How Firm a Foundation

by David Weber

  “And, to be honest, those conditions are more generous than I would have anticipated,” Coris admitted. “I’m beginning to suspect that honesty, compassion, and fairness are much more dangerous weapons than most of us duplicitous diplomats have begun to realize even now. Probably because until Emperor Cayleb and Empress Sharleyan came along, we’d had so little exposure to them. It’s going to take a while for us to develop proper immunity to them.”

  “Their Majesties do seem to have that effect on people, My Lord,” Zhevons acknowledged with a grin. Then he turned serious again.

  “The other message I’m here to deliver is that your proposed plan for getting Irys and Daivyn out isn’t going to work.”

  “I realize it’s a little risky,” Coris began, “but I’ve done some preliminary spadework, and—”

  “I’m aware of that, My Lord. I’m afraid, however, that both Duke Perlmann and Earl Ashton have been more thoroughly infiltrated by the Inquisition than they realize. I’m also aware that neither of them knows at this point that they’re actually dealing with you or that the ‘two Delferahkan nobles’ you’re trying to sneak out are Irys and Daivyn. Once the hue and cry goes up after you disappear from Talkyra, however, it isn’t going to take either of them long to realize who you—and the children—really are, and at that point even if they don’t decide to hand you over to the Inquisition—which, frankly, I think they probably would—you’re bound to be spotted by the Inquisition and taken into custody.”

  “But—” Coris began, his expression worried.

  “My Lord, I said your original plan wouldn’t work, not that we can’t get you out,” Zhevons said calmly, and the earl closed his mouth abruptly.

  “At this time, a Charisian naval squadron is on its way to Sarmouth,” the seijin continued. “When it arrives there, it will seize the port and spend some time wrecking it from one end to the other. While it’s doing that, a party of Charisian seamen and Marines will take advantage of the confusion and general hullabaloo to head up the Sarm by boat. They should be able to make it all the way to Yarth, and a lot faster than they could make the same trip overland. You’ll meet them in the Sarman Mountains, then travel downriver to the naval squadron, which will deliver you to Tellesberg.”

  “That … might work,” Coris said slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “It’s, what, about two hundred and fifty miles from Talkyra to Yardan, isn’t it?”

  “By road, yes,” Zhevons agreed. “It’s only about a hundred and eighty miles in a straight line, though. And, frankly, if you try to go by road, they’ll run you down long before you get there. For that matter, they’ll simply send word ahead to Bishop Chermahk in Yardan by semaphore and have him—or Duke Yarth’s armsmen—waiting when you get there.” He shook his head. “You’ll have to go cross-country.”

  “That’s going to be hard with a boy Daivyn’s age,” Coris pointed out. “He was a good horseman for his age before we left Corisande, but he’s had very little opportunity to ride since we got here. I think we can deal with that, but none of us know the terrain between here and Yarth.” His expression was worried. “I don’t like the thought of having to recruit a guide on such short notice.”

  “That won’t be necessary, My Lord.” Zhevons smiled. “I’m afraid I’m going to be occupied elsewhere, but Their Majesties have decided getting you, Daivyn, and Irys safely to Tellesberg takes precedence over almost anything else. That being the case, they’re prepared to commit whatever resources it takes, and Seijin Merlin’s been on his way here almost since the moment your message arrived in Tellesberg. In fact, he’s probably a lot closer already than you’d believe he could be. You’d be astonished by how quickly he can cover ground when he needs to.”

  “Merlin will be our guide?” Coris repeated very carefully.

  “Among other things, My Lord. Among other things.” Zhevons smiled oddly. “I think you’ll find he’s a handy fellow to have around in a lot of ways … and”—the smile disappeared—“he has a remarkably short way with assassins.”

  .III.

  Sarmouth Keep and HMS Destiny, 54, Sarmouth, Kingdom of Delferahk

  “Shit!”

  Colonel Styvyn Wahls, Royal Delferahkan Army, clutched wildly at the railing as the entire fortress of Sarmouth Keep seemed to buck under a fresh wash of explosions. He smelled stone dust, powder smoke, wood smoke, blood, and fear, and he shook his head, trying to clear his brain and figure out what the Shan-wei was happening.

