by David Weber
“And for that to really work, Charisians have to see themselves that way. Our people have to define themselves as welcoming refugees from persecution if we don’t want those refugees to become—what was that word Merlin used? Ghettoized. That was it. Unless we want those refugees to settle in isolated, undigested chunks instead of being integrated into the society and the church around them, we need to embrace them. And we need that foundation set now, before we have to start dealing with telling the entire world the truth about Langhorne and the other ‘Archangels.’ People like Madame Dynnys, or Father Paityr’s family, are a visible proof to everyone, including our own people, that that’s the way it works, the way we really think, at least here in Charis, by God! And for that matter, you and Gorjah are proof we’re even willing to welcome old enemies and actually integrate them into our own society and government if they’re willing to stand up beside us against people like the Group of Four, Nahrmahn. Now we’ve got a chance to do the same thing with Jahras and Kholman, and I damned well want to see it handled the right way!”
Sharleyan nodded, leaning closer to rest her head on his shoulder while they watched Alahnah scurrying around the terrace on hands and knees.
“We’re working on it, love,” she told him. “We’re working on it.”
.II.
Gray Wyvern Avenue, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis
It was a handsome freight wagon, if he did say so himself, Ainsail Dahnvahr thought. He’d spent a lot of effort on it, and the fact that he was a skilled carpenter and wagon-maker had played a prominent part in the planning for his part of Operation Rakurai. He was sure others among the Grand Inquisitor’s Rakurai had skills of their own which had been factored into Archbishop Wyllym’s planning and orders, although no one had ever told him that. He understood why that was, of course. What he didn’t know couldn’t be tortured out of him if he had the misfortune to be captured alive by the heretics.
To be fair—which he didn’t really want to do—he had to admit he’d seen no overt evidence the heretics hadn’t meant it when they promised not to torture their enemies, but what happened in the open wasn’t always the same as what happened in secret, and the heretics’ success in picking off every effort to build some kind of effective organization against them certainly suggested they were forcing people to talk somehow. But however they were managing it, it wouldn’t do them any good if he didn’t have the information they wanted in the first place.
And it wasn’t going to matter a great deal longer one way or the other, he reminded himself.
“It’d be a lot simpler if we could just go ahead and unload the wagon, Master Gahztahn,” the wheelwright said, surveying the broken wheel and cracked axle. “Get the weight off of it, and we could jack it up a lot easier.”
“I know it would,” the man who called himself Hiraim Gahztahn agreed with a nod. “And if you see some place to park another wagon this size while we shift the load to it, I’m all for it!”
He waved his hands with an exasperated expression, and the wheelwright grimaced in acknowledgment. Gray Wyvern Avenue was one of the busiest streets in Tellesberg, a city famous for the density of its traffic. “Gahztahn” had been doing well to get his eight-wheeled articulated wagon dragged to the side of the street after the right front wheel broke. To accomplish even that much, he’d had to crowd up onto the sidewalk, and the foot traffic’s need to flow around it wasn’t doing a thing to ease the congestion. Now the hill dragon between the shafts stood patiently, head down while it rummaged through the feed bag hung from its head, ignoring the even more constricted traffic oozing past the obstruction. The City Guard had already made it clear they wanted this particular wagon fixed—quickly!—and out of the way before the traffic jam got any worse.
“Well,” the Charisian said now, turning with his hands on his hips to watch as his apprentice managed to squeeze their work wagon in behind “Gahztahn’s” stalled vehicle, “I reckon we’ll just have to do the best we can.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure how well it’s going to work if that axle’s as bad as it looks, but I think we’ve got a spare wheel we can change out at least long enough to tow you out of the middle of all this damned traffic.”
“Good!” Ainsail said, nodding enthusiastically, and rolled his eyes. “If I have one more irritated Guardsman wander by to ask me ‘How much longer do you think you’ll be?’ I think I’ll just go ahead and cut my throat right here.”
