Marching Through Peachtree wotp-2 Page 10

  “Duke Edward of Arlington never thought so, sir,” Bell said stiffly.

  “Duke Edward of Arlington gives men more leeway than most officers are in the habit of doing,” Joseph retorted. “When I give you an order, I expect it to be obeyed. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Bell said, holding in his rage. “I have failed in no obedience.” And that was true, so far as the campaign itself went. Subordination, now, that was a different question-and Joseph the Gamecock didn’t know how different an answer it had.

  “All right, then,” Joseph said. “I want all three of you to prepare your men for an attack tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. He asked no questions. He did as he was told. Joseph the Gamecock would never complain about his subordination.

  Leonidas the Priest turned sorrowful eyes on the general commanding. “I fear the Lion God does not smile on this enterprise,” the hierophant said. “The omens are not good. And without the gods’ backing, where are we?”

  “On our own in the world,” Joseph the Gamecock said, fixing Leonidas with a glare like a flying crossbow quarrel. “I reverence the gods, holy sir-don’t get me wrong about that. But until I hear them speak in my own ears, I have to make my choices about what to do. I have, and I am.”

  “May the Lion God not smite you for your arrogance, sir,” Leonidas said. “I shall pray for his forbearance.”

  “Maybe we would do better to send out scouting forces come morning, to see if the southrons really did shift some large part of their host,” Bell said.

  Joseph threw his hands in the air. “By all the gods, gentlemen, how can I hope to attack when two of my three wing commanders think I’d be making a mistake to do so? And then King Geoffrey will blame me for not being aggressive enough.”

  You haven’t been aggressive enough, Bell thought. You may try to make up for it now, but you would have done better to strike at the southrons from the start.

  “I am an obedient man, sir,” Leonidas the Priest said. “If you order me to send my soldiers forward, I shall do so, regardless of my own personal feelings as to the wisdom of the order.”

  “No, no, no, no.” Joseph the Gamecock shook his head. “If we attack, we should put all our force, all our spirit, into it. Otherwise, we might as well not do it at all.” He swung his gaze back toward Bell. “Lieutenant General!”

  “Yes, sir!” Bell said loudly.

  “If you make this probing attack of yours and discover the enemy before you is weak, will you advance against him at all hazards?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” Bell replied.

  “All right, then,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “Go ahead and do it. If the foe proves as weak as I expect, put everything you have into the blow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bell said for the third time. “If I may make so bold as to tell you, sir, you don’t need to say that to me.”

  “All right,” Joseph said, also repeating himself. “I know you strike hard when you strike. I hadn’t thought getting you to strike would be so much trouble, though.” He pointed to Roast-Beef William and Leonidas the Priest in turn. “Have your men ready to move, too. If Bell’s attack shows the southrons to be as weak as I think they are, I’ll want to hit them every which way at once.”

  “Yes, sir,” Roast-Beef William said. He would obey without complaining and without making anyone feel he was doing him a favor.

  “Yes, sir,” Leonidas the Priest echoed. He wasn’t happy about it, and he didn’t care who knew he wasn’t happy.

  Bell just nodded and made his slow way back to the buggy. He felt Joseph the Gamecock’s eyes boring into him every step of the way, but didn’t turn around to look at the commanding general. When he returned to his own smooth-floored headquarters, he sent runners to the brigades under his command, ordering them to ready themselves for battle.

  “What’s going on, sir?” Major Zibeon asked.

  Briefly, Bell explained. “This isn’t the best time or place for the attack,” he finished, “but I must obey.”

  Zibeon nodded. “It may not be so bad as you think, sir,” he said, something like enthusiasm on his usually sour face. “If Hesmucet really has detached some large part of his force for a flanking attack, we can punish the rest before the detached portion is able to come to its rescue.”

  “That is also Joseph the Gamecock’s theory,” Bell said. “How it will turn out in practice remains to be seen.”

  “I know you’ve been eager to attack, sir,” his aide-de-camp said. “Now Count Joseph is giving you your chance.”

