“Then I’ll find a spot on that ridge and work from there,” I agreed.
Sianh nodded once, brisk. “Try not to be seen. We do not know what the Royalists might do to prevent your aiding us.”
34
THE ARTILLERISTS ALREADY HAD ROPES ON THE CANNONS AND were moving them from their position with the supply wagons and oxen toward the river. I laid a hand on one iron barrel, the simple foundry marking raised in relief near the touchhole. Somewhere across the cold Fenian sea, the men who had made this gun were fighting for liberty in their own way. Thinking about them, about how they’d made sure our work was complete for us, about how the Red Caps and the Reformists had inspired them, in turn gave me encouragement.
The enlisted men were tasked with the actual pulling, though several officers, I noticed, joined them in the spirit of either egalitarianism or pragmatism. Though they were far from the heavy guns used on ships and in fortresses, the men strained at the weight and the wheels cut into the soft turf near the road.
“I miss the oxen already,” complained one young man, maybe eighteen, with the insignia of his artillery company stitched into his wool forage cap.
“Damn it, Genrick, put your hat on. An ox would be smarter,” muttered his sergeant. The private yanked his wool cap from his head and dashed for the black cocked hat still lying on the ground, red-and-gray cockade as bright as a beacon. “Would have gone to battle in your shirtsleeves if we let you,” the sergeant added as Genrick resumed his place on the ropes.
I hung back, silent, letting them tease and jest as the rate of volleys from nearer the river increased. This was good, I reminded myself. This meant our men were engaging the Royalists, not falling back or surrendering. But the echoes of gunfire hollowed my chest, and my heart skipped at every volley.
We waited well back from the fray—the cannons were too valuable to risk losing, so the first order was to avoid being overrun. Gently sloping hills blocked my view of the fighting itself, except for an all-too-brief glimpse of dragoons in Reformist gray and red thundering toward the river. Where was Theodor, I wondered, and how was he faring? The question itself was enough to tie my stomach in a thick knot, and I forced myself to stop asking questions I couldn’t answer and, if I were honest, might not want to.
I was a bit jealous of the companies of artillery, gathered in hubs around their guns, joking, speculating, never still long enough to descend into fear and worry. Of course, they also knew their roles, and everyone had someone a rank above him telling him what was expected of him next. Even Genrick, his hat awkwardly perched on his head, only needed to concern himself about doing what he was told, whether it was hauling a rope or ramming a charge or running powder. He’d practiced, drilled, had the movement and the orders ground into rote memory.
I had no idea what to expect, and no one telling me what to do. My part in this battle was an experiment, and one with no testing or trial runs. I couldn’t make a muslin to see if it fit before draping it on the field of battle. I didn’t like the unknown, the variables.
“We’re moving around now.” I started. An officer with a bright metal spontoon reflecting the morning sunlight into my eyes interrupted my thoughts. “We’re moving,” he repeated. “The commander told me that meant something for you?”
“Yes, I—yes.” I nodded. “It means I’m moving, too.” I tried a smile, failed, and left the artillery companies to their maneuvers while I climbed the hill.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected to see—visions of a chess game and a slaughterhouse had vied for prominence in my imagination. What was in front of me was neither. There was orderliness and chaos side by side, lines of battle shifting, yielding, overtaking one another rapidly, and both sides asserted themselves with musket ball and bayonet.
I took a breath, trying to make sense of the action as I saw it. As soon as I felt fairly sure of the Reformists’ victory in one section of the field, they were flanked by Royalist forces. When I began to weave a charm of protection for the outmaneuvered Reformists, a complement of three-pound field pieces on light carriages appeared to assist them, swiftly turning the tide in that section of the field.
I couldn’t keep up, and I fought back the rising panic that I was useless here, that we would fail for my lack of ability. What would I have told anyone else to do? I imagined a full slate of orders and an overwhelmed Alice in my shop, a bewildered Emmi fighting with fitting a sleeve and sweeping the floors at once. “Just pick something,” I muttered out loud, “and do it.”
One thing. One thing at first, I told myself. I couldn’t do everything at once. No one ever can, I reminded myself. I had to cut a gown or sew a hem, tabulate expenses or copy receipts. One thing at a time, and I chose the nearby and relatively static artillery company that had just deployed onto the field. I pulled a charm from the ether and focused on the properties I thought they would be most in need of—protection, speed. I drew the charm tight, strengthening it, and then unspooled it over the guns’ carriages. Protection and speed. I pressed into the grain of the wood, willing it to accept the offering I was giving it, and let a cloud of gold linger half-embedded.
More of our men poured onto the field. The Royalists reacted with surprise, at least it seemed so to me, and even I was shocked at the massed numbers of our men on the field, large companies moving together. I wove more charm magic and cast it toward the troops moving onto the field, but in my haste I didn’t anchor it well to the moving men and it flickered and glowed in undulating patterns in the air.
Focus. I took a breath, realizing each intake had been shallow as I took a long moment to fill my lungs and then exhale. Nearby, cannon crews maneuvered heavier pieces onto the flat plateau that my hillside became before dropping toward the river below. A perfect emplacement for artillery. I pulled more charm, deliberately, efficiently but not in haste, to fortify their position.
The hillside twenty yards away from me exploded in clods of dirt and dead grass, and I lost my concentration entirely. The Royalist artillery, from across the river, had sighted and responded to the cannons near me too quickly, and were perfectly positioned to not only suppress our fire but turn the field carriages to kindling. Another round buried itself in the hill, still not quite aimed perfectly, but too close for me.
I knew what Sianh and Theodor would both say if they saw me—perhaps one or both did, and was resisting yelling at me to pull back. I pressed my blanched lips together and surveyed the field one more time. I could cast a charm over the advancing infantry, just one more quick net of protection—
A cannonball shattered the limbs of a tree behind me, raining sticks like greenwood shrapnel. I cowered with my arms over my head, instinct overriding any attempt at strategy. I tentatively peered at the damage. Fortunately, the ball had struck outermost branches, the thin stems and dead leaves making for an impressive scatter of what now looked like mulch, but at least it hadn’t struck closer to the trunk, where I might not have been so lucky.
I took the order I knew Sianh would have been shouting at me if he had seen and retreated down the backside of the hill. I wasn’t sure what direction to take—the main body of the battle had moved east, so I trotted down the road wending its way through the gently sloping riverside plains. It was quiet country, a placid, pastoral region that even now seemed vaguely sleepy, confused at being awoken by the gunfire echoing through its hills just as it was ringing in my ears.