A Mighty Fortress

by David Weber

  “Master Mahldyn!”

  “Aye, Sir?”

  Lieutenant Zhames Mahldyn, Squall’s tall, thin first lieutenant, was well forward, standing beside the starboard chaser with his reddish- brown hair blowing in the wind. Now he looked back at his commanding officer, and Stywyrt pointed at the brig with his free hand.

  “Encourage that fellow to see reason, Master Mahldyn!”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!”

  Stywyrt could see Mahldyn’s huge, white grin all the way from the quarterdeck, and the lanky lieutenant bent over the fourteen- pounder’s breech. He fussed for a moment, waving hand commands while the gun captain stood to one side, arms crossed, watching with a sort of resigned amusement. Despite the fact that Mahldyn was the officer responsible for ensuring the discipline of the ship’s company (and his notion of appropriate punishment could be stiff), he’d always been popular with the men. Probably because he was ruthlessly equitable in the penalties he awarded. It was well known, however, that he’d always really wanted to be a gunner. He was fanatical about gun drill, insisting that every crew ought to consist solely of qualified gun captains, and he took every opportunity to work one of the guns himself.

  Which meant the gun captain he’d so carefully trained got to stand there, watching the first lieutenant play.

  Now Mahldyn took one more look along the barrel, waved the rest of the crew back, took tension on the firing lanyard, waited for exactly the right moment in Squall’s movement, and pulled.

  The fourteen- pounder bellowed, gun trucks squealing as it recoiled across the planking until the breeching ropes brought it up short. A huge gush of flame- cored smoke belched from the muzzle, and Stywyrt’s eyebrows rose as the very first shot scored a direct hit.

  The round shot punched through the brig’s bulwark, slammed into the boat stowed atop the main hatch, tearing it in half and sending splinters hissing, then punched through the opposite bulwark and plunged into the sea well beyond the merchant vessel. At least one member of the Harchong crew was down, writhing around on the deck with both hands locked around his right thigh. A splinter wound, Stywyrt thought. They could be far nastier than they first looked, especially with their tendency to become infected.

  He hadn’t really expected Mahldyn to actually hit the brig. In fact, what he’d wanted was for the first lieutenant to fire across her bow. He started to say something sharp, then stopped and mentally replayed his own instructions.

  Damn. Ididn’t say “across the bow,” did I? And I know how . . . enthusiastic Zhames is, too.

  He grimaced, but at least the single shot had produced the desired effect. The brig had let fly her sheets, spilling the wind from her sails in token of surrender, and Stywyrt looked up at his own sails.

  “Back the main topsail!” he commanded, and feet pattered across the deck. The main topsail yard swung around, taking the wind aback, the sail pressing against the mast, and Squall lost speed rapidly. She drifted slowly to leeward, coming down upon her prize while canvas flapped and the bosun marshaled a party to lower the starboard quarter boat while Stywyrt turned to Captain Bahrnabai Kaits, the commanding officer of Squall’s Marine detachment.

  “No nonsense out of them, Bahrnabai,” he said. “We’re closer to the shore than I like. Get their wounded man aboard the boat first, then check the cargo. Unless you find something interesting, make sure you’ve got everyone off and you’ve got her papers—assuming she’s got any!— then burn her.”

  “Aye, Sir.” Kaits touched his chest in salute, then jerked his head at his first sergeant. “You heard the Captain, Sergeant!”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!”

  Stywyrt watched a half- dozen Marines climbing into the boat along with the midshipman detailed to command it and the seamen told off as oarsmen. The swinging davits were another new innovation of Sir Dustyn Olyvyr’s, and Stywyrt heartily approved of the concept. They made it far easier—and safer—to drop a boat, and stowing a ship’s boats on davits cleared a lot of precious deck space.

  The boat hit the water in the galleon’s lee, the oars dug in, and the boat went swooping across the steep- sided waves in a cloud of spray and wind. Stywyrt remembered his own midshipman days and boat trips just like that one, although most of his had been made in what was at least technically a time of peace.

