“I expect you’re right, sir,” Doubting George replied. “Give me my orders, and I will carry them out as best I can.”
“I’m sure you will, your Excellency.” Hesmucet was also sure George had desperately wanted the command he’d just received himself. Some officers, in that situation, would try to undercut their superiors. Fighting Joseph would, in a heartbeat. Hesmucet didn’t think Doubting George was a man of that sort. He hoped George wasn’t. But if he is, I’ll deal with it-and with him.
Bart said, “You will have charge of everything between the Green Ridge Mountains and the Great River. Take your station where you will, though I intend that you concentrate on Joseph the Gamecock’s army, as I will concentrate on Duke Edward’s.”
“Yes, sir!” Hesmucet said enthusiastically. “That’s just what I aim to do. If we can smash those two armies, King Geoffrey hasn’t got anything left.” He saluted again. “Thank you for giving me the chance to do this.”
“Well, you won’t do it all by your lonesome,” Bart remarked.
Ah. Now we come down to it, Hesmucet thought. He asked the question the new marshal was surely waiting for: “What sort of arrangement for the armies under my command-under your command-have you got in mind?”
“First and foremost, I think you’d be wise to leave Doubting George here in command of the army that used to belong to General Guildenstern,” Bart answered. “Since that’ll be far and away the biggest army here in the east, he’ll be your second-in-command. Does that suit you?”
“Yes, sir. It suits me fine.” Hesmucet turned to George. “Does it suit you, Lieutenant General?”
“I tell you frankly, sir, there is one other arrangement that would have suited me better,” Lieutenant General George replied. “But I’ll do everything I can to whip the traitors, and that includes following your orders. From what I’ve seen, I think you’ll give pretty good ones.”
“Thank you.” Hesmucet stuck out his hand. If Doubting George hesitated for even a moment before clasping it, Hesmucet didn’t notice.
“Good. That’s settled.” Bart sounded relieved. What would the new marshal have done for a second-in-command here if George hadn’t cared to serve under me? Hesmucet wondered. Fighting Joseph? Gods forbid!
“My next question, sir, is, when do you want me to get moving against Joseph the Gamecock and whatever’s left of the Army of Franklin?” Hesmucet said.
For one of the rare times Hesmucet could recall, Bart looked faintly embarrassed. “It won’t be quite so soon as you’d like,” he replied.
“What? Why not?” Hesmucet demanded.
“Because I’m going to want your campaign against Joseph and mine against Duke Edward to start more or less at the same time,” Bart said. “That way, neither one of them will be able to reinforce the other, the way Edward sent James of Broadpath here to the east. I’m going to need a while to get a grip on things there in the west, so we may well have to wait till spring.”
“I want to move sooner,” Hesmucet grumbled.
Doubting George inclined his head to his new superior. “Do you know, sir, if King Avram had had himself half a dozen generals who wouldn’t be satisfied with waiting just a little while, with being almost on time, he’d have put paid to the northerners’ revolt a long time ago.”
“You may be right,” Hesmucet said. Then he shook his head. “No, gods damn it, you are right. But I’ll tell you something else. The king has got himself two of that kind of general now.” He pointed to Marshal Bart, then jabbed a thumb at his own chest. After a moment, he said, “Make that three,” and pointed to Lieutenant General George, too.
“I do thank you very much for the kind inclusion,” George said. “But you two are the ones who count, and you two are also in the spots that count. Grand Duke Geoffrey won’t have such a happy time of it from here on in, unless I’m wronger than usual, and” -his eyes twinkled- “I doubt I am.”
“I know that I’m leaving the east in good hands,” Bart said. “What sort of a mess I’ll find when I get to the west-that’s liable to be a different question. People back there have let Duke Edward cow them for too long. He can be beaten, I do believe, and I aim to try to do it.”
“From what I’ve seen and from what I’ve heard, the soldiers there in the west go into a fight with Duke Edward wondering what he’s going to do do them,” Hesmucet said. “They don’t think so much about what they can do to him. If you worry about what the other fellow is going to do, you’ll wind up in trouble.”
Bart nodded. “That’s right. That’s just right, I do believe. I aim to keep Duke Edward on too tight a leash to let him run wild the way he has a couple of times in this war. I don’t know if I can do that, but it’s what I’m going to aim for.”
“Makes sense to me,” Hesmucet said. “I will do the same to Joseph the Gamecock, as best I can.”
Doubting George said, “Do one other thing, sir.”
“And that is?” Hesmucet asked.
“Keep Ned of the Forest busy the same way,” George replied. “We are going to have ourselves a devils of a long supply line as we move up into Peachtree Province, and we’ll be depending on a handful of glideways to bring us food and bolts and firepots and such. If ever there was a man who knows how to hit a supply line, Ned of the Forest is the one.”
“You’re right,” Hesmucet said. “You’re absolutely dead right. That man is a demon, and I don’t see how we can hold down the countryside until he’s dead. I promise you, I’ll trouble him all the time. He’ll be too busy staying alive to bother us too much-or I hope he will, anyhow.”
He’d wondered if he should speak sharply when Doubting George made his suggestion. Was the other man trying to sneak his way into command when he didn’t have the rank? But what George proposed made such good sense, Hesmucet saw no way to disagree with it.
Bart held out his hand. Hesmucet took it. “Well, General,” Bart said, “I look forward to working with you when spring comes. We’re still on the same team, still pulling the same plow, even if we won’t be side by side for a while.”
“That’s so,” Hesmucet said. “And what we need to aim to do is, we need to plow up this weed of a rebellion. If the gods be kind, we can do it.”
“I think you two can do it,” Doubting George said, “and I congratulate you both.” He clasped hands first with Bart, then with Hesmucet. He will make a good second-in-command, Hesmucet thought. If he’s jealous about having to serve under me, he’s the only one who knows it. And that’s the way it ought to be.
Hesmucet left General-no, Marshal-Bart’s chamber. A buzz rose in the hostel lobby when he came out of the stairwell. “Is it true, sir?” someone called. No mage had yet divined how rumor traveled so fast.
“It’s true,” Hesmucet answered, and the buzz redoubled. He added, “But I’ll thank you not to pester me about it right this minute. I need to think.” Unpestered-which would do for a miracle till a greater one came along-he strode through the lobby and out onto the street.
Men called to him there, too. Rumor had to be running wild in Rising Rock. But he ignored them. He ignored everything in this muddy town. His gaze swung toward the north and the west, toward Peachtree Province, toward the glideway center at Marthasville. He could see the city in his mind’s eye as if nothing stood between him and it.
And nothing did-nothing except Joseph the Gamecock’s army. Hesmucet threw back his head and laughed. “That’s not so gods-damned much,” he said, and began to think of how he, unlike Count Thraxton, might make such a brag come true.