That incompetence had become glaringly apparent the instant the demon-jester began attempting to assemble the coalition of native leaders Sir George had warned him would be required. In fairness to the demon-jester, at least some of his maladroitness probably stemmed from the fact that he'd never anticipated that such an alliance would be necessary, but that was part of the problem. Obviously, he had expected Sir George and his company to deliver a quick, salutary drubbing to the local potentate, following which he would dictate terms and speedily depart. Unfortunately, there had been no local potentate—not in any meaningful sense, at any rate—and even if there had, the severity of the "drubbing" the Thoolaas had received had completely broken their power. Apparently, it had never occurred to the demon-jester that, as a long-term policy, shattering the military capabilities of the people who were supposed to enforce one's terms upon their fellows was a self-defeating proposition.

The more Sir George had watched the demon-jester in action here on Shaakun, the more puzzled he'd become. Even leaving aside the matter of why someone with the weapons and capabilities the demon-jester possessed should require the services of swordsmen and archers, there was the question of how the demon-jester could be so incompetent at using them now that he had them. It was as if he'd begun this entire effort, from the moment he first stole the English from their own world, with only a vague, theoretical notion of just what he intended to do. For all his invincible assumption of superiority, he seemed to be learning as he went... and it was painfully evident that he was not an outstanding student.

In some ways that was good. As long as he was willing to allow someone who did know what he was doing (like one Sir George Wincaster) to get on with the practical management of the campaign, the consequences of his incompetence could be minimized. And the discovery that he required Sir George's insights and political skills as badly as he required the baron's military talents might well work in the English's favor. It certainly was working that way at the moment, at any rate, although it was also possible that it could turn into an additional danger for Sir George personally in the future. No wise general wanted to find himself completely dependent upon someone else to whom his troops looked as their true commander, and more than one such "indispensable" man had been put aside or quietly murdered when his personal stature became a threat to his superiors. On the other hand, from the beginning, the demon-jester had been completely contemptuous of the possibility that his army of stolen Englishmen could ever be a threat to him. It followed from that towering confidence that he could never visualize any way in which that army's devotion to its original commander could ever threaten him, either, and Sir George devoutly hoped that nothing would change the demon-jester's mind in that regard.

Whatever might happen in the future, though, it had been up to Sir George and Computer to identify the factions and ambitions swirling amongst their "allies" and to manipulate them to the demon-jester's advantage. And so they had, the baron thought, standing atop the ridge line at the center of his position and looking up and down the front of his combined army.

His line stretched for the best part of three quarters of a mile in either direction from where he himself stood, much further than he could have liked, despite the fact that he'd held out almost five thousand warriors as a reserve and that his main formation was as much as twelve ranks deep at what he expected to be the critical points. That was one reason Skinnet and Sir Richard were operating as a detached command on his right. Sir Bryan Stanhope, with Dafydd Howice looking over his shoulder to keep him out of mischief, had another small force of cavalry on the left, while Rolf Grayhame and Sir Anthony Fitzhugh commanded the archers in the center. Splitting his cavalry that way reduced its effectiveness, but it also let him use the detachments to stiffen the resolve and discipline of his more questionable native contingents.

Yet the dispersal of his horse was the least of his worries at the moment, for he was about to do something no human commander in history had ever done: exercise direct, personal command over an army of twenty thousand... men. Even attempting to control such a huge force would have been futile on Earth, but Sir George enjoyed certain advantages no Earth commander ever had. Computer's "overhead imagery" could watch over the entire battle with an eagle's eye, and Computer's reports would keep him updated on its course with an accuracy no scouts' reports could hope to equal. Even better, Computer could speak to him or to any of his subordinate human commanders here on the field just as easily as he could in their encampment, and he could relay orders and questions faultlessly.

Sir George wished he had thought more closely about all of the implications of that before his first battle against the Thoolaas, but he'd considered them at length since then. And he'd also come to the conclusion that he'd probably been right not to unsettle his men by adopting too much of the demon-jester's "technology" in that battle. But he'd worked with it in training exercises with them since until they were completely comfortable with it, and the fact that he no longer required trumpet signals or couriers to control his troops completely changed the nature of war. There would still be any number of things which might go wrong, but watching an entire army disintegrate from the confusion of orders gone astray wouldn't be one of them. Better yet, his ability to communicate orders instantly to any one of his subordinates turned his entire company into an extension of his own brain. He was in a position to enjoy a flexibility and sureness in execution such as no human field commander had ever known.

The inclusion of so many natives tended to dilute that flexibility to some extent, but the demon-jester's "communication relays" helped even there. There weren't as many of them as Sir George could have desired, but they had been distributed to all of the principal chiefs and most of the subchiefs, and Computer could use them to relay Sir George's translated orders to his native levies. For some reason he couldn't quite unravel, Computer had seemed a bit uneasy over that when he first proposed the idea. It wasn't anything Computer had said, but Sir George had come to recognize the reticence Computer fell back upon when one of his own questions obviously touched upon information the demon-jester had decided he was not to have. At first, he'd thought it would simply be rejected out of hand, but then Computer had changed his mind (or the demon-jester had overridden his reluctance), and Sir George wondered what could conceivably have caused Computer to hesitate even briefly. That ability to communicate quickly and surely was an absolutely priceless tactical advantage, and as one of the "god devices" the "Commander" could provide, it had also helped to cement the locals' acceptance of the demon-jester as at least semidivine.

Sir George, a good Christian for all of his faults, was just a bit uneasy at passing off the demon-jester, of all creatures, as "divine." The fact that he himself enjoyed something of the status of an archangel in their eyes bothered him even more, but not nearly enough for him to consider foregoing the advantages it offered. After all, he consoled himself, none of the natives had ever heard of Christ, so either they were all doomed to Hell anyway, or else a merciful God must have made other arrangements. And if He had, then it was most unlikely that anything Sir George could do would upset them.

He chuckled, eyes still on the steadily approaching enemy force, at the thought... and even more of Father Timothy's expression when he'd shared it with the priest. Oh well. No doubt Timothy would come up with a suitable penance eventually.