“I thought the very same thing,” Hesmucet said. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Come into the city now,” Bart urged. “I’ll show you the enemy’s dispositions north and west of here, and we can start planning how best to strike them.”

“Nothing I’d like better, sir,” Hesmucet said. “Is it true that Ned of the Forest isn’t leading the traitors’ unicorn-riders any more? I heard that, and I believed it because I wanted it so much, but is it so?”

Bart nodded. “It is. Thraxton, you know, will quarrel with anyone.”

“That he will,” Hesmucet said. “I’m not sorry he quarreled with Ned. I don’t know where Ned’s gone-”

“Off toward the Great River, I hear, while you were coming this way,” Bart told him.

“Is that a fact?” Hesmucet said. “Well, our unicorn-riders over there can try to get rid of him. I don’t think we’ll ever have peace in Franklin or Cloviston till Ned of the Forest is dead. But to the hells with me if I’m sorry we won’t be facing him here. He’d make bringing supplies into Rising Rock a much tougher job than it is now, and you can’t tell me any different.”

“Nobody ever could tell you any different about anything,” Bart said. “That’s one of the things that makes you a good soldier.”

“I don’t know about that, sir.” Hesmucet plucked at his beard as he pondered. “I have my doubts, in fact. You have to keep your eye on the enemy every minute, or else he’ll make you sorry.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Bart said. “Of course you keep your eye on the enemy. But you do what you want to do; you don’t do what he wants you to do. You always try to make him dance to your tune.” He laughed. “I try to do the same, the only difference being that I can’t recognize my tune even if a band starts playing it right in front of my face.”

“Ah.” Hesmucet ignored the feeble joke, whose like he’d heard before, to bring his wit to bear on the essence of what Bart said. “I think you’re right. That’s the way you’ve run your campaigns-I know that for a fact.”

“All but once, when Ned got into my rear as I was coming north along the Great River,” Bart said. “Ned fights the same way, and when he hits a supply line, it stays hit, by the gods. I had to pull back. It was that or starve.”

“But you went north again later, after Ned rode off somewhere else,” Hesmucet said. “Ned left. You stayed. And you won: King Avram holds every inch of the Great River these days, and what Geoffrey wanted to be his realm is torn in half.”

“If you keep moving forward, if you make the foe respond to you, good things are pretty likely to happen,” Bart said. “And if you keep your army together. General Guildenstern is a brave officer-no one ever said differently-but he split his in three pieces, and he’s lucky worse didn’t happen to it. I make plenty of mistakes, but I won’t make that one.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would, sir,” Hesmucet said. “You haven’t made many mistakes, not that I’ve seen.” From many men, that would have been flattery. He made it a simple statement of fact, and wouldn’t have said it if he hadn’t believed it.

“Thank you kindly,” Bart told him. “Now would you care to ride into Rising Rock with me?”

“I would indeed,” Hesmucet said, and into the town they rode without the least concern for whose rank was higher than whose.

Count Thraxton was not a happy man. Count Thraxton rarely was a happy man, but he found even more reasons for gloom than usual when he peered east from Proselytizers’ Rise toward Rising Rock. Oh, on the surface things looked good enough. King Geoffrey had sustained him in his command. He’d got rid of the officers who’d libeled him to the king. Everyone who led men under him was either loyal to him or knew how to keep his mouth shut in public.

And yet… He knew the grumbling went on. He didn’t need any great skill in magecraft to understand that. His officer corps might be cowed, but it was not satisfied. The only thing that would satisfy his officers was marching into Rising Rock. And how was he supposed to manage that?

You should have done it after we beat the southrons by the River of Death. He could still hear his officers bleating like so many sheep. He looked up into the heavens, toward the mystical mountain beyond the sky where the gods lived. “You tell me, Thunderer; you tell me, Lion God: how was I supposed to make my army move fast when the enemy had just shot one man in four?” he said. A sentry gave him a curious look. His glare sent the man back to dutiful impassivity in a hurry. If it hadn’t, Thraxton would have done a great deal more than just glare.

The gods didn’t answer him. They never did. That might have been one of the reasons he was always so melancholy, so bad-tempered. The gods speak to an idiot like Leonidas the Priest. He says so, and I believe him. But they will not speak to me, not face to face. What does that say about Leonidas? What does it say about me? Even more to the point, what does it say about the gods?

A messenger came up to Thraxton. “Excuse me, your Grace,” the fellow said. “I have here Earl James of Broadpath’s report on the failed attack against the southrons by the Brownsville Ferry a few days past.” He held out a couple of sheets of closely written paper.

“Thank you so much,” Thraxton said, accepting the papers with a sour sneer. “I shall be fascinated to learn how the brilliant Earl James, schooled under the even more brilliant Duke Edward, explains away the ineptitude that kept him from success.”

“Er-yes, sir,” the messenger said, and left in a hurry.

Thraxton needed hardly more than a glance at the report to see how James exculpated himself: partly by blaming Leonidas the Priest, and partly by complaining he hadn’t had enough men to do the job Thraxton had set him. Thraxton’s sneer grew wider. You don’t think it’s so easy when you’re in command, do you? But you expected the sun and moon from me.

All at once, his revulsion against James swelled to the point where it was more than he could stand. He shouted for a messenger. The one who came running looked suitably apprehensive. “Let the illustrious James of Broadpath know I require his presence at his earliest convenience,” Thraxton said.

“Yes, sir.” The runner trotted off to do Thraxton’s bidding, obeying without fuss or back talk. If only the rest of the Army of Franklin would do the same.

James of Broadpath came, but in his own sweet time. It was a couple of hours before he guided his big, ungainly unicorn up to Count Thraxton’s headquarters. When he slid down-to the poor beast’s obvious relief-he saluted and said, “Reporting as ordered, sir.”

“So you are,” Thraxton said. “Good of you to do so-at last.” James glowered, but could only glower. Thraxton went on, “I have a new task in mind for your wing, your Excellency.” One that will get you out of my hair for some time to come.

“Sir?” James of Broadpath said.

He was giving Count Thraxton as little as he could; Thraxton saw that at once. Go ahead, James, wriggle on the hook as much as you care to. It will do you no good. “As I said, I have something special for you, your Excellency, and for the soldiers you brought here from the magnificent Army of Southern Parthenia.”

By the way he said it, he reckoned that army something less than magnificent. James heard that, but could only frown as he replied, “I shall endeavor to do anything you may require of me, your Grace.”

“So you showed by the Brownsville Ferry,” Thraxton said, for the pleasure of watching James scowl and fume. “What I have in mind this time, however, is a more nearly independent command for you.”

“Ah?” James of Broadpath said. Thraxton didn’t smile, though another man might have. The fish was nibbling at the hook. After plucking his bushy beard, James went on, “Tell me more.”