Advance and Retreat wotp-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “It’s a lot more fun than getting shot,” Rollant answered. “To the hells with me if I want to stand out there in the open for the traitors to shoot at.”

  “Well, there is that,” Smitty admitted. “But it’s a lot of work, too.”

  “I don’t mind work,” Rollant said. “This is the kind of work I chose for myself when I volunteered to be a soldier.”

  Smitty gave him a quizzical look. “You sure you’re one of those shiftless, no-account, lazy blonds everybody’s always talking about?”

  Only a few men in the regiment could ask him a question like that without making him angry. Smitty, fortunately, was one of those few. Rollant paused in his own digging, thought for a moment, and then said, “You’ve got a farm outside of New Eborac City, so you work for yourself, right?”

  “For myself, and ahead of that for my old man, yes,” Smitty answered.

  “You work hard, then, right?”

  “I’d better.” Smitty wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve. “Who’ll do the job if I don’t?”

  “Now imagine your boss doesn’t care about you-he just wants to get work out of you,” Rollant said.

  “I didn’t know you’d met my father,” Smitty said.

  That threw Rollant off his glideway path of thought. He needed some effort to return to it: “Suppose he doesn’t care about you, like I said. Suppose he can do anything he wants to you. Suppose you have to do what he says, no matter what it is. And suppose, no matter what you do, you don’t get to keep a copper’s worth of money from the crop you bring in.”

  “Doesn’t sound very good,” Smitty said. “Got any more supposes?”

  “No, that’s the lot of them,” Rollant said. “Suppose they’re all true. How hard would you work then?”

  “I’d do the least I could get away with, I expect.” Smitty paused, taking the point. “So you’re saying blonds aren’t lazy on account of the gods made ’em lazy. You’re saying they’re lazy on account of the liege lords give ’em the shitty end of the stick.”

  “Either that or they give ’em the whole stick right across the back.” Rollant turned away so Smitty wouldn’t see his enormous grin. He’d actually made an ordinary Detinan understand some small fraction of what serfdom was like.

  “Here, I’ve got a question for you,” Smitty said.

  “Go ahead,” Rollant answered.

  “You know that book that lady wrote-Aunt Clarissa’s Serf Hut? How true to life is that?”

  Ten years before the War Between the Provinces broke out, Aunt Clarissa’s Serf Hut had scandalized the south and north, though in different ways. It had outraged the south while infuriating northern nobles. They called it a pack of lies, wrote denunciations and rebuttals by the score-and banned it in their provinces to keep serfs from getting their hands on it.

  “Well, I’ve read it,” Rollant said. “Read it a while after it came out, because I needed to learn my letters first after I ran away from Baron Ormerod. I thought it was pretty good. The liege lord in the book was a lot nastier than Ormerod, but there are some like him. I never knew a blond who was made out of sugar and honey paste, the way some of the ones in the story are, but it tells about what a hard, nasty life serfs have, and that’s all pretty much true. What did you think of it?”

  “Made me want to grab the first northern nobleman I saw and give him a good kick in the teeth,” Smitty said.

  “Suppose you just get back to work instead,” Sergeant Joram rumbled from behind him.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Smitty said meekly, and dug in with the shovel. But working didn’t keep him from talking: “Some of the people we’ve got set over us, they might as well be liege lords themselves.”

  He had a point. In a lot of ways, underofficers had more power over common soldiers than nobles did over serfs. Rollant hadn’t thought of it like that before, but it was so. Does that make me like Baron Ormerod? he wondered. In spite of the warm work, he shivered. That was a chilling thought if ever there was one.

  * * *

  From unicornback, Colonel Florizel called, “Come on, men! Keep moving. If we get around behind the stinking southrons, we can bag the whole rotten lot of them.”

  “The colonel’s right,” Captain Gremio agreed. “If we move fast now, it pays off later. We can give King Avram’s men just what they deserve.”

  Sergeant Thisbe was blunter about the whole business, as sergeants have a way of being: “Keep moving, you worthless slobs! We’ve got somewhere to get to, and we’re going to get there, gods damn it!”

