Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

Nudging Karolus through the throng, Grey deposited the hat neatly on Andrews’s startled head, provoking gales of laughter from the man’s companions. Grey bowed nonchalantly, accepting their salutes, and making no effort to hide his own amusement. It was like wine, the air before a battle, and they were all drunk with anticipation.

They looked well, he thought with approval. Rough, by comparison to the burnished Prussians, but brimming with uncouth spirits and an open desire for the fight.

“Corporal Collet!” he bellowed, and thirty heads snapped round in his direction. The largest—and best—of the companies under his command, he had managed to keep Collet’s company together for more than two years, drilled and brought on with such skill as essentially to act as a single entity. A sight to delight a commander’s heart.

“Sir!” Collet barked, bounding up beside him.

“Take your company to the front, Corporal. Form on the left; you’re the pivot. Wheel on Captain Wilmot’s signal.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Collet’s seamed face beamed at the honor, and he bounded back to his men, barking orders. The men cheered, and went off at the trot, shoulder to shoulder, like a flock of particularly bloodthirsty sheep.

Noise. Complete confusion, but an orderly confusion. Corporals shouting their companies into order, lieutenants and captains roving to and fro on horseback, minding their divisions. And the hussars who served as messengers, darting swiftly through the throng like mi

A pig burst suddenly out of the shredding mist and galloped in panic through a distant company, causing whoops and shrieks. One of the German officers shot it, and a small band of harpies rushed through the forming ranks to fall upon it with their knives, making the soldiers step round them. Grey sighed, knowing he would at some point be presented with a bill for that pig.

German camp followers. These women—some prostitutes, some wives, and half of them vicious slatterns, regardless of legal status—clung like cockleburs to the army’s arse, following closely even into battle, ready to loot and plunder at the slightest opportunity. God help anyone who fell in their path, Grey thought, watching the butchery.

The sound of bugling cut through the thick air, and Karolus flung back his head with a snort. Grey felt a sudden sharp pang; he would so much have wished to share this with Percy. But there was no time for regret. The army was on the move.

There was no question of stealth. Duke Ferdinand’s combined forces numbered something in excess of thirty-two thousand troops, the French and Austrians forty-seven thousand. It was a straightforward matter, insofar as anything done by an army could be so described, of speed, force, tactics—and will.

A young hussar dashed up to Grey, brimming with excitement and self-importance, delivering a note.

Luck,it said.

Grey smiled and stuffed the note in his pocket. He had sent his own, identical note to Hal a few minutes before. It was their habit, when possible, to wish each other luck before a battle. He valued Hal’s wishing him luck the more, because he knew Hal did not believe in it.

Duke Ferdinand’s plan was novel, and daring: infantry to swing out and encompass the French left flank, the Prussian cavalry to press the advantage, artillery advancing into position to pin the divisions on the right. And the 46th to be in the van of the flanking maneuver.

He chose to carry a cavalry saber, rather than the customary officer’s hanger, both because he liked the weight and because it was more visible. He raised it now and bellowed, “Advance by company! Quick…March!”

Brett and Tarleton took up the cry, which spread to the sergeants and through the lines, and the columns began to move with amazing speed, churning the ground to black mud.

The fog drifted in patches over the marshy ground, but did not clear. In spite of the intermittent rain—repeated bellows of “Keep your powder dry, God damn your eyes!” rang from every quarter of the field in various languages—it was not a cold day, and the men, while damp, were cheerful.

Near the Landwehr, he pulled Karolus a little to the side, watching his men stream by, listening to the noises becoming audible from the French and Austrian lines forming on the other side of the dyke. The Landwehritself was a formidable barrier—two water-filled ditches, each some ten feet wide, with a massive central bank, fifteen feet in width, between them—but not a very wide one. A thick growth of trees and bushes edged the dyke here; he couldn’t see the enemy through mist and leaves, but he could hear them easily—French, he thought.

Shouts, cheers, the distant creak of caisson wheels as artillery wheeled into position…then these were drowned in the boom of drums, as Ferdinand’s Prussian cavalry came within earshot on Grey’s side of the Landwehr, led by their drum horse. Dragon-Riders, they called themselves, with that typical German inclination for drama. They looked it, though. Tall men all, straight in the saddle and beautiful in their glory, and his heart was stirred, despite himself.

Karolus was stirred, too; he jerked, snorted, and made as though to join them. He had once been a cavalry horse—loved drums and adored parades. Grey reined him in, but the stallion continued to dance and toss his head.

Karolus was stirring up the ensigns’ horses, too, and Grey was not sure that Brett and Tarleton could keep their own mounts under control. Clicking his tongue, he pulled Karolus’s head round, and rode a little way into the trees along the Landwehr, trailed by his ensigns.

He could still hear the cavalry drums, but the horses had quieted a little, with the others out of sight. Brett’s horse bobbed his head, wanting to drink from the ditch, and Grey nodded at Brett to allow it.

“Not too much,” he said automatically, his attention divided between the sounds behind them and those to his left, where the other British regiments were massing to attack the French right flank. The double ditches of the Landwehrwere full to the banks, swelled by the recent rains, and the water ran muddy and quick below him, grass trailing in the current.

“What’s that?” he heard Brett say, startled, and looked where his ensign was pointing. Several tall, pointed shapes were dimly visible among the trees on the other side of the dyke. He blinked, and made sense of what he was seeing just as one of the shapes flung back its arm and hurled something in his direction.

“Grenades!” he roared. “Get clear, get clear!”

The first one struck a few feet to his right and exploded, sending pottery shards in all directions. Some struck Karolus, who shied violently, then bucked and reared as more grenades struck the bank between the ditches—bright flashes from the ones that went off, others rolling like fallen apples, smothered and harmless in the dirt, a few with live fuses hissing like snakes.

Grey grappled the reins in one hand, fumbling for his pistol. There was a sudden feeling of warmth down his face, the sting of blood ru

A thunder of hooves; Brett’s mount, riderless, fled past Grey. Where…? He glanced round—there. Brett had been thrown, was rising from the ground, smeared with mud.

“Get back!” Grey shouted, pulling Karolus’s head around. The grenadiers were pulling back, too, out of pistol range, but one lucky last throw landed a live one in the grass at Brett’s feet, a blue-clay sphere, fuse sparking.

The boy stared at it, transfixed.