by David Weber
“I agree, Father,” he said out loud. “I suppose it’s a good thing, under the circumstances, that the Viceroy General recognizes the inevitability of this sort of thing. At least he isn’t likely to overreact.”
“Yet, at least,” North Coast said.
The earl was a thickset man, getting a bit thicker through the belly as he settled into middle age. His thinning hair still held a few embers of the fiery red of his youth, and his gray eyes were worried.
“I don’t think he’s likely to overreact no matter what happens, My Lord,” Gahrvai said frankly. “Unfortunately, if we can’t get a handle on this unrest, I think he’s going to feel forced to take considerably more forceful steps of his own. Frankly, I don’t see that he’ll have any choice.”
“I have to agree with you, Koryn,” Earl Airyth said somberly. “But when he does, I’m afraid it’s only going to make things worse.”
“Which is undoubtedly why he’s showing restraint, so far,” Lyndahr pointed out. He shifted in his chair slightly, facing Gahrvai more squarely. “Which, in turn, brings us to you, Sir Koryn.”
“I know,” Gahrvai sighed.
“You said you had a report from Alyk?” Anvil Rock asked.
“Yes. In fact, that report is probably the closest thing to good news I’ve gotten lately. He says his mounted constables are just about ready.”
“That is good news,” Anvil Rock said, although his feelings were obviously at least somewhat mixed, for which Gahrvai didn’t blame him a bit.
Sir Alyk Ahrthyr, the Earl of Windshare, had a reputation as something of a blunt object. A well- deserved reputation, if Gahrvai was going to be honest about it. He’d been accused, on more than one occasion, of thinking with his spurs, and no dictionary was ever going to use “Windshare” to illustrate the words “calmly reasoned response.”
On the other hand, he was aware he wasn’t the most brilliant man ever born, and Gahrvai knew better than most that the impetuous earl had actually learned to stop and think—for, oh, at least thirty or forty seconds—before charging headlong into the fray. In many ways, he was far from the ideal commander for the mounted patrols about to assume responsibility for maintaining order in the countryside, yet he had two shining qualifications which outweighed any limitations.
First, what ever anyone else might think, the survivors of Gahrvai’s army trusted Windshare as implicitly as they trusted Gahrvai himself. They knew, whether the rest of the Princedom was prepared to believe it or not, that no one could have done a better job, under the circumstances, than Gahrvai, Windshare, and Sir Charlz Doyal had done. That the combination of the Charisian Marines’ rifles, the long range of the Charisian artillery, and the deadly amphibious mobility of the Charisian Navy had been too much for any merely mortal general to overcome. And they knew another commander, other generals, might very well have gotten far more of them killed proving that. As a consequence, they were willing to continue to trust their old commanders, and that trust—that loyalty—was more precious than rubies.
And, second, just as important as the troops’ trust in Windshare, Gahrvai had complete faith in the earl. Perhaps not without a few reservations about Windshare’s judgment, he conceded, although he did have rather more confidence in that judgment than some of the Regency Council’s members. But what ever reservations he might quietly nurse about the earl’s . . . sagacity, he had complete and total faith in Alyk Ahrthyr’s loyalty, integrity, and courage.
So maybe he doesn’t have the sharpest brain in the Princedom to go with them. These days, I’ll take three out of the four and thank Langhorne I’ve got them!
“What about the rest of the army, Koryn?” Tartarian asked. “It could be better, it could be worse.” Gahrvai shrugged. “General Chermyn’s reissued enough muskets for our total permitted force, and we’ve converted all of them to take the new bayonets. At the moment, we still don’t have any artillery, and, to be honest, I can’t really blame him for that. And, all the muskets are still smoothbores. On the other hand, they’re a hell of a lot better than anyone else is going to have. That’s the ‘could be worse’ side of things—none of the troublemakers we’re likely to face are going to have anything like the firepower we do. Unfortunately, I don’t have anywhere near as many men as I wish I had. As many as I’m pretty damn sure we’re going to need before this is all over, the way things seem to be headed, in fact. And the ones I do have were all trained initially as soldiers, not city guardsmen. Until we actually see them in action, I’m not as confident as I’d like to be that they aren’t going to react like combat troops instead of guardsmen, which could get . . . messy. That’s the ‘could be better’ side.”
