“Gods know we could use rest and refit,” Gremio said, and the regimental commander nodded. Gremio asked, “Will we get any reinforcements? We could use them, too.” They could use them to replace the men Lieutenant General Bell had thrown away in one futile attack after another. Gremio saw no point to saying that, but he thought it very loudly.
Florizel only shook his head. “No reinforcements I’ve heard about, Captain. If we’d had more men handy, don’t you suppose they would have come into Marthasville a long time ago?”
“You’re probably right,” Gremio admitted. “But the southrons keep getting fresh men whenever they need them. It would be nice if we didn’t have to depend on the soldiers who started the war.”
That was an exaggeration, but not an enormous one. Florizel’s answering grimace showed a broken front tooth. That tooth hadn’t been broken when the war was new; Gremio would have taken oath on it. Little by little, the fighting wore the men down in all sorts of ways.
Here, though, marching was easy. Hesmucet mounted no real chase of the Army of Franklin. Maybe Marthasville had been his target all along. Or maybe… “Maybe he doesn’t think we can hurt him any more,” Gremio said once the battered army entered the province of Dothan.
“If he doesn’t, he’ll get himself a nasty surprise,” Sergeant Thisbe declared. “We’ve still got teeth, by the gods.”
Gremio nodded. Man for man, northern soldiers remained at least as formidable as their southron counterparts. Teeth, as Thisbe had said. But how strong were the jaws that held those teeth? The more Gremio thought about the state of the Army of Franklin, the closer he came to despair.
* * *
“Corporal, take up the company standard!” Lieutenant Griff commanded.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant said, and he did. Pride swelled in him till he felt about to float away like an inflated pig’s bladder. The more he thought about the state of General Hesmucet’s army, about how far they’d come and how much they’d done, the more he imagined he was on the point of floating away.
That must have shown on his face, for Smitty, grinning, asked him, “You happy, your Corporalship, sir?”
“Oh, just a little,” Rollant answered. “Yes, just a little.”
“Form up for parade,” Griff called to his men. “I don’t want anybody missing a step, not a single step, when we go through town today. Marthasville is ours, and fairly won, as General Hesmucet said in his order of the day. And I want those traitor bastards to know we aren’t just good enough to lick ’em-we can be fancier than they are, too.” Rollant nodded vigorously. He wanted to show up, to show off before, the people who had once bound him to the land. Treat me like a cow with hands, will you? You’ll see!
Horns blared. Griff started shouting again. Colonel Nahath’s order carried farther: “Forward-march!”
Forward Rollant went, holding the gold dragon on red high. The standard fluttered in the breeze. Griff nodded. “That’s good. That’s very good, Corporal. Let the folk of Marthasville see the kingdom’s true flag. They’ve looked at the reversed banner too long.”
Rollant shook the standard to display the dragon better still. He wanted the Detinans in Marthasville to get a good look at it-and at him. He strutted. He swaggered. He displayed the stripes on his left arm as best he could, so the people who’d called themselves liege lords would see what a blond could do when he got the chance.
Marching through Rising Rock the summer before had been enjoyable. Marching through Marthasville…
Lieutenant Griff chose that moment to ask him almost the same question Smitty had: “Having a good time, Corporal?”
Rollant looked around. Lining this main street were hundreds, more likely thousands, of glum-looking Detinans: women, children, and men with beards gray or white. The younger men were in false king Geoffrey’s army. Every single spectator seemed to be looking straight at him. He knew that was an illusion, but even so…
“Sir, I feel about ready to quit this world altogether,” he said.
Griff laughed out loud and slapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t blame you a bit. It must be pretty fine, getting to spit in these northerners’ eyes.”
“As a matter of fact, sir, it is.” Rollant looked at Griff with more respect than he was in the habit of giving the company commander. Griff was too young for his job, and too weedy besides, but he was plenty brave enough, and every now and then proved he wasn’t stupid, either. His remark showed more understanding of the way blonds thought than Rollant would have looked to see from any Detinan, northerner or southron.
