by David Weber
The 3rd Mounted would be on its way to reinforce Green Valley within the five-day, as soon as its horses had regained their land legs after the voyage from Raven’s Land. Symkyn, with the 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st and 2nd Mounted, would be dispatched to reinforce Eastshare just as rapidly, but the 4th Infantry Brigade would be headed somewhere else entirely.
His eyes moved down the East Haven coast and through the Tarot Channel to where another Siddarmarkian flag stood out of the map’s surface at a small dot labeled “Thesmar,” and he smiled.
* * *
“A moment, please, Merlin.”
Merlin turned to look down as Aivah Pahrsahn laid a hand on his elbow. The meeting had finally broken up, although Cayleb and Stohnar were still discussing something with Maidyn, and he cocked an eyebrow.
“And how may I serve you, My Lady?”
She shook her head at his gently teasing tone. It was something of a joke between them, although he doubted she’d recognized the sincerity with which he used it.
Unlike any of the Siddarmarkians in this room, he knew she’d been more than entitled to that form of address by birth. Or would have been, if her father had ever acknowledged his daughter. Nor did any of those Siddarmarkians realize she’d been reared as the adopted daughter of one of the Church of God Awaiting’s powerful dynasties even without that acknowledgment. They had no idea of the personal sacrifices she’d made, the world of privilege upon which she’d turned her back in the name of a greater responsibility and her own fierce beliefs.
“I’ve been reading the most recent reports from some of your agents in the Temple Lands,” she said. “I know you and His Majesty see copies of most of them, and there’s a point in one of the most recent which probably needs … clearing up.”
“Ah?”
He raised an eyebrow, and she grimaced. It was a very graceful grimace, no doubt the well-trained product of her avocation, and very attractive it looked on her beautiful face. At the same time, he suspected there might be a trace of … embarrassment, perhaps, behind it.
“Yes, well, it’s the one from Seijin Zhozuah.”
“Oh. That report,” he murmured.
Zhozuah Murphai was another Ahbraim Zhevons, although Merlin had physically impersonated the fair-haired, gray-eyed Murphai only a time or two. That was because “Seijin Zhozuah” was officially stationed in Zion. Despite how cautious Merlin and Nahrmahn remained about utilizing SNARCs in the vicinity of the Temple itself, much of the city could be safely covered by the remotes, and Murphai picked up quite a lot of information simply by listening to conversations outside the danger zone. Including.…
“I assume you’re referring to those rumors he’s reported?” he continued after a moment.
“Yes,” she acknowledged.
“And would it happen that you’re bringing this up because there’s a kernel of truth behind those rumors?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “In fact, there’s quite a substantial kernel of truth behind them.”
“I see.” He regarded her for a few more heartbeats, his head cocked. “How many?” he asked.
“Nine,” she said, and shrugged. “It was almost ten, but Vicar Nicodaim changed his plans at the last moment.”
“Nine,” he repeated carefully, and felt both eyebrows rise when she nodded. That was more than he’d estimated. Clyntahn and Rayno must be doing a better job of suppressing the news than he’d expected.
“May one inquire as to exactly how you’ve managed that?” he asked politely. “I assume it was you, since no one else with the reach and … audacity to assassinate members of the Council of Vicars comes readily to mind.”
“Yes, it was me. Or my people, at any rate.”
“And the reason you’ve never mentioned this little endeavor would be—?”
“Because I wasn’t certain how some of our allies would feel about murdering vicars, no matter what sort of diseased excrescences on the human race the vicars in question might be,” she said flatly.
“You mean—?”
He waved his hand, unobtrusively indicating the other men in the conference chamber, and she shook her head.
“Some of them might have a few qualms about it, but most of them?” She snorted. “They know who the enemy is, Merlin. I’m not worried about anyone in this room shedding any tears of remorse over a few discreet assassinations in Zion. But the only way to keep a secret really secret is to not tell anyone else about it, and this is one ‘endeavor’ I don’t want leaking prematurely. So far, the only one who’s officially killed any members of the vicarate is Zhaspahr Clyntahn, and he justified it by trumping up that travesty of an investigation and waving around a handful of tortured confessions.”
Her lovely face turned grim for a moment, hard as Glacierheart granite.
“As soon as word gets out that someone’s assassinating vicars, Clyntahn and Rayno will use it to whip up outrage among the Temple Loyalists. They might even be able to convince some Reformists that actually killing men consecrated to the orange is going a step too far, so as long as he’s willing to suppress the news rather than admit the vicarate’s vulnerability, I’m perfectly prepared to go along from our side, as well. And even leaving that aside, there are operational considerations. My people in Zion are living on a knife’s edge, Merlin. I’m the only one who knows how to contact them, and I do that as infrequently as possible. I intend to keep it that way, and if more people learned they exist, I’m afraid there’d be pressure to use them for more general spying or ‘micromanage’”—she smiled briefly as she used the word Merlin and Cayleb had introduced into the Allies’ lexicon—“their targeting. I’m not saying the pressure would be irrational, given the situation, but it would place them at far greater risk. Every time I send them a message, I put them in danger, and trying to coordinate or control their operations from here would require me to do that far more often.” She regarded him levelly. “I’m not prepared to do that. I won’t do that.”
