Sentry Peak Read online

  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 betrayal: 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.”

  “You will of course do as you please in this regard,” Thraxton said woodenly. “If it were up to me…” If it were up to me, Ned of theForest would face the worst of the seven hells before I finally let him die. But he couldn’t very well tell that to King Geoffrey, not after what the king had just told him.

  “Sometimes these things can’t be helped,” Geoffrey said. “Winning the war comes first. If we do not win the war, all our petty quarrels crash to the ground along with all our hopes. Do you want to live in a world where our serfs are made into our liege lords?”

  “No, by the gods,” Thraxton replied, as he had to. And he told the truth. But he didn’t care to live in a world where Ned of the Forest was allowed to prosper, either.

  “I’m glad that’s settled, then,” the king said. It wasn’t settled-it was a long way from settled-as far as Count Thraxton was concerned. But, though Geoffrey was his friend, Geoffrey was also his sovereign. He couldn’t say what lay in his heart. His stomach twinged painfully. Of itself, his left hand rubbed at his belly. So far as he could tell, that did no good at all, but sorcery and medicine had failed him, too. Geoffrey went on, “Having dismissed Dan of Rabbit Hill and Leonidas, with whom do you intend to replace them? You will need men you can trust.”

  “Indeed, your Majesty,” Thraxton said, in lieu of laughing in King Geoffrey’s face. Men he trusted were few and far between. When he thought about how many men put under his command had shamelessly betrayed him, he found it altogether unsurprising that that should be so.

  “What do you say to Roast-Beef William, then?” Geoffrey asked.

  Count Thraxton stroked his graying beard. The year before, he and Roast-Beef William had commanded armies moving more or less together down into Cloviston, toward the Highlow River. They’d had to come back to the north after accomplishing less than Thraxton would have liked, but he’d got on with the other general about as well as he got on with anyone: faint praise, perhaps, but better than no praise at all.

  Geoffrey could have proposed many worse choices. If Thraxton hesitated much more, perhaps Geoffrey would propose somebody worse. And so he nodded. “Yes, your Majesty, I think he would suit me.”

  “Good,” Geoffrey said. “I think his appetite for fighting matches his appetite for large slabs of red, dripping meat.”

  “Er-yes.” Thraxton wondered if he’d made a mistake. He would, from time to time, have to eat with his wing commanders. His own appetite was abstemious. Having to watch Roast-Beef William demolish a significant fraction of a cow at suppertime would do nothing to improve it. The sacrifices I make for the kingdom.

  “All right, then.” The king seemed to tick off another item on his agenda. “You may choose your second wing commander in your own good time. Getting one man named, though, is important.”

  “As you say, your Majesty. Is there anything more?” As far as Thraxton was concerned, there’d been quite enough already.

  But King Geoffrey nodded. “It is essential that you drive the southrons from as much of Franklin as you possibly can. Essential, I say. We should be hard pressed to make a kingdom without this province.”

  “I understand.” Count Thraxton made himself nod. Making himself smile was beyond him. “I shall do everything as I can to carry out your wishes, your Majesty. Without more men, though…” The king glared at him so fiercely, he had to fall silent. But if the north could not get more men where they were needed most, how was it to make any sort of kingdom, with or without Franklin?

  * * *

  General Bart was not a happy man as the glideway brought him into Adlai, the town in southern Dothan Province closest to Rising Rock. He wasn’t happy that King Avram had had to send him to Rising Rock to repair matters after General Guildenstern met disaster by the River of Death, and he was in physical pain. A few days before, up in the steaming subtropical heat of Old Capet, General Nat the Banker had lent him a particularly spirited unicorn, and he’d taken a bad fall. His whole right side was still a mass of bruises. He could ride again, but walking remained a torment.

  His aide, a hatchet-faced young colonel named Horace, strode onto the glideway carpet and said, “Sir, we’re in luck-General Guildenstern is here in Adlai, on his way south after King Avram recalled him.”

  “Is he, your Grace?” Bart said, and Colonel Horace nodded. Horace was a duke’s son. That amused Bart, whose father had been a tanner. He knew he took perhaps more pride than he should at giving nobles orders; in the south, what a man could do counted for at least as much as who his father was. That was much less true in the north, where the nobles’ broad estates gave them enormous power in t
he land.

  “He would speak to you, sir, if you care to speak to him,” Horace said.

