“I told you, I’m fine,” Raesinia said.
She looked around, feeling a little paranoid. The second prince had warned her that the Keep servants in their new rooms were probably spying for his father, and she assumed the same was true of those in Cora’s new quarters. To avoid them, she’d come with Cora to one of the castle’s inner courtyards, where dour statuary brooded on well-?trimmed lawns. Given the near-?constant drizzle, they were not frequented, and by taking shelter away from any doors, they had as much privacy as they were likely to get.
“I’m fine,” Raesinia repeated. “Prince Matthew is... well, a gentleman. More important, he’s on our side. He doesn’t want this marriage any more than I do. He’s going to help us.”
“Help us how?” Cora said. “If we break off the marriage, the king will refuse to send aid, won’t he?”
“Not if we can get Goodman behind us.”
“That doesn’t seem very likely,” Cora said. “He’s the one who’s been pushing to wring us dry.”
“You said that as a new company, without any backers, you had trouble getting access to investors,” Raesinia said. “If someone important—?Prince Matthew, say—?were to offer his support, that would help, wouldn’t it?”
Cora nodded slowly. “It would certainly help. But, Raes...” She hesitated. “Even with a lot more capital, it would take a long time to put us on a sound enough footing to have real influence in Borel. I’m not a magician. I’m sorry.”
Cora looked pained, and Raes impulsively put an arm around her shoulders.
“I know,” she said. “I rely on you too much as it is, and I’m sorry. I promise I’m not going to demand the impossible.” Raesinia put on a mischievous grin. “Forget about a sound footing and success. How long will it take you to fail?”
18
Marcus
“They’re persistent,” Cyte said, watching the white-?uniformed soldiers gathering themselves for a third try. “I’ll give them that.”
“That’s one word for it,” Fitz said.
Marcus grunted. “Some might say stupid.”
“That’s another,” Fitz said.
They stood on a hillside, the high point of a ridge that rose out of the rolling farm country south of Alves like a pillow stuffed under a bedsheet. Behind them, to the south, was the river Reter, a slim waterway too easily crossed to provide much of a barrier. In front of them, low plains stretched north to the Pale.
The three Murnskai regiments had arrived just after noon and had been battering themselves against the hillside position ever since. Marcus had light cavalry patrolling to either side, watching for outflanking maneuvers, but so far there’d been nothing, just this headlong assault. It was almost painful to watch.
The approach to the hill, fifteen hundred yards or so of low grass, bare earth, and the occasional stone wall, was already strewn with Murnskai dead. They were scattered everywhere, but piled up in drifts where the enemy battalions had made their farthest advances. In the lull between attacks, Marcus ordered his own casualties picked up and taken south, where the advance guard and the baggage train were still pushing forward.
“Here they come,” Cyte said. She offered the spyglass to Marcus, but he waved it away. He didn’t need to watch this close up.
Six enemy battalions, depleted from their earlier attacks but restored to some semblance of formation, marched forward. Their commander had apparently decided to deploy in depth, in three lines of two units abreast. To either side of them came a couple of small guns, four-?pounders, which Marcus’ men had dubbed yappers for how they sounded a bit like excited terriers. The Vordanai army had dismissed such small cannon as nearly useless decades ago, but the Murnskai still clung to them.
Archer’s twelve-?pounders opened up at a thousand yards, solid shot plunging down from their elevated position at the crest of the hill to wreak its usual havoc on the packed ranks of men. The Murnskai had already deployed into line, coming on like they were on a parade ground, but a good shot would bounce through two or even three of the battalions, carrying away victims as it went. More white-?uniformed bodies dribbled from the rear of the formation, adding to those already carpeting the grass, the battalions shrinking toward their centers as they came on.
As the enemy closed, the six-?pounders joined the chorus, doubling the volume of fire. The yappers fired back, but the range and the slope defeated them, and Marcus couldn’t see that they were having any effect. He wondered if the Murnskai commander just wanted to hearten his men with the noise and the smoke. If so, it wasn’t working—?the rear battalions were already looking shaky, formation loosening as they were hit again and again. As he watched, one of them dissolved, soldiers breaking and running for the rear while officers on horseback rode in to try to rally them.
And still they came on. The guns switched to canister, throwing clouds of musket balls, cutting chunks out of the Murnskai ranks. Another battalion broke, and another. One of the yapper batteries had come close enough that its shots began whistling overhead, but the two regiments of Vordanai—?Sevran’s and one from Fitz’ division—?waited stolidly behind their guns, unperturbed.
“About now, I think,” Marcus said.
Cyte yelled to the drummers, and they beat out a new rhythm, transmitting the command. Archer’s guns fell silent, and the line of Vordanai infantry moved forward, positioning themselves in front of the cannon. The remaining Murnskai were less a distinct formation at this point than a tightly packed mob, three remaining battalions dissolving into a dense mass of men with their standards at the center. As they came within musket range, two battalions of Vordanai stood in neat lines to oppose them. On either side of the line, another battalion moved forward, angling inward like a swinging door, forming a C shape with the Murnskai at the center.
“Fire!” The command went up from a hundred throats, on both sides at once. Six thousand muskets went off with a roaring, tearing rattle, and the whole front line was instantly blanketed with a dense bank of off-?white smoke. It didn’t take an expert’s eye to see that the Murnskai were getting the worst of it, pressed together in an awkward blob instead of a well-?dressed line, raked by fire from both sides. Men fell in the Vordanai ranks, but enough white-?uniformed soldiers dropped that their corpses began to form a rampart. By the third volley, the Murnskai were wavering, and the fourth put them to flight; they streamed down the hill like a flock of frightened sheep, leaving only the ghastly piles behind.
“They won’t be trying that again,” Fitz said. “Not today, at any rate.”