by David Weber
“Assuredly.” The seijin’s smile turned into something remarkably like a grin. “It came in the form of a rock tossed through your study window.”
“That was a seijin?” Gahrvai’s eyebrows rose, and Merlin chuckled.
“If I’m a seijin, that was most definitely a seijin, too, General. This entire Princedom’s been under observation, My Lords—starting even before the Emperor invaded.” He shrugged at their incredulous expressions. “Obviously, not even our network can see everything. If it could, we’d know who ordered Prince Hektor’s assassination, and we don’t.”
His unearthly sapphire eyes hardened as he made that admission. Then he inhaled deeply.
“We can’t see everything, but we see a great deal, and as Sir Koryn can attest, we’re quite good at getting information into the hands of the authorities when it seems appropriate. Which is the reason I asked to speak to you today. I’ve received several reports while here in Corisande confirming something Their Majesties have expected for some time. Since Archbishop Maikel is scheduled to leave the Princedom at the end of next five- day, and I’ll be leaving with him, my... contacts here in Corisande will probably need to provide information directly to you after I’ve left. Specifically, to Sir Charlz and Sir Koryn. Since those contacts’ effectiveness depends on their anonymity and unobtrusiveness, any reports from them will be in written form, and they’ll find their own ways into your hands.”
“By flying through windows?” Gahrvai asked sardonically, and Merlin chuckled.
“We’ll try to be a bit less destructive than that,” he said.
“I hope none of your fellow seijins come to grief trying to creep through our sentries,” Anvil Rock said a bit tartly. The earl clearly found the concept of overly clever spies sneaking about in black, hooded cloaks less than amusing.
“I think that’s . . . unlikely to happen, My Lord.”
“You mentioned you’ve received reports confirming something the Emperor and Empress have been expecting?” Doyal said slowly, and Merlin nodded, his expression sobering.
“I have, indeed,” he said. “Specifically, I’ve received this.”
He produced an envelope, laying it on the table in front of him.
“All jesting aside, My Lords, our agents here in Corisande have confirmed that Earl Craggy Hill, among others, is engaged in an active conspiracy against both the Empire and this Council.”
Every face around the table tightened, less in surprise than with tension.
“That’s a serious charge, Seijin Merlin,” Tartarian said after a moment. “It would be a serious charge against anyone; against someone of Craggy Hill’s stature—not to mention his membership on this Council—it becomes extra -ordinarily so.”
“Trust me, My Lords, Their Majesties are fully aware of that. Just as they’re aware Craggy Hill isn’t acting alone. In fact, he’s coordinating with Earl Storm Keep, Earl Deep Hollow, Duke Black Water, Baron Larchros, Baron Barcor, and at least a dozen other minor knights and landowners, not to mention quite a few bankers and merchants in northern Corisande.” His audience was staring at him now, their expressions fixed. “In addition, Bishop Mailvyn in Barcor, Bishop Executor Thomys, and Amilain Gahrnaht, the ex- Bishop of Larchros, as well as several dozen other Temple Loyalist clergy are involved . . . the majority in violation of their vows to Archbishop Klairmant.”
The others stared at him for several heartbeats, then exchanged quick glances.
“I won’t pretend I haven’t nourished my own suspicions about some of the people you’ve just named, Seijin Merlin,” Tartarian said then. “Coupling them all together, though...” He shook his head. “That’s a pretty hard mouthful to swallow. And, to be blunt, it’s going to take some extremely solid evidence to convince me to accept it.”
“I’m sure it will, My Lord. And, to be honest, I’m relieved it will.”
“‘Relieved?’” Anvil Rock’s expression contained more than a hint of suspicion. “And why might that be, Seijin Merlin? I’d think that if such a serious conspiracy were truly underway you’d want us to act immediately!”
“My Lord, Their Majesties have known about this conspiracy literally for months now. Their agents have amassed quite a lot of evidence over that time, and that evidence will be made available to you. However, Their Majesties have no desire for you to act precipitously or ill- advisedly.”
