*
I recovered my composure as best I could as I exited the room – Brasti turns it into a public event any time he catches me crying. Fortunately, he was too busy peppering me with questions to notice my appearance. ‘How did it go?’ he asked. ‘Valiana here won’t tell us anything and I must know why Trin stormed out looking as if she’d just eaten her own poisoned fruit.’
‘Oh, you know,’ I began, ‘the usual things. So, first of all, I’ve agreed to be declared a traitor.’
He shrugged as if that was nothing new. ‘Well, you’ve always been prone to a little light treason now and again.’ He grinned. ‘Hey, does this mean I’m no longer the Greatcoat with the worst criminal past?’
Kest was watching me. ‘If I surmise correctly, we’re to be named as accomplices.’
I nodded.
‘Figures,’ Brasti said. ‘Well, doesn’t matter much if we’re all going to be dead in a couple of weeks – you can’t hang a corpse for treason. Oh no, wait, I forgot – people are doing that now, aren’t they?’
‘It’s not all bad news,’ I said. ‘Valiana might have just convinced the King to make Tristia into a constitutional monarchy.’
‘Clever girl,’ Brasti said, winking at her approvingly. ‘Now, can someone explain to me what a constitutional monarchy is?’
‘We’ll figure it out if there’s still a country in the next two weeks,’ I replied. ‘For now, we’d best get the Generals in a room and tell them how this is going to work.’
‘Ah, about the Generals . . .’ Valiana said, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
‘What about the Generals?’
Brasti grinned. Evidently he already knew. ‘Remember when Antrim told you to keep your cool?’ he asked.
‘Ye-esss . . .’ I replied warily.
‘You’ll be needing to hang onto that thought during your next meeting.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
The General
It is regrettably true that in Tristia, for every brave, selfless soul willing to sacrifice themselves for others, there’ll be at least one complete arsehole determined to look out only for themselves. What no one had ever told me was that the arseholes most skilled at this were Tristia’s military leaders.
‘You can’t be serious,’ I said, standing nose to nose with General Herredal. Behind him was an impressive entourage of lieutenants whose primary military function appeared to be laughing on cue at their fearless leader’s jokes and scowling on his behalf at any who dared to question his ineffable wisdom. They were doing a lot of the latter right now.
‘I fail to see what confounds you, Trattari,’ General Herredal repeated. He gestured at the two other Generals in the room. ‘It is quite clear: we have given our terms to the King himself and none of us have any intention of altering our demands.’
Here’s something else I never knew about war: in Tristia, when the King wants to send the army into battle, his Generals have the right to renegotiate the terms of their service. This strikes me as a spectacularly bad tradition, especially on those occasions when a vastly superior army has just declared war and half the Duchies have seceded, taking their troops with them. Not only were Generals Herredal, Abruni and Orzeno demanding simply preposterous sums of money, they also wanted lands, noble titles and – and this was the best part – ships, for their personal and no doubt immediate use.
It was the ships that really got to me.
‘You son of a bitch,’ I said, grabbing him by the collar, ignoring the lieutenants reaching for their ceremonial daggers; Kest and Brasti were kind enough to show them the error of their ways. It’s amazing how educational a punch to the nose can be. ‘You’re already preparing to run!’.
‘How dare you accuse the General of—’
The other lieutenant’s words were cut off by another smart punch to the nose, this one delivered by Gwyn, who’d agreed to provide what intelligence he could on Avarean military practices.
‘My apologies,’ the young Rangieri said. ‘They told me we were going to fight the enemy and I got confused.’
General Herredal was probably in his late fifties, but he was strong enough to shake off my grip and he looked ready to more than pay back the abuse we’d given his men in kind, but Valiana stopped him.
‘Enough!’ she cried, looking exasperated. ‘All of you! The matter of payment is separate from the more pressing issue of where this fight will take place.’
‘And I have told you—’ Herredal appeared to be struggling to find a suitably insulting way to address Valiana.
‘—“your Grace”,’ I suggested.
He sneered at that. ‘Not likely. I imagine by the time she makes it to the front gates of Rijou her title will have already been taken by another.’
‘Again,’ Valiana said, ‘a matter secondary to the more important question we must deal with today.’
‘The army will remain here,’ Herredal declared. ‘It will be less costly to hold out in Aramor and wait for the enemy to come to us.’
‘So you would let them march through Pertine as if the Duchy were already theirs?’
He gave her a patronising smile. ‘The Duke – I’m sorry, the Prince of Pertine – has already signed an armistice; I’m quite sure the piss-drinking barbarians will be exceedingly polite to their new friends.’
‘Pertine,’ Valiana said, ‘is still part of Tristia, General.’
She was halfway to accusing him of sedition at this point, but Herredal clearly didn’t care. ‘It’s easier to fight here than in enemy territory, which Pertine will be if we try to send our troops through it.’ Valiana was opening her mouth to respond, but he cut her off. ‘I will not discuss military strategy with fools who have no concept of the art of war.’
