By Heresies Distressed

by David Weber

  “I suppose it’s a case of settling for what they can find,” Sharleyan said tartly. Then she shook herself.

  “But that’s enough about Master Kairee,” she continued. “We have far more important things to worry about. Like exactly when the delegates should ‘spontaneously’ invite me to address them.”

  “Your Majesty,” Gray Harbor said, “that sounds extraordinarily calculating and cynical, especially for someone of your own tender years.”

  “Not calculating and cynical, My Lord, just practical,” she replied. “And my question stands. When should we arrange to have the invitation extended?”

  “There’s no need to move too quickly, Your Majesty,” Staynair said. “My own advice would be to give all of them at least a few more days to stew in their own juices. Let us hammer our rough edges off a bit—and give us time to begin shaking down into recognizable factions—before you come in and use your own mallet on us.”

  “Wait until I’ve got recognizable targets, you mean?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “You don’t think it would be a better idea for me to get in a few blows while everything is still more or less in a state of flux?” Sharleyan’s tone wasn’t argumentative. She was simply an expert tactician discussing tactics with her fellow experts.

  “Your Majesty, whatever you might do immediately isn’t going to keep factions from forming,” Staynair pointed out. “That’s simple human nature. I’m of the opinion that it would be wiser to allow water to seek its own level, to let the factions form naturally, so that we can identify both friends and foes, before we draw our swords.”

  “My, what a martial metaphor,” Gray Harbor murmured. Staynair quirked an eyebrow at him, and the first councilor laughed. “I’m not disagreeing with you, Maikel! In fact, I think you’re right.”

  “I believe I do, too,” Sharleyan said thoughtfully.

  “Good,” Gray Harbor said. “In that case, I’ll have a word with Sharphill. He’s already primed to start the ball rolling by—as you said, Your Majesty—‘spontaneously’ moving that the delegates entreat you to address them. All he needs is a nod.”

  “Fine.” Sharleyan smiled. Sir Maikel Traivyr, the Earl of Sharphill, was Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s father-in-law. He also had sufficient seniority in the Charisian peerage to ensure a hearing even from a Chisholmian noble, and he was very carefully keeping his head down and giving as little indication as possible of his own thoughts at the moment. Sharleyan had liked Sir Maikel from the moment she met him, and she could readily understand why Howsmyn thought as highly as he did of his wife’s father.

  “Well,” she said, picking up her wineglass once again, “I have to say, gentlemen, that I’m feeling considerably more cheerful than I was this morning. Whatever else happens, at least Cayleb and I seem to have allies in most of the necessary places.”

  “ ‘Allies,’ Your Majesty?” Gray Harbor repeated innocently. “Don’t you actually mean spies, provocateurs, and saboteurs?”

  “My Lord!” Sharleyan said in shocked tones. “I cannot believe that a royal councilor of your many years of experience could possibly be guilty of dabbling in candor at a moment like this! What were you thinking?”

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he said earnestly. “It was only a temporary lapse! I don’t know what came over me, but I promise I’ll do my best to refrain from such unseemly outbursts in the future!”

  “I should certainly hope so,” Empress Sharleyan of Charis said primly.

  . V .

  Galleon Wing,

  Off East Island,

  League of Corisande

  “Your Highness, I think you’d better go below,” Captain Harys said quietly.

  Princess Irys opened her mouth, prepared to protest, then closed it again, protest unspoken, and glanced at the Earl of Coris. It wasn’t an unspoken appeal for him to override the captain. It came close, but it stopped short, and Coris felt a fresh surge of pride in her as, almost against his will, he found himself once again comparing her to the older of her two brothers.

  “If you think best, Captain,” she said to Harys after a moment. “Do you think I need to go below immediately, or can I watch for a few more minutes?”

  “I’d really feel more comfortable—” Captain Harys began, turning to the princess, then paused in midsentence. It was her eyes, Coris thought with a half-hidden smile, despite the very real potential danger of the moment. They met the captain’s steadily, levelly, and in the end, Coris decided, it was the fact that, look into those eyes as he might, Harys saw neither fear nor petulance, but did see a promise to accept his decree, whatever it might be.

