And Count Thraxton chuckled, too, though he was not a man who often gave way to mirth. He aimed a long, pale finger at James of Broadpath. “Do you see, Earl? Do you see? By Ned of the Forest’s report, the southrons are indeed abandoning Rising Rock of their own accord.”
James said nothing. He merely plucked at his vast beard and looked grave. But Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill spoke up: “Sir, I think you ought to note Ned’s last sentence there. He urges you to press forward as rapidly as possible, and that strikes me as excellent advice.”
“It strikes me as unnecessary advice. It strikes me as meddlesome advice,” Thraxton said. He wasn’t inclined to take Ned of the Forest’s advice on anything. In fact, if Ned of the Forest advised something, he was inclined to take the opposite tack-especially when, as here, Ned’s words also lent support to his doing what he’d already planned on doing.
“Sir,” James said stubbornly, “if you move fast and swing us east of Rising Rock, we can get between the southrons and their supply bases. If we do that, they fall into our hands come what may.” Dan of Rabbit Hill nodded.
But Thraxton shook his head. “It is, I repeat, unnecessary.”
“Perhaps we should pray for guidance,” Leonidas the Priest said, “beseeching the Lion God to show us his will.”
Count Thraxton looked at the hierophant as if he’d taken leave of his sense. So did James and Dan. There, if nowhere else, Thraxton and his fractious generals agreed.
It soon became clear they agreed nowhere else. Earl James and Baron Dan, quite forgetting Thraxton’s higher rank and bluer blood, went right on arguing with him. His own replies grew ever shorter and testier. Around noon, another courier from Ned of the Forest came into the farmhouse. Like the one before, this message was addressed to Leonidas the Priest. Again, the hierophant read it aloud: ” `My force has now come up quite close to Rising Rock. Previous report was in error. The southrons seem to be fortifying, as I can distinctly hear the sound of axes in great numbers. They can be driven from thence, but you will have to drive them.’ ” Spectacles glistening, Leonidas looked up from the paper. “The signature and the request to forward are as they were in the previous despatch.”
“You see, your Grace?” James of Broadpath said with what Thraxton reckoned altogether too much pleasure. “Not even Ned of the Forest supports your view that delay will serve here.”
“Whether Ned of the Forest approves of what I do is, I assure you, your Excellency, not of the least importance to me,” Thraxton said. “In my view, the man is ignorant, and does not know anything of cooperation. He is nothing more than a good raider.”
“Sir, whether you fancy Ned or not, he’s quite a bit more than a raider,” Dan of Rabbit Hill said. “You weren’t up on Merkle’s Hill with me, the first day of the fight. His riders were holding back Doubting George’s southrons as well as any footsoldiers could have done. I told him so, in plain Detinan, because I’ve not seen many cavalry outfits that could have done the same.”
Count Thraxton folded thin arms across his narrow chest and fixed Dan with his most forbidding stare. “I have never questioned his courage, your Excellency. I have questioned, and do continue to question, his wisdom and his military judgment. Merely because he believes something is no reason to proclaim that the Thunderer’s lightning bolt has carved his opinion deep into stone.”
Leonidas the Priest cleared his throat. “It would appear to me, your Grace, that you were willing enough to use Ned of the Forest’s opinion as a touchstone when it marched with your own.”
“When I want your opinion, you may rest assured that I shall ask for it,” Thraxton growled. His own opinion was that the hierophant was a dawdling, prayer-mumbling blockhead. He didn’t try very hard to keep Leonidas from seeing that that was his opinion, either.
Earl James said, “How does it harm you, how does it harm the army, to order a proper pursuit?”
“I have ordered a proper pursuit,” Thraxton said. “We shall follow on General Guildenstern’s heels as soon as the army recovers to the point where it may safely do so. And I remain convinced that, when we approach Rising Rock, the southrons shall be compelled to evacuate it and ignominiously retreat.”
“Your Grace, I don’t want those sons of bitches to retreat,” James said. “Even if they do, they’ll just come back and hit us again some other day. I want to kill them or take them prisoner. Then we won’t have to worry about them any more. We need to get between them and Ramblerton and drive them to destruction. That’s my view, and I still hold it.”
“I am pleased to hear your view.” Thraxton’s tone suggested he was about as pleased as he would have been at an outbreak of cholera. “I must remind you, however, that King Geoffrey has entrusted command of this army to me. I needs must lead it as I reckon best.”
“Even when your view is dead against that of every general serving under you?” James of Broadpath persisted.
“Even then. Especially then. I do not command this army for the sake of being loved,” Thraxton said.
“I believe it, by the gods!” Baron Dan muttered.
Thraxton filed that away for future vengeance. Aloud, though, he said only, “What I command for is victory. And I have won a victory.”
“So you have,” Earl James said. “You could win a greater one. You could win a victory that would restore King Geoffrey’s hopes here in the east, a victory that would give us a good chance to take Franklin away from the southrons and might even let us get back down into Cloviston. You could do that, your Grace, or you could fritter away what you’ve already won. The choice is yours.”
“I have already made the choice,” Count Thraxton said. “I have made it, and all of you seem intent on evading it. But you shall obey me, or you shall be dismissed from your commands. It is as simple as that, gentlemen.”
James of Broadpath threw his hands in the air. “Now that I’m here, I begin to see how the armies of the east came to be in the straits in which they find themselves. Have it your own way, Count Thraxton. By all the signs, that matters more to you than anything else.”
Thraxton started to tell James just what he thought of him, but the burly officer from the Army of Southern Parthenia paid no attention. He turned on his heel, all but trampling Leonidas the Priest, and stormed out of the headquarters. Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill followed. Leonidas held his place, but his expression was mournful. He said, “I believe you would be wiser to think again on the choice you have made.”
“And I believe you’re a gods-damned old idiot!” Thraxton shrieked, his voice and his temper breaking at the same time. Leonidas bowed stiffly and followed after James and Dan, his red vestments flapping around his ankles. Thraxton shouted again, this time for runners, and began giving the orders he thought right.
As Baron Ormerod trudged south, he could tell that the company he commanded was following in the wake of a beaten army. The wreckage and the stinking, bloated bodies of men and beasts by the sides of the road showed that Guildenstern’s men had worried about nothing but escape as they retreated from the River of Death to Rising Rock. Seeing the southrons in disarray should have left him happier than it did.
He wondered why he was so glum. When he spoke aloud of his worries, Lieutenant Gremio said, “I don’t think that’s very hard to figure out, sir.”