“We don’t.” Joseph the Gamecock was every bit as blunt. “We have been over this ground before, you know.”
“Yes, I do know, and the more I think about it, the more it pains me,” Bell replied. “Some pains, sir, laudanum does not touch.”
With a sigh, Joseph the Gamecock condescended to explain: “Consider, Lieutenant General. We have to the south of us the rough country of Rockface Rise. There are only two gaps in the rise, two places where the southrons can come at us. By all the gods, I hope they try smashing through the Vulture’s Nest or the Dog’s Path. If they do, we’ll still be killing them there this fall. I intend to send your wing to hold the Vulture’s Nest. That will give you enough bloodshed, I vow, to satisfy the most sanguinary man ever born.”
“Killing southrons is all very well,” Bell said stiffly. “Indeed, it is better than very well.”
“I should hope so-it’s what we’re here for,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “And when your wing takes its position, you will find that the serfs I’ve set to work have fortified the gap so that not even a mouse could sneak through without paying with its life-not even a mouse, I tell you.”
“That is good, in its way,” Bell said, “but only in its way. I do not care to fight in the open field as if I were besieged in a castle.”
“Our whole kingdom is besieged,” Joseph said, “and we needs must keep the enemy from entering into it.”
“We can drive them back,” Lieutenant General Bell insisted. “We can beat them in the open field.”
“You may perhaps be right,” Joseph said. “If the Army of Franklin were yours to command, you might venture the experiment. But, since King Geoffrey has seen fit to entrust it to me, I have to do what I believe to be in its best interest, and in the best interest of the kingdom. Do you understand me? Have I made myself clear enough, or shall I scratch pictures in the dirt for you with the point of my sword?”
Bell glared at him. “Is that an insult, sir?”
“Only if you choose to take it as one,” Joseph the Gamecock retorted. His temper was, if anything, even shorter than Bell’s, and he had not the excuse of pain from his wounds, for he’d been hurt almost two years before and was fully healed. His own eyes snapping, he went on, “I reckon it an insult that you challenge the orders of your commanding officer in this unseemly fashion.”
“You are welcome to challenge me, sir,” Bell said. “Unfortunately, as my rank is lower than yours, I am forbidden by King Geoffrey’s regulations from challenging you. But I assure you, sir, I will endeavor to give satisfaction.”
“I don’t want to challenge you, you young idiot,” Joseph said testily. “I want to use you. I want to use you to kill the southrons in great whacking lots as they come north. In my view, that remains our best hope of winning this war: to make the enemy too sick of the fight to go on. If every other household in New Eborac and Loveton and Horatii is in mourning, the people will make King Avram give up the fight and let the north go our own way.”
“Gods grant it be so,” Lieutenant General Bell replied. “A surer way, I think, is to defeat the invader on the battlefield in open combat.”
“That would be easier if we had twice the men he did rather than the other way round,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “I ask you straight out: will you defend the Vulture’s Nest for me, or shall I give the job to Roast-Beef William or to Leonidas the Priest?”
“I will defend it,” Bell said. “I fail in no obedience, sir. But I am a free Detinan no less than you. I do intend to state my mind.”
“Really?” One of Joseph’s expressive eyebrows quirked. “I never would have noticed. Very well, Lieutenant General. You are dismissed, and I shall rely upon your formidable skills. I know you serve the kingdom with a whole heart, regardless of how you chance to feel about me.”
“Yes, sir. That is true,” Bell agreed. Because of his crutches, he didn’t have to salute the commanding general. He hitched away, struggled aboard his unicorn after stowing his crutches, waited for the attendant to tie him on, and rode back to his own headquarters.
Once there, he sat down inside his pavilion, inked a pen, and began a letter to a man with whom he’d been corresponding ever since becoming one of Joseph the Gamecock’s wing commanders. Your Majesty, he wrote, I have just come from yet another conversation with the general commanding, this one no more satisfactory than any of those I have previously held with him. As I have said in my earlier letters, my opinion continues to be that the Army ofFranklin is in better condition and more capable of offensive operations than Count Joseph believes. How can any man doubt the fire inherent in the hearts of our brave northern soldiers, and their innate superiority to the southron foe? We could, and we should, go forth against the enemy instead of waiting for him to come to us.
He inked the pen again, paused for thought, and then continued, As proof of the straits to which the southrons are reduced, I need do no more than note that, in the army now moving against us, General Hesmucet has, mixed promiscuously through its ranks, several brigades’ worth of blonds. If the fighting spirit of the southrons were not all but extinct, would they resort to such a desperate expedient? Surely not, your Majesty; surely not. In the hope that the gods grant you the good fortune and victory you deserve, I have the honor to remain your most humble and obedient servant…
After signing the letter, he sealed it with his personal signet, addressed it, and called for a runner. “See that this gets into the post to Nonesuch without delay,” he told the man. “Its existence is, of course, completely confidential.”
“Of course, sir,” the courier replied.
Rollant was glad to be marching north, marching against the Detinan noblemen, the Detinan liege lords, who would have left the kingdom when Avram proposed freeing their serfs from the land they tilled. He sang the Detinan royal hymn with particular fervor as he tramped along. It meant, he thought, more to him than to many of his comrades.
“You can’t sing worth a lick,” Smitty told him. The two crossbowmen had fought side by side ever since the regiment formed a year or so before. Smitty came off a farm outside the great city of New Eborac. He was a typical enough Detinan: on the stocky side, swarthy, with black hair and eyes and a shaggy black beard.
“I don’t care,” Rollant answered. “I have fun trying.”
“Nobody who listens to you has any fun,” Smitty assured him.
“Don’t listen, then,” Rollant said. “Sing.”
Sing he did himself, loudly, enthusiastically, and probably not very well. He lived in New Eborac, with his wife and little boy. He made a good enough living as a carpenter, or had in peacetime. Thus far, he seemed a typical enough Detinan himself.
Thus far-and no further. He wore gray tunic and pantaloons like Smitty, like everyone else around him. There their resemblance ended. Rollant was fair-skinned and blue-eyed, with hair and beard yellow as butter. He’d grown up on a feudal estate in Palmetto Province, not far outside Karlsburg-and had fled the land to which he was legally bound, fled south to New Eborac, where serfdom had long been extinct, about ten years before. His wife was born in the south, and had never known a liege lord’s exactions. Thanks to Norina, Rollant had his letters.
Smitty said, “Suppose I tell you to shut the hells up or I’ll pop you one.”
“Talk is cheap,” Rollant answered. “You want to try and do something about it after march today, you come right ahead and see what kind of welcome you get.”
Smitty was his friend, or as close to a friend as a blond could have among Detinans. They’d fought shoulder to shoulder. They’d saved each other a couple of times. But Rollant didn’t dare take a challenge like that lightly, and he wasn’t sure whether or how much Smitty was joking.