by David Weber
Of course that’s what they were doing,the earl thought coldly. The fools. Oh, the fools! How could they—? He shook his head. Be fair to them, Phylyp. Before this whole business with Charis exploded in everyone’s face, opposing Clyntahn was only insanely risky, not automatically suicidal. They didn’t just decide to start doing this the day before yesterday . . . and Clyntahn hasn’t been licking his chops in anticipation of this moment because he genuinely thinks they had any immediate plans to stage some sort of coup inside the vicarate, either. This is just a case of his killing two wyverns with a single stone . . . and enjoying the hell out of it when he does it.
He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning his forehead against the icy windowpane in a brief, silent prayer for the men who were undoubtedly at that very moment undergoing the tortures of the damned at the Inquisition’s hands. The men who were going to face the same hideous death Erayk Dynnys had already faced . . . unless Clyntahn could come up with ones which were still worse.
And the men whose families had been arrested right along with them. You’ve got to get back to Talkyra, he told himself flatly, almost desperately. You’ve got to get back to Irys and Daivyn. He shook his head, eyes still closed. If Clyntahn’s willing to do this, willing to arrest one- in- ten of the vicarate itself and condemn them to death just to secure his own position, then it’s for damned sure he’ll throw Daivyn away in a heartbeat.
Coris shook his head. The only member of the Group of Four who’d seemed to give a genuine damn about Daivyn’s well- being had been Rhobair Duchairn. He’d met with the Treasurer only twice, yet he hadn’t had to meet with him even once. Those meetings—officially to discuss Daivyn’s financial needs and the proper amount of the Church subsidy to support his court in exile—had been arranged from Duchairn’s side, and it was obvious to Coris that it had been the vicar himself who had done the arranging specifically so that he and Coris might meet face to face.
The earl appreciated that, although he’d been careful about showing it. He was almost certain—but only almost, unfortunately—that Duchairn’s concern for Daivyn was sincere. It fitted with his own earlier assessments of Duchairn’s attitudes, at any rate, and the sorrow hiding behind the vicar’s eyes had looked genuine enough. There’d been no way to be positive about that, however, and it had always been possible Duchairn was simply testing Coris’ suitability as the Group of Four’s tool in a rather more subtle fashion than would have occurred to Clyntahn. Walking the tightrope between doing his best for Daivyn’s future interests and maintaining his own persona as a properly corruptible henchman hadn’t been the easiest thing Coris had ever done, although a lifelong career as a spy had helped.
But however real (or feigned) Duchairn’s concern might have been, there was no doubt at all where the rest of the Group of Four stood. Coris’ present ability to follow the news from Corisande was limited, especially at such a vast distance, yet his sources here in the Temple, fragmentary though they were, all suggested things weren’t going outstandingly well for the Temple’s interests in Corisande. The tone of his more recent conversations with Trynair suggested the same thing, as well. Although the Chancellor had done his best to downplay any concern he might personally be feeling, the situation in the capital, in particular, seemed to be tilting towards a genuine accommodation with Cayleb and Sharleyan—or with the Church of Charis, at least. And the moment Zhaspahr Clyntahn decided the Corisandian fire needed another kick, that another dastardly Charisian assassination might tilt Manchyr back the other way... I’ve got to get back to Talkyra.
She’s actually pulled it off,Ahbraim Zhevons thought. My God, she’s actually pulled it off!
Or, at least, she had so far, he reminded himself. It was still possible the wheels would come off, but as he’d watched the caravan of massive, snow lizard- drawn sleighs sliding over the icy high road, it had become obvious that his initial concerns about Ahnzhelyk Phonda’s safety had been just a trifle premature.
