“Baron Logan the Black, sir,” the man replied. “We’re holding pretty well-you don’t need to worry about that.”
Hesmucet only grunted. Baron Logan had turned out to make a pretty good soldier, but Hesmucet didn’t like the idea of having him as a wing commander. He wasn’t a professional warrior, but a noble from King Avram’s home province who’d got himself a brigadiership in exchange for loudly and publicly backing the king and recruiting soldiers. The southron army, in Hesmucet’s view, had too many officers like that. He couldn’t do anything about it right this minute, but he intended to when he could.
Another messenger came galloping up. “Baron Logan’s compliments, sir, and he wants you to know the traitors are stopped. He expects to start driving them back any time now.”
“That’s good news,” Hesmucet said, and meant it. “Give him my compliments in return, and tell him the northerners deserve every single thing that happens to them.”
“Yes, sir.” The messenger didn’t even waste time saluting. He set spurs to his unicorn. The beast snorted angrily as he forced its head around and urged it back to a full gallop to deliver Hesmucet’s reply.
The commanding general called for a messenger of his own. When the man came up to him, he said, “Give my regards to Lieutenant General George and ask him if it’s possible, with the traitors so heavily engaged in the northwest, for him to go straight through their defenses to the south of Marthasville and into the city. Give me that back, so I’m sure you have it straight.”
After repeating the message, the runner hurried away. When he returned, he said, “Lieutenant General George says he’s already probed the line south of Marthasville, sir. He says it’s too strong to break through like that.”
“All right.” Hesmucet wondered if it was really all right, and how hard Doubting George really had poked at Bell’s line there. George was as stalwart a warrior as the gods had made when fighting on the defensive, but, to Hesmucet’s way of thinking, lacked the push, the drive, of a good attacker.
That’s why Marshal Bart made me commander here in the east, he thought. I’ve come this far. Another few miles and I’ll have done a big part of what he wanted of me. He scowled in the direction of Marthasville. The traitors had hung on to the place altogether too long, as far as he was concerned.
It didn’t fall that day. By the time the sun set, James the Bird’s Eye’s men-no, Logan the Black’s now-had indeed driven Bell’s blue-clad warriors back into the lines from which they’d started their attack. A messenger said, “The enemy must have lost twice as many men as we did, too.”
“He threw away a lot of soldiers, then,” Hesmucet said musingly. “Add those in with all the men he lost yesterday, and with his having fewer than we do to begin with, and how many has he got left?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t begin to tell you,” the messenger replied.
“Never mind,” the general commanding told him. “I didn’t expect you to know. But I wonder if my wing commanders do.”
With the fighting having died down, he summoned Doubting George, Logan the Black, and (with a mental sigh) Fighting Joseph to his headquarters to talk things over. Logan proved to be younger than he’d remembered-hardly older than James the Bird’s Eye, in fact-with a ruddy face, fierce eyes, and a piratical black mustache.
“Yes, sir. They hurt us,” he said frankly. “We didn’t really expect another strong sally, not when they were thrown back with loss yesterday. It was worrisome out there for a while, when they came close to turning our flank. But we were steady, and we made them pay for coming out of their works.”
“So you’ve already reported, your Excellency,” Hesmucet replied. “I’m glad to learn you did so well.”
Doubting George said, “Taking it all in all, they must have left a third of their men on the field the last two days. And they didn’t have that many to begin with.”
He might not have been aggressive enough to suit Hesmucet, but he’d done sums in his head, too. And the answer he reached wasn’t far different from the one that had formed in the commanding general’s mind. Hesmucet said, “It’s only a matter of time now.”
“I think you’re right, sir,” George said, nodding. “Now we can push to the east of Marthasville or to the west, go up north of the place on either side just as we choose, and Bell won’t be able to stop us. The most he can do with what he has left, as I see it, is sit tight and stand siege.”
“If he does that, he’s mine, and so is his whole fornicating army,” Hesmucet said. “I’ll take it clean off the board, the same as Marshal Bart took Camphorville on the Great River and its defending host last year.”
