A Mighty Fortress (21 page)

The Copper Kettle’s bath house was plainly furnished, but well built and fully equipped. Coris spent the better part of an hour immersed up to the neck, eyes half- closed in drowsy content as steaming water soaked the ache out of his muscles. He’d endured more time on horseback—or in one of the bouncing, jouncing stagecoaches that bounded between posting houses on the more heavily traveled stretches—over the past few months than in his entire previous existence, and he felt every weary mile of it deep in his bones. To be fair, the high roads here in Howard were far better designed, built,
and
maintained than their ostensible counterparts in Corisande had ever been. Broad, stone- paved, with well- designed drainage and solid bridges, they’d made it possible for him to maintain an average of just over a hundred miles a day. He could never have done that on Corisandian roads, and to be honest, he wished he hadn’t had to do it on Howard’s roads, either. The fact that it was
possible
didn’t make it anything remotely like
pleasant,
and the earl’s lifetime preference for sea travel had been amply reconfirmed over the month since his departure from Talkyra.

Of course, that had been the
easy
part of his projected journey, he reminded himself glumly as he hoisted himself out of the water at last and reached for the towel which had been warming in front of the huge tiled stove that heated the bath house. The Gulf of Dohlar in October was about as miserable a stretch of seawater as anyone could ever hope to find. And while Coris had formed a high initial impression of Captain Yuthain’s competence,
Ice Lizard
was a galley, not a galleon. She was shallow draft, low- slung, and sleek . . . and it was obvious to the earl’s experienced eye that she was going to be Shanwei’s own bitch in a seaway.

Assuming they survived the passage of the Gulf (which seemed at least an even bet, if Captain Yuthain proved as skilled as Coris thought he was), there was the delightful prospect of another thirteen hundred miles of overland travel—this time through the belly- deep snows of November—just to reach the southern shores of Lake Pei. And then there was the even more delightful prospect of the four- hundred- mile trip
across
the lake. Which would undoubtedly be frozen over by the time he got there, which—in turn—meant he would have to make the entire trip—oh, joy!— by iceboat.

That
experience, he had no doubt, would make
Ice Lizard
look
exactly
like the fine cruiseship Yuthain had assured him she wasn’t.

It’s a good thing you’re not fifty yet, Phylyp,
he told himself glumly as he finished toweling off and reached for the linen drawers Seablanket had thoughtfully placed to warm in front of the stove.
You’ll probably survive. It’s a good thing you made sure your will was in order ahead of time, but you’ll
probably
survive. Until you actually get to Zion, at least
.

And that was the crux of the matter, really, wasn’t it? What
was
going to happen once he reached Zion and the Temple? The fact that the writ summoning him had been signed by the Grand Inquisitor, as well, not just the Chancellor, hadn’t exactly put his mind at ease. Not surprisingly, he supposed, since he rather doubted it had been intended to do anything of the sort. Trynair and Clyntahn couldn’t possibly see Daivyn as anything more than a potentially useful pawn. Someday, if he could finally, somehow reach the chessboard’s final file, he might be elevated—converted into something more valuable than that. But Daivyn Daykyn was only a very
little
boy, when all was said, and Clyntahn, at least, would never forget for a moment that pawns were meant to be sacrificed.

Coris had done his best to reassure Irys, and he knew the princess far too well to serve up comforting lies in the effort. In the earl’s opinion, the girl was even smarter than her father had been, and she wasn’t afraid to use the wit God and the Archangels had given her. She had all her father’s ability to carry a grudge until it died of old age, then have it stuffed and mounted someplace where she could admire it at regular intervals, but—so far, at least—she’d usually shown a fair amount of discretion in choosing which grudges to hold. That might well change—indeed, might
already
have changed—given how her world had been shattered into topsy- turvy ruin in the last year or so, but despite her youth, she was just as capable as Coris himself when it came to reading the political wind, recognizing the storm clouds gathering about her younger brother. That was why he’d told her the absolute truth when he’d said he doubted the Group of Four had any
immediate
plans for how they might most profitably utilize Daivyn. Yet sooner or later, they
would
have plans, and that was the reason they’d decided to drag him all these thousands of miles through a mainland winter.

When the time came, they would want to be certain Phylyp Ahzgood understood his place. Recognized his true masters, with a clear vision, unblinkered by any lingering, misplaced loyalty to the House of Daykyn. They intended to underscore that to him . . . and to see him for themselves, form their own judgment of him. And if that judgment proved unfavorable, they would remove him from his position as Daivyn’s and Irys’ guardian. If he was quite unreasonably lucky, he might even survive the removal rather than be quietly and efficiently disappeared. At the moment, he’d give odds of, oh, at least one- infifty that he would.