In many respects, the timing on Ahnzhelyk’s escape from Zion could hardly have been better. This late in the winter, with the roads and ground frozen iron-hard, it was actually easier to move heavy loads overland over snow and ice aboard properly designed sleighs (assuming the availability of draft animals like Safe-holdian snow lizards) than to move them aboard wheeled wagons during the fall or early winter... and much easier than it would be once the spring thaw began, in another month or so. In fact, in some ways it was easier even than it would have been in summer. And it was a damned good thing that was true, too. Despite the existence of scores of ware houses, granaries, and supply depots in Zion, by this point in the winter, the city was always in desperate need of resupply. Regular freight shipments were always bound into Zion and the Temple, except for the month or so each year when weather completely isolated the city. Now that the freeze had set hard enough and deep enough, the delivery tempo had been steadily increasing for several five- days, despite the winter storms which had recently howled their way across the northern Temple Lands.
And just as movement into the city had picked up, so had movement out of the city, including a large convoy from Bruhstair Freight Haulers. There was a fair amount of general merchandise in it, including several hundred bottles of fine brandies and whiskeys. Personally, Zhevons found the Chisholmian whiskeys superior to anything coming out of Zion, but there was no denying the prestige of the Zion and Temple distilleries. Whether they were actually the finest spirits available or not (which they definitely were not, in his humble opinion), they commanded exorbitant prices purely on the strength of their labels.
In addition to the spirits, however, there were also crates of books from Zion’s publishing houses, somewhere around a quarter- million marks’ worth of religious art, and a consignment of fine jewelry which was probably at least equally valuable. Most of the other freight consisted of relatively low- weight (though often quite bulky) items—like an impressive assortment of tapestries, fine carpets, and woven luxury goods from the Church’s flocks of sheep and mountain lizards—but even many of those were high- value commodities, and security was always a significant concern in cases like that. Which explained why so many of Bruhstair Freight Haulers’ sleighs were built around large, sturdy, thickly planked cargo boxes. They were almost as large, in some cases, as freight containers Nimue Alban had seen loaded aboard starships during her naval career. And, of course, they had been locked—and securely sealed—by gimlet- eyed customs agents before they ever departed Zion. Every item aboard them had been meticulously checked . . . according to the paperwork, at least. And, in fact, they had been checked just as thoroughly as they always were. Which was to say the customs agents had examined the manifests, found Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s bailiff listed as one of the shippers, and promptly sealed the sleighs’ cargo boxes just as officially as anyone could possibly have asked.
In their doubtless commendable zeal to speed Vicar Zhaspahr’s property on its way, however, a few small . . . irregularities appeared to have escaped their alert attention. Specifically, it would seem they’d failed to note that six of the larger sleighs were equipped, in addition to the carefully locked and sealed hatches through which their valuable cargoes had been loaded, with small, oddly unobtrusive belly hatches, as well. Cargo doors which, for some unknown (but undoubtedly sound) reason, had been designed so that they could be reached only by someone who actually got down on his hands and knees (or, for most adults, on his belly) and crawled under the sleighs, between the runners.
The hatches through which over fifty fugitives from the Inquisition had entered those sleighs.
It wasn’t the most convenient mode of travel ever invented, but the sleighs’ cargo boxes were thick- walled and weathertight. The passenger- carrying cubbies hidden away inside them were large enough to accommodate mattresses and bedrolls and allow at least some movement, and they were surrounded and thoroughly concealed by rugs and tapestries, by piles of expensive, Zion- made blankets and other big- ticket textiles. In fact, the peo
ple hidden away inside those cubbyholes were warmer than anyone else in the entire convoy. And once they were at least a couple of days away from Zion, they’d been allowed to leave their hiding places, after the sleighs had halted for the night, and mingle unobtrusively—very unobtrusively—with the Bruhstair drovers and wagoneers. Who, alas, were not unaccustomed to seeing the occasional unmanifested face turn up on journeys such as this one.
The trip would not be brief. In fact, the sleighs would follow the southern shore of Hsing- wu’s Passage all the way from Zion to the shores of the Icewind Sea. Along the way, they would drop off at least some of their cargo in various towns and small cities strung out along the Passage, but the real reason for taking that particular route was that it avoided the extraordinarily difficult terrain of the Mountains of Light.
