A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  “So we definitely will be taking an iceboat from Lakeview to Zion?” Coris shook his head just a bit doubtfully. “I’ve been to sea often enough, but I’ve never gone ice- sailing.”

  “That we will, and I think you’ll find the experience . . . interesting,” Tannyr assured him. The under- priest had obviously noticed Coris’ mixed feelings, and he smiled again. “Most people do, especially the first time they make the trip. Hornet’s quite a bit smaller than Snow Lizard, of course, but she’s much faster, if I do say so myself.”

  “Ah?” Coris cocked an eyebrow. “That sounded rather possessive, Father. Should I take it you’re going to be my captain across the Lake, as well as shepherding me safely from here to Lakeview?”

  “Indeed, My Lord.” Tannyr gave him a sort of sketchy half bow. “And I can assure you that I have never—yet—lost a passenger during a winter passage.”

  “And I assure you that I am suitably comforted by your reassurance, Father. Even if it did seem to contain at least a hint of qualification.”

  Tannyr’s smile became a grin, and Coris felt himself relaxing a bit more. He still wasn’t looking forward to the journey, but Hahlys Tannyr was about as far as anyone could have gotten from the grimly focused Schuelerite keeper he’d expected to encounter for the final stage of his journey.

  “Seriously, My Lord,” Tannyr continued, “Hornet is much faster than you may have been assuming. She doesn’t have a galley’s hull drag, so the same wind will push her a lot faster, and the prevailing winds will be in our favor, this time of year. Not to mention the fact that we’re far enough into the winter now that the ice’s been pretty well charted and marked, so I can afford to give her more of her head than I could earlier in the year. I won’t be surprised if we average as much as thirty miles an hour during the lake crossing itself.”

  “Really?”

  Despite himself, Coris couldn’t hide how impressed he was by the speed estimate. Or by the fact that it radically revised downward his original estimate of how long it would take to cross Lake Pei. Of course, that was a two- edged sword. It meant he’d spend less time shivering and miserable on the ice, but it also meant he’d be meeting with Chancellor Trynair and the Grand Inquisitor that much more quickly, as well.

  And it wasn’t going to make the month- long journey from Fairstock to Lakeview any less arduous than the under- priest had already promised.

  I suppose I should spend some time thanking Langhorne I’m still young enough to have a realistic prospect of surviving the experience,he thought sourly.

  “Really, My Lord,” Tannyr assured him, answering his last question. “In fact, running with the wind in a good lake blizzard, I’ve had her up to better than fifty miles per hour—that’s average speed, over a twenty- mile course, too, so I’m sure we were higher than that, at least in bursts—on more than one occasion. I’ll try not to inflict any weather quite that spectacular on you this time around. It’s not exactly something for the faint of heart—or, as my mother would put it, for the reasonably sane.” He winked. “Still, I think I can promise you’ll find the crossing memorable.”

  The under- priest smiled with obvious pride in his vessel, then turned his head, watching Seablanket emerge onto the quay once more with the final piece of baggage. He gazed at the valet with a thoughtful expression for several seconds, then looked back at Coris, and there was an almost conspiratorial gleam in his eye.

  “I realize, My Lord, that you undoubtedly wish to complete your journey as quickly as possible. I have no doubt your impatience to set forth again is greater than ever in light of the current inclement weather and the obviously strenuous nature of the voyage you’ve just completed. I’m afraid, however, that I’m not entirely satisfied with the lizard team reserved for the first leg of our journey. Not only that, but I’ve been having a few second thoughts about our planned stopping points along the way. I’ve come to the conclusion that the entire trip could have been a bit better planned and coordinated, and I think we’ll probably complete it more quickly, in the long run, if I spend a little time . . . tweaking my present arrangements. I apologize profusely for the delay, but as the person charged with delivering you safe and sound, I really wouldn’t feel comfortable setting out on a journey as long as this one without first making certain all of our arrangements are going to be as problem- free as possible.”

