Oliver bowed. He was a fussily precise man, as stern with himself as he was with everyone else. “Very well, sir,” he said. “On that, I cannot presume to disagree with you.” Turning, he bowed to George as well. “This, I must say, I find strange, for in our days at Annasville I reckoned the distinguished general likelier to fight on the other side than on ours.”
George had reckoned Oliver an officious prig. He hadn’t been shy about letting the world know what he reckoned, either. He said, “Brigadier, we still disagree about what ought to happen to the serfs in this kingdom. But we agree wholeheartedly that Detina is a kingdom, not two or three or six kingdoms, and that outweighs the rest.”
“Indeed it does,” Oliver said. “Indeed it does. I rejoice that the gods have put a sufficiency of truth into your heart, sir, even if not its very fullest measure, the measure that would make you recognize all of mankind, regardless of outer seeming, as your brethren.”
He still preaches too gods-damned much, Doubting George thought. But he’s a pretty fair soldier himself, even so. Aloud, he said, “I don’t want to recognize all of mankind as my brethren. If I did, I’d miss watching pretty girls, and that would be a shame.”
Hesmucet chuckled. John the Lister laughed out loud. Oliver clicked his tongue between his teeth and looked pained. Oh, dear, George thought. He doesn’t approve of watching pretty girls, either. Well, too bad for him.
Perhaps finding it a good time to change the subject, John the Lister asked General Hesmucet, “Sir, do I understand correctly that we don’t intend to try storming Marthasville?”
“Not right now, anyhow,” the commanding general answered. “We might take it-I think we would take it, but I also think a direct assault would be expensive, and the mourning boxes in the papers down south are long enough already. Let’s see how Bell likes having the place torn down around his ears without his being able to do anything about it.”
“Let’s see how he likes that after false King Geoffrey charged him to hold the town, too,” Doubting George added.
“That did cross my mind, yes,” Hesmucet said. “I wouldn’t want to have dear Geoffrey screaming at me right now. But then you, Lieutenant General, would know more about such things than I do, wouldn’t you?”
“Not much, sir,” George replied. “I knew I would serve a united Detina as soon as Palmetto Province pulled out. Geoffrey confiscated my lands as soon as Parthenia went with it and I declined to join him. To the seven hells with him, but only from a distance. It’s been years since I last saw him face to face.”
“May the next time we see him be when he meets the headsman.” Hesmucet took a flask from his belt, yanked out the cork, raised the flask high, and drank. That done, he loudly smacked his lips and passed it to Doubting George.
General Guildenstern had been in the habit of carrying a flask on his belt, too. He’d also been in the habit of getting drunk from it. Bart, now, Bart had sternly stayed dry, for he’d been known to wet himself to the drowning point. George had seen Hesmucet drink, but he’d never seen him anywhere close to drunk. He drank, too, in the same mostly moderate way. He took the flask and swigged sweet fire. “Ahh!” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Peachtree Province peach brandy. What could be better?”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” John the Lister said when George offered him the flask. He took a pull and gave it to Brigadier Oliver.
The one-armed man shook his head. “No, thank you. I have never drunk spirituous liquors. I do not believe it to be virtuous.”
“Why not?” Doubting George asked, genuinely curious. “I can see not drinking on account of you don’t want to get drunk, but why not enjoy it if you’re a man who can hold it?”
“We are enough like beasts as things stand, sir,” Oliver said. “Such drink only brings us closer to them.”
“I’m not worried about getting close to the beasts,” George said. “What I want to do is get close to Marthasville.” He, Hesmucet, and John the Lister all laughed and all swigged again. Brigadier Oliver also laughed, politely, but stuck to water.
* * *
Smoke was a stench in Lieutenant General Bell’s nostrils. Every firepot that burst and spread new flames in the streets of Marthasville seemed a personal reproach. He went through even more laudanum than he would have on account of his wounds. It didn’t do much to blur his sense of guilt, but it did do something.
“Sir?” Major Zibeon said, and then again, louder: “Sir!”
