Marching Through Peachtree

IX

“Corporal Rollant!” Lieutenant Griff called.

“Yes, sir!” Rollant answered, saluting.

“Take up the standard, Corporal, for we’re moving out soon,” Griff said.

“Yes, sir!” Rollant repeated. After offering the ritual gestures of respect to the company’s banner, he lifted the staff from where it had been thrust into the ground the night before. The company-Colonel Nahath’s whole regiment-was part of General Hesmucet’s great wheeling move against the glideway lines north of Marthasville. Southron soldiers had already overrun the line leading east to Dothan. Southron mages were now busy putting that line out of commission, so that the traitors could get no use from it even if they took it back.

But Rollant didn’t think false King Geoffrey’s men would be able to do anything of the sort. The northerners hadn’t been able to do much to slow down the great wheel. If they couldn’t manage that, how would they make the southrons retreat?

“Jonestown coming up,” Smitty said around a yawn. He didn’t seem ready for another day’s march.

“Jonestown!” Rollant snapped his fingers. “That’s the name of the place. It went clean out of my head. If we grab that one, too, the traitors won’t have any glideways into Marthasville, will they?”

“Nary a one,” Smitty agreed. “But I hear tell there are already northerners around the place, so we’re going to have to fight our way in.”

“That’s the truth,” Sergeant Joram said. “I’ve talked with pickets who bumped up against them. They’re from Roast-Beef William’s wing, but nobody knows how many of ’em are in the town.”

“Doesn’t matter how many there are,” Smitty said cheerfully. “We’ll lick ’em.”

A year earlier, a boast like that would have struck Rollant as madness. Now, he found himself nodding. He thought they could clean up a whole wing from the Army of Franklin, too.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Lieutenant Griff shouted. “Time to get moving. We can’t sit around here all day.”

Smitty sighed. “He’s right, gods dammit. It’d be nice if we could, though.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Rollant hurried forward, to take his place at the head of the company. I’ll be the one they shoot at first, he thought. That’s what standard-bearers are for. That’s why they made me a corporal.

They hadn’t gone far before splashing through a little stream that never came up past their knees. Rollant enjoyed the cool water soaking his trousers, but did call out a warning he’d made before: “Check yourselves for leeches, if you know what’s good for you.” The country wasn’t very swampy, but in this part of Detina you never could tell.

And, sure enough, a couple of men made disgusted noises. “Who’s got fire?” one of them said. They had learned not just to yank off the bloodsuckers, but to touch them with a glowing coal and make them let go.

Someone had a firesafe, and got a tiny blaze going from the glowing punk he carried in it. The smoldering tip of a twig got rid of the pests. The company pressed on.

“How far to this Jonestown place, sir?” Rollant asked Lieutenant Griff.

“Not far,” the young company commander replied. “Four or five miles.”

Rollant nodded. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Griff answered, a courtesy he never would have given Rollant the year before. He walked along for a few paces, then said, “Do you know, Corporal, you’re not what I expected?”

He evidently meant it as a compliment. Rollant said, “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” Griff said again. “When we gave you your corporal’s stripes-Colonel Nahath and I, I mean, and Lieutenant General George, too-we didn’t think you would be able to keep them. We expected there would be quarrels, and men refusing to obey you. But that hasn’t happened. I wonder why.”

“Maybe they see I can do the job, sir,” Rollant said. He hadn’t imagined they’d talked with Doubting George before deciding they could promote him.

“Maybe.” Griff didn’t sound convinced. “I see that you’re doing it, mind you, but convincing ordinary Detinans of anything they don’t feel like believing is like herding tigers.”

He was, without a doubt, right about that. No one knew better than blonds how stubborn Detinans could be. Rollant thought for a while, then suggested, “Maybe they see the stripes on my sleeve and not the man wearing the uniform tunic.”

“That could be,” Griff allowed. “We’ve come a long way toward turning all our men into real professional soldiers, and one mark of the professional is respect for his underofficers.”

“Don’t you worry about it, sir,” Rollant said. “I’m sure they call me a gods-damned blond son of a bitch whenever my back’s turned.”

“And what do you think about that?” the lieutenant asked.

Rollant shrugged. “Sir, if you think I never cussed an underofficer, I have to tell you you’d better think again.”

“Not many soldiers who never have, I suppose,” Griff said, and then, in an altogether different tone, “Hello! What’s this?”

This was men in blue tunics and pantaloons spread thinly across a field: northern pickets. They cried out in alarm as they caught sight of the southrons. Several of them raised crossbows to their shoulders and started shooting. Thwuck! One of the bolts, a frighteningly good shot, tore through the silk of the company standard.

“Forward!” Griff shouted. “If they won’t go by themselves, we just have to chase them away.”

Rollant held the standard on high and waved it back and forth as he advanced. It told the men where the company was supposed to go and lifted their spirits. That was why both southrons and traitors had standard-bearers. Making themselves conspicuous was why both sides had to change standard-bearers so often.

“Avram!” Rollant shouted. “Avram and freedom!” More than most, he knew what freedom meant.

More crossbow bolts whistled past him. Someone behind him let out a shriek. He couldn’t even look to see who it was. He could only go forward waving the standard. He ran clumsily, his head down, watching where he put his feet. If he fell from stepping in a hole and the standard went down, his company’s spirits would sag no less than if he got shot. He couldn’t do much about getting shot. He could, or at least he might, avoid imitating a jackass with the staggers.

The northerners didn’t put up much of a fight. In their shoes, being so badly outnumbered, he wouldn’t have been ashamed to run away, either. A few of them turned and loosed hasty shots over their shoulders. A couple of those struck home, too. But more traitors fell. Rollant watched dust puff from the back of one running man’s blue tunic as a quarrel hit him. The northerner threw his arms wide. His crossbow flew surprisingly far to one side as he let it go. He ran on for a couple of staggering steps, then fell on his face. He was still thrashing feebly when Rollant pounded past him.

Beyond another belt of trees, the enemy had earthworks waiting. The surviving pickets dove into them. More traitors appeared on the shooting steps. They gave Avram’s onrushing men a couple of crisp, thoroughly professional volleys. Bell might have spent his men like coppers, but the ones he had left still knew their business.

They knew it so well, in fact, that they knocked the southrons back on their heels and more. Men who had dashed forward suddenly dashed back. “Stand!” Lieutenant Griff shouted, his voice breaking in fury and humiliation. “Stand, gods damn you! You’ve been through worse!”

He was right-they had. At that particular moment, though, they weren’t much inclined to listen to him. Rollant had seen that before, too. They’d come up against the traitors’ trenches too soon, too unexpectedly. What they could have taken in stride had they been ready for it caught them by surprise and threw them into panic. And so they fled.

It wasn’t Griff’s company alone. That made Rollant feel a little better as he too fell back out of crossbow range from the northerners’ position. All the southrons who came up against them recoiled the same way. Officers up and down the line screamed, “Stand!” and “Hold fast, you stupid, cowardly sons of bitches!” and other such endearments, and none of them did the least bit of good.

