"So this is how we're going to play the game, eh?"
Doubting George said to Hesmucet as the southron
army tramped north towards a hamlet with the unlovely name of Fat Mama.
"That's how it looks to me," General Hesmucet answered. "We'll fight somewhere, Joseph the Gamecock will pull back, and then we'll have to fight again."
"He's not been making things easy for us," George observed. "Of course, that's not his job, is it?"
"He won't stake everything on one throw of the dice, gods damn him," Hesmucet said. "We flanked him out of Borders, we beat him out of Caesar, but his army's still intact, and he's still got it between us and Marthasville."
"And as he falls back, he concentrates his force. And we have to thin ours out to protect our supply line," Doubting George said. "That's not good. If Ned of the Forest got athwart the glideway . . ."
"I'm doing my best to make sure that doesn't happen," Hesmucet said. "I've sent a good-sized force of unicorn-riders out from Luxor on the Great River against him. With luck, Sam the Sturgeon will whip Ned. Even without luck, he'll keep him too busy to bother our supplies."
"May it be so." Lieutenant General George pointed ahead. "What are those men doing?"
"They're digging trenches, that's what they're doing," Hesmucet said.
George had already seen that for himself. "Yes, sir," he said. "What I should have asked was, why are they doing it? We're supposed to be on the march, not so? Did you give any order for us to entrench?"
"Lion God claw me if I did," Hesmucet answered.
"Well, then," George said, and rode toward the soldiers who were digging in. "What are you men playing at?" he demanded in his most formal tones.
"Making us some trenches, sir, just in case," one of the southrons replied.
"I see that. What I don't see is any traitors close by," George said. "In case of what, then? Since there aren't any traitors close by, why do you think you need the earthworks?"
"Just in case, sir, like I said," the soldier answered. He flipped another spadeful of red Peachtree dirt up onto what would be the parapet of the growing trench. "Somebody saw that the northerners had been digging a couple of fields over, so we thought we'd better have some trenches of our own."
"What kind of preposterous excuse are they giving?" General Hesmucet demanded as he rode up.
"As a matter of fact, sir, it doesn't sound so preposterous to me," Doubting George replied, and then explained.
"Gods damn entrenchments!" Hesmucet burst out. "Gods damn them to the seven hells. They take the offensive spirit away from our soldiers altogether."
"No, sir. I wouldn't say that." George shook his head. "The Detinan soldier fights his war the same way he runs his farm or his shop. If he invests in fighting, he expects that investment to pay."
"Well, these fellows are a pack of idiots for entrenching when there aren't any traitors in sight," Hesmucet said, and George couldn't very well disagree with that. The general commanding raised his voice: "You boys had better get moving and keep moving, or I'm going to have to find out who in the hells you are."
"Uh, yes, sir," the soldiers said in a ragged chorus. They abandoned their half-dug trenches and hurried away.
"Disgraceful," Hesmucet said.
"I still don't think so, sir," Doubting George replied. "They fight hard whenever we send them at the foe. Think of that fight by Caesar a few days ago. You can't ask for more than those men gave."
"You can always ask for more," Hesmucet said in a steely voice. That grim determination was thought-provoking. Hesmucet repeated, "You can always ask for more," and then added, "Sometimes asking for it makes the men give it to you."
"A point," George said. "A distinct point."
"What I want to know is, will we ever get to this Fat Mama place?" Hesmucet grumbled. "In this country, the gods would have to work a miracle for us to get anywhere at all. I rode through it twenty years ago, and it hasn't changed since—certainly not for the better in any way."
That was a distinct point, too. Swamps and pine woods and stands of shrubs and thorn bushes and saplings that had sprung up where the pines were cut down dominated the landscape. The roads, when there were roads, were narrow and seemed to wander at random rather than actually going anywhere. Without the sun in the sky, George would have had no idea where north lay.
With cries of alarm, a whole company of soldiers a hundred yards ahead started running away as fast as they could go. "Now what?" Hesmucet growled.
Before long, one of those cries of alarm developed words, or at least a word: "Hornets!"
"If you'll excuse me, sir," Doubting George said, and rode away from trouble as fast as he could. He was not unduly surprised to discover General Hesmucet also retreating as fast as he could persuade his unicorn to go.
"By the power vested in me as commanding general, I hereby declare those wasps traitors against King Avram," Hesmucet declared.
"That sounds good to me, sir," George said. "Shall I order the men to arrest them and take them back to Georgetown for trial?" Before Hesmucet could reply, he went on, "Or do you suppose they're enough of a trial right here?"
Somebody yelled as he was stung. More soldiers broke ranks to escape the hornets. Ruefully, Hesmucet said, "They're doing more to slow us down than Joseph the Gamecock has so far."
"You were the one who said it, sir: as long as he holds Marthasville and keeps his army in the field, he's doing everything false King Geoffrey could ask of him. He's not the same sort of fighter as Duke Edward, but he knows his business."
"I can't argue with you there, much as I wish I could," Hesmucet answered. "He pulled out of Caesar just as slick as you please—didn't leave so much as a wagon or an ass that wasn't too lame for us to use."
Before too long, the front of the line of march sorted itself out again. But the hornets caused a traffic jam all out of proportion to the amount of harm they could have done and to the number of men they actually stung. When a handful of people stopped and flabbled because of the wasps, everybody else behind them had to stop and wait while the chaos subsided. Delay went through the whole long column of marching southrons, as one could watch a devoured pig going through a big snake.
And then, just when things finally seemed to have got back to normal, the roads opened out on a little northern town—one that wouldn't have existed if it weren't for a crossroads—called Dareton. Joseph the Gamecock had left a brigade of men behind there to skirmish with the southrons.
Colonel Andy, Doubting George's adjutant, was indignant. "What can he hope to accomplish with that?" he demanded rhetorically. "He can't possibly hope to hold us back."
"To hold us? No, not when his whole army couldn't at Borders or Caesar," Doubting George said. "To delay us? To give him more time to settle in at Fat Mama farther north and make it tougher to crack? That's what he's got in mind, sure as I'm looking at those works ahead."
"Not chivalrous," Andy sniffed. "Not sporting, either."
Peering at the fieldworks in front of Dareton, Lieutenant General George was inclined to agree. Red earth ramparts sheltered soldiers and made catapults and repeating crossbows harder for the southrons' engines to reach. "He'll try to do us as much harm as he can and then pull back," George predicted.
"Let's just mask his position and then go on," Andy said.
But it wouldn't be that easy or that cheap. By the way Joseph the Gamecock's artificers had sited their wards, they'd made sure the southrons couldn't pass on the open ground between Dareton and the forest to the east without coming in range of their weapons.
"Do you know what I am going to do?" Doubting George said, a certain bleak amusement in his voice.
"No, sir." Andy didn't sound amused at all. He sounded thoroughly indignant at Joseph the Gamecock.
