his gloves but said nothing. He’d a lot less to say on a battlefield than in a drawing room, on the whole.
“Are Stour’s men ready?” asked Leo, in Northern.
Greenway’s grin was almost a leer. “Oh, we’re always up for a fight.”
Jin frowned sideways at him. “He didn’t ask you to measure your cock. He asked if Stour’s men are ready.”
“They’re working through the woods. An hour and they’ll be at the treeline. Maybe two.”
Leo winced. Maybe two could easily mean three. It wouldn’t be enough to push Orso back, he had to crush him. Could they do it in the lag end of an afternoon? He shaded his eyes, trying to work through the distances, the times, but there was so much to consider, his sight danced and his head buzzed with it all. He turned to ask Jurand’s opinion, then remembered, and felt the sting of disappointment and betrayal all over again. He was the only one of Leo’s friends who’d ever really had an opinion worth listening to. Such a clear thinker. Such a cool head in a crisis. Why did the best man Leo knew have to be a bloody pervert? He clenched his fist.
“Isher, Barezin, what about you?”
“My men are up,” fretted Isher, sounding less than delighted about it. “Already deploying on the right.”
“And mine are coming up!” boomed Barezin. He couldn’t say a word without trying to make a threat out of it. “My Gurkish Legion will be ready to advance within the hour!”
Steebling gave another contemptuous cackle. Leo gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it.
“What about the rest of the Open Council?”
Barezin thumped his fat fist into his fat palm. “Mostly up!”
“Partly up,” said Isher. “Some are still bogged down on the bad roads…”
The roads were dried out now. It was damp command and soggy discipline that were slowing them down. They’d need more time to deploy, especially with those orchards and that river ahead. But then the bluff beyond looked only lightly held. It might be better to try to grab it now than wait…
“Damn it,” Leo muttered. As a captain, the right things to do were never in doubt. Follow orders. Care for your men. Lead by example. As a general, the right things were shrouded in fog. Everything was a best guess, a fine judgement, an each-way bet with thousands of lives staked on the outcome. The decisions he’d taken in the past had always been in the heat of the moment. He’d never had time to weigh the consequences.
Had his mother been right? Was he no general? He caught himself wishing she was with him and forced the thought away. By the dead, he was the Young Lion! But courage and a loud roar wouldn’t be enough. Antaup was right, it was bad ground. Men would die taking those positions. Good men. Friends like Ritter and Barniva, killed by his recklessness.
“We have the numbers,” he mused to himself, rubbing at his aching leg. “They have no help coming.”
“Bunch o’ bloody traitors,” said Steebling, more than loud enough to be heard, swigging from a bottle and giving them a scornful stare over it. Leo would’ve liked to kick him off his chair and roll him down the hill, but they were here to free the Union’s people from the tyranny of the Closed Council, not kick them off their chairs, however much they deserved it.
Mustred gave him a nod of encouragement. “The men of Angland are with you, Your Grace, whatever you decide.”
That should’ve been a comfort. But it only brought home to Leo that the decision was entirely his. He’d always prided himself on being the definition of a man of action. Now, in command, on a battlefield with the enemy before him, the very place he’d always dreamed of being, he felt paralysed.
He found himself wishing that Rikke was there. He loved Savine, but she’d a habit of forcing her opinions on people. A subtle, velvety kind of forcing, but her opinions still. Rikke had a way of cutting through the tangle to the simple heart of things. She’d helped him see what he wanted.
He rounded angrily on Hardbread. “Where the bloody hell is Rikke?” The old warrior swallowed and gave a helpless shrug.
High Ground
Rikke squatted in the wet woods, fretting at the old dowel around her neck, going over and over her own tooth marks with her thumbtip.
Her father had spent half his life squatting in wet woods, and it was nice to feel that