Advance and Retreat wotp-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “When I need to worry about the gods, I’ll worry about them,” John the Lister said. “Till then, I’m going to worry about Lieutenant General Bell more, because I expect he’ll be here sooner.”

  He waited to find out how the contentious wizard would take that. To his surprise, Alva beamed. “Well said, sir. I couldn’t have put it better myself. Worrying about things of this world ahead of the gods is always a good idea-as far as I’m concerned, anyway.”

  “You must have some interesting talks with priests,” John remarked.

  “Oh, I do, sir,” Alva said earnestly. “They can believe what they want, as far as I’m concerned. They’re free Detinans, after all. But they don’t seem to understand that I’m a free Detinan, too. They want me to stop thinking what I think. It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I can see how it wouldn’t,” John said. “But then, how often do they run into someone who doesn’t believe in the gods?”

  “I believe in the gods, sir.” Alva sounded shocked that John should doubt him. “I just don’t believe they’re very important.”

  “Do you? Or do I mean, don’t you?” John the Lister shook his head. “I can see how priests might have trouble drawing the distinction.”

  “Can you? Could you explain it to me, sir? I’ve never been able to figure out how anyone wouldn’t want to draw the finest distinctions he could.”

  He’s not joking, John realized. He does want me to explain it. Can I? Picking his words with care, he said, “To somebody who’s a priest, to somebody who thinks about the gods all the time, not believing in the gods at all and not believing they’re very important probably don’t seem much different.”

  “Hmm.” Alva thought it over. John had the odd feeling he was taking a test. When Alva suddenly smiled, he decided he’d passed it. “Oh. Perspective!” the mage said. “I should have figured that out for myself.” He thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand to show how stupid he thought he was.

  “It’s nothing to worry about.” John the Lister almost added, by the gods, but at the last instant checked himself. Given what the conversation was about, the phrase didn’t fit.

  “But I was wrong. I don’t like being wrong.” By the way Major Alva said it, he didn’t like it at all. He gave a partial explanation: “A mage can’t afford to be wrong very often.”

  “From everything I’ve heard and from everything I’ve seen, you’re not wrong very often,” John said.

  “I don’t dare,” Alva replied. “Sir, I started with nothing. The only reason I’ve got anything at all is because I’m good at wizardry. I’ll ride it as far as I can here in the army. When I get out, I’ll go even further. This is what I can do. This is what I’m good at. I’m going to be as good at it as I can.”

  “All right, Major.” John the Lister nodded. “You sound like a proper Detinan to me: out to paint your name on the wall with the biggest letters you can. This is a kingdom where men do things like that.”

  “This is the best kingdom in the world, sir-in the whole gods-damned world.” Major Alva spoke with great conviction. “Anybody can be anything here, if he’s good enough and works hard enough. That’s why the northerners are such fools to want to leave. Do they think they’ll be able to climb to the top with all their pigheaded nobles clogging the road up? Not likely!”

  “I don’t know whether they worry about getting to the top so much as keeping blonds on the bottom,” John said.

  “But that’s stupid, too.” Alva, plainly, had no patience with stupidity, his own or anyone else’s. He pointed to a blond in the trenches, a blond with a corporal’s emblem on the sleeve of his gray tunic. “Take a look at him. He’s getting ahead because he’s good at soldiering. If he were an ordinary Detinan, he’d probably be a lieutenant by now, but even blonds can get ahead here.”

  John the Lister had no enormous use for blonds. He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of unbinding them from the land and making them citizens like proper Detinans. If it weren’t for splitting the kingdom, he would have been happy to let the north take most of them out of Detina. “Next thing you know,” he said, “you’ll be talking about women the same way.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly, sir,” Alva said. “Some people do, but they’re a bunch of crackpots.”

  “Well, we see eye-to-eye about something, anyhow,” John said with a certain amount of relief. The wizard, plainly, was a radical freethinker, but even he had his limits. The general commanding went on, “Now, is there anything you notice in these works that could be stronger from a wizardly point of view?”

