by David Weber
“Oh, very well!” Tahrlsahn waved an obviously irritated hand. “Make it twenty, if you think that’s necessary. And remember what I said about keeping the crowd moving, so everyone gets his chance to see them!”
“Of course, Father. I assure you that everyone in Twyngyth will have ample opportunity to see what happens to the defilers of Mother Church.”
.III.
HMS Destiny, 54, and HMS Destroyer, 54, King’s Harbor, Helen Island, Kingdom of Old Charis
“’Vast heaving! Avast heaving!” Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk shouted, and the capstan stopped turning instantly.
The new-model kraken hung suspended above HMS Destiny’s deck, gleaming in the sunlight, and its shadow fell across the youthful ensign. He stepped across the bar taut fall leading back through the deck-level snatch block to the capstan, then stood, hands on hips, and glared up at the three-ton hammer of the gun tube suspended from the mainmast pendant and the forecourse’s yardarm. He stood that way for several seconds before he shook his head and turned to the boatswain’s mate who’d been supervising the operation with a disgusted expression.
“Get that gun back down on the dock and rig that sling properly, Selkyr!” he snapped, raising his right hand and jabbing an index finger skyward.
The boatswain’s mate in question was at least twice Aplyn-Ahrmahk’s age, but he looked up, following the ensign’s pointing finger, then cringed. The rope cradle secured around the gun’s trunnions had managed to slip badly off-center. The iron tube had begun to twist sideways, pulling hard against the steadying line rigged from its cascabel to the hook of the winding-tackle’s lower block and threatening to slide completely free of the sling.
“Aye, aye, Sir!” he replied. “Sorry, Sir. Don’t know how that happened.”
“Just get it back down and straighten it out,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said in calmer tones. Then he grinned. “Somehow I don’t think the Captain would thank us for dropping that thing down the main hatch and out the bottom when the dockyard still hasn’t turned us loose!”
“No, Sir, that he wouldn’t,” Selkyr agreed fervently.
“Then see to it,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk said. “Because he’s not going to be very happy if we don’t get finished on time, either.”
“Aye, Sir.” Selkyr saluted in acknowledgment and turned back to his working party.
Aplyn-Ahrmahk stood back, watching as the men on the capstan began cautiously turning it the other way, leaning back against the capstan bars now to brake its motion as they slackened the fall. The hands tending the guidelines and manning the forebraces swung the yardarm back outboard, and the gun descended once more to the dock beside which Destiny lay moored.
Selkyr was an unhappy man, and he made his displeasure known to the working party as it set about rerigging the sling properly, yet there was a certain restraint in his manner, and Aplyn-Ahrmahk gave a mental nod of approval. The boatswain’s mate was clearly more concerned with seeing to it that his men got the problem fixed and learned not to let it happen again than with pounding whoever had made the mistake this time. A good petty officer—and Ahntahn Selkyr was just that—preferred correction to punishment whenever possible, and that was especially important given the number of green hands currently diluting Destiny’s normally proficient and well-trained company.
The ship had been required to give up a sizable draft of experienced seamen and petty officers during her stint in dockyard hands. In fact, she’d been raided even more heavily than many of the other ships which were losing trained personnel to form the cadres of new ships’ companies. Aplyn-Ahrmahk suspected Destiny’s crew quality had something to do with the reason she’d been forced to give up so many more of her people than those other ships had, and he couldn’t help resenting it more than a little.
They probably figure the Captain can always train more, he thought sourly. And I guess it’s a compliment, in a backhanded sort of way. They need good people, and the Captain produces good people … so obviously the thing to do is reward him by taking them all away from him and making him go produce still more of them! It’s just harvesting the natural increase.
He was being unfair to the Navy, and in his calmer moments he knew it. He understood the frantic efforts the Navy was making to man its recently acquired galleons, and he couldn’t quibble with the need to provide the most experienced possible cadres for the newly inducted men going into their crews. The Imperial Charisian Navy had consisted of just over ninety galleons prior to the Battle of the Markovian Sea; now it had over two hundred, courtesy of its construction programs … and the Navy of God and the Imperial Harchongese Navy. Manning even half those new prizes had required an enormous increase in manpower, and manpower was the Empire of Charis’ greatest weakness in its confrontation with the Church of God Awaiting and the huge populations of the mainland realms. It simply didn’t have enough warm bodies to go around.
