How Firm a Foundation (Safehold)

by David Weber

  “I find that difficult—not impossible, Your Highness; just difficult—to believe,” Gray Harbor said after a moment. “If we really do have wyverns with that kind of range, however, I’m entirely in agreement with you. The question becomes how we get them to Earl Coris in the first place.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too, My Lord,” Nahrmahn said with a smile, “and I think I know just the messenger, assuming we can contact him.”

  He glanced at Cayleb, who raised his eyebrows.

  “And exactly who were you thinking about calling upon?” the emperor inquired politely.

  “It just occurred to me, Your Majesty, to wonder if you might have some means of getting into contact with Seijin Merlin’s friend Master Zhevons.” Nahrmahn smiled toothily at Cayleb’s expression. “He did so well at … motivating King Gorjah, and he’s obviously at home operating on the mainland. It just seems appropriate, somehow, to get him into touch with Earl Coris, as well. Who knows?” His smile faded suddenly, his eyes meeting Cayleb’s levelly. “It might just turn out that this is another situation that requires his special talents, Your Majesty.”

  .VI.

  City of Gorath, Kingdom of Dohlar, and Royal Palace, Princedom of Corisande

  “They’re here, My Lord,” Lieutenant Bahrdailahn said quietly.

  “Thank you, Ahbail,” Lywys Gardynyr said. He inhaled deeply, squared his shoulders, and turned to face the cabin door. “Show them in, please.”

  “Yes, My Lord.” The flag lieutenant bowed considerably more deeply than usual and disappeared. A moment later, he returned.

  “Admiral Manthyr, Captain Braishair, and Captain Krugair, My Lord,” he announced unnecessarily, and Gardynyr bobbed his head to the newcomers.

  “Gentlemen,” he said.

  “Earl Thirsk,” Gwylym Manthyr replied for himself and his subordinates.

  “I very much regret the necessity to summon you to this particular meeting,” Thirsk said levelly, “but in the name of what honor remains to me, I have no choice. Admiral Manthyr, you surrendered your ships and personnel to me after a most gallant and determined defense—one which still commands my admiration and professional respect. At that time, I promised you honorable treatment under the laws of war. I regret that I face you as a man forsworn.”

  Bahrdailahn shifted slightly, face tightening in silent protest, but Thirsk continued in the same measured tone.

  “I’m sure you recognized, as did I, that any promise on my part was subject to violation or outright revocation by my superiors or by Mother Church. As a loyal son of Mother Church it’s not my place to criticize or dispute her decisions; as an officer of the Royal Dohlaran Navy, I am ashamed.”

  He looked directly into Manchyr’s eyes, hoping the Charisian saw the truth in his own.

  “Your men have been badly enough abused in Dohlaran custody. The fact that I’ve done everything in my power to alleviate that abuse is no excuse for my failure to change it, nor will anything remove the stain of that abuse from the honor of my Navy. I once thought harshly of your Emperor and the terms he enforced upon my men; had I known then how you and your men would one day be treated by my own service, I would have gone down on my knees before him to thank him for his leniency.”

  He stopped speaking, and silence lingered in the wake of his final sentence. Several seconds passed, and then Manthyr cleared his throat.

  “I won’t pretend I’m not angry over the way my people have been treated, My Lord.” He held Thirsk’s gaze, and his eyes were as hard as his tone was flat. “God alone knows how many of those who died in the hulks would’ve lived if they’d been given proper food and even minimal medical care. And that doesn’t even consider the fact that now your Navy is prepared to turn us over to the Inquisition in full knowledge of what will happen.”

  He saw Thirsk wince, but the Dohlaran admiral refused to look away or evade his flinty eyes, and after a moment, it was the Charisian who nodded ever so slightly.

  “I won’t pretend I’m not angry,” he repeated, “and I won’t pretend I don’t agree that this is going to be an indelible stain on the honor not just of the Dohlaran Navy but of your entire Kingdom. The time will come, My Lord, when you and all Dohlarans will rue the way in which my men have been treated. I won’t be here to see it, but as surely as the sun rises in the east, my Emperor will see justice done in our names, just as he did in Ferayd. It might be well for your King to remember that day, because this time there will be no question as to where the final responsibility lies.

