“Before too long, I aim to commence operations against Duke Edward of Arlington,” Bart replied, still impassive. “If he is dislodged from the works covering Pierreville, he is likely to retreat eastward. Your men in Wesleyton will keep him from using western Franklin as a refuge, and you will be able to hold him until I can catch up with him with the bulk of my force and destroy the Army of Southern Parthenia.”
He was as calm as if talking about the qualities of pine boards. But he meant every word of it. Of that Doubting George had no doubt at all. The idea left him slightly-no, more than slightly-stunned. Ever since the beginning of the War Between the Provinces, the Army of Southern Parthenia had been a fearful prodigy to all of King Avram’s generals and armies that had to face it. It had been… but it was no more. Bart had its measure.
And for that, Doubting George admitted to himself, the nondescript little man who wouldn’t believe false King Geoffrey’s armies could beat him deserved to be Marshal of Detina.
Whether he deserved it or not, though, what he had in mind failed to delight George. “You want me to go to Wesleyton and sit there, just in case Duke Edward happens to come my way?”
“That’s right.” Bart nodded, pleased that he understood. “Of course, since you will be there with your army, Edward’s less likely to come that way. He’s slippery as a barrister, Edward is, and so we’ve got to make sure he’s shut up tight.”
“I… see,” George said slowly. “Isn’t there anything more useful I could be doing than sitting around in Wesleyton impersonating a cork?”
“I don’t believe so,” Bart answered. “It’s a useful thing to do, and the other pieces of your army are off doing different useful things in other places. This seems a good enough thing for the men you still have with you to do.”
“A good enough thing,” Doubting George echoed. “Gods damn it, Bart, we were more than ‘good enough’ not so long ago.”
“Finally, yes. But you could have whipped Bell sooner. You should have whipped Bell sooner. Instead, you had King Avram and me half out of our minds with worry that the Army of Franklin would get around you and head for the Highlow River.”
“Well, Marshal, if his Majesty thought that-and especially if you thought that, you were out of your minds, and not just halfway, either,” George said. “Bell wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was his army. He’d come as far as he could. If you’d had a look at his men, you could have seen that for yourself. I did. And I knew what I saw, too,” George said.
Did something glint in Marshal Bart’s eyes? George wasn’t sure. The marshal had perhaps the deadest pan in Detina, too. Bart said, “You are entitled to your opinion, Lieutenant General. I am also entitled to mine. My opinion is that sending you to Wesleyton is the best thing I can do right now, given the way the war is going. Carry out your orders.”
“Yes, sir,” Doubting George said woodenly.
Bart turned to his scryer. His image vanished from the crystal ball. George refrained from picking up the ball and chucking it into the Franklin River. He couldn’t have said why he refrained from chucking it into the river, but refrain he did. Afterwards, he decided it had to prove he was a more tolerant man than even he would have imagined.
“Carry out your orders.” In his mouth, the commonplace soldierly phrase somehow turned into a curse. Bart had the right to tell him to do it-had the right and used it. And I reserve the right to reckon Bart is a first-class son of a bitch, Doubting George thought.
That didn’t eliminate the need to do as Bart said, worse luck. The general commanding-not that George had so very much left to command any more-turned and strode out of the scryers’ tent. None of the mages in there said a word to him. In fact, they all seemed to be pretending they were somewhere else. Scryers, like other sorcerers, often missed emotions they should have seen. What Doubting George felt was too raw, too obvious, for even a scryer to miss.
Colonel Andy bustled up to George before he’d gone very far from the pavilion. Someone must have told the adjutant George had been summoned. “Well?” Andy asked expectantly. “What did he have to say for himself now?”
“Wesleyton is lovely this time of year, don’t you think?” George answered.
“Wesleyton?” His adjutant gaped. “What the hells has Wesleyton got to do with anything? Who in his right mind would want to go to Wesleyton? It’s not even a good place to die, let alone to live.”
“No doubt you’re right, Colonel.” Doubting George couldn’t help smiling, no matter how miserable he was. “Miserable or not, though, that’s where we’re going: you and I and as much of my army as Marshal Bart has graciously let me keep.”
“Are we?” Colonel Andy said, and the commanding general nodded. Andy asked, “And why, pray tell, are we going to Wesleyton? I understand why Whiskery Ambrose went there last year: to take it away from the traitors. But we’ve held it ever since. What’s the point of sending a whole lot more men there now?” Doubting George explained Marshal Bart’s reasoning. His adjutant looked like a chipmunk who’d just bitten down on a cast-iron acorn. “That’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard, sir. How likely is it that the Army of Southern Parthenia’s going to come running in our direction?”
“Not very, not as far as I can see,” George answered. “But Bart’s right-it could happen. Now he’ll have somebody in place to make sure Duke Edward doesn’t get far if he tries it.”
“Yes, sir. So he will.” Andy didn’t seem delighted at the prospect. “And isn’t that a wonderful use for the army that broke the traitors’ backs out here? Just a wonderful fornicating use.”
“He is the Marshal of Detina. He can give the orders. He has given them, as a matter of fact. We need to obey them. You’ll want to draw up plans to shift us to the western part of the province-glideway lines, supply dumps, and such.”
“Oh, I have them,” Andy said. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
Doubting George stared. “You… have them? Even to Wesleyton?”
“Yes, sir.” Andy nodded. “That’s what an adjutant is for: making plans, I mean. Most of them end up in the trash. That’s how things work, too. But one will come in handy every now and again. Excuse me, please-I’ll start things gliding.” He saluted and hurried off.
Behind him, Doubting George started to laugh. Now I know what an adjutant does, he thought. And if only someone would tell me what a commanding general is for…
Here in the west, the war looked and felt different. That was John the Lister’s first thought when his wing moved through Georgetown on the way to the coast of Croatoan and a rendezvous with General Hesmucet’s hard-driving army. Things seemed cramped here, without the room to maneuver that had marked the fighting in the east.
Georgetown itself appeared confident the war was won. Engineers had been fortifying the capital of Detina ever since the War Between the Provinces broke out. Castles and earthworks and trenches littered the landscape for miles around the heart of the city. If the Army of Southern Parthenia had ever come this far, it would have had to fight its way through all of them to get to the Black Palace.
When that thought crossed John’s mind, he suddenly remembered that a detachment from the Army of Southern Parthenia had tapped at those fortifications only the summer before, till forces detached from Marshal Bart’s army pushed them back. What a difference a bit more than half a year made! Now Jubal the Late’s detachment was smashed, the valley he’d guarded so long a smoking ruin that could no longer feed Duke Edward’s men, and the Army of Southern Parthenia penned up and hungry in Pierreville. That army would see southern Parthenia no more, nor Georgetown, either.