Advance and Retreat

XII

“Tell it to me again,” Ned of the Forest said. “I want to make sure I’ve got it straight.”

“All right, Lord Ned.” The man who’d come north from southern Dothan nodded. He looked weary. He had the right to look that way, too: he’d traveled hard, and dodged the southrons’ patrols till he finally reached country King Geoffrey’s men ruled. “I seen them southron sons of bitches ride out. They ain’t that far in back of me, neither. If they wasn’t looping around to hit you some funny way or other, reckon they would’ve got here ahead of me.”

“Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men, you’re talking about,” Ned said, to nail it down tight. “All of Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men.”

“That’s about the size of it.” The fellow who’d brought the news nodded again. “Hells of a lot of bastards in gray uniforms, every gods-damned one of ’em riding a white unicorn.” He didn’t even seem to notice his accidental near-rhyme.

Ned of the Forest wasn’t inclined to play literary critic, either. “That’s not good news,” he said-an understatement if ever there was one. Hard-Riding Jimmy’s force of unicorn-riders badly outnumbered his own. To make things worse, every southron carried one of those quick-shooting crossbows that made him much more deadly than anyone with an ordinary weapon. Ned plucked at his chin beard, then asked, “They have any footsoldiers with ’em?”

“I don’t know for certain,” the man from Dothan replied. “Only thing I can tell you is, I didn’t see none. Just riders-lots and lots of riders.”

“Lots and lots of riders,” Ned echoed unhappily. “They were heading for the Franklin River? Aiming to cross it and get farther up into Dothan?”

“Can’t tell you for certain,” the other man said. “All I know for certain is, them buggers is on the move. If you don’t stop ’em, Lord Ned, who the hells is going to?”

“Nobody,” Ned answered with a mournful sigh. “Nobody at all.” He nodded to the informant. “I do thank you for bringing me the news.” He wished the news hadn’t happened, so the other man wouldn’t have needed to bring it. Such wishes, though, were written in water. Ned took a certain not quite modest pride in realizing as much. Hard-Riding Jimmy’s move was real. Now Ned had to find some way to stop it.

He knew where Jimmy would be heading: toward the manufactories in Hayek and the other nearby towns. If the southrons could seize them or wreck them, where would King Geoffrey’s men in this part of the realm get the crossbows and quarrels and engines and firepots they needed to carry on the fight against the southrons? We won’t get ’em anywhere, in that case, Ned thought. And if we don’t, then it’s really all over.

By noon the next day, his own force of unicorn-riders was hurrying west out of Great River Province. Richard the Haberdasher had promised to send footsoldiers after them. Ned had thanked him without believing a word of it. For one thing, Ned doubted the crossbowmen and pikemen who’d survived the advance to Ramblerton and the retreat from it were in any sort of fighting shape even now. For another, they were bound to get to Dothan too late to do much good.

Ned wondered if he would get to Dothan too late to do much good. In winter, roads turned into quagmires. That worked a hardship on both sides, for it also slowed Hard-Riding Jimmy. But streaming away from Hayek and the other towns full of manufactories was a great flood of refugees who clogged the roads even worse than the mud did. The people of Dothan knew Jimmy was coming, and didn’t want to get in his way.

“Bastard’s burning everything in his path, same as that other bugger done did over in Peachtree,” one man said. Others fleeing the southrons nodded, adding their own tales of horror.

Being who and what he was, Ned of the Forest needed longer than he might have to notice one thing about the flood of refugees: they were almost all Detinans, with hardly any blonds. This part of Dothan, though, held about as many blonds as it did ordinary Detinans. Ned wondered what that meant, but not for long. It meant the serfs were either staying put and waiting on the land for Jimmy to sever their ties to their liege lords, or else they were fleeing toward Jimmy and not toward Ned.

Attached to his command, he had a wagon train staffed by several dozen serfs. They’d been with him since the earliest days of the war. Some of the blonds were men Ned had caught, but who’d appealed to him because of the way they’d escaped or the way they handled themselves. Others had sought him out: men who wanted an overlord, perhaps, but not the one they’d got by custom.

They’d done a lot of things for Ned: carried supplies, doctored, foraged, and even occasionally picked up a crossbow and taken a few potshots at the southrons. He’d promised to cut their bonds to the land and to him when the war ended. “Well, boys,” he said now, “we’ve been through a lot together these past four years, haven’t we?”

“Sure have, Lord Ned,” Darry rumbled. Ned of the Forest was a big man. Darry stood half a head taller, and was broader through the shoulders. The blond had not an ounce of fat on him anywhere; he was hard as a boulder. Several other men nodded.

“You know I promised you I’d set you up as yeoman farmers when the war was done if you stuck with me till then,” Ned went on. Before the war, blond yeomen had been exceedingly rare in the north, but there had been a few.

His crew of blonds nodded again, this time more or less in unison. They weren’t his serfs, not in any formal sense of the word. He had no noble blood; he owned no estates to which serfs were tied. But for all practical purposes, he was their liege lord, and they gave him more loyalty than most real nobles ever got. They could have fled or betrayed him to the southrons countless times. They could have, but they hadn’t.

Clever Arris raised an eyebrow. Ned nodded for him to speak. Arris was only about half Darry’s size, but had twice his brains. If he’d been born a Detinan, he might have made a general himself. Instead, he worried about unicorns and asses and scrounging-and about feathering his own nest, which he’d done quite nicely. Now he said, “If you grant us land, Lord Ned, will the grant be good?”

“What? You reckon Lord Ned’d cheat us?” Anger darkened Darry’s face. He clenched a massive fist. “I ought to break your face for you.”

Ned held up a hand. “It’s all right, Darry. I’m not mad.” Arris, he noted, hadn’t flinched. That might have meant he’d figured Ned would protect him. Or it might have meant he’d stashed a knife in his boot. Ned wouldn’t have been surprised either way. The commander of unicorn-riders continued, “He means, if I grant you land and the gods-damned southrons win, will they recognize what I’ve done?”

“If the gods-damned southrons win…” Even now, Darry’s frown showed he had trouble imagining that. Being Ned’s partisans, he and his comrades were stalwart partisans of the north, too.

“Will they win, Lord Ned? Can they?” a blond named Brank asked. He sounded as if he didn’t want to believe it, either.

“They can. They probably will,” Ned answered. “But I think the grants will be good anyhow. They’re on lands up near Luxor that I owned before the fighting started. I didn’t get ’em while Geoffrey was King.” He feared nothing done while Geoffrey ruled in the north would stand now that Avram was returning to power here. Then he added, “And you boys are blonds. The southrons’ll likely be happy with you on account of that. You may even have it easier than if you were ordinary Detinans, in fact.”

Darry’s rugged, blunt-featured face furrowed into another frown as he tried to imagine having it easier than a Detinan. Several of the other blonds laughed to show what they thought of the idea. Arris said, “Don’t bet on it, Lord Ned.”

Ned of the Forest shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know for sure. But the reason I’m telling you is, we’re moving against Hard-Riding Jimmy now. He’s liable to lick us. Hells, he’s liable to smash us.” He’d never said anything like that before; the words hurt. “If you want to take your grants now and head for Luxor, I’ll give ’em to you. Nobody’s ever going to say you boys didn’t meet your end of the bargain.”

Arris said, “I’ll stick, Lord Ned. I reckon I’ve got a better chance of getting my land if you’re there to say I deserve it.” One by one, the rest of the blonds nodded. Arris had more brains than the others, and they had brains enough to know it.