  He managed to stay on his feet and dragged himself the rest of the way up the internal stair while those infernal guns were reloading. He reached the top of the elevated battery covering the Sarm River estuary and crouched low as he scuttled out towards the dubious shelter of the crenellated battlements.

  The sky was salmon and rose in the east, still dark blue in the west, and streaked with blue-gray clouds which hadn’t yet caught the sunlight overhead. The predawn twilight made the blinding fury of the long tongues of flame spurting from the broadsides of the Charisian galleons even more terrifying, and he wondered if that was one of the reasons for their timing.

  Bastards have more guts than sense to sail straight up the estuary in the dark, he thought as their royal masts began to catch the dawn light, gleaming golden above the low-lying fog bank of gunsmoke rolling slowly north on the wind blowing in from the sea. The galleons had just enough sail set to hold them motionless against the river’s current while they flailed his fortress with their guns. Damned Charisians! Think they can go any damned where they’ve got three inches of water to sail in!

  The thought would have been more comforting if the Charisian Navy didn’t regularly demonstrate that it could go anywhere it had three inches of water to sail in. And Charisian arrogance or not, they were damned well here now.

  Another salvo rippled down the side of the third galleon in the Charisian line, each gun obviously individually laid and fired, and Wahls ducked instinctively, trying to ooze out flat on the gun platform behind the battlements’ protection as the exploding shot streaked towards the fortress. An artillerist himself by training, the colonel was almost as astonished by the elevation of the ship’s guns as by what they were firing at him. Their damned, incredible exploding shot arced upward, tracing lines of fire across the half-dark, and dropped neatly over the top of the curtain wall. He kept his head down and prayed the rest of his men were doing the same. He’d already almost gotten himself killed gawking at the round shot skittering around the parade ground like Shan-wei’s bowling balls while sparks and flame spat from them. He’d realized those sparks had to be coming from fuses of some sort barely in time and flung himself to the ground just as they began exploding.

  At least fifty of Sarmouth Keep’s understrength garrison had been less fortunate … or slower to react. Half his total manpower had to be out of action by now, and the fury of the Charisian bombardment was only mounting.

  He’d tried to man his own artillery and return fire, but Sarmouth Keep wasn’t—or hadn’t been—considered a likely target. King Zhames’ purse was shallower than usual these days, and Wahls’ garrison was made up of old men past their prime, young men who didn’t yet have a clue, and gutter-scraping mercs the Crown could pick up cheap. He did have a reasonably solid core of noncoms, but the total surprise when the first Charisian ship opened fire had panicked most of his men. He didn’t suppose he could blame them for that, since he’d felt pretty damned panicked himself, yet he’d been in the process of restoring order when that first broadside of exploding shot came over the curtain wall and exploded … just as his sergeants had gotten them fallen in on the parade ground. They’d gone down like tenpins—except, of course, that tenpins didn’t roll around on the grass screaming while they tried to hold their own ripped-out guts in place.

  The handful of men who’d actually gotten to their guns and tried to man them had fared almost worse than the ones on the parade ground as the Charisians swept in close and hammered the battery embrasures with storms of grapeshot. Sarmouth Kee
p’s artillery had never been updated, and Colonel Wahls had never encountered the new-style guns the Charisians had introduced. Now he had, and none of the reports he’d heard about them had done them justice. He couldn’t believe the rapidity of those galleons’ fire or the tempest of grapeshot which had silenced his own guns in such short order.

  “Sir!” his second-in-command shouted in his ear, shaking him by the shoulder. “Sir, this is useless! The second barracks block’s on fire, and it’s right next to the main magazine! We’re not even getting a shot off, and they’re blowing us to hell!”

  The colonel stared at the other man, unwilling to accept what he was saying. But then another wave of exploding shot slammed into his command and he heard fresh screams. His jaw tensed, and he nodded once, choppily.

  “Haul down the flag,” he grated. “Then get our people into the best cover we can find—if we can find any!—until they stop shooting at us.”

  * * *

  “Well, that was using a hammer to crack an egg, wasn’t it?” Sir Dunkyn Yairley said mildly as the flag above the battered, smoking, burning keep came down like a shot wyvern.

