A Mighty Fortress (82 page)

He broke off with a quick little headshake, and Thirsk’s smile broadened. “Trust me, Ahbail, I know
exactly
what it is. And I appreciate your . . . loyally supportive attitude, shall we say?” His eyes glinted wickedly as Bahrdailahn raised one hand in the gesture of a fencer acknowledging a touch. “I think it’s fairly evident no one could be moving the shipyards along any faster than we are, though,” the earl continued, his smile fading into a more sober expression, “and Duke Thorast and his friends are just going to have to put up with my little training missions, I’m afraid.”

Bahrdailahn looked very much as if he would have liked to argue about that last statement. Although his older brother was a mere baron, Bahrdailahn was a distant cousin of Duke Windborne’s, and he’d absorbed the realities of the deadly infighting between the Kingdom of Dohlar’s great nobles with his mother’s milk. He was well aware that the Duke of Thorast and his allies, however deeply they might protest their loyalty in public, never missed an opportunity to slide another dagger into Thirsk’s back. At the moment, they were concentrating on the “disgraceful slothfulness” with which the fleet was being built, on the one hand, and on the earl’s “ill- considered and manifestly dangerous” training exercises, on the other. Both of which (whether or not the earl chose to admit it worried him) obviously had a little something to do with this morning’s meeting.

“Go on, now.” Thirsk made shooing motions with one hand. Bahrdailahn gave him a quick smile, nodded, and disappeared, and Thirsk gathered up the report he’d been reading and jogged the pages neatly together. He put them into a folder, slid the folder into his desk drawer, and climbed out of his chair to walk across to the cabin’s great stern windows.

He folded his hands behind him, gazing out through the salt- mottled glass at Gorath Bay. It was cold, with a brisk wind raising a wicked chop, and he hoped Bishop Staiphan Maik and Admiral Pawal Hahlynd hadn’t gotten themselves too badly soaked during the long row out to
Chihiro
. Whether they’d managed to stay dry or not, they were undoubtedly going to be thoroughly chilled, and he looked over his shoulder as Paiair Sahbrahan, his valet, quietly entered the cabin.

Sahbrahan was a smallish man, even shorter than Thirsk, with quick, deft hands, who was extraordinarily efficient, and not at all shy about bullying his admiral into remembering to do little things like eat or sleep. He was also an excellent cook, who could probably have earned a lucrative living as a chef, if he’d chosen to, and Thirsk had total confidence in his ability to manage the earl’s wine cellar and spirits.

Despite that, the valet had never been popular with the other members of Thirsk’s staff, domestic or naval. They appreciated his good qualities, but they were also only too well—one might say
painfully
well—aware of his vanity and secondhand arrogance. Sahbrahan was far more concerned with the deference due to someone of Thirsk’s birth and rank than the earl himself had ever been. He’d been known to drive the staffs of inns and hotels to the edge of sanity with demands for fresh linens, clean towels, hot water
now,
and no excuses, if you please! He was completely capable of doing the same thing aboard ship, and he had a well- earned reputation for browbeating the valets and stewards of mere ships’ captains mercilessly. None of which even considered his legendary rows with the cooks and pursers of various flagships over the years.

Thirsk was as well aware of his valet’s foibles as anyone, and Sahbrahan knew better than to try anything of the sort in the earl’s presence. At the same time, Thirsk was also aware of how difficult it would have been to find an equally capable replacement. Besides, Sahbrahan had been with him for almost eight years.

Now the valet pattered quickly across the thick carpet covering the deck, set a large silver tray with two decanters of whiskey and one of brandy on a side table, and turned to face Thirsk.

“I’ve brought the Stahlmyn, the Waykhan, and the Tharistan, My Lord,” he said, indicating the decanters. “Will that be satisfactory?”

“Eminently,” Thirsk agreed. “I’ve also informed the galley that you will be requiring hot chocolate for your guests, should they so desire,” Sahbrahan continued. “And, as you instructed, luncheon will be ready to serve at fourteen o’clock, promptly.”

“Good.” Thirsk bobbed his head, then looked past the valet as Mahrtyn Vahnwyk, his personal secretary and senior clerk, entered the day cabin.

The secretary was considerably taller than Sahbrahan, despite the slight stoop of his shoulders, and he was a bit nearsighted. Nevertheless, he was one of the best secretaries Thirsk had ever been fortunate enough to possess . . . and he and Sahbrahan hated one another cordially.