  And the men paid more attention to Thisbe than they did to Gremio and Florizel put together. That didn’t particularly surprise Gremio. He could order them into fights where they might get killed, but Thisbe had the power to make their everyday life hells on earth.

  On they tramped, making the best time they could down muddy roads. They never saw a southron unicorn-rider. Captain Gremio assumed that was Ned of the Forest’s doing. Ned was no gentleman, as far as he was concerned. Gentleman or not, Ned knew what he was doing with unicorn-riders.

  At last, with evening twilight fading from the sky, they had to stop for the night. Thisbe sent the spriest men out to gather wood and fill water jugs. Other soldiers simply flopped down, exhausted. As fires began to burn, the weary men gathered around them to toast hard bread and meat and simply to get warm. All through the first part of the night, more and more stragglers joined them: men who’d marched as hard as they could, but hadn’t been able to stand the pace.

  Gremio held a chunk of hard bread over the flames on a forked stick. He didn’t watch while he did it; he was one of those who preferred not to think about the weevils that were abandoning his supper. Sometimes, of course, he had to eat bread without toasting it first. He preferred not to think about everything that crunched between his teeth then, too.

  Sergeant Thisbe sat at the same fire, looking as worn as Gremio felt. One by one, soldiers lay down where they were and started to snore. Thisbe yawned, but stayed awake. So did Gremio. After a while, with more and more snores rising around them, Gremio quietly asked, “Can we talk?”

  “I don’t really think we’ve got a whole lot to say to each other, sir,” Thisbe answered. “Not about that, anyway.”

  “I know what I know,” Gremio said. “I have the evidence.” Yes, he was a barrister through and through.

  “You’ll do what you want to do, sir.” Thisbe’s voice was toneless.

  “But-” Gremio couldn’t shout. He couldn’t even swear, not without… He shook his head. “I don’t want to tell anybody about-”

  “I’m glad,” the sergeant said.

  “I just want to-”

  Sergeant Thisbe interrupted again: “To what, sir?” Normally, a sergeant who kept interrupting an officer would find himself in trouble in short order. Things weren’t normal here, as Gremio knew too well. Thisbe went on, “There’s nothing you can do, sir. There’s nothing anybody can do till the war’s over.”

  “But then-” Gremio said.

  “But then, who knows?” Thisbe broke in once more. And, once more, Gremio let the sergeant do it without a hint, without so much as a thought, of reprimand. “I think you’re the best company commander the regiment’s ever had. To the hells with me if I know whether that means anything else.” A shrug. “We’ll find out then. Not now.”

  “You know what I think of you-some of it, anyhow,” Gremio said. “You know I wanted to get you promoted to lieutenant.”

  “I didn’t want that. You know I didn’t want that.” The harsh, flickering shadows from the fading fire exaggerated Thisbe’s rueful expression. “Now I suppose you think you know why I didn’t want it, too, gods damn it.”

  “Maybe I do,” Gremio said, quite sure he did. He took a deep breath, then continued, “Well, here’s something you may not know, Thisbe d- Sergeant. Once upon a time-”

  “Before I got wounded?” Thisbe asked.

  “Oh, yes, a long time before you got wounded,” Gremio answered. “On
ce upon a time, a long time before you got wounded, I told myself that if I ever met a girl who could do the things you can, I’d marry her on the spot.”

  “Did you?” Sergeant Thisbe’s voice held no expression whatever. When Gremio tried to read the underofficer’s face, he found he couldn’t. The brim of Thisbe’s hat cast black shadow all across it, for the sergeant stared down at the muddy ground.

  Gremio nodded. “That was what I said to myself, and I meant it, too. You can take it for whatever you think it’s worth, Sergeant.”

  “It would be worth a lot, I figure, to a girl like that,” Thisbe said. “But I’m not so much of a much. I expect you could find half a dozen girls who knew more than a dumb soldier like me ever dreamed of, just by snapping your fingers.” The sergeant’s light, true tenor was uncommonly earnest.

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Gremio had to fight to keep anger out of his voice. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never given yourself enough credit, and I can’t figure out why.”

  Thisbe still didn’t look up. The sergeant’s laugh seemed anything but mirthful. “You know me. You know where I am. Can’t you figure it out for yourself?”