To help them do that, Mother Church, the Temple Lands, and the Republic of Siddarmark had cooperated over the centuries to build and maintain the high road which paralleled the Passage. When the seagoing route was navigable, grass grew—literally—on the high road; when winter closed Hsing- wu’s Passage, the high road came into its own once more. By now, Ahnzhelyk and her refugees were almost a third of the way to Siddarmark and the galleons which would ultimately carry them to Tellesberg and—hopefully—safety. Unless something went dreadfully wrong, they should be aboard ship within two months . . . and in Tellesberg seven or eight five- days after that.
By the end of June at the latest. I can’t believe how easy she’s made all this look. Zhevons shook his head wonderingly as he crossed to the sleigh assigned to “Mistress Frahncyn Tahlbaht,” who, oddly enough, didn’t look a thing like dainty, fragile, lovely Ahnzhelyk Phonda. No, Mistress Tahlbaht was pleasant-looking enough, but she was also clearly the experienced, professional, sensibly dressed senior clerk Bruhstair & Sons had assigned to ride herd on this particular convoy’s more valuable items.
He rapped lightly on the sleigh’s side door, then opened it and climbed the short boarding step when a voice invited him to do so.
“Good morning, Ahbraim,” Mistress Tahlbaht said with a smile. “What can I do for you today?”
“Actually, I’ve just come to bid you farewell,” he replied. She sat back in her seat at the small, built- in desk, eyebrows rising, and he shrugged. “As nearly as I can tell, you’ve gotten away clean,” he said. “We could both be wrong about that, but I don’t think so. And now that I’ve figured out your evacuation route, I can arrange to have some of Seijin Merlin’s other friends keep an eye out for you.” He chuckled suddenly. “After all, the Mountains of Light are the traditional training grounds for seijins, aren’t they?”
“So I’ve heard,” she acknowledged, then turned her floor- mounted swivel chair to the side and stood. “I’ll miss you, you know,” she said, taking the two steps required to cross her tiny mobile office and hold out her hand. This time he simply took it in both of his, squeezing it without kissing it, and she smiled. “Will I be seeing you again?”
There was an odd note in her voice, he thought. An almost whimsical one. Or wistful, perhaps. They’d known one another for less than a month, yet he was confident she’d realized as well as he that they were kindred souls.
Another of those capable, uppity females,he reflected. She and Sharleyan are going to get along like a house on fire—I can already see that. And I suppose I still come under that “capable, uppity female” label, too. In a somewhat convoluted manner of speaking, at least.
“Oh, I think you can count on that,” he said out loud. “I’ve been told I’m a bit like a bad habit or a cold.” Her eyebrows rose higher, and he chuckled. “Almost impossible to get rid of once you’ve got me, I mean.”
“Good.” She smiled and squeezed his hand back. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“So will I,” he assured her. “So will I.”
.XVIII.
Royal Palace,
City of Tranjyr,
Kingdom of Tarot
King Gorjah III was in a foul mood.
That had become unfortunately common over the last couple of years. Since the effectively total destruction of his fleet at the Battle of Rock Point, which had occurred almost precisely two years ago, as a matter of fact, if anyone had been marking his calendar to keep track.
Gorjah didn’t need to mark any calendars, but he’d definitely been keeping track. He’d been rather strongly motivated in that regard.
At the moment, he stood gazing northwest out of his palace window up the length of Thol Bay. Seven hundred– plus miles, Thol Bay reached from the city of Tranjyr to Cape Thol and North Head and, beyond that, the Gulf of Tarot and the continent of East Haven. It was a magnificent stretch of saltwater. It might be a bit shallow, in places, its shoals a bit treacherous, here and there, but over all it offered Tranjyr splendid access to the seas of the world, and the broad sweep of the city’s wharves and ware houses was ample proof of the way in which the world’s commerce had taken advantage of that access.
Once upon a time,he thought grumpily.
He ran a hand over his kercheef, the traditional bright, colorful headwear of the Kingdom of Tarot, and his foul mood deepened as he contemplated the absence of merchant shipping in that anchorage. The dearth of lighters plying between those non ex is tent merchant vessels and the city’s wharves. The peculiar paucity of longshoremen and stevedores who’d once been employed loading and unloading the cargoes which no longer filled those extensive ware houses.