  I don’t want Joseph giving me anything, Bell thought. I want to take for myself, and to do it with both hands. But he couldn’t explain that to Zibeon; he didn’t know where the major’s ultimate loyalty lay. “I intend to do everything I can,” he said, and thought he was telling the truth. Some of it, anyhow.

  As Joseph had ordered, he sent his men forward against the southrons at first light the next morning. He went forward, too, tied onto his unicorn. He’d never yet ordered soldiers to advance without advancing at their head. He had no intention of changing his ways because he was mutilated, either. Major Zibeon did ride at his side, and that was a change-before his wounds, no one would have presumed to do any such thing.

  As they pushed toward the main body of the southrons, they overran a few pickets and sentries and scouts wearing gray. A few others escaped and fled toward their encampment. “So far, so good,” Zibeon said.

  “Yes, so far.” Lieutenant General Bell sounded suspicious. “I only hope we’re not moving forward into a trap.”

  “Not much to trap us with, sir.” His aide-de-camp waved to show what he meant. “Nothing but flat land except for those trees off to our left, and there aren’t enough of them to hide anything very big.”

  “May the Lion God prove you right,” Bell said piously. “I still think the southrons could cause us trouble if-”

  Before he could go on, southron unicorn-riders galloped forth to challenge his host, which had advanced about a mile. Some of them shot crossbows at Bell’s men. The rest served a handful of catapults on wheeled carriages. They flung a few firepots and shot long darts. Northerners who were hit cried out in pain.

  Bell’s eyes kept going to those trees on the flank. “I think they’ve got more engines hidden away in there,” he said nervously. “We’d better not go any farther, or the shots from the flank will tear us to pieces.”

  “Sir, I don’t think you’re right,” Major Zibeon said, “and even if you are, we can send men over there to clear them out.”

  “No, my mind’s made up,” Bell said. “We’re going back to camp. I think Hesmucet’s just lying in wait for us, and to the seven hells with me if I’ll give him a victory on the cheap.” He shouted for his trumpeters and ordered a withdrawal. Joseph the Gamecock had ordered a probe, and he’d given Joseph that much. He had no intention of giving the commanding general anything more.

  * * *

  Colonel Andy eyed the retreating northerners in some perplexity. “Why are they falling back?” he asked Lieutenant General George. “They might have done us a lot of harm if they’d kept coming.”

  “If I knew, I would tell you,” Doubting George answered. “I’ll tell you this, though: you’re not wrong. We just dodged a crossbow quarrel there.”

  “Yes, sir,” his adjutant agreed. “They came forward bold as you please, and in some numbers, too. You wouldn’t have thought they had that much zing left in ’em.”

  “It doesn’t do to count the northerners as licked too soon,” George said. “General Guildenstern did that, and look what it got him.”

  “A command out on the eastern steppe fighting the blond savages.” Colonel Andy shuddered. “No, thanks. That isn’t what I want to have happen to my career.”

  “That isn’t what anybody wants to have happen to his career,” George said. “It’s all very well when it’s the only game in town, when we’re at peace everywhere else. But when
there’s a real war to be fought, you’d better do everything you can to fight it.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!” Colonel Andy said fervently. He was a colonel because of the war. As soon as it ended, he would return to his permanent captain’s rank-and, very likely, to a dusty fortress out on the steppe. Doubting George’s own prospects were rather better; he was a permanent brigadier as well as a brevet lieutenant general. But the battle to get a decent post once the fight with King Geoffrey’s men was over might well prove as fierce as any struggle in this conflict.

  It could be worse, he thought. When the war was over and won-if it was to be won-the officers who’d abandoned Detina and King Avram for treason and Grand Duke Geoffrey would, George assumed, be out of the army for good. He also assumed a good many of them would go up on crosses for abandoning Detina, but that would be King Avram’s decision, not his.

  He called for a runner. When one of the young messengers came up, he said, “My compliments to General Hesmucet, and the northerners’ attack appears to have fizzled out like a candle using up the last of its tallow. We can strike at the enemy here, if he likes, to keep Joseph the Gamecock from shifting forces to meet our latest flanking move. Repeat that back, if you’d be so kind.”