  “I’d really feel more comfortable if you went below now,” the captain continued his interrupted thought. “On the other hand, I don’t suppose it would hurt if you stayed a little longer, Your Highness. I would appreciate it, however, if you would take His Highness below in time to get him thoroughly settled in case we should have . . . visitors.”

  “Of course, Captain.” Irys smiled at him. There was no doubt that she understood exactly what he’d been implying, but those eyes of her dead mother met his unflinchingly, and Zhoel Harys found himself smiling in approval.

  “I’ll tell you when it’s time to go, Your Highness,” he told her, then bowed ever so slightly, as if he thought watching spyglasses might detect a more profound gesture of respect, and turned away to shade his eyes with one hand and peer across the sun-struck water at the low-slung, kraken-like schooner slicing steadily nearer.

  Irys stepped a bit closer to Coris, without ever taking her own eyes from the Charisian warship. The earl didn’t think it was a conscious action on her part, although he was sorely tempted to put an encouraging arm around her straight, slender shoulders. Instead, he simply stood there, watching with her and hoping for the best.

  He found himself wishing they’d been aboard Harys’ Cutlass instead of Wing. The thought of being able to meet the Charisian ship’s firepower on an even footing was incredibly attractive at the moment. But there’d never been any hope of getting Cutlass or one of her sisters past the blockaders watching Manchyr, of course. And since it had been impossible to use a proper warship, Tartarian—and Harys—had undoubtedly been correct in their argument that putting additional Marines aboard Wing, or trying to fit extra guns into her somewhere, would have been a serious mistake. Their best hope had been to avoid Charisian cruisers entirely. Failing that, their only hope was to appear as innocent and unexceptional as possible. The last thing they could afford was to attempt to explain to one of the heavily gunned Charisian schooners why they had twenty or thirty Corisandian Marines on board a merchant galleon flying the colors of Harchong.

  To that end, Wing’s seamen wore the motley assortment of garments one might have expected to find aboard a merchant ship whose owners were too tightfisted to provide a well-stocked slop chest. The men wearing those garments, however, had been carefully selected by Captain Harys and Earl Tartarian as much for their years of experience in the merchant service as for their demonstrated loyalty and intelligence during their naval service. They knew exactly how a merchant crew ought to be acting under these circumstances.

  Now Coris kept his eyes on the Charisian and hoped that Harys and Tartarian had been right.

  Zhoel Harys stood on Wing’s aftercastle, watching the Charisian maneuver. The galleon’s aftercastle was much lower than it would have been aboard a warship, and Harys concentrated on looking as calm as he could. It wouldn’t have done to look too calm, of course; any merchant skipper facing a potential naval boarding party would feel plenty of natural apprehension, after all.

  Which I bloody well do, he told himself. The trick is to look nervous enough without looking so nervous they decide I have to be hiding something.

  In fact, he was discovering that his belly had been less tightly knotted at Darcos Sound, when he’d realized what the Charisian guns could actually do, than it was now.

  The princess and her younger broth
er had gone below without protest, settling into their cramped cabin. Wing had never been intended to transport passengers in luxury, and—in keeping with all the rest of their disguise—Princess Irys and Prince Daivyn had been assigned quarters which were relatively comfortable, but downright spartan. They and the Earl of Coris were all covered with false identities in Wing’s log, but everyone would be much happier if the Charisians never paid any attention at all to the plainly dressed daughter and son of a merchant factor.

  The Charisian was sliding easily downwind towards him, her guns run out, and he could see her captain standing on his own quarterdeck, gazing at Wing through a spyglass. He hoped the Charisian was taking note of the fact that not a single one of Wing’s seamen was anywhere near the galleon’s pathetic broadside of falcons. Nor had any of the ship’s wolves been mounted on their swivels.

