Marching Through Peachtree

The look Sergeant Thisbe sent him this time was a good deal more than odd. But, before the sergeant could say anything, horns blared from off to one side. Colonel Florizel bellowed, “Shift from column into line of battle! Move, move, move!”

“Hello!” Gremio exclaimed. “I still don’t know where we’re going, but now, at least, I’ve got some idea of what we’re doing: we’re going to fight.” He raised his voice to a shout: “My company, shift from column into line! Move!”

They performed their evolutions with the automatic speed and precision endless hours on the practice field had drilled into them. As they moved, Thisbe asked, “What are we going to fight, sir? General Hesmucet’s whole army?”

“To the hells with me if I know,” Gremio answered. “One more thing we’ll find out, I’m sure.” If they were going up against Hesmucet’s whole army, not many of them would come back from the encounter. He knew as much, as Thisbe was bound to. Neither of them dwelt on it.

Horns blared again. Colonel Florizel shouted, “Forward!” Did he know what he was advancing against? Gremio was inclined to doubt it. The regimental commander ordered the men forward nonetheless.

When Gremio tramped past a stand of trees that had obscured his view, he discovered the Army of Franklin wasn’t the only one that made mistakes. A couple of regiments of soldiers in gray had also formed line of battle, and were trying to scrape up breastworks and dig holes in the ground for themselves. “They must have been coming up from the south to reinforce Caesar,” Gremio said.

“Why don’t they surrender?” Thisbe said. “They haven’t got a chance, not against so many men.”

“I don’t know,” Gremio answered. Then, as he came closer to the embattled foe, he understood: “Oh. They’re full of blonds.”

“They’re going to be full of dead blonds if they don’t give up,” Thisbe said.

“I don’t think they think they can surrender,” Gremio said. “They may be right, too. I haven’t got much stomach for a massacre, but…” Plenty of soldiers in the Army of Franklin would-he was sure of that.

“King Avram!” the men in gray shouted. “King Avram and freedom!” No, they showed no sign of wanting to surrender. Some of them started singing “The Battle Psalm of the Kingdom.”

How much fighting had they seen? How many men would they kill, could they kill, before they went down to death themselves? They seemed big and strong and ready to fight. Gremio knew perfectly well that the Army of Franklin couldn’t afford the losses it would take subduing them. He also knew perfectly well his comrades couldn’t walk away from the blonds. He sighed. He hated quandaries like that.

“Be careful,” he called to his company. “Those bastards up ahead have nothing to lose. Don’t throw yourselves away if you can help it. King Geoffrey needs every single one of us.”

They weren’t going to listen to him. He could tell at once, by the way they leaned forward, how eager they were to get into this skirmish. Some of them were liege lords themselves. Others aspired to estates with serfs. Blonds who bore arms against Detinans contradicted everything they held dear and conjured up pictures of peasant revolts. Now the northerners had a chance to make the blonds pay, and they were going to take it.

As usual, soldiers from both sides started shooting too soon. Coming into crossbow range of each other, though, didn’t take long. Gremio hated the sound of quarrels humming past his ear. He hated even more the flat, unemphatic smack they made when they slapped into flesh. And the sounds that came from a man who’d been shot… He hated those most of all.

Blonds ahead began falling. Gremio wondered how many of them came from the southron provinces and how many were runaway serfs. He couldn’t very well pause and ask. All he could do was run toward them waving an officer’s sword that wouldn’t do him a bit of good till he got close enough for them to have a fine chance of killing him, too. The more he thought about it, the stupider a way to pass his time this seemed.

However much he wanted to, though, he couldn’t go back. Even if his superiors didn’t crucify him for cowardice, he’d never again be able to hold up his head among men. That mattered to him more than the possibility of getting shot. Not for the first time, he wondered why it should.

Beside him, Thisbe said, “It’s a good thing they’re all crossbowmen. We couldn’t charge them like this if they had pikemen with them.”

“Oh, yes, a very good thing-a bloody wonderful thing,” Gremio said in tones of something less than complete enthusiasm.

Sergeant Thisbe’s laugh abruptly turned into a yelp of pain. Instead of ru

Gremio skidded to a stop just beyond him. “Go on, sir,” Thisbe said. “Go on. I’ll be all right.” He tried to get to his feet, tried and failed. The left leg of his pantaloons started to turn red. He began crawling away from the fight ahead.

“Here, I’ll help you.” Gremio knelt beside him. “Give me your arm. I’ll heave you upright, and you can use your good leg for a little ways. We’ve got to get you back to the healers, get that wound seen to.”

Thisbe waved him away, repeating, “Go on, sir. I’ll be all right.”

“Sergeant, give me your arm,” Gremio said in a voice harsher than he’d ever used with Thisbe. “That is an order.”

Thisbe looked as if he wanted to argue further, but then the wound must have twinged again, for he winced and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s better.” Gremio put the underofficer’s arm over his shoulder. “Let me have some help from your good leg if you can, Sergeant.” He straightened. Thisbe wasn’t a big man. Gremio had less trouble getting him up than he’d expected. “Come on,” he said.

“Sir, I don’t want to go to the healers,” Thisbe said.

“What you want doesn’t matter very much right now, Sergeant,” Gremio said. “What you need matters, and what you need is healing. I’ll get you there, never fear.”

“Sir, could you bandage me yourself?” Thisbe asked desperately. “By all the gods, sir, I’ll give you anything you like, anything at all, if only you don’t take me to the healers.”

“Why are you so afraid of them?” Gremio asked. “Is it for the same reason you never wanted to be promoted, no matter how much you deserve it?”

He was talking only to distract Thisbe from his pain, but the underofficer seized on his words and gave him a quick, urgent nod. “Yes, for just the same reason, sir! Don’t take me there, I beg you!”

Gremio used his free hand to scratch his head. If ever a man seemed in earnest, Thisbe was the one. “What is this precious reason of yours, sergeant?” the company commander asked.

Something more like fear than pain twisted Thisbe’s face. “I can’t tell you, sir. I don’t dare tell you. I don’t dare tell anybody.”

What was that supposed to mean? Gremio started to come out and ask the question, then stopped with the words unspoken. He’d had an arm around Thisbe for some little while now, while Thisbe had had one around him. The sergeant didn’t usually care to be touched. This time, there’d been no choice. Gremio thought he understood now why Thisbe had fought shy of it before. What he thought was madness, but there were times when madness made more sense than anything else. What he saw, what he heard-he could be wrong about all of that. What he felt? No. Madness or not, he thought it was true.

“Sergeant, I’ll look at your wound,” he said. “If I think I can just bandage it, I’ll do that. If I think it has to go to the healers to save your life, I’ll take you there. That’s the best I can offer, because I don’t-I especially don’t-want to lose you.”

“I suppose it’ll have to do, sir.” Despite pain, the underofficer picked up nuance. “Especially?” How much dismay was in that voice?