"I am going to get rid of a cockroach by dropping an anvil on it."
"Sir?" Andy didn't get it. When the gods were passing out imagination, he'd been in line for a second helping of diligence. That made him an excellent adjutant, and would surely have made him a disaster as a commander.
"Never mind, Colonel," George said soothingly. "I'll show you." He began giving orders.
The southrons' siege engines rumbled forward on their wheeled carts. They started heaving stones and darts and firepots at the entrenchments in front of Dareton. The catapults in the fieldworks answered back as best they could, but Doubting George had ordered far more engines into action than Joseph the Gamecock had left with the defenders.
And George threw more men at Dareton than Joseph had left behind to hold the place—many, many more. The whole Army of Franklin might have held his assaulting force out of the town. Then again, it might not have. A single lonely brigade, however feisty, had not a chance.
Its commander soon realized as much. He left one regiment in the field to hold up the southron army for as long as it could, but got the rest of his men out of the trenches and marching through Dareton and on to the north. Here and there along the line, columns of smoke rising into the sky marked burning siege engines the traitors couldn't take away with them.
All in all, it was a minor triumph of delay. Glum prisoners came trudging back through the southrons' lines. They cursed the men who'd caught them, they doubly cursed every blond they saw in a gray tunic, and they cursed Doubting George when they saw him.
"Freeze in the seven hells!" some shouted, at the same time as others were yelling, "Fry in the seven hells!"
George turned to Colonel Andy. "If half of me freezes while the other half fries, on average I ought to be pretty comfortable."
"Er, yes," his adjutant replied, and George stifled a sigh. He'd long since realized Andy had not a dram of whimsy concealed anywhere about his person. That being so, why was he disappointed now? Because nobody likes to make a joke and have it fall flat, he thought.
"Forward!" he shouted once more, and forward the soldiers went. But the stubborn defense at Dareton had cost them three hours of marching time, at the very least. Joseph the Gamecock's army was surely using that time to good advantage. George thought about marching his men into the night to make up for the time they'd lost.
He thought about that—and then dismissed the notion after one section of the army followed a looping country track through the woods that proved to double back on itself, so they took their comrades in flank. If they'd been northerners, his force would have been in trouble. As things were, straightening out the traffic jam and getting everybody on the right road took almost as long as smashing through the entrenchments in front of Dareton had.
Could we do this at night? George wondered. He shook his head. It struck him as unlikely. Weariness wasn't the only reason armies halted when darkness fell.
And so the army encamped at sunset well short of Fat Mama. Campfires sent savory smoke into the sky, smoke made more savory by the meat roasting above a good many of those fires. Some of the meat came from cattle the army had brought along. Some, George was sure, came from local beasts that had met an untimely demise thanks to southron foragers. That was against the rules of war King Avram had set forth. To the king, the northerners remained his subjects and were not to be despoiled. The reality was that the northerners hated Avram and his soldiers, and those soldiers returned the disfavor. If they were hungry, they would eat whatever they could get their hands on.
Some commanders discouraged them. Doubting George looked the other way. The harder the time the north had, the sooner the war would end—that was how he thought of things.
And, as always happened when southron armies penetrated into a new part of the north, blonds on the run from their liege lords started coming into camp. Some were men alone, others whole families together. The army had plenty of use for laborers and washerwomen, and the liege lords who had to do without the labor of their serfs would, with luck, contemplate the cost of rebellion against their rightful sovereign.
Taking in blonds also had costs, though. George remembered the one who'd murdered his wife and the officer who'd been trifling with her, though he'd also died, at the officer's hands. That had been a nasty business all the way around.
George grunted and shook his head. That was a nasty business on a small scale. The nasty business coming up would be much larger and much worse. One way or the other, this campaign and Marshal Bart's in Parthenia would say who won the war, and why. "It had better be us," George said, and rode on toward the north.
Captain Gremio found the little town of Fat Mama remarkable in no way but its name. It held a couple of thousand people, taking Detinans and blonds together, and had a main street full of shops, a few streets full of houses, the local baron's keep, and not much else. Lesser nobles' manor houses dominated the countryside, with the serfs' shacks usually close by.
Except for the glideway path that ran through Fat Mama and the low hills to the east and south of the town, Joseph the Gamecock never would have stopped there. Gremio was sure of that. As things were, his company, along with the rest of Colonel Florizel's regiment, filed into trenches already waiting for them, trenches Joseph had had the local serfs dig ahead of time.
"I'm sick of earthworks," Florizel grumbled. "I'm sick to death of them, as a matter of fact."
"But, your Excellency, it's a lot easier to catch your death outside of earthworks," Gremio said.
In the Karlsburg circles he'd frequented before the war, such wordplay would have got the groan it deserved, whereupon everyone would have gone about his business. But Florizel gave Gremio a look straight out of a Five Lakes blizzard and then limped on down the trench. Gremio wondered what he'd done wrong. Figuring that out, unfortunately, took but a moment. You just contradicted the regimental commander.
He sighed. Back in Karlsburg, he wouldn't have been so foolish as to call a presiding judge a fool, even if he was one. He would have been especially careful not to do such a thing, in fact, if the presiding judge was a fool. But he was a free Detinan, and free Detinans had the privilege of saying what was on their minds. Now he saw that having such a privilege and using it weren't necessarily one and the same.
From behind him, someone said, "I thought you were funny, sir—and you told the truth."
He turned. "Thank you, Sergeant Thisbe," he replied. "Sometimes, though, the truth is the worst thing you can possibly tell."
Thisbe's eyebrows rose. "You say that, sir? You, a barrister? If there's no truth in the lawcourts, where can we hope to find it?"
"Lawcourts are for finding truth, sure enough," Gremio said. "That doesn't mean it's there to begin with. And there are ways to tell the truth and still not tell all of it, and to tell it in a way that makes you look good and the fellow you're at law against the greatest villain still unburned."
"That's . . . not the way it should be, sir." Thisbe was an earnest young man, much given to thought about the way things should be.
Gremio shrugged. "It's the way things are in a lawcourt. And remember, the other fellow has a barrister trying to play all the same tricks you are." He waved toward the south. "King Geoffrey wouldn't need a big army if that abandoned fool of an Avram didn't have one, too."
Thisbe thought that over before finally nodding. "I suppose that's true, sir. Things have to balance out, don't they? But there aren't any judges in this fight, the way there are in a court."
"Of course there's a judge," Gremio said. Thisbe gave him a quizzical look. He explained: "The lawcourt of history will say who won. It's got to be either King Geoffrey or King Avram."
"Do you think we can still win this war?" Sergeant Thisbe asked.
"As long as we hold on to Marthasville, as long as we hurt the southrons every day, we can win," Gremio answered, and then, precise as a barrister, corrected himself: "We can make King Avram quit. We're not going to give up the fight, come what may. The only way the southrons can beat us is to knock us flat. But if they get sick of funeral pyres and of soldiers never coming home, then Geoffrey will be king in the north for a long time."