  Well, the lad better get used to it now, the captain thought soberly, turning and looking back to the south where two columns of smoke climbed into the heavens, announcing that two of the brig’s fellow coasters had already been put to the torch. Unless I miss my guess, he’s going to be my age—at least—before this war’s over. But in the meantime ...

  He turned his attention back to his own prize, watching his boat go alongside, and shook his head. He felt a solid sense of satisfaction at depriving the Group of Four and its lackeys of the brig’s cargo, yet he took no plea sure in the thought of destroying the little ship’s crew’s livelihoods.

  Nothing I can do about that, except see to it they’re treated as well as we can until we put them ashore somewhere.

  He drew a deep breath, clasped his hands behind him, and began to pace slowly up and down the weather side of the deck.

  JUNE, YEAR OF GOD 894

  .I.

  Royal Palace,

  City of Manchyr,

  Princedom of Corisande

  So, Koryn, what do you think this is all about?”

  “Father, if I knew that, I’d also know how to read minds, predict weather, choose the winning horse, and figure out where my left sock’s gone,” Sir Koryn Gahrvai replied, and Earl Anvil Rock laughed.

  “I think we can probably make at least a few guesses, Rysel,” Sir Taryl Lektor offered. The Earl of Tartarian sat at one end of the conference table, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a penknife while he leaned back comfortably with the heels of his boots propped on the seat of the chair normally assigned to the Earl of Craggy Hill. Personally, Gahrvai suspected Tartarian hadn’t exactly chosen that particular chair at random.

  “Well, in that case, Taryl, guess away,” Anvil Rock invited. “First,” Tartarian said. “Captain Athrawes asked to speak to just the four of us—not to the entire Council. Second, we all know how close the seijin is to the Emperor, and—unless I miss my guess—the Empress, as well. Third, Archbishop Maikel isn’t going to be present.”

  He paused, holding up his left hand to admire his nails, and Anvil Rock snorted.

  “And those three considerations suggest exactly what to your powerful intellect?”

  “I strongly suspect the good Captain is going to deliver a message to us,” Tartarian replied, looking across his hand at his old friend. “Given the Arch-bishop’s absence, I would also suspect it’s a seriously secular message. Possibly the sort of thing the Church doesn’t want to know about.”

  “Why do you think he’s waited so long to deliver it, in that case?”

  “That’s a bit harder,” Tartarian conceded. “On the other hand, we know they’ve been receiving a steady stream of messages. So it seems most likely this is something he didn’t know about until Cayleb sent him a dispatch.”

  “Except, My Lord,” Sir Charlz Doyal put in respectfully from his place beside Gahrvai, “that Cayleb and Sharleyan left for Tellesberg over a month ago. Which means they’re at sea right now, which would make sending any dispatches to Seijin Merlin a bit difficult.”

  “Rash and impetuous youngsters who point out holes in their elders’ logic come to bad ends,” Tartarian observed to no one in particular, and Doyal (who wasn’t all that many years younger than the earl) chuckled.

  “Still, Taryl, he has a point,” Anvil Rock said.

  “Of course he does. If he didn’t, I’d simply annihilate him with the deadly force of my own logic and be done with it. As it is, I’m forced to admit I have no idea why the seijin has waited this long to discuss what ever it is with us. There!” He began working on the nails of his other hand. “I’ve admitted it. I’m fallible.”

  “Be still my
beating heart,” Anvil Rock said tartly, and it was Gahrvai’s turn to laugh.

  The truth was that none of them had any idea what Captain Athrawes wanted to speak to them about. Except, of course, that Tartarian was almost certainly correct about who the seijin would be speaking for. On the other hand, the atmosphere in the council chamber was enormously more relaxed—and confident—than it had been only a few months ago.

  Gahrvai still bitterly regretted Father Tymahn’s murder, yet Waimyn’s decision to have him killed had clearly been the turning point here in Manchyr. Gahrvai wasn’t about to issue any overly optimistic proclamations of triumph, but the incidence of violence had plummeted following Waimyn’s arrest, and the ex- intendant’s execution had evoked not protests and riots, but something much closer to a huge sigh of relief. Anti- Charis broadsides were still being tacked up on doors throughout the city. Temple Loyalists continued to gather in their own churches, following their own priests. Parties of Charisian Marines continued to draw glowers, even the occasional catcall, but no one actually threw dead cat-lizards any longer. In fact, they didn’t even throw overripe tomatoes.

