by David Weber
Gorjah decided the owner of the voice must be mad. Still, he was very much in favor of anything which left him with his throat uncut, and so he nodded firmly.
“Excellent!”
The hand left his mouth, and the man to whom it belonged bowed slightly. Gorjah’s eyes were able to pick out a little more detail now, and he realized the intruder in his bedchamber was considerably taller and broader in the shoulders than he himself. He also appeared to be clean- shaven, and he spoke with what Gorjah now recognized as a Silkiahan accent.
“I apologize for my... unconventional methods, Your Majesty. I really do need to speak to you, though, and I’m of the opinion that neither of us would like your guardsmen, your courtiers, or—especially—Vicar Zhaspahr to become aware of the fact that we have.”
Gorjah’s stomach seemed to congeal. He couldn’t be certain in the dimness, but it looked to him as if his visitor had smiled.
“The thing is, Your Majesty,” the Silkiahan continued chattily, “I thought it might be a good idea for me to give a little nudge to your correspondence with Earl Gray Harbor. You may not be aware that by this time Their Majesties will have arrived back in Tellesberg, but I imagine that probably means the somewhat desultory pace of that correspondence will be picking up in the next few five- days.”
Gorjah felt as if someone had just punched him. No one in Tranjyr—no one, with the exception of Sir Ryk Fharmyn—knew about the cautious notes which had passed back and forth between him and the Empire of Charis’ first councilor. He hadn’t mentioned them even to Baron Stonekeep! So how did whoever this was—?
“I... don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed to get out. Even to his own ears, though, it sounded like an automatic, instinctive denial with very little relationship to the truth.
“Your Majesty!” the Silkiahan chided, and actually clicked his tongue at the king. “You know perfectly well what I’m referring to,” he continued scoldingly. “I’m afraid we don’t have time to stand around all night while you deny it, though. And, no, Sir Ryk isn’t how I found out about it.”
The casual reference to Fharmyn was the final blow. Obviously whoever this lunatic was, he knew everything.
“All right,” Gorjah sighed. “Of course I know what you’re talking about. But who the Shan- wei are you, and what are you doing in my bedchamber?!”
“Much better, Your Majesty,” the other man said in an approving tone. “As for introductions, my name is Ahbraim Zhevons. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but you can think of me as a close friend of Merlin Athrawes’. I’m sure you’re familiar with that name.”
“Of course I am,” Gorjah said slowly, and his eyes narrowed. Everyone in the world knew Merlin Athrawes was a seijin. If this fellow—this ... Zhevons—was “a close friend” of his, that might explain how he came to be in Gorjah’s bedroom in the middle of the night. Even as he considered that, the king was aware of a vast sense of ill usage. After so many centuries without a single confirmed, genuine sighting of a seijin, it seemed particularly unfair that Cayleb of Charis should have an apparently unlimited number of them when Gorjah didn’t have even one.
“Should I take it, then,” he asked his visitor, “that you’re also a seijin?”
“Let’s just say that, like Merlin, I possess a few of the talents and abilities ascribed to seijins,” Zhevons replied. “And since he’s unfortunately still some five-days out of Tellesberg on his way home from Corisande at the moment, you might say I’m . . . deputizing for him.”
“I see.”
Gorjah gazed at the dimly seen profile for a few moments, then shrugged.
“Since you appear to be here as a messenger, may I at least sit up in bed without your dagger doing anything... hasty?”
“By all means, Your Majesty,” Zhevons agreed courteously.
“Thank you.”
Gorjah would really have liked to stand, if only to assert a modicum of control over the situation. On the other hand, he doubted he’d be all that imposing in his nightshirt. So he settled for arranging his pillows behind his shoulders, then cocked his head.
“Very well, Seijin Ahbraim. What exactly did you want to discuss?”
“Basically, I just thought it might be a good idea to drop by and introduce myself.” Teeth gleamed in a fleeting smile. “I feel reasonably confident that, in the fullness of time, your correspondence with Earl Gray Harbor is going to lead to a satisfactory outcome for all concerned. In the meantime, though, it seemed likely to me that while I was here—just introducing myself, you understand—you’d also like to know Admiral Rock Point’s about to be reinforced. I believe it’s what’s known as bringing an additional argument to bear.”
