How firm a foundation s-5

by David Weber

  “Then we’ll just have to see what we can do about finding them for you, Your Majesty,” Prince Nahrmahn said. . VI.

  Shakym, Princedom of Tanshar

  “All right, you lazy bastards! On your feet! Your little pleasure cruise just came to an end!”

  Sir Gwylym Manthyr’s head twitched up at the raucous chorus of shouts. He could see virtually nothing in the hot, stinking tween-decks space, but he heard the thud of hammers as the wedges which secured the hatch battens were driven out. Boots clumped and thumped on the deck overhead, other voices bawled orders, and heavy chain rattled metallically in the darkness around him.

  I guess I really can sleep just about anywhere, he thought. Must be Shakym. About time, even for this tub.

  He knew very little about Shakym beyond the name; only that it was the major seaport of the Princedom of Tanshar and that it lay across the four-hundred-and-fifty-mile-wide mouth of the Gulf of Tanshar from Gairlahs in the Duchy of Fern, the most northwesterly of Dohlar’s provinces. If this was Shakym, they were officially in West Haven, little more than five hundred miles from the Temple Lands border and fourteen hundred miles from Lake Pei.

  “Sir?” The voice was faint, barely audible, and his right hand gently stroked the matted hair of the head lying in his lap.

  “It seems we’re here, Master Svairsmahn.” He kept his own voice as close to normal as he could, but it was hard when the boy’s bony hand reached up and gripped his wrist. “I imagine we’re going to have some light in a few minutes.”

  “Can’t come too soon for me, Sir,” the midshipman said gamely. He grunted with effort, shoving himself up into a sitting position, and Manthyr heard a retching sound. It went on for several seconds before it stopped.

  “Sorry about that, Sir,” Svairsmahn said.

  “You’re not the only one who’s fouled himself down here, Master Svairsmahn,” Manthyr told him. “Not your fault, either. Chain a man where he can’t move and leave him there long enough, and it’s going to happen.”

  “True enough, Sir Gwylym,” Captain Maikel Krugair’s voice came out of the dark. “And just think how much fun these bastards are going to have washing down all this shit-if you’ll pardon the expression, Sir-once we’re out of here.”

  The man who’d captained HMS Avalanche sounded positively cheerful at the thought, and Manthyr heard other laughter from men he couldn’t see.

  “There is that bit in the Writ about reaping what you sow, Cap’n,” someone else observed. “An’ shit fer shitheads is about right, t’ my way of thinking.”

  There was more laughter, and then the first batten was thrown aside and bright morning sunlight streamed down into the cavernous, stinking hold.

  “Hold your noise, you fucking scum!” someone shouted. “Keep shut, if you know what’s good for you!”

  “Why?” a Charisian voice shot back derisively. “What’re you going to do? Tell the Grand Inquisitor on us?!”

  Laughter hooted in the stinking hold, and Manthyr’s heart swelled with weeping pride in his men.

  “Think it’s funny, do you?” the voice which had shouted snarled. “We’ll see how you like it in a month or so!”

  Manthyr looked around him, squinting his eyes against the light as more battens were heaved aside. Naiklos Vahlain lay beside him, blinking groggily. Manthyr didn’t like the valet’s sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. Vahlain was ten years older than he was, and he’d started without the inherent toughness a life at sea had given Manthyr. No man in the world could have more courage and spirit, but Vahlain’s body was beginning to fail him.

  Beyond Vahlain, as the light explored their fetid prison, he saw other scarecrows, many of them lying in pools of their own filth. Dysentery was stalking among them, taking its own toll, and his heart was grimly certain that at least some of those still lying motionless would never move again.

  When he thought about it, it was almost a miracle so many of them were still alive. The six five-days since they’d left Gorath had been the most brutal and crushing of Manthyr’s life, and that was saying something for a Charisian seaman. But, then, whatever men might say, the sea was never truly cruel. She simply didn’t care. It took men to practice cruelty. Men who deliberately and knowingly gave themselves to cruelty’s service, and it didn’t matter whether they claimed to do it in the name of God or the name of Shan-wei herself. What mattered was the sickness and the hunger and the perversion eating away whatever it was inside them that might once have made them truly human.

