Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  “Don’t worry about it,” Cayleb said, looking up from his own conversation with Sir Dunkyn Yairley. “Aside from keeping the eastern participants in our discussion up late, we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Your concern for my sleep deprivation overwhelms me, Your Majesty,” Duke Serabor said dryly.

  “Hear, hear!” Earl Coris echoed from Corisande, and Cayleb chuckled. But then his amusement faded and he sat back in his chair beside Sharleyan, his expression far grimmer than it had been a moment before.

  It was physically impossible to find a time at which all of the inner circle could have joined a com conference. That was why they were normally limited to the circle’s senior members, and quite often not all of them. Tonight, however, every member who possibly could be was present electronically, in a net which covered the circumference of Safehold, all the way from Koryn and Nimue Gahrvai, who were once again visiting the United Provinces; to Ehdwyrd and Zhain Howsmyn and Zhanayt Fahrmahn in Lathyk; to Kynt and Elayn Clareyk in Maikelberg; to Zhansyn Wyllys and Ahmbrohs Makfadyn, at Southland Drilling’s new oilfield in Silkiah; Coris, Hektor, and Irys in Manchyr. Paityr Wylsynn was there, and Maikel Staynair—his brother Domynyk and Sir Dunkyn Yairley. Alahnah and Lywys Ahrmahk-Whytmyn, Edwyrd Seahamper, Ahrnahld Falkhan, Sister Ahmai Bailahnd, Father Ahbel Zhastrow, Rahzhyr Mahklyn, his daughter Tairys and his son-in-law, Aizak Kahnklyn.…

  It was a very long list, and there was a reason they were all present this Tellesberg evening.

  “Before we get to the main business,” Cayleb said now, “we probably need an update on Siddarmark.” Someone made a disgusted sound over the com, and Cayleb nodded. “I know. I know! But we need it for background. Nahrmahn?”

  “It hasn’t gotten any better,” Nahrmahn said as his avatar appeared in every participant’s field of vision. His hands were clasped behind him as he stood on the balcony of Eraystor Palace’s electronic doppelgänger with Owl. Princess Ohlyvya stood between them, her hair whipped by the brisk breeze blowing in off Eraystor Bay, no longer needing her virtual-reality suit to join her husband there, thanks to the wetware Owl had devised.

  “Hygyns’ so-called Expropriation and Public Recovery Act sailed through on first reading,” Nahrmahn continued. “And while they were at it, they passed the Bank Reform Act. There were quite a few other bad ideas in the same legislative package, but those are the two that are going to do the most damage.

  “The EPRA’s a lot heavier on the expropriation than on the recovery. He’s nationalized the Canal Consortium, frozen out all non-government board members of the Trans-Siddarmark Railroad, nationalized the steel industry, and ordered the expropriation of every Charisian-owned asset in the Republic.”

  Someone whistled, and Nahrmahn arched an eyebrow.

  “Sorry, Nahrmahn,” Koryn Gahrvai said. “I’ve been pretty focused on the UP. The last time I took a look at the proposed legislation, it didn’t go nearly that far!”

  “That’s because our good friend Zhermo’s still making this up as he goes along, and he’s discovering that people this frightened are willing to let him get away with a hell of a lot more than even he expected,” Nahrmahn said grimly. “The bad news is that we don’t have any idea how much farther he’s likely to go. The good news is that there isn’t a lot farther he can go!”

  “But what the hell is he thinking?” Earl Coris asked from Manchyr.

  “The biggest problem is that he’s a lot less … economically sophisticated than he thinks he is, Phylyp,” Nahrmahn replied. “He has very simplistic ideas and a … somewhat less-than-perfect grasp, shall we say, of how markets work, but he thinks he understands them perfectly. Or better than the so-called experts who let everything get this screwed up, anyway. Part of it is a sort of ‘How could I possibly do worse than they’ve done?’ mindset that justifies almost anything he wants to try. He’s not overly blessed with moral scruples, either, although I do think he’s genuinely convinced himself that everything happening to the Republic is our fault.”

  “Which goes to show that calling his ideas ‘simplistic’ is a bit like calling Hsing-wu’s Passage cold in February,” Earl Sarmouth observed.