“No?” Anvil Rock’s eyes narrowed. “The truth is, My Lord, that Their Majesties have deliberately allowed this to go forward without drawing it to your attention. First, because they feared you’d act as immediately and vigorously as is your wont. Normally, that would be a good thing. In this case, however, Their Majesties, with Prince Nahrmahn’s advice, preferred to allow the conspirators to fully commit themselves so that when we do act, there will be no question about their guilt. No room for anyone to legitimately suggest that Their Majesties—or the Regency Council—have trumped up the charges as a means of purging the Princedom of personal enemies. Second, however, there was another factor, another conspirator whose commitment Their Majesties have been awaiting.”
“Should we assume the ‘conspirator’ in question is now committed, then, Seijin Merlin?” Doyal asked.
“You should, Sir Charlz,” Merlin said calmly. “According to our agents, Grand Duke Zebediah has now pledged to provide modern, rifled muskets to the conspirators. Moreover, we have evidence that the rifled muskets in question will be provided by a traitor attached to the Duke of Eastshare’s headquarters.”
If their expressions had been incredulous before, they were far more disbelieving—and shocked, this time.
“Rifled muskets?” Anvil Rock got out in a half- strangled voice, rearing back in his seat in astonishment. “From Eastshare’s own headquarters? Are you telling us the Duke is—?”
“Of course not, My Lord!” Merlin waved one hand. “I’ve personally discussed this matter with Duke Eastshare on Their Majesties’ behalf. His immediate impulse was to order the traitor’s immediate arrest. As Their Majesties’ envoy, however, I was able to talk him out of that.”
“You were able—” Gahrvai began, then stopped abruptly, his eyes lighting with speculation. Merlin simply gazed at him for several seconds, until Gahrvai began shaking his head and leaned back in his chair once more.
“So you think they’ve got enough rope now, do you?” he asked softly.
“Something along those lines,” Merlin acknowledged, with a slight, seated bow. The other Corisandians looked at Gahrvai, and then Tartarian began to nod.
“So the Emperor and Empress have decided to cut off the kraken’s head, is that it?” the earl said, and there was a hint—faint, but unmistakable—of something very like admiration in his tone.
“Precisely, My Lord.” Merlin shrugged. “Grand Duke Zebediah’s agent in Duke Eastshare’s headquarters is unaware we’ve been very carefully tracking the rifles he thinks he’s managed to ‘lose.’ We’ve followed them every step of the way from the manufactories in Old Charis to Chisholm, and we can establish—with both witnesses and written testimony—the exact point at which he diverted them from the Imperial Army depots for which they were bound.
“Other of our agents have been tracking his correspondence with Grand Duke Zebediah, just as we’ve become aware of certain documentary evidence in Earl Craggy Hill’s possession proving Zebediah’s involvement. It’s Their Majesties’ intention to allow those rifled muskets to be delivered here, in Corisande. When that happens, you’ll be informed—as will Viceroy General Chermyn. At that time, the Viceroy General, on Their Majesties’ behalf, will request your assistance in moving against the conspirators. The Imperial Navy will provide sealift to transport your forces, supported by the Viceroy General’s Marines, to arrest the conspirators and seize the weapons and other evidence.”
“Langhorne,” Anvil Rock said softly. He looked more than moderately stunned. Tartarian, on the other hand, wore a remarkably evil- looking smile.
“I never did like Zebediah,” he remarke
d. “And Craggy Hill’s been a pain in the arse from the instant Prince Hektor was assassinated.”
“And I can’t say it breaks my heart that Barcor’s up to his cowardly arse in all this,” Gahrvai observed almost dreamily.
“Mine, either,” Doyal said rather more grimly, reaching down to massage the leg which had been half- crippled at Haryl’s Crossing.
The four Corisandians looked at one another, and Merlin sat back in his own chair to let them think. After several minutes of silent introspection, their attention returned, one by one, to him.
“May I ask how long Their Majesties—and let’s not forget Prince Nahrmahn—have been allowing this little plot to simmer?” Tartarian asked finally.
“From the moment they found out about it,” Merlin replied. “I suppose I should admit, though, that we’ve been keeping an especially sharp eye on Grand Duke Zebediah from the very beginning.”
“Of course you have!” Anvil Rock snorted. “Anybody but a blind, drooling idiot—which, by the way, Emperor Cayleb has amply demonstrated he isn’t— would be watching him with both eyes!”
