His headquarters were in what had been a rich man’s house in Borders. But the serfs had fled, and without servants the house seemed much too big for Thraxton and his aides. He strode inside, speaking to no one, found pen and ink, and wrote furiously. When he was through, he told a runner, “Fetch me Roast-Beef William at once.”
“Yes, sir.” The man hurried away. Thraxton’s grim face probably encouraged him to escape all the faster.
Roast-Beef William arrived with commendable haste. “What can I do for you, your Grace?” he asked. If Thraxton’s expression fazed him, he didn’t show it.
“Here.” Brusquely, Thraxton thrust the note into his hands.
After reading it, Roast-Beef William nodded. “I was afraid this might be coming, sir. The king will know of it?”
“Oh, yes,” Count Thraxton said bitterly. “The king will indeed know of it. He has appointed Joseph the Gamecock as my successor in command here.”
“Well, that’s good. That’s very good,” William said, which was the last thing Thraxton wanted to hear. “He’ll make a first-rate leader, so he will.”
“May you prove correct,” Thraxton replied, in tones suggesting he thought the other officer was several slices short of a loaf.
If Roast-Beef William noticed that tone, he didn’t let it anger him. Thraxton had had a hard time making him angry, and didn’t know whether to admire or despise him for it. Roast-Beef William just went on with his own glideway of thought: “Yes, I do think Joseph the Gamecock will be just what we need. We won’t be doing much in the way of attacking for a while-that’s as plain as the nose on my face. And there’s nobody better than Joseph the Gamecock at standing on the defensive, nobody in the whole wide world.”
“Is that a fact?” Thraxton said coldly. In his own judgment, he was a matchless defensive fighter. He thought himself perfectly objective about it, too.
But Roast-Beef William soberly nodded. “Yes, sir, I think it is,” he answered. “Remember when he was defending Nonesuch against the southrons after they came up the Henry River at him? He didn’t even have half the men they did, but he held ’em off. He had people playacting, by the gods, marching men back and forth so they’d look like four brigades instead of just one.”
“Folderol,” Thraxton said. “Claptrap.”
“Maybe so, but it worked,” Roast-Beef William said. “When you get right down to it, that’s the only thing that matters, isn’t it?”
Was he deliberately rubbing salt in Thraxton’s wounds? Had William been any of several other officers, Thraxton would have been sure of it. With William, though, even his suspicious nature hesitated before laying blame. “May there be victory for us here,” Thraxton choked out at last.
“Gods grant it be so.” Roast-Beef William cocked his head to one side, as if remembering what he should have thought of long before. “And what will you be doing now, sir?”
“King Geoffrey has summoned me to Nonesuch, to advise him on matters military,” Thraxton replied.
“That’s good. That’s very good.” Roast-Beef William chuckled. “Keep you out of mischief, eh?”
Again, Thraxton couldn’t decide if that was a cut or merely a witticism in questionable-very questionable-taste. Again, he reluctantly gave William the benefit of the doubt, where he wouldn’t have for most of the men under his command. William had fought hard and stayed sober. And so Thraxton said, “Heh”-all the laughter he had in him.
“Well, good luck to you, sir,” William said. “I’m sure you mean well.” He went on his way: a sunny man who was sure that everyone meant well. Thraxton was just as sure he labored under a delusion, but what point to tell a blockhead that he was a blockhead? Off Roast-Beef William went, as ready to put his optimism at Joseph the Gamecock’s service as he had been to offer it to Thraxton.
Off Count Thraxton went, too, off toward the glideway port. “N-no, sir,” a startled clerk said when he arrived. “We haven’t got any carpets departing for Nonesuch today.”
“Procure one,” Thraxton said coldly. The clerk gaped. Thraxton glared. “You know who I am. You know I have the authority to give such an order. And you had better know what will happen to you if you fail to obey it. Do you?”
“Y-yes, sir,” the clerk said. “If-if you’ll excuse me, sir.” He fled.
Thraxton waited with such patience as was in him: not much. Presently, the clerk’s superior came up to him. “You need a special carpet laid on?”
