“Me?” I glanced at the faces around the table. Perhaps a beaten face wins you points with soldiers as much as the dick measuring. They all waited politely, not with the derision I had expected. “I think you should walk into the ambush.” I forestalled the collective intake of breath and continued, “Play them at their own game. Split your army. Send a small number into the valley masquerading as the whole: the wagons, the boys, and the old men. Place them on horses, in the wagons, spread them around and make them look more. Then take your main force around behind the ridge and attack the enemy from the rear as they attack us. They will charge with horses down from the side of the valley with great speed and force of penetration. You need to slow their advance by making the ground unavailable to them: concealed stakes, pits, whatever can be prepared in the time we have left.”
“You are the very devil, sir!” One of the older officers stood up, outraged. “General, we cannot allow this dishonor to taint our noble war. What this man suggests is nothing short of heathenish. I saw such things in Prague in forty-eight, and I will not be party to such—”
“Sit down, Major Pike, please. I value your input, as always, but I do not need to be reminded of my honor… on second thought, do not sit. You are all dismissed. Not you, Doctor. I want you to outline your idea for me again.”
I chuckled when the other officers had left.
I thought he was using a coded language to say that he wanted me for more personal reasons, but he was not. He wanted me to show him on the map what my plan would entail.
He looked up. “What?”
I shook my head. “I am a bad man, Aleksey. Ignore me. What do you want to know?”
He relented for a moment, checked that the tent flap was closed, and put his hands to my face.
“Is there somewhere you can suggest I kiss? It all looks a bit… battered.”
I smiled again, with a wince. “Oh, yes, I can very easily suggest somewhere for you to kiss.”
Color rose on his cheekbones, just a hint but all that his pale skin would allow. I tapped him on the nose. “We will save kissing until you are a famous general with new, shiny medals adorning your uniform.”
We pored over the map for the rest of the night. I showed him as best I could what I had meant. I was no tactician. I had only led braves on small skirmishes, but the principal was the same, as far as I could see. We had once used dead soldiers to trick others that their fort had not been taken. We propped them up on the battlements, and our intended victims had ridden into our trap in all innocence. Aleksey’s main worry was exposing the old men and the boys to the danger of the initial attack, until we could bring in our forces from the rear. I showed him, by sketching them, some of the things he could use to slow up the horses. They looked like tangles of briars and thorns, which is what we had used when we had them available. When not, we had fashioned them from twine and sharp sticks. Pits were easy to dig, of course, in the soft, sandy soil of the colonies. I did not know how many it would be possible to dig here in the frozen ground. I did not even know if Aleksey’s army carried spades. He assured me that they did but had no idea how many. All these things needed to be planned, and for that he needed all his officers back once more. He agreed to my basic plan, however: move decoys into the valley, allow an attack, which would be slowed where possible, and then attack in turn from the rear with heavy cavalry. His infantry would attack the static enemy blocking the valley.
I wanted him to rest, but I knew he would not. He was young. He was in his element, and he could go for many days on the excitement that was coursing through his body. I was exhausted, but I was determined to be on hand if needed. He called all the key officers back into the tent, and the real planning began.
AFTERAfew hours, it became clear where the problem with the plan lay: communication. In the static battles they were used to fighting, everyone knew what was happening, for the enemy was in front in plain sight. You responded to a drum or a bugle telling you which maneuver you were to perform. In a fluid battle such as Aleksey was planning, each element had to work in concert, but no one would be able to see the other group or move in a coordinated pattern. He could not see how the cavalry would know when to attack at exactly the right moment—before the enemy could descend upon our unarmed boys and old men, yet after they had actually committed to the sweep off their position on the hills.
I did have a suggestion, but I was loath to make it to Aleksey in such company and put him in the position, yet again, of appearing to favor my ideas. Officers in an army, I had observed, were often extremely possessive of their commanding officer. Aleksey had an allure about him that made men want to be in his company, in his favor, and these men were no different. Each wanted his attention, like a schoolboy does a favorite master. I had my own reasons, of course, to keep Aleksey’s attention off me somewhat. His eyes now had a habit of drifting toward me to see what I was doing. A smile was sometimes on his face before he looked for me, which was worse. I could read these signals like I could read a page in a book, for he was thinking what I was thinking and remembering what I was remembering.