“I see.”
Merlin considered what she’d said … and what she hadn’t. He didn’t doubt she contacted them as infrequently as she could, especially since he still hadn’t caught her at it, even with the benefit of his SNARCs. But clearly there was at least some communications flow in the opposite direction, given her ability to keep track of “her people’s” accomplishments, and he found himself wondering how that flow was managed. He started to ask, but didn’t.
“May I ask if you have a specific targeting criterion, other than the ability to get to them?” he asked instead.
“The priority list was drawn up based on some of that information Adorai delivered to Archbishop Maikel and on some more … personal considerations of my own. But each operation has to be carefully evaluated and planned, and access is a critical part of that planning. That and escape routes afterward.” Her voice dropped and she looked away. “We’ve lost some people since they began active operations, anyway, but none of them have been taken alive.”
Merlin’s face tightened, remembering a locket Ahnzhelyk Phonda had worn around her neck, even in her own bed, and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Why, Aivah?” he asked quietly.
“Because someone has to,” she said flatly. “The vermin on that list represent everything that’s wrong with the Church—every perversion, every degradation, every self-serving debasement. They use the power of the Church, the mantle of God Himself, to steal and corrupt and victimize, and Clyntahn and Rayno use what they know about them to buy their acquiescence in murder and atrocities.” Her dark eyes were cold, bottomless—the eyes of a slash lizard or a kraken. “My people don’t have the power of the Temple Guard or the reach of the Inquisition. They can’t move openly, just as no one dares to openly criticize Clyntahn’s butchery, but every one of his creatures we kill weakens his and Rayno’s grip on the rest of the vicarate, be it ever so slightly. Who knows? The Archangels promise us miracles; maybe even some of the pigs swilling at Clyntahn’s trough will mend their ways
if we kill enough of the others. And if they don’t?”
She looked up at him, and her smile was even colder than her eyes.
“If they don’t, at least the world will be a little better place—and Hell will have a few new tenants. That has to count for something, Merlin.”
.II.
Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis, Empire of Charis
“You’re late.” Baron Ironhill skewered Ehdwyrd Howsmyn with a stern eye as the ironmaster entered the airy council chamber. The warm breeze sweeping through the open windows plucked playfully at the edges of sheets of paper, and the Empire of Charis’ treasurer shook a finger. “This sort of persistent tardiness will not be tolerated, Master Howsmyn!”
Howsmyn made a rude gesture with his right hand and sauntered—positively sauntered—to his own chair.
“I’m devastated by your displeasure, My Lord,” he told his old friend, and Ironhill chuckled. He’d been doing more of that in the last few five-days.
“I’m sure you are. Nonetheless, you are”—the baron pulled out his watch and examined it—“no less than six minutes late! I trust there’s an explanation?”
“I stopped by The Broken Pot,” Howsmyn replied serenely. “I’ve got a hangover, too, so if you could moderate your volume, I’d appreciate it deeply.”
Ironhill shook his head and restored his watch to his pocket, then glanced around the table at the other two men present.
“Don’t look at me,” Sir Domynyk Staynair told him. “If I had my druthers, I’d be in The Broken Pot right now, too!” The high admiral, who looked more like his brother every day as his hair grew progressively more silver, shifted the wooden peg which had replaced his lower right leg on its footstool. “Nothing I like better than endless shoreside meetings!”
“You’re a sad, sad influence, Admiral Rock Point,” Trahvys Ohlsyn observed. Ohlsyn—the Earl of Pine Hollow and the Empire’s first councilor—was Nahrmahn Baytz’ cousin, although he was as wiry as Nahrmahn had been plump, and his brain was very nearly as sharp. He was also—like Howsmyn and Rock Point but not Ironhill—a member in good standing of the inner circle. “And I never suspected you Old Charisians were such hedonists.”
“We’re not,” Ironhill growled. “Some of us are sots, though.”
“Really?” Pine Hollow cocked his head in a gesture which reminded all of them of his cousin. “Odd that I’d never noticed. However, now that we have all of that out of our systems, what say we do a little work for a change?”
The others chuckled, although there was more than a trace of sourness in the amusement, given the schedules the four of them maintained.
“Ahlvyno,” the first councilor went on, “since everything we’re going to be talking about has to do with money, one way or the other, why don’t you take the chair?”
“Fair enough.” Ironhill nodded to the earl and then leaned back in his well-cushioned armchair, regarding Howsmyn rather more seriously. “I know Domynyk’s scheduled for more meetings down at the dockyard this afternoon, Ehdwyrd. And I understand”—his smile turned suddenly cold and satisfied—“that you and Earl Nearoak have an appointment to discuss the terms for winding up Stywyrt Showail’s liquidation. I’m looking forward to the Treasury’s share of that, and not just because I can always use the marks. Since we all have so much on our plates, though, I thought we’d start with the two of you; Trahvys and I can discuss the business that doesn’t involve you after you’ve left.”
