King Avram’s army was full of backbiting. So was King Geoffrey’s. So, no doubt, was every army back to the beginning of time, or perhaps before that-the gods were supposed to squabble among themselves, too. Rarely, though, had George heard such a good-natured snide remark.
Just for a moment, he even stopped doubting and said, “If we can keep on like this, sir, I think we’ll do fine. One of the things we need to do is believe in ourselves, and you make us do that.”
“I don’t make us do a solitary thing except for what I order,” Bart said.
Now George laughed. “Oh, I doubt that, sir.”
But General Bart ignored the joke-which he’d hardly even heard before-and went on as if George hadn’t spoken: “I do believe a united kingdom is stronger than a divided one can hope to be. That may give us an edge against the traitors. I hope it does. But what good is an edge unless you go out and take advantage of it? None, not that I can see.”
That was nothing but good, hard common sense. Good, hard common sense had been in moderately short supply in this camp lately: one more thing about which even Doubting George entertained no doubts. He came to stiff attention and saluted. “With you in charge in these parts, I think we’ll grab every edge we can find.”
“No, no,” Bart said mildly. “You don’t grab the edge. You grab the hilt and give the enemy the edge.” He chuckled.
So did George, rather dutifully. He’s fond of foolish jokes, he thought, and then decided it didn’t matter much. He’d known worse commanders with habits much more obnoxious than that.
Out in the street, a newly arrived regiment of Avram’s soldiers tramped by, band blaring and thumping at their head. “More reinforcements,” George said happily. “Even with the roads as bad as they are, even with the traitors where they are, we’re bringing in what we need.”
“So we are,” Bart agreed. After some hesitation, he inquired, “Ah… what tune are they playing there?”
Now Doubting George doubted he’d heard correctly. “Why, the Battle Psalm of the Kingdom, of course,” he replied.
“Oh.” General Bart let out another chuckle, this one aimed at himself. “I only know two tunes, you see. One’s the Royal Hymn, and the other one-the other one isn’t.”
Another foolish joke. George laughed again, too. Then, seeing the wistful look on the commanding general’s face, he wondered if Bart had been joking.
Rollant yawned enormously. He’d been doing that ever since Sergeant Joram gave him a boot in the backside and got him out of his bedroll. Beside him, Smitty was yawning, too. They weren’t the only ones unhappy at having to make a night march. Everyone in the whole regiment seemed no better than half awake.
“This had better work,” Smitty grumbled. “If they made me lose sleep on account of some gods-damned brainless noble’s brainstorm, I’m really going to be hot.”
Such talk still faintly scandalized Rollant, even though the former serf had been living in the free and easygoing south for some years. Back in Palmetto Province, no one-and especially no blond-would have mocked the nobility so. He tried to hide his feelings with raillery of his own: “I’m sure all the dukes and counts and barons are trembling in their boots, Smitty.”
“They’d better be.” Smitty sounded as if he meant it. “It’s us commoners who do most of the work and make most of the money, and the bluebloods don’t remember it nearly often enough.”
That scandalized Rollant, too, and more than a little. He took the nobles and their privileges for granted; he was just glad to be out from under Baron Ormerod. “How would we run things if there weren’t any nobles?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but I expect we’d manage,” Smitty said. “Free Detinans can do whatever we set our minds to do.”
He did mean it. Rollant didn’t know whether he was right or wrong, but he did mean it. Most Detinans thought that way. They were convinced they were going somewhere important, and they all seemed eager for the journey. Rollant, now, Rollant had his doubts. But he’d grown up on an estate where the only place he could go was where Baron Ormerod told him to. That made a big difference. Nobody had an easy time telling free Detinans what to do. Even here in the army, they talked back to their sergeants and officers, and tried to come up with better ideas than the ones the generals had.
“Let’s go!” Sergeant Joram bellowed. “Come on! We can do it! We’re gods-damned well going to do it.”
No one talked back to him then. Rollant felt like it. Marching through the middle of the night wasn’t his idea of fun. But nobody asked what his idea of fun was. People just told him to do things and expected him to do them. He didn’t usually have too hard a time with that; he’d had practice obeying on Ormerod’s estate. Tonight, though, he was very tired.
Tired or not, he marched. So did everybody else-the army treated flat-out disobedience from soldiers even more ruthlessly than northern liege lords rooted it out among their serfs. “Watch where you’re putting your feet,” somebody not far from Rollant grumbled-in the darkness, he couldn’t see who.
“How can I watch?” somebody else said-maybe the offender, maybe not. “I can’t see the nose in front of my face.”
“It ain’t that dark, Lionel,” yet another soldier said, “and you’ve got yourself a cursed big nose.” Lionel expressed loud resentment of this opinion. Several other people spoke in support of it.
Rollant thought Lionel had a big nose, too. He thought most Detinans had pretty good-sized beaks. He didn’t join the debate, though. The Detinans were willing to let blonds fight for them. They were much less willing to hear what blonds had to say. That didn’t strike him as fair, but a lot of things didn’t strike him as fair.
Then somebody stepped on his heel, almost stripping the boot from his foot. “Careful, there,” he said.
“Sorry.” Whoever was marching along behind him didn’t sound very sorry, but he didn’t step on Rollant any more, either.
They tramped east. It was, Rollant realized little by little, a large column. Whatever he was part of-nobody’d bothered explaining it to him-looked to be something important. He didn’t suppose they would have sent out the column on a night march if it weren’t important. He hoped they wouldn’t, anyhow.
Somebody rode by on a unicorn. “Keep going, men,” he called. “When we get to the river, we’ll give the traitors a surprise.” He raised his hat. Starlight gleamed from his shiny crown.
“That’s Bill the Bald!” Smitty exclaimed. “He must be in charge of this whole move.”
“I’d like it better if we had Doubting George in charge of us,” Rollant said. “If he kept us from getting licked by the River of Death, I expect he can do just about anything.” Smitty didn’t argue with him.
Dawn began turning the eastern sky gray and then pink. Rollant started to be able to see where he was putting his feet. He tried to see more than that, to see where the enemy was. He couldn’t, not yet.
Smitty said, “Next thing we’ve got to find out is if the pontoons make it to where they’re supposed to be when we make it to where we’re supposed to be. If we can’t cross the river, we sure as hells can’t do the fighting we’re supposed to do.”
“Cross the river?” Rollant said. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”
“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” Smitty said. Rollant nodded, but he still meant what he’d said. He always got rumors more slowly than most of the others in the company. He knew why, too: he was a blond. He’d mostly given up complaining about it. Complaining didn’t make people talk to him any more, and it did make them think he was a whiner. He didn’t think so, but one of the lessons of serfdom and the army alike was that hardly anybody cared what he thought.