“What do we do now, sir?” Thisbe asked.
It wasn’t a question about how they should proceed on the next day’s travel. Gremio knew it wasn’t, and wished it were. It would have been much easier to deal with as that sort of question. He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, Sergeant. I just don’t know.”
XI
Sergeant Rollant looked across the Franklin River. On the north bank, Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders trotted up and down on endless patrol. Rollant reached for his crossbow, but arrested the motion before it got very far. What was the point? The Franklin was a lot more than a bowshot wide.
Beside Rollant, Smitty-Corporal Smitty-also eyed the unicorn-riders, who were tiny in the distance. Smitty said, “If we could push some men across, we could smash up all those sons of bitches.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Rollant let out a small noise full of longing, the sort of noise a cat on the ground might make at seeing a plump thrush high in a treetop. “The other thing I’ve been thinking is, it wouldn’t be very hard.”
“That’s right. That’s just exactly right. It wouldn’t be hard at all.” Smitty practically quivered with eagerness. “We could head straight on up to the Gulf, and how could the traitors stop us, or even slow us down?”
“They couldn’t. Not a chance.” Rollant was as sure of it as he was of his own name. “We’d be heroes.”
“We’re already heroes. I’ve had a bellyful of being a hero,” Smitty said. “What I want to do is win the gods-damned war and go home.”
“Home.” Rollant spoke the word with enormous longing. For the first time since he’d taken King Avram’s silver and put on the kingdom’s gray tunic and pantaloons, the idea that he would be going home before too long began to seem real. “Why doesn’t Doubting George turn us loose on them?”
“Beats me.” Smitty shrugged. “But you know what? I don’t much care one way or the other.” He waved across the river. “I mean, look at those poor sorry sons of bitches. We’ve licked ’em.” His voice held absolute conviction, absolute certainty. In fact, he said it again: “We’ve licked ’em. They aren’t going to come back and give us trouble, the way they did in Peachtree Province. We could all go home tomorrow, and Ramblerton still wouldn’t have a thing to worry about. You going to tell me I’m wrong?” He looked a challenge at Rollant.
“No,” the blond admitted. “No, I don’t suppose you are.”
“Gods-damned right I’m not,” Smitty said. “And since they are licked, what the hells difference does it make whether we go after ’em hard or not?”
What difference did it make? Any at all? Rollant hadn’t looked at things like that. Now he did. Again, he couldn’t say Smitty was wrong. “What do you think we’ll do, then?” he asked. “Wait here by the river till the war ends in the west? Just stay here and make sure Ned of the Forest doesn’t get loose and make trouble?”
Like most blonds, he had a respect and dread for Ned that amounted almost to superstitious awe. A man who was both a serfcatcher and a first-rate-better than first-rate: brilliant-commander of unicorn-riders, and whose men had been known to slaughter blonds fighting for Avram? No wonder he roused such feelings in the soldiers who had the most reason to oppose him.
Smitty, on the other hand, was an ordinary Detinan. If anything impressed him, he wasn’t inclined to admit it, even to himself. He said, “To the hells with Ned of the Forest, too. He tries getting cute, Hard-Riding Jimmy’ll take care of him.” Smitty spoke with the blithe confidence most ordinary Detinans showed, the blithe confidence that baffled Rollant and other blonds. And, as if to say he didn’t think Ned or the rest of the northerners were worth worrying about, he turned his back on the unicorn-riders and the Franklin River and strode off, whistling.
“Licked.” Rollant tasted the word in his mouth. Could it really be true? He’d thought so during the pursuit, but now that seemed over. Was it still true with him standing here in cold blood? “By the gods, maybe it is,” he murmured. Where Smitty had turned his back on the river, Rollant stared avidly across it. “Licked.” What a lovely word!
He was recalled to his side of the Franklin when somebody spoke to him in a tongue he didn’t understand. Several blond laborers, all plainly escaped serfs, stood there gaping at him in open-mouthed admiration. Some wore the undyed wool tunics and pantaloons Avram’s army issued to such men, others the rags in which they’d run away from their liege lords’ estates.