  “Yet while all of that’s true, and while I have no doubt history will besmirch your name as surely as that of the Duke of Fern or King Rahnyld, I also know you personally did everything humanly possible to honor your word to me and see my men decently and honorably treated. I can’t forgive you for the cause you serve, but I can and will say you serve it as honorably as any man living could.”

  “It’s not given to us to choose the kings we’re born to serve,” Thirsk replied after a moment, “and honor and duty sometimes lead us places we wish we’d never had to go. This is one of those places and one of those times, Admiral Manthyr, yet I am a Dohlaran. I can’t change the decisions which have been made by my King, and I won’t break my oath to him. But neither can I hide behind that oath to evade my responsibility or hide my shame from myself or from you. And that’s also the reason I asked you here this morning so that I might apologize to you personally, and through you to all of your men. I know it means very little, but it’s all I have to give and the least I can give.”

  A part of Sir Gwylym Manthyr wanted to spit on the deck. Wanted to curse in Thirsk’s face for the sheer uselessness of words against the scale of what was going to happen to his men. Words were cheap, apologies cost nothing, and neither of them would save a single one of his men from a single second of the agony waiting for them. And yet.…

  Manthyr drew a deep breath. Perhaps Thirsk’s apology was no more than a gesture, yet both of them knew how dangerous a gesture it was. There was no way the Inquisition could fail to learn of this meeting, and given Thirsk’s efforts to protect his Charisian prisoners while they were in his custody, the inquisitors were unlikely to look kindly upon it. For the moment, at least, Thirsk was too important—probably—to the Church’s jihad to find himself the Inquisition’s guest, but that was always subject to change, and both of them knew how long a memory Zhaspahr Clyntahn had. So gesture though it might be, it was scarcely as empty as some might think.

  “I’m no nobleman, My Lord,” the Charisian said bluntly. “I don’t understand all the ins and outs of a noble code of conduct. But I do understand duty, and I do know you’ve truly done all you could. I can’t absolve you of the guilt you obviously feel. I don’t know if I would if I could. But I do accept your apology in the spirit in which it’s offered and I hope that when the bill finally comes due for what your Kingdom and the Inquisition are about to do, your efforts to do the right and honorable thing will be considered in your favor.”

  “You may not have been born a nobleman, Admiral, but at the moment I think that’s a mark in your favor.” Thirsk smiled humorlessly. “Perhaps if I weren’t quite so pigheaded, we—”

  He broke off, waving one hand, then glanced at the clock on the cabin bulkhead, and his jaw tightened.

  “I’m not supposed to know, Admiral, but you have approximately four hours before your ‘escort’ arrives.” He saw Manthyr’s face turn to stone but went on unflinchingly. “Lieutenant Bahrdailahn will return you to the prison ships. If any of you wish to send a last letter home, I give you my word I’ll personally see it delivered somehow to Charis. Please see to it that any letters are completed at least a half hour before the Navy is required to transfer you to your escort. Leave them aboard ship when you depart, and I’ll have them collected in a day or two.”

  After the Inquisition’s taken you all away and I can do it without having my own men and me sent to join you, he didn’t say out loud, but Manthyr and his two captains
heard it anyway.

  “I thank you for that, My Lord.” For the first time emotion softened the flint of the Charisian’s voice. “I … hadn’t expected it.”

  “I only wish I’d thought—” Thirsk began, then stopped. “I only wish I’d found the courage to make the offer sooner, Admiral,” he admitted. “Now go, and whatever the Inquisition may think, may God be with you.”

  * * *

  “So, you’re Admiral Manthyr,” the Schuelerite upper-priest sneered.

  Sir Gwylym Manthyr only gazed at him wordlessly, eyes contemptuous.

  It was an almost obscenely beautiful day, given what was happening. The air was cool, the breeze refreshing, and the solid quay underfoot seemed to undulate gently. After so long in the hulks, it was going to take him some time to get his land legs back.

