Oh, every now and then squadrons of unicorn-riders or Peachtree Province militiamen would skirmish with George’s vanguard. Sometimes the northerners would have the numbers to slow down George’s men for a little while. But all he had to do was send reinforcements forward and the traitors would melt away. They’d spent a couple of months skillfully contesting every inch of ground from Borders all the way up to Marthasville. This ground to the east of Marthasville was as important as any in all of Peachtree Province, but King Geoffrey had not the men to keep Hesmucet from taking it.
Seeing as much amused Absalom the Bear-as much as anything could amuse Lieutenant General George’s grim brigadier. “Geoffrey wanted Bell to get out there and fight,” Absalom said. “He got out there and he did it-and now, by the gods, Geoffrey has to wish he’d left Joseph the Gamecock in command.”
“I doubt that,” George said, which made Absalom chuckle. The wing commander went on, “I don’t think false King Geoffrey wants Joseph to have anything to do with anything. The only reason he gave him this command in the first place was that he didn’t have anybody else to fix the mess Thraxton the Braggart left behind.”
“No doubt you’re right, sir,” Absalom said. “Now who’s going to fix the mess Bell’s left behind?”
“I don’t think anyone can,” George replied. “If he stays in the city, we’ll flank him out or starve him out. And if he comes forth again, we’ll give him another set of lumps and drive him back. He hasn’t got the men to push us, not after he’s gone and thrown so many of them away.”
“There’s always magic,” Absalom said.
Doubting George wished the brigadier hadn’t said that. Sorcery was the one place where the traitors still enjoyed some advantage over King Avram’s forces. But even that edge was shrinking. George said, “By what the northerners have shown on this campaign, we can stand up to whatever they throw at us.”
“Here’s hoping you’re right,” Absalom the Bear answered. George nodded.
A unicorn-rider came back from the vanguard, reined in, and waited to be recognized. When Doubting George nodded again, this time toward him, he said, “Sir, we’ve taken some prisoners. Do you want to help question them?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” the wing commander replied. “Lead the way.”
“Yes, sir.” The messenger rode to what looked like the farm of a prosperous yeoman or a small baron. Even before George walked into the farmhouse, he could hear cursing-at the same time highly fluent and slightly mushy. At his raised eyebrows, the messenger explained: “One of the fellows we caught is this militiaman, must be fifty-five, sixty years old. He’s got false choppers-or he did, on account of he just broke ’em. That’s how come he sounds the way he does.”
“I… see,” George said. “He sounds like the fellow I ought to question, don’t you think?”
“Whatever you say, sir,” the messenger replied. “If if was up to me, I’d knock him over the head and shut him up for good.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Doubting George replied. “He sounds like he might be fun to listen to for a while.”
He walked into the farmhouse. The northern prisoner gave him a baleful stare and demanded, “Who in the hells”-because of his broken false teeth, it came out as hellsh — “are you?”
“I am Lieutenant General George, commander of this wing of King Avram’s army,” George said gravely. “Do I understand you to be a mite discouraged with the northern cause?”
“Discouraged?” the prisoner shouted. “Discouraged?” He spat on the rammed-earth floor. “That for the fornicating northern cause. I curse the northern cause, every fornicating piece of it. I curse King Geoffrey and his ministers and his satraps and public men, clean down to the lowest pothouse politico who advocates his cause. I curse the whole fornicating Army of Franklin, from Joseph the Gamecock and Bell the Bloody Butcher down to the mangiest, most miserable jackass. I curse its downsittings and its uprisings. I curse its movements, marches, battles, and sieges. I curse all its paraphernalia, its catapults and its crossbows. I curse its banners, bugles, and drums. And I curse the whole gods-damned institution of serfdom, which brought about this miserable, fornicating war.”
By then, the fellow’s guards had tears of laughter running down their cheeks. Doubting George held his face straight, which was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “You are a man of strong opinions, sir,” he remarked.
“I know what’s what. I know eggs is eggs. I know pigs is pigs,” the prisoner said. “And I know we’ve got pigs in charge of us. Curse ’em all. Curse ’em, and make bacon of ’em, too.”
“Dare I ask your view of my side in this conflict?” George inquired.
“Futter you southrons, too,” the northern man said at once. “You bastards are winning the war by magic, and where’s the fair fight in that?”
“By magic?” George said in surprise. “Your side is the one credited with the stronger sorcerers.”
“Unicorn dung!” the prisoner exclaimed. “Stinks like it, too. Our wizards brag. You ever hear tell of Thraxton the Braggart? We brag, but your buggers really do things. We aren’t the ones who keep miles and miles of glideway tunnel in our back pantaloon pockets, way you bastards do.”
“Glideway tunnel?” Doubting George had never imagined that as something a wizard might keep handy in a pocket.
But it made perfect sense to the prisoner. “We go after your glideways, how else can you fix ’em so gods-damned fast, without you having tunnel right there ready to go and stick it through a hill? Ought to stick it up Bell’s backside, is where it ought to go.”
He went back to cursing, this time aiming his venom at the new commander of the Army of Franklin. But he’d been dead serious about the tunnels; Doubting George could tell as much. If only such a thing were possible, it would have been a good idea. When the latest string of blasphemies slowed, George asked, “How did you happen to get caught?”
“I got stuck in the mud, gods damn it,” the prisoner answered. He wiped at his forehead with a forearm. That dislodged the wig he was wearing. He didn’t realize it had gone awry, and looked even more absurd and bedraggled than he had a moment before.
“Would you say you’re representative of the soldiers going into Geoffrey’s militia these days?” George asked.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” the northern returned. “You see anything wrong with me? You saying there’s something wrong with me?” He looked comically indignant.
“No, not at all,” Doubting George said soothingly. Eyeing the young, strong guards, he contrasted them to their captive. King Avram’s dominions still had plentiful reserves of men. False King Geoffrey, on the other hand, was trying to wring a few last drops of water from a dry fleece.
“What are you southron bastards going to do with me?” the prisoner asked.
“Not much,” George told him. “We’ll feed you a meal-gods know you look like you could use one-and then we’ll ship you south to a prisoners’ camp. You’ll wait there till you’re properly exchanged for a southron your side has captured or till the war ends, whichever comes first.”
“Can’t be over too soon,” the prisoner declared mushily. “I want to get back to my life, is what I want to do.”
“Don’t we all?” Doubting George said. “If Geoffrey hadn’t let Palmetto Province start calling him king-”
“Gods damn Geoffrey! Devils fry him for breakfast and roast him for supper,” the prisoner said, and he was off again on another wild string of curses.
George decided he didn’t need to hear any more. He hadn’t really learned anything from the prisoner, save that the man had a remarkably foul mouth. Or so he thought till he went outside and considered the matter for a little while. True, the fellow with the broken false teeth and the wig askew hadn’t told him anything about where the northern armies were, how many men they had, or what they intended to do. But did that mean he’d told him nothing?
After a little more thought, Doubting George shook his head. That a scrawny old man had been hauled into the militia at all said something about the straits the north was in. That he hated the man who called himself his king and the commanders set over him said something, too. And if Grand Duke Geoffrey could have heard what it said, he would have shivered, no matter how oppressively hot the weather in Nonesuch was at this season of the year.