He didn’t care for the smile that played on what he could see of George’s lips behind the other officer’s thick beard and mustache. Still smiling that unpleasant smile, George said, “I won’t sic Major Alva on you if I think you’re scheming against me, Brigadier. I’ll just dismiss you. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir,” John replied. “You leave me no room for, er, doubt.” Doubting George laughed out loud. John went on, “But may I ask you one different question?”
“Go right ahead.” George was the picture of northern hospitality.
“Sir, why the hells won’t you attack Bell?” John the Lister blurted.
“Why? Because the son of a bitch isn’t going anywhere, and I’m not quite ready to give him what-for yet. I want those last couple of brigades from the far side of the Great River here before I do,” George answered. “I tell this over and over to anybody who’ll listen, but nobody seems to want to. Is it so gods-damned hard to grasp?” He sounded as plaintive as a commanding general was ever likely to.
“Sir, he’s right in front of us. He’s just waiting to be hit. If we can’t whip him with what we’ve got here…”
“If we can’t, we’d be stupid to try, especially when those brigades are almost here,” Doubting George said.
“But I think we can!” John the Lister said.
“That’s nice.” George sounded placid. Whether he was… Well, now John was the doubting one. The commanding general went on, “If Marshal Bart bounces me and names you in my place, you can go charging forth just as though you’d borrowed Bell’s brains, such as they are. Meanwhile, you’d better do what I tell you. We’ll both be unhappy if you don’t, but you’ll end up unhappier. I promise you that, Brigadier.”
“Yes, sir,” John the Lister said. “If you’ll excuse me, sir…” He waited for Doubting George’s affable nod, then left George’s headquarters at something just this side of a run.
Still steaming, he hurried up the muddy, puddle-splashed streets of Ramblerton till brick buildings gave way to log huts and log huts gave way to bare-branched broad-leafed trees and brooding, dark green pines. The southrons’ line of fortifications abridged the forest along the ridges north of Ramblerton. John ascended to a sentry tower in the nearest fort. The sentry in the tower was so startled to have a brigadier appear at his elbow, he almost fell out of his observation chamber coming to attention when John did.
“Give me your spyglass,” John barked.
“Sir?” The sentry gaped.
“Give me your gods-damned spyglass,” John the Lister said again.
Numbly, the sentry handed over the long, gleaming brass tube. John raised it to his eye and swept it over the traitors’ lines. Lieutenant General Bell’s soldiers seemed to leap toward him. Mages insisted spyglasses weren’t sorcery: only a clever use of the mechanic arts. No matter what the mages said, the effect always seemed magical to John.
Now, almost as if he were standing in front of its parapets, he could see the Army of Franklin in action, and in inaction. Scrawny men in tattered blue tunics and pantaloons, many of the poor bastards barefoot, lined up in front of kettles to get their midday meals. They looked more like the survivors of some disaster than an army that probably imagined it was laying siege to Ramblerton. The earthworks they’d thrown up were very fresh and new, but they didn’t have many soldiers in them.
John scanned the northerners’ position, trying to spy out how many unicorn-riders they had with them. Fewer than he’d expected. He wondered if some of them had gone off to raid somewhere else. He wouldn’t have divided his forces in the face of an enemy that outnumbered him. What Bell would do, though, was liable to be known only unto the gods.
Back swung John’s narrow circle of vision. Suddenly, the spyglass stopped. There was some northern sentry or officer looking straight back at him out of a spyglass of his own. The traitor’s glass had stopped moving, too. Had he spotted John watching him? By way of experiment, John raised his left hand, the one that wasn’t holding the spyglass, and waved.
Sure as hells, the soldier in the Army of Franklin waved back. John laughed and lowered the spyglass. The southron sentry’s face was a mask of perplexity. “What’s so funny, sir?” he asked.
John the Lister told him. The sentry nodded. “Oh, yes, I’ve seen that son of a bitch. I don’t know that he’s ever seen me, but I’ve seen him. He’s got the very same kind of spyglass as mine.”
“Well, of course,” John said. “We all have the same kind of stuff. The traitors took whatever was in their provinces when they declared for false King Geoffrey, and they’ve been using it ever since.”
Yet even though he’d said of course to the sentry, it wasn’t something about which he’d thought much before. It was worth remembering. The two branches of the Detinan trunk had spent the past three and a half years showing each other how different they were. Yet they were without question branches from the same trunk. Even if the northerners wanted to hold on to their serfs and their great estates while manufactories and glideways spread across the south, both sides still spoke the same language, worshiped the same gods-and even used the same tactical manual for training their soldiers. Roast-Beef William, who’d written it, fought for Geoffrey these days, and had the unlucky assignment of trying to stop General Hesmucet’s march across Peachtree Province toward the Western Ocean. If he could have scraped up even a quarter as many men as Hesmucet commanded, he might have had a chance. As things were…
“As things are, he’s in just as much trouble as Bell and the gods-damned Army of Franklin,” John the Lister said.
“Who is, sir?” the sentry asked.
“Never you mind.” John descended from the observation tower as abruptly as he’d climbed to the top of it. Looking over the traitors’ position had only gone further to convince him that they were ready for the taking now. Maybe if he dragged Doubting George up here and made him look with his own eyes…
And if that doesn’t work, John thought, to the seven hells with me if I wouldn’t be tempted to take that spyglass and shove it up his… A subordinate wasn’t supposed to have such ideas about his superior. Whether John was supposed to or not, he did.
He was just coming back to the outskirts of Ramblerton when a young officer on unicornback waved to him. “Brigadier John!” the other man called. “Congratulations on your promotion in the ranks of the regulars.”
“Thank you kindly, Jimmy,” John the Lister said, and then, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Ask away,” Hard-Riding Jimmy answered. “After what we went through around Poor Richard, we’d better be able to talk to each other, eh?”
“Do you think we can whip the traitors with the men we’ve got here already?”
“Me, sir? Hells, yes! I’m within shouting distance of being able to do it all by myself,” Jimmy said. “I’ve picked up a ton of reinforcements, and they’ve all got quick-shooting crossbows. Send me around their flank and into their rear and I’ll rip ’em to shreds.”
“Would you tell that to Doubting George?” John asked eagerly.
“I already have,” the commander of unicorn-riders answered.
“And?” John said.
Hard-Riding Jimmy shrugged. “And he wants to wait a bit.”
“Why?” John the Lister asked in something not far from desperation. “Why does George want to wait, in the name of the Thunderer’s great right fist? Why does he need to wait?”
“He’s the general commanding.” Jimmy shrugged again. “Officers who’re in charge do whatever they please, no matter how silly it is.” He tipped his hat to John. “Meaning no disrespect, of course.”
“Of course.” John’s voice was sour. What had he done that Hard-Riding Jimmy thought silly? He decided not to ask. The younger man was too likely to tell him. Instead, he said, “You do agree George is making a mistake by not attacking the Army of Franklin?”