‘You are the fool,’ Gwyn said. ‘Once the Avarean horde enters Tristia it will never leave. They would lose every last man and woman among them before they ceded one inch of territory.’ He turned to me. ‘If you are to fight them, it must be at the border between the two lands. Only there can you have any hope of showing them this country will cost too high a price.’
‘Once in Pertine, there will be no way to retreat,’ Herredal added.
‘And no doubt that would make it harder for you and your personal staff to reach your new ships,’ I couldn’t stop myself saying out loud.
Herredal locked eyes with me and smiled, practically daring me to hit him. ‘I’m not the one who started this war, Trattari, so don’t blame me that it cannot be won. And don’t doubt for a moment that this new King of yours has his own ship ready and his own plans to escape the country when it falls.’
‘The people who have to live in this country, General,’ Valiana said, ‘do not have ships, nor do they have the ability to flee. Their only hope now lies in us showing the Avareans that we are as great a nation of warriors as they are, in showing this . . . this rokhan that means so much to them. Only through courage can we—’
Herredal held up a hand. ‘I will not be lectured to by you, girl. I have actually fought Avareans. No, if there is to be a fight, it will be here in Aramor.’ He glanced around his entourage, who were busy nodding and murmuring assent. ‘Furthermore, while I have already compromised my beliefs and agreed that women may fight – though the Gods know what punishment they’ll rain down on us for that foolishness! – I will have none of this Bardatti nonsense.’ With that he picked up and slowly crumpled the piece of paper upon which Nehra had set down the placement of her own warband: her drummers, musicians and singers.
‘The Bardatti are part of this fight, General,’ Valiana said. ‘Their ways may seem strange to you, bu—’
‘Strange?’ Herredal bellowed. He turned to Nehra, sitting by the window scribbling furiously. ‘You, minstrel,’ he called out to her. ‘What is it exactly you’re doing right now?’
Nehra looked up and raised an eyebrow, as if th
e General had missed the blindingly obvious. ‘I’m composing the warsong, of course.’
Okay, so even I knew that didn’t sound like a particularly vital component of military strategy.
General Herredal sighed, apparently having had enough of us all. Ignoring Valiana completely, he turned to me. ‘Allow me to make this very simple for you and your little King: none of you know how to fight a war; moreover, you have no idea how to even manage troop allocations, movements, supply lines – or anything else. Without me, you have no army. So you can either accept my command at my price, or you can find yourselves with no army whatsoever.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘Unless you fancy yourself a General now, Trattari?’
‘Me? No, sir,’ I said politely, ‘you’re quite correct: troop movements, supply lines . . . It’s all rather beyond me.’
‘Good, in that case . . .’ He held out the document listing his demands.
I stared at him, wanting quite desperately to punch him extremely hard on his bulbous nose. The only reason I stayed my hand wasn’t that it would create more problems than the momentary pleasure was worth – after all, it’s not as if I’m known for my tremendous sense of restraint – but because it would be insufficiently painful and humiliating for him.
So it looked like I had two choices: I could either let the Generals command our troops as they pleased – well, at least for the few hours, until the Generals decided to run off to enjoy a life on the ocean wave – or we could find ourselves with no experienced military leadership whatsoever.
‘It can’t be that complicated, right?’ I asked Kest.
‘It’s remarkably complex,’ he replied.
‘Your answer, Trattari?’ Herredal asked.
I hate the way military men say the word ‘Trattari’. I swear, every single soldier I’ve ever met manages to make it sound even dirtier than the nobles do. Even—
Oh, I thought. I like this idea a lot.
‘Trattari?’ Herredal repeated.
‘Abide a moment, if you would, General Herredal.’ I took Valiana’s arm and led her towards the door.
‘What?’ Valiana asked.
I turned back briefly. ‘Brasti, do me a favour and find the General something to drink, will you? And some biscuits, if there happen to be any around.’ I continued leading Valiana out through the door and into the hallway towards the main entrance to the castle. ‘Time to reunite you with an old friend.’
*
He was even more furious than I’d expected. ‘Damn you, Falcio,’ he growled, ‘I begged you not to—’
‘Feltock?’ Valiana said, her voice as small as a child’s. It had taken her a moment to recognise his face through the thick growth of beard. No doubt the missing leg and eye didn’t help either.
‘Aye,’ he said at last, but before he’d finished turning to her, Valiana had thrown herself on him, wrapping him in her arms and crushing him in a bear-hug, almost weeping with joy.
‘I thought you were dead! Feltock, I cried a thousand tears over you—’
He patted her back awkwardly and muttered, ‘Well, I . . . I didn’t want you to see me like this.’ To me he said, ‘You made me a promise, Trattari.’
‘I broke it and I don’t care. She had a right to know. Besides, I needed her here for this.’
‘For what?’ Valiana asked, finally letting go of him.
‘Well, I need a rather large favour and I don’t think Feltock’s all that positively inclined towards me right now.’
‘Damned right,’ Feltock said.
‘What favour?’ Valiana asked.
‘Well, you see, before he was Captain Feltock, he had a different job title.’
Feltock’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, hells! You can’t possibly think I’d—’
‘General Feltock,’ I said, ‘we’d all appreciate it very much if you’d be so kind as to command the Tristian army in the most hopeless battle the country has ever faced.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
The Field
I have never understood the way of soldiers. I’m troubled by all that unthinking obedience.