For the first time in its history, Old Charis faced the threat of being forced to resort to the sort of impressment other navies had routinely employed for centuries. The Crown had always had the authority to impress seamen, but the House of Ahrmahk had been careful not to use it, and for good reason. The fact that the Royal Charisian Navy’s galleys had been manned solely by volunteers built around solid cores of long-service, highly experienced regulars had been its most telling advantage, and they’d been willing to accept a smaller fleet than they could have built in order to maintain that qualitative edge.
With every mainland realm united against the Empire, however, that was a luxury the Imperial Charisian Navy couldn’t afford. It needed as many hulls as it could get, and while galleons didn’t require the hundreds of rowers galleys did, they were far bigger than even Charisian galleys had been and much more heavily armed. Providing them with gun crews and enough trained seamen to manage their powerful sail plans drove the size of their companies up rapidly, and completely filling the “establishment” crew for a galleon like Destiny required approximately four hundred men. With the prizes being put into commission, the Navy’s galleon strength would rise to two hundred and eleven … which would require over eighty-four thousand men. And that didn’t even consider all of the schooners, brigs, and other light warships and dispatch vessels. Or the competition for the strength to man the Navy’s shoreside establishments. Or the requirements of the Marine Corps, or the Imperial Army. Or the fishing fleet. Or the merchant marine upon which the Empire’s prosperity and very survival depended. And while the Crown was finding—somehow—all the men it needed for those requirements, the manufactories producing both the sinews of war and the goods fueling the steadily growing economy—not to mention the farms feeding the Empire’s subjects—still had to be provided for somehow.
So far, enlistment was managing—barely—to meet demands, but an increasing percentage of the Navy’s strength was Emeraldian or Chisholmian, and even the native Old Charisians coming forward boasted a lower percentage of experienced seamen. From what Aplyn-Ahrmahk had seen, the basic quality of the new men was just fine; they were simply less well trained and hardened to the demands of life at sea than the Navy was accustomed to. And even with the newcomers, Destiny’s official four-hundred-man company was forty-three men short.
Well, he thought, watching the gun begin to rise once more, I guess having too many ships and too few experienced men is a lot better problem to have than the other way around!
* * *
Sir Domynyk Staynair leaned back in the window seat, one arm stretched along the top of its cushioned back and his truncated right leg stretched out in front of him, the padded peg resting on a footstool. It was almost the turn of the watch, and the cabin’s skylight was open, admitting the sounds of King’s Harbor and the closer, quieter voices of the officer of the watch and his senior quartermaster as they discussed HMS Destroyer’s log entry. The more distant cries of gulls and sea wyverns drifted down through it, as well, and wavery patterns of bright light reflected into the cabin through the quarter and stern windows, gleaming on p
olished bookshelves, sideboards, and tables. It sparkled from the cut crystal of decanters, sending rainbow ripples across the cabin as the galleon stirred gently, and the portraits of Emperor Cayleb and Empress Sharleyan faced each other across the deck’s thick carpets. Those carpets had been a gift from Empress Sharleyan, and their deep-toned color went just a bit oddly with the gayer fabric of the chair coverings Rock Point favored. The table at the center of the cabin was buried under charts, dividers, and compasses, and Zhastrow Tymkyn, his new secretary, sat at his small desk to one side, pen scratching as he annotated his minutes of the high admiral’s last conference.
The cabin door opened, and Rock Point’s even newer flag lieutenant ushered another officer through it.
Lieutenant Haarlahm Mahzyngail had stepped into Lieutenant Erayksyn’s position less than two five-days earlier, and he still seemed out of place aboard a Charisian warship. Not because of any lack of competency, but because his fair hair, blue eyes, and pronounced Chisholmian accent remained such a novelty here in Old Charis. They were becoming more commonplace, though, as more and more Chisholmians enlisted in the Navy. It was surprising, really. Given the Royal Army’s traditional prestige in Chisholm, Rock Point would have expected any adventurous young lad from that island to have been army mad, not drawn to a naval career. As things were working out, though, he’d actually received an only half-humorous protest from the Duke of Eastshare, the Imperial Army’s commander, about the Navy’s “poaching” on his private preserve.