But did the sly serf see everything that might happen? “They could put a bolt through my brisket tomorrow, you know. Or they could wait till the war’s over, call me a real traitor, and nail me to a cross.”

All the blonds shook their heads. “Oh, no, Lord Ned,” Darry said. “Nothing like that’d ever happen to you.” None of them seemed to think it was possible. Ned wished he didn’t. To the blonds, he was something not far from a god, or perhaps from a demon: something more than an ordinary man, anyhow. The scars he bore proved crossbow quarrels thought differently, though. And King Avram’s men wanted him dead; General Hesmucet had growled there could be no peace in eastern Franklin till he was. If they won the war-no, when they won the war-what would stop them from making their wishes come true? Nothing he could see.

He bowed to the blonds with as much courtesy as if they were King Geoffrey and his courtiers. There were times when he respected them much more than Geoffrey and that crowd of useless parasites in Nonesuch. “Thank you kindly, boys,” he said. “We’ll all do what we can to come out of this in one piece, that’s all.”

His riders met those of Hard-Riding Jimmy outside the town of Hayek. That was a town King Geoffrey had to hold. Both sides fought as dragoons, not as unicorn-riders in the strict sense of the term. They used their mounts to get where they were were going quickly, but they fought on foot. Scouts rode back to Ned, worried looks on their faces. “He’s got a hells of a lot of troopers with him, Lord Ned,” one of them said.

Ned of the Forest already knew that. He saw how long and thick a column of men Hard-Riding Jimmy led. “We’ve licked three times as many as we’ve got before,” he said, which was true. “We can do it again.”

He hoped he sounded as if he believed that. He wasn’t so sure, though. Jimmy’s riders had the bit between their teeth. They’d tasted victory, and they liked it. And they had those quick-shooting crossbows no northern artisan had been able to match. That made their effective numbers even greater than their actual ones.

At Ned’s shouted commands, his soldiers took the best defensive position they could. He’d never been able to spend men with the lavish prodigality of a commander of footsoldiers. Now, especially, every man he lost was one he could never have back again. Jimmy, on the other hand, looked to have been substantially reinforced since the battle in front of Ramblerton.

The southrons stormed forward, plainly hoping to overwhelm Ned’s men by weight of numbers and by the blizzard of bolts they put in the air. It didn’t happen; Ned’s veterans had been through too many fights to fail to take advantage of the ground. They gave back a murderous volley that knocked the southrons onto their heels.

“That’s the way!” Ned shouted as his troopers frantically reloaded. He wondered whether the southrons would try to rush his position again. He hoped so. If they did, he could keep killing them by swarms.

But, having been repulsed once, they paused out of crossbow range. Ned could almost see their officers’ surprise. Oh, they might have been saying as they pointed toward his line and talked among themselves. These northerners still have some fight left in them. After everything we saw down in Franklin, who could have imagined that?

Fighting flared again half an hour later. Ned would have liked to go forward himself and drive Hard-Riding Jimmy’s men while they were still shaken by their reverse. He would have liked to, but he didn’t dare. If his men left the safety of their shooting pits and trenches, the southrons’ quick-shooting crossbows would pincushion them. He knew it, and hated the knowledge.

When the southrons tried his position again, they treated it with the respect of men who knew they would be in for a brawl. He could have done without the compliment. Hard-Riding Jimmy was as lavishly supplied with engines as he was with men and unicorns. Firepots flew through the air trailing smoke. They burst in and around Ned’s lines. Men screamed when flames poured over them. Repeating crossbows sent endless streams of quarrels hissing through the air just at breastwork height. Any man who stuck his head up to shoot was asking to take a bolt in the face. Captain Watson answered back as best he could, but was able to do little to suppress the enemy’s shooting.

Under cover of that bombardment, Jimmy’s troopers advanced again. This time, they came in loose order, moving up in short rushes and then dropping to take advantage of whatever cover the ground offered. Watching them, Ned cursed. They knew what they were doing, all right. And they could do it, too.

And then, as the shooting heated up, a soldier from the left came dashing up to Ned. “They’ve got a column nipping around our flank, Lord Ned!” he cried. “They’re mounted and riding like hells. If they hit us from the side or behind, it’ll be the second day at Ramblerton all over again.”

“Gods damn it!” Ned of the Forest shouted. But, however much he cursed, he could see the dust the enemy unicorn-riders were raising. The messenger was right. If they got where they wanted to go, they could wreck his army. He said what he had to say: “Fall back! Fall back, you bastards! We can’t hold ’em here!”

If his men couldn’t hold the southrons here, they couldn’t hold Hayek, either. And if the north lost Hayek, another big log thudded onto the pyre of King Geoffrey’s hopes. Ned swore again, in anger at least half aimed at himself. He’d had a good notion this would happen when he began the campaign. Now it was here, and the end of everything looked closer by the day.

The scryer who came up to Doubting George had the sense to wait to be noticed. George took his own sweet time, but finally nodded to the man in the gray robe. “Yes? And what exciting news have you got for me today?”

“Sir, I just got word from Hard-Riding Jimmy’s scryer,” the mage replied. “He’s taken Hayek and burnt it to the ground.”

“What? Hard-Riding Jimmy’s scryer has done that? What a remarkable fellow he must be.”

“No, no, no!” Doubting George’s scryer started to explain, then sent the general commanding a reproachful look. “You’re having me on, sir.”

“Would I do such a thing?” George said. “Heaven forfend!”

“Er, yes, sir,” the scryer said warily. “But isn’t that good news? Hard-Riding Jimmy licked Ned of the Forest-licked him high, wide, and handsome-and he took Hayek, and now he’s heading on up toward Clift. Isn’t it grand?”

“Well, to the hells with me if I don’t want to see Clift burnt to the ground,” Doubting George said. Few men who backed King Avram would have said anything else. Clift was where Grand Duke Geoffrey put a crown on his head and started calling himself King Geoffrey. If that didn’t make the capital of Dothan deserve whatever happened to it, George couldn’t think of anything that would.

The scryer waited to see if George would have anything more to say. When the commanding general didn’t, the young man in the gray robe shrugged and walked away. George said something then. He said several somethings, in fact, all of them pungent and all of them low-voiced so no one but him could hear them.

Indeed, Hard-Riding Jimmy was doing wonderful things-as an independent commander. John the Lister’s wing was going to help throw logs on the pyre in the west-under Hesmucet’s command. Another couple of brigades that had fought well in front of Ramblerton were now marching on Shell-under the command of Brigadier Marcus the Tall.

Doubting George did some more muttering. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said. He’d saved Avram’s hopes in the east with his stand at the fight by the River of Death. He’d smashed Lieutenant General Bell in front of Ramblerton, wrecked the Army of Franklin beyond hope of rescue or repair, murdered false King Geoffrey’s chances east of the mountains… and what had he got for it? His command pruned like a potted plant, and very little else.

Colonel Andy came up to him. George set his teeth. Andy was going to be sympathetic. George could tell, just by the way his adjutant carried himself; by the way he pursed his lips; even by the way he took a deep breath and then let it out, as if he stood by a sickbed and didn’t want to talk too loud.

“You’ll have heard, I suppose?” Andy said.

“Oh, yes.” Doubting George nodded. “Hard-Riding Jimmy’s scryer has gone and done great things.”

