"That bad?" he asked.
"It's understandable," Mezentius replied; he could hear the restraint in his voice. "The strain's getting to all of us, and now this stupid thing with the carts…" He shook his head. "If you want my considered opinion, I would prefer not to engage the enemy right now."
Valens took a deep breath. "Agreed," he said. "Not now, or ever. But certainly not now." He stood up. "I'll go and plead with the carpenters a bit more, see if I can fire up their imaginations. And please, ignore what I said just now. I've been talking to my wife. It's not good for me."
Mezentius laughed, but nervously. "Understood," he said. "Good luck with the carpenters. Did you find out where that bloody Mezentine's got to, by the way?"
When he reached the broken wagons, he found the carpenters standing round looking sad. They explained that they'd thought about it some more, and they were pretty sure that nailing on battens wasn't going to work, so there didn't seem much point in starting.
Valens swallowed his anger. He was getting used to the taste of it. "Try it anyway," he said.
They explained how the damage should be repaired, by removing the entire damaged timber and replacing it. They could more or less guarantee that that would work; however, it would probably take several days, even if they had suitable material, which they didn't. They could go up the mountain and look for ash trees of the right size and width, though ash didn't usually grow well in this soil; that wouldn't really help, however, since green timber would be far too weak, and they'd be wasting their time. But if that was what Valens wanted them to do…
He smiled. "Let's try the battens," he said.
They nodded silently. He could tell they were waiting for him to go away, so they could carry on standing about looking miserable. "I'll stay and watch, if I won't be in the way," he said. "I like watching craftsmen at work."
It didn't take them long. They unshipped lengths of batten, cut pieces to size and nailed them on. The horses were brought up and backed into the shafts. The wagons began to move. The sound of the battens cracking was audible ten yards away.
"Oh well," Valens said. "We tried."
The carpenters explained that they'd been pretty sure it wasn't going to work. However, they would give it some thought and try to come up with something else.
Some junior officer he didn't know brought him the inventory he'd asked for. Over a third of the column were bow-waisted or half-lock. He gave up the idea of abandoning them and trying to distribute their loads among the rest of the carts. He thanked the officer and went back to the coach.
"Have you solved the problem?" she asked.
"No."
She nodded. "How many…?"
"About a third."
The interruption didn't seem to have bothered her. "In that case, you have only one option. You must remove the armor from the affected vehicles. Of course, this will seriously compromise your plan for using the carts as a mobile fortress. You can, of course, put some of the undefended carts in the middle of the formation and so shield them from attack, but-"
"Not all of them," Valens said. "Which means there'll be a great big weak patch somewhere in the wall, which we'll have to defend some other way. We could concentrate the cavalry and men-at-arms-"
"To some extent." In other words, forget it. He wondered if she was enjoying his failure, but it didn't seem likely. Any sort of pleasure seemed beyond her completely. "You would be better advised to move out as quickly as possible, and head directly for my people's territory. At least you can be sure that the Mezentines won't follow you into the desert."
"We aren't going anywhere near the desert."
"You have no choice."
He left without replying. Outside, he stood for a moment and looked at the line of halted wagons. People were standing about in groups, talking quietly or not at all. Horsemen rode up and down the line, carrying messages, inspecting, relaying orders. They were worried, but it was all under control; they knew he could be trusted to sort things out. To be trusted, relied on, even loved; he felt the pain of it deep inside, the way a man with an arrowhead buried too deep inside to be extracted feels it every time he moves. I've killed them, he thought, just like Orsea killed the Eremians: for duty, for love.
"Is there anything I can do?"
He turned his head, and just then, in his mind, it was like looking into a mirror. "Orsea," he said. "I'm sorry, I was miles away."
"I gather there's some problem with the carts," Orsea said. He had that stupid, sad look on his face, that preemptive admission of guilt that made Valens want to say, It's all right, this time it's not your fault. That would be a lie, of course, since it was Orsea's fault they were here; Orsea's sense of duty, compounded by Valens' love. "Can't Vaatzes suggest anything? It should be right up his street, this sort of thing."
"Vaatzes isn't here." Valens didn't want to snap, but he couldn't help it. Orsea had been born to be shouted at. He was wearing the fashionable long-toed riding boots that were useless for walking in; they made him look like some rare breed of marshland bird. "He's disappeared, and so's his assistant. But we're working on it." He scowled. "You don't happen to know anything about woodwork, do you?"
"No."
"Of course not. Me neither. Useless, aren't we?" He laughed. "Oh, we know lots of stuff: how to train hawks, how to run a council meeting, the correct way to address an ambassador, how to use archers to cover an infantry advance. Pity that a few bits of broken wood can screw us up completely. I don't know." He turned away; the sight of Orsea's face made him want to lash out. "Maybe we should just jump on our horses and ride away, leave the rest of them to sort it all out for themselves. They couldn't be worse off without us than they are already."
"That's not true," Orsea said; he sounded bewildered, like a child who sees his parents arguing. "You're good at this. You can deal with it."
If it had come from anybody else, he might have tried to believe it. "My wife thinks we should dump the armor and make a run for it, head for her territory, the Cure Hardy." He stopped, as though there was something wrong with his mouth. "She thinks we'd be safe there. A lot of us would die trying to cross the desert, but not nearly as many as we'd lose if we carried on with the original plan." He turned sharply and looked Orsea in the eye. "What do you think? Is that what you'd do, in my place?"
Orsea seemed to shrink back, as though Valens had hit him. "I'm the last person-"
"Yes, but I'm asking you. What do you think?"
"I don't know."
Valens felt the energy seep out of himself. "Well of course you don't, you haven't got all the facts. I'm sorry. I just don't feel like making a decision like that."
"I can understand," Orsea said.
You more than anybody. "In fact," Valens said, "we're not going to do anything of the sort. Which is stupid, because I have an unpleasant feeling it's the right thing to do; but I'm too weak to make the decision, so we aren't going to do it." He looked past Orsea, at the line of carts. "I'm going to send on the carts that don't have the problem, and keep the damaged ones here until they can be fixed properly, by cutting out the broken bits and fitting in new ones. I'm told it could take a day or so to find suitable timber and as long again to do the job, but that can't be helped. We can't afford to abandon that many wagons, so they'll have to be fixed, and we'll have to try and protect them in the meantime." He breathed in, as though he was making a speech. "It'll mean dividing the army, and there's not enough to defend both units, so I'll split the archers and foot soldiers up between the two parts of the convoy, and send the cavalry out to look for the enemy. If they come for us, the cavalry can engage them in the open, try and stop them getting here. If we get away with it, we'll all meet up somewhere and carry on as before. How does that sound?"