Probably has something to do with the fact that we’ve kicked the Loyalists’ asses at sea every time we’ve crossed swords, he thought. Except, he corrected himself much more grimly, where Thirsk is concerned, of course.
That thought hit harder than usual as the overland convoy carrying Gwylym Manthyr and his men crept steadily towards Zion. Grief for a friend and anger at his own helplessness seethed just below the surface for a moment, but he made himself push those emotions back into the depths. It felt disloyal, yet there wasn’t anything he could do to change what was going to happen, and Gwylym wouldn’t have thanked him for letting friendship distract him from his own duties and responsibilities.
“Captain Yairley, High Admiral,” Mahzyngail announced, and Rock Point nodded. The young Chisholmian was still feeling his way into his duties, although one might not have supposed that from his confident demeanor. He wasn’t yet as familiar with his admiral’s professional and personal relationships as he might have been, however, and he’d decided—wisely, in Rock Point’s opinion—to err on the side of formality until he got them all straightened out in his own mind.
“So I see,” Rock Point said, and smiled at the young man. “For future reference, Haarlahm, Sir Dunkyn is an old acquaintance. I know him well. So be sure you keep an eye on the silverware when he’s around.”
Mahzyngail’s nod of acknowledgment bobbled noticeably on the last sentence. He froze for just a moment, then completed the movement.
“I’ll strive to bear that in mind, Sir,” he said, and Rock Point chuckled.
“See you do,” he said, then held out his right hand to Yairley. “I’m going to stay moored right where I am. Rank has its privileges and I’ll be damned if I’ll clump around when I don’t have to. Sit.”
He pointed with his left hand while the two of them clasped arms, and Yairley settled into the indicated chair with a small smile of his own. He was a naturally less demonstrative man than Rock Point, and more than one of his fellows had put him down as a dour, fussy worrier. There might actually be some accuracy in that, the high admiral thought, but only a very small accuracy.
“How’s Destiny coming?” he demanded, coming straight to the point.
“The dockyard says I can have her back Thursday.” Yairley shrugged. “I’ll believe that when I see it, but I think we probably will be able to warp her out to the roadstead sometime in the next five-day or so. We’re taking her gundeck guns back onboard this afternoon, the carronades will come back aboard tomorrow morning, and I’m reasonably satisfied with her repairs. The sail loft’s running behind, though. That’s why I’m doubtful about Thursday. Once they get the new canvas delivered, though, we’ll be in reasonably good shape.”
“Careless of you to break her that way in the first place,” Rock Point said with a broad smile, and Yairley smiled back with considerably less amusement.
“So you’ll be ready to take her back to sea before the end of the month?” the high admiral continued.
“I don’t think we’ll be anything like properly worked up by then, but, yes, Sir.” Yairley’s shoulders shrugged very slightly. “I’ve got a lot of inexperienced men and outright landsmen to turn into trained seamen somehow, and getting them to sea’s probably the best way to be about it.”
“You’re not the only one with that problem, believe me!” Rock Point said sourly. He looked out the quarter windows at the busy panorama of King’s Harbor. “The only thing worse than figuring out where to get the men we need is figuring out how to pay them once we’ve got them.” He grimaced. “I used to think it was funny watching Bryahn and Ironhill arm wrestling over the budget. Somehow it’s not so humorous anymore.”
He gazed at the anchorage for another moment, then turned back to Yairley.
“Did you go over those notes I sent you about Ahlfryd’s new ‘high-angle’ guns?”
“Yes, Sir. Very interesting stuff, although I was a bit at a loss as to why you were telling me about them.” Rock Point raised an eyebrow and Yairley shrugged. “It was pretty obvious he must’ve been working on them for some time, especially if they’re as close to ready to deploy as your memo suggested. Since I hadn’t heard a whisper about them—and no one else had, either, as far as I know—I have to assume they were another one of Baron Seamount’s ‘Top Secret, Cut Your Own Throat After Reading’ projects. Not the sort of thing a galleon captain would really need to know about, I’d’ve thought.”
