Zibeon was a pretty hard case himself, and not easily impressed. If he found Ned formidable, formidable Ned was. Even so… “How could Count Thraxton possibly live down the disgrace?”
“What disgrace, sir?” the aide-de-camp replied. “Thraxton is King Geoffrey’s friend, as you must know. When was the last time you heard of a king’s friend who disgraced himself to the point of making people notice?”
That bit of cynicism made Bell’s face twist with pain which, for once, wasn’t physical. Zibeon had the right of it there, sure enough. If Geoffrey decides Joseph the Gamecock must go-no, when he decides it, for he surely will-won’t he replace him with his friend? And if he does, what becomes of me?
He began to regret his own letters. Yes, he’d had weakening Joseph’s position in mind. But he hadn’t intended to strengthen anyone’s but his own. Could he serve under Count Thraxton if the warrior mage returned to command? Everyone, not just Ned of the Forest, had trouble serving under Thraxton the Braggart.
Can I write letters of a different tone? Bell wondered. After a moment’s thought, he shook his head. Too late now, gods damn it.
All he could do now was fight as well as he could and hope Joseph the Gamecock wouldn’t suffer some irremediable disaster while Count Thraxton was down here on his watching brief. He would have fought hard anyhow, for his pride’s sake, and for his kingdom’s sake, too. So he told himself, at any rate. But now he also had solid personal reasons.
Zibeon said, “Maybe this will work out all right, sir. We do have a good position to defend.”
“So we do,” Bell said. He couldn’t afford to malign Joseph, he realized, not even to his aide-de-camp, not for the time being.
“Of course, I have to hope we’ll get the chance to defend it,” Major Zibeon added.
“How not?” Bell asked in real, obvious perplexity.
“Outflanking. We were talking about this, sir.” Zibeon spoke with what sounded like exaggerated patience.
“My gods-damned shoulder is hurting again,” Bell mumbled. And it always did. But he was such a straight-ahead fighter, he’d already forgotten Hesmucet didn’t have to be. He took a big swig of laudanum. “There. I’ll think better now,” he declared. Zibeon said not a word.
VI
Captain Gremio was no general. Gremio hadn’t been a soldier at all before the war, or a domain-holding noble-the closest peacetime equivalent-either. But, like so many others, he’d had plenty of experience since the fighting began in Karlsburg harbor more than three years before.
He said, “These are splendid works, and I hope Hesmucet tries to storm them. He’d bloody his southron nose, the way he did at Commissioner Mountain.”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Thisbe said. “But even though he lost on the mountain, he got that little bridgehead over Snouts Stream, and look at how much trouble he caused with it.”
Had Hesmucet not got that bridgehead, the Army of Franklin might well have still been defending the line of the mountain and the stream. Gremio gave Thisbe a half mocking bow. “Very neat, Sergeant,” he said. “You agree with me in your first two words, then proceed to show I’m wrong. Very neat indeed.”
Thisbe turned red. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Don’t apologize,” Gremio told him. “You got me fair and square. I wish I could do so well in front of the judges a lot of the time.”
“Now you’re joking with me, sir,” Thisbe said. “I don’t much care for that.” He was, as so often, almost painfully serious.
“No such thing. I meant every word of it.” Gremio raised his hand above his head, pointing to the mountain beyond the sky, as he would have in a lawcourt. “By the Thunderer, I swear it.”
“All right.” Thisbe looked back over his shoulder. “Are we supposed to make a stand with our backs to a river? If the southrons do beat us here, it would go hard for us.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Gremio said. “But do you really think Hesmucet can storm us out of this position?”
The sergeant considered. “You’re probably right, sir. You usually are, from everything I’ve seen.”
Now Gremio felt himself blushing. “That’s kind of you, Sergeant-kinder than I deserve, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“No, sir,” Thisbe said. “If ever there’s somebody who knows what’s what, you’re the one.”
“If I knew what was what, would I be here?” Gremio asked with a wry laugh.
That made Thisbe laugh, too, but, as usual, his answer was thoughtful: “I suppose it depends on how important you think this is for the kingdom.”
