weight to rest on an unsupported member. With all the potholes…
Valens made an effort not to groan aloud. 'It sounds serious,' he said. 'Are many other carts likely to have the same problem?'
The officer nodded. 'It's the half-lock carts and the bow wagons,' he said. 'The high-sided carts are all right, there's enough strength in the frames to take the stress. But when they were drilling the holes for mounting the armor, they only had the one set of jigs. If we carry on much further without fixing it, there's a danger we'll lose about a fifth of the carts.'
'All right.' Valens stole another look at the mountains; Sharra peering over their shoulders, like a nosy old woman spying on her neighbors. 'Get up to the front and call a general halt; find someone to organize a survey, find all the carts likely to have the problem, have them fallen out so they can be worked on. Get three squadrons of cavalry back here to guard them when the rest of the column moves on. And find Vaatzes, and that sidekick of his, Daurenja; I want a fix for the buggered-up wagons, top priority. I'll be back at my coach.'
But Vaatzes, it seemed, was nowhere to be found, and neither was Daurenja. That evening, another equally harassed-looking junior officer reported that he'd made inquiries, and nobody could remember having seen either of them since the column left the city. Meanwhile, an ad hoc committee of carpenters and wain-wrights had been considering the problem. Their advice-far from unanimous-was to nail on big slabs of batten across the cracks on the already damaged carts and see what happened. If that worked, they could fix any further casualties the same way. If it didn't work, it was their unanimous considered professional opinion that the whole column was screwed.
Valens had sent Mezentius off to supervise the cavalry screen, and the rest of the general staff had more than enough to do; that just left him. He'd always prided himself on his ability to delegate, but it had one serious disadvantage. It meant he was stuck in the coach, alone with his wife; nobody to talk to.
'Why have we stopped?' she asked.
He explained.
'I warned you,' she said. 'Your vehicles aren't designed for this kind of work; and the armor just makes things worse. You'd be better off removing it, before it wrecks all your wagons.'
The thought had crossed his mind. 'We can't do that,' he said. 'I thought I'd explained all that, about how-'
'Yes. But if the armor is breaking up the wagons, you have to remove it. You have no choice.'
Vaatzes, he thought bitterly; I hate the fact that I need him. Of course, if he was the engineering genius he's cracked up to be, he wouldn't have drilled all those holes in the wrong places, and we wouldn't be having this problem. (At the back of his mind he had a vague recollection of a memo from Vaatzes complaining that the short- frame jigs were behind schedule because the jig-makers had buggered them up somehow, and quite possibly they wouldn't be ready on time. He ignored it.) If and when he turned up… But perhaps he wasn't going to turn up. Desertion, assassination, or maybe just forgotten about in the rush to leave and left behind; and his odious associate as well, which wasn't promising. The thought that Vaatzes might change sides, betray them all to the Mezentines, hadn't really seemed worth considering before. The Mezentines would never forgive him; his only chance of survival lay in sticking close to the Vadani, making himself indispensable. He'd done that. He should be here, when he was needed.
Odd, then, that he wasn't.
Too big and unsettling a problem to tackle now; better to hide from it behind all the lesser, more immediate problems, and hope it'd go away. He climbed out of the coach, stopped the first officer he saw, and ordered him to round up the carpenters and joiners. Shouting at them would take his mind off the ghastliness of the mess he was in, and might goad them into doing something useful.
No such luck. They looked away, shook their heads, tutted, sighed; can't patch up splintered frames, got to cut out the busted timber and replace it with a new one. Could try letting in a patch, but that'd take time; could try wrapping the split in rawhide, but couldn't promise anything; nailing on battens would be as good as anything; bolting them on would be better; could try it, but it probably wouldn't work. Could've told you this'd happen if you go boring holes in frames. No help at all.
His father would have had them all strung up, as an example to all tradesmen who failed to work miracles on demand. Instead, he thanked them for their time and told them he was sure they'd do their best. Then he went to look for Mezentius.
'We can't stay here,' Mezentius told him. 'Far too close to the border. They've been sending patrols out along the river valleys below Sharra for some time; quite likely they've got watchers on the Sow's Back by now. Maybe they already know we're here. If we stay put, you can make that a certainty.'
Infuriating to hear your own depressing thoughts echoed by someone else. 'I don't think it's as bad as all that,' Valens lied to himself. 'Even if they've seen us already, they've got to report back, gather their forces…'
'There's a full squadron stationed at the Unswerving Loyalty, last I heard. Probably double that by now.'
'Well, we can handle two squadrons. And it'd take them two days to get here.' Mezentius' frown expressed entirely justified skepticism, which Valens ignored. Am I turning into Orsea? He panicked for a moment. 'And suppose they do come? I don't know about you, but I'd have no worries at all about fighting off a cavalry attack here, on a rocky hillside. They couldn't ride, they'd have to dismount and fight as infantry. In fact, I've half a mind to stay here and see if they do come. The sooner we start this war…'
Mezentius was staring at him. He closed his eyes, as if trying to wash the image out of them.
'That bad?' he asked.
'It's understandable,' Mezentius replied; he could hear the restraint in his voice. 'The strain's getting to all of us, and now this stupid thing with the carts…' He shook his head. 'If you want my considered opinion, I would prefer not to engage the enemy right now.'
Valens took a deep breath. 'Agreed,' he said. 'Not now, or ever. But certainly not now.' He stood up. 'I'll go and plead with the carpenters a bit more, see if I can fire up their imaginations. And please, ignore what I said just now. I've been talking to my wife. It's not good for me.'
Mezentius laughed, but nervously. 'Understood,' he said. 'Good luck with the carpenters. Did you find out where that bloody Mezentine's got to, by the way?'
When he reached the broken wagons, he found the carpenters standing round looking sad. They explained that they'd thought about it some more, and they were pretty sure that nailing on battens wasn't going to work, so there didn't seem much point in starting.
Valens swallowed his anger. He was getting used to the taste of it. 'Try it anyway,' he said.
They explained how the damage should be repaired, by removing the entire damaged timber and replacing it. They could more or less guarantee that that would work; however, it would probably take several days, even if they had suitable material, which they didn't. They could go up the mountain and look for ash trees of the right size and width, though ash didn't usually grow well in this soil; that wouldn't really help, however, since green timber would be far too weak, and they'd be wasting their time. But if that was what Valens wanted them to do…
He smiled. 'Let's try the battens,' he said.
They nodded silently. He could tell they were waiting for him to go away, so they could carry on standing about looking miserable. 'I'll stay and watch, if I won't be in the way,' he said. 'I like watching craftsmen at work.'
It didn't take them long. They unshipped lengths of batten, cut pieces to size and nailed them on. The horses were brought up and backed into the shafts. The wagons began to move. The sound of the battens cracking was audible ten yards away.
'Oh well,' Valens said. 'We tried.'
The carpenters explained that they'd been pretty sure it wasn't going to work. However, they would give it some thought and try to come up with something else.
Some junior officer he didn't know brought him the inventory he'd asked for. Over a third of the column were bow-waisted or half-lock. He gave up the idea of abandoning them and trying to distribute their loads among the rest of the carts. He thanked the officer and went back to the coach.
'Have you solved the problem?' she asked.
'No.'
She nodded. 'How many…?'
'About a third.'