  “Well, we certainly couldn’t have you feeling pressured into anything precipitous, Father,” Coris replied, making no effort to hide his sudden gratitude. “And I’m certainly prepared to defer to your professional judgment. We can’t have you skimping on your preparations if you feel any of them could stand improvement, now can we? By all means, see to it before we set out!”

  “I appreciate your willingness to be so understanding, My Lord. Assuming the weather gives us a window for the semaphore, I expect tidying things up should take no more than, oh”— Tannyr looked at the earl consideringly, like an assayer, almost as if he could physically mea sure Coris’ fatigue—“a day or two. Possibly three. In fact, we’d better count on three. So I’m afraid you’re probably going to have to spend at least four nights here in Fairstock. I hope that won’t disappoint you too deeply.”

  “Believe me, Father,” Coris said, looking him in the eye, “I believe I’ll manage to bear up under my disappointment.”

  .VI.

  Off Hennet Head,

  Gulf of Mathyas

  Someone from the planet humanity had once called Earth might have described it as “Force Six” from the old Beaufort scale. Ensign Hektor Aplyn- Ahrmahk, the Duke of Darcos, had never heard of the Beaufort scale, but he had been at sea for almost five of his fourteen years. Well, thirteen years and nine months, since his birthday was next month. And to his experienced eye, the eleven- foot waves, with their white foamy crests, and the high humming sound whining through the stays were the products of what a seaman would have called either a strong breeze or a stiff topsail breeze, which still had another four or five miles per hour to go before it officially became a near gale.

  Hektor suspected that most landsmen would have found the ship’s motion, the way she leaned to her canvas and the flying spray bursting up around her cutwater as she drove hard, rising in showers of diamonds when the early morning sun caught it, alarming. In fact, there’d been a time—though he couldn’t really remember it now—when he would have found it distinctly so. Now, though, he found it exhilarating (especially with his stomach so freshly wrapped around a breakfast of toasted biscuit and well- sweetened, raisin- laced oatmeal), despite the sharp, icy teeth of the wind, and he clapped his gloved hands together and beamed hugely as he looked up at the reefed topsails and topgallants, then turned to the senior of the two men on the wheel.

  “How does she feel, Chief?” he asked.

  “Well enough, Sir.”

  Chief Petty Officer Frahnklyn Waigan was closing in on three times the youthful ensign’s age, and Hektor was about as junior as an officer got. Once upon a time, all of three or four months ago, he would have been referred to not as an “ensign,” but as a “passed midshipman”— a midshipman who had successfully sat his lieutenant’s examination but not yet received his commission—since he legally couldn’t be granted a full lieutenant’s commission until he was at least sixteen years old. The new “ensign” rank had been introduced as part of the Navy’s enormous expansion, and the fleet was still in the process of getting used to it. But if Waigan felt any exasperation at being interrogated by an officer of Ensign Aplyn- Ahrmahk’s tender years and lack of seniority he showed no sign of it.

  “She’s takin’ a bit more weather helm nor I’d like,” Waigan added, “but not s’ much as all that.”

  Hektor nodded. Any sailing vessel carried at least a little weather helm when she came close to the wind, and at the moment Destiny was close- reaching to the east- northeast on the starboard tack under single reefed topgallants and topsails with the wind out of the south- southeast, just over three points abaft the b
eam. That was very close to close- hauled for HMS Destiny; Hektor doubted they could have edged more than another point or so closer to the wind, and damned few other square- riggers could have come this close.

  Of course, it made for a lively ride, but that was part of the exhilaration, and even with her reduced sail, the ship had to be making good close to seven knots—well, over six and a half, at least. That was an excellent turn of speed, although she could probably have carried more sail and shown a little more speed if Captain Yairley had decided to shake out the topgallant reefs and press her.

  Not that he’s likely to do anything of the sort without a damned good reason,Hektor thought with a small, inner smile. It would never suit his fussy worrier’s image!