What saved the day, oddly enough, were the traitors themselves. Seeing the southrons taken with panic, they swarmed out of their trenches and pursued, roaring like lions all the while.

“Come on!” Rollant shouted. “We can lick ’em! Now they’re up above ground, same as we are!”

He wasn’t so vain as to imagine his voice turned the tide by itself. That would have taken a man like Fighting Joseph, now fighting no more. He heard plenty of officers and underofficers and ordinary soldiers shouting the same thing in different words. But his was one of the voices raised.

And, by one of those chances the Thunderer and the Lion God might have understood but no mortal did, the southrons threw off their fear as quickly as it had seized them. They turned around and started plying the northern men with bolts. Pikemen tramped toward the foe in solid ranks. And the traitors, who had been storming forward as if this were the field by the River of Death, hesitated and then abruptly turned to flight themselves.

Now their officers howled in dismay. What had been a bid for revenge against the defeats they’d suffered closer to Marthasville a few days before turned into another disaster now. The northerners had attacked with all their old verve, but hadn’t been able to sustain it. And when fear took them, it seized them even harder than it had laid hold of the southrons.

“Stand!” “Hold!” “Shoot back, gods damn you!” the traitors’ officers howled. They might as well have told the Hoocheecoochee River to quit flowing. They could give all the orders they liked, but the men in blue paid them no attention. Having decided they couldn’t win the fight against the southrons, they seemed to have decided all hope was lost, and stampeded back toward Jonestown.

Whooping with glee, the southrons pursued. Rollant ran right past a lieutenant from the Army of Franklin who was still shouting curses after his departed soldiers. Afterwards, the blond wondered whether his comrades had captured the traitor or simply slain him. He never found out.

So great was the northerners’ fear, they made no serious stand in the trench lines their serfs had dug. A few of them paused, turned, and shot and the oncoming southrons, but most simply kept going. Escape was all they had in mind as they pelted back toward the hamlet of Jonestown.

“By the Lion God’s sacred eyeteeth,” Lieutenant Griff said in dazed tones, “I do believe we may bag them all.”

“May it be so, sir,” Rollant said. He waved the standard again and again. Cheers answered him. The southrons had no war cry to match the northern roar. That cry put fear in the heart of any man who heard it. But the shouts that burst from the throats of Doubting George’s men as they watched the enemy flee before them were ferocious enough for all ordinary use.

When the traitors reached the outskirts of Jonestown, they did manage a rally of sorts. Rollant soon saw why: they were fighting to hold the southrons away from the glideway carpets that were even then carrying men in blue south out of the battle and back toward Marthasville.

“Where are our catapults?” Rollant shouted. Most of the heavy engines, of course, were back by Marthasville, too, knocking the city down around the ears of its inhabitants and defenders. But some lighter ones had come north with the crossbowmen and pikemen. Now they had a target about which the men who served them could usually but dream. Land a few firepots on those fleeing carpets and no small part of the Army of Franklin’s strength would go up in smoke.

Those would be men roasting on the carpets, of course. Rollant did his best not to think about that. As long as they were only targets in his mind, he wouldn’t have to dwell on what their torment meant. By reckoning him and his kind only serfs, they’d played the identical game for centuries.

When the catapults did arrive, though, they pelted the rear guard in Jonestown, not the departing carpets, most of which were out of range by then. The traitors had engines of their own in the town, and showed no hesitation about bombarding the southrons. After Rollant saw a soldier from his regiment turned to a running, burning, shrieking torch, he stopped worrying about the rights and wrongs of war. He was in it, and beating down the enemy came before everything else.

Doubting George’s men didn’t quite manage to bag all the traitors. The rear guard fought skillfully and stubbornly, and managed to withdraw south toward Marthasville in good order. They did know their business, no doubt of that. The war would have been much easier were they ignorant.

Somehow, even the partial failure seemed not to matter so much. “We’ve got the glideway,” Rollant said as the sun set in blood ahead of him.

“We didn’t finish the traitors’ army.” That was Smitty, sounding as indignant as if he were Marshal Bart.

“Do you know what?” Rollant said.

Smitty shook his head. “No. What, your Corporalship with all the answers, sir?”

Rollant snorted. “You’re impossible. But I’ll tell you what anyhow: we’re getting to where it doesn’t matter whether we did or not. We’ve got the glideway line-the lines, I should say. The rest will take care of itself.”

Behind Captain Gremio, more firepots crashed into Marthasville. He could hear their hateful bursts. The breeze was out of the west, too, so he could smell the smoke from the burning city. He would have thought that, by this time, nothing much inside Marthasville would burn. He would have thought that, but he would have been wrong. Every day, the southrons started fresh fires.

They weren’t just heaving firepots into the city, either. A rending crash told of a great stone striking home. A soldier from his company said, “There goes somebody’s house to hells and gone.”

The fellow was bound to be right. When one of those heavy stones came down on something, whatever it hit broke. And if you don’t believe me, ask what’s left of Leonidas the Priest, Gremio thought with funeral-pyre humor.

He was tempted to use the joke out loud. Before he could, Colonel Florizel called, “Come on, men. Move up. The attack will go in in a few minutes.” He chuckled to himself. “ `Go in’ is right, isn’t it, when we’re trying to take the Sweet One’s shrine away from the southrons? May she give them all a dose of the clap.” He extended the middle finger of his right hand in the usual Detinan invocation of the goddess of love. A lot of troopers imitated the gesture. So did Gremio.

“Be ready. We have to be strong and fierce in the field.” Sergeant Thisbe spoke as if Florizel hadn’t. “If we don’t lick the southrons here, this army is in a lot of trouble. We can do it.”

“That’s right,” Gremio said. “We can-and we’ve got to. If we can take away the Sweet One’s shrine and the high ground around it, we cut off the wing that’s grabbed our glideway lines east to Dothan and up to the northern part of this province. Then we can break the stranglehold they’re putting on us and on Marthasville.”

His sword was loose in its sheath. He went forward toward the shrine as if sure of victory. In his heart, he was anything but. The Army of Franklin had lost south of Marthasville. It had lost west of Marthasville. What was left of Roast-Beef William’s wing had come scurrying back to Marthasville from Jonestown in the north with its tail between its legs. And now Lieutenant General Bell was ordering this attack east of the city.

Why not? Gremio thought acidulously. We’ve failed in the other three directions. I supposeBell’s trying for a clean sweep. That wasn’t fair. Gremio knew as much. He was past caring. He wished Bell had remained a wing commander. He was up to that job. Army commander? On the face of things, that seemed beyond him-as far beyond him as Mount Panamgam, home of the gods, was beyond the sky.

Colonel Florizel still thought the sun god shone on Bell day and night. As far as Florizel was concerned, fighting was all that mattered. Whether you won or lost seemed much less important to him. Gremio had seen too much combat in the lawcourts and on the field to have much sympathy for that point of view.

Pikemen formed up in front of the northern crossbowmen. Horns blared. Along with the rest of the officers in the attack, Gremio shouted, “Forward!” He waved his sword. He wouldn’t lead his men anywhere he wouldn’t go himself.