  Things had gotten a little better after Twyngyth. Manthyr didn’t really know why, although he’d come to the conclusion they probably owed at least some of it to Father Myrtan. The fair-haired young upper-priest seemed no less fervent in his faith than Vyktyr Tahrlsahn, and Manthyr doubted Father Myrtan would hesitate to put any heretic to the Question or to the Punishment. The difference between him and Tahrlsahn was that Tahrlsahn would enjoy it; Father Myrtan would simply do it because that was what his beliefs required of him. Manthyr couldn’t decide which of those was actually worse, when he came down to it, but at least Father Myrtan didn’t delight in the sort of small souled brutality which had killed almost a dozen of Manthyr’s men in the first five-day and a half of this nightmare journey.

  Oh, stop trying to analyze things, Gwylym, he told himself. You know perfectly well what it really was. Even that asshole Tahrlsahn finally realized none of you were going to live the rest of the way to Zion if he kept it up. Pity he figured it out. It would’ve been so fitting for him to have to face Clyntahn and explain how he’d come to use up all of the Grand Asshole’s “heretics” before he got home with them! Hell, he’d probably have gotten to take our place!

  He let himself dwell for a moment or two on the delightful image of Tahrlsahn facing his own Inquisition, then brushed it aside. Whether Tahrlsahn faced justice in this life or the next really didn’t matter. Face it he would, one way or the other, and for now, duty called, and duty-and fidelity-to his men were really all he had left.

  “Wakey, wakey, Naiklos!” he called as cheerily as he could, shaking the valet gently. “They say our cruise is over. Back on the road again, I suppose.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Vahlain shook himself, struggling gamely up into a sitting position and fastidiously straightening the remaining rags of his clothing. “I’ll see to making reservations at a decent hotel, Sir.”

  “You do that,” Manthyr said affectionately, resting one hand on the older man’s slight shoulder. “Nothing but the best, mind you! Clean linen and warming pans for me and Master Svairsmahn. And be sure you pick the wine; can’t trust my judgment about that, you know.”

  “Of course, Sir.” Vahlain managed a death’s-head smile, and Manthyr squeezed his shoulder before he turned back to Svairsmahn.

  The midshipman smiled, too, but it looked even more ghastly on him. Vahlain was over sixty; Lainsair Svairsmahn was not yet thirteen, and thirteen-year-old boys-even thirteen-year-old boys who were king’s officers-weren’t supposed to be one-legged, hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed, half-starved, wracked by fever and nausea, and filled with the knowledge of what awaited all of them.

  Three Temple Guardsmen clattered down the steep ladder from the upper deck. Manthyr was pretty sure they’d been chosen for their duty as punishment for some lapse in duty, and he heard them gagging on the stench despite the bandannas tied across their noses and mouths. Three days locked in the hold of an undersized coasting brig tended to produce quite an aroma, he thought grimly.

  “On your feet!” one of them snarled. “You, there!” He kicked one of the seamen lying closest to the hatch. “You first!”

  He tossed the seaman a key, then stood back, tapping the two-foot truncheon in his right hand against the side of his boot while the Charisian fumbled with the padlock. He managed to get it open, and iron grated and rattled as the chain which had been run through ringbolts on the deck and then through the irons on every man’s ankles was released. He pushed himself clumsily to his still-chained
feet and staggered towards the ladder.

  “Get a move on, whoreson!” the Guardsman sneered, prodding him viciously with the truncheon. “Can’t be late for your date in Zion!”

  The Charisian almost fell, but he caught himself on the ladder with his manacled hands and climbed slowly and painfully up it while the cursing Guardsmen kicked and cuffed and beat his fellows to their feet. They made no distinction between officer, noncom, and enlisted, and neither did the Charisians, anymore. Those distinctions had been erased in the face of their common privation, and all that remained were Charisians, doing whatever they could to help their companions survive another day.

  Which is stupid of us, Manthyr thought as he forced himself to his feet and then bent to half assist and half lift young Svairsmahn. All we’re doing is prolonging our own punishment until we get to Zion. If we had any sense, we’d figure out how to hang ourselves tonight.