"Ah." Thisbe nodded again and rubbed his smooth chin. "That explains why Joseph the Gamecock is making the kind of fight he is. He's trying to get the southrons to sicken of the war."
"Yes, I think so," Gremio replied. "As long as we can stay in the field, as long as Marthasville stays in our hands, we've got a decent chance."
Before Thisbe could answer, a sentry sang out from the south: "The dust is stirring. I think the southron soldiers are coming."
Gremio muttered something under his breath. He hadn't expected General Hesmucet's men to get to Fat Mama quite so soon. The brigade down at Dareton should have held them up for quite a while. He wondered what had gone wrong. Something surely had, for the sentry was right: that rising cloud of dust could only come from the feet of thousands of marching men, the hooves of thousands of unicorns and asses, the wheels of thousands of supply wagons and engine-hauling carts. Even as he watched, the reddish cloud on the southern horizon grew taller and thicker.
Before too long, he started making out little flashes of light within the dust cloud. "Unicorns' iron-shod horns," he murmured.
He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud till Thisbe nodded once more and said, "Yes, and the heads on the spears the pikemen carry."
Watching the army General Hesmucet led come forward and deploy on the flat farmland east of the hills warding Fat Mama was awe-inspiring. Regiment after regiment of gray-clad unicorn-riders, pikemen, and crossbowmen seemed to fill every available inch of space.
"How can we hope to hold them back, let alone beat them?" Now Thisbe seemed to be talking to himself. "See how many men they have!"
"They're drawing themselves up like that on purpose, to try to intimidate us." Gremio would not admit, even to himself, that he was intimidated. "Their numbers are why the gods made field fortifications—and, even more to the point, why our serfs made them."
Thisbe said, "That's true. It's really amazing what a difference earthworks make in how many men get killed or wounded."
Gremio didn't want to think about getting killed or wounded. He knew such things were possible, but why dwell on them? He pointed toward the southern host, which had just about finished its evolutions. "When they're done trying to frighten us, then we'll see what they really have in mind."
"Nothing good," Sergeant Thisbe predicted.
"No doubt you're right," Gremio agreed. "If they had our good will in mind, they would leave us alone and let us run our affairs as we choose. That's the point of the war, after all. But it's not quite what I meant."
"What did you mean, sir?"
"Where they'll put their encampments and where they'll concentrate their men," Gremio replied. "That will tell us a good deal about how they plan to attack us or outflank us."
"Oh. Yes. Of course," Thisbe said, which left the company commander somewhat deflated. He'd seen army commanders fail to pay enough attention to what the enemy was up to, but his sergeant took the notion for granted. Did that mean Sergeant Thisbe ought to be leading an army? Gremio had his doubts. But what did it say about the wits of some of the men who actually were in charge of armies and wings? Nothing good, he feared.
Tents sprang up like fairy rings of outsized toadstools. The southrons went about the business of setting up camp with the same matter-of-fact competence the men of the Army of Franklin displayed. Most of them were veterans. They'd encamped a great many times before. They knew how to do the job.
Thisbe said, "They must have a great plenty of men and money down in the south of Detina."
"They do," Gremio agreed. "More men and more money than we have, by far."
"How are we ever going to beat them, then?" the sergeant asked.
"We do have a couple of things going for us," Gremio answered. "For one, they're invaders here. This is our kingdom, and we know it, and we're fighting for it."
"That's so." Thisbe nodded yet again. "What else?"
"Why, the other thing we have going for us is that we're right, of course," Gremio replied.
Sergeant Thisbe smiled. "That's bound to gain us credit with the gods, sir. How much good will it do down here on earth?"
"Good question," Gremio said. "When I have a good answer, I'll let you know." He peered out toward the east. "No chance of hitting them tonight—that seems pretty plain. They've got everything well covered. They know as well as we do that we would hit them if they gave us half a chance." Gremio rubbed his chin. "Or I think we would. Ever since this campaign started, we've been letting them come to us. We haven't been looking for chances to go at them. That doesn't seem to be Joseph the Gamecock's style."
Thisbe pointed out toward the southron host with a grimy-nailed, callused hand. "Look at what we're facing. How can we possibly charge out against them? They'd chew us up and spit us out if we did, as many men as they have there."
"I think you're right," Gremio said. Most of the men he led, most of the officers over him, would have thought the sergeant was wrong. Most of them reckoned Lieutenant General Bell the perfect northern patriot, and admired him for the wounds he'd taken going straight at the foe. Of course, most of the officers over Captain Gremio were noblemen. He hoped he had a more practical way of looking at the world.
"Time to get our men bedded down for the night," Thisbe observed.
"See to it, Sergeant," Gremio said. Thisbe nodded. Gremio knew Thisbe would make sure everything was as it needed to be. He did give one additional order: "Put plenty of pickets well forward. After that spell the southrons used at Caesar, no telling what sort of sneaky things they might try. We haven't seen many night attacks, but I don't want to be taken by surprise."
"Yes, sir," Sergeant Thisbe said. "I'll see to it, sir." Off he went, brisk as if he'd just drunk four cups of tea.
Gremio wished he had that kind of energy himself. He yawned wide enough to split his head in two. Here and there in the trenches, men were getting cookfires going. The stews the cooks would serve weren't that good, but they did keep belly and backbone from gaining too intimate an acquaintance.
After patrolling the front his company had to cover, Captain Gremio lay down on his blanket and tried to go to sleep. The night was as muggy and almost as hot as the day had been, so he certainly needed no covers to hold the cold at bay. But mosquitoes buzzed in invisible but hungry clouds. They looked on Gremio the same way he looked on the cooks' stewpots. He ended up wrapping himself in the blanket just to keep himself from being devoured.
He slept through the night undisturbed. Because of the good luck the southrons had had with their sorcerously aided attack on Caesar, he'd wondered if they might try something similar here by Fat Mama. The confusion of night would, or could, have aided them, too. But everything stayed quiet.
When he woke, dawn was painting the eastern sky behind the southrons pink. Clouds floated through the air, looking thicker and darker off to the west. He wondered if it would rain. With all the moisture in the air, it seemed likely. The idea of staying in the trenches as they turned to mud didn't much appeal to him, but the idea of fighting outside them against that vast host of southrons seemed even less delightful. He'd heard Lieutenant General Bell was angry that Joseph the Gamecock wouldn't storm out to assail the enemy, but he couldn't see why. Joseph's plan made perfectly good sense to him.
Besides, he thought, if it does rain, everyone's bowstring will be wet, and that will put a better damper on the fighting than anything this side of a peace treaty. He snorted. As if Avram would grant terms the north could stand, or as if King Geoffrey could accept any the south was likely to offer. No, this fight would have to be settled on the field.