  “Yes, sir,” the messenger said, and did. At Doubting George’s nod, he hurried away.

  Hesmucet himself came riding back to George before the messenger returned. The commanding general looked over the ground. “Do you know what, Lieutenant General?” he said.

  “No, sir. Tell me what,” George said gravely.

  “I’ll do just that,” Hesmucet said. “Here’s what: you’re a lucky son of a bitch. We’re all lucky sons of bitches. If the traitors had pressed that attack, you might’ve been in a peck of trouble.”

  “That thought did cross my mind, yes, sir,” George said. “But Lieutenant General Bell started to come at us and then seemed as though he changed his mind with his move half begun. Peculiar.”

  “Bell?” Hesmucet said. “Are you sure it was Bell? He’s not in the habit of pulling back from an attack once he starts one. That bastard will press ahead come hells or high water, and he hits hard when he hits, too.”

  “It was Bell-no doubt about it,” Doubting George replied. “The handful of prisoners we took are from regiments he commands, and some of our riders saw him up on his own unicorn. With the short stump he’s got on that one leg, he’s not a man you can easily mistake for anyone else.”

  “I won’t say you’re wrong, on account of you’re gods-damned well right,” Hesmucet said. “Even so, I can hardly believe it. What made him pull back?”

  “You’d have to ask him, sir, because I don’t know,” George replied. “All we had in front of him was the screen of Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders. I wish I’d been able to put some men and engines in amongst the trees on his flank”-he pointed in the direction from which the northerners had come-“but I didn’t have time to move any. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect the traitors to come out of their works.”

  “Well, now we know they will-or they may, anyhow,” Hesmucet said. “We’ll have to be more careful.” He made a sour face. “That means more entrenching, gods damn it. I hate it, but I see no way to escape it.”

  “So long as we win, sir, I’m not fussy about how,” George told him.

  The commanding general nodded. “That is well said. It is full of the generous spirit I’ve looked for in you-and, I must say, I’ve found. We may not love each other, Lieutenant General, but we manage to work together.”

  “That same thing had crossed my mind a time or two, sir.” George stuck out his hand. General Hesmucet clasped it. George went on, “And what do you require of me now that Bell’s men have withdrawn to their trenches?”

  “Be ready to pursue them and to attack if you see the opportunity when they pull out of those trenches again,” Hesmucet replied. “I do not think they can hold their position long, not with another flanking maneuver even now aimed at getting into their rear.”

  “Just as you say, sir.” Doubting George saluted.

  “We’re going to lick these bastards, is what we’re going to do,” Hesmucet said. “False King Geoffrey says he has a kingdom. He may even think he has a kingdom. What he has is a hollow shell, and, once we show that, this thing he thinks he rules will shrivel up like a pricked bladder.”

  “Duke Edward will have something to say about that, too,” George said.

  “Duke Edward is a lucky son of a bitch. I don’t even think he knows what a lucky son of a bitch he is,” General Hesmucet said. “All the battlefields over in southern Parthenia are cramped together. The land between Georgetown and Nonesuch works for him, because it keeps Marshal Bart-and whoever else commanded against the Army of Southern Parthenia-from using our advantage in numbers to outmaneuver Duke Edward, to hold him with part of our force and get around him with the rest.”

  “Fighting Joseph tried that,” George remarked. “All he got for his trouble was embarrassed at Viziersville.”

  “I know, but that was Fighting Joseph.” Hesmucet made a dismissive gesture. “A real general who tried it would have done a hells of a lot better.”

  Doubting George looked around to make sure Fighting Joseph was nowhere nearby. He might have failed against Duke Edward of Arlington, but he remained a proud and touchy man. He also remained nowhere in sight, for which George was duly grateful. George said, “Marshal Bart isn’t trying to outmaneuver Duke Edward.”