Andy frowned. “His scryer, sir? I don’t understand.”

“Never mind,” George said. “But isn’t it remarkable how a man becomes a genius-a paladin-the instant he escapes my command?”

“What’s remarkable,” Andy said, swelling up in righteous wrath, “is how Marshal Bart keeps nibbling away at your command. Remarkable and disgusting, if anyone wants to know what I think.”

No one did-no one who mattered, anyhow. Doubting George knew as much. Colonel Andy surely did, too. The only opinion that counted was Bart’s, and Bart didn’t want George in charge of anything much any more. King Avram could have overruled Bart, but Avram hadn’t raised up a Marshal of Detina to go around overruling him afterwards.

“With me or without me, Colonel, we are going to whip the traitors,” George said. “I console myself with that.”

Colonel Andy nodded. “Yes, sir. We are. But you ought to play a bigger part. You’ve earned the right, by the Lion God’s talons.”

“I think I have, too.” Doubting George sighed. “Marshal Bart doesn’t, and he and King Avram are the only ones who matter. Bart thinks I’m slow because I waited for all my men before I hit Bell and the Army of Franklin. I think I was just doing what I had to do. And we won, gods damn it.”

“That’s right, sir. We sure did.” Colonel Andy still had plenty of confidence in George. The only trouble was, Colonel Andy’s confidence didn’t matter. Bart’s did. And Bart had decided other men could do a better job. He was the Marshal of Detina. He had the right to do that. And if George didn’t care for it, what could he do? Nothing. Not a single, solitary thing.

“Baron Logan the Black,” George muttered. At least he’d been spared that humiliation. To be ousted by a man who wasn’t even a professional soldier… But it hadn’t happened. He had gone forward. He had won. He had got no credit for it. Nor, by all appearances, would he ever.

He found out exactly how true that was at supper. He’d just sat down to a big plate of spare ribs (though he doubted the pig they’d come from had thought them spares) when a scryer came in and said, “Sir, Marshal Bart wants to speak to you right away.”

“He would.” Doubting George didn’t want to speak to the Marshal of Detina. What a mere lieutenant general wanted in such circumstances mattered not at all. “Well, run along and tell him I’m coming.” He cast a last longing glance at the spare ribs before heading off to the scryers’ pavilion.

There was Bart’s image, staring out of a crystal ball. Bart wasn’t an impressive man to look at. In a crowd, he tended to disappear. But no one could deny he had a driving sense of purpose, a refusal to admit he could be defeated, that had served Detina well. “Good evening, Lieutenant General,” he said now when he spotted George. “How are you?”

“Hungry, sir, if you want to know the truth,” George answered. “What can I do for you at suppertime?”

If the barb bothered Bart-if Bart even noticed it was a barb-he gave no sign. He said, “I want you to move your force to Wesleyton in western Franklin as soon as is practicable. The less delay the better. You must be in place there in two weeks’ time.”

“Move the force I have left, you mean,” Doubting George said.

“Yes, that’s right,” Bart agreed, again ignoring the sarcasm. “I have an important task for you there.”

“Do you?” George said. “I thought my sole and entire function in this army was to stay where I am and grow moss. What else am I supposed to be doing?”

“Before too long, I aim to commence operations against Duke Edward of Arlington,” Bart replied, still impassive. “If he is dislodged from the works covering Pierreville, he is likely to retreat eastward. Your men in Wesleyton will keep him from using western Franklin as a refuge, and you will be able to hold him until I can catch up with him with the bulk of my force and destroy the Army of Southern Parthenia.”

He was as calm as if talking about the qualities of pine boards. But he meant every word of it. Of that Doubting George had no doubt at all. The idea left him slightly-no, more than slightly-stunned. Ever since the beginning of the War Between the Provinces, the Army of Southern Parthenia had been a fearful prodigy to all of King Avram’s generals and armies that had to face it. It had been… but it was no more. Bart had its measure.

And for that, Doubting George admitted to himself, the nondescript little man who wouldn’t believe false King Geoffrey’s armies could beat him deserved to be Marshal of Detina.

Whether he deserved it or not, though, what he had in mind failed to delight George. “You want me to go to Wesleyton and sit there, just in case Duke Edward happens to come my way?”

“That’s right.” Bart nodded, pleased that he understood. “Of course, since you will be there with your army, Edward’s less likely to come that way. He’s slippery as a barrister, Edward is, and so we’ve got to make sure he’s shut up tight.”

“I… see,” George said slowly. “Isn’t there anything more useful I could be doing than sitting around in Wesleyton impersonating a cork?”

“I don’t believe so,” Bart answered. “It’s a useful thing to do, and the other pieces of your army are off doing different useful things in other places. This seems a good enough thing for the men you still have with you to do.”

“A good enough thing,” Doubting George echoed. “Gods damn it, Bart, we were more than ‘good enough’ not so long ago.”

“Finally, yes. But you could have whipped Bell sooner. You should have whipped Bell sooner. Instead, you had King Avram and me half out of our minds with worry that the Army of Franklin would get around you and head for the Highlow River.”

“Well, Marshal, if his Majesty thought that-and especially if you thought that, you were out of your minds, and not just halfway, either,” George said. “Bell wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was his army. He’d come as far as he could. If you’d had a look at his men, you could have seen that for yourself. I did. And I knew what I saw, too,” George said.

Did something glint in Marshal Bart’s eyes? George wasn’t sure. The marshal had perhaps the deadest pan in Detina, too. Bart said, “You are entitled to your opinion, Lieutenant General. I am also entitled to mine. My opinion is that sending you to Wesleyton is the best thing I can do right now, given the way the war is going. Carry out your orders.”

“Yes, sir,” Doubting George said woodenly.

Bart turned to his scryer. His image vanished from the crystal ball. George refrained from picking up the ball and chucking it into the Franklin River. He couldn’t have said why he refrained from chucking it into the river, but refrain he did. Afterwards, he decided it had to prove he was a more tolerant man than even he would have imagined.

“Carry out your orders.” In his mouth, the commonplace soldierly phrase somehow turned into a curse. Bart had the right to tell him to do it-had the right and used it. And I reserve the right to reckon Bart is a first-class son of a bitch, Doubting George thought.

That didn’t eliminate the need to do as Bart said, worse luck. The general commanding-not that George had so very much left to command any more-turned and strode out of the scryers’ tent. None of the mages in there said a word to him. In fact, they all seemed to be pretending they were somewhere else. Scryers, like other sorcerers, often missed emotions they should have seen. What Doubting George felt was too raw, too obvious, for even a scryer to miss.

Colonel Andy bustled up to George before he’d gone very far from the pavilion. Someone must have told the adjutant George had been summoned. “Well?” Andy asked expectantly. “What did he have to say for himself now?”

“Wesleyton is lovely this time of year, don’t you think?” George answered.

“Wesleyton?” His adjutant gaped. “What the hells has Wesleyton got to do with anything? Who in his right mind would want to go to Wesleyton? It’s not even a good place to die, let alone to live.”

“No doubt you’re right, Colonel.” Doubting George couldn’t help smiling, no matter how miserable he was. “Miserable or not, though, that’s where we’re going: you and I and as much of my army as Marshal Bart has graciously let me keep.”