  That dark thought had come to him with increasing frequency, and he braced himself against its seduction while he slipped his arm around Svairsmahn’s shoulders and helped him towards the ladder. However tempting it might be, it wasn’t for him-not while a single one of his men lived. There might not be one damned thing he could do for any of them, but one thing he couldn’t do was to abandon them. And they, the miserable, starving, sick, gutsy bastards that they were, would never give the Inquisition the satisfaction of giving up.

  AUGUST, YEAR OF GOD 895

  Royal Palace, City of Talkyra, Kingdom of Delferahk

  “I could wish they’d just go ahead and get all of this settled,” King Zhames II grumbled across the dinner table.

  The king’s kingdom, despite its respectable size, was not one of the great realms of Safehold. In fact, it was on the penurious side, which was one reason his own father had arranged his marriage to one of Hektor of Corisande’s cousins. King Styvyn had had hopes that the relatively wealthy island princedom would see its way to making investments in his longed-for project to turn the port city of Ferayd into the kernel for a Delferahkan merchant marine which, in alliance with that of Corisande, might actually have been capable of challenging Charis’ maritime dominance. Alas, it had never been any more than a hope-a dream, really-although Prince Fronz and, later, Hektor had been relatively generous in loans over the years. Not that Zhames had entertained any illusions that it had been out of the goodness of Hektor’s heart, whatever might have motivated his father. Hektor of Corisande had always invested his marks wisely, and it had been Zhames Olyvyr Rayno’s distant kinship to an up-and-coming bishop of the Order of Schueler which had been the true reason for Hektor’s generosity.

  Not that Wyllym Rayno had ever done a damned thing for Delferahk, Zhames reflected grumpily. He’d been willing enough to use Zhames as a go-between to Hektor once or twice, and he’d helped arrange the remittance of the interest on a couple of the king’s more pressing loans from the Temple, but that was about it. And now there was this mess.

  “Sooner or later it will all blow over, I’m sure, dear,” Queen Consort Hailyn said serenely from her own side of the table. The two of them dined alone together more often than not, less for any deep romantic reasons than because state dinners were expensive. At the moment, their three grown sons were elsewhere, no doubt entertaining themselves in some fashion of which a dutiful mother would not have approved. The queen consort had grown increasingly accustomed to that over the years. In fact, she’d grown accustomed to a great many things and taken most of them placidly in stride.

  “Ha!” Zhames shook his head. Then, for added emphasis, he shook his finger across the table, as well. “Ha! You mark my words, Hailyn, this is going to get still worse before it gets better! And we’re already stuck in the middle of it, no thanks to dear, distant Cousin Wyllym!”

  “Hush.”

  Few things could disturb Queen Hailyn’s even-tempered world, but her husband’s occasional criticisms of Mother Church-and especially of the Inquisition-were among them. She looked around the dining room, then relaxed as she realized there’d been no servants to hear the injudicious remark.

  “Saying things like that isn’t going to help, dear,” she said much more severely than she normally spoke to her royal spouse. “And I really wish you’d be a little more sparing with them. Especially”-she looked straight across the table-“these days.”

  Zhames grimaced, but he didn’t protest, which was itself a sign of the times. Despite the distant nature of his relationship to the Archbishop of Chiang-wu, he’d never cherished many illusions about the inner workings of the vicarate. There’d been times when he’d been hard put to visualize exactly how those workings could serve the interests of God, but he’d been wise enough to keep his nose out of matters that were none of his affair.

  Until, of course, his wife’s cousin dumped his two surviving children into Zhames’ lap and simultaneously dumped the king into the Temple’s business right up to his royal neck.

  It had seemed like a situation with no downside when Hektor first requested asylum for his daughter and younger son. The request had come with promises of a very attractive subsidy in return for the king’s hospitality. And given the fact that Hektor had become the Temple’s anointed paladin in its struggle against the Charisian heretics, it had offered Zhames an opportunity to cement his relations with that dratted distant kinsman of his, as well. It wasn’t likely to make his relationship with Charis any worse, either, given that business in Ferayd. And in a worst-case situation (from Hektor’s perspective, that was) it would give Zhames physical control of the rightful ruler of Corisande. Best of all, he’d had absolutely no responsibility for getting the royal refugees to Talkyra; all he’d had to do was offer them reasonable quarters (or as close to it as the old-fashioned fortress of his “palace” permitted) if they succeeded in getting there.

