After pulling off his boots, John the Lister lay down on his iron-framed cot. He had a brigadier’s privileges; a captain would have slept wrapped in a blanket or on bare ground, like a common soldier. The cot wasn’t very comfortable, either, but it was better than bare ground.
As usual, John woke before dawn. He got out of bed and put his boots back on. That done, he scratched. Back in Ramblerton, he’d been able to bathe as often as he wanted to-even a couple of times a week if he was so inclined. He usually wasn’t that fussy, though some of the more fastidious officers were. Out in the field, though, and especially when the weather wasn’t warm… He shook his head. Some things were more trouble than they were worth.
When he came out of the pavilion, a couple of blond servants carried its light furnishings to a wagon, then took down the big tent itself and packed it on top of the cot and chair and folding table. “Thanks, boys,” John said. They both nodded. John had to remind himself they weren’t serfs. They worked for wages, just as a proper Detinan might find himself doing.
They probably think they are proper Detinans. John the Lister muttered under his breath. He didn’t necessarily share that opinion. But he was sure Grand Duke Geoffrey had no business tearing the kingdom to pieces. That put him on King Avram’s side, no matter what he thought about blonds and whether or not they were as good as Detinans whose ancestors had crossed the Western Ocean.
John watched the encampment come to life around him. Here and there, blonds cooked for soldiers and helped them knock down their tents. Most of those men and women were runaway serfs. They got wages these days, too. That they had fled their liege lords said they wanted to be free, even if they didn’t always quite know how.
As John went over to get in line for breakfast, he plucked thoughtfully at his long, square-cut beard. Wanting to be free was what marked Detinans. Maybe some of those blonds had what it took after all.
“Here’s Ducky!” Again, the nickname ran ahead of the general commanding. John pretended he didn’t hear. He took his place in a line, got a bowl of mush with bits of salt beef chopped into it, and had a blond cook’s assistant pour boiling water into the tin mug he held out. Like a lot of soldiers, he doubted he was a human being till he’d had his first mug of tea, or sometimes his second.
When he came back from breakfast, Major Strabo saluted, saying, “Greetings and salutations, sir.”
“Hello.” John politely returned the salute. Unlike his adjutant-perhaps in reaction to his adjutant-he kept his own speech simple.
Walleyed Strabo looked past him to the left and right. “Now we fare forth to find and flummox the fearsome foe.”
“You should have been born a bard, Major,” John said. “There are times when you sound like the singers who told the tale of our ancestors and how they conquered the blonds’ kingdoms they found in this new land.”
“You do me honor by the comparison, sir.” Again, Strabo looked around John rather than at him.
Mounts gleaming whitely, unicorn-riders went north ahead of John’s main force. General Guildenstern’s disaster had taught southron officers one lesson, anyhow: to make sure they didn’t get taken by surprise the way he had. John the Lister didn’t expect trouble from Lieutenant General Bell. He didn’t expect it, but he wanted to be ready for it if it happened. Better to take precautions without need than to need them without taking them.
These days, General Guildenstern fought blond savages out on the steppe. His ignominious departure from the scene of the important action was no doubt intended as a warning to others who made mistakes in battle against the traitors. John the Lister’s shiver had nothing to do with the chilly weather. He knew any man could make mistakes-even the gods made mistakes.
On the other hand, things might have gone worse for Guildenstern. John considered the fate of Brinton the Bold, who’d led King Avram’s army in the west for most of the first two years of the war. Brinton was handsome and brave, and had won a couple of small victories not long after the fighting started. But he moved with the speed of a tortoise, and his nickname soon seemed an ironic joke. Avram had asked, not altogether in jest, if he could borrow the army himself, since Brinton didn’t seem to be using it. These days, Brinton was a soldier no more. He went around the south making speeches that fell just short of treasonous, declaring that he would do a better job with a crown on his head than Avram could. If Detina hadn’t had a long tradition of letting any freeman say whatever he pleased as long as he didn’t harm anybody, Brinton’s body probably would have hung from a cross near the Black Palace as a warning to others.
As things were, the former general was merely an embarrassment to the army he’d left and to most of the people who listened to him. He had a hard core of supporters, but John doubted they’d ever come to much.
In any case, a soldier who remained a soldier had no business worrying about politics. John listened to the tramp of thousands of booted feet. That sound filled up the background of his days in the saddle. It got mixed in with the sound of his own blood flowing through his veins, so that it almost seemed a part of him. When the men fell out for a rest break, as they did every so often, he missed it.
At sunset, he chose a low swell of ground to make camp. “What’s the name of this place?” he asked Major Strabo.
“This, sir, is Summer Mountain,” his adjutant said after checking a map.
John the Lister snorted. “Mountain?” he said. “This isn’t even a pimple next to the Stonies, out past the steppes to the east. Even here, it’s hardly a hill.”
“It’s anything but insurmountable,” Strabo agreed. “But Summer Mountain the map calls it, and Summer Mountain it shall be forevermore.”
“Miserable excuse for a mountain,” John grumbled. “It’s not summer any more, either.”
The unicorn-rider came galloping back toward Ned of the Forest. “Lord Ned!” he shouted. “Lord Ned!”
Ned was no lord, but he didn’t mind being called one. No, he didn’t mind at all. “What did you see, Ben?” he asked. “You must’ve seen something, to be yelling like that.”
“Sure did, Lord Ned,” the rider named Ben said. “The stinking southrons are camped on Summer Mountain, only a couple of hours’ ride from where we’re at.”
“Are they?” A sudden feral glow kindled in Ned’s eyes. “How many of ’em? Doubting George’s whole army?”
“No, sir,” Ben answered. “I don’t even reckon they’ve got as many men as we do.”
“Is that a fact?” Ned murmured. The unicorn-rider nodded. “Well, well,” Ned said. “In that case, something ought to happen to ’em. You’re sure about what you saw, now?”
“Sure as I’m on my unicorn’s back,” Ben said. “I’d take oath by the Lion God’s mane.”
“They aren’t trying to set up an ambush, or anything like that?”
“No, sir. Nothing like that at all,” Ben said. “They were just making camp, like they’d gone as far as they figured on going today and they were setting up for the night.”
“Something really ought to happen to them, then,” Ned said. “You come along with me, Ben. We’re going to have us a little talk with Lieutenant General Bell.”
“You reckon he’ll pay attention to the likes of me?” the unicorn-rider asked.
“He’ll pay attention, by the gods,” Ned said softly. “If he doesn’t pay attention to you, he’ll have to pay attention to me.” He smiled a thoroughly grim smile. He’d met few men who cared to stand up under the full storm of his anger.
He and Ben rode back toward Bell, who traveled with the pikemen and crossbowmen of the Army of Franklin. When he saw Bell on a unicorn, he sighed. The commanding general hadn’t had an easy time of it. Ned had often wondered about Bell’s common sense. No one could doubt the leonine officer’s courage. Bell’s adjutant had had to tie him into the saddle. The stump of his left leg was too short to give him a proper grip on the unicorn’s barrel.