  Seabirds and sea wyverns swooped about in their unending sweeps of Gorath Bay. There was always some interesting bit of garbage, some piece of flotsam, some unwary fish or the eyes of some drifting Charisian corpse, to attract their attention, and he realized he was going to miss their antics once they’d left the harbor behind. Funny. He hadn’t thought there was anything he’d miss about Gorath Bay, but that was before the coin had finally dropped.

  “Proud and silent, are you?” the Schuelerite observed, and spat on the ground just in front of Manthyr’s feet. “We’ll see how ‘silent’ you are when you reach Zion, heretic!”

  The upper-priest was in his forties, Manthyr estimated, with dark hair and a close-cropped beard, and a coiled whip hung at his side. His brown eyes were hard, dark, and hating, which was scarcely a surprise. Zhaspahr Clyntahn would have handpicked the man responsible for delivering his latest victims.

  “The Grand Inquisitor wants you in Zion in one piece,” the Schuelerite continued. “Personally, I’d just as soon shoot all of you and leave you in the ditch like the carrion you are, but that’s not my decision. What is my decision is how … discipline will be maintained on our journey. I’d advise you all to remember my patience is short and the men under my command understand how to deal with Shan-wei’s get. Take that as all the warning you’ll be given.”

  Manthyr simply looked back at him, refusing to flinch or look away yet able to picture the thin, wasted, raggedly dressed officers and men standing behind him on the quay. He and the Schuelerite both knew they’d heard every word, but he felt their angry, hopeless defiance at his back.

  The Schuelerite glared at him for another minute, then turned his head.

  “Captain Zhu!” he barked.

  “Yes, Father Vyktyr?” a shortish, blocky officer in the uniform of the Temple Guard replied.

  Captain Zhu was obviously Harchongian, with the strongly pronounced epicanthic fold of his people. He looked to be in his late thirties, with black hair, and his Guard uniform bore the sword-and-flame of the Order of Schueler as a shoulder patch. That indicated that while he was a Guard officer, he’d been seconded to the Inquisition, which probably made sense. The Inquisition had its own small, highly trained military force, but it specialized in enforcement, not in field exercises. For an overland journey this long, they’d want someone with experience handling troops in the field.

  “Put this garbage in its cages.” Father Vyktyr gestured contemptuously at the Charisians. “And I don’t see any need to be overly gentle with them.”

  “As you say, Father,” Zhu agreed with an unpleasant smile, and turned to the weathered-looking, squatly muscular sergeant at his heels. “You heard the Father, Sergeant Zhadahng. Get them moving.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  * * *

  Well, I suppose this settles what I can—and can’t—do, after all, Merlin Athrawes thought grimly, lying back in his borrowed bed in Manchyr’s Royal Palace and watching through the SNARCs as the Charisian prisoners were driven aboard the wagons prepared to receive them.

  The Temple Guardsmen were equipped with heavy, massive, old-style matchlocks, not the newer flintlocks which were beginning to trickle into the Temple’s service, and they plied their musket butts freely. He watched Charisian seamen stagger as those musket butts slammed home between their shoulder blades or drove into their rib cages. More than one man went to his knees, to be kicked and beaten until he managed to claw his way back to his feet, and if any of his comrades tried to help him, they received the same treatment.

  Merlin’s sapphire eyes opened in the early morning darkness, hard with fury, as a young, one-legged midshipman fell. No one had struck him; he simply tripped as he tried to move fast enough to satisfy their captors on his single foot and obviously jury-rigged crutch. It didn’t matter. The guards closed in, battering and kicking while the boy curled in a desperate, protective knot, trying to protect his head with his arms, and Merlin’s jaw clenched as Sir Gwylym Manthyr deliberately stepped into that ring of sadistic blows. He watched the muscular admiral taking the musket butts on his own back and shoulders, never raising a hand against his assailants as he was battered to his hands and knees across the boy’s body, only using his own body to protect that fallen midshipman.

  Then there was another man inside that circle, one in what was left of the uniform of a Charisian captain. And another man, slightly built, with a waxed mustache, who Merlin recognized as Naiklos Vahlain. The guards beat and kicked them harder than ever, but a handful of seamen joined them. More than one of them went down, only to rise again, faces bloodied, bodies bruised, taking those blows with silent defiance until Manthyr could climb back up from his own knees and take that semi-conscious young body in his arms. Another musket crashed into the admiral’s kidneys and he stumbled forward, face twisted with pain, but he refused to drop the midshipman.