  “Personally, I’m in favor of doing just that, Sir Dunkyn,” Captain Lathyk replied, grinning fiercely. “Not any more eager to kill people than the next fellow, you understand, Sir. But if somebody’s got to get killed, I’d a lot rather it was the other fellow’s people!”

  “I can’t argue with that, Rhobair. And Captain Rahzwail did us proud, didn’t he?” the admiral continued, turning to look at HMS Volcano as her crew began securing her guns.

  “He did, indeed, Sir. A useful fellow to have along.”

  “Agreed.” Yairley gazed at the bombardment ship for a moment, then beckoned to his flag lieutenant. Aplyn-Ahrmahk crossed the quarterdeck and stood waiting respectfully while the admiral examined him.

  “I assume you’re ready and—like every young lieutenant who’s yet to develop a working brain—eager to go, Hektor?” he said finally.

  “I wouldn’t say eager, Sir,” Aplyn-Ahrmahk replied, “but my boat crew’s waiting. Well, actually I suppose, your boat crew.”

  “They’re yours for the moment,” Yairley reminded him. “And keep an eye on that rascal Mahlyk. Don’t let him damage my paintwork!”

  “I’ll make sure he behaves himself, Sir,” the flag lieutenant promised.

  “See that you do. Now, go! I believe you have a little trip to make.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!”

  The lieutenant touched his chest in salute, first to Yairley, then to Captain Lathyk, and headed for the boat hooked onto Destiny’s main chains. He didn’t look back, and Yairley watched him go, then shook his head.

  “Young Hektor will do just fine, Sir Dunkyn,” Lathyk said quietly, and Yairley cocked his head at his flag captain.

  “That obvious, was I?”

  “Well, we’ve served together for a while now, you and I, Sir. And young Hektor, for that matter.” Lathyk shrugged. “I don’t think everyone in Destiny’s guessed how you feel about the lad, though. Why, I’m sure there’s some assistant cook’s mate who hasn’t noticed at all!”

  “I see why the men think so highly of your sense of humor, Captain,” Yairley said dryly, but Lathyk only smiled, saluted, and turned away to see to conning his ship the rest of the way up the estuary to the town of Sarmouth itself.

  Yairley watched him go, and the truth was that the flag captain’s humor had helped … a little, at least. On the other hand, if anything happened to Aplyn-Ahrmahk, the admiral knew he’d spend the rest of his life second-guessing himself. He’d had no specific orders to send the youngster upriver, and he was quite certain any number of other captains and flag officers would have been horrified by his decision to detail a member of the imperial family—even an adoptive member of the imperial family—to such a risky venture. But the Charisian Navy’s tradition was that neither birth nor rank exempted a man from the risks everyone else ran, and trying to wrap the boy—the young man, now—in cotton silk to protect him would have done no one any favors. All the same, he wondered sometimes if some perverse streak inside him kept goading him into sending Aplyn-Ahrmahk into danger in an effort to prove, possibly only to himself, that he was willing to do it. Or as some sort of bizarre counterweight for how fond of the boy he’d become.

  In this case, however, given who the boat party was supposed to pick up, Aplyn-Ahrmahk was actually a logical choice. In some ways, at any rate. And as long as one could overlook the probability of getting a member of the imperial family killed, of course. Not likely to enhance a flag officer’s future career, that.

  Oh, stop it, Dunkyn! The boy’s in no more danger than anyone else you’re sending with him! The experience will do him good, and Lieutenant Gowain’s a good, competent officer. He’ll keep Hektor out of trouble.

  Sir Dunkyn Yairley took a deep breath, clasped his hands behind him, put Lieutenant Aplyn-Ahrmahk firmly out of his mind, and began to pace slowly up and down the weather hammock nettings while he watched his squadron advance on the hapless little town they’d come to destroy.

  .IV.

  Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark

  “Kill the heretics! Burn the bastards out!”

  The raucous shout went up from somewhere deep inside the mob, and other voices took up the refrain, bellowing the words in an ugly, hungry rhythm. It sounded like the snarl of some huge beast, not something born of human throats. It was still several blocks away, but Byrk Raimahn’s heart plummeted as he heard it coming.