Well, Phylyp, my boy,
he thought, slipping into an embroidered steel thistle silk shirt,
you’ll just have to see that they form a
favorable
opinion, won’t you? Shouldn’t be all
that
hard. Not for an experienced, conniving liar such as yourself. All you have to do is keep any of them from getting close enough to figure out what you
really
think. How hard can it be?

“I’ve got to be getting back to the Copper Kettle,” Rhobair Seablanket said. “He’s bound to be finished with his bath by now. He’ll want his dinner, and as soon as I get it served, he’ll wonder why I’m not in the bath house myself.” He grimaced. “For that matter,
I’ll
wonder why I’m not neck- deep!”

“I understand,” the man on the other side of the rickety desk in the small dockside ware house office replied.

The office wasn’t exceptionally clean, nor was it particularly warm, and its tiny window was so thoroughly covered with grime no one could possibly have seen through it. All of which only served to make it even better suited to their purposes.

“I understand,” the other man repeated, “and so far, at least, I think my superiors are going to be satisfied. At any rate, I don’t think anyone’s going to want to give you any... more proactive instructions.”

“I hope not,” Seablanket said with obvious feeling. The other man arched an eyebrow, and the valet snorted. “This man is no fool, Father. I’m confident of everything I’ve reported so far, and I think your ‘superiors’’ original estimate of his character probably wasn’t far wrong. But I’d
really
rather not be asked to do anything that might make him start wondering about me. If he ever realizes I’m reporting everything he does to someone else, he’s likely to do something drastic about it. Please don’t forget he was Hektor’s spymaster. You know—the one all of Hektor’s
assassins
reported to?” Seablanket grimaced. “Corisandian intelligence was never too shy about dropping suitably weighted bodies into handy lakes or bays—or swamps, for that matter—and the two of us are about to sail across the Gulf of Dohlar in winter. I’d sort of like to arrive on the other side.”

“Do you think it’s really likely he’d react that way?” The other man actually seemed a bit amused, Seablanket noted sourly.

“I don’t know, and if it’s just the same to you, Father, I’d rather not find out. It’s always possible he’d exercise a little restraint if he figured out who planted me on him the last time he was in Yu- Shai, but he might not, too. For that matter, he might not
care
who it was.”

“Well, we can’t have that!” The other man stood, straightening his purple, flame- badged cassock, and raised his right hand to sign Langhorne’s Scepter in blessing. “My prayers will go with you, my son,” he said solemnly.

“Oh,
thank
you, Father.”

It was, perhaps, a sign of just how preoccupied Seablanket truly was with the more immediate threat of the Earl of Coris’ possible reactions that he allowed his own irritation to color his tone. Or it might simply have been how long he’d known the other man. Perhaps he realized it wasn’t actually quite as risky as someone else might have thought.

After all, even one of the Grand Inquisitor’s personal troubleshooters could have a sense of humor, when all was said.

Imperial Palace,

City of Cherayth,

Kingdom of Chisholm,

and

HMS
Dawn Wind
, 54,

Dolphin Reach

What do you think about Merlin’s and Owl’s latest reports on Corisande, Maikel?” Sharleyan asked.

She and Cayleb sat in Prince Tymahn’s Suite, the rooms just down the hall from their own suite which had been converted into a combined library and office. It lacked the remodeled, heated floors of their bedroom, but a brand-new cast- iron stove from the Howsmyn Ironworks had been installed, and the coal fire in its iron belly gave off a welcome warmth.

“You’ve both seen the same imagery I have from Merlin’s SNARCs,” Maikel Staynair pointed out over the plug in her right ear. His voice sounded remarkably clear for someone better than four thousand miles, as the wyvern flew, from Cherayth. “What do you think?”

“No you don’t,” Cayleb shot back with a grin. “We asked
you
first!”

“Harumpf!” Staynair cleared his throat severely, and Sharleyan grinned at her husband. Their contact lenses brought them the archbishop’s image as he sat in his shipboard cabin, looking out over a sunset sea, with Ahrdyn draped across his lap. His own lenses showed him her grin, as well, and he made a face at her. But then he shrugged, and his tone was more serious as he continued.

“As far as the Church goes, I think we’ve been
extremely
blessed with Gairlyng and—especially—men like Father Tymahn,” he said very soberly. “We’re not going to find any Charisian ‘patriots’ in Corisande, even among the clergy, anytime soon, but the reform element in the Corisandian hierarchy’s proved rather stronger than I’d dared hope before the invasion. And the really good news, in many ways, is how many of those Reformists are native- born Corisandians, like Father Tymahn. That puts a Corisandian face on voices of reason, and that’s going to be incredibly valuable down the road.