“No?” Rock Point smiled a bit oddly. “Well, you did a good job convincing Jahras to stay in port when Harpahr and Sun Rising came calling last year, Dunkyn,” he went on in an obvious non sequitur. “And even with that little … excitement of yours in Scrabble Sound, you’ve done even better, since. So I’m afraid I’m taking Destiny away from you, in a manner of speaking.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir?” Yairley’s tone was considerably sharper than he usually allowed himself, and Rock Point smiled slightly.
“I said ‘in a manner of speaking,’” he pointed out. “Which is my way of telling you you’ve been promoted to rear admiral. Congratulations, Dunkyn.”
Yairley’s eyes widened, and the high admiral chuckled.
“I hate to say this, but you didn’t get your streamer just because we need flag officers so badly with all this sudden expansion. You also got it because you damned well deserve it. Frankly, it’s overdue, but we also need good galleon captains, and you’re one of the best we’ve got. As a matter of fact, I actually hesitated about submitting your name to His Majesty. Not because of any reservations on my part, but because I’m only too well aware of how badly we’re going to need those same good captains to lick all these newcomers into shape.”
“I’m honored, Sir,” Yairley said after a moment, “although I’m going to hate giving up Destiny. If I may, Lieutenant Lathyk’s overdue for promotion and he—”
“To repeat myself, I did say you’d be giving her up ‘in a manner of speaking,’ Dunkyn. I assumed that given your choice of flagships, you’d probably pick her. Was I correct?”
“Yes, Sir. Of course!”
“Well, unless I’m mistaken, it’s still a flag officer’s privilege to request the flag captain of his choice. Now I’d assumed someone of your well-known demanding disposition wouldn’t have put up with someone like Lathyk unless he was at least marginally competent. If I was wrong, if you really want him promoted to, say, commander and given one of the new brigs instead, I suppose I could go back to His Majesty and change my current recommendation.�
��
“And that recommendation would be precisely what, Sir?” Yairley regarded his superior with a distinctly suspicious expression.
“That he be promoted to captain immediately and assigned as HMS Destiny’s commanding officer.”
“Upon mature consideration, Sir, I see no reason you should put yourself to the trouble or inconvenience His Majesty by changing your recommendation.”
“I thought that was how you’d see it.” Rock Point chuckled, then heaved himself to his feet. “Come take a look at the chart.”
He crossed to the table, Yairley at his side, and the two of them gazed down at the huge chart of the Gulf of Mathyas and much smaller Gulf of Jahras. Rock Point leaned over and thumped an index finger on Silkiah Bay.
“As you’ll know better than most, we’ve got an awful lot of ‘Silkiahan’ galleons moving in and out of Silk Town with Charisian cargoes,” he said. “Now, I’ve never been one for subordinating military decisions to economic ones, but in this case we’re talking about a big enough piece of our total trade to make anyone nervous. To be honest, that’s one reason we’ve stayed away from”—his fingertip slid down to the southwest and tapped once—“Desnair and the Gulf of Jahras. We’re not certain why Clyntahn hasn’t made a bigger push to shut down the Silkiahans’ and the Siddarmarkians’ defiance of his embargo, and we haven’t wanted to do anything to draw his attention to Silk Town or change his mind in that regard. It’s not just good for our own manufactories and merchant marine, Dunkyn. It’s steadily undermining the Group of Four’s authority in both the Republic and the Grand Duchy, and it’s simultaneously drawing more and more Siddarmarkians and Silkiahans into our arms, whether they realize it or not.
“Nonetheless,” he tapped the city of Iythria, “it’s time we did something about the Desnairian fleet. Even after the Battle of the Markovian Sea, we actually don’t have much better than parity with the combined Desnairian and Dohlaran fleets. I’d like better numbers than that, of course, but while Gorath Bay and Iythria are barely thirteen hundred miles apart in a straight line, they’re damned near seventeen thousand miles apart as a ship sails. That’s just a tad far for them to be supporting one another if we should decide to concentrate our strength in order to overwhelm one of them in isolation, wouldn’t you say?”
