Sentry Peak (4 page)

Now the struggle in Parthenia seemed stalemated. However much mead the southron commander swilled, he’d beaten back Edward of Arlington’s invasion of the south and followed him into Geoffrey’s territory when he had to retreat. Neither army, at the moment, was up to doing much.

Which meant . . . Earl James studied the map pinned down to the folding table in his silk pavilion. He rumbled something down deep in his chest. His beard and soup-strainer mustache so muffled it, even he couldn’t make out the words. That might have been just as well.

He shook his head. He knew better. And what he knew had to be said, however unpalatable it might prove when it came out in the open.

Muttering still, he left the tent and stepped out into the full muggy heat of late summer in Parthenia. He’d known worse—he’d been born farther north, in Palmetto Province—but that didn’t mean he enjoyed this. No one of his build could possibly enjoy summer in Parthenia.

The sentries in front of Duke Edward’s pavilion (rather plainer than James’; Edward cared little about comfort, while the Earl of Broadpath relished it) stiffened into upright immobility when they saw James drawing near. Returning their salutes, he asked, “Is the duke in?”

“Yes, your Excellency,” they chorused. One ducked into the pavilion. He returned a moment later, followed by Duke Edward.

James came to attention and tried to make his chest stick out farther than his belly—a losing effort. Saluting, he said, “Good evening, sir.”

“And a good evening to you as well, your Excellency,” Edward of Arlington replied. In his youth, he was said to have been the handsomest man in Detina. These days, his neat white beard proved him nearer sixty than fifty, but he remained a striking figure: tall and straight and, unlike Earl James of Broadpath, slim. “What can I do for you today?”

“Your Grace, I’ve been looking at the map,” James said.

Duke Edward nodded. “Always a commendable exercise.” Back in the days before war broke Detina in two, he’d headed the officers’ collegium at Annasville for a time. Even before then, he’d been known as a soldier who fought with his head as well as his heart. Now he went on, “Perhaps you’ll come in with me and show me what you’ve seen.”

“Thank you, sir. I was hoping to do just that,” James said. Duke Edward held the tentflap wide for him with his own hands—till one of the sentries, scandalized that he should do such menial service, took the cloth from him. Grunting a little, James bent at what had been his waist and ducked his way into the pavilion.

A couple of rock-oil lamps burned within, one by Edward’s table, the other next to his iron-framed camp bed. The stink of the oil made James’ nostrils twitch. The sight of the camp bed made him wince. He wouldn’t have cared to try to sleep in anything so . . . uncompromising. Not for the first time, Duke Edward put him in mind of a military saint: not a common breed in Detinan history. James, never modest about his own achievements, reckoned himself a pretty fair soldier, but he was willing to admit sainthood beyond him.

Putting on a pair of gold-framed spectacles, Edward said, “And what have you seen, your Excellency? I presume it pertains to our army?”

“Well, no, sir, or not directly,” Earl James answered, and his superior raised a curious eyebrow, inviting him to continue. He did: “I don’t expect we’ll be doing much fighting here in southern Parthenia for the rest of this campaigning season.”

“That has something to do with what the mead-swiller who commands Avram’s army has in mind,” Edward observed, “but, on the whole, I believe you are likely to prove correct. What of it?”

“We’re hard pressed in the east, your Grace,” James said. “By all reports, Count Thraxton will have to fall back from Rising Rock, and that’s a heavy loss. We’ve already lost Wesleyton, and Ramblerton and Luxor fell early in the war. Without any toehold at all in the province of Franklin, how can we hope to win?”

“Sometimes the gods give us difficulties to see how we surmount them,” Duke Edward said.

As far as James was concerned, that was more pious than helpful. He said, “By himself, I don’t see how Thraxton
can
surmount this difficulty. He hasn’t got enough men to hope to beat General Guildenstern. Who was it who said the gods love the big battalions? Some foreigner or other.”

“A gloomy maxim, and one we have done our best to disprove here in Parthenia—but, I fear, one with some truth in it even so,” the duke said. “Do you have in mind some way to get around it?”

“I hope so, sir,” James replied. “If you could send my army and me to the east, we would be enough to bring Count Thraxton up close to even in numbers with the accursed southrons. If we match them in numbers, we can beat them on the battlefield.” He spoke with great conviction.