“That’s the spirit!” Colonel Florizel said, and he brandished his own blade. A moment later, he turned to bawl something at another of his captains. He wasn’t keeping a special eye on Gremio any more. I did my best to get myself killed when we fought by Goober Creek, Gremio thought. I didn’t quite manage it, but I did persuade Florizel I’m no coward-for a while, anyhow.

No one had spoken about exactly where in front of the Sweet One’s temple the southrons had their lines. Gremio concluded that was because no one knew. He wasn’t surprised. The whole war, on both sides, had gone like that, with armies blundering past each other and into each other as if their commanders were blind men. Maybe they are. It would explain some of the madness I’ve seen better than anything else I can think of.

Old Straight’s wing didn’t blunder past the southrons. It blundered straight into them, discovering where they were by having a volley of crossbow quarrels tear into it at close range. Screams rose from the northerners. But so did their roaring war cry. “Forward!” Gremio shouted. “Now we’ve found the sons of bitches, so let’s go get ’em!”

And, for what seemed like the first time in this campaign, the northerners had magecraft working for them. Thunderbolts crashed down on the southrons’ entrenchments. Dragons and other phantasms appeared in the sky. Gremio was a modern, well-educated man. He knew they couldn’t hurt him, and so they couldn’t. But if an ignorant farmer’s son believed the beasts could devour him or flame him, his superstitious belief gave them the power to do just that.

Roaring their throats raw, the northerners swarmed down into the enemy’s trenches. A lot of southrons there were already dead or hurt from the magecraft. Some of the ones who remained threw away their crossbows and shortswords and surrendered. But others, stubborn as if they were good northern men, fought on despite long odds.

A crossbow bolt hissed past Gremio’s ear as he jumped into the forwardmost trench. His sword spitted the southron who’d shot at him. The man in gray howled and reeled back.

“Keep moving, gods damn you!” Gremio called to his men. “This isn’t the fight we need. We’ve got to get through these trenches and seize the shrine and the high ground around it. If we can’t manage that, whatever we do here doesn’t matter.”

Sometimes the soldiers did need reminding of such things. To a lot of them, as to Florizel, fighting was an end in itself, not a means. That struck Gremio as madness, but he knew it to be true even so.

“Onward!” he yelled again, and looked along the trench to make sure the troopers could go on. Not far away, Sergeant Thisbe battled a southron who had a better idea than most of his fellows about what to do with a shortsword. Gremio ran to Thisbe’s aid. The southron cared no more than any other soldier for the notion of fighting two foes at once. He turned and fled.

“Thank you, Captain,” Thisbe said.

“You’re welcome. I know you’d do the same for me,” Gremio answered. “Now we’ve got to get moving. If we can drive them back from the shrine, we’ve really done something.”

Out of the trenches and east once more pushed the northerners. But they ran into another line of entrenchments only a furlong or so past the one they’d just cleared. Crossing the open ground cost them a lot of good men killed and wounded. This time, too, the lightnings mostly missed when they struck at the southrons’ fieldworks. Little by little, the enemy’s magic was coming up close to the level of that of King Geoffrey’s wizards.

Colonel Florizel pointed with his sword at the trenches ahead. “Charge!” he cried.

If sorcery wouldn’t do the job, crossbow quarrels and shortswords and pikes would have to. Still roaring like lions, the northern men surged toward the second line of trenches. They’d enjoyed the defenders’ advantage through most of the fights from Borders up to Marthasville. No more. Now the southrons waited for them to come, waited and took a heavy toll while they were in the open.

I can’t go back, Gremio thought. Everyone in the regiment-everyone in the army-will reckon me a coward if I do. And so he went forward, in spite of the bolts that zipped past him and tugged at the fabric of his baggy pantaloons. All around him, men fell. When he reached the second line of trenches, he leaped down into it with a roar that was more than half a cry of despair.

More fierce fighting in the trenches slowed the northerners’ advance. By the time the last southrons were down or fled, Gremio had a cut on his arm and another above his eye. Blood made tears run down his face. He blinked constantly, trying to clear his sight. When he saw how few men he had left, he wished his vision were blurrier, so they would seem to be more.

“Well fought, boys!” Colonel Florizel boomed. “They can’t hold us back when we aim to go forward, by the gods.”

To Gremio’s amazement, the northerners raised a ragged cheer. They were ready to do whatever their officers demanded of them. And if, every now and again, those officers should happen to ask the impossible… Gremio knew the answer there. He’d seen it. Sometimes the men would give it to them. Others, they died like flies proving it an impossibility after all.

“Form up! Dress your ranks!” Florizel called when they struggled out of the southrons’ second line of fieldworks. The regimental commander waited till the lines were neat enough to suit him, then nodded in fussy satisfaction. “Very good, men. Now-forward!”

Forward they went once more. After another couple of furlongs, though, they came upon a third line of entrenchments. Like the first two, this one was full of southron soldiers. They started volleying away at the northerners as soon as Gremio and his comrades came into range. And they had catapults to support them. Firepots flew through the air, splashing flames over grass-and men.

“We can’t take that position, sir,” Sergeant Thisbe said urgently. “I don’t think we can get into that trench. I’m sure we won’t come out again.”

Gremio was sure of the same thing. But he was sure of something else, too: “If the colonel orders me forward, Sergeant, forward I shall go. We’ve got to take the Sweet One’s shrine or die trying.”

“To the seven hells with the Sweet One,” Thisbe said. “She’s a stinking, lying bitch. She’ll laugh when we die, that’s all.”

“It can’t be helped, Sergeant.” Gremio thought Thisbe was right, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He looked toward Colonel Florizel. It was up to the regimental commander now.

To his dismay, Florizel was looking at him, too. Do you want me to say we should go back, sir? Gremio wondered. To the hells with me if I will. You won’t get the chance to call me craven.

But Florizel said, “It’s no good, is it, Captain?”

“I am at your command, sir,” Gremio answered.

Florizel shook his head. “It’s no good,” he repeated. “Going forward into the teeth of their defenses would be murder, nothing less. Shall I make you do duty as my barrister before the gods?”

“Colonel, I will obey any order you choose to give me,” Gremio said, “and I promise you, sir, my men will follow me.”

“But it’s no good, Captain.” The regimental commander sounded like an old and broken man. “It’s no gods-damned good, no good at all. We’d just get ourselves killed, and we wouldn’t shift the stinking southrons even an inch.”

Gremio had reached the same conclusion. If Florizel could see it, it had to be correct. He said, “Sir, the decision is yours.”

Florizel looked at him-looked through him. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’d reckon you a coward if you advised me to fall back.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen you fight. I know better now. You may not be a nobleman, but you’ve got a pair of ballocks hanging from you.”

“For which I thank you.” Punctiliously polite, Gremio bowed to his superior officer. That might have saved his life, for a crossbow quarrel whistled by over his head. He shivered a little as he straightened. “I do not believe we have any hope of taking the position in front of us, either. Nor do I see how we can seize the Sweet One’s shrine and the surrounding high ground.”