“I do,” Thraxton replied.
“And it’ll take you away and you won’t come back?” the glideway official persisted.
“That is correct,” Thraxton said. Gods damn you, he added to himself.
“Well, I reckon we can take care of you, in that case,” the glideway man said. Thraxton nodded, pleased at being accommodated. Only a moment later did he realize this fellow hadn’t paid him a compliment. To make sure he remained in no doubt whatsoever, the wretch went on, “Maybe they’ll bring in somebody who knows what the hells he’s doing.” He smiled unpleasantly at Thraxton. “And if you try cursing me, your high and mighty Grace, I promise you’ll never see a glideway carpet out of Borders.”
Sure enough, that threat did keep Thraxton from doing what he most wanted to do. No, that wasn’t true: what he most wanted to do right now was escape the Army of Franklin, escape his humiliation, escape his own mistakes, escape himself. And, as the glideway carpet silently and smoothly took him off toward Nonesuch, he managed every one of those escapes… except, of course, the very last.
* * *
A runner came up to Lieutenant General Hesmucet in the streets of Rising Rock, saluted, and waited to be noticed while Hesmucet chatted with Alva the mage. Hesmucet could hardly have helped noticing him; he was a big, burly fellow who looked better suited to driving messengers away than to being one. “Yes? What is it?” Hesmucet said.
Saluting again, the runner said, “General Bart’s compliments, sir, and he desires that you attend him at his headquarters at your earliest convenience.”
“When a superior says that, he means right this minute,” Hesmucet said. The runner nodded. Hesmucet turned to Alva. “You must excuse me. There’s one man in this part of the kingdom who can give me orders, and he’s just gone and done it.”
“Of course, sir,” the wizard replied. “I hope the news is good, whatever it may be.”
“Gods grant it be so,” Hesmucet said. Alva smiled a peculiar, rather tight, smile. Hesmucet was almost all the way back to the hostel that had headquartered first Count Thraxton, then General Guildenstern, and now General Bart before he remembered the bright young mage’s remarks about how small a role he thought the gods played in ordinary human affairs. When he did recall it, he wished he hadn’t. He wanted to think the gods were on his side.
Bart sat drinking tea in his room. “Good morning, Lieutenant General,” he said. With him sat Doubting George, who nodded politely.
Hesmucet saluted Bart. “Good morning, sir.” He nodded to George. “Your Excellency.” Hesmucet wasn’t an Excellency himself. If he succeeded in the war, he might become one.
“My news is very simple,” Bart said. “King Avram is summoning me to Georgetown and to the Black Palace, as he said he might. He also told me he intends to name me Marshal of Detina when I arrive there.”
Hesmucet whistled softly. “Congratulations, sir. Congratulations from the bottom of my heart. It’s been-what?-eighty years or so since the kingdom last had a marshal. If any man deserves the job, you’re the one.”
“For which I thank you kindly,” Bart replied. He, Hesmucet, and doubtless Doubting George, as well, understood why Detina so seldom had a soldier of such exalted rank. A man supreme over all the kingdom’s soldiers might easily aspire to the throne himself, and kings knew that. Bart went on, “I intend to deserve the trust Avram is showing me.”
“Of course, sir,” Hesmucet said-what else could he possibly say?
“No one could be reckoned more reliable than General Bart,” Ge
orge said. He was no particular friend of Bart’s, but he didn’t seem jealous that Bart had ascended to this peak of soldierly distinction. That took considerable character.
“When I become marshal,” Bart went on, “I expect I’m going to have to stay in the west. If the king in his wisdom decides we need a marshal, he’ll want that man to concentrate on trying to whip Duke Edward of Arlington and going after Nonesuch. If you’re in Georgetown, if you’re living in the Black Palace, that will seem the most important thing in the world.”
Both Hesmucet and Doubting George soberly nodded. Ever since the war began, the cry in Georgetown had always been, “Forward to Nonesuch!” As Hesmucet knew, it was a cry that had produced some impressive disasters: the first battle at Cow Jog sprang to mind. False King Geoffrey’s men might have gone on and captured Georgetown and split Detina forever if they hadn’t been almost as disrupted in victory as Avram’s army was in defeat.
