Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

Well fortified with laudanum, Bell hitched along on crutches past the guards and into the citadel. King Geoffrey’s throne resembled nothing so much as a gilded dining-room chair. Well, how much does Geoffrey resemble a king? Bell asked himself. But the answer to that formed in his mind at once: more than Avram does, by the Lion God’s fangs!

Had Bell not been mutilated, he would have had to bow low before his sovereign. As things were, he contented himself with a nod and a murmured, “Your Majesty.”

“Lieutenant General,” Geoffrey replied, his voice colder than winter.

Bell waited for the king to order a blond servitor to bring him a chair. The king did no such thing. As Bell stood there, taking weight on his left leg and right crutch, Geoffrey glowered down at him from that cheap-looking throne. That was when the general began to suspect how angry at him the king really was. Bell should have been sure of that from the moment the second day’s fighting in front of Ramblerton went wrong. He should have, but he hadn’t, in spite of General Peegeetee’s warning. After the wounds he’d taken, though, the prospect of facing down a king fazed him not in the least.

“Considering what you did to my kingdom, Lieutenant General, you have gall and to spare, complaining of your treatment at my hands,” Geoffrey said at last.

“You named me commander of the Army of Franklin to fight,” Bell said, “or so I inferred, at any rate. Since the moment I replaced Joseph the Gamecock, that is what I endeavored to do.”

“I named you commander of the Army of Franklin to fight and to win ,” King Geoffrey said. “Instead, you threw your men away, so that the Army of Franklin exists no more. I do not thank you for that, or for misliking the fact that I accepted your resignation the instant you tendered it.”

“I served the north proudly, and the best I knew how,” Bell said. “I faced our foes, and fought them in my own person. The wounds I bear prove it… your Majesty.”

“No one has ever questioned your courage, Lieutenant General,” Geoffrey answered. “Your wisdom and your judgment, on the other hand…”

“You knew what sort of man I was when you placed me in command, or so I must believe,” Bell said. “If you did not expect me to challenge the foe wherever I found him, you should have chosen another.”

“I not only expected you to challenge the enemy, I expected you to destroy his armies,” King Geoffrey said. “I did not expect you to destroy your own.”

“No one can make war without suffering losses. Anyone who thinks he can is a fool,” Bell said. “The enemy had more men, more siege engines, and, in the last fight, more quick-shooting crossbows than we did. He was better fed and better shod. We fought with the greatest of courage. We hurt him badly. In the end, we did not achieve quite the success I would have desired.”

By then, Lieutenant General Bell had considerable practice in making disasters sound palatable. Not quite the success I would have desired seemed bloodless enough, especially if whoever was listening didn’t know what had followed from that so-called incomplete success. King Geoffrey, unfortunately, knew in intimate detail. “Gods help us if you’d been defeated, then!” he exclaimed. “The eastern provinces probably would have fallen right off the map.”

“Your Majesty, I resent the imputation,” Bell said stiffly.

“Lieutenant General, I don’t care,” Geoffrey answered. “I have no army worth the name left between the Green Ridge Mountains and the Great River. Marthasville has fallen. Hesmucet has torn the living heart out of Peachtree Province, as if he were a blond priest sacrificing a bloody goat. Franklin and Cloviston will likely never see my soldiers again. And whom do I have to thank for these accomplishments, which must surely make King Avram grateful? You, Lieutenant General, you and no one else.”

Had Bell won great victories, he would have wanted to share credit with no one else. He was more inclined to be generous about sharing blame. “No one else?” he rumbled. “What about the officers who could not get me grain or shoes or crossbow bolts? What about the officers who could not get me reinforcements when I needed them so desperately? What about the subordinate commanders who let me down again and again? I could not fight the southrons all by myself, though often it seemed I had to try.”

“What good would reinforcements have done you?” King Geoffrey asked poisonously. “You would only have thrown them away along with the rest of your men.”

“I am so very sorry, your Majesty,” Bell said with just as much venom. “You have been such a perfect paragon of leadership, a paladin of proficiency, all through our struggle. If not for your blunders-”

“ You were my worst blunder!” the King screamed. “Next to you, even Joseph the Gamecock looks like a soldier.”

“Next to you, even Avram looks like a king,” Bell retorted, a true measure of how disgusted he was.

They stared at each other in perfect mutual loathing. “You are dismissed,” Geoffrey said in a voice clotted with fury. “Get out of my sight. If you ever come into my sight again, I shall not answer for the consequences.”

“You already have plenty of consequences to answer for,” Bell jeered. “And if you crucify me, how long will you last before Avram crucifies you?”

Geoffrey turned pale, not from fear but from fury. “I am going to win this war,” he insisted. “I shall yet rule a great kingdom.”

“Oh, yes. Indeed, your Majesty. And I am going to win the mile run at the Great Games next year.” Bell cursed his mutilation not because he wouldn’t win that race but because he couldn’t turn and stomp out of King Geoffrey’s throne room. The slow progress he made on crutches wasn’t the same.

He wondered if he’d pushed Geoffrey too far. If the king decided to have him seized and crucified to encourage the others, what could he do about it? Not much was the obvious answer. A one-armed, one-legged swordsman was not an object to strike fear into the hearts of palace guards.

But for the click of Bell’s crutch tips on the stone floor and the thump of his shoe, all was silence absolute. Maybe Geoffrey’s had an apoplexy and fallen over dead , Bell thought hopefully. He didn’t turn around to look. For one thing, turning around on crutches was commonly more trouble than it was worth. For another, he was all too liable to fall victim to disappointment if he did turn. And so he didn’t.

He got out of the throne room. He got out of the citadel. He made his hitching way back to his hostel. Only when he’d sat down in his room did he remember he’d come to Nonesuch not to give Geoffrey a piece of his mind (he didn’t have that many pieces to spare) but to seek reinstatement.

Reinstatement he would not get now. That was plain. He’d commanded his last army for King Geoffrey. “Well, it’s Geoffrey’s loss, gods damn him,” Bell muttered. He remained convinced he’d done everything he could-he remained convinced he’d done everything anyone could-to serve the north well. If things hadn’t always gone quite the way he would have wished… Well, if they hadn’t, that couldn’t possibly have been his fault. His subordinate commanders had botched too many fights the Army of Franklin should have, would have, won if only they’d followed his clear orders.

If they weren’t a pack of blundering fools, he thought, why did so many of them end up dead at Poor Richard? They got what they deserved, by the Thunderer’s hairy fist!

And one of these days-one of these days before too long, too-King Geoffrey would also get what he deserved. Bell could see that plainly now. Anyone coming into Nonesuch after long absence could see the kingdom was dying on its feet. Only someone who stayed here nearly all the time, like Geoffrey, could have any possible doubts on that score. We’ll all be stuck with Avram, and we’ll all be stuck with blonds .