“In that case, we’d best save ourselves for the next fight, wouldn’t you say?” Florizel asked.

“There surely will be another fight, Colonel,” Gremio replied, and then, try as he would, couldn’t help letting some acid out: “After all, we’ve only failed to beat a bigger army four times in a row now. Bell will surely think that’s an accident, and send us out to try again.”

When Bell assumed command, Colonel Florizel had been ecstatic. I should have remembered that, Gremio thought. But Florizel only sighed and shrugged and said, “It hasn’t quite worked, has it? Maybe he’ll decide it won’t work. But even if we don’t go after these bastards, they’ll come after us, sure as hells.” He raised his voice to a full battlefield bellow: “Trumpeters! Blow retreat!”

The mournful notes rang out. In their trenches, the southrons raised a cheer. The horn calls of both armies were the same. And why not? Gremio thought. It was all one army not so long ago.

Florizel’s wasn’t the only regiment falling back. A couple of units tried last assaults against the southrons’ works, which only got more men shot and burned to no purpose. Then they too withdrew toward the line from which they’d begun.

“Lieutenant General Bell won’t be very happy when he gets word of what happened here,” Florizel predicted.

“Too bad,” Gremio said. “I’m not very happy about it, either.” His wounds were minor, but they still stung. With a shrug, he went on, “Of course, nobody cares what I think.”

Florizel only growled and scowled and shook his head. He didn’t care what anybody thought, not right then. But Sergeant Thisbe said, “That isn’t true, sir!”

“Thank you,” Gremio said, and felt better about retreating than he had.

Doubting George stood atop the parapet in front of the earthworks the northerners had held between Goober Creek and Marthasville. These days, Bell’s army held a line just outside Marthasville’s southern outskirts. Lieutenant General George was more than a little amazed the traitors still held the city. Bell was stubborner than he’d thought.

General Hesmucet was making Bell pay for his stubbornness, too. From where George stood, he had a fine view of the southrons’ siege engines lobbing destruction into Marthasville. Pillars of smoke rose here and there in the besieged city. Even as he watched, another fire started.

Brigadier Brannan came walking along what had been the traitors’ line. The siege-engine specialist looked pleased with himself. He looked even more pleased with the way things were going. “Good morning, sir,” he said, beaming at Doubting George. “Now we get to see what our toys can do.”

“Well, I thought we already had a pretty fair notion of that,” George replied. “Now Lieutenant General Bell gets to see what our toys can do, and we’ll find out how he likes it.”

“Yes, sir. That’s more or less what I meant, sir,” Brannan said. “Getting besieged can’t be much fun when we’ve got the power to burn the place where he’s sheltering down around his ears.”

“I wouldn’t think so, anyhow,” George said. “And it’s not even as if Marthasville had a strong central keep. By the gods, the town’s only a generation old, and nobody ever bothered building one here.”

“No one ever saw the need,” Brannan said, no little scorn in his voice for men who hadn’t looked far enough ahead. “No one thought there would be a war between the provinces, or that we would come so far if there were.”

“A keep wouldn’t do Bell much good anyhow,” Doubting George observed. “Even if he managed to stay inside it, we’d still squeeze the life out of Marthasville-we’d seize the glideways, and we’d wreck the manufactories.”

“That’s right, sir.” Brigadier Brannan nodded and grinned. “If Bell wants to go out in a blaze of glory, we’re giving him the chance.” As if to underscore his words, yet another big fire broke out in Marthasville.

“If you were Bell,” George said, “what would you do to get yourself out of the mess you’d got yourself into?”

Brannan’s grin got wider. “You mean, besides wish like hells Geoffrey’d never, ever, chosen me commander of the Army of Franklin?”

George smiled, too. “Yes, besides that. By now, he’s seen he can’t force us back from the city. He’s tried four times, he’s thrown away what has to be the third part of his army, and he hasn’t moved us a foot. I expect he’s finally drawing the right conclusions from that, eh?”

“A blind man would. By the gods, sir, a dead man would,” Brannan answered. “Of course, whether Bell would remains an open question.”

“Naughty, Brigadier-distinctly naughty,” George said. “If he can’t force us away from here, what can he do? I see two possibilities.”

“Magic is one,” Brannan said.

“Magic is always one, where the northerners are concerned,” Doubting George agreed. “The other is turning his unicorn-riders loose and wrecking the glideway line that comes up from Rising Rock and keeps us in food and firepots and such.”

“Congratulations, sir,” Brigadier Brannan said. George raised a questioning eyebrow. Brannan explained: “I think you’ve just spelled out the meaning of what they call a theoretical possibility.”

“A theoretical possibility is one that might happen but won’t,” George said. “Sort of on the order of false King Geoffrey’s turning out to be an honest man.” Brannan guffawed. George hadn’t been joking, or not very much. He nourished a fine, flourishing resentment against King Avram’s cousin for confiscating his estates in Parthenia after he chose a united Detina over the call of his province.

Of course, King Avram had confiscated Duke Edward of Arlington’s estates when Edward chose Parthenia over a united Detina. But George was on Avram’s side, so he didn’t fuss about that. Besides, it wasn’t his land.

But when General Hesmucet summoned his wing commanders for a conference, he wasn’t quite so cheerful. “Bell’s turned his unicorn-riders loose, gods damn him,” he said. “They’re going to see how hungry they can make us.”

“Well, it could be worse, sir,” John the Lister said. “He’s still got Brigadier Spinner in charge of his riders, doesn’t he?”

“That’s right.” Hesmucet gestured to his new wing commander. “I know what you’re going to say, Ducky-to the seven hells with me if I don’t. You’re going to say it’d be a lot worse if Ned of the Forest had charge of the traitors’ unicorns.”

“Yes, sir, that is what I was going to say,” John agreed. “Will you tell me I’m wrong?”

“Not for a minute,” Hesmucet said. “Not even for half a minute. What I’m going to tell you is, I’m gods-damned glad you’ve got charge of that wing now, and not Fighting Joseph any more. He’s a brave man, and I’d never say anything less as far as that goes, but he’s a first-class son of a bitch, too, and he never did bother learning much about the traitors’ commanders here in the east.”

“By his record, he never bothered learning much about their commanders in the west, either,” Doubting George remarked.

“I didn’t say that.” Hesmucet grinned. “I may have thought it as loud as I could, but, gods damn it to the hells, I didn’t say it.”

“Sir…” That was Brigadier Oliver, the late James the Bird’s Eye’s successor. “Sir, must you take the names of the gods in vain quite so much?”

He was earnest. He was polite, even plaintive. He was properly subordinate. By all the signs, he even succeeded in embarrassing the commanding general. That impressed George, who hadn’t been sure such a thing was possible. After coughing a couple of times, Hesmucet said, “Well, Brigadier, I will try to do better. I’ve had a ready tongue for a lot of years now, though, so I don’t promise I’ll be perfect, nor anywhere close.”

“The gods do admire effort, sir,” Brigadier Oliver said, as if the Thunderer, or perhaps the Sweet One, had come down from Mount Panamgam beyond the sky to whisper as much in his ear.