  “Well… maybe I can,” Gremio said.

  “All right, then. And if you don’t mind my saying so, sir, that’s about enough of that for right now. That’s too much of that for right now, if you want to know what I really think.” Thisbe’s yawn was theatrical, but probably no less real on account of that. “I’m going to wrap myself in my blanket and go to sleep. You ought to do the same thing.”

  “Yes, so I should.” Seeing Thisbe yawning made Gremio want to yawn, too-not that he wasn’t already weary after a long day’s march. “Good night, Sergeant.”

  “Good night, sir.” Thisbe’s blanket was worn, almost threadbare. Gremio had a thicker, finer one. Were things different, he would gladly have given his to the underofficer, or at least invited Thisbe to crawl under it with him. He remembered doing exactly that, back in the days before Thisbe was wounded. He could no more imagine doing it now than he could imagine chasing all the southrons back to their own part of Detina singlehanded.

  His hat made a tolerable pillow. He’d long since stopped worrying about having anything fancier. He fell asleep almost at once, as he always did when the Army of Franklin was on the move. Tramping along all day would knock a man out even if he wanted to stay awake, and Gremio didn’t.

  Horn calls pulled him out from under his blanket in the morning. He creaked to his feet, feeling elderly. Thisbe was already awake and sipping tea from a tin cup. The northerners called it tea, anyhow. Gremio didn’t want to know from what all leaves and stems it was really made. The southrons’ blockade kept much of the real stuff from getting into King Geoffrey’s harried realm.

  Gremio fixed himself a cup of his own. Even with honey added, the brew was bitter and nasty. But it was warm, and some of those leaves helped pry his eyelids apart, the way real tea did. He said, “That’s better,” and drained the cup.

  “Couldn’t hardly get by without something hot in the morning,” Thisbe agreed.

  Colonel Florizel limped up. “We’ll be getting on the road soon,” the regimental commander said. “So far, it doesn’t look like the gods-damned southrons are stirring away from Summer Mountain. If we can get around behind ’em, we’ll bugger ’em right and proper.” He laughed loudly.

  “Er, yes, sir,” Gremio said. Florizel stumped off, looking miffed that the barrister hadn’t laughed with him.

  Gremio probably would have, if Thisbe hadn’t been standing there beside him. The sergeant sent him a reproachful look. “I thought it was pretty funny, sir. I hope we do bugger the southrons.”

  Had the sergeant not been there, Gremio would have laughed. He knew that. He also knew he had to say something, and did: “I didn’t think it was all that much of a joke. Besides, he shouldn’t have said it-”

  “When I was around?” Thisbe asked. When Gremio nodded, the sergeant looked even more reproachful than before. “What’s that got to do with anything? I’m just one of the boys, and everybody knows it.”

  “Right,” Gremio said tightly. “Shall we get the men ready to move, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir.” If anything bothered Thisbe, no sign of it appeared in the sergeant’s face or bearing.

  And the men did move. They might have moved faster if more of them had had shoes, but northern men were too stubborn to give in on account of something that trivial. As usual, no one begrudged Colonel Florizel his place on a unicorn. His wound wouldn’t have let him keep up on foot.

  Ned of the Forest’s men were on unicorns, too, and seemed to be doing their job. Again, Gremio spotted not a single gray-clad southron rider. His guess was that the enemy really didn’t know where the Army of Franklin was. He knew a certain amount of hope on account of that. The last time the southrons had been so fooled was before the battle by the River of Death, more than a year ago now. If they could be tricked again… Well, who could say what might happen?

  We’d better not mess things up, the way we did then, Gremio thought. The Army of Franklin could have surrounded Guildenstern at Rising Rock and forced him to surrender. They could have, but they hadn’t. And, in due course, they’d paid for the omission. General Bell was trying to make amends for that now. Maybe he would. Even a hardened cynic of a barrister like Gremio couldn’t help hoping.

  “Form column of fours!” he yelled. The men obeyed. Before joining King Geoffrey’s army, Gremio hadn’t dreamt how important marching drill was. Soldiers moved in column, fought in line. If they couldn’t shift from one to the other in a hurry, they were in trouble. Getting caught in column was every commander’s blackest nightmare.

