“If he doesn’t, he’ll get himself a nasty surprise,” Sergeant Thisbe declared. “We’ve still got teeth, by the gods.”
Gremio nodded. Man for man, northern soldiers remained at least as formidable as their southron counterparts. Teeth, as Thisbe had said. But how strong were the jaws that held those teeth? The more Gremio thought about the state of the Army of Franklin, the closer he came to despair.
“Corporal, take up the company standard!” Lieutenant Griff commanded.
“Yes, sir!” Rollant said, and he did. Pride swelled in him till he felt about to float away like an inflated pig’s bladder. The more he thought about the state of General Hesmucet’s army, about how far they’d come and how much they’d done, the more he imagined he was on the point of floating away.
That must have shown on his face, for Smitty, grinning, asked him, “You happy, your Corporalship, sir?”
“Oh, just a little,” Rollant answered. “Yes, just a little.”
“Form up for parade,” Griff called to his men. “I don’t want anybody missing a step, not a single step, when we go through town today. Marthasville is ours, and fairly won, as General Hesmucet said in his order of the day. And I want those traitor bastards to know we aren’t just good enough to lick ’em-we can be fancier than they are, too.” Rollant nodded vigorously. He wanted to show up, to show off before, the people who had once bound him to the land. Treat me like a cow with hands, will you? You’ll see!
Horns blared. Griff started shouting again. Colonel Nahath’s order carried farther: “Forward-march!”
Forward Rollant went, holding the gold dragon on red high. The standard fluttered in the breeze. Griff nodded. “That’s good. That’s very good, Corporal. Let the folk of Marthasville see the kingdom’s true flag. They’ve looked at the reversed banner too long.”
Rollant shook the standard to display the dragon better still. He wanted the Detinans in Marthasville to get a good look at it-and at him. He strutted. He swaggered. He displayed the stripes on his left arm as best he could, so the people who’d called themselves liege lords would see what a blond could do when he got the chance.
Marching through Rising Rock the summer before had been enjoyable. Marching through Marthasville…
Lieutenant Griff chose that moment to ask him almost the same question Smitty had: “Having a good time, Corporal?”
Rollant looked around. Lining this main street were hundreds, more likely thousands, of glum-looking Detinans: women, children, and men with beards gray or white. The younger men were in false king Geoffrey’s army. Every single spectator seemed to be looking straight at him. He knew that was an illusion, but even so…
“Sir, I feel about ready to quit this world altogether,” he said.
Griff laughed out loud and slapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t blame you a bit. It must be pretty fine, getting to spit in these northerners’ eyes.”
“As a matter of fact, sir, it is.” Rollant looked at Griff with more respect than he was in the habit of giving the company commander. Griff was too young for his job, and too weedy besides, but he was plenty brave enough, and every now and then proved he wasn’t stupid, either. His remark showed more understanding of the way blonds thought than Rollant would have looked to see from any Detinan, northerner or southron.
And then the band struck up “The Battle Psalm on the Kingdom.” Rollant forgot about Griff, as he forgot about everything but that fierce, triumphant music. No one had ever accused him of singing well. No one ever would. But he was loud and enthusiastic. Past that, what really mattered? If the haughty Detinans of Marthasville didn’t care for the way he sounded, too bad for them.
Not many blonds were watching the southron soldiers tramp past. Most of them, he guessed, had already fled their liege lords and the land to which they were supposed to be bound. But the few who’d stayed behind were wildly excited now. A pretty woman, seeing Rollant’s golden hair and beard, blew him a kiss and twitched her hips in a way that could mean only one thing.
Lieutenant Griff noticed her, too. “You find her once we go into bivouac, Corporal, and you won’t sleep alone tonight.”
“I’ve got a wife, sir,” Rollant said uncomfortably. He’d been away from Norina a long time now, and missed her-missed any woman-no less than any other man, blond or Detinan, would have done.
“She’s a long way off,” Griff said.
“I couldn’t do that, sir. I wouldn’t do that,” Rollant said. “If I did that to her, why wouldn’t she do it to me?”
Griff gave him a curious look. “I wouldn’t have expected you to take your oaths so seriously.”
“Why? Because I’m a blond… sir?” Rollant could have said a great deal more than that, but not without being insubordinate.
“Well, let me put it like this,” Griff answered: “I know plenty of Detinans who don’t turn down whatever they can get, and they don’t care a curse about whether they’re married or not.”
“There are people like that,” Rollant agreed. Captain Cephas, who’d commanded the company before Griff, had been a man like that. Now he was dead, along with the blond woman who’d been his lover and her blond husband. Rollant didn’t care to bring up Cephas. He did say, “The fun they have doesn’t usually make up for the trouble they cause. That’s what I think, anyhow.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Griff said. “But not everybody thinks about trouble before he thinks about getting it in.” He didn’t mention Captain Cephas, either, but Rollant would have been surprised if he weren’t thinking about him, too.
Rollant took a look at Marthasville itself, not at the Detinans still living in it. “I can see why Bell finally left this place,” he said. “Hardly enough left of it to defend.”
“Are you sorry?” the company commander asked.
“Sorry? Me? No, sir,” Rollant answered. “But I’ll tell you something: even with Marthasville all smashed up the way it is, the Detinans are still living a lot better than they ever let their serfs live.”
“From what I’ve seen in the countryside, Corporal, I’d say you’re probably right,” Griff told him. Rollant blinked again; he wouldn’t have bet Griff noticed anything unmilitary in the countryside.
At last, the regiment tramped out of Marthasville. Hereabouts, people reckoned it a big city. Before escaping from his liege lord’s estate in Palmetto Province, Rollant would have thought it one, too. After ten years of living in New Eborac… He shook his head. As far as he was concerned, Marthasville was nothing but an overgrown town.
“We camp here,” Griff told him, pointing to a meadow next to a stand of pines.
“All right, sir,” Rollant said. “Any particular place you want me to plant the standard?”
Griff pointed to a tiny swell of ground. “How about right there?” Rollant shrugged; it seemed as good a place as any other. He stabbed the butt end of the flagpole into the brick-red-almost blood-red-dirt. That done, he took up a pinch of earth and sprinkled it at the base of the pole. Griff nodded approval. “You know all the rituals, sure enough.”
Even though you’re a blond. That had to be lurking behind his words. That lurked behind so many Detinans’ thoughts whenever they dealt with blonds. Rollant knew it would keep on lurking in Detinans’ thoughts for as long as he lived. Maybe by the time his children were grown, Detinans would be able to accept blonds as people like any others. And maybe they wouldn’t, too.
Colonel Nahath came up to the standard and spoke to Griff: “We’re going to act as provost guards in Marthasville, keep the men from tearing the place up too much and keep them from squabbling with the locals. I’m sending companies in on rotation. Yours will go in there tonight.”