by David Weber
Behold and heed, you who are mothers and you who are fathers. Let not your actions or inactions bring calamity and evil upon your children. Be instead a roof over their heads, be walls about their safety.
The time will come when they will become parents to you in your old age, but that time is not yet. Now is the time to teach, and to nurture-to love and to guard.
When peril approaches, go forth to meet it far from them, lest it threaten them, as well. When duty calls you into danger, put them first in a place of safety. And when the threat of the ungodly draws nigh, set them beyond evil’s reach before you ride out to battle, and do not let the hand of the wicked fall upon them.
Oh, yes, My Lord, he thought, gazing down at those words, I’ll bear your advice in mind. . III.
Imperial Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis, and HMS Dawn Star, 58, Off Round Head, White Horse Reach, Princedom of Corisande
“I hate this.”
Sharleyan Ahrmahk sat on HMS Dawn Star ’s sternwalk, Crown Princess Alahnah sleeping on her shoulder, and gazed out across the galleon’s bubbling wake at blue water sparkling under a brilliant afternoon sun. Her canvas sling-chair moved gently under her with the ship’s motion, rocking her and the baby; a pleasant following breeze stirred errant strands of the long, black hair braided loosely down her back; and the green, smooth hills of Round Head rose out of White Horse Reach to her left. She was less than a hundred and fifty miles from the end of her wearisome voyage to Manchyr, and she could comfortably expect to reach it before tomorrow’s dawn.
None of which had anything to do with the wounded, sorrowful fury in her grim brown eyes.
“We all do,” Merlin said. He stood with his hands braced on the sternwalk rail, leaning over it as he, too, looked out across the calm emptiness of the reach. “And I think we hate it most of all because we’ve seen it coming for so long.”
“And because there’s so damned little we can do about it,” Cayleb agreed harshly from far distant Tellesberg.
It was much earlier in the morning there, and the skies were cloudier, with a promise of heavy rain as he sat looking out a palace window across the table set with a breakfast of which he’d eaten remarkably little. He was scheduled to meet with Earl Gray Harbor and Baron Ironhill, Keeper of the Purse for Old Charis and Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Charisian Empire. He wasn’t looking forward to that meeting, and it had nothing to do with what he expected either of them to tell him. Trying to concentrate on their reports was going to be harder than usual, but he’d have to pretend there was nothing distracting him. He certainly couldn’t tell them what was distracting him, at any rate, and that made it immeasurably worse, since both of them were Sir Gwylym Manthyr’s friends, too.
“I’m afraid you’re both right,” Maikel Staynair said from his office. “I wish to God there were something we could do, but there isn’t.”
“There has to be something,” Domynyk Staynair protested. He’d known Manthyr longer-and better-than any of the others, and anguish tightened his voice. “We can’t just let that butcher Clyntahn…”
He trailed off, and the others’ faces stiffened. They knew exactly what was going to happen to any Charisian-especially any Charisian who’d been taken in the act of armed resistance to the Group of Four-who was dragged to Zion.
And as Cayleb had said, there was nothing they could do about it.
“I could take the skimmer,” Merlin said after a moment.
“And do what? ” Cayleb demanded even more harshly. Domynyk Staynair might have known Manthyr longer, but Sir Gwylym had been Cayleb’s flag captain at Rock Point, Crag Reach, and Darcos Sound, the man who’d sunk his own ship in his desperate effort to reach Cayleb’s father in time.
“What are you going to do?” the emperor continued in that same unyielding voice. “Not even Seijin Merlin’s going to be able to rescue a couple of hundred sick, wounded, half-starved men in the middle of an entire continent! It’s a coin-toss whether they’re going to send them by road or by ship, and you know it, but say they choose the overland route. Even if you managed to singlehandedly slaughter every single guard, how do you get them out of East Haven before the rest of the damned Temple Guard and the Dohlaran Army catch up with you? Not to mention the little fact that you’d leave scores of witnesses to something which would be flat out impossible even for a seijin!
“And even if they decide to send them by sea, how are you going to help them? Blow the transports out of the water? That would at least keep them out of the Inquisition’s hands, give them a clean death-and don’t think I don’t realize what a blessing that could be, Merlin! But if Father Paityr’s right and there really are ‘Archangels’ sleeping under the Temple, don’t you think the possibility of using advanced weapons that close to the Temple is likely to wake them up?”