Such things had happened to him before. Blonds in the north had used a swarm of languages before the Detinan conquerors came. Many still survived, if precariously, and a lot of them had added words to the Detinan spoken in the north. But the speech whose fragments Rollant had learned as a child on Baron Ormerod’s estate in Palmetto Province sounded nothing like this one.
“Talk Detinan,” he told them in that language. It was the conquerors’ tongue, but the only one they had in common. “What do you want?”
They looked disappointed he couldn’t follow them. He’d expected that. One of them, visibly plucking up his courage, asked, “You are really a sergeant, sir?”
“Yes, I’m a sergeant,” Rollant answered. “And you don’t call me sir. You call officers sir. They’re the ones with epaulets.” He saw the blond laborers didn’t know what epaulets were, so he tapped his shoulder. “The fancy ornaments they wear here. You men haven’t been with the army long, have you?”
“No, sir,” another of them said. The laborer who’d spoken first poked him with an elbow. He tried again: “Uh, no, Sergeant.”
Yet another blond asked, “How did you get to be a sergeant, sir?” Force of habit died hard in them. The man added, “How did they let you be a sergeant?”
“They made me a corporal when I took the company standard after the standard-bearer got killed,” Rollant replied. “I charged at the northerners and I was lucky-they didn’t shoot me. Then, when the lieutenant who commanded this company got shot at Ramblerton, they made our sergeant a lieutenant, and they made me a sergeant.”
“A sergeant. A blond sergeant.” The laborer who spoke might have been talking about a black unicorn or some other prodigy of nature.
The blond who’d called to Rollant in the language that wasn’t Detinan asked, “And when you give an order, do the Detinans obey?”
All the blonds leaned forward, eagerly hanging on the answer. They all sighed ecstatically when he nodded. He couldn’t blame them. What blond trapped in serfdom in the north didn’t dream of turning the tables on his liege lord? Rollant knew he had, back when he was bound to Baron Ormerod’s estate outside of Karlsburg.
“They do now,” he told them.
“Now?” They all echoed that. A big, burly blond in rags asked, “Why didn’t they before?”
Rollant wished the man hadn’t asked that question. Reluctantly, he gave back the truth: “Because I had to beat up one of them to convince them I deserved to wear my stripes.”
“Ahhh!” They all said that together, too.
“Wait!” Rollant held up a hand. With desperate urgency, he said, “Do you know what’ll happen if you try to beat up Detinans?” The blond laborers shook their heads. “They’ll give you stripes-stripes on your backs,” he told them. “Or they may nail you to crosses. Don’t try. You can’t get away with it.”
They frowned. The burly one asked, “Why could you, then? That’s not right.”
“Why could I?” Now Rollant was the one doing the echoing. “I’ll tell you why. Because I’ve killed northerners. All the men in my company knew I could do that. They’d seen me do it. They’d seen I could fight and didn’t run away. The only question left was whether I was tough enough to lick them, and I showed them I could do that, too, when one of our Detinans wouldn’t obey me. If you haven’t done all the other things, don’t try this, or you’ll be sorrier than you ever imagined you could be, and no one will help you.”
He wondered if they were really listening, or if one of them would try to hit
a Detinan overseer he didn’t like right in the eye. He hoped they wouldn’t be so stupid, but you never could tell.
Maybe they would just try to strip off their colorless clothes and get the Detinans to give them gray tunics and pantaloons instead. They might even succeed; King Avram’s armies seemed permanently hungry for men. But if the blonds expected promotion to be easy or quick, they were doomed to disappointment. It was probably easier for them to end up dead than to end up as corporals, let alone sergeants. Rollant shrugged. Still, if they wanted to try, why shouldn’t they?
He looked across the Franklin again. Ned’s unicorn-riders kept right on patrolling the north bank. They probably kept right on being convinced that Geoffrey was the rightful King of Detina, too, and that blonds were serfs by nature. But, as far as the larger scheme of things went, what Ned of the Forest’s troopers were convinced of mattered less and less with each passing day.