“Are we?” Colonel Andy said, and the commanding general nodded. Andy asked, “And why, pray tell, are we going to Wesleyton? I understand why Whiskery Ambrose went there last year: to take it away from the traitors. But we’ve held it ever since. What’s the point of sending a whole lot more men there now?” Doubting George explained Marshal Bart’s reasoning. His adjutant looked like a chipmunk who’d just bitten down on a cast-iron acorn. “That’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard, sir. How likely is it that the Army of Southern Parthenia’s going to come running in our direction?”

“Not very, not as far as I can see,” George answered. “But Bart’s right-it could happen. Now he’ll have somebody in place to make sure Duke Edward doesn’t get far if he tries it.”

“Yes, sir. So he will.” Andy didn’t seem delighted at the prospect. “And isn’t that a wonderful use for the army that broke the traitors’ backs out here? Just a wonderful fornicating use.”

“He is the Marshal of Detina. He can give the orders. He has given them, as a matter of fact. We need to obey them. You’ll want to draw up plans to shift us to the western part of the province-glideway lines, supply dumps, and such.”

“Oh, I have them,” Andy said. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

Doubting George stared. “You… have them? Even to Wesleyton?”

“Yes, sir.” Andy nodded. “That’s what an adjutant is for: making plans, I mean. Most of them end up in the trash. That’s how things work, too. But one will come in handy every now and again. Excuse me, please-I’ll start things gliding.” He saluted and hurried off.

Behind him, Doubting George started to laugh. Now I know what an adjutant does, he thought. And if only someone would tell me what a commanding general is for…

Here in the west, the war looked and felt different. That was John the Lister’s first thought when his wing moved through Georgetown on the way to the coast of Croatoan and a rendezvous with General Hesmucet’s hard-driving army. Things seemed cramped here, without the room to maneuver that had marked the fighting in the east.

Georgetown itself appeared confident the war was won. Engineers had been fortifying the capital of Detina ever since the War Between the Provinces broke out. Castles and earthworks and trenches littered the landscape for miles around the heart of the city. If the Army of Southern Parthenia had ever come this far, it would have had to fight its way through all of them to get to the Black Palace.

When that thought crossed John’s mind, he suddenly remembered that a detachment from the Army of Southern Parthenia had tapped at those fortifications only the summer before, till forces detached from Marshal Bart’s army pushed them back. What a difference a bit more than half a year made! Now Jubal the Late’s detachment was smashed, the valley he’d guarded so long a smoking ruin that could no longer feed Duke Edward’s men, and the Army of Southern Parthenia penned up and hungry in Pierreville. That army would see southern Parthenia no more, nor Georgetown, either.

John the Lister’s eye went to the Black Palace. The home of Detina’s kings-of Detina’s rightful kings, anyhow-towered over the city. Looking out from the battlements of the Black Palace, King Avram could see a long way. He could look on Parthenia to the north and on the loyal provinces to the south (even if crossbowmen and pikemen had been required at the start of the war to keep Peterpaulandia loyal).

Now everything looked likely to turn out for the best. A couple of years earlier, John wouldn’t have bet on that. Twice Duke Edward of Arlington had invaded the south; once Count Thraxton the Braggart had pushed an army down into Cloviston, too. Even men of the stoutest loyalty to King Avram could hardly be blamed for fearing that Geoffrey might yet forge a kingdom of his own.

It hadn’t happened, though. It hadn’t, and now it wouldn’t. The end was visibly at hand. Geoffrey, Duke Edward, and Count Joseph the Gamecock were all stubborn men. They hadn’t given up yet. That’s why my wing’s come west, John thought: to make them give up.

He’d found his way back to his hostel while hardly even noticing in which direction his feet were going. Anyone who was anyone-anyone who had pretensions of being anyone-stayed at the House of the Rat when he came to Georgetown. For one thing, it had the softest beds and finest kitchen of any establishment in the city. For another, it lay right at the edge of the joyhouse quarter, with brothels to suit every purse and every taste within easy walking distance.

Fighting Joseph had stayed at the House of the Rat. Rumor said he’d enjoyed the nearby attractions, too. Knowing Fighting Joseph, John the Lister suspected rumor was true. And Marshal Bart had stayed at the House of the Rat. Rumor said he’d almost got a dreadful upstairs room because no one recognized him till he signed the guestbook. Knowing Bart, John suspected rumor there was also true.

Bart was supposed to be coming down from Pierreville to confer with him. The Marshal of Detina had already delayed the meeting once. John took the delay in stride. He was sleeping and eating in fancy style at King Avram’s expense. He would have to spend his own money in the joyhouses, but every man had to sacrifice a little now and then. There was a war on, after all.

At the desk, John asked, “Any messages for me?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” the clerk there replied, fixing John with a fishy stare. “Who are you, anyway?”

“John the Lister, brigadier of the regulars,” John answered proudly.

He’d hoped that would impress the desk clerk. He rapidly discovered nothing impressed the clerk. With a yawn, the fellow said, “I’ve seen plenty of those before you. You can’t expect me to recognize everybody.” But he did condescend to look and see if John had any messages. With a grudging grunt, he passed the officer from the east a scrap of paper. “Here you are.”

“Thank you so much,” John said. The desk clerk proved immune to sarcasm, too. I might have known, John thought. When he unfolded the scrap of paper, he brightened. “Oh, good. It’s from Marshal Bart.”

That at least kept the scrawny little man behind the desk awake enough to ask, “What has he got to say?”

“We’re going to have supper here tonight,” John answered before he realized he didn’t have to tell this annoying creature anything. Gathering himself, he added, “You’d better inform the kitchens so they can fix up something extra fine for the Marshal of Detina.”

But the desk clerk only sneered. “Shows how much you know. Whatever he orders, Marshal Bart’ll want it with all the juices cooked out of it. He always does. Cooking fancy for him is just a waste of time.”

Defeated, John the Lister went off to his room. He emerged at sunset, to meet Bart in the lobby. If he hadn’t worked with the Marshal of Detina in Rising Rock, he wouldn’t have recognized him. As things were, he almost didn’t. Bart wore a common soldier’s plain gray tunic with epaulets fasted on very much as an afterthought: no fancy uniform for him. His boots were old and muddy. His face? He could have been a teamster as readily as the most eminent soldier Detina had produced in the past three generations.

“Good to see you, Brigadier,” Bart said, an eastern twang in his voice. “Your men have done some fine work, and I know they’ll do more once they get to Croatoan and link up with General Hesmucet.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” John replied. “Shall we go into the dining room?”

“I suppose so,” Marshal Bart said. “Have to eat, I reckon.” He sounded completely indifferent. That nasty, nosy little desk clerk, gods damn him, had had it right.

In the dining room, the blond waiter fawned on Bart-and, incidentally, on John the Lister as well. Basking in reflected glory, John chose a fancy seafood stew and a bottle of wine. Bart ordered a beefsteak.

“Don’t you care for anything finer, sir?” John asked.

“Not me.” Bart turned back to the waiter. “Make sure the cook does it up gray all the way through. No pink, or I’ll send it back.” The blond nodded, and hurried away. To John, Bart said, “I can’t abide the sight of blood. I never have been able to.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” John said, reflecting that that was an odd quirk for a man who’d commanded most of the bloodiest fights in Detinan history.

As if thinking along with him, Bart remarked, “I’ve seen too much blood already. I don’t need to look at more on my plate.”

“Yes, sir,” John said again. The waiter brought the wine and filled his goblet, then set the bottle on the table between the two officers. John reached for it. “Shall I pour you some?”