That thought had hardly crossed his mind before Sergeant Thisbe came over to him and said, "Sir, it looks like the southrons are doing something funny in their encampment."
"Funny how?" Gremio asked, his hand sliding of itself toward the hilt of his sword. "Are they deploying for an attack?" If they were, if Thisbe could see they were, then they weren't using the masking spell they'd tried in Caesar.
The sergeant shook his head. "I don't think so, sir. What it looks like is that some of them are going away."
"What?" Gremio said. "I'd better come have a look for myself."
But when he got to a good vantage point, he discovered that, as usual, Sergeant Thisbe had it right. A good many southrons did look to be breaking camp and heading north.
Excitement flowed through him. "They're trying to pull the same stunt they did down at Borders and Caesar," he breathed. "They'll leave some of their men behind to keep us busy here, while they use the rest to try to outflank us."
"I wonder if we can attack them, now that they've cut down the size of the host right in front of us," Thisbe said.
Attacking the whole southron army, Gremio was convinced, was madness. Attacking part of it . . . "So do I," he said. "It just might work."
Lieutenant General Bell liked very little about Fat Mama. He'd made his headquarters in a fancy manor house not far outside the town, and that proved a mistake. The baron who'd built the place had not only put in marble floors but also kept them polished to a brilliant gloss. They were so very slick, Bell's crutches didn't want to keep their grip. They kept trying to fly out from under him, in which case he would have gone flying, too.
If I break my neck along with wrecking an army and losing a leg, I won't be of much use to the kingdom or to myself, he thought after one such narrow escape. A man does need a few working parts.
The wing he commanded at Fat Mama was stationed farther north than any of the other soldiers in the Army of Franklin. Bell wondered whether Joseph the Gamecock had posted them there just to make him ride—and suffer—for an extra mile or two. He had no intention of asking Joseph, for the army commander was liable to tell him yes. They had enough trouble getting along without that.
Someone pounded on the door to the manor house. One of Major Zibeon's assistants went to see who it was. He came back to Bell and reported: "A messenger from Count Joseph, sir."
"I shall receive him, of course," Bell said, wondering what Joseph the Gamecock wanted to bother him about now.
When the messenger came in, he almost tripped on the smooth, smooth marble floor, and had to flail his arms wildly for balance. Oddly, that made Bell feel better. If a whole man could come close to breaking his neck here, he had no reason to know shame for having trouble getting around.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, more warmth than usual in his voice.
"Count Joseph's compliments, sir, and he requests the boon of your company just as fast as you can get to him," the runner replied.
That meant travel, and travel meant more torment. Bell sipped from his little bottle of laudanum. "Why?" he asked, and warmth was only a memory.
"Sir, he says he is contemplating an attack, and desires your views along with those of his other wing commanders," the messenger told him.
"Contemplating . . . an attack?" Bell said, as if the young man before him had suddenly started speaking a foreign language. "Joseph the Gamecock is contemplating an attack? My ears must be tricking me." He dug a finger into one, as if to clear out whatever was blocking them.
All the runner said was, "Yes, sir. He is, sir. Truly."
"I can hardly believe it," Bell said. Curiosity was enough to outweigh pain, at least for the moment. "You may go back and tell him I shall attend him directly." The runner saluted and left.
Bell went to the commanding general's headquarters in a buggy, not on unicornback. It took him a little longer, but gave him time to think. He kept stroking his long, curly beard as the carriage bounced toward the home where Joseph the Gamecock had set up shop. What sort of ulterior motive did Joseph have for ordering an attack now, of all times? Is he trying to discredit me? Bell wondered. Has someone let him know about my letters to King Geoffrey? That could be sticky.
He had trouble getting very excited about it. Without the laudanum, he knew he would have been all in a swivet. Of course, without the laudanum, he would also have been in agony. As things were, he was merely in pain—and the drug laid a soft, muffling cloud over whatever else he might have felt.
When he got to Joseph's headquarters, he discovered Leonidas the Priest and Roast-Beef William there ahead of him. They both towered over Joseph the Gamecock, who was gesturing animatedly as they talked outside. Bell descended from the buggy and hitched his way over to the other generals.
"Good day," Joseph the Gamecock said with a courtly bow.
"Good day, sir," Bell answered. "What is this I hear of attack? Do we still recall the word?"
"We do indeed," Joseph said. "I have always said I would smite the stinking southrons if I saw the chance. Now I do believe they are giving it to us, and I intend to use it."
"You had better tell me more, sir," Bell said, blinking. "This is extremely surprising." This is nothing like what I've told King Geoffrey in my letters, he thought. What will he do if he hears of the Army of Franklin attacking? What will he do if he hears of it attacking successfully? Whatever it is, it will be nothing that works to my advantage.
"I shall be delighted, Lieutenant General," Joseph the Gamecock said. "It appears that General Hesmucet is detaching some large part of his force for another move north around our flank. If we wait till that part has made its move, I think we can strike what's left with some hope of victory."
"Looks that way to me, too," Roast-Beef William said.
"I am dubious about the whole proposition," Leonidas the Priest declared. "I think it may be nothing but a trap, designed to lure us from our entrenchments so that the enemy may fall upon us."
Bell could have kissed the older man. Now he wouldn't be the only one speaking up against the whole idea. "I think Leonidas may have a point," he said. "I've had no reports of the southrons' moving north again come to my ears."
"You can ride out to the front line and see for yourself," Joseph the Gamecock said in some—more than some—exasperation. "Bell, you have been agitating for an attack ever since I took command of the Army of Franklin. How is it that, now that I propose one, you have not the stomach for it?"
"I want to attack with some hope of victory, sir," Bell replied. I want to attack when it's my idea, not yours. But he couldn't say that to the general commanding.
The general commanding, by his sniff, had no trouble figuring it out regardless of whether Bell actually said it. "You have a certain amount of trouble with subordination, don't you, Lieutenant General?"
"Duke Edward of Arlington never thought so, sir," Bell said stiffly.
"Duke Edward of Arlington gives men more leeway than most officers are in the habit of doing," Joseph retorted. "When I give you an order, I expect it to be obeyed. Have you got that?"
"Yes, sir," Bell said, holding in his rage. "I have failed in no obedience." And that was true, so far as the campaign itself went. Subordination, now, that was a different question—and Joseph the Gamecock didn't know how different an answer it had.
"All right, then," Joseph said. "I want all three of you to prepare your men for an attack tomorrow morning."
"Yes, sir," Roast-Beef William said. He asked no questions. He did as he was told. Joseph the Gamecock would never complain about his subordination.
Leonidas the Priest turned sorrowful eyes on the general commanding. "I fear the Lion God does not smile on this enterprise," the hierophant said. "The omens are not good. And without the gods' backing, where are we?"