“That’s a valid point, but we can’t just let ourselves be paralyzed worrying about it from here on out, either,” Merlin replied.
“Merlin, I understand how badly you want to help our people,” Archbishop Maikel said. “But Cayleb’s right about the risk, too, and you know it.”
“Of course I do!” Merlin’s tone came far closer to snapping at Staynair than anyone was accustomed to hearing from him. “But Domynyk’s got a point, too. Like Cayleb says, better to at least send them to the bottom of the ocean cleanly than let Clyntahn torture them to death for some kind of spectacle!”
“Merlin.” Sharleyan’s voice was soft, and she reached out to rest one hand on his mailed forearm. “None of us wants to see that happen. And any one of us would do anything we could to prevent it. But Cayleb’s right that we’d never be able to get them off the mainland if they choose the overland route to Zion. And if they send them over-water, instead, what do you think would happen if all their transports sank in clear, calm weather? Do you really think anyone would accept that as some kind of freak coincidence?” She shook her head as he turned to look down at her. “Everybody would know it wasn’t that. So what would Clyntahn and the others do if it happened?”
“They’d proclaim Shan-wei had claimed her own,” Domynyk Staynair put in harshly. “Which is exactly what they’re going to claim after they torture them all to death, anyway!”
“But this time they’d have a clearly ‘miraculous’ disaster to back up their claim,” his older brother pointed out. “It wouldn’t make a lot of difference to any of our people, but it would be fodder for the Group of Four’s propaganda mill.”
“Frankly, that wouldn’t stop me for a moment,” Cayleb said. He picked up his chocolate mug and drained it, then set it down beside his still well-laden plate with considerably more force than usual. “My problem is that I can’t get those ‘sleeping Archangels’ out of my brain. Merlin would have to use the skimmer’s weapons, Domynyk. It’d be the only way he could put them down. And if I’d been the paranoid setting up something like Father Paityr’s suggested is under the Temple, I’d damn well have everything within hundreds of miles of my bedroom covered with sensors that could hardly miss energy fire.”
“I’m afraid he’s right, Domynyk,” Merlin sighed. “It may be plain blind dumb luck I haven’t already triggered some kind of detection wandering around Haven and Howard the way I have. I’m inclined to think it’s more likely because nothing I’ve done so far’s crossed any threat thresholds they may’ve established. The skimmer’s electronic and thermal signatures are actually a lot weaker than the ones from the regular air cars the ‘Archangels’ were flying around in at the time of the ‘Creation.’ It was designed to be extremely stealthy against first-line tactical sensors, and they weren’t. I suspect that if anyone did set up some sort of sensor perimeter, the skimmer’s signatures don’t reach whatever level they established as representing a threat. But energy weapons?” He shook his head. “If they’ve got a sensor net up at all, they couldn’t miss that.”
“Couldn’t we cobble up something else?” Ehdwyrd Howsmyn asked. The ironmaster stood on the balcony of his office, ga
zing sightlessly out across the sprawl of his huge and growing complex. “Surely you’ve got some missiles in inventory in the cave, Merlin! Couldn’t we use them ?”
“The only heavy projectile weapons in my cave are kinetic energy weapons,” Merlin said. “Their drives would be just as detectable as energy weapons. They might even be more detectable, frankly, depending on what thresholds they set up. Owl might be able to ‘cobble up’ something cruder and less efficient. In fact, he probably could. But anything he came up with would look even more like the Rakurai… and still might cross the line.”
“But if they don’t have a sensor net up, Gwylym and all the others are going to die-under the Question and the Punishment-when we could’ve saved them… or at least killed them cleanly,” Domynyk said flatly. “We owe him-we owe all of them-at least that much!”