“No, thanks,” Marshal Bart answered. “I will take a drink every now and again, but only every now and again. I used to like it too well-I daresay you’ll have heard about that-so now I’m very careful about how much I pour down.”

John felt self-conscious about drinking when the Marshal of Detina wouldn’t, but Bart waved for him to go on. His first taste of the wine removed his lingering hesitation. The House of the Rat had an excellent cellar. The cooks worked fast, too. The waiter fetched John’s stew and a beefsteak that looked as if it had just come from a long stay in the hottest of the seven hells.

Bart attacked the beefsteak with gusto, though it was so thoroughly cooked, he had to do some serious work with his knife to hack through it. He said, “You’ll know Joseph the Gamecock is operating against General Hesmucet in Palmetto Province. Operating as best he can, I should say, because Hesmucet outnumbers him at least three to one. Your job will be to go up to Croatoan by sea, hit Joseph in the rear or in the flank as opportunity arises, and join forces with Hesmucet. Then, if the war has not ended before you get there, you will come up to Pierreville and help me finish off Duke Edward of Arlington.”

That made John take another big sip of wine. “Finish off Duke Edward of Arlington,” he echoed, awe in his voice. “That hardly seems real.”

“Oh, it is real, all right,” Bart said. “Real as horseradish. We are going to whip the traitors, and we are going to do it pretty quick. I have no doubts about that, none at all.”

He’d never had any doubts about that, which made him unique among King Avram’s officers. And he’d been right. Time and time again, he’d been right. He didn’t look like much. He didn’t sound like much. But he won. That was why Avram had made him Marshal of Detina. And he’d kept hammering till even Duke Edward and the Army of Southern Parthenia were visibly coming to the end of their tether.

Doubts, John thought. Then he heard himself saying, “Doubting George isn’t very happy with you, you know.”

“Yes, I do know that.” Bart paused to take another bite of his leathery beefsteak. Once he’d choked it down, he went on, “I am sorry about it, too. George is a good man, a sound man. When it comes to holding off the foe, there is not a better man in all of Detina. But when it comes to going after him… When it comes to going after him, George is too gods-damned slow. That is the truth. I am sad to say it, but it is the truth. There at Ramblerton, he should have struck Bell two weeks before he did. He would have won.”

Since John the Lister thought the same, he could only nod. That sufficed, anyhow. If he said unkind things about Doubting George, Bart would see it as backbiting. Instead, he spooned up a plump, juicy oyster. Better this than burnt meat, he thought.

At a table not far away, a good-looking young man began cursing King Avram, careless of the many gray-clad soldiers in the dining room. John the Lister scowled. “Who is that noisy fool?” he asked.

To his surprise, Bart seemed unconcerned. “That is Barre the actor,” he answered. “He is Handsome Edwin’s younger brother. He loves lost causes, so naturally he adores false King Geoffrey.”

“Does he?” John the Lister said in a voice as neutral as he could make it. “How serious is he about adoring Geoffrey? Should he be doing it inside a cell somewhere instead of in the dining room of the House of the Rat?”

“Folks who know him better than I do say he is nothing but wind and air, and that he would not harm a fly,” Bart answered. “Putting him in prison would stir up more trouble than he is likely to cause, so he stays loose.”

“I see,” said John, who liked none of what he saw or heard.

Barre went on ranting. He didn’t sound like an actor. He sounded like a crazy man. “Thus always to tyrants!” he shouted, and thumped his fist down on the table in front of him.

“Maybe they could lock him up for being a lunatic,” John said hopefully.

Marshal Bart shook his head with just the hint of a smile. “You have been in the east a long time, John. Things are… different here in Georgetown. It took me a while to get used to it, too. A lot of men here favor Geoffrey. King Avram does not get upset about it as long as they keep it to talk, and they mostly do. There were serfs on the estates hereabouts till the war started, you know. In a lot of ways, this is more a northern town than one full of southrons.”

John had heard that. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. Evidently, it was true no matter what he wanted. He said, “They ought to clean out all those traitors, and crucify the worst of ’em.”

Now Marshal Bart gave him an odd look. “I said something not much different from that when I first got here, too, Brigadier. But King Avram would not-will not-hear of it. He says victory will cure what ails them. After we whip false King Geoffrey, we will all be Detinans together again, and we will have to live with one another. When you look at it that way, it is hard to say he is wrong.”

“Maybe.” But John the Lister cocked his head to one side and listened to young Barre a little longer. “To the hells with me, though, if I think that mouthy son of a bitch has any business running loose.”

“Well, I would be harder than Avram is myself,” Bart allowed. “But he is the King of Detina. We have fought this whole war to show the northerners that that is what he is. If he gives an order to let people like that alone, what can we do but leave them alone? Without turning into traitors ourselves, I mean?”

John thought that over. With a scowl, he said, “You know what, sir? I’m gods-damned glad I’m just a soldier. I don’t have to worry about things like that.”

“Some soldiers do,” Bart said. “When Fighting Joseph was head general here, he talked about seizing the throne after he won some victories.”

“It’s a wonder Avram didn’t take his head,” John said.

“Avram heard about it, but he only laughed,” Bart replied. “He said that if Fighting Joseph gave him the victories, he would take his chances with the usurpation. Then Duke Edward whipped the stuffing out of Joseph at Viziersville, and that was the end of that kind of talk. Our job is to make sure the traitors do not pull off any more little stunts like Viziersville, and we are strong enough to do it. That is why I brought your wing west. We will manage.”

We will manage. It wasn’t a flashy motto, nothing for soldiers to cry as they charged into battle. But it was a belief that Marshal Bart had turned into a truth, and a truth none of King Avram’s other generals had ever been able to find. John the Lister nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

However much Lieutenant General Bell didn’t want to admit it even to himself-perhaps especially to himself-General Peegeetee had been right about how things were in Nonesuch. Like most Detinans (and all the more because he was a healer’s son), Bell had spent time in sickrooms that held people who were going to die. Walk into such a room and you could see death brooding there, sometimes even before the bedridden patient knew the end drew near. Nonesuch was like that now.

King Geoffrey still made bold speeches. To listen to him, victory lay right around the corner. To look around in Nonesuch was to know Geoffrey was whistling in the dark. Everyone’s eyes fearfully went to the north, where Duke Edward and the Army of Southern Parthenia had ever more trouble holding Marshal Bart and his men in gray away from the last couple of glideway lines that fed the city-and, not so incidentally, the army. If Bart seized those glideways, Nonesuch-and Duke Edward-would commence to starve.

And even if Bart didn’t seize the glideways, how much would it matter in the end? Everything was scarce. Everything was expensive. Prices had been bad in Great River Province. They were worse here, much worse. Almost everything cost ten or twenty times what it had before the war began. Bell understood why, too, for the coins Geoffrey put out these days, though called silver, were copper thinly washed with the more precious metal. Bell didn’t like using them, either.

If a man had King Avram’s silver money, he could buy whatever he pleased, and at a civilized price. That also said too much about how the war was going.

For the time being, King Geoffrey was still feeding and housing Bell. Even if Bell had renounced command of the Army of Franklin, he remained a lieutenant general in his chosen sovereign’s service. How much Geoffrey welcomed that service at the moment was an open question. He did not publicly renounce it, though.

