nonaggression treaty with The Land-of-the-Ghosts, which mean they had left him to fight with the Hypolitan without fear of invasion from the vampires.