“There’s no help for it, Bell,” James said sadly. “He is the commander of this army. He gives the orders. Even if they’re stupid orders, he has the right to give them. I’ve argued till I’m blue in the face, and I had no luck getting him to change his mind. If you’ve got any notion of how to get him to do what plainly needs doing, I’m all ears.”
He was just talking; he didn’t expect Bell to come up with anything. What with the horrible wound-gods, Bell couldn’t even have fully recovered from the mangled arm he’d got down in the south less than three months before-and the potent drug, that Bell could talk at all was a minor miracle. The other officer looked up at him from the cot and spoke with terrible urgency: “Let the king know, your Excellency. If the king knows, he’ll do what needs doing.”
Gently, James shook his head. “Remember, Count Thraxton is Geoffrey’s dark-haired boy. If it weren’t for Geoffrey, Thraxton wouldn’t have held his command out here even as long as he has.”
He wondered if Bell even heard him. “Let the king know, James,” the wounded man repeated. “The king has to know.”
“All right,” James of Broadpath said. “I’ll let him know.” He didn’t mean it, but he didn’t want to upset poor Bell. The wound might still kill him, or fever might carry him off. No point tormenting him with refusals at a time like this.
But then, as James left the tent where Bell lay, he plucked at his beard in thought. Coming right out and speaking to King Geoffrey would surely fail; he remained convinced of that. Even so…
“How could I be worse off? How could we be worse off?” he murmured, and hurried away to the pavilion the scryers called their own.
One of the bright young men looked up from his crystal ball. “Sir?”
“I want you to send a message to Marquis James of Seddon Dun, over in Nonesuch,” James of Broadpath said.
“To the minister of war? Yes, sir,” the scryer said. “You will, of course, have cleared this message with Count Thraxton?”
“I don’t need to do any such thing, sirrah,” James rumbled ominously, and tapped his epaulet to remind the scryer of his own rank.
“Yes, sir,” the fellow said-he was just a first lieutenant, an officer by courtesy of his skill at magecraft rather than by blood or courage. Technically, he was in the right, but a lieutenant technically in the right in a dispute with a lieutenant general would often have done better to be wrong. The youngster had the sense to know it. Licking his lips, he bent low over the crystal ball. “Go ahead, sir.”
“To the most honorable Marquis James of Seddon Dun, Minister of War to his Majesty King Geoffrey, legitimate King of Detina: greetings,” James said, declaiming as if speaking to the minister of war face to face. “May I take the liberty to advise you of our conditions and wants. After a very severe battle, we gained a complete and glorious victory-the most complete of the war, perhaps, except the first at Cow Jog. To express my convictions in a few words, our chief has done but one thing he ought to have done since I joined his army. That was to order the attack. All other things that he has done he ought not to have done. I am convinced that nothing but the hand of the gods can help us as long as we have our present commander.
“Now to our wants. Can you send us Duke Edward? In an ordinary war I could serve without complaints under anyone whom the king might place in authority, but we have too much at stake in this to remain quiet now. Thraxton cannot adopt and adhere to any plan or course, whether of his own or of someone else. I pray you to help us, and speedily. I remain, with the greatest respect, your most obedient servant, James of Broadpath.”
“Is that… all, sir?” the scryer asked. James of Broadpath nodded brusquely. The scryer had another question: “Are you… sure you want me to send it?” James nodded again. The scryer didn’t; he shook his head. But he murmured over the crystal ball, then looked up. “All right, sir. It’s on its way.” By his tone, he thought James had just asked him to send an earthquake to Nonesuch.
James hoped the scryer was right. As far as he was concerned, an earthquake was exactly what this army needed. But all he said was, “The minister of war should hear my views.” He strode out of the scryers’ tent.
In striding out, he almost collided with Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas the Priest, both of whom were striding in, grim, intent looks on their faces. “Oh, by the gods!” Dan exclaimed. “Don’t tell me he’s got you, too?”
“Don’t tell me who’s got me for what?” James asked.
Dan and Leonidas both started talking at once. Leonidas used language James would not have expected to hear from a hierophant. But he was the one who calmed down enough to give a straight answer: “Count Thraxton has ordered us removed from our commands, may he suffer in the seven hells for seven times seven eternities.”
“He’s done what?” James of Broadpath’s jaw dropped. “He won’t move against Guildenstern, but he will against his own generals?”
“That’s the size of it, your Excellency,” Dan said bitterly. “That’s just exactly the size of it. And if he thinks I’m going to take it lying down, he can bloody well think again. King Geoffrey will hear of this.”
“He certainly will,” Leonidas the Priest agreed. “And so will the Pontifex Maximus back in Nonesuch. Thraxton needs to be placed under full godly interdict.”
“What on earth made him sack both his wing commanders?” James asked, still more than a little stunned.
“We have the sense to see that this army should be doing more than it is, and we have had what the Braggart reckons the infernal gall to stand up on our hind legs and say so out loud,” Dan of Rabbit Hill replied. “As far as Thraxton is concerned, that amounts to insubordination, and so he sacked us.”
“Which is why, when we saw you here, we wondered whether you had suffered the same fate,” Leonidas said. “You have also seen that Count Thraxton’s conduct of this campaign leaves everything to be desired.”
“He hasn’t got round to me yet.” James felt almost ashamed that Thraxton hadn’t got round to him-or was the Braggart holding off because he properly belonged to the Army of Southern Parthenia, not the Army of Franklin? “But I just sent a message to the minister of war expressing my lack of confidence in Thraxton as a leader of this host.”
“Huzzah!” Baron Dan slapped him on the back. “Here’s hoping it does some good. Here’s hoping someone back in Nonesuch starts paying attention to the east. Someone had better. Without it, King Geoffrey has no kingdom.”
“Well said,” James told him. “That’s just why Duke Edward prevailed on Geoffrey to send me hither. The victory a few days ago opened the door for us. But we still have to go through it, and Rising Rock stands in the way.”
“It shouldn’t,” Leonidas the Priest said. Even he could see that, and he was hardly a soldier at all. “We should have pursued the southrons harder, and we should have flanked them out of it. Why didn’t we?”
“Because Thraxton’s an imbecile, that’s why,” Dan of Rabbit Hill snapped.
James was inclined to agree with him; no other explanation fit half so well. He said, “This army can still win, with a proper general at its head. I asked the minister of war for Duke Edward.”
Dan whistled softly. “Do you think we’ll get him?”
“Not likely,” James answered with genuine regret. “King Geoffrey wants to keep him between Nonesuch and the southrons. He figures his capital is safe as long as Duke Edward’s there, and he’s probably right.”
“Still, it is a telling cry of distress,” Leonidas the Priest observed.
Now James nodded. “Just so. That’s why I sent the message. If it doesn’t draw King Geoffrey’s eye to this part of the front, I don’t know what will. If it doesn’t draw his eye hither, I fear nothing will.”
“That must not be,” Leonidas said. “True, we can lose the war if Nonesuch falls, and Nonesuch is not far north of the border with the southrons. But we can also lose the war in these eastern parts, and Count Thraxton in his arrogant idiocy is doing everything he can to make that unhappy result come to pass.”