  “Let’s see.” Alva didn’t want to commit himself without looking things over, which made John think better of him. He paced along behind the rearmost of three lines of entrenchments, looking out over them toward and along the north-facing slope. At last, he said, “Would Lieutenant General Bell really be dumb enough to try to drive us out of this position?”

  “I don’t know,” John said. “Only Bell knows how stupid he really is. But we’d be stupid not to give him the warmest reception we could, wouldn’t we? How can we make sure of doing that?”

  “Sir, I think you’ve done it,” the mage replied. “I saw a few engines you might bring up closer so they’d throw farther. Other than that…” He shook his head. “I can feel the defenses you’ve set up against the traitor’s battle magic. They should work.”

  “You’re the one to say that. You put most of them up.”

  “I told you-I’m good.” Alva had no false modesty-and probably little of any other sort.

  “How soon do you think they’ll attack?” John asked.

  Now the wizard looked at him in some surprise. “I don’t know, sir. I deal with enchantments. You’re the fellow who’s supposed to be a soldier.”

  I’ve just been given the glove, John the Lister thought. His voice dry, he said, “I do try to impersonate one every now and again, yes.”

  Alva looked at him in surprise of a different sort. “Have you been listening to Doubting George, sir?” he asked reproachfully.

  “Not for a while now,” John answered. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t run into a lot of men who are supposed to be soldiers” — Alva seemed to like that phrase, while John didn’t, not at all- “who know what it is to be ridiculous.”

  “That only shows you haven’t spent enough time paying attention to soldiers,” John the Lister told him. “The only officers who don’t know what it is to be ridiculous are the ones who’ve never led men into battle. Those sons of bitches on the other side will do their best to make a monkey out of you, and sometimes they’ll bring it off.”

  “What have they got to say about you?” Major Alva asked.

  “If I’m doing my job, they say I’m trying to make a monkey out of them, too,” John replied. “Whichever one of us does best, the other fellow ends up swinging through the trees.” He mimed scratching himself.

  “Sounds like the Inward Hypothesis in action to me,” Alva said. John glared at the wizard. Alva mimed scratching himself, too, carefully adding, “Sir,” afterwards.

  IV

  Captain Gremio’s shoes thudded on the bridge the northerners had thrown across the Trumpeteth River.

  His company wasn’t so loud crossing over the bridge to the south bank as he would have liked. Not enough of them had shoes with which to thud. Bare feet and feet wrapped in rags made hardly any sound at all.

  Unicorn hooves drummed quite nicely. From atop his mount, Colonel Florizel called, “Step it up, men! They’re waiting for us in Poor Richard.”

  So they are, Gremio thought unhappily. And they’ve had a little while to wait now, too-plenty of time to dig trenches to fight from. Trenches saved lives. Without them, Joseph the Gamecock wouldn’t have been able to delay Hesmucet up in Peachtree Province for nearly so long as he had. And then Bell brought us out of our trenches and hit the southrons as hard as he could. And we lost Marthasville, and we’re losing the rest of Peachtree, too.

  “Keep moving,�
�� Sergeant Thisbe said. “We have to whip the southrons.”

  “The sergeant’s right,” Gremio said. “We’ve got more men than John the Lister, and we’ll swamp his whole army.”

  I hope we will. We’d better. Gods help us if we don’t. Maybe they won’t have dug too many trenches. Maybe.

  His shoes stopped thudding and started thumping on dirt. “Over the river,” Thisbe said. “Not far to Poor Richard now.”

  On they marched. One of the soldiers in the company exclaimed in disgust. “What’s the matter, Ludovic?” Gremio asked.

  “I just stepped in some unicorn shit,” Ludovic answered.

  “Well, wipe it off your shoe and keep going,” Gremio said.

  “Captain, I haven’t had any shoes for weeks now,” Ludovic said.

  “Oh. Well, wipe it off your foot and keep going, then,” Gremio said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. You can’t stop on account of that.”

  “Make the southrons pay when you get to them,” Thisbe said.

  “Wasn’t the gods-damned southrons. Was our own gods-damned unicorn-riders. I’d like to make those sons of bitches pay, them and their shitty unicorns.” Ludovic scattered curses with fine impartiality.

