“Have you ever heard of defending?” Joseph the Gamecock said.
“Indeed, sir.” Bell nodded. “You have defended Peachtree Province so well, the whole southern half of it no longer needs to be defended at all.”
“If you’d thrown the army away, as you always seem to want to do, we wouldn’t still hold Marthasville,” Joseph said.
“You always think we will lose if we attack,” Bell retorted. “If we attack and win, we hurl the southrons back and we go forward.”
“True-if,” Joseph the Gamecock agreed. “Long odds, though, when we’re so outnumbered. That’s what you keep refusing to see.”
“They’re only southrons,” Bell said contemptuously. “We can lick as many of them as we need to lick.”
“It isn’t so,” Roast-Beef William said. “I must tell you, Lieutenant General, that is not so. They are Detinans, too. We have the advantage over them, perhaps, but not to the degree you imply.”
“If it were so,” Joseph added, “we could have won this war a long time ago. It lacks a good deal of being won right now, or else I’ve been living a nightmare for the past three years and more.”
“If we have the advantage over them, why are we running away?” Bell asked.
“By the gods, you hardheaded jackass, we are not running away,” Joseph the Gamecock ground out. “We’re looking for room to maneuver.”
“We’ve been `looking for room to maneuver’ ever since Borders,” Bell said. “When you had it, you didn’t use it. Now that you haven’t got it any more, you want it.”
“That is uncalled for,” Roast-Beef William said.
“This whole campaign, such as it is, is uncalled for,” Lieutenant General Bell said.
“You have obstructed me every step of the way,” Joseph said furiously. “If this army is having difficulties, they are at least half-at least half, sir-of your making. For you to blame me now is like… is like… I don’t know what it’s like, but I know it’s vile. If the stone that smashed your leg had smashed your miserable rock of a head in its place, this army would be better off today.”
“Sir, that is also uncalled for,” William said, and Alexander the Steward nodded.
“I see,” Joseph said. “It’s fine for him to insult me and revile me, but I’m a wicked monster if I pay him back in the same coin. Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. That makes perfect sense.”
Something close to desperation in his voice, Roast-Beef William said, “Quarrels only help the enemy, sir. They can afford them, because they outnumber us. We can afford nothing at all.”
Joseph was too angry to be placated so easily. “Oh, of course we can! Just ask him.” He pointed to Bell. “We can afford to charge right out and attack the southrons, and five minutes later they’ll all be skedaddling for the Highlow River just as fast as they can. Won’t it be wonderful?”
Bell had faced a lot of nasty weapons in this war, but he didn’t stand up to sarcasm very well. “That’s not what I said,” he protested, his voice breaking like a youth’s.
“No, eh?” Joseph said. “It must be what you meant, though. Unless we win a victory like that, what’s the point of attacking Hesmucet at all?”
“You deliberately twist all my words,” Bell said.
“You deliberately twist all my deeds,” Joseph the Gamecock answered. Bell started to say something, but Joseph forestalled him: “Get out of my sight. You make me sick.”
“Sir-” Alexander the Steward began.
But Joseph had no patience for Old Straight, either. “And you,” he said. “King Geoffrey gave me this command to save his kingdom. By the Thunderer’s brass balls, I’m going to do it, too-as long as nobody gets in my way. I am sick to death of people telling me what I can do and what I can’t. I command here, and my orders shall be obeyed, or I’ll know the reason why. Have you got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Brigadier Alexander said. “You would sooner do it your way than do it right, if I understand you correctly.”
Maybe he’d thought he would shame Joseph the Gamecock. Maybe he would have, too, at another time. Not now. Now, Joseph just nodded. “That’s exactly right, Brigadier. I’m going to do it my way, and I’ll take my chances. You are dismissed.” He nodded to Roast-Beef William. “You, too.”
He could get rid of his wing commanders, but that didn’t bring him the satisfaction he craved. He’d hardly got back to the house he was using for a headquarters before a sentry stuck his head in to say, “Sir, Count Thraxton has ridden down from Marthasville. He’d speak to you, if you would.”
“Count Thraxton?” Joseph said. “What does he want?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” the sentry answered. “Will you see him, or shall I send him away?”
“I’ll see him.” Joseph had no more desire to see Thraxton than he did some demon from one of the seven hells. As a matter of fact, there had been times during the war when he’d wondered if the Braggart was a demon from one of the seven hells. But he couldn’t send the man away, not when Thraxton served as King Geoffrey’s eyes and ears in Peachtree Province.
“Count Thraxton!” the sentry announced in a loud voice, holding open the farmhouse door.
“Your Grace,” Joseph the Gamecock murmured, bowing to the general who’d commanded the Army of Franklin before him.
“Your Grace,” Thraxton the Braggart replied, returning the bow. Thraxton was tall and lean and sallow, with a face as mournful as a bloodhound’s though much bonier. A grizzled beard covered hollow cheeks; sad eyes peered out from beneath a bramble patch of eyebrows. If he’d ever been happy in all his days, he hadn’t bothered telling his face about it.
Joseph waved him to a chair. “Sit down, your Grace, please.” He didn’t like having Thraxton looming over him like a bad omen. The Braggart folded up, one section at a time, as he sat. Joseph stayed on his feet, pacing back and forth as he asked, “What can I do for you today, General?”
“I have come to tell you, sir, that King Geoffrey is not pleased with your plan to man the forts around Marthasville with Satrap Brown’s militiamen and to move the Army of Franklin away from the city,” Thraxton replied.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Why does he object to it?”
“His Majesty’s view, if I may speak frankly…” Thraxton waited for Joseph to nod. Joseph refused to give him the satisfaction. Thraxton coughed a couple of times-wet, almost consumptive coughs-and went on, “His Majesty is concerned that you intend to retreat away from Marthasville, and to leave the place undefended against the southrons. That is insupportable, both politically and militarily.”
“In the first place, he’s wrong, and, in the second place, he’s wrong,” Joseph said. “If I put my own men in the forts, how can I possibly hope to attack the southrons? With my own force and nothing more, I can defend but I can’t hope to attack.”
“King Geoffrey is less certain of this than you are,” Thraxton declared.
“Well, bully for him,” Joseph said acidly. “I’m here, and he’s over in bloody Nonesuch. Which of us is likely to know better what this army is good for and what it isn’t, do you suppose?”
“His Majesty has other sources of information besides yourself.” Thraxton’s tone was opaque, oracular.
Someone’s been telling tales out of school, was what the Braggart had to mean. As soon as the words were out of Thraxton’s mouth, Joseph the Gamecock could make a pretty good guess who that someone was, too. “Gods damn Lieutenant General Bell to the nastiest hell there is,” he growled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Count Thraxton said, which was a lie, and a lie made all the more annoying because it was so obvious.
“Oh, I’ll just bet you don’t,” Joseph said.
Thraxton’s narrow shoulders went up and down in a shrug. He had to be dead to shame-he didn’t even care if he got caught out. “It’s beside the point, in any case,” he said. “Here is the point: will you take his Majesty’s advice on how to defend Marthasville, or will you not?”