“Lollygagging around again, are you?” a deep voice rumbled behind Rollant.
He turned and saluted. “Oh, yes, sir, Lieutenant Joram,” he replied. “You know all blonds are shiftless and lazy, same as you know all blonds are a pack of dirty, yellow cowards.”
Joram opened his mouth to answer that, then closed it again. Before saying anything, the newly commissioned officer rumbled laughter. Only after he’d got it out of his system did he remark, “Gods damn it, Rollant, there are still plenty of Detinans who do know that, or think they do.”
“Yes, sir.” Rollant nodded. “But are you one of them?”
“Well, that depends,” Joram said judiciously. “There’s a difference, you know, between whether you were lollygagging around on account of you’re a shiftless, cowardly blond and whether you were lollygagging around just in a general sort of way.”
“Oh, yes, sir.” Rollant nodded again. “That’s the truth. There is that difference. The Detinans you were talking about, though, they can’t see it.”
“Before you rubbed my nose in it, I would have had trouble seeing it myself,” Joram said. “Some blonds are shiftless cowards.”
“That’s true, too, sir. So are some Detinans.”
Joram grunted. Detinans prided themselves on being a warrior race. After a moment, Joram’s big head bobbed up and down. “And that’s the truth. So, Sergeant… in a general sort of way, were you lollygagging around?”
If Rollant had admitted it while still a common soldier, his reward would have been extra duty of some sort: chopping wood or digging a latrine trench or filling canteens. As a sergeant, he was supposed to be immune to such little oppressions. But he’d been a common soldier longer than he’d been an underofficer. “Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said blandly.
“I’ll bet you don’t!” Joram laughed again, a laugh so big and booming, Rollant wondered if the riders on the far side of the Franklin could hear it. But they just kept on riding. The company commander said, “Blond or not, you’re sure as hells an old soldier, aren’t you?”
Rollant shrugged. “I’ve been doing this a while now,” he said, “but any serf would tell you how much of a fool you have to be before you admit anything that puts you in trouble.”
“You don’t need to be a serf to learn that-though I don’t suppose it hurts,” Joram said.
“Now that you’re an officer, sir, have you heard anything about whether we’ll cross the Franklin and finish the traitors once and for all?” Rollant asked.
That made Joram laugh yet again, but this time without much in the way of amusement in his voice. “Just because they gave me one epaulet doesn’t mean they tell me anything,” he answered. “If I had my way, we’d already be pushing those bastards out of Honey-I hear that’s where they finally went and ran to. But even though I’m a lieutenant, I don’t have my way.”
“For whatever it may be worth to you, I’d do the same,” Rollant said. “Of course, I’m only a sergeant and I’m only a blond, so I really don’t have my way.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Joram agreed. “But tell me this-when the war started, before you joined the army, did you ever think you’d say something like, ‘I’m only a sergeant’?”
“No, sir, can’t say that I did,” Rollant admitted. “What I wonder now is how things will be for my children, and for their children. I don’t want them to have to go through a lot of the things I’ve had to put up with because of the way I look.”
Joram nodded his big, heavy-featured head once more. “Don’t blame you a bit. If I were a blond, I’d say the same gods-damned thing. Since I’m not a blond, I’ll say something else instead: don’t expect miracles. The gods don’t dole ’em out very often. If you figure everything’s going to be perfect on account of we’ve gone and whipped false King Geoffrey, you’ll wind up disappointed.”
Now Rollant laughed. “Sir, I’m a blond. It’s a miracle I believe in miracles, if you know what I mean.”
“I think maybe I do.” Lieutenant Joram smacked him on the back, hard enough to stagger him. “Never mind miracles, then. Believe that we’ve won this war whether we go over the Franklin or not, and that we’ll go on from there.”
