by David Weber
“I’m afraid you probably do, My Lord,” he conceded. “First, though, Their Majesties have specifically instructed me to assure you of their continued faith in Lord Protector Henrai and the ultimate outcome of his reforms.”
“But you’re here because we haven’t been able to meet our obligations under the treaty,” Myllyr said, grasping the horns of the dilemma with all the subtlety of someone who’d been a colonel, not a diplomat.
Something to be said for colonels, Preskyt thought dryly.
“Something along those lines, I’m afraid,” he acknowledged out loud. “Their Majesties are fully aware of the difficulties involved, and they’ve assured the Grand Duke of their ultimate confidence in the Republic.”
“But he’s getting impatient,” Myllyr said, and snorted. “Don’t blame him—not one bit! His people have all their pigs and wyverns in place, and we don’t. To be honest, I’m surprised—grateful, but surprised—he’s been patient this long.” The Chancellor fixed the Charisian with a sharp eye. “Wouldn’t happen that’s because the Emperor and Empress have been sitting on him just a bit, would it?”
Definitely something to be said for colonels!
“I wouldn’t put it in precisely those terms,” Preskyt allowed with a slight smile. “I believe, however, that you may have captured the essence of the situation.”
“Not surprised.” Myllyr leaned back in his chair, his expression much more serious. “Cayleb and Sharleyan have always been good friends to the Republic,” he said. “And I want you to know how much both the Lord Protector and I appreciate what you’ve already passed on for them about extending their ‘Ahrmahk Plan’ to the Republic. I think it’ll have a beneficial effect, ultimately, although chucking it into the midst of our local bankers before they’ve adjusted to the new reality might only make things worse. God knows half of them’d be fighting like krakens in a feeding frenzy to get any loans funneled into their own greedy hands! And it’d create all kinds of problems if the Exchequer started doling out loans as Cayleb and Sharleyan’s agent. Change it from something coming out of their privy purse to official ‘Charisian interference’ in our economy in a heartbeat. Or into a ‘Charisian plot’ to buy control of the canal! God help us if some of our real idiots got hold of that notion! Shan-wei to pay and no pitch hot.”
Preskyt nodded, although he cherished his own doubts on that head. Personally, he thought the Siddarmarkian economy was in enough trouble that the possibility of the kind of loans the United Provinces had received—were still receiving—from the Charisian monarchs could only have helped. His instructions from Tellesberg suggested Cayleb and Sharleyan thought the same thing, but they’d also been very clear that the decision about any announcements was up to the lord protector. He knew his own country best, he was the one fighting the forest fire on the ground, and it was essential they maintain their cordial relationship with Maidyn, especially with such a nasty backlash against Charis beginning to emerge in certain sectors of Siddarmark.
Of course, offering up a Siddarmarkian “Ahrmahk Plan” might do a little something about that backlash, too, he reflected. But it’s not your call, Mahlkym. And the truth is, there probably isn’t a good way to handle it right now.
Unfortunately, until someone did find a way to handle it, good or bad, one of the most important post-jihad projects was completely stalled.
For hundreds of years, the four-hundred-and-fifty-mile-long Salthar Canal linking Silkiah Bay in the east and Salthar Bay in the west, had barged cargoes across Silkiah, eliminating the long voyage around South Cape and bringing the grand duchy a rich revenue stream. The reason wasn’t hard to understand, especially for a Charisian. Even for a steamship, able to maintain a steady fifteen knots and not dependent on wind and canvas, the voyage from Tellesberg to Gorath Bay going west took over two months—sixty-six days, to be precise—despite the fact that the two capital cities were less than seven thousand miles apart on a straight line. Unfortunately, the continent of Howard got in the way. In fact, that same steamship could have reached Gorath two five-days sooner if it sailed east, clear around the circumference of the planet, to get there.
