Harry Turtledove - Marching Through Peachtree

“Gods damn Hagen, and I daresay they’re doing it,” Smitty said. “On account of Hagen, we’ve got Lieutenant Griff in charge of this company instead of Captain Cephas, and Griff isn’t half the man the captain was.”

“Captain Cephas turned out to be too much of a man for his own good,” Rollant said. “If he hadn’t messed around with Hagen’s wife-”

“Corliss didn’t need much messing with,” Smitty said.

Rollant couldn’t argue that. It hadn’t been a rape, or anything of the sort. He felt a certain amount of responsibility for what had happened, because he’d found the two blonds and their children near Rising Rock after they’d fled their liege lord. Hagen had cooked and cut wood and fetched and carried for the company, getting paid for his labor for the first time in his life. Corliss had got paid for doing laundry, too. She hadn’t got paid for warming Cephas’ cot, not so far as Rollant knew. She’d just wanted the company commander, as he’d wanted her. And, right after the battle of Proselytizers’ Rise, she’d gone into his tent-and Hagen had followed her with a butcher knife. Now all three of them were dead; Cephas had managed to use his sword before falling.

“You can’t say Hagen didn’t act the way any outraged Detinan husband would have,” Rollant remarked.

“Well, no. So you can’t,” Smitty admitted. “But I wish to the gods he hadn’t done it. Griff squeaks when he talks, gods damn it.” His voice went into falsetto for a moment to imitate the young lieutenant.

They tramped on. They’d come this way before, on the way to what turned out to be the fight by the River of Death. They had a bigger army now, and it was all together, not scattered into several detachments. They also had General Hesmucet leading them now, not hard-drinking General Guildenstern-surely a gain. Even so, Rollant made sure his crossbow and quiver of bolts were where he could grab them in a hurry.

A cheer started somewhere behind him. He looked back over his shoulder, trying to see what was going on, and almost tripped over the feet of the man in front of him. That put his mind back on what really needed doing. But he’d seen enough, and started cheering, too.

“What’s going on?” Smitty asked.

“Doubting George is coming up,” Rollant answered in his normal voice. Then he shouted some more: “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah for the Rock in the River of Death!” Smitty cheered, too, and waved his hat.

Lieutenant General George rode up alongside the marching men on a fine unicorn. He smiled at them and called, “Hello, boys! When we finally get our hands on those stinking northerners, are we going to whip ’em right out of their boots?”

“Hells, yes!” “You bet we will, Lieutenant General!” “Nobody can stop us, long as you’re along for the ride!” The men yelled lots of things like that. Rollant wasn’t behindhand in shouting George’s praises, either. Nobody who’d been through the fight by the River of Death, who’d watched Doubting George’s defense of Merkle’s Hill after the rest of the army was routed, would ever greet him with anything less than heartfelt praise.

George tipped his hat to the soldiers. “We’ll win because we’ve got the best fighters in the world,” he said, and rode on, more cheers echoing behind him.

“You know what the funny thing is?” Smitty said.

“You mean, besides you?” Rollant returned.

Smitty made a face at him, but refused to be distracted: “What’s funny is, Doubting George talks like a stinking northerner himself.” He did his best to put on a northern twang as he spoke. His best was none too good.

Rollant considered. “He just talks,” he said at last; George’s Parthenian accent wasn’t that much different from the one he had himself. “You think I sound like a stinking northerner?”

“Sometimes,” Smitty said. “But anybody can see why you got the devils out of there. George, he’s a nobleman. He had estates with serfs on ’em himself. But he didn’t turn traitor along with Geoffrey and the rest.”

“He’s loyal to Detina.” Rollant raised an eyebrow. “Why should that be so hard for a Detinan to understand?”

Smitty gave him a dirty look. “You like to try and twist everything I say, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Rollant said gravely. “If I didn’t, what would you have to complain about?”

“Huh,” Smitty said. “You ought to be a sergeant, the way you think.”

“Me?” Rollant’s voice squeaked in surprise. There were a few blond corporals and sergeants in King Avram’s army, but only a few. Detinans-ordinary Detinans-didn’t take kindly to the idea of obeying orders from blonds.

But Smitty answered, “Stranger things have happened.”

“Maybe.” Rollant didn’t sound convinced. But he did like the idea, now that he thought about it. “Maybe,” he repeated, in an altogether different tone of voice.

Doubting George had seen a good many strong positions in his day. The one Joseph the Gamecock held here in southeastern Peachtree Province looked as formidable as any, and more so than most. “We’ll have a demon of a time breaking in,” he told General Hesmucet. “That ridge line shelters the enemy almost as well as Proselytizers’ Rise did, and I know Joseph. He’ll have fortified the gaps till a flea couldn’t get through them, let alone an army.”

“I know Joseph, too,” Hesmucet replied, “and I’ve got no doubt that you’re right. If we put our head into one of those gaps, we’ll be asking the terrible jaws of death to close on it.”

“You have a gift for the picturesque phrase, sir,” George replied, wondering if Hesmucet also had a gift for hard fighting. Marshal Bart must have thought so, or he wouldn’t have left Hesmucet in command here in the east when he was summoned to Georgetown to oppose Duke Edward of Arlington and the Army of Southern Parthenia. No, he would have left me , George thought-not with a great deal of bitterness, but some seemed inescapable.

General Hesmucet didn’t look unduly worried. “Joseph the Gamecock is strong here, but I think we can shift him,” he said.

“I hope you’re right, sir.” Lieutenant General George looked at the forbidding terrain ahead. “I have to say, though, I have my doubts. If we try to go straight at them, they’ll give us lumps.”

“Who said anything about going straight at them?” Hesmucet replied. “Joseph the Gamecock is strong here-what better reason not to hit him here ?”

“Ah.” Doubting George heard the enthusiasm return to his voice. “What have you got in mind, then, sir?”

“Up about twenty miles northeast of here is a valley called Viper River Gap,” the general commanding answered. “If we can push a force through there, we’ll march right into Caesar, square in Joseph’s rear. He’ll have to retreat, we’ll smash him up, this part of the war will be won, and we’ll all be heroes.”

“As simple as that,” George said dryly.

“As simple as that,” Hesmucet agreed. “As simple as that, provided the Gamecock doesn’t make it more complicated. He may. I’d be a liar if I said anything else. But it’s the best chance I can see of getting Joseph out of the position he’s taken.”

“Not a bad notion at all, sir,” George said. He’d proposed something not too different back in the middle of winter. Nothing had come of that- he wasn’t the general commanding. But he still thought the plan good, no matter who ended up with the credit for it. “Only one thing: how do we fix Joseph here while we shift part of our army toward the gap and Caesar?”

Hesmucet looked faintly embarrassed, an unusual expression for him. “Some large part of our army will have to stay here by Borders while the rest slides north.”