“Why do I have the distinct feeling, Seijin Merlin, that this proof of Zebediah’s treason didn’t exactly devastate Their Majesties?” Tartarian inquired.
“Partly, I suppose, because it scarcely came as a surprise, My Lord,” Merlin said. “And also, I suspect, because they’re rather relieved to get it out of the way as soon as possible.” He shrugged. “The way the Emperor put it, the question was never whether or not Zebediah would betray his oaths, but simply a matter of when. That being the case, Their Majesties are quite happy to have unambiguous, demonstrable proof of his treachery.”
“And the same thing’s true here in Corisande, isn’t it?” Anvil Rock’s eyes were shrewd.
“And the same thing is true here in Corisande, yes, My Lord.” Merlin met the earl’s gaze levelly. “I realize many of the people who have been party to this conspiracy consider themselves patriots. In their position, I might feel the same way. Not all of them do, however, and whether they do or not, Their Majesties propose to levy the most severe penalties only upon those who have betrayed their own sworn oaths. I’m not suggesting everyone else involved will get off scot free, because they won’t. But I believe you’ve seen in Viceroy General Chermyn’s approach to the disturbances here in Manchyr and the surrounding lands the proof that Their Majesties have no desire to be bloody despots. Punishment will be meted out only in accord with law, and where practical, compassion will have a voice in sentencing.
“Hopefully, at the end of the day, we’ll be able to—as Earl Tartarian put it—cut off the kraken’s head in a single blow, without a pitched battle and with a minimum of bloodshed. Their Majesties want all of the traitors, My Lords, but one reason they want them is to ensure we won’t have to do this again and again.”
Merlin looked back at the Corisandians, his blue eyes steady. “Cayleb and Sharleyan aren’t Zhaspahr Clyntahn. They take no plea sure in cruelty or blood. But they are determined to put an end to this business, once and for all, because you may be certain men like Craggy Hill and Zebediah and Barcor aren’t planning on shedding their blood in the name of Corisandian independence. They’re planning on shedding other people’s blood in the name of their own power, and Their Majesties have no intention of letting them do that.”
.II.
Off Dragon Island,
Hankey Sound,
Kingdom of Dohlar
Well, at least we found them, Captain Ahrnahld Stywyrt told himself. Of course, figuring out what to do with them now that we have is another problem. Stywyrt smiled thinly, then grimaced as the leading Dohlaran galleon fired another broadside. His own Squall, bringing up the rear of the abbreviated—very abbreviated—Charisian battleline, had yet to engage, and it was going to be a while yet, unfortunately, before she could.
The late- morning sun was hot, burning down on the blue waters of Hankey Sound, the southern lobe of the Gulf of Dohlar, and the green slopes of Dragon Island, to the east, but the stiff breeze out of the northwest was brisk, almost chill. It piled up nine- or ten- foot waves, and the copper- bottomed Squall forged along on her southeasterly heading at almost seven knots under topgallants and single- reefed topsails with the wind fine on her larboard quarter. The Dohlaran ships, holding their course to the southwest on the starboard tack as the two forces slowly converged, had the wind nearly abeam. It was close to their best point of sailing, yet they were making no more than six knots. Unfortunately, they were between the Charisians and their intended prey, and there were five of them.
Three of the Dohlarans were already in action with HMS Dart, leading the Charisian formation. Captain Zhon Pawal, Dart’s skipper and the senior officer present, was a veteran of Rock Point, Crag Reach, and Darcos Sound, and his ship was one of Sir Gwylym Manthyr’s newest vessels. Dart was actually five and a half feet longer than Empress of Charis, Emperor Cayleb’s preferred flag-ship, yet she mounted ten fewer guns. Sir Dustyn Olyvyr had come to the conclusion that Empress of Charis was going to be over gunned, too heavily laden for her displacement, even before she’d been completed. The fact that she’d quickly begun to hog after she came into ser vice, her keel bending upward amidships because of the heavy weights bearing down on the ends of her hull, had only confirmed his initial fears. Her powerful broadside had made her a fearsome foe, yet once it became obvious his concerns had been well placed, there’d been little choice but to reduce her armament. Having seen the problem coming, however, he’d taken pains to avoid it when he designed the Sword of Charis– class ships, and, in addition to reducing weights and increasing displacement, he’d experimented with diagonal planking as a means of further increasing her longitudinal strength.