"On our own in the world," Joseph the Gamecock said, fixing Leonidas with a glare like a flying crossbow quarrel. "I reverence the gods, holy sir—don't get me wrong about that. But until I hear them speak in my own ears, I have to make my choices about what to do. I have, and I am."
"May the Lion God not smite you for your arrogance, sir," Leonidas said. "I shall pray for his forbearance."
"Maybe we would do better to send out scouting forces come morning, to see if the southrons really did shift some large part of their host," Bell said.
Joseph threw his hands in the air. "By all the gods, gentlemen, how can I hope to attack when two of my three wing commanders think I'd be making a mistake to do so? And then King Geoffrey will blame me for not being aggressive enough."
You haven't been aggressive enough, Bell thought. You may try to make up for it now, but you would have done better to strike at the southrons from the start.
"I am an obedient man, sir," Leonidas the Priest said. "If you order me to send my soldiers forward, I shall do so, regardless of my own personal feelings as to the wisdom of the order."
"No, no, no, no." Joseph the Gamecock shook his head. "If we attack, we should put all our force, all our spirit, into it. Otherwise, we might as well not do it at all." He swung his gaze back toward Bell. "Lieutenant General!"
"Yes, sir!" Bell said loudly.
"If you make this probing attack of yours and discover the enemy before you is weak, will you advance against him at all hazards?"
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," Bell replied.
"All right, then," Joseph the Gamecock said. "Go ahead and do it. If the foe proves as weak as I expect, put everything you have into the blow."
"Yes, sir," Bell said for the third time. "If I may make so bold as to tell you, sir, you don't need to say that to me."
"All right," Joseph said, also repeating himself. "I know you strike hard when you strike. I hadn't thought getting you to strike would be so much trouble, though." He pointed to Roast-Beef William and Leonidas the Priest in turn. "Have your men ready to move, too. If Bell's attack shows the southrons to be as weak as I think they are, I'll want to hit them every which way at once."
"Yes, sir," Roast-Beef William said. He would obey without complaining and without making anyone feel he was doing him a favor.
"Yes, sir," Leonidas the Priest echoed. He wasn't happy about it, and he didn't care who knew he wasn't happy.
Bell just nodded and made his slow way back to the buggy. He felt Joseph the Gamecock's eyes boring into him every step of the way, but didn't turn around to look at the commanding general. When he returned to his own smooth-floored headquarters, he sent runners to the brigades under his command, ordering them to ready themselves for battle.
"What's going on, sir?" Major Zibeon asked.
Briefly, Bell explained. "This isn't the best time or place for the attack," he finished, "but I must obey."
Zibeon nodded. "It may not be so bad as you think, sir," he said, something like enthusiasm on his usually sour face. "If Hesmucet really has detached some large part of his force for a flanking attack, we can punish the rest before the detached portion is able to come to its rescue."
"That is also Joseph the Gamecock's theory," Bell said. "How it will turn out in practice remains to be seen."
"I know you've been eager to attack, sir," his aide-de-camp said. "Now Count Joseph is giving you your chance."
I don't want Joseph giving me anything, Bell thought. I want to take for myself, and to do it with both hands. But he couldn't explain that to Zibeon; he didn't know where the major's ultimate loyalty lay. "I intend to do everything I can," he said, and thought he was telling the truth. Some of it, anyhow.
As Joseph had ordered, he sent his men forward against the southrons at first light the next morning. He went forward, too, tied onto his unicorn. He'd never yet ordered soldiers to advance without advancing at their head. He had no intention of changing his ways because he was mutilated, either. Major Zibeon did ride at his side, and that was a change—before his wounds, no one would have presumed to do any such thing.
As they pushed toward the main body of the southrons, they overran a few pickets and sentries and scouts wearing gray. A few others escaped and fled toward their encampment. "So far, so good," Zibeon said.
"Yes, so far." Lieutenant General Bell sounded suspicious. "I only hope we're not moving forward into a trap."
"Not much to trap us with, sir." His aide-de-camp waved to show what he meant. "Nothing but flat land except for those trees off to our left, and there aren't enough of them to hide anything very big."
"May the Lion God prove you right," Bell said piously. "I still think the southrons could cause us trouble if—"
Before he could go on, southron unicorn-riders galloped forth to challenge his host, which had advanced about a mile. Some of them shot crossbows at Bell's men. The rest served a handful of catapults on wheeled carriages. They flung a few firepots and shot long darts. Northerners who were hit cried out in pain.
Bell's eyes kept going to those trees on the flank. "I think they've got more engines hidden away in there," he said nervously. "We'd better not go any farther, or the shots from the flank will tear us to pieces."
"Sir, I don't think you're right," Major Zibeon said, "and even if you are, we can send men over there to clear them out."
"No, my mind's made up," Bell said. "We're going back to camp. I think Hesmucet's just lying in wait for us, and to the seven hells with me if I'll give him a victory on the cheap." He shouted for his trumpeters and ordered a withdrawal. Joseph the Gamecock had ordered a probe, and he'd given Joseph that much. He had no intention of giving the commanding general anything more.
Colonel Andy eyed the retreating northerners in some perplexity. "Why are they falling back?" he asked Lieutenant General George. "They might have done us a lot of harm if they'd kept coming."
"If I knew, I would tell you," Doubting George answered. "I'll tell you this, though: you're not wrong. We just dodged a crossbow quarrel there."
"Yes, sir," his adjutant agreed. "They came forward bold as you please, and in some numbers, too. You wouldn't have thought they had that much zing left in 'em."
"It doesn't do to count the northerners as licked too soon," George said. "General Guildenstern did that, and look what it got him."
"A command out on the eastern steppe fighting the blond savages." Colonel Andy shuddered. "No, thanks. That isn't what I want to have happen to my career."
"That isn't what anybody wants to have happen to his career," George said. "It's all very well when it's the only game in town, when we're at peace everywhere else. But when there's a real war to be fought, you'd better do everything you can to fight it."
"Isn't that the truth!" Colonel Andy said fervently. He was a colonel because of the war. As soon as it ended, he would return to his permanent captain's rank—and, very likely, to a dusty fortress out on the steppe. Doubting George's own prospects were rather better; he was a permanent brigadier as well as a brevet lieutenant general. But the battle to get a decent post once the fight with King Geoffrey's men was over might well prove as fierce as any struggle in this conflict.
It could be worse, he thought. When the war was over and won—if it was to be won—the officers who'd abandoned Detina and King Avram for treason and Grand Duke Geoffrey would, George assumed, be out of the army for good. He also assumed a good many of them would go up on crosses for abandoning Detina, but that would be King Avram's decision, not his.
He called for a runner. When one of the young messengers came up, he said, "My compliments to General Hesmucet, and the northerners' attack appears to have fizzled out like a candle using up the last of its tallow. We can strike at the enemy here, if he likes, to keep Joseph the Gamecock from shifting forces to meet our latest flanking move. Repeat that back, if you'd be so kind."
