The General
The 5th story in the Oracle of Toko-Ri
The general sauntered up the trail. This had been a pleasant trip and he really wasn’t in a hurry. He was worried, but not that worried.
He came around the corner and paused to survey the scene. It really was everything that he had heard… beautiful but not overwhelming. And a nice quiet crowd enjoying the day… and watching him curiously. He must not be the norm for people coming to the oracle.
Well, no time like the present even if he wasn’t in a hurry. He strode forward toward the cave mouth and into the fog that appeared around him…
… And was suddenly in a long, wide, hallway. With a wooden floor. And, striding along beside him, taking two steps to his one, was a young girl. Dressed, not in the rags he had heard about, but a perfectly normal peasant’s dress. Indeed a very well cared for one, that seemed to have been recently ironed.
“A very interesting situation,” she was saying, as if they were in the middle of a conversation. “They managed to get you removed and, except for the fact that they seem rather incompetent you wouldn’t actually mind.”
He nodded, “I’m afraid that they will get us into a war. Not out of malice…”
“But because their thoughts run to their positions and not how carry them out. No further than to make themselves look good, anyway.”
“And having spent all of my life protecting my country…”
“…You do not wish to throw it away now. Quite proper. And, lucky for both of us, easy to fix.”
He stopped and she turned to him. “No great mysterious words,” she said. “Not for you. Just some instructions.”
She resumed her rapid pacing and he walked beside her. “There is a small town by the name of Renneron,” she said. “You probably won’t have heard of it, it is rather deep in the mountains. There are only two things of great interest in that town. An inn, and a bridge.”
“You are to go to that inn, and marry the widow innkeeper, and support her and her children. And then, every day, at sunset you are to go… with your sword… down to the bridge and stand in the middle of it.”
He waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “Is that it?” he asked, “That is all I have to do?”
“That is not all you have to do,” she answered, “but those are all the instructions you need. You have had competent subordinates and know you do not have to give competent people detailed instructions… just the broad outlines.”
He nodded. “I should go, then?” he asked, and found himself walking out of the mouth of the cave.
It had taken him three weeks to get to the oracle’s cave from his country, using carriages, rides on wagons, and his own feet. It took him five weeks to get to Renneron. It was in his country but it truly was far up in the mountains.
But he was pleasantly surprised when he looked down on it from the road, which curled above it. It was a pleasant looking town, with ten or so buildings in the town and a few dozen scattered in the mountains around that he could see.
He couldn’t see the bridge from the road above the town but, once he rounded the final bend, he saw it, and stopped, amazed. For a small mountain town this was an amazing bridge. All done in stone, and wide. He would have wondered what it was used for, except that as he watched a herd of sheep crossed it, going down and away from the town. Obviously there was a good deal of trade in animals and the bridge was well used.
His heart beat a bit faster as he entered the town. He was a general, or had been, indeed a rather famous general, well used to commanding men, but he had not often dealt with women, except for his wife and daughters.
And the inn, when he found it, was not at all the small hovel he had expected. It was a large, two story inn with, he saw as he walked in, a large open common room, with a large fireplace. Which, right now, just had a small fire in it, the day being crisp but not cold.
“Can I help you?” he heard, and turned to see a young girl. He stared and then caught himself. The girl, altho she looked nothing like the oracle had done, was dressed almost identically!
“Yes, umm, I would like some small beer, if you please.”
The girl hurried off, and he sat down. She was back, seconds later, carrying the mug carefully with both hands.
“Anything else?” she asked, after she had set it down, carefully, her tongue sticking just out of her mouth as she concentrated.
“Yes, please,” he said, “Is your mother here?”
“She’s in the back,” the girl said, as if her mother was not to be bothered while ‘in the back’.
“Could you tell her I have business with her?” he asked.
She frowned, but nodded, and he sipped his drink, waiting.
“You have business with me?” he heard, a minute or so later.
“Yes,” he said, still looking down at his drink, not really daring to look at this woman he was to marry.
He took a deep breath. “I have come to marry you.”
There was a moments silence. “You? Who are you?”