It wasn’t surprising the Salthar Canal had always been regarded as a critical waterway, but the canal’s builders had never visualized the explosive growth of maritime commerce over the last fifty or sixty years. It had become impossible for the canal to handle the necessary volume of cargo years before the Jihad ever began, and the situation had grown only worse since. The situation would be helped enormously when the Salthar-Silk Town Railway, paralleling the canal, opened for traffic early next summer. Yet not even the SSTR would be able to handle the tonnages people eager to shorten the weary, arduous voyage between Tellesberg or Manchyr and Gorath Bay—or in the other direction, to Siddar City, for that matter—already wanted to ship, and those tonnages could only increase.
The notion of building a canal almost five hundred miles long capable of handling seagoing freighters would have been considered lunacy less than ten years earlier. The introduction of Lywysite during the Jihad and the steam-powered earthmoving machines springing from the ever-fertile minds of the Delthak Works’ artificers and engineers since the Jihad had changed that, however. No one could have broken ground on such a project in the immediate aftermath of the Jihad, because Delthak’s “steam shovels” and “dragondozers” had been only conceptual drawings, not even prototypes, at the time. Given the Duke of Delthak’s record for achieving what he set out to accomplish, however, everyone had realized it was only a matter of when, not if. And that was why the Treaty of Silk Town had been written in 902.
It was painfully evident that something like a Silkiah Canal would be an irresistible prize for any greedy potentate. Everyone had been much too polite to mention names like Mahrys or Waisu, but it had seemed only prudent to ensure any grasping fingers stayed as far away from it as possible. That meant making the owners of those fingers aware of how sharply they’d be swatted if they reached in its direction, and the best way to do that was to make its construction a multinational project. The final canal would be operated by an independent governing board, but it would belong to all of the nations involved in its construction and they would be represented on the board—and share in its revenues—in proportion to their investment in building it. More to the point, their joint ownership would serve as a pointed warning to those greedier souls that they would face more than one foe if they attempted to seize the canal.
The Treaty of Silk Town had called for precisely that: a three-nation project financed—and protected—by the three realms with the most vital strategic interest in it: the Grand Duchy of Silkiah, the Empire of Charis … and the Republic of Siddarmark.
At the moment, two of those three partners were ready to proceed. The third wasn’t. The Siddarmarkian Exchequer was stretched entirely too thin covering just the Republic’s essential core expenses. It certainly didn’t have the cash to pay its share of the canal construction budget, and the chaos of its credit markets meant it couldn’t float a bond issue to cover those costs, either. That was one reason Preskyt thought it might be wiser for Lord Protector Henrai to go ahead and publicly announce the Ahrmahk Plan. Cayleb and Sharleyan could have covered as much as a third of the Republic share of the budget out of the Mohryah Lode’s current production. It would have strained even their cash flow, but they could have done it, and that massive an infusion of capital might have done the Republic a world of good.
But Maidyn was afraid of the potential negative consequences of, as Myllyr had rather inelegantly put it, “chucking” the Ahrmahk Plan into the Republic’s credit markets. No one could predict the exact consequences, and the lord protector’s new Central Bank was still an untried institution, just getting its feet under it. Until he was certain of its stability, better able to gauge its ability to manage interest rates and eliminate under-funded liabilities, a sudden huge influx of outside capital might actually make matters worse. And that didn’t even consider what one of P
reskyt’s colleagues had taken to calling “the optics” of it. There was already that nasty, gathering swell of resentment against Charis. If Cayleb and Sharleyan swooped in, bought up the necessary Siddarmarkian bond issues, a lot of people—especially any would-be financiers who got frozen out—would scream that Charis was trying to buy ownership of the canal and deprive Siddarmark of its fair representation on the governing board … or in the canal’s future revenues. It wouldn’t have been logical, and it certainly wouldn’t have been reasonable. In fact, Cayleb and Sharleyan would have been loaning the Republic the money it needed to buy its share of the canal instead of simply paying the same money to increase their own share.
That wasn’t how their opponents and detractors would present the case, however. Preskyt knew that. So Maidyn was probably right to sit on the news of the Ahrmahk Plan, and especially how it might relate to the Silkiah Canal, until he’d be able to sell at least the majority of his bonds to Siddarmarkians, not those “greedy Charisian” foreigners.