  “Of course I will,” Bart answered. “I wish I hadn’t had to make this trip, and I expect he wishes the same thing even more than I do. It’s good of him to want to talk to me at all, and not to spit in my eye.”

  Colonel Horace contemplated that. “Sometimes, sir, I think you’re a little too good at seeing the other fellow’s point of view.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Bart shrugged, which hurt. “Don’t forget, Colonel, I went to the officers’ collegium with these other fellows and served alongside ’em-our officers and the ones who chose Geoffrey. Knowing how the other fellow thinks is a big help in this business.”

  “If you say so, sir.” To Colonel Horace, everything that had to do with fighting was simple. You found the enemy, and then you went out and hit him. As far as Bart was concerned, that made him an excellent subordinate and would have made him a very dangerous commander.

  “I do say so,” Bart replied. “Well, if Guildenstern wants to talk to me, I’m glad to talk to him, as I say. Bring him aboard.”

  “Yes, sir.” His aide’s salute was as precise as if it came straight from a manufactory. Colonel Horace stalked off the glideway carpet, returning a couple of minutes later with the general formerly in command at Rising Rock.

  A cloud of brandy fumes preceded and accompanied Guildenstern. General Bart felt more than a little sympathy for his fellow southron officer. He was fond of spirits himself; there had been times in his life when he’d shown himself much too fond of spirits. He fought shy of them these days for just that reason.

  General Guildenstern gave him a sloppy salute. “Here you are, sir. I hope you lick the gods-damned traitors right out of their boots.”

  “I hope I do, too,” Bart said. “I wish I didn’t have to try it in the wake of your defeat, General.”

  “So do I, gods damn it. So do I.” Guildenstern wore a flask on his belt. He liberated it and took a long, healthy swig, then extended it to Bart. “Want a nip?”

  Bart’s face froze. He was not a big man, nor a particularly impressive one, save that, when he chose, he could make his eyes extraordinarily cold and bleak. A man seeing him when such a mood took him was well advised to give way, for Bart never would. He’d got more through dogged persistence than other, cleverer, generals had from military genius.

  That cold, dark stare got through even to Guildenstern, already elevated from brandy though he was. Smiling a placating smile, he said, “Er, well, maybe not,” and put the flask away in a hurry.

  “Tell me of your dispositions,” was all Bart said.

  “My disposition? By the Thunderer’s prick, it’s not all it might be,” Guildenstern said, and guffawed. Bart didn’t, and that cold, intent look never left his face. General Guildenstern’s chuckles died away to uneasy silence. At last, he asked, “Have you got a map of Rising Rock and the surrounding country, General?”

  “I do.” Bart pulled one from a red leather folder.

  “All right, then.” Brandy fumes or no, Guildenstern settled down to business and showed Bart where his men were posted and where Thraxton the Braggart’s lines ran.

  “Pity you let them take Sentry Peak,” Bart said. “The top is a prime observation post, and engines on the forward slope can reach south across the Franklin River and just about into Rising Rock.”

  “I would be a liar if I said I was very happy about that myself, sir,” Guildenstern replied. “Still and all, though, there are several things you might do, there and elsewhere, to shore up your lines.” Tracing ideas out with his finger, he showed Bart what he meant.

  “Those are all good notions,” Bart said when he was through. He meant it; he was not and never had been a man to whom hypocrisy came naturally. All the same, he fixed Guildenstern with that piercing glance once more. “Yes, they’re excellent notions. Why didn’t you use them yourself, instead of saving them up to give them to me?”

  Guildenstern stared. He opened his mouth, but not a word emerged. Slowly and deliberately, without any fuss, General Bart put the map back in its folder. By the time he’d stowed the folder in amongst his baggage, Guildenstern found his power of speech once more: “What I did or didn’t do doesn’t matter, not any more. I’m off to the south, along with Thom and Alexander and Negley. Negley can go back to his flowers. The rest of us… If we’re lucky, King Avram will send us out to the eastern steppe and let us chase louse-ridden blond nomads for the rest of the war. If we’re lucky, I say.”

  The brandy he’d taken on no doubt helped fuel his self-pity. With a sigh, Bart said, “You could expect better, General, if the four of you hadn’t left the field before the fight was over.”

  “We got swept away in the rout,” Guildenstern said hotly. “The whole fornicating army got swept away in the rout. That’s what makes a rout, the whole fornicating army getting swept away.”