  “That’s fair.” Nahrmahn nodded. “At the same time, that’s a view a lot of Siddarmarkians share, and they started evolving it well before Hygyns ever came along to be their mouthpiece. And—again, being fair—it’s a little hard to blame them if they live someplace like Mantorah, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sarmouth grunted sour acknowledgment of the point.

  The Charisian Quarter in Mantorah had been wiped out by the Sword of Schueler and all of its holdings had been snapped up by a handful of Siddarmarkian scavengers. They’d become inordinately rich in the process, and they’d used that newfound wealth to import “Charisian-style manufactories” after the Jihad. But they’d imported them without Charis’ labor laws, or the codes banning child labor, or the Delthak practice of encouraging labor to participate in management decisions. Nor had they seen any reason to pay a living wage or provide educational benefits for workers’ children … or provide pension benefits for those killed or crippled in their manufactories. They were as bad as Stywyrt Showail at his worst, and they’d established a stranglehold on Mantorah no outsider was likely to break anytime soon. Coupled with the near-complete destruction of the Mantorahan guilds—who’d lost not only their economic power but also the political clout which had come with it—there was no true protection for their employees outside the Church, and the Church of God Awaiting’s power and footprint in Siddarmark was substantially smaller than it had been before the Jihad.

  “Those poor people in Mantorah think that’s how we run our economy,” Nahrmahn continued, driving home his point. “And there are other places where it’s almost as bad, because both Maidyn and Myllyr were more focused on structural reforms to their banking system than aggressively tackling the labor codes. But when there are people living that way who think it’s the way our people are living, it’s easy for them to buy into Hygyns’ line that all we ever wanted to do was to loot their economy and then go home with every mark we could squeeze out of them. And then there are the western provinces. Aside from Thesmar and Glacierheart, their provincial legislatures’ve become examples of machine politics at their worst. So even if anybody living there was inclined to disbelieve Hygyns—and most of them aren’t; they really do regard him as one of their own, and that means he must be the one telling the truth—there’s no way for them to do anything about it.”

  “Wonderful,” Serabor muttered.

  “Sum it up for us, Nahrmahn,” Sharleyan said.

  “All right,” Nahrmahn’s avatar nodded. “The short version. This has almost certainly finished off the Canal Consortium as a viable entity. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the TSRR, but I don’t expect it to be good. Now that Brygs is out on his ear, the people who’ve been playing Nezbyt all along don’t see any restraint on their embezzlement and fraud. The Collapse had already created the conditions for a major depression; Hygyns’ actions—especially the Bank Reform Act’s abolition of the Central Bank, which we’re pretty sure was Fyrnahndyz’ brilliant idea, although Ghustahv Phaiphyr wasn’t far behind—have just guaranteed a major depression. And he’s probably made sure it’s going to last a long time. During which, he’ll go right on pouring the Exchequer’s funds into those relief programs of Myllyr’s, which will prop up all the people who’ve been thrown out of work—at subsistence levels, anyway—and he’ll reap all the credit for ‘taking care of them’ while we get the blame for the fact that they’re out of work in the first place.

  “The repercussions in the Border States will be pretty severe for the next—oh, year or so—too, because of the fall in Siddarmarkian production and the collapse of Siddarmarkian markets for their goods and raw materials. But then Dohlar will begin taking over that lost market share … and we’ll get blamed for that, too. After all, we’ve been ‘enabling’ Dohlar for years now, despite their treachery during th
e Jihad.”

  The plump little prince paused, then shrugged.

  “Until Hygyns is out of office—and that means at least five years from now—the Republic’s official position will be that we’re responsible for the overwhelming majority of its problems. And if that’s the official position long enough, it’ll almost certainly become the default belief for Siddarmarkians as a whole.”

  “Wonderful,” Cayleb sighed. “Ehdwyrd, is there anything you’d like to add to that dismal picture?”

