the things that went on at court, whether Swemmel heard the truth or a pleasing lie mattered little in the grand scheme of things. But in matters military, that wasn't so. Bad advice and bad decisions in the war against Algarve could- and nearly had- cost him his kingdom.
For years, then, Rathar had used frankness as a weapon and a shield. He knew the weapon might burst in his hand one day, and wondered if this would be that day. Vatran would handle things reasonably well if he got the sack. There were some other promising officers. He hoped Swemmel would grant him the quick mercy of the axe and not be so angry as to boil him alive.
It had got very quiet inside the vault. Everyone was staring at the small image of the king. Rathar realized, more slowly than he should have, that King Swemmel might not be satisfied with his head alone. He might destroy everyone at the headquarters. Who was there to tell him he could not, he should not? No one at all.
Next to Swemmel's wrath, the eggs bursting all around were indeed small tubers. Swemmel could, if he chose, wreck his realm in a moment of fury. The Algarvians couldn't come close to that, no matter how hard they tried.
Rathar couldn't help feeling fear. He stolidly refused to show it: in that, too, he differed from most of the king's courtiers. After a long, long pause, Swemmel said, 'We suppose you will tell us now that, if we give you your head, you will reverse all this at the snap of a finger and swear by the powers above to preserve Durrwangen against the building Algarvian attack?'
'No, your Majesty,' Rathar said at once. 'I'll fight for this town. I'll fight hard. But we stretched ourselves too thin, and Mezentio's men are the ones on the move right now. They can't just break into Durrwangen, but they may be able to flank us out of it.'
'Curse them,' Swemmel snarled. 'Curse them all. We live for the day we can hurl their sovereign into the soup pot.'
At least he wasn't talking about hurling Rathar into the soup pot. The marshal said, 'They may retake Durrwangen. Or, as I told you, we may yet hold them out of it till spring comes, and the spring thaw with it. But even if they do take it, your Majesty, they can't possibly hope to do anything more till summer.'
'So you say.' But the king didn't call Rathar a liar. Swemmel had called Rathar a great many things, but never that. Maybe a reputation for frankness was worth something after all. After muttering something about traitors Rathar was probably lucky not to hear, King Swemmel went on, 'Hold Durrwangen if you can. We shall give you the wherewithal to do it, so far as that may be in our power.'
'What I can do, I will,' Rather promised. Swemmel's image winked out. The crystal flared, then went dark. Rather sighed. He'd survived again.
'Sir?' Leudast came up to Lieutenant Recared as his company commander sat hunched in front of a little fire, toasting a gobbet of unicorn meat over the flames.
'Eh?' Recared turned. His face and voice were still very young, but he moved like an old man these days. Leudast could hardly blame his superior; he felt like an old man himself these days. The lieutenant let out a weary sigh. 'What is it, Sergeant?'
'Sir, I was just wondering,' Leudast answered. 'Have you got any notion of where in blazes we are? We've done so much marching and countermarching, hopping onto this ley-line caravan car and off of that one- I wouldn't be sure I'd brought my arsehole along if it weren't attached, if you know what I mean.'
That got him a wan smile from Lieutenant Recared, who said, 'I wouldn't put it quite that way, but I do know what you mean, aye. And I can even tell you where we are- more or less. We're somewhere south and a little west of Durrwangen. Does it make you happy to know that?'
'Happy? No, sir.' Leudast shook his head. One of the earflaps on his far cap flipped up for a moment; he grabbed it and shoved it back into place. The spring thaw was coming. It hadn't got here yet, and nights remained bitterly cold. 'We came through this part of the country a while ago. I didn't ever want to see it again. It was ugly to start with, and it hasn't got better since.'
Recared smiled again, and added a couple of syllables' worth of chuckle. 'There are other reasons for not wanting to see it again, too,' he said, 'as in, if we had the bit between our teeth instead of the Algarvians, they wouldn't have forced us into defensive positions to try to save Durrwangen again.' He cut a piece from the chunk of unicorn meat with his knife and popped it into his mouth. 'Powers above, that's good! I don't remember the last time I had anything to eat.'
He didn't offer to share, but Leudast wasn't particularly offended- Recared was an officer, after all. And Leudast wasn't particularly hungry, either; he made a better forager than Recared would be if he lived to be a hundred. The very idea of living to a hundred made Leudast snort. He didn't expect to live through the war, and was amazed he'd been wounded only once.
A few eggs burst, several hundred yards off to the west. 'Those are ours, I think,' Leudast said. 'Anything we can do to make the redheads keep their heads down is fine by me.'
'They have to be almost at the end of their tether,' Recared said. 'Who would have thought they could counterattack at all, the way we drove them north and east through the winter?' His face set in unhappy lines. 'They're a formidable people.'
He spoke with regret and with genuine if grudging respect. There might have been Unkerlanters who didn't respect Algarvian soldiers after seeing them in action. Leudast hadn't met any, though. He suspected that most of his countrymen who couldn't see what was in front of their noses didn't live long enough to spread their opinions very far.
Felt boots crunched on crusted snow. Leudast whirled, snatching his stick off his back and swinging it in the direction of the sound. 'Don't blaze, Sergeant!' an unmistakable Unkerlanter voice called. A trooper- a man of Recared's regiment- came into the small circle of firelight. 'I'm looking for the lieutenant.'
Recared raised his head. 'I'm here, Sindold. What do you need from me?'
'Sir, I've got Captain Gundioc with me here,' Sindold answered. 'He's commanding a regiment that's just come up out of the west through Sulingen. They'll be going into the line alongside of us, and he wants to know what they'll be up against.'
'That's about the size of it,' Captain Gundioc agreed, coming forward into the light with Sindold. 'I'm new to this business, and so are the soldiers I'm commanding. You've been through the fire; I'll be grateful for anything you can tell me.'
He looked like a man who hadn't yet seen combat. His face- strong and serious, with a jutting chin- was well shaven. He wore a thick, clean cloak over his equally clean uniform tunic. Even his boots had only a couple of mud stains on them, and those looked new. He might have been running a foundry or teaching school only a few days before.
'I'll be glad to tell you what I know, sir,' Recared answered. 'And this is Sergeant Leudast, who has a lot more experience than I do. If you don't mind his sitting in, you can learn from him. I have.'
Leudast hid a grin. He knew he'd taught Recared a thing or two; he hadn't been so sure the lieutenant also knew it. Gundioc nodded, saying, 'Aye, I'll gladly hear the sergeant. If he's fought and he's alive, he knows things worth knowing.'
He may be raw, but he's no fool, Leudast thought. After coughing a couple of times, he said, 'The thing to remember about the redheads, sir, is, they think lefthanded a lot of the time. They'll do things we'd never imagine, and they'll make them work. They love to feint and to make flank attacks. They'll look like they're going to hit you one place and then drive it home somewhere else- up your arse, usually.'
'All that's true,' Recared agreed. 'Every word of it. It's also wise not to go right at them. A charge straight for their lines will slaughter the men who make it. Use the ground as best you can. Use feints, too. If it's obvious, they'll wreck it. If it's not, you have a better chance.'
'I understand,' Gundioc said. 'This all strikes me as good advice. But if I'm ordered to go forward and I have inspectors with sticks standing behind my line to make sure I obey, what am I to do?'
Blaze those buggers, Leudast thought. But he couldn't say that aloud, not unless he wanted an inspector blazing him. He glanced over to Recared. If the officer had the privileges of his rank, he also had the obligations, which included answering nasty questions like that. Answer he did, saying, 'If you are ordered, you must obey. But men who give such orders often don't live very long in the field. The Algarvians seem to kill them quickly.'
