“You don’t want to make things too easy for him, though,” Roast-Beef William protested.
“Oh, no,” Joseph agreed. “I don’t intend to do anything of the sort. But this position can be turned. I’d like to see Hesmucet try to turn our lines along Commissioner Mountain and Snouts Stream.” Even as he spoke, rain began to fall. He smiled; to him right now, rain was a friend. “I’d especially like to see Hesmucet try one of his outflanking moves in this muck.”
His surviving wing commander nodded. “If he did, we’d be on his flank like a tiger on an ox.”
William had missed a point: the rain hindered Joseph’s movements no less than those of the southrons. But even Joseph the Gamecock, who picked nits as naturally as he breathed, didn’t correct him. He didn’t need to attack. He needed nothing more than to hold on, and to hold Hesmucet out of Marthasville. As long as he succeeded in doing that, he was living up to the responsibility with which King Geoffrey had entrusted him.
Not that Geoffrey will thank me for it, he thought. Geoffrey never thanks me for anything. No-that’s not true. He’d thank me if I dried up and blew away. But he was desperate enough to put me here, and now he has to make the best of it.
He knew Geoffrey wasn’t happy that he’d had to yield so much of southern Peachtree Province. On the other hand, Duke Edward of Arlington and the Army of Southern Parthenia had yielded just about all of southern Parthenia to Marshal Bart. Bart was a lot closer to Nonesuch-and to King Geoffrey-than Hesmucet was to Marthasville.
“To whom will you give command of Leonidas’ wing?” Roast-Beef William asked.
There was a question to make even a moody man like Joseph the Gamecock stop brooding. But for piety and courage, Leonidas the Priest had been singularly, even plurally, lacking in the military virtues. If his wing acquired a commanding officer who knew what he was doing… Joseph didn’t smile. That would have been disrespectful to the dead, especially with Leonidas still unburned and with his spirit, therefore, still free and vengeful. Whether he smiled or not, though, he was far from brokenhearted.
“I think I shall appoint Brigadier Alexander-not James of Broadpath’s engines chief, who’s back in Parthenia now, but the man they call the Steward,” he said. “He’s a solid fellow.”
“Old Straight? I should say so!” William nodded vigorous approval. “Solid as the day is long. Brave, industrious, knows what he’s doing.”
“It will make a pleasant change, won’t it?” Joseph said. That was unkind to the memory of the hierophant of the Lion God, but not too much so.
William added, “I’m sure Lieutenant General Bell will also think well of the choice.”
“It’s not his to make. It’s not his to approve of,” Joseph said testily. Day by day, he grew less happy with Bell. The man carped and complained about everything, yet was reluctant to strike when ordered to do so. It must be the pain, Joseph thought. He’s only a shell of the man he used to be. Too bad, because I could use that man. The one I have…
As the officers came back up Cedar Hill, Joseph told off some ordinary soldiers he saw to take charge of Leonidas’ body. Then he and his comrades went off to his headquarters. He sent a runner to summon Alexander the Steward, and another to give Bell word of Leonidas the Priest’s untimely demise. With a little luck, the new wing commander would prove less recalcitrant than Leonidas had been. He could hardly prove more recalcitrant, Joseph thought.
The runner he’d sent to Bell returned. “The lieutenant general’s compliments, sir,” the fellow said, “and he asks if having a new wing commander means we’re more likely to advance against the enemy.”
“We would be more likely to advance against the enemy,” Joseph the Gamecock said icily, “if Lieutenant General Bell were in the habit of following orders.”
“Uh, shall I take that message back to him, sir?” the runner asked.
“No, never mind,” Joseph said. “He either knows it already or is unlikely to believe it from my lips.”
Before long, another man approached him: not a soldier this time, but a fellow in maroon velvet tunic and pantaloons of civilian cut who wore on his head a hat that put Joseph the Gamecock in mind of an inverted chamber pot. Bowing, the newcomer said, “Your Grace, I have the honor to represent Duke Brown, who is of course King Geoffrey’s satrap for Peachtree Province.”
“Of course,” Joseph replied. His opinion of the provincial satrap was indeed brown; he gave the duke far higher marks for mouth than for brains. Wondering what had caused Brown to send out this chap, he inquired, “And what does his Grace think I can do for him?”
His tone suggested that, whatever it might be, Duke Brown was undoubtedly laboring under a delusion. The man with the maroon pantaloons and ugly hat gave no sign of noticing that tone. He said, “The satrap sent me here to remonstrate with you.”
“To remonstrate with me? Why?” Joseph asked. “What have I done to him?” What have I done to set off the gods-damned fool now?
“Sir, he feels he must protest your excessive utilization of the province’s glideway carpets,” Duke Brown’s man replied. “Your constant traffic in this part of the province is having a most deleterious effect on civilian travel in Peachtree Province.”
“You are joking,” Joseph the Gamecock said.
“By no means, your Grace,” the study in maroon said. “The satrap has received numerous complaints from nobles and commoners alike as to the adverse impact on their travel requirements the continued requisitioning of carpets for your forces has caused, and feels he must respond to the citizenry.”
“I see,” Joseph said.
The civilian beamed. “I knew you would be reasonable, sir. Ah… what is that you are writing?”
“A pass to take you through my lines, so you can bring Duke Brown’s complaints directly to General Hesmucet. Since he is the true cause of my excessive use of the glideways, he is the one who should hear about the satrap’s concerns. He has the name of a reasonable man. I am sure, when he hears he is bothering civilians, he will turn around and march back down to the south.”
“You mock me, sir,” Duke Brown’s man said indignantly. “You mock my principal as well. This shall not go unnoticed.”
“And I shall not lose a moment’s sleep over it,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “I have some small hope of coping with the enemy. But when the idiots alleged to be on my own side commence to move against me, I find myself helpless to resist them.”
“How dare you use such a word, sir?” the civilian said. “How dare you?”
“I dare because I am a soldier, and it is my duty to dare,” Joseph replied. “That is more than the satrap can say.”
“You will go too far, if you have not already,” the man in maroon said, biting the words off between his teeth. “And, speaking of soldiers, I will have you know that Count Thraxton has come to Marthasville, and is examining your conduct of this campaign very closely-very closely indeed.”
“By all the gods, I’m delighted to hear that-just delighted,” Joseph said. “Thraxton the Braggart’s the reason the Army of Franklin was in the fix I found it in-and now King Geoffrey sends him up here to sit in judgment on me? Not a chance he’ll be prejudiced, is there? Not half.”
“Your Grace, I don’t know what you want me to say.” The man in maroon sounded worried-not out of any concern for me, Joseph judged, but because he fears he’ll end up in trouble with the satrap. Well, too fornicating bad for him.
“Go tell Duke Brown that I am going to use the glideways as much as I need to, so I can defend his province for him whether he wants me to or not,” Joseph the Gamecock snapped. “And if by any chance you should happen to see the ever so illustrious Count Thraxton, thank him for me for the lovely predicament he left me in. And now he looks over my campaign? Gods protect me from my friends!”