“He’s not a bad sergeant,” Rollant said.

“There are worse,” Smitty allowed. “But there are better ones, too. Some of those bastards only want to sit around and get fat, and they don’t make their men work any harder than they do themselves.”

“I think you’re dreaming,” Rollant told him. “Serfs still tell the story of a kingdom out in the east someplace, where the blonds rule everything and they make the Detinans grow things and make things for them. It isn’t real. I think most of the blonds who tell the story know it isn’t real. But they tell it anyway, because it makes them feel good.”

“Turning the tables, eh?” Smitty said, and Rollant nodded. Smitty pointed. “Who’s the fancy new tent for? That wasn’t here last night.”

“Captain Cephas wasn’t here last night, either-he was back in Rising Rock,” Rollant pointed out, adding, “And you people say blonds are dumb.”

Smitty thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand, as if to proclaim himself an idiot to the world at large. “Got to keep the captain feeling good,” he said.

Someone came out of the fancy tent: Corliss, Hagen’s wife. She looked as if someone-presumably Captain Cephas-had just made her feel good; Rollant had seen that slightly slack smile on his own wife’s face too many times after they made love to mistake it on another woman’s.

Corliss hurried away, back toward her own, smaller, tent. Smitty pursed his lips to whistle, but no sound came out. That might have been just as well. He turned toward Rollant. “She’s not trying to hide it, is she?”

“No.” Rollant felt… He didn’t know what he felt. How many blond women had had to lie down with Detinans since the invaders came over the Western Ocean? How many half-breed serfs remained tied to their noble fathers’ lands? More than any man, blond or dark, could easily reckon.

He didn’t think Cephas had forced himself on Corliss. He had no reason to think that. By all the signs, she’d been as eager as the officer. That should have made a difference. It did-and yet, it didn’t. What Rollant knew to be true had very little to do with what he felt.

As he had before, he said, “There’s going to be trouble.”

This time, Smitty picked his words with a little more care: “You worry too much, I think.”

“Well, let’s hope you’re right,” Rollant answered, which didn’t mean he agreed with the other soldier. He wished he knew what to do. He wished he thought anyone could do anything.

X

“Are we ready?” Lieutenant General Hesmucet demanded. General Bart shook his head. “Not quite yet,” he answered.

“What in the hells are we waiting for, then?” Hesmucet asked. “I’m here. Fighting Joseph is here. We’ve got unicorn-riders here all the way from Georgetown. What more do we need, sir? A fancy invitation from Thraxton the Braggart?” He was a hot-tempered man, and wanted nothing more than the chance to close with the traitors and beat them.

But Bart shook his head. “We’re still light on rations. Harvest is done, and there’s no foraging to speak of. I don’t want to move without being sure we won’t bog down because we’re too hungry to go forward.”

“Oh, very well,” Hesmucet said testily. “How long do you think we’ll need to build up the stores you want?”

“A couple of weeks more, unless Thraxton the Braggart pulls a sorcerous rabbit out of his hat,” Bart replied. “And I want to keep an eye on what’s happening off to the southwest. I may have to send out a detachment to help Whiskery Ambrose against Earl James. I hope I don’t, but you never can tell.” He sighed.

“Something wrong, sir?” Hesmucet asked. A sigh from General Bart often had more weight than a tantrum from a man with a spikier disposition.

“Only that I’d really rather not be fighting James,” the commanding general answered. “Back in the old army, back in the days when there was just one army, we were the best of friends.”

“That sort of thing will happen in a civil war, sir,” Hesmucet said. “I have plenty of friends among the traitors, too. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to lick them.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t want to lick them, either, as you ought to know by now,” Bart said-a sharper comeback than he usually made. “It only means I wish I didn’t have to fight James. That’s all I said, and that’s all I meant.”

“Yes, sir,” Hesmucet replied, accepting the rebuke.

Bart chuckled. “I know you’re not a reporter or anyone else who claims he can read minds.”

“Ha!” Hesmucet’s answered smile was savage. “That would be funny, if only you were joking. You read what people have to say in the papers, they know what you’ll be up to six months from now.”

“Oh, I read them all the time,” Bart said. “I read them-I just make sure I don’t believe them.”

Hesmucet laughed out loud. Bart had a deadpan way of being funny he’d never met in another man. Here, though, the commanding general gave him a quizzical stare. He might have been funny, but he didn’t seem to have intended to. Hesmucet said, “When we do move, we’ll whip ’em.”

“That’s the idea,” Bart agreed. “Not much point to moving unless you move intending to whip the other fellow and then keep after him. I don’t know why so many generals have trouble with that notion, but they seem to.”

He made it sound so simple. When he fought, he made it look simple, too. Maybe it was, to him. Hesmucet felt the same way, and also tried to fight the same way. Bart was right: a lot of officers on both sides either wouldn’t move at all or moved for the sake of moving. And when they fought…

“If Thraxton had known what to do next after he beat Guildenstern by the River of Death, this army would have been in a lot more trouble than it was,” Hesmucet said.

“Well, I can’t tell you you’re wrong, because I think you’re right,” General Bart said. “When you’ve got somebody in trouble, you’d better go after him immediately.” He pronounced the word immejetly; aside from an eastern twang, it was one of the very few quirks his speech had. He nodded, as if to emphasize the point to Hesmucet. “If you don’t go after him, he’ll come after you sooner than you’d like.”

“That’s the truth,” Hesmucet said. “That’s the gods’ truth, and we’re going to prove it to the Braggart. And now, if you excuse me, I aim to make sure we’re good and ready to do just that.”

“Good.” Bart waved a hand in genial dismissal.

For the rest of the day, Hesmucet prowled through the force he’d brought west from along the Great River. He made sure the men had plenty of food and the unicorns and asses plenty of fodder. Considering the state Rising Rock had been in before the supply line back to Ramblerton opened up, victuals were his most urgent concern. As he’d expected and hoped, everything there was as it should have been.

But he didn’t stop with smoked meat and hard biscuits and hay. He spent a lot of time with the armorers, checking to be certain his men had enough crossbow bolts to fight a battle, and that the siege engines had more than enough darts and firepots.

“We’ll be fine, sir,” an armorer assured him. “Don’t you worry about a thing-we’ll be just fine.”

“If I didn’t worry, we might not be fine,” Hesmucet answered, which left the armorer scratching his head in bemusement.

And Hesmucet conferred with his mages. He knew from experience that magecraft got short shrift in most southron armies, sometimes including his own. The south was a land where artificers earned more respect than wizards, and a good many southron generals reckoned that having enough munitions would get them through almost any fight. Sometimes they were right. But sometimes they were wrong-and when they were wrong, they were disastrously wrong.

Hesmucet was not that sort of southron general. Maybe that was because he’d spent some time teaching at a northern military collegium, and seen how important sorcery was to the serf-keeping nobility of the north. If the traitors used it as an effective weapon of war-and they did, over and over again-he was cursed if he wouldn’t do the same.