They played their cards by torchlight on the hillside, in the calm night under the stars, and by torchlight below them the Union army made its hurried preparations to advance. Lamps bobbed and moved, soldiers cursed in the darkness. Bangs, and clatters, and the ill-tempered calls of men and beasts floated through the still air.
“There’ll be no sleep for anyone tonight.” Brint finished dealing and scraped up his cards with his fingernails.
“I wish I could remember the last time I got more than three good hours together,” said West. Back in Adua, most likely, before his sister came to the city. Before the Marshal put him on his staff. Before he came back to Angland, before he met Prince Ladisla, before the freezing journey north and the things he had done on it. He hunched his shoulders and frowned down at his dog-eared cards.
“How’s the Lord Marshal?” asked Jalenhorm.
“Much better, I’m pleased to say.”
“Thank the fates for that.” Kaspa raised his brows. “I don’t much fancy the idea of that pedant Kroy in charge.”
“Or Poulder either,” said Brint. “The man’s ruthless as a snake.”
West could only agree. Poulder and Kroy hated him almost as much as they hated each other. If one of them took command he’d be lucky if he found himself swabbing latrines the following day. Probably he’d be on a boat to Adua within the week. To swab latrines there.
“Have you heard about Luthar?” asked Jalenhorm.
“What about him?”
“He’s back in Adua.” West looked up sharply. Ardee was in Adua, and the idea of the two of them together again was not exactly a heartening thought.
“I had a letter from my cousin Ariss.” Kaspa squinted as he clumsily fanned out his cards. “She says Jezal was far away somewhere, on some kind of mission for the king.”
“A mission?” West doubted anyone would have trusted Jezal with anything important enough to be called a mission.
“All of Adua is buzzing with it, apparently.”
“They say he led some charge or other,” said Jalenhorm, “across some bridge.”
West raised his eyebrows. “Did he now?”
“They say he killed a score of men on the battlefield.”
“Only a score?”
“They say he bedded the Emperor’s daughter,” murmured Brint.
West snorted. “Somehow I find that the most believable of the three.”
Kaspa spluttered with laughter. “Well whatever the truth of it, he’s been made up to Colonel.”
“Good for him,” muttered West, “he always seems to fall on his feet, that boy.”
“Did you hear about this revolt?”
“My sister mentioned something about it in her last letter. Why?”
“There was a full-scale rebellion, Ariss tells me. Thousands of peasants, roaming the countryside, burning and looting, hanging anyone with a “dan” in their name. Guess who was given command of the force sent to stop them?”
West sighed. “Not our old friend Jezal dan Luthar, by any chance?”
“The very same, and he persuaded them to go back to their homes, how about that?”
“Jezal dan Luthar,” murmured Brint, “with the common touch. Who could have thought it?”
“Not me.” Jalenhorm emptied his glass and poured himself another. “But they’re calling him a hero now, apparently.”
“Toasting him in the taverns,” said Brint.
“Congratulating him in the Open Council,” said Kaspa.
West scraped the jingling pile of coins towards him with the edge of his hand. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but I always guessed I’d be taking my orders from Lord Marshal Luthar one of these days.” It could have been worse, he supposed. It could have been Poulder or Kroy.
The first pink glow of dawn was creeping across the tops of the hills as West walked up the slope towards the Lord Marshal’s tent. It was past time to give the word to move. He saluted grimly to the guards beside the flap and pushed on through. One lamp was still burning in the corner beyond, casting a ruddy glow over the maps, over the folding chairs and the folding tables, filling the creases in the blankets on Burr’s bed with black shadows. West crossed to it, thinking over all the tasks he had to get done that morning, checking that he had left nothing out.
“Lord Marshal, Poulder and Kroy are waiting for your word to move.” Burr lay upon his camp bed, his eyes closed, his mouth open, sleeping peacefully. West would have liked to leave him there, but time was already wasting. “Lord Marshal!” he snapped, walking up close to the bed. Still he did not respond.
That was when West noticed that his chest was not moving.
He reached out with hesitant fingers and held them above Burr’s open mouth. No warmth. No breath. West felt the horror slowly spreading out from his chest to the very tips of his fingers. There could be no doubt. Lord Marshal Burr was dead.
It was grey morning when the coffin was carried from the tent on the shoulders of six solemn guardsmen, the surgeon walking along behind with his hat in his hand. Poulder, Kroy, West, and a scattering of the army’s most senior men lined the path to watch it go. Burr himself would no doubt have approved of the simple box in which his corpse would be shipped back to Adua. The same rough carpentry in which the Union’s lowest levies were buried.
West stared at it, numb.
The man inside had been like a father to him, or the closest he had ever come to having one. A mentor and protector, a patron and a teacher. An actual father, rather than the bullying, drunken worm that nature had cursed him with. And yet he did not feel sorrow as he stared at that rough wooden box. He felt fear. For the army and for himself. His first instinct was not to weep, it was to run. But there was nowhere to run to. Every man had to do his part, now more than ever.
Kroy lifted his sharp chin and stood up iron rigid as the shadow of the casket passed across them. “Marshal Burr will be much missed. He was a staunch soldier, and a brave leader.”
“A patriot,” chimed in Poulder, his lip trembling, one hand pressed against his chest as though it might burst open with emotion. “A patriot who gave his life for his country! It was my honour to serve under his orders.”
West wanted to vomit at their hypocrisy, but the fact was he desperately needed them. The Dogman and his people were out in the hills, moving north, trying to lure Bethod into a trap. If the Union army did not follow, and soon, they would have no help when the King of the Northmen finally caught up to them. They would only succeed in luring themselves into their graves.
“A terrible loss,” said West, watching the coffin carried slowly down the hillside, “but we will honour him best by fighting on.”
Kroy gave a regulation nod. “Well said, Colonel. We will make these Northmen pay!”
“We must. To that end, we should make ready to advance. We are already behind schedule, and the plan relies on precise—”
“What?” Poulder stared at him as though he suspected West of having gone suddenly insane. “Move forward? Without orders? Without a clear chain of command?”
Kroy gave vent to an explosive snort. “Impossible.”
Poulder violently shook his head. “Out of the question, entirely out of the question.”
“But Marshal Burr’s orders were quite specific—”
“Circumstances have very plainly altered.” Kroy’s face was an expressionless slab. “Until I receive explicit instructions from the Closed Council, no one will be moving my division so much as a hair’s breadth.”
“General Poulder, surely you—”
“In this particular circumstance, I cannot but agree with General Kroy. The army cannot move an inch until the Open Council has selected a new king, and the king has appointed a new Lord Marshal.” And he and Kroy eyed each other with the deepest hatred and distrust.
West stood stock still, his mouth hanging slightly open, unable to believe his ears. It would take days for news of Burr’s death to reach the Agriont, and even if the new king decided on a replacement immediately, days for the orders to come back. West pictured the long miles of forested track to Uffrith, the long leagues of salt water to Adua. A week, perhaps, if the decision was made at once, and with the government in chaos that hardly seemed likely.