The problem was that no one knew how long he’d need to accomplish that.
“I understand your point, My Lord,” the ambassador said. “For that matter, I’m pretty sure Grand Duke Silkiah understands it, as well. And I know Their Majesties do. Unfortunately, Kahnrad is facing mounting internal pressure to begin construction.”
“I’m sure he is,” Myllyr said glumly. He swiveled his chair to look out the window. “Silkiah’s met its financial obligations, or will have shortly. I know they’re not quite all the way there yet. And Charis’s met its obligations in full. We’re the anchor lumbering along behind.”
“I’m sure the Grand Duke would never put it that way, My Lord.”
“Only because he’s polite and diplomatic. I’m an ex-colonel, and I can be more honest about it. We are the anchor, Mahlkym.”
“Well, I suppose that would be one way to put it,” Preskyt conceded. “But while Their Majesties promised Grand Duke Kahnrad they’d raise your concerns with him, they also assured him of their confidence in your leadership at the Exchequer and the Republic’s determination—and ability—to meet its obligations under the treaty.”
Myllyr looked back at him, then snorted.
“Good of them to say so, anyway,” he said. “In more ways than one. But I’d say they’re probably right to have confidence in Lord Protector Henrai’s leadership.” He shook his head. “I doubt it’s much of a secret who’s really running the Exchequer in addition to the rest of the Republic!”
“I think you’re underestimating your own role, My Lord,” Preskyt said gently. “I have my own sources in your government, you know. They tell me a lot about who’s running what.”
“On a day-to-day basis, that’s probably fair,” Myllyr said after a moment, then quirked a sudden smile. “I do make a pretty fair adjutant, if I say so myself! But the truth is, the Lord Protector makes his own economic policies and everyone knows it. Damn good thing, too! Even the people who hate him most over his Central Bank realize he understands our economy better than anyone else. They may not like the medicine he’s feeding them, and some of them may figure he’s out to pluck their personal wyverns right down to the bone. But so far, it’s pretty clear they expect him to bring the Republic as a whole out the other side in one piece. Hard to think of anyone else who could make that claim just now.”
“I tend to agree, My Lord. I’m only saying you’re more than an inked stamp. Everyone who knows anything at all about federal policies knows that, and I’d venture to say that there’s not a soul in the City who doesn’t trust your honesty. Believe me, that’s not a minor factor when it comes to stabilizing the banks!”
“Maybe not, but we’re getting a little afield from the reason you dropped by. Did Their Majesties give you any estimate of the Grand Duke’s patience to share with me?”
“Not any specific estimates, My Lord. They did charge me to tell you that, given the projected time span on the construction, they don’t feel anywhere close to desperate. Obviously, they’d like to begin as soon as possible, but it’ll still be at least a year and more likely two before the Delthak Works could deliver the steam shovels and dragondozers to make a real start. And Duke Delthak’s engineers estimate it will take at least fifteen years to finish construction once they begin. So it’s not as if another year or two will make that huge a difference.”
“Understood.” Myllyr nodded. “On the other hand, I noticed during the war that you Charisians always seem to get done sooner than scheduled!”
“We do try to not let the grass grow under our feet, My Lord. That’s true. And the SSTR will help a lot in the meantime.”
“Yes, and Mahrys is still pissed about that for oh, so many reasons!” Myllyr observed, brightening in obvious satisfaction.
“I believe one might reasonably say that. If one were an ex-colonel, and not a suave and polished diplomat, of course.”
The two of them smiled at one another.
One of the things Mahrys IV had most resented about the pre-Jihad treaty the Church had brokered to prevent Silkiah from sparking yet another war between Desnair and Siddarmark had been the fact that the Salthar Canal was a bare, tantalizing hundred miles beyond the border of the Duchy of North Watch. It had been a case of “so near, and yet so far away” which he had found particularly hard to bear. The fact that the Mersayr Mountains had made it impossible to cut a canal between the Gulf of Jahras and Salthar Bay had only poured salt into the wound.
