“The enemy had engines on our flank. To advance would have been to give him a perfect chance to massacre us,” Bell insisted.
“You are the only one who ever saw those engines-and that includes the southrons,” Joseph said.
“I was there. You were not. Had you been there, you would have seen them, too. But you do not seem to consider your place to be at the fore.”
They’d called each other cowards now. They both glared, in perfect mutual loathing. Joseph the Gamecock said, “I have been glad to discover you will at least fight on the defensive.”
“Sir, I find your manner offensive,” Bell replied.
“I had hoped to find yours offensive, but no such luck,” Joseph said. “Still, so long as we fight hard here, the southrons will get no closer to Marthasville. And that is the point of the exercise.”
“That may be one point of the exercise, sir, but it’s not the only point,” Bell said. “The other thing we have to do is drive the southrons from our land, drive them back where they belong-and send them off with their tails between their legs, so they’ll know better than to trouble us again.”
“Good luck if you should ever be in the position to try, Lieutenant General,” Joseph the Gamecock said. “I don’t think it can be done now, not with things as they are. If some miracle-worker were to appear with crossbows that would shoot twice as far and ten times as fast as the usual weapons, we might whip King Avram’s men back to their kennel, but what are the odds of that? Without it, we have to try to make the foe sicken of the war. That’s my view, at any rate.”
“I know, sir,” Bell said sourly. “You never tire of stating it.”
“That’s because-although you may find it hard to believe-I have officers who don’t want to hear it,” Joseph the Gamecock replied. “I’m certain you of all people find that incredible.”
“Heh,” Bell said, unwilling to show Joseph he had the slightest idea what the general commanding was talking about now.
“You are holding an important part of this line, Lieutenant General,” Joseph told him. “I expect you to do just that: to hold, I mean. If a breakthrough occurs on the stretch of line where you command, you will find that I do not take the matter lightly. You have already failed more often than you should. Shall I comment further, or do I make myself plain?”
“Libelously so, sir,” Bell said.
Joseph the Gamecock clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Libel must be committed to writing, as anyone of your temperament should have learned by now. Slander is oral. And you must always remember that proof of truth is the best defense against either. Good day, Lieutenant General.” He left Bell’s pavilion seeming even more pleased with himself than he had been when he came in.
Bell muttered something decidedly slanderous. By Joseph’s standards, he’d done a good deal of libeling, too. He cared not a fig for Joseph’s standards; the only ones that mattered to him were his own. Taking the letter he’d been working on from its place of concealment, he finished it, sealed it, and sent it off to Nonesuch in the same clandestine way as he’d despatched the others.
Sooner or later, King Geoffrey will have to listen, he thought. Gods grant it won’t be too late.
He wished he were in command of the Army of Franklin. He would get it moving south again. How could Geoffrey hope to establish a kingdom when the southrons sat on half the land he claimed? The Army of Franklin hadn’t seen the province of Franklin for months. If I were in charge, I’d head straight for Ramblerton and set the province free.
For now, though, Bell had to fight under another man’s orders. And Joseph had warned him he was being watched. Bell didn’t think King Geoffrey would acquiesce in his dismissal, but didn’t care to take the chance, especially not with Thraxton the Braggart close at hand. Nothing unfortunate would or could happen while Thraxton was on watch.
Grudgingly, Bell admitted to himself that, for a defensive position, the one anchored by Commissioner Mountain and Snouts Stream was solid. The southrons would have a hells of a time breaking through it. But Joseph had already abandoned other strong defensive positions. Bell didn’t dwell on the fact that he and poor Leonidas had talked Joseph into abandoning the one by Fat Mama. He seldom dwelt on the past, unless it was to his advantage.
After another gulp of laudanum, Bell seized his crutches and levered himself to his foot. Even with the drug, working a crutch under his left arm hurt like broken glass, like fire, like knives. The healers swore the festering in his stump had burned itself out, but he could still feel that not everything was right in there. He doubted it ever would be.
For that matter, he could still feel his whole right leg, though the part of it he still owned stopped not much farther down than his prong hung. Sometimes it was just there, as real as flesh till he tried to put weight on it. Sometimes the part that was missing hurt even worse than the part that remained. Those were the bad times, for even laudanum had trouble dulling the phantom pain. The healers said there was no cure for that but time. He’d even asked the mages if there were any spells to exorcise the ghosts of absent body parts. To his disappointment, they’d told him no.
Not enough one-legged wizards, he thought as he made his slow way out of the pavilion. If a few more sorcerers had lost limbs, they would have made sure there were better measures against these phantoms. But no such luck. He had to endure.
“I am a soldier,” he said, as if someone had doubted it. Enduring was part of what soldiers did. He hadn’t expected it to be the most important part of what he did. Life was full of surprises, some pleasant, some emphatically otherwise.
Even getting out through the tent flap wasn’t so easy as it might have been. Ducking didn’t involve just the head; it involved the whole body. And when the whole body was supported on one foot and on two crutches that wouldn’t bend no matter what… Bell counted each separate escape from the tent as a minor victory.
Getting out in the fresh air did little to refresh him: it was as hot and muggy outside as it had been within. Gray clouds came rolling in from off the Western Ocean-more rain on the way. He took advantage of the lull to peer east toward the southrons’ encampments. Hesmucet was an aggressive commander. He pushed his men up as close to their foes as they could get. It felt as if he were about to order an all-out assault along the whole line.
Lieutenant General Bell nodded in grave approval. If I commanded the Army ofFranklin, that’s how I would lead it: like a fighting man, like a tiger ready to spring. Go straight at the enemy and knock him down.
Of course, if General Hesmucet came straight at Commissioner Mountain, he might accomplish nothing more than to knock himself down. Would he realize that? Bell didn’t know. His own instinct was always to test, to probe, to attack. After all, the foe might give way.
“Sir?” someone said at his elbow. He turned his head, the only part of him that would turn readily. There stood Major Zibeon. His aide-de-camp asked, “What did Joseph the Gamecock want, sir?”
“Nothing of any consequence, Major,” Bell answered. “He warned me to stay alert against any possible attack from the southrons.”
“They’d be fools if they tried it,” Zibeon said. He had a hard face. When he smiled, the smile was hard, too, hard and predatory. “Here’s hoping they’re fools.”
“Yes, here’s hoping,” Bell said, and wondered if he meant it. If the southrons did assail Commissioner Mountain, he couldn’t see them succeeding, either. Did he want Joseph the Gamecock winning a victory? For the kingdom’s sake, he supposed he did. For his own…
Even if Joseph wins here, having him lead the Army ofFranklin can’t be good for the kingdom, Bell thought. This army would be much better off with a soldier who’s not afraid to use if for some real fighting-a soldier like, well, like me, for instance.