by David Weber
“What do you mean?” Cayleb asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“I mean our own confidence turned around and bit us in the ass, as Merlin might put it,” she said. “We know what an advantage we have with the SNARCs and with Owl to manage them for us. Oh, we also know things can leak through—like what happened in Manchyr, for example. But despite that, we know we still have better security than anyone else in the entire world. Right?”
“You’re saying we let ourselves be lulled into overconfidence.” Cayleb shrugged. “That’s the same reason we let ourselves get too predictable, Sharley.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Or it’s not everything I’m saying, anyway.” Sharleyan drew a deep breath. “I guess what I really meant is that we know what an advantage we have, but sometimes we forget the other side’s figuring it out, too. They’re finding ways to work around it, and we didn’t expect them to.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Nahrmahn nodded as his carriage began making its way through the heavier traffic in Cherayth.
“Like they did with that misinformation about which way Harpahr was actually going to be sent with his fleet, you mean?” he asked.
“I think, yes,” she replied. “But this goes further than that.” She was obviously working her way through her own analysis as she spoke, and Cayleb folded his arms across his chest, watching her intently. “That was more … passive. Or defensive, perhaps. It was misinformation, as you said, Nahrmahn; this is something a lot more active. They managed to get whoever put that wagon in position into Tellesberg, and they managed to provide him with the gunpowder he needed, and we never saw a thing. Not a thing! How did they do that? How could they build an organization that could coordinate something like that without us seeing a thing?”
“They couldn’t,” Cayleb said slowly, and she nodded.
“Which is why I don’t think they did anything of the sort,” she said flatly. “I don’t know how, but God knows the Inquisition’s been managing spies and informants and agents provocateurs forever, and Clyntahn already proved in Manchyr that he could engineer the assassination of a reigning prince without anyone catching him at it! They managed to get this assassin and his weapon into position somehow, too, and the only way I can think of for them to’ve done that without our catching them at it is to organize it the same way they must have organized their misinformation gambit before the Markovian Sea.”
“They planned it and put it together inside the Temple, where we can’t get SNARCs in to snoop on them,” Nahrmahn said. “That’s what you’re saying. And because they’ve figured out our spies are better than theirs, even if they don’t have a clue why that’s true, they sent their man in unsupported.”
“Unsupported by anyone he had to contact here, anyway,” Sharleyan corrected. “I don’t think there’s any way anyone could have set this all up on his own after he was here. There had to be some spadework before they sent him in. But I’ll bet you any contact with anyone here in Tellesberg or Old Charis went through the Temple, not through anyone else here.”
“Limiting themselves to communications channels that go directly from one person back to the Temple and then from the Temple back to that one person?” Cayleb could have sounded dismissive, but he didn’t, and his expression was thoughtful. “How in hell could they pull that off?”
“That depends on how willing they’d be to use things like the semaphore system and ciphers,” Nahrmahn responded. “We’re still using it to communicate with Siddarmark and Silkiah. In fact, we’re allowing greater access to it than the Church ever did, so if they feel confident of their cipher system, they could be sending their correspondence back and forth that way easily enough. For that matter, we’re not the only people with messenger wyverns, Cayleb.” The Emeraldian shook his head. “That’d be slow and cumbersome and not very responsive, but they could have set up a system that would do the job without ever going near the sempahore.
“The key point isn’t how they get messages back and forth, though. It’s the point Sharley’s raised: the probability that they’re sending out solo operatives. Our ability to detect them depends in large part on Owl’s ability to recognize key words in conversation and direct our attention to the people who used them, or on our ability to identify one agent and then work outward until we’ve found all the members of his network. A single assassin, especially one who’s prepared or even eager to die in the attempt, the way this fellow certainly was, is going to be one hell of a lot harder to spot and stop.”
“That’s true,” Cayleb agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “On the other hand, a single assassin’s going to be able to do a lot less damage than a full-blown conspiracy if we can keep the bastard away from wagonloads of gunpowder. And nothing anyone’s brought up so far suggests how they got that big a load of explosives through our customs inspections. If they’re avoiding building or working with a large organization, then surely they wouldn’t have tried to bribe the inspectors, and I doubt they’d use smugglers if they’re worried about the potential for being betrayed to the authorities! So how—?”
He broke off suddenly, eyes narrowing in thought. Then he grunted angrily and slammed his right fist into his left palm.
“Hairatha,” he said flatly. “That’s what that damned explosion was about! They didn’t smuggle the gunpowder into Tellesberg from one of the mainland realms; they used our gunpowder!”
“Wait. Wait!” Nahrmahn objected. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Cayleb, but how do we jump from what just happened in Tellesberg to Hairatha?”
“I don’t know,” Cayleb admitted. “I don’t know, all right? But I’m right, I know I am! Call it a hunch, call it instinct, but that’s what happened. Somebody at Hairatha with the authority—or the access, at least—to doctor shipping manifests diverted gunpowder from our own powder mill. And they blew the damned place up to keep anyone from realizing they’d done it! To get rid of any paper trail that might have led back to them or to who they sent the powder to.” His expression was murderous. “My God, Hairatha shipped gunpowder in thousand-ton lots on a regular basis, Nahrmahn! We could have dozens of wagonloads of it sitting out there!”