In the wake of Charis’ invention of the steam automotive, he’d obviously hoped to build a railway of his own across the two-hundred-mile-wide Mersayr Neck, south of the Silkiah border, to suck away some of the Salthar Canal’s lucrative revenues, and he’d started looking for investment partners well before the Duke Delthak announced his partnership with half a dozen Silkiahan investors to build the Salthar-Silk Town Railway. The SSTR’s route was better than twice as long as Mahrys’ proposed rail line, but only in straight-line terms. It crossed the level, almost flat plain between the Mersayr Mountains to the south and the Salthar Mountains to the north, within sight of the existing canal, whereas Mahrys’ route would have to snake its tortuous way through the Mersayrs. The mountainous switchbacks would add at least fifty percent to the straight-line distance for any Desnairian railroad, and building it through such rugged terrain would hugely increase its cost.
And, of course, the proposed Desnairian consortium wouldn’t have had Duke Delthak or the Delthak Works behind it.
Needless to say, Mahrys’ plans had died at birth, or possibly even a little earlier, which was a source of unalloyed pleasure for them both.
“The important thing is that we get the canal built in the end,” Preskyt said now. “We’d all like to get to it as soon as possible, but Their Majesties are perfectly ready to wait until the Lord Protector feels comfortable that he has his own house in order. Their dispatches to me make it abundantly clear that their first desire is to make sure you have the time you need to get to that point. They weren’t so inelegant to put it in quite these terms, but what they’re really saying is that they’re prepared to sit on Kahnrad a while longer and even a bit harder, if they have to.”
“We appreciate that,” Myllyr said sincerely, but Preskyt shrugged his thanks away.
“They haven’t forgotten the Jihad, My Lord.” The ambassador’s expression had turned very serious. “They haven’t forgotten what it cost the Republic, and they haven’t forgotten who stood at their shoulder at the time it mattered most. I can’t begin to tell you how Lord Protector Greyghor’s death grieved them. I know you spoke to them at the funeral, but that was in a formal setting. They spoke to me about their feelings rather more informally on my last visit back to Tellesberg. Trust me, they miss him deeply and I think they see the canal as a final legacy to him. And they spoke very warmly of Lord Protector Henrai. They like him, they trust him, and they’re prepared to do everything they can to help him succeed in the task he’s undertaken.”
“That’s
good to hear,” Myllyr said simply. “That’s very good to hear.”
They sat in silence for several moments, then the Chancellor inhaled deeply and slapped both palms on his blotter.
“Thank you for coming by to tell me that, Mahlkym,” he said. “Especially the last bit. It means a lot to me. Not simply that Their Majesties are prepared to support us, but why. The Lord Protector’s always spoken very fondly of them, too, and I know how much he’ll value what you’ve just said. That and knowing we can rely on Charis to stand with us will be an enormous relief for him. For all of us, really. Won’t help too much when the idiots start yelling again, but at least those of us who have to put up with the yelping can feel a little serenity!”
He smiled, and Preskyt chuckled. He climbed out of his own chair and Myllyr stood, once more extending his arm across his desk.
“You’re entirely welcome, My Lord. It was my pleasure, as well as my duty to Their Majesties. I’ll be—”
The office door opened abruptly, interrupting him in midsentence, and he turned his head as Myllyr’s secretary stepped into the room. The Chancellor did the same thing, but his expression was far more irritated than his guest’s. He opened his mouth, but the secretary spoke first.
“I’m—”
The man stopped and cleared his throat. He blinked several times, and Preskyt felt his eyebrows rising as he realized the young man was fighting back tears.
“What is it?” From Myllyr’s tone, he’d realized the same thing, and his irritation had turned into concern.
“I’m—I apologize for … for interrupting, My Lord.” The secretary’s voice was husky, wavering around the edges, and he held out a folded sheet of paper.
“We’ve just received a semaphore message from Archbishop Arthyn, My Lord,” he said.
MAY YEAR OF GOD 907
.I.
Tellesberg, City of Tellesberg. Kingdom of Old Charis, Charisian Empire.