After looking at what he’d written, he slowly shook his head. By the gods, what a liar I am! went through his mind. All he wanted was to get Ned of the Forest as far away from him as he could, and to do it as fast as he could. If that meant telling polite lies, tell polite lies he would. He would do almost anything never again to have to face the murder in Ned’s eyes.
Pen scritching across paper, he resumed: As that request can now be granted without injury to the public interests in this quarter, I respectfully ask that the transfer be made at this time. I am, your Majesty, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Count Thraxton, general commanding.
There. It was done. He sprinkled fine sand over the ink to dry it, then folded the letter and sealed it with his signet ring. Once the wax was dry, he called for a runner. Handing the young man the letter, he said, “Take this to the king at once.”
“Yes, sir,” the runner said, and hurried away. He asked no questions. That was as well, for Thraxton knew he had few answers.
If he went over to the crest of Proselytizers’ Rise-not a long journey at all, less than a mile from this farmhouse-he could look down into Rising Rock and see the scores, the hundreds, of fires of the southron soldiers encamped there. James of Broadpath’s words came back to haunt him. You wanted to chase Guildenstern out of Rising Rock, and you ended up chasing him into it instead.
Thraxton stepped outside and stared up at the stars. A mosquito bit him on the neck. Absently, hardly noticing what he was doing, he cursed the buzzing pest. The curse he chose might have slain an unwarded man. Used against a mosquito… The bug, which was flying off, burst into flame as if it were a firefly. But fireflies burned without consuming themselves. The mosquito’s whole substance went into the fire, and it abruptly ceased to be.
If only I could do to the southrons what I did to the mosquito. But the men who followed King Avram were warded, worse luck. He’d managed to break through those wards and cast confusion into General Guildenstern’s mind, but the effort had left him all but prostrated. And, because he did break through, the Army of Franklin had won the fight by the River of Death. But the effort winning took had left the army all but prostrated, too. Everyone who called for a hard, fierce pursuit of the southrons conveniently failed to notice that.
You swore an oath you would take back Rising Rock. You swore an oath you would chase the southrons all the way out of the province of Franklin. That didn’t look like happening any time soon.
Now, in the recesses of his mind, the caverns where insults and reproaches lay unforgotten, Ned of the Forest fleered at him once more: not this latest outburst, but the one back in Rising Rock. Thraxton knew plenty of men called him the Braggart, but few had the nerve to do it to his face.
Thraxton looked up at the stars again. I did everything I could, he thought. He’d had one man in four killed or wounded in the latest battle; the River of Death had lived up to its name. How could he pursue after that?
“I couldn’t,” he muttered, drawing a curious look from a sentry. Fortunately, the man had the sense to ask no questions.
But Thraxton held his thoughts to himself. They want me to get east of the southrons, to slip between them and their supply base at Ramblerton. How can I do that when the army has no bridges to cross theFranklinRiver? If I send men across at the fords and the river rises-as it might, after any thunderstorm-they’ll be cut off from any hope of aid. Can people see that? It doesn’t seem so.
He went back into the farmhouse, took off his boots, and lay down on the iron-framed cot that did duty for a bed: the softer one the farmer who’d abandoned the place left behind had proved full of vermin, and they, like the southrons, showed a higher degree of immunity to his spells than he would have liked.
Most of the bugs, unlike most of the southrons, were finally deceased. The ones that survived didn’t bother Thraxton much. Even so, sleep was a long time coming. He knew as well as his fractious generals that he might have got more from the fight by the River of Death, and knowing that ate at him no less than it ate at them. They were full of bright ideas. He didn’t think any of their bright ideas would work. Unfortunately, he’d come up with no bright ideas of his own. That left him… sleepless on a hard cot near Proselytizers’ Rise, when he’d hoped to go back into Rising Rock in triumph.
When sleep did come, it did a better job of ambushing him than he’d done of catching the southrons unaware as they pushed into Peachtree Province. He woke with a feeling of deep surprise, almost of betrayaclass="underline" what else might his body do to him while he wasn’t looking?
He broke his fast with a couple of hard rolls and a cup of rather nasty tea. Southron galleys prowled outside the ports of the north, those that hadn’t fallen to King Avram’s men. Getting indigo out, getting proper tea in, grew harder month by month.
Count Thraxton had just finished his abstemious meal when a runner came in and said, “Your Grace, the king will see you now.”
“Very good.” Thraxton got to his feet. “I’ll come.” Only after he’d got moving did he reflect on the absurdity of that. If King Geoffrey wanted him to come, of course he would. He had no business speaking as if he were doing his sovereign a favor. He’d been commanding the Army of Franklin a long time; maybe he’d got used to the idea of having no one around of rank higher than his.
He ducked his way into the pavilion he’d had run up for the king. Dropping to one knee, he murmured, “Your Majesty.”
“Arise, old friend,” Geoffrey said. Thraxton straightened. The king seemed in a mood to put aside some of the formality of his office. He waved Thraxton to a stool and sat down on another one himself, though he sat very straight, as if his back pained him. “What can I do to help you win back Franklin?”
“Give my army another wing the size of James of Broadpath’s,” Thraxton replied without the least hesitation. “Give me the unicorn-riders and siege train and artisans that go with such a force. If I had them, I would sweep the southrons from this province as a cleaning wench sweeps dust from a parquet floor.”
“If I had such men, I would give them with both hands,” King Geoffrey replied. “I have them not, I fear. To give you Earl James and his followers, I had to rob Duke Edward in Parthenia and pray the southrons would stay quiet. We are… stretched very thin these days, you know.”
“Yes.” Thraxton’s doleful nod matched his doleful countenance. “You do know, however, that the southrons have sent reinforcements into Rising Rock?”
“I know it,” Geoffrey said. “The more men they have there, the faster they will starve. So I hope, at any rate.”
“Indeed.” Thraxton nodded again, this time in more willing agreement. “We have our hand on their windpipe to the east of here. I will do everything I can to squeeze it shut.” Maybe I’ll parade through the streets of Rising Rock yet. Maybe.
King Geoffrey nodded, too. “Good. May the gods favor our cause, then. Now… I shall transfer Ned of the Forest to the vicinity of the Great River, as you ask. I gather the two of you have known a certain amount of friction trying to work together.”
“You might say so, yes.” Thraxton remembered Ned’s index finger stabbing at his face like the point of a sword.
“Very well. I was given to understand as much.” Geoffrey paused, looking thoughtful. He’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, Thraxton thought; he needed no magecraft to realize as much. And, sure enough, the king went on, “In his own way, Ned is valuable to the kingdom. I understand why he needs to leave this army, but I would not have him leave while feeling ill-used. That being so, I intend to promote him from brigadier to lieutenant general before sending him east toward the Great River.”