“I don’t believe Bell will do that,” Logan the Black said. “He’s a swinger, a puncher. He’ll keep trying to hit us for as long as he can.”
“Good,” Hesmucet said. “The more he wastes his force, the sooner he won’t be able to strike with it at all. I always worried about Joseph the Gamecock. He held his men in. If I’d made a mistake against him, he kept the wherewithal to make me pay for it. But Bell? Bell’s thrown away as many good men the past two days as Joseph did during the whole campaign from Borders all the way up to here.”
His subordinates nodded. Not even Fighting Joseph could disagree with that. George said, “Bell’s a first-rate man to command a brigade. Point him at the foe, turn him loose, and he’ll hit hard. But put him in command of an army? Of an army trying to hold off a bigger army? I don’t know what false King Geoffrey was drinking when he thought of that, but I hope they serve him more of it.”
Logan the Black nodded. “Well said. Our foes’ mistakes go a long way toward making this an easy fight for us.”
“They can’t afford to make mistakes, not any more,” Doubting George agreed. “We have the luxury of greater strength, which lets us make our errors good.” He dipped his head to Hesmucet. “Not that we’ve made many on this campaign.”
“For which I thank you,” Hesmucet replied. If George said a thing like that, he had to mean it, which made the compliment doubly pleasing. Hesmucet went on, “Now there is one other bit of business that wants doing. Brigadier Logan, I am grateful for how well you fought James’ wing, but I do not intend that you keep command of it.”
“And why not, if I fought it well?” Logan demanded. He was a proud man, and he had done his duty and more than his duty. Hesmucet would have to handle him carefully.
He said, “My main reason, Brigadier, is that you are not a professional. Meaning you no disrespect, but I find it easier to deal with men who have been through Annasville, as I have.”
“Plenty of them, on both sides of this war, have proved themselves to be idiots,” Logan said tartly.
“True enough, your Excellency, but you could also say the same for officers who haven’t been through the military collegium,” Hesmucet replied. “I am pleased to have you as a brigade or division commander. As a wing commander… I’m sorry, Brigadier, but no, not permanently.”
However proud he was, Logan took it like a man. “It’s your army, General. You will have your way here. If you think I’m going to tell you I’m happy about it, you’re mistaken. And now, sir, if you’ll excuse me…” Saluting, he spun on his heel and strode out of the headquarters.
“You did the right thing, sir,” Fighting Joseph said. Approval from him was the last thing Hesmucet wanted. Striking a pose, Fighting Joseph went on, “Now you can consolidate your forces. An army of only two wings-led by your two senior commanders-would surely be more efficient than one of three.”
And it would double the size of the force you command, which is what you’ve got in mind, Hesmucet thought. Aloud, he said, “I find myself reasonably satisfied with the command arrangements as they exist at present.”
“Do you indeed, sir? Do you indeed?” From Fighting Joseph’s tone, Hesmucet might have expressed a fondness for scratching his backside in public or eating with his fingers. More scornfully still, Fighting Joseph said, “And who could possibly
replace James the Bird’s Eye?” Who but me? he all but shouted.
“If you must know, I had in mind Brigadier Oliver,” Hesmucet replied.
Now Fighting Joseph frankly stared. “Oliver? You must be joking… sir. I hope you’re joking. Oliver the blond-lover? Oliver the gods-drunk? Oliver with his right arm gone? Lion God’s twitching tail, it’d be like putting a cross between Bell and Leonidas the Priest in charge of a wing.”
“No.” Hesmucet shook his head. “Oliver’s pious, but he knows soldiering as well as he knows the gods. And he’s not brash and rash, the way Bell is. He thinks before he moves.”
“I agree,” Doubting George said. “Before the war, I thought Oliver was a horrible windbag, and I wished he would quit blathering on about loosing the blonds from the soil. But that is King Avram’s policy now, so we all needs must follow it. And Brigadier Oliver is a more than capable soldier, as the commanding general said.”
“Giving that wing to such an untried man-and a junior untried man-is an outrage when senior officers are available,” Fighting Joseph insisted. “Not only an outrage, but also a gross injustice.”