No god had ever come down and whispered in Doubting George’s ear. Given a choice, he would have picked the Sweet One for such a duty, but men seldom got such choices, and often got in trouble when they did. Resolutely pushing his mind away from what the love goddess’ whispers might be like, he asked, “What are we going to do if Spinner’s running loose?”

“What do you expect me to do?” Hesmucet replied. “I’ll send Marble Bill out to keep Spinner’s riders off our glideway line.”

It was indeed the obvious answer. John the Lister pointed out what George hesitated to: “Bill’s not the best commander of unicorns ever born.”

“No, but neither is Spinner, so it evens out,” Hesmucet said.

“A point,” Doubting George said after a little thought. “Sure enough, that is a point. The bland fighting the bland, you might say.”

“You might,” Hesmucet said with a groan. “As for me, I feel the same way about such things as Brigadier Oliver feels about taking the name of the gods in vain.”

“Sir,” Oliver said, “you don’t have a religious duty to punish those who make foolish jokes.”

“No, eh?” Hesmucet rumbled. “Well, gods… bless it, I ought to have such a duty. Every righteous man ought to have such a duty.” He glowered at George. “Don’t you agree, Lieutenant General?”

“Well, sir, actually, I am more inclined toward mercy,” George replied. “My notion is, the gods make note of everything they say. I expect they can deal with these matters in their own good time.”

“Hmm.” Hesmucet gave him a severe look. “Why do I suspect you’re saying that because you’re the culprit here?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, sir,” Doubting George replied-blandly. “I assure you, I’d do the same for anyone else.”

“Of course you assure me of that,” Hesmucet said. “You assure me of all manner of nonsensical things and gods-damned lies.”

He sounded so pugnacious, Brigadier Oliver spoke up again: “Sir, you would be well-advised to show mercy to those who disagree with you, not to revile them.”

“No.” Where Hesmucet had sounded fierce while teasing George, now he really was. George could tell the difference. Hesmucet pointed north toward Marthasville, saying, “What I aim to do with those who disagree with me-and who disagree with King Avram, gods bless him-is whip them right out of their boots.” He walked over and set a hand on Doubting George’s shoulder. “And that’s why I put up with this son of a bitch in spite of his foolishness. Put him in the field against the traitors and he’s a tiger. Next to that, nothing else matters, not even a little bit.”

Oliver bowed. He was a fussily precise man, as stern with himself as he was with everyone else. “Very well, sir,” he said. “On that, I cannot presume to disagree with you.” Turning, he bowed to George as well. “This, I must say, I find strange, for in our days at Annasville I reckoned the distinguished general likelier to fight on the other side than on ours.”

George had reckoned Oliver an officious prig. He hadn’t been shy about letting the world know what he reckoned, either. He said, “Brigadier, we still disagree about what ought to happen to the serfs in this kingdom. But we agree wholeheartedly that Detina is a kingdom, not two or three or six kingdoms, and that outweighs the rest.”

“Indeed it does,” Oliver said. “Indeed it does. I rejoice that the gods have put a sufficiency of truth into your heart, sir, even if not its very fullest measure, the measure that would make you recognize all of mankind, regardless of outer seeming, as your brethren.”

He still preaches too gods-damned much, Doubting George thought. But he’s a pretty fair soldier himself, even so. Aloud, he said, “I don’t want to recognize all of mankind as my brethren. If I did, I’d miss watching pretty girls, and that would be a shame.”

Hesmucet chuckled. John the Lister laughed out loud. Oliver clicked his tongue between his teeth and looked pained. Oh, dear, George thought. He doesn’t approve of watching pretty girls, either. Well, too bad for him.

Perhaps finding it a good time to change the subject, John the Lister asked General Hesmucet, “Sir, do I understand correctly that we don’t intend to try storming Marthasville?”

“Not right now, anyhow,” the commanding general answered. “We might take it-I think we would take it, but I also think a direct assault would be expensive, and the mourning boxes in the papers down south are long enough already. Let’s see how Bell likes having the place torn down around his ears without his being able to do anything about it.”

“Let’s see how he likes that after false King Geoffrey charged him to hold the town, too,” Doubting George added.

“That did cross my mind, yes,” Hesmucet said. “I wouldn’t want to have dear Geoffrey screaming at me right now. But then you, Lieutenant General, would know more about such things than I do, wouldn’t you?”

“Not much, sir,” George replied. “I knew I would serve a united Detina as soon as Palmetto Province pulled out. Geoffrey confiscated my lands as soon as Parthenia went with it and I declined to join him. To the seven hells with him, but only from a distance. It’s been years since I last saw him face to face.”

“May the next time we see him be when he meets the headsman.” Hesmucet took a flask from his belt, yanked out the cork, raised the flask high, and drank. That done, he loudly smacked his lips and passed it to Doubting George.

General Guildenstern had been in the habit of carrying a flask on his belt, too. He’d also been in the habit of getting drunk from it. Bart, now, Bart had sternly stayed dry, for he’d been known to wet himself to the drowning point. George had seen Hesmucet drink, but he’d never seen him anywhere close to drunk. He drank, too, in the same mostly moderate way. He took the flask and swigged sweet fire. “Ahh!” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Peachtree Province peach brandy. What could be better?”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” John the Lister said when George offered him the flask. He took a pull and gave it to Brigadier Oliver.

The one-armed man shook his head. “No, thank you. I have never drunk spirituous liquors. I do not believe it to be virtuous.”

“Why not?” Doubting George asked, genuinely curious. “I can see not drinking on account of you don’t want to get drunk, but why not enjoy it if you’re a man who can hold it?”

“We are enough like beasts as things stand, sir,” Oliver said. “Such drink only brings us closer to them.”

“I’m not worried about getting close to the beasts,” George said. “What I want to do is get close to Marthasville.” He, Hesmucet, and John the Lister all laughed and all swigged again. Brigadier Oliver also laughed, politely, but stuck to water.

Smoke was a stench in Lieutenant General Bell’s nostrils. Every firepot that burst and spread new flames in the streets of Marthasville seemed a personal reproach. He went through even more laudanum than he would have on account of his wounds. It didn’t do much to blur his sense of guilt, but it did do something.

“Sir?” Major Zibeon said, and then again, louder: “Sir!”

“Eh?” Bell came out of the laudanum haze. “What is it, Major?”

“Sir, there’s a delegation of citizens who’d like to speak to you for a few minutes waiting outside,” his aide-de-camp replied.

“Citizens?” Bell echoed irritably. “What in the hells do a pack of citizens know? Not bloody much, that’s what.” Zibeon didn’t say anything. He only waited. Bell scowled. “What do they want? Do they want me to surrender to that bastard of a Hesmucet? I won’t do it. What would King Geoffrey do to me if I did?”

Geoffrey was much less happy with him now than on naming him commander of the Army of Franklin. Gods damn it, I did what he wanted, Bell thought petulantly. I went out there and I fought. I did all I could. I almost won. Joseph the Gamecock couldn’t have done any better. I’m sure of that. Nearly sure.