  The Charisian occupation was still a source of resentment, yet most Corisandians—in the southeast, at least—seemed prepared to accept, if only grudgingly, that the Charisians were doing their best to avoid walking all over them.

  The fact that Viceroy General Chermyn had been scrupulous about observing both local law and customary usages wherever possible hadn’t hurt. And the fact that the Charisians obviously trusted Gahrvai’s guardsmen to serve as the princedom’s primary peacekeeping force hadn’t been lost on Corisandians, either. The acid test, in many ways, had come when three Charisian Marines raped a young farm girl. Gahrvai had gone straight to Chermyn, and the viceroy general’s response had been quick and decisive. He’d ordered the suspected rapists’ arrest, impaneled a court- martial, and had Gahrvai’s guards-men bring in the Corisandian witnesses. The defense counsel’s questioning had been sharp, but those witnesses had been given full credence, and the court’s verdict had been swift. The Articles of War set only one penalty for forcible rape, and the guilty parties had been marched to the very farm where the crime had taken place for execution.

  That hadn’t been the only incident of swift, impartial justice, either. To be fair, there’d been far fewer such incidents than Gahrvai would have expected. In fact, he was unhappily aware that his own army, when he’d been resisting the Charisian invasion, had committed more crimes against Prince Hektor’s subjects than the invaders had. There’d been additional infractions, of course—Charisians might be well behaved, but they were scarcely saints! Theft, looting, the occasional fistfight or beating, and at least two deaths, one of which had clearly been a matter of self- defense on the Charisian’s part. Yet the prince-dom’s subjects had been forced, many against their will, to concede that “the occupation” truly was determined to enforce justice and not just Charisian authority.

  And then there’s Staynair, Gahrvai thought. That man is scary. It’s just not natural. He’s a Charisian and a heretic . . . and I think he could probably talk a slash lizard into eating out of his hand.

  His lips twitched a half- smile, yet he wasn’t certain the thought was entirely hyperbole. Maikel Staynair had never once apologized for the Church of Charis’ schismatic fervor. He’d drawn the line between the Church of Charis and the Temple Loyalists as unflinchingly in every sermon he’d given as in the very first, and no one who’d seen and heard him preach could doubt his unswerving devotion to that schism for a single moment. And yet, for all the adamantine power of his personal faith and bitter defiance of the vicarate and the Group of Four, he radiated a gentleness, a kindliness, only the most bigoted could deny.

  Many of those bigots did just that, but Gahrvai had watched Staynair walk down the nave of cathedrals and churches throughout the capital. He’d seen the “foreign Archbishop,” the “apostate heretic” and “servant of Shan- wei,” pause to lay his hand on children’s heads, speak to those children’s parents, stop entire processions for a word here, a blessing there. It must have been a living nightmare for the people responsible for keeping him alive, because there was no way anyone could have guaranteed there were no hidden daggers in those houses of God.

  Yet he’d done it anyway. He’d reached out, embraced, welcomed. And everyone in each of those cathedrals and churches had heard the tale of what had happened to him in Tellesberg Cathedral. They knew that he knew, from direct and personal experience, how easy it would have been for someone to repeat that attack. And, knowing that, still he chose to walk among them, risk exactly that.

  Archbishops weren’t supposed to be like that. They were supposed to be regal. They were supposed to visit their archbishoprics once a year. They might celebrate mass in the cathedrals adjacent to their palaces, but they didn’t go to small churches—like Saint Kathryn’s, or the Holy Archangels Triumphant. They passed through congregants like the princes of Mother Church they were, not stopping to bounce a baby in their arms, or lay a soothing hand on an ailing toddler, or bestow a gentle blessing on a bereaved widow. They dispensed Mother Church’s rulings and justice, and they governed, but they didn’t scoop a grubby six- year- old up in their arms, laughing and tickling, heedless of their exquisitely tailored cassocks, when they went to visit one of Mother Church’s orphanages.