  The truth was that Hektor recognized just how fortunate he’d been to be assigned to Yairley’s command in the first place. And not just because of the captain’s abilities as a mentor in tactics and seamanship, either. Hektor doubted there could have been a better teacher in the entire fleet for either of those skills, yet as appreciative as he was of that training, he was even more grateful for the time Yairley had taken to teach one Hektor Aplyn- Ahrmahk certain other, equally essential skills.

  Despite his present exalted patent of nobility, Hektor Aplyn had most definitely not been born to the aristocracy. His was a family of sturdy, hard-working merchant seamen, and young Hektor’s appointment as a midshipman in the Royal Charisian Navy had represented a significant step upward for the Aplyns. He’d hoped to make a decent career for himself—the Charisian Navy was really the only one on Safehold where a commoner had an excellent chance of rising to even the highest ranks, and more than one man as commonly born as he had ended up with a knighthood and an admiral’s streamer, when all was said. He could think of at least a half dozen who’d earned baronetcies, and at least one who’d died an earl, for that matter. But he’d never dreamed for a moment that he might end up a duke!

  Then again—his amusement dimmed—he’d never expected to have his king die in his arms, or to live with the knowledge that his monarch had received his fatal wound fighting to protect him. Never anticipated that he would be one of only thirty- six survivors of the entire crew of King Haarahld VII’s flagship. In fact, three of those survivors had eventually died of their wounds in the end, after all, despite all the healers could do, and of the thirty- three who hadn’t, eleven had been so badly wounded they would never go to sea again. The odds that he might simply have survived that level of carnage, far less remained on active duty after it, would have struck him as tiny enough on their own. The possibility of his being adopted into the House of Ahrmahk, of becoming legally the son of Emperor Cayleb himself, would never have occurred to him in the wildest delirium. And if anyone had ever suggested the possibility to him, he would have run screaming in terror from the prospect. What could he, the son of a merchant galleon’s first officer, possibly have in common with the royal family? The very idea was absurd!

  Unfortunately, it had happened. Probably, in the fullness of time, Hektor was going to come to consider that a good thing. He was perfectly prepared to admit the possibility—he wasn’t stupid, after all—but his immediate reaction had been one of abject panic. Which was why he was so grateful he’d wound up in Destiny. Sir Dunkyn Yairley was scarcely from the rarefied heights of the nobility himself, but he was at least related, albeit it distantly, to three barons and an earl. More to the point, he’d taken pains from the outset to personally instruct young Midshipman Aplyn- Ahrmahk in the etiquette which went with his towering new aristocratic rank.

  Starting with which fork to use,Hektor reflected, grinning again as he remembered how the captain had rapped him sharply across the knuckles with his own fork when he reached for the wrong one. I thought sure he’d broken them! But I suppose—

  “Sail ho!” the hail came down from the lookout perched in the mainmast crosstrees, a hundred and ten feet above the deck. From there, the horizon was almost eleven and a half miles farther away than it was from deck level, and on a clear day like today, he could undoubtedly see that far.

  “Two sail, five points to larboard!” the lookout amplified a moment later. “Master Aplyn- Ahrmahk!” a closer, deeper voice said, and Hektor turned to find himself facing Lieutenant Rhobair Lathyk, Destiny’s first lieutenant, who had the watch.

  “Aye, Sir?” Hektor touched his chest with his right fist in salute. Lathyk was a tall man—tall enough he had to mind his head constantly under the ship’s deck beams—and he had a short way with slackers. He insisted on proper military courtesy at all times, especially out of extremely junior officers. But he was also a fine seaman, and he didn’t (usually) go out of his way to find fault.

  “Get aloft, Master Aplyn- Ahrmahk,” Lathyk said now, handing him the watch spyglass. “See what you can tell us about these fellows.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!”

  Hektor seized the telescope, slung its carrying strap over his shoulder, and leapt nimbly for the ratlines. Lathyk could easily have sent one of the galleon’s midshipmen, but Hektor was glad he hadn’t. One of the things he missed, thanks to his recent promotion and appointment as Destiny’s acting fifth lieutenant, was that no lieutenant—not even one who was really a lowly ensign—was allowed to race his fellows up and down the rigging the way mere midshipmen could. Unlike many of his fellows, Hektor had been born with an excellent head for heights. He’d loved spending time in the tops, and laying out along the yard, even in the roughest weather, had never truly bothered him. Scared him sometimes, yes, but always with that edge of exhilaration to keep the terror company, and now he went scampering up the humming weather shrouds like a monkey- lizard.