If we don’t win here, or at least keep the southrons from winning, Geoffrey won’t have a kingdom, Gremio thought. Since he didn’t feel like voicing words of ill omen aloud, he replied, “When we were coming down out of the hill country towards the Hoocheecoochee, I could see Marthasville.” He craned his neck. “Can’t quite do it now, but I know the place is there. Maybe that makes this pretty important business after all.”
“I think so, too, sir,” Thisbe agreed.
“What sort of spirits are the men in?” Gremio asked. “You’ve got stripes on your sleeves, not epaulets on your shoulders. That puts you closer to an ordinary man than I could ever… Are you all right, Sergeant?”
Thisbe had suffered a coughing fit, and went even redder in the face than he had before. “I’m sorry, sir,” he wheezed when he could speak at all. “I swallowed wrong then, and almost choked. Most ways, I’d say, you’re closer to an ordinary man than I could ever be.” Before Gremio could argue with that, Thisbe went on, “I think your ordinary soldier dislikes a sergeant more than an officer, in the same sort of way that a serf is liable to dislike an overseer more than a liege lord. The sergeant is the one who makes sure he does what he’s told, after all.”
“Mm, I shouldn’t wonder if there was something to that,” Gremio allowed. “All right, Sergeant, you’ve made your point.” He put on a severe look. “As I’ve said, I do wish you’d let me offer your name for promotion.”
“No, thank you, sir.” As usual on this subject, Thisbe’s voice held not an ounce of doubt. “I’d sooner just be what I am. I’d much sooner just be what I am.”
“I bow to your wishes.” Gremio suited action to word. The sergeant smiled and began a motion in return, but arrested it before it was well begun-not quite an answering bow, but something on that order. Gremio said, “It’s plain that, once upon a time, you were a fine gentleman.”
“I was not!” Thisbe said hotly. “Never once! The very idea!”
He sounded so irate, Gremio didn’t ask any of the questions he might have otherwise. King Geoffrey’s army held more than a few nobles fighting as common soldiers, either from sheer love of adventure or because they’d disgraced themselves and couldn’t claim the rank that should have gone with their station. It had occurred to Gremio that his sergeant might be such a man. If he was, though, he didn’t intend to admit it.
And now he went off in what Gremio couldn’t help but recognized as a huff. The company commander kicked at the brick-red mud in the bottom of the trench. Even though he had the right to make such comments to Thisbe, he wished he hadn’t done it. He didn’t want the sergeant angry at him. The company won’t run smoothly if he is, Gremio told himself. But there was more to it than that. He didn’t want Thisbe angry at him because he liked and respected him, and wanted him to be as much of a friend as their different ranks would permit.
“By the gods, if I ever found a woman who suited me as well as Thisbe does, I’d marry her on the spot,” he muttered.
Getting married, though, didn’t stay on his mind for long. For one thing, he knew of no women-except perhaps a few loose ones-within miles. For another, a troop of southron unicorn-riders trotted past the Army of Franklin’s entrenchments right on the edge of catapult range. A few engineers let fly at them. Most of the stones and firepots went wide, but one smashed a rider and his unicorn like a boot descending on a cockroach.
A
fter that, the southrons did a better job of keeping their distance. But they had accomplished their purpose. Gremio saw that clearly. By reminding the northern commanders they were there, they kept Joseph the Gamecock and Brigadier Spinner from loosing the northern riders to harry the enemy supply line. It was long, stretching all the way back to Rising Rock, and it was tenuous, but none of that mattered if the northerners couldn’t mount a serious attack on it. And, by all the signs, they couldn’t.
Gremio sighed. More and more these days, the war was coming down to demonstrations of what the north couldn’t do. That was no way to win it. We’re right, though, he thought. A moment later, he laughed at himself. A man in the lawcourts might be right, too. How much good did that do him if the judges ruled he was wrong? None whatsoever, as Gremio knew too well. Like any barrister, he always thought he was right. Everyone once in a while, some idiot panel of judges had a different-and no doubt erroneous-opinion.