“Seems a mite drastic to me,” the wheelwright told him with a grin. “Still and all, you’re close enough to the Cathedral you could probably get in line with the Archangels pretty quick.”
He laughed, and Ainsail made himself laugh back, although there wasn’t anything funny about the blasphemous reference as far as he was concerned. And he noticed the heretic didn’t sign himself with the scepter when he mentioned the Archangels, either. Well, it was hardly a surprise.
He stepped back and watched the wheelwright and his assistant get to work. They were good, he admitted, as Charisian workmen tended to be, but they were in for a surprise. Well, two surprises, if he was going to be accurate, although they probably wouldn’t have time to appreciate the second one. But that spare wheel of theirs wasn’t going to fit. Ainsail had taken some pains to make sure no standard Charisian wheel hub was going to fit that axle, just as he’d very carefully arranged for the wheel to break precisely where—and when—it had. Fortunately no one had noticed the sharp rap with the hand sledge which had been required to knock out the wedge he’d fitted to keep the wheel rim properly tensioned against the steel tire until he reached exactly the right spot. Hopefully, the wheelwright wasn’t going to notice that the “break” was suspiciously straight edged and clean, either. Ainsail was a little worried about that, but only a little.
God wouldn’t have let him come this far only to fail at this point.
* * *
“You worry too much, Rayjhis,” Bishop Hainryk Waignair said teasingly. “If it weren’t the Gulf of Jahras, it would just be something else. Admit it! You’re a fussbudget!”
The white-haired, clean-shaven Bishop of Tellesberg leaned forward to tap an index finger on Earl Gray Harbor’s chest, brown eyes gleaming with amused challenge. He and Gray Harbor had known one another almost as long as Gray Harbor had known Maikel Staynair, and Waignair, as the second-ranking prelate of the Church of Charis, often sat in for the archbishop on meetings of the Imperial Council when Staynair—as today—was otherwise occupied with the responsibilities of his own ecclesiastic office.
“I am not a ‘fussbudget,’” Gray Harbor said with immense dignity as the carriage moved steadily along the street. “I’m simply a conscientious, thoughtful, insightful—don’t forget insightful!—servant of the Crown. It’s my job to worry about things, just like it’s your job to reassure me that God is on our side.”
“‘Insightful!’” Waignair snorted. “Is that what you call it?”
“When I don’t feel an even stronger term is appropriate, yes,” Gray Harbor said judiciously, and the bishop laughed.
“I guess there might be a little something to that,” he said, holding up the thumb and forefinger of his right hand perhaps a quarter of an inch apart. “A little something!” His eyes glinted at his old friend. “Still, with Domynyk in command and Seijin Merlin’s visions assuring us everything went well, can’t you find something better to worry about than the Gulf of Jahras?”
Gray Harbor considered for a moment, then shrugged.
“Of course I can. In fact, I think probably one reason I’m worrying about the Gulf is that we do know it worked out well.” Waignair looked perplexed, and Gray Harbor chuckled. “What I mean is that ‘worrying’ about something I know worked pretty much the way we had in mind distracts me from worrying about the other somethings out there that we don’t know are going to work out the way we have in mind. If you take my meaning.”
“You know, the frightening thing is that I do understand you,” Waignair said. “Probab
ly says something unhealthy about my own mind.”
Gray Harbor chuckled again, louder, and the bishop shook his head at him. The truth was, of course, that both of them knew about the good news Gray Harbor was going to be able to announce in the next five-day or so. Waignair, as a member of the inner circle, had actually watched the battle through Owl’s remotes for several hours. He’d spent most of that time praying for the thousands of men who were being killed or maimed in that cauldron of smoke and fire and exploding ships, and he knew exactly what price Domynyk Staynair’s fleet had paid to purchase that victory. Gray Harbor hadn’t been able to watch personally, but the first councilor was an experienced naval officer, with firsthand experience of what that sort of carnage was like. And he’d long since grown accustomed to taking Merlin’s “visions” as demonstrated fact. He’d been planning how best to use the destruction of the Desnairian Navy ever since the battle had been fought, and he was looking forward to putting those plans into motion as soon as the news officially reached Tellesberg.