Zibeon shook his head. “No, they don’t want surrender. But they are looking for some sort of relief, any sort of relief, from the infernal bombardment the southrons are making us take.”

“What would they have me do?” Bell demanded.

Zibeon’s dour face got no lighter. “Sir, I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging. “To find that out, you’d have to talk to them.”

“Oh, very well,” Bell said sourly. He wanted to talk to civilians about as much as he wanted to lose his other leg, but sometimes there was no help for a situation. His repeated attacks against Hesmucet’s army had shown him that. That he might not have made those attacks never, ever, occurred to him. “Who are these sons of bitches, anyhow?” he asked, not bothering to keep his voice down.

“One is called Jim the Ball, sir; the other is Jim of the Crew,” Zibeon replied. “They are both merchants of some considerable wealth.”

With a martyred sigh, Bell yielded to necessity. “Very well, Major. You may send them in, and we shall see what sort of wisdom they offer.” He rolled his eyes to show how little he expected.

One look told him how Jim the Ball had got his name; the man was nearly spherical, and his tunic and pantaloons contained enough material for a couple of tents. Jim of the Crew, by contrast, was tall and slim and muscular-the crew to which he belonged was probably that of a river galley. He bowed to Bell. Jim the Ball might have done the same, but he was so round, Bell had trouble being sure.

“Good day, gentlemen,” Bell said, wishing he were somewhere else-preferably, at the head of a victorious army, halfway down to the border with Franklin. “What can I do for you today?”

“Sir,” Jim the Ball said, “the southrons are-destroying Marthasville-one piece-at a time.” He was so very fat, he had to pause and sip air every few words.

“We want you to let them know how barbarous it is to pound a city to pieces with civilians still in it,” Jim of the Crew added. He could speak a whole sentence without needing several breaths to finish it.

“Why do you suppose General Hesmucet would pay the least attention to such a plea?” Bell asked.

“Why do you-think he wouldn’t?” Jim the Ball replied, again putting a caesura in his sentence.

“You said it for yourself, sir: he is a barbarous man,” Bell said.

“What, by the gods, have we got to lose?” Jim of the Crew said. “If we go to him under flag of truce and he sends us away, we’re no worse off than we were. But if he says yes, we save what’s still standing, anyhow.”

Bell plucked at his beard. A letter cost him nothing; these fellows were right about that. And complaining to Hesmucet might make him look better in the eyes of the world. The north could trumpet about Hesmucet’s cruelty and iniquity if he kept on pounding Marthasville after being begged to stop. The world outside Detina-the kingdoms on the far side of the Western Ocean-had been trying to pretend the north didn’t exist. No one recognized Geoffrey as a sovereign among sovereigns. It was humiliating. It was infuriating. And the north could do not a thing about it.

Pointing at the two merchants, Bell asked, “If I draft this missive, would you be willing to carry it through the lines to Hesmucet?”

They looked at each other, then both nodded. Several of Jim the Ball’s chins wobbled at the motion. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“We’d be happy to, sir,” Jim of the Crew agreed.

“Very well, then,” Bell said. “Return here in two days’ time, and we shall see what we shall see.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Jim the Ball said. “We’ll be here.”

“If we haven’t been burned to charcoal, we’ll be here,” Jim of the Crew added. “If the southrons haven’t attacked, we’ll be here.”

“They won’t attack.” Bell spoke with great conviction.

“How do you know that?” Jim of the Crew asked, pressing harder on the commander of the Army of Franklin than he had any business doing.

But Bell answered, “How do I know, sir? I’ll tell you how: because they’re a pack of cowards. If they weren’t a pack of cowards, afraid of showing themselves outside of entrenchments, they would already have attacked Marthasville. They wouldn’t do what they’re doing to its defenseless civilian population.”

He thought he’d impressed the two civilians. But, as they were leaving, Jim of the Crew turned to Jim the Ball and said, “If the stinking southrons are such great cowards, how come they whipped us every time we tried to go after ’em around this city?”

“Beats me,” Jim the Ball said.

“That’s what I said-they’ve beaten us,” Jim of the Crew told him. “They’ve beaten us like a gods-damned drum. I don’t care who’s king over us any more, as long as all these fornicating armies go straight to the seven hells and gone.”

Lieutenant General Bell almost shouted for his provost guards to arrest Jim of the Crew as a traitor to King Geoffrey. But then he shook his head. Sending the merchant and his chum across the lines to General Hesmucet struck him as a worse punishment. With any luck at all, the southrons would miss their flag of truce and fill them full of crossbow quarrels. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair, he thought maliciously.

Still, the idea of writing a formal letter of complaint to Hesmucet had an undeniable appeal. “Major Zibeon!” Bell called.

“Sir?” his aide-de-camp said. If he’d heard the scathing remarks from the two civilians, he didn’t show it.

“Fetch me pen and paper, if you please.”

“Yes, sir,” Zibeon replied. “Do you really think General Hesmucet will heed your request, sir?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Bell said. “But we’re no worse off for finding out, are we?”

“No, sir,” Major Zibeon admitted.

Even writing came hard for Bell. Most men wrote with one hand and steadied the paper with the other. Bell’s left arm was only a dead weight, his left hand useless and inert. He had to put a large stone at the top of the sheet Zibeon found for him. He gnawed at his luxuriant mustache as he groped for words.

Permit me to say, sir, he wrote, that the unprecedented measures you have taken against this city transcend, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever brought to my attention in the long and dark history of war. In the names of the gods of humanity, I protest, believing that you will find that you are depriving of their homes and firesides the wives and children of a brave people. This calculated cruelty can only redound to the disgrace of the sovereign whom you serve, and to your own. Give over, while yet you may. I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Bell, Lieutenant General.

He signed his name with a flourish and sanded the letter dry. Then he used wax and his signet to seal it. He thought of summoning Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew to take it at once, but didn’t. After Jim of the Crew’s gibe, he almost hoped a firepot burst on the merchant’s roof.

Before the appointed day, Roast-Beef William came to see him. That left him imperfectly delighted with the world; he would almost rather have seen the two merchants again. But William was a wing commander, and so not easy to ignore. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant General?” Bell asked after the older man had made his bows.

“Well, sir, I was wondering what sort of plan you had for getting us out of the fix we’re in,” Roast-Beef William replied.

“I have sent forth Brigadier Spinner’s unicorn-riders, as you know, to strike against General Hesmucet’s supply line,” Bell said. That he was reduced to such small strokes galled him.

That even such small strokes hadn’t done all he wanted galled him even more. Roast-Beef William knew what Spinner had done, too-and, more important, what he hadn’t. “Supplies are still coming through to the enemy,” he remarked.

“I know that,” Bell said testily. His arm and his leg hurt more than usual; he longed for laudanum. “But what would you have me do? Do you suppose we can make another sally and drive the gods-damned southrons back from Marthasville?”