  We’re absolutely no threat at all, he thought very hard in the other captain’s direction. Just another scruffy little merchant ship with a cargo for Shwei.

  The schooner came still closer, till it was less than fifty yards off Wing’s windward side as the galleon broad reached on the starboard tack. The Charisian cruiser loped along, easily matching Wing’s best speed under these wind conditions with only her own foresail and headsails set, and Harys felt an abrupt stab of envy. Excited as he’d been to receive command of Cutlass, he knew the galleon could never have matched the speed and agility of that schooner, and the Charisian’s broadside of thirty-pounder carronades was almost as heavy as Cutlass’ new broadside.

  And I bet they’re not assigning the damned schooners to just anybody, he thought grimly. They’ll want men who can think, as well as fight, in command.

  “Ahoy, Wing!” The Charisian captain’s voice floated across the water between the two ships, amplified and directed by his leather speaking trumpet.

  “And what can I do for you this fine morning?” Harys bawled back through his own speaking trumpet.

  “Heave to, if you please!” the Charisian replied.

  “On whose authority?” Harys tried hard to put the right note of bluster into the question.

  “You know whose authority, Captain!” The Charisian’s voice sounded more amused than anything else, Harys noticed, and he used his speaking trumpet to gesture in the direction of the kraken banner flying above his own ship.

  “This is an imperial merchant ship!” Harys shot back.

  “And we’re not at war with the Empire,” the Charisian told him. “But we are at war with people who might pretend to be Harchongese. Now heave to, Captain, before I start to think you might be one of them.”

  Harys waited a few moments longer, then allowed his shoulders to slump.

  “All right,” he growled back in a frustrated tone, and turned to his first officer. “Heave to,” he said.

  “Aye—yes, Sir.”

  Harys frowned, but the other officer had caught himself before he gave the formal naval acknowledgment of an order, and he’d managed not to salute, either. Which, given the fact that men tended to respond the way they’d been trained to under pressure and that he had to be feeling just as anxious as Harys did, was probably about the best Harys could have expected.

  Wing hove to without the snap or efficiency one might have anticipated out of a warship. Her big courses were brailed up, her spritsail disappeared, and her fore topsail and main topsail were braced around, trying to drive her in opposite directions and holding her almost motionless under their opposed forces.

  The schooner matched her maneuver much more smartly, and a launch was dropped over her side and manned. It rowed swiftly across the gap between the two vessels, and came alongside Wing.

  “Permission to come aboard, Sir?” the youthful lieutenant in command of the boarding party asked, respectfully enough, as he climbed the galleon’s side to the entry port.

  Harys allowed himself to glower at the young man for a second or two, then grimaced.

  “Since you’ve seen fit to invite yourself, I suppose you might as well,” he growled.

  “Thank you, Sir,” the lieutenant said. He climbed the rest of the way through the entry port and waited while ten Charisian Marines followed him aboard.

  “My Captain instructed me to apologize for the inconvenience, Captain,” he said then. “He realizes that no one ever likes to be stopped and boarded by a foreign navy. If you’ll show me your papers, we’ll try to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

  “That’ll suit me just fine,” Harys replied. “Come with me.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  The lieutenant nodded to the sergeant commanding the squad of Marines. One of them attached himself to the lieutenant; the others stayed where they were, just inside the entry port. They made no overtly threatening gestures, although neither Harys nor any of his men doubted that the muskets grounded unthreateningly on the deck were loaded.

  The lieutenant and his single accompanying Marine followed Harys into his cabin under the aftercastle. They paused just inside the door and waited patiently while Harys rummaged about in a desk drawer for Wing’s papers. He took a few minutes to find them, then hauled them out, along with the carefully prepared log, and passed them across to the lieutenant.

  “Thank you, Sir,” the Charisian said again. He stepped a little farther into the cabin, holding the ship’s papers under the light coming through the cabin skylight, and examined them closely. He clearly knew what he was looking for, and Harys was abruptly grateful that the men who’d forged those papers had known what they were about, too.