Duke Edward frowned—and, in frowning, did indeed look a great deal like a sorrowing saint. “I should hate to weaken the Army of Southern Parthenia to the extent you suggest. If that mead-swiller should bestir himself, we’d be hard pressed to stand against him.”

“I do understand that, your Grace,” James of Broadpath persisted. “But he seems content to stay where he is for the time being, while Guildenstern presses Thraxton hard. If he weren’t pressing the Braggart hard, our army wouldn’t have to pull out of Rising Rock.”

Edward of Arlington’s frown deepened. Maybe he didn’t care to hear Count Thraxton’s nickname spoken openly. Or maybe, and perhaps more likely, he just wasn’t used to anyone presuming to disagree with him. King Geoffrey was admired in the northern realm. Duke Edward was admired, loved, almost worshiped. Had he wanted the crown, he could have had it. He’d never shown the least interest. Even Geoffrey, who mistrusted his own shadow, trusted Edward.

Earl James trusted Edward, too. But he didn’t believe Edward was always right. Usually—no doubt of that. But not always.

“Holding our army between the southrons and Nonesuch is the most important thing we can do,” Edward said.

Most of the duke’s subordinates would have given up in the face of such a flat statement. James, perhaps, had a larger notion of his own self-worth. Or perhaps he’d simply spent too long brooding over the maps in his own pavilion. He stuck out his chins and said, “Your Grace, we can lose the war here in Parthenia, yes. But we can also lose it in the east. If Franklin falls, if the southrons flood through the gaps in the mountains and storm up through Peachtree Province toward Marthasville—well, how do we go on with them in our heartland?”

“Surely Count Thraxton’s men and his magecraft may be relied upon to prevent any such disaster,” Duke Edward said stiffly.

“If Count Thraxton were as fine a soldier as the king thinks he is, if he were as fine a wizard as
he
thinks he is, he wouldn’t be falling back into Peachtree Province now,” James replied. “He’d have Guildenstern on the run instead.”

One of Edward’s gray eyebrows rose again. “It would appear you are determined to do this thing, your Excellency.”

“I am, your Grace,” James said.

“You do realize that, even if you were sent to the east, you would serve under Count Thraxton, he being of higher rank than you,” Edward said.

You would serve under the man you’ve just called a blunderer
, was what he meant, though he was too gracious to say any such thing. James of Broadpath sighed. “The good of the kingdom comes first,” he declared. “It is my duty” —
my accursed, unpleasant duty
— “to serve its needs before mine.”

And there, for the first time in the conversation, he touched a chord with Duke Edward, who bowed to him and said, “Duty is the sublimest word in Detinan. You cannot do more than your duty. Prepare a memorial proposing this move, and I shall submit it to his Majesty with the recommendation that it be approved.”

“Thank you, your Grace,” James replied, bowing in return. He wondered why he was thanking the duke. Serving under Edward was sometimes humbling but more often a pleasure and always an education. Serving under Thraxton, by everything James had heard, was an invitation to an apoplexy. Hesitantly, he said, “Tell me it isn’t true, sir, that Count Thraxton once picked a quarrel with himself.”

“I believe that, as regimental quartermaster, he refused to issue himself something to which, as company commander, he believed himself entitled,” Edward said—which meant it
was
true.

James grimaced. “I wish the king would have found someone, anyone, else to command our armies in the east. Thraxton . . . is not a lucky man.”

“He is the man we have,” Duke Edward replied. “As I told you, he is the man under whom you will serve if your army fares east. Bear that in mind, your Excellency. Also bear in mind that, from all reports, Count Thraxton requires prompt, unquestioning obedience from those under his command.”

“I understand, your Grace,” James said. Unquestioning obedience didn’t come easy to him. The duke had to know as much; James had never been afraid to tell him he was wrong when he believed that to be so. And James had been right a couple of times, too. If the charge hadn’t gone up that hill by Essoville in the face of massed stone- and dart-throwers and whole brigades of crossbowmen sheltered behind stone walls . . . It had been grand. It had been glorious. It had also been a gruesome disaster. James had warned it would be. Duke Edward had thought one more push would carry the day against the southrons. If it had . . . But it hadn’t.

To his credit, the duke had never shown the least resentment against James for proving himself correct. “Do always bear in mind,” Edward said now, “that Thraxton will do as he will do, and that he makes all the vital decisions for his army himself.” He was still driving home that same point.