Everyone kept saying the same thing. It wasn’t so much that Rollant believed it was wrong, for he didn’t. After the fight in front of Ramblerton, no northern army worthy of the name survived east of the Green Ridge Mountains. But he wanted to be in at the death, to see false King Geoffrey’s realm fail. Hearing that it happened somewhere else later on didn’t have the same feel, the same meaning. Yes, I want victory in my own hands, he thought, and then, How very, very Detinan I’m getting.
* * *
John the Lister had done a lot of hard and dangerous things during the War Between the Provinces. He’d got his detachment through the battle of Poor Richard, and wrecked the Army of Franklin in the process. His men had played a major role in the victory in front of Ramblerton, and in the pursuit that followed. And now here he was talking, negotiating terms of surrender for… a postmaster?
The postmaster in question, a wizened, bespectacled little man named Ithran, had taken care of letters and parcels going into and out of the town of Warsaw. He’d done that before the war, and he’d done it under the auspices of false King Geoffrey during the war, and he wanted to go on doing it now that King Avram’s authority had come to northern Franklin. What he didn’t want to do was swear an oath of allegiance to Avram.
“Well, that’s simple enough,” John told him. “If you don’t, your town will have a new postmaster fast as we can find one.”
Ithran writhed like a man who needed to run to the jakes. “It’s not fair,” he whined. “With the war just about over, who else would I be loyal to?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out. Neither does his Majesty,” John replied. “No penalty will fall on you if you don’t swear the oath. King Avram is a merciful man-more merciful than he ought to be, I often think. But if you cannot swear loyalty to him by the Thunderer and the Lion God and the rest of the heavenly host on Mount Panamgam beyond the sky, you will not stay postmaster in Warsaw.”
“But-” Ithran threw his hands in the air. He must have seen that John the Lister meant what he said. “All right. All right! I’ll swear. Do I give you my oath?”
“No. You give it to the priests. They’re the proper ones to hold it. Ask in our encampment,” John said. “Someone will tell you where to find them.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you.” Despite the polite words, Ithran sounded anything but grateful. Still fuming, he scuttled out of John’s presence.
John reminded himself to check to make sure Ithran had sworn the oath before letting him open up the post office in Warsaw. Even if he did swear it, John judged he wouldn’t do so with anything even approaching sincerity. He had, after all, already sworn allegiance first to King Buchan and then to false King Geoffrey. After that, how important would he reckon one more oath? But John was not charged with enforcing sincerity, only the law King Avram had ordained.
And, once the o
ath was sworn, the priests wouldn’t be the only ones holding it. The gods would also keep it in their hands. While that might not matter in this world, it should in the next. Several of the seven hells had particularly… interesting sections reserved for oathbreakers.
That was one reason why John the Lister didn’t fret much about Ithran’s sincerity (though he did wish Major Alva had never told him about the Inward Hypothesis, which made the gods seem weaker than they should). The other was that, as the postmaster himself had said, the war was nearly over, false King Geoffrey nearly beaten. If no one could carry on the fight for Geoffrey, Ithran and all the people like him would have to stay loyal to Avram.
A runner came up to John and stood at attention, waiting-ostentatiously waiting-to be noticed. When John nodded, the young soldier in gray saluted and said, “Sir, you are ordered to report to Lieutenant General George’s pavilion right away.”
“Oh, I am, am I?” John said. “What’s this all about?”
The runner shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I was just told to deliver the message, and now I’ve done it.”
“I’m on my way, then.” John wondered if the runner could have told him more than he had. Rumor and gossip always swirled through the camp. John shrugged broad shoulders. He’d find out soon enough.
Doubting George stood waiting for him outside the pavilion. The commanding general didn’t look particularly happy, but then George never looked particularly happy. He returned John’s salute in an absentminded way.
“Reporting as ordered, sir,” John said. “What’s going on? Will we cross the Franklin and chase the traitors after all?”
“No.” Doubting George shook his head. “This army will do no such thing. The new orders I have from Georgetown make that perfectly clear.”
“Oh, dear. Too bad,” John said. “We really ought to finish smashing up the Army of Franklin and Lieutenant General Bell, or whoever’s in charge of it if Bell really has resigned.”
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