He leaned forward eagerly, awaiting William’s reply. If the wing commander thought another attack might succeed, he would order it. He hadn’t lost the desire to hit back at the southrons, only most of the means. If Roast-Beef William reckoned those available… But William shook his head. “No, sir. We haven’t really got the men to stand siege any more, let alone strike out. That was why I came to see you.”

“Say on,” Bell said ominously.

“You know as well as I do, sir, that the southrons are extending their lines north of the city towards the west,” William said. “If they keep moving, they’ll have us altogether surrounded before long. And then, unless we can break through their lines, they won’t just have Marthasville. They’ll have the Army of Franklin, too.”

That was all too likely to be true. Lieutenant General Bell liked it no better for its truth-liked it less, if anything. He scowled at William, who stared stolidly back. “And what would you recommend, then?” he asked in an icy voice.

“If we can’t hold the city, sir, don’t you think we’d better save the army?” the wing commander said. “We can get away, at need, before Hesmucet finishes his ring around Marthasville. Before, I say, but not afterwards.”

“I can’t abandon the city,” Bell said. “What would King Geoffrey do to me if I lost the city?”

“What would he do to you if you lost the city and the army, too?” Roast-Beef William asked in return.

“I can’t pull out yet,” Bell said. “I’m, uh, conferring with Hesmucet, trying to get him to keep from burning Marthasville with the civilians still in it.”

“Are you?” William raised a bushy eyebrow. “I hadn’t supposed you cared much about the civilians hereabouts.”

Till Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew came to him, Bell hadn’t cared much about the local civilians. But, with such indignation as he could muster, he said, “Of course I do. If it weren’t for civilians, King Geoffrey wouldn’t have a kingdom, now would he?”

“Of course not,” Roast-Beef William replied. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, sir, only that you surprised me. Do you think there’s any chance Hesmucet will listen to you?”

“I don’t know,” Bell said. “But he will look like the villain he is if he doesn’t, so there may be some hope for it.”

“Well, there may be something to that,” William said. “By the Lion God’s twitching tail tuft, I hope there is-for the folk of Marthasville, if for no other reason.”

Bell bristled. He knew what that had to mean. “You don’t believe we can hold this city,” he said in accusing tones.

“I wish we could,” the wing commander said. “Think so? No. In my view, as I told you, our choice is between losing the city and losing the city and the army-this in spite of anything Hesmucet may say or do in aid of your letter. It may buy us a few days’ time, which is all to the good, but it will do no more.”

“Joseph the Gamecock was dismissed from command of this army for voicing opinions less gloomy than those,” Bell growled.

“Joseph had less reason for pessimism, for he had more men with whom to work,” Roast-Beef William replied. He tipped his hat. “Good day, sir.” Only after the older man was gone did Bell realize he’d been given the glove. Cursing, he yanked out his bottle of laudanum and took a long swig. After a little while, he felt better.

General Hesmucet swung his head from Jim the Ball to Jim of the Crew and back again. Jim the Ball fascinated him; he didn’t think he’d ever seen a fatter man. The two merchants from Marthasville nervously looked back. “Yes, you can give me Bell’s letter,” he said. “I do respect a flag of truce, gentlemen-I won’t eat you.” And if I did decide to order the two of you butchered, Jim the Ball could subsist my whole army for a couple of weeks.

Jim of the Crew, as it happened, had the letter. He handed it to Hesmucet. “Here you are, sir.”

“Thank you kindly.” Hesmucet unsealed the letter and flattened it out in his hands. “Ah, good,” he said. “Lieutenant General Bell writes in a tolerably large script. I won’t have to fish out my spectacles to read this, no indeed. People seem to write smaller every gods-damned year, but not today.”

He went through the letter in a hurry, then rolled it up again and set it on the light folding table he was using for a desk. “Is-is there-a reply, sir?” Jim the Ball asked, his speech oddly punctuated by breaths.

“Yes, there is, but I’ll give it in writing: properly, it goes to Bell himself, and not to either of you,” Hesmucet answered. “I’m going to send you to refresh yourselves while I draft it, if you don’t mind.” Jim of the Crew simply nodded. Jim the Ball looked eager. Hesmucet shook his head. The one who needs refreshments least wants them most. Isn’t that the way of the world?

He sat down behind the folding table, got out some paper, and inked a pen. To Lieutenant General Bell, commanding the Army ofFranklin, he wrote. General: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, at the hands of Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew, concerning my army’s bombardment of Marthasville. You style my measures “unprecedented,” and appeal to the dark history for a parallel, as an act of “studied and ingenious cruelty.” It is not unprecedented; nor is it necessary to appeal to the dark history of war, when recent modern examples are so handy. You yourself burned dwelling-houses along your parapet. You defended Marthasville on a line so close to town that every firepot and many crossbow quarrels from our line of investment, that overshot their mark, went into the habitations of women and children. Roast-Beef William did the same at Jonestown. I challenge any fair man to judge which of us has the heart of pity for the families of a “brave people.”

In the name of common-sense, I ask you not to appeal to the just gods in such a sacrilegious manner. You and your faction, in the midst of peace and prosperity, have plunged a kingdom into war-dark and cruel war-you who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, and seized our arsenals and forts. You made “prisoners of war” of the very garrisons sent to protect your people against wild blond tribes, long before any overt act was committed by the (to you) hated government of King Avram. If we must be enemies, let us be men, and fight it out as we propose to do, and not deal in such hypocritical appeals to gods and humanity. The gods will judge in due time. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hesmucet, General commanding.

“Well,” he muttered as he sealed the letter, “if that doesn’t make the son of a bitch have a spasm, gods damn me to the hells if I know what would.” He called for a runner and said, “Fetch back those two fellows from Marthasville. I’ve got their answer ready for ’em.”

“Yes, sir.” The young soldier in gray hurried off.

When the two northern merchants returned, Jim the Ball was still gnawing on a fried chicken drumstick. Speaking with his mouth full, he said, “Thank you-for the hospitality-you’ve shown-to a couple of men-from the-other side.”

“You’re welcome.” Hesmucet handed him the letter. “Take this back to Lieutenant General Bell, if you’d be so kind. You’ll have an escort to the front, and your flag of truce should get you through to your own side.”

“Can you give us the gist of it, in case it gets wet or meets some other accident?” Jim of the Crew asked.

“Certainly,” Hesmucet said. “The gist of it is `no.’ But I do write it down much fancier than that.”

Jim the Ball tossed aside the bare chicken bone. Jim of the Crew nodded. He seemed to have a good deal more wit than his comrade and namesake. Maybe that was just because he displayed less appetite. A man who gave in to his belly, as Jim the Ball did, often gave the impression, true or false, of lacking any other interests.

When the two merchants had left, Hesmucet read over Bell’s letter again. He shook his head in amusement. The man had to be an optimist, to think he would get Hesmucet to change his course. The only way northern commanders had got him to change his course was to beat him on the battlefield, and that hadn’t happened very often.

That evening, he showed Doubting George the letter. His second-in-command went through it, then remarked, “He’s trying to make you look bad in the eyes of the world, I think.”