  Up at the head of the brigade, horns ordered the advance. A moment later, Colonel Florizel’s trumpeters echoed the command for the regiment. The company had a trumpeter, too. The only trouble was, he wasn’t much of a trumpeter. His notes assailed Gremio’s ears.

  “Let’s go!” Sergeant Thisbe shouted. Away the Army of Franklin went, heading south. General Bell dreamt of reaching the Highlow River. If he could do it, he would give King Avram an enormous black eye. He might remind the provinces of Franklin and Cloviston of their allegiance to King Geoffrey-and, more to the point, bring their men and supplies into the war on Geoffrey’s side, not Avram’s. That would make the fight in the east a whole different struggle.

  Captain Gremio’s dreams were smaller. He would have been satisfied-no, by the gods, he would have been delighted-if the northerners could get around behind Summer Mountain and cut off the retreat of the southrons there. One bite at a time, he told himself. If we can do one thing right, more will follow from that.

  Birds filled the sky overhead. They were flying north for the winter, flying north to escape the coming cold and snow and ice. Pointing to them, Thisbe said, “They’re smarter than we are-they’re going the right way for this time of year.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” Gremio said, and beamed at the sergeant. Thisbe didn’t beam back.

  Every so often, a soldier would take a shot at the stream of birds. Every once in a while, a crossbow bolt would strike home and a bird tumble out of the sky. The lucky soldier would run over and grab it and put it on his belt to cook when the army stopped that night-if some other man didn’t get it first. After Gremio broke up a couple of quarrels that were on the edge of turning into brawls, he ordered the men of his company to stop shooting at the birds.

  “That’s not fair, Captain,” a soldier said. “We’re hungry, gods damn it. Anything we can get is all to the good.”

  “It’s not all to the good if you start stealing from one another and brawling,” Gremio replied. “We’ll do better hungry than we will if we can’t trust each other.”

  “The captain’s right,” Thisbe declared. “Most of these birds aren’t any more than a couple of mouthfuls anyway. They’re not worth the trouble they’re stirring up.”

  No one could sa
y Gremio or Thisbe ate better than the common soldiers in the company. They didn’t. The soldiers might have grumbled, but they followed orders. The only trouble was, not all commanders gave those orders, so quarrels over birds elsewhere slowed the company-and a crossbow quarrel shot at a bird came down, point first, at Gremio’s feet. Had it come down on his head… One more thing he preferred not to contemplate. He stooped, yanked it out of the ground, and held it high. “Here’s another reason not to shoot things up in the air,” he said.

  A voice rose from the ranks: “That’s right, by the gods. If we’re gong to shoot our officers, we should aim straight at ’em.” The marching men bayed laughter. Gremio managed a smile he hoped wasn’t too sickly.

  Along came a mage in a blue robe riding on the back of an ass. He was muttering to himself, his fingers writhing in quick passes as he incanted. “An ass on an ass!” another uniformed wit called. The wizard affected not to notice-or maybe, preoccupied with the spell he was casting, he really didn’t. Whatever sort of magic it was, Gremio hoped it worked.

  It must have, for the company, the regiment-the whole army-halted earlier than he’d expected. Colonel Florizel rode up with a great big grin on his face. “We’ve got ’em!” he said. “We’ve got ’em good, by the gods! This is the only way they can retreat, and they have to come right by us when they do. We’ll land on their flank, and then-!” He slashed a finger across his throat. The soldiers raised a cheer, Gremio’s voice loud among theirs.

  * * *

  “General John! General John, sir!” The mage shouting John the Lister’s name sounded on, or maybe just over, the ragged edge of hysteria.

  “What is it?” John asked. When people started shouting in that tone of voice, it wasn’t going to be anything good.

  And it wasn’t. The mage burst into John’s pavilion. Horror was etched on his face. “They’ve used a masking spell on us, sir!” he cried.

  No need to ask who they were. “And what is this masking spell supposed to do?” John inquired. “Whatever it’s supposed to do, has it done it?”