  The lieutenant set the papers aside after a moment, then flipped quickly through the log. He didn’t try to read the entire thing, but it was obvious he was looking for any discrepancies . . . or any sign that newer entries had been made among the older ones.

  Thank Langhorne we made it up from scratch, Harys thought from behind his calm expression. Even if I did think I was going to die of writer’s cramp before we finished the damned thing.

  Most of the entries were in his own hand, although he’d used several different pens and inks. Other entries, scattered throughout, were in the handwriting of his first and second officers, and Earl Coris’ forgers had aged the pages nicely. A couple of entries had been so water-damaged as to be almost illegible, and most were the sort of curt, one- or two-line entries one might have expected from a merchant skipper, while a few had been expanded into larger descriptions of specific events.

  “Could I ask what you’re doing in these waters, Captain?” the lieutenant asked finally, looking up from the log and neatly gathering up Wing’s registration, customs, and ownership papers once more.

  “Sailing to Shwei Bay . . . just like the log says,” Harys replied a bit tartly.

  “But why this way?” The lieutenant’s tone was still polite, but his eyes had narrowed. “According to these, you sailed from Charis. Wouldn’t it have been a considerably shorter voyage going west, not east?”

  “I’m sure it would have,” Harys acknowledged. “On the other hand, the waters off the southern coasts of Haven and Howard are swarming with privateers these days—or hadn’t you’ve heard, Lieutenant?”

  “I believe I have heard something about that, yes, Sir.” The lieutenant’s lips twitched, and Harys snorted.

  “I’m sure you have. Any road, it seemed to me I’d be less likely to run into a privateer going east, since all of them seemed to be hunting westward from Charis. And it also seemed to me—no disrespect, Lieutenant—that every so often, a privateer’s likely to get a mite . . . overenthusiastic, if you take my meaning. I’d just as soon avoid situations where something unfortunate might happen. The owners wouldn’t like it if something did.”

  “I see.” The lieutenant gazed at him for several seconds, eyes thoughtful. Then he shrugged. “I imagine that makes sense, as long as the length of your passage doesn’t matter too much.”

  Harys snorted again.

  “It’s not going to bother a cargo of farming gear a lot if it takes a
few extra days, or even a few extra five-days, to arrive, Lieutenant! It’s not like I was hauling a cargo of perishables.”

  “Farming gear?”

  “Reapers, cultivators, and harrows,” Harys said tersely. “We loaded it in Tellesberg.”

  “May I examine it?”

  “Why not?” Harys flipped both hands in a gesture which combined exasperation and acceptance. “Follow me.”

  He led the lieutenant back out on deck and beckoned to the naval lieutenant who’d been assigned the role of Wing’s purser.

  “He wants to see the cargo,” he said. “Show him.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the purser acknowledged, and looked sourly at the Charisian. “Try not to leave too big a mess for me to clean up,” he said.

  “I’ll try,” the Charisian agreed sardonically.

  Four of Wing’s seamen knocked out the wedges and lifted the battens from the main hatch cover, and four of the Charisian Marines clambered down into the hold. Where they found exactly what the manifest said they ought to have found.

  The farm equipment had come from one of Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s manufactories, although it hadn’t been bought in Tellesberg. In fact, it had been purchased in Chisholm and had been bound for the Duchy of West Wind when the first tide of Charisian privateers had swept across the waters around Zebediah and Corisande and Wing had taken refuge at Elvarth. It was still in its original crates, however, and those crates bore the customs marks of Tellesberg. They didn’t bear Chisholmian customs marks, however, since they’d somehow evaded Chisholm’s customs inspection. Queen Sharleyan had formally prohibited trade between Chisholm and Corisande even before she sailed to Tellesberg. Unfortunately, at least some of her subjects—especially those who’d already accepted orders from Corisandian customers—had decided she surely couldn’t have meant her prohibition to apply to them . . . and had taken steps to see to it that it didn’t.