“Eh?” Bell came out of the laudanum haze. “What is it, Major?”
“Sir, there’s a delegation of citizens who’d like to speak to you for a few minutes waiting outside,” his aide-de-camp replied.
“Citizens?” Bell echoed irritably. “What in the hells do a pack of citizens know? Not bloody much, that’s what.” Zibeon didn’t say anything. He only waited. Bell scowled. “What do they want? Do they want me to surrender to that bastard of a Hesmucet? I won’t do it. What would King Geoffrey do to me if I did?”
Geoffrey was much less happy with him now than on naming him commander of the Army of Franklin. Gods damn it, I did what he wanted, Bell thought petulantly. I went out there and I fought. I did all I could. I almost won. Joseph the Gamecock couldn’t have done any better. I’m sure of that. Nearly sure.
Zibeon shook his head. “No, they don’t want surrender. But they are looking for some sort of relief, any sort of relief, from the infernal bombardment the southrons are making us take.”
“What would they have me do?” Bell demanded.
Zibeon’s dour face got no lighter. “Sir, I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging. “To find that out, you’d have to talk to them.”
“Oh, very well,” Bell said sourly. He wanted to talk to civilians about as much as he wanted to lose his other leg, but sometimes there was no help for a situation. His repeated attacks against Hesmucet’s army had shown him that. That he might not have made those attacks never, ever, occurred to him. “Who are these sons of bitches, anyhow?” he asked, not bothering to keep his voice down.
“One is called Jim the Ball, sir; the other is Jim of the Crew,” Zibeon replied. “They are both merchants of some considerable wealth.”
With a martyred sigh, Bell yielded to necessity. “Very well, Major. You may send them in, and we shall see what sort of wisdom they offer.” He rolled his eyes to show how little he expected.
One look told him how Jim the Ball had got his name; the man was nearly spherical, and his tunic and pantaloons contained enough material for a couple of tents. Jim of the Crew, by contrast, was tall and slim and muscular-the crew to which he belonged was probably that of a river galley. He bowed to Bell. Jim the Ball might have done the same, but he was so round, Bell had trouble being sure.
“Good day, gentlemen,” Bell said, wishing he were somewhere else-preferably, at the head of a victorious army, halfway down to the border with Franklin. “What can I do for you today?”
“Sir,” Jim the Ball said, “the southrons are-destroying Marthasville-one piece-at a time.” He was so very fat, he had to pause and sip air every few words.
“We want you to let them know how barbarous it is to pound a city to pieces with civilians still in it,” Jim of the Crew added. He could speak a whole sentence without needing several breaths to finish it.
“Why do you suppose General Hesmucet would pay the least attention to such a plea?” Bell asked.
“Why do you-think he wouldn’t?” Jim the Ball replied, again putting a caesura in his sentence.
“You said it for yourself, sir: he is a barbarous man,” Bell said.
“What, by the gods, have we got to lose?” Jim of the Crew said. “If we go to him under flag of truce and he sends us away, we’re no worse off than we were. But if he says yes, we save what’s still standing, anyhow.”
Bell plucked at his beard. A letter cost him nothing; these fellows were right about that. And complaining to Hesmucet might make him look better in the eyes of the world. The north coul
d trumpet about Hesmucet’s cruelty and iniquity if he kept on pounding Marthasville after being begged to stop. The world outside Detina-the kingdoms on the far side of the Western Ocean-had been trying to pretend the north didn’t exist. No one recognized Geoffrey as a sovereign among sovereigns. It was humiliating. It was infuriating. And the north could do not a thing about it.
Pointing at the two merchants, Bell asked, “If I draft this missive, would you be willing to carry it through the lines to Hesmucet?”
They looked at each other, then both nodded. Several of Jim the Ball’s chins wobbled at the motion. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“We’d be happy to, sir,” Jim of the Crew agreed.
“Very well, then,” Bell said. “Return here in two days’ time, and we shall see what we shall see.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Jim the Ball said. “We’ll be here.”