“But how could they coordinate something like that without that organization you all seem to be agreeing they don’t have?” Staynair asked quietly.
“All they’d really need is what the intelligence organizations back on Old Terra used to call a ‘bagman.’” Nahrmahn’s tone was unhappy, as if he was unwillingly coming to the conclusion Cayleb might have a point. “If somebody did manage to divert a quantity of gunpowder from Hairatha to someone else in Old Charis—possibly somebody he’d never even met or contacted in any way himself, but whose address was supplied to him by a controller in Zion—then that person could have distributed it to a dozen other locations which had been set up exactly the same way. Or, for that matter, he could have kept it all in a single location and these lone assassins we’re hypothesizing about could have been given the address before they ever left Zion. I can’t begin to count the number of potential failure points in something like that, but all the ones I can think of would be much more likely to simply cause someone to not get to where he needed to be than to give the operation away to the other side. And look at it from Clyntahn’s perspective. What does he lose if it doesn’t work? But if it does work, he gets something like he just got today. He kills important members of Cayleb and Sharleyan’s government, and he does it very, very publicly. With lots of other bodies to go around. It’s a statement that even if the Group of Four can’t beat us at sea, they can still reach out into the very heart of Tellesberg and hurt us. Do you think for a moment that wouldn’t seem like a win-win situation for someone like him, Maikel?”
“But if you and Cayleb are right, how many other ‘lone assassins’ are out there?” Staynair’s expression was troubled.
“I have no idea,” Nahrmahn admitted frankly. He glared out the carriage window in frustration as it crossed into Cathed
ral Square, less than four blocks from the palace. “There could be scores of them, or this could have been the only one. Knowing Clyntahn, though, I doubt he’d have settled for one when he might have been able to get dozens into place. Why settle for a little bit of carnage when he could have a lot?”
“You’re probably right about that,” Cayleb said bitterly.
“And he’d want to underscore his ‘statement’ as strongly as possible, too,” Sharleyan added. Staynair and Cayleb looked at her, and she shrugged. “I think Nahrmahn’s right. He’s going to have been thinking in terms of as many attacks as he could contrive, within the limitations of whatever coordination system he had. And he’s going to want to concentrate them in terms of timing, too—get them in in the most focused window of time he can. He’s the kind who thinks in terms of hammer blows when he goes after his opponents’ morale.”
“Some kind of timetable?” Cayleb’s expression was suddenly strained once more. “You mean we’re probably looking at additional attacks scheduled to occur simultaneously?”
“Over a short period of time, anyway,” Sharleyan said, nodding unhappily. “There’s no way he could count on their being simultaneous, but they don’t have to be. Don’t forget the communications problem. We can talk back and forth instantaneously, but he doesn’t know that. As far as he’s concerned, word is going to have to spread before anyone can know to start taking precautions, and we can’t get warnings out any more rapidly than by semaphore. That means he only has to achieve approximate coordination, because he’d still be inside what Merlin calls our communications loop.”
“You may have a point,” Nahrmahn conceded. “On the other hand, I could see some advantages—from his perspective—to stretching things out, hitting us with a series of attacks to demonstrate we couldn’t stop him from getting through to us. So—”
He paused suddenly, staring out the window. Then—
“Stop the carriage!” he shouted. “Stop the carriage!”
The carriage came to a sudden halt, and the commander of its mounted escort wheeled his horse, trotting back towards it with a puzzled expression. He had no idea what was happening, but like most of Nahrmahn Baytz’ armsmen, he had a lively respect for the prince’s instincts.
“Out!” Nahrmahn said to Ohlyvya. “Out, now!”
She stared at him in confusion and a sudden sparkle of fear. She’d never seen his expression like that, but the crack of command in his voice had her moving before she even realized it. He pushed her towards the carriage’s left-hand door, already reaching out, turning the handle. She hesitated for a moment as the door swung open, then cried out in sudden panic as her husband put his shoulder into her back and literally heaved her out the door.
It was a three-foot drop to the paving, and Ohlyvya Baytz cried out again, this time in pain, as she landed off-balance and her ankle broke. But there was no time for her to think about that. Nahrmahn was already plunging out of the carriage behind her, pinning her down, covering her with his own body.
And that was when the wagon parked by the Cathedral Square exit closest to the palace—the wagon that wasn’t supposed to be there—exploded.
.IV.
Royal Palace, City of Eraystor, Princedom of Emerald
“Leave us,” Ohlyvya Baytz said flatly, her expression terrible.
It was night outside the bedchamber’s window—a beautiful moonlit night, sprinkled with the stars that were God’s own jewels. A gentle breeze stirred the window drapes, night wyverns whistled sweetly, and the harsh, agonized breathing of the semi-conscious man in the bed filled her heart with grief.
“But, Your Highness—” the senior healer, a Pasqualate bishop, began.
“Leave us!” she snapped. The bishop looked at her, his expression worried, his eyes dark with sympathy, and she made herself draw a deep breath.
“Is there anything else you can do for him, My Lord Bishop?” she asked more quietly. “Can you save him?”