"Yes, sir," the messenger said, and did. At Doubting George's nod, he hurried away.
Hesmucet himself came riding back to George before the messenger returned. The commanding general looked over the ground. "Do you know what, Lieutenant General?" he said.
"No, sir. Tell me what," George said gravely.
"I'll do just that," Hesmucet said. "Here's what: you're a lucky son of a bitch. We're all lucky sons of bitches. If the traitors had pressed that attack, you might've been in a peck of trouble."
"That thought did cross my mind, yes, sir," George said. "But Lieutenant General Bell started to come at us and then seemed as though he changed his mind with his move half begun. Peculiar."
"Bell?" Hesmucet said. "Are you sure it was Bell? He's not in the habit of pulling back from an attack once he starts one. That bastard will press ahead come hells or high water, and he hits hard when he hits, too."
"It was Bell—no doubt about it," Doubting George replied. "The handful of prisoners we took are from regiments he commands, and some of our riders saw him up on his own unicorn. With the short stump he's got on that one leg, he's not a man you can easily mistake for anyone else."
"I won't say you're wrong, on account of you're gods-damned well right," Hesmucet said. "Even so, I can hardly believe it. What made him pull back?"
"You'd have to ask him, sir, because I don't know," George replied. "All we had in front of him was the screen of Hard-Riding Jimmy's unicorn-riders. I wish I'd been able to put some men and engines in amongst the trees on his flank"—he pointed in the direction from which the northerners had come—"but I didn't have time to move any. To tell you the truth, I didn't expect the traitors to come out of their works."
"Well, now we know they will—or they may, anyhow," Hesmucet said. "We'll have to be more careful." He made a sour face. "That means more entrenching, gods damn it. I hate it, but I see no way to escape it."
"So long as we win, sir, I'm not fussy about how," George told him.
The commanding general nodded. "That is well said. It is full of the generous spirit I've looked for in you—and, I must say, I've found. We may not love each other, Lieutenant General, but we manage to work together."
"That same thing had crossed my mind a time or two, sir." George stuck out his hand. General Hesmucet clasped it. George went on, "And what do you require of me now that Bell's men have withdrawn to their trenches?"
"Be ready to pursue them and to attack if you see the opportunity when they pull out of those trenches again," Hesmucet replied. "I do not think they can hold their position long, not with another flanking maneuver even now aimed at getting into their rear."
"Just as you say, sir." Doubting George saluted.
"We're going to lick these bastards, is what we're going to do," Hesmucet said. "False King Geoffrey says he has a kingdom. He may even think he has a kingdom. What he has is a hollow shell, and, once we show that, this thing he thinks he rules will shrivel up like a pricked bladder."
"Duke Edward will have something to say about that, too," George said.
"Duke Edward is a lucky son of a bitch. I don't even think he knows what a lucky son of a bitch he is," General Hesmucet said. "All the battlefields over in southern Parthenia are cramped together. The land between Georgetown and Nonesuch works for him, because it keeps Marshal Bart—and whoever else commanded against the Army of Southern Parthenia—from using our advantage in numbers to outmaneuver Duke Edward, to hold him with part of our force and get around him with the rest."
"Fighting Joseph tried that," George remarked. "All he got for his trouble was embarrassed at Viziersville."
"I know, but that was Fighting Joseph." Hesmucet made a dismissive gesture. "A real general who tried it would have done a hells of a lot better."
Doubting George looked around to make sure Fighting Joseph was nowhere nearby. He might have failed against Duke Edward of Arlington, but he remained a proud and touchy man. He also remained nowhere in sight, for which George was duly grateful. George said, "Marshal Bart isn't trying to outmaneuver Duke Edward."
"It surely doesn't look that way," Hesmucet agreed. "He fought him in the Jungle, not far from Viziersville, and then again, and again. He's going to head for Nonesuch and to hammer Duke Edward flat if he stands in the way long enough. As I said, he hasn't got the room to maneuver that I do."
"All very interesting, and none of it quite what I expected when this spring's fighting began," Doubting George said. "I thought you would be the one who banged straight ahead."
"I might, if I were facing Duke Edward. He's fond of coming out and slugging," Hesmucet replied. "Joseph the Gamecock is different. He takes these defensive positions and invites you to bloody your nose on them. I'm not the only one shaping this campaign, and that's worth remembering."
"You're right, sir, and I hadn't thought it through." George nodded respectfully to Hesmucet. Sure enough, as with Bart, there was more to the man than met the eye. "You and Duke Edward would add up to something different from you and Joseph the Gamecock."
Hesmucet nodded. "That's right. That's just right. And Joseph and Bart would be different from what Duke Edward and Bart are turning into. The commanders on both sides make things what they are. As a matter of fact, I don't mind this game of maneuver so much as I thought I would."
"Really?" George raised an eyebrow. "Why's that, sir?"
The smile Hesmucet smiled was particularly nasty. "Because it lets me move through country that's never been fought over before. This far north, the barons and earls and counts supposed they were safe. They didn't think any southron army could ever come all the way up here. Now they're seeing they were wrong. There's no place in Geoffrey's so-called kingdom we can't reach. Let's see how much fight's left in the traitors once they start to realize that down in their guts."
As if to underscore the point he'd been making, a couple of dozen blonds—escaped serfs, every one of them, men, women, and children—came by, shepherded along by a couple of gray-uniformed southron soldiers. They were a couple of dozen people who wouldn't labor for their liege lords any more, and who would do useful work for King Avram's army. Doubting George nodded thoughtfully once more. He said, "You're fighting against Geoffrey's whole would-be kingdom, not just against Joseph the Gamecock, then."
"Well, of course," Hesmucet replied.
But it wasn't of course, not to George. It probably wouldn't have been of course to any general who'd fought before this war began, either. Wars usually aimed at defeating the enemy's army, not at smashing his whole kingdom flat. No, Hesmucet and Bart weren't playing by the old rules.
"Fighting won't be the same after this," Doubting George observed.
"I don't want there to be any more fighting in the Kingdom of Detina after this," Hesmucet said. "I want everybody to get the idea that it is one kingdom and it will always be one kingdom, and if I have to kill everybody who doesn't get that idea, or make him starve, or burn down his fancy manor and take away his serfs, I will do any of those things, and I won't lose a single, solitary minute's worth of sleep over any of it."
"You intend to be persuasive, you say." George's voice was dry.
"Gods-damn right I do," Hesmucet replied, taking his words at face value. "I want the traitors licked. I don't want them thinking, Well, we almost won this time. Maybe we ought to try again. If you get into a tavern fight with a man and you knock him down, you're always smart to kick him a couple of times afterwards. That way, he doesn't think the fight was close. He bloody well knows you licked him."