  “Lieutenant General George didn’t,” Bart pointed out. “If he had, if the traitors had pushed him off Merkle’s Hill, none of you would have come back safe to Rising Rock.”

  “To the seven hells with Doubting George!” Guildenstern cried, and stormed away.

  General Bart started to go after him, then checked himself. He could understand why Guildenstern was angry and upset. Doubting George had had to fall back from the River of Death, but he’d done it with his chunk of the army in good order, and after fighting Thraxton’s men to a standstill. Guildenstern and the other high-ranking officers had left too soon, and they would have to pay the price for the rest of their careers, if not for the rest of their lives.

  When morning came, Bart set out for Rising Rock himself. He didn’t go by glideway, not when the traitors could reach the line into town with their engines. He had to ride a unicorn for those last thirty miles or so. It was one of the less pleasant journeys of his life, since the bruises he’d taken in the fall up north were far from healed; his whole right side, from ankle to shoulder, was black and yellow and purple and, here and there, green.

  Worse still, the road between Adlai and Rising Rock hardly deserved the name. It was rough and narrow, and flanked by broken-down wagons and the scrawny carcasses of asses and unicorns. Getting supplies into Rising Rock wasn’t easy. Every so often, the officers with Bart had to dismount and lead their unicorns up and down gullies too steep for riding. When they did, they had to put Bart in a litter and carry him till the going got better. He could ride, though it hurt. He wasn’t up to much in the way of walking, even with a stick in each hand.

  To Colonel Horace, he said, “It’s a good thing Thraxton hasn’t got unicorn-riders out prowling in these parts. I can’t run away, and I can’t fight, either.”

  “Is it true that Ned of the Forest has gone off to fight somewhere else?” By Horace’s tone, the aide expected the northern officer to come charging out of the trees if it weren’t true.

  “I believe it is,” Bart answered from the embarrassing comfort of the litter. “I’ve seen the same reports you have, Colonel. Unless the northerners are bluffing us, he’s gone. I hope he is. He caused me endless grief over by the Great River last winter, and I’d just as soon not have to cope with his marauders again.”

  He got into Rising Rock just after nightfall, and after surviving a challenge from nervous southron sentries. He was glad to get past the men from his own side. More than one general in this fight had already fallen victim to crossbow bolts from soldiers mistaking their own commanders for the foe.

  Lieutenant General George greeted him in front of the hostel that had been General Guildenstern’s headquarters, and before him Count Thraxton’s. “Good to see you, sir,” George said, saluting. “I know we’re in good hands now.”

  “Thanks,” Bart replied, slowly and painfully dismounting and then reaching for the sticks he’d tied behind the saddle. “It’s mighty fine to see you here, George, speaking of good hands.” He’d always had a high regard for the lieutenant general, higher than he’d felt for
Guildenstern even before the battle by the River of Death.

  “Come in, come in,” Doubting George said now. “There’s a capon waiting for you, and a nice, soft bed. I can see by the way you’re standing that you could use one. How do you feel?”

  “I’ve been better,” Bart admitted. “But food and sleep and maybe a long, hot soak between one and the other would go a long way toward setting me right.”

  After supper, one of the blond maidservants at the hostel offered to scrub his back in the tub and take care of anything else he had in mind. “General Guildenstern, he liked me fine,” she boasted.

  “I can see why,” Bart answered; she was pretty and shapely. “But my lady down in the south wouldn’t be happy if I spread it around, so I don’t.”

  With a shrug, she answered, “That other fellow had a lady down south somewheres, too, but it didn’t bother him none.”

  From everything Bart had heard about Guildenstern, that left him unsurprised. “Well, it bothers me,” he said, and then, “I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone else who’d want to be friendly with you.”

  “Oh, so am I,” she answered with a good-looking woman’s certainty. “Still and all, though, I was on top before, and I was hoping to stay on top now that you’re here.” She shrugged again. “Well, if nobody’s on top, I guess taking a step or two down won’t be so bad.” She strode out of the bathroom, waggling her hips a little to show him what he was missing. He laughed, although, being a polite man, he held off till she’d closed the door after her. Who would have thought serving girls ranked themselves by which generals they’d slept with?

  Sleeping alone suited him just fine that evening. He felt much more nearly himself when he got up the next morning. After breakfast, Doubting George asked him, “Would you care to ride out and see some of the line we set up after we came back here to Rising Rock?”