“The problem’s not with your mind, Hainryk,” Gray Harbor told him now. “The problem’s with—”
* * *
Ainsail stood on the narrow, constricted space of open sidewalk beside his wagon, between it and the building he’d managed to park alongside, and watched the traffic flow past while the wheelwright and his apprentice swore with feeling and inventiveness. They’d just discovered the non-standard dimensions of the wagon axle, and as soon as the two of them got done expressing their feelings, Ainsail was sure they’d get around to working out ways to deal with the problem.
Or they would have if they’d had time, he thought as he finally spotted the vehicle he’d been waiting for. It was a good thing he had made sure the repairs were going to be more time-consuming than the wheelwright had originally thought, since the carriage making its way slowly along the crowded street was substantially behind its regular schedule. And, as it drew closer, Ainsail felt his mouth tighten in disappointment. It was unaccompanied by the guardsmen in the orange-and-white livery of the archbishop who normally escorted it.
Why today? he demanded silently. Today, of all days! Would it have been too much to ask for the bastard to keep to his own—?
He cut that thought off quickly. The fact that God and Langhorne had seen fit to bring him this far, grant him the degree of success he’d achieved, was more than any man had a right to demand. He had no business complaining or berating God just because he hadn’t been given still more!
Forgive me, he prayed humbly as he opened the small, carefully concealed panel he’d built into the side of the wagon bed. It’s not my place to set my wisdom above Yours. I’m sure it’s all part of Your plan. Thank You for the opportunity to be part of Your work.
He reached into the hidden compartment and cocked the flintlock. Then his hand settled around the pistol grip and he stood, shoulders relaxed, watching with a calm tranquility he was a little surprised to realize was completely genuine, as the carriage rolled steadily closer.
“We’re going to have to go back to the shop, Master Gahztahn,” the wheelwright was saying. “It looks like we’ll need to—”
He went on talking, but Ainsail tuned him out. He nodded, pretending he was listening, but his attention was on another voice. His mother’s voice, reciting the catechism with a much younger Ainsail as he sat on her lap in her kitchen. And then there was Archbishop Wyllym’s voice, and other voices, all with him at this moment, bearing him up on their strength. He listened to them, embraced them, and as the carriage drew even with the wagon, Ainsail Dahnvahr smiled joyously and squeezed the trigger.
.III.
Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis, and Cathedral Square, City of Eraystor, Princedom of Emerald
“I came as quickly as I could, Cayleb,” Maikel Staynair said as a stone-faced Edwyrd Seahamper escorted him into the royal couple’s private chambers. The archbishop crossed the room quickly and knelt beside Sharleyan, who sat hunched in a chair, clasping her daughter in her arms while tears ran down her cheeks.
Cayleb only nodded curtly as Staynair put a comforting arm around Sharleyan’s shoulders. There were no tears in his eyes, only fury, and the archbishop hid a stab of concern as he recognized his emperor’s rage.
There’s only so much provocation any man can take before he starts forgetting he’s not the kind of animal his opponents are, Staynair thought quietly. Please, Cayleb. Please! Step back from this. Draw a deep breath. Don’t lash out in some way you’ll regret in days to come.
“We should’ve taken more precautions,” the emperor grated. “We were too predictable. They knew where to find you and Rayjhis, Maikel. That’s what this is all about—the only reason they managed to pull it off. They knew where to find you because we let you use the same route every time you come to the palace.”
“Cayleb—” Staynair began, but Cayleb cut him off.
“No, it’s not your fault.” The emperor glared at him. “No, you didn’t tell your driver or your escort to take alternate routes, but neither did anyone else. Neither did Merlin and neither did I, and we damned well should have. Damn it to hell, Maikel! We know Clyntahn thinks assassination’s a perfectly acceptable tool. And unlike you, Nahrmahn,” he said to the distant Prince of Emerald, “he doesn’t give a spider-rat’s ass how many innocent bystanders he kills along the way. Hell, there aren’t any innocent bystanders! Either they’re fucking heretics who deserve whatever the hell they get, or else they’re noble martyrs to God’s plan! Either way, he can kill however the hell many of them he wants ‘in God’s name’ and feel nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done!”
