“I hope something comes of it.” Colonel Florizel did mean well, as long as he didn’t have to put himself out too much. He was a brave leader in battle. Gremio wished he were a better administrator, but Gremio, a barrister himself, highly valued organization in others.
He’d never spoken to Patrick the Cleaver before, and wondered how much trouble he would have getting to see the wing commander. He had no more than he’d had seeing Colonel Florizel. As he had with Florizel, he explained himself. “This is your notion, now?” Patrick asked him.
“No, sir,” Gremio answered. “My company’s first sergeant thought of it. H-uh, his-name is Thisbe.”
“It’s a good notion, indeed and it is,” Patrick said. “My hat’s off to you, Captain, for not being after claiming it for your own.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Gremio said.
“No, eh?” The brigadier eyed him. “Plenty could, the which is nobbut the truth.”
“I don’t steal,” Gremio said stiffly. From anyone but Thisbe, he might have. From the sergeant? Never.
“Well, good on you,” Patrick the Cleaver said. “If you’re after giving this sergeant the credit, you might also be thinking of giving him lieutenant’s rank to go with it.”
“Sir, I tried to promote the sergeant during the fighting south of Marthasville, for bravery then,” Gremio said. “Thisbe refused to accept officer’s rank. I doubt anything has changed… his mind since.”
Patrick chuckled. “Sure and there are sergeants like that. Most of ’em, I think, are fools. The army could use officers o’ their stripe-better nor a good many of the omadhauns giving orders the now.”
Thisbe had reasons for declining that Patrick the Cleaver probably hadn’t contemplated. Gremio saw no point in discussing those reasons with the wing commander. He asked, “Is there any chance of doing what the sergeant suggested, sir?”
“By the gods, Captain, there is that,” Patrick answered. “Once we’re after driving the gods-damned southrons from Poor Richard, I’ll see to it. You may rely on me.”
“Thank you, sir.” Gremio believed him. Patrick was one of the youngest brigadiers in King Geoffrey’s armies, but he’d already acquired a reputation for reliability to go with his name for hard fighting. Gremio said, “May I ask you one thing more?”
“Ask what you will,” Patrick said. “I do not promise to answer.”
“That’s only fair,” Gremio said. “What sort of ground will we be fighting on at this Poor Richard place?”
“It’s open,” Patrick the Cleaver replied. “It’s very open.” His face, which had been very open a moment before, all at once closed. “If I were Lieutenant General Bell…” He didn’t go on.
“If you were Bell…” Gremio prompted.
“Never you mind,” Patrick said. “I’ve told the general commanding my opinions, and I need not repeat ’em to another soul.”
Had he stood in the witness box, Gremio could have peppered him with questions as with crossbow quarrels. That wasn’t how things worked here. A man who tried to grill a superior not inclined to be forthcoming wouldn’t find out what he wanted to know, and would wind up in trouble.
Patrick said, “Give my compliments to your clever sergeant, if you’d be so kind, and the top o’ the evening to you.”
That was dismissal. Captain Gremio saluted and left the wing commander’s pavilion. He made his way back to his own regiment’s encampment. “Well, sir?” Sergeant Thisbe asked when he sat down by the fire once more.
“Well, Sergeant, Brigadier Patrick says you ought to be promoted to lieutenant for your cleverness,” Gremio replied.
Thisbe stared into the flames. The sergeant said nothing while a soldier dumped more wood on the fire. Then, in a low voice, Thisbe said, “I don’t want to be promoted. I told you that, sir, the last time you were generous enough to offer that to me. I’m… content where I am.”
Gremio looked around. The soldier with the wood was building up another campfire ten or twelve feet away. A couple of men lay close to this blaze, but they were already snoring thunderously. Gremio spoke in a low voice: “Do you have the same reasons now as you did then?”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant answered.
“Are they the same reasons that kept you from wanting to see a healer when you were wounded?” Gremio persisted.
Thisbe looked into the flames again. “My reasons are my reasons. I think they’re good ones.” The sergeant would not meet Gremio’s eyes.
“Are they the reasons I think they are?” Gremio asked.
That made Thisbe look at him. It didn’t get him a straight answer, though. With what might have been a smile, the underofficer said, “How can any man know what another man is thinking?”
Gremio took a deep breath. He’d never asked Thisbe a direct question about the matter that interested him most. Even as he started to ask one now, he stopped with it unspoken. Thisbe might give him a truthful answer. But even if the sergeant did give him that kind of answer, it might preclude further questions. One of these days-very likely not till the war ended, if it ever did-Gremio hoped to have the chance to ask those questions.
All he said now was, “Sergeant, do you know how difficult you make things?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” And Thisbe really did sound sorry. “I never wanted to be difficult. All I ever wanted was to do my job, and to do it as well as I could.”
“You’ve done it very well-well enough to deserve promotion,” Gremio said.
“I don’t want to be a lieutenant,” the sergeant said.
“I know. You deserve to be one anyhow,” Gremio said. They eyed each other, back at their old impasse. Thisbe shrugged. Gremio smiled a rueful smile. And then, in spite of everything, they both started to laugh.
Doubting George wished he could go north to Poor Richard. All hells were going to break loose up there, and he sat here in Ramblerton gathering soldiers a dribble at a time. Actually, he knew he could go up to Poor Richard. John the Lister was hardly in a position to shoo him away if he hopped on a glideway carpet and sped up there. But John was only a captain in King Avram’s regulars. If he could hold Bell off or beat him, he would surely gain permanent rank to match his ability. George already had it: less than he craved, less than he thought he deserved, but a sufficiency.
And so he stayed behind the line, and did the things a good regional commander was supposed to do, and didn’t do anything else. If he sometimes drummed his fingers on his desk and looked longingly toward the north… well, he was the only man who knew that.
Colonel Andy came in, a troubled look on his round face. “Sir,” he said, “word from the scryers is that Lieutenant General Bell is getting ready to attack John the Lister.”
“John’s got himself ready at Poor Richard, hasn’t he?” George asked.
“As ready as he can be, yes, sir.” His adjutant nodded.
“Better Bell should attack him there than when he was on the march and vulnerable by Summer Mountain, eh?” George said.
“Well… yes, sir, put that way.” Andy nodded again, but reluctantly. “Even so, he’s badly outnumbered.”
“There is that,” Doubting George allowed. “How imminent is this attack? Can we down here do anything about it?”
“I don’t think so, sir.” Colonel Andy looked very much like a worried chipmunk. “From what the scryers say John says, Bell will be on him this afternoon at the latest.”
“We could send men by glideway that fast, if everything went perfectly,” George said. “We couldn’t send so many as I’d like, and we couldn’t send much in the way of equipment with them, not on such short notice, but they would be better than nothing.”
“That was the other thing I wanted to tell you,” Major Andy said unhappily. “The northerners have desorcerized a stretch of the glideway line between here and Poor Richard. I don’t know whether Bell got wizards past John and Alva, or whether these are local traitors sneaking out and making trouble now that we’ve recalled so many garrisons to Ramblerton. Either way, though, till our mages repair the break, we can’t use that line to move soldiers.”