“How can we hope to hold them back, let alone beat them?” Now Thisbe seemed to be talking to himself. “See how many men they have!”
“They’re drawing themselves up like that on purpose, to try to intimidate us.” Gremio would not admit, even to himself, that he was intimidated. “Their numbers are why the gods made field fortifications-and, even more to the point, why our serfs made them.”
Thisbe said, “That’s true. It’s really amazing what a difference earthworks make in how many men get killed or wounded.”
Gremio didn’t want to think about getting killed or wounded. He knew such things were possible, but why dwell on them? He pointed toward the southern host, which had just about finished its evolutions. “When they’re done trying to frighten us, then we’ll see what they really have in mind.”
“Nothing good,” Sergeant Thisbe predicted.
“No doubt you’re right,” Gremio agreed. “If they had our good will in mind, they would leave us alone and let us run our affairs as we choose. That’s the point of the war, after all. But it’s not quite what I meant.”
“What did you mean, sir?”
“Where they’ll put their encampments and where they’ll concentrate their men,” Gremio replied. “That will tell us a good deal about how they plan to attack us or outflank us.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course,” Thisbe said, which left the company commander somewhat deflated. He’d seen army commanders fail to pay enough attention to what the enemy was up to, but his sergeant took the notion for granted. Did that mean Sergeant Thisbe ought to be leading an army? Gremio had his doubts. But what did it say about the wits of some of the men who actually were in charge of armies and wings? Nothing good, he feared.
Tents sprang up like fairy rings of outsized toadstools. The southrons went about the business of setting up camp with the same matter-of-fact competence the men of the Army of Franklin displayed. Most of them were veterans. They’d encamped a great many times before. They knew how to do the job.
Thisbe said, “They must have a great plenty of men and money down in the south of Detina.”
“They do,” Gremio agreed. “More men and more money than we have, by far.”
“How are we ever going to beat them, then?” the sergeant asked.
“We do have a couple of things going for us,” Gremio answered. “For one, they’re invaders here. This is our kingdom, and we know it, and we’re fighting for it.”
“That’s so.” Thisbe nodded yet again. “What else?”
“Why, the other thing we have going for us is that we’re right, of course,” Gremio replied.
Sergeant Thisbe smiled. “That’s bound to gain us credit with the gods, sir. How much good will it do down here on earth?”
“Good question,” Gremio said. “When I have a good answer, I’ll let you know.” He peered out toward the east. “No chance of hitting them tonight-that seems pretty plain. They’ve got everything well covered. They know as well as we do that we would hit them if they gave us half a chance.” Gremio rubbed his chin. “Or I think we would. Ever since this campaign started, we’ve been letting them come to us. We haven’t been looking for chances to go at them. That doesn’t seem to be Joseph the Gamecock’s style.”
Thisbe pointed out toward the southron host with a grimy-nailed, callused hand. “Look at what we’re facing. How can we possibly charge out against them? They’d chew us up and spit us out if we did, as many men as they have there.”
“I think you’re right,” Gremio said. Most of the men he led, most of the officers over him, would have thought the sergeant was wrong. Most of them reckoned Lieutenant General Bell the perfect northern patriot, and admired him for the wounds he’d taken going straight at the foe. Of course, most of the officers over Captain Gremio were noblemen. He hoped he had a more practical way of looking at the world.
“Time to get our men bedded down for the night,” Thisbe observed.
“See to it, Sergeant,” Gremio said. Thisbe nodded. Gremio knew Thisbe would make sure everything was as it needed to be. He did give one additional order: “Put plenty of pickets well forward. After that spell the southrons used at Caesar, no telling what sort of sneaky things they might try. We haven’t seen many night attacks, but I don’t want to be taken by surprise.”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Thisbe said. “I’ll see to it, sir.” Off he went, brisk as if he’d just drunk four cups of tea.
Gremio wished he had that kind of energy himself. He yawned wide enough to split his head in two. Here and there in the trenches, men were getting cookfires going. The stews the cooks would serve weren’t that good, but they did keep belly and backbone from gaining too intimate an acquaintance.
After patrolling the front his company had to cover, Captain Gremio lay down on his blanket and tried to go to sleep. The night was as muggy and almost as hot as the day had been, so he certainly needed no covers to hold the cold at bay. But mosquitoes buzzed in invisible but hungry clouds. They looked on Gremio the same way he looked on the cooks’ stewpots. He ended up wrapping himself in the blanket just to keep himself from being devoured.
He slept through the night undisturbed. Because of the good luck the southrons had had with their sorcerously aided attack on Caesar, he’d wondered if they might try something similar here by Fat Mama. The confusion of night would, or could, have aided them, too. But everything stayed quiet.
When he woke, dawn was painting the eastern sky behind the southrons pink. Clouds floated through the air, looking thicker and darker off to the west. He wondered if it would rain. With all the moisture in the air, it seemed likely. The idea of staying in the trenches as they turned to mud didn’t much appeal to him, but the idea of fighting outside them against that vast host of southrons seemed even less delightful. He’d heard Lieutenant General Bell was angry that Joseph the Gamecock wouldn’t storm out to assail the enemy, but he couldn’t see why. Joseph’s plan made perfectly good sense to him.
Besides, he thought, if it does rain, everyone’s bowstring will be wet, and that will put a better damper on the fighting than anything this side of a peace treaty. He snorted. As if Avram would grant terms the north could stand, or as if King Geoffrey could accept any the south was likely to offer. No, this fight would have to be settled on the field.
That thought had hardly crossed his mind before Sergeant Thisbe came over to him and said, “Sir, it looks like the southrons are doing something funny in their encampment.”
“Funny how?” Gremio asked, his hand sliding of itself toward the hilt of his sword. “Are they deploying for an attack?” If they were, if Thisbe could see they were, then they weren’t using the masking spell they’d tried in Caesar.
The sergeant shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir. What it looks like is that some of them are going away.”
“What?” Gremio said. “I’d better come have a look for myself.”
But when he got to a good vantage point, he discovered that, as usual, Sergeant Thisbe had it right. A good many southrons did look to be breaking camp and heading north.
Excitement flowed through him. “They’re trying to pull the same stunt they did down at Borders and Caesar,” he breathed. “They’ll leave some of their men behind to keep us busy here, while they use the rest to try to outflank us.”
“I wonder if we can attack them, now that they’ve cut down the size of the host right in front of us,” Thisbe said.
Attacking the whole southron army, Gremio was convinced, was madness. Attacking part of it… “So do I,” he said. “It just might work.”
Lieutenant General Bell liked very little about Fat Mama. He’d made his headquarters in a fancy manor house not far outside the town, and that proved a mistake. The baron who’d built the place had not only put in marble floors but also kept them polished to a brilliant gloss. They were so very slick, Bell’s crutches didn’t want to keep their grip. They kept trying to fly out from under him, in which case he would have gone flying, too.