  “If you find the fellow whose unicorn did it, you have my permission to pick a fight with him,” Gremio said gravely.

  Ludovic pondered that. Like the weather on a changeable day, he brightened and then clouded up again. “How the hells am I supposed to do that, Captain? Gods-damned unicorn didn’t leave any gods-damned calling card, you know. Not except the one I stepped in.”

  Snickers ran up and down the long files of marching men. Gremio said, “No, I suppose not. In that case, you’d better just slog along with everybody else, don’t you think?”

  “You aren’t making fun of me by any chance, are you, sir?”

  “Gods forbid, Ludovic.” Gremio had to deny it, even though it was true. A free Detinan who thought himself mocked would kill without counting the cost. An apology would have made Gremio lose face. A simple denial didn’t.

  Ludovic nodded, satisfied. “That’s all right, then,” he said, and marched on without complaining any more about his filthy foot.

  When the Army of Franklin camped that night, the southrons’ fires brightened the horizon to the south. “They’re waiting for us,” Gremio said as he seared a chunk of beef from one of the cows from the herd that shambled along with the army. It wasn’t very good beef-it was, in fact, vile, odious beef-but it was ever so much better than no beef at all.

  “We knew they would be.” Sergeant Thisbe, searing another gobbet of that odious beef, didn’t sound worried. The only time Thisbe had ever sounded worried was about going to the healers after taking that wound in southern Peachtree Province. Other than that, nothing in army life that Gremio had seen fazed the underofficer. “We’ll lick ’em.”

  “Of course we will.” Gremio couldn’t very well deny it, not in front of his men. Colonel Florizel had wanted his company commanders to make the men believe the war was still winnable. Gremio didn’t know whether it was or not. No matter how much he doubted it-and that was almost enough to make him his own side’s Doubting George-he couldn’t show his doubts. He understood why not: if the men thought they couldn’t win, why would they want to risk their lives for King Geoffrey?

  “Poor southrons’ll be sorry they ever heard of Poor Richard,” a trooper declared.

  A few men from the Army of Franklin had deserted. The ones who remained still kept plenty of fight. Maybe returning to the province for which the army was named helped. Maybe they were just too stubborn to know they were beaten. Whatever it was, Gremio didn’t want to disturb it. He wished he had more of it himself.

  Thisbe pulled the ragged, sorry beefsteak from the flames. The sergeant sniffed at it and made an unhappy face before taking out a belt knife and starting to haggle off bite-sized chunks. “Better than nothing. Better than your belly rubbing up against your backbone,” Thisbe said.

  “Yes, that’s true.” Gremio cut a bite from his own beefsteak. He stuck it in his mouth and chewed… and chewed, and chewed. Eventually, with a convulsive gulp, he swallowed. “Not a whole lot better than nothing,” he said.

  “I think it is.” Thisbe, as usual, was determined to look on the bright side of things. “When you’re empty, you can’t hardly do anything. You feel all puny and sickly. It’s not a wonderful supper, gods know, but it’s a supper, and any supper is better than no supper at all.”

  “Well, I can’t say you’re wrong. I was thinking the same thing a little earlier, in fact.” Gremio didn’t want to argue with Sergeant Thisbe. He wrestled another bite of meat down his throat. “Now I know why so many men in the company have no shoes. The drovers have been butchering them and called the shoeleather beef.”

  Thisbe did smile at that, but then grew serious again. “I wonder what they’re doing with the hides of the cattle they’re killing. If they’re just leaving them for scavengers, that’s a shame and a disgrace. The Army of Franklin must have plenty of men who know how to tan leather. Maybe they could make shoes, or at least patch the ones that are coming to pieces.”

  “That’s a good idea. That’s a hells of a good idea, as a matter of fact.” Gremio made fewer bites of the rest of his beefsteak than he should have. A couple of times, he felt like a small snake trying to choke down a large dog. When at last he swallowed the final bite, he jumped to his feet. “I’m going to find out whether we’re doing anything like that-and if we aren’t, why not.”