  He ignored the lubber’s hole when he reached the maintop, hanging from his fingers and toes as he climbed the futtock shrouds around the top instead, then swarmed on up the topmast shrouds. Wind whistled chill around his ears and burned cold in his lungs, and his eyes were bright with plea sure as the shrill whistle of one of the sea wyverns following the ship, perpetually hopeful of snapping up some tasty tidbit of garbage, floated to him.

  “Where away, Zhaksyn?” he asked the lookout as he reached the sailor’s dizzying roost. The lookout was perched on the crosstrees, one leg dangling nonchalantly between the weather hounds, one arm wrapped around the foot of the topgallant mast, and he grinned as his eyes met Hektor’s.

  It was colder up here, and the wind always grew fresher as one climbed higher above the deck. (That much was a known fact, although Hektor had no idea why it should be so.) Despite the exertion of his climb, he was grateful for his thick watch coat, heavy gloves, and the soft, knitted muffler Princess Zhanayt had given him last Midwinter Day. The main topmast head was almost a foot and a half in diameter where its upper end passed through the cap above the crosstrees, which helped support the topgallant mast, and it shivered against his spine as he leaned back against it, vibrating like a living thing with the force of wind and wave. When he looked straight down, he saw not Destiny’s deck but the gray- green and white water creaming away from her leeward side as she leaned to the press of her canvas. If he fell from his present position, he’d hit water, not planking. Not that it would make much difference. As cold as that water was, his chances of surviving long enough for anyone aboard ship to do anything to save him would be effectively non ex is tent.

  Fortunately, he had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

  “There, Sir,” the lookout said, and pointed.

  Hektor followed the pointing finger, nodded, and hooked one knee securely around the topmast head as he used both gloved hands to raise the heavy telescope and peered through it.

  Steadying something the size of a powerful telescope, especially while one swept through a dizzying arc with the ship’s motion, was not a task to be lightly undertaken. The fact that Hektor would never be a large, powerfully built man like Lathyk didn’t make it any easier, either. On the other hand, his slender boy’s frame was filling out steadily into a well- muscled wiriness,
and he’d had lots of practice. He supported the tube on his left forearm, swinging it through a compensating arc, and captured the pale flaw of the distant ships’ topsails with a steadiness a landsman would have found difficult to credit.

  Even from here, the ships to whom those sails belonged remained hull-down. He could see only their topsails fully, although the tops of their main courses came into sight when both they and Destiny happened to rise simultaneously. Assuming their masts were the same length as Destiny’s, which would put their main yards about fifty feet above the water, that made them about fourteen and a half miles distant.

  He studied them carefully, patiently, evaluating their course and trying to get some feel for their speed. His eye ached as he stared through the spyglass, but he neither blinked nor lowered the glass until he was satisfied. Then he sighed in relief, let the glass come back to hang from its shoulder strap once more, and rubbed his eye.

  “What d’you make of ’em, Sir?” the seaman asked.

  Hektor turned his head to arch one eyebrow at him, and the sailor grinned. It was unlikely, to say the least, that he would have been forward enough to pose the same question to Lieutenant Lathyk, and Hektor knew some of his fellow officers—Lieutenant Garaith Symkee, Destiny’s second lieutenant, came rather forcibly to mind—would have been quick to depress the man’s “pretension.” For that matter, he supposed a mere ensign had even more reason than most to be sure he guarded his authority against overfamiliarity from the men he commanded. Captain Yairley, on the other hand, who never seemed to have any particular difficulty maintaining his authority, would simply have answered the question, and if it was good enough for the captain...“Well,” Hektor said, “it’s still a bit far away to be making out details, even with the glass, but unless I’m mistaken, at least the nearer of them is flying a Church pennant.”