Well, fair’s fair,
the earl thought dryly as he watched the two of them very carefully not glaring at one another in his presence.
I think just about
everyone
hates Paiair, really. And much as I hate to admit it, he gives them plenty of justification
.

“If you’re satisfied, My Lord, I shall withdraw and attend to the arrangements,” the valet said. Thirsk nodded in agreement, and Sahbrahan drew himself up, bowed slightly, and withdrew with stately majesty... somehow managing to completely ignore Vahnwyk’s existence in the process.

Langhorne!
Thirsk thought.
And I thought the blood between me and
Thorast
was bad!

He was still chuckling at the thought when Lieutenant Bahrdailahn knocked on his cabin door once more.

“Enter!” Thirsk said, and crossed the cabin quickly to greet his visitors. Pawal Hahlynd was about Thirsk’s age, a foot or so taller, and considerably less weatherworn- looking. Auxiliary Bishop Staiphan Maik was about midway between Thirsk and Hahlynd in height, with thick silver hair and lively brown eyes. He was a vigorous man, radiating a sense of leashed energy, although Thirsk had been told the bishop had a serious weakness for sweetbreads. According to the earl’s sources, that weakness for sweets was one reason Maik was so fanatical about exercising. Those same sources said Maik did his best to conceal that weakness, apparently in the belief that it went poorly with the Order of Schueler’s reputation for austerity and self- discipline. For himself, Thirsk found it rather reassuring, an indication that Schuelerite or not, official intendant of the fleet or not, the bishop was also a human being.

“My Lord.” The earl greeted Maik first, bending over his extended hand to lightly kiss the bishop’s ring of office. Then he straightened and held out his hand to Hahlynd, who smiled broadly as he took it. “Pawal.”

“Admiral,” Maik responded with a smile. “It’s good to see you, although I must confess that the trip across the harbor was somewhat more . . . brisk than I had allowed myself to hope it might be.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, My Lord. As you know—”

“Please, My Lord!” the bishop said, raising his left hand, index finger extended. “I’m perfectly well aware of the reasons—the official reasons—for our meeting out here.”

“My Lord?” Thirsk said a bit cautiously, and the bishop chuckled. It was not a particularly amused sound, however, and those lively brown eyes were narrow.

“I said I’m aware of the official reasons we’re meeting aboard your flagship rather than in a comfortable office somewhere ashore,” he said now. “And I’m also aware of the
unofficial
reasons. Such as the list of who else might have been attending any meeting in the aforesaid comfortable office ashore.”

“I see.” Thirsk faced the bishop, his own eyes calm, and Maik studied his expression for a long moment. Then the churchman smiled again, a bit crookedly.

“By an odd turn of chance, My Lord Admiral, I happen to agree with your strategy in this instance. I realize I shouldn’t say that. For that matter, I suppose I really shouldn’t admit I’m aware of the bad blood between you and Duke Thorast at all. Unfortunately, it serves no one’s purposes for me to do anything of the sort.”

“My Lord, I regret the . . . ‘bad blood’ you’ve mentioned,” Thirsk said levelly. “I agree that it exists, however. And I’m very much afraid things have been made still worse by the decisions I’ve been forced to make. Or, rather, by the Duke’s resistance to and resentment of those decisions.”

“The truth, Earl Thirsk,” Maik said, walking across the cabin to seat himself in one of the armchairs facing Thirsk’s desk, “is that Thorast hates you. It’s true he resents your decisions, but his resistance to them stems far more from the fact that they’re
your
decisions than anything having the least bit to do with their actual merit. Which, considering that you’re the one who made them, I very much doubt he’s bothered to consider at all.”

Despite himself, Thirsk’s eyes widened slightly at the bishop’s bluntness, and Maik chuckled again, this time with genuine humor.
Sour
humor, perhaps, but genuine.

“Of course I’m aware of the situation,” he said. “I’d be a poor choice for the Navy’s Intendant if I weren’t! Unfortunately, I don’t see an easy solution to the problem.” He paused and waved at the armchair beside his own and at Thirsk’s desk chair. “Please, gentlemen—be seated.”

Both admirals obeyed, although Thirsk found himself concealing a slight smile at how effortlessly Maik had assumed at least temporary ownership of his day cabin. The bishop glanced across at Vahnwyk, but he’d apparently already assessed the secretary’s discretion, and he turned his attention back to the earl.

