“Yes, sir!” Rollant said proudly. He was sure he felt better about being promoted to the lowest grade of underofficer than Bart did about rising from general to marshal. For a blond to get stripes on his sleeve in King Avram’s army, to gain the privilege of giving orders to free Detinans…
“Take up the standard, Corporal!” Griff said.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant repeated, even more proudly than before. The company’s flag and its heavy pole seemed to weigh nothing at all as he lifted them from their stand. The soldiers saluted the standard as if worshiping a god. And so they are, he realized. This flag means Detina to them, and they reverence the kingdom as much as the Lion God or the Thunderer.
His mouth quirked up in what wasn’t really a grin, no matter what it looked like. They certainly wouldn’t risk their lives to free blonds from their-from our-bondage to the land, he thought. Avram hadn’t much wanted to fight the northerners over serfdom. He’d chosen war only when Geoffrey tried to set up his own kingdom in the north.
Horns blared. “Form up!” Lieutenant Griff screamed. The company he led hurried to obey. Rollant started to go to his own place, next to Smitty and Sergeant Joram. He’d taken that place ever since accepting King Avram’s silver on enlisting. But it wasn’t his any more. Now he belonged at the van of the company, so he could use the standard to signal which way the men should go.
The honor was not unmixed. For one thing, standard-bearers, by the nature of their job, made prominent targets. If the last fellow who carried the flag hadn’t got shot on Commissioner Mountain, Rollant wouldn’t have had it now. And, for another, he felt eyes on him as he took his place alongside Griff and the company trumpeter. Not all of his comrades were happy to see a blond promoted above them. Too bad, Rollant thought. If they’d wanted to save the standard, one of them could have done it himself.
Voice cracking as it often did, Lieutenant Griff said, “Men, our company-and Colonel Nahath’s regiment as a whole-have the distinction of probing up towards the Hoocheecoochee. This is a privilege granted only a few regiments of footsoldiers. The unicorn-riders are doing much more of it. But Lieutenant General George knows what we can do. He’s seen us fight. By the gods, he’s fought alongside us, on Merkle’s Hill by the River of Death. We’ll show him we deserve this chance he’s giving us, won’t we?”
“Yes, sir!” the men roared.
Rollant shouted as loud as anybody else. He had to, for appearance’s sake. But that didn’t mean he was excited about getting the chance to try to approach the Hoocheecoochee. He knew what Lieutenant Griff meant, no matter what the young officer actually said. What Griff meant was, What we’re going to try probably won’t work, but it does have a fair chance of getting a lot of us killed.
He looked toward Smitty. The farmer’s son caught his glance, shrugged ever so slightly, and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, What can you do? Smitty had been through a lot. He had no more trouble uncovering Griff’s hidden meaning than Rollant did.
Once Griff stood aside, Colonel Nahath harangued the whole regiment. His speech was smoother and more polished than Griff’s, but amounted to the same thing. Rollant felt like shrugging, too, but couldn’t, not standing out there in front of everybody. Nahath had got his orders, and was having to make the best of them. Rollant hoped there was a best to be made.
After the regimental commander stepped back, the horns blared again. “Forward!” Lieutenant Griff shouted, along with all the other men in charge of companies. Forward his own company went. Forward Rollant went at his head.
The day was hot and muggy. At this season of the year, any day in the north of Detina was likely to be hot and muggy. Flies buzzed and bit. With the flagstaff in his hands, Rollant couldn’t slap them away so readily as he had had before. His new rank and station had some difficulties he hadn’t thought about.
With so much heat and moisture, something close to a jungle grew down toward the southern bank of the Hoocheecoochee. Only a few roads ran through the undergrowth. Hoofprints and unicorn turds warned that the traitors patrolled them regularly. Rollant wouldn’t have wanted to meet unicorn-riders in such cramped surroundings.
A squirrel chittered in the branches overhead, scolding the marching soldiers. A jewelbird, glittering green with a ruby head, buzzed around Rollant and then flew off toward the north. The standard-bearer turned to Lieutenant Griff and said, “Sir, where I come from, we’d reckon that was good luck.”
“We haven’t got that superstition in New Eborac,” Griff said. Rollant bristled; he didn’t think of it as a superstition. But then Griff softened the comment: “We haven’t got that many jewelbirds, either. Too far south, and the winters are too cold.”
“I know.” Rollant nodded. “I miss ’em.” He didn’t miss many things about Palmetto Province. Jewelbirds, though, had never done him any harm. “Back around the serfs’ huts, some people would hang a bowl of molasses and water up at the top of a pole to get them to come and feed there.”
“What for?” Griff asked. “To catch them?”
“No, sir!” Rollant heard the shock in his own voice. “Catch a jewelbird? That’d be about the worst kind of bad luck there is. We just liked to have ’em around, on account of they’re pretty. We couldn’t have much that was pretty, but I never heard of a liege lord who minded us drawing jewelbirds to our huts-didn’t cost anything, except for the little bit of molasses.”
Griff tramped on for a while. Rollant wondered if he’d talked too much or too openly. Smitty wouldn’t have minded his remarks. Neither would Sergeant Joram. But then the company commander said, “When you first got to New Eborac, Corporal, you must have felt as if you’d fallen into some whole new world. The biggest city in Detina can’t be anything like an estate outside Karlsburg.”
That was far and away the most perceptive comment Rollant had ever heard Lieutenant Griff make. “You’re right, sir,” the escaped serf said. “Are you ever right! When I first came down south, I thought I would go clean out of my mind. So many people, and all of ’em packed together like olives in a jar… But I got used to it. And do you know what the best part was?”
“I know what it would have been for me,” Griff replied. “What was it for you?”
“Nobody could tell me what to do,” Rollant said at once. “I was on my own. I’d starve if I didn’t work hard. Things weren’t easy, especially at first, but I was working for myself, not for my gods-damned liege lord. When somebody gave me silver, I got to keep all of it. That’s pretty fine.”
Again, Griff marched on for several silent steps. Again, Rollant wondered if he’d gone too far. But the young lieutenant said, “No wonder you’ve got stripes on your tunic sleeve and our flag in your hands. You sound just like any other free Detinan.”
I am just like any other free Detinan, Rollant thought. But that was true only in certain ways. One way it was untrue was in the eyes of a great many free Detinans, from south as well as north. Rollant would have guessed Griff to be among that number, but he seemed to be mistaken there.
On trudged the regiment. “Where are the traitors?” Rollant wondered. “I’d have thought they’d’ve pitched into us by now.”
Lieutenant Griff’s leer might have come from Smitty. “Do you really want them around, Corporal?”
“Want them? Hells, no, sir. But what you want and what you get are two different beasts.” Any serf learned that in a hurry, generally about as fast as he learned to walk or talk. Soldiers got the same lesson, but at an older age.
“I wish this country would open out a bit,” Lieutenant Griff said. “That would help us figure out just where we are. Unless I’m altogether daft, we can’t be too far from the Hoocheecoochee.”