With one more massive shrug, the general commanding said, “We had to beat Bell first. Now we’ve done that, so whether we squabble among ourselves doesn’t matter so much.” His smile was strangely wistful. “To the victors go the spoils-and the squabbles over them.”
“Yes, sir.” John the Lister gave Doubting George a salute that had a lot of hail-and-farewell in it. “Believe me, sir, I’ll have the men in tiptop shape when we go west to join up with General Hesmucet.”
Now Doubting George looked and sounded as sharp and cynical as he usually did: “Oh, I do believe you, Brigadier. After all, if the soldiers perform well, you look good because of it.”
Nodding, John saluted again and beat a hasty retreat. He’d served alongside George before serving under him. He wouldn’t be sorry to get away, to serve under General Hesmucet again. Yes, Hesmucet could be difficult. But, from everything John the Lister had seen, any general worth his pantaloons was difficult. Hesmucet, though, had a simple driving energy John liked. Doubting George brooded and fretted before he struck. When he finally hit, he hit hard. That his army stood by the southern bank of the Franklin proved as much. Still, his long wait till all the pieces he wanted were in place had driven everyone around him to distraction.
Hesmucet, now, Hesmucet had blithely set out across Peachtree Province toward Veldt without even worrying about his supply line, let alone anything else. He’d taken a chance-taken it and got away with taking it. John tried to imagine Doubting George doing the like.
And then, just when he was about to dismiss his present but not future general commanding as an old foof, he remembered George had had the idea for tramping across Peachtree weeks before Hesmucet latched on to it and made it real. John scratched his head. What did that say? “To the hells with me if I know,” he muttered. The more you looked at people, the more complicated they got.
John had hardly returned to his own command before a major came running up to him and asked, “Sir, is it really true we’re going to Croatoan?”
“How the hells did you know that?” John stared. “Lieutenant General George just this minute gave me my orders.”
The major didn’t look the least bit abashed. “Oh, it’s all over camp by now, sir,” he said airily. “So it is true, eh?”
“Yes, it’s true.” John’s voice, by contrast, was heavy as granite. “Gods damn me if I know why we bother giving orders at all. Rumor could do the job twice as well in half the time.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised, sir.” Trying to be agreeable, the major accidentally turned insulting instead. He didn’t even notice. Saluting, he went on, “Well, the men will be ready. I promise you that.” He hurried away, intent on turning his promise into reality.
John the Lister gaped, then started to laugh. “Gods help the traitors,” he said to nobody in particular. Then, laughing still, he shook his head. “No, nothing can help them now.”
Officers set above Doubting George had given him plenty of reason to be disgusted all through the War Between the Provinces. There were times, and more than a few of them, when he’d worried more about his own superiors than about the fierce blue-clad warriors who followed false King Geoffrey. But this… this was about the hardest thing George had ever had to deal with.
He’d done everything King Avram and Marshal Bart wanted him to do. He’d kept Bell and the Army of Franklin from reaching the Highlow River. He’d kept them from getting into Cloviston at all. They’d hardly even touched the Cumbersome River, and they’d never come close to breaking into Ramblerton.
Once he’d beaten them in front of the capital of Franklin, he’d chased them north all through the province. He’d broken the Army of Franklin, broken it to bits. Much the biggest part of the force Bell had brought into Franklin was either dead or taken captive. Bell had resigned his command in disgrace. What was left of that command wasn’t even styled the Army of Franklin any more; it wasn’t big enough to be reckoned an army.
And for a reward, Doubting George had got… “A good kick in the ballocks, and that’s it,” the commanding general muttered in disgust, staring across the Franklin at Ned of the Forest’s unicorn-riders. They knew what he’d done to the Army of Franklin. Why the hells didn’t the fancy-pantaloons idiots back in Georgetown?
Beside George, Colonel Andy stirred. “It isn’t right, sir,” he said, looking and sounding for all the world like an indignant chipmunk.
“Tell me about it,” George said. “And while you’re at it, tell me what I can do about it.” Andy was silent. George had known his adjutant would be. He’d known why, too: “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Not fair. Not right.” Andy looked and sounded more indignant than ever. “By the Lion God’s mane, sir, if it weren’t for you, King Avram wouldn’t have been able to carry on the fight here in the east.”
That did exaggerate things, as Doubting George knew. Voice dry, he answered, “Oh, Marshal Bart and General Hesmucet might’ve had a little something-just a little something, mind you-to do with it, too. And a good many thousand soldiers, too.”
“I know what the trouble is,” Andy said hotly. “It’s because you’re from Parthenia, sir. That isn’t right, either, not when we’re fighting to hold Detina together.”
“Even if you’re right, I can’t do anything about it now,” George said. “Only thing I ever could have done about it was fight for Grand Duke Geoffrey instead of King Avram, and I do believe I’d’ve sooner coughed up a lung.”
He feared Andy had a point, though. A lot of southrons distrusted him because almost everyone in his province (with the exception of the southeast, which was now East Parthenia, a province of its own) had gone over to Geoffrey. And the Parthenians who followed Geoffrey called him a traitor to their cause. As far as he was concerned, they were traitors to the Detinan cause, but they cared not a fig for his opinion.
He tried not to care about theirs, either. It wasn’t easy; they’d been his neighbors, his friends-his relatives-before the war began. Now, even though some of them still were his relatives, they despised him to a man.
No, not quite. He shook his head. He knew that wasn’t quite true. Duke Edward of Arlington had chosen to fight for his province rather than for a united Detina, but he still respected those who’d gone the other way. Duke Edward, of course, was no man of the ordinary sort.
People said King Avram had offered command of his armies to Duke Edward when the war began. Duke Edward, though, had counted Parthenia above the kingdom as a whole. Doubting George wondered how things would have gone had Edward gone with Detina, as he had himself. He suspected Geoffrey’s forces wouldn’t have lasted long without their great general-and with him leading the other side. But that was all moonshine. George had enough trouble dealing with what really was.
Across the river, the unicorn-riders went back and forth, back and forth, on their endless patrols. Bell hadn’t had the faintest notion what he was doing, or so it often seemed to George. And yet Bell had gone to the military collegium at Annasville. Ned of the Forest, by contrast, had never been anywhere near the military collegium or any other place that had anything to do with soldiering. He’d first joined Geoffrey’s side as a common soldier. Yet he was as dangerous a professional as anybody on either side. George doubted anyone could have run the rear-guard skirmishes during Bell’s retreat any better than Ned had.
If Ned hadn’t done quite so well, the Army of Franklin might have been completely destroyed. That might have sufficed to make Marshal Bart happy. Then again, it might not have. Bart seemed most determined not to be happy with Doubting George. George knew why, too. He’d committed the unforgivable sin for a subordinate: he’d bucked his superior’s orders, and he’d proved himself right in doing it. No wonder Bart was breaking up his army and taking it away from him a piece at a time.