“The fact of the matter is,” he said, “that I don’t believe anything you could possibly do would compensate in Thorast’s view for the fact that you were entirely right before Armageddon Reef and his brother- in- law was entirely wrong. He’s never going to forgive you for the incredible insult of having proved Duke Malikai was a complete, feckless incompetent.”

Thirsk felt himself settling back in his chair, and the bishop showed a flash of teeth in a tight, fleeting smile.

“There are limits to the amount of open resistance Thorast is prepared to demonstrate,” he continued in an almost clinical tone. “At the moment, King Rahnyld has made it clear to him that attacking you too openly would be . . . inadvisable. I’ve also made that point to him, in my own rather more subtle fashion, and so has Bishop Executor Ahrain. So, at the moment, he’s going to restrict himself to the sort of innuendo it’s almost impossible for even the Inquisition to positively trace back to its source. And he’s going to obey any order you give, although—as I’m sure you’re aware—he isn’t missing the opportunity to append his own carefully reasoned reservations to many of those orders in his reports to me.” Maik grimaced. “That, unfortunately, is his right and privilege.”

“My Lord,” Thirsk said, “I won’t pretend I’m not aware of everything you’ve just said. I have to admit, however, that I never expected you to approach those points quite so... forthrightly.”

“The truth is, Admiral,” Maik said somberly, “that Thorast’s alliances are ultimately far stronger, and reach far higher, than yours do, and he’s been playing this sort of game all his life. All you have on your side are virtue, intelligence, courage, skill, experience, and integrity which, alas, are of far more value on the field of battle than in the dagger- prone atmosphere of council chambers and salons. Ultimately, unless something changes radically, he
will
succeed in destroying you. And the fact that you’ve committed the unforgivable sin of being right when all of his cronies were just as wrong as he was will only make it easier for him when the present emergency passes.”

Thirsk simply looked at him across the desk, and the bishop studied the admiral’s expression. Then he nodded slowly.

“I see I truly haven’t said anything that surprises you, My Lord. That only strengthens my already high regard for you. And I give you my word that so long as I remain the Navy Intendant, I will bear Duke Thorast’s attitude—and the reasons for it—fully in mind. At the moment, you have my full support, and, frankly, I foresee no circumstances which would be likely to change that. As I’m sure you also know, however, and as I’m not supposed to admit, Mother Church is far from free from the pernicious effects of politics and cliques. Duke Thorast has long- standing relationships with several powerful members of the clergy. It’s entirely possible . . . no, let’s be honest, it’s virtually
certain
that he’s prepared to use those relationships to undermine me, as well as you, once he becomes aware of how unlikely I am to support him in any clash between the two of you.

“I mention this because the only means I see of keeping you where you are, doing what so badly needs to be done, is for the two of us to produce success while everyone is still worried enough to give us—or, rather,
you
— your head. Not just minor successes, either. Not just getting the fleet built and manned. That’s obviously the first essential, but to truly blunt the Duke’s attacks, it’s essential that we demonstrate we can produce
victories
. You were right before Rock Point and Crag Hook, but we lost both of those battles anyway. Now, you must prove not only that you’re right once again, but that listening to you leads to victory.”

It was very quiet in the day cabin for several seconds, then Thirsk exhaled sharply and cocked his head at Maik.

“I can’t promise victory, My Lord,” he said quietly. “First, because no man can ever
promise
victory, but second, because no matter how well we build and how hard we train, we’ll still confront the Charisian Navy. Call it the Imperial Navy or the Royal Navy—it’s still the same fleet, with the same admirals, the same captains, and the same crews. They aren’t supermen. They
can
be defeated. But at this moment in time, they are the best trained, most experienced battle fleet on the seas of Safehold. Quite possibly the best trained and most experienced battle fleet
ever
to sail the seas of Safehold, in fact. I’m not arguing against facing them at sea, and I’m willing to do so. Yet the truth is that we’re likely to suffer more reverses before we achieve many victories. We’re in the process of learning our trade, and altogether too many of our officers and our seamen are terrified, whether they’re willing to admit it or not, of the Charisians’ reputation. And they’re right to be concerned, because that reputation was fully earned even before Rock Point, Crag Reach, and Darcos Sound. We’ll have to demonstrate to our own people that they
can
beat Charisians before they
will
be able to beat them in pitched battle.”