Harry Turtledove - Advance and Retreat

There. He’d said it. That he’d said it felt oddly liberating. He waited to hear what Sergeant Thisbe would say now that he’d said it. The underofficer looked at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “Yes, sir,” Thisbe said after perhaps half a minute’s silence, and then, “If that’s how you feel, what do you aim to do now?”

“I’m going home,” Gremio answered. “That’s the best thing I can think of to do.” Now he was the one who hesitated before asking, “Will you come with me?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said again, this time right away. “I’d be pleased to come along, if you’re sure you want the company.” Thisbe again waited a moment before asking, “Will you tell Colonel Florizel before you go?”

“No.” Gremio shook his head. “That would only put the weight on him, not on me, where it belongs. This is my choice. Florizel’s not a blind man, and not nearly so stupid as I thought when I first got to know him. If-no, when-we run into each other after the war, I’ll explain myself then, but I won’t need to do much explaining.”

“Yes, sir,” Thisbe said one more time.

They left Joseph the Gamecock’s army in the gray half-light before dawn the next morning. Fires from the burning Hail still lit the sky. A sentry challenged them. Someone was still alert and doing his job the best way he knew how. Gremio didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He gave his name and rank. The sentry said, “Advance and be recognized.” As soon as the fellow saw his epaulets, he nodded and said, “Pass on, sir-and you, too, Sergeant.”

“Thank you,” Thisbe answered, with no trace of irony Gremio could hear.

Leaving the army was easy. Gremio wasn’t sure how hard evading Hesmucet’s men would prove. He hurried west, out of the southrons’ line of march, reasoning they would be more interested in Joseph’s army than in a couple of stragglers from it. His reasoning wasn’t always what he wished it would be, but he turned out to be right about that. He saw men in gray in the distance three or four times. They probably saw him, too, but they kept on moving south. Two soldiers already out of the fight didn’t matter to them.

And Gremio and Thisbe weren’t the only stragglers on the road: nowhere near. Others were getting away from Joseph’s army, too. Civilians were fleeing the wrath Hesmucet’s men were showing against Palmetto Province-and the greater wrath those civilians feared he would show. And blonds were on the road, straggling seemingly just for the joy of straggling. If they weren’t bound to their liege lords’ estates any more, they would go wherever they pleased. That was what their feet seemed to be saying, anyhow.

Both Gremio and Thisbe still carried crossbow and shortsword. That made the other wanderers through the ruins of King Geoffrey’s hopes-and those of Palmetto Province-walk wide around them, which suited Gremio fine.

“What do you reckon Karlsburg’ll be like?” Thisbe asked. “You think anything’ll be left of it at all?”

“I don’t know,” was all Gremio could say. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

Thisbe nodded. “Makes sense.”

Gremio wondered whether anything made sense. The estate he and Thisbe passed that afternoon made him doubt it. Serfs worked in the fields and garden plots there as if the War Between the Provinces had never started, let alone taken this disastrous turn for King Geoffrey’s cause. He wondered what the liege lord had told his blonds. Whatever it was, they seemed to believe it. That would probably last till the first gray-uniformed southron found the place. It hadn’t happened yet.

After tramping on till nightfall, Gremio and Thisbe camped by the side of the road. The sergeant made a little fire. They didn’t have much to eat-only some bread Gremio had brought with him. He hadn’t wanted to take much, for the men who stayed behind were every bit as needy as he was. Once they’d eaten, they rolled themselves in their blankets on opposite sides of the fire and fell asleep.

Two more days of marching (and a little judicious hen-stealing) brought them to the outskirts of Karlsburg. A troop of gray-clad unicorn-riders trotted up the road toward them. Thisbe started to reach for a crossbow bolt, then hesitated. “We can’t fight them all, sir,” the underofficer said. “What now?”

“Let’s see what they do,” Gremio answered.

The southron unicorn-riders made no overtly hostile move. They reined in just in front of Gremio and Thisbe. Their captain looked the two northerners over, then asked, “You boys out of the war?”

Resignedly, Gremio nodded. “Yes, we’re out of it.”

“All right,” the southron said. “Throw down your crossbows, then, and your quarrels. You can keep the shortswords. They don’t matter. Go into town. Swear the oath of allegiance to King Avram. Take off the epaulets and the stripes. Go on about your business. No one will bother you if you don’t bother anyone.”

Thunk. Thunk . The crossbows, so long carried, so much used, went into the roadway. The sheaves of bolts followed. They rattled as they fell. Gremio strode on toward his home town without looking back. Thisbe followed. Nodding, the southron captain and his troopers resumed their patrol. To them, it was nothing but routine.

Coming into Karlsburg wasn’t routine, not for Gremio. His home town hadn’t burned. That was something, anyhow. But southron soldiers clogged the streets. And most of the soldiers in gray in Karlsburg were blonds. They grinned and swaggered as they marched. Ordinary Detinans stayed out of their way. How many old scores had the blonds already settled? Maybe better not to know.

A businesslike lieutenant-a Detinan, not a blond-accepted Gremio and Thisbe’s oaths of allegiance to King Avram. The promises and the punishments in the oath were both milder than Gremio had expected. The lieutenant offered a scissors. “Cut off your emblems of rank,” he said. “They don’t matter any more. You’re civilians again.”

Once the job was done, Gremio returned the scissors to him. “Thank you,” he managed.

“You’re welcome,” the brisk Detinan answered. “Good luck to you.”

Out in the street, Gremio took Thisbe’s hands. “This is the time,” Gremio declared. “I’ve waited too… long already. I won’t wait another minute, confound it. Will you marry me, Sergeant?”

Thisbe smiled. “I’ve waited a long time, too,” she said, “but you can’t ask me that.”

“What?” Gremio didn’t know whether he’d burst with fury or with mortification. “Why the hells not?”

“Because I’m not a sergeant any more, that’s why.” Thisbe touched the spot on her tunic sleeve where the stripes had stayed for so long. “The lieutenant said so, remember?”

“Oh.” Gremio felt foolish. “You’re right, of course. Well, in that case… Will you marry me-darling?”

“You bet I will,” Thisbe said, and if anybody found anything odd about two soldiers kissing on the streets of Karlsburg, he kept quiet about it.

Advance and Retreat is a work of fiction. Not one of the characters depicted herein bears any resemblance to any real person, living or dead. A good thing, too, says I; some of the characters depicted herein aren’t the sort you would want in your drawing room, even if you weren’t in there drawing at the time. Nonetheless, I have been browbeaten into prevailed upon by my editors to offer up a note of sorts for that handful of stubborn skeptics who don’t believe in disclaimers (and to say shame on you, too).

After losing Atlanta-and, with it, most of the Civil War that mattered-John Bell Hood skirmished with Sherman’s men throughout northern Georgia before withdrawing into Alabama to refit what was left of the Army of Tennessee. Sherman went east, toward Savannah and the Atlantic. Hood, in due course, went north, hoping to get up into Kentucky and, at the very least, create large amounts of chaos for the Union.