by David Weber
“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 sat
isfy 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 life 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.
Sharleyan couldn’t imagine anyone voluntarily holding a ball in the room. Only one wall had any windows at all, and they were small. Not only that, but more recently constructed portions of the palace cut off most of the light they would have taken in, anyway. She supposed the vast, gloomy chamber would have looked much more imposing with its dozen massive bronze chandeliers all alight, but the heat from that many candles would have been stifling, especially in Manchyr’s climate.
Probably just that northern blood of yours talking, she thought. As far as these people are concerned, it might simply have been comfortably warm. Maybe even bracingly cool!
No, she decided. Not even Corisandians could have done anything but swelter under those circumstances.
She was dithering, she told herself, looking out across the rows of benches which had been assembled to face the dais upon which she sat. The main reason she’d chosen Princess Aleatha’s Ballroom-aside from the fact that it wasn’t the throne room-was its size. It was stupendous, bigger than any other chamber in the palace complex, and almost five hundred people sat looking back at her across the open space cordoned off by Sir Koryn Gahrvai’s Guardsmen. There were nobles, clerics, and commoners in that crowd, chosen to make it as representative a mix of the population as possible, and some of them (not all commoners, by any means) seemed acutely uncomfortable in their present surroundings.
Perhaps some of that might have been due to the six members of the Charisian Imperial Guard who stood between them and her dais on either side of Edwyrd Seahamper. Or, for that matter, to the way Merlin Athrawes loomed silently, somberly, and very, very intimidatingly at her back.
The dais raised her throne approximately three feet, and it was flanked by only slightly less ornate chairs in which the members of Prince Daivyn’s Regency Council were seated. Two more chairs (remarkably plebeian compared to the Regency Council’s) sat directly before the dais at a long table placed just behind the line of Guardsmen and piled with documents. Spynsair Ahrnahld, her bespectacled, youthful secretary, sat in one of those chairs; Father Neythan Zhandor-bald head shining above its rapidly retreating fringe of brown hair, even in the ballroom’s subdued light-occupied the other.
Archbishop Klairmant was also present, but he’d chosen to stand to Sharleyan’s right rather than be seated himself. She wasn’t certain why he’d made that choice. Perhaps it was to avoid giving the i
mpression he, too, was seated to give judgment ex cathedra, adding the Church’s imprimatur to whatever judgments she rendered. Yet his position might also lead some to think he was standing as her advisor and councilor.
And he’s going to get damned tired before the day is over, she thought grimly. Still, I suppose we’d best get to it.
She raised one hand in a small yet regal gesture, and a shimmering musical note rang through the enormous room as Ahrnahld struck the gong on one end of the document-piled table.
“Draw nigh and give ear!” a deep-voiced chamberlain-a Charisian chamberlain-bellowed. “Give ear to the Crown’s justice!”
Utter silence answered the command, and Sharleyan felt the stillness radiating outward. Many of the people seated on those rows of benches would normally have been chattering away behind their hands, eyes bright as they exchanged the latest, delicious gossip about the spectacle they were there to see. But not today. Today, they sat waiting tensely until the double doors of the ballroom’s main entrance swung wide and six men were marched through them, surrounded by guards.
The prisoners were richly dressed, jewels sparkling about their persons, immaculately groomed. Yet despite that, and even though they held their heads high, there was something beaten about them. And well there should be, Sharleyan reflected grimly. They’d been arrested over six months ago. Their trials had been concluded before a combined panel of prelates, peers, and commoners two five-days before she ever arrived in Manchyr, and they could be in little doubt about the verdicts.