“I’m sorry, General, but I don’t agree,” Hesmucet said. “Brigadier Oliver will have that wing.”
“Disgraceful.” Fighting Joseph drew himself up to his full height, which was perhaps an inch less than Hesmucet’s. In a voice like thunder, he said, “If that is your final decision, I cannot abide the insult, and must offer my resignation from King Avram’s service and from this, his host.”
Without a doubt, he thought Hesmucet would find him indispensable and would knuckle under to that threat. Without a doubt, he had never so badly misjudged a situation-which, with Viziersville on his record, was saying a great deal. Hesmucet had all he could do not to chortle with glee. “Lieutenant General George, you are my witness,” he said. “Fighting Joseph has tendered his resignation.”
“Yes, sir,” Doubting George agreed. “I heard him do it.”
“And you shall also be my witness that I accept the said resignation, effective immediately,” Hesmucet went on.
“Yes, sir,” George repeated. “I will so testify, at need.”
Fighting Joseph first looked as if he didn’t believe his ears, then as if he didn’t want to. “How-how dare you?” he spluttered. “How do you think you can manage this army without me?”
“I expect I’ll manage,” Hesmucet answered. “And, since you’ve resigned, it’s not your concern anyway. A good evening to you, General. I trust you will make a splendid success of yourself in civilian life.”
Still looking as if he’d been hit in the head with a rock, Fighting Joseph, having fought for the last time, stumbled out of Hesmucet’s headquarters. Hesmucet found a jar of spirits and poured a mug for himself and one for Doubting George. Though he’d lost James the Bird’s Eye, his men had held Bell’s, and he was rid of Fighting Joseph. He wondered which of those would prove the bigger victory.
* * *
“Bell had his chance,” Lieutenant General George told his brigadiers. “He had it, and he couldn’t do anything with it. Now it’s our turn, by the gods, and we’ll see how well he likes that.”
“That’s right,” Absalom the Bear rumbled. The big man went on, “The traitors have played games with us for too long. I don’t believe they’ve got the men to play games any more.”
“We’ve got Brigadier Oliver pushing up to our left,” George said. “Now Hesmucet is going to stretch this wing up toward the right, toward the glideway link with Dothan Province and the one with northern Peachtree Province. Once we’ve got those in our hands, too, how’s Lieutenant General Bell going to feed Marthasville?”
“That’s simple, sir,” Brigadier Brannan said. Doubting George’s commander of siege engines paid close attention to logistics. His handsome face twisted into a thoroughly nasty grin. “He won’t. Those bastards will starve, and then we’ll clean ’em out.”
Absalom shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s how it’ll happen. When we move against the glideway lines to Dothan and to the north of Peachtree Province, Bell will have to come out against us, to try to knock us away. Then we’ll lick him, and what can he do after that? Not fornicating much.”
“I think you may be right,” Doubting George said. “Bell isn’t the sort of man who’s going to let himself be shut up in a place and stand siege. What he wants to do is get out there and attack.”
“Look how much good it did him these past couple of days,” Brannan said. “Of course he’ll want to go out and try it again.”
George shrugged. “He’ll just think he had bad luck, or that his soldiers let him down. Attacking is what he knows how to do. It’s all he knows how to do. If you send a carpenter out to try fixing something, of course he’s going to hammer nails into it, even if it’s a blanket with a rip and not a board at all.”
“Let Bell come,” Absalom said. “Let him come, and we’ll pound nails into him.”
“We’ll pound nails into the boards of his funeral pyre,” Doubting George said. “The beauty of our position now is, we don’t have to try to break into Marthasville. We can do the traitors every bit as much harm by stretching out past them. And when we do, they have to come out against us and attack our fieldworks. We don’t have to try to break through theirs.”
“I like that,” Absalom the Bear said. “We’ve had to go up against too many of their earthworks. It might as well be their turn for a while. And I’ll tell you something else: the men will like it, too.”
“That’s a fact,” Brannan agreed. “If you’re trying to fix wool or rock or water, a hammer’s not the right tool for the job.”
