“I think so, too, sir,” Thisbe agreed.
“What sort of spirits are the men in?” Gremio asked. “You’ve got stripes on your sleeves, not epaulets on your shoulders. That puts you closer to an ordinary man than I could ever… Are you all right, Sergeant?”
Thisbe had suffered a coughing fit, and went even redder in the face than he had before. “I’m sorry, sir,” he wheezed when he could speak at all. “I swallowed wrong then, and almost choked. Most ways, I’d say, you’re closer to an ordinary man than I could ever be.” Before Gremio could argue with that, Thisbe went on, “I think your ordinary soldier dislikes a sergeant more than an officer, in the same sort of way that a serf is liable to dislike an overseer more than a liege lord. The sergeant is the one who makes sure he does what he’s told, after all.”
“Mm, I shouldn’t wonder if there was something to that,” Gremio allowed. “All right, Sergeant, you’ve made your point.” He put on a severe look. “As I’ve said, I do wish you’d let me offer your name for promotion.”
“No, thank you, sir.” As usual on this subject, Thisbe’s voice held not an ounce of doubt. “I’d sooner just be what I am. I’d much sooner just be what I am.”
“I bow to your wishes.” Gremio suited action to word. The sergeant smiled and began a motion in return, but arrested it before it was well begun-not quite an answering bow, but something on that order. Gremio said, “It’s plain that, once upon a time, you were a fine gentleman.”
“I was not!” Thisbe said hotly. “Never once! The very idea!”
He sounded so irate, Gremio didn’t ask any of the questions he might have otherwise. King Geoffrey’s army held more than a few nobles fighting as common soldiers, either from sheer love of adventure or because they’d disgraced themselves and couldn’t claim the rank that should have gone with their station. It had occurred to Gremio that his sergeant might be such a man. If he was, though, he didn’t intend to admit it.
And now he went off in what Gremio couldn’t help but recognized as a huff. The company commander kicked at the brick-red mud in the bottom of the trench. Even though he had the right to make such comments to Thisbe, he wished he hadn’t done it. He didn’t want the sergeant angry at him. The company won’t run smoothly if he is, Gremio told himself. But there was more to it than that. He didn’t want Thisbe angry at him because he liked and respected him, and wanted him to be as much of a friend as their different ranks would permit.
“By the gods, if I ever found a woman who suited me as well as Thisbe does, I’d marry her on the spot,” he muttered.
Getting married, though, didn’t stay on his mind for long. For one thing, he knew of no women-except perhaps a few loose ones-within miles. For another, a troop of southron unicorn-riders trotted past the Army of Franklin’s entrenchments right on the edge of catapult range. A few engineers let fly at them. Most of the stones and firepots went wide, but one smashed a rider and his unicorn like a boot descending on a cockroach.
After that, the southrons did a better job of keeping their distance. But they had accomplished their purpose. Gremio saw that clearly. By reminding the northern commanders they were there, they kept Joseph the Gamecock and Brigadier Spinner from loosing the northern riders to harry the enemy supply line. It was long, stretching all the way back to Rising Rock, and it was tenuous, but none of that mattered if the northerners couldn’t mount a serious attack on it. And, by all the signs, they couldn’t.
Gremio sighed. More and more these days, the war was coming down to demonstrations of what the north couldn’t do. That was no way to win it. We’re right, though, he thought. A moment later, he laughed at himself. A man in the lawcourts might be right, too. How much good did that do him if the judges ruled he was wrong? None whatsoever, as Gremio knew too well. Like any barrister, he always thought he was right. Everyone once in a while, some idiot panel of judges had a different-and no doubt erroneous-opinion.
Brigadier Alexander, the new wing commander, came marching through the trenches. Gremio approved of that. Leonidas the Priest had been a brave and pious man, but hadn’t much concerned himself with his soldiers’ mundane, day-to-day needs and concerns-or perhaps he simply hadn’t cared to get his fancy vestments dirty. Alexander strode up to Gremio, who stiffened to attention and saluted.
“As you were, Captain,” the senior officer said. Gremio saw how he’d come to be called Old Straight-he was tall and lean and very erect. And, when he spoke, his words were straightforward, too: “How, in your view, can we best beat back the stinking southrons? What can we do that we aren’t doing now?”
“Having twice as many men in the trenches wouldn’t hurt, sir,” Gremio replied.
“So it wouldn’t,” Brigadier Alexander agreed. “Ask for the moon, as long as you’re making wishes. What can we do that we can do, if you take my meaning?”
He meant the question seriously. Gremio could see as much. He gave back a serious answer: “Sir, holding them out of Marthasville is about as big a victory as we can hope for, wouldn’t you say?”
He waited, wondering if he’d misjudged Alexander. Some officers would have taken that-would have taken anything less than a call for an immediate counterattack on General Hesmucet and a march south toward the Franklin line-as defeatism. But Old Straight nodded and said, “You see things clearly, don’t you?”
Relieved, Gremio said, “I do my best, sir.”
“If we all do our best, Captain, we have some hope of coming out of this campaign with whole skins,” Brigadier Alexander said. “If we don’t, well, things won’t look so good. This is Colonel Florizel’s regiment, is it not?”
Gremio nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“You men have put up a good record,” Alexander said. “If all the company-grade officers here are up to your level, Captain, I can see why. And I’ll tell the same to your colonel. Your name is…?”
“Gremio, sir.”
“Very well. Carry on, Captain Gremio.” The wing commander swept on down the line, now and then pausing to pull his boots out of mud thicker than usual. Gremio doubted he would have that problem himself, not for a while. He would be walking on air for the rest of the day.
And he’d won respect from his men that he hadn’t had before. If Brigadier Alexander approved of him and would say so out loud, who were common soldiers to disagree? They obeyed him more promptly than he’d ever seen them do before. He’d enjoy it while it lasted, for he didn’t think it would last long.
It did suffice to bring Colonel Florizel over to him. The regimental commander asked, “How did you get Brigadier Alexander to say such fine things about you?” Florizel sounded half suspicious, half jealous. Alexander, evidently, hadn’t said any fine things about him.
Deadpan, Gremio answered, “I told him I’d learned everything I know about fighting from you, sir.”
That actually did hold some truth. Florizel would never become a brigadier himself. He was no great tactician, nor, to be just, did he claim to be one. But he was brave, and he knew how to make his men like him and fight bravely for him. There were plenty of worse regimental commanders in the Army of Franklin, and some worse men in charge of brigades, too.
And, like a lot of men, he was no more immune to flattery than flies were to honey. He coughed and scuffed his boots in the mud and murmured, “Well, Captain, that was a mighty kind thing to say. Mighty kind indeed.”
Oh, dear, Gremio thought. He took that literally, didn’t he? The best thing he could find to do was change the subject, and so he did: “The new wing commander worries that we won’t be able to drive the southrons back.”
Brigadier Alexander had done more than worry. He’d been at least as gloomy about the campaign as Gremio was himself. But Florizel was and always had been an optimist. Saying something that didn’t suggest total victory lay right around the corner took nerve.