Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

Doubting George looked around to make sure Fighting Joseph was nowhere nearby. He might have failed against Duke Edward of Arlington, but he remained a proud and touchy man. He also remained nowhere in sight, for which George was duly grateful. George said, “Marshal Bart isn’t trying to outmaneuver Duke Edward.”

“It surely doesn’t look that way,” Hesmucet agreed. “He fought him in the Jungle, not far from Viziersville, and then again, and again. He’s going to head for Nonesuch and to hammer Duke Edward flat if he stands in the way long enough. As I said, he hasn’t got the room to maneuver that I do.”

“All very interesting, and none of it quite what I expected when this spring’s fighting began,” Doubting George said. “I thought you would be the one who banged straight ahead.”

“I might, if I were facing Duke Edward. He’s fond of coming out and slugging,” Hesmucet replied. “Joseph the Gamecock is different. He takes these defensive positions and invites you to bloody your nose on them. I’m not the only one shaping this campaign, and that’s worth remembering.”

“You’re right, sir, and I hadn’t thought it through.” George nodded respectfully to Hesmucet. Sure enough, as with Bart, there was more to the man than met the eye. “You and Duke Edward would add up to something different from you and Joseph the Gamecock.”

Hesmucet nodded. “That’s right. That’s just right. And Joseph and Bart would be different from what Duke Edward and Bart are turning into. The commanders on both sides make things what they are. As a matter of fact, I don’t mind this game of maneuver so much as I thought I would.”

“Really?” George raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that, sir?”

The smile Hesmucet smiled was particularly nasty. “Because it lets me move through country that’s never been fought over before. This far north, the barons and earls and counts supposed they were safe. They didn’t think any southron army could ever come all the way up here. Now they’re seeing they were wrong. There’s no place in Geoffrey’s so-called kingdom we can’t reach. Let’s see how much fight’s left in the traitors once they start to realize that down in their guts.”

As if to underscore the point he’d been making, a couple of dozen blonds-escaped serfs, every one of them, men, women, and children-came by, shepherded along by a couple of gray-uniformed southron soldiers. They were a couple of dozen people who wouldn’t labor for their liege lords any more, and who would do useful work for King Avram’s army. Doubting George nodded thoughtfully once more. He said, “You’re fighting against Geoffrey’s whole would-be kingdom, not just against Joseph the Gamecock, then.”

“Well, of course,” Hesmucet replied.

But it wasn’t of course, not to George. It probably wouldn’t have been of course to any general who’d fought before this war began, either. Wars usually aimed at defeating the enemy’s army, not at smashing his whole kingdom flat. No, Hesmucet and Bart weren’t playing by the old rules.

“Fighting won’t be the same after this,” Doubting George observed.

“I don’t want there to be any more fighting in the Kingdom of Detina after this,” Hesmucet said. “I want everybody to get the idea that it is one kingdom and it will always be one kingdom, and if I have to kill everybody who doesn’t get that idea, or make him starve, or burn down his fancy manor and take away his serfs, I will do any of those things, and I won’t lose a single, solitary minute’s worth of sleep over any of it.”

“You intend to be persuasive, you say.” George’s voice was dry.

“Gods-damn right I do,” Hesmucet replied, taking his words at face value. “I want the traitors licked. I don’t want them thinking, Well, we almost won this time. Maybe we ought to try again . If you get into a tavern fight with a man and you knock him down, you’re always smart to kick him a couple of times afterwards. That way, he doesn’t think the fight was close. He bloody well knows you licked him.”

As a younger man, Doubting George had found himself in a few-perhaps more than a few-tavern fights of his own. The ones he’d won, he’d mostly followed Hesmucet’s rule. The few he’d lost… Of itself, his hand rubbed his ribcage. Plenty of other tough young men thought the same way. He remembered boots thudding home, things he’d tried to keep out of his memory for years.

Hesmucet clapped him on the shoulder. “We are going to whip the northerners here, and I’ll tell you why.”

“I’m all ears,” George said solemnly.

“Because Marthasville ties Joseph the Gamecock down, that’s why,” the general commanding said. “He has no choice: that’s the place he’s got to defend. If he doesn’t, he might as well not be in the field. And that means, sooner or later, I’m going to flank him once too often. He’ll either have to give me Marthasville or come out and fight. Either way, I’ll have what I want.”

“Gods grant it be so,” George said.

“Don’t talk that way around Major Alva,” Hesmucet told him. “He’ll give you plenty of reasons to think the gods don’t much care one way or the other. Sort of makes you understand why they used to burn wizards every now and again.” He walked off, whistling.

Doubting George had no intention of talking to Major Alva. Clever young mages were useful creatures. But, because they had a lot of the answers, they often thought and behaved as if they had them all. George was a profoundly conservative man. He’d been too conservative to leave Detina with his province and with Grand Duke Geoffrey: to his way of thinking, that there had always been one kingdom was the best argument that there should always be one kingdom. His belief in the gods and their potency was likewise deep and sincere. He didn’t care to listen to a whippersnapper who would try to unsettle that belief.

If he were to try too hard, he would probably end up short a couple of teeth, George thought. I’d kick him when he was down, too . He didn’t worry for a moment what a mage might do to him.

He called to Colonel Andy, who’d discreetly stepped out of earshot while he conferred with General Hesmucet. “Be ready to move forward at my orders or at the commanding general’s,” he said. “I don’t think the traitors will trouble us much more with attacks of their own, not hereabouts.”

“Yes, sir,” his adjutant said.

“And move some of our engines forward, too,” George added. “If we do have to assault the enemy’s works, we’ll want to make this, that, and the other thing come down on his head.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy repeated, rather more enthusiastically this time.

“Don’t worry, Colonel,” Doubting George said. “As long as we keep hammering at the enemy, we’ll break him sooner or later.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what General Guildenstern said, too, sir, as you pointed out not so long ago.”

Lieutenant General George winced. It wasn’t quite what he’d pointed out, but it was pretty close. I’ve been skewered, he thought. Which of us is supposed to be the one who doubts things? I was under the impression it was me, but I’ll start wondering if Andy keeps that up .

Joseph the Gamecock put his hands on his hips and glared from Lieutenant General Bell to Leonidas the Priest and back again. “Which of us,” he asked Bell, “is supposed to be the one who wants to slug it out with the enemy, and which the one who would sooner fight positionally? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I had thought you owned the former role and I the latter. I will start wondering if you keep this up, though.”