As a younger man, Doubting George had found himself in a few—perhaps more than a few—tavern fights of his own. The ones he'd won, he'd mostly followed Hesmucet's rule. The few he'd lost . . . Of itself, his hand rubbed his ribcage. Plenty of other tough young men thought the same way. He remembered boots thudding home, things he'd tried to keep out of his memory for years.
Hesmucet clapped him on the shoulder. "We are going to whip the northerners here, and I'll tell you why."
"I'm all ears," George said solemnly.
"Because Marthasville ties Joseph the Gamecock down, that's why," the general commanding said. "He has no choice: that's the place he's got to defend. If he doesn't, he might as well not be in the field. And that means, sooner or later, I'm going to flank him once too often. He'll either have to give me Marthasville or come out and fight. Either way, I'll have what I want."
"Gods grant it be so," George said.
"Don't talk that way around Major Alva," Hesmucet told him. "He'll give you plenty of reasons to think the gods don't much care one way or the other. Sort of makes you understand why they used to burn wizards every now and again." He walked off, whistling.
Doubting George had no intention of talking to Major Alva. Clever young mages were useful creatures. But, because they had a lot of the answers, they often thought and behaved as if they had them all. George was a profoundly conservative man. He'd been too conservative to leave Detina with his province and with Grand Duke Geoffrey: to his way of thinking, that there had always been one kingdom was the best argument that there should always be one kingdom. His belief in the gods and their potency was likewise deep and sincere. He didn't care to listen to a whippersnapper who would try to unsettle that belief.
If he were to try too hard, he would probably end up short a couple of teeth, George thought. I'd kick him when he was down, too. He didn't worry for a moment what a mage might do to him.
He called to Colonel Andy, who'd discreetly stepped out of earshot while he conferred with General Hesmucet. "Be ready to move forward at my orders or at the commanding general's," he said. "I don't think the traitors will trouble us much more with attacks of their own, not hereabouts."
"Yes, sir," his adjutant said.
"And move some of our engines forward, too," George added. "If we do have to assault the enemy's works, we'll want to make this, that, and the other thing come down on his head."
"Yes, sir," Andy repeated, rather more enthusiastically this time.
"Don't worry, Colonel," Doubting George said. "As long as we keep hammering at the enemy, we'll break him sooner or later."
"Yes, sir. That's what General Guildenstern said, too, sir, as you pointed out not so long ago."
Lieutenant General George winced. It wasn't quite what he'd pointed out, but it was pretty close. I've been skewered, he thought. Which of us is supposed to be the one who doubts things? I was under the impression it was me, but I'll start wondering if Andy keeps that up.
Joseph the Gamecock put his hands on his hips and glared from Lieutenant General Bell to Leonidas the Priest and back again. "Which of us," he asked Bell, "is supposed to be the one who wants to slug it out with the enemy, and which the one who would sooner fight positionally? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had thought you owned the former role and I the latter. I will start wondering if you keep this up, though."
"I am sorry, sir," Bell said. "I truly am, but I do not see how we can hold our position east of Fat Mama if the southrons bring up their siege engines to bear on our works, as they are now in the process of doing."
"I must agree," Leonidas the Priest said, a lugubrious frown on his face.
"Must you?" Joseph snapped. Leonidas' nod was lugubrious, too. Joseph rounded on Roast-Beef William. "And what about you? Are you also of the opinion that we need to take flight?"
"No, sir," Roast-Beef William replied. "If the southrons come at us, I expect we can beat them back."
"Well, gods be praised!" Joseph exclaimed. He did a couple of mincing, mocking steps of a triumphal dance. "Someone who hasn't got his headquarters in his hindquarters, as that fool of a southron said he did a couple of years ago back in the province of Parthenia."
"Sir, I resent the imputation," Bell said.
Resent it? You don't even know what the hells it means, Joseph the Gamecock thought sourly. "You were all for attack before, Lieutenant General," he said. "You were for it when I was against it. It gave you something to complain about, in that I wasn't doing what you wanted. But when I asked you for an attack, what did I get? Excuses, nothing else but."
"Did you want me to send my brave men forward to be slaughtered?" Bell demanded. "The enemy's siege engines on our flank would have wrecked my entire wing. Anyone on the spot would have seen the same."
"By all I've heard, Lieutenant General, you were the only one who had even the slightest hint of the presence of these perhaps mythical catapults," Joseph said. "No matter what damage you may have feared, the actual damage you suffered from them was nil."
"I fear nothing," Bell rumbled. From most men, that would have been a brag or a lie. From him, Joseph the Gamecock believed it. It did not, however, necessarily make things better rather than worse.
"We've already yielded the southrons too much land," Roast-Beef William said. "If we have to leave Fat Mama, they hold most of the southern half of Peachtree Province."
"If we hold our ground here and are overwhelmed, what then?" Leonidas the Priest returned. "In that case, not only is the southern half of the province lost, but also the army that could defend the rest."
Joseph the Gamecock felt like tearing his thinning hair. "How, pray tell, is the enemy going to overwhelm us here?" he said. "These works are as strong as a swarm of serfs could make them."
"Not strong enough," Bell insisted. "If the southrons move forward and put their catapults on our flanks, they'll make us sorry we ever chose to fight here."
"We'll be sorrier if we leave," Joseph said. Roast-Beef William nodded, his ruddy face even redder than usual. But both Bell and Leonidas the Priest solemnly shook their heads. Joseph felt like kicking them. "What am I supposed to do?" he cried. "I want to stand my ground, but how can I possibly when two of my wing commanders think I would be courting disaster if I tried?"
"I was not the one who ordered us here to Fat Mama," Bell said.
"No, but you and this half-witted hierophant were also the ones who told me I didn't dare attack the southrons, and by all the signs you were wrong about that," Joseph the Gamecock growled.
"I am not half-witted!" Leonidas cried, turning almost as red as Roast-Beef William usually was.
"Quarter-witted, then," Joseph said with mock graciousness. Leonidas took it for the real thing for a moment, which went a long way toward proving Joseph's point. Then the hierophant of the Lion God bellowed in fresh outrage.
"Sir, you did not pick a good site to defend," Lieutenant General Bell said.
"You would have liked it a lot better had you picked it yourself," Joseph said.
Instead of answering, Bell drew from his pocket the little bottle of laudanum he always carried with him. He pulled the cork with his teeth, drank, and put the bottle away again. That's where he gets his brains, Joseph the Gamecock thought. At the start of the campaign, he'd admired Bell for his courage in staying in the field even with his dreadful wounds. Nowadays . . .
"If you feel the rigors of service in the Army of Franklin are excessive, Lieutenant General, you may be sure I would be of the opinion that your retirement would in no way affect your honor," he said in hopeful tones.
"I have not the slightest intention of retiring," Bell replied peevishly. "I aim to go forth and conquer the foe."
"Do you?" Joseph couldn't resist the gibe. "There he was, right in front of you, just waiting to be struck. You advanced a mile against no opposition, discovered catapults where no one else suspected them, and retired forthwith to your works. A less than heroic encounter, if I may say so."