From the first moment I met King Paelis – well, the second moment, I suppose, since I’d spent the first actively trying to murder him – our relationship was built on argument. Every subject was open to debate, every mission questioned. If, on the odd occasion, the King finally told me to shut up and get on with it, that didn’t change the fact that, while I served the Crown, I never felt like a servant.
Soldiers are servants. They march where you tell them to, eat when you tell them to and die for reasons they rarely understand, usually as a result of a mistake or a momentary fit of pique, rather than for any great cause.
I could never live – or die – that way, so I found myself humbled watching these men and women in ill-fitting leather armour trudging along day after day, walking the long road from Aramor to Pertine, never complaining, never questioning. No one gave them the privilege of arguing with their commanders or demanding the purpose of an order; they just did as they were told because they had faith in their commanders.
Faith has always been a bit of a problem for me.
‘We march, we march, we march for one more day,’ a group of soldiers sang, their voices tired but enthusiastic, as they followed those of us on horseback. ‘Our enemies run far away, but we must fight and so we say’ – a short, theatrical pause, then – ‘let’s march, let’s march, for one more day—’
Here’s something else I hadn’t known about armies: soldiers die without ever taking the field. They get sick on the road or break an ankle, but they keep walking until it becomes something worse. They eat rotten meat and suddenly can’t breathe, or wander off for a piss in the middle of the night and fall off a cliff.
You’d think that brigands would be afraid of armies, but they aren’t; armies are full of opportunities for the more enterprising sort of thug: they’ll happily pick off one or two laggards, slit their throats and loot whatever paltry coins the poor sods had, then disappear into the night.
And if you’re thinking the commander will gladly halt the march so that some well-meaning but ignorant Greatcoat can start an investigation and bring the killers to justice . . .
. . . well, apparently war doesn’t work that way. Justice turns out to be a luxury of peacetime.
‘You’re fretting again,’ Ethalia said, riding up beside me. The greatcoat with its subtle hues of red and copper that Aline had given her made her look far too much like a soldier.
‘I’m not fretting.’
She pointed behind us. ‘Every mile you look back to see if anyone’s missing. There are nearly two thousand soldiers here, Falcio. You can’t watch over every one of them.’
That much was certainly true. ‘I wish you’d go back,’ I said.
She gave me a dirty look, which I ignored.
A little way ahead of us, Nehra was still strumming a few bars on her guitar: the same fucking chords, over and over, and if there was any variation, my unmusical ears couldn’t detect it. And all the while she was humming a melody, occasionally tossing in a ‘dah dum, dah dum’ here or there. I was fairly certain she was trying to drive me insane.
‘Could you pick a different song?’ I asked. ‘Maybe one that, you know, ends at some point?’
‘I’m rather busy, Falcio’ – her fingers effortlessly plucked that maddening sequence of notes – ‘so could you find someone else on whom to focus your ill-temper for a while?’
‘Busy doing what?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Still composing the warsong, of course. You can’t rush these things.’
Ah. Right. Something else I didn’t know. Can’t have a war without your own special song. ‘Maybe you should find yourself a sword instead,’ I suggested. Nehra had managed to assemble nearly a hundred Bardatti, all with drums, guitars, horns, flutes . .
. They’d come remarkably well prepared – if the plan were to give a very large concert.
‘You know nothing of war, Falcio.’ And Nehra turned back to her composing.
As if I hadn’t figured that out already.
‘How far to the border?’ Ethalia interrupted, probably to keep me from getting into another argument with Nehra.
Feltock, who looked remarkably comfortable in the saddle, even with only one leg, opened his eye and glanced around. ‘Eight days.’
Eight days. We’d lost forty-three soldiers in the two weeks since leaving Aramor, so assuming nothing changed, another twenty-odd unwitting men and women would die before even seeing the enemy.
‘I’m curious, General,’ Ethalia said. ‘You’ve got the troops marching in a different formation today – and every time we stop, you order them to check their weapons . . .’
‘Aye. A sword doesn’t do much good if it’s stuck in its scabbard, my Lady.’
‘But if we’re eight days from the fight . . . ?’
‘Eight days from the border with Avares, my Lady.’ The General shot me a glance; not that he needed to remind me that my so-called plan held any number of risks. ‘Nobody said anything about eight days from the fight.’
‘You think the Avareans could already be in Pertine?’
Feltock shook his head. ‘Nah, they’ll want to come through Lesteris Pass, down the Degueren Steppes. The snow’s still heavy on the ground but it’s beginning to melt, so they won’t want to risk getting caught in an avalanche – that means they’ll likely wait another two weeks. That’s why Valiana was pushing for us to meet the enemy in Pertine rather than wait in Aramor: this way we get to the battlefield first and have time to prepare.’
‘I just thought she was, you know, standing on principle or something,’ I said.
Feltock laughed. ‘Ah, she’s full of principle, she is.’ He tapped a finger to his forehead. ‘But clever, too. She read the lie of the land just right, my girl did.’
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