“I beg your pardon?” Gorjah said a bit more sharply.
He knew exactly what Rock Point’s current strength was, given the fact that the cheeky Charisian had set up permanent house keeping in Holme Reach. Of course, most of his galleons were usually out cruising around, enforcing the blockade around the rest of the Tarotisian coast and carrying out the occasional raid on some minor Desnairian port on the other side of the Tarot Channel. By now, however, all of them had cycled through the anchorage off Hourglass Island at least once. There’d been plenty of time for his observers to identify each of them by name.
Which was about all he’d been able to do about the Charisian infestation of his territorial waters.
“I said Admiral Rock Point is about to be reinforced,” Zhevons repeated obligingly. “At the moment, I believe, he’s scheduled to be brought up to forty galleons.” Gorjah resisted a sudden urge to swallow. “And, by a peculiar coincidence, there happen to be about twenty thousand Imperial Marines available to go aboard transports in Old Charis if they should find it necessary to make a cruise.”
This time, Gorjah went ahead and swallowed. Twenty thousand Charisian Marines? With the new rifled muskets and artillery? And siege guns to deal with any fortifications that happened to get in their way? They’d go through his own small army like shit through a wyvern!
“Are you saying Cayleb is going to invade my kingdom?” he asked very carefully.
“I’m saying Cayleb—and Sharleyan—would very much prefer not to invade your kingdom,” Zhevons said pleasantly. “Which brings me back to the little matter of your correspondence with Earl Gray Harbor. I think everyone would be happier if this could be settled without any... unnecessary unpleasantness.”
Gorjah stared at his mostly invisible visitor for a moment. Then he surprised himself with a harsh crack of laughter.
“I must say, Seijin Ahbraim, that you have a peculiar negotiating style!”
“Oh, I’m not negotiating, Your Majesty! I’m simply pointing out that you might consider whether or not it behooves you to negotiate a bit more briskly with the Earl.”
“I see.” Gorjah contemplated the other man for several more seconds. “May I ask whether or not Cayleb—and Sharleyan—are as prepared to be . . . as reasonable as the Earl has suggested?”
“I think you might look at Nahrmahn in that regard,” Zhevons said in a rather more serious tone. “I’m not in a position to make any promises on Their Majesties’ behalf, but it does seem to me that leaving aside that little matter of a violated treaty, Tarot’s actually done less damage to Old Charis than Emerald had before they reached their understanding with him. And, frankly, considering Tarot’s geographic position, you’d have quite a bit to offer the Empire. So ....”
He let his voice trail off and shrugged, and Gorjah felt his lips quivering on the edge of an involuntary smile.
“You do have a peculiar negotiating style,” he said, “but I take your point. May I assume that if I were to give you a message for the Earl—or, for that matter, for ‘Their Majesties’— you could see to it that it was delivered?”
“Not immediately,” Zhevons said, and Gorjah’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I have a couple of other small missions I have to take care of before I head back to Old Charis, Your Majesty,”
the seijin explained. “My transportation arrangements—and schedule—are based on my dealing with them. I think you’d probably be able to get a message back to Tellesberg through Sir Ryk’s established channels rather more quickly than I could, actually.”
“I see.”
Gorjah’s brain whirred as he tried to imagine what other “small missions” Zhevons might have on his calendar. Not that he had any intention of asking.
“If I might make one teeny- tiny suggestion,” Zhevons continued, holding up an index finger and thumb about a half- inch apart, “I’d go ahead and address your next note directly to Cayleb and Sharleyan. If they’re not already in Tellesberg, I’m sure they will be by the time it arrives.”
“I see,” Gorjah repeated. He shook his head. “I believe I’ll probably take your advice, Seijin.”
“Good! And in that case, Your Majesty, I suppose it’s time I was going.” Theseijin moved across the room to an open fifth- floor window. “It’s been an enjoyable chat,” he continued, pushing the drapes to either side, sitting on the window sill, and then swinging his legs out the opening, “but I do have those other little responsibilities. Goodnight, Your Majesty.”