  Corisande had no idea what to make of him. For that matter, Gahrvai wasn’t certain what to make of Staynair himself. He wasn’t accustomed to encountering saints . . . especially, he thought more grimly, in an archbishop’s vestments.

  Of course, he’snot a saint—he’d be the very first to insist on that! But until something better comes along ....The sound of an opening door pulled him up out of his reflections, and his eyes narrowed as Merlin Athrawes stepped into the council chamber.

  The seijin crossed to the conference table and bowed courteously. “My Lords, thank you for allowing me to speak to you,” he said. “I don’t really think there was ever much probability that we wouldn’t ‘allow’ you to speak with us,” Anvil Rock said dryly.

  “Perhaps not.” Merlin smiled. “Still, there are appearances to maintain.”

  “Indeed there are.” Anvil Rock cocked his head thoughtfully. “I’m sure you won’t be surprised to discover that we’ve been speculating amongst ourselves on exactly why it was you wished to speak with us, Seijin Merlin. Am I correct in assuming you’re here on the Emperor and the Empress’s business?”

  “You are, of course.”

  “In that case, I suppose we ought to invite you to sit down,” the earl said, pointing at an unoccupied chair across the table from his son and Doyal.

  “Thank you, My Lord.”

  Merlin unhooked the scabbard of his katana, laying it on the table in front of him, then sat and folded his hands on the tabletop.

  “Very well, Seijin,” Anvil Rock invited. “You have our attention.”

  “Thank you,” Merlin repeated, then smiled slightly. “My Lords,” he began, “by this time, I’m sure, the entire world knows the Emperor has his own personal seijin bodyguard. As you may have heard, however, I’ve never actually claimed to be a seijin. The truth, so far as I know, is that there are no true seijins in the sense of all the old fables and folktales.”

  He made the admission calmly, and his audience stirred. Anvil Rock leaned forward, one elbow propped on his chair arm, and Tartarian frowned thoughtfully.

  “If you go back to the tales of Seijin Kohdy, for example,” Merlin continued, “you’ll find he’s capable of all sorts of magical, mystical feats, from mind reading to levitation to talking to great lizards. And let’s not forget his magic sword and his ability to walk through walls, either.” He smiled crookedly. “Trust me, My Lords, there have been quite a few times I’ve wished I could walk through walls. Unfortunately, I can’t.

  “Yet that isn’t to say that there’s not a certain core of truth in those fairy tales.” His smile vanished. “And, while I’ve never
actually claimed to be a seijin, I have to admit I do have some of the capabilities ascribed to seijins. As such, the label has a certain applicability, and it provides a convenient . . . handle. Or perhaps it would be better to say a mental pigeonhole people can tuck me into.”

  He paused for a moment, studying his audience, then shrugged. “The reason I’ve brought this up, My Lords, is because I may not be so unique as you’ve assumed. Or, to put it another way, there may be more ‘seijins’ around than you might have guessed.”

  All of his listeners stiffened. They looked at one another quickly, then leaned towards him as one, and his smile was back, a bit fainter and even more crooked than before.

  “When I first offered my ser vices to King Haarahld, and then, later, to Emperor Cayleb, it wasn’t on a whim, My Lords,” he told them flatly. “I won’t pretend I foresaw everything that’s happened since, but I did see which way the wind was setting, and I knew where I stood. Yet when I offered Charis my sword, that wasn’t all I brought to Tellesberg with me, nor did I truly come alone. If it’s accurate to call me a seijin at all, because of the abilities I possess, then I’m not the only seijin on the face of Safehold.”

  “You’re not?” Anvil Rock said quietly, when Merlin paused once more.

  “Of course not, My Lord.” Merlin shook his head. “Of course, even the fables insist not all seijins are warriors. They may also be councilors, teachers, mentors, even spies.”

  “Yes, they do say that,” Doyal said slowly, and Merlin smiled at him.

  “Indeed, they do, Sir Charlz. And it happens there are quite a few ‘seijins’ right here in Corisande.”

  “There are?” Anvil Rock sat up very straight, and Merlin nodded.

  “Yes, My Lord. In fact, Sir Koryn’s already had evidence of that.”

  “I have, have I?” Gahrvai considered Merlin across the table.