Finally, therefore, I nudged Colonel Johan to one side and outlined my plan to him. I expected him to scoff at it and laugh at me, but he nodded slowly, asked one or two more details, and then returned to the table. I had told him to put the plan as if it were his. Aleksey, of course, understood its provenance. To my knowledge, the colonel had never been in the Americas and seen Powponi communicate through smoke, so it was obvious to Aleksey who had made the suggestion. Surprisingly, everyone thought it an excellent idea. After all, they often navigated to a new encampment by observing the smoke from the campfires, so the idea was not entirely novel to them. It was another thing, though, which Aleksey had to organize. Fires didn’t light themselves. No one was trained to carry fire-starting materials or know when to light them or to send up the correct signal at the correct time. Apparently, everything in these armies had to be trained for before it could be considered possible. I had lived a life where everything was just done by anyone who happened to be available, and I did not recall being trained to anything specifically.
By now, dawn was creeping over the hills to the east, bringing a sense of menace dawn had never held for me before. The camp was broken, and we were on the move again. Aleksey and his officers continued planning as they rode. No games now. It was all war.
ISAWAleksey almost every minute of every day but at the same time saw nothing of him that I wanted at all. We hardly had a minute of talk together that was not about the plan. My role had changed somewhat in Aleksey’s army. I was no longer the doctor. I was to lead the charge from the hills into the back of the enemy lines. No one challenged this position. They all knew I was the best placed to ride alongside the general. The first thing I did when I heard of this appointment was to forbid the use of the horse traps. I could not trust the soldiers to put them in a pattern that we could learn and thus avoid them. I was not going to have Xavier plunging into a pit and breaking his leg or neck, and Aleksey too, of course—I was not putting the welfare of my horse above his. Without the traps, we had to find other means to slow the enemy’s initial speed of attack, something that would not then impede our progress as we swept down upon them from the rear. That was when I had the idea about the gunpowder. It made me smile. I had quite enjoyed the chaos and confusion I had caused the Saxefalians. Also, they’d tried to hang me and had battered my face so Aleksey could not kiss me. Theyowedme.
I outlined my idea to Aleksey as he rode that afternoon with the veterans, discussing their part of the plan. Their addition to their general’s plan was to suggest that they should be armed, and the boys with them. Thus, not only would the ruse appear more real, they would form a defensive wall when attacked, which would trap the enemy between them and us. Aleksey loved the idea, and so did the little boys. Most of them were too small to even lift a pike, but they loved the lances and swords that were procured for them, and they swaggered around like little princes—until given a swift rebuke by Colonel Johan. Aleksey saw me riding up and left the veterans’ wagon he was riding in.
I was dismayed by his appearance. “When did you last eat?”
He didn’t fling back my inquiry with a flirtatious remark about what he preferred in his mouth. This worried me almost as much as his exhausted appearance.
I took hold of his horse’s rein, hardly protocol for your general and your prince, and pulled him toward the mess wagon. There was a flicker of a smile at this unorthodox treatment, and I was very glad to see it.
As he was munching the bread and cheese I procured for him, I told him what I had planned for the delay of the horses. He was more interested in the food, and I could tell he was not listening until I concluded my sentence, “… trenches with gunpowder.”
“Gunpowder?”
I laughed at the glint of mischief in his green eyes. “I plan to lay the powder in the trenches in front of their charge. It would take one man to light it at the right moment, and boom”—I made a suitable gesture with my hands that made him grin—“they will be entirely routed. Imagine it—smoke, bangs, flame hopefully. But—and this is the brilliance of the plan—by the time we charge down the hill it will all be gone. What?”
He’d slumped in the saddle, the piece of bread held loosely in his hand forgotten. “I don’t have time to organize it, Niko. It would take—”
“Who are those young men with enormous plumes who cluster around you as you lead this magnificent army, Aleksey?”
“Huh?” Staring at the piece of cheese wasn’t going to help his tired brain. I took pity on him. “The captains? Your trusting young officers? They are desperate for glory. Delegate! Give one the entire task of putting this plan into action and think no more on it.” I mimicked the way his father, the king, had waved at his minion the day I had been awarded my commission, and raised the pitch of my voice. “Captain. A trench. Do it.”
Aleksey smirked, clearly recognizing the subject of the mimicry. After a moment, he said slyly, “Their plumes aren’t that big. Trust me—I’ve seen them.”
It was an invitation, and I accepted.