  “Not really,” Delthak replied. “Nahrmahn’s summed it up it pretty well. We’re going to take a significant hit, as well. We’ve already lost over half our Siddarmarkian market simply because consumers don’t have the money to buy. I imagine we’ll see exclusionary tariffs very soon now, which will make that worse. Probably finish it off just about completely, really, although I’ll try to keep at least our toe in the door. On the other hand, we’ve got a big enough internal economy and enough markets in the United Provinces, the Temple Lands, and the southern Border States to survive handily. But one thing this will do is kill the Canal. Nahrmahn’s a hundred percent right about what just happened to the Canal Consortium. Besides, I think our friend Hygyns might find it just a little difficult to build the canal with us at the very time he’s using us as his economic scapegoat!”

  “Which means they’re going to default on the treaty,” Earl Pine Hollow said.

  “They’re already in default, Trahvys,” Nahrmahn pointed out. “We’ve simply kept waiving the time requirements because we didn’t want to kick Myllyr in the kneecaps while he was trying to get things turned around.”

  “I know. What I mean is there’s no way they’ll be able to turn that around as long as Hygyns keeps driving them farther into the red, so they won’t be able to meet the treaty requirements however long we keep waiving deadlines.”

  “Which means Rahnyld’s going to get the green light he’s been waiting for.” Sharleyan didn’t look especially happy saying that, but she shrugged. “To be honest, I’d rather work with him, Fern, and Dragon Island than Hygyns and his offal lizards. And it’s not like we haven’t kept them briefed on what was happening. We may not’ve told them quite everything we’ve been up to,” she smiled warmly at Alahnah and Lywys, “but they’re ready to work with us. Which, of course, will only reinforce Hygyns’ narrative.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Cayleb sighed. “God knows we tried to work with Siddarmark, instead!”

  He looked around the circle of com images for a moment or two, then twitched a shrug.

  “All right, that’s the bad news, and as Gwylym Haarahld would say—when his mother wasn’t around—it really, really sucks. But in the long term, whatever happens to Siddarmark, however terrible it is for the people of Siddarmark, it’s survivable from our perspective. I don’t like being cold-blooded about that, and Sharley and I intend to do everything we can to help, whether or not anybody in Siddar City’s likely to admit that’s what we’re doing. But, compared to what we’ve been sweating out for the last year or so, it’s small beer.”

  A stir went through com conference’s members, and he smiled.

  “As of this month, we’re officially prepared to say that whatever Schueler was talking about in his message for your ancestors, Paityr, it wasn’t the anniversary of the Day of Creation. And that means we’ve got eighty or so years before the next likely return date. And we can do a lot with eighty years, people.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Merlin observed. “And, may I say, speaking in my all-knowing seijin persona, that just this once, it’s really nice to have the timing work out in our favor for a change!”

  Laughter—very relieved laughter—rumbled over the com, and Merlin smiled broadly. The tension which had coiled so tightly during the countdown to God’s Day had actually grown worse for a month or two after that date. But as September oozed into October, the possibility that they’d dodged the bullet after all had begun growing within them. No one had been willing to actually say so, probably because of an atavistic conviction that if they did, they would “jinx” themselves. But now, five months—half a Safeholdian year—after God’s Day, they finally felt safe enough to openly admit the truth.

  And Cayleb was right, they could “do a lot” in the next eighty years. Not everything they would’ve liked to do. And not anything remotely like what they could have done without the bombardment system’s constraints. Old Earth had gone from Kitty Hawk to the moon in less than seventy years. Admittedly, standard years, but that was still only seventy-six Safeholdian years. And they’d started from a far less capable knowledge base than the one tucked away in Nimue’s Cave. But without electricity, Safehold couldn’t emulate that progress.

  It could build a steam-powered planetary industrial infrastructure that truly would be effectively impossible to eradicate, however. And in the meantime—

  “So I suppose it’s time to initiate the second stage of the nefarious Nahrmahn Plan?” he said out loud.

  “You suppose correctly,” Cayleb said, and he and Sharleyan both looked at Nahrmahn. “You and Owl are cleared for Operation Androcles.”

  “Oh goody!” Nahrmahn replied with a huge smile, and punched Owl on the shoulder. “I told you they’d let us!”