“No, Your Highness,” the bishop admitted, his voice sad but unflinching. “To be honest, I don’t understand how he’s lived this long. The best we can do is what we have, to ease his pain.”
“Then leave us,” she repeated a third time, tears welling in her eyes, her voice far softer than it had been. “This is my husband. He will die with his hand in mine in this room we have shared for twenty-seven years. And I will be alone with him, My Lord. I will bear him company, and I will witness his death, and if he speaks again before the end, what he says will be for my ears and no others. Now leave us, please. I have little time with him, and I refuse to lose any of it.”
The bishop looked at her for a moment longer, then bowed his head.
“As you wish, Your Highness,” he said softly. “Shall I send in Father Zhon?”
“No,” Princess Ohlyvya said, staring down at her husband’s face and holding his remaining hand in hers.
The bishop started to argue, then made himself stop. Father Zhon Trahlmahn, the royal household’s official confessor, was actually more of a tutor to Nahrmahn and Ohlyvya’s children than the keeper of the prince’s conscience. The prince, the bishop thought, had never been as observant a man as the Church might have wished. The bishop was a man of strong Reformist beliefs himself, and Prince Nahrmahn’s courage and willingness to speak in the cause of reforming Mother Church’s faults and healing her wounds had won his admiration and gratitude, yet he could wish that at this moment.…
It wasn’t his decision, he reminded himself. It was Princess Ohlyvya’s. Father Zhon had already administered extreme unction, and presumably heard the prince’s confession, before the princess had sent him to comfort the children. But who would comfort her in this terrible hour, the bishop wondered. Who would hold her hand as she held her dying husband’s?
“Very well, Your Highness,” he said very quietly. “If you should decide you need me, send word.”
“Thank you, My Lord, but I think that will be unnecessary,” she told him with heartbreaking serenity. “I’m sure you’re needed by the other victims of this attack. Go, do what you can for them with my thanks and my blessing.”
The bishop bowed, then gathered up the lesser clergy with his eyes. The door closed behind them, and Ohlyvya leaned closer to the bed, resting her head on the pillow with her forehead touching Nahrmahn’s cheek.
“I’m here, love,” she said softly. “I’m here.”
His left eye was covered in a thick dressing, but his right eye opened. He blinked slowly, the tiny movement of his eyelid heavy with effort, then turned his head and looked at her.
“Ear … plug?” he got out, and Ohlyvya astonished herself with a soft, weeping laugh.
“Oh, Nahrmahn!” She cupped the uninjured side of his face with her free hand. “Oh, my love, who but you would worry about that at a time like this?!”
He said nothing, but there was a flicker of something almost like amusement under the pain and the drug clouds in his eye, and she shook her head.
“I don’t know what happened to your earplug,” she told him. “No one found anything when the healers examined you, anyway. Maybe they just had other things on their mind than looking in your ears. I don’t know.”
“Make … sure, later,” he whispered.
“I will,” she promised. “I will. Now hush, my love. Don’t worry about anything, not now.”
“Love … you,” he said. “Always have. Never … told you so … enough.”
“You think I didn’t know?” She smoothed hair from his brow. “I knew. I always knew. And you saved me today, Nahrmahn.” She managed a wavering smile. “I know you’ve never thought you were a properly heroic figure, but you were always hero enough for me. And never more than today.”
His answering smile was heartbreaking but his eye slipped slowly shut once more, and her grip on his hand tightened. Had he heard her? Did he understand? Her ankle was broken, the left side of her face was one enormous bruise, and it had taken fourteen stitches to close the gash on her left sh
oulder, but not a single member of their escort had survived. Neither had the coachmen. And if Nahrmahn hadn’t protected her with his own body, she would be dead or dying, too. It was important that he know that, and—
She heard a foot on the marble bedchamber floor behind her, and her head jerked up, her eyes flashing with sudden, grief-fueled fury as she wheeled.
“How dare you intrude—?!” she began, then stopped abruptly.
“I came as soon as I could, Ohlyvya,” Merlin Athrawes said. “I couldn’t risk it before dark, and getting away from Tellesberg under the circumstances.…”
He shrugged, crossing to the bed, and sank to one knee beside her chair. He held out his arms to her, and she threw herself into them, weeping on his mailed shoulder as she’d refused to let anyone else see her weep.
“Take him to your cave, Merlin!” she sobbed. “Take him to your cave! Let Owl save him!”
“I can’t,” Merlin whispered into her ear, stroking her hair with a sinewy hand. “I can’t. There’s not enough time. We’d lose him before I ever got him there.”
“No!” She struggled against his embrace, striking his unyielding cuirass with her fists. It was as if his arrival had offered her the hope of a last-minute reprieve and the destruction of that hope was more than she could bear. “No!”
“Maybe, if I’d been able to get here sooner, then … maybe,” Merlin said, holding her with implacable strength. “But I couldn’t. And Owl’s been monitoring, Ohlyvya. I don’t think we would’ve been able to save him even if I had been able to get here sooner. It’s only the nanotech keeping him alive now, and it’s burning out, using itself up.”
“Then why are you here?” she demanded, furious in her sorrow. “Why are you even here?”