Not publicly renouncing Bell’s service and feeding and housing him were as far as Geoffrey went. Time after time, Bell tried to secure an audience with the king. Time after time, he found himself rebuffed. At length, his temper fraying, he growled to a flunky, “I don’t believe his Majesty wants to talk to me.”

The flunky, who remained as toplofty as if Geoffrey’s armies had overrun New Eborac City, looked at him from hooded eyes. “What ever could have given you that impression, Lieutenant General?”

Bell glowered back. “I’m having trouble believing the king has all this many meetings and such-like things.”

“Are you? What a pity,” the servitor murmured. “Some people will believe anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bell asked.

“Why, what it said, of course,” the other man replied.

He refused to be pushed. He was as agile with words as a dueling master with sabers. After a while, Bell gave up and went away. That that might have been what King Geoffrey’s secretary had in mind never occurred to him.

But Bell, almost by accident, figured out a response to Geoffrey’s evasions. Since the king would not see him, since the king would not hear him, he started telling his story to anyone else who might listen. That included his fellow officers in Geoffrey’s capital, the nobles who thronged into Nonesuch to be near the king, and the merchants and gamblers who kept trying to get rich when everyone else got poorer and hungrier by the day. Bell talked-and talked, and talked.

After several days of this, everybody in Nonesuch was talking about what had happened in front of Ramblerton-and talking about Bell’s version of what had happened there. That version, perhaps not surprisingly, gave Bell as much credit as could be salvaged from what had befallen the north.

The rumors Bell had started soon reached King Geoffrey’s ears. And Geoffrey, who’d spent much of the war trying to strangle rumors, was naturally unenthusiastic about having more start. He didn’t summon Bell to him to discuss the officer’s reinstatement: he summoned him to try to get him to shut his mouth.

To Lieutenant General Bell, the difference in the two possible reasons for the summons was academic. That Geoffrey had summoned him to the citadel of Nonesuch was all that mattered. Bell was earnest, Bell was aggressive, but Bell had the political sense of a watermelon. Worse, he was completely unaware he had the political sense of a watermelon. As far as he was concerned, the summons represented a vindication of sorts.

Grim-faced guards in blue stood outside the citadel in Geoffrey’s capital. For the life of him, Bell couldn’t figure out why they looked so grim. They were here on ceremonial duty, weren’t they? If they’d been in the trenches of Pierreville with the Army of Southern Parthenia facing Marshal Bart’s army, they would have had some excuse for long faces. As things were? Not likely!

Well fortified with laudanum, Bell hitched along on crutches past the guards and into the citadel. King Geoffrey’s throne resembled nothing so much as a gilded dining-room chair. Well, how much does Geoffrey resemble a king? Bell asked himself. But the answer to that formed in his mind at once: more than Avram does, by the Lion God’s fangs!

Had Bell not been mutilated, he would have had to bow low before his sovereign. As things were, he contented himself with a nod and a murmured, “Your Majesty.”

“Lieutenant General,” Geoffrey replied, his voice colder than winter.

Bell waited for the king to order a blond servitor to bring him a chair. The king did no such thing. As Bell stood there, taking weight on his left leg and right crutch, Geoffrey glowered down at him from that cheap-looking throne. That was when the general began to suspect how angry at him the king really was. Bell should have been sure of that from the moment the second day’s fighting in front of Ramblerton went wrong. He should have, but he hadn’t, in spite of General Peegeetee’s warning. After the wounds he’d taken, though, the prospect of facing down a king fazed him not in the least.

“Considering what you did to my kingdom, Lieutenant General, you have gall and to spare, complaining of your treatment at my hands,” Geoffrey said at last.

“You named me commander of the Army of Franklin to fight,” Bell said, “or so I inferred, at any rate. Since the moment I replaced Joseph the Gamecock, that is what I endeavored to do.”

“I named you commander of the Army of Franklin to fight and to win,” King Geoffrey said. “Instead, you threw your men away, so that the Army of Franklin exists no more. I do not thank you for that, or for misliking the fact that I accepted your resignation the instant you tendered it.”

“I served the north proudly, and the best I knew how,” Bell said. “I faced our foes, and fought them in my own person. The wounds I bear prove it… your Majesty.”

“No one has ever questioned your courage, Lieutenant General,” Geoffrey answered. “Your wisdom and your judgment, on the other hand…”

“You knew what sort of man I was when you placed me in command, or so I must believe,” Bell said. “If you did not expect me to challenge the foe wherever I found him, you should have chosen another.”

“I not only expected you to challenge the enemy, I expected you to destroy his armies,” King Geoffrey said. “I did not expect you to destroy your own.”

“No one can make war without suffering losses. Anyone who thinks he can is a fool,” Bell said. “The enemy had more men, more siege engines, and, in the last fight, more quick-shooting crossbows than we did. He was better fed and better shod. We fought with the greatest of courage. We hurt him badly. In the end, we did not achieve quite the success I would have desired.”

By then, Lieutenant General Bell had considerable practice in making disasters sound palatable. Not quite the success I would have desired seemed bloodless enough, especially if whoever was listening didn’t know what had followed from that so-called incomplete success. King Geoffrey, unfortunately, knew in intimate detail. “Gods help us if you’d been defeated, then!” he exclaimed. “The eastern provinces probably would have fallen right off the map.”

“Your Majesty, I resent the imputation,” Bell said stiffly.

“Lieutenant General, I don’t care,” Geoffrey answered. “I have no army worth the name left between the Green Ridge Mountains and the Great River. Marthasville has fallen. Hesmucet has torn the living heart out of Peachtree Province, as if he were a blond priest sacrificing a bloody goat. Franklin and Cloviston will likely never see my soldiers again. And whom do I have to thank for these accomplishments, which must surely make King Avram grateful? You, Lieutenant General, you and no one else.”

Had Bell won great victories, he would have wanted to share credit with no one else. He was more inclined to be generous about sharing blame. “No one else?” he rumbled. “What about the officers who could not get me grain or shoes or crossbow bolts? What about the officers who could not get me reinforcements when I needed them so desperately? What about the subordinate commanders who let me down again and again? I could not fight the southrons all by myself, though often it seemed I had to try.”

“What good would reinforcements have done you?” King Geoffrey asked poisonously. “You would only have thrown them away along with the rest of your men.”

“I am so very sorry, your Majesty,” Bell said with just as much venom. “You have been such a perfect paragon of leadership, a paladin of proficiency, all through our struggle. If not for your blunders-”

“You were my worst blunder!” the King screamed. “Next to you, even Joseph the Gamecock looks like a soldier.”

“Next to you, even Avram looks like a king,” Bell retorted, a true measure of how disgusted he was.

They stared at each other in perfect mutual loathing. “You are dismissed,” Geoffrey said in a voice clotted with fury. “Get out of my sight. If you ever come into my sight again, I shall not answer for the consequences.”

“You already have plenty of consequences to answer for,” Bell jeered. “And if you crucify me, how long will you last before Avram crucifies you?”

Geoffrey turned pale, not from fear but from fury. “I am going to win this war,” he insisted. “I shall yet rule a great kingdom.”

“Oh, yes. Indeed, your Majesty. And I am going to win the mile run at the Great Games next year.” Bell cursed his mutilation not because he wouldn’t win that race but because he couldn’t turn and stomp out of King Geoffrey’s throne room. The slow progress he made on crutches wasn’t the same.