Staynair winced. Not because he disagreed with a single thing Cayleb had just said, but because of the magma-like fury that filled every syllable.
“Cayleb—” he began again, only to be stopped by a choppy wave of the emperor’s hand. Cayleb turned away, fists clenched at his sides as he glared out a window and fought for self-control. His eyes didn’t see the peaceful garden outside his window; they were watching the imagery projected on his contact lenses as Merlin and a party of Imperial Guardsmen worked their way through the bloody wreckage of Gray Wyvern Avenue.
There must’ve been at least a ton of gunpowder in that wagon, he thought bitterly. Where the fuck did they get their hands on that? And how in hell did they get it into Tellesberg? And how did none of us spot them at it?
He already knew Merlin was going to blame himself for it, just as he blamed himself, but his brain, unlike his emotions, knew both of them would be wrong. They weren’t the only ones with access to Owl’s SNARCs, and responsibility for surveillance here in Old Charis lay primarily with Bynzhamyn Raice, with Prince Nahrmahn as his backup. Both of them were undoubtedly already savaging themselves over what had happened, but Cayleb knew exactly what their procedures were, the sort of information they had access to, and he couldn’t think of a single thing they could have done differently.
“What’s the latest death toll estimate?” he said out loud, his voice flat, never turning from the window.
“I don’t think anyone knows,” Staynair replied quietly. “Bynzhamyn is at Saint Marzhory’s. It’s chaos there, of course. And I ought to be there, not here.”
Cayleb turned his head just long enough to stab a single glance at the archbishop, then returned to the window again. There was no way in the universe he was going to allow Maikel Staynair outside the confines of Tellesberg Palace until they had a far better handle on what had just happened. Staynair looked at his rigid, unyielding spine for a long moment, then sighed.
“As I say, it’s chaos,” he continued. “So far, they’ve admitted over three dozen patients, and they’re sending the less badly hurt to some of the smaller hospitals. How many of the ones they’re keeping are going to live.…”
He shrugged helplessly. Saint Marzhory’s Hospital was the main hospital of the Order of Pasquale in Tellesberg. Only six blocks from Tellesberg Palace, the savage
attack had happened almost outside the enormous complex’s front door. That was the one mitigating aspect of this entire murderous day, because Saint Marzhory’s had the finest healers and the best surgeons in all of Old Charis. But despite all the medical knowledge and “healing liturgies” tucked away in The Book of Pasquale, Saint Marzhory’s was no trauma center. Those healers would do the best they could, but they were going to lose a heartbreaking percentage of the maimed and broken bodies which had inundated them.
“Merlin says they’ve already confirmed at least two hundred dead on-site,” Nahrmahn Baytz said from Eraystor. He and Princess Ohlyvya had been visiting his uncle Hanbyl, the Duke of Salomon, when the attack occurred. Now their carriage was on its way back to their palace, and Ohlyvya was pressed tightly against his side, her face resting on his shoulder.
“I don’t want to distract him by pestering him with questions at the moment,” the chubby little Emeraldian continued flatly, “so I don’t have a better count than that. I’m sure there are more bodies—or parts of them, anyway—waiting to be found, though. Midday on Gray Wyvern Avenue?” He barked a harsh, angry laugh that was more than half snarl. “We’re going to be lucky if the final count doesn’t top three hundred! And you’re right, Cayleb; they couldn’t have pulled this off if we hadn’t let ourselves get too predictable.”
“I don’t think that was the only reason they got away with it,” Sharleyan said, raising her head as she cuddled a silent, big-eyed Alahnah against her shoulder. The little girl didn’t have a clue what was going on, but she was obviously sensitive to the emotions of the adults around her.