“How many do you have? Do we have?” North Coast asked. Gahrvai looked at him, and he shrugged. “I know you sent us all a memo about it. And I read it—really I did. But, to be honest, I was paying more attention to the naval side of things when I did.”
Well, that made sense, Gahrvai supposed. North Coast’s earldom lay on Wind Daughter Island, separated from the main island of Corisande by East Margo Sound and White Horse Reach. Wind Daughter was very nearly half Corisande Island’s size, but it boasted less than a quarter as many people. Much of it was still covered in old- growth forest, and ninety percent of the population lived almost in sight of the water. Wind Daughter’s people tended to regard inhabitants of “the big island” as foreigners, and (so far, at least) they seemed far less incensed than the citizens of Manchyr over Prince Hektor’s assassination. Under the circumstances, it didn’t really surprise Gahrvai that North Coast had been more concerned over how the Charisian naval patrols were likely to affect his fishermen than over the size of garrison the island might be going to receive.
“Our total force—field force, that is—is going to be a little under thirty thousand,” he said. “I know thirty thousand sounds like a lot of men and, frankly, I’m more than a little amazed that Cayleb agreed to let us put that many Corisandians back under arms at all. But the truth is that it isn’t really that big a number. My Lord—not when we’re talking about something the size of the entire Princedom. As long as I can keep them concentrated, they can deal with anything they’re likely to face. If I have to start dividing them into smaller forces, though—and I will, just as sure as Shan- wei—the odds start shifting. Frankly, I don’t see any way I’m going to be able to put detachments everywhere we’re really going to need them. Not if I’m going to keep them big enough, new muskets or not, to make any of us happy.”
North Coast nodded somberly.
“The real problem,” Anvil Rock observed, “is that we’re going to have enough combat power to stomp on any fires that spring up, but we’re not going to have enough numbers to give us the sort of coverage that might keep the sparks from flaring up in the first place.” He looked unhappy. “And the real problem with stomping on fires is that everything else in the vicinity tends to get stomped on as well.”
“Exactly, Father. Which is why I was so glad to see Alyk’s report. I’m going to start deploying his men to the other major towns, especially down here in the southeast, as quickly as possible. He’s not going to be able to make any of his detachments as big as we’d all like, but they’ll be more mobile than any of our infantry. They’ll be able to cover a lot more ground, and, frankly, I think cavalry is going to be more . . . reassuring to the local city guardsmen.”
“ ‘Reassuring’?” His father smiled thinly. “Don’t you mean more intimidating?”
“To some extent, I suppose I do,” Gahrvai admitted. “On the other hand, a little intimidation for the people who’d be most likely to give those guardsmen problems is a good thing. And I’m not going to complain if the constables suggest to the local guard officers that remembering they’re supposed to be maintaining public order instead of leading patriotic insurrections would be another good thing.”
“I’m not, either,” Anvil Rock said. “Even though there’s a part of me that would rather be doing exactly that—leading a
patriotic insurrection, I mean—instead of what I am doing.”
No one responded to that particular remark, and after a moment, the earl shrugged.
“All right, Raimynd,” he said. “Now that Koryn has his troops ready to deploy, I suppose it’s time we figure out how we’re going to pay them, isn’t it?” His smile was wintry. “I’m sure that’s going to be lots of fun, too.”
.IV.
HMS Rakurai , 46,
Gorath Bay,
Kingdom of Dohlar,
and HMS Devastation, 54,
King’s Harbor,
Helen Island,
Kingdom of Old Charis
The brisk afternoon wind had a whetted edge as it swept across the dark blue waters, ruffling the surface with two- foot waves. Here and there a crest of white foam broke almost playfully, and the sharp- toothed breeze hummed in the rigging. Gorath Bay was a well- sheltered anchorage, and it was always ice- free year round. But the present air temperature was barely above freezing, and it took very little wind to make a man shiver when it came slicing across the vast, treeless plain of the bay.
