I stared at him, wanting quite desperately to punch him extremely hard on his bulbous nose. The only reason I stayed my hand wasn’t that it would create more problems than the momentary pleasure was worth – after all, it’s not as if I’m known for my tremendous sense of restraint – but because it would be insufficiently painful and humiliating for him.
So it looked like I had two choices: I could either let the -Generals command our troops as they pleased – well, at least for the few hours, until the Generals decided to run off to enjoy a life on the ocean wave – or we could find ourselves with no experienced military leadership whatsoever.
‘It can’t be that complicated, right?’ I asked Kest.
‘It’s remarkably complex,’ he replied.
‘Your answer, Trattari?’ Herredal asked.
I hate the way military men say the word ‘Trattari’. I swear, every single soldier I’ve ever met manages to make it sound even dirtier than the nobles do. Even—
Oh, I thought. I like this idea a lot.
‘Trattari?’ Herredal repeated.
‘Abide a moment, if you would, General Herredal.’ I took Valiana’s arm and led her towards the door.
‘What?’ Valiana asked.
I turned back briefly. ‘Brasti, do me a favour and find the General something to drink, will you? And some biscuits, if there happen to be any around.’ I continued leading Valiana out through the door and into the hallway towards the main entrance to the castle. ‘Time to reunite you with an old friend.’
*
He was even more furious than I’d expected. ‘Damn you, Falcio,’ he growled, ‘I begged you not to—’
‘Feltock?’ Valiana said, her voice as small as a child’s. It had taken her a moment to recognise his face through the thick growth of beard. No doubt the missing leg and eye didn’t help either.
‘Aye,’ he said at last, but before he’d finished turning to her, Valiana had thrown herself on him, wrapping him in her arms and crushing him in a bear-hug, almost weeping with joy.
‘I thought you were dead! Feltock, I cried a thousand tears over you—’
He patted her back awkwardly and muttered, ‘Well, I . . . I didn’t want you to see me like this.’ To me he said, ‘You made me a promise, Trattari.’
‘I broke it and I don’t care. She had a right to know. Besides, I needed her here for this.’
‘For what?’ Valiana asked, finally letting go of him.
‘Well, I need a rather large favour and I don’t think Feltock’s all that positively inclined towards me right now.’
‘Damned right,’ Feltock said.
‘What favour?’ Valiana asked.
‘Well, you see, before he was Captain Feltock, he had a different job title.’
Feltock’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, hells! You can’t possibly think I’d—’
‘General Feltock,’ I said, ‘we’d all appreciate it very much if you’d be so kind as to command the Tristian army in the most hopeless battle the country has ever faced.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
The Field
I have never understood the way of soldiers. I’m troubled by all that unthinking obedience.
From the first moment I met King Paelis – well, the second moment, I suppose, since I’d spent the first actively trying to murder him – our relationship was built on argument. Every subject was open to debate, every mission questioned. If, on the odd occasion, the King finally told me to shut up and get on with it, that didn’t change the fact that, while I served the Crown, I never felt like a servant.
Soldiers are servants. They march where you tell them to, eat when you tell them to and die for reasons they rarely understand, usually as a result of a mistake or a momentary fit of pique, rather than for any great cause.
I could never live – or die – that way, so I found myself humbled watching these men and women in ill-fitting leather armour trudging along day after day, walking the long road from Aramor to Pertine, never complaining, never questioning. No one gave them the privilege of arguing with their commanders or demanding the purpose of an order; they just did as they were told because they had faith in their commanders.
Faith has always been a bit of a problem for me.
‘We march, we march, we march for one more day,’ a group of soldiers sang, their voices tired but enthusiastic, as they followed those of us on horseback. ‘Our enemies run far away, but we must fight and so we say’ – a short, theatrical pause, then – ‘let’s march, let’s march, for one more day—’
Here’s something else I hadn’t known about armies: soldiers die without ever taking the field. They get sick on the road or break an ankle, but they keep walking until it becomes something worse. They eat rotten meat and suddenly can’t breathe, or wander off for a piss in the middle of the night and fall off a cliff.
You’d think that brigands would be afraid of armies, but they aren’t; armies are full of opportunities for the more enterprising sort of thug: they’ll happily pick off one or two laggards, slit their throats and loot whatever paltry coins the poor sods had, then disappear into the night.
And if you’re thinking the commander will gladly halt the march so that some well-meaning but ignorant Greatcoat can start an investigation and bring the killers to justice . . .
. . . well, apparently war doesn’t work that way. Justice turns out to be a luxury of peacetime.
‘You’re fretting again,’ Ethalia said, riding up beside me. The greatcoat with its subtle hues of red and copper that Aline had given her made her look far too much like a soldier.
‘I’m not fretting.’
She pointed behind us. ‘Every mile you look back to see if anyone’s missing. There are nearly two thousand soldiers here, Falcio. You can’t watch over every one of them.’
That much was certainly true. ‘I wish you’d go back,’ I said.
She gave me a dirty look, which I ignored.
A little way ahead of us, Nehra was still strumming a few bars on her guitar: the same fucking chords, over and over, and if there was any variation, my unmusical ears couldn’t detect it. And all the while she was humming a melody, occasionally tossing in a ‘dah dum, dah dum’ here or there. I was fairly certain she was trying to drive me insane.
‘Could you pick a different song?’ I asked. ‘Maybe one that, you know, ends at some point?’
‘I’m rather busy, Falcio’ – her fingers effortlessly plucked that maddening sequence of notes – ‘so could you find someone else on whom to focus your ill-temper for a while?’
‘Busy doing what?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Still composing the warsong, of course. You can’t rush these things.’
Ah. Right. Something else I didn’t know. Can’t have a war without your own special song. ‘Maybe you should find yourself a sword instead,’ I suggested. Nehra had managed to assemble nearly a hundred Bardatti, all with drums, guitars, horns, flutes . . . They’d come remarkably well prepared – if the plan were to give a very large concert.
‘You know nothing of war, Falcio.’ And Nehra turned back to her composing.
As if I hadn’t figured that out already.
‘How far to the border?’ Ethalia interrupted, probably to keep me from getting into another argument with Nehra.