“Sounds good to me,” Howsmyn agreed. “I stopped by King’s Harbor on my way down from Delthak to get the latest update from Ahlfryd and Captain Rahzwail, but first, I brought this.”
He placed a heavy, varnished box on the table before him and opened it.
“Ah.” Rock Point’s eyes lit, and Howsmyn smiled at him.
“No, you don’t get this one,” he told his friend. “This one is the third one ever made. It’s intended for the Emperor and it’ll be leaving for Siddar City with the next packet boat. The first ever made—and the second one just like it—will go along to keep it company, but not to His Majesty.”
“Seijin Merlin?” Ironhill’s eyes were bright and interested as Howsmyn lifted the pistol from its velvet-lined nest.
“It seems appropriate, since the original was his,” Howsmyn pointed out, and the baron nodded.
“Of course, we’ve made some improvements. Master Mahldyn and I have three new patents just on the pistol. That doesn’t begin to count the ones on the cartridges, the bullet-making equipment, or the new rifles. He’s going to be a wealthy man before this is all over.”
“And deservedly so,” Pine Hollow murmured.
“Absolutely,” Howsmyn agreed with total sincerity. He’d steered Taigys Mahldyn subtly, but all the major features of the new weapon—and its ammunition—had been devised by the head of the Delthak Works pistol shop, and the final result was even better than he’d hoped.
The new revolver had a solid frame with a swing out cylinder, rather than the removable cylinder of Merlin’s original cap-and-ball design. It was beautifully made, with polished checkered grips of dark, satiny Safeholdian teak inlaid with golden medallions bearing the arms of the House of Ahrmahk.
“This is the extractor rod,” Howsmyn said as he swung the cylinder wide and touched the rod protruding from its front. When the cylinder was locked in place, the rod fitted into a protective shroud under the weapon’s six-inch barrel. “When you press it like this”—he demonstrated—“it moves through the center of the cylinder and this star-shaped extractor catches under the cartridges’ rims and clears all six empty chambers in a single stroke.”
He laid the pistol aside and reached into his briefcase for a pair of bright, hollow brass cylinders. The shorter was a bit over an inch long while the longer measured almost exactly two inches, but both seemed to be the same diameter, and he stood them on end beside each other.
“These are handmade, and you don’t want to know how long it would take to produce worthwhile amounts of ammunition that way. Fortunately, we won’t have to, and these work fine for testing purposes and to provide the seijin enough rounds to play with. They’re both forty-five caliber, and this”—he picked up the shorter of the two—“pushes a three-hundred-fifty-grain bullet out of a six-inch barrel at approximately one thousand feet per second. That’s actually about fifty feet per second faster than the standard infantry Mahndrayn, the Mark IIa, and only about thirty feet per second lower than the Mark IIb, the sniper version. As nearly as we can calculate it, this round’s initial muzzle energy is virtually identical with the Mark IIa’s, though, because of the rifle’s heavier bullet.”
Ironhill’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and Howsmyn smiled. Then he picked up the second, longer cartridge.
“This is the round for what we’re calling the Model 96 Mahndrayn from its year of introduction. That’s the official name; most of us at Delthak just call it the M96 for short. The extra case length is necessary because the powder charge is better than twice as heavy as the revolver’s. It’s a smaller diameter than the fifty caliber round of the existing rifles, but it fires a longer bullet that’s actually thirty percent heavier. Well, it’s lighter than the sniper rifle’s, actually, but we’re using the same round and rifling in all the versions of the Model 96, and using the same caliber in the revolvers and the new rifles will simplify case production. For that matter, it’ll give us some advantages in bullet production, despite the differences between the bullets’ weights and ballistic profiles.
“We’re going to have to set up two separate ammunition production lines when we convert the existing Mark II rifles, because it turns out the new round’s properties are incompatible with the older weapons. In fact, they’re different enough that the M96 needs a completely different—and deeper—pattern of rifling. We’ve also decided against providing the conversions with magazines. Taigys came up with a design for them—he calls it a ‘trapdoor’ design, because it uses a hinged block that swi
ngs up—that still constitutes a huge improvement and shortens the conversion process to less than a quarter of the time to build them from scratch. Settling for a single-shot will make them tactically inferior to the M96, but it would take three times as long to convert them to magazines. And while I know this may upset Domynyk, what I’m thinking is that as we convert the existing Mahndrayns, we withdraw them for service with the Marines, where pitched combat is less likely, and supply the new M96s to the Army. If we get production up to the levels I’m anticipating, we should be in a position to retire them entirely within a year or two. In fact, we might be able to pass them directly to Siddarmark rather than to the Marines as soon as they’re converted.”
“I’m always happy to hear about ways to not spend money, so your conversion idea sounds great to me,” Ironhill said. “By the same token, though, if we pass the conversions to Siddarmark, will you be able to produce enough ammunition to supply the Republic as well as our own troops?” He shook his head. “And while I understand there are huge tactical advantages in the new weapons, won’t adopting these metallic cartridges of yours mean we can’t use paper cartridges anymore … or captured Temple gunpowder?”