Bart said, “That leads me to the arrangements I’m going to make for the armies here in the east. The fight here won’t get the fame of the battles over in Parthenia. We all know that. I’m sorry about it, but I can’t change it, and nobody else can, either.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” George said. “King Geoffrey could have changed it if he’d sent Duke Edward out this way instead of Joseph the Gamecock. Joseph’s a formidable fighter, but the bards and the chroniclers cluster round Edward like ravens and vultures round a dead steer.”
“Pleasant turn of phrase,” Bart said with a smile.
“Sir…” Hesmucet’s driving ambition wouldn’t let him sit around and wait for Bart to get to things by easy stages. He had to know. “Sir, what arrangements have you made for the armies here in the east?”
“Well, I was coming to that,” Bart replied.
Hesmucet forced himself just to nod and not to bark more questions. He’d thought he had the inside track on higher command till his men banged their heads in vain against the strong northern position on Funnel Hill while George’s, against all odds, stormed the slopes of Proselytizers’ Rise. Of course, Count Thraxton’s botched magecraft had had a good deal to do with George’s success, but would Bart remember it?
The commanding general was looking at him. “One of the things I have recommended to King Avram, Lieutenant General Hesmucet, and one of the things he has said he will do”-he might not have intended to, but he was stringing it out, making Hesmucet wait, threatening to drive him mad-“is to promote you to full general, to leave no doubt who will and should be in command here in the east.”
A long breath sighed out of Hesmucet. “Thank you very much, sir.”
“General Bart-Marshal Bart-already told me what he had in mind along those lines,” George said. “Congratulations, General.”
“Thank you, too,” Hesmucet said. “I expect we’ll be working together closely to defeat the common foe.”
“I expect you’re right, sir,” Doubting George replied. “Give me my orders, and I will carry them out as best I can.”
“I’m sure you will, your Excellency.” Hesmucet was also sure George had desperately wanted the command he’d just received himself. Some officers, in that situation, would try to undercut their superiors. Fighting Joseph would, in a heartbeat. Hesmucet didn’t think Doubting George was a man of that sort. He hoped George wasn’t. But if he is, I’ll deal with it-and with him.
Bart said, “You will have charge of everything between the Green Ridge Mountains and the Great River. Take your station where you will, though I intend that you concentrate on Joseph the Gamecock’s army, as I will concentrate on Duke Edward’s.”
“Yes, sir!” Hesmucet said enthusiastically. “That’s just what I aim to do. If we can smash those two armies, King Geoffrey hasn’t got anything left.” He saluted again. “Thank you for giving me the chance to do this.”
“Well, you won’t do it all by your lonesome,” Bart remarked.
Ah. Now we come down to it, Hesmucet thought. He asked the question the new marshal was surely waiting for: “What sort of arrangement for the armies under my command-under your command-have you got in mind?”
“First and foremost, I think you’d be wise to leave Doubting George here in command of the army that used to belong to General Guildenstern,” Bart answered. “Since that’ll be far and away the biggest army here in the east, he’ll be your second-in-command. Does that suit you?”
“Yes, sir. It suits me fine.” Hesmucet turned to George. “Does it suit you, Lieutenant General?”
“I tell you frankly, sir, there is one other arrangement that would have suited me better,” Lieutenant General George replied. “But I’ll do everything I can to whip the traitors, and that includes following your orders. From what I’ve seen, I think you’ll give pretty good ones.”
“Thank you.” Hesmucet stuck out his hand. If Doubting George hesitated for even a moment before clasping it, Hesmucet didn’t notice.
“Good. That’s settled.” Bart sounded relieved. What would the new marshal have done for a second-in-command here if George hadn’t cared to serve under me? Hesmucet wondered. Fighting Joseph? Gods forbid!
“My next question, sir, is, when do you want me to get moving against Joseph the Gamecock and whatever’s left of the Army of Franklin?” Hesmucet said.