There was a reason for those absences, for that dearth. A reason which had something to do with the squadron of the Imperial Charisian Navy—no more than a handful of schooners, supported by a single division of galleons—who’d taken up residence in Thol Bay. Who’d had the sheer effrontery to actually set up their own anchorage in Holme Reach, well inside the Bay’s protective headlands. To send parties of seamen and Marines ashore on Hourglass Island to plant and tend garden plots to provide their crews with fresh vegetables and salads! Somehow, for some reason Gorjah really didn’t understand himself, that particular bit of Charisian brashness was especially infuriating.
Perhaps, he’d occasionally thought, because he knew he’d brought it on himself. Mostly, at least; he still didn’t see any way he could have said no to the “offer.”
Not that youtried all that hard, he thought moodily now. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, after all. Which probably should have reminded you that things which seem too good to be true usually are. Which was the reason Edmynd argued against it from the outset.
The king grimaced as he recalled the diplomatic language in which Edmynd Rustmyn, the Baron of Stonekeep, had attempted to restrain his own enthusiastic response to the bait which had been trolled in front of him.
Gorjah’s grimace deepened at the memory.
I’d like to say it was all the Church’s fault—well, the Group of Four’s, anyway. And I suppose it was. But be honest, Gorjah. Edmynd was dead right to try to . . . moderate your enthusiasm, wasn’t he? Andyou wouldn’t listen, would you? They’d figured out exactly the right lever to pull in your case, hadn’t they? You resented the hell out of the treaty—never mind the fact that it had its good sides, as well—and you figured it was a chance to get your own back. And why did you think that way? Because you were a frigging idiot, that’s why!
His grimace turned briefly into something like a snarl. Then it vanished, and he folded his hands behind himself, turned his back on the window, and crossed to the lavishly carved, not- quite- a-throne chair at the head of the brilliantly polished table. Summer sunlight from the window bounced off the imperfect mirror of the tabletop, throwing a spot of brightness on the council chamber’s ceiling, as he seated himself. The chair had been custom-built for his father, who’d been considerably taller and stockier than the slender, dark- haired Gorjah. The king favored his mother—physically, at least—far more closely than he ever had his father, and he contemplated (not for the first time) the desirability of having a new one—one that made him look less
like a child sitting in his parent’s chair—commissioned. From the viewpoint of political psychology, of his ability to dominate meetings, the notion probably had much to recommend it, but the chair was almost sinfully comfortable. Besides, as a boy then- Prince Gorjah had spent quite a few hours sitting in his father’s lap in this very chair. Those memories came back to him every time he sat in it, and especially over the last couple of years when his infant son, Rholynd, had been cuddled in his own lap.
I wonder ifhe’ll ever get to sit in it? the king thought moodily. For that matter, I wonder how much longer I’ll get to sit in it!
They were both valid questions, and he didn’t much care for the answers which tended to suggest themselves.
Cayleb of Charis had obvious reasons to want his blood, given the way Tarot had betrayed the terms of their treaty. Simply adding Tarot’s fleet to the onslaught on Charis would have been bad enough, but Gorjah hadn’t stopped there. Oh, no! He’d followed Chancellor Trynair’s orders, like a good little henchman, and lied to King Haarahld, as well. Promised to honor his treaty obligations even as he was ordering Baron White Ford to rendezvous with the Royal Dohlaran Navy. The fact that Haarahld had been subsequently killed only made bad worse in that respect, although Gorjah could at least reflect that none of his ships had been involved in the Battle of Darcos Sound. So he could argue that he personally hadn’t contributed to Haarahld’s death... not that he expected that particular fine distinction to cut much ice with Haarahld’s son.
Unfortunately, Cayleb wasn’t the only person Gorjah had to worry about. In fact, if Cayleb had been his only concern, he’d have been considerably happier. But despite his very best efforts, the Group of Four seemed to feel he’d proved just a tad inept as a traitor, scoundrel, and general all around backstabber. And, to be honest, Gorjah couldn’t really disagree. He’d tried—he really had—yet someone in his Court had leaked the “Knights of the Temple Lands’ ” plans to Haarahld, thus neatly undoing all of his own efforts in that direction.