“If we haven’t been burned to charcoal, we’ll be here,” Jim of the Crew added. “If the southrons haven’t attacked, we’ll be here.”
“They won’t attack.” Bell spoke with great conviction.
“How do you know that?” Jim of the Crew asked, pressing harder on the commander of the Army of Franklin than he had any business doing.
But Bell answered, “How do I know, sir? I’ll tell you how: because they’re a pack of cowards. If they weren’t a pack of cowards, afraid of showing themselves outside of entrenchments, they would already have attacked Marthasville. They wouldn’t do what they’re doing to its defenseless civilian population.”
He thought he’d impressed the two civilians. But, as they were leaving, Jim of the Crew turned to Jim the Ball and said, “If the stinking southrons are such great cowards, how come they whipped us every time we tried to go after ’em around this city?”
“Beats me,” Jim the Ball said.
“That’s what I said-they’ve beaten us,” Jim of the Crew told him. “They’ve beaten us like a gods-damned drum. I don’t care who’s king over us any more, as long as all these fornicating armies go straight to the seven hells and gone.”
Lieutenant General Bell almost shouted for his provost guards to arrest Jim of the Crew as a traitor to King Geoffrey. But then he shook his head. Sending the merchant and his chum across the lines to General Hesmucet struck him as a worse punishment. With any luck at all, the southrons would miss their flag of truce and fill them full of crossbow quarrels. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair, he thought maliciously.
Still, the idea of writing a formal letter of complaint to Hesmucet had an undeniable appeal. “Major Zibeon!” Bell called.
“Sir?” his aide-de-camp said. If he’d heard the scathing remarks from the two civilians, he didn’t show it.
“Fetch me pen and paper, if you please.”
“Yes, sir,” Zibeon replied. “Do you really think General Hesmucet will heed your request, sir?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Bell said. “But we’re no worse off for finding out, are we?”
“No, sir,” Major Zibeon admitted.
Even writing came hard for Bell. Most men wrote with one hand and steadied the paper with the other. Bell’s left arm was only a dead weight, his left hand useless and inert. He had to put a large stone at the top of the sheet Zibeon found for him. He gnawed at his luxuriant mustache as he groped for words.
Permit me to say, sir, he wrote, that the unprecedented measures you have taken against this city transcend, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever brought to my attention in the long and dark history of war. In the names of the gods of humanity, I protest, believing that you will find that you are depriving of their homes and firesides the wives and children of a brave people. This calculated cruelty can only redound to the disgrace of the sovereign whom you serve, and to your own. Give over, while yet you may. I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Bell, Lieutenant General.
He signed his name with a flourish and sanded the letter dry. Then he used wax and his signet to seal it. He thought of summoning Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew to take it at once, but didn’t. After Jim of the Crew’s gibe, he almost hoped a firepot burst on the merchant’s roof.
Before the appointed day, Roast-Beef William came to see him. That left him imperfectly delighted with the world; he would almost rather have seen the two merchants again. But William was a wing commander, and so not easy to ignore. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant General?” Bell asked after the older man had made his bows.
“Well, sir, I was wondering what sort of plan you had for getting us out of the fix we’re in,” Roast-Beef William replied.
“I have sent forth Brigadier Spinner’s unicorn-riders, as you know, to strike against General Hesmucet’s supply line,” Bell said. That he was reduced to such small strokes galled him.
That even such small strokes hadn’t done all he wanted galled him even more. Roast-Beef William knew what Spinner had done, too-and, more important, what he hadn’t. “Supplies are still coming through to the enemy,” he remarked.
“I know that,” Bell said testily. His arm and his leg hurt more than usual; he longed for laudanum. “But what would you have me do? Do you suppose we can make another sally and drive the gods-damned southrons back from Marthasville?”
He leaned forward eagerly, awaiting William’s reply. If the wing commander thought another attack might succeed, he would order it. He hadn’t lost the desire to hit back at the southrons, only most of the means. If Roast-Beef William reckoned those available… But William shook his head. “No, sir. We haven’t really got the men to stand siege any more, let alone strike out. That was why I came to see you.”