  Then Hektor managed to lose his war against Charis. And to get himself assassinated.

  Suddenly Zhames found himself in the middle of what looked like turning into a nasty situation. On the one hand, he was forced to recognize-or at least deal with-Prince Daivyn’s Regency Council in Corisande despite the fact that it had signed a peace treaty with Cayleb and Sharleyan of Charis and sworn to abide by its terms. Vicar Zahmsyn, speaking as Chancellor Trynair, had made Mother Church’s position on the legitimacy of that council abundantly clear, but at least he’d recognized certain pragmatic constraints on Zhames’ position and stopped short of threatening the king for his “dealings” with the proscribed council. On the other hand, Vicar Zhaspahr, speaking as Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn, had made it equally abundantly clear Zhames dared not give any formal recognition to the Regency Council, which forced him to squirm through all sorts of convoluted hoops just figuring out how to phrase his correspondence with it. Yet, simultaneously, both Vicar Zahmsyn and Vicar Zhaspahr had informed him, speaking as Knights of the Temple Lands, that they very much desired for him to retain physical custody of young Daivyn for the foreseeable future.

  Zhames often found himself wondering exactly why that was. Surely the boy would be safer in the Temple’s direct custody in Zion, where no Charisian assassin could get at him! And if the Temple intended someday to restore him to his father’s throne, then wouldn’t it have made more sense to see to it that he was trained up from childhood in a spirit of proper respect for (and obedience to) Mother Church in Mother Church’s own imperial city?

  The contemplation of those questions had led him to certain unhappy conclusions. Indeed, to conclusions unhappy enough that he hadn’t shared them even with his wife.

  “I’m just saying,” he said now, “that we’re in a sticky situation and this squabbling and bloodshed isn’t going to make it any better. Langhorne only knows how the Charisians are going to react when those prisoners Rahnyld captured get to Zion, but it’s not going to be pretty. We’ve had our own demonstration of that, haven’t we?”

  His wife frowned the way she always did whenever someone alluded to the “Ferayd Massacre.” She’d never been happy abou
t the part Delferahkan troops had played in the original incident, and despite what she’d said a moment ago, she’d had some tart words of her own for the Inquisition following the murders. The Empire of Charis’ reprisal against the city hadn’t made her one bit happier, although she recognized that the Charisians had actually been rather restrained in their response, however it had been reported by the Inquisition.

  “We’re lucky they’ve been too busy elsewhere to go on raiding our coasts,” Zhames continued, “but that can always change, especially now that they’ve settled things with Tarot. Everything they had committed to blockading Gorjah is available for other enterprises now, you know. And leaving that completely aside, the more settled things get in Corisande, the more… awkward they’re likely to get for us here in Talkyra.”

  It was the closest he’d yet come to broaching his suspicions about who’d really murdered Prince Hektor and his older son. From the flicker in Hailyn’s eyes she might have been entertaining a few of those same suspicions herself.

  “This ‘Regency Council’ of young Daivyn’s is starting to sound far too conciliatory where Charis is concerned for my peace of mind,” he continued, deliberately steering the conversation to one side. “I’m not sure how much longer Vicar Zahmsyn’s going to go on allowing me to correspond with them, and what do we do about Daivyn then?” He shook his head. “The most likely outcome I can see is for the Temple to take him into its direct custody.”

  Hailyn’s eyes widened and one hand rose to the base of her throat.

  “Whatever else Daivyn and Irys may be, they’re my cousins,” she said, “and prince or not, Daivyn’s only a little boy, Zhames! He only turns eleven next five-day, and Irys isn’t even nineteen yet! They need family, especially after all they’ve already been through!”

  “I know,” Zhames said more gently, “and I’m fond of them myself. But if the vicarate”-he saw her grimace slightly, proof both of them knew he was actually speaking about the Group of Four-“decide we’ve gotten too cozy with the Regency Council, and if they decide the Regency Council’s gotten too cozy with Charis, that’s exactly what they’re likely to do. And in the meantime, they’re more or less ordering me to go on corresponding with the Regency Council! And they’re insisting on receiving true copies of every document from the Regency Council to me or to Coris. So if anyone in Manchyr commits anything… indiscreet to writing, that’s likely to come home to roost here in Talkyra, as well!”