“I am… I was a general. I am now retired on a pension… a perfectly adequate pension I quite assure you. I have never run an inn, or helped to do so, but I have run an army, I am quite competent, I assure you…”
He looked up as he said this last, as to convince her of his sincerity, and his breath caught. He had imagined a fat, older woman; worn down by years of hard work… having to force himself to…
“Well!” she said, at his look. “I haven’t had any man in the village look at me like that for years!” she said. “My husband did, which died half a year go, but he was the only one.”
“They are fools then,” he said, then looked down at her breast. “So he never got to see that one?”
She looked down herself at the baby, “No… born two months after he died, poor man. But he did a good job with the six others. Do you have any children?”
“Nine,” he said. “All grown and married and living their own lives. Good children.”
“And you want to marry me? Settle down here and run an inn?”
“I do now,” he said, frankly. “I was sent by the oracle, and I don’t know how long I have to live, but, yes, I want to marry you.”
“Well, I could use a husband, and the children a father, that is true enough. But what do you mean, you don’t know how long you have to live?”
He explained the whole story to her… ending with, “So, you see, I had pictured myself dying valiantly on the bridge, somehow stopping a great invasion…”
“Well, I don’t know how any great invasion of anywhere will come through here,” she said. “But if you need to go and stand on the bridge for an hour every evening, why, that won’t be more strange than half the men around her with their habits. And perhaps I or one of the children will go stand with you.”
He nodded, numbly, and just then a customer came in and his new wife left him.
The next three weeks were rather intense. He spent every waking minute getting to know his wife, his children, the inn, and the business. He wrote to his children informing them of his new address, and arranged with the paymaster’s office for his pay to be forwarded to this town.
He thrashed the oldest son exactly once and after that had no problems with him or any of the other children over his assumption of authority over them and their mother’s bed. They knew their jobs in the inn so he rarely needed to instruct them there.
Indeed he concentrated on physical work… repairing the roof preparatory to the winter and laying in an enormous stock of firewood… cutting it himself and thus saving them a pretty penny.
And every evening he went, as directed, to stand on the bridge. The first week his wife alone accompanied him but, over the next two weeks first his children and then his neighbours came to stand with him and talk. He told the story of his visit to the oracle to everyone who asked and soon everyone in the area knew of the man with a mission to stand at the bridge.
Then over the next two years he became more and more the master of the inn, learning every aspect of the business, and even building an outbuilding for laundry. He was surprised at how much traffic came through this area… roads from all around converging at this one, decent, bridge which carried a huge amount of local trade and even some things all the way down to the capital of the country next door, their historic enemy.
And still, every evening, he went and stood on the bridge. Often in company, sometimes alone. Which he didn’t mind, enjoying the silence after the business of the inn.
So it was, one fall evening, that, hearing rapid hoofbeats, he looked up. He had almost forgotten why he stood on the bridge, but he had not forgotten his military instincts. Indeed he had started training his sons and some village lads to use the sword. So when he saw the rider rounding the corner he had his sword out in a flash and stood in the middle of the bridge.
“Rouse the village!” he yelled at his second oldest son and, after a moment’s hesitation, he ran off screaming to the town.
“Move, old man!” the rider said, when he saw that the idiot with the sword was not getting out of his way. “I have business!”
“A soldier of our enemy has no business here!” the general snarled and the soldier started at his voice.
“I will ride you down!”
“You can try!”
The soldier hesitated but, seeing a crowd starting to come down the street toward them he drew his own sword and spurred his horse forward.
The general slid past the horse on the right and, before the soldier could bring his sword around, stabbed him in the thigh, causing him to scream and saw at the reins. The horse, neighing wildly, stood and dumped his rider to surface of the bridge.
The general looked down at his foe. The soldier, sword lost, was clutching his leg and moaning. “What were you doing here, anyway?” the general asked.
“It doesn’t matter now, I’ve failed,” the soldier moaned. “It seemed like such an easy task.”
“It matters to me. And we need to tie up that leg if you’re going to live,” he said, watching the blood ooze from between the man’s fingers.
“I… I’m a scout, and I grew up in this area. I made the mistake of telling someone about a path I knew… down to the Roko bridge, the backside. The plan…” he moaned and the general motioned to his wife and his oldest daughter, “Tie off his leg and take him off to the inn. Then see what you can do for it.”
