Roast-Beef William looked dubious. He looked so very dubious, he might have practiced the expression in front of a glass. “I’d hate to put them into the line against Hesmucet’s men. The southrons are good soldiers, gods damn them, and they’re veterans. They’d go through raw militiamen like a good dose of castor oil.”
“I don’t intend to put them into the line, only into the forts around Marthasville,” Joseph the Gamecock answered. “If I’m going to offer the southrons any kind of resistance at all, Lieutenant General, somebody besides my soldiers has to fill those places.”
“Yes, sir.” Roast-Beef William still didn’t sound convinced. That worried Joseph. William, after all, was the man who’d written the tactical manual both sides used in this war. If he didn’t think well of Joseph’s plan, it was likely flawed.
Almost pleading, Joseph said, “I’ve got to try something. If I don’t, the southrons will just walk into Marthasville. We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t,” William agreed. “Who would have thought, three years ago, that things could grow so desperate?”
Anyone with an ounce of sense might have, Joseph thought. We knew from the start how badly the southrons outweigh us. But we were wild to hold on to our provincial prerogatives, and so we didn’t stop to count the cost when we followed Geoffrey and rebelled against King Avram. We’re counting the cost now, though.
With every stride his unicorn took, Marthasville grew nearer. It wasn’t a great city, not compared to New Eborac in the south or to Old Capet here in the north. But Joseph had been in the field a long time, in the field or in small towns. Marthasville’s hostels and shops and temples made it look very grand indeed, a center of civilization in the middle of nowhere.
He’d seen too much nowhere lately. He was sick of it. He was sick of the whole war. Had someone given him the chance to go off and sit on the sidelines-promising, of course, that everything would go well in his absence-he would gladly have taken it. The trouble was, no one could make promises like that. Joseph had been trained as a soldier. As long as his kingdom needed him, his sword remained at its service.
And if that doesn’t make me a loyal northern man, gods only know what would. I’ve had nothing but insults and disrespect from King Geoffrey. They’re all I’ll ever get, as long as he is king. But I’ll put up with them for my kingdom and for my province. If I were a private man, though, I’d cut the liver out of that gods-damned son of a bitch.
As often happened, a good dose of lese majesty made him feel better. He looked back over his shoulder at the men he commanded. They knew things weren’t going any too well. No one but an idiot could think that seeing the southrons on this side of the Hoocheecoochee was good news. Still, they seemed in good enough spirits. If he needed fighting from them, he would get all he needed. And if I had as many of them as Hesmucet has southrons, this would be a different war.
But that reflection wasn’t what made Joseph the Gamecock look straight ahead once more. It also wasn’t what made him urge his unicorn up to a slightly faster pace. Along with all his marching men, he’d spied Lieutenant General Bell, tied onto his unicorn, coming up at a trot. Short of making his own mount gallop, Joseph couldn’t escape Bell.
“Well, your Grace,” his wing commander rumbled, “what are we going to do now? This skedaddle is a disgrace, nothing else but. A disgrace, I say.”
“Would you sooner have stood your ground with the enemy behind us as well as in front?” Joseph the Gamecock demanded. “Nobody would have got back to Marthasville in that case.”
“They should never have got over the river in the first place,” Bell declared.
“I quite agree,” Joseph said.
Bell blinked. “Well, then…” His voice trailed off.
“Unfortunately,” Joseph the Gamecock said, “we have to deal with what did happen, not with what should have happened. We should have attacked the stinking southrons outside of Fat Mama, but one of our wing commanders saw ghosts in the bushes and got a cold foot, and so the attack did not go in.”
“Now see here, sir-” Bell began, he being the wing commander in question.
“Oh, shut up,” Joseph told him. “When we go into position behind Goober Creek and when I see what we can do against Hesmucet, I may decide I want to listen to you again. Till then, no.”
“What we can do against Hesmucet?” Bell jeered. “You won’t do anything but retreat. By the gods, sir, it’s all you ever do.”
Joseph the Gamecock set a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Gentlemen, please!” Roast-Beef William said, edging his unicorn between Joseph’s and Bell’s. “When we quarrel, who gains? King Avram, no one else.”
“There is some truth in what you say, Lieutenant General,” Joseph said. “Some-but not enough.”
“Not enough, indeed,” Bell said. “We need a man in charge of this army, not someone who takes to his heels whenever the enemy comes near.”
They both started reaching for weapons again. “You were the one who wouldn’t go forward when I needed you!” Joseph shouted.
“Gentlemen!” Roast-Beef William said again. “I really must insist that you remember we are all on the same side.”
“If certain people would act like it-” Joseph the Gamecock said.
“Yes, indeed, if only they would,” Lieutenant General Bell broke in. They glared at each other.
“We must all serve the north,” William said. “We can settle our differences once victory is ours. Until then, we have to work together.”
“I serve the north, by the gods,” Joseph said. “In fact, I daresay my service to the north is more pure, more disinterested, than that of any other man in the army. The kingdom always comes first for me, not least because I-” He broke off. Because I despise the king might be true-in fact, certainly was true-but would gain him no points in this argument. “Because I was one of the first men out of Detina’s old army and into this new one,” he finished lamely.
“We need a fighter at the head of our force, a true battler,” Bell said. “Then we’d show the southrons what our army can do.”
“And if this army gets that kind of battler”-Joseph the Gamecock looked hard at Bell-“what the southrons will show him is that they have too many men and too many engines to be driven off as easily as he thinks.”
“How would you know?” Bell retorted. “You’ve only gone backwards. You don’t know what we can do if we can go forwards.”
“Yes, I do,” Joseph said. “We can throw the war away. If you go forward against a host bigger than your own, that’s what you do.”
“Duke Edward of Arlington would not agree,” Bell sniffed.
“I know Duke Edward, sir. We have our differences, but I will say that Duke Edward is a friend of mine.” Joseph the Gamecock fixed his unruly wing commander with a steady, scornful stare. “And I will also say one other thing: you, Lieutenant General, are no Duke Edward.”
That got home. Bell quailed and went red under his swarthy skin. Using his good arm, he jerked his unicorn’s head away and rode off at something not far from a gallop. Joseph watched him go with considerable satisfaction. Roast-Beef William looked less happy. “That won’t do us any good, sir,” he said.
“By the Lion God’s fangs, it did me a lot of good,” Joseph said. “I’m entitled to vent my spleen now and again, too.” He set a hand on his abdomen. He wasn’t quite sure whereabouts in there his spleen resided, but he was sure it had been well and truly vented.
Somewhere not far ahead lay Goober Creek. If he could get the satrap to use his militiamen in the forts around Marthasville, that would free up the whole Army of Franklin to strike at the invaders. Hesmucet had come a long way. He’d had a lot of men killed or wounded, and was using a lot of them to guard the glideway line back to Rising Rock that kept his army fed and supplied. I can do him quite an injury, Joseph the Gamecock thought. I can, and, by the gods, I will.