The interruption didn't seem to have bothered her. 'In that case, you have only one option. You must remove the armor from the affected vehicles. Of course, this will seriously compromise your plan for using the carts as a mobile fortress. You can, of course, put some of the undefended carts in the middle of the formation and so shield them from attack, but-'
'Not all of them,' Valens said. 'Which means there'll be a great big weak patch somewhere in the wall, which we'll have to defend some other way. We could concentrate the cavalry and men-at-arms-'
'To some extent.' In other words, forget it. He wondered if she was enjoying his failure, but it didn't seem likely. Any sort of pleasure seemed beyond her completely. 'You would be better advised to move out as quickly as possible, and head directly for my people's territory. At least you can be sure that the Mezentines won't follow you into the desert.'
'We aren't going anywhere near the desert.'
'You have no choice.'
He left without replying. Outside, he stood for a moment and looked at the line of halted wagons. People were standing about in groups, talking quietly or not at all. Horsemen rode up and down the line, carrying messages, inspecting, relaying orders. They were worried, but it was all under control; they knew he could be trusted to sort things out. To be trusted, relied on, even loved; he felt the pain of it deep inside, the way a man with an arrowhead buried too deep inside to be extracted feels it every time he moves. I've killed them, he thought, just like Orsea killed the Eremians: for duty, for love.
'Is there anything I can do?'
He turned his head, and just then, in his mind, it was like looking into a mirror. 'Orsea,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I was miles away.'
'I gather there's some problem with the carts,' Orsea said. He had that stupid, sad look on his face, that preemptive admission of guilt that made Valens want to say, It's all right, this time it's not your fault. That would be a lie, of course, since it was Orsea's fault they were here; Orsea's sense of duty, compounded by Valens' love. 'Can't Vaatzes suggest anything? It should be right up his street, this sort of thing.'
'Vaatzes isn't here.' Valens didn't want to snap, but he couldn't help it. Orsea had been born to be shouted at. He was wearing the fashionable long-toed riding boots that were useless for walking in; they made him look like some rare breed of marshland bird. 'He's disappeared, and so's his assistant. But we're working on it.' He scowled. 'You don't happen to know anything about woodwork, do you?'
'No.'
'Of course not. Me neither. Useless, aren't we?' He laughed. 'Oh, we know lots of stuff: how to train hawks, how to run a council meeting, the correct way to address an ambassador, how to use archers to cover an infantry advance. Pity that a few bits of broken wood can screw us up completely. I don't know.' He turned away; the sight of Orsea's face made him want to lash out. 'Maybe we should just jump on our horses and ride away, leave the rest of them to sort it all out for themselves. They couldn't be worse off without us than they are already.'
'That's not true,' Orsea said; he sounded bewildered, like a child who sees his parents arguing. 'You're good at this. You can deal with it.'
If it had come from anybody else, he might have tried to believe it. 'My wife thinks we should dump the armor and make a run for it, head for her territory, the Cure Hardy.' He stopped, as though there was something wrong with his mouth. 'She thinks we'd be safe there. A lot of us would die trying to cross the desert, but not nearly as many as we'd lose if we carried on with the original plan.' He turned sharply and looked Orsea in the eye. 'What do you think? Is that what you'd do, in my place?'
Orsea seemed to shrink back, as though Valens had hit him. 'I'm the last person-'
'Yes, but I'm asking you. What do you think?'
'I don't know.'
Valens felt the energy seep out of himself. 'Well of course you don't, you haven't got all the facts. I'm sorry. I just don't feel like making a decision like that.'
'I can understand,' Orsea said.
You more than anybody. 'In fact,' Valens said, 'we're not going to do anything of the sort. Which is stupid, because I have an unpleasant feeling it's the right thing to do; but I'm too weak to make the decision, so we aren't going to do it.' He looked past Orsea, at the line of carts. 'I'm going to send on the carts that don't have the problem, and keep the damaged ones here until they can be fixed properly, by cutting out the broken bits and fitting in new ones. I'm told it could take a day or so to find suitable timber and as long again to do the job, but that can't be helped. We can't afford to abandon that many wagons, so they'll have to be fixed, and we'll have to try and protect them in the meantime.' He breathed in, as though he was making a speech. 'It'll mean dividing the army, and there's not enough to defend both units, so I'll split the archers and foot soldiers up between the two parts of the convoy, and send the cavalry out to look for the enemy. If they come for us, the cavalry can engage them in the open, try and stop them getting here. If we get away with it, we'll all meet up somewhere and carry on as before. How does that sound?'
'Excellent,' Orsea said; and the sad thing was, he meant it. Just the sort of thing he'd have done himself, which was why the maps of Eremia weren't accurate anymore, showing a city that had ceased to exist. I've made the wrong choice, Valens told himself; I know it, and I don't seem to care. I think we've lost this war.
As soon as Valens let him go, Orsea hurried away to continue his search for a bush. Not an easy thing to find on a barren, rocky hillside; but his rank and his natural diffidence made it impossible for him to pee with the whole Vadani nation watching him.
No bushes, as far as the eye could see. A few stunted thorn trees, but their trunks were too thin to stand behind. In the end, he had to settle for a large rock, which only screened his lower half. His relief was spoiled by the fact that a sharp wind had got up while he was talking to Valens. It blew piss back onto his trouser leg. One of those days.
Alfresco urination was one of the things he hated most about traveling with a large number of people. It had bothered him when he led the Eremian army, casting a huge, disproportionate shadow over each day. He knew why: he was sure the men would laugh at him. Pathetic.
He'd finished, and was lacing up the front of his trousers, when he heard voices behind him. He panicked until he was quite sure it was nothing to do with him.
A small, two-wheeled cart-a chaise, he decided, mildly ashamed of his precision in trivia-was rolling down the slope, passing along the line of the halted convoy as though such sights were too commonplace to be worth noticing. A ridiculous, fussy little cart, with thin, spindly wheel-spokes like crane-fly legs, and a brightly colored parasol perched over the box; on which sat a huge man and a tiny blond woman in a red dress. Orsea stared for the best part of two minutes, the ends of his trouser-laces still in his hands. It wasn't just the incongruity that stunned him. Somehow, perhaps by the confident way she perched, with a large carpet bag clutched in her lap, she gave the impression that she was normal, and it was the Vadani nation who were making a spectacle of themselves. He couldn't begin to understand why the stupid little cart's wheels didn't crumple up and blow away in the wind like chaff every time they rolled into a pothole.
A cavalry officer in full armor, red campaign cloak, tall black boots gray with dust, shuffled forward to meet her. Too far away to see the look on his face, but Orsea could guess. The sort of look a twelve-year-old boy would wear if his mother showed up while he was playing with his friends. The woman in the red dress leaned down to ask him something. He looked round for a while, then suddenly pointed. It was a moment before Orsea realized the man was pointing at him.
He remembered, and dropped the laces. Probably too late. The woman was climbing down from her seat-the officer's arm was stretched out for her to steady herself by; you can't beat the cavalry for manners, no matter how bizarre or desperate the situation. Orsea watched as she came bustling straight at him; he looked over his shoulder, but there was nobody standing behind him.
'Are you Duke Orsea?' Her voice was high and sharp; someone who never needed to shout, even in a high wind.
'That's right. I'm sorry, I don't think I-'
She reached in her bag and pulled out a small linen pouch, about the size of an apple. 'Your wife ordered some potpourri,' she said, pointing the pouch at him as if it was some kind of weapon. 'It's all right,' she added, 'it's paid for.'
