“’Twas always a doomed romance,” said Clover, under his breath. “Dogs and cats, you know…”
“Thanks, my king,” croaked out Dancer. “You saved our—”
Stour gave him a little smile. “You’re fucking joking, aren’t you? I came here to fight, not stand judge over your folly. Get these idiots killed, Clover.”
“Me?”
“I’m giving orders. It’s what kings do.”
His turn to wrench his horse around and ride off, showering everyone with dirt. Dancer stared at the ground. Prettyboy frowned bitterly at his bow. The fat one set to sobbing again. The corpses, naturally, were unmoved.
“That was a lot o’ bluster,” grumbled Downside, “just to end where we started.”
“Aye, well, that’s life,” said Clover. “From mud we come, to mud we shall return. Every one of us.”
Sholla raised a brow. “Message o’ hope, then?”
“Messages o’ hope would be inappropriate at an execution. Downside, get these idiots killed.”
“Me?” grunted Downside, looking somewhat put out.
“I’m giving orders,” said Clover, turning away. “You can get Flick to help you with the burying. And best take those sheep with us, Sholla. Folk need to eat.”
Dancer was still staring at the mud as Downside pulled his axe out. “Just went wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s all.”
Good Ground
“Good ground,” said Forest approvingly as they rode down the gentle slope.
Stoffenbeck nestled in a valley beside a sparkling river, a re-assuringly old and solid little town of seasoned Midderland stone. Sheep lazily cropped grass in the pastures, the waterwheel of an ancient mill gently turned, soothing smoke drifted from the ornamental chimneys which were such a feature of the local architecture. It would have made a fine study for one of those nostalgic painters who turned out the good old days in bulk.
“The best ground.” Orso took a satisfied noseful of the sweet country air. “Absolutely charming.”
“I… meant for a battle, Your Majesty.”
“Oh.” The thought of red-toothed war descending on the sleepy scene was far from pleasant. But then war never is pleasant to contemplate, once it comes to specific homes to be ruined, specific people to be slaughtered. Not to mention specific kings to be toppled. “Yes, of course. Good ground.”
A gentle green hill with a few trees at the crown overlooked the town on the right. Perhaps it would have been more military to say east. Or was it west? For some reason north and south were instinctive, but the other points of the compass always took a moment for Orso to work through. On the left of the town, across the river, there was a steeper hill studded with rocky outcrops. A bluff, might a surveyor have called it?
“Good ground,” said Forest again, his scar puckering as he allowed himself the smallest smile. As if smiles were being strictly rationed and that was all they could spare.
“Hills.” Orso did his best to copy Forest’s discerning expression. “Hills are good.”
“Hills are bloody marvellous, Your Majesty. If you get up ’em first. ’Course, to hold them, we could use more men…”
“Reinforcements are on the way.” Orso tried to make sure his voice betrayed no quaverings of doubt.
“The question is,” murmured Tunny, from behind, “will they get here before we’re all killed?”
A small crowd in feast-day clothes was arranged in the square at Stoffenbeck’s heart. Bunting fluttered about a singularly ugly old building with an absurdly tall clock tower, presumably the town hall.
“Go, then!” snapped a portly man with a chain of office, and a boy raised a polished trumpet and blew a salute, lacking tune but compensating with sheer volume.
“Oh dear,” muttered Orso. “You don’t suppose they’ve turned out for me?”
Tunny raised one brow. “Well, I don’t suppose they’ve turned out for me.”
“Your August Majesty!” gushed the mayor as Orso’s party approached, collapsing in a bow so low his chain of office feathered the cobbles. “I cannot find the words to describe the privilege of hosting you! The honour for me and the entire town of Stoffenbeck is quite indescribable.”
“Not at all, my dear sir, yours is a delightful burg.” Orso gestured towards the buildings about the square. Several fine old houses, a guildhall with a marble façade, a tavern with a half-timbered upper floor, a covered marketplace with its sagging roof held up on squat pillars. Progress had largely left this corner of the Union alone, it could barely have changed in two centuries. “The very quintessence of rural Midderland! In happier times I would delight in a tour, but I hope you will forgive me…” Orso tipped his circlet towards the ladies and gentlemen and kept his horse moving ever so gently northwards. Stop for one moment, and they have you. “Rebellions don’t crush themselves, you know!”
“Of course, Your Majesty!” The mayor took a few shuffling steps after him. “If there is anything you need, you have only to ask. Anything at all!”
“Ten thousand soldiers and an accurate weather forecast?” muttered Orso, under his breath.
“The honour is quite indescribable.” Tunny mimicked the mayor’s delivery with uncanny accuracy.
“Believe it or not, there are still people in the world not yet sick of the sight of me.”
“I wonder if he’ll reckon it such a privilege when his town hosts one of the largest battles ever fought on Union soil.”
“My dear Corporal Tunny, you underestimate the sycophancy of the stout Midderland burgher. My guess is he will still be happily genuflecting when arrows darken the sky…”
Jokes made him feel a little better, especially ones in poor taste, but they seemed rather foolish in light of the spectacle as they emerged from the town. There must have been thousands of men working furiously in the fields to the north. Men of the Crown Prince’s Division, fortifying a great crescent between the gentle hill and the steep bluff, sharpening stakes, shoring up walls, throwing up barricades, digging trenches and pits.
Overseeing the work with the same total lack of emotion with which he had once overseen the hanging of two hundred Breakers, white clothes pristine in the afternoon sun, was Arch Lector Pike.
Orso reined in beside him, surveying the vast building site. “Hard at work, Your Eminence?”
“Indeed, Your Majesty. I find men rarely work with such tireless dedication as when their lives depend on the results.”
On their left, the river drained into boggy shallows and was met by another stream with orchards planted on both banks. Over to the right, fields thick with ripe spring wheat sloped gently away towards woodland. In the centre, straight ahead, the crops had just been harvested, a patchwork of stubbled fields turned rich brown by the recent rains. A great cloud of starlings twisted in the sky, pouring down into the trees around a farm a mile or two away, then whirling up into the haze again.
Orso swallowed. There seemed to be something of a lump in his throat. “So this will be our battlefield.”
“I doubt we’ll find a better,” said Forest.