He wondered if he’d pushed Geoffrey too far. If the king decided to have him seized and crucified to encourage the others, what could he do about it? Not much was the obvious answer. A one-armed, one-legged swordsman was not an object to strike fear into the hearts of palace guards.

But for the click of Bell’s crutch tips on the stone floor and the thump of his shoe, all was silence absolute. Maybe Geoffrey’s had an apoplexy and fallen over dead, Bell thought hopefully. He didn’t turn around to look. For one thing, turning around on crutches was commonly more trouble than it was worth. For another, he was all too liable to fall victim to disappointment if he did turn. And so he didn’t.

He got out of the throne room. He got out of the citadel. He made his hitching way back to his hostel. Only when he’d sat down in his room did he remember he’d come to Nonesuch not to give Geoffrey a piece of his mind (he didn’t have that many pieces to spare) but to seek reinstatement.

Reinstatement he would not get now. That was plain. He’d commanded his last army for King Geoffrey. “Well, it’s Geoffrey’s loss, gods damn him,” Bell muttered. He remained convinced he’d done everything he could-he remained convinced he’d done everything anyone could-to serve the north well. If things hadn’t always gone quite the way he would have wished… Well, if they hadn’t, that couldn’t possibly have been his fault. His subordinate commanders had botched too many fights the Army of Franklin should have, would have, won if only they’d followed his clear orders.

If they weren’t a pack of blundering fools, he thought, why did so many of them end up dead at Poor Richard? They got what they deserved, by the Thunderer’s hairy fist!

And one of these days-one of these days before too long, too-King Geoffrey would also get what he deserved. Bell could see that plainly now. Anyone coming into Nonesuch after long absence could see the kingdom was dying on its feet. Only someone who stayed here nearly all the time, like Geoffrey, could have any possible doubts on that score. We’ll all be stuck with Avram, and we’ll all be stuck with blonds.

Hating the idea but not knowing what he could do about it, Bell took his little bottle of laudanum off his belt. He yanked out the stopper and swigged. Healers sometimes gasped and turned pale when he told them how much laudanum he took every day. He didn’t care. He needed the drug. It held physical torment at something close to arm’s length. A good stiff dose also helped him avoid dwelling on any of the many things he didn’t care to contemplate.

He caressed the smooth glass curve of the laudanum bottle as if it were the curve of a lover’s breast. Till he was wounded, he’d never known how marvelous a drug could be. He tried to imagine his life these days without laudanum-tried and, shuddering, failed. Without laudanum, he wasn’t truly alive.

“And I never would have known if I hadn’t been wounded,” he murmured. “I would have missed all-this.” He caressed the bottle again. Laudanum made him real. Laudanum made him clever. As long as he had laudanum, everything that had happened to him, every single bit of it, was all worthwhile.

Captain Gremio had seen more in the way of warfare than he’d ever wanted. Now, in his own home province, he saw the final ruin to which the hopes of the north had come. Colonel Florizel’s soldiers had joined with the forlorn handful of men Count Joseph the Gamecock was using to try to hold back the great flood tide of General Hesmucet’s advance. With the addition of Florizel’s veterans, Joseph the Gamecock now had a forlorn double handful of men.

Handful or double handful, what Joseph didn’t have was enough men.

Hesmucet’s soldiers ranged through Palmetto Province almost as they pleased. Joseph had hoped the swamps and marshes in the north near Veldt would slow the southrons down as they swarmed south toward Parthenia. Building roads through the trackless wilderness, the southrons had broken through the difficult country faster than Joseph or any other northerner imagined possible.

Now Karlsburg, where the War Between the Provinces began and where Gremio lived, was lost. It wasn’t that Hesmucet’s men had captured the place. They hadn’t. They’d simply passed it by, heading for Hail, the provincial capital, and leaving a trail of devastation in their wake. Karlsburg would belong to Avram’s men as soon as they bothered to occupy it. At the moment, they were showing it the ultimate contempt: they weren’t even wasting their time to conquer it.

As a regimental commander, Gremio could hope to get answers to questions that would have kept his men guessing. When Count Joseph’s men camped outside of Hail one chilly night that made the place seem to live up to its name, he asked Colonel Florizel, “Sir, is there any chance we can hold them out of this city?”

Florizel looked at him for a long time before shaking his head. “No, Captain. We couldn’t hold them out if we had twice our men and they had half of theirs. We are ruined. We are finished. We are through.”

That would have hit Gremio harder if he hadn’t already expected it. “What can we do, sir?” he asked.

“Fall back through Hail. Destroy whatever’s in there that the gods-damned southrons might be able to use. Stop on the south bank of the next river we come to. Pray to the gods that we can delay Hesmucet for a few hours. If we’re very, very lucky, maybe we can even delay him for a whole day. Then we fall back to the river after that and pray to the gods again.” Florizel, who’d carried so much on his broad, sturdy shoulders for so long, sounded like a man altogether bereft of hope.

Gremio had been without hope for a long time. He’d hoped to borrow a little from his strong-hearted superior. Finding none, he gave Florizel his best salute and went back to his regiment. “What’s the news, sir?” Sergeant Thisbe asked, perhaps hoping to borrow some from him.

“The news is… bad, Sergeant,” Gremio answered, and relayed what Colonel Florizel had said.

Thisbe frowned. “You’re right, sir. That doesn’t sound good. If we can’t hang on to Hail, what’s the point of going on with the war?”

“You would do better to ask that of King Geoffrey than of me,” Gremio said. “His Majesty might be able to answer it. I, on the other hand, have no idea.”

“All right, sir,” the underofficer said. “I won’t give you any more trouble about it, then. Seems to me we’ve got trouble enough.”

“Seems to me you’re right,” Gremio said. “I wish you weren’t, but you are.”

If they had tried to fight in Hail, they would have been quickly surrounded and destroyed. That was obvious. Like Doubting George’s army after the fight in front of Ramblerton, General Hesmucet’s force kept extending tentacles of soldiers, hoping to trap its foes. As Joseph the Gamecock had in Peachtree Province, he traded space for time. The difference here was, he really couldn’t afford to lose any more space at all, and he-along with the north-was fast running out of time.

Old men and boys and women cursed Joseph’s soldiers as they marched south through Hail. A white-bearded fellow pointed to the governor’s palace and shouted at Gremio, who stood out perhaps because of his epaulets: “That’s where we started! That’s where we said we wouldn’t be part of Detina any more, not if gods-damned Avram was going to take our serfs off the land where they belong. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It means a great deal to me, sir,” Gremio answered stiffly.

“Then why the hells are you running away instead of fighting to save it?” the old man howled.

“Why? Because we can’t save it,” Gremio said. “If we try, we’ll lose the palace and we’ll lose this army, too. This way, the army lives to fight” — or to run, he thought- “another day.”

He didn’t convince the man with the white beard. He hadn’t thought he would. The local kept right on yammering complaints and protests. That, of course, did him no good at all. Meanwhile, Joseph the Gamecock’s army went about wrecking everything in Hail that might have been of some use to General Hesmucet. They set the arsenal ablaze: it had more sheaves of crossbow quarrels and more squat, deadly firepots than the soldiers could take with them. Up in flames they went, to keep the southrons from seizing them and flinging them at Joseph’s men.

Bolt after bolt of indigo-dyed wool and cotton cloth burned, too. Hesmucet’s men might dye it gray and turn it into their tunics and pantaloons. Better they didn’t have the chance. So said Joseph, and no one disobeyed. More fires rose up to the heavens.