“Are you prepared to take that risk when the first thing we’ll know-if there is a net and we ‘cross the line,’ as Merlin put it-is when whatever the hell is under that obscene mausoleum in Zion wakes up?” Cayleb demanded, his voice even flatter-and harder-than Rock Point’s. “I know he’s your friend, Domynyk. He’s my friend, too, and I’m his Emperor; his oaths were sworn to me, not you, and I swore oaths to him in return. If there’s a single human being on the face of this planet-including you! -who wants to save him more than I do, I can’t imagine who it is. But pretend for just a moment that you didn’t even know him and the decision was solely up to you. Would you truly risk sounding an alarm that brings a genuine ‘Archangel’ with control of Langhorne’s Rakurai back to the Group of Four’s aid?”
Silence sang and crackled over the com for endless seconds. Then “No,” Domynyk Staynair said, his voice almost inaudible. “No, I wouldn’t, Cayleb.”
“Churchill and Coventry, Merlin,” Cayleb said almost as softly, and Merlin winced. Sharleyan looked up at him, one eyebrow raised, and he shrugged.
“An episode from World War Two back on Old Terra,” he said. “It was an example I used with Cayleb once in Corisande.”
“And it’s still a good one,” Cayleb put in. “I don’t like it. Like Sharley, I hate it. But somebody’s got to make the call, and for better or for worse, it’s me. And ugly as this is, as much as it’s going to stick in my craw and choke me, I don’t see another option. For that matter, Domynyk, if we could tell Gwylym the entire truth, what do you think he’d recommend?”
“Exactly what you just have, Your Majesty.” Staynair spoke with unwonted formality, yet there was no trace of doubt in his voice.
“That’s what I think, too,” Cayleb said sadly. . IV.
Weavers Guildhall and Royal Palace, City of Manchyr, Princedom of Corisande
Paitryk Hainree stood on the walkway around the water tower cistern atop the Weavers Guildhall. The tower’s facade was a kaleidoscope of sheep, angora lizards, spinning maidens, and busy looms, all carved into the Barcor Mountain granite of which it was made. It was one of the best known tourist attractions in Manchyr, but Hainree didn’t care about that as he gazed out across the city of his birth and swore with vicious, silent venom while the galleons flying the black, blue, and white banner of the Empire of Charis edged delicately towards the Manchyr wharves. The sun was barely up, the air was still cool, with that smoky blue edge that comes just after dawn, the wind-powered pump which kept the cistern filled squeaked softly, almost musically behind him, and the air was fresh from the previous evening’s gentle rain. It was going to be a beautiful day, he thought rancorously, when it should have been ripped by tornadoes and hurricanes.
His hands clenched on the walkway railing, forearms quivering with the force of his grip, eyes burning with hatred. Bad enough that that bitch “empress” should be visiting Corisande at all, but far worse to see the city draping itself with bunting, decorating its streets and squares with cut greenery and flowers. What did the idiots think they were doing? Couldn’t they see where this was heading? Perhaps it looked for now as if the accursed Charisians were succeeding, but they’d set their puny, blasphemous wills against God, damn it! In the end, there could be only one outcome for mortal men vain and stupid enough to do that.
The air began to thud and the harbor fortresses blossomed with spurts of smoke as their guns thundered in formal salute to the arriving Empress of Charis. The waterfront was the better part of a mile from Hainree’s vantage point, yet even from here he could hear the cheers go up from the packed wharves. For a moment, his entire body quivered with a sudden urge to fling himself over the railing. To plummet down to the paving below and put an end to his own fury. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t let the bastards be shed of him that easily.
He stared at the incoming galleons for another moment, then turned his back resolutely and started towards the ladder. He had a final inspection to make before he could sign off on his current assignment, and then he had his own preparations to see to.
He descended the ladder with the confidence and ease of practice. There was little left of the silversmith he’d once been as he swung down the rungs. That Paitryk Hainree had disappeared forever fourteen months ago when Father Aidryan Wayman was arrested by the Charisians’ Corisandian flunkies. Fortunately, before that happened, Hainree had taken Father Aidryan’s advice to heart and established an escape plan all his own, one no one else had known anything about. And because he had, he’d managed to elude the terrifyingly efficient sweep of Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s guardsmen. He still wasn’t certain how he’d accomplished that, especially since they’d been hunting him by name and with a damnably accurate description, but if he’d needed any evidence that God Himself was watching out for him, he’d certainly had it as Father Aidryan’s entire organization was smashed to flinders in a matter of days… and he wasn’t.