“Rest assured, sir, I shall never forget it,” James of Broadpath replied. “But I also know that we here in the west have learned more about how to fight a war than they know in the east. Let me get my men there and I will show Count Thraxton and everyone else how it’s done.” He bowed to Duke Edward. “After all, I’ve studied under the finest schoolmaster.”

Courteous and modest as always, Edward murmured, “You do me too much honor, your Excellency,” while returning the bow. He went on, “As I told you, I shall forward your request to King Geoffrey with my favorable endorsement. I do not promise that that will guarantee his approval, of course.”

“Of course,” James said. Even more than Count Thraxton, King Geoffrey was a law unto himself. Maybe that was why he left Thraxton in command in the east: one kindred spirit recognizing another.

“Even so, however,” Duke Edward continued, “you might do well to keep your men ready to move to a glideway at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes,
sir
!” James said. The duke bowed again, this time in dismissal. More pleased with himself than he’d expected to be, Earl James left his commander’s pavilion.

On the way back to his own, he met Brigadier Bell, who commanded a division of his army. With his flowing beard and fierce, proud features, Bell had been called the Lion God enfleshed. These days, he looked more like a suffering god; he’d had his left arm smashed and ruined two days before the charge up that ill-omened hill by Essoville. The wound still tormented him. The shrunken pupils of his eyes showed how much laudanum he used to hold the pain at bay.

“Will we go, your Excellency?” he asked James. Wounded or not, drugged or not, he was always ready—always eager—to go toward battle.

“Duke Edward will endorse the proposal and pass it on to the king,” James said. “The decision is Geoffrey’s, but the duke thinks he will approve.” Bell whooped. James asked him, “General,
can
you fight?”

“I can’t hold a shield, but what of it?” Bell replied gaily. “So long as I am smiting the foe, the foe can’t very well smite me.”

“Stout fellow,” James of Broadpath said. He made as if to pat Bell on the shoulder, but arrested the motion, not wanting to cause the man more pain. Bell was like a falcon: take the hood off him at the right time, fly him at the enemy, and he’d always come back with blood on his claws.
And if King Geoffrey uses me as I use Bell . . . well, fair enough
, James thought.
It is the duty I owe the kingdom
. A moment later, he had another thought:
Duke Edward would approve
.

*   *   *

Ned of the Forest preferred camping out with his unicorn-riders to going into Rising Rock to sup with Count Thraxton. Ned had nothing in particular against Rising Rock, or against any other town. He’d served on the burghers’ council in Luxor before Avram became king, and he liked the luxuries only town living afforded. But supping with Thraxton was another business altogether.

“You ever go to a dinner where you wished you had yourself a taster on account of you wonder if the fellow who invited you put something nasty in the food?” he asked one of his regimental commanders.

To his surprise, Colonel Biffle nodded. “Happened once, sir. The fellow who invited me was afraid one of the other gents there was too friendly with his wife. If he’d wanted to poison him, he might’ve botched things and poisoned some other folks, too—me, for instance.” Ned had trouble imagining anyone wanting to poison Biffle, who was as good-natured a man as had ever been born.

Thraxton, on the other hand . . . “The serf who nursed our army commander, Colonel, must’ve been a wench with sour milk.”

Biffle laughed, a big, comfortable laugh from a big, comfortable man. “I expect you can handle him, Brigadier,” he said. He was a viscount and Ned a man of no birth, but he deferred to the commander of unicorns as if it were the other way round. Most men did.

But Ned’s shrug was anything but satisfied. “I shouldn’t have to try and
handle
him, Colonel,” he said. “Guildenstern and the gods-accursed southrons should be the ones who have to
handle
him. I tell you, I spoke frankly to him this evening, and I’d take oath he tried to magic me afterwards.”

At that, Colonel Biffle’s round, pleasant face did take on a look of alarm. “Are you sure you’re hale, sir? Whatever else you may say about him, Thraxton’s a formidable wizard.”

“Not formidable enough,” Ned answered. “Miserable old he-witch has had a whole pile of chances to kick Avram’s men right in the slats. Has he done it? I’ll tell you what he’s done—we’re going to have to clear out of Rising Rock, on account of he didn’t see Guildenstern coming till he was almost here.”