“There’d be a great gnashing of teeth if they got so far,” his adjutant agreed.
The rain kept right on falling. It soaked the roads. It soaked the soldiers. It soaked the woods that covered so much of Franklin. Woods that had been gorgeous with the gold and crimson and maroon leaves of autumn only days before went brown and bare. The leaves lay underfoot, losing their color and smelling musty and turning dreadfully slimy and slippery in the rain.
When evening came-as it did earlier every day-the army made camp. Tents sprouted like toadstools in the rain. Considering the number of toadstools also sprouting, John found himself in an excellent position to make the comparison. More of his men carried tent halves than held true among the traitors. More supply wagons accompanied his army, too. He might not be able to move quite so fast as Lieutenant General Bell’s lean, hungry troopers, but he thought his men could hit harder when they got where they were going.
And there’s not a thing wrong with taking whatever comforts you can into the field, he told himself. The traitors boasted of how scrawny they were, and did their best to turn their quartermasters’ weakness and sometimes incompetence into a virtue. John preferred having his men go into a fight well fed and as well rested as they could be. Thanks to the manufactories and glideways of the south, he got his wish.
Hat still jammed down low on his head, he prowled through the camp, making sure everything ran to his satisfaction. Not everyone recognized him as the commanding general; like Marshal Bart, who led all of King Avram’s armies, he wore a common soldier’s blouse with stars of rank on the shoulders. But here and there, a man would call out, “How’s it going, Ducky?”
Whenever that happened, John would wave back. He’d had the nickname a long time. When he was a younger man, he’d combed his hair so that it stuck up at the nape of his neck, putting people in mind of the southern end of a northbound duck. A lot of young men had worn their hair in that style twenty years before. He wasn’t the only one who’d ended up getting called Ducky or the Duck on account of it, either.
He took out a mess tin and stood in line with ordinary soldiers to see what their cooks were dishing out. Once, a cook had been so surprised, he’d dumped a ladleful of stew on his own shoes. John had got the helping after that, and it had been pretty good. What he got this time was hard bread and cheese and sausage-nothing very exciting, but decent enough of its kind. He ate with real enjoyment.
“Halt! Who goes there?” sentries called as he approached his own pavilion. They were alert, but not alert enough to have noticed he wasn’t in there to begin with.
“I’m John the Lister,” he said dryly.
The sentries muttered among themselves. At last, one of them said, “Advance and be recognized, sir.”
Advance John did. Recognize him the sentries did. They came to attention so stiff, they might almost have come to rigor mortis. “Am I who I say I am?” the general asked.
“Yes, sir!” the sentries chorused. One of them held the tent flap wide for him.
“You don’t need to bother with such foolishness,” John said as he stooped and went into the pavilion. “Just make sure you keep any traitors from sneaking in after me, all right?”
“Yes, sir!” the sentries chorused once more. They would do what he told them-unless they did something else, in which case the force he commanded would have a new leader shortly thereafter. John suspected it would do about as well under a fair number of other officers. He contrived to keep this suspicion well hidden. As far as his superiors knew, he was convinced he was indispensable.
His superiors… John the Lister let his broad-shouldered bulk sag into a folding chair, which creaked under his weight. Depending on how you looked at things, he had either a mere handful of superiors or a whole great list of them. In King Avram’s volunteers, he was a brigadier. As long as the war against false King Geoffrey lasted, he could command a wing or even a small independent army, as he was doing now.
That was true as long as the war lasted. The minute it ended, he was a brigadier no more. In King Avram’s regular army, the army that persisted in peacetime, John was only a captain, with a captain’s pay and a captain’s prospects. The best he could hope for as a captain would be to end up at a fortress on the eastern steppes, commanding a company against the blond nomads who preyed on the great herds of aurochs there-and on Detinan settlers.
Doubting George was a lieutenant general of volunteers. But Doubting George was also a brigadier among the regulars. If the war ended tomorrow, he would still be a person to reckon with. John knew only one thing could get him the permanent rank he so craved: a smashing victory over the southrons. Knowing what he needed was all very well. Knowing how to get it was something else again.
John gave Doubting George reluctant credit. George could have commanded this move up from Ramblerton himself. He could have, but he hadn’t. He already owned as much permanent rank as he needed. John didn’t. He had the chance to earn more here, if he could.
And if Lieutenant General Bell was really coming. John the Lister still found that hard to believe. If he’d commanded the force Bell had, he wouldn’t have tried doing anything too risky with it. He would have held back, waited to see what the southrons opposing him had in mind, and hoped they’d make a mistake.
Waiting and seeing, of course, had never been one of Bell’s strong points. If the situation called for him to charge, he would. If the situation called for him to wait and see, odds were he would charge anyway.
Besides, who could say if he was really so foolish? The way things looked, the north needed something not far from a miracle to beat King Avram’s armies. Hanging back and waiting wouldn’t yield one. Striking for the enemy’s throat might.
John had a flask on his belt. He liberated it, yanked out the stopper, and took a swig. Sweet fire ran down his throat: brandy made from the most famous product of Peachtree Province. After that one swig, John corked the flask and put it back on his belt. One nip was fine. More? More and he would have been like General Guildenstern, who, reports said, had been the worse for wear during the battle by the River of Death. Maybe Guildenstern would have lost sober, too. No one would ever know now.
After pulling off his boots, John the Lister lay down on his iron-framed cot. He had a brigadier’s privileges; a captain would have slept wrapped in a blanket or on bare ground, like a common soldier. The cot wasn’t very comfortable, either, but it was better than bare ground.
As usual, John woke before dawn. He got out of bed and put his boots back on. That done, he scratched. Back in Ramblerton, he’d been able to bathe as often as he wanted to-even a couple of times a week if he was so inclined. He usually wasn’t that fussy, though some of the more fastidious officers were. Out in the field, though, and especially when the weather wasn’t warm… He shook his head. Some things were more trouble than they were worth.
When he came out of the pavilion, a couple of blond servants carried its light furnishings to a wagon, then took down the big tent itself and packed it on top of the cot and chair and folding table. “Thanks, boys,” John said. They both nodded. John had to remind himself they weren’t serfs. They worked for wages, just as a proper Detinan might find himself doing.
They probably think they are proper Detinans. John the Lister muttered under his breath. He didn’t necessarily share that opinion. But he was sure Grand Duke Geoffrey had no business tearing the kingdom to pieces. That put him on King Avram’s side, no matter what he thought about blonds and whether or not they were as good as Detinans whose ancestors had crossed the Western Ocean.