He turned lithely, dropped off the window ledge, caught it briefly with his hands for a moment, then released it with one hand to wave cheerfully before he let go entirely and disappeared.
For an instant, Gorjah stared disbelievingly at the suddenly empty window. Then he flung himself out of bed, dashed over, and looked down.
Despite his disbelief, he wasn’t really surprised when he didn’t see a smashed seijin lying on the pavement of the courtyard below. Not that not seeing it told him a single damned thing about how his visitor had managed to get in and out of his bedchamber.
Well, he thought, one thing’s certain— at least now I know all of the “tall tales” about seijins are true!
.II.
Merlin Athrawes’ Recon Skimmer,
Above Howell Bay,
Kingdom of Old Charis
You enjoyed that entirely too much, Merlin Athrawes!” Sharleyan Ahrmahk scolded. “Nonsense,” Merlin replied airily. He leaned back comfortably in the recon skimmer’s flight couch, gazing down on the dark mass of the island continent of Charis. From his present location, he could actually see the lights of Tellesberg, one of which undoubtedly represented Sharleyan’s bedroom window. “I was simply attempting to establish the proper... collegial atmosphere.”
“ ‘Collegial atmosphere,’ is it?” Cayleb snorted over his own com. “ ‘Do you think you could bear that in mind? The bit about my being able to kill you before anyone else gets here, I mean?’ I believe you said?”
“Yes, that was a witty line, wasn’t it?” Merlin observed in a pleased tone. “I thought it got his attention quite nicely.”
“Merlin, diplomacy isn’t supposed to be fun,” Nahrmahn chimed in.
“Of course not, Your Highness. Now tell me with a straight face that you wouldn’t have enjoyed doing exactly the same thing.”
“Of course I would have. In fact, that’s why it was particularly rude of you to do it, when you know perfectly well none of the rest of us could do it!”
“I’m sure you’re all enjoying yourselves enormously,” Maikel Staynair said. “If I might point out, however, it’s going to be dawn in about another two hours here aboard ship, Merlin. Are you going to be back, and aboard, with all of your... foliage back in place before someone notices your absence?”
“Back and aboard, yes, Your Eminence,” Merlin said, checking the steady regrowth of his mustachios and beard with the fingers of one hand. “I’m not entirely certain about the ‘foliage,’ though. You may have to cover for me for an hour or so.”
“You know,” Staynair said meditatively, “before I met you, I was very seldom forced to prevaricate, much less lie outright.”
“Only because no one was asking you the right questions,” Merlin pointed out. “Besides, this time you won’t have to lie at all. I will be there, and I will be meditating. Or, at least, reviewing Owl’s latest take, and that’s basically the same thing. Besides, you’re an archbishop! If you’d prefer, all you have to tell anyone who wants to visit me is ‘Because I said not, and I’m the Archbishop, that’s why.’ ”
“You really are in a cheerful mood, aren’t you?” Cayleb observed. “As a matter of fact, yes.” Merlin lowered his hand and gazed up and out of his bubble canopy at the pinprick diamonds of Safehold’s heavens. “All joking aside, I think my little meeting went quite well. I’m certain Gorjah is going to be writing to you soon, Cayleb, and it won’t hurt a bit for him to remember a seijin can creep in and out of his bedroom window anytime he feels like it. I don’t think he’s one of those naturally traitorous souls like Zebediah, but giving him a little added incentive to keep any promises he makes—this time around, at least—is probably a good thing, don’t you think?”
“I don’t see how it could hurt,” Cayleb agreed. “Besides, I’m beginning to like ‘Seijin Ahbraim.’ And he’s turning out to be quite a useful fellow.”
“That’s true,” Sharleyan said. “Being able to stay in touch with one another wherever you happen to be lets us do things like send you to Corisande with Maikel, but ‘Seijin Merlin’ still can’t be in more than one place at a time. I’d just as soon not have Clyntahn—or, especially, Trynair—starting to ask himself where all these seijins came from all of a sudden, but establishing that there’s more than one of you—and that all of you are just as ‘mysterious’ as the original Merlin—gives us a lot more flexibility.”