  One of the guards raised his musket high in both hands, obviously aiming a murderous butt stroke at Manthyr’s head, and the admiral glared at him, eyes of fire hard in a blood-streaked face, daring him to strike. The blow started forward, only to stop in midair—stop so abruptly the Guardsman staggered—as an auburn-haired Guard lieutenant shouted an order.

  The entire scene froze, and then, grudgingly, the Guardsmen stepped back and allowed the fallen to rise. There were still blows, still shouted obscenities, still sneering promises of worse to come, but at least Manthyr was allowed to carry that slight, fallen body to the waiting transport wagons.

  The wagons were big enough for fifteen or twenty men to be crammed aboard with room for perhaps six of them to lie down at any given moment. They were heavy framed, without shock absorbers, springs, or anything resembling seats, sided with iron bars and roofed with iron gratings. They were basically dungeon cells on wheels, and the only overhead cover was in the form of canvas tarps which were currently tightly rolled and stowed behind the drivers’ tall seats. Each wagon was drawn by two hill dragons, the size of terrestrial elephants but with longer bodies and six powerful legs each. They were capable of a surprising turn of speed and possessed excellent endurance.

  The wagon doors were slammed and locked. Orders were shouted, and the convoy lurched into motion. There was no reason those wagons had to have been built without springs, Merlin knew. They’d been built that way deliberately, with only one object in view: to make any prisoners’ journey as unpleasant as possible … and to show any witnesses how unpleasant that journey was.

  Which is the entire reason they decided not to send them by water after all, Merlin reflected bitterly. They’re sending them the long way, by land, so they can stop in every town to display their prizes, give every village the chance to watch them roll through on their way to the Temple and the Punishment of Schueler. They’re too damned valuable an object lesson for Clyntahn to waste sending them by sea … and God knows how many of them are going to die on the way. And there’s not one damn thing I can do about it. I can’t even sink them at sea to spare them from what’s waiting.

  He watched that clumsy procession of iron-barred wagons lurching slowly northward from the city of Gorath and hated his helplessness as he’d seldom hated anything in Nimue Alban’s lif
e or his own. Yet while he watched, he made himself one solemn promise.

  Sir Gwylym Manthyr was right. What had happened to the city of Ferayd was nothing compared to what was going to happen to the city of Gorath.

  .VII.

  Royal Palace, City of Manchyr, Princedom of Corisande

  It wasn’t the throne room this time.

  In many ways, Sharleyan would have preferred that venue, but there were traditions to break. Prince Hektor’s notion of judicial procedure had been to see to it that the accused got the proper sentence, not to worry about any pettifogging legal details like proving guilt or innocence. Trials were an inconvenient, messy formality which sometimes ended with the accused actually getting off entirely, which was scarcely the reason he’d had the culprit arrested in the first place! Far more efficient and direct to simply have him hauled in front of the throne and sentenced without all that unnecessary running around.

  To be fair, the majority of Hektor’s subjects had considered his justice neither unduly capricious nor unnecessarily cruel. He’d maintained public order, prevented the nobility from victimizing the commoners too outrageously, supported the merchants and bankers’ property rights and general prosperity, and seen to it that most of his army’s killing had been done on someone else’s territory. Theoretically, there’d always been the appeal to the Church’s judgment, although it had been resorted to only infrequently … and usually unsuccessfully. But by and large, Corisandians had assumed anyone Prince Hektor wanted to throw into prison or execute probably deserved it. If not for the crime of which he stood accused, for one he’d committed and gotten away with another time.

  What that also meant, unfortunately, was that being hauled in front of the prince had been tantamount to being punished. And what that meant, in turn, was that if Sharleyan dispensed justice from the throne room which had once been Hektor’s, those being brought before her would automatically assume they were simply there to learn what fate had already been decreed for them … and that “justice” actually had very little to do with the process. All of which explained why she was, instead, sitting in the magnificently (if darkly) paneled Princess Aleatha’s Ballroom.