One eye still on the path he beckoned to his oldest son. “Have everyone bring firewood,” he said. “Pile it up here behind me.”
“Yes, Father,” his son replied, and ran off to the waiting crowd.
“What is going on?” the blacksmith asked, coming up to the general.
“This must be why the oracle sent me here,” the general replied. “That man was a scout. He came to mark out a path for an invasion.”
“They are invading here?!”
“No, not really. They would invade through Roko. But the man said he knew a path to the backside of the Roko bridge from here. If he led a small force there, they could seize the bridge defences from the rear… after that the invasion would be easy.”
“So what are we doing?”
“I am going to hold the bridge. Have the men pile up firewood behind me. Then, if I fail, you can set the pile on fire. Set up cover against archers so that you can keep feeding the fire, and send men down… here they come.”
The blacksmith turned away and the general heard firewood clattering down behind him. He even heard the church bell ringing, sounding the fire alarm. But he ignored all of that to focus on the men coming down the hill in front of him.
It was a troop of light infantry, he saw. About two hundred in view so far. Spearmen. A good choice. The spears would work both for distance work and close in, and the light infantry wouldn’t need heavy baggage support and would be able to move rapidly down the forest path.
Their leader, who was also afoot, saw him first. Bright lad. But he kept his men moving until they were just at the far end of the bridge. The general waited, his whole world focused on that leader. Would he recognise that, the scout down… he cursed, he should have left the scout weltering in his blood. They would just have his word that he was injured…
“What are you doing, Old Man?” the leader asked, advancing alone.
“Holding the bridge. And that’s ‘General Old Man’, to you, Lieutenant.”
“Retired?” the Lt asked, looking at the general’s clothes, which had a large dusting of flour.
“Retired and moved to this town.”
“And so you will defend it to the death against an entire troop of light infantry?”
“I already killed your scout,” the general replied, pointing to the blood stain on the ground.
The lt looked down and cursed. Then he looked at the growing pile of firewood behind the general and cursed again. But they both jumped when they heard a loud, shrill, woman’s voice from behind the general.
“Husband?! What are you doing!?”
“Holding the bridge,” the general shouted back to his wife who, by her voice, was just behind the pile.
“There are forty men here with everything from axes to pitchforks, and all of the women and children are moving firewood, oil sprinkled firewood. There is no reason for you to be standing there like some fool.”
The general looked at the lieutenant, who shrugged. “I won’t stop you,” he said. “Some retired general in some remote village is no threat to me. I’m just glad you aren’t still in active duty. Any man that could make this happen is not someone I want on the other side.”
“So what are you going to do?” the general asked.
“I’m going to leave some men here so that your people will have to guard the bridge, and take the rest off to try to find somewhere to ford the river. Then I’ll spend a few days fruitlessly trying to find the path down to Roko, and when I can’t I’ll lead my men back across the river and report that our scout was killed.”
The general turned and climbed up the pile, almost getting hit by a log thrown by one of the larger lads. At the top he turned, “The scout wasn’t actually killed. I got the better of him and he’s being sewn up in my inn. When this is all over come back and we’ll have a drink and talk over old war stories.”
“I’ll do that, Old Man,” the lt said, and walked back to his waiting troops.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
I've been enjoying this series, but this one doesn't work for me. It exposes one of your biggest writing weaknesses: you decide that a character needs to act in a particular way for purposes of the story, but then fail to give them an internal motivation. That leaves them coming off as having the depth of cardboard.
The most obvious case is the innkeeper, who simply decides to marry a complete stranger who walks in an insists that he wants to marry her because the oracle said so. There is no hesitation on her part whatsoever, in sharing the bed of this stranger, and giving him power over the main asset which supports her and her children. Even with the reputation the oracle may be receiving, that seems an incredible stretch.
But the scout is about as bad. He knows perfectly well that his task is pathfinding, not fighting, and yet he charges this very confident man who claims to be a general, and thus dooms the invasion effort. Had he returned to the army with the news, they could presumably have come up with a much better plan with little trouble.