The others added their impressions of Viscount Bill — impulsive, proud, the kind of commander who pushed hard when things were going well and became erratic when they weren't. Evan listened and his smile didn't leave his face.
Franklin noticed. "You have something in mind."
"Defeating Bill outright would be difficult," Evan said. "Making him withdraw is another matter. That, I think we can manage."
Edmund looked at him directly for the first time since the conversation began. "Explain."
Evan turned to Franklin instead. "Do you have a detailed map of Namibur Castle? As detailed as you can find."
Several maps came out. Namibur was a military fortification in the proper sense — not the kind of comfortable residence most nobles built, where livability had been traded against defensive function, but a purpose-built stronghold, which was why Count Laine had chosen it as his position. Evan studied the surrounding terrain. A few li west of the castle, a patch of woodland sat in a depression.
He traced a line with his finger. "Here. We approach from the west, through this tree cover."
Raymond looked at the map with a frown. "That's on the opposite side from us. We'd have to circle around through enemy territory to reach the castle's west. Why not attack from the east, where we already are?"
"Because our objective is to make Bill retreat, not destroy him. With the men we have, a direct approach gets us swept aside in the first charge. The woodland is the point — we form up along its edge, and Bill can't see how many men we have. Then we make it look like there are far more of us than there are."
Edmund spoke: "How do you make a force of eighty look like a larger one?"
"By making smoke. Put horses on long ropes dragging tree branches through the forest behind the lines — the dust and movement suggests columns of men arriving. The troops we actually have form at the treeline. Bill is a suspicious man by nature. He won't want to commit to an assault when he can't read what he's facing, especially with Laine's garrison still intact inside the walls."
Edmund sat with it. Then: "All right. We do it."
The stratagem was old on Earth — centuries old, possibly older. In this world it was essentially untried. The Creationist Church's eighteen hundred years of dominance had kept warfare small-scale and to a considerable extent rule-bound, and the magic factor made elaborate deception less reliable than in purely mundane conflicts. The straightforward clash of arms was the standard expectation. Evan was counting on that expectation.
The mercenary messenger joined their column and they moved, pushing hard, swinging in a wide arc to the northwest before turning south and then east. Their route extended well beyond the standard five to ten li scouting radius for a besieging force.
Three days into the march, still in territory controlled by Earl Edward's faction, a scout came back: a party of roughly twenty men ahead, apparently transporting something, with at least one knight among them.
Stolen novel; please report.
The column stopped. Evan felt the tension immediately. They were inside enemy territory and moving quietly; a single escaped rider with word of their position could undo everything.
Edmund made the call without hesitation. He sent Franklin's infantry on a wide sweep left, with orders to leave no one through. A second group swung right. He took the center himself, dropped his visor, took his lance from his squire, and led the charge.
From above it would have looked like three arrowheads converging from different angles on a group too surprised to form up properly. By the time the enemy realized what was happening, they were already surrounded. Two knights rode out from the group to make a fight of it. The senior one called to the other: "Break out and report to Viscount Bill!"
The lower-ranking knight kicked his horse toward Franklin's side of the line. Raymond moved to intercept — a single exchange of sword strokes, both men rocking in the saddle, neither unhorsed, but Raymond came away with blood at his mouth. The enemy knight hadn't stopped; he was already angling toward a gap.
As he shifted, he drove straight at Evan.
Evan had been watching the approach without particular urgency, turning the sword-cane over in his hand. The cold light came up in his eyes. The blade cleared the sheath with a ring and went out — white-grey edge, one motion — and the knight was still bringing his sword from the shoulder when the point arrived at his throat. The great sword dropped from his hand and he went off the horse. Evan's blade was already back in the cane.
Raymond watched from across the field and said nothing.
The senior knight was a genuine Knight in the full sense — not a title held by birthright but earned through real advancement. Edmund was the same, and the two of them came at each other with their full arrays activated, Edmund's mithril-inlaid armor blazing pale blue with threading arcs of lightning, his lance matching it. The enemy knight answered with fire-red, his blade throwing a light eight or nine cubits long. The collision was enormous — the lance snapped, the great sword spun away, the enemy knight was launched from the saddle and came down hard, his horse going to its knees. Edmund rocked and nearly fell, steadied, spat blood from behind his visor, and brought his sword around to point at the fallen man.
The soldiers moved in quickly and stripped the knight's armor while he lay still. He knew what he was. "Take him," Edmund said.
The twenty men in the center had gone pale. Common soldiers — in the parlance of the nobility, commoners — their fate was entirely at the winner's discretion. They had no ransom value and every reason to be afraid.
In the middle of them sat a mortar. Short barrel, high elevation, low initial velocity, large arc — the kind of weapon designed to drop heavy shot behind walls and break fortifications that couldn't be reached by direct fire. Next to it, a cart of ammunition.
Evan looked at it. Viscount Bill was operating with artillery. The Duchy of Liya sat in the northeast, and from both Nicholas Andrew's memory and everything Evan had observed since his arrival, the region's armies still ran primarily on cold steel — the matchlock musket wasn't accurate or powerful enough to threaten armored knights reliably, so firearms hadn't displaced the older systems. But a mortar was different. The fact that Bill had one suggested the transition was further along than the local assumptions acknowledged. This world was in the middle of a change, and not everyone had noticed yet.
Edmund glanced at the twenty men. "Kill them."
"Wait." Evan spoke quickly. "Keep them. They'll be useful."
Edmund gave him a look that communicated his opinion clearly, but paused. "Useful how?"
"The cannon requires trained operators. It also needs men to move it. That cart of ammunition isn't going to carry itself." He turned to the group: "Does anyone here know how to work this weapon?"
A broad-bearded man spoke up. "We do, my lord."
"Then you're coming with us. You'll manage the cannon and the ammunition. Perform well and there's a reward in it — isn't that right, Franklin?"
Franklin caught the look from Evan, registered it, and added his voice smoothly: "That's right. Perform well and you'll be compensated."
Edmund's brow tightened slightly, but he said nothing. He gave the order to march.
With the addition of the captured men the column now numbered roughly a hundred. Franklin dropped back alongside Evan and asked quietly: "Why keep them?"