"We can hold here," Roast-Beef William said, "providing we have the will to do so."
"Provided," Joseph corrected. William stiffened. Joseph realized he might have done better than to engage in literary criticism; William was on his side, even if imperfectly grammatical.
The wing commander had also accurately summed things up—if they had the will, they could hold their ground here. Joseph the Gamecock looked from one of his subordinates to another. Roast-Beef William had that will, or at least willingness. Leonidas the Priest? What was left of Bell? Joseph shook his head. Despair threatened to choke him.
"If we leave Fat Mama, where will we go?" he asked plaintively.
Bell glowered at him. "Where would you have gone, sir," —he turned the title of respect into one of reproach—"after the southrons flanked us out of here?"
Joseph the Gamecock glared back. It was, unfortunately, a sharp question. And, however much Joseph hated to admit it, it was a question with an answer, for he'd contemplated it himself. "We would have to move up to Whole Mackerel. With the hills around that place, it makes another good spot to try to slow the southrons and to hurt them."
"Well, then," Leonidas the Priest said, as if that settled everything.
It didn't, not so far as Joseph the Gamecock was concerned. "Don't you see?" he said, something that felt much too much like desperation in his voice. "By all the gods, don't you see? Shifting our position because the enemy forces us to do it is one thing. Shifting our position because some of our officers have a case of the collywobbles is something else again."
"Sound strategy dictates that we pull out of Fat Mama before disaster befalls us here," Leonidas intoned, as if chanting a prayer to the Lion God.
The god might have heard him with favor. He infuriated Joseph. "Sound strategy?" the general commanding the Army of Franklin exclaimed, his voice breaking like a youth's. "Sound strategy? What in the seven hells do you know about sound strategy, sirrah? You wouldn't recognize a sound strategy if it danced up and pissed on your boot."
That was the opinion of practically every officer who'd ever tried to command Leonidas the Priest. It was a matter on which Joseph the Gamecock and the now-departed Count Thraxton the Braggart actually agreed—one of the very few matters on which they actually agreed, as neither was much in the habit of agreeing with anyone else. Joseph was glad to have the men Leonidas had led into his army. He would have been even gladder to have them had they come without the general at their head.
"I shall pray to the Lion God for your enlightenment, sir," Leonidas said now. "Either he will give it or he will rend you for your presumption."
"I'm using my head, or trying to," Joseph snapped. He felt as if he were using it to pound it against a stone wall. "If thinking be impiety, it's no wonder you have a reputation as a pillar of the gods."
Leonidas bowed and strode off, his scarlet vestments flapping around his ankles. I hope you trip and break your neck, Joseph the Gamecock thought. But his prayer went unanswered. Of course it goes unanswered. I'm impious. Leonidas just said so. That must make it true.
Lieutenant General Bell said, "Stay in Fat Mama, sir. If you want to see your army destroyed without the slightest chance of striking back, by all means stay." And he hitched away, too.
"What can I do?" Joseph demanded of Roast-Beef William. "I think we can hold here. You think we can hold here."
"But we can't hold here if those two don't think we can," his remaining wing commander said, which was all too likely to be true. With a resigned shrug, Roast-Beef William went on, "Maybe they'll like things better up at Whole Mackerel."
"Not likely," Joseph the Gamecock said. But he tasted defeat. "My own wing commanders have beaten me worse than the southrons ever managed. Let it be as you say, William. We'll pack up shop and shift to Whole Mackerel. Maybe things will go better there." He didn't believe it, not for a moment.
And he hated drafting the orders that moved the Army of Franklin from as yet unchallenged works and sent it farther north yet. He hated even more watching the men in blue abandon those field fortifications. Some of them marched off to the north. Others boarded glideway carpets for the trip up to Whole Mackerel. Sorcerers had dreamt for ages of making carpets that would fly anywhere at the wave of a hand and a word of command. Glideways were as close as they'd come: carpets that would travel a few inches above the ground along very specific routes. They could carry men and goods as fast as a horse galloped, and they never tired.
Joseph wished he could say the same. He was very weary indeed as he rode out of Fat Mama for Whole Mackerel. It wasn't so much a weariness of the body as a weariness of the spirit. He'd done everything he knew how to do to keep the southrons from turning or overrunning his position at Fat Mama, and everything he'd done had gone for nothing.
And King Geoffrey will hear of this latest retreat, and whom will he blame? Me, of course, Joseph thought gloomily. If there is ever any chance to blame me for anything, his Majesty is not the man to waste it.
He left behind a screen of unicorn-riders to destroy what the Army of Franklin couldn't take away with it and to hold off the southrons till his abandonment of Fat Mama was complete. Brigadier Spinner, who commanded the unicorn-riders, was competent but uninspired. He was plenty good enough for the task Joseph had set him. Even so, his presence on the field left Joseph unhappy.
I wish Ned of the Forest were here, instead of over by the Great River, Joseph thought unhappily. I wish he were harrying Hesmucet's supply line. A glideway Ned attacks isn't any good to anyone for a long time to come.
One of the reasons Ned was in virtual exile, Joseph had heard, was that he'd all but challenged Thraxton the Braggart to a duel after the battle by the River of Death. A good many northern men had felt like killing Thraxton at one time or another. Few of them found the nerve to come right out and say so. Ned of the Forest might not be a gentleman, but he'd never lacked for nerve.
Joseph the Gamecock looked back over his shoulder. Sure enough, there was the buggy carrying Lieutenant General Bell. Joseph muttered something uncomplimentary. Bell had come with the same reputation for vigorous fighting as Ned, even if no one ever claimed he made much of a tactician. But he wouldn't attack when Joseph really needed aggression from him. And he didn't think the Army of Franklin could have held Fat Mama. What did that say about him?
He's been wounded too many times, Joseph thought, as charitably as he could. He takes too much laudanum. It clouds his judgment. Of course, Leonidas the Priest hadn't thought the northern army could hold at Fat Mama, either. But what did that prove? Joseph the Gamecock let out a bitter snort of laughter. Nothing much, and everyone knows it. If Leonidas thinks something can't be done, that usually proves it can.
Too late now, though. Fat Mama lay behind the Army of Franklin, as did Caesar, as did Borders. Ahead, Whole Mackerel. After that, what? The Army of Franklin was tied to Marthasville, and Joseph knew it painfully well. Hesmucet could maneuver as he would. Joseph couldn't. He had to shield the town from the southron host. Hesmucet had to know that as well as he did, too.
He had to, but could he? I don't know. He was honest enough to admit as much to himself. However honest it was, the admission did nothing to reassure him. Did King Geoffrey send me here to watch me fail? he wondered. Did he send me here in hope of finding an excuse to put me back on the shelf for good? To the hells with him. Gods damn me if I intend to give him one.