And the other thing he’d had evidence of was that the only way to avoid arrest was to operate completely independently. To trust and recruit no one. At least a dozen other efforts to organize resistance against the occupation and the abomination of the Church of Charis had foundered in the last year. It was as if Gahrvai’s guard had eyes everywhere, ears listening to every conversation. The only way to avoid them was to say nothing to anyone, and so Hainree had found new employment with the city of Manchyr’s construction and maintenance office. He’d grown a beard, cut his hair differently, changed the way he dressed, gotten a colorful tattoo on his right cheek and the side of his neck, and found himself a room on the other side of the city where no one had ever seen or known him. He’d gone to ground and become someone else, who’d never heard of Paitryk Hainree the rabble-rouser.
But he hadn’t forgotten Paitryk Hainree, and neither had he forgotten his duty to God and his murdered prince. They’d taken everything he’d ever been from him when they forced him to flee with a price on his head, yet that had simply added to his anger and his determination. Perhaps he was only one man, but one man-properly motivated-could still change an entire princedom.
Or even an empire, he thought as he neared the ground. Or even an empire.
***
“Her portraits don’t do her justice, do they?” Sir Alyk Ahrthyr murmured in Koryn Gahrvai’s ear. “I hadn’t realized she was so good-looking!”
“Alyk,” Gahrvai whispered back, “I love you like a brother. But if you say one word to Her Majesty…”
He let the sentence trail off, and Ahrthyr chuckled. The dashing Earl of Windshare found beautiful women irresistible. And, unfortunately, all too many beautiful women returned the compliment. By Gahrvai’s count, Ahrthyr had fought at least eight duels with irate brothers, fiances, fathers, and husbands. Of course, those were just the ones he knew about, and since Prince Hektor had outlawed public duels over ten years ago-officially, at least-there were probably more that Gahrvai didn’t know about.
So far the earl had managed to survive all of them, and done it without killing anyone (and getting himself outlawed) in the process. How long he could keep that up was open to question. Besides, Gahrvai had met Cayleb Ahrmahk. Any woman he’d married
was going to be more than a match for Windshare, and that didn’t even consider what would happen if Cayleb found out about it.
“Ah, there’s no poetry in your soul, Koryn!” the earl said now. “Anyone who could look on that face-and that figure, too, now that I think of it-and not be stirred is a confirmed misogynist.” Ahrthyr paused, cocking his head to one side. “That wouldn’t be the reason your father still isn’t a grand father, would it, Koryn? Is there something you’ve never told me?”
“I’ve never told you I was about to kill you… until now,” Gahrvai returned repressively. “That’s subject to change if you don’t shut up , though.”
“Bully,” Windshare muttered. “And party pooper, too, now that I think of it.” Gahrvai’s elbow drove none too gently into the earl’s sternum and he “oofed” at the impact. “All right,” he surrendered with a grin, rubbing his chest. “You win. I’ll shut up. See, this is me not saying a thing. Very peaceful, isn’t it? I don’t believe you’ve ever had such a restful afternoon with me arou-”
The second elbow strike was considerably more forceful than the first.
***
Sharleyan paced calmly up the crimson runner of carpet towards the throne. It was the first time she’d ever been in Manchyr, although she’d studied this very throne room many times since she’d gained access to Owl’s SNARCs. It was rather more impressive in person, though, and much as she’d hated Hektor Daykyn, she had to admit he’d had far better taste than the late Grand Duke of Zebediah. Sunlight spilled through tall, arched windows down its long western wall, puddling on the polished parquet floor’s inlaid marble medallions and geometric patterns. The wall itself was plastered and coffered, with the personal seals of the last half-dozen princes of Corisande worked into the recesses between the window embrasures in vibrant color, and banners hung from the high, spacious ceiling Manchyr’s near-equatorial climate imposed on local architecture. That vaulted ceiling was also coffered, with polished, richly gleaming wooden beams framing painted panels decorated with incidents from the House of Daykyn’s history, and the entire eastern wall consisted of latticed glass doors opening onto a formal garden glowing with tropical blossoms and glossy greenery.