And then the band struck up “The Battle Psalm on the Kingdom.” Rollant forgot about Griff, as he forgot about everything but that fierce, triumphant music. No one had ever accused him of singing well. No one ever would. But he was loud and enthusiastic. Past that, what really mattered? If the haughty Detinans of Marthasville didn’t care for the way he sounded, too bad for them.
Not many blonds were watching the southron soldiers tramp past. Most of them, he guessed, had already fled their liege lords and the land to which they were supposed to be bound. But the few who’d stayed behind were wildly excited now. A pretty woman, seeing Rollant’s golden hair and beard, blew him a kiss and twitched her hips in a way that could mean only one thing.
Lieutenant Griff noticed her, too. “You find her once we go into bivouac, Corporal, and you won’t sleep alone tonight.”
“I’ve got a wife, sir,” Rollant said uncomfortably. He’d been away from Norina a long time now, and missed her-missed any woman-no less than any other man, blond or Detinan, would have done.
“She’s a long way off,” Griff said.
“I couldn’t do that, sir. I wouldn’t do that,” Rollant said. “If I did that to her, why wouldn’t she do it to me?”
Griff gave him a curious look. “I wouldn’t have expected you to take your oaths so seriously.”
“Why? Because I’m a blond… sir?” Rollant could have said a great deal more than that, but not without being insubordinate.
“Well, let me put it like this,” Griff answered: “I know plenty of Detinans who don’t turn down whatever they can get, and they don’t care a curse about whether they’re married or not.”
“There are people like that,” Rollant agreed. Captain Cephas, who’d commanded the company before Griff, had been a man like that. Now he was dead, along with the blond woman who’d been his lover and her blond husband. Rollant didn’t care to bring up Cephas. He did say, “The fun they have doesn’t usually make up for the trouble they cause. That’s what I think, anyhow.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Griff said. “But not everybody thinks about trouble before he thinks about getting it in.” He didn’t mention Captain Cephas, either, but Rollant would have been surprised if he weren’t thinking about him, too.
Rollant took a look at Marthasville itself, not at the Detinans still living in it. “I can see why Bell finally left this place,” he said. “Hardly enough left of it to defend.”
“Are you sorry?” the company commander asked.
“Sorry? Me? No, sir,” Rollant answered. “But I’ll tell you something: even with Marthasville all smashed up the way it is, the Detinans are still living a lot better than they ever let their serfs live.”
“From what I’ve seen in the countryside, Corporal, I’d say you’re probably right,” Griff told him. Rollant blinked again; he wouldn’t have bet Griff noticed anything unmilitary in the countryside.
At last, the regiment tramped out of Marthasville. Hereabouts, people reckoned it a big city. Before escaping from his liege lord’s estate in Palmetto Province, Rollant would have thought it one, too. After ten years of living in New Eborac… He shook his head. As far as he was concerned, Marthasville was nothing but an overgrown town.
“We camp here,” Griff told him, pointing to a meadow next to a stand of pines.
“All right, sir,” Rollant said. “Any particular place you want me to plant the standard?”
; Griff pointed to a tiny swell of ground. “How about right there?” Rollant shrugged; it seemed as good a place as any other. He stabbed the butt end of the flagpole into the brick-red-almost blood-red-dirt. That done, he took up a pinch of earth and sprinkled it at the base of the pole. Griff nodded approval. “You know all the rituals, sure enough.”
Even though you’re a blond. That had to be lurking behind his words. That lurked behind so many Detinans’ thoughts whenever they dealt with blonds. Rollant knew it would keep on lurking in Detinans’ thoughts for as long as he lived. Maybe by the time his children were grown, Detinans would be able to accept blonds as people like any others. And maybe they wouldn’t, too.
Colonel Nahath came up to the standard and spoke to Griff: “We’re going to act as provost guards in Marthasville, keep the men from tearing the place up too much and keep them from squabbling with the locals. I’m sending companies in on rotation. Yours will go in there tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” Griff said, the only thing a junior officer could say at an order from a senior. “Uh, sir, a question?” When Nahath nodded, Griff asked, “What about Rollant here and the other blonds I’ve got?”