Brigadier Alexander, the new wing commander, came marching through the trenches. Gremio approved of that. Leonidas the Priest had been a brave and pious man, but hadn’t much concerned himself with his soldiers’ mundane, day-to-day needs and concerns-or perhaps he simply hadn’t cared to get his fancy vestments dirty. Alexander strode up to Gremio, who stiffened to attention and saluted.
“As you were, Captain,” the senior officer said. Gremio saw how he’d come to be called Old Straight-he was tall and lean and very erect. And, when he spoke, his words were straightforward, too: “How, in your view, can we best beat back the stinking southrons? What can we do that we aren’t doing now?”
“Having twice as many men in the trenches wouldn’t hurt, sir,” Gremio replied.
“So it wouldn’t,” Brigadier Alexander agreed. “Ask for the moon, as long as you’re making wishes. What can we do that we can do, if you take my meaning?”
He meant the question seriously. Gremio could see as much. He gave back a serious answer: “Sir, holding them out of Marthasville is about as big a victory as we can hope for, wouldn’t you say?”
He waited, wondering if he’d misjudged Alexander. Some officers would have taken that-would have taken anything less than a call for an immediate counterattack on General Hesmucet and a march south toward the Franklin line-as defeatism. But Old Straight nodded and said, “You see things clearly, don’t you?”
Relieved, Gremio said, “I do my best, sir.”
“If we all do our best, Captain, we have some hope of coming out of this campaign with whole skins,” Brigadier Alexander said. “If we don’t, well, things won’t look so good. This is Colonel Florizel’s regiment, is it not?”
Gremio nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“You men have put up a good record,” Alexander said. “If all the company-grade officers here are up to your level, Captain, I can see why. And I’ll tell the same to your colonel. Your name is…?”
“Gremio, sir.”
“Very well. Carry on, Captain Gremio.” The wing commander swept on down the line, now and then pausing to pull his boots out of mud thicker than usual. Gremio doubted he would have that problem himself, not for a while. He would be walking on air for the rest of the day.
And he’d won respect from his men that he hadn’t had before. If Brigadier Alexander approved of him and would say so out loud, who were common soldiers to disagree? They obeyed him more promptly than he’d ever seen them do before. He’d enjoy it while it lasted, for he didn’t think it would last long.
It did suffice to bring Colonel Florizel over to him. The regimental commander asked, “How did you get Brigadier Alexander to say such fine things about you?” Florizel sounded half suspicious, half jealous. Alexander, evidently, hadn’t said any fine things about him.
Deadpan, Gremio answered, “I told him I’d learned everything I know about fighting from you, sir.”
That actually did hold some truth. Florizel would never become a brigadier himself. He was no great tactician, nor, to be just, did he claim to be one. But he was brave, and he knew how to make his men like him and fight bravely for him. There were plenty of worse regimental commanders in the Army of Franklin, and some worse men in charge of brigades, too.
And, like a lot of men, he was no more immune to flattery than flies were to honey. He coughed and scuffed his boots in the mud and murmured, “Well, Captain, that was a mighty kind thing to say. Mighty kind indeed.”
Oh, dear, Gremio thought. He took that literally, didn’t he? The best thing he could find to do was change the subject, and so he did: “The new wing commander worries that we won’t be able to drive the southrons back.”
Brigadier Alexander had done more than worry. He’d been at least as gloomy about the campaign as Gremio was himself. But Florizel was and always had been an optimist. Saying something that didn’t suggest total victory lay right around the corner took nerve.
“He’ll fight hard,” Florizel said now, and with that Gremio could not disagree. The colonel went on, “As long as we’re still on this side of the Hoocheecoochee, things aren’t too bad. We’ve still got us and the river between the southrons and Marthasville, and we’ve got to keep them out of there.”
“Er-yes.” Gremio did his best to keep from showing how astonished he was. If the ever-hopeful Florizel couldn’t paint any brighter picture than that, the Army of Franklin was in less than the best of shape.
Florizel set a hand on his shoulder. “The gods may yet decide to smile on us, even if the loss of Leonidas was a heavy blow. We should all try to deserve well of them, to show them we deserve to be the ones they choose in this fierce and remorseless struggle. I think we can do that. I pray we can.”