Joseph had almost waited too long. His little army was just pulling out of Hail at sunset as the vanguard of Hesmucet’s much bigger army entered the provincial capital. Gremio’s regiment stopped for the night a few miles south of town, when it got too dark to march any farther. Campfires flickered to life.

Sergeant Thisbe pointed back toward Hail. “Look!”

Fire made the northern horizon glow red and yellow and orange, though light had leaked out of the rest of the sky. “The town is burning,” Gremio said dully, less sad and surprised than he’d ever dreamt he might be. “Maybe our fires got loose. Maybe the southrons are torching it. What difference does it make now? What difference does anything make now?”

“How can we go on?” Thisbe asked. “The place where everything started… in the southrons’ hands and burning? How can we go on?”

Gremio looked north toward those flickering flames, which leaped higher every moment. Everything in Hail was going to burn; nothing could be plainer than that. And nothing could be plainer than the answer to Thisbe’s question, either. Gremio looked around. No one but the underofficer was paying the least attention to what he said. “We can’t go on any more,” he replied. “What’s the use? It’s over. It’s done. It’s broken. We’ve lost. The sooner this cursed war ends, the better.”

There. He’d said it. That he’d said it felt oddly liberating. He waited to hear what Sergeant Thisbe would say now that he’d said it. The underofficer looked at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “Yes, sir,” Thisbe said after perhaps half a minute’s silence, and then, “If that’s how you feel, what do you aim to do now?”

“I’m going home,” Gremio answered. “That’s the best thing I can think of to do.” Now he was the one who hesitated before asking, “Will you come with me?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said again, this time right away. “I’d be pleased to come along, if you’re sure you want the company.” Thisbe again waited a moment before asking, “Will you tell Colonel Florizel before you go?”

“No.” Gremio shook his head. “That would only put the weight on him, not on me, where it belongs. This is my choice. Florizel’s not a blind man, and not nearly so stupid as I thought when I first got to know him. If-no, when-we run into each other after the war, I’ll explain myself then, but I won’t need to do much explaining.”

“Yes, sir,” Thisbe said one more time.

They left Joseph the Gamecock’s army in the gray half-light before dawn the next morning. Fires from the burning Hail still lit the sky. A sentry challenged them. Someone was still alert and doing his job the best way he knew how. Gremio didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He gave his name and rank. The sentry said, “Advance and be recognized.” As soon as the fellow saw his epaulets, he nodded and said, “Pass on, sir-and you, too, Sergeant.”

“Thank you,” Thisbe answered, with no trace of irony Gremio could hear.

Leaving the army was easy. Gremio wasn’t sure how hard evading Hesmucet’s men would prove. He hurried west, out of the southrons’ line of march, reasoning they would be more interested in Joseph’s army than in a couple of stragglers from it. His reasoning wasn’t always what he wished it would be, but he turned out to be right about that. He saw men in gray in the distance three or four times. They probably saw him, too, but they kept on moving south. Two soldiers already out of the fight didn’t matter to them.

And Gremio and Thisbe weren’t the only stragglers on the road: nowhere near. Others were getting away from Joseph’s army, too. Civilians were fleeing the wrath Hesmucet’s men were showing against Palmetto Province-and the greater wrath those civilians feared he would show. And blonds were on the road, straggling seemingly just for the joy of straggling. If they weren’t bound to their liege lords’ estates any more, they would go wherever they pleased. That was what their feet seemed to be saying, anyhow.

Both Gremio and Thisbe still carried crossbow and shortsword. That made the other wanderers through the ruins of King Geoffrey’s hopes-and those of Palmetto Province-walk wide around them, which suited Gremio fine.

“What do you reckon Karlsburg’ll be like?” Thisbe asked. “You think anything’ll be left of it at all?”

“I don’t know,” was all Gremio could say. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

Thisbe nodded. “Makes sense.”

Gremio wondered whether anything made sense. The estate he and Thisbe passed that afternoon made him doubt it. Serfs worked in the fields and garden plots there as if the War Between the Provinces had never started, let alone taken this disastrous turn for King Geoffrey’s cause. He wondered what the liege lord had told his blonds. Whatever it was, they seemed to believe it. That would probably last till the first gray-uniformed southron found the place. It hadn’t happened yet.

After tramping on till nightfall, Gremio and Thisbe camped by the side of the road. The sergeant made a little fire. They didn’t have much to eat-only some bread Gremio had brought with him. He hadn’t wanted to take much, for the men who stayed behind were every bit as needy as he was. Once they’d eaten, they rolled themselves in their blankets on opposite sides of the fire and fell asleep.

Two more days of marching (and a little judicious hen-stealing) brought them to the outskirts of Karlsburg. A troop of gray-clad unicorn-riders trotted up the road toward them. Thisbe started to reach for a crossbow bolt, then hesitated. “We can’t fight them all, sir,” the underofficer said. “What now?”

“Let’s see what they do,” Gremio answered.

The southron unicorn-riders made no overtly hostile move. They reined in just in front of Gremio and Thisbe. Their captain looked the two northerners over, then asked, “You boys out of the war?”

Resignedly, Gremio nodded. “Yes, we’re out of it.”

“All right,” the southron said. “Throw down your crossbows, then, and your quarrels. You can keep the shortswords. They don’t matter. Go into town. Swear the oath of allegiance to King Avram. Take off the epaulets and the stripes. Go on about your business. No one will bother you if you don’t bother anyone.”

Thunk. Thunk. The crossbows, so long carried, so much used, went into the roadway. The sheaves of bolts followed. They rattled as they fell. Gremio strode on toward his home town without looking back. Thisbe followed. Nodding, the southron captain and his troopers resumed their patrol. To them, it was nothing but routine.

Coming into Karlsburg wasn’t routine, not for Gremio. His home town hadn’t burned. That was something, anyhow. But southron soldiers clogged the streets. And most of the soldiers in gray in Karlsburg were blonds. They grinned and swaggered as they marched. Ordinary Detinans stayed out of their way. How many old scores had the blonds already settled? Maybe better not to know.

A businesslike lieutenant-a Detinan, not a blond-accepted Gremio and Thisbe’s oaths of allegiance to King Avram. The promises and the punishments in the oath were both milder than Gremio had expected. The lieutenant offered a scissors. “Cut off your emblems of rank,” he said. “They don’t matter any more. You’re civilians again.”

Once the job was done, Gremio returned the scissors to him. “Thank you,” he managed.

“You’re welcome,” the brisk Detinan answered. “Good luck to you.”

Out in the street, Gremio took Thisbe’s hands. “This is the time,” Gremio declared. “I’ve waited too… long already. I won’t wait another minute, confound it. Will you marry me, Sergeant?”

Thisbe smiled. “I’ve waited a long time, too,” she said, “but you can’t ask me that.”

“What?” Gremio didn’t know whether he’d burst with fury or with mortification. “Why the hells not?”

“Because I’m not a sergeant any more, that’s why.” Thisbe touched the spot on her tunic sleeve where the stripes had stayed for so long. “The lieutenant said so, remember?”

“Oh.” Gremio felt foolish. “You’re right, of course. Well, in that case… Will you marry me-darling?”

“You bet I will,” Thisbe said, and if anybody found anything odd about two soldiers kissing on the streets of Karlsburg, he kept quiet about it.