For one of the rare times Hesmucet could recall, Bart looked faintly embarrassed. “It won’t be quite so soon as you’d like,” he replied.
“What? Why not?” Hesmucet demanded.
“Because I’m going to want your campaign against Joseph and mine against Duke Edward to start more or less at the same time,” Bart said. “That way, neither one of them will be able to reinforce the other, the way Edward sent James of Broadpath here to the east. I’m going to need a while to get a grip on things there in the west, so we may well have to wait till spring.”
“I want to move sooner,” Hesmucet grumbled.
Doubting George inclined his head to his new superior. “Do you know, sir, if King Avram had had himself half a dozen generals who wouldn’t be satisfied with waiting just a little while, with being almost on time, he’d have put paid to the northerners’ revolt a long time ago.”
“You may be right,” Hesmucet said. Then he shook his head. “No, gods damn it, you are right. But I’ll tell you something else. The king has got himself two of that kind of general now.” He pointed to Marshal Bart, then jabbed a thumb at his own chest. After a moment, he said, “Make that three,” and pointed to Lieutenant General George, too.
“I do thank you very much for the kind inclusion,” George said. “But you two are the ones who count, and you two are also in the spots that count. Grand Duke Geoffrey won’t have such a happy time of it from here on in, unless I’m wronger than usual, and” -his eyes twinkled- “I doubt I am.”
“I know that I’m leaving the east in good hands,” Bart said. “What sort of a mess I’ll find when I get to the west-that’s liable to be a different question. People back there have let Duke Edward cow them for too long. He can be beaten, I do believe, and I aim to try to do it.”
“From what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard, the soldiers there in the west go into a fight with Duke Edward wondering what he’s going to do do them,” Hesmucet said. “They don’t think so much about what they can do to him. If you worry about what the other fellow is going to do, you’ll wind up in trouble.”
Bart nodded. “That’s right. That’s just right, I do believe. I aim to keep Duke Edward on too tight a leash to let him run wild the way he has a couple of times in this war. I don’t know if I can do that, but it’s what I’m going to aim for.”
“Makes sense to me,” Hesmucet said. “I will do the same to Joseph the Gamecock, as best I can.”
Doubting George said, “Do one other thing, sir.”
“And that is?” Hesmucet asked.
“Keep Ned of the Forest busy the same way,” George replied. “We are going to have ourselves a devils of a long supply line as we move up into Pe
achtree Province, and we’ll be depending on a handful of glideways to bring us food and bolts and firepots and such. If ever there was a man who knows how to hit a supply line, Ned of the Forest is the one.”
“You’re right,” Hesmucet said. “You’re absolutely dead right. That man is a demon, and I don’t see how we can hold down the countryside until he’s dead. I promise you, I’ll trouble him all the time. He’ll be too busy staying alive to bother us too much-or I hope he will, anyhow.”
He’d wondered if he should speak sharply when Doubting George made his suggestion. Was the other man trying to sneak his way into command when he didn’t have the rank? But what George proposed made such good sense, Hesmucet saw no way to disagree with it.
Bart held out his hand. Hesmucet took it. “Well, General,” Bart said, “I look forward to working with you when spring comes. We’re still on the same team, still pulling the same plow, even if we won’t be side by side for a while.”
“That’s so,” Hesmucet said. “And what we need to aim to do is, we need to plow up this weed of a rebellion. If the gods be kind, we can do it.”
“I think you two can do it,” Doubting George said, “and I congratulate you both.” He clasped hands first with Bart, then with Hesmucet. He will make a good second-in-command, Hesmucet thought. If he’s jealous about having to serve under me, he’s the only one who knows it. And that’s the way it ought to be.
Hesmucet left General-no, Marshal-Bart’s chamber. A buzz rose in the hostel lobby when he came out of the stairwell. “Is it true, sir?” someone called. No mage had yet divined how rumor traveled so fast.
“It’s true,” Hesmucet answered, and the buzz redoubled. He added, “But I’ll thank you not to pester me about it right this minute. I need to think.” Unpestered-which would do for a miracle till a greater one came along-he strode through the lobby and out onto the street.
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