“You see, your Grace?” James of Broadpath said with what Thraxton reckoned altogether too much pleasure. “Not even Ned of the Forest supports your view that delay will serve here.”

“Whether Ned of the Forest approves of what I do is, I assure you, your Excellency, not of the least importance to me,” Thraxton said. “In my view, the man is ignorant, and does not know anything of cooperation. He is nothing more than a good raider.”

“Sir, whether you fancy Ned or not, he’s quite a bit more than a raider,” Dan of Rabbit Hill said. “You weren’t up on Merkle’s Hill with me, the first day of the fight. His riders were holding back Doubting George’s southrons as well as any footsoldiers could have done. I told him so, in plain Detinan, because I’ve not seen many cavalry outfits that could have done the same.”

Count Thraxton folded thin arms across his narrow chest and fixed Dan with his most forbidding stare. “I have never questioned his courage, your Excellency. I have questioned, and do continue to question, his wisdom and his military judgment. Merely because he believes something is no reason to proclaim that the Thunderer’s lightning bolt has carved his opinion deep into stone.”

Leonidas the Priest cleared his throat. “It would appear to me, your Grace, that you were willing enough to use Ned of the Forest’s opinion as a touchstone when it marched with your own.”

“When I want your opinion, you may rest assured that I shall ask for it,” Thraxton growled. His own opinion was that the hierophant was a dawdling, prayer-mumbling blockhead. He didn’t try very hard to keep Leonidas from seeing that that was his opinion, either.

Earl James said, “How does it harm you, how does it harm the army, to order a proper pursuit?”

“I have ordered a proper pursuit,” Thraxton said. “We shall follow on General Guildenstern’s heels as soon as the army recovers to the point where it may safely do so. And I remain convinced that, when we approach Rising Rock, the southrons shall be compelled to evacuate it and ignominiously retreat.”

“Your Grace, I don’t want those sons of bitches to retreat,” James said. “Even if they do, they’ll just come back and hit us again some other day. I want to kill them or take them prisoner. Then we won’t have to worry about them any more. We need to get between them and Ramblerton and drive them to destruction. That’s my view, and I still hold it.”

“I am pleased to hear your view.” Thraxton’s tone suggested he was about as pleased as he would have been at an outbreak of cholera. “I must remind you, however, that King Geoffrey has entrusted command of this army to me. I needs must lead it as I reckon best.”

“Even when your view is dead against that of every general serving under you?” James of Broadpath persisted.

“Even then. Especially then. I do not command this army for the sake of being loved,” Thraxton said.

“I believe it, by the gods!” Baron Dan muttered.

Thraxton filed that away for future vengeance. Aloud, though, he said only, “What I command for is victory. And I have won a victory.”

“So you have,” Earl James said. “You could win a greater one. You could win a victory that would restore King Geoffrey’s hopes here in the east, a victory that would give us a good chance to take Franklin away from the southrons and might even let us get back down into Cloviston. You could do that, your Grace, or you could fritter away what you’ve already won. The choice is yours.”

“I have already made the choice,” Count Thraxton said. “I have made it, and all of you seem intent on evading it. But you shall obey me, or you shall be dismissed from your commands. It is as simple as that, gentlemen.”

James of Broadpath threw his hands in the air. “Now that I’m here, I begin to see how the armies of the east came to be in the straits in which they find themselves. Have it your own way, Count Thraxton. By all the signs, that matters more to you than anything else.”

Thraxton started to tell James just what he thought of him, but the burly officer from the Army of Southern Parthenia paid no attention. He turned on his heel, all but trampling Leonidas the Priest, and stormed out of the headquarters. Baron Dan of Rabbit Hill followed. Leonidas held his place, but his expression was mournful. He said, “I believe you would be wiser to think again on the choice you have made.”

“And I believe you’re a gods-damned old idiot!” Thraxton shrieked, his voice and his temper breaking at the same time. Leonidas bowed stiffly and followed after James and Dan, his red vestments flapping around his ankles. Thraxton shouted again, this time for runners, and began giving the orders he thought right.

As Baron Ormerod trudged south, he could tell that the company he commanded was following in the wake of a beaten army. The wreckage and the stinking, bloated bodies of men and beasts by the sides of the road showed that Guildenstern’s men had worried about nothing but escape as they retreated from the River of Death to Rising Rock. Seeing the southrons in disarray should have left him happier than it did.

He wondered why he was so glum. When he spoke aloud of his worries, Lieutenant Gremio said, “I don’t think that’s very hard to figure out, sir.”

“No, eh?” Ormerod raised an eyebrow. “Suppose you enlighten me, then.”

He’d intended it for sarcasm, but Gremio took him seriously. Trust a barrister, Ormerod thought. But then Gremio said, “You’re unhappy for the same reason I’m unhappy. You’re unhappy for the same reason half the army’s unhappy: you think we ought to be sliding in east of Rising Rock, too.”

And Ormerod, in the face of such obvious, manifest truth, could do nothing but nod. “That’s right, by the gods!” he burst out. “If we can all see it, why in the seven hells can’t Count Thraxton?”

“What Thraxton sees are the holes in our ranks,” Gremio said, and Ormerod nodded again. Major Thersites remained in command of the regiment for the wounded Count Florizel, and, after two days of hard fighting on the slopes of Merkle’s Hill, a much-depleted regiment it was, too. Gremio added, “And, by what I’ve heard, Thraxton thinks the southrons will run right out of Rising Rock if we poke them a little.”

“Gods grant he’s right,” Ormerod said. But, after marching on for a couple of paces, he added, “The southrons don’t much like running. Things’d be a lot easier if they did.”

“I am aware of this,” Gremio said. “I am also aware that we did hurt them badly. I hope that will outweigh the other.”

“It had better.” Ormerod tramped on. “After all we did, after all we went through…”

“I don’t know what we can do but hope,” Gremio said. He trudged along for a while without saying anything more. Ormerod thought he had no more to say. But then he did continue: “It shouldn’t have been like this.”

Ormerod just grunted and kept on going. He’d figured that out for himself. They marched through Rossburgh, which the southrons had abandoned not long before. Some of the people in the little town cheered them. Others jeered: “Why aren’t you getting out ahead of the southrons instead of just following along in back of them like a pack of hounds?”

“You see?” Gremio said. “Even the villagers can see what Count Thraxton can’t.” He shrugged a melodramatic shrug. “Who would do better, though? Not Leonidas the Priest, not unless I miss my guess.”

“No. He’s holy, but…” Ormerod said no more than that. He needed to say no more than that. After a few steps and a longing look at a tavern, he added, “Ned of the Forest might be up to the job.”

“He might be up to it, but he’d never get it,” Gremio said. “He has no birth to speak of. How many noble officers would obey a jumped-up serfcatcher?”