“Bell?” Hesmucet said. “Are you sure it was Bell? He’s not in the habit of pulling back from an attack once he starts one. That bastard will press ahead come hells or high water, and he hits hard when he hits, too.”
“It was Bell-no doubt about it,” Doubting George replied. “The handful of prisoners we took are from regiments he commands, and some of our riders saw him up on his own unicorn. With the short stump he’s got on that one leg, he’s not a man you can easily mistake for anyone else.”
“I won’t say you’re wrong, on account of you’re gods-damned well right,” Hesmucet said. “Even so, I can hardly believe it. What made him pull back?”
“You’d have to ask him, sir, because I don’t know,” George replied. “All we had in front of him was the screen of Hard-Riding Jimmy’s unicorn-riders. I wish I’d been able to put some men and engines in amongst the trees on his flank”-he pointed in the direction from which the northerners had come-“but I didn’t have time to move any. To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect the traitors to come out of their works.”
“Well, now we know they will-or they may, anyhow,” Hesmucet said. “We’ll have to be more careful.” He made a sour face. “That means more entrenching, gods damn it. I hate it, but I see no way to escape it.”
“So long as we win, sir, I’m not fussy about how,” George told him.
The commanding general nodded. “That is well said. It is full of the generous spirit I’ve looked for in you-and, I must say, I’ve found. We may not love each other, Lieutenant General, but we manage to work together.”
“That same thing had crossed my mind a time or two, sir.” George stuck out his hand. General Hesmucet clasped it. George went on, “And what do you require of me now that Bell’s men have withdrawn to their trenches?”
“Be ready to pursue them and to attack if you see the opportunity when they pull out of those trenches again,” Hesmucet replied. “I do not think they can hold their position long, not with another flanking maneuver even now aimed at getting into their rear.”
“Just as you say, sir.” Doubting George saluted.
“We’re going to lick these bastards, is what we’re going to do,” Hesmucet said. “False King Geoffrey says he has a kingdom. He may even think he has a kingdom. What he has is a hollow shell, and, once we show that, this thing he thinks he rules will shrivel up like a pricked bladder.”
“Duke Edward will have something to say about that, too,” George said.
“Duke Edward is a lucky son of a bitch. I don’t even think he knows what a lucky son of a bitch he is,” General Hesmucet said. “All the battlefields over in southern Parthenia are cramped together. The land between Georgetown and Nonesuch works for him, because it keeps Marshal Bart-and whoever else commanded against the Army of Southern Parthenia-from using our advantage in numbers to outmaneuver Duke Edward, to hold him with part of our force and get around him with the rest.”
“Fighting Joseph tried that,” George remarked. “All he got for his trouble was embarrassed at Viziersville.”
“I know, but that was Fighting Joseph.” Hesmucet made a dismissive gesture. “A real general who tried it would have done a hells of a lot better.”
Doubting George looked around to make sure Fighting Joseph was nowhere nearby. He might have failed against Duke Edward of Arlington, but he remained a proud and touchy man. He also remained nowhere in sight, for which George was duly grateful. George said, “Marshal Bart isn’t trying to outmaneuver Duke Edward.”
“It surely doesn’t look that way,” Hesmucet agreed. “He fought him in the Jungle, not far from Viziersville, and then again, and again. He’s going to head for Nonesuch and to hammer Duke Edward flat if he stands in the way long enough. As I said, he hasn’t got the room to maneuver that I do.”
“All very interesting, and none of it quite what I expected when this spring’s fighting began,” Doubting George said. “I thought you would be the one who banged straight ahead.”
“I might, if I were facing Duke Edward. He’s fond of coming out and slugging,” Hesmucet replied. “Joseph the Gamecock is different. He takes these defensive positions and invites you to bloody your nose on them. I’m not the only one shaping this campaign, and that’s worth remembering.”
“You’re right, sir, and I hadn’t thought it through.” George nodded respectfully to Hesmucet. Sure enough, as with Bart, there was more to the man than met the eye. “You and Duke Edward would add up to something different from you and Joseph the Gamecock.”
Hesmucet nodded. “That’s right. That’s just right. And Joseph and Bart would be different from what Duke Edward and Bart are turning into. The commanders on both sides make things what they are. As a matter of fact, I don’t mind this game of maneuver so much as I thought I would.”
“Really?” George raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that, sir?”
The smile Hesmucet smiled was particularly nasty. “Because it lets me move through country that’s never been fought over before. This far north, the barons and earls and counts supposed they were safe. They didn’t think any southron army could ever come all the way up here. Now they’re seeing they were wrong. There’s no place in Geoffrey’s so-called kingdom we can’t reach. Let’s see how much fight’s left in the traitors once they start to realize that down in their guts.”
As if to underscore the point he’d been making, a couple of dozen blonds-escaped serfs, every one of them, men, women, and children-came by, shepherded along by a couple of gray-uniformed southron soldiers. They were a couple of dozen people who wouldn’t labor for their liege lords any more, and who would do useful work for King Avram’s army. Doubting George nodded thoughtfully once more. He said, “You’re fighting against Geoffrey’s whole would-be kingdom, not just against Joseph the Gamecock, then.”
“Well, of course,” Hesmucet replied.
But it wasn’t of course, not to George. It probably wouldn’t have been of course to any general who’d fought before this war began, either. Wars usually aimed at defeating the enemy’s army, not at smashing his whole kingdom flat. No, Hesmucet and Bart weren’t playing by the old rules.
“Fighting won’t be the same after this,” Doubting George observed.
“I don’t want there to be any more fighting in the Kingdom of Detina after this,” Hesmucet said. “I want everybody to get the idea that it is one kingdom and it will always be one kingdom, and if I have to kill everybody who doesn’t get that idea, or make him starve, or burn down his fancy manor and take away his serfs, I will do any of those things, and I won’t lose a single, solitary minute’s worth of sleep over any of it.”
“You intend to be persuasive, you say.” George’s voice was dry.
“Gods-damn right I do,” Hesmucet replied, taking his words at face value. “I want the traitors licked. I don’t want them thinking, Well, we almost won this time. Maybe we ought to try again. If you get into a tavern fight with a man and you knock him down, you’re always smart to kick him a couple of times afterwards. That way, he doesn’t think the fight was close. He bloody well knows you licked him.”
As a younger man, Doubting George had found himself in a few-perhaps more than a few-tavern fights of his own. The ones he’d won, he’d mostly followed Hesmucet’s rule. The few he’d lost… Of itself, his hand rubbed his ribcage. Plenty of other tough young men thought the same way. He remembered boots thudding home, things he’d tried to keep out of his memory for years.
Hesmucet clapped him on the shoulder. “We are going to whip the northerners here, and I’ll tell you why.”
“I’m all ears,” George said solemnly.
“Because Marthasville ties Joseph the Gamecock down, that’s why,” the general commanding said. “He has no choice: that’s the place he’s got to defend. If he doesn’t, he might as well not be in the field. And that means, sooner or later, I’m going to flank him once too often. He’ll either have to give me Marthasville or come out and fight. Either way, I’ll have what I want.”