The Dohlaran seamen assembled on the deck of HMS Rakurai were certainly doing their share of shivering as they stood waiting for orders.
“Down topgallant masts!”
Captain Raisahndo’s voice rang out from the converted merchantman’s quarterdeck in the official preparatory order, and petty officers gave their working parties warning glances. Earl Thirsk had decided to grace Rakurai with his presence this afternoon, and it had been made thoroughly clear to everyone aboard that today would be a very bad day to be less than perfect.
“Topgallant yardmen in the tops!”
Feet thudded across the deck as the designated topmen flooded up the ratlines. They swept up them like monkey- lizards, fountaining upward into the rigging, yet the dulcet tones of petty officers gently encouraged them to be still speedier.
“Aloft topgallant yardmen!”
The fresh command came almost before they’d finished collecting in the tops and sent them scurrying still higher, swarming up to the level of the topmast cap.
“Man topgallant and mast ropes!”
More seamen moved to their stations at deck level, manning the ropes run through leading blocks on deck, then through blocks hooked to one side of each topmast cap and down through bronze sheaves set into the squared-off heels of the topgallant masts. Each mast rope then ran up its mast once more, to the other side of the topmast cap and a securing eyebolt. The result was a line rigged through the topgallant mast heel, designed to support the mast’s weight as it slid down from above and controlled by the deck party assigned to each mast. Other hands eased the topmast stays and shrouds, loosening them slightly, and the next command rang out.
“Haul taut!”
Tension came on the mast ropes, and the officer in charge of each mast examined his own responsibility critically, then raised his hand to signal readiness.
“Sway and unfid!”
Seamen threw still more weight onto the mast ropes, and high above the deck, each topmast rose slightly as the rope rove through its heel lifted it from below. Its heel rose just far enough through the square hole ( just barely large enough to allow the heel to move in it) in the topmast trestletrees for a waiting hand to extract the fid—the tapered hardwood pin which normally passed through the heel and rested on the trestletrees to support the topgallant’s weight and lock it in place.
“Lower away together!”
The topgallant masts slid smoothly, gracefully down in almost perfect unison as the men on the mast ropes obeyed the command. Breeching lines and heel ropes both guided and restrained the masts, although the anchorage was sheltered enough, even with the brisk breeze, that there was no real danger of the yard going astray.
The purpose of the exercise wasn’t to bring the masts clear down on deck and stow them, and their downward progress ended when their heels came to a point just above the hounds on their respective lower masts. At the same time the spars came down, the topmen tended to the topgallant rigging. They eased the stays and backstays carefully as the masts descended, then secured them on the topmast caps. If the topgallants had been going to remain struck for any period of time, a capstan bar would have been pushed through the secured stays and lashed into place to help keep things under control. No one bothered with that particular refinement this afternoon, however. There wasn’t much point, since all hands knew they were to enjoy the plea sure of completing the evolution at least three more times before the day was over.
“Lay down from aloft!”
The order brought the topmen back down, even as a heavy lashing was passed through the fid hole and secured around the topmast to hold it in place. The ship looked truncated with her topgallant masts and topmasts doubled that way, but the topgallant was securely stowed in a manner which reduced the height of her rigging by almost a third. The result was to reduce wind resistance aloft and to reduce her rigging’s center of gravity, which might well prove the margin between survival and destruction in the teeth of a winter storm.
The last line was passed, the last lashing secured, and all hands watched tensely as the captain and the admiral surveyed their handiwork. It was a moment of intense stillness, a sort of hushed watchfulness burnished by the sounds of wind and wave, the whistles of wyverns and the cries of gulls. Then Earl Thirsk looked at Raisahndo and nodded gravely.