“Say on,” Bell said ominously.
“You know as well as I do, sir, that the southrons are extending their lines north of the city towards the west,” William said. “If they keep moving, they’ll have us altogether surrounded before long. And then, unless we can break through their lines, they won’t just have Marthasville. They’ll have the Army of Franklin, too.”
That was all too likely to be true. Lieutenant General Bell liked it no better for its truth-liked it less, if anything. He scowled at William, who stared stolidly back. “And what would you recommend, then?” he asked in an icy voice.
“If we can’t hold the city, sir, don’t you think we’d better save the army?” the wing commander said. “We can get away, at need, before Hesmucet finishes his ring around Marthasville. Before, I say, but not afterwards.”
“I can’t abandon the city,” Bell said. “What would King Geoffrey do to me if I lost the city?”
“What would he do to you if you lost the city and the army, too?” Roast-Beef William asked in return.
“I can’t pull out yet,” Bell said. “I’m, uh, conferring with Hesmucet, trying to get him to keep from burning Marthasville with the civilians still in it.”
“Are you?” William raised a bushy eyebrow. “I hadn’t supposed you cared much about the civilians hereabouts.”
Till Jim the Ball and Jim of the Crew came to him, Bell hadn’t cared much about the local civilians. But, with such indignation as he could muster, he said, “Of course I do. If it weren’t for civilians, King Geoffrey wouldn’t have a kingdom, now would he?”
“Of course not,” Roast-Beef William replied. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, sir, only that you surprised me. Do you think there’s any chance Hesmucet will listen to you?”
“I don’t know,” Bell said. “But he will look like the villain he is if he doesn’t, so there may be some hope for it.”
“Well, there may be something to that,” William said. “By the Lion God’s twitching tail tuft, I hope there is-for the folk of Marthasville, if for no other reason.”
Bell bristled. He knew what that had to mean. “You don’t believe we can hold this city,” he said in accusing tones.
“I wish we could,” the wing commander said. “Think so? No. In my view, as I told you, our choice is between losing the city and losing t
he city and the army-this in spite of anything Hesmucet may say or do in aid of your letter. It may buy us a few days’ time, which is all to the good, but it will do no more.”
“Joseph the Gamecock was dismissed from command of this army for voicing opinions less gloomy than those,” Bell growled.
“Joseph had less reason for pessimism, for he had more men with whom to work,” Roast-Beef William replied. He tipped his hat. “Good day, sir.” Only after the older man was gone did Bell realize he’d been given the glove. Cursing, he yanked out his bottle of laudanum and took a long swig. After a little while, he felt better.
* * *
General Hesmucet swung his head from Jim the Ball to Jim of the Crew and back again. Jim the Ball fascinated him; he didn’t think he’d ever seen a fatter man. The two merchants from Marthasville nervously looked back. “Yes, you can give me Bell’s letter,” he said. “I do respect a flag of truce, gentlemen-I won’t eat you.” And if I did decide to order the two of you butchered, Jim the Ball could subsist my whole army for a couple of weeks.
Jim of the Crew, as it happened, had the letter. He handed it to Hesmucet. “Here you are, sir.”
“Thank you kindly.” Hesmucet unsealed the letter and flattened it out in his hands. “Ah, good,” he said. “Lieutenant General Bell writes in a tolerably large script. I won’t have to fish out my spectacles to read this, no indeed. People seem to write smaller every gods-damned year, but not today.”
He went through the letter in a hurry, then rolled it up again and set it on the light folding table he was using for a desk. “Is-is there-a reply, sir?” Jim the Ball asked, his speech oddly punctuated by breaths.
“Yes, there is, but I’ll give it in writing: properly, it goes to Bell himself, and not to either of you,” Hesmucet answered. “I’m going to send you to refresh yourselves while I draft it, if you don’t mind.” Jim of the Crew simply nodded. Jim the Ball looked eager. Hesmucet shook his head. The one who needs refreshments least wants them most. Isn’t that the way of the world?
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