“We’re the ones with the tools for the job now,” George said. “Let’s get moving and do it. Some of Brigadier John the Lister’s men will fill in on our left as we shift.”
Brannan smiled. “Good old Ducky. He’s reliable, by the Thunderer’s prong.”
“That he is.” Doubting George didn’t doubt it in the slightest. When Fighting Joseph resigned because Hesmucet had named Brigadier Oliver commander of James the Bird’s Eye’s wing rather than giving it to him, that had given the general commanding one more slot to fill. John the Lister-often called by the nickname Brannan had given him-was a thoroughly capable officer, one who did what needed doing without demanding praise before, during, and afterwards. With him on his flank, George felt much happier than he would have with Fighting Joseph there.
George’s wing started sliding around to the right, to the east of Marthasville, the next morning. He’d wondered if Bell would try to strike him a blow at once, but the northern soldiers stayed in their entrenchments. Only a few unicorn-riders in blue dogged the southron troops. Doubting George sent his own unicorn-riders forward and drove them away.
“They’re only trying to see what we’re up to,” Absalom the Bear said. “They can’t stop us.”
“I know that,” Doubting George replied. “I don’t care. I don’t want them seeing anything, either. It might cause us trouble later on.”
As his wing advanced, though, he wondered whether anything would cause the southrons in Peachtree Province trouble ever again. Hesmucet had had the right of it: but for Joseph the Gamecock’s army and Duke Edward’s over in Parthenia, King Geoffrey had little left with which to hold his kingdom together. And, now that Bell had taken the army once Joseph’s and smashed it up, little remained to hold back the men in gray as they advanced.
Oh, every now and then squadrons of unicorn-riders or Peachtree Province militiamen would skirmish with George’s vanguard. Sometimes the northerners would have the numbers to slow down George’s men for a little while. But all he had to do was send reinforcements forward and the traitors would melt away. They’d spent a couple of months skillfully contesting every inch of ground from Borders all the way up to Marthasville. This ground to the east of Marthasville was as important as any in all of Peachtree Province, but King Geoffrey had not the men to keep Hesmucet from taking it.
> Seeing as much amused Absalom the Bear-as much as anything could amuse Lieutenant General George’s grim brigadier. “Geoffrey wanted Bell to get out there and fight,” Absalom said. “He got out there and he did it-and now, by the gods, Geoffrey has to wish he’d left Joseph the Gamecock in command.”
“I doubt that,” George said, which made Absalom chuckle. The wing commander went on, “I don’t think false King Geoffrey wants Joseph to have anything to do with anything. The only reason he gave him this command in the first place was that he didn’t have anybody else to fix the mess Thraxton the Braggart left behind.”
“No doubt you’re right, sir,” Absalom said. “Now who’s going to fix the mess Bell’s left behind?”
“I don’t think anyone can,” George replied. “If he stays in the city, we’ll flank him out or starve him out. And if he comes forth again, we’ll give him another set of lumps and drive him back. He hasn’t got the men to push us, not after he’s gone and thrown so many of them away.”
“There’s always magic,” Absalom said.
Doubting George wished the brigadier hadn’t said that. Sorcery was the one place where the traitors still enjoyed some advantage over King Avram’s forces. But even that edge was shrinking. George said, “By what the northerners have shown on this campaign, we can stand up to whatever they throw at us.”
“Here’s hoping you’re right,” Absalom the Bear answered. George nodded.
A unicorn-rider came back from the vanguard, reined in, and waited to be recognized. When Doubting George nodded again, this time toward him, he said, “Sir, we’ve taken some prisoners. Do you want to help question them?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” the wing commander replied. “Lead the way.”
“Yes, sir.” The messenger rode to what looked like the farm of a prosperous yeoman or a small baron. Even before George walked into the farmhouse, he could hear cursing-at the same time highly fluent and slightly mushy. At his raised eyebrows, the messenger explained: “One of the fellows we caught is this militiaman, must be fifty-five, sixty years old. He’s got false choppers-or he did, on account of he just broke ’em. That’s how come he sounds the way he does.”
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