As a result, Dart carried her designed armament with ease. She mounted the same number of thirty- pounders as Empress of Charis, but only twenty carronades, and the additional length on the gundeck seemed to have produced a higher rate of fire. And although she carrried fewer of them, her carronades threw fifty- seven- pound round shot, instead of thirty- pound shot, which actually increased her weight of broadside. She also carried her guns slightly higher, and her scantlings were thicker. All of that made her the ideal ship to be leading the Charisian line at this particular moment, but it didn’t change the fact that she was engaged against three enemy vessels.
HMS Shield, Dart’s next astern, would be able to come to her assistance in the next ten or fifteen minutes, but Squall had been detached up to windward when the enemy was spotted. Her merchant ship origins also made her, little though Stywyrt liked admitting it, the slowest sailor of the three, and she’d lost ground on her consorts during the pursuit. It was evident she was still faster than the Dohlaran galleons, yet on their present courses, she was at least forty minutes—more likely an hour—from any range at which she could engage. On the other hand, the two rearmost vessels in the Dohlaran formation lagged almost as badly.
But they’re not supposed to be keeping formation this well. Stywyrt realized his own thoughts sounded plaintive, almost petulant. Sir Gwylym told us Thirsk was the most dangerous fellow on the other side, but this is ridiculous!
It was mostly a fluke that they’d encountered this convoy in the first place. Captain Pawal’s detachment had been cruising off the northeast coast of Shwei Province’s Harris Peninsula, looking for shipping in the waters between Parrot Point, to the north, and Sandy Head, to the south. They’d had reports that foundries in Shwei were shipping guns to the Dohlaran yards in Gorath, and Sir Gwylym had posted Pawal to intercept that traffic.
They’d intercepted five small brigs which had, indeed, been laden with Harchong- cast bronze artillery, and Captain Pawal had found prize crews to send them back to Claw Island. He’d disliked giving up the men for those crews, but their cargo of guns had been too potentially valuable not to send them in. After that, though, there’d been almost a full five- day of boring inactivity before Lieutenant Commander Showail, in the ten- gun schooner Fl
ash, on the eastern flank of Pawal’s formation, had spotted topsails farther to the east. That had been the evening before, and they’d gone in pursuit, chasing all through the night by moonlight . . . and with Squall slowly falling yet farther astern. Now, the better part of thirty hours later, they’d finally overtaken the convoy, and the Dohlaran galleons had peeled off and turned to place themselves between the pursuers and the merchantmen.
Showail never would’ve spotted them if not for the escorts, Stywyrt thought now. The merchant ships’ masts were too short to sight until we got closer.
The fact that the galleons had betrayed the convoy’s presence might turn out to have been something of a mixed blessing, however. All the Dohlaran warships were larger than Squall. None were as large as Dart or Shield, perhaps, yet Stywyrt’s best estimate was that they carried at least two hundred guns to the truncated Charisian squadron’s hundred and forty- four. The Dohlaran weapons were probably lighter, yet that was still a considerable disparity.
At the moment, Flash and her slightly larger sister, Mace, were both off sliding around the Dohlaran galleons’ rear. The pair of galleys assigned to the coasters’ close protection were new, bigger, and more powerful than anything Dohlar had taken to Armageddon Reef, but Stywyrt doubted they’d be any match for the nimble, well- handled schooners’ carronade broadsides. Unfortunately, between the galleys and the galleons, it was likely most of the coasters would escape if they scattered soon enough. Each schooner might be able to run down two of them—possibly even three, if they disposed of the galleys quickly enough—but there were fourteen of them. If Squall and her galleon consorts had been able to lend a hand, the entire convoy would undoubtedly have been obliterated.
Which wasn’t going to happen now.
Captain Caitahno Raisahndo smiled in fierce satisfaction as HMS Rakurai’s starboard broadside thundered again. His gunners probably weren’t being as accurate as he might have liked, but they were maintaining an impressive rate of fire, especially for a ship’s company which had never before seen battle.