  He hurried to Colonel Florizel’s pavilion. The regimental commander was gamely-which did seem the proper word-hacking away at a slab of meat no finer than the one Gremio had eaten. When Gremio explained Thisbe’s notion, Florizel paused, swallowed with no small effort, and then said, “That is clever. I have no idea what we’re doing with the hides. We should be doing something, shouldn’t we?”

  “If we have any sort of chance to, we should, yes,” Gremio said. “If you don’t know, sir, who would?”

  “Patrick the Cleaver, I suspect,” Florizel answered. “He sticks his nose into all sorts of things.”

  The other side of that coin was, I can’t be bothered sticking my nose into all sorts of things. Calling Florizel on it would have been worse than useless. Gremio saluted and said, “Thank you, sir. I’ll speak with him.”

  “I hope something comes of it.” Colonel Florizel did mean well, as long as he didn’t have to put himself out too much. He was a brave leader in battle. Gremio wished he were a better administrator, but Gremio, a barrister himself, highly valued organization in others.

  He’d never spoken to Patrick the Cleaver before, and wondered how much trouble he would have getting to see the wing commander. He had no more than he’d had seeing Colonel Florizel. As he had with Florizel, he explained himself. “This is your notion, now?” Patrick asked him.

  “No, sir,” Gremio answered. “My company’s first sergeant thought of it. H-uh, his-name is Thisbe.”

  “It’s a good notion, indeed and it is,” Patrick said. “My hat’s off to you, Captain, for not being after claiming it for your own.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” Gremio said.

  “No, eh?” The brigadier eyed him. “Plenty could, the which is nobbut the truth.”

  “I don’t steal,” Gremio said stiffly. From anyone but Thisbe, he might have. From the sergeant? Never.

  “Well, good on you,” Patrick the Cleaver said. “If you’re after giving this sergeant the credit, you might also be thinking of giving him lieutenant’s rank to go with it.”

  “Sir, I tried to promote the sergeant during the fighting south of Marthasville, for bravery then,” Gremio said. “Thisbe refused to accept officer’s rank. I doubt anything has changed… his mind since.”

  Patrick chuckled. “Sure and there are sergeants like that. Most of ’em, I think, are fools. The army could use officers o’ their stripe-better nor a good many of the omadhauns giving orders the now.”
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br />   Thisbe had reasons for declining that Patrick the Cleaver probably hadn’t contemplated. Gremio saw no point in discussing those reasons with the wing commander. He asked, “Is there any chance of doing what the sergeant suggested, sir?”

  “By the gods, Captain, there is that,” Patrick answered. “Once we’re after driving the gods-damned southrons from Poor Richard, I’ll see to it. You may rely on me.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Gremio believed him. Patrick was one of the youngest brigadiers in King Geoffrey’s armies, but he’d already acquired a reputation for reliability to go with his name for hard fighting. Gremio said, “May I ask you one thing more?”

  “Ask what you will,” Patrick said. “I do not promise to answer.”

  “That’s only fair,” Gremio said. “What sort of ground will we be fighting on at this Poor Richard place?”

  “It’s open,” Patrick the Cleaver replied. “It’s very open.” His face, which had been very open a moment before, all at once closed. “If I were Lieutenant General Bell…” He didn’t go on.

  “If you were Bell…” Gremio prompted.

  “Never you mind,” Patrick said. “I’ve told the general commanding my opinions, and I need not repeat ’em to another soul.”

  Had he stood in the witness box, Gremio could have peppered him with questions as with crossbow quarrels. That wasn’t how things worked here. A man who tried to grill a superior not inclined to be forthcoming wouldn’t find out what he wanted to know, and would wind up in trouble.

  Patrick said, “Give my compliments to your clever sergeant, if you’d be so kind, and the top o’ the evening to you.”

  That was dismissal. Captain Gremio saluted and left the wing commander’s pavilion. He made his way back to his own regiment’s encampment. “Well, sir?” Sergeant Thisbe asked when he sat down by the fire once more.

  “Well, Sergeant, Brigadier Patrick says you ought to be promoted to lieutenant for your cleverness,” Gremio replied.