  “It surely doesn’t look that way,” Hesmucet agreed. “He fought him in the Jungle, not far from Viziersville, and then again, and again. He’s going to head for Nonesuch and to hammer Duke Edward flat if he stands in the way long enough. As I said, he hasn’t got the room to maneuver that I do.”

  “All very interesting, and none of it quite what I expected when this spring’s fighting began,” Doubting George said. “I thought you would be the one who banged straight ahead.”

  “I might, if I were facing Duke Edward. He’s fond of coming out and slugging,” Hesmucet replied. “Joseph the Gamecock is different. He takes these defensive positions and invites you to bloody your nose on them. I’m not the only one shaping this campaign, and that’s worth remembering.”

  “You’re right, sir, and I hadn’t thought it through.” George nodded respectfully to Hesmucet. Sure enough, as with Bart, there was more to the man than met the eye. “You and Duke Edward would add up to something different from you and Joseph the Gamecock.”

  Hesmucet nodded. “That’s right. That’s just right. And Joseph and Bart would be different from what Duke Edward and Bart are turning into. The commanders on both sides make things what they are. As a matter of fact, I don’t mind this game of maneuver so much as I thought I would.”

  “Really?” George raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that, sir?”

  The smile Hesmucet smiled was particularly nasty. “Because it lets me move through country that’s never been fought over before. This far north, the barons and earls and counts supposed they were safe. They didn’t think any southron army could ever come all the way up here. Now they’re seeing they were wrong. There’s no place in Geoffrey’s so-called kingdom we can’t reach. Let’s see how much fight’s left in the traitors once they start to realize that down in their guts.”

  As if to underscore the point he’d been making, a couple of dozen blonds-escaped serfs, every one of them, men, women, and children-came by, shepherded along by a couple of gray-uniformed southron soldiers. They were a couple of dozen people who wouldn’t labor for their liege lords any more, and who would do useful work for King Avram’s army. Doubting George nodded thoughtfully once more. He said, “You’re fighting against Geoffrey’s whole would-be kingdom, not just against Joseph the Gamecock, then.”

  “Well, of course,” Hesmucet replied.

  But it wasn’t of course, not to George. It probably wouldn’t have been of course to any general who’d fought before this war began, either. Wars usually aimed a
t defeating the enemy’s army, not at smashing his whole kingdom flat. No, Hesmucet and Bart weren’t playing by the old rules.

  “Fighting won’t be the same after this,” Doubting George observed.

  “I don’t want there to be any more fighting in the Kingdom of Detina after this,” Hesmucet said. “I want everybody to get the idea that it is one kingdom and it will always be one kingdom, and if I have to kill everybody who doesn’t get that idea, or make him starve, or burn down his fancy manor and take away his serfs, I will do any of those things, and I won’t lose a single, solitary minute’s worth of sleep over any of it.”

  “You intend to be persuasive, you say.” George’s voice was dry.

  “Gods-damn right I do,” Hesmucet replied, taking his words at face value. “I want the traitors licked. I don’t want them thinking, Well, we almost won this time. Maybe we ought to try again. If you get into a tavern fight with a man and you knock him down, you’re always smart to kick him a couple of times afterwards. That way, he doesn’t think the fight was close. He bloody well knows you licked him.”

  As a younger man, Doubting George had found himself in a few-perhaps more than a few-tavern fights of his own. The ones he’d won, he’d mostly followed Hesmucet’s rule. The few he’d lost… Of itself, his hand rubbed his ribcage. Plenty of other tough young men thought the same way. He remembered boots thudding home, things he’d tried to keep out of his memory for years.

  Hesmucet clapped him on the shoulder. “We are going to whip the northerners here, and I’ll tell you why.”

  “I’m all ears,” George said solemnly.

  “Because Marthasville ties Joseph the Gamecock down, that’s why,” the general commanding said. “He has no choice: that’s the place he’s got to defend. If he doesn’t, he might as well not be in the field. And that means, sooner or later, I’m going to flank him once too often. He’ll either have to give me Marthasville or come out and fight. Either way, I’ll have what I want.”