“Exactly.” Merlin nodded. Then he sighed suddenly.
“What?” Cayleb asked.
“I just wish there were a way for us to drop another seijin in on Gwylym,” Merlin said, his expression far more pensive.
“I agree, but he’s doing well enough so far on his own,” Cayleb replied, and Sharleyan nodded vigorously.
“I have to admit, I was a little nervous when you told me he was planning on sailing straight into Shwei Bay,” she said. “I was afraid he was displaying a bit too much of that thing you told us about the other day. Chutzpah.”
“You weren’t the only one,” Merlin said feelingly.
Gwylym Manthyr was showing a pronounced gift for taking what the military liked to call “calculated risks” . . . at least when they succeeded. They tended to call them something else when they didn’t succeed. Of course, Manthyr had been Cayleb’s flag captain, Merlin reflected. Having watched his then-crown prince sail an entire squadron through a channel he couldn’t even see in the middle of the night and in a howling gale, it was probably inevitable that his definition of “acceptable risk” should have acquired a certain elasticity.
On the other hand, sailing his entire squadron through Shweimouth and then clear up the Yu- Shai Inlet was just a bit more “elastic” than would have been good for my circulatory system, assuming I still had one.
Yet he had to admit it had worked out. Manthyr had made his final approach to the city under cover of darkness, using local fishermen as pi lots. YuShai’s garrison hadn’t expected him until early afternoon, at the earliest; when he’d actually launched his attack on the harbor at dawn, he’d caught them napping.
The local batteries had been more dangerous than they would have been as little as a year before, since the Harchongese had given a high priority to producing fortress artillery to protect their building capacity, but Manthyr had gone in close, anyway, anchored by the stern, and laid down rolling broadside fire from ten of his galleons. In the event, he’d been lucky in several ways, including the fact that the wind had been setting from the east- northeast when he actually attacked. It hadn’t been a particularly strong wind, which had made things interesting for the nine galleons (including Prince of Dohlar) told off to attack the Harchongese’s newly built warships when the harbor defense galleys sortied. On the other hand, it had also meant the blinding banks of smoke had built up in layered walls between his ships and the defensive
batteries and then stayed there. The smoke screen of his own broadsides had done far more than the storm of grapeshot and round shot with which he’d swept the batteries to protect his galleons and schooners from the defenders.
HMS North Bay had lost her mainmast, anyway, and her sister ship, Rock Point, had suffered over sixty casualties when two of the new, big Harchongese galleys managed to claw through her broadsides and run alongside. Fortunately, that was about the best the galleys had managed. Not for want of trying or lack of courage, but in the face of such complete surprise, they’d never managed to get organized. They’d sortied from the inner harbor in what ever order they could, coming in piecemeal, and Manthyr’s galleons, despite their own anemic wind- limited mobility, had cut them up badly as they attacked in dribs and drabs. In fact, his squadron had sunk two and captured seventeen of them, and the handful of shaken survivors had beaten a sullen retreat.
All the captured ships had been burned, once their crews had been taken off, which would have been eminently worthwhile in its own right. But Manthyr had also converted half a dozen captured coasters into fire ships, stuffed to the deckheads with turpentine, old sails, barrels of pitch, and every other flammable substance. One had drifted off course when the tiller ropes burned through too quickly. A second had been grappled by a particularly courageous galley skipper and towed clear. But the other four had made no mistake. Their volunteer crews had fired them at almost exactly the right moment and taken to their own boats just before their flaming vessels sailed directly into the closely moored hulls of fifteen Imperial Harchong Navy galleons still in the process of fitting out.
Twelve of those galleons had become total losses, and one of the survivors had been badly damaged. Two more had survived only because they’d been upwind from the initial fire and their fast- thinking crews had been given just enough time to scuttle them before the holocaust sweeping through their consorts reached them. They’d settled to the shallow bottom, with only their upper decks above water, and the Harchongese seamen had managed to keep the still exposed portions of their ships from catching fire. Even so, they were going to be out of service for months while they were pumped out, raised, and then repaired.