“I don’t care how I look in the eyes of the world.” Hesmucet checked himself. “I don’t care how I look in the eyes of the world, so long as I look like the man who just took Marthasville.”

“I understand, sir. I agree with you,” George replied. “A soldier won’t usually worry about the war of words till he sees it’s the only war he has the faintest hope of winning.”

“That’s well put. That’s very well put, in fact,” Hesmucet said.

“Thank you kindly,” Doubting George said. “Bell’s thrown away so many soldiers, words are about what he has left. I expect you answered him the way he deserves, sir?”

“I hope so.” Hesmucet summarized his own letter.

George nodded. “That’s good. That’s very good indeed. With any luck at all, he’ll have an apoplexy, and then they’ll need a new commander.” He thought about that, then shook his head. “No, I hope he doesn’t have that apoplexy. Let him stay in command. He’s done us a lot of good.”

“I think so, too,” Hesmucet said. “He had to be a fool to try to slug it out with us. He did it anyhow-and proved how foolish it was.”

“Only a matter of time now,” George said.

Hesmucet nodded, but discontentedly. “We’ve taken too long already, gods damn it. Down in the south, they want a victory. We need to give them one.”

“We’re doing all right,” George insisted. “Marshal Bart has Duke Edward of Arlington penned up in Pierreville, north of Nonesuch, and we’ve got Bell pretty well trapped here. They aren’t going to get loose and cause trouble, the way they did last year and the year before.”

“You know that, and I know that, but do the fat burghers sitting on their backsides down in the south know that?” Hesmucet said. “Nonesuch hasn’t fallen, and Marthasville hasn’t fallen, either. If those fat burghers get sick of the war, false King Geoffrey may end up a real king after all. We need to take that town in front of us. That will give the whole south a sign we really are winning the war.”

“It won’t be long,” Doubting George said again. “Would Bell have written a letter like that if he didn’t feel the pinch?”

“Well, maybe not,” Hesmucet said. “I hope he wouldn’t, anyway. But I still want Marthasville.”

He got his answer from Lieutenant General Bell two days later, again delivered by Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew. He sent them off to eat, which would, at least, keep Jim the Ball happy. Unsealing the letter, he read, General: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the day previous. Had you not sought to justify yourself therein, I would have been willing to believe that, while the interests of the King of Detina, in your opinion, compelled you to an act of barbarous cruelty, you regretted the necessity, and we would have dropped the subject; but you have indulged in statements which I feel compelled to notice.

You are unfortunate in your attempt to find a justification for this act of cruelty, either in the defense of Jonestown, by Roast-Beef William, or of Marthasville, by myself. If there was any fault in either case, it was your own, in not giving notice, especially in the case of Marthasville, of your purpose to bombard the town, which is usual in war among civilized kingdoms. I have too good an opinion, founded both upon observation and experience, of the skill of your catapult men, to credit the insinuation that they for several weeks unintentionally shot too high for my modest field works, and slaughtered women and children by accident and want of skill.

Finally, you came into our country with your army, avowedly for the purpose of subjugating free Detinan men, women, and children, and not only intend to rule over them, but you make blonds your allies, and desire to place over us an inferior race, which we have raised from barbarism to its present position, which is the highest ever attained by that race, in all time. You say, “Let us fight it out like men.” To this my reply is-for myself, and I believe for all the true men, aye, and women and children, in my kingdom-we will fight you to the death! Better to die a thousand deaths than submit to live under you or your king or his blond allies! Respectfully, your obedient servant, Bell, Lieutenant General.

Hesmucet read through that again, and then chuckled grimly. “Well, I struck a nerve there, all right, gods damn me if I didn’t,” he said, and set Bell’s letter aside. The northern commander could complain all he chose, but he couldn’t stop the southrons from doing what needed doing, and that was what counted.

The commanding general called for a runner. “What do you need sir?” the messenger asked.

“I want you to send an alert to the scryers for the soldiers in the forwardmost entrenchments,” Hesmucet answered. “Warn them that the traitors are liable to try to sally against them today. Bell may have lost his temper.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll pass it along directly,” the runner said. “Uh, sir… How do you know that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Why, Lieutenant General Bell told me so, of course,” Hesmucet answered, deadpan.

The runner started to accept that, then turned and stared. Hesmucet waved him on. He went away shaking his head. Hesmucet laughed softly. The things I do to keep my air of mystery, he thought.

What he did next was summon Major Alva. “What can I do for you?” the young mage asked. Hesmucet folded his arms across his chest and waited. Belatedly, Alva turned red. “Uh, sir,” he added.

He still didn’t remember to salute. Hesmucet would have been merciless with most men who stayed so ignorant of military courtesy. The license he allowed Major Alva measured how much the mage impressed him. “I want you to do your best to learn if the traitors are planning any great magical stroke against us,” Hesmucet said.

“Well, I’ll try,” Alva answered. Hesmucet’s arms remained across his chest. He drummed his fingers on his sleeves. “I’ll try, sir,” Alva said. “You do understand, though, that their spells may cloak whatever they’re up to?”

“Won’t that cloaking tell you something in and of itself?” Hesmucet asked.

“It may… sir.” Little by little, Alva got the idea. “It may, but it may not, too. One of the things wizards do is, they make cloaking spells that don’t cloak anything. People who run into those spells have to probe them, because they may be hiding something important.”

“I am familiar with the idea of deception, yes,” Hesmucet said.

“Oh, good.” Major Alva’s tone plainly implied that a lot of the officers he dealt with weren’t. “When do you want this magecraft performed, sir?”

“Immediately,” Hesmucet told him. “Sooner would be nice.”

“How could I perform it sooner than immediately?” Alva blinked, then sent Hesmucet an accusing stare. Officers who weren’t perfectly literal-minded seemed outside his ken, too.

“Be thankful you’re not working for Doubting George,” Hesmucet said. “He’d drive you straight around the bend, he would.”

“Why is that, sir?” Alva asked.

“Never mind,” Hesmucet answered. “If I’m standing here explaining, you can’t go to work immediately, and that’s what I want you to do.”

“Yes, sir,” Alva said resignedly. “I can’t perform the spells immediately, you know. They will take some time.”

“Yes, yes,” Hesmucet said. “I do understand that. If it weren’t for time, everything would happen at once, and we’d all be very confused.”

Major Alva gave him a curious look. But the wizard decided not to ask any questions, which was a wise decision. He did salute on leaving. That was wise, too. And he hurried away, which was also a good idea. When he came back-not quite immediately, but close enough to keep Hesmucet from complaining-he wore a troubled expression. “The masking spells are extraordinarily deep, extraordinarily thick,” he complained. “I’m not sure I got through all of them.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Hesmucet said. “What are they hiding?”

“I’m not sure,” Alva answered. “I’m not sure they’re hiding anything. But I’m not sure they’re not, either.”

“What are we supposed to be doing about that?” Hesmucet asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” Alva replied. “You’re the commanding general.”

Hesmucet grunted. After some thought, he said, “All we can do is go on. If they throw sorcery at us, we’ll do our best to throw it back. And we’ll lick them any which way. By the gods, we will.”