“Come on into Ramblerton,” Doubting George said. “Look at the works from the inside, not just the outside. You’ll see we have some little suspicion about what we’re doing, too.”
“Let my men go in first,” John said. “They bore the brunt of it. Lieutenant General Bell may be-hells, he is — a gods-damned idiot, but his soldiers still fight like sons of bitches. Next sign of quit I see in ’em’ll be the first. No matter how stupid he was to attack us there, they almost carried the position.”
“They’re Detinans, too. They’re as stubborn as we are,” George said. “Sometimes even the stubbornest fellows get licked, though, and we’ll lick ’em.”
“Yes, sir.” John nodded. He had heavy dark circles under his eyes. How much sleep had he had the night before? The night before that? Any at all? George had his doubts.
“We’ll pour you a good, full mug of spirits,” he said. “And we’ll give you a nice, soft bed, and, by the gods, I don’t care if Bell invests this place five minutes after you lie down-we won’t wake you till you get up on your own. I expect we’ll manage to keep Ramblerton out of that bastard’s hands till then.”
“I thank you very m…” John’s voice trailed off into an enormous yawn. When at last he managed to close his mouth, he laughed ruefully. “I suppose I just proved I could use a long winter’s nap, didn’t I?”
“Let’s say you gave me a pretty good hint.” Doubting George might have added more to that, but he noticed Major Alva riding by on an ass that looked almost as weary as John the Lister. Alva waved, but then remembered to salute. After returning the courtesy, George turned back to John. “How did that young whippersnapper serve you?”
“Whippersnapper’s the word for him, all right. He kept going on and on about the gods-damned Inward Hypothesis till I wanted to kick him,” John replied.
“I know. Makes me seasick just thinking about it,” George said. “But he’s a pretty fair mage, or I thought he was when I sent him to you.”
John the Lister nodded. “He is. He is indeed. I wouldn’t try to deny it. Last night, the traitors’ wizards were punishing us in the center. Bell’s men might’ve broken through. If they had, I wouldn’t” — he yawned again- “be here now. But Alva stopped ’em. All by his lonesome, he stopped ’em cold. We held in the center, and we ended up giving Bell a thrashing.”
“That’s what I was hoping you would do,” Doubting George said. John’s wagons rattled past. The general commanding wished he didn’t have to hear the groans from the wounded men inside them. He turned to John. “Shall we go in now?” Regardless of what he wished, he would listen to them all the way into Ramblerton.
“Yes, sir,” John the Lister said.
He proved too worn to look very hard at the fortifications from the inside. George took him back to his headquarters, gave him the promised glass of spirits, and led him to a comfortable bed. John lay down without bothering to take off his boots. He fell asleep before George left the room.
A couple of hours later, after listening to preliminary reports from some of John’s officers, George got in touch with Marshal Bart by scryer. “Good day, Lieutenant General,” Bart said, peering out of the crystal ball at George. He was a stubby man, not very tall and not very wide, with a close-trimmed dark beard. “Haven’t heard from you for a while. What’s on your mind?”
“As of now, Marshal, John the Lister’s a regular captain. After what he just did to Bell and the Army of Franklin, I believe he deserves better.” George summed up what had happened at Poor Richard.
“Bell was fool enough to charge at him over open ground?” Bart said when he finished. George nodded. Marshal Bart shrugged. “Even so, you’re right. That was well done, and no mistake. A disaster there would have hurt us badly. Tell John I’ll recommend his promotion to brigadier of the regulars to King Avram.”
What Marshal Bart recommended, King Avram would approve. Doubting George whistled softly. It wasn’t that John the Lister didn’t deserve to be a brigadier in Detina’s regular army. He did; not even George could doubt that. But raising him to brigadier from captain in one fell swoop… George had expected Bart to make him a colonel, and then to promote him to brigadier’s rank later if he continued to give good service.
“I’ll tell him tomorrow, I think,” George said.
Bart frowned. Most of the time, he looked like the most ordinary Detinan in the kingdom. Anybody who thought he was ordinary, though, did so at his peril. “Why not tell him now?” the marshal asked, in tones suggesting George had better have a good reason.
And George did: “Because he’s liable to sleep till tomorrow, sir. He just got in to Ramblerton, and I don’t think he’s shut his eyes the last two days.”
“Oh.” Bart nodded. “All right. Yes, when you’re that worn down, you don’t care about anything. He’d probably strangle you if you woke him, and he might not remember anything you told him.”
“True enough. And if he did strangle me, I couldn’t very well tell him again.”
“Er, right.” Marshal Bart-the first marshal Detina had had in a long lifetime, the grandest soldier in the land-had no more idea what to do with Doubting George’s foolishness than did Colonel Andy. Unlike Andy, Bart had the privilege of changing the subject: “Do you expect Bell to follow John up toward Ramblerton?”
“Yes, sir.” George got down to business again. “I don’t know what else he can do, sir. About the only other thing would be to turn around and march back up to Dothan, and I can’t imagine Bell doing that. As long as he’s got soldiers who will follow his orders, he’ll take them into battle. If he attacked around Marthasville, if he attacked at Poor Richard, he’ll attack anywhere.”
Bart nodded again. “I think you’re right. As soon as he gets up there, Lieutenant General, I want you to hit him with everything you’ve got.”
“I will hit him, sir. You don’t need to worry about that,” George answered. “As soon as I’m ready, I will hit him a lick the likes of which he has never known before.”
“Don’t waste time,” Bart told him. “Hit him just as soon as you can. Do not give him the chance to slip around you. Smash him. Send him back to Dothan with his tail between his legs. Send him back there whether he wants to go or not.”
“Sir, I will strike him when I am ready. I will not let him get away,” George promised. “The Army of Franklin will not slip by me. It will not get down into Cloviston. You may rely on that.”
“Bell has the last northern army in the field that can still maneuver and cause us trouble,” Bart said worriedly. “I do not want us embarrassed, not when the war looks like being won.”
He commanded all the southron armies. He had the right to say what he said. That made it no less galling to Doubting George. “Sir, when he comes here and I am ready, I will strike him,” he repeated.
“I want him smashed like a bug under a boot,” Marshal Bart said. “I want him… I want him suppressed, by the Thunderer’s pizzle.”
A couple of years earlier, Duke Edward of Arlington had used that contemptuous word in ordering the Army of Southern Parthenia forward to smash King Avram’s soldiers at the second Battle of Cow Jog. John the Hierophant, who’d commanded Avram’s men then, was off in the east these days with the equally luckless General Guildenstern, chasing blond savages. Bart took more than a little pleasure in applying the term to false King Geoffrey’s Army of Franklin.
“Sir, when the time is ripe, I will suppress him,” Doubting George said. “He won’t beat me, and he won’t get away.”
“He’d better not.” Bart still sounded fretful. George sighed. He feared the marshal would go right on nagging him even though a province and a half lay between them. Gods damn crystal balls, anyhow, George thought unhappily.