  “And I did not dispute your prediction,” the AI pointed out. “I simply fail to share your indecent pleasure and anticipation.”

  “Oh, bull!” Nahrmahn laughed, and Owl’s expression changed as his nose began to grow. His avatar reached up, feeling the steadily lengthening appendage, and Nahrmahn laughed even harder.

  “My VR, my rules!” he chortled while the rest of the inner circle began to laugh. “And the subroutine controlling that is based on the same algorithms as the Stone of Schueler, so don’t tell me I jiggered the results!”

  Owl looked offended for a moment, but then offense flowed into chagrin, and, finally, he nodded.

  “I believe the proper response is ‘got me,’” he said. “And it was well done. I completely failed to note the program change. I salute you.”

  “Why, thank you, kind sir!” Nahrmahn swept him a bow.

  “You’re welcome. However, I believe you may have failed to consider one point.”

  “Such as?” Nahrmahn demanded.

  “Why only that something like this would never have occurred spontaneously to an innocent and unsophisticated artificial intelligence such as myself. Now, however, that it has been suggested to me,” Owl smiled broadly, his nose suddenly beginning to shrink again, “you might want to recall who controls all of the programming here in the Cave outside your VR.” His smile grew even broader. “Since Prince Gwylym Haarahld has been referenced this evening already, permit me to employ one of his other aphorisms, acquired from his godfather.”

  “Which is?” Nahrmahn asked suspiciously.

  “I believe the precise words are ‘Payback’s a bitch.’”

  MARCH YEAR OF GOD 916

  .I.

  Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Schueler, City of Brohkamp, Episcopate of Schueler, The Temple Lands.

  “I could wish for better weather, Father,” Archbishop Lywkys Braytahn said wryly as he stood looking out the vesting chamber’s window at the driving sleet.

  Unless he missed his guess, the weather was going to get still worse before the day was over, and winter had over a month and a half to go. Yesterday’s midday temperature had reached only two degrees; today’s temperature seemed unlikely to attain even that anemic height. The waters of Lake Pei were invisible from the vesting chamber, but he didn’t need to see it to picture the horizontal bands of sleet drving across its frozen surface on the teeth of the bitter wind that roared around the eaves in a steady, icy counterpoint to the organ music flowing in through the vesting chamber’s open door.

  “I’m afraid that’s something we could wish for most days this time of year, Your Eminence,” Father Ahrnahld replied. “And I know it’s not going to get above freezing, whatever else happens. It woul
d’ve been nice to at least have a little sun today, though.”

  Ahrnahld Samsyn, the rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Schueler, was young for an upper-priest—only forty-seven, although he’d be forty-eight next month. His brown hair was perpetually unruly, and unlike Braytahn he was clean-shaven, which made him seem even younger standing beside the archbishop.

  “Well, it won’t worry the Archangel one way or the other,” Braytahn said philosophically. “And, speaking of the Archangel, I believe it’s about time, Father.”

  “It is, indeed, Your Eminence,” Samsyn agreed, glancing at the clock on the chamber wall. He and the archbishop turned to face one another, giving their vestments one last check. It was even more important than usual for their appearance to be faultless on today, of all days.

  Someone rapped lightly on the frame of the open door, and a throat cleared itself.

  “Are you ready, Your Eminence? Father?”

  Father Kohdy Trahskhat, the assistant rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Schueler, was vested in the white of the Order of Bédard rather than the purple of Schueler. It wasn’t unusual for assistant rectors to be assigned to churches dedicated to someone other than the patron of their own orders, but since the Jihad, there’d been rather less competition for assistant rectories in churches consecrated to the Archangel Schueler. Trahskhat was an exception to that rule, and he and Samsyn got along very well.

  “Yes, we are, Kohdy,” Samsyn said now. “How does the attendance look?”

  “Much better than I expected, given the weather, really.” Trahskhat shrugged. “I’d say there’s probably three hundred, possibly four.”

  “That’s better than I would’ve expected, either, Father Ahrnahld!” the archbishop said, laying a hand on Samsyn’s shoulder. “You must be doing something right!”

  “I try, Your Eminence,” Samsyn said with a smile. “Some days I seem more successful than others.”