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"Not much, sir," George replied. "I knew I would serve a united Detina as soon
as
Palmetto Province pulled out. Geoffrey confiscated my lands as soon as
Parthenia went with it and I declined to join him. To the seven hells with
him, but only from a distance.
It's been years since I last saw him face to face."
"May the next time we see him be when he meets the headsman." Hesmucet took a
flask from his belt, yanked out the cork, raised the flask high, and drank.
That done, he loudly smacked his lips and passed it to Doubting George.
General Guildenstern had been in the habit of carrying a flask on his belt,
too. He'd also been in the habit of getting drunk from it. Bart, now, Bart had
sternly stayed dry, for he'd been known to wet himself to the drowning point.
George had seen Hesmucet drink, but he'd never seen him anywhere close to
drunk. He drank, too, in the same mostly moderate way. He took the flask and
swigged sweet fire. "Ahh!" he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Peachtree
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Province peach brandy. What could be better?"
"Thank you kindly, sir," John the Lister said when George offered him the
flask. He took a pull and gave it to Brigadier Oliver.
The one-armed man shook his head. "No, thank you. I have never drunk
spirituous liquors. I do not believe it to be virtuous."
"Why not?" Doubting George asked, genuinely curious. "I can see not drinking
on account of you don't want to get drunk, but why not enjoy it if you're a
man who can hold it?"
"We are enough like beasts as things stand, sir," Oliver said. "Such drink
only brings us closer to them."
"I'm not worried about getting close to the beasts," George said. "What I want
to do is get close to Marthasville." He, Hesmucet, and John the Lister all
laughed and all swigged again. Brigadier Oliver also laughed, politely, but
stuck to water.
* * *
Smoke was a stench in Lieutenant General Bell's nostrils. Every firepot that
burst and spread new flames in the streets of Marthasville seemed a personal
reproach. He went through even more laudanum than he would have on account of
his wounds. It didn't do much to blur his sense of guilt, but it did do
something.
"Sir?" Major Zibeon said, and then again, louder: "Sir!"
"Eh?" Bell came out of the laudanum haze. "What is it, Major?"
"Sir, there's a delegation of citizens who'd like to speak to you for a few
minutes waiting outside," his aide-de-camp replied.
"Citizens?" Bell echoed irritably. "What in the hells do a pack of citizens
know? Not bloody much, that's what." Zibeon didn't say anything. He only
waited. Bell scowled.
"What do they want? Do they want me to surrender to that bastard of a
Hesmucet? I won't do it. What would King Geoffrey do to me if I did?"
Geoffrey was much less happy with him now than on naming him commander of the
Army of Franklin.
Gods damn it, I did what he wanted, Bell thought petulantly.
I went out there and I fought. I did all I could. I
almost won. Joseph the Gamecock couldn't have done any better. I'm sure of
that. Nearly sure
.
Zibeon shook his head. "No, they don't want surrender. But they are looking
for some sort of relief, any sort of relief, from the infernal bombardment the
southrons are making us take."
"What would they have me do?" Bell demanded.
Zibeon's dour face got no lighter. "Sir, I don't know," he answered,
shrugging. "To find that out, you'd have to talk to them."
"Oh, very well," Bell said sourly. He wanted to talk to civilians about as
much as he wanted to lose his other leg, but sometimes there was no help for a
situation. His repeated attacks against Hesmucet's army had shown him that.
That he might not have made those attacks never, ever, occurred to him. "Who
are these sons of bitches, anyhow?" he asked, not bothering to keep his voice
down.
"One is called Jim the Ball, sir; the other is Jim of the Crew," Zibeon
replied. "They are both merchants of some considerable wealth."
With a martyred sigh, Bell yielded to necessity. "Very well, Major. You may
send them in, and we shall see what sort of wisdom they offer." He rolled his
eyes to show how little he expected.
One look told him how Jim the Ball had got his name; the man was nearly
spherical, and his tunic and pantaloons contained enough material for a couple
of tents. Jim of the
Crew, by contrast, was tall and slim and muscular the crew to which he
belonged was
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probably that of a river galley. He bowed to Bell. Jim the Ball might have
done the same, but he was so round, Bell had trouble being sure.
"Good day, gentlemen," Bell said, wishing he were somewhere else preferably,
at the head of a victorious army, halfway down to the border with Franklin.
"What can I do for you today?"
"Sir," Jim the Ball said, "the southrons are destroying Marthasville one
piece at a time." He was so very fat, he had to pause and sip air every few
words.
"We want you to let them know how barbarous it is to pound a city to pieces
with civilians still in it," Jim of the Crew added. He could speak a whole
sentence without needing several breaths to finish it.
"Why do you suppose General Hesmucet would pay the least attention to such a
plea?" Bell asked.
"Why do you think he wouldn't?" Jim the Ball replied, again putting a caesura
in his sentence.
"You said it for yourself, sir: he is a barbarous man," Bell said.
"What, by the gods, have we got to lose?" Jim of the Crew said. "If we go to
him under flag of truce and he sends us away, we're no worse off than we were.
But if he says yes, we save what's still standing, anyhow."
Bell plucked at his beard. A letter cost him nothing; these fellows were right
about that. And complaining to Hesmucet might make him look better in the eyes
of the world.
The north could trumpet about Hesmucet's cruelty and iniquity if he kept on
pounding
Marthasville after being begged to stop. The world outside Detina the kingdoms
on the far side of the Western Ocean had been trying to pretend the north
didn't exist. No one recognized Geoffrey as a sovereign among sovereigns. It
was humiliating. It was infuriating. And the north could do not a thing about
it.
Pointing at the two merchants, Bell asked, "If I draft this missive, would you
be willing to carry it through the lines to Hesmucet?"
They looked at each other, then both nodded. Several of Jim the Ball's chins
wobbled at the motion. "Yes, sir," he said.
"We'd be happy to, sir," Jim of the Crew agreed.
"Very well, then," Bell said. "Return here in two days' time, and we shall see
what we shall see."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Jim the Ball said. "We'll be here."
"If we haven't been burned to charcoal, we'll be here," Jim of the Crew added.
"If the southrons haven't attacked, we'll be here."
"They won't attack." Bell spoke with great conviction.
"How do you know that?" Jim of the Crew asked, pressing harder on the
commander of the Army of Franklin than he had any business doing.
But Bell answered, "How do I know, sir? I'll tell you how: because they're a
pack of cowards. If they weren't a pack of cowards, afraid of showing
themselves outside of entrenchments, they would already have attacked
Marthasville. They wouldn't do what they're doing to its defenseless civilian
population."
He thought he'd impressed the two civilians. But, as they were leaving, Jim of
the
Crew turned to Jim the Ball and said, "If the stinking southrons are such
great cowards, how come they whipped us every time we tried to go after 'em
around this city?"
"Beats me," Jim the Ball said.
"That's what I said they've beaten us," Jim of the Crew told him. "They've
beaten us like a gods-damned drum. I don't care who's king over us any more,
as long as all these fornicating armies go straight to the seven hells and
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gone."
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