Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

time.
    Now I said heavily, "Yes, the women and children. Fairview, the General told me a few days ago that the Landsteaders at that fort are nearly at the point where they must eat horseflesh to survive. Landsteaders are dying every day there – we must find a way to help them."
    "There's no question that we must," replied Fairview. "The only question is whether the General has chosen the best way. —Yes, Davey, what is it?" He paused to speak to his apprentice-aged messenger.
    "Excuse me for interrupting, sir. This just arrived for you." Davey offered him an envelope.
    "Our faithful postmen." Fairview took the envelope and held it up to the strengthening sunlight as the drizzle turned to mist. "We can't break through to Fort Frederick, yet somehow the postmen can reach us with our mail. Do you suppose we could hire them to improve communications in the army? —Thank you, Davey. Have you rested yet?"
    "I've tried, sir." The lad wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably. "It's hard, with those guns . . ." As he spoke, there was another boom in the distance.
    "They're not shelling us," Fairview pointed out. "They're probably trying practice shots, attempting to gauge the distance to some target. Have some food, have some rest – we'll be moving out again tonight."
    "We will?" Davey peered up cautiously at him. "Will you be taking me with you, sir?"
    His voice sounded anxious; no doubt he had heard that I had ordered my own messenger-lad not to leave his sickbed until we moved camp again. Would that I could have issued the same orders to all the soldiers in my battalion who were ill from our week's work.
    Fairview smiled at Davey. "Of course. I depend on your services. Now go have a bit of leisure – that's a good lad."
    Watching Davey skip away, I said, "Hark the adoring look he gave you. He has a mash on you."
    Fairview laughed as he slit the envelope open with his penknife. "Half the men in my battalion do. 'Fairview, Fair of View . . .' I've heard what they call me. —Ah, grandmama is as appropriate as always."
    "She sent you another battle prayer?" I looked over his shoulder at the letter.
    Fairview nodded. "'May we be prepared at all times to meet our Fates—'"
    "Inappropriate, you mean," I grumbled. "Do you really think that any soldier who serves under the General can claim to be prepared?"
    I gestured with my hand as Fairview pocketed the letter. As it happened, we had halted near the medical men, who were in the process of supervising the loading of their equipment onto a wagon. The doctors and their assistants would be coming with us, of course, although most of them would remain at Ammippian Springs, where the field hospital would be set up.
    The Queendom of Yclau had been distinctly miserly in lending us soldiers, but the queendom had at least lent us some of its doctors – and that was a gift worth keeping, given that Yclau had the finest physicians in the Midcoast nations. These particular doctors had come from a military hospital in the far southwest of Yclau. They had brought with them an ambulance corps trained to remove wounded men from the field during battle, as well as a group of men from one of Yclau's overseas colonies, who were being trained as stretcher-bearers. The colonials would not be expected to enter the battlefield themselves; in the upcoming battle, they would be given the lesser job of carrying the wounded down the hill and delivering water up to the edge of the summit.
    Except . . .
    I frowned, gave a quick glance at Fairview, and found that he was frowning too. Fairview looked at me, saw the hesitant query in my eyes, and nodded. We both strode forward.
    Healer Mahone was in the midst of supervising the striking of the field hospital's tent; he looked up with a faintly irritated expression as we interrupted him. "Colonels? I am rather busy—"
    "Where is your ambulance corps, sir?" I waved my hand toward the remainder of the scene: Yclau doctors, Yclau assistants, and colonial stretcher-bearers and water-carriers. No Yclau ambulancemen.
    Healer Mahone's expression of irritation increased. "Your General has sent my ambulancemen away – without my authorization – to serve as support for the Commander-in-Chief's other troops. He told me – after he had sent them away – that my colonial stretcher-bearers would be sufficient for the upcoming fight."
    Suppressing a sigh, I said, "I'm sure they will be, sir. They've been well-trained, I'm certain."
    "Mm." The doctor glanced at