“May it be so.” Gremio hoped the gods would favor the north, too. In his glummer moments, he feared nothing short of that would suffice to save Geoffrey’s kingdom from Avram’s onslaught. The southrons might have been a python, squeezing the life out of the north an inch at a time.
“These are very strong works,” Florizel said. “The enemy will have a hells of a time trying to go through us.”
“Yes, sir,” Gremio agreed. “What worries me, though, is whether he can go around us instead. That would be just as bad.”
“I suppose it might, but I don’t think it will happen,” Florizel said. “Brigadier Spinner’s patrols ride up and down the Hoocheecoochee.”
“I wish we had Ned of the Forest here,” Gremio said, not for the first time.
“He’s a ruffian, a man of no breeding,” Earl Florizel said.
A man of no breeding himself, Gremio replied, “He’s also the best commander of unicorn-riders King Geoffrey has who’s still breathing. Which carries the greater weight?”
Florizel seriously thought that over. At last, reluctantly, he nodded. “Ned is a very fine man on the back of a unicorn-which makes him no less of a ruffian, be it noted.”
“Yes, sir,” Gremio said dutifully. “Still, I’m glad he’s on our side.”
“So am I, although I still wish we didn’t have to resort to such tools,” the regimental commander said.
“It’s a war, sir,” Gremio said. “If it weren’t for the fighting, we’d all be doing something else.” Florizel also nodded at that, but he didn’t look happy about it. To a Detinan noble, war was the normal state of affairs, peace the aberration. The world didn’t really work that way, but nobles were trained to think it did. They have other things wrong with them, too, Gremio thought.
* * *
From the hills above the valley of the Hoocheecoochee River, General Hesmucet could look down on Joseph the Gamecock’s army and spy out everything the enemy did even as he did it. Hesmucet relished that. The northerners had looked down on his lines from their position atop Commissioner Mountain, and he was sure that had cost him men.
When Joseph halted the bulk of his army on the eastern bank of the Hoocheecoochee, Hesmucet had been surprised. Only a very bold general or a very foolhardy one was likely to offer battle with his back to a sizable stream. Examining the works the north
erners occupied, however, convinced Hesmucet that Joseph was neither the one nor the other. He had sound defenses there.
Earlier in the campaign, Hesmucet might have tried to bull his way past those defenses, in the hope of breaking through and wrecking the traitors’ army. But he’d tried that at Commissioner Mountain, and it hadn’t worked. That made him hesitate now. So did the strength of the entrenchments in which the northerners sheltered.
Joseph’s men held a line about six miles long. Hesmucet began sending detachments of Marble Bill’s unicorn-riders out beyond their lines, in the hope of getting down to the river and forcing a crossing. If my men get over the Hoocheecoochee, Joseph will have to retreat in a hurry, he thought hungrily. Then he’s mine.
But the enemy commander could see that as well as he could. Blue-uniformed unicorn-riders were numerous and fierce. Marble Bill’s men came back again and again without ever reaching the banks of the Hoocheecoochee.
“Anyone would think they had some idea of what we’ve got in mind,” Lieutenant General George said when Hesmucet cursed about the unicorn-riders’ misfortunes.
“D’you think so?” Fighting Joseph asked. Hesmucet winced. Doubting George had been sardonic. Fighting Joseph meant it. Time and again, Hesmucet had seen that courage and brains too often had only a nodding acquaintance.
“It is a possibility, you know,” George said. “Some folk do seek to study what the foe might be up to. That often saves you from nasty surprises, or so they say.”
“Not a bad notion.” By the way Fighting Joseph spoke, the said notion plainly was entering his handsome head for the first time. By his record, that struck Hesmucet as all too likely.
“We’ll keep moving, that’s all,” he said. “As long as we are moving, something good may happen. If we pull into a shell, the way turtles do, we’ll never get anywhere, and that’s as plain as the nose on my face.”
“Even as plain as the nose on mine,” said Doubting George, who owned one of formidable proportions.
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