No one was foolish enough to cheer at the evidence of the admiral’s satisfaction. Even the pressed men of the ship’s company had been aboard long enough to learn better than that. But there were broad grins here and there, born of combined relief (none of them had wanted to consider how the captain would react if they’d embarrassed him in front of the admiral) and pride, the knowledge that they’d done well. Completing an evolution like this in harbor was child’s play compared to accomplishing it at sea, in the dark, in a pitching, rolling vessel. Most of them knew that—some, the relatively small number of seasoned seamen scattered amongst them, from intensely unpleasant personal experience—but they also knew it was something they were going to have to do eventually. None of them were any more enamored of the notion of sweating for the sake of sweating than the next man, but the majority of them preferred to master the necessary skills here rather than trying to pick them up at the last minute in the face of a potentially life- or- death emergency at sea.
That was an unusual attitude, in many ways, especially for crews which contained such large percentages of inexperienced landsmen. Sailors who’d been snapped up by the press gangs tended to resent being dragged away from their snug homes ashore—and from wives and children who depended upon them for support. Given the risks of battle, not to mention the vagaries of disease or accident, the odds were little better than even that they would ever see those wives and children again. That was enough to break any husband or father’s heart, but it didn’t even consider the fact that their impressment generally rendered their families destitute overnight. There was no guarantee the ones they loved would manage to survive in their men’s absence, and even if they did, hardship and hunger were all but guaranteed for most of them. Under the circumstances, it was scarcely surprising that, more often than not, pressed men had to be driven to their tasks, frequently with calculated brutality, until they fused into a cohesive ship’s company. Sometimes they never achieved that fusion at all, and even many of those who eventually would find their places simply lacked the experience—so far, at least—to understand why relentless training was important to them, and not simply to their demanding, hectoring officers and hard- fisted petty officers. That wasn’t the sort of attitude which normally evoked cheerful eagerness for swarming up and down masts on an icy cold afternoon when they could have been below decks, out of the cutting wind.
The attitude of Rakurai’s company was quite different from that, however. In fact, it was different from that which would previously have been seen aboard almost any Dohlaran warship with so many pressed men. Par
tly that was because this time there’d been relatively little brutality, and that which had been employed had been carefully calculated, fitted to the circumstances which demanded it and administered with ruthless equity. There’d still been at least a few incidents where it had been unnecessary, where a bosun’s mate of the “old school” had resorted to the use of fists or the overenthusiastic employment of his “starter” (a knotted length of rope used to whip “laggards” along), but they’d been remarkably few compared to what would have happened in most other Dohlaran fleets.
Partly that was because so many of the Navy’s “old school” bosun’s mates (and captains, for that matter) had been lost in the disastrous campaign which had ended at Rock Point and Crag Hook. Mostly, though, it was because the fleet’s new commander had explained his position on that particular point, among others, with crystalline clarity. And because it had turned out he’d actually meant it, as well. So far, eleven captains who’d made the mistake of assuming he wasn’t serious about his orders concerning unnecessary punishment or brutality had been relieved in disgrace. Given the fact that two of those captains had been even better born than the earl, and that one of them had enjoyed the patronage of the Duke of Thorast himself, none of his remaining captains were inclined to doubt he’d meant what he said the first time.
There was another reason, as well, though—one that grew out of acceptance from below even more than out of restraint from above, and one which had won Earl Thirsk a degree of devotion almost unheard of among impressed seamen. No one knew exactly how word of it had gotten out, but it was common knowledge in the fleet that the earl had personally argued that since the fleet was being manned for Mother Church’s ser vice, Mother Church ought to assume responsibility for the well- being of the pressed men’s families. The wage of a common sailor in the Royal Dohlaran Navy wasn’t much, but Mother Church would see to it that the money was paid directly to a man’s family during his absence, if that was his request. More than that, and totally unprecedented, the Church had promised to pay a pension to the widow of any impressed seaman who died on active ser vice and to provide for the support of his minor children, as well.