“Oh, I agree with Leonidas and James here,” Dan of Rabbit Hill replied without hesitation. “An army is only as good as its head. With Thraxton in charge of the Army of Franklin, we might as well not have a head.”
Thraxton glared. Dan glared back. James wondered whether, in all the history of the world, a commanding general had ever had to listen to his three chief lieutenants tell his sovereign that he wasn’t fit to hold the post in which that sovereign had set him.
By King Geoffrey’s expression, he hadn’t expected those chief lieutenants to be quite so forthright, either. But he could only go forward now. “Very well, gentlemen,” he said. “You tell me Count Thraxton does not suit you. To whom, then, should command of this army go?”
Again, Baron Dan didn’t hesitate: “The best man this army could possibly have at its head is Duke Edward of Arlington.”
Well, that’s true enough, James thought. He’d asked James of Seddon Dun for Duke Edward himself. Edward was the best man any Detinan army, northern or southron, could possibly have at its head. King Avram had thought so, too. He’d offered the duke command of the southron armies as the war began. But Edward, like most northerners, had chosen Geoffrey as his sovereign, and had been making the southrons regret it ever since.
King Geoffrey knew exactly what he had in Duke Edward. He didn’t hesitate, either, but shook his head at once. “No,” he said. “I rely on Edward to hold the southrons away from Nonesuch.”
Dan of Rabbit Hill had to bow to that. But, as he bowed, he muttered under his breath, loud enough for James to hear: “If we hang on to Nonesuch and nothing else, we’ve still lost the stinking war.”
The king, perhaps fortunately, didn’t hear him. “Earl James,” Geoffrey said, “perhaps you have another candidate in mind?”
“Perhaps I do, your Majesty,” James of Broadpath said. “If you cannot spare Duke Edward from the west, Marquis Joseph the Gamecock might do very well here. The kingdom has not got all the service it might have from him since he was wounded last year and Duke Edward took charge of the Army of Southern Parthenia. He’s a brave and skillful soldier, and I happen to know he is quite recovered from his wound.”
King Geoffrey was not a warmhearted man-that had already occurred to James. But the icy stare the king gave him now put him in mind of a blizzard down by the Five Lakes country. As Geoffrey had once before, he said, “No,” again, this time even more emphatically. “Whatever Marquis Joseph’s soldierly qualities-and I do not choose to debate them with you-he does not hold my trust. He who names him again does so on pain of my displeasure.”
Like Dan of Rabbit Hill, Earl James bowed his head. He knew too well why the king and Marquis Joseph didn’t get along. Joseph had the habit of telling the truth as he saw it. Such men did not endear themselves to princes.
“Holy sir, have you a suggestion?” Geoffrey asked Leonidas the Priest.
“Either of the men my comrades named would improve this army,” Leonidas replied, drawing another black look from Count Thraxton. Ignoring it, he went on, “If, however, they will not do, you could also do worse than Marquis Peegeetee of Goodlook.”
But, once again, King Geoffrey shook his head. “All the objections pertaining to Marquis Joseph also pertain to him in equal force. And he is better at making plans than at carrying them to fruition.”
That held some truth. Marquis Peegeetee had seized a fort in Karlsburg harbor, a blow that marked the formal break between King Geoffrey and King Avram. Between them, he and Marquis Joseph had won the first battle at Cow Jog, down in southern Parthenia. Since then, though, his luck had been less good. Even so, James would have preferred him to Count Thraxton. James, by then, would have preferred a unicorn in command to Thraxton.
King Geoffrey said, “General Pembert is a skilled soldier, and available for service here.”
That produced as much horror in the generals as their suggestions had in the king. “He’s not even a proper northern man!” Leonidas exclaimed, which was true-Pembert came from the south, but had married a Parthenian girl, and had chosen Geoffrey over Avram perhaps because of that.
“He surrendered the last fortress we held along the Great River, your Majesty,” James added. “He hauled down the red dragon and gave the place to General Bart.”
“He was forced to yield by long siege,” the king said. “In his unhappy situation, who could have done better?”
“Your Majesty, I’m sorry, but you can’t pretty it up like that,” Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill said. “If you put General Pembert in charge of the Army of Franklin, my guess is that the soldiers will mutiny against him.”
Geoffrey glared. No king ever cared to hear that he couldn’t do what he wanted to do. His mouth a thin, hard line, Geoffrey said, “I cannot accept the men your officers proposed to head this army, and it seems the officer I named does not suit you. That being so, I find myself left with no choice but to sustain Count Thraxton here in command of this force.”
Leonidas the Priest came out with something James of Broadpath had not expected to hear from a hierophant. “I thank you, your Majesty,” Count Thraxton said quietly.
“You’re welcome, my friend,” King Geoffrey replied. If Thraxton weren’t his friend, he’d be heading into the retirement he deserves, James thought. But the king hadn’t finished: “Since you remain in command, I also confirm your dismissal of your wing commanders.”
Leonidas said something even more pungent than he had before. Dan of Rabbit Hill threw his hands in the air in disgust. Geoffrey’s decision there followed logically from the one that had just gone before. Even so, Earl James was moved to say, “Your Majesty, I hope you won’t regret this.”
Geoffrey stared at him out of eyes as opaque and unblinking as a dragon’s. “I never regret anything,” the king said.
Having had King Geoffrey sustain him, Count Thraxton should have felt relief and pride. Try as he would, though, he could muster up no more than a shadow of either emotion. What filled him most of all was overwhelming weariness. I have fought so hard for this kingdom, he thought dolefully, fought so hard, and for what? Why, only to see the men I led to victory turn on me and stab me in the back.
Even dismissing Leonidas and Dan brought scant satisfaction. As he strode through the front room of his farmhouse headquarters, candlelight made his shadow swoop and slink after him, as if it too were not to be trusted when his back was turned.
He sighed and scowled and sat down at the rickety table that did duty for a desk. His shadow also sat, and behaved itself. He found himself actually letting out a small sigh of relief at that. When his shadow didn’t leap about the room like a wild thing, it reminded him ever so much less of Ned of the Forest.
He ground his teeth, loud enough to be plainly audible, hard enough to hurt. Why in the name of the gods hadn’t he done more when that backwoods savage stormed in here, fire in his eye and murder in his heart? Thraxton was no coward; no man who’d ever seen him fight would claim he was. No, he was no coward, but there for a few dreadful minutes he’d been thoroughly cowed.
But he was still the commanding general, and thanks to King Geoffrey he would go on holding that post. And, if Ned had briefly cowed him, he didn’t have to keep the man around to remind himself of his humiliation. He inked a pen and began to write.
Headquarters, Army ofFranklin, Proselytizers’ Rise. The familiar formula helped steady him, helped ease the perpetual griping pain in his belly. Count Thraxton to King Geoffrey of Detina. Your Majesty: Some weeks since I forwarded an application from Ned of the forest for a transfer to theGreatRiver for special service. At that time I withheld my approval, because I deemed the services of that distinguished soldier necessary with this army.