I tied the horse’s reins to a tree, hands shaking, and moved a safe distance away in case she decided to try her luck kicking or bucking. Then I began to draw bright white from the ether, adding it into the cloud over the troops, spreading it diffuse and thin to cover all of them. It settled in a film on coat shoulders and hat brims. I didn’t know if one section would advance first, how to gauge who would need it the most, so I tested sending some of it forward, pulling some back. I steeled myself for the report of the muskets, not wanting to break my concentration.
But the report never came. Sianh rode out in front of the lines, accompanied by a quartet of riflemen. Hastily, I looped charm magic around him, too, fearful that he might be in some danger. Instead, as I followed my line of light out alongside him, I saw something else—a party of Royalists, marching toward us, muskets upside down and pale kerchiefs tied to the locks of each.
Surrender.
I didn’t allow my charm to fade, not yet, but I watched as a Royalist officer saluted Sianh, who returned the salute. They spoke a short time, Sianh’s demeanor not changing in the slightest, but the Royalists visibly relaxing, even from my distance.
Then, in a flurry of orders and movement, our men secured their arms, split their ranks, and reformed their lines so that they could escort the Royalists back to the encampment. The Royalists marched past me, their muskets all upside down in the position I had heard Sianh call clubbed when drilling our troops. They weren’t all of the same regiment, I noted with some surprise—their regimental coats were of the varying colors of the Galatine army, from the standard blue of the regulars, to the pale blue of the northern outpost infantrymen, to brown of the eastern artillerists to, in small numbers but still impressive, the dark rose of the elite riflemen.
Sianh brought up the rear, allowing the officers of the First to take charge of the front of the column. He noticed me struggling to mount the mare, and laughing, he joined me. “We have had a windfall and no doubt,” he said. “And I do not think you even got a chance to cast much of a charm.”
“You’re right,” I said. “So we made this bit of luck some other way. What exactly happened?”
“They are defecting,” he said. “All out of Rock’s Ford.” He didn’t say much, but his mouth twitched toward a real smile. He tossed a pamphlet at me.
“Did Kristos write this?” I asked. I hadn’t read this one, and the language, though not directly aimed at the enemy troops, was pointedly martial and vaguely mutinous.
“Yes, and it has clearly been read by many.” The pages were dog-eared and soft at the edges, the ink smudged and, in some places, almost indecipherable. “He wrote it intending for its distribution among the Royalist troops. It was not easy to smuggle copies into the Royalist camp at Rock’s Ford, but the effort has, clearly, paid its dividends.”
“I should say,” I breathed, watching the column march on ahead. Another piece of paper fell from the pamphlet—the announcement of the election of a Council of Country at Threshing Market.
“Perhaps this pushed them over the edge,” I said.
“It seems so, indeed. Do you need help with your mount?” Sianh asked kindly, returning the pamphlet to the interior pocket of his coat. I nodded.
“It seems,” he continued as he boosted me into my awkward seat on the saddle, “that there has been much discussion and discontent among the ranks of the army. Even,” he added, “among their officers. Fighting their own countrymen is distasteful, even to those who agree with the Royalists.”
“Then maybe they’re not such formidable adversaries?”
“All men will fight when faced with death on the field. Do not doubt that.” He mounted his own horse beside me.
We rode behind a column of new Reformist soldiers in the varicolored uniform of Galitha.
23
IT TOOK MOST OF THE NIGHT TO GET THE INCOMING DESERTERS OF the Royalist army into some sort of order, and I felt as though I had only just fallen asleep against Theodor’s chest when the morning’s reveille reverberated through the thick panes of glass in our bedroom.
“Tell dawn to wait an hour,” I mumbled into the rough linen bedsheets.
“Not today,” Theodor said, clambering over me to pull his stockings on and comb his hair. “Today we elect a new government.” He barely winced as his comb caught a snarl, and the time it took to button his waistcoat made him tap his foot with impatience.
I sat up in bed, raking fingers through tangled hair, and smiled. This was what I had hoped to see, as soon as we had settled on holding elections—optimism. Though the framework for the Council of Country had been a collaboration between Theodor and Kristos, Sianh organized the actual election in precise military clockwork, from the quartermaster distributing sheaves of paper to a ballot box under guard at all times. Theodor didn’t bother to stop for porridge in the kitchen, but I couldn’t resist the scent of freshly brewed coffee.
“Do you know,” Alba said, pouring me a now-familiar earthenware mug, “that coffee beans look just like deer droppings when you dump them outside on the path?”
I raised an eyebrow as Sianh glared at Alba from the doorway. “Uncommonly like deer droppings,” he confirmed, scraping something off his boot that I quickly identified as used coffee beans. “I will be having a conversation with vimzalet about appropriate refuse disposal.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” I said. “I doubt Niko taught him any manners.”
“Of that,” Sianh said, “I am sure. I wonder what our co-commandant would think of our elections?”
“Thought’s crossed my mind,” Kristos said, joining us long enough to shovel some porridge into his mouth. “More salt next time,” he said through a mouthful.
I made a face. “Kristos has no manners, either.” I nudged Sianh, and we both laughed privately. “Whether Niko likes it or not, he’s not here. And most of the army is.”
“A fair point.” Kristos had a bit of porridge on his upper lip. I didn’t say anything. “I imagine he’d have different ideas about who earned a vote.”
“And our Royalist deserters would not make the list?” Alba said, tone pleasant but a sharpness in her eyes.
“I doubt it. He said once that the only people who should have a say are the ones who fought from the beginning—the ‘real’ Red Caps, he called them.” Kristos shrugged. “Maybe he’s changed his mind. But we disagreed on that, that I saw the Red Caps as serving the Galatine people and handing their liberty over to them, not keeping control for themselves.”
“That reads better in pamphlets, at any rate,” Alba said, earning a sour look from Kristos. “What! I’m in earnest.”
Shouts echoed from the parade ground, where the ballot box was stationed under all the pomp that Sianh’s personally selected guards could offer. “Am I surprised or am I not surprised that our first elections are starting with fisticuffs?” Alba mused as Sianh and Kristos both took off for the field.
“I hope that’s all it is,” I retorted, following my brother down the hill.
Theodor already stood before two men, held by guards from the First Regiment Commanders Corps. One had a split lip and the other a swelling eye that would be purple by sundown. Before Theodor could speak, the man with the bleeding lip wrested his arm free of his guard and yanked a scrap of red from his uniform pocket.