  “Come on, Grandfather!” he said, reaching out and actually grasping Claitahn Raimahn’s arm as if to drag him bodily out of the courtyard.

  The old man—he was in his sixties, his hair shining like snow in the cold winter sunlight—was still powerfully built, and he jerked his arm out of his grandson’s grasp.

  “Damn it, Byrk!” he snarled. “This is our home! I’m not handing it over to a mob of street scum!”

  For a moment, Byrk seriously contemplated knocking him unconscious and simply hauling his limp body down the street. Claitahn might still be a fit, muscular man, but Byrk had spent the last five years sparring with some of the finest boxing coaches available in Tellesberg’s and now Siddar City’s gymnasiums. A quick jab to the solar plexus to bring his grandfather’s hands down, then a right hook to the jaw would do the trick, he thought grimly.

  But he couldn’t do that, of course. Not to his grandfather. And because he couldn’t, he stepped back, drew a deep breath, and made his voice come out flat and hard.

  “We’ve got to go. Go now, while there’s still time.”

  “This is our home,” Claitahn repeated, “and it’s a lot safer place to be than getting caught in the street by those thugs! The City Guard’s bound to turn up soon, and when it does—”

  “The Guard isn’t going to get here—not in time to do any good,” Byrk said, hating himself for the words as he saw the look in his grandfather’s eye. Yet they had to be said. “And we’re in the richest part of the Quarter. Those bastards out there will make burning us out a priority. I know you don’t like the thought, but we’ve got to go.”

  “And where do you propose we go to?”

  “I know a place. A place where we’ll be safe—or, at least, if we’re not safe there, we won’t be safe anywhere in Siddar City!”

  “Then go!” Claitahn snapped. “Take your Grandmother and go. But I didn’t give up everything in Tellesberg just to let gutter trash and street scum drive me out of my home here!”

  “Grandfather, they may be street scum,” Byrk said as reasonably as he could, “but there are hundreds of them. You wouldn’t stand a chance of stopping them. All you’d manage to do is get yourself killed.”

  “And if I choose—” Claitahn began, but for the first time since he’d been a passionate, adolescence-driven fifteen-year-old, Byrk cut him off in midsentence.

  “And if you choose to stay here and get yourself killed, Grandmother will stay with you! There’s no way s
he’ll run away and leave you … and neither will I, you stubborn, stiff-necked, obstinate—!”

  He made himself stop and glared at his grandfather. Eyes of Raimahn brown locked with eyes of Raimahn brown, and after a brief, titanic moment, it was Claitahn’s which fell.

  “I.…”

  “Grandfather, I understand.” Byrk reached out again, resting his hands on Claitahn’s shoulders. “You’ve never run from anything in your life, and giving ground before a mob comes hard. I know that. But I don’t want to see you die, and I know you don’t want to see Grandmother die, so, please, can we get out of here, you stubborn old … gentleman?”

  Claitahn stared at him for a moment, then surprised himself with a harsh laugh. He put his right hand over the younger, stronger hand resting on his left shoulder, just for a moment. Then he nodded sharply.

  “My legs aren’t as young as they used to be,” he said. “So if we’re going to be running away, what say we see if we can’t get a good head start?”

  * * *

  Samyl Naigail gave a yell of delight as he used the smoldering slow match to light the rag stuffed into the neck of the bottle of lamp oil and threw the incendiary through the display window. Glass shattered, and a moment later he smelled smoke and saw the spreading pool of fire flickering in the depths of the shop. Racks of dry goods and bolts of cloth began to smolder, taking flame quickly, and Naigail’s eyes glowed.

  This was better even than bedding a woman! There was a power—a wild fierce freedom—in finally freeing the anger which had boiled inside him for so long. Smoke rose from other shopfronts all around him as the mob rampaged through the Charisian Quarter, torching everything in sight. Fortunately, the wind was out of the northwest. It would blow the wind and cinders away from the central part of the city, and if they happened to set fire to the harborside tenements where the filthy Charisians lived like so many spider-rats in a city garbage dump, so much the better!