Orso sighed. “Thank you very much for that, Hildi, I’m never at risk of getting too self-satisfied with you around.”
He twitched a curtain back to watch those men marching past. Probably he should have been moved by their loyalty. His father would have flapped a half-clenched fist around and trotted out some patriotic platitude. But Orso found himself wondering what strange combination of doubts and desires compelled each individual to subsume themselves into this metal mass, plodding towards their own destruction rather than making the eminently sensible choice to run like hell the other way.
Then he found himself wondering why he was still there, and slapped impatiently at the side of his head. “Damn it, Hildi, I think far too much to make a good general.”
“That and you’ve no military training, talent or experience.”
“Training, talent or experience would only be encumbrances to a monarch. Such petty concerns are for the little people, my dear.” From the window he could see the low ridge to the east of town, the spindly trees on top, a faint hint of dawn showing in the clouds behind. “I don’t think I can put it off any longer. When the sun comes up… I’m going to have to bloody fight.”
“Shall I get your armour?”
“I think you’d better. And tell Bernille I’m ready for breakfast.”
“Diet tomorrow, eh?”
Orso patted at his stomach. “If I’m still alive.”
Stour Nightfall was having quite the sulk.
Flick had built a good fire for breakfast, near to the treeline where they could get news if aught happened on the hills ahead. Flick wasn’t bad at building fires, and he’d built an especially pleasing one that morning.
But as Stour’s mood blackened, everyone had slowly shuffled back, sidling around the trees and skulking through the bushes to get out of his eyeline, loitering at the edge of the firelight and leaving a widening empty circle about the King of the Northmen.
It seemed the only man who dared stay close was Clover himself, and that was mostly ’cause he was enjoying having his feet near the warmth. The Union was meant to be so very bloody civilised, but so far, the place was a sea of mud. His boots had got soaked yesterday and the cold had worked right into his feet. Being on campaign was far from comfortable at the best of times. He was damned if he was going to let Stour’s sulking make him even less comfortable. And Clover reckoned you took more of a risk backing away from a slavering wolf than you did calmly standing your ground. So he sat there and slowly picked a leg of cold mutton down to the bone.
“We could’ve gone last night!” snarled Stour, and he kicked a smouldering branch from the fire and sent it spinning away, showering sparks. “Why didn’t we go last night?”
“Couldn’t say, my king,” said Clover. “Big army to manage, I reckon.”
“Big army to manage?” sneered the king, and he kicked out at a cookpot and sent it bouncing between the trees where it hit a Carl on the side of his knee and made him squeak with pain, though he kept smiling all the while, which was quite a feat.
If Stour had been an eight-year-old, he’d have got a slap from his mummy. Instead, he got every bastard bowing and grinning and pandering to him, even those he kicked cookpots at. That, of course, only made him rage the worse.
“We’ve joined up with a pack o’ fools!” Stour said. The rest of ’em had been given no choice but to follow. “You see that fat idiot Barezin? He came in gleeman’s feast-day clothes, didn’t he? You see that skinny idiot Isher? Looks like a fucking wilting cock. As for the bunch o’ jesters they’re leading.” He gave a snort that sent snot shooting out of his nose and angrily dashed it away. “Fucking Southerners. What was I thinking?”
Mostly that he was bored and he wanted to fight someone, Clover imagined, and there’d been no one big enough within arm’s reach.
“That cunt Rikke had the right idea! Says yes then stays home in Uffrith frigging herself. Thinks she can laugh at me, does she?”
Clover nibbled a few more shreds of meat from the bone. “Couldn’t say.”
“My king?” A wincing Carl was edging up, an eyeglass offered out to Stour like he was sticking his arm in a fire.
“What now?”
“Reckon… you ought to see this.”
Stour snatched the eyeglass, stomped to the treeline and trained it on the low hill beyond that long slope of darkened wheat, its shape clear now against the brightening sky.
“What the fuck?” he hissed.
“They were reinforced in the night,” said Jin. “Two regiments of King’s Own. Maybe three.”
The sun was peeping over the valley, long shadows stretching across the fields. Through the round window of his eyeglass, quivering slightly with the trembling of his hand, Leo could see the flags, the spears, the lines of men on top of the two hills. The rocky bluff crawled with activity now, like a distant ant heap. The long, low hill had at least twice as many soldiers on it as the night before. One flag in particular, black with a golden sun, flew above the rest. A lord marshal’s personal standard.
“He took me for a bloody fool,” breathed Leo. “He played me for time, knowing he had men on the way.”
He felt a sudden cold shock. Had that woman Teufel tricked them? Had she been loyal to the king all along, lied about his strength then taken the secrets they’d merrily blabbed to her straight back to him? Had Orso been well aware of that as he smirked across the table and tried to drive a wedge between Leo and his allies? Between Leo and his own wife?
“Fuck!” He flung the eyeglass across the hillside and it bounced once and clattered from one of the wagons with a tinkle of broken glass.
Shock turned to a reassuring fury that burned all the night’s doubts away. He was the Young Lion, damn it! He’d no business dithering when there was an enemy ahead.
“What should we do?” asked Isher, plucking at a loose thread on his embroidered cuff as he stared towards those suddenly well-held hills.
“Attack!” snarled Leo. “Now!”
“Finally!” Barezin mashed his fist into his palm. “My Gurkish Legion will be on that bluff before lunchtime! You can depend on it!”
“I am bloody depending on it,” Leo forced through his gritted teeth.
Barezin gave a cavalier salute, caught hold of his saddle horn, bounced a couple of times and then, with some subtle shoving from one of his aides, hauled himself up and turned his mount towards the west.
Leo took Isher by the shoulder. “I don’t care whether it’s a Gurkish legion or a phalanx of Sipanese whores,” he hissed into his pale face, “I need men up on that bluff in force and ready to attack Stoffenbeck from the west as soon as possible. Do you understand?”
Isher wiped sweat from his forehead and gave a stiff salute. “I do.” And he strode somewhat unsteadily to his horse.
Leo pulled Antaup close, pointed over the orchards towards the rocky hill, one flank bright with the dawn, the other cast into shadow. “First the Open Council drive them back on the right and take that bluff.” He shoved forward with his fist, from the neat battle lines of Angland and across the open fields towards Stoffenbeck. “By the time we attack Orso in the centre, they’ll be in a position to outflank him.” He stabbed his finger towards the wheatfields, the gentle green hill beyond with those new banners at its summit. “Before they shore up the centre, Stour will hit them on the left.”