He arrived among the unicorn-riders in the foulest of foul tempers. Seeing his visage, Colonel Biffle hurried over to him in some alarm, asking, “Is something wrong, sir?”
“Wrong? You just might say so, Biff. Yes, you just might.” The whole story poured out of Ned, a long howl of fury and frustration.
“He can’t do that,” Biffle blurted when Ned finally finished.
“I told him the same thing, but I was wrong, and so are you,” Ned said. “If he wants to bad enough, he bloody well can. That’s what being a general is all about.” He said something else, too, something his beard and mustache fortunately muffled. After a moment spent recapturing his temper, he went on more audibly: “The one reason I’ll sit still for it at all is that he did promise he’d give me my men back once Spinner was done with them. If it wasn’t for that…” His left hand dropped to the hilt of his saber.
“Whose regiments will you… lend to Brigadier Spinner, sir?” Biffle paused in the middle there to make sure he found and used the right word, the word that would not ignite Ned further.
“I was thinking yours’d be the one I keep for my own self,” Ned replied, and Colonel Biffle preened a little. Ned of the Forest slapped him on the back, hard enough to stagger him. “He’s a pile of unicorn turds, Biff, but there’s not a single stinking thing we can do about it.” He yawned. “Only thing I want to do now is sleep. When I wake up, maybe I’ll find out Thraxton the Braggart was nothing but a bad dream. Too much to hope for, I reckon.” He went into his tent.
When he woke up the next morning, Count Thraxton and what he’d done remained all too vivid in his memory. But, as he’d told Biffle, he couldn’t do anything about the Army of Franklin’s sour commanding general. What he could do was get himself some breakfast; his belly was empty as, as… Empty as Thraxton’s head, he thought happily, and went out to get some food in better spirits.
He was sitting on the ground, eating fried pork and hard rolls and talking things over with Colonel Biffle, when a runner came up, saluted, and said, “Count Thraxton’s compliments, sir, and he asked me to give you this.” He handed Ned a rolled sheet of paper sealed with Thraxton’s seal, saluted again, and hurried off.
“What’s he want now?” Biffle asked.
“Don’t know. Suppose I’d better find out.” Ned broke the wax seal with a grimy thumbnail. He wasn’t fluent with pen in hand, but he had no trouble reading. And Thraxton’s hand, though spidery, was more legible than most. Upon due consideration, he wrote, I have decided that, with a view to the best interests of the Army ofFranklin as a whole, your cavalry regiments shall in fact be permanently transferred to the command of Brigadier Spinner. Trusting this meets with your approval, I remain… He closed with the usual polite, lying phrases.
Ned of the Forest sprang to his feet, rage on his face. So did Colonel Biffle, alarm on his. “What’s wrong, sir?” he asked, as he had so often lately.
“That lying son of a bitch!” Ned ground out. “I’m going to tell him where to go and how to get there, and I may just send him on the trip.” He stormed off toward Thraxton’s headquarters, Biffle in his wake.
An adjutant tried to turn him aside from Count Thraxton. He brushed past the man as if he didn’t exist and roared into the parlor. Thraxton gave him an icy stare. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” he demanded.
Ned of the Forest took a long, deep, angry breath. “I’ll tell you what. You commenced your cowardly and contemptible persecution of me soon after the battle of Pottstown Pier, and you have kept it up ever since. You did it because I reported to Nonesuch facts, while you reported gods-damned lies. You have begun again your work of spite and persecution and kept it up. This is the second formation of unicorn-riders organized and equipped by me without thanks to you or King Geoffrey. These men have won a reputation second to none in the army, but, taking advantage of your position as the commanding general in order to humiliate me, you have taken these brave men from me.”
He thrust his left index finger at Count Thraxton’s face. Thraxton retreated into a corner and sank down onto a stool. Ned pressed after him. “I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a gods-damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life.”
Thraxton said never a word. He sat there, pale and shaking, while Ned kept prodding with that finger. At last, snarling in disgust, Ned turned on his heel and stormed out of the farmhouse. Colonel Biffle followed. Once Biffle was outside, Ned thunderously slammed the door.
As the headed back toward the unicorn-riders’ camp, Biffle remarked, “Well, you are in for it now.”
“You think so?” Ned shook his head to show he didn’t. “He’ll never say a word about it. He’ll be the last man to mention it. Mark my word, he’ll take no action in the matter. I will ask to be relieved and transferred to a different part of the fight, and he will not oppose it.”
“I hope you’re right, sir.” The regimental commander didn’t sound convinced.
“I reckon I am,” Ned said. “And if I chance to be wrong, I’ll kill the mangy son of a bitch and do King Geoffrey a favor.”
“Geoffrey won’t thank you for it,” Colonel Biffle said.
“I know,” Ned answered. “Nobody ever thanks the fellow who kills the polecat or drains the cesspool or does any of the other nasty, smelly jobs that need doing just the same. But I don’t think it’ll come to that.” He sighed. “By the gods, though, Biff, I wish it would.”
VIII
Peering down into Rising Rock from the height of Sentry Peak, Earl James of Broadpath grunted in dissatisfaction. He turned to the officer commanding one of the regiments holding Sentry Peak for King Geoffrey. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Major…?”
“Thersites, sir,” the officer replied. He was an ugly customer, and would probably be dangerous in a fight.
“Major Thersites, yes.” James nodded. “Correct me if I’m wrong, as I say, but doesn’t it look to you as if the stinking southrons are bringing more and more men into Rising Rock?”
“It surely does, your Excellency,” Thersites said. “I’ve been telling that to anybody who’d listen, but nobody cares to listen to the likes of me. If you don’t have blue blood, if you’re from Palmetto Province instead of Parthenia…”
James of Broadpath did have blue blood, but he was from Palmetto Province, too. Sure enough, the Parthenians looked down their noses at everybody else. He said, “Count Thraxton will hear about this. I’ll make sure Thraxton hears about it.” He liked saying I told you so as much as any other man.
“Is it true what they say about Thraxton and Ned?” Major Thersites asked.
“To the seven hells with me if I know,” James answered. He told the truth: neither Ned of the Forest nor the commanding general of the Army of Franklin was saying much about whatever had passed between them. Rumor, though, rumor blew faster and stronger than the wind. But James was not about to gossip with a lowly major he barely knew.
Thersites said, “Anybody wants to know what I think, I wish Ned would’ve cut his liver out and fed it to the Lion God. Maybe then we’d get ourselves a general with some notion of what in the hells he was doing.”
“Maybe,” James said, and said no more. He’d learned his discipline in the stern school of Duke Edward of Arlington. No matter how much he agreed with this regimental commander, he wouldn’t show it. In fact… “If you’ll excuse me…” He bowed and started down the northern slope of Sentry Peak, the less steep slope that faced away from Rising Rock.