Nahath plucked at his beard, but not for long. “They’re soldiers,” he said. “They can do a soldier’s job. If they can’t do a soldier’s job, they shouldn’t wear the uniform.” He eyed Rollant. “What do you say to that, Corporal?”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Rollant answered. “Of course, some of the traitors won’t be used to doing what a filthy, stinking blond serf tells them to.”
“A point,” Colonel Nahath said. “Do you think you can persuade them?”
Rollant’s smile was large and predatory. “Sir, I look forward to it.”
Nahath and Griff both laughed. The regimental commander said, “Try to leave them breathing once they’re persuaded.”
“Oh, I suppose so, sir,” Rollant said, which made the two Detinan officers laugh again. Rollant asked, “May I pick a partner, sir?”
At the serious question, the colonel and lieutenant looked at each other. “Well, that’s probably not a bad notion. You should have someone you can trust at your back,” Nahath said. Rollant gave him a grateful nod. At least Nahath recognized he couldn’t trust all Detinans at his back.
“Why me?” Smitty asked as they walked back toward Marthasville together. “What did I do to you?”
“Saved my neck a few times,” Rollant answered. “Maybe you’ll do it again.”
“After you hauled me off to go patrolling?” Smitty shook his head. “Not gods-damned likely, pal. I could be asleep right now.”
“Thanks, Smitty. You’re a true friend.” Rollant thought-he was almost sure-the farmer’s son from outside New Eborac City was joking. Smitty cracked wise about anything and everything. But a bit of doubt still lingered. Would Smitty have said the same sorts of things had Sergeant Joram plucked him into duty? Knowing Smitty, he likely would, Rollant thought, and relaxed a bit.
Marthasville looked bigger when he came into it as part of a two-man patrol and without an army at his back. Torches blazed in front of every surviving business. Eateries and taverns and brothels looked to be thriving, with long lines of men in gray snaking forward in front of the latter. The women inside those places were almost sure to be blonds. Rollant shook his head and did his best not to think about that.
A Detinan in civilian clothes stared at him and Smitty. “You think you’re a soldier, butter-hair?” he asked Rollant. His accent proclaimed him a local.
“No,” Rollant answered. “I know I’m a soldier. I’ve been through the war, and that’s a hells of a lot more than you can say.”
Even by the torchlight, he saw the northerner flush. “You ought to be unicornwhipped, talking to your betters like that.”
“Get lost, traitor. If you don’t get lost, you’ll be sorry.” That wasn’t Rollant; it was Smitty.
The northerner swore at him: “Gods-damned son of a bitch, you’re the traitor-a traitor to the Detinan race.”
“You’d better get lost,” Smitty said, “or we’ll run you in.”
“I’d like to see you try,” the northern man said.
Rollant didn’t need a second invitation. He jerked his shortsword from its scabbard. Smitty’s came free, too. “Come along, or you’ll be sorry,” Rollant said. He took a step toward the man from Marthasville.
Not till the fellow’s hands writhed in his first pass did Rollant realize he might have made a mistake. Not till his own feet seemed to freeze to the dirt of the street did he realize he might have made a very bad mistake. Laughing, the local said, “If you’re going to net a dragon, you had best think on where you’ll find a net to hold him.”
Smitty seemed stuck, too. He howled curses. Laughing still, the man-the mage-from Marthasville drew a knife and advanced on them. “In King Avram’s name, let us go!” Rollant exclaimed.
And he could move again.
The mage hadn’t let him go, or Smitty, either. When they did move, the fellow’s jaw dropped. He tried his enchantment once more; it did him no good. He tried to flee, but Rollant and Smitty were younger and faster. Rollant brought him down with a ferocious flying tackle. “Cut the bastard’s throat,” Smitty urged. “He’s dangerous.”
Rollant shook his head. “We’ll hogtie him and give him to the provost marshal,” he said. “Practicing magic against us? They’ll make him wish we’d cut his throat.” He and Smitty bound the northerner hand and foot, threw his knife in the gutter, and hauled him away.
After they’d handed him over to higher authority, Smitty said, “You called on King Avram, and that freed us from the spell.”
“I thought the same thing,” Rollant said. “What do you suppose it means?”
“It means King Avram, gods bless him, has a powerful name, that’s what,” Smitty said.
“That powerful?” Rollant asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought so, either,” Smitty said. “But you saw what happened, same as I did. That stinking wizard had us in trouble.” Rollant shivered. The wizard had had them in a lot of trouble. Smitty went on, “Then you spoke the king’s name, and we were all right again. Good thing, too.”
“Yes, a very good thing,” Rollant agreed. “Now we know King Avram is someone very special indeed.” He frowned; that didn’t get his meaning across so well as he would have liked. He tried again: “We knew it before, but now we know it.” His frown got deeper. That still wasn’t right.
Or maybe it was. Smitty said, “We know it in our bellies, you mean.”
“Yes!” Rollant said gratefully. And, knowing it in his belly, he got through the rest of the patrol without trouble. By then, he wanted a chance to use Avram’s name again. As he went back to camp, though, he decided he might have been lucky not to get one.
* * *
Jim the Haystack, the burgomaster of Marthasville, stared nervously at General Hesmucet. “You can’t mean that,” he said.
“Of course I can,” Hesmucet said, watching with a certain fascination the ugly wig that probably gave Jim his nickname. “I am in the habit of meaning what I say. I usually do, and this is no exception.”
“But you can’t burn Marthasville!” Jim the Haystack wailed. That dreadful wig seemed about ready to topple over sideways in his discomfiture. He looked like a man who needed to run to the latrine.
None of that mattered to Hesmucet. “I not only can, sir, I intend to,” he said. “I cannot stay here, not while Lieutenant General Bell is running around loose and making a nuisance of himself. If I left the place intact, you traitors would go on getting use from it. I can’t have that, not when I’ve come all the way up from Franklin to take it away from you. And so I’ll give it to the fire.”
“I know your mind and time are constantly occupied with the duties of your command,” Jim the Haystack said, wig nodding above his forehead. “But it might be that you have not considered this subject in all its awful consequences.”
“I believe I
have,” Hesmucet said.
As if he hadn’t spoken, the burgomaster went on, “On more reflection, you, I hope, would not make the people of Marthasville an exception to all mankind, for I know of no such instance ever having occurred-surely never in Detina-and what has this helpless people done, that they should be driven from their homes, to wander strangers and outcasts, and exiles? I solemnly petition you to reconsider this order, or modify it, and suffer this unfortunate people to remain at home, and enjoy what little means they have.”
“Very pretty, sir, but no.” Hesmucet shook his head. “I give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders.”
“In the names of the gods, why?” Jim the Haystack howled.
“Because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for future struggles,” Hesmucet answered. “We must have peace, not only at Marthasville, but in all Detina. To stop war, we must defeat the traitor armies which are arrayed against the laws and the rightful king.”
“He is not the rightful king,” Jim the Haystack said. “He is a low-down thief.”
“Well, that is your opinion. I have a different one,” Hesmucet told him. “Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our kingdom deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. But you cannot have peace and a division of our kingdom.”
“You have the soldiers here,” Jim the Haystack said bitterly, “so you will do as pleases you best. But I still think it is barbarous, truly barbarous, to send the whole of the population of Marthasville off to fend for itself as best it may.”
“I believe you. I appreciate that you are sincere, and that burning this town will work a hardship on the people who live here,” Hesmucet replied. “But winning the war comes first. I also doubt that, earlier in the war, you lost any sleep or shed a single tear when the armies that follow false King Geoffrey